Board Watch 8.15
Welcome, Board Watchers! Apologies for the delay in getting this summary out - it turns out it takes extra time to digest a Board meeting when it runs over 5 hours. Here are the highlights we break down for you below:
Staffing
Covid Policy
Construction Updates
Arthur Ashe Update
Governance Grievances
STAFFING
The district forecasts a teacher for every classroom in the Fall, having hired over 100 long term substitutes to close remaining teacher vacancies. There’s some Board hesitancy to relying on long-term subs. Rep White wants to know how long these subs will be used. Rep Gibson wants to know if the district will inform parents that their students don’t have a licensed teacher, and suggests the district plan to compare academic data between students with teachers vs those with long term subs.
The Board Chair assures her colleagues (and those watching) that “many of our long term subs are phenomenal teachers, they just aren’t fully licensed yet.” The Chair’s faith in district staff is consistent with the Board-approved “Grow Your Own” approach to resolving staffing shortages in the district. Grow Your Own enables substitutes, instructional assistants, and other staff to pursue full teacher licensure through partnerships with area colleges.
There also appears to be a growing awareness among some Board members about how their comments impact the district’s reputation, potentially even hurting their own hiring efforts.
After a lengthy discussion of the hiring challenges facing hard-to-staff schools, the 9th District rep pivoted the focus: “Why are we not talking about all the GOOD that's already being prepared for 2023, and that will also help incentivize teachers to come?” She cited all the counselors and social workers that the administration has hired, a nod to new mental health supports the district is developing for both students and staff. “Let’s encourage people to come to RPS and work with our students.”
COVID POLICY
Last week, the CDC relaxed their Covid-19 recommendations, and so - too - has RPS. You can read the updated guidance here, but the only piece that got much mention was the continued use of masks indoors. Per the CDC, mask use is recommended indoors while communities experience high transmission (a formula that considers case rate per 100,000, hospitalization rates, and hospital burden.)
Vice Chair Gibson wonders if the Virginia Department of Health can weigh in on the district’s covid recommendations. (Yes, that VDH.) Says teachers report mask enforcement as a distraction in the classroom.
Rep Young objected, calling this guidance anti-teacher and anti-kid. He motions to adopt a fully mask-optional policy.
5th District Rep Stephanie Rizzi sympathizes with her Board colleagues. As an assistant professor at VCU, she understands firsthand how challenging it is for teachers to enforce mask use. But while the city is in a state of high transmission, “we have to try,” adding that schools will also have a hard time enforcing a restrictive cell phone policy - which also restricts freedom in a lot of ways. (A cell phone ban was another discussion on the evening’s agenda, which was ultimately deferred when the Board ran out of time.)
No Board members offer Young’s motion a “second.” Motion fails.
CONSTRUCTION UPDATES
The Reimagine Wythe team continues to provide exciting updates! A summer poll of the community revealed a favorite building design, option 3A. This floorplan includes a podcast studio, recording studio, dark room, and theater space that fit with the school’s Arts focus. It also includes a childcare suite and lactation rooms for students and staff, and a hybrid welcome center and clinic designed to fit a variety of community needs during and outside of school hours.
George Wythe updated model 3A pic.twitter.com/TDvMEpzBC5
— KidsFirst RPS (@KidsFirstRPS) August 16, 2022
Board members used their two extra weeks to review the Design Firm contract for Fox Reconstruction. The proposed firm, Quinn Evans, has extensive experience with k-12 work, and over 70 historic projects in their portfolio. They also have a local office in Richmond, and are familiar with the tragedy and the historic school’s significance to the community. 2nd District Rep, Mariah White, is excited about working with this firm because they are majority woman-owned. The contract was approved with little fanfare.
ARTHUR ASHE UPDATE
Last meeting, we learned that the Board Attorney, Jonell Lilly of Harrell & Chambliss, LLP has a conflict of interest and cannot represent RPS in any legal efforts against the city’s plan to demolish the Arthur Ashe Jr Athletic Center. In response, the Board Chair (at the instruction of her colleagues) agreed to seek out pro-bono legal counsel on the matter.
Monday night, she presented a legal opinion she received from attorney Thomas M. Wolf, of Miles and Stockbridge PC. The opinion, paraphrased here for clarity, is:
The city needs School Board consent to dispose of the building, according to several Virginia codes. The proceeds would then come to the school division.
It is a clear violation of state law for school funds to be used to maintain non-school properties. (RPS funds have maintained the AAJAC site for four decades.)
