A huge thank you to our our Albemarle High School string string crew tech, who we will hear be hearing a little bit more about in a few minutes. So with that, I would like to bring our March 26 work session back to order, and we will, begin with our, our closed meeting motion. I move that the board certify by a recorded vote that to the best of each board member's knowledge, only public business matters lawfully exempted from the open meeting requirements of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act and identified in the motion authorizing the closed
meeting were heard, discussed, or considered in the closed meeting. Do I have a second to that? Second. Moved by miss Spillman, seconded by miss Lee. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Thank you so much. We will open our meeting today, with our roll call, and that is when we go around the dais, to both introduce ourselves as well as to do a mic and a voice check for those, in the auditorium, as well as those online, so they can match a name with a face. I'm going to start, with miss Erin Stone today.
Erin Stone, assistant division council, sitting in for school board council today. Matthew Haas, superintendent. Bob Beard, Samuel Miller District. Jim Dillinbeck, RIO District. Allison Spellman, at large representative. Rebecca Berlin, Whitehall District. Ellen Osborne, Scottsville District. Judy Lee, Raimanda District. Kate Acuff, Jack Jewett District. Patrick McLaughlin, assistant superintendent. Dan Redding, chief HR officer. Oh, Christine Thompson, clerk of the board. Thank you so much. We will now stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the
republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Before we move to our moment of silent silence, could we just make sure we pull down the school board is currently in closed meeting time? Thank you. We will now pause for a moment of silence before we begin our meeting. Thank you so much. The next piece of our agenda is the approval of our agenda. Do I have a motion for the approval of tonight's agenda? I move we approve the agenda. Thank you, miss Lee.
Do I have a second? Second. Moved by miss Lee, seconded by miss Billman. All those in favor of tonight's agenda? Aye. Any opposed? We will move forward with tonight's agenda. The next, piece on our, agenda tonight is, announcements, and we are going to start with a spotlight on education. I'm gonna ask miss, Damah Schneider, the curriculum coordinator of for fine arts to come forward. Good evening, board. Damon Schneider. Sorry. We never know. I'll just project. I'll use my teacher voice. Yes. Tonight, you all were able to hear, some of the Albemarle High School, orchestra quartet.
We had on violin, Alex Chen and Joanna Kim. On viola, Alyssa Lee, and on cello, Amy Wong. They were should I put this down? Oh, no. Okay. They got half of them got stuck in traffic on the way here, so there was a little bit of some, nerves going on there. But, they did a beautiful job and actually are now already packed up. So, thank you for letting them come and represent, Music in Our Schools month. Just a little bit of some of the things that are going on with, with
music and other performing arts events coming up. First of all, we'll just because he's here, honor Alex Chen. He made it to Allstate Virginia Orchestra along with another student from Monticello, two, band student from Monticello, a band student from Western, two band students from Albemarle, four chorus students from Monticello, three chorus students from Western, and two chorus students from Albemarle High School also made their All State ensembles.
So definitely something to celebrate. That event will be happening in Richmond, April 16 through the eighteenth is, the workshop and rehearsal time for the students, and the performances happen on the eighteenth at the Richmond Convention Center. If you're interested in more information, let me know. I'm happy to share that with you. Also, big, fun things going on tomorrow night is Arts Fest in the West at Western Albemarle High School. It'll be from six to nine. The music mosaic at Monticello High School will be, at 07:00. That's a fundraiser for their, Trium group, which is, the student association.
And then on Sunday is the Albemarle High School swing into spring event at at the Paramount, and this year, it's gonna be at 03:30 in the afternoon instead of in the evening and should be a really fun show. And that is also a fundraiser, and I can't remember which, organization they're fundraising for this year, but it's always a fantastic event. What you're seeing in front of you here is a beautiful piece of artwork done by a middle school student, Isabelle Wong, who is gonna come up and say hello in just a second.
This went into a a contest, the the Virginia School Board Association regional art contest that happens every year. There are nine school board association regents in the state of Virginia. The, last week was the networking forum at Louisa High School. Okay. Where Isabelle, her piece of art won for the middle school, Thank you. For the middle school entry for the region the Central Region.
After all of the forums are done, May 12 is the last one, all first place winners will go into this is only the second annual statewide contest that will happen or that has happened. All of those first place winners for each of the levels, elementary, middle, and high school, will go into their own contest statewide. And in early June, there will be a press release, and the winners of each of those will be recognized in July 6 on July 16 at the, Virginia School Board Conference on Education. The winners will receive a commemorative trophy and an a thousand dollar award.
So fingers crossed that Isabelle's amazing piece of art is the winner. Isabelle, would you like to come say hi? I mentioned at the beginning, that it is Music in Our Schools Month. It is also Youth Art Month. And so this is, thank you for letting me highlight just a little bit of all of the wonderful things that happen in our schools. Oh, and I hope you all were able to make it to the art shows that we just took down on Monday. They were at Crozet Library and Northside Library for this month. What do I say? I don't know. What do you wanna say?
Do you wanna say anything about your piece? Talk to us about your piece of art. So I just saw this piece on Pinterest, and I was like, oh, this will be fun to draw. So oh, my God. We're loud now. So I just saw this piece on Pinterest and I was like, oh, this will be fun to draw. So, like, I drew it. Beautiful. I know how else to explain it. It just it looked cool. How long did it take you to draw that? Probably, like, two hours. Wow. My mom kept distracting me during it, though. And do we see your art teacher Yes. Back there? Yep.
And also here is, miss Anita Nixon, the art teacher at Lakeside Middle School. Welcome. Thank you. How long have you been drawing? I don't know. I did. I started an art class outside of school when I was, like, eight, nine. I don't know. Something around that. But, like, I really like drawing when I was a lot younger. It's a beautiful piece. It is a beautiful piece. You do. Very funny. Yes. Good luck. Thank you. Good luck and congratulations. Thank you so much. Thank you all. Thank you so much.
And I know this board is, it is important for this board to continue to support the arts. So thank you so much for everyone. And I also know that there are a number of musicals, coming up. So make sure you are checking out the the calendars on our website, and supporting your local, theater and, music productions. The next piece on our agenda is our school board superintendent and committee updates. Do we have any school board superintendent or committee updates?
Yep. Sorry about that. I just had a quick little presentation. No. It our mouse take, like, ten, five That's good. Five, eight minutes. Our mouse died at the perfect time. Is that it? Oh, yes. Thanks, Christine. You're awesome. Alright. Also, did we introduce Carrie Finnigan? Orchestra teacher. Built she built the orchestra program. I've worked with Carrie now for twenty four years, I think. She she built it. She's the originator of orchestra, really, as a solid rock solid program in Albemarle County
Schools. When I was new at Albemarle, she was starting out with me and I'm pretty close, but one class at, what was, Sutherland at that time and one at Jack Toowett. And so she started out not not full time and started building that program, like, one class at a time. Then we shared staffing with the middle schools to get to start it at Albemarle. And it's a thriving program. I mean, the kids are doing amazing work, and she I've always thought of her
just as a genius to be able to pull that off. And, one of my children was in her program for a couple of years, And, just an amazing teacher. And it just shows you what what teachers can do. I mean, they they just make they make magic, really, with that work. And I've always loved working with Carrie. She's so passionate about the kids learning and really having high expectations for them. Just real quick. I so, actually, earlier in the week, I did make a visit to Journey Middle School, and this was just a shot from their sixth grade science class.
The students are doing very hands on work, and it's all about protecting the watershed. And it's hands on materials where they're building their own barriers to, rain, rain stormwater runoff and trying to keep chemicals from getting into streams, which eventually would go there. And, you could tell a little bit from the kids that their hands are in there and the expression on one student's face that's at the table. But they were the noise level in the room and the excitement was just tangible, and I love to go in there to make that visit.
They're doing amazing work. I also wanna just highlight yesterday something that really impressed me, and it's part of our scholar studio program that we're, working through. The teacher you see all the way to the right, that's Brooke Hartsell. She teaches issues of the modern world at Albemarle High School social studies class, but it's it's the entry class for the impact studio, which is all about, social justice, leadership, community leadership. And these are ninth graders.
And, I asked, Christine to, like, circulate their projects around, if you wanna just kinda leaf through them. The level of work that they're doing, they're looking at Iran and US conflict, which they were doing they started their project. The one group that we looked at was starting their project as the conflict was starting. US China trade relations, Israel Palestine conflict, the climate crisis, US immigration policy. These kids were amazing. The work that they were doing. I would say that, the work was highly relevant.
It couldn't be more relevant. I love history. I love reading about history, but I'm really excited. The kids are doing a social studies class in ninth grade that's not world history. They're they're studying the present day so they can start to make attachments to what all that history they've already had through the school years. They deeply researched their work. We grilled them with all kinds of questions. And if it was just a matter of going into chat GPT and spitting out reports, The the level of poise that they had and the their their ability to
to turn on a dime to respond to something was just amazing, and they were passionate about it too. It wasn't just presentations from students. It was really a learning experience, and it was aligned to clear standards. I asked the students, what will you what's your grade gonna be? They said, we're not gonna be graded on this. We're gonna be told we're gonna get feedback from you, doctor Hawes, and feedback from you, and you, and you, and then, guess what? We'll get to do it over. It's not just a one and done. We're gonna work on this until we get it right. And as soon as, you know, as you know, as soon as you put a
grade on something, the oftentimes, the learning stops. The student just moves on. But they're gonna get feedback on the specific standards of their work, their presentation, and they were they were after it. They wanted to have a great presentation. These students presented on the climate crisis. They had to work together. They had to engage in complex thinking, produce high level work, and there's no level for this class. It's just issues of the modern world. It's not basic issues of the modern world.
