Summary of the 3/30/23 School Board Meeting
March 30th APS School Board Meeting
Top Three Takeaways:
Arlington Education Association (AEA) filed a request seeking certification to be the exclusive representative for licensed personnel and support personnel.
New Content Filter being installed on APS Devices
The Board voiced concerns, which have been echoed by the community, about the use of $40 million of reserve funds for on-going costs.
Chair Goldstein commented that the Board is still working through a lot of issues. In the past, the School Board’s Proposed Budget is usually a good indicator of what the final budget will be, but that may not be the case this year.
Attendees: Reid Goldstein, Cristina Diaz-Torres, David Priddy, Mary Kadera
The meeting began with a recognition of Lilla Wise, APS’s legislative liaison after a presentation of the colors by the Career Center Space Force JROTC (2:23). According to Chair Reid, Ms. Wise was a “strong advocate for public schools with the General Assembly” for the past 25 years. She’s advocated for more funding for the state for teacher pay and funding for school breakfast and expanding universal free meals for all students. She has lobbied “steadily” against tax credits and tax vouchers that would “divert public funds from public education.” Ms. Wise then spoke about her experience working with the Virginia Legislature over the past 25 year. “My main job was to keep bad things from happening,” according to Ms. Wise. Senator Barbara Favola and Delegate Lopez also spoke about Ms. Wise on behalf of the Arlington delegation.
Then the meeting moved to Consent agenda and vote. Board Member Diaz-Torres made a motion to adopt the consent agenda, motion passed 4 to 0. (23:46-33:37). The vote included: Revisions to School Board Policies I-11.5.2.30 High School Credit at the Middle School, J-5.3.1 Homeless Education Services, M-3 Financial Management-Financing Construction and Site Acquisition and M-11 Student ID Badges. It also included an amendment that allows the Superintendent to designation someone else to attend meetings in his place. Gunston Principal Lori Wiggins was announced as the new Principal of Arlington Community High School. It was also announced that Wakefield High School Principal Dr. Chris Wilmore was appointed as the Director of Secondary Education. Appointments were also made for several new members of the ACTL - Sub-subcommittee on Dual Language Immersion.
Announcements:
Arlington Education Association filed a request seeking certification to be the exclusive representative for licensed personnel and support personnel. This includes non-administrative employees such as teachers, school counselors, libraries and speech pathologists. The election is scheduled April 24th – April 27th and will take place in secret ballot via email. Notifications were posted in common areas at worksites. Any other organization that would like to be considered would need to notify of their intentions within seven days.
Board Member Kadera announced the Yorktown Wind Ensemble is performing in Indianapolis, Indiana. She also highlighted the $19,000 raised by Escuela Key students and staff for the American Heart Association’s Virginia Chapter. She also praised the work of Ms. Wise and the Arlington Delegation and the work they do for the school system.
Chair Goldstein recognized Cardinal students for exceeding their goal for read-a-thon reading, reaching a combined 272,774 minutes.
Superintendent’s Announcements:
Superintendent Durán announced that the FDA approved Narcan for over-the-counter use. This will potentially allow students to carry Narcan while on school property. They are awaiting final guidance and will announce further information at the next board meeting. Narcan is available at every school, but this would make it more accessible.
April Recognitions include Month of the Military Child, Autism Awareness Month and National School Librarian Day. Public School Volunteer Week is also coming up in April.
APS is updating its website and is seeking input. You can do an in-person user test at the Arlington career center or an online user test. Register at apsva.us/post/website-user-testing.
During Spring Break, APS is moving from Global Protect to Lightspeed Content Filter for APS devices. It will provide additional parental control for home-usage. Phase one is happening over spring break, phase two is September 2023 and that will allow parents to pause internet usage during non-instruction hours and access to student usage reports. “We know many parents have concerns about the amount of screen time” for their students, Dr. Durán said.
Next “Bright Spots” were discussed. Fourteen students were listed for the National Scholastic Arts Awards for 2023.
Next was a video on Arts Education and specifically music education at Hoffman-Boston.
After the video, Member Kadera then commented on how positive she feels about APS changing the content filter and giving parents more access and control for APS devices.
Chair Goldstein said that music education is education and that he is glad APS prioritizes that.
Public Comment:
Student speaker at Washington-Liberty Highschool in the IB program on budget – requested on focusing and prioritizing teacher and counselor salaries. His AP US Government class is on their fourth teacher this year.
APS teacher spoke about bathroom access for secondary students and the increase in locked-space this would provide during the opioid crisis. He also spoke to teacher pay.
