Chesterfield County School Board Special Session

001Um, I I highly recommend it. I think it's a really good thing to do. But what I tell board members is obviously you don't have to do what you don't want to do, but using your personal email does not absolve you of having to respond to a foyer request about communications you have had on your personal email. So, like Dr. Ballinger said if there is a foya for any and all emails between you know Mr. Teal and Miss Burge about X topic relating to the school district and you both were using a personal email you either have to search it yourself and feel good about that or you need to bring it to the district so that we could search it for you. Um it's totally up to you. It doesn't matter. But just as

002an FYI but you can't I know y'all y'all done training with me and a lot of you have been to my Foyer trainings at the schoolboard association. I know you all know better than to think that using your personal email is a way to get around FOYA when you're doing district business. >> So, just food for thought. We'll continue with whatever you want to go with, but I did just want to remind and I I know I sent that email out and I had a couple of conversations with some board members concerning the the schoolboard email account, but we haven't really discussed it any further or haven't received any responses on that. So, I did just want to kind of touch base because you are issued one because you have to have it to get

003on board docs. So, your username is probably your your school email address that gets you into Board Docs or at least it should be when we created that account for you. So, and if it's not, then it may be for the new for the new one. So, we'll we'll see how that all works. So, all right. So, let's talk about board dots a little bit since we're on that topic. So, and and you do have the uh paper clips copy um on in front of you. So, we will be moving from board docs to diligent board hopefully in January. Board docs will be going away. And so when we look at board docs, I'm providing you with some samples of what one I would like to move the agenda to and then also a sample

004of what an action item would be. Okay. So it's going to be I guess I didn't do myself a copy. It's the paper clip item. So it's it's this item right here. So these two documents. So when you look at the uh agenda, you know, we have our opening activities which called to order uh agenda agenda approval. Then we go into executive session and and a lot of this isn't changing, but there's just some some small small little increment changes. Uh continue with moment of silence or return to open session. Moment of silence, uh special recognition, public content. Then I want to add a consent agenda. That would be for any items that needs to be approved or can be approved on a consent vote, which typically like your minutes, they can be approved on

005a consent vote. Um, you know, the last couple board meetings we had uh field trips that can be approved on a consent vote. Uh, so there's a lot of things you can approve a lot of things on a consent vote. And so we would create that consent agenda to where it would be that action item for one to maybe up towards of you could have 20 consent items. That way you're not taking action on 20 different things. You take one action and you approve all 20 things. And procedurally, if like let's say for example, between the last board meeting, regularly scheduled board meeting, and then the next one, you maybe had, let's say, three special call meetings for some reason, and you had four sets of minutes, you could approve by consent all four sets

006of minutes. Or if if you took issue with one set, you could pull out one and still consent agenda the other one. So that procedurally, you can pull things out of consent if you want to talk about them or discuss them. It's it doesn't mean that you you have to vote consent. >> No. So, if there's a consent item, that would be when we approve or accept or modify the agenda. That would be is when you would make that motion, or at least that's how I've done it. um when you approve or to accept or modify the agenda is that you request to move that out as an action item and then that one consent item would be moved out and then the rest would be left in there and that would be approved by

007the board to to move that out of the consent item or a consent agenda. Okay. Um and and please ask questions if you have any questions or anything. I know, you know, we're just looking at different formatting right now. Reports. >> Yeah. >> Number eight, uh, overnight travel. I know I raised your question the last time. >> Um, and I guess I'm I'm also just looking at roles and responsibilities, too. I I don't I don't want to add any additional task that makes the staff less efficient in doing the job. So I I I think as a board if we supervise you and and your staff is doing well that should be you just continue to manage your staff. I don't think we should ever have to approve uh travel from the board's perspective. That

008that's just my my opinion. So, so with the overnight travel, this is one of the things that excuse me in Yeah. As far as day travel, >> that's not going to that will I will never take day travel to the board. But anytime there's an overnight travel, you guys need to be aware because things happen on overnight trips. >> And again, it doesn't matter. So, if I'm approving it and even if I send you an email and say, "Hey, I approve this overnight travel." I made you aware. But if something was to happen on that overnight trip, who are they going to hold liable for that? The school board and the superintendent. So, it's it doesn't absolve you of of any recourse legally when it comes. I've always had my board approve the overnight travel

009because it's the same thing as we're still going to do all of our processes and procedures. It's got to go through checks and balances and approvals and we're not changing any of that because for it to get on the agenda, I'm approving it. This is me notifying you, but also it allows you to put your eyes on it >> because there may be a trip that you've had some difficulties with in the past and you're like, "Yeah, no, I don't think we need to we need to go there." This is again just, you know, making you allowing you to understand what overnight travels were happening. And so the only other only extra step is you putting it on the agenda >> and you guys approving it as a consent. That's the only extra step. >>

010Okay. >> So does our policy address overnight travel like when we talking about it in terms of you banging it to us? >> So the policy I believe it it does go into the approval process. Um, and then I think it goes to I think it states in there that the superintendent can approve overnight travel. Um, but again, doing this doesn't take this out of policy. I've approved it, but now I'm taking it to you to approve it. >> That's what I'm asking. >> I mean, I can bring anything to you guys to approve. >> Absolutely. >> Um, and and so this wouldn't take us outside of the policy requirements for our overnight track. No, what I'm saying it aligns with the way you're kind of doing it. You put back. >> Yeah. >> But

011I just want you guys to be, you know, as a board to be aware of what overnight trips are occurring. And I think in the past the superintendent approved it and just emailed about overnight trips. Is that what was happening? >> Sometimes. Okay. say something. >> I can remember the incident many years ago um that one of the wheel came off about before we got these activity buses and we got a whole lot of calls from parents saying well we need to update these buses and get get new buses and what have you. So I think the policy is good. I think this is good because it's keep us aware of what's going on. just makes you aware of what's going on because if there is an incident and I've had situations to where students

012have walked out that you know we I had a trip it was a a team went down to Florida to an event after the event one of the players wasn't happy left coaches couldn't find them they were gone for two or three hours they called their parents they had the police searching for them yes that parent had to drive all the way down to Florida to pick them up and take them back don't. But you know that those things can happen and and I know just even on the last one or maybe it was two two board meetings ago, the first one I brought that was an overseas trip. >> You know, that was out of the country. So you guys need to be aware of those. And I would I feel more comfortable having

013you lay your eyes on these and with what the processes we're going to put in place is you only will have to do this in September and January because starting next year as we get our policy put in place schools have to have them to us by those two dates. Otherwise, they don't get to go unless it's an athletic trip or a band trip or something like that that's a state competition or like we talked about with RO uh JOTC. If there's something that we qualify for that's unforeseen, then they get to go to that without approval, but it's in the policy that they can't. >> Y'all's policy pertaining to field trips is JA. It doesn't look like it's been revised since 1999. So, just food for thought >> and and we are going to

014we are getting the SCSBA to redo all of our policy. So, that's supposed to start I think in January. >> That's great. >> So, but it just allows you to to get it and see it because I want to make sure you're informed of what's going on. >> Makes sense. >> Any anything else right there on the consent agenda? I'm sorry. >> What? >> No. No. And actually, I was just looking at continuing to streamline it. Obviously, I've been in situations where we have like went out of the state, out of the country, >> and I'm nervous until they get back on ground. And that's even going to JCLC, right? >> But I I do like the fact of allowing you to let your staff do their job. as long as we can do it

015efficiently and don't effect. >> Okay. >> Then then the next piece I'm putting all the reports under one topic. So you can see that's where we'll have the finance report, the curriculum report, any other report. Um as far as the superintendent report, the discipline report, those all reports will just be under what's called reports. So that it's not sum up here, then we have this, then we go down. I just want to list them all under reports. That way we know each month. And then if we have a new report that we need to give to the board, it'll go underneath reports. So make that heading. Then of course we go into our action items and and we'll talk a little bit more. I just put a couple of samples on there. And then of

016course board chair comments and then a journal. And then if you go to the next page, when you look at action items or anything that's put on by my staff, this is going to be the template that we're going to use. And this is just a sample of how in in a pre in my previous district that we put things on board docs for the board and the community. It outlines what we're actually talking about. It provides numbers. It provides information for you to see what the topic is and for the public to see what the topic is. And so it it allows for more transparency. Also, what you will see on there is there will always be a recommendation from the superintendent. And so you can see recommended action, but then if you look

017on the back page, it says proposed or suggested motion. So whatever is written there at the proposed or suggested motion that is my recommendation to the board that this is my recommendation and so it's easier for you to to just see that and to read that if if you agree with that or if you want to move forward with that. Of course, as a board member, you can always modify the proposed motion, but it just puts it out there to you that, you know, this is my recommendation and this is it. It really kind of covers all the topics. Now, within the body of this thing, you will see up at the top, and I'm going to go back to the first page. So, we'll have the item, we'll have the the subject, we're going

018to say, is there a fiscal impact budget, we'll give that recommended action, then we're going to give an executive summary, and that's just going to outline. After that executive summary, we're going to show the attachments if there's any attachments. And there could be three attachments, four attachments, one attachment, however many attachments. We're going to list those attachments so that people are aware of what attachments are there. And then we're going to give a cost. And not all items may have a cost to it. Okay. And then we'll do that proposed motion. Any questions, concerns, thoughts on moving to this format with our agenda items? >> These So these will be action items. >> It'll be this. So, so anytime we put anything up there, even with even under the consent, it'll be written out like

019that for that one item for each. >> What about names like employees potentially hired? Um, will they be out there? Because >> if they don't pass, >> right? So, no, we can continue to do the personnel report and add agenda. >> That would be an executive session item. So that would be that would not appear as a board dock for the public's view, but you all would have access to it as the board because it's an executive session item. >> Okay. I was making sure because when it went to that I was, you know, just in case there's some discussion about >> some some of those things like the like the the hiring. Now, one thing going back to that first page, if you look at the the layout for the agenda down on the

020action item, and I'm sorry I skipped this where it says personnel report and personnel report addendum. I want to move to that because currently what do we have? We have A, B, C, D. And if we have to add something at the beginning of the board meeting, we have to make a motion to add G, right? or or add another letter because we have something. If we just list, >> sorry, Chesterfield County Schools is calling me. Um, uh, if we do it as a personnel report, it would cover all those ABCD, all all that first piece and then we say addendum. The addendum would be anything that had happened from Thursday when we posted it to the night of the meeting or to the day of the meeting. We could have everything posted by, you

021know, try to get that done by. I've always done 3:00 because we're still working through things. We're still trying to get people hired and because the next meeting is not for another month away. And so if we can get somebody on on the addendum to try to get them in our building and when they're like, "Hey, I they're going to their doctor at 2 o'clock on Monday to have their TB test done and we know they they're going to be fine with everything. They give us that by 3:00. We can get them on the addendum. We can get them hired." So, you know, the the process takes some time, but move to just personnel report and personnel report addendum. That way, we don't have to modify if we've added something after the agenda is posted.

022>> Thoughts on that? But when we approve the personnel report, can the public go in and see who we who's uh who we just hired? >> Not currently. No. No. >> I mean, but they can. >> No, I don't think they actually can. Now, I'm going to tell you, um, where I previously was, all personnel was listed publicly when the agenda was posted. >> This is a debate amongst a lot of people. Um once you all vote then yes it would be open for someone to have access to. The question is is what does the access mean? Is it immediate? So would they get to see a copy of your executive session sheet with ABC D equals A for Ashley's story, B for so and so and so forth. Um because typically the reason we

023do it that way is so that if you know you all need to make some announcements internally or if there's someone you need to contact, you can do that. And I don't know if you all have ever had anyone come up to you right after meeting and said, "Okay, who who did you vote to hire tonight?" Um, but the press will say sometimes, "Well, we're we're entitled to that document." Um, and I mean, you know, we deal with that occasionally, >> but I think it's that we approve them. >> It's fair game. Yeah, we shouldn't have any problem just listing who they are. I think the issue for the staff would be is for example if you are hiring let's say a principal and maybe they have not notified their current employer >> that they

024you know that they may be making a transition and so like that's the only time where that can get a little bit hairy you know um and so you just want to have a discussion your your staff obviously would have discussion with the employees to say what where are you with your exit strategy for where you're you know we don't want to do anything to hurt you right yeah >> I think I can remember when they used the print. Uh, every time they hire somebody, especially teachers, they listen to them in the paper person. I mean, >> I remember that. I remember that. Yeah. >> But we can still keep that confidential, but then after a couple of days, >> it's going to have to be released because you're going to want to notify, right?