It's not average or academic or honors. These kids come in from middle school. They wanna take the class. They wanna get engaged in this topic, which is amazing in and of itself, and they're all in class together. Maybe they're broken up during the rest of the day. I hope not, but there there's no leveling in this class. They come in and they do the work, and they work to the standard. Immigration policy, Amazing work. And I talk about this because this, I had a super exciting conversation about leveling,
yesterday. Because when I first came to Albemar, leveling was a hot topic. It was, can we can we can we remove leveling? Can we do it? It's so hard to remove leveling. It's part of our culture. You have five levels of English in in a high school. I'm I'm not kidding. And so but where do those levels start? They don't start in high school. They they don't that's not where they start. I as a high school person, I thought that's where they started. I don't know about you, but they started elementary school. Or I should say, they start TED in elementary school, past TEDs.
I ran into, Karen Heathcock and and Andrea Blunt Andrea Blunt this morning in the stairwell because I'd I had been looking at the re the most recent reading results for the third quarter from Woodbrook, and it's just blowing my mind how much progress the earlier grades are making. Fifth grade, still, you know, because I think it's more on the old model of of actually of leveling. So a lot of it was leveling. And, I was talking to them, and I said, you know what occurs to me
is we don't talk about leveling anymore. And they said, that's because in elementary school, there's no more leveling of reading groups. I don't know about you, but when my children started school at Agner, they they were in they would either be in the sunflower group, the bluebird group, the, you know, the cardinal group, whatever. But the issue with that was, it was called leveled reading. Students took an assessment right from the beginning. You got labeled at a level, and you pretty much stayed there. And for most for a lot of people, that was fine because they were labeled
even if it took five or six bluebird groups, especially when parents would push in, to accommodate all the bluebirds, and they would get the grade level reading, or they would get the above grade level reading, and they kept making progress. Well, when you teach with the science of reading, you you don't abide by levels, because the expectation is all the students will meet the same standard. So you can't level them anymore, and be and it wasn't successful to level because you would always have your level of reading, or worse, lower, just so you could read something.
And then it stayed that way, followed them all the way through middle school and on into high school, where we wonder why we don't see diversity and representation in our, college level classes. So looking at this student, he's a first grader. Now my experience with first grade mo for most of my life is that students are not writing complete sentences to begin with. Not only that, but he told his teacher he wanted a challenge. He was going to use dialogue. He used that term as a first grader.
He said, I'm going to write dialogue. And you can see he's trying to write dialogue, which is a meta skill when it comes to writing because you're not just writing about what you're writing about, you're writing about what someone said in what you're writing about. And his effort in using punctuation to try to tackle that is admirable. Again, he's not gonna get graded on it though. I wanna point that out. He's he's gonna keep working on it because that's what we do in elementary school. We get we start giving grades in middle school and high school. But in elementary school, he won't be graded on it.
He'll be measured on his proficiency, and he'll get feedback till he gets it right. That student in first grade is gonna have dramatically different opportunities because of where he he is in first grade, learning to read, learning to write. Soon, he will be reading to learn, getting interested in topics like issues of the modern world, or maybe he'll be interested in math and science or medicine because of the reading and the access to the curriculum that he's gonna have. That's the changes that you're looking for as a school board.
That's it's leveling the playing field, but it's unleveling. It's because it's unleveling. He's learning according to standards, not based not getting stuck in a static group based on where he started as a kindergartner. Just coming back to this group, we talk about the model UN. I couldn't get a picture of the whole room, but the diversity represented at Albemarle High School in this issue is the model. That that's that is the model you met. That is the diversity. There are students from all over the world in that class. Again, not leveled, all working on the same standards.
And again, this leadership that we see of the present day and and moving forward. And, of course, I just snuck a quick picture of our orchestra kids because that's not leveled either. Alright. Thanks. I'm done. Thanks for my my whole I appreciate it. Thank you so much, doctor Haas. You both agree, Gord. Thank you. Are there other school board, superintendent, or committee updates? Just today, both, Rebecca Berlin and I were at Albemarle High School, where they were
having the capstone project presentations from the Sol Studio. I did not there were, like, 12 or 14 of them. I did three, but saw a, a problem solving about teaching young people to swim, with the Ben Heir Foundation, a three d printed, device to improve your goal your tennis tossing up and serving, and then an ergonomically designed cart for trash cans and
garden tools for a lot of rural the students' rural, elderly, neighbors that she was going to she she did incredible engineering work on it. But I know doctor Berlin had some other Yeah. Went to some other ones. I also had the opportunity to do one that was my absolute favorite because even after having two two students in AHS and being a board member, for a few years, I still get lost every time I walk into the building. And so, her presentation was about what can we do to solve that problem?
And is there a better way to, create signage for the school so that it's easier for anyone, be it if they speak English or not, they have a disability or not, they're new to the school, they're a parent to the school, how can we make it just a friendlier, easier place to be? And so again, Sol's studio is our engineering. And so it was, you know, from this example, the example of these four projects, these students are able to take it in so many ways. And one of the things we hear from our business partners is it is the
content they want them to have. Right? But if you asked our business partners, when, when we did the original work, for, ACE Academy at Lansdale Lane, they kept talking about the, and I always hate this term, but the soft skills, right? Those things about presentation skills, about problem solving skills, about, you know, answering different difficult questions, skills. And we saw that. And I think one of the things you are, you will see as, as we continue to, to go deep, into this kind of enrollment, employment, enlistment, particularly employment side
of our studios is how, and I think Doctor. Haas just talked about this is like students are motivated in so many different ways, right? And this project based learning that they're doing as a part of our studios really is, is touching on some of those things. And was, I was super proud. And so if you ever have the ability to my peers or to, to those in the audience, if you're a parents or grandparents, or just community members as we have open houses from our studios, they're absolutely amazing what these students are doing, and what they're learning.
And I'm so proud to have this as part of our curriculum within Baltimore County. Other comments? I was just going to say doctor Berlin and I presented the school board budget to the board of supervisors on the sixteenth, and there are still two town halls we'd encourage the public to go to, make your voice heard, about, what's important to you. There's well, there's one tonight during the school board meeting that we can't make. That's at Yancey Community Center, but then there's one on the thirtieth at Lakeside, and I believe Jim and Judy will be attending that one.
And then there's one on April 2 at Albemarle High School that I'm planning to attend. So, if you guys can, make it, we encourage the public to go to those and, let the board of supervisors know to fully fund our budget. That's all. Any other committee school board updates? I, visited Red Hill Elementary today. I wanna thank the wonderful Paula Gately for showing me around. She's a rock star. Is it what is one of the best things of a new brand new school board member to go and visit our schools and talk to the students and meet
everybody. They have something called a tree hall outside the school where they're doing, sustainability work, when the weather is good. They also have one fifth grade class at Red Hill, which is next year. It's gonna be two fifth grade classes. So they're trying to, put a wall in a large classroom to make room for two fifth grade classes rather than having a trailer. And I also went to Ivy Elementary, last week or the week before that, and all the there was a low of wonderful things going on in that school as
we all know. It's, great scores coming out of Ivy. And I met a couple of, kids in the the library, the media center who do the news for, the the bluebird news for the kids at Ivy. And as a former newsperson, I gave him some tips Did you say did you give them some tips? How to get some good bloopers. So Uh-huh. Thank you to, Jennifer Underwood for a wonderful tour of my kids' alma mater, Ivy Elementary. Thank you. Oh, I think I think all of the, media centers are gonna sign you up for their, media center training for their news and and and radio broadcast, Bob.
I'm gonna do it. Okay. Okay. For free. Oh, did you all hear that? For free. Our next, topic on our budget on our budget. Obviously, budget is on my mind tonight, is our public comment. But I am going to read a statement before we do public comment with Ms. Osborne. As many of you know, we sent a letter to families to encourage them to engage with the board of supervisors and the school board around the process of budgeting. In that letter, we noted that the board of supervisors trajectory of reducing the level of tax revenues dedicated to schools is particularly troubling.
We mentioned that program cuts would likely become necessary should that trend continue. One of the ongoing costs we mentioned is the necessity to fund the collective bargaining agreement. Fair and reasonable agreements that the AEA negotiated in good faith based on our current revenue shares the schools expected to receive. We heard from many ACPS staff who rightly pointed out that the language used in the letter can be interpreted as the school board positioning the CBA as a constraint against our ability to meet the needs of our students. We want to emphasize that we do not hold any such view as a board.
Please let us be clear in no uncertain terms that the CBA is integral to establishing a quality public education system. Our teachers and staff are the backbone of the division. The CBA gives them the voice they deserve so that they can provide the the compensation and working conditions needed to make ACPS a desired place of employment. That is why we sought the right to engage with the AEA and entered into a collective bargaining agreement for the next three years. The collective bargaining agreements are not a detriment to achieving our goals as a school
division. Rather, they are essential to those ends. We are committed to funding the CBA as a top priority because we understand that attracting and retaining quality teachers and staff is not a sunk cost, but is instead a strategic investment, an investment we support and remain committed to as a board. To all the ACPS teachers and staff and to all AEA members, thank you for your service to the students and families of Albemarle County Public Schools. And now, miss Osborne. Yes. We have, time for public comment. We welcome public input at our school board meetings.
