Coraggio Consulting
Virginia Board of Education, Business Meeting, Thursday, September 24, 2026

Date: Thursday, September 24, 2026
Place: Virginia Board of Education (Virginia Department of Education), Richmond, Virginia
Length: 2h 27m (video)
Official meeting video (VDOE, YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkwuQo_1YiA
Board of Education meetings, agendas and minutes (VDOE): https://www.doe.virginia.gov/state-board-data-funding/virginia-board-of-education

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 2026-10-22. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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

[00:08:45] Good morning. It is 9:00 AM, and I will now call this meeting to order. As is customary for this board, we will begin our meeting with a moment of silence, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance.

[00:09:34] Good morning. I'm going to just, I don't have too many comments except just to say thank you always for the continued engagement of staff and board. today we'll have our public comments always appreciative of the public comments with that may have a motion to approve the agenda as presented so moved miss Reinhardt aye mrs. McPherson mr.

[00:10:05] Robinson aye dr. Wilson aye dr. Northern mrs. Kilgore aye and chair votes aye thank you the staff have been provided um staff has provided members of the board with draft minutes for the meeting is there a motion to approve the minutes as presented okay thank you miss reinhardt

[00:10:34] mrs mcpherson aye mr robertson aye dr wilson aye dr northern mrs kilgore aye and chair votes eye hey i don't see any students are they here oh they're ready oh this is going to be very fancy okay the board appreciates always being able to feature their wonderful arts program across the commonwealth by having students perform at our meeting i will now ask dr northern to provide us

[00:11:08] with an introduction of our guests yes glad to the students performing for you this morning are members of the Bethel High School Bruin Band, a seven-time Virginia Honor Band from Hampton, Virginia. The ensemble is the three-time state champion stick and groove indoor drumline. The director of bands is Mr. Jerry Lancaster, drumline instructor is Mr. Cameron Cole, and Bethel High School's executive principal is Dr. Tanya Howard. Hampton City Schools is proud to present a group that brings energy excitement and a distinct heartbeat they have worked countless

[00:11:47] hours learning and perfecting what it means to perform as one team with one purpose just like the virginia board of education what a nice little note that was they are musicians they are performers they are leaders welcome the bethel high school brewing band stick and groove drum line

[00:23:50] thank you so much um again want to say thank you for uh the the bethel high um it's a specific marching and dr northern can you remind me of the name of their band bethel high school bruin stick and groove drum line great the stick and groove drum line we as a board were just talking yesterday about academics and engagement and today's um presentation just reminded me of

[00:24:23] when scholars are given a tremendous opportunity to show their talents that they really raised to the level of our expectations and many times exceeded and so i asked the band director who was uh wanted to make sure that he that we all knew that he didn't do it by himself that there's a whole team that helped make the help those scholars perform today but i did just want to share i asked them i said you guys it looks like so easy for you all to do that you are all together you're all coordinated you made it look so easy I asked what kind of grades those scholars have how much what their attendance looks like and the band

[00:25:03] director shared that every one of those scholars is an honor roll high honors and that they practice at least three hours a day after school to in order to be able to perform at that level and so it's just a reminder that when our when And our scholars are engaged in activities that excite them, that there isn't just an impact on how they show up every day, but academics as well.

[00:25:28] So just congratulations to Bethel, the whole team back there, and to all of our students who perform, or whether it's in athletics or academics. So thank you. With that, we are going to now transition to public comment.

[00:25:46] As stated in the board's bylaws, it is the pleasure of the board to accept public comment on all matters related to public education in Virginia. Before we begin our public comment today, I want to share a few comments about the manner in which public comment will be conducted.

[00:26:04] I ask that you model professionalism, dignity, and respect for others as you share your thoughts today. As adults, it is important that we model respectful, civil, and public discourse for our students and children who are either in attendance today or viewing the stream now or in the future.

[00:26:24] When you begin, please provide your name, role, affiliation, and where you live in Virginia. All remarks must be directed to the chair, not to any individual speakers.

[00:26:41] Every speaker will have three minutes to share your remarks. You'll notice that there's a timer on the screen, which will begin with three minutes in green. At one minute, the screen will turn yellow. The screen will turn red when time is up.

[00:26:57] At that point, please close your remarks promptly. Speakers may provide copies of their comments to Mr. Joe Crook right here in the front, the department's regulatory and board coordinator. All written comments received during public comment will be collected and provided to the board as soon as possible after public comment.

[00:27:21] You may also email a copy of your marks to the board at boe@doe.virginia.gov. With that, I have 12 members who have signed up for today.

[00:27:38] We'll go in this order and I'll have you teed up. First, I have Scott Braebrand, Cory Long, Dr. Amy Blake Lewis, are you here? Good morning.

[00:27:56] President Ashton, Superintendent Conway, and members of the Virginia Board of Education, my name is Matt Braebrand, I'm Executive Director for VAS. I live in Lynchburg, Virginia, and I want to thank you all again for your dedicated service to the Commonwealth of Virginia. On behalf of Virginia School Division Superintendents, we respectfully submit the following feedback around today's agenda.

[00:28:17] First, around the issuance of notice of the Intended Regulatory Action, or NORA. Bass appreciates you beginning the NORA process to address the JLARC recommendations around the school performance and support framework required by House Bill 643. We do support updates to how federal identification for school improvement efforts affect a school's SPSF performance category. We also support the JLARC recommendation regarding the rebalancing of the overall weight of student growth indicators relative to indicators measuring student proficiency

[00:28:51] on state assessments in elementary and middle schools. We also hope you'll use the NOR process to address additional potential changes that were also recommended by JLARC. We do respect the importance of having time to prepare, time to preview, and time to implement. However, we respectfully request that you consider ways to implement these changes for the 27-28 school year, not the 28-29 school year as currently proposed we also wanted to comment on the biennial report for cte courses we appreciate your report on those courses as we look for ways to continue to

[00:29:30] improve the school performance and support framework let's continue to focus on both expanding access and opportunity for these crucial cte courses so we can provide our students with career-ready skills and certifications for high wage and high demand jobs thanks for engaging with us and we look forward to the continued partnership we have with you in the weeks and months ahead the school year thank you thank you cory long dr amy blake lewis

[00:30:03] next up will be lawanda travis and matthew nove good morning president ashton members of the board and superintendent conway thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today i am dr amy blake lewis superintendent of henry county public schools a rural division in southwest virginia serving nearly 7 000 students we rank 37th of 131 school division in terms of student enrollment i recognize that this board cannot resolve disagreements between a local school board and its funding authority i am not asking you to do that i am asking you to understand what we are

[00:30:43] experiencing and to carry that perspective into conversations with those who shape virginia's education policy and funding henry county public schools is producing strong results The Virginia Department of Education recently recognized us as one of only nine divisions to achieve at least three percentage points of growth in both reading and mathematics.

[00:31:04] Our students are achieving, our schools are improving, our strategies are working, but we are achieving this progress despite an increasingly difficult local funding environment, not because of a strong and predictable funding partnership. Two issues illustrate my concern.

[00:31:24] First, Henry County voters were among the first in Virginia to approve an additional 1% sales tax, specifically for school capital improvements. That investment is allowing us to address significant facility needs. But additional should mean additional.

[00:31:40] Since passage of the referendum, Henry County Public Schools has received virtually no recurring local funding above local required share. A revenue source intended for school construction should supplement, not effectively supplant, the locality's traditional investment in public education.

[00:31:58] A community should not have to choose between investing in the buildings where children learn and investing in what happens inside those buildings. Second, our school board has repeatedly requested that responsibly conserved year-end funds be reappropriated for identified school needs, including capital projects.

[00:32:14] Those requests have repeatedly been denied by our local appropriating body. And when comparing Henry County Public Schools to other divisions' local financial support, Henry County ranks 125th of 131. When school divisions believe that dollars carefully conserved may not be available for legitimate future needs, we create a system that rewards spending and penalizes saving.

[00:32:37] And that is not fiscal stewardship that we should encourage from public institutions. Accountability must be accompanied by the fiscal and governance conditions that make success sustainable. We are succeeding despite these challenges. I do not believe that "despite" should be the standard we accept for Virginia students.

[00:32:55] I welcome the opportunity to continue the conversation with you and hope that you have some additional information in the packet that I have provided. Thank you. LaWanda Travis, and then next up, Matthew Noe and Ann Tatas.

[00:33:11] Good morning, President Ashton, Superintendent Conway, and members of the board of us. My name is LaWanda Travis, and I'm a taxpayer and resident of King & Queen County, Virginia.

[00:33:26] I'm standing before you today because of our local school system facing a severe crisis financial accountability, and our community has exhausted all avenues for remedy. We are witnessing a systemic misappropriation of public school funds by our local administration, money intended for classrooms, teachers, and student support that is instead being mismanaged and diverted without transparency. Despite repeated efforts by parents, teachers, and a demand for answers from our local

[00:34:05] school board we have been met by much evasion while our local infrastructure crumbles our teachers remain underpaid and essential student resources are slashed our local budget lines simply do not add up local school boards are given a wide latitude of accountability but it can't stop there we are requesting formally from the virginia department of education and you'll

[00:34:40] see me stop reading because it it bothers me a little bit to perform a forensic audit on our schools when i say we've exasperated everything i have emails that go from two years going from here to all of my delegates for the virginia state senate as well as mark warner delegate hodges delegate steward trying to get these resources for our students and our teachers and looking at the lines of budget and seeing that it has never added up.

