Checking checking in, Miss Julie. Checking in. >> Yeah. Test test test. >> Yep. Hear you loud and clear. Check in. Check in. I just said Good afternoon. I'd like to welcome everybody to our Charlottesville City
Schools School Board meeting today being March 5th, 2026. I'm going to call this meeting to order, please. And before we proceed any further, I would like to ask for um three separate motions, individual motions for uh remote participation.
Um first first for Miss Douly. So if somebody will move that >> so moved >> and I need a second, please >> second. >> Second by Mr. Meyer. Um we are going to be doing voice voice votes moving
forward. So, all in favor um and if the clerk will please read >> Miss Miss Torres, >> yes. >> Miss Burns, >> yes. >> Miss Richardson, >> yes. >> Miss Bryant, >> yes. >> Thank you. Uh, Miss Douly,
>> yes. >> Miss Cooper, >> yes. >> And Mr. Meyer, >> yes. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Um, the second motion I need is for Miss Richardson, please. >> So moved. >> Second.
>> Miss Thcker. >> Miss Torres? >> Yes. >> Miss Burns? >> Yes. >> Miss Richardson? >> Yes. >> Miss Bryant? >> Yes. >> Miss Douly? >> Yes. >> Miss Cooper? >> Yes. >> And Mr. Meyer? >> Yes. >> All right. And our third motion, please,
for Miss Bryant. So moved. >> Second, >> Miss Stacker. >> Miss Torres, >> yes. >> Miss Burns, >> yes. >> Miss Richardson, >> yes. >> Miss Bryant, >> yes. >> Miss Douly, >> yes.
>> Miss Cooper, >> yes. >> And Mr. Meyer, >> yes. >> Thank you. >> Thank you all. All right. And if you'll please join us for a moment of silence. Thank you. And now, if you will please stand and join us in the pledge of allegiance.
Miss Greg Higway, are you going to lead us, please? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic, religious stands, nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and
justice for all. >> Thank you. And Miss Stacker, if we could now um have roll call of board members, please. >> Yes, Madam Chair. Miss Bryant, >> present. >> Miss Burns, >> present. Miss Cooper >> here.
>> Miss Douly >> here. >> Mr. Meyer >> here. >> Miss Richardson >> here. >> Miss Sorz >> Yes. >> And Miss Craig Headway >> here. >> Thank you. >> Great. Thank you. All right. And now um calling for a motion for approval of our
agenda for this evening, please. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Second by Miss Bryant. Um all in favor. And again, we'll go by name, please. Yes,
>> Miss Burns. >> Yes, Miss Richardson. >> Yes, >> Miss Bryant. >> Yes, >> Miss Douly. >> Yes, >> Miss Cooper. >> Yes. >> And Mr. Meyer? >> Yes. >> Thank you. >> Great. Thank you. And now we're at 6.0,
which is our student and staff recognitions, please. Mr. Jones, welcome. >> Good evening. >> Good evening. >> Let's try that again. Good evening. Uh, I come this evening to
honor and give a heartfelt congratulations uh to Coach Garwin Deberry on his well-deserved induction into the Virginia High School League Hall of Fame. Uh, this prestigious honor recognizes a career defined by excellence, leadership, and unwavering
commitment to the students of Charlottesville. Uh, Coach Deberry's legacy in our district is unparalleled. Um, he's a he has a trailblazing career. After beginning his career in 1974, he became the first African-American head coach in the area at a formerly all-white school
when he was appointed head football coach in 1980. Um, he's had decades of excellence. For 35 years, he coached the Charlottesville High School football program, achieving 12 playoff appearances and a regional championship. But even more so, he expanded
opportunities for all of our kids. Um, beyond football, he was a pioneer who helped establish and coach the first ever lacrosse program at Charlesville High School, serving in that role for seven years. He did he had dedicated service in our
schools. His contributions spanned from many roles including physical education and driver's education teacher. He was a dean of students, an assistant athletic director, and he also was a VHSL basketball official. But even more so, he had a lasting
impact on many, many people. More than his records, Coach Deberry is celebrated as a father figure and a mentor who used athletics to encourage academic and personal success for generations of young men and women. Many of these young men and women are now leading our
current teams in our classrooms and carrying on the work of Coach Dberry. Coach Dberry's impact is already permanently etched into our community through the naming of the CHS competition field, the Deberry Field, which by the way, the turf looks amazing for those that haven't been out there.
Thank you for that. Uh his induction into the the VHS Hall of Fame on April 19th at the Omni Hotel in Charleston is a fitting tribute to a man who has given so much to our schools and our city.
We wanted to come out tonight and give a congratulations to Coach Dberry on on this historic achievement. And at this time, coach, I would love for you to come forward to be recognized. >> Thank you. Thank you, Jesus.
Thank you, coach, for everything. We would love to take a picture. Come on up, coach. >> Coach Molford, Coach Miner, if you'd like to come up as well. What's going on? Got a quick picture. Thank you. And the next item on our
agenda is uh Miss Raznik. Thank you. >> Good evening, Madam Chair, Dr. Gurley, members of the board. I'm here to say thank you to our school social workers during National School Social Work Week. Um we recognize them and thank them for the support that they provide to our
students, our families, our staff, and our community. School social workers are needed now more than ever. Um with the increase in the number of students who are requiring mental health and behavioral support. Um we're seeing that
nearly one in six children nationally at ages 2 through eight have a diagnosed mental, behavioral or developmental disorder. And school-based social workers are essential in early identification and intervention for those mental health needs. Our social
workers are vital members of our school community. Um, and I also want to share the appreciation with Charlottesville City Schools for continuing to support a strong uh school mental health professional model. Um, so that is all
tonight. There's no proclamation from the governor. >> Thank you. And definitely um we do continue to support a strong mental health um system here within the school. So thank you to everybody. All right. Next we are at 7.0 which is
comments from members of the community and we will start with comments from any students currently present please. Okay. And then we will move to 7.2 2, which is our first opportunity for comments from members of the community.
Um, those who may have signed up already, please make your way to the podium. You have three minutes. State your name and we are glad you're here. Okay. Hi. Is can people hear me? Um, hi. Let me pull up. Uh, thank you for the
opportunity to speak. I'm Laura Goldblat and my son will start kindergarten at Jackson Via in August 2027. I'm here to tell the school board that I want you to hold another vote on having school resource officers in Charlottesville City Schools. And I want you to vote now. Prior to attending
graduate school, I taught 11th and 12th grade English at a failing public school in Greenville, Mississippi. At the time, Washington County, where Greenville is located, was the poorest county in the United States. My students bore the brunt of that poverty. Nearly all of them received free or reducedpriced
lunch. I can count the exceptions to this rule on a single hand, and most left high school as parents. Some students said they hated school breaks and weekends because they had nothing to eat. And though a small town, Greenville had big city problems. Gangs from
Chicago frequently came down to came down to recruit. Violence was both routine and shocking. Once while classes were changing over, I got caught between two fractious students and was struck hard enough to fall to the ground. In May, one of my students killed another
one of my students mere a mere hours after they had taken the final exam in my class. And that was just during my first year. Despite all of this, my students were amazing, resilient, brilliant, voracious learners. They were also normal, gossiping with me about someone's poor fashion choices or
lamenting a broken heart. What stood out to me most was how high the stakes were for them because they were so pervasively criminalized. To address these issues, the Greenville Public Schools District did what the Charlottesville City Schools are doing. They called in the police. When a student returned from out of school
suspension, they were escorted by an officer. Students were pulled from my classes for non-corted meetings with police. Classes were periodically locked down to search students belongings. I assume for drugs, but I was never really told. And you know what? Things got worse, not better. Students who acted
out due to desperation or boredom missed even more class, only deepening classroom issues. Small infractions like a uniform violation or cursing escalated quickly, shuttling students into the criminal system and retraumatizing their peers. The fragile trust between me and
the children I taught fractured as my students realized that adults were mostly out to get them. Worst of all, I got even less training and support than I had before. Rather than coaching in classroom management, I was told that discipline was now being handled elsewhere. As a result, my classroom
became more rather than less rowdy. I know what it is like to work every day with students who have had their lives cracked open for them and whose actions can disrupt the entire classroom. I also know that that feeling is a reflection of a system that criminalizes problems rather than addressing them. I'm asking
the school board to invest in our teachers and staff. More pedagogical resources, more support, more training, more opportunities for innovation, more mental health support, more nutritious foods, more access to physical activity rather than outsource the crucial
services schools provide. I have seen firsthand that such outsourcing leads to a done leads to a depletion of resources. It doesn't really matter which department pays for policing. They're ultimately all our tax dollars and I want those dollars to go go towards proven strategies that will lead
students to thrive. Thank you. >> All right. My name is Ian Mullins. I have one child in the Charlottesville City Schools. She's at Jackson Via fourth grader. Will be part of the first fifth grade class. Uh before I address the board, I want to first speak to the Charlottesville Education Association members in the audience. As a fellow
educator and as a member of United Campus Workers, I stand with you in solidarity. Thank you for the work you do. Uh for the school board, I'm here because I want to build on what Laura just said. I do not want SRO's or ICE in our city schools. I want you to bring
this back for a vote and I want you to vote no. So, I was new to Charlottesville in fall 2019. I wasn't here when Unite the Right happened, but I remember watching online and I was horrified. No one can imagine that happening in
their town. And for those of you that were here, I I you have my empathy, my deepest condolences to live through that. I know people who fought off neo-Nazis to protect students. Nothing like that should ever happen, but it did. I'm also horrified by the videos
that I've seen recently coming out of Minneapolis. ICE enforcement that breaks all laws is accountable to no one. US citizens executed in streets. No one can see that coming until it happens. No one thinks these things are going to happen. I
stood here last year and I told you I didn't want SRO's in schools because one of my main concerns is that they would be used for immigration enforcement. I still feel that way. The escalation of enforcement tactics have become terrifying
and we need to take very seriously the prospect that officers in these schools could be used to those ends. No one thinks it's going to happen. No one thinks a fourth grader is going to be taken out of school in handcuffs until it happens. And it has happened recently in this area.
No one thinks it's going to happen. No one thought that ICE agents would execute US citizens in Minneapolis. But when I watched those videos, I didn't just see something that terrorized me. I saw city streets that I recognized. I saw apartment buildings that I had been inside. That was my city. That was my
neighborhood. People were executed on streets that I have walked a hundred times. And I never would have thought it could have happened, but it did. Bringing SRO's into our schools makes us vulnerable. I
know you think it increases safety. I want care for students. I want safety for students, not policing. I want resources spent to mental health care, to providing more meals. We could have incredibly excellent schools. We already give students two meals a day.
