Well, just as customary, for this board, we'll begin the meeting with a moment of silence followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you. Well, just for the benefit of those in attendance, my name is Bill Hans, and I'm the vice president of the board. And, I'll be, opening our session today. I'll note that I've approved the remote participation of Michelle Ashton and Debbie Kilgore under, Board Bylaws in Section 2.2-3708.3(three) of the Code of Virginia, because their principal residence is more than 60 miles from
the median location. We, I think, some of, in the audience and, across the Commonwealth have heard that, Grace Creasy has resigned her seat on the Board of Education. We're just extremely grateful for, Miss Creasy's, leadership as president of the Board over the last two plus years, as well as her almost, four years on the Board. Virginia is, better and Virginia's children are better because of Grace's commitment and her vision for what's possible. And I personally wish her the best. And as I, said at the end of our last meeting, just, on an important
vote that we had, I've, was on the same term, with Grace. And we've been, at this since, July 1 of, almost, four years ago. And, just really, appreciate her leadership, on the Board and, her commitment to, this Board and, to support of the Department and all of the, folks that she's, had a wonderful stewardship over. And, and before I proceed with, Governor Youngkin's appointment to her seat, I would like
to pause in case any other board members or the superintendent would like to make any comments about, Grace's tenure and her, her leadership and contributions. Thank you. Yes. Can I comment? Yeah. Go ahead. Okay. Great. Thank you, vice president Hanson. We, on behalf of the department, are just so grateful for, miss Krissy's leadership. She has been a catalyst, for our public schools around high expectations for students, from
our earliest learners in our early childhood and, care and education system to our virtual learners and mops, to our traditional models and innovative models that are underway. From my first week in Virginia, president Creasy was a, stalwart for optimism around what's possible and that we have a lot to do for kids and educators in a short period of time. And I have been very grateful for her continuous support, thought partnership, and constructive feedback,
since taking the helm at the department. On behalf of our staff, we are so grateful for all, that she, did over the last four years to support, lift up, and elevate all of the incredible team members and work underway at the agency. And so, we are very thankful for all of her time and also excited about, her replacement here and what he will bring for kids, and educators in Virginia. So with that, I'll pass.
Also, I think you, see a new face, up on, the dais today. And, just, pleased that the governor has appointed mister Mark Carraway to the unexpired term for miss Creasy's seat which expires on 06/30/2026. Mister Carraway began his career in public education in Orange County High School. During his time at Orange County High School, mister Carraway developed an interest in school leadership and earned his Master's degree in Education Leadership at George Mason University. And great to have another alumnus of George Mason.
So, Mr. Carraway then became a principal of Madison County High School in 2001. After four years of service at, Madison County High School, mister Carraway moved on to become director of the Blue Ridge Virtual Governor's School, a position which is held for seventeen years. Mister Carraway is currently the president of the Scuffle Town Consulting LLC. He is involved in, work at the University of Virginia, teaches leadership development at the Federal Executive Institute and the University of Mary Washington.
And, just mister Keraway, on behalf of the the board and, the state superintendent, welcome. And just would invite you to say a few words. Thanks very much. And I'm, honored to be here. Honored to work on behalf of the students and the great educators of Virginia, and looking forward to working with the board, to see what we can do next. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. I can recognize superintendent Gollickson. Thank you. With missus Creasy's departure, the board has some business to attend to at the beginning of this meeting, and I have a few, clarifying remarks on the board's procedures per
the current bylaws. Article two, section five of the board's bylaws state that if a vacancy occurs prior to the conclusion of the regular term of office of an officer, the election to fill that vacancy may take place at the current board meeting, but no later than the next regular board meeting. Further, the bylaws states that any officer elected to fill a vacant office should hold office for the remainder of the original term of office. Since missus Creasy was reelected president in June 2025 to a term ending on 06/30/2027.
The board will now elect a president at this regularly scheduled meeting to fill the remainder of her term of office set to end on 06/30/2027. Mister Hanson, I will now turn the meeting back to you for the election of an officer. Thank you. And, I just, would like to take this opportunity to nominate M'Shea Ashton as President of the Board of Education to fill the term ending 06/30/2027. And just, again, just, grateful for, Mishay's leadership on the Board, for the last couple
of years and, just to found her to be, an incredible leader with her school background, her leadership background, in the schools and also just her, commitment to this board and to the, students and families in the Commonwealth. So I would invite a second to the nomination. Second. Is there any discussion? Yes. In in Michelle's absence and I'm not able to ask her questions about the workload, I I know we have to move forward per the bylaws, but I will likely abstain in the vote. I do have the utmost confident in Mishay to be able to do it, but,
again, in our absence and not having a conversation with her, I would like abstain on my vote. Okay. Thank you, miss Ackerman. Well, if there's no further discussion, we'll, move to a a vote. Doctor Ackerman? Abstain. Mister Green? Aye. Doctor Northern? Aye. Miss McPherson? Aye. Miss Kilgore? So, mister Monk. Aye. Mister Carraway. Aye. Miss Ashton. I don't know if we lost our connection with both and the vice president votes
aye. So, so the motion passes, and, we'll move on to our next item of business. Michelle, if you're here, I would invite you to say a few words. The audio. Okay. You say two minutes. She's gone. Sure. It's copied here. And to just rejoin. No. K. It should be on now. Yeah. It's coming. It's here. So Yes. That is yep. Try now.
Someone's dark. Just stuck. While we're waiting, I'm gonna go ahead and just proceed with two administrative items, for the approval of the, of the minutes. Is there, a motion to approve the minutes? Or excuse me, we need to approve the agenda first. So is there a motion to approve the agenda? So moved. Is there a second? Second. Doctor Ackerman? Aye. Mister Green? Aye. Doctor Northern? Aye. Miss McPherson? Aye. Miss Kilgore? Aye. Mister Monk? Aye. Mister Carraway?
Aye. Missus Ashton? Aye. And, and I vote I as well. So the agenda is approved. Okay. Okay. So I understand that Mrs. Kilgore and Mrs. Ashton are back online and can hear us, and I faintly heard Mrs. Kilgore and, Ashton's votes. Just again, not knowing what you heard, we did have, a motion and a second to, elect, Michelle Ashton as president of the Board of Education. And, I was not able to hear both of your votes, so if we could,
Miss Kilgore. Yes, I. Thank you. And, Missus Ashton. I think it's appropriate for me to vote for myself, but if my fellow board members voted for me, then I I'll vote for myself. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. And, Mrs. Ashton, I just wanted to turn it over, to you for a, a moment here, and, for any remarks that you would like to make. Thank you, mister Nielsen. Board members, I'm sorry I'm not in person with you, but I first need to also wanna thank, president Creasy for her leadership, during my time on the board.
I echo everything superintendent Williamson shared. Grace led with courage, with clarity, and with our children at front and center. And I am, incredibly honored to serve in this role. I look forward to working with fellow board members to ensure that every student in Virginia really grows and reaches their full potential. And with that, I'll turn it back over to you, mister Henderson. Thank you. Well, thank you, madam president.
It's nice to call you that. Well, let's, turn to the approval of the minutes. I hope everybody's had a chance to read them. Is there a motion to approve them? So moved. Second? Second. Doctor Ackerman? Aye. Mister Green? Aye. Doctor Northern? Aye. Miss McPherson? Aye. Missus Kilgore? Aye. Mister Monk? Aye. Mister Carraway? Aye. Missus Ashton? Aye. And, and I vote aye as well, so they're approved. Well, let's, the next topic on our agenda is my favorite part of the agenda today, and that's, the board appreciates, being able to feature the wonderful arts programs across
the Commonwealth by having students perform at our meetings. I'd like to now ask, mister Carraway to provide us with an introduction of our guests. Thank you, mister Hanson. This is a great first task as a board member. The New Kent High School Theater is under the direction of Linda Gallant. The group was crowned first runner-up at the division three high school league state one act theater competition in December with cast members Sofia Ward and Liam Maltese receiving best performance awards for their powerful portrayals. The three cast members of the award winning performance, Addie Hofsteady, Aliyah Maltese, and Sophie
Ward are showcasing their musical theater talents today, performing selections from previous school productions. Seniors Addie and Sophie and Junior Lear are all honor students with multiple awards and activities. Linda Gallant serves on the board of directors for the Virginia Theater Association as the immediate past president and was selected by the organization as a certified master teacher in 2020. Also in attendance is New Kent High School principal Allison Strickland and superintendent doctor Brian Nichols. New Kent County Public Schools proudly offers both curricular and extracurricular theater programming to promote
excellence in education in our schools. Have we got a deal? If I become a human, I'll never be able to see my father or my sisters again. Yes. But you'll have your man. Life's full of tough choices. Oh, and there is one more thing. We haven't discussed the subject of payment. But I don't have anything to give you. I'm not asking much. Just a talk. You're really a trifle. What I want from you is your voice. My voice? But if I don't have my voice, how can I You have your voice? You What ever happened to my part?
I was exciting at the start. Not yours. Not yours. But mine. We'll now, turn the time over to mister Green to, recognize the inspiring school employees, as part of our agenda. Yep. Thank you, mister president. Excuse me. Today, I'm pleased to introduce two outstanding school division employees who are recognized for their exemplary service to their schools and communities. Miss Laurie Barber of Bedford County Public Schools and miss Lisa Delp of Gallic City
Public Schools are Virginia recipients of the recognizing inspiring school employees Award, which honors the commitment and excellence of classified school employees. I'd like to share a little about each of them. Our first honoree, miss Laurie Barber of Stanton River Middle School, demonstrates exceptional dedication, compassion, and an unwavering commitment, to students. As the in school suspension coordinator, she transforms disciplinary moments into meaningful opportunities for growth
and accountability. She begins each day by greeting students with encouragement. She arrives early. She stays late, and she continues supporting supporting students long after they leave her care. Her work has strengthened student behavior, relationships, and the overall school climate, creating an environment grounded in respect, reflection, and hope. Thank you, miss Barber. Our second honoree, nurse Lisa Delp, exemplifies excellence through her clinical ex expertise, her professionalism,
and her compassion. Her impact extends well beyond the clinic as she remains a visible and active presence at athletic events, extracurricular activities, and throughout the school day. She led her school efforts to achieve the region's first Project ADDM designation for cardiac emergency readiness and spearheaded the creation of a school based health clinic, expanding access to care for students, staff, families, and the broader community.
Miss Depp's knowledge and compassion makes her an indispensable member of the school team, supporting both student wellness and academic success. Thank you, nurse Depp. Whereas this award recognizes Lori Barber and Lisa Delp as exceptional professionals whose commitment, skills, and talents expire excellence and empower staff and students to meet future challenges with confidence and success.
And now, therefore, be it resolved that the members of the Board of Education extend their sincere congratulations on your recognition as the twenty twenty six Virginia Rise Award winners and express our heartfelt appreciation for devotion to service. I'd like to extend a sincere appreciation, to their school leadership and to their families who've joined them today, whose encouragement and support make their extraordinary service possible. Please join the board of education for a photo. Congratulations.
Read a proclamation on the Blue Ribbon, schools. Whereas since 1982, the National Blue Ribbon Program annually honored America's most successful public and non public elementary, middle, high schools based on their overall academic excellence or their progress in closing achievement gaps around student groups, and whereas the National Blue Ribbon Schools program sets a standard of excellence for all schools striving at the highest level of academic achievement, and whereas Virginia is invited to select up to seven schools to be nominated for the award in the performance awarded categories of exemplary high performing and an exemplary
achievement gap closing. And whereas to be eligible for the nomination as an exemplary high performing school, a school must achieve top 15% in the Commonwealth for reading and math combined, top 40% for reading and math combined for reading and math combined for historically underserved student groups, or the top 15% in high school graduation rate, and whereas to be eligible for nomination as an exemplary achievement gap closing school, A school must achieve top 15% in the Commonwealth for reading and math combined improvement for one or more historically underserved student
groups, top 40% for reading and math combined for each historically underserved student group, top 40% for underserved student group, or school improvement that equals or exceeds the whole state improvement rate. Whereas, consistent with the shift toward returning education to the states, the government the federal government discontinued the national blue ribbon school programs in August 2025. Whereas, to maintain this long standing tradition of acknowledging educational excellence, Virginia joins other states
in continuing continuing to recognize exemplary schools, including the 2025 National Blue Ribbon Schools program nominees. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the board of education that accomplishes of the following schools for the 2025 National Blue Ribbon Schools program and their prospective categories for meeting the aforementioned criteria. Our exemplary high performing schools, yes. Thank you. Tierra is gonna come up and help, but with this part of it.
When we call you, come up and may maybe stay up. Is that the how would you like to do that? Yes. So we have some, of our Blue Ribbon nominees in the audience today. And so we would like to call them up to take a picture with the board and to recognize their accomplishments. And so we have Gloucester County to come up? We also have and we'll hand you your certificate and then we'll, right here for the, for the picture.
York County Public Schools. We have recognized Henrico County Public School and Lunenburg County Public Schools. And we have the principals, we have directors, all representing their schools. And so we would love if the board could come up and take a picture with these wonderful blue ward blue ribbon nominees, and let's all give them an applause. While the board is gathering and also like to read off those who are unable to attend. We have exemplary high performing schools of Tuckahoe Elementary School, Henrico, who is here Central
High School Wise County Seaford Elementary School, York County, an exemplary achievement gap closing. We have bought a taught elementary school, Gloucester County, Francis w Jones Magnet School, Hampton City, Central High School, Lunenburg County, j w Carver Elementary, Salem City, adopted in Richmond, Virginia on the January 8 in the year 02/2026. We recognize all of you. Thank you. And we have Hampton City here as well. Thank you. Well, it's just a wonderful time to recognize our students and our employees, and our
schools and also the schools themselves. So just, great reminder of, what we're here for. So it's great. We will, now turn to public comment as stated in the board's bylaws. It's a pleasure for the Board to accept public comment on all matters related to public education in Virginia. Before we begin our public comment today, I wanna share a few comments about the manner in which public comment will be conducted. I will ask that you model professionalism, dignity, and respect respect for others as you share your thoughts today. As adults, it is important that we model respectful civil public discourse for our students
and the children who are either in attendance today or viewing this stream now or in the future. When you begin, please provide your name, role, or affiliation of where you live in When you begin, please provide your name, role, or affiliation of where you live in Virginia. All remarks must be directed to the chair, not to any other individual. Speakers will have three minutes to share their remarks. You'll notice that a timer on the screens will begin with three minutes in green, one minute. The screen will turn to yellow and the screen will turn red when time is up. At that point, please close your remarks promptly. Speakers may provide copies of their comments to mister Joe Crook, the department's regulatory and
board coordinator. Joe, will you raise your hand? There you are, sir. Good place to be. All written comments received during public comment will be collected and provided to the board as soon as possible after public comment. You may also email a copy of your remarks to the Board, at boedoe. Virginia dot gov. We will actually, move in the order of those who have signed up, publicly And, the first three, that we have are Scott, Braband and Neely Minton and George Bishop. Good morning. State superintendent Gullickson and members of the Virginia Board of Education, good morning and happy
New Year. My name is Scott Brabrand. I'm executive director for the Virginia Association of School Superintendents, and I live in Lynchburg, Virginia. I wanna thank the state superintendent and all members of the Board of Education for their hard work and efforts this past year around developing the state performance and support framework. We look forward to continuing to implement this framework, in the coming months and into next school year. In addition and thank yous. I do want to thank president Creasy for all of her leadership these past few years. She was a great partner.
She had, and created time for a dialogue and, mutual understanding, and I deeply, deeply appreciate it. And miss Ashton, I hope you can hear me virtually. I look forward to working with you and VAST does too, in the months ahead for your tenure as president of the board. We also wanted you to know that we are reviewing and assessing the recently released JLARC report. We actually had our superintendents, JLARC presented to our superintendents and chief financial officers at a winter conference. So we are reviewing and assessing that study and its recommendations, and we hope that
you all will look at that framework as well and, do your own review and assessment. We wanna thank you too for your hard work around using f y 25 SCAP funds to continue to support school, construction projects in the Commonwealth Of Virginia. That is such a valuable program, and we're continuing to work with our superintendents to make sure they take full advantage of those funds. We also appreciate the report you're looking at today on teacher licensure, and we want to continue to emphasize the importance of flexibility in teacher licensure options so that we
can ensure school districts can have a high quality teacher in every classroom. Finally, we appreciate the first review of the amendment to Virginia's consolidated plan. Giving educational stakeholders the time to review these recommendations before your March, and I understand maybe that might even be till April, an extra month, is greatly, greatly appreciated. And, we will share feedback on all of that, as appropriate in the months ahead. So thank you for all you do. Happy New Year, and I hope you have a great, morning today.
Thank you. Thank you, Scott. Good morning superintendent Gullickson and members of the board. I am Neely Minton, president-elect of the Virginia Social Studies Leaders Consortium. I support accountability. HB nineteen fifty seven directs the board to build guardrails around local alternative assessments to ensure quality, consistency, and rigor. Building those guardrails is how we can ensure accountability without returning to forced SOL testing. This ESSA amendment moves in the opposite direction despite extensive feedback earning high SOL tests
in history and social science. This amendment pressures divisions to give SOL tests even when the law says divisions don't have to. This amendment in plain English goes against what's written in the law. Let me be clear, ESSA itself, the actual federal law does not require history or social science testing. HB nineteen fifty seven states that divisions are lawfully allowed to choose local alternative assessments in lieu of SOL tests not specifically required by ESSA itself.
Though you may try to find a loophole by amending the state ESSA plan and claiming SOL tests are now required, the fact is that HB nineteen fifty seven still stands. Inquiry based social studies is literacy rich. Students read complex text, write, argue, and defend. Returning to rote instruction and selected response testing will not solve the literacy crisis that we're in. It will make it worse. Many of our alternative assessments ask students to engage with authentic audiences and develop and
demonstrate work readiness skills that employers want. If the board wants accountability and civic mastery, then model it. Follow the law. Build the guardrails HB nineteen fifty seven requires, and stop the amendment at first review. Thank you for your time. Thank thank you, mister Bishop. And after mister Bishop, Beau Dickinson. Good morning, chairman and members of the board. My name is George Bishop, and I'm the CTE supervisor for Frederick County Public Schools. I submitted written comments, to the board earlier and I'm here supporting my teachers and
my students to request that The US entrepreneurship certification examination remain on the VDOE industry recognized credential list. Thank you for your consideration of this request. Board. My name is Beau Dickinson. I serve as the social studies supervisor for Rockingham County Public Schools in Harrisonburg, Virginia. I also serve as the treasurer and past president of the Virginia Social Studies Leaders Consortium, VSSLC. Last month, social studies leaders met with several members of the Virginia Department of Education. And in that meeting, we were assured that we would be partners in developing an
assessment system that supports best practice in history and social science. While we appreciated the opportunity to finally engage after four years of sustained advocacy, it was striking that we were not able to hear from or work directly with the leaders who actually oversee history and social science, specifically Sonia Brown, Andrea Emerson, and Brandy McCracken. Educators in my field hold these three professionals at the VDOE in the highest regard, and we are eager for them to be directly involved in this process as well.
Unfortunately, what we see today is an ESSA amendment that is unchanged. Now while we do support accountability, the type of assessment being proposed simply just does not work for history and social science. And we know this because of more than twenty years of experience in the field. Our discipline, history social science, is inherently content heavy. And that challenge is unique, and it has only intensified with the unprecedented level of new content added to the twenty twenty three standards. And we do wanna be a partner in implementing those standards with fidelity.
In courses like eleventh grade Virginia US history, just for example, there are now more standards than there are instructional school days. When that pressure is combined with a high stakes selected response test, instruction predictably shifts towards coverage and, unfortunately, memorization. We want history and social science to be more than just that. What is especially frustrating is that Virginia has already built something innovative that does indeed work. The locally awarded verified credit, otherwise known as the LAVC option, is an assessment system
that has created a functioning performance based model that is inquiry based as well, and it could also serve as a meaningful accountability system outside of or in addition to ESSA. LAVC is grounded in the work of the c three framework and the nationally recognized work of doctor Kathy Swan, doctor John Lee, and doctor SG Grant, the three architects of the inquiry design model and social studies. Students engage in sustained inquiry in LABC. They develop arguments.
They use evidence. They demonstrate civic reasoning over the course of a school year rather than through a single test of discrete knowledge in May. The same points were echoed in the JLARC report on school accountability referenced earlier by mister Brabant, which recognized the value of performance assessment in social studies. We respectfully urge the board to pause the ESSA amendment or exclude social studies from it so that the Commonwealth can build upon this existing and innovative research based system
that has been nationally recognized. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Thank you, mister Dickenson. Our last, participant to sign up is Danielle Graham. Good morning, superintendent Gullickson and members of the board. I'm Danielle Graham, president of the Virginia Social Studies Leaders Consortium. Since the last meeting, we had the opportunity to meet with the VDOE to discuss the proposed amendments to the ESSA consolidated plan related to history and social science. VSSLC appreciated this dialogue and would like to highlight a few key points. First, to be clear, we are not opposed to accountability. Accountability measures should reinforce rigorous instruction that was critical being historical inquiries, not rote memorization.
In our experience, reliance on AOL test often promotes rote memorization and constraints instructional practice, limiting meaningful historical inquiry. While we understand there is a desire to move forward for using what already exists, that is not an acceptable rationale. We would not build a bridge with flawed materials simply because they are on hand. Why should we risk the futures of our students in the same way? Virginia already has an innovative assessment system in place with the LAVC performance assessments. About 50% of divisions participate making it accessible to over 60% of students in Virginia.
The LAVC system we are referring to differs significantly from what was discussed at the last board meeting as multiple things are called this. That misconception was not addressed by the VDOE so I wanna clarify it today. The LAVC assessments we are referencing are not remedial. They are designed for all students, use common state assessments, rubrics, and anchor documents, and provide meaningful performance based evaluation that supports inquiry driven instruction. These systems have been successfully implemented and demonstrate These systems have been successfully implemented and demonstrate performance based assessments can be rigorous, equitable, and scalable.
While the VDOE may not have the data readily available, divisions are required to maintain it and it can be requested. While While we appreciate the changes made to the proposed advanced coursework indicator, concerns remain. Social studies is not linear like math or science. College courses rarely require prerequisites and our discipline is intentionally flexible to allow for multiple narratives and perspectives. This proposal to allow for multiple narratives and perspectives. This proposal reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of social studies and risks eliminating important historical content. We also remain concerned about transparency. With key details posted less than forty eight hours before public comment and nothing shared
prior to last meeting. Transparency is essential to ensure divisions and communities can provide meaningful input and make informed decisions for students. We remain eager to partner with the VDOE on thoughtful implementation of innovative assessment approaches. If the board ultimately decides not to move forward with history and social science SOL tests, VSSLC stands ready to collaborate to build on Virginia's nationally recognized inquiry based assessment work and strengthen high quality instruction for all students. Thank you for your time and for your commitment to Virginia students. Thank you very much. We will now, open it up to those who did not sign up, previously, but
who would like to, come before the board. Maybe just line up and make sure you introduce yourselves. Good morning, superintendent Gullickson and members of the board. My name is Todd Truitt, and I'm here today as a parent of two Arlington public school school students to speak in support of the ESSA plan amendment. First, I support how the ESSA plan does not amend amendment does not exclude current high school students from future cut score raises, which has been proposed by one of the big three lobbying groups. Notably, the same lobbying group did not oppose in public comment, immediately lowering our math
and reading cut scores in 2019 and 2020 to the lowest in the country for all kids. Second, I support adding earth science, world geography, and world history as optional classes to the middle school advanced coursework factor. Arlington Public Schools has had world geography in eighth grade. For years, it has worked great. Lastly, as a parent and a lawyer, I strongly support adding social studies to accountability. As we know in education, what gets measured gets done. In social studies, opposition to content based standardized exams often rests on the assumption that
critical thinking skills transfer independently of knowledge, yet cognitive science consistently shows that thinking is domain specific and driven by the content students know, making these exams one of the few reliable ways to verify whether schools have taught this essential knowledge. Inquiry social studies is not new. It's cyclical. Like whole language and contrary to cognitive science, it reflects a long standing faith in discovering learning over knowledge base knowledge building. It is rooted in the theories of Dewey one hundred years ago and Rousseau two
hundred and fifty years ago, which which approach has been repeatedly recycled over decades. Each time is new. Far from being rote learning, knowing important facts is essential to learning and citizenship, one of the five c's. Famous Virginian Edie Hirsch wrote about this four decades ago in a seminal work, Ultra Literacy, which has more recently been confirmed from a cognitive science perspective by a prominent University of Virginia psychology professor, Daniel Willingham. I have written about optional local alternative assessments for social studies and received almost universal
negative feedback on them from parents and community members. I've also received multiple reports of poster projects being used in place of exams. That's why civil rights organizations strenuously advocated for ESSA's comparability requirement for assessments. These organizations argue that standardized tests are essential for centering equity versus low local exams where disparities can be easily hidden. I've heard that our social studies tests in the past were not great, but I was pleased to hear about the updated tests in the BDOE pre presentation.