[00:35:13] Now, what I did not add was the SIPP plan that I heard Henry County talk about, as well as some other schools. That's another area where the money is being misappropriated, and that's about 330 million in funds that have gone. And we are trying desperately every avenue that they have told me to start from the local to the state, and we are trying to get assistance, and it has failed miserably. And these students are suffering. Not only that, we have students suffering because I've watched budgets where they've paid millions of dollars for technology

[00:35:53] and the students don't even bring them home besides the textbooks. So we're asking for some oversight from our state board to assist us with this so we can get this school system and these children back online, as well as put this school system and others back on the top notch for Virginia. Thank you. Thank you. Matthew Noth, Ann Tatis, Candace Lucas, Neely Minton, Sofia Pineda,

[00:36:32] and Dan Zacharias. I'm just going in order. I'm not done. Thank you. Good morning, President Ashton, members of the board, and Superintendent Conway. My name is Sofia Pineda. I reside here in Richmond, Virginia, and I am currently serving as the Government Relations Specialist for the Virginia School Boards Association. I bring you greetings on behalf of President Nichols, Executive Director Gina Patterson, and the entire VSBA Board of Directors. Thank you for the opportunity to address the board

[00:37:11] today. On behalf of VSBA, we respectfully submit the following feedback around today's agenda. First, the final review of guidelines for local alternative assessments. VSBA appreciates the additional flexibility provided to school divisions through the expanded use of local alternative assessments.

[00:37:32] As divisions implement these options, we encourage the Board and VDOE to provide clear guidance, sufficient professional development, implementation support, and resources, particularly giving potential impact of local administration and scoring on divisions, staff, and fiscal resources.

[00:37:49] On the Notice of Intended Regulatory Action to revise Part 8 of the Standards of Accreditation related to the school performance and support framework. As the board begins this regulatory process, VSBA encourages continued engagement with local school boards and divisions to ensure the proposed changes provide an accurate and meaningful picture of school performance while considering the practical implementations, practical implementations for implementation at the local level.

[00:38:19] Of particular importance, VSBA recognizes that there is a need for balance between student mastery and student growth. The SBA board's approved legislative priorities support weighing student growth and mastery equally at the elementary and middle school levels.

[00:38:35] Thank you for your time today. Thank you. Dan Zacharias. The next up will be Wendy Little. Good morning, President Ashton, Superintendent Conway.

[00:38:57] I get that mixed up every time for some reason, but I do get it right. Dan Zacharias. I'm the director of the Old Dominion Association of Church Schools, and I still live in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley. I will head there forthwith when I'm done here. I've got a matter of concern to express and hopefully a little bit of a more positive message at the end. And these are some comments that I submitted a couple of years ago, and we have several new board members during that time,

[00:39:28] so I thought a reminder would be appropriate. So I'm not going to give, say, everything that's and before you, but I want to kind of address the first point by proposing what I hope will sound like an absurd hypothetical. Let's imagine a Virginia policy related to private and even religious kindergarten to 12th grade schools, whereby the Virginia Department of Education

[00:40:00] was directly subsidizing those schools to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars annually. hopefully that already sounds absurd to you and in exchange the private and even in some cases religious schools were required to align their curriculum with the standards of learning and administer sol tests among other requirements hopefully that sounds like a ridiculous idea to you

[00:40:40] However, if you just substitute early childhood for K-12, suddenly it makes sense because that's exactly what we're doing. And so our concern is that we have these contradictory models for how DOE relates to private and religious schools between pre-K and K-12.

[00:41:05] And our question is, how long can those contradictory models coexist in policy? Now, the more positive thing, I have enough time, and Jenna, you'll appreciate hearing this. We feel like there's an improvement recently in how the licensing inspectors have been inspecting our religiously exempt child care centers.

[00:41:30] I don't know if it's a trend for sure, but we've had some positive events here in the last couple of months, and we're encouraged by that and hopeful that the overreach that I've expressed concern about in the past might be changing. So thank you for your attention and for considering our comments.

[00:41:47] Thank you. Wendy Little, Shanika Alston will be up next, and then Jack George. I'm awaiting a response for the point of clarification I raised a month ago.

[00:42:08] Hi, this is Wendy Little. For Aaron Little of Chesterfield, Virginia, you owe me a point of clarification response. Federal law is federal law. It's federal law. Hard code is hard code is hard code. IDEA compliance, IDEA compliance as a condition of accepting and receiving funds that you've been doing under false claims for Chesterfield County Public Schools because Chesterfield County Public Schools never provided compensatory education as required in the state complaint order then followed by an appeal i came to you in april jay jones clearly stated what you

[00:42:46] were supposed to do years ago laid it right out laid it right out you know at that point i was so desperate i'm like aaron is supposed to be on may 21 2026 trajectory nobody can bother to stand up for a disabled child who's been neglected and abandoned clearly by the school division who never provided or made available compensatory education to get him back on graduation trajectory and say hey can you let this kid walk the stage because that day never comes again and some of you who

[00:43:18] do not know where your oversight responsibilities are then leave go find something else to do if you're going to sit on a board and you're not going to have special education compliance so i'm also my topic is osep osers federal compliance corrective actions my topic of discussion are not concerns they are about clear grants fraud with a lawyer layering grants fraud scheme that everybody's been excusing as a reason that my son did not does not deserve tutoring attendance intervention to have gotten him back on track for graduation every single one of you failed

[00:43:58] especially people who have been here for a long time it is heinous that people spend a lot to travel here to be ignored when you have a serious compliance issue of years long on your hands and chesterfield is non-compliant again when you get their grants you're supposed to reject their grants you're already supposed to withhold and take away their funding it it is not it is clear the deference provided on member comments or public comment to certain people associated with

[00:44:31] the same problem with a hit file on aaron little called sans anderson law we don't do that to kids fix this aaron deserves a settlement and get him back on track or everybody just walk off and leave you don't know your jobs your oversights it's unconscionable that this is happening to kids all over virginia and all of you are responsible expect the due process see you

[00:44:58] thank you um shanika austin jack george good morning madam president madam superintendent and members of the board my name is jack george and i'm a passionate youth advocate um through my work with local and state government organ organizations advocacy organization and non-profit partners i work to strengthen student representation young people's mental health public

[00:45:38] education, reform, gun violence prevention, and so much more affecting our young people today. Students like myself spend the majority of their days in the classroom. That is essentially our home. We walk the hallways, we use your facilities, and we experience these education policies firsthand. We know what is working, and we also know where students are still struggling.

[00:46:01] And one of these areas where it matters most is student well-being. Right now, we need to make sure that students have access to adequate mental health counseling which includes more appropriate student to counselor ratios I should not have a counselor that is overseeing over a hundred students on just their caseload this also includes school safety procedures including drills weapons detection scanners that they're implementing at all of our schools security technology and designated outdoor campus policies as someone who attends an outdoor campus I should not have to worry about any random stranger walking onto campus without going through proper security procedure.

[00:46:41] At my school, and at many other students, including myself, are also learning in buildings where, right now, the AC systems are not working. This is not also just an on-and-off-again situation. This is a long-term learning issue because it affects our ability to focus in the classroom and feel comfortable in our environment in which we are learning.

[00:47:01] And through my work, I talk with students every single day throughout the Commonwealth, And they all have strong opinions about these issues and are disappointed, unfortunately, with some of these problems that have progressed ever since I started kindergarten and probably even before that for around 13 years already.

[00:47:22] My ask today is very simple. When the board, and we need to make sure that the board and local school divisions are making decisions that affect students, are making decisions that affect everyday lives, students should be included in those conversations meaningfully. That does not mean through an adult liaison. That should mean speaking directly to you, to our elected officials, and to our government officials.

[00:47:47] I applaud you for the work that you're doing. However, students need more than policies just written on paper. We need systems put in place that students understand, trust, and can actually access when we need the help we need. With that being said, I would welcome the opportunity to be a resource if members of the board have any questions or would like to hear from me on how students can get more meaningfully involved in our government systems and hear from you directly, and you can hear from them directly as well.

[00:48:17] Thank you again for your service to students across the Commonwealth. Thank you. Thank you. I was going to go back, Corey Long, Ann Tatis, Candice Lucas, and then Neely Minton, and Shanika Alston.

[00:48:36] Thank you. Good morning, President Ashton, Superintendent Conway, and members of the board. I'm Neely Minton, and I'm president of the Virginia Social Studies Leaders Consortium.

[00:48:53] I'm here to speak about Item E: Final Review of the Guidelines for Local Alternative Assessments. VSSLC supports strong accountability for local alternative assessments. We partnered with Senator von Valkenberg on the guardrails that were embedded into SB200 and HB299, and our members have participated in VDOE's work on developing scoring rubrics and best practices.

[00:49:19] The big picture in these guidelines is strong. We especially appreciate the recent inclusion of Virginia studies and civics in the balanced assessment model. Our concern is implementation timing. Since the August 1st review, the proposed guidelines have added independent double scoring of at least 15% of student responses and specified new public reporting requirements.

[00:49:44] Divisions began the school year with scoring procedures and staffing plans based on the August draft or their existing practices. In many divisions students have already completed one or more performance tasks so far this year. By VSSLC's count, about 63 of Virginia's 132 divisions use the permissive local alternative assessment for high school EOCs.

