Coraggio Consulting
Henrico County School Board Monthly Meeting, Saturday, January 25, 2025

Date: Saturday, January 25, 2025
Place: Henrico County School Board, Virginia
Length: 31m (video)
Official meeting video (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOrtJ_zew_I
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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[00:00:05] good evening and a warm welcome to the january 25th 2024 monthly meeting of the henrico county school board please prepare to receive performance highlights embark on informative conversations and more the first item on our agenda is the approval of the agenda is there a motion to approve the agenda i move that the school board approve the agenda for tonight's meeting Is there a second?

[00:00:36] Second. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The ayes have it, and the agenda is approved. Dr. Cashwell. Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the board, and to our guests and visitors, good evening. For our first item, we'll begin the meeting as we always do with the Pledge of Allegiance, which will be followed by a moment of silence.

[00:00:58] And so I'd ask you to remain standing as you're able for that. And that's going to be followed by our performance highlight. So we're going to go ahead and ask that our students from Mayberry Elementary, who are joined by their principal, Danielle Sims, come forward to introduce the students and prepare to lead us in the pledge.

[00:01:20] Good evening. In front of you, you have our five houses representing one family at Mayberry. We have Tessa Malisi, Ellie Gehring, Henry Marshall, Malaku Marshall, and Alpha Marshall. Please join us in the pledge.

[00:01:41] 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 And we'll now pause for a moment of silence Applause for our Mayberry students And you may be seated Our next item is our performance highlight

[00:02:19] So the board and I are going to make our way to the audience So we can enjoy the students from Godwin As they're being introduced We're going to make our way madam chair members of the board dr cashwell colleagues and guests my name is rick tinsley and i am the retired education specialist for music k-12 it is my pleasure to be with you

[00:02:56] tonight and to introduce for our performance highlight this evening the godwin high school madrigals under the direction of jacob saunders duval mr duval is in his eighth year of teaching serving godwin high school for the last five years the godwin high school music department has a tradition of excellence and annually receives superior ratings throughout the state and choral assessments and competitions. Madrigals will be performing two selections this evening. The first one, You Are the New Day, arranged by Peter Knight and Tara Kita by Renee Esmail. Tonight we

[00:03:31] have an attendant in attendance, their very proud principal, Mrs. Lee Donovan, and we ask that she please stand and be recognized and now please join me in welcoming to our stage the godwin high school

[00:03:48] madrigals under the direction of jacob saunders deval our students from godwin thank you so much

[00:09:04] for joining us and for that amazing performance members of the board madam chair and dr cashwell each year the virginia association for gifted honors a parent teacher administrator or legislature for their exemplary leadership and contributions to gifted education. Tonight I am

[00:09:43] proud to share that our very own Mike DeSalt, director of elementary teaching and learning, was chosen from a pool of highly qualified applicants as the 2023 leader of the year. When we recognized Mr. DeSalt in November, he was unable to join us because he was collaborating with his peers at a national conference. Tonight we are happy to have him join us. Mr. DeSalt, please come up at the dais to be recognized for his outstanding accomplishment.

[00:10:12] According to the Virginia Association for Gifted, an exemplary leader will bring about change that results in improvement in gifted services, advocate for or bring about policy changes affecting significant changes in the curriculum, create a support organization to improve the services and or conditions for teachers and students in gifted programs, and impact gifted education in the state through outstanding leadership or creative innovation. Mr. DeSalt does all of this and more. He is student-focused, curriculum-oriented, and a passionate advocate for gifted education. We are fortunate to have him as a member of our

[00:10:51] Henrico Schools team. Please join me in congratulating Mike DeSalt, the Virginia Association for the Gifted 2023 Leader of the Year. And Madam Chair, that completes our recognition for this evening.

[00:11:25] - Congratulations again, Mr. Dussault. I will circle back just for a moment to the visitors portion. I did want to note that we do have some students and a staff member from Elko Elementary. Here we have Ms. Walker and TSA students who are here working on a project.

