morning i would Oh look i love it okay I'm going to try this again i never get response so I'm just like used to just rolling on through so good morning oh I love it man i just got a jolt of
energy that I would not otherwise have gotten from my coffee or my soda this morning so thanks guys i really appreciate that um so I will note just for the record that I've approved the remote participation of Mr hansen and Miss Ashton under the board bylaws and
2.2-37083B3 2-37083B3 of the code of Virginia because their principal res residences are more than 60 miles from the meeting location as is customary for the board we will begin our meeting with a moment of silence followed by the pledge of
allegiance okay 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 so moving along this morning before we hear the highlight of our day um and just before we do this the board once we make a couple of motions we're going to come down and sit in front of you so that we can actually see your smiling
faces instead of looking at your backs but um is there a motion to approve the agenda as presented so move second Miss Kilgore i Dr northern Hi Miss McFersonson hi Mr
rotherham i Miss Holton I and chair votes I uh staff has provided the members of the board with the draft minutes before the meeting is there a motion to approve the minutes as presented to the board
so move is there a second second Miss Kilgore i Dr northern Hi Miss McFersonen hi Mr rotherham hi Miss Holton i and chair votes I so as we
begin this morning the board always appreciates being able to feature wonderful arts programs from across the Commonwealth having students perform for us and for the rest of the Commonwealth as uh people watch on our YouTube so I
will ask Mr rotherham if he would provide us with an introduction of today's guests thank you Madam President it is my distinct pleasure to introduce to you and the board and the audience the Patriot High School Singers from Noville Virginia the Patriot High School
Singers under the direction of Elizabeth Selby elizabeth is in her 10th year as the coral director at Patriot High School in Noville Virginia and she's been teaching in Prince William since 2004 before that she led the coral program at Benton Middle School and previously taught elementary school music and she also taught junior high
choir in Minnesota under Mrs selby's direction the Patriot High School choirs consistently earn superior ratings at various assessments festivals and performances and many of her students are selected annually for county district state division and national honor choirs also in attendance from
Prince William County we have Mr david Van Gelder the principal of Patriot High School Dr anna Marie Bolino she's supervisor of the arts and Miss Michelle Milligan she's coordinator of performing arts welcome to you all and thank you for joining us today and so now the board will come down and sit in front of
you but after you all perform we would love it if you would meet us out at the steps so that we could take a picture with you all thank you cafe it's about a boy who is getting coffee to go sell coffee to go sell at
the market and um he sells it but then on the way home so he's kind of freaking out a little bit probably not going to be so happy and our second piece is called singing Britney Good good good we good we are good we
are good we are good we are good we are good we are good all I want Oh my god more super My leg
super mama Boy superity heat heat heat oh my god i'm on superafe on the Kyot you might
like somebody like I singing bring me bring me love singing bring me future bring me home bring
me sing baby bring me home bring me baby bring me brother bring me song bring me brother bring me strong singing bring
me oh singing bring me home singing bring me bring me away singing Bring me round
tree singing bring me bring me joy bring me sing bring me sister
bring me brother bring me strong singing bring me singing bring me home bring me joy oh bring me
joy oh bring me joy oh bring me joy oh bring me joy oh bring me joy oh bring me
joy oh bring me joy bring me Oh bring me singing bring me oh bring me singing bring me Oh bring me sing oh bring me
sing oh bring me singing oh bring me sing bring me fire oh singing bring me oh bring me joy oh bring me
joy oh bring me joy oh bring me joy heat heat heat oh bring me oh bring me oh bring
me oh bring me oh bring me joy oh singing bring me home okay um back to business as stated in the board's bylaws it's the pleasure of the
board to accept public public comment on all matters related to public education in Virginia before we begin our public comment today I would just like to share a few comments about the manner in which public comment should be conducted i will ask that you model professionalism dignity respect for others as you share
your comments today when you begin please provide your name role or affiliation in where you live in Virginia all remarks will be directed to the chair and not to any other individual you'll notice that there is a timer on the screen over here on the
small computer um that timer will start counting down at 3 minutes at 1 minute you will see the screen turn yellow then the screen will turn red when your time is up at that point please close your remarks
promptly speakers can provide any of their uh copies of their comments to Mr joe Crook who just raised his hand his hand for you joe is the department's regulatory and board coordinator all written comments received during public comment will be collected and provided
to the board as soon as possible you may also email a copy of your remarks to the board at be.vergirginia.gov and so with that I would ask Scott Braybrand to please come forward followed by Douglas Brown
good morning President Cesy Miss Gullixson and members of the Virginia Board of Education my name is Scott Braybrand i'm executive director for VAS and I live in Lynchburg Virginia vas wants to extend a warm welcome to state superintendent Emily Anne Gullixson superintendent Gullixson met virtually
with all of our Virginia superintendent earlier this week and we look forward to continued communication and partnership with her in the months ahead today we are pleased to see the work that is continuing to be developed around providing school divisions flexibility for seat time with students and as you
continue to develop this flexibility we will continue to share best practices with our school divisions across the Commonwealth we also appreciate today the final adoption of additional math materials as well as final adoption of the Virginia Literacy Act intervention instructional program guide and the
supplemental instructional program guide for grades 6 through 8 which is our focus for next year we also appreciate the specific timelines around support and training for those very important new social studies instructional guides finally we're excited to see the
adoption of another recovery school this time in region 2 and we hope to see this opportunity continue to develop in all of our eight VDOE superintendent regions we look forward to learning more about the high demand jobs that will be part of the 3E portion of the school
performance and support framework in May please know we'll need a robust set of materials and supports to ensure these highquality work-based learning experiences can occur in all of Virginia's school divisions your consideration of a statewide tracking system and support uh positions to
monitor those experiences is also appreciated finally we want to continue to learn more we know you're talking about it now but we want to continue to learn more about the standard setting process for so cut scores and we have invited the state superintendent to discuss this very important topic with
us at our VAS conference next month as always VAS looks forward to continuing to work with you on all of these important issues have a great day thank you Douglas Brown followed by Kathy Halverson well good morning uh President Cesy Vice
President Hansen members of the Virginia Board of Education and Superintendent Gullixson i'm Douglas Brown and I serve as the co-chair of the Virginia School Boards Association Task Force on Students in Challenging Environments vsba would like to express our thanks to President Cesy for meeting with task
force co-chair Dr jason Van Hokim myself and VSBA staff last month to discuss current topics in public education and opportunities for collaboration between the task force and the board of education we would like to invite you President Cesey Vice President Hansen or
any other distinguished member to attend one or some of our task force meetings to grow communication and to strengthen our shared commitment to improving student outcomes for all of the Commonwealth's children vsba and the VSBA task force are here as a resource as you ponder these topics vsba would
also like to welcome interim stu superintendent Miss Emily Anne Gullixson and thank her for attending our March board of directors meeting representing the office of the governor miss Gullixson has been a helpful partner in previous educational endeavors and we wish her much success in her new role
serving Virginia's public school children we would like to comment on a few topics currently being addressed by the board and the Virginia Department of Education the SBA thanks the department staff for updating the public on the stat status of the history and social studies instructional guides the
transparency in yesterday's board work session on the timeline for release and the status for review of the guides is appreciated these guides will assist school board members as they talk to constituents about these standards and will assist our educators in developing lessons as they teach the content to our
students we look forward to the release of the final guides secondly VSBA appreciates the work of the board and the department as you assist school divisions that have been adversely affected by weather events this past fall and winter to provide waiverss and
other resources as these divisions recover several of our school divisions have missed instructional time due to the weather and are working diligently to ensure our students are receiving the instruction they need to be successful all support from the board and department that preserves local control
while making sure our divisions are following state regulations is welcomed the SBA look forward looks forward to continuing to work with the board and department to solve issues that impact our school divisions this long-standing partnership has produced many successes in advancing learning for students we
wish you a successful March board meeting kathy Halverson followed by Madison Whitbeck is Kathy Halverson here no madison Whitbeck Minister Cheryl
Sims Wendy Little Aaron Little Jean Sakalowski okay dr jean Solowski Woodbridge madame President uh standard WHII9 and the 2023 standards of learning for history and
social science requires the student to quote understand World War II by explaining its economic and political causes unquote my 12 March 2023 email to the board which was one month before the board approved the 2023 standards pointed out that this is misleading and
false the primary causes were the ideologies of Nazism and Stalinist communism world War II began when Hitler and Stalin attacked Poland together in September 1939 the secret protocol in their non-aggression pact divided Poland between them and assign Eastern Europe
to Stalin in the first two years of the war Poles were the primary target of a coordinated German and Soviet extermination process designed to annihilate them on both sides of the ribbon drop Montto line hitler used Nazism's ideology of Levenramm meaning
living space to justify his attack on Poland leman's Ramrom required the tasking of taking of Slavic lands for colonization by the German pardon me master race nazism's racial purity ideology declared that Slavs Jews and Roma were inferior races and if they
intermixed with the German master race they would contaminate it to the point of extinction the German people therefore had the duty to exterminate and enslave the inferior races hitler's first two major actions were number one the genocide of the Polish intelligence intelligencia and number
two the imprisonment of the Polish Jews and ghettos his destruction of Polish Jews did not begin for another two years stalin used his form of communism to justify his attack on Poland and his first major action was the genocide of the Polish intelligencia whom he declared were enemies of the working
class stalin did not target Polish Jews for eradication nor take specific action against them it's important to understand that Poland disappeared from the map in 1795 after Russia Prussia now Germany and Austria divided Poland among them 123 years later Poland was