[00:50:07] This is across every region of the Commonwealth. These divisions vary greatly in size and capacity. Some have dedicated staff to coordinate local alternative assessments and others not. Finding and training additional scorers, scheduling additional scoring events, and coordinating public reporting will take additional time, resources, and funding, which will be difficult to accomplish now that the school year is well underway. To put this in perspective, in my division we spend about $12,000 to be sure that no teacher of record scores their own student work. We invest

[00:50:44] in this because we believe that local alternative assessments are rigorous relevant they're best for students and their learning if we had to add more scores or time our expenses would increase exponentially we asked the board to let the newly added scoring and public reporting requirements to take effect in 2027 2028 with the rest of the guidelines taking effect immediately thank you so much for your time. Thank you. I don't have anyone else listed, but if you would like to come up for

[00:51:18] a public comment, please introduce yourself and where you live in Virginia. Yes, good morning, Madam President and Superintendent Jenny Conway. I am Yanice Rookwood-Jackson. I am out of the Colonial Heights Public School District. This is my public comment for today. Senator Barbara Farola, Senate Bill 220, Chapter 502, required an examination of effectiveness in VDOE responding to parents and actionable recommendations for public reporting of parents interactions and outcomes. Her statement, Virginia does not meet federal standards. She also identified

[00:51:58] inconsistent IEP practices across divisions needing comprehensive reform in areas tied to federal IDEA standards and funding. Senator Glenn Sturvent added, asks, I'm sorry, whether the division must implement video e corrective actions after IDEA fake non-compliance and what video e must do when a division refuses Attorney General Jay Jones May 2025 his statement was video e is responsible for monitoring and enforcing IDEA non-compliance must be corrected as soon as possible and no

[00:52:37] later than one year if not corrected video is responsible for appropriate enforcement and enforcement can include withholding special education funds and providing services directly or by contact. We have the chaplets that filed a federal litigation lawsuit challenging the VDOE special education due process system. What they found by their FOIA request is that two-thirds of VDOE certified hearing officers had never once ruled in favor of special needs child or parents

[00:53:07] over a span of 20 years what's coming more federal lawsuits let's talk into video e and more talking to the general assembly senate commission on youth parents are going to start filing more complaints because they're procedural but the bigger picture is we all know that it's just going to sit and and be a warmer for your coffee and probably go to the end of the file and that our emails are put on autopilot so it doesn't get through to you all all the evidence

[00:53:41] that we're trying to submit but parents and advocates are waking up and in continuously studying to bring these issues in good faith to video e to only get egregiously disappointed and not listening it's time that we take a look um where's our children funding going it's time that parents are going to be digging into id fea part b funding and when parents across virginia start forwarding like crazy and singing that for example in my district okay colonial heights got eight hundred and three thousand dollars in federal ida part b 611 funding and my children receive

[00:54:20] zero services i say to the board it's time to start cutting some checks thank you thank you is there anyone else who would like to come up for public comment thank you please state your name and where you live in virginia for the record good morning president ashton members of the board and superintendent conway my name is dr liz nigro i am the senior policy analyst at the virginia education association and i live here in richmond i'm here today to address some comments from our members specifically around the virginia literacy act item on the agenda today our members are

[00:54:57] concerned while they appreciate again the focus on literacy with the approved curricula potentially being too scripted and limiting teacher flexibility we are also concerned that there may be issues with students with disabilities accessing such curriculum during tier one instruction additionally specifically for our reading specialists we are concerned with the duplicative process and progress monitoring thinking about all of the different forms of paperwork they will have to complete under the Virginia Literacy Act.

[00:55:28] Additionally, we have concerns around reading plans for every student that fails a reading SOL, thinking that there could be other reasons that students do not perform up to their abilities, such as test-taking, anxiety, lack of confidence, comprehension of the test format, and we're opting to have some form of teacher discretion when thinking about these literacy student reading plans.

[00:55:51] Finally, we hope that this act does not become something that is compliance-oriented, rather than providing targeted support and we would love to work with you to make sure that these reading plans are actionable and not a checkbox for teachers thank you so much for your time and i appreciate how you have all served on the board thank you is there anyone else for public comment okay thank you so much we will now transition to our consent agenda we have items

[00:56:25] a and b for consent agenda is there a motion to wave first review and approve the items on the consent agenda so moved thank you mr reinhardt aye mrs mcpherson aye mr robinson aye dr wilson aye dr northern mrs kilgore and chair votes aye thank you we're now going to our action discussion items mr chapman we're on items thank you so much president ashton members of the

[00:57:04] board superintendent conway i keep my remarks very brief on this item only just to emphasize that there's been no changes since the board heard this on first review and also to highlight once more that we expect this to be a zero-sum policy game that there's there's really no changes that we expect to have any influence on the field this particular regulatory chapter is largely controlled by federal regulations that the state is responsible to enforce and so this is really just an effort to consolidate reduce the number of total chapters in the board's regulatory catalogs subject to periodic reviews and really make this a little bit cleaner for the field by putting it in a location

[00:57:40] in chapter 720 where it's a little bit more intuitive for for practitioners to look great thank you board members are there any questions okay is there a motion to approve the regulatory changes set forth in the item and delegate to the videoe staff authority to make changes necessary to comply with the administrative process act or the virginia registrar act second

[00:58:09] ms reinhardt hi mrs mcpherson mr robinson dr wilson dr northern mrs kilgore and chair votes aye thank you thank you so much thank you mr chapman dr hollins you're up for d item d good morning president ashton superintendent conway and board members it's a pleasure to be back with you today for final action on re-establishment of the advisory committee for adult education we really appreciate the board members feedback and will integrate many of their

[00:58:44] suggestions into our first round of nominations which will go out following uh pending excuse me year approval. Based on that feedback, we have decided to take a little bit more of an informal approach to ensure that we're casting a wide net in the community to kind of re-engage around this topic. But we'll certainly focus on grantee administrators and educators, post-secondary education training providers, working closely with our workforce development partners and community partners, as well as previous participants in the program. We're really interested in hearing directly from adult learners who have utilized the program in order to transition into the

[00:59:19] workforce to post-secondary education as well as focusing on some of our more vulnerable populations to ensure a stakeholder representation particularly given the diverse needs of this program across the commonwealth the state superintendent recommends a final approval today to move forward with re-establishment of this committee and we look we look forward to bringing you robust list of folks for nominations to get this work done again thank you happy to take any questions or concerns thank you dr holland's board members are there any questions then is there a motion to approve

[00:59:53] the re-establishment of the advisory committee on adult education and literacy mr reinhardt aye mrs mcpherson mr robinson aye dr wilson aye dr northern mrs kilgore and chair votes aye thank you thank you all so much um deputy superintendent hyslip oh there she is okay were in item E, guidelines for local alternative assessments. Good morning, President Ashton and

[01:00:32] members of the board. Deputy Superintendent Profit and I are happy to be back to present the final review of guidelines for local alternative assessments. So we're going to run, I'm going to run pretty quickly through some of the background because most of these slides are just repetitive of what you saw in August, September. What was it? August. See, it's supposed to be what you saw in August, but we will then be really wanting to focus mostly on the changes that were made between first and final review. So as just a reminder, I think the slides

[01:01:07] are not working. Let's go into the next item. Nope, that's the next one. Pause. Let's see the architect support can get us to the next slide. I'm having to walk through it on my own. Good.

[01:01:27] There we go. Yep, that's the next presentation. I'll be up here for that one too. You're referring to item E, yes, three final review of guidelines.

[01:01:46] Yeah, this is the one we're on. So this is really a piece of an action that we need to take in response to a General Assembly Bill last session, SB 200, HB 299, that required us to update our guidelines for local alternative assessments, which this board has modified and updated many times over the years.

[01:02:05] But the biggest thing that SB 200, HB 299 did was to many things, but it expanded the courses and subjects in which local alternative assessments could be administered. It expanded it to some new subject areas like, and of course, earth science and of course, chemistry.

[01:02:24] There had not been local alternative assessments previously in science subjects, but essentially local alternative assessments are an option for where we have SOL tests. that go above the minimum federal requirements. So it does not apply to our grade three to eight reading assessments, our high school reading end of course assessment, our algebra one, algebra two geometry.

[01:02:47] It is just in certain social studies courses, all of our social studies courses, as well as those two science assessments I mentioned are science and chemistry and our writing in high school in particular. So we brought forward in August, these updated guidelines and one of the things that we have to do also with the legislation is there's some new requirements around these have to be administered division-wide if you're doing it so divisions will choose for you know a social studies course for example do we want to

[01:03:22] do the SOL test that's still being offered and still available to them or do we want to do this local alternative assessment and if they do then they would be need to be following these guidelines that we're presenting here for local alternative assessments can be used for verified credit in high school so just like the SOLs can as well and but the local alternative verified credits that LAVCs where students maybe take an SAT instead of the SOL that is an option for students in those divisions that go the SOL route so sort of those LAVCs where you might be using a different

[01:04:00] A different standardized assessment is typically a backup option for the SOLs. And we're not changing anything about that today. SB 200 did not change that process. That's sort of outside. We are really focused on those divisions that take the other path and say, we're not going to do the end of course for world geography.

[01:04:21] We're instead going to do a local alternative assessment. And here's what they're often performance-based assessments with projects and things like that given throughout the year. that's what we're going to do here. So, I think we will now, I'm going to turn it over to Deputy Superintendent Prophet to talk about really what's changed from the first review of this document, and you do have a red line as well to help with that. Yep, so based on feedback from this board, we had made some enhancements to the guidelines since the last review. So, first, we want to

[01:04:59] ensure that there is integrity in administering LAAs and adherence to standard test protocols so that these are appropriately rigorous assignments that are assessments that show us if students have mastered the content that we want them to master, similar to how an SOL test would evaluate that. We've also updated VDOE's process for reviewing and auditing divisions administering LAAs. And so we are going to, we have audits in place and we will be able to do that on the back end once we see their balanced assessment plans and understand kind of how they are approaching

[01:05:37] their assessment overall. We also integrated some further consistency across subject areas regarding the collection of a body of evidence. So just cleaning up some language there and making sure that all content areas had similarly rigorous guidelines as a related to what we're going to collect to show student proficiency some division considerations for professional learning were implemented so we wrote in options for divisions to seek feedback from the department or for us to help pair them with other divisions partner divisions that could give feedback on the

[01:06:10] assessments that they were working towards we also cleaned up the development or we cleaned up the balanced assessment plan and additional supporting documents to make sure that those were consistent across all content areas and all divisions. We clarified a little bit around the alignment to the expected rigor of the standards to make sure that that was really clear throughout that the standards do need to be covered and according to released assessment blueprints so that they would more closely mirror the rigor of the SOL tests. We ensured guidance for permissive

[01:06:48] laas in science match the level of detail in other content areas so we cleaned up a little bit of the science piece and there are additional forms within the appendix that you can see in your red line version that detail the implementation process i think another thing to clarify here is that we would not expect you know some of these local alternative assessments have already started we're in september now the school year has started and so because of the passing of that bill school divisions did have the opportunity to begin that work these guidelines are intended to be supportive to divisions to help them understand how to do this well and so i don't think that we

[01:07:25] would expect that folks go back and implement things if they've already started to implement these assessments but we want to issue this guidance moving forward to ensure that folks have what they need to be successful and make sure that students are getting access to rigorous assessments that really let them demonstrate their understanding of the content.