Plus, Virginia is in the process of overhauling his exams even fur further. Knowing historical facts is essential to being a citizen of this country and is backed by cognitive science. The state should hold schools accountable for it. Thank you. Anybody else? Well, thank you for all of those who have, come before the board and taken time to to come here today. We will now move on to the, the business section of our, agenda, and the first item is our consent agenda, and final review to certify a list of qualified
persons for the Office of Division Superintendents of Schools. Is there a motion to waive the first review and approve, this item? So moved. Second. Thank you. Any discussion? Doctor Ackerman? Aye. Mister Green? Aye. Doctor Northern? Aye. Missus McPherson? Aye. Missus Kilgore? Aye. Mr. Monk? Aye. Mr. Carraway? Aye. Mrs. Ashton? And the Chair votes aye. We will now, turn to the presentations. And first up, presenter of item B, will be Superintendent Golicson, followed by the executive
leadership team members from the department on the department's organization structure update. Alright. Well, I will get started, and then chief Conway will be here momentarily. Well, thank you. We've been continuously updating the board on the transformation, at the department. And so I'm gonna start with a few opening remarks, and then you'll hear directly from the chiefs or deputies involved on their pillar of work. So, what we've really grounded the new organizational structure in is around VDOE, really being
organized as an agency to deliver outcomes for kids. And one of the things that you will see is that we are really organized around functions and what we do, for kids, which is at the center. I am so excited about the team that we have established at the department, some longtime, champions in the agency for students, some new members into the agency who are laser focused on what is best for students. You will see today there are some, divisions and teams that are forward facing and
in the field and others that are more back office functions, but we are all fully aligned, and centered around how can we best deliver outcomes for kids. And it's been an honor to work with the team and also to get outside perspectives, including from some of the, folks you heard from earlier today in public comment and more around what is needed, what's been missing roles or teams that the field really wanted to have access to given the direction and momentum that the board has
made under its current strategic plan. And so here, as we've shared before, were some of the guiding principles around, the organization and really making sure that we deliver successfully outcomes for Virginia's kids and the other constituents that we serve. You are going to see that we've really broken it into four branches that are really around the four pillars of work, and what we do for kids. So you'll first hear from, our two deputy, superintendents who head the academics and innovation
branch. Then we will hear from chief Berta on the role of operations, both internal and external operations. Our Our early learning and specialized populations, branch with Chief Conway. And then we will outline some of the next steps on the branch for external partnerships. Three of our four branches have been fully launched. So this has been across, the last ten months and a few months prior to my start, at the department. And then we are still in the conceptual and developmental phase on this last branch.
So you can see here, but we'll zoom in here momentarily on the next slide. But the, structure that's broken down, and we're now gonna go from left to right with deep dives so that you can see closely what's on the screen. So we're gonna start, with, deputy superintendent Tiara Booker Dwyer to walk us through, the first side of our branch of academics and innovation and how, this team is structured
to really deliver for kids and our educators. Yes. Good morning, a again, board members. So the structure of the division of student outcomes in school quality is organized to advance research based practices that improve student outcomes. We start with the office of educator workforce, and they focus on ensuring the quality of our teachers, our leaders, our paraprofessionals, and other, staff that, that function in our school buildings and central offices. They also, responsible for conducting any investigations into, to ensure that, educators, if they need
to maintain their license or if they need to have a license revoked. So they really do ensure that our education workforce is of high quality. The office of instruction is grounded and and focused on ensuring high quality standards and curriculum are implemented in every school. They lead our standards work. They are often on the front line doing professional learning, developing the instructional guides, and work and working hand in hand, with our office of student outcomes and performance because
they work on assessments. And we know that our standards and assessments are tightly aligned. And so we have a unit of student assessments and a unit of accountability so that we can, it's a one that that roll out of the school performance and support framework all under that unit of accountability. We have our office of school improvement that supports providing customized, technical assistance and, resources directly to division leaders and, school leaders.
They also coordinate the cross departmental, leveraging the subject matter experts from across the agency to to deliver their expertise directly in schools. And we are very excited about the office of excellence and best practices that will be scaling, identifying, effective practices to highlight and scale across the Commonwealth. Thank you, deputy superintendent. Do you want me to pause the questions I was talking about? Or do you call it? Okay. Alright. Deputy superintendent Duane McClary, outlines our next, major division within the branch of academics and
innovation. Thank you, superintendent Gulick and board. I'm excited to share a little bit about the division of innovation, student pathways, and opportunity. We are one of the newest, divisions within the organization and grateful for the prioritization of this work moving Virginia forward. Our vision is to, reimagine education in in education by fostering innovative learning environments and expanding student pathways and creating future ready opportunities that empower every learner to discover their passion, unlock their potential, and also to thrive in a dynamic world. Looking at, our structure of our office, you will see, first, the office of innovation,
no, the office of student pathways and opportunity. This unit, comprises a lot of our great work, from our CTE unit, which looks at the high demand credentials and showing that we're supporting, the Perkins five plan and implementing that with fidelity. We're also, looking at, coming soon, our unit for registered apprenticeship, high quality workforce, learning. This is really looking at how do we ensure that our students are receiving and, looking at and getting exposure to opportunities so that they are ready for the workforce.
We also are looking at expanding coming soon, focusing on the unit of military pathways. We are a military state, and so we need to also ensure that we're providing the right supports, for our students and also ensuring that they're entering and ready to go into the enlistment opportunities. We also have the unit of, federal and state tax credit programs. This support, for some tax credits that are heavily, popular across the state. And we're ensuring that we're, producing this in a fidelity, but also in a very
transparent manner, for state and federal tax credits. And we have our, new, revised three e readiness, coordinators. This will actually help support us to bring three e readiness alive for our districts. So these are individuals four individuals that we will supporting divisions, across, the state of Virginia to really bring that to life. Next is our office of innovation. Within this office, you will be able to see, that this office goes to comprise of innovation, which is around, virtual learning.
It's also around computer science. And also when you think about AI, we were looking at how do we utilize AI in a meaningful way, not only for students, but for teachers to kinda remove those mundane tasks so that they can focus more on students. Within that unit, you have the unit of digital learning, which I shared. So virtual Virginia is there. Computer science and AI component work is there. And then we have the computer science unit. Next is our office of advanced learning, where our gifted education governor school work happens and also our post secondary access and dual enrollment.
We're really focusing on dual enrollment this year and looking at how do we leverage dual enrollment and showing parents understand that work, but also how do we prepare our students. We should not wait until ninth grade. We should need to be looking more at middle school. How do we ensure that they've taken full access? And last but not least, we're super excited about the new office of, new learning models and school redesign. This office will focus on transforming public education through innovative student, centered approaches, but also expanding opportunities to increase, flexibility and delivering measurable results for our students.
So this office will definitely champion, looking at seat time flexibility, but also looking at, small learning communities that you'll be hearing about later, and also our lab schools, charter schools, and other flexible and innovative models to come. And helping schools really look at how do we redesign and utilizing the school construction grant in a meaningful way. That's our office. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Chief Burda will now walk you through, the branch of operations. Good morning, president Ashton, vice president Hansen, members of the board, and superintendent Gullickson, Berta,
Chief Operations Officer, for the part department and proud of the work that this team that I'm about to highlight for you does on a daily basis. I think one of the important pieces that you will see in this revised org structure is the division of human resources moving underneath the branch of operations. This was a critical move that we made due to the importance of really needing to connect and make sure that our human capital and finances align. And there was definitely a disconnect, before this structure change was made. Made. And so proud of the work that our division of HR and budget and finance
are doing to ensure that we are in alignment with MEL as well as in alignment with budget for the agency. Our division of human resources is really trying to focus on how we can enhance our own employee, relations, making sure that we recruit top talent. And this division certainly is an internal division to us and really doesn't function outside, outside, with other school divisions, unlike many of the other divisions that I support. You will also see the division of budget and finance, which is, has been under the operations branch for quite some time.
One of the exciting highlights for you is the office of grants administration. Across the agency, there has been a, discombobulated, I don't know how to describe it, function of grants administration. There was never a central hub of to manage all things grants. And so, many of our instructional and academic folks would I I operate in isolation separate from budget and finance. And so we've created this centralized hub, and this is work in progress for certain. Excited that we have found and discovered a, grants administrator that will begin at the
end of the month, to begin this great work. And so the units of our title programs will be there, but also you see that purple box that talks about the unit of general grants administration. And this is the continued work that we will be doing to move over other grants that function inside of our program offices to be a centralized hub. This is not only important for us as an agency to know what money we have available to support, but also for our school divisions. Everybody is currently operating in their own isolated bubbles, which creates some chaos for our
school divisions as there's different competing timelines. So we wanna create some consistency there, not only office of procurement. So really making sure that we are continuing to align resources. And I think the important part, of all of my divisions is really infusing the thoughts that what we do on a daily basis, while it might be indirect, is really an thoughts that what we do on a daily basis, while it might be indirect, is really an impact on students. And so every decision that we are making, we should be making for the benefit of students.
And that's one of the questions asked, how is this beneficial for kids? And so we will continue to infuse that work. It's really important, even though we manage a lot of the state agency operations, that we still think about our field and think about the school divisions that we serve. So then moving forward, I also support the division of operations and technology and security. And so this is made up of three different offices. One is the, office of support services, which supports our student transportation, our facilities and safety operations both internally and externally for school divisions just helping guide, that work that
happens through the school construction assistance programs and the literary fund loans that you all approve. The unit of school architecture is important because by code school divisions have to report projects to us. So our team actually looks at that from an architecture standpoint to make sure that all of the school facilities that are being proposed built renovations align with the requirements in state code. The office of school community and nutrition programs has been under operations. Excited about the work that is happening there to really make sure that we are providing schools and students with access to meals and good quality meals, providing training to
our school divisions, our school nutrition staff and our school divisions. This leadership of this, office does great job in trying to make sure that we're continuing to move the needle in school nutrition. The purple box you see is the office of accreditation and this is in response to the board's work, to expand accreditation to be more than just academics and really looking at how we incorporate facility and finance related school data collections into the process. And so this is underway and will align with the work of the board as
well, to ensure that we have staff that can monitor and really, take a look at the finance the facility and the finance related task related to accreditation. And last but not least is the division of operations and technology and security. And so really working to ensure that this team aligns with the needs of the agency. And this is where we're going to be doing some work to do some more cross collaboration across departments to make sure that we have the data tools, to to meet some of the innovative needs that we have and we've talked about.
So we are continuing to work in that arena to make sure that everything is aligned. I think the biggest part of all of mine is really trying to make sure that we have the connectivity to the academics, early childhood, special ed branches so that we can serve together to make sure that the decisions we are making are not done in isolation and are done in a collaborative manner. So really excited about the work of the branch of operations. Thank you. Thank you, chief Berta. Chief Conway. Good morning, president Ashton, vice president Hansen, superintendent, members of the board.
I am Jenna Conway. I am a chief of early learning and specialized populations. I'm very pleased to be here today talking about, the broad spectrum of work that the department does. As some of you are familiar with, the VDOE has a birth through twelfth grade and beyond, in fact, mandate. So we typically think about state education agencies as k 12, entities, but there are far more little learners and adult learners that we support.
And, the support for those folks sits in the branch of early learning and specialized population. So on, led by the very capable deputy superintendent Samantha Hollins, we have the division of special education and the division of specialized populations. So you're familiar with special education, but that ranges from, the dispute resolution supporting families, who are concerned about the experiences that their students are having, the instructional services.
So this, unit works very closely, with, deputy superintendent Booker Dwyer as we think about not only the tier one instruction that students are receiving, but what are those additional interventions, Budget and finance. There's a significant amount of federal funds involved and then ultimately program improvement. So accounting for all of those federal funds and ensuring that they're delivering on behalf of kids. Sam also oversees our specialized populations, and that looks at adult education. And so, really, that kind of lifelong trajectory of learning and how we're maximizing every
federal dollar to support those learners as well as led by and that's led by Heidi and then the work of Joe and the team around behavioral health and student safety, which continues to be, front and center for our our schools and our educators across the Commonwealth. If you look on the other side of the spectrum, if Heidi supports the adult learners and we go all the way down to the babies, and this is where the division of early learning is. I always wish I could bring actual props, give you each an infant to hold,
a weekly infant to hold during this part of the presentation. But you'll see, so and, mister Carraway or doctor Carraway, you're new, but in 2020, Virginia passed a law moving oversight of birth to five care and education from education from different state agencies all to the DOE. And so it's now, under the auspices of the board of education. And so, some states have consolidated. Some states, it's still fragmented. Some states create their own agency, but, Virginia's approach was to think about how would
we leverage the strength of education while also building out a public private system that is inclusive of family childcare and childcare and head start and all of the programs that parents of our littlest learners select. And so you'll see kind of a, a similar structure within early learning that you have in the broader, VDOE as the unique nature of these programs, educators, and kind of family preferences looks slightly different from from k 12. We have the office of early learning, and that covers everything from analytics and technology
to learning to grants and finance, quality workforce, and then preschool programs. And again, you know, this supports with our work of VQB five, which is our nation leading, measurement and improvement system as well as and this, if you think about learning, we're thinking about your early learning and development standards, the curriculum used in preschool, even curriculum used with babies and toddlers, and VKRP, which is the Virginia Virginia kindergarten readiness program, which is for threes, fours, and kindergartners.
So we work very closely with doctor, with deputy superintendent, Booker Dwyer, for that continuum from our littlest, littlest learners through third grade with this goal of getting kids not only to kindergarten ready, but to third grade on level. We also make sure because our little learners tend to be more vulnerable that they are safe wherever they might be. And so, led by and office of early childhood is led by deputy superintendent, sorry, assistant superintendent Erin Carroll. Office of childcare health and safety is led by assistant superintendent Jeff Williams, but his
team, which is located in regional offices across the states inspects. So they're out there today walking through childcare centers, making sure, that they are safe for young children and putting that information online for parents. Led by assistant assistant superintendent Rebecca Ulrich is our office of early childhood access enrollment policy. And you might say, well, why do we need that? Isn't that covered over in chief Berta's shop? Early childhood is different from k 12 and that there is not a universal, funding
through one source. They're all for all children. Instead, it's a combination of state and federal funds, and states are charged with making decisions about how do we allocate these dollars, who do we prioritize as being in most need, how do we set those rates, and how do we distribute those resources based on parent preference. And so we have an entire shop that's dedicated to that, works very closely with the Department of Social Services to make sure that families can, access the childcare subsidies, kind of think of them as kind of vouchers or scholarships for for families to
choose childcare across the Commonwealth. And then last but not least, you know Head Start as a federal to local grant. And so the federal government, contracts about 46 grantees across the state to run Head Start. Those are in Virginia, they might be schools, they might be local government, they might be community action agencies, five zero one c three organizations. But each state has at their, kind of lead agency an office of head start collaboration. And so executive director, Twanda Jeffries works very closely with me with the community action
agencies and with the head start grantees. Even though we don't have any direct authority over those head start and early head start programs, that's still over a $160,000,000 in federal dollars that come in to serve upwards of 12,000 of our most vulnerable, most low income, infants, toddlers, and mostly preschoolers. And so that kind of having that all in one shot means that we can truly, serve. And I mean, think back to the superintendent's first slide. We are organized to execute on behalf of families, across a slightly different landscape than
just your typical, k 12 system. Thank you very much. Thank you, chief Conway. So as you can see, three of these branches have fully launched. I wanna draw your attention to the legend. And so that, green in progress, there are a handful of roles that interviews are underway where jobs are live. Purple, getting a bit more input from stakeholders, to get those, roles or offices live, like accreditation per the board's great direction and, newest, SOQ prescription nod last month, but
really being thoughtful. And, we're really proud of all the work there in a stronger, more more coherent structure constituents. As we look at the last branch, we it's our external partnerships. Now this one has come, as a focal point, especially from our, board of ed members, on how do we continue to make sure, that we have, outreach constituent services,
even further than what's underway right now so that we can really be partners with the field. And so this is still a directional concept. It's still getting input both internally and externally. Externally. The blue and gray offices are alive. They are currently in existence, and you know many of those team members. And then you will see some, roles that, are live around press relations, not just for internal, messages, but really making sure we're better able to tell the story of
what the department and most importantly, our schools and communities are doing externally. And then really streamlining. We've had, our team on educator partnerships. You've certainly seen Doctor. Christine Harris here, and our, our team on parental engagement are currently live, but really, how can we, better leverage them with our community partners and, really, looking at ways, to make sure, especially in new dynamics, we have even more access local, state, and
federal relations, from boards of supervisors, and mayors, especially with all of our new SCAP and linear loans, and onwards. And then we also have had great momentum from the team. You will hear, from mister Chapman here on item c on all of the momentous progress on regulatory, exploratory stages around a new division around governance, regulatory, and legal affairs.
Right now, we have a one person FOIA team. She is dynamic, but as you saw in the strategic plan, you know, public records and transparency are so critical. And so really elevating that critical work that she does every day around an office of public access records and compliance, really being able to pull out all of that critical work on regulatory management and, being able to better navigate with our, fantastic partners
at the, office of the attorney general so that, Dev Love doesn't get 45 emails from 45 different teams. And so this one's for you, Deb. And so that is still in the works, but we wanted to show you based on this one's largely been informed from board member comments as well on where needs are and for all the great work that we're doing in the community. So, with that, we will open it up for board member comments or questions, and the team's available to field anything you have.
Any questions, comments for the team? Thank you. Appreciate it. Quick question around, I have two questions. One of those being around our first let's see there. The, Office of Student Pathways and Opportunities. I know we've got the unit of Career Technical Education and then a coming soon unit of Registered Apprenticeship and high quality work based learning. Can someone share with me? I know from an accreditation perspective, we've got those high quality work based learning pieces taken by conventionally. I just wanna know how that will crawl to our indication between minutes.
Did you say that the last part I didn't hear you? Just really wanting to make sure I understand how the unit the CTE unit and the, apprenticeship and high quality work based learning will crosswalk, knowing that kind of both are contributing to that accreditation of a student, for the three d readiness. Yes. So that's a collaboration of of me and and and, deputy superintendent, Booker Dwyer. I will say, in order for the apprenticeship work to happen, you'll hear a little bit more today about seat time flexibility because we have to first address that before
we can get into the apprenticeship component. So that will be a great component for districts, to be able to understand how can we get this done. But then also with the apprenticeship, and high quality demands, we're also looking at how do we ensure that the three e readiness framework that we have, I think we're revisiting that work and ensuring that that it's aligned so that when students are actually taking that advantage of this apprenticeship, internship, work based learning, that is also recognized by our CTE Perkins Vibe plan. So I think that's something that we we're definitely working to ensure, that they're they're
not in isolation, they're in a collaboration, so that when students do take advantage of these opportunities, it's reflected in there. And I would like to add on, member Monk, you know, this is a new metric for us in the current draft of the Perkins five, especially around youth and pre apprenticeships. This is definitely a critical component within the Virginia Works strategic plan as one of their core moonshots. And we also have heard from superintendents, school business officials, and principals that they, want
more technical support and guidance and thought partnership around the monies that are available for youth in pre apprenticeship. Virginia has historically left some of those dollars on the table, and so, really, how can we better collaborate? But as you can see and as you've picked up on the theme and also how we're structuring the new facility where the team, continues to transition into at 701 East Franklin, these teams are definitely not in silos. And so, the teams, the structure, this whole, branch is on one floor with collaborative
spaces, collapsible, movable walls. This is not as if one team is on Floor 14 and one is on 20. And so there will be, great collaboration partnership and great linkages with the team and, register apprenticeship team specifically on the ground at Virginia Works to make sure that we're really driving forward in a in a connected way. But also, expanding the support and technical thought partnership around this part of the work, given the focal point from all of the workforce agencies as well as higher ed
institutions. And as we get more input from the field, especially from SHEB, VCCS, like, everyone's coming out with their new plans and their new strategic goals, we're also ensuring that we're looking at those and make sure we're taking those into effect. And, also, this is new work for us, so we're also looking at, alright, what does this look like? How do we roll this out? How do we support districts? How do we ensure that, funding is aligned? I think it's it's a work in progress, but we are definitely trying to be very strategic that we're not siloing our work, that it's not just, opportunity, and and
pathways work. It's an actual Virginia Department of Ed work. Hence, the coming soon. It's still work in progress, but critical work. Yeah. Yeah. I appreciate that. I know, in the forefront, especially in youth apprenticeships, you know, work with those registered intermediaries. There's a lot of, labor intensive lifting there. And so I'm, it's great to have a unit that will be focused on that but also, connected. So I appreciate and and look forward to seeing what that looks like. And, not really a question on the second component, but just really excited about, the connection of HR, and the division of budget and finance.
So looking forward to seeing how that correlates. And then, of course, I know, I've talked at nauseam about our grants, and so looking forward to that coming soon dot of, general grants administration. I think that will be really powerful for local, school divisions across the Commonwealth. And, mister Monk, I'll also say this will be coming your way as well as the cochair for the CTE advisory. We're also gonna be getting a lot of input from you and miss Kilgore. Looking forward to that. Thank you. Thank you, mister Mike. And yes, mister McPherson. Right. I wanted to, thank the staff as well for the development of this, whole operational
strategy because it it's becoming clearer to the board as to how the parts are gonna be integrated and at the same time do the individual work, especially as it relates to grants, and grants management that they've reorganized so that we don't have these gaps or, you know, missing information that we have to catch up with later. I think about an easy one. They have one thing about, early they're very early learners. When they do the inspections, are they inspected both the facility as well as, say,
the playground areas and the safety youngest people face, you know, and the teacher population as relates to being able to watch the very early learners. Absolutely. So for the Office of Childcare Health and Safety, they execute or use, for their inspection the different regulations that have been approved by this board. And so they look different, for example, for child care centers as compared to, family
family child care settings. They look at both inside they look at all the spaces that children are. Right? So they look at the the the the kind of the classroom spaces, and they look at the outdoor spaces. They there's also and it's quite complicated. There's also a set of federal requirements for programs that take public dollars, some some minimum health and safety expectations. So those are primarily, thanks to the work of this board in recent years, aligned with the childcare licensure. But if you are a faith based program, for example, that is not has chosen
not to be licensed but does take public dollars, that you have a sort of a similar set of of baseline expectations. This body has in the last four years completely overhauled this child day center regulations and with the goal of of implementing that that next year to kind of focus on using the the the the most recent research on kind of striking that right balance on keeping kids healthy and safe, but also, minimizing regulatory burden. And all of that, board member McPherson is separate from BQB five.
So those are the In person observations of the teacher child interaction. So licensing, health and safety, we'll just look at, are there the appropriate number of children? Right? You wouldn't wanna come into a setting and see nine babies and one educator. Not only is that a poor educator, but, you know, and, how can you possibly change and feed and manage all those babies, but it's dangerous, right, if there were to be a fire or some other incident. But they're just looking at that kind of minimum. What VQB five is looking at is how that educator or all the educators in
the classroom are interacting with the young learners. So we kind of and what the VQB five online portal does is put all that information at parents' fingertips so you can go to one place for health, safety, and learning information about all of our programs that take public dollars. Doctor Northern. Yeah. Kudos, on this. I've got a question and a comment. My question is I noticed that the, English language learners and our gifted kids are in the academics and innovation branch, and our special populations are in the early learning
branch together. And I guess I'm just trying to figure out, why are, you know, the advantages of having the early learning and the special needs branch together. Do they coordinate? Is there some reason to have those in the same branch? And why perhaps our other special populations, our ELs, and our gifted are in a different branch than our special populations. Yeah. Well, this may be for all three of you. So I'll start with Jenna, and we'll go in order. So doctor Nordlund, so this is I'm now on year 14 of working in state
education agencies, and I will say that there are lots of different ways, right, to kind of organize and and title these different components and that ultimately, one can never draw, like, a crystal clear bright line. Right? I mean, sort of even the title specialized populations could encompass a whole broad set. I would say right now, the this decision was sort of driven more by kind of where folks were located, how to kind of pull together a set of disparate groups that often kind of went beyond the kind of typical scope of of k
12 and then to kind of organize upwards and partner, for me to work very closely with the assistant supes in early learning and then with the deputy superintendent on special education and specialized populations. It is not a forever time, and I think, as, as you hear with with, deputy superintendent McClary, he works very closely with deputy superintendent, Booker Dwyer. Right? There's just not bright lines across his work. And I would say that, Sam's work in particular, you know, is situated very much in between the work of early childhood and the work of doctor Booker Dwyer.
So, the sort of think of it less around we define it as specialized population and then put things underneath and more that we sort of pull things together, realize some, strategic ways to kind of integrate and combine and call that specialized populations. But, ultimately, we have to work closely across the different units because there's just not these bright lines across any of of the org chart regardless of, you know, how how bright the white might be on the background here. Thank you, chief Kamay. And then, deputy McClary, can you elaborate on our advanced and gifted learners under the
Office of Advanced Learning, the value? Yeah. So we definitely collaborate across the whole division, because we have to ensure that when we provide these supports for students, we're looking at how do we bring in the special education opportunities, how do we also looking at we have receiving high quality instruction, but also looking at innovative approaches moving forward? So we there is a lot of dotted lines that you may not see here. And I will tell you, my teams is lit up from multiple offices where anything that we do, we're just not doing it in silos. We're actually doing it across collaborative approaches.