025Yeah. >> Okay. Anything else? Right now on as far as board docs, we're supposed to be switching over to diligent board. I know um Miss Becky, she had a meeting with them last week. They're really they're right now they're they're migrating all of our stuff off of board docs over to the new system. So we're hoping fingers crossed we'll be ready to go in January with this. >> So it will appear on our computer. Boom. >> So well it'll be a new login. So we'll send you a link instead of board docs. It'll be diligent board, >> right? >> And so you will still have to log in with a username and password. >> Okay. Okay. and everything will be similar to board docs. >> All right. >> It's a great platform. It's very great

026for the public. If I'm going to a board meeting and I need to see something, I mean, you can select every line item. It gives you the links to documents. It It's really good for transparency. >> So, communications. So, just want to talk about that a little bit. And um you know our our goal is to to make you as the board school district and everyone look back to us. Um we want to make sure that when we push something out that we we they're doing it consistently. Um so I wanted to also kind of talk about you know what are your role what versus the superintendent versus how we we work through things. Um as a board member who can you talk to? You can talk to anybody. You can talk to anybody and

027everybody. The only thing I'm going to ask is that if you're talking to my staff, if you email or something of that nature, that you CC me on the email so that I'm aware of what's going on in the building. You know, whether that's a principal, um maybe that's a director, something of that nature, because it it allows me and if I miss somebody on there, it wasn't on purpose. it was just, you know, I just put district staff trying to cover everybody. Um, but the the thing I'm going to ask is for for instance, if if you send Dr. Hail an email and say, "Hey, I want to know numbers on the number of Chromebooks that we have within the district." I'm just going to ask that you CC me on that so that

028I'm in the know of the conversations that are being had within the district with the board members because I may have had another board member reach out to me at the same time and say, "Hey, how many Chromebooks do we have?" Well, now I can forward that in. And when we reply, we should reply that to every single member so that everybody's getting the same information because you may have a question about how many Chromebooks we have in the district. It may be something on child nutrition. It may be an instructional conversation, but the only thing I'm going to ask is that when you are communicating or requesting something, please CC me on it. That's just, you know, I feel that that's just common courtesy to make that way I can follow and find out

029what is happening, where we're at, because if if you want me to manage the district, that is a piece of man so that I know what my staff is doing because it may be something also and I've experienced this board member send a request. I had 17 items that they won that they were requesting and it was during budget season to my finance person. I'm like, "Hey, listen. we can't do that. Not right now. Can we get that later? And had that conversation because and and it didn't pertain to anything that we had to do with with the budget process. It was just information that they wanted to know. And we want to get that information. But where we were at at that point in time, I couldn't take my finance away to go do

030this for the board member because I needed them to to get something else done for the school district. So, it helps me in management of their time because I don't want also employees to get bogged down with requests. I'm not saying that you guys request because honestly I don't know if you're making requests or not because I'm not being CCD on any email. Uh but uh you know the thing is I don't want people to get bogged down when I need them to do something as well. So it's just the management. It's just a respect thing there. >> That's on telephone calls. That's on all of it. >> So I'm not I'm saying if there's a you know it's going to be hard on a telephone call. And listen and I know you guys have

031school staff call you all the time on your phone and they want to talk. you. >> No, not school staff. For me, it's parents calling and whenever they're calling, >> parents are excluded. You don't have to tell me about students. >> Okay. Go ahead. >> Students, parents in the community. You don't have to worry about that. That's all you. That's all you, Mr. Twain. >> That's just with the staff if you know if it's a request or if it's something that's going on because it's just allows me to help manage their time because there may be something that I'm working on. Um, and it may also help because we may be working on something similar and maybe some of your questions help us to to dive deeper into it as well. So, there's there's a

032lot of reasons for that. >> It's only fair to you though >> and it is it's just professional courtesy. >> Yeah. >> And and it's just professional courtesy and I'm not saying that that hasn't that that has happened. Okay. So, I'm just, you know, I have, you know, these are some of the things that I have experienced as a superintendent and it's just some things that I just wanted to talk about as we go through this. All right. Social media, email, text, and again, Miss Story will get a little bit into social media and things of that nature when she talks about FOYA. But the thing I'm going to tell you about this is it's not private and you can delete it all you want and it's not deleted. Somebody's going to have a copy

033of it somewhere. >> Good. >> Social networking allows you to create and share information. Now I know I don't know how many board members use social media to help communicate with their constituents and the public. Um, but be careful with what you're putting on your social media pages or how you're responding to people and who you're who you're tagging or who you're associating with. Okay. Um, so be mindful of the language. Um, you know, be sure that you monitor the post if you allow people to post on your on your social media account. Um again your tags groups that you associate with because you have to be you have to consider the legal implica implic implication implications are you creating a public forum and then also at the same time are you using it as

034a tool of governance and remember if you're using your social media site as your way to communicate with somebody and then somebody wants to say something bad about you. You can't block them because they said something bad about you. I think we just had a court case about that not too long ago. And so you can't ban them just because you don't like their comment on your web page about you. It gets to stay there. I recommend if you're going to use social media, if you are so compelled to use it because it's terrible, that you have a board member page. It's very clear this is me as a board member. I'm not speaking on behalf of the school district, but this is information for my constituents as opposed to your personal page and keep

035them separate. That is my advice. You can do it that what you want to. I would prefer that we all that we just all just never have social media again. But it is what it is. It's here to stay. So, just be advised. And if you do have um comments and things like that, if you are using your board member page, you can't restrict people's access. They have a first amendment right to comment on you as a public official. So, if you're turning on the comment feature, if you don't like what Ashley Story says to your comment about X, Y, and Z, you can't take Ashley Story off. You may have violated her first amendment right. So, just be mindful of that. I mean, you want to make sure you make it clear that you

036are not the spokesperson for the district. this is your personal slashboard member page. Um, you know, the spokesperson by policy is the chair and of course the superintendent. >> Um, so just be careful about that too. >> And when the news media news media outlets call me and say, "What do you think about this comment?" I'm going to say, "I don't control board members." >> I find it just not to engage. >> I will say another >> just just don't don't engage. Don't >> do not have >> don't not don't don't jump off that cliff. >> Yep. Don't jump off a cliff. And also don't post something that you would not want to see on the front page of the newspaper. >> You should always think to yourself when you put something in writing, whether

037it's in a text message, in an email, on your social media site, would I want to see this on the f front page of my local newspaper? And if I don't, maybe I shouldn't put it in writing. >> Okay, >> good rule of thumb. So when you consider the fiscal and liability implic implications, I'm having a hard time with that word tonight. Um, so school boards since the pandemic are really when you look at it, school boards are being sued more than any other governing body and a lot of this is happening out on social media. So everything's being done on social media and as far as when it comes to uh the handling of of the case because everybody's going to hash it out on social media and then it it makes her job

038a lot harder to defend us as a school board when she has all this other stuff that she's out there dealing with. >> Don't be a keyboard warrior. Like don't do it. I like your advice. Just don't engage that way. It's best not it's best not to. >> You can't win. >> You're not going to win. you're somebody somebody is going to be mad at you. That's not a way to win >> and generally they bait you >> because they can hide behind their screen. >> Yeah. >> So the media, they want to tell our story. So let's keep it balanced. Let's keep you protected. So if you get media requests or you get a phone call or something of that nature, send it to me or Mr. Buck. I'm going to say send it

039to Mr. Buck first. CC me on it so that he and I will communicate about it. And then a lot of times, and I've done this in the past, I've written a response for the board member and sent it to back to the board member to make the response. So, we can definitely do that for you if that is something that you want to do. All you have to do is ask and and it's, you know, because we want to help. So, or we can actually make the response for you. So, however you want to work that, I'm fine with it. So, the thing I would if you have somebody asking for information, ask them to send it to you in writing and say, "When's the deadline?" That way once you get that email, I

040still do that today when when somebody calls me and I'm like, "Hey, just send those send me your questions in an email so that I can thoroughly respond to them." So then when I get those in email form, I respond per question and I send it back to them. But that way you're not put on the spot and you're able to actually get the information that needs to be sent out. All right. So, kind of talking about our communication. So, we've been together for six months right now. Um, and just wanted to get information and feedback on how do you feel about communication, my communication with the school board up to this point in time? And then are there any other any improvements or something that you would like to see me do more of

041as far as my communication to the school board? I've enjoyed the interaction getting the text messages. I think that's a little bit quicker when something happens for us because I'm not a person that checks my email 247 all the time. So, I do I like that part of the communication >> and all makes it a little more convenient and rapid response basically. >> Well, I'm going to say I do like communication style. I believe you're a busy man and um long as you're doing your job, if it's something that you need to let make me aware of, you do. So I think we have great effect on communicating effect. >> We talk several times a week. >> Sometimes several times a day. >> Yeah. I'll say your uh your weekly recaps or whatever whatever they're

042summaries or whatever. They're they're very informative, you know, and so we know what's going on. If there's enough information there if we want to know even more, we pick the phone up, call you, you answer, whatever. So, and the text are good. I would say your weekly recaps are really good. There's a lot of information in there. I'll just say just keep doing what you're doing. I like the text messaging also. >> Okay. >> Well, I just wanted to, you know, if there's something that you, you know, needed more of or something different, then I want to make sure that we we get that taken care of because I want to make sure that you have the information that you need so that you can do your job as a board member. Okay. >> When

043you say any improvement, I'm I'm taking that to mean that the reporting of what's going on in our school system in terms of academic, career, and all of that will be part of the agenda that will be reported each month. Uh, I mean, when you say improvement, I'm not thinking of that part because I'm thinking that that's going to be part of what you're going to give us eventually anyway. How the schools are doing, how students are doing, what areas are we making improvement on, what areas that we need to make improvement on, and those kinds of But I'm assuming that's going to be a part of your agenda items that you're going to discuss with later on. >> And you're already getting some of that extension with like for instance curriculum. So when we

044when the report cards were released um as part of Miss Stub's curriculum update, I asked her to give a report on our state report card. Um, and then as we move into the building uh project, we're going to have regular meetings with our facilities and then we're also going to bring the architects and have our facilities director and then for the facilities group to report out to the full board into the community about what's happening within with with the the building projects. >> So, we're going to increase it in that capacity as we as we move forward. And that's just an example for facilities. And you know I share with you that even though we gave a a kind of school improvement how we did from one year to another uh that we should break

045it down for schools >> uh and let us know how schools are doing and not only that break it down gender race or what have you so that we get a true picture because those are the kinds of questions that I get. >> Yeah. And we can do that as we as we move through those. And one of the things that I want to get to with our um strategic plan is and this is something I did in in my previous district is that um every quarter I would have a different piece of the strategic plan talked about because our strategic plan, that's your Bible. That's your Bible as a board >> and you need to know how we're progressing on the strategic plan. And so it won't happen this year. I'm just going to

046tell you right now. But moving into next year, my goal would be every quarter that we have a piece of our strategic plan talked about at a meeting so that you are understanding as a board where we're at, what's happening, how can we continue to improve, and it just be a piece quarterly that you can. I want to get you the information that you want. >> Well, yeah, that's good because and I guess I'm probably the long time on here. Uh that one time the state department of education used whenever they sent in test scores. We could look at schools. They had every school rated and they they had what areas that need improvement. They had it by gender. They had it by uh uh race. They had it by each each group how they

047was doing and what have you. And they don't send that anymore. You got to go on the internet and you got to try to find it. And and for me, I'm writing it down. You know, person get you hard copies. If you want a hard copy when I can get you hard, that should be part of the board doc. I ought to be able to go in there and look it up and uh see because those are the kinds of questions. So when I speak to a group, >> they're not they ask me. I can go in there and say, "How's the overall school? The school system is making some improvements in math and and maybe in science we didn't do so well." They want to know what happened in Long Miller. >> Yeah. How

