Tomorrow night is another #RPSBoard meeting that I’ll be live tweeting for all of you excited lovely people! 6PM. See you there. Agenda is below.

One interesting document already posted is VDOE guidance on counting attendance in this virtual school world. Check it out. #RPSBoard

We’re live! #RPSBoard https://www.facebook.com/RichmondPublicSchools/videos/952208755276037/

Gibson was a little late joining the meeting but wants to make an amendment to receive an update of the child care in facilities. She’s advised that this is already in the agenda. #RPSBoard

The first several people in public comment are writing to support renaming a school in honor of Dr Harrison Jones. She was a teacher and then was the first female superintendent in Richmond VA and the first African American female superintendent in the commonwealth. #RPSBoard

I have to get dinner started so I’m going to let them read public comments for a bit since they are the same topic while I get everything in place. BRB. #RPSBoard

Libby Sentz is asking about vegetarian options for the school lunches that are being delivered. #RPSBoard

Michael Lampkin has been reviewing his transcripts and is contending that his GPA is being falsely lowered by including incompletes in the calculation. #RPSBoard

More people advocating to rename a school for Dr Lois Harrison-Jones. #RPSBoard

Susan Childress has a 6th, 8th, and 10th grader and has had a good experience with virtual learning but says the days are too long and there have been headaches. asking about Wednesday being a homework day without virtual instruction. #RPSBoard

Sara Krivanec has a middle and highschooler asking for #RPSBoard to amend the weekly schedule to be a 9:15-12:15 online program with the afternoon being free work time with reading, math, and writing. Says virtual schedule is not developmentally appropriate.

Leigh Kresge has a 3rd header and kindergartener. Says her kindergartener is “frustrated, bored, and heartbreakingly disappointed” in kindergarten. Says the teachers are fantastic and material is y the problem. It’s just too much for one day. #RPSBoard

Chandra Smith is a grandparent concerned about the length of time their third grader is spending in front of the screen. #RPSBoard

Hannah Abbey has a Kindergartener in RPS and wants to decrease the number of daily hours students are required to complete. #RPSBoard

Liz Collins has a 5th grader and says the first week has been nothing short of miraculous but the online time is too long. Theyre seeing signs of irrationality, anxiety, and stress in their child. #RPSBoard

Sarah Blackburn is appreciative of the Herculean effort that’s gone into this school year but 9-3 is too long to expect children to sit and focus at a computer. #RPSBoard

Brigid Prior supports streamlining the synchronous part of the school schedule as it’s nearly impossible to jump on and off zoom multiple times a day. #RPSBoard

Karen Call has a kindergartener and says the teacher is amazing but their daughter can’t be on a computer all day. #RPSBoard

Margaret Cook is the parent of a child with special needs. Says virtual learning is impossible for them. Feels like the district has completely neglected and left behind families of children with special needs. They don’t have a stay at home parent and most day programs don’t

accept students with special needs. Begs for them to reopen schools for children with special needs ASAP. #RPSBoard

Amanda Reisner is proud of her colleagues but is concerned with the length of the school day. #RPSBoard

Christina Sienkiewicz says the kindergarten day must be shortened as it is not healthy for students, parents/caretakers, or teachers. Proposes limiting synchronous screen time to one hour per day. #RPSBoard

Ellen Luckey says there’s great work RPS has done during the pandemic. They have 1 child with an IEP and 1 with a 504 plan. Doesn’t think there should be homework with virtual learning. They can’t take care of families needs if they are on a laptop from 915-3 and then

back on for hours helping them with homework after. They also noticed RPS laptops don’t allow printing directly from them. #RPSBoard

Allison Hefty has a kindergartener and wants the school afternoon hours reconsidered. Shorten computer time til noon and then do independent work in the afternoon. #RPSBoard

Rachel Beanland has 3 kids in RPS. Specifically concerned about elementary school instruction. Says 9-3 is untenable. #RPSBoard

Sarah Revell has 2 kids and teachers are doing amazing but they have concerns about the length of the school day. It’s too long. #RPSBoard

Bridgette Newberry says every day should be a Wednesday schedule for high school. #RPSBoard

Anthony Castellano has 4 kids in RPS and wants them to shorten the online component of the day. #RPSBoard

Valerie Catrow is thanking the Henderson Middle principal, teachers, and staff for the reopening process. #RPSBoard

My rate limit has been exceeded so I’m going to have to give it a break.