[01:07:46] I think so. And if you're trying to sort of understand where those key changes are in slide 11, if you do have the slides open, obviously you probably have the full red line, but it is a weedy document. So the changes that Deputy Superintendent Prophet just sort of outlined at a high level are on that 11th slide. And so I think at this point, we're just happy to take questions. Obviously, you all know the drill kind of in the next steps here. We talked about that last time where it would go from here thank you board members there are any questions i just have

[01:08:21] one okay mr robinson no just the this i was reading through it is a lot of weenie can you just tell us since we last met and you got here what was that process to kind of finalize these the clarity around this next steps yeah so we had um our teams watch the board meeting so a lot of this is directly based on feedback from this body here where you had questions about the drafts that came forward in August we had already gotten you know prior to that August 1st review a lot of feedback from key groups of educators including our innovative assessment working group we had a working group

[01:08:58] that was more focused sort of on the instructional side too that also met to help develop these guidelines and have continued to hear and refine but I think a lot and largely the changes that were made between the first review and the final review were mostly as a direct response of what we heard from the board thank you mr robinson first of all thank you for that very thoughtful process and these very thoughtful edits i'm excited about the addition of front-end quality reviews public reporting and um and just how much you're focused

[01:09:31] on supports to make it uh hopefully possible to uh ensure that these assessments have the advantages of the local assessments that the teachers across the commonwealth want and focusing on discernment and other skills while having alignment to the content of the standards and then ultimately consequences for non-compliance if all that support doesn't work out and so i just first of all just want to praise the efforts and even though the new version is a lot clearer on a lot of the points you made such as on balance assessment etc to your point it's incredibly

[01:10:10] complex and and weedy and i'm just curious about the communication plan and you know how we uh how the videoe will have kind of a you know perhaps a executive summary overview or something else that helps uh clarify for the field you know what is a balanced assessment what is verified credit why uh do we uh care so deeply about alignment to the sols and the standards uh while promoting this this other form of assessment so i think you know once assuming the board takes action today

[01:10:45] to finalize these guidelines we will be able to start to provide um you know updates to the field through our newsletters and other regular communications just notifying them of the new guidelines explaining to deputy superintendent profit's point that these apply moving forward for the 26 27 years so if you've already started doing things in september you don't have to double back and redo that but we do want you to start implementing this understanding that we want to be getting feedback during year one and i think we will use both our regular standing you know regional meetings that we have with folks meetings where we are talking to different stakeholder

[01:11:21] groups but also there's still the innovative assessment work group is still meeting it's going to be a body that continues to meet so we have even some of those special work groups too is where we can get feedback and one of the things that we you know added to the guidelines too was just this encouragement of we know there's a lot of new things here so if you have questions please proactively reach out to our teams because we want to be collecting that knowing that there could continue to be things we want to refine in this guidelines based on year one implementation but also based on potential general assembly action again like we just we know that there may may be future changes as well here that we need to monitor. So that's, I think, part of it. Was

[01:12:00] there anything you would add? Yeah, I'd add two things there. So we did also, within the guidelines, make sure that in each content area, so if you imagine a teacher or a content specialist using this document, they wouldn't necessarily have to read the whole document in order to use it well.

[01:12:15] So we made sure that each content area had the entirety of what someone would need to read. So you could skip down to your social studies part as a social studies teacher, you could read through that and you wouldn't be missing something if you didn't read the front matter. You would have the information you need to implement. So I think that is part of what our content teams will do in their support of the field is make sure that they're oriented to the document and how to use it, but also providing that technical support of what it looks like to actually do this in practice and giving feedback. Our teams will hold office hours and training to support the field in the implementation of the guidelines so that folks know that they have a place to go to ask those

[01:12:52] questions. But to your point, I think, you know, based on what board action is today, I'm sure we can also think about how we can streamline that even further. Thank you. Dr. Northern and then Dr. Wilson. I just want to make sure that I understand it. So an LAVC comes into play after the kids have failed the SOL. Correct. Yeah. The locally awarded verified credit is really for those divisions that still choose to stick with, say, the SOLs in World Geography or in

[01:13:30] Earth Science or in Chemistry, if a student has taken the SOL, maybe retook that SOL and continues to struggle to meet the score necessary for a verified credit, that is where an LAVCE becomes an alternative for them. Is it limited to one, I'm going to call it a backdoor credit, is it limited to one backdoor credit per student i believe so yeah those guidelines have not changed we are not changing them here those are in right the the board like this is not changing the graduation requirements that this board has weighed in on okay yeah and then the permissive laas replace

[01:14:06] certain statewide sol tests but it's only in history social science and writing and they're up front in lieu of the SOLs. Is that right? Yes. So when there are any of our assessments there we give currently that we go above the federal requirements. So like, and of course, earth science is a great example of this. We are required to have a high school science assessment.

[01:14:30] We have said that is biology. So our additional science assessments like earth science and chemistry are now eligible for this permissive option. But a division can still say, we want to give the SOL in earth science. Okay. And just two quick comments. I think I, well, one's actually a question. I think I love the addition of the reporting alongside the statewide SOL rates. I think that's really important. I would encourage us, however, to add, I think that masks a lot of differences between divisions, obviously, when you're reporting at the statewide level.

[01:15:10] I wonder if they could report a similar district with their relative demographics to be a real true comparison point that uses the SOL. I'm still trying to get to rigor. You can align something to the SOL and be much easier. And so if there's a way that not only do you have to report against the statewide, but you have to report against a similar district with your similar demographics and you guys can give them guidance on okay you've got to be within 10 percentage points of the percentage of free and reduced kids for instance that might be

[01:15:44] one guideline um and i'll put my cards on the table i mean the word keys is my i i just feel like there's a national pushback against work keys right now because it's shown again and again and i've been going to like different people talking about the word keys and it's really being used in a manner that's not intended it's just a general workplace readiness and you know hopefully work keys people aren't watching me say this but it's a low it's a fairly low bar in terms of workforce readiness and right now in Virginia we're allowing it's a substitute for the reading and the writing

[01:16:19] SOL which to me is a problem because I have some intel that some districts are using it fairly widespread and that's a problem I think so in terms of us reporting in the future I'd love for us to know the extents of what districts are using instead of the reading and writing SOL.

[01:16:39] And I'd love for us to, I guess, clarify, that's my last question, what districts will be reporting now and what you're looking to report in the future so that we aren't sort of our hands aren't tied. Because as I talk to folks right now, they're telling me that when they report a reading or writing SOL, you can't tell whether they actually took the SOL or whether they took the work keys.

[01:17:02] very much appreciate that feedback, Dr. Northern. I think it'll be helpful, you know, assuming we finalize these guidelines today, we can also then start to work on with our data governance team about the data collection processes that we stand up to get more disaggregated data about how verified credits are being awarded. Again, if it's SOL, if it's LAA, the local alternative assessments we're talking about here, or if it's those locally awarded verified credits, really trying to disentangle all these different ways that students can meet our graduation requirements. And I think, you know, to your point about similar divisions, I think once we also have

[01:17:40] better data around division usage and understanding, you know, now that this is a division-wide choice, not a school-by-school choice, well, no, you know, this county chose to do local alternative assessment in world history, and this county didn't. So I'm not going to maybe expect our divisions to know exactly who's doing what and know a division that they could pick that would be demographically similar to theirs. But that could be some analysis that we could do at the department once we have this data. But this first step is to actually stand up that data collection. So I think it was a very good push from this board to help us really get clear on what data would be most helpful to

[01:18:20] inform these policies moving forward. Because it is complicated when we have, you know, three different ways that students can earn a verified credit that's complicated just to clarify because i want to have this on the record will we be collecting or not collecting whether they use the work keys in lieu of the reading or writing sol so that i think we can certainly work with that that's not something that we brought forward here today and i haven't had a conversation with the team but i can certainly ask that thank you dr wilson just want to clarify we heard some concern

[01:18:56] this morning about uh implementation and i think i heard you say that whether and the concern whether or not implementation is required this year at in the look at the local level i think i heard you say that if divisions have begun their work with uh the locally awarded local assessments yeah my lva yeah it sounds similar already begun then there is no expectation that they start again

[01:19:33] and so the answer to the concern i believe is um at the end that implementation could technically begin in the following academic year is that so i just want to clarify because the concern that we heard from the field what we're saying here today just so that everyone is on the same page and maybe goes back to mr robinson's observation about how we communicate clearly back to divisions what the

[01:20:03] expectations are does mean what it doesn't mean i think um i would say this so i think that the the thing that we're hearing is that um this board expressed the desire to have a little bit more iterator reliability as we look at um the scoring of these it's a little more it can be a little more subjective in terms of the the scoring process and so we did add a guideline around double scoring a certain percentage of those assessments to work towards inter-rater reliability we understand that some of these assessments have already been given and scored and we would not

