public schools effective immediately to serve through June 30th, 2027. >> Second. >> Moved by Miss Spilman, second by Miss Lee. Uh, Madame Clerk, could we do a roll call vote on this as well? >> Dr. Aub, >> yes.
>> Mr. Beard, >> yes. >> Mr. Dylan Beck, >> yes. >> Miss Lee, >> yes. >> Miss Osborne, >> yes. Miss Spilman, >> yes. >> Chair Berlin, >> yes. >> With a vote 70. The motion carries.
>> Thank you so much. It is my pleasure um to announce and to welcome um Dr. Hayes as our acting superintendent. That is not official until I invite uh Mr. John Zoo Zug, I'm sorry, Zug to the PL podium to administer the oath of office for Dr.
Hayes. >> [clears throat] >> What do we do? >> Angle yourself facing [clears throat] out. >> Raise your right hand. >> Repeat after me. I, Chandra Hayes, >> I, Chandra Hayes, >> do solemnly swear >> do solemnly swear
>> that I will support the Constitution of the United States >> that I will support the Constitution of the United States >> and the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Virginia >> and the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Virginia >> and that I will faithfully and impartially >> And I will faithfully and impartially >> discharge and perform >> discharge and perform
>> all the duties >> all the duties >> incumbent upon me >> incumbent upon me >> as the acting superintendent >> as the acting superintendent >> for the Alamar County Public Schools >> for the Alamar County Public Schools. >> According to the best of my ability, so help me God. >> according to the best of my ability. So help me God.
>> Congratulations. >> Thank you. [applause] [applause] >> [applause] [applause] [applause] >> Dr. Would you like to take a picture with family or anyone while we're here? I want to It's important. Rituals and
moments are important and I want to make sure we give you that. >> Nothing wrong with that. Thank you. Thank you. [applause] Of course. Of course. Um, good evening, Madam Chair, members of the school board, colleagues, family,
and community members. I wanted to begin tonight with a very heartfelt thank you. I am deeply grateful to the board for placing your trust in me to serve as the acting superintendent of Alamar County Public Schools. I do not take that trust lightly. I understand the importance of this role and the responsibility that
comes with it and I am honored to step into this work on behalf of our students, employees, families, and community. Although I've only been a part of ACPS for three years, the division has already had a meaningful impact on me. I have had the opportunity to work
alongside dedicated educators, committed leaders, and employees in every part of this organization who care deeply about children and the community they serve. That is what gives me the confidence as I begin this next chapter. I know the strength of this division is in its
people and I am excited to continue the work together. Tonight is also very personal for me because my friends and family are here. I wanted to thank them for the love, encouragement and values they have poured into me throughout my life. My love for education started early because my family taught me the
value of learning to believe in hard work and to understand that education can change the direction of a purpose person's life. And this belief is not abstract for me. It is a part of my own story. I was a Head Start student
and I benefited from the kind of early support that helps children build confidence, curiosity, and is a strong foundation for their future. I know from my own personal experience that public education is truly the great
equalizer. It opens doors. It creates opportunity. And it helps students see the possibilities that may not have been vis visible before. And that that is why this work matters so deeply to me. I also want to thank my husband for his steady support. Serving as the acting
superintendent is not a role that impacts only the person that holds the title. It touches your entire family. There are long days, late nights, difficult decisions, and moments where the work comes home with you. I am grateful for his patience, encouragement, and partnership as I take
on this responsibility. As acne superintendent, I'm committed to working along alongside all ACPS employees in the year ahead. I know that the success of our students depends on the collective work of many people, and no one role is more important than the other. Every single role in this
division matters. Every single person contributes to the experience our students and families have in our schools. My [snorts] commitment is to listen, to learn, to communicate clearly, and to stay focused on what matters most, supporting our schools,
and improving outcomes for students. I believe we do our best work when we are connected, honest about our challenges, and clear about our priorities. I thank the Alamar County Public School community for your support, and I look forward to the work we will do together in the year ahead. Thank you.
[applause] >> [applause] >> Dr. Hayes, just from this board, I just wanted to give you um our utmost thanks for number one accepting the call when we called you um and number two for accepting this acting position. I know it is a difficult one during a difficult
time and I so appreciate the dedication that you bring to this and the support of your family and friends. So, thank you so much. >> Thank you. Thank you all. >> We will now move to our roll call. Um we do this so that those in the audience who may be less familiar with some of us
as well as those online um can put names with faces and voices um during discussion. Um, I am going to ask that Mr. Mclofflin start us out tonight. >> Thanks. Good evening everyone. Pat Mclofflin, assistant superintendent for strategic planning. >> Rosyn Schmidt, chief operating officer.
>> Kate Aub, Jack Jew, district. Judy Lee Ravana district. >> Ellen Osborne, Scotsville district. >> Rebecca Berlin, Whiteall district. Allison Spilman at large representative. >> Jim Dillenbeck, Rio district. Uh, Bob Beard, Samuel Miller district.
>> Chandra Hayes, acting superintendent. Josiah Black, Chief Legal Officer. Dean Reading, chief HR Officer. >> Christine Thompson, clerk of the board. >> Aaron Stone, assistant division council. >> Thank you so much. And thank you to our
police officers who are here tonight um to provide safety and security and are in our community each and every day. With that, I ask that we stand for, if you are able, for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the
United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all we are now going to pause for a moment of silence. Um, but before we begin um
our moment of silence, I would ask that everyone pause as we honor the memory of Brendan Rose, a rising senior at Montichello High School who passed away on Wednesday, July 1st. Brendan was a
student, a teammate, a friend, and a deeply loved member of the Montichello High School community. His loss is felt by his family, his classmates, his teammates, his teachers, and many others across our school division.
We also extend our care and support to Brendan's mother, Stephanie Rose, who is a member of our ACPS staff in building services. This is both a heartbreaking loth for our school community and for our staff family.
In moments like this, we are reminded that behind every student, every jersey, every classroom seat, and every school community is a person whose life matters. We encourage our students and staff to care for one another, to check
in on one another, and to ask for help when it is needed. No one should ever feel that they are alone. Please join the school school board in a moment of silence in the memory of Brendan Rose and to support his mother, Stephanie Rose.
Thank you so much. And we may we keep them in our memory today, this summer, and as the school year begins. Before we continue with our school board agenda, I wanted to pause and acknowledge what has been a very
difficult and unsettling time for our school division and for our broader community. and make a statement on behalf of uh the school board. As a school board, we take our responsibilities increasingly, incredibly, and increasingly serious. Our role includes oversight of the
superintendent, stewardship of the school division, and most importantly, ensuring that the safety and well-being of our students remain at the center of every division, every decision that we do. When information was made available to the board regarding the situation at
Hollyade, the board acted quickly and responsibly. There are limits to what we can share publicly, particularly when matters involve personnel, student privacy or ongoing review purposes. There are pending criminal prosecutions
with which we will give our complete cooperation and avoid doing anything to interfere. But I want to be clear. We understand the seriousness of this moment. And we know the community is looking at us not only for words, but
also for actions. We are committed to earning back your trust through transparency where appropriate, accountability where required, and decisions that reflect the needs of students, family, staff, and
our schools. As we move forward, we are so very grateful to Dr. Hayes, who has agreed to serve as acting superintendent for the upcoming school year. Dr. Hayes brings deep experience in public education, a strong understanding of Elramar County
Public Schools, invaluable leadership experience from outside our division as well. We are excited for her leadership during this important transition, and believe she will provide the stability, the thoughtfulness, and focus our division needs in the year ahead.
At the same time, the board is committed to conducting a nationwide search for the next superintendent. That process will begin this fall and will include a meaningful feedback and input from the community from all levels of the school division, including students, families, teachers, staff, school leaders, and
central office employees. We know the selection of a superintendent is one of the most important responsibilities of the school board and we attempt to approach that process with care, openness, and a clear commitment to the future of ACPS. We know that trust cannot be restored by
a single statement and a single decision. Trust is rebuilt through consistent actions over time. The board is committed to doing that work, to listening carefully, and to making decisions that help strengthen our schools and support every student that
we serve. Thank you very much. The next item on our agenda is the approval of tonight's agenda. Do I have a motion to approve tonight's agenda? >> I move that we approve tonight's agenda. >> Moved by B Miss Lee.
>> Second. Second by Miss Filman. All those in favor of moving forward with today's agenda. I >> Any opposed? We will now move forward with tonight's agenda. The first point of tonight's agenda is our spotlight on on education.
Uh and Dr. Ben Allen, executive director of the Center for Community Partnerships will be leading that. >> Looks like it's not Ben Allen. >> And instead of Ben Allen, I am so excited to introduce >> I'm definitely not Ben Allen. [laughter]
Dear colleague and past face of ACPS, >> correct? >> Huh? I'm sorry. Um, my name is Dr. Lucy Montavo. I work with Dr. Van Allen at the center for community partnerships. I am the director of Starhill Pathways,
which is a college and career access program um by our center, center for community partnerships at the University of Virginia. and Starhole Pathways serves almost 300 students in which 200 students uh attend Alamaro County
schools. Our students range from 7th grade to 12th grade. It is a long-term program where we continuously support students in their middle and high school journey. I'm here to provide an update on our students activities this summer. Our seventh and eighth graders just
completed a two-week summer program where they explored a career that they're interested in. Some career pathways explored were culinary arts, veterinary sciences, business and finance, STEM, neuroscience, environmental science, multimedia, along
with performing and creative arts. Our ninth graders are participating in the counselor and training program at the Brooks YMCA. They received a week-long training and serve as assistant counselors. I observe students playing with younger students and assisting
counselors with several different activities. Our 10th graders are participating in KUP, a program hosted by the city of Charlottesville where students have one week of workforce training and then are placed in an organization or business
for five weeks working 20 hours a week and getting paid $15 an hour. This is the third year our students have participated in this program and it has been very success successful. Our students have enjoyed their experience very much. Our 11th and great and 12th
graders this year is our first uh graduating senior year. Um they have several jobs around town and but they still carve time to visit universities when we uh plan those activities. Uh this year students will be visiting
Virginia Tech. Um our seniors have a day uh of career and college advising um from Advise Virginia and students will have a one-on-one advising session with an adviser to create an action item timeline depending on their path that
they're that they think that they are going on. um and it will create an action item list timeline for their senior year so that they can follow throughout um that year and and comp and try to get to that goal that they have
um that they have proposed for themselves. So many of our students also participated in external opportunities coordinated by uh our program and some examples are um participating at WTJU radio station camp awareness to action
by St. and Bellefields and Care 360 Labs where students got to um be a part of the fiveyear plan for the downtown mall. Our students are having an amazing experience in career and college readiness this summer and we look
forward to continuing our work this fall where we will be providing programming, college trips, and visiting our students weekly at their schools to provide success coaching. Thank you for your time. Thank you so much.
>> Do we have any questions? >> Well, any questions? >> I just want to thank you and everyone from Starhill Pathways for the amazing experiences that you give to our students throughout their
seven years, six years. >> It is absolutely our pleasure. Very fulfilling job. Um, and I just I and I think for the community to know that this this program exists and um, you know, if if you have a a not for-p
profofit or a business and like that to connect with Star Hill because I think part of what makes this so powerful is the amazing kind of on the ground experiences that they give students um, learning about every aspect of our community um, so that students can think about the the many pathways they have in
front of us. >> So, a huge thank you. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. I got a chance to attend the expo a couple weeks ago and just saw some of the amazing projects that these middle school students were doing at neuroscience. They were designing AI,
remote control subjects and uh great courses in uh economics and finance um that just were mindboggling. So yeah, it's it's really impressive. Um and Dr. Dr. Allen spoke
to us back in January or February about the fact that this is not just a two-eek summer program, but it's ongoing and I I'd love to see that continue to grow and expand. >> I think it's really helpful.
>> Just a quick question, how do students apply? Are they nominated? And when does that process start for the next middle school? >> It is an application process. We work closely with the counselors of all of the middle schools in the city and in the county um where they recommend our
program to several families. Um our f our application is open to everyone. It is on our website year round. Um, so sometimes they may apply in October and are maybe on the wait list, you know, for their their specific grade, but we
do open registration formally for a new cohort um in mid January through March and then they get accepted in April and then they begin our program with their first summer camp like our seventh graders did this year.
>> Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. The next item on our agenda is school board superintendent and committee updates. Do we have any updates? Um I think I have a statement to read on behalf of
the school board. Uh the school board intends to conduct a competitive nationwide search for our next superintendent. We also agreed that the best way to do so is to contact contract the services of an executive search firm with a specific experience in education to manage the recruitment process. We
will select a recruitment firm through the county's procurement process this summer and we hope to have a firm under contract by October of 2026. We are looking for a company with experience recruiting school superintendent through a collaborative approach that allows for public feedback to inform the school
board's decision. Once a firm is hired, part of their scope of work will be to provide a timeline and strategies for community engagement, public feedback, and the overall selection process. Our goal is to name a school superintendent for the 2728 school year no later than July 1st, 2027. We look forward to
sharing more information with you as we move forward. >> Thank you, Miss Bman. Uh, one of my placements uh as a schoolboard member is with the Albam Marl Foundation for Education. Uh this will be the second year that AF will is
uh supporting the back to school bash back to school backpack bash which is going to be held uh on August on Sunday August 9th just a few days before school starts where students and families can come students can pick up backpacks
filled with supplies. they can uh get uh athletic uh exams, vaccinations, I think haircuts, even get ready, get all ready for school with your new pencils and your and your paper. Um if you go to our website uh volunteers are still needed
not only to pack the backpacks which I did last year in an unairconditioned building which was we I bonded with a lot of people that day but uh to be there for the day and then the set pack the backpacks do the setup which is
going to be at Fashion Mall at the old JC Penies uh be there for the day of the event and then for cleanup. So, we're always looking for volunteers. Thank you, Dr. Akoff. >> I got a chance to visit uh Mountain View
Upper Elementary. >> It is amazing. >> So, just remind all the everyone in the public is that about the that it's a new school that will open. >> This is the first new school that we have opened in >> 25 >> 25 years. Um it is gorgeous.
