RPS RECAP: May 1, 2023 (Pt 2)
Happy Weekend, Board Watchers! Thanks for your patience as I worked to get the rest of this meeting summary out. The curriculum tangent & data-dump was more time consuming than I’d expected, but still an interesting story! Anyway, I’ve recovered enough mental energy to cover the remaining items from last week’s board meeting:
RPS Budget
Will they? Won’t they? (Legal Update)
School Climate & Safety
The English Learner Experience
New to this blog series? Welcome!
I’m Becca, an over-opinionated 2x RPS Parent. About a year ago, I realized there was a lack of dedicated School Board coverage by our local news media. I try to fill that void with these meeting summaries.
Posts usually include 5 essays, which cover a variety of agenda items/themes from each Board meeting. They are front-loaded with “just the facts” - direct quotes from Board members, motions they make, vote splits, etc. The second half usually consists of relevant local/national context and a considerable amount of my own eye-rolling. It’s important to me that you get to form your own opinions, though, so I obsessively link to source material (including lots and lots of video footage).
You can read these posts all the way through, or skip around to the parts that most interest you.
Whatever your level of engagement - I thank you for being here! Our public schools (and the students in them) need all the attention and support that Richmond can muster. We won’t always agree, but I am oh-so-glad you’re here!
Budget: One Step Closer
In February, the School Board approved their budget request based on a “best guess” of City and State funding. In the months since, that expected revenue has dwindled.
The City budget (approved this Monday, May 8) contributes $21M more to RPS than last year - but falls short of the Board’s ambitious +$29M request.
The State budget is still in limbo. State legislators are not expected to approve a final budget until after RPS’ legal deadline to finalize theirs.
The RPS Board has about a month to find $10M worth of cuts.
To date, they’ve refused to acknowledge this reality.
“I’m just not going to support what has been presented this evening at all - if the General Assembly finds common ground or not. I’m not going to do it. The administration has work to do.” Dr. Harris-Muhammed, April 17, 2023 [Watch]
Start flipping over the central office couch cushions, I guess. (Just kidding, central office works out of one of RPS’s vacant schools. I’m sure the roaches have already made off with any spare change.)
The Board does not appear to have a firm grasp on how budgets work, that school districts in Virginia are “fiscally dependent,” or that they’re legally prohibited from over-spending.
We talked about all of that in more detail here.
Now, with their June deadline fast approaching, Jonathan Young tries to coax his colleagues across the finish line. I know you don’t wanna, but if it helps, let’s pretend that our cuts are just temporary. Maybe we’ll be able to add everything back in July if the State eventually passes a generous budget...
They’ll try again next meeting (May 15th) when the Superintendent brings another revised proposal to the Board. He doesn’t say what cuts he’ll recommend, but he promises not to cut new Board spending priorities, or staff.
“I want to be very, very clear. I have no intention of bringing you a budget that will lay off anybody. I do intend to put out [renewal] contracts for our existing workforce. What we might need to entertain, for example, is freezing vacancies…but there will not be any large-scale, budget-driven layoffs”
Vice-Chair Burke appreciates the hiring-freeze suggestion. She’s glad staff won’t have “anxiety around Do I have a job?”
Dr H-M wonders if the superintendent's "no-layoff" promise is retroactive. Specifically, she asks about some of the positions her friends have recently been fired from due to poor performance. (She's been on a months-long, behind-the-scenes crusade to restore their jobs. Evidently, Attorney Lilly’s caution has fallen on deaf ears.)
“No… we will continue with: when there’s a performance issue, to move forward with dismissals. Where grants expire, positions that are no longer funded will not be kept. That is the normal course of business…” Supt. Kamras
There are only 2 Board members who have proposed budget cuts: Doerr (1st) and Young (4th). The latter shared his via email, keeping them out of the public eye.
The rest of the Board is relying on the Superintendent to find cuts.
If you’re new to the budget process, you probably think this is all perfectly reasonable. But I assure you, it is not.