Heather McLees-Frazier says online learning is hard even for an extremely focused and highly motivated adult. Describes how their 9th grader lost interest, hope, and joy with school over the first week. #RPSBoard

Nicole Davis is concerned with the length of the school day for younger children. They are very happy with the teachers but the synchronous instruction is too long. #RPSBoard

Rebecca Mclauchlan is concerned about the intense 9-3 schedule for young children even with brain breaks. #RPSBoard

Allison Sowers says there is too much on screen time for everyone. Asks to consider a morning only or otherwise reduced schedule. #RPSBoard

Phillip Skaggs is overall very happy with the first week and had had a good experience with their 1st and 4th graders. says their 1st grader has been engaged with multiple breaks. #RPSBoard

Melissa Yeager is advocating for a shorter school day for elementary school students. Says the Wednesday schedule is perfect. Says ENCORE classes should be pre recorded and available for families at a time that works for them. #RPSBoard

Jeannie Bowker says they need to have the compassion and flexibility to shorten the length of the instructional day. #RPSBoard

. @AnsPerkins thanks all teachers for their effort in this virtual learning environment. Thinks we are ignoring the expertise of teachers who recognize the screen time is too long and 1-1 time/small groups in the afternoon would be more helpful. #RPSBoard

My potatoes and chicken are done so I’ve got some cooking to wrap up in the kitchen then I’ll be back. Most of the comments are all stating that we need to shorten the school day. #RPSBoard

Lol jk. The potatoes aren’t done. Back to live tweeting. #RPSBoard

Natalie Patino-Wright is super proud to be part of RPS but believes online learning gives an opportunity to make a more flexible spread out learning schedule. Looking at the screen all day got difficult by Friday and resulted in terrible headaches. #RPSBoard

Sarah Hunter is a teacher concerned with the sustainability of the amount of on screen synchronous learning for elementary students. Says prepping and converting 2 brand new curriculum to virtual learning is extending working hours by 3 hours daily. #RPSBoard

Tanya Shelton is a middle school teacher who journaled their perspective for the first week. Basically says the afternoon classes are hard. Says schedule isn’t sustainable. #RPSBoard

Meredith Thompson says all day zoom schedule isn’t working for any stakeholder. #RPSBoard

Melina Patterson says this is a lot of screen time for children and adults. Needs less synchronous time and or shorter school days. #RPSBoard

Meghan McSweeney is pleased with the communication from RPS and the effort of teachers/staff but is concerned with the length of the school day. #RPSBoard

Sarah Blom wants to advocate for the 1.5-2hour max screen time guidelines recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the WHO. #RPSBoard

Lauren West says after 4 days of online instruction the schedule is not working. Screen time is far past what VDOE recommends. #RPSBoard

Alyssa Krenik says we can’t continue this long of a schedule. #RPSBoard

Julie Fay is a Kindergarten teacher and doesn’t feel the time students are online is appropriate for their age. #RPSBoard

Chrissy Schlegel is a parent and teacher and supports virtual school but doesn’t think students should be staring at the screen as long as they are. #RPSBoard

BRB checking the potatoes again.

Dinner is served. I’m going to eat really quick and be back after. So far all comments have been “shorten the school day.” I’ll try to chime back in if there’s a comment that isn’t that.

