Coraggio Consulting
Henrico County School Board Work Session, Thursday, March 13, 2025

Date: Thursday, March 13, 2025
Place: Henrico County School Board, Virginia
Length: 3h 13m (video)
Official meeting video (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEHQwlUBHoI
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.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

[00:00:00] Good afternoon. Welcome to the Thursday, March 13th, 2025 work session of the Henrico County School Board. We will start our meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance and moment of silence.

[00:00:21] Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the board. If everyone would please stand as you're able for the Pledge of Allegiance, which will be followed by a moment of silence. 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 remain

[00:00:47] standing as you're able for a moment of silence and you may be seated thank you dr cashwell the next item on the agenda is the approval of the agenda colleagues do i have a motion i move that the school board approve the agenda for today's meeting thank you mr irving do i have a second second seconded by miss kinsella all those in favor say aye aye any opposed the ayes have it

[00:01:26] the agenda has been approved dr cashwell i'll turn it over to you thank you members of the board the first presentation we have is an update on the division's response to employee engagement and feedback we're pleased to be able to provide you a comprehensive update on much of the work that's been underway for quite some time and mrs holly koi is going to kick us off great thank you good afternoon chair shea vice chair irving members of the board and dr cashwell i am pleased to bring an update to you this afternoon on the work of the division to respond to the feedback we've been gathering from employees since last summer about contracts, compensation,

[00:02:06] and their levels of engagement as HCPS employees. As a quick recap, there have been a number of inflection points in this work over the last year that have brought us to this update today. Last spring, the board requested a comprehensive report that included information on collective bargaining in Virginia, as well as employee engagement in HCPS. Throughout the summer, staff conducted research, created and deployed a new survey for all HCPS staff, and hosted focus groups to provide the board and division leaders with a timely and multi-layered analysis. A report

[00:02:43] was then provided to the board and the public in September, and in October, the board shared their budget priorities developed in response, as well as requests for other responsive administrative actions today's presentation provides a progress report on those requests and actions as i noted in october you clearly articulated spending priorities and priorities related to policies and operations part of that statement is included here today and today's presentation provides updates on these items before proceeding to the progress update i wanted to provide a quick

[00:03:23] overview of what we heard from employees last summer which has been the foundation of the work and the requests that you all made as you recall we focused on three major feedback mechanisms the 2024 hcps annual survey a summer 2024 employee engagement survey and the summer 2024 employee focus groups employees share their feedback about what they most value about their employment in hcps and areas where they see opportunities for improvement notably many ranked highly their relationships with colleagues, opportunities for professional growth, and wages.

[00:04:02] Others ranked contractual matters, including compensation and working conditions, along with recognition mechanisms as areas for improvement as a division. Some of the highlights from those surveys are provided here. However, I want to note that the detailed reports previously shared on each of these provide nuanced feedback by employee type, which have also guided the work. In the summer 2024 survey, employees were asked to rank areas which they would like to change, with one being their highest priority. As you saw in the last slide, 60% of survey respondents selected their contract as the thing they would most like to

[00:04:41] change about their employment. This graph shows how all employee groups rank different areas they would like to change. Drilling in a bit further, this graph illustrates what the survey respondents meant by contracts. Over 60% of the survey respondents who selected contracts as the priority area for improvement, they were asked which topics within that were of the greatest concern. Compensation, which was defined as wages, salary, and/or pay for extra duties or coverage, was the clear priority, followed by benefits such as health insurance and retirement benefits.

[00:05:20] Leave policies, planning time, and work hours also receive significant attention. Outside of contracts 22 percent of employees cited the work environment and resources as the next highest priority area for change this graph illustrates what respondents meant by work environment and resources in greater detail so based on that and the more nuanced feedback behind it that was gathered and presented by staff the board shared their overarching budget priorities and made a request for specific administrative actions to respond to that employee feedback at that time

[00:06:00] the board announced their budget priority for the coming year as raises for all staff specific market adjustments for certain employee groups such as instructional assistants and custodial and maintenance teams second you noted the capital improvement increases to support roofing mechanical and transportation needs and third the expansion of the opportunity school model to support schools with higher rates of teacher turnover and provisionally licensed staff additionally you requested internal work begin to address employee concerns as noted in the lighter blue boxes here

[00:06:33] as hcps leaders have dug into these topics further we've done so in partnership with many different advisory committees work groups and regularly scheduled convenings of various employee groups some of these are long-standing groups some have existed for a bit but were redesigned this year and others were created new this year but they all share common purpose in ensuring that employees from many different parts of the organization have the opportunity to surface issues and shape the solutions to shared challenges.

[00:07:11] One example of a redesigned advisory committee is the superintendent's teacher advisory committee. This year, the membership of the group was expanded with the number of representatives from each building going up to three as a maximum, and with more representation from each building, we have sought to strengthen communication flow in both directions.

[00:07:32] Additionally, this year, a steering committee made up of the Teacher of the Year finalists from each magisterial district was created for the first time to guide the work of the larger group. The format of the monthly meetings has been restructured to center employee concerns and hot topics, and public meeting summaries are created by staff so that teachers can easily share back updates at their buildings.

[00:07:55] This redesign continues to be an evolving work in progress, refined and shaped by the feedback provided by teachers both on and off the committee about how it can be most effective. So where has all this input gone and what has it turned into?

[00:08:12] First and foremost, employee input has informed the budget recommendations of the superintendent and the school board. At the board's last monthly meeting, a recommended financial plan was approved, which is directly responsive to the feedback employees provided.

[00:08:30] It prioritizes significant pay raises, invests in planning time and professional learning, and elevates staff recognition efforts in every school in the county by providing funding to each and every school for that purpose. It also transforms an existing central position to support that work and employee recognitions division-wide.

[00:08:53] Furthermore, the budget responds directly to employee requests for improved working conditions with targeted investments in staff support, including more English learner teachers, counselors, and SSOs. It includes raises for custodial and maintenance staff, which were designed to better recruit and retain our essential personnel.

[00:09:11] and our capital improvement requests reflect those building needs as well the budget also included funds to expand the opportunity school model including its compensation incentives and additional staff support for ratcliffe elementary and brooklyn middle beginning in the fall of 2025.

[00:09:30] finally the capital improvement plan proposed this year reflects the need for increased investments in roofing mechanical to include hvac and all part of improving our physical infrastructure that is both working environment for our staff and learning environment for our students. Additionally, one of the administrative requests was to look into automated timekeeping for HCPS employees.

[00:09:55] Staff explored numerous add-on systems and those conversations converged with a new pilot underway for redesigned staff IDs in HCPS. It is possible that the new staff IDs may integrate with timekeeping systems but we will be evaluating that as the pilot concludes at the end of the school year as was noted earlier a great deal of feedback was provided by employees about expectations and compensation for their time so since the summer staff have been digging into this topic with various employee groups to identify more specific areas of concern and brainstorm ways

[00:10:34] in which clarity and or change can be provided a new working group was created on the topic and the issues have been surfaced among many of our other existing advisories and committees namely our teacher advisory committee as a result of these conversations staff have drafted a new document to help provide clarity on frequently cited topics called a contract addendum this document will be attached to our continuing and probationary teacher contracts which are issued in may the document will provide plain language clarity on things such as expectations for after school events and a breakdown of the days and hours in a teacher's contract staff has also

[00:11:13] worked on proposed revisions to 14 corresponding policies which we anticipate coming before the board for first review on march 27th these policies touch on everything from contracts to professional learning expectations to planning time and duties finally these conversations have included feedback on changes to the leave policy for our staff those discussions are ongoing and staff is continued to work continuing to work on some potential options for board consideration later this spring in addition to taking action with redesigned advisories contract addendums

[00:11:51] and policy changes we continuously evaluate and see feedback on how our communications can be as clear and efficient as possible this year we developed a new page on the website dedicated to the budget process and information about how hcps spends its money additionally we are continuing conversations with teachers about how we communicate information about the pay scale given our unique model and how we can communicate the clarity provided in the contract addendum. We also continue to use all our regular communication channels to keep our HCPS staff informed and apprised of developments. I want to

[00:12:30] close the presentation with some words from one of our employees who participated in a focus group last summer. "They're always trying to grow something and make it better. We're always changing, but I know that change is trying to make it better as well so while you've heard a progress update on specific actions and items today the conversations are ongoing and the commitment to meaningful and impactful employee feedback is widespread as an organization the continuous improvement mindset this employee noted is one that persists in all we do at this time i'd be happy to answer any questions you may

[00:13:06] have thank you so much ms coy i will start to my right with ms kinsella thank you chair shay I'm waiting. I've been waiting for this update and not as a board member because I've been aware of the work going on behind the scenes, right?

[00:13:26] But bringing this update public so that all of our employees hopefully will be made aware that outside of our tremendous proposed budget announcement, They really haven't heard a whole lot, right, about the feedback they gave last spring, summer, and fall, right?

[00:13:47] So I'm thrilled that this is, especially slides 11 to 14, that details so much of the feedback and the efforts, the work behind the scenes that they haven't heard about yet. So that's great.

[00:14:03] That's great to me. I'm not going to go into really any more detail than I have before. Every employee wants to be seen, heard, and valued. And I think that the responses on slides 11 to 14 do that.

[00:14:20] I continue to see in the public comment contract clarity. I want to negotiate my contract. And as one of our board of supervisors said, and I'm going to ask you since you've been in these focus groups, Do employees have, do they think they can actually, like in private sector where you can negotiate when you are hired, is there an understanding that negotiate my contract doesn't mean individuals negotiating their contract?

[00:14:50] Do you think that's understood from our employee groups? I think as a general statement, yes, that's understood. There's always some variation there, but on the whole, I would say, yes, there's an understanding. And given our structure, I mean, as we discussed in the fall, that with different localities have different structures, right?

[00:15:12] The school side with their government counterparts. So given ours with the unified pay plan, I'm thrilled. Everyone on the school side gets 6% raises, as does the government side, right? And in localities where collective bargaining has moved forward, both sides generally agree on moving forward with that, whereas it would change our entire financial structure in Henrico.

[00:15:38] So I think really what this presentation demonstrates is on slides to 1114 specifically is so it captures everything outside and it doesn't change our structure that we currently have with the unified pay plan and with our government counterparts.

[00:15:56] So I'm thrilled because I know everyone on this team has worked nonstop, including the board and dialogue since we brought this forward to even before we asked Dr. Cashwell. we were all talking about it. So I'm just thrilled.

[00:16:12] I'm thrilled and thank the team because there's been a lot of work. And then one question, how will we monitor our success with this? Like, do we have a plan for follow-up? I mean, the feedback is ongoing outside of, right, this employee engagement and employee voice.

[00:16:34] We do care about employee voice. So how will we move forward? we have a plan for that yet absolutely i think um as i noted at the end there this mindset that we are always growing and changing and listening and adjusting is what resonated with that particular employee and while sometimes that change comes with bumps um that that they recognize the system is continuously striving to do that and so as we learn from these experiences this year and others that weren't even mentioned in the presentation i think we'll carry that forward into yet another school year and beyond as we think about the structure of advisory committees

[00:17:14] or the communication tools that we use around the contract addendum i mean you heard updates about the work happening so far but that is by no means the end of the of the work plan it lives on and and we'll learn inevitably from what we've done this year and hopefully build on that in the future so to be nimble and responsive even outside of a budget cycle absolutely okay thank you so much chair shea thank you miss ginsella mr irving yeah thank you for the for the presentation i i greatly appreciate i too was in waiting eagerly for us to be able to present this to the public

[00:17:50] and i and it was especially enlightening uh in response to some of the things that i had heard when i was at the strategic planning committee meeting yesterday um and so i you know encourage folks to tune in to listen to what was going to be presented today and i and i i hope that that is useful to them um so i do want to go through a couple things um because while i think much of this is great i think that there is some clarity that needs to be um illuminated on to make sure that we we have an understanding of how we want to progress um i noticed that it says from the

[00:18:24] highlights from the hdps staff summer 2024 how much weight are we giving to the engagement survey survey that had a 22% response rate? Are we letting that guide the entire thing or is that just a piece of the puzzle? I would say any one of the surveys, the focus groups, as well as the ongoing conversations are all different perspectives and different layers. So our HCPS annual survey, last year I think it was in the 64% range response from our employees. The summer engagement survey

[00:18:58] survey was a 26% from our employees, but we recognize that that does not encompass everybody. The focus groups obviously are a small number of our employees, but we continue to engage in both formal and informal structures to seek out and respond to feedback we get wherever we can.

[00:19:20] That's great to hear because I think we would be remiss if we were just only using one survey rather than an amalgamation of things. And if I might add to that, I think Mrs. Coy explained it exactly. That was a good launching point, right, to triangulate those survey sources, looking at all three of those pieces of information, to gather where are some starting points, what are common threads we're hearing from employees about big topics.