To sign up to speak during the public comment period, you can do so in several ways. You can do so in online by that sign up is available from 9AM on the Monday of the meeting week until 2PM on the meeting day. You can call us, school board clerk's office, (434) 972-4055 to sign up until 2PM on the meeting day, or in person. You can sign up. That is available from 6PM until the public comment period right now. Please note that public comment is not received at special board meetings unless specified on
the agenda. Each speaker will have three minutes to speak, but the chair with the board consent may reduce it to two minutes if there are a lot of people. The maximum number of people or groups that may speak at a meeting is 20. In the event that there are more than 20 people or groups who wish to speak, each speaker will be assigned a number, and numbers will be drawn to determine which people or groups will have the opportunity to speak. Those who do not have the opportunity to speak at a particular meeting may sign up to speak at a subsequent meeting and or may submit written comments for the school board's consideration.
So speakers should state your name in either your address or your voting district. You need to address the comments to the school board as a whole, and limit comments to the school board governance or school division operations, and you can provide written statements and supporting materials to the clerk. School board will use a timer to track each speaker's time. Once the time is up, speakers are asked to wrap up their comments. To maintain respect, please refrain from clapping or the audible forms of support. You may raise your hand instead, and debate with the school board is not allowed.
And the projection system is for staff presentations only. So we have seven people on our list tonight. I will tell you that some folks are listed that they wanna talk about grading policy. I don't know if you've seen that, but that's already been pulled off of the consent agenda. You still tell us what you think, but that's obviously, not happening on the consent agenda tonight. The first three speakers will be Jimmy Beaulieu, Alicia Salinas, and Holly Odom. In that order, but I don't see mister Baloo here.
So how about Alicia Salinas? Good evening. I'm Alicia Salinas, a Spanish teacher at Western Albemarle High School in my eighth year in the county. I've implemented the grading policy at both the middle and high school levels. Tonight, I requested the board only approve an amended grading policy informed by teacher feedback. While many teachers fully subscribe to the philosophies behind the grading policy, we have grave concerns that the guidelines in practice are not meeting the policy's intended goals. I want to reaffirm that we all want a student centered learning environment. Teacher voices and concerns are not obstacles to student centered education.
Rather we are partners who support our students each day. To me, student centered means that we support students to lead successful lives beyond high school. In my building, I hear the frustration that we are not preparing students for real world deadlines and performance expectations. Our policy fails students if it does not help them build the executive functioning skills vital to success in both academic and workplace environments. The policy actually undermines the development of these skills. Students actually act actively learn bad habits from the retake policy guideline five with retakes. Many students try for a good grade without studying first, then use the retake as
a fail safe if necessary. The constant options of retakes sets up false expectations for college level academic work. In the seven years I taught undergraduate Spanish at UVA, our course syllabi stated no late work and never mentioned retakes. Students were expected to take responsibility for studying and seeking help before their assessments. I fear our students would have no idea how to approach cumulative midterms or final exams in college. In the workplace, no one hopes for a colleague who consistently requires two tries to finally get the work right. Students already have time to make mistakes, ask questions, and get feedback during the formative
part of a learning cycle. It's excessive to provide multiple opportunities during assessment as well. Additionally, the retake guidelines lack nuance, like subject specific considerations. For example, speaking and writing assessments in world language classrooms are naturally competency based. Student performance reflects their cumulative daily practice with the language. Allowing retakes on these assignments mislead students about the nature of language learning as they will not be able to make meaningful gains by the time of the retake. There are other issues. Although the policy seeks to communicate accurate grades, retakes inflate grades with second time advantage.
I've also observed more instances of cheating during retakes than during regular classroom instruction or assessments. High quality as instruction is one of the best indicators of successful student outcomes. Sadly, the current policy cuts into time for high quality instruction. Additionally, teachers and students as well have unmanageable workloads as we simultaneously juggle past, present, and future assessments. The workload is not simply disagreeable. It makes it impossible to do all that we are expected to do well. I live outside of the county in a division where my own children attend school. There is no retake policy.
As a parent, I'm glad for that. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Holly Odom. Nervous. Okay. You got this. Yeah. I'm gonna say I like We're friendly. For the one time listener, first time caller. No. Okay. Okay. Hi. Thank you for taking your time to listen to me today. My name is Holly Odom, and I've been at Greer Elementary since 2019. Actually, just drove from Greer, for my daughter's student conference, just a few minutes ago. A friend told me to this week that vulnerability begets vulnerability. So I'm holding out hope that you will remember Greer Elementary as a unique school.
And in the middle of critical progress that cannot be interrupted, Greer has to be protected. Just forty eight hours ago, our principal, Steve Saunders, was asked by superintendent Matthew Haas to leave his position leading Greer at title one school in Albemarle's Urban Rink in order to replace the retiring principal at Crozet Elementary, not title one. You as our elected school board need to know we are not okay at Greer about this, and we will not stand by by the shortsighted and disrespectful ask by superintendent Haas to disrupt our games. As our as our school board, I know you oversee the superintendent's hiring and tenure,
and your actions continually renewing superintendent Haas shows you value stability for leadership and retention. However, this decision by superintendent Haas is not in line with your value of stability and retaining compassionate educators. Point me to the data. Point me to the recommendations for ending achievement gaps that are impacting students of color from the Bellwether Report. It's not there to support this decision. Superintendent Haas' propensity for shuffling principal leadership around every five to six years is not data driven and is not nurturing a school community of accountability, transparency, and a culture
of belonging. You and I know time is precious. That's why I only have three minutes instead of five. If we can agree on that, why would you choose to move a gifted leader trained in managing the complex title one school to Crozet, and then give us, Greer, the task and the burden of the search and the transition? With one phone call, superintendent Haas essentially said, I'm putting the burden on Greer Elementary. They will take the loss. It is as if you traded it all, all the hard work by our teachers and staff under principal Saunders for your immediate gratification.
To be clear, I would like to talk more about that kindness that radiates from principal Saunders, but and how he lives his job like a calling. But I fear that anything I say more about his amazing leadership will be thrown back in my face saying, well, that's why the superintendent made this lateral move. I employ you as members of the school board to not be fooled by that logic. Choose to be curious and brave. Do not settle for these decisions are never easy. In this situation, the most generous interpretation is superintendent Haas has forgotten about Greer. If you truly seek to know who we are and what principal Saunders is building,
you would not have thrown it all away to fix Crozet. I implore the school board to come together and encourage superintendent Haas to reconsider this decision. And at the very minimum, I ask you to recognize this. Trust has been broken, and it is not easily fixed. It has been lost at Greer. You put us in an impossible situation, but as Greer geckos, we will go to school because that is what we do. And we will work hard because as they say in Star Wars, rebellions are built on hope. Thank you. Next, we have Beau Odom, Melinda Smith, and Megan Durkee.
In that order. Hi. I'm Bo Adam. I'm I'm her spouse. She said it way better than I can. I am the, assistant dean for curricular initiatives and student success at the University of Virginia's College of Arts and Sciences, and I'm a proud parent of a third grader and a kindergartner at Greer. I'm here tonight to ask the board to reconsider the superintendent's decision to reassign principal Steve Saunders away from Greer. I'm gonna echo some of Holly's thoughts. Greer is a title one school. That designation is isn't just a budgetary category. It's a recognition that families it serves face significant economic hardship and that the children
in that building day to day often carry instability with them when they walk through the door. What a title one school needs above almost anything else is a steady, trusted, committed leader. Mister Saunders has been that. Under his leadership, Greer has made meaningful progress in student outcomes, in school culture, and in the trust that families like mine have placed in that building. That progress didn't happen by accident. It happened because of sustained intentional work by a principal who knew his community, earned its trust, and built something real over time. There's a real need at Crozet Elementary, and I understand why the superintendent feels pressure
to act. But moving a proven leader out of a title one school to solve a problem somewhere else is not a solution. It is a transfer of harm. It takes from the students who are most vulnerable and least equipped to absorb the disruption. Leadership transitions in Title One schools don't just slow momentum. They can erase it. Addressing Crozet's challenges cannot and should not come at the expense of Greer's children, especially when Greer serves children who have the least margin for disruption in their lives. Crozet Elementary is a desirable school and a desirable community.
It should be able to attract strong leadership through a proper search. If the district lacks confidence in that process, that is a question about district leadership, not reason to sacrifice Greer. I have to ask this board directly, why isn't the district finding a different solution for Crozet? I'm asking this board with the authority you hold over district leadership decisions to reverse this reassignment and keep principal Saunders at Greer Elementary. The Children at Greer are title one students, Children facing real economic hardship, Children for whom school may be the most stable place in their lives.
