Coraggio Consulting
Manassas City School Board Work Session - January 15, 2026

Date: Thursday, January 15, 2026
Place: Manassas City Public Schools / School Board meeting, Virginia
Length: 2h 59m (video)
Official meeting video (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Etkyun4wIyU

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 2026-10-17. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:41] I call this meeting to order. Good evening. The time is 6 o'clock. 4 o'clock. Please join me for a moment of silence, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. Pledge of 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.

[00:01:17] Madam Clerk, please follow the roll. Chair Spock. Here. vice chair jones here mr steve her here mrs steven here mrs barathea here ms brown here ms mile here thank you madam chair we have a call thank you um okay so i have a couple of announcements are dr newman are there additions or additions to our agenda um there's i do think It was a point of order.

[00:01:54] Point of order. If I may make a suggestion, I think a few of these things actually do need to be added. The group photo doesn't. If we are doing any kind of discussion, like, for example, fierce training discussion, that should be an agenda.

[00:02:10] Well, the discussion is that it's going to be on a future work session. It's just a very quick update. Well, if there's anything on here that is more than one person talking, two people need to talk, I think it needs to be on the discussion part of the agenda. I'm happy to do what the group wants to do.

[00:02:26] I think these weren't put in because they truly are just kind of updated. Business training isn't happening today, and we're going to say why and when it might happen. So it won't be a discussion. It won't be a discussion. Business training update. Okay, yeah, because you have a discussion on there. If it's just an announcement, I'm fine.

[00:02:42] But if we start discussing, then it should go on. Can we make it just an announcement for the record? Yeah. Okay. So are we okay? I think we're going to be okay. But you know what? We can break and go take pictures. Yeah. Sorry for making you guys because we really are talking about one Yes The school board of the city of Manassas approve the public meeting agenda as presented Second So Ms. Seabird made a motion seconded by Ms. Stevens

[00:03:21] that the school board of the city of Manassas approve the public meeting agenda as presented All in favor? Aye Hi. Hi. Anyone opposed? I'm no longer a professor. Okay. So, we have six yeses and one nay, which is for the record.

[00:03:44] So, the motion passes, and now we'll break. All right. Make sure you have no food stuck between your teeth. Okay. Or if it's going to be... I haven't even eaten anything yet, because I'm not hungry.

[00:04:00] Yeah, you're always fine. You're hungry.

[00:04:02] was broccoli involved so we can have a little bit of a working dinner but if it's okay we'll get

[00:10:40] started um number one after the group photo is just to talk about this um the public school leadership network and i have i would like to recommend um miss brown come to that with me i think i'm going to be taking over some of the duties for chair seeberg but i've asked chair to speak about that briefly i will make it brief so the public school leaders network is part of the regional elected leaders institute which is part of george masons char school republic policy

[00:11:20] it's a non-partisan effort they have moderators that help run which i think keeps it very organized and nice um the work sessions are opportunities to discuss topics they usually have a summit once a year and I think last year it was on AI and they usually have the late in the year recognition ceremonies. But it's a good way to get together with the other chairs because it's only the chairs of the school boards are invited and then the chair can decide one additional member to attend.

[00:11:57] The superintendents are also invited or a representative on his behalf. The meeting requirements are it's about once every other month maybe four to six times a year it's usually on fridays it includes a lunch and it's like 11 30 to 1 30 but it has been a really good way to get together with the other uh school courts their chairs um i think it's a good opportunity network and it's a good opportunity for us to be able to have say in what every you know everybody's

[00:12:33] so through this organization we can come out with joint statements we can come out with plans to address funding issues and whatever the committee decide so do you choose someone every time you go to an event or it's for the whole it's usually they want the steady person but we have filled in with people when I like like an alternate maybe yeah when I was on it we appointed Jill and when Jill couldn't make it who went I went one time it would be great if everyone does

[00:13:12] have a chance to do it but it's good for us I think to be you know groups of such esteemed other school districts and so we will definitely be reaching out for whatever reason so about fierce training yeah we when I shopped this agenda around everyone I I had highlighted here's training is one of the first thing and it turned out that not everyone was available to do the

[00:13:49] first year's training and really what I said was we were just going to kind of understand where everybody was with their training pool-wide division-wide so I because I made it such a big deal of our personal conversations and then it didn't turn out that it could happen I just wanted to say that we plan on putting it on another date unless there's a show of hands that people don't want to see it at all on a work session. Well, that's definitely a bad discussion. Okay, we're going to put it on another

[00:14:27] work session. Okay. I just had a question, though. Are we going to circle back? Like, the first fierce training was similar to what we were reading with the book, with the trust book. I mean, I would like to maybe, I like to finish things I start, so maybe instead of doing fierce training, do the finish the trust book?

[00:14:47] I don't know. Well, I think if we want to have a discussion about this, we probably should add it to a different workshop. That's fine. But there's two schools of thought, and another school of thought would be that fierce training is what our division is doing, and so maybe it's a better idea to pivot that or at least understand that more fully before we decide.

[00:15:05] So, you know, we bought the book. Everyone's welcome to read the book, and the book is not out of the question, but maybe everybody needs to know where we are on Fierce Training before we go back. Okay, because I thought we finished Fierce Training. Nobody just signed it to read the book.

[00:15:21] That was a decision we made. Yeah, and also with Fierce Training, I thought we finished it the last time it was done. I think there were different modules that were being added on to our staff, so we want to make sure that we understand where they are, And that can be another discussion for a future workshop when we want to have to finish the book discussion.

[00:15:41] But this fierce training discussion announcement is about an update of where the division is in regards to this training, not necessarily us getting the training, but just informational session type of thing.

[00:15:57] We were going to add this to another work session because I needed to more fully understand. kind of inherited just a skeleton of ideas for this agenda all right and that was the very first thing on there so when I was talking to you guys I kind of like just guess at what we were talking about which I thought was a general overview but there is an opportunity to do a learning session there's an opportunity to you know to just get an update so I can I can further you know to call you guys individually and just see where the group is about that because I'm interested

[00:16:34] but you know we have a couple decisions to make about about the book and about fierce training and what I told you about fierce training which could be true but doesn't have to be true there you go also implicit bias training I just wanted to put it on here because we did discuss in my individual conversations a lot of different topics that could have happened today but this was one that we have staff has an idea of something they know some what would you call modules or they so they have an idea of a program that could do what we

[00:17:12] want for implicit bias training but that didn't make it on today's agenda but I don't think that there's anything wrong with doing that and it's something that we already own or already know how to do so it'll just be something that's added an additional work session sometime you know this spring and I have exciting news that Alba is able to put together some pretty nice locations she's probably got five okay okay several working I'd like to see it narrowed down

[00:17:50] to three so I don't know if you really want to see highlights of things that we're probably not going to do some of them look really fun but they're already would be pretty expensive so we're gonna i'd like to let you know that things are working we are probably going to be an hour away um or two um but she's just started getting responses and some of them are very very favorable and they look really like really nice options um but i hate to tell you all eight of them because we're going to have to narrow it down before you guys vote anyway

[00:18:27] that's good um but they are exciting and then um it's been brought to my attention that may 12th is a regular business meeting and so you know we've thrown around a lot of ideas about um that is maybe follows the path of um august for our city council friends um so we can try to reschedule may 12 um or we can because we have a region well because we will all be together

[00:19:04] hopefully for a regional meeting in that way um so reschedule or let it go reschedule we should have one i mean it's going to be tough let me just preface it not too much discussion with graduation being two weeks later it does tend to be a really busy time of year so i think if we asked dr human if you think we could you know squish around the 12 that might save us from a lot of meetings but

[00:19:39] we can still keep work sessions if we want that one because that's the week of graduation so we do not have a work session schedule for the week of the 26 either because that's actually graduation day i believe but we could keep the work session in may and just skip the meeting we just do the 14th i mean that really starts getting into a lot of um you know we got to make sure that the room

[00:20:14] is open for council and they've got lots of things going on um i mean i'm i'm happy to ask is it the will of the board to change the date yes okay not to not to delete the date okay especially if it's just one. So to have a true meeting I guess can you double-check either the 13th or the 14th?

[00:20:38] So what about the 19th? Yeah, the 19th. Yeah, okay. So the 14th and the 19th first. Do you want to give one more date? It's just a case so they have at least three to look at.

[00:20:57] Did you say we're going somewhere on the 12th? The 12th is a VSBA regional so right now we're putting out notifications about like artwork for the kids and things like that

[00:21:34] like preparing for the meeting I don't know that there are actual invites but but that is the day all right so as first order of business we're going to see if we can have the meeting on the 19th and keep the work session on the 14th as a work session the substance we've got a couple of different plans if for whatever reason the 19th isn't available and that might be switching

[00:21:58] the 14th for an actual business which is a little bit rare but okay so so if we can move to our agenda I think that we've had we've addressed all the

[00:22:24] announcement okay so the 22nd isn't on our well the 22nd January so we don't need yes oh so we don't know dr. Jones already said that she can do so they

[00:22:56] now January 22nd I took January 22nd was accidentally on the calendar so for some reason January 22nd was also a meeting date for this month because it was the fourth right but they changed it to 29 so the 27th is now a regular business

[00:23:24] meeting on the 29th because it's the corresponding day of the week so part of the reason that we put things on the announcement tonight was so that you would have a full a fuller picture of what's coming up for work sessions

[00:24:02] because when we reserved our work session on the 29th of January it was mostly with the thought that we might have expulsion or readmission hearings and we don't so would you like to start planning for some of these work session titles on the 29th or do you want to wait till February 12th to start work session beyond tonight I thought the 29 like that the first special meeting is

[00:24:35] reserved for hearing and I guess January because you know we don't organize yes whatever so it was the first available day and so I was planning on okay you think that we could start with implicit bias training or this fierce which one seems more doable okay so tentatively we will try to do some kind and i will discuss with you guys what kind of

[00:25:09] fierce training you're looking for um and we will get some level of update on the 29th and then we will schedule so the 12th is looking to be a date the february 12th is looking to be a date for um a readmission hearing so there it's only one right now we may be able to add more information to that date or we can leave it specifically for hearing you okay to leave it specifically for hearing yeah that is a date that I know

[00:25:46] I'm away but I think I've run that they also by dr. Jones she said that she's ready willing and able to conduct a readmission hearing I think you guys Now, they're moving into our actual agenda, and the first thing up is Sources of Strength Overview.

[00:26:19] So we can have discussion, as much as you want. We have plenty of discussion. Should I pass these around? Yeah, I just brought them. They're samples of the curriculum for each of the grade levels so you all can look at what we're doing.

[00:26:37] You're going to pass it down thirdly. Stephanie Jones would be doing the presentation. She is the one who is our point of contact and works with our counselors to do the source of strength curriculum instead of rollout and supporting schools. But she is helping her daughter to move in Atlanta. So I'm going to provide you the best I can in her absence.

[00:27:07] So just to give you all kind of an update on our source of strength, we've talked about this before, but this is our social-emotional learning program that focuses on preventing negative outcomes. It ties in nicely with our Behavior Solutions Steering Committee and the work that we're doing in all of our schools.

[00:27:26] It also aligns our programming for our social-emotional learning program across all levels, elementary, intermediate, middle, and high school. so to provide an update about what's kind of happening at the elementary level so we can back up and talk about um kind of the history of the source of strength back in the 24-25 school year weems elementary school piloted the program and we learned some lessons there they started in

[00:28:00] january they rolled it we made the decision to go division wide this school year and we had training for all staff um we started with some training uh in the spring of last year with administrators and then putting together some planning meetings with their staff and then we trained all of our staff with sources of strength um representatives back in the kickoff meeting in august and we will be having some updated training which i'll be talking about in a moment but um it's being implemented by classroom teachers um and we have a coaching model where

[00:28:35] our counselors serve as coaches in our elementary and intermediate schools they are supporting that learning in there and still so that by doing this it also it's a shift in model because our counselors were the ones that were administering and teaching the curriculum what that does is that it then prevents them from working with small groups and so trying to be more proactive and in helping our students to solve conflict to build relationships build friendships and so that was a shift that we made there's upcoming

[00:29:13] training coaches training that will happen in early February February 2nd I believe the date is for our freshman learning day that will be coming up very soon that's happening in our elementary and our intermediate schools at the middle school the secondary curriculum is a little more student-centered students take more of a leadership role I'll talk about that in a moment the middle school the initial training was facilitated by the source of strength staff that took place in November 13th and the MET staff they're collaborating and finalizing the role out there and having the SOS campaign for a spring

[00:29:53] launch is what we're aiming for that's again this is a more of a student centered at the intermediate that's right the middle school with high school level it is a student-led program as opposed to teacher-led teachers are supporting them and feeding it and that ties into our high school we had training we trained our students last year and this this October 31st training was more of a refresher training we had students that graduated and so the initial training took place last year the 24/25 school year so we've had some

[00:30:28] new students this year, and our returning students were also there as part of this refresher. This was also led by Sources of Strength staff, not led internally. And next week, actually, the Osborne staff will be meeting with the Sources of Strength students that have been trained, and they'll be looking at a school-wide campaign, and they're looking to tie that into Virginia Kindness Week, which is February 9th of 13th.

