Coraggio Consulting
Hanover County School Board Meeting, Tuesday, August 11, 2026

Date: Tuesday, August 11, 2026
Place: Hanover County School Board, Virginia
Length: 1h 57m (video)
Official meeting video (CivicClerk): https://hanovercova.portal.civicclerk.com/event/2687/media

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 2026-10-23. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:06:02] Good evening. Thank y'all for joining us. We are going to open, set the session back up. Welcome to our school board meeting for August, August 11th. It is now 7.01 and we are going to, I need a motion to open session.

[00:06:20] Madam Chair, I move to return to open session. Thank you, Mr. Seifert. I have a motion. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you, Dr. Schroff. Is there any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed? Okay, the motion passes. Next, we need to certify our closed meeting. Do I have a motion to certify the closed meeting?

[00:06:39] Madam Chair, I moved to certify the certification of closed meeting. The board will certify the following, whereas the Hanover County School Board has convened closed meeting on this date pursuant to an affirmation recorded vote in accordance with the provisions of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act,

[00:06:57] And whereas Section 2.23712D of the Code of Virginia requires a certification by the school board that such executive meeting was conducted in conformity with Virginia law, now therefore be it resolved that the Hanover County School Board hereby certifies to the best of each member's knowledge only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements of Virginia law were discussed in the executive meeting to which the certification applies.

[00:07:25] And only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the executive meeting were heard discussed or considered Thank you. Dr. Shrove. I have a motion for certification of closed meeting. Do I have a second second? Thank you. Dr. Shelf Is there any discussion seeing none all those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed motion passes now we will have our invocation and Pledge of Allegiance the invocation is going to be given by me and the Pledge of Allegiance will be started by Miss Lynn.

[00:08:01] If you will please stand. If able, let us pray. Heavenly Father, as summer comes to a close and we prepare to welcome a new school year, we thank you for the opportunity for new beginnings. We are grateful for our teachers, administrators, staff, and all those who have worked throughout the summer to prepare our schools. Give them renewed energy, patience, and joy as they return to their

[00:08:36] important work. As our schools are prepared to welcome students back, we pray for every child who will walk through our doors. May they find classrooms where they feel safe, supported, challenged, and encouraged to reach their full potential. We ask that you guide this school board in the year ahead. Keep us focused on our responsibilities and on the goals we have set for our schools. Give us wisdom to make thoughtful decisions, humility to listen, and courage to do is right and unity in our work. Help us always remember that at the heart of every decision is

[00:09:15] a student and a future we are entrusted to help shape. Bless our teachers, staff, students, families, and entire community as we begin this new school year. May this be a year of growth, opportunity, and success for all. In your name we pray. Amen.

[00:09:34] I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. You may be seated.

[00:09:57] Okay, now we need approval of the minutes, the meeting minutes. Do I have a motion to approve the meeting minutes? I move to approve the minutes for the recently held meetings. Thank you, Dr. Shelp. have a motion do i have a second second uh thank you dr shrove um is there any discussion seeing none all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed okay motion passes um next we have the chris whitley show with um one recognition and then we will go into our board announcements so we will join you thank you madam chair it is always a privilege to bring forth the great news

[00:10:36] and accomplishments for students and staff i will pause at this moment to allow you time to join me up front as you noted while we only have one recognition tonight it is certainly a notable one and it goes to an exceptional athlete from atlee high school who earned the honor of being named as

[00:11:15] the 2026 vhsl class 4 baseball player of the year congratulations goes to a recent graduate from raider nation who has a very bright future chase bloomberg and you have may have noticed that he is joined by principal Dr. Wheeler, coach Mike Morris, and newly minted DSA Noah

[00:11:44] Jenkins. Please come forward to join us. Alright, so now we have our board

[00:13:08] announcements. Do we have any announcements from the board? Madam Chair, I'd like to share a highlight that happened over the summer of the summer school graduation. 19 students graduated during our summer commencement on July 30th at Alley High School and it was it was a really wonderful ceremony I think that the Hanover Schools does a really great job celebrating the students in the summer and so what you know we go through the whole process and they bring their families and I I think it's really well done so congratulations to all

[00:13:44] whoever's in charge of that and Dr. Penicuff. Thank you very much Dr. Schroef. Do we have any other, yes Dr. Schelp. Yep we also hosted the fifth annual Unified Professional Learning Conference at Atlee High School in July and educators from across the county came together for hundreds of engaging professional learning sessions and the three-day conference also featured time for fellowship and friendly faces took a break from the soaking summer sun and

[00:14:15] heat and a good a good time was had by all. Thank You Dr. Scho. Ms. Lynn? Okay. The The Hanover Education Foundation is collecting school supplies to help our students start the year prepared and ready to learn.

[00:14:32] If you're interested, please call the main office or email heff at hcps.us for more information. Thank you, Ms. Lynn. Yes, Mr. Seifer. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. At the end of July, students, families, and staff from Mechanicsville High School packed the stands at City Stadium to support recent graduate Andrew Richmond as he suited up for his final home game with the Richmond Kickers And that's a that's a very prestigious team to be on and just wonderful that the school and dr Petrosky would want to want to support him in that endeavor outside of school So just a great thing that they did. Thank you. Mr. Seifert

[00:15:10] Uh, just uh, congrats to chase and uh before we move on if you y'all leave we're not going to be offended I just want you to know that I know you're not here for the rest of the school board We we usually dismiss after announcements. So I may be taking her thunder But we're not going to get our feelings hurt if you guys exit stage left Thank you.

[00:15:28] Thank you, Mr. Martin. Do we have any other announcements? Okay. I'm going to, before you leave, I've got a few announcements. Or you can leave now, too. So it is a pleasure to start welcoming back teachers and, in a couple weeks, students.

[00:15:48] This week, and I'm taking Dr. Pennycuff's thunder, I'm sure, but this week we have welcomed, or yesterday, actually, We welcome back all our new teachers to the division and new teachers in general, I think. And so you'll see on social media how excited they were and what a great event it was.

[00:16:11] And then we welcome back teachers, all teachers, on next Monday and have convocation. So we're very excited about that. And then the following Monday, we start welcoming back our students. So it's a very exciting time, lots of new beginnings for a lot of people, whether that be sending your child off to college, which some of us may have that in this room, or sending a child to school for the first time.

[00:16:40] So it's very exciting, all these new beginnings, or new children coming into the world. So lots of exciting new beginnings, and we also, this kind of leads into how wonderfully our team celebrates new teachers and teachers in general.

[00:17:00] And we just found out some incredible news that I would like to ask Dr. Meredith Parker to come up and give us that wonderful news. Thank you, Dr. Parker. and honored to be able to share that right now when we are ready to open our doors for our students on the first day in a couple weeks that we only have one teaching vacancy that we are anticipating being able to fill and that is incredible work that our team has done led by our director of

[00:17:34] human resources Mr. Nate Weeden-Hoff and not just our human resources team our instructional specialists and curriculum coordinators and specialists that help with our screenings and they're interviewing to be able to send candidates out very quickly to our principals. And then the principals being able to sell their school, tell about all of the wonderful things that Hanover has to offer our teachers. They work tirelessly to stay in touch with all of their teachers throughout the summer. So they're not continuing to look for employment and they're excited about coming to their new school. And, um, and we got to see that on our, um, back to the new teacher

[00:18:13] academy that just started and we welcomed over a hundred new teachers. And so it's no easy feat and it's a great team effort. Well, we want to congratulate you and your team and Dr. Pennycuff and team. I think it's incredible to be able to share that and for the public to know. But I also think you need to give a shout out to what position you want to fill. Absolutely. If you happen to know any agriculture education teachers that are interested in Patrick Henry High School, please feel free to reach out to us. Perfect. Thank you so much. Can't miss that opportunity.

[00:18:47] yes thank you so much and I know there's there might be some comments from the board after that so so give us just one second does anybody have a comment okay way to go thank y'all so much okay mrs. Welsh I think if we could just allow her to tell what the current retention rate is I think that's also another celebration okay absolutely of course so our retention is currently at eight percent which is less than it has been in many many years and pre-covid we're back down it had gotten up to 12 or 13 percent just right around that covet time period so our teachers are staying

[00:19:23] they want to stay and remain in the division and they're happy to be with us great that's a lot of the work thanks to you all well thank you so much and i think it's a team effort so thank you very much and we appreciate all y'all done so thank you glad we could share that um now if there's anybody that would like to leave now would be a great time thank you very much for coming and congratulations chase okay next we have approval of the

[00:19:57] consent agenda do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda madam chair I move to approve the consent agenda as presented thank you mr. Martin thank you dr. Shrove for the second is there any discussion okay seeing none all those of favor say aye aye all those opposed all right the motion passes next up we have our instructional highlight and I see the Avengers are heading down

[00:20:28] madam chair school board dr. Penny cuff good evening in June our team demonstrated how digital resources enhance high-quality instruction and outlined our support for students, for parents, teachers, and administrators. We also shared that we are strategic in our planning. We are grounded in best practice for instruction and for student safety, and we are diligent in

[00:21:06] monitoring implementation. Tonight our team, the Avengers, let's use that, are back. We're gonna bring some progress updates and discuss what some of our next steps are, and then we'll have an opportunity certainly to answer any questions that you might have. Dr. Fisher, our curriculum of instruction is going to kick us off.

