Coraggio Consulting
Henrico County School Board Work Session, Thursday, January 23, 2025

Date: Thursday, January 23, 2025
Place: Henrico County School Board, Virginia
Length: 1h 53m (video)
Official meeting video (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4bfAL4_pAI
Official meeting portal (Henrico County Public Schools, Diligent Community): https://henricoschools.community.diligentoneplatform.com/Portal/MeetingTypeList.aspx

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 2026-10-25. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:01:42] I would like to welcome everyone to the January 23, 2025 work session of the Henrico County School Board. Dr. Cashwell. Thank you. Members of the board, good afternoon, and to our guests as well.

[00:01:58] We'll begin our meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance, which will be followed by a moment of silence. If you would, please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. 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. If you would

[00:02:24] remain standing as you're able for a brief moment of silence. And that concludes our moment of silence. You may be seated. At this time, I want to note Ms. Shea's physical absence from today's work session. Ms. Shea previously notified board members of her request to participate electronically from a remote location due to a medical condition that prevents her physical attendance. Our school

[00:03:01] board policy p2-04-006 electronic participation in meetings from remote locations requires a majority vote of the board members present at the primary or central meeting location to allow a board member to participate in a meeting from a remote location per the school board policy do I hear a motion I move that the school board approve mrs. she's participation from a remote location the The following vote will be recorded via roll call.

[00:03:32] - If I may second that motion. - Thank you. We'll now record a roll call vote. Mrs. Kinsella. - Aye. - Mr. Young. - Aye. - Mrs. Atkins.

[00:03:47] - Aye. - And I vote aye. Ms. Shea's request has been approved. This meeting is being live streamed on the HCPS website. We'll begin our board meeting with a roll call. When I call your name, please verbally indicate your presence.

[00:04:04] Ms. Kinsella. - Present. - Mr. Young. - Present. - Mrs. Atkins. - Present. - Mrs. Shea. - Present. - Thank you. Please let the record reflect that a quorum of the board is physically present and Ms. Shea is participating electronically.

[00:04:21] I asked Ms. Shea to verbally note if she needs to leave the meeting and subsequently verbally note when she returns. We'll now start with the approval of the agenda. Is there a motion to approve the agenda?

[00:04:36] - I move that the school board approve the agenda for today's meeting. - Thank you, Ms. Kinsella. Do I have a second? - Second. Thank you. Now we'll perform a roll call vote. Ms. Kinsella? Aye. Mr. Young? Aye. Mrs. Atkins?

[00:04:52] Aye. Mrs. Shea? Aye. And I vote aye. The ayes have it. The agenda is approved. Now the next item on the agenda is a closed meeting. Is there a meeting to go into closed session?

[00:05:08] Motion to go into closed session. I move that the school board go into closed session for the discussion of matters covered under item A1 of section 2.2-3711 of the Code of Virginia, 1950, as amended pertaining to the assignment, appointment, promotion, performance, demotion, salaries, disciplining, or resignation of specific school board employees, including the evaluation of the superintendent.

[00:05:33] Thank you, Mr. Young. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you, Ms. Kinsella. Now perform a roll call vote. Mrs. Kinsella? Aye. Mr. Young? aye mrs atkins aye mrs shea hi and i vote aye the ayes have it we will now go into closed session we will reconvene the work session at the conclusion of our closed meeting we will now certify closed session is there a motion to certify closed session i move that the school

[00:06:12] board certify by a recorded vote that to the best of each school board member's knowledge only public business matters lawfully exempted from the open meeting requirements of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act and identified in the motion authorizing the closed meeting were heard, discussed, or considered in the closed meeting. Thank you, Ms. Kinsella. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you, Mrs. Atkins. I will now do a roll call vote. Mrs. Kinsella? Aye.

[00:06:45] Mr. Young? Aye. Mrs. Atkins? Aye. Mrs. Shea? Aye. Can I vote aye? The ayes have it. closed session has been certified. I'll now turn it over to Dr. Cashwell to present items at this time. Thank you, Mr. Irving, members of the board. I am so pleased for the next item to share Henrico County Public Schools' next steps for investing in our students, staff, and our facilities in alignment with our strategic plan. This recommended financial plan reflects our commitment to academic

[00:07:19] excellence, safety and wellness, and recruitment and retention of exemplary educators and staff. As always, we've taken a conservative fiscal approach while providing innovative instructional programs and real-world experiences for students and wraparound supports to support the whole child.

[00:07:38] You'll see that this budget proposal includes significant investments in instructional resources for our students and the establishment of more opportunity schools, additional safety staff, offsetting an increase of group health care premiums through the employer's share, meaning that our employees will see little to no increase, additional English language learner support, new increased extracurricular sponsorship stipends for employees, more career ladder expansion, and some additional programming at Virginia Randolph, just to name some of the

[00:08:14] highlights. And as you're well aware, our divisions participates with the county in a unified pay plan. So our employee raises are of top priority, but not considered at this stage in budget development. But we hope everyone knows that it is our goal to provide a much-deserved compensation increase for all of our Henrico County Public Schools staff to reflect the expertise and professionalism of our incomparable workforce. Before we start the presentation, and Mr. Wack is going to do that for us, I want to, of course, express my gratitude to Mr. Wack and the school

[00:08:50] division staff and budget team who have worked on this, as well as our county manager, John Batolkas, and his staff for their assistance in developing this plan. Together, we'll continue to invest in programs that foster innovation and support life-ready learners, workers, and citizens. Mr. Wack. I'm afraid you stole all my thunder, but that's fine. Good afternoon, Madam Chair, school board members, and Dr. Cashwell. So today, I will be providing an overview of the superintendent's fiscal year 2026 recommended budget highlighting the planned additions to our general fund budget within the overall proposal compared to the current year's adopted budget. Many of these net increases are

[00:09:29] establishing permanent recurring funding for positions and initiatives established this year or in recent years using grant funds. At this time I'd like to recognize the extraordinary efforts of our budget team. We have our director Monique Barnes and Amy Barnes and Mila Morris with us today. So you will you will find hard copies of our 151 page budget document at your seats and we are also have just posted that document the full document online this afternoon the funding priorities reflected

[00:10:05] in the fiscal year 2026 recommended budget directly aligned with the division's current strategic plan destination 2025 in particular they support our four cornerstones safety and wellness providing support for social emotional cultural and physical needs academic growth focusing on core curricula, electives, and life skill development opportunities, equity and opportunity, reducing disparities among students from varying demographics and backgrounds, and relationships, encouraging collaboration and engagement throughout the entire community. Before we look ahead to next fiscal year, it's important to take stock of

[00:10:41] where we are now. The fiscal year 2025 adopted budget includes the second year expansion of our career ladder, the addition of a 10th opportunity school, and 4.8 to 7.2 percent raises for eligible staff. We also have about seven million dollars in supplemental appropriations to our general fund budget this year, effectively adding 46 school security officers and 83 elementary planning positions. Meanwhile, our Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief, or ESSER III, grant expired in September 2024. That grant had funded expanded opportunities for our summer academy, some instructional resources, as well as capital improvements at the campus of Virginia Randolph.

[00:11:20] The fiscal year 2026 budget reflects the following notable changes from the current year. Our general fund budget is increasing by about $29.8 million, or 4.2%, compared to the fiscal year 2025 adopted, based on the target amount we received.

[00:11:37] Our debt service budget, associated with previously approved capital project debt, is essentially remaining flat. The school nutrition fund is increasing by about 3.5% due to increases in food costs. And our state and federal special revenue budgets are increasing by 2.5 percent, and that's primarily due to more funding for the Virginia Preschool Initiative.

[00:11:56] Overall, our operating budget from all funds is growing by about 3.8 percent, noting that our fiscal year 2026 figures don't yet include funding for pay raises, as Dr. Cashwell mentioned. I now would like to walk through some of the most significant new initiatives included in the fiscal year 2026 recommended general fund budget.

[00:12:14] Starting with items associated with our safety and wellness cornerstone, five school counselors are being added in support of the second year implementation of the Henrico Cares initiative. The safety team is being enhanced with the addition of three supervisor positions, as well as seven school security officers that will be located at our open campus, middle and high schools.

[00:12:34] Also, recurring funding has been included to cover the 46 elementary SSO positions that were added this school year. Moving to items supporting our academic growth cornerstone, with the availability of additional funds, we are expanding our Opportunity Schools supports next year to two more schools at Ratcliffe Elementary and Brooklyn Middle.

[00:12:55] Meanwhile, 15 more English language learner teachers are being added, approximately $1.4 million, along with an additional full-time school counselor position at the Welcome Center. Local funding is now being provided to support enhanced summer academy pay rates, and these were previously covered by ESSER funds.

[00:13:13] and we are making permanent the 83 positions related to elementary planning time that were funded through a supplemental appropriation this year, as well as 26 teacher positions that were added over the course of the current year, primarily to reduce class size.

[00:13:29] Now shifting to items related to the equity and opportunity cornerstone, 52 positions are being added next school year to provide for expanded opportunities and services at the campus of Virginia Randolph. We are providing local funding for contracted transportation for our McKinney-Vento students, and that will prevent a reduction in services at our Title I schools.

[00:13:49] Funds are included for a new computer lab at Enrico High School in anticipation of a new specialty program in school year 2026-27. You'll be hearing more about that later on your agenda. And we are allowing for tuition increases at the regional Maggie L. Walker's Governor's School and at Code RVA.

[00:14:05] And permanent funding for interpretation services and document translation, previously covered by ESSER funds, has been added to the budget. Moving to items associated with our relationships cornerstone, More funds are being provided to support our communities and schools partnership as outside grant sources are declining.