Several members support forwarding this legal opinion to city lawyers. Other members appear cautious of Attorney Wolf’s own bias. His wife, Carol Wolf, is a former School Board representative for the 3rd district, and has made her own AAJAC analysis publicly known. Board members share a concern about “perception” and “influence,” and their potential impact on legal proceedings. (Ms. Wolf’s blog is often critical - even combative - of city leaders.)
The Board revisits the idea of a joint meeting with City Council. News reports offer conflicting information, including promises to secure an alternative venue for RPS’s athletic needs. Rizzi adds: “We can read it in the paper… but If they’re offering some kind of replacement center, that [offer] needs to be made to us.”
It’s disheartening to hear that poor city-school communication continues, especially if there’s a chance that better communication could spare taxpayers an expensive lawsuit. It’s also disappointing to glean the city’s position “they’re OUR schools when they’re profitable, and YOUR (RPS) schools when they’re costly” through these brief updates, one School Board meeting at a time.
GOVERNANCE GRIEVANCES
Ms Page asks if anything is not time sensitive as it’s past 10 pm and we are trying to stay within our board norms. They made some changes to the agenda 🫥
— KidsFirst RPS (@KidsFirstRPS) August 16, 2022
Board Watchers will notice a few recurring themes here.
There’s an upcoming, state-mandated governance retreat in Charlottesville. Despite having ample notice to arrange their schedule, one member won’t be present. This one member is permitted to attend virtually. The Chair offered no other virtual exceptions. Some Board members appear to resent this special treatment, reserved for favored colleagues.
The meeting stretched far beyond the 10PM norm and Board members objected to consistently poor time management. Below is a list of causes we’ve seen of Board meetings going past their (4 hour) allotted time - all of which were evident Monday night:
Board members not doing their homework. Consistently, the superintendent and chair mention that they received no Board member questions ahead of the meeting. These questions are meant to inform the superintendent’s presentation, so it includes all information the Board members feel they need for proper governing. Instead, meetings are full of last minute questions that often require followup, thus adding agenda items to subsequent meetings (which happened on Monday).
The resulting Agenda is TOO LONG. It’s simply too much to get through in four hours.
Board members CAN’T “do their homework” because they receive presentations too late. Central Office remains under-staffed. The district needs more than one cabinet member and many over-burdened directors if they’re going to efficiently provide material for these School Board meetings. Board members need to commit to filling these job vacancies, and limit/prioritize the deliverables they’re demanding in the meantime.
Members need to attend meetings. When they don’t, they need to play catch-up on their own time. It’s disrespectful to the rest of the division’s leadership, and the constituents watching, that so much of the last two meetings have been repeat conversations.
The Chair needs to grow & evolve her leadership skills. She has previously shared her leadership philosophy: members are adults and need to police themselves, but it's obvious that this self-policing isn’t happening. A few specific backstage pushes the Chair could give are: to ensure Board members read materials and submit questions ahead of time; to understand which (if any) Board members will be absent and ensure those Board members who are absent do the necessary catch-up before the next meeting; to prioritize agenda items based on what the administration needs answered in order to effectively run the school district (especially as we butt up against the start of school) and understand what materials the administration has the time/staff to adequately complete without taking time and energy away from the running of the district.
Members also need to better manage their meeting time. For example: Don’t spend 30 minutes asking questions about Next Up, when the superintendent opened the presentation saying that the program director was absent (family emergency) and he was unable to answer questions himself. This extensive Q-and-“let me follow up”-A ran down the clock, and meant that many important agenda items got pushed through without any discussion at all, while several others were deferred altogether.
Nobody is happy with the average length or efficiency of these School Board meetings. It makes the Council of the Great City School’s guidance on Mastering Student Outcome Focus feel really, hopelessly far away from the current reality. This excerpt from their governance training rubric illustrates what these meetings should look like:
There are no more than two Board-authorized public meetings per month and none lasts more than two hours.
The Board schedules no more than three topics for discussion during any Board-authorized public meeting.
The Board received the final version of materials to be voted on at least seven calendar days before the Board-authorized public meeting during which the materials would be considered.
That’s all for this week! Make sure to subscribe to our newsletter to receive our KIDS scorecard, where we evaluate the Board meeting as a whole based on the following criteria:
(K)indness to others, (I)ntentional use of time, (D)ata driven decisions, (S)tudent centered discussions.
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Thanks for tuning in, we’ll catch you next time.