They deserve no less investment, no less continuity, and no less committed leadership than any other child in this district. Do not make them pay the price for a decision that didn't have to be made this way. Thank you. Thank you. Melinda Smith. Good evening. My name is Melinda Smith and I've been teaching high school science in Albemarle County Schools since 2015. In that time, I've taught students with widely varied levels of skills, goals, and past academic success ranging from ninth grade earth science to chemistry to AP environmental science. I'm speaking today with regards to the proposal put forth at the last school board
meeting by division leadership to approve the use of grading policy IKBA and and its associated guidelines for another five years without changes. I understand it has been pulled from this week's consent agenda, but I'd like to speak on it anyway. I'm deeply troubled that there was no communication with stakeholders regarding this proposal and no data gathered or presented to the board regarding student outcomes or policy and guideline implementation. Personally, I think that while the policy itself is well intentioned, the guidelines set forth in the grading handbook actually contradict the policy and lead to significant issues with regards
to student outcomes. However, as a science teacher, I value data and evidence over anecdotal stories and personal feelings and therefore created a survey for the high school faculty to find out whether the majority of teachers are supportive of or opposed to the current policy rather than simply speaking on my own experiences and concerns tonight. A copy of the same survey was shared with middle school teachers and in the past week, 211 high school teachers and 93 middle school teachers have responded representing teachers across all content areas. And their response has proven not alone. 100% of those high school teachers and 96.7%
of the middle school teachers answered no to the question, do you believe the current grading policy should be adopted for another five years without changes? Only three out of 304 teachers who responded said yes. The survey did not attempt to gather information regarding any recommended changes to the policy or guidelines, but I did ask teachers to provide feedback on why they felt the policy needed updating. I've shared the full data and responses with you all via email, but I want to say now that the majority of responses expressed concern that the policy and guidelines leave our students lacking key workplace readiness skills necessary for life post high school, not
just college, but life in general, and result in grades that misrepresent student understanding. I urge you to both reject this proposal, not just move it to another meeting, but outright reject it, and address the failure by central leadership And next is Megan Durkee. Hello. My name is Megan Durkee. I'm here as a parent. I have a six year old daughter who is in kindergarten at Mountain View Elementary,
and a two year old son who will be following in her footsteps as well. And I'm here in response to the email that was mentioned earlier about budget decisions and community input. I just wanted to share my input in response to that. So first of all, thank you for sending that and giving the opportunity to provide such input. I wanted to first share you know, I share the concerns about the $9,000,000 budget cut. And in direct response to the email, I wanted to talk about the services and priorities that are most important to me and my family. Generally, the most important thing to us is supporting teachers in the classroom.
And, specifically, to do that, to do that, what's important to us is class sizes, foreign language programs, and intervention services for students who need them. The email we received also raised some questions for me about the budget. And so in particular, the language that stuck out was, over recent years, the county has shifted its funding priorities by reducing the school division's historical share of tax dollars to fund other government programs and reserves. So that language stuck out to me, and so I'm here to find out a
bit more about that, and to say that for my fam my family, the most important thing for us to spend our tax dollars on is education. So thank you very much for the opportunity. That's all I have to say. Thank you. And, the last one is Heidi Gilman Bennett. Hi. Heidi Gilman Bennett, Samuel Miller District. I'm speaking first in my role as an officer of family council. On the grading policy that appears on the consent agenda for action or did appear for action with no family council urges you to say no to approving the policy
in a rush. Since the policy was approved during the pandemic with few questions and little input, Family council has requested information to understand the rationale and data on whether it is working. We have not taken a for or against stance because what we want is for central office leaders to get feedback from all secondary teachers on what is working and what is not. From a family perspective, our kids grades are not communicating whether they are mastering the content. We would like to see data on student outcomes, both academic and motivation.
Has the policy achieved those outcomes? And only after those steps are taken should ACPS consider policy changes and official implementation procedures. Now let me speak personally about the process, which I believe has been a failure. At your last meeting this policy was brought up very briefly at 09:30PM. Leaders first acknowledged that grading practices are a major concern to stakeholders and then proceeded to place the exact same policy with no revisions on this week's consent agenda asking
you to approve it without further discussion. I personally published a very popular Substack post on grading for equity. I urged families who were concerned to contact the school board and also received 55 responses to a survey, which I have sent to you as a sample of our community's strongly held beliefs, which are varied. Grading for equity has raised massive firestorms of controversy across The US. Shoving this policy through here via consent agenda is just wrong. It's even your, even your former grading champions didn't know this was happening.
It's a surefire way to gut confidence in district leadership. Our teachers are the frontline workers and they have in-depth input that will improve grading and student outcomes. Not asking for engagement is insulting. It will also lead to failure in implementation. I am deeply frustrated with ACPS division leaders not doing the work that both policy and practices to see if they're good for our kids, for our teachers, for our community. Personally, I actually believe grading for equity has many positive elements, but this policy is
far too vague and it's not going to succeed simply because of the failed process. I strongly encourage the school board to hold division leaders accountable for engaging with both families and educators as genuine partners. That's how our kids will succeed. Thank you. Thank you. That concludes our public comment. Thank you so much. If I may, doctor Berlin, I just wanna correct some facts. At the last meeting, we did, address the board during the policy item. The board asked us to include a red line in the policy that would state
that, as a part of the policy, we would establish an ongoing committee made up of school staff. That is part of the policy that is not that is now not on the consent agenda. So we've I I think there were, some misunderstandings, around what is actually happening, but the items that people called for tonight are already underway. I've seen several emails go out from doctor Hayes in response to emails from constituents telling them that we are establishing an ongoing committee that will meet forevermore, to work
on the grading policy, the guidelines, and it will include teachers from all the secondary schools to get input on how things are going and to keep making adjustments. Again, I assume a 100% responsibility that, when we implement a change like that in the midst of a pandemic, trying to help our students, particularly the ones most marginalized in non pandemic times during the pandemic, it was my responsibility to continue the process
of getting feedback from teachers. I didn't do that. And, however, the calls for doing that tonight, it is already underway. I wanna assure you that. Thank you so much, doctor House. So the next piece of our agenda is the approval of the consent agenda. Do I have a motion for the approval of the consent agenda? I move we approve the consent agenda. This can I assess this is already without the Yes? So yeah. So yeah. Yes. Yep. So yeah. I can I just want to make sure that that's what we're approving? Yes. Okay. Then I'll second.
Moved by Ms. Lee, seconded by Ms. Spillman. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? That motion clearly passes. So yes. Just to clarify, Ms. Spillman, that has been pulled by the consent, the that policy was pulled from the consent agenda, and we will be we have the board has asked for a presentation, that describes, to, to provide more information about the policy, particularly around the implementation. And that is already in the works. Thank you. We will now move into our school division work session.
And the first piece on that is our multi year school support plans. And Doctor. Dallas Hitt. Hitt? Hitt. Hitt. Hitt. Okay. Hitt, Director of School Improvement and Quality Policy and Strategic Planning will be presenting these plans. Alright. Good evening, everyone. I'm Dallas Hamburger Kitt. I have been with you before, when we've looked at, different initiatives and plans within strategic planning, and it's nice to be with you again this evening. I'm here tonight to present the multi year school support plans of our federally identified schools, and we have six of them.
Let me start though by recentering us on our strategic plan, which is learning for all. I'm not sure if this happened in closed session, but I know it hasn't yet tonight, so I thought it would be nice to make sure we do that. Our vision is that our learners are engaged in authentic, challenging, and relevant learning experiences, becoming lifelong contributors and leaders in our dynamic and diverse society. Our mission is to work together as a team. We will end the productive value of race, class, gender, and special capacities for our children's success through high quality teaching and learning for all. We seek to build relationship with family relationships with families and communities to ensure that
every student succeeds. We will know every student. Our values are equity, excellence, family and community, wellness. Our goals are thriving students, affirming and empowering communities, and equitable transformative resources. Okay. So for tonight's, purposes in this presentation, I'm really here just to update you all on the new requirements that VDOE has for the multi year school support plans, which is a a new set of letters. And that's a requirement for federally, identified schools that just came about this year.
And by this year, I mean 26. It's twenty twenty six for the 2526 school year. So we have been scurrying a bit in the division to enact the requirements that were required of us that we just learned about that are supposed to span the entire 2526 school year, but we learned about in January. So because they are a little bit more in intense in a good way, we wanted to take some Sometime tonight to bring you all up to speed on what those are. So I'm going to take some time to do that. And then also in the agenda item, the, six plans have been attached for you
to hopefully have had some time to review, and you'll see some, some pretty similar commonalities across the six of them for a reason I'll get to in the presentation. So as I said, in January, we learned that we had, these six federally identified schools in ACPS. Five are designated as targeted school improvement, and those are Agner, Crozet, Greer, Mountain View, and Stone Robinson. Woodbrook is designated as a comprehensive support and improvement school, which has a longer designation and duration and a higher level of oversight. I just wanna remind you that doctor McLaughlin has worked, on a presentation and shared
that with you earlier that dove more deeply into the new accountability system as we're as it's rolling out, and it he discussed the different metrics and the reasons, specifically the student groups and subject areas that these six schools are federally identified for. So we won't go into that tonight too too far, other than just letting you know that they had these in the designations. We have five TSI, and we have one comprehensive support and improvement. This is a a good way for hopefully, for you to be able to see the the differences, in c CSI and TSI and how that comes across in the
requirements from VDOE in terms of what we have to do we had to do with the plans. So in in answering the question which student needs are addressed in the plan, in CSI it's really the whole school and in TSI it's a specific group. And in answering the question, who develops the multi year school support plan and needs assessment for the TSI schools? The school is responsible, and that includes teachers and community as well as school leadership. And then CSI, the division is over the ECPS was responsible for overseeing it and
making sure that it included teachers and community as well as school leadership. In terms of the duration of the plan, for TSI schools, it's one year. It ends in September. So we learned about it in January, but it ends in September. So it really ends up being less than a year, but it's supposed to have been for the twenty five-twenty six school year. The duration of the plan for CSI can last up to three years with some different exit points along the way, but it's typically two to three years. In terms of evidence based interventions or EBIs, those are, some a list of state
approved programs. Actually, they are from mostly from the What Works Clearing House database, that VDOE will accept as part of our plan. TSI schools must have two. CSI must have four. We have had two all along for the past three years at these schools, so that's nothing really new other than at the CSI school that we are going to have to find two more and add two, to bring it to a total of four EBIs. In terms of which entities monitor and approve this, new plan, the TSI school, is
monitored and approved by, here locally. So you all and the division will approve the plans, but we as the division are responsible for monitoring it. We also have to ensure that it's posted on the school and division website after it's approved. In terms of the CSI school, only, you're only required to review it and VDOE ultimately just has to approve it. So you'll you've seen it, but it is not something that you have to sign off on. We would have to submit it after you've seen it to VDOE and, wait for
their approval. Okay. So in those school support plans, again, this is a new template. In the past, we we have not had the, this this level of direction in terms of what the plans entail. We've had some. But this was the first year that there was a required needs assessment, which was also, predicated on a requirement for stakeholder engagement. It was very clear who had to be involved in that needs assessment, and you'll see those people and roles with contact information listed in the plans. The principals held these meetings on a dime.