[00:30:55] And so that program, again, is more led by our students with support of our staff to move this forward in our schools. So that's kind of as a brief summary overview of what's happening.

[00:31:11] Again, this was a shift. It's been going fairly well. We've had to do some problem solving, and Steph Jones has worked side by side with our counselors and our principals to get implementation across all of our schools.

[00:31:27] Obviously, Wayne's is a little bit ahead because they had the benefit of the pilot, half a year pilot they did. - I saw Ms. Baish's hand up first. So how are the leader students identified at the very level?

[00:31:45] - I'd have to get back to you on that question. - And you said it was going fairly well. How do we know? - Just feedback from the principals. - Miles. - Okay, go ahead. You can hear about it.

[00:32:00] - I had checked our board docs earlier today. this afternoon i have two questions um i think this is a great program um i'm wondering though how the teachers at means um were they surveyed to know whether or not they're that it's working well in their classrooms um like just you know after you implement something are we talking to the people who are implementing it and saying hey um how do you like it like on the scale of one to

[00:32:40] 10 you know have you done that or what we did was in the in the planning in the spring last last spring we were planning it we had our planning meetings we had multiple meetings and we had the counselor at beams who was the lead person last spring for the pilot she came and presented to the the larger group the principals of the elementary and intermediate schools and she shared anecdotes of what was happening there and shared the positive results that they've had She talked about how they had reduction in discipline, and so she was able to share firsthand with them,

[00:33:18] and she has continued to be a resource to us as we've implemented it in other schools. Okay, great. That's great to hear. The other thing I noticed that in some of the lessons, they touch on things that could be controversial, especially at home, you might be teaching your child one thing and then another thing they're learning does.

[00:33:38] So have we kind of combed through things that could be a bias? Because I know I noticed growing in our strengths, and it talks about the practices that bring us strength, and spirituality was mentioned.

[00:33:55] So I just wonder how are the teachers navigating that, just in case they get questioned, you know, if there's conversation about children's spirituality. Sure. So when we talk about spirituality, we're not talking about religion. And so when we talk with principals and when Ms. Jones meets with the counselors on a regular basis, I am not aware of any concerns that have come up from staff or teachers or parents about anything controversial in the program.

[00:34:21] Okay, great. That's good to know. May I? It's just in the definitions of the strengths, it says spirituality includes many people, places, and practices that can lift our spirit and connect us to something bigger than ourselves. Yeah, I was looking at the unit, though. I didn't see that.

[00:34:37] I didn't feel part of their back. But I just... it's the first time yes yeah um can you tell me what this looks like at the elementary level and then elementary middle intermediate middle and high school like how how and when are teachers implementing or teaching the lesson at the elementary level the intermediate level and then what does it look like yeah so the so the elementary level and the intermediate level so these are lessons that they have that are prepared um and so they're they are doing them typically as a large group and so we asked each of our schools to develop a plan on how they

[00:35:16] were going to implement it in this curriculum so for example on one of the schools every monday they were planning to have in the morning have like a morning meeting where they're using the curriculum uh using these lessons to to teach um and also what the benefit of that is is that it gives the whole school is on the same page and be able to use the same language use the same skills And then the counselors are able to support the teachers in actually talking about how to teach those.

[00:35:46] And then they go in and do some coaching, side-by-side coaching and side-by-side teaching with the teachers with the curriculum that we have and the lessons. One of the benefits of the lessons that they're pretty well laid out for that require minimal preparation or less preparation than having to develop a whole lesson on their own.

[00:36:08] And so in terms of the middle school and high school, those students are working with our counselors, working with our administrators to develop campaigns and doing things across the school, like including things on the morning announcements, including things on the announcements, doing those things, having a broader campaign where they're implementing their curriculum as opposed to they're not doing the individual lessons in the classroom.

[00:36:36] But what I also will tell you, though, is that the high school, for example, they have their nest program which is more like an advisory period where they're working on some of these things and these same skills and tying them into some of the greater campaign that's happening in the world thank you raise my own hand um if i may so this this little pie chart up here next to the sources of strength that represents starting with the orange you know family support positive friends mentors healthy activities generosity spirituality physical health and mental health. So to me, when you start, you know, even in elementary school, like early, early on,

[00:37:16] they're giving kids the idea that, you know, all eight pieces of this pie are necessary to have a happy, healthy, and productive life. So from there, they just grow, right? And so when you have the campaigns big, they're huge on finding a trusted adult in the building, you know, so everybody can have somebody that they feel you know can be a champion for them and so some of the things that I've seen that trade shows are you know where like the high school might have a 5k and they will walk with their trusted adults so you'll have one trusted adult with 50 kids behind them but you know you know that

[00:37:52] he or she have you know really made an impact on their lives so the campaigns are huge because it is sorry I don't need to sell it to everyone but is And when you talk about the different strengths, when you're having conversations with kids, it's like, well, which strength could you pull on to solve this particular issue you're having?

[00:38:16] Or which strength could you pull on to work your way through this issue that you're working through at home? And so it's really meant to, again, it gives school particularly, you know, when we're looking at a K-12 alignment here, it gives us a common language to have for our students.

[00:38:36] So at the elementary level, it's a curriculum that kids are instructing, but there's no class time for anything, maybe at the secondary level, so there's no class time, it's just that the students have been trained to try to create a source of strength environment?

[00:39:01] Campaign, correct. There are materials that we use, and there are materials that are used with our counselors as the coaches for our students. the campaign but there's no there's no there's no SEL SOS curricula correct there's no lessons that they're doing when they find that classroom um the one thing I noticed too I think it's great that you know you're starting here at the elementary with the teacher-led lesson so by the time let's say four or five years from now these kids are going to have these sources of strength and that background to pull from when they go into the higher grade and it's going to

[00:39:39] benefit that you know so I think that's great I noticed that there's some real outs that go with each unit are we providing those real outs for the teachers we provide the resources okay so it's not like it's taking more extra planning time for them to issue okay that's been one of the things we work through right because it's also we want to make things different you don't want add to it but I think with this curriculum it is a starting point and there are times when we're adding to it and we're doing those things and so it does take some planning not to say the game

[00:40:16] planning it does take plenty time to be able to make sure the lessons are implemented very well so sorry there is shared curriculum during advisory to be honest the advisor the advisory correctly it's part of the they just started the nest program this they just started when they returned in january um and so there we have resources and there's things that are doing but but there's no set less in curriculum that we have.

[00:40:42] Not set by sources of strength. What roles do the counselors have in the secondary level? Those are just the coaches for the students. I guess I have one more question.

[00:40:59] What about our students, our special needs students and also our ELs, are they also, I've noticed that there's nothing that kind of is adaptive for them. Are EL teachers also being trained so that if someone was pushing in at that time?

[00:41:15] Yes. Okay. Yes, and that being part of it, when you talk about the planning and how that you have to adapt and scaffold. Okay. Okay, so we can all look forward to February 9 to 13 for Kindness Week, and let's see how the Osborne kids do.

[00:41:30] I believe this program started as just a high school program, and then they saw the need for common vernacular and things like that, so that's why they started bumping it down. So I think you're right. by 12th grade you know in 11 years you know all the kids couldn't really know their stuff and i think these were well-rounded um individuals have a news flash um may 19th is available um so we will be getting updated calendars and um we thank elva and eric smith looking that out right

[00:42:06] We're going to add it to the January 27th under consent to you guys. Okay, so the work session will be the 14th and the 19th will be rescheduled meeting if we vote. Nothing has changed for the 14th.

[00:42:23] So the 14th will be an anomaly, but we'll keep it as announced. Okay, everyone, any further discussion? Okay, we'll move on then to review our school board priorities.

[00:42:40] so for the priorities is there we are we are rolling up on a joint session with

[00:43:14] council and so I think that it's good for us just to all be able to have a refresher to look at the priorities I don't know that we're looking for changes but update or fine-tuning now is a good time at a retreat to just look at those and see if there's anything that anyone wants to perfect I'm told that we will be asked for you know there's there's not gonna be a lot of money for anybody

[00:43:51] to do a lot of extra thing and the city budget but if we have something we probably need to bring it with a dollar figure and a specific need. And so the only thing that I see that is not necessarily stated on this particular priority is our commitment to all debt and the city's commitment. For me, not exactly related to priorities, but something that we all need to keep in the top of our heads as we go into the joint meeting is that there was a promise.

[00:44:31] you know we took fund balance um to start this all-tech program but there was no um thought on my part and you guys can correct me if you're wrong that we were going to have to shoulder this whole thing starting next january so that i believe that there was a head nod commitment for financial help to all dead after we completed our um pilot i think they want to see yeah

[00:45:09] well absolutely but i mean i'm assuming we're going to be able to do we actually have a favor how much we need well we're so i mean we you know um no i don't think we do right now and that's going to be a little bit tough but it also isn't something that they're going to have to start providing you in their in their june fiscal year you know july 1st they're going to also have time to see what our um friendship uh so i remember it differently i remember it being clear to us that

[00:45:45] it goes into our operating after this one time that we would have to make room in our operating after this one time uh maybe i don't know that's what i remember as well that's what i remember yeah they were giving us the boost and then we were going to have to find it in our own budget if we wanted it that was my recollection but it doesn't really matter what happened in the past what matters is if they're whatever they're going to be going forward but if we're going to be uh talking about this then the obvious question is what's the permanent home of alt ed because if now if it's a permanent program that's the way we are which we should not be

[00:46:24] thinking until we see the results of violence but that is you're trying to get ahead of it is Omar Stellar the permanent home of alt ed and if uh if not then we need to consider our options as to where the permanent home is going to be because however we sustain the program the new place to go. I also had a question regarding priority number three vision and item B facility plan. Alt ed, but also next school. Are we, do you have plans to talk about, you know, what our next school might be that we need to improve that we need to

[00:47:03] replace? Weems is next in 2035. Weems is after that in 2035. And there is a facility study coming, is that correct? When do we expect that? Do we have a plan?

[00:47:19] So when you say we have to break it up we have to break up the payment but will we be breaking up that like the finding? Work is good. So do we have our timeline?

[00:47:54] So our RMM has won the bid to do the work, the facility study. So they have in my mind proven themselves reliable you know and thorough so I'm sure that when we get a timeline from them we'll be able to trust it and we'll start to learn what things we're going to uncover as the payment plan

[00:48:29] so two members here have a different understanding of I'm glad we're going through this because I wouldn't want to misspeak by any stretch for the joint session does anyone else have shared the two members understanding you remember that okay so yeah i feel like i remember that was the last so we will be so you understand it to be our responsibility to absorb all debt after this

[00:49:05] pilot which they allowed us to use our fund balance for because we were going to get it from the state, remember we had that asked and that didn't happen, so we put a plan B. Okay, well that's helpful news. They're going to be very happy about that. Is there any other item here that you want to delve into with the priority?

[00:49:34] The storytelling, I know that, I mean it's kind of sort of vague. It'd be nice to like know where that's going before the end of the year comes, you know, school year and not done it. So, I believe that number three after this topic, priorities, is going to be communication study action items.

[00:49:55] And, you know, maybe that's a good time if storytelling doesn't come up in those action items. And then you can ask about it then. But I do believe there's a plan for that. Question on under three vision, letter C, strategic planning for the next five years.

[00:50:14] Is that talking starting the next strategic plan? Do we know what year we're starting it? I believe that is also on our items for today. So we did work to be thorough. I had a rough start with all the procedure and protocol with this meeting, but we did really try to think through.

[00:50:33] So if number five doesn't answer your question, then can we delve into it there? Okay. Anybody else? So any further discussion before we move on? The right terminology.

[00:50:49] Has your satisfaction been met with item number two? Okay, so communication study action items. This is a request from us to Ms. Radford to let us know the highlights that were found in the communication study and how she intends to, or her department intends to move forward with those findings.

[00:51:13] Thank you. Good evening, everybody. Good evening. Yes, we're going to talk real briefly tonight about the recommendations basically that came from these discussions that we had with our audit. I think when I spoke to you back in June, I mentioned that, as Chair Spall just indicated, that the role and responsibility of communication is not primarily just within the communications department, that we really try to stretch everything across the division, whether it be school board, as you all just talked about, for your priorities, whether it be our schools, you know, jointly.