>> It's come along beautifully. It is ready. >> The ribbon cutting for that is on the 24th of July. Correct. 10 a.m. >> Friday 10 a.m. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> And that is open to the public. >> Yes, >> it is.
>> Any other >> I have a few things. Um, first I would like to appoint Emily Potter to serve on the advisory committee for the environmental sustainability. Okay. Um, I want to begin a new practice this year uh with my remarks during the
superintendent's uh moment and during each business meeting. I want to take a few moments to update the board and the community about work happening in our division. I want to highlight some of the accomplishments uh share some current activities place taking place across our schools and departments and provide a brief look
ahead um to the important work that's coming next. I hope this begins to create a steady rhythm of communication and helps our community better see the work happening across ACPS. There's [clears throat] so much good work taking place and I want to make sure we highlight that while also speaking honestly about the challenges and the
things that we need to do to continue to grow. So, last year over 10,000 students graduated from HCPS with 56% planning on attending a four-year college, 19% attending a two-year college, 5% planning on enlisting in the military,
and 12% planning to enter the workforce full-time. Over $5 million of scholarships were awarded to our students. Our trial nutrition team uh has the important job of making sure our students get nutrition nutritious meals during the day. Over 450,000 breakfast
meals were served and over 1 million lunches were served over the course of the school year. Our transportation department, which is responsible for making sure our students get to and from their destinations uh safely, um drove over 3.3 million miles this school year.
And that includes home to school miles as well as field trip mileage. And it doesn't stop there. There are several great things happening this summer. In addition to our uh traditional summer programming, uh summer school, we have MQ, the National Society of Black Engineer program, coding camp, and our
summer jazz camp. But I also want to highlight some of the work of our uh hidden figures and our um un unsung heroes. Um our custodial staff has been working tirelessly all summer to prepare our stu schools for the start of the school year. They are deep cleaning approximately 2.4 4 million square ft of
facilities, refinishing more than 1.5 million square feet of hard floors, deep cleaning tens of thousands of square feet of carpet, and applying more than 3,000 gallons of floor finish. Um, not the highlight, but they are also scraping gum and deep cleaning more than
16,000 desks and tables. Our technology team is refurbishing 14,000 student laptops, submitting over 140,000 records to the VDOE. They have 120 students participating in the summer coding camp and they are expanding and maintaining over 45 miles of fiber optic networks.
Our HR team has processed over 170 licensed staff and 65 classified staff. In the year ahead, our as uh Dr. Auff mentioned, our community partnership team is gearing up for the August the 9th back to school bash. Um we're going to stay the course with closing the gaps
in academic achievement and Dr. Dr. Mclofflin will be here um next week to provide an update uh around our progress on those things and assessments. The Berkeley group will be here on July 16th to present the findings of the special education review done with ACPS. The
Department of Instruction uh will be investigating technology usage and screen time for our K3 students. We will be uh getting the grading committee up and running and we will hope to work with communications to get the coverage of the great things that are happening at ACPS out to our broader community.
And while this isn't everything that is occurring in our schools, it is important to highlight the amazing accomplishments of our students and staff and the work they do behind the scenes. Thank you. >> Thank you so much. I wish we could give her a hand.
I appreciate that. and I appreciate the the update that that will be a regular um uh uh update from Dr. Hayes um at every business meeting. Thank you so much. Any other updates or statements or
comments from the board? Okay, I have one before we go to public comment. Um, as a school board, we have identified a number of areas where greater attention needs to be given to the policies that govern our school
division. As you can see tonight, we are raising several key policies for significant revision as as we will again next week and even creating new policies to strengthen the learning environments in our school. Our aim is to increase student safety, standardize
instructional practices, and meet the needs of each and every student so that they receive a quality education that prepares them for their future. In addition to the policies governing the actions of students, staff, and community partners engaged with ACPS, we
also need to strengthen our own policies governing schoolboard activities. To that end, next week I plan to bring forward rules of procedure to clarify how schoolboard meetings are managed. We need to establish rules for public comment that maintain decorum and limit
personal attacks while still providing the opportunity for the public to raise their concerns in a respectful manner, even if that means respectfully calling out specific board members or staff by name. We need to clarify how policy decisions are brought forward to the
schoolboard and public business is conducted so that the p public can better engage in this process. The policies written are not always clear and I appreciate those who reached out to me directly to share their concerns. My interpretation and application of the
policies regarding public comment in my role as chair last week made it difficult last meeting made it difficult for some individuals to express themselves fully. regarding their comments to the board and for that I am personally sorry and I
take full responsibility. I believe that as a board we need to rectify that ambiguity. So next week we will take up consideration of amendments to our rules and policies guiding the management of board meetings with the purpose of increasing public participation and providing clear
directions for each of us as a school board. We will then ensure what is stated before public comment and ensure that matches what is on our website. Due to the number of items that we needed to complete before tonight's meeting, we were not able to complete those rules
updates. So tonight we will be using um the current rules as they stand, but next week we will um in a public meeting be updating those rules um uh with the full board. Thank you so much. So, the next item on our agenda is
public comment. We welcome public comment at schoolboard meetings. To sign up to speak during public comment, you can do that in several ways. Online, sign up is available from 9:00 a.m. on the Monday of the meeting week until 2:00 p.m. on the meeting day. By phone,
calling the clerk's office at 434-9724055 to sign up until 2:00 p.m. on the meeting day. and in person sign up at the meeting is available from 6 pm until the com public comment period for in-person meetings only. Each speaker
will have three minutes to speak, but the chair with board consent may reduce this to two minutes should there be 14 or more speakers. Speakers should state their name, address, and voting district. Address comments to the board as a whole. Limit comments to schoolboard governance or school
division operations. Comments may not be directed to individual schoolboard members, division leadership or staff. Provide written statements and materials to the clerk. The school board will use a timer to track each speaker's time. And once the time is up, speakers are asked to wrap up their comments. To
maintain respect, please refrain from clapping or other audible forms of support. And you may raise your hand instead. Debate with the school board is not allowed. Tonight we have nine uh people signed up. Um so I will call the first three um Jimmy Belaloo, Megan
Mitchum, and Superintendent William T. Kohl's. Mr. Belaloo, Jimmy Belaloo, um the Scottville district. Uh good evening members of the board. Welcome to the new superintendent. It's great to see a
fresh face up there. Um, generally I'm here speaking about the failure of the special education system in Alber County. Well, we're going to give that a pause because I happen to read the proposed professional boundaries prevention of sexual misconduct and abuse policy.
My first of all, the policy doesn't go far enough. My biggest concern is that this policy relies almost entirely on the school system to police itself. Complaints are reported to principles, human resources, and the title 9 coordinator, all internal employees.
There is no requirement for an individual, no requirement for independent investigations when allegations involve employees misconduct after everything their community has experienced. That's simply not enough. The policy also fails to require
immediate notification of parents when allegations involve their child. Parents should never be left wondering whether their child was involved in a serious incident. It also lacks the clear requirements for immediately removing employees from student contact while
serious allegations are investigated. Student safety must always come before protecting the reputation of the school division which didn't happen previously. While the policy defines grooming, it provides little accountability for administrators who ignore the warning
signs or fail to act. prime example of what happened recently. Finally, there is almost no transparency. Transparency is key. I would recommend that the board not say that this policy is a finished product,
that it's a working product and accept the community comment and involvement. And I want to remind I was at a high school graduation just this year and one of the board members spoke up and said, "Speak up for those who can't." I took that to heart. But on the back side of
that, she failed to speak up for those who couldn't and everyone kind of looked the other way on this whole incident. Thank you. Thank you very much. Megan Mitchum is Miss Megan Mitchum. Just one more time just in case. Um,
Megan Mitchum. Thank you so much. Um, Superintendent William T. Kohl's. I'm Superintendent William T. Kohl's. I live at 1489 Mter Drive here in the county.
I'm president of the African-American uh parent alliance, a parent organization founded in 1993 to address the achievement gap disproportioned affecting the African-American students and students of color. And some progress was realized in the
90s in closing the achievement gap. We find today that it has been exacerbated rather than continue to improve due to several causes outlined in the APS's 2023 bail weather report. You all had a
consultant come in and look at the division. Most alarming is reports opening statement. Elmar County Public Schools so performance for students of color for K5 reading, K5 math,
high school algebra is lower than the averages of other students of color in the state, lowest in the entire state of Virginia. The
performance data from 2024 reveals little progress has been made in addressing the recommendations outlined in the Bell report which reveal grossly inadequate student outcomes, teacher hiring, training and retention and overall
school environment. Currently, due to the future demands of the economy, our focus has broadened to all underperforming students. It is imperative that all our young people develop good character and are ready
educationally at the advent of adulthood ready to meet the rigors of adult life. Therefore, we request the following from the school board. An assessment of the performance relative to the recommendations of the bell weather
report. We want a plan of action to be presented and tracked through each grading period that focus on optimum performance of student education throughout the division. We request a concerted commitment to hire and retain competent teachers and
administrators that reflect the everinccreasing diversity of the student body. Also, we recommend that you use a customer relations management or CRM model or delight where stakeholder
expectations are met relative to safety, environment, and education and measure the performance of every employee in a division as to how well they meet the objectives of optimal safety,
environment, and education. create a culture in the division that everybody is working toward that one goal. It will enable HCPS to achieve a level of excellence that will make it the benchmark school system in Virginia.
A school improvement plan also we request to be established. >> Thank you so much, sir. I apologize, but your three minutes has expired. >> Three minutes. I got one more section. I'm done. Can I take that little >> um unfortunately I need to hold everyone to three
minutes. You can submit your statement. Um we also have your letter that we are um uh looking at and will respond to. Thank you so much for your comments. Um I I have Jonathan Whitehead but I have a note that uh they will not be speaking but I just wanted to make sure.
Uh Jonathan Whitehead. Okay. Um the next um three people are Nancy Kernig, um Daisy Rojos, and Phil Reese. Miss Kernig, I'm Nancy Kernig of Scotsville. I was an elementary school teacher at three
different county schools from 1982 to n to 2014. Thank you all for the work you have been doing. I hope that your retreat was profitable. I have two areas of concern. Falling scores and the
position of the social emotional coach. With respect to scores, when considering the direction you would like to take in the coming school year, I would suggest that you consider refocusing your goal on instruction and academic achievement.
I heartily agree with Dr. Auff that the new superintendent be strong on instruction. The current mission statement for language arts never mentions the proficiency in reading, writing, and speaking skills. Instead,
it states, quote, "The core purpose of literacy teaching and learning is to establish a community which fosters curiosity and understanding through multiple literacies for all learners. Curiosity and community are very
important important but they should not be the mission of the language arts program. As you know the so reading cut score was lowered in 2020 resulting in a proficiency score at 57%
versus the 65% required to maintain rigor. The cut scores are the lowest in the nation. This fact makes the current abomaral so scores all the more appalling.
And in math, Virginia ranks 51st in the US in math recovery from 2019 to 2024. To my second point, I suggest the position of social emotional coach be eliminated. The counselor position is
sufficient. The county has two different teams to support students who are struggling. Both teams involve parents as they should. With a refocusing of mission on excellence and rigor in academics, Admiral schools can once
again be those sought by parents for the highest quality education for their children. Thank you very much. >> Thank you very much. I I I ask um that we not uh have
clapping. Um you may stand, you may raise your hands and shake your hands um in support. Um the next speaker we have is Daisy Rojos. Is Daisy Rojos here? Daisy Roas is not here.
Um, Mr. Phil Reese, Chair Berlin, members of the school board, my name is Phil Ree. All three of my kids are Holly students. First and foremost, I am absolutely disgusted at the sexual abuse that allegedly occurred at Holly over a period of several years.
I have had to have hard conversations with my children to confirm that they had no one-on-one contact with Michael Sweeney. Thankfully, they didn't. But there are many parents who can't say the same about their children.
I am glad that Matt Matt Hos is no longer our superintendent. But why was he not fired? I attended yesterday's schoolboard retreat and the public needs to hear this. You all claimed that Matt Hos never informed you back in January
that Michael Sweeney was under a criminal investigation. You found you found out in June with the rest of us. Why did Matt Hos withhold that information from you? Should that not be considered gross misconduct by the former superintendent?
Instead of firing Matt Hos, you asked for his resignation. And by allowing him to resign, you gave him over a quarter of a million dollars in severance pay. Why are you rewarding him for concealing a criminal investigation from you? Had
Matt Hos told you back in January, you could have started work on the sexual mis misconduct policy 6 months ago. So I am calling on you tonight to revoke his resignation and fire him for cause. He does not deserve another penny from
Elmoral taxpayers. But we also learned today that Principal McCauley just resigned. How much severance pay is he getting? If he is guilty of gross misconduct for allegedly ignoring parents warnings about Sweeney,
his resignation should also be denied and he should be fired. But most importantly, I'm calling on you to initiate a full independent investigation by a law firm with no ties to Elmor County. Parents deserve to know how these
alleged crimes were allowed to happen. How was Sweeney transferred from Woodbrook to Holly? Why wasn't Sweeney removed after parents warned Principal McCauley about his alleged misconduct? Did school staff fulfill their mandatory
reporting obligations to police? Tomorrow, I will submit a comprehensive foyer request to get these answers myself, but I shouldn't have to. This board should order that investigation without parents having to demand it. That should be blatantly obvious to you.