During snow days, they planned them and then then held them as soon as we could because, again, we learned about this in January. We had snow early February. So I'm very proud of the work our principals were able to do in getting the community to come together and still analyze data and come up with an effective and and impactful need needs assessment. Once that was accomplished, that that needs assessment identified a root cause as well as, some other, insights and And that was the basis for developing the actual school support plan, which has the sort of the the usual suspects in terms of elements, and
it has some aligned action steps. And then finally, there's the assurances and approval section. So we'll look at each of those a little more closely. In terms of the stakeholder engagement process, as I mentioned earlier, BDOE required that there were these, stakeholders present and participative in the needs assessment, and it was principals, teachers, specialists, and at least a family and community member. In terms of the plan, you, may have seen that all six, schools intend to
strengthen their systems and structures in order to meet the needs of all students, and this is their three year goal statement. I wanted to lift that part up because, it is a unique element. It's not a a one year plan that VDOE asked for. It was actually where do you want to be at the end of three years and, ensuring that your focus was not overly specific but was long long enough to have impact. Some other features that I wanted to mention, about the the plan that the schools the six schools have cited upon was that they came to the conclusion that while
they may have different reasons for being federally identified, the ones that that doctor McLaughlin shared earlier this year, they don't believe that they need to buy more programs. They believe in their students and the capacities and capabilities of their faculties. What they wanna focus on is leadership as well as the systems and structures to better align and unleash the impact of existing programs that we already have, like HMH, professional learning communities, quarterly assessments for data driven instruction, and ninety day planning, as well as the EBIs that we've been required to use by BDOE for the past two
years, which are Alexia and a systematic approach to teaching numeracy. So due to the systems and structures focus, you have probably seen that, the UVA partnership for leaders in education is heavily focused in, these plans, and this was a unanimous decision amongst principals based on their needs assessments with their stakeholder groups that they, really wanted to focus on leadership systems and structures to bring together all of the existing programs and efforts, that we have around teaching and learning. Some of you may be familiar with UVA PLE, which brings both Darden and the
School of Education at UVA both together alongside a results proven prac alongside results proven practitioners that partner with divisions who are committed to transformation. We're fortunate that this evidence based program is a neighbor, and for about twenty years, UVA PLE has been working with divisions and schools to increase student achievement in our nation's lowest performing school. So you can imagine if they're if they have, impact and they've been doing it for twenty years, that's a it's a great source of, partnership. As you see here, UVA PLE is the only evidence based provider in this field
as documented by an independent impact study conducted by Rand Corporation. So now on to our ask of you as a board. VDOE, as I've mentioned, has completely revamped the planning process. It's much lengthier, has more templates, and then more approvals built into the process. And while we, and while it has been quite the undertaking in these past month or two, we're excited to bring forward these plans, and we do think that they probably are more thoughtful and, better devised as we bring more heads around them in the process. When we submit the plans, we not only include the names of the stakeholders on
the school based committees that I showed you earlier, but we have to have these roles involved as well. And these roles will sign, the assurance. So it's the principal, the division lead, which is either myself or doctor McLaughlin, the superintendent, doctor Hass, as well as board acknowledgment. And in that board acknowledgment section, we have to have evidence that if you all reviewed them in the minutes of the, tonight's meeting, we are asking that you would you review and approve the five TSI school plans and review the single CSI school plan. As a reminder, BDOE ultimately approves that one.
So beyond tonight, well, starting tonight, the steps are, that we ask that you approve the, school board through a motion for the five TSI schools. We will then submit these plans to VDOE. We are applying for the optional school improvement grant funding to, fund the operational operate operationalizing of the plans. We are doing that. That was an option. We had to do the plans. Every every division has to do the plans, but you can choose whether or not you want the money. So we chose the money. We thought that would be may as well. And then finally you have to post the plans on the school and division websites
once they are approved by the various entities that I have shared with you. That brings us to this slide. At this time I'd like the board to consider emotional approval for these plans. The schools and the stakeholder groups have spent a lot of time and effort working diligently on, and I'll leave it at that. I think doctor McLaughlin suggested I give you a script to read from, and here it is if you'd like it. And I don't know if there's Yes. And and also if there's any questions or comments, we'd be happy to take those. Yeah. Of course. Before before we make a motion, are there any questions or discussion items?
I would just have a question about the save grant that we're applying for or will apply for. Will that be across the TSI and the CSI schools both or depending on how much we get? Yes. They both get different amounts depending on so CSI, is eligible for 165,000 and TSI for 45,000. Okay. Per And that will be Per school? Per school. Mhmm. Okay. Do do we have any knowledge of if that's automatic? If, like, what the Whether it will be approved?
Yeah. So I yes. I have I have overseen the grant for since I've been here and we always get what we ask for. We ask, we, have a pretty good relationship with our contacts. We have a new person at VDOE this year, that I'm working with, but they can't wait for us to finalize this process and and give us the money to help our schools. And you said it's 45 for Around. Around. $44.45 $44.09 something and then right under $1.65. And then say that one more time for the CSI is a 165. And is that a year or for the three years?
Great question. So so the 45 must be spent by 09/30/2026 for the TSI because there was a designation for the school year that we just learned about in, as I said, January. And, the the TSI I'm sorry. The CSI will span September 2027. So would they have what's called a planning year built in, which is this current time period until September '26, and then that we enter into the actual implementation year.
So that's why it's it's a a bit more money. And the recommendation is that this that these six schools will participate in the, UVA's PLE program. Correct. They we, we we have done many things with this money in the past. This is the first time that, it's had this level of of, sort of, you know, lifting it up to multiple stakeholders. In the past, we have done different things with the money that have have been had different levels of effectiveness. A lot of it was around curriculum development and, helping teachers to do the work
that they need to do in our title one schools. We've we've used it in a multitude of ways that are research based, but at this point many of the principals who continue to be federally designated wanted to look at something for leadership and systems and structures because they feel like, well, we are tinkering with school improvement. We're not at the point where we really are digging deeply into a research based partnership to unleash the potential that we know our kids and our teachers have. So, yes, that's the intent is to use it to to fund that. And they would there are some of the some schools may continue to do some
some of their own versions of curriculum writing and, some professional learning, and we're we're making that happen with, the generosity of some local funds to so we can not not, take that off the list if there are things that they wanna do regarding, working with, integrating special educators. Some are wanting to focus on some EL, some of the the more granular reasons why they're in the in this designation. Thank you so much, mister. Oh, what can I say one more? Oh, you go. What is the plan for telling us about the results? What would you like it to be?
We just We don't have so I I I appreciate that. This is, we do share that out through our, through our yearly update with, that I've been with you on before as a state of the division. I have worked with you and presented before on ninety day plans and how we are monitoring school schools and, students' achievement every quarter, so those are things that we could continue to do. I think it will come out obviously in different ways but if there's an idea about something we, might want to consider adding on as we continue to understand this
new set of accountability requirements given to us by the state, we that I think that would be very worthwhile. And I would if I could, jump in with that, one of the things I'd I'd say is one of the the key metrics we have there clearly is our end of year SOL results, and we will continue to, as soon as we have those in, bring those to the board. Was as doctor Haas alluded to earlier, we just wrapped up our third quarter testing. We should have the final, results, available Monday or Tuesday of next week. And so I'm gonna, do a written update to the board, on where we are,
and just anecdotally. We were invited, last January Mhmm. To January, 2025, to participate in an activity with the PLE around data driven instruction. You may remember that doctor Kennard and his team from Mountain View came and, and spoke about that. And and two of the schools that are really, going full bore with data driven instruction are Greer and Mountain View. And looking at their third quarter results right now, it's it's really having a, pretty significant impact on the work that they're doing.