We have our leadership support teams. We have our functions. We, you know, walk next door to Tiara's office, or I'll go find Sam. We ensure that nothing that we do comes out without the eyes of others before it it definitely comes before the public. So that work is happening. And what we really felt like from the feedback we were getting from the field with the new auto enrollment, law around our fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth graders in math, the readiness indicator around advanced coursework for middle schools that, really having that focal
point was important. We heard that a lot from our middle school and high school principals, having a one stop hub for advanced coursework, as well as knowing exactly where to go on early college credit coursework, dual enrollment, and the pathways through made sense. And then, deputy superintendent, Booker Dwyer, do you wanna address the last one? Yes. So just to double down on what my colleagues have said, we really do work across all the different divisions. And so with, instruction, for instance, instruction assessment and our special education as we're developing
these assessments, The the core content standards have to be addressed, and then we also have to develop assessments that for, our, special education students. And so we work seamlessly across all of our areas. And you'll even see later on today, a presentation around school supports, that's gonna highlight, the special education work and, the team the work of my team. So we we break down all these barriers to ensure that we are addressing the needs of all students holistically. Although we are assigned to different, units and divisions, we truly do work across the
department. Okay. Thank you for that. And I was just curious the, a pre post. Like, is this, like, big time change, or is this, like is it nips and tucks, or does was this I guess, you know, what did the pre hierarchy structure look like? Or was there not really a strong hierarchy hierarchy late before? Everybody's smiling. So Chief Conway, since you said that you'd been here for fourteen years in the agency. In the agency world. Yes.
In the state agency world. Nominated yourself for commentary. So, I I think the best way to think about this, doctor Northen, is just it's constantly evolving. I know, you know, again, having done this work for six years in Louisiana and now eight here and having worked both across the department and with the the the governor's office, you know, and with, you know, very closely with all of our our partners in the general assembly. I think the true North remains the same of you should organize departments of education, you should organize state education agencies by the function.
Right? By the work that you're trying to achieve on behalf of students, families, and educators. SEAs of a decade ago where it's often associated by funding source. And I use the example of title one where we have title one schools and we have title one educators. And in fact, in Louisiana, we had a title one building because guess what? That building was funded by title one. And it really misses the point that title one is about serving our kids and our communities that are are most low income, most disadvantaged, most in need of support, schools, educators, and kids.
And so I use that as just a kind of example of where we've inadvertently, because we're bureaucratic, because we're subject to jargon, kind of gone astray and thinking about how we organize the people and the resource and the processes to execute. You think about a school, you think about an educator, you think about a community differently. If if you go in saying, these are the schools, these are the kids who are in greatest need of support, versus this is title one. And so I'd say that, the VDOE in my eight years in Virginia has been
in constant flux. I think parts of this reflect pretty significant change and then parts of it, like the elements, you know, when I started in Virginia, you know, I didn't have any direct reports in the area of early learning, and we've taken some things that are as is and we've also sort of restructured. So for example, when we moved over a a top notch team from the Department of Social Services, they at the time were called vendor relations, and we didn't see that as the work. We saw it really as sort of services and customer service and renamed it.
Our work is colloquially known as licensure, but we really think their goal is to keep kids healthy and safe, and so we renamed it the office of childcare health and safety. Renaming alone, you know, taking title one off the building and just changing the the name won't change the culture and won't change the hearts and minds. But I think, you know, this has been an evolution rather than kind of a revolution or dramatic change. And my guess is that it will continue to change, and it should as there are other opportunities that make themselves available federally, as there are other interests of the
governors and the general assembly. And the real kind of true north that will continue to come back to the chiefs and the deputies are are we organized efficiently to deliver for kids from birth through, adult learning experiences? And if not, how can we better organize ourselves? And I just really need to say this. Right? Like, there's just no perfect way to do this. And so the collaboration and sort of but but by organizing by function, it helps you to sort of really say, where are we the same? Where are we different?
And how do we work across the different branches, titles, offices, divisions, departments Yes. A lot. Lots of different, terminology, but, those are the the that true north remains the same. Thank you very much. I'll also add, and this came up at VAST, we are also reorganizing by needs. So districts have been echoing some needs for a long time, and so now they're they're kind of like, we've been asking for this. Prime example, seat time flexibility. It has been a statue for a while. They did not know how to actually implement that.
We have a webinar today where a 180 plus divisions have signed up up to do that work. So we're also listening to parents, to teachers, but most importantly, the people that we serve divisions to ensure that we're moving them faster and helping them understand how to utilize funds in a more meaningful way. So that is also a big component. So braiding all of those things together has been interesting, but it's been great work. Thank you. Well, thank you. Just leave that slide up. Just I I just wanna thank you all, and thank you, superintendent Gullickson, for this.
And I'm just gonna maybe share thirty seconds of my geek self on this. I I was fifteen years at the U. S. Department of Education, and, it was, I was CFO, COO, Deputy Secretary. And this is important because you have to have the public trust of, our constituents, our families, our parents, the taxpayers, the schools, teachers, and those that lead the schools. And, you know, it was, I remember it was about twenty four years ago today,
we got the first ever clean audit at the US Department of Education. And it was a $2,000,000,000,000 bank, pretty much in essence at the time. But that was important, where, a lot of time people wonder why you're wasting all your time on this. But it, it just showed that, you take, your stewardship seriously, the execution, country. And so, I just, I know we spent a good deal of time on this.
I know it's been a priority for you, but it also is just evident with the, the leadership, team as well. I just, I I just really commend you for the the work and the collaboration and, the leadership that each of you are putting forward on this. So just thank you, for this. We're gonna move on to the next agenda item, but I'm also just gonna make a comment, to the board. We're on agenda item C and we have W to get to. So, I'm going to suggest that we actually just plow ahead here for the next,
hour or so to get into our lunch, period. But if people need to take a break, please, excuse yourself for a few minutes. And, but, you're not gonna like me sitting in the chair seat today, but I just would like to keep us plugged in and plowing ahead. So, mister Chapman, thank you. And this is also likewise a very important topic to me, and, just, appreciate the good work because I'll set the table for you, but thank you. Thank you. President Ashton, if she's still on, Vice President Hansen, members of the board, and Superintendent
Gullickson. I am so excited to be here to present the, the, final results of the executive order 19 regulatory reduction efforts that this board has had ongoing, especially because I know that the depths of regulatory detail are at the center of this board's interests, and certainly of of the attention. This is clearly the most exciting work that's done, in state government. A brief summary of this presentation. You know, we're gonna go through, what the executive order required. I wanna talk a little bit about this regulatory reduction method, and I think that'll
become clear a little bit later why. We are gonna present the final regulatory reduction results as long as the guidance document, method and the guidance document executive order 19 was issued, within six months of the governor Youngkin's inauguration as, as required by state law. And that order, was very different from previous executive orders on the regulatory process in large part because it began with a very forthright recognition of a number of the problems, with the regulatory process in Virginia.
At the time of the publication of EO 19, approximately half of all regulatory actions, in the state were exempt actions. Not all agencies were utilizing the Virginia regulatory town hall website, which of course made it a lot more difficult for the public to track, which regulatory actions were moving through state agencies. There was no standard cost benefit analysis that was conducted on proposed regulations, and this is certainly out of step, with the way that regulations are are promulgated at the federal level. But the biggest thing is that this process, was extremely cumbersome with numerous opportunities for
delay. And anyone who is, you know, claims in state government to do regulatory work, and you see that they've only been in a job for a year or a year and a half, you can be guaranteed that they haven't seen anything happen in the regulatory process, where large scale regulatory actions often take three or four years to complete, and span across administrations. It it was a process that was very, very long, and it's something that Executive Order 19, was particularly interested, in cutting back. And so one of the things that Governor Youngkin did was he created the office
of the reg of regulatory management within the office of the governor, that has been headed up by, beginning director, Andrew Wheeler, and most recently director Reeve Bull, who, I know he's not here today, but I have to say is one of the most delightful people you will ever meet in state government. In addition to being a a a scholar of sorts on regulatory processes and theory. He's just an an incredible person to work with and has done a a fantastic job of really creating a central spot in the governor's office where, agencies across verticals
within the governor's office, can get clarity on how actions are moving when they affect different branches, of the or different aspects of the executive branch. And he has really done a lot to speed up the process with for review, in coordination with the various secretaries, with the agencies. That alone has been a a a fantastic accomplishment of this. In addition, Executive Order 19 did require a 25% reduction of regulatory requirements by the 2025, which has since come and gone. Or sorry, by the governor's term, but but largely 2025.
And we'll talk a little bit about what that, requirement entailed. And also a 25% reduction of guidance document word counts by the end of the administrative term. So, when we talk about how did this happen, what exactly did this board do in order to achieve regulatory reduction results? Well, the first part was we had to obtain a baseline regulatory count for all of the board's regulations, and that's done in accordance with the Office of Regulatory Management's, accounting procedures. A baseline regulatory count, asked us to count all aspects of a regulation, every discrete
line of code, that required an individual to act in a particular way, or it affected behavior in some way. And so the accounting procedures asked us to divide all of these and categorize them into those requirements which were mandatory upon upon reguance. Meaning those who were the the the the people who are being regulated by a body of regulations, or that they're mandatory upon the agency. And really what this means is that it's it's a state law or a federal law that's requiring the actions. And so the the regulation is simply, mimicking that requirement that's already, in a state
law or in a federal law or a federal regulation. And then we would divide those also into discretionary requirements, which are are those actions where an agency is exercising, a little bit more control over the specifics of what and how, behavior or action is being controlled. And those also were divided between, those upon an agency. A lot of times, when we're doing regulations, the board exercises authority and it's really telling the department to do certain things, as opposed to those regulatory requirements which we're
acting upon, the regulants or those people who who were involved in in in being regulated by the board. For the purpose of the 25% reduction, ORM was only counting the 25% of discretionary on the regulants. So it is a significantly smaller number than the total number of regulatory requirements in the chapter. But in the process of of doing this, and obtaining this baseline count, Joe Crook, over there and myself spent, weeks, in a small corner of the Monroe Building, going
through the board's entire regulatory catalog. Thousands of lines of of, the administrative code and slowly documenting each and every single requirement, that the board has, has made in the last thirty or forty years. That was a significant portion of our 2023. And since then, Connor Skelly on the team has also, contributed a lot to making sure that those numbers, are are accurate. We then analyzed all the regulations for their potential for reduction so that we knew
we could target on large clusters of discretionary requirements. We initiated periodic reviews on regulatory chapters, and there's gonna be a little bit more about that on the next slide. And then there would be tons of internal consultation with subject matter experts, the office of the attorney general, and we would then propose actions to board leadership, and bring those to the board for review. The real engine that drove the board's, regulatory reduction was the periodic review cycle. The agency had never done periodic reviews before January 2024.
So this was a, a very different process to stand up internally. And so we would start off, my office would send out a questionnaire to whoever we found would be the subject matter expert of a particular regulatory chapter. We would ask lots of questions around what stakeholders, you know, needed input on a particular regulatory chapter about the continuing utility of the regulations. Lots of policy questions and certainly a lot about changes since publication. We would have a lot of dialogue as a result of this, sometimes hours.
And then we would go into a research and analysis phase where we would spend a lot of time reading volumes of federal estate law and policy. We would take historical detours and do board minutes from the '80s, the '90s. Regulatory documents that we would have to dig up. And at least on one occasion, a trip to the Library of Virginia Archives in order to dig up the documents that we needed in order to really understand, what the board had done years and years and years ago. After that we would open up a public comment on town hall. This was the first of numerous points of engagement for the public, where they would
be able to comment on the regulatory chapter, and what they thought the utility of that chapter was, whether it needed changes or not. We would then move into a presentation of results, to the board, where there was additional opportunity for public comment. And then after that if necessary we were initiating periodic reviews. There would be additional analysis, additional stakeholder engagement during the regulatory process, and opportunity for public comment at each stage through that. And by statute, periodic reviews also include, opportunities for review by both the office of
the attorney general and by the governor's office. This was not a quick process, but it was a very thorough process that the board engaged in. So what were these regulatory reduction results? Well, as I mentioned, as of 2024, the board had never done periodic reviews. But as of this point in time, the board has completed 46 periodic reviews on its regulatory chapters between 2024 and 2025. That is about 85% of the board's regulatory chapters, that were subject to a periodic review, which which means that they had not been promulgated within the last four years.
So that excluded a couple of the early childhood, chapters, or if they were not currently being repealed or replaced with a new chapter. So for example, the standards of accreditation, underwent a repeal and replace. And as did a couple of chapters within the, early childhood division. 85% in two years is an unbelievable timeline. It was a a a lot of work that the board has done to review all of those chapters within such a short period. And you may notice that the governor had requested for a 25% reduction in requirements. This board, in that same time, in those two years, has repealed or streamlined 19
regulatory chapters. That means 19 chapters that are no longer subject to periodic reviews. They have been either ruled to be out of date and no longer required to be on the board's role, or else they have been moved into a single chapter that made more sense organizationally for the regulation. So instead of that just achieving a 25% reduction, the board actually rolled back 32% of its chapters of regulations. That is an an absolutely astounding number. But in addition to that, we have initiated 38 separate regulatory actions in the past two years for the purposes of regulatory reduction.
That does not include having overseen this board had oversaw 52 total regulatory actions during that same period. We removed numerous documents incorporated by reference that were imposing outdated or discussion Now, part
of the reason for making sure that we spent a lot of time on the method that was pursued and making sure we're clear about the time is that 62% I know is a, is a fairly large number. When we first started this project, we were really wondering how we were gonna get to 25%. So the fact that this agency was able to achieve a 62%, I feel like deserves some explanation. The board has removed four DIBRs, four of these documents incorporated by reference that alone accounted for about 50% of the regulatory reduction goal.
And I think this is part of the importance of going through an exercise like this. For example, the board removed a reference to forms within its regulations governing school activity funds. That alone reduced two fifty eight discretionary requirements that were not in use, as the forms had long been replaced by industry standards promulgated by the General Accounting Standards Board. So here you have a government being involved in telling schools how they are supposed to use forms that are not in line with industry best practices. That document was repealed, reference to it was repealed, and 258 of these discretionary requirements,
were no longer imposed upon schools that we had no reason to think was in their best interest to, to continue to use. In the regulations governing adult high school programs, the board chose to remove a very restrictive reference to an external degree competencies program, that was first of all out of date by a number of years inversions, and in the process opened up a number of different compliance pathways for other such external degree competency programs to stand in its place or alongside, the program that had been in the regulation specifically named this reduced
71 discretionary requirements. In the regulations governing pew, pupil transportation, there were a 100 discretionary requirements that were removed from a DIBR simply by categorizing form templates that had been promulgated by VDOE and had been a document incorporated by reference. So in the regulatory world, this was telling schools you must use these forms, whereas the board's intent as we could gather from talking with the field, talking with experts was that these were really suggested forms to use. So we removed those in order to make clear the flexibility that, schools already had.
And then the big one, 2,461 discretionary requirements were involved in the removal of the drivers' drivers' education standards of learning, which was, stated specifically in the regulations that this is what must be taught. Now the big problem with that is that that particular driver's education SOL was two cycles out of date. Now you you probably recall standards of learning are reviewed on seven year cycles. So this was, you know, two cycles out of date, fourteen years out of date. But they also didn't need to be, specifically named within the statute.
So essentially all of those requirements simply by removing the reference, to the drivers of education SOL, and instead deferring to the statute requiring for the public school curriculum to be taught by these, we aligned the board's re regulations with underlying statute, allowed a lot more flexibility to the field and essentially moved these from discretionary to mandatory requirements. Now even if those DIBRs were not factored in the board's baseline total, or the reduction efforts, I am proud to say that the board still would have achieved a
30% reduction in discretionary requirements. And this final regulatory reduction percentage exceeds the governor's goal in EO'nineteen by a little over 37%. However, in line with our cost benefit analysis that the Office of Regulatory Management asked each of these regulations to, to, to perform, we also have some indirect benefits from this that, are worth discussing. Because the agency had been so long without doing periodic reviews, this was an unbelievable opportunity for the agency to develop its own leadership, its own capacity for reviewing regulations,
and its own institutional knowledge. We have been able to provide training opportunities on regulatory processes that can be extremely obscure, and reflect on the board and, the board's, board policy and agency policy in the process. And very, you know, important to me, we've created an internal process for the review and modernization of regulations and guidance documents that has a number of parallels that can be applied to other areas of the agency as they review policy. And even as they start reviewing, you know, legislation internally.
Those skills transfer across, the work that, is done within each vertical of the agency. And certainly as legislative, season, you know, comes into play here, I hope that, staff members will be able to use those same skills as they analyze legislation, and what types of things need to change as the result of legislative proposals. The guidance document reduction method, I'll I'll I wanna be sensitive to Vice President Hansen's, comments about the time. We pro pro pursued a very similar review process. The only difference is we had to obtain a baseline for the word count, for
each document, which meant converting them from PDFs into Word documents and doing a word total. But we would do a lot of internal consultation with subject matter experts with VDOE, with the office of the attorney general. We would bring actions to the board in regular intervals, removing guidance documents if they were outdated or proposing other changes. And I will say, you know, this agency has reviewed a 175 guidance documents in the last two years. I personally know I've read every single word of those guidance documents. I think mister Crook and mister Skelly have done about the same.
And this board had determined that about 50 of those guidance documents no longer need to be certified as active. There was a removal of 4,300 438,496 words, or 28.7% of the 2022 baseline in the process. So next steps that we'll, we'll be pursuing. We have a few chapters that we would like to complete periodic reviews, of those chapters. We do need to navigate a sustainable schedule for these periodic reviews in the future, because we did so many of the chapters within a two year span, and because
those are all subject to periodic reviews every four years, I personally have no intention of doing another 85% of those in two year span. So we'd like to stretch that out over a a reasonable schedule. And we'd also like to establish a schedule for the periodic review of guidance documents. That's something that a recent executive order, encouraged agencies to do. We do have a schedule for that, that, you know, we would like to start pursuing in the next three or four years. And we're ready to roll out to make sure each guidance document gets adequate review, and that we don't have continued outdated guidance, on the Virginia Town Hall, that doesn't
reflect current board priorities and does not reflect current law. That brings me to the end of my presentation. Thank you, mister Chapman. Any questions or comments? Okay. I just miss, Vice President Hansen, I would just like to thank Jim and his team members who stepped out, but I will relay this to them as well. Exceptional leadership. I had the privilege of working with Jim and the secretary of education side of this work before joining the agency. And, this is no small feat. And so, Jim, I hope you are very proud on what you have done to
give more flexibility and autonomy to those in the field and that they have the accurate, regs and guidance to act upon to better and further, our work for kids. So congratulations. Thank you very much. Alright. Next item, D, Small Learning Communities, and Dwayne McClary. Duane. Good morning once again to president Ashton in absent, well, virtually, and vice president, Hansen presiding today, superintendent Gullickson, and to the board members.
The Virginia, Small Learning Communities Toolkit offers a road map, for transforming large school systems and large schools into personalized student learning environments. At its core, this small learning community model organizes and supports students and educators in small, cohesive units often themed around career pathways, academic interests, or grade bands where relationships, relevance, and rigor drives everyday teaching and learning. The purpose of this toolkit is to help school divisions, embed small learning communities into
their daily practices rather than just treating them as isolated programs. Research have shown that well implemented small learning communities improve attendance, behavior, and graduation rates while creating clear pathways to career and college. This work does did not come up by itself. This was actually, work that was being requested from the field, from divisions. Also looking at it, is a greater, component, which you will hear a little later around our, projections and student enrollment. This is actually something that's coming out of that work as well.
So we wanted to ensure that we're providing guidance for divisions. And so I'm gonna just walk through this quickly and for, you know, time's sake. So looking at kinda the first section one of the document, the purpose and scope, the goal is to, one, you know, research cons consistently shows that well implemented small learning communities strengthen our student adult relationships, also improving attendance behavior, increasing graduation rates, and providing clearer post secondary pathways. Principles, our superintendents may also, choose to design and launch small learning communities, to add
personalization without creating entirely new schools. This approach can, now be supported through our school construction assistance program grants, under the Board of Education Amendment fall twenty twenty five guidance. School leaders might also implement small learning communities to boast engagement in larger schools, which also better align, high school pathways, with workforce or college, readiness, or help middle schools to prepare for, freshman coursework.
To determine whether small learning communities are needed and how they can be best, serve students, school leadership can also analyze enrollment trends, review, recent school performance, and support framework day data and also engage families early in the process. You'll see within the scope, we designed, for school divisions and school administrators, instructional teams, student support personnel. This toolkit also outlines some best practices for structuring small learning communities to operate, smoothly
in everyday in person instruction and also serve as a guidance for, transitioning seamlessly to a hybrid or remote, modality when needed. And as you can see, there are some guidance here, for that. But also, we we outlined here by embedding, you know, small learning communities into the fabric of the everyday instruction and aligning with the Virginia Department of Education priorities around instructional quality, opportunity, and, student well-being, divisions are also building system they can build systems
that help deliver, consistent high quality teaching as well as secondary benefit in remaining, resilient, and without disruption. We also kinda developed and shared here a crosswalk, looking at how, everyday practices of small learning community aligns with our profile of Virginia graduate. And as you can see here outlined for the small learning communities practices, also, looking at how it aligns with our, profile of a Virginia graduate. Section two outlines the core principles of the small learning community.
So really looking at, how it's grounded in the belief that students learn best in environments where they are known, supported, and challenged, and organizing, students and educators in smaller, more autonomous semi autonomous teams with a shared mission, which helps increase engagement, personalization, and suited outcomes, which also leads to better enrollment. You'll see here some fundamental practices and principles, within that section. Moving to section three, you will see the everyday instructional routines and structures.
And so it was really looking at how do you use daily practices, that improve instructional quality and student supports. So this hits on, relationship centered structures, looking at collaborative planning and cohesive instruction, tiered supports, models, data practices, and progress monitoring, family and community partnerships. Section four looks at the resilience and continuity. While as small learning communities are, primary, primarily in in everyday instructional approach, their routines,
can also naturally support the continuity of learning during disruptions. So using the following addendums to align with existing, small learning community structures, for resilient planning. So we also have outlined some supports here for, preparedness for schools. So looking at, building on everyday routines that have already in place by small learning communities can actually support, some virtual home, basis, scenario trainings where they can actually practice remote transitions and activate commune communication trees and refreshing student well-being and readiness.
And then we also can look at access planning. We also have here some outlines of response responsiveness responsiveness doing a temporary disruption to schools and a recovery, for post disruption. Section five, looks at the implementation guidelines. So this looks at the designs and structures, give a little guidance around what the design and structures of small learning communities could be. That could be around student grouping models, staffing and leadership, space planning, but also seat
time flexibility. Looking at, access and inclusion, where we can look at technology connectivity, inclusive practices, and family and community engagement. Also outlined in section five is professional learning and capacity building and the monitoring and evaluation of continued improvement. Section six looks at the benefits for students, families, and educators, and this enhances day to day experiences by building personalized inclusive environments that reduce, the, and and it strengthens
relationships that can ultimately provide improved engagement and attendance, clear communication pathways, safer, more positive school climate and cultures, military college and career relevance, and also professional growth for educators. In the appendices, you can see that we've also, did some sample scheduling so that schools can possibly see what this could look like, within their schools. So we have a high school, sample schedule here as an example and also a
sample advisory framework. We wanted to be very clear that this is a living document, and it's going to be have additional examples that we'll be pulling from the field from other school systems and divisions, which will, we will add over time. And we will also be, working work is underway to provide, divisions and school principals with guidance on how we can also look at public microschools as a model for as an exemplar as for small learning communities. So that work will continue.
This is a living document. Any questions? One quick question. I'm a big fan of SLCs, but, one of the issues I've seen is is seat time. I saw, seat time flexibility, been out of game for a little bit. What is what is the seat time flexibility guidelines look like now real quick? Just as a We would from DOE. That's actually coming up next. We will actually, dive a little bit into that. So with the seat time flexibility, we're there's actually already got us around it where schools can actually submit a a written response to us, and we can grant them that seat time flexibility.
We also are providing support and guidance around that. Actually, this afternoon for divisions, we have a webinar, with, VAST, and we it's a three part series, which I'll get a little bit into in our next, next, presentation. And it's gonna look at what is the law of seat time flexibility, what are some examples within Virginia, but also some national examples. And then the third, the technical assistant, web series is, now that you've heard all of this, how can we actually help support you in developing a structure and framework within your district for next school term? Great. Thanks.
And we'll be sure to get you the board adopted, policies so you can get quickly up to speed, because is that a major topic and focal point for quickly up to speed because it's a major topic and focal point for our partnership with Bass. Mister McClary, if you can quickly note, we've got a great partnership coming underway with the National Microskealing Center. One of the things that we're so proud of with Virginia that came from the fields request where they have some excess wings of buildings or spaces that they wanna utilize. To our knowledge, we're the only states that allows with our school construction assistance grant
this prioritization around flexibility and flipping and redesigning, excess space. And so, as you heard from W. Seward and McCleary, there's been great interest on successful, small learning community models, both in a physical four wall building of a school, but also in partnership in community spaces. And so, we are in the final process of, locking in a a partnership with the National Microschooling Center. There's three other states that have supported public microschools, and that's been an area of
focus from some of our divisions on how we serve 10 students, especially for rural and isolated communities. And may not entire, you know, 500 person new school. So if you can just add a little bit on our vision for what we're trying to provide for technical support there. So I think the biggest thing here is, a lot of our schools are saying we don't know what we don't know. And so we just need some exemplars and supports in helping us design what this could look like. But also, being VDOE, we're also saying, here are some opportunities for funding, which is the most important.