[00:19:47] And that's what got us started with this work, but you know, then we were able to spend time, example in TAC where you have a larger representative sample from all across the school saying here's what we think we need to begin to work on for example with the contract addendum does this resonate does it make sense they've been a part of building that language alongside us we've brought iterations to them they've been able to weigh in what further questions do you have and I think all along the way it's fair to say there wouldn't be any one data set driving this but really that ongoing dialogue across employee groups i appreciate that clarity um it says that staff

[00:20:26] consistently recommended improvements to feedback mechanisms and recognition efforts so how do you think we will um how will employee feedback mechanisms not be reactive like how will we make sure that they are being responded to in real time and how will the employees themselves know that their feedback is actually being adopted yes again I think there are a lot of different layers to that that piece of the work certainly with formal advisories having conversations about where their feedback is what the ongoing process is on various topics whether it's contract addendums

[00:21:05] or other topics I know we've we've been really intentional about that in some of our formal advisory committees but we've also had conversations with our school leaders during leadership convenings about this very feedback we got last summer and what how that translates at the building level formally and informally to ensure that everyone understands the importance of being responsive and recognizing that that may play out in lots of different ways in different places across an organization as large as ours because i think in some of my conversations with some very involved teachers they the common complaint seems to be that their for example

[00:21:43] TAC representatives don't actually ask them what they want them to bring with them to the committee and then don't convey the actual information from the committee back to them and I feel like that's a huge missed opportunity and I think in selecting these members you would naturally want it to be people who are going to be communicative and not people who just go and then come back and don't do anything with the information because that's a feedback loop that that's missing and I think it frustrates people who would like to take part in the efforts but have not been able to thus far.

[00:22:17] Absolutely and I noted in the presentation particularly around TAC listening to feedback from members both on and off the committee for that very reason that the perspectives of the those who serve on TAC provides one perspective but often those in the building who may or may not be seeing those connections can help strengthen our work in the long run with their feedback yeah yeah and i think the feedback is a a necessarily difficult part in terms of like and what am i saying at the building level like actually doing and i think of myself as a teacher and i don't even know how i would ever feel like that's happening without some sort of

[00:22:55] organization that's actually ensuring that my my thoughts and others thoughts are are being heard in a manner that actually commands you know a response to them so i i think that that's going be a challenging thing and i hope we're able to figure it out but that's the part that i do worry about a lot um going to the if you could improve one aspect of your sorry yeah one aspect of your um for those who selected contracts so we'll go to the contracts i'm um i'm looking no i'm actually not looking at that um i think that the compensation piece is obviously huge um you know teachers on

[00:23:34] average make around 18 to 20 percent less than those who are similarly educated so I can certainly understand why compensation is a big piece I think that we're doing a great job keeping up and I hope that folks are you know happy with the direction that we're moving on that recognizing that there's more to do there's more state level involvement that frankly needs to be done in the state carrying its share of its commitment but all of that seems unsurprising to me I do think that um you know the the benefits and leave policy i i think that some of these are

[00:24:10] tough to disaggregate from one another because a leave policy to me does feel like an employee benefit and i and i think when ranking these things in the surveys it makes it maybe somewhat difficult to know exactly what people mean on a given topic um i do want to turn to the environment and resources because i think that's maybe somewhat more interesting um people list working conditions and student behavior as their two most important factors and for me as a teacher i think working conditions student behavior and class sizes are all the same thing like they all feed

[00:24:47] into one another and i and i think with results like this it becomes hard to know exactly what somebody means because a working condition is the amount of kids that you have in your class and it is the student behaviors that occur and student behaviors are that occur are influenced by your class size which means that your teacher may not be able to give you as much time and so I worry you know how we like which one needs to be solved first in which order and I think it makes a answering questions like this a little bit more challenging in terms of knowing exactly what people mean but I do think that you know student behavior is certainly a factor

[00:25:27] and that's going to be solved differently than class sizes are going to be solved and working conditions like AC and you know your ability to be able to use the restroom quickly in the middle of the day after you've been standing on your feet for three hours is going to be different from you know making sure that a student had accountability for the type of behavior that they engaged in so I think these things it's hard to know exactly what people mean in each in each category I do agree with the contracts point that they must be expanded language clarity especially very plain spoken language is extremely important so I'm glad to hear that that's happening I think that having every single

[00:26:06] thing defined is super important so there is no ambiguity because that is something that I hear and I think that people who put more detail in clarity regarding other dues to sign as the last thing is more so that they don't know that there's anything else than that because I think when you've only taught in Virginia well then that's just what the contracts have always said so you probably don't even think anything of it um but i think that people who come from another state where contracts are 50 pages you look at that and you're thinking how is this thing only a page and a half um so i think that's an important thing for me that i think once folks see what is spelled out

[00:26:41] it's going to really um spark something in them that i think that they maybe didn't realize previously so i'm glad to hear that we're doing that and i do hope that it is expansive um the planning time protections so that was that's con that that i think that's part of the con the contractional obligations i think having planning time commitments put into the contract is extremely important from my perspective and i do hope that that's a point that we'll be we'll be moving towards um i think being able to go to your contract and say this is how much time

[00:27:18] i'm supposed to have every day is is extremely important while recognizing there are situations where you can be compensated if that's encumbered upon but um i think especially of my the elementary school teachers who i think even with our 83 permanent positions still are not consistently getting the con the planning time that they're supposed to have i know that that varies widely by schools and i think it needs to be explicitly stated that these are there for that purpose and that purpose only because i think when principals get leeway over how these folks can

[00:27:53] be used well then they may not actually be used for planning time and then that's unfair to some teachers at some school who don't get it because the principals use it for other things and then compared to other schools where their principals do use it exactly as they should and do provide that extra planning time because i think of my mother-in-law who was a first grade teacher for i think 31 or 32 years and you know just having to walk kids and you barely get a bathroom break and all this time and then planning time really maybe is just taking a break for like 25 minutes because you've been on your feet all day with a bunch of seven-year-olds and so I think that's

[00:28:28] that that's extremely important to me to make sure that these positions are used the way that they are supposed to be used because if they're not used that way then we can on paper say that we're giving them 45 minutes of planning time but they're not actually getting that and that I think drives dissatisfaction amongst our elementary school staff the leave policy that was what slide was that the leave policy that was that was some of the stuff that's coming later oh um employee driven contract and policy clarity uh leave policy i i think something that

[00:29:03] i would like to see is a combination of personal and sick leave insofar as we are legally you know by by state and federal laws allowed to do that i would like to see a combination of the two i think that many schools already use them pretty interchangeably and so removing the distinction is probably maybe not in reality changing anything but gives more leeway to the schools who are maybe not using it that way and having some fairness to how it's done across the division. I'd also like folks to be able to take hour increments. I think from a fiscal standpoint, giving teachers the

[00:29:43] ability to take an hour at the end of the day versus having to hire a sub for half a day or full day would save money over the long term and it just is easier to get a teacher in your department to cover during that period of time thinking of middle school and high school than it is to just necessarily bring in a sub especially if it's a school where it's really hard to get subs so i i think the hour increments could be a pretty big piece that folks would appreciate another thing that i think is not on here that i would love to see and i would love to talk to my colleagues about is i don't know what the name would be exactly but i think a teacher time

[00:30:19] impact statement so any new initiative or any new thing that we're adding to people's plates and it wouldn't just be teachers it would be staff we need to calculate how much time this new thing that we're going to be adding on is going to add to their day because something that i heard from especially veteran teachers yesterday and i hear all the time is what they care about when you've taught for over 15 years and what somebody who has taught for under five years cares about are very different things and i think for the especially the more veteran folks time is

[00:30:55] just so important to them and when we just keep on adding things and adding things and we don't take things away um we we do a good we do a big disservice to them and i think that's what drives them out more so than the pay and anything else is just feeling like i don't have enough time to do everything that doesn't encroach on my family and so i think really actually quantifying how much time this thing is going to add is very important in considering what we're going to put on them and if we are going to put something on them what are we taking away as well to reduce the amount of time burden that we're putting on them so that's something I would like to say I

[00:31:33] don't know what we call it it's similar to an environmental impact statement where you have to do assessments of what the environmental impact is going to be this would be a time impact statement and I think you know yesterday the the veteran versus new teachers they have have different needs. I think we're doing a ton to try to make being a new teacher easier and we should because we need new folks coming into the profession but I don't want us to forget about the folks who have been here a long time like thinking of my mom who in year 28 is thinking I don't need to sit at this data meeting because you know I get a 100% pass rate on my SOLs and so different

[00:32:09] people have different needs and I think we need to appreciate that and do more to work with people who are you know clearly masters of their craft and do what they're supposed to and never cause any issues um and i think and i think just you know because mrs kinsella brought it up i think it's important to also separate all of this from collective bargaining because all of these things are very different these surveys that we did were not to even discuss collective bargaining the people the staff were never asked about it and so these things are separate from that so i think it's important when looking at this to recognize that this is a different thing that is

[00:32:48] being pursued than that and it addresses different concerns that people may have but I thank you for this and I thank you for let me take this time to ask questions and share thoughts thank you Mr. Irving Mr. Young thank you Ms. Coy for the presentation here today Madison said a lot so I'm gonna piggybacking that try to repeat but i like a lot of things that he said um some of the things that i picked up was i do concur with being able to take an hour here hour there and i often wonder

[00:33:24] why something hasn't been in place yet so my only question is what are the challenges um to being able to take an hour here or hour there at the end or beginning of the day happy to chime in and welcome other thoughts so we have started talking with some of our our various employee groups about this it's something that emerged specifically in the comments last year along with kind of this idea of combined time and the concerns are are logistical and substitute in nature how do you find a sub if there isn't a teacher to cover can we provide the right supports for our students at the end of the day while providing that flexibility to our teachers and i would say that while those

[00:34:03] have been challenges that i think um has shaped the current state of policy related to leave i don't think that there's any reason those are a hindrance in us looking at other options and that's certainly what we're doing as we're exploring and mentioned we'll be bringing in the spring some policy revisions for you to consider as we're working with the team to really understand what are those leave policy changes that may be made also taking into considerations important factors related to the logistics of running a school day program that meets needs of our students as well so we'll look forward to sharing some some revised policy

[00:34:41] language with you in the spring okay and since we only use policy um has the automated time keeping palette progressing so we initially looked into a number of different kind of add-on software systems um that that other organizations use um and didn't get great traction on any of the things initially explored meanwhile we're working on a pilot for staff ids kind of following the work around student ids that has previously been done there may be some options there as we dig into the pilot we're learning more and more so i think time will tell whether or not those two efforts will

[00:35:19] converge into a seamless solution on the timekeeping front and if not then we'll pivot and and look at other options that might be available to us and if you don't mind is there was there a school chosen or certain group of teachers i can get that for you yes i don't remember offhand okay thank you we can we can cover that at another time um so around the um contract language and clarity um has this been a topic in tech yes okay and what was the initial response from teachers outside of the survey um regarding the planned contract clarity improvement yeah um i would say

[00:35:57] on the whole always variations but on the whole it was really enthusiastic both um with the questions that were asked just by the questions that were asked we learned a lot about where we haven't communicated well what's what's in our current contracts um i there was one particular teacher we did some small groups who said to me after we could spend hours on this topic and it wouldn't be enough so um there was definitely a sense that the the conversation needed more depth um and they brought a lot of energy as well as really great just perspectives to the conversation one of the things we've learned as we've had these contract conversations you know we've

[00:36:33] we've bounced this contract addendum around um this could be a source of clarity um but i think the appetite from all of our employee groups has been more and more and more nuanced clarity is helpful and so we can't pack all of that into the addendum itself uh and so are already thinking about okay what are the other communication tools is it an faq document other things we can do to unpack that even further given the appetite and the energy that came to the conversation speaking of you said hours and hours on the topic is there a dashboard or some formalized tool for tracking ongoing initiatives that maybe employees can access or even the school board can access to

[00:37:13] know what's going on in tax to mr urban's point about maybe that information not getting back to our teachers and staff on a student on the school level i keep enthusiastically trying to chime in too and mrs coy's ready to answer the questions but your questions related to tack we actually keep and publish uh the minutes and conversations that are held in the topics so that it's easy for liaisons to go back and share uh in their building but certainly they can be accessed otherwise so we've shared that i believe through the clipboard so that all staff would be able to access and see

[00:37:46] what's TAC working on just via click. And yeah, does that answer your question? You asked something else at the beginning. No, no, no, no, no. It answers the question. I just wanted to know if there was a tracking mechanism in place because I know a lot of topics are covered. Which ones get priority? Almost like a facilities request. And in fact, it's specific to TAC. When we surfaced, what do you want to use this time to talk about? I mean, we came in with some ideas that were Certainly, as you said, we triangulated what we thought the hot topics would be, given the survey points and others.

[00:38:23] But we asked them, what's on your mind? And we actually had them rating it as a group. And so they actually drove a lot of the topics that we've covered thus far. I mean, they certainly concurred with the topics we brought forward related to contract addendums and that sort of thing.

