Um, hello. My name is Miche Ashton and I'd like to call this meeting to order. Uh, President Tracy, should I share throw it over to you? Uh, yes, that's fine. Okay. All right. Thank you. Um,
good afternoon everyone. I am um, Grace Cesy. I'm the president of the board of education and I'm joining today to facilitate uh, this meeting and serve as an exeicio member. Um, before we get started, I will note for the record that I have approved the remote participation
of Miche Ashton under the board bylaws in 2.23708.3 to 3708.3 B4 of the code of Virginia due to a personal matter um which identifies with the specific and identifies with the specificity of the nature of this personal matter. So um Miss McDaniel,
would you call the role of members of the standing committee, please? Yes, Madam President. Miss Miche Ashton, present. Mr. Chris Bronley, present. Mr. Antoine Green, present. Miss Ebony Lee
present. Miss Nina Reese absent. Okay. Um we have a quorum and we will begin this afternoon with the pledge of allegiance followed by a moment of silence. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the
republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay. Uh, all members of the standing committee were provided with an agenda in advance of this meeting. Is there a
motion to approve the agenda? So move. Second. Those in favor indicate by saying I. I. Any opposed. Okay. Um, members of the standing committee were provided with the minutes in advance of this meeting
from the previous meeting. Is there a motion to approve the minutes from the July 2024 meeting? So move. Second. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Okay. Uh, the standing
committee accepts public comment on all matters related to public charter schools in Virginia. Public comment is an important consideration and a valued input to the public charter school standing committee. Public charter school standing committee will accept public comments on agenda items at this
section of the agenda. Public comment on non-aggenda items will be accepted upon the conclusion of the business portion of this meeting. Should there be multiple members of the public seeking to comment on a specific agenda item or non-aggenda item, commenters will be recognized in the order in which their
request was received by the Department of Education. For the benefit of the committee and public record, I would ask that commenters please state your name and organization at the beginning of your remarks. Comments will be limited to three minutes given the time and cost
to travel. And again, for the benefit of the public record, the public charter school standing committee welcomes and encourages the public to submit written comments to the committee. As a reminder, written comments may be submitted on the web form available on the standing committee's page on the
Department of Education website. All comments received through the web form will be provided to the public charter school standing committee in advance of its next meeting. We have received five written comments today. Members of the standing committee have been provided with those comments as they pertain to
the agenda item A. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to provide public comment today? Well, you're next. You're not you're not public. Anyone in the room that would like to
provide public charter school comments? Okay, I will close the public comment section. Okay, we will be getting ready to turn to item A, but I would like to ask uh Superintendent Emily an Gullixson if she
would please address the committee. Right there in your Thank you, Madame President, uh Chair Ashton, and members of the standing committee. I'm here today as state superintendent of public instruction to mark the importance of this day and to say thank you for your service. Uh ensuring every student has
access to an excellent school where their needs, interests, and learning style are honored is key to having a robust system of public schools. To that end, the governor and the general assembly have encouraged our schools to modernize and build options within their
existing schools and and communities that best meet the needs of their students and families. However, we also are excited about the opportunity to welcome more educators like those here today who are willing to do the hard work of launching their own public
school models and have something special to offer students and families in their community. This is precisely why Virginia has a public charter school law and why today is so important. Harbor School and their founder are taking this leap and putting a school model up for
review that has been successfully piloted. Now, it is your job to review their model, and I appreciate all of the hard work that has gone into evaluating their readiness. This is a thoughtful evaluation process in the Commonwealth of Virginia to ensure that we always strive to have the best network of
public schools in the country and making room for new ideas and great schools that truly meet the needs of every child. Thank you as always for doing your part. Thank you, Superintendent Gullixson. And now we will be turning to
agenda item A, consideration of a public charter school application from the Harbor School. At the outset out, sorry, at the outset, I remind members of the committee and members of the public that pursuant to Virginia's public charter school statute
22.1-212.9. The public charter school standing committee will discuss the extent to which the application satisfies the board's established criteria and ultimately will take a consensus vote requiring a majority on
each of the four criterion and then a fifth and final vote on the overall application. These four criterion and then a fifth and final vote on the overall application will be measured through number one feasibility, number
two curriculum, number three financial soundness, number four other objective criterion. These are outlined in the evaluation rubric that each member of the committee has in their possession. If the committee agrees by consensus that the criteria are satisfied, the
application will be presented to the board of education. Any comments, oral or written, made here will be presented to the board and incorporated into feedback for the public charter school applicant to
consider. If the committee decides that not all criteria are satisfied, the applicant may be provided time to address those within 10 business days. Following the public charter school standing committee, department staff and the chairman of the committee will
prepare a report summarizing the committee's final determination. In Virginia, the local school board is the final authorizer. Therefore, if the public charter school application satisfies the board satisfies the board's criteria at the
standing committee and the board of education, it will need to go in front of the local school division for a final vote. Today, members of this standing committee will be reviewing a public charter school application from the Harbor School. After over three years of intentional work, the Harbor School
initially submitted their application in November of 2023. Now, Superintendent Gullixson in her prior role uh has worked closely with the office of in innovation to update and adopt the current public charter school application process, the application,
the evaluation rubric to align more succinctly with the code of Virginia and public school best practices. This work was needed as the department had not received a public charter school application in over 10 years and the submission of the harbor school triggered this very necessary
response. I'm very very proud of the work that uh the department, the board, um superintendent Gullixson and everyone else who participated in that process. All of it was blood, sweat, and tears to get us where we are. And so I'm just
thankful that that this process has yielded the types of outcomes that we see today. Prior to the harbor school's original submission, there had been three gubanatorial administrations, multiple state superintendent, multiple governing boards in the Commonwealth. uh
since this charter school standing committee had been in place and since the board had last reviewed a public school chart public charter school evaluation criteria um the application all of those things had had just kind of
gotten a little dusty. Um moreover there had been rapidly changing technology landscape uh with more efficient and transparent ways for us to operate and to learn from other states on best practices. These revisions to the application
process, the evaluation rubric encapsulated these changes in technology to better align and reflect what is outlined in the code of Virginia and account for these eight years of additional lessons learned when it comes to reviewing, commenting, supporting.
Um, you know, we see it as our job not just to check the boxes and to review this for you all, but to also ensure that we have the very best public charter schools in the nation. Um, and we are going to work uh to that end. The
Virginia Board of Education approved these updated materials at the July 2024 Board of Education meeting and replaced those antiquated and outdated processes. After this approval, revised materials were provided to all of the applicants
and the department staff began uh offering weekly charter school office hours which we were really proud of. The Harbor School team took advantage of this technical support and has worked with the department for almost a year putting intentional time, energy, and resources to greater develop and enhance
their application pursuant to the new public charter school process. Now I will turn it over to Miss McDaniel to tell you more about the Harbor School. So I will let Miss McDaniel take it away. Thank you. Thank you, Madam
President. Good afternoon, Madam President, Madam Chair, and members of the committee. I present to you today agenda item A, consideration of a public charter school application from the Harbor School, an innovative public charter school model set to be based in Richmond. After receiving the revised
public charter school application process, application and evaluation rubrics, the Harbor School has sought out technical support from the department on numerous occasions for almost a year, including meetings with our office of assessment, our office of accountability, and our office of
special populations. Furthermore, since August, the Office of Innovation has provided weekly public charter school office hours, and the Harbor School has regularly taken advantage of these opportunities for technical support. On March 13th, 2025, an enhanced public
charter school application was received by the department from the Harbor School. Pursuant to the public charter school application process, the Harbor School application was subsequently sent to Chair Ashton. Thereafter, I completed my review of administrative completeness
and notified the applicant and chair Ashton of the same. On March 31st, 2025, the application was forwarded to all members of the public charter school standing committee for their thorough review. Members of the standing committee will use this time today to listen to a prepared presentation from
the applicant and engage in a dialogue with the applicant regarding their application. The Harbor School is a public charter school proposed city in Richmond. The Harbor School has been rooted in expertise that comes from the lived expertise of young people and families who want and need different
educational opportunities as well as the expertise that comes from the professional experience of educators. The Harbor School is part of the movement for learn centered education which has showed strong results nationwide for students who have historically struggled in traditional models. The Harbor School is the result
of over four years of investment, contributions from over 175 people and over 4,200 hours of design, implementation, and reflection. The Harbor School team has conducted more than 150 interviews, dozens of design
sessions, and several pilot programs in the form of learning pods with youth caregivers, youth development staff, and educators. These pilots were conducted to establish feasibility as required by statute by a proof of concept. The Harbor School team is led today by Miss
Sarah Craig. Miss Craig is the lead community founder of the Harbor School. Miss Craig comes from a family of Virginia educators and principles. Over the last six years, Miss Craig has convened over 175 stakeholders, supervised 4,200 hours of pilot programs