We give them a safe place to be. We turn them into warming shelters in the winter. That is excellent. We can be even more excellent. we can embrace students, try to correct and help them in the circumstances they're in and make it so everyone can succeed, not just sacrifice some of the most vulnerable
because we want to improve some statistics. Thank you so much for your time and I appreciate you listening. >> Hi, my name is Laura. Uh, I'm a Charlottesville city resident and have two kids who were previously at Jackson
Vaia. Uh, I would also like to urge you to not put school resource officers into our into our schools. And I want to tell you about a story from two years ago. I got a phone call from Jackson Vaia that my then second grader had been
interviewed by police. The phone call was to tell me that no threat had been determined. my son who has a 504 at the time and documented disability was not having a good day and he told the princip or he told an
adult in private I was so mad I could have killed someone. So instead of calling me or getting a counselor they called the police to interview him. They determined there was no threat. He was scared. He told me later I was
scared. He told me last week, "I hid under the table whenever anyone came in the room to talk to me." Putting police in our school that day to talk to my seven-year-old didn't make him more safe, and it didn't make any of
his classmates more safe. In addition to not adding school resource officers back to schools, we do need to go ahead and finalize theou. When I talked to people after this incident, no one really knew what the
criteria was for when a threat assessment needed to be made. No one really knew if you called the parents first or if you called them after. And I see that in some situations maybe you would need to call the police first.
But with a seven-year-old, I think that we could have called that we could have been notified first. We could have been there for him. Uh so uh that's all I have to say today. I hope
that uh we can find some some solutions to make our more kids more safe that aren't putting school uh resource officers back in the classroom. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Hello members of the board and Dr. Gurley. My name is Alex Heinsman, parent
of two kids in Charlottesville City Schools. I've been coming here and speaking about SRO's against SRO for about two years now. If there's one thing being a parent teaches you is that sometimes you have to repeat yourself to be heard. Um, I brought you research
showing the documented measurable negative effects of police in schools. I've read you recent local relevant news stories. Um, actually, did you know a Green County SRO, who is a former CPD officer, was just fired for an inappropriate relationship with a
student? Um, I can send you links. You know, I've got links. And I have stood here for two years and listened to CSAs, staff, teachers, legal experts, and worried parents ask you to find better solutions. And what I have learned over these two
years is is what your priorities really are. The kids, the kids are brave enough to walk out to protest ICE. And you are not brave enough to put a single line in theouou saying police can't collaborate with ICE. You are telling your own staff
you just can't figure out how to give them the raises you promised, but you're asking the city to spend $800,000 on two cops. Our achievement gap is far below the state average. We are failing our low-income kids, our black kids, our kids with disabilities. And instead of
prioritizing them, you have chosen to police them. And not once in these two years has the community had a real voice in this process. You pull a surprise vote with an absent board member without a plan or a budget. You draft anouou without a single teacher, parent, or students
involvement. And eventually, long after this decision is made, you hold listening sessions where nobody even bothers to take notes. I know I was there. So, the only way we could make our voices heard was at the ballot box in November. Two out of the three people
we elected to this board were outspoken against SRO's. I am asking the board to reflect the will of their community. I am asking you to be brave and creative and to imagine a better future for our kids. I am asking you to bring this issue back to a vote and vote no on
SROS. Hi, I'm Jen Horn. Uh, topic switch. I I offered to go to the back of the line, but we're just going to take a little parenthetical. >> In Charlottesville City Schools, are we here to educate children or to manage
numerical outcomes? I live for the former. I am dedicating my life to the former. But more and more I'm coming to think that it's the latter. Why? Because teaching professionals are being
marginalized and disrespected and decisions are being made using data that marginalizes and disrespects our students. 77% of CCS CCS teachers have a master's degree or higher. The average teaching
experience is 12.5 years. And yet in the past few years, the assumption of and respect for teacher centrality in the education of our students has waned. Teacher voice is no longer needed in
making assessment decisions, curriculum creation, book selection, grading processes, and budgetary directives. Our agency in almost every area of our job is being chipped away to a point where
in conversation with two fantastic teachers who have been fantastic for over 20 20 years, one said that they would never ever recommend our profession to a college student while the other said that they were being micromanaged out of the school that they
love dearly. This stinks for our teaching professionals, but it stinks worse for our students. The more distance that you put between those making the decisions about learning and those sitting in the
desks, the more ineffectual that learning will be. the real data, the data that matters and that will close our learning gaps and will make students want to come to school and will never ever come through a standardized test to be made into a
spreadsheet in an office far from the classroom. Looks like this. It looks like personalities. It looks like names. It looks like stories. It looks like how many times did a student contribute to a discussion unprompted? It looks like students collaborating to come up with
ideas. It looks like students feeling safe to challenge teachers, to challenge material, to challenge themselves. Who is measuring that data if not the teacher? Who is asking the teacher about that data? No one. The school division
will continue to bleed great teachers and even more importantly fail students if it continues to p prescribe rather than respond to the voices in the classroom. I know that I need to leave and I will not get a response here tonight, but I would love it if this board and this division begin to reach
out to its teachers. Send out some Google forms, create a panel, have some restorative circles. TTYT, talk to your teachers. Thank you. >> Good evening, Dr. Gurley. Um, Madam Chair and Schoolboard. I'm Peter Davis.
Um, probably not too much of a topic switch from what Jen just shared, but um, as an urban farming teacher here, spring is a very busy time and I would love to be talking about the baby chicks that are coming next week and the fourth or third grade visit school uh, field trips that are coming up and plant sale
coming up in May. And I I have to say I love my job from nine to four when I'm with my students. Um, I've got a dream job in a lot of ways that the school division has helped me form and shape. Um, and I'm I'm so appreciative of that support. Um, but I I kind of need to like talk about the end to what I feel
like has been like a three-year personal project um experiment that I've been conducting. Um, I've attended almost every schoolboard meeting for the last three years. I've spoken at a lot of them. Um, I've come early. I've stayed late trying to catch side conversations
with people. Um, I've stepped up to become a building rep for the CEA. Uh, I served on schoolwide committees. I served on the division level equitable grading committee and subcommittees last year. Um I've come to every department meeting, faculty meeting ready to talk
and discuss and ready to work. Um and I was really hoping that this deep dive would really make me feel like everything that I was doing was going to lead towards making big changes and I don't really feel like it's been happening. It hasn't been a great use of time. I'm I'm fearing. Um, in recent
years, um, teachers have advocated and we've made improvements in school safety, substitute teachers pay scales, collective bargaining. Um, we've added needed positions at the high school. Um, but every turn, I feel like we've had to, um, we've had to organize, we've had to plead, argue, yell to make our voice
heard, and it's it's exhausting. And I feel like what Jen was saying, um, people come to me all the time feeling that they are burned out and micromanaged. They feel boxed in. Um and you know we have hundreds of educated talented uh passionate teachers in our
division. Um but all the curriculum, all the professional development, all the grading decisions are made by administrators and coordinators and staff members and board members who um most of which haven't taught in 5, 10, 15 years or more, if even ever. Um and like Jen was saying, we don't feel
really like we have a voice in any of the things that are happening. Um, our division rewards good teachers by plucking them out of the classroom to make them um, you know, uh, instructional coaches and administrators, but there's no incentiv incentivizing to keep them in the
classroom to keep doing a good job for the students. Um and the system has really taken the joy, love and passion and lived experience created creativity the very soul out of teaching so that we can become data mining people to send data down to the basement so they can make spreadsheets to go across the
bridge so they can make more spreadsheets to go to the administration that writes the checks and gives accreditation. And it's just I don't know we're all just kind of feeling um not really a part of it. And so if if I feel that way, um I can only imagine how
other people who are just trying to get into being involved would feel. Um and so I just hope that you all be the ones to make that system change. Thank you. >> Good evening. My name is Karen Little and I am the parent of two CHS students.
Uh thank you so much for your service and for listening. Um I'm going to go back to the SRO topic and I have two um points. Um one is keep being curious and the second is try softer. And so the first point about being curious. I' I've
looked had to look in a few different places, but um some of the safety measures that perhaps were the reason for starting this discussion. I have shifted a bit and you know referrals to law enforcement are down. Survey data from students participating in
restorative practices are showing impact. And so I'm just asking you to keep being curious and listening because if we're not clear about the indicators we're looking at, how do we know when to course correct or maybe not even start
this program of bringing SRO's back into school? So I'm really encouraging you to be curious about the data. The second piece is let's try softer. Um I'm probably going to cry here, but um the world is literally on fire right now.
And I can't accept that more guns in our schools, more surveillance is the answer. I want to see investment in human relationships, practices that humanize our students,
that we're tackling absenteeism, that we're making sure that they can read. And I'm going to close with a quote by oh my god um the poet Andrea Gibson. I know most people try hard to do good
and find out too late they should have tried softer. Try softer. Thank you. That's tough to follow. Hello, my name is Lena Seville. I am a member of the Charlottesville community. Um, I was appointed by city council to
the disproportionate minority contact in the juvenile justice system task force, which is a long way of saying we looked at how different kids were treated by the juvenile justice system based on the color of their skin. Um and we were
lucky to have uh a couple of students, masters and and PhD students who are able to look at confidential information and bring it back to us in in nonidentifiable terms so that we could see patterns and we saw patterns. Black
and brown kids were treated more harshly by the juvenile justice system significantly even when we controlled for other factors. And even if you wanted to say implicit bias, which is accidental or unconscious
racism, having police officers in schools will negatively affect our more vulnerable students. Um, and that's that's the accidental racism. I think we all know there there's some
that isn't accidental. And this this this police officer policy is going to have a harmful effect. And if you don't look at how racism plays into it and how it negatively affects some communities, you're not helping anybody. We can't
pretend that it doesn't that it doesn't exist. And we need to we need to be like really serious about this when we talk about doing something like bringing the police into schools. So I ask you to look at the numbers, look at the data, and redo the vote. Thank you.
>> Hi, I'm Mimi McNergy, a parent, um, a Charlottesville City School grad, a former educator, and a lifelong learner. Probably, as many folks are doing these days, I've been riding the roller coaster of a great of great hope and deep despair, nihilism. Some days a few
moments of despair have arisen when reading reports of our sustained achievement gaps, schools that are way off track and city budget meetings with talks of the missing middle where teachers, firefighters, and transportation workers have to scrabble over the little that's left over. But two cops that we don't even want will
spit eight will split $800,000. Also more in headlines about a child in Virginia whose SRO called DHS and removed the child first from foster care in order to be deported. These failings are systemic or maybe
they're actually working just the way the system intended. They are not in fact failings. I have had some great moments of hope too. Reading about the Charlottesville Early Childhood Learning Center was really exciting this morning. um and hearing some murmurings about community school models and connecting
with more and more people doing courageous work in Charlottesville and also seeing studentled walkouts um against the presence of ICE and the possibility of them being in our schools um showing up on our schools whether they are invited or not. You have the
opportunity to buck the systems that continue to hold our neighbors down. There was a random Thursday in March or April last year when the board got tired of talking about the possibility of bringing cops back into schools and decided to bring the issue up to a vote without it actually being on the agenda.