[00:51:53] Even in my role with working with the Education Foundation now, some of our business leaders are talking about taking responsibility on following us on social media and helping us to share messaging when they're putting things out. And Member Brown is a part of that effort as well.

[00:52:13] So we're going to go through some of the things that the National School Public Relations Association talked to us about. The good thing is, I mean, in our outreach efforts with our families, we were noted for our strong multilingual communication and translation support.

[00:52:32] We're in the process of purchasing a device that is going to further assist us with this and strengthen our outreach with our families. I'm really excited about that. I was just working with procurement this morning. This device is like a tablet that does dual language.

[00:52:50] You can consider in some locations where you go, when you visit places, you'll see like a sign that may have flags on it. And if someone comes in and then they see their flag for whatever nation they're from, then that indicates to the people that are on the other side, oh, I'm from, you know, France and I need someone that speaks French.

[00:53:13] This is what this device kind of does. It's kind of Google on steroids, I guess you could say, that when a person comes in, they will be able to indicate what their language is. This device will be loaded with our registration documents and other types of forms that families typically need.

[00:53:35] They will be able to speak in their own language, and then the secretary or admin or whoever's on the other side of the table in the reception area will be able to understand what they say because the device will translate or interpret for them.

[00:53:53] Vice versa, the person speaking in English will be able to do the same, and the person will hear and see the information in their language. If they get to the place, if they say, I came to register my student, then the person will be able to assist them in finding their language for that document, and they can just go ahead and complete it.

[00:54:14] If they get to the wall and they have additional information that they need, we'll be able to get a live agent on the tablet at that time, which is primarily, I think, manned by one of our vendors that we already use.

[00:54:29] They partnered with this company that we're working with. So we saw the demonstration of it over the summer, Dr. Newman and Mr. Confeller and I did, with our central office interpreter, Ms. Alonzo, and it was phenomenal. And we feel that it will be an additional layer among our current, you know, every school has an interpreter.

[00:54:51] We have family liaisons that are there that are bilingual, which is also helpful. But this will take it down to the teacher level because we have devices where they can, what do you say, rotate it out of the office as a loaner. You know, they have a meeting that's going on, and it won't necessarily just be on the telephone.

[00:55:10] It's very intuitive, and I think that's something that's going to be beneficial to our families. So I was glad that we were noted for that, the high responsiveness and dedication from the team. The team is Ms. Galavis Ballard and myself.

[00:55:25] As you know, we do have our receptionist and our interpreter and everything, but the boots on the ground are the two of us, and we do try to be responsive, and I think as I go into the recommendations that they gave, they really did take time to note that it is two people, you know, primarily that are trying to do the brunt of the work, and the fact that we are trying to solicit as much support and help as we can through other offices.

[00:55:51] And I will just say, even from my perspective, I'm always thankful for people like Ms. Fisher and Human Resources, who is a capable person to say, hey, I can take the brunt of helping you develop a graphic to get something out because I know that you have other meetings or other responsibilities and will take that on.

[00:56:13] other departments have done that from time to time we know that we are we're responsible for graphic support and are helping people frame messaging and things like that we don't shy away from it but there are days where it's a lot you know and so this is going to really try to outline the fact that we have to delegate and share the responsibility and not think that it has to be siloed with just us because we can be guilty of that sometimes and trying to take it on ourselves. The positive perception from families, I mean, to be over 50%, you know, was good. And

[00:56:47] but we definitely, of course, want to be higher than that. The fact that did we get 100% of families responding to a survey to ask, you know, how they felt about what they received from their schools. And this is not just, you got to think about, you know, even pre-COVID. I mean, this is not just about notification about a snow day or something like that. It's also about an IEP or a report card, you know, progress report or any of those things that they feel makes them more knowledgeable about what's going on in the life of their child, you know, while they're with us.

[00:57:26] So, you know, we want that positive perception to be higher. You know, you can always say if we poll the room right now if you thought about the information that you receive from any organization the level of that that you want will vary from person to person and I think I've talked about where we had one person who might say I love getting text messages and emails and phone calls then we had somebody else that said that's too much I only need one source of that you know what I mean so that's going to be in the eyes of the holder and we're going to continue to navigate

[00:58:00] that. So the first recommendation that they talked through with us is to create a new comprehensive strategic communication plan. I noted in June that our original one ended, I can say, in 2019. It was a five-year plan at that time. The principles of that plan were always in place. The fact that we have the same stakeholders, families, our staff, the community, these are the things that are noted in that plan. But at the same time, some of our methods have changed. And so while we are used to

[00:58:37] just putting our head down and continuing to work, pausing to put another document in place that the division can refer to is something that we want to do. We have new platforms. We always had newsletters. They were just done in a different vendor, you know, in software at the time. You know, we've always had a phone notification system. It was just done with a different vendor at the time. And so where the old one had some specific pronouns, meaning proper nouns of naming different companies and things like that, we're going to get away from that.

[00:59:13] We'll just refer to the generic portion of how these vendors support our principals and departments. But it's just giving us an idea to try to streamline it. And in terms of the tools that we use, the website, the notification system, just a centralized plan that really brings structure so that there's no question from, you know, an administrator or anyone that needs help, especially internally. That's going to bring cohesion across the division, and that's really

[00:59:44] what we want. The second recommendation is about elevating public perception about MCPS through consistent and strategic storytelling. This is what we're talking about. In storytelling, you know, When I see the voices and hear the voices of our students and our staff during convocation, it warms my heart.

[01:00:08] I know that's a video example, but it's really trying to help our schools understand that storytelling is not necessarily just about our teachers of the year or our award winners and things like that. As I said, a lot of times Ms. Galavis and I will send or we'll go to schools and we'll say stories are happening every day through curriculum, through instruction, through relationships.

[01:00:38] And thankfully, we have a staff that they stay focused on what they're supposed to be doing. And oftentimes they don't see the need to reach out to us to say, hey, this would possibly be a great story. Come over to my classroom and take a look.

[01:00:53] We try to walk the halls, you know, and we don't have access to lesson plans or anything like that, but we try to walk the halls. We try to reach out to principals and assistant principals, counselors, you know, to ask about things that are happening so that we can do a better job, you know, and more of getting our information out there.

[01:01:13] Working with our principals this year, we started the newsletter Engage with them. Some were using another platform, some were not doing one at all. And so seeing them do weekly updates about what's happening in the classrooms, not necessarily just here's the coming, you know, activities.

[01:01:33] Tell stories about what's happening so that your families want to be engaged. We're evaluating how we share those stories across platforms. Just today we had WTOP in the building at Osborne interviewing our BFW Teacher of the Year.

[01:01:48] And so when I send these briefs out, you know, I'm really trying to invite the media to not just take what we give them and post it on their website and just leave it, but to actually follow up and come and have, spend a day, you know, or some time with our staff or the students that we choose to spotlight.

[01:02:08] you know help us to share this information with our greater community looking at other ways that we can probably promote it with our families so that people are more knowledgeable some people would seek stuff out themselves others we have to take it directly to them and so I think that this is something that you know Amber and I talk a lot about ways that we can try to pull more people in to help us from budget to curriculum to whatever it may be consistently being able to tell those stories, just like today, you know, going out

[01:02:42] and being with the principals or any of the things that the choirs are doing, any of those things that our families can help share with others instead of an experience they may have had that might not have been as favorable as we would want it to be, they can at least be able to point to the fact that we have students and staff that are doing phenomenal things, and that these are the things that we want them talking about with their neighbors and at the grocery store and all of that.

[01:03:13] So I concur with you as a board that we want to partner with you and, like I said, with our greater community, meaning our foundation and others, to help us get the information out about what we're doing here, because it can always be amplified.

[01:03:37] Establish a cohesive and consistent brand across the district. The Office of Communications was never responsible for creating logos, for instance, for all the schools. When I would try to get copies of logos, and this is just a small form of branding, people had created these from over the years in different departments, in classrooms or whatever, and when it came time for replication of those things, we had problems.

[01:04:10] You know, the resolution of them was not nice. You had multiple accounts, I'll even say at the high school level, because social media is free. Twitter, you can have multiple accounts, different class of 2012, 13, 14.

[01:04:28] Everybody had stuff out there. And it's very hard to manage, you know, from a single departmental standpoint that when you're reaching out to people to say, hey, who's managing these things from PTAs to, you know, different advisory groups and things like that. So what we've been trying to do is to connect with our principals so that they know who is putting out information in your building and what brand or what marketing tools are being used so that your community, your families associate that with your school. You know,

[01:05:05] what story, what image is being projected? Because if you look at some of the blogs or some of these other places where people are reporting how they feel about a particular location, what are the takeaways based on the branding of customer service? Customer service identifies what your brand is. Is your brand welcoming? Do people feel like they can come to your school and find a good environment in their front offices and things like that these are some of the things that we're trying to talk about when we go to principal meetings and talk to our administrators that is not necessarily

[01:05:44] just at the division level that these are things that should be stretching out over there um we did find out that as we were going through the audit process that our we we migrated to a brand new website platform last year year before you know so we're not quite two years into it When we did that, we were so worried about getting documents and content over and making sure that information was accurate, we didn't recognize that the Monassah City Public Schools logo was not on any of the pages.

[01:06:20] There was nothing that would allow somebody to land upon a school page and know that they belong to Monassah City. So we were able to go back and add that to every one of them to make sure that it was branded for Monassah City. It was an oversight. You know, I think it was something that we thought probably was already there.

[01:06:38] And even when it was brought to our attention, we thought, how did we miss that? You know, but we were able to go in and update that right away. Transitioning to the new platform was definitely a challenge. We're continuing to expand it, you know, so that we can further, you know, project what our brand is, who we are as a division.

[01:06:55] And I think as we continue with our strategic plan and continue these types of conversations, it'll further identify who we are as a division. But I think the key about everything that we've talked about, because there is a total of seven, I think, recommendations, is consistency.

[01:07:11] Because we bring things to the table. We try not to overload our principals with responsibilities, because their main responsibility is teaching and learning in their buildings. But I think sometimes people think that communication is so low on the priority list that it gets overlooked.

[01:07:31] But I try to help them understand that they're communicating with their families every day, whether it's about a bus being laid or a change in a classroom or any of those things, that we have to take the same care in conveying that information, and we have to do it consistently.

[01:07:48] So I think that's one of the things that we're really trying to drill in on. Here it is again. Continue to enhance internal communication tools and promote consistent practices. I'm sorry, I'm getting over a cold. Consistency. This comes along with training. You know, we had a huge training effort at the beginning of the school year with rooms, which is our two-way dialogue for our parents, you know, with their teachers, with the website for departments and things like that.

[01:08:21] But then once school starts in August, everybody's going in, and they're just working, and they're working, and they're working. And we're always trying to find pockets of time with Erica Loesch and others, you know, for professional development. How can we get in front of people so that there's consistency in the work, so that people don't feel like, oh, this was handed to me in my lap.

[01:08:42] I got a little tidbit of it, and now what do I do with that? So that is the thing about internal communication. And this is something that Anspreet talks about from division to division, district to district, that they work with nationwide, that consistency in understanding the internal things that you use for operations, it's easy for it to fall off the radar because everybody's so busy doing their work, you know.

[01:09:09] And so enhancing it, reminding people how to find things that they need. Staff should always know how to find the information they need, how to use the communication tools consistently. We have people who are not maximizing the messaging tools that they had.

[01:09:27] They might only be using it for one component. They also, you know, like the newsletter. You know, they were using ThrillShare really just for texting and emailing and phone calling. Well, some of them didn't understand the fact that, yes, you can use the newsletter platform that is within that tool to bring, you know, some consistency with the information that you're putting out so that you're not overwhelming families.

[01:09:51] And I think that's something that Ms. Gallabese-Peller and I talked about when we went to the APTAGEE conference in September, and they just really solidified and confirmed a lot of what we had been talking about with these recommendations, that there's a balance that comes with trying to make sure everybody feels empowered to use the tools that we're giving them, but also to where they don't feel overwhelmed with the tools.

[01:10:19] because we tried our very best to simplify things as much as possible so that there's a one-stop shop and they don't have to feel like they're having to go to multiple places to make sure that their families are well engaged and informed. The fifth one is about strong community connections through inclusive two-way communication and visible leadership.

[01:10:41] That visibility is, you know, the fact that we have administrators, you know, and board members who are in buildings and people see all of you, you know, engaging with our staff, opening the door for two-way communication.

[01:10:56] It's not always just the informal or formal feedback through a survey or something like that. It's also that engagement that comes from person to person. Inclusive is one of the things that we've talked about with making sure that it's a dialogue.