and research to inform the model the model of this public charter school. Madame President, Madame Chair, and members of the committee, I now turn it over to Miss Sarah Craig to present to you the Harbor School, Miss Craig. Thank you. Just one moment on technology
here. Awesome. This is If I project my voice, can you hear me? I think we can. Got a microphone coming. Great. Good. Can Michelle? Yay. Mich, can you hear? Wonderful. Okay, Sarah, why don't you
talk through that? Can you still hear me? Chair Ashton. Great. Yes. Thank you. Great. Thank you, Madam President. Chair Ashton, Superintendent Gixson, members of the committee. It's been a minute to get
here. Thank you for being here. Thank you for the thoughtful process. I'm so glad to be here as the convenor of a community of founders that is bringing you this model of the Harbor School. Professionally, my background um is in nonprofit management, fundraising,
youth development, business. Personally, my background is in ch is in public schools in Virginia. Uh four generations of my family have been public school educators in the state of Virginia and educators who not only cared deeply about young people getting the academic
outcomes that they needed, but also cared about them as whole people. uh my family was interested in youth development before we had the word um and shown a real commitment to doing that. I like to say that education was the family business and I'm real grateful to be here to talk you through
the journey that got us to the harbor school learning model to talk you through a highle understanding of the competency based model that we have and most importantly to let a few other really important voices um speak today and then to answer questions. This journey really starts a long time
ago. Um, I grew up, as I mentioned, in a family of educators. School for me was a second home. I loved going to school. And because I loved being there, I was able to capture what school offered to me. When I moved to Richmond 25 years ago nearly, I began to live and to work
in communities that were very different from my own, mostly low-income, mostly African-American communities. And what I learned in working with students and talking to families is that um young people didn't have that same feeling I did when they went to their schools. And it made it more difficult for them to
capture that which school was offering. I heard a lot of stories, but I I think of one. There was a little girl that lived in my neighborhood. She was in third grade. She spent a lot of time at our house. And she said to me just before
Christmas, "Here's what I would really like from you for Christmas, Sarah. I would really like a book that I can read." So I bought her the second grade level reading book. She climbed up on the couch that Christmas morning and she said to me, "That's great. Now teach me to read
it." That young woman didn't make it out of middle school. And that story has haunted me along with many others that I heard over those years. And in 2018, there were a group of us who worked together here in Richmond that decided it was time to take these voices seriously. And we began to do very
serious interviews and conversations with students, with families, with young alumni to really understand what was going on and to begin to seek solutions. One of those young women told me a story about how she had gone to open high school here in Richmond and had been a decent student, but did not learn to
love learning until she went to Howard University. At Howard, she found identity. She found connection to learning. She found that she could learn to write in a class about something she was interested in. And then she said this, "I don't think it's fair I had to pay all that money to learn to love to
learn. And what about my friends and others who could not do that?" So we began to think about what does this comment mean? And we got together a group of young people and said, "Pick a project and work on it." And we got with some educators and said, "What traditional academic things can we teach
in this program?" And we selected students who had not left school, who had not been connected to school, who had lower academic achievement. And what we found was that those young people couldn't wait to learn to do research. They couldn't wait to learn to write good questions. They couldn't wait to do the academic things on the way to this
project that they really cared about. Not one of them finished their project. There is no way to build a whole business in a summer. That's okay. What they did learn was these academic skills. And we saw them really wanting to learn. We also saw them have agency at the end. and they said, "I think I know how to manage my
future." Just as that finished, there was a mom who came to us and said, "I have some middle school students that I send to the corner store and they get ripped off because they can't count money. Can you help them?" That comment turned into a math camp as it happened during COVID. Here's what's crazy about
marketing during COVID. We said to kids, "Want to come to a math camp?" They said, "Yes, please." 30 of them came in the eastern part of Richmond and the eastern part of Henriiko County with pretty big gaps in their math skills. What we found is after 30 years 30 years nope 30 hours of
work um uh in math particularly fun games and approachable learning learning that was the right size challenge. Their um persistence and problem problem solving grew from an average of 45 seconds when we started to 30 minutes in that small investment of time. They then
arrived ready to learn. At the end of that math camp, the same mom said to me, "You've seen my young people. I don't think they can learn online." So, we partnered with a local nonprofit to do a homeschool pod for what ended up being 2 years. Lots of learning in that time.
But one of the biggest takeaways was a youth development focused environment plus highquality academics resulted in really remarkable growth. and being able to personalize that learning to find the spots where kids had gaps and give them not only the academic learning but also
the skills around that um made them curious kids um and also um got them learning quickly. So what we found was that in about a 9-month period, kids learned about 2 and a half years worth of math once we found
that moment for them. At the end of that, I again said, I think we're done here. And Tanya Robinson said, I got a kindergartener and I've been knocking on the doors in my neighborhood. And when we counted it up, 70% of the people that she talked to said, I have a kid that I know that could use an learning
experience like this. We'd love to help you make a school. So the school should be a public school. By the time we ended those four years of investment, we are missing a slide. Um, there were nope. Well, let me tell you about this. Um, we went and looked and did some research
too to make sure that what we were seeing in our neighborhood was not isolated to that neighborhood. This is over the last 10 years, the gap that has grown between white students in Richmond public schools and black and Hispanic students in Richmond public schools. The
gap this year was about 27%. It's growing at a rate of 2 and a.5% a year over this time period. Reading scores are more alarming. We've had an average gap of 47% over the last 10 years. And this gap is also growing at a rate of 1 and a.5%. It's unacceptable that only
44% of our African-American students are reading at grade level in 8th grade going into the important years of their learning. When we see the magnitude of what's happening, we knew it wasn't just the neighborhood we were working on. By the time we got to this point, we had a whole crowd of people who really cared
about this from parents to educators to students. And that brings us here to the model of the Harbor School. Asking ourselves, what can we do to change the story? A Harbor School learning model is is built in a learner centered design
where educators and students build learning together. And it is a competencybased model rather than a timebased model. We started with outcomes in mind. Um the first thing that we knew that young people needed and wanted from our interviews was they wanted to be designers of their own futures. They need these skills in order
to get where they're going in life. They have to be great, competent, curious learners. They need to master the fundamental literacies and the content, but they also need to drive their own learning and be super curious um going forward and have the skills to do that.
And we want them to be active community members. That might mean um joining you all on the DA someday, but it also means having the ability to know who they are and how to relate in very different communities that they will face, whether that's a family, a workplace, a neighborhood, etc. Being able to get
along with people is super important. We knew we wanted to keep core academic central. We have a lot of young people with a lot of gaps at a lot of different places and so we needed to keep academics in the center, but we also needed to add these other competencies. A competency based
environment allows us to personalize learning so that academics can be used to teach these other things interests and well-being, executive function, how to work on relationships while using the difficulty of learning to our advantage. It also allows us to make sure that
young people have right-sized challenges. We think of this as the Goldilocks of learning. Challenging enough to be interesting, but not so challenging that I won't approach it. It's when we are um based in a timebased environment where the curriculum moves on. It's very easy to get stuck in a
system of plan, instruct, practice, grade, move on. When we work in this environment, we can add some steps to this along the lines of feedback before we assess, reflection afterwards, before we move to the next lesson, and evaluation of where we should start. And
it is this reflection that allows young people to really know what it means to learn and to get to a place of mastery. When we get to mastery, not only do the learning coaches know that a young person knows because they've seen
it, the student also does and can apply that to the next lesson, building their confidence. It's easy to imagine that personalized learning pathways means being on a computer all the time. That's not what we mean. In fact, at the beginning, we may not even have a lot of technology as kids learn to think and
learn to learn. Built into the model are skilluing workshops and some play-based learning, place-based experiences, multid-disciplinary projects that make sense of um the world for young people that in their adolescence are beginning to want to do that and to be ready to do
that. We also needed to add to the designation of sixth grade, 7th grade and eighth grade to be able to understand a student's journey to learning. So what happens here is everybody starts in what we call the orange space which is on boarding to learning and onboarding to learning the
harbor way. They can take a flexible amount of time to get to the next space into a yellow set of competencies that have been stacked appropriately in our byte-size giving us the ability to be really transparent with young people with learning co coaches and with families about the pace at which
competencies are growing. Academic pacing continues at the sixth, seventh, eighth grade. This is a way of getting all the competencies to be visible to students. And no, we can't do that in a typical classroom with a teacher and 20 students. So here's how it works. You
take one student, one learner, and they are a part of a cohort of 8 to 12 learners with one learning coach who is watching for their entire development. They stay with that learning coach likely their time um during the harbor school. Um that is the the majority of
students should do that. One cohort is paired with two others to form an anchor group of three. So now you have about 24 students and three instructors, three learning coaches who are primarily working with that and and they have diverse learning skills. I want to be really clear here that doesn't mean that
a math teacher teaches reading. Um it is that these are taking a look at what's happening overall as the student goes to math class, as the student works in reading. Um this is the watching for the whole child. These three anchor groups come together
in a pod of 108. Um, each pod has a family liaison that makes sure that we're talking with families on a weekly basis and building those relationships, asking families, what can you tell us that we need to know about your child as much as we're telling you what you need to know about their learning experience.