But I think it's also important for us to look at the outcomes for students, looking back at high quality instruction, which is also embedded in that. So what we're doing is we're looking at providing some technical assistance with divisions who may want to, be some piloting partners in the the future. So we're not just looking at rural, we're looking at urban and suburban opportunities. So we're looking at what are some some some needed areas. Student enrollment, decline in enrollment has been a big, thing echoing around not just Virginia, but the nation. So we're also looking at how do we look at opportunities that we can actually
leverage, to better support our students, but also provide options for our our our students and their families. Thank you. But that is coming. We're we're we're we're excited about that partnership with microschools, so that we can actually develop some great exemplars and also pull from their expertise and best practices, that are already in place. So we're not reinventing the wheel. Well, thank you for the work on, especially on the micro schools as well. It's, important topic in my, real world as well, so just thank you.
Thank you. Any other questions? Why don't, I know you're gonna be joined by Stacy, and, yes, on the next item on, item e with student enrollment best practices. Yes. Deputy superintendent Stacy Longas will be joining me. We have been, as you saw in, the reorganization, I said there were a lot of dotted lines that you did not see. This is one of them. We have been working in tandem, with the operations team, with chief Burda and deputies,
superintendent, Longus. So we wanna get started. We're looking, coming back to you from our November to give you a more in-depth toolkit. This is just a start. There is more to come with this because we are still, receiving information from the field, but also we're still building out what this could look like, for our divisions. So looking at the presentation with our table of contents, we'll talk about why enrollment, practices matters. We'll hit on some, suggestions on root cause analysis to improve enrollment practices and what's
next after you have completed the root cause analysis within a division. And then also looking at some possible solutions, review of the, DCJS, summary findings, and also some technical support options for divisions. Good morning, president Ashton, VP, vice president, Hansen, members of the board, superintendent Gellickson. I'm Stacy Longas, deputy superintendent budget and finance. On November 12, 2025, we talked about enrollment decreased from March 24 to March 25.
Fall enrollment numbers as projected, have continued to decrease, which aligns with those falling birth rates that we talked extensively about. We are seeing the senior class, leaving at a much larger numbers than the kindergarten class coming in. To confirm the full numbers represented, a 2.16% decrease in 2017. And that was certified with, school divisions. This is in line with what we've shared with you about the downward trend.
Intentional efforts have been made to ensure the school divisions feel supported and received adequate training technical support rather than just the compliance focus, that was the traditional focus of VDOE. Chief Berta, Ed Lanza, and myself have taken every opportunity during in person and virtual trainings to remind the school divisions to truly review enrollment and reevaluate needs based on declining enrollments. Many other aspects as described on on slide three, affect enrollment also.
Student engagement and attendance, parent and student demanding demands of shifts, demographic changes, and then the facilities and operational planning. Thank you, Deputy Superintendent Longest. So looking at, why enrollment matters, hearing those numbers, it's a daunting task to try to now how do we help support districts look at this in a different way, in a different light. And so looking at, the enrollment, planning and practices impacts, looking at educational quality and physical stability.
We're looking at how do we decline the number of student age, children, impacting Virginia public schools, and then also looking at area permits for constructions a turnover. So we really have to look at the root cause of what's really happening. Are we preparing divisions and preparing our, our field and our our teachers to look at how do we better support and structure our systems? Because Because a lot of times, we see enrollment shifts, but we may not see the the shift in structure of f t FE FTEs.
So how do we better use our staff and use our spaces? Understanding the root cause analysis, this helps improve enrollment practices. So it's important that divisions actually look at a structured process that will help school leaders kinda uncover some real reasons around and behind the enrollment challenges. Sometimes these are not visible, and you have to really understand and see, why did this happen, why did students leave, or look at some, dig deeper into finding out some underlying causes, to school, divisions, so that they can understand and try to prevent
similar issues in the future. So we can look at ways of look identifying true challenges instead of just reacting to this kinda surface level issues, like a low enrollment numbers or late registration. We also they are within this root cause analysis, we can also look and define questions like, what are the barriers that are preventing families from choosing or staying in schools? It may be, attendance. It may be transportation. And we also can gather data around attendance trends, withdrawal codes, also looking at transfer,
destination, where are kids going, and also course access and transportation availability. Engaging levers, leave we can also conduct some focus groups. I think that's important. So when parents leave us, we're actually talking and asking them, why are you leaving, What what what caused the leave? And also interviewing families who are exiting who and who are choosing other options. What are those options? Is it homeschool? Is it virtual school? Or are you leaving, for to move to another place?
Understanding what those really are, I think, will help divisions kinda better develop resources and supports of what's really happening with with the during the migration of students and parents. Also looking at taking targeted action, I think once the root cause is clear, leaders can also implement solutions that address those sources of problems. So mapping and finding finding action, so aligning the causes of the solution. So looking at if it's climate issues within a school, is that why parent students are leaving? We can also then dovetail into a solution.
Could be small learning communities, or we may need to look at transportation, open enrollment opportunities for a district. Is it also looking at are we having issues with, course access? Maybe there's an option for virtual dual virtual options. Maybe there we need to look at dual enrollment, or maybe, looking at some other program relevances that need to be addressed within the division. And also looking at, maybe there's an opportunity for career connected opportunity pathways, are there charter options, or even magnet options within the division, which, are illegal within the state
of Virginia. Also, for deploying quick wins, I think this is something that divisions these are things that are on the books now that divisions can take advantage of, currently. So looking at piloting maybe seat time flexibility options, out of, zone or open enrollment policies and high demand areas, while, looking at long term transportation modernization and also flexible learning spaces, as they're possibly being built out. These are options that can be taken place, in the short term. So after you've done your, RCI, what's next?
So you have to we were looking providing guidance to divisions to use a structured approach to understand why the parents leave, looking at the academic transportation or school climate and other options, but also what, could bring them back to the division. So looking at prioritizing solutions, which could also be reviewing and identifying root causes and proposing corrective actions, but also ranking them by impact and feasibility within the division. So looking at those quick wins, how do we get those quick wins, out there
and publicize them, but also get them accessible to parents? But, ultimately, what are some longer term fixes that we may need to look at down the road? Developing an action plan, so assigning responsibility to specific staff and team members, ensuring that there's project, management. What does that look like? How are dollars assigned? I'm a strong believer in how you spend your time and how you spend your money is your true priority. So are we spending enough time and funding to support and look at what there's the real root cause of what this is? And also setting the time limits and measurable goals.
So being very, focused on that. Looking at maybe an example is increasing, you know, early registration by 15%. How do we focus on that? What are some opportunities there? Communication and plan, sharing the plan with principals, not only just having it at the division level, making sure it is getting down to schools so that they are able to actually support, because they are the most connected and boots on the ground directly supporting students. And looking at enrollment helps with re helps from enrollment teams and families, ensuring that you have clear, crystal clear communication and consistent and also being responsive.
Implementing corrective actions, for example, improving outreach through social media, simplifying registration steps. So maybe some steps that you can take that will better simplify, the registration students. If you already have some information, maybe we've been asked the questions already because we already have the information. We know who the parent is. I need you to fill out maybe a update of address or something. So how do we better support that? Technologies are out there to better support those where maybe it can already information in.
So looking at innovative ways, maybe supporting AI could maybe support with some of that work. And also training staff on customer service and enrollment processes, because when parents feel welcome and parents feel safe, processes, because when parents feel welcome and parents feel safe, they tend to come back. Looking at monitoring progress, so tracking enrollment data, not only yearly, but I think daily, weekly, and monthly, I think is very important so that you can see trends, and also, make some anticipations in the future. And utilizing dashboards for reporting, evaluating and adjusting, holding, you know, mid cycle reviews to
see what's working, and also maybe abandon what's not working, and adjusting Based on feedback. Document documenting and best practice, sharing best practices. So capturing lessons and learning for future enrollment, cycles and also sharing successes. I think within VDOE, we're also charged with doing that. So I think capturing those successes for divisions that may we see some enrollment spikes. What are they doing? How can we share that out? How can we, you know, possibly point to them as the zip laws? But also sharing it in a way in storytelling where it's not just, we're saying
this division did this, but, hey, you might wanna look at this rural division because you are a rural division, and they have similarities to you with demographics. So I think that's also important for the work that we do so that when we're sharing out that information to the divisions. Listing here is also some possible solutions to maintain the increase in public, school enrollment. School divisions can also in embrace, innovative solutions that respond to the challenging demographics, family expectations, and school student needs. Here are some high impact options, that we can be stand alone or in a
combination of options. So helping divisions understand what these options are and helping them kinda ideate on which of these, one or two or three of these, that we can possibly combine and support the work. And also looking at braiding of funds, possibly, what that looks like here. You can see these options here. I'm not gonna go into all of those, but you can see the seven options, flexible learning models, personalized and specialized programs, expanding access and family choice, modernized transportation, family
centered engagement, mental health and climate investments, and also, school facility use and design. Next thing we listed here for for divisions to take, note is looking at the review of the DCJS, survey findings. I think this is very important for divisions and leaders to also review this, which provides, several findings that align closely with innovative strategies for boosting enrollment. So here are this additional insights from the report.
And as you can see, it's listed here as, you know, sense of belonging, matters, bullying, harassment, mental health needs, teacher student relationship, safety, precautions, and also communication, and voice. So these findings reinforce, the school climate improvement for enrollment strategies and family choose schools where their students feel safe, supported, and connected. Last but not least is the technical assistance, opportunities, upcoming.
So we're already working on providing supports to divisions. As I shared before, there's an upcoming webinar. There's actually one today, so that's why I'm trying to speed up so I can get to it later today at 02:00. I will be, working heavily with, Tiara shop. Doctor, Michelle Wallace will be supporting alongside me, where we'll be talking about from academic side, but also innovation side on what seat time flexibility can look like in your division. So this is a video website, webinar series where it is titled, Rethinking Time and
Reimagining Learning. This, series will present a dynamic three part web in our series designed to support school divisions, school administrators, and and educators in navigating the evolving landscape of instructional time. With the new legislation and guidance from VDOE, school divisions now have a greater flexibility, than ever before to design and also, the learning experiences that prioritize competency over clock time. And while we are just beginning to explore possibilities of the and getting divisions ready
to lead boldly, innovatively, this series will provide the insight and inspiration and practical tools to help them move forward. So today, at 2PM, we our session one is beyond the bell and understanding seat time in Virginia. Currently, as of 6AM this morning, we have a 187 participants, that, doctor Michelle Wallace and I will be leading that, stat, discussion on, January 15 session two.
We're looking at innovation and action, seat time flexibility across Virginia and the nation. So this will focus on some from from Chesterfield, Virginia all the way to Arizona, schools are reimagining instructional time. So we're gonna be bringing some exemplars, to them so that they can see what this looks like, not just me talking about it, because that's my job. So so they can actually see what what it looks like and also hear some outcomes, from what seat time flexibility has been able to provide for divisions.
And our last session, which will be on January 22, is the design lab where we're reimagining seat time in the division. We currently have a 171 participant registered and a 178 participant registered for session two. So divisions are super excited about this work, and we are super excited to provide this technical assistance. And it's not just my division. It's multiple divisions, especially, school instruction, and also, construction, and operations. This is not just a one division thing.
Once I sit as I said before, we're ultimately working together in tandem to ensure that we're utilizing all of our resources and also identifying opportunity and funding that can align with this. We're not just saying it. We're putting our, our best foot forward and also our resources behind it. So that is happening currently. I'm also offering, weekly virtual office hours within my division. So the offices here, the office of innovation, office of advanced learning, office of career and technical education, and also the new office of new learning models and school redesign,
we'll be doing, weekly starting in February. One office will be taking a week, and we'll be doing having office hours for divisions to sign up. So if they wanna learn more about opportunities, things that are out there, and also opportunities that are upcoming and how we can better support them. I think that is important so that division know who we are and who they can actually tap on for support. Last but not least, March, 2026, the school construction assistance program grant application window opens, and so technical support will be provided over the next two months.
And also a more formalized toolkit that will be more fleshed out, with more resources than one pages is coming. But we wanted to make sure that we give you guys kind of an overview of where we're headed to. And, ultimately, things shift and change based on what we're hearing from the field and what the needs are from divisions. So now I'll open up for questions. Thank you. And just we do have the, data broken down by the different regions in the state if there's higher rationale for, departure or other enrollment issues, based on Yes.
So we have it broken down by school division, and then we can break it down by region if you would like to see that. Just maybe, it can be offline or whatever, but just maybe any, issues that you're seeing, you know, for Fairfax County, Northern Virginia versus, Southeastern Virginia or some of the rural areas are just some of the things that your toolkit, would be most helpful for in different regions. So Yeah. I would say, honestly, we're seeing across all regions a decline. I'm not seeing every division, but all regions.
And I think sometimes it's the moving. So they're moving from one division to another, but then we've seen an overall decrease across the board. So I can provide that information. Okay. I think it's important that we're also looking at every student. So we're given this guidance so that when we get the numbers, we for example, you have 500 kids. We're declined by 500 kids, but I would like to know more in-depth or did of those 500, how many of them went to home schools? How many of them went to another division? How many of them left because of military?
How many of them, you know, left to go move to another state? I think that helps divisions to kinda see better into what's really happening, but it also helps us as a division, to better support and provide resources to school divisions. Maybe we need to relook relook at what we're offering to our students. So I think that's important as well. And that was just my second comment was really gonna be on the choice or the quality of learning, or lack thereof, or the relevancy issues, how relevant what they're getting is, where where do they see it taking them.
So Questions? Yes, sir. Yes, I, I'm watching on social media about five families go back and forth right now about leaving public schools over the SOL testing. So, I think they were already having children who struggled. And, again, remember my field's special ed. So there's still fear, I think, associated to the new SOL scores and what that might mean to families. And didn't really see that mentioned much in here, but I think that would be an interesting part of the analysis. And as even a part of a solution, I'd like to, restate what I said, I believe the last time we met about a graduation committee, that can help with
some of those things. I got a question. Mister Green. Yes. Mister Maclary, as long as, thank you for your work in terms of, helping to develop, the, toolkit. And I know, and I guess I can speak on behalf of all school divisions in Virginia who are currently having a challenge with trying to keep kids in schools and keep enrollment up, that they will probably very much appreciate this toolkit, and some of the technical assistance, that the, DOE is gonna be able to provide going forward.
I think one of the biggest reasons, primarily where we benefit a lot of our school divisions, depend on state funding that's based on student enrollment. So I will be if I was a school division superintendent of school board, I will be talking to you and you all the time in terms of how to to best implement some of these best practices, get kids in classrooms. So Yeah. The second part though, even though I think I got a general idea of why student enrollment is declining, I'm gonna wait for your findings to see if they align
and if they match. And I think you probably got a general idea of what that is, and I think Emily Ann do as well. What I think that we need to see more of to keep kids engaged in, you know, and where they would wanna, you know, continue to be in school and excited about school. So that's all I wanna say. I appreciate that. I I think it's important for us to, I wanna say, especially especially speaking directly to divisions, if they're listening, I'm sure they are, we're what we're prescribing here and what we're sharing is just a toolkit.
If there's something that we're missing, let us know know because once I said this is a ongoing we're we're constantly building this out. So whatever the needs are from the divisions, we're happy to step in and support or help them understand clarifications around what is in place now that I can take advantage of, and what books are on the what laws are on the books. How do I interpret that? How do I take advantage of it? Most of it, we're we're trying to break down those barriers and red tape to get the vision to better understand. And more simple a layman's term, this is all you have to do.
Versus having to read a long, you know, guideline and not understand what it means. So we're we're working very hard in the division to break that down, make it more simple for divisions, students and making opportunities for students better. Doctor Mervin. So I think that the problem, is just declining birth rates, period. I mean, I feel like we're kind of, like, trying to figure out a root
cause analysis, but that's kind of it. And I'd like to see a revised toolkit. I know you guys are continuing to work on this. We know that up to 85% is staffing. Like, this is no big surprise. So we begin to have a more realistic approach to some of these strategies. The early retirement incentives is, like, you know, needs to be on the table. We need to look at if if divisions are operating half empty buildings, that's exceedingly expensive. So we're gonna need to begin to look at consolidations, and what does what does a effect of consolidation look like, where it minimizes the impacts on kids.
We need to start looking at centralizing back office operations, because that's another way that you save money. We need to look at combining low enrollment programs. If you've got programs with eight kids in it, you're just not gonna be able to have those anymore. So how can we combine those programs? And how can we look at new staffing models? So I really see a need for this to be much more, not like, oh my gosh, can we save every little kid that we have, but, like, this is a new reality. And we can't operate. We have to I've heard Marguerite Rosa say this many times, and she's the expert
on this. We have to learn to be small. So just have to adopt a whole different mentality, and I know closing schools is so unpopular. So, you know, if that's the last resort, then all these other things that I just mentioned and more, need to be done first. Right, to see whether they can, you know, fill the fill the fill the gaps. I think in terms of homeschooling, I've been looking at the research on this for a while, nationally, the kids who left during the pandemic to homeschool never come back. The kids who went to private school are more likely to come back.
But I don't know how many of our kids, I know y'all got some research about this, but the homeschooling kids, it's harder to get them back. So just just letting you know that that reality for whatever reason. That's kinda what we're seeing, across the nation. Mister Mark. Thank you. And, I think also, you know, as you look at the use of, potential capacity there. I had a conversation with chief Conway the other day around early childhood education and repurposing some of those facilities there, so maybe including some of those conversations.
But, also, one thing I noticed around the toolkit that that may be helpful, for more engagement is apparently Ajan and conversation there. I know, at least on the absenteeism side, that's a huge conversation, and so this, might be somewhere to include that as well in a little bit more prominent way. Thank you for that. Any other questions or comments? Well, again, thank you. And, appreciate the work and the update and, just all the commentary as well. This is gonna be an ongoing, priority for us. So thank you. All right. I think you're still up again.
We'll move to item F on the College Partnership, Lab School updates. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. For the Virginia, College Partnership Lab School update, I think, we have not been before you, to give you an update on where we are with lab schools. We've brought some information around, the contract modification, but I wanted to give you an update on where are we are with the status of lab schools. So with the agenda today, we will talk a little bit about the lab school wait list. I give you some idea of where some lab schools are with the wait list.
We'll talk a little bit about, new lab school applications, and then also what are some next steps for lab schools. So first up is the lab school application. Currently, all lab schools most lab schools are, just opened their lotteries. So their lottery is open January 5 and doesn't close until February 20. And so we won't really have a lot of numbers I'm sharing with you today, but I do have a few, that can have existing numbers, and where they are currently. But we'll definitely come back with you at the next board meeting, hopefully, after, the
lottery is closed on the twentieth to give you updates on all of the lab schools and their weight numbers. There are four lab schools. And if you're looking at the slide deck, I'll actually call off the number, in the name of the school. So number three, the Aerospace Academy of Eastern Shore. Currently, their current ninth grade academy has a wait list of six kids. Number four on the map, our Smith Tech at Oscar, Smith Middle School has a wait list of four students. Number eight, our JMU Lab School for Innovation and Exploration currently has a wait list
of 31 students. And last but not least, number 13, the STEM Academy at Booker T Washington, a Virginia lab school, with the partnership with Suffolk Public Schools and Old Dominion, they currently have a wait list of 200 students. And so there there is momentum, that individuals are looking at lab schools. They have wait lists, and I will say, the other schools have said that they think that they will have some wait lists as as well after the open enrollment
of lottery, which ends on the twentieth. Moving next to our, new lab school applications. We currently have, two, new lab school applications. One of them is our, Richard Bland College, Global Academy. They're looking for their first student cohort to begin in June 2026. Grades they would like to serve is six through 12. It's through Richard Bland. They're currently working on finalizing their, support from a four year institution that will actually support them, as their fiduciary, holder.
The purpose of this lab school is a transformative, innovative design to engineering pathways and excellence within STEM, h education, which is science, technology, education, arts, arts, mathematics, and health for 720 underserved students in grades, six to 12, urban and rural communities in Virginia. The global, target schools with interest in aptitude and STEM h, disciplines and aim to build confidence, efficiencies, and readiness, for STEM h careers through structured research based, supplemental programs.
Our second lab school application is for our Biofutures Academy, at the Piedmont, Virginia Community College. They're looking for a start up period in June of, July, I'm sorry, of 2026 with their first student cohort in June 2027. They're looking to serve, students grades tenth through twelfth. The organ age organization supporting them is the University of Virginia. The proposed lab school is in, collaboration with the University of Virginia, Piedmont Virginia Community
College, and regional k 12 school systems. Their goal is will be supported by the Seaville Biohub and a robust network of bioscience, companies to connect students, to bioscience careers to reshape the future of Central Virginia. What are a few next steps? In February, the goal is once these, applications are in good standing and have been, reviewed by OAG and have come went through the Virginia Department of Education's, committee and
have met all of the, compliance standards, it would then be submitted to the lab school standing committee for review of the application. Also next steps is, the mid year reports are currently due. Lab schools are working on those currently. Those will hopefully be done in February. Old Dominion University is has has been helpful in supporting the technical assistance for these lab schools, so they're helping help us with collecting those and supporting schools with getting those done. And also a material change policy and procedure for, the Virginia lab schools.
We're still working on getting that final, legal, information, but also taking some information from the field, from lab schools. Last but not least, ODU is, supporting, again this year the Innovation Summit and Lab School Learning Exchange. This is not just for lab schools. They're also offering it to public schools. So in in the, prior, event, they actually opened it up to public school teachers so that they can learn alongside them, and they can actually learn from public schools. So this is not open just to lab school members.
This is open to the public. This is March 26, twenty third to twenty sixth, and the registration is there. And now open for questions. Well, thank you. And just, again, appreciate the ongoing work. I just had one question on, Richard Bland. Is there a four year public institution in that partnership as well, or is that So Richard Bland, as you may know, they currently have gained their independence from William and Mary, and so they're they're they're working behind the scenes now in helping support them to to find a four year institution. So that is ongoing. That just happened recently.
On the next slide, I talked to, Joan, who, chairs this Anthony that I've served on, with her, and, so we look forward to, getting the time scheduled appropriately. We just, any questions? Doctor Northern? I just want a refresher on where we are with, appropriations in the general assembly. I know we've struggled with this in the past, and I guess if you could just speak to how our lab schools are doing, you know, in terms of, you know, sustainability, as well as, as these potential new ones coming aboard.
I I saw the one in, Virginia has a supporter, but I was wondering about the other one too. Yeah. I think, at our last week in November, Karen Sanzo gave an overview of the sustainability report on where lab schools are from the 2024, '25, report. She's current we're currently working on the new report for the end this year. Okay. We'll have some sustainability metrics. Sustainability has been about the same. They're looking at partnerships, looking at support. Some of them are gaining support from philanthropy opportunities Okay. And also some opportunities, from some private partners, like the biometrics here.
There's been a huge focus on biomeds within the state of Virginia, so there are a lot of new funding opportunities coming in, for support, for our lapses. Okay. Good. So that is forthcoming. That that would definitely be coming back before the board, with the sustainability update. Okay. Thank you. Mister Carroll. So, I'm assuming, this is coming in new to this, but I'm assuming kids in lab schools will be transcripted by their local schools. Is that Say that again. When their the kids would their courses would be transcribed by their local schools.
I As in where would you know, for for credits towards graduation. Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. One of the issues I've done a lot of college and university and school partnerships. One of the big issues for us was master schedule, collect and get codes. Correct. Where do things stand with that? And if this is a easier, more expedient to give me that information on the side, that'd be fine. But, that's been a big issue in the past, I know, with, trying to get unique college oriented you know, college originated courses, for high school credit.
I I would say that's not just a lab school issue. That's the public school issue getting scare codes. Right? But I there has been some technical assistance and supports. We've had some opportunities to meet with our planning, teams, our scheduling teams, where lab school members are actually get on, Zoom, and they can actually do, virtual opportunities to understand what these codes are so that there's some formality around that, what that looks like across the board, but also what is being met for graduation and opportunity.
So that is also, something that we provide support with. Old Dominion University has been great in helping us in organizing that work. And so the SCED codes, we we ensure that they submit them. We ensure that they align, so that it is not doing any type of coursework that doesn't align with graduation. They all fall in in the same standards of high quality instruction for Virginia schools. Yeah. And I I know you and I will probably talk more in detail, about what you shared, mister McClary. But I'm I am curious because, you were sharing some of the data around some
of the wait lists. Yes. Some of them were single digits, and some were as high as 200. I think for the one that you referenced that, is in Suffolk. Any rationale as to why we have, is it because of, this one in Suffolk is a larger school area than some of the other smaller, I'm assuming? I mean, the other schools are open to every student ring. It doesn't matter where they are. However, there may be local municipalities that Okay. Students may wanna go to that school. I think the other opportunity is once lab schools open, they have a capacity that
they can meet. Right. So what what happens is, you know, once they meet the capacity, then it becomes lists because they have no wait list at all is because they had opportunity and capacity Okay. For for those, students to come in. So I did I did ask a question, like, hey, why don't you have any numbers? Right. We we extended our numbers this year, and we we accepted all of our students off our wait list as our interview. And, based on some of those conversations and dialogues, with some of those school systems, and some of those labs, that are at capacity, any future vision of kinda how
to speed expand seats, to be able to increase capacity to make them more available to students who wanna attend? So that is something that is we're they're in conversation with. There's a bigger they they have, like, a bigger committee that's talking about some of the lab schools that may have opportunities with capacity Okay. To be able to expand. Right. But also looking at I think that's where the contract modification comes in. If they were to move to a Ah, that's right. Bigger space Yep. Yep. We would need to have that That part. That contract in place. So that's why we're trying to get that in place.