[00:11:40] And so we're so pleased to have you with us as guests this evening. Our next item is the Henrico Highlight and an opportunity for us to get a snapshot of the incredible teaching and learning that is happening in schools all across our county each and every day.

[00:11:58] Tonight's highlight takes us on a field trip to a local hardware store where math, science, and career planning are all in stock. Take a look. - You see where we are, we're at a hardware store.

[00:12:14] - All right, let's go to the back. - Thank you. - We decided to have students from Fairfield Middle School come out to Pleasance Hardware. I'm not sure how many of the students had already visited a hardware store, but these are middle school seventh and eighth graders. So for many of them, this was a new experience.

[00:12:30] - And what we have planned for you here today is hopefully a memorable experience. Anybody interested in math or science? Yes, awesome. Now, we're gonna have some panelists come before you, and these are people who are from this community, from our community.

[00:12:47] - I've been doing electrical work for, Since I graduated high school, I do a little bit of everything, but my main thing is carpentry work. I have a license of general maintenance. We wanted to connect students with actual visible beings, actual people who hold careers that implement mathematics and science in an everyday exchange.

[00:13:10] Once I have an idea of what kind of what you want, then we start to look at material costs. So how many 2x4s I would need, how many bags of concrete, screws. So often we, you know, expose children to the ideas of different careers, but we really wanted to emphasize the pathways in getting to those careers in order to access them.

[00:13:30] When you've got a trade, you can sell yourself. You can go anywhere in the country. I'm Kevin. I work here part-time. After that segment with the panel, we moved out of that into the tour. And then after the tour, we broke them into small groups and we had them navigate the store to utilize a scavenger hunt of sorts in which they were having to apply math and science skills.

[00:13:59] - What is the area inside is how big it is. - How much do you get for one hour? - You gotta divide it. - Yes, you gotta divide it, get your calculator. - Well, you gotta do one too many times. - Right, so tell me what you got. - Let's go back, atypical gas-fired furnace generate. We have these big terms with careers and we say content areas even like math and science but what does that look like right and so we wanted the kids to know that hey you are at the age now 12 13 years old where you can actually start thinking about what your life is gonna look like over the next 20

[00:14:38] plus years and you can do it right here right now. It's a hot vapor. Oh so how do you figure this out? Well students tell us they love the scavenger hunt and the opportunity to learn from members of our own community and speaking of community this month we are honoring members of our family and community engagement team, and some very special volunteers as our Heart of Henrico.

[00:15:13] Each day, FACE staff and our family advocates not only look for opportunities to serve and support families, but they also create them. As you will see in tonight's Heart of Henrico video, that sometimes means leaving our schools to meet families where they are.

[00:15:42] year Henrico County Public Schools seek to make sure that we are supporting our students and families who have food insecurity. Our partnership began with Henrico Community Food Bank who have a monthly delivery system where they do intake and they already provide deliveries to families. So that's kind of where the idea kind of sparked that we wanted to partner with them in their efforts to reach in the families, our families, that they're already in touch

[00:16:21] with and this year we did think outside the box and wanted to meet our families where they were and we thought about all of the resources that we have as a department or an office here at Family and Community Engagement and with our family advocates in the schools a lot of them the majority of them also have county vehicles and so as a team we thought it would be great to come together to utilize the resources that we have to again support families and ensure that families get the support that they need by meeting them where they were.

[00:16:56] You're doing your advocate stuff! Our partnership with Enrico government, we work together. As a result, we also solicit volunteers within our sphere of influence to participate. And so Sheriff Gregory said she received an email and she signed up right away.

[00:17:20] This has been an extremely satisfying and gratifying opportunity. I love being able to give back, being able to help people in the community. It's a better feeling than winning the lottery, because you actually know that you're making a difference in somebody's life.

[00:17:47] We were able to not just see the smiles and the grateful expressions of our families, but I started to receive messages via email from families before we even got to them for the opportunity to have the packages being brought to their doorsteps.