Um, three pods form a whole harbor school. Um, and we have a head of school, a dean of instruction, and a wellness director to ensure that we're paying attention to the entire um, school. Meaning, the head of school is here for administration, for watching
for finances, for looking at compliance, leaving a dean of instruction to be fully present to the academic learning of our young people and their teachers. is the wellness director is more focused on adults than on young people. Although available for supportive um relationship
building um in partnership, but really paying attention to secondary trauma for teachers, paying attention to teacher and staff well-being. We also have several specialists in the disciplines to support all the learning pathways, making sure that they are getting where we need to go. In the end, it's a 12 to1
learner to co learner to coach ratio for certified teachers. If we count the additional um specialists in the building who are more on the developmental side, it gets down to about an 8:1 ratio. Um we're open 184
school days per year. That gets us to a a little more than 180, but paced out over an entire school year. Um and eight hours per day. Let me show you what this looks like. Um, there's a video showing
behind you. You may need to peek at. Um, let me see if I can go back. Let's try this again. Here. We're visualizing a pod of students. And you'll see them. Um, we
call them our four heroes here who've just arrived and had breakfast with their cohort. They move into their morning meeting to get ready for the day. They go to their individual spaces to do their planning and to get started um before they move about their plan
that's been pre-planned in advance that would last them probably a trimester um as they move about the place. What you'll see is they move on their own pathways that but they move in relationship with other students and other teachers. Um importantly learning is ordered in the way that makes sense
for them. Most students do what is most difficult for them in the morning and save the easy stuff for later and two longer learning blocks that that allow students to move into the different rotations that they need. At the end of the day, they go
back into where they started to do a reflection and a plan for the next day before they head for their final PE class if that's what suits them or perhaps out to an elective offsite. That's a lot.
Um, for an enrollment plan, we start small. There's a lot to build here. Competency based models um, exist throughout the country. Um, there are tools that need to be built based on what they've done. Um, we need students in the room to do that. So, we start with a small group of 48 students and we
grow as quickly as we can to 324. those first two years grow slowly and then we believe we can accelerate growth to get to 324 which brings us um to a sustainable financial model. So when you think about from an income perspective
year 1 um on a per student basis as it is with any school that's starting the harbor school is more expensive than the average cost in that first year. Um, when we count year zero costs plus year 1 costs, community donations will need to cover about 2thirds of that cost.
That first year, the direct cost for donations is about a third um of the income. By year five, um, we're in the range of 2 to 3% of um, income coming from donations and the and the school being supported on the average per pupil
spend that exists in Richmond right now. Um, adjusted for inflation. In fact, it's slightly less um than what is currently being spent. As you can see in the expense slide, you can see that it's a little bit less expensive than um an inflationbased rate of increase for
what Richmond public schools on average is spending now on operating. Um, additionally, we're able to pay for some renovation cost. Should we be able to um acquire a Richmond public schools building that needs renovation, we would be able to pay for about a $12 million
debt service on that and ask community donations to support um that facility cost should that be the way things play out. Which brings us to here standing in front of you um to have some more conversation. But before I we close, let
me let you speak hear from a few of the voices that have been along the way. So it's not just mine. Hello everyone. My name is Boommy Asho and I am a community founder at the Harbor School as well as part of the
management committee. I have over 20 plus years of experience as an engineer, an educator, a nonprofit leader, and now a small business owner here in Richmond, Virginia.
And for me particularly when I think of my work as a STEM educator, it has been about the experiences not only of the learner as mentioned um by Sarah but also the
families. Um, I believe and I know particularly as someone who who studied engineering and was an engineer that being able to think around curriculum that is relevant and also interest based is important. And so what I see
particularly with the Harbor School is them being able to us really being able to center that for all the learners, for the families, so that it becomes a community role and it becomes something where we're all learning and we're all
lifting ourselves up in terms of that learning. And so I see really the value and the power of being able to have solutions like the Harbor School as additional pieces to our education here in
Richmond. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Jonathan Bibs. I am happy to be a member of the management committee at the Harbor School. Um, I've I'm a native Richmonder, born and raised, a product of Richmond public schools, graduated
from Hugenat High School. Go Falcons. Um, for 20 years, I've been involved in education in Richmond. I am the former CEO of Richmond Prep, which is one of the oldest uh African-American private schools in uh the Commonwealth. Um, but
I'm here today to represent some voices who are not able to be here to participate in this conversation. Um, we have two of our community uh founders who are students. Um, you'll see them in the picture on the screen. Um, those two
students are in class right now taking tests. Um, two of our community founders are working moms and they aren't able to take off at 12:00 on a in the middle of a work day to come be a part of uh a meeting like this, but these voices are
uh not just important because they are the ones who have shaped the Harbor School, but they represent the very kinds of people that need access to an innovative school model. Um, and in Virginia, this the the charter school
law is the vehicle that allows them to participate in the creation of an environment that works for their children. Um, my heart uh is is for Richmond and specifically for what some
would call the least and the lost in our community. Um, and if you look at the history of our city when it comes down to education, um, all the way back to reconstructstruction, all the way through the 20th century, you find Richmonders being innovative in how they
approach education. You find people like AV Norl. You find people like Virginia Randolph. And then you see how educators in Armstrong and Walker high schools had to evolve and uh shape curriculum and find ways to serve the students that
were in front of them. We even uh innovated in the 70s. We had the complex Jefferson Hugenot with and then we had Open High School, Richmond Community High School. And we see the Harbor School as an opportunity for us to reclaim that history of educational
innovation. Um, and we're really excited about the opportunity to present this not just to the state, but to our city and hear more from our community about what this school could do for the kids of our city. So, thank you.
Thank you all. This has been a deeply team effort. So, thanks for letting me have some other people speak. You'll see on this last slide the key aspects of competency based education that we think is a really exciting thing to bring into the Commonwealth, particularly into the
city of Richmond. But let's leave it there and have a conversation. Thank you. Thank you so much for that presentation, Miss Craig. Um, Miss McDaniel, is there anything else from the department that you'd like to share um before we open it up to discussion?
Thank you, Madam President, Madam Chair, and members of the committee. After review of the 33 indicators across the four criterion, the department feels that the public charter school applicant has submitted the documentation and evidence to meet the threshold of the board's evaluation criteria. I am
available for questions as is Miss Craig's team as you discuss and vote on each of the board's evaluation criteria. Okay. So, we've heard quite a bit of information from the department received extensive materials prior to this meeting from the harbor school to
include both this presentation and um the application. the department and the applicant have both completed the work that we asked them to do and now it's time to have the required committee discussion. Um and so with that I would
um open up the floor for discussion and questions. Excuse me. Madam President, I'm going to ask members of the Harvard School team to join us at the table. Miss Ashton, please jump in should you have anything to question or comment on since I can't
see you. the team can. Yeah, thank you. I can see the group. So, thank you. Okay. Um, yes, President, I will jump in. Um, I first just want to um thank and congratulate the team for uh thorough presentation, but really just
the hard work it seemed that you really gathered input from community members, stakeholders. It's been a clear labor of love. um and having founded a school, I want to say I know how hard it has been just to plan, but wait till you open. Uh
that um what do you as you just reflected on this process and I know that you've been uh doing it for a long time. Can you just talk about you know what do you think are going to be some of the let's just call top two or three biggest challenges as you think about
what's next? Yeah, I'll jump in. We'll try to limit it um T Ashen to two or three. Um, you know, I think um I think there are I'm going to mention two and I'll let you
all add to it. I think one of them is um just the continuing challenge of um doing something that hasn't been done um for we haven't opened a public charter school that's community created since 2010. There's a lot of learning to do
just along the way. Um, and from um, legislative bodies like the school board learning in Richmond how to do this to our own learning curve. We're really um, fortunate to have had the time we've had to build a strong team around us of people to advise and people to help and people who are excited about this. But
we're going to need to be patient through that process. I think another piece that um, we're going to spend a lot of time thinking about is what is the right location? um the particular location. We're not still not exactly certain um given that we hope to open in
fall 26. It's been too early to be able to sign a lease on something to start with. But finding a location that meets the standards of quality that we know that we need to have um plus is accessible to the young people that we know we want to reach um is is going to
be um something that we work hard at. there are a number of options out there but that will be a place where we spend a lot of time making sure that that works for all of the the pieces that are required. Um those are two of the pieces that I think I think the third one probably has to do with onboarding um
our learning coaches to a new way of teaching and learning. Um, we will spend our year zero, which for us will begin sometime in the fall, even as we work with the Richmond Public School Board to bring some young people in for pilot experiences, Saturdays, um, spring
break, summer camp, etc. this summer to, um, really practice this this way of working with students. Um, we'll partner with the learner centered collaborative, we believe, to help us with that coaching. Um but really um onboarding um adults as well as as young people to
a new way of of doing things um will be um a a challenge and a and a high priority for us moving forward. Did I miss anything? Thank you. Thank you. Uh Chair Cesy, uh President Cissy, I'll I'll let other members of the committee
who I can't see, but I'm grateful that they're there in person ask some more questions and I may have some followup. Thank you. Others, Miss Lee, thank you all for um your presentation and I will echo um the chair's admiration for all
of the hard work that has gone into um where we are today. So, I just want to follow up on something you mentioned in your presentation and that is that you began this journey with the outcomes in mind. uh you have a very unique model that you are proposing and so
I would like for you guys to walk us through how you landed on like trimesters as the the mode for this proposed school. Which of us do you want?