[00:38:40] but uh for example the virginia literacy act implementation cell phone uh practices and implementation were big topics so a lot of the um uh you know the work that is front-facing for teachers and staff going into the school year and really having time regularly at the tac meetings to talk about what's gone well where do they need more support in a particular area we had some small group choice sessions one of them was around student behavior supports and we had behavior support teams in there to talk about that so really trying to be responsive and not just have us driving the conversation but but asking our teachers to generate the topics

[00:39:19] they want to learn more about and so they've set the agenda in that way the steering committee which is a new addition this year before we even bring forward an agenda we ask them to weigh in and that's teachers from every magisterial district saying does this resonate are we capturing what you want us to talk about how did the format go last time what might you want to see different. So I think it's a work in progress and certainly hope we're doing a better job communicating more widely what these feedback loops and mechanisms look like. At the division level, I think one of the topics that's been brought up, I think by every board member in some

[00:39:58] way, is just sort of the nuance that when we talk about employee voice and feedback and challenges there are in recognition, there are sort of these central touch points, school system-wide touch points but then there's the building or the work site and so sometimes it's hard to extrapolate those out and I think Mr. Irving was pointing to some of the survey data and saying well what does that really mean in context of my building or workplace or in context of all of HCPS and understanding when we hear employees talking about wanting more recognition you know what does that look and feel like and how much of this is nuanced to the leader in the building and what we can do

[00:40:35] as a system and we've tried to really break apart all of those things as we're working uh through this feedback and we're bringing forward guidance that we're working with our building administrators on what's what does this mean for you and your leading of a building and your staff teams and what does it mean for us centrally as we're leading and guiding the division so we spent a good bit of time with our principals at the beginning of the year unpacking these topics as well because it's really both and um and where a lot of what we've talked about in this presentation is our central led efforts and things that have more of those touch points but i wouldn't want to leave out that other nuanced context as well all right and thank you uh final

[00:41:14] question um almost a piggyback off of mr ervin um i don't know if i think there needs to be a monitoring system to ensure planning time is protest protected consistently across all schools and if it's not being protected there needs to be a system set up that's very transparent that our teachers our staff um can report without fear of retaliation and i don't know if that's a skip level where we skipping over the principal for this but it definitely needs to be uh protected because i'm like mr ervin i'm hearing different schools are using it for different things right

[00:41:51] now so i would love to see that um that's it madam chair thank you thank you mr young miss atkins so thank you for thoughtfully presenting the presentation along with capturing the past and how we got in this moment now it's always important to put context around the data that you're providing i did have a few thoughts and questions specifically regarding the draft

[00:42:26] contract addendum supplemental document in the slide it said numerous topics could you provide an overview of the various topics that that supplemental document will cover so the contract addendum has evolved as we've gotten feedback from various advisories and groups and worked on it further and further one of the things i think that is most central to the contract addendum is the first bullet you see there the breakdown of days and hours so within the context of a specific year's calendar how many instructional days are there how many paid holidays are there

[00:43:04] how do those days in a contract that are covered in a standard contract how are they allocated what are our expectations and and what does that look like that includes a lot around those expectations for after school events or activities, that time is built into contracts, but parsing out what exactly that looks like, as well as planning time protections when compensation is provided for lost planning time, similarly expectations for duties, that type of thing.

[00:43:38] So we are hopeful that as it has evolved, it's gotten stronger and I have no doubt that And it will continue to evolve in future years based on the feedback we get after we try it out. Thank you for that. I would be interested in learning about what those topics are as it evolves.

[00:43:56] I do believe it's going to change because as folks become more knowledgeable, then they're thinking deeper. And I think we'll get to a place where satisfaction goes up because you're able to define better what's in that addendum, whatever form that it takes.

[00:44:13] uh additionally if you could provide details i'm also a bit concerned about the planning time so if you could provide details on how the plan for compensating lost planning time will be implemented yeah we can certainly provide that currently we provide guidance at the secondary level for those planning time compensations when lost but we still get a lot of questions and so that's one of those areas where additional clarity, whether it's through an FAQ document that's teacher facing or an FAQ document that might be facing towards administrators answering questions

[00:44:49] or dealing with a whole building is one of the things we're looking to strengthen through this. I appreciate that because I think what we may find is as we're going through this journey, we'll be able to adequately capture this moment on.

[00:45:07] But then for those folks who realize, hey, my time was lost. What about me? I want to make sure that we are thinking holistically about the entire picture and defining what is that amount of time going to be. So if you are that employee and now you're more knowledgeable and you realize, hey, that I was owed that as well.

[00:45:26] Making sure we put a time stamp on that as we're looking forward, but not forgetting the past and those who from building to building the implementation has been different i'm just going to say that on behalf of alicia atkins and understanding that the implementation has been different based upon maybe leadership maybe whatever circumstances that may have prevented or have happened i think we have to look at the whole picture now moving forward but also historically as well and make sure if compensation is necessary that those folks get it

[00:46:03] and then also i'm excited to learn more about the redesign uh for communication i think you said that the pilot will end at the end of this school year do we have an understanding of when we think we'll see the outcomes of the pilot itself i will turn to my colleagues um i think the pilot at the schools for the staff id badges runs through the end of the school year and so at that time we'll have more on that particular project and we'll hopefully be able to analyze how that may or may not intersect with the automated timekeeping request.

[00:46:40] I believe we also discussed the pay plan. There's a redesign on communication for the pay plan, so I was speaking to that. Oh, sorry. So, the conversations there are ongoing. We heard some about that with TAC as we were tackling the topic of compensation and contracts and so those some of those pay scale questions came surfaced there as well and so we committed to going back to our teachers and continuing that conversation about how we communicate all of this in totality so that will continue throughout the spring and we'll have

[00:47:15] further updates okay and so i do hear the focus on educators i want to make sure that we are expanding beyond educators perhaps those who want to be educators but don't have that title yet whether it's a substitute or a student that may enter into our employment are we capturing those perspectives as well absolutely there are various employee based groups and conversations for both formal and informal the mechanisms for that feedback and that conversation outstanding thank

[00:47:51] you and your team for the work here and for the work to come thank you well actually mr irving i want to follow up on some of your requests and asking from colleagues i absolutely support exploring our incremental time i think that's going to be that's going to increase satisfaction i think we'll also find some benefits from a division as well the other topic you mentioned was around having a maybe a new initiative a time impact statement so forth so on i also support

[00:48:29] that as well and so just wanted to follow up on your your thoughts there. Mrs. Shea. Thank you so much Ms. Atkins. Dr. Cashwell, Ms. Coy, thank you so much to you and DLT and all the team that have really taken the time to dig into these topics but not only dig into them but take the time to get authentic feedback from all types of staff doing it. I think that you know when we looked at things this fall and we shared what we wanted to be dug into, that was a really critical piece for us as a board.

[00:49:06] And so I know that takes longer. And I know that takes multiple iterations. And I know Dr. Cashwell and her team could have thought up changes on the spot to put into place. But we have a little bit of a longer timeline here sharing back in March as opposed to November or December because you have taken the time to authentically engage with staff, all types of staff, and do, like you said on a lot of these things, multiple iterations.

[00:49:36] We got feedback. We're going to try a draft. What do you think of that? Okay, here's what we need to change. And that takes time to do it well, and we see that some of these are still work in progress because of that. I just wanted to acknowledge the time and effort that it has taken and the appreciation for that and that that's truly responsive to what we're trying to do for our staff. So I wanted to acknowledge that. Thank you. Could you go back on because it goes to your script you said when you

[00:50:11] talked a little bit about feedback from the building with TAC. Could you, I just, I didn't catch all that you said about that um could you perhaps just kind of repeat what you said about the feedback loops for TAC within the building i know we've talked about it some here on the dais yes absolutely um so as we have been kind of in this uh spirit of redesigning TAC we've had conversations and we'll continue especially as we reach the end of the year with our TAC representatives to ask what's working what's not working but are also seeking that feedback outside of our tech representatives, whether it's principals or other teachers who say that feedback loop

[00:50:50] really isn't working, or I heard once, but not enough, or have you thought about X, Y, or Z? We are striving to gather that feedback as well as we think about how we continue growing as an advisory committee into next year and what changes we'll kind of bring forward based on that. Excellent. Thank you. So if there are staff within a building, whether there be teachers faculty other staff staff in a building who have some of that feedback yeah where is the best place for them to direct it so that it can get to where it needs to go is it their

[00:51:24] building um leader or is there their department leader that sort of thing yeah i i hope multiple channels are available to them whether it's their tech representatives or building leaders who can surface that absolutely we are all ears from everybody in the organization i think that goes all the way to dr cashwell as well yeah i think well said and and one of the things that and i brought this up earlier is this you know it depends on the nature of the issue and concern and that's something we've been working with our tac members on sort of parsing out some things are truly building level related and while we can assist at the central level and being a liaison

[00:52:01] to problem solve at the building you know there there may be a concern an employee has that's very real but very specific to a nuanced context that's very much building specific. So that's always a great place to start and that's what we encourage our employees to do. But certainly there are bigger trends or patterns that will often emerge intact by concerns that are brought up.

[00:52:22] But we also know that, you know, even with three representatives from a building, even if they're pulling their staff and bringing forward concerns, you know, the reality is Every employee is unique and their ideas, thoughts and concerns are unique to them and may not be well spoken for by a representative.

[00:52:43] So every employee should feel that they have a voice that they can leverage and use in a variety of ways across the school system, both in their building and out, whether they are a member of TAC or any of our other advisories as well. sometimes you know while uh representatives are one mechanism to bring forward concerns we recognize that doesn't it doesn't ever fully capture the individual employee um and you know sometimes there isn't a way for one person to speak for someone else or their unique perspective and voice and that's not uncommon and so we continue to strive to find ways that all employees know that they are valued and heard and there are mechanisms for there to reach out and i value the

[00:53:23] times that that they do reach out to me our other staff members or connect to us i know as board members you're very available to constituents including employees and working to channel those concerns as well so we hope that employees will continue to avail themselves of of all ways to make sure their thoughts are heard i appreciate that um and you know some feedback that i've heard from some of our staff is you know as um we said a lot of this iterative process of going through things can take some time. And we're really digging into these focus groups and work groups

[00:53:56] on some of the bigger structural things that we're looking at. But a gap that they are feeling is to be able to give feedback in real time for some of these things that don't have long runways. When a pivot is needed within the division or within a department or within a school and how to have a voice in that, right?

[00:54:24] And those things that have a shorter runway that I know Dr. Cashwell and DLT and all of you are always trying to think, right? When you have to make a quick decision about all the layers and that sort of thing, but how can they be a voice in that?

[00:54:40] And I know that's much more challenging for things that have a short runway, but I wanted to share that feedback of that gap, not an easy solution, but we can do hard things. So I wanted to share that. Looking at really great comments from a lot of my colleagues that I won't speak to all, but agree with many of them.

[00:55:06] I did not realize that the TAC minutes were published on the clipboard myself. And so I really appreciate that. I appreciate you highlighting that. I appreciate that transparency. and so thank you on that. I also agree with hearing from my colleagues about the planning time piece. I know I talked about this a little bit on the budget as we made those IAs more permanent, but just making sure that our schools have the guardrails and the guidelines they need to ensure the maximum benefit for adding those to our budget.

[00:55:44] and i think that is all for me lots lots covered up here uh any redirects any follow-ups i i did want to add one thing so i i wanted to thank staff for adding the the daughter the dollar figures i i had asked about this previously so i i didn't want that to go unrecognized i appreciate that that was added and it's helpful to give people context of the scale of these things and i know that those are new additions so i didn't want to comment on that and then my last thought was just about the the three tack representatives and something i i would i would recommend and maybe

[00:56:20] like us to think about um so there's this concept called tripartism which basically says that some countries make decisions based on involvement from employers so that would be businesses labor and the government all three collectively working together to come to a sort of decision so that all parts of society or representative and i and i and i think for tac it might be useful to have one be principal chosen one be the teacher of the year which we already do and then another one be elected by their peers because i think that while

[00:56:58] the teacher of the year is elected that is necessarily usually going to be a different person than the people might represent to represent them in this specific capacity in terms of advocacy so i would love for that to be considered and and other than that i i thank you again miss katella yeah i have a question because i know we've been talking about the leave policy the increments right four day you know four hours eight hours for some time now and hearing the one hour today is great um do we feel like we've overcome the barrier because i know that finding substitutes was the prior barrier

[00:57:35] so i just thought i'd i'd ask if we believe we've solved for x there i think there's that's still underway i don't want to get in front of the policy work unless you all have something to add as a more recent development you know when we're looking at policy and bringing forth revisions for the board's consideration we try to weigh it through all angles and of course this case teacher feedback but also administrator feedback related to the logistics of implementation in the building and what might be feasible so certainly working through that and hope we can bring forward some revisions that um might help move us forward in a positive way but certainly don't want to get in

[00:58:11] front of policy work there thank you i just knew that had been a barrier that i thought it is a significant challenge it's very real i mean i certainly understand the perspective related to the one hour of leave but it's also very hard to secure a substitute for one hour it would often rely on colleagues calling on another colleague which in many cases may work out great but in in some cases we've heard from colleagues they don't appreciate another colleague calling on them they may be asked to lose their planning time and while we would compensate for that it is we hope no one's having to lose their planning time even if it is to cover in a you know significant scenario so that

[00:58:50] students can have the needed instruction so we're weighing all angles and looking at what might be possible thank you i appreciate that thank you anything else colleagues thank you thank you so much okay next item from me is a response to the board had some specific questions and requested some specific follow-up related to the board's request to bring forward information about two potential boundary adjustments so we have compiled responses to the questions and are prepared to

[00:59:27] share that, Madam Chair? Thank you, Dr. Cashwell. Before we launch into that, I did want to provide an update on a related policy, and so that's policy P10-08-002, which we discussed at the last board meeting and was originally scheduled to have action on today. We will not be taking action on that today. We will be waiting the full 30-day wait period for public input, which would put it in April for taking action. I also wanted to provide just a little bit of clarity.