So if you were to move a bigger space, we need to be just notified that that's happening and ensure that kids are safe. Gotcha. Understood. Thank you. Mister Henderson. I'd like to speak to that. I had the opportunity to visit the, Booker T Washington program and their lab school. And I think a large part of it is how organized the staff is regarding that program to how innovative it is, that they make the community very aware of what they are offering. And they retrofitted all of the classrooms so that they're top notch.
So I'm pretty sure that's why people from other areas and in that area are very much interested now in going to that facility. I am interested in knowing how much we're advertising, to the public. And we can do this this offline because I'll have some additional questions about lab school, but for sure, just, you know, how much we're talking to our public and private, colleges about the opportunities that are available to partner with the, k through 12 school system in order to, provide more opportunities.
But we can do that offline. Yeah. I will say for, the STEM Academy at Booker T Washington, they have a well oiled machine when it comes to public you know, publicizing their work. And so what has been happening internally, the the lab schools, they meet, week, I think monthly, and they're sharing their best practices now. And they're learning from others of, like, what are you doing? What is working? How are you getting these numbers? How are you getting the information to students? Who are you collaborating with? What what applications or technology are you using to push this information?
Are you buying ads on on local or local, you know, transportation and buses? Are you doing billboard? Like, are you doing word-of-mouth? And and a lot of it is, I think for Booker t Washington is that it's word-of-mouth. Parents are are sharing with their, you know, their their colleagues, and their friends that, hey. My my child is thriving here. And I think that's something that could be learned not just for lab schools, but could be learned as an option for all schools. So how do we better publicize and get the word out about the offerings, you know, being I am the office of student pathways and opportunities, how are we providing
and making sure that the opportunities you are providing to students, parents know about it? Mister Hansen. Thank you. And I, I agree with mister McPherson too on, Booker T. Washington. I remember when the application came in, and just the physical structure of the school and the community, I I just think it was very conducive, especially based on the the quality of, the work they're doing. So thank you, ma'am. Indicated that they needed a little bit more money to retrofit the front of that
building. It was one space they I hadn't had an opportunity to do, and I certainly would support the funding for that when they submit the application. Actually, superintendent Gollickson. Oh, I'm so glad you raised that. In the introduced budget at the request from school divisions who partner with governor schools, governor STEM academies, governor health academies, etcetera, etcetera. There's language to expand the school construction assistance program grants to regional, high school models, because that has not been an opportunity just, and complex for a lot of divisions
to navigate since so many, divisions have kids enrolled. So that is currently underway, and we hope the general assembly will continue to, look at that language, because that's definitely of interest not just under the lab school arena, but, long time, governor school models as well. Thank you. Do you have a new Thank you. And appreciate, miss McPherson, your comments around, communication and, WDC McCleary explaining some of those best practice sharing.
I think I've become, just my work with DSCA. Yeah. Parents are now reaching out to me. How do we get engaged? And I think that word-of-mouth component right now is what's happening. And so definitely a lot of room there to share with parents in the community around opportunities that their, learners have. And then just wanted to kind of go back to the comments around, the credits there. It's my understanding that in that MOU and contract, those really are already, in place prior to the engagement. Correct. Okay. Thank you.
Well, thank you again, and, appreciate, the update and the good work. So, thank you. We are gonna break for lunch in about two minutes, but, I think we're gonna, just maybe do a quick, pivot here, and we're gonna move to item I, and we'll come back after lunch to item G. But, Doctor. Hollins, thank you for bringing us to us. My pleasure. My specialty is two minutes. So thank you all so much for having me, president Ashton, vice president Hansen, state superintendent Gullickson, and board members.
It's my pleasure to bring back before you for final review, the guidelines for selecting parent materials related to student safety concerns. And I won't, redo my spiel previously, but just a reminder that as a result of the general assembly and a couple of bills, we were asked to amend and update the code, which prompted this guidance document to be developed. The guidelines for selecting parent materials related to student safety concerns, address and provide guidelines and resources to assist schools in the requirement to provide state approved suicide prevention materials
to school divisions that include guidance on safe firearm storage and limiting access to lethal means. I just wanna follow-up on a couple of concerns that were identified previously. Since our last meeting, we were able to reengage with, staff at the Virginia Center for School and Campus Safety over at the Department of Criminal Justice Services and really appreciate the strong collaboration we've had from, director Burton there. They have given us a lot of information on continuing collaboration that they find really effective, and they were integral in the development of these guidelines. And so as they looked and debriefed based on the board's concerns, there were no
substantive revisions made to this guidance, but I do wanna point out a couple of ongoing opportunities that we will collaborate with them, particularly in some areas that you all had asked for follow-up. We will continue meeting quarterly with those staff to discuss ongoing work areas of intersection and opportunities for school division training, particularly around, member Monk and president Creasy brought up previously the strong partnership with law enforcement is explicitly identified as one of the required experts within that ongoing collaboration. They will review and vet locally selected materials and, that's why we emphasize existing memorandum
of understanding to school divisions, local police to guide those discussions. Doctor Ackerman also mentioned the rising concerns around, artificial intelligence and self harm. And while the bill doesn't specifically require that, we've worked very closely with DCJS staff to already begin curating resources and training for school staff and parents regarding this growing concern to student safety and well-being. And I think you'll be pleased to see the additional resources we'll be able to provide as part of that subject specific area. We also plan to offer continuing technical assistance at the December meeting.
Member McPherson underscored a really important point that we fully support that these guidelines and materials are intended to support meaningful conversations with families and should complement and not replace direct communication and individualized supports for students and their families. We plan to continue to offer technical assistance related to these guidelines. I highlighted our school based mental health institute that'll be next month that we already have, a great participation rate from school divisions, as well as the ongoing support from Joe Wharf and his staff to continue to round out those technical assistance resources.
I'm also bolstered by your work today because we continue to receive a lot of staff inquiries for this information coming into the DOE. So I know that the field is anxiously awaiting final approval, so that these continuing conversations and support can really get where they need to go. With that, I'll pause. I'm happy to answer any questions and really appreciate the board's consideration of this important guidance. Thank you, doctor Hollis. Any questions? Well, hearing none, I, is there a motion to approve the guidelines for select and parent materials related to student safety concerns? So moved. Second. Thank you.
Doctor Ackerman. Aye. Mister Green. Aye. Doctor Northern. Aye. Missus McPherson. Aye. Missus Kilgore. Aye. Mister Monk. Aye. Mister Carraway. Aye. Missus Ashton. And chair votes aye. Thank you all so much. Thank you. Well, we will, break. It's 12:15, and, we will plan on, coming back, around 01:00. And, we will follow instructions on instructions on where lunch is. We'll follow Jim as we always do. Thank you. Alright. I think we're fully accounted for here. So, back to, the last item on our presentations, agenda item g.
Grateful to, have miss Booker Dwyer here and, Samantha Hollands, to present to us on the school and student supports update. So I'll turn the time over to you. Yes. Good morning, members or good afternoon now, members of the board. And so today, I'm providing my my monthly update, on where we are with school improvement, and I am happy to be joined by my colleague, deputy superintendent Samantha Hollins who's going to, discuss students with disabilities and the sup the specific supports that they
will receive. I will start by providing an overview of some of the funding that we are, releasing or that we have released and will be releasing, to support school improvement. And the key thing that we are doing is we are grounding all of our support, funding strategies in the framework outcomes. So we are actively using the outcomes of the school performance framework to support our school divisions. And we're we're we're truly using it as that key lever for improvement so that
we all have that consistent understanding of the targets that we need to meet and how to, to truly improve the outcomes for students grounded in this common framework. So the funding, we have revised how we releasing funds for school improvement. So listed on the screen are a couple of key things that we are, taking advantage of. So number one is this priority weighting in our rubrics, for schools that have been characterized as off track, needs intensive support, or I identified, federally as a comprehensive support
and improvement, targeted support and improvement, or additional targeted in support and improvement school. And this ensures that we are targeting funds where they need them the most. We're also emphasizing the use of competitive grants when allowable and so that also just helps with the the quality of the proposal, the planning and, and just ensuring that we are gonna yield the highest returns on student outcomes. We are, taking advantage of all of the, expanded time limits that that we can
leverage with, using federal grant funds. I know in previous board member previous board meetings, we discussed the Edflex waiver, that we are actively pursuing, but we are, shifting away from having school divisions write for grant funding and be on these nine month writing cycles to truly extending their time frame to the multi year plan and giving them time to develop their plans, implement, for us to monitor, for them to submit their, to to then for them to
submit reimbursements request and, and and other items associated with the funding. The thing that I am most excited about and we're gonna talk a little bit about when we get to the math innovation grant especially are these network based applications across divisions. This allows cohorts of divisions to come together and, and work together on specific school improvement initiatives. So this allows them to, to truly accelerate the learning, of the adults and students
across the divisions and, it helps to to increase the spread of what is working. With school improvement, we know you have to get the foundational elements right. You need the the strong curriculum. You need high quality educators. You need all those foundations, strong in order to improve school outcomes. We have recently released, grant funds for the comprehensive literacy, state development grant. This this is a part of a $30,000,000 grant award provided to the Virginia Department
of Education from the, from the federal government. We are in year two of this grant and we awarded 7,000,000 in year two funds. And there were two priorities. The first priority was supporting reading at home, giving parents and students the resources that they need aligned with classroom instruction so that they can continue and become stronger readers while they're not in the school building. And then, to establish these literacy improvement networks. And so this will allow, school leaders and teachers to all learn from each other,
focused on effective literacy practices. And when we awarded these grant dollars, we used that priority weighting in our rubric and what you will see is that over 75% of the awards, for this grant went to schools that were characterized as off track or needs intensive support. And in the slide deck if you click on that press release you'll can see the full list of schools that were awarded, funds and how they're gonna use those dollars to improve the literacy outcomes of students.
And you also will see that we didn't, discount any of the distinguished or on track schools either. They still got awards as well because we wanna ensure that we are still, increasing and enhancing effective practices across the state. So that was the literacy grant. There has been $10,000,000 in state funds awarded for the math innovation grant and this is one that I'm I'm really, really excited about because it allows school divisions to, implement the high quality instructional materials, competency based models, and then they can also form
these phenomenal regional networks. And so and and I wanna just kinda talk a little bit more about these regional networks because 27 school divisions, they were awarded, these grants. And and, you know, it the so the 27 awarded, but four of them are leads for regional networks. So the actual number of school divisions that are that will be impacted from this grant is much greater, because that 27 is just the count of the fiscal leads. So for those four school divisions that are serving as that fiscal agent and that
coordinating, that coordinating team, they are working with multiple school divisions and institutions of higher education to improve math outcomes. So we are really excited to, see what comes from the from this regionalized approach, that's impacting multiple school divisions and institutions of higher education across the agency. And we we will have a press release coming out soon. We're still finalizing, all of the grant awards. They will be coming out to school division shortly, and then we will, share that
full list of schools and, the full list of divisions and the the funding. We are in the process of, preparing to to release the 10,000,000 in direct student services grant. So this is something that I brought up at several board meetings, and now we're to the phase where we're ready to actualize it and get it out to, school divisions. Any school division can apply. And once again, we're doing that priority weighting of those school divisions with the highest percentage of federally identified schools and schools that are identified for needs intensive support.
Parents have to be involved on the front end of this grant. So this isn't a the division just writes it and submits it to us and then tell parents that they have the money. That we we're requesting that they demonstrate evidence that parents were involved in this grant application because these funds are meant to be used directly for students. So parents must have a voice, in the development of this application. There are, key priorities and allowable expenses that this grant allows and once again everything goes directly to students. And so it's not you won't see a lot of teacher professional development in this
grant. What you'll see is, opportunities. So for instance what's listed on the screen for career pathways, if a student need to take an industry credentialing exam, the cost to cover that exam, you can use, these funds. If there's career, and technical education courses that are not offered in at the school that a student wants to take, you can pay for that student to take that course elsewhere. You can pay for the transportation to work based learning experiences or apprenticeship opportunities. You can engage in, credit recovery for those students who wanna, to to make up
some credits or to accelerate their learning. You cover the cost of the courses, the exams, transportation to and from the courses, graduation coaches, and and, and career navigators. You can do a lot. These funds are really, really flexible. You can also use these funds for advanced additional advanced coursework options that are not available in the school. So if a student wants to take a course online or at or, through a higher institution of higher education, you can, use these funds to pay for that course, to pay for their transportation, to pay for all the support and resources that that
student would need to be successful in those, in those advanced courses. And then the personalized learning component of this grant is really flexible. So you can use it for the flexible. So you can use it for the competency based, tutor for competency based learning. You can use it for high quality tutoring to keep some of the the work that started with the Virginia Literacy Act going, and having those high quality tutors, right in the schools with students and working with them. It also covers in school and out of school time experiences. So it's a lot of things that can be done with this grant to directly
benefit our students. And then transportation. So there's there's an option where you can use this fund to, to pay for students to, who are in comprehensive support and improvement schools to go to a school that's not, identified for comprehensive support and improvement. However, I wanna be clear that it still has to be a public school and you still have to follow all of the the rules and regulations, in the state of Virginia to, to to transfer schools. And then 1% of this award can be used toward direct communication to parents to
make them aware of these available, opportunities through this grant and that includes translation service, hotspots so that you can get them to a community meeting and they can register their kids for the course. You can you can use these funds to get a parent liaison that goes directly to work with parents so that their kids can have advantage of these opportunities. Communication materials, it's like I said, this grant is very, very flexible and we're really excited about it. 20,000,000 in school improvement grant funds.
We are we have released that application and school divisions are actively working, on that. That is, being led by, doctor, Quentin Ballard and his in the school improvement team. And once again, these funds can be used for a variety of reasons. You can use it during if you are newly identified comprehensive support and improvement school, you have to take a planning year so you can use these funds to conduct a really thorough needs assessment, develop that multi year plan. You can partner with, with different organizations to support your larger school improvement effort.
And there are a host of upcoming support sessions and information, around the school improvement grant that is being led, by the Office of School Improvement. They have released a a lot of information to school divisions that are, like, self paced modules, on how to identify your needs, developing that multiyear plan, and then that is followed up next week with all the regional meetings. And then and so we wanna provide the maximum amount of support to school divisions so that they can, get these dollars and leverage them in a way that's really
gonna improve outcomes for students. So I will pause there. Any questions before we transition to, the support for students with disabilities? Okay. Thank you guys so much. So you heard from, doctor Booker Dwyer that, you know, this is really about how are we supporting with resources. Right? And so what we're gonna do now is I'm gonna ask you to activate your prior learning from November, except for mister Carraway. He's off the hook for today. But remember, we kinda set the stage for what's next as far as state education agency support based on the new framework.
And so while we just spent some time talking about resources that will directly deploy to divisions, I wanna now talk to you a little bit about what the technical assistance and support from department staff will look like in order to support this next frame of work. As you heard from doctor Booker Dreyer, you know, all of this work is supported by the framework. And so we'll be talking about a lot of things today that have already been published. You know, I know that for some of you, this is this is new information and new data. However, this is not new for department staff. We knew what this data looked like long before we started paying attention to the
framework. One thing I do wanna explain is that I think there's been a characterization of, oh my gosh. All of a sudden, all of these schools are newly identified for students with disability supports. And that is true. The data definition has changed, and that's why we're focusing on students with disabilities as part of our presentation today. But the focus of the department's work has always been in supporting schools, in addressing the needs of their subgroup of students with disabilities. The reason that we're seeing more schools identified is because, quite frankly, we changed the rules of the game. And so we have now on our radar, formerly, many more schools as a result
of really reducing the amount of students it took to be flagged for this kind of work. And so this slide walks you through a little bit about new to you information and why we're focusing this data and have reassigned our training and technical assistance in order to focus on specific schools and divisions. Now let's talk a little bit about how the department will use data to support the field, field, particularly to use this data to individualize supports for students and schools. This provides a lot of rich context data for us to provide technical assistance to support division based leaders to use their data to individualize supports for schools and students
with disabilities. We will use this data to prioritize schools with the greatest need and look specifically at what those needs may be by grade level, content area, skill development, and really a huge voice in instructional planning. This will obviously look very different for elementary schools than it will for secondary schools. First, we will prioritize schools with the greatest need and look specifically at what those needs are. As you can see from this slide, we're really gonna start to break down some of this data, and I know how much you guys love data. So looking at each of our types of schools and the number of schools that
have been identified, you see here the breakout that happens across the state. One thing I want to reaffirm from our discussion in November is that this data is similar to what we see in other states. There are persistent gaps at both the national and state level for the performance of students with disabilities. However, as I also stated in November, we know the prescription to really start to address this problem. Early intervention matters. Students with disabilities often start behind in foundational skills. Early evidence based instruction and appropriate accommodations are critical to improving long term outcomes.
And I just wanna put a small footnote here. Doctor Norden asked a great question about why the reorganization has housed special education within early childhood development, and I just wanna reiterate chief Conway's point about our initiatives being outside the scope of simply k 12. As you can see, our focus is on building supports for learners that can impact them from birth all the way to adulthood. And so our ability to leverage those supports in a meaningful way sourced by federal dollars is really made much more facile by the organizational structure that we've adopted. Most importantly for students with disabilities, growth is possible.
Students can make measurable academic growth, especially when we target those supports and provide what's needed. But this does not always and this does not always result in immediately closing that proficiency gap. And in order to kinda make you feel a little more confident with that, I wanna remind you that our Virginia data shows that modest gains overall in reading and math have been demonstrated for students with disabilities, particularly over the last five years. However, we see our biggest gains across our middle school and high school students, meaning that for the longer that we have our students, the more that we're able to
target those instructional services and support, the more successful they become. I think it's also important context that, sometimes I have to remind myself that you guys might not be aware of. That regional network is so incredibly important to our work at the department. As I've stated, my staff is is pretty pretty big compared to other offices. Right? But we still don't have the folks the bodies necessary to do boots on the ground support to every classroom we should be be getting to. And so how we divide and conquer is really by relying on our regional support and organization, that is integral to our be our being able to
Over that support. Whether it's conversations with regional superintendents groups, we also mirror that support from my department with our regional meetings with, special education directors in each of the school divisions. But most importantly, we tailor support boots on the ground in their communities and neighborhoods. Our regional training and technical assistance centers are housed in public universities across the Commonwealth that can provide research based strategy, support, and most importantly, coaches and folks that can get out to those classrooms and help walk teachers, paraprofessionals, and administrators through classrooms and help walk teachers, paraprofessionals, and administrators through the change and support that they need to
make a difference for our students. I wanna also talk a little bit about how we we differentiate this need and really how to help us, prioritize participation and support. This is just a couple of data points, and I wanna, highlight too a huge thank you, to Mark Jennings and his staff for pulling some of this information available. I I could talk about this for a lot more than just this one slide, but I do wanna let you know that we're seeing some some interesting information that can help us to rev to help us continue to prioritize the support to folks
across the commonwealth. Like in our professional development, we have talked about previously and will revisit in just a moment. This has been incredibly useful in helping to make sure that school divisions who have the greatest level of need get prioritized for our activities and support. You heard a little bit about that previously about funding, but most importantly, this helps us deploy people and resources from our professional development development centers, like the TTACs, but also like our university centers for excellence that we have across the state that really help to support specific subgroups of students with disabilities.
Now I know I'm talking about a lot of data, and you guys obviously are getting super excited, but I do wanna urge a little bit of caution. As a teacher myself here in Virginia, I remember every year, it was a new was a new ballgame. Right? New students, results. And so keep in mind that the data that we're looking at is one assessment year with one grade and one class of students. It's much more important for me and my folks to focus on those trends over time that help us to identify, important context and to address systemic support needs for
students. So this data is helpful and useful, but it must be taken within a larger conversation over time. Growth and contribution to proficiency helps to add context to our data discussions as well. And I pulled out a couple of areas here of some really, amazing work that's being done by our educators across the state in helping to close that gap and, most importantly, show the opportunity they have with students and and what we can see in result of that. I'd like to wrap up with a couple of really important points. Not to not to harp on the or chart presentation, but I am so excited
about, being reunited with our team in behavioral health and student safety. As you can see, our work with chronic absenteeism has really been, a boon to us at the state education agency. And previously, I've had the chance to to manage and supervise this group, and I'm super excited that we'll be able to do that again because all of this really speaks to the fact that we are most well situated to work and support our students who are most vulnerable. And we talk a lot here about chronic absenteeism and the role of having students present in instructional settings can make a huge difference.
What we know is that for students with disabilities and other at risk populations, that risk increases at a much lower threshold of chronic absenteeism. So while we talk about that for kind of our neurotypical students, the importance that twenty one days has, it's even less. Even a few days can make a huge impact to our most vulnerable population. And so our ability to capitalize on the growth and development of resources within the shop will really help us to systemically address this, with some of our most needy families and students. Here are a couple of examples of how we will support the field to adapt
the change in practice that we really think they're well attuned to make. Students with disabilities likely require specialized, delivery of instruction in order to address their disability in the educational setting. The assessment needs with accommodations and modifications as part of IEPs. And so how can we best support teams in not only identifying those most appropriate accommodations and modifications, but deploying them, accurately? And students with disabilities may require multiple attempts on required assessments.
And so how can we work to support guidance around things like credit accommodations and locally awarded verified credits that allow students to demonstrate their proficiency while also making, an efficient process? As you might imagine, this will look different for elementary schools than it will for middle schools, and high schools will require yet another approach. Let's use an example of an elementary school around literacy. With implementation of the Virginia Literacy Act, we've been able to provide additional data and valuable screening information that contributes not only to identification of students with disabilities, but also
most importantly helps with instructional planning in order to align support appropriateness and, align support appropriate instruction, in order to make sure it's effective. I'll also point, you know, Vows just released their 2425 snapshot, and we saw a decrease in the number of students who scored as high risk between the fall and spring. So quite frankly, as I told you in November, we know what works. We know that the use of specially designed instruction, high quality instructional materials, and a focus on phonics based literacy benefits all students, and most importantly, some of the populations
we're most concerned with. And the data is reflecting that's making a true difference. I also wanna point out that as you can see through this slide, this is really highlighting the collaborative and consultation role that we'll have at the department with other shops, school improvement, the office of assessment, accountability, and instruction. These are part of the day to day work that our teams are doing right now. Actually, if you look out the window, you can probably see them in the windows furiously working away. Finally, let's wrap up by remembering what levers exist that have been shown to impact practice and data. These are the big five buckets that I, walked you through in November that have
been shown not just through what I'm telling you, but through research and practice and data that we see here in Virginia. The ensuring the appropriate identification of students with disabilities, developing high quality individualized education programs that meet their needs, increasing the support and education to our families so that they know how to facilitate and exercise their rights, and most importantly, be the valued partner of of the educational development at the table. Professional development. I I wanna give you an update. You remember that when I was here last time, we talked about our December conference,
which was school based instructional leadership and administration. We had hundreds of educators and administrators from across the Commonwealth join us up at James Madison University over two days in December. And I can tell you that their, communication back to us through our survey tells us that they are developing skills that are relevant to their roles. They gained actionable strategies to support students with disabilities, and they left with an enhanced understanding of effective special education practices. The work that you're helping to support is making a true difference in the skills of our practitioners today?
And most importantly, how are we setting up our students for successful graduation and ensuring that their diplomas serve as a bridge from k 12 education to success post school? And with that, I will pause, and I'm sure I speak for, doctor Booker Dwyer. We're happy to answer any questions and really appreciate the board's time. Thank you, doctor Hollins. Any questions? You you thank you. You mentioned the resources. I think with the increase that we're seeing, seeing, you feel confident that your regional groups are able to resource the new amount of influx of students with special needs
that are gonna need, to be part of the improvement? Yeah. Great question, doctor Ackerman. You know, one thing I will say is that for us, they're they're not new students. Our students, our main population has always been every student in the Commonwealth, close to a 190,000 of them with disabilities. And so our model is really built to scale. I think the biggest thing to your point is really seeing some of the trend impact across regions and where we might be able to capitalize on sharing best practices and how support looks different from a division level, to where they've seen actionable results for students. And so, yes, I think our network is incredibly able to, not only with staff
at the department, which I think is the the best in the nation, quite frankly, but our partnership with our higher education institutions ensures that we always have a direct line to somebody who could truly actually be physically in a classroom, and who's trained on evidence based strategies and things we know through science and research and through practice to be effective for every student. Okay. Thank you. But if anybody has extra state money, we'd love to have someone special ed. Just keep it coming. Anything. Okay. Well, thank you and appreciate the continued updates and, more to come.