[01:11:14] is not one way that our families feel like that they have avenues to reach out to us I monitor our Facebook page I message people that have questions a lot of times we don't always put people on blast you know openly on the page but if they pose a question or if there's something that they seem confused about we will message them we'll reach out to them to see if there's something that we can connect them with a principal or you know a department sometimes there's special ed questions and things like that, we'll call the department and say, have you seen this?

[01:11:49] The bloggers, there's some community forums where people have conversations about things. If I become privy to it, I use it as a form of two-way communication because they dropped it there for somebody to see. And so if we see it, if there's something that we can address, we try to reach out to see if there's something that we can help with. We are looking at new ways to encourage two-way engagement and visible leadership at the school, at the division level to make sure that people feel like they know who to go to, we've wanted to do something more like a, I think that's probably a part of this next one, because they're kind of

[01:12:26] connected, inclusive action-oriented feedback loops. This is something where we're trying to figure out ways that we can help people understand what's happening already in many areas, but this is talking about formalizing and highlighting that process more consistently across the division.

[01:12:43] So we've had examples of involving staff and family through our guiding coalitions, stakeholder working groups, especially when we're launching new initiatives and things like that. But we're really trying to work with departments to see how we can help facilitate, you know, even more of that, the practices of sharing how our feedback shapes the decisions.

[01:13:04] Because, you know, if you talk to a staff member or a family member who may have submitted something, a request, I love when I can talk to Ms. Jackson in food services and someone made a suggestion about a meal item, you know, a menu item or something, and then it's implemented.

[01:13:22] Well, she might tell it on our Facebook page and a certain number of people see it. But to further expand that, maybe that's something that could be shared to all families, you know, by email or, you know, in another format. And so I think that that's some of the things that at some point we might be limited in some of the platforms that we're using.

[01:13:46] And so we might say, hey, let's expand that and maybe try some other avenues so that more people, not necessarily just the engaged people, Because we know who our engaged people are on our social media, on our Facebook, I mean, our website, or who comes to meetings, or the people who are active in PTA.

[01:14:03] But what about the other people who we want to make sure they know the information? Working with them, working with Ms. Sagunro at the city, you know, I've been talking to her about their newsletter in the communications department.

[01:14:20] Even if it's just a small section, things that we can do from our side to reach out to the greater community, the Chamber of Commerce, we've worked with them to try to get more information out so that people understand these are action-oriented feedback loops.

[01:14:36] These are things that we're not just sitting on, but that we want them to be well aware of the why behind some of the things that we're doing, which is about transparency, maintaining trust by making decisions in their rationale more transparent.

[01:14:52] That was one of the recommendations that they made. They were talking about helping people understand the why behind decisions. I think during board member comments, you try to do that, you know, when we talk about calendar decisions or policy decisions and things like that.

[01:15:07] i think you know we're trying to um we don't do a feature per se um unless it's called for you know um the cell phone um decision that came from the state you know that was something that we had to really work hard to try to make sure that we conveyed why is monastic city public schools doing this um and there are other initiatives and things that we that we come across that we have to expand that are not necessarily just self-explanatory um and using highlights and things like that to try to make sure that our families are aware. It stretches beyond the walls of our communications

[01:15:42] department and it permeates through every person and every department that we are connected to. So we're really trying our best to work with our internal groups to better frame announcements, to better frame decisions so that rationale is clear, especially around complex topics like budget, safety, policy updates. These are some of the things that we're discussing internally And just really trying to review and reflect on how we can do a better job with that.

[01:16:12] I think my closing notes that I made for myself was the fact that as we look ahead, this multi-year action plan, we have an Excel document that we are plotting some of the things that we are, the action items that we're working on.

[01:16:28] And giving ourselves a timeline on how we want to make sure those things are happening. Inspra does recommend, you know, not more than two to three recommendations per year because they say that there's really no way. Some divisions get 10, some get five, some get seven.

[01:16:46] But there's no way to really truly attack every one of them wholeheartedly, 100%. So you choose the ones that are most doable, and that's kind of like what we're doing. We're recognizing that we had tidbits of things that we had already done and some of the things that they had shared with us.

[01:17:01] And then there's some other areas that we need to bring some people alongside to help. And that's why the development of teams for execution is important. You know, I had a conversation with Mr. Gefeller about this very thing because it can feel overwhelming. You know, it's like the elephant.

[01:17:18] You know, you're just trying to figure out how do I attack all of this at once? And I don't want to say by myself, but in a way, it did feel that way. How do I attack all these things by myself? And he was the voice of reason. I appreciate that because he said you don't.

[01:17:33] know, and he said, Al, you have to ask other people to come to the table and assist. And so that's kind of where we are right now. We're just digesting what the recommendations are, trying to see the relevant places so that we don't put too much on the other departments. But there are some things that are applicable to them that we really can't do by ourselves anyway. We need their help to frame it so that we can partner with them also, you know, to implement it and get it out. So that's basically where we are right now is just reflecting and trying to see how we can pause, you know,

[01:18:10] from the things that we're doing, these moments throughout the day to say, hey, let's get back to talking about some of these recommendations and what we can do to really enhance the story of Monasta City Public Schools. Because, you know, I've been here, I said it's my 28th year, and I believe in what the work that we're doing here. And I feel that from our administrators to our student voices. You know, I love hearing our student representatives. I'll be continuing to work with Ms. Lisa Miller at Osborne. You saw a couple of times we took some of the stories that her students wrote and we shared those out and attributed the stories to them. You know,

[01:18:48] so I asked her to give us access to more student voices. And so she's excited about that. But you have to start somewhere. And so as we've grown as a division, I can remember back in 2012 or I think maybe a little bit earlier than that when we really just kind of launched our social media presence because we had administrators previously who didn't really believe in us using it.

[01:19:14] It was just because it was just expanding and blossoming. And so we've grown a lot from that time. And I think that we have a lot more room for improvement, of course, but we're really excited about some of the things that came out, some of the discussions that we've had as a group you know and where we can go with some of this it's pretty much it right now thank you very much any questions yes um did the audit prioritize the different recommendations that were made no they said that um they don't give them in any list of priority only i would say

[01:19:51] the main priority would probably be um redoing our plan you know because the plan is going to cover pretty much all of the other recommendations um but other than that no they were just saying that however it's applicable to where we are that you just kind of review them as a whole and then you pull or extract out you know what's relevant for them for the time and do you have a timeline for when the plan will be available or when the plan will be created yeah we're we're editing the current one now and so our goal was to have it completed before like in the spring so

[01:20:29] you know before the end of the school year that we that we have something solid that we can present especially we're going to have meetings with our principals we I meet with them regularly and I usually put something on the agenda to talk to them about because again our schools are lifeblood and so having them understand you know how to communicate how to frame activities and events It's to maximize engagement and things like that, which is a part of the plan, is something that we're working on.

[01:20:59] So the goal is to have that plan in place in the spring, and then how we execute the recommendations are going to come alongside our conversations with the departments that they're relevant for and things like that, too. Do we, have you thought about, or has the team thought about, or the audit, give a timeline for how often that plan should be revisited?

[01:21:26] kind of like a strategic plan right the plan should be reviewed yearly honestly it should be reviewed yearly and if there's anything because technologies change you know platforms change and stuff like that so we have we'll have to stay in the plan regularly especially now that we're having the opportunity to update what we've been doing and then as needed of course this is not really more yes we can create a three to five year timeline based on the recommendations because as As I said, we can't fully implement all of them at once.

[01:21:59] However, yearly, we will be reviewing, you know, I mean, it's almost month to month in a way, just to make sure that we're aligning ourselves with the key pieces like storytelling and things like that. Is there consistency in the schools with some of the things that we're asking people to do?

[01:22:17] There's no way. We do it now informally, but I think being able to plot it on the chart so it's more visible even for the two of us but then also for the others that need to review it I think that's going to be helpful it sounds like this audit came out saying that it is possible to continue with it basically a two-and-a-half member department or and to just bring school people more or right because did they make that person where is the accuracy of our personnel assigned communications

[01:22:53] was that addressed it was it was addressed in the sense that some people talked about, even though we're accessible, that they recognize that it's overwhelming to just try to work with two people. So in the recommendations, they did not put that there needed to be an addition to the staff. We talked about budget. We talked about availability of, you know, a sole web developer or things like that. They said in the meantime, that there may be some discussions that we need to have as a division about that. But in the meantime, that there's some other areas

[01:23:30] that we can maximize through ambassadors and people in the schools which is some of the things we used to do a long time ago I remember that there was a you know there was a PR person that we had designated in every building and they were responsible for giving us stories and working with us when we needed things just kind of trailed off you know and so with that you know reminder we were like okay well we'll go back to that because that's free at the moment you know what I mean we won't add to this and we'll see how that goes and if we can get people to see the need to stop what they're doing for the moment and offer that stuff you know the things that we need then we'll

[01:24:08] continue for a little while but then if there comes a need that we need to review it and then come to the board or you know our superintendent and say hey is it possible for us to add in an additional person or something like that we'll do it it was acknowledged but you know the truth of the matter is many of them, even with the auditors and others in INSPRA, they're one man or two man shows as well. And I think globally, we're all kind of used to working in that environment. I'm not necessarily saying it's the right way to go every time, but I think that because there's still some growth areas, we just felt like let's try to shore up those things and then we'll revisit it. And if we need to make a request, we would

[01:24:48] do that, but it was discussed. I guess I worry a little bit about buy-in, right? Like if you're trying to make this a whole division effort and it sounds like how the strategic plan is going to be developed is basically you, one person, is updating the old plan and then that's going to get presented and sent out to people. Is everybody really going to be bought into the urgency and importance and really wanting to do it especially since folks are in the management structure are not actually accountable to you right you know that's

[01:25:27] what makes it a little challenging sometimes you know so I worry that this effort is a little bit is a little bit fragile right yeah I mean in some of that it is you know but some of that is about discussion I can't do the plan in isolation, you know, because it involves so many. My department supports every person here. I mean, every department, I can't tell you how many times, you know, people calling us, even if it's just ask, can you review this? You know, can you make sure that it sounds good? We're invested in every

[01:26:05] department in some way or another. And so having time where I say, hey, who is your web person? If go to you know one of the directors and i say on your team who do you want us communicating with so that they can provide the feedback that we need in order to do what we need to do especially like with the plan and everything that's how the original one was created you know and so those voices will be there um i understand you know um your perspective on that it's mine too in some ways you know but i'm also optimistic you know that this was an opportunity for us to review

[01:26:42] and to have conversations you know i i can honestly say that my fellow my peers are so supportive you know that anytime even with spotlights and things like that you know they come by they ask is there anything that i can do you know because they know they know what the brunt of the work is so i think that there will be a lot of that um dialogue happening i have two quick things okay one um will your um draft communications plan will that go to the communications

[01:27:12] committee and then I did want to compliment you and your team on everything that is put out is so well done and I'm so proud to share it when I can and I just appreciate you and train as many as we can you know on a personal level you know my husband and i have a saying that excellence is doing the best you can on the level

[01:27:51] that you're on and the level that we're on we might not be as large as some of the other school divisions and things like that but we want we're competing in the same arenas you know our students are vying for the same scholarship opportunities and you know job opportunities and things like that and we want our students to be proud you know to be able to share information and show that they come from a necessity. So I don't want anything to be half done, you know, and I think that, again, recognizing our schools, they know who to tap into, you know, that can handle

[01:28:28] adding something even so heavy to their plate. Asking people to open their eyes to moments that are worth telling a story about is not a huge task, you know, because all we're saying is, you have access to me you have my phone number you have my text I mean you know my personal you can text me in the moment and say hey this is happening in the cafeteria right now can can one of you come and they pretty much know that we will if we can you know um and so I think it's really just reminding people regularly to see what's before them and to remember to let us know

[01:29:07] so that we can be a part of it and help share the information um I'm just going to say I know You mentioned having a representative at each school, but even I think it would be great to put something like that in a budget where it would be, you know, an elementary one or in a high school and then because the high school is so big and has so many of that in the middle school.

[01:29:29] So that might be something I can think about. I know I would be somewhat. I would rather have one more person on a communications team than one more at every school, budget-wise. Yeah, but it wasn't, not at every school, but one more. Just elementary. Yeah.

[01:29:44] Just to give you some, because when your boot's on the ground and you're actually there, it's a lot easier to report back to you. Whereas if you're here, you know what I mean? Like you said, having to get there really quick is hard when you have someone who is, you know. But I also know, and I just feel like, you know, our business is teaching and learning.

[01:30:04] And I always want our schools to be well-funded and able to do what they need to do for teaching and learning. And so, again, that's why I said I feel like if we can designate the people that we need designated in the buildings to help us again, you know, and continue to remind them, they would be a part of our committee or our team, you know, in a way.