When the pandemic hit in 2020, Virginia was mid-budget cycle. Politicians up and down the chain of command braced for an economic recession, and tightened their purse strings.
The 2020 School Board was disappointed, but they approached their shrinking budget much differently:
Chairwoman Linda Owen (9th) led her colleagues through their next steps. First, with empathy…
“We want to do everything we want to do - that’s why we had that big budget! We wanted to do all of that… But the reality is, we cannot do it all.” [Watch]
And then with explicit instructions…
“I look forward to hearing from you all where we’re going to find the money, what we’re going to cut, because it’s hard. I found a $10K one - but that’s not really going to do anything.”
Building the budget is the Board’s work. They receive the Superintendent’s “estimate of needs,” and they revise it. Together. With discussion and consensus-building among one another.
Owen’s work as part-therapist, part-boss babe is so important to the Chair role. It keeps the political process rolling. We talk about a thing. When we start repeating each other, we will stop talking about the thing. Then we’ll either agree to a change, or table it so we‘ll still have time to talk about our many other important tasks at hand. (Example)
Nobody on the Board is really doing this now. Some try:
Nicole Jones jumps in from time to time with the much-needed tough love and self-reflection
Jonathan Young occasionally adds his 2 cents about how the Board needs to use their time more efficiently; and
Liz Doerr used to, but her interjections have dwindled as her colleagues’ mischaracterizations wore her down
Nobody’s got the energy for the drama, and they all underestimate the damage it causes.
So, 90% of the time, the “Brass Tacks” role falls on the superintendent. He’s duty-bound to make sure kids get an education, and he cannot do his job unless the Board does theirs. Unfortunately, the Board thinks he’s an unreliable messenger. They do not trust him, and instead respond to his urgency as though he’s being a bully or insubordinate.
The Superintendent is supposed to “prepare and submit” the budget. The only reason he is developing the budget too is because the School Board will not. He’s the kid doing the group project alone.
If his second proposal goes over as well as the first one, we can expect to spend another hour hearing about how deeply offended the Board is by his recommendations.
Will they? Won’t they? Legal Update
All right, my friends, this one gets a little in the weeds. But it is very important, so I’ll lay some breadcrumbs and then tie it all together:
The Richmond school board is in the market for new legal counsel.
The contract they currently have ends in June.
Their current law firm has opted to end their years-long relationship with RPS for both professional reasons…
The law firm has had several “conflicts of interest” that prevent them from representing RPS in a number of important legal disputes. (Most notably, the city/school board debate over ownership of the Arthur Ashe Jr Atheltic center.)
… and there are personal reasons. Namely, this Board has been incredibly hostile towards Attorney Lilly.
Monday night, the Board got an update on their Legal Services RFP.
Reminder: A Request for Proposal (RFP) is a formal document that solicits proposals from potential suppliers or contractors for a specific project or service. Governments use this model of procurement to ensure transparency, fairness, and competition in the bidding process, ultimately resulting in the selection of the best value proposal for the project or service.
Several law firms have applied for this contract, but there’s a $300K problem: At $715k, Their proposal is nearly double the $400k RPS currently pays.
This sends Board discussion spinning out in two directions:
Should we just hire our own in-house firm? A: We could, but we’d need at least 3 lawyers at $130-200K salary/each, and we’d lose access to a whole firm of lawyers with niche specialties in a variety of legal areas. (Ex: handle contracts, labor and employment issues, student discipline, special education disputes.) It’ll also be really hard to hire a whole new team in the 4ish weeks they’ve got before their current contract expires.
Is this is a trap?
*Rewind the tape*
In August, 3rd District Rep, Kenya Gibson passed a motion to put out an RFP for new legal services.
Early this year, she learned that the Board didn’t have to follow the RFP process when securing legal counsel. (She accused Attorney Lilly of intentionally withholding that information.) She wants to pick her own lawyer - but since the RFP is already out she offered an alternative: why not just let me on the evaluation committee so that I can pick the finalists.
