Thread by @socialistdogmom

it’s confusing and not always convenient but it is interesting to see the inside of different schools when the school board work sessions are held in locations other than the county office building. i’ve never been inside monticello high school before!

last time they had a work session at a high school i accidentally went to the wrong venue and was surprised to wander into a completely dark and empty lane auditorium. thanks @Knott_Katherine for reminding me it was here tonight!

tonight’s agenda is... lengthy. not a big crowd here in the monticello high school library, though. public comment is scheduled for 8:40pm. they’ve run mostly on time lately.

superintendent haas is talking about a school visit he made to crozet elementary earlier this week - 5th graders were planting seedlings to prevent runoff into parrot branch creek & made podcasts about itnbc29.com/clip/14788988/…rjGU

albemarle county schools employees selected the blue ridge area food bank as the recipient of the $1 donation they pay on a special charity jeans day which is coming up. sad to note that many albemarle county school children rely on the food bank.

brafb.org

haas jokes that the district is pretty casual and people wear jeans to work a lot, but this is a special day where you can wear jeans for a good cause.

the district mailed 16,000 brochures to area seniors about the gold card program - purchasing the card provides free access to sporting events, drama productions, and concerts at every school in the district. she says 250 applications have already come in.

“what we do impacts all of the community,” says the staff member speaking about the importance of engaging people who may not have children in school here.

superintendent haas addressing the enforcement of the new dress code policy prohibiting confederate imagery.

since the notice went out on march 11,
6 students have been counseled regarding confederate symbols.

only one of the six students was not immediately receptive. haas says he did not return to school for “several days” after being sent home for refusing to remove the confederate flag hat.

one student had a confederate flag as the icon for his computing ID and had had that since elementary school. he deleted the icon when asked.

board member katrina callsen was on a local radio show on 94.7 recently discussing the district’s new antiracism policy, along with three of the students who co-authored it.

katrina callsen and kate acuff have been discussing ideas for increasing community engagement. katrina says they’ll have more to present on that later. color me skeptical of any attempt by kate to engage in good faith in a healthy and productive with anyone.

a staff member now is presenting information to the board about the possibility of video live streaming the meetings. she says the largest cost would be for a person to man the cameras.

acuff asks how the board of supervisors, which also meets in lane auditorium handles it. another staff member says they have an operator that switches the views between the four cameras mounted in chambers.

there would be a $1000 startup cost for a piece of equipment to allow them to use the county’s cameras in lane auditorium. oberg moves to approve the spending & the plan.

it’ll go on a future consent agenda. there’s no reason they can’t stream these meetings. it’s good to see them move in that direction.

powerpoint time, everyone! there is some weird rustling sound coming through the speakers. it’s very distracting. dr hairston has a VERY sharp velvet blazer in a deep plum color.
this agenda item is set to last an hour and a half 😭

i think he has the microphone in his breast pocket?! it’s picking up his every move. someone get this man a lavalier mic.

oh my god it was in his PANTS POCKET. oberg finally snapped and asked him to take it out. what a relief.

“work session” is often a puzzling misnomer. this one will involve some actual activities.

sorry to anyone who relies on the audio recordings of these meetings - there aren’t enough mics and board members are not speaking into them.

the board is struggling with the activity. i am also confused. oberg has a notoriously short temper and is already starting to show some cracks.

hairston tells the board they all have a folder in front of them, one of three colors, and they’re to break into groups based on folder color. they appear to have been unequally distributed - i only see one purple folder?

koleszar defines equity as: “engaging all students so that they can become masters of their own learning such that how far they progress is based on their effort and not the advantages or disadvantages they may have started with”

oberg says (in paraphrase) it’s giving all students the opportunity to succeed regardless of their race, ethnicity, or economic status.

hairston, the presenter, personally defines equity as “creating a level playing field for all students” through “every day systems and practices.
the slide shows the adopted definition by the district.

this is my life now

https://twitter.com/socialistdogmom/status/1110697238643257345?s=21

i am less than 20 feet from the man who just spoke but i heard not one word of it. use the mics, y’all.

oberg says “we have to make sure every kid is optimized as a human being”

this might’ve been alcaro, tbh. they’re sitting next to each other with their backs to me. and you know i can’t tell men apart! i rely on them always being in their assigned seat in lane auditorium to know who is who.

https://twitter.com/socialistdogmom/status/1111405246641627138?s=21

we’ve switched presenters. i don’t know this person’s name, sorry!
he says systems not built with equity in mind may not have been built with inequity in mind, which is perhaps something this board should meditate on for a moment.
it is not enough to be not racist. be antiracist.

i wish this powerpoint were included in the linked documents on the agenda, but it is not.
they’re looking at the policy checklist now.