Cristina Franco is a student at the Success Center and feels good studying there. Says the schedules are very good and it allows them to study and do many more things. They have helped them out so they can graduate. #RPSBoard

Anne Shields is shouting out the world of the Community Walks RPS team. Says the walks accomplished the intention of reaching the greater community and setting families up for success but also supported the creation of deeper community connections. #RPSBoard

Maggie is a 7th grader at Albert Hill who says 7 hours is way too long even with a 30 minute break. They need the school days to be shorter. #RPSBoard

Adrian Hughes is a senior at George Wythe High and thinks RPS should have trained the teachers better. It doesn’t make sense that teachers don’t fully know how to work everything on google meet. #RPSBoard

Darrin Thomas says community walks were a safe and necessary outreach tool to inform families about RPS plan for reopening. #RPSBoard

And we’re back. Picking back up on page 43 of public comment.

Lee Downey says great job on getting the kids back to school. Your team nailed it and deserves to “drop the mic.” #RPSBoard

Tara McCrone is concerned for the well being of students, parents and RPS staff. Concern seems to be around the length of time in class. #RPSBoard

Brian Kreckman is the parent of 3 students and says the current model of virtual learning defies the screen time limits they’ve imposter at home for physical and emotional development health. Spoke to their optometrist and there’s a heightened risk of nearsightedness.

Armoni Johnson is a communities in schools site coordinator and says RPS canvassing provided CIS with opportunity to collaborate with various school support members. #RPSBoard

Stephanie Walker is a parent and says the schedule interpretation doesn’t support the call for love and grace. #RPSBoard

Kendall Short says there needs to be clarification on how much time in a 90 minute and 60 minute is asynchronous and synchronous. Teachers have no idea what admin is looking for. #RPSBoard

Sydney Batman is a 5th grade teacher who says the demands are simply too much. Fears burn out from exhaustion. #RPSBoard

Wanda Thompson is a teacher that says virtual teaching has presented many challenges they didn’t anticipate such as fatigue from hours on screen and exhaustion from hours of planning. Wants school day reduced. #RPSBoard

Ingrid Thomas is a teacher with the secondary success center that says one of their benefits is it allows students that had to drop out a chance to complete high school. #RPSBoard

Carmen Slayton is a parent of 2 students and wants the board to reconsider the length and intensity of the current school day. #RPSBoard

Lanza Gregory is a staff member at RPS Success Center and is most proud of the flexibility of the schedule for their students. #RPSBoard

Kaitlin Mendez is writing about the LIEP (formerly ESL) program that supports high school students who are over age and under credited by offering a flexible evening schedule. #RPSBoard

Mikesha Robinson is concerned with engaging students for 90 minutes. Feels there are mixed messages about what they are supposed to do. Says Wednesday’s schedule works well. #RPSBoard

Theodore Dubinsky asks if there is any reason why students have to be on their computer screens for as much time as is being asked. #RPSBoard

Megan Petzold is a teacher concerned about the breakout rooms because they are without supervision. Says it’s not safe. #RPSBoard

Kimberly Wolf has a child that had a great first week But is aware of other children not having as smooth of a time. #RPSBoard

We are ending public comment. The summary here is.... the school day is mad long and that ish needs to change ASAP. #RPSBoard

Now they are receiving policy revisions due to General Assembly changes for a second read and action. They didn’t have any questions on them before the 1st read and now. They are up for a vote tonight. Owen is waiting for a motion. No one is making one. Finally Burke did.

There is no discussion. They are going to a vote.

Yes: Doerr, Barlow, Gibson, Young, Sapini, Cosby, Page, Burke, Owen
No:

#RPSBoard

Now they have personnel actions.

Those were approved with Gibson abstaining, Sapini and Cosby voting no. #RPSBoard

Now they are updating the salary schedules for Instructional Assistants and Assistant Principals. The new salary scheduled for IAs involved decompression based on years of tenure. Starting salary for IAs is 6% higher than neighboring districts. #RPSBoard

For APs, the schedule has decompression based on years of tenure. No change to starting salary as current salary is 5.5% higher than neighboring districts. #RPSBoard

Gibson moves that they vote on this at the next meeting so the staff members impacted and community members have an opportunity to review the documentation. Admin is amenable to that. Motion is seconded by Barlow. #RPSBoard

Sapini asks if they are voting and discussing this time or discussing it next time or what? They could discuss it both meetings with each motion. Sapini has another question. On page 31 can they explain why there’s a decrease in a particular area. I’m confused on the answer.