Parents deserve answers. The public deserves accountability. And our children deserve protection. Thank you. Thank you very much. The next two speakers are Chris Dilbeck
and Joe Allen Pizaric. Uh hello all. I'm Chris Dilbeck. I'm in the Rivana District. Um I want to follow up on some comments I made um several months ago about the grading policy. Uh some of you may know I was a student in Almar High School and generally had a great time there uh between 2001 and
2005. Uh the kind of student I was I was pretty good at the academics but I was disorganized was all over the place. I would leave assignments pretty much everywhere. You might find still some papers from there for me in some unknown places. Um as far as the policy goes,
I'd like to review the report that was released uh recently and provide my feedback on that. Uh first off, there's some excellent things in this report about upgrading the grading policy. Um the retake policy, um as someone who has taught before, uh going back and
reviewing repeatedly student assignments over and over again is not something that I think we should consider. So, the um changes in here, including things like um limiting assignments to one retake, uh requiring teacher meetings and actual participation by the student
in order to get a retake is a great change and I would support all of that. Uh consistent um handling of late assignments across the board is also excellent. Um I ran into this plenty of times when I was a student. U some teachers would just give me a zero if I
turned it in 3 minutes late. Uh some of them would tell me to go find it. uh some of them would give me a lot of grace and let me know I can turn I can bring it in the next day and I'll be fine. Um students being able to know that would be be excellent across the
board. Uh however the grading floor of going down from a 50 to a 40 does not address the original concern that I had I had brought to the board in my original comment and that was that students should not be given credit for
doing nothing. Giving someone a 40 or a 50 for not doing the assignment is not the way they're going to be treated in college and it's not the way they're going to be treated in the real world. If they go into business and they do nothing, they won't receive a paycheck. Um so we need to make sure that that
that system is uh corrected in such a way that it rewards people who who put forth effort. You should not receive credit for doing nothing. Uh so I would recommend that uh a policy be built that does consider a lot of this report
including the retake policy, the late work standardization, but I would uh recommend instead going back to a 0 to 100 grading scale. Um giving zeros for assignments that aren't there. Um and
then giving students who lose things and um are learning academic and life habits a little bit of um grace and tolerance along the way. And with that, I yield back. Thank you. >> Thank you so much. Our last speaker today is Joelen
Pizaric. Now, please correct my pronunciation if it was off. >> Hi, I'm Joelen Pizaric, a Crosse resident and longtime educator. I appreciated the superintendent's remarks earlier about how the goals of the program should be supported by the
culture. Um, and that's what I want to talk about today. Culture. A few years ago, I attended a state board of education meeting in Michigan where a group of folks from across the state state came to read from books that were available in the local library and in their
school. These books contained shocking sexually explicit material along with references to drugs, violence, rape, pedophilia, etc. As X or R-rated movies or video games, such material would not
be permitted in school, but as books, just another part of the culture. One lady who testified at the meeting made a remark. I'll never forget it. She said, "I was sexually molested as a
child, and if I had read that this book, then I would have thought it was normal." Normal. So, as parents and educators, we know folks that sexual abuse is not normal.
But when it's found in the classroom or library of a school, it becomes part of the culture. It is part of the culture in Albam Marl County Schools. I've reviewed your challenge book list and find that some remain on the bookshelves. I also am
aware that all of these types of books are available on the Faulet Destiny library link that students can access and parents would not be aware of. So, does a culture that exposes children
to sexually explicit material at school make children more vulnerable to sexual abuse? Well, according to psychologists, social workers, teachers, pediatricians, it does. Sexually explicit graphic, pornographic,
and descriptive material harms children and increases the risk of victimization by confusing rather they re than reinforcing healthy safe boundaries. Virginia legal code requires school boards and educators to provide family life education curriculum that protects
children, promotes family uh values, teaches abstinence, the dangers of human trafficking, disease, sexual uh violence, inappropriate touching, sexual abuse and harassment. But regardless of what you teach in family life education,
if the opposite lesson is handed to kids in the libraries, you have failed your legal obligation. The highest priority going forward needs to be to fix the curriculum and the culture in ACPS, a culture that normalizes child sexual
abuse. I hope you will keep that front and center as you search for a new superintendent. Thank you. >> Thank you so much. That now concludes our public comment and I thank everyone who came forward tonight. The next item on our agenda is
approval of our consent agenda. Do I have a board member um making a motion around our consent agenda tonight? >> I move we approve the consent agenda. >> Moved by Miss Lee. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> Second by Mr. Dylan Beck. All those in
favor of tonight's consent agenda. I >> Any opposed? Tonight's consent agenda passes. We now move into our official schoolboard business. Um the first item on our uh school board business is 81.
It's our policy discussion, professional boundaries and prevention of sexual misconduct and abuse. Uh Dr. Hayes and Dr. Carlock um will be presenting this and this is a presentation today and there will also be a followup next week.
Correct. I just as as they're as you're they're pulling that up, I just wanted to say um a thank you to everyone who has um reached out to us individually or as a full board um with their um uh suggestions and
comments um and reflections on this policy. We will be um using those as we look at the draft tonight um and then uh make changes as we go forward. >> Good evening, Chair Berlin and other members of the board. Again, I'm Dr.
Hayes, acting superintendent, and I am here tonight to present the uh first round of information regarding the professional boundaries and prevention of sexual misconduct and abuse. And I'm joined tonight by members of the um the school team, the division team, and Dr.
Russell Carlock, who did a lot of our research. As always, everything we do is rooted in our strategic plan, learning for all with the focus that on that we will know each and every student. So, just to provide a bit of background,
on June 11th, the school for the school board informed the public that it would be addressing issues identified in the wake of the alleged sexual abuse of students by ACPSCL coach. On June 17th, after being appointed as acting superintendent, the
school board directed me to review and recommend policies and procedures to codify adult student interaction, reduce the likelihood of sexual misconduct and abuse towards students, and strengthen student safety, reinforce professional expectations, and to rebuild public
trust. Our goal is not to change the caring relationships that exist between students and trusted adults. Our goal is to strengthen those relationships by ensuring that they are supported by clear professional expectations, trans transparency, and accountability.
Staff reviewed public comments from the June 10th community conversation public meeting along with emails received by the school board, the division, and this acting superintendent to identify key areas of concern. Specific issues raised
by the school board, staff, and families that should be addressed through a clear policy include onetoone meetings between adults and students, professional and appropriate communication between adults and students, parental notification of
meetings between adults and students, and the reporting of violations. We reviewed our background screening process. Sorry. We reviewed our background screening processes and compared to other school divisions, government organizations, and
private sector businesses and found that our screening processes are as thorough as they can be. Our screening process is similar to that of the police department. The only exception is that they are permitted to conduct a polygraph exam of applicants. However, the Virginia state code present
prohibits our use of polygraph examinations on employees or prospective employees. Before hiring any ACPS employee, applicants are fingerprinted and those fingerprints are submitted to state police. They run a criminal background search through the FBI
fingerprint database to identify any arrest in the United States. If there is any felony conviction or crimes against the minor, we will not hire them. Additionally, we run the application information through the central registry for child abuse and neglect for every
state they have resided over the past 5 years. Our process is comprehensive and thorough in comparison to other places of employment. The unfortunate reality is that we have no way of screaming screening out an individual who has never been charged with the crime or
with an abuse or neglect finding. With all that said, we definitely have areas where we must strengthen our policies and make clear the expectations of our employees, volunteers, and other adults who engage engage with students. So I asked the staff to conduct research
and to create a draft policy that addresses the concerns raised by the school board and the public to improve the safety of our students. What we are presenting today is a draft policy ag professional boundaries and pres prevention of sexual misconduct and
abuse. I am recommending we place this policy within section A of the board policies which governs foundations and basic commitments because policy must be foundational to our entire school division. You have had a chance to review the policy and I want to walk you through
the plan for getting to an adopted policy which we will need this month in order to have it implemented by the start of the 2627 school year. Tonight, Dr. Carlot will provide an overview of the policy itself, how we came to this recommendation and
how we came to this recommendation. From there, I have asked the staff to join us and we can provide any specific question. We can answer any specific questions you may have regarding the policy. Finally, if you have any specific recommended edits, we can take those and incorporate them into a redline draft that will we will post for
a public hearing on the policy to be held at our next meeting on July 16th. At that time, the public will be asked to speak to the school board specifically on the recommended policy and any edits you may want to include from today's discussion. Following the
public comment, the school board would offer any additional recommendation and edits in a markup session and ultimately vote to adopt a final policy. Unless there are any other questions at this time, I would like to turn it over to Dr. Carlock.
Thank you, Dr. Hayes, and thank you, members of the school board. So, I'm going to walk us through the process by which the school division has come up with this draft policy. We'll first discuss a literature review that was conducted of peer-reviewed as well as
trade journals around best practices in preventing educator sexual misconduct and abuse. We will look at uh peer divisions and also divisions throughout the country that have similar policies uh and looking we will also be looking
at what are considered model policies uh throughout the country. We'll discuss the key components of the new policy and then open it up to questions. So first from June 22nd to 26 we conducted the literature review and the policy
analysis comparing ourselves to other school districts. uh and then in the second week we drafted the policy and received extensive feedback from division level staff and some building level staff. I want to highlight that this has been a highly expedient process
due to the magnitude and gravity of the situation. Uh and in a typical situation we would have more comprehensive public feedback as well as staff feedback and review of a policy especially a brand new policy that is being adopted. And
for that reason, public feedback is going to be extremely important throughout this process. Uh this is a draft document at this point and it will be important for all of us to listen to the public as we bring it to its final version to be enacted in the next school year.
And so we will be looking at possible revisions tonight based on your questions and then July 16th will be the session in which we review public comment and can come further to adopt uh a new schoolboard policy. So looking at the literature this these are the key
references that we used in looking at uh how to prevent educator sexual misconduct. Uh there are three in particular that I want to focus on that were specifically important in this and these are coming from peer-reviewed journals uh in both criminology as well
as in psychology in journals that deal with child abuse. Um, the first one, Grant at All 2019, was extremely helpful because it did a review of school divisions that had experienced issues of sexual misconduct amongst their employees against students and looked at
what they did in the wake of that situation in order to ensure that it didn't happen again. uh were teal at all's article on keeping students out of harm's way reducing risks of educator sexual misconduct was also very important because it took a criminology
approach. So it looked at other uh types of law enforcement and thinking about schools as a way to uh prevent that particular crime from happening. Um the final is from the Virginia Department of Education. In 2011 they issued guidelines for the prevention of sexual
misconduct and abuse in Virginia public schools. This was in the wake of the Jerry Sanduski trial at Penn State. Uh, and it is a fairly strong document and it went out to all public school divisions. Some of our peer divisions adopted some of the language from that
report in 2011. Many did not, but the report itself is in line with the rest of the peer-reviewed literature in terms of best practices around preventing educator sexual misconduct. Uh, so first I want to talk about the definition and prevalence as well as under reporting of
this issue. So the definition of educator sexual misconduct covers a range of behaviors that are both criminal and unethical. Um so that includes sexual harassment, sexual invitations, text messaging, email or social media contact of a sexual nature, showing or producing sexually explicit
images, sexual touching and sexual assault and rape. And I want to highlight that this goes beyond criminal behaviors uh to include violations of boundaries with students um that may not rise to the criminal level. And so the adoption of this policy is not only
about uh preventing the most egregious of these incidents, but also unethical behavior that is not illegal, but is also very important to keep out of our schools. As many as 9.6% of US students are victims of educator sexual
misconduct. This comes from a report in 2004. It is notoriously difficult to get good nationwide data on this because each student each uh state reports it in different ways. Some states do not report it at all. Um, however, they did a comprehensive report in 2004 and based
on survey data from students, that's where they arrived at that 9.6% um, data. It's important to note that that is sexual misconduct. So, it's any of those unethical behaviors that may not also be criminal. Um there was in a report in 2020 by the Department of
Education, the US Department of Education that found 0.02% of students were involved in allegations um an incident that involved an allegation of sexual misconduct by an educator in a K12 school. Um this shows that this is
an issue that is very uh much more prevalent than many people see and that it is often under reported. when they did a survey of students, um only 6% of students said that they would be willing to report uh an educator that was um performing some of these uh violated
actions or violations of boundaries. That's why it's incumbent upon us as an institution to create the policy that will um support prevention. The impact on victims of community are is clear. Um but I want to make sure that that's also in uh what we state is in the literature
itself that there are severe behavioral and psychological effects uh on students uh that experience educator sexual misconduct. Um and it goes further beyond the individual students that are involved to impact the entire community. And we know that we're experiencing that
to some extent. Um harm does not stop with the victim. The community is shaken. This is a direct quote. Um there's often increased distrust. There's confusion, there's anger, there may be civil suits and trials. Uh there there are many repercussions to just one of these incidents occurring in schools.
Uh highlighting why it's important to look at the literature and what it says about prevention. Uh so the key components within the literature saying that are most important for preventing this uh go along these six categories and the first is having policies and
procedures in place. Uh so having a clear policy the recommendation is that there is a policy specifically about preventing educator sexual misconduct uh in the institution and that policy must be clear about prevention before it happens. And a lot of the literature
around that says that you need to describe what is acceptable behavior, what are acceptable interactions between educators and students and what is unacceptable behavior and include in that descriptions of what is often considered grooming behavior. Um, and so that's where the professional boundaries pieces come in because what is a
violation of a professional boundary that may not rise to a criminal offense is often the first step of grooming. Uh, and so it's important to outline for everyone to know what that looks like and to ensure that it is prevented. U there also needs to be some sort of a training component uh so that everyone
in the community especially the staff is aware of what the policy says and how it will be enforced and how it is to be implemented. Um there also needs to be clear channels of reporting if there is um both a concern about uh educator
sexual abuse or misconduct. So again including that violations of the uh professional boundaries. There need to be clear understanding of how investigations occur and there needs to be clear responses by the institution uh when these things are found to have
occurred. So when we look at the key policy components of the V Virginia Department of Education that they put out in 2011, the first is that there needs to be a statement of purpose. There needs to be a value statement and also it needs to be clear about why you are having this policy in the first place. There need to
be clear rules governing staff and student communications and interactions, procedures for reporting uh discipline and disciplining employees who violate uh the policy and training for staff and volunteers and distribution to parents. I want to highlight this is very clear
that this is connected to that peer-reviewed literature um that there's a lot of overlap here between what VOE said in 2011 and what best practice is from the peer-reviewed literature. Um, also there needs to be a stipulation that it applies to vendors as well.