[01:30:27] I think we need to just get back to that and see where that goes. But I think after time, if we say, you know, we're not getting the response that we need, it's hard. We've got ITTSs and people that are responsible for their websites, but they're also responsible for training teachers on platforms and supporting them with their technology needs during the day.

[01:30:47] They're not always going to be mindful to say, let me stop and help Al write this story out and things like that. But another person in the building might. the person that's handling the school's social media might be that person you know so I think just reminding our schools and asking you know for them to to look at it again that's kind of where we are right now so once we review that over we'll give ourselves some time and then I think that if we find that it's still hard and we're not really meeting you know the metrics that we want then we would make a request.

[01:31:23] Ms. Brown, I think you just answered one of my questions, but I was confused because I thought you said that there was no allowed webmasters for each building? No, there are webmasters for each building, but they serve in dual roles.

[01:31:40] Dual roles, okay. Yes, and sometimes they empower another staff, just like we do here, you know, to ask a department lead or somebody to help them with some of that. Yeah. They don't report to me. Oh, okay. Because that's a really quick fix with a small stipend, I know in some other districts, that's what we do.

[01:31:59] And then the ambassador idea, I think is one of the things that we should tap into because just for myself, for example, I'm responsible for the Facebook piece and another colleague is responsible for Twitter because I want the text.

[01:32:19] And, you know, so we divide and conquer like that, and then we're telling the story of our department through the different tools so it doesn't fall on one person. And that is just something, it's like a school culture type of thing that you build, so the ambassadorship might be a good thing that we shouldn't overlook.

[01:32:38] And then lastly, I didn't hear, and you may be taking this, but I don't know if there's any opportunities for you to continue to build yourself with professional development and build your team and the cadence of that. Do you guys have access to that every year? Because this is ever-changing, how we're communicating and putting information.

[01:32:58] Yes, we do. And the network that we're a part of, even through NSPRA, they have continual professional development for us. The conference that we went to in September was phenomenal. The speakers that were there, we brought back so much information that it was a little overwhelming even for us.

[01:33:17] But it's actually in line with a lot of what we're talking about tonight, and we're looking to implement some of those things. It also was an opportunity for us to further dig into our current platforms because there were certain things that we weren't aware that we had access to.

[01:33:35] And it's something as simple as, I don't know, people may or may not have noticed, the banners on the pages or even the engaged newsletter. We figured out how to streamline that, and we developed a brand new image, header image, for all of the schools Ms. Gallobese did.

[01:33:56] And something so small blessed the principals in so many ways. They logged in and they saw it, and it was like it helped brand them. know it put their building their their logo it was done so nice and I just it was something small but I think a lot of the parents noticed you know that they didn't use something that was just generic with just the name of their school but it graphically it was beautiful you know and so those are some of the things that we learned while we were there we're like oh you know we could do that so that I think that's something that was really good

[01:34:30] And lastly, for the board, if this is a priority for us, this communication and really coming across as having our hands really in our interests invested in this, we're going to have to take time and money to invest in this, whether it is in additional staff or additional training, because simply it just won't happen.

[01:34:54] I mean, she can get more expertise, but at the end of the day, it takes money, people, and time to make something grow. Yeah, one of my goals is not to gatekeep. You know, as soon as we learn stuff, you know, we definitely try to empower others so that they know.

[01:35:10] But they're outside of our department, of course. And, yeah, so we're doing our best. You know, we're doing our best, and we recognize that, as with anything, there's always room for improvement, and we're working through those areas. But I'm hoping that with the things that we have become privy to, the things that we have been exposed to, that as we continue to share them with the schools and we have the opportunity to kind of step back and evaluate it again, then we'll really know how effective it's been.

[01:35:41] I just wanted to say, I think you definitely provide the tools for the schools to use. I think the buy-in is something that maybe can be worked on more, that teachers are consistently using it. Say, for instance, say a parent has a child in first and fourth grade. Maybe the first grade teacher is using rooms all the time.

[01:35:58] The fourth grade teacher is how they're using it at all. So I think you need to be assisting in the school and maybe tell parents, I mean, teachers, the importance of using these tools and how it can really help them and build community. And then, too, also need to let parents know they need to look at what comes to them.

[01:36:14] I've had parents tell me to my face, your newsletter comes out at 430. I don't look at that. I know it's a newsletter. I mean, so we also need parents to be destined and to also look at what's coming home on a regular basis. I mean, like, because I was in the system for so long, I remember when, like, a 25-page newsletter came from Austin.

[01:36:35] But people looked at it, and I mean, it was like a hot piece of it. Everybody wanted to see it, but I think we have to have our parents excited about seeing what's going on in the schools. And something, too, maybe, I don't think we see any of the newsletters. So maybe there's some way, I mean, are they on their websites? Some of them do store them as archives there, but I think there's a way, because we help them build audiences and things like that within the platform, so they probably could just add.

[01:37:00] I think it might be good, because that gives us more information and more things we can add. Right, I'll check on that for you, how they're stored that way. Because some of them put it on the app. I can add some contemporary experience to what you just said with the differences.

[01:37:18] Like I've got one teacher who uses rooms all the time and another teacher who emails and doesn't use BCC. Everybody, all the classes, so it's kind of interesting how that is. But anyway, you had mentioned under action-oriented feedback loops, the city newsletter, but it wasn't clear to me if the city newsletter was happening that we were going to get that little spot or if that was aspirational.

[01:37:42] We have gotten the spot before and sometimes it's edited because it's very small. You know, and I think that because they were putting it in the utility bill, you know, the idea was if we wanted something more than the small piece, there was a fee that came along with that because that meant that they would have to add an additional page.

[01:38:03] Well, you don't add an additional page, you add two pages because the newsletter, when it's printed, it's front and back, you know what I mean? And so then there was a postage cost that was added to that. and so we just kind of so are we currently getting any real estate at all like periodically we don't have it every month is what i'm saying yes yes and uh this is communications update but we're seeing a set of recommendations so is this final is it done it's still being reviewed

[01:38:38] yeah but this is based on the conversations and the time that they spent with us what they felt were the primary things that we needed to focus on. So is a report going to be generated at some point? Yes. But that's the part that's not going to be. Right. Just smile.

[01:38:54] I had a question, too. I know a lot of the suggestions were very vague. Was anything specific as far as, like, for instance, like, cohesive, consistent brand? And that being said, like, something that we send out, I don't know, weekly to families, was that a suggestion at all?

[01:39:14] Not really a suggestion. mean they just talk about because um not every school because if you think about like the high school you have schoology you have there's multiple platforms because to dr jones's point when the big 26 page you know newsletter was coming out we didn't have text messaging we didn't have you know robust websites we didn't have social media so sometimes people are getting their information in other ways some of that is addressed you know we talked through some of that but it was varying from place to place it was really more about making sure that there's

[01:39:48] consistency in getting information out how they do it it doesn't necessarily mean that everybody has to have a two-page newsletter or three-page newsletter or whatever they need to know what works for their buildings of course but if they do it it needs to be consistent because some of them sporadic you know one time they might do it one month and i do it the next month or things like that so yeah there's some subtopics that kind of come along with any of these discussions yes I was thinking though the branding specifically because when you talk about branding it's not you know every school individually did they mention anything about the fact that we

[01:40:24] should be branding just our school district because I know before you were having sometimes you would send out things that showed like what we're doing and then and that was consistent in minutes off so i just wondered if the suggestion was from the school district should we be posting one main thing like monthly you know that or or they're they were happy with what you do um no it was not recommended specifically like that um again it was surveying exploring testing the waters reading your analytics seeing what's working what's not um it was really more focused

[01:41:03] on that. Best practice is branding. Yeah, but branding is one thing. It's not all these different schools. Right. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, that's why. In a way it is, and it's not, you know, because our brand is the totality of who we are as Manassas City, you know, and so I think that it's not necessarily just a visual image, you know, because some people see a logo as a brand, You know, it's not necessarily just that.

[01:41:35] It's what we project as who we are as a division from school level to our administration, you know, level. And so there's a lot of discussion about ways of what that looks like. I guess if anybody wanted to get the Manassas City Public Schools move, they can just select it in their feet, right?

[01:42:00] They can. but a lot of times it's like months you haven't posted anything because i look on that all the time on what was it on it's on the app yeah on the feed for the app and a lot of times it'll share because it's automatic i mean we post daily yeah but it doesn't come on the feed so like we'll get it on facebook but if you look on the app um and you have the latest one yeah i have yeah i'll check into that because i mean all everything that comes through there is what we are doing daily and I mean we don't really miss a day yeah okay I'll make a note to check on the

[01:42:36] app yeah because sometimes it doesn't like I'll see stuff on Facebook and like oh I don't see this on here the first thing I see is from nine days ago and before that it's one month ago right okay so it's just and then I all right is that news is that from the news is that is that social media so now I'm trying to look at it that's a story right yeah it's like okay I see it from share Seabirds I see it there that's the stories right the story yes okay but not the social media right because that would be really nice because you I know Facebook you're very up to date on

[01:43:11] everything but it's not the app well because that's new that's news and so um sometimes on Facebook Facebook is a small post and so we don't put the small post in the news item on the website It's not a press release.

[01:43:29] The news is typically news briefs and press releases and things like that. Some of the daily happenings are just small tidbits of what's happening around the division. It doesn't, yeah, so, but I'll still look into it. Yeah, because I know some families don't have Facebook and they just have this, so it would be nice to do that, too.

[01:43:47] Well, and I can say that Rooms is not super up-to-date because I just went on to my daughter's that for Rooms, only one of her seventh grade teachers is in there. that i don't know how to access her as a parent and we have um with our rep caroline she has a excel file that shows us the participation at every school we work with her and then she pulls it down and then we share with the principal to say only 40 of your teachers or 60 of your teachers are actively utilizing the platform we need to have another conversation you know to get them to

[01:44:26] get on board or you know whatever i'm just asking for a friend like why we have schoology right why don't we use schoology for everything why don't we the elementary schools don't typically i mean it's usually the secondary level that primarily depends on schoology um but for the announcements and things like that a lot of the teachers utilize rooms for that it's funny because i've never even signed in on words that i just noticed that for instance here and this is as a parent I will say but I use the speed to you know see events right I mean I can't

[01:45:05] get there because I'm not a parent right but yes yeah I didn't realize I mean I see yeah I see where it's not but I don't have access to it because I don't have a student you don't have a student because I was wondering like with Lisa's maybe her teachers haven't invited her no I just means that her teacher is probably not as active on it or because all the teachers have an account every teacher everybody is uploaded into the platform but whether or not they use it or not like like miss brecy said some teachers just email they don't post announcements on their on their um home page i guess you could say you know

[01:45:43] for the rooms account so my question usually is but do you have the information are you getting information if you're not getting information then that means they need to utilize something we have multiple ways to communicate with our families if you're not getting information to them utilizing one of those then you need to be in rooms or whatever it is to make sure our school is you know to make sure that they're getting it i would say you know obviously we have all families in our school district maybe even giving a um an update on how to use this

[01:46:16] would be helpful because our liaisons kind of hold those at the schools so that we don't have to right because maybe even the conferences they can remind parents if there's like a little panic that get out because i if you had to mention rooms i would have not even realized that it was on the app like and that's me okay um so i don't want to muddy the waters but i also since we're here having like a transparent discussion when i was having one-on-ones asking people what they

[01:46:53] wanted to see on future work sessions or at this particular agenda data schools came up a couple times so is that something that the people that asked about it have dropped or did it just kind of get sidelined today is that something that is communication um state of the schools like when we had the businesses and stuff like that?

[01:47:13] - You're talking about the book quiz? - Yeah. - Oh, like an annual report? - Yeah, I've heard Dr. Jones brought it up at-- - Earlier last year, right? - Yeah, it was after we went to, I think, a training, I think, Carolina Cowan had one who was staying at the school, so it was something they do annually, just kind of giving an overview of what happened in the school system for the year.

[01:47:37] - I mean, I want to see it happen, but I don't want to see it happen just to see it happen. Like, I want to see it happen as part of a strategic-- I don't think it's something that we would do in 2026. Years ago, I mean, I say years ago, we did. And then I think we did a community newsletter.

[01:47:53] And like I said before, we had, because it was, you know, full color processing and how much it cost, people complained about it. So we stopped doing it, you know. But now we have electronic means to do things as well. So I think that's where it kind of fell off as far as an annual report, you know, to the community.

[01:48:10] Great. I didn't want it to go from this room and then have you barking on your major plan for this year or years to come. And if it is the will of the Lord for you not to have talked about it. So we can give a head nod and nod, but I just want to make sure we didn't forget about it and it isn't a priority.