[00:21:28] All right, thank you Dr. Staley. After reviewing how Hanover's educators may choose to enhance instruction through the inclusion of technology, the overarching question becomes, how are we ensuring high quality academic use of technology across our classrooms? Screen time is an important consideration in that conversation. This evening, we plan to share some highlights of the extensive work that is underway in this focus area by focusing on three key areas, including the

[00:22:02] development and implementation of HCPS guidelines for instructional technology, improved data sources that will allow us to monitor the use of technology in new ways, and opportunities for supporting HCPS families with technology use beyond the school walls. Before we jump into these new developments, I would like to briefly retouch on how pedagogy guides our use of technology in classrooms. Our model for instructional design grounds the daily instruction that is delivered in HCPS classrooms. As teachers design lessons and units of instruction, they

[00:22:38] strategically consider the best ways to organize and deliver that information to students. At times, this includes the use of instructional technology. We shared that technology is one of a multitude of strategies that teachers consider and that when technology is used, best practice is not that it exists alone. Instead, technology integration is layered in with other instructional strategies.

[00:23:04] In Hanover schools, we are striving to ensure that when technology is used in our classrooms, it is done so with intention. A focus for this upcoming school year is therefore to eliminate the use of what we refer to as passive screen time. You may have heard it called mindless scrolling or doom scrolling, passive screen time is the consumption of digital media that requires little or no physical or cognitive interaction. We do not believe that passive screen time has a place or a purpose within our academic school day. Instead, when we see screens in use in our

[00:23:41] classrooms, we are looking for students to be engaging with content that is connected to academic knowledge and skills within our curriculum standards. During our presentation in June, we shared some specific examples of activities that involve academic screen time. Other examples could include creating infographics or digital models, collaborating on shared documents, engaging in simulations, and researching. We know that these types of experiences provide students with opportunities to build their critical thinking and other future-ready skills. In fact, our curriculum

[00:24:18] includes standards that focus on skills like digital literacy, creativity, problem-solving, critical thinking. Skills that are transferable to many work opportunities. Digital learning and computer science standards are not officially tested, but they are important. Rather than being taught in isolation, these standards are intended to be integrated across all contents and grade levels to support skills as needed as students matriculate to higher levels of learning.

[00:24:46] In HCPS, our goal is continuous improvement and we are consistently engaging and planning for how we can do that. Both ensuring the intentional use of technology to enhance instruction and eliminating passive screen time are focus areas for us this year. In the field of education, summers provide us with a unique opportunity to reset practices. Dr. Castle will now share some intentional steps that have already been implemented this summer and some that will occur when our teachers return next week, all in an effort to reset and improve our practices in

[00:25:22] these two areas? So Dr. Fisher is absolutely correct. Summer is a magical time. And for some of us, summer is maybe our busiest time because we are planning and preparing and working and getting others ready and prepared and to work for the school year. And so when we talk about that magical time in planning, that does not disclude our technology plans. And so what you've got in front of you here is a quick little snapshot of a few items. I'll bring up three of the ones that are in this plan of how we're going to move forward. The first is that instructional technology guidelines plan. You see several dates on here. We're already in August, so hey, those things are

[00:26:02] happening now. We're already working with staff. We're putting the plans in front of them, making sure that they're aware of what's happening, what the expectations are, and what we think best practice is, and all of those things are included in the plan. I'll talk about this a little bit more in a second. The next thing, there we go, are two other items I wanted to point out. One is Analytics Plus and the other Securely. Analytics Plus is the application we referred to last time.

[00:26:29] It's the thing that's running in the background where we're collecting user data and finding out where they're going, what they're doing, and all those other magical things. But then Securely is another application that's used in our classroom. Securely is the one where teachers are managing what the students are doing directly, the URLs they're going through, the websites they're visiting, and resources that they're accessing with their technology, and it tracks everything under the sun. I'm going to talk about that a little bit as well but as you can see we have a plan for each one of these items for each one of these products and several keystone places we want to get to with our plan moving forward. So let me give you a few more details

[00:27:09] as we head but before I do I want to talk about leadership for just a second because when we talk about an implementation plan with instructional guidelines and we talk about new products and tools, and we're talking about school-wide, division-wide implementation. None of that happens without strong leadership to help guide the way and support and model for our teachers and what they're doing in their classrooms.

[00:27:30] And so we are informing our principals about the guidelines. Those have been brought to them as late as last week on Thursday afternoon. They've already seen them, been introduced to them. We offer them an opportunity to ask more questions and read through them and see what they need to know, and if there are any questions, they'll send them to us.

[00:27:48] Regular communication with our ITCs is a part of this plan as well. Most of our instructional teams in our schools put their ITCs, their instructional technology coaches, sorry, I'll stop avoiding acronyms, or stop using it, but our instructional technology coaches provide a lot of direct insight to our principals about what's happening, what they want to support, and what they want to see in the classrooms with integration.

[00:28:11] And so there's a lot more of them involved in those admin teams, especially when it comes to instructional practices. And of course, they're going to be working with the data and the tools and the reports, some of those that I referred to just a second ago. And so really it's about providing that collaborative response to what is our current reality and what are our needs, and that's a hand-in-hand work with our leaders, our school leaders, our principals, as well as division leaders.

[00:28:35] So we mentioned the guidelines, and these are the guidelines in action. This is the slide that's going to tell you a little bit more. You've got those in front of you, and so you can peruse those anytime you'd like to. It's five pages long. I'm not going to read you a story tonight, but I will point out a few things.

[00:28:52] One, the practices that are supported do align directly with the digital learning integration standards as well as the computer science integration standards. So those were both referred to in Dr. Fisher's last slide. Those were two examples we wanted to show you some of the work that's happening.

[00:29:09] And you can see it's not about being engaged with a screen. is about engaging with thinking and a challenge and a process and how we're getting through something that isn't normally achieved without the technology. What does it afford us that other learning activities may not? And so that's how we're really approaching those standards like they're described in the state's articulation.

[00:29:30] Number two on the list for this guideline, you'll want to just kind of pay attention to a theme that runs throughout, and that is these guidelines are here to help tell you what to do but also what not to do what to avoid and how to do what is best because nothing is perfect there's no one size that fits all and in any given lesson or any given classroom you might need to flex a little more this way or a little more that way depending upon the needs of your learners and the lesson goals that you have written and the last thing is that on page three i'll draw your attention there that springtime is specifically mentioned and there are guidelines

[00:30:06] there that I think are very appropriate for the age level and the learner and again those are also flexible based on what the learning activity is that day. You might not have any screen time one day or a little more than what is described there on another day but typically those are the best practice pieces. So as we move ahead again as Dr. Fisher described and Dr. Staley described we're really all about mitigating passive screen time. How do we get rid of passive screen time And the first thing I want to bring your attention back to is that lovely little circle of dots, our instructional model.

[00:30:39] Because the model is all about creating an amazing, well-designed, engaging lesson that keeps our learners focused on what our goals are for the day. And if we do that really well, then we're going to be mitigating any kind of time that's not very purposeful and specifically focused on our goals.

[00:30:58] And so when you start with that lesson and that model and you design a lesson that's really strong to begin with, you're going to move us in the right direction. Now, let's also have a reality check that there are days and times when we may have estimated something would take 30 minutes to get through and it only takes 20 minutes to get through.

[00:31:16] So what do we want to see? If there is a moment of downtime, we want to see students engaged in engaging or critical thinking, challenging activities, things that require them to think critically. And so a few examples of how that might be done. You can see that this is a wide range here.

[00:31:33] You know, critical thinking puzzles from STEM activities might include anywhere from K to 12. And all of those may be very appropriate, depending on what they are, for a given grade level. And so, anyway, just giving you some ideas there. We don't want, again, we're never wanting to see, like, the computer as the babysitter.

[00:31:51] It's always about having a specific purpose with why that technology is out and being used with our students. So we talked about data in our last presentation and so tonight giving you a little bit more information about how Securely and Analytics Plus will be changing and the first one up obviously is Securely. It is now going to be on automatically for all of our teaching staff for grades 6 through 12. So last year's teachers would have to turn this on manually. We're taking that out of their hands. They don't have to worry about it anymore. It's already on. They walk into the classroom, Securely is on for every one of our core classes. Now there may be some few

[00:32:27] a few elective classes like I could think of band probably where we're not going to need securely because we're going to be playing our instruments but so a few of the classes may not have that but for all of our core classes grades 6 through 12 you're going to see securely running in the background so even if the teacher is not currently engaged with securely they know that they can go back and they can use it as a historical record and check and the reason that's really important is because it's not about just catching students doing wrong it's also about reflecting on what your practices as a teacher. Are my students engaging with the curriculum in the way that I want them to? Are they discovering for themselves what I hope they will discover, what my lesson

[00:33:06] pushed them toward in the right way? And so the historical record that it securely creates gives me that information. It allows me to know are my students staying on track and are they doing the effective, am I doing the effective teaching that I hope that I am, that I was aiming to do? So it's about a learning tool for teachers. It's also the learning tool to help with our students and staying on track. And yes, as the next slide will show, we do use it sometimes to redirect students.

