Coraggio Consulting
Henrico County School Board Work Session, Thursday, February 12, 2026

Date: Thursday, February 12, 2026
Place: Henrico County School Board, Virginia
Length: 1h 47m (video)
Official meeting video (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQg3two_K2g
Official meeting portal (Henrico County Public Schools, Diligent Community): https://henricoschools.community.diligentoneplatform.com/Portal/MeetingTypeList.aspx

Machine transcript (speech-to-text) produced by Coraggio Consulting. Not an official county record. Names and numbers may be misspelled; check the video at the timestamp before quoting.
Speech-to-text: whisper.cpp, model large-v3-turbo. Produced 2026-10-25. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:01:27] I'd like to welcome everyone to the February 12, 2026 work session of the Henrico County School Board. At this time, I would like to note Dr. Cashwell's virtual participation in today's meeting. We will now have the Pledge of Allegiance and the moment of silence.

[00:01:45] May we all stand for the pledge. 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 and if we can all

[00:02:06] remain standing for a moment of silence thank you we will now move on to the approval of the agenda is uh colleagues do i have a motion to approve the agenda i move the school board approve the agenda for today's meeting motion by mrs kinsella do i have a second seconded by mr young all those

[00:02:43] in favor say aye. Aye. The ayes have it. The agenda is approved. We will now enter into closed session. The next item on the agenda is closed session. Is there a motion to go into closed session? I move that the school board go into closed session for the discussion of matters covered under items A2 of section 2.2-3711 of the code of Virginia 1950 as amended pertaining to the request for religious exemption from compulsory attendance that would involve THE DISCLOSURE OF INFORMATION CONTAINED IN SCHOLASIC RECORDS CONCERNING INDIVIDUAL STUDENTS.

[00:03:17] THANK YOU, MS. SHEA. DO I HAVE A SECOND? SECOND. SECONDED BY MS. ATKINS. ALL THOSE IN FAVOR SAY AYE. ALL THOSE OPPOSED. THE AYES HAVE IT. WE WILL NOW GO INTO CLOSED SESSION. WE WILL RECONVENE THE WORK SESSION AT THE CONCLUSION OF OUR CLOSED MEETING.

[00:03:44] ALL RIGHT. WE HAVE RETURNED FROM CLOSED SESSION. COLLEAGUES, IS THERE A MOTION TO CERTIFY CLOSED

[00:16:23] session. I move that the school board certified by recorded vote that only the best of each school board member's knowledge only public business matters lawfully exempted from the open meeting requirements of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act and identified in the motion authorizing the closed meeting were heard discussed or considered in closed meeting. Thank you Mr. Young.

[00:16:49] Do I have a second? Second. Thank you Mrs. Acton. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed? The ayes have it closed session has been certified. Dr. Grant. Good afternoon Chair Irving, members of the board. The first recommendation is that the board approve a request for release from compulsory attendance for student case number 25-26-RE10 based on bona fide religious beliefs. As always,

[00:17:23] names of students are protected under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act. Thank you Dr. Grant. is there a motion to approve the request for religious exemption i move that the school board approve the request for religious exemption from compulsory attendance for student case number 25-26-re-10 thank you mrs shea do i have a second second thank you mrs kinsella uh all in favor say aye aye aye all opposed the ayes have it the request for religious exemption has been

[00:17:57] approved dr grant next dr farrell dr snow and mr thorpe will present the board with an update on innovative school scheduling practices that have been implemented at the elementary and secondary level good afternoon chair irvin members of the board and dr grant my name is thomas farrell director of high school education this afternoon we are happy to provide you with an update on our work to implement and expand innovative practices in our elementary and secondary schools our priorities to reimagine the school experience and broaden deeper and

[00:18:36] personalized learning are essential because our students must be prepared for a rapidly changing world. Our emphasis on innovative programming and structures ensures that all students develop the skills needed to navigate complex challenges and contribute meaningfully to their communities and the world. Additionally, we look forward to sharing how we are measuring the progress and success of this work. Our division's work is designed to expand deeper learning experiences for students,

[00:19:12] aligning with our journey to 2030 goals for learner-centered, life-ready opportunities while also addressing needs of our teachers. More specifically, schools implementing models for innovation address several key actions in our new strategic plan. For instance, in our goal for academic achievement, designing and delivering innovative project-based learning experiences, along with increasing opportunities for students to showcase skills in our Henrico learner profile,

[00:19:45] are operationalized in our models. Furthermore, in support of our recruit, engage, retain, and reward strategic plan goal, staff engaged in staffing models have the opportunity to specialize within their responsibilities. The elementary examples that we are highlighting today are incorporating a research-based structure through Next Education workforce that is designed to improve educator, student, and system outcomes by creating teams of educators with distributed

[00:20:22] expertise. The staffing models function to ensure deeper learning opportunities for students and to support teachers in focusing on their work around areas of strength or interest. To be clear, these staffing models function well beyond the traditional team teaching. The more focused workload allows teachers and teams to lead learning so that students understand core subjects deeply, think critically, solve complex problems, communicate effectively, and collaborate, enabling them to apply knowledge to new situations.

[00:21:01] Let's learn more about how we have expanded and furthered our innovative practices in our schools. Today, you will hear highlights of this work across the division. Mr. Scott Thorpe, Director of Elementary Education, will begin by sharing the work underway in our elementary schools, along with Tanya Holmes, Principal at Harvey Elementary School.

[00:21:25] Following that, Dr. Taylor Snow, Director of Secondary Teaching and Learning, Mrs. Lee Dunavant, principal of Millsy Godwin High School and I will share highlights of the innovative practices taking place in our high schools.

[00:21:41] To kick us off, I'm pleased to turn the presentation over to Mr. Thorpe to talk about our elementary schools. Thank you, Dr. Farrell.

[00:21:56] While all of our schools are engaged in innovative learning experiences to meet the needs of their students, we are highlighting elementary schools whose innovative practices are supported through the next education workforce models. Select teachers at these schools have become, have developed content area expertise, enabling them to delve deeper into specific subjects such as reading, mathematics, Virginia studies, or science. While both Harvey Elementary School and Colonial Trail Elementary School have expanded the model to additional grade levels,

[00:22:33] the following elementary schools have begun to utilize specialized teaching models as a way to increase deeper learning experiences and specialize within grade teams. Carver Elementary School, Maude Trevette Elementary School, Mayberry Elementary School, and Shady Grove Elementary School. There is no one-size-fits-all model to design and deliver personalized and deeper learning experiences. The diverse assets and needs of each school inform the thinking and implementation of each model. However, all Next Education Workforce models share several common

[00:23:11] elements, including these grade team elements. At our six elementary schools, teachers completed Next Education Workforce's summer teacher team training for teachers during the summer to learn about each unique grade team element. School leaders have empowered teacher teams with the autonomy needed to make decisions about daily schedules, learning spaces, and design learning experiences. Our goal here is clear. The purpose of implementing the team-based elements is to impact both the teacher and student experience this includes broadening deeper learning experiences

[00:23:50] let's hear from tanya holmes proud principal at harvey elementary school about the experience at their school good afternoon yes i am tanya holmes the proud principal of harvey elementary school at our school we have um been excited to implement the next education workforce for the past two and and a half years, I'm loud, sorry.