So now we're going to look at policies uh in our peer districts as well as some from across the country. So the comparative policy analysis looked at the keyword sexual misconduct, professional boundaries, standards of conduct and abuse in the following
school divisions. Uh we performed one round of open coding. So just reading and and looking at what each policy said and then putting it into categories and then with one round of deductive coding. So that means we use the categories from the literature that I just went over uh to see what each of these policies from
these districts said regarding those categories from the literature. I'm going to categorize our uh peer-reviewed policies or districts into three different groups in terms of where they put their policy. And I think
that's really important is understanding where these policies are located. They're not all located in the same place. So often I had to look in in multiple places to find this policy if it existed among these school districts. Uh so the first group is limited andor diffused. So that means that the policy
was broken up into different pieces. There were places where the the school division or the institution pre uh had language around prevention of sexual misconduct and abuse by employees but it wasn't in one place and it was often scattered in different places and often
that was overlapping with uh little explanation. So there was maybe one sentence here, one sentence in a different part of the policy. Uh we fell into that category as does Charlottesville, Chesterfield, Fluana, Virginia Beach and York. Um, the second group, preventing sexual misconduct.
These are school divisions that have clear policies specifically around preventing sexual misconduct. Some of them use the term professional boundaries. That's why we decided to use both and combine them because we think they're both important uh in terms of prevention as well as response. So,
Arlington, Fairfax, Harrisonenberg, Penmanor, Pennsylvania, Portland, Oregon, Stafford, uh, West Fargo, North Dakota are examples that fall in that category. The four that are highlighted are ones that meet all of those six points that we talked about earlier. So
that's why they're highlighted and those became the basis of the language that we used in our policy to construct it. Um we did have a few peer districts Augusta and Reicho Lden and Rono City that had aspects of a prevention policy and it was located in their standards of
conduct for staff portion of their policy. So I'm going to go through now the key components of the policy. This is not every single piece but it's what we feel like are the most important pieces to highlight. Uh so the first part is the spa statement of purpose showing that uh
the prioritization of state and safety of students is um at the forefront of what we are doing in this policy that we will provide a safe and supportive learning environment um that will prevent uh and protect them from unwelcome behavior, inappropriate activity, sexual misconduct and abuse.
Um it also has a scope in terms of uh who it applies to. So it applies to all ACPS employees, practicum and student teachers, volunteers, community partners and vendors u providing direct services to students. And uh this last piece is important acknowledging dual
relationships. There are uh two states recently Oklahoma and Kentucky that have passed laws around uh student and educator communication. uh and we will talk more about that. One issue that those laws have faced are making sure
that addressed in the policy is the fact that many employees have children who are also students and their friends are also uh that their children's friends may be interacting with them uh in the context of their relationship with that
student outside of their educator role. And so there's two places in the policy where we describe that and many much of this comes from our peer divisions as well. Uh where it's important for school employees who are in that situation to note what their role is and be very clear about when they're acting as a
professional uh in the the context of their role as an educator versus in their context of a parent of a student who is also in that public education system. So healthy relationships, this is the part where we describe what what are the expectations. We we support healthy
relationships between students and adults that promote student and achievement and success. Relationships are at the core of that and it's very important. And part of what makes a healthy and strong relationship are clear boundaries. Uh and so making sure that uh that we protect students from boundary violations from adults that
include inappropriate activity, sexual misconduct, and abuse. Um, and we also protect our educators from misunderstandings and false accusations. That's why it's really important to describe what these grooming behaviors look like. Um, not only to protect students, but also to protect our
educators so they understand what those clear boundaries are. Uh, again, we note the dual relationship between students uh, and educators uh, if that issue comes up and what our expectations are for employees in those situations.
Uh section three prohibits sexual misconduct and abuse. The base language is from Arlington and Fairfax and this is prohibiting engaging in sexual misconduct and abuse of students. We already had that in our policy GBC. Um it goes further and explains further
that this is regardless of the age of the student or the proximity and age of the employee to this student. Uh this is important as we have some students who are adults in our schools and this prevents any of this with those students as well. Uh regardless of of the age of
the student involved or the age of the employee involved. Um so this includes dating, making sexual advances, seeking romantic or sexual relationships or having conversations of a sexual nature not related to the adults professional responsibilities. It includes unwanted
touching or contact, grooming behavior and sexual contact. Uh the second part is about maintenance of professional boundaries. Uh so Arlington and Harrisonenberg provide the base language here. There there's a long description of many of
the ways that grooming can look and what those violations of boundaries uh look like. We won't go through all of them. They are in the draft policy. Um basically we are laying out very clearly for our educators uh what those boundaries look like and what the expectations are uh for professional
behavior. This next part is based on in-person contact and communication. Uh so this prohibits uh the appearance of impropriy and then gives descriptions of how that might happen in a school setting. Uh so conducting ongoing
private conversations with individual students unrelated to the adults role in ACPS and supporting students well-being, school activities or academics. It could be meeting with the student outside of regular school events and activities for any reason, tutoring, coaching, counseling, mentoring, having
conversation without the consent of the parent or legal guardian. It could be transporting students and personal vehicles without the knowledge and consent of parents, guardians, and supervisors. Um, you will see that the word emergency is used here. We do have a definition of emergency. Uh, it is
something that is critical to the operation of the school. uh that deals with safety of students. So, an example of that might be it's fourth block. Um it's 20 minutes before the bell rings in a middle school and you get a report that there's going to be a fight that
happens at the bus loop. Uh so, administrators, counselors, school security personnel may have to activate very quickly to interview the students. We learned about this through a student. We have to interview the students who may be involved to try to diffuse that situation as quickly as possible. There may not be time in that situation to
call parents prior to that. However, this policy would uh state the expectation that the parents would be notified afterwards in the case of that emergency situation. Uh taking a student out of class without a legitimate educational or health related reason approved by administration would fall in this
category of uh violation of in-person contact and communication. Um and parent guardian consent must be granted if occurring on a consistent regular schedule. going to a student's home, seeking out, arranging a meeting with a student outside of the school setting without a legitimate educational reason,
and any behavior that would lead the student to believe that the adult is interested in them romantically or sexually. This next part is distinct from our peer divisions. There were not many examples in our peer divisions in Virginia that have clear limits on one-on-one
interactions. However, there are other school divisions throughout the country that do this and many independent schools as well. And so we draw from them for this. That being said, this is the place where we need even more review I would say because this is constructed by us um not based on the peer
division's policy. Uh so one-on-one meetings with students will be limited to employees with a legitimate educational or health reason to do so. Those are also both defined in the policy and the definition section. When meeting one-on-one with students for educational purposes, adults would
ensure that they are in a space accessible and visible to other adults. Uh meetings must occur in a space designated by the school administration as an appropriate area for adult student meetings. The important piece here is visibility and accessibility. Um this
next part is about licensed school counselors, special educators. Our counselors are already have a separate policy where they have to inform families at the beginning of the school year about what social counseling looks like and give families the opportunity
to opt out of that. We would we're in and this policy would expand that to our special educators and other staff whose job duties include regular one-on-one meetings. So career counselors in high school, for example, u would fall in that category. they would need to lay out at the beginning of the school year
what those 101 meetings look like and give parents the opportunity to opt out. Um because these meetings are happening frequently. Uh they would not notify parents every time that they happen. However, they would be documenting them. Uh and the uh parents would be able to
see that documentation whenever they requested it. It does make exceptions for cases of child abuse um that are co-investigated with social services and law enforcement. Uh for all other adults besides the ones mentioned here who are meeting regularly with students
one-on-one, uh the expectation would be that they or is that they would notify parents in writing prior to those meetings happening. Um, and then reiterating in this last part, uh, the only school personnel that should be meeting with a student out of view, uh,
w with a student would be a school nurse, a special education or preschool health related teaching assistant in a space designated for those purposes. Electronic communication. This is a uh the existing policy we have GDB uh
requires staff members to refrain from communicating with students through any personal social media platform. So that's already in our policy. We go further to describe that using the base of Harrisonenberg and Arlington's policy saying that adults may not friend or follow students or accept friend or
follower requests. Um, we reference policy JO that uh they should never be posting photos of students in any location except for a professional uh media account with the consent of the parents. And this last piece will be a
big change for our secondary educators. Uh so and this is one where uh we have no peer policies that peer divisions that do this. However, it is state policy in Kentucky and Oklahoma for the last year. Uh, adults must restrict one-on-one electronic communications
with individual students to accounts, systems, and platforms that are provided by and accessible to our by our schools. Um, these systems must provide access to parents and guardians to observe all communication with their child. Uh, in the case of a communication system that does not automatically allow access to
parents, for example, email, ACPS email does not automatically CC the parents. The parent guardian must be included in the communication. We have a new uh parent communication system parent square coming on board u that has this capability where a teacher can send a
direct message uh basically an email to a student with that system answering their question about homework. Some uh students email multiple times asking about homework. Um the the teacher or the may be concerned about always having to look up the parents email. If they
use parent square they don't have to. Um, parent square logs every communication with the educator and a parent can go on and log in and see uh all of the interactions that have happened with their child. This next part is about reporting
violations and I know there was some public feedback about this today and so I think that this is an important place for us to look at in terms of enhancing this and making it better. Uh so this distinguishes between the the two important types of sexual misconduct
that may occur. The one is criminal in nature. If someone has clear understanding that a child is being abused, then we already have clear policies in place about how to report child abuse and that needs to happen. Uh this makes it even clearer about
connecting to our title 9 um existing policy GBA. uh that policy did exist before. This makes it clear that that is the policy that's also important to utilize in this case. However, there's this other part about let's say you're a
parent or you're a teacher and you see something that falls under the category of a viol boundary violation. It's not illegal. You don't see abuse happening, but you see something that makes you feel concerned. Um there is a channel to communicate that to the supervisor. we
need to expand that so that human resources is also involved and we've already had some internal discussion about that after this was posted. Um so there needs to be multiple channels by which different groups can report something that they see that they're concerned about. Uh that goes uh and it
can also be made anonymously. We do have the help me system that can already be used for anonymous reports. It could also be used for this uh case if we needed it to be used in that sense. Um it's important to have a whistleblower protection clause and so that's why we
have this that says retaliation against anyone reporting or thought to have made a report is prohibited. The next part is what happens after that the investigation. Uh so the first piece is any again anything that is sexual abuse or harassment is investigated by
the title 9 coordinator. uh and they do that in a partnership with the principal department head uh as well as human resources. If it is an issue of a professional uh boundary violation, that would be the principal uh unless the
principal was the one who was being investigated and that would be in partnership with human resources. If someone is found to have violated this policy and the professional boundaries, they would be subject to disciplinary action per our policy GBCA,
employee discipline. The next paragraph uh specifies pertinent Virginia code for reporting founded cases and disclosure of employee violations to other divisions. The last section is on training, awareness, and prevention. And this is much more
comprehensive than other school divisions in our peer network. Um some do have training in there. This goes further to say what the responsibility is of each group. So our community partners and contractors are an important part of this. We maintain many
contracts uh for services directly provided to students and it will be important going forward that each ACPS staff member uh responsible for those contracts works with the the vendor to ensure that they are aware of this policy and they certify compliance with
it. Uh for our employees uh the expectation is that they will complete annual training regarding the professional boundaries as well as the prevention of sexual misconduct and abuse. for our parents and guardians. They will be informed of this policy as well as how to report concerns uh based
on the response and investigation protocol that we laid out. For our student teachers, interns and practicum students, we will be working if this is adopted, we will be working with our university and higher uh education partners around what those placements look like and ensuring those
student teachers also have training on this policy. Our students uh shall receive age appropriate instruction around personal safety, healthy boundaries. We already have some of this in our curriculum, our health curriculum. However, we're going to be looking at expanding that um in a way
that is appropriate for prevention. Our superintendent shall direct training and communication programs to ensure that our employees and our volunteers, our community partners, that we are working together to implement this policy to keep our students safe. And finally, the expectation is that our volunteers will
also receive orientation training around this policy. And now I will pause for questions and discussion. >> Russie, thank you very much for this um all of your work that you and your um team did on this. Uh, I got a message
today about section 4 C. Um, just about uh just sort of clarifying what that looks like. And I didn't quite understand when you're talking about um so would counselors
notify every family that this could be something that you could opt out of or would it just be the students they were intending to meet with? uh per Virginia code and uh our own counseling policy, counselors at the beginning of each
school year are to notify parents of what the counseling program looks like. Um and part of that includes social counseling and that can include uh going and to distinguish from academic counseling which is about which course is best for you. Um it's about helping
students have a healthy uh mental health life uh social life in their school and parents are able to opt out of social counseling uh in our schools. >> Okay. So every it's a blanket for everybody. >> That's right. >> Okay. Thank you.
>> I think it's really impressive that you pulled this together um in just the last few weeks. So first of all, job well done. It's incredibly impressive and it's a lot of work. Um, how would you like feedback? Would it be better to do it now or would it be
better to send like suggestions in an email since we're going to be discussing in an open meeting next week because I I know we're on a time crunch with the agenda. So, I don't I don't know what's appropriate or what what the expectation is. >> I think school council might want to chime in on what you feel would be best.
>> I mean, I defer to the school board. your meeting. But I think um in the interest of time, if it were me, I would probably send some comments, maybe a red line in between the two meetings. Sure. >> We're going to have a pretty wholesome discussion in the public hearing. >> Okay. All right. Well, then I have um I
think it's 99.9% amazing. Um the only areas similar to Miss Lee, I think there needs to be a little bit more clarification around the counseling section um to protect some of the privacy issues and um you know
things like crisis intervention and things like that. Um so I will send an email with all of that and then I look forward to the discussion. But really great job No. Oh. Oh, sorry. >> I think we have a couple more questions.