Okay, so great question. Um, one of one of the the the the things that we struggled with is this idea that learning is flexibly paced, but it can take forever. Um, and so we need natural demarcation points to get students and
teachers to chase. And so a more rapid turning of the time with a trimester than a semester um really pushes the learning to move a little bit faster and gives us a faster point for evaluation. Um, we can't have young people moving
from one chunk of learning to the next every day of the week. That causes chaos. Um, nor do we want them moving at the end of a year. Um, so a trimester was a space to really accelerate that process of getting to the next chunk of learning. It also gave us an opportunity
to take a break from the intensity. Um, so we can have a little bit of a longer break there for a week or two for people to rest, recover, and then come back strong. So that was the logic behind those trimesters. Did I I would just add
to that that um it really builds in a natural space for the educators to reflect on what happened, tidy up all the recordkeeping that's required and map out the next trimester instead of packing everything into one semester.
I'd also add just um knowing that it's trimesters, the gaps between or the spaces really between the breaks is shorter. And so when you think around learning loss, there's a lot of data around that, you know, as well. And um I know just from my experiences having
lived in California, I saw saw schools like that that would have actually more of a year-long as they saw it versus that traditional two months break during the summer. So being able to to to consider that.
Thank you. Further questions, Mr. Fronick. I think I got to share. I thought you got to click it again. Sorry. Thank you. Um, I appreciate it. Let me just background on on myself. I was a member of the Fairfax County School
Board back at the dawn of what was then the charter school years in in in Virginia. and and I considered myself and I was and I remain very much supporter of charter schools uh because I think that they provide additional options for children particularly
children in in need and I'm a supporter even when I don't necessarily understand everything that's being put on the table uh because we need some innovation and because the real key to all of this in a child's education is really the personnel and leadership of the
institution that is driving them forward and and clearly you all uh meet that qualification in spades. Um I think uh the charter schools have been around
in this country for 33 years. In Virginia, they're still considered mysterious, new. Uh some people consider them dangerous. Some people consider them a panacea. So it's important that in the few that we have that we make certain they operate uh strongly. Let me
ask I' I've got to actually in reading through this I ended up with more questions than conclusions but let me start with this one. At the end you will get a contract if you're approved by RPS because Richmond public schools are the only institution that can approve you. It it will be for a length of time. At
the end of that contract um how will you determine whether Harbor School has been successful in its mission? Are you planning a benchmark assessment of each child that enters? Going to try to assess where they are when they leave,
whether it's at seventh grade or eighth grade, what talk to me a little bit about that. Sure. Um it's a great question and we really really feel passionately that the Harvard School be held to excellence and we really really
feel passionately that um if what we are innovating isn't meeting the needs of young people and getting them to be excellent learners that we don't continue. Um so it's a really good question. Um I think there's a couple of areas that are really important to us. The first is absolutely growth. I think
it'll be really important that we have a clear understanding of where young people come in and where they leave. But let me be clear, we expect some pretty high performance on state assessments in 8th grade. Um we expect young people to really catch up while they're with us if they start from behind. So we feel like
8th grade performance is a is a meaningful number and something that we'll be working hard towards. We also um would love to see um the input from parents and young people about their experiences be a measure of success. The
school is intended to respond to needs um and express desires of young people. If we're not meeting that mark, that is important as well. Um if every kid is learning and every kid is miserable, then we haven't achieved our objective. Um, so we would think about growth, we would think about that final assessment
and we would think about the the demand part of how that's going and how school is being experienced. Thank you. So, so if you one of the arguments I've always made having represented an area that had sons of daughters and uh sons of doctors and
lawyers and sons of people working two incomes was that um you do you plan an assessment when they enter the school so you know where they are? Are you going to use the old their their last so score? you what kind
of assessment will you use? Because a student might end up in eighth grade um at 50 percentile, but they might have started at 20. Correct. And and so you're need to measure the growth as much as anything else. That's right. I'm
going to let um an educator speak details on the evaluation part. Um I think it comes I think it comes down to the onboarding process which is lengthy. We're spending a lot of time one-on-one with each child during that period and
we're really learning where they are. Um, my background in tutoring has shown me that you can you can understand a lot about a child when you have a conversation with them about what they're trying to do. Um, and you
can you can really get them started on a path and then we have periods of reflection throughout the year. Um, we have three conferences with their learning team to see here's where they were, here's where we thought they'd be, what do we need to adjust in their learning path. Um, and I think if the
question is which precise evaluation, that's not an answer we can give you today, but will there be one? Absolutely. Yes. Really critical. Madame President, if I thank you, a couple of things that that stood out and and were question marks for me because I
didn't understand them. you are proposing a system for dual lotteryies. Um, one for those who are economically disadvantaged and one for those who are not. And it appears to me that there are spaces being allocated uh according to
the RPS definition of of of the different school demographics. Um, there can be a lot of reasons for doing that. The the generous reason would be to say you want to make certain you're reaching the students you're trying to reach. The
ungenerous uh explanation which people will use is that you are seeking to game your your in your the students coming in so you look better. Can you can you elaborate a little bit more on that? Absolutely. I I
appreciate that. our um our conversation that the reason that is there is because we really do want to make sure that we're reaching the young people that we intend to reach. Um what we see in Richmond is that those schools that have options where people can apply are less
likely to well they are easily accessed by those with options. Those are easily access accessed by those with resources. Um and so we're looking for a mechanism to um hold ourselves accountable to the thing that we really want, which is to be available to those young people who
have become disconnected from school who are more likely to be lower income. I don't think that we are 100% married to that solution. If someone can help us find a better way um to um hold a strict
number on that, then we're happy to do it. Um we but what what we know that we will do is to recruit in low-income communities. What we know that we will do is to make transportation available. What we know that we will do um is to um spend time working with families on the
process of enrollment so that we remove that barrier. Um but if it were more than 65% young people who are in low-inccome circumstances, we'd be thrilled. Um it is not meant to cap that. um it is meant to make sure we
reach that number and so we're looking for the right way to do that. Thank you. That's uh extremely comforting. Um, let me also ask on on page 100, you you've got a note that says, "We look forward to continued dialogue with VDOE
on the need for alter alternate means of assessment for learners who lag far behind their peers." and and that that's language that sort of raises red flags with me because it
suggests like it's the kind of words I heard when I was president of the state board as I was going out the door and there was a new administration coming in. Um c can you elaborate on what you mean by that? what what the nature of the kind of al alternative alternative assessments that you're planning and and
u profile of the students you think is it just low scores or is it is it elelll is it special education for which there were already alternate talk a little bit about that and flesh that out for me happy to um so
the thinking there is the number so we had um during our homeschool pod and during our math camp we were working with about 40 students that live in the neighborhoods that we would want to be in. Um more than half of them as sixth and seventh graders were on a first and
second grade level for math. Um two of six seventh graders couldn't read their letters and make sounds out of their letters. Um being just to be frank grossly behind where they needed to be.
Um, and so that conversation is really about what do we do in those circumstances? Not the young person who's maybe at a fifth grade level when they're in the middle of sixth grade, not even a student who's in a fourth grade level when they come into sixth grade, but what about those young people
that we find to be that that far behind? Um, and how do we create an opportunity for them to be successful um and to feel successful um as they make those leaps and acknowledge that growth? I think we we um we see an assessment system that
is taking account for growth. So we're not really worried about it on the sense of like will we be judged incompetent. It is more about what are the things that we do when students have fallen that far behind that acknowledge that this happens um and and and work towards that. I think the second piece that's behind
that and as you read it to me I think we could have been a little clearer is um this idea of a competency based model um does ask us to think about assessment long term in a different way um with one school that's competency based in
Virginia. We're not suggesting we ought to wire ourselves around that, but it is a conversation that we ought to have over time. How do we appropriately acknowledge the the many competencies that young people are learning? Um and and how do we assess that um a little differently? Kristen, would you want to
add anything to the the competency based assessment part? I mean, I think you covered it, but the big idea is that when you when you have the assessments that are made for a certain grade level, but our kids
are tackling competencies tackling little by little where they are. It feels silly to like place them in front of the wrong test when the right test does exist. So, it would be great to at some point have a conversation about how the test
could be matched to their the stuff they've been working on in that moment. And and to add, I think that it's also a measure of how do you say okay, and I think Sarah had mentioned this as well that they've been successful. So
over like the course of a year if they've gone from competency of like first grade level to fourth grade level is there a way to be able to measure that and shape and and let them know that wow you have done so much well you have improved um so much you know from
that you know point on. And so being able to really just elevate that success of that learner and be able to continuously find ways to to to contest that level of improvement. And I would
just add one more sentence which is we also don't want to be heard as as um sympathizing kids into failure. Um that doesn't mean oh you're at first grade let's get you to second grade by the end of the year. Absolutely not. let's continue to move you to the place that you need to be as rapidly as possible.