The Board said no. The whole point of the RFP process is to pick a qualified candidate without bias. It would look really shady for the Board to suddenly abandon that framework now. (Procurement authority is serious business, and misusing it has this Richmond DPW employee facing 20 years in jail.)
That discussion has simmered in the background for weeks now; long enough that I can’t believe the Board Attorney/Superintendent think I’d be biasing the lawyer selection process has turned into: I bet the Board Attorney/Superintendent are biasing the lawyer selection process.
They think the Superintendent’s (ahem, the Evaluation Committee’s) recommendation is “cryptic.” You didn’t even include the law firm’s bio! Chairwoman Rizzi interrogates “what sources?” the Superintendent used to weigh the pros and cons of the applicants. She asks "Are any of you legal experts?" and demands a "balanced presentation" with all sources disclosed.
The Superintendent is a bit startled by the accusation of bias:
"I assure you I will present the most unbiased and detailed approach I can... I truly have no preference, truly. I just want to make sure we have legal counsel on July 1." [Watch]
6th District Representative Harris-Muhammed appears to have made up her mind. She wants to abandon the RFP, and let the Board choose their own legal representation. She is "very confident that [the Board] will come to a decision that is in the best interest of the school division and the School Board."
Alright. Breadcrumbs laid. Now here’s the discussion I think they’re actually having:
A minority of the Board (White, Gibson, Rizzi, Harris-Muhammed) have been trying to fire superintendent Jason Kamras for the last two years. (They’ve basically been relitigating his contract-renewal since day 1.)
While Kamras had won 4 more years, the Board minority did get a significant concession:
“If the Board decides to fire him without cause, he’ll still get severance and benefits. [BUT] Instead of a 12-month severance… he’ll now get a six-month severance, which is valued at $125,000.” (Source)
Basically: we’ll keep you around for now, but we’ll make it as cheap as possible to get rid of you as soon as we have the votes.
But they haven’t found the votes to fire him without cause (6).
At most, they have 5, which is -coincidentally- how many votes they need to fire him WITH cause.
“Cause” is the only thing standing between them, and showing this man the door. It’s why they’ve spent so much of their term trying to concoct scandals (like a mythical 20K surplus of chromebooks) and exploit accidents (like the Fox fire) to prove he's violated terms of his contract on grounds like:
moral misconduct
insubordination against reasonable rules of the board, or
incompetence based on his evaluation
“Moral misconduct” is a long shot, and they’re the only ones convinced he’s insubordinate. They believe he’s the Simpson’s Mr Burns, cackling from atop city hall, where he collects and counts his sizable paycheck; but even they understand that the rest of the world sees Mr Rogers, working from a desk in the hallway at George Wythe, and spending his Saturday rocking cargo shorts and sneakers at a fundraiser at Clark Springs. (This difference only infuriates them more.)
So instead, the Board has taken the "incompetence" approach. In August, they tried/failed to sink him with last year's disappointing SOL scores. Then, in his review a few weeks ago, they set unreasonably high performance goals for him to meet by June. If (when) he fails to meet those, they'll fire him. Besides, this way they also get to wait out the school year and spend the summer recruiting a replacement. (FYI, it took the better part of a year to replace the last superintendent.)
Every positive academic presentation undermines this plan. (Which is why they spend plenty of time sowing seeds of doubt.)
Their “cause” claim is shaky at best. They know he will challenge it in court (less for the severance pay, more so to clear his good name) - and they really really don’t want to go into legal battle with an attorney that is more sympathetic to him than they are to the Board.
They’ve spent months staging their chess pieces so they can force him out. And, per this evening’s super-transparent public panic, they believe the superintendent has used this legal counsel recommendation to put them in Check, instead.
Oh. And several Board members asked for a pro/con list for In-House vs Outsourcing legal representation. Chat GPT spat this out in 20 seconds. At a glance, it pretty much falls in line with the various conversations the Board had about this over the last 10 months.