So we'll have a third quarter, update for you all and then, hopefully sometime in you know, we always have kind of unofficial results, in June and then, as soon as the state comes out. Typically, at the end of the summer, last year, it took until December, but we're hoping that we get a little bit quicker for you then. Great. I'm mostly interested in knowing whether or not this UVA PLE thing is is worth their time and if they're getting something out of it. Mhmm. Absolutely. And, you know, we can we can certainly, I think the principals would be happy to come and, and talk about that, down the road.
And I I think that just jumping on what doctor Waffen shared, we these principles have because you UBAPLEA is in our backyard, have been able to attend various sessions over the past two or three years from data driven instruction, to a to an Ignite session. So they were familiar with, the work and the way that this, leader learning is enacted, and we didn't this was something that really came up from the principles as unanimous. Like, we want we feel like this is what we need, and that's not just
because of what they saw or experienced. It's I think the evidence base is very compelling. We've been working really hard locally to use some of the elements of PLE from the ninety day plans, the quarterly assessments, the aligned pacing guides. We're we're getting a lot of we're we're sort of entering, you know, a little bit further ahead than some some divisions are, so that's exciting. But I think, the principles were like, that that's all good, but it's like there's we wanna we want the full blown thing. And so let's look at doing that if we if we have this funding from the state and it won't cost, you know, local dollars.
I'll also just mention anecdotally what, other divisions that have worked with, UVA PLE have gotten great results from them. Okay. Very practical and, useful results that move them forward on whatever problem of practice they had. So I'm really excited for this. Good. Yeah. I would definitely encourage you to look at the Rand study. As I said, it's the one of the few providers that's ESSA approved, because of their evidence base and their link to, yes, impacting systems and structures and leadership that does show up in student learning in our most underserved schools.
And and as I said, I think that's one of that. That's what's fascinating to the principals is if it's working, we want it. We want to be part of it. Any other questions before we ask for a motion? Someone would like to make the motion in front of us. I move to approve the multi year support plans for ACPS schools that are federally identified for targeted support and improvement. Moved by, doctor Acuff. Do I have a second? Second. Second by mister Dillenbeck. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. Thank you so much. Let us know if you get the funding.
Yes. Oh, we will. Forgetting this. This was probably one of the last last hoops to jump through, so thank you for seeing it tonight. Thank you so much. Mhmm. Next, we have a budget update. Before we do our budget update, just a couple of things. We are, in this section talking about, I would, I want to say potential cuts to the budget. Just a reminder to everyone, the budget has not been finalized by either the Board of Supervisors had voted on or nor by us. So so that we are fiscally responsible.
We are looking at potential cuts and we'll be looking at that during this board meeting and then our next board meeting. But what I would encourage everyone to do is to continue to advocate for schools. I know that our board of supervisors, has to make difficult decisions around funding. And there are so many needs in our community. But, if you feel that schools are, something that we need to continue funding, at the current level, please make sure that you, attend a board of supervisors meeting, or attend one of the town halls.
So again, these are we're discussing potential cuts, in case we are not able to, have the current level of request. Thank you for framing that up and for the introduction. Maya Kumazawa, director of budget and planning, and this evening, we'll talk about three different items. One is a balancing scenario for the school fund, and as doctor Billen mentioned, this would be in case that there are no changes to the proposed board of supervisors budget. So this assumes that the board of supervisors budget would move forward and be adopted
in April. The second item is the some information about the state bonus that has recently just been released. Just to Michael. Yep. Thank you. And then the third would be the, a balancing scenario for the capital improvement program or CIP. First, some technical adjustments to the good to recommend. We're proposing a decrease in expenditures by about $300,000. At the time we produced the draft budget, we were still waiting on one letter from VRS with an updated nonprofessional retirement group rate, and so we now have it.
And this technical technical adjustment reflects the difference from what we had budgeted in the funding request to what it is actually projected to be. And second, we are we received an updated tuition rate for our students to attend k tech next year from the city of Charlottesville, and this decreased amount reflects the, updated tuition rate. So together, this decreases our revenues by about $300,000. So our starting point for developing a balancing scenario is shown here. The board of supervisors has proposed a budget last week that reduces our revenues by
$6,400,000 to $304,900,000. In addition, as I showed on the previous slide, we're recommending technical changes of $300,000, which decreases our expenditures to $311,000,000. That leaves a budget deficit of $6,100,000, which we must close by the time we have to balance the budget at the April. Since we cannot make decisions about revenues, these are the expenditure reductions in this balancing
scenario. First, eliminate the budgeted new transfer to the CIP of $4,100,000. Second, decrease the proposed math and data specialist positions from six to two positions. Third, reduce division services FTE positions by $400,000. And lastly, utilize one time revenues for technology expenses. These reductions total to the $6,100,000 in the deficit. These are the recommended uses of fund balance, as they were presented earlier this month.
This is not tied to the f y twenty seven anticipated recurring revenues, but rather these are projected savings, that we would carry from FY '26 into FY '27 for one time uses. These total $3,150,000 and the only change from when this was last presented, earlier this month is to split the technology expenses between one time and recurring costs. So the total transfer to technology replacement was and is recommended to be $2,250,000.
That would now be split approximately half and half, half going to display equipment, which is the one time need, and half to, put towards a technology replacement cycle. That 1.1 number to put towards a technology replacement cycle is the same number that was on the previous slide that showed the reduction to get to the, balanced scenario. So this is a summary of changes of all three sections. One, which was the technical update of $300,000 the second, which was, the use of
one time fund balance and the third, which is, which are the service reductions. The service reductions include reducing the CIP transfer, decreasing the math and data specialist proposal, and reducing division services FTE. And as a reminder, this is a summary of the permanent reductions that would be carried into f y twenty seven in this scenario. We've now included the reduction of division services FTE by $400,000, and this is the third year of permanent reductions that now total $9,500,000 I'll pause here for any questions
and discussion. I would like to know about the reduction in math specialists, considering that was one of the top priorities and seemed like that was finally making a decision, that was moving us in the right direction and closing some of these, learning gaps, it concerns me that that's one of the first things to go. So for that one, that is a, a new proposal, so it wouldn't be impacting current the current programming that we have. And so I know that was one consideration putting it in this balancing scenario.
However, this is a starting point for you all, and, hoping that either today or, at our next meeting on April 16, you can propose revisions to the scenario in preparation for adopting a scenario if we need to make these reductions. Well, I would I would say then that I would love to see trying to find somewhere else to cut $400,000 and not removing our math and data specialists from the classrooms. Yeah. I would agree with that sentiment as well. I know that this was one of the top priorities that Doctor.
Hass mentioned in the original proposal. And given the fact that our test scores in math in the elementary school are near the bottom of the Commonwealth, I'd say we need to find somewhere else to cut. I think if we took a straw poll vote, my gut is that board would be and again, I know we're in a situation, you know, having already cut $9,100,000 in past years, but I know that's a piece that kind of his board had
made a and I promise with doctor. One sec. But, you know, a commitment to continue to first, doing reading specialist, continuing reading specialist, and that had had been on the our list to then begin to do math specialist. That, I agree with with miss Spillman, because we have been wanting this for the past several years. But I guess I would ask staff if they could come back and say, how would two math specialists be deployed versus six?
And, you know, maybe this is something we can build on. I mean, I I just I don't fully understand how they would, you know, two specialists across, you know, however many elementary schools. Doesn't sound like very much. But I don't know. In this scenario, there would be, a pilot at one elementary school and a pilot at one middle school, and they would be assigned there. And that would be kind of a phase in. Okay. Okay. But I mean, I also know, yes, on the face of it, I don't like what this looks like, but I also remember that the margin for new proposals was
so small. Right. So I don't, like, off the top of my head, I don't have other thoughts. Obviously, I don't like this, but it might be that that might be the thing that we don't like least. So I I am open to that. But, yeah, that does not feel good. Right. So just I mean, I do like the idea of having a pilot, but a more robust pilot would be good too. Yeah. I agree. I would say that this is targeted, for enrollment groups. I I don't wanna quibble. We our elementary math scores are far from the bottom.
They're among the top in the Commonwealth. They're actually in the top. Among the top. It's with our enrollment groups where we have particularly low scores. So I just wanna get the record straight on that. Fair. But this is targeted to work in what we call our transformation schools, and that would be the schools in the PLE. We've this is great feedback. I I I was pretty excited about it. I felt like it was a a, from the ground up, because it had come up through Mountain View using their staffing creatively to accomplish this.