Um I I hope you won't hear meeting a student where we where they are as um being unrigorous. In some ways it's being more rigorous. Let's get you where you need to be. So So are are we talking about alternative assessments or are we talking about additional evaluations
that would better inform the instruction of the teacher moving forward? At the end of the day, they have to take the SOS. At the end of the day, like every public school, you'll you'll be the school will be assessed on it. Correct. And we're happy for that to happen.
We're just also happy to keep talking about what's great assessment. Okay. Well, because the word alternative means instead of and and and I think that is potentially problematic for a lot of reasons across the board. And you might want to to better flesh that out a
little more. Understood. and your um I'll try to make this the last one. Madam President, uh there's a line at the bottom of page 116 marked stipens and one marked bonuses, incentive pay. Um I'm wondering if you could explain
the difference between those and by what you mean and and how they would be applied to get the best out of your staff and your personnel. I think I know what you mean, but I don't know that I know what you mean. Tell me the page number. Let me make one. Um, yes. So, we're thinking there
about about two different things. So, a stipen being you're taking on an additional responsibility of some kind. Um, be that the coach of the robotics team or whatever else that it's something additional that you're doing to make
school work. Um, something that would be a bonus or incentive pay might be around um getting an additional credential. um that would bump up your salary or give you a reward for going to learn that. It might be um you're leading a teaching a
learning session with your peers. Um and so it's incentivized to to do something on that. It doesn't necessarily tie to your kids scores because it's a group teaching environment. It has more to do with the ways that we invest um in
ourselves. Okay. as a as a as an RP you'll be an RPS school, you'll fall under the collective bargaining agreement. Is I know stipens are permitted. They're specified in the RPS CBA. Are are incentives like the
second group that you mentioned permitted? Um I think that's a good question. Um and it's something that we aren't it's something that we'll have to negotiate along with another many other parts of
the model and under the collective bargaining agreement for instance things like um I think the most recent one has something like 21 minutes of lunch for instance there's some details that won't that don't work exactly in the model and so I think all of those things
we will be flexible to work with um the collective bargaining agreement to do what makes sense. I know you had some thoughts about that. I can tell you I I spent a year working as a union organizer for the AFL CIO and I can tell you that we're going to be worker friendly and I care about people. So,
we're going to we're going to be uh quick to talk to teachers about what is good for them and what's going to make the workplace a space that they feel comfortable in. I hope it'll make the teachers union feel comfortable.
I I mean because I mean it's the the the conflict between collective bargaining agreements and charter school operations across the country is legendary and and I'd hate to see that get started right there. My other question is, have you
plugged in the right numbers in your assumptions about um salary increases as you move forward? Cuz it looked to me like it given what the last well the current collective bartering agreement says
um it it doesn't look like it's the same numbers going forward. I mean I Yeah. So these are based all of these pay scales come from the most recently published personnel costs at Richmond public schools as a baseline and we have selected um pay scales that are um on
the on the higher end 7 to 10 years in order to compensate for the unknown of what the increases look like. Um we do think these numbers are still fairly conservative when you think about um the nature of newer newer faculty members coming in
um etc. Um I think the salary increases are sort of akin to all the other unknowns in the budget. You can plan for increases and then each year you're will have to adjust to what what reality is on that front. But we did choose intentionally higher pay scales to try
to accommodate for um future okay more experienced teachers. Yeah, I guess you you sort of addressed it in there saying that you really haven't approached the the school board members yet. This is um this is a highly politicized decision
that the board will be making. Um and and uh you certainly meet the qualifications in terms of evidence of community support, although it's a little thin. It's it's one basically from every category. Um have you had any
informal discussions with members of the school board? And you don't have to say who, just have you or I mean I it it is not going to be easy. We have begun to do some outreach to members of the school board and we've
found that there are some people who are willing to hear us out. Um we aren't under any uh illusion that this is going to be easy. We know that there is a great deal of misunderstanding and misinformation around what charter schools are specifically in the
Commonwealth of Virginia and how they differ from charter schools and other places. and we're happy to have the conversation and we're happy to tell the story about how we got to where we are in the Commonwealth around uh the idea of charter schools as public schools
that meet the needs of students specifically. And I think making that case and helping to clear up some of that uh confusion, misinformation, or uh misunderstanding around what charter schools are. I think we're going to find some people that are going to be uh a
little bit more willing to hear. And then also I think uh the Harvard School is not a top- down design school. This was was was developed as a response to voices from our community and we
anticipate that uh our school leadership in the city of Richmond is going to do what they say and be responsive to the voices in our community who are asking for innovation. We are excited to hear that uh leaders in our city are talking about school design for the first time
in a long time and we're happy to be um we see ourselves as a part of that movement toward redesigning schools in Richmond and uh so we're happy to have the conversation. We don't anticipate uh it being easy, but we do think that we
can be successful and there is conversation behind the scenes with several members who are who are willing to be supportive and thinking about the best strategic way to do that. And I think you've identified that that they are responsive to what they hear from the community. So I guess
my only suggestion some of those letters in there are two years old. It is. It may well be time for you to ramp up your your your local activities and hit the dry cleaners and the churches and the and the street fairs and and let parents
know about what that opportunity is. If at the end of the day, if the if a board haven't been one, u they don't hear from people, they can't say I have to get out in front of them because I'm their leader. So, and they shouldn't in our view, right? if if the folks in Richmond
um are not advocating for this, then the school board shouldn't say um shouldn't say yes. And we're really looking forward to we've been spending some time again in the community this last month and the rate of of one of the things that we have found is that every time we talk to people, people are excited about
can we have this right now? Um and what we wanted to be really careful of is that we didn't get people excited about something that you all did not approve and we did not know how long it would take to get to this moment. We are how satisfied are you that you will
be able to raise that money and I'm not asking who they are but have you got commitments at this point that will ensure your survivability? Um thank you for that and um I feel really comfortable with those numbers um
for for two reasons. The first is that um we have had some conversations with some individuals who have historically been investing in programs like this in our city who are really excited um to participate and not only to give but to lead fundraising um for it. We also I
spent um the last 20 years of my career raising money in Richmond. Um I raised about $60 million for out of schooltime programs in a 10-year period. Um, that is the one thing I know how to do and I'm really excited to get back to Thank you.
Thank you. Anything else, President? Yes. Sorry, President Casey, I would invite you to ask some questions as an exopicio member as well. Thank you. Um, if you don't mind, I have a few. Um, having been an
educator in the classroom in a middle school myself for over 10 years, um, I'm excited to be able to participate in this committee today. Uh, as of course, um, it was restarted in March of 24. Is that right? March of 24.
Um, during one of our board of education meetings, I wanted this committee to restart in order to, um, get us to innovation. uh more quickly and I do appreciate this application. So, I'm going to get weedy
on educator stuff. Uh what what I really want to know about is what does remediation look like? So, Johnny comes in at a second grade reading level. You have one second grade
reading level student. You have five third grade, five fourth grade, three fifth grade. help me understand what remediation looks like. Um because that's going to look different in language arts, in math, in social
studies, in science. Um and so having taught in um inner city in Norphick, uh when I started my career, I know how difficult it is. I had an 11th grade student who couldn't
read. Um, and so this is a calling to do this work. Um, and I very much appreciate it because when you were telling those stories, um, it took me back to stories
that I experienced. And people that have not experienced those moments have no idea the depth and the breadth of the people that we're not reaching in our
communities. And so I I thank you for this. I just want to know how we're getting kids from point A to where they need to be as quickly as possible. um because you know just life puts a lot of our kids that um are going to come to
y'all in the positions they're in but CO has manifested that to an a degree that I don't think any of us were ever a prepared for or b saw in our lifetimes. So help help me understand what remediation looks like.
