New and Amended Policies being voted on by the VB School Board on Wedn 9/9/20. Including a new EQUITY POLICY and changes to STANDING RULES and PROCUREMENT

9/7/2020

The image above was provided to me and I have verified that this is part of current training in VB Schools.

If you have any viewpoints that you would like to share regarding these new and amended policies, contact the school board at the group e-mail: vbcpsschoolboard@googlegroups.com or call to sign up to speak at 757-263-1016. You may also sign up to speak by using this form.

1: EQUITY POLICY:
* Will mandate training for employees and School Board members regarding the topic of Culturally Responsive Practices. School Board has not been informed of what the required training will be. We must vote on the policy to know what is in the policy. Superintendent verified that part of current training is "Courageous Conversations About Race" (see above). Glenn Singleton's "Pacific Education Group based in San Francisco makes millions of dollars from this type of training throughout the country. He is political and seems to be extreme and seems to hold his own biases. I do not know if this is what will be mandated but it is being used now.

* I had a meeting with administration last week and I verified that not all stakeholder groups were represented in creating this policy. The Equity Council and the Policy Review Committee (made up of 3 School Board members) drafted the policy. The equity council is made of 20 members, 16 of which are VBCPS employees. There was little to no representation from the Latin, Filipino, or Native American community. A member of the United Jewish Federation was invited to participate (which is great) but no other Christian or Muslim organization was specifically invited. No one was invited who represented the Special Education Community.

* Budget: the policy gives the Superintendent full authority to spend money with no cap to hire consultants and to implement the policy.

2. SCHOOL BOARD STANDING RULES:
* Reduces the amount of the time the public can address the school board from 4 minutes to 3 minutes

3. BY-LAW 1-47:
* Reduces the amount of time for the public to speak and also reduces the window of when speakers can sign up to address the Board

4. POLICY 3-32-CONTRACT EXECUTION POLICY:
* Exempts certain items up to $100,000 from being competitively procured. This includes Instructional Software and Digital Resources. There are thousands of companies that provide these products.

ACTUAL POLICY DRAFT DOCUMENTS

10 Comments

April Block

9/7/2020 07:16:29 pm

Please sign the petition to postpone this rapidly approaching Sept 9th vote.

http://chng.it/JF6nVLkh

Mary A. Shupack

9/8/2020 08:15:59 am

It it totally inappropriate to single out white people for responsibility. There should be maximum effort to break down racial barriers. Singling out white people perpetuates the notion of differences. It does nothing to encourage cooperation to make things better for all.

Ryan

10/7/2020 06:40:04 am

Blaming whitey for every problem any minority group has is 1) divisive 2) prolongs the problem 3) lacks self-responsibility and 4) only prolongs and perpetuates the problem.

Iva Nash

9/8/2020 12:50:59 pm

Racial issues are of a very sensitive for every demographic. As this declaration of racial responsibility is written, it in and of itself is offensive. It is clumsily written and puts total responsibility on all "white" people. Perhaps you should sit down with people of all racial identities. Race issues are much too complicated to blame on one demographic or one race and not to understand that is perpetuating racial tensions throughout society.

Mary M Yanisko

9/8/2020 11:43:54 pm

Ms. Manning. When you call Mr.Singleton Extreme you direct people to the CEI website. As you know that they describe themselves as a Conservative Think Tank, hardly an apolitical group , you should be citing that upfront in your remarks to be fair. From an educational and scholarly point of view he gets rave reviews from educators and school superintendents both nationally and internationally.teaching people how to have meaningful dialalogue on race especially in education so we can continue to build the best education programs for all children to succeed. I would think this is the goal of school board members.
I m very confused about your stance on equity education . You don t support this for VB schools? This has been an important concept in education. That has been around for at least 20+ years and usually seen as a strength for school systems.
I was quite surprised at your response to the concepts of cultural competence at the last board meeting.

10/7/2020 06:38:52 am

Math is not racist. Science is not racist. Hell, English is not racist. This isn't about systemic racism (because that doesn't exist), it's about culture and the lack of weight on education at home.

FRANKLIN EUGENE DENNIS

9/9/2020 11:07:03 am

This recent notion of "White Privilege" needs to go. It seems to me the government has arranged things nicely with racial preferences in employment, business and educational opportunities to overcome any notion of an uneven playing field working against the African-American minority. It further appears to me to be laying the groundwork for arguments and political support for payments of reparations to individual minority members who have grown up with the notion that society owes them a living and there is no need to be self-sufficient. Unless you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth, I think most "white folks" think they have had to struggle and work for whatever material success they might enjoy and that struggle had nothing to do with race. - it had to do with blood sweat and tears and respect for the law. These destructive teachings merely create more racial divisiveness. So, you are indeed the people teaching our children to hate America. Please remember, the United States of America is a Democracy which is not governed by the dictates or manipulations of the professional behavioral science community which seems to be a rich source of bizarre societal notions or the ideology of radical left wing liberal professors secure in their tenured positions.Their opinions are as ripe for further discussion as the opinions of any tax paying citizen subject to majority rule.

PETE LARKIN

9/9/2020 12:03:39 pm

So apparently someone feel it is right to blame one group 'whites' for this inequity. Why would our school system perpetuate the separation of races? This was obviously not done be a balanced group of shareholders. Get rid of it.

9/14/2020 09:25:42 am

We're going to continue to get this kind of backward thinking from this very left leaning superintendent until we are able to remove him. I didn't see a decent response to your statement that the system is equitable and that the system can't control every factor that contributes to a students success. The response about "access" is complete nonsense and entirely dismissed your concern. She points at that she can predict who is going to be succesful... ok, I don't think that's remarkable and I doubt it's based on skin color as much as parental involvement, home culture and discipline, as you mentioned. They already know all that and they don't care, in fact, this is what they would like to overcome, they know it has nothing to do with the system, it's about giving an "equating" out of system unfair advantages by tipping the scale where they have control: the system. They are trying to "equate" the world. This is the modern leftist view.

9/14/2020 12:00:28 pm

https://www.baconsrebellion.com/wp/systemic-inequity-on-the-virginia-beach-schools-equity-council/

I hope he continues with it because this school board needs to wake up! Who votes these people in? They are completely clueless.

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