[01:00:03] There's a lot of misinformation that's kind of been circling and taking up the airways, and so I wanted to provide a little bit of clarification, and certainly board members, if you have some to dig in as well. Ms. Burton, thank you for sharing the policy for us up here. This is the specific action item that the board will be looking at the policy. The main updates, while they're shown here, so the public if they would like to read it in entirety may, main updates really look at updating it that they will be reviewed at

[01:00:43] least every four years, you know, informally. As Ms. Kinsella shared many times, we really look at it every fall informally and so that four years would not require action but would require consideration. And then also to update at the end, to update the requirement for public input in that last sentence there. This is where it gets a little bit into government ease if you will and legal ease to provide a little bit of clarity. Policy is generally more enduring than a regulation. Policy like this policy that we will be taking action

[01:01:21] on in April requires public review and board action while the regulation is kind of the nuts and bolts of how the policy is implemented and does not necessarily require board action or public review and so we wanted to add that the requirement of public input to the policy piece because it truly is important to us with the updates to both the policy and the regulation we aim to be transparent and authentic for public engagement to be responsive to

[01:01:57] the needs of the community for the type of input that would fit whatever process would be considered. Colleagues, do you have anything else you wanna provide for clarity on that at this time? The community, we encourage you, if you have questions or feedback, to continue to reach out to us again.

[01:02:15] We will be waiting the full 30-day wait period so that we put this on the agenda in April. All right, thank you. - All right. So again, we wanted to make sure we were responsive to some specific questions board members had and asking for follow-ups and implications related to a few things like transportation and what were the implications there, as well as implications related to potential new seats with specialty programming, a look at what that may entail over the coming years, as well as a look at physical space

[01:02:54] and potential of new space available. So we do have updates to provide related to that information, Mrs. Coy. - Thank you, Dr. Cashwell. So today I will be sharing this additional information that you all requested at the February 27th work session.

[01:03:11] And it is, as you will see, a compilation of different pieces of information that my colleagues have helped me assemble here today. And so I'll be leaning on them to answer any questions you may have. All right, so the information provided today includes a number of different pieces that were requested.

[01:03:30] It includes additional financial and staffing details about the two transportation options previously presented, as well as information about projected enrollment and capacity trends in HCPS over the next five or so years. So we'll start with transportation.

[01:03:49] At the February 27th meeting, two transportation options were presented for the board's consideration along with potential boundary adjustments at Freeman and Godwin and Highland Springs and Henrico. If the board were to make changes in both those scenarios and choose to grandfather students in, there would be students in impacted neighborhoods, potentially attending all four of those high schools.

[01:04:16] These two options provide two ways to transport students in that particular scenario. In option one, HCPS would offer bus transportation to Freeman and Godwin and Highland Springs and Henrico.

[01:04:32] those students in impacted neighborhoods. Using this option, students grandfathered into their originally zoned school and students attending the newly zoned school would all still have a bus stop in their neighborhood available to them for the three school years that grandfathering would be in effect. This option requires additional vehicles and drivers and you can see the costs outlined there. Again, the cost is a total number to apply those very specific circumstances that I outlined. So it would be both scenarios and a grandfathering clause. An alternative second

[01:05:12] option would be to have students who are grandfathered into their original school use the hub system that is already in place. So neighborhood bus routes would only run for the newly zoned school. This leverages existing resources, but it does increase ride time for students and may require additional staff for supervision at those hub stations we turn now to projections for public school enrollment as you all requested so the map you see here is from the weldon cooper center at uva which provides projected enrollment data to school

[01:05:48] divisions and policy makers in the commonwealth it illustrates changes projected for each division between 2023 and 2028 as you can see there they project hcps would see a decline in enrollment of approximately three percent honing in just a bit further they predict that decline will be at the elementary and high school levels when compared to the 2023 data however hcps also does its own projections for future enrollment at this point hcps projects a conservative increase

[01:06:24] of about two percent enrollment between 2024 and 2028 as compared to weldon cooper hcps utilizes different assumptions about birth rates, planned residential developments, and trend shifts within schools. It is important to note that Weldon Cooper had projected HCPS to decline in enrollment between the 23-24 school year and the 24-25 school year. However, HCPS actually increased slightly, right around 1%. We were one of the few divisions in the state to increase in enrollment this year and this is part of why our projections break from that Weldon Cooper

[01:07:05] model pretty substantially for long longer term projections. This slide illustrates additional school capacity in HCPS over the next few years as we anticipate new school buildings being opened and additional capacity for students becoming available as those renovations and rebuilds are completed. I'll just note briefly that the numbers cited are the increase over existing

[01:07:37] capacity. This slide illustrates our projected capacity in our ACE programs. A few notes about this. This chart shows the anticipated growth in the maximum number of seats per day per center as additional space and programming comes online in the coming years. It's important to note though that these numbers reflect that max number of students and that filling the seats is contingent

[01:08:11] on student interest which remains strong and availability of teachers and programs and then finally you all had requested additional information on projected capacity at specialty centers so this chart shows the projected changes in capacity including the new cyber security center coming online, the opening of the living building at Wilton Farm, and it also includes proposed options to address capacity issues at Tucker with some changes to the sizes of

[01:08:46] incoming specialty center cohorts. So should those enrollment trends persist at Tucker to help address capacity starting in the 26-27 school year, the incoming cohorts for all All three specialty center programs could be restricted without impacting current students in those programs.

[01:09:07] So that strategy is reflected in the projected numbers here. And you start to see those declines starting in the 27-28 school year as the existing cohorts matriculate their way through the programs.

[01:09:24] And that concludes my update. Like I said, my colleagues and I will be happy to answer any questions that you have. Thank you so much, Ms. Coy, for bringing back the follow-up to the specific information asked for two weeks ago. I'll start to my left this time with Mr. Young.

[01:09:41] Thank you, Madam Chair. Holly, Ms. Coy, sorry. Thank you for the presentation. I like the two options for transportation and responding. I do have a question. In previous years, have either of these options been explored with other boundary adjustments?

[01:10:01] I don't think they've ever been utilized. - So this will be your first time? - Yes. - Awesome. So when it comes to boundary adjustments, it's not just about moving lines, it's about creating sustainable, equitable, and future ready schools while still responding to the here and now.

[01:10:19] So I hope I'm not cutting off Ms. Atkins, but we've spoken about at minimum, the development at Fairways and have come to some sort of agreement when it comes to that. do truly think it's um board colleagues to move forward with um hearing from the community directly when it comes to the freeman godwin boundary adjustments the henrico and highland springs boundary adjustments as well um and looking at the capacity of the future i think the phased approach is appropriate um but out of respect for all the staff that have been working

[01:10:56] on this since october um i think we're almost five months in of of working through this i think respectfully we should isolate these two um beyond the readjustments and focus on that today um but other than that madam chair i don't have anything else i may have a redirect thank you mr young mr irving thank you thank you for this additional information i think it answers some question but leaves me with others so i looking at the bus route um i think you know option one

[01:11:30] those are not insignificant costs that's more than other things that I think previously people have had issues with spending the amount of money on so I think that that's important to note that that is not insignificant and then option number two that the time increase I think time is a cost and we don't always think about it that way but for students and the drivers that is a mental and a physical cost that cannot be I think just dismissed out of hand so I think both of those are certainly weigh heavily upon any any decision in terms of grandfathering um for for

[01:12:08] those two for those two options um i do find the projections to be to be fascinating right because that's a delta between our projection and theirs of 5.1 which is i i you know i tend to think that we're probably correct on this relative to them but i i do think that it's interesting because i i think there's a perceived there's perception that our that our enrollment is declining and as such that you know it may be hard to um ask for the type of you know budget and spend the amount

[01:12:44] of money that we do but we we are projected to grow in enrollment so i think you know any sort of concerns that may be had about declining enrollment and how we are validating the amount that we're committing to our students to produce the best educational outcomes possible maybe you're somewhat misplaced and then looking at the the the timeline i think that's a great way to think about all of this i i think you know when you ask the question how do you eat an elephant it's one bite at a time the phased approach is is certainly interesting and i think it makes a lot of sense to

[01:13:22] you know take things one year at a time as we move forward and kind of look at you know what are the elementary schools that are coming online in Coyacus and Middle School and then the new Fairfield Elementary School and then the Highland Springs Elementary and how we can you know potentially adjust things if it is necessary to because again these these enrollment projections we don't know exactly where all the people will be or at least it's not shared here so I think it would be unwise to just suggest that things have to be done but if they do we

[01:13:56] we certainly have excess capacity coming online and then you know I'm loving seeing the the expansion of ACE at Hermitage because I do think that's going to really potentially help the situation at certain schools Tucker comes to mind and just in terms of students who have opportunities that maybe helps with the day one day two numbers and then like I spoke to last time about Tucker and their centers, which are wonderful. I do think that, especially when speaking with staff and families, that it would probably be irresponsible to increase those numbers moving

[01:14:33] forward. And as such, I certainly like the approach of reducing as may be necessary to keep their enrollment on a sustainable path that can get them to a place where they're not feeling cramped. I think also something that I would love to see us do with Tucker is adding an additional complement of an additional administrator um additional counselor and um you know a certain amount of additional teaching compliments to help bring down and make it more manageable the amount of students that any one person has to um you know engage with on a given day because i think

[01:15:12] you know just adding one extra administrator and one extra counselor makes the world of difference to people and how they go about their day-to-day and and i think that's something that could provide Some immediate relief is my hope for Tucker and then over the long term you know we can we can hopefully address that as well. Thank you. Thank you so much Mr. Irving. Ms. Kinsella?

[01:15:37] Where to begin? I have to say it was the first time we've really seen the timeline even though we've known bond projects right are coming online. Seeing the all of the ACE programming the difference that's going to make knowing that some of our schools have higher enrollments in our ace which is a day one day two impact some of our schools have higher enrollments in those

[01:16:11] programs than others i wonder with additional programming coming online and with additional advertising i know it's something the business advisory committee spends a lot of time talking about is how can we help get the word out right on so many of the great programs that we are offering. For example, they said this week that there were 300 nurse aid applications for 80 seats.

[01:16:41] So I can't wait until our second floor at ACE Herm is completed over the next two years to bring about the 400 additional seats. I did have a question and it's okay if the team doesn't have the answer for me now. How many health and medical applications did not get accepted for fall 2025?

[01:16:59] because I know center acceptances have gone out as well as our CTE and that's what I'm talking about is our CTE health and medical applications. I'll have to get that for you. I have a top one but I don't know. I don't have the number specifically and we can get it but I do know that both at Ace Highland Springs and Ace Hermitage, Ace Highland Springs particularly in the trades and in the health and medical at Ace Hermitage, typically the number of applications has far surpassed the seats even with the expansion and you can see that in 25 26 26 27

[01:17:37] the increase in seats at highland springs being specific to those trades programming and leveraging the hudson gym in that space and being creative because even with the tremendous investment the board put forward to expand the a centers and and the construction projects at those sites are phenomenal we continue to look for more space which has been going into using the hudson gym and looking at the second floor at Ace Hermitage to find even more seats.

[01:18:02] So we can get you those numbers. But anecdotally, I can say the demand has outweighed the number of seats. I was going to say, if the no-save applications were any indication. That's right. And as you know, the team and, of course, McVayton, they're very responsive to that.

[01:18:20] And so where you see the seats growing, it's where they know they have the interest and there is high demand. Right. And then just circling back, I mean, I think the only thing we didn't get from last meeting was the class size info, even though we have class size info in our buildings, right? But I know Mr. Irving had, and the board had talked about, you know, what does it look like if our seats in our built, you know, in our class sizes decrease, right? Because some of our class sizes

[01:18:54] exceed 30, 35 students, depending on where you are. For example, you can have an undercapacity school, but your class sizes could still be 33 to 35 because of the complement and how we staff our classes, right? How that works at the high school level. Or you could have both an overcrowded school and overcrowded classes, right? So, I'm interested in more information like that but I keep coming back to having followed this whole process I know I've spent time going back to the 2010 redistricting going

[01:19:32] back to the two-phase 2017 rezoning that was done went back and revisited my two large binders from the comprehensive redistricting that the board paused back in 2019 and then just did slight boundary adjustments in the fall of 2020 so this is really opened up my mind back to that and that I don't want to be a board that puts a band-aid on anything nor do I want to be part of a board that kicks a can what I would really like to do is look at all the things that we can

[01:20:07] do to impact capacity especially at Freeman I want to do what's best in all of our schools for all of our students and all of our staff but I do not want to rush it. I feel like this process has been rushed even though there was conversation that we've been talking about it since October, not publicly. It has not been consistent.