Um, I'm gonna I'm gonna let Kristen answer most of that, but I I want to say thank you for that question um and for seeing that. I think you're right. Unless you've been with young people um in those moments that the the
depth of what needs to be done um it's hard to see and it's it's being with them over and over and over again that helps you to see that. I think that's the reason that we're so committed to this personalized pacing and competency based um learning. It really lets us meet young people in that moment and get them moving forward more quickly. You
want to talk a little bit? I think you should introduce yourself. Yeah, I'm Kristen. Um I'm I've been an educator for 20 years. I have a masters in curriculum and instruction. Um I think that first of all, everyone
is on their individualized pathway. So, it really is much easier than in in your circumstances, Miss Crey, to reach each learner where they are, even if that means remediating uh remediation. In our homeschool pilot, um we had a student
who it took a second to realize it, but she didn't know her phonics. She was making up the words and it was she had slipped by was she in seventh grade when she came in? So she would sit and read a book and I could see how in a large classroom the teacher thought she was
reading and then when she read it to us, we realized she wasn't. Um so for her what remediation looked like is she had to do with the Wilson reading program. She had to do phonics um for as long as she could tolerate it, 15 to 30 minutes a day. And she got to a
point where she started to really accelerate quickly. And by the end of two years she was she I mean even then she could join all the projects with everyone else. She sat with kids and read a book that was really interesting with them or listen to a book that was really
interesting with them. Um but then by the end she she really accelerated. It didn't take the whole two years to catch up her phonics once she realized oh this is the code. This is what I have to do. It wasn't that there was actually a problem with her reading. It's that she hadn't learned it. Um, so I think
there's time and flexibility to do that remediation right in the same space with everyone else. You're just doing different things and everyone's doing their own thing and you're not pulled out. Um, there's also enough teachers to do
that work. You know, one teacher might have eight students while you're doing your 15 or 30 minutes of phonics with this other student. Are you asking more on the structure or I I think I'm I'm think I'm really talking about how are we identifying or how are you identifying
um and then once that identification takes place what's the actual instructional plan. Yeah. So the identification happens during that on that do you saw that orange line there's there's the first um three to four weeks of school up to six
weeks are really about evaluation understanding learning how to do school in a competency based way like there's learning that every kid needs to do on how do we do this no matter their background who can be a genius and you can be somebody who is learning to read you still got to learn how to do school this way so it gets everybody on an even
pathway to start and then there is an evaluation of each student um at during those those weeks where we say, "Okay, here's some gaps that we've got and here's the plan that suits them." One of the things is we will have access to multiple curriculums that are used as
resources to match to that child for what is needed right there rather than having to go through a textbook, which is hard to do in Virginia anyway because our standards um are are unique. Um you you match to that child and making sure there's direct instruction where needed where a young person is behind direct
instruction is going to be the right way to do that. Um and then in the other forms of learning whether that's an a a questioning and an intuitive um learning can come but that that direct instruction then happens that learning
pathway is created for that child to say hey let's really um let's let's do some frontend morning work on reading and and writing is is the first thing for you and you might get an hour of that that first season of your learning um versus
a shorter period of time. You might get an hour in the morning and 30 minutes in the afternoon to make sure that you are covering your bases on that thing that is far behind. And that's where that individual pathway, if you imagine it as an IEP for every student, allows to meet
and assess along the way. The only other question that I have is um talk I want to just hear what your professional development plan is. Um because as a teacher just kind of want to know how how is um growth and
development in this type of environment uh going to be supported as you all move through? Yeah, that's a great question. Um are you guys familiar with the learner center collaborative? So they have um they have training programs for
learner centered teaching and I think we'll begin with um leaning into those trainings and then we can actually partner with them and they can build out a program particularly for our school and our teachers and we've talked to them about that.
Um, and there are other trainings that we want teachers to have too though besides just how to teach and uh learn do code design with kids and learn and design the learning experiences that they need to meet both their academics and their interest um in regards to youth development. What
are some of those other training? make sure we have some trauma-informed um trainings and um ongoing. One of the things that can come from the world of youth development is the importance of setting the context of learning. The Wikert Center has some really nice
trainings on how to make sure that we've layered the important um aspects of an environment that's supportive. It's it's safe. It's supportive. There's opportunity for um student engagement. there's some really tools there that help us to think beyond the content of
what we're doing to the experience that's wrapped around it. Um, we've talked just recently, just last week, with a with a woman in town who um is doing a lot of training on teachers of how to use rituals and routines to create mindfulness um for students. That's something that's embedded in the
model that we look forward to partnering with her on. and a young woman I talked with last night who does um recovery and um not recovery but um mindfulness and emo emotional recovery when we're exhausted um particularly with black educators who's excited to partner with
us. So we'll be looking at a 360 view to support our teachers um and just like um the Harvard School is individually um wired for students it's individually wired for teachers too. What we don't want is learning coaches sitting in a training they don't need to be in.
There's too much to learn. There's too much to grow. So those are those are personal plans too that make sure that we are growing um teachers and they're having the experience of continual learning and a say in their own development that way.
Thank you. Anything else from anybody? Miss Lady, do you have any more? I do. Um but you all helped knock some of my questions off. Um, forgive me if I'm a little bit all over the place, but uh, let's just continue on the the teacher track. So, you talked a lot about professional development. Can you talk
about what your strategy will be for recruitment because I think you mentioned in your opening remarks teachers aren't necessarily taught in this style of teaching. So, talk a little bit about um, how you might go about recruiting. And I think I read in your materials that you're seeking
teachers who come to the Harvard School already with you know an average of like five years of experience. So talk a little bit about kind of your recruitment strategy and how you might target target some of these educators. Leave and I'll lead like I'll
follow. Um so I think I think recruitment um when we when we think about so let me let me slow my brain down for a moment. Um it'll be important that we have the right mix of staff. So what does that
mean? It means bringing in bringing some folks who are not currently in Richmond but have experience in a learner centered design and that competency based model to here to learn from so that they bring some expertise with them. It'll be really important that we pair that with people who know Richmond.
Um those of y'all who know Richmond know that Richmond is is is its own place and we are Richmonders and we know that. Um and so bringing that diversity of experience together um will be important. We hope that we will be able to call some educators home to Richmond,
people who are teaching elsewhere um to come back home. So, we'll use our national network to do that. We'll use the learner centered collaborative support to help find us the right people. Um we will look for there's um a handful of um employees in the mix who
are not certified teachers who come out of the youth development or social work space. Um we'll use the networks that we have to find those people and then we'll do some um real work on onboarding. Um the first years of the model call for some extra learning coaches beyond what
is absolutely necessary. It both provides for substitutes and for um being ready for the next year um as we onboard people. You want to add? Yeah. Having led a school in and uh an
independent school in Richmond, one thing that I can tell you is there are educators out there who in some ways are like the students that we're seeking to serve. They haven't adjusted well to the traditional environment. And some of
those teachers uh would love the opportunity to get back in the classroom that's not traditional. So, as well as bringing some some teachers home from outside of the area, we think there may be some teachers that we can bring back uh to to fall back in love with teaching
um in an environment that that better suits their style or their approach. Um so we also think that um we think that the hardware school is is going to be you know because we know that the city is also concerned per se that you know
we already had a teacher shortage in the city and um we don't see ourselves as this is a completely different model. So we're not really looking for the same person for this classroom. This model calls for a very specific kind of person. Um, so, uh, while we're not in
competition with the city, we do see ourselves, um, being able to get some people back in the classroom who may have stepped out because it didn't really fit for them. Great. Um, I will continue. Um, lots of questions. Um, let's talk
about facility. So you mentioned that one of the challenges uh would be deciding the right location. Um my colleague mentioned that charters aren't always viewed favorably um here. Are
there locations that you won't consider? I'm imagining as you're having this conversation with the board that there there may be some areas where folks aren't open to having a charter located. So, are there areas that you might be able to take off of the map in terms of
where you would locate the Harvard School? One thing I I know Sarah has something to add, but one thing I definitely want to say is uh we are committed to the Harvard School being in a place where the kids are going to feel welcome in that environment, in that
community. And we would love to see the Harvard School in a community that wants to be a part of the school, involved in the school. Um so as you said there are some there are some places that may not uh look favorably on charters but
conversely we also don't want to move this school to to places that where options already exist away from the students that we're trying to serve. So we we realize it's a a fine balance that has to be struck there. Um, we've had
some conversations around the city around this already and we've found some areas that are pretty excited about the opportunity. So, um, and we've we've been we've been scouting to to put to say, but we we
know it's a fine balance and and we're working very diligently to make sure we're in a welcoming place, but not out of reach for the students that we want to serve. And and I would also add that while there is the public narrative that people are fearful of charters and I
don't want to dismiss that narrative, we did do um a survey in January of voters in Richmond and we found that right now um more than 40% of voters and more than 50% of parents are favorable to charter schools. And when you explain to them
what a charter school is um that number goes up dramatically. In fact, the unfavorability um percentage goes down to 13% in Richmond once you tell voters what this is, that it's nonprofit, open to all tuition free um a part of the school system. And so I think we don't
want to overplay the idea that people are are anti it's new Richmonders y'all things that are new, right? Um and so we are spending a lot of time with people reminding them that that that old things can be new again. We have been about
innovation. Our favorite schools would be charter schools today. Open high school, um, Community High School, these are places that would be charter school. Franklin Military Academy, these were these are charter schools of their day. Um, so reminding people of that. Um, and and really people are really excited
about a a middle school in particular. Middle school is a place where Richmond are very, very worried. No matter your income, no matter your race, no matter where you live. Um, and I think parents of middle schoolers are just worried anyway. Middle school's a tough age. Um, but we we really we are seeing a lot more people say, "Can it be here? Can it
be near me?" Than we are seeing people say, "Please don't bring that here." Um, we we've seen some neighborhoods say, "We've got a building that sits empty that we would love to see the opportunity to have a school and a collaborative afterchool program, which the Harvard School is like because we're
an independent public school, we can have those conversations a lot easier. We can navigate a community partnership um a lot more easily. So, we we'd love to be in a place where we could do something like that. And there's a couple there's there's two spots that we aren't ready the the folks aren't ready for us to be talking publicly about that
yet. Um, but I I see us being away from I see us northern, eastern, or southern parts of the city more than western parts of the city. What we don't want to do is is miscommunicate who the school is for through our location. And
Richmond has some particularities around where people live. So, northeast and south um is where you'll find the harbor school. Thank you. Appreciate that. Um couple other areas. One is around discipline. So, I appreciate in your
materials you talk about policies that are geared toward restorative justice as opposed to um policies being more punitive. lots of research out there now about the efficacy of said restorative justice practices versus some
traditional methods of discipline. And so really want you guys to talk a little bit about a um how you arrived at this as the policies that you will pursue and then just how flexible are you based on what happens on the ground?
