001[Music] our Chief Financial Officer um that he would like to share and then I'll share the ground rules for markup and we'll open the meeting for board members for discussion following tonight the board will vote to approve the final budget for fiscal year 2026 at next year's next week's meeting on March 19th at this time I'll turn things over Dr McDade Dr McDade thank you Mr chairman um I'll start with just acknowledging all of the work of our budget team um that they're here tonight I want to thank them for um their work in developing the proposed budget as well as um working collaboratively with schools and departments for several months and taking on board member feedback so that we can bring forward to you the revenue update and markup um and we've aligned all
002of our investments to our continued support of our vision 2025 strategic plan so you'll see all of the Investments that were proposed as well as those that you'll see in markup are specifically aligned to the Strategic plan on February 5th our team submitted the fiscal year 2026 proposed budget and IP to the school board the school board then held a public meeting on the proposed budget on February 10th followed by a public hearing on February 19th and I really want to um take some time to thank and acknowledge the board for your time attention and engagement throughout this budget process and all of the feedback that was captured um you'll see your voice in this particular markup as well um you've reviewed and analyzed the budget for to provide some critical suggestions and proactive involvement
003throughout the proposal really ensured the alignment of the Strate strategic plan so I want to um both acknowledge and thank the board uh for that support and at this time I'm going to have um Mr Yousef our Chief Financial Officer to provide an update on the fiscal 2026 budget um we'll also go through some of the additions that you'll see that um were not in the original proposed budget um and also Mr Vernon Bach will share a couple of uh quick updates as it relates to facility ities and some um changes that we've made there so we'll start with Mr youf thank you Dr McDade um chairman Latif uh members of the school board and Dr McDade um this will be very brief uh a quick recap of where we are with our state revenues
004on February 22nd the general assembly approved a budget with additional K12 resources based on the preliminary estimate of net additional P the net additional uh pwcs resources for all funds amounted to approximately $24 million additionally from where we proposed our budget these adjustments include the elimination of the support cap at 20 million and additional support for special education at 4 million vdoe estimates or the calc sheets have been uh posted uh our budget our proposed budget is based on the governor's budget there is uh the governor has to sign this budget uh I believe the uh General Assembly will be reconvening in April 2nd uh 2025 so we should have more information as to what gets passed but right now as the general assembly stands it's $24 million extra for us this year additional in
005terms of our County revenues uh just a few dates uh next week the bccs will meet to include their revenue update uh on March 20th uh I believe they will be scheduled to advertise its real property tax rate of 92 cents which is revenue neutral from their perspective on March 26th all other taxes will be uh advertised uh they'll do a budget recap on April 8th and then following that they will do an approval so right now uh we are waiting for the county to finalize their projections um just to quickly recap everybody's seen this slide slides but for our teachers certified employees uh 6.8% uh increase overall 7.4% for classified and um administrate administrators are at 6.8% similarly over the last 5 years we have 5% 7% 5% between 5.2% and 6.1% and 6.8
006and 7.4% I'm going to send uh I'm going to ask uh Mr Bach to talk about the next slide and this is uh Construction items thank you yeah thank you Mr Yousef uh what I have before you here is uh a little bit of a compression of the schedule uh to uh ensure that we have uh you know Turf practice fields at all of our high schools um and uh we do have them at seven of our high schools currently so uh this will balance us out to ensure that we have turf at all of our uh practice fields and you can see the schedule there of tackling three in 2026 and then three more in 2027 and then rounding it out with two more in 2028 um also want to make mention and uh
007Mr wil I think uh brought this uh this forward uh as a concern coming from the school our risk uh management team went out along with our facilities team to assess um a sidewalk location there running right down um uh the main entrance into pomac and uh it is we believe it definitely is necessary uh we uh have moved aggressively to complete this we'll be using this year's funds uh to complete that and we're going to be starting this in April and completing it in April and this will include uh a sidewalk down the drive next to the Ravine area there is some existing lighting there but uh it doesn't cast a lot of light we'll be upgrading those light posts uh with uh much brighter lighting to cast in both directions and then we'll
008also be constructing two crosswalks one coming from the front of the school connecting to that sidewalk which will allow students to walk down and then pick up another crosswalk which will be like to gain access into the neighborhood on Eagle Ridge Drive so that's all going to be progressing rather quickly and it does not appear in the CIP because we'll be tackling it with this year's funds so that's my update yep all right so next we're going to start the review of the summary of markup just a quick reminder that um there's no additional revenues assumed at this time so what you see is based on our current Revenue in The Proposal that was brought before the board with the understanding that there may be final action that may come from the state and the
009county at which time we'll be prepared to address that but certainly we we can only approve a budget with actual um Revenue um some of the expenditures that you see here will add an additional $7 million to the budget in markup and an additional 41 FTE which will all be directly school-based or um position to directly support schools so I'll walk through um all of those Investments these Investments as you'll see each one does align specifically with objectives within the Strategic plan and are a direct result uh feedback from both our board members as well as a review from our Academic Teams and um and our operational teams so the first thing you'll see here and we heard a lot of got a lot of discussion and a lot of feedback from several board members