[01:20:32] I don't think, I know per policy that the board can bring forth a request of view, Dr. Cashwell, but I don't recall hearing if staff recommends these adjustments and supports what board is asking for at this time and i would like to i would like to know that sure so i'm happy to jump in here um so as you recall back in october november when staff brought forward the capital improvement plan we looked at capacity then collectively and at that time staff didn't bring

[01:21:08] any recommendations forward though the discussion certainly centered around that capacity and about potential boundary adjustments and then at the february 13 work session that was when the kind of directive came forward for staff to develop specific options for boundary adjustments for you all to examine and consider yeah i think that's that's right and and one of the things we did touch on in the fall and we've put it into a timeline here was the understanding at that time that there would be some new capacity coming online so staff's recommendation was that of

[01:21:45] course we continue to look at programmatic adjustments and understanding how those can impact capacity in our buildings and looking at our long-term plans there and also understanding that we will have some work to do in the near future to for example make sure we fill our new fairfield elementary and are making sure we're maximizing capacity at our new schools and so certainly we're keeping an eye toward that and that was our recommendation at the time in the fall that we began to think about the board the board began to think about how we would leverage that new capacity and and of course defer to

[01:22:23] you all and other considerations you all have for boundary specific adjustments in your communities as you know them best and that is the purview of the board I mean it's my preference especially with the all of them for new information being presented today that the board asked for at the February 27th meeting is to truly have more time with the information knowing that program all the programming we're bringing the new capacity we're building and just better understanding development trends I mean are we doing you know I've read emails and I just want to thank the public

[01:22:59] the board has received quite a few emails I know I've received quite a few emails asking me to go back to, you know, please let, for the board to bring back comprehensive, a comprehensive analysis. And when I was preparing for this meeting, I thought, wow, wouldn't it be great to spend as much time being thoughtful and asking the team to do a comprehensive analysis, much like we did with our employee voice study, where we made the request of you and then

[01:23:35] And the team spent five months working on it, and the work didn't stop. The board received a presentation. I'm very interested in that, because when I did revisit my notes for Tucker, specifically, with six feeder middle schools, Cuiacuson feeds Tucker 150 students.

[01:23:56] Brooklyn, Brooklyn Middle School students drive right past Hermitage, 100 of them, to get to Tucker. Only 40 students from Tuckahoe attend Tucker, Holman only 80 students, Hungry Creek only 23 students, and Moody 20 students.

[01:24:15] And I say this to say that I'm interested in some of the, we learned a lot about feeder patterns, K-12, during the comprehensive redistricting that this board paused due to the pandemic. I'm very interested in putting all the programmatic pieces together, development, programming, capacity, you know.

[01:24:37] And for years, we've actually looked at Deep Run, Glenallen, Freeman, and Tucker. And I've seen, you know, Glenallen High School exceed 100%. And then with our new Ace Hermitage building, I've seen Glenallen come back down.

[01:24:53] And it's still, you know, thank goodness our students are taking advantage of our Ace Herm opportunities because it makes such a difference, you know, ACE Herm brought us half a high school in capacity that was much needed. I just think with bell schedules, staggered bell schedules, administrative support, programmatic adjustments, I even thought about, you know, how many students are in variance. Is our residency team actually investigating residencies across all of our high schools, especially our high schools that were concerned about

[01:25:30] capacity i just i would like to be more thoughtful and um really look at go back to revisiting a lot of what we learned and that was on the table back from comprehensive redistricting and that's not to say i don't support our students and staff because i do um i just don't i don't want to have a band-aid solution that you know in some of the correspondence that came in we're hearing from folks who have been redistricted before and now they're looking at a boundary adjustment again and I'd just like to be thoughtful in the short term and long term with our capacity and all the things that go into

[01:26:10] comprehensive analysis so thank you thank you Ms. Kinsella Ms. Atkins well certainly thank you and the team this presentation was informative it was fascinating to be last so that I could hear the thoughts of each of you and your perception of what you saw and facts as you

[01:26:42] see them for your areas. It's also quite interesting that I'm in conflict with much of what I heard. I think that we have to carefully understand unintended consequences.

[01:27:02] and specifically what jumped out at me was transportation I know I did ask for more information around transportation and regarding option one on slide three I think this is like putting rubber wheels on an electric train you absolutely can do this band-aid approach and I'll use your term but I don't think it's the wisest way to move and historically when I think about transportation particularly for varina sanston and highland springs and then spending six years

[01:27:39] asking for solutions around vacancies and transportation and then we get to this moment and we can see how we can come up with six additional bus drivers and i'll just look at my notes we can come up with 2.5 million dollars hiring six more bus drivers be okay with increased travel time for students, have extended staff supervision requirements, the potential purchase of additional equipment for a temporary solution.

[01:28:08] I don't find that fiscally sound. And I'm hoping that we can engage in discussion about it so that I can better understand because I do not agree with what I see in transportation here.

[01:28:24] I believe in one of the previous conversations we've had, I talked about the challenges with the hub bus and then yet it is okay in this particular slide that says increase time for students for a temporary solution and i'm speaking on behalf of a rhina sanston and highland springs confidently because i did the homework to ask the individuals in my district around transportation because it's a priority but i'll move along to the rest of this presentation as well

[01:29:00] i do think and agree that we need to be at a place where we make a decision on how we move forward i think that's fair to each of us and to the individuals invested in hen you know henrico county public schools and it sounds like either we move forward with a phased approach or we can it or i should say pause it that's a lighter word and i do agree with that i do agree that we need to

[01:29:33] to make a decision, however, where I am in this moment that may change after we have more conversation is a hard no. I think we should pause. So I'm interested in listening a little bit more about my colleagues, engage in more conversation and see if that changes for me. But at this time, given where we are not just in this county but in this country i think i gave the best example

[01:30:07] that i could about putting rubber tires on an electric chain we can do it but is it fiscally responsible and is it an appropriate time for it so i'll close with that and and hope to hear more thoughts mrs shea thank you miss atkins um since the transportation slides up um and a handful of people brought it up. I agree with you that to look at option one and invest those kinds

[01:30:41] of funds and not only the funds but the human capital for our transportation division when we have other places that need it invested to not be doing double runs and stuff, that seems not like a good solution. Not a solution. So I'm not speaking on behalf of the whole board here. I'm just speaking on behalf of me. I don't, you know, traditionally if, I shouldn't say traditionally, in the past when students have been grandfathered, it's been their own responsibility to provide transportation. And so I think, I'm not going to speak for

[01:31:17] staff, but, you know, looking at some perhaps outside the box, but I absolutely agree with you that investing our actual capital, our human capital here in this specific niche is not responsive as a division.

[01:31:37] I think Mr. Young had brought up transportation as well as anybody else want to chime in on that transportation piece that she asked for discussion on? Oh, I said that it was not an insignificant amount of money and I agree.

[01:31:53] don't think that's fiscally prudent to to do and i'll clarify though it likely doesn't need clarifying that this is not a staff recommendation we provided options to address the board's ask to provide potential boundary adjustments in two areas and options for how students would attend and so this is responsive to that if you were to allow students to be grandfathered what could it look like from a transportation perspective so that you could consider all options and then you ask good questions about the specific costs and implications so that's what we returned with here.

[01:32:31] I appreciate that and I'm going to be very clear that I think it's asinine I do not think that's an appropriate solution in any way shape or form.

[01:32:47] Thank you and then kind of moving more broadly as you know as we broadly look at the broader issue you know definitely hearing lots from our colleagues I share Ms. Kinsella's excitement over the addition of additional HERM 8 capacity as well as, you know, that 300 seats interest for 80 nurse aides, you know, would love to expand that capacity as she and I both know from serving on business advisory, staffing and how to staff that is a huge barrier and

[01:33:26] I know, you know, Mr. Baton has been working on advocacy in the General Assembly even to remove some of those barriers but that for some of these programs that have high interest is almost more of a barrier to expanding seats than space so but definitely excited about excuse me all of those opportunities for our students um you know looking at uh the timeline if we could go to the timeline you know we have we had a very successful uh bond a couple years ago which gives us lots of

[01:34:02] exciting projects. Some of them already shovels in the ground. Some of them were looking close to four or five years. So really, as a board, we have a lot coming our way. We have a lot coming our way over a significant amount of time. And from that, I hear what Mr. Young said, that, you know, a phased approach could be really doable. And like Ms. Kinsella said,

[01:34:34] looking at all of those pieces that we did a deep dive into five years ago, right? All of those pieces. And so, but that takes time, right? That takes time, both staff time and also time as a and time engaging with the community.

[01:34:57] And so, you know, I agree that we should be digging into some of these other pieces and giving them, you know, the ample time for discussion. And so we've got all of these projects coming up.

[01:35:14] And I think, you know, a rolling list of projects from the bond, I think we can tackle this in phases using these bond projects and feedback from the community like Ms. Kinsella was sharing from each district as the drivers of those pieces and looking at that because we want to, as Mr. Young said, continue to provide sustainable and equitable schools while being responsive to the to the current needs and so i would imagine that when we get closer to highland

[01:35:54] springs elementary school in you know 29 some of the um population distributions are going to look different than they do right now and so making sure that as each of our buildings open um that we are responsive to what it looks like and what the needs are in the runway up to those openings I have a concern that if we wait to try to fix everything on this, and leading with this long timeline, if we wait to try to fix everything, then perhaps we won't be able to fix anything.

[01:36:34] Especially as, you know, this set of projects is looking at over a four to five year timeline and we have other bond projects coming behind it, right? So, you know, really looking at this as a continual effort, a continual review, and using these projects and the feedback that Ms. Kinsella was sharing that we've each gotten from our districts as the driver from that to be, really to be responsive.

[01:37:04] As Ms. Kinsella shared, you know, one piece that was missing from being a central part the conversation in 2020 was feeder patterns right and continuity of feeder patterns not only not only that i believe we're in a better position now with our capacity having come online right the feeder patterns um what we heard then that's still relevant right except for students have uh the students aren't where they were then right but we still have those issues but we're in a better spot because we actually have the census data one of the things that we heard um from quite

[01:37:40] a few right of the members of the i think it was 67 member committee um in 2019 2020 was that the census data was not current so we're in a better spot now just to add that yeah thank you um and so you know really looking at those feeder patterns uh for community continuity as also a driver in this and so you know as um i've looked at the possible solution for relief for freeman in my area that has been that's one of the pieces that the planning department was tasked with when

[01:38:18] looking at a solution is to look at those feeder patterns right and to look at elementary schools that may be broken up and how to reunite them in those piece and so using those things to drive this possible solution that has been brought forward and i want to be clear that you know we know we've got these elementary schools coming online and you know other other pieces as well as well as some real challenges with the matriculation into Tucker that Miss Kinsella nodded to but nothing in this current proposal being looked at is a hindrance to those next steps in terms of

[01:38:57] the elementary school look or the feeder pattern to tucker look um or looking at solutions for other districts so i just wanted to be clear as looking at the specifics matriculation patterns the specific how that could overlap with other things those have been considered in developing this proposed solution so that it doesn't interfere with what could be ongoing work on the board to address these pieces as well i also appreciate some of the solutions that

[01:39:34] mr irving brought forward to look at support for tucker both in some capacity relief but also some other supports um so that being said um i think the most important thing well i'll say one other thing I think the easiest thing for us to do is nothing but that's not necessarily what's best by students and I think the most important thing that we

[01:40:12] can leave with as a board from this meeting is a direction for the community and personally I think the worst thing we could do is to continue to leave families in limbo for another six months another 12 months to figure in in these communities that we're looking at to figure out if um if they may be impacted or not because like now i can't remember uh which who said it i think maybe one of the gentlemen these aren't just numbers right these are people these are students and we all recognize that um and the impact on

[01:40:48] them and so um i think for us as a board the most important thing is to have direction from here and so um i guess the question is do we have consensus to move forward to community input as we said at the top we care about community input and we want it to be authentic do we have support to move forward to to community input sessions where we can sit down and hear from and problem solve with the community about these issues or are we going to hold off on that and not me asking as a board

[01:41:27] chair but me asking as a representative if we're going to hold off on that my request is that it not just be a tabled it be a this is this is not happening because to put students and families in limbo again like holding their breath for another year on this i don't think is fair and um i will just also say i don't think it's fair to freeman just to say no we're not going to do anything but to me the most important thing is to give our families um some clarity and direction yes ma'am

[01:42:04] no go ahead yes ma'am thank you ms isha for um moving forward towards next steps - I will ask if you could speak a little bit into the phased approach, just a very high level, just to sum it all up before we move forward with thoughts.