In-House Counsel
Pros: Direct communication, Lower costs, In-depth knowledge
Cons: Limited perspective, Limited availability, Higher overhead costs
Outsourcing to Law Firm
Pros: Specialized expertise, Larger network, Shared liability
Cons: Higher costs, Lack of personal attention, Delayed response time
School Safety & Climate
First, the facts: There are three tiers of work within the RPS Department of Culture, Climate, and Student Services (CCSS).
Tier 1 is proactive/prevention. How can we equip (all) students and staff to support the behavioral and emotional needs of our students?
Tier 2 is responsive. How can we help students and staff navigate disruptions, manage conflict, and assess individualized needs.
Tier 3 is crisis management. Think: threat and suicide risk assessments, and emergency response.
Monday night, we learned:
CCSS’s goal is to “spend a significant amount of time in that Tier 1 domain, helping schools create those positive behavioral expectations, those trauma-responsive classroom strategies, coaching teachers and students in how to engage in brain breaks and positive pieces…” But, “in full transparency…”
Their Social Workers spend most of their time working in Tiers 2 and 3, leading school-level interventions and risk assessments.
So do their Behavior Specialists.
They have Student Support Specialists (aka violence/bullying prevention) who “bring our restorative work to life,” support secondary schools, and build positive school cultures.
A medley of specialists offer support for students navigating the legal system, developing and implementing restorative policies/protocols/strategies,
The department works collaboratively with the RPS Engagement Team to “wrap services around our families,” and remove barriers to students’ school participation and academic success.
CCSS Director, Angela Jones, is a saint. (To be fair, we knew that already.)
Ms. Jones and her team are so tired, and working such long (24 hour) days, that by 9PM on this Monday night, she is literally tongue-tied.
Despite their tireless efforts, 2 weeks ago, the division’s dueling crises of School Culture and School Safety collided at George Wythe when 16-year-old, Victor Sandoval, left school through a side door around 11 a.m. on April 27th. An hour later, he was shot by another student, David Gutierrez (18), in the school parking lot. Police have arrested Gutierrez. Meanwhile, the critically-injured sophomore remains in the ICU in “very delicate” condition after 3 emergency surgeries.
While incredibly sad, this incident surprises absolutely no one. Wythe’s many “unsupervised” exits have been the talk of RPS leadership and the press for months. And, though they won’t meet its gaze, the solutions to these recurring problems have been staring the Richmond School Board in the face.
Wythe Parents say "They should be putting more attention to the people that come in and out… There should be security guards and people checking the doors just to make sure people aren't leaving the school during school hours” (Sandoval’s mother); and, “I feel like how many doors you have, that should be the math of how many staff you need to protect those doors." (Tisha Erby)
Wythe students, like Chrystal Reyes, say: “no, there isn't" enough CSAs (Care and Safety Associates) to protect students and staff. "There needs to be enough staff and especially Spanish-speaking staff. Because [the student body is] mostly Hispanics." (source)
RPS security supervisor Andre Nious agrees: “To properly address this issue, we need at least eight to nine [community safety associates] at Wythe. We have been understaffed for several years. The CSA's at this location have worked tirelessly to address this problem, but there are 107 doors total that are impossible to address with only the bare minimum associates." He also proposed several solutions - all of which included additional staff on site. (source)
There’s nothing new about the presence of weapons, either. Back in February, RPS reported finding 43 weapons on school properties since 2021.
They are even found in division middle schools and online, where photos of gun-wielding students circulate, warning: “You better watch out for your friends.”
Bringing weapons onto school grounds ought to, per the RPS Student Code of Responsible Ethics (SCORE), trigger an automatic expulsion; but the Richmond School Board overturns those 92% of the time over the objections of parents and community members who repeatedly beg for students to face common sense consequences - especially when they threaten the lives of others.
This is why I greet Board comments like "I mean, I've done everything I can do" (Rizzi) with profound annoyance. Allow me to explain:
Two months ago, the Board was presented with a proposal to increase the division’s fleet of Care and Safety Associates and outfit all middle schools with metal detectors.
They hemmed, they hawed, and they tabled the discussion.