It's another Thursday in March in which the issues of SRO are not officially on the agenda. Since the vote last year, a school board election has occurred. One of the no candidates was voted back in and another clear opponent was also voted in. I'm asking you to bring up the
plan to return cops to our schools. I would like for you to bring it back up to a vote and to vote no. We know that the board and ad administrators positions has been cops are already in schools. This is being done to relieve the administrative burden. If this is a
must and you will not revote at the very least, get courageous and get creative um to eliminate unnecessary contact with cops. It will not be it will not make our kids safer and it will not make our community better. >> Good evening. My name is Michael
Salvatier. I have been a teacher at Trailblazer for 17 years. I um have two kids in the city schools and I'm the vice president of the CEA. There's a lot going on tonight. I'm so happy to for the things we are celebrating. I'm so
happy to celebrate our um our ESP contract. That is amazing. It is historic. Um they deserve for any that are here listening, they deserve every bit of it and far more. They do such incredible work taking care of our kids
and they should be paid enough to live on. And yet the ESPs that I've talked to in our building have and beyond have voiced a little bit of a sour taste as well. In part because of the way that it all went down. Um and not just because so in part
because of this the um that the some of the sticking point was over a few holidays that are to be paid um which I understand that there are things that in negotiations but um to do that off the backs of the people who are already the lowest paid um while spending money on
SRO's seems really off and not with our priorities of equity in our division. Um, but also in my mind is the the that fact that there has been no collective acknowledgement of the harm that was done with the February 6th email that went out to all of our staff and all
of our community. This was very public, so it requires a very public response. No acknowledgement of the things that were untrue in it. No acknowledgement of what it did to staff morale, the breaking of trust that that that happened with that email. You have listened to the testimonies of employees
of the people you depend on who talked about what a gut punch it was, how it landed and people who they knew that it was it was misrepresented. They knew from the very beginning and um yet
there's been no response. You want to restore trust, you have to begin the repair. There needs to be a public acknowledgement of what happened. I've talked to a couple of people. that at least one person has spoken publicly, but this was a public email. It needs to be a public response to our whole
community. Um, speaking of trust, when um that also relates to the breaking of trust with SRO's in our schools because as you've heard several times tonight, that was a real breach of trust in pushing that through underhandedly when you said it wouldn't be addressed and
then holding feedback sessions. And I've talked to so many people through in different communities who have have definitely noted that those felt really disingenuous. Um because the decision was already made. What can we do? But they gave their feedback. They still came and gave
their feedback. And did you hear it? You need to listen to the community and revisit the question of SRO's. The community as people have said also spoke with the school board election. That was a way of speaking what our priorities are as a community. So please listen to that. um the teachers, our community, we
want to trust you. We want to work with you because we care about our students. But you have to have the courage to accept when there's a mistake or mistakes that have been made and start to work to repair those. Thank you. >> Hi, my name is Alice Donville. I'm a parent in the Charlottesville City
Schools. Um, and Alice Donville, parent in the Charlottesville City Schools. I have a 10th grader at CHS and I have a second grader at Jackson VIA. Um, I am here to add my voice to the group of people who are disturbed um, by the idea
of SRO's going back in the schools. Um, I'm old enough to remember when there were SRO's in our elementary schools when my 10th grader was in second grade and I was not impressed. Um, I'll be brief. I'm concerned about all of the things you've heard already. I am concerned about safety. I don't think
SRO's in the schools will make us safer. I'm not personally going to feel safer about my children's safety. Um I'm concerned about equity. Um I'm concerned about keeping ICE enforcement out of our schools. It's a big one. I
think it's not been adequately addressed. Um and I know you're solving for problems, but I just think that there's got to be a better solution than putting armed officers in the schools. There's got to be a better way to work with the police department to meet our
goals. Um, thank you. >> Good evening. Uh, my name is Nick Steiner, a parent of two. And before I give my speech, um, when I read that letter to the teachers and the staff, my two words that came to mind were petty
and spiteful. And um I'm really disappointed in the board for sending that letter. And I think you should make a public apology to because apparently you send that to students, send that to parents,
you sent that to staff. It's unacceptable. Okay. Thank you. Now I'm going to go on. I'm here to request that you vote to end the harmful SRO program. It is insane that in a district known for its persistent achievement gap that we're putting in a program that will make that
gap worse. If you look at our school's policy manual, two of the school's fundamental commitments are equity and anti-racism. Okay? When it comes to making safety policy, that goes right out the window. It's the same with our our slogan better together. Those are just words to you
guys. You purposely chose not to seek input from a community. You voted in March of 2024 and I believe it was Miss Burns said, "We have to get outreach and we need recommendation." You guys came back a year later and you talked to nobody.
Unacceptable. And all of this because of why you can't even articulate a good reason to bring SRO's back. You lacked the transparency to talk openly about the safety problems at school. And it is clear that this administration was never committed and never wanted to leave in the first
place. You just waited a couple years and then tried to get the vote back up again and you did it. If you actually wanted to fix those problems, the reason you got them out was because the data didn't support it. The data still does not support it. But if you wanted to fix those problems, you'd be transparent. You'd be data
driven. You'd be collaborative with parents, teachers, students, the people who send our kids here. And you would not give up. You would not give up. But SRO are coming back because a school is actually fine with the status quo.
That's my conclusion. Right now in our academics, we're failing our black students, our special needs students, our lowincome students, our English language learners. But this is the policy you focus on. It would be too much work to be creative and collaborative. So, you chose the easy
way and let the cops deal with it. And it's not even a cheap solution. It's an expensive solution, but it's easy for you. The fact is, our students have to pay for the failures of the adults up here.
You failed to imagine a better future, and you are content with the iniquity of today. And it's an absolute shame. We will have another opportunity towards the end of the meeting. Um, do we have I think we have one registered person online who would like to speak.
>> Yes. Um, I will promote N Walker to our panelist stage. Just needs to unmute and you can take it from there for the three minutes. just let us know uh say something so we know that we can hear you. >> Hello. >> Yes, we can hear you.
>> Thank you. Nica Walker here um call to discuss the SRO's as you all have heard from me many a times. I just read online um where the house voted down to restrict our current president on war
powers and one of the things they said was um that Iran is an imminent threat. It's the same mindset that creates the police state and it's the same mindset
at this level that you all are using um to bring cops back into the school that will primarily um police black children. Imagine St. and coming up with a plan
for its parents that their primarily white upper income school that they were going to put cops in to in their school to roam their hallways and classroom. It would never work. Your teachers um just
had to fight and I have comments about that for the pay increase and for the support staff. There's not enough money already. They are they believe that this is a win and it and they deserve to be paid more and I've always supported it.
But taxes will increase. The city is proposing a 2% t two cent tax increase. Housing is already being denied. Housing at friendship court is being reduced by 40 to 90 units. Um that means just those
two examples means that your teachers and staff will pay more. So, while you are considering or have voted on implementing um SRO's to come back in the school that we successfully remove for all the reasons that were just
stated, you all are willing to spend money um to police to create a police state within CCS. You call yourself revolutionary leaders. This is not revolutionary. It's a return to the norm. someone in this
country, some school division will have to be the division that steps forward, that creates the model. And right now, you are saying that it's also not you. Are our kids not worth it? And I'm going to keep asking. I have a niece that's in the 11th grade. I have a
nephew that will attend the early childhood learning center. My three kids went through CCS. I went through CCS. I am committed to this community and you all say you are and this is not the way. Our kids deserve better than this. And
if for no other reason, you need the money to go other places. The city needs the money to go other places. If you are committed to this poor decision of bringing SRO's back to the system, have
them outside of the buildings. If there's an emergency that warrants them coming into the um buildings, they will be near the school divisions. Thank you. >> Thank you.
>> All right. Thank you everybody who took your time out tonight to make comment. We appreciate you all. We are now moving on to 8.0 which is our student representative report. So, Miss Craig Headway, thank you. >> Good evening. As we wrap up the third
quarter here at CHS, I'd like to thank all the teachers, staff, and administrators across all Charlottesville City Schools for their hard work this quarter, especially through the snow week. Um, I'd once again also like to call attention to an issue that is often mentioned to me to bring to the board's attention, which is the issue of accessing grades. As
students, the only place we can see our grades is Power School, but often the platform is not correctly updated to our current grades, and it is therefore difficult to know where we stand academically at the end of each grading period. I do hope that both the board and the CHS administration will take this into consideration for next year's
policies. I'd also like to extend our congratulations to all of CHS's winter sport athletes for a great season where we saw great skill, teamwork, and commitment. Big thanks to all the athletes, the coaches, and everyone who makes sports at CHS possible because it helps build a strong CHS community.
That's all. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Um I wanted to share with the board um Miss Craig Headway had shared this concern um with me earlier as I often meet with her and converse prior to our meetings and just really wanted
to lean into Dr. Gurley and his team and and say we've heard this a couple times. we we really need to have a better understanding um of why we keep hearing this and um just address it. So I think Dr. Eley was poised to give somewhat of
a response conversation to our students to understand. >> Yeah, thank you so much for um your thoughts or your feedback on the grade visibility um and the frequency of the updates. I think um we know how important that is for students and um
our families to be able to track your academic progress. So we certainly appreciate any concerns related to that being brought to um our attention. I think a we could better understand I just want to make sure I'm clear on is the concern around um grades being
updated in a timely manner generally or just the period at the end of the quarter when we can't see the fi you can't see the final grade or both. >> It's both. >> Okay. All right. >> Yeah. So, um thank you for that. Um I think you know we certainly um expect
grades and feedback to be timely to students. Um, so if you are not seeing um those updates after assignments have been due within a couple weeks, you definitely please let your administrators um know so that they can
do an audit of that because we know feedback should be timely and that is the um expectation here. Um, as far as at the end of the quarter, we do have a period at the very end of the quarter where the final um grade is not um that
feature is turned off as teachers are finalizing the grades and the administrators are reviewing them. Our student information administrator is storing things that um type of thing um that h that needs to happen at the end of the quarter. We do understand though
and we hear you that this is causing some some stress around that time. um you can still see as you know your individual assignments and the scores on those um and including any new ones that might come in um during that period. But um we hear that concern. We are um
exploring ways to um both make sure we can we can process things at the end and um address that transition period. So thank you so much um for sharing that. We do know that um you know we we wanted
to have a one we we still support um a one a one one place for having the grades so that that's consistent. Um we know we've had lots of parents um join the parent portal to be able to see grades so we do feel like that's effective. But um moving forward too if
there's continued feedback on it um please feel free to email me and Dr. alone so that um as we make decisions um moving forward or have conversations around grades um we'll be able to have that direct student input too. So thank you so much.