[01:20:41] expect folks to go back and re-score those with that percentage in place moving forward the guidelines do outline that we would expect that i hear that that can be can cause some concern in in the field and i think this is a place where we'll need to gather additional feedback because we do want to maintain the rigor of those we do see the value and having that inter-rater reliability to ensure that the assessment is being evaluated appropriately and we understand the constraints that that could put on certain school divisions that may not have um the staff

[01:21:16] or the capacity to do that currently and tomorrow for example and so we would say two things i think we are providing professional learning around this. And so if there is not access to that in the division, we are happy to provide that and to be adding capacity in that way. And I think this is another place where we'll need to get feedback. If this is something that is ultimately not producing the value that we think that it will, then I think it's up for us to talk about again. But I think this board expressed the desire to make sure that inter-rater reliability was present within this and so that is the attempt to do that particularly when it's used for verified

[01:21:52] credit you know i think understanding that these assessments are they're all permissive you know when there are four that are mandatory so like when it comes to grade three science grade three history that's not a choice and that hasn't has not been a choice for over a decade we have had these mandatory local alternative assessments in the four uh five subjects that are listed on slide six but the permissive ones are a choice and so for divisions that are making that choice the expectation would be moving forward to be aligned with these guidelines but these are often

[01:22:28] multi-part assessments so the first part might have happened in early september and the second part might be in november and the third part in april so this is really talking about that for a division like that who made this choice it would be parts two and three to try and work so if you're using it for verified credit you would meet those inter-rater reliability impediments superintendent godway yes thank you i just want to be uh crystal clear on this the law calls for these to be into place right so there is no way in which i think uh we can say that

[01:23:02] folks have the capacity to ignore until 27 28. now i think what uh we want to be conscious of is the law also called for uh these being done you know at a time that is sort of after the start of the school year and so we are trying to kind of balance the legislative intent the recognition as we heard this morning from our stakeholders that some of this work has begun but um you know and and much of this content existed you know prior and was kind of in in different places and as uh deputy superintendent heislop talked about last month was combined into one document but they need to go into effect in this year we are committed to professional learning and we are

[01:23:41] committed to again as these are guidelines not mandates sort of working with divisions who may have already begun and if you are in that situation we would say reach out to the team and we will make sure that you get sufficient flexibility for this year dr wilson so superintendent conley thank you for that i do think again going back to the communications um ensuring that we all understand those in the field that the legislation is pushing us and so there are where there is an opportunity for flexibility we will uh engage in that but in some instances there is no flexibility yep thank

[01:24:20] you any other questions okay with that um is there a motion to approve the proposed guidelines for local alternative assessments to be effective beginning with the 26-27 school year and continue until amended by the board so moved there a second second wait miss reinhardt aye miss mcpherson mr robertson aye dr wilson aye dr northern aye mrs kilgore and chair votes by

[01:24:59] thank you thank you we keep going mr chapman is he around here we're going to item f first and final review of the NORA. Thank you, President Ashton. The presentation today really finds three currents kind of moving underneath it. So I'd like to just give a brief overview of what we hope to accomplish today. The first is really rooted in the common knowledge that the most

[01:25:36] exciting work in state government is regulatory work. And so anytime I've been lobbying superintendents for years to do some sort of regulatory training at every board meeting. Alas, you know, we take the time that we're given. To sort of do an overview of what the board does, you know, regulatory work is really the probably most powerful single tool that the board has to affect its policy. It's the single thing that the board does that once it speaks, once the process is complete, what the board has said now has the force of law and it's enforceable. And so we would like to do a little

[01:26:12] bit of an overview of what these three regulatory processes are just by way of, you know, kind of comparing what we're asking the board to do today with some of its other options and why this route is really appropriate. The second is really a summary of the standard regulatory process, which we'll get to.

[01:26:30] And the impetus behind that is that the board is going to engage in a very long process. And so it's really difficult to begin a process with a year and a half sort of vision to it, unless you really know how it's going to end.

[01:26:47] And so you kind of have to be able to work backward, and we want to make sure that the board is equipped in this decision making, not just to understand the many decisions that this body will be asked to make over the course of the next 18 to 24 months, but also specifically what's being asked today.

[01:27:03] And then we will get into the more specifics of this action and the timeline of the decision points that the board is going to be asked to make sort of a preview of when. And through all of this, we really want to be able to highlight that this is the kickoff to a process.

[01:27:19] The board, in any kind of standard regulatory process, the board is really starting a kind of a marathon. And so this is really sort of the board is registered for the race and we're getting to the starting line. But that isn't actually starting if the board approves this action today, it actually starts a decent amount from now.

[01:27:37] So we want to make sure that we're emphasizing that the board is really just opening a process. There's actually no policy considerations on the table today. That's something that's down the road. So when it comes to regulatory processes in Virginia, there are three main ways that the board goes through its regulatory work.

[01:27:58] The first is an exempt action, and really that's reserved for instances where the board is not exercising any discretion in the regulatory work being done. Almost always this means that there is a state law that's been passed that has directed the board to change a regulation, so the board is taking word for word what is in a statute or what is in a piece of legislation, and it is simply dropping it into its regulatory catalog.

[01:28:23] I've kind of given you some timelines here just so that you can see some of the differences in these processes. And what we have here is that there's really 44 days-ish of built-in process and exempt action, and almost all of that is bound up with the publication process. In Virginia, anytime the board engages in regulatory work, any stage of a regulatory action, that is made aware to the public by being published in the Virginia Register of Regulations, by having information that goes up on the Virginia Regulatory Town Hall. And so we really expect that to be complete in about

[01:28:56] 44 days. For actions that involve little bits of discretion, and really the criteria is that this action is not controversial, sometimes that's the impetus of legislation where we've been asked to do something within a small band of a range. A good example of this is something the board has done recently, is we had a piece of legislation that required the board to remove some of the requirements for an applicant for a teacher license for an add-on endorsement mathematics or sorry algebra it removed some of the criteria from that but what it didn't do is

[01:29:32] it didn't remove or alter the number of total hours required so what staff went through is we we compared that and we decided that since there was six you know requirements and that has been moved to three that should be reflected in a change from 24 hours of requirements of coursework work to 12 hours of course work. That is a little bit of discretion. We didn't think that was controversial, however, and so the regulatory action proceeded down this path.

[01:29:59] This one, a little bit longer, you're talking about 98 days of built in process because it does go through a fairly extensive executive branch review that involves not only the Office of the Attorney General, it involves the Department of Planning and Budget who have to certify that the action is in fact non-controversial. They have to do what's called an economic impact analysis and then it goes on to the secretary of education and to the governor so even after the board has completed its considerations of the policy decisions there is still even more work to be done on the back side by staff in order to kind of shepherd this action through the process and then where we are today and we'll kind of get into this a little bit more detail for each stage

[01:30:38] when anything else happens the board really has to go through what's called the standard regulatory process. And this involves three distinct phases. What we're asking the board to open today is the first stage. It's a NORA, a Notice of Intended Regulatory Action. It is pronounced NORA, more like the common name, not Noira. It doesn't catch on if you try to say Noira, I've tried. And each of these stages has a lot of time built into it. So 42 days at the NORA stage is sort of the standard because, again, this gets published. And then there's a 30-day

[01:31:12] public comment period. Then it goes on to a proposed stage, which includes a 60-day public comment period. And we'll get into the distinctive aspects of the proposed stage. And then finally, the final stage, which is, hey, this is really about to become a tried and true regulation.

[01:31:31] And even that still includes a 30-day public comment period, just for the public to even get one more shot at airing grievances, saying things that they like, all of that stuff all in one. So what we're asking for the board to consider today is this standard regulatory action. This is the process, again, as mentioned, it's used when there's no exemptions. It may be considered controversial, or perhaps it's just required by the nature of the regulatory change. And I want to highlight that this NORA that we're bringing to the board in order to consider these JLARC recommendations really falls in the last two we don't really think that this is

[01:32:09] controversial in the traditional sense but you know the nature of the regulatory change there's there's a lot of stakeholders involved in this you know anytime that the board considers changes to the accreditation system the the effects can be wide-ranging not just to schools and students but even sometimes at sometimes not all the time abstract things like property values you know it's amazing how the accreditation system touches a lot of different things in Virginia. And so because of this regulatory action, because of who is involved, the stakeholders involved, really we want to make sure that this is engaging all of those stakeholders with plenty of time to comment on the action in order for the board to consider that as it moves through the

[01:32:49] regulatory process. For any standard regulatory action or any regulatory action in general, the board has to have authority to make the change. That's done usually through a basic law authorizing the board. This board in 22.1-16 has one of the broadest grants of regulatory authority. You're basically allowed to make regulations on anything necessary to effectuate the purposes and intents of title 22.1 of the Code of Virginia, which is the chapter or the title of dealing with education. In addition to that broad grant of authority, the board also has specific grants of authority in local areas and so here the board is required

[01:33:26] by law to have standards of accreditation and afford the accrediting of public schools and so you know the board is acting well within what it's being told to do there is additionally the matter of a couple of pieces of legislation that have directed the board to consider this particular sets of changes and so you know this is the board acting within all of those bases of authority and we do like to highlight that is very easy especially for the public to confuse regulatory work as something that the department does we always want to make it clear it's not it is something that the board does that's an authority and a power invested in this body. The board is the only agency recognized under the Virginia law.

