Thank you. Good evening, everybody. Welcome to ours, what would be our April meeting, but today being March 31, 6PM here in the Media Center. So I'm calling this meeting to order. And if you will please join us in a moment of silence. Thank you. And if you will please, now stand and join us on the pledge of allegiance. Miss Craig Hedwig. The great public for which it stands, one nation, invisible for liberty and justice for
all. Thank you. And now for roll call, miss Decker. Yes, madam chair. Miss Bryant? Present. Miss Burns? Here. Miss Cooper? Here. Miss Dooley? Here. Mister Meyer? Here. Miss Richardson? Here. Miss Torres? Yes. And miss Craig Hedwig? Here. Thank you. Thank you. So now may I have a motion for approval of our agenda? I'd like to make a motion to add an item for discussion. And that item being, to talk about the topic of SROs in light of all
of the community feedback we've received. And I actually think that it's it's more timely to discuss it today. We can still keep the work session that you all have put on our calendar, but I think that it's we are due to give some sort of response to the public due to the fact that we've been getting emails for the past two weeks. So I'd like to make a motion to amend the agenda to add, the item about school resource officers to our discussion. And do we have a second? Second.
And we're now, open for discussion. Miss Bryant, do you have anything else to say? Yeah. I do. A lot, actually. So I wanted to just start by saying thank you all for your feedback. I really appreciate it. I've had countless phone calls, in person meetups, and received a lot of emails, and I've been petitioned along with the board, unchanged.org. And I just wanna say that, as I've said before on the record, I completely
agree. I think that the process should have been more transparent. I am still not convinced that there is enough data to back, having school resource officers return to our schools. And I'm a bit confused about how kind of the whiplash of, like, hearing, that there's not enough data from community members, people who are involved in the process, and now hearing, oh, there is enough data, and maybe I missed a lot in the process of the past few months.
But I still don't believe there's enough to substantiate that return. And I don't think that it falls within our strategic plan of student outcomes, equity, sense of belonging for our students. I really appreciated every single person who has done that work of reaching out. It means a lot. And I do not want any of you to think that your voice isn't being heard because when there is silence, you can rest assured and know that I will speak on it. I have spoken on it. I will continue to, I did in 2018 when I was a student here and
I will continue to, to advocate for transparency. And we don't build transparency by giving silence for a week and a half. So in my response that I've sent to some constituents, I talked about the need for a new process, one that is well documented, one that doesn't just say, oh, I talked to some students and about half said this or that. I need actual data, qualitative data on paper, in order to support such a thing as this. I also believe that if we're gonna talk about equity, we need to think about
all of the studies and all of the research that has proven that school resource officers do not positively impact the student outcomes for Black students or brown students or students with special needs. So I just, I would encourage my colleagues at this moment and the division as a whole to stick to its core values that we've stated over and over again, and to bring the data and to to prove why it's necessary to bring SROs back because at this moment, I don't see the correlation.
And as we talk about black achievement today, I would hope that we're able to make the connection between, black students outcomes and the return of police and how feeling watched and feeling like you don't belong in your own school can negatively influence those outcomes. And if we want tangible examples of that, chronic absenteeism may not improve. So how are we saying we care about student outcomes, but we're not doing that in action? And so I just want everyone to stick to our values.
Thank you. Thank you, miss Bryant. Mister Meyer, do you have any comments about the motion to add an agenda item? Yeah. I just I would like to focus make sure our discussion is focused on the motion to add something to our agenda item, not necessarily, I think, the discussion. So but I think we have a busy agenda tonight, and I'm more than happy to talk about it at our work session. Thank you. Miss Burns, any discussion about the motion? No. Okay. Miss Cooper? The only thing that I would like to add in reference to a motion, I
know that we put, a date to aside on April, I think, the sixteenth to discuss this further. I do wanna highlight that, and thank the community for the mass amount of emails that we received, in reference to SROs. And, just to highlight that for some of us that may not have responded to all of the emails, it's not because we don't, or we do support SROs.
It's more so that, it's a policy in place, that the school board had voted on in reference to who would respond to emails, and that's the chair. And so I kinda wanna highlight that, it's not that we are not listening or we're not responding back to emails that, it is a policy in place that some of us have been told that, you know, it is important that we as a board, kinda if we vote on a policy, kinda stick into that.
And so I look forward to a more fruitful discussion on April 16, so that I can share my views of how I feel in reference to the return of SROs. I was not here when the vote passed for SROs. I was absent. And, if anybody would like to speak to me one on one, feel free to reach out, and I will have that conversation. I'm not a fan of SROs, but I think that that's a opportunity for me to share, on April 16, when we have that work session.
Thank you. Miss Richardson? Yeah. So, for me, I would like to say that I was disappointed that the vote happened. It happened so quickly. I believe we voted twice, to come to that decision, and miss Cooper was not present. And I did not approve of that. I would like to have that discussion as well. I know that we do have a work session on April 16, and I appreciate miss Bryant for bringing this up today. And, I'm open to adding this to the agenda today as well.
Miss Dooley? Okay. So we will, now take a vote by voice, please. Miss Decker? Again, in this motion is to, add a discussion I or amend the agenda and add a discussion item about SROs this evening. Miss Bryant? Yes. Miss Burns? No. Miss Cooper? Yes. Miss Dooley? No. Mister Meyer? Nope. Miss Richardson? Yes. Miss Torres? And, again, my vote is no based on the fact that we have a dedicated date and time where we would we will we will be prepared to have a
comprehensive and thorough, conversation and discussion around this as is warranted. So, again, in review, that was Pardon me? Four nos. Four nos to add this to the agenda this evening, and we will look forward to having a robust conversation and follow-up on the sixteenth. Thank you. Madam chair, I move that we approve the proposed agenda. I need a second, please. Second. Any discussion? I just wanna say that I hope that everybody understands that April 16 is a
work session. And is this open to the community? Correct? And just acknowledge that it is open to the community. So please show up and be there. Because as you see, the votes happened today, so we still have more work to do. Mhmm. Alright. We're gonna take a vote. I'd actually like to add another note too. Yeah. I usually, we've been pulling for, work sessions, and I know that for the black achievement one we tried to pull, it wasn't successful. For this one, it was interesting because we weren't pulled on it. And so I thought it was interesting in light of all of the emails we've
been receiving, and there hadn't been much discussion about this topic. And just to have a black achievement thing crammed into our schedule with no discussion of how we would address this or even give a statement. Also given that I reached out about a public, you know, like, response, and for two days, I heard nothing until after that response was sent to the press. And on change.org, I just think that perhaps we need to have a larger discussion as a board about what that looks like. We just had the support workers debacle, and I think there was a lot of
dissatisfaction. I can only speak for myself, as far as how that response came together and how we were all held accountable to something that we wouldn't have necessary, maybe even send out. And so I think, like, that was kind of my intentionality behind that. So it was really unfortunate to not hear anything. So, yeah, to miss Richardson's point, I hope the community shows up on the sixteenth. And in the meantime, please feel free to reach out to me. I'd love to be in conversation with you. Thank you. So for clarification around the polling, are you talking about polling for the sixteenth?
For to yes. To add today's work session. So there was polling about the work session for the sixteenth? I didn't receive any You received out today for us to have black achievement added to today. I was just told that that was happening. That and we and and I emailed you, I believe. Yes. My response. And I was just told that that was happening, and it was very frustrating because this is a more time sensitive matter, I think. Mhmm. And black achievement is something that's an ongoing process. Okay. So the this the work of the board was to finish the work session that
was interrupted, and that is black student achievement data. And that happened at our agenda meeting session, with miss Burns, doctor Gurley, and myself. And so that's so we are moving forward now with the vote, to approve the current agenda. So are you gonna respond to any of the other things I said or you just don't have that's not what I was saying about the public response to the You and I you and I can talk. Sure. I tried, but you also didn't you didn't respond to any So for the public's
comment, there were two emails, two mail two email strings going on that same day, and I responded to multiple of them. And I believe you had a lengthy conversation with another board member in response to, whether a response was going out. Yeah. And that was in the works, and I believe that was conveyed to you. I just want it for public record for everyone to know that I you responded to my email saying message received. Have a good night. So thank you. I don't wanna continue to harp on this, but I just wanted it to be clear that I just tried to Sure. Respond to the community, and it was kind of shut down or just ignored.
But thank you. I'm ready to move forward with the vote. Oh, you are. Okay. Well, we're we're happy. And and you got the last word in on that one, but I'm happy to show the string of emails Same. That led up to that. Thank you. Yeah. No problem. Alright. All in favor of approving the agenda this evening. Say, voice voice, please. Yeah. Miss Bryant? Aye. Miss Burns? Aye. Miss Cooper? Yes. Miss Dooley? Yes. Mister Meyer? Yes. Miss Richardson? Yes. And miss Torres? Yes. Thank you. Alright. Our next item is student and staff recognitions, and we have, I believe, miss.
Thank you. Good evening, everyone. I'm honored to be able to be here tonight to congratulate eight Charlottesville City Schools teachers who won grants from the Public Education Foundation of Charlottesville Alamo Albemarle for winter two thousand twenty six. Those teachers are Jennifer Ryan, Charlottesville High School for her project, the language lab, gamified English learning for emerging multilinguals, Kevin Petquette at CMS for a STEM career pathway pilot, Lucy Spencer also at CMS for table talk with teens, miss Washberg at CMS for
SOL game ready day, miss Johnson at Greenbrier for STEM in the wild, Jessica Tsao at Jackson Via, Elementary for From Pencils to Print, Our Journey to Becoming Published Authors, Sabre Timmons at Jackson Via for Crossing the Line, and After School Soccer Club for Building Inclusive Communities, and Amy Wizzakirk at Walker for Classroom Economics for sixth grade. Please join me in congratulating these eight fantastic educators. Thank you. And the next is state and local honors. Mister Jones, welcome. Good evening. I'm excited to come and report about some of the major accomplishments, from our winter
athletic season at Charlottesville High School, which is definitely one marked with historic excellence. In indoor track, Charlottesville had a very strong year. Senior Samson Palmer won the class four state championship in both the 1,000 meter and 1,600 meter. He broke the state meet record in both of the in, in the 1,600 meter, and he holds the CHS record in both the 1,000, the 1,600, and the 3,200 meter. So pretty historic season for him. We also had senior Elena Pierce. She also won the class four state championship in both the 1,000 meter and the
1,600 meter races. She holds the school record for both of these events, and she now holds the state meet record in those events as well. She also holds the state, the CHS record in the 3,200 meter race as well. And both of those record holders, Sam and Elena, will be joining the UVA track team next year. Also in track, sophomore Juliana Pierce was also named all state for class four indoor track. She finished second in the 500 meter of the state championship. Her time, that earned second in the in that race broke the CHS school record
that has been long standing. We also in swimming, head of junior, Garrett Wispelway. He was named all state by finishing second in the state in the 100 meter breaststroke, an event that he now holds the school record in. I think you guys are seeing a a pattern here. Right? Sophomore, Lainie Keller, she finished fifth in the state in the 100 backstroke. And when she did that, she broke her own record that she already hold this year. She also finished tenth in that in, the 200 individual med medley, which was her best time and also a school record.
Ada Brantley, Charlotte McCready, Alicia Yori Kosick, and Lanny Keller also broke a school record at the in the four by 100 freestyle relay. That record had been on, a a CHS record for twenty five years, and they finished just off the podium in ninth at the state championship. Girls' basketball, they earned a state tournament berth for the third year in a row. They finished first in the Jeffers District going undefeated in district play. Avery Stovitski, a senior guard, finished first team all state.
Elena Pierce, a senior forward, also fin earned second team all state honors for the Black Knights. But overall, it was a remarkable run by our seniors. The girls' basketball team over the last three years had a seventy two and nine record. And then wrestling. Wrestling was also a historic season. The wrestling team delivered the highest state placement in school history, finishing sixth overall in the in the state. Roman Calvani finished second in the state, which was the first state runner-up in CHS history in wrestling, earning all state honors.
Adriel Pena took third in the state, earning all state honors. Theo Reinhardt took third in the state in all state and earned all state honors. And Walter Pilkey finished sixth, cementing his legacy as the first ever four time all state wrestler in Charlottesville high school history. All of these great things happen, on the court, on the pool, in the field, on the track, but even greater is all these amazing things that they're doing on and off. We're very proud of these athletes and all of our athletes, and we continue to
keep it rolling during the spring. We'll have some more historic seasons. Thank you. Thank you, mister Jones. Wonderful to hear all of the wonderful things our students are doing. Next, we have comments from members of the community, and the first opportunity is designated comments from students. So if there's students that would like to make comment, please make your way to the podium. Okay. This is our first opportunity for comments from members of the community. I believe, if you're signed up, please, state your name again clearly.
You have three minutes. And then behind you, Amanda is Emily. So I'm gonna read a couple of names. If you guys will line up and just be ready to to move, that would be great so we can keep things moving. So it's Amanda, Emily, Shannon, and then, miss Parker or the first four, please. Great. Thank you. Good evening, board members. I'm Amanda Moxam, a parent and community member. I take school safety seriously, but police presence in schools is about comfort, not safety.
Comfort that perpetuates racism should not justify a policy that makes students less safe. Schools with majority black or Latino students have three to seven times more SROs than predominantly white schools. This is a pattern that tells us who these programs target. An analysis of seven studies found that schools with SROs had a 21% higher risk of exclusionary discipline. These exclusions are not equal. Black students make up 16% of the student population but represent thirty 1% of school
arrests. Black girls are four times more likely to be arrested by SROs than their white peers. This is the school to prison pipeline. This board would be voting to open that pipeline and fill it with our children. Research published through the office of justice programs found that increases in recorded offenses and exclusionary discipline due to SRO presence were most pronounced for black and Hispanic students, not for white students. This harm is documented. It's racial, and it's very predictable.
If SROs increase arrests, exclusions, and do so most severely for our black and brown students, who are we protecting? Our children deserve counselors, social workers, and restorative practices. They deserve education, not criminalization. I urge you to vote no. Thank you. Thank you. My name is Emily Kingsley, and I am a community member and teacher. As teachers, we are trained to make instructional decisions based on data. We look very carefully at the teaching practices we use to make sure they are
aligned with what the data tells us. When we lose sight of the data, we end up falling into the classic teacher trap of going on vibes. Going on vibes is when we start jumping to conclusions about our students and what they need. It's when we start letting assumptions, fears, and biases poison our perspective. And when it comes to the decision to add SROs back to our schools, I have concluded that it seems to be very much a decision made on VIBES.
There have been some scary incidents in our schools. There are problems that need to be solved. But instead of slowing down and really doing the work of parsing out the data and the needs, we're taking the easy way out and going on vibes. The problem is the current vibe of our country is authoritarianism. In fact, when you think about it that way, it's not at all surprising that we find ourselves in this position. Attempting to fix a complex social problem with guns and intimidation is exactly what Trump
is doing at a national level. He's busy trying to turn our country into a police state, and we're just falling in line. It's clear that we have challenges at CCS, but it is far less clear that SROs are an effective avenue to address this. As two scholars wrote in a 2021 article for the journey see of policy practice and research, more than two decades of research have not yielded evidence that police enhance school safety. Don't go on vibes.
Trust teachers. Trust kids. Trust families. Trust data. Thank you. So we have Shannon, miss Parker, miss Tyree, and then miss Carr. Good evening, school board members and doctor Gurley. My name is Shannon Gilligan, and I'm president of the CEA. Two years ago, CEA's representative assembly, which includes people from almost every worksite across our division, passed a resolution opposing the adoption of SROs in our school. I wish I was here tonight to talk about something else, but, unfortunately, here we
are. Two years later, you still have not truly sought community input before making decisions. You have not presented us with alternatives to police and schools, and you have not surveyed staff about this issue. You didn't reach out to staff, so I did. Two weeks ago, we asked CEA members for input. Less than 30% support SROs returning to our school. Last week, our rep assembly again voted to oppose the return of SROs in our school system. Our stance on police and schools hasn't changed.
We don't want them. They don't make our schools safer, and they harm our most vulnerable students. What seems to have changed is some of your opinions on the matter. Some of your campaign platforms included opposing SROs in schools, but now you don't wanna talk about it anymore. We are here to hold you accountable to what you told the public before you were elected. Please listen. Thank you. Good evening, school board members. I am I am Rosia Parker, and I'm standing here speaking on behalf of generations
to generations and people's coalition, as well as some voices of public housing. Standing in solidarity with other organizations represented here today on behalf of our students, our children. There are deeply rooted black history of trauma and harm that has been inflicted upon black families due to structural dem demonstration. A system that has reinforced inequalities, restricting opportunities for them producing unequal outcomes. Over the years, systems have kept them down and unjustifiable, and justice continues today in
our educational system with intersectional ability working together to sustain equality of our black and brown students. Education and disparities of the criminal justice system have been intertwined school to prison pipeline that results in disproportionate incarceration. Internalized and personal institutional racism plays a big role on our children. That brings us to the issue of today, having SROs in our schools and the negative effect that could inflict them. Their minds are vulnerable.
The negative impact of mental health and SROs increase fear, anxiety, trauma to foster in a prison like environment that reduces school connectedness. Misalignment of mental health crisis could lead to trauma behavioral criminalization in which has a disproportionate impact on black and brown students, especially children with disabilities. We do not want more criminalization of youth. Racial prejudice, exclusionary discipline, over policing continuously lead to school to trauma pipeline.
Instead of increasing feelings of safety, the presence of SROs can cause our children to feel less safe and detached from school environment. So the organize organizations I represent, we ask you, the school board, to rethink, to revote on your previous decision. Thank you for your time and consideration. We have miss Tyree and miss Carr, miss Giles, and mister Heath. Good evening. My name is Terry Tyree, and I'm the president of Charlottesville Community Resilience Center.
And I wrote this name three times, but today, y'all showed off. Y'all showed off, so I gotta say this first. First off, how can we be looking at y'all like a role model when y'all can't even work together and agree on something together? And I see the separation. I see the difference. I see who's on our side and who's not, and it ain't right. And simply to add something to the agenda for you to be the first person
to say, no. We got a work session on April 14 or whatever day you scheduled the work session, April 16, to see the importance in everybody in this room standing here, coming here today to pack the room to ask you, to add it to the agenda, and y'all turn and say no? How could we trust you now? How can we thank you for us now? That's not right. And you got your own people. You debating with your own people. Snarky comments to your own coworkers, your team.
That ain't right. And I've seen it. And trust me, I speak loud. I'm a share it on Facebook. I'm telling everybody what y'all did up in here today. So now moving forward, I'm here tonight because this decision y'all made is personal. When I send my child to school, I wanna know that they're walking into a place of learning, care, healing, and support, not a place where armed officers are treated as the answer. I wanna ask this board, whose input did you use to make the decision? Did you center the voices of parents, students, black families, families of children with disabilities,
and those impacted by over policing? Or are decisions being made about our children without truly listening to the people who carry the consequences? I also wanna know how you plan to measure the impact of this. What data would you track? Will you track who gets stopped, removed, searched, handcuffed, or referred to police? Will you track racial disparities? Because I I could see them clearly right now. Will you track whether black students and students with disabilities are harmed more by this decision? Will the data be made public so that families could see it, see the truth?
Why do you believe this is a good idea? What are y'all afraid of? They're just kids. What are y'all afraid of? Why do we need police? Please choose support over surveillance, healing over fear, prevention over punishment. If we truly care about safety, why are we not investing in counselors, peer support specialists, restorative practices, trauma informed staff, and stronger family partnerships. Get it together. The community's waiting, and we are watching. We elected y'all again, and you're doing us like this again.
Have a beautiful day. Miss Carr? Hello. My my my. My name is Salithia Carr. I'm with NotMe, I believe, the CEO and founder of NotMe, I believe. I am anti bullying. I worked with youth and families within the community. I don't care what community you're in. I work with you and for you. We are servants of the people. That's who we are. As your job, you are a servant. No more, no less. You are for the people, and I am for the voices of the people.
I bought my grandson today because he is up and coming. So that means whatever you're doing is gonna affect him. And I can't control who he is being here right now. There's no control. I can only teach him. I am to be I am to teach him, and that is what you all are to do. The voices out of people has to be heard. The children has to be heard. The parents have to be heard. The staff have to be heard. It has to be a fair thing. Not what you want.
Policies can be made anywhere, anytime. But when are you gonna make a difference? When you gonna stand up as a voice? Some of you have other positions within the community. What are you gonna do then? Are you gonna still do the same exact thing? Because your kids are still gonna grow up with different individuals. They are individual people. We can't just think about self because trauma is happening everywhere. It's happening everywhere. One thing is, I've I've you know, and I said I was going to say this because everybody in here know my child.
Everybody know my child. And I stand up for something, and I'm one of them parents. Well, I'm gonna sit in the classroom. I'm a sit there with you. We're gonna learn together. Okay? We're gonna we're gonna sit down. We're gonna talk. We're gonna do all of that. But that is the same thing with you guys. When my daughter was going to CHS, I had her go to a mental health facility to get some help because she was severely bullied in our schools. And the staff knew about it. IEP programs, all of that. But they but but one of the things that we seen is that at when
we sat down with counselor, they said she's severely bullied. Oh, wow. Now you now you realize that? Now you said it? But it was copy and paste at the same time at first. It was copy and paste about this child. So then she went to mental health facilities. She came to CHS. She had a episode, a big one. She had a episode, guy. Just a episode because she was going through mental health crisis. And then she got sent to Lugo. Now Lugo is a great school. I give it to a small school where a lot of people are. And I'm about to end this. I know. I need you to wrap up.
Thank you. I'm about to end this. But she started to do drugs within the community, and you know where she went for help? To Lugo. And those staff there was so good with them. How can a small school be bigger than be better than the bigger one? Missy Girlie, I've seen you a couple times over there with my daughter. So and you definitely know. She went for support. Thank you, miss Carr. Appreciate you. We've got miss Giles, mister Heath, miss Tori, and then miss Fitzpatrick.
Good evening, everyone. My name is Latricia Giles, and I am here tonight on behalf of the Charlottesville Public Housing Association of Residents in standing in support with community members, on this. As you know, FAR is a resident led organization, and, unfortunately, we know what it feels like when institutions make major decisions that affect people's lives without without enough transparency and without enough meaningful community input. I am not here pretending to be an expert on school policy by any means,
but I have seen the impact of policing in our communities, and I've had the chance to talk and sit with families that are impacted. I've had the opportunity to go to school and read scholarship on this matter. So I I I'm a little confused on how scholarship got missed here, to really deeply talk about these issues. We understand, that most black and brown children, even at a very early age, are turned off from school by many factors.
But actually adding other uniformed presence, that can be deadly for our students. But I will get back to what I am a expert in. But Farr doesn't know what it it looks like, for this process to continue breakdown in trust. So we know what it means when communities are asked to speak, but leave feeling like the decisions were already moving forward. And so that's why I'm here. That's why we were concerned. The decision to bring back school resource officers is serious, and it affects the students' families and broader community.
And many people have raised concerns, not just about the outcomes, but about the process, comp concerns about transparency, concerns about timing, concerns about whether the public had a real chance to shape this decision before it move forward. That should matter to this board, And far stands with those asking for a full fuller public process, real community engagement, and serious consideration of alternatives. You don't have to have police. People are asking for care workers, counselors, other folks, giving teachers raises.