>> Thank you. And I wonder Ginger I think if there's specific example or more direction help between Dr. Malone and Dr. Eley, please arrange that so that you all can see in real time maybe what students are seeing and that way we can
really try to tackle this issue. I think we want to get this up to speed for our students. Thank you. Thank you. Um now I would entertain please a motion for adoption of our consent agenda. >> So moved.
>> Miss Burns. I need a sec. Miss a second by Miss Cooper. Miss Stacker, if you will. >> Miss Torres, >> yes. >> Miss Burns, >> yes. >> Miss Richardson, >> yes. >> Miss Bryant, >> yes. >> Miss Douly, >> yes.
>> Miss Cooper, >> yes. >> And Mr. Meyer, >> yes. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. And now we are moving um nothing has been pulled from the agenda and we're moving to 11.0, which is our action item. And so we have Miss Lewis close.
Good evening, Madame Chair, members of the board, Dr. Gurley. On February 19th, the announcement of the ratification of the support professionals unit happened and at that time we shared the collective bargaining agreement for your
review. Tonight, I ask for action on this. So, would we like a motion on that? >> Yes, >> please. >> Sure. I move that we approve the school support professionals collective bargaining agreement negotiated with Charlottesville Education Association as
provided to us by superintendent and ratified by CA and authorize the chair to sign it on our behalf. >> May I have a second, please? >> Second. >> All right. And a vote, please. Miss Torres.
>> Yes. >> Miss Burns. >> Do you want discussion? >> So, is there discussion or >> Oh, I'm sorry. >> Excuse me, chair. >> Fine. Yeah, I know. I was ready to like let's sign this thing. Yes. Open this up for discussion or comment. Um, I'm going
to start with anybody online, any of our school board members virtually. Do you have any comments, discussion? >> No comment for me. Miss Douly? Nope. Just excited to have this resolution before us.
>> All right, Miss Bryant. >> Yeah, I'm also excited. Thank you so much. >> All right, Miss Craig Headway, any comments from you, Mr. Meyer? >> Yeah. No, I'm glad we got to this point. I you know I
think it is important that we compensate the kids and the staff that work with all our students uh dayto-day and and make our schools work. Um I think about what's happening at the state level right now, you know, and and we're hope
we'll see we're going to agree to this and then potentially it's all going to change because the state's going to again centralize the union making decision-m process. I don't know if our union colleagues are aware of that or not, but um that's going to be a little frustrating if that happens that we put
all this work in. Uh I want to thank the staff and the union leadership and this everybody who is part of the negotiation process. Uh that is not an easy process. I know for I think the union leadership it is
additional to what your your daily jobs are. Uh, I want to say I think we got some really bad legal advice personally when uh that email went out. Um, that led to a
um a communication that at least I personally thinking for myself here was not um productive. definitely uh not constructive and in retrospect I think I
would have uh written it differently and or probably picked up the phone. Um I think some of you got phone calls from me. Um so all that said is I'm glad that we
reached this point. I know it was difficult. It I think I would have hoped it would have gone smoother. Uh, and I hope that we can build off of this, but also imagine maybe a different system for negotiating. And I think this goes
to what I heard some comments from some teachers earlier, too, where we put a lot of systems in place to get things, but that also make it really hard to, I think, do things, if that makes sense.
So, uh, thank you for everybody. I appreciate again everybody's efforts to get here. I think everybody was acting in good faith and I hope everybody um has learned from this and and I think I have and that I look forward to again implementing this and seeing our staff
be compensated more. Thank you. >> Thank you. Yes, I am also um glad we made it here um and we're able to move forward and compensate what I think everyone agrees um are the backbones of our school district and the hard work
that they do every day and just acknowledging that um I'm hopeful that at the state level we have some stability and that we can work together um forging a new path depending on what that agreement looks like and how this
may impact our future and um do want to do the work to restore those relationships. And um I continue to be in buildings. I continue to be in front of children. I continue to meet with teachers and I'll continue to do that.
Um I think my board colleagues will also do the same. And I think just hoping to foster um that relationship building and hopefully restore um those relationships and get back to a strong working position. Thank you.
>> Yeah, Miss Cooper. >> Um I'm just excited that we are finally to the point where we're able to um sign and you know, just want to put it out there that I have always supported um our support staff. Um I think that um
our support staff does amazing job um in our school system. Um and so I'm just grateful that we are able to get to this point. Thank you. >> Thank you. And I as well um have been a pardon me. I think I asked them, didn't
I? Yeah. Um a a proponent and um have have wanted this to happen. So I'm looking forward to stepping up to the podium. And Miss Gillicanin, would you like to join me and we can sign this together? Thank you. >> Yeah, it's a vote, right? >> Let's vote real quick. Sorry.
I know. I was trying. I've been trying. Not so fast. Miss Gil, I'm gonna start with Miss Burns this time. Miss Burns. >> Yes. >> Miss Richardson. >> Yes. >> Miss Bryant. >> Yes. >> Miss Douly. >> Yes. >> Miss Cooper. >> Yes.
>> Mr. Meyer. >> Yes. >> And Miss Torres? >> Yes. Thank you. Motion pass. Here we go. >> Thank you. >> You All right. Um, that's a big yay. And we
are moving on to 12.0, which is our items for discussion. And the first one is 12.1 which is our 2026 2027 career and technical education um local plan with Dr. Hilts.
>> Good evening madame chair, members of the board and Dr. Gurley. Thank you. This evening, I'm here to present to you the Carl Perkins local plan for the 2627 school year, which is a federal grant used to help fund our
career and technical education programs at Charlottesville Middle School, Charlottesville High School, and at KEK. Before I present to you our budget and our goals for spending, I just want to give you a brief overview of our programming. So the modernized
career clusters framework consists of 14 clusters, over 30 career pathways, 72 subclusters that serve as the primary organizing structure for our CTE programs. This framework is designed to serve as a bridge between education and
work and is the building block for high-quality CTE programs. Our CTE programming in Charlottesville City Schools currently offers courses in nine career clusters. Within these clusters, we provide opportunities for students to
explore a multitude of career pathways. Here you can see the CTE enrollment from the past four years. You will notice an increase in the enrollment in CTE during the 2425 school year, which most is mostly due to the recoding of the state required career investigations course at
the middle school. As you may recall, we added a few new CTE courses this this year at CHS which have helped increase our enrollment. In the program of studies for next year, we have once again added new courses. So, we hope that we will continue to increase our
enrollment. As previous previously mentioned, we do offer approximately 90 different or not 90, sorry, excuse me, 20 in uh different industry credentials at CHS and K-H. The most common of which is the workplace readiness assessment, which assesses
students on the core competencies embedded in all CTE courses and curricula. In the 2024 2025 school year, 137 students earned the workplace readiness credential. In total, 32 382, excuse me, industry credentials were
earned with 344 students having earned more than one credential. This is great for job acquisition and marketability as students can use these certifications to show they have understanding of soft skills andor the technical skills needed in the workforce.
I do want to point out one thing um at the bottom regarding the wise exam which is the exam that students take who are enrolled in the econ and personal finance class. That exam is not on the proposed state board uh list of approved industry credentials for the next school
year. That means if that holds true and wise is removed as an industry credential, we should expect to see a significant drop in the number of industry credentials. Um for perspective last year there were approximately 190 students who passed the wise exam uh
which is similar to previous years. So the state board of educ education is updating the credential list to better align with the credentials that are vetted by industry including the relevance of the credential and alignment to industry standards and labor market needs.
Now we shift to looking at the goals that were set for this current school year. These goals are also reflected in our local plan. This year once again we did expand opportunities for students by adding courses to our program of studies such as the start of the health and medical sciences pathway. There's also
been work at uh Charlottesville Middle to expand career investigations which again is a state required course by exposing students to different industries and career pathways. As we shift to our uh goals for next year, which also help determine our
spending of Perkins funds, we again are continuing to provide more CTE opportunities for our students. Again, for the 2627 school year, this board uh approved new courses that will expand our agriculture, health, and medical sciences, marketing, and technology
pathways. Next, we need to career to continue to expand our career and technical student organizations. These are required co-curricular organizations that offer students leadership experiences as they participate in competitions and other organization
projects. Our third goal is to continue our work with our business and industry partners to find highquality work-based learning opportunities that are directly aligned with our CTE courses. Part of this work involves continuing career exploration and awareness opportunities such as
K-tech tours, collaboration with our elementary schools for projects, trips to local business and industry sites, career fairs, and the list goes on. And lastly, one of the required uses of Perkins funds relates to the recruitment and retention of qu of qualified CTE
educators through professional learning opportunities. Each of these goals will lead us on the path of continuing to establish highquality career and technical education programs. The estimated allocation for the 2026 2027 Perkins plan is $19,556.73.
This number will go up or down depending on set allocations which will be determined and shared by the Virginia uh Department of Education usually in June or July. Uh with the allocation we will continue to prioritize spending um to
ensure that our students have access to uh equipment that meets industry standards and our staff have opportunities for professional learning uh and that we continue to provide career exploration and awareness opportunities for our students. Um, and lastly, that we do continue to develop
sustainable uh business and industry partner uh relationships. Um, that concludes my presentation and I'm happy to answer any questions you might have. >> Again, I'm going to start with um our board members um who are remote if any
of you have any comments or questions. Let's start with Miss Douly. >> No comments or questions. Thank you. >> Okay, Miss Bryant. I don't have any questions, but um thank you for this presentation. >> You're welcome, >> Miss Richardson.
>> Um yes, I just want to say thank you um for your presentation and I see how these programs give our students hand on skills which I love and um I see how building the relationships with the local businesses can help prepare them for the real world. >> Thank you.
>> Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Cooper. >> No questions. Thank you, Miss Burns. >> No questions. Thank you, >> Mr. Meyer. >> Miss Krak, um I just had a quick question about the student organizations, like what that what that looks like or what you're thinking of.