reestablished in 1918 at the end of World War I both Hitler and Stalin strongly opposed the rebirth of Poland economics and politics did not cause Hitler and Stalin to attack Poland neither coveted Poland's economy which was devastated by World War I and
neither engaged in Polish politics as many parties competed to lead the newly formed Polish Republic i respectfully request that you investigate why the advisory committee excluded Nazism's Levenm and purity ideologies as key causes of Hitler's attack on Poland i
further ask that you correct the standard by removing economic and political causes and require the student to explain the primary causes which were Hitler's lab and racial purity ideologies together with the ideology of Stalinist communism thank you
um we do not have any other speakers listed on our um list for public comment today is there anyone here now that we've gone through the list that would like to speak if so you can go over to the side
please we're getting ready to end public comment we don't have any more speakers i'm here okay it was an interesting planes trains and automobiles automobiles type of morning my name is Wendy Little i am otherwise
known as Aaron's mom i have something prepared but I don't want to take the time to do it on my phone i've sent you seven GBser letters my child Aaron Little was supposed to be removed from a private day school that was way undereducating him from 2021 to 22 and into the local
home zone school for the 22 23 school year he has not had education since because of the corruption and the lies and nobody knows what they're doing i filed a state complaint i won appealed
won again vdoe did not enforce corrective actions still didn't enforce corrective actions and he has no education what What are we even doing here he's supposed to be in a public
school what is everybody doing here if we're doing nothing he's supposed to graduate in 2026 his little brother he'd be still left without an eighth grade education why are you not enforcing your own corrective
actions why is nobody holding Samantha Holland to the fire for not doing that we have kids all over the place with no education you all know that when I was here before I left my sign Aaron Little deserves access to education in December
has anybody done anything no what are we doing if we can't even get a special needs child out of a private day school that gave him way below grade level work as an eighth grader and then we can't simply get him in a public home zone school where there's his little
brother has been going what the hell is going on nobody wants to bother to look at what has happened and make you know they they're happy to maybe throw him in an advanced grade but he doesn't have an eighth grade education yet i
begged most recently will you allow him to go to school the fourth quarter of this third school year and maybe he can just take electives so that he can't just fail something everything no they wouldn't even do that what are you doing if you're doing
nothing you've been I provided laws that y'all were in in violation of i provided a document that shows clear illegal collusion going on has anybody followed up with me no has anybody in special education done what they're supposed to
do with corrective actions has VOE done that no so I've sent you all repeatedly repeatedly violations and what Miss Coons would say to me when I'd say "Can we talk about this so somebody can get something to go on and happen?" Oh it's
in litigation no I sent you off this morning which I was going to read but I don't want to spend the time to find it thank you very much regulations that you cannot keep a child without education while anything thank you for your comments we appreciate it thank
you are there any other speakers that would like to address the board during public comment aaron was signed up is Aaron present no okay thank you okay we will now um move into our board uh uh wait a minute you let Miss
Halverson speak for her child okay you have three minutes i'll start with the first thing I can get into first so Aaron's refused access to education for the 22 23 school year and then the la the second year he had
attendance intervention barriers for which you gave Chesterfield County Public Schools $22 million to help children like him for months I sent what was going on with him he'd get up get ready for school and just go into a blank stare couldn't get over that hurdle why do I have to be in the same grade as my little ma'am miss
Halverson's uh actually spoke read a a document from her child thank you okay so in order to try to get him to be able to go to school this is his writing i'm happy to have somebody copy it for you my printer's dead every time Aaron So we incentivized him incentivized him and
then we had to take things away from him it's a shameful that we had to punish him when the school division has been denying him education every time Aaron doesn't go to school and is unable to do so Aaron's Jamaha guitar will be confiscated for 72 hours also if Aaron
breaks this rule while his 72 hours are not up 72 more will be added to this time if dad is unable to return Aaron Jamaha guitar after this time is up he will wait until dad can retrieve it we took his one thing that he loves away from him to try to incentivize him to go to school and the school division never
gave him attendance intervention and attendance barrier support there's no excuse that the child should have to be punished for that and I have a um video of him begging for education from the Chesterfield County Public School Board
in September of 2022 that you all should have uh you all should have that at least somewhere but there's no reason a child should be begging for education for 3 years i've had I'm done nobody's doing anything
what are y'all doing he's miserable he's been He's forced in isolation he's forced into seclusion no friends no peers no anything dispute dispute dispute resolution process is not only broken
it's freaking corrupt it's useless somebody has to do something for him he's supposed to graduate next year he'll be 18 in November and I'm glad they're getting rid of USF because they didn't protect him either so thank you is there any anybody else
here that would like to speak okay I will close the public comment period for today um and I just have a few remarks i think a couple of other board members have some remarks to make
as well but um this morning we would like to officially welcome our new state superintendent not acting full state superintendent uh Emily Anne Gullixson personally I am extremely excited for
this opportunity to work with um Miss Gullixson in a different capacity as you all well know she's been serving as chief deputy secretary of education and now has moved into this role i don't think that many would disagree that she
has been a true asset to the Commonwealth during her time here and I absolutely am just overjoyed at the opportunity for the board to work with her her more directly in this capacity
um to continue the the work that we have before us and um just very excited to have her here with us i know um Mr rotherham you would like to say something as well i'd be happy to uh Madame President
Emilanne welcome uh today I've known Emily uh and her work since before she was uh here in Virginia i was extremely excited when we were able to recruit her to Virginia and incredibly excited that she's stepping into this role as state superintendent uh where I think she is
going to do a fantastic job and that's for a few reasons number one she is just unflinchingly a kids first leader and if you look at her record her work um in the Southwest before she came here she is just a tireless fighter for kids both their rights and making sure that their
rights are protected and also just for quality and making sure kids are getting what they what they deserve um she gets results and she's a great leader she listens um she she she's an inclusive leader but she's also decisive and sort of doesn't let the politics that often
bog this sector down bog her down so I just want to uh express how excited I am again congratulate her and I think uh uh the department is in good hands and the board uh I think I could probably speak for everybody saying is extremely excited to work with you in this new role thank you for taking it on
superintendent Gixson well good morning thank you President Casey and member Rotherham rookie move okay well I am so grateful and honored that the governor has asked me to serve alongside all of you and in this new capacity uh my
career most of you know began as a middle school high school teacher um and over time through my most recent work as chief deputy secretary students have always been at the center and that remains as you all saw in our special
edition newsletter this week the main focal point for leadership continuing i know that transitions uh are are uh hard at times and so I do want to assure everyone in the audience today that my
priority is to continue to build upon the incredible work that's already underway and foster an environment of shared success around collaboration and getting the field the resources and supports that they need the Department of Education staff uh has impeccable
talent uh expertise and passion for keeping students at the center and so it is my honor and privilege to get to work alongside of them and make sure uh that we are meeting the needs needs of the field uh I've been very grateful for the warm welcome uh from so many in the
field uh especially a thank you to VSBA VAS and the principal associations who have already welcomed me in to get to know your members so that we can work alongside one another and really uh move the needle for our students and I think
now more than ever with uh all that is happening around us um belief in what is possible for every student matters and being very focused on uh our outcomes and how we can achieve that together and
so I uh really am excited you know we've made Virginia a spotlight already uh for being a leader across the country and definitely my goal to make this the best place to learn teach and lead as well thank
you um we are excited to move into our I'm sorry Miss McFerson i just want to welcome um Emily as well and say to the public that um I've been very fortunate
that she welcomed me to the board after I was appointed but I have been most impressed with her attention to detail and followup and I just want to assure the members of the public that we really are in good hands in terms of getting
back to you with issues that you have and the progression that I think that she'll bring to moving the projects of the board forward so welcome again okay um that being said no one else would like to speak um I'm going to move
to the consent agenda first and final review to certify list of qualified persons for the office of division superintendent of schools is there a motion to wave first review and approve the list of items on the consent agenda so moved second any
discussion miss Kilgore I dr northern I miss McFersonson I mr rotherham hi miss Holton I and chair votes I okay um we are going to move to item L because we
do have um some guests from Virginia Beach that are joining us and they need to get back through the tunnel appropriately and that might take you you know two hours to get back it might take you four you never can tell so um
we would love it if you all would come and um grace us with your presence thank you melissa you're gonna So again this is item L for the board come on up
good morning President Cesy board members Superintendent Gullixson um I'm here to present for your consideration a board resolution in support of the region 2 uh recovery high school during the special session one of the 2024
general assembly the assembly appropriated funds to support the establishment of a year-round high school that's open to any student in the region who is in the early stages of recovery from substance use disorder or dependency so students enrolled in a
recovery high school are provided academic emotional and support needed to progress toward earning a high school diploma and if possible reintegrating into a traditional high school setting if they desire funding was provided to Virginia Beach public schools to support
the establishment of a recovery high school in Superintendent Region 2 school boards from Virginia Beach Chesapeake NOFK Portsouth and SUFFK have approved a program proposal for the establishment of Harbor Hope Center and its