[00:24:15] We have a daily time in our schedule that is built in for students to walk to what they need. This empowers student ownership and voice. Students move to learning groups aligned to their specific skill needs, whether remediation, practice, or enrichment, as well as promoting agency and reducing one-size-fits-all instruction.

[00:24:37] We also encourage flexible grouping, which drives deeper learning. Grade levels regularly analyze data to regroup students, ensuring instruction remains responsive and that learning pathways adjust as our students grow.

[00:24:52] We also ensure that there is small group instruction, which allows teachers to go deeper. Student learning in these smaller settings provide space for teachers to model thinking, ask probing questions, and engage students in math discourse that builds conceptual understanding, not just procedural fluency.

[00:25:14] We also have collaboration across grade teams, which strengthens consistency. Teachers plan together and to align small group structures, expectations, and strategies, ensuring that students experience cohesive practices as they move throughout grades, which are grades three, four, and five, thank you.

[00:25:38] - Thank you, Mrs. Holmes. Let's learn more about how innovative practices are taking shape in our elementary and high schools. i think it's really working i think the kids enjoy it i think it's beneficial for us we are are not as bogged down with planning things that i'm have weaknesses in another teammate can jump in and help it's something that's definitely kept to the education system for sure so i'm just going to go ahead and give you one example just job friends have a good session too okay last year

[00:26:18] we did a four session model so there was four teachers we each taught one subject while switching is good too many switches at this age just wasn't working for them and so we had to have a tough conversation as a team how can we still have those next ed values but make it work better for our kids my co-teacher and i share a group of students this year it's about 50 students we each have our home rooms and then we kind of switch halfway through the day so that we're able to dive into our our true passion almost every nine weeks where we're looking at what's working for the teachers what's working for the students as a whole what's working for individual students

[00:26:56] and then we make adjustments it's definitely reinvigorating it sort of like injects this joy of teaching um that was definitely dying for me all right here we go let's hear our sound good job we are doing the teaming strategy for first grade this year we are each teaching one subject. I am reading and writing. I teach the phonics sessions. I teach math. In my case, I actually have two. I'm doing science and social studies. Reading instruction is a passion of mine,

[00:27:34] so I've been able to utilize all of the skills that I learned in grad school. All right, where is your tongue? In the past would have just been a group of 20 students for one class but now to all of the first grade classes it really gives us opportunities to do a lot of cross-curricular things as well so connecting math to reading or connecting math to science in a way that would make sense for first graders i feel really good about it because

[00:28:07] i i get to know different teachers we do look at a lot of data together and we work on analyzing things and grouping students so that that way we can provide them the best support. Is that vocab word? Numerator. The second card you draw.

[00:28:24] For grades three and four, we are departmentalizing with that and we look at how well teachers are doing in those content areas as well as what do they enjoy teaching. So we want them to come to work each day and enjoy what they are doing. You're going to get your computer and go with this kitty, okay?

[00:28:40] With fifth grade, they are not departmentalized. We started out with them being so. We went back to them just being with their homerooms, but our fifth graders do walk to what you need, and that's during our pie time, and students are with students that are working on the same skill set.

[00:28:56] They do not necessarily have to be in the same class, they are going to whatever they need. So today, that's what we're going to be looking at. We are going to be looking at the size and scale of things in our universe. Knowing our students' strengths and weaknesses, we don't have to guess anymore.

[00:29:11] don't have to develop that on our own as say like a science teacher who may not have talked to this student's english teacher last year and known and found out that hey they are struggling with passage-based text and pulling knowledge out of those texts and being able to answer questions about it now i mean we already know that we already know that about each one of our students and i think it helps us get them to where they need to be a lot quicker so here at home springs we're doing it through our success program so we have a success program combined with algebra one health and p9 uh we've looked at it from a different standpoint in the sense that we already originally

[00:29:48] had a success program it was going into the second year and we tried to find a better way to team teachers so that way they can have skills that are cross-curricular it's been a whole lot of fun to see the nightbreak kids build some of those durable skills to really support them being better students and it's giving us a chance to really be able to move forward with how we support the teachers which is the bigger impact force right now what is the difference between a direct cause and effect and an indirect so they've got three other support friends that will help them do their job and provide different perspectives what's another word for infinite a lot of freedom to adjust to

[00:30:25] tweak and then at the end of the year we're definitely going to say all right how did we do where does what do we tweak again for next year their grades are showing great improvement with these dynamic groups that we've formed we have kids that are now raising their hand and they're excited to share it's definitely been amazing to see their progress so far in the few months that we've been testing this out and then what's our ending sound i've just been excited to do it

[00:30:55] Our elementary team remains committed to further driving practices with innovation and deeper learning. For instance, at Shady Grove Elementary School, fourth graders will participate in a three-week project-based learning unit focused on expanding their outdoor classroom. At Colonial Trail Elementary School, all students are leveraging critical thinking and communication to develop a showcase of their own learning later this spring.

[00:31:27] And moving forward, we look forward to continuing to monitor and measure the impact OF IMPLEMENTATION. MORE OVER ADDITIONALLY ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS WILL BE IDENTIFIED TO LEARN ABOUT LIFTING UP INNOVATIVE PRACTICES THROUGH THESE MODELS TO PREPARE FOR INITIAL IMPLEMENTATION NEXT SCHOOL YEAR. AND FINALLY WE WILL CONTINUE TO PRIORITIZE THE TEAM ENABLED DEEPER LEARNING AND TEAM ENABLED PERSONALIZED LEARNING ELEMENTS WITH EVERY SCHOOL. DR. SNOWE WILL NOW SHARE ABOUT HOW NEXT EDUCATION WORKFORCE MODELS ARE BEING IMPLEMENTED IN OUR HIGH SCHOOLS.

[00:32:04] all right thank you across godwin tucker and highland springs high schools henrico county public schools is building innovative learning models that position teachers as true teammates working together to strengthen instruction support students more effectively and develop the durable skills outlined in our henrico learner profile like elementary the next education workforce initiative at the high school level is about more than dedicated teaming the teaming is a means to an end to promote intentional development of competencies and skills and

[00:32:42] interdisciplinary learning that tears down the content-based silos that have been a hallmark of traditional classrooms for decades. The approach is enabling schools to be visionaries in creating the classrooms of the future. These schools were selected as our initial partners due to pre-existing efforts at all three schools to implement greater student choice, better leverage flexible scheduling, promote project-based learning, and provide targeted support for freshmen as they transition to high school. Our goals for today are to demonstrate how the Next Education Workforce

[00:33:17] model develops durable skills that align with HCPS's commitment to preparing every learner to be life-ready for college, career, and community. It's to illustrate how the NextEd structure strengthens academic success by enhancing teaching and learning practices that support HCPS's focus on academic excellence and learner-centered experience, highlight how the model increases student engagement through meaningful, relevant learning experiences align with HCPS's strategic priorities for future ready graduates, and explain how the NextEd model supports teacher satisfaction

[00:33:53] and joy, advancing HCPS goals for staff retention, career growth, and a sustainable, supportive work environment. In each participating school, teams of core content teachers share a common cohort of approximately 85 to 100 ninth grade students. This structure allows teachers to collaborate weekly, coordinate instruction, and respond collectively to student needs rather than working in isolation.