So I I think we'll certainly, this feedback's really great, and we'll we'll take that back to the drawing board to see what we can do. And I would just encourage that, the first cut doesn't have to be from a new proposal, there may be other programs that maybe aren't as, successful that this would, be more fruitful for us. So I would just encourage the staff that unfortunately if we have to look at cutting programs what is going to be the least harmful to our students and our
staff. And hopefully we won't have to do that. So, recently the state put out some guidance about, SOQ instructional and support position bonuses that we wanted to bring forward for awareness. We will look for direction from the board on how to move forward, in mid to late April. So the state has approved in the f y twenty six caboose bill so that they approve a final bill for the current budget year that we're in, and in that bill, there is a one time bonus for SOQ positions. To receive the state funding of $700,000, we must provide a minimum total bonus amount
of $2,300,000 and that amount is based on a $1,500 bonus for full time SOQ funded positions. There are some provisions in there that allow for flexibility in how we implement this, and so on this slide is a range of options between the lowest cost to the highest cost. Well, let me restate that. The lowest cost would be to not take any action at all. This is not required. This is optional. If you did wanna take some action to pull down the point $7,000,000 from the
state, to get to the $2,300,000 payment of bonuses, this would be equivalent to about $900 per full time regular employee. The highest cost interpretation would be to provide a $1,500 bonus per full time regular employee, and the $1,500 is there because that's what the original bonus intent was. As you know, our we have about twice as many SOQ positions that the state, funds, and so anytime the state provides any kind of wage or compensation increase, they
only cover a portion of it, the SOQ funded portions, and then within that, they cover we cover our LCI portion and they cover the other. Our LCI is about point six four, which means the state is covering 35% of the SOQ position. So that's why the ACPS share is so high, when these proposals come forward. So the options for the board to consider is, to take no action, which is reflected in the current balancing scenario. The second is to provide a bonus in the current year, or there's an option
to carry that forward into the next year. And then third, to provide an equivalent action compensation increase in f y twenty seven. Before I get into this slide, the dates on here are a bit off, but the dates should be reflective of the school board meetings, which are April, not the nineteenth and twenty sixth. As I mentioned, this bonus is not included in the balancing scenario, so we'll need to take further action if you desire to implement it. We will also need to coordinate with the AEA as this would be an impact
in wages, which is a collective bargaining topic. So first, we would want to adjust the budget. At the next meeting, you all could decrease expenditures if desired to pay for this. We'd also be monitoring and adjusting f y '27 projected state revenues. Again, typically, we might have a an approved state budget, but this year we don't, and so I don't anticipate having that until early May. But we might get a sense of which way it's headed by the April. We'll also analyze and adjust our third quarter school fund fund balance projection to see
if there's anything additional we could put towards this as this is a one time expense. And then after that, the school board, and the division would need to certify intent on receiving the state match of the 700,000. And so on April 23, the school board will adopt the FY '27 budget during that same meeting. I'm looking for your intent to receive or decline the bonus payment, because on May 1 we have to certify to the VDOE of our actions. And then, because the budget would be adopted by then, in the next fiscal year,
we can appropriate additional state revenues if they're available, and or appropriate additional use of fund balance if available, and then pay the bonus or the equivalent action if funding is available. Any questions on this? Is 900 the as low as you can go on the bonus? Is that the only way or is that just an example? That is, so we are required to pay $2,300,000 in total. And so if you take the 2.3 and divide it among full time regular employees, it would be 900.
But this would not necessarily be the recommendation because that this doesn't include part time employees. Right. So if we wanted to pay a bonus for part time employees, which we typically do at a prorated rate, that would have to be a 100% local funding for that. And that's estimated to be about $400,000 in addition. In addition? Okay. So the ACPS share would be $2,000,000. If, if that was the route we wanted to take, we'd probably recommend that we include part time employees at 2,000,000. And this was fully approved and signed?
Yes. Okay. The f y 26. Maya, back on slide page number six, had a question about a couple of items. Can you explain the bridge funding for unfunded instructional resources? Yes. So, the $600,000 here would pay for, the second part of the payment we need for Kiddom, which is the k five math curriculum, And this would be in addition to the recurring funding that you all approved in your funding request, that includes a
a whole list of textbook needs, such as secondary math, English language arts, grade six through eight, and the algebra bridge program. So this would be provided as a one time increase in the textbook fund. That recurring amount that's in your budget remains also. So it'd be it's two sources of funding. Was that earlier amount mentioned 800,000 in my Yep. $800,000 is the recurring increase that's in your current funding request. So this is in addition to that?
Correct. Have have we settled the issue with Kiddom at this point? Yes. I believe so. Okay. Okay. I've heard from a number of folks that their concerns about spending large sums of money on technology and computers, especially in the elementary level. So I don't have a specific proposal in mind, but I'm just wondering out loud about the, essentially $2,200,000 of funds designated for technology.
Is is this for new technology or improvements and and upgrades to existing technology? It is not new technology. The display equipment is, up for replacement, and the first $1,100,000 would go towards replacing classroom display technology. That was originally funded from one time funds maybe five years ago, as a board
initiative to provide that technology. And so because that was spent from one time funds previously, there wasn't any recurring funding associated with it. So this, proposes a replacement of those that technology that is now, becoming outdated. The second piece, the 1.1, that would fill in the gap for the recurring annual replacement cycle for, personal computers, iPads, the everyday equipment that students and teachers use. And the way this is structured is that $1,100,000 would be funded out of one
time money, so next year we will have to look at this again and say, okay, we need to find $1,100,000 in recurring money or find ways to reduce. So in this structure, we're keeping the program whole for one year, and then next year, we'll be having the discussion again, most likely. I'd be interested to know how much money we could save as a division if we scale back on the level of technology that we're giving to students in the
elementary grades. I don't know if there's been a study of that. I'd be curious. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for raising that, Mr. Dylenbic. I mean, I think we're seeing a lot of research coming out just in the last year, but definitely in the last six months, looking at the use of technology in, in, in elementary schools. You know, I talk about levers. Right? Like, we went through a paper and then everyone went one to one computing, and I think you're seeing people potentially coming back. And I think we're starting to see letters, to the school board and one on
one conversations and research. So there's a piece of me that one there's like mister Dylan Beck, are we going to, continue hearing, that potentially, particularly in our k one and two classrooms, but potentially all the way to through fifth grade that we be asked to limit, which which although which would mean that we need more books. So there's always, like, there's there will always be a cost. But I do think as as we're looking at this, you know, particularly if we're looking at replacement, you know, looking across like our you know, where are we replacing
and do we do we hold on some replacements in those younger grades? I know that's something late to come, but as we're looking at every dollar, if we can also support some of those potential initiatives that I think we're gonna see coming from both researchers and parent requests. I would encourage decisions like that be made kind of more at a higher instructional level if there's a different path you'd wanna move forward with. With regards to the budget, this is a, one year funding for the program. I hear you. And so I would say those kind of larger decisions should be made outside of
the budget process. But because it's funded for the next year, at least that will be whole and then we can move forward from there. Yeah. And I would, I'm certainly there's a lot of research out there also supporting these kinds of initiatives. It's it's just interesting. For many years, we were doing professional development to introduce, technology. I I do think it's important to be real thoughtful, and as as we do and I I think it's almost inevitable that we will start to pull back, particularly at the earlier levels.
We'll we'll also need to build, professional development for our educators, because it's because of the re the reliance on it as an instructional tool. I have noticed, and you probably noticed in my slide that I showed earlier tonight, a young man was using a pencil and writing. And I with the materials that we're using now with, HMH, there's more hands on writing. And, I'm also noticing the students with Kiddom, and when I'm out there, I see the workbooks. It's kinda weird to see that because I haven't seen them in so long, but
the students open them up. They're doing their writing. They're they're a they're able to, in many ways, work together more effectively than they were with the screen kind of locking you in looking at it. So, I'm glad you brought that up as well. I think it's a good discussion and something we really need to look hard at for the earlier levels. But, again, I just wanna add that we'll have to it it'll be like a a strategic plan to back off, if if that's where the board decides to to go. Miss Kumazawa, in terms of camera equipment in the buildings, are these for our two
new schools? Are these replacement or additions to existing buildings? I believe they are for our current buildings. Thank you. I have a question about the bonuses. I would love to give everybody in ACPS a bonus. Can you talk about when that would occur? And this is over and above the collective bargaining agreement beginning July 1. Right? Yeah. There is an option to pay the bonus after June 1. That's when the, when we would get the payment from the state, so that can occur in this school year or this fiscal year, or we have the option to
do it next fiscal year. I would recommend that, because we still have some unknowns with the state budget and we might have potential revenues coming in next year or use the fund balance at the end of the year, that it be distributed, in the next year. We have discretion on when during the year that would happen. There's coordination with HR and payroll and the AEA as this would be above and beyond the contract that we have with them. And just as you have more information, partic about it, particularly what that total ask
would be once we added part time employees, just so we would know what that Okay. Full impact Yep. Would be. I would use the range of 2,000,000 if you'd like to include part time to 3,900,000.0 Okay. Depending on the size of the bonus. And the 3.9 would include part time or should we also include That one that one does include part time. I was trying to get the highest number. Perfect. Yeah. Other questions or comments on this portion? So the last topic is the capital improvement program. Typically, the school board does not present a balanced CIP request because the board of
supervisors develops that based on the school board request in December and then projecting using their available revenues. However, this proposed CIP does not address the school board's request for new projects. It does fully fund ongoing programs as requested. They include project management services, school bus replacement, school maintenance and replacement program, and school network infrastructure. In addition, costs for the Northern Feeder Pattern Elementary School are increased as requested. $8,000,000 from, renovations funding in the current CIP was moved to the Northern Feeder Pattern
Elementary School project to fund the increase request. And another $8,000,000 from the current renovations funding was moved to a placeholder in year five. That leaves $0 for renovations for the next five years, when previously there was 16,000,000. And then as you know, there is a CIP priorities placeholder in year five for the board of supervisors to determine how to spend. That funding comes $6,400,000 in our f y twenty seven local transfer by formula and
another 6,400,000.0 in our local transfer by formula in f y twenty eight. It's important to note that Virginia code and our local process requires the school board to provide a request for school capital needs. We begin this process by identifying all capital needs across the division. To prioritize those needs, we engaged the long range planning advisory committee to discuss which projects may have the greatest impact on advancing school priorities. For capital projects, we placed the highest level of priority on projects that will reduce
overcrowding in our schools, modernize our aging infrastructure, and increase student access to educational opportunities. Because we are not provided a budget, we do not factor cost or project schedules into our list of priorities. Rather, we focus solely on potential impact and school need. The board of supervisors has the sole authority to determine whether to fund specific projects and for establishing a budget and timeline for when funding may be provided. This year, the board of supervisors has approved a CIP that has several placeholders, so
we are recommending a capital improvement plan for schools that is balanced. These are the guidelines that govern this proposal. One, stay within the available revenues as proposed in the board of supervisors budget. Two, align the recommendation with the capital priorities as presented in December. Three, focus on school renovations that are urgently needed rather than budgeting future placeholders. Four, preserve contingencies for future operating budgets by committing $6,400,000 to one time capital needs for two years. This would include addressing changes in the LCI in year three.