[00:14:23] And funding has been added to provide for the upgrade of BoardDoc software, which is enhancing public access to school board information. Meanwhile, permanent funding has been added for new coming programs at Hermitage and Freeman High, as well as family engagement staffing at the Oak Complex, which were initiated this year.

[00:14:43] Finally, we have several items that support our strategic goal related to recruiting, retaining, and rewarding our employees. The Career Ladder Initiative is expanding, now providing opportunities for classified and leadership positions. We are including seed money of $1,000 per school for principals to provide staff recognition, and that's in response to recent employee feedback.

[00:15:04] The budget for employee health benefits is increasing, with the employer picking up most, if not all, of the increases for calendar year 2025. And we're also allowing for new and increased employee stipends that are being adjusted in the current year. As in prior years, again, this budget proposal does not include funding for salary increases that are going to be considered later under the Unified Pay Plan.

[00:15:26] The governor's budget proposal for fiscal year 2026 that is now being considered by the House and Senate includes some notable components. It would provide about $45.8 million more in general fund revenue that is included in our current adopted budget.

[00:15:44] 3.5 more positions now fall under the standards of quality for cost-sharing purposes, while funding for English language learners is increasing. State aid is provided towards 3% salary increases for SOQ-covered positions, and no significant additional funding related to recommendations from the recent Joint Legislative Audit Review Committee report appear to be included.

[00:16:04] We are hopeful that the General Assembly will be able to incorporate more revenues as they consider amendments during the upcoming months to provide more state aid for education. These pie charts illustrate the major revenue categories of our general fund budget.

[00:16:20] We can see that the target increase of about $29.8 million makes up the difference, and that will likely come from a combination of state and local funds. These pie charts illustrate the major spending categories of our general fund budget, and we can see that instruction remains the lion's share of our expenditures budget at over 75% in fiscal year 2026.

[00:16:42] So looking backward and looking forward, this afternoon we are presenting the superintendent's fiscal year 2026 recommended budget. This will be followed by the ensuing significant events. On February 13th, we'll be holding a public hearing on the recommended spending plan at 5 p.m.

[00:16:58] On February 27th, the school board is scheduled to approve that budget with any amendments. And on April 17th, after the Board of Supervisors adopts the overall budget, including funds for salary increases, the school board will adopt the final budget. And that concludes the presentation.

[00:17:14] I'd be happy to answer any questions. Colleagues, I'd like to open up the floor for questions. Thank you, Mr. Wack, so much for the presentation. I'll start with Ms. Kinsella. Thank you so much.

[00:17:34] really appreciate this presentation it's one of my favorite times a year kept from from enrollment capacity um capital improvement plan um and now finally the budget um the presentation i think one of the things i appreciate most is it really does include a lot of the items that i know my colleagues and i have spoken about and dr cashwell has um shared division priorities with us. So just thank you for the inclusion of so many of the items that are a priority for the division.

[00:18:08] With that being said, I was going to highlight some of my favorite things, but since we had so much input on those things, the presentation speaks for itself. But I do have some other items from a year of just listening in my community, reading survey feedback, studying our employee voice study that we did in 2024 and just from conversations in and around our schools and communities so priorities for me continue to include safety investments so i'm glad to see those there and of course i think that goes without saying any any safety i'm sure

[00:18:48] we keep a reserve um should any additional things come up even outside of the budget and of course the highest raise possible for our employees, which will come later in the process. I would like for the team, I'll begin with some English language, additional English language learner support. I know that we have already funded a full-time counselor at our Welcome Center, but the position is yet to be filled, so I would like for that to be prioritized

[00:19:23] because it's already funded. In addition, when I looked at our English language learner numbers at our, in Henrico schools from the Welcome Center, we have about 6,020 and 108 current employees. And then the presentation, I think, recommends 15 more. But when I did some investigation with a division of similar size to us that had 7,100 thereabout students. They

[00:19:57] actually had 280 LEAP teachers. So I'd like to actually, if we could, do even more than 15 English language learner teachers and also just not in our comprehensive schools, but also look at some CTE supports so that those students can actually take advantage of our CTE, and I believe that was in our part of our plan in terms of support to keep students engaged, right, at their

[00:20:31] comprehensive high schools, because English language learner support, actually, and special education supports are two of the things that I've heard the most about in this past year.

[00:20:48] So let's see. So more exceptional ed teachers. And I've even heard some advocacy for perhaps a compliance coordinator. And I don't know if that's possible, but I'd like for it to be considered as well as just additional supports for those two areas. I know fees don't come until later.

[00:21:11] in in this process but I'm excited about how we've reduced our student fees the board continues to hear advocacy about the fees charged to our parents when we pay things online so I believe Mr. Irving actually requested a financial system a year ago so if the division could look into that as a way for our parents to pay fees online without the fees associated with that.

[00:21:43] I do appreciate the employee recognition in this presentation. I would also like to see progress with the clarity around our pay scale, if there are any additional increases in stipends needed, and critical shortage adjustments that have already been discussed in the last four or five months here on the record for our custodial services, our IAs and our C&M employees and any other employees where a critical shortage adjustment may be needed.

[00:22:20] I would also like for the team to invest in substitutes for our administration teams to support our building leadership teams so they can have uninterrupted collaboration time. I've also heard requests around my district for increasing the tutoring amount for our teachers in our buildings so they can tutor our students in need of tutoring.

[00:22:47] I've also heard requests for more supports for our students who return from alternative settings for education. As I've also heard advocacy, matter of fact, Mr. Young and I both have received advocacy and I realize there is a formula associated with being designated as a CEP school.

[00:23:13] And I do understand the challenges with that, but Mr. Young and I continue to receive advocacy for Moody Middle School to be evaluated as a CEP school because the elementary feeder patterns are CEP schools, as are the high school feeder patterns.

[00:23:31] So these students, although we've just received quite a bit of advocacy in that area. And then we're not the calendar yet, but I figure this is a great time to share feedback since folks typically listen during the budget season.

[00:23:49] I've heard advocacy for specialists. If it would be possible for specialists to communicate directly with teachers and for professional learning days to occur earlier in the year and perhaps not around wellness days. And then lastly, as always, I look forward to working with my colleagues and Dr. Cashwell on all things financial and non-financial that will continue to make Henrico Schools the best place to learn and work.

[00:24:17] Chair? Thank you, Mrs. Kinsella. I'll now turn it to Mrs. Atkins. Well, thank you and the team for the presentation. Always appreciated. I know that it is meticulous work and it's appreciated.

[00:24:34] I'm going to start with safety and wellness, specifically around the Henrico CARES initiative and the continuation of it with five school counselors. I was pretty curious around the type of counselors that we are going to add and whether any of these counselors will specialize in crisis intervention.

[00:24:56] Let Dr. Hughes help respond to that one as we're hiring them. Let me give you more context as to why I'm asking that question as we know we are having a mental health crisis with our youth and so having a specific counselor in this space will assist with trauma and so as we're hiring it will be I want a better understanding of the type of counselor specializations that would be coming on board.

[00:25:28] Yeah, so Liz Parker is currently working with her school-based mental health team. And in a few weeks, you're going to hear a detailed update on Henrico Cares. And I think she'll be able to give you a little bit more details on what those specific roles will be. But they will be, to your point, Mrs. Atkins, very specialized and designed to work with students in a more strategic way than our typical school counselors work with students.

[00:25:58] Wonderful. Can you also take back special education counselors, those well-versed in IEP, so forth and so on? So as folks are seeking help and aid, they would be able to help them in a more strategic way, as you mentioned. So thank you for that response.

[00:26:17] also, I don't know if you want to stay there or not, but you can. So with the increasing impacts of climate change and unpredictable weather patterns posing significant challenges, whether it's safety, wellness, and learning, of course, and I just think this is very relevant, thinking about our infrastructure and educational outcomes, we want them to be positive. Could you provide insight into the financial implications that changes with climate weather and impacts have to the budget are you really speaking to our like facilities

[00:26:57] costs and correct and utilities so I think those those budgets have been been adequate in our remaining essentially intact when considering year to year I guess we we've had a very interesting year and so far with the in In terms of cold being the challenge versus last year we've had the air conditioning challenge, but I think we've been able to manage within the resources for that.

[00:27:24] There are some increases in the facility's operating budget, there's a facility management study and some other initiatives within facilities in this new fiscal year. So specifically, when we have unexpected weather changes, there is a significant impact to learning.

[00:27:45] I'm wondering, from a budget perspective, are we having discussions around the financial implications into whether we need to add more money to be proactive in this space? I think this week is a great example when you have learning loss and being able to use a formula to attach to understand the financial pieces, I would certainly like a better understanding of what it looks like so that when we're talking about safety and wellness and whether additional funding is necessary to be able to give an informed decision, I would like to learn more

[00:28:23] about that. You could probably use some past examples from many, many moons ago because we've not experienced what we've experienced in 2025 in quite a while, but clearly it's important to have the discussion because there are significant learning loss and financial implications whether we're paying more for folks to do things within our schools whether it's HVAC so forth and so on so for the larger budget help me understand for these unexpected slash anticipated weather related things that are happening within Henrico County public schools and what that financial impact

[00:29:00] looks like does that make sense yeah we can look into that and we've had and actually even in the fiscal year 2025 budget the current year we we did make some significant increases in in the facilities budget to give them more flexibility to to deal with unanticipated uh issues yeah and so i hear facilities and i completely understand you're speaking to infrastructure what i am specifically speaking to from wellness perspective and a safety perspective are financial implications i'm talking about the person does that make sense yeah i mean i was just didn't want to interrupt

[00:29:37] make sure your your comments were fully heard in his response as well i mean i think you know to your point anytime we develop a budget we understand the importance of reserve for the unknown whether it be a climate weather emergency a water infrastructure crisis i mean you name what it could be so that we can be responsive.

