Tag: Dr. Rosa Atkins

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Moving forward: School board votes to continue in-person reopening plans

Charlottesville City Schools Superintendent Rosa Atkins gave her stamp of approval to the school board’s decision to move forward with in-person classes at the beginning of the school year. PC: Eze Amos

After nearly six months of remote learning, Charlottesville City Schools is moving forward with its plans to begin in-person classes at the start of the new year.

During its virtual meeting last Thursday, the Charlottesville School Board unanimously voted to allow the district’s COVID-19 advisory committee to continue working on its reopening proposal, which received a stamp of approval from CCS Superintendent Dr. Rosa Atkins earlier this month.

Under the current proposal, preschool through sixth grade will have in-person classes four days a week, starting January 11. Seventh grade and up will be at school twice a week beginning February 1, and do independent work the other days.

The board will take a final vote on the plan during its December 16 meeting.

According to a binding intent form sent out at the beginning of the month, 2,296 students, or 66 percent of the district, want to attend in-person classes. Staff are reaching out to the roughly 17 percent of families who have not filled out their form yet.

Because the district is currently using all of its bus drivers to deliver meals and transport special needs students, it plans to use CARES funds to contract additional drivers, who will help serve the 373 students who said they cannot get to school without the bus.

Though COVID safety restrictions make providing large-scale bus service very difficult, the district will also work to accommodate as many of the 561 other students who requested bus rides—but could still get to school without them—as possible.

In stark contrast to previous surveys, a majority of the district’s 470 teachers indicated they felt safe enough to return to the classroom.

Seventy-two percent of kindergarten through sixth grade teachers volunteered to do face-to-face classes, along with 65 percent of those teaching seventh through 12th grade.

However, 139 teachers and 24 instructional assistants across all grades asked to continue to work remotely. Most said they were either high-risk, or taking care of a loved one who is.

An additional 27 teachers and nine instructional assistants requested paid medical leave through the federal government’s Families First Coronavirus Response Act, which requires select employers to provide their staff with paid leave for reasons related to COVID-19.

Though the district so far has approved every complete request for leave, Charlottesville Education Association President Jessica Taylor accused administrative staff of not properly communicating with teachers in need of ADA accommodations.

“Educators who submitted paperwork should receive acknowledgment of receipt without having to make numerous follow-up inquiries,” she said during Thursday’s public comment. “There’s [also] been a breakdown in understanding…One CEA member was given a choice to either provide face-to-face services for a student or resign. She chose to resign.”

“We don’t want any teachers resigning. COVID will not last forever. We’re going to get through this,” said Atkins. “We need them. We want them on board.”

Also during public comment, parents voiced their concerns with the binding intent form.

“There are families like my own who are choosing on the intent form to go in-person, even though it is not our preference, for fear we will get locked out if we change our minds later,” said Maria Stein.

While the city’s current numbers are low compared to the rest of Virginia, health experts anticipate case spikes in the coming weeks due to winter weather and holiday gatherings.

“We will handle individual cases,” responded Atkins. But now, “in order to plan for transportation, make a master schedule, and assign teachers, we have to know who’s going to be in-person, who has elected to continue with virtual.”

During the rest of the meeting, board members discussed class schedules for middle and high schoolers at length, taking issue with the large amount of asynchronous learning.

The district currently plans to divide each grade level into two groups made up of both in-person and virtual learners. When one group of students is in the classroom, their classmates in the same group will watch the class live on Zoom. Meanwhile, students in the other group will work on independent assignments from home during school hours.

Having far fewer live classes worries board members that students will not progress academically.

“To me, that takes us back to last spring when the quality of what was happening wasn’t real good and we were all scrambling,” said school board member Sherry Kraft. “We’ve done so much work to provide quality instruction.”   

But with the limited staffing available, asynchronous learning is impossible to avoid, explained CHS Principal Eric Irizarry.

“Every student’s schedule is so unique at the high school, and we’re the only high school. We have two and half chemistry teachers, we have one orchestra teacher, one band,” he said. “A student that comes into the building, they’re going to need to see all of those teachers for that day. There’s not a way to run a concurrent master schedule.”

Still, the board urged district staff and the COVID-19 advisory committee to look at different ways to deliver instruction during the times set aside for independent work, and present their findings at the December 16 meeting.

“I would rather them continue to be virtual then go to that model,” said board chair Jennifer McKeever of middle and high schoolers. “We are small enough to solve the problem, and not have three days of asynchronous learning.”