I'll kick this one off and let y'all add. um as a part of the Richmond public school district, we would be part of the discipline policies that are in Richmond. Um and as is true in any school, you play out those things on the ground, but I want to be really really
clear that those policies apply and we understand that. Um when we think and I hear you about restorative practices can be weak in their effectiveness at times. Um so here's a philosophy that drives our understanding of discipline. Um
that's really important. What we what we see and what we believe is that so much discipline comes from a conflict of culture. It comes from a place where an adult is expecting one set of behavior and a kid is doing another set of behavior. That's where the conflict happens. So one of the things that we
really do on the front end is try to prevent that from happening in the first place in this onboarding and teaching. Let us teach you how we work here. Let us teach you how we live and work together here in this relationship building aspect. this opportunity of um
teaching young people to have relationships with with one another and with adults is part of the core of the model. And so discipline is that's a really good spot to be talking about here's how we here's how we live and work together. Here are the norms that we expect and to do a lot of positive
reinforcement in those early days when you are doing the things the way that we want them to be done. We're giving you a lot of positive feedback around that versus the negative feedback and but also correction early on, right? a lot of real focus early on on let's get the culture right so that discipline goes
down in the long run. Um and I think if we're seeing a lot of discipline issues then the question needs to be what's wrong in the context and how do we get that right? Um versus continue to accelerate on the discipline part. Um there do need to be consequences for
young people. Um we can't just talk about something and assume it's better. But those don't need to be um punitive either. They need to be natural consequences. What's a natural consequence? Hey, um, y'all had committed to getting X project done by Y
time. Are we there? Well, we're not there yet. Gosh, some other young people have finished what they're doing and they're headed to do this um elective 15 minutes over here. Looks like you guys are going to need to keep working as a consequence rather than a punishment. I
understand that's not discipline. Um, but the idea being that that the that whatever is going on is tied to what's happening um in the room. I do think there are times when young people need time away from school to reset and um that suspension policies occasionally
are what's needed. So, it's not that we think that's never. Um, but we would love to couch those in. These are times a way to recover and come back and have a return that is thoughtful. So, you don't just come back. We we come back and we talk about what happened. We talked about how we're going to make it
better and then we keep moving forward so that the relationship is restored as we do that. Kristen, what what am I missing on the technical language front or the where am I making a mess that I should that was those that was thorough I think. Okay. I think also just um
considering family families too and how do we include families and engage families in these conversations as well. So even um it's not just you know at the time of discipline but actually as we're
on boarding how are we having these conversations with the families that we're supporting to make sure that we're on the same level. So when any instances like this do happen, they're also their voice is also loudly, you know, heard.
Um, and probably they going to leave the conversation versus it kind of coming from us. I'm so glad you said that because we have seen that when the teacher and the and the parent get aligned, all of a sudden kids move forward real fast. So, as much as we can
do that early on through regular conversations, it was amazing to watch one of our young people um suddenly understand that mom was on board with us. Um things got different real quick. Um and so having those meetings and those conversations early on, the weekly
calls from the family liaison that then filter back into the classroom, we believe is going to be a prevention of the need for intense discipline or we that is the goal. If I may, just a point of order. During our uh during our presentation, we mentioned uh one of the
parents who who asked for our school and who knocked on those doors. We want to acknowledge that she's here. She did she did was able to get here from work. Thank you for coming. Thank you. So I think you you read my mind and this actually where I was going to go next
which is your model calls for a strong partnership with parents including the role of parent leisa roles of parents on your your management committee and some requirements some pretty stiff requirements for parent engagement um as
a part of the the contract that the student signs up for during this um school um school day. Talk to me a little bit about like how you plan to enforce that. Right. To the point that we were making earlier, parents have obligations that are outside of the the
school day and yet we want parents to be critical to the infrastructure of the school. How are you hoping to to have that play out once the school is locked? Yeah, that's um a lot about us going to them and less about them coming to us um
at times. So, in in other words, we think about the requirement for participation. That includes answering the phone and chatting with us about how kids are doing. Um, don't misread that as you go to come and plant a garden with us in order to count as your participation in school. This is about
those moments of conversation and and counting all the ways that um that parents are supporting their young people um in schools. And yes, what we would love to see is that that parents are coming to school, caregivers are coming to school to see a really cool
project. We um plan for expo nights, you might call them, of young people celebrating what they what they're learning and having folks come in and see what they're learning. We really hope that that our caregivers will feel really welcome there and be part of that. Um but the threshold for
participation isn't about pushing people out. It's about inviting people in and and monitoring that on our end to say what do we need to change to make this more possible for this family more than what do they need to change in order to meet our expectations. It is a it is a
watchfulness on our ourselves as much as it is anybody else. Are we missing anybody? Do we know everybody? Is are we um doing the work that we need to reach to families and and create welcome for them? Um and it is really about participating not about checking the
boxes like answer the phone is really the important piece of that answer a text be in relationship with us in some way. Um what would you add? I think too it's like being innovative when you think around family engagement because I think a lot of times people do say that
okay we're going to do event and do that here versus and this is part of onboarding as well. So when you're thinking about when you're bringing families together and you're having these conversations of what does it mean to be part of this school, hearing from
them of like what does engagement look like for you and how do you kind of see what what can you bring to the table and really kind of see it more as like assets and talents that they have they can bring to the table. And so you might learn that like
virtually they can kind of do something. They can maybe be on like a Zoom call. They can be the one running the WhatsApp chat. They can do like all these things that they probably do on a daily basis. That is their strong points and their strength and be able to really add that
and integrate that. I think also what's like valuable is that family liaison is also can be part of that leadership of the school not just someone where it's like nice to have and it's detached. So that really integrates families into
what the school is doing on an everyday basis versus just saying this is something that I'm going to decide. This is actually how we lead and think and center community and family. I would add there's a flexibility on who
is that adult. Um so I think about a young man who is a part of our um homeschool pod um Jaden that you heard from. Um his family circumstance doesn't allow for um his mother to be involved in his school now. And I am that person
in his life for his school. They have someone to talk to about how he's doing. And we would do the same thing. Um, I've in all the years I've been around kids, there's always an adult somewhere um that cares about that young person. And our job is to find that person um and bring them into the conversation. Not
say you're not the biological mom. Now, hear me say we would not ask a person like me to do legal things on behalf of that child, but to participate alongside that child and support that child's planning and support that child's dream along with us. Absolutely. That qualifies.
Got it. Okay. Final question for me. Um, and I really want to pick back up on President C's um, questions around assessment. So, you guys mentioned like you lay out your whole learning progression. You talk about things like knowledge checks. Um, I'm assuming you
will land on some sort of interim assessment to um, gauge growth and obviously you've got the SLOs's with which um, measure the summitive um, assessment. My question is knowing that the population that you're targeting will
likely come to you years behind um you've got three short years. You mentioned the eighth grade um year um assessment as being kind of a marker for you all. Like what is your plan for retention and promotion
if hypothetical student comes to you on a first grade reading level? They've made tremendous progress and they are now up to a fifth grade, but they are not yet at middle school when middle school level when it's time for eighth grade. What is what is your your plan for students that are so severely behind? This isn't a knock on your
ability to to catch them up. It's just the three years. It's hard to combat seven years in three years. Absolutely. It's just what's real. Um so it's a great question and one we've
wrestled with an awful lot. Um um I think the place that that conversation starts is on on at on boarding season of sixth grade where you've come in and we've discovered, hey, we've got this big gap. Um it's really important that we begin talking
to a learner and talking with a caregiver about here's where we really are. um we have really found that um our caregivers and the parents that we've worked with are really craving knowledge on how is my child really doing and they
really welcome an honest assessment of here's where we are. Um your child is reading at a fifth grade level, they're doing math at a second grade level. Um we've got some work to do. So let's begin to make a plan to do that work. Here's where we're going to start. Let's start with there's some opportunity to
stay a little longer during the day to work on that. and there's some opportunity to really work at at being attentive to those things. That's where this competency tracking really helps us. We can really see how fast a kid is progressing. And within that first year, I do think there's an opportunity and we
would we would look for an opportunity to say to a caregiver and a student, we think you'd benefit from four years here rather than three. Let's begin to talk about whether or not um that that makes sense. Do we want to do that all the time? No. But we think that conversation
needs to be had and had early then we don't see as many um of the negatives of of retaining a student. Those negatives have a lot to do with um social interaction. I have not progressed with my peers. Um in that pod of 108 students where that student stays the entire time
they don't they don't your pod is your pod. Those are 107 people. Um there is a mixed age group. Um so if you are in sixth grade this year, you're going to have sixth graders coming in next year. you're going to have relationships with those students who can progress with that next group without as much social
stigma um as being retained in a grade when we begin to work on it early. We we believe we can close a lot of gaps, but that would be the conversation um with folks about let's plan for that early. Let's reclassify rather than retain.