literally aching at the irony here. this school board actively ignored & shut out very qualified, informed, and engaged members of this community for over a YEuM1r

if i still drank, i’d keep a tally of the number of times i heard the phrase “equity lens” and use that for some kind of elaborate and depressing drinking ritual.

i just noticed school board member jason buyaki is missing from the meeting. he’s missed several meetings in recent memory. wonder what that’s about.

they’ve broken out into their small groups for an activity using the equity checklist. board member jonno alcaro is missing the activity - he’s been giving an interview to a tv reporter for the last five minutes.

they’re still in their small groups, but i have a correction: it isn’t velvet, it’s a corduroy with very narrow wales

https://twitter.com/socialistdogmom/status/1111402141715849216?s=21

it’s troubling that the school board did not in any way address the shooting threat they received last week. or the fact that the “ethnic cleansing” threat that closed charlottesville city schools for two days was made by an albemarle county student WHILE IN SCHOOL.

they’re talking about equity tonight. what are they doing about the fact that two albemarle county students made online threats to murder other students last week? that students are posting about murdering black and brown students from their classrooms?

we’re back from breakout sessions and doing reportbacks. it’s clear most of the participants did not understand the activity.

interestingly, the people giving coherent reportbacks are the staff/facilitators, not the school board members from each group. graham paige is the only board member who has even spoken since they got back.

truly just blown away that we’re almost at the end of this meeting and no member of this body has mentioned that two students made two separate felony threats to commit mass murder this month!

any plans to make sure kids who are “just bored in study hall” don’t make terroristic threats that close a neighboring locality’s entire school system for two days?

what is your plan to make sure students in albemarle county feel safe? how are teachers and counselors supporting students who know the two students missing from class since their arrests? would’ve been relevant updates for the meeting.

they’ve been talking about the breakouts all this time, sorry. oberg just said “this has been the best work session i’ve been to”
we’re scheduled for a ten minute break, but all that’s left is public comment. forging right ahead!

graham paige is reading the standard disclaimer (behave or the cops in the back will drag your ass out, if i can just paraphrase). there’s a spooky microphone feedback noise mostly drowning him own.

four people are signed up to speak. the first speaker says it stands out to him that if this equity checklist policy had come up a year ago, it probably wouldn’t have been passed.

an organizer from @hatefreeacps says she’s glad to see the board talking about equity. she does this kind of training for companies professionally.

during the breakout, she used their own equity checklist and run the dress code policy against it.

she asks why there’s been no acknowledgement of the two students arrested for making racially motivated threats of mass murder.
“the news is national, if not international.” not acknowledging it doesn’t show us to be equitable.

she calls on the board to vote to pass a formal policy banning confederate and other white nationalist imagery at their next meeting.

next up is nancy! she came in her neon legal observer cap tonight, just in case, but has removed it for her comment.
she says the school system owes an apology to the students and parents in charlottesville - the threat that closed those schools was made from a ACPS classroom.

she also notes that it was “not a good look” that after receiving similar threats, charlottesville city schools closed down, but ACPS remained open.

the fourth and final comment tonight is from another parent with @hatefreeacps.
she has met several times with the parent of the child traumatized by a racist classroom exercise on martin luther king day. she’s crying.

the child in question has been removed from that teacher’s classroom, but the teacher continues to interact with the child in school, which is upsetting for the child and their family.
the speaker calls on the district to be explicitly antiracist.

“i think it is unacceptable that the threats against the school were not acknowledged in the statement at the opening of this meeting.”
two county students threatened violence. cville schools closed for two days. ACPS was also threatened.

not only did ACPS remain open after the threat, parents feel the district did not share enough information with them. “we had to find out from the news!”
“if somebody is threatening to kill my children, my black indigenous children, i have a right to know.”

she kept her kids home those days, despite the county schools being open (but full of cops). “did y’all feel comfortable sending your kids to school?” she asks, pointedly.

jonno alcaro is reading the recap of the comments they just heard. i guess they’re taking turns doing this task. no response, just a very bored sounding recap from his notes.

when asked if there was any other business, superintendent haas just says he wants to thank dr hairston and the other facilitators tonight.

the board is asked if there is any other business. oberg says “go hoos” (i guess it’s still basketball season?) and the meeting is adjourned.
not. one. word. about the threats. the trauma. the still-audibly-crying mother who fears for her children’s safety in these schools.

i’m home now. i understand there is probably a lot they’ve been advised by counsel not to say. they probably can’t offer a real apology without accepting some kind of liability. but silence was the wrong response.

i’ve watched a chair of this board order a cop to lay hands on people i care about for no legal reason. i expect so, so little from these people. but this is a unique and ugly new low. they are fostering an environment where bigotry feels safe multiplying.

the threats made by two separate ACPS students, at least one of which was made during study hall in one of their own schools, TERRORIZED TENS OF THOUSANDS. traumatized this community again. people are not ok. say something. anything. acknowledge it.