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Coronavirus News

Tough call: Albemarle allows in-person learning for select students, while Charlottesville opts for all-virtual reopening

Charlottesville City Schools will reopen virtually for all students, while Albemarle County will allow a limited selection of students to participate in in-person learning. PC: Eze Amos

After weeks of discussion and debate, the verdict is in: Charlottesville City Schools will reopen virtually for all students, while Albemarle County will allow a limited selection of students to participate in in-person learning. Both districts finalized their decisions at school board meetings on Thursday.

During the division’s virtual meeting, ACPS staff detailed the division’s five stages of reopening. Superintendent Matt Haas recommended the board approve the second stage for the first nine weeks of school. Most students will begin the year learning online only, but the plan makes an exception for students with inadequate internet access that cannot be improved, those with special needs who cannot fulfill their individual education plans at home, and English learners with low proficiency levels in fourth through 12th grades.

These students—an estimated 1,000 to 1,500—will be put into pods of 10 or fewer, and paired with a learning coach, who will assist them with their online coursework. Everyone will be required to wear masks and adhere to social distancing within the school buildings, which will be regularly cleaned and disinfected, among other mitigation measures. Bus service will be provided for families who request it.

All students and staff members coming into the school buildings will be doing so voluntarily, Haas emphasized throughout the meeting. 

In the coming week, Albemarle will release more details on how it’s revamping virtual learning, which will include both asynchronous and synchronous coursework, and what actions it will take if a student or staff member involved in in-person instruction contracts COVID-19.

Ahead of Charlottesville’s virtual meeting, Superintendent Rosa Atkins recommended that the board approve an all-virtual model for the first nine weeks of school, pointing toward the rising cases and positivity rate in the area and many remaining unanswered safety questions. She emphasized that virtual learning in the fall would greatly differ from the experience offered in the spring, and would include a variety of new features, from social-emotional learning to peer engagement.

Both divisions will revisit their decisions in the middle of the first quarter to evaluate whether they will move forward with reopening, or stay in the same phase for the next school quarter.

Though all classes will be online, Charlottesville plans to host individual in-person, socially-distanced meet-and-greets with teachers, which students and their families will sign up for. Additionally, it is possible that a small number of students in great need of in-person instruction will be grouped into pods, and have classes in outdoor settings, said Atkins.

About 200 families in Charlottesville have indicated they need child care, she added. The division is working with community partners—including the Boys & Girls Club, Piedmont Family YMCA, and City of Promise—to figure out how to best provide assistance. Students could participate in virtual learning while at a child care center.

Feelings about virtual reopening were mixed in the county. Board members Judy Le and Ellen Osborne emphasized the various risks of in-person learning and lack of solid data on how the virus transmits between children, and preferred to start with stage one, or all-virtual classes.

“I just don’t feel like I can put our most vulnerable students into the middle of a grand experiment, and have them take that home to their communities,” said Osborne.

However, board member Katrina Callsen expressed concern for the families she has heard from who are unable to adequately participate in distance learning, particularly those from marginalized backgrounds.

The board initially did not agree to reopen under stage two, with members David Oberg and Graham Paige siding with Le and Osborne against the plan. However, Oberg changed his mind after a 10 minute break, and voted to approve it, along with Callsen, Jonno Alcaro, and Kate Acuff.

Albemarle parents and staff were also split on reopening plans, per the division’s latest surveys. Out of nearly 7,000 responses, 71 percent of parents ranged from “somewhat” to “extremely” concerned about sending their student to school for in-person learning in the fall, but 67 percent preferred that the division adopt a hybrid reopening model.

Meanwhile, 65 percent of staff respondents did not feel comfortable returning to the classroom. 

If the pandemic worsens in the area—especially after UVA students return—Haas has the authority to revert the division all the way back to stage one without approval from the board.

While the Charlottesville School Board’s vote approving an all-virtual reopening was unanimous, results from a phone and web survey were split. A majority of staff (about 60 percent) preferred an all-virtual reopening, but families showed nearly equivalent support for face-to-face and online-only learning. 

During public comment, most speakers advocated for a hybrid model, particularly for younger students and those from marginalized backgrounds. 

“There is no clear consensus among families about the best path forward…I’m not sure why we are straying from the multipath system that was first designed,” said Richard Feero, who works for Abundant Life Ministries and lives in the Prospect community. “Choosing an all-virtual path to start the school year punishes working-class, predominantly Black and brown families in the city….Why not just give this small segment the option to have their children attend school in-person?”

During its school board meeting on August 6, Charlottesville staff will give a presentation with more details on how it will implement distance learning for students in special education, ESL, and preschool. 

Albemarle’s next meeting is scheduled for August 13.