[01:42:24] - Yeah, well, I think that looks like whatever the board wants it to look like. And so anybody who has thoughts, I'm happy to hear them. So I'll give kind of my vision and would love to hear those of others. So we've had five months of work with the planning team to look at these solutions, right?

[01:42:43] and so I would like to tackle these solutions again with the lens that we have other communities other things coming online other districts that would also like to look into solutions so tackle what we have now and then as we have more capacity as we hear from our communities about other things that um board members may like to tackle in their division in their districts um you know also look

[01:43:16] at those to be responsive to community and responsive to um capacity but i'm i'm open to what others may see that as don't want to stifle board discussion if i may get back to your question you were specifically looking for clarity from the board on next steps and i just wanted to also articulate what would be helpful for staff and clarity on next steps um and in reiterating what i think the question was you're asking of the board but certainly defer to you chair on that you know what we were asked to bring forward was specific to two um boundary adjustments both

[01:43:56] between freeman and godwin and tenrico and highland springs and to propose what a process would look like if those boundary adjustments are what the board wishes to move forward on so think clarity for staff would be are is there a desire to move forward with the proposed boundary adjustments adjust them further answer more questions but specific to the information we brought forward on those two boundary adjustments what the preference of the board is and certainly we built community input into a process because we know it's a best practice and obviously the board does too if you were to move forward with those boundary adjustments

[01:44:33] we would recommend a community input process but the input process we spoke to was specific to those two boundary adjustments so wanting to be sure what it is we would or would not be moving forward on related to those two adjustments yeah and just a further point of clarity from what you brought forward Dr. Cashwell when we say move forward with the boundary adjustments it's move forward with the consideration of those two consideration of the options we brought forward and then getting input on those and i hear input being brought up in a multitude of ways which is why i want to make sure i'm really clear on what

[01:45:07] the board's next steps are certainly i know this board values community input always through all of the processes and avenues that are available and certainly to the approach you've now taken responsive to the community related to the policy adjustments for boundary adjustments and you know so i just want to be clear that the community input sessions that we were speaking to in the recommendation that came forward were to get specific feedback on the boundary adjustments that were shared relative to freeman godwin henrico highland springs specifically and what

[01:45:43] next steps are related to those two recommendations for options excellent thank you one moment um

[01:46:11] ms atkins or mr anybody who would like to yeah so mrs shea i think we're at a place i'd like to request a brief recess uh and the reason i'm requesting a brief recess specifically on the two proposals henrico highland springs i think it makes sense for mr young and i to have a brief conversation on those and I'd also like an opportunity to individually speak with each of you I don't know Megan if that is something that is appropriate or not but I do want to put it on

[01:46:51] the floor so that I can have an opportunity to individually discuss you certainly can take a brief a brief recess for any reason including using the restroom having a stretch break moment to think through uh all of that is permitted in addition to speaking with your colleagues individually of course if the board as a whole is having discussion we would want to do it on the dais but i'm always in favor of a brief recess uh for me personally but i leave it to you all of course so mrs shea for consideration maybe a 10 minute brief recess if that's something that's

[01:47:27] amenable to each colleague yep we'll recess for 10 minutes all right welcome back from our recess

[02:15:46] colleagues I'll remind you that our task really now is to provide clarity for the superintendent as to what our direction is and you know also for the community not to be left in limbo not to be left at a point of anxiety to understand what the impacts could be to them so what we're looking at here is if if we are going to schedule public input to continue the consideration of adjustments

[02:16:25] for Hemrico Highland Springs and Godwin Freeman. So I'll start on my left with a straw poll as to where we are so that we can provide clarity.

[02:16:41] - So given the information that's been offered along with various data points, I feel we should pause this effort. - Mr. Young. - I think we should continue the effort.

[02:16:57] I think we should show Henrico County public schools, students, families that we're willing to do something. I mean, it's been seven years for Freeman, Henrico severely under enrolled. At this rate, I don't think anybody in the Tucker High School District will wanna wait seven years for adjustments or anything else.

[02:17:15] So strongly for moving to hearing from the community on this. - Thank you, Mr. Young, Mr. Irving. - I concur with Mrs. Atkins at this time, I am for taking a, getting our policy passed.

[02:17:31] And then in the fall, looking at this holistically, because we have, as we know in the 26th school year, the elementary schools with expanded capacity coming online. And I think there's just too much information with programmatic and otherwise adjustments potentially be made in the 26 school year not to say that these adjustments won't eventually happen but at this time i think it's it would be premature to just move along with public's conversation for two situations when there are more that may need to happen in 26. so at this time i am not for

[02:18:05] moving forward with community conversation thank you mr irving miss kinsella i agree with mr irving I'm not for moving forward with this conversation currently though I would like to visit this topic in the fall when we normally discuss enrollment and programming and development and all the things and I would encourage based on all the information we got today that was a lot of new programmatic information that i believe in conjunction that in conjunction with some of the master schedule

[02:18:43] changes and other supports that we can put in place um i believe this can wait until the fall and then we do an ana a comprehensive analysis um of our enrollment uh thank you miss kinsella um i'll share uh as representative for the tuckahoe um that i do support um having a community conversation um i think tabling it until the fall is uh the the worst outcome for the community

[02:19:19] uh being considered for them to continue to have to wait in limbo after being over capacity seven years but to continue to have to wait in limbo for clarity as to um where their students uh may attend in the fall of 26 then and then additionally for our Freeman staff and students who reached out to share the very real impact that being overcrowded for seven years has had on the outcomes for students but with that the Shaw poll is that the majority will not move forward with this conversation at this

[02:19:58] time superintendent thank you is there any other further direction related to the fall or considerations specific at this time or i should wait for additional board direction on that is the board interested are all members of the board interested in a greater conversation

[02:20:19] in the fall yes i'm interested in action in the fall yes all right moving on to new items outside of the item we've just covered and we'll certainly look to follow up with the board in the fall related to all things capacity programming and certainly will take further direction from the board between now and then as you all continue to have discussions on this important topic

[02:20:59] the next items are policy items and there are quite a number of these all are for review at this time not for approval they wouldn't be coming for approval until the april 17th meeting and there are two larger batches with one being an instructional policy batch and you can see a number of revisions and potential retirements as items have been revised and these are items p704-007 all the way through p602006 and there's a summary document included do you have any

[02:21:34] questions about those items in that particular batch colleagues do you have any questions or can sorry can you can you give us the agenda number just that we're looking at in this first batch my apology absolutely no my apology I think I gave you policy number not agenda number items anyway and this is the instructional batch which starts with items 3.03 and goes through the p6 oh let's see which item is that well it goes all the way through the to the facilities

[02:22:12] one 3.24 my apology okay took me a second oh that's a that's a big it was a large chunk thank you okay so that's 21 policies any uh thoughts comments questions um i know i have one if y'all you want to you can start with seconds i do chair shay i have um one two three four do you want me to share all at one time or one at a time start with give us a policy give us your input and then we we can see if anyone has for that policy, then we'll go to the next one.

[02:22:43] - Sounds good. So for 3.07 and 3.08, I was wondering if SEAC, our special education advisory committee provided input to the policy committee. - They did. - Yes, they did.

[02:22:58] - Okay, thank you. Do you mind sharing some of their feedback? - I can certainly get that for you. - Yeah. - Okay, that was the first one. So you wanted to go around before I go to the next.

[02:23:14] - Okay, the next one is 3.09 review of proposed revisions to policy P7-04-011 controversial subjects. I wanted to know how this policy aligned with state and federal guidelines regarding academic freedom and educational standards.

[02:23:35] - Sure, so this topic, this particular policy, you see some revisions that are intended to clarify and provide some additional granularity and all of which is in accordance with state and federal law. - Outstanding, and then you can answer this now or perhaps later you may need to have additional discussions but I was curious around the protections that exist for educators who actually do present controversial topics in good faith but perhaps they face legal challenges or complaints.

[02:24:11] - Sure, I can follow up with you on that. - Thank you so much. And then also in the policy, the word credible was used, I believe. And I wanted to know, how do we define a credible perspective within the policy?

[02:24:28] - Ms. Burton, could you scroll down for me? Sorry, I can't see it. Okay, I wanted to make sure I wasn't- - Yeah, please keep me honest. - Yeah, no, I think it's just the one reference up earlier when we say credible and, sorry, can you go back up?

[02:24:47] Relevant information. - It does not appear that we define credible in this particular policy. - So how do we provide guidance to its implementation to our staff?

[02:25:09] So how do we determine the viewpoints? I guess if we don't have credibility defined or maybe it's in our regulatory, how do we implement it? - Yeah, I don't believe there's any regulations associated with this policy. I think the intention was the plain language meaning of the word credible and certainly our instructional teams work to ensure that they're supporting teachers in the work of providing credible or considering different information or sources to ensure that they are credible when they come to bear.

[02:25:41] Not in this moment, but I would love a deeper understanding of that. Sure. in the policy if you could help define partisan and what was the other sectarian literature and what criteria was used to determine whether it is or isn't prohibited where are you in the policy cultures I thought I saw that in there so

[02:26:18] if it's not then again keep me honest it's a lot of policy I don't see it but I'm happy to do a look for you oh way back up first line got it so that is our our current policy language that is there, partisan or sectarian nature.

[02:26:35] So that's about-- - So just, I want to, I apologize for interrupting you midstream, but I wanna make sure we're clear in our communication. So specifically not nature, 'cause that I think would have a different definition. This is literature.

[02:26:52] - Correct. I think that is about, and we could probably be more clear there. I think that's about external literature that is provided to students by other organizations or entities that may be-- - You've got it. So I would like for us to provide clarity there because there's a significant difference between literature externally and what we use internally within curriculum.

[02:27:14] So I would ask that the policy committee just take a look at that and define it a little bit more. And I think it would be spot on. - And I know we have other policy we can reference and link that back to. - Yeah, so I'll pause 'cause I know you wanna go around for any other thoughts.

[02:27:33] - I would just like to reiterate all of what Mrs. Atkins said. I think that it is very important that we allow our professionals to use their judgment to teach things that education can sometimes be uncomfortable and sometimes learning things in life makes things uncomfortable and I wanna ensure that nobody feels that they are being censured and not allowed to use their professional judgment what they are teaching children so i um you know certainly appreciate our consideration around this

[02:28:12] all right and then the last one uh 3.20 reviewer proposed revisions to policy p7-13-002 the school day i just wanted to say to the policy team that i really appreciate this policy it acknowledges wellness it gives our students the opportunity to start their day with focus um and the question i had was has a division established guidelines to ensure that

[02:28:46] this policy is well understood so this is an existing policy that's been around since at least 2000 i see that was on the it was the last time it was revised um and this just clarifies and parses out um the moment of silence from the school day to try and do that very thing and reinforce the clarity that we provide our schools by having a title that matches the actual content yeah i think it's outstanding i want to do kudos to to the policy team for that work i know that

[02:29:21] self-care is especially important to our high schoolers and so for us to acknowledge it in policy appropriately is important and so that was just a kudos to the i know mrs shea and mrs can sell on the policy teams and recognizing that is important and so that is all that i have uh i got one for um 3.19 which is the school calendar um so looking here um at this one

[02:29:59] i wanted to be clear make sure that it's clear so um while the school board adopts the calendar and we have some emergency closure pieces that talk about how the superintendent is responsible for any emergency closures every once in a while such as this year we see that that closure also requires a change in the school calendar and those changes are not voted on the board that's not a board action item that is the purview of the superintendent and so i want to make sure as we

[02:30:37] we look at this policy and it talks about the calendar may be amended upon the recommendation of the superintendent and approval of the school board. We don't approve those calendar changes that are associated with emergency closures. Yeah. Like obviously not the day of the closure, but like for example, when we change the half day to a full day or that sort of thing. And so I want to make sure that this policy is clear there.