[01:48:33] I know that the video that you created last year or recently, that was so good. even if it was something like that if if you didn't want an actual paper copy you wanted to do it in a video format i mean i think that would be wonderful just something that we can share whether it's on facebook you know about our statistical information in it basically i think i share an example um and then dr jones brought an example too but also this doesn't have to like laying on you I know that everything seems like it but again you know it's spreading the wealth like

[01:49:09] there could be a committee that is in charge of this and would like to you know develop just like the story of us I think it's definitely something we should definitely research further but maybe Oh, that's true.

[01:49:32] Any report for the school year? I can send one of my copies. I have a sample from the one where it's six pages. It's literally six pages. And I have a couple of examples in my office, and then, of course, we do it for the foundation.

[01:49:51] Oh, yeah, yeah. But I was just thinking about money-wise. I know we were talking about funds. I mean, a video version of that might be cheaper. Okay, well, I think it's on the table, so we can try to delve deeper. But if everyone's satisfied that they know a little bit more about the communications audit, then we can move on to your plan.

[01:50:12] Do I have one? I don't know. Are the conversation framework up there? Yeah, number four. Are we going to take a five o'clock break? Yeah. Are we going to take a five o'clock break? I think we can take it back. Yes, we can take a break. Do we need to make a motion?

[01:50:28] Uh, step four, uh, I'll entertain a motion. I moved to recess for five minutes. Seven point five minutes. All right. We've decided to go. Yeah, I second.

[01:58:46] Before we find it together, are they going to have problems with their internet? Is I going to ask that at all? You might have to wait. Yeah, I tried. Is there, like, a password for that? No, the staff one. You shouldn't have to have a password. I don't know what's going on at home.

[01:59:19] The outlet is not charging. But the light is on. Like when you charge it and that little light is on, the light is on. Well, can I focus everyone's attention on Dr. Sada.

[01:59:36] Thank you, Dr. Sada. Hello. Hello, everyone. Chair Spall, Chair Jones at all the school members. And Dr. Newt, Newt, Chair Beller, who can help her. So last time I was with you in December, right, we gave you a mouthful of all sorts of data. The purpose of this is addressing two items on your agenda.

[01:59:55] One is about our continuous improvement planning process of what's done in response to the data that's been going on. We wasn't waiting until December. And then an update on the development of the strategic plan. So those two things are in this one set of slides. Okay, so first in the continuous improvement planning process, I'm going to talk to you about the cycle, our annual time frame, and a little bit about the tools that we use and just kind of walk you through some of the things that some of these slides are what we use with our principles annually. And then an update, a brief update on where we are on the development of the strategic plan you first mentioned with you at the retreat last june so continuous improvement

[02:00:33] planning is exactly that right it's continuous it's something that's ongoing and so just to let you know every year though there's annual professional development and support that often kicks off with the leadership retreat from my perspective but the schools and the school leaders are looking at their data all the time right the data that comes up it's not just SOL scores it's student performance data throughout the year it's attendance data it's behavior data it's teacher data it's lots of different things but at the end of the year before you know folks are gone from the summer there's conversations about where they are and then we kick off the new year at the leadership retreat so that's when they're beginning the new continuous improvement planning cycle we have a

[02:01:12] platform called plan for learning that we've been using Prince William uses the same platform and we align our process with BDOE expectations we do our very best with that because BDOE changes their expectations every single year so we try to keep some continuity for our folks to make sure that we're in alignment with the conceptual process. So there's three stages to the continuous improvement process. One is a comprehensive needs assessment. One is the continuous improvement plan itself. And then once the plan is developed, it's an ongoing monitoring for both implementation of the plan as well as impact. And so, but this is a cycle. And so why I like to tell folks that their plan is not something that should be developed and set aside. It's a living, breathing thing.

[02:01:53] and that's how you make it work so as i said we align with virginia's process these are the six steps of the continuous improvement process um in virginia but really everywhere there's versions of this you can see with eight steps or four steps or whatever so you can see um and the thing that's most important at the beginning is it starts out with a team it's not just this is not the principal's plan at the school this is a team right and so you have a team involving different stakeholders representing different perspectives the comprehensive needs assessment piece is really really critical and i'll talk more about that in a minute but that's where looking at the specific

[02:02:28] data at a given point in time helping determine what the needs are to address in the plan right because we're this is the plan is not a documentation of everything that's happening in a building it's the strategic actions in response to particular data needs and setting goals to address those areas if that makes any sense so then you develop a theory you identify how you're going to address it luckily we've got some key division initiatives that are what we're utilizing folks also select key strategies develop a plan with goals and action steps and then you implement the plan but then you're not done you have to be monitoring it and making the necessary adjustments as things come along the way so that first stage is the needs comprehensive

[02:03:07] needs assessment um i love this slide i stole it from videoe you can see that this is from several years ago but i really like this one because it's it helps folks understand why take the time like i know our data right i know the data why take the time to delve into it it's not just looking at what the numbers are it's looking at what the root causes are so that you know how to address them specifically right so if we use attendance as an example there's different root causes perhaps for absenteeism at the elementary level than at the secondary level because kids get old enough they have their own agency and being able to make decisions about what they do so the root cause and how you address it and respond are going to be different so this is an important step and it

[02:03:47] It takes time, but it's an important step that is why it's the first state of the process. So you have to determine and develop where you are, right? So we talked about that in terms of what's the current state, where are you in various areas, and then where do you want to get, right?

[02:04:04] Where do you hope to be at the end of the year? And so that's what that process does. You go through, you can see those steps that kind of break that down even further. And so you're looking at data, you're developing, okay, here's what we're seeing with the data, here are the things we're going to address.

[02:04:20] You look at the root cause, and then you develop the goal, right? I know I'm doing a very Reader's Digest version of this, but this is to show you what we delve into with our schools. Once you're done with that, then you move to the plan itself. So schools develop and identify areas of focus based on their data.

[02:04:36] And as I said, this is a wide variety of data sources that we're using. Then you develop broad goals and smart goals. So like your big picture goal, we want to improve, right, the performance in mathematics. That's a broad goal. The SMART goal would be that measurable, tangible goal that helps you get there.

[02:04:52] I like to think that a SMART goal should really be called a SMART objective, but that's a soapbox. But it's also possible for schools to have both implementation and impact goals. So as we were launching the implementation of a cycle that works, the division had implementation goals and benchmarks that you need to do these things in order to get there.

[02:05:11] The reason why it's important to look at that is because sometimes if you jump to just looking at impact, you don't necessarily know why you're not getting the impact that you wanted. You're not getting the outcomes if you're not looking at what you're doing along the way. So then you identify how are we going to get there. That's the strategies conceptually.

[02:05:28] And then you develop detailed action steps along the way for the strategy and the implementation and monitoring. So these are the conversations that are engaged with big picture, with school leadership teams all together, then with them at their schools as they develop their plans. So schools select goals that connect to our pillars as well as BDOE domains that are identified that changes sometimes year to year and then schools develop school specific SMART goals and you can have multiple SMART goals underneath a broad goal right you know again you're looking at SOL performance but also English

[02:06:06] learner performance and literacy right you're not just looking at one you're looking at early literacy all of these things but under the larger goal around language art here's an example at the high school level right you have a broad goal about graduating on time that's a broad division goal right but a smart goal would be in this year the on-time graduation rate would be at least 90 percent that's that's the goal um defining smart goals this is just you know i know most folks know these acronyms and sometimes some of the r's and some of the things are are different depending on which version of it you'll look at but um having the conversation and identifying what

[02:06:43] the criteria are is um is important and this is how we measure success and so that's the smart goals and this third stage in my opinion this is the most important piece um is monitoring for implementation and impact so first step is you have to be doing what you say you're going to be doing um and then you monitor to see is it happening right and then if not or how is it happening, then you're reflecting and assessing and revising, and you're also kind of simultaneously monitoring performance levels. So in our process, we have formative reviews that occur with the plans, and so that schools take the time to reflect and see where are we with the strategies we're

[02:07:22] implementing to see are they working? Is there a roadblock, right? You think back to like the years of COVID when in March all of a sudden things stopped, right? So school may have had a great plan to be doing something in that fourth quarter of that year well you couldn't do that anymore so you have to capture that in terms of implementation and then again reflect reassess and revise this is not something that is static because something is thrown at you like oh in december are schools identified at this level of performance or for federal identity federal intervention with these different areas so you update the plan to make sure that we're specifically targeting exactly what was identified in most cases that's already been done but to highlight and make sure that

[02:08:02] And we're meeting all those requirements. So a little bit more of this. I've got some definitions on the next slide. But the steps-- again, you can see each stage has multiple steps in it, right? So it's a layered cycle. I talked about the steps in stage three. And then the actions-- I mentioned the formative review.

[02:08:20] And then at the end of the year, schools decide, OK, is this the same kind-- is this a strategy or a goal? Did we meet the goal? Did we come close to the goal? Is this strategy something we want to continue? Sometimes you've done something, and it's run its course, right? implemented something and then you move on to something else so or it's no longer needs to be highlighted in the strategic plan because it's become operational right so that's why there's ongoing review um again i talked a little bit about the difference between implementation and impact because it's important to look at both otherwise we have that black box and we may not

[02:08:55] if we don't we can then document this is what's working this is why it's valuable for us to spend resources in this way because they've led to these outcomes or we need more it helps you build a case for potentially needing additional resources in some way so those are the things that um go there that's the continuous improvement planning piece that's just kind of an overview of that and then part two of this is the development of the strategic plan for yes those years are right fri 28 for 32 that sounds crazy i will tell you the first time i typed it that 32 said 23 because because my brain, I don't think, was ready to have us be quite there yet.

[02:09:35] So back in June, I mentioned kind of a timeline, and we're on track. So far, there's no budget, so I can't quote Mr. DeFeller and say on track and under budget, but we're on track with where we want to be. And we start early because we want to be able to launch this mid-year next year so that folks know what's coming.

[02:09:54] We weren't able to do that the last time. We adopted the plan in July as it was starting. But our best practice is to try and give some folks an on-ramp, right, to something new. So we established a strategic plan steering committee, which included recommended representatives from each school in multiple departments that represented a wide variety of staff positions.

[02:10:16] I was thrilled with this group. It was about 20 people. And we met twice in December, and the focus was on reviewing vision, mission, and values, because the current vision and mission of the plan, the pillars, all of that. then we're engaging in an effort to help us define and then help you ultimately define and endorse value statements that'll be part of the plan we have the wonderful belief statements but we want to have a couple of core values that we can talk about and use those to highlight in addition to the pillars of how um things represent what we what we value in in manassas city public schools so the work of this group they they're i told them that they're really at the outset they're

[02:10:55] the brain it's a lot of brainstorming and they're the brain trust and then they're going to what they've done is going to be used to develop initial concepts that will be reviewed by larger groups of stakeholders via focus groups and online surveys and then that group will come back together again in may to review all of that input which will then lead to in june sharing with you some starting points of strumming and really diving in ideally for with you at your retreat into where you want this to go and help it take shape um so again stakeholder input initial again this is a very iterative process stakeholder input would be gathered through focus groups

[02:11:30] and surveys in March and April to consider vision mission values goals key performance indicators we did talk about at the retreat that we don't want to throw that we want to maintain the conceptual structure that we have with our like architecture metaphor but go deeper there's a layer that wasn't there yet with the key performance indicators and some things that give it some more some more beef to it you know meat to it and then so the steering committee is going to use that input to help inform the structure you you'll get involved in that in June to like you know if that's what you have that works is a good time

[02:12:06] to get you to dive in to help shape it then a fuller draft would be developed over the summer can gather additional community input in the fall in more public ways in a broader set of feedback and then final input from you later in fall with the goal of to present it for you for approval in january of 27 so it can be communicated about and then officially launched um july of 27 which is fiscal 28. thank you for that um and i'm going to see if i can formulate this question to make that so we're talking fiscal year 2028 to

[02:12:45] 2032 will the process or what the strategic plan looks like be impacted at all by the findings of the facility study because the facility study is it just looking at facilities or is it looking at um projections for student body student demographics all of that can that have an input impact on the strategic plan so dr unless you want to go first you got it okay so um i think that the facility study could have some some impact i think when we think about right the

[02:13:24] structure of the plan that's the first time i never i do this quickly put together the um the use the graphic you know architecture right right so um the align foundational support you really want to dive into more and put the values there and how we do that so really what how how that what that's going to inform miss stevens is some of the how and where the focus is but the um so it could have it could have an impact um it could more likely have an impact on the the budget which is the way we live out the strategic plan that we set um because the goals are around access

[02:14:01] and all those things for students less so about the i would imagine less so about the facilities themselves but the indicators right could be related to that and there would be ones related to supports which include the operational side of things does that help yeah it does help and then the slide slide 18 i think 17 and 18 where you talk about excuse me the focus groups and the surveys how what are the demographics who makes up the focus groups how are they chosen who who's going to be completing the on so i guess it's two parts focus groups and online surveys can you give

[02:14:40] us more specifics sure so focus groups would be the vision would be a wide variety from students to staff to parents to and for the first round the larger community input would involve the community outside of parents staff students um that would happen in the fall so um when i've done this work other places right we've worked with schools to identify students staff and then put out things to parents for focus groups and then surveys cast a wider net right and so you'd have two rounds of

[02:15:13] surveys some in the spring that would be going out to parents and staff and then in this in the fall there'd be another version when you really have something to be responding to the more structured plan to be responding to then that would then include the community and so it can be the first part is to be okay here we've identified some value if you prioritize in a rank of this list of 12 how do we get down to five right of these things what are the things you want to see continue what are the things that are most important to you and with some the focus groups help inform the development of the survey so that's the order of events if that makes sense and so

[02:15:48] you'd have a wide variety of folks identified to make sure we capture the differently we have i think of seac i think of groups of folks that exist already so when i did this in prince william we went to various advisory councils and we then and gathered input so focus group is a placeholder for a way of gathering in-person input as opposed to an online survey.