[00:34:19] World History I and Algebra I serve as anchor courses across all three sites with additional subjects such as English 9, Health and PE 9, Environmental Studies, and Biology woven in to create opportunities for cross-curricular alignment and more coherent learning experiences that serve to amplify the Henrico learner profile by bringing it to life for students. Together, these teams function as a professional learning community centered on shared students, shared goals, and shared responsibility. Their partnership has not only strengthened teacher satisfaction

[00:34:54] and efficacy, but has also created a connected, supportive learner-centered community where students feel known, supported, and set up for success. This targeted approach for developing the durable skills of the HLP also amplifies the best practices of the instructional model.

[00:35:12] Looking ahead, HCPS is preparing for a thoughtful and phased expansion of this work. Next steps include additional training and support for Godwin, Highland Springs, and Tucker as they move into year two of implementation. In February 2026, Freeman, Hermitage, and Varina will receive training with the goal of launching their models for the 26-27 school year. Glenallen, Henrico, deep run will follow during the 26-27 school year preparing for implementation in the 27-28 school year. This multi-year approach ensures each school has the structures, professional learning,

[00:35:49] and collaborative capacity needed to design high-quality learning experiences that align with the HLP and support every student's success. In order to support this work and engage in deeper learning through a rigorous application process, Godwin High School and Tucker High School have earned a place as learning partners in the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching's Future of High School Network. Like the Next Education Workforce Initiative, the Future of High Schools Network is a national initiative aimed at reimagining and transforming the high school experience for today's learners. This recognition positions Godwin and Tucker at the

[00:36:28] forefront of high school innovation, highlighting their commitment to pioneering new models of teaching and learning. Already, the schools along with central office staff have partnered with divisions across the united states in focused learning communities that emphasize learning beyond the classroom and the development of skills that matter in the world of today and in the future at this time i will turn it over to the proud principal of godwin high school ms lee donovan who will share more detail about the division's partnership with the carnegie

[00:36:58] foundation thank you dr snow good afternoon everyone the carnegie foundation alongside partners such as xq institute hewlett foundation walton family foundation carnegie corporation of new york and the educational testing service ets is supporting a cohort of school districts

[00:37:31] nationwide hcps has been identified as a leader in high school transformation and the inclusion of godwin and tucker affirms the division's commitment to innovation equity and deeper learning experiences for all students here you see the future of high school network launch convening in palo alto california in june of 2025. the map of how this network spans across the country

[00:38:08] participation in the network includes engaging in national and regional communities of practice collaborating with researchers and experts, sharing evidence and lessons to help shape national policy, and contributing to a movement that aims to bring competency-based learning to schools. From the margins to the mainstream is our goal. To create a new architecture of high school with a broader set of goals, like our Henrico Learner Profile and Durable Skills,

[00:38:48] With rigorous and engaging learning experiences inside and outside of the classroom, and a meaningful and actionable signaling system, communication of these goals and experiences to root, sustain, and scale the work to redesign the American high school experience.

[00:39:10] Through this partnership, Godwin and Tucker are working to expand their existing work on redesigned instructional models, student-centered learning, and the development of durable skills that align with Henrico's vision for the future of high school.

[00:39:29] The Godwin Freshman Experience. At Godwin High School, we're excited to have had the opportunity to dedicate a tremendous team of educators to help build an incredibly powerful experience for students alongside Next Education Workforce and the Carnegie Foundation.

[00:39:55] We have leveraged the leadership of outstanding math teacher and administrative aide, Jake Earle, to provide instructional leadership alongside our innovative learning coach, Eric Hoffler. Additionally, central office specialists John Grigori from our innovative learning team and Kat Lakovich from our teaching and learning team have been embedded with our teachers as their thoughtful partners and providers of specific high-quality professional learning.

[00:40:28] We strategically selected teachers with rich classroom experiences and teaching talents, including REB winners, teachers of the year, and faculty with exceptional education and English learner certifications, while encouraging these teachers to think outside the box to create dynamic student learning spaces and experiences, while selecting students for the program that reflect the full diversity of our students.

[00:41:00] school, including exceptional education students and English learners. When we provide a platform for this work that empowers well-supported teachers to do what they do best, we create opportunities for all students to pursue their passions, achieve academic excellence, and grow as learners.

[00:41:26] To ensure that we are providing that support, we reserve common planning time for the whole team with the expectation that this time be used to develop interdisciplinary learning experiences that highlight the fact that future ready learners need to be prepared to think outside of content areas and begin to identify broad concepts that connect learning across all the disciplines.

[00:41:57] planning generated a first semester project on career planning embedded in Health and PE 9, Algebra 1, and English 9 with the support of our school counseling team that asked students to research and identify career goals and map those goals to the ACE Center programming that our county offers. Students heard presentations from our upperclassmen enrolled in the ACE Center

[00:42:30] and will participate in a culminating career-focused field trip to the Forum at the ACE Center at Hermitage, where they will learn from community volunteers representing the career fields identified by our students.

[00:42:45] At this time, I will hand it back to Dr. Farrell to close our presentation with a discussion of how we'll be monitoring progress. we will measure impact by examining student work projects and reflection to assess growth in the durable skills aligned to the henrico learner profile academic indicators such as grades and assessments will ensure content mastery remains strong student engagement will be tracked

[00:43:21] through attendance participation and feedback while teacher satisfaction will be monitored through surveys and collaboration data recognizing that engaged teachers are essential to student success we are proud of the work we've accomplished so far and with the board's support are incredibly excited to see it move forward to positively impact even more students and teachers at this time we welcome any questions the board might have thank you dr roland uh dr farrell and and

[00:44:01] everyone for the presentation i i know that uh the colleagues and i are super happy to to see it and uh you know follow up with questions and comments about the great work that's being done so i'll start off with uh mrs atkins well done i was quite smitten with this presentation i love the use of words the word choice use in your verbal pieces make a difference this one was great i think that it was the use of white space. I tend to pay attention to things like that. So the use of

[00:44:37] white space. This presentation can be shared in many ways and I believe individuals will be able to dissect it, digest it, and understand it. Particularly because you chose to use larger text in the presentation versus cramming a whole lot onto one slide. I noticed that. I noticed the the selection of pictures, just well done, multicultural, the ethnicity, all of it.

[00:45:05] I'm very drawn to this particular presentation. So I just wanted to speak to the way in which it was presented and the thoughtfulness and the word choice. And some of those word choices were enjoy what you're doing, provide different perspectives, just excited to share.