I mean, there's lots of solutions other than bringing in continuous, armed presence. If community voice is gonna mean anything and I'm I'm sorry. I skipped a few places too because I this is a lot. We also believe that the concerns raised about the impact on black and brown students, student with disabilities, and immigrant and and immigrant students deserve to be taken seriously. So if community voice is going to mean anything, there must be a path, to revisit this decision when this has this trust has been broken, and we seriously need
the board to take that into consideration. We are asking for more public meetings. We are asking that restorative and community based alternatives, be meaningfully considered, and we are asking that before, the next, the twenty twenty six, twenty seven school year that this be revisited because it is critical. So I appreciate you. Thank you. Doctor Gurley board members, thank you for being here. Thank you for listening. My name is Sam Heath, and and this is my shadow who needed to come up with me. I'm the executive director of the Commonwealth Justice Coalition and I've been a high school
history teacher for ten years in North Carolina and here in Virginia. And for those that are parents in this room, including those of you, you know, you fail so often. The stories that I could tell. But one thing in our home that I know that we've gotten right, at least philosophically, is how we approach harm. And each day, we're figuring out what that looks like. But in our home when harm happens, what we do with our kiddos is ask what happened and what does repair look like rather than what law was broken or
what rule and what does the punishment look like. So we've tried to shift that discussion and always build into them what is it and how do we think about repair? How do we center that person who is harmed? How how do we think about in an instance of violence, harm, or crime? Always picture in my head, a triangle of three groups that are always harmed in any instance of harm. There's the person who received the harm, of course, the person who did the harm, and the surrounding community. And thinking about what does it look like to care for that group. So what I'd like to ask for and to have you consider deeply with community
input with groups that are here, or what would robust administrator supported, community supported, community informed restorative practices look like in the school, which we know is not a new question. They're incredible models for this. There's organizations here and ready and excited to help with that process. But we wanna partner with you in that to think about how we respond to harm and how do we move towards healing. So the Commonwealth Justice Coalition, lots of other groups within the city are here, but I think it begins with the rethink and the revote.
I think about the geographer, Ruthie Wilson Gilmore, talking about what a beautiful and perfect society looks like. And the thing I've loved most that she says, she talks about part of it is an absence of something. Maybe even more important than that is the presence of something else. So while some of us are here asking remove police from schools, more important than that is to spark the imagination of let's put something else in its place. There are organizations. There are people. There are groups here and ready to help with that at a moment's notice.
Thank you for listening. Good evening. My name is Chelsea Duntore, and I'm the director of the youth justice program at the Legal Aid Justice Center. I'm also the resident of Charlottesville and, most importantly, the parent of two preschool age children, one of whom will be starting at Jackson Via in the fall. I have also worked as a special education advocate for decades and represented children in both the foster care and juvenile justice system. My clients have been interrogated, restrained, handcuffed, and even physically injured by school resource officers. My clients are a part of the statistics, which demonstrate that police presence in schools
disproportionately harms students with disabilities, students of color, and students from marginalized communities. Having SROs on campus increases the likelihood that a normal adolescent behavior will be criminalized, where the response to disruptive conduct is is handcuffs instead of support, guidance, and learning. Six years ago, this same body made a decision to remove police from city schools based on clear data about the ineffectiveness of the school resource officer program and then created a new model for school safety and student well-being.
These decisions were made with feedback from stakeholders, students, parents, teachers, and school administrators. But last fall's decision to return SROs to school neglected to take meaningful consideration meaningful input from the community and consider similar data. I am here along with parents and community members to ask this board to reconsider that decision, hold public meetings with opportunity for public comment on this issue, and consider the full spectrum of alternatives available to address school discipline issues. I know that we all share a commitment to protect our children.
I certainly want my children to attend schools that are safe. But let's accomplish this goal by considering evidence based restorative responses that will address the root cause of conflict and misbehavior and create safe, equitable learning environments. Thank you. Hi. My name is Mimi Fitzpatrick. I'm a parent of children in Charlottesville City Schools, and I grew up in these schools when there were SROs here. Thank some of you for being, I'm sorry, thank some of you for being brave enough to recognize publicly that the issue of returning armed officers to patrol daily life
at the middle school and high school is an issue worth rethinking. It's close to an apology, but not quite there yet. I hope that you are talking to each other about the format of the work session and that there are ample opportunities for data to be shared about alternative models that do not include police, or if you're not courageous enough for that, at the very least, minimizes exposure. Doesn't seem like y'all are talking together very well and working together as a team to second what Terry said. She said it better than I did, but I absolutely agree.
Got some work to do there, Brent. I understand that your argument is often that you want police to interact with students to build mutual trust and understanding so that when the time comes that intervention feels necessary, there's already a relationship there that has been formed. But when one of the partners in a relationship holds a gun and the power to land you in the criminal justice system, the power imbalance does not ever lend itself to true positive relationship building. Charlottesville City School strategic goal to provide a culture of safety, wellness, and belonging can
be done. I believe that it can be done. I believe in us, but not with cops and not without working together. When you have community representatives from Charlottesville Public Housing Association of residents and representatives from many other organizations in town standing before a room of concerned citizens and describing their experiences with militarized police in Charlottesville, which has happened at a number of, meetings in Charlottesville over the last year, and they ask for your help to show up for our neighbors. Do it.
Do it with education. Do it with heart. Do it with courage. Do it with brains. In the spirit of lifelong learning, use the mistakes of the last few years as lessons and do this well. Use the work done by the original committee that was formed when the decision was made to remove SROs because they put in a lot of work and decided that it they did not show evidence that cops make schools safer in emergencies. Use input from the most impacted communities. Make good faith efforts to actively engage in open minded, data driven conversations, and be
transparent. Do the hard work you can. At this time, we don't have anybody else signed up for comment here in the media, but I believe we do have, one signed up via Zoom. That would be miss Heintzeman, I believe. I don't see her in there. Okay. Alright. Is there anybody else here that would like to make comment? I'm gonna leave the sheet up. I'll bring that up. Welcome on the clock yet. Thank you. Good afternoon, doctor Gurley, members of the school board. My name is Natalie Aviles. I'm a parent, a member of the Latina community here in Charlottesville.
I am a professor of sociology, and I'm a public policy analyst. And I've been here standing in front of you before talking about SROs, and I'm here with a massive coalition of people in your community, that encompasses people that you haven't listened to yet. They're the teachers. They're the CSAs. They are the lawyers. They are the mental health professionals. They are the social scientists. They are the people who have looked at the data, who have sent you the data, and have not heard you engage in good faith, thoughtfully with the data.
So I'm very happy to hear that there's gonna be a work session. However, we don't want another canned town hall. We didn't like being sidelined. We think we're about to be sidelined again. What we would like is for you to be accountable to the things that you promised us on the campaign trail. We want you to be the people that we voted for. We want you to reconsider this policy that you passed in a very slap dash fashion about a year ago, without adequate consideration, without real warning that the vote was
gonna happen. And we want you to do it publicly and transparently in a way that reflects the best principles of democracy, that we want to see as your constituents and as members of your community who share, your life with you. So there are many other people, who are still waiting to talk, so we'll end there. But thank you for your time tonight. Alright. My name is Ian Mullins. I am a Charlottesville resident. I am a CCS parent. I've been here before. So we have engaged the board and the school district in good faith. We've asked that you hold this vote through a democratic process.
It didn't happen as Natalie just elaborated upon. You say no, Chris, I say yes. Saying giving out a survey online saying, do you wanna know more about this is not a sign of approval that people want that. Having a vote Sir, sir, we're not gonna make, comments directed at board members, please. I will address that to the entire board then. Fine. Thank you. From what I am standing, more than Chris is culpable in this. The board is culpable in this. The board is accountable to the people. This is growing. More people are finding out about this. More people are mad, and we're mad that we were not engaged in good faith.
And as a result, we've lost trust. That is absolutely essential in democratic process. We must have trust in the people we elect to make decisions on our behalf. And when we lose that trust, we need transparency and accountability. So what I would like we have some tools at our disposal as well to think about how this decision was made. I would like the board to voluntarily release all of the data that you have come through to make this decision so we can look to see how you made
your decision and to see if we agree. If you do not voluntarily do that, Virginia has FOIA laws. I know I get targeted a lot for harassment for my job. I don't do it to harass. I do it in the spirit of the actual law, which is transparency and accountability. So I asked the board, not one of you, all of you, to release the data that you Considered to make this decision so that we can go over it. We are expert social scientists. We are parents. We are people who engage the police on a more routine basis than many of
the board members. Let us see how you made your decision, and let's see if we can trust you. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Gianella Orostegui, and I am a student at Charlottesville High School. I'm here I would like to talk to you about ICE about the ICE resolution you're voting on. I talked to a lot of students. They were really worried about ICE if what if ICE came to our schools? What what would you do specifically? Plans to keep students safe. For example, what if ICE comes to school's buses? What would the driver do? What if ICE comes to children outside playing recess?
Is it really it's really important to think about to think it through all the possibilities and communicate openly with families so everyone feels less anxious and safe. Thank you. Please make sure you you have the sign up sheet, miss Thacker. Good evening, doctor Gurley, members of the board. My name is Saundry Yvette Aviles, and I'm here on behalf of Charlottesville United for Public Education. What we have consistently heard about the SRO decision from our community is that it was far from fair or an inclusive process. Many students, parents, and educators did not feel that they had a real opportunity to
voice their perspectives or be meaningfully heard before this decision was made. At Charlottesville United, we're committed to amplifying community voice, especially when it comes to decisions that directly impact our children. And for some time now, we've been hearing a clear call. Our community wants the opportunity to reimagine what safety in our schools can look like. Safety is not one dimensional. If we truly wanna reduce harm and support our students, we have to invest in their mental health and emotional well-being. That means going beyond traditional approaches and partnering with community organizations as well as investing
in training for community members so that they're equipped to support young people in meaningful and culturally responsive ways. There are more holistic models and programs that do this work well. We should be tapping into them. As adults, we know that we're still learning how to navigate our own emotions. We can't expect children to always have that figured out without the right support systems in place. Our community deserves a process that's transparent, inclusive, and responsive. I urge you to create a space for deeper engagement, explore alternative approaches, and ensure that decisions moving forward are shaped by the voices of those most impacted.
Thank you for your time. Was I supposed to wait for y'all to call me up here? I don't think I have you on the list, but go ahead. Thank you. My name is Oh, I on the list. Solrand Martin. So my name is Solrand Martin. I represent Operation Social Equality, OSE for sort for short. We're a new mental health nonprofit where we blend popular education, mental health, and community organizing all in one therapeutic space. And I'm here in support of the effort to phase out SROs in our school and also as a 2,008, CHS alumni. So, dear school board members, one of the most misleading things a governing body can
do is mistake community silence for community satisfaction. The absence of outrage is not a sign of distrust. It is often a sign of community that is fatigue, overwhelmed, and feeling increasingly hopeless in the face of institutional power that move and sometimes this institutional power moves faster than families can actually keep up with. Many parents who would have strongly, been here and so in support of getting SROs out of schools and they're they have opinions about SROs interacting with their children. They're not here because they don't want to be or they don't care, but because
they are working second shift, life be life and they're navigating transportation issues. They're managing their household. So, oftentimes, we think that if there's not this huge community reaction or outrage, that means that parents don't care. That's not true. And sometimes parents feel like we're always having these forms in community spaces where they're shoving a microphone in their face, but they're not actually being listened to. So it ends up feeling more, performative than actually productive. So in re in recent weeks, when we talked to the youth in our programming, while sometimes the thing that's relatable to them is relatable to all of us.
They they rant and they vent about bathroom breaks not being long enough. But once we can engage them about the real issues, what they end up saying is why don't adults listen to us? At an admin, they don't listen to us. Why does it feel like decisions are being made without our input? And these are not one off instances. These are patterns that we, see, and it should give us pause. So at the heart of this moment, for me at least, is not just policy policy decisions. It's about which one of your school board members are willing to be the most
courageous and try something that sounds scary, but it's proven to be effective. Which school board member is willing to show allegiance to the student body and the community and not to police chief, not to people who are in institutional powers, no more backdoor deals, no more campaigning on issues that you actually don't, intend on following through with. No more performing performative gestures of collaboration when truly decisions are being preemptively made without true input from the community. Now I see I only have ten seconds here.
So, I will say come I commend the school board members who've already done the right thing and, open the door for dialogue, but it becomes a disservice if those effort if those efforts are not paired with true engagement and outreach, and I just, compel you all to rethink this and not only, get them out of the schools, but let's do what works. Evidence based research work, and we will be crazy if we keep doing the same thing and expecting different results. Thank you. Good evening, doctor Gurley and members of the board.
My name is Brett Volmer. I'm a Charlottesville resident and a social worker in our community. One of the greatest barriers my colleagues and I face is skepticism and distrust of public institutions, especially among underserved communities. This distrust is rooted in concrete experiences of our public institutions brutalizing communities of color and other marginalized groups. In light of this history, our public institutions at every level have a responsibility to lead with compassionate evidence based practices to begin to repair these injustices and rebuild trust
among the communities we serve. Rather than repairing this generational harm, armed officers in school exacerbate distrust of public institutions, contributing to severe forms of alienation that can last a lifetime and impede individuals from accessing the resources that are theirs by right. We need to set up our young people for success both as students and also citizens, citizens who engage with services, shape the direction of our public institutions, and participate in public life with the confidence that they are valued and respected.
All of this starts in our schools. Please remember why you removed SROs, and please empower our young people with compassionate evidence based practices. Thank you. Madam chair, members of the board, my name is Hank Bostwick. I'm with the Legal Aid Justice Center. Your community has spoken. Just over two and a half weeks ago, we all came together to address this issue. We are almost a dozen organizations strong at this time. Just over a week ago, we started a public campaign with a petition and a
direct email campaign to try to reach not only the community, but each and every one of you. We started two and a half weeks ago, and we're not done yet. We started our petition over a week ago. We're not done yet. We're still collecting signatures. We're still handing out flyers, and we will be here in mass on April 16 to show up, to speak out, and to convince you all or to try to
convince you all to take a different tack. We all live in a hard and hardening world. Everywhere around us, our institutions are closing in on themselves. We are using police in our community development projects. We see police in our public squares. We're now even seeing police in our airports. We need one safe space to remind us that we can police ourselves.
What we're asking for is for you to consider this in a moment of grace. We all need grace in our lives, and we are asking for a pause, a space for us to communicate, to come together as a community. So no matter what happens, and you've heard all many of our groups are opposed to the return of SROs, but there are other ideas out there too, and the
people need to be heard. So we have asked not just for this April 16 work session, and but we deeply appreciate the concession. But we'll be here in May. We'll be here over the summer, whether or not y'all will, because we want this to stop. We want this to be done with the sort of deliberation that this prestigious body should be known for. We have a chance to be a model community. Let's take that chance.
Thank you. That was our last, speaker that was signed up. And I think miss I don't know if miss Heintzeman is on. We'll check one more time. I don't see her. Okay. We do have, another opportunity at the end of the board meeting for public comment. Alright. Our next, item on the agenda is student representative report out. So miss Craighead Way. Thank you. Good evening. I'd like to first encourage the community to come to the work session on the sixteenth. It's absolutely vital to hear your feedback and discuss the matter of SROs in detail.
As a student representative, it is my responsibility to be representative of my fellow students, and I would be failing that task if I did not mention the overwhelming feedback I personally received from my peers regarding the reimplementation of SROs in our schools. Lila, I look forward to going into more detail on the sixteenth. I can give you a brief overview, which is that my peers do not support the bringing back police into our schools. They feel as though their safety would be threatening, that education would not be a priority. Again, I look forward to sharing more insights into the student body's opinions on the sixteenth, and I hope to see all of you there. In other news, two weeks ago, my fellow student representative and I had a very
informative meeting with our principal, doctor Malone, con regarding students' concerns accessing grades on PowerSchool. I'd like to thank doctor Malone for the opportunity to discuss an issue that affects all of our students. I'd also like to turn some attention to action item 11 dot one, the ICE resolution. After reading the agenda for the meeting earlier this week, I was curious to know what my fellow students thought about the proposed resolution. The overwhelming response was positive affirmation for support of this vital safety measure. My peers and I agree this resolution is necessary to protect our students and our community. I'd also like to echo the words of my peers who previously spoke at a
meeting regarding the implementation of solar panels. Item 11 dot one reflects the wants of our students for greener schools and a desire to help protect our environment. Thank you. Alright. Our next item on is, adoption of the consent agenda. So So if I have a motion for that, please. So moved. We need a second, please. Second. Any discussion? Alright. Can we call about, please? Miss Burns? Yes. Miss Bryant? Yes. Miss Cooper? Yes. Miss Julie? Yes. Mister Meyer? Yes. Miss Torres? Yes. Thank you. And miss Oops.
Sorry. Yes. Sorry. I went out of order. Thank you. Thank you. Everybody doing okay? Okay. Next, we will move to action items. 11.1. That is our, ICE resolution, which I will read. So this is a resolution affirming safe and welcoming schools and protecting students from unlawful immigration enforcement activity. Whereas the Charlottesville City School Board is committed to ensuring that every child within Charlottesville City Schools has access to a safe, welcoming, and supportive learning environment regardless of race,
national origin, language, religion, or immigration status. And whereas, The United States Supreme Court decision and Plyler versus Doe affirms that all children residing in The United States have a constitutional right to access a free public k through 12 education regardless of immigration status. And whereas fear of immigration enforcement activity near schools may discourage students and families from attending school, participation in educational programs, or accessing essential services, thereby undermining the mission of
public education. And whereas schools function best when families trust that their children will be safe from intimidation, surveillance, or enforcement activities that disrupt the educational environment. And whereas school districts across the nation have adopted policies and resolutions clarifying procedures for responding to federal immigration enforcement actions and affirming that schools are places of learning, safety, and belonging. And whereas the presence of immigration enforcement activity on or near school campuses can cause
significant disruption to the educational environment and emotional harm to students, and whereas the board recognizes it's a responsibility to protect the privacy of student information and to ensure compliance with federal student privacy protections under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Charlottesville City School Board affirms that Charlottesville City Schools shall remain safe and welcoming environments for all students and families regardless of immigration
status. The school division shall not voluntarily assist with federal immigration enforcement activities conducted by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement or other agencies acting on its behalf, except as required by law. Further, to the maximum extent permitted by law, Charlottesville City Schools will not cooperate with any entity that enters into an agreement under section two eighty seven g of the Immigration and Naturalization Act. No immigration enforcement agent shall be granted access to non public areas of any Charlottesville
City Schools campus unless the agent presents a valid judicial warrant signed by a judge. Any such requests shall be immediately referred to the superintendent or the superintendent's designee for review. Charlottesville City Schools shall not collect information regarding a student's immigration status nor disclose student information to immigration enforcement authorities, except as required by law and consistent with FERPA. The superintendent shall develop and disseminate clear protocols for school staff regarding how to respond
if immigration enforcement officials request access to school property, student records, or students. The school division shall provide families with information regarding their rights and available community resources and shall work with community organizations to support students whose families may be affected by immigration inform enforcement actions. The board reaffirms to commitment reaffirms its commitment to protecting the emotional well-being and educational continuity of students whose families may experience immigration enforced enforcement actions.
The Charlottesville City School Board calls upon local, state, and federal leaders to ensure that schools remain safe spaces free from immigration enforcement activity that undermines the educational mission of public schools. This resolution is to be adopted this day, the March 2026. I think we need to take action on this. May I have a motion for approval of this resolution, please? So moved. May I have a second? I need a second. I need a second. First. I'll second.
Alright. And we can open this up for discussion. Miss Cooper, go ahead. So, yeah. I have talked to over the last, I guess, few weeks, I've talked to some of my colleagues in reference to this resolution. And thinking it thinking about this resolution as I was reading over the resolution, I started to think about the conversation in reference to SROs. And so our if we're gonna protect, students from ICE, I also wanna protect our black and brown communities from SROs. And and just thinking about, you know, what's happening in the world.
I'm I'm a big supporter of this resolution. But just thinking about some of the similarities and how, police come into black and brown communities, they raid homes, they separate families, and they also cause harm. And so I want our board to be thinking about those things when we're moving forward with, the option to bring the SROs back into our community. Are we being equitable in what we're asking? And are we protecting all of our students the same way? Thank you.
Thank you. Any other comments? Yes. I'd absolutely like to add to that. Thank you, miss Cooper, for your sentiments. I know that I shared with you, miss Cooper, that I share, those concerns a couple of weeks ago. And I think that if we're gonna think about the historical, documentation of that impact on black and brown communities from police. We must absolutely think about that, as we continue to think about ICE and the current situation that's going on. And I've heard quite a few people, even make connections between what's happening right now
with ICE and what's happened with during civil rights era movements and other, instances of black families facing a lot of terror because of police. So I also would ask that we be equitable in our approach and that we have a holistic view when it comes to student safety, student belonging, and equity as stated in our strategic plan. Thank you. Mister mayor? Yeah. Thank you. Just some questions for clarifications from staff, please. And I think I sent this to you prior.
How much of our budget is coming from the federal government? And which programs are those is are those supporting? $6,900,000 of our budget is federal funds. It's about 6%, and they are title one funds, title two, and our food nutrition program, and title six b are our major federal funds. Makes sense. So to just that's good. I think maybe not and I would say I don't even know understand all of those, what that means.
But my understanding is that those support some of the most neediest students. Anyone, I mean, say are BIPOC students also. Yes. They support our at risk students. Okay. Doctor Burley, are is there anything in this resolution that we're not doing right now or we haven't done? No. Everything that's outlined here, we have, we've implemented in terms of, communication to our, staff, commune and communication to our families. And then, of course, as it relates to student inform in terms of student information,
you know, we are bound to purpose. So many of these things were are things that we were already doing prior to the adoption of the ICE resolution. Thank you. One miss Cooper and miss Bryant, I acknowledge your observations and and comments, and I do look forward to having more of a deep conversation with you, not only individually between now, but also on, you know, during in the work session we're gonna have on the topic. Colleagues, I'm concerned about this because I think from a process perspective, while I am
definitely not a supporter of what ICE is doing around the country, terrorizing and even, I would say, potentially some of my extended family members, there's also a lot of things the federal government is doing that I'm not okay with beyond just immigration policy and and the horrible actions that ICE are taking to terrorize, again, our communities and our our friends and our neighbors. I think about what's going on right now with Iran and how our army or our air force bombed a school of young girls.
That's horrifying. I hate how the government has torn down a lot of other institutions, including the Department of Education, which is directly impacting our students. And a lot of this is nonsensical, in my opinion. Right? It does not make sense. And, unfortunately, what I've seen is that where they've sent ICE agents, right, is to democratic progressive localities and jurisdictions. Conservative. And I bring this up because my concern is if I'm thinking about all of our students and some of our neediest, again, which this funding supports, and the federal
government is not acting in a rational act or following the rules and laws, what stops them from basically pulling a list of all the jurisdictions and school districts that have pulled at a resolution like this? And I was like, alright. We're gonna pull all your funding. And there's $6,900,000 that supports our neediest students. And to me, while, again, I agree with everything in here. I think it's super important, but at the same time, it is this is an observation on federal immigration policy. And these are things that we're already doing and stating it. And I don't I think we're potentially putting a big target on our back, and
the cost and risk associated with this is significant, and, again, to the detriment of some of our neediest students. So while, again, I wanna iterate, I am not in favor of ICE. I think it's what they're doing is horrible. I also don't think this is being responsible and and potentially puts a lot of our students at risk. So, actually, the alternative, I think, what is some folks think is gonna do. So I will be abstaining. Thank you. Miss Craighead, did you have other go ahead, please. Yeah.