[02:31:05] we can do that others on that pat i had another one on calendar and i just thought the first sentence doesn't read as as well as a lot of our other policies do miss coy if the committee or um the annual school calendar shall be presented to the school board for adoption prior to the march meeting each year you know we it just i don't know if it needs clarity colleagues does anybody else think that reads strangely i read it i read it back and i thought should we provide

[02:31:39] greater clarity there um which march meeting for example we have we have quite a few you know we have a few in march i don't know we can clarify i think well that's great clarity to add i i think when i've been on the board we've typically passed it much yeah like you know much more so it hasn't been a sticking point but you know perhaps something and then prior to the march meeting right like which one and you know we're running two years ahead right on our so if the committee

[02:32:18] if we could just look at that again I'd appreciate it sure that's all I had to say I add a thought uh one thought would be to just remove uh March meeting each year and just cap it to allow for more flexibility so the annual school calendar shall be presented to the school board for adoption um i i don't know are there code of virginia pieces that have to deal with the timeline in which approval i don't believe i don't think that it does and the reason i'm saying that given the

[02:32:56] things that we've experienced over the past couple of years from covet all the way to the extreme weather to the water situation um i think removing the the march meeting each year gives more flexibility because what happens if we don't meet in march now you have a policy that we are not able to abide by so it's just a thought for consideration all right thank you so much any other items on those 21 policies all right next batch all right thank you not as many as 21 but we do have another

[02:33:31] batch that are related to facility use policies for your consideration again not seeking your approval of these at this meeting but at a future meeting and those are items 3.25 through 3.34 Colleagues any thoughts questions about yeah miss Kinsella? I would just miss Coy if you would just take a moment please I know the the team did extensive work not just in policy committee if you could just highlight All the folks that weighed in on this particular

[02:34:08] Item I would appreciate it. Yeah, I'm happy to this package is one that we collectively have been working on since the fall and have been working with a work group that includes principals and DSAs at different levels from some of our buildings that get a lot of community use and have some very unique community use as well as experts from within the central team. And that group has done a lot of work, iterative work over the last many months to identify some challenges beyond the desire to

[02:34:41] consolidate these various policies into one or two concise pieces where it is easy to find all of the rules and applicable rules for community use. So that group has been hard at work. They have seen many different drafts. We have also taken those drafts and topics to other advisory and formal structures. So our principals, for example, to get feedback from broader groups and then the small groups have come back together to iterate further and then the policy committee of course has had the opportunity to weigh in in some different ways over the last few months as we

[02:35:21] we've continued to work on this anything else colleagues yes sorry yes I did have a question about with the new community use of school buildings the changes that are being made would the fees that are being collected for facility use how are those going to be disseminated and if we are not already would we consider returning that money to the school themselves to use for

[02:35:57] whatever building needs they may have absolutely it's a wonderful question and one that the group wrestled with and raised uh very much so currently um there the structures are such that there are fees for overtime for staffing events as well as flat usage fees right now those funds do not go back to schools directly in any manner it's indirect covering of costs the group discussed at length the need for some portion of the fees collected under the new policy to be proportionately

[02:36:31] shared back with schools so that they can use that again just to cover basic costs that are incurred with the wear and tear of community use okay so it sounds like a yes yes it is not i will say it is not reflected in the policy or reg because it's not reflected there now that's not a that's yeah that's that wouldn't so we're still going to other people are not or well might influence people are using the building but um no no i would just like to see that because having sat in conversations about building use at my school level um a frustration that has been

[02:37:04] expressed in the past is that we give up the space but then aren't always compensated for the space that's being taken from the people who use the building all the time so no no I appreciate that thank you all right all right seeing nothing else on policy very pleased to bring you the next item 4.01 and that is a presentation on our community school model this is a wonderful opportunity to highlight and showcase updates and progress related to our community school model and the tremendous work of our FACE team.

[02:37:43] And so Adrienne Cole Johnson and Nicole Boone are here to provide us that presentation. I'll turn it over to them. - All right. Good afternoon, Madam Chair, members of the school board and Dr. Cashwell. It's a pleasure to be here today alongside Nicole Boone, our incredible assistant director, to share updates on our family and community engagement division.

[02:38:05] Engagement is at the heart of how we connect our stakeholders and we are excited to highlight key initiatives that strengthen our commitment to student outcomes and impacts speaking of our commitment our dedication remains strong we're focused on three key actions building resource-rich school communities bridging high-impact partnerships and boosting transformative family engagement this commitment also aligns with our adoption of the national community school model reinforcing the why behind our approach and the work we do every day. As our work has evolved, so has the community school model,

[02:38:45] and what started as four foundational pillars has now expanded into six key principles. This evolution makes sure that our schools are not just places of learning, but hubs of opportunity, support, and belonging for all students and families.

[02:39:00] I'll hand this portion of the presentation over to Mrs. Boone, who will share specific highlights of how these pillars and principles show up in our unique henrico model thanks adrian and greetings school board members and dr cashwell our first highlight surrounds collaborative leadership initiatives that are providing consistent opportunities for stakeholders to connect and engage through our many active pta groups biannual faith leaders luncheons and additional committee opportunities, Henrico exemplifies dedication to parent and community voice.

[02:39:39] Our school impact committees are a recent addition to our collaborative leadership efforts. These committees include students, parents, community partners, administrators, and school-based staff that solve for school-related goals in dynamic and creative ways.

[02:39:59] Through the work of our school impact committees, schools have been able to identify opportunities for volunteers to support their efforts with the goal of enhancing student outcomes and community involvement just this year with funding from the videoe we have been able to launch a seed opportunity to support schools with the initiatives they have outlined notable efforts include longdale elementary's bmx show baker elementary's man up garden initiative morning math with moms at Johnson Elementary and Henrico High's TLC program, just to name a few.

[02:40:37] The success of our family and community engagement efforts is truly about partnerships. Every achievement we've attained has been a product of working together and alongside others.

[02:40:53] As we create meaningful and relevant opportunities, we experience better outcomes for our learners. Continuing the theme of partnerships, our extended learning collaborators are quickly growing.

[02:41:09] Partners offer a variety of programs, both free and fee-based to support academic success, enrichment and student engagement. During the 24-25 school year, we have been able to provide new and innovative out of school time programming.

[02:41:27] In partnership with Henrico Prevention Services, we are able to offer the Connect program on site at the Oak. Students from various neighborhoods receive academic support and life skills development. Similarly, with the Henrico Education Foundation, we have a collaborative high school-based community learning center, combining Varina and Highland Springs High Schools, providing academic and enrichment beyond school hours.

[02:41:57] Last but not least, Rise Up Wilder is where students receive academic assistance featuring hands-on learning, fitness and coding opportunities in partnership with VCU and Capital One Coders. With these diverse programs, we are continuing to expand opportunities to ensure all students, regardless of background, have access to meaningful learning experience that support both academic and personal growth.

[02:42:28] At the heart of our family and community engagement efforts is the belief that mentorship changes lives. That's why we are proud to continue growing the Henrico Heroes Mentorship Program, providing students with the guidance, support, and encouragement they need to thrive.

[02:42:45] As we continue expanding Henrico Heroes, we are committed to recruiting more mentors, deepening our impact, and strengthening connections between students and caring adults. Through mentorship, we are fostering belonging, resilience, and success, one student at a time.

[02:43:07] Creating a culture of belonging means that we support educators and school-based staff by providing useful professional learning opportunities. Our newest endeavor is our micro-credential program, which is a comprehensive professional development initiative for school-based staff passionate about strengthening school community connections.

[02:43:28] This program equips participants with the knowledge, strategies, and resources to foster meaningful engagement between schools, families, and community partners. In addition to our new micro-credential course, FACE is often connecting and collaborating with other HCPS departments to ensure that family engagement is woven into our practices.

[02:43:53] We continue to provide meaningful and impactful family engagement opportunities through programming at our first community school hub, the Oak Avenue Complex. This hub provides a collaborative space for our internal and external partners to engage with HCPS staff and community partners.

[02:44:12] Through various partnerships, we have provided workshops on financial literacy, mental health, and provided support for multilingual families. Events at the Oak have been a great way to connect.

[02:44:27] Hosting gatherings such as the Chess and Strategic Game Expo, the Partners in Aging Expo, and our signature All Together Tuesday events, we are touching various members of our Henrico community. We can't mention powerful family engagement without recognizing some of our trademark events and programs.

[02:44:50] The Bridge Builders Academy continues to connect families to valuable information to ensure student and family success. Our annual back to school event continues to attract hundreds of families. It's an opportunity to connect with school staff, receive school supplies and engage with HCPS teams and community partners.

[02:45:11] Most importantly, it fosters a sense of community amongst Henrico families. Lastly, we are excited for the return of our mobile resource center, which allows us to bring resources directly to the community. Now we've shared a lot about the incredible work happening across Henrico, but sometimes seeing is believing. What better way to highlight our family and community engagement efforts than through the voices and moments that bring them to life?

[02:45:41] Let's take a look at this highlight reel showcasing the meaningful connections, initiatives and impacts happening throughout our school communities. A big part of our work is bringing awareness to the community because there are so many resources that do exist across the county. Our partners really help us do a lot of work at a higher level because they have expertise in areas that we don't. So I think through good communication and collaboration with our partners and with our team, we always want to meet families where they

[02:46:12] are. The beginning word begins with a capital. PAL is, of course, the acronym for the Police Athletic League. And here in Henrico, each year we have about four to five thousand kids to come through. We rely on FACE to identify those families. It's all about coming together collaboratively to meet the needs of, you know, our families and our communities.

[02:46:45] I had three different children, different ages come through the program. They had a chess league, they had a basketball league that he was able to join. For my daughter, she loved to dance, so I'm seeing more of just her coming out with the outgoing personality.

[02:47:07] You know, FACE may encounter a family or a kid that may need additional academic support or just supervision after school. And they can contact us and we're there for them to provide that additional support to the families need. The Henrico Community Food Bank really was formed in response to what we saw on the ground during COVID in 2021 one is when we started our operations to serve all residents of Henrico, east, west, north, south,

[02:47:44] with supplemental groceries that will get delivered to the home. So the partnership with family and community engagement, they are instrumental in funneling information about households that need our services. With Sudeshna, with the food bank, this was just a great opportunity to make that connection and bridge that gap for families to provide that food support.

[02:48:04] Hello folks, hello, go to your block five, okay? Hello folks, hello. Here at Kuyakasen, we have a very diverse student population. So when you come into our buildings, you walk into our hallways, you see all types of people, languages spoken. Hi, this is Afro Latios and their music.

[02:48:21] We have over 35 countries representing over 50 languages spoken within our buildings. So it is a very diverse student population. We have students enrolling weekly, sometimes daily, coming from different countries. And it's amazing to see how the different students and the different cultures interact.

[02:48:39] QMS first block party, this was the first event we came up with just to build a relationship with our families before the beginning of school and ensure that they have the resources for immunizations, physical, and other resources they need available to come to school.

[02:48:57] And once you build that relationship with them, they will never forget. So we're fortunate to have programs like FACE supporting our efforts. We have a community school resource coordinator who really supports us. out in the community making those connections that we may not necessarily have the time to do on a day-to-day basis. One of the key points if the family the parents are not engaged the students won't be engaged so having a parent involved and engaged and knowing about the school is very important.

[02:49:30] So this is the early learning suite at the Oak and the main thing we do out of this space is our learn and play program learn and play is designed for kiddos who are not yet in school to come and experience a classroom type setting and also learn through play i've never had any of these before no you've never played with these kind of blocks before when family and community engagement moved into the oak we knew we wanted to support it i mean building community helping with engagement helping learning that's that is what libraries are about so it was a very obvious connection for us

[02:50:08] are they going to school we're an entry point to the oak as a whole many of my families at this point are utilizing the clothes closet they're utilizing the food pantry one of the parents is now going to the exercise class that's hosted here that's such a huge win because we connected the folks who are already utilizing this program with other resources in Henrico County that they need.

[02:50:34] We are coordinating between several different partners, right? And making sure that we're able to come together for a common cause. We have to be ready to activate on a moment's notice because what we do is we are meeting families needs, right? And you never know what that need might be or when it might come up. So finding the right partners for us is super crucial for us to be able to impact communities at a high level so as always thank you for being champions and bridge builders for our collective family and community engagement work the beauty of our efforts is that it's truly

[02:51:12] woven into the daily fabric of henrico county public schools and so we now welcome any questions or comments um thank you so much i'm trying to think who i haven't started with yet um I just had one quick question.

[02:51:30] How do you identify the topics you're going to present for your bridge builders? Yes, great question. So we often are getting feedback from community, parents, staff, students. And so we infuse that into the topics that we select.

[02:51:46] And so as we're looking at the spring and the fall, we'll take that information and make sure that we're able to provide a schedule that's reflective of the interests of the community. to say when whenever I see the schedule it always looked like these are the hot topics right or the things that we're hearing about so yes it's actually nice to hear that that really is how it's done because they're always so relevant just thank you for the hard work you do um I appreciate you thank you Mr. Irving yes thank you thank you for all the work that y'all do and and for providing us with an update on this my the only big question I have is how much if any funding do

[02:52:25] we receive for these programs that comes from the federal government we have so sorry i turned it off meaning to turn it on uh you know there are a number of funding streams most all of this is local funding but certainly title one funds are leveraged uh for some of the positions and so or at least they had been when our advocates first came on board and i know we work to move a number of those onto the general fund which is uh the continued plan so i think it's fair to say though that some of our community partners rely on more federal funding streams for community aid

[02:53:04] and that sort of thing so certainly our work isn't done in isolation as you saw the team really nod to some of our really relevant and strong community partners who themselves may rely on some of those funding sources and do we feel comfortable if those funds were to go away that we would be able to offset the disappearance of them to ensure that these programs continue on?

[02:53:30] I think I appreciate Dr. Cashwell's answer and perspective. I do think we have a pretty robust approach to our funding. Some of our family advocates are funded through federal funds, but I would say a lot of the programs and the other offerings that we have are not.