And I would just add that we have really regular conferences every trimester with the parents and the whoever else is on this child's learning team. And so it would never come as a surprise. We're tracking that every time. Oh, we're making up. We're growing so fast. This isn't a concern anymore. Or we've all
been expecting this. This is going to take a little bit longer. So let's celebrate the growth you have made. President Casey, may I interrupt? Please. Oh, wonderful. Um, I really appreciate the members of the
committee's uh questions um as well as u the harbor team's response to I think you know lots of questions around how do we serve the students and families who really need us the most. Um, and I think you all have answered it from so so many
different perspectives, whether it's relationships, whether it's data, it's the curriculum, it's the assessment. I mean, this this is the challenge. There is no best way to serve the students and families who need us the most. If it were being done, we wouldn't be in this
room. And so I I just want to you know again I think it raises the question that we all are are are faced with as educators as leaders um in the state um and I think the team has really thoughtfully um tried to tackle it um
and has jumped kind of both feet in. Um, and I applaud the applaud the committee and I applaud the members of our committee for really pushing on this issue because um, serving to eat as kids is easy. Although there are no easy kids as we all know. That's right. I do Yes.
appreciate the the committee's um just thoughtfulness with that. Um, and with that I I would ask um, President Casy serving as exeicio you know to really just uh wrap up with any final questions. to see if there's any final thoughts as we then um really um take
consideration of this application. So, thank you. Any further or final questions before we wrap up? Okay. So, um the committee will now take a consensus vote. Well, in that
case, I have a question. Okay. And the question is this. If if we say move forward, do they have to submit the exact same application to the board or can they tweak it based on the
conversations here today to elaborate, explain, whatever? Miss McDaniel, do you want to answer that question? Madame President and member Bronnick, um pursuant to our public charter school application process,
um we give the if the committee decides that uh there's overall consensus that the board criteria satisfied, the application will be recommended and presented to the board. And then secondly, if the committee decides that not all criteria is satisfied, the applicant will be provided time to
address those criteria and be given a future opportunity to meet with the committee at a second meeting. Now, I will say um in reference to the specific question of whether or not they have to provide the same application um or if they can add additional items, we do not
have that directly outlined in the process. Um, I will say that within 10 days or I'm sorry, the applicant will receive written comments by members on strengths and suggestions for improving the overall charter proposal no more
than 5 days. Um, so I will ask Miss Love because our application or process is silent on that point. So, good afternoon. So, what's the classic lawyer answer? It depends.
Um, and I'm sorry to do that, but I mean, obviously, it would it would make no sense for this committee to approve this application and have it transformed be something different coming before the board. One, there's not time, but well, you guys can accomplish a lot. Maybe
maybe so. So that doesn't seem appropriate. I think if um the committee had, for example, and I'm just spitballing here, let's say there were some concerns about a particular thing. Maybe there's a an element of this where maybe the committee's not satisfied that the board's criteria have been met. That
would be appropriate fodder for conversation. And it might well be as you know as Miss McDaniel noted uh if there's if the application is not approved the options for the applicant are to come back to the committee. They can ask to come back with something that
you know they think addresses the committee's concerns. They can also go on to the board. Uh and I suppose they could also address those concerns. I would certainly think that the board and President Cruz can speak to this better than anybody. the board would want to know what's different, you know, because
that's they they don't want us they they need to rely the board needs to rely on the work of the committee, but if if we've changed an apple to an orange, right, we're going to get a different kind of juice um to torture a metaphor. So, um I don't know if that's helpful
guidance on that question. What are your thoughts? May I recommend um if there is any additions that you would like to see if you decide ultimately that it satisfies board's criteria that the applicant can submit perhaps an addendum
that is specified. So that way when it goes to the state board of education, the state board now sees the original application that was submitted and then an addendum that does provide the feedback that the applicant took the time to prepare in reference to feedback
that you all submit today. that that work. I mean, I asked the question partly because whatever document the board considers is the document that will probably be reported on by news media and by other individuals, both pro and con. I do
think that there are some some phrasing in here as as I pointed out that I think you might want to clarify. It's it's your option, but I sure as heck wouldn't want to see you have to go through I mean, I'm telegraphing my vote, but uh to see you have to go through all this
again or us to have to go through. We would certainly welcome I mean the opportunity to clarify in some places if that were an option that would that would feel look we want to get better all the time. We deeply believe this idea that learning is getting it wrong
and getting it right and and making it better. We certainly welcome the opportunity to to clarify um and to improve. Yeah, because the questions we had are questions other people are going to have. So, you might as well short. Well, let's get better every time. Okay. So, I think we'll proceed in that
manner, Miss Love, if that's okay, and just do an addendum with any comments that need addressing pre board. Um and I think that that would certainly satisfy a more transparent um approach to what
has been um given as feedback here and how you have addressed that feedback uh um you know in an addendum sort of process there. Um okay any other processoriented questions
before we move on? Okay. So, we'll first vote on whether the standing committee finds the application satisfies the board's approval criteria with respect to feasibility. Um, Mr. Green, do you have
a comment to make? I am other than I'm just saying. Thank you. Um, and what is the purpose of your abstension? Uh, due to my previous professional relationship with the applicant. Thank you. Um, okay. So, can I have a motion?
Um, that this I'm sorry. No, but I was so moving, but May I have a motion that the standing committee finds the application satisfies the board's approval criteria with respect to feasibility?
So, move. Okay. It was moved u by Miss Ashen and seconded by Miss Lee. Uh, all those in favor indicate by saying I. I. We don't have to have a roll call, do we? I don't believe so, Miss Love. No roll call vote required. Thank you. It's unanimous.
Sorry, I I uh am in my board mentality. Okay, that motion passes. Um, we will next vote on whether the uh standing committee finds the application satisfies the board's approval with crit with respect to the criteria around curriculum. Can I have a motion that the
standing committee finds the application satisfies the board's approval criteria with respect to curriculum? So moved. Second. All those in favor, please indicate by saying I. I. I. I. Okay. That motion
also passes. We will now vote on whether the standing committee finds the application satisfies the board's approval criteria with respect to financial soundness. May I have a motion that the standing committee finds the application satisfies the board's approval with
respect uh criteria with respect to financial soundness? So move. It's been moved and seconded. Uh all those in favor indicate by saying I. I. Okay. Miss Ashton
I fine. All right. That motion passes. Um, can I have a motion that the standing committee finds the application satisfies the board's approval criteria with respect to all other objective
criterion? So move. Second. Okay, it's been moved and seconded. All those in favor indicate by saying I. I. I. I. Okay, that motion passes. Uh lastly, we will have a vote
on whether the standing committee finds that the overall application satisfies the board's approval criteria. May I have a motion to that effect? So moved. Second.
All those in favor indicate by saying I. I. I. I. Okay, that motion passes. Um, so the committee has voted to advance this application for consideration by the Virginia Board of Education. This
will take place during the business session on May 22nd. As a reminder, this is only the first step for this public charter school application pursuant to the charter school application process and the public charter school statute.
This application now proceeds to the board of education who will determine whether the public charter school application satisfies the board's approval criteria. Just by way of a reminder, all of the committees written and oral feedback will be captured in a
report that will be prepared by staff and presented to the board. Um we will work with you all additionally on that amend uh I mean addendum process to amend those particular sess sections or add to them for further clarification.
Um upon s a successful recommendation from the board of education, the public charter school application will be forwarded to the local school board for their own determination as they are the final authorizer as you all know that um are there any current Yes sir. I I'm
I'm curious about the timeline. This is May 8th. If we have 10 days, that's May 18th. And how do we meet the how does the board meet the requirement to post things well enough in advance?
Madame President, to address member Bron Lick's question, we're going to try to get that feedback and work with the applicant to get it done in time for public notice. Um, and that is what we will try to do. Okay. All right.
So, we are um cognizant of everyone's timelines and we'll take that into account should we need to. Um so, uh are there any current issues that any member of the committee would like to address before we move on? I got a question uh
chairwoman. This question is for Sophia. Do we have any current um potential applicants or applications coming forward that you foresee over the next few months? I have not been indicated by any potential applicant that they will be coming forward in the next few months as
of right now. Further questions? Good. Okay. Um, since I don't believe there are any non-aggenda items for public comment, I will however open
it up. Uh are is there anyone here would like who would like to speak on non-aggenda items at this standing committee meeting? Okay. In that case, I will take a motion
to adjurnn. So moved. All right. And we are done. Thank you.