[01:34:06] The department is here to support the board's work and the superintendent's role. And in that process, the board is supposed to guide what's happening here. Video staff serves the board under the guidance of the superintendent of public instruction. So where we are today is this request to open this notice of intended regulatory action. All that this is in the state process is this is the board's first announcement that it's going to take an action. The Virginia process of notifying the public that the board is going to use its regulatory authority, you

[01:34:44] just start off by saying, hey, we're going to start a process. It goes through a public comment period. The board has oftentimes taken these on first and final review. The last time that the board engaged specifically on a regulatory action board to change the accountability system. I believe this was back in August of 2023 for those regulations that became effective in September of 2024. The board took that NORA on first and final review for a lot of other big NORAs that the board has considered recently, including a number of the actions in the early childhood division, both the revisions to the general procedures for child day centers. All of those are NORAs that the board

[01:35:23] took on first and final review because it was aware that this is starting a long process that's going to involve significant amounts of staff time, of board time, of stakeholder engagement. And again, this NORA is then followed by a 30-day public comment period, even on the terms of the NORA.

[01:35:39] This NORA, like all NORAs, has to identify what it is the board is looking to do, what sorts of changes it's considering, and really the whys of the consideration. And so we'll get back into that a little bit later. But as you know, the real impetus for this is JLARC has made recommendations in the legislature and the governor who signed the bill requires the board then to go ahead and consider these recommendations.

[01:36:06] So this is going to initiate the process. NORS can vary significantly in scope. So for example, with the early childhood regulations, those were top-down repeals of a previous chapter and a new chapter was put in its place. this one we believe the considerations are significantly more surgical and so the Nora is really limited to considering the JLARC recommendations and then any other change that may be necessary to effectuate those considerations and so we were telling the public you know the board would be telling the public that that hey really we're looking at modifying this accountability system and things related to the accountability system so this is

[01:36:44] this is not an opportunity on this Nora to change requirements for buildings unless it can be very clearly tied to the JLARC recommendations, but then there's a lot more to come. So after the board you know goes through issuing this NORA, after it gets published in the Register of Regulations, after this 30-day public comment period, the board really starts its timeline within about six months to come back to this proposed stage, and this is really what I would call the critical stage. This is the marathon of the regulatory work, you know the action is really underway once the NORA is completed and the public comment

[01:37:21] done now the board needs to consider the definite changes it needs to put down in writing what is going to change about the about the text you know what is it specifically that's going to be required and it's going to gain the force of law so this is the stage where lots of stakeholder engagement will be done the board will will consider all manner of of of opinions it'll solicit public comment at meetings staff will go out and engage with specific groups some of even the groups that you heard from in public comment today the board almost always uh should approve a regulatory action

[01:38:00] at the proposed stage on two reviews and the reason for that is because you know especially at this proposed stage this is this is the part that it's important to get right um if there are substantial changes that need to happen after the proposed stage it's not inconvenient process it just can significantly add time the the benefit is really for the board for an agency promulgating regulations to take its time to the proposed stage and make sure it gets it correct after that after those two reviews once approved by the board once it's settled on its regulatory language this is going to go out for a 60-day public comment period and then you know after that within about six months of

[01:38:39] the close of that that public comment period the board is going to want to go to its last stage which is considering this on final review any of this body has had an opportunity to consider regulations within the last six months on on final review including the child day center regulations which are currently going through the publication process i'll mention at the proposed stage as well there's a little bit more extensive work that's done even outside of the board's work uh the department of planning and budget this is when they will on a standard process uh you know really analyze the action for its economic impact um and staff ends

[01:39:16] up at you know answering somewhere between 20 and 50 questions per action sometimes about the impact about what the regulatory changes are trying to accomplish the impetus for those those changes even beyond all the documentation that's provided so it gets analyzed very thoroughly those documents produced by the department of planning and budget get published the agency responds to it the secretary of education again looks at the changes the governor again looks office again looks at the the changes.

[01:39:47] So there's a lot of eyes on this particular stage and what the board is doing. When it gets to the final stage, this is where the board is going to consider for a last time all of the public comment that has been accumulated, not just through the NORA and the 30-day public comment period, but everything it's received at board meetings, everything that staff has collected in the time being, the 60-day public comment period at the proposed All of this will then be brought back to the board, usually, again, for two reviews in order for them to consider very thoroughly the big picture of what all of this public engagement is telling us.

[01:40:24] And is the public behind it? Are there significant objections? And then really for this board to consider in dialogue with the superintendent, with staff, how do we respond? Do we still have good reasons for moving forward, even if the public has concerns?

[01:40:41] How are we addressing this and how are we taking this into account? Upon the completion of the regulatory process, that's really when this is going to gain the force of law. So this is a slide that you've seen before. This is a summary of the JLARC recommendations and really what the board has been required to consider.

[01:41:03] And we really want to focus on that red box at the bottom. There are a couple of changes, one of which I think is, as we've heard from the board, I think there's probably consensus that this is a change that ought to be made. It's in the brackets in two, the parentheses, and it's really updating how the federal identification for school improvement affects a school's performance category.

[01:41:25] And so, of course, the recommendation there centers on the fact that the lowest tier of federal you know the federal identification the the csi schools comprehensive supports those should also be mirrored by the lowest performance rating on the state system and so it's really trying to prevent the worst anomalies from you know feeding into different results on how these systems are compared that is something that would require regulatory change in the in the standards of accreditation i don't think there's any any question about that so you know So in order to consider that change and in order to move forward that change, the board

[01:42:03] has to engage in this NORD process. But then there's some other things that has also been requested, such as the rebalancing of the overall weight of growth component versus proficiency. That is currently codified in the regulations. And so to consider it properly, the board is going to do this in a regulatory action.

[01:42:23] But again, at this stage at the NORD, this is not making any decisions about what that rebalancing would be. really just opening the process so the board can start getting the feedback as part of a a the regulatory process is laid out and in the for the board so really the tk the key takeaways for this consideration is again this is really just the process of the board considering the recommendations from jlark specifically related to the regulatory process of course as you recall the board has already started a lot of these um these considerations as far back as the june meeting

[01:42:59] hb 643 is requiring the board to consider those specific changes to the standards of accreditation related to the federal federal identification for school improvement and how that affects a school's performance category rating but also requires the board to consider the rebalancing of the overall weight of growth component versus the proficiency the soa do not name the precise weights of growth, but they're really giving ranges. And so that's what's on the table for the board is, I think, considering how these allowable ranges are distributed. But the board must also consider other changes to the SPSF at different points in time that are going to be

[01:43:36] contingent upon these regulatory decisions. And so in order to consider those, the board has to open a regulatory process. The first step is the NORA, which is where we are today. And as far as the timeline goes for when the board will be asked. Again, today, what staff is asking is that the board really approved this in order to kick this process off on the regulatory side. And then for the proposed stage, when the board is going to, as the department solicits public comment on behalf of the board as stakeholder engagement is performed as VDOE

[01:44:10] starts its modeling process, we expect that that to come back sometime in the summer of 2027. So again, the real decision points, those are things that are not happening today. It's something that's really happening as part of a long process that's going to culminate at board meetings in the summer of 2027. So then once the board makes decisions there, we think that that final stage after publication is really going to be coming back winter of 2028. There might be some variation there depending again on on what the board decides so that timeline might be able to

[01:44:47] to move up or move back a little bit depending on the nature of the changes and how much public engagement is necessary but at that stage the board's going to finalize uh those those regulatory changes and then the implementation any changes that would take place as a result of that would be in the the school performance and support framework's results based on 28 29 school year data and would really be released in the fall of 2029 so again this is a very long-range you know planning process that the board is starting off for this

[01:45:19] particular regulatory action and that is the the conclusion of the the presentation again I think that the superintendent's recommendation is that the board waive first review and approve this Nora so that we this this process can can begin Thank You mr. Chapman superintendent Conway absolutely thank Thank you, Mr. Chapman, for that overview of a regulatory process.

[01:45:48] I think it's a useful frame. I know for some of you it is repetition, but for others of you who are just learning about the Virginia regulatory process and how lengthy it can entail, you know, I think the shortest I've ever seen it, it was roughly 14 months, as you've heard in the case of the child care Center regulations can go on for five years. And so there's some real constraints there.

[01:46:15] But just understanding the different pathways available to us, I think it does speak again to, and just want to thank Mr. Chapman for bringing this up, to the query raised by Ms. McPherson yesterday about the kind of this is very clearly established in code, this body's authorization to look at student student growth and performance and measures of schools and so i just appreciated kind of connecting the dots from yesterday's conversation to today and appreciate the team's work in moving this through and hopefully we can get this through first and final today so we can

[01:46:52] keep this moving great thanks you know um mr chapman i think i i really appreciated both your joy in presenting presenting this and the excitement um about our role and responsibility through this process but also just being able to look at the calendar and being able to see this is something we've talked about so being able to see like when things will come not always predictable but being able to see from today 2029 feels so far away from me right now but it will sneak up on the board very quickly and being able to see that out i think is very helpful

[01:47:28] to to the extent that we can have that kind of calendar of events to say like hey this is the timeline this nor decision is going to come back here's where the time here's where the the feedback from the field is going to happen i think is incredibly helpful so i just wanted to say thank you for your presentation board members any questions dr northern and then mr i'm going right today yesterday was live um dr northern and mr robinson um so obviously being a more veteran board member remember going through this process already to establish where we are with the sbsf

[01:48:06] i think i just want to clarify um that it's limited to these two things i'm reading the language of the nora um it looks like and i admit i get confused as to why some things are regulatory and some things aren't um it looks like this the whole thing around redistributing the weight of the EL performance indicator is not regulatory which seems like on the same line as some other things we're talking about but okay whatever that's not important as much as so the Nora says we're going to open it up to two things one is the identification of schools for improvement

[01:48:44] and two is the rebalancing potentially of proficiency and growth but then we've got this third paragraph here that says, although this focuses primarily on this, all these may be considered blah, blah, blah to fully affect, it seems like that last one is the catch-all that opens it up. And I just want to make sure we're not re-litigating this entire thing again, relative to all these different pieces. And I guess I want to know, do we need that third paragraph there? Or when we go out to the field, can we just say, it's these two things that we

[01:49:17] want feedback on. It's not everything else. Yeah. I do have my recommendation certainly is yeah I do it is you are correct it is a catch-all but it is not a catch-all meant to you know re-litigate anything that the board has has redone. The purpose of the catch-all is because as this goes through the process like when when actions are scrutinized by the Department of Planning and Budget they're going to look at the terms of the Nora and if something wasn't noticed to the public then they really consider it outside of the scope of the regulatory action when it comes to the proposed stage.