Five, continued discussions with the board of supervisors regarding a new high school. These are the top five pro top five projects as requested in December. The first is the construction of a comprehensive high school. This remains the school board's highest priority. However, the project is not included in the five year CIP, and no earmarks have been approved by the board of supervisors for this project in the future. As part of a balanced scenario, this project is placed in years five through 10. It is important to note that this cost estimate will need to be increased for
every year the project is delayed. This cost represents construction costs in years three through five. The balance scenario also requests renovation funding for Stony Point Elementary School for $8,000,000. The $8,000,000 is currently in a year five placeholder for schools' projects, And, this could fund part of the original scope that was requested. The next project is renovations at Albemarle High School in for $6,400,000 in year one. This is part of the $12,800,000 that was placed in year five of the border
supervisors priorities place order. Fourth, renovations at Western Albemarle High School. Again, a partial scope would be for $6,400,000 in f y twenty eight. This reflects the timing of when the amount was reduced from our local transfer in place into the year five placeholder. And then finally, the preschool centre remains a priority, and this project would be funded as revenues become available. So I'll pause here for questions. The purpose of this is to gain a direction from you all, so that, the chair could take appropriate actions in moving this request forward to the board of supervisors.
Can I ask a question about the one time transfer? Wasn't it previously $5,000,000 and included, like, trailers for Western and art and things like that. Is is that just taken off now? Or sorry. I should have asked it before. But There it goes. It's a good question, and I have the information. So previously, when you saw the onetime list, it was both for f y twenty six and f y twenty seven. This list only includes the f y twenty seven proposed budgeted amounts.
The f y twenty six, did I get I thought I had the f y twenty six included trailer relocation and improvements on outfitting the trailer. It included, art materials and art equipment funding Yeah. And it included vehicle replacement that was related to new schools and just general that fund is underfunded. And so, that will happen occur in f y twenty six outside of the f y twenty seven budget process, so that's not included on the slide. But, we will continue to move forward with that in this current school year.
Okay. Yes. Thank you. Forgive me, because I wasn't part of the board prior to January. So I don't know all of the discussion that took place with the long range planning advisory committee and so on. But if we push out the comprehensive fourth high school, do we then sort of reshuffle these priorities? And, you know, when do we have another discussion with the committee and amongst ourselves
about how best to to reshuffle these these priorities? I think that, the ranking order really is unrelated to timing. As I mentioned, we can't direct the funding or the timing. Yeah. And so, if you want to move forward with projects, there's a certain amount of money available and that's how this would be. You can still if if it's your priority to keep the high school at in the number one spot, I think it could remain that way and it doesn't necessarily need to be reshuffled unless you feel that your priorities have changed.
If that's the case, I would recommend that, that we discuss that during the next CIP process, in the fall, this coming fall. Okay. That was my question. When when does that happen? Would there be enough, money? I don't know how much we have in lapse right now, but would there be enough money in that to fund the bonus, the 2,000,000 for the bonus? That is what we are looking at that. So I mentioned we would analyze our projected fund balance amount at the end of this year, and that's where that would come into play.
And so if we're able to increase our projection for what's remaining, yes, that is a potential source. Is this something that is this, like, a a random, like, thing or does this happen every year with these bonuses and I'm just not aware of it or is it just an extra challenge that we're being thrown because we made somebody mad? It's it's random, and, it's it's generally positive, but it comes back to that same theme where the state will say, we're giving you we're give we're giving out, you know, a 1% or 2% bonus, but for all school divisions, because all school divisions
fund above the SOQs, they have to put their own money in, and then Yeah. So to to just answer your question, it is random. We did we did do this, last spring. Yeah. We had some good sized ones still during the, pandemic. And, again, I want everyone to know that it's not that that, like, the school board believes in teachers and staff and, you know, we are, Virginia's twenty fourth. Doctor Haas corrected me. We've moved up one one stage in where our teachers sit and so we believe
our teachers should be paid more. Unfortunately, the way the state puts these bonuses for it, they're only covering a third or less than a third, and it puts school divisions in in difficult spots. So please doesn't it's not VRS creditable. It doesn't build on the person's pay, so they go from, you know, build on percentages from one year to the next. It's kind of a you know, when the state builds all these surpluses, the reason they build the surplus is because they're underfunding education, which would be recurring dollars. Yep. And then they take the surplus back, and then they throw out, the bonuses, so
which are not recurring. But we've generally been able to figure out a way to get something to everybody, so I'm hoping the cards will all kinda play out in in our favor, and we'll be able to pull pull it off, pull something off, something meaningful. Good. We used to, this one doesn't allow us to do the average across everyone, like like the ones we've been able to do in the past in the same way. Right? Yes. Last year, we were able to Take the state contribution and split that among employees. This year, we have to match it at a certain amount, but we can spread
that out between everyone. Yeah. So the the rules of it are always very complex, so we've been spending the last few days just trying to figure it out. Well, you figured it out. I mean, I I don't know who The plots of health. Definitely figured it out. Doctor Berlin, do you need any more direction on this to move forward? Just see. Do is there any other comments, by my colleagues on this, balancing scenario? Because we will need to move forward and share it, with the board of supervisors. So Okay.
You don't need us to you don't need a a voter motion or anything on this. I don't think so. Yeah. So the next steps would be that at the next board meeting on April 16, I would bring back, a revised balancing scenario based on your feedback, and at that time we can go through and make, any changes. I would hope by the end of that meeting we would have an agreement on what the balancing scenario is. Again assuming that there aren't any changes in the proposed county budget. On April 22, the board of supervisors will approve their budget, and then the following
day, we will adopt the budget, with the changes that are discussed the week prior. And then in May, as I mentioned with the bonus, when we have updates regarding the state budget, we can, make additional appropriations or changes as needed. Would you like I don't mind. Our favorite email address. Would you like us if we kind of spend time in the budget book, and and think of potential areas that we'd like you to look at, would you like us to kind of reach out to you at this, email before the meeting, or
would you like to us to bring those to that meeting? If you have questions about it because you're unsure about exactly what it's funding, questions ahead of time would be great. Otherwise, I would say during the meeting or between now and then, what'll happen is if there's, a consensus of or if there's four votes in favor of what you're proposing, then we would move forward with the change. Just keep in mind that any, you know, increase needs to be offset by a decrease or, you know, the other way around. So it would be helpful if you could remain within the, the revenues as proposed.
And then I do think you heard I mean, I see the reason for the pilot if we have to make a a cut. However, I think if there are other places to cut, that would allow us to keep those six math interventionists. I think we have the the will of the board there. And so I think I know I know it it it is difficult to find additional places, but if there are places we are able to find, I think there is, and we have also been hearing that from the public. So Okay.
Thank you, Megan. Thank you. Questions? So we are going to be moving into a closed unless there's anything else cut from the board that they wanted to bring forward on budget, we are going to be moving into a a closed meeting, and I do, have, miss Spillman has a closed meeting motion. I move that the school board of Albemarle County, Virginia go into a closed meeting as authorized by the Virginia Freedom of Information Act section two 2.2-three 711 a of the code of Virginia under subsection 19 for the discussion of plans
to protect public safety as it relates to terrorist activity or specific cybersecurity threats or vulnerabilities and briefings by staff members, legal counsel or law enforcement or emergency service officials. The purpose of this item is for staff and law enforcement officials to advise regarding safety protocols at school board meetings and techniques for avoiding and deescalating conflicts with constituents and other community members. Second. Moved by Ms. Skillman, second by Ms. Lee. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? We will now move into closed meeting. We will reconvene but just for a, closed meeting certification.
We do not anticipate any other, meeting after that. This is one of those closed meetings that you don't want to have to do something around, but this is needed. So thank you very much. Thank you to everyone who spoke during public comment and to everyone who participated in tonight's meeting. We will be back, for the closed meeting certification, but we do not expect you to stay just for that. We appreciate you all. It's comforting. I wouldn't mind taking a little walk after. I don't know about you guys.
Okay. Okay. I move that the board certify by recorded vote to the best of each board member's knowledge only public business matters lawfully exempted from the open meeting requirements of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act and identified in the motion authorizing the closed meeting where heard discussed or considered in the closed meeting. Second. Moved by Ms. Spillan, seconded by Ms. Lee. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? We are now adjourned.