>> So, those are like um TSA, which is aka Bacon. Um the tech, you know, the and then there's HOSA, which is for our health occupations. Um there's Skills USA, which is a lot of our skilled trades, including cosmetology, building trades. They um
they're required, however, they're not typically funded. So um a lot of the the clubs they fund raise um and we do send them to some competitions. Miss uh Wilson takes her students to and we at KEK takes some of our students to the
state fair um in the fall to compete um and we participate in local competitions and regional competitions um with other um school divisions and schools. So, it gets them to showcase and they get judged and they get awards um for for
their performance. >> Great. Thank you. I mean, I see a lot of great um social media >> from KEK, so I appreciate that. But if there's ever anything I think >> around those organizations that that you feel like we
>> can support, please let us know. >> Yeah, I do. I mean, I will never turn down that opportunity because it it again, they're typically not funded, but they are required for CTE programs. So, um, you know, sometimes we can typically cover local um, competitions, but
sometimes when we get to the, you know, if they went to regionals or states, you know, we're we can't really use funds. We actually can't use most of our Perkins funds to support any of those things. So, um, we will let you know if we get to that point. Thank you. >> Thank you.
>> Thank you for your presentation. >> All right. And next up, we have Mr. Como and Miss Smaltch. Good evening. Um, Madam Chair, members of the board, Dr. Gurley, you have to excuse my voice. It's a little bit groggy. Um, but we come here tonight to
give you an overview of some upcoming changes with the Americans with Disabilities Act. It's an accessibility compliance requirement for school districts. Um, this is going to be a pretty big change for school divisions. This process has already started for
CCS. And just to be clear, this process for us, we don't run out of runway until 13 months from now in April of 2027. So, tonight is more of an informational what we've done, what we're going to do, and where we're going. Um, so we'll present
what these changes look like. And, um, I'll start and pass it on to, um, Amanda in just a few minutes. And as with most things, um, we like to align this to our strategic plan. And um it does not bear reading on the screen,
but if you do want to look, we do like to make sure that all of our public and our students can have clean accessible um access access to um digital program and that includes our public facing website, our um student content that
they they would access on sites like Canvas and P school, articles that we may publish, and other digital content including this uh live feed and The ADA has passed uh legislation just gives us guidance on how we can best um address
those standards. So yes, >> perfect. Yeah, that's fine. Um the importance of accessibility cannot be overstated. Oh okay sorry. So the in short the we have to adopt these new standards and if
we are in not in compliant them then we can face fines and fees. But the bigger reason we want to do this is that we want all of our entities to be able to access this digital content easily and under the new standard.
And obviously the importance of accessibility is it is the why. It's crucial for ensuring equal access for students with disabilities. Um improving accessibility uh helps with the child's educational experience and again for
that public facing group who want to um collaborate and initiate and work with our schools and our teachers and our staff. Now some things that need to happen um moving forward is that we do need to start remediating some of these electronic documents. Um, a couple of
the big changes will be the way that we tag PDFs and machine readable text. To put that in very simple terms, one clear example of a tagged PDF would be in some reading programs if you had a three
column PDF news article. Some of them if they weren't tagged properly, uh someone who could not see who would use the keyboard to to initiate um a readaloud, it might read the first line of column one, the first line of column 2, and the first line of column 3. That would be a
bad example of what we don't want to do. And so what the law basically tells us to do is that when you tag these PDFs appropriately, then the reader for that that student or that public-f facing person will uh read all of column 1, all of column 2, and all of column 3 as it
is meant to be heard by that user. Um the other big example is machine readable text. That means that uh a bad example of that is a signed contract. We sign a contract, then we scan it into the website, and then our website and
readers do not have the ability to read the um individual text or sentences in that particular type of scan. So, we'll be changing the way that we upload those documents so that they can use uh what's known as OCR, which is a way that it can convert those images to a readable text.
Those are just two of the examples of the kinds of things that we have started doing and that we will be doing uh while we get closer to our finish line again in 13 months from now. I would talk just briefly about media accessibility updates. Again, uh for an
event like this where we're live and we're live streaming, we just want to make sure that our audience has uh text below text to speech so they can see exactly what we're saying um for for people that have uh special needs um and
fall under the ADA. Um, and we're it's just so that these enhancements basically ensure again that our public that our audience that our students can engage fully in the content that we're putting out there for them to see. One of the other things that we need to
do moving forward is as we engage new vendors for new services, we need to make sure that they are uh compliant to these new standards. Um, we're also going to need to go back to all of our current and existing vendors and make sure that their content which we uh
which we utilize will meet these standards and we'll need to work with them to make sure that they're in compliance. Um, and off the top of my head, I already know a majority of the big vendors that we work with are compliant. But it's our goal in these next 13 months to just get that number
to 100% or make the changes that we need to to ensure that we are uh compliant with this. And again just for the benefit of all um end users who need to access information in our from our school system.
Now there are exceptions to the workload. Um it's in short if it's archived we're okay in the for the past if there's pre-existing documents that don't require any fixes. Um, you know,
our goal is to fix and get as much as we can facing forward that is up to date. Um, but essentially anything that's active on our website, anything that's active for our students that our teachers make, that our uh website design team makes, all of that will fall
under this ADA requirement. And so it's again, it's a big lift, but um as we work towards it, we want to make sure that everything we are touching um meets those requirements. um and is accessible. And as I've said, tonight is very
informational. Um there are a number of school divisions who have more than 50,000 students where that deadline is coming up uh next month. And so our runway again is uh to move towards completion uh by April 24th, 2027 as we
are qualified as a small district less than 50,000 students. And with that I will step aside. >> Yes. Okay. So now I'll just be going over what have we already started doing and what do we still need to do. So just an
overview for all districts, you know, what what needs to happen is to adopt the new ADA standard. Obviously, we need to fix things that um are not already in compliance that will be continue to be active on our public facing channels. We
need to consider all of we need to consider video and audio and how we address that. As Pat mentioned, we need to ensure our vendors are in compliance and we got to get this done by next April. But that's why we're here.
So, the good news is that we have a um made some decisions over the past couple of years that will make this significantly less ownorous for the divi for the division. Uh the first one of those is the adoption of parent square. the which is obviously our all division communication tool and parent square has
builtin accessibility features. Really the um as with a lot of a lot of the tools the area where we'll just need where we need to work is at the individual uh user level not creating
images or videos that are not compliant or that are not accessible to folks. And and so you'll see a little bit later in this presentation, we have plans we have um plans for staff education on that front. But in its basic format, Parent Square is very um very much already
built in with accessibility features. And as as you can imagine, accessibility features are also pretty tightly woven in with good translation features, which Parent Square has. Um, as you may already know, Parent Square, when families opt in to receive messages in
their preferred language, they receive the message already in their language, and then when they send a message to their teacher or their principal, uh, that message is translated back to the principal or the school's preferred language. So, it's very seamless and a lot of the features that make that
translation feature seamless are the same as the accessibility features. So, we love Parent Square. Um and also just you know the good news about parent square is now we're in our third full third second third full school year of using it and so our staff are just
increasingly comfortable with it more and more people are using it more and more effectively. Um and then the other piece which is related to parents square is that at the same time as we moved to parents square we also migrated our website to smart sites which is a division of parent square and which similarly has um all the provided
websites already meet that accessibility standard and have those built-in accessibility guardrails. So what does that mean? That basically means that if I try to put um text on top of an image on our website and it's not the right color and it's not readable by a screen
reader, the website says you can't do that. So um that's great. And so there's a lot of features of the website already that are helping us do that. Um it requires all text. Um it's already visitors can already easily navigate it
um via via keyboard. I also want to say that so we got the new website in 2023, but this past year 2526, we're in the middle of a refresh of the website, which has admittedly been mostly about trying to make the websites better and
have better content and be more comprehensive as a front door to our school division. But the process of that has been to remove a lot of old and moldy stuff which just means we are not in a position of having a lot of content that's ADA problematic because we've
taken all that down. We're only working with what's active, what's true and evergreen about our schools rather than this is what we were doing in 2018 and wasn't it great and it was great but it doesn't need to we we don't need it on the website. Next slide.
The other piece of um of our work completed is is a tool a Chromebook extension that all of our student and staff Chromebooks come included with which is called read and write and is an ADA compliant tool
that basically allows that turns any digital content into an ADA in makes it ADA accessible. It reads text aloud. Um it highlights tools. I I feel like it's very similar to um a tool that you know if you go to the grocery store and if
you are low have low vision needs and you you can call that service and it basically like reads what you see on the shelf at the grocery store for you. It's like that tool but for surfing the internet for our students. So that's already a tool that Charlottesville City
Schools has. So, we feel confident that a lot of our student learning and instructional needs under ADA compliance are already going to be set for that. Next slide. Okay. So, what do we need to do? So, we
still have a lot that we need to do. So, as I mentioned, we have to make sure we have to review and gather all the materials primarily on our website um that are f that are forward facing and make sure that they are either already are ADA compliant or we need to get them get them to that.
So, we're in the middle of that. Uh we need to obviously as Pat mentioned the the work with vendors. There are some vendors who help us create public documents and we need to ensure those are ADA compliant. The Office of Community Relations has been working on on learning all the ins and outs of this
obviously and working with Pat and that will be the basis of that will create a a wider staff awareness and education around this as we approach the next school year. Uh but I think probably the big piece is that we think that probably an outside consultant. We're going to
evaluate. There are a number of organizations as you can imagine that are helping school divisions and local governments make this happen and make it happen smoothly because it could very it is a very big lift. And so we are going to see if there's anybody um out there
that could help us do this in a way that would be streamlined, that would be efficient, that would that would get us the results we need for accessibility and would ensure that we um that we don't go a foul of this law without intending to. Next slide.
And okay, so next steps and looking ahead really I I think the the main thing I want to highlight here is that when we think about this the new ADA guid guidelines what we want is to balance our current level of transparency with what we share on our
website, what we share um on our board web platform, what we share in other public ways. We want to balance that with documents um that have complex needs in order to make sense to a screen reader or other ADA compliance tool.