anticipated start date is August of 2025 harbor Hope has secured a central location at Chesapeake's Educational Services Center and the participating divisions have been developing the program's purpose mission goals and the objectives aligned with each division's
um strategic plan uh they've collaborated with the Virginia Opioid Abatement Authority the existing region one recovery high school in Chesterfield uh Chesapeake Behavioral Health and other state agencies to establish academic and clinical approaches to
serving the unique needs of those students that will be attending Harbor Hope students may voluntarily enroll in the school but remain um dual enrolled in their home high school uh the representatives of Virginia Beach are here and so I don't want to um take
any more of the time but it is the superintendent's recommendation that the board approved resolution supporting this innovative program for the unique to serve the unique needs of students in recovery welcome Virginia Beach thank you uh good morning Miss Cesy
members of the board my name is Don Robertson superintendent of schools in Virginia Beach and I'm joined today by our school board attorney Cammy Lanetti and also Dr jeene Saltner who's our project coordinator and Dr saltner's just going to take a couple of minutes to give you a high level overview of
where we are thank you thank you Dr robertson and thank you for your kindness in recognizing our travel uh it' be a pleasure to get back uh before 6 pm this evening want to uh you just got the 30,000 foot
view from our introduction uh you've received a one pager that uh contain and I don't want to reiterate much of that but instead just give you the even higher level view from the mountaintop i want to begin by first emphasizing for
you that this is truly a collaborative regional effort uh when we received funding in July we immediately called together all of the regional two superintendent giving them the opportunity to
participate in this venture five schools on the south side of Virginia opted to participate chesapeake NOFK Portsouth Suffach and Virginia Beach i believe you can figure
out very quickly its proximity uh for schools in our region on the Eastern Shore or Appamatics not uh probably as good an option for them but the opportunity exists for all students in region two to participate there are five
funding schools and actively participating schools a student outside of uh those five schools may with their school board pay tuition to attend at our port per student cost we formed a regional steering
committee so there's a great sense of ownership from the five schools we went immediately to work and created uh a school from the ground up we used the resources of the Association for Recovery Schools visited Chesterfield
Recovery on uh Chesterfield's recovery school on multiple occasions and uh we have in sense ready to go and that's why we're here before you we're using a braided funding
model unlike Chesterfield or as I understand Lden who was also working toward we uh are not only using local funds but we're using the general assembly planning funds we uh are most interested in tapping the opioid
abatement authority funds there are three types of fundings we can seek from them we are seeking two we uh have a grant that exists that would bring in approximately $2.459 million dollars over five years
to support or to sustain this school as we build it uh we'll be using direct settlement funds that which the city received and each of the cities received in a total of 800,000 and a $ 1.5 million grant which was submitted just
yesterday and in which we will hear in May i'm very confident that the VA who has been very supportive in assisting us with this process will indeed approve this grant in addition to the VA funding
general assembly funding we also have a shared funding formula that each of the divisions will uh share based on their percentage of enrollment for any additional costs that are incurred little bit about the operations you've heard it already uh location Ches
Peak central proximity uh Ches Peak Public Schools is offering that school an inind contribution which totals almost $120,000 as their contribution towards this two components if I can lay out the
uh framework of the program an academic and a therapeutic in order to have that therapeutic as educators uh while we have counseling services with us we don't have the expertise and therefore we have tapped into a partnership with Chesapeake Integrated Behavioral
Health all said and done we are ready to go uh we as a regional steering committee are looking to uh put a bow on it on staffing on our agreements and on getting students enrolled we look for
your support thank you kindly i'm here to take any questions you may have are there any questions by board members miss Holton thank you for your hard work on this uh important endeavor i'm curious how many
students do you anticipate serving maybe you told us that and I missed it i did not tell you that uh we and nor was it in the one pager we are looking in year one to serve approximately 30 students in five years we hope to increase that
to 50 and increase staff accordingly our VA grant uh takes into account that increased number of students and the need for additional funding thank you other questions Mr rotherham not a question do you want comments now or
after the motion i just want to congratulate you i I the regional approach to bringing people together like this the innovation is fantastic i'm pleased to support this resolution this exactly the kind of energy and creativity that we need to see so uh no question and just wanted to commend you
all and I appreciate you coming over today and I'm excited about this and I hope we see I hope we see more things with similar energy and creativity thank you thank you kindly it has been very energizing for all of us on the regional steering committee dr northern yeah I I
actually um just have a question so I heard in your presentation that uh they'll go back to their traditional high school if they desire and that they'll be in the early stages of recovery so is the plan that the kids would return to their high school under
a certain set of conditions or would they remain there or h how does that work in terms of The answer is both okay students who need the support of a recovery school may remain through graduation students who have come out of a recovery facility perhaps in a
residential facility for 60 days might need just need a traditional period for a semester or till the end of the year in addition this fluid enrollment model allows us we cannot work our recovery school and the research evidence-based research shows us that if you don't want to be in
recovery you will not be successful so we anticipate with this fluid enrollment accepting some students who uh may return to use and have repeated return to use and will need to make decisions about entering and exiting them uh it will be a a wraparound services that
will fully involve both our our program coordinator our therapeutic staff in Chesapeake Integrated Behavioral Health and the family as a followup um I just have a followup i'm asking because I actually one of my very
good friends uh works at a school similar to this one um with some issues um and I think part of the thing that she sees is when the kids come back from recovery they get in a classroom with a bunch of other kids who are struggling with the same thing and sometimes they
fall back into it because the kids sitting next to them hasn't successfully recovered and it's almost like you're surrounded by a bunch of kids who are sort of struggling so I guess talk to me a little bit because I'm I'm get torn sometimes about whether it's best to put these kids in a room with all the kids
with the same struggles and whether they might fall susceptible to getting into that same issue again or whether it's best to sort of put them with kids who don't have those issues and I'm sure you've thought about that but if you could just speak to that issue a little bit and it sounds like you have read the research from the recovery schools a
little bit yes yes indeed there are uh there will be we have a success plan for every student and we need to look at every student as an individual so we will design with the family and with the student an individualized success plan
some students will be able to make that transition back we know that others will not so it's really going to be done on an individualized basis if a student exits and returns to use we'll look at that student to return uh we're
We any student who is in recovery we are going to serve other questions or comments superintendent Gixson I just want to say thank you so much for your leadership uh you've really
developed a true collaborative not just with your school divisions but also community assets and resources and I think we uh you are going to be a proof point we would love to feature u moving forward of designing personalized
learning setting and I think we cannot underscore uh the rise in addiction and substance abuse with our young people and so thank you for your leadership in ensuring that students have a safe and sober area to learn and thrive uh and
you are really saving lives so again to the board I fully support this resolution thank you thank you um is there a motion to wave first review and adopt the resolution as presented in this item so moved second
any discussion okay miss Kilgore I dr northern I miss McFersonson mr rotherham hi miss Holton I and chair votes I thank you all we appreciate you so much please
have a safe and successful rapid trip home we'll do we look forward to updating you thank you kindly okay um All right with that we will go back to item
C and I think Dr wallace good morning Madam President this one good morning Madam President um board members and Superintendent
Gullixson um we're excited to uh be here today to present to you the final um program guides for in uh intervention instructional programs and supplemental instructional programs for grades six through eight i would like to uh give a
shout out to Ann Eaton she is here with me today from the Virginia Literacy Partnerships she has led this work uh in the in the Commonwealth over the past couple of years with the curriculum review process and so she's here today just um to show support of the item as
well and if you have any questions for her she's happy to answer them um but we really appreciate the partnerships that we have with with Virginia Literacy Partnerships and Ann and her team of many many many educators from across the Commonwealth have been um working to get
best-in-class resources for our students to access in particular for our middle school students this will be the first time that we have had sixth grade through 8th grade intervention and supplemental programs um it is the recommendation of the superintendent to
accept these uh instructional programs to comply with the Virginia Literacy Act okay is there a motion to approve the attached list of recommended six through eight intervention instructional programs and supplemental instructional programs to comply with the VA
so move is there a second okay um is there any discussion here miss Holton just a brief question uh uh Dr wallace it just helped me understand u these
supplemental and uh intervention and supplemental programs are approved to meet the requirements of the Virginia Literacy Act nothing in these guides would exclude uh middle school teachers from u introducing their students to novels
that uh a range of novels that uh are of interest that they think their students will be of interest to am I right that is correct so the literacy act is uh providing highquality materials and mandating certain high-quality materials
in certain circumstances but not to the exclusion of helping students learn to love reading more broadly novels and other materials that teachers may think they're going to be interested in that is correct we still have the standards of learning that our teachers are using
to address um English concepts in all grade levels but um so that's where you know in their core literacy programs or core instructional programs in the middle school they're going to be exposed to those novel sets yes and the standards of learning don't uh limit the
novel selection they give uh expectations but teachers and students still have some free choice in what they want to read am I right that is correct excellent thank you okay dr northern i just want to say I was super excited
to see great books uh on the list i know it made it didn't make didn't meet every single criteria but to Miss Holton's point uh it used to be that kids would read entire books and the great book selection i hope that's still the case um and I was also excited to see Newella
