Coraggio Consulting
Chesterfield County School Board Work Session, Tuesday, August 12, 2025

Date: Tuesday, August 12, 2025
Place: Chesterfield County School Board, Virginia
Length: 58m (video)
Official meeting video (Swagit): https://chesterfieldschoolsva.new.swagit.com/videos/352310
Official minutes (BoardDocs, on the Sep 9, 2025 agenda for approval): https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/chesterfield/Board.nsf/pfiles/DL7K3Y4FF7A3/$file/DRAFT%20MINUTES%20-%202025.08.12%20Work%20Session.pdf

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 2026-10-24. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:05] Good afternoon. I'd like to call the August 12th, 2025 school board work session to order. First, we have a presentation on the 2024-25 successes and the school year ahead from Dr. High. Good afternoon, Ms. Coker, Ms. Hudgens, school board members, Dr. Mary.

[00:00:29] It gives me great pleasure this afternoon to present to you the highlights for 2024-25 and to talk about initiatives as we move forward. I will not be the only one up here. The chiefs will be following me in just a few moments. All right, so some quick facts.

[00:00:52] Chesterfield County Public Schools is the largest school system in Central Virginia, and it's the home of over 64,000 students, and all of our schools are fully accredited. In CCPS, we employ 11,800 people, making us one of the region's largest employers.

[00:01:10] We are a majority-minority school division benefiting from diverse communities with more than 100 languages spoken in the homes of our families. Our student population is also diverse. About 13% of our students receive special education services, 12% of our students receive gifted education services, and 9,100 career credentials were earned by our high school students during the 24-25 school year.

[00:01:40] In 2024, 91% of our students graduated on time. We await receiving the final calculation for the graduation rate for 2025. CCPS. CCPS has 68 schools, one pre-kindergarten, 40 elementary schools, one virtual school, 13 middle schools, 11 high schools with 13 specialty centers.

[00:02:17] And we have two career centers, technical centers as well, with two additional schools opening in the next two years, an elementary and a high school. CECLA is our one pre-K kindergarten, and they serve 370 students from 12 of our elementary schools.

[00:02:35] If Chesterfield were a business, now we are a business, it would be one of the largest in Central Virginia. Our adopted FY26 budget is $1.7 billion. Our buses drive over 9 million miles, and we serve over 8.6 million meals each year.

[00:02:54] Like I said, we are a business. We're in the business of serving students and making sure they grow into young adults who leave us ready for the world, ready for education, employment, or enlistment. With our 11,800 staff members, they're comprised of more than 5,000 teachers, 700 instructional assistants, 700 transportation, facilities, food services, and 200 school-based leaders.

[00:03:24] Our goal is to recruit, hire, train, and retain great people. With this number of employees, it is important that we're able to retain all the employees that we can. Members of our team, Chesterfield, are recognized each year, both staff members and schools.

[00:03:41] Here are a few recognitions. We have nearly 100 certified teachers, nationally board-certified teachers, eight National Blue Ribbon schools, seven middle schools to watch, and one Association for Middle-Level Education School of Distinction.

[00:04:00] Now we will welcome to the podium and microphone our chiefs to share from their divisions other insights as well as what's coming up as we imagine beyond tomorrow from our strategic plan. Dr. Pope. Good afternoon, board members.

[00:04:21] And from the Division of Teaching and Learning, I'd like to share a little bit of information. You can see here on this first slide some of the highlights from our 2024-25 school year work. These highlights include the continued work to improve literacy and comply with the Virginia Literacy Act, the annual work to offer robust professional learning opportunities to our staff, students' success in completing career credentials and work-based learning experiences, and as well as leveraging online learning for tutoring and on-time graduation support, and of course, the building of our special education leaders pipeline.

[00:04:59] In looking back to that 2024-25 school year, we take a moment to celebrate the many programmatic staff and student accolades that were noted. While this is an impressive list, we always are asking as we look to the upcoming school year, how can we further lift up for recognition the exemplary work of our schools, teachers, and students?

[00:05:24] So stay tuned for next year's list. And finally, on this slide, we are looking at the work that we're specifically focusing on this school year in 2025-26. To include on this slide highlights where we've earmarked some of our attention.

[00:05:42] The first one, collaborating with school improvement to add resources for further instructional support and reflecting those in the updated instructional best practices guides used by our schools. Supporting teachers in subjects that face new standards of learning and the expanded Virginia Literacy Act requirements that are hitting middle school this year and fourth and fifth grade.

[00:06:06] Expanding professional learning to support and include the use of generative artificial intelligence at the teacher and secondary student level. And continuing to figure out in year two, the VDOE's new performance framework measures. As we look beyond this coming school year, down the road just a bit further, you'll see that we've put onto this slide some of our work that will continue, of course, working on those approved school board items, such as the strategic plan, the literacy plan, and math pathways.

[00:06:41] Our implementation will also continue to support teachers as new standards change in the years ahead in different subject areas. We also will continue improvements in special education from our earliest childhood inclusion experiences to those post-graduation career experiences.

[00:07:01] And finally, we're going to continue to expand work-based learning and expansion of CTE at the Hall Street location. So just some things to look forward to beyond this coming school year. and I think I pause now before I hand off to the next chief to ask if you have questions.

[00:07:20] Any questions before I hand off to Sean Smith? Okay, we're going to keep rolling then. Thank you.