Right? So we we don't want to be in a position where we say well we can't be as transparent because it's just too hard to get this document to be ADA compliant. That's not where we want to be. So that again is where we think a consultant um is potentially going to be supportive. Uh and so looking ahead, we
are um we are making a map of the work and we feel confident that we're going to get it done, but it's going to be a big lift. Thanks everybody. Questions? Again, um I'm going to start with our board members online. Miss Bryant, do
you have any questions >> at this time? I don't. Presentation. >> Okay. Miss Douly. >> Nope. I'm, you know, fully supportive of anything that makes our information more accessible to everyone. So, thanks for your work on this,
>> Miss Richardson. >> Yes. Um, I know you said it's going to be a big lift. Um, do you guys need any extra support or how do you plan on tackling this lift and who's all a part of the team? >> Thanks, Nicole. So
I think that the support that we need is again we're we're in the opening stages of dis of figuring out you know what exactly we need but we feel confident that a that we're going to look into consultants and and hopefully be able to establish a relationship with an
organization that will enable us to to quickly take whatever however complex a document, however complex a video we have and that they will have the tools to just make it happen for us. Um, and I would say that this is I mentioned the parents I mentioned parent square and I
mentioned, you know, helping make sure that all of our parents square content creators are aware of how to make their their pieces ADA compliant, but the most important is the team who works on the website. Currently, that is that is a
team of one. Um, and so we're hoping to expand that team, but but um, making sure, you know, because because again, it goes handin glove. Ensuring that the website is full of accurate and up-to-date information involves more people, but involving more people means you need to train more people to to get
it right for uh, ADA compliance. >> Thank you. >> All right, Miss Craig Headway, any questions? Mr. Meyer, Miss Burns? Miss Cooper, no questions. Um, so just quickly going to come back
to the consultant and then just the cost. Is this built into your budget already or are you going to be coming back to us? Do you anticipate that? >> We anticipate that we're hoping to get
this sorted out in the next Yeah. In the next Yeah. during during 26 27, >> right? Mhm. >> Okay. All right. We'll leave that right there. Um and then also was just curious
like how much lead time did the large school divisions have to start working on this? >> We think this is we we're we're thinking a a a couple of years. I think that it may have come as a surprise to some of them though. I think that it's only
really hitting large level awareness now. Here's Pat. >> Yeah. In my um tech director meetings across the state, some of the bigger school divisions were very prepared, but there was definitely an open eye awareness when the first deadline came
up and there were a lot of people scrambling who were already past a budget space especially for uh children and students because a program like read and write takes a while to get and takes a while to implement and a lot of them had gone through the budget cycle in
these larger divisions to onboard board a program like that was very expensive. So, um they were gracious enough to tell us to watch and be ready and to take this um take this with the 13 or 14 months that we had and um and I think
over this past summer we were aware of it and started making some um updates to the website to to do that. So yeah, there was there was a little bit of a surprise because it is it's such a small statement, but it's a very it's a very big lift when you think about the amount
of digital media out there and the fact that it has to be uh compliant AC across the board, you know, it's a it's a lot of information. >> So out of curiosity, is this also then um are is higher ed have to fall into this as well?
>> Yeah, >> I mean intriguing. I just only, you know, because um my kiddo when she was in schools, I mean, some of the accommodations and the things that you all are talking about, the read and write and then we we I we as an I, you
know, had to invest and purchase some of the OCR apps and things like that. And it was really challenging to get any of those to work well um to read aloud to her or, you know, like the columns. I mean, we I used to sit there and just pull my hair out at times. So, I mean, I
feel like we are ahead of the game a little bit because these things, you know, have been part of and within Charlottesville City Schools to a certain extent. And then also, um, just knowing that a lot of those tools, you know, were were beneficial and
absolutely needed to, um, kind of level the playing field for her, but will help a lot of students, right? not just students with the IEP or or the listed accommodations. So, I I look forward to this and please keep us updated. So,
thank yeah, Miss Cooper. >> So, I just do have a question. We do have some of these accommodations already in place, right? >> Yeah. The student program that we use called Read and Write is available for all staff and all students. And if our I
can't speak specifically to our students with disabilities, but I told Amanda whenever, which is very rarely, if there's ever a time when it's down or not working, we get a call right away. And you know, of course, thankfully, it's 99.9% working, but um it's designed
for our students with special needs, but it like Morris was saying, it's a tool that's available and is on installed on every student and staff Chromebook. Thank you both. Appreciate you. All right. And our next item is 12.3. So that's pending school closure for
students and polling site locations. Miss Powell. >> Good evening, Madame Chair, members of the board. Dr. Gurley. Um, you may have heard that at this time there is a vote on new congressional maps that is set
for April the 21st. Eight of the Charlottesville city schools are voting locations and they're listed here. That's well over half of our schools. One of the schools is our school, but it's in Albal County. Kekch
um is a polling place for the county. So on February the 25th um myself and a number of my my team, we had a work session of sorts with the office office of voter registration and elections. Um we had Taylor Yao with us and a member of her board and we took a deep dive
looking school by school at what you know taking the hard look at what it takes to have school on the same day as voting. And there are a number of challenges and um one of the top ones is parking. Um, if you visit some of our schools on a normal school day, we're
very limited for parking. Trailblazer and Summit top of mind for that concern, but others as well. Um, so that's a concern. Traffic is also a concern. Just in in general, there would be an increase in vehicular traffic around our schools and as you know, we have lots of
our students who bike and walk. Um the fact that when there is voting uh on there the laws that protect voter rights actually takes have some precedence over laws that normally come into play with our safety uh on normal school
operations. Meaning more specifically that any the restrictions regarding sex offenders being able to be on campus um that does not that that cannot prevent them from po from you know polling. If we have a um a no trespass order on
someone because of some incidents that have occurred in the past, you that that does not hold against their right to vote. And so um our grounds are more open than they normally would be if we have voting on the same day of school. And also um the campaign activities uh
that allow, you know, campaigners and and people trying to inform the public to do what what they need to do within 40t of the entrance and exit of every polling place. those apply. We don't as a school division get to say no, you you don't get to do that just because we're having school if we were having school the same day. And then there's also just
the other disruptions. There's loss of space. We have um one cafeteria, we have multiple gyms that would be, you know, not usable by our student body if we have voting on the same day that we have schools. Therefore, assuming that the redistricting referendum remains on
track to happen, that that vote happens on April 21st and that is the plan and all indications that that is what is going to happen, it is in the best interest of Charlottesville City Schools in the city um to help support voting and u maintain our safety model and full use of our schools that we will not have
schools on that day. Um this presentation marks our first big announcement of this to the um to the public. We will certainly be following this um probably tomorrow. Miss Corman will start doing targeted messaging message blasts to our families so they
can start planning um and then we'll certainly look to have additional reminders about this calendar change closer to the date. Um on that on the day though however to try to be as minimally disruptive as possible CHS athletics will proceed as normal on that
day and then um the nursing board exams that are scheduled at KEK for that day um they will also proceed as planned. We've been working with Dr. Heltz to make sure that that there won't be hiccups. There's an outside group that comes in and administers that multi-day testing. And if anything else comes
forward that schools want to talk to us about that they would like to, you know, have, we'll certainly do anything we can to to minimize the disruption to our schools. But we wanted to make sure people understand this decision and the reasons behind it. Happy to take questions. >> Yeah, thank you for the update. Um,
we'll start down here. Miss Cooper, do you have any questions? >> A question. >> Right, Miss Burns? >> I do. Um, so if this is a first read, it would have to go back on March or are you asking for >> it's actually just being brought forward
as an information item that this decision about school closure. In fact, in many ways, this feels like a uh weather decision. Um, >> okay. >> It it's the superintendent's decision and so this is to inform the board and the public. I'm sorry. I should have made that more clear at the beginning.
>> Perfect. That was what I was asking. Thank you, >> Mr. Meyer. Miss Craig Headway. No. Um, Miss Richardson, do you have any questions? >> Um, no. I just want to say that I definitely agree that we should uh close
the schools for voting so everyone has the ability to vote as we are protecting the voters's rights and then the safety of our students. So, I definitely agree. >> Thank you, Miss Bryant. >> Um, no, I guess I actually do have a
question. Um, so I'm wondering why or like if there's any possibility for like virtual learning opportunities. I mean that is so close to the end of the school year. And I just wonder for
like especially for students who may have some struggles or need to, you know, tie up some loose ends before the end of the fourth quarter, how can we optimize this day um that will possibly be a school closure day?
>> Um great question, Miss Bryant. Thank you. Um so and um deciding whether there's a virtual option and and we've actually had this conversation as it relates to like snow days. Um because I know like we've had some surrounding
localities um that have had that have had snow days. Um I think what we found is that it it really becomes an equity issue um when we try to do virtual um because um not every student has access
to Wi-Fi. Um and then we don't do um we don't um students at the lower grades don't take home Chromebooks. Um and so they don't have like their own personally issued Chromebook. Um, so
there's a couple of variables that would be a hard pivot for us to like to try to make that happen by April the 21st. Uh, I know like during the pandemic um, you know, we did virtual, but that consisted
of like we um bought the um the I think they call them MFI um the wireless um MFI routers. So there were a lot of things that we did provide for our students through the ARP and ESSER funds
and those things just aren't available to um make that day um to make the a virtual instruction possible on such a a pivot. >> Thank you so much for that um response.
That makes a lot of sense. Um I mean yes, I do agree with Miss Richardson. Um, I do think that it's important that we keep voting as a priority as well as, you know, our learning and our students. Um, with voter suppression happening across the country and especially in key
districts, I think it's important that we, um, put that the right to exercise, you know, that right to vote first. So, um, yeah, I'm glad that we're doing that. Um, but I still have more questions, but I think I'll ask some via
email or something like that because I would like to see some more creative conversation about how we handle school closures in the future. Thank you, >> Miss Douly. Yes, I think I echo some of the concerns
just about additional lost instructional time. Um, and would welcome the conversation that Miss Bryant suggested about just looking forward, you know, what we can what we can do. I fully appreciate that the pivot to virtual was not super successful during COVID and
that's not the best solution, but you know, what else can we consider? Um since this is throughout the state, is there any conversation about, you know, forgiveness for seat time around this last day? Um you know, how are we doing
on hours? Um you know, and ensuring that we're meeting the requirements. >> Yes, ma'am. Um and so, Miss Julie and Miss Brian, I think that's um we've talked about we are we're doing okay with the seat time. Um I think this um
election um much like a much like a winter storm kind of caught us off guard and it was you know it's really one that I mean there's very little wiggle room in our schedule. U we did look at um we did look at like whether what other days
could we use to make up and we know that um you know it just wasn't practical at the last minute to do like a taking a day from spring break. Um I mean we all agree that the seat time is very important but I but we do have the
waivers and we do feel like we um the waivers will be approved. And the thing that we have going for us that many of our surrounding localities don't have going for them is that we opened um you know we a lot of school divisions were
out for like two weeks with that snow creed or whatever that thing was called. Um but we made the choice to come back on that Monday which really worked to our favor. So I mean whereas a lot of
school divisions will be feeling the hit of taking that 21st off because they've missed so many days and with us we did not miss as many days as our um our colleagues in the surrounding district.