048the kids are doing over there. >> And I think and you and I had that conversation, I think, and and I haven't looked since our conversation. I'll be honest, but each school should have their own report card tied to their to their school and it should be uh publicly available um or at least how to access that. I think we just need to print a PD PDF of it, post it on our website and we can post them all on our website. That way everybody can go to them, look at them and tell their hearts content. So, all right. Uh so reality check. So things are seldom as bad as they seem, but on the flip side, they're seldom as good as they seem either. All right. The other thing you need to remember is

049that when you're talking to parents or community members or teachers, they're going to tell you their side of the story. Now, we're all old enough in this room to know Paul Har who Paul Harvey is his little segment of the rest of the story. So, we just have to remember to get the rest of the story. So, remember Paul Harvey when you're having that conversation with that parent, they're telling you how everything that's happened, everything that's going on. Just know Paul Harvey. Just listen to Paul Harvey. And now for the rest of the story. All right. Another thing I wanted to to kind of show when it comes to when you get contacted by parents or community um organizations and and they want you to solve a problem for them. 95% of the issues are

050resolved at the teacher level. Okay? At the teacher level in the classroom. 4.9% by the principal, 0099% by the superintendent. Guess how much is solved by the board? >> Zero. Z001% is solved by the board. >> Okay. So, so first question is always those when somebody calls, have you talked to the teacher? because we're gonna we're gonna settle 95% of our issues by talking to the teacher. And I can guarantee 98% of the time you're going to get, "No, I haven't talked to the teacher. I haven't talked to anybody at the school. I'm calling you." So, just and I know a lot of you are you all are good at that, but I'm just throwing this out there because there's a lot that as we work through through things. Um, I thought that was some

051interesting information and I want to pro provide it. So, what are some school board roles and responsibilities? Um, when it comes to curriculum, you approve the educational program that's aligned to state standards, your oversight that what's taught and and learn in the classroom, and then you're you're charged with providing resources, which are the textbooks and all the resources that we need in there. What is the school board's responsibility area of personnel and evaluation? and and hiring of staff nothing directly. Uh the board has a function in the separation process. It ratifies the superintendent's recommendations for hire. Um school board you have one employee that's me. Um and the school board is responsible for hiring evaluating me which is this is part as we go through part of my evaluation process that we're doing here tonight.

052And then you also have joint oversight with me with the clerk, but only for responsibilities that have to deal with the school board, not the responsibilities of the other job that she does. That then falls under me. So these are just some little things that I I thought about and some of them I've experienced and and actually I don't know if you created any extra and we can just kind of talk. This is where I want to be an open discussion and ask questions if you have questions. But I want as we go through these questions, I want you to remember and and I want to talk about it. As a school board member, what do you do? As a school board member, what do you do? And some of these you guys do great

053at. Some of them you might not experience yet. I'm going to I'm going I'm going to admit I've enjoyed working with this board. I have found this board to be very professional and very forthcoming and and I appreciate that. So, I do want to get that out there. So, your child friend alleges that he's being bullied at school. What do you do? >> Now, remember, as a board member, and everyone in this room experiences this, you you may be a parent, a grandparent. When you sit in this room, what hat are you wearing? >> Your board member hat, right? All right. Okay, y'all can chime in now. Just want to make sure we're all clear because that's hard. It's hard to separate it. I had one of those calls this week, the very first one.

054And my first call was, of course, I spoke to the parent, heard the parents concern, took that in one side of the story, and I think the superintendent will attest that I even use that phrase in talking with him, but I said, >> "Listen, I'll let you know something. This I got one side of this story. The rest of it on you." And I so you go investigate it. And pretty much that's what we'll say. >> That was that is correct. Yes. because I did take a message on a messenger some guy did not know some one of our children in our school district had an issue and I presented it to him and he has followed through since then >> I I typically ask have you follow protocol >> I mean that's I don't

055care what I'm dealing with first thing have you talk to the teacher if not then talk to teach if not I did talk to the principal if I did next go to the district that when you follow the lead, you you're not trying to ounce every fire. You listening, but >> I've learned it a long time ago. This direct person follow. >> Yeah. >> Mhm. >> And this person had >> this person had this was about the >> Yes. >> fourth or fifth time that we >> Yes. We had that discussion and like I said, it just got to the point where I was like, "Okay, we'll handle this. I'll have somebody get in touch with you." And my My contact was >> which was back before the call. >> Everything has been done except

056me and I gave you the ball hard. >> Yes, I did. And it was like I said, we had a good discussion and you you got that and then you gave me the ball from the rest of the story. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Let me let me can I add on what how would that have been different for you if instead of uh wrapping it up with the parent, you didn't call Dr. Ballinger and then instead you began calling the school personnel to get information from school personnel about what happened. How would that be different and what might that have been? What implication may that have had for you as a board member? >> Well, one I me as a board member had oversteps my boundary number one and because I'm not supposed to

057contact them. >> Now only time I would ever personally try to call somebody if I can't get in touch with him or the assistant superintendent and I'll directly real to get something a situation that I thought we could just squash in a hurry. Like I said, that would still overstep my boundaries, but my call was to him. I wasn't even thinking about calling the school director. >> Right. And and so my point asking, I think that's a perfect answer is, you know, if you had intervened that way and you had sort of begun your own investigation, you all as the board, and we'll talk about this later, you get to adjudicate these matters. You serve as the judge and the jury. And so had you been involved, you're now a witness. So arguably you'd have

058to recuse yourself if it came to the board, which is one of your biggest f powers and functions, right? So you wouldn't want to have to recuse yourself. But also thinking way down the road, and my other part of my world is litigation. >> As if y'all were sued. Now maybe you are a witness because you were dealing with the daily stuff, which is more his role. And now you you're you're going to be called as a fact witness as opposed to well, you're you're just sitting as a board member. You receive the information, right? And so that's something that if I see a board member listed as a witness and someone's interrogatory responses, I immediately, what did they do? What do these people think they did? You know, and I want to keep y'all

059out of that as much as possible. >> Thank you, Miss Story. Uh, you personally dislike the assistant principal set for a promotion to principal. >> That's the executive session. ASK A board member. What are you doing? >> That's personnel report. >> That might be a ABC. Better get it. >> Can you should you as a board member substitute your personal judgment for the superintendent's recommendation for staff? >> No. Not personal. No, I I think based on our role and responsibility, we would be okay to call the pro I mean, excuse me, superintendent and tell him our professional rationale, but my subjective opinion is only my subjective opinion. I may not like the person because he find me one day. I always thought when the super of recommendation and even if it appears to be personal

060direct or indirect to what I would think I I think as a board we we we should trust that recommendation if he's vetted properly correct >> that's the key right is did the superintendent follow the process >> and if you brought a recommendation where you can say we did this was our process for hiring this was the vetting that we did we did all the all the things and this was the highly best qualified candidate it. >> Mhm. >> I think that >> I can accept that. I I do have a follow up to that. Um is it make sure he's more professional for me to give my subjective opinion about a person to the principal? >> Excuse me, superintendent. I think that as a board you all have great knowledge because you are from

061this community and there are going to be things that inherently you all are going to know from your experiences living in the community that the superintendent may not have any information about >> that may not come up as part of the process. So if there is something that you think the superintendent needs to know about, I think you need to share that and that would be appropriate for executive session where you're discussing it confidentially to give him food for thought. But at the end of the day, that may or may not be a turning point for his your recommendation. That's something that you would all deliberate about in an executive session, I suppose. >> Well, and I guess again, I'm saying my object subjective opinion. It this is just I don't like Mrs. Sween's culture

062or sweat. >> I mean, you you as a board member, you can say whatever you want to say, right? But I think at the end of the day, if you're trusting in him to make recommendations to you all, you you can feel assured that he's going to listen to whatever your subjective opinion is, and he may take something of that to heart or may not, and he may say, "I appreciate that perspective, but this is why I still feel like I need to move forward with my recommendation." And that's just respect between the two of you guys as the board and the superintendent. But I I think you know to your point that is why we have communication so that we can share because there may be something that you know about someone or something

063or the process that he doesn't know >> and maybe and and jumping on with Wayne there. I was thinking if XYZ of board members like you said community we know a little bit. We just when we see the personnel report, we go say one call at a time and he starts getting a few calls. Maybe he then maybe reconsider and say, "Let me do a better background check or something." You know, and like I said, brings it to us. Maybe it catches his eye. I'm not saying we're interfering, but we're giving you our honest assessment from a local community standpoint. >> And and you know, I am a process person. So when I do things as far as hiring and things, I know we talked about this a little bit um at at our last

064meeting that for instance with assistant principles, I'm not getting involved with the assistant. at a building level higher and I have to trust my principles and that interview committee to do their job to make the recommendation to me to recommend to you for the AP that's going to be held that's going to be working in our building because ultimately I'm going to hold that principal responsible for that hire. Same thing here. If I make a bad recommendation or I make a bad hire, you have to hold me responsible. Correct. So, >> I do think going back to that part of communication, you know, if there is something you genuinely have a concern about, >> don't don't not share it. I mean, that get it off your chest. Share what you have to say, do it

065respectfully, obviously. I mean, go there's no room for gossip and that kind of thing. But like, if there is something that you know to be true and you wish to, you know, share that, I can't imagine Dr. Bounder saying, "I'm not receptive to hearing that." It's just not who you are as a person, I don't think. and I want to know and and we'll have dialogue about it. I mean, again, I I'm leaning on you because >> I believe you are the spokesperson for your district, too. So, I mean, you may have people that have reached out to you about certain things as well. >> Yep. >> All right. I'm going to try to move a little quicker on some of these. uh you visit a school with a a board member colleague who makes

066a suggestion that the principal about how the front office should be arranged to greet visitors. As a board member, what do you do? >> This is a really good one. I like this one. I like this one. >> What if it's a valid >> You like this one? >> I do like this one. >> I mean, what if it's a valid safety concern like that you see is is unsafe? I mean, I guess we come back with you and address it >> because in in actuality when you're in that in that room or in that school you have any authority. >> You're just a community member. >> That's right. >> I think what you said is key is directing it to the superintendent, not to the building level principal. >> And if you are with

067a fellow board member who does that, who checks that behavior? The board does. >> Dr. Ballinger is a superintendent. He does not get in the middle of resolving issues amongst the board. That's for the chair to deal with. So, you know, Mr. Sims, if you're with Dr. Chapman and y'all were at a a school and Dr. Chapman says something like that that you think that's a little problematic, I think I would initially talk to Dr. Binger. This was a concern. Just wanted you to be aware of it. And then, hey, Madame Chair, this little thing came up today. Just want you to know about it because that's something that y'all deal with as a board. That has nothing to do with him. Who polices the board? The board does >> the board does Dr. Ballinger

068and the superintendent's office do not get involved in issues involving board members. And not that this is necessarily an issue, but if if I were with a fellow board member and that happened, I might say, "Hey, let's that that's maybe not appropriate. We should direct that to Dr. Ballinger. Maybe this if this is something that continues to happen, I'd direct that with the board chair to figure out how we're going to move that forward as a board and not involve him in that. So, I'm gonna skip down a couple. Um, school board member post something on social media that is offensive to you. It's kind of the same thing that we just talked about, right? >> You as a board have to police that. >> I want to go back to one of those that

069>> is there one you want? I want to hit the one where it says a parents tell you troubling things about a teacher life. Okay. >> Not a parent. It has been a group >> a parent >> group of concerned citizens and parents uh that appeared before this board uh about a particular teacher lifestyle. Uh and that was um that was some kind of issue. I mean, so, so what's the answer on that? I mean, you know, we we we I guess we dropped it in superintendent lap. That's where we put it. Then they sent out a nice letter. But it was a tremendous group that uh just just kind of shook up the community a little bit. >> So, that's a really good one. And when those questions come up, he is the one