[00:29:59] If it means paying more for services or goods in a time they might be in high demand, whether it's overtime for employees, whether working to rectify a situation or expanding our summer academy programming because we know more kids might need it or offering more after school tutoring or remediation, that allows us to keep those budgets fluid to meet both the learning needs and any of those infrastructure needs.

[00:30:24] So I'm not sure if I've responded exactly to your question other than to say you're absolutely right in planning any budget. You have to consider those unforeseen and some foreseen with the changes we've seen related to climate facilities and some of those.

[00:30:39] We've seen rising costs for energy and so on, whether those are driven ultimately by the cause you're mentioning, but that it causes us to have to adjust our budget and then also holding back enough that we can do a good job responding to the humans that we're caring for, the staff that we're employing when there is an emergency that does have impacts on learning, on social emotional wellness, and perhaps on our facilities.

[00:31:05] - So are we capturing this in a way that's segmented out between, to your point, Mr. Wack, the facilities, to the mental health and to the learning outcomes? Is it segmented that way that you could share what those financial implications are? I mean, certainly we could look at changes in spending and some of the financial.

[00:31:25] I don't know if we could tie them all back to climate change or weather specifically, but certainly, you know, we could look at those changes over time and provide some insight there. I think what would be interesting with that is, one, it's just timely at top of mind with the frigid cold right now.

[00:31:43] However, we may have an opportunity to better understand when we have extreme temperatures, the weight that it has on our systems for infrastructure, which you spoke to. But we also can begin to assess how is this impacting our students' learning?

[00:31:59] How does this impact our educators in coming back into the building and what they may have to make up for, so forth and so on? So I would be very curious to get that data in thinking about budget and potential additions to it.

[00:32:15] So that was one. So thank you for your patience in talking through that. The next area I want to talk about is around, thank you, Dr. Hughes, is around academic growth. And could you provide any information on anticipated changes to the pay rates for Summer Academy staff?

[00:32:37] So approximately two summers ago, we dramatically increased the rates of pay. We may have been paying about $30 per hour for a teacher at the Summer Academy, and we have increased that to $40, $41 per hour rate.

[00:32:54] But when we did that, we had ESSER funds available to supplement our pay rates, so the general fund did not really bear that cost. Now we would like to continue to be a pay leader in the region and maintain those rates of pay for this upcoming next summer academy that actually will be in fiscal year 2026.

[00:33:15] So that's kind of how that has worked out for us. We'd like to keep that momentum going as we're trying to staff our summer academy locations that we have qualified teachers. So do we feel we're going to be above par with market trends?

[00:33:36] Yes. Okay. And then the next area is around equity and opportunity, specifically the McKinney-Vento contracted transportation. I would like to learn more about the expectations from that contract.

[00:33:56] What services are we going to provide and what expected outcomes do we foresee? So this really wouldn't be a change in what we have been doing. It would be how we are funding that so our title one allocation is actually decreasing in in fiscal year 2026 i think it's about 1.3 million dollars um if we were not to have used local funds to to supplement uh we would i think have to significantly reduce service offerings at those locations so this budget proposal includes a million dollars in local funds to to cover uh what what has historically

[00:34:32] been covered been been charged to our title one it is an eligible expense in title one but we would like to use the title one funds we receive to provide services for our students do we feel the local funds are enough for the next five years or so um i think the request may have been for more than a million dollars but this is something we could do we could make an adjustment as in next year's budget as the funds decline that means that we will have to make up for that money and so i just want to make sure that we're poised and positioning ourselves to do this for the long term and really being strategic in using local funds and the money not coming from another place

[00:35:11] absolutely and so of course we're looking at one year budget proposal you're speaking to the future which we also have an eye on though it's not reflected in this presentation which is just the next fiscal year so you know we know that we have a lot of federal revenue sources title one's one we just talked about we talked about the esser funds which we knew were one time temporary expiring and we were able to do things like raise summer academy pay with ESSER funds but we knew we had to build a reserve to begin to cover that when the ESSER funds were no longer available which is the case which is why you see it as a budget addition here so we can maintain that similarly we are

[00:35:49] always holding back in reserve knowing that federal funds are considered annually and that amount can decrease and so we have seen decreases over time and you know for example a school may be considered a title one school and have a certain number of services and then another year that threshold changes based on what we've received and we've been able to locally in our budgets provide funding to continue some of those supports this is a prime example of that where the title one funds will no longer be able to cover what we were using them for with McKinney Vento transportation we are able to build a budget accordingly so certainly that's something we're always mindful of making

[00:36:29] sure we have enough reserve for federal items we know are considered annually or we know are expiring or we know we could see significant changes. And so certainly we still rely on sources like Title I, Title II, and Title III funding, and we count on those and we need those.

[00:36:47] We have been so far able to build in enough cushion that as those fluctuate, we can absorb things locally. And it takes careful planning and care. And we have a really good team who's mindful of that and understanding what those grant revenues are versus what's revenue we are bringing in and balancing that. Thank you for that. How do we measure, how are we measuring the experience our families are receiving in monitoring the funding? How are we monitoring and measuring? Are you speaking to the McKinney-Vento funding specifically? Because

[00:37:26] these are tied to federal funding streams and have been, there is specific monitoring we're required to produce in order to receive those funds and remain eligible for them. And then there are very specific uses. One is to transport students who have experienced homelessness or instability and are coming back to our locality to receive their schools. It offsets that cost. So I can get you some more specific information from our McKinney-Vento team about the many services they provide beyond transportation because it's extensive.

[00:37:56] And I think we actually heard from Lisa Abernathy at some point a nice board presentation about the full swath of services they provide and how they're gauging effectiveness. But I'd love to gather some more information for you, particularly to the effectiveness piece and how we're gauging that work with our families and share that.

[00:38:15] I appreciate that. As you're gathering that data, I also want to better understand nutrition in that space and how we're feeding our families. So that would be excellent. Thank you. I'm still disappointed that there are no additional funds for JLARC, but I am hopeful that more funds will come at some point.

[00:38:35] The next section that I want to speak to is regarding recruit, retain, and reward. Can you provide additional details about the projected increase in employee health benefit costs? I know it says that there's very little, but I would like to know what that number is.

[00:38:54] It's approximately, I think it's $4.9 million in increase for our employees. And if the board members may recall, depending on which plan you are in, the schools as the employer is absorbing 100% of the cost increase, while some of the other tiers of coverage and different plans, I think employees are paying no more than $10 to $40 per month.

[00:39:20] So that, but system-wide, it's between $4 and $5 million. Yeah. I think she might have been asking about an individual employee, what the increase for an individual employee might be. Was that your question? That is correct. It could be zero.

[00:39:35] Yeah, there isn't one, but there is an increase of almost $4.9 million to the employer. So we had to account for that in our budget in order not to pass that on to our employees. So employees will not see an increase, is that correct?

[00:39:51] This is for calendar year 2025. So when we had open enrollment in the fall, employees were able to see what the different rates would be, depending on which kind of coverage, and those that chose to stay in their same plans, again, I think we had 1,400 general government schools employees saw zero increase based on what kind of plan they were in, or it could be no more than $10 to $40. Kudos, because that's a big deal.

[00:40:20] As health care costs rise and folks are losing health care, it's good to know that those costs don't continuously increase. The next question I have is, and I don't know if you're able to answer this or not, so Dr. Cashwell, this may require more research, but I am curious around recruitment, and Henrico has a housing incentive. Do we have any data on if that's having a positive impact with recruiting employees? The employee first homebuyer assistance program? Yes. We can

[00:40:56] gather some information. I think to be eligible for the homebuyer assistance program, you have to have been employed a certain amount of time. So, and it's been in place a fairly short amount of time, but we'd love to pull some information of how we certainly know of some great testimonials of how it's impacted Henrico schools employees and others, but can certainly look to whether that alone or coupled with other factors is enticing folks or recruiting them to your point.

[00:41:24] i would like to know if it's if it's been a good tool uh is it attractive uh in trying to recruit new employees mrs bold may have something to share because she's rolling her chair backwards so we'll wait for her to come forward i would just share that i'm very impressed with the number of employees who have taken advantage of the program so certainly for the individuals here We know that it is a retention tool.

[00:41:53] Not so sure about retraction because, as Dr. Cashwell indicated, you do have to be employed at least a year or so to take advantage of the program. Thank you for that. I would love to read or maybe if you could share some of those testimonies.

[00:42:13] Certainly. I think if we're seeing this be successful, how can we expand upon it and market it, and then wondering if there was any additional budget considerations to assist with marketing it at all within HCPS. So I would appreciate that at some point.

[00:42:29] Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Also excited about the employee stipends and how these changes align with our broader goals to attract and retain high-quality staff.

[00:42:46] And at this time, that is all I have. I look forward to getting some of the data from Dr. Cashwell and Mr. Wack and your team. This is a good budget. This is a great start and look forward to working with colleagues on more. Chair.

[00:43:02] Thank you, Mrs. Atkins. Next, we will go to Mr. Young. All right, Mr. Wack, thank you to you and your team for putting together this budget. I think it's a good budget so far. If you look at where we're spending our money, it shows our priorities in HCPS.

[00:43:20] Going to safety and wellness, seven school security officers serve for middle and high schools with open campuses. Has any consideration about our elementary schools with open campuses? We actually gave them an additional SSO this year.

