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to be quite transparent with you all, i do not even know what the charlottesville city schools 'school health advisory board' even is but i saw it on the calendar and we're all about to find out together.
i just really like meetings.
i just really like meetings.
i won't be able to stay for the whole meeting, though, because there's a joint session of the planning commission & city council tonight AND a meeting of the police civilian review board. i'll attend a portion of all three meetings and all of none of them, unfortunately.
i got confused and accidentally ended up in a line of buses in front of the high school and a bunch of high schoolers laughed at me but i have located the division administration annex. the meeting is in... the lobby. this is a day full of firsts. can’t wait to see what this is!
people at the table: the district’s PE coordinator, uva hospital’s teen & young adult outreach person, a hospital trauma prevention specialist, a parent, sherry kraft from the school board, and a couple folks i missed....
in the middle of an earnest conversation about crisis intervention for students who may be at risk of harming themselves, someone’s phone’s personal assistant program activated & said “i’m sorry, that may be beyond my capabilities!”
some boards are wholesome, like the library board. the school health advisory board seems, so far, to be one of those rare bodies that really does seem to operate in a wholesome, sincere, good faith fashion for a clear good. (SHAB, don’t make me regret this early judgment!)
i wish i’d noticed these meetings on the calendar before. i’d love to know what kind of conversations they’ve had about race-based trauma in the last year and a half.
i wonder if this board has had conversations related to the ongoing issue of confederate imagery in schools? @hatefreeacps have y’all connected with them on this? it’s definitely affecting kids’ mental well being
a lot of conversation about the importance of the school climate studies & how they use that information to keep students safe & make school a comfortable environment for them, but mostly in a general sense.
for some reason it’s more awkward being the only observer at a totally normal meeting with nothing actually interesting going on than it is to observe a contentious meeting where the participants are actively hostile & opposed to my presence.
i think in the latter situation, it more clearly feels like i’m there as a representative of the public, relaying information people want and need. when there’s nothing really going on i just feel like a creepy stranger who wandered into an unlocked office.
glad to hear the board talking about consent — “the absence of a yes is a no.”
this is so important.
“i’ve seen sexuality education taught as slut shaming — that’s not sexuality education!”
this is so important.
“i’ve seen sexuality education taught as slut shaming — that’s not sexuality education!”
a comprehensive update of the family life standards is coming soon, the health & PE coordinator for the district says (would love to know who is doing this update - where’s it coming from? the state? the district? what will it look like? who gets input?)
ah, we’re talking about SOLs, so state level standards. one woman, who works with LGBT youth, says the current standards have some problematic elements, but many of the standards are broad & vague enough that they can be interpreted in good ways. interesting perspective.
bureaucracy responds to biology: there arose a need for puberty to be addressed earlier!
sorry, i’m so used to meetings being such horrible quagmires of hidden financial motivations, racial animus, neoliberal posturing, personal beefs... i’m all worked up at how wholesome it is to talk about sensitively addressing children’s concerns about their changing bodies.
i need to leave if i’m gonna be on time to the joint session of city council & the planning commission about the capital improvement program budget. pleased to have discovered two new boards today to keep on my calendar (this & the ECC from this morning, which was NOT wholesome)
sad to have to walk out during this discussion about non-candy motivational incentives in classrooms! but it’s time for the next meeting.
(stickers, though. my ninth grade world history teacher put stickers on good assignments and we all pretended we didn’t care and were too cool but even at that age we fucking loved those cool stickers)
WHAT is this traffic? i’ve been in my car for 20 minutes. CHS is 2.5 miles from city hall. luckily i can watch the beginning of the meeting from my car