>> I know we have other people from the can on >> No pressure, right? Yeah. No, no, >> I just wanted to highlight uh an email that we got today from an astute community member who is supportive of of
a lot of these changes, but has some concern about the [clears throat] reporting mechanism. um uh ways that that this could be rectified and provide a safeguard so that the onus isn't just
on the building principle because that was one of the operational failures um that happened. Um another recommendation is to make precise the legal codification of emergency exemptions just to make that super clear. Uh the
third point was implementation of a parental right to know clause. Um mandatory disclosure clause. Uh if a an employee is suspended or reassigned due to allegations of sexual misconduct, the parents of students who interacted with
that employee within the preceding one or two-year period must be formally notified within 48 hours of the administrative action. So that quick notification of parents, that was
I think one issue, one of many issues that was a failure. And then the last one is just um active digitized oversight of one-on-one um interactivity logs. There's got to be a way to um
digitize the recording of of such meetings. So thank you. Yeah, >> I just want to say thank you Dr. Carlock and your staff for this work. It is incredibly amazing
so so quickly. I wish ACBS had a policy like this within the last 10 years. I don't know why it didn't. And I'm wondering I'm also in supportive of a parental notification if somebody is
uh suspended or reassigned due to sexual misconduct allegations. I think that's very important for parents and community members. But thank you for all that you're done. Look forward to hearing more next week. >> Thank you.
>> Any other questions or comments? So I I think a couple actually I have one quick one is around the notification just as we're thinking about this knowing that I think there's 84 languages spoken by our
families and how that notification would occur um so that it is both in the langu you know [clears throat] knowing that we have 84 languages so that the parents understand that notification and that it is done in a
way that if it is oral or um written that they can um access that. So that just a piece um just a couple things for the public kind of wondering why we're not you know making lots of changes right now. So kind of the we for this and actually the policy that we will do
after the break around grading. We thought they were that it is important to have two sessions. Um so we will be kind of we are doing what um you just saw. So there will be information shared, policy shared both with us and publicly. Um there is the opportunity
for both the board as well as the public. Um all of the emails that you are sending with um feedback and suggestions are being um sent to um Dr. Carlock's um uh group through Dr. Hayes so that everything you are saying to us
we are making sure is shared. everything you said in public comment and as they said at the beginning, all the comments that came prior to um this meeting um and in the Holly meeting who were all shared. Um and then at the next board meeting next Thursday, we will have a
public hearing. And so what a public hearing is is we will still have public comment. Public comment can be on any issue before the board or any school-based issue. The public hearing will be on this specific topic. Um so you have the opportunity to speak on
this specific topic and then at that meeting we will go through they will there will be a posted update if there are updates um um based on your comments or our comments that [clears throat] will be posted and then we will go through that again at the meeting and make line item changes um if necessary.
So I just wanted to make sure every this is not being voted on now. This is still in draft form. There's there is time to provide feedback. We just want to make sure that it we can have a policy that is voted on next week knowing that school starts the 12 12th
>> 12th. So we need a month a little less than a month to make sure that these things are in place. Principles, teachers, assistant principles, everyone um uh IAS are are trained on these. So just a just an update and a huge thank
you to to you um and the entire team for your work on this. Just just one more question if I may. I I'm focused on the uh outside community members. Uh we have a high premium on having our students
placed in internships or job shadowing or outside of the building and a lot of what you covered is vendors coming into the schools. >> I think we need to make it clear that it applicable in those situations as well. >> Okay. So work-based learning,
internships, placing students in employment outside the schools and collaborating with those employers, right? Addressing that. >> Thank you. >> Thank you so much. We appreciate it. >> Jason Grant, the communication officer. Just to make sure as we move this forward, so there's been a lot of
suggestions of where you've read um to to Vice Chair Spilman's point, having those edits there. So, not just the comments that are there cuz next week we'll have to have some language for you all to vote on. So, if you've got those comments, where might those be? Where would you suggest those? And reach out
to staff. We can help with how to dress how to draft that, but make sure that we have something specific in hand next week beyond just the comments be helpful for us to get it adopted. >> Sure. Thank you. >> Thank you so much. Um the next item on
our agenda is 8.2 um FY27 budget. Yep. Budget update. State budget and state salary increase. Um, Miss Kumazawa, I am excited to report that we have a signed budget for um the state of
Virginia. Um, and Miss Kumazawa is going to make some give us some updates on that and how it affects our uh school year going forward. Sorry, it's okay. >> Thank you and good evening. I'm Maya Kumazawa, director of budget and planning and as uh Dr. Berlin stated,
I'm going to provide a brief update on where we are with the state budget and the impact to our adopted budget. Um this uh our strategic plan does support our budget. Um in particular, the strategic goal of equitable and
transformative resources is um where this topic is focused around. So just last week right before the new fiscal year started the state adopted their budget uh their bianual budget which covers 2026 to 2028. There are
four components of it that had an impact on our estimated state revenues. Um the first is an increase in the compensation supplement. This compensation supplement is provided to school divisions who uh will provide an average 4% salary
increase in both this current year and next year fiscal year 28. The in comparison the governor's introduced budget had an uh supplement that represented a 2% increase. Um in the adopted budget we have salary increases
ranging from 3.75 to 4.25%. And so this evening um since we are starting the new year um this is a more urgent topic to discuss as if we want to revise that in order to pull down the full state funds. Um we have a recommendation for you this evening. The
second is an increase to sales tax projections. Um the third is an increase in the infrastructure and operations per pupil fund and the last is an increase in the special education add-on. These um last three bullets um are new state
revenues. Um we don't have to change our expenditures to receive these funds. So we can continue with our budget as is and these would just be supplemental state revenues that are above and beyond what we have adopted in our budget. So it's great news for us.
Um the this is an overview of the adopted budget in terms of our revenues and then what we are now estimating. of what we are proposing to change. The local transfer and other local revenues are um projected to remain the same. The state revenue is projected to increase
by about $2 million. So that's 2 million above what was adopted. That's a 2.4% increase. Federal revenues will also remain the same and one-time use of fund balance overall for our school fund budget. Uh that $2 million increase
represents about a6% increase when compared to what was adopted. As I mentioned um based on the um salary supplements that's in the adopted state budget that represents a 4% salary increase. Staff recommends a revision in
the FY27 salary increase that's currently in the adopted budget for licensed staff. The budget supports a 3.75% increase currently. Um what's proposed is to increase that by a quarter percentage point to get to a 4%
salary increase for employee support professionals that's our classified employees. Um the adopted budget does include a 4.25% increase but in maintaining that differential between those two groups uh we propose a 0.25%
25% salary increase above what was adopted to a 4.5% increase. Um I just wanted to clarify that in order to receive the state supplement you can provide a salary increase lower than the 4%. The state will um essentially
prorrate the amount um that you're getting to to 4%. So if it's 3% you would get 75% of the supplement that's allocated. So, um, we would still be getting whatever percent if we prov continued with the adopted budget increases, um, we would get that
pr-rated amount as a state supplement. The cost of this change would be about $511,000. Um, the funding of that would come from the additional state revenue that we're now anticipating. So, it's not the um we wouldn't be using up the full increase,
but a portion of it. Um for the in the FY27 collective bargaining agreement, that agreement states that a minimum salary increase be provided and um what we have in the adopted budget is that minimum. So, by increasing it, uh we're still meeting
the agreement because we're providing more than what was u minimally required. Um because this change would impact the salary scales for 27 and the scales for 28 and 29 were built upon a certain salary scale for 27, we may need to have
further discussions with the A.EA to determine um how the salary scales would be impacted for years two and three of the agreement. Um this here is just is up for information today. Um next week what would happen is we'd put it uh an
appropriation request for the board of supervisors on the consent agenda for um action. Um so this evening if you have questions or want to discuss anything that's what this time is about. Thank you. >> Any comments or questions on this?
>> Looks great. >> Miss Kumazawa is always concise and to the point. >> Looks good. Yeah. And I and I'm very happy that the state did this as a percentage increase and not as a bonus because then it continues. I think that's an important
piece to try to uh keep uh clicking away at our the fact that uh the state of Virginia is 26th um in uh either 24th or 26th. It's been a long day. I'm not sure if I remember today. Um bottom half of salaries for uh teachers and
professional staff. And we it's important to continue to make a commitment to increase that. >> All right. Thank you. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. So it is now and that is Yep. That's uh it is now uh 8:15 and I would suggest
that we take the 10 minute break as planned just because I know we have another big chunk of work to go through particularly with the grading policy and I want to make sure that both uh uh Dr. Carlac as well as ourselves u our brains are um uh sharp um so I think a 10-minut
break is advised unless anyone does wants to fight me on that one. Okay. So we will adjourn until 8:25 according to my clock. Thank you so much. There you go. I would like to bring this meeting back to order. Um and it is my
honor um to invite and he's already here. So introduce um uh community lab school highlights uh and again uh Chad Radcliffe and I apologize he um and had had staff and students here to do some
sessions with us um in the meeting uh last month that had to be abbreviated. So um I would like to formally thank them for their preparation um uh and appreciate his understanding. So thank you. >> Thank you so much. Um I am Chad Ratliff. I'm principal of Community Lab School.
appreciate the opportunity to share with you our annual uh highlights report. It's a highlights report um due to some structural u uh innovations of themselves that I'll share with you briefly. Um and I also just want to say
um uh thank you board cabinet um congratulations Superintendent Hayes for for all the work that you've been doing. Uh I know this is this is very difficult summer, a lot of heavy issues uh but meaningfully for me I just appreciate that. Um I know it's not easy. So thank
you. Um so uh I am here to uh and to to share with you some of the things that we've accomplished this year. Uh I will warn you that this is a much condensed version. Um this is the original slide deck. So I'm going to jump through some things. I'm going to try not to be too
scattered, but I do want to leave a couple of minutes at the end so that um you have some time for Q&A if if you would like to. Uh and this is the I the the agenda that we're going to cover, what lab is and isn't. Uh our approach to teaching and learning, the highlights, the celebrations, uh what
we're working on now and what's coming down the pike. Um and then at the breakout session, I've just included a couple slides that that we were we were going to talk about. So hopefully by the end of this um you'll know how we're organized and why, which will be a refresher for some, maybe some new
information for others, uh what we do differently, how we're doing, and where we're going. Uh first, what is a lab school? Uh it's actually over 100 years old. It was first conceptualized by John Dw at the University of Chicago uh to develop a school that experimented with
non-traditional approaches to teaching and learning in a real school environment, generate knowledge that uh influences practices beyond the school. Uh and in that time over a hundred years ago that meant hands-on projects uh integrated content areas and multi-age
learning which over 100 years later that's still what we're working on. Uh in Virginia however there are formal de designations for lab schools. Uh the the college partnership lab schools are a little bit different than what we do. um they have a governance structure that
sits outside the public school board uh and are are governed um for the most part by universities. Um, a charter school similarly was conceptualized in the late 80s by AFT president and education reformer Al Shanker to develop
a similar school model where teachers worked within the school district uh to experiment with innovative approaches uh drawn their own expertise and create educational laboratories from which uh public schools can learn. As you know, charter schools since that time have
become more of a policy innovation than an instructional one. Uh, and are particularly outside of Virginia are are often um ways to develop publicly funded um uh privately operated schools. Virginia is a little bit different. It's in our state constitution that only
local school boards can open and close schools. uh the language for that in charter territories authorized, but even in Virginia, it's uh a lot of the the um the structures and systems in Virginia of charter schools are independent of
the local school board. Uh that uh makes us very unique. Um and that question is one of the points that we get the most uh which is why I'm sharing this with you tonight is what what are what is community lab school? What's it for? What's it do? uh it's not one of those
VDOE lab schools and it is a charter school but it's interestingly a fully integrated comprehensively supported charter by the school district. Uh I have been um almost 30 years working in the sector many of those teaching and
studying educational innovation um in in general and models across the country. I've yet uh to to come across something quite similar uh to to ours. These are the policies and the legislation that governs what we do. Uh the bottom, the code of Virginia, those those are the
seven practices that we're expected to do. Your policy is unique in that it states the primary objective of charter schools is to serve as labs uh to improve opportunities uh and in line with the division's mission, vision, and
goals. And that as far as I can tell is trifecta makes this school the only one like it in the country that at least I have found uh by circumstance and design. So I thought this was an interesting tidbit that I thought was kind of cool. Thought you might too. Uh
but the autonomy for innovation as a charter school however deeply integrated into the district just like any other ACPS school in every way but also with a lab school function. What that looks like on the ground is project based learning, integrated
content areas, competencies based grading, which I'll talk about a second, multi-age levels, and collective leadership. What makes this unique is that these aren't uh isolated things that are happening in the across the school. These are things that are happening all at the same time uh with
with uh groups of students and those groups of students are uh have this organizational structure vertically. uh instead of seven grade levels, we have three levels. Grades 6 through eight, grades 9 and 10, and then grades 11 and 12. 6 through eight is our group uh that
those five components are all put together for English, science, social studies, and then art, CT, and advisory are woven in. Grades 9 and 10 looks very similar with English 9 and 10, world, and government, biology, and earth science, art, entrepreneurship one, and two are all integrated and rolled out
over the course of two years. Uh, and then in the 11th grade, we roll into the IB diploma program, which is a sort of a capstone for us that resembles a lot like what the rest of our school does. All of our students are IB certificate candidates because it's not a track
path. It's a path that they all can uh they all take IV English and history. They can opt out if the IB diploma if they want uh but that they're available for them. Uh this is uh a quote from we
just had our first uh comprehensive IV audit uh toward the end of last year. This was from the organization itself. Is the school truly serves as a model of a learning organization. Teachers and school leaders demonstrate what it means to be learners within their own practice which has built a school culture that
encourages and rewards testing, reflecting and learning from experience. Uh that was very meaningful to us and we were happy to hear that. Uh we do it met by a random lottery. Uh that is in in state code and in in the reflective
local policy. Uh nothing weighted in any way, not siblings, not demographics, not geography. Uh it we roll it out over the course of about a year. We do information sessions. Uh admitted students come in to spend a a day with us and really get a feel for what that
is. Uh and then we establish weight lists that we run through until the end of the cycle. Uh these are the growth trends for applications and enrollment over the last decade. Uh applications are the crimson line started at roughly
zero uh 10 years ago and are at 288 in this most recent cycle. Uh we have been at between 250 and 3 uh 20 in the last five years I think. uh in and then uh enrollment started below 150 uh usually
tapers off around 190 or so. That's our program uh capacity uh to to be able to run a program in this way with with these particular with the number of teachers in in a grouped cohort like that. Our program capacity is roughly uh
190 give or take. Um so uh I want to take this moment too. I know the board uh in the cabinet has for the last two or maybe three years really advocated for the approved um uh facility development of lab school and and that
means a lot to me and I want to thank you for that uh ongoing support and advocacy uh this particular cycle uh again 288 applications received grade six is is that big one that's uh we're four uh 4.4
four um overs subscribed on that in terms of applicants to seats. Uh grade nine comes in second usually uh and then back down to grade seven. Um and again the fifth year of sustained uh 250 to
320 applicants for usually 50 or so seats annually. Uh these are our so uh pass rates over the last three cycles. Of course, we're waiting soon. I think you're going to hear maybe from Dr. Mclofflin next week or so about what those look like. Uh but these are the
last three years. Um the lab continues to do quite well on academic metrics, traditional academic metrics, even though uh we teach non-traditionally. Uh for the previous two years, we were awarded the an exemplar performance
award for VDOE on all traditional metrics um not just academics. uh in this uh when they changed that program, we were also awarded the equivalent of distinguished this year with a 91.7 of 100 points uh honor.