As I mentioned in my student, report, there's an overwhelming support for this resolution for my students. My peers are scared, and how can we expect them to learn if they're scared? I think that, I understand mister Myers' perspective here, but at the same time, we have to acknowledge that families are scared and and there is a lack of understanding and and clarity when it comes to the exact practices that our district will take if ICE comes to our school. And I think that it's very important that we we pass this resolution.
Miss Bryant? Sure. I appreciate the comments offered by miss Bryant, miss Cooper, and and do want to lean into that and hope we can talk about that a bit more at our SRO work session. I remember that we previously had something in our MOU that spoke specifically to ICE and had community members reach out and just say that they felt that that was not honoring black and brown students by singling out our, protection of our immigrant students,
but not our black and brown students. And so it was removed from the MOU for SROs and just hope that we can unpack that and have more discussion around that at our work session. Also, I wanna acknowledge mister Myers and his, concern about federal funding and the eye on Charlottesville that this, could potentially bring, although I think the eye is already on Charlottesville. I think it's been on Charlottesville. And I think, we have a generous community.
We have a philanthropic community. And my hope is that if the federal government comes in and pulls $6,900,000, this community better stand up and say, Charlottesville City Schools here is $6,900,000 because we care and we appreciate the work that the board is doing to recognize our immigrant students and hear the voices of those students, which I have heard this week coming into the school. I have met with students in our walk program specifically, many of which would, fall
under these titled funds and immigrant students. And to echo Ginger's sentiments, they are scared. They are scared more, I I would say, for their parents and their, older sibling groups. What happens if I come home and they're not there? What happens if I get a call from, legal aid who is helping my family, through these immigration matters and my family member is gone?
And so I hope that we can continue to engage, and I'm glad that the questions were asked about what have we done, what have we not done, because I really I do want to lean in and understand if all of our staff have received appropriate training, all of our staff. And I appreciate the member of the community who brought up, the student about the bus because I don't know that I've heard that our bus drivers have been adequately trained for such a scenario at bus stops, and so I'm interested in that.
Also interested in understanding if it's not required training, are they doing it? Is it outside of contract hours? Are we asking teachers to do this? And and what is the expectation around it that they've received the training. And then just understanding what the division is planning to do, if there's any information sessions for student groups or parents. Again, I don't want to draw more of a a lens or a target letting anyone know that we're holding a big event with our immigrant families. I don't think that's appropriate.
But how how are the trusted partners that we work with, the IRC, legal aid, our ESL support staff to lean in with those students, either in smaller engagement groups or otherwise, to ensure that they do know the process and ensure that they do understand, who the helpers are. And so I don't that's my commentary. Thank you. Thank you. Miss Cooper, anything? Okay. Miss Richardson? Miss Dooley?
Okay. So we will, call for that, please. Yes. Miss Bryant? Yes. Miss Burns? Yes. Miss Cooper? Yes. Miss Dooley? Yes. Mister Meyer? Stan. Sorry. Miss Richardson? Yes. And miss Torres. Yes. Thank you. Up next is eleven point two, and this is our solar power purchase agreement. Miss Powell? Good evening, madam chair, members of the board, Doctor Gurley. Back on February 5, you received an extensive presentation. Sorry, I'm hearing this echo. I hope you're not. But anyway, about solar PPAs, that was like your educational session on that.
And we tonight is, what's coming before you for action is the PPA for the high school. We look forward to bringing another agreement forward later for or hopefully soon after, for the middle school. This evening we do have with us, Crystal Riddoval, the director of the Office of Sustainability for the city. The city is a big part of this agreement because of all the services they provide to the school system with our facilities. And then we also have with us this evening Megan Milo with Madison Energy. They are here if there are questions that you need that need to be resolved
before you all would take action to authorize doctor Gurley to execute the necessary documents. Thank you. Any questions? Board members? Miss Doolie, we'll start here. Well, I think first we need to make a motion to, approve the solar power purchase agreement for Charlottesville High School. So moved. Second. Does that does that suffice or do we because there were, subsidiary agreements, do we need that language? Or So miss Thacker, I believe, on the information sheet has the exact motion written
out. It's not a it's not an awful one on it. So if someone could read the motion as written, I think that would certainly make the attorneys happy. I think yeah. Thank you. Okay. So I move, that we approve the solar power purchase agreement and the associated license agreement for Charlottesville High School, and explicitly authorize the superintendent to execute both documents, including all incorporated exhibits and subsidiary agreements. Bryant? No. Miss Burns? Miss Cooper? Miss Nick Richardson? Miss Dooley? Alright. We call vote, please. Miss Bryant? Yes. Miss Burns?
Yes. Miss Cooper? Yes. Miss Dooley? Yes. Mister Meyer? Yes. Miss Richardson? Yes. And miss Torres? Yes. Thank you. Thank you. And now we have, an action item regarding KTEC local plan. Doctor Heltz. Good evening, madam chair, members of the board, and doctor Gurley. At the March 5 school board meeting, I presented the 2627 Perkins plan. And tonight, the superintendent is recommending that you take action. Thank you.
We do need a motion, please. So I move that we approve the 2627 career and technical education local plan. And a second? Second. Miss Burns. Second. Any discussion, questions? Alright. Vote, please. Miss Bryant? Yes. Miss Burns? Yes. Miss Cooper? Yes. Miss Dooley? Yes. Mister Meyer? Yes. Miss Richardson? Yes. And miss Torres? Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Chair Torres, before we move forward, I'd like to ask if we if we might be able to take a ten minute recess. Do you have a motion?
Motion. Okay. Give me a second. Second. All in favor? No. Yes. Yeah. Miss Dooling? Yes. Alright. So we're gonna take a quick ten minute recess, and we will resume. Thank you. Were you okay with that, Stan? Okay. It's under the hey, Emily. Who's on that? Yeah. Okay. So we are at, twelve point one, which is items for discussion for safe routes
and school zone update, please. And thank you. Hi. Good evening, madam chair, and members of the board, and Doctor. Gurley. Tonight, I'm excited to have with us Kyle Rodlin. He is the city's safe routes to schools coordinator, and he has a number of, really, meaty updates for you this evening about, what's going on with our Safe Routes program. So Kyle, turn it over to you. Sorry. I'm gonna move this a little bit so I can control. Hey. Thanks for having me. Good evening, everybody. So, I'm just gonna update you guys on what's been happening with the Safe Routes
to School program currently and then also in the past few years. So this slide deck, I've got a little bit of a show and tell, and then also in this deck is gonna be some things about travel data, historical data, and then things happening at Summit, which I imagine we'll probably wanna have some discussion about. But just let me get through, the this first list and then get through the summit stuff, and then we'll pause in the slideshow. And then we can talk about it, and then we'll finish up with a few things, some speed speed enforcement stuff and other stuff like that.
So I'll just kinda move through this, and then we'll take a pause and and talk, if you guys want. Okay. Alright. So first up, the last time that anything is Safe Routes to School related was brought to y'all, it was around creating new school zones, and y'all made made a recommendation to, city council, to amend the city code to create new school new school zones. So that passed. The code has changed, and, we are adding new school zones at four schools, Trailblazer,
CHS, Summit, and Sunrise. Two of those schools are getting two school zones. CHS, currently has zero school zones. So there'll be two school zones, and the speed limit on Melbourne Avenue will be reduced to 25 miles an hour, twenty four hours a day. And then, all the school zones in the city will be 15 miles an hour. So the same things that y'all, asked for is what we're doing right now. So we're working on that. This this graphic is actually, just pulled from our working map. So this is, anyway but that's where everything's going.
All the infrastructure, that's where that's where it's going. So what's new? This it was due to the recent action that, the school board took and the city council took is that we have, 12 new school zone flashers. So that means six new school zones because there are two flashers at each one. All the school zones citywide, it's in the city code, must be 15 miles an hour. So what that means is the state law requires that a school zone is 10 miles an hour under the regular speed limit.
So it's this kind of reverse engineering of now that it's in the city code that it says 15, that all those school zones have to be 25 miles an hour or twenty four hours a day, which was my next bullet point. And then also, we adopted, in the in the city code that the new boundary for I just call them school areas, is 750 feet. And what that is is there's basically, a radius around the school property of 750
feet that we are legally able to, create a school zone in. Right? So we don't have to doesn't mean that every school zone must be 750 feet, you know, from the the schools, but within that area, it's up to, you know, our discretion to, install schools and related infrastructure. Sorry. I'm just looking at the slides here. Let me try to can I advance this? That's okay. Alright. And they're seeing that. So I'm seeing three different things. Yeah. Okay. So that's the one. Alright.
Cool. Alright. Yeah. So my next slide is we've created these maps just using the GIS, which is that seven fifty foot bubble around every school. We also included the county schools in this, Burley and the Community Lab School because they're within the city, and we're working with the county to to to work on their school zones and things like that. So this is this is just for us internally while we're working, on the school zones or maybe installing some other school zone related infrastructure that isn't in the reduced
speed zones because this is kind of a school area. So this is kind of for future, consideration of different infrastructure with students and schools in mind. Okay. So now we're on to six years of improvements. Let's see. So over the past six years, we've done quite a lot. The pandemic was kind of a turning point for the Save Process Cool program. You know, we started off doing these quick build projects, which were crosswalks, paint, plastic, things that we could get done quickly, and a lot of that had to do
with when the walk zones expanded because when those expanded, you know, there was reduced bus service, and a lot of students and families would be walking and finding their own way to school. So we needed to, update our infrastructure to support them and keep them safer. And we did, in that first year, a 188 quick build projects. Well, that's what hit the list, and then eventually, we got to finishing a 188 of those quick build projects. And we so now this pro the SafePath program is now funded through the city, and we have a budget of 250,000 every year for five years to put towards,
quick build projects or these concrete projects like sidewalks, stairs, just moving anything around that. I mean and we I have a list of 80 something projects that we need to get to. So here's an example of one of these concrete projects on Belmont Avenue. This was actually on a route that was the walking school bus route, from Summit that went to Kindlewood. So you can see before these stairs protruded into the, sidewalk, it wasn't ADA accessible.
It was barely even passable by one person, let alone, a group of 60 children walking. So we we prioritized, these official routes to school, when we're looking at these projects. And that brings me to these maps that, the city and CCS worked together to create. We're actually going to be, revising these maps, coming up very soon, so that we can kind of keep these current. But these maps, they look cool.
They're kind of transit maps. Right? And they're they're nice, you know, to send home as refrigerator magnets or in, you know, school folders or something that like that with families. But they also do a lot more. I mean, we use these maps internally at the city. They inform, public works for maintenance, snow removal, and sidewalk repair. We also use them as a tool for prioritizing our infrastructure projects. So we look at these maps when we have a whole list of projects, and we say, okay, here are all of our deficits that we need to, either repair
or bring up to, standards. And so we're so we say, where do we start? And so we look at these official routes to school. And just so y'all know how these what are one of the things that we considered when we originally created these maps, we looked at, the sidewalk continuity. So what are the not just where is everybody walking, but where is it physically safe for people to walk? We also did some public engagement surrounding this in each of the schools, and asked people where they feel safe to walk, which what makes sense for them because we
may not live in their neighborhoods. There may be some shortcuts here here and there or something like that. So now we're into the data. Full disclosure, this, I made this presentation when school was closed. My fourth grade summit, student helped me make this slide using AI. So Do the numbers say? So the student travel data, this is all the historical data that we have on the travel, basically, how kids are getting to school. This is a city average, so this is across all the schools. You can see the first set there, you know, the majority of the of the
students got to school by bus, and then and then it was car, and then walk, bike, and public transit. And you can see how it shifted over the years. So 2024, is, kind of the latest full set of data that we have, and you can see that things have shifted. Now the bus service is less. The car is, number one, and then bus. And then you can see I mean, walking has improved, quite a bit. And then, also taking, riding a bike to school has improved as well.
Okay. So here's Summit Elementary. I wanna start by saying that we've done a lot of work around Summit and that we have a lot of work to do. So I'll just present to you kind of what we what we have done and what we've got going on, and we can talk about this. So this is a infographic, that we use in a lot of our public engagement when we have these meetings with the neighborhood, and the school community. This this graphic is the current layout that we have at Summit.
So this is what we have on the ground right now. This is how it works. And this next slide is our initial concept. This is this was our first design, and this is what we piloted with the design. I'll toggle back and forth real quick so you can kinda see it. It's not that much of a change. You can just kinda see how this, parking lane and bike lane just kinda shift. They just kinda trade places. Right? So this is what we have. The bike lane is right next to the car travel lane. This is what we piloted. And there's a little bit of a difference in the performance with what we piloted
than what's happening right now, and we can talk about that a little bit in a little bit. But this is, we ended up with this this design here, because of buyer department regulations and all their equipment and everything. Let me move through this. So this is also a part of the initial concept. This was to create a, kind of a one way loop around the school using Belmont, and then Tufton and these loading zones on all three of these streets.
Some of this was adopted and some of this wasn't adopted. What came out of our sessions with our public engagement was that we would make these changes on Belmont Avenue first and then and then evaluate and then see if we need to make any changes on Tufton or Monticello anything like that because this was something that residents felt very strongly about, and that was the feedback that we got. So here is a little bit this is kinda drilling down into the data. This is just travel data for Summit.
These are the current modes of transportation at Summit Elementary School. You can see that 70% of the students get to school by car, buses, just under 6%, five and a half walk, and, quite a bit of students walk to school. It's one of the high it's one of the one of the highest, if not the highest average, out of the city. So, if we use, you know, kinda some some projections and look at when, the
district lines change, this is our projection, how things will go, in 2027 when there is no bus service at, Summit. This is just, you know, projected how how the numbers are moved, how students will get to school. And this is based off of this bus car correlation kind of using these these figures and and, you know, how they interact with each other. Let me see what's next. So some of it's challenges. It's really the only school in the city that doesn't have an off street facility
for a car loop, or a bus loop, or a parking lot that someone can loop through. You know, they have a parking lot at the school, but it's basically just a dead end, so that, and it's very small. There's, there's a major arterial street on one side, which is Monticello Avenue, the volume of Monticello Avenue has, it, Monticello volume of Monticello Avenue has it Monticello Avenue has the highest volume of flow of traffic into town, out of any street in town, more than High Street, more than 5th Street, more than the Parkway.
It's it was surprising to me to learn that, but it has a major arterial street, so that's another challenge. And, one of their biggest challenges at the moment is that families are dropping kids off and picking students up, in areas and in ways that are unsafe. It's school policy that, that they that all the kids who arrive by car are dropped off on one side of the school, but that policy isn't being followed. So that's a challenge that they face.
The families, when we talk to families, what what the challenges that they face is there is no designated drop off zone. So, you know, if school staff or even CPD or crossing guard is out there saying, hey. Don't drop your student off here, and they say, well, where do I do that? We they don't have an answer. There's no designated zone for them to do that. There there are designated spaces and doors for them to enter the school, but there is no actual physical reserved zone for for for that to for that to happen.
The biggest challenge that families, face is time. You know, this time is one of the challenges that has been said, or one of the biggest reasons why people have listed why they won't why why they can't or don't walk their children to school. So in the morning, people are pinched for time. There's also weather, which is self explanatory, heavy traffic on Monticello Avenue, which is, the same summit or the same challenge that the school itself faces, and then, the minimal
bus service, and that most of the schools in the block zone. So that's what we're hearing from families. And so what do we do? And this is kind of a slide that I put together, which is basically who can do what. Right? So we can change the street and the traffic design, which is something that the city can do. There's enforcement and traffic control, which is CPD. Where do students enter the building, which is what CCS, has under their control. And then communication and education is also under CCS. I mean, I guess communication, I can also put with the city to outreach with,
residents and the public at large as well. And then school buses is kind of a is a collaboration between the city, and the school system. And there's no real silver bullet here. You know? It's not we we're not gonna be able to just design our way out of this. We're not gonna be able to educate our way out of this or anything like that. I think it's gonna take a multifaceted approach to this complex problem around Summit. And, alright. So that's where I'll pause. That's, I think that's my last slide on Summit before we get into speed enforcement
cameras. So what do you wanna talk about? Should we start down here, mister Meyer? Yeah. This is fascinating and really frustrating. But Agreed. Yeah. You you and I'm sure you spent way too many hours trying to think about it. But going back, one, there was an option where it seemed like they're right. There was not gonna be conflicting a drop off zone with a bike, and we didn't do that. Why? Can can I ask that again? The if you go back to your slide where you show your initial for the drop off in front of Summit This one?
Back for the there you go. There's Yeah. So that was the initial concept. Right? And you had the bike lane on the inside. Correct. And the loading zone or drop off zone, I is that people park their cars there to pick up their kids or drop off their kids. Right? That that's a loading zone for the school bus. That was the school bus. That that was re reserved for school bus. Yeah. So I'll go to this image, which is the overhead here. On Belmont Avenue, the pink is a loading zone for a bus, and and then
on Tufton Avenue, that pink is for was for cars and on Monticello also for cars. But after all of our public engagement, it was, there there was a lot a lot of comment about, not making any changes and all the challenges that the residents would face if these changes would occur on Tufton Avenue and all things like that. So I'm just tell I'm just telling you Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I guess tell you how we landed it here. I We're talking about the safety of our children.
I agree. Yep. So I I'm just I'm a little fascinated that was not rising to the top on what was the best design, and that the neighborhood for being inconvenienced thirty minutes part of the year in the morning and thirty minutes part of the year in the afternoon when most people are probably in well, in the morning, yes, but in the afternoon, not like, no. I mean, again, I don't know if it was your decision or whose decision it is, but who do we need to talk to to say, like, the students' safety is the number one priority.
I'm sorry. Not the neighbors' ability to drive around in the morning or in the afternoon. Yeah. I mean, this is something that the school board can can talk to city manager's office and also council about. I mean, what I can tell you is right now, this this situation at Summit is a priority just internally at the city. Like, I'm gonna I have emails from the city manager, from city manager's department, public works, CPD, the the chief of police, the fire chief.
I've got a meeting tomorrow with city manager's office and directors of of several different departments just to go over all of this, put all the options on the table, and make this a priority. And are you're the person who's has the lucky job of project managing all this? Or or who is the person that has got that project management responsibility? That that responsibility will be, identified tomorrow. But I I I will I will either be in that role or be very close to that role, I'm assuming, after after our meeting tomorrow.
Okay. Thank you. Miss Bryant? Thank you for all of your work on this, and thank you for the presentation. It was really helpful to be able to see those numbers and to see how students are getting to and from school. I don't have any questions at this moment, but thank you. You're welcome. Miss Burns. Thank you. Hi. Hey. Thanks for being here. Oh, you're welcome. Thanks for having me. Yeah. Seven months too late, but here we are. I have been following this closely. I'm sorry if you have not seen my emails. I am happy to send them to your way.
Working with families and hearing from constituents and teachers and students that are affected by this. And so I'll say it again. I am incredibly disappointed that we are here today, and we were not here six months ago. That being said, I understand there's a meeting on the docket, and I hope we get an update. Just kind of going down my list here, I've seen that map. I don't know why we didn't do anything other than the community feedback. But, as we talk about teachers and staff and student safety, I think we need
to also engage them and their community feedback is important as well, where they work and how they're interacting. I was there last week responding to a parent concern and just overall observing what's happening in that space. And it is not acceptable for our teachers to have to stand in the roadway and stop traffic for the bus to pull away. It's just not acceptable. And for the community, our own parents not stopping, I don't understand that either.
If we are truly a community that cares for one another, then you should stop your car when children are getting out of school and being able to get into their vehicles. So I hope that there's more conversation in the community about what that looks like. I wonder if has Kat worked with have you worked with Kat on ridership, like, teaching ridership skills to students, I'd say? Not just summit, but, like, overall. How are we educating our students on ridership?
So we've talked about it in in I I think was it this past summer that we started to talk about it? Wow. Yeah. Yeah. We've looked at it ex expanding, at least the the the capacity of buses to the routes that go to the high school and the middle school, around those times that, are that students travel to and from school. Some of those routes, have smaller buses, and we've looked at, you know, putting larger
buses and encouraging, families to do that and to ride the bus. So we're currently still working with CAT. So those talks are happening. There's just not an official, you know, system, you know, to educate students in the schools about how how to do that quite yet. But we've talked about that with, with school comms and city comms and and everything like that. Do you have anything to And I think as the city, as I've heard, city colleagues, city council, committed to ridership, committing to increasing frequency, I hope that they are
and I'm asking that they include students in that conversation about how we are educating students on ridership. There are plenty of opportunities for people to come in and table during lunchtime for students to learn how to ride CAT, to learn the system. If that's what we're truly committed to as a city, then I hope we're engaging all ridership, not just adults to and from work, but also our students to and from school. Thank you for that suggestion. The only other thing I would add is that, starting during the pandemic with doctor
Gurley himself, we do go into communities and we reach out through administrators to make sure that, especially, our middle and high school students are aware of their CAT options as we see that that, you know, could be a a great, asset for them. So there's been that type of targeted outreach to neighborhoods at different times and that still comes up, even recently with our new the, principal for the middle school next year reached out and wanted to make sure she was well informed about all those options. So there's an awareness, but I love the idea of bringing folks in for tabling
that had not that has not been done. I understand Micro CAT going on '29. Is there any opportunity for the Micro CAT system to be used, I would say, for, like, our highest need students who are either chronically absent or at New Pathways, at Lugo McGinnis that, like, on demand, they need a ride and they want to get to school. Is is there anything on the table either with MicroCat or some type of on
demand solution? So I I can't speak to Microcat, but what I can speak to is that for Lugo in particular and some of the work we've done since the pandemic, we increased this vehicles that are available to our school staff. And I know Lugo, for one, has used that resource, because it's the smaller school population there that they have been able to be flexible to provide that kind of support definitely for that school. Don't know what you wanna And then are we hiring additional, like, on demand drivers, or are we relying on our staff that are in the building to do that
work? So it's the staff that drives the school cars to to do those pickups. That is correct. School staff, not school. School. Yes. Yep. That's right. That's great. And then I think go Marie, go ahead. Oh, I was just gonna add that, you know, I talked to transit about Microcat and, you know, currently, it it is just available 29 and Pan Tops, and there isn't really any Microcat service available for what you're what you're talking about now.