They have done the same regarding cell phone access and chromebook restrictions, each being a security threat they’ve flirted with - and ultimately declined to address - since November 2021.
They debate, and they delay, despite the clear and consistent warnings of principals in the division: “it feels like things have drastically gotten worse.”
Instead, they look to parents to solve these problems.
“We desperately need parental involvement. That's what I would like to see way more than safety and security people. I'd like to see some parents…
I'd like to see more volunteers and a more robust community supporting the school because that's one thing they do not get, and they're begging for it, they're hungry for it.”
Chairwoman Rizzi doubled down on this last week, including some shots across the bow at parents and advocates alike:
“I do think that maybe we’re dealing with silos of advocacy, or silos of support. What I’d like to see are parents who are concerned about all the children in the entire city and not just about the specific issues that affect their children.”
She’s not totally wrong. These “silos of [community] support” are wildly inconsistent. When they work, they send two Wythe students to football camp to the tune of $3120. When they don’t, they can only muster $1,250 towards their shot classmate’s medical bills. It’s almost too easy to see this sort of disparity and blame the helpers for the gaps in the system they’re trying to fill - instead of blaming those in power who perpetuate the gaps with insufficient funding.
The result has been a constant, depressing barrage of tragic incidents that - per Angela Jones’ presentation - are not going away anytime soon. (RPS is on track to hit 600 suicide risk assessments this year - that “is four times what we saw pre-pandemic.”) And Rizzi&Co. have a front row seat to the tragedy - they do not have the luxury of looking away. They must feel a bit like soldiers returning from the horrors of war, feeling like aliens in a world full of mundane problems and wishing civilians would “get some perspective!”
I also totally understand the impulse to take the fight off the School Board stage. That fight is going nowhere. They are each hampsters in a wheel, exhausted to the point of collapse. Then, every other Monday, they strap into a bumper car and aimlessly navigate the dais/rink, trading blows with their Board colleagues until the whistle blows and they can all go home.
Maybe they’ll have more luck by pressuring parents and community advocates to close persistent gaps. (This is certainly the fashionable thing for Richmond Electeds to do.)
But, to quote Michael Paul Williams, Public "outrage... has its limits without public policies and resources to support positive change."
Policies and resources are tools that are exclusively available to the 9 members of the Richmond School Board.
This does not change just because they do not know how to use the tools we gave them.
For instance:
They do not need to adopt every proposal as-is. When they got this Metal Detectors recommendation a few weeks ago, they could have passed on the metal detectors, and still approved the additional 18 Care and Safety Associates. Or, if they don’t like Jonathan Young’s proposal in-full, then they don’t need to waste time talking about the parts they object to (“zero excuses for guns and knives”). If there’s common ground around ideas like extend the day by an extra 30 minutes of play or expanding the Spartan Academy beyond the walls of Richmond Alternative School, then their discussions should live there. “Water that which you want to grow”
They can try out a solution, and repeal it if it doesn’t work. Like, banning cell phones.
They can scale solutions. They could consider piloting phone restrictions at Huguenot High School. Cellphone-ban-champion Rep Young would know best if his school’s administrators think this idea will benefit their school. Or establish school-wide consequences only where irresponsible cell phone use (letting in students/weapons at side doors, streaming their peers’ fights) has occurred X amount of times or where this measure has Y amount of support from the staff that’ll have to enforce it.
They can change the expectations. If they’re not going to support the SCORE they have, they should at least approve one they’ll actually feel comfortable enforcing. At least that way school staff will know how permissive their workplace will be, and the associated risks.
They can reorganize their budget, making school safety their top priority. It’s not too late to fund the crisis support team this district so very clearly needs.
They are not powerless. They are not out of options. They are paralyzed by doubt and a lack of constructive communication skills.
Pointing to parents, shaming them into volunteering - is both unreasonable and relationship-eroding.