[00:18:04] And even in the midst of us doing that, we were just greeted with thank yous, smiles, just grateful, especially some of our families who are non-English speakers. It was so great to be able to interact and engage with families from both sides of the county.

[00:18:22] And that was very important to myself as well as the department to make sure that we are touching from the east end to the west end. And we are honored to have members of our FACE team as well as a few of our incredible community volunteers here with us this evening.

[00:18:45] And our Chief of Family and Community Engagement, Adrienne Cole Johnson, is here to introduce our very special guests. Yes, well, just wanted to say thank you all for recognizing us and would be remiss if we did not recognize our team. So Mrs. Sedesna Menendez, she's the executive director for Henrico County Food Bank.

[00:19:05] Thank you for being here. If the FACE team can stand up, so we have family advocates, community school resources, community school resource coordinators, and several members of our central office team. I know our work is often very quiet, but it really speaks volumes to the students, families, and communities that we touch.

[00:19:26] So thank you all so much. Adrienne, our special guest, members of the FACE team, you are the heart of Henrico. Thank you so very much for your incredible contributions to our community.

[00:19:45] And Madam Chair, that concludes Highlights and the Heart of Henrico item. Thank you, Dr. Cashwell. the next item on our agenda is the Henrico County Public Schools mission statement. Madam Vice Chair, would you please read the statement? Absolutely. Henrico County Public Schools, an innovative leader in educational excellence, will actively engage our students in diverse educational, social, and civic learning experiences that inspire and empower them to become contributing citizens.

[00:20:18] thank you mrs shea the next item is our public form this is a time when citizens are invited to address the school board on any matter of concern about the school division citizens have signed up in advance and will be given three minutes to address the school board speakers will be called to speak in the order in which they signed up and may not relinquish their spot to someone else we ask that each speaker come to the microphone and clearly state your name and school affiliation

[00:20:52] if applicable and the subject of your remarks before speaking after stating your name please place the number you were given in the cart near the podium speakers must present their remarks to the school board not the audience and may provide copies of their comments to the school board clerk the use of obscenity or defamation is strictly prohibited and will be ruled out of order to assist you in tracking your time there is a time keeping system displaying the elapsed time on the

[00:21:30] screen speakers will also receive a notice from me when the time has expired the school board is here today to see you and hear from you we will not be responding to speakers concerns or questions during the public forum however a henrico staff member will follow up with speakers stakeholders have also had the opportunity to provide written comments through an online forum in advance of the meeting those comments are shared with the school board members prior to the meeting and posted in

[00:22:07] board docs equal consideration and attention will be given to both written and in-person comments we appreciate you being here your attendance is important this evening and for providing your input speaker number one would you please approach the microphone and podium speaker number two

[00:22:41] please approach the podium good evening madam chair members of the board dr cashwell my name is marlene sherlock and i live in the fairfield district we are zoned for the brooklyn district with the Greenwood, Hungry Creek, and Glen Allen Pyramid, and our children attend in the Three-Chop District at Tucker High School.

[00:23:15] There's not much on today's agenda, but I just briefly wanted to ask you to reconsider your policy P2-05-004, which is stakeholder participation, and particularly the requirement to sign up by 4.30 the day before.

[00:23:34] It's not hard. You can do it online or you can call Ms. Tiffany. Thank you for taking my phone call. But it's not real obvious on your website. You've got to scroll all the way down and you have to open up this tab to even see that you have to sign up in advance.

[00:23:56] So let me contrast that with the Henrico County Board of Supervisors. Their prospective speakers are allowed to sign up in advance, but they are not required to. There is no time limit.

[00:24:12] although they're asked to keep their comments reasonable. And the board actually does on occasion interact with the speakers. In addition, members of the public are allowed to participate virtually. And to me, that seems like a much more 21st century way to encourage civic engagement and discourse. And finally, I know you'll have an official budget hearing in February,

[00:24:41] But I was listening at your work session earlier today, and I'd like to thank all of you for speaking out on the two issues of class size and transportation. Our children attend a specialty center, and transportation is an issue.

