Summary of 9/22/22 SB Meeting
At the September 22, 2022 School Board Meeting:
Opening/Consent Items
The School Board started in Closed Session.
For the open session, the meeting began with a presentation of the colors by the Arlington Career Center Space Force JROTC Cadet Corps.
Reid Goldstein then gave a statement on behalf of the School Board in support of APS’ nondiscrimination policy and opposing the new model policy proposed by the Youngkin administration. Dr. Durán also gave a speech in support of APS’ nondiscrimination policy.
The School Board then unanimously adopted the consent agenda. As part of that consent agenda, revisions to various policies (Nondiscrimination; Internet Privacy; School Board Advisory Committees; Aquatic Facilities and Programs; Reporting Per Pupil Costs; Judicial Review) were adopted.
The School Board then announced the appointment of Kerri Hirsch as Director of Curriculum and Instruction, who was present and gave a speech.
Announcements
The School Board thereafter moved to the following announcements:
- The School Board will have a closed meeting on October 11 at 5:30 pm, followed by a Work Session at 6:30 pm on student climate, culture, and responses to student behavior;
- The School Board will have a closed meeting on October 13 at 5:30 pm, followed by a regular School Board meeting at 7:00 pm; and
- The Arlington School Administrators (ASA) filed a request seeking certification as the exclusive representative of the administrative personnel as outlined in the Collective Bargaining Resolution (includes principal, assistant principals and supervisors). The election will take place online on October 10th.
Afterwards, Board Members made the following announcements:
· Mary Kadera made announcements regarding certain of her liaison schools (Escuela Key, Randolph).
· Dr. Barabara Kanninen thanked APS staff for working over the weekend to issue a statement in support of APS’ nondiscrimination policy and in opposition to the Youngkin administration’s model policy.
· Mr. Goldstein made announcements regarding certain of his liaison schools (Glebe, Abingdon, Fleet).
Thereafter, Superintendent Durán gave his announcements (slides here):
- APS will have an intentional focus this year to address learning gaps (and for some students, gaps have persisted for some period of time). APS will be focusing this year to make sure families can understand what APS is trying to do: supporting every student by name, strength and need.
- APS created a new webpage and new graphic that explains its instructional approach: “Excellence for All.” They also produced a video on it, which is available here. The video discusses Tier 1, 2 and 3 instruction methods. It also describes how educators are training in new resources, such as Envision for math.
- September is Hispanic Heritage Month and Suicide Awareness Month
- Dr. Durán discussed the Student Progress Dashboard and the Equity Dashboard, including how APS is continuing to update them.
- Dr. Durán reported that 43% of families have completed the Annual Online Verification, which must be completed by October 31st.
- APS will be having equity conversations lead by Dr. Ottley, Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer. Those sessions will be virtual at 7 pm on Wednesday, September 28th, Wednesday, October 19th and Wednesday, November 16th.
- Dr. Durán noted October 2nd is Custodian Appreciation Day, and he wanted to thank custodians and encourage others to thank custodians.
- Lastly, Dr. Durán’s bright spot was our students and our schools. He loved the intentional focus on relationship building he observed, and he was glad to see students so excited and ready to learn. He was also excited to see students engaged in structured literacy and the new math and literacy learning materials and resources. He also included all of APS’ operations staff in his bright spot.
Cristina Diaz-Torres followed with a great personal comment about how Suicide Prevention Awareness Month is very important as she has struggled with suicidal ideation multiple times in the past.
Public Comment
The public comment portion of the meeting featured 17 speakers:
- Todd Truitt spoke on behalf of APE, thanking APS for a great start to the school year and laying out APE’s priorities for this school year.
- 6 speakers spoke in support of APS’ nondiscrimination policy and in opposition to the Youngkin administration’s proposed model policy.
- 5 speakers from the Arlington Education Association spoke, asking for a “better” collective bargaining agreement (e.g., a neutral third party for disputes), more of a focus on employee retention and additional COVID leave.
- 2 speakers who are Speech Language Pathologists spoke regarding compensation and retention issues.
- Claire Noakes, President of the County Council of PTAs, requested budget guidance to require APS to pay for classroom supplies and planning factors for counselors to not be adjusted.
- Jenn Seiff, Co-President of the Special Education PTA (SEPTA), spoke about how 60% of empty positions are in special education, creating an inequity within APS, and APS must do better at retaining existing special education staff.
- Kevin Hughes, Co-President of the Washington-Liberty Athletic Booster Club, spoke opposing the new APS policy prohibiting APS high school students of from attending those other APS high schools’ football games.
Monitoring Item: Human Resources Update
Michael Hodge, Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources, gave the Human Resources Monitoring Report. Those slides are available here.
Notable items in this report are as follows:
- The last Human Resources Monitoring Report was in February 2018.