on there which is a great resource because it sort of changes the reading level for kids where they are but also pushes them to continue reading um you know to higher levels so just personally um super excited to see I'm I'm I'm not as familiar with some of these other
choices but I um I was excited to see those two u make the list so thank you for uh your good review of all these different resources thank you further discussion okay miss Kilgore i Dr northern I
miss McFersonson hi mr rotherham recuse miss Holton hi and chair boats eye i don't know that um I don't think that Mr hansen is online yet nor is Miss
Ashton online yet so thank you okay Dr wallace you have item D as well final review of proposed additional proposed state approved textbooks and instructional materials for K12 math yes so thank you
again um excited to bring another list of textbooks and instructional materials for K12 math for our teachers and divisions to uh select from you know you approved an init a list last month um and actually I will just back up a
little bit this process has been another lengthy process for us we started the math textbook review process last year i've been here just over a year and we've been doing the math textbook review for about that length of time um and during that time we refined some of our processes and trained our educators
um to be able to expand their uh their knowledge of reviewing high-quality instructional materials and um thinking about the the pedigogy that goes along with those complete sets of materials and so um with that process it has been lengthy but the the time length has also
given publishers the ability to go back to their materials and make sure that they're aligned and so for example sometimes we get materials that are aligned in third grade in another place in that textbook but for our standards they're aligned to the fourth grade or the second grade standard so our process
expanded to allow um our textbook companies to say "Hey we're this is where we meet the alignment from a different grade level they do have to change their textbooks prior to publishing them for Virginia." Um but that did expand our list a little bit and gives more options to our school
divisions for their local adoption processes so just wanted to kind of highlight that as as the process has been over the last year um and so we're excited to bring a little bit more extensive list to our school divisions um so the superintendent recommends that
you uh approve the list today is there a motion to approve the attached list of proposed recommended textbooks and instructional materials is there a second second any discussion here dr northern
I just say that um to me I like to see whether some of our um curricula have passed the ed reports um sort of you know it's it's for folks who don't know they uh evaluate curriculum and rate it uh various quality indicators and sometimes they get it wrong they don't
always get it right but it's nice to have a second um check on that and I was pleased that um the um Michelle was able to provide that information and and um most of these uh criteria I mean a curricula do meet um their highest tier
for evaluation so um thank you for doing that external quality check um and making sure that we are indeed um you know providing the best curricula that we can in mathematics absolutely thank you Miss Holton uh and I'll just chime in to say thank you for you all's long
hard work on this i do appreciate the fact that we pushed you to go back and expand the list and it's uh I know the field who's been teaching to the new standards already for a year is um eager essentially for these overdue materials
but appreciate the work you all have done to help put together good quality materials that can catch up with what's going on in the field next year thank you absolutely thank you other comments okay hearing none miss Kilgore
i Dr northern I Miss McFersonson hi Mr rotherham because of professional conflicts like the previous item I recuse miss Holton I and chair votes I thank you very much thank you okay moving to item
E dr hollands good morning Superintendent Gullixson President Cesy and members of the board i'm Dr samantha Marsh Holland the associate superintendent of special populations and board operations it's my pleasure today to bring you for final review uh review of the mastery level standard
setting process um this was something that was brought previously before the board at their last meeting for first review we also have had extensive presentations on background for this from our national series and spent a great deal of time yesterday during the work session hearing from one of our TAC
members on the intricacies of this process so one just a thank you to the board for spending the time to really dig into this topic and gather the information necessary to make the decision today for today the superintendent of public instruction is recommending that the board of education
approves the process to move forward and continue our discussion we will be discussing this topic in the future as well at our future meetings once this process has undergone its um its role so I'll stop there and happy to answer any questions i'd also like to recognize
staff in the audience the assistant superintendent for assessment Dr dora Villa Rial and the director of the office of student assessment Jason Ellis for their hard work as well as that of their staff thank you um is there a motion well first of all I'd like to remind the board we're
only voting on the process today so please keep comments or or um questions strictly related to that motion so we would like to I'd like to entertain a motion to approve the proposed mastery level standard setting process madame President can I raise question can we
ask some questions before we have a motion we go to the what the substance of the motion is okay please proceed uh thank you um U Dr hollands um I and and actually I don't know whether these questions are going to be you for
for you or Superintendent Gullixson so I'm hopeful somebody can help me know understand uh have there we were presented with a schedule for the timeline for this work last month um uh by the deputy superintendent then in
charge of the work um uh and I'm just wondering if there have been any changes to that timeline uh and I and and in particular I'll I'll just compound the question to say have we taken into consideration any concerns
about teacher availability andor DOE staff availability given that the timeline we've been shown kind of piles right on top of U so uh testing in the divisions
superintendent Gixon President Cesy I don't know if it's working yeah President Cesy member Holton um we have definitely been uh convening and discussing options to move forward forward in order to do that though it we're pending on the process getting
approved and so uh we need sign off on the process in order to then move forward on getting those applications we talked about out yesterday and looking at if we need to move back to convening of the committees in June um when there might be more availability so no changes
yet to the timeline but you're going to consider them after yes we've been evaluating pros and cons and then my second question do you yet know and again this may thank you this may yet be do we know who's going to lead this work we were told last month that the deputy superintendent of learning and teaching
and learning was going to lead this work and she's no longer with us so do we yet know who's going to lead this work going forward superintendent Gixson President Casey member Holton yes our uh department team is well staffed we've added some
consultants to assist who have specialized in standard setting uh to wrap around the team as well who have helped other states through the process i'm happy to get you that information i I I'm more concerned about who we're who we have that has Virginia based
knowledge and experience and I it just and I know you'll be tending to this and welcome the fact that you're here and um only a few days into the job so I understand you may not yet be able to address it but this is a lot of work just in sheer logistics with Virginia uh
uh you know 200 plus folks you're going to be recruiting across Virginia so I would just say that we are certainly um sympathetic to that end um I mean you know as well as anybody that I've been very um actively involved in making sure
that we do have input from a Virginia based person in many many of our things that we've accomplished throughout the board's time um and so that's certainly u a direction that that we will be continuing to provide to the staff and I
don't mean to I mean I think we do have some expertise within the department we just got to figure out how to get the right folks into the into the work and then my last uh question again I don't know whether who who is best to answer this but what we're asking what we're being asked to approve today so what the
what the document says is all we're being asked to approve is the ID matching process but the discussion yesterday also suggested that we're being asked to approve a significant change to past
standard setting process by adding this work on reasonable ranges adding direction around reasonable ranges and adding um um PDLs all circling around i think we were described as more or less NAPE
proficient so I is there a are we what what are we being asked what is the motion today that is not part of the motion the motion is simply setting up the process to be able to move forward it has nothing to do with sta setting the ranges well then I don't understand how the you know are we what are these
what what are these groups what are these panels going to do are they going to be operating based on reasonable ranges or not what what is our direction don't these panels need our guidance as to that key element of the process dr
hollands yes um that's a great question i will specify by saying that the information that's contained in this item only sits to to the process itself now obviously as you all heard yesterday there are components of that process that discuss where other states sit where the national assessment sits that
is all part of the oversight of the department that will assign that work to the standard setting committee the technical assistance committee the TAC meeting will also happen between now and the next meeting so when the board receives its update it will have the benefit of those processes being worked
out well let me ask it maybe maybe this can help clarify are we is the process that we're being asked to approve today the process that was described to us yesterday with the PDLs as written by staff and the reasonable range piece
that was added in in the presentation we saw yesterday is that the process we're being asked to approve yes the process that was presented on yesterday is reflective of the board item that the board reviewed on first review at their previous meeting and for final review today well I would submit that the process
that was described to us yesterday was a lot more detailed than what we're being asked to vote on but I will assume in my vote that what we heard yesterday fleshes out the details of what we're being asked to vote on today any other questions before
we entertain a motion okay so is there a motion to approve the proposed mastery standard setting process yes is there anyone so moved second okay any
other discussion here before we move on do you have a question or a comment a comment yes yeah so uh I would before we vote I would like to argue to my colleagues that I think we need to be to be
transparent and honest with parents which this board has set as a goal we need to be clear on what we're doing here that we are changing we are moving towards changing the grading scale in a manner that will make it harder to pass
the SOS and not just a little harder a lot harder so if we realign to more or less NAPE proficient levels as we were told yesterday is the goal and embedded in this process we will be doubling the
number of students who fail our SOS across all grades at least in the short term from about you know right now about a third of our students fail the SOS this change in the grading scale will lead to about twothirds of our students
failing our SOS And there may be good reason to do this um it's essentially would be a powerful communications tool if you think parents are mistakenly deliluding themselves about the quality of their students academic performance
and the state of public education in in Virginia so um there may be reasons to do it but I want to be clear on what it is and what it isn't i would argue that our grading scale is low it is one of the
