The questions below were sent to each candidate competing in the race for Richmond School Board.
Shonda Harris-Muhammed
What's your perspective on RPS200?
My perspective on RPS200 is a tiered level perspective. I support options for our students, families, and our teachers 100%. Particularly, options that will demonstrate improved teacher support, teacher salary increases, and student outcomes. The challenge I face as a school board representative is supporting a financial package such as the RPS200 without the wholistic data to determine if the division can sustain all components of RPS200. I am not willing to place a gamble on such a large ask without substantial funding and data to support it.
What is your take on the Dreams4RPS strategic plan? What would you change and what would you keep?
The Dreams4RPS strategic plan has areas that have proved to support immediate needs in the classroom. To draft a document of this magnitude included a great deal of time and review. I appreciate those attributes.
We were the first school division to adopt collective bargaining, however, we currently address concerns by teachers, bus drivers, and support staff related to retaliation for speaking out about their challenges, not addressing the protective planning time, and the failure to address ineffective leadership in our division. I would continue to push for addressing how we as a governance team will respond to those concerns and frequent updates to the community at large.
Our support of teachers and our support staff has indeed been beneficial to our division, we still have a lot of work to do in this area. I support an equity grow mindset and goals for our school division. Equity is not just increasing the number of 8th graders who take Algebra I, but it is also providing ALL schools a math coach, a literacy coach, and additional support staff for our students. It is an honor to observe our teachers grow in professional development and receive training to enhance their pedagogy. Our professional development areas must address the needs of teachers just like students. Not all professional development is equal. Our graduation rate has improved slightly. The work that must be done in this area requires AED and chest compression approach. We are on life support and high alert!
I would maintain a focus on an equity based instructional platform for all students regardless of their zip code, professional development, strengthening our collective bargaining and supports for our entire staff, the focus on our graduation cohorts, and determine if our diverse programs in the current form are reaching the students we need to reach and improving student outcomes.
How will you address the needs of students from diverse backgrounds, including English learners, students with disabilities and economically disadvantaged students?
How the school board addresses the areas mentioned requires guardrails to be discussed and improved. The governance team shall review our personnel actions to ensure we are hiring highly qualified licensed individuals and individuals who qualify for a provisional license to serve our students in the areas mentioned above. That requires me and my fellow school board colleagues to review, monitor, and evaluate our talent office on a regular basis without hesitation and with urgency. In addition, we must consider creating an option for our students with a low incidence of learning. Increasing our number of VAAP completers is not a horrific act. It is an act of understanding that many of our students will not be able to be assessed in a traditional model. That is a fact.
Although, we have instructional assistants and self-contained classrooms that provide direct academic and behavioral support for our students, we need to increase that budget line item and be intentional about hiring certified and trained staff to support our ELL students, our students with disabilities, our homebound students, homebased students, and the subgroup economically disadvantaged. I will continue to ask for fully staffed classrooms to support the students identified in those subgroups.
What is your stance on the role of standardized testing in schools? How should student success be measured?
As a lifelong educator and former mathematics teacher, I have seen the level of anxiety standardized testing can add to a student’s and a teacher’s life. I am of the belief that we pay Pearson AccessNext too much money for testing. Too much! I am also of the belief that we should evaluate our students using other metrics such as portfolios; that count toward their verified credits, and a school’s accreditation. One baseline of metrics does not equate to serving all students with equity.
What's your strategy to address absenteeism?
Allow school to fit their needs. Some students are given a full schedule when they only need two classes and no SOL’s to graduate. However, we make them come to school for a full day.
That makes no sense to me. Create a learning environment to fit their needs and we will see their mental and physical health improve.
What role does the district play in addressing gun violence?
There are several ways RPS can address gun violence in our communities and address violence in our schools.
1. Reform our discipline polices through our current policies.
2. We must bring back character education as a instructional elective for all elementary students in grades 3-5 and middle school students in grades 6-8.
3. We need to hire full time effective and licensed mental health workers in ALL schools not just two or three but ALL schools that can provide that support for our students
4. This is unpopular I know. We need additional School Resource Officers in our schools with an office that can build relationships with our students not just address their Discipline
5. We also need a Dean of Students in all elementary schools and middle schools
6. Every intervention we put into place must be evaluated annually and effective
What are your suggestions for addressing students' mental health?
1. Promote mindfulness by creating a mindfulness room in every school.
2. Promoting mental health awareness by posting information throughout school buildings for students to see
3. Hold chat and chews with the community and health officials to address the needs of student’s mental health
4. I am going back to character education. Students need to address with support, effective social skills and how to develop coping skills.
It is so much more we can do as a school division. RPS is unique in many situations because of our high crime areas, high poverty areas, and a growing need for green spaces and activities for our youth. I will collaborate with local entities and agencies to support our students and their families so we can build a equitable school division that is courageous in thinking out of the regular and status quo box. Thank you for the opportunity to share my heart and responses.