[00:45:24] The one that I really liked was from the margins the mainstream engaged teachers are essential to student success and while we're not talking about words with you know 20 or 30 alphabets in them you're speaking languages that's going to resonate to a very wide audience just well done i do have two questions that i did write down i learned when you said target support for transition to high school for those who may

[00:46:03] be watching now or in the future can you expand upon what that means sure so when students transition into high school um our administrators and counseling teams and teachers um like to sort of take a look back at you know how students performed in middle school to see what you know successes they had what challenges they experienced and through that work we determined what individualized supports those students might need and it may look different depending on the student and what their challenges were so our schools um very intentionally design supports around student

[00:46:42] needs and so when they're transitioning into into high school um you know we look at what their individual needs are and as a team the the high school team rally around the students and they determine what supports they need and they work together through like intervention teams or now with our you know team in process we you know tend to cohort some students which is what we talked about today we ensure that whatever needs those students have we meet and sometimes that may mean resources beyond the school we work to ensure that you know students and families have those it could mean resources within the school and so we are

[00:47:21] very intentional about providing those deliberate supports to those students um according to their needs. And is that a collaborative effort between the middle school and the high school? Yes. Okay I just wanted to be clear. We do a great job of communicating with our middle schools particularly around a time when you know students are preparing for high school so we're about to go into scheduling season so those conversations are already taking place. Wonderful and uh keep me honest but I think I heard that the check-in is every nine weeks for this particular

[00:47:57] effort is that right so I'm not sure you heard it from the elementary or secondary side but we're checking in constantly okay I just wanted to make sure we have you know students and teachers working together those check-ins are probably happening weekly because we built in common planning time for those teachers perfect that was the only question I had because if it was going to be every now and weeks I was just going to ask to consider condensing that more often but you've answered that question uh chair irving that's all i have thank you uh mrs kinsella yes

[00:48:33] thank you um i have to say to uh miss atkins point about words um slide 17 the goal i would say the goal not just for the uh redesign the freshman year experience but the result k-12 is connected and engaged and i would add successful students and and happy teachers um so i'm just i really like what we're doing here i love the collaboration i love the idea of the teachers teaching their passion right i mean it makes so much sense i mean and that is what we actually um when we're

[00:49:12] talking speaking to our students about where they want to go what their path might be in life right we're like what do you like to do so it makes a lot of sense that we continue to focus on our teachers and as well as our students but engagement on both sides right is is what I'm hearing from this presentation so I'm really excited about that how have the next the next generation practices change the way teachers actually deliver the instruction like what maybe is the biggest

[00:49:47] takeaway at the elementary level or the secondary level well thank you for that question because I get really excited every time I can tell anyone about what we're doing and you know it is imperative I think to have the teachers be the ones leading this work so I have not put a tremendous amount of pressure on our teachers to do anything that is within my vision it has become their

[00:50:22] vision so um the cross-curricular projects are probably the meat of that um i would say that how you know when i thought about this how would we ever have thought about how health and pe and environmental science and algebra one are aligned but we're are we're thinking about that and they're supporting each other and instead of doing um five different assignments that have something to do with the durable skills within the Henrico learner profile they're working on an assignment

[00:50:58] together and then they are giving feedback to the students on those assignments together and then the students are learning from the collective talents of those teachers so it has really expanded the ability level of my teachers are very strong who are in this cohort already but you know it's really expanded the ability their even their ability level to do um you know even more deeper work with students the elementary level especially at harvey we have more opportunities

[00:51:38] for the vertical articulation a lot of our teachers they are having the conversations three four five and looking at how can they continue to make sure that projects hands-on learning things of that nature that's how we also came about ensuring that we had a science lab within our building where there were more hands-on learning that was taking place where teachers have opportunities to push into the science lab along with our innovative learning coach to kind of help support some of our hands-on activities as well as making sure that our teachers are looking at the curriculum and seeing how can we make sure that we are coming into the classroom

[00:52:16] we can come together two classes in one classroom and we can teach this lesson and giving them real-world opportunities. Thank you so much for specific examples of, you know, what's truly changing or, you know, what it really looks like in the classroom. And then, what do you think has been the biggest challenge for both our elementary and our secondary educators with this cohort in this program? Well, Harvey and Colonial Trail, we were the pilots.

[00:52:49] so I do recall that when we were training um and going we did virtual training and then we had an opportunity to go to Arizona we were trying to take in and we were taking in and trying to figure out how can we do what they're doing there and bring it here and we were so focused on flexible seating and things of that nature that that wasn't the real meat to it so we then had to um go back and plan some more um initially our fifth graders as we said teachers they were um departmentalized as well we were but we that wasn't working for that team they were a new team so we had to go back to the drawing board and we saw that the data and that's one thing we have to keep looking at the

[00:53:25] data to see what is that telling us that's our driving force and that was showing us this isn't working for our children so we had conversations with parents um we surveyed parents seeing what was going on um what could we um do better and we did just that so we wanted to make sure that teachers that yes you say that this is the area in which that you really enjoy teaching but the data is not showing that let's look at something else so having those hard conversations but um we had to come together and really look at that what's best for our children as well as well as looking at our retention rates um for our staff and um seeing that yes this is helping us that

[00:54:01] isn't really a challenge but it was something that we saw that it was a great improvement thank you so much for that because just because it works somewhere else and looks a certain way somewhere else doesn't necessarily mean it's going to work in your building um and i would say matter of fact across our division right each building will tailor it to meet their needs but still still have the same goals right and objectives and then what does it look like at the high school level what maybe was the biggest challenge for your educators i think there are two challenges that

[00:54:33] our educators have had one being that by nature often educators can be type a people who want everything to be wrapped up with a bow and look really good especially these teachers who i know are working in in my cohort group and i think and they're seasoned teachers so they've gotten the experience that has given them the opportunity to not always feel behind or not always feel like they're having to learn something new but that has probably been a challenge for them is doing

[00:55:12] something new is always a challenge but having the collective group together to support each other through those challenges is really important and they've been able to do that and you know when i when i talk to them now they talk about next year right and what they'll do differently next year because they've learned veteran teachers have learned some new things and they're going to try even more new things together next year the second thing is I think the the social-emotional things of the kids sometimes when they're together all for

[00:55:50] a long part of the day things can come up that will cause behaviors to happen or challenges with students you know having conflicts with one another but that has really been a thing that our school counselors have helped with so our school counselors are actually doing 15 minute lessons every week with these students and in their teachers classrooms and we have time to do that because of the design of our master schedule so it's inserted in there and the counselors are there and we've really seen the students overcoming those

[00:56:26] challenges and the teachers benefiting from that so I think folding in school counseling and the social-emotional learning side of things is really important to make these teams work well that's fantastic thank you for sharing such detail both what have been the successes right and some of the challenges with the program um you know teacher autonomy i know mrs shea would agree as a former teacher that the autonomy right is what i know as board members we hear a lot about so i'm appreciating hearing that as well as the engagement

[00:57:01] the collaboration would you say in general that the educators involved in this um once they've got gotten through the training and the planning i mean and of course they're going to continue to adapt right each year would you say that things they might feel like less is on their plate i mean might that be an unintended like maybe an unintended consequence slash benefit because i would love to hear if that's the case because that's what my colleagues and i are always looking to do is remove things from educators plates. I'd be happy to expand on that question so

[00:57:40] the answer is at the elementary level absolutely but not initially. This presentation was really focused on the student experience and reimagining the student learning experience. With that we have to reimagine some other operational things like and we've done a lot of learning and unlearning like grades we're now grading as as a as a team we're now grading instead of 20 students in six or seven subjects it's times four times five communicating as a grade level reimagining

[00:58:14] parent teacher conferences was uh an opportunity to work through but now all of our teachers are that are uh that are using this model they won't go back um because and and we've gotten great feedback from parents on that as well because the parents have an opportunity in the same night to meet with all of their children's teachers great thank you so much and then perhaps at the secondary level any any takeaways there maybe a lighter maybe less of a lift at secondary once you get

[00:58:48] through the initial phase of it yes i would say that um what uh what he was saying is actually accurate at the high school level, too, because they have done group parent conferences and group parent calls, and they have shared the workload of having that parent engagement, which has really helped.