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Coronavirus News

School’s (not) out: City schools debate reopening

The Charlottesville School Board convened virtually on Monday. PC: Staff photo

As new cases of the novel coronavirus pop up each day, it’s become increasingly difficult for area schools to decide how and when to reopen. And after over five hours of discussion and debate on Monday night, the Charlottesville School Board got no closer to a definite answer.

Last week, the district rolled out a proposal for reopening, which would send students in kindergarten through sixth grade to school for in-person classes—with social distancing guidelines and safety measures—four times a week. Seventh through 12th graders would be split into two groups and alternate between in-person and virtual classes throughout the week, but would work from home on Fridays. All students could opt in to online-only learning, ahead of September 8, the first day of school.

A number of parents, teachers, and other community members raised concerns about this model during public comment at Monday’s meeting, pointing to a variety of ways in-person classes could go awry. 

“I believe that people will get sick,” said Tess Krovetz, a second grade teacher at Jackson-Via Elementary. “Right now we can say with some confidence that COVID-19 does not affect children the same way it affects adults. But that’s because for the most part since March we’ve kept our children home and safe. Sending them back to school is a science experiment that can—and will—lead to trauma and loss.”

Krovetz and kindergarten teacher Shannon Gillikin penned an open letter to Superintendent Rosa Atkins and the school board in support of a virtual reopening, citing case spikes due to the state reopening, among many other concerns. To date, more than 150 staff members from across the district have signed it.

Instead of putting a large amount of time and effort into planning for in-person classes, they encouraged the board to focus on training teachers and parents for equitable distance learning.

Lashundra Bryson Morsberger was the only board member who fully supported an all-digital reopening. She believes there are “too many unknowns” about the virus, and that the community isn’t safe enough for in-person classes. She also thinks the proposed plan spreads staff too thin and does not adequately address concerns about contracting the virus, which could put them out of work “for months,” making it even more difficult to implement distance learning if schools had to shut down.

“We need to take this time to do the best plan that we can for virtual learning, instead of losing time now talking about a plan that probably in September will just be a distant memory,” she said.

Last week, more than 70 parents signed an open letter to the school district, asking for it to offer in-person classes five days a week.

Multiple speakers during public comment were strongly in favor of face-to-face classes, particularly for younger students, mentioning the equity and learning gaps exacerbated by distance learning in the spring. A significant number of parents in the district are unable to work from home, they said, and would be forced to find child care, which could lead to more risk of contracting and spreading the virus.

The board will make its final decision on either July 23 or 30.

“No matter what we do, we’re going to have someone upset with us,” concluded board member Juandiego Wade.

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Telling the truth: Local schools overhaul history curriculum

Adrienne Oliver, an instructional coach for Albemarle County Public Schools, believes all students will be able to see themselves in the history of the United States, once the Reframing the Narrative program is implemented. PC: John Robinson

As protests against police brutality continue around the country, school districts are tackling another form of systemic racism and oppression: whitewashed history. Since last year, Albemarle County Public Schools has been working to create an anti-racist social studies curriculum, elevating the voices and stories of marginalized people and groups, which are often misrepresented by (or entirely excluded from) textbooks. And now, the district is one step closer to implementing the curriculum—called Reframing the Narrative.

Last week, the district’s history teachers—joined by over a dozen partner organizations and more than 100 educators from Charlottesville City Schools, Virginia Beach City Public Schools, and other districts across the state—met virtually to begin constructing a more comprehensive and inclusive U.S. history curriculum as part of the Virginia Inquiry Collaborative.

Fully addressing our country’s legacy of slavery, racism, and inequity is not an easy task, and “dependency on textbooks of any kind will only preserve the status quo and dominant narratives,” says Adrienne Oliver, an ACPS instructional coach who participated in the virtual workshops. “The current state standards continue to uphold such narratives, and so a heavy reliance upon outsourced materials is, in my view, antithetical to our work.”

Rather than find new textbooks (Oliver says she has yet to see an anti-racist one), the curriculum will rely on relevant texts and resources, primary source materials, and classroom discussions and activities—all working to “resist a retelling of dominant narratives and put learning into students’ hands,” says Oliver.

After a team of editors reviews and refines the results of last week’s workshops, inquiry-based U.S. history units, containing learning plans and assessment tools, will be uploaded onto an online platform for ACPS teachers, along with those from CCS and other districts, to use starting this fall.

Under the anti-racist curriculum, all students will be able to see themselves in the history of the United States, examining it from a variety of non-traditional perspectives, says Oliver. Black and brown students, along with others from marginalized backgrounds, may feel more acknowledged and empowered, as they study untold stories of resilience and resistance.