So it really worked to our favor to come back to school. >> Thank you. So I think just you know as we continue future calendar developments just I you know want the board to continue thinking about you know the number of contract days and how that
relates to the number of student contact days um and that you know we may need to add some more days into our calendar so that when we are hit by these events whether it's weather or elections or whatever it might be you know that um
you know it's more than just I think we all know this it's more than just hitting the requirement of seat time. We know that, you know, time with students in the classroom matters. Um, and so just what can we do to maximize that knowing that every year there's probably going to be something, you know, that
comes up that requires us to close schools. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Douly, Miss Bryant. Um, Mr. Meyer, did you have another question? Yeah, sorry. One came to me and my apologies if I missed this, but is there not the opportunity to swap the
21st April for one of the teacher work days or professional days? And sorry if you already covered that. >> Um the so we've the teacher work day that's at the end of the month is is I mean we try to protect those teacher work days as much as possible um because
that that really is the reconciliation of grades for teachers. um and not giving them the opportunity to um to have the to get those grades done uh really doesn't give them I mean there's
no other space for them to do all the things that they need to do to get the grades turned in in a timely manner. Mr. Salvatary is saying >> yeah thank you thank you and I think Dr. Gly, you and Miss Doulie, you addressed
any questions I had. So, thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right. The next item is 13.0, which is the board response to written reports, which includes uh committee reports, our chronic absenteeism and
outcome of disciplinary matters. Mr. Meyer, do you have any comments, questions? >> Yeah, I'll I'll start us off. uh absenteeism report. Uh February was a hard month. A lot was going on. So I I
noticed some upticks there and it was also kind of how they think the counting gets done. But overall, I still like our trajectory and I thank you staff and and I would uh to all our parents out there, please keep focused on getting your kids to school, please. uh it is important
and I would love to see us drop our division by rate of not being the red uh over 20% chronically absent. So looks like we're going to achieve that, but uh we need to finish strong here. Thank you.
>> Yes. I um I wonder if it's possible to have I know CHS is the combined CHS plus Luggo SL night school and I'm wondering if moving forward we could have um like
the night school LMA pulled out from that so that we can see um the 20 24 2025 and then his moving forward into this year 26 look back with that pull out. I don't know, Miss Raznick, if you
is that and if other I don't know are there other colleagues that are interested in that? I don't >> go ahead. Is that >> that's that's possible if um
>> I think so just to have we've had this historical knowledge with all the other spaces. I think if we're asking for it, we have a good starting point. um if that's not I don't know what a lift that is, but if we could um just
see that number as well is I think we're looking on a work session coming up on black student achievement and just um I think that data point could be helpful as we move into that conversation and just so if we could isolate it and it's
not too much of a heavy lift. Okay, >> we can isolate it. I think the one thing that is a little bit different is like their enrollment might change more substantially as a percent throughout the school year. Um, and there are
students that like were chronically absent like before they started attending who could with a small N, right? It's like 45 students like that can drastically change, but it can be it it's very easy to pull it out. >> Thank you. >> Yeah.
Any other questions, board members? This was again in 13.0 board response to written reports. >> Um, no. Um, I think I would like to also um with the work session coming up kind of be able to understand um those
numbers as well. >> Thank you. All right. And we are now moving to our second opportunity for comments from members of the community. So, if you would like to make comment, please um approach the podium, state your name, and you have three minutes.
Good evening, Madame Chair, board, and Dr. Gurley. My name is Jen Utner. I am the parent of two CHS students. Uh this is something I've been I'm also the former PTO president for two years. Um something I've been mulling over a long
time. I have not had time to prepare comments but I wanted to in introduce to you all um an issue which I find is uh increasingly creating a problem for my student and I expect other students which is the I understand the uh
results-based learning and standardsbased learning model that the school has undertaken um I think the granting of of 50% to all students irrespective of the work they've put into the assignment is um
giving students a false sense of how they're successful in class. I also think the uh um flexible due dates also is is disadvantag is creating a disadvantage to our students. Um you know school is
not only a place to learn facts, it's a place to learn life skills. I have never worked at a place where my assignments are due whenever or you know by the end of the quarter there's a due date and you know so part of that skill is teaching our students like this is when
it's due and if you don't do it it's a zero. Um I understand that or I believe part of the impetus behind this was not only during COVID when learning was hard but also as a way to create some equity amongst our students and also to help
the schools become accredited. But I do think there's a very specific group of students that are disadvantaged by this. Um I find my students creating you know uh this this test this is worth 10 points and so if I don't do anything I get five so I'm just not going to do
anything versus this is worth 20 so if I don't do it I lose 10 points so I better do it. You know a calculus in their minds about whether or not an assignment is worth doing when they're going to turn it in if they should turn it in. And finally, I think our teachers at our disadvantage because they can never turn
the page on an assignment. So, you know, I heard Miss Horn speak earlier. I heard Mr. Davis speak earlier. Their challenges are real. Um, you know, asking my student to go retake a test and redo work that they really should have been prepared for, but just never
did the homework or, you know, just didn't sign in that day. Didn't didn't come to school in their mind and sort of biffed it. You know, I think that some students legitimately need assistance in this area. Not every student does and there is a real population of students that I do not think are college ready.
Um they're doing advanced degrees and you know, my student included is does not have the skills to go to a college and turn assignments in on time. Just facts. So, I would love for you to consider whether or not there's a way to change that in the future. I, you know,
I have a ninth grader, so she's got three more years here. I think there are other parents who feel similarly. I'm happy to come to you with names. I'm happy to take a list. I'm happy to talk to teachers. I know I'm only one representation of one population certainly. Um but I do think it's a
problem and it's starting to really really eat at me as I look at my students preparedness for what's supposed to come not just maybe college but the workplace of I think it's a real issue. So thank you. >> Thank you. Anybody else here in the
media center? Anybody online? Nope. Okay, we are moving on. Then we have comments from the board. Um again, I will start online and
um we will start with Miss Bryant. >> Okay. Um yeah, I had I have a lot of comments, but I mean I'll start with the things that um I've enjoyed being a part of over the past like couple of weeks. Um went to Lugo and really enjoyed the
um cookoff that they had to celebrate Black History Month. Um I enjoyed the Black History Month um Walker assemblies last Friday um for fifth and sixth grade. Um my sorority, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Incorporated, was a part of
that. Um as well as um Omega Sci-Fi Fraternity Incorporated, um they were stepping and teaching students about like our sorority culture and that was great. So I've really enjoyed being a part of several engagements that we've had out in the community. Um and so
February was like a really fun month and I'm looking forward to all that March will bring. Um, but I also wanted to just make a comment on some of the things that were brought up earlier um by our public comments and by community members. And so I just was thinking
about how I've brought up before and have responded to a few emails about um this idea of making a procedural change um to allow board member responses earlier in the board meeting to some of the comments that are brought forth. mainly because we have community members
that are raising like real concerns um and I appreciate everyone who comes and speaks and you know we hear some really passionate community members, parents, educators um share their ideas and their hopes and their fears and
often we only give them a few nods and a thank you for speaking and then we're on to the next speaker and I think that that really crushes the morale of not just community members but also um like teachers who are coming here, who are coming after work, who are bringing
forth like real concerns that are affecting their classrooms. Um so, you know, it's it's hard for me to kind of want to wait all the way till the end of the meeting when unfortunately some people have to leave. You know, they have other things that they have to tend
to. Um some people may tune out offline. Um, but I do think if we could give more timely responses, I think that that would make a real impact on the flow of our meeting, the retention of people who may come to the meetings and say, and also just people who trust um, engaging
with us and bringing their concerns forward. So, I think that's important. Um, I also have expressed concerns about SRO's in schools. I will continue to do that. Um, I do believe that the vote was rushed when it happened before. um it
wasn't on the agenda. That is true. And I hope that we as a board will do our due diligence and at least discuss it further because there seems to be that concern from the community and uh parents, teachers, community members have expressed to me um their concerns
about that. So, I hope that we take it seriously. Thank you. >> Thanks, Miss Bryant. Um, Miss Richardson. >> Yes. Um, so again, I want to u recognize and celebrate Coach Dber for his commitment to our students in our
community. We are truly grateful for his leadership, dedication, and lasting legacy has brought to our schools and to our young people. Um, I want to give a shout out to our high quality career technical programs that will roll out next school year. I'm excited about
that. And then um of course I'm going to touch on the SRO's. As a black woman, I speak from personal experience and encounters with police. No matter how careful and respectful you can be, you can still be frightened and triggered by
those encounters. I continue to stand by my previous vote against bringing SRO's back into our schools. I believe our students safety can be strengthened through investing in support services and school-based staff. I also want to express my appreciation to the community
members who continue to speak out and share their perspectives on this issue and I just want to let them know that they're not alone on how they feel. And thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Douly.
I have no additional comments. >> Thank you. Um, Miss Craighead, do you have any? No. Okay. Mr. Meer. >> Uh, thank you for all those who are tuning in online and in, uh, attendance
here in person. Uh, I would second Miss Bryant's, uh, request that we modify our agenda to be able to, uh, respond, uh, in a brief manner uh, to public comment. I I do think
we can do that in a way that is uh efficient in our meeting while also u I think right giving needed feedback to uh people who spend time to come provide their comments to us. Um regarding SRO's
I do not think we need to reopen this. I I have spent a lot of time in meetings over the last two years listening and learning from members of the public, from our staff. I've had
dozens of conversations uh with fellow parents and people in the community about the topic and I've seen us evolve a program based on feedback, based on a lot of work. Uh again, I think we
created a great committee with schoolboard member participation and saw a lot of change in the created that I think I understand the concerns. I've seen the data. I don't disagree with
those concerns necessarily, but I do really think thisou that we have in place and the accompanying SOPs addresses a lot of those concerns. Um, so I'm not in favor of opening up another conversation about this. I think
we voted on it. Uh, and we we need to spend time and effort focusing on, I think, important educational matters related to our student achievements, not rehashing a a discussion we already
had. Um, I want to acknowledge uh Mr. Davis's and Mrs. Horn's I think frustration with being micromanaged. One of the fascinating things I found of being on the schoolboard here and and I am not a
teacher but is the amount of I would say bureaucracy unfortunately associated and micromanaging that is forced upon the profession. I don't think necessarily, if I understand this correctly, uh, from the schoolboard level necessarily, but a lot of it from
the state level. I think it was adequately, I think, kind of described by Mr. Davis of having to collect a lot of information that goes across and then get sent to the state all in the name of uh, a student achievement um, and results. So, I want to acknowledge that
frustration and concerns. I think show me where to go and who to talk to at the state level to address that and um I I will be there with you. Uh I do want to colleagues uh we are going to be starting out talking about policy and I
think this gets to a public comment here uh by one of at the last here section here but specifically not at the high school level the grading policy but I am definitely open to I think some of those points that were brought up but the retention policy
I I do want to have that conversation. We said we were going to have that conversation last spring and I do want to see a change for the upcoming school year. Uh and I think a lot of us have that. Additionally, I do hope that we would also address the screens and
edtech technology issue. I know that I think that's also an issue with many of you and I hope we can have that conversation and make some changes when we go uh make our policy changes here at the end of this uh spring. Thank you very much.