[00:59:11] And it's one message that is going from all of the students' teachers because what I find at high school a lot of times is if a student is struggling in three classes, the parent might get three different messages from teachers, right? And now they're getting a consistent message that says, let's work on these three things for the next quarter and we will see success.

[00:59:33] So it's taking the whole child into account. And it's really that is easier, I think, for educators to be able to work together to pinpoint the challenges and help the students improve.

[00:59:48] also you know I think having common planning structures among them that they designed and and the projects that they're building together instead of building a project as a teacher that is going to take students you know a month to get through you know you're working together with a team to do that project in each class and a piece of it is chunked in each class and the teachers together came up with the rubric, and the teachers together are grading, giving feedback to the

[01:00:23] students, and so it is definitely a workload decrease for them. Thank you so much for the presentation. Chair Irving, that's all I have. Thank you. Mrs. Shea? Thank you so much. I think one of my favorite things I heard during the presentation came from Ms. Donovitt, where she said um to empower well-supported teachers to do what they do best and that just so resonates with me as an educator and kind of my educational philosophy of what we want to do for all staff mr snow and i were talking about it in different contexts before the meeting you know if our if our

[01:00:59] teachers are well supported and empowered to do what they do all the all the other pieces fall into place so um miss holmes you already answered one of the questions that i had which was about teacher retention since you're in your third year but you are seeing a positive impact on teacher retention for your school we are our school we typically our teachers leave if it's for advancement or moving away from the area but we have found that teachers are wanting to stay and that's something that we encourage we want to hear we have meetings with our staff asking them at the

[01:01:34] end of the year why are you choosing to remain so and that's what we want to encourage also i know THAT IT WASN'T A QUESTION BUT WE'VE ALSO FOUND THAT RELATIONSHIPS ARE A LOT STRONGER THE RELATIONSHIP BUILDING WITH OUR STUDENTS AS WELL BECAUSE THEY HAVE SO MANY ADULTS THAT THEY'RE WORKING WITH NOW WHERE THEY WOULD HAVE HAD ONE TEACHER AND MAYBE AN INSTRUCTIONAL ASSISTANT BUT NOW THEY HAVE THE COACHES THEY HAVE INSTRUCTIONAL ASSISTANCE THEY HAVE THE LAMPS TEACHERS DIFFERENT PEOPLE THAT ARE PUSHING IN TO HELP SUPPORT THEM AS WELL DURING THOSE TIMES I LOVE TO HEAR THAT ON ALL fronts I think it's so important that every student have an adult in the building that they really

[01:02:11] connect with and they know that they are seen and cared about and have an adult and so the more that they're building relationships with the better for our secondary team have you seen challenges in scheduling is it seeming to impact access to things like singleton electives Dr. Farrell and I were just talking about that the other day. It is a challenge for master schedulers to do something different, but not to talk about myself. I have done the master

[01:02:51] schedule at Godwin for 15 years now, so I understand it really well, and so I can help my associate principal understand why our vision needs to be reflected in our master schedule. we have smaller classes in this cohort so a little bit smaller classes they are between 24 and 28 and for godwin that is small so we you know talk about we talked about how we can make that work and we had to move some singleton electives around so that students could still participate

[01:03:27] in band and in you know the technology classes that they wanted to participate in and of course that comes with a little bit of resistance too because if someone has had a schedule that they like for a long time at high school you know how that goes probably you know that's a little resistance but we've gotten through those challenges too and we found that it actually made the schedule flow better when we made those changes anyway so um the master schedule is a complex thing but it's a it's definitely it definitely should be something that reflects

[01:04:03] your vision for what your students are getting and so i'm always willing to try something new with that um dr farrell and i certainly were talking about those things recently thank you for that insight i know master schedule is a puzzle of puzzles of puzzles so um so thank you um our at least for godwin specifically are you looking to um keep it a specific focus on ninth grade or as that cohort matriculates through to expand it uh further to different grades well i would love to have it expanded you know globally at godwin but i need to be realistic about um you know

[01:04:41] the workload of our teachers and the professional learning that i that we can give them we are going to take groups from this cohort of 88 students next year we'll have two or three teachers who are teaming together and mr raymond and i are thinking about doing the same things he's thinking about doing the same thing at tucker we're talking about english 10 health and pe 10 and econ personal finance economics and personal finance in the CTE side of things because we've talked a lot about CTE

[01:05:19] with these kids but they haven't had a cohorted class in there yet and definitely looking at ways that we can expand this to all freshmen at least with some sort of cohort that gives them that opportunity in the future. Long ago, we would do an English 11 and U.S. history partnership in this county. And I remember that when I was teaching middle school, that high school was doing that. And so it's not a thing that we haven't done before. And I'd like to look

[01:05:58] at how we can make that happen for as many kids as we possibly can. Excellent. Thank you for sharing both short-term and long-term vision. I know that the rest of my board members have heard me like a broken record, but I really love when we can break down the silos of our subjects for our students and how we can partner things together in new ways that make connections. I remember when I took calculus in high school, this is like super nerd alert, so get ready. I took, I was in AP calculus and AP physics and like AP chem, anyway, and we

[01:06:38] were doing integrals and derivatives. And I realized that like you could get all the kinematic equations by like taking derivatives. And like my mind was blown and I went racing to my physics teacher. I was like, did you know this? And he was like, yeah. And if you do this, you get all of this. And like, that was the first moment where I realized like, it's not science, math, you know, whatever. It all feeds together. And that really like just fed my passion for learning and finding all those connections and so whether it's the math science connection or other ones i want all of our students to have that like aha moment that can um fuel their passions moving forward um miss

[01:07:15] denovan i love the connection to the um cte they were talking about but also the ace center connection um we have so many incredible opportunities through our ace center and not all no matter how much we're kind of pushing it out and trying different kinds of messaging not all of our students and families are aware of that and so I love that you're connecting this project with the ACE Center so they can see like very explicitly how Henrico County through pathways that aren't all within the comprehensive high school like leveraging resources outside of that like how Henrico County can help students get to the destination of what their passion is and

[01:07:54] their path and how we have a million different paths that are unique to each student and so thank you for helping open those doors for our students to see those connections on how we can get them to where they want to go even if it's not all contained within your building or Tucker or you know whatever else our vision in Henrico is is across the county and all of those so I really love that you're making the connection I really love how over and over I'm seeing whether it be at the elementary school continuing to regroup students or look at new models and like you're

[01:08:29] saying um figure out what works for specific students and staff but um what cut coming up is that as a county and in this instructional model we are being responsive to students and to staff needs we're not pushing down what our vision is we're letting the needs of our students and our staff um delineate kind of what instructional models we're using um and and that makes me really proud of our division. And then last question, I notice we have elementary school, I notice we have high school, I notice middle school's not part of it. And so while this is

[01:09:07] reflected in some of the instructional models at Roth and that will be at Cuyacuson with the innovation centers, can you articulate a little bit on why middle schools are not included right now just to help us understand? Yeah, I mean a lot of it was about looking at where sort of our schools were as we were entering into this process we talked about that with highlighting godwin tucker and highland springs first uh we knew going in that it's it's and we learned that lesson from