All right. Well, we will, move back into our action items, and we will move to item h, final review of career and technical education industry recognized credentials list to, and, doctor Williams. Good aft. Good afternoon. Yes. It is. Back again. This afternoon, we want to discuss, final review review for the CTE criteria separately, then also have a conversation to discuss the the industry recognized credentials, a list for the
board, if that's okay for the board. Before doctor Williams come up, we wanted to really, as we promised last time, come back to you with the criteria so that end of so that we are bringing that to the forefront so that individual individuals understand how do we even get to the point of creating a list. This criteria is, kinda how we're help us to actually gauge and also look at how we're going to measure what goes on the list. So it's informed by some metrics of data driven outcomes, industry recognized credentials, portability, program
quality, stackability, and third party validation. So when doctor Williams is gonna come up and share a little bit about that process, we've also had some, more, input from the field. We've had some opportunity to engage with individuals and committees from the conversations with the co chairs of the CTE committee. So doctor Williams, would you come up and share a little bit about the credentials before we delve in a dove detail into the credential list.
Good afternoon, everyone. Wanted to share some information just around our journey around over the last couple of months during our research and, stakeholder feedback in regard to industry recognized credentials. You have the criteria before you, but I do wanna touch on just some important, factors. And and I also wanna start with first just defining industry recognized credential. In in addition to the criteria, we have never had a historically a statutory or regulatory definition for industry recognized credential.
And so we do feel that it's of value to at at least start at that point with looking at a definition. And in addition, then we'll move over into the criteria. Industry recognized credentials validate a student's skills and knowledge in a career and technical education field of study and are included in Virginia's three e readiness framework and graduation requirements. Industry recognized credentials are defined as credentials that are recommended by multiple employers within the industry or sector involved and are accepted, preferred, or required for screening, hiring, retention, and
advancement purposes, and where appropriate, endorsed by a nationally recognized trade association or an organization representing a significant part of the industry or or sector. Okay? These credentials are developed and evaluated by external organizations, ensuring they meet industry standards and are relevant to employers. Earning these credentials are essential for career readiness and success for several reasons. And so as, mister McClary mentioned, for employability, career advancement, and alignment to industry needs.
A structured process for validating the list of industry recognized credentials has been identified based on the following criteria. Industry recognized credentials provide data driven outcomes, industry recognition. They're portable. They represent program quality and their alignment with CTE courses and programs. They are stackable. And as mentioned, they are validated by a third party, a reputable independent third third party organization. In addition to the public comments received since, started back at the November board meeting,
the office of career and technical education solicited feedback on November 21 from a variety of stakeholders. Key stakeholders that provided feedback included community college system, VirginiaWORKS, Virginia Office of Education Economics, Virginia State Council of Higher Education of Virginia, Virginia Department of Corrections, Virginia Department of Juvenile Justice, Virginia Association of Career and Technical Education, Virginia Association of Career and Technical Education administrators, the superintendent's regional representatives. Virginia CTE advisory committee, our Virginia Restaurant Lodging and Travel Association.
What we have proposed, for you as far as the identification of the criteria, is what we are seeking as a superintendent's recommendation for final review. Upon final review of the definition and criteria that we have provided for you, the superintendent recommends that, we receive additional industry credentialing submissions from employers for review and evaluation against the prescribed criteria. Our hope is that we can bring to you a final list of industry credentials at the March 26 board meeting.
So at this time, I would open it up to any questions. Any questions? Appreciate it, doctor Williams and, w superintendent McCleary. I know we've had many conversations around this, so I appreciate your time around that regard. I in that regard, I think and the way I understand it, you're looking for, support around what the criteria are and then kinda have a separate conversation around the credentials themselves. Is that the best way to approach vice president Hansen? Or Yes.
Yes. We believe that if we can, agree on a definition and and a set of criteria, then from there, that allows employers to be able to assist us with the recommendations that we have already made, that may provide us with additional recommendations that need to be added to that list, and it provides that screening criteria. I think it's also important. If we can provide this criteria and make it public, if something is not on the list, and industry can prove to us through the criteria that it has should be on the list, that also helps us, to be able to identify if that
makes sense. And we run it through our process. But I think it helps us to be able to have a better list. Agree. Thank you. I think from my lens, in our last conversation, we talked about the criteria. My perspective is that much of the criteria is relevant and and, important there in terms of the data driven outcome, industry, portable program quality, and third party. Did have a question, that's come to me since our conversation around the stackable component. Thinking about, like, the barbers, I think there's a barber's, certification in there, knowing that
there's probably likely nothing beyond that. Where does that stackable begin and end, or is that kind of it you know, if if it the credential is not able to meet that criteria, is it automatically out? Because I think there's some that might be, terminal credentials. There are two levels of barbering licenses. So to that point, there's using that as an example. I'm I'm just meaning general. That's right. An excellent example because that is a state license. And so, that experience culminates with a state license. That, experience, personally, I think that when we look at state state licenses, that kinda
sits into a different category. When we look at stackable credentials, we're looking at examinations, that, for example, may start in, secondary education. There may be additional examination opportunities in the workplace, as as, you know, ASE certification examinations. One may be an expert, in brakes or engine repair and may go on to receive additional certifications as required by their employer. Got it. There's I wanna make sure that whatever language we have in here isn't prohibiting, potential
future credentials that are not necessarily stackable but are still meeting this other criteria and relevant and useful for, you know, the workplace. And then the second question that I have is around industry recognition and and agree with what is listed here around employers, you know, wanting wanting to widely accept the credential. But wanna make sure that some folks have reached out to me and said that
that's maybe being interpreted as, is it in a job application, or is it relevant there? And so wanna better understand what, this widely accepted standard of competency might be or aligned with in demand occupations. How is that measured? What can you give me some detail around what those bullet points mean in your purse from your perspective? It's kind of a combination because I see you were talking about the job vacancies, and that's actually in the section that we have identified as as portable. And so we wanna ensure that across career clusters and across these industry sectors that
these, these credentials or these examinations, are something that is accepted for employment. That's how we landed with the OSHA 10 certification. There's not an employer in employer in those industries that, you know, have have come to the department to say that this is something that is required for entry level employment. You have to have that. And so, some employers are saying we'll hire you, but you must obtain this within the first thirty days. That's industry recognized. That's something that, is required, for that entry level.
Portable, and maybe we need to, you know, redefine industry recognition. But as we have identified here, portable, it reflects the current and emerging workforce needs as reflected in job vacancies. I know we did have a meeting with the Virginia Office of Education Economics this week, and they are willing to assist and support the department, with the evaluation of future credentials and how those credentials align to, future job opportunities, through those that that research, from those job, vacancies.
So, that is a collaborative effort, not only from the department, but engaging, our other workforce agencies as well. I think that's all I have for now. But, Okay. So my comments maybe have a little bit more to do with the employment points and all that stuff, and maybe we'll be getting to that again. But in terms of, which I think our comments now are just we're talking about the criteria on page four. Is that primarily what you're asking for comment on now? Do not have that in front of me. Okay. We're talking about portable, stackable, third party validation.
That is correct. Yes. Okay. I mean, one thing I'd suggest adding to the list is the skill levels because I feel like, and this is gonna tie into later. I feel like skill level is a really important way to distinguish among, IRCs. So you can have high skill, moderate, low skill. A lot of other states are using O*NET. You've heard of O*NET. Yeah. And because that lays out, like, which IRCs have high, medium, or low skill levels. And that might be another sort of way that we can begin to, you know,
think about the criteria, as well as as some of these other things. And I I also kinda I don't know when we're looking at data driven incomes, I'm trying to figure out I mean, to me, the most important one is wage earning potential. I mean, continued education is probably also picked up by Stackable. So I guess my other large piece of feedback would just be to prioritize the, wage earning earning potential, relative to some of these others that are already captured in other criteria. And just as a point of clarification, would you would it be the recommendation of
the board as far as the skill level, section? You know, I know we're categorizing that or developing a process to review, high, mid, and low. Are we gonna focus on the high? Is that something that you just wanted us to Yeah. Bring back before you for for for additional discussion? Maybe if this is bleeding into the other part of the discussion, that we've talked about before just making some tiers of these so that all IRCs aren't created equally because we know that, you know, some of these IRCs an engineering IRC is not
the same as a Microsoft Office. That's my famous example because we've seen and I'm it sound like a broken record. But Texas is way ahead of this than we are. Right? And I feel like we should be learning from what they learned. And they they did they're fixing some of the things that were going in doing this, and one of which is not having a criteria by which to designate the quality of these IRCs. So they use labor market demand, wage earning potential, and skill levels as the three criteria by which to then say, here's a tier one IRC, here's a tier two You're gonna get point two five for this one. You're gonna get one point you know what I mean?
Because I think that's kinda what we've been after for a while. And correct me if I'm wrong, but, it still looks like the point values in terms of how we are thinking about the IRCs aren't predicated on the types, the tiers, or the levels of different, IRCs. It's just based on whether you get anyone off the list. Is is that accurate? So to provide some clarification, there has been some changes to the initial three e employment criteria over the last year. Okay.
Initially as proposed, that criteria included multiple tiered levels. And so if you could recall, we had a high demand, high wage. There was high wage. There was you you know, there were multiple categories. And so we were looking at in the entire list, and the point system was totally different. The the, intent around, this proposal and criteria was based on what we have currently approved for three e employment, which is a high demand, criteria for industry, credentials, and
then we have industry recognized credentials. So we just have those two different point values that would be awarded. And so in the proposed list, you'll see a column that identifies the high demand certifications, which would qualify for the higher point value, and then all other certifications would qualify for the lesser point value. So I have a question. It's not yours. So I'm looking back at high demand criteria definition, and it kinda goes back to
some of my earlier comments. One of them is medium annual earnings, minimum of $29,160, 200% of the federal poverty level. So I would support as we move forward or consistent with what we're trying to develop is having some different tiers because I've been concerned about the fact that we're building a c e CTE program that really caters more to low income employment than it caters more to low income employment than it does to job readiness in high
skill professions and high energy demand for AI machine learning, medical research. And my fear is is that if we don't say something about what we're aiming for and build a program for the future, that employers are just simply some employers will take advantage of the low standard that is being set, and and students will end up picking these lower tier job opportunities to meet some require US is going
in terms of what the real needs are. So I just want you to give consideration to the fact that I don't want us to build a program that just because there's a high demand for a restaurant worker, that that's where we're trying to shuttle our kids off to. I want us to build a CTE program that is built for the future. So to the extent that you can help modify that criteria as we move forward. I understand where we are now, but that is a huge concern that I have. Mister Mugg.
And, miss McPherson, appreciate that and understand that. I I think there's also kind of a potential shift in the market too. Right? Where, you know, when I was, going through school, maybe some of the trading industry, like plumber and electrician, were high wage, and now they've kinda transitioned into high demand, high wage. And so that's another thing to factor in in consideration as to what, what does that look like in the future, and what are the, different variables that are there. I guess and I don't know if this is a question for, superintendent Gullickson or
what it looks like. But from a timing perspective, and I know I've talked with the team around Perkins five and or what Perkins plan needs to look like. Is this something that could be taken to the committee for a tiered approach? What, I guess, needs to be addressed now, and what can be tweaked. Don't wanna belabor anymore, and I know we've had many conversations around it. So So where we are with the timeline, the current Perkins plan expires in June.
We must have the our plan submitted fully by May by May. So that means we have to have it fully buttoned up, sealed up, approved by the board before May. And we have to look at the timelines when it starts with, you know, where we are with board meetings. I do think it would be, beneficial if we could take some items to the committee. Because I think that's where the trade in industry and Yeah. The folks that need to have the input, will be, and help us, move this,
a little faster and give us more immediate feedback. So that would be my I would definitely appreciate that. If the timing would work, I I just really appreciate the the comments and questions, concerns of, where we are on the tiers and the skill levels. And if we could bring this back to our March meeting, would that give you the time for the May Perkins application if we were to approve it then? And obviously, you've got two months to work, with members of the board and others
to get it perfected so we can approve it then? Or I think if we are engaging with the committee that gives us a head start on that Perkins plan, so we have a general idea. We have a sixty day public comment period. So the reality is we can most likely get that released sometime in March, understanding that there may be some technical revisions to that. I think, massive changes or significant changes, could delay or cause future issues. Secondly, around the point value for three e employment, I'm not sure what that impact
would entail or what that would look like, to align three e employment to a tiered system. That's another side that lives outside of this particular office, but something that we will also have to consider. Yeah. Okay. Another good one coming. Fucking Robin. Yeah. I mean, if that's the case, which I'm agree with my colleagues, it'd be nice. I'll just put a couple other things on your radar just from again, we've been doing a lot of research, in IRCs in Texas. So one thing they fixed this last, general assembly go round was that some of
the IRCs were were allowing open book exams, and that was becoming a real problem. So I would just put on the radar that we don't wanna have open book exams for our IRCs. And the other thing they were having a problem with in Texas was unlimited retakes. So kids could retake this thing ten, twelve, 15 times, which is something else we don't want. So if the committee can figure out, okay, how many times can they retake an IRC, do we not allow open book? And the other thing was it was just getting out of control. They had, like, 500, 600, seven they just kept growing and growing and growing.
And now, they're back to pairing down, pairing down, pairing down. So I would just say, for us, we don't, what I mean, we don't wanna have so many of these things that it just be we're not actually focusing on the most important high demand, high wage, high skill, whatever we're trying to, to focus on. Thank you. Any other comments or questions? Are we okay if we can put this on our March schedule and just make sure and I'd encourage, board members to be directly in touch and just make sure, everything is on the table with all the issues so we can, get this moving
in March. Okay. Okay. Okay. Mister Chapman with our item j and our annual report. Thank you, vice president Hansen, members of the board, superintendent Gullickson. Item j is the board's annual report. Otherwise, it was a 2025 annual report on the condition and needs of public schools in Virginia, which provides an overview of the needs of, public education and an update on student achievement, highlights the board's voluminous work over over the last year. One of the main features of this report that I'd love to highlight is its interactivity. You will notice that because the board has engaged in so much work over the
past year, it was more convenient rather than, make this a 400 page report to have these, links within the report itself, to the work that the board has already done, to those boiler plates and the summaries there. Speaking of the the volume of work, one of the reasons this is coming in January, this report was due in December, is because the board was still had a number of very large policy items and decision making points from the November and the December meetings. And so it was the recommendation of then president Creasy, that this, report be deferred
until today, which is the reason for first and final review because this report is in fact, you know, due to the general assembly. We wanna make sure that they have the information there. So the recommendation from the, superintendent, is that this report be, waive first review and approve this report and delegate to the board president and to the superintendent the ability to make, any final edits, and I believe any edits that are consistent with the board comments here. Thank you, Mr. Chapman. Any questions or concerns? Hearing none, is there a motion to waive first review and approve the board's annual
report, and delegate to the board president, superintendent the ability to make final edits consistent with the board's conversation before submission and technical edits. So moved. Second. Doctor Ackerman? Aye. Mister Green? Aye. Doctor Northern? Aye. Missus McPherson? Aye. Missus Kilgore? Aye. Mister Monk? Aye. Mister Carraway? Aye. And missus Ashton, I think she's off at this point. And chair votes aye. Thank you, Mr. Chapman. Thank you. Okay. Moving on to Item K, first and final review of the reallocation of the SEAP
25 unused funds. And, miss Berta. That was quick. I had to look up. That's okay. Thank you, vice president Hansen, members of the board, superintendent Gullickson. Before you this afternoon is a first and final review of revisions and reallocation of school construction assistance program, unused funds from not the you all have year 2025. The reason for these reallocations is due to Minnberg County who was originally awarded $16,000,500 for their project, subsequently canceled their project and is unable to move forward.
What the process is based on your guidelines is to redistribute those funds to other school divisions that met, the board's criteria at the time, along with the points, minimum point score of 65 or greater. We have two projects that we are recommending to you today, to move forward with allocating funds and the reason for first and final today is just to be able to distribute those funds and allow these school divisions to move forward with their projects fairly quickly. So of the $16,000,500 we are recommending that you reallocate a total of $15,583,034 with
two awards. One to Sussex County Public Schools for Sussex Central High School with a project entire eligible grant of 1,772,000. This project scored 60 Sussex ranked higher in the project ranking list due to the composite index above Petersburg. Petersburg City Public Schools is also recommended for an award of a partial grant of $13,811,034, to fund their Petersburg High School project.
This project in the SCAP 2025 award process was only partially funded due to the available funds at dis- for distribution at the time. This project also scored 66 points. It is the recommendation today that the Board of Education approve the proposed reallocation of available funds from the school construction assistance program for fiscal year twenty five. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. Any questions for Ms. Burton? Just, just on the, this is just going down from the prior, application pool of
the next one's right down. That's correct. Okay. Yeah. We had more projects than you had money available to award, and so when a school division is unable to execute Oh my god. We go back into that approved application, and we recommend approval for you to move those projects on the list. Thank you. Well, let's just look at it real quick. Doctor. Norman. Can you tell me, is this Petersburg High High School? Is this a new high school? Are they do you remember this? What what exactly obviously, the bulk of the funding is going to Petersburg. Hang on one second. Let me see if this sheet tells me cheating.
I cannot remember. I believe it is a replacement high school, because the total project cost is $91,000,385. High school. And so we awarded a partial award based on the funding that was available at the original distribution. So the recommendation is to award them the remaining of that project to fully fund their 30%. They do have the remaining funds. They do. Okay. Alright. Thank you. I just do you want us to get in the same situation again? It always could happen. Anything could happen at the local level, but we wanna make sure we do our part to try to make the project success.
Thank you. And then vice president Hansen, and just to reaffirm what you heard earlier, there will be another round of school construction assistant grants opening in March that'll be awarded again this spring before the board. Probably at your June meeting, maybe your April meeting, depending on how ambitious they are, but likely your June meeting. So that's on deck. Thank you. Mister Richard, just just quickly, cheaper to not to put you on the spot, but you feel good about the Sussex application? Yes. Thank you.
Well, thank you. Is there a motion to waive first review and approve the proposed reallocation of available funds in the school construction f y '25 program? So moved. Okay. Second. Second. Doctor Ackerman? Aye. Mister Green? Aye. Doctor Northern? Aye. Missus McPherson? Aye. Missus Kilgore? Aye. Mister Monk? Aye. Mister Carraway? Aye. And chair votes aye. Thank you. Thank you. Here are item l. And, Jim, are you in sorry. Yeah. And doctor Wallace. Doctor Wallace. Okay. Jumping again. You really want to, Jim.
Help yourself. Excuse me. Good afternoon, president Ashton. If you're still on, I'm not certain. Vice president Hansen and superintendent Gulick's and members of superintendent Gullickson, members of the board. Today, I bring to you, and I have with me Amanda as well because and you remember Amanda from Advanced Learning because Amanda Navitra is, this item involves our IB course coursework. And so if you have any questions, she may have some of those answers. So, I bring to you the board approved courses to satisfy graduation requirements for standard
and advanced diplomas. This has been brought to you several times within the last year. Just making some minor edits. Excuse me. And when we do have, requests from school divisions or requests, from multiple school divisions, we like to try to get those requests completed as soon as possible. So, because this does impact their programs of studies. It is a minor change today on page 14 of the board approved document. You will notice the change being proposed to include updated language, which would, include AP personal, business with personal finance as a course that can count for the graduation requirement
for excellence in personal finance, provided on the standard right into that course. Approximately 10 school divisions have requested this change. And we also recently had a superintendent who reached out to us as they were going through their program of studies, and they would like to begin enrolling students in that class for 2627. Because this is an item that you have typically seen before as a body and, it's a very minor change, the superintendent does recommend that the board waive first review and approve this update to the board approved courses to courses to satisfy graduation requirements
for the standard advanced studies diploma. Thank you, doctor Wallace. Anything else, or any questions from the board? We're hearing none. Is there a motion to waive first review and approve, the update to the Board of Education approved courses of study or courses to satisfy graduation requirements for the standard and advanced studies diplomas in Virginia public schools to include language to include advanced placement, business with personal finance as a course that can count for graduation requirement of economics and personal finance provided the standards are incorporated into the course.
So move. Second. Doctor Ackerman? Aye. Mister Green? Aye. Doctor Northern? Aye. Missus McPherson? Aye. Missus Kilgore? Mister Monk. Aye. Mister Carraway. Sorry. Thank you. And chair votes aye. That's approved. K. Thank you very much. Thank you. We're just very excited about adding one more course option to students on the advanced pathway. So thank you, board. Thank you. Hi, mister Chapman. Thank you, vice president Hanson. Members of the board, superintendent Colton, I had my latte right at the end of lunch, so I'm, like, amped up and ready to go.
I'll also thank you in advance because this is another item on my regulatory bingo card, asked the board to repeal a major chapter on first and final review. The background checks for child day programs and family day systems is actually a very important chapter. It's integral, to putting forth standards to protect health, safety, and welfare of children receiving services, by ensuring that persons required to have background checks have not been convicted of an offense which prohibits licensure, registration, approval and employment, which bring brings the obvious question, why are we doing this on first and final review?
And the answer is because this is a merely procedural matter at this point. You may recall that the board has already approved a new general procedures and background checks. That's eight b a c 20 dash, eight one. That's has been through the full regulatory process already. They recently completed public comment on, I believe, January 1 and is is set to go into effect on 02/01/2026. That chapter includes, the distilled version of this chapter and it's an updated form. And so that really makes this chapter obsolete.
During the regulatory process, both of those chapters went through the NORA in November 2022. Is that correct, Jenna? 2021. November 2021. These regulatory actions have been in process for that long, over four years. But in the process, those got out of sync. And so the general procedures with the new background checks has already been approved. This one was trailing behind, and so we're asking that just for expediency we can get this off the books, since it's it's no longer necessary.
It's a a regulatory vestigial organ at this point. And so we're asking that the board would, would repeal this chapter at the final stage so that we can move forward with 08/21. One. Thank you, mister Chapman. Are there any questions? It's very consistent with prior conversations. Yeah. Is there a motion to waive first review and approve the repeal of background checks for child day programs and family day systems and delegate to VDOE authority to make any changes necessary to comply with the Administrative Process Act or Virginia Register Act?
So moved. Give me a second. Thank you. Doctor Ackerman? Aye. Mister Green? Aye. Doctor Northern? Aye. Missus McPherson? Aye. Missus Kilgore? Mister Monk? Aye. Mister Carraway? Aye. And chair votes aye. And thus, miss Kilgore pipes in? Yes. If for some reason, it it went off at the time you said the name, but I do vote I. Thank you so much. Okay. Well, we, have a vote and prove it. Item n, we've got, mister Gilstrap with us, and, take it away.
Good afternoon, President Ashton. If you're still there, Vice President Hansen, Superintendent Gullickson, and other members of the board, I'm Rob Gilstrap, assistant superintendent of NOW Educator Workforce. Today, I bring to you a first and final review. This would be very familiar to you if you've been on the board for, any length of time. We've brought the same basic request to you and you've approved it on every case. This is just one additional area. The Virginia Literacy Act introduced requires the improved literacy outcomes for students across the Commonwealth. Public schools are actively implementing the VLA, the requirements out right now.
Revisions are needed to the reading specialist endorsement regulation to align with requirements defined in the VLA. Work groups were convened during the 2025 to recommend updates to the reading specialist endorsement. In the fall, the advisory board of teacher education licensure, ABTEL, recommended that the proposed changes to the reading special endorsement be presented to the Board of Education, which is why I'm here. The regulations for the reading specialist were revised through the same process as the other endorsement areas, early childhood, elementary ed, middle, and special ed, included in the VLA, which
have all been amended to address the requirements for evidence based literacy and high quality instructional materials. Superintendent recommends that the board way first review and approve the regulate, regulatory actions, delegating authority to the VDOE to make any changes necessary to comply with the Administrative Process Act and the Virginia Registration Act. If you have any questions, I'm open to answer them. This the changes that you will see will be identical to the ones you approved earlier this year, just in another section in the code. Thank you, Mr.
Gilstrap. Any questions, comments? Right. Hearing none. Is there a motion to waive first review and approve the regulatory action and delegate authority to the VDOE to make any changes necessary to comply with the Administrative Process Act or the Virginia Register Act? Thank you. Doctor Ackerman? Hi. Mister Green? Hi. Doctor Northern? Hi. Missus McPherson? Hi. Missus Kilgore? Hi. Mister Monk? Hi. Mister Carraway? Hi. And Tara votes aye. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Mister Chapman will start us off, and I think superintendent's gonna, step in as well.
Yes. Thank you so much, Vice President Hanson. The board may recall that, this topic has been on its radar. It has just been a little bit of time. Back in August 08/27/2025, the board engaged in a a a thorough review of the current comprehensive plan. And then in September 2025, had a more substantive discussion about revisions to the Board of Education's comprehensive plan. This item is now on first review, you know, presented to the board with a a fairly substantial update.
Major items that have been changed include the mission, vision, and charge for public education Virginia. So in the purpose of the strategic plan, updated statistics on K-twelve enrollment trends, a new proposed five year strategic framework which includes goals, key focus areas and draft outcome metrics, as well as the appendices that are required by law. The board is required was required to review this, every two years. And so the board did that over the summer. And so now we're we're bringing a draft back.