We're very very proud of that. Uh panorama data shows that our students and families feel that lab is a safe and positive place to learn with 80% of families reporting their students feel safe when they come home and talk about lab. 76%
report a positive climate. 97% uh and 95 respectively worry about do not worry about violence at the school at at all in any way. Um and nearly 80% of parents say their children really just enjoy being there. Uh they are also
known and heard. Families feel like their children are uh CLS staff shows a deep respect for them. Uh adults are supportive. Uh 82% report it's easy to get help if they're bullied. 84% say it
CLS is great fit for their child. Uh this is one we were especially proud of this year. Our staff engagement was at a 5-year high, one of the uh a statistically significant move of one of the schools in Alor County Public Schools. Um we moved up to 4.16
and this is something that we track uh in our research partnerships as well. Um we were at a national level selected to be one of the schools um in the canopy project which is which is an ongoing collaboration between uh the center on reinventing public education at
transcend which pulls together schools uh across the country that are that are doing non-traditional things or new and innovative things and create sort of a an an ormazon filtering model. So if you want to see what a project base with interdisciplinary looks like, it'll
filter down to those schools. We were included in that. Uh we were also selected one of 10 schools in the country uh to be uh featured in in research for um competency based learning in high school by full scale.
Uh our partnerships and collaboration highlights. Uh we're year nine of an of a collaboration with UVA School of Education. Uh we work with Stanford uh Stanford's program for reading and dyslexic research. Uh we're piloting uh what's called a rapid online assessment
of of students reading capabilities throughout the year. Um quick 10-minute snips of how they're doing, how they're moving, how they're growing, and it's we're trying to align that to so work. Uh and then we work with Darden for the second year uh to think about how to
incorporate entrepreneurial thinking through our method of teaching and learning. Uh and the last one we get we do not receive any funds from these research practice partnerships. It's it's just collaborative uh in every way. So there's no income uh as it relates to
those other than than enriching what we know and and learn about our work. Uh however, RMC has become a great fundraising partner for us. our students volunteer. If you go to a football game or a JPJ concert, you've probably seen some lab school students and and
families and staff and they're probably taking your ticket. Uh and that helps fund a lot of the a lot of the things that that we try to do. Uh these are the three areas of research that when we create these partnerships that we're looking for. Does it intersect learning centered education, the science of
adolescent development, and equitable evaluation? Those are the three most important things. Uh here are the research questions that we're looking for. We want to know how students do both academically and and otherwise, how teachers feel about that, and how other people think if they could adopt some of
these models. Uh this year, um it our our primary focus was on grading. Uh and I know you have a report coming up right after right after this, uh about um divisionwide policies. I created this slide to sort of frame up what lab is doing, how that's different from the
conversation that you have. And this is a a sort of a continuum of what uh a trajectory of grading looks like. Traditional is probably what we all experienced when we got our number at the end of the semester and you're not quite sure what that meant, but it had a letter with it. Uh standard space tries
to tries to drill down into that a little more. And then mastery uh moves off and really kind of shifts the whole thing. So we're thinking about what the competencies are that students who come to labs seek to to uh build skills and competencies and then we evaluate the
academic work through the competency. So it flips it. We did a soft pilot of that this year uh of a new template rather. We've been doing that for years, but uh a fully comprehensive um compassy based grading report card in grades um full
pilot, I'm sorry, in grades six through eight. And that's what our UVA partner researcher was uh researching for us. We haven't gotten a full report back. Uh but depending on what that what we learn from that work, uh we're going to move from soft pilot and 912 to potentially adopting that um that record. It's
called the mastery learning record. Uh more broadly, we're thinking probably another year or two out simply because high school uh is is is different. Uh stakes are higher for for young people, credits, time, it's it's challenging. Um
so that's what we're working on. uh the competencies that we're uh assessing toward were were mostly grounded in the Alamar County public schools uh language uh we integrated UVA's portrait of a thriving youth which is more around adolescent development in general and
IB's uh approaches to learning which look a lot like morals. Uh so those are how we develop these competencies that we're assessing and academics within them and I'll let you look through those and as you can see the first competency is core content. Uh that's one of the
things that we value. Um also creative and critical and creative thinking effective communication etc etc and the sub competencies below that. And what that looks like is students go through two to three week uh project periods. they think they've demonstrated uh that
they are emerging in transfer of the writing an English paper or whatever. Um then they will submit a product uh for the teacher to review and assess. The teacher will give them feedback. I think you're developing on that. Uh maybe more often than not students like to say I'm
already illustrating on that. And we might say maybe you're developing. How about some some refinement? And that goes back and forth. Uh teachers, this is a teacher view. So they can see a heat map of what students are getting and how they're learning and where they are, where some gaps might be um
classwide or or systemwide. Uh and then the student view is they can see there on the right you can see the feedback that that they've gotten and then families have um access to this as well. So they not only can see what the assessment is and these are our three uh
it's a three-point scale emerging, developing, illustrating uh illustrating mastery. uh they can see not only what the the the record is but they can see the work and the feedback that went along the way to get there. Um how'd I do 20 minutes? Uh so this was where uh
we would go into the breakout session and we're basically the last couple of slides is what we're going to talk about um in that part but here now I'll just open it up for uh any questions that you might have. sort of outside the uh instruction
question. You did mention capital and I'm always focused on that capacity. I know when we unfortunately lab school is not in the top five uh of our priorities, but remind me um [clears throat] it's my understanding
that with the plans that were in the proposal, we could you could admit up to 300 students. >> Four. it would go it would go to four >> 400 students which is you know double what you have now and you know we may
want to look at that again because >> that could relieve some of the overcrowding and given uh the really stellar academic uh performance of your kids. um there's a lot of demand for for that
with at least 30% you know of the applicants being told to take a you know that no that you can't accommodate them so both for academic and capacity issues um I would support reooking at that >> thank you
I have a question very much related to that but coming at it from a different perspective because I was just thinking about lab school being the only one of our schools where high school students can be rejected. Um, so I I'm just thinking about whether the
[clears throat] capacity determined at lab school has any reflection of the over capacity that the other schools are having. And that might be better for Roslin. It might I don't know if it's a question that can be answered here but um it just occurs to me that
when the other schools are facing such overcrowding um I think a consideration of that for the capacity of lab school would be important especially given that we go to the graduations and they're like >> a very small number of kids. >> True. Thank you.
>> Did you mention in one of the slides that there are roughly 4.4 four times the um number of sixth graders who would like to be enrolled. >> So, we're admitting less than 25%.
>> Wow. >> I have to say I had the opportunity to visit lab school on the Monday after spring break. I'm sorry that we were there [laughter] and it was a fantastic experience. And I came away from there thinking of my four
kids, at least two of them would have benefited greatly had that been around 15 years ago. So, thanks for the work that you and the staff are doing. It's really amazing. >> Yeah, kudos to the staff. It's it's a remarkable team. Truly,
>> thank you for everything you're doing. We we really do appreciate it. Beyond uh capacity, what can we do for you? >> You You're doing it. You're doing it, Superintendent. Hayes um since day one has been hugely supportive. Cabinet, Dr.
Mclofflin, Roslin, um everybody has been good. So, you know, I I kick the question back to you. Uh let us know what we can do uh to to be more helpful. Okay. [clears throat] I I'm curious then kind of along those lines, given the success um of the lab
school, what um what sort of sharing of information do we do with the other schools to share these successes and and try to implement things that are working really well? And granted, the kinds of kids that are looking to go to lab school are um [clears throat] a
certain type of kid, a certain type of student, but given that there's so many kids that want to go, that don't get in or maybe choose not to do it for other reasons, sports or whatever else, what are we doing to share that information? >> Yeah, it's a good question. Our teachers typically uh present at, you know,
making connections in our in our our PD uh division wide PD work. um something like this, you know, with it informing the board of what we're doing or or other things that we're trying to do that right now. It's all informal um for the most part other than formal presentations, but there's not a formal
mechanism for something at lab that's working that is transferable. Um the the systems and structures that particularly schedules and things that we're able to manipulate uh within the school day uh make a lot of the work simpler. Um so I
think that what what we would be able to inform uh most uh helpfully would be hey you [clears throat] know we have 100 students in ex you know grade that would like to build out a program uh that looks like that sort of school within a school model. >> Yeah.
>> Uh which also the the literature tends to support is is a way to to roll things out that have you know sort of major systemic changes. >> Yeah. And I think a criticism that we hear a lot and and something we've noticed is a lot of siloing in in the division. And you know, we get these
presentations. Um you know, I remember a specific one we had where you know, a science team was talking about how they worked together at an elementary school and how well their students were doing, but there um when I asked a similar question, there hadn't been any sharing of that information with the other
elementary schools and and similar teams. And so I think that's something I'm looking at you, Dr. Not that you don't already have a ton on your plate, but as we're looking forward to improving test scores and things like that, when something's working really well, I would love to see plans for how
we're spreading that information throughout the division um to share in the knowledge. We're not recreating the wheel. Um and people can benefit from things we're doing really well. >> Yeah. And >> and Lab School is the perfect example of this. Granted, you can't take that model
and just put it exactly in a school, but I would imagine there are things that are working really well that could be implemented um at our secondary schools that could have, you know, major impact. >> Yeah, for sure. And, you know, part of that too is in our work, the work of
schools and the work of children, you know, time matters, right? And you want proof of concept and you want to see that you didn't have a couple lucky years and and that sort of thing. So I think now that we have some hindsight to say I think you've proven that didn't work that worked better. Um that iterative part has been critically
helpful to us. [clears throat] >> Yeah. >> What what demographically what do your applicants look like? >> We are representative of um ACPS within
about 10 to 15 percentage points overall. Um, we tend to shade much higher on students with disabilities, 504s included in IEPs. Uh, and we shade much lower on, um, ESOL students. Those
are the sort of the two divergences. Yeah, I was actually just thinking about that with the 504s and the IEPs because my husband and I talk about this all the time that our kids with special needs don't fit into the boxes that society necessarily creates for them in these kind of environments that allow more
exploratory and hands-on learning and this lab idea um really suits kids who don't learn typically. Um, and so that would be a really interesting way to see how that may help our other sped students in our other schools that
aren't in this. Um, taking some of those wins from lab school and how can we implement that in our schools to give these kids a better opportunity. >> Yeah, it's a great point. >> [clears throat] >> The other thing I would say is you this com like the the number of research
partnerships that you have and about two months ago a month and a half ago we had a presentation about the Virginia UVA research practice partnership um and some of the other work of the ones in the state um and there you know there's this evolving model of you know what
researchers want to study in schools to what actually there's a mutually beneficial coming together and I think you know I'm saying this to you but to all of us and I think there's a meeting that they've invited us to just about like as we are approached about research kind of having
this like what are the things that we are also interested in and I think this question that you know Miss Bilman and others brought up of what are the you know what is that magic sauce like you know is it the small uh both class size as well as size of
school probably but are there some other things that are the magic sauce is and then in particularly then how in a school that's housed in a larger school district, how do you pick some of those strategies up? So, you know, I kind of say it for all of us to think about um
Dr. Hayes and um and you and Mr. um uh and and everyone kind of doing this work of as we are kind of re-engaging with the the UVA team, your team, the teams that are working with you directly and then the research practice partnership. I think having conversations with them
about like hey these are things we want to know like how do we come together um and make some agreements so that I used to use a term like research is doing to us instead of with us and I think that's a really important piece. So, >> yeah, for sure. I'm I'm glad you're
asking that question. >> Thank you. >> Anything else? >> Thank you. >> Yeah, thank you so much. >> Thank you so much. We so appreciate it. >> I would I would like to There's someone in the audience who's been very busy um with the team around him. Um um so I
would like to invite Dr. Russell Carlac um back to the podium um and we are going to look at policy IKBA the grading policy part one and we have this marked as part one as I mentioned earlier that this is a draft policy um uh Mr. Dr.