[00:33:33] So we had this magical time machine and we went back in time with technology because it can do that. And we went back in time to February of last year. This is a one month snapshot in February of 2026. So not too far away where what was happening was securely from the division level. This is a division total that you're looking at. So pushing URLs. We pushed out a URL to our students 4,054 times and said, hey, this is the one I want you to go to. Go here. We also locked down sites and said, only this site right now. The only thing you can do in my classroom with technology right now

[00:34:09] is use this site. So we locked it in. Announcements. We had the ability to make some announcements and send a little note. You know, Dr. Shroff, I really appreciate you paying attention today. That was an awesome job you did in answering that question. Bam. Or maybe I sent that whole announcement to the whole class. Chat sessions. I know a lot of us get a little wiggy when we see chat. This is not for student. This is only for teacher to student when it comes to chat. So if our student, our teacher knows this student, Ms. Lynn, I know you're a little timid person. You're not awfully wanting to speak out loud. So I'm just going to send you a quick little note. That was a great

[00:34:48] response. Bam, your little chat comes to you quietly privately and supports you. So there's lots of little things we can do and this is measuring all those specific ways we can use the technology to support our students in their learning. Of course, when Gregory Coleman misbehaves, we have to lock his screen down sometimes and so we will do that as well. The other thing I was mentioning was Analytics Plus, the big item that's running in the background. Last time we presented it and we're talking to you about what the screen time totals were and we also said you know transparently

[00:35:23] that we really don't have a lot of information about some of that you know articulation specifics of what that data is and we told you that there were some new data metrics that were forthcoming we were excited about what the company was going to offer us in the future and so here's a snapshot of what that's going to look like. These numbers are not real numbers these are just some made-up numbers, but you can see we can get really specific. I'm going to jump on to the first one, and that is learning time. So the first one's talking to you about, hey, am I learning

[00:35:57] time? Is it going to the right places in the right time? Are my students on the right site? Are they using the right tools and the things that I want them to do? What's the percentage of time that they're doing that? It gives me a very specific metric to that. The other one I want to touch on is related to rested learner. I know that one board member in particular, I won't mention his name, Ryan Martin, but he asked a question last time about that student that comes home late from a ball practice and what do we do and how do we know how that student is staying up late and everything else and so we have another metric here that measures that. We can set the time and say

[00:36:33] hey at 10 o'clock I want to know how many of our HCPS students on their HCPS device are still going at it and what's the impact that they're having and are they arrested learner if they're only getting x number of hours of sleep per night what's that impact so again giving us a lot more great information here but the other thing to know is that it gives us totals for the district the school the classroom and all the way down to the individual learning so you see the banner going across there and it says hey we got to talk to two students here letting you know dr shelp you probably want to talk to these two kids they're having some issues there with one of

[00:37:09] these metrics and it'll tell you which one it is. So as I mentioned earlier, ITCs, our instructional technology coaches, are a very integral part of this. They are the ones that are supporting integration, our best practice people. They are ambassadors of what is great best practice in our school division. And so they're going to be using Analytics Plus, Securely data. They're going to be also going around to our classrooms and completing observations this year. They're going to be looking for some of the qualitative data. Analytics Plus and Securely are going to give you numbers and times and these specific numerical frameworks to learn from, but we really want to know

[00:37:46] about the human experience, and we want to see this in action, and so we don't really know some of the questions students might be asking or the way that they're engaging with their peers, for example, or the conversations that are taking place, how they might be interacting with one another and challenging each other with particular questions, or seeing some of the products themselves.

[00:38:05] I might know you're on a particular application, but I don't know that I'm going to see what the results of that application or the product that you build, if you will. And so having that team of ITCs available to go around, to collect data, to have a consistent tool to work together with is really going to allow us to know specifically the impact of instruction, the technology having on instruction and the opportunities that afford them. So at this time, I'm going to invite Mrs. Causey, Heather Causey, up here to work with you guys a little bit more. And she's got some exciting information about how we're going to be working with the community and engaging our students further with digital citizenship curriculum some other nice

[00:38:42] little nuggets Heather thank you thank you dr. Kessel I do want to give updates on that digital citizenship curriculum as he mentioned every summer we revise that because obviously in tech things constantly you're changing we are focusing this particular past summer on the digital well-being and those be balanced lessons to make sure that we're creating that healthy habit between that online and offline activities so all 6 through 12 students will have a refreshed lesson based on that be balanced idea we also for students are pushing out

[00:39:20] information about that Chromebook dark mode right that we had talked about before about like how can we mitigate the blue light screen if you are working on a Chromebook at night so dark mode is just one opportunity to kind of address that we also are asking our staff it's in our technology guidelines but we are also asking our students to be aware of that 20-20-20 rule. It often is the automatic way that in a classroom instructional technology is used, but we want students to be aware that if they are like hyper-focused on an activity and working really hard, that every 20 minutes they

[00:40:00] should look away 20 feet, look 20 feet away for 20 seconds. And that habit, that healthy habit, does reduce eye strain and is supported and so we just want to make sure that while that often naturally happens in the classroom that students are aware of that to continue that practice at home when they're working community support this is one of my favorite things that we're going to continue to do while we are have been working with the schools in the past to create family digital support lessons this year we're asking all schools to

[00:40:38] offer an opportunity of a surviving social media with their families session we're calling it likes links and lessons and the sessions will educate parents on our guidelines security features on phones that they are likely purchasing for their students and hope to foster that academic screen time appropriateness at home. And then from doing the workshops in the past, one of the big ask from our parents is what do we do with all of these apps? These apps that students have access to at home, they don't have access to these at school,

[00:41:16] but we often, as experts in this space, know what are the apps that are causing the problems. Where are the risks, the dangers, and considerations that families should have when allowing these apps on their students' phones. So we are working with that and in those community workshops we will be working specifically with safety controls for iPhones, Androids, and other devices that they have. We're going to be giving ideas on how to mitigate that passive screen time at home like we do at school and to reinforce that creating your own family

[00:41:55] tech guidelines with some suggestions and ideas from us would be an ask that we think would really help them. We are also going to be having our families leave with conversation starters on digital footprint, screen life balance, cyber bullying, gaming safety, internet safety, and more.

[00:42:18] We're also starting that Control-Alt-Parent newsletter. This one I'm excited about because it's intended to kind of be a fun, quick read. We are using our amazing ParentSquare communication tool.

[00:42:35] Justin, did you hear me? And we're using that because one of the things that we love about it is that language translation. So even while not all parents might be looking on the website or getting information from the community session, the read rate from ParentSquare is phenomenal, and the fact, not ParentSquare, it is ParentSquare, it is ParentSquare, the read rate from ParentSquare is phenomenal and would be in all the languages, we're super excited about that.

[00:43:05] We're going to focus on vocabulary in this space, we're going to focus on the new apps that are constantly coming out and changing. And then we're also going to be obviously giving advice and resources. And then finally, we're undergoing a comprehensive update of our instructional technology section on the website.

[00:43:26] This centralized hub will allow our parents to always have immediate access to the resources to support their child's digital journey. And so, Dr. Staley.

[00:43:45] Many of us are reading the book, The Anxious Generation, which highlights the importance of reducing passive screen time, especially for students 16 and under and social media.

[00:44:01] The author also acknowledges the positive role that technology can play in education. It is important to reiterate that our students do not have access to social media during the instructional day or at home on HCPS issued devices. As Ms. Causey noted, we will partner with our parents to help them navigate the challenges of digital parenting and social media. Madam Chair, school board members, thank you for the opportunity to discuss our roadmap for high-quality academic

[00:44:37] technology use and passive screen time mitigation. We appreciate your continued support of our schools as we remain leaders in academics and the effective use of instructional technology to further bolster high-quality instruction.

[00:44:54] The Avengers are prepared to answer any questions you may have. All right. I think we'll have a few. Dr. Schoeff? Yes. Dr. Stalos, I really appreciate everybody putting together that information.

[00:45:09] Very well done. Opened my eyes a little bit about some stuff. You're talking to a guy who's bought a lot of Chromebooks in his day. Um, given the sort of the, and I'm, I'm not suggesting we jump on a bandwagon or anything like that, but given sort of some of the new research that's come out in terms of screen time, particularly for the little ones, um, are, and are we looking into any of the, the up, you know, the updated, uh, data or research around how much should, you know, the little ones be on it even at all?

[00:45:42] And then I'm going to ask the same question as when do, because I don't remember, when do the SOL standards start for computers in, like do they start at third grade? I can't remember. What's that? Is it kindergarten? K-12, okay.

[00:46:01] come on up here please okay okay so it starts in kindergarten and it goes through um grade eight and then the computer science um standards don't really continue with standards because you have specific computer science courses that take place in the high school but all of them start to build as early as kindergarten now the interesting thing is that when you're talking about computer science it's not necessarily i think it's the greatest fallacy it's not necessarily about a screen. It's more about computer science critical thinking. And so some of the things that we might

[00:46:36] come up with in a classroom that support those standards don't necessarily need a screen. But I think what you'll hear or what you'll see from the data as we collect it and supports what we already collected last year is that we are already well below some of the recommendations that you might find from the American Pediatrics Association as well as some other professional organizations that talk about what we should or shouldn't do with students.

[00:46:59] But one of the key items that my colleague to my left elbow behind me would say is that when you're talking about academic screen time, there really aren't a lot of limits that the guru professionals are saying.