easiest in the country no doubt about that and it has been that way for two decades or more and I would agree that our kids performance has declined from being one of the top and that performance is different from the grading scale our performance has declined from being one of the top in
the nation to being now about average and that is something that calls for urgent action but it's hard to see how the grading scale itself is the problem since it essentially hasn't changed from when our kids were still among the best in the nation so it may well merit some
adjustment but if we're going to adjust it we should be honest with parents on three key fronts the first that changing the grading scale alone is not going to make our kids smarter to make that happen we have to invest in highquality teachers and curriculum extended school
hours tutoring other tools that have been proven to actually help students learn more and that's why I well I'll just as an aside to that I'll say I hope that everybody uh on the board and who is hearing us will help encourage the
governor um to work with the legislature to invest as robustly as possible uh in our public education rather than taking money away from it as some of the proposed amendments that are floated earlier this week would do uh but the
the second front where we need to be honest with parents is that changing the grading scale as dramatically as being as is being proposed here and we heard yesterday the process is embedded in the process is aligning our grading scale to
more or less NAT proficient there was some suggestion from board members that maybe we're going to ratchet this up slowly but that's not embedded that's not been shared with us in any in any fashion changing the grading scale that dramatically carries some risk of hurting morale of teachers students and
parents now and that's you know not everything but if we don't communicate transparently consistently and effectively about what we're doing it could be misplay the impact could be contrary to what we're looking for and and and then finally I would just say
that changing the grading scale so dramatically necessitates a look from this board at the repercussions through the rest of our system and I am reluctant to vote on a change so dramatic a process that sets up a change
so dramatic without our having more information on those repercussions and I raised a couple yesterday the most perhaps the most important is uh graduation that potentially thousands of high school students each year who would
have passed their high school SOS under the old scale could be denied high school diplomas because their so scores don't pass musters under the new scale and I I am completely supportive of setting high goals for all of our students and that's why I supported
setting uh supporting the the new math standards for instance that we've adopted but these new math standards they're tough you know I invite folks to look at what we were sh what was shared with us yesterday under the the PDLs for math and for example to pass 8th grade
math much less end of course high school math and graduate one would need to be able I mean there's tons of stuff on here i won't go into it that I certainly could not do now maybe I could want to do it but uh the fact that I don't know
how to do it now is not keeping me from being successful in life and if a student can meet the basic level understand the basics of the Pythagorean theorem in 8th grade but not be able to do all these complex gymnastics around it do we really want to hold them back
from a high school diploma set high goals for everybody but students who have demonstrated basic knowledge but not necessarily mastered all the complex skills at a certain grade level do we really want to hold them back from graduating and it may well be we want to
change the grading scale and then adjust our graduation requirements for instance uh another repercussion is for our accountability system if we make the change that we're talking about now I my own calculations would be that we will
double number the number of schools that are labeled either off track or needs intensive support go from about a third it's the number is a bit of a black box now but about a third to about twothirds um would be labeled off track or needs
intensive support i don't know that I'm right about that and I've asked frankly I've been asking for many many months for the department to give us information on that and we don't have it yet and I and I and Superintendent Bullixson I graciously has told me she's going to work to get us that information
but I am reluctant to go forward on this process that embeds these big changes uh without without that information um u I you know if you're looking for a strategy to sour people on public schools gen generally defining twothirds
of them as as not successful um you know maybe is what you want to do but if what you want is an accountability system that's going to help identify the schools that most need support and redirection and intervention
is it really helpful to draw the lines that such that so many of our schools carry those punitive labels if not again we can go forward on changing the grading scale if that's the will of the board but we should be thinking about those repercussions and making
adjustments and since we don't yet have the information about those repercussions I'm reluctant i urge us to to consider not going forward a and there are potentially other repercussions there are funding formulas that allocate monies based on pass rates
etc etc again one of the things I've asked for is let's have an analysis of where are all the places in our education system and our funding formulas etc where pass rates are determinative and doubling the the cutting the pass rates in half may have an impact so uh for all of those reasons
I urge us to um uh not um adopt this process today without further clarification mr rotherham thank you Madam President thank you Miss Holton uh okay a few things first I I think just to cut to the quick we're voting on
a process here and I I think it's it's actually irresponsible from the DAS to start talking about kids being denied diplomas and half of kids failing and all of this like this is a process we're not there yet in terms of what this is going to look like that'll be part of the process and this this sort of
getting everybody fired up and and and spun up before we have this information it just creates energy it creates angst it's politics and I think we I think we can I let's stay let's stay focused on the substance once we have the data we need to have conversations about many of
the things that you raised Miss Holton um how we're going to support struggling schools what this is going to look like how this interacts with the accountability system but we're all we're voting on today is a process but to listen to this you would think we were setting cut scores and we were making a set of decisions let's let's go
with the process i thought we got a really good briefing yesterday there's different ways that that states set standards and there's different trade-offs and psychrometricians love to argue about them this is the one we're landing on it's it's a robust process it's going to get us um it's going to get us where we need to go so I think
it's just way too soon for this this sort of uh that this sort of um uh rhetoric it reminds me unfortunately of the history standards where we had you know we're not going to teach about World War II or we're not going to you know um uh teach about Nazism and it got
people a lot of angst caused a lot of distress it was just completely not what was actually going on and I I would hope uh that that the public uh the media and so forth would would learn from that let's let's follow this let's follow this process that's the second thing we
should be communicating honestly and I think it behooves this board to make sure as we make these decisions i completely agree with Miss Holton that we communicate very clearly what's being done how it's being done why it's being done and what the potential impact like we have not been as transparent and for
a long time much of this information has been sort of husbanded uh uh among elites rather than than shared out in a in a broadly uh accessible way and so I think like it it behooves us and I I would be disappointed uh and wouldn't support if we did if we did anything
less as we talked about yesterday there there's certain things here that that are appropriately privileged in terms of like vendor IP and stuff like that but to the maximum extent possible while respecting that we should be we should be um uh we should be as transparent uh
as we can be now just on the larger issues I disagree that Virginia has always had low stand we we were an early uh adopter in the standards movement virginia was a leader we led on issues like graduation rates um that we've
become a straggler and the NAPE data and other data shows that but that has not always uh that is we've certainly not always uh been a straggler and we have not always had the lowest cut scores and I don't think we need to like go through it again it's public record in the board minutes like cut scores were lowered we
made decisions now people can disagree about the policy judgments of those decisions as they'll disagree about the policy judgments that that we're going to make but we have made decisions that have led us to to where we are it behooves us I believe uh as a board to be honest about where we are and then
figure out where we need to get to and so that's the last thing I want to speak to just two two things first of all as we discussed yesterday look Moses did not get handed a tablet that says what fourth graders should know be able to do in reading or eighth graders should know one be able to do in math um this is
professional judgment and we we have to make a professional judgment based on what are the skills that we think and the knowledge that kids are going to need to be successful and we are sometimes going to get that wrong i think any of us who are parents can think of things we told our kids that this is really important and now you're
like okay actually that probably wasn't all that important so we should bring we should bring some humility to it but we do know certain things around literacy and numeracy and so forth that um that are important and there's such a gap between our standards now and how other
states set those standards including states that we compete with our neighbors um in particular Tennessee but also North Carolina and Maryland we should pay attention um uh we should pay attention to that and I would suggest as we think about morale right now we have
students at proficient in NAPE a level in the teens uh and we have uh enormous percentages of kids who are below basic and and those issues are obviously more acute among low-income those low-income students in the teens excuse me um those issues are more acute among low-income
students more acute among black students special education students Hispanic students uh what is damaging for your morale is if you come out of a Virginia public school and you are at that below basic level on the nape because you are functionally unp we are functionally have left you unprepared for any kind of
further opportunity that is a morale problem in terms of people their agency the way they're able to live their lives uh and so I think we you know this is exactly the right path to take I think we need to explain why we're taking it and and the reasons for it and I
completely agree we need to think about the support that's necessary making sure uh that that the consequences that flow from this are are logical and we're being supported but I just do not understand the argument for delaying and I I do sort of believe there will always
be there are people who there will always be a reason if we if we didn't have a fight about the budget it would be well maybe there's going to be a recession in a few months so we should wait and see if there's a recession and then it would be well maybe we should wait and see we're having a we're having a change in this or that like at some point it just behooves us we have to as
responsibly as we can uh and and as I said with with with humility but also with decisiveness move forward um because I believe our public I I I have I have deep confidence in our educators we just heard from teachers yesterday talking about they worry about uh low
expectations and they want to see expectations raised and I believe our educators and our schools can do it i am I am like if if if put me firmly in the can do camp not the can't do camp in terms of how we think about our public schools in the state i believe I believe they can do it if we approach this in a