070who has to deal with personnel and he has to deal with whether or not there is something that's interfering with or disrupting schools. Right now you all as a board and you have board meetings, you have public comment and your policy has to be adhered to with regard to public comment. Remember that that policy says people are not going to address specific employees or talk derogatively about employees or the superintendent. So that's why it's difficult because we can't entertain those types of specific discussions at board meetings during public comment that would violate our policy. But if if a group were to call you or multiple people, you say, "Thank you so much for this information. I will pass it along to the superintendent." And then you can follow up and that's where you hold the

071superintendent accountable, right? As hey, I've called you. We've talked about these five different I'm going to use the word complaint phone calls I received. I I want to hear back. The board needs to hear back on on what's going on with that. And if there is truly an issue, okay, because it's kind of going back to your slide about the reality check where it might be perceived as an issue, but at the school level, maybe it's really not. I'm not suggesting that particular issue was or wasn't an issue. I'm just saying that just because more people come to you to talk about doesn't make it an issue and maybe it is being dealt with by the administration, that's something that y'all would want to receive information about at the appropriate time. I would anyway if

072I were you. And there are things that employees have done through my years as superintendent that employees have done outside of the school that has affected the school that we separated. But then there's been some things that parents have complained about that after we investigated that there really is nothing that violates anything as far as a schoolboard policy or and how my you know who am I to get into their life to tell them how to how to live their life. It's not really having a bad takes offense to what how their life is. Um, and that's nothing that that is detrimental or anything of that nature. So, I've been I've handled those things in in both situations and and and it does get a little muddy at times. when you talk about somebody's personal

073life outside. >> I don't think he was on board then, but our attorney >> I think that was about the time I came around around >> the attorney had to send a letter to the or was I letter to the superintendent and the superintendent had to send >> that was a a real real issue >> and I would I will say that for you guys as a board and we'll talk about policy making is one of your biggest and best functions. you are getting ready to do a big policy overhaul, which will be really good for you guys. Um, but if there are concerns about what is considered disruption, stuff like that, those are things you can look at in policy to help guide the superintendent when these things come up if they do arise

074on how to resolve those issues such that you wouldn't be involved in them individually as board members, but that the administration handles them. >> Uh, let's just do one more here. Um, a staff member contacts you. Well, I was going to choose either either one of the last two. A staff member calls you about a different position or a staff member contacts you because they were placed on an improvement plan. >> Do the last one. Do the last one. >> The last one. >> I like one of both. >> Okay. All right. The last one. Staff member contacts you because they were placed on an improvement plan. >> As a school board member, what do you do? I never had that car. >> Say, well, there was a reason. >> I had one I I

075talked to you about that. That's right. Talked to me in person at a football game and I once they started explaining the situation, I I heard your voice. Exactly. Like you said it already about recusing yourself. And I used that word. I said I said, "I'm going to stop you right now. we don't need to go any further about anything you're saying because if so then then I'm out if this goes beyond the superintendent comes before us. I said so if there is any way I could help you I couldn't help you at that point and and that's exactly what I said and I said you know I can't and they were I think they were going to leave or something like that. I said we can't I can't have this conversation with you. I

076know we're we're acquaintances outside of outside of this, but I this is not a conversation that I'm I won't continue. I think Mr. Sims handled that appropriately and and to the point. >> You get a 100. Congratulations. >> All right. >> I like the one about the attorney contacting you about a student or >> Okay. Yeah. Which one is that? It's number. It's the third little. >> Oh, you are contacted by a local attorney that represents a student in the school system. As a school board member, what do you do? >> Don't talk. >> Please don't come. >> Contact me. >> Give me their contact information because if they've got legal services, >> I'm not I'm not even going to contact them. My next call is going to be forward. Say, "Hey, this person contacted,

077they represent so and so. Here's their phone number." >> You are more than welcome to give them my name and information at any point in time. That could be while you respond and then let Dr. Ballinger know they've called you. Yeah, absolutely. >> And that is perfectly fine if you just want to send it straight to to Ashley and say, "This attorney called me." Send it straight to her. Just please CC me on it so I at least know what's going on. >> I thought you were going to leave it out that night. Yeah, we have to CC >> CC me on it just so I at least know what's going on. So, but yeah, and you may get those. I mean, because now more parents are getting attorneys and as I mentioned earlier, school

078districts are one of school boards are being sued more prevalent than any other board or any other organization. So, everybody is jumping on that bandwagon. Okay? >> And and don't stress if you are contacted by an attorney. It's fine. Well, are we gonna work it out or we're not gonna work it out? It that's not for you to have to worry about. Like, don't stress out about that, please. I would say probably the 95% of the time we talk, we figure it out, we know what we need to do, we we move it forward. It's not an issue. >> I mean, as a school administrator for 19 years, I mean, I don't know if there's ever been a week that I haven't had somebody threaten. I mean, that's just part of the role of the

079job of, you know, just part of the territory. So, um, but yeah, communicate that as quickly as possible because we don't want it to fester and and and maybe in some cases it's something that doesn't even need to be an attorney. Maybe it was something else that when we look into it, it's an easy fix and maybe it's just mis misunderstanding. You never know. All right. Remember, every decision you make as a board member should be for students. You are elected to help the students of Chesterfield County Public Schools. That is your goal and every decision should fall back to if my vote is my vote tonight going to help going to hurt the students of this county. And you just have to remember that because you you are a school board member here for

080the students of this county. So the next thing I wanted to talk about and you have this um again as we talked about policy and then my slideshow is over and I'm going to turn it over to the story but as we talked about policy and we've talked about um you know we we've discussed the fight initiative and things of that nature. So you have that document um from the last time that we kind of spoke um and then I did meet with my principles on last Wednesday. We discussed um you know where we are at with the you know as far as getting feedback from them and then Dr. Keane has summarized everything here in that in that pol or or in this suggestion right here as far as where we're at with the

081fight initiative. So, I wanted you guys to review that and I wanted to have an open discussion because if we go are going to modify or address this. Then, you know, the thing is for those students that we would want to get back by January 5th, the start of the school year, the next semester, we would need to send something home by Wednesday. Um, now we don't have to make a decision. you can tell me what your thoughts are and we can ratify it at the January meeting. But when we went through with principles, I think the one thing they talked about was getting the uh 20 hours um uh or this the the 10 days of makeup time. That's a 3 to five program. So if they got suspended for 10 days, they wanted

082to have them 10 days in the 3 to five program. that allows them to make up seat time and to make up work, make sure they're on task and they're on track. But really, when we took this to principles, there was there were not a lot of additional recommendations. >> So, you you want us to review this and talk about it at the next school board meeting or what? So, kind of wanted to have an open discussion about it tonight and say, "Okay, yes, this looks good. Yes, we we think that we, you know, we we want to move forward with this um and kind of give me direction on which way we're going to kind of go um with this side initiative. >> Where are we now as far as I can remember if

083you We're in a fight, you're supposed to get taken by the >> sheriff's department straight to the county. Like >> that doesn't happen. >> And that's what that's what like I didn't think it happened an awful lot. When it first started it did and I think people were >> Yeah. I don't think that >> now they can still charge, but typically they go home and they don't they don't. Now, the thing while we're looking at this, and again, just remind everybody, is because when looking at this fight initiative, you look at the the inequities of disciplines for students that do the same offense. If I got in a fight in August, my discipline is the entire school year. But if I got in a fight in May, my discipline's only 30 days. >> Why is

084that? >> Cuz that's the rest. That's the way we So really we got some >> You get to fight two days left of school, you get suspended for two days. you get there, but the beginning of the year and then >> that's just that's how this has been implemented and that's that's that's my heartache with it and that's why we wanted to look at this and say okay >> let's let's move to 10 days OSS >> um and then do 10 days of um of 3 to five >> and then they're going >> that that's conducted where >> at the school >> at at the school they attend >> at the school they attend and then 20 hours of community service >> and we talked about that the community service is not necessarily going out

085and picking up trash on the side of the road. It's it will be stuff that needs to be done within that school building. Uh, it could be that they go volunteer at the pound, that they volunteer and get somebody to sign off on their hours, that they're doing something with the the county or or the town or or it could be that they're coming into the school and they're working uh or they they do something with the custodial staff um to to get that community service done because they're just giving that community service to the school. So would it be left up to them to initiate that or will we kind of guide them in getting out? >> So our goal would be is that we would give the them a list to say here

086are the people that you can contact. >> But if you're a basketball player, your discipline's not over with until your 20 hours are done. >> Makes sense. >> So if it takes you three months, that's not our fault. >> I like I like the idea too of a list. I think it needs to be somebody approved. I don't >> just go to somebody across town that says, "Hey, if you clean up my leaves, I'll sign off on three hours." >> Right. That may not be valid at all. >> That's That's exactly right. >> Right. >> So, we need to vet whoever we're we're allowing to. >> And Dr. King and his office is working through that. So, he's contacting the municipalities >> to see who would be a contact for anybody that needs to do

087community service. He's already talked to somebody down here at the the county panel. Um, I know he was also talking to somebody with the sheriff's office to see if there's anything that, you know, if there's community service that could be done through the sheriff's office, things of that nature to try to get to have a list of names that people can contact that if they do get in a fight that they have to do the community service. Um, then you move into the second offense. Back back to that where we get there, >> one of the discussions we had was >> is there an amount of time that that is put on that bill? like do you I know you said there's a there's a finite amount of time if you're doing extracurricular activities but

088if you're not are you allowed to come back to school if you haven't completed that and if so is it two weeks three weeks or whatever because if there's no time frame that says it has to be done by next day then >> then it'll you know the likelihood of it getting done is >> so so when you look at that if they don't get their community service done they're not a they're not a student in good standing So that means if I'm a senior, that means and I didn't get my community service done, you're not walking at graduation. >> Well, like if they're playing basketball and it's basketball season and they've got to do community service, do they get to play basketball or they off the team suspended from the team until they get

089their service done? >> So they're they have to do their discipline until they get their service done. The the service is part of the discipline package. So, if you're suspended for 10 days while you're suspended, you can get your community service done during your suspension time while you're doing your homework um at home. But if you're going to take time afterwards to do that, that's on them. They're not a student in good standing. Therefore, they're not eligible to participate >> liability on this. >> That's what I was getting rid. >> You go over there and get bit by bulldog or something. You know >> who's that? Who's where's that going in liability? Where's that going to fall on us? >> Well, I mean, as far as, you know, we're requiring the the community service, but

090>> I think this is partly where our vetting goes comes into play. Like, how are we vetting these programs or these partners that we can ensure that we can trust? This probably would be a good idea to have anou with these partners to say this is what your responsibilities are. These are our policies relating to interaction with students, so forth and so on. Will they will they cover them in the insure on their insurance or >> will that be up to us cuz we sent them over there? >> Well, that's a great question and so I think that we might want to call your insurer to find out you know what what type of recommendation they might have with regard to that and also um you know you can't have minors can't wave their rights.