[00:43:35] It was our first elementary school deployment, and we factored that campus dial in to this year's allocation. And we did as well in prior years at the secondary, but have taken a second look at those numbers and are recommending more. Awesome. Thank you. Moving to the academic growth portion of this, I'm thrilled that Radcliffe Elementary and Brooklyn Middle School will now become opportunity schools.

[00:44:02] Brooklyn's ESL hub, Radcliffe, from my understanding, just missed the cut last time. So I'm excited about those two schools becoming opportunity schools. And is the stipend still $3,300 right now, Mr. Wack?

[00:44:19] So the stipend for the opportunity schools is adjusted each year with the pay plan. So it's, yeah, $3,300 this year. If there was an across-the-board increase of 3% in the new budget, then, yeah, it would increase accordingly by whatever percentage.

[00:44:36] The current year stipend increased by the 7.2%. Because it was applied to teachers. Correct. So $3,300, it ends up breaking down to about $137 per pay period for a lot of our employees. If they're on a 12-month, $165, if they're on a 10-month.

[00:44:54] Board colleagues, I would really love for us to look at doubling the stipends for our opportunity schools. And I just think if our attendance to reward the teachers that's currently teaching there and incentivize talent to come to our schools, Because even with the Opportunity Schools, we still find that the Fair Fair District and the Verona District still has a lack of teachers there.

[00:45:18] We still see vacancies there. So although it's working and I know we're improving, I would love to see that stipend increased for Opportunity Schools. And I'm going to keep going. I love that the 83 positions to support planning time is really important.

[00:45:36] I'm glad we're keeping that permanent. Moving along to equity and opportunity, the additional 52 positions at Virginia Randolph, is that brand new programming or is that? Above and beyond. It's brand new programming? Above and beyond, yes. For when the new building will open, we've talked about how we'll expand current programming as well as do some additional new programming that's innovative there.

[00:46:00] And this is the staffing to support that. Awesome. Thank you. In this budget, I haven't went through a book yet, but is there anything to improve our time tracking as far as maybe making it digitalized now?

[00:46:15] As I understand it, that a lot of our timekeeping is done manually and written down. Have we looked at purchasing a software that makes this a little bit easier on our schools in this budget cycle? We have a cross-functional team that includes operations, human resources, and finance administration where we're looking at potential solutions that may also involve staff IDs.

[00:46:38] So we're trying to roll safety and timekeeping into the same discussion. Okay. And so a couple things I'll be brief that I'm really excited about. I'm pleased that our health benefit costs are pretty much staying the same for our employees.

[00:46:56] I love that. Safety is always my number one concern. um what was one of the other things that i had here no that's it that's everything my colleagues covered everything else um thank you miss whack appreciate it thank you mr young uh we'll go to miss mrs shay next thank you so much i think um most of my questions were answered by mr whack or my colleagues along the way um i just want to express my appreciation for um this budget and how its priorities align with a lot of the things that the board has been talking about um as well as the

[00:47:34] organization of the presentation. It's similar to last year. I think it's really helpful for us to see what we're making permanent and what are new ads. Bifurcating that on the slides is really helpful for me. So thank you. I support everything in this budget. My comments really center around ensuring that these investments that we are making are being utilized in such a way that they have the maximum benefit to students and staff. So like Ms. Kinsella, I'm very excited about seeing these 15 new EL teachers. Both her and I districts have a significant percentage of

[00:48:12] Hemerika's EL population. And so Dr. Cashwell, somewhere along the way, I would love to see how those students and staffing kind of break down at different schools across the county of our current students and staff, as well as where those new positions might be utilized.

[00:48:33] I am very excited about seeing the elementary school planning made permanent. I know that's something that as a board we advocated hard for last year. My feedback that I've heard at the schools is those positions are helpful everywhere.

[00:48:53] Some places, the way the master schedule has been done, they are really, really a game changer, the way that principals have stacked the master schedule. I know Pinchbeck is a great example of that with Ms. Fellow.

[00:49:09] She's done an extraordinary job really utilizing those positions to give her classroom staff significant chunks of planning that have made a big difference. And so just as we go on to make those things permanent, which I a thousand percent support, to make sure that they're being utilized in such a way that all of our staff and all of schools are seeing the most benefit possible from those positions in the way their master schedule

[00:49:40] is designed. So that is all from me right now. Thanks so much. Thank you, Mrs. Shea. So thank you all for the presentation. I'll keep my remarks brief because my colleagues got to basically everything I was going to touch on. I just would like to note again the making permanent of the 46 elementary school security officers, the 83 positions to support elementary planning time.

[00:50:11] The only thing I would note about that is ensuring moving forward that there is uniformity across buildings to ensure that they are actually being used to provide planning time. That's not a budget component, but that is just something in my advocacy that I've heard, just ensuring that they are used for that purpose and not, you know, whatever fits the need at a given time.

[00:50:33] I think the newcomer program to Hermitage and Freeman High Schools is going to be awesome. It's, like others have said, a game changer at Tucker High School, and I'm looking forward to seeing those at those schools as well. Making permanent the new and increased employee stipends is, I think, a must.

[00:50:53] Staff recognition for funding in each school, I think that's going to be great. The pens that our staff receive are wonderful, but I think we can go above and beyond that and strive for more, and we will. The one thing that I saw that I think, if I was watching this video as a constituent, I may not know exactly what this means.

[00:51:13] And Mr. Wack, I would love you to just explain it, is if you go to the governor's fiscal year 2026 budget proposal, it says $45.8 million more general fund revenue than is included in HCPS's fiscal year 2025 adopted budget. Could you explain in layman's terms just what that means?

[00:51:30] So if you take the current year's baseline budget, if the governor's budget was adopted by the General Assembly exactly as is, we believe that we could increase our state revenue budget by $45.8 million. Overall, the proposal, you see our general fund, we were limited to a $29.8 million increase, and that was information given before any of the governor's proposal was made available.

[00:51:56] But as considerations are made to adjustments to the pay plan, any additional state aid could be added later in the process to help fund some of those increases that we're seeking. Okay. So this could be additional monies that are not currently anticipated within this budget plan.

[00:52:14] Above and beyond. Yes. Okay. I just wanted to make sure everybody understood what that meant. No, I thank you all for the presentation. I look forward to this process, and as we move forward, I would encourage our constituents to participate in the process.

[00:52:31] These are your schools. This is your community. It's very important that we meet your needs, and again, I thank you all. I believe Dr. Cashwell now has other items for presentation. I do. Thank you, Mr. Wack, again, and to our entire budget team, and to our board members for your great questions and insights as we jump with both feet.

[00:52:54] into what's a long budget process but hopefully a really fruitful one we're off to a great start at continuing the um to meet our needs and priorities all right the next items are related to policy and the first one is actually a second look and it it returns for your approval this evening and that's one you've seen before and this is related to proposed revisions to policy p9-07 audits and you may recall that this has just been updated to align with current laws and practices in collaboration with our general government counterparts are there any questions

[00:53:32] colleagues see no questions all right seeing no questions the next batch of policies is coming to you not for approval at this time but for review and would subsequently come forward at the February 27th meeting for consideration.

[00:53:52] And these are policies 6.02 through 6.06. And this is a policy package to consolidate and update policies related to the HCPS assessment practices. And you found within board docs a summary of those proposed policy changes on this topic.

[00:54:13] Are there any questions? Hearing no questions, The next batch would be items 6.07 through 6.10, and these are part of a comprehensive review of field trip-related policies, which has resulted in a recommendation to consolidate four policies into one.

[00:54:36] Again, you have the information associated with the 6.07 through 10. Any questions? All right. Moving on, the next section of policies is 6.11.

[00:54:55] Those are items here through 6.23 and these are all dealing with chapter 7 and these are instruction related policies and this is a recommendation to consolidate and modernize many policies within that chapter 7. Again, within board docs you'll see attached a summary of all of those proposed actions and again just bringing this for review at this point.

[00:55:18] Are there any questions? No? All right. That concludes policy items. The next item I have is a strategic planning update, and Dr. Hinton will come forward to provide this update on our strategic planning process.

[00:55:38] As you know, Destination 2025 is soon going to be behind us as we have just flipped our calendars to 2025. It's hard to believe Mrs. Coy and Dr. Hinton are here to provide that presentation. Wonderful. Well, thank you. Good afternoon, Madam Chair, members of the board, and Dr. Cashwell.

[00:55:58] Today, Dr. Hinton, our Director of Assessment Research and Evaluation, will provide an update on the work to develop the next iteration of our strategic plan. Her presentation will highlight the progress we've made and the key steps taken so far and the timeline for completion.

[00:56:16] For over a year now, Dr. Hinton and her team have been working diligently to gather feedback and support and facilitate the work of the new Strategic Planning Advisory Committee, which launched earlier this year. Dr. Hinton. Good afternoon. I'd like to start by taking a moment to recap our progress to date.

[00:56:36] Since last spring, we've conducted multiple phases of community engagement to refine our vision, mission, and core values. We held over 22 focus groups within Rikou County Public Schools committees, advisory groups, and community partners to identify our strengths and areas for growth.

[00:56:55] In addition, we gathered valuable feedback on our draft core values through our annual survey, ensuring that community voices shaped our work. These insights have directly informed the draft vision, mission, and core values we'll share with you today.

[00:57:12] Furthermore, in April, we began recruiting members for the Strategic Plan Steering Committee. The Strategic Plan Steering Committee plays a pivotal role in our efforts. The committee comprises 28 members, including students, families, staff, and community representatives from each magisterial district, as well as two school board representatives.