transparent way and we provide the support i have uh uh I have no doubt that our educators are more than capable of meeting the challenge and we're going to see better outcomes for kids which is why we're here president Miss McFersonson yes i um believe that this is a massive
undertaking i think we have a direction of accountability and obviously where there's more accountability and more data the more we can decide where we need to place the resources and it's going to take everybody's hands on
especially a lot more family involvement um a lot more resources for us to make sure that we're not leaving kids behind but I don't live in a world where I don't believe that this isn't going to have a major impact but I think we brace
ourselves for that we look at the vision of the governor and the general assembly that says we need to raise the standards in Virginia but let us focus on where we really need to place the resources so that we don't graduate students that are
not prepared for the the global environment and we live in a high tech society china isn't waiting on its educational system in terms of preparation a lot more people than we have i just think we do have to step up to the plate but I do recognize Miss
Holton that there is going to be an impact and we need to bring everything we've got to bear to try to make sure that students are not uh ill equipped and that we fail them by failing to do what we need to do to uh put in place a
system um that will work going forward dr northern just three quick points i think one um is I keep going back to how much we've lost in the last couple years you
know even though we're quote average um in the last two years we've lost just major strides in Virginia in particular two years you know when we look at when we look at that NAPE information especially in eighth grade uh where the the losses were especially debilitating
um I do think I mean you guys know I I always like to kind of reference the larger research base and you know we know that accountability writ large um this is studies done by Tom D and others on accountability um when you set high
goals with the supports okay like and we don't want to forget that because that's a that's we all know that's important um we we see the lower end especially and we made big strides before the pandemic honestly and you don't hear a lot about that but there were some strides especially when the lower among the
lower performing uh group of kids when we were in that sort of accountability era and and accountability has gotten such a bad w because in many ways it's just holding high expectations and providing supports to the kids who need it um and I feel like those um that that
we do like if if if we look at at at prior research and what other states have done what we're doing has a very big possibility of helping the kids especially at the lower end i mean our our system's great right because we're also going to uh provide incentives for
the kids at the higher end too to keep to keep progressing along that distribution um I do think that and we've said this before but the honesty the whole thing about the honesty gap and you know that sort of term gets thrown around but at the end of the day it just means that yes we we parents
think their kids are doing fine because they see you know they passed their so um and in many cases they see a grade that's in a classroom that's fine because we also know we have grade inflation occurring pretty uh pretty bad not only in Virginia but nationwide so
we've got to deal with the great inflation in both the classroom level and the great inflation on our SOS so we're battling this like in multiple directions and so I really do think that parents aren't given the opportunity to act um on behalf of their kids when they
don't have good information um and then I guess my last point is just that we all these conversations we we've we we keep talking about how it's so damaging to expect less of kids um and
gosh I think about my own um time when I was teaching in high school in in Norview High School and in many ways um those um that that school had done so poorly for so long and we got a a principal in there who just said "You know what we're going to teach to high
standards i want you to have your so on the board every day i want you know she would just hold us accountable to actually teaching to the SOS because back then our SOS were pretty good right we were we used to be a for a leader in the nation uh with our SOS and I just remember thinking wow she's holding us
accountable to teaching these things she's she's making sure we're doing it and we ended up Norview and Norfick won the uh Broad Prize years ago um for actually helping to close the achievement gap because we were being held to high standards and we were taking no excuses so I'm prattling on
but I I do think that um to embrace that um philosophy uh and that energy around high expectations is good for the Commonwealth can you go for me one more okay madam President um very briefly since since those who have chosen to speak have
spoken already I will circle back around briefly miss Holton briefly go ahead Miss Holton calling on you uh uh I I won't repeat anything I've said before i just responding to Mr u uh Rotherham uh
and Dr northern i did not say that I I I agree with you that Virginia has always had strong standards and they've gotten even stronger i'm not speaking to the standards at all our grading scale has always been relatively easy and whether
that's right or wrong is a fair question but I don't I submit that the grading scale hasn't held us back from success uh because we were successful when our grading scale was relatively easy um the
second point as to what's I'll just direct the folks to the discussion yesterday as to what's embedded in the process and submit that yes while today is a process vote what is embedded in that process is an orientation around NAPE proficient which
right or wrong is a big dramatic change from where we've been and then final point is we are doing yeah we are doing some things right the VA is going to help our students do better learn more uh the general assembly put in uh significant new money to help us improve
math instruction uh things that actually help teachers teach better students learn better i'm all for Miss McFersonson yeah i just wanted to say that out of this process will come a lot of new innovation um by principles and
superintendents and I wanted to actually um give a shout out to the city of North and city council just decided to do something great which is to ask them to bring back a plan to consolidate some of the schools and uh obviously it was driven a little bit by the economic
situation but I think those types of things are going to we will find around the state that they're going to some creative movement going forward um in terms of approaches and adapting in your system
okay if if there's nothing for president Mr rotherham um uh I so yeah I want one area of uh I'm sorry go ahead oh um one area like two two just two quick points we have
our standards we have have we always had an easier grading scale we can argue about that and so forth but again we have made some decisions and I think it behooves us to lean into where we are in this moment and figure out what do kids need and what should the bar be and then
so second I just want to respond to miss um the NAPE no one should think this is some sort of effort to hide the ball we are using NAPE standards because they tell us something there's a reason it's considered a gold standard uh for the nation the nation's report card a lot of us refer to it as sort of an educational
barometer but where our standards actually land in their impact is what we don't know and it is it is not a responsible thing to say we're going to just key off of NAPE uh proficient and just simply do that we heard yesterday from the gentleman who's helping lead
this work who was here that obviously if we were going to do that we wouldn't even be going through any of this process dr hollands wouldn't be here we would we would just do that we are using it as a reference point and if the accusation is we are going to dramatically raise standards and expectations in this state and and then
report more honestly to parents about how their kids are doing against those well guilty um and and and let's have that let's have that conversation okay um Mr hansen I know you wanted to make a comment
thank you Madam Chair and my apologies for not being there in person today but um I just uh uh I I do want to just suggest that um we have had the most dramatic decline in
the country in our um achievement tests and our scores and so you know when there's a comment made about big dramatic change you know I would suggest that we needed it regardless but we need it more than ever to really help us get
back to where we were and I also had the opportunity back in the 1990s when Governor George Allen uh started this whole process and was on two of the commissions that put these into place and you know I've watched this as a
parent and as a citizen uh and now as a grandparent and uh we have had a decline um in our uh you know and we need to get back to where we've got high expectations and I was just so struck by
the teachers that we heard from yesterday that uh I think unanimously suggest that this is what we need and it also the the experts that we've not the expert panels that we put together uh my full faith and confidence in our
teachers um uh to step up um and uh they've done it before i you know went through this with decades of raising my children where this was um they would come home singing songs about
um of of different issues and history and things that were important and it was part of the culture part of the responsibility and part of um what they were um expected to learn and so I I just want to uh just make sure that we
just really really do need to move forward with this and um we have already um you know I think to Miss Northern's comments Dr northern's comments of we don't have another year to waste and we don't have another month to waste and we
need to to move forward thank you um okay there is a motion that's been made and seconded we have had discussion uh
Miss Kilgore i dr northern I mr hansen i miss McFersonson hi mr rotherham hi miss Holton without greater clarity no and chair votes I that motion passes thank you Dr
hollands mr chapman actually Mr chapman can you give us five minutes we're going to take a quick break of course thank you we will come back to order here and Mr chapman is going to take us into item F
please thank you President Cesy Vice President Hansen members of the board and Superintendent Gullixson um this item is is for final review uh it's a an action to align um the regulations governing the operation of private schools for students with disabilities
um with public school requirements for restraint and seclusion in accordance with a budget item um this item has been before the board a few times so I I have no further comments since it's on final review thank you is there a motion to approve the proposed stage of the regulatory
action as presented so moved second any discussion miss Kilgore i dr northern I is Mr hansen back online yes i Okay miss
McFersonson hi mr rotherham hi miss Holton i and chair votes I okay item G mr chapman that's you again thank you President Cesy um the department has received applications for literary loans
from three school divisions sussex County Hampton City and Giles County um they applied for loans during uh one of the three applications periods and have now submitted all the required documentations needed for their requested loans for release um by the board uh a loan requested by Sussex
County um for adding a full roof replacement and a buildingwide renovation and modernization project at Sussex Central High School sussex is requesting valor fund loan for the project in the amount of $7.5 million payable over 20 years and is eligible for a 3% annual loan interest rate um
the project is uh included and shown in attachment one um we have a loan requested by Hampton City for building an addition at Bethl High School for a STEM andmies of Hampton hampton City is requesting a litary fund loan for the project in the amount of $20 million
over 20 years and is eligible for a 2% annual loan interest rate that um application is shown in attachment two and a loan requested by Giles County for an upgrade to an HVAC system and replacement of the roof on Eastern Elementary and Middle School they're