“I hate that sometimes we get the bad raps that parents don’t want to be there. But… you know. You spoke about the Socio-emotional [factors], but there’s the socio-economic as well.” (watch)
I appreciate the “all hands on deck” mentality, but I draw a line at taking accountability for the actions this Board refuses to take on establishing and maintaining safe school environments for our kids.
The English Learner Experience
On April 27th, an English Learner at Boushall Middle School was filmed enduring the following rant:
Teacher: … Your father don’t pay my salary, the State of Virginia does.
Student 1: (inaudible)
Teacher: Well she can come up here all day and I’ll speak English when I see her. And she’s going to speak English too. Period. You act like your mom own the world, c’mon now.
Student: I didn’t say she owned the world.
Teacher: I know but that is very ignorant of you to throw up your mom as if it’s going to change the rules in my class. English is spoken in this class. Period.
Student: (inaudible - something about native speaker)
Teacher: Right, well go wherever that is - that Spanish-speaking country is and speak it. But when you in America you’re going to.
Student 2: This seems racist…
Teacher: You got all these taxpayers in America they get the benefit of English speaking language and so do you. So appreciate that… But you’re not going to come and speak it while the teacher don’t understand what you’re saying and you’re not going to run my class like that. Period. And the School Board will back me up.
TIME OUT - what now? As a kid I was definitely scared of going to the principals office - but I didn’t even know that a “School Board” even existed. Ok. Carry on. 🪴
Student: I didn’t know speaking my own language was wrong.
Teacher: Ok no - you speak it at home baby. With your mom and your dad or whoever else is there. You not going to speak it in here. And I’m going to prove to you - that you’re going to write that essay and you’ll never do it again.
(Inaudible)
I told you before. I don’t speak Spanish - the School Board is aware of that - that’s why there’s Spanish-speaking classes for the kids who need a Spanish Class. They have Spanish interpreters in there. We got kids who speak French. We got kids who speak Russian. We don’t let them speak it either. The Primary language is English and you speak it.
I ain’t going to keep on arguing with you.
(Inaudible)
I’m sorry if you’re old enough to say it you’re old enough to say it loud enough for me to hear. Was that meant for me to hear?
Student: No I didn-
Teacher: -then shut up talking.
Student: What?
Teacher: (louder) Shut up talking.
Student: No.
Teacher: In here you will!
Student: No
Teacher: Yes!
Student: No
Teacher: (inaudible) You don’t run this class, baby.
Student: alright I didn’t say I did
Teacher: Ok then be quiet. Get Out. Go to [the principal]. And tell your mom - I gonna speak to your mom.
The student missed a day's worth of instruction over this. She was sent home, where - per her mother’s public comment - she locked herself in her room and cried. The next day, when school administrators called her to the office, she hid in fear in a school bathroom.
Her mother shared the video on social media, which attracted the support of advocacy groups like LULAC, The Virginia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, and LatinoJustice. They have condemned the incident as racist and unprofessional.
LULAC came to the May 1st Board meeting and demanded the teacher be held accountable. Many recent RPS graduates also gave public comment, confirming that rants like this one are common in the school district.
For their part, the RPS administration condemned the teacher's behavior in a statement to the Richmond Times-Dispatch: "This behavior is not reflective of our values as a school division, and we do not condone any behavior that undermines our commitment to providing a safe and inclusive learning environment for all students."
They’ve also put this teacher on leave, pending a “thorough investigation to ensure that our students are learning in an environment free from discrimination and harassment."
However, the School Board, who this teacher identified as her ally (twice), have remained silent while the story went viral.
There’s a “representation matters” lesson here - there are no Hispanic Board members in a district where 1 out of every 5 students is Hispanic.
This is also the risk we run with a Board that has built a reputation as the ultimate “fixer” for expelled students and dismissed RPS staff alike.
Caught in this complex political web is a 6th grader crying in her school bathroom.
That’s all for today! I’m getting this meeting summary out just in time for a fresh Board Meeting on Monday, May 15 at 6PM. Hope to see you there!
Thomas Jefferson High School
4100 W Grace Street
Richmond, VA 23230