010around the need to emphasize um Place more investments in science as well as mathematics so you'll see that pretty prevalent here in the budget the first thing you see here is two additional science Specialists so to make sure that we have coverage for um ele Elementary as well as middle and high and then funding for academic competition travel and participation you'll see $100,000 there so that there's never a situation where um a school team that has to compete you know doesn't have the funds to be able to cover the cost of travel and um registration you'll also see an additional $162,200 which covers the cost of one FTE which is a position to support expanding extracurricular activities um division wide and that was something that we got directly from from our board an additional support
011for math you'll see two things here in math I want to call your attention if you look at line item uh four the additional support for elementary school math and then also look at the last line item which is um uh math coaches at uh 13 schools I want to lump those together they don't they're not side by side but I want to talk about those at the same time so the first one you see is additional support two math specialist to support ele school math so we have one already so the idea here is to make sure that each region West Central and East has a math specialist to support those schools within the region and then you'll also see five instructional coaches that are supporting schools across the division with high needs when
012you come to the bottom uh the last row here where you see support and maintain accreditation for math in elementary school several board members discussed in The Proposal of the first budget the need to have like we have Specialists for reading in every single school there's a desire I think across the board not just from the board but we also believe that every school should have a math specialist that was the reading Specialists were funded at the state level um for the math specialist we wouldn't be able to fund those Allin one Fai swoop additionally we have to consider Staffing ability for those positions because we know that math is a hardto staff um position so what we're doing is a phased approach to try to support those schools where the data suggests there's the
013highest need so what you see here is there's 13 um math coaches that will be school-based positions just like the reading specialist position to support 13 schools where we looked at their accreditation um and and determined that these were the schools that will be the most uh that would have the biggest impact in having a math coach understand or math specialist understanding that we can't fund one at every single school what what ideally you see the additional um coaches that are specifically with a math concentration area that's where Dr Sullivan's team and teaching and learning will be pushing in support to get coverage across the other schools but the the concentration of a a a specific site-based um specialist for math will be in those 13 schools and we we used accreditation data to to
014make that determination then you'll see funding uh the cost of Summer virtual courses such as um health pe2 and economic and personal finance uh funding is there to cover the cost for students to take those courses we're also going to be covering the tuition fee for summer High School Accelerated courses so you'll see $7 uh $22,000 there we're we're adding three additional Security operation center staff for after hour events so several board members um posited the need that you know while we have the the security operations center we have so many after hour events that extend beyond the time that the center is open so we'll be um including these three positions specifically for nights where there's Heavy after after hour events across the School Division so that the center is manned then you'll see
015administrative intern for high school for high instances of level two programs and this is a ual investment we invested last year where schools that had a large number of level two programs did did get an additional admin intern to carry some of the um the case management supports there and so you'll see this year what we did was go back and evaluate because year over-year the uh office of special education um looks at at programming needs and may increase programs in specific schools so it doesn't look the same same every year so we have to re re-evaluate annually to make sure that resource that we provided is still being provided equitably across the board and so this year based on the addition of level two programs in other schools um we're adding eight admin interns
016then you'll see the next line is Vape sensors so beginning the start of the next school year we're allocating $400,000 for um Vape sensors in all high schools we right now are doing a pilot for um middle and high but not all high schools actually have the Vape sensor sens sensors so that $400 will go to that then you'll see a social worker dedicated to mcken vento our mckenny vento students those are students who have instability and housing um and so there's a dedicated social social worker position specifically for those students we they have social work support right now but the number of students that we have that are um identified as mcken Vino has significantly grown since the pandemic and there is a need um to have some dedicated support there then you'll see
017$214,500 to pay to cover the cost of funding uh referee pay for teams that advance past the district level competition so that um those costs are coover covered that's a significant cost to schools that we're picking up and then the department budgetary funds for science this really is is this $100,000 is really around research um and projects in support of um students that's going to be housed in the Science office then you'll see six csos so where the additional Community safety officers just to give some context here there's been several um both communitybased as well as from our board um as well as schools that have asked about you know our middle schools and our high schools have SRO our elementary schools we made a significant an investment in security assistance in our elementary schools
018but they do not have armed security what they do have is our community um security officers who are armed and they patrol all of our elementary schools but right now we have how many do you is it we sorry we have 12 currently okay so we have a total of 12 right now we're adding six and then what they will do is be divided amongst the three regions so that there's heavier coverage for each region so they won't necessarily have the individual SRO in an elementary school but they they will have um additional armed officers and this way with the addition we'll be able to have an equal number in each of the three regions of um of security so that's and and just a point of