[00:47:15] As long as they're engaged, critically thinking, and using those tools for productivity, it is okay to have extended amounts of time. Now, no one is saying 90 minutes at a time or two hours and no breaks or anything like that. But you also have to couple a lot of these activities with other things that are not screen related.

[00:47:37] So it's a very difficult question to answer on the surface because there are so many pieces of nuance and variation that you have to consider when you're asking the question. Generally speaking, when we're in a classroom, in an academic setting, and we're using this tool for a specified purpose, and it's really about achieving a learning goal, there isn't a set limit, but we also, as you see in our technology guidelines, do make recommendations, and we do want to limit the amount of time.

[00:48:06] Okay. And then my second question is the securely, because one of the things that I know many people on this board have heard about and teachers have told us is the cheating of students, you know. So we've had securely for a while, right? Actually, last year was our first year of implementation.

[00:48:24] Okay. We had done a little, we've done a lot of research and work and looking at what it can and can't do. and finally last year we were able to pull it in full steam again offering teachers sort of an option to use it as much as they want okay and so we can't we're definitely working on increasing and that's why we're turning it on automatically this year and if nothing else we're going to have the historical record of what took place okay and so the other thing I failed to mention in my part of that presentation was that it is on even when there's a substitute in the room yeah so if something were to happen and the teacher came back and the administrator may be aware of something they ask the questions the teacher can go in pull the

[00:49:04] data and find out what exactly took place with devices okay all right thank you yes certainly staying on top of the research and again because of your leadership and our team we have things in place that many school divisions are starting to do now both in Virginia and throughout the nation thank you well thank you any questions from this side okay great presentation thank you I really liked the components of parent parental involvement and education because parents have problems with technology as well and I think a lot of

[00:49:44] it could be mitigated if the parents were that much more educated as well because it could bring to light you know the parents own use of technology in a massive passive way so I think it's a great great thing to add thank you I'll I'll be quick I promise I have to they're related first in terms of like gathering data obviously to make good decisions around anything we have to have good information securely is going to be a data source for the secondary level what about I mean how do we gather data at the elementary level to determine

[00:50:17] effectiveness or ineffectiveness so and while they're coming up here to our plan is each quarter to provide you updates with this data during the summer we don't have a lot of data to share because we don't have as many students that are engaging in using technology but as the year goes along we're going to be able to provide those updates to you quarterly the three data sources that we talked about securely is available for two through five data it's just not going to be forced on but we still will be gathering data from that usage like how they're engaging and using that product and we are tracking and we have

[00:50:55] goals for that in our big data plan dealing with securely for analytics plus right that screen time slide that he showed of the different metrics that we're gonna be able to look at that that's K through 12 so that's a brand new thing that we've never looked at that we're excited to be able to look at and then remember Dr. Ms. Greif had asked us to sit alongside that qualitative data the walkthrough data right and so they're looking for instructional technology use and how they're using it and when they're using it and when there might be a passive screen time like we're looking for those things through that walk-through data. So those three data sources are pretty new to us this

[00:51:34] year to be able to sit next to each other and get that good valid picture. Got it. Thank you. And then I guess you may want to stay up here. On the on the data topic, assuming that there's a fair amount of discretion at the teacher level in terms of how often these things are used, are we able to parse out the data at an individual teacher level? And I ask because I think it would be interesting to see, for example, a third grade teacher that might use X number of minutes of screen time or Chromebooks versus one that uses quite a bit less and be able to and understanding that the student body makeup may be different but just from a overall level

[00:52:10] of data gathering just to be able to compare with her in our own division what that might look like is that doable within this or no yes I want to say yes ish but he'll I think that summarizes it really well yes ish you know yes thank you and I think you alluded to that a little bit you know when you're talking about different students with different needs, that just, the research base is already done. There's nothing consistent that you can really point to.

[00:52:42] A machine made a certain way in a factory on a certain day and this thing, and we put it under all exactly the same stresses, we can tell you what that is. It's metal, it's oil, and things like that. When you're talking about human beings, it gets very, very interesting, and there's a lot of different factors that push or pull from those. Now, your general question, when people are using you know securely more regularly or when they're using this data tool or when we see that their classroom has lessons that have more integrated technology components on a regular basis then what are the results of the learning for those students then we can point to some

[00:53:19] general kind of trends and we want to share and collaborate success story you know among our teaching staff and so that's how we a lot of times how we do that but again we can't go back in time and say, let's do Greg Coleman again in third grade and see what he does this time without technology or second grade.

[00:53:37] So, you know, it's really difficult when you're talking about a research lens and, you know, there's no placebo and there's no, you know, study group over here compared to that group. It's very difficult. But yes, we can collect data.

[00:53:54] We can look at some of those trends and say, generally speaking, this is kind of what we're seeing across the board. Got it. Thank you. Also, Mr. Martin and Dr. Shroff, in addition to this data, there's the human data. We have teachers. They are professionals.

[00:54:10] It will never take away a teacher circulating the room and knowing what kids are doing. It's also not going to replace the administrator who's in the classroom, who's checking to see what's going on, the supervision of instruction. And we also have a walk-through form for that as well.

[00:54:27] So, again, as we continue to learn and grow, we're going to get better and better at identifying where there is past screen time use, and then we can correct that. Very good. Thank you for your presentation. Mr. Martin, do we have, yes, Dr. Rochelle. Well, I hesitate to open a can of worms here, but when I hear words like teaching, instruction, data, whatnot, I get the picture of, like, a can of spinach being poured down Popeye's mouth, you know.

[00:54:59] And when I ask myself what is really learning, learning is more than just information transfer or input because I remember very little of what I learn quickly and easily.

[00:55:16] So if I use a translator, I understand whatever it is I'm looking at for that moment, but I can't remember tomorrow or even the next hour. But those things that I actually looked up in a regular dictionary, the process and the time of doing that makes it stick longer.

[00:55:41] And I can remember my elementary school primer to this day where I learned addition and subtraction. I remember what it looked like and felt like, but I don't really remember when the Texas instruments came out very much detail.

[00:55:59] of. And so when I think of learning, for me, it's the facilitation of curiosity. What makes me want to know more about myself and my environment, and then gives me the freedom to explore that as well. And it can be facilitated with information on the side, but if it's made too easy and too fast and too programmatic. It lacks durability. It doesn't promote resilience.

[00:56:34] It doesn't make you stretch. And I believe fundamentally life is lived in tension. And to the degree we try to relieve that tension, we weaken ourselves. We don't become stronger. Just some idle thoughts. We want learning to be sticky. We want our kids, and again, And for those of us who have kids, we want them to have a wonderful experience.

[00:56:58] And I'm thinking about the first time I changed oil. You know, you can read about it in a book. But until you do it and until someone shows it to you, then it's sticky, literally, right? But then you know how to do that. And our kids also need to know how to use a computer, how to diagnose, for example, what is wrong with a car so that they know to do that.

[00:57:18] They also need to have the customer service skills to say, good morning. You know, I'm your rep today. So, yes, you're absolutely right. It's-- technology is one part of that. I was trying to go back to that one slide, and I think I shut it down. I apologize. But again, nothing is going to replace that experience for our kids with a teacher when they're engaged.

[00:57:38] And then this is just part of that. It's an opportunity to enhance that instruction, ensure that it is sticky, that kids are having a wonderful experience, and then long term, that they're prepared for what comes next after high school. But thank you for sharing that.

[00:57:55] - Thank you, Dr. Schelp. Mr. Seifert. - Dr. Staley, thanks so much for putting the brief together and everything, and I really appreciate the willingness to look hard at this and answer the tough questions. I think we all know how important it is that we educate our kids correctly.

[00:58:14] And the best to our ability. Something that I would really want to see is proof of success. Like, hey, we were all books before. I mean, we've made this huge transition. I basically don't see books with my kids anymore. It's all the screen books.

[00:58:30] So that would be great to see, obviously. And I'm sure you realize that there are smart people out there that are saying that the kids today, this generation, are less cognitively capable than their parents' previous generations. So, you know, obviously, you know, tough question to answer.

[00:58:50] So thoughts on that? I actually reflected on this question. I believe you asked something similar in June. And I did write down some thoughts. We're very proud of our end-of-course results. We know that we're a leader in Virginia. But here's some other things. If we look at, for example, scholarship money.

[00:59:09] Our class of '25 earned $8.1 million in scholarships. They're attending 100 different universities, colleges, trade schools. They're enlisting in the military. That's a huge indicator of success if we look at our advanced placement scores And the number of kids taking an advanced placement course, taking the exam, having that confidence, and then earning that qualifying score.

[00:59:34] If we look at 2021, we had 779 students taking those exams. And last year, we had 1,406. That's huge. And then if we look at the number of students in '26, 1,475, 2,638 exams.

[00:59:53] What that means is our kids are having a wonderful experience in AP. Teachers are preparing them. They feel confident to take the exams. And we've seen steady increases as well from schools that were at 47%, now 78%, 85%, 86%, 78%, 73%.

[01:00:12] So again, just another example, because every qualifying credit a kid earns might save them money when they do go to college. We look at the number of kids who are earning industry credentials, that is through the roof. We look at the number of kids who have high quality work-based learning experiences, that is through the roof.

[01:00:32] So we have the Advanced College Academy, kids every year who are earning their associate's degrees. So those are just some other measures of success that we can take a look at. Sure. OK, next question. I appreciate that.