Carl is going to bring us through the same model he did earlier tonight we are not voting on this tonight um it is open for the public. Thank you for everyone who's already given feedback. We encourage you um both in public comment and in in emails to us directly as well
as to Dr. Carl um uh to share um questions, concerns, ideas that you have. This is truly meant to be a collaborative approach. Um so we will have a um presentation on this tonight, a little bit of discussion and then we will have another discussion um uh next
week. >> Thank you Dr. Berlin and thank you members of the school board. Uh we will be talking today about the process by which we came up with the recommendations uh that we're making in the report uh that was prepared evaluating our grading policy as well as
its implementation guidelines. Uh we're going to talk about standardsbased grading. uh Chad Ratliff teed that up a little bit with some of the work that they're doing around grading at Community Lab and then we'll talk about the methods that we use to evaluate our grading policy and practice in Al County
Public Schools. Discuss the key findings and then some recommendations for the board as well as next steps going into next board meeting. So our policy process review process began back in March 26. Um the board requested this review. We did the
comparative policy analysis uh a quantitative regression as well as a teacher survey of all teachers in Alberal County in April. Um in May we conducted six focus groups, three with parents, three with students and we wrote the report up and uh we were scheduled to make the June 11th
presentation. We're giving it tonight. Uh and then the board will offer revisions and finalization. Uh so literature review on best practices in terms of um grading. So, I want to tee this up a little bit with talking about traditional grading system versus standardsbased grading. And I want to say that traditional doesn't mean that
it's older. Both of these grading practices have been around for a long time, over a hundred years. And uh the traditional grading system is just the more common one. It's the one that most of us probably experienced. Some of us may have gone to a different school that did standardsbased grading. Although I will say that most of us probably have
experienced standardsbased grading, too. And I'll talk about that. Um so, the first piece about traditional grading systems, they're variable. Uh so there there's often not a clear policy around how teachers are to grade. It can be very variable across different teachers
and courses in schools. Um so each teacher can sort of grade in their own way. It uses a 0 to 100 point scale. It combines behavior, effort, and work habits with academic outcomes. And often different teachers may weigh those things differently. So some teachers may
privilege participation more. uh some others may make it strictly about academic skills or you might have anything in between. They also average grades from multiple points in time to create a composite across the marking period that represents achievement. Um that is
different than standardsbased grading. So, uh, let's say if you start with, uh, at the beginning of the year and it's very difficult for you, you don't understand, you may be getting Fs, but by the end of the year, you're getting A's, you've learned the material, or maybe it's the end of the quarter. Um, for the year overall, you might get a C
because it's an average of those. Um, standardsbased grading, it's going to be what you were at the end of the year or the end of that marking period. And we'll talk about that as we tr uh look at these two report cards. So on the left is a traditional report card. Mathematics 95% equals a standardsbased
report card gives a score on math and then it goes further to say what the student can do for each of those skills. So uh can they define a number sentence? Can they produce uh can they add two-digit numbers together? So you can see that standardsbased grading gives a lot more information about what students
can do. And you may see that this four to seven categories that standardsbased grades use is what preschools use. My daughter just graduated from preschool. Her report card came home. This is what it looked like. Um you'll also see that in elementary schools, this is what
we're using. We use a standardsbased report card in elementary school. Uh so most of us have experienced both of these types of grading systems. You'll also note that if a a student at the beginning of kindergarten uh doesn't know how to read, but then they learn at
the end, um you don't give them a C because they didn't know at the beginning and they learned at the end. You're grading them on what they could do at the end of the marking period, right? You're showing that growth over time. They also separate academic product standards from work readiness and process standards. So again,
thinking back to preschool, um can the student share with other students? um that's separated out from can this student uh recognize a triangle from a circle. Right? So they're separating out those two things. In a traditional report card, those things might get pushed together. Uh it's a conglomeration of both the social and
process skills as well as the outcome skills that we're looking at. Um it also as we said we update grades throughout the marking period to indicate the current levels of performance on standards in a standardsbased report card. Uh there's a lot of research supporting standardsbased grading. Uh so
categorical scales are more reliable than the 100 point scale. There's research on this that goes back over a hundred years. In fact, it's why we have the letter grade system. Schools used to only use numbers and then they did the research coming out of Mount Holio College and some other places that use standardsbased grading. And they found
out that it was more reliable. The teachers did a better job of interrator reliability when they used a scale system like that that was combined with a rubric than using a 0 to 100 scale that was combined with a rubric. Um, it also separates process and product and that provides more valid grades for
both. Uh, it also parents prefer often the transparency of grades reported on specific standards because it lets them know what their child is strong in and what they need to work on. If I see that a student got a B in math, that's great.
And, you know, what could they have done better on or what could they what what um are they really strong in? I'm not sure, right? But I get to see that in a standardsbased report card. Um, it also helps learning. So there's been research on, you know, classrooms that apply it and randomized control trials that
others that don't. And it is associated with better learning for students when so that they can see their growth. All right. Um, so the question is if it if it's so great, why don't we just do it everywhere, right? Why isn't standardsbased grading something that we do everywhere? Um, there are different ways that divisions have responded to
this research over the last 10 to 15 years. A lot of school divisions change their policies, their grading policies to try to make their traditional grading system more similar to a standardsbased system. Um, some school divisions decided to just continue with traditional grading. So in our peer
districts like York, Lden, Harrisonburg, Road fall in that category. Most uh of our peers adopted a hybrid system. So they didn't go full standardsbased grading. What they tried to do was to take the existing traditional grading system and modify it to incorporate
principles of standardsbased grading. So what does that look like? It looks like a grade floor. So instead of adopting a full categorical system, you truncate the 0 to 100 to make it smaller so that it's more reliable uh is the hypothesis. Um the other piece is that you separate
out grades on achievement from things like is it turned in on time, right? Um there are some districts that fully adopted SBG or standardsbased grading. There's some schools like uh community lab not doing standardsbased grading but going even further and trying compensate
based grading. Um so there are those uh groups out there. They have their own issues and we'll talk about that. So what are the challenges of standardsbased grading at a full district level of a of a district our size? Um one and Chad Ratless spoke to this at the high school level it's really challenging because you're
operating with multiple grading systems. We have to translate whatever grading system we do to what works for our institutional partners in higher education, right? So, we have to translate letter grades uh into GPA for college transcripts. That gets complicated with standardsbased grading uh because you have to create a system
to do that, right? It doesn't just automatically appear. So there's a new layer of subjectivity and inconsistency unless you have really clear protocols of how are you averaging all those different standards into one grade that turns into a quality point for an institutional partner in higher education. Um there's also technical
challenges. Our power school system and most student information systems are not set up to do standardsbased grading well. Um it's it's difficult. It's challenging uh especially at the high school level when you need it to communicate and create transcripts for college. Um the other piece that comes
out of the research is it can be more work for teachers. It adds to teacher workload. Um especially if there's not the proper infrastructure created at the division level to support teachers in implementing it. Um there are particular challenges to systems like ours, a
hybrid system. Um one there is some research that has come out recently that eliminating practice work without reporting on work habits and allowing unlimited retakes can reduce student motivation. uh raising the grade floor without also raising the minimum passing grade
reduces the work necessary to pass a class. So if we're raising that floor but we're not also raising what is a minimum passing grade that makes the the class easier to pass. Uh also teacher and community concerns regarding these
issues. So our questions were you know how do we compare to our peer revisions? What's the relationship between students grade and achievement? hasn't changed since we adopted this policy. How are teachers rating the effectiveness of it? And how do teachers, students, and families describe the impact of the policy on
their learning? Um, our qualitative methods were looking at the 14 peer districts. We also had a teacher survey for all teachers. We had over half of our secondary teachers respond. We did not have many elementary teachers respond, about 10 to 15%. Um, part of the reason for that and one of the
findings is that our elementary teachers see this policy as it exists is really for secondary schools. They don't see it applying to their work very much. And the ones who did respond said that they would like more guidance from the division around specifically how to grade in the elementary school context.
Um, another piece was the focus groups and the qualitative surveys. We had 47 students. We had 28 families participate. um we were able to create categories based on our coding and the frequency of those codes that appeared. Um I want to specify that the quotations we use in
this are representative of the themes that arose across all three groups. So when you read this presentation you might see a quotation from a student. It doesn't mean that represents what the students thought. It represents one of the ideas that came out of all three of these groups. I'm doing that to make it more succinct. But within the school the
actual policy you can see what did students think? what did the parents think? What did teachers think? Uh for our quantitative methods, we used 19,000 student records, uh mapping their so scores back to this the grades that they
received in their course. Um and we took 18/19 as our control group, the one that existed prior to this policy and then we have two post policy implementation to see if that relationship changed at all. U for reading, we looked at grades 6, 8,
and 11. uh and then the so scores in those courses. For math, we looked at grades eight and nine. Um the reason those grade levels were chosen was because about how the SOS map on to the particular courses that students are taking and then we compared that to their end of year so scores. We also um
looked at elementary grades. So we did we averaged all of those standards uh into one composite score for fifth grade and then we compared that to their end of year so score in fifth grade. uh we conducted ordinary le square regression analysis to see what that relationship
was. Um so I'll go through that really quickly. The top line is there's no overall change in grade distribution. So if you look just at grade distribution for everyone there's not a lot of change. There's a little bit there but there's not a lot changing in what in that overall grade distribution. Um if
you look at validity so how well did our grades predict so scores before and after this? There's mixed results. um there was significant statistically significant improvement in secondary reading in terms of grades becoming more accurate and part of that is because
that was the least accurate before. So if you go back to 2018 and 19 our secondary language arts grades were the least likely to map on to what the so scores um for math it really didn't change very much and it actually decreased for fifth grade reading. Uh
but these overall findings really mask the significant differences and impacts for different groups of students. Um the biggest difference is for previous achievement. So if you look if you break our students up into quartiles based on their previous achievement, you can see
that this had a there's evidence that this had a sub significant differential impact on students based on whether they're traditionally high achieving students or traditionally low achieving students in that subject area. So we looked at their previous year's so scores. We broke them up into quartiles.
That first quartile group, you can see those bar charts going down. That means those grades became less accurate predictors of their so scores. The same was true slightly not quite with the same magnitude for our second quartile achievers. But you see the opposite is
true for our lowest achieving students. Grades actually became better predictors of their so achievement for our lowest achieving students. Um, the next chart I'm going to show you is descriptive statistics. So, you can just see what that looks like. Um, and it might make a
little more sense and we can explain it. So, if you see like 2018 and 19 from to 24 and 25, you look at that first group on the left, that's our lowest achieving students. You see those students are actually earning more Fs than they did
before the policy was implemented. and those FS because the regression analysis we know are better predictors of what their actual achievement is. There are a lot of reasons why this could be. The quantitative data tells us what. It doesn't tell us why. So we can look more
at the qualitative data. But then look at the opposite side. If you look at cortile one, our highest achieving students, they are earning more A's than they used to. They're earning more B's than they used to. And their grades are less likely to predict what their so scores were.
So overall conclusions, grades have become more valid for lower achieving students and less valid for higher achieving students. Um so now we're going to look at why that might be based on what the qualitative data tells us. Um first we're going to put ourselves into context. I'll try to do this
quickly. Um for each of the core uh issues that come up in the literature and have come up in our community. So one is around reassessment. So we look at our our peer districts. Arlington um limits it to one per summitive assessment for students below 80.
Fairfax draws the line at 90. Henriiko says you can take um one pre reassessment per test, but it's only for students earning a D and an F and the new score is capped at 70%. Chesterfield limits it to extraordinary circumstances. Um I will say that many
of these school divisions started out with policies similar to ours and recently in the last couple years have modified them and these are the new newly modified um policies. If we look at grade floor um we currently have a grade floor of 50 for
all assignments and final grades. Arlington allows zeros for unsubmitted work, 50s for all work that has been turned in. However, they convert those grades back to quality points each semester for averaging, which puts it on
a categorical scale again for which bumps up those zeros to be closer to a passing grade. Um, Fairfax does something similar. They give 50s for reasonable effort, a zero for unsubmitted work. Um, all grades below
50 are converted back to a 50 at the quarter mark for averaging. Um, I want to say they I'm sure they have reasons for doing it. Part of the reasons that we made the recommendations that we did is this is not very transparent. I think that these particular policies would be
hard for uh the average parent to be able to figure out what grade their child is getting and why they're getting it. Um, so that's why we didn't recommend doing what they're doing. Um, Henri Reicho allows zeros, but at the end of each marking period, uh, the
teacher has to give a remediation plan to the student to raise their grade to a minimum grade for passing. Um, but that's only once per marking period per course. And then Chesterfields allows zeros um, only for unsubmitted work. No deadlines uh, for late work, but there
are penalties allowed for missing summitive assessments. Um, late work, we do not have a clear guideline. Arlington accepts within the teaching unit, but gives a penalty of up to 10%. Um, Fairfax says that PLC teams can set reasonable deadlines and penalties.