And then I think I know your next question is because, yeah, well, go ahead. Thank you. I hope you're ready. And then increase of car traffic at Summit. Why are we not why are we not talking about running a bus? If we're increasing the car traffic is increasing, can we not just target a neighborhood? It's a temporary fix. Those children will have buses when they go to Sunrise. Can we not employ something of that nature in the now? So, unfortunately, the driver vacancy rate for, is still at over 50% consistently for those
thirty hour driver positions, and that's a situation that needs to be resolved. I am hopeful. We I've had quite a bit of dialogue with the city. James Frias is being a good partner in this work. We're having some very real conversations about what the demand structure is for school transportation versus transit staffing, to try to move things forward with some kind of solution that is cost effective for the citizens of Charlottesville. Because just staffing up with lots of forty hour drivers is going to result in
a situation where you have a lot of people sitting around during the middle of the day or during the summer, and it it it there just has to be a different way to approach this, so that the schools get the service that's needed because the driver shortage is not chronic as it was during an, you know, post pandemic. And so there are other models. I know they're looking at Harrisonburg Transit, and what they do. Actually, that's the only other, system we're aware of in the Commonwealth where the transit
system also operates the pupil transportation, But they do it differently there. And, so we're just trying to we've exchanged a lot of information and data, and we're hopeful that there's multiple solutions that I think are being considered and just one of them needs to to move forward. And then if busing isn't an option, are we not able to put a crossing guard or a CSA in there to help mitigate the risk of student staff safety
during drop off pickup time. So we could look into, you know, asking some of our CSAs who have filled in, especially those who've already done, like, substitute crossing guard work. So they they don't mind doing that type of work to see if they'd because you have to look at the schedule's complimentary for the morning. It's not complimentary for the afternoon. That's what we run into when we've had some of our CSAs that thankfully, you know, helped us out as crossing guards. They can help us out in the morning because they're not on duty yet for the high school. But when elementary is dismissing, they're still on duty, so it only would help in
the morning. They also face the same challenge, that our other school staff do, and then they don't have any real enforcement capability, but still be more hands on deck. And and I understand the suggestion for sure. Thank you. I'll just add to that that, we're not taking any options off the table right now. We're we're all everything that you just said is on the table, and then some. So right now, we we are in a moment of laying everything out and considering
everything, because we we're gonna sift through everything and find whatever this multifaceted approach is and bring in everybody who needs to be in this discussion to make this work, because it is multi departments within the city. It involves, the schools. It involves the community. It involves the staff at the school, the the residents, everybody. So we we're not taking anything off the table.
And so just to temper and manage my own expectations, is this gonna be is is whatever on the table going to resolve this school year, or are we having to wait until next school year when there's a plan in place? I I can tell you that, I mean, with, with my experience working for the for the local government that, it won't be solved this school year. I can say that in in pretty good confidence. I mean, solved solved is a pretty hefty thing, and it's gonna take time.
I mean, just the public engagement alone is gonna take some time to talk to talk to the right people, talk to everybody who's involved, before we start changing things out in front of people's houses and people's movement patterns around their neighborhoods and their schools and things like that. So we do wanna do our due deal our due diligence and do this the right way before we just start throwing things out there on the street and just changing things. That's not to say that we can't pilot things and put some temporary measures in
place, and just leave people hanging in the breeze, you know. But, as far as a a 100% solution, it's gonna take a little time. Thank you. Miss Cooper? My understanding that it's gonna take some time to figure all of this out. Is the city committed to having, a traffic person out, in the morning and in the evening to kind of help with the traffic control, because I do like, as a person that, dropped my kid off and picked my kid up, it's hard to
get in and out of, Summit, because it's a lot of people that is driving to pick their kids up, but it's not enough parking spots. And so thinking about what that could potentially look like for temporary solutions is is the city committed to having a, traffic officer or an officer out, for the safety of our children and our families? Thank you. Thank you, miss Cooper. In anticipation of that question, I reached out to Lieutenant Wade, our primary liaison for
CPD, to ask for a a statement specifically regarding that because I didn't want to speak in a hypothetical or I wanted to, get the right from them. And it's, the response to that question is CPD provides support through traffic education slash enforcement direction to Summit Elementary whenever possible and anytime it is requested by the school. That is what was, the response was. That said, I do know there was one time immediately after we sent out the SOS that there was a morning, like, within forty eight within two days of that
where they didn't have anyone there. But I do believe that in light of all the attention and the emphasis that we've been placing on this, that they that the whenever possible is a reflection of what they will do. But I do know that within I wanna also be clear that there was very soon after we made the request. I think it was the second day after they started, there was no one. But then they came back, and I believe they've been there most every day since, but I'm not personally there to monitor that. So and they also, I believe, are only sending one officer on some days.
So that means they'll either sort of pick the battle, either be on the Belmont side or on the Monticello side. I don't think they have presence on both sides every day, for sure. I think that's interesting for them to wanna be good partners and be SROs in our schools. But when we're having a challenging time with our traffic and our students' safety, they're not willing to step up. So that says a lot about that. I do think it wasn't that they weren't willing. They just had something else that had materialized in the city and they didn't have the manpower to send over at that time, was because I did inquire as to
why. So it wasn't a a a willing choice, if you will. It was just it was necessitated by their staffing and what else was going on in the city that morning. Miss Richardson. I don't have any questions for that. I'm waiting for the, the speed and of course the cameras. That's next. It's coming up. Miss Dooley. I think just, whether if we can get, some sort of consistent update on this working group in our, response to written reports section, just I think this is something that's obviously been Do you want me to come back?
Not necessarily. I think a written report would be sufficient just to, this is top of mind for us. Sure. We'll make making sure that there's it's noted, like, the meeting tomorrow, I'm not part of that scrape. So I'll rely on Kyle. He's a great partner to keep us posted on the meetings and the the work. I would also say that when we did the, initial the public engagement around, you know, making Belmont one way and the first solution that was implemented, the first out of the gate, we had no one show up. It was during the summer. Zero. Zero. Zero people. Then we did have was it one or two more sessions, but we had one
that was very well attended in the media center. Miss John principal Johnson was there. At least one of the teachers was there. But it's one of the situations where when there is public engagement on this again, we need to make sure and some of you weren't on the board. I don't even think when we were doing this engagement last time, but we'll make sure you're all aware because I do think the people who show up for that are the neighbors in the neighborhood, the folks who don't wanna lose the parking. And the teachers who were there and the principal, they're I mean, they spoke very passionately about the concerns.
I spoke, Kyle. I mean, we all talked about it, but the there's only yeah. But the, the majority of the folks there are the ones who are gonna be impacted with change in their their parking and things like that. So, even getting Belmont one way felt like a big deal at the time. And so we'll be sure to let you know when that engagement happens for the next round of changes. Just one more. I heard you say you wouldn't be there. I don't doctor Gurley, will you be there tomorrow? Oh, this is the first time I'm here. About. You talk about the meeting tomorrow?
Right. Oh, it's just in internal city meeting. Yeah. But I think here's here's where there may be a breakdown. We're having an internal conversation about a school problem without a school person at the table. I I I don't I don't I understand. I to totally understand what you're saying. And I'm sorry, Faye Nord. It's not you. I I know. I know. We're we're all together on this. We are. But, this is more or less the the the first meeting after a flurry of emails from all departments.
Like, hey, we need to get our act together, and this is the first time that we're meeting to to to get our act together. And 100%, the school is going to be involved in all of this moving forward. The school is not only going to be involved, the school has to be involved. I mean, I think the only other department that won't be there tomorrow is fire, which they need to be involved because the the way that the traffic works around town is, I mean, they have they have veto power over everything, how how the
dimensions of the roadway works. So after this meeting happens and we get our act together and we get organized and we know who's doing what and and how we're gonna do it, we're gonna bring everybody in on the conversation moving forward. Thank you. I just think if we're asking for monthly written reports and updates, then our staff should be. Thank you. Yeah. And I I do think that in response to, miss, the question that miss Burns raised about, you know, additional support that as a part of that meeting tomorrow, and
I and I've expressed this to lieutenant Wade, and I've expressed this to, city manager Sanders that I feel that we should have, an officer out there. It shouldn't be a staff member trying to control the traffic. I mean, we they feel the danger of that now. The principals express the danger of being out there. It needs to be someone out there. It needs to be a constant presence out there daily, someone who can, like, do
something. The principal, she can't do it. The staff members can't do it. So that would be my request that there always be an officer, and it really should be two officers, one in the front and one in the back, because we I mean, the staff can't manage the the staff can't manage the road. They have no jurisdiction on what happens on the on the the roadway. Yeah. Thank you for that. And we and to follow-up with that, with the the interaction between staff and families and and the the stress and the friction that that causes has been duly noted.
I mean, that that's been is high on the list of of of things that cannot happen. So we're well aware of that. And like we said, we're working we're working with CPD to try and make all of that happen. So just to reiterate, and I wanna thank you, doctor Gurley, that what I heard, and I'm hoping that this is kind of an official ask on your on your part that until and we do recognize that this is going to take time, but that we are asking CPD to partner and to prioritize the safety of our students
and our staff and the rest of the community. So to the extent that they can consistently have somebody out there, that would be greatly appreciated. Yep. Under understood. And I'll bring that back. Do you have another slide? Oh, I do have more slides. Yeah. Everybody, we're done with we're done with the summit. Which one are you guys seeing? I got there's three different screens. That's the one I think that's on the, That's on the Zoom? I think that's on the Zoom. Okay. There no. No. You're on the screen. Okay. Speed enforcement cameras. So there was, let's let's see.
I'll go through this. We have a a first our first phase, was at three locations, so this is technically a pilot. And school board and city council were, really kind of, the movers and the shakers to get all this done as well as the crossing guards really showed up and advocated for all these cameras. They were huge in, actually implementing this. So, our first phase, we we prioritized arterial streets with high traffic volumes.
So two on Cherry Avenue and one on Monticello Avenue, which, have tons of cars, especially in the morning. So the first one at Charlottesville Middle School on Cherry Avenue, Summit on Monticello Avenue, and then Tall Oaks on Cherry Avenue. So each cam each location has two cameras so so they can get cars going either way. So there's six cameras total. And per the state law, vehicles must be going 11 miles an hour hour over the posted speed limit to trigger a citation. So just to spell it out, the speed limit is 15 when the lights are
flashing, so they have to be going 26 miles an hour to trigger a citation, and that's state law. So that's how that works. And then my next slide is just some data on how many citations were there. Happy to take questions about this after we go through this. So this is just the first three months, starting October because the first month of school was, a warning period, and it will be every every school year. So after the summer when the lights start flashing again, people won't be getting hit with, you know, like, the financial burden of the ticket.
They'll get some warnings for the first month, and then after that, citations will be given. So the first three months, this is total for all three school zones, so six cameras. There were 753 tickets given. And this is showing the recidivism, and you can see that the, only 38 tickets were given to second time offenders and 18 tickets were given to three time offenders. So what that means is in this first three months, ninety three percent of people who got one ticket just got one.
So it's, you know, a little this data is a little young, and we're gonna continue to to track this. This is really easy to track in the dashboard from the from the vendor, so we can see this in real time. But what we're seeing, at least as of now, is that this is pretty effective. If 93% of people, you know, are not committing a, a second offense. So that's a good thing. I don't know if you can see that little thumbs up, but that was, from my my fourth grader.
And then after this is my last slide on on the speed enforcement camera, and this is just a little bit of, like, show and tell. This is the work that the that, Charlottesville Safe Routes has done outside of Charlottesville. So things that that I've presented at places that we've been to, conferences and partners that we have kind of, nationally. So we work with a lot of people across the country. Okay. Any questions? Speed enforcement cameras, anything else you wanna go back to anything? I guess, for me, I wanted to know the amount of the ticket. Do we know? I think it's a $100.
Okay. Yep. Thank you. There was a question that was in email about That was me. Mhmm. Go ahead. You asked. Sorry. I'm not gonna take the words out of your mouth. No. No. I appreciate you being prepared. Yeah. Of the 800 tickets that were written, My understanding is that money, like, doesn't come back to the school division. We're not raking in dollars. It truly covers just the cost of, like, the program, the license plate reader, the
staff time to write a ticket, and, like, that's it. Is that accurate? That's correct. Yeah. And then anything that's additional goes into the general fund. Of the city, not the school district? Correct. K. And then are the citations enforceable? Like, is there a DMV stop hold, anything like that? They're not. It's just purely administrative. And then how were those three zones identified? That's why. The the three school zones that the cameras are in? Mhmm. Gosh. I have to this I have to go back and look.
I don't have that. I don't have that. Track portion size. I'm pretty sure. I mean, how are they how did we identify to put the cameras there, or how are they identified to the public? How were they identified that that school this school zone needed a a camera to be placed there? Selected. How were they selected? Yeah. Yeah. Guard. Yeah. So it was it was mostly led by the crossing guards, and this was, Yeah. It was at those at those crossing guard meetings and then also the volume of traffic around the around the existing, school zones that we had.
Mhmm. And we you went you wanna say something? It was $50. I was wrong. The tickets are $50, okay, instead of a $100. Because we did go back and forth on that when we when we when we were considering the price of that. Right? Okay. But, yeah, it was mostly the crossing guards because they were huge in getting this, implemented. And, again, this was considered a pilot. So, you know, a pilot with the, you know, chance to expand later after evaluation.
And on that note, like, if there is desire from the school board, you know, to expand this program, that's something that the school board can, you know, officially, say to city council, like, hey. We would like to see this program expanded, and then we'll take it from there. And the the crossing guards would welcome that because they already have the list of the next places that, we we believe the cameras would be most helpful. Also, to further clarify, the citations are administrative only. That doesn't mean they're not, like, enforceable as far as collections and stuff like that,
but it means they don't appear on the DMV record. Thank you. Any other questions? Mister Meyer? Yeah. I well, I'm glad that once somebody gets a ticket that they're not speeding as as much or frequently anymore. Just this visualization, what I'd like to see actually is, you know, we had a lot in October, but is it dwindling November, December, January, February, March? Right? Because that's what we're actually showing is this working or not. Correct. Right? Rather or not as recidivism. I'm excited. What I'm I'm worried about is safety of our students, not whether we're changing behavior
necessarily or not, but, which is indirectly related to this. But I would I would suggest we just next time, and we show and I should've sent something to you before that. I'm sorry. But we can present that a little bit better. Secondly, so I think, miss Powell, you mentioned that some of the crossing guards have asked for The next that don't have them currently have asked for more speed cameras. Oh, yeah. We've the action you all took last fall was key to help expand the areas where we can consider placing these but, some of the areas that are top of
mind for the next applications would be around Greenbrier as an example, here at CHS to get all drivers including our students to slow down. And, so there we we have a list where of other places of the other big one. And I think the school zone reaches it now, doesn't it? When with Ludo, do we get to, tenth? To Yeah. Like tenth and page? Yeah. Do we get there? Tenth and page is within the 700. No. Yep. And that was a state action, wasn't it to expand the reach of the that will allow for that?
Correct. Yeah. So some some changes at the state allowed how far out you can declare a school zone. And so now with with that and the fact that we have LUGO, we can reach that busier street, which is another significant corridor, near 10th And Page. We can get that street as well into the zone. Well, yeah. It just 0, and Harris. That's in I don't remember us taking action requesting this before, but, you know, again, if the crossing guards are thinking that they need a speed camera to and they're on the boots on the ground, risking their lives every day, you know, almost getting
nailed by drivers, which I've seen daily basis, like, let's get those in place. I think what what Kyle is referring to is just a like, if you would like to do a letter of support, we'd be happy to and just let the let the council know that you like what you're seeing and we want more of it because, again, this was viewed as a pilot when it was rolled out. And so we're past that pilot stage now. And we and with and speaking for the crossing guards, we would like more. Okay. I remember, I think, Albemarle County did a big, push out also with a lot
of, public press releases by their and bunch of coverage of all of that. Has the city done that similarly with this? We have done, a few there there was a few videos that were put out, through our comms channels and with the with the public news stations. The city engineer was, explaining everything about the the photo traffic enforcement. I don't remember who else was in the video. And I believe there were multiple press press releases and then and then Amanda.
Amanda's coming to to say what was I guess my question is I I remember seeing some of that, but has there been follow-up saying, hey, everybody. We had 800 people spinning through our in front of our schools. We haven't done any, follow-up, since we've gotten this data. Okay. Because I think that's a really interesting data point. Alright. Agreed. Alright. Yeah. Alright. Anything else? Alright. Thank you so much. Thank you, everybody. Next, we have our twenty twenty six, six, twenty twenty seven special ed annual plan. Good evening, madam chair doc that's making noise.
Okay. Good evening. I'm going to be brief in this part of the presentation as there's a substantial part of the, student achievement session where we'll discuss special education. So, each year, we have to present to our special education advisory committee and, the board, our special education annual plan, that is how we plan to spend our title six b funds, which are our federal funds that support IDEA.
They are flow through funds. So the state presents a plan to the federal government, and then school divisions present their plan to the state. So we will discuss a little bit tonight, and then I'll be asking for action action at our May meeting. It has to be submitted to the state by May 8. And so, if there's any changes that need to be made, that will need to be, discussion and action in May.
So I just wanna go back to our December 1 child count. This is our what was submitted, not our projected child count. So we have maintained, kind of a level child count since 2023. And this is how VDOE uses they use this information to inform how we're allocated. I went over, the background. So we present a plan for six eleven, which is, special education generally, and then
six nineteen funds, which is preschool. The main difference between this year and previous years is, there is an amount in that CEIS column that's for comprehensive coordinated early intervening services. So those are funds, from our title six b plan that will be used to address disproportionate identification, in special education. For her six nineteen, which is preschool, we get a very small allocation. We allocate that entire amount to funding part of an early childhood special education teacher.
In 06/11, we allocate some to funding, FTEs, but we also use purchase services to be able to provide related services, like our teacher of the deaf and hard of hearing or if we need additional physical therapy. That is something we've used related services for. We also use our title, six b funds to provide training to special education teachers. We annually send a teacher or two, to a comprehensive, in person training in North
Carolina, on structured teaching. So the actual plan itself is attached, but this is just a small overview. Any questions? I was I was very efficient. Sorry. You were. Yes. Thank you. Any questions? And as miss Resnick said, she'll be presenting more information soon. Alright? Okay. So we'll see you in May. Thank you. Thank you. Alright. Next, we have 12.3, which is our fiscal year twenty twenty six bonus payment, miss Hoover. Good evening, chairperson, miss miss Torres, and doctor Gurley, and school board members.
This evening, I will present to you the f y twenty six bonus payment, and this is only information only. The bonus payments fits into our strategic plan by support of our staff. It recognizes division's value of staff and reinforcing its commitment to their well-being. The caboose bill, which includes budget amendments to the fiscal year twenty twenty six budget adopted by the general assembly and signed off by the governor on 02/20/2026 provides a
$1,500 bonus for employees. To access these funds, the school division must survive its intent to participate by May 1. There's a required local match to promote retention among instructional and support positions. Currently, the division has eight hundred and eighty eight hundred and eighty employees point six one I'm sorry. 880.61 FTEs. Total cost of the budget is $1,000,421 20 and $1,965.
Of that amount, the state will fund a $172,840. You may ask why the state share is relatively low. This is based on the local composite index. CCS's LCI is 77.02%, which results in the state share of 22.98%. Additionally, the state calculation is based on only SOQ funded instructional and support positions. This leaves a required match of $1,249,125.
The local share would be funded through a combination of year end dollars and fund balance. Based on the February's projection report, we are estimating 346,000 in year end funds. At the end of fiscal year twenty twenty five, the division's fund balance was $10,000,000. Fund balance is intended for onetime expenses and to address the fluctuation of state revenues. Given the onetime nature of the state bonus initiative, the use of fund balance is appropriate. We would, we would use here are the guidelines, that we would use to pay
the bonus to employees. The bonus would be prorated based on each employee's FTE status. To be eligible, staff must hire on or before March 27, be employed on the last day of school, which is May 29, and return for the first contract day of twenty twenty six, twenty twenty seven school year. These requirements are aligned with the goal of promoting retention, among the instructional support staff. I'm happy to take any questions. Ms.
Dooley? Sure. I mean, I think we could all wax on for hours about our frustration with the state's funding formula, and SOQs, and how it doesn't align with JLARC studies, and all of the above. But for the sake of brevity, I mean, I obviously support providing a bonus to our staff. And as you noted, it's a reasonable use of, you know, one time funds. So thank you. Miss Richardson? Thank you for your presentation. No questions. Mister Cooper? Mister Bryant?
Mister Meyer? So just to again, the state is giving a bonus of equivalent cost would be us to be 1,400,000.0. The the total cost is 1,400,000.0, and they're only covering a 172,000 of it. And so then we're supposed to use was it, almost 10% of our rainy day fund to then cover this bonus. And this is our rainy day fund in this fiscal environment that we're in right now, and who knows what's happening.
And the city government is already talking about it's tight and we don't know. Okay. You know? Alright. I don't this is a really rough one for me. And, well, I would love to give our everybody a bonus. Like, this is not what we budgeted this year, and I I don't think it's fiscally responsible to, considering the financial outlooks we have coming up to use our rainy day fund to cover this.
Thank you. Any updates on the state budget yet? The general assembly comes back on April 22, and we're hoping that they adopt a budget on April 23 and that VDOE within fifteen, days will come back with a council so we know what that means for Charlottesville City Schools. K. Thank you. No more questions? Thank you. Thank you. And we will, when we have the work session, if we could put this on the agenda, so, for action since we since this needs to, since you have to
vote on it before, May 1. Thank you. Miss Swift. Yeah. Yeah. That one's right. Alright. Good evening. Oh, this is. Okay. I'm trying to ignore that. Good evening, madam chair, members of the board, and doctor Gurley. Thank you for the opportunity to continue our conversation regarding black student achievement. We'll pick up where we left off on March 11, and we'll start Graduation. So here are the on time graduation rates. If you look at last year's cohort 2025, that last column, eighty nine percent of
our black students graduated, which is 5% higher than the previous year, and it's also higher than our overall graduation rate. So on the next slide, we included all of the on time graduation indicators, and so as we look at this chart it's important important to note a couple things. The total graduates column includes all students who have earned an advanced studies diploma, a standard diploma, and also an applied studies diploma. The cohort column has been adjusted With any students non graduating, like our special education
or ESL students who have been moved to another cohort, to the next cohort, they're not included in this current cohort. The still enrolled column represents all non graduates and non completers who are still enrolled and they're working towards graduation. A dropout column represents all non graduates, non completers who have discontinued schools, so they have not earned a credential and were not enrolled at this in school at the time of this report. And then the long term absence column represents students on long term medical absence or
a family emergency, absence or they may have been expelled for the school year. So when we look at our twenty twenty five cohort of our black students, out of the 80 students that graduated, we had 27 black students or 30% that earned an advanced diploma. About 60% or 48 students earned a standard diploma, and we had five students earn an applied studies diploma. One student earned a GED, so that increased our total completers to 81.
We did not have any students that were still enrolled. However, from the previous year in 2024, those five students that were still enrolled graduated with the 2025 cohort. We had seven students that dropped out, and then we did have one student with a long term absence. We also had one student not on here, but, with unconfirmed status because you can see the cohort had 90 students and there were 80 graduates. So it only adds up to nine up there, but the one, it was an
unconfirmed status, which just means it was reported to the state, but the status was inconclusive. So either a transferred out, or they earned a GED or dropped out of school, but they had, like, transferred out. So they couldn't it was inconclusive. Do you know offhand how the percentage of standard or advanced studies diploma compares with the, the average of the, cohort at large. With black oh, like, black students compared to Right.
Yes. So do you wanna know, like, by, like, student group? Or I just the, overall cohort versus the, specifically our black students. Okay. So, like, overall, the cohort, out of 336 students, a 164 had an advanced studies diploma, and then a 121 had a standard diploma. What was the denomin what's the total number? The three thirty six.
Mhmm. Yeah. That was the cohort. Can you, compare that to our white student group? Yes. Advanced and You same number? Okay. Yes, please. Yes. So, in the white the cohort was a 144 students. Of that, a 135 were graduated. A 104, received advanced studies diploma, and 30 received a standard diploma. So you're telling me that of the white students, a 104 had advanced studies diplomas.
Meanwhile, black students had around can you repeat that figure again? Black students had 27, and there were 90 in the cohort. That is a really interesting number. Thank you so much for providing it. It. Mhmm. Any other questions? Graduation? Getting back to that last question, what is the poverty rates of the racial cohorts for our schools? Mhmm. So of the black student group, 83% of that group are economically disadvantaged. Okay. And For white students, it was 25%.