[00:57:35] These individuals were selected from over 200 applicants based on their experience with the school division and their thoughtful application responses. I'd like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank the committee members, including Ms. Shea and Mr. Irving for your service.

[00:57:53] Your insights and leadership have been instrumental in guiding this important work, and we deeply appreciate your commitment to this process. The committee's primary role is to analyze district data and incorporate stakeholder input to develop the foundational components of our new strategic plan.

[00:58:12] This collaborative approach ensures the plan reflects the needs and aspirations of our entire community. The committee has convened twice this fall. Each meeting has built on the previous one robust discussions focused on aligning our work with community expectations and district priorities.

[00:58:34] These sessions have been instrumental in shaping the direction of our plan. Iterations of our current vision and mission statement have guided Henrico County Public Schools for over 15 years, serving us well during that time. However, this strategic planning process has provided a valuable opportunity to reflect on the relevance of these components and align them with our community's most recent expectations. Building on the collaborative work of the steering committee and the valuable insights gathered from stakeholders, we are proud to share the draft vision and mission

[00:59:12] statements as they are today that represent the heart of our new plan. They reflect our aspirations for the future and articulate how we will serve our community. Our draft vision, empowering every learner maximizing potential, represents our collective commitment to ensuring every student has the opportunity to achieve their goals and unlock their full potential. It's a bold statement of where we want to go as a school division, a place where all learners are supported, challenged, and inspired to succeed. The draft mission

[00:59:47] complements the vision by outlining how we will achieve it. It emphasizes the collaboration with families and the community to equip students with essential knowledge and life skills, fostering academic success, personal growth, and life readiness. Central to this mission is the Henrico Learner Profile, which highlights the durable skills and knowledge every student needs to thrive. Together, the vision and mission provide a clear and unified direction for our school division, ensuring that every decision we make

[01:00:21] is rooted in our commitment to student success. Fostering equity, communities of belonging, and other principles have always been central to our work and will carry forward into the new strategic plan in a new role as core values. These values serve as the foundation for everything we do, shaping the culture we strive to create and guiding our decisions to align with our vision and mission. Rooted in extensive community feedback, the draft core values reflect our shared commitment to creating a learning environment where every student feels valued supported and

[01:01:00] empowered they will be interwoven into every aspect of our work shaping how we educate lead and connect with our community these core values are more than just words they will guide how we support students engage families and staff and foster a culture of continuous growth ensuring that every decision and action strengthens our division an essential part of our strategic planning process involves gathering input from our community to ensure the plan reflects their needs and priorities. In December, we conducted a brief survey to gather feedback on the draft

[01:01:39] vision, mission, and core values. The results show that a majority of respondents expressed support for each component. In addition to the survey data, the community provided valuable written feedback and suggestions for improvement. This input will be shared with the Strategic Plan steering committee to further refine and strengthen these foundational elements of the plan at their most recent meeting the steering committee analyzed data prior strategic plane updates and other documents to identify four strategic focus areas highlighting the key priorities that will help us

[01:02:14] achieve our vision and mission the four areas are academic achievement providing equitable high quality instruction for all students staff support and engagement building a strong supported workforce through attention initiatives professional development and leadership opportunities learning environment ensuring safe inclusive and efficient spaces for teaching and learning and social emotional health promoting mental health belonging and emotional well-being as shared earlier as these areas are further defined the core values will be embedded throughout

[01:02:51] to ensure our strategies are inclusive and responsive to the needs of our students families and staff to build out our areas of strategic focus we will establish four work groups these groups will be led by division staff with expertise in their respective areas and will include a diverse group of stakeholders who share relevant interests and knowledge the work groups will be responsible for developing the strategic goal detailed action plan and performance metrics for each focus area these plans will then be presented to the steering committee in march

[01:03:26] for review and feedback. Lastly, here's an overview of our timeline. We're on track to present a finalized strategic plan to the school board in May. Between now and then, we'll focus on refining the plan through stakeholder engagement. In February and March, focus area work groups will be finalizing action plans and presenting them to the steering committee for feedback. In April, we'll present a draft plan to the school board and gather community feedback through an online form, discussions with advisory and community groups and a public hearing the henrico schools community

[01:04:04] can expect to hear a lot about our plan in april and we look forward to receiving their feedback to help us further refine the plan and at this time we're happy to answer any questions thank you for the presentation uh colleagues i will start with mrs atkins thank you and the team and all those that participated in this process this is good work and great feedback i'll start with a question. And I wanted to know, does empowering every learner, maximizing potential,

[01:04:42] replace the right to achieve the support to succeed? Yes. So we would be using this opportunity to develop a new strategic plan. And as I mentioned earlier, we've had our vision and mission statements in place for quite some time. And so we're looking to refresh those.

[01:05:00] Thank you. I just wanted to make that very clear because it has been around for a while. And so I think that is a significant shift for folks to just get used to and just want to be very clear that that would. And then the other ask that I have is if you could just define empowering used in the statement or just in an educational setting, what that word means, because it means different things in different settings. So in an educational setting, could you define that word, please. So I think that the way that the committee talked about it is that we're giving

[01:05:40] students ownership of the decisions that they make that are going to be impacting their learning experiences. So it's really putting some more of the power into the hands of students. So may I add for consideration as you work with your group specifically in educational settings, and we'll see how your conversation lands and I see you're gathering paper and pen.

[01:06:09] So I'll pause for you to do that. So I would imagine that empowering means different things at different phases of life, at different ages of children. And perhaps thinking about and thinking through as we shift to this, having conversations around maybe self-regulation, self-confidence, resilience, those type of words in your discussion to ensure that everyone is on the same page with

[01:06:45] what that word means in an educational setting. So that should be a very fruitful conversation as we shift to this new statement. And that's all that I have. I think this is great work. I'm looking forward to learning more excited about our new vision uh statement if you will in defining that uh please make sure there's conversations in defining that and ensuring what that means at different ages and different stages of life so i appreciate you and that's all i have thank you

[01:07:21] thank you mrs atkins i'll now go to mrs kinsella thank you um having served on the prior steering committee i think i did about six years um i love the process and um and i appreciate um all the feedback from all the different um groups that we actually um the steering committee and then all the focus groups that you do i mean from the superintendent student advisory group to um our public comment session on it to emailing it to um doing the division survey and i'm sure

[01:08:01] division survey feedback will once again be incorporated into it. So kind of in line with Ms. Atkins' question about the vision, so strategic focus areas, so those would then replace our cornerstones currently. So the cornerstones would be replaced by the core values that you saw earlier in the presentation. The strategic focus areas are just kind of broad areas where we're going to focus our efforts in terms of the goal creation aspects and the action plan development

[01:08:39] okay so when we i still like safety i like safety being something that we value um and that's about all i have at this time i look forward to hearing more about it um from mr irving uh mrs shea our representatives on the committee in the interim before you guys come back to us thank you thank

[01:09:16] you, Mrs. Kinsella. Mr. Young. Thank you for the presentation. A couple questions. As it relates to the mission statement, empowering all students, I heard student voice come up in a lot of committees. So when you answered Ms. Atkins' question, that's kind of what came to my mind was student voice. And is that what we're giving them by saying empowering all students is students actually have a say and we're going to listen, right? Another thing that I loved about our mission statement, our new mission statement, is it says, in concert with families and the community.

[01:09:48] I think that it's so important that we include our families and our community in our mission statement and everything that we do going forward in the next five years under core values. One thing that just stood out this week is belonging. And I think this is a serious topic for us. And I think we do a really good job at creating a culture that's welcoming.

[01:10:13] We don't know what the next four years look like. And we've seen a lot of people that they're saying don't belong in our country. But we want to make sure everybody that comes into our county, HCPS, has that sense of belonging. So I love the fact that that has become more important to me, along with equity.

[01:10:30] And when I'm looking at the community pulse check, was that a survey done? And who was surveyed? So we sent it out through ParentSquare to our families and our staff. And that occurred right before winter break.

[01:10:48] And as I'm sorry, as I'm looking at the five core values, were these the top five results? I'm saying 88 percent, 87, 91. Those are just the percentage of respondents who were in favor of those core values that we had already drafted with the committee.

[01:11:05] OK. OK. Awesome. I don't have anything else. I like where we're headed with this. You guys did an awesome job. I mean, you were at every committee meeting, every meeting that I had. You showed up and we did these surveys and we really took time to speak to everyone and let everyone have an opinion.

[01:11:22] And I love that about this on the process of it. Thank you. Vice chair, may I have a redirect? Certainly. Thank you. Is it possible to have these results parsed out between slightly agree, mostly agree and completely agree?

[01:11:37] It could be my eyes, but it just seems all one line blue and I'm having a difficult time understanding how many were slightly agree versus completely agree. i would be curious as to what that breakout is yes so we can certainly provide that to you as well as the written comments that we've received if that's of interest thank you so much thank you um yes this is concealer thank you for the thank you for the redirect i appreciate what you just asked miss atkins because it occurred to me i would like to know how many of our families took

[01:12:15] this survey how many people filled this out because about 1600 1600 okay 1600 Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Mrs. Shea?

[01:12:32] Thanks. I'll be super brief. Dr. Hinton, thanks for your tremendous work. And along with Ms. Coy, figuring out how to adequately and accurately summarize a lot of diverse conversation at these committee meetings.

[01:12:48] So I appreciate that. And that piece of belonging just really resonates with me as well. So I'm glad to see it elevated. That's all. Thank you, Mrs. Shea. Yes, thank you to everybody. As someone who took place in these meetings, I can say that they are long, so I thank the folks who have participated in them.