I I will say that, you know, as as one matter, this is a much more visually appealing, you you know, strategic plan than previously. And I I would be remiss if I didn't point out the very hard work of of Tim Nuttall back there, you know, who who does everything media for the agency, but really made this one look spectacular, and certainly, you know, know, includes a lot of the, I think, elements that the board had discussed, and we think a a couple of other things that we're hoping that the board will be excited about. The plan would be to bring this back, for final review with any comments from
the board at the March meeting. Superintendent Gullickson. Great. Thank you, mister Chapman. As we are reminded of in the current comprehensive plan, since 1870, our public education system in the Commonwealth, has been underway. And so we have a long standing history of setting the vision for students and families here. One of the elements that you will see is, as you saw from our very
robust, past year of work, at the agency in partnership with the board, we've had some successes that make some of the strategic plan in its current form already moot. There are other areas where the board has really emphasized meeting after meeting are a top priority, such as modernizing data infrastructure, and other systems to be much more, in tune to have more responsiveness, and empowering the board with even more data information as
well as parents. And as you heard previously in in, multiple comments, including the organization structure and the recent, CTE conversation, a lot of our peers in both education and workforce agencies, as well as outside entities such as the Virginia Chamber's very robust, Virginia blueprint process, with well over a thousand Virginians setting the vision for 2035, have really set their visions,
and many of them have k 12 components that were mentioned, but not, as clearly captured as is being presented in this amended draft. So you note that, there are eight core pillars that are core elements of the work. One of the items, chief Conway and I noted is that there were zero focal points on our early childhood and early learners in our current comprehensive plan, which obviously
is, problematic on a multitude of reasons, but we're really honing in on that strong start and seamless transition. We've been hearing from principals and superintendents on the kindergarten readiness is improving and we have more to do, but that they're really noticing this incoming class, is more prepared. And that goes to the great work of our VQB five program. We have maintained key categories like educator, leader, and leadership excellence. As you have heard, you heard from VAST this morning, they want even more flexible
pathways. And our current plan had a few a few pathways, but really narrowed the breadth and scope of the agency team that oversees that work, work, to really meet the demands of what the field is looking for, such as dual enrollment credentialing, additional pathways, that were not yet a focal point. And so it incorporates elements and key components. But one of the main goals that we realized is, there was a a missing element around data and clear outcomes.
The current comprehensive plan had the board tracking over time to the same data point metrics as 2011. We all know, the world is very different than 2011. We have made momentous progress for advanced learners, students with disabilities, as we heard from doctor Hollins earlier, and are in a new era in the Commonwealth. And so this is very much as a a preliminary draft to spark and start
conversations on enhancements and refinements to the core elements that are captured in the existing plan as we really make sure that the the Virginia Department of Education, delivers on our part on the education continuum, as we've heard from the council of presidents, and our, feeder institutions, employers, military, etcetera. So as you note in the boilerplate, I draw your attention to page three in
the boilerplate around implementation and communication. We are working on a a web page, to house, this along with any refinements that the board wants. This first take, to post. And we'll continue to take input, feedback on goals, metrics, what's missing, what do we wanna double down on until at least Monday, April 13. So that gives about four months of robust engagement with stakeholders.
Each priority will be uniquely featured in a comment section. So for example, our early childhood care and team can really seek input for priority one as proposed that builds off of the Virginia Early Childhood Foundation strategic plan and a lot of core principles and focal points of the early childhood care and education commission. But make sure that we're setting that that mark right for the board's responsibilities and lens and contributions. And then the same goes for the other seven.
And we are going to continue to give periodic updates of the draft so that as we're receiving feedback, you'll have key versions. The board will be able to engage in some of those stakeholder sessions. I would be remiss to the staff if I did not remind people the general assembly legislative session is very closely approaching, and so there will be very active in person convenings in in late March and April, but virtual and interactive, web based, in
January and February, just, given the multitude of, early childhood and k 12 bills we are seeing get filed. The team will be, very busy next door. So, that's where some of the framing here, but surveys, listening sessions, opportunities for input. So we really are building off of the great momentum. We had the opportunity to weigh in on a lot of the the community college, Chevs, strategic plans, the workforce agency plans, the Virginia Chamber Blueprint, really listened to our team on both early childcare, adult learning, and k 12.
And so, this is now our parts to make sure we're really preparing our learners for the future and, want to give enough time for really meaningful and authentic stakeholder input. So with that, I pass to you. Comment on the on the plan if you don't know. Sure. I think great work. Looks good. I as a suggestion, I would tie in this k through 12 enrollment trend to enrollment trend to something else maybe in a section maybe that deals with chronic absenteeism
or national, you know, stats and, you know, at the gene stats and maybe move it to another section and not make it first. What's wrong with the comment? I was like, delete off with the positive and not the negative. So I just Does that mean a negative's coming? No. No. No. I mean, yeah. I because it all it talks about the decline in enrollment. Obviously, it's it's there, but I'm just saying it it kinda hits you up front. No. It does. That's great. Thank you. Any other comments, questions? Doctor Northern? Just a quick one. A couple quick ones, I hope.
On page 18, can we actually track kids? Does our SLDS tracking system allow us to track them from elementary, middle school, high school, secondary, into the workforce? Anybody know? Chief Conway? I I I just asked because page 18 says that we're going to track the percentage of graduates who enroll in persistent post secondary education, career and technical training programs, and military service? Yes. So, I will answer this with a caveat about the existence of a system, know what it specifically tracks.
I am not able to answer those questions. So VA Connects captures across all of the publicly funded early childhood care and education classrooms, so about 12,000 statewide, which kids are in those classrooms, the quality inputs about that. That back end now through VA Connects is also connected to all of the Virginia kindergarten readiness. So the kindergarten readiness screener, preschool screener as a three and four year old, and then as a kindergartner. At the moment in which you enter a school system, VA Connects enables us to
look back through probabilistic matching. And so if you and check whether or not you were any or in early childhood experience using four fields, name, address, like ZIP code, something else, and then backwards assigned your state testing identifier back to that infant, toddler, preschool experience. Vows or the literacy screener. And so which is also your track then on your literacy progress over time using your same state testing identifier, which then links up with your standards of learning.
So that kind of all of that so basically, an active state testing identifier assigned either for VKRP or VOWs, VA Connects, probabilistically matching it back to your early child experience. And and then my understanding, although not an expert on it, is that that through VA higher education, community college, and workforce indicators. VLDS is under the auspices of although we're a partner in this. VLDS is under the auspices of CHEV, although we're a partner in that.
But the key thing is all of the system now, thanks to VA Connects, goes all the way back using the state testing identifier. And then the real question is, what are all the capacities when you look at that, that new addition and you look at what the capacity of what VLDS can do. Yeah. Yeah. No. That's great. I I hope I mean, I assume Shuv's a strong partner with us because we obviously, we want the state agency in Chev to be you know, so we can continue to attract those kids. So that's good. And it's wonderful for being able to get us all the way back to early
childhood. That's phenomenal. So Vice president, Hampton, member Northern, just to add on to chief Conway's remarks, you heard from Chev at the last meeting. We'll make sure you get up to speed on the direct admissions portal that they've been building in partnership with us, the Virginia Community College System, and other workforce agencies. Phase one is on taking that k 12 data, and we're merging the VA Connects team with Chev to try to build this Okay. And make the systems talk to each other, but it's early.
Yeah. But we're very excited about what that means to eliminate access barriers to both public and willing partners on the private institutions of higher ed. Then phase two is then, now how do we start adding some of those workforce elements, phase three on the military. But phase one is how do we get it right now that we do have this robust set of information of birth through eighth grade? So that in addition to the longitudinal data studies of VLDS, we have some actual and short term information. We're also working through just MOUs across the institutions to have better data feedback loops
for us, to pull in for the school quality profiles and, like, really what is the impact. So you notice that that is one of the leading reasons that's informed priority five around the post secondary pipeline alignment, not just for institutions of our ed, but how do we get to better have that feedback loop on is it working? If we say that students are really ready, is that how it's being, received as they go out into enlistment in the military, actually enrolling in college level courses at
a two or four years institution, or are they really feeling day one ready, into a career path? So we're in the early stages there, but they've been great thought partners to, partners. We're very grateful for executive director Fleming's leadership and collaboration. And as was noted at the December board meeting, have the first ever data sharing MOU agreement with them because we're really bridging, that collaboration in a meaningful way, including down to our earliest learners. That's great. My other quick question was where we got 12,500 post secondary credentials as a goal.
Seems like an odd So this one is cited from the Virginia Community College System strategic plan based on their input. So we linked in a few spots where there was great alignment with board interests and ours. That one had been voted on through their stakeholder input. That doesn't mean we need to keep that. Theirs is through 2030. Our plan is obviously through 2029. But in a few spots, you'll see direct citations where their strategic plans that are publicly posted, voted on by boards or councils had key metrics regarding early childhood, k
12 education, or that post secondary through line. And that was one of those. Okay. So we hope the public will give us feedback on is that right. Very good. Anything else, doctor? Thank you. Other questions, comments? All right. Well, just again, we, had this on the agenda, and our August meeting and September meeting, and just appreciate the, item a little differently that, even though it's for first review, I'd like a motion to accept the item for first review and delegate to
the board president and superintendent the ability to make final edits consistent with the board's conversations, today and previously before submission and technical edits since this item will go out for public comment and listening sessions and input opportunities beginning, next week through middle of April 13, opportunities beginning, next week through the middle of April 13. This delegation will help make sure that the public sees the best possible version of the document. I know that's a lot for a motion. So, okay, good. Is there a second? Second. Thank you.
Doctor Ackerman. I'm not fully sure I understand. We're we're on item p. O. O. O. O. O. It Okay. The motions around us having the ability to comprehensive plan. Yeah. Yes. And make the modifications we heard from you all today so that we can get it publicly posted next week. Aye. Thank you. Mister Green? Aye. Doctor Northern? Aye. Missus McPherson? Aye. Missus Kilgore? Aye. Mister Monk? And this is first review with you all to be in the McEdits for? Yes. Yep. Aye. And mister Carraway? Aye. And Chair votes aye. Okay. Now we will move on to item P.
And Doctor. Wallace is back up. It says first review of the revised, board approved textbook and high quality instructional materials process. Yes. And so greetings again. This is the first review of the Virginia textbook and high quality instructional materials the board item outlines for you the current process. It's just the textbook review process, and so that begins on page two. You have a redlined version also of the old process as well as a clean version reflecting the proposed changes because you can get really lost in that redlined version.
I will provide to you an overview of the recommended changes by following presentation that you see on the screen and that accompanies the item. Textbooks and high quality instructional materials are among the most powerful levers available to improve student outcomes at scale. When thoughtfully selected and rigorously reviewed, these materials ensure that every student has access to evidence based, standards aligned content that supports deep learning of content.
While we, while our standards of learning define what students are expected to learn at each grade level and course, high quality instructional materials are the curricula and instructional educational materials that are aligned to those standards and that also reflect evidence And so, you And so, you you can't you kinda have your standards, you have your HQIM, but
you also have to have that quality teacher. Nothing replaces that quality teacher in the classroom. So pursuant to the enactment claw or the enactment clauses is of chapter six eighty and six eighty three from the twenty twenty five acts of the assembly. The department was tasked with consulting with experienced teachers, division level content specialists, and special, subject matter experts to evaluate the proposed changes to the current textbook and review, approval of process. Through this consultation with educators who had engaged in the recent review processes, you'll remember
that we brought to you most educators, to make sure that we had their feedback, as far as what their experience was with the current process and what we needed to do to update our current process. And, as we look at the review of this material, remember this does tie back
to your priorities to help every learner meet high expectations and it sounds like that might be a continuing priority. To review our, current process, we held those multiple stakeholder feedback meetings as well as we sent out a survey to receive feedback. We also had, some, input from recent publishers in that process as well. Overall, feedback was in favor with the current process being continued, mostly remaining the same. However, making sure that we, maintain it being a clear, fair, and rigorous process.
What does need to be updated includes the tenants included in the legislation, which defines textbooks and HQIM. So you will see, in the item the legislatively driven definition of textbooks and other high quality instructional materials. You'll see first up there that, adequate content and materials correspond with our standards of learning. That is no different than the current textbook textbook process. What has been added to that definition are the other facets. The instructional practices that are aligned, with general and specific discipline specific research practices.
So what is good in science and what is good in math and what is good in English and what is good in history. And then assessments to monitor student mastery of that curriculum content. So our current process process really just looks at the textbook itself. This would expand and look at those assessments that accompany student learning so that teachers can gauge how well students have mastered that content. And then guidance for meeting students, who have, needs, who are who are at risk
of not mastering content. This includes our English language learners and our students with disabilities. You heard doctor Hollins earlier talk about the supports needed, for our teachers. And so this would expand supports to teachers of students with disabilities, as well as English learner students through the high quality instructional programs. And then finally resources for teachers that develop their content knowledge. That goes back to the high quality instruction that teachers have, in in the classroom that they are producing in the classroom.
So making sure that our educators are trained and they are able to implement the instructional practices of those programs that we're, reviewing and that, those practices are based on reliable, trustworthy, and valid evidence, and that there is a demonstrated record of success and a build of understanding on those curriculum components. So it's really that training piece, that training component for educators, and that is actually what we heard loud and clear from the field, from their experiences.
They really support, those resources for teachers and the, the focus on having that, those extra support and supplemental materials for students who are struggling to master content. In addition to stakeholder feedback, so there is stakeholder feedback but, in addition to that, stakeholder feedback, which, you know, really does support kind of making minor what I consider minor edits that are gonna have major impact to the process.
We did take into consideration, that we had the Johns Hopkins study. I can't remember which month this board saw that back in the summer maybe, the the HQIM Johns Hopkins study. And so we did take that into consideration as well when we reviewed our processes. We also, took into consideration very strongly what we have experienced with the implementation of the Virginia Literacy Act. HQIM has already been in effect for our youngest students, our k through five k
through fifth grade English classes already use HQIM in their pro programs. And so we took that into consideration too as, like, the best practices and and lessons learned, and a lot of that has to do with teacher training. You will see some of the feedback included that rubrics should be discipline specific. And so in our previous process, things were a little bit more generic. And, yes, we did have some discipline specific that was related to the standards. But remember, when you have research out there for science, science is gonna be different
than research for math or English. And so we really wanna be able to take those, make those rubrics discipline specific based on that latest research. And so some of our rubrics were kind of confining us to what we were able to look at in regard to those practices. Some other things that we heard from the committees is that timelines and workload constraints significant hurdle, with the recent review cycles. And that really had to do more with the math, review cycle and just because there was a there was somewhat of a delay and then it was kind of
a a hurry up and push through and and get as many, companies on the list as we could. And so the the review panel members themselves who participated in those stakeholder meetings indicated that, you know, they could have taken a little bit longer to review some of those, materials. And so it was recommended that we build in additional time for this process so that there's also some professional learning opportunities. What they wanna see with professional learning is that once we have that, verified and you have approved textbook vendors that we do, some sort of professional development for division
leaders that explains each of the products to them as an overview that would assist them with their local processes for adoption at the local level. And so that is where you see that division leaders, requested that training and support documents that are easy to understand. We'd like to develop, support documents that are really easy to understand on the alignment piece. And we have done some of that for, we always publish our correlation documents, but, we have felt like some of the resources from the, VLP, the Virginia Literacy Partnerships
that have come out with our curriculum guides could be, content areas as well, ingested, appropriately. In addition to the Johns Hopkins study and our stakeholder feedback, we looked at practices utilized by other states, kind of looking at what other practices utilized by other states, kind of looking at what other states do. Some of them, do a lot of what we are recommending in the proposed changes. They do a cycle much like we do of every seven year. Some of them do shorter cycles. Some of them do intermediate, you know, review cycles.
And then some only approve early literacy. They don't even approve textbooks for other content areas. So it was a wide range, of what was included in that, review of states. And then, like I said, lessons learned. I'll go through the selection best practices pretty quick. This is in your in your item, and I'm certainly not gonna read all of this. But really, it is important that, we engage our committees in that rigorous HQIM vetting process, making sure that they are trained on what the expectations are for high quality instructional materials as well, as they go through that process of reviewing materials, that we
review HQIM and determine gaps with accessibility and this is where we wanna make sure that we're supporting all learners, particularly our students, who struggle with learning, but also our advanced learners because we know that our advanced learners sometimes will sit in classes and and, you know, wish that they could go ahead. It speaks to our seat time flexibility, been bouncing out of these this meeting in between, seat time flexibility training that was also going on at the same time. So, very, very hot and fresh on my brain. Also conducting a practical and technical review.
So really looking at usability and technical cost and being very transparent with the materials and how much they're gonna cost. We have, worked with the Office of Innovation to, kind of lean into some of some advice on this. And they recommended, you know, having some single sign on compatibility. That means that when a child logs in to their device for the day, they're logging in to that those high quality instructional resources resources as well. That learning management systems can integrate with these programs as well. Being very transparent about the cost. Again, I talked about the professional learning and I won't go into that, but really
just more professional learning. Teachers are eager to have professional learning. Division leaders are eager for professional learning, and particularly around how high quality instructional materials look as they are implemented in the classroom. And we are starting to roll out some of that training, in February actually, so very timely. And then, developing and implementing a strategic plan. So it's important that, and that's what we're gonna be working with divisions on, how they roll out HQIM in their divisions will be very important and that'll all be at the local level. And this process still allows, that local level to have autonomy on what they are
going to adopt. So just as the previous process, we would make recommendations to approve textbooks in HQIM, but then local divisions would lead their own adoption processes to adopt HQIM, with the new legislation. And so the next slide 11 kind of outlines for you where these changes are in that big document that is the new process, where we are really looking to, have that additional training, support our learners, solicit additional feedback. And so that was another, another bit involving and making very explicit announcements about textbook
review cycles at the state level so that we can get more, localities involved in that process and then making technical changes. So we do have, you know, there are some technical changes within this document that we had to kind of just, get with the times, so to speak. Right? It was an old process last adopted in 2011, so it was it's time for some of those up updates. And so what we are, also looking at is, based on this stakeholder process, department
staff, recommend a look at, some of the board approved materials from the recent mathematics adoption in February and March. Some of them demonstrate, you know, some alignment that we would want to be in, in more current in alignment with this new process once it is, passed by this board. And so that process is outlined for you where the publishers would be provided with an opportunity to realign some of those materials that were less aligned, and that will just support our students and our educators in the field and make it easier for
them to adopt more materials. Some next steps, so after the, process is approved, we'll host webinars on the updated process. Of course, we have this, time period between now and March when we bring this item back to you for review. And we would, recommend or we would look at the current timelines. The legislation around this bill did, specify dates for adoption. We would look at adopting on a little a slightly different schedule than that, more to mirror with the needs of materials in the hands of school divisions.
And so, we've provided for you, you know, there when the last adoption cycles have been out there and science and history are two content areas that have not had adopted materials in quite some time. So we would begin using this process, of course, with the upcoming, 2026 review cycle for our core literacy programs. We've already worked with our Virginia literacy partnerships. It really doesn't change their process a whole lot, but it does align our processes and also make sure that they are protected as well.
Training for our school divisions, we begin that in February, as I said, and then, proceed with the process to review re review currently board approved materials in mathematics. So you have attached to your board item also a letter that could be sent to publishers, from those recent reviews. But, now, you know, entertain any questions if you have, that you have about the process. And it's probably easier to read in the clean version of the HQIM document, but I'm happy to answer any questions.
Thank you, Doctor. Wallace. And just open it up for questions or counsel or direction. Hawks nor them, I'd like to ask them. So right now, we have EdReports, Knowledge Maps, Reading League, Curriculum Insights. There are four or five new curriculum, review on the block. Right? Used to be just ed reports. And now we've got all these other ones springing up. And there's confusion in the field. It's been written about as recently as this week. And I think states are getting confused, right, because Ohio adopts one, Virginia doesn't adopt
it, vice versa. And everybody's, like, going, okay, which which one of these should we be looking at for direction? So I guess I mean, and now we're adding on our own process. So I guess my question for you is, how do you think about these four or five national folks who are evaluating and and and bringing people, teachers together just like we are, some of which, you know, obviously, are looking at standards that are not unique, to us. But how do you how do you guys use other, other folks? And how are you thinking about AI?
Because I know that several states who I've spoken with have already come up with a human set of vetted criteria. Like, they've did the the real brain work of putting the a of putting the criteria together, and then they've run that through AI. And in many cases, they're finding that AI is doing a better job with alignment finding alignment examples than they're able to find themselves. So I guess if you've, just two parts, whether how you think about the other folks doing this work and how you think about the potential role of AI. Yeah. So, great questions, and certainly appreciate that.
We did you we have used, as you know, EdReports, and we look at those and and consider that, as as a part. But because it wasn't part of the a different process, we haven't to read on the thing. And so with any of those review processes, they're nationally done. I think the big thing that we've heard letting clear even as yes is as early or as recent as yesterday during a math task force advisory committee meeting where we talked about this process and gave another opportunity for feedback from the field and practitioners. And we heard loud and clear that, alignment to Virginia standards is really a key
point. Mhmm. And so I think that, you know, to your point, that's where this process is Virginia specific because we are really looking at that alignment to the standards. And many times, the people on our review committees for textbooks and high quality instructional materials are also the persons who were on committees who wrote the standards. So they're evaluating materials for standards that they were involved in developing or refining. And so they have great content knowledge of what that standard is for Virginia students.
Now those reports are certainly great, and those other processes are certainly great for some of the other components of HQIM. And I think that is also why we, you know, started looking at EdReports and some and other states are moving away from EdReports and moving to some of the other reviewers. Mhmm. You know, until EdReports updates, their reviews. Right. Right. But, you know, to your point, I think that, you know, the we can consider those as a part of the review and looking at some of those instructional practices, but what we're hearing from the field loud and clear is that, alignment is really,
really important and ensuring that alignment, is there. And then the implementation is very close second to that. So how these, products are being implemented at the local level and gaps being filled because there is no core you will hear me say it a million times and you'll hear other, other practitioners in our office will say this a million times. There is no perfect core program. And so there's always gonna be something that is missing or not as robust in
a in a program, and that's where the local level really has to think about filling in either with content or instructional practices, supplemental materials, that kind of thing. As far as AI, yeah, I don't think as a state that we are ready to have a you know, we would have to invest in in some programming to kind of be able to do that and use that. I think it's a great place to work towards going for those processes. But I I think that, we look at AI in a couple of different ways.
You're looking at it as reviewing the materials. We're looking at AI also as how teachers might be using AI in the classroom for instructional practices. And so, you know, there are different facets to to considerations for AI. I could jump in here. Yes. Here. Sorry. Oh, no. Those are wonderful questions because we we do wanna have that national lens in what's happening nationally with curriculum and instruction. One of the things that, Doctor. Wallace and I were talking about with this process was using it as a lever to improve, the preparation of our educators in how to identify high quality curriculum and
implement it. And so one of the things that we are gonna do moving forward is looking at, some of the teachers who are provisionally licensed or some of the educators in our, needs intensive support schools or off track schools and leverage this process with them. Because what we know is even if a division purchase curriculum, a teacher's still gonna go online and pull a lesson. So they need to know how to identify, is this lesson high quality? And so I think by leveraging, looking at that the the national what's happening nationally,
looking at that strong alignment to Virginia standards, is one thing. Leveraging this process as a training tool to build our educator workforce is the second piece. And then AI, definitely. We have to do more with AI. I know we are moving forward with, like, teacher licensure and, collaborating with, another state agency to to really improve that process and leverage AI. And I think that's also something once we get that system down and train that AI system, we could look at other areas that we are working in, to leverage
AI because, that that's where we're headed. And as doctor Wallace said, also how are teachers leveraging AI in the classroom for instructional purposes. Thank you, both. Other questions or thoughts? All right. Well, thank you, Doctor. Wallace. And, we'll accept this item for first review, and see you in March. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Items q and r. I guess we're gonna have mister Jennings or not. We work together on this. Oh, he was blocked by the dais.
Okay. So we are gonna discuss accreditation appeals. In December, you were presented with the, outcomes of the school performance and support framework. And so you saw, the accountability piece. And then, there was the accreditation piece. So there was this deliberate separation of accountability and accreditation. And so, we we presented, the accreditation outcomes and schools were either had were awarded for this, based off of the 24, 25, submissions, either fully accredited or conditionally accredited.
At that December board meeting this data was shared so there were, a little over 1,700 schools that were, fully accredited and 113 schools that were conditionally accredited. Divisions, they can appeal their accreditation, status. And so school divisions had until December 29 to submit appeals to, for accreditation. And, the board considers per the regulation, appeals in only limited circumstances. So we received all the appeals.