[02:16:10] So if there's any particular groups you want to make sure we're capturing, please let me know. But I feel like I'm going to cast a very wide net that way. Yeah, no, that helps. And then just that reminder that sometimes when we're doing faculty and staff, there are always those people who say that those individuals for the steering committee or for the focus group were cherry-picked.

[02:16:36] And I don't know there's a way that we can get around that assumption being made by some folks, but just so that we're cognizant of it, because sometimes that is a perception. Yeah, that's very important to make sure that it's not only the same people forever and ever.

[02:16:54] Yes. So speaking on what you're saying, and I have some other things that go from the first slide, but as far as surveys, I know that a lot of times we talk about how we don't get a lot of responses. And I think we have to realize it has a lot to do with our demographic and that we need to make sure that our surveys are done not just in the normal online platform. So do we have any, are we going to reach out, like for instance, at community events? I know when I went to, it was

[02:17:28] an LPAC meeting, they did a survey and they had so many people respond that were there because it It was a bilingual survey. They had people who were translating. And it also was in paper form, and people could hand it in, like, you know, like the ones of old.

[02:17:45] And I think that we need to remember that not all our families are on email. Not all our families are checking their, you know, those websites that we keep sending them out. So if we do want to get all of our, you know, a lot more people, we need to think about those ways.

[02:18:02] Yes, we are definitely thinking about those ways. one example for the fall is using back-to-school nights and other things like that and setting up places and having different different options of how to collect the information there when you have captive captive groups for the for the for families and then I guess moving back unless someone wants to talk more about just what we were talking about before I go to the first set of slides okay um I love how you laid out you know your process and of course as an educator myself I know the process real well um however as a school board member it

[02:18:41] would be nice to know where we are in that process more specifically the reason being you know we get a lot of the data but I feel like we hear the data and then it comes to the end of the school year and that's it so it would be nice to have even if it I know we may not be able to see everything but kind of like you talked about the broad goals the smart goals strategies steps those are things I would like to see absolutely yeah so that we i don't want to say because we put a lot of trust in and your governance team not just us but you dr newman and i feel like it does seem like blind

[02:19:19] trust especially when we get the fours and we're like oh my goodness it's not what we obviously want um so i don't know if that's going to be now we talked about this but i would like to know when we would be able to hear those and maybe another work session which i'm fine with but

[02:19:37] So if you feel like you have, so part of my thought of putting this agenda together was to let you guys know who are in the business that the things that you desire to do and know well from your job perspective are happening.

[02:20:01] and so I was trying to give us one more shot to determine exactly how deep are we as a board going to delve. So I'm open to talking about how deep we want to dive and it sounds like Dr. Casada is amenable to giving us another layer of information.

[02:20:22] I just want to make sure that is the will of the board. So I'll point out that we were originally at some point going to get school by school presentation. We decided to table it to cap the accountability framework result yet and then it took three additional months on top of that at the point we made the decision to table it was supposed to be only like two weeks away but that's another kind of angle I don't you know at this point it would be February out of the school year that's going to be done functionally by the end of May so I don't know if it's even worth it

[02:21:00] to do at that point but in terms of how you wanted to attack the desire for more information that option well I'm just thinking maybe something not obviously because we're so late in this year I mean January doesn't feel like this one and a half a year I'm looking at going into prior to the 26 27 year kind of like a I don't want to say a touch base but kind of this is where we are this is

[02:21:33] where we are in the process um maybe something like that um so what yes i was just gonna ask exactly mrs miles i'm sorry what exactly are you asking so i'm asking for specific smart goals strategies what what steps are we taking to ensure that when we get to the end of the school year you know we're not where we started and i just feel i feel very unsure about it because we really just don't have any information so you know specifically which schools are making gains No, because as your slideshow shows, in January, you do a formative review.

[02:22:13] You focus on implementation and a map. And then in March, you do another one. So I'm just, and I know you mentioned smart goals, strategies, steps, and I just have lots of questions. Like, it would just be nice. And we had mentioned this before that came out that we wanted, yeah.

[02:22:31] And then you mentioned the root cause analysis, prioritizing needs and developing goals. And you just kind of showed us the process, but we really just don't know the status of our schools, except for what the state has told us the status of our schools are. - So Ms. Miles, you don't want the strategic plan.

[02:22:47] You want to know what each school is doing, like what are their plans for improvement? - Right, and as I stated, the strategies to get to beyond where we are at, because clearly-- - So you want an update? - Yeah, and that was what we had mentioned before.

[02:23:02] We had actually asked that, I think it was back in November, but we didn't have the accountability, right? And so I know that, you know, obviously we can't get everything. It would take forever to do that. But like you said, just a snippet of it so that we, I know for me, and I can't speak for everyone, that I can rest assured that, okay, we're moving in the right direction.

[02:23:26] Okay. It seems like Dr. Posada is capable of putting together something that is succinct enough but also in-depth enough to give us another level of understanding what is a time frame I mean could this be done by March okay so we can look at that is the will of the board I'm not sure what we're asking for

[02:24:04] if this presentation is for the strategic plan that is going to be implemented in the future in the in the work that goes through it and it appears is though, what board member Miles is asking for is kind of an update of the state of where we are because we did get some really eye-opening data from the state where our schools are not on track and so there are mid-year data, there will be mid-year data that can perhaps give us insight

[02:24:38] as to whether or not we inch it towards a little bit of growth and I don't think that that should take two months to put together. I might be wrong. So I was just trying, we know that we have a specific firm date for mid-year for different attendance, so it seems like after that date we should have a fair amount of data to look at. I don't know. Before. Before? Yeah, before that.

[02:25:07] Well, I was just trying to say after that we should have as much data as we're going to get for mid-year but if we want it to be before then it looks like yeah and I wasn't talking about the strategic plan because there were two different slides you had yeah strategic plan I was kind of like yeah okay so help me understand on the are you saying on the 26th the same day or at the same well well the

[02:25:46] 25th well are we doing a February we probably do it at a work session are we going to do it I'm just trying to look like on the calendar what what work session i was going to propose the 12th of march but if you guys think that's too wait what's happening sorry i don't understand i'm just trying to say if we're looking for this another layer of data then what's wrong with the regular meeting that's what regular meetings yeah the 24th of february and then the 26th is the um the mid-year for the superintendent which is just two days later

[02:26:25] that probably and that would that be okay it's like right before march it's like the end of so i just want to ask a clarifying question i thought you were asking for the school plans which can which are the you said the goals the strategies all of that so what the plans are that's that's in what's going on right now and to get like in terms of but that's more about the plan than it is the deep dive into the data you're going to be talking about mid-year data in the evaluation if you're interested in and either you know interested in the plans themselves

[02:27:00] that's a different conversation and is one that can be done they can be either can be done even whenever you want it to be done um if you want to dive into discussions about the school plans a work session may be the better avenue for those discussions but be able to pull up all of the things and that can be at your discretion of when okay i was i was thinking work session but um discretion well what if we put the school plans on the 24th and then we will

[02:27:29] discuss the data so that's the school plans at a regular business meeting i don't know february 24th with the budget um this is just listed as a regular business yeah it's regular business meeting on the budget yeah but we have to approve the budget no i'm good or present the budget yeah the budget is i mean those things go together yeah i mean they do they're both meaty

[02:28:01] i mean what about february 10th is that too soon i think that they're too soon free no okay so this is something that we want to have in a regular business meeting does the school i think the public will have questions and they will want to know and just like how you started out dr cassada about how this isn't something we're doing as a reactive to the reports that came out right remember december um it's something we've been working on all along right okay can i just

[02:28:35] propose even though it's soon that we share these like kind of in-depth school plans on the 29th that a work session january 29th before the public i think that's you have not seen my work session idea list it's pretty long like i'm really just like we should put things in regular meetings that's what we're there for we're not just there to get a construction update and go home like we are supposed to do things at our regular meetings that the public tunes into like i really think full plan along in a regular meeting okay um yes so and i also think we need to remember that this

[02:29:13] is being put on Dr. Quesada and the cabinet on top of the work that they're already doing. So if we keep pushing it closer and closer to today, that puts that much more work and that can impact the quality of what we receive. Because if we want something presented in front of, at a regular business meeting, then Dr. Quesada and the team need to have time to put that information together. So it's logical, it's precise, and it's easy for not just us to understand, but easy for community and the public. And I don't want to add more onto their plate where they have to take

[02:29:52] things that they're like right now is budget season. I mean, that's a lot of work in and of itself with that. That's very much so has very specific time constraints to it. And I don't want to, for lack of a better term, and I'm not saying that I want it to be held off. I think February is fine, but I don't want to push it so that other things that are just as important, like the

[02:30:20] budget have to be put on the back burner can you maybe without being totally on the spot dr. I just one more time tell us what you envision as the best date and vehicle for doing this type of intervention I'm I'm trying to digest just what it you know what it is that what the ask is so an overview of school plans so you can

[02:30:58] see them and understand what's in them um is that the is that the ask i don't know that that's the uh that's the ask it's just because i know you meant you went over how you do it well we want specifics as what are you doing because it's just super vague like i know not everyone who's in educators that might be like oh this is great information she was like oh okay I need this job yeah right okay well whoever has to do I still think that as a board we I believe as a board we should be priming to that information

[02:31:36] and we did ask for it a couple months ago but I know we were waiting and we should get it before his evaluation in some shape or form whether she presents or is submitted to us for us to review prior to his evaluation.

[02:31:53] So I would like to see the data before the evaluation. That's my ask, but yeah, I'm good with whatever. But those are two different things. That's data. That's improvement. And I think we do. In the middle of budget. This is in the middle of budget season.

[02:32:10] And we also need to remember that it's not our job to get down into the weeds. It's their job to get down into the weeds. i think an overview with specifics but i don't think necessarily digging all the way down to the bottom is necessarily appropriate for us because um it you know we're the stewards and as the stewards we have to trust the people to be doing the right thing and i'm not saying no we shouldn't have the plan we shouldn't know the plan but i think i don't want to say be careful

[02:32:49] because it's not like there's something that's hidden what the specific strategies are because they're not hidden they're not you know some super secret dun-dun-dun spy thing but an overview that will help us understand these are the steps we're taking and this is how we're taking those steps and this is what we want to see in the end I think does that make sense and then that the SML data I've worked in many districts and I'm sure you've worked in this district for 40 years when my principal and I submitted our plans we submitted this to break

[02:33:25] and it wasn't with the intention that it would be published to everybody that he will take the plan and he will monitor the plan and then his team or their team come in behind us and look at our data they review our plan they extract the information and then they report it that is the process I'm not sure that asking for the specific school plan is going to lend any information to us because what I want to know is are we do we have data so that we can evaluate

[02:34:01] them that is our job but that's all but so I I'm confused about the I know my thing is how one do we know where we okay I want to reiterate that what I was trying to do tonight was not be sophomore and also not insult anyone but to let you guys that are doing the work for a different division know that there are many steps that we are taking and that every day people are working on this data and every day they're reviewing it and every day they're working to make it better so again if it's the will of the board to go a

[02:34:36] little bit deeper but I don't I wanted to try to exemplify with steps that it is happening I don't know who's first I don't want to dig deep either because Because also think about if we get a detailed presentation like that publicly, it opens a lot more questions that maybe aren't appropriate.

[02:35:07] And what are we doing? Questioning what we trust the professionals to do? The message to make it really muggy, very, very clear. The only thing, though, we have to look at what the accountability says. Clearly, we have schools that are in the red, so to speak. And so that was the reason why, like, for me, if we're moving into a certain direction, we just want to know what direction are we going and what's your plan.