requesting a literary fund loan for the project in the amount of eight 8,722,654 over 30 years and is eligible for a 2% annual interest rate and that is included in um attachment three the superintendent's recommendation is the
board wave first review and approve for the release of these literary phone loans uh loans requested by the three applicant school divisions based on the loan amounts terms and eligible annual interest rates as uh presented in the item thank you is there a motion to wave first review and approve the release of the three literary fund loans requested
by the three applicant school divisions based on the loan amounts terms and eligible interest rates requested in their loan applications as indicated in the item presented so move second any discussion dr northern so I'll ask a
silly question um does a literary fund loan have to be in the service of the literary topic field yeah I see some of these are for science swing and just it's just called a literary fund it doesn't have to be around literary fund is established by statute um and
actually money comes in from all over the state for example uh the department of professional occupational regulations when they issue fines to contractors or real estate agents all that money ends up uh going into the literary fund loan um or into the literary fund and it's just administered for specifically for
school construction oh odd name okay thank you Mr rotherham i I have just a process question is because we're doing this on first and final when I mean it looked fine to me but I am neither a lawyer nor a real estate developer um what's the process has does is it just
at the at the agency level does the attorney general's office sign off like that we are warranting that all the documentation is correct could you just tell us what's the process that has has reached that conclusion yeah I believe this this goes through uh department staff um I do not believe that the office of the attorney general
specifically um you know reviews each of these applications but the board has set application criteria um that have been reviewed by the office of the attorney general years and years ago i believe those the current version of the um uh guidelines that govern the literary fund
have been in place since about 2022 after some budget amendments so the department follows that process make sure the documentation is complete um they are reviewed thoroughly in house you know by a few different levels of staff before being brought to the board great thank you sure madam miss Holton
and and am I right Mr chapman i I appreciate Mr rotherham raising it because I'm always alert when we're doing first and final but this they have already been approved we have already approved them for these loans pursuant to our criteria but now they're just following through with the actual the
approval of the actual applications yes the the board has set the approval criteria and the the um department has uh determined that they meet that criteria but yes the the process that the board has set out then requires them to come back to the board specifically for approval that's correct
okay so um do we get a did we get a motion yet i think so okay good uh Miss Kilgore I Dr northern hi Mr hansen hi Miss McFersonson hi Mr rotherham hi Miss
Holton i and chair votes i Okay Mr chapman yes thank you very much President Creasy um what we have here is a tweak to an item that was approved at the October 2024 meeting um at that point what the uh department had asked
and what the board had approved um was a a slight uh tweak to the regulations governing uh pupil transportation in order to remove what's called a document incorporated by reference um as this went through the executive branch review process the department planning and
budget um helpfully uh had a couple of tweaks that they thought would better accord with the administrative process act and so the the changes that are being presented to you strike about five or six more words and then include with this a recommendation to add the preventive maintenance manual as a
guidance document on town hall just so that it's uh easily accessible to the public since it involved a we didn't think that this was a substantial change but since it did um include a little bit of a process change that the board did not see in October we thought the safest thing we want to bring that back to the
board for approval um we said we we don't think that this change is the substance of what was approved it's really just a little process tweak to make sure that the documents are accessible to the public and um you know meet the requirements of the uh the regulatory process thank you so is there a motion to wave
first review and approve the proposed regulatory changes in addition of and the addition of a man the manual as a guidance document as well as to delegate to VDOA VDOE staff authority to make changes as necessary to effectuate this
action or to comply with the requirements of the administrative process act and Virginia register act so move second is there any discussion okay miss Kilgore I dr
northern I mr hansen hi miss McFersonson hi mr rotherham hi miss Holton I and chair votes I okay mr chapman item I thank you President Cesy uh what we have in this regulatory
action is really just a set of formal changes that we're bringing to the board when the standards of accreditation um were approved uh and and became effective in September of last year there are a few collateral references in other regulatory chapters that now need to be updated um essentially all we're
doing is changing the reference from 8VAC 20-131 to the corresponding chapter in 8VAC 20-132 um this is uh going to be presented as an exempt action as it goes through the regulatory process because these are changes that only um consist in uh
adjustments to form or style okay is there a motion to wave first review and approve these regulatory changes second any discussion here miss Kilgore hi dr nor hi mr hansen hi
Miss McFersonson hi Mr rotherham hi Miss Holton i and chair votes I thank you thank you all right Mr gillstrap good morning President Kissie uh Superintendent Golixson members of the board i bring to you today a first and
final review of the advisory board of teacher education ABTEL recommendations to approve new educational endorsement programs this is always an exciting time as if we are adding programs that means there's health within our education system at the university level as well
as within the schools uh the regulations governing the review uh require that the Virginia Board of Education approve requests for Virginia institutions of higher education to add endorsement programs and these requests must be approved by um March 31st which we are
just underneath that date um the Virginia Department of Education staff has verified the program endorsement competencies through the review of course descriptions and syllabi to determine alignment with the regulatory criteria including supervised classroom
instruction and on your second page of your document you have the list of uh endorsements that are to be approved i do want to highlight just a few things on that list um for George Mason they will be going from 50 if if everything is approved they will go from 55 uh
programs to a total of 68 which will put them among one of our largest universities for education norfolk would go Norfolk State would go from uh 34 to 35 and University of Virginia would go from 26 to 28 uh a couple specifics
about each of the endorsement i'm not going to talk about all of them but I just wanted to point out that the early early childhood the primary education one up there on the top of George Mason that would be the 16th program of that type across our state as opposed to the
72nd for elementary ed so you see that some of our endorsements are very broadly expressed across the Commonwealth some of them are in their infancy um and most specifically if we go down to the bottom of that list school psychology we would be adding one at George Mason and one at the
University of Virginia which would be our sixth and seventh program so a very small opportunity across the across the Commonwealth for school psychology um I do believe those are the ones I wanted to highlight oh computer science on the George Mason would be the 12th program
so that would be another positive step for us um the superintendent recommends that the board of education accept for final review the advisory board of teacher education and lurers recommendation to approve the new education endorsements
and programs present brie mr gilstra I have a question for you yes so I'm just wondering have we um have we reviewed these programs particularly the early early ed and elementary um for VA compliance in the science of reading
absolutely that is part of the requirements okay thank you any other questions on this for anyone before we accept a motion miss Holton no questions but a comment sure uh I will recuse myself as to the motion since the vast majority of it has to do with George Mason even though I don't have anything
to do with this part of George Mason's ed school but I will recuse myself but take the opportunity to make a comment i have been the board's uh representative to Abtel uh for a number of years now u and since I'm with me rolling off in June I'm hoping the board is uh thinking
about appointing um a new liaison i think the Abtel group u they meet probably six times a year is that right Rob it's five required sometimes we meet six but it's and um um they they work very earnestly and hard to help give us
good advice on matters like this uh and really appreciate having a a liaison present they also have liaison from the legislature who um u have been um present more um of late and so it's a
it's a good opportunity for com conversations with ed preparation program leaders but also K12 leaders across the commonwealth and I've enjoyed serving um and encourage my colleagues to find time in your very busy schedules for somebody to be able to participate
typically Monday mornings 9 to 11 is the basic commitment yes thank you we have already begun that that um thought process and discussion so thank you um Madam President I also
just Mr hansen in light of my recent appointment to the board of visitors at George Mason University I um not sure if I should be recusing myself but I think until I can get some clarity with this new appointment I will do so in abundance of of caution at this time
okay sounds good i'd like to recognize in my re Madame President in my region Miss McFerson yes for their uh new graduate program in uh counseling i think it's very much needed so I'd like to thank them for stepping up to the
plate in that regard okay thank you Dr northern um Mr gilchrap I I'm just curious um this first one early primary education preK3 did it used to be K3 or
they honestly didn't have a um a a primary education endorsement before this this is the correct one we actually have nine different special education uh endorsement areas one of them is the one you described but they did not have that so the first one yes oh okay you're
saying that's a special education i'm sorry i don't wasn't I'm sorry i'm sorry i I misread that is not that is just early childhood yes okay so did did it used to be K3 or or was it did they not have a program at all i'm just They did not have that program at all they did
not go to all the way up to from actually they didn't go down that far oh okay thank you okay any other questions okay is there a motion to wave first review and approve the new education endorsement programs as
recommended by the advisory board on teacher education and lensure in this item second any discussion here miss Kilgore i Dr northern i uh Mr hansen
recuse uh Miss McFersonson hi mr rotherham hi um and Miss Holton recuse and chair votes I okay thank you all right uh item
K first review of regulatory actions following periodic reviews of regulations thank you very much President Cesy members of the board Superintendent Golson um I'd like to start off by offering a brief apology there was an earlier version of this item that was a posted to the website that erroneously um indicated this would
be for final review that is not the case this is being presented for first review um it will come back in in May for for final approval um this are regulatory actions resulting from a periodic review that the board closed in at its February meeting um all of these I believe are
very very minor changes um to to recap them briefly um the management of the student scholastic records which is 8VAC 20-150 um the determination following the periodic review was that really this doesn't need to stand as an independent chapter but can be streamlined under