The answer is “there wouldn’t be a decrease” but I’m very unclear on why. It’s very convoluted and confusing. #RPSBoard

Page asks if implementing this is time sensitive. Answer is yes in that the board wanted this to be effective 10/1. #RPSBoard

Sapini asks if substitutes were included in this. Hudascko says no, that wasn’t included in the boards final budget. #RPSBoard

Now voting on postponing the vote to next meeting.

Yes: Page, Cosby, Young, Sapini, Doerr, Barlow, Gibson, Burke, Owen
No:

Passes unanimously. #RPSBoard

Next up is budget transfers to transfer contracted occupational and physical therapists to bring those positions in house. #RPSBoard

This passes unanimously. #RPSBoard

Now there are travel and district activity requests. Burke wants to attend the new board chair and vice chair orientation that was held on 8/31. Cost was $250. Motion is approved on a 8-0 vote with Young abstaining. #RPSBoard

Now we are on the update on the facilities use agreement for virtual learning. Kamras says they submitted draft MOU to the city last week. In convo today the city attorney’s office recommended the city not enter into a MOU but instead RPS enter into agreements w/ each provider.

So far Peter Paul, RBHA, and YMCA have been identified as providers. Question for the board is if they want to do that. Owen and Burke were part of the convo. Owen says she doesn’t think they are ready to decide that. Burke says go ahead with questions. Burke says neighboring

counties MOUs are with the providers. Jonnell Lilly says the rationale is that since the city is not providing the services, they should not enter into an agreement that holds them liable. City sees themselves as the facilitator of providing grants. #RPSBoard

Cosby says that answers her question about the rationale. Doerr is confused about what they are being asked right now. Kamras is trying to simplify. Question is: is the board comfortable entering into an agreement with each provider which would make them have a more active role

in overseeing the centers. Doerr says she would like to understand more about what that means for RPS like what RPS would actually be responsible for. She would be amenable to signing individual MOUs as long as they are all the same and in the spirit of signing the MOU w/ city.

Page says they need to know how this changes the dynamics of the agreement. Need more information. #RPSBoard

Barlow wants to know who selected these entities to be program administrators. Kamras says the city. Barlow is disappointed because he was under the impression that the city set up these partnerships and would take an active role in administering them. This is different from what

they originally were presented. #RPSBoard

Barlow says the city selected these programs, they should have some skin in the game in administering these programs. #RPSBoard

Gibson says she doesnt want to feel like shes saying it but “I told you so.” She’s also disappointed they issued a MOU to the city without sharing it with the board. Thinks there should have been public review before it got sent to the city. #RPSBoard

Ms. Lilly, the attorney, says the MOU was in a draft form and the goal was just to gather feedback from the city for the board to consider in their review of the MOU. #RPSBoard

Sapini says previous board members said what he was going to say. Cosby quotes Malcolm X “it feels like we’ve been hoodwinked and bamboozled.” #RPSBoard

Burke asks: 1) what exactly would be RPS role? 2) will someone on RPS team have to monitor the programs?

Kamras says they would likely to have some oversight. Says it’s a legal question on if there’s added liability in setting the arrangement up this way.