Charlottesville, uh, has no grade penalty for late work, uh, but they have to be turned in the quarter they are assigned, and Chesterfield gives only six school days after the deadline, um, with a penalty that is uniform to turn in late work. So, you can see there's a lot of variation across divisions. This
one I'm not going to read everything, but I just want to appreciate the depth of the language that peer school divisions give around parent communication around grades and note that we do not provide guidance on communicating grades to parents and
guardians in our policy itself. Uh, and that's a theme that came up not from the literature but just from the review of where we were out of line in terms of our peers. Um, and that will come up in our recommendations. the all of these peer districts require
teachers to contact a parent if a student is at risk of failing their course. We do not have that in our policy. Um so overall we are a qualitative outlier in the level of detail that we provide on reassessment unsubmitted work versus submitted work accepting late work communicating to
parents elementary grading scale and procedures and a minimum number of assignments uh per quarter uh to give a grade to a student. our focus groups. Um, again, for success of the presentation, I'm not going to go into what each group said. I'm just
going to say overall what were the themes that came up across groups. So, when it comes to reassessment, many teachers and students and parents all said that reassessment is a valuable learning tool. There are many stories around that and that retakes can be helpful for their learning. However,
they also said that in the context of no limitations, it can decrease motivation for students. Uh, and it requires additional time for teachers. Some teachers said that they're spending all of their time uh giving students retakes
that want to get a A from a B. And they really want to be able to spend more time with those students who are struggling. uh but because they have so many students coming in for retakes, they don't have time to give that one-on-one support uh to help them understand what they didn't get the first time. Uh so many suggested that
these retakes continue but they be limited to uh lower performing students in some capacity and have clear limits on their frequency. Uh the next section was on attempted versus not attempted work. Uh so many teachers, students and parents support a
grade floor for attempted work that was substandard. So a student didn't get something but they tried really hard. Um all group said in that in that context a plurality of of the comments were around we understand why you would give a 50 to a student that's working really hard
because a zero is going to make it hard for them to get caught up and that could decrease motivation. However, there was also a plurality that had a believe that it was unfair to give the same grade to that student that worked really hard but
didn't get the assignment to another student that didn't attempt the assignment and they wanted some differentiation between those two. Uh this is an example from our teacher survey just showing the top one shows teachers support for the principles of standardsbased grading. So the primary
role of grading is to communicate progress aligned to standards. We had 88% of our teachers agree with that statement. Very strong agreement. Um but if you look at grading should be calculated using a 50% as the lowest grade. 83% of teachers disagreed with that. And quite a few strongly disagreed
with it. Now I want to say there's nuance there. That doesn't mean that those who said that they disagreed want to go back to traditional grading. Many of them had that nuanced view where they said again I understand a grade floor for a student that's really trying and isn't getting it but I want to distinguish that from a student who's
not work turning in work at all or making a reasonable effort. Uh also there was agreement around clear procedures on late work to pro and the big feedback here from all groups was about consistency. There was discussion
of some teachers will allow students to turn things in six months late. Uh some teachers will say if it's not in by two weeks it's too late and some had even stricter policies. Um many many schools
have policies that are also different from each other and so there was a request for greater consistency. Um consensus arose around clear deadlines making sense having limited grace periods after reasonable penalties for late work. students did say they want a grace period. No, there was there was no
students said that they think they should get a zero uh if they turn something in late. Um but the most students were okay with some kind of grace period and then penalties after that. So overall uh our policy and procedures lacks details and pro procedural
standards that are present in our peer divisions. U we've made gains in validity for our lower performing students. That is something to highlight. That was one of the goals of of this adoption of this policy. Um, however, the opposite is true for our higher performing students. Their grades
have become less valid uh than before. And while there's general support for the core principles of standardsbased grading among staff, students, and teachers, uh, and parents, uh, there are deep concerns about our implementation right now. Um, students are a little
more divided in their perspectives with some supporting the procedures and others calling for change. So our recommendation long-term is to continue to look at standardsbased grading as a superior based on the research model with the understanding
that adopting it for an entire school division of 14,000 students is challenging. And so thinking about how we move in that direction in a way that's responsible looking at the research um and looking at pilots within our own school such as community lab school.
In the short term, amend our current policy to address the most important concerns raised by the community and call for updates to our grading procedures to address these concerns. Uh so our specific policy recommendations, one to add language around communicating
grades to parents and legal guardians. That was a big place where uh we were an outlier. And another is to call for a set of procedures, not guidelines, and adding these as administrative procedures in the schoolboard. So making sure that they're in electronic schoolboard as well. They're not
guidelines. These are administrative procedures connected clearly to this policy um that address reasonable limitations for student reassessments. A minimum grade that differentiates between attempted and unattempted assignments. Regulations on accepting late work from students and requirements
for communication of low performance to parents. Uh and a minimum number of assignments per marking period andor a deadline for posting grades. Uh this is the specific language that we recommend. Uh it it you have a redlinined copy that you can look at. Um
it can be changed. But the first piece is just a general description of explaining the grading system to students and parents at the beginning of each school year and communicating to parents and students on a regular basis uh and evaluation of the students progress towards the academic
objectives. Um this next part is about the specific concerns that the community raised. So looking at reasonable limitations for those reassessments and the other issues that we discussed um also with those procedures. And so our
suggestion would be for the specific language that was provided in the report as a starting point but for the department of instruction to determine what the specific procedures will be and then bring those to you to review next week. Uh it's important to know that those recommendations that are in the
report are made based on existing policy within our peer division division. So it's important for our department of instruction to look at what existing systems we have and think about how to adopt uh and adapt that language to the specific needs of Alam County. Um and
then that would be brought to you for next meeting. So any questions? Are you sleeping at all in the last few weeks? >> I will tonight. I mean, >> we really really appreciate the work that's gone into this. What we heard a
month or two ago when this topic of grading policy first came up was, oh, we've got to make changes. It not necessarily in the policy as much as the practice. And so it's it's great that you've
gotten feedback from students, from parents. Um, one question I'm curious about why you sent out a survey to teachers instead of having a focus group or interviewing teachers.
Any any thoughts there? >> Yeah, so the school board made clear that they wanted uh feedback from teachers, that that was one of their priorities. uh and doing a survey. We weren't sure we could do it at first um but we were able to explore get the
questions together um work with our AEA uh partners to get the survey out and make sure that the teacher voice that every teacher in the school division had an opportunity to weigh in on this. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. And I think that's important. And
one of the things that I discovered in my conversations with about eight or 10 veteran teachers is um they they see a problem that um this
unlimited retakes. This you know floor of a 50 for no work turned in is not only burdensome to them but it also harms the students. the fact grade inflation harms the students. I I know
for a fact in talking to Kathy Kaufman and another teacher from Almor High School, 99 students, rising ninth graders coming to Almor in six weeks have never passed a math so not once.
And yet they are, you know, socially promoted to the next grade level. That's a significant problem. we're not doing those students any favor by passing them on. So, I think we have to implement these these changes. And based on
feedback that we've gotten from teachers, I would say we've got a lot more detailed work to figure out should the floor be a 40 or I've had a number of teachers say it should be a zero. If somebody doesn't
turn in an assignment, they shouldn't get any credit at all. or others have s suggested maybe a 25. Um there's been a lot of discussion as of even today about the retake. Do we
p cap retakes for students who are making below a B or do we allow students making below an A to retake? And what's the right cap for retakes? Do we average the two tests together to two grades
together? So, I think we have a lot more detailed work to do, but overall it's really encouraging to hear that you guys and and we are responding to the concerns of not just the teachers but
former students. You know, we've gotten emails from former students who say, "I arrived at JMU or other universities completely unprepared because guess what? They don't let you take retakes in college." So, I think addressing those
issues is going to be critical. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> One of the things you mentioned is that our elementary teachers would also like greater guidance. Does this policy get there?
>> So, it calls for procedures that address those concerns. Uh, in terms of for next school year, creating elementary grading um implementation guidelines is not possible because we don't have a clear set of guidelines right now that happens
at the division level directly related to this policy. That being said, it is uh on a longer term potentially even for the uh 2728 school year looking at uh providing those sorts of implementation guidelines for elementary teachers. >> Thank you.
>> So is my understanding correct um Dr. Hayes that instruction will work on procedure um and then we'll be able to look at those next week. >> Yes, Mr. Domer and um other members of the department of instruction are
working on some language and updates around um the next steps with procedures and then also um some updates on pulling together the grading committee. >> Fantastic. Thank you very much. >> I know as a school board we've gotten a few emails from teachers since the
revised policy was published. Have you received or the superintendent received feedback from teachers? I'm just curious what their feedback is on the updates and if they have further input past what we've received. >> The I have talked to teachers the sample
size is small so I'm hesitant to say it's representative uh um most teachers feel that I've talked to uh feel that these are common sense changes uh that are appropriate that would uh make
things better for students and for themselves. It doesn't necessarily solve every problem, right? There are still issues here and when we talk about the larger question of grading, it's been a question for a hundred years in our country and we're continuing to move uh hopefully in a better direction. But in
in terms of their general feeling, they they the ones again that I've talked to feel that this is a step in the right direction. >> I guess I would put this out there then for all the teachers that are listening at 9:30 on Thursday night, >> spring break, summer break during summer break. Um, but we would love the
feedback of the teachers over the next week. Um, that would be really helpful for us because we have a different pers I mean, you know, Judy and I still have kids in the system, so we have one perspective, but we're not teachers in the system. Um, so I think it would be really helpful to hear if these changes
are what they're looking for. If are we missing something? Is there something we need to change that would be helpful for us? I was just going to add I've I've heard from a few teachers that and the messages were along the same lines that you what you all shared around the question is you know can I retest after
80 or above you know below 80 or 90. Um and then I have a few meetings coming up with some staff uh current teachers and retired teachers who have reached out that wanted to provide me with some feedback. um some of them are on vacation next week, so we may not have it in time for the meeting, but they
still wanted to contribute as we move towards um setting up the grading committee. >> Is there a way for you to share that feedback with us as um as you're getting it, especially over the next week just for us to consider in our red lines? >> Absolutely. >> Great. >> Anything that's outside of what you've
already written? >> Sure. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, I think it's going to be really important to to get this right knowing that we may need to make changes, you know, trial and error, but I think it it sounds like we're moving in the right
direction. One technical question, maybe this is for Jamie. Is power school are we able to tweak power schools so that teachers can enter >> if if we decide that 25 is the floor or 40 is the floor that that they can enter
that because they can't do that now. >> I I've worked with Mitchell Lincoln who's uh our person over power school and those information systems and we explored some different ideas. One of which was to move right now it's a 50 to
100 it's a 50 point system. Why is it not zero to 50? Right. Right. So, you can still put in a zero. Power school doesn't let us do that. We still have to work with that 100 point scale. Um, but in terms of the the floor, we can set it wherever we want. So, it can still be 25 to 100 as as long as 100 is the top.
>> Okay. >> One of the things I think about just as we're talking about the policy and then the the kind of the procedures and then the the group um the grading group is, you know, that I know Dr. because you're so much even more focused than I am
about this you know this August 12th date that school starts you know teachers come back new teachers the 27th everyone else a little after that is like what is like you know what is possible a little bit like you said Mr. JC like are there a few things that that
we do now like my you know my short-term midterm longterm like there's a few things we do now we test them out I don't know what like those then there's a timing piece I assume it would have to wait till the next school year I don't know and and then we you know get feedback see what other pieces of that
because there's a number of as you showed us there's a number of pieces of this of the procedure that we should look at so are there some that would make the most difference based on the feedback we're getting um to start with and almost like a number that we're going to spend some more time on because
we have more differentiation in the like the results or not the results but the feedback we're getting and then you know then again um to Dr. a cost and you then you kind of do that and then bringing on um elementary school at a later date and
so kind of because that's my piece is like I don't want us to bite off too much >> and have it to and to these points of like oh wait and like power school how do we do these while we're also trying to open schools and so you know if there are my recommendations is if there's a few things that like we have the most
agreement on and matter the most could we start with those and then that plan could be what are those other things we can do with a deadline to say okay we will we will do this type of research as part of that with that committee and then we will bring these on at a ex like name that date. So
>> we do have some um schools with departments that are like early adopters and trying this work and so one of the things we talked about is [clears throat] working with principles to identify either you know their school or departments within their school to pilot um some of these recommendations
and then provide that feedback to the grading committee. So this is more of an iterative process versus just something that's static. >> Yeah, >> appreciate it. >> I guess I have a question about expectations around procedure around these procedures.
>> Um because the policy language in the report that we're reading is our [clears throat] policy, our schoolboard policy and to put the procedures within ESB. But my understanding is that other of those
types of procedures are not they're made procedures so that we can't slow down the system basically so that the operational side can make quick adjustments as necessary. So as procedures are brought to us next
week, what are we to do with them? >> Like I think the policy language is what we're supposed to be concentrating on, right? So what is the expectation for the board next week? >> I think so. The the policy would be the
language here that we presented today and you all would vote to determine whether or not that you want to add that to the policy. The procedures would be for your review. And correct me if I'm wrong, my understanding is that the superintendent can change procedures.
Um, and this the school board always can review it, but it's under the purview of the superintendent in terms of operationalizing what the procedure looks like. That's right. I mean, code makes a distinction between policy and procedure. And it requires that policy
be reviewed and approved by the school board. It does not require procedure to be reviewed and approved. However, in my experience over nearly 3 years now, when rules or procedures are updated, they are brought before you and you do get a
chance to weigh in on them. Um, but there are times when we don't want to go where a change to procedure is so timesensitive that we want to expedite the process and not do what we do with policy, which is bring it up once for information and then bring it back at a
subsequent meeting for action. and we think we can get our teachers on board and up to speed on these new procedures by the school year. >> I wouldn't say it's reasonable to get all of our teachers up to speed. Um, but
I think it is a reasonable expectation to identify those that are ready, willing, and able to implement this these new changes and recommendations with fidelity by the new the new school year. >> Other comments, questions?
So again, just a reminder particularly to the teachers, but all kind of public as well as students. Um uh uh everything is available kind of online um through the um school board viewing agenda um
with the presentations that um were made today. Um so we ask you um to spend some time with those and um message the school board u message uh Dr. pays um about uh suggestions, recommendations,
ideas, concerns about this policy and the other policy. Um and then we will um come back next uh board meeting which is next Thursday um to discuss this as well. Um and we will uh there's not a public hearing on this. The public
[clears throat] hearing is on the other one, but this is also something that you can come and share in public comment as well. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you so much. >> Is there anything else? Um any other
business before the school board tonight? >> I think we covered a lot of territory. >> Yes, I think we covered a lot of territory. Um so, thank you to everyone um online um and in the um auditorium.
And I will now state that this uh meeting is adjourned. Thank you so much.