Miss Burns. >> Thank you. Um I wanted to take a moment to share with my colleagues and the community. Um if you'll remember a few months ago, um the theater students came and talked about SETC conference that they were going to in Tennessee and
raising money for that. And I'm happy to report that funds were raised and the excuse me, the per student cost was brought down significantly so that our students could afford the trip. And so 41 of our students are there representing our community and they were
able to perform today. Um and I've heard um that the performance was nothing short of incredible and one judge shared that they had never seen such a strong ensemble in all their years of adjudicating performances.
They also talked about um the remarkable diversity of our cast and I know many of us were able to attend Westside Story over the weekend um last week. And what was really um impactful for me was on
the last night um several of our students um who are immigrants came out with their respective flags and they were able to represent their home countries on stage and um it was
really quite moving. the audience that was in attendance that night was able to really witness our students coming together um in a safe space that they felt supported and seen and that they were able to be themselves and represent
their individual countries on the big stage in Charlottesville, Virginia. And just want to um applaud their bravery for doing so. we don't live in a climate where um students feel safe in our
community at times and I think um it's a testament to the safety and security that we provide at Charlottesville City Schools that they were able to do that and that they were able to be um just cared for and represented and seen in that light. Um and so many of those
students went on this trip. Um, six of our CHS students have participated in college auditions and every single one of them has been offered callbacks and are in conversations about summer theater programs at several of the
colleges and universities. And I think again just highlighting the experiences that are extraordinary for Charlottesville City Schools and Charlottesville High School where that talent is really nurtured um and those voices are amplified are so important
that they can take that passion to the next level. And so really just thank you to Mr. Becker, Mr. Iicor, and Dr. Gurley really for supporting the arts and supporting our students. Um, I love to hear and attend all the basketball games
and all the sporting events and really appreciate everything that goes into that and just want to um, you know, proudly display the same for our art students and just the tremendous work that goes in to that department.
Um, I also want to talk about the early learning center. And while I'm thrilled to see that we're going to be on track and that we're going to be moving forward, um I also just want to express some disappointment and concern about
how we arrived here. Um I've said it before, I live in the Fville neighborhood. I'm familiar with the property. I've been to community conversations about the future with our neighborhood association, with the University of Virginia, with the former architects that were on the project.
Mitchell Matthews and I just cannot say enough um how frustrating it is to see that that property is still uncertain future. When UVA bought it, they took $22,000 annually off the tax
rule and now it just sits there and that's money lost to the city that the University of Virginia um came in and took up property and that came off the tax role. and I think ultimately away from our community. And so I just really
want us to lean in as a board and with the city to really understand what that property could look like um if it's not going to be used for early learning center. Just really understand any future use for Charlottesville City Schools. um and that it's important I
think that the school board has a clear voice in those discussions and we just we really haven't um because I think we're we were at the mercy of whatever happened between UVA and the city and how this property came about. And so I'm
just hoping that um that deal can be finalized, the property can really be looked at for what it is, and we can move forward with something that's thoughtful and meaningful that we have input on and the community has input on and we hear what the needs of that
community is because I think that property is so important and could be really pivotal to the work that we're doing in Charlottesville City Schools. I hope that we're able to do that. Um, and then again, you know, I just want to thank everyone for the time uh to come
out and share public comment. Um, teachers, I know that time shift is a little bit hard because you're able to stay after school previously and kind of jump right in. So, I appreciate the teachers that um extend their day even
longer and to the community members who do come. Um, I do take all of your input under advisement and really thoughtful consideration. um along with the emails and the messages that people don't see in this
room. Um the emails that come through to us, the conversations in the pickup line and the gym and the YMCA where all the places and spaces that we are in that people don't always see. Um those
conversations matter just as much as the people who show up to these meetings. And so I just want to acknowledge all of the voices that we hear um from all of our community members regardless of how they show up. And so just know those are all important to me in my decision-m
process and I do appreciate the continued engagement. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Burns. Miss Cooper. >> Um I'm not gonna go be too long because I want to just touch base on a few things.
Um I want to first say congratulations to um Mr. Deberry. Um Mr. Deberry has played um a pivoted pivotal um part in a lot of um our lives.
um I know he was um you know in Charlesville City schools when I was in Charlesville City schools. So I would like to say congratulations um on being inducted into the Hall of Fame. Um and just like we appreciate all of the work that you've um done in our
community to support um you know families, generations of families within um Charlottville City School System. Um, you know, I was also too excited about um the um email um in the parental
message about the early childhood um learning center that will be coming to Walker. And I look forward to um learning more about that um and making sure that our families um are able to get what they need um and be able to,
you know, get their kids signed up for um preschool. Um, what else? Touch on. Um, yeah. And I want to thank all of um everyone that came out um to public comment. I want to say that I hear you.
I see you. Um, and that, you know, when you do come up and you share um, you know, whatever it is that's on your heart that we are listening. Um we may not be able to comment but you know if the will of the board is opportunity to
give comment in the future um just want to know that um we do um take your we don't take your comments lightly and we do hear you um and as far as like the SRO conversation um I would say I do have
concerns um especially in today's climate of what is happening around the world and just kind of seeing what's going on on in other places. Um I do um have some concerns about SRO's coming into our schools. And so um I just
appreciate everybody for bringing their concerns and their comments before us tonight. Um and just know that we hear you and we listening. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you all for your comments. Appreciate you all. And um yeah, just to reiterate that piece. I
mean, I it is um I mean, it takes a lot to walk up to that podium and and to share whatever it is that's that's on your heart and in your mind. So, it is heard. Um and we do appreciate you taking the time
and showing up. Um I also wanted to just congratulate and anal acknowledge again Coach Deberry. Um, I'm also very grateful that we were able to sign and finalize um the collective bargaining contract for our wonderful school
support professionals. Um, our schools do so much good for our students and our communities um every day and a lot of it we don't even see and we're not aware of. that gratitude for um
you know everybody who who has an impact and makes a a positive um just touch or change in a student's life or in or in a person's life. This is what community is about. Um and I think we do a really
good job about going above and beyond. Um, in some of the readings that I've been doing lately though, and I think it's important for us to remember, um, and this this what I'm going to say next is repeated over and over within this book.
Um, but the main reason school divisions exist is to improve student outcomes um, and achievement. And um our top priority in my opinion and focus needs to be on the education of our students.
And I think that that is and was said in a lot of different ways tonight. And I we have spent a lot of time um and energy and resources on a lot of really important and heavy topics within this
community. Um, but I really feel like we need to to pivot and and as a board, we need to really be looking at student outcomes. I'm really excited about our upcoming um work session next week. Um,
I want to thank board members. I want to thank Miss Bryant for your specific asks on on what some of that data may look like. I want to thank Dr. Gurley and your staff for working and continuing to work to get that together to present to us. And I think that's some of that the
work that we as a board and as a community have been asking for. So I am looking forward to that and doing that work. Um and and thank you. Thank you all and enjoy the warm weather. It's a quick
pivot here so we'll see if it sticks around. Um but thank you. And now we will ask for Dr. Gurley's comments. Y good evening. Um I too want to um just
first congratulate our support staff and just recognize them um just for all the hard work that they do um each and every day. Um you know and in so many ways um it's the work that they do silently. Um,
I think about some of the support staff members um, who have been recognized re recently in our royal recognition and how they just so humbly do the work um, quietly behind the scenes. And so um, I
do think that this um, collective bargaining agreement is um, in recognition of all the hard work that happens daily. Um I do also want to acknowledge the um people who come to
the podium um and have their voices heard. Um I I just want to take a second to um I was as this meeting was going just processing the words of Miss Horn and um Mr. Davis. And so I think
everyone who knows me knows that um you know I like to sit down and hear from people and and understand the why and what's going on. Um so I would Miss Horn I would love to hear from you with
regards to what's getting in the way. Um, I think that that's what I was listening to um as you were talking that it felt like they're there with these things that are getting in the way and I know that this is a school year about
strengthening our systems and it's a heavy lift um and everyone's work looks differently this year and so I know that in doing that um it may be causing some stressors and and so if we think back to
the charge from the beginning of the year. It's what we call out we can change. And so I would love for you to call it out. Um and you know that can be a part of our meeting. Um I heard Miss Horn and Miss uh Mr. Davis talk about
spreadsheets and so I would love to learn more about those spreadsheets. um you know, if it's a mechanism that's supporting the work that we're doing this year for black student achievement, then it may be a non-negotiable. Um because we are um you know, it's really
about um triangulating the work of our students, looking at their strengths and weaknesses and how do we pivot those systems. So, that may not be something that we can change, but like what's something else that we can take off of your plate? Um and so let's call it out.
Um and that's one of those things that we face and um and then I heard the part about micromanaging and so I I definitely want to hear you know Mr. Meyer also spoke about that and
I know that there's some, you know, things at the state level and local level, but let's also know that there's an accountability system that we're creating here um among ourselves and so um are we being micromanaged or are we
holding ourselves accountable um for specific actions and task? Um, and so if we need to get out of your way so that you can do the job, then let's get out of the way so that you can do the job. Um, but if we are holding people um if
we're just holding people accountable just a little bit differently this school year and if it's making people feel uncomfortable, then I think it's going to lead to some of that change that we are already seeing with our MAP data. um you know we are seeing so much
we are seeing a lot of um increases in our student achievement this year and I don't think that it's just happening by chance our teachers you all uh Miss Horn Mr. Davis, you're doing some great work. Um, and it feels a little different, but
I can promise you that it's looking different. And I think the things that we said we were going to do at the beginning of the year, it's happening. Um, but I want to make sure I don't want to make assumptions about what's happening. I want to hear more about it
so that if it if there are things that are getting in your way, then let me move them out of your way. But if there are things that I can help you with, let me help you with it. Um, but it looks like we are on track for a very successful school year. Thank you.
>> Thank you, sir. All right, Miss Swift. >> Um, yes. So, one request, we're going to se take out the LMA attendance data. We'll separate that out on our attendance um report. >> Thank you. All right. In upcoming meetings, um, as
I mentioned and other people have mentioned, uh, next Wednesday, March 11th, um, we will be holding a schoolboard work session which will be starting at 5:00 p.m. at KEK. And then on March 31st, this will be our
next regularly scheduled meeting. Um, it's being held a little bit early just because of spring break. that will be held here at 6:00 p.m.