And Latino, Hispanic, Asians. I can do that math quickly. I I I did it for black students, and then to compare to white. I I didn't do it every single group. I didn't have time to calculate all that. I have all the numbers. I get my but is there what is the do you have it for low income status or what are those rates associated with, not by race, but by low income socioeconomic status for the same thing. Does that make sense? No. That's what I'm trying to tease out.
The economic, the graduate the how many students who are economically disadvantaged got an advanced studies diploma? Is that what you're asking? Yeah. Yeah. That got an advanced studies diploma? Is that what you want? Right. Or graduated and standard diploma, etcetera. Okay. Yeah. We would have to pull that by student and mhmm. Okay. Well, I guess what I'm trying to understand is, you know, is a low income student Right. Again, what's their graduations right? You know? And and what is the actual problem here? Is it Mhmm. That or people are poor, or is it are we, again, are we we have
racial issues in how we teach in the curriculum, etcetera. Right? And that's not what I'm unable to understand from well, I was looking at this data at the moment because I can't compare you know, what is the underlying issue here? Right. I'm trying to understand that. So I'm not sorry, ma'am. I'm letting you. This is great. And, again, there's tons of different ways we can split this all up, but, yeah, that's how I was just trying to understand. Thank you. Mhmm. Well, I do have a question one more. What are the interventions for students who are economically disadvantaged to encourage them to get those advanced studies diplomas?
Like, are there any targeted sort of interventions or, policies or, like, kind of procedures at the high school level that are being implemented to try to balance that out a little bit? Yeah. That's a great question. I, and I know that Doctor. Malone and the counseling team could speak, more specifically to that, but what I do know is, they do cohort reviews throughout the school year, and there's an administrator, that
over each cohort that consistently meets with students that may appear at risk for graduation. And so I know that they check-in with those students regularly as do the counselors, and just making sure that they're getting the supports that they need in order to graduate. I know that we do utilize, like, lunchtime and that in the impact classes, in the twelfth grade to really share information and make sure that the students, are getting the help that they need and to be able to, also, like, keeping track of,
the graduation requirements. So when we look at, you know, the credits, CTE credentialing, making sure you have, like, sequential electives, all those things, making sure they're in place, and we actually start that in ninth grade. So we do these big cohort reviews, and we we progress monitor all of that information. And but I know that they could speak more specifically to And I was gonna say that. And I was gonna, remind us of, at the last meeting when doctor Malone talked about that they are being very intentional now about looking at the, course request and
seeing, like, what students have are being referred for dual enrollment and DE classes. So, like, why is, you know, why isn't this student on the list what this student is? So that work, came out of our systems work just to make sure that, like, we're not overlooking any students. And then thinking about, one of the things that, one of the many things that also has, happened is how do we encourage our students to have an interest in these courses. And I know that we utilize the, during the impact time, we had black students
share their experiences. I mean, very authentically, did they share their experiences that, you know, they face some things that they did not like. And then, you know, it was then the charge of the adults in the room that how do we how do we fix those things. And so really creating this, creating this funnel of how we get our students in. You know, doctor Eiseley, who's been working really closely with the data, she shared with me yesterday, today about just, like, how many of our, black students at the middle
school now are qualifying for algebra one. I mean, that number is doubling. So that creates that that pipeline where we saw a lot of students, you know, particularly our white students go in one direction and then our it felt like our black students getting left behind. Now we're seeing because of all the good work that's happening, increasing the rigor, setting high expectations for our black students. We now see more black students going into algebra one, and that's a predictive that's
a predictive measure, with regards to, like, what will happen, for their high school experience because they're taking algebra one in the eighth grade or in the middle school. Yeah. Wait. Quick question. In reference to this, how are we bringing parents in in the middle school to have these conversations to look at the trajectory of the difference between a standard and an advanced diploma? From my experience, I don't know that the parents is being brought in to understand that there is a difference and kind of helping those students to be able to
understand what classes to take to set themselves up for success. So are we doing any any of that work? And if we're not, is there opportunity to add? Yeah. I that's a great question. Actually, today, we had our first meeting, to talk about school links that we're gonna implement next year and we're actually going to, onboard our eleventh grade students this spring, which is a college and career readiness platform and there's a parent portal associated with that. And so we're gonna start it in sixth grade through twelfth grade. And so this is gonna be a great opportunity for students, to allow them to,
like, build course plans, to align, like, their interests, career interests to creating that, like, kind of what classes that they wanna take, setting those career goals. And then parents can communicate with their counselors through the platform, and they can also, like, kinda create that portfolio where they can keep all their keep track of all their information, build resumes. And I think this is a piece that's really missing right now, and so we're very excited to roll out this new platform, really starting in the spring with our
eleventh grade cohort. And then our twelfth graders will actually our current twelfth graders will have access. They'll have, like, an alumni account, so they can also keep track of all their information as well. I think that's great. And I'm I'm excited to hear that, but I do think that person to person interaction needs to also be a Oh, no. I agree. I agree. I think this will be in addition to I think this will also kind of open that door to these conversations because it's also gonna provide resources, not only for the counselors, but for teachers and students to have those conversations, and have the resource
to be able to, like, provide that information to students when they have those one on one conversations. So, yeah, I absolutely agree. We have, Abigail Ferguson. We have the, face team. This is, you know, having school links creates an accountability measure for the staff. Yeah. You know, like, you can direct as board members, direct families to communicate with the school, the school counseling team through School Links. And so that, you know, kind of creates this, trail of communication, and and they get to engage in their students' academic trajectory Yeah.
But also, like, from the family engage family community engagement. This allows us to be boots on the ground to have, you know, real time workshops, meet people where they are. You know, workshops, meet people where they are. You know, if there's an app involved, here's how you use the app. Here's how you engage with the school team. So there's a lot of opportunity here, for us to do some groundwork. Yeah. I have a question. My last one. Promise. So as far as, community partners, I know that the FACE team is gonna present later. I went to their crack in the code event, like, last week, and it was
really good. Yeah. I sat at your table. Yeah. It was good. So I think that could be interesting for modeling, like, for this particular work of, like, program of study and stuff like that. Yeah. It was a really, really good event. So I feel like I took a lot away from it even as a board member. So I guess my question would be, are you tracking because I know algebra one was mentioned. Mhmm. So are you tracking students who end up in, like, BC calc? Like, you know, like, are there black students who are doing, like, the highest possible thing? Because Yeah. I just wanna see that correlation between the two.
Yeah. I'm sure we can pull that information, but I feel like a platform like this will allow us to track that information even better and to kind of do that, like, data driven decision making and just making sure, you know, are we challenging our students? And then, also, I think with having the program of studies part of this platform so they can see these pathways that and these opportunities, I think that's that's a a better way that we can engage, with our students to make sure that we're we're pushing them to their highest potential.
Absolutely. Yeah. Alright. Doctor. Pfeiff. Oh, sorry. I'm stuck here. Alright. Madam chair, school board members, doctor Gurley, I think following the last presentation, there was a desire to add a couple slides about reading plans and intervention at the middle and high school. So I'm gonna spend a little bit of time talking about that. This was part of miss Riedahl's presentation earlier this school year back in November, but I'll just sort of walk through, a little bit of information about this.
So our middle school, literacy intervention is managed by our reading specialists. The VLA, the Virginia Literacy Act, requires that all students who fail the reading SOL, like the previous year, receive a student reading plan outlining appropriate interventions. Additionally, students who pass the reading SOL, but they have, they pass it with an audio or read aloud accommodation also receive a plan. For those students who are identified to receive a reading plan, we are also required
to administer the VALS four to eight, fourth through eighth grade assessment, to assist with identifying specific deficits. So that's looking at decoding, fluency, comprehension, to better support the intervention plan and make it specific around what the student's needs actually are. For universal data and progress monitoring, we also use MAP, the measures of annual progress, and, the, DIBELS eight to also support the reading plans. Intervention is a collaborative process at the secondary schools.
When we are looking at the number of our reading specialists and the number of students, needing support. So students may be receiving intervention and support in a variety of ways. The law states that intervention services can include, instruction from a reading specialist, a computer based, reading tutorial program, a teacher with support, from an aid at extended time. So there's a lot of different ways that that, can be delivered. We currently facilitate specific, fluency groups for students struggling with that automaticity and decoding, comprehension
groups for students needing extra support with meaning, making of what they're reading. And we use, evidence based programs, including rewards, which is multisyllabic decoding and fluency, and SIPs, which really looks at foundational phonics gaps, for students depending on what the students need. So those diagnostic measures, those the VALS assessment, those other measures that we do, for students really help us hone in on, like, what should be in the plan and what the students' individual needs really are. In addition to those interventions, we use Lexia PowerUp.
That's a computer based, reading tutorial program, with classroom teachers providing small group in person lessons, to facilitate students' movement and growth through that program and in their reading. That's more of a hybrid model. We do, progress monitor biweekly using oral reading fluency and Mays, which is a comprehension assessment. And just like with the elementary students, the quarterly progress reports are sent to families, updating them on their students' progress. You'll notice here the total number of plans, and then all students and then black
students, and you'll also see that we've had a, you know, a some students move schools. Changed placement means that, they've moved within, like, the intervention, like, the thing that they're they're getting. So we actually have had one student who was with a classroom intervention, is now working with a reading specialist. We've had six that were working with reading specialists that have now moved to the more classroom based, intervention. So that change placement doesn't mean they don't have a reading plan anymore. It just means they've moved within those, options.
So and depending on the severity and intensity of the need, some students meet with, in their or engage in their intervention daily, and then sometimes it's more like two to three times a week depending on what the need is. And then, likewise, the reading specialists at the high school manage, reading intervention. We use, the MAP test, the growth data as our primary screener. So any student who falls below the twentieth percentile on MAP is flagged for additional testing. So, that's sort of the the universal tool, and then we do further assessments on,
students falling below that that marker. So for that, we look at the grade eight DIBELS, which is the oral reading fluency and comprehension assessment. That is gonna pinpoint for us the specific deficits in decoding, fluency, and comprehension. So the VALS is only through eighth grade, so we use the DIBELS, for our high high school students, and we are utilizing the grade eight, assessment. Placement isn't automated for, the high school, so they they synthesize the data from the math and the dibbles, and they come together, to determine whether the student need, requires
an intervention. We currently facilitate specific fluency groups for students who are, not reading as automatic as we would like. We utilize the evidence based programs like rewards and SIPs, which we also use at the middle school level. We, have had nine students actually have demonstrated such significant growth in their progress monitoring and their MAP scores that they were transitioned back to tier one. So, you'll see exited program up there. That's what that line is.
We did, hear the request for this broken down, by cohort. So you do see more students in ninth grade. It gets fewer fewer students as we progress through high school. The change in placement, much like, what I shared for the middle school means that, they're still within the intervention system, but, like, gaps have been closed. So they've moved through the tier. So they might have been in a tier three, like a more intensive, intervention, and now they might be in a tier two, like a fluency based group if they've
gotten, if they've progressed through, the different interventions. Out of MTSS, seven have already been screened and were recommended to be rescreened, to identify how current supports are helping them. We conduct, biweekly progress monitoring using the orphan maze just like we do at the middle school, and we do send progress reports, quarterly through Parent Square to to our families. And, I think there was, a question about what happens if a student if a
specialist goes to pull a student and they're they're not there. So these are groups, and so the group would continue on, meeting regardless of of whether this you know, if a student is is absent. It's a little different at the high school. The elementary and middle school have built in time because the reading block the ELA block is longer, so they have built in time for that intervention to take place. The high school, as you know, like, the schedule is not is not like that, but they do utilize, impact time.
They they do not pull, from the English class more than once a week, so they're not missing the English class to then go and do, the additional intervention. So, they have the time set up and the t the specialists do work to, find another time to work with a student if they are out and and aren't there. So most of these groups are more like the two to three times a week groups versus the the every single day. And if if they need to, they they will pull from, you know, an elective
or less often a science or history. But one of the things that they're trying class so that they're not, falling behind. They're, like, utilizing that as what they're working on, also. And, yes, I mentioned the intervention. So I think that's it. Any questions? I have a question. Yeah. So from just your expertise and the work that you're doing, how often would you say that there are students who are struggling with behavioral issues and therefore are rushing
through their assessments such as our MAPS test, and it's actually skewing the data points that you're able to have access to. Well, you know, we we certainly hope that that that doesn't happen, but, but it you know, that that does happen. That's part of the reason we use multiple measures, so we're not just saying, okay. Well, you know, you fell below the twentieth percentile in on MAP, so here, you're gonna now get a reading intervention. That's why they do further assessments. At the middle school, we have several things that we're looking at.
And even at the high school, we do too. And even, you know, even if a student is below that or even if there's, another concern, there's a conversation and a team decision about what's what's gonna be most appropriate, for that student. So, that's just the importance of multiple data points when you're where you're making instructional decisions. Any other questions? This is for us to Thank you.
Okay. Thank you, everybody. So I just wanted to get started. So as we're thinking about the special education data that I'm presenting, I wanted to let you know that due to the individualized nature of special education and the often small and not comparable student groups, This is data for all students with disabilities. Students with disabilities have individualized education plans that drive the educational program that they receive. In addition to the data sources that we use to support and, enhance student achievement
for all students, students with IEPs have additional metrics that are student specific, and based on their individual goals. When we think about our data in the aggregate, we have highlights, and we have areas to improve. And as we go through this, please ask questions, so that we can really get to, how we support our students. The information that you see called indicators, this is data that we report annually to
the state. This is a good way to look at special education data because it because it is comparing students with disabilities to students with disabilities. So this first one, our first indicator is graduation rate. So that's the percent of our students in special education that are graduating with a regular high school diploma. Inglia indicator one does use the federal federal graduation indicator, which is a standardized federally mandated metric that measures the percent of high school students who earn a standard or
advanced diploma within four years of entering ninth grade. This is where IDEA, which is the legislation that supports, the education of students with disabilities and ESSA, doesn't always work in tandem because we know that IDEA stipulate stipulates that students with disabilities can remain in school until they're 22. And we do have students who will graduate at 22 with a standard diploma. So there are students who are graduating, with the diploma of their choosing, and that
is their goal, that are not going to do it in four years, and that wasn't the plan. You know, the IEP team worked through what the graduation requirements are, what the student needed, and provided an extended period of time. The other piece that's not reflected in here are students who are graduating with an applied studies diploma, which, again, the IEP team met and consciously selected that diploma type. And so I just wanted to draw our attention to that. We're meeting our state target, but we continue to focus on this area because it
does fluctuate. If you go back and look at our state reports, depending on the cohort and the students, it has fluctuated widely. We use effective transition planning and all possible avenues, including credit accommodations for students to obtain the diploma, that they are striving towards. In terms of post secondary outcomes, so we get this information over the summer. We actually call students and their families, who have graduated a year ago.
And we're like, what are you doing? And so we gather this information, and then report it. The first one is, our students with disabilities who graduated a year ago who are enrolled in higher education. We don't meet our the state target, and this is comparable across the state. The state isn't meeting the state target in this area. We are meeting it in for students who are enrolled in higher education or are competitively employed, and we are meeting our target in students who are in higher education
or post secondary educational training programs. That would be if they're going into a workforce readiness program, enrolling in adult learning. And so, I'll talk a little bit about what our transition coordinator does to support students. We were really excited two years ago to add that position, And I will say in our family experiences survey, her name has come up repeatedly from our families and our family listening sessions. She's been a really impactful individual, and we really appreciate her.
So, our referrals to DARS, and Woodrow Wilson have increased. And we're gonna have a full cohort of students, going to PERT over the summer, which is exciting. And then, many of our students are accessing pre ed services. What she's also doing is identifying what the barriers are to students reaching the post secondary. So post secondary outcomes that are outlined in their transition plan. So I'm just gonna highlight a few things that she has identified. One is students and families understanding that an IEP ends when a student leaves school.
So for multiple reasons. That's a barrier because students need to develop the skills necessary to be successful in their next step. And we are seeing that our like, through interviewing parents, students, participating in IEP meetings, that gradual release of responsibility to the student for a number of things that allows them to be competitively employed or seek higher education, that is an area that we need to improve. So we're supporting the student, while they're at while they're in school implementing that IEP,
but then there's a drop off when they don't have that IEP outside of school. This also means that, she has also seen where, even students who have kind of reached that, those competencies, need support accessing, accessibility options in higher ed in students of higher education. So that's some of the work that she's doing through a senior checklist, working with each senior and making sure they understand how to leverage what they know about their
learning. Right? They've gotten comprehensive psychological evaluations through their time in Charlottesville City Schools, how to leverage that with PVCC, how to leverage that with the university's disability services office, because there are a number of accommodations that can be provided at university, but it's not through an IEP. And so she's working with our seniors to make sure they know how to do that, among other things about applying for college, accessing employment. And then to support our special education teachers as we've identified some of these gaps,
we need to train them to teach students through a gradual release model for those areas of responsibility, that we've identified, such as organizing and managing their time, managing deadlines, and, really developing and supporting their executive functioning skills. Good question. Yeah. So just like listening to, like, some of the things that you just said, I would be curious to know, is the teachers doing it with or for?
So I think we're seeing that there's, there's too much doing for, and we need to work towards doing with and scaffolding to support. That's anecdotal, but I'm also being honest in that that, where we see students be successful is when it starts with, like, I do as the adult and then we do together and then you do. We're in the I do and the we do, and we need to spend more
time in the you do with with support, but with supports that gonna enable you to be successful outside of school. The other thing that, in speaking with her and all her work with our students is there's a disconnect between education and career goals, as well as realistic transition planning with the IEP team. Once a student is 14, they start having a transition plan within their IEP.
That identifies the goals and services, that they need to receive, when they're thinking about their post secondary plans. So this is an area where, you know, when kids are 14, we might get a lot of, I'm gonna play I mean, my 12 year old. Right? He's gonna play professional sports, and his backup is professional sports, and then it's YouTube. And then somewhere down there, like, six or seven, there's an actual, maybe something that there's a high likelihood that he could achieve.
We have to have some of those more serious conversations about transition planning earlier on. So our transition coordinator is, gonna start actively working with our eighth grade teachers as well, to make sure that that first transition plan, is setting the student up for success. And then our special education teachers and school counselors really have to work together to be able to pair that transition plan with the appropriate course courses, and schedule to
meet the student's needs. And that includes, work with the student and what their goals might be. For example, doing, in interviews with people in the field that they are interested in, so that they get an understanding of the education that they'll need to accomplish that, you know, what skills that they need outside of academics, and things like that. The other thing as part of that is, making sure that our students are accessing all available financial supports for for their post secondary plans.
And so she's making being very intentional about connecting with adult services that can provide additional financial support for adults with disabilities seeking, further education. She could talk about this for hours and hours, and is really making a difference, kind of one stew one student at a time. Okay. So the next part oh, I'm actually still on that slide. I'm sorry. In terms of achievement of our students with disabilities, if you go to our state report, there's three a, three b, three c, three d.
But I pulled out proficiency because that has been our charge this year, from doctor Gurley, is to support our students reaching proficiency. So in reading, our students with disabilities are reaching or obtaining the state target, for proficiency. So that's passing the standards of learning assessment. In math, in this reporting year, we did not see that happen in fourth grade or in high school. But I, I mean, cart before the horse when we're doing our special special credit
accommodations work right now for students who are gonna be graduating. All but one of our graduating, students has the math credit that they the verified math credit that they need to graduate. So that kinda speaks to that fluctuation as well that year over year, we're gonna see progress, but it's not gonna be linear because special education is so individualized. And a student who gets a verified credit using special permission credit accommodations would not count as a yes, in this in this area even though what we have shown
is that they have demonstrated proficiency and they are obtaining the verified credit. Can you clarify why that is? I'm just wondering. Why this why does it wouldn't count. Yeah. I mean, can I just blame the federal government? Like, these are federal reporting areas, and special permit permission credit accommodations are state, our state expectations. And so that's why we are able to use them, and they really support our students. The same thing would be, like, a locally awarded verified credit.
All students can get an LABC. Students with disabilities can get an LABC, if they have, if the IP team says they can get more than one LABC. So this would really be, like, that student wouldn't either even though what we've said is they've demonstrated proficiency. Has there been conversations on the state level, to kind of, I guess, not lobby, but have those conversations on the federal level? So I got to participate in a great session with Jeff who is the BDOE
guru, around data. He's very approachable too, which is nice. But he explains why it's not apples to apple why this data is not apples to apples for states. So he used an I'm probably gonna get the lingo wrong, but, like, in New Jersey, there's only one type of diploma, and everybody gets it. So their indicator one is always gonna be a 100%. And so this data helps us know what we want to improve because it's presented to us at the state level.
But because it is, like, a federal type of data, it it's a little it's a little tricky. And they do they do lobby and and work. And and then what they do is they also take those expectations and create policies and procedures that support students. So Virginia was using the alternate assessment too often, and so Jeff and his team created more guidance for IEP teams to reduce the number of students using that alternate
assessment. And then IEP teams respond to that, identify fewer students for it, support the students who are no longer identified, and those students are getting that Algebra one verified credit. And so those are good things that, are supporting us in in making better decisions for students. Some other things specifically for math, and and this is an important time to highlight that students with disabilities are general education students first. They have access to all the supports, that are available for students without disabilities, plus
they have an individualized education plan. And one example of that is, our math team uses, high leverage practice for students with disabilities universally. So, if your kids come home and are practicing that UPS check, that's straight out of the the math guidance for math problem solving, making problem solving concrete. So our students are benefiting from that. But then we also have found that, when there's really large gaps in those foundational skills, we need math intervention that uses manipulatives, to make math concepts concrete.
Okay. Now I'm now I'm done with that slide. Okay. So indicator nine and ten are, I'm gonna dive into what we what I mentioned, in the annual plan, which was about, setting aside those funds to support the reduction in disproportionate representation. So right now, indicator nine is one that sometimes we are not disproportionate and sometimes we are. But we have been disproportionate in in in a disability category in indicator 10 for
a very long time. The areas of identification in that category are specific learning disability, other health impairment, and emotional disability. Other health impairment includes, it's predominantly students with ADHD. And that is our area of most significant disproportionality. When we review, the disproportionality is not due to inappropriate identification. So what that means is the IEP team, when they met for eligibility, could identify
that there were the characteristics of the disability. They could identify an adverse educational impact, and they could identify the requirement for specially designed instruction. So they the team followed the process. However, if we're following the process and it's a good process, then we should not have a significant disproportionality as we do have. And so throughout this year, we've been working on identifying some of the root causes of that disproportionality, and, I can speak to those now.
We are mainly focusing on other health impairment because it is our most significant area. There's three things that we need to address, and we're in the implementation planning. First is procedural. So our staff, have identified that having consistent procedures from moving from the tiered framework, so tier two, tier three intervention, to the special education referral process. This process has been refined at a number of our schools. And when we see that that process is tight, we don't have a significant a
disproportionate identification of our black students as other health impaired. The it requires a significant amount of focus from the team that makes those referrals as well as all stakeholders in the building. So some of the things that have to stop in order for that to be a tight process, we can't view special education as help. Special education are federal protections for students with disabilities. So if we portray special education as help, whether, like and none of this is
ill intended. Right? This is all out of, caring for students. Then when the answer is no, what we're saying to a family is that we are denying their student help. And that's not what we're doing when a student's not eligible for special education. So that's that's one thing that we really have to continue to reinforce with our staff. The other thing is there has to be a trusting relationship between all team members, which takes a consistent team. That means retention of special education staff, retention of school psychologists, retention of school administrators,
and retention of general education teachers and specialists is essential. And then, we also have to have a high level of understanding for what the criteria for special education are. And so that requires those staff in those meetings to feel confident and competent in understanding the criteria, but also be able being able to ask each other questions, and feel comfortable admitting when we don't know and then relying on, the experts.