We looked over them, in in-depth. None of them rose to the to the level that met the code requirement to bring them before the board because a lot of these appeals were, either, we we didn't understand the question, so here's the evidence, or they met with their board and they adopted policy that then met the criteria. And so there were 12 school divisions and they're all listed on the screen here that submitted appeals and in total was 59 schools, where these appeals were submitted for
that were conditionally accredited. So of those 12 school divisions, nine of those divisions had their the school all of the schools that they submitted for, were transitioned from conditionally accredited to fully accredited. And I just wanna give you some examples. Prince Williams really comes to mind. They were conditionally accredited because they did not have in the policy at their time, a a requirement to offer a, certificate of completion. So in the regulations, it's required that you have a, you know, diploma and then
you also offer a certificate of completion. And and what we heard from our school divisions is that what we want all of our schools all of our students to get a diploma, so why would we even offer that certificate? And we know that, it it's in the reg, and we are following we're following the requirements in the law. So in December, Prince William's, they did their board, updated the policy, to include that certificate, and they have now met the requirements. When we look at Gloucester County, this was one where, they were there's some of
their schools were conditionally accredited because of facilities and safety provisions, specifically content that, was was either lacking or not present in certain handbooks or student code of conducts. So they have worked and they have, updated all of those handbooks, code of conducts. They have trained teachers. They submitted a ton of information demonstrating that they are now in compliance with the regulation. And so, and so all of the schools that they submitted will be condition will be, fully accredited. And so next steps, the goal is we want all schools to be fully accredited.
So any school that is still not fully accredited, we are going to work with, to ensure that they can make some significant progress towards, becoming fully accredited. The schools that did not, transition just yet from conditionally accredited to fully accredited were those that were comprehensive support and improvement. So the regulation is very it it has some very key requirements to move these schools from a conditionally accredited status to a fully accredited status. And so we are gonna work with those division superintendents, to ensure that they are
set up for success to move their comprehensive support and improvement schools, to demonstrate that improvement that's needed to move that accreditation status. And so this is why we didn't bring any of the appeals before you because there were none that were so unique, that met that threshold that warranted the board to, officially render a decision. We are going to, start to send letters to all of the, school divisions that submitted accreditation, appeals so that they can have their, accreditation they can have the updates
for their accreditation status, and the results of those appeals and the next steps. And then we will, work to update the online system. So when you go to our school quality profile and you see that the school is, conditionally accredited, so what we have planned to do is we're gonna update it, but we're gonna update it within with an with an asterisk because we wanna demonstrate that there was, some movement. So that if someone who looked at the school quality profiles in December and now they're looking at it in January, they're like, well, what happened here?
So we wanna be able to, clearly identify what happened and why that moved, why the rating changed. And so are there any questions? Vice president Hansen, deputy superintendent, thank you so much. I just want to make sure the board is fully appreciating, this presentation. Obviously, you've championed now for multiple years this bifurcation on student accountability through our school performance and support framework and pulling out the accreditation side on making sure schools are
safe, that, they're complying with laws. And, I think this is a testament that within days of the accreditation ratings coming out with clarity on why school divisions took action and deserve a huge nod to both the superintendents and school boards that, have really leaned in on making sure, that they are up to all of the codes, regulations, requirements, and, it's doing what we
hoped the system would do. That being said, we also know from the board's robust discussions on SOQ prescriptions and where you want to see accreditation go, There's definitely more work to be done, including when partnership with the general assembly, including on elements that you may want to eliminate, and drawing back to the organizational structure on the operations branch, building out an accreditation office so that, in addition to, the team currently involved, that there is a one
stop hub to help with support, technical expertise, etcetera. And so, for year one, this is great progress and more for the board to do in the March, April, June meetings, around what is year two and beyond look like to really make sure that that's capturing operations, finance, food safety, and just that health and conditions are full steps, and that there's a chance to demonstrate making that
progress was so beautifully articulated by the deputy superintendent. So just wanna draw that parallel since we've had so many conversations from the board on this, on why this is great for year one in just one month from those releases on on momentum being made, and there's more work to do. Yes. And I just wanna thank all of the division superintendents that took the time to submit, appeals and who did the work to make sure that they were tightly aligned with the, accreditation requirements.
And they did this, I mean, December 29, those appeals were due. So they got into action as soon as they got their accreditation, status and and also, to the department staff who worked very diligently over the, holiday to review all those appeals. So, to to Mr. Jennings and and team, so thank you, for that. And we're we look forward to continuing to do this good work. Thank you. And, I just would like to echo both comments too. And when we kind of started the a lot of this work three and a half years ago, and just trying to bifurcate, the two, and just even from a
nomenclature, and just even an understanding in the, the field, and, and, with parents. It was just really terrific to see where we are. Can I just ask a quick question? Just what we're just taking this on first review today, but what are the next steps? Or just keep us updated on the status of the audits. Right. So there's no first review. We would just wanted to give you an update on where we are. Okay. And so but we will keep you updated. And if any appeals come, are submitted to us that do warrant board action, then
we'll bring that before you. But we will continue to work with with the school divisions that have schools that are not, that are conditionally accredited, so that they can have a path toward accredit, fully accredited status. Thank you. Maybe before you say, anybody have any questions or comments before me? Okay. Thank you. Alright. Then, item R, first review of an amendment to the Virginia's consolidated state plan, mister Jennings. That's right. So speaking of bifurcation, we thought it important to sort of separate the two of us. And so thinking about accountability, which is very much around performance metrics, that that is
the focus of our consolidated state plan, and and that's where accountability lives under title one part a. And you're gonna see in our presentation today, this is a collab across agents across coming up with. And so I kind of sent to you, but I'm I'm coming on behalf of the entire department. So, good afternoon to you all. Good to see you. And so what we're asking for today is, by superintendent's recommendation, is first review to send our consolidated state plan, amendment nine, for public comment, to send it out, and
have the public and stakeholders continue to engage with us. So I'm gonna walk through the slideshow here, and do a high level overview of the changes and what will be sent to the public and take any questions from you. So we'll start with amendment, the background on the state plan, stakeholder engagement, which is very crucial to this work, the overview of proposed revisions, and then our next steps. So I wanna share that amending the plan, expands opportunities for students and incorporates the current accountability outcomes.
So when the board was discussing the framework, through '22, '23, and '24, the years there, '23 and '24 is really we're getting into the details of the framework. The board signaled that it wanted to continue conversation in areas. It was very clear that it wanted to continue to discuss JROTC in particular. They wanted to revisit three e readiness. I didn't put on there about high quality work based learning because that's already happened. That was something the board signaled and said, we're not ready at this time. We want more information. We'll come back and think of that. And the board adopted that in May, by request of school divisions to include it
during the school year. We could have held that, but the the school division said, please do do that work now. And so we brought it to you, and the board adopted it. JRTC, we're still sending it out for public comment. We wanna hear. We've revised what we propose to you. We've added leadership courses. So not j r just JRTC. We've this idea of also leadership courses. Another piece was expanding advanced coursework for students. The board discussed prior to the adoption of the framework going beyond mathematics. We discussed world history. We discussed history. We discussed science. We looked at high school courses, within the framework at the middle school level.
And so the proposal here is to expand beyond mathematics, and look at history and look at science as well. Civics education. The board discussed in '22, '23, '24, and now '25 and '26, the importance of civics education. If you look at the five Cs in Virginia, the profile of a graduate, civics is one of our c's, the importance of civics education. And the board discussed having civics as a high school metric, the citizenship citizenship test. That was something that the board discussed, you know, using that in the framework.
And And so that idea of history being included has been something the board's been discussing. And so now we bring that again to you and to the public to weigh in. Also, when we put amendment seven to USED, there were we shared in our amendment to them that we needed some baseline data from our first year of the framework, and we would come back to them with amendments. So this was expected all along that we would do an amendment. We needed to. We needed one year of data to review our federally identified schools, look at some other pieces, around the readiness indicator, things like that. So this was expected work that we've been doing.
Other pieces is feedback. You're gonna see on my next slide feedback even from other groups. We were consulting quite a bit with JLARC. They were informing us, and we were talking with them. They're engaging stakeholders. We're engaging stakeholders, looking at business rules, looking at calculations. And so they've been getting us feedback throughout the year of what works, what they would like to see changed. That's included here. Multiple sections of the plan contain outdated information. You have this plan came around with the Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015, now ten years ago. And that's when the plan was beginning, 2016, 2017.
That's when it was adopted for implementation. So we're talking now six, seven years ago, pre pandemic. You think about programs you were doing pre pandemic and how things may have shifted post pandemic. You look at the data, all those pieces. So it was important to go through the entire plan and update accordingly. Examples of misalignment you see there, again, data back to 02/1978, sort of the programs. There were some 20 at 2003 McKinney Vento talking about some dispute resolution processes. Again, people use what they had at the time, but it was now time to look with fresh eyes and make revisions.
And then Virginia Department of Education staff from multiple offices, wanna again applaud the work. Our, ESEA programs office, really reviewed sections, thought about feedback from stakeholders, and and went through. And you'll see red line in the version of of updates to those areas. Continuous stakeholder engagement. We've been meeting with division and school leaders. We've met with subject matter experts, advisory groups, organizations, associations. All of that's been included, in the proposed revisions. And we continue to gather feedback through emails we receive, meetings, conferences, phone calls.
Again, we we go to conferences sometimes to talk about one topic, and they'll give us feedback on the section. And and we we consider that as well. And that's what we're asking in today is just to send it out for first review, to send it out for public comment, and start, our our no less than thirty day public comment to gather even more feedback. That feedback, as I shared that third bullet, we've used that and made revisions. You know, I've come to you month after month and saying, well, here, last month, we said this, and now we're saying this, and sort of this is what we've been gathering. And finally, you see I referenced an earlier, but JLARC study.
The joint legislative audit and review committee, very important work that they've done, a very comprehensive review of our accountability system. They included pieces of our amendment that was available at the time, and and provided some feedback on that. And so that also was, thought and consideration with what we're doing for review. So title one part a is where the accountability system lives, the school performance support framework. And so you see there I won't go through all of these, but you see at a very high level, the the proposed revisions within that section.
We talk about some nonnegotiables or things that we must do. We do need to have a growth methodology. That is something that is needed for this year. We've been talking with the field around, we've talked to our technical advisory council as as well. T TAC or TAC recommended that we use, progress tables or value tables. That's been something we've been discussing. Moving to exception B for the recently arrived learners, mastery index for assessment, three performance levels. TAC recommended that as well. Adjusting our our mastery level calculation. I've already mentioned to you about the advanced coursework.
You've we've been talking about adding history. It's something we've been discussing. Readiness indicator there speaking specifically to the integrated reading and writing assessment that's been operational now for a few years. But how is it scored is a question. We've talked about the JRTC piece. And then looking at federally identified schools, how will they exit? So quite a bit of information there. It's staggered, some of it for this year, a few pieces, and then some of it for next year and the year after that to give time for implementation. We talk about revisions to title two part a. This emphasizes supporting our current and aspiring teachers, assistant principals, principals, and principal supervisors.
It's focusing on effective teacher and school leader preparation and retention. Talks about funding, mentoring, and induction programs. And you see a wealth of data resources there to align and update, really helping our teacher pipeline, our principal pipeline, things we talk about, to really retain solid staff, and help recruit solid staff as well. Other title programs, updated resources and program partnerships. The department now is working with different organizations. It's important to update that, to really fit the needs of Virginia students now and this year. Again, many years ago, it may have been different based on the population.
Updates to the academic career plan, updating screening tools. This is our title three section, professional development, monitoring frequency, English learners who take the alternate access test. The grant cycle, in title four has changed to improve student outcomes and better align with federal expectations. Title four is also this is your twenty first century. They've increased their grant awards to ensure programs can deliver high quality comprehensive out of school time. And that's something they they measure really to see the success of these, after school programs or out of school time programs.
So you see on that list, it's pretty overwhelming, consolidated state plan. It was, you know, formulated to say how was the state gonna meet the requirements of ESSA. And so you see on slide nine all the titles that I referenced, all these, pieces of, you know, federal dollars coming to us, grants sort of legislation. How are we responding to this? How is the department being responsible, fiscally, programmatically? How are we serving our students? And so you see them all listed there. And as as you look and others look through public comment, you'll see, changes, red
line version of the changes through these sections. So our next step is continuing to refine the plan through ongoing stakeholder input. Again, what we're asking today is first review to send it out for public comment. We'll continue to collect and review stakeholder feedback. We're gonna have listening sessions to really hear from people around it, make sure they understand what's being asked, or being changed or considered for change. Again, we'll apply this feedback to inform refinement so people understand the vision, the rationale, and how pieces fit together. And then sharing that stakeholder and feedback with you, at the March board meeting.
And so I pause there for any comments or questions. I may I? Yes. I I have a few things, and this might be partially my fault. I took a girl trip with my daughter this weekend, and so when this came up late, I think I'm I might be missing some information. Really wanna, yield to all the social studies experts. We've received emails from extensive public comment on some of their concerns as well as this going up too quick. So I I need clarification on reporting back to us in March and April. Is this gonna be for a final review, or is this a report back on
what we've heard from the social studies people after they were given access to the Virginia social studies people, that type? Does that I I don't know if you can answer that question. Or Right. So the next reporting would be the the culmination of feedback for each section. Okay. And so it'd be now that they've seen the final proposal, because we've been talking and sort of sharing language through PowerPoint, but not in the final plan. And now that it's out there and we've engaged, it'd be coming back to the board and saying, here's what the public's saying, and bringing back for you to decide. Should it be found or reviewed? Do we need more comments sort of what to do?
What but, again, it's hard to say because the plan that that's the intention is to put it out there, get feedback, and it could could change. You know, based on that feedback, it could be changed based on what we just proposed today. Yeah. And I but I guess what makes me nervous is seeing social studies in '26, '27, with a lot of the concerns from the social studies community. But that's not that's not my area of expertise. Social studies is not but I wanna speak to special education, because they will also need significant time, and I don't know if the board is aware, for for VISAL and VAAP if they create history, social studies as an assessment next year.
So I just wanna jump in quickly and clarify. It's 2728, and that's one of the reasons why. It it we need time to implement it. Okay. And we just had new history standards, twenty three twenty four history standards. And so what you need to do with and we just finished this with reading and mathematics, is you then create what the VESOL she's referring to as essential standards. You take the standards of learning, and you talk about what's essential. And this is for our students who are cognit significant cognitive disabilities. And so what we would need to do for history is if this is, where we we end up going, is we would need to develop we need to revise
them anyway, but really devise them in a way that meets the requirements under ESSA as reading, math, and science do. And so we would do the essentialized learn standards of learning, and then we would revise, VAP, our Virginia alternate assessment program. We would have assessments, again, that would be equivalent to reading, math, and science for history as well. And so that is why we, eighteen, giving us the two years, that is, sufficient time to do that work. It will take time to build out those assessments and do field testing and everything you're discussing. And so that's why, the proposal is for school year 2728.
And so I just wanna clarify that, but great point. Okay. Great. Thanks, Mark. And I honestly just I'm a little nervous about how quick this went up in doing the first review. So I would really wanna caution that if we do this if in March and April this board probably should hear from the Virginia social studies leaders, and and I think think maybe a work session see in this performance assessment. I think that we should look at that, since so many of the unified voices of the social studies community. And I hate to put doctor Hollins on the spot, but it would probably be
good to hear her timeline needed for VAAP and VSOL, may whenever before this can be decided, I think, in a final review. Part of me likes the suggestion, the one, one of the people we heard from in public comment this morning said maybe we move forward and exclude social studies for now. But I I I really feel like we should yield to some of the concerns we're hearing around social studies. I just, do not agree with not including social studies for now. I, I, I hear your concerns, and I appreciate them, and we'll take them into
account with, the outreach, and our communication efforts. But I, just think we've got proceed with what we have and get the input from folks, and, so appreciate that. Yeah. And just to be clear, all today is asking is just to put it out for public comment officially and start the process just to engage. And then when we bring it back in March with all that public comment, we'll we'll share. The forms that I referenced here, the online forms, there are some specific to other data around. Some of them would see around, you know, we're proposing element in middle of high
school, sort of where people smell that. We've got strong feelings very much in favor for from the school, but maybe it feels strongly about some of the others. So we wanna collect that data and bring it to you sort of it it's it can be very general to say history, but sort of specifically where. Where are the where are the concerns? What are the concerns? And what does that look like? We've met with that group. We've talked about I've shared with you. I've met with, USCD around a pathway for performance task, what that looks like and sounds like. And and we again, I can articulate all that here for you today. So, it's something we can bring back to the board with some data and talk through sort of what what public comment says at this time.
Vice President Hansen, Member Ackerman, I also want to affirm, we also have had very favorable public comments, and so we just need to remember, our board meetings are not always in a convenient time and location for all stakeholders from the Commonwealth to engage. And so we also have received letters from other social studies organizations who have said thank you for prioritizing this. So I I am very appreciative of the advocacy work by the SSLC, but remind the board there are also additional stakeholders, organizations, and inputs that the staff have also
received. I I think this is just also my personal philosophy that I'd love to see performance measure too. So I I I agree with the public comments that, do we need another SOL test? So Well, that's a great segue to say. Soon, we'll be coming to the board, around we need to revise the guidelines for those performance assessments. And we'll talk about legislation, it's be referred to as house bill nineteen fifty seven, around guidelines, scoring rubrics, data collection, and sort of what that legislation requires. So you will absolutely see and be a part of the process, and it'll be, the board will adopt guidelines for that.
And we'll be working with, and we have in the past. We'll work with groups on that to help develop those guidelines and sort of look at, right now, again, you heard the statistic around half the divisions are using it, and they're using the board adopted guidelines for it. But some of the the pieces in that will need to be reviewed by the board, and and you've heard it already around the data collection pieces one, where we as a state currently do not collect that. In the new system, that might be some of the board says we do wanna collect that. And there's some pieces in, house bill nineteen fifty seven. There's some requirements that we will meet. And so you will.
You will get a look at that, and we're excited to engage with those divisions and those those advocacy groups as organizations around, the new standards and thinking of the new standards, and then what do these these, alternative assessments look like. Mister Jennings, can you please remind the board, especially with our newest board member, on the cliff notes of house bill nineteen fifty seven and most importantly, when it actually becomes law. So House Bill nineteen fifty seven, to be prepared for us, why we're gonna begin work here shortly, goes and has an amendment 07/01/2026. And so we're getting prepared for it to start next year. So we've been doing groundwork foundation work, things like that.
But it's a very comprehensive assessment bill. We're doing work, like I shared, we have an innovative assessment work group around it to build out a new assessment system. There's other pieces in the legislation. The alternative assessments is one that we we've heard around, but also grades seven through 12. A student's SOL becomes their like a final exam. It's 10% of their grades. So that's another piece in there. Reporting to a 100 scale, helps with that communication of, you know, as a parent, I received my child's score. How did they do? Parents seem to understand a zero to a 100 scale. That's another piece of legislation. So very comprehensive, but it looks at, you know, assessment and our practices and sort
of that thinking through that lens of what we're reporting and sharing out. Working record. Not to be a broken record, but I'll just point out that as I'm looking at this again with fresh eyes, both the enlistment and enrollment buckets clearly have tiers Right. For all the points. The only one that doesn't, and what we were arguing for earlier, is the, the employment. CTE. CTE. The employment is the only one that doesn't have tiers. So, anyway, it just seems like it'd even be much more elegant, and consistent standard
if we also treated that similarly as we're treating the other, areas. Thank you. Any other comments, questions? Okay. Well, thank you, mister Jennings, and, we will, take this item for first review, and we'll see you in March and look forward to the feedback and comments. So Thank you all. For the next, five agenda items are all written reports, and what I would, hopper up to the the board is that, these are all reports on the progress to date from key initiatives of the board. And if, hopefully, everybody's had a chance to read them, And, I I don't think
we need to have, summaries given to those, but I would offer up if any board member has questions on any of the five, we can, take those now. And, otherwise, we could also work offline, with, other reports, of the staff. So Hearing none, we will move to our last agenda item, on discussion mister Monk, did you have, an item you wanted to bring us up to date on? I did, and appreciate that, vice president president Hansen.
Earlier this week, I was able to attend a conference superintendent and the staff, a majority of which, have presented today, but spent a good bit of time connecting with those superintendents, and chief finance officers to share some of the information we've talked about, but also a plethora of other information. And so really excited to see that connection between the agency and those in the field and appreciate the extra work that I know, went into that.
So thank you for for doing that, and and, the connection to the field, it shows. Thank you. Any other comments, from members of the board before I let superintendent Gollickson have the last word today? I would just like to, again, thank you, mister Carraway, for joining us, today. And, I actually had several, texts and other communications today of, just of your background and, commending you for, who you are and what you are. So just, hope your ears are burning a little bit.
And, also just, grateful for, our colleague, Michelle Ashton, being able to step forward and, look forward to her leadership as president of the board, going forward here. So with that, I'll let you wrap this up. Great. Thank you, vice president Hanson. I also wanna echo, we are so thrilled to get to work with you. The team is already eager on connecting with you and diving in, so welcome again to the board. I'll have to see. I also wanted to pause and just, thank the tremendous staff.
Oh, it's moving me to tears. In case you are not amazed by this annual report, this team has gone into super drive for kids, and, this was not part of the plan. And, I I want to recognize them because, it is a, a sign of their
deep committed, relentless pursuit of excellence for every child. And, the transformation that has gone on in the organization, the shift from, of what is possible and dreaming bigger and setting aspirational but attainable, metrics that push our own internal staff and external partners further are massive expansion of stakeholder input collaboration.
I mean, the amount of time, leaders like doctor Wallace and mister Jennings have put in on stakeholder calls, you, would be amazed. The evenings, the mornings, the midnights, the weekends, and they are always accessible to fielding, barriers, eliminating, roadblocks, helping leaders pivot on all of the transformational laws that we've been able to get through with bipartisan support at the General Assembly and with support with
Governor Youngkin. And, and the board is in great hands for what is next. And so we cannot wait to get more input from the field on how we've tried to sum up where we are after all the momentum we've made, for kids and where we really wanna take kids by 2029. And so, that is gonna continue to drive the work of this team. But, we have a a best in class staffed agency, and, I I think sometimes
we make these board meetings look easy because they do so much work in partnership with our stakeholders. I am not always the easiest with my red lined pen for these team members, and they're all laughing with joy at that. And, you know, it's because we want excellence, not only for our agency, but for the board and, most importantly, for our stakeholders that we serve. And so, I just want to say thank you to the team who just puts
in so many hours, to really move the needle for kids, for families. It's so exciting to me on where we are at the start of '26. I hope you are inspired about what this year has in store. You have less board meetings this year. You're welcome. That's more for the staff. But we are so excited to be able to collaborate with the general assembly on concepts that are coming forward, on budget discussions that are coming forward, as well as continue to drive the board's, tremendous vision forward for kids.
But, the amount of work they've done just in the last month, including holidays and mandatory agency closures, cannot be underscored. So, I know it was a robust agenda getting all the way down to item w, almost to z, so close. But, it it is to drive the needle even further for students, and I think really gives a lot of folks hope on what's possible as they start off their spring semester, including with a new advanced course option starting for next school year.
So just thank you to the board. This this team is dynamite. So, I needed to pause and recognize them. And with that, I think you can take a motion to close. Thank you. I'm just here here, and just even looking out at everybody right now. Just it's, great, collective, team, and just, appreciate the leadership. So thank you all. Do you wanna say something, doctor? Yeah. I just wanna just glob on. Honestly, I'm one of those that ask a lot of questions on here to you guys, and just wanted to say it's it's it's never been questioning your ability or
your, knowledge. It's just really because we're all seeking excellence for kids, and I appreciate that you guys have been, so terrific in answering, my questions and the questions of my board members up here. So thank you for leading, the state. I feel like we had a state agency for many years that thought we can't do that, we can't do that, and just actually just give up their license to lead. And I thank you guys for actually taking the mantle of leadership as opposed to just using it as an excuse of we can't do that because we've never done
that before. And you've shown what it takes to actually get, you know, our districts, and divisions on board and actually look to you for leadership. I think they're looking to you now, in ways that they've never done before because they haven't had an agency to look to, in my opinion. And I also just wanted to, thank, the superintendent for her leadership. Hands down, this has been a, some turbulence. We'll just say that. We're not acting like we haven't had leadership changes on this board and, in the
superintendent's spot. But I will say that this was a a smooth transition. It was a strong transition, and I feel like we are the better, for, secrete, state superintendent Skollison's leadership. And we've all appreciated, her demeanor and the way that she leads with humor and grace, and, dyna how do you say that word? It's dynamite or dynamic. Dynamessome. You understand what I'm saying. Dynamite. Dynamic. Dynamite. Dynamite. I'm gonna give up. That's okay. You got it either way.
Dynamite. Dynamic. This thing with any of those. Any of those. They'll work. Thank you. Thank you. And, here here. I'm gonna stop till I get a motion. Mister vice president, can I say you can I say a few words? Absolutely, miss Kilgore. Miss Kilgore. Thank you. Well, I would much rather have been there in person to see everyone. I appreciate the opportunity to participate via Zoom today. I wanna echo what always been said thus far about all the state staff. I tell anyone I meet to ask me any questions about my experience with VDOE
and I I always tell them just how impressed I am with each person and how they're they're so caring what they their knowledge and their and their bill their ability to care what they're doing is so exceptional. And I try to tell them when I see them face to face. So thank you to all of you for such hard work. I know you put in hours that we have no clue about. And to Emily Ann, I think of three words and I guess the three words I think of you also describes the state staff, professionalism, passion, and compassion.
And I've been honored to work with all of you thus far. And, I I just wanted to say that since I wasn't there to share in person. So thank you so much for all that all of you do. Thank you, missus Kilgore. And that is a wonderful, message to leave us on. So motion to adjourn our meeting.