[00:07:38] For the highlights for communication, communication engagement, a couple different pieces here. The Office of Family and Community Engagement led by Amy Bartolotti. They have worked to expand off to the scale and scope of our programming through families and we'll talk in a second about the database decision making.

[00:07:54] Printing services led by Brian Morris, He's continuing to work to expand his printing services, knowing that it is a shared service with the county government. And Communities and Schools, led by Ashley Hall, obviously with the board's investment and partnership, continued to expand to additional schools, now serving about 1,000 more students.

[00:08:13] Extension Services and Student Leadership, led by Dr. John Phillips, continued to work to train our administrators on Title IX regulations, as well as some of our partnerships with the county government with the Cheshire Sports Hall of Fame initiative. The Department of Creative Media Services, led by Jenny O'Quinn, working to really establish a more structured role for our communications team, ensuring that we're servicing closely with our work directly with our schools.

[00:08:43] In the coming school year, to the Office of Family and Community Engagement, we spent some time, obviously, gathering data with regards to our programming services. Now we're taking that data to adapt, obviously, our service offerings. Communities in schools, working with the expansion to our new school, Hopkins Elementary.

[00:08:59] We're working to establish, based on different schedules, obviously a ribbon-cutting. We know it will start next week, but a ribbon-cutting proper for that initiative. Printing services, working to train their staff on some of the new initiatives they're doing with some of the new products they have with some of the different machines that we're establishing to provide different services and products.

[00:09:17] Construction services, continuing to develop new resources with Title IX as we look closely at changes that are coming about through conversations in the federal government. And then for Creative Community Services, working to establish a PR rep program through our cabinet, which we'll be talking more about this school year, should also highlight in addition to many successes and highlights throughout the division the work that's happening within our central office and the cabinet directly.

[00:09:42] Looking further down the road, obviously continuing to leverage and identify and scale out our community programs, working with communities and schools to continue to work with that five-year sheet expansion plan. Printing services, working closely, obviously, with our county government partners to expand those services and some of the print options.

[00:10:03] We provide a pretty sustainable price point. And then, consumer services can work closely with our internal and external stakeholders. And in parcel with that, too, with the work with creative and marriage services, working closely on some of our internal communication efforts, namely through our employee base.

[00:10:23] With that, I'll pause for any questions and turn it over to Bob Meister. Thank you, Mr. Smith.

[00:10:41] Members of the board. Appreciate the opportunity to spend a few moments here talking about finance and highlights. That's not a page of numbers. So highlights, FY26, as every budget process year has its ups and downs, we landed in a pretty good spot with $43 million in incremental funding, funding several of the board's key initiatives, including raises for staff and additional funding for vulnerable populations.

[00:11:08] As I'll talk about more as we flip forward, we'd love to do more, but we'll be able to do some very nice things with that. The other big piece of last year was continuing to fund and ensure we're doing the right things with our CIP dollars. That shows up in the community through the opening of Falling Creek, end of the previous year, rolling into last year, as well as what is just now getting open, which is the Deep Creek Middle School and the A.M. Davis Elementary School as new projects, as well as several other projects that are very much under development and in process.

[00:11:44] The other big thing we accomplished this past year, which Dr. Longworth will talk a little bit about, I'm sure, is the new Chromebook lease and the excitement of putting those new devices in our students' hands. That's obviously a massive operational effort, but proud to say that we found the dollars to make sure that happens and we've got great technology in our students' hands.

[00:12:04] So that's what will look like as exciting things outside of the public. There's a lot of things that happen internally, and a lot of that focused this past year on Workday. We're very much in the process of building that new system in partnership with the county. A lot of testing, a lot of design, a lot of work happened in FY25.

[00:12:22] We'll talk more about that over the next several slides and years. And the other big piece of last year that we shan't forget is the end of ESSER. Yes, we had plenty of interesting opportunities to explore new funding streams as ESSER came through, a lot of great pilots, a lot of great learnings. We must remember that early in FY25, we exhausted the last of our 51 million of ESSER III funds that must be continued to keep in mind as part of what we accomplished last year and being able to close that grant out with no dollars left on the table. The other big piece of what my team manages,

[00:13:01] I'm fortunate enough to work with Berkeley, Casey, and the rest of the food service staff on what they do. I know Dr. High said 8.6. That's technically right. I'll take the opportunity to round that up and say approximately 9 million meals for our students this past year. Also made many great strides to get that warehouse up and ready for what will be a great first year of really fully operational this coming year in FY26. Mr. Dunbrack came and talked to you a little bit about many of the awards. I highlight a couple of them here, including CECLA getting the Virginia

[00:13:36] School Breakfast Award from VDOE, as well as a VSBA award for meal access to fight hunger for our work that we do at the food market over the, yeah, the farmer's market, that's the word, farmer's market over the summer.

[00:13:52] So a lot of great things happening in food service as well. As we look forward to next year, I'm going to pull Workday from the bottom of the sheet up to the top as we look to actually implement that. This year, we have a go-live date scheduled for October for our finance portion, which is essentially procurement and back office stuff.

[00:14:13] HR payroll happens in December and January, which will be another big lift and big launch for the county and schools there. In addition to that, we've got a new budget process coming up, as we always do.