[01:09:40] for year one of cfi at roth that when we when changing curriculum is nothing compared to changing like the fundamental structure of the school day and um i think we saw that we had these three high schools that were ready to jump in starting with elementary made a ton of sense because there's all there's already this that disciplinary siloing is already kind of broken down so uh we're able to start with high school but um are excited to expand uh those principles to some of our middle schools next year and obviously you brought up cfi at roth and cuyacuson uh that is

[01:10:18] rooted in very similar tents this idea that learning is learning whether you're calling it english or math or science um and when we have opportunities to break down those silos we get better more impactful learning for students so middle schools are certainly on our list and we're excited to bring that to them as well excellent thank you so much Jeremy thank you Mr. Young yeah thank you all for the presentation I don't have a lot to add that my colleagues haven't already sort of went over but anything that's teacher-led and student-focused is amazing

[01:10:53] and I would like to say that we definitely enjoy the principals coming in and giving us this real world experience. Because looking at the presentation, it was a little difficult to kind of figure out what's going on in the schools, but when you guys presented and the passion that you have when y'all are describing what's going on in your schools, it's just, it's a work of art, and I'm glad to be a part of HCPS and the innovation that we're doing here in this division.

[01:11:21] Ms. Holmes, I heard you say reducing one size fit all in the school. I heard that during the video, And I just think that's important when it comes to education, especially in my district, where one size definitely doesn't fit all and we have different needs.

[01:11:37] So I'm appreciative of you taking on the cohort and doing it for three years. And I've seen other schools starting to weave it in now. I know Chamberlain and Glen Lee have been trying to do some things. So I'm just watching this kind of expand and I'm enjoying it.

[01:11:53] And I did have a question about middle schools, but you answered that. I don't have anything further. Just enjoyed having our principals here with us today. Enjoyed the presentation from Mrs. Thorpe, Mr. Farrell, Mr. Snow. Definitely appreciate it. No comments, though. Everybody's stolen my thunder. Thank you, Mr. Young. And yes, I'd echo the sentiment of my colleagues. Thank you for the presentation. It's wonderful. I, being a high school teacher myself, I actually have more of a focus on the elementary school side because that's not what i know as well uh so my my question about the elementary school change is do we have

[01:12:32] visions of taking this to every elementary school yeah thank you every one of our schools is led by a student focused and innovative driven leader and within all of our leaders there are early adopters and so we have been and we're going to continue to spotlight these innovative practices through these models in our elementary principals meetings. All of our participating schools will have an opportunity to have a small and simple showcase of what they've been doing and invite teachers and leaders from other schools and those teachers and leaders will then demonstrate interest and

[01:13:11] those who are committed to the models and and lifting up those innovative principles they'll be supported and that's how expansion is going to continue to work. Okay so what I'm because I'm I'm just trying to think through this. So if we feel that it's successful and we feel that we are retaining staff and we feel that that's, I mean, it just seems on the face of it to lighten the load for elementary school folks who I think probably have the hardest teaching job of any type of teacher.

[01:13:38] My mom was a third grade and a fourth grade teacher. My mother-in-law was a first grade teacher for over 30 years. So I certainly understand that. I'm just thinking from the approach of, if we know that this can be successful, why would some people perhaps be apprehensive about bringing it to their building?

[01:13:55] Have we had anybody express apprehension? - I can speak on that because some of my colleagues have actually spoken with me about it, and they're looking at it as one more thing, and it's not one more thing. It's just looking at how we're doing things and having those conversations.

[01:14:14] So I think that if we look at it as that, that it's not something additional, it's just broadening our mindset and making sure that we are looking at our boys and girls, looking at your data, understanding what is needed, and putting the best people before them.

[01:14:29] That's what's the most important. - Yeah, no, I like that mindset because I think just because something's a change doesn't mean it's an additional thing. It's a rethinking of how the day works. And I think hearing concerns from our elementary school teachers about the amount of time within the day and how much planning, and then you have to know every single subject.

[01:14:47] And I feel like it's more of a distribution of labor from their standpoint. And so I appreciate that mindset and that we have folks, also Mr. Schatz, who I've spoken with about this, a colonial trail, it just seems incredibly beneficial.

[01:15:02] And I, you know, it's interesting that elementary has been for so long stuck in this model of one teacher where the rest of school does not that. And I do like this out of the box, outside of the box approach, which is really just taking what we know in other settings and kind of applying it.

[01:15:20] So, you know, love to see that this is taking place. And from my standpoint, do hope that it disseminates throughout the throughout the division um thank you all for this yes redirect yes i think mr thorpe is probably going to be the person that this that gets this one as i'm sitting here thinking as a parent reflecting on my children's elementary school experience and also my mom is also a retired teacher um how does this if you could differentiate

[01:15:52] this team teaching from team teaching that's been done before right just so that folks that say oh nothing's ever new it's just recycled right but this is not the team teaching that we used to do correct this model especially in elementary schools right i really appreciate that opportunity to clarify because team teaching and departmentalization there's that's actually the 20th century that's very centered only on adults often with cohorts of kids traveling

[01:16:28] across classrooms and experiencing disconnected and separate concepts in lifting up the deeper learning model which can take place after proficiency and mastery of core academic skills can then lead into solving complex problems thinking critically and lifting up some of the durable skills about which we spoke with the Enrico learner profile, collaboration and communication, etc. And so deeper learning has to be part of the model. The distributed expertise within the teachers that exists only to lift up personalized and deeper learning. Thank you so thank you so

[01:17:08] much for that. I appreciate it. Chair Irving. Mrs. Atkins would like a redirect. One thought is around mindset so the one more thing that spins across all areas to be honest with you in public school systems we're specifically talking about educators in this particular effort i wonder with

[01:17:32] this has there been conversation around how we tweak our communication about this so um part of our work with carnegie is how we signal to other groups of people what we're doing in the redesign of high school or the redesign of schools in general and so that has been something that we've been talking about a lot one of the things that I would communicate to my colleagues who are getting

[01:18:09] ready to start this and I have is that our job as administrators is to remove barriers that might be in place for teachers to be able to do this work so you know when I think about the one more thing comment you know with with other leaders the important message is that your job is not to be in the cohort doing the work but to remove the barriers that might be there you know master schedule wise planning wise whatever those barriers might be to make that work be able to happen and also parents need to understand this for sure um we've done a lot of

[01:18:47] group parent communication and um you know around um the the work we're doing and i think henrico county um with our work with carnegie can do some further work on um communication of interdisciplinary um work in schools and with the henrico learner profile and we're we're already talking about that and then carnegie is working with the higher ed and with you know government and those kinds of

[01:19:20] things to make sure that all of the discussion is surrounded in those durable skills and the henri and the things like the henrico learner profile that provide different experiences for students but definitely a challenge there to make sure that everybody's on board but i'm happy to help my colleagues who are getting ready to start it and tell them the things that i've failed at and the things i feel like we've done really well at too yeah it's important to memorialize it sometimes we want to share everything that worked well the one more thing is real so let me start

[01:19:55] by acknowledging that the second part of that is how do we transition from one more thing to where we are today and that really does take hearing all pieces of this what worked well what didn't work well, what were the solutions to the challenges? How long did those solutions take? And then understanding the time frame that this is a slower process worth the buck and worth the reward.

