Thread by @socialistdogmom

after wandering this weird industrial office space for twenty minutes, i finally found the albemarle county school board meeting by following all the cops.

this space has everything you need in a meeting venue: difficult to find, dark, terrible acoustics, not very many chairs

the dudes in suits whose backs you see to me are creigh deeds & dave toscano

before we get to the agenda, we’re taking a little tour of albemarle tech, which is actually a pretty cool space (for students. not really for public meetings.)

cvilletomorrow.org/news/article/3…

i suspect this meeting, which hasn’t actually started yet, will not end at 3pm as predicted on the agenda.

“in terms of our legislative priorities, the board’s highest priority is adequate funding.”
they’ve got a couple of legislators & legislative aides at the table today.

a school board member asks legislators if they can do something to iron out fluctuations in the composite index - apparently “a couple individuals sold some stock, sold some businesses” and the county saw a $2bil increase in income.

i hope i heard that right. that sounds like a hell of a lot of money. again, the acoustics in this space are fucking abysmal. i’m maybe 25 feet away from this man and i can barely understand him.

we’re talking bus safety! the extended stop arms on school buses decreased cars passing stopped buses by 2/3, but it’s not a panacea — any time a car passes a stopped bus, it’s a potentially fatal situation.

the county has 220 school buses, with about 160 on the road every day. at $2000 per extended stop arm, that’s quite a chunk of money to outfit them all.

other bus safety options include cameras on buses they record a clip of cars who pass stopped buses. these are paid for by a third party vendor at no cost to the county. video would be sent to police, motorists fined $250. (does the vendor get a cut of the ticket???)

there are some questions about the legality of the cameras. creigh deeds says he’s looking into other localities already doing this.

we’re talking about broadband access but i can’t stop thinking about the school board member who used the phrase “that’s a whole pocket of worms” like twenty minutes ago. it’s can. can of worms. why are you putting worms in your pockets?

school board chair & civility fascist kate acuff now talking about student mental health as a component of school safety. gosh i bet it’s bad for students’ mental health when you sic cops on their parents in front of them.

“looking not only at preventing an external intruder, but focusing on the mental health of our students,” she says, citing the rising rates of students on medication “for their mental health”

this is an issue close to creigh deeds’ heart — folks outside virginia may not remember his son’s 2013 suicide
washingtonpost.com/local/virginia…

this figure seems shocking to me, but deeds says there are only 1600 psychiatrists in virginia. no wonder it’s so hard to get in to see one.

ooof this sounds awful but a man at the table claims this program helps students: anonymous surveys where every student had to “nominate” a student they think is being bullied or needs help from a counselor.

just a reminder that i can’t tell men apart and there are no nameplates on the table today.

are there other positions schools can hire for to fulfill the testing & administrative functions school counselors fill so counselors can spend more time counseling students?

a school board member now broaching the subject of the @hatefreeacps proposal to ban hate symbols in schools. (remember, city schools just read their resolution to do this last night!)

delegate steve landes says “it’s literally a legal question” and thinks it might be better off to leave it “informal” and says administrators could just tell students when they think their clothing is “inappropriate” rather than making a rule

toscano now bringing up the city school’s resolution - the language linked the imagery to the 4th circuit decision re: material disruption in the educational environment.

one board member brings up the lawsuit ACPS faced a while back over a t-shirt (in 2004 there was a suit re: and NRA shirt)
readthehook.com/94605/cover-bo…

“we had a difference of opinion over how they wanted to dictate how we establish our policy” - that’s a weird way to refer to arresting members of @hatefreeacps at a school board meeting

“we are preparing you to become responsible citizens,” he says. he cites “short short shorts” as the kind of clothing that violate community norms & require intervention. very cool. being a racist is the same as being sexualized.

the district has an RFP out for a reporting system for instances of racist & other harassing behavior. “if we start to see hot spots in our schools...” “or we may find that it doesn’t rise to the level of extreme.”
“i for one don’t appreciate data-free conversations.”

god forbid we just listen to the scores of people of color sharing their experiences. this white guy needs data to even begin to consider that racism might be real.

“the safest place for kids is in schools” says one board member. he says the media focuses on “rare school shootings.”