[01:13:11] There's a lot of good work done, and I would be remiss if I didn't thank everyone who was on the committee and participates within the process because their input is valuable. Yeah, I just enjoy being a part of the process, and I'm glad I can be part of that committee.

[01:13:32] All right. Hearing no other questions or discussions on this presentation, we'll move to the next one. Thank you again to our presenters. And as you saw from the calendar, April will be a busy community feedback month, and the feedback continues. Last but absolutely not least, the final item and presentation I have for you is our Specialty Center Program Overview.

[01:13:55] Thrilled to have Dr. Hughes and Dr. Snow provide that presentation. We have special guests who've been in our audience patiently waiting this entire time. representing our specialty centers and without another minute's wait i'm going to turn it over to you all for the presentation thank you dr cashwell good afternoon chair shea members of the board and dr cashwell today dr snow and i are very excited to share an overview of the henrico county public schools high school specialty center programming which provides unique in-depth opportunities for students to explore specific career and academic passions before we begin

[01:14:33] and excuse me, as a reminder for the board, a thorough overview of each specialty center, including program achievements and goals can be found in board docs. Also, before we begin, I would like to take a moment to extend our appreciation to the board for your continued dedication and support of the HCPS specialty center programming.

[01:14:53] I'm joined today by Dr. Taylor Snow, director of secondary teaching and learning. Dr. Snow will highlight a few components of our specialty centers, including curriculum offerings, goals for alignment equity and access partnerships and finally an exciting updates on our plans for our 16th comprehensive high school specialty center at this time i will turn the presentation over to dr snow thank you dr hughes and good afternoon chair shea members of the school board and dr cashwell before i begin i'd like to acknowledge miss stephanie lambert educational specialist for our specialty center programs and some of our specialty center program directors

[01:15:30] please stand up so everybody can see you all. We are very excited that they've been able to join us this afternoon. Their efforts in developing a center action plan and their own strategic goals to deliver on the results and future planning that will be outlined here today are truly extraordinary and a credit to our division. The work that they've commenced since Ms. Lambrick's arrival in the division in the summer of 2023 is anchored in aligning curriculum and administrative processes at each of our centers, increasing equity and improving access to our centers, improving communication and outreach, and expanding advocacy and community partnerships as is mapped on the graphic shown.

[01:16:08] Each of these goals is aligned directly with the Division's Destination 2025 Strategic Plan and have been crafted with an eye toward advancing the Division's strategic goals in concert with our Specialty Center goals. Before diving into an overview of how we've advanced those strategic goals through our Specialty Center efforts, I want to take a minute to provide an overview of the full range of specialty programming that we offer our students at the high school level this includes not only the four-year high school specialty centers that will be highlighted in this presentation but also the myriad one or two-year specialty programs across our three a centers that depending on the program serve students in their sophomore

[01:16:48] junior and senior years it also includes code rva and maggie walker regional governor schools the two regional programs with which hcps partners while we will not focus on our participation with with regional governor schools or ACE programming today, they too play vital roles in ensuring students have access to a wide range of high school programming.

[01:17:09] First, it is important to frame our efforts with some key numbers. Since the first HCPS Specialty Center opened at Henrico High School Center for the Arts in 1990, our center offerings have grown to 15 across our nine comprehensive high schools. And for the last two years, thanks to its expansion work begun by Director of High Schools, Dr. Thomas Farrell, we have offered 25 additional seats in our specialty centers for the classes of 2027 and 2028.

[01:17:39] When we complete this expansion for the classes of 2029 and 2030, we will have created a total of 1,500 additional seats across the division to accommodate our students. This expansion, along with targeted recruitment and outreach efforts across the division, have us now serving an all-time high of over 2,500 students enrolled in HCPS specialty centers.

[01:18:00] This means that more than 15% of our high school students are enrolled in a specialty center program, a figure that does not account for students enrolled in A-center programming or those enrolled in regional high schools like Maggie Walker and Code RVA. Additionally, we are proud to announce that in the recently closed application window for the class of 2028-2029, we received 3,055 applications, reflecting that we are highly effective in filling our centers and, as you will hear later in this presentation, have made significant gains in ensuring that the diversity of our specialty centers reflects the diversity of Henrico County as a whole.

[01:18:37] I'd also like to speak briefly to what our specialty centers offer in terms of specific academic experiences. Specialty center students complete core academic requirements by engaging in a combination of offerings that are part of the comprehensive course offerings provided to the entire student body of their school with classmates within and outside of the center, along with offerings that satisfy core graduation requirements but are inflected with center-specific competencies. These courses are taken with specialty center classmates. Our specialty center students also engage fully in additional elective offerings as part of the comprehensive student body of their schools. Additionally, our centers

[01:19:15] offer specially designed electives and work-based learning experiences that, while not part of core vdoe requirements for graduation form pathways for mastering center-specific understandings and competencies these courses range from medical terminology and engineering to leadership ethics and instructional design and provide students with opportunities to pursue practical understanding of their chosen discipline this also includes internship and externship opportunities that give students an opportunity to put their learning into practice in fields of their choice As I noted earlier in the presentation, in the summer of 2023, we mapped out a four-pronged plan

[01:19:53] to ensure the long-term sustainability of our specialty center programs. This plan called for the creation of written curricula across our centers that included opportunities for students to demonstrate mastery of the competencies that form the foundation for each individual center. In addition to this, we sought to align administrative processes across all centers.

[01:20:12] We also sought to focus on equity by expanding access to seats at specialty centers and removing pre-existing barriers to access. To do so, we've increased seats and focused on more effective and targeted communication that meets the needs of our entire community. We have also critically examined our application processes to identify barriers to access and have sought to remove those barriers. We've been active in developing communication strategies that allow us to clearly and consistently communicate the larger vision for specialty programming and the mission of each center and finally we wanted to ensure that we were providing a platform

[01:20:49] for center directors to secure the resources and support needed to allow their center to realize its mission and vision we also wanted to ensure that we situated ourselves as a go-between to facilitate partnerships between centers individual hcps offices county government cultural institutions community organizations and businesses in order to realize the goal of creating sustainable systems and processes that would help preserve the unique work of our centers going forward, we've provided active support for curriculum writing across all of our centers so that we can ensure continuity in the amazing experiences to which our students have had access

[01:21:27] over the years. This has included the development of new courses, tweaks to pre-existing courses, and assistance in developing and implementing capstone experiences that allow students to demonstrate their mastery of the foundational skills that their centers prioritize. Additionally, we have standardized important administrative functions across centers. A recent example of the success of this work has been the revamping of the curriculum at the former Center for Humanities at Hermitage High School to emphasize the civic action work in which their students have historically engaged and which they continue to emphasize. That tweak in curriculum has led to a tweak in title as a newly renamed Center for Humanities and Civic Engagement at Hermitage High School

[01:22:06] successfully highlighted these updates for students and families in this year's application window. In addition to continuing to provide students an intentionally designed specialized humanities curriculum, over the next four years, changes will provide center students with an opportunity to earn the AP Capstone Diploma. In the short term, students at the center have already begun partnerships with the Valentine Museum and Verina Center for Environmental Studies and Sustainability to assist in providing detailed and accurate historical interpretation of the Wilton Farm property that will host our living building. Additionally, this work has been acknowledged nationally, as recently Ms. Lambrecht and three of our center directors, Ryan Conway,

[01:22:46] Lynn Norris, and Susie Hester, have been invited to present at the National Magnet Schools Conference on Integrating Capstone Experiences into the Curriculum. As is the case with all programming at HCPS, our goal is to ensure that our specialty centers reflect the diversity of our county as a whole. We've made concerted efforts over the last two years to identify areas where we've fallen short of that goal and take immediate steps to improve. As you can see from demographic information that I will have access to and can share with you, we are quite close to ensuring that specialty center enrollment across the county closely reflects HCPS enrollment

[01:23:22] by demographic group as a whole. By increasing center seats and making concerted outreach efforts that we'll outline in the next slide, we've seen significant progress toward our goals on this front. Our 2025 center applicant pool is closely aligned in terms of diversity across demographic groups with the overall enrollment of Enrico County schools. In listening to stakeholders from across the county including our gifted education advisory committee and equity and diversity and advisory committee it was clear that we needed to create more opportunities to educate students and families about our centers and what they do to address this we've

[01:23:57] worked with ms eileen cox and her wonderful communications team to revamp center websites and produce public facing facing communications materials we've doubled opportunities for students and families to learn about our centers by hosting multiple public information sessions across the division during weekday evenings and on weekends while continuing to support our centers and hosting individual information sessions additionally in response to clear feedback regarding functionality issues with our application platform we are currently finalizing work with an outside vendor to create a streamlined user-friendly application platform that closely resembles the common application platform utilized by many colleges and universities we're also proud to

[01:24:37] be gearing up for our second annual specialty center fair for seventh graders for this event we focus on reaching out early to students who may not see themselves as specialty center students and arming them with information earlier in their middle school experience to do this we've partnered with our middle school counseling teams to identify these students and bring them to the adult education center at regency for a more intimate school day event that allows them to learn more about their high school options as everyone here knows we are incredibly lucky to live and work in a county and region where partners from across the public and private sectors understand both the intrinsic and extrinsic power of working directly with school systems schools

[01:25:16] and students our specialty centers have been incredible beneficiaries of these partnerships as in the last year we've seen our students work directly with the organizations and institutions whose logos appear on this slide through authentic learning experiences like the center for civic education's we the people program in which students from freeman and glen allen high schools have placed nationally and the technology student association national conference conference at which highland springs center for engineering students won four competitions last year alone additionally partnerships with hcps central office henrico county government and the holiday elementary dual language immersion program have provided students with powerful

[01:25:55] work-based learning experiences also over the course of the last year we've been able to leverage the advocacy of our varina center for communications and media relations program and the generosity of our school board and the Henrico County Board of Supervisors to partner for a complete update and refresh of student computers and studio technology. The next phase of this project that is currently underway will replace antiquated studio lighting with updated industry standard lighting. This new equipment has been heralded by faculty and taken advantage of by students to produce the Virginia School Board Association award-winning video that we will

[01:26:32] recognize at tonight's meeting. And it is through this environment of advocacy and support for student learning and the creation of unique learning experiences at HCPS that sets at HCPS apart from any other school division that I'm proud to announce the newest HCPS Specialty Center.