The revamped history courses will also better prepare students, especially those who are white, to deal with uncomfortable issues in our country, points out Bethany Bazemore, who graduated from Charlottesville High School this year.

“The only way as a society we’re going to get past this is if white people learn to be uncomfortable,” says Bazemore, who is Black. “Black people have been uncomfortable for 400 years and counting.”

“You need to understand and reckon with your history to really address the problems of the present,” adds program leader John Hobson. “It’s all connected.”

Last summer, ACPS partnered with the Montpelier Foundation to jump-start the Reframing the Narrative program. With the support of a $299,500 grant from the Charlottesville Area Community Foundation, history teachers from the division participated in professional development workshops at Montpelier, along with other field experiences and learning opportunities, during the school year.

Through these initiatives, educators “are able to understand possibly their own bias, and reflect and grow from there,” says Virginia Beach social studies instructor Nick Dzendzel, a participant in the Virginia Inquiry Collaborative. “It provides a whole new atmosphere inside of a school [or] department for those educators to start pushing for what they know and want to be right for the students—and not just adhering to what’s been done before.”

The CACF grant also helps to pay teachers as they develop the new curriculum outside of school hours, and funds student field trips to Montpelier, “centering the voices and experiences of enslaved people and the descendant community” at the former plantation, says Oliver.

Next year, the process will start over again, as Albemarle teachers update the division’s world geography curriculum for freshmen and world history for sophomores. The following year, the eighth grade civics and 12th grade government curriculums will also get an anti-racist makeover.

In partnership with ACPS and other state school districts, Charlottesville City Schools also began updating its social studies curriculum last summer. Participating teachers (who receive a stipend) have taken professional development courses at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center focused on local Black history, as well as curriculum-writing workshops and field excursions around Charlottesville.

Last year, CCS Superintendent Dr. Rosa Atkins was among those appointed to the Commission on African American History Education, which is currently reviewing the history standards and practices for the entire state. By September 1, the commission will offer recommendations for enriched standards related to African American history, as well as cultural competency among teachers.

The white supremacist violence of August 11 and 12 was a catalyst, says Oliver, but these massive curriculum overhauls were years in the making. Grassroots organizers and activists, along with individual educators, have been advocating for and implementing anti-racist curriculums across Virginia for some time.

“If you’re doing this [alone] in your own classroom, it’s easy to get weighed down by barriers, by administrators, and by parents for working against the grain. It’s hard to do that every day,” says Virginia Initiative participant Sarah Clark, who teaches U.S. history in Virginia Beach. “But when you’re involved in projects like this, it’s like a rejuvenation…I’m not doing it alone.”

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Funding fight: City and school board struggle with budget as statewide activism gathers steam

Activists hold signs over the bypass to advocate for increased state investment in public schools. Photo: John Robinson

“FUND OUR SCHOOLS” read the twinkling electric signs over the Dairy Road footbridge on the evening of January 29. Students, parents, teachers, and activists held the individual letters, making the simple demand that the state devote more money to public education. The message was met with a stream of supportive honks from drivers on the 250 Bypass below. 

“We’re in this exciting moment where Democrats have control in both chambers,” said Brionna Nomi, education organizer at the Legal Aid Justice Center, which coordinated the demonstration. “So we’re hoping to make some movement on state funding legislation for public schools.”

In particular, the group supports bills in both the House of Delegates and State Senate that would repeal public education spending limits put in place after the 2008 recession.

The Charlottesville protest comes less than a week after hundreds of teachers from around the state rallied in Richmond to make similar demands. In Virginia, the state holds power over cities and counties when it comes to generating revenue and dispensing funds. Nomi says local districts have to pick up the slack for what the state does not provide, and that’s an undue burden. “We need to generate more revenue, and we believe that that’s the responsibility of legislators,” she says.

That burden was on display last week when the Charlottesville City School Board presented its annual budget request to City Council and the city manager. 

In part because of state funding cuts, the board requested a budget increase of $4.5 million. But City Manager Tarron Richardson said he’d hoped the figure would be more like $2.1 million. 

The city is trying to cut back its own budget, and the disparity between the school’s request and the city’s anticipated number is significant. “I want to help as much as we can, but that additional two-plus million will really impact us in terms of trying to close our gap,” Richardson said. 

The city increased the school’s budget by $2.7 million in fiscal year 2019 and $3.4 million in fiscal year 2020, for a total of $57 million last year.

The school district’s request provides for the creation of a handful of new positions, including an additional orchestra instructor for Walker Upper Elementary, where one conductor currently teaches 199 students, and a “specialist for annual giving,” a new position that would solicit philanthropic contributions to the public schools. “That’s a position the board has desired for quite a number of years,” said Superintendent Rosa Atkins.