[00:14:29] I will leave this one here with you and say this year is going to be about navigating uncertainty. You saw a lot of that this past summer as we navigated some of the federal uncertainty with the various title funds that were held back for a period of time. I expect further uncertainty with federal grants.

[00:14:47] It's also an election year, so that comes with its own brand of uncertainty where the governor who provides the budget in December will not be the governor who sees the end of the budget process, whomever happens to win in November, given the nature of Virginia.

[00:15:04] Also, we are doing some minor updates within our own internal process to get a better and shinier, if you will, budget software to make our internal process easier. We're excited about that as well. The fourth bullet here talks about capital improvement plan.

[00:15:20] Again, really excited to work with our new COO on what his priorities look like relative to what we've had in the past before and how we continue to put those ideas together to marry them with what the board's priorities are and the superintendent's needs are across that CIP.

[00:15:36] Exciting to have a fresh look at that process as we go forward and continuing to advance the food service warehouse and make sure that rolls out effectively. Looking even further beyond that, I talk about next year's budget process being about managing the uncertainty.

[00:15:54] As I look beyond that, I really want to turn it into more how do we actually deliver on many of those strategic plan goals around sustainability and equity and not just how do we sort of keep the lights on. Let's look to actually make some of the great investments that we know are out there to really help our students succeed.

[00:16:14] CIP. I talked about, let's form that new vision of what's next on the CIP. That's a multi-year process, no matter how you look at it. So that'll continue to be a focus for us. It didn't start with uncertainty long-term, but it's clearly there. I need to keep talking about uncertainty in the budget process. That's not going away, but hopefully we get a little bit more certainty as we go forward. ERP. Yes, we're rolling out this year. It's going to be exciting. We're going to get there, but we know on day one, it's not going to deliver everything. The workday system is capable of. So there's going to be a multi, quite frankly, multi-year process to deliver all

[00:16:51] the value of that ERP system, even after go live this coming year. Major maintenance replacement cycles are another huge priority for myself. I know it is for the board. Really get into how are we going to maintain everything from major maintenance to buses, to Chromebooks, to staff laptops, et cetera, all these things that have a natural lifespan. How do we build ourselves into a process where we're not surprised when we need to buy a new truck or replace school buses? We know these things have a useful life. Let's plan for those. And lastly, food service. We talk about

[00:17:29] the warehouse in terms of delivering food. Berkeley's laid out a vision there of doing more with that space to enable more scratch cooking, to enable more choice through those food lines, and I'm really excited to deliver that in the long term. So with that, I'll pause for any questions from the board. Hearing none, Dr. Huff. Good afternoon. Pleased to be able to

[00:18:08] share with you this afternoon some highlights from the Department of Human Resources and Talent Management this year. Since July 1st of last year, we have hired 3,366 new hires, rehires, and substitutes, and we completed 66 recruiting events. Most of those were in Chesterfield County, but we also went to community events as well as colleges and universities, and that represents an 8% increase over last year. So we're proud of that because we do have one recruiter who's really full-time on the ERP project designing a new applicant tracking system.

[00:18:46] We piloted regionalized substitute recruiting events. This was for schools who had a fill rate for substitutes that was below our district average and we targeted 19 schools and as a result of the events we took pre and post data and 17 of 19 of those schools had a significant improvement in their fill rate. So we plan on using that strategy again this year since we got a lot of yield from that and we achieved our goal of having 3,400 substitutes on our roster

[00:19:23] kind of right sizing our substitute pool and we increased our fill rate to 90 percent so we're really proud of that because that was a pre-pandemic gold standard and we know that's a significant working condition for teachers and so just want to pause a moment to thank this board and the previous board for really multi-year supports of substitute efforts from you know competitive daily rate to you know extra high demand days or or fridays i think those have really helped and

[00:19:57] having a person dedicated to interviewing substitutes every day has really helped with our fill rate and we also won a national association of counties award this year for our substitute teacher hiring and engagement initiative so i'm really proud of how that's going We are also proud to announce we've expanded our partnership with participate learning and we now have 84 licensed experienced international teachers from 12 different countries. So we're bringing the world to our students in Chesterfield.

[00:20:33] We completed digitization of personnel files at 22 additional schools and departments this year, and that's a total of 62% complete, and we are on track to have that project completed by the end of this strategic plan.

[00:20:51] We also had the second highest completion rate for the iTeach program in the state of Virginia. iTeach now has over 100 district partners in Virginia. Chesterfield was an early partner for that program.

[00:21:08] We've had 170 aspiring teachers enroll, and at this data point, 54 had completed. We have more completing every day. I'm excited to announce this month we have four information sessions, four career switchers.

[00:21:26] First one is tomorrow night at Providence Elementary School, and we're going to be able to sponsor an additional cohort of people to get their teaching license, so we were excited when those federal funds flowed and we're able to do that.

[00:21:42] We're going to be focusing on special education, math, EL, and elementary. So tomorrow at 5 o'clock at Providence Elementary, people can come out and hear about how to career switch or they can join us virtually the next evening at 4 o'clock.

[00:22:00] And next week, we will be doing that again, August 20th at Tomahawk Creek Middle School at 5 o'clock and then again virtually on the 21st at 4 o'clock. And people can find all the information on our website. So we hope to have another strong cohort completing.

[00:22:18] We've enhanced our teacher licensure support. We made 65 on-site school visits this year. So we reached out to all the schools, and a lot of schools took advantage of that. And we hope to do that again this year to be able to provide individualized support for people because there are multiple pathways to earning a teaching license.

[00:22:39] And depending on someone's background, experiences, transcripts, there may be a pathway that is more attractive to them. We have the coming school year, 18 staff members are serving as project participants, either module leads or subject matter experts for the ERP project.

[00:23:00] And we have a lot of modules in that phase two that Mr. Meister spoke about, the human capital management benefits, talent acquisition, compensation management, talent management, data, and then we're collaborating on modules like absent management, tracking, and payroll. So a lot going on there. And we've also, this coming year, we're expecting to realize the benefits of our partnership with Longwood University. We were able to sponsor two reading specialist cohorts, and we have 17 people on track to finish this month,

[00:23:40] and then another 16 on track to finish in December. And so that's going to help us to meet those new state legislative requirements for reading specialists. Beyond tomorrow, we are planning to continue to train and iterate and update the implementation of the new ERP software, and our goal would be to spend less time on the transactional nature of processing things and more time really getting to know each school, each hiring manager, exactly what they're looking for, and really being able to be more of a strategic

[00:24:16] partner for each hiring manager we will be evaluating the results of publicly and privately funded small grant projects we know the funding picture changes it seems like daily but we are involved in several partnerships like instructional assistant to teacher preparation partnerships and pilots and we want to consider future pathways in light of new new funding environments. And of course, it's not a surprise to this board that we have a goal in CCPS of

[00:24:50] continuing our compensation pathway to a $60,000 minimum starting salary for teachers with appropriate resources and $16 an hour minimum for classified positions. And then finally, we are on track to finish our digitization project in 2028, if not before. And I'll just pause for any questions. And if not, I'll introduce my colleague, Dr. Reed Wodeka.

[00:25:20] Good afternoon. It is indeed an exciting time in Chesterfield County Schools, in particular in the operations division. And I'm so thrilled to be here with you to discuss some of the great work being done on our team. So as you know, we've had a number of very public, very exciting ribbon cuttings over the last couple of weeks, as well as groundbreakings for new schools at Deep Creek Middle School, as well as A.M. Davis, and groundbreaking at the Western Area to Western Area Schools also had a topping-off ceremony at the Western Area Elementary School yesterday.

[00:25:56] So we're very excited about those projects. Those are generational projects that will have incredible impacts on our community for many generations to come, and we're very thankful for the board's leadership for those projects. On the side of things that are related to facilities, they're not maybe quite so exciting.

[00:26:11] We've also engaged in a number of projects that have been focused on ensuring that we are maintaining the buildings that we have. So we have a very robust preventative maintenance program that's been rolled out throughout the division. There are four contracts that have been developed for HVAC preventative maintenance in the division.

[00:26:31] We also have replaced a number of HVAC components throughout the division, such as at Providence Middle School, Spring Run Elementary, Carver Middle School, Thomas Dale West Campus, and Meadowbrook High School. So these are components of the HVAC system that are very, very important to the continual operation.

[00:26:52] Again, those are components that just make the building a great place to learn and for our students and staff to be. We've also made tremendous impacts on our school security program as well as our transportation programs.

[00:27:09] As you know, we've rolled out weapons detection throughout the division. We've procured that. That will go in live when school opens in a couple weeks or next week, and we're very excited for that. That will probably take some adjustments over time to make sure that we are doing that right. We've also added school security officers throughout the division.

[00:27:25] We have installed ballistic film, security vestibules, as well as camera installation throughout the division. So we made tremendous impacts on school security throughout the division. We've also trained our school security officers and developed and continue to develop that program.

[00:27:42] On the transportation side of things, we've procured a number of school buses, 64 in the last two years. This is one of those items that Bob mentioned about a continual replacement program to make sure that we have a consistent and planned approach to that work. We also were able to achieve a 97% on-time performance rate last year.

[00:27:59] That's consistent with your strategic plan, so that's very exciting. We're also very excited for next year. We have what we will call a fully staffed transportation department as a result of the board's investment and compensation for drivers over the last year or so. We do have a couple of positions, FTEs, that are kind of in flux at any one time.

[00:28:18] We have every single route covered as well as what we think are sufficient coverage for when there are substitutes needed and that sort of thing. So we're very excited about that. That's a huge success for the school division, and we should be very proud of that. In the coming school year, we will continue a variety of construction projects that we have going on.

[00:28:37] We'll have some rezonings that are associated with that process. That's a very happy thing that we'll do. We have a number of assessment processes that will go on throughout the division. There is an ADA assessment process where we will need to take a look at every single one of our schools to make sure that we are in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act and make adjustments where we need to.

[00:28:56] That will go over a couple of years. as well as an indoor air quality inspection process that will make sure that the schools, again, are as happy and healthy and safe as we possibly can be as we're adjusting to that. We will also make some additional work to roll out the Raptor system.

[00:29:13] So you may be familiar with the Raptor system. That's the visitor management system, but it has a number of other very important capabilities that allow us to communicate in the event of an emergency that will be very important for us as we continue to go forward. Finally, we'll mention that we will be starting the dedicated, especially centered transportation routes.

[00:29:34] There was a question about the governor's school routes. They will remain unchanged, but we believe they've been routed to meet on time. We'll keep a very close eye on that for the coming year. Then as we move forward into alignment with our strategic plan, again, this is something that Bob mentioned just a few minutes ago, is the development of facilities plans that are focused on making sure that we are investing consistently in our buildings to make sure that they're as up to speed as we possibly can.

[00:30:03] Great to build new buildings. We love doing that, and we should do that as often as we can. But that's not the case throughout every single school in the division. So we need to make sure the work we're doing is going to ensure that the buildings that we have are as healthy and well-developed as we possibly can be.

[00:30:20] We'll also continue the plan to develop the ballistic film installation throughout the division. Again, it's another safety and security issue as well. And then finally, we'll just mention that we will be working with the Safety and Security Office to develop a vision for the development of that agency as a full division department, which is consistent with your strategic plan.

[00:30:43] So I'll be happy to take any questions you might have before I turn it over to Dr. Ruth. Mr. Prontas. Thank you, Madam Chair. Can we go back to slide 25, please? For my colleagues and everyone present, I just want to make sure you understand, Dr. Miller and I do not share the same suit, okay?

[00:31:08] he has his own and i have my own i just want to clarify that in case somebody was thinking that uh he's got good taste obviously so you know that's that's a good thing but we do not share the same suit um and welcome to the team thank you so much i think we can all say you both look

[00:31:23] great good afternoon this year the division of school leadership and student support services has made significant strides to expand opportunities strengthen collaboration and better support students across the division. We expanded our pre-K inclusion classrooms by

[00:31:58] transitioning seven classrooms to the inclusion model at CECLA, Evergreen, Greenfield, and Henning, ensuring more of our youngest learners are prepared for kindergarten and beyond. Access to rigorous academics also grew with more students enrolled in honors, AP, dual enrollment, and IB courses.

[00:32:16] School counselors have been instrumental in guiding students to challenge themselves academically and prepare for success in college and careers. Our Chesterfield Recovery Academy continues to meet a growing need across Central Virginia. Launched in 2022 with 12 students, the program supported 28 students this past year, helping students facing unique challenges succeed academically and personally.

[00:32:43] Our division also received several statewide recognitions for excellence. Cosby High School earned the 2024-25 Department of Education Highest Achievement Award, while James River and Thomasdale High Schools received the Board of Education Continuous Improvement Award.

[00:32:59] These honors reflect the dedication of our teachers, leaders, and students. In addition, this past school year, we completed Project Adams Heart Safe Schools Initiative in five additional high schools and expanded the program to middle and elementary, strengthening our commitment to student health and safety across the division.

[00:33:19] To support critical student services, we expanded our internship program, hosting school psychology, practicum students, and deepening partnerships with Virginia graduate programs, helping to build a sustainable pipeline for these vital positions. As we continue to address chronic absenteeism, our attendance intervention specialist worked intensively with schools experiencing high absentee rates, ensuring more students are in school and learning each day.

[00:33:47] This year, we partnered with schools and central office teams to navigate Virginia's new accountability process, always focused on continuous improvement so every school moves forward no matter where they start. We strengthened this work by aligning our school improvement process with the four domains of the Virginia Support Framework, giving us a clear, consistent approach across the division.

[00:34:10] Our school quality support specialist coached 31 schools, zeroing in closely on data, instructional practices, and leadership development to drive stronger teaching and learning. Expanded learning opportunities this summer reached thousands of students this summer with nearly 7,000 students participating in summer school and over 1,300 students joining enrichment camps.

[00:34:34] And we proudly celebrated 90 students at our summer graduation ceremony and a total of 116 students earned their diplomas through extended learning opportunities. These results show the power of what we can accomplish together, educators, leaders, and partners when we stay focused on improving outcomes for every student we serve. As we begin the new school year, the Division of School Leadership and Student Support is focused on priorities that strengthen safety, access, and success for every student. We're partnering with Safety and Security to fully implement weapons detection systems in all our

[00:35:12] middle and high schools. We are also expanding early childhood access by transitioning more pre-k classrooms to the inclusion model, including our very first pre-k three-year-old classroom at CECLA this upcoming school year. In collaboration with teaching and learning, we're building teacher and leader capacity to implement updated math, literacy, and history standards with consistency and quality. Our new attendance hub will equip schools with the data strategies to reduce chronic absenteeism, while our school quality support specialists expand their coaching to every school. We're also removing barriers to student health and learning by partnering with

[00:35:51] communities and schools and the Virginia Department of Health to offer preventative dental care to non-elementary schools and launching Hazel Health telehealth services to provide after-school hours mental health support for secondary students. Hazel Health telehealth services will be available for middle and high school students Monday through Friday from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. Together these initiatives are creating safe, supportive, and academically rigorous environments that meet students today and prepare them for the future. Looking beyond this school year, our work will

[00:36:28] continue to focus on building the systems and structures that sustain success over time. We will invest deeply in leadership development and strengthen our leadership pipeline in close partnership with the Office of Professional Learning to ensure every school has strong, capable leaders. We're reimagining summer learning to deliver engaging, enriching experiences that accelerate growth, spark curiosity, and make the most of our resources for the greatest impact.

[00:36:54] This forward-thinking work will allow us to continue meeting the needs of students now and in the years to come, ensuring that our division remains a place where all students can thrive. Thank you for your time this evening. I'll take any questions you may have. I don't have any questions, but just wanted to comment on the partnership with the dental appointments that are happening, I guess, at our schools, and I think Bellwood is happening this week.

[00:37:21] And, you know, we are here to help with the vision and also help with teeth. So I think that's just awesome that we're able to help foster that and help our students that way. Thank you. And I plan to go visit and see how it goes.

[00:37:38] All right. Next, you'll hear from Mr. Ernie Longworth. Good afternoon, members of the board. I appreciate this opportunity to share with you highlights from technology from the previous year and plans for the upcoming year.

[00:37:58] We completed a fairly significant reorganization of our human resources to better align our efforts and our operations with the goals and the strategic plan. We developed a plan for a fiscally sustainable Chromebook program, and I appreciate all the board's support and the collaboration across divisions to make that happen.

[00:38:22] We have all those contractors complete. We have the devices on site at our warehouse in Ashland. Everything in the elementary school has been staged, delivered. All of our elementary schools have their devices, and over the first eight days of school, four schools at a time will deliver Chromebooks to middle schools and high schools.

[00:38:45] We've developed and implemented a plan for the collection of the 63,500 devices that we own. Being mindful that schools use them, they value them right up to the very last minute of school and trying to minimize the impact to anything related to instruction.

[00:39:02] We started this school year with probably 47-ish open audit items that some of them had not been standing for a while, worked closely with internal audit to develop a plan for those that we would tackle in six months, those that we would tackle in 12 months, those that we would tackle in 18 months, and as of today have closed 18 of those open audit items.

[00:39:27] We installed all the technology, the printing, the projection, the phones, the systems for Springline and helped to prepare for our move of our central offices. We collaborated with our operations department, with all of the megatrailer projects, the renovations, and the new construction to have all that technology implemented as well.

[00:39:50] We started in high school and upgraded Wi-Fi. As we use the devices more, as we have more instructional applications, the need for Wi-Fi density increases. So in high school, we've essentially doubled the Wi-Fi density. We're starting to work on middle schools in this upcoming school year.

[00:40:09] We've improved our application approval process for instructional applications. So it's quicker, easier to navigate, and it's a faster path to getting those applications that teachers request in their hands and in front of students. We acquired some additional content for them to use, instructional content that's used in our learning management system and also competed for new library databases.

[00:40:34] We cataloged and created the starting library for Deep Creek. We increased attendance in on-demand synchronous tutoring, so stride is what we traditionally refer to when we talk there, by 20 percent relative to the previous year, and we have planned for the implementation of records management across the division.

[00:40:56] We've also started to incorporate into our regular practice and technology internal and external penetration testing. We started that last year, and we're expanding that this year as well. So now looking into the future year, having addressed the Chromebook sustainability, which is one of the bigger things in our world, probably the next area of focus is around staff laptops.

[00:41:22] We want to be able to turn those over around every five years. Our existing fleet is approaching at or beyond that five-year mark. We're addressing that through multiple means, but one of the things that we're doing is piloting a new option for staff laptop that we think staff will like, meet the instruction and need, and is about 60% of the cost.

[00:41:45] So that will allow for some accelerated replacement. We have been, you know, the devices are just part of it. So getting the devices, the next step, and we've begun this work already, is working closely with school leadership, instructional leadership in schools to make sure that this is not only financially sustainable, but that we have embedded accountability around care and use of the devices, that there's communication pipelines between home and school and administrative offices around the use of Chromebooks and care of Chromebooks.

[00:42:23] So that's a lot of coordination and culture building, and we're heavily into that work right now. We intend to continue to create service-level agreements of response time to tickets and resolution time that are not just visible to us but transparent and visible to everybody that we serve, hold ourselves accountable, continue to upgrade intercom and phone solutions.

[00:42:48] We have some good options on the table for improving our phones across schools. the creating the or upgrading the infrastructure that allows us to do that wireless density replacement. It's not just the access points. There's some stuff backstream of that that's required as well. So we've already started that work. We're increasing accountability around our digital citizenship curriculum. Part of that reorganization, I know digital citizenship doesn't automatically get connected to technology, but we moved the instructional technology arm of

[00:43:23] division into technology proper last year so instructional applications digital citizenship that's now embedded within the technology division we're planning to for implementation of multi-factor authentication for staff and for students we'll start with staff early and we'll work into students and we're completing the initial you know retention rules for you know document retention and that sort of thing across the division looking forward uh and aligned with the metrics that we're attaching to ourselves in the division of technology and the division

[00:44:03] strategic plan again a focus on digital citizenship uh also reducing total cost of um of ownership for our assets uh around uh the ability to to replace around a known cycle um increase the number of sites that are insulated from uh phone downtime and internet downtime and then reduce cybersecurity vulnerabilities. And I don't think there's anybody behind me, but I welcome any questions. Mr. Perante. Thank you, Madam Chair. Can we go to slide 35, please? The MDR,

[00:44:43] I'm reading this, and I don't know if I'm understanding it, to replace CCPS security analyst positions. So we're doing away with people for the process of MDR. Could you explain that? Absolutely. So we had a small fledgling cybersecurity, information security department that was beginning to evolve under previous leadership.

[00:45:06] It consisted of a director and two cybersecurity analysts. Our records retention officer also is within that department. However, that's a four-person department. Records retention is kind of across lots of areas.

[00:45:24] The two cybersecurity analyst positions became vacant during the year. One of the things that we kind of recognized was that that's a position that's in demand. The amount that we're able to pay that position was creating kind of a revolving door of as soon as I can put cybersecurity analyst for Chesterfield County Public Schools in my resume, I'm marketable and able to move on.

[00:45:54] And the cycle of investment, professional learning, professional development, growing people, and then leaving, we believe we're better served as a division by third-party services that provide that sort of monitoring and that sort of response.

[00:46:12] Third-party services beyond just retention of people and the staffing responsibility, they're watching our environment 24-7 versus the eight hours a day. Some of them come with skin in the game in the form of money and insurance, should there be an incident or something like that.

[00:46:33] So after, you know, kind of careful evaluation, we determined at this stage we're better served by third-party service for that sort of daily monitoring. Thank you for that explanation. Sure. So the folks who are currently or were under that umbrella, have they been repositioned?

[00:46:52] They left on their own accord. Correct, but was there anybody left in that realm that's been now benefit to another part of your department is what I'm asking. Oh, we still have an information security director that is performing policy-level work and fulfilling the obligations of that position.

[00:47:16] In our network services department, there was some embedded redundancy already with the analyst-level position. So those responsibilities where they were shared are now consumed by the network services department. So there isn't anything not being done or not being watched.

[00:47:36] Very good. Thank you so much. Sure. Any other questions? All right. Thank you very much. Thank you. Well, I guess thank you to all the chiefs and to Dr. High for the presentation and all of the wonderful looking back and looking forward as far as our next school year is concerned and all the great work that our departments are doing.

[00:48:05] So I will just ask the board members any overall discussion. Mrs. Heffron. Just to say that I'm excited for our achievements and I look forward to where we're going beyond tomorrow.

[00:48:20] well next we have announcements and communications and school board comments school board members are there any announcements or comments the next school board business meeting will be held this evening august 12 2025 at 6 30 p.m here in the public meeting room if there's no further business we will enter into closed session which will be held in the pmr conference room madam clerk please announce the items for today's closed session it is my understanding that the

[00:48:56] School Board desires to enter into closed session in accordance with section 2.2-3711.A of the Code of Virginia, the Virginia Freedom of Information Act, and specifically under subsection 1, the discussion and consideration of personnel disciplinary matters, and 2, the discussion and consideration of matters that would involve the disclosure of student records.

[00:49:18] Members of the Board, you have just heard the items requested to be discussed in closed session. Do I have a motion in that regard? Make a motion to enter into closed session. Is there a second? Second. Madam Clerk, would you please call roll on the motion?

[00:49:34] Todd Heffron. Aye. Dominique Chatters. Aye. Stephen Paranto. Aye. Lisa Hudgens. Aye. Ann Coker. Aye. We are now in closed session.

[00:49:54] Do I have a motion to reconvene in open session? I make a motion to reconvene in open session. Is there a second? Second. The board is now in open session. Madam Clerk, would you please read the resolution certifying the closed session? Now, therefore, be it resolved that the school board hereby certifies that to the best of each member's knowledge, one, only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements by Virginia law were discussed in the closed meeting to which this certification resolution applies, and two, only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard, discussed, or considered by the school board.

[00:50:31] Is there a motion to adopt the resolution? I make a motion to adopt the resolution. Is there a second? Second. Madam Clerk, would you please call roll on the motion. Scott Hepron. Aye. Dominique Chatters. Aye. Stephen Pronto. Aye. Lisa Hudgens.

[00:50:47] Aye. Ann Coker. Aye. The motion carries. Is there a motion regarding the student matters? In case numbers,

[00:51:28] Re-8-2025-26-RE-9-2025-26-RE-10-2025-26-RE-11-2025-26-RE-12-2025-26-RE-13.

[00:51:50] It is recommended that the superintendent's recommendation be upheld. Is there a second? I second the motion. Madam Clerk, would you please call roll on the motion? Dr. Heffron? Aye. Dominique Chatters? Aye. Stephen Pronto? Aye. Lisa Hudgens? Aye.

[00:52:06] Ann Coker? Aye. The motion carries. Is there a motion regarding the first personnel matter? In case number 2025-26-01-HR, it is recommended that the superintendent's recommendation be upheld. Is there a second?

[00:52:22] I second the motion. Madam Clerk, would you please call roll on the motion? Dr. Heffron? Aye. Dominique Chatters? Aye. Stephen Pronto? Aye. Lisa Hudgens. Aye. Ann Coker. Aye. The motion carries. Is there a motion regarding the next personnel matter? In case number 2025-26-02-HR, it is recommended that the superintendent's recommendation be upheld.

[00:52:47] Is there a second? I second the motion. Madam Clerk, would you please call roll on the motion? Todd Heffron. Aye. Dominique Chatters. Aye. Stephen Pronto. Aye. Lisa Hudgens. Aye. Ann Coker. Aye. The motion carries. Is there a motion regarding the next personnel matter? In case number 2025-26-03-HR, it is recommended that the superintendent's recommendation be upheld.

[00:53:11] Is there a second? I second the motion. Madam Clerk, would you please call roll on the motion? Heffron? Aye. Dominique Chatters? Aye. Steven Pronto? Aye. Lisa Hudgens? Aye. Ann Coker? Aye. The motion carries. Is there a motion regarding the next personnel matter?

[00:53:27] In case number 2025-26-04-HR, it is recommended that the superintendent's recommendation be upheld. Is there a second? I second the motion. Madam Clerk, would you please call roll on the motion? Don Heffron? Aye. Dominique Chatters?

[00:53:42] Aye. Steve Impronto? Aye. Lisa Hunnins? Aye. Ann Coker? Aye. The motion carries. Is there a motion regarding the next personnel matter? In case number 2025-26-05-HR, it is recommended that the superintendent's recommendation be upheld.

[00:54:00] Is there a second? I second the motion. Madam Clerk, would you please call roll on the motion? Dot Hepron. Aye. Dominique Chatters. Aye. Stephen Pronto. Aye. Lisa Hudgens. And Cuthbert. Aye. The motion carries. Is there a motion regarding the next personnel matter?

[00:54:15] In case number 2025-26-06-HR, it is recommended that the superintendent's recommendation be upheld. Is there a second? I second the motion. Madam Clerk, would you please call roll on the motion? Scott Heffron.

[00:54:30] Aye. Dominique Chatters. Aye. Stephen Pronto. Aye. Lisa Hudgens. Aye. Ann Cooker. Aye. The motion carries. Is there a motion regarding the next personnel matter? In case number 2025-26-07-HR, it is recommended that the superintendent's recommendation be upheld.

[00:54:49] Is there a second? I second the motion. Madam Clerk, would you please call roll on the motion. Zot Hefron? Aye. Dominique Chatters? Aye. Stephen Pronto? Aye. Lisa Hudgens? Aye. Ann Coker? Aye. The motion carries. Is there a motion regarding the next personnel matter? In case number 2025-26-08-HR, it is recommended that the superintendent's recommendation be upheld. Is there a second? I second the motion. Madam Clerk, would you please call roll on the motion? Sotnhefron. Aye. Dominique Chatters. Aye. Stephen Pronto. Aye. Lisa Hutchins. Aye.

[00:55:23] Ann Coker. Aye. The motion carries. Is there a motion regarding the next personnel matter? In case number 2025-26-09-HR, it is recommended that the superintendent's recommendation be upheld. Is there a second?

[00:55:39] I second the motion. Madam Clerk, would you please call roll on the motion? Scott Hefron. Aye. Dominique Chatters. Aye. Stephen Pronto. Aye. Lisa Hudgens. Aye. Ann Coker. Aye. The motion carries. Is there a motion regarding the next personnel matter? In case number 2025-26-10-HR, it is recommended that the superintendent's recommendation be upheld. Is there a second? I second the motion. Madam Clerk, would you please call roll on the motion? Scott Hefron. Aye. Dominique Chatters. Aye. Stephen Pronto. Aye. Lisa Hudgens. Aye.

[00:56:12] Ann Coker. Aye. The motion carries. Is there a motion regarding the next personnel matter? In case number 2025-26-11-HR, it is recommended that the superintendent's recommendation be upheld. Is there a second?

[00:56:28] I second the motion. Madam Clerk, would you please call roll on the motion? Scott Heffron. Aye. Dominique Chatters. Aye. Stephen Paranto. Aye. Lisa Hudgens. Aye. Ann Coker. Aye. The motion carries. Is there a motion regarding the next personnel matter? In case number 2025-26-12-HR, it is recommended that the superintendent's recommendation be upheld.

[00:56:50] Is there a second? I second the motion. Madam Clerk, would you please call roll on the motion? Dr. Hefron. Aye. Dominique Chatters. Aye. Stephen Pronto. Aye. Lisa Hudgens. Aye. Ann Coker. Aye. The motion carries. Is there a motion regarding the next personnel matter? In case number 2025-26-13-HR, it is recommended that the superintendent's recommendation be upheld.

[00:57:14] Is there a second? I second the motion. Madam Clerk, would you please call roll on the motion? Zot Hefron. Aye. Dominique Chatters. Aye. Steven Pronto. Aye. Lisa Hutchins. Aye. Ann Coker. Aye. The motion carries. Is there a motion regarding the next personnel matter? In case number 2025-26-14-HR, it is recommended that the superintendent's recommendation be upheld.

[00:57:38] Is there a second? I second the motion. Madam Clerk, would you please call roll on the motion? Dot Hefron. Aye. Dominique Chatters. Aye. Steven Pronto. Aye. Lisa Hudgens. Aye. Ann Coker. Aye. The motion carries. Is there a motion regarding the next personnel matter? In case number 2025-26-15-HR, it is recommended that the superintendent's recommendation be upheld.

[00:58:02] Is there a second? I second the motion. Madam Clerk, would you please call roll on the motion? Todd Heffron. Aye. Dominique Chatters. Aye. Stephen Pronto. Aye. Lisa Hudgens. Aye. Ann Coker. Aye. The motion carries. Is there a motion regarding the next personnel matter? In case number 2025-26-16-HR, it is recommended that the superintendent's recommendation be upheld.

[00:58:24] Is there a second? I second the motion. Madam Clerk, would you please call roll on the motion? Don Hepron. Aye. Dominique Chatters. Aye. Stephen Pronto. Aye. Lisa Hudgens. Aye. Ann Coker. Aye. The motion carries.

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