[01:00:50] I see the focus on passive screen time and getting rid of it, But, you know, books like Digital Delusion and just, you know, countless, you know, people out there saying things like the book is better, you know, writing it by hand is better. So certainly passive screen time is, you know, wasteful and, you know, just a time killer and, you know, and worse often.

[01:01:09] But, you know, if you've got some content that you need to put in someone's brain, the scientists say the best way to do it is with the book. So you can be actively using your screen, doing something good. I'm reading from this screen to get this content that I need to know to take the test tomorrow. But scientifically, it's shown that they should be reading a book to do it, to learn it better, like Dr. Shelp is talking about, and writing it by hand versus, you know, typing it in.

[01:01:35] So is it enough to just get rid of passive time? Because I would hope we would have gotten rid of that before. And it used to be very frustrating for me when the students could have their phones and teachers were allowing them to be in the class, you know, on their phones versus reading the book.

[01:01:51] So, you know, definitely passive there. Does that make sense, though? Like, if there's content to be read, they should be reading it in a book, according to the scientists. And so I would hope that we would make sure our students were doing that and our teachers were sought to do that. Where are we with that?

[01:02:07] Right. We still have, students still have access to books and classroom libraries. We use the example if sometimes you have something planned and it goes a little bit quicker and there's an opportunity, one would be for kids to grab a book. Many of our kids still like to grab a book and read a book if there is that situation.

[01:02:26] And if I could add to that just a little. I think that it's important to know that our students have all of the experiences. They have textbooks. They have books from the library. they have classroom sets of books to read that are hard books that they have and hold in their hands. They also have quality academic instructional technology to support it. That's not the complete use of our time. So when you look at the instructional technology timeline recommendations, you'll see that there are specific amounts of times for each age range from K through 5 to

[01:03:03] middle school to secondary school. So one of the important things is that we teach them the responsible use of technology because they're going to need to know and be able to use those skills on every piece of their collaborative work as they grow older and transition into college and into the work environment. When you are preparing your children for college today, one of their school supplies is their computer so we have to prepare them as they're growing up to use it responsibly and to extract the most knowledge that

[01:03:39] we can from it but it is not the only tool when we talk about the passive use of eliminating that our school board made that a priority and we completely agree we noticed that we did have some pieces when you know if a class got finished early, a student might be able to go to their computer, which is why we're saying we've turned securely on. We're sharing with the teachers in the clarifying expectations that we want them to pick up a book. If they want to mark that these are the five places that you can go to to read

[01:04:15] related articles to the topic, then we want you to be able to do that. It'll be thought out and planned. We have the coaches who are going to walk through and see that those types of things are happening or what supports and instruction we need to provide for the staff. And then what great ideas that they're using so that we can come back quarterly and show you how we're using the instructional technology to support the children and their growth. So when you look at the percentage of time that we're using technology, it is not the primary way. Now, if you have a

[01:04:52] student who happens to be taking five AP classes, they are going to have a heavier load of time on the computer just due to the nature of the class. So I think too, as they get older, it depends on what courses they're choosing to take. And that may be something that we need to put into our time, our sessions with parents that, you know, maybe encourage your student to take three of those courses and two other courses so that their load is not so heavy that they're working late into the evening on their computer. Or if they do choose it, that it's a family decision and everyone's

[01:05:30] supportive of it. So I think that understanding that when you walk into our elementary schools, you're going to see children reading books, you're going to see them writing, you're going to see them doing math and workbooks and using manipulatives. So I don't want anyone to think that our children come in and sit down at a computer and spend their whole day on the computer, because that is not what our classrooms look like.

[01:05:56] Okay. I appreciate that. I talked to a teacher recently, and he was basically, you know, very unhappy with Chromebooks, and, you know, his number one thing, the first thing he said to me was, I mean, I go check the kid, and they've got 18 tabs open, and, you know, and so they're not, yeah, not doing what they should be doing in the book, Digital Delusion.

[01:06:17] That's the first thing they talked about, the problem with the Chromebooks, is all the different things they can be doing. And talking to my kids, I do feel like things are better. They talked about a year or two ago just being able to do whatever, and classes they didn't like. They just, they and other kids could do whatever they wanted versus being on the topic.

[01:06:37] He also, and this is kind of book versus screen, but he specifically used the word that his evaluators, you know over the years had you know required he felt that he needed to bedazzle them his words to with with the technology use you know basically like do whatever you have to to pull technology into this uh and he's like having the kids read the chapter and do the questions at the back wasn't good enough that was discouraged he had to find a way to use technology and then it sure seems like you know scientists science is telling us now that actually reading that chapter and doing

[01:07:13] the questions with their pencil, probably was the best way to do that. So how are we teaching the teachers, I guess? Are we doing more than just no more passive time? We have a plan. We can go through that again. And that specific teacher, if you're comfortable letting that teacher know to have a conversation with the principal, or with Ms. Lysette, or the ITC, or even me, we're glad to address any concerns that specific teacher has.

[01:07:43] And then big picture, let me get to the right slide here. So I feel like your concern is just that instructional planning, right?

[01:07:59] And like what they're planning. And I just want to go back to the idea that our teachers are amazingly trained staff. And then they have so many supports from their mentors and their colleagues and the collaborative planning that the type of lesson you're talking about I I don't know that I'm seeing to the extent that it would cause me concern I am so happy with the work that our teachers do to develop really engaging lessons and obviously that is appropriately sometimes using technology because that gives teachers a lot of

[01:08:35] resources for what's working what's not how to remediate how to do formative assessment and respond to that like those are really powerful opportunities but alongside that if tech isn't the right tool for that lesson if it doesn't align they don't use it they use what's right for that lesson and they're really skilled at that as shown by all of our amazingly passing best in state scores like they're doing really good work with the tools we get them we will provide professional learning I think it's part of your question to our teachers and to

[01:09:11] those that supervise them got you okay um let me see uh yeah i'm last thing i'll talk about and yeah my kids playing sports coming home 10 11 o'clock at night and last year in particular i had my older son that he i saw some textbooks coming home last year with my other two sons never saw any textbooks i'd see worksheets which were great but no textbooks screens you know 10 o'clock 11 o'clock at night and i just don't feel like it's enough to say you know teach them how to use the dark mode on the computer couldn't we do something like teachers get all the screen stuff done in

[01:09:45] class so that they're not you know using screens at 10 11 o'clock is there a way to take that angle to it i know that you've lived life with a high performing student and as have i when they get that saluda vala you know title in front of their name it's a really big deal and i will say regardless of what screen they're using if there's going to be light involved at 2:00 a.m. in the morning when they're annotating still and so I think it's less about what specific tool that they're using in just the simple

[01:10:24] commitment to their academics that they have to make there is no way around it as dr. Pennecuff alluded to earlier when you're taking three four five AP IV classes you're going to be burning the midnight oil because there's there's just that amount of work that's required. So when we talk about making students use this or that to complete their lessons, most of our students strongly prefer to use the tools, the digital tools, because they're efficient. It allows them to work quickly. And I'll just say this, you know, as a quick example, if we were to, quote, write a paper right now, what does the word write mean to

[01:11:04] us. It doesn't mean pencil, pen. It means typing and using the tools to edit and quickly create drafts and give ourselves feedback instantly as we're writing and the fastest, most efficient way and also creating the highest quality product. The best way to do that is using digital tools.

[01:11:24] And no one in a job market today supports using the pencil. They're going to say, use this digital tool and this technology as you're creating and you're collaborating with other work partners. So I think it's a difficult ask and I would and I would also really be challenged to know what the purpose of the learning goals of that teacher were as they gave additional work to be done at home. So the short answer I would say is that it probably can't all be done in the classroom because again you're up till two in the morning. I you know I know you live that life and I know I have with students and so there's just no other way around it. So

[01:12:03] sometimes I think it is required absolutely especially with some of those really challenging classes have volumes of information you have to go and process and get through and produce something from them. If I could add I think there is one there is a way around it it's that you you mitigate the amount of hours of homework based on the classes that you decide to take. So for example if you know that you are going to play a sport you probably if you're signing up for five IB or AP classes, then you're committing to the homework load that goes with that. And they tell you that

[01:12:39] in the course syllabus, that you can expect this much homework. And then if that isn't something that the student is able to commit to, which is fine, it's okay to take less IB or dual enrollment or AP courses and balance those out with other classes. But that's one of the reasons that those courses are worth higher value in terms of your GPA. So it's a balance of what the student's academic fortitude to be able to stay up on those late nights and a parent's ability to say,

[01:13:17] I think you, I think you're, this is a little too much. Two o'clock every morning with you trying to balance your courses and school is too much. And so I think that's where the family has to say, you know, let's talk about this. What's going to be okay for you? Because we don't want to encourage children staying up till two o'clock in the morning, but we would also, the first thing that I would do as a parent was balance the workload between the sports and academics and extracurriculars with the workload that the student was having to do to be sure they remained healthy

[01:13:52] mentally and physically. They got enough sleep that they felt like they could maintain those academic standards so that they realize that it might be too much to try to play a varsity sport and take those courses.

[01:14:09] Yeah, I would just say if we really aren't using screens that much, you know, and you read these books and these experts and they talk about there's very few instances or not that many instances where you have to use a screen. So if that's true, you know, should be enough time at school to, you know, to use the screens, get the screen time done there.