June Prakash, President of AEA, brought up t-scale vacancies. “Why does APS need so many subs?” She said that teachers are taking off days off to recover from the trauma of student loss from opioids, seeing violence at school or having to endure violence against them. “Wrestling with the amount of disrespect.” Short supply of: adequate mental health staff in buildings, lack of disciplinary consequences, lack of consequences from parents for their students behavior at school.
Delegate Lopez spoke on the proposed budget, asking them to focus on and prioritize teacher and counselor salaries. “Arlington teachers should be the best paid in the region.”
APS teacher spoke about speech and debate at Yorktown and other Arlington high schools.
A speaker spoke about the facilities and operations policy and carbon-neutral policies for buildings and school buses.
Action Item: School Board Proposed FY 2024 Budget
Revisions:
Spring Enrollment and Staffing update - Typically 800K cost but had to add $318,247 as it cost “a little bit more more.”
The Education Leadership Program with GMU was accidentally left out of last year’s budget so they need to add $483K from the future budget year’s reserve to balance the budget.
Chair Goldstein moved to adopt the School Board’s Proposed Budget amendments, Diaz-Torres seconded.
Chair Goldstein commented that the Board is still working through a lot of issues. In the past, the School Board’s Proposed Budget is usually a good indicator of what the final budget will be but that may not be the case this year. Diaz-Torres highlighted that Board Member Zecher-Sutton was missing from the meeting so it would not be appropriate to move forward without her. She also mentioned they are looking at family leave policies. Priddy seconded the family-leave piece. He recommended advocacy through emails, calls and coming to speak.
Kadera said that she’s asked a lot of questions throughout the process as she sees financial stewardship one of the main jobs of the Board. She had three main thoughts as they move forward: 1 - interested in exploring an alternative program for middle school students who are not served well in the traditional setting, 2 - she would like to add funding for high school students who are struggling readers, 3 - There is more we can do as a community to address mental health in on our youth. She would also like to discuss stainability of our future budgets – especially due to the large amount of reserves being used (“the largest we’ve ever used before” - 40 Million). According to Kadera, the planning factor study will require action and we may be in a position were we are over leveraged and cannot make changes like reducing class sizes. She then said she’d like to look at three things: 1 - cuts we can make in this year’s budget, 2 - a formal way to look at ROI on existing expenditures and 3 - ways we can leverage grants and partnerships.
Chair Goldstein also agreed that the 40 million usage of reserve is not sustainable. He said, “We have this much great things we need to add, but only this much money.”
Next Chair Goldstein called for a vote on adopting the Superintendents’ fiscal year 2024 revised proposed budget as the School Board’s proposed budget – vote passes 4 to 0.
Information Item: Revisions to School Board Policies F-2 Goals and I-9.1.5 Exemplary Projects
F-2 Goals are up for review. According to staff, this policy hasn’t been reviewed in 20 years. Staff are proposing the following change to F‐2 Goals:
Change title to Facilities and Operations Goals
Delete overly specific language for each function of the department. These are covered better in their respective policies.
Add language to ensure that facilities adhere to adhere to the principles of Universal Design and the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act at the request of ASEAC and parents.
Add language to align APS with Arlington County’s Community Energy (goal of 2050) to use stronger language with goals of carbon neutrality by either 2040 or 2035.
Member Priddy said that the universal design piece is a “no-brainer.” Priddy asked for clarification on Goals policies vs PIPs. According to the APS Staffer, goals policies are not super specific like a CIP or a PIP would have; Goals policies are more high-level. The example given was percentage geothermal. Goals are a guideline for the board as they do other actions, and PIPs are not attached.
Member Diaz-Torres mentioned that she appreciated that the major change was relabeling the policy.
I-9.1.5 Exemplary Projects policy is up for its five-year review. Staff are proposing the following changes:
Renumber to I‐9.1.5.30.
Clarify that exemplary projects are funded through the budget process in accordance with A‐30 Equity.
Remove out of date and confusing funding language. Staff are proposing the following changes to I‐9.1.5 PIP‐1 Exemplary Projects.
Change numbering from I‐1.9.1.5 PIP‐1 to I‐9.1.5 PIP‐1 to match the Policy.
Replace specific details about funding with the policy language noted above.
Member Goldstein pointed out that the PIP numbers aren’t changing on the slide presentation. Staffer said that was a mistake on the slide. The idea is that the PIP number will match the policy number. There were no other questions.