[01:26:49] Coming to our division for the 26-27 school year is the Henrico High School Center for Cyber Security, an exciting partnership between Henrico High School's Warrior Nation, the Department of Teaching and Learning, and the Department of Career and Workforce Development. This center will meet very real demands from our students, families, and the larger marketplace.

[01:27:08] Given the applicants for our current IT programming, it is clear that not only is IT programming in high demand, but seats in IT specialty centers in Henrico is in demand. In the 2024-2025 high school specialty center application window, there were 377 applications for 75 seats at the Deep Run Center for Information Technology, representing students from all comprehensive HCPS middle schools and seven Richmond area private schools. Demand for A Center programming also exceeds supply of seeds in the county as i noted the market also clearly demonstrates this demand as

[01:27:43] the data from the bureau of labor statistics shown here reflects not only a current job market that is robust and in need of highly skilled and highly paid professionals but a future market that shows continued growth we are excited to be able to equip students with the credentials to meet this market need along with the durable skills to flourish in cyber security whether they choose to go directly to work, or continue to refine those skills in higher education.

[01:28:08] Relatedly, you may be wondering how this center will be different from the Center for Information Technology at Deep Run and the ACE Center Cybersecurity Programming that we already offer at Highland Springs ACE. The Center for Allied Health and Human Services at Hermitage and the interest around it gives us a clear sense of that difference. When we added that center, it complemented the Todd Allen Phillips Center for Medical Sciences at Godwin. One has a patient facing focus, while the other has a research focus. It also complemented ACE programs by offering foundational and cross-curricular coursework to provide a deeper dive into the

[01:28:43] field. Similarly, the Center for Cybersecurity will have a niche focus within the field of computer science. The Center for Information Technology focuses on the cross-curricular nature of English, math, and computer science intertwined with project management. The Center for cyber security complements this with a specific and behind the scenes focus on cyber security it also complements current offerings at ace with more foundational and cross-curricular emphasis in the area of history and social science math and computer science additionally providing information technology programming through deep run high school henrico high school

[01:29:21] and highland springs ace means that we are offering broader evenly distributed geographic access to preparation for this cutting-edge, well-compensated, and high-demand field. The timeline you see here reflects the approach that we will take to ensuring our cybersecurity students have what they need to enter this workforce competitively. In addition to a focus on cybersecurity competencies, we are working directly with our math and social studies specialists to integrate ethics, global citizenship, and data science coursework.

[01:29:52] In doing so, we will ensure that not only will our students be bringing the credentials necessary to secure cybersecurity jobs, but will possess the global citizenship and analysis skills to thrive and advance in those positions. We are also actively pursuing partnerships with higher education and business partners to ensure we're building a program that ensures progress toward college diplomas and authentic industry experiences. This timeline shown reflects us welcoming our first class of freshman students for the 26-27 school year, with subsequent grade levels being added as the cohort matriculates through high school.

[01:30:29] In accordance with the pedagogical best practices of backwards design, the dedicated planning team that is building the center will design curriculum, staff the center, and secure the necessary technology tools with the end result of all center students graduating having met the highest industry standards of employment in the field of cybersecurity.

[01:30:48] The credential that allows students to enter in the lucrative and high-demand working world that I just described is the coveted CompTIA Security Plus Certification, administered by the Computing Technology Industry Association. With this certification, students can secure entry to mid-level cybersecurity jobs, including systems, network and security administrators, security analysts, security engineer, and others.

[01:31:11] They can also use the certification to enter higher education with a diable grounding in information security, logic, and computing that gives them a significant advantage of their peers who are only just beginning their cybersecurity journey. You might be wondering how can students and families connect with our centers throughout the course of the school year?

[01:31:31] Information about specialty centers has traditionally been shared through the county website, eighth grade sessions during the school day, information sessions at the beginning of the school year, and open house events at each of the specialty centers. We have maintained these channels while expanding our outreach in accordance with community feedback.

[01:31:47] This outreach has focused on direct work with and at our middle schools we actively partner with school counselors to ensure that they have the information they need to serve as a point of contact for families and students with questions and needs. We maintain an active presence at middle school open houses to ensure that students develop a full understanding of their high school options as rising sixth graders and as noted previously host an annual fair for seventh graders to engage with our centers so that they can begin planning for the fall application window during their eighth grade year. We have expanded our public information sessions by adding a Saturday option that has increased attendance by hundreds of participants

[01:32:23] over the last two years and have continued offering open houses at each of our centers. We've also added virtual multilingual information session options to the Office of Family and Community Engagement Bridge Builders events. Finally, in collaboration with our communications office, we have created translated information material, informational materials for fifth grade families and updated center websites to ensure families have ongoing accessible access to the information they and their students need. And finally, I wanted to close today with images of the happy and fulfilled students that come to our specialty centers every day. It is a true pleasure to be able to work with them and the dedicated educators who deliver such amazing experiences

[01:33:03] to our students on a daily basis. As I noted, there are some of our specialty center directors in attendance today, and I want to take another chance to publicly thank you all so much for everything you do for our students. I'd also like to express my gratitude to our division leadership team and the board for the administrative and fiscal support that enables us to realize our broader mission and vision. And at this time, I thank you for listening and I'm more than happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you for the presentation, colleagues. I will start off with Mr. Young. Thank you so much for this presentation. I can't say it enough. I'm super

[01:33:41] excited about cybersecurity at Henrico. You all know it. We talked about it a couple of times. I've been wanting another specialty center at Henrico High School since I left Henrico High school, so I'm thrilled about it. I do have a couple questions pertaining to all specialty centers before we drill down on Henrico. Are any of our specialty centers seeing decrease in enrollment or interest right now? Our centers have fluctuated year to year, typically. Over the course of this application window, and Ms. Lambert can correct me if I'm wrong, I believe applications were up across all of our centers, so each center saw an increase in applications. We're currently

[01:34:16] at the point where those directors are evaluating applications and extending offers. So updated enrollment numbers, we don't know exactly, but applications are up across the board and we'll be happy to share additional data as we get the enrollment updates. Yeah. And that's exciting because I heard us say that Henrico was the first specialty center, 1990, and to still have children and students applying and it'd be robust is amazing. Almost what, 30 years now, or 40 matter of fact so i'm pleased to see that um as it in layman's terms what's the difference

[01:34:53] between henrico's cyber security program and highland springs ace is it the certification at the end the certification pathway is a little different i believe typically our ace center students are pursuing the network plus and security plus certification additionally because we're able to build out the english math social science coursework around the core cte coursework it just provides a broader more comprehensive experience some students may elect to to do a more abbreviated experience to get to you know manage a very specific goal but and we know that

[01:35:33] appeals to students because of all the interest we have in our a centers but others prefer a fuller sort of more comprehensive experience. So we certainly feel like we're filling a need while not sacrificing any of our other programming. And I think that's the part I like about it. If maybe you don't get in as an eighth grader, you still have an opportunity to pursue your passion with the CTE side of things. So I really, um, I love that about it. Um, when we look in that cybersecurity at Henrico, are any of the courses going to be dual enrollment courses? So I mentioned we're currently exploring partnerships with, um, with higher education partners. So it is absolutely

[01:36:09] our goal to ensure that we can make as many of those courses eligible for dual enrollment as possible. Again, with the end result of getting students as close to whether it be an associate's degree or a bachelor's degree as possible by the time we're done. And we're, again, still exploring those, but are excited about some possibilities we have. I mean, when we're looking at it, they actually can enter the workforce upon leaving high school. And I've just pulled up indeed.com just to see what a security plus certification pays and it looks like the median is around 60,000 and that's right out of high school what costs will be

[01:36:45] associated with this program for our students so one of the first steps was ensuring that we have access to some of the technology the differentiated technology we're going to need similar to what we were able to do at the Center for Communication securing lab materials for that was a was a priority and that was included in Mr. Wack's budget today so we're really excited to have had that support as a first step. I think your question was cost to students. Right. Yeah, cost to students.

[01:37:11] No, there wouldn't be. There wouldn't be. But we, of course, as you saw in the budget presentation, have already accounted for the technology and infrastructure upgrades. And then, of course, you'd see in the next fiscal year some of those staffing costs. And did I miss it? How many will be able to enroll as a ninth grader? Was it 25? So in year one, we're looking at rolling 50 students again to start and then with the goal of expanding to that 75 seats per class as we which would be commensurate with our other centers going forward. One more question and then I'm done

[01:37:47] and it's only because I don't know the answer to this. When students are applying to specialty centers, the school that they're applying to, is there a certain percentage allocated to that school for kids to come in and enroll into a specialty center or is it wide open to all students so you mean like by middle school feeder and are there let me be more specific um cyber security will the school students zoned for henrico have a certain amount of seats allocated to them that is not our current practice that's what i wanted to know and then you know right we certainly see a lot of students that are zoned to schools

[01:38:24] that just opt to apply there because it's close but that's something going forward that we can certainly explore and research on. And throughout your presentation, I love the fact that diversity was mentioned a few times, equity was mentioned a few times. Looks like we're being super intentional about reaching everyone. I'm pleased to see that some of the EDAC recommendations are now happening and it's easier to apply and it's more front-facing. And I'm hearing that the seventh graders are doing field trips to learn more. So great job, great presentation. Once again, I'm super excited about cybersecurity at Henrico, if you can't say, but thank you for the presentation.