091All right. So you probably want to have some type of participation form or something with the parents understanding about what they're doing with this and so forth and so on. Well, I know whenever I for work I talked about apprenticeship programs >> and I was always told by the superintendent, previous superintendent that we had insurance on the the student to go work at company XYZ. >> Sure. >> And they didn't have to provide insurance on them. I think that's a call we'd probably want to make to the schoolboard trust to make sure that like for this type of event that that would be something that they would they would cover >> and that's just a phone call that's not an issue. >> I want to look back even further. Um I believe the best place

092the child to learn is in school and um having to do this it seems like more of a pun not I'm not talking against but I am saying well if Mr. is a bully and he's bullied me and all of a sudden I just get up one day and he and I give a fight. We're going to get the same sentence, right? Maybe we didn't we know the school didn't know he was a bully, but I know every day get the bathroom. I better get in there and get out before we get in or whatever. Um, so a student that really be a good student can be penalized just based on protecting himself. But the the other thing I'm getting to is I know this will be a pack. Um you have some students that

093are latch keys, so send them home. It's probably the easiest thing for them to do. I I really would like for some type of more corrective action to take place as opposed to especially, you know, that that child still having the ability to gain in the classroom academically. because you know I said well okay fighting on the street if you lock up like that's the day I said too right and I think most of the time I know society change but most of the time if a student gets in a fight probably after a day or two they'll kind of cool down and back to a place of resolve so I I don't know if I agree with even giving a 10day up 10day ossu Uh is is there a better option out there? I

094don't know. Like said we just have an open session to discuss. So I'm just giving some food for thought the current what we're doing now. >> I agree. I get at that. My my other question to add on to that is not all fights are equal. >> Yeah. >> Right. >> And there's sometimes there's going to be gang fights, sometimes there's two-on-one fights, whatever. Um sometimes there's a weapon involved. Does that change the degree? >> It does. So, so if it's a, you know, you call them attack by mob or gang fight, it's like four on one, you know, that's going to change what we may do as far as with the discipline. Um, because of the severity >> and as far as like to respond to what we should be doing at the at

095the building level is investigating, you know, is this a bullying issue? Is this truly self-defense? Um because I know everybody's going to say, "Well, I got hit first, so I was just offending myself." Well, if you wouldn't have responded, would there have been more? Now, I'm not saying don't don't respond. And I've told children many times, listen, I will do my best to put things in place to make sure you're safe, but if there comes a time to defend yourself, you have to defend yourself. I understand that. Just also understand that there also could be a consequence. Um and We have to do our due diligence to make sure that we are looking at it. Is it truly a self-defense or is it neutral between both parties? >> So if it's self-defense, what happened? >>

096So you can adjust it. Um, you know, if we determine self-defense, we give notice. >> I thought we had a process in place where we had to do a reporting to see if it actually a person was actually self-defense and the person that was uh jumped on uh did not receive any type of punishment. >> Um I'm not aware. I just know that you know with the fight initiative says anybody that fights. It doesn't determine or distinguish between that. It just says if you're involved in physical altercation, if you're videoing it, you get expulsion. And what we're doing is basically virtual in lie of expulsion for the remainder of the year. It just says for the remainder of the year. Doesn't say for a school year. It says for the remainder. So the first offense

097here that I'm reading fighting in high schools, you can get up to 10 days of out of school suspension. You have your computer at the house to keep up with your homework. You don't participate in any extracurricular activity and you also will have to do 20 hours of community service >> and up to 10 days for the uh the 3 to 5 program where you're coming to the school from 3:00 to 5:00 in the evening. >> Yeah, that's right. Yeah. your school work and to make sure that we're >> getting you where you need to be because what happens typically students that go on um virtual in lie of expansion suspension don't do anything. >> So at one time the custo the custodium at the school had split shifts was coming in the morning some

098was coming in the evening. Do we still have that? I'm trying to see how they can get their community service that and they could work through that with the school with the with the custodial staff with the principal. I mean, when I was in at my previous stop, we had students that would that would do that in the evening. They would come in after school and they would work for a couple hours with the custodians. >> I mean, you know, you got them in there from 3:00 to 5, >> so why not work them from 5 to 7 or something >> and so they can get the hours in. >> No, I agree. I don't disagree. When it comes to our expulsion currently, >> what type of number of students do we have right now

099that's in the expulsion category? 25 30 come back to because we had this high um alarming rate of fights and students and went through this almost no tolerance policy like you said even if you weren't in a fight but video fight that was considered to be a deterrence but he how many students right now that's in this category >> uh I looked at that just the other day and then I looked at it again today did send me his list. Let's see how many >> all those fights really started after they started eating evening out after co didn't they when they started >> I I think they did but I think right be before co or someone something we had we went through this strong deterrence policy of absolutely no problem whether you start the

100fight or the language if you even engaged the fight trying to defend yourself >> cuz there were a lot. >> Yeah. So, although I know I'm asking this because >> Oh, that's been policy for a long time. >> Yeah, >> it's been it's been a long time. Zero tolerance. So you put a put a a student out like that. We know we not I mean I don't know but I guess I just want to know with those because right now based on what I'm reading here if we have students in this category we want to contact them and come back face to face January. >> Correct. >> January right Dr. to confirm the kids who already been in a fight, they don't get any teacher help. >> I think they can reach out to a

101teacher, but there's no face to face. They typically reach out by email or phone call. >> So, while you're looking at up, explain to me what will happen in evening school. I I just got put out. Yeah. >> What? I got my computer on while I'm coming back for evening school. >> Uh because that's your discipline as far as coming back to and you're going to do your homework. So typically when we put students on virtual in Lua, they're going on a computer program. >> Uhhuh. >> When you're coming back into the into the 3 to five program, your classroom teachers are sending the homework from the classroom to the 3 to five teacher and then you're getting support and help with your current classes that you're going to be going back into the classroom

102in a couple weeks so that you're not behind. >> Oh, we like that idea. >> Yeah, I think we always like that idea because you you act to engage this. >> Where does PLC come into play in this at all? >> So PLC is an alternative setting. So we could push somebody to PLC, but um you know, and that when you get into the second offense, You see there it talks about 45 days at the alternative placement which would be at PLC. um you know that could be served at the 3 to 5 program um also at the school but if we can get them PLC now with our alternative ed we need to adjust that as well because when you go through the alternative ed system they go on that computer program I think

103it's admin and then when you're going back to the class now does that edminum coursework align with the coursework that you missed because now you're taking algebra one does that get you back on track with your class when you go back to to the classroom. Are you behind? Are you ahead? Where you at? What did you miss? Because that's a self-taught, self-paced program. Um, some students do great at that. Some students do not. >> So, let me ask the question. The three to five would actually be at the student school. >> It would. >> I would like that better than the PC. >> Who's funding the teachers during that time? So we we pay them at the homebound rate and so that's $40 an hour by the district per se. >> And those teachers that

104stay over and do that, they certify teachers. >> Yes. >> In that maybe not in that subject. It may be that we have a math teacher that wants to do it and so the math teacher helps and works with the other teachers to get the homework to try to answer any questions or do anything with that student. Maybe it's in English, maybe it's in science, but you have a certified teacher in there helping them with their assignments. >> So, so in Shall we got two fights at the middle school, we got two at the high school. So, those four students will go to one particular school. >> No, >> they'll go to the same school. They'll they'll go to the middle school will go to the middle school. >> Middle school and the high school

105go to high school. >> Um I mean I'm just thinking to myself here. So you do have that lunch break and again I'm just rambling here. So it may work. It may not even work. I just thought about it. Their lunch break. I know they're required to have a lunch break. They're required to have a USDA approved meal but it can be a bag meal or something like that. I wonder as an alternative instead of you eating with the main student population, can that be your kind of study time or or recovery time? >> Well, that won't be in school at that time. >> Well, I'm saying do like a a lunch detention instead of >> maybe maybe you can do a combination of both. Like I said, I'm just >> And we use one

106>> as a as a discipline. >> We do use it. >> So So do you want us to look at this right now, right? >> I want to know your thoughts. Okay. We need to >> do something by Wednesday. That's pretty well. >> We need to kind of I kind of need to know what direction maybe we're thinking about. Um because if we're going to bring our students back, you know, we have some students that were put out second day of school. >> That's why I asked how many students >> How many? >> Well, and I could not pull it up on my phone for some reason. I was trying to pull up that email. >> I want to say it's >> I think you got some bugs to work out on this, but I'm

107I'm Let's go with it and try. I mean doing nothing. >> You got some bugs to work out. So, you know, my my recommendations, let's go with and adjust it as we go. And if we have to make some comments, we'll call you for Wednesday. >> If not, if not CC you. >> That's right. I did. >> Well, now I did send it to everybody's email, too, and that's for comment. >> I haven't did receive any emails. So, >> you gave it to us last Monday night >> and I gave you gave it to at the board meeting. So, >> I review the only thing I see that and I've said it all along is I think there needs to be a book in on the 24 hours of community service. I don't think I

108understand because I'm a procrastinator and I and so if you gave it 30 days I promise you in 26 days will be when I start on it like >> and we can put that on there. I mean we can >> but I don't know what like what's >> say you have to have it within 30 days >> and then but then you got >> but you're not standing >> but then what if you don't do you resuspend them? I mean like that's where >> Yeah. Um, >> am I is anybody else agree? >> I mean, for me, if you don't get your hours done, you've never completed your discipline. You're never eligible for to do anything else in the school again. >> Let's say you finish your freshman year owing 12 hours of community service.

109Are you allowed to start your sophomore year? >> You would be allowed to start, but if you play softball or volleyball, you're not allowed to play because you haven't completed your community service. >> Okay, >> from the previous year. You have to serve the discipline. That's only for athletes though. >> What about what about the kids? >> Even with those those kids that that that are not athletes there there could be something that >> you take parking privileges. >> You can take parking privilege way. You can take any trips. They cannot be a part of clubs. They cannot be you know any extracurricular activity. All they can do is come to school, go to class and go home. I >> I think C made a good point. I really think given the time frame of

110getting those 20 hours in within that same school year actually I think whatever they've been cited upon they should have within 60 days you got to get these 20 hours done otherwise like you said you some of these students not going to take what we're doing seriously especially you know they think they're going to pass going into a whole another school year with it's lingering over their head before you know it they'll say and it's still hanging So I think we should really think about if we talk about community service and like MW said we're going to do within the school they should be able to get that done within the first 60 days. That's just a thought >> and your ball involved and get it through. >> And my question another question I reckon

111that three to five thing it's like having a tutor correct and people pay for tutors. So if I'm just trying to think about getting responsibility on a student parent if we have to stay there and keep a teacher there that they have a little >> Yeah. We're requiring them as a part of the discipline. >> The only reason we're have a teacher there is because they did something. You're saying may the may the parents have to come money pay for that teacher >> for that three to five times >> about three to five times >> because that's not set time for school >> school right >> so what are you going to do with family they can't pay it >> yeah you're not going to get that >> I agree with what you're saying it's

112costing us money because they made a poor decision but >> like the county is doing on the curfew they're going to make the parents having Yeah. Well, but I would say before before free and reduced lunch came into play, there were probably a lot of families that had ginormous lunch bills because they couldn't pay them. And us as a school district probably couldn't collect on that because they just couldn't afford it. I mean, I have seen in some districts families that had $600, $700 lunch bills, we're still going to feed their kids. >> Yeah. I've seen some district couldn't collect it for lunch. How are we going to collect it for that >> for that teacher for discipline? >> And I don't know by us being a public education, we have to provide education no

113matter what time of day. >> I'm guessing that we could charge for a teacher. >> I don't think the fee thing is really feasible. that would work >> unless you offered some alternative that was free and you said well we also have this secondary choice and you can pay to play basically but I don't >> I I think that that's the optics of that are are problematic >> but PLC could be the >> but I think you get to this argument of like the it's the cycle right that the children who need to be getting the education from someone in the classroom probably are the ones that need to really benefit from that and they may not be able to afford this that service. >> And I hear you saying about PLC, but what if

114they, you know, they live right next to the school, they can walk the school or walk four blocks to school, but they can't get over here to PLC. >> I I like when you go to PLC that they're putting that pace not pace program, but they put in a computer and you got to do that kind of stuff. This right here is more hands on in that school and definitely allows a great opportunity to kind of rehabilitate that student and get them going in the right direction. >> And it's also possible that it's a teacher that has a a tie or a bond or connected that wants to make a difference in that kid, >> not somebody that rather than >> you've never met this kid. They walk in and you got to sit down

115and get on the computer for two hours. You know, >> that's a great that's a great idea. And I know it's going to cost but the fact of the matter is some of these things we got in place and if this online stuff a lot of these students are not motivated nor disciplined enough and so they get further and further behind >> and and before you know it we just now we got statistics where students is just dropping off um just say the high school or wherever whatever school you know Chutville Chville High Ruby that kids going back. That student's going back. Nine times out of 10, the tutor could be their teacher >> on the hall, say a eighth grader or seventh grader, sixth grader, and they you just going to have put them