So once a student is referred, we also have to refine the procedures by which we evaluate students. So we do use a wide range of culturally and linguistically, responsive assessments. Our psychologists, select assessments based on referral concerns, based on a linguistic profile, based on a student's, what the information that the family shared in the referral meeting. So an example of that is, like, the WISC five is a cognitive assessment.
It's kinda like the gold standard of cognitive assessments, but it's very culturally loaded. And so, our psychologists, in working with families and in working with teams, are going to select an appropriate assessment. And so we predominantly use the KABC, which allows us to get at, the abilities of the student, with less cultural bias. That's not a perfect process. Assessments are normed on as many students as they are normed on, but our psychologists
are members of, the National Association of School Psychologists and VASP, which is the Virginia Association, and they attend that those conference they attend the Virginia conference annually, and that is a big emphasis in those conferences. So they're seeking out that information and then bringing it back to support us. In minimizing cultural bias specifically for the identification of ADHD, the team has reviewed, we reviewed every student who's identified, I mean, like, down to, like, the first time they
were identified. So we have twelfth graders that their first eligibility was when they were three. We've read their reports and their files. And, we've noticed that there's, not been as much direct assessment, and many of the characteristics have been identified through the use of rating scales. Rating scales are valid, but they are not you know, they they need to be supported with that direct assessment and that direct observation. So our psychologists, are gonna engage in, a year long study on the neuropsychological assessment
part of ADHD and look at alternative direct assessments for ADHD. And the goal of that is to reduce the overidentification of black students as having ADHD having the characteristics of ADHD. We don't diagnose, in school, but our tools, can show us when there is inattention and hyperactivity and executive dysfunction. So that's identification, but then there's like okay. The but then we have students in front of us who need to be supported.
And so we followed the data on our students' performance, and we're seeing that our black students are entering school. And this is information that was shared before with, lower social skills and self regulation, or they are being rated as having lower social skills and self regulation because their social skills have not been recognized. And so that is something that we need to address. We're working on two plans. One is focused on the, the earliest learners because we found through our file reviews
that the majority of students are being identified in grade two. And so we wanna catch and for special education, you have to have an adverse educational impact. So that means even if you came into kindergarten knowing, the skills you need, by second grade, there is an adverse educational impact. We wanna prevent that identification by providing direct support to the students, but primarily through consultative, consultative and, direct support to teachers in delivering instruction that supports executive functioning skills
of self regulation, social skills, but also working memory, attention, and things like that. We know that social skills and executive functioning skills often, are built together, but there are different ways to develop those skills. You don't develop executive functioning skills and social skills by doing the same activities. So being able to provide teachers with evidence based practices to build working memory, problem solving, initiation, time management, and organization.
And then for our secondary students, restorative practices are also very closely tied with the building of executive functioning skills. And so being able to, with those funds that are set aside, support our students, who have already been identified or who now that they're in secondary school are at risk of being identified because of externalizing behaviors, to be able to support them expressing their feelings, sharing perspectives, and developing self awareness so that they, so that we reduce
that, kind of second wave of identification, which is at the end of middle school and the beginning of high school. Right now, we're working on the plan that will get submitted to the state, in May, and then, we hope to have approval by October. And the last bullet, we consistently meet our eligibility timeline, which is indicator 11. And this was and this is why I didn't share anything else during our annual plan was this information is typically the information that we share in our annual plan.
But I've really appreciated the feedback from you all, but also from, our families that if family engagement needs to be a bigger part of what we do in special education, and so we've, had listening sessions at each of our schools, which have been really nice. I really appreciated the one at CMS. Parents gave us kind of really hard information, but as if you're ever in an IEP meeting or eligibility meeting with me, I'm never afraid to say sorry.
So sometimes we just have to say, like, we didn't meet our own expectations, and here's how we're going to, here's how we're gonna meet those expectations going forwards. I have mentioned that transition coordination has been a highlight of some of those listening sessions. And then we, you know, we had sessions where one family had a really excellent experience and one family has not. But what I've appreciated throughout them all and the survey that we provided is parents can identify special education teachers that have supported them in understanding their child's IEP.
And so that's our goal, but we want it to be that every year, the parent can identify their case manager as being, that crucial support. We're gonna continue our family engagement nights. Those have been awesome. We cook together, little kids through high schoolers. And then we have also, started our schools have completed their inclusive action plans, and now we need to put them leverage them, for improvement with our students and families. I was able to attend the family partners in special education event last weekend and
connected with, some organizations there that will be able to support us in, some of the asks from families, which is peer mentoring and training. And so what we wanna make sure we're doing is creating the conditions for that to happen, the the training to be delivered by a trusted third party, so that it is, so that it can be authentic. And so then families can support families. I think we heard that at almost every listening session.
And we had a few parents step up and say, I I wanna lead that work. So we're really excited to, support them in leading that work. Any questions about It makes me, sorry, Ms. Torres and I have been out in the community meeting community partners and we just met with the YMCA just yesterday and how they were talking about their adaptive programming and the new exciting work that they're doing there. It just makes me think of them, and I know you've already been in contact
with them. So thank you for doing that work with the community partners. Yeah. And they've been great hosts. That's where we cook. But we have to do it on Tuesday night. It's not Wednesday night. So the last piece I just wanted to share is, really getting down to the achievement and how we can leverage the IEP to support student achievement. Last fall, DOE announced that they were going to add a number of features to our statewide system, and we we just went all in.
We have gotten feedback from our statewide system that our implementation is excellent even though, you know, we're, like, down on ourselves. They're like, y'all are doing y'all are doing the work. But one of those things is the implementation of progress track, which is a unified way to track progress towards individualized IEP goals. So for the first time, we can actually pull data by student, by goal, but
altogether, like we can do for map, like we can do for DIBELS, and be able to discuss it in a PLC. One, to give each other feedback on strategies that may be more effective, how to tweak an intervention, but also so we can see, oh, like, we're we're seeing that very few of our students are reaching their individualized goals in reading. What kind of broader thing changes need to be made? So we're really excited about that. That has also meant we provided a lot of feedback on progress reports.
And one thing I've shared at listening sessions is, one of the best ways for us to improve is for everybody to know what the expectations are. So, again, you should be getting a progress report every quarter for your students' I for your child's IEP goals. If they're in grades k through age 22, That progress report should include, information about, how they're progressing to that goal. And I encourage families if they haven't gotten their progress report, it it's in the
connect portal, so they can access all of their special education documents to reach out to their case manager. If they're not hearing from their case manager, reach out to a coordinator or myself or an administrator, and we will help you, and make sure that you get that information. We heard from families and staff that transition can be really challenging. So we're implementing, transition nights. So CMS and CHS are gonna host the rising students, to provide information about accessing
services at that school. And then if a family or student needs additional support, the IEP team will take over and plan transition services, as well as, what next steps need to be taken. And as I've already said, this is an area that we have a lot of room to improve. Authentic involvement in the IEP process from both the student and the parent, is what's gonna support the student meeting their transition goals. And so we are adding, IEPs at a glance to our to our repertoire for
families. That is it's the nuts and bolts of the IEP. It's not the legal document, but it's the things you kinda need to know in a minute, the goals, the services, the accommodations. We got feedback from families about what other information would be helpful. And pretty universally, it was who do I call at school, and when do my when does my kid get their stuff? So when do they get their speech? When do they get their reading intervention? Not necessarily time of day, but, like, what days of the week so that they can engage with those providers.
And then we're setting more clear expectations for communication and then verifying that those expectations have been met. And I'll be working with principals to make sure that they're they're establishing those expectations. But one big commitment that we're making is that, on the first day of pre week next year, families of students with disabilities will get a communication that includes the name of their case manager, the name of their counselor, and the name of their administrator. So that's that sounds small.
Assigning case managers before teachers get back is a big undertaking, but it's something that we have to do to make sure that families have access to the people and information they need in order to support their child's education. And then my unofficial goal is that at every parent teacher conference next year, the teachers got that IEP at a glance, and the parent has that IEP at a glance to look at, because that can really help in those conversations. You know, you'll have your your progress report, how you did on DIBELS, but then
having that document, to reference if needed. That was a lot. And I could actually keep going. That's why I'm gonna set up. That's a lot of great information. I just had one question in reference to some feedback that I received from, some high school students, for them to be able to understand their IEPs. As a high school student, they're meeting with their counselors, and their case managers. But when you ask them about their IEP, they don't really understand the process.
And so what work is happening around that? Also, one of the, some of the feedback that I heard from some of the high school students is, that it's embarrassing for teachers to come into the classroom because then you know you are able to identify who's on an IEP. And so is there a way that we could do that better? Because they're like, I don't want the services because I don't want everybody to know my business. And so making sure that we're kind of looking at that as a whole. And so that people that may need the services are taking advantage of it, in
the way that can help them and not just not doing it because they don't wanna be identified as a student with an IEP. Absolutely. Thank you for sharing. And, we share your concern about students not understanding their IEP, and that is work, that our transition specialist is identified as well. And it's gonna take everybody, having a better understanding. What one of her goals is we've gotta get their students in their meetings. And so how do we make that less stigmatizing?
How do we make that accessible to them so they're not missing classes? And then how do we how do we create a meeting that is accessible to them as well? What does their participation look like? Thank you for sharing. I have a quick question about, if the parent maybe struggled in school or had an IEP, how are they able to understand what we're asking them to sign or what we're asking them to understand? Is there, like, an advocacy resource who helps the the parent who may struggle to
even understand what we're asking them to do? So the the special education case manager, and it's called the LEA, the administrator in the meeting, should really be assessing as the meeting is going on that the parent is going to be able to give informed consent. Right? That they are understanding the decisions that are being made outside of the meetings that occur. That's where that peer mentoring, we really wanna build that up, so that it's it's
peer to peer and not, like, people in power, trying to help to kinda create more of a balance. And then there are multiple organizations, PEATC being one of them, that you can you families can call, and get individualized supports, including, like, telling them that we're messing up,
and that the parent needs to ask for something better. And then if you all ever hear of someone being concerned about that, you can always direct them to our leadership office, and we can provide support as well. Thank you. Appreciate that. I have a question, a quick one. How often are you, having to, like, work with, VDOE for intervention for these types of IEP meetings, and if there's a parent who may be advocating for their student
and there's kind of, like, just a misunderstanding or you're not able to really make any progress on that particular case, how often are you having intervention, and how many of those would you say are black students or black families? So we we rarely have to engage in what's called dispute resolution. So there's multilevel multiple levels of dispute resolution that start with, the facilitated IEP process, mediation, and then all the way through to due process, which is a very, formal
legal proceeding. We get each year, maybe one state intervention that's not driven by us, and those are generally resolved through mediation, and have pretty consistently been, where like, if if I could have gotten involved or a coordinator could have gotten involved sooner, we wouldn't have had to go there. So, that's, like, my job.
That was part of the presentation of families in the partners for special education, is to support IEP teams that are having a hard time reaching consensus. Sometimes sometimes the answer is no to a family, and no is the right answer. It doesn't make no any easier. And so that having that relationship with the family is really important. One of the things that, because it's so rare I hate, like, I hate to
say how often, but, like, I've been doing this for three years. There have been three, and one out of three have, been a black family. And then when you do say that no I'm sorry. Was someone else about to ask a question? Okay. So when you do say that no, like, what is the kind of referral process to outside resources or supports? Does that look like partnering with, like, community partners or working with, like, community advocates? Because I know there are some community members who are working with families to try
to teach them the language of IEPs and also come to those meetings sometimes as, like, another support. So what is like, if it's like, no. We can't give these services or we're not able to help this student in this way, then what's the next step? So it depends on why the answer is no. So sometimes the answer is no because it's not within the scope of special education. That's a pretty common that's the most common reason that that the IEP team doesn't. The languages the IEP team refuses, but the IEP doesn't include something, is because it's
not part of the cope scope of special education. In those circumstances, we look at what is it the scope of, right, and identify. Is it connecting with the social worker in the building, connecting with, private therapists, like, things that have been in place for the student? It's it shouldn't ever be no because we don't have that available. The IEP team does the IEP team has the discretion to identify what students require.
So if a student requires it, and there's data support to support it, then, the answer might be we need to figure out how. And then, and then, and then sometimes the the answer is no, and your child is accessing supports through MTSS. And that's gonna be the most, effective way for them to make progress. Thank you. Yep. She she's leading the next one, but, also, I just want since the last meeting, we did update we did, add a couple more links to this slide.
So, I know that the restorative came up. So, miss Johnson will jump in, when we get to the restorative component. And I know that there was, an ask about alternative programming, and then there's a hyperlink at the bottom, of that which doctor Trotter can speak to. So I will just have a very small part in this so that, my counterparts can provide more information. And, again, please refer back to the October work session as well for any information. Since then, we have focused on, discipline referrals in principal workshop.
We've established the checkpoints for data entry and our preliminary SBAR review. So our preliminary review of this year's discipline data, is ongoing. What I the visual on the right, is the proportion of our black students who have office discipline referrals. This is a very common way to look at discipline referrals, for students, because it I it highlights how many students are responding to our tier one positive school culture.
And 90% of our black students have zero or one referrals. When we look at data in the aggregate for discipline, like, we're good with that, because that ref that one referral might be for being tardy to Spanish a few too many times. 8% of our black students are in that two to five range. And that's where we're starting this is starting to become a pattern. We need to start putting some things into place. Are the referrals for the same thing? Are they for a variety of different things? And then the students that we're most concerned about are our students who have six
or more referrals. And that is a very small portion of our black student population. And all of the students in that group, have individualized plan planning and programming, to support developing the skills to prevent those office discipline referrals. The other good thing about looking at the the data in this way, because we can also break it out by, a numb like, our schools, positive school culture teams
break it out in a number of different ways. They can identify if it's predominantly in the hallway, if it's predominantly a certain type of behavior, it's predominantly in one grade. But we just wanted to present that because that is a healthy tiered triangle. Obviously, we would love for a 100% of students to have no referrals. But in terms of how we intervene, we have the capacity to intervene intensely when, our student population is presenting with awesome behavior so much of the time.
How does that compare with white students? I don't have it comparing with white students, but while they're talking, I can pull it up. Thank you. Yep. I'm sorry if you said this. Is this for one year all across all schools? This is this year. All all schools. This year, all schools. Thank you. Yep. Alright. Miss Johnson, do you wanna talk to us about restorative? Good evening, y'all. So one thing to note is that, there is a bill on the table, requiring schools, to consider at least one evidence based restorative disciplinary practice, prior to what we
call OSS or out of school exclusionary discipline. I also, just wanna, name I appreciate the folks that came up and spoke tonight to advocate for restorative work. I know a lot of times, it's a really confidential process, and so people are aren't always gonna be aware of the data and some of the outcomes. But, I did feel like it was important to share some of that information in terms of the work that I have done the last few years, but the work that, our community partner, Central Virginia Community Justice, has done as well. But, also, in the last three school years, our combined efforts, and some of the
outcomes that we've, noticed and maybe what we're hoping, for in the future. Could we click on that restorative discipline link? Mostly. And so we might need to scroll in just a little bit. Yep. That's it. Can we zoom in? Oh, it's it's Thank you. And then can we scroll up to the top? And so as you can see, the my role is halftime slowly turning into full time, but the RGA coordinator focuses on systems of infrastructure, providing staff training and then restorative responses across the division.
And so, a lot of my work is, with staff, students, all of the above, family members. What you can see is just some comprehensive numbers within the last few school years. Groundwork meetings are one on one conversations that we have with participants, whether they've been harmed or caused harm. We have as many of those as needed, before we move to a restorative conference. One of the things that we don't wanna do is rush the process. And so if people aren't ready, we don't wanna bring people to the table to potentially cause more harm. But also, you know, we're working with kids who are still learning how to do
conflict resolution. And so that might require some additional time and coaching until they're in a good place to come to the table. And so you'll see the last few years in terms of the full conferences, to date. And, again, this is just in in my wheelhouse. We haven't necessarily talked about CBCJ yet. The last the two previous school years, we didn't necessarily track community building circles. One thing to note about that is those are the proactive opportunities that we have. So when we're doing community building circle, we're not here to talk about harm. We want to create a space of safety, community, and belonging so that when it's
time to talk about those hard things around harm, we've been practicing being in circle. And so, stakeholder interactions are any type of meetings, phone calls, quick conversations around, any current incidents that are open. And then every summer, this will be summer number four, we've had, staff training, so that, our teachers and other staff are able to implement tier one practices. Let's scroll down. Thank you. Can I quick this is is this not is this what just happens in the
school, or is this also what happens in the community that comes into our school? Good question. This is, school stuff. So, if we get outside referrals in which CVCJ is supporting, and we have, we've had high schoolers, you know, with diverted charges, and luckily, we've we've been able to have meetings and things here. We're not necessarily gonna capture that data. That's gonna be, separate. Okay. Other things to note, fear process. So, we use that when we need to there's a community concern, and we want
all of the stakeholders to come to the table to help figure out the process together. Right? When we think about restorative practices, our fundamental hypothesis is, we do things with people, not to or for them. And so anytime there's some decision making happening in buildings or among staff members, we wanna give the stakeholders an opportunity to to learn what the changes are, give their input, and then whoever the decision maker is gets to follow-up and say, like, this is what I heard from you. Based on that, here's what I've decided. Here's what we can't do, and here's why. So it eliminates that gray area.
Just scroll down. Thank you. And so in the 2324 school year, we piloted, restorative support with, one of our partners, Central Virginia Community Justice. So as you can see, the first school year was only in the spring. So from spring break on to June 2425 school year, they started in February, and they wrapped up in June. This school year was the first time that we were able to have them at the start of the school year, and you can see how the numbers, vary. One of the things that I did wanna note, and you can scroll down and
I'll I'll I'll wrap it up as well, is I know that there was some curiosity in terms of, what were the numbers for our black students. I did wanna share for this school year in the first quarter, we supported about 33% black students. There was about 43% that identified as other biracial. In the second quarter, we supported 43% of black students. And then, this last quarter that we just wrapped up, we were at 71%. And so our number continues to grow in terms of con I mean, supporting students
around conflict or harm. What you'll also notice is the number of students start to dwindle down. So in the first quarter, you'll see that, around a 177 students. But in our third quarter, you see about 34 students. What happens with that is that at the beginning of the year, we wanna front load with community building opportunities. Right? And so that's a lot of our tier one efforts. As we go, further into the school year, there's more conflict and harm, and that's where our focus needs to be. We have a grant with the city of Charlottesville, and that grant is meant to be responsive to harms.
And so you'll see it's a smaller amount of students that are supported, but there are higher need incidents that need more of our time. You can keep scrolling down. And so I did wanna just share, you know, in the last few oh, well, excuse me. This past school year, the the, the impact that the partnership has had, right, with our two facilitators, we have one at our middle school and we have one at our high school. And, of course, I support them and then support other incidents directly referred to me. We've been able to have over 450, stakeholder interactions, whether that's a student, whether that's
a parent, whether that is a staff member, 86 referrals, for restorative support, over 200 groundwork meetings, plenty of more opportunities for proactive time to build community, so 46 community building circles. And then you'll see, 23 restorative conferences. You'll see a discrepancy in terms of the number of referrals, so 86 versus, the the amount of conferences that happen. There's a variety of things that happen with that. Some of it is that the the kids have have built the skills to solve
the things for themselves, and that's a data point that we don't capture, but that's still a metric of success. Right? What we want them to do is learn how to solve their own problems. RJ is also voluntary, so we don't force it at all. So at any moment, if a student or any person participating feels like they don't want to participate, they are able to stop at any moment. And then there there's the reality around capacity. Right? Our facilitators were grant funded, and that money is dwindling down. Right? And so while they were able to front load some of their hours at the beginning of the year, then, the the amount of hours that they had to work,
wasn't not enough to meet the need in terms of the referrals that we've had. So I just wanted to make sure to note that. And then just a little bit of information in terms of our, support score. You know, we do survey students. We that is an area of growth. We definitely need to survey more, but they get a, about an 8.75 in terms of satisfaction. One of the things that really stick out, you can see the quote at the bottom with a young black girl that we worked with, and, you know, she was feeling like sometimes, she doesn't feel supported in the building.
Right? Or, like, they see her and and they they think really stereotypical things about her. Right? But this was an opportunity for her to slow down, to be heard, and to actually make amends and get things right. And so anytime that we're able to provide opportunities like that, I wanna make sure that we're uplifting, but also that we are preparing folks, whether they're getting referred to us or to to try to eliminate some of these discipline disparities. What are the language or the conversation that you can have so that maybe we don't get to this, like, heavy bond of conflict or or things that are happening
within our community? Any questions? Just quickly, as you talk about capacity, we know this program will continue through next year and hopefully indefinitely. Is there an opportunity to add more positions? Has that been discussed? Do we need to talk about funding and budgetary? So at this time, I don't know that we necessarily need to add more, like, staff. I think that we do a really good job with two facilitators and me being here. I think what would be helpful and just so you guys know, we're already in
talks to, think about the future of our collaboration with CVCJ. I know doctor Gurley and I met with the executive director last week to talk about some funding opportunities, so that we can sustain that work and and they can have more time. Right? When they've got, you know, seventeen, twenty hours a week versus seven a week, we can respond to those things quicker, in real time, and and some of those incidents don't go to the wayside. Thank you. Appreciate that. Thank you for this very conference. So it sounds like we've been ramping up this work.
Again, look, I like the results here. I appreciate the quantitative analysis. We're not stopping this next year. Right? No. Absolutely not. I'm still here. Oh, yeah. I just wanted to make sure because I guess I'm a little confused with some of the because I think this is great and, right, we need to continue this. So Yes. One thing to note, of course, right now, how CCS is doing it, like, this is voluntary. Right? Like, we're doing this because we know it works. But with this bill that's coming, we will have to change the way we maybe, have our rights and responsibilities.
I know, you know, I've been blessed to do work on the West Coast and studying with Vermont law, and so I have connections to really good restorative discipline policies or, like, having a clear understanding of, like, what we can do with restorative practices or restorative justice when it comes to conflict or harm. But what are the things that we need to be really firm about in which we need to try another approach, including suspensions if necessary? Maybe not the amount of time that we're used to, but maybe we need a day or two so that the adults can come to the table and rethink how we can better support that student.
I mean, I think with the conversation about bringing back school resource officers, I think there are community members who are calling on us to explore restorative justice practices and tools. And the question would be, if we were to expand those opportunities and that, like, the time that these facilitators have in the building, how much of these kind of, like, peer to peer conflicts or fights or whatever is actually contributing to the rationale
Thank you. I'm so glad you could Thank you. Share Thank you. I'm so glad you could Thank you. Share this with us. Thank you. So the other part of that and miss Rasnick already, talked about the, the third bullet about the work we've done. We did a presentation for you all back in October, and she went over those
three bullets. In the bottom right hand corner of that is the alternative programming, if you wanna click on that, miss Thacker. And, and I don't know what questions you all have for doctor Trotter. Good evening. So as you can see, as it relates to the, particular alternative programming by race, it's broken down, by each particular race, for each particular program, walk, LMA, and night school for, each particular school year. Due to the length of time, I won't read each number, but I will, open
up the floor for questions as it relates to, this particular, subset of numbers. There was other sets of information that I, do wanna share with you as it relates to questions that, you also had. So I will yield to these numbers and these graphs for any questions. Miss Dooling? Miss Richardson? Miss Cooper? You won't come back. Miss Burns. Thank you. I am interested to know how students are identified for the various programs. And, yeah, let's start there.