[01:38:59] Bye, Cher. Thank you, Mr. Young. Next, we'll go to Mrs. Shea. I'm coming. I'm coming. All right. Hi, thank you so much. Just not a ton of questions here.

[01:39:17] I'm really excited for Mr. Young. I know that this was something that was really important to him, and he brought up in the fall. And so I'm really excited for this opportunity for Henrico High School, but also Henrico County broadly. Mr. Snow, I had comment at question mark written on my comments.

[01:39:37] So I love that you covered that, right? Because we want things to be as streamlined and simple for our students so that everyone has kind of the same baseline access to applying for these programs.

[01:39:54] On that note, when students take the merit-based parts, whether that be like a math assessment or an essay or whatever assessment parts might be included in specialty centers, is that done in a school building or is that done independently outside of school hours?

[01:40:20] So the individual components vary from center to center, but where there is specific testing, it's done during school hours or where where possible i believe auditions and um testing for our dual our spanish center for spanish language and global citizenship at tucker high school may have some uh weekend components that they um where they evaluate students but broadly speaking math assessments english assessments things of that sort are done during the school day awesome thank you if it's not already i would like to advocate for the essay portion of the application also to

[01:40:56] to be done during the school day each year I get quite a bit of feedback and frustration with parents who whether it's accurate or not excuse me they have concern that some other students may have utilized tutors or whatever else to help assist with editing or constructing their essay And so any safeguards or expectations that we can set so that all of the merit pieces, like the testing that you said already happens during the school day, so in our school, so check on that.

[01:41:34] But the essays really reflect our student work and our student ability. And again, that continues to level the playing field so that everyone has the same kind of entry point to the application so that it truly reflects student ability.

[01:41:52] So anyway, thank you for all your tremendous work with our specialty centers. Friends around the country are always blown away when I share how many options we have in Henrico. And so I think that's really important to tapping into our students and their passions and growing them to be life ready.

[01:42:10] Thanks so much. Thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Shea. Mrs. Atkins. Thank you for the update. Thank you to all that participated to get to this point. Congratulations, Mr. Young. Congratulations to Henrico High School community on this specialty center.

[01:42:32] I did have a few questions specifically around equity and access regarding Maggie Walker. I know there wasn't a ton of information because that's not the focus for this presentation. However, I think it's fitting to ask the question during this moment.

[01:42:50] So for our Henrico students that attend Maggie Walker Governor's School, oftentimes, and this is feedback from those students, Sometimes they don't receive some of the opportunities that are available within Henrico County Schools because they are at Maggie Walker Governor's School.

[01:43:11] So I would ask that you and the team have some discussion around how can we make some of our opportunities, for example, I think I saw TEDx or Capstone Projects, TSA, Achievement Programs. How can we make sure that we are inclusive in making sure that they get that information as well?

[01:43:32] It is a delicate balance at the Governor's School, but I do believe a healthy discussion from an equity perspective would be fruitful. Dr. Cashwell, did you have something to add? No, I mean, certainly, you know, agree.

[01:43:47] We want to make sure that we continue to have touch points with students who are residing in Henrico, with henrico county public schools and then choose for their high school experience to attend a regional governor's school so that's great feedback and we'll certainly give it some consideration thank you the other this is probably more of an update and if you don't have an answer now please feel comfortable saying so and getting it to me at another time but i would like an update on transportation for our specialty centers i often get feedback around the hub buses or

[01:44:22] feedback around whether the bus is crowded or the super early times that you have to be at the bus in order to attend a specialty center and while i understand the dynamics around the transportation and ensuring that you can get everyone i absolutely believe we could probably do better in improving our response times our pickup times our take home times and the overall experience once that hub bus does get to its destination and a student hops off to get on to the next bus that's an experience and i would like for us to capture our students experiences a little

[01:45:00] bit better so we can understand how to provide more solutions for that i don't know if any of my other colleagues hear feedback around hub buses and specialty centers but i certainly do sure thank you mrs atkins for that feedback we certainly can get you some informational work with transportation and get that to you we have expanded our partnership with our transportation we've actually invited our transportation folks to attend our information sessions just so that from the from the very top parents have access to clear information from our transportation team transportation team was also actually able to recruit a couple bus drivers at an information session for the center for innovation so it's been a fruitful partnership

[01:45:39] in both directions and one that will continue no i think it's lovely you know all of these different components have to work so closely together to make it right or the best experience possible not just for the student but for the staff as well which leads me to another piece of feedback that i'd like for you to take into consideration is around staffing or monitoring for the hub bus especially when it's frigid temperatures or super hot temperatures i do think we need a monitor there during those times of transition at every high school that has

[01:46:14] a specialty center. All right. Thank you for that feedback. Absolutely. So in terms of funding, can you talk to me a little bit more about some of the specialty centers, of course, have additional costs while they are voluntary, whether it's, you know, fundraising for a uniform or fundraising to be a part of a competition. What are some ways that we can reduce those costs for the students

[01:46:44] and also take that extra amount of responsibility off of the educators or the sponsor of that particular activity? I think the thing that we always try to keep an eye on is identifying sort of where we might see ongoing needs so that we can build up and budget for those and have those be more predictable.

[01:47:07] We can't always predict, you know, a national, an invitation to nationals that we the people, although at this point we probably can with how successful some of our teams have been. but as those come up we try to leverage money that we've saved to support those where we can and we'll continue working with schools to try to do as much of that ourselves to ease the burden that comes with fundraising. I think it would be insightful for decision making to inform us of those competitions that require field trips that we know happen every year. If you could give us what those numbers are when we're looking at the budget perhaps that's an opportunity for us to

[01:47:45] increase the budget or an opportunity to better understand how the money is spent. So we do have some consistent competitions that happen every year. They require field trips. They require sponsors. They require food. And so if you give us as a board that information from a funding perspective, we can better discern what needs to be increased in funding. Yes. Thank you for that.

[01:48:12] And that's all that I have. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Atkins. Mrs. Kinsella? Yes, thank you. Informative presentation have been waiting on this Cybersecurity Center at Henrico to hear more about it.

[01:48:30] And just congratulations, really, not only to Henrico High School and Mr. Young's district, but Henrico Schools. this board ever since I've served on this board relevant programming has been a priority for us so I'm pleased to see that we've offered another opportunity in response to demand because I've watched what's happened to the allied health center at Hermitage that you mentioned right when not everyone can get into the center at Godwin but they still have a medical interest

[01:49:02] Right. So I'm very impressed by that. Do you think part of the allure to the specialty center is the difference in the weighted? The classes are weighted. I mean, my judgment on it, I think the thing that's the biggest draw is just the specialized experience.

[01:49:24] Whether that's about a smaller cohort or just about access to some classes that, for lack of a better way to put it, are just really cool and really unique. And when students see what happens in there, they see it and they say, that's what I want my experience to be.

[01:49:43] I often get asked that question about the difference in the waiting. Is it available on the electives, too, that the electives the students take are weighted? It depends on the specific course. We have criteria at the division level around just criteria for weighting that Liz Parker and her team collaborate with my team on when considering courses and evaluating them.

[01:50:06] So if a course, any course, whether it's inside the center or outside of the center fits that criteria, we seek to provide the weighted credit. I just find it interesting in speaking with the students that because everything is so competitive per the GPA, if you will, not even class rank, right, but GPA, that because of the weighting associated with the centers, students often miss out on opportunities or classes they might take for enjoyment or interest because then their GPA suffers.

[01:50:39] So I just offer that as a, I don't know a way around it, but I just know when students really open up and have real talk, as we've been talking about student voice today with our strategic plan, that's something that I've heard frequently. And I just want to thank Ms. Atkins for bringing up the hub bus for our centers, because the students have certainly shared how early they have to get, you know, depending on where they're traveling around the county.

[01:51:07] So I appreciate Ms. Atkins elevating that. And Mr. Young, thank you for bringing up dual enrollment. I mean, I know this board speaks often about dual enrollment and trying to get their credentialed teachers necessary, right?

[01:51:24] I would like to see dual enrollment available, though, to all students and not just students in specialty centers, right? That's all I had today. I'm very excited about this opportunity because I know the demand is there. So thank you.

[01:51:39] Thank you. Mr. Erwin. Thank you, Mrs. Kinsella. Thank you all for the presentation. I know specialty centers are one of the best things that we do here in Henrico, and oftentimes the demand outstrips the supply. So it's always great to see when we can add more supply to try to meet the demand.

[01:51:59] I know that my district in particular always has a thirst for the specialty community, of the specialty centers and just assuring that ensuring that there is more seats available to meet those those those wants and desires obviously makes me happy so I'm it's a pleasure to see this and it's a pleasure to see all the work that we're doing for our community thank you thank you all right Mr. Irving members of the board that concludes items from me thank you Dr. Cashwell now it's time for unfinished business board members do we have any unfinished business

[01:52:39] hearing none we'll move on to new business colleagues do we have any new business hearing none we want to have the announcement of the meeting dates the next school board meeting is tonight at 6 30 and we will see y'all then this meeting is adjourned

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