Hundreds of students are enrolled in a new engineering program at Walker, but Buford Middle School doesn’t have sufficient engineering faculty, so the district also hopes to hire someone to keep the program running as those students transition schools.

But the bulk of the requested budget increase—$2.8 of the $4.5 million—would go toward insurance and salaries for teachers and staff. “We are in the people business,” said school board member Jennifer McKeever. “So much of this is so they continue to be insured and able to live around here.”

Charlottesville’s skyrocketing property values have serious effects on the schools. Teachers need to earn more to live here comfortably, and the school district receives less funding from the state. 

Virginia distributes money based on each district’s relative need, measured through a metric called Local Composite Index. LCI takes into account the value of property owned by each school district, and this year, CCS’s property value increased “about 23 percent,” according to Atkins. In the eyes of the state, CCS is less needy than other localities and will therefore receive less state money. That’s one reason the district’s request to the city was higher than Richardson’s ideal figure.

Council will have to work with the schools and the city manager’s office to close the gap between Richardson’s number and CCS’s request.

“I don’t have too many comments at this time, because we haven’t received the full presentation on our budget,” said Mayor Nikuyah Walker at the work session. “Once we have that meeting I’ll have a better understanding. Just in case people are wondering why I’m quiet.” 

Those discussions will continue through the spring, but according to Atkins, the budget may not be finalized until June.

Meanwhile, the long-term future of the district includes a major school reconfiguration. Buford will expand to include sixth graders, elementary schools will add fifth grade, and Walker will become a citywide preschool. The district plans on hiring an architectural firm this month, but there won’t be a cost estimate for the project until 2021. 

The city allocated $3 million to the project in its five-year Capital Improvement Plan, but some early estimates say the reconfiguration could cost as much as $58 million. 

“We will not know how much the project will cost until it gets at least partially through the design process,” says Michael Goddard, a senior project manager with the city. “As of the present, no funds have been allocated for construction of the project. It will be up to city leadership to direct funding for construction.”

 

Correction 2/5: Updated to reflect that the city has not yet hired a design firm for the school reconfiguration process. 

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History lesson: Local educators help expand Virginia’s African American history curriculum

Charlottesville City Schools Superintendent Dr. Rosa Atkins is among those appointed to the Commission on African American History Education. Photo by Eze Amos

Community leaders gathered at the University of Virginia October 28 for the first meeting of the Commission on African American History Education.

Charlottesville City Schools Superintendent Dr. Rosa Atkins is among those appointed to the commission, which was established by Governor Ralph Northam. The purpose, says Atkins, is “to recognize that the African American experience and contributions to the development of our country are significant and have not been fully told. [We want] to fill in those areas in which African American history has not been taught.”

The commission will review Virginia’s history standards and practices and make recommendations for enriched standards related to African American history. The group will also offer recommendations on what support is needed to ensure cultural competency among teachers.

Northam established the commission by executive order on August 24 during a ceremony to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in North America at Point Comfort in 1619.

“The important work of this commission will help ensure that Virginia’s standards of learning are inclusive of African-American history and allow students to engage deeply, drawing connections between historic racial inequities and their continuous influence on our communities today,”  Northam said in a press release.

Charlottesville City Schools came under fire last year for a New York Times/ProPublica piece highlighting longstanding racial inequities in city schools. Atkins says such disparities exist throughout the commonwealth, and that telling the story of African American history could be empowering for black students.

“Once our students, teachers, and community have truthful information about who African Americans are in our country and their role, it gives a degree of value to African American people and the experiences they have had, and it empowers them to look forward to the future and do more in our country,” says Atkins.

An enriched curriculum, she says, will help “all of our students to know the beauty—and the ugliness—of our country and of our commonwealth…and to appreciate the diversity of contributions to who we are today.”

Northam has appointed 34 people to the commission, including historians, teachers, school administrators, and community leaders from across the commonwealth. Also representing Charlottesville is Dr. Derrick P. Alridge, a professor of education and director of the Center for Race and Public Education in the South at UVA’s Curry School of Education. Members serve without compensation.

The commission will meet at least quarterly over the next year and publish a report with its findings and recommendations by July 1, 2020.

Atkins recognizes that adding more African American history to the Virginia curriculum is not an end-all-be-all.

“There are other cultures and other groups of people who have not been included in the Virginia history…and that have to be included,” says Atkins. “This is just one part of that hole.”

The commission’s next meeting will be held on December 16 in Farmville.