[01:20:25] I wonder also if it's time to broaden how we communicate about it. It feels like the communication has been mostly internal. I wonder if it's time to be external, whether it's updating our website and having a dedicated page about this effort or parents where every quarter sharing hey here's something exciting that's happening so that we can reach beyond because the parental support is going to help when parents understand it a little bit more not

[01:20:57] to the depth of what we spoke to today people who are our partners can help so i'm glad to hear that is in discussion I'm very curious around how we take the communication externally to help the masses understand what we're doing even other school systems as well so thank you thank you for sharing that thank you for the redirect thank you all Dr. Graham as you can see there are consent

[01:21:32] items that can excuse me as you can see there are consent items that can be taken into a block for APPROVAL. WE'LL NOW MOVE TO THE PUBLIC FORUM AND WRITTEN COMMENTS. CITIZENS HAD THE OPPORTUNITY

[01:22:08] TO SUBMIT WRITTEN COMMENTS THROUGH AN ONLINE FORUM IN ADVANCE OF THE MEETING. THOSE COMMENTS WERE SHARED WITH THE SCHOOL BOARD AND POSTED IN BOARD DOCS FOR PUBLIC RECORD. THANK YOU. AS YOU CAN SEE, THERE ARE CONSENT ITEMS THAT CAN BE TAKEN IN A BLOCK FOR YOUR APPROVAL.

[01:22:26] COLLEAGUES, WOULD WE LIKE TO SEPARATE OUT ANY OF THESE ITEMS OR TAKE THEM AS A BLOCK? BLOCK. RIGHT? WE'LL TAKE THEM AS A BLOCK. IS THERE A MOTION TO APPROVE THE CONSENT AGENDA AS PRESENTED? I MOVE THAT THE SCHOOL BOARD APPROVE ITEMS 88.01 AND 88.02 AS PRESENTED ON THE CONSENT AGENDA.

[01:22:51] THANK YOU, MS. ATKINS. DO I HAVE A SECOND? SECOND. THANK YOU, MR. YOUNG. ALL IN FAVOR SAY AYE. AYE. ALL OPPOSED? THE AYES HAVE IT ITEMS 8.01 AND 8.02 ON THE CONSENT AGENDA ARE APPROVED.

[01:23:08] THAT COMPLETE ITEMS FROM THE SUPERINTENDENT. THANK YOU SO MUCH. OKAY. NEXT WILL BE OUR PUBLIC HEARING AT 5:00 P.M. CHAIR IRVING. PLEASE CONTINUE.

[01:23:27] NEXT ON THE AGENDA WILL BE OUR PUBLIC HEARING AT 5:00 P.M. THIS IS THE PUBLIC HEARING TO SOLICIT INPUT ON THE RECOMMENDED FISCAL YEAR 2027 ANNUAL FINANCIAL PLAN. We will recess until 5 p.m., at which time Mr. Wack, the chief financial officer, will share some information before we continue with the public hearing.

[01:23:52] This meeting is recessed.

[01:33:03] We are back from our recess. We will now have the public hearing to solicit input on the recommended fiscal year 2027 annual financial plan. Mr. John Wack, chief financial officer, will share some information before we proceed.

[01:33:18] Thank you. Chair Irving, School Board Members, and Dr. Grant. In advance of tonight's public hearing, I will provide a brief overview of the fiscal year 2027 recommended budget, highlighting the planned additions to our general fund budget within the overall proposal compared to our current year's adopted budget.

[01:33:36] The superintendent has collaborated with budget team to propose funding priorities for the fiscal year 2027 recommended budget that continue the high quality programming and strong support services our students, staff, and community deserve, reflect school board priorities, AND, IMPORTANTLY, ARE DIRECTLY ALIGNED WITH THE DIVISION'S STAKEHOLDER-DEVELOPED STRATEGIC PLAN JOURNEY TO 2030.

[01:34:01] THIS BUDGET PROPOSAL INCLUDES FUNDING FOR STAFFING, PROGRAMMING, SUPPORTS, AND INITIATIVES THAT DIRECTLY ALIGN WITH OUR FOUR STRATEGIC FOCUS AREAS: ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT, LEARNING ENVIRONMENT, PHYSICAL, SOCIAL, EMOTIONAL, AND MENTAL HEALTH AND RECRUIT, ENGAGE, RETAIN, AND REWARD STAFF.

[01:34:18] Now I'll share some of the most significant items proposed in the fiscal year 2027 recommended general fund budget organized by strategic focus area. I'll start by highlighting some of our most some of the most notable items associated with the academic achievement focus area. English language learner teachers will be added to continue to work towards meeting new state requirements.

[01:34:40] We will continue to strengthen our exceptional education supports by adding more teachers and more instructional assistants. There are new positions to support the first year of our new Cybersecurity Specialty Center at Henrico High School and positions are included to account for additional student capacity being added across the system with renovations and building expansions.

[01:35:00] Moving to items supporting our learning environment strategic focus area. The budget includes new positions as we open the living building at Wilton Farm. Skilled trade positions have been added to our facilities department to help address heating, cooling, and ventilation needs. We are also dedicating funds to strengthen our talented facilities team structure to best meet increased MAINTENANCE DEMANDS, AND WE ARE PLANNING FOR OPERATING INCREASES FOR ELECTRICITY AND OTHER UTILITIES TO COVER RECENT YEAR RATE INCREASES AND ACCOUNT FOR NEWLY ADDED SPACE ACROSS THE SCHOOL SYSTEM. IN SUPPORT OF OUR CONTINUED EMPHASIS ON PHYSICAL, SOCIAL, EMOTIONAL, AND MENTAL

[01:35:38] HEALTH, MORE SCHOOL COUNSELORS ARE BEING ADDED IN SUPPORT OF THE THIRD YEAR OF THE HENRIKO CARES INITIATIVE. WE'VE ALSO ADDED OPERATING FUNDS TO FURTHER EXPAND HENRIKO CARES SUPPORTS NEXT YEAR, such as the expansion of telehealth into middle schools. And a specialist position working with our McKinney-Vento students is being shifted from grant funds to the general fund budget.

[01:35:58] Also looking at our recruit, engage, retain, and reward focus area, the career ladder initiative is expanding with the proposed budget allowing for 150 more participants. Our director of student activities contracts are being extended from 11 to 12 months. Funding is included for more innovative teacher training, such as to support our efforts for the next education workforce you just heard about and our cost for employee health benefits is increasing the budget ensures that as the employer hcps is picking up most if not all of the increases for calendar year 2026 shielding our employees from significant increases as in prior years the

[01:36:37] recommended budget does not include funding for some salary increases which are a priority and will be considered in the county manager's proposal next month this slide highlights the most significant net funding increases in the fiscal year 2027 recommended budget the sum of these items on this list exceeds the net increase in fiscal year 2027 but there are also net reductions to consider when arriving at the total general fund budget these increases include about 18.6 million more for health care benefits for our employees 5.45 million for more for 50 english

[01:37:13] language learner teachers about 1.71 million dollars to add 20 exceptional education high instructional assistants, and seven teachers. $1.44 million is included for new positions at Davis, Longin, and Adams Elementary Schools. Approximately $1.24 million will support 17 positions associated with the living building at Wilton Farm. And our electricity and other utilities budget is increasing by $3 million next year. This slide highlights the most significant net funding decreases in the fiscal year 2027 recommended budget. They include a net reduction

[01:37:49] OF NEARLY $8 MILLION RELATED TO RATE REDUCTIONS IN THE VIRGINIA RETIREMENT SYSTEM PENSION COSTS. VRS GROUP LIFE AND RETIREE HEALTH CREDIT EXPENSES ARE ALSO DECREASING BY A NET $1.76 MILLION. WE HAVE REDUCED THE DIESEL FUEL BUDGET FOR PUPL TRANSPORTATION BY ABOUT $1 MILLION.