[01:49:50] And so it is beneficial for an action to say something like this. It's like, hey, look, we are considering these recommendations and anything necessary to effectuate these recommendations. So really the relationship is that let's say that there is, and I can't predict this, but that's the nature of the catch-all.

[01:50:07] As the board's considering that, there's some parallel language in Section 30, 40, 50, you know, well outside of Part 8, which has to do with school accountability. And we need to adjust that language in order to make sure that the board's recommendation and the board's, you know, what the board settles on as its policy related to JLARC recommendations gets, you know, done.

[01:50:29] We want to make sure we have some language that allows that to be considered in relation as well. So I think what the onus would be on for the board and its explanations, and as this goes through the process, is to very clearly link anything else that's outside of part eight to how does this relate to the JLARC recommendations?

[01:50:49] How is this necessary in order to effectuate the board's considerations of the JLARC recommendation? So the example I gave earlier is like there are parts of the standards of accreditation that have to do with like buildings. that is not immediately clear how that relates to these specific considerations so that would likely be outside of the scope of any regulatory action related to this Nora that would have to be the subject of a separate consideration but if there is something for example maybe more closely related but that needs to be changed in relationship to the instructional dispositions in order to get these changes to work this would just make sure that the board isn't locked and unable to do that

[01:51:28] as part of this regulatory action with the JLARC mine. It's just how we communicate it, right? When we go out on the road and we seek, it's like these two things are what we primarily want feedback on. And of course, we've got this catch-all in case, you know, there's some domino effect that we don't anticipate.

[01:51:45] But thank you. Superintendent Conway. Yeah, no, I appreciate that comment, Dr. Northern. I mean, there's sort of two things to consider. One is the, you know, what is the original criteria about what goes in regulation and what doesn't and then when something in regulation kind of the challenge is like you know you can't make a decision on it without addressing the regulation right so it's really that kind of flatter point around this is not a desire to relitigate at all but just takes into kind of recognition that if it's in reg we have to use the regulatory process to address it i would say we would kind of come back to and we can emphasize this in all public

[01:52:23] communications jlark found that fundamentally the system was sound right and there is that kind of very clear finding that you heard from jlark when they presented to this body in june and that we can make sure that we are uh being very thoughtful around the communications um that this is not a real a wholesale re-litigation but sort of starts from that fundamental premise from our bipartisan joint legislative audit review committee that this is a fundamentally sound system and that we should narrow the scope to the things suggested by jlark right mr robinson thank you for that and not only

[01:52:58] is this an incredibly sound framework that we're building on but deeply appreciate both of your leadership in trying to figure out how to expedite the regulatory changes and do them thoughtfully so that as we think about the support part of the framework that we can build a system of tremendously stronger support and based on the jlark uh recommendations uh you know i know we're not discussing today the specifics but i'm incredibly excited to have move forward regulatory changes

[01:53:30] that will help us align federal and state support in ways that could be powerful and less compliant for school systems and figuring out how to use resources and support to drive impact and and pay more attention to to growth um my uh so thank you for doing this and support the first and final review um my question is as i'm trying to understand the regulatory process is in this when we get to this proposed stage as uh after the not not nora but nora um uh you know it says

[01:54:08] that the will at that time consider public input from the public comment and i'm curious if you because i think some of the changes might be more straightforward but like aligning csi and needs intensive improvement but i think some of them might be more nuanced where there be a lot more uh consideration and dialogue needed across the board and um and so my my my question is like could the board have an opportunity to help shape what the public what we're getting public input on once we get to that phase not to delay things uh wanting to

[01:54:48] keep on the expedited timeline that you have um but uh wanting to uh ensure that um by the time we're doing the tech the regulatory text uh that that we have the input that we need absolutely yeah the you know the the superintendent as she uh you know leads this work along with um you know president ashton will have numerous opportunities to make those decision points of you know whether the the board will hear during work sessions and things like that in between the time really this

[01:55:23] this presentation was related to the specifics of the regulatory process so at the very least we will compile um all the public comment that we have received up to that point for the consideration of the proposed stage but yeah there is absolutely nothing that will prevent the board from making those considerations in between thank you mr robinson i would just add you know bear in mind this is the red box on that slide so we are also going to be engaged with the field on the items in the other boxes too so i think there's going to be definitely a need for continued broad stakeholder engagement we want to be sure on these regulatory pieces but also on the other

[01:56:02] considerations that we'll be bringing forward to this board that are outside of that regulatory process so you know while this we're expecting to have sort of that proposed stage happening in the summer you will be continuing to hear from me about some of those other areas in the coming months too and so I think when we're engaging with stakeholders I think this is a great push and thinking about how should we engage with them knowing that there's these different pieces moving simultaneously where maybe we have some specifics about how we're measuring a certain indicator like we're going to have conversations about how we measure growth at the same time as we're talking about how do we rebalance the weight of growth and proficiency so that's going to be i

[01:56:41] think you know we just certainly want to engage stakeholders thoroughly on these two regulatory items but we will need to do so in a way that's keeping that big picture in mind as well great board members are there any additional questions mrs mcpherson regarding the fact that we are going need to make some regulatory changes because some of the documentation that is attached to the norm

[01:57:15] doesn't align with the timeline that the board decided regarding accountability i think we is kind of sending a mixed message to the field and you may need to attach those to make it a legitimate regulatory process so i understand that so i just want the record to be clear that the board has taken a position about when we're going to release information regarding accountability and the fact that some of the older documents that are attached to this

[01:57:47] do not reflect the final decision of the board that it remains within our purview for us to address those things as they come back so i don't want this to go out and appear as if we changed our timeline for accountability. The cut score is going to be put in place. That's the testing parameters, but the accountability and the timeline that we talked about, not delaying to 28-29 and releasing all the information to the public will be done. So this NOAA does not impact

[01:58:22] that. You're just attaching these documents as a part of the official actions that we're taking and leading up to the need to do regulatory change? - Yes, so until this regulation, these regulatory changes, whatever the board decides to make is complete, the current regulations stay in effect.

[01:58:44] So this does not affect anything that the board has already decided, and it certainly doesn't affect any of the timelines that the department is under in order to fulfill the board's regulatory work. This timeline is really related very narrowly to this set of regulatory changes.

[01:59:00] And so what we wanted to make sure was clear is that at least on this particular proposal of the timeline, and again, if the board decides that it's got an easy set of changes to make, that it's very clear with broad stakeholder support, and this timeline moves up a little bit, what we want to be clear is on this proposed timeline, any actions that result from these changes, we are anticipating using the 2829 data that's gonna be released in the fall of 2029.

[01:59:29] But until that point, the board's regulations are still in effect. Yeah. Thank you, Ms. McPherson. OK, with that, is there a motion to waive first review and approve the-- NORAH, is that right? Yes. As presented to begin board considerations of the recommendations from JLARC.

[01:59:48] So moved. Is there a second? Ms. Reinhardt? Aye. Mrs. McPherson? Yes, with my comments, yes. And that was aye. Mr. Robinson?

[02:00:06] Dr. Wilson? Aye. Dr. Northern? Mrs. Kilgore? And Chair votes aye. Thank you. Okay, moving right along. Do we need a brief bio break? Okay, we're going to take a brief

[02:00:22] biological break. We'll come back right at 11 o'clock. Thank you. We are back in session. It's

[02:08:34] time for our presentation and written reports. We have item G, which is our written report on the Bienal Review of CTE Courses. Mr. McCleary, I saw Mr. McCleary and Mr. Williams, are you all ready for us? All right. Wonderful. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning.

[02:09:01] I'm here to present the written report for the Bienal Review of CTE Courses for Senate Bill 592, in which you have before you is a list of all CTE courses, pathways, and credentials that were offered during the 24-25 school year.

[02:09:34] What's important to note, as far as courses are concerned, we have over 500 course offerings at the middle and high school levels that you see identified in the Excel spreadsheet that has been attached inside of the report. You'll see a full list of credentials. We have some tables that will help to process this information. As you can see, the sheer volume of that spreadsheet is pretty massive.

[02:10:01] When we speak of pathways in this report, it's important to understand that Virginia has aligned to the National Career Cluster Framework and the pathways that were associated with the National Career Clusters Framework. During the 24-25 school year, Virginia recognized 17 career clusters and 82 pathways. That has since changed, so I don't want to confuse anyone, as we are currently operating under the new cluster framework, which is 14 career clusters, so we have reduced that.

[02:10:34] So just for the purpose of this report and the data that was collected during that school year is just please understand that we're operating under the 17 career clusters and 82 pathways. The tables have been customized, but once again, this is our opportunity to provide feedback as to how we're going to package this final report that is going to be submitted by October 1, 2027.

[02:11:00] And so we welcome any feedback, any recommendations that would help us to package this information. We are currently engaging with the Board of Workforce Development to also collect feedback for this final report.