Yes. And so if we're looking, I'll just start with new pathways and work our way down. For our new pathways program, referrals are sent to the school administrator, and then reviewed by, myself and the school counselor. It could equally be the, SEL counselor or a behavior infraction where the student has come before the board, and then we look at a particular time in which the student remains in new pathways. Equally, students from new pathways are eighth graders, usually would look in for high consideration to be enrolled the upcoming school year into LMA.
And so, that's another form of pathway as we look at how students are, enrolled in LMA. From the high school, students can self referral, and that's a process where they're working with their school counselor on particular reasons as to why they feel they would like to enroll at LMA. They may need a smaller environment. They may have be credit deficient. And so that's a particular measure. Equally, there is the administrative referral that the school administrator is able to provide to, myself. And so it's through the school administrator and school counselor.
Additionally, behavior placement that would come from the board and then, again, new pathways transition and enrollment. For our night school students, that's just a little bit different. Same measure as it relates to administrative placement from Charlottesville High School, a particular administrator. Oftentimes, our students that are coming back to us from, Blue Ridge will first be enrolled through our night school program. And then once we look at the end of the year, we will look at a transition, and then those students potentially transition up to our LMA day program. And then most importantly, students with, a behavior infraction, again, that comes from the board
and or a particular LMA day student that may have missed, fifteen consecutive days. And so they wanna be, reenrolled, and so we will start them at our night school program. And then we would, introduce them back into the LMA day program. And as it, relates to our on walk program, miss Burns, that that's usually, like, the, first stop in terms of, students are, credit deficient, becoming over age. In the last few years, we have expanded the walk program, which really has served,
our high school well, because, walk used to be, eleventh and twelfth graders. And what we found is that sometimes we were getting students in the ninth grade who were, who were over age. And so the walk program just served as a very I mean, sorry, served as a conduit to help the students get on track and start to, recover some of those great, credits. And it, like the LMA night school programs, that's a blended model as well through
the Edgenuity, through the Edgenuity. And those referrals for the WALT program come directly from, the professional school counseling office. Now I would like to equally mention as it relates to our, LMA and night school. Once our, graduating students are, removed off of our list for example, we have, 12 graduates this year. The goal is not to immediately fill those 12 seats because we wanna be very instrumental on who, those seats are offered to. So we are having pre conversations with the school counselors as we get closer to
graduation to see exactly where those particular students fit. And so that's always just a barometer of where we look at for the upcoming school year as well. Okay. Just Okay. I just had a question in reference to the, WAF program, and you said the students that are credit, deficient. How do we get here? Like, how do we continue to push our kids along knowing that they don't have credits and then they're getting to high school, and now they have to go through the walk program? Like, how do how do we get here? Well, some of it, miss Cooper, and we just had a meeting yesterday, similar thing.
Right? So when we think about students who have been retained, when we think about students who, have, you know, failed, when they get to ninth grade and, doctor Trotter and miss Resnick and I sat in a meeting yesterday where, you know, the student is already 15 years old. This and this student will be going to the high school as a as a ninth grader who's 15. I mean, most certainly, that student can go right into ninth grade, but we feel
like we need to be exploring something different for this black child, because you're gonna lose motivation when everyone's turning 18, and you're 18 in the tenth, eleventh grade. So, I mean, as we're talking about retention, I mean, the unintended consequence, and I know we're gonna do have this conversation during some policy work, we have to think about what the other end of it will look like because the motivation that intrinsic
motivation part as educators, we know what that looks like down the road. So, I mean, that is definitely part of how we get here because there are students who are retained, students who fail, students who, who may have gone into, who may have gone to Blue Ridge and who have been away from us for a while. They come back. And so as a multidisciplinary team, we're coming together to brainstorm, like, what's the best
path forward and and what we use as somebody's alternative programming so that we can at least try to help the student get caught up. You know? Many of these programs are semester courses, which allows students to take more courses in a year versus coming to the traditional comprehensive high school, taking a year long course, and just say if the student fails, then the student has to wait a whole another year before reattempting that. So that's just a little bit of the the, the how we get here, but
also why these programs are so vitally important for our students to be successful. Yes, doctor Trotter. Yeah. And I equally think that, the paramount part is, doing those cohort reviews earlier, and we're looking at those ages, and we're looking at those grades to try to funnel just exactly where that alternative program would best suit a particular kid. And then once they are on track, how do they then, return back to CHS? Or is it the, ISEPT program? So that's exactly, to to your point there as well, sir. Yeah. But I'm just, like, looking at these numbers, and I know, like, we talk about, like, the kids that are coming from Blue Ridge.
The numbers are high. And so I think that when we think about black student achievement and, you know, where we are, and we're looking at how many kids are on reading plans and, math are receiving math interventions, I wonder is that enough to move the needle when we're seeing this kind of data of, like, the kids start that may not have enough credits, and now now they're in high school. And I and I think these are really good programs to get them over the hump. But are we really preparing them for success, to go out there, get a real
job, or to go on to college? I would say unequivocally, yes. Because what we have embedded in our programs are, ways for them to get certifications. You know, we've connected I know doctor Trotter could probably talk for days, and, miss Poe can talk for days about, the community resources and connecting them with Virginia Career Works. I mean, we are not pushing but I don't think by any stretch of the matter are we pushing students out the door.
I think we have done particularly, I can't I can only speak under my time here, that we have focused on that day after graduation, and we have really been intentional about making sure that our students have a plan and not just use these things as a way to get our graduation rate up because we just we just we're just we would just be pushing our students back into the community if we didn't connect them with jobs. And, I mean, even with a time where you would go to the alternative, and
it was just about vocation, doctor Trotter and the staff there are connecting our students with going to college. So it's just rethinking what we do for students. And then when you look at a number like walk, you know, the the difference with walk is why that that also why that number looks high is because sometimes kids are just coming in there for a period. So they're utilizing that period so they can see more students. And it's not that these students are, like, so deficient that they can't do.
They can they're coming in there and they're they can, they can serve more students within within the periods that they have out of the day, while still allowing them to access CHS. So I have a question. Yes, ma'am. And this is just, like, a very, like, honest question because I get a lot of feedback, and I've heard stories about, students and from parents who are like, yeah. My student went to an alternative program, one of the ones you listed, extremely behind
and actually graduated early. And I guess I'm just wondering, like, how does that actually happen? What is the retention of information? It's one thing to pass on paper. It's another thing to not be able to give me a a project completed. Like, if you're just clicking buttons on an online platform, what, like, what is the output for that? And we talk about, like, the day after graduation and plans, and you can go on and get a job without retaining any information from high school. What, like I mean, because I think there are cases of students who may do
that. I mean, they may, like, just retain, like, 1%. Right? So how are we tracking what students are actually gaining from the work? Yep. Thank you, for that. I first wanna make sure that, that we talk about just exactly what type of of instruction is occurring at at and within our alternative programs. And so, we do and I'll first speak to our LMA day. We do lean, directly heavy on the direct instruction with the teachers that we do have within our, classrooms. But I've also stood at the podium and said how mister Grady uses Edgenuity and
that he is able to flip his mind from a algebra one to a geometry and so on AFDA. And so from that, the expectation is that the teachers are using and following the exact SOL blueprint that is aligned with VDOE standards as well as the pacing guide from CHS. Now the question at hand is how are they moving so fast, and that's because we're on a, semester base. And so what myself and miss Phelps and eventually doctor Ozzy will do is we're gonna begin to look at what do we need to do at LMA to make
sure that we are slowing down that momentum to make sure that our students are being able to, one, retain and being equally able to, pass these SOL assessments at a higher scale level of just a 400. Now equally in that same point, I wanna make sure that, our teachers equally have the autonomy for project based opportunities to occur within that that give the opportunity for real life experiences. And I'll take the example that mister Laus is using with his econ and personal finance class. I I said in a couple of weeks ago when they were talking about buying
a car. Well, we know that all the things that happen within that space there, that they had the opportunity to, look at the percentage rates. And then what's the difference between a used and a old, car? And I won't go on and on and on. But then, equally, if you stop by and you you hear in miss Rose's class, they're reading a book called the ace of spades, and it's talking about two black students that attend an elite private school. And it talks about bullying, and then our our girls are so hyped because now we have our student teacher that's in there, and now they're doing these character analysis, and they have to explain how it relates to them.
And so, yes, there's a space for the direct, and there's a space for ingenuity, but there's also the opportunity for the student voice. But it's also us slowing down to make sure that we are following the blueprint and and particular standards so that it's not a come to LMA so you can graduate early because that's not the option that we want. Yeah. I guess more so of I'm more concerned about the walk program. I Yes, ma'am. Did walk through LMA today, and I saw those character analysis that you said. And I saw a student who was like, oh, I'm just taking my time with the map set. So, like, I know that that's happening, and I come over there quite a bit
to see that in action. But I guess for the walk program, I've always had questions about it even since I was a student. Like, what is really happening over there? And so, because I don't directly, play a major part in that, I know that many of the students that are coming from our WALT program are working on Edgenuity, and I know they're also doing some hands on with the nutrition, course there. So I would just have to do a little bit more research to come back with that response for you. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. And I had a a really quick question. In reference to, new pathways, how are we working with those students to integrate them,
once they transition back into Charlottesville High School so that LMA is not their pathway, unless that's something that they wanna do. But how are we working to give them the skills that they need to integrate back into the, primary high school? Yes, ma'am. So the goal definitely is not for a student to feel like, LMA is that direct pipeline. And so I think what is definitely instrumental is reconnecting that, student with their school counselor at Charlottesville Middle School and then equally playing a intricate part in that transition,
program well, transition visit to CHS. I think one of the major pieces that, I need to work on as I work with new pathways is if they have they, meaning the ninth grade students from new pathways, attend that summer academy, summer enrichment learning that all eighth graders do. I think that is the pathway to, help support that. In the same token, I can say that some of our new pathway students have come to the high school and then they, find their way back to LMA. So, it's equally making sure that there's, a handoff, from new pathways, middle school to
CHS, and that we're constantly tracking those young people. That's a area of growth that need to occur. Yeah. And that they have that support. Because I think that support that you have in the smaller spaces is not the support that you have at Charlottesville High School. And so if you're gonna transition them, making sure that they have that support in place so that they are successful. Yes, ma'am. Any more questions for me? I have one last quick question. So this is about expulsion because we were talking about discipline. So I know that there are cases that come before the board, and we have to make that decision about whether a student will be able to return to school
or not. And one concern that I brought up is that in some cases, we do not have, cases that are fully adjudicated, and we do not have any sort of collaboration with, like, a Commonwealth's attorney or anything of that nature for charges. And so I think it's it's scary that we could be setting a precedent where the board is being tasked with making decisions about things that we do not have evidence. Yes, ma'am. We do not have any conviction. And, I just wanna know, like, what not necessarily what are your thoughts about that,
but how can we, for the next school year, Hopefully, I I hope that we don't have as many students who come, but how can we create some sort of protocol so that this is not a reinventing the wheel type of conversation every time we have such a case in front of us? Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Good question. I'm thinking off the cuff at 10:27, but but No. I I think I mean, I think that that one will probably continue to be a pain point for us, unfortunately, because it's one of those things where, I mean,
we do get limited information. So, I mean, I mean, luckily, it has slowed down. And we do get those things often, but they're you I mean, a lot of times, they're not our students. So, you know, hopefully, we don't have to continue to face those things, but it is I I can definitely see that continue to be a pain point because other than us having a lot of information from the Commonwealth attorney, it's like we don't have a it's we we don't really have a clear way around that. And I think just for clarity in the community, these are state code is requiring
Right. The Commonwealth attorney to send these cases to the school board for adjudication on expulsion, but it may not it it didn't even happen at school. It didn't her staff didn't see it. Our staff didn't report it. The case is still pending, but this specific state code is, like Yeah. Putting us in a position of making a decision. So I think that's work we as a board, miss Bryant, I think to your point, can do and share, I think, on the state level where that code is
affecting us, and talking with our delegate and and senator, just talking about the true impact of that. And I know that that is something that is required by state code. So I I understand that. I guess what I want is consistency for one. I think that is how we build trust with the community as well. I don't want students to necessarily like, I'm hoping that, again, this doesn't happen as often as it may have in the past, but I don't want us to get
one case where it's just a student and their parent, and then we get another case where there's a student who's been well prepared. And, thankfully, there are community partners that are doing that work. What can we do as a division to make sure that they are accessing all of those resources that they can so that we're not in a span of a closed session, we're getting one student who is just pleading their case and may not have the language, may not have prepared for it, and then we get another student who has two advocates. And advocacy is great.
Right? So I just want there to be a little bit more consistency and and standardized, like, protocol for us as a board. And it will be a pain point, but we can also say, like, this is our litmus test, and we're gonna hold to it so that whether it's okay. If we're waiting for a conviction or we're waiting for this trial to come to a conclusion, then we will not make a decision where the student will have absolutely no class time or whatever, no access to schooling while we're waiting for that because then they they they're losing time that they could be using in the classroom to
further advance. And I said before, like, I'm okay with if it comes down to it, we need to bring this issue back up to the board again once there is a conviction. Yes. But I just don't want us to let students miss out on class time while we wait for a long court process that could take months and months. Yep. And I think a lot of that equally is, how we're working with our neighboring divisions and seeing what their processes are as well as communicating with, like you said, our Commonwealth attorneys, our, our detention, personnels and and probation officers and and informing our
our families of, you know, what their opportunities are that they may not be familiar with. Yes, ma'am. Take that and add it to my notes. Thank you. Doctor Jones? Oh. I have the I just have those numbers. So for the entire student population, ninety three point two five percent of students have zero to one referrals, five point four one have that two to five, and one point three five have six or more. That's for, like, the whole student body. For white students, it's 97.5%
have zero to one, one point six four have two to five, and point eight have, six or more. So it highlights that disproportionate, discipline. What I can't check is, like, if every student has a plan associated who's in that, that higher level for both of those groups. I just can't be pulled out super quick. Thank you so much. I know it's late. I appreciate it. Let me see. Good evening. Chair and members of the board, it's good to be with you all this evening.
Doctor Gurley's charge regarding student achievement with his purposeful focus on black student outcomes and effective efficient systems since at the core of the community schools model we adopted earlier this school year. As a reminder, community schools are built on intentional partnerships between families, school, and the community to ensure that every student is prepared for success. By addressing barriers to learning and strengthening these local partnerships, research shows that we create conditions for students to thrive both academically and socially. The work of community schools rests on four foundational pillars, which are listed here, integrated
student supports, expanded enrichment enriched learning time, family and community engagement, and collaborative leadership. As part of our ongoing planning, we're continuing to solidify infrastructure by reviewing the pillars to ensure every component is functioning at the highest level. And so I linked those pillars to this document if you wanted to review what we'll be what we'll we'll be taking a look at. In our previous presentation, you heard about the initial development phases, and tonight I'll provide additional programmatic and systems updates designed to support our students and families. I will ask doctor Eiseley to provide additional context on these first two bullets as
needed. Our newest initiative is the summer learning program, which aligns with our pillar of extended and expanded learning time. We believe it is vital for students to participate in continuous enrichment over the summer. So community schools will be funding YMCA attendance for every elementary school every elementary school student once the daily CCS programming concludes. Additionally, through our partnership with the UVA Star Hills pathway program, we are providing college and career enrichment for our middle school students. We will also provide transportation to other summer learning partner programs as needed, which may
include partner programs such as KF and the Boys and Girls Club. To support literacy at home, we are deploying over 300 just right reader kits, which is which you all have to take a look at today. These kits are will be distributed to k through third grade students who are identified, based on some of the data you saw earlier. These evidence based phonics focused kits are designed to bridge the gap between classroom instruction and home practice. Each round includes six to 10 engaging books and resources, and we have ordered a
total of six rounds. And so one, envelope that you have is the six to 10 rounds, and so we have six of those that will be coming. This initiative is one way we are addressing inquiries regarding how families can better support literacy and learning. In May, we will have a kickoff event, and our reading interventionist will individually introduce the first two rounds of books to students. Families will receive the four remaining packs throughout the summer. And to keep this interactive, we are brainstorming ways to include hands on activities. For example, if a round includes a book about a kite or planting seeds, which
I pulled out of the kit for you for you to take a look at, we might also include a kite or a pack of seeds to plant as an interactive activity. We believe we'll be even more engaging if families have access to a learning activity that aligns with what they are reading. Did you have any additional? What what's great about these kits is that they are decodable texts. So they are, special especially designed, whatever the phonics feature is that students are working on. The book is heavy on words with with that feature.
They also have a QR code so parents can scan it, and there's, like, a little, there's a video a short video that tells you how to use the book and what to highlight in it. So it's very easy. We we've done it, and tried it out. And so, you know, the video just pops right up and, it gives you it's not like it doesn't go on for forever, though. It's like a quick, here's how you can use this. And these are great resources because, you know, they're very targeted at specific, early decoding,
and and phonics work, features that students are working on. Beyond home literacy, we are working with community partners to establish literacy hubs, and that is a picture of a before of the First Baptist Literacy Hub, and we have some after pictures now that I'm excited to to show through our social media. These spaces will be equipped with books and engaging activities for students and families. Our first three are being are currently being established at First Baptist Church, Boys and Girls Club, and the Jefferson School. We will also have upcoming meetings with The Pointe Church at Bridge Street location. And if you have an organization that would be interested in having a literacy hub,
feel free to let me know. We're happy to set up, literacy hubs anywhere that there is interest. One of our ongoing goals is to ensure that families are partners in the student learning, and we plan to continue hosting events similar to the Crack the Code event held on March 26. We were really excited about the attendance of that event. The primary focus was to help families better understand student reports, particularly SOL and MAP scores, and what those reports mean for their child's learning. I wanna take a moment to thank missus Swift for helping facilitate that event. Missus Ferguson, our outreach specialist, will also be working on short form videos and engagement
sessions to assist families with various topics. And some of these topics include school readiness, how to advocate for your child, information about community resources, and I've written down a couple more since the meeting, understanding the advanced and standard diploma and the program of studies. And so we'll be looking at how we can roll that out into the community for better understanding. There are also plans to for families to to send out a needs assessment for families to also gauge their level of need and interest for programming.
We are putting the final touches on our public facing web page, which reviews our community schools model, and it will be available for viewing in upcoming weeks. In our last presentation, we spoke briefly about formalizing our community schools MOU process. There was some interest in seeing that initial, submission form, so I linked the the document, the form, for you to take a look at. Once submitted, we either approve the request or make adjustments and send that information back to the organization. Once the review process is completed and approved, we finalize the MOU using our community
schools MOU document and data privacy agreements as needed. We have a few new initiatives that are underway. In partnership with the Boys and Girls Club, we have started the Power Crew, which is a SEL play based mentoring program occurring during recess at Sunrise and has received a lot of great positive feedback. And our bridge builders are meeting every Thursday during lunches at Charlottesville Middle School for relationship building and conducting activities that are designed to strengthen skills and belonging. LMA is also rolling out its mentoring mentorship program where mentors from backgrounds of student
interest have begun working with LMA students. So for example, we sent out we gave the students an interest survey about their careers and what they wanted for their future. And some kids one kid's interested in day trade day trading, so we found a day trader to mentor and to talk to them about their work. We've there was a nursing interest, so we paired them with the nurses. So we're excited that will be rolling out in the upcoming days. Lastly, we are in the initial stages of learning more about Communities in Schools programming and what is a possible partnership could look like.
Communities in Schools is the nation's largest dropout prevention organization. It places site coordinators inside schools who provide integrated student support. These professionals connect with the cohort of students and families to coordinate internal and external support, remove various education, and increase graduation rates, all of which directly align with that integrated student support pillar of the community schools model. Recently, doctor Gurley and I met with, doctor Sarad Davenport, upcoming doctor Sarad Davenport, who is a Charlottesville native and currently serves as Communities of Schools vice president of strategy
and network development to learn more about their offerings and how it compare with us. In closing, the community schools model is more than just a set of programs. It's a commitment to seeing our students as whole individuals who can all thrive with thoughtful, high functioning systems and care. Thank you for your con continued support as we grow this model and work together to ensure every child in Charlottesville has the opportunity to reach their full potential. Any questions? Hi. Mister Meyer? Yeah. So I and you might have mentioned this. My apologies. But I assume some of these community partners, for example, under the locations we're doing
it, again, in relation to black student achievement is with organizations and locations that serve the black community in our Yes. The black community and all the whole entire community. Right. And so there aren't although there are organizations that may have a a greater black population, the black community frequent all different organizations and locations. And so we wanna make sure that all families have access to our literacy hubs, if that if that's what we're talking about, literacy hubs and and all the things
that we have to offer. Okay. We we heard earlier that I think 83% of our, black students are low income Mhmm. Which kind of equates to a lot of other basic needs Right. Yeah, that they need. And then here, we're gonna focus on this. How are these other, some of our community partners helping meet those other basic needs so they can they can, when they arrive to our schools, again, be able to focus on learning rather than their concern on their basic needs? Yeah. You have those partners that are supporting the school system, like Chris Long's Foundation supporting
our EdZone closets that we're setting up at that we have set up at elementary schools and we've visually set up at our, early learning center. And then you have outside organizations like the YMCA or Boys and Girls Club that also provide additional community support for their populations in the area of, basic needs and supplies sometimes according to what, you know, what their community may need. And so our goal is to continue to make it a holistic, approach where we have school based, opportunities as well as neighborhood based opportunities.
And so we wanna continue to not just build partnership through, regular school hours, but, also, it's even more important to build that after school programming where we address basic needs and and enrichment afterwards. So my question is about data and tracking the outcomes Yeah. Associated with the work with these community partners. So for the MOU and for those partnerships moving forward, what will we be requiring to make sure that it's actually advantageous for us as well as, like, our students,
but, like, just so that we know that it's actually working? And then, I guess, as far though as far as those basic needs, how are you thinking about putting those maybe in the reading hubs? Like, not to put all of the onus on your department, but, like, what could be added to those reading hubs to, like, be kind of, like, a one stop shop type of thing to just, like, enhance while they're already there. They can get multiple things at one time. Is that something you've considered? Yeah. Thank you for that. For me, data and outcomes are so important.
Right? We have a well resourced community, but we all and we wanna make sure that the work that we're doing is good work. And so you'll notice in the MOU, part of that, the information that we ask are SMART goals and out expected outcomes. What we wanna know is what can we expect by partnering with you, and how how can we all hold each other accountable for those outcomes? Are we doing what we said we wanted we were going to do in our U All at the organization, having outcomes that you want and we want for our our students? And so we are, building that out. We're also incorporating the evaluation process that we'll be rolling out, where principals will be
able to to have a say in, how the partnership is working, and we'll get those additional notes to to be able to influence our partnerships and and to better them as we go along. And, also, I think there's a lot of great organizations doing great work, and sometimes it's duplicate work. So we wanna make sure that everyone has a a fair seat at the table to be able to to, work with our students and work with the with with our families in a way that, we all want to be successful. And so just providing access for that is important.