[02:53:47] So our hope is that we would be able to continue and I think our deep collaboration and partnerships really allow us to be pretty nimble if we were in that situation. Great point. Yeah, no, I appreciate that. This is amazing work and the kids benefit tremendously from it.

[02:54:03] I would just hate to see anything go away if the financial picture were to become less clear. So I just want to make sure that we're here to support you on any way we can. Thanks, Mr. Young. Thank you for the presentation. I want to commend the FACE team on being truly boots on the ground the dedication to engaging with families beyond traditional school hours the flexibility of meeting families where they are and the innovative work being done at the oak are making a real and lasting impact um it's clear um this team is not only committed but also evolving adapting and introducing new initiatives to strengthen family and community engagement

[02:54:43] i wanted to give you that praise before i started asking any questions because every time something comes up, I hear Adrian team, water crisis, reach out to Adrian's team, snow days, reach out to Adrian's team. So you guys are really, truly boots on the ground. One other thing, the school impact committees are amazing. It's bringing in businesses that are now, I'm in more than I probably should be, but everybody's inviting me to the school impact committee. But it's great because we're starting to see businesses from around the community start maybe giving donations or having an input or having an impact and trying to, you know, find funds for different, whether it's field

[02:55:22] day or t-shirts or different things. You're starting to see the community, starting to rally around their schools that's right there next to them. So that's amazing. The family advocates have become backbones in our schools. Everybody knows the family advocate before they know the principal sometimes. So that's amazing what I'm hearing. I'm trying to think. I was a little disappointed that I didn't see the summer tour that you guys put on. We're working on it. It's coming. It was amazing, but you guys went out and touched almost every community. Yeah, and I will say, again, that's done in collaboration when I think about Dr. Hugh's team in particular. I mean, it's a really collaborative effort. So, we're doing some planning now. We will be out and about

[02:56:00] this summer, so you should see the schedule pretty soon. Okay, and I was going to ask you almost how does FACE measure the effectiveness of his programs, and I think you measure it by keep showing us these videos keep showing us the pictures keep showing us the smiles on these kids faces when you guys go out um and i do have one particular question the connect program is it just only at the oakland are we still in other apartment complexes and neighborhoods so they do have uh programming in um neighborhoods like they have a connect program at st luke specifically

[02:56:34] the oak program came to us last year sometime and that's just one of the options that they have for the connect program so it's not solely at the oak perfect all right no questions but keep up the amazing work you guys are doing awesome thank you thank you miss atkins it continues to be wonderful to see the oak continue to strengthen its roots no pun intended but it's nice to talk about a vision and then see it come into fruition and then come here in this moment and

[02:57:12] see both of you speak about it with a smile. It's quite refreshing. I did have the same question about the summer tours. I was wondering if that could be expanded in any way. So no response, but if that could be expanded in any way, that would be appreciated. And then I wanted to talk a little bit about our CLCs, our community learning centers. I know how impactful they are. I think I have six in Varina-Sanston and Highland Springs, and those CLCs, if I'm accurate, are grant funded, and I wasn't sure if the majority of that

[02:57:50] grant funding comes from the Henrico Education Foundation or the other sources, but is the chunk of that from HEF? Yes, so we collaboratively apply for the grant with Henrico Education Foundation. But the Virginia Department of Education is the main funder for the grants, working through the recipients HEF and Henrico County Public Schools.

[02:58:11] Okay, I wanted clarity for our CLCs because now that there's, I have better discernment on if it's HEF asking for money or if the bulk of that came from the federal government through HEF and if I heard correctly, is the federal government money coming through HEF?

[02:58:30] These are specific state grants through the Virginia Department of Education targeted for this work that have been available in previous years and we hope will continue to be available so my my um consideration uh for the board particularly for our community learning centers and and we have several i'm just aware that i have six in the rhinos instant and highland springs is if we can get an update as or if changes occur uh i think that we have to keep keep our eye on the pulse for our CLCs.

[02:59:04] And then that also leads to the Henrico Education Foundation. If the bulk of their money is coming from state funded grants, what other areas is that touching? I think it would be important to understand that. - Yeah, we can certainly map that out.

[02:59:20] And when we receive the grants, there's usually a period of time for which we receive the funding. It could be two years, three years, and then you'd have to reapply to meet the criteria. So we have schools at different phases of, they're maybe in a first year versus coming to the end of their time in the cycle and then certainly looking at other opportunities whether it's through CIS or any of our other partners HEF run after-school programs to make sure that we're making an impact across all schools even those who haven't qualified for the grants but would use this a similar approach if the grants weren't

[02:59:55] available to to leverage those other resources and and certainly HEF does fundraising otherwise for some of their programs that's a really good point we know that impact these programs have and we want to make sure we're going to be able to continue to provide them and so the other question that I have is where do you see face in the next five to six years that's a tougher one so you don't feel like you have to answer it in this moment but I am interested and so having multiple conversations. I think we traveled to go see some other community centers and

[03:00:34] wondering what other pieces from your research are you going to tap into to bring to reality for the Oak Complex. So I just want you to know I'm very interested in what that vision looks like for the future. And then speaking of CIS, so community and schools, I just wanted to give a huge kudos to our cis coordinators i know they work wonderfully well with the face team and that collaboration is such a a beautiful example of how it should be done and wanted to to

[03:01:09] give you the praise in this moment and then i had a question about um challenges with support within the community and challenges abroad so the oak avenue complex is for all of henrico county public schools but because of its location and being nestled in highland springs i don't want to assume that the majority of engagement is from highland springs i'm actually curious around how much engagement is the oak receiving from across henrico county and is there anything you'd like

[03:01:47] the board to do to assist with promotion of the Oak? That was also a loaded question, so feel free to share it at a later date. But that is something I often think about because we have several things or initiatives that's intended for all of Henrico County.

[03:02:04] However, because of location, sometimes you just get that immediate community. And I'm curious as to your thoughts there. Yeah. So, I think for some of the needs-based stuff, so like our clothes closet and our food Bank, we do get a lot of families from who are located closer to the Oak. However, when we have our events like our All Together Tuesdays, our Black History Month event that we just had, the Chess Expo, we are definitely getting families from across Enrico County Public Schools. And I think one is awareness, like making sure that people know that we're having these things at the Oak. And our communications team has done a wonderful job in ensuring that

[03:02:43] we're getting the word out. I'm sure you've seen it on social media and all of our platforms. And so I think for us, it's just continuing to work closely with those avenues that get the information out to the people, utilizing our FACE team who are in schools to get the information out.

[03:02:58] We also disseminate information directly to principals through their directors with the newsletter so that they have the information. So it's not just going to a certain group of, a certain population of families, right? It's going to all schools across Henrico County public schools.

[03:03:14] So I think it is a challenge, but it's something that we're actively working to overcome so that we can get the communication out more broadly to Henrico County public schools. And I would love to add that what's very exciting about this work, you'll remember when we and you talked about the seeds first being planted and now root spreading and growing at the oak, you know, our vision was that if this was successful, given the size and the varying needs of our county, we would be able to replicate this kind of service.

[03:03:43] So Virginia Randolph, the new building, has a community learning center hub factored into the blueprint, and Adrienne and her team have been working to think about how they would tailor that hub to meet the unique needs of the surrounding area.

[03:04:01] And Kwiakasen Middle School, when it's rebuilt, will also have a hub. So that allows us geographically to have three community centers that will be, while some Some of the services may be similar, you know, easier access to food pantries, clothing closets and those kinds of things.

[03:04:18] Some of the activities that are offered after school and on the sort of like the all together Tuesdays would be tailored to meet the unique needs of the communities in the area. And then I'm sure they'll do some countywide events like they're doing now and rotate those across the county.

[03:04:35] So, you know, they're very humble and they're talking about their impact, but what they've been able to do with the oak and the vision for scaling that for access across the county is pretty tremendous thank you yeah i continue to be excited when i go over to the oak and i think you know i'll just close with if there's something that this board can do from a communication perspective um you know please let us know because i do foresee it continuing to expand but the only way to learn from a lesson is to know what you're trying to

[03:05:11] teach and so please feel comfortable sharing how we can help so that as the next one comes on board they don't have to make mistakes from the first one or if there's a lesson to be learned let's make sure we learn it uh and so i'll just i'll close with that and thank you and the team so much thank you thank you so much and thank you for the work in this space but i also had so much delight seeing quiakasin um featured um i think a lot of people don't understand

[03:05:44] um the rich diversity that exists within my district and that we really see at quiakasin kind of in this in the center all of it and it is incredible and you know that principal steven shared, you know, 30 over 30 dozens of countries and dozens and dozens and dozens of languages being spoken in that building. And the way that your team has helped partner with that to leverage all of the benefits of having that diversity in that building and the way that y'all have been able to amplify that with your connections in the community have

[03:06:19] really been a game changer. And I am really looking for everyone knows I love the Recue building and I'm like counting down the days till we open but also to have your hub there right and very actively being able to support not only Kuyakusa but that broader community that um that school is very walkable to um a lot of the immigrant and refugee families and that sort of thing like that that location and so I'm really excited about those synergies really excited about the work that you're all you're doing there so thank you awesome thank you and I have to say the support that you all have given with the community school resource coordinators

[03:06:55] has really allowed us to expand throughout the county so sustainable expansion has been key and really allowing us to get in schools that we may not have been in years ago so thank you all thank you so much thank you anything else thank you all right madam chair that concludes items from me excellent the next item on the agenda is our consent agenda and so colleagues you'll see that we have items 5.01 through 5.05 as part of the consent agenda are there any of those five items that you would like to separate out for separate discussion or consideration all right

[03:07:34] hearing none do i have an approval of the consent agenda do i have a motion on the consent i move that the school board accept adopt approve and or award items 5.01 through 5.05 on the consent agenda as presented thank you mr irving is there a second second second by mr young all those in favor say aye aye any opposed the ayes have it the consent agenda has been approved the next item on the agenda is public forum we received a written public forum for our work session we received all

[03:08:09] the comments before the meeting started colleagues did you all receive comments accordingly thank you so much we appreciate all of our constituents and staff and that wrote in to share with public forum those comments are posted for the public in board docs the next item on the agenda is unfinished business colleagues do you have any other unfinished business I have unfinished business just as I've been kind of noodling as the board meeting went on just from our previous

[03:08:42] agenda item and so Dr. Cashwell I would like to add this is on behalf of me not on behalf of the board as a chair but since we won't be looking at at this time boundary adjustment for relief for Freeman I would like to touch base with you on what other relief could be provided for Freeman who again has been over capacity seven years I know we have made some adjustments to provide relief for Tucker next year and would like similar consideration for Freeman next year on some action items that we could work on for relief there absolutely look forward to the discussion thank

[03:09:19] you and then in terms of you know Ms. Kinsella brought up looking at a comprehensive analysis in the fall and so you know as we consider as a board what that process might look like i encourage us to possibly solicit public input on the front end of that process to be responsive of what needs not only that we see on paper with numbers but also needs that we may see in the community as we've heard really in these last two weeks that this this other process has has brought up really good community feedback and perhaps utilizing that partially on the front end of the conversation

[03:09:54] to inform us of the comprehensive analysis and then also just really encourage the board you know as there's been talk of looking at a comprehensive analysis and still being able to make adjustments fall 2026. I think it's imperative that any high school moves being considered and that comprehensive adjustment have clarity very clear clarity by December 2025 as high school students begin to enroll in courses in January, and they begin to audition and apply for

[03:10:28] special classes, that if we are bumping back any consideration, that we still give those students and those families the direction they need before they would need to enroll in classes and make decisions for that following fall. And so just as a board, as we continue to noodle what Ms. Kinsella brought forward um for consideration um just all of those pieces and so um i know it's a little unconventional to bring up during unfinished business but i wanted to make sure that we kind of wrapped a bow on that this meeting so that we've shared thoughts and feelings and any follow-up there

[03:11:07] yeah i have a question as you're speaking to earlier's discussion but um really unfinished business literally uh dr cashwell how will the community uh be made aware of the board's um decision that we made today to to pause if you will will there be official communication yes we can certainly do that i see mrs cox coming forward but um we did update the community following the board meeting uh where the presentation was initially given with the responsive options

[03:11:44] for the board and we can update that yes ma'am so there's a binder that goes out tomorrow it will be included there also in the clipboard and we can send a targeted message to those four high school communities through parent square thank you i just wanted to have it captured as part of our conversation thank you chair shea yeah i appreciate that just trying to wrap things up this meeting um in terms of all thoughts that we have there anything else colleagues all right thank you so so much. New business? Anybody have new business? All right. Hearing none, we are at the end

[03:12:23] of our agenda, which is the announcement of uncoming meetings. Our next meeting will be March 27th, 2025. There will be a work session at 3:00 PM here in the Newbridge Auditorium, followed by a monthly meeting at 6:30. Times may be adjusted as needed. This meeting is hereby adjourned.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Coraggio Consulting · aguyonx.com