[01:38:06] AND OUR BUDGETS FOR EDUCATION AND TRAINING AND FOOD ARE DECREASING BY ABOUT $545,000. THE OVERALL FISCAL YEAR 2027 RECOMMENDED BUDGET REFLECTS THE FOLLOWING NOTABLE CHANGES FROM THE CURRENT YEAR. OUR GENERAL FUND BUDGET IS INCREASING BY ABOUT $27.7 MILLION OR 3.6% COMPARED TO THE FISCAL YEAR 2026 ADOPTED BASED ON THE TARGET AMOUNT THAT WE RECEIVE.

[01:38:29] OUR DEBT SERVICE BUDGET ASSOCIATED WITH PREVIOUSLY APPROVED CAPITAL PROJECT DEBT IS INCREASING BY ABOUT 3.3%. THE SCHOOL NUTRITION FUND IS ESSENTIALLY REMAINING FLAT WITH THE CURRENT YEAR AND OUR STATE AND FEDERAL SPECIAL REVENUE BUDGETS ARE INCREASING BY 2.3%. OVERALL, THE OPERATING BUDGET FROM ALL FUNDS IS GROWING BY ABOUT 3.3%, NOTING THAT OUR FISCAL YEAR 2027 FIGURES DON'T YET INCLUDE FUNDING FOR PAY RAISES, WHICH ARE A BUDGET PRIORITY AND WILL BE CONSIDERED LATER IN THE PROCESS. THESE PIE CHARTS ILLUSTRATE THE MAJOR REVENUE CATEGORIES OF OUR GENERAL FUND BUDGET. WE CAN SEE THAT THE TARGET INCREASE OF ABOUT $27.7 MILLION MAKES UP THE DIFFERENCE IN

[01:39:08] FISCAL YEAR 2027, WHICH WILL LIKELY COME FROM A COMBINATION OF STATE AND LOGAL FUNDS. AT THIS POINT I'D JUST LIKE TO PAUSE TO SAY STAFF HAS RECOGNIZED THAT THERE IS AN ADMINISTRATIVE ERROR ON PAGE 21 OF THE BUDGET DOCUMENT. SO FOR OUR LOCAL REVENUES, WE ARE NOT REINSTATING PARKING FEES. WE'RE GOING TO CARRY FORWARD THE REVENUE BUDGETS FROM 26 TO 27. WE'LL FIX THAT AND SWAP OUT THE BUDGET DOCUMENT ONLINE TOMORROW. THESE BY CHARTS ILLUSTRATE THE MAJOR SPENDING CATEGORIES OF OUR GENERAL FUND BUDGET. WE CAN SEE THAT INSTRUCTION remains by far the largest portion of our expenditures budget at about 76 percent in

[01:39:47] fiscal year 2027. now looking forward to next steps the superintendent's fiscal year 2027 recommended budget was presented to the school board on january 22nd and tonight we're holding a public hearing on that proposal this will be followed by these events on february 26th the school board is scheduled to approve the budget with any amendments and on april 16th after the board of supervisors adopts the overall budget including funds for salary increases the school board will adopt the final budget. That concludes the overview presentation and look forward to any input from the public. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Wack. Some citizens may have signed up in advance

[01:40:27] with school board clerk. We will follow that list first and then allow anyone else who wishes to speak to do so after we have completed the list. We ask that each speaker come to the microphone and clearly state your name and school affiliation if applicable. Speakers must present their remarks to the school board not the audience and may provide copies of their comments to the school board clerk the use of obscenity or defamation is strictly prohibited and will be ruled out of order once you finish speaking we ask that you write your name and contact information on the sign-in form located at the table in the back of the auditorium speakers are allotted three minutes

[01:41:03] to address the school board to assist you in tracking your time there's a timekeeping system displaying the elapsed time on the screen speakers will also receive a notice from me when the time has expired the school board is here to today to hear from you you'll not be responding to speakers but we will carefully consider your comments regarding the annual financial plan we appreciate any attendance here this evening and for providing your input uh the first speaker okay uh seeing

[01:41:38] that there are none we will be moving on uh school board colleagues we will now move to unfinished business colleagues do we have any unfinished business hearing none we will move on to new business colleagues do we have any new business chairman i do have two items i'd like to share okay mrs atkins so families before we scroll click or share please pause and remember what happens online can ripple far beyond what's on these screens.

[01:42:18] Also, when we have fights, when they do happen or disruptive behavior happen on our campuses and videos of it are circulated on social media, it really can harm students and families in a myriad of ways, especially mentally.

[01:42:39] It also heightens the tension and anxiety across our school communities. and it encourages further conflict because online attention rewards unacceptable behavior. It's so important that we understand the ramifications of sharing disruptive behavior online. And I understand why some might feel the urge to share. I know many who post, you're doing it out of concern, you care about our schools, you care about our kids. However,

[01:43:13] i want to take a moment to ask instead of posting a fight or discouraging or inappropriate behavior i encourage you to report it to a trusted adult at the school it might be a principal it could be one of the administrators of the school a trusted individual share the share the video with those folks. Instead, have conversations with students about sympathy and empathy. We need families to have conversations on those two words. To be clear, sympathy is something that is shown. You see it,

[01:43:51] you taste it, you feel it, you hear it. Sympathy is shown. Empathy is invisible. It is something that you feel. Having conversations with children about the definitions of those two and what it means is helpful in building a strong culture and safety within schools and also support those that are affected rather than amplifying the incident online.

[01:44:22] Our school communities are stronger than disruptive behavior or fights. Every one of us inside the building, outside of the building, can help keep our schools safe. I'm hoping that we choose solutions over posts and conversations over clicks.

[01:44:43] Our children's presence is premium. Their presence is premium. And acquiring knowledge is luxury, not becoming viral on social media.

[01:45:00] It does not set the best example of how to solve. That is the first item. Thank you for that moment. I also have a second that I want to share it all. So, loved ones, our heart of Henrico, our masterful educator, a pillar of the community, a peaceful example of love and service.

[01:45:25] I'm speaking of Miss Alice Robinson. She worked for Henrico County Schools for over 50 years, spending a significant amount of time at Mayford Elementary. I wanna share that her celebration of life is on March 7th at 11:00 AM at Fair Oaks Baptist Church.

[01:45:48] Get your pencil ready if you don't have it. That address is 1701 East Nine Mile Road in Highland Springs. Chair Irving, those are my two items. - Thank you, Mrs. Atkins. Colleagues, do we have any other new business?

[01:46:05] Hearing none, we will announce the meeting dates. The school board's next meeting will be a work session on Thursday, February 26th, 2026 at 3:00 PM, followed by a monthly meeting at 6:00 PM. Meeting times may be adjusted as needed.

[01:46:22] This meeting is adjourned.

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