[02:11:19] They're actually meeting with their board this morning, and so hopefully we can get some additional feedback that may be useful, not only for this interim report but we will continue to work along with the board during this school year as we work to meet our october 2027 deadline thank you i had one quick question i don't remember there was a student panel that happened at the end of the summer that really talked about the access to these type of opportunities and i am wondering about you know

[02:11:55] given regions that have just don't have as many opportunities, like what opportunities that are available online or what can our partners do to bring more of those opportunities that may not have some of the resources? Again, I know that may not be part of this report, but I'm just wondering about the accessibility and how what we might learn from this could inform the field to in order to increase more accessibility, particularly for areas that don't have access to some of the options?

[02:12:28] Yes, and I appreciate that feedback. This is going to provide visibility for the Commonwealth, and so we're going to be able to see by region. We're going to be able to see data by school division as far as the course offerings, the pathway offerings that are available. Build your own. That's what some localities are doing, but ultimately it's important for them to understand the other job opportunities and pathways that are available in other pockets of the state.

[02:12:53] So I think data visibility will help to guide us in the future. It's also important to note that, as required by Senate Bill 592, what course offerings we have available that are not being offered in any of our school divisions. Are they needed? Do we need to continue to stand up those courses. And what pathways require coursework, that's also going to come as a result of this report as well. So, how can we develop coursework to support emerging pathways?

[02:13:24] I think it's also important that we look at some divisions that are doing regional approaches. So, those that don't have the resources in the area, some of them are clustering together to develop opportunities. So, we're looking at how do we also spotlight that for other regions and other divisions to kind of show like this could be an exemplar for what this could look like for areas that don't have as many opportunities as others. Thank you. Board members, Dr. Northern.

[02:13:50] So I was so appreciative of the of these data. I think for me, it just highlighted something I've been worried about for a while. It's just that we have so many kids getting IRCs or recognized credentials in Microsoft Office and OSHA safety, and we don't have them actually getting them and some of these more high wage um pathways so i will just um and i also there was a very fundamental problem i think that i never could figure out what a coherent market-aligned pathway looks like

[02:14:29] and i don't know if we have some divisions that have done the work of actually saying here are all the courses that you need in middle school high school post-secondary training two-year four year like i would love to see us actually have some guidance relative to what a coherent pathway looks like this tied to high demand high wage and i think that's just a starting point um and if we have that maybe it just wasn't in this report so um that's just one observation is that how can we incentivize you know and every state's having this problem we're not unique um

[02:15:03] and that it looks like OSHA and Microsoft Office. Not that those aren't useful, but they're in a different tier. And you guys know, we've talked about having to, and we've done some work on this tiering, different IRCs relative to what kind of skills they're providing kids. And the other thing I think is just that, you know, we have 367 IRCs. I think that's too many. I mean, you guys know there's states now that are doing the hard work. Ohio is one, really trying to pare this down to the most in-demand promising pathways.

[02:15:39] I think they've got down to 70 now. And they did it with a FAT grant from a foundation that helped them bring all these stakeholders together and really say, this is what we want to see our kids. And so to the extent that we can start following these other states have done the hard work of really like taking the sprawling thing of IRCs and narrowing them down to the most and then investing in those, right?

[02:16:00] Because we just have too many. And then the last thing I'll say is that, you know, IT has 906 offerings. That to me tells me it's not a articulated pathway. Like you have 906 things that count as an IT pathway. That pathway has not been designed properly. You know, you're kind of allowing everything to count. So again, just the defining the pathways, I think, is really clear.

[02:16:27] And I'll just kind of say again, what we don't have is publishing medium wages. Like at the end the day that's what you want to see like here are the irc's and some states have been able to now post that and say okay here's the median wage of this pathway in this region and i know we've got a we've got a long way to go to begin to collect data and publish median wages by pathway and cluster um but that's you know that's what we want to see and i'd also again like to see how we can use seat time flexibility to articulate these pathways and give kids some flexibility for carving out the time because we know that they don't have a lot of time in high school to do

[02:17:04] this stuff it's all about her thank you question mr robinson on the uh credentials that are well first of all thank you again for this great data that i think will show some of those regional disparities the chair talked about uh and promote greater awareness across the commonwealth on both opportunities and progress to help clarify for the board and the how these credentials to dr northern's point um tied to the the framework the school performance framework we were just talking

[02:17:43] about and then are all credentials um ordered the same for credit towards the part of the three framework that recognizes credentials you could just help simplify for me and the board like how the attainment of these credentials impacts you know credit towards um for high schools towards if it differs at all by credential or if it's all the same?

[02:18:13] Currently, Virginia has a single unified list of credentials, and a student that earns a credential would satisfy the graduation requirement, and they would earn credit towards a 3E readiness employment framework. And so that work is underway, and we've been actively engaged in this work with some of the board members over the last couple of years.

[02:18:35] We do have a future presentation as that work is continuing as we finalize our Perkins V state plan that we will present to you by the end of the year. And so I just want to double down on what you're already working on. And Dr. Northern said, like, if there's a way to even signal in this report that work that you're doing to investigate how we better, whether it's pare them list down or amplifying credentials of value and, you know, detailed pathways to get there,

[02:19:10] You know, it was concerning to me when I saw how much of this was just about, not just the Microsoft suite, you know, in terms of the three different credentials in that suite plus OSHA seemed to dominate this list as is cosmetology.

[02:19:28] And, you know, whereas I know that there are a lot of promising efforts happening across the Commonwealth, whether it's in the students we just saw from Hampton earlier today, in terms of what they have access to or in Culpeper, et cetera. And I just think in a report like this, we have an opportunity to amplify not just what is, but what's possible.

[02:19:52] And the two of you have great knowledge and have helped make happen a lot of great work happening across the Commonwealth towards pathways that have more promise for credentials. And I would just like to see those, whether this report in other ways, continue to be amplified and communicated more.

[02:20:11] While also I hope the board eventually considers ways to differentiate credentials of value as we think about it. Thank you. Thank you. Superintendent Conway. Thank you, Mr. Robinson. I just want to emphasize again the recognition of not only how do we think about this review. So the law calls for this review, and as Mr. Williams notes, the due date on the final report for the next or the first cycle will be October 1st of 2027, and it's expected to be biennial.

[02:20:51] Reviews are important and provide us an opportunity to sort of to think about where we are strong, where there are gaps, and as Dr. Northern made it noted to make recommendations. Equally important is the 3E framework, right, that the sort of the adults in the system are going to respond to the way in which you measure high schools.

[02:21:12] And so, you know, we were appreciative to see that this law reflected a review, kind of does not contradict what will be the very important work coming in front of this body around taking a look at not the concept, I think there's great appreciation for a framework that measures our high schools looking at how they provide opportunity as it relates to enrollment, employment, and enlistment, but there were some deep concerns with aspects of the framework, from the indicators used to the points assigned, particularly across

[02:21:51] the criteria, to whether or not you need some version of a cap or limit. And just that really, that work will be equally important as that will ultimately kind of translate the recommendations of the report into something that guides the day-to-day uh behavior of of leaders and administrators and educators across the commonwealth so thank you for bringing that up mr robson great there are no other questions we appreciate receiving this report uh what are you on the next group too yeah okay here we go um we're gonna have the high school

[02:22:31] certified nurse a training and certification program okay yep this for this report before you what's unique about this this report is that it really brings to the forefront the cte nurse aid program so what you see attached within this document is a list of our nurse aid programs and what's important to note this data was captured for the 25-26 school year and there's been some changes as far as our courses are concerned. Prior to 25-26 school year nurse

[02:23:10] aid, there were different modalities, different ways to offer this course. It was packaged in a format of a two-year sequence of courses with a total of 560 instructional hours. We also had a condensed version that was a two-year sequence of course that was a total of 280 instructional hours.

[02:23:31] After consultation with the Board of Nursing, the Board of Nursing has a 130-hour instructional requirement for this course. And so the question was raised, this was about a year ago, why are we requiring so many hours to complete the high school program in comparison to others?

[02:23:50] And so as a result of that work, we condensed the courses. We now have one nurse aide course. We provided school divisions time to transition into one course and so what's unique is that now we have the opportunity for students to not only complete the nurse aid course complete the cna to earn the cna certification but in addition to that they now can use that second year to actually pursue other board approved certifications not only the certifications that you all approve but with certification such as the medication aid certification that is also recognized by the Board of Nursing.

[02:24:27] And so this is the recognition for stackable credentialing opportunities. This allows time for students to earn clinical experiences that are also required by the Board of Nursing. And this report brings to the forefront just what we already have in place as we continue to engage on a regular basis with the Board of Nursing through the MOU that we have in place with that agency.

[02:24:53] And so at this time, I open up to any questions that you all may have from your review of the report. - Thank you, Superintendent. Dr. Northern.

[02:25:08] - Yeah, I just wanna say, this is awesome, right? Like this is kind of what we wanna see in almost every field. And when you don't have an industry with which to collaborate, like here, you're, you know, you're working with an industry to help sort of define what kids need and how to stack these things.

[02:25:26] But when you have something like a Microsoft Office, you don't have an industry to work with, right? Because there's no industry tied to it. So that's one criteria other states are using. Like, is there an industry that we can collaborate with to support this IRC to make sure that it's valuable to them?

[02:25:43] So kudos on this and it's exactly the model that hopefully we can use in other areas. - Thank you. Mr. Robinson, no? You don't have to. I know I usually comment, so I'll just say, great work. Great. OK, if there are no other comments, we appreciate both reports and look forward to getting more updates in the future.

[02:26:07] OK, thank you. That has all the items that we have. We'll say Superintendent Conway, do you have any kind of final thoughts, comments, share of the group? Not at this time. OK, board members, is there anything else to be discussed or closing comments?

[02:26:27] Okay. Well, if not, I want to say thank you to the 27 people who are online and for our members who are here. We appreciate you being here. May I have a motion to adjourn the meeting? Is there a second? Second. All in favor, signify by saying aye.

[02:26:46] Aye. Okay. Meeting adjourned. Thank you. Officially.

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