- Additional resources requested for the next fiscal year: 2 professional learning specialists at a cost of $196K.
- Created a new HR call center for employee questions.
- Strategic Plan Strategy: recruit, retain and advance high-quality employees
- Strategic Plan Desired Outcomes
o APS employee diversity profile reflects Arlington resident diversity profile
o APS teacher diversity profile reflects APS student diversity profile
o APS staff are positively engaged in their job and work location
- Actions taken/completed
o Developing a recruitment plan (attend recruitment events at colleges and universities, use mass media and identifying retention strategies)
o Developed revised staffing timeline
o Established “Grow Your Own” program
§ Substitute to hire 90-day program, which started this year. For substitutes with bachelor’s degree and cleared by Licensure Office, it sets out process for them to meet requirements for provisional license within 90 days, so they can become a teacher. APS presently has 16 substitute teachers in the program. This is a new program, and APS will be monitoring it to ensure efficacy.
- Teacher diversity is lagging APS student diversity, except for African Americans
- HR staff will be doing interviews, observations and surveys to get first-hand data regarding staff needs and concerns. HR will look to identify common themes and trends.
- For retention, HR has revised off-boarding processes, which includes a questionnaire and exit interviews.
- Top universities that are sources of hiring of teachers for this year are George Mason (28), GW (17), JMU (13), and UVA (12).
All School Board members had follow up comments/questions, including:
- Ms. Kadera emphasized the importance of teacher retention plus HR staff responding to employee questions with accurate and timely information. She also proposed that everyone’s annual performance evaluation recognizes that employee by name/strength/need with future alignment between their evaluation and professional development. Ms. Kadera also noted the importance of accurate enrollment projections for addressing hiring needs. Lastly, she encouraged thinking about whether there are additional budget amounts needed for open special education positions.
- Dr. Kanninen acknowledged the last HR Monitoring Report was over 4 years ago and there was a number of important HR items of which the School Board was not aware. She also asked about HR’s vision of professional learning and how such an effort has been needed for some time. HR responded that they will focus on employees’ needs and will try to provide professional learning at both the school- and department-levels. Dr. Durán added that the professional learning vision for licensed staff is job-embedded professional learning.
- Ms. Diaz-Torres noted there has been this narrative nationally, and even in Arlington, about how “we are losing all this staff.” What struck her was that, even in a pandemic year, the delta in staff retention losses was only 6%. That is not a catastrophic drop in retention even in the middle of a global pandemic. Notably, APE wrote about Arlington’s actual retention rate vs. stories in the press in its newsletter several weeks ago. In addition, Ms. Diaz-Torres asked that APS consider management training for those employees who are managing other employees.
- Mr. Goldstein noted that African American “staff” exceeds the same student demographic by 2.2% (10.8% of students vs. 13% of “teachers” are AA). Mr. Hodge talked about APS’ targeted recruitment efforts. Mr. Goldstein also asked a question about teacher retention. Dr. Durán responded that teachers who have recently come to APS (based upon conversations he had with 40 to 50 of them) have said they were drawn by (1) compensation, (2) support for diversity and inclusion (and standing up for students and staff), and (3) our instructional systems and support.
Action Item: Deed of Resubdivision, Vacation, Dedication, and Rededication of For Long Branch Elementary
Previously presented at most recent School Board meeting in full. That prior presentation is available here. There have been no changes or additions since such prior presentation.
Information Item: 1. Deed of Temporary Easement and Construction for Wakefield High School
Arlington County Department of Parks and Recreation are scheduled to replace synthetic turf fields between the football and soccer seasons at Wakefield. The deed of temporary easement would be for such a project following the County’s replacement cycle, and would be from the end of November to end of February 2023. The presentation is available here.
The School Board will act on this item at the next School Board meeting.
Information Item: 2. School Board Budget Direction
The School Board’s draft FY2024 budget direction, among other things, “directs the Superintendent to prepare a needs-based budget that:
- Aligns to the 2022-2023 School Board Priorities
- Maintains [APS’] commitment to recruit, hire, retain, and invest in a high quality and diverse workforce by sustainably funding market competitive salary scales and benefits
- Ensures resources are allocated for a study of planning factors with an equity lens”
The full document is available here.
School Board members made budget-related comments thereafter, including:
- Ms. Diaz-Torres stated APS’ need to maintain its mission on compensation.
- Dr. Kanninen stated her support for getting started on the study on planning factors as soon as possible, so they can have as much information as possible (although she does not think it will be done for this budget and will be used for the following fiscal year). Dr. Durán agreed that it’s important to start this process soon.
- Mr. Goldstein thinks priorities should follow the budget. Dr. Durán added that he’s emphasized countless times to build on existing priorities, rather than significantly modifying them.
The School Board will act on this item at the next School Board meeting.
See our Scorecard for this meeting here.