[00:24:59] And I know it's an issue at Glen Allen with buses routinely arriving late. And a special thank you to Ms. Adkins for thinking outside the box and asking if we couldn't consider something other than a yellow school bus. And finally, looking forward to the spring for the Student Code of Conduct, let's take a look at our cell phone policy.

[00:25:23] I think we need to address the cell phones in the classroom and the vaping in the bathrooms. Thank you. Thank you very much for your comments. Dr. Cashwell.

[00:25:39] the next item are consent items and they can be taken in a block so I'm seeking your approval for the consent items and if you'd like any separated out for discussion they can be otherwise you're able to vote on them as a block colleagues do we have any feedback questions before we move forward with the motion is there a motion a move that the school board accept approve and or award items

[00:26:18] 9.01 through 9.10 on the consent agenda as presented. Is there a second? Second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The ayes have it. Motion approved. Dr. Cashwell? Thank you. No

[00:26:38] other items from me. The next item on the agenda is unfinished business. Colleagues, are there any unfinished business. All right, moving along. Next item is new business items. We do have one

[00:27:11] new business item from Mrs. Kinsella on committee reports. Kinsella, the floor is yours. Thank you so much, Chair Atkins. I'm going to begin this evening by giving a brief update from January 17th Multilingual Advisory and Partnership Committee meeting.

[00:27:30] At the meeting, we focused on welcoming our new members since it was the beginning of the year, invited new feedback, specifically comments were received around the Welcome Center and all of the resources available there.

[00:27:48] Our advocates brought feedback to the committee for consideration. It was both good, positive feedback of all the things that we've put in place, and then we did receive some comments around communication support for some of our multilingual families, as not everyone uses technology, and they don't always know where to go, right?

[00:28:11] Like, as we know, when the language is easier for us, and as is technology, everything is out online, you just have to know where to go. Also, our advocates and community support Mount community partners ask for some assistance with our families around technology.

[00:28:29] And then that about covers our meeting. Please know our next meeting is scheduled for March 20th. And then the next update I bring to you this evening is our Business Advisory Committee.

[00:28:45] In lieu of this month's Business Advisory Committee, members of the committee attended and supported our Career Rodeo held this week at the Exhibition Hall at the Richmond Raceway. For those of you that don't know, the Career Rodeo is an event where our ACE students get to show what they know to potential employers. And I'd like to specifically shout out our Director of Workforce and Career Development, Mr. Mac Baton, who's with us tonight, and also thank everyone on your team for outdoing yourselves yet again this year in support of our

[00:29:20] students. And here's a brief summary just by the numbers of the event. We had a total of 480 seniors participate from all three of our advanced career education centers. We had 101 different local businesses attend with the total headcount representing those companies of 350 people. Please note that this does not include the businesses that attended the HEF and Rec. Education Foundation luncheon preceding the event. We also had four school divisions who came to observe the event

[00:29:58] with the goal for them of replicating what we do here in Henrico. They want to replicate a career rodeo of their own in their district. And the last bit of data I'm excited to share is that 593 resumes were requested by employers and I've heard that at least five of our students were hired on the spot. So during the next month, our team will be working with the ACE Center students on interview preparation as the businesses reach out to our students for interview opportunities

[00:30:31] with them. And then lastly this evening, please save the date for our CTE Letter of Intent Signing Day, which is similar to the signing day that happens in sports, right? Whether it's college or the NFL or whatever sport you watch, we have that for our students here in Enrico.

[00:30:51] And that date for celebration is April 24th. Madam Chair, that concludes my updates this evening. Thank you so much, Mrs. Kinsella. The last item on our agenda is the announcement of meeting dates. The school board's next meeting will be a work session scheduled on Thursday, February 8th, 2024.

[00:31:14] and a budget public hearing at 5 30. the meeting time may be adjusted as needed this meeting is adjourned

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