[02:35:30] And that's what I believe, as a board, we should at least be privy, what's your plan. That's kind of what I'm saying. Dr. Do you have some of this questions? Personally, I don't think you need the data. You have principles in place, and every school has a plan put in place for their school to improve their data.

[02:35:48] Now, you really aren't going to know what those improvements are until they take the test again. But, furthermore, Dr. Newman is their supervisor. We are not the principal supervisor, so I think he has seen their plan, and that's good enough.

[02:36:05] He's seen the plan. You don't need to see the plan. You just need to know that they are working to improve their school scores, but I don't think it's for us to look at the plans, and I don't think you want to put all the plans out. We have people looking, oh, wait, Graham is doing this, but Dean is doing this, and then someone at the end of the year, they're like, oh, well, Graham did this, and they didn't do this and this is why the scores are this way I don't think we want to give that to the public but also it's not our duty to evaluate principles that's not our business it's not about evaluating but I mean we don't need the plans you think there are they have plans in place specifically to try to improve their scores we don't need to see them and and they're being directed by central

[02:36:44] office staff if the plans are correct then central office staff tell them what to do so I guess I'm confused because we have every year that I've been on the court gotten school by school reviews that has included a discussion of what's the plan what comes next we have done that every single year in fact every single year except for this year because we didn't get a very important piece of information until December and so I this is really I mean and what you're saying is what I'm asking for right so this is really I don't think that's such an outlandish thing to ask in public I mean that's the number

[02:37:24] one question I get asked is what's the plan here and like I it is something like we don't have to gut the you know ultra bureaucratic detail detail of it but like you know it every year that I've been on we have gotten a school by school review of what the plan is and it doesn't need to be like whatever is being submitted to the superintendent and stuff like that but some overall discussion of the plan in general is completely appropriate and in fact it's unusual that we haven't had that by this point in the full year so and it kind of is it really I'm sensitive to

[02:38:03] this falling in the budget season like that stinks we didn't you know but that was up to BDOE to drop it in you know December 4th or whatever that was crazy crazy timing that that was but you know it's I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for those school yeah I don't think it's Dr. Gustavus job to put those if you want the principals to come and bring you their plans that's one thing I don't think it's her job to have to contact nine schools I mean however format we want to do it it's never been all nine schools the years that I've been on the school board

[02:38:41] it's already been so many every night and then some nights you only had the schools that were having difficulties, but I mean, I don't think it's her responsibility to have to go to nine people and get a plan and write a report, but she has many other things to do. Well, the board can decide that we want it.

[02:38:58] Dr. Cassano, my first year here, so I don't know what Ms. Rush is talking about, but if what she's talking about is that there's a presentation that is already planned, that is already done year after year, where we see updates of different schools and the progress is that something feasible for you to do before death and humans evaluation mid-year evaluation so typically we had like last year in the 24-25 school year we did the presentations of all the schools that had back in the old system anything other than the level one indicator right so you

[02:39:38] had schools and you had two on a given meeting night so that's how that was done that year um this year we didn't have that information until december 9th which was the last time until two days ago that you had a public meeting. So those are school updates where they do talk, you are correct, they talk about the data and the implementation of whatever. You now have, we tried to incorporate in December, the school level discussion by date, like you saw the data for each school. So could you have updates for the schools, but not rehashing all of the performance

[02:40:14] data since you've already had that and you want updates by schools. Those can, and we built templates for them so you have consistency that can be done however many you have to determine how you would want all schools what schools when um whatever is directed we would do it seems like the ask is for a school update by the spy each school i mean as long as it's something to me in my mind it's like we have the accountability status what are we doing to change that and so

[02:40:53] what's the plan to me that is not an unreasonable ask when we are the ones that pay the teachers pay the staff we're in charge of the budget um and if you know obviously we're not saying you're not doing your job and all of that but we just wanted to say what direction are we going into knowing what we know now so and if that's just the two schools that are you know have that indicator I'm not sure what you guys would want to do.

[02:41:24] I think because Ms. Brown and Ms. Miles weren't here last year and they didn't see those presentations that had steps that are being taken, I think you might have a, maybe, and you weren't on the board at this time either, you might have a better understanding of, I'm thinking that's what you probably want, which was the schools that had the indicators, these are the things we're doing to address those deficits right and those and we have them a couple schools a night

[02:41:57] um i would be happy with that again i think i think that was helpful helpful so are we doing all nine schools well seven out of nine uh yeah top track or worse so but i mean i'm interested than being you know well at the point you're doing seven maybe you might as well maybe maybe um can be after you know if they have to be pushing the march but i'd like to do it i would yeah and i mean and honestly obviously we don't want everything to be negative you know we want

[02:42:36] it to be positive too what great things are you doing not just the goals that you have yeah then And I think that we happy with what our formula has been. Okay. All right. We just needed to make sure we had to stay out. Yeah. Okay. So is that a Dr. Quesada thing or is that a Dr. Nune thing?

[02:42:57] Yeah, yeah. Okay. So we will start to see some school report. Okay. Any other questions for Dr. Quesada? I think we're good. Thank you very much for helping us work through that and for your report.

[02:43:15] Thank you. Sorry. We are up to number six, celebrating the life and legacy of Jenny Dean event update. Be pretty quick.

[02:43:32] I'm just here to give you an overview of what February 17th will look like when we journey over to Jenny Dean Elementary to celebrate the life and legacy of Ms. Jenny Dean. I have been conducting interviews, capturing voices of people who either, I haven't talked to the ones that attended the industrial school or are the descendants of people from there just yet, they're scheduled in the next few days, but I talked to a few people that either

[02:44:08] went to the school and it was a middle school, I have three people that I have to call tomorrow to schedule so i'm very excited the fact that we we have some voices that will be heard that night um i have some former students who are currently staff who submitted artifacts you know some of them have talked about some of the teachers that they had and submitted some wonderful pictures and things like that that we can share so i'm excited about that as well um so a little bit about that night i think we're planning on opening up uh starting with an overview of why we're

[02:44:43] there of course i'll be there to welcome everybody and then we'll hear from the voices of each of those categories of people like i said those that are you know connected to it through the industrial school those that are connected during the time of segregation you know when it was middle school and things like that you know prior to it opening up prior to mets opening up and then even um students who are voices of people who will help us to see things moving forward i'll talk about

[02:45:17] the opening of the new school we plan to have a replica of what that school is going to look like kind of schooling behind us to kind of further the conversation and everything we do plan on having student performances i've been in contact with osborne high school so i don't know if it's going to be the choir but there are some other performers that have come to the table that are possible for us to spotlight which of course will bring their parents and families out as well we're also going to share some artifacts about african-american history during that time also

[02:45:55] partnering with osborne for that so i mean it should be a pretty engaging night um i'm working with our food and nutrition services department on having some light refreshments there trying to kind of keep it all homegrown but i'm excited on the more that we've talked about what it's going to look like it's taking shape so hopefully once we complete the interviews then the flyer that has to save the date will go out again as the invitation to everyone to come and join us minus the interview schedule in the bottom but it'll go out you know inviting everybody in the community to come out and join us that night.

[02:46:34] Again, it's far reaching the people that have started to contact us from Vaquire County, Broad Royal, Winchester, other places that want to come and sit down and talk. So I'll be at the museum on Saturday. I have two interviews scheduled for tomorrow here at Central Office.

[02:46:53] So it's an exciting time. And I think, you know, hopefully the community will come out and they'll really enjoy it. Cheers. Mrs. Radford, so they're going to be telling their stories live, or is it a video?

[02:47:09] It's a video. So there'll be little snippets of about two minutes or so just to share their voices. I do believe there's a possibility that we might have one person that attended the school that might be there in person. Not quite sure just yet. We're still kind of working through that.

[02:47:25] I do believe Ms. Miles and Dr. Jones will be reading the African American, I mean, I'm sorry, Black History Month proclamation that night as well. Yeah, because that should be on for the board agenda, I believe, February 10th. No, January 27th.

[02:47:46] Yes, I believe then. But anyway, so that night, we'll read the proclamation at the event, too. Sounds like a very special night. it's shaping up to be. So this is billed as a board-sponsored event just because, you know, we wanted our visibility in the community. We want to start practicing and getting ready for the launch of the school and things like that. So I think it's a full-bodied event, but, you know, if you guys are hearing something that, you know, you think it's value-added within reason, you've heard Al's workload, but she's already got a lot that she's working on for that night,

[02:48:23] but but this is ours um so please you know promote it if you know of anyone that might be able to speak you know send them away do what we can to support it i'm hoping that it'll serve as a catalyst for the grand opening of the school that we're kind of journeying to the past you know to highlight some of the history and then we'll land on you know kind of inviting people to to return you know whenever we do the grand opening and get everybody to come out for the new building Are you having outside people perform or just students?

[02:48:58] It's internal. Well, right now it's internal. Oh, OK. I think students do. Students do. We are talking about a weeknight in February, so it's a lot of reschedules. OK. Yeah. Because I think it's about an hour.

[02:49:13] They won't keep people out too late, but I mean-- And by institution, if I could do the school or-- OK. Well, there may be an option too, huh? Because I'm working really closely with the school. So really follow us on. - Okay, any other questions for Ms. Radford?

[02:49:30] - Remember, it's February 17th at 6:30. Danny Dean Elementary School, okay. - I think you should wear specials with any colors. - Dress to impress. - Dress to impress. - Green, whatever you want to do. - Green is there.

[02:49:46] - It is the color, yeah. - You can wear a dolphin costume if you want. - Oh my god, not me. - Okay, so we've got two or four issues here. - I have been provided with a code of ethics.

[02:50:02] I don't know if you guys want to go over it, but once a year we sign this document and then Alba has it blown up and posted for us to remember during meetings. So if there's discussion, we can discuss it.

[02:50:20] If there's no discussion, we can put it here and have to just make sure you sign it before you leave tonight. - Sign it in blue. - Yes, Alba will direct us at the signing. I'm happy to read it. - We've had it in the agenda, basically.

[02:50:37] We can review it. - I think it's good. - Okay, so we're on. I think we've done an excellent job tonight. We are on to our last. - I know. - Which is an update about BoardDocs, which is a video for us to watch.

[02:50:57] - Who's that? - We already watched. - If we already watched that video, we don't have to i think i think when i reviewed my agenda i think it's five

[02:51:14] okay let's see if our gets a gold star communities are complex networks people relationships and institutions and elected boards are at the center of it all governance management for education is no small task.

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[02:56:03] You're welcome. Well, that was exciting. Yeah. So, this BoardDocs is going away, as I understand it. Diligent is the new now. It's going to be called Community. Yeah, Diligent is a company, so then BoardDocs is going to be faded out, and then we're going to migrate to our community.

[02:56:22] Is that just for us, or BoardDocs is going to be eliminated, and then the same company basically is working with communities. So everything that we have in BoardDocs eventually will be transferred to communities. Yeah, right now, our contract is through the SBA for diligence.

[02:56:43] They just gave us a go-ahead to start working with diligence in terms of the contract, and then get more information. that just happened in January so we are going to probably move forward in terms of getting in contact with them but I don't know when that's going to happen we are timeline for transitioning over they I haven't met with that rep yet so I don't know what the timeline is going to be once the contract is received and then you know to migrate everything into the new platform yeah

[02:57:18] new information hot off the prices and you'll drag some of the old into new new options and availabilities as we work with agendas policies are going to be very good you'll be able to mirror them and see where the changes are if you're modifying a policy that's nice that's very exciting very exciting um okay yeah i was just going to say that i um really like the

[02:57:49] annotation because if we can have a document in there and all be like doing it like a Google form more private was you have access to you can annotate your time but the rest of us are not going to be able to see what that is i mean it'll still help it will

[02:58:22] help in the level of access that um you guys are going to have is obviously different than you know just because they'll be able to enter information so um and then you guys are more like the viewers and not be able to work in but we're still going to you know learning we are going to navigate How many emails and phone calls are going to go to Alba, Alba, how do I?

[02:58:52] I'm going to be like, I'm sorry. I noticed they had a closed caption. Is that something that a parent, like if they wanted to watch, are we going to have that capability too, or is it just... What they're saying is that ABA compliance, which is going to help Al a lot within Homeworld, but I mean, it's going to have a lot of nice features that are going to help with our parents.

[02:59:14] Okay, cool. time yeah good news fresh update um anybody have anything else for tonight i will if you take a motion chair i moved to the school board meeting adjourned second i have a motion to adjourn by stevens and second by is there any discussion no all in favor aye any opposed the motion passes thank you everyone

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