And I guess then when it is not being when the data's not there Yeah. And the procedural things are not being done, the MOU is not being signed, things of that nature are not happening, how do we, like, hold our ground with Yeah. Eliminating those partnerships and not feeling like, oh, well, we'll just give it more time. Like, sometimes we have to be, like, very, like, set in stone about our expectations. So how do we do that? I think you you said it well just now, and I think we have to we have to adhere to our expectations.
I think as a unit, we all have to understand what those expectations are and then, be able to honor when something isn't being met and understand that a no sometimes, is important as we wanted to make sure that our our kids are successful. And sometimes, I believe, as a sign of the no, sometimes it's a complete sentence. And so we can give you the the background on how you can do the evaluation of support. Like, these are things that we noticed that could be areas of improvement. And, also, it doesn't mean never.
You know? No. It can be a not right now sometimes, and these are things that we would ask of you in order to come back to the table. But I think that is a a a ongoing conversation for us to make sure that we're all on the same page when we're having those discussions. Yeah. Thank you. I was just gonna ask, like, lastly, so then what does that actually look like in practice? Like, does that mean that we as a board have a conversation, and then we're like, oh, it's time to actually end this partnership? Or is there, like, a at quarterly, we're looking at these things and we're deciding from there. Like, how does that actually work?
In my opinion, doctor Gurley, please. That's nice. It would it would be that you help support us in those in those discussions. And so I agree. I think, you know, I mean, too, like, I agree with doctor Johnson. I mean, you said it perfectly. I mean, we end the relationship, but we just need to know we just need we wanna make sure that you all know that I mean, sometimes some of these relationships feel very political, and they just happen because they've always happened.
And so as we as we operationalize the MOU process and providing data, when we say, like, these things aren't happening, we're pulling away. We just want the board to support us that we've done all that we need to do. In the short term, all of our current, MOUs for this year expire at June 30. And so we'll be using this, period to roll out the new set of, MOUs for the upcoming year, and we'll be evaluating partnerships for next year over the summer. The other question you asked is around, basic needs, and we'll be working with organizations
to see if they want to have some of those things. And, also, when we get our, family needs assessment, if they feel like there's a need for that, we will lean more into it. Thank you. Looking at the MOU, I see there's metrics in here for tutoring in math and reading, some smart goals. Thank you. These are great first steps. Wondering if, like, would there has was there a thought about an attendance component? When we talk about attendance chronically absent children, is there an opportunity for some of
these partners to help get children to school? I mean, some of them have vans. Some of them have other resource pools, families that can help transport children. I just wonder if transfer if that if there was any conversation about attendance in there? Not recently, as of the last couple of months. But I historically, there have been conversations about supporting kids coming to school, especially if it was in the organization's mission and they had transportation.
And so that can be an ongoing conversation that we have. Some, organizations have that attendance, grades, and behavior as part of their mission. And so when they apply, we can look at what that needs to look like in in terms of support. Even if it's not providing transportation, it's how do you help students get to get to school, and what what can we expect from that? Great. Thank you. And then I think just if as a board supporting the work that you all are doing, if an MOU is not signed and ready by June 30 midnight, we
have to be ready as a board to support the work that we've trusted you all to do. It's really important that we have clear expectations and guidelines, both for us as a district, but also for our community partners and how we hold each other accountable. So I just want to reiterate that expectation and support my personal support. And I hope my colleagues to do the same. That again might might be tough conversations, hard decisions, but ultimately we've heard loud and clear community accountability is important.
And so we're here to do that. Thank you. Thank you. Miss Cooper? Miss Richardson? Miss Dooley? Alright. Thank you. Alright. So as we near the, end of the presentation, I just want to, we wanted to highlight just some key points from, I mean, from where the work started, a few weeks ago and then some things we've captured today. So we, discussed in the presentation that, our overall black student achievement I mean, I'm
sorry. Our black student enrollment is declining. We saw that in the, earlier slides in the presentation. One of the key takeaways that we hope you have is that we have instituted a large number of accountability systems and measures this school year. And we are now operationalizing those things, and we are starting to see some of the fruits of that labor. And so we're just looking forward to, what that work will look like. Our black student, our black students are moving out of the at risk.
We showed that in the slide when we talked about, our, students in third grade and just the work that's happening there. So, we showed, how many of our students are now, reading closer to proficient or on grade level. We talked about our, kindergarten students and how they they're ready. And so those are some of the key things. We talked about our screening tools and our targeted programming. We heard mention of, our, you know, our black students who are enrolling in our
in the AP courses, and that, you know, they're not just in one AP course, they're in several, and our graduation rate. And then, you just heard doctor, Johnson talk about, all the good work that's happening with our community schools model, and it's really serving as a hub, for resources for our students and families. So as we lead forward, what we know is that we need to continue to protect the instructional time, so to be so that we can ensure consistent and effective
learning opportunities. So often, you know, it's like more of, more of, or less of, less of. But what we know is that we have strong tier one instruction, and we need to protect that for our students so that they have opportunities, to access strong, robust, curriculum. Ensure that our tier one instruction remains culturally relevant. We've talked about, the readers and, in in some of our previous conversations, about the
materials that our students are accessing. Is it high interest material? And then implementing our MTSS with Fidelity alongside our alternatives to suspensions. And and I think that we tout that we have a very strong MTSS, program here, and we we are able to work with our students in all of those domains. And then collect and evaluate, outcomes data from our community partners.
We just had a a a very open and honest conversation about, you know, we there are a lot of nonprofits in here, but what does the data say? Are they doing the work? Are they getting the outcomes that they said that we should expect? And then how do we hold them alongside ourselves accountable for doing this work for our students? And that concludes our presentation. I don't know if you have any questions.
I have a question. Oh, I'm sorry. Can you clarify? So when you say at risk, does that mean poor? No. So, when I was saying at risk earlier, well, in this slide, this was related to, the reading. So if you remember doctor Eisley showed the various bands, where students were, I think it was green and green. Low risk and, no risk. And Yeah. So, that's what I was referring to. And I know that, you know, you heard mister Meyer speak to poverty, and and
we and we tend to say, our students are economically disadvantaged. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions, mister Meyer? Yeah. No. I like these leading forward, which is, again, the changes, again, that are being made. My my question is, are there other changes that we also need to make that are more that are also structural, so that you would suggest? I'll I'll put that out there before I suggest one. I think we have, we have been highlighting all of our systems changes.
I think we have been triangulating data, and we are recognizing, and we are calling out those things that just are not working well, internally and just being really honest that it's not working well. You see it in the data. We need to do something different. And so I think from community school from the community schools lens to the instructional lens to the SEL lens to restorative, I mean, we are recognizing the things that
are working, or should work, and that's the work that we're gonna continue continue to do. We just know that, systems require time. And so we just have to implement those systems with fidelity so that we can, yield higher outcomes, especially for our black students, per this conversation. Yeah. I just the one thing I'll I'll bring it up and my colleagues, it was two years ago I brought this up, but it doesn't extended school year, for example. How would that support maybe better learning outcomes, for our black students?
You know, how do we get more resources to them, get more classroom time, which is, I think, aligns more with your protect your instructional time here, etcetera. So not that we needed to debate that right now, but colleagues, I mean, that's one thing that comes to my mind when I, you know, I've seen some of the data presented tonight. Thank you. I guess my only question is, I think we gave a lot of good, like, ideas and suggestions and things of that nature throughout each, like, block of the presentation where we had different presenters. So I know that usually there's, like, a wrap up, at the end of these
sort of work sessions. But if we could have some sort of, like, report back to the board, maybe it's just a written report just saying, like, these are the things we heard. These are some of the things that we think we could implement next school year just so that we have, like, policy, like, proposals. I feel like we had that throughout, but just, like, concrete like, even if it's just bullet points, I think that could be helpful just so that we can remember that these were suggestions that were brought forth. And I think everyone kinda took mental notes, and I know that staff definitely took,
like, detailed notes. But I don't know what that looks like, but it would be great. Can I have an exam because, I mean, I think everything that, and I think someone you can correct me if I'm wrong? I mean, everything that we've outlined in our presentation, I mean, we didn't there weren't a lot of ideas. Like, these are things that are, like, actually happening. From board members. Like, when we were like, oh, this is something that we would like like to see or, like, maybe, like, what does this look like? Like, it it doesn't need to be a heavy lift from that. Like, we're not asking for, like well, I'm not asking for, like, a ten hour
long profit. What I'm saying, though, is if there was anything that stood out about testing or about discipline stuff or about, you know, restorative justice, can we just have, like, those high level ideas written down somewhere for everyone to, like, see and, like, remember and track so that as we continue to have these conversations, we can say, well, during this board work session that lasted over two different sessions, like, these are the things that came up. Because I I don't even know if we remember everything that was said last time today, but, like, you get like, I think that would just be great.
Yep. And maybe that's something we can, miss Beck is really good at using the tools, like the transcript. Maybe she can use the tools and, like, the notebook LM to, generate some of the comments. Would generate the comments, and let's we'll start there. Miss Brent, any comments? No? Miss Cooper? Miss Richardson? Miss Dooley? Just a few. So I just wanted to, like, harken back to our last the first portion of this work session that there was some criticism of, the presentation just being too much
talking at us. And I just respectfully disagree with that sentiment. I think that this is a really important baseline for us to have, to inform future discussions about policy, that they need to be grounded in this actual work that, our education professionals are carrying out, and not based on our personal experience collectively, having been students, or parents, or community members, whatever it might be. And so, just, I hope that presentations like this, not this long, this was a
huge amount of information that was necessary, but I think, like, this is the kind of presentation and work that we as a board should be engaged in in our meetings. You know, the some of the presentations that we've had are informative, but I think very well could be written reports to us and don't need to take up hours of our meetings like we saw tonight. And so, you know, similar to some of the MOU conversation that we had about community partners, as a board, I wanna remind us, just to be mindful of some of the frustrations that we hear sometimes in public comment or in emails, especially from
our educators that are feeling the intensity of this task that we have put on them, to really hyper focus on student achievement, specifically black student achievement. That there's gonna, there's a rub there. That we have to be okay hearing some critical feedback, that there is, we just need to be mindful of how we interpret those sentiments and that feedback that we're receiving. That there's going to be frustration with an increased level of oversight and ask and
responsibility, but that's exactly the task that we have charged doctor Gurley and his team to do. The preschool data makes me really excited, the readiness that our kindergarteners are going. I think this is always kind of, you know, the balance that it's really exciting, the work that has been put in place. And I'm really excited over the years to see how that continues to progress. But, obviously, we still have students in our building right now that are behind. But I look forward to that upcoming work session at some point when we are talking about the Walker site and our early, learning center.
I think that is the data that we bring forward to continue emphasizing the importance of the investment in St. Beverly Learning Center. Yeah. I just, I felt a lot better about our conversation tonight. The last time I just felt, I don't know, just that we really beat down our division staff. And I think it's really important to highlight that there's really awesome work that's happening, that there obviously are things to continue working on. The work is probably never done. But I think that we are at at an inflection point as a board, where
we need to decide, you know, are we going to be hypercritical, or are we going to really work collaboratively with the professionals that have the expertise, to, you know, not, throw accountability out the window. But I think there's a way to be collaborative and supportive while also still, having accountability. And so I hope that as a board that we can collectively commit, to that. Thank you. And I'm so tired. I forgot. Did we go through everybody? I think we did. Miss Craig Headway, do you have any comments?
It's been a long night for all of us, and and I apologize. I I hope I don't know if you intended to stay for the whole thing, but we are grateful you are here. So thank you. Thank you, sir. And thank you everybody for that for all of that data. Appreciate it all. Alright. Board response to written reports, that's 13, 14, comments from members of the community. Moving on. Comments from the board. Does anybody else have anything else that they'd like to share? We'll start down there with, miss Craig Headway. Do you have any?
Yeah. I just like to thank you for all these great presentations and all this really important data. So thank you so much. Mister Meyer? So we have a lot of public confidence, earlier in our meeting, and I wanna thank everybody, for bringing those comments. I, I know there's a lot of concern around SROs. We've been getting emails. I've been I was looking back and since February 1, 2024, is when we first
had this. This was my first my second school board meeting, I guess, regular meeting, And we were talking about it then. So more than two years now, I've been discussing this, getting community feedback from it, emails, looking at data, looking at I think some people would say probably engaging with some of our community members too much in the data and and studies, etcetera. And so, yeah, I I yeah. I wanna I understand people are concerned. I think, you know, when I see and hear comments, though, from the public and
flyers out there, there's where it says, you know, we're we made decisions without getting full community input that we haven't been presenting data explaining why schools cannot be managed without police. We did we may take a vote without a finalized agreement with the Charlottesville Police Department, without presenting restorative alternatives to school policing, and without considering the impact of SROs on our most vulnerable students. So I wanna talk a little bit about process. I'm sorry my colleagues have heard me say this, but I'll say it again and
for the public's good. Again, the first meeting that we talked about SROs, as me as a school board member, was 02/01/2024. We talked about, they were gonna have a survey for the community, and then the staff released that survey. The second meeting we 03/07/2024. We got, survey by the deck. We had 1,256 responses from throughout the community, from all different groups, including teachers. In that survey, 60% said they were interested in learning about a different SRO youth
resource model. On 05/18/2024, this is the third meeting, we had a work session on the SRO youth resource topic. On May 30, the fourth meeting, we had an approval up for a vote on this topic. We decided not to have an approval that day and have the staff go do more research on the topic and community engagement. And we pushed our boat off almost what would that be? Nine months to 03/27/2025.
Staff went and did more work. On 10/24/2024, we did a work session, again, where data was presented. If you wanna see the data, everybody, October 24, look at the data. There's all kinds of data right there. A sixth meeting was held on 01/09/2025 where we had a presentation on restorative justice in the model. We just heard more about it tonight. A seventh meeting was heard, was 02/06/2025, where we had a present update on the
process regarding SROs. And then there was the March 27 meeting where three of us voted to delay taking a vote one more month, and three of us voted on this board to not delay. Okay? So then that started a whole other process where we took a vote after not deciding to delay the vote on whether to basically ask the administration to form an
MOU with the Charlottesville Police Department to govern how we would have SROs in our schools. It was not to invite armed police to our school, but rather it was to, again, a MOU to govern how we would because we did not have one in place. Alright? So and then we had all kinds of other community consultations between then and and now around and I and I saw an SRU, MOU that significantly changed during that time. So I you can definitely quibble with some process here, but when I look overarching
at the whole process, all the community cons consultations, all the comp public comments I heard at school board meetings, all the emails I received, all engagement, I would argue that I think we did a very robust community consultation. I do wanna read also from I mean, apologies, colleagues, but I would have done this right after. But the Charlottesville task force on minority disproportionate minority contact in the juvenile justice system, this was a report issued by in 2014. It was authored by the University of Virginia community psychology department with task force members,
including FAR, Legal Aid Justice Center, Central Virginia Restorative Justice, and many others, just to name a few. Okay? In that, on page 13, their recommendation is again, for the same groups that were just speaking to us today, their recommendation is the task force proposes the development of a joint memorandum of agreement, let's call that MOU, between the Charlottesville Police Department and
the school division concerning school resource officers based upon best practice models that have been shown to reduce disproportionality and minimal referrals to court from the school system. Sorry to interrupt, but, like, do we not say that we was not gonna talk about SRLs and then, like, this is or can I this is his It's just it's kinda frustrating? Like, you said no. Interested. And now you're you're kinda pointing out all these data and notes. Like, it's it's ridiculous. It's 11:00. It's 11:10. We're gonna let him finish his comments, please. I know. But I'm I'm frustrated.
Like, are you serious? Alright. Well, I'm presenting data. Alright? So my point here is there's people out there saying a lot of things, which is fine. You can say what you want. There's also the data and the facts over the last two years that I wanted everybody to be on the record. There's media in here that's writing news stories that this is what we've been doing. This is the work that our board has been doing, discussing with the community, and our staff have been working at a lot more. So I do not I'm not okay when members of the community and other members
of the community, they can have their opinions. I understand there's a lot of concern about it. But to say that we have not been democratic, that there's been backroom dealing, etcetera, which is not true. Okay? So I just wanna make sure you can go look all the data up. You can go look all the information up. There's all kinds of meeting data. You can watch the videos. You can watch the vote that we had on March 24 in 2020 March 27 in 2024 and see how all this all went down. Thank you. Okay. So you're citing a study or a report from 2014.
2014 is before how many unarmed black people were killed by police. 2014 is before how many issues that we've had with Charlottesville Police Department, including a very destabilized civilian review oversight process. I think that's actually ridiculous. And, like, I respect so much of the data that you would bring forward, and I just think that that's just that's an interesting choice. Additionally, we've actually had board members say that they thought that the process could have
been better. So now to hear that it was robust is interesting. We've also heard board members go on the record in several spaces and say, we didn't know the vote was gonna happen. And tonight, we're hearing, oh, well, we were fully prepared for that. So for me, it's really the whiplash. It's the gaslighting. It's almost like I'm gonna spit in your face and tell you it's raining. And for the black community, that's disrespectful, honestly. And, like, I'm not I cannot speak for the entire black community. But what I am hearing from the emails I'm receiving, from the conversations I am
having, it's not even necessarily that I, tonight, with introducing the motion for the discussion, was expecting some of you to change your votes because I think it's very clear that you're not going to. And I could give you books and books. I could give you lived experience after lived experience, but some of you had your minds made up before this conversation even really came to surface because I've heard that there were board members going behind the backs of the board and having conversations with
chief Kochis to try to get this orchestrated. That's what I'm hearing. This is before I was even on the board or thinking about being on the board. So when you talk about we've been talking about this for two years. I think it's interesting because there are black mothers who have had to tell their kids since they were tiny children, who are now high schoolers, about how to manage interactions with police, how to deal with being a Black young person in this world,
in this day and age, and in a place like Charlottesville. All of these things matter, and they're layered. So when you tell us that you're tired of talking about it, it's almost like, why should we stop talking about that, but we can talk about solar panels? Or we can talk about bike lanes, or we can talk about all of these other things, which I think are equally important. But let's just not take something that is so serious and and limit it to a two year conversation when I've seen people on this board come meeting after meeting
after meeting for multiple years and have the same comments about the same things. It just it it minimizes something that is so important, and I would expect that we would not be telling our immigrant population that we're tired of talking about ICE because we're seeing day after day civil disobedience, unrest. Every time we turn on any big political news station, CNN, whatever, you're seeing the impacts of this. And so to say, like, I feel like we did a great job when you
have people who do live in affordable housing, people who do live in public housing, people who do live these everyday experiences and have these interactions with police, and just to say, like, I'm done talking about it, and I wanna move on, It's very dismissive, and it doesn't rebuild the trust that we wanna rebuild with the community. It actually is really counterproductive to that. And so, again, as I said at the beginning of this meeting, I want to see this board and the division as a whole hold to its stated values in
its strategic plan, equity, belonging. All of these things matter. And so what I'm not asking you to do, again, is change your boat because I truthfully, respectfully do not believe you're gonna change your boat. I didn't think that from the first time I heard you talk about it. And I know that there are other people on this board that respectfully, I don't expect them to change their votes. But what I do expect is for the people who have expressed concern to keep the same energy across the board. And when we're talking about ICE resolutions, and when we're talking about police, and when
we're talking about these very polarizing issues, bring the same level of attentiveness to each issue, and think about how it does impact student outcomes. Because I've heard from multiple board members, we wanna focus on student outcomes. We wanna focus on student outcomes. Well, how are we doing that if we're not thinking about these issues? They impact student outcomes. So just keep the same energy. Thank you. Oh, and lastly, thank you all for your reports and for the time that you spent on that. We really do I really do appreciate it. I learned a lot, and I'm sorry that we abruptly stopped the last meeting because
that did not send the correct message, I think, to you all that we appreciated your time and effort. So I could just speak for myself and say thank you, and I look forward to continuing to engage on these topics. Have a good night. So my final comments, I would like to give a huge, congratulations to all of our student athletes, for the amazing, job that they have been doing.
I also, received a letter, from Shultz, a high school student, and, just, want to, add it to the record. And maybe you could, escalate this to, mister Malone. And it says my name is, Nayana, and I'm sorry if I, mispronounced, the name, Pedaway. And I'm a CHA nine CHS ninth grade student. I'm writing you because I believe the length of our student, lunch needs to be
increased. The problem is that students simply do not have enough time to get in the line, wait for their food, sit down, eat, clean up, and get to their next class. They often skip lunch or eat in a eat in a negative way that affects the physical health and academic learning. When students miss lunch or make poor nutrition choices, they lose focus in class and can come and can become moody and misbehave. Miss Cooper, I would like for you to help, persuade the other school board members and request them to add additional ten minutes or more to our thirty minute lunchtime.
Extra time will ensure the students have enough time to have a good lunch and to be able to be on time to class and ready to learn and participate in class. So just kinda want to share that with the board. I don't know if everybody else received it, but and I don't have any further comments. Miss Richardson? I had a whole lot to say, but I'm a just cut it short. I do wanna lean in and say that although that we have different outlooks, maybe even different approaches, We all want the same things for our students, and we want
them to feel safe and included. And with that, please give the board grace and, which is needed so we can regain and build the trust from our community. So thank you for tonight presentations. Alright. Again, I just wanna reiterate my gratitude to you all and and again acknowledge that, we will be continuing the work and, appreciate you, sir. Superintendent's comments? I just want to, say to our staff and, to our teachers, to our folks
in the building that they are embarking upon a well deserved spring break next week, and so I am very excited for them. I will be in the office next week, but I am very excited. You know, this is like that home stretch for them, and we are embarking upon graduation, which is I think I speak for everyone, which is, like, one of my favorite times of the year where we get to see our students who have worked so hard, who have matriculated through our schools, participate in the culminating activity.
So I just want to encourage them to finish strong and, to our staff, you know, finish strong. And I hope everyone is rejuvenated over our, over the spring break. Thank you. Miss Swift, wrap up. So we had two requests for the, for written reports. So we will, share any updates or the changes regarding the summit traffic that was talked about earlier, and then also about suggestions that were shared at board meetings and work sessions.
And then I also just wanted to request when I was presenting about graduation. I do we we appreciate all of your questions, and it helps us think about the data in in different ways, because, you know, we are in the work. So getting outside perspectives and questions. And and so, mister Meyer, I know, with your graduation question and asking about, like, economically disadvantaged, I didn't realize you wanted it also in relation to graduation. So I had a couple hours to pull some of that information. And just going back to, like, with our black students, the advanced diploma of the
twenty seven, seventeen, so 63% were economically disadvantaged. So more were that were economically disadvantaged were actually earning that advanced diploma. And the same goes for the standard diploma. It was 88% were economically disadvantaged, but earning a standard diploma. And so and then I can break it down for the rest of the student groups. But it it really does help us think about this data in a different way, so we do appreciate, those questions. We try to answer them all the best we can. Thank you. No doubt about that.
Gonna just review quickly our upcoming meetings with an emphasis on our April 16 meeting to, board members that there is a Google Doc. So if there is data or comments that or information that you want, doctor Gurley and his team working on that that was included, and there was an ask to have that in there by tomorrow, end of day, please, so that we can get that to them so that they can start working on that. That work session will be here in the Media Center at 5PM.
And then our next meeting after that is May 7, which will be our regularly scheduled meeting at 6PM here. And then we have another work session on May 21, 5PM here in this in the media center around policy review and discussion. And with that, we're going to