116all in one place or you going to divide them? How you going to do that? When say you got several coming back and two that just got through fighting each other. >> Yeah. So, so one, it would depend on how many students we have. you know, we we try to keep it at a number of um depending upon the situation, 10 to one in that situation. Um you know, we don't want to overload that teacher with 30 students. Uh so we do try to keep that small. Um and you know, if we have if we have 20 students, then I would say we have two teachers. Um and and that's really kind of what I would look at when it comes to and doesn't matter if it's a sixth, seventh, or eighth grader. I'm not

117going to require one from the I just need a middle school teacher to say yes, I want to serve and I will do this. And then they're going to work with those students and work with the teachers. >> You're probably not going to have that many really >> and and I'll try when Miss Story starts on her section. I'm going to go because I can't pull it up on here. I'm going to go look that. I wanted to say it's about 46 49 to 60 something >> across the district. like 40 to 60 is in my head for some reason and I just want to verify. But >> two questions. Will we use this for any other discipline? Like if is there any other discipline that there's three to five if we're going to have

118teachers there doing this? >> Oh, we do. >> Will we get value out of adding another teacher to that count or another? >> And then the other one is I mean I deal with it on on a every Friday basis. We we do some 4 to 10 at our where I work and my department still works 58 or we're going to do this on Friday. You going to find teachers? >> No, we're not. >> Okay. Because it says 10 days. You got to do 10 days worth. >> It's typically Monday through Thursday or Monday through Wednesday. So, this could take them two weeks to >> Well, if it's 10 days, then it's going to take them longer. >> Could take them three weeks to get >> That's right. Okay. >> But we don't do it

119on Friday. Yeah, I agree with that. >> Well, last question I have on it and it goes back to what you were saying about maybe getting a school psychologist or school counselor for each school or for each high school. Uh would that be kind of a deterrent when we have say some of those students with behavior issues or other social issues going on that may can help diffuse or mitigate uh some of these things that we talk about because I I definitely believe in putting flexibility into anything that we come up with here. So we still have the option to decide what is the best for the school and the child. >> So yeah, I mean when looking at the BCBA, you know, that we're wanting to recommend to try to help with going in

120bits and pips and things of that nature or behavior plans. Um, you know, it could help in some of those situations. It also allows for intervention. So, like with the 45, like the second offense, you know, if you go to PLC, uh, one of the things that we would want to make a component is that they would have to go through some type of violence prevention or violence intervention course while they're at PLC, if this is their second offense. I'm just going to tell you if you're gonna fight a third time, we're gonna kick you out for good. >> And it's going to be 365. We're not going to put you on virtual in lie of and you're going to act like that. We're just going to be done with you and you come back

121the next year, but we're going to give you the first chance, we're going to work with you. We're going to try to help you through it. The second chance, we're we're going to still work with you. It's going to take you a little longer to get through, but if you're going to do it the third, you're not in school to learn. You're in school to do something else. What if the second chance happens 15 or 20 days left in school? Does that roll over? >> It rolls over to next year. Okay. >> Anything everything we're doing right now is going to roll over into the next year. If you get a discipline, if you get a suspension at the last day of school, it rolls over to where you do not come till day nine

122the first year at the first next year. You have to serve your discipline no matter what. >> And seniors don't walk. and seen this. >> Um, >> this is, um, I was always taught never to buy a new car the first year, wait till they work out the bugs on it, >> and then maybe buy it the third, second or third or fourth year, >> read the car and drive, >> right? So, so he he's going to have to uh, we we're going to have to, you know, make some adjustments and changes on this, but I think it's a great step. Well, and I think we're making adjustments to changes to your current fight initiative because it's not equitable, >> right? >> Depending upon when you do the discipline, >> I'm ready to good approach

123to what types of input you getting from your from your faculty. >> So, we've been doing it. That's one of the things that I implemented. Um, we've had some situations where some things happened to students that were outside of school >> that they needed some type of something. So, we put them on a on a three to five. Um, we have had some discipline behaviors where we move students to three to five. Um, and so we've had a good response from it. We've had teachers doing this. >> So, they they they think it's a great idea whether it just clipped them all together. It would work. >> Do we need to take any action on this? So, I mean, it's it's the thing for me is, you know, I wanted to discuss it, but I

124guess I kind of wanted to to kind of find out and maybe we need to do need to take action because we need to let students know. >> Yeah. >> If they can come back on January >> and parents >> and we need to get letters out and Dr. King has already crafted a letter. Um, >> let me ask one question back on like off subject. Well, the three to five. >> What are you going to do if you've got a is there going to be like a rotation or what if >> what if Mr. and Mr. Chapman they do it all the time and I mean Miss Blackwell want we want to get in and do the >> we can do a rotation on that but it's a >> because we don't want it

125to form any animosity between correct >> in the building because I want to do it but I'm not in the click. >> Yeah, we want to share it. So we will do a rotation with that. But what you typically see you have one to three teachers that want to do it, >> right? >> And sometimes you only have two that want to do it. And so those two get it as long as they want. >> Sorry about madam chair. I make motion. >> If anybody wants coffee, we slip out. Sorry. >> And Ashley, I'm sorry. I've taken a majority of this. >> And we haven't even been served. >> We're going to try to go a little bit quicker because >> it's all good. This is This is real. >> I didn't intend for this

126part to take as long as it did. I went through it. I'm like, >> sheer energy. >> That I got some coffee. >> Well, I thought we were going to be done in 30 minutes, but I went through it and I was like, this will be quick. We'll move into Ashley's part here. >> I figured the executive session was going to be the longest part. We haven't even made it there. >> Have you had a 30 minute discussion? >> I don't think I ever had >> one of the things I told you I think that has been my one of my bigger complaints about how this board operates is there's not enough open dialogue where we can all talk because of rules that don't allow us to get together and talk. And I and when

127we get in a meeting environment, it's just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, and we're done. So, I I'm I'm a fan of this. Do Do I want to be here till 10:00 tonight? No, I don't. But you know what? If it's if we're being constructive, yeah, absolutely. >> And and if we have to, I can give this reading assignment to you and you can read it before you go to bed at night so it can put you to sleep. >> I don't like reading. I don't have any problem going to sleep. Uh but uh >> and you got it in podcast for >> um we can um well I think I hear Mr. Sweet coming back but we'll get the you know get this information out. Now there's going to be some I think that

128we're going to look at well no Dr. G and I talked about it today. But we want to start this moving forward and and see how how will there have to be some adjustments. There may have to be some adjustments, but we're adjusting the current fight initiative. >> And this could be one of those things that goes on your >> thing that would be good to get out there too. >> And I've talked with your insurer. I'll fill you in on >> Gotcha. Okay. Yeah, >> she's working. >> While we're waiting, any other questions for the attorney while we while we have her? I mean, she's a captive audience. Is there anything that you know, just remember we're we're live and we're being >> we have to stick to the agenda because of Foya will

129require us to do so. >> All right, we have >> Let's get started. Madam Chair, I'd like to make a motion that we accept Dr. Ballinger's uh a fight initiative if we can look at putting it into place at first. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> Okay. >> All right. I'm going to turn it over to Victoria and we've already talked about some of the voice stuff, so she'll be able to breeze through that. >> Yes. Huh. Get us back on track. I got you. Don't worry. Trying to get back tonight. >> All right. Which one you want up? >> Let's do foyer first. That'll be fast. >> Yes. >> I got you. I got you. Talk fast. Y'all better get with the program. >> You got a long ride. Yes, >> sir.

130But I'll let that car drive itself a little bit. >> I don't have any Girl Scout cookies tonight, but I will have some in February, more than likely. say they're coming up. >> They're coming up. >> Dusty ones you didn't bring us. >> Yeah, I do have some boxes at home I could, you know, knock dust off for next time. >> I got your banana pudding and strawberry shortcake. What else do you want? >> Caramel delight. >> Bacon. >> I do love the caramel delights. They're my favorite. >> They're so good. >> So, I don't know why it's not doing it as a presentation. No, >> it's fine. >> So, you're going to have to scroll through each. >> Oh, that's perfect. No, that's fine. That's totally cool. All right, let's go try to find

131that. >> Okay, I'm not going to spend a lot of time on FOYA. A because I've been in front of y'all before talking about FOYA B. I think a lot of you attended my FOYA session at the school law conference, but I just kind of wanted to highlight a few things. You can keep the slides there for you. If y'all ever have questions, just let me know. I could talk about FOYA all night. It's one of my favorite things to talk about. I think it's so sexy and it's amazing. And y'all are just like, let's don't go to bed yet. So, um, you know, the purpose of FOYA is to be transparent with your public so they know what you're doing. All right? It's called the sunshine law. We want to bring light into what

132we're doing in our decisions. Okay? We have to comply because you are a what? A public body >> and the public body is this board. Okay? It also extends to committees of the board. Um, not necessarily with the administration in terms of meetings, but for the meetings purposes, it applies to the board. Of course, documentation applies to the entire district. So if you if you don't remember anything else about FOY tonight, remember there's two pieces, meetings and documents or records. Okay. Um what counts as a meeting when a quorum of the public body that is a quorum of the board gets together to conduct business. All right. And that could also mean if you have any standing committees, if you delegate stuff to a committee, that would be part of the body of the board.

133All right? So obviously tonight we're at a meeting. We've noticed it in accordance with FOYA so forth and so on. Um, what what bothers me about meetings is all the electronics we use now. Okay, so if you are, this is something that I always worry about with clients. If you're emailing each other and there's a quorum of the board on an email train and y'all are emailing back and forth about something, that could be a meeting pursuant to FOYA. Now, you violated a foye because a you didn't notice it, b you didn't have an agenda, and c the public getting there to see it. All right, so my advice is, and people ask, does that mean we can't send emails? Absolutely not. The chair may need to send an email to all of you to

134give you information. Dr. Ballinger may need to send an email to all of you to get information. My advice to you is if you have a question about something in that email, you reply to the person who sent it. Do not reply all because that's what starts the dialogue. Okay? So, if if like let's say um Dr. Ballinger has sent you all an email giving you information about something that happened this week and you have a question, I would respond just to Dr. Baller and if he feels like the entire board needs more information, he can provide that to you all. But don't let's don't try to do the reply all function. Same with group texting. It's easy to drop a group text and put us all in there. It seems like that's how y'all

135are communicating. That's fine as long as you're receiving the information. Once you start replying all in that group chat and you're conducting business, that may be problematic. So, just just be mindful about that. Okay. Notices. You have to notice the meetings in accordance with Foya. You have to give the public notice of what you're going to be talking about, which is why you post the agenda. That's all fair game. You all do that. I think putting it online, y'all's new board doc system is going to make this super streamlined and really easy for y'all. I think the diligent brand is great. I think y'all really going to like that once you get through the the new stuff of doing it, but it's perfect. I also think agendas are important because they tell the public what

136you're talking about. If it's not on the agenda, we are not going to talk about it because it's not part of FOYA. My favorite thing is if I come and I come to executive session to give y'all legal advice about something specific and y'all say, "Well, the attorney's here. We just want to talk about X, Y, and Z." I usually say, "No, that's not on your agenda. I'm so sorry. And if we insist on it, I'm going to leave because I don't want to be a witness to violating the law." And I haven't had to do that here. So, congratulations. We've not been in trouble. Okay? You can conduct emergency meetings. These are not the same as special called. An emergency is truly when something horrible happens. The roof caved in overnight because we had

137a hurricane come. There is no HVAC and you have to figure out where to put the children. Your superintendent dies tragically in the middle of the night. These are emergency meetings. A special call meeting is you got to deal with some business, but it's not emergent. So, you can go through the notice provisions. Emergency is like we're trying to give the public as much notice as possible, but we unfortunately we don't we have to call a meeting. We don't have a choice. Um, can y'all think of something that is not an emergency that we might want to pretend it is an emergency? I think about staffing issues. There may be some big blow up about and I think you were sharing a scenario about a lifestyle thing one time. >> That's not going to be

138an emergency. An emergency staffing would be your superintendent has a catastrophic event and he is not able to be here. Okay, that's an emergency. But just because we we got some community members who are upset about a particular teacher or principal does not mean we need to call an emergency meeting to deal with that individual. Okay. Thank you. >> Executive session. Foya tells us for what reasons we can go into executive session and we can only go in for those reasons. And your agendas have to say it can't it shouldn't just say personnel. It should say personnel for the discussion of hires, resignations, terminations for teachers or something to that effect. Okay. Um it shouldn't just say legal advice. Legal advice pursuant to a contractual matter would be sufficient. Okay. And when y'all are making

139the motion to go into executive session, I think y'all do this. Y'all should state why you're going into it. Not that just mean, Madam Chair, I move to go into executive session. Madam Chair, I move to go into executive session for the purposes of and read it off the agenda so it's very clear why you're doing it. You'll have to keep minutes. This is important. You know this because you approve them every meeting. All right. You, as a board member, get to add to the minutes. If there's something that you feel like wasn't captured in the minutes, you can add to it. You can make a motion to amend the minutes or you could quite frankly contact Miss and say, "Hey, this wasn't in our minutes. I'd like for it to be in our minutes."

