On Thursday November 30th, CCS school board and division leadership met with the CHS community including its family, students and staff to discuss their ideas for the new reform movement set in place for the rest of the year. The topic of the meeting was “CHS Safety and Security updates.”
The meeting itself was different entirely from most other CHS school board meetings. The beginning half of the meeting was informational as the division administration elaborated on their goals for the school year moving forward. There was then a conversational time period where the group would split into small groups with a trained facilitator to begin expressing their own concerns.
During the informational portion of the meeting CHS senior Margaret Heaphy got the meeting started by introducing herself on behalf of the student body, and mentioned her schoolwide nickname “Swaggy Maggie”. As a student and senior at the high school, she feels very loved in seeing how the community is all coming together to support CHS in this time, and she’s really feeling the love from the motivation within the community. Next Dr. Royal A. Gurley, CCS superintendent, touched base with the community about how he wanted to acknowledge most of the students are doing their best and the board acknowledges the positive impacts that the CHS student body is having when the students are doing what they should.
Moving into the informational portion Ms. Kimberly Powell, CCS chief operations officer, led through points of reforms we can look forward to seeing in the future. She told the group “Security and accountability need to be 50/50.” Acknowledging we need more safety from the overwhelming concern from the community, while also acknowledging all included in the issue need to take accountability to make this a reality. The completed portion of the division’s goals for CHS is mostly within the new change to visitor entry. The school will now have visitor vestibule improvements, meaning more manpower on the doors, more technology for security, and improved staffing and protocols for our entrance and exit into the highschool.
Ms. Powell also spoke about the current changes for behavioral support mechanisms. ISBI (In School Behavioral Intervention) will now be a curriculum based learning time with a structure to keep kids engaged. Knight School has also just begun (see Knight School article for more information), with the school board working out the logistics to keep up the good start our Knightschool has.
Ms. Powell then spoke about the actions in progress to elevate CHS. More radio connections for staff and better communication protocol improvements will be implemented. Speaking again more to the staffing issue within CHS, she explains their work towards filling staff vacancies while also gaining more subs for classes. There is also a talk of more CSA/SSO’s. Restroom remodeling for both the Highschool and the middle schools will also be starting over this coming summer so we can expect the first restroom remodels by the 2024 school year start. This remodel makes the bathrooms have increased supervision while also having increased privacy. New gender neutral bathrooms will be built with ceiling to floor stalls lined in a hallway formation.
The school board is still debating topics such as cell phone expectations, weapon detection systems being the “Ceia opengates system”, system of metal detecting used at events held on UVA grounds and other events throughout Charlottesville. Police support is in action as another conversation, accordinging to KTR correspondents this idea was not supported by most of the attendees of the listening session.
Dr. Katina Otey, Chief Academic Officer, gave us a bit more insight within the current topic of debates, including the mysterious Yondr pouches students were expecting from the beginning of the year. Yondr met with admin in October and talked about the variables but divided in opinion, so although it is just a conversation at the moment, our current cell phone policy will be the only current action in place at the time. Students can expect a lot more of the “Off and away” statements for the time being.
The meeting itself moved away from the informational portion into smaller groups with a trained faciliator to speak on their own hopes and dislikes in a smaller setting for more voices to be heard. This tactic was very effective. Walking from group to group you could see everyone engaging and expressing their personal thoughts and concerns. These conversations were written down and then shared with school board representatives to look over and take into consideration.
For the end of the night groups decided on one or two points to share with the whole group. Most groups shared the idea of transparency they thought was necessary. Families want the full stories and they want a complete understanding of all that happens within CHS. They are done with relying on their students to pass on information as the only “truthful” source. Overall the meeting was a success, the community voiced how they felt their concerns were heard and it contained all the information students family and staff alike wanted to know. Next meeting will be held this Thursday, December the 7th at 5pm, and will cover the responses from the school board about the conversations held from the last meeting. These meetings are not strictly adult based, students are encouraged to join into the conversation and voice their concerns and ideas as well. It’s encouraged to have an involved student body at these following meetings so the student body can use their voice in this time of action.