#RPSBoard

Young says he would hate for legalese to get in the way of providing support for families in need. #RPSBoard

Page calls for equity in the providers. #RPSBoard

Owen shares her deep disappointment over the situation. She isn’t comfortable with students in school buildings if it isn’t safe to operate school to begin with. Says the city has other spaces they could have used for this. #RPSBoard

Now we are getting a school reopening report from Kamras. #RPSBoard

He’s thanking everyone right now for their contributions toward reopening with love. #RPSBoard

Kamras says next week he hopes to have more to share about the schedules and if any adjustments make sense. He wants to move with urgency but also be deliberate by not making sudden changes without thought. Right now he’s collecting feedback. #RPSBoard

Young asks if they have attendance or login data. #RPSBoard

Doerr is looking for more structured feedback like surveys. #RPSBoard

Doerr also wants to plug that the students who changed schools through rezoning May need a little extra support. #RPSBoard

Gibson blasts the admin for not having a document associated with the reopening presentation. Urges the need for attendance data citing the RTD article that had data that was later retracted. Says they should be talking about staff members who have gotten sick. #RPSBoard

Gibson wants to know how many tablets were ordered and how many chromebooks are still on order and do the students without chromebooks have access to get online. Speaks to the long day feedback they were getting. #RPSBoard

She is concerned about the lack of parental controls on the laptops to prevent them from tabbing and playing games during the day. She’s also concerned about the variety between the schools. #RPSBoard

Page says we need to hear the entire story from everyone and get feedback from the entire city. Barlow says they should be leery of writing off all the existing feedback because he has also heard from educators. Page jumps in and cuts him off to emphasize needing feedback from

the entire district. Owen tried to regain control. Barlow continues with his point, Page interrupts again. #RPSBoard

Sapini asks if the admin is just sitting back waiting on feedback before creating a plan or do they have a plan to address the concerns already? #RPSBoard

Doerr asks for clarity for teachers around policy of school day length. How do they get the message to teachers about no homework/assignments. #RPSBoard

Gibson points out the dichotomy of thanking teachers for the great job they are doing and simultaneously not listening to the feedback that the length of the school day is too long. #RPSBoard

Burke brings up extending the school year due to covid. May need to look at shortening the school day and extending the school year because students are required to have a certain number of seat hours. #RPSBoard

Kamras says don’t forget we’re on day 5 and we need to be deliberate with any change considered. Says he’ll have attendance data broken down at next week’s meeting. Says they have been encouraged at number of students logging on. #RPSBoard

Says they can give more concrete updates on tech at next week’s meeting. #RPSBoard

Karmas says there were 12 teacher vacancies on day 1 that were filled with long term subs. That’s the lowest number it has been. Says just a couple years ago they were north of 60 vacancies. #RPSBoard

Now we’re on the VDOE MOU update. The next corrective action plan meeting is later this month so he’ll have more of an update then. #RPSBoard

Now we are receiving for first read the SCORE document. This is the student conduct policy. #RPSBoard

There are a lot of edits in SCORE with the levels of intervention and responses. They have added a number of alternatives to suspension. #RPSBoard

Gibson knows they got comments from Legal Aid Justice Center and would like to implement revisions they’ve suggested. She would also like to bring students together to review the document. She’d also like district wide discipline data. #RPSBoard

Owen says they need to vote on this by the end of September and the vote is scheduled for next week. Says there were teachers on the SCORE committee. #RPSBoard

Doerr wants a refresher on why they are voting on this now versus when school let out. She also wants to know the implications for delay. Wants to know implications of SCORE and school discipline in a virtual environment. #RPSBoard

Harry Hughes says per state law they have to give parents and students a code of conduct within 30 days of the start of the school year. Says they were more focused on reopening with love which is why this is happening so late. Cites a number of policies that apply in virtual.

Barlow also supports legal aid updates. Asks what ability do they have to amend the policies during the school year? Hughes has to review model guidance to answer the question. #RPSBoard

Gibson says “we’ve been talking Black Lives Matter, well this is it.” #RPSBoard

Gibson is looking for a more holistic discussion that includes how this plays a role with removing SROs from schools. Says these things all have to work together.

Cosby is asking what they need to do to get discipline data because they’ve asked for it before. #RPSBoard

Kamras is clarifying that they can wait on updating the SCORE... it would just mean leaving the existing SCORE document in place. Kamras says he just felt strongly that they made updates for this year. #RPSBoard