140All right? And it's important for y'all to review those to make sure they're accurate. If you weren't here for a meeting, you don't know unless you saw on the live stream. Right? Okay. All right. That kind of is the meeting part. One thing I will say about meetings, the public does not have a right to speak at your meetings. you all give them that right because you have a public comment policy. Okay. So, I think it's great to have that policy because it's great to give the public some time to address you about certain concerns within the parameters of that policy. But FOIA doesn't say the public has a right to address the board. These are your meetings, but you're giving the public the opportunity through your policy. So, I think that's really important. People

141say, "Well, I have a right to speak at the board meeting." You technically don't from a legal perspective, but you all give them that right because your policy says that we have we're going to give them that opportunity. Okay. Records. So, we've talked about meetings. The other part is records. That is when you create something to further the business of the district. Whether that be a communication, whether that be a document the administration's creating to guide people moving forward, your policies, things like that. Okay. Just like executive session, there are certain records that are exempted under FOYA. The things we don't have to disclose. Okay. FOYA also doesn't require us to do other things. It doesn't require us to generate a record when one doesn't exist. So, if we get a foyer request and it

142says, I would like um a copy of, you know, I'm making this up. All the paint colors that the school district uses in its current possession. If we don't have a document that lists all of our paint colors, we don't have to create that document. We don't have to answer questions. Foye does not require us to answer questions. It requires us to produce records. So if a requesttor were to say, "Dr. Ballinger, how many students do you have on expulsion currently?" We don't have to answer that question unless there's document. And there sounds like there's an email that says there are 43 students who are currently expelled. Okay. So that would be a record we would, you know, produce. We don't have to answer the question itself. Foyer request. This is something your district handles.

143Do any of you ever get foyer requests? You probably shouldn't. Um, they should go and and Mr. Buck handles these for you all as the POI. Um, if you all get them for some reason, if you were to receive one, you need to to divert it to administration because there are time frames that are required for us to respond under FOYA and they're pretty tight. They differ depending on how old a record is. So, please, if you ever receive a request, please divert that to the administration. Okay. We do charge fees. Y'all have a fee schedule. You voted to implement this probably around 2019 when the law was amended. It is fine for you to charge fees. It's also fine for you to wave fees. I always talk administration about this. We don't wave fees

144normally, but we can. And it just depends on what the issue is and how long it's going to take for the district to respond to a request. Okay. We do have to sometimes redact records. So for example, student records are not disclosable pursuant to FOYA because there is a federal law that prohibits us from disclosing them. Okay. Similarly, certain personnel records are not disclosable pursuant to FOYA, but others are. Arguably, the public has a right to know who is supervising their children. So a teacher's personnel file would be disclosable pursuant to FOI. We may have to make redactions because we might have a social security number in that file. We'd redact that kind of thing. And we can charge to redact. Um, with your fees, you can charge the lowest level person who's able to

145make those redactions, and that's part of your fee policy. All right? But we can charge to do that. We would do redactions when it's appropriate. Um, again, certain things we don't disclose pursuant to Foy, student records, certain personnel records, of course, your attorney client privilege, communications, and work product, we would not disclose pursuant to FOYA. Um and then if there is something that involves safety because we want to protect the safety of our schools, you don't have to necessarily disclose some of those records. So if for example we had a safety commission get together, we generated some records related to that about maybe some vulnerabilities at a particular school, we would not disclose those pursuant to FOI because we don't want to show the public how to, you know, take advantage of a safety issue.

146You all know, you probably know that anyone can enforce, anyone in the state of psychonic can enforce FOYA by suing us. The big thing about FOY that you all need to know as board members is FOYA is not covered in your insurance policy. All right? So, if we generate a FOYA violation, if we do something in um that runs counter to FOYA and we get sued, you can't call Skisbit to ensure you have to pay out the general fund to defend that. All right. The other thing is um if someone were to win to defeat the district because they they showing that we did violate FOYA, then we have to pay their attorney's fees. That's sort of the punishment. It's kind of a double whammy if you lose because you're going to pay for the

147defense of it in the first instance, but you're also would pay the attorney's fees of the person who won. Okay, we don't have a whole lot of FOYA litigation, which is a good thing. I'll knock on wood about that. We do do some of this. Um, but I think the biggest thing is if you notice that, oh, whoopsie, we missed a a deadline, or whoops, we screwed up something on our agenda, amending that as quickly as possible, makes it so that there wouldn't be a violation. You've cured it. So, for example, let's say you had a meeting three months ago where you took action that wasn't on the agenda. It just slipped up. You did it. You took it. And someone says, "Oh my gosh, three months ago y'all took this action. I didn't see

148on the agenda. It wasn't on there." Well, you could cure that by putting it on the next agenda and ratifying that action. and that would be a way to cure a board meeting issue. Okay. Um we have had instances where there have been and we don't have a lot of this where school districts may be bombarded by foyer requests and so they actually can go and seek injunctive relief from the court requesting that the court intervene with a requesttor. That's very rare. Um if that were to happen, you all would need to take some action as a board to to deal with that. But that's very rare. that it's there that we can actually ask the court that we don't have to continue to comply with these foyers because they're, you know, they're they're overtly

149excessive, they're overly burdensome, so forth and so on. Questions about FOYA? I think the biggest thing that I worry about for boards is generating documents and records that you don't need to generate. Um, why would you send a text message about something when you could pick up the phone and call someone? And then that reply all feature on emails and group texts. I think that's a really bad thing. I don't recommend doing that. I recommend not doing that. And if you're concerned about that, then just pick up the phone and call the person that sent the text or the email and say, "Hey, I got a question about what you sent. I need to get some clarity on that." Okay. Um I do want to make it clear that like you all go to schoolboard

150association conferences. If you're all there, you're not having a meeting unless you're sitting down together at lunch and you're all talking about the business of Chester County School District. If you're there talking about your children, your grandchildren, what you're going to what session you go to next to get training, that's okay. But when you start skirting that is when we sit down and we're all talking about, well, let's talk about the discipline policy and how we want to move that forward and we go back. This is what we're going to plan to do. That's problematic. And y'all don't do that. I mean, we we've been through that. So, questions, concerns, it's pretty straightforward, guys. Just don't break the law. All right. >> Can you tell that to all our students, parents, everybody? >> Yeah. >>

151And it's frustrating. I, you know, I've dealt with foyer requests where people are asking for documents we don't have. We don't have these records. They believe a record exists. And we don't have it. And it doesn't matter how many times you tell them, they think you're you're not telling the truth. And just because we think that there might be a record doesn't mean there is one. We're not going to create something to just have a record. And true story, I had a FOY officer that had a FOY request and created a document and tracked the FOY request and then had to send that document request that they were doing. >> so some districts actually, and this is um and I don't think it's a bad thing, some districts actually post all of their foyer requests

152and then the responsive documents because if I were to send this district to FOYA, dear Dr. Ballinger, I'm requesting pursuant to FOYA the following records. My foyer request is now a record. My foyer request is now foya. All right. So, some districts actually post all of the foyer requests on their website. They have a tab and they post the responsive documents. So, you could do that. It's not required. But just know that if someone were to send a foyer, their request in of itself is now a foyable document because it is a written document. I'm just not in fan of creating documents and records unless we have to for some reason because it just creates more stuff to have to keep up with. and you all have a record retention policy. The state dictates what

153records we have to keep and for how long we have to keep them. And generally, you just can't destroy state records. So, once we have it, we have to deal with it. Um, and that that could be pursuant to a foyer request. >> All right, Dr. Ballinger, do we know how to get you to get back to >> uh go back? I can't see this. >> Oh, great. Look at you. You got it all figured out. Okay. view. >> All right. Okay. So, I think this is more meat and potatoes for some of the things and I think Dr. Ballinger's covered a lot of this and and quite frankly, the fact that y'all getting ready to do a policy overhaul of the school boards association is going to be like the best reinforcement you can

154get for this training because you're going to go through every policy section, including your own, which is the what section? >> The B section. The B section, which is the board section. Okay. So, um I'm just going to go over some highlights with y'all tonight. And I want to y'all please ask any questions you have. This is not just for me to stand up here and tell you what you already know or what you think you know. Please ask questions. And some of the scenarios we went over earlier were things that we see a lot of. So, um All right. What's going on here? Okay. So, we always look at the law. What does the law say we can do? Because that's the hierarchy. It's like the law and then we have our policy, right?

155And typically our policy is rooted in law. So if you go look at any of your schoolboard policies, you could pick one. BA, there's probably some legal citation there to what how we came up with that policy in the first place. And there's typically a link to the South Carolina legislature which tells us what where it came from. So if you ever have a you know community member asking you why do we have this policy in place? What does it mean? It's probably rooted in a statute somewhere and this is the statute and this is why we we came up with this policy. And y'all will talk a lot about that when you do your policy overhaul, okay? Because some of your policies are a little bit old. Some of them might be as old

156as I am, which is, you know, not super young anymore. Um, so, you know, you want to make sure, but these are your general general things here. And this is from our state statute obviously provide for school houses, school property, employers. That's approving their contracts. And of course, as you know, depending on their contract level, they can appeal to you all um if they're recommended for termination. Y'all will also um promugulate rules and regulations. Those are your board policies in your administrative rules as recommended by your administration. Um call call meetings to order, control your school property, and visit schools. And I think that visit schools is one of the most important things is y'all need to be visiting your schools. You need to get in there and see what what they're doing in there

157and follow whatever process y'all have in place. Do that. So if you have to like notify Dr. Ballinger that you're coming, do that and do it appropriately. But visiting schools is a really important part of what you do as a schoolboard member. And not just necessarily your school in your district. I mean, y'all representing the constituents. You know, you are you are single member districts, but still it's important to see what's going on in other schools in the in the county. So, do that, too. All right. Um, your policy. So, if you are ever wondering what do I have authority to do, you go to B section. This is a hyperlink. So, if you have this um you know, you should be able to click on that. and it identifies your basic functions. All right,

158so we talked about some of these and some of those scenarios we went through earlier. Your biggest one, I think, is legislative or policymaking and y'all will be doing that in January. Buckle up. It's a lot of work. I'm not going to sit and lie to you, I think. But it's it's good work for y'all to do. And that's a time for y'all to ask questions. The school board will tell you what they recommend in terms of model policies. They send out model policy recommendations every single year. But as y'all are doing an overhaul, you may see something that geez, we've been doing this since 1999. Not sure this is still something we need to be doing now. And that's okay. And you will from time to time, you're going to be hearing about policy

159updates from Dr. Ballinger and his team because they're going to say, "Hey, this isn't working." Or, "Hey, a new law was enacted this past legislative cycle. We've got to update this policy." I will tell y'all that from time to time there are certain policies that have administrative rules, which is more of a procedure. This is how we do this. Typically, that doesn't require board vote. I'd have to look at y'all's B section to know if y'all have to take a vote on administrative rules. But my thought process has always been that if the superintendent and his department, if they need to make an administrative rule change, they bring that to you all for information, but they just do it because there's something going on for why that policy isn't working and they need to be