8VAC 20-720 um the regulations governing driver education uh we would like to make a brief amendment to reflect updated DMV policy whereas there's currently a reference to a 90day um temporary uh license that that has been 180 days for
some some time at the DMV and so we're just going to align that to the current practice um in 8VAC 20-390 which is the rules governing division superintendent of schools um there is one section section 10 which sets requirements for division superintendent that's in
conflict with chapter 23 of the board's regulations which were um passed much later and so we think removing those requirements uh and and removing the conflict since they're not currently used by by the board of the department and issuing division superintendent licenses is the right thing to do um and
then again in 8VS20-410 we have an independent chapter that that appears what it's doing is is setting a definition for allowable credit for teaching experience um that statement on its own as an independent chapter really doesn't uh seem to do anything but it makes a lot of sense and
it's used to interpret chapter 23 of the board's regulations governing um school personnel so we would like to move that into a definition in the lensure regulations for school personnel mr chapman we will take this item for first review and see you in May madam
unless you have a question Miss Holton uh thank you uh thank you Mr chapman uh am I right that the the one I just wanted to draw attention to is the rules governing division superintendent is not entirely technical that the there were
actually if I recall correctly there are two provisions potentially in conflict one with a much broader definition of who is eligible to serve as a school superintendent and one that had much
narrower specific uh uh prior experience requirements and and there has been some controversy in the past about the difference between those two and maybe even there was some legal action related to it but the you are recommending that
we go with the broader definition and exclude the potentially conflicting language anguage delete the potentially conflicting language with a narrower definition that that's correct we take that the later board um statement on the requirements for um school personnel or for division superintendents in chapter
23 um is what should govern and that and if you your memory is long I I remember exact instance that you're uh you're you're referring to um at that point we were using the the board was using the chapter 23 uh requirements there was an action around the time that I believe
it's chapter 20 so an even an earlier iteration from chapter 23 to remove this specific section um but that fizzled out for some reason about 2015 2016 so we we think this is the right time to do the cleanup since we've done the periodic
review we were able to identify that it appeared that the board tried to remove it in the past and um so yes to to remove the conflict but you you are correct that is slightly more than a technical change um but we don't think is uh we don't think is affecting what the board's and the department's current
policy is well it's well I don't know about that but it's easy to remember thank you it's easy to remember because we did hear from the public loudly um and at some length about this matter those of us who were on the board in that time period and I I I think
probably the choice the pol that there is a policy choice embedded in what you're recommending to us here i think it's probably the right choice but I look forward to hear if we get any public input and that's why I appreciate you holding it over for final approval thank you
any other comments thank you Mr chapman we will accept it this item for first review okay so that brings us to the end of our agenda today um what oh where where are that yeah
that's a written report so I did I would like to make a comment about the written report um on the critical shortage teaching endorsement areas if you have not spent some time in that document I I don't know u Mr gilstrap I know this is off the cuff but I don't know if you'd
like to say anything about that document i know um it's always of um you know great significance uh and I do appreciate please come on up i do appreciate um the additional data that was provided upon um my initial review
of this document for the purpose of providing it to the the board i did ask um that uh staff go back and do some you know bigger number crunching on this so I would certainly encourage you all if
you have not um taken the time to dig into this um do that because it is really um illustrative and eye opening um and it lends us to understanding some bigger picture items um as we're moving
into um some more work of the board that will come later this spring uh into the summer and the early fall so Mr dr gilstrap I just wanted to give you an opportunity to to make some comments should you wish to do so sure thank you so much um the comments I would make would be primarily around there are
really three different ways to look at critical shortages and when we look at it when we as it is in the report the same report that we've done for over 20 years I went back and looked at the 1999 version of the same report and it starts off with as in many years in the past
special ed and elementary ed are our critical shortage areas which has been consistent for 26 years um but what I my point would be is it didn't matter how many vacancies we had we still have a top 10 critical shortage area if we had
10 critical if we had 10 vacancies we would probably still have a critical shortage area so when we see this year to year the fact that we continue to add and change the order does not actually impact whether or not we have a greater area of shortage or lesser this year
would be a great example we have less shortages this year than we did last year we still have a similar report um I also want to point out that we struggle at times with the federal government's uh definition and interpretation of what critical shortage is they only require
us to give them the 5% well that could be that could be two areas and sometimes when you return that into the federal government we turn in our whole 10 list and they do not necessarily like that so we have to justify it every year uh if you go back two years ago we only turned
in seven which causes a problem for us at the state because we have a requirement for a 10 so just to point out that there are three that would be two other ones and then the third area is we don't even consider uh in these reports the fact that in a regional area
you may have a great shortage in something that's not even on the top 10 list and that is still a critical shortage and still is eligible for the student loan repayments and for other uh BRS uh adjustments so this is the most
basic view that we see this is just based on pure numbers and as you would notice our biggest areas have the highest number because they have the more teacher the most teachers to choose from elementary teachers is our largest group of course they're going to be in our top almost every year just because
they have more numbers thank you so much does anybody have a question comments around this i Miss Holton thank you i I appreciate the report and I appreciate your u uh helping us under pay attention to it and and explore it both uh Madame President
and Mr gilstrep can I ask a question about the percentage column so for instance I see here I mean one of the one of the one of our biggest challenges in public education in Virginia is how we serve our special ed students and I'm convinced that many of
the challenges we see in the due process matters etc go back to the fact that our our challenges with our teacher workforce in this area so I see you've listed 792 unfilled positions and then that's plus 800 teachers who are uh
licensed but not endorsed in special ed is that right that is absolutely correct so that's for a total of almost 1,600 and then the percent column says 1.59% but that the denominator for that percent column is the total number of teachers that's the total number of
vacancies that that that are open so that yes you're correct that is the total number of all the teachers not vacancies the total number of teachers our critical shortage is based on vacancies but that 1.59% is out of all teachers that we
have so I know your critical shortage area um list is prescribed by various federal and state regulations but in terms of understanding the impact I think a more useful column perhaps we could add in future reports would be the
percent of that category of teachers and I think if you looked at the vacancies of special ed teachers relative to the total number of special ed teachers you would see it vacancies plus endorsed um non-endorsed teachers
would be 15 20% or more um from other data I've seen so it is the 1.59% may look make this look like a small problem it is a big problem yes yes ma'am and and I would agree with you on that because there are some areas that have a very small number of total teachers
across the Commonwealth and there may not be any teachers that can fill those positions especially in our our world languages areas there and if you were to look at my previous uh report that that I just presented uh that would also talk about how many programs are we adding
and you did not probably see any Latin French German any of those so if you had a a course in a school and you didn't have any teachers it would be 100% so you're right out of the total number of teachers in that particular category what is the percentage that is vacant is
also a valuable number so in other words if there's no position to be recorded as a as a vacancy it doesn't exist correct right but but Miss Holton but if so if it might be possible to add a column of
or maybe to add clarity on what that percent column is and then add a next an additional column percent of the applicable teacher category and and for instance the elementary school it might go down you know the the percent re well
it won't go down total since this is total vac total teacher positions but it might help us while we have a lot of vacancies in elementary ed it we may not have that high a percentage uh com compared to the total number of
teachers in elementary ed i don't know what that would be but it would it would be instructive we we could definitely provide that information i would caution just a little bit about the confusion that might cause for people that are trying to decide if they are in the top 10 and they see a number that is smaller than another number but we can provide
that information without a doubt uh Dr northern I may be missing a fundamental understanding of how we're defining critical shortage but to me another piece of the puzzle is trying to look at the pupil pupil teacher ratio of kids
served because um in many cases we just don't know how many kids right like to me it's like if you see a shortage but the pupil teacher ratio is you know 12 kids to one teacher then you know that makes a difference in terms of a shortage area um in my mind so I don't
know if we have the ability to uh report on a ratio like that uh we know that we've got declining enrollment across the state so it might be a helpful ratio as well to see what areas we actually do need to prioritize i would say that that number would
probably vary from school to school so it would really be hard to provide that information i would also say that if you were in a school and you had that vacancy you would adjust your teacher to pupil ratio within that school to account for the vacancy so it would it would it would shift constantly
any other questions or comments here thank you Mr gilstra i I didn't mean to put you on the spot but I knew this would be a a hot report to have a conversation about so thank you my pleasure thank you thank you um so we get to discussion of
current issues before we adjourn um and so I guess what I would like to do is um see if anybody has anything to say superintendent
Gixson thank you President Cesy i just want to address two items that will be on the May board agenda uh folks know that the workbased learning agenda item and sea time flexibility were pulled from this month's agenda we have gotten
some feedback especially since I came into my role from both board members and members of the field and so we are looking at both of those items to make sure they are uh as the best products as possible and those will both be um
publicly posted and on the board agenda for May any other comments before we adjourn for the day i'll just join in welcoming um Superintendent Gullixson look forward to working with you thank you if there is nothing further I'll
entertain a motion to adjurnn so moved all right we are adjourned