Summary 3/10/22 School Board Meeting
The March 10, 2022, School Board meeting began with a reminder of APS’s mask optional policy, and the National Anthem and flag ceremony with Arlington Career Center AF JROTC Cadets Corps. The School Board gave several announcements about school-based initiatives and encouraged the community to complete the Your Voice Matters Survey and the Bell Survey. The Superintendent’s Announcements acknowledged the Ukraine crisis, APS School Social Worker Week, and Women’s History Month. Dr. Durán also provided an update on the School and Law Enforcement MOU, which reimagines and redesigns the relationship between police and schools; the Fiscal Year 2023 Budget Calendar and the schedule of Work Sessions, as well as highlights on Secondary Mathematics, including that 50 percent of APS middle school students have already made one or more years’ worth of growth in math as of mid-year; senior year enrollment in math is increasing in APS (while decreasing in VA); and APS is doing strategic targeting on middle school kids who scored below basic. Dr. Duran also shared a video of Secondary Math across APS.
Public Comment included VLP staff, the NAACP Education Policy Committee asking for the Board to reject the proposed policies and discussing lack of good faith engagement, a parent disavowing Youngkin’s CRT EO, a speaker on the APS budget asking for paid planning time, unfair treatment of VLP staff, bus driver budget concerns, accommodations for high risk students, a parent talking about respect in schools, and an APE speaker who complimented the budget plan to reduce class sizes and raise teacher pay.
The School Board spent the majority of the meeting on the monitoring update on English Language Learners, as well as time on the changes to the dual language immersion program model, the one-time employee bonus payment, and the proposed policy revisions.
The School Board then turned to the English Learners Monitoring Update for the bulk of the meeting. Director of the Office of English Learners Terri Murphy presented slides that covered APS is in the last year of the DOJ settlement agreement. She noted there was a 19.3 percent decrease in students making expected access in English language development process and they are lagging in graduation rates. Staff highlighted that some of the opportunities for improvement – professional learning; science of reading and structured literacy in the context of second language acquisition; intervention support; continued training for bilingual family liaisons; and availability of equitable enrollment and screening processes for English learners.
Several Board Members asked about data in the slides and what was significant. In particular, Board Members and staffed zeroed in on slide 30, which showed that math scores dropped last year but reading scores rose. APE covered this reduction in passing reading scores our Think Tank Learning Loss Report. Board Members also asked about EL’s graduation rates and professional learning for Global Family liaison and the goals of the five year plan.
Next, Ms. Loft presented the Action Items. First was the Action on Dual Language Immersion Task Force Recommendation which proposes changing the elementary language immersion programs percent of Spanish education time to 80% for K-2 and 70% for 3, and cobntinuing with 50% for 4/5, while maintaining the goal of student composition 50% Spanish speakers and 50% English speakers. Board Members asked about metrics for closing the achievement gap and how to measure whether this change is successful and about increasing secondary immersion enrollment. Ms. Loft emphasized the need for the DLI coordinator to ensure this. Ms. Kadera asked about structured literacy instruction in the proposed model, which staff said would be provided in Spanish. Next was the One item employee bonus payment, which was enthusiastically supported by the Board Members and passed 5-0 with no discussion. Next was the Fall 2022 Elementary Boundary Process Update – which removes the proposed Boundary Process from next years’ planning. Mr. Goldstein voted Nay because he did not think APS has the data yet to determine if a Boundary change was needed, and because Mr. Priddy noted that he hopes removing this change will put the community at ease because the bell time study might cause some stress to parents. Action 4 is Revisions to School Board Policies , which was discussed at last month’s meeting, and which passed 5-0. Ms. Kadera followed up on Ms. Walker’s question.
Finally, Dr. Durán and staff concluded with presenting three Information Items on which action will be taken at the next School Board meeting. First was Revisions to School Board Policies B-3.7.30 Legal Representation, about which Mr. Goldstein asked about conflict of interests. Next was Revisions to School Board Policies I-1.32 Standards and Requirements, I-6 Curriculum, and I-7.2.1 Special Education Programs and Services. Finally, staff presented the Revisions to School Board Policy J-6.8.1 Student Safety – Bullying/Harassment Prevention. Ms. Kadera asked for texting to be included in the cyberbullying language.
See our Scorecard for this meeting here.