160able to to correct that pretty quickly. For example, your leave policy for staff members, they have an AR because it says this is how you go about taking FMLA. this is how you go about taking bereavement leave. If there's a change in the law with regard to a procedure for FMLA, they need to be able to do that immediately. Y'all need to get bogged down in all that, but you may have a B policy that says y'all actually vote on ARs. I think that that puts a little bit of a hamstring on the administration, but that's up to you guys about whether or not you want to do that. Your quasi judicial function is being like a judge and a jury. So, y'all get student matters before you depending on what the severity of them

161are. um community complaints and also of course personnel matters. And if you get too involved in that at the lower level, you can't hear them at the higher level. You'd have to recuse yourself. So that's when you always tell someone when they call and say, "Hey, this is what's going on with my child." Thank you so much for calling. I really appreciate you reaching out to me. You need to I'm going to direct you to the superintendent in his office. And I'm going to next call Dr. Ballinger and say, hey, I got a call from so and so. This is what they told me. Please follow up with them. So, just like you were explaining example earlier, Mr. Sims, I thought that was great how you handled that because truthfully, if you get bogged down

162and you start doing your own investigation into it, you will have to accuse yourself and that's really one of your biggest functions. So, I wouldn't want to have to recuse myself if it were me. And this is a small community, so word gets around. I talked to so and so, that's the board member. And they'll come to you and they'll say, "Yeah, I talked to Mr. about that and this is what he told me." And so forth and so on. So, don't think that, you know, your secret ain't going to get out because it probably will. Y'all appraise and approve c certain things. Of course, y'all review the financial resources. You approve the budget. That's a huge item that you all do. Reviewing and making sure the audit is what it needs to be and

163and giving feedback on that. And review any other action that you need. If you're also confused about the superintendent's role, his policy section is what? It's not S. That would seem to be S for superintendent. It's C. It's C. So A is administration, B is board, C is superintendent. So you can always read B and C together, and it helps you to understand exactly where we're at. All right. All right. So, of course, with your policy is your governing and um sort of law. You draft policy, you review it, you go through the approval process. Y'all be doing that in January, so I'm not going to get into that with you. Um but you just want to make sure that your policies are staying up to date. And that's difficult to do. Once y'all do

164your overhaul, and that's going to be a lot of work, but y'all can get through it. Once you do your overhaul, it will be smooth sailing after that because your administration will bring to you policies every year you'll need to review and revise. Okay. Personnel matters. Of course, y'all hear these as either employee agreements matters under GBK or if it's a teacher dismissal issue, y'all would hear those pursuant to the teacher employment dismissal act. If it's a continuing contract teacher, if there's an issue with a personnel, generally we're looking at policy section G. Okay? So, if they're calling, if you've got an employee calling you to complain about, you know, something going on at school or what what their employment situation is, direct them back to chain of command. That keeps you in the good.

165It keeps you from recusing yourself on an issue. And Dr. Bowerer said this earlier, you have one employee who is >> Dr. Ballinger. So, if it's if it's dealing with him, that's fair. If it's dealing with his staff, let him handle and he'll bring recommendations to you to act on. Okay? And you hold him accountable. So if he brings you something, it doesn't work out, you hold him accountable for that in his evaluation. Instruction, um, we talked about this earlier when he was going through some of the roles and responsibilities. This is section I in your policy manual. It talks about instruction, how you all will develop instruction and curriculum, um, for the overall goals of this school district. Okay. Student services. This is a big one. You deal a lot with student discipline, things

166like that that come to you for various things. Your student section is generally the J section, G and J are going to be some of your biggest when you do your policy overhaul. They can be the most timeconuming, but they're probably to me the most important ones. If I had to guess, I look at G and J more than any other for every district that we represent. Okay. Um I also goes back to instruction and that deals with some student services stuff too as well. Um you just want to make sure that you stay out of those issues. It might be a friend of your child or something like that. Just stay out of it. You're here as a board member when you're in this room, not wearing the parent or the friend or the

167whatever hat. It's the board hat. Attend attendance issues. We have that covered in section J. That's in the law. How y'all define your attendance zones, how you if you allow school choice, things of that nature. That's all going to be in your J section. And sometimes because we're a more rural district, we get questions about attendance. We get the McKenna Vento Act for homeless children, that kind of thing. That all comes from your J section policy manual. So, if you ever questions about, you know, how do we let kids come in, what those rules look like, all of that's going to be there and it's vested from South Carolina statute in federal law. Community relations is the K section, again, not the C section, that's the superintendent section. There are some really good rules here

168in community relations about how you communicate with the public. Talks about generally that the chair is a spokesperson for the board or the superintendent or his or her designate. There's also a complaint provision in this section. This is where we get a lot of the um the book challenges that we've been hearing about. I don't know if y'all have heard about those from other school districts. I don't know that y'all have had any of them. Um yeah, but this is where this is coming from is this policy section for most school districts. So, um that will be a good one for y'all to look at when you're talking with the schoolboard administration association about your policy review. And then of course, budget and finance. That's the D section, the fiscal section. Making sure you're reviewing

169those budgeted items and you understand what they mean. I think with this, it's kind of going back into preparing for your board meetings, reviewing your board docs, making sure you understand it. You know, when you're the chair, obviously you spend a lot of time working with administration and you're going through a lot of this stuff. But as individual board members, whether or not you hold an officer seat, you still have the same responsibility of the chair to review the documents, making sure you're prepared for meetings and going through that kind of thing. And the audit's a big one. Y'all get audited every year. Um, we get school districts that get put on watch and caution and those sorts of things which lead to takeover. We want to avoid that. So, it's it's incumbent upon you

170to make sure you're reviewing that information and that if you have questions, you ask the superintendent and make sure the staff is giving you the information that you need. >> We're going to have our first facility committees meeting in January and our first finance committee >> fun January. So, >> and so with those board committees, going back to FOYA for a minute, if you have a board committee, if a quorum of that committee is meeting, the rules of FOYA apply, you got to have an agenda. you have to take minutes that that that still is applicable even if you have community members or district staff on that board committee. So let's say that your finance committee of your board consists of two board members, the superintendent and the finance director or CFO. Well, if you

171got a quorum of that group coming together, Foy is going to apply. So just remember that. All right, don't forget that's been litigated a little bit. Um just always just do it in the open. It's easier anyway. Okay. facilities, transportation, food services. This is policy section um E. If you've got questions about that, you can look there um for anything relating to facility management. Y'all have some projects coming up. Just making sure you're asking the right questions and then, you know, maybe go out there and check that out a little bit. I think that's important, too, so you know what's going on. Um board conduct. This is a big one. I think we've talked about this before. Y'all act collectively as a body. No one member of this board has any more power than anybody

172else. Okay? So, Mr. Sims, you can get on a high horse about X, Y, and Z and you can speak your opinion during motions when motions are made, but at the end of the day, if your high horse opinion gets voted down, it's the will of the board that prevails, right? Um, people think the chair has more power than anybody else. That's just inherently not true. You all act as a body, so you can't go out and say, "Well, I'm such and such board member. I'm going to get X, Y, and Z done." You have no power on your own to do anything. Okay? So, that's important. Um, you all don't supervise any employees but the superintendent. So, kind of going back to what Dr. Binger said, and I think he made it very clear.

173He's not saying any of you have ever done this, and I don't know that I'm aware of any of you having done it. Um, you all can give him directives, but you shouldn't be giving staff members directives. You should be doing that through him. Um, we have had litigation in South Carolina where board members have been sued by employees for overstepping. It's hard for an employee underneath the superintendent to feel like they can't tell you no because you are the board. You're important people. All right? You're elected officials. So, just kind of keep that in mind if you're asking for information. I think that was a great a great thing is just copying the superintendent so he's aware of what's going on. And if you're concerned about that, just ask the superintendent to get you

174the information. He will get it from his staff members to give it to you. I can't imagine he wouldn't do that. Okay. Um you all also police each other. The superintendent does not police the board. If there are issues with the superintendent, you all will deal with that as a board. But amongst board members, you all will deal with that with yourselves. Um there's no reason that the superintendent needs to be involved in those issues. Okay? And if you don't know what to do in a situation, consult board policy section B. You can always phone a friend. I'm always here to help you guys out. Not a problem. We've already talked about FOYA. I'm not going to go over that anymore because you all have got it nailed down. Okay. I think the biggest thing

175is y'all working together, making sure that you stay in your lane, he's going to stay in his lane, but y'all can drive the ship together if you do that. If you ever have questions about who is in what lane, look at board policy. It is very clear. It tells you exactly what you're supposed to be doing and what he's supposed to be doing. If you're still confused by that, you have another resource. It's his contract. His contract says what he can and can't do. And it kind of outlines a little bit about what your board policy say you can do. Okay? That's also another document I recommend that if you all reviewed that, you've talked through it, but that's always something you can keep in your arsenal of um items to review. And of course,

176he'll have that as well. Okay. These are things I see as an attorney to board members and to school districts. Um, when y'all have a communication breakdown between either board members or the board and the superintendent, y'all have already addressed communication today. That's something y'all always need to be talking about. And don't wait until you feel like something's so bad you can't stand it anymore. If you if you have an issue, you should go ahead and bring it up immediately because it's only going to get worse. And in my world, if it starts as one little tiny snowball, it just gets bigger and bigger. And the chance is if one of you has a concern, probably more than one of you share it. So, don't hesitate to bring it up and talk to the superintendent

177about it. Um, I think if you know, board members, y'all remember, of course, staying in your lane, if you have a concern about something going on, direct that to the superintendent. As elected officials, you all have a responsibility to your community. Okay? I'm not going to sugarcoat that. That's a really big responsibility. If you have if you have delegated that to superintendent, you feel like it's not being taken care of, that's one thing. But give him an opportunity to address it. you know, this is a small state and people talk and so if you go out, you try to handle things on your own by contacting the department of ed or some other governing body, it it's probably going to get back to the superintendent because they're going to call him to understand what's going

178on here. So again, kind of that idea of what's the rest of the story? You think you might know all of it, but you probably don't. That's where you have to get the administration involved and give them an opportunity to respond. Um, again, I think doing the superintendent evaluation is really a big part of what you guys do as a board. It's the only evaluation that y'all do other than if y'all do a selfboard evaluation. Take that very seriously. I know y'all have the the ones I've been involved in in the past, y'all have taken that matter very seriously. Continue to do that. Have a good tool. Have a good rubric that you use and make sure you give the opportunity to the administration to explain, show you guys evidence of what's moving forward and

179what needs to change. Um, I also just think too if you don't have good meeting agendas and you don't think for really preparing for your meetings, that's also a way to incur liability to the board and it just makes y'all look silly to the public. So, really think about your agendas, how you want to structure them, what you really need to talk about, what what's important to your community and putting that out there. And that's part of that foyer transparency piece, but also thinking through, you know, maybe we have a lot on the agenda this month and we're not able to cram all this in. We need to spread this out because, you know, sometimes sound bites are better for the public to understand, digest things instead of just, well, everybody's out of town in

180June, so we're just going to, you know, throw all this stuff into the June meeting. Um, be be mindful of those things. And that's it. That was a quick trying to keep y'all on schedule. >> That now I'm going to have to match that with the executive session piece. >> You got this. You can do it. But really, I I you know, I'm I always tell you guys, I'm honored to be here. I'm a proud of the school district. It meant a lot to me to come and work with you all. And I have family. I have my nieces. They're all here in y'all's schools, too. So, it's a big thing, but I'm I'm a proud graduate of Straw High. And I think I got a world-class education right here in this county, and I'm

181I'm very proud of it. So, thank y'all for the work that y'all do. You do hard work, and it's often a thankless task what y'all do. Um, I always joke with Mr. Sweeney. His wife, Glattus, taught me in algebra in high school, and she was a a great teacher. Um, I'm not a great math person, but that's why I went to law school. I do attorney math. That's the billable hour and the contingency fee, so I can calculate those pretty quickly. But, um, no, I really appreciate all that y'all do for this this the students and the community here. It it means a lot. >> Madam Chair, I think we're ready for executive session. >> Okay. Uh, I make a motion to enter executive session to discuss session. >> I just did it. >> I

182can get over to possession. >> All those in favor? >> Okay. I need a motion to go home. >> Second. Scorpion. >> All those in favor? Good night.