[01:14:28] And I know there's things that are going to come up and you got to do it at home or whatever, but I would just hope we could teachers try not to send, you know, work home that's, you know, going to be on the screen when it could be done at school. So that's all I'm asking. So thank you. That's all I've got.

[01:14:44] Thank you, Mr. Seifert. I counted eight or nine either new or updated ways that the team, the Avengers, are going to be monitoring our screen usage and what they're going to be using on their screens and what they're going to be viewing on their screens or whatever and how they're using their screens.

[01:15:07] And so I just want to say thank y'all for bringing this to us, but also recognizing that we have concerns for our students and also saying hey we're on top of it and we're gonna get you more data but we're also gonna you know train retrain and we have these great tools that we maybe just need to refresh or automatically turn on so I appreciate the time that y'all put into this and we look forward to your updates and is there any other questions or comments yes sorry I forgot you told okay first of all Well, you guys answered these questions with professionalism.

[01:15:47] I can tell that all of you have thought about this with some passion in what you do, and it shows in the successes that the school division has. So I just want to say that. The thing about securely, I'm just curious, why don't we just turn it on?

[01:16:02] Why are we giving, like in K-5 even, is there a reason behind that? You don't need it? They don't. I can hear you fine. It's fine. Thank you.

[01:16:20] Well, they'd like us to be on the microphone. Okay, I understand. At this time, we have not seen the extensive use of instructional technology in elementary that would warrant the complexity of setting up that schedule to do it.

[01:16:35] Secondary, it is enough of a project for this coming year to, because like we say, just turn it on, it is not that easy. It is hours and hours of setting the schedules for the different schools that all have difference good it's a lot and because we're not seeing really the need for elementary to have that type of a set no hey two through five every teacher that when they're using it can absolutely turn it on and again that's one of the factors that we're looking at for elementary is how often they're using it where we can encourage more use if we're seeing issues so we are still working with elementary getting data from them but we're not pushing the force on for them because of the complexity of it at this time okay

[01:17:15] Fair. Thanks. Okay. Any other questions? Okay. Thank y'all very much. We really appreciate it. Okay Next is our information. We'll hold on a second. Yep. Next is our information and discussion and We have Miss Aliyah Han joining us for consideration of proposed revised policies. Thank you, madam chair As you'll see in your packet. We have two policies for first read. These are primarily cosmetic updates they're not significant substantive changes. What I've done is when we get the updates from

[01:17:54] VSBA, I like to go through and see if there are ones that, hey, I like this sentence here, or I like the way they've described this here. So these are not necessarily changes that were, there's not been a change in the law for these. These are primarily just to clarify and make them more user-friendly and clean them up, if you will. So there's no need to take any action on these this evening they will come back to you next month on the action agenda and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have thank you miss Hahn do we have any questions on the two proposed revised policies okay thank you very much we'll

[01:18:34] see you back in a little bit okay so now we have a review of the fiscal year 2028 budget development calendar and miss Terry good evening madam chair board members dr. penny cough I'm sure this looks very familiar to you and it's hard to believe it's time to start the budget process considering that last month we just were able to amend their current budget based upon the state approved budget but it is that time of year again and what we have here is the proposed draft calendar will be back next month for

[01:19:11] official approval the first top half of this calendar is really more staff activity and the process that we go through it starts next month we've already started prep as we speak actually and then when you move down you will see more specific board meeting dates beginning in September we would have approval of the budget calendar and then in October we have a public input session not everyone does this across the state and so that's before we even have a proposed budget it's a not it's not a public hearing but it's an opportunity for citizens to come and provide public input to basically said

[01:19:50] hey as you start this process please think about X or Y and so I think that's great that Hanover does that you don't see it across the state then in January we have presentation of the superintendent's budget every Tuesday in January we are busy we have a regular meeting that our budget presentation our budget workshop we always have a date the first Tuesday in February if needed then that's additional work session to talk about the budget we've slated February 9th for approval of the budget and then presentation the county administrators budget they have not made final approval of their budget

[01:20:30] schedule yet but those are the dates that they're providing us and so we're anticipating those dates We have presentations to our advisory committees and then a public hearing by the Board of Supervisors on April 7th, where they've slated for adoption on April 14th, and we would be back on May 11th.

[01:20:51] So this is our typical process, nothing new, but I'm happy to take any questions. If you have any suggestions, feel free to share those either tonight or before next month, and then we'll be back for approval. Thank you, Ms. Stone. Do we have any questions or comments regarding the budget calendar?

[01:21:14] Okay. Yes, and I've often been told that it's budget season, but I think that there is no such thing as a budget season. It's just budget ongoing. I'm sure they'd make a wonderful graphic for us back there in structural technology.

[01:21:31] Right, that's right. Thank you. And thank you for mentioning the busy season where we don't have much of a break and that we're in here. And all of these dates, as soon as we approve the calendar, will be on your calendars as well so that there will be no questions about where we have to be.

[01:21:52] And add it to four dots. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Stone. See you back in a minute. Okay. And now we have the International Baccalaureate Program update. And you're back, Mr. Staley. Madam Chair, school board members, Dr. Pennecuff. We're excited to provide updates on the IB program. I have some additional Avengers. Dr. Andrea Wilson-Herndon, who is our coordinator for Gifted Education and Advanced Studies. And then we also have Dr. Luke Kupczyk, who is the IB coordinator at Patrick Henry High School.

[01:22:25] Thank you, Dr. Staley. Good evening, Madam Chair, members of the board, Dr. Penny Cuff and senior staff. I'm back. We're going to talk about IB some more. And I have brought a sidekick tonight to spice things up.

[01:22:42] We have been talking about our process of right-sizing IB throughout the summer. And to just anchor our conversation, our goal is that robust and engaged learning cohort for our students.

[01:22:58] So what that kind of means as we start to look at the tangible goals of this is I've spoken to you before about how important it is that we maintain a continuum of advanced learning.

[01:23:15] So as we look at schools that may no longer be hosting the IB diploma, we want to make sure that those students still have access to rigorous, challenging, advanced level coursework. So we've begun that work.

[01:23:31] This summer, we have a course proposal. So you'll get to see me again at the September meeting. We're proposing starting that course proposal process. So the first course that we're going to propose is the Advanced Studies Seminar.

[01:23:47] And I'm going to talk a little bit more about that on a slide that's coming up. We have been working to leverage AP art, which is already in our curriculum, to help support our visual arts program. I've shared with you that the IB visual arts program has really become a capstone for a lot of our students outside of IB.

[01:24:10] So we wanted to preserve that experience. And so Jennifer Stackpole, our curriculum specialist for the visual arts, has been doing some work AP I'm doing some crosswalk work with how do we bring in the parts of the IB curriculum that we like with that and she actually traveled this summer for some professional learning as we work to further develop that we are also looking at proposing this fall AP business and personal finance we knew that many students were accessing IB economics as a way to meet their

[01:24:46] requirements for economics and personal finance. And we knew that taking that away from schools that may no longer have the IB program, we needed something in its place. We had great timing. The College Board has just brought on this will be the first year they're offering AP business and personal finance. So we'll provide that advanced level college preparatory coursework in that same curriculum. We've talked about slow, intentional work. IB Philosophy and IB Film are two courses that we are still investigating on how do we keep the spirit of those courses and the uniqueness of

[01:25:25] those two courses as we move forward in our other schools. So that will be our work continuing throughout this year and next summer and then have those proposals for you next fall. So advanced study seminar I see several folks who have been with me on gifted advisory mr. cipher dr. strofe it has been an ongoing request of the gifted advisory committee of how do we support students who transition to high school who are gifted learners and our advanced students to introduce them to more advanced learning skills connect them with their like-minded peers and to

[01:26:03] really work on some of those independent learning skills and then when we went about our listening sessions with IB students and IB teachers we heard a similar ask we want to get students ready for advanced coursework in high school and we want to introduce them to all the opportunities if we're moving to a center for IB we want to have a way to let kids know about it and we want to let them know about it in ninth and tenth grade so again we are proposing when we do our course proposals this advanced studies seminar it's not just for gifted

[01:26:43] learners it's for any student who is interested in advanced advanced learning opportunities we are bringing together a group of teachers from all four high schools we're hoping to collaborate with local institutions of higher education we have a great relationship with our friends at Randolph-Macon, and to bring in aspects that we love and cherish about IB and AP and dual enrollment so that we can tell kids about all the things, but help them get ready for all the things. So that is one of the proposals I'm most excited about because it's something that we've

[01:27:20] been hearing the need and the want and the ask for that. And so now here's a way for us to do that and really highlight all of our programs and advanced coursework and help more students gain the skills they need to be successful in those. When I spoke to you before, I told you this summer that I was working with transportation, and how do we come about where is the center to be located?

[01:27:46] I'm very thankful to our friends in transportation. I think like budget season, it's always transportation season so I was glad to have some time to talk with them and understand our already in place transportation structures the number of drivers the number of buses and where we're already transporting kids in addition Attlee High School has been identified as the Center for the future IB Center because not only of transportation supporting our existing shuttle models, ATLE has a strong established IB diploma program, and it also provides an

[01:28:26] opportunity to better balance our specialty center locations across the division. Right now, we have an advanced college academy at Patrick Henry. We have an advanced college academy at Mechanicsville High School, and we have the Health Science Specialty Center and the Hanover Specialty Center at Hanover High School. So this would provide a specialty center and access to a specialized advanced program at Atlee High School so that all four of our high schools would have a specialty center. I've invited Dr. Kupsek with me today. As we've been talking and working and

[01:29:01] thinking, I've shared with all of you that IB is something that's very important to all of us. Our goal is to keep IB part of our instructional kind of history and story in Hanover. I have a great team. Dr. Kupsik and our other four coordinators, Lisa Berlinghoff, Wendy Edelman, and Jessica Orth, great thinkers. We have a great team of IB teachers who are thinkers who ask amazing questions. And so the questions that you have asked and our IB teachers have asked is, how do we support kids who may not be in a place that they want to do the full diploma program? And how

[01:29:37] do we support kids who may not be ready to make a transition to a whole different high school? We've heard that. We heard it very clearly, so we went back, and Dr. Kupcik is a man of great ideas, and he's going to talk to you about our idea on how we kind of bridge that gap.

[01:29:55] How do we serve and connect more kids with IB outside of the diploma program, and how do we meet the needs of students who may not want to have a full transition to a different high school? Dr. Kupcik. Thank you, Dr. Herndon and Dr. Staley and to the board. I appreciate the opportunity to talk with you.

[01:30:12] I care very much about IB, and I fully believe that is one of the best opportunities that we have for our students, partly due to the comments that Dr. Shelp made earlier about the tension that's necessary for effective learning. And I think IB gives us a wonderful framework for emphasizing standards and application of ideas, not just content knowledge.

[01:30:37] So my goal in these proposals is to expand the benefits to IB to as many students as possible. So we know from talking with members of the community that there are students who might feel apprehensive about transferring to an entire new school or doing the entire diploma program, as we see students who want to balance with other advanced program options, or as Dr. Pennycuff was mentioning earlier, the need for families to be able to balance schedules as needed, and we know that not every family not every student is primed for the full diploma or for changing schools.

[01:31:15] So the proposal is that in addition to offering the diploma program, which is six classes plus the theory of knowledge course, the extended essay, and the creativity activity and service project, we offer a certificate pathway option.

[01:31:30] So this would be a series of options of certificates that students could pursue in specialized areas. They would choose three or four IB courses to pursue in a certain direction. So maybe that would be an art or humanities or science specialization.

[01:31:48] We could do this on an every other day model, just like we do our ACA transportation model. And so these students would not have to transfer their homeschool. They could go on an every other day basis, and they would free up their schedule to take other classes that they're interested in, whether those are electives or advanced placement courses or dual enrollment courses. And so this doesn't just support the IB program. It also supports our other advanced programming options, as well as all of our elective courses that we know students are interested in. I think that this offers us a wealth of benefits in addition

[01:32:26] to what we've already talked about. So one thing that it does is it increases the diversity in our IB courses. We know that a certain kind of student might be attracted to the diploma program, but we're going to expand the number of students and the type of student that's interested in IB by offering a more diverse set of options. We know that this is more equitable to students.

[01:32:52] It provides more opportunities for students to engage in a program that at least I believe is such an excellent opportunity that we want to expand those benefits. I also think it vastly improves the student experience for those students who would be pursuing the diploma program. By having a greater diversity of students in their classes, particularly the theory of knowledge course, which is very, it's very valuable to have a diversity of perspectives in the course. We're bringing in that diverse set of students and expanding the benefits across our

[01:33:26] population. We also know that this will expand the flexibility that schools have when it comes to scheduling and with teacher assignments. If we are confined to a very small number of students, we're not going to be able to offer multiple sections of courses. This would allow us to do that by growing those numbers. And so we know that this is going to allow us to expand opportunities for students, including the number of IB electives that we're able to offer. I I just want to summarize by saying that I think this is the path to offering a robust

[01:34:04] and sustainable program for our students from which they're going to benefit and enjoy. IB is an ideal model, as I started with, of offering a skills-based holistic education that especially given all of the rapidly changing technologies and the uncertain future that we've discussed, if we're going to prepare our students for an uncertain future, I think the best way we can do that is by maximizing their skills and application, not just their content knowledge. And I think IB offers us a wonderful vehicle to do that. This is a way to expand access

[01:34:43] and hopefully we can keep this as a robust option in Hanover County for a long time to come. Thank you all. Thank you, Dr. Kupsik. And I think that what I'm very proud of with this is that we've really had an opportunity to talk and listen to lots of people and then come together and think and figure out how can we meet the aims that we want for this robust program, but for it to be manageable and then also for it to be accessible to the student who is not interested in changing

[01:35:19] schools or to the student who is just really wants to delve into a specific line of coursework like the humanities or the arts. So I'm very excited by the idea of the pathway model. So just a reminder about how this is happening. The IB Center would open in the academic year 2028-2029 with 11th grade students. Those are our current freshmen. That year is a hybrid year. So the center would be open, and then we would also be graduating our last diploma candidates from the other four schools in 2029. Our first graduating class from the IB Center at Atlee High School would be the

[01:35:58] class of 2030. So this is the timeline that we've shared before. So we are in the 26-27 school year. My chart is getting more narrow as time is passing. So our current, the class of 2027 and the class of 2028, those students are going to graduate from their zoned school.

[01:36:22] And you can see that the class of 2030, which is our rising ninth grade, this is a chart from our old. So it doesn't reflect the change that we've moved to an academic year. I think I just deleted the column without updating the first, so apologies there.

[01:36:41] So our, this is much clearer, that first class will graduate in 2030, and then we have that hybrid year the year before. So our big updates for you are our idea, our pathway model that we are going to implement that meets the needs of students who do not want to fully transfer, and also meets the needs for students who are interested in participating in IB, but schedules or likes or interests may sway them more towards the certificate pathway.

[01:37:15] And then I wanted to update you on our development of the courses. So you'll see in September, we'll be talking about AP, business and personal finance, and also the development of the advanced studies seminar, which will provide updates through the year as we get that team of educators working on building out that curriculum.

[01:37:35] So we're here for any questions or that you may have, Ms. Lynn. So one of my concerns had been what would happen to those fabulously talented individuals like Dr. K That has spent so long building up the programs in their school if it all got lumped into one school But what I'm hearing I think is that they will be allowed to continue to do the work that they are so good at in their own buildings right, so Early on one of dr. Penny cough Primary goals in this process of right sizing was that we kept our dynamic

[01:38:10] IB team of instructional leaders in instructional academic roles so We transition to the center. We will have an IB coordinator at the center But we also have advanced studies coordinators at all of our schools actually this year Jessica worth who is the IB coordinator at Hanover?

[01:38:30] Which has a very small class of IB candidates is actually serving as our advanced studies coordinator So we are working through this transition to keep our powerhouses involved in the work that they're doing They're a passionate passionate group of people who feel not just strongly about IB, but opportunities for advanced learners. You're welcome.

[01:38:52] Do we have, yes, Mr. Seifert? And I'm sorry, I think I missed it, but Hanover High School student, five years from now, can they get the IB diploma and stay at their, you know, zoned Hanover High School by going over to Attlee? They can earn a certificate, but not the full diploma.

[01:39:09] Okay. Can you explain the difference? Sure. So the diploma program is where a student takes the six IB courses, combination of the standard level and the higher level courses, which are the two-year courses. In addition, a diploma candidate will take the TOK for two years and the creativity, activity, and service and complete the extended essay. A certificate student is going to essentially be half of that work. So they will take, when we get to the nitty-gritty, they would be taking English, IB English, as juniors and seniors. They would

[01:39:46] take TOK as juniors and seniors, the theory of knowledge course, and then they would take a course each year as a junior and senior that aligns with their pathways. So right now our most natural starting point is the humanities. So that student in this example could take IB history, HL for two years, or perhaps they would be a student who decides I'm going to take philosophy as a junior and economics as a senior. So they would be recognized and still be earning college credit through the IB and participating, but they would not earn the IB diploma, but they would earn their

[01:40:20] advanced studies diploma through the Commonwealth of Virginia and their IB credits through the IB assessment process. Okay, I appreciate that. Last question, do you think the focusing, is it going to make a better product? I mean, it seems like it would, you know, not being so spread out. Yes, and I think we've talked a lot about, like, for example, this year, we had 22 IB diploma graduates across the division and so our goal is to have that those kids together learning together like when Dr. Kupzik was talking about TOK and I'm going to give

[01:40:57] him a chance to talk more about that because I can't bottle that passion so I think when he his explanation of what TOK is like with a class of eight versus the class of 20 really sums up what our goal is with right-sizing, and it's about that student experience, Dr. Cupsin.

[01:41:17] Sure, so the Theory of Knowledge course focuses not just on what we know, but how we know it. We expand, or we explore all of the areas of knowledge, from the maths, to the sciences, to the arts, to history, to the written language, and in that setting, it's very important that students are expressing their own perspectives, their own ways of knowing, their own life experiences. And so when you have a diploma class of eight or fewer, or if you have a diploma class

[01:41:50] that's extremely skewed to one demographic or one racial group or one gender, you create a limitation of those perspectives. And students learn from one another. They learn, I think, significantly by seeing that diversity of viewpoint and experience, and that forms the meat of the class. I often tell students the curriculum of TOK is you. It is the learner.

[01:42:19] And so by expanding our picture of what an IB student looks like, by inviting certificate students into the course, we not only expand the numbers such that we gain the scheduling flexibility and the robust program, but we also expand the set of experiences and viewpoints and perspectives in the class. And that's really important for the students. It lends itself to a much fuller and more fulfilling student experience. It also supports all of the other classes that

[01:42:53] are connected to the IB program because TOK is such an interdisciplinary subject. So I think that if we're going to maintain a high quality experience in the theory of knowledge course, the right way to do it is to consolidate our students while expanding access such that we can always offer that. And the other piece I would add to that is currently theory of knowledge is limited to only diploma candidates. So right now, if you, so when I shared we had 22 diploma

[01:43:28] graduates this year across the division. That was 22 students in that theory of knowledge class spread across four schools. So what we're, and one of the powerful things I was taken by when we had a listening session with Dr. Penikoff talking to IB teachers was we had a teacher from Attlee who shared, I taught IB when I had two sections of IB. So it was two sections of TOK. I taught TOK when I had two sections. It was such a dynamic experience because kids were mixed up. It wasn't the same group of kids that have been traveling from class to class all day. We had a much more

[01:44:03] in-depth experience. Kids took more academic risks. Sometimes it's hard when there's eight people to be the person who is going out on a limb or sharing your ideas or you're always partnering with the same person so you know it really goes back to that first slide of this robust and engaging learning experience is really what we're going to and yes I do think that the combination of right-sizing and taking into consideration how do we keep this experience connected to more kids and how do we we continue to maintain IB and grow IB I think that this is the way

[01:44:40] to do it do we have yes mr. Coleman yes thank you madam chair well done I think we've heard the word tension used a couple times this evening. I think that the experts leveraged tension in this particular program, because I think even on this board and just the general topic of it all, there was a little bit of tension. So I applaud y'all for looking at this the way you did. And I'm looking forward to the continued success of the program and the creativity and the critical thinking and the problem solving that y'all did. So well done. Thank you. And I think

[01:45:19] that tension just to end with is like it comes from a program that everyone really loves and is passionate about so I think that you know in the spirit of IB learning we've really tried to focus this on how we learn as IB learners and how we listen to one another and how we work to to have that final final product as we move to right sizing that encompasses kind of all the different different directions that we've been pulled. Let me just add that some of the tension comes from within, from the program and all of this, but some of the tension comes from without

[01:45:55] and some of what we've experienced as a society and as a culture. And epistemology, which is the longer word for, what is it, T-O-K or something like that? Theory of knowledge, yep.

[01:46:12] Yeah, is really an area that's been lacking in our public experience. And I think that is what creates some of the tension you feel on the dais, because we actually need true epistemology to really be able to criticize, to step aside from ourselves, recognizing that we're free to pick our biases back up afterwards. But for this moment, I'm going to put them aside and engage in a real exchange. And that exchange has been compromised in the country, and I think that

[01:46:51] leads to the tension. So I feel there's a great importance to this and actually wish that it could have a broader reach. I realize that you have to target your exceptional students because those are the ones with the capacity to really run with this amongst all the other things they have to also do. But I think that it's something that I wish could be disseminated to some degree across the broader student body. So I think you're going to see some of that happen through the new proposed advanced studies seminar course.

[01:47:28] And a group of IB teachers and coordinators, I know, are interested in having input into the development of that course. But also, by expanding our availability to certificate pathway students, we bring the student who's maybe primarily interested in art, or primarily interested in science, or primarily interested in the humanities, and wouldn't have the prerequisites or the interest pursue a full diploma, and we put those students in TOK. And so we expand the impact of TOK to a wider variety of students, and then those students who are pathway students, they return to their

[01:48:05] homeschool the next day. And so they take that learning and thinking and engagement into all of their classes with them, which is the design of the TOK course. So we might be starting small, but I think you're going to see reverberations of the course through all four schools.

[01:48:21] and it also I mean this is a launching pad it's it's a beginning to growing the program rather than an end goal thank you very good thank you thank you Dr. Hernan and Dr. Kupsik is that correct that's right thanks everybody thank y'all very much I do think that there are teachers out there that are exercising that in their classrooms I talked to a dual enrollment English teacher who does just that with her writings and stuff which was a great great discussion and great experience so I do think it's broader than what we think it is but I

[01:48:58] agree with you it it needs to expand thank you for such a great presentation and your passion is definitely shining through and we really appreciate that okay so next up we have we do not have any public comment request tonight to speak so we will not read our public comment message and we are going on to the action agenda and Miss Han thank you so much for joining us again of course thank you so what you see in front of you is the policy that came for first

[01:49:33] read at our last meeting you may recall this is a policy that had not really been touched in a while and so we were able to go through our HR department. Dr. Parker did a fantastic job of going through and making this what it needs to be and what works for us and still keeping in compliance with Virginia code. So I would ask that you approve this update and that is all that I have for this evening. Thank you Ms. Saan. Do we have a motion for the proposed

[01:50:08] revised policy yes madam chair i move to approve the proposed revised policy 5-3.6 hours of employment workday staff time schedule as presented thank you mr coleman uh thank you dr shrove for the second um and do we have any discussion oh excuse me it was dr shell sorry for the second do we have any discussion seeing none all those in favor say aye all those opposed okay the motion passes. Thank you, Ms. Hahn. And Ms. Stone is up for the reappropriation of fiscal year

[01:50:45] 2026 funding. And I should mention in the time that I was sitting there, the Avengers sent me a beautiful graphic of my budget process. So maybe we'll share that next month. It's beautiful. So I'm here tonight to request approval of reappropriations. Each year at june 30th any remaining balances in our budget operating budget lapse but at that at each year also if we can go look at the table a bit there we always have some grants with remaining balances

[01:51:21] and so we make a request of the board of supervisors to reappropriate those budget appropriations into the subsequent year so that we can spend the dollars and draw down those grants And as you know, the federal government has a different fiscal year than our fiscal year.

[01:51:39] And so this is a process that we go through each year. They are anticipating the request. It will go to the finance committee tomorrow and then the board of supervisors meeting at the end of the month. These numbers align with what we typically request. And so, again, they are grant dollars that were not spent by June 30th.

[01:51:59] We still have an opportunity to spend those. This is a typical schedule. so we're asking for that reappropriation i'd be happy to take any questions thank you do we have any questions for ms stone okay seeing no questions i will ask for a motion i move to amend the fya 2027 budget in the amount of two million twenty eight thousand two hundred dollars to carry over funding for programs and grants that were not completed in the prior fiscal year thank you miss lynn for the motion do i have a second second thank you dr schrove is there any discussion

[01:52:36] Seeing none all those in favor say aye all those opposed. Okay, the motion passes. Thank you very much Next up that is it for action agenda next up. We have Materials for board review you have your fiscal status report in your packets and the facility usage report as well and you also have your lovely purple pages of calendar

[01:53:06] related events calendar board related events and Dr. Pennycuff do you want to highlight any of those yes thank you our we have some big events coming up next week we have our back to school convocation on Monday at nine and this year it is virtual I think you'll remember last year we did a survey of staff and they asked if we could have virtual one year in person one year and it is virtual this year and we would like to invite each of you to attend convocation at one of our schools so please

[01:53:46] let mrs welsh or me know which school you'd like to be at and uh miss welsh i think you were going to encourage them to share with their yes please share um with your supervisors um and um and invite them to come with you to your schools that you decide to go to. Thank you, and if you would just let Ms. Welsher me know so that we can just give your principal that you're coming to a courtesy.

[01:54:15] It will start right at nine o'clock, and we hope you will love it. The team has worked very hard on it, and we're very proud of it. Also, next week we have two ribbon cuttings. We have Battlefield Park's ribbon cutting will be on August 18th at 2 p.m. and Beaver Dam will be on August 19th at 2 p.m. and we think they are beautiful and we hope you will love them as much as we do. On August 21st McCantsville High School would like for you to come out to see their weight room refurbishment

[01:54:50] if you're available that's at two o'clock and then as we begin to start the school year if you would like to visit a school on the day that school starts and stand out and welcome students please please feel free to let the principal know the school that you intend to come to or Whitney or me and we'll let them know but we appreciate being part of team Hanover and we're glad to have you with us and we thank you for all you do to support the schools and to support the work of the team So thank you very much.

[01:55:26] And those are the dates that I'd like to highlight. In addition, our next regular school board meeting will be on September 8th. Thank you, Dr. Penningcuff. So as you can see, we have lots of new beginnings starting next week, which is very exciting with the new schools and also our students returning in two weeks.

[01:55:51] The next topics meetings, I mean, excuse me, next meetings topics, Dr. Fenica? Yes, thank you. So we'll see the policies that came tonight for information and discussion. We'll see those for action next month.

[01:56:08] We will also have a physical fitness update that will include our cross-country plans. So our calendar adjustment, we will also bring that forward with some pieces that need to happen for the reduced testing window that we've been given.

[01:56:26] So we thank you for that, and those are the topics that we have for September. Thank you, Dr. Penicott. And so the last thing on our agenda would be adjournment. Madam Chair, I move to adjourn our correctly labeled date of August 11, 2026.

[01:56:44] Second. Thank you, Mr. Martin and Dr. Shrove. And there's a smiley face on there, too. Is there any discussion? There never is. And if you're in favor, say aye. Aye. And opposed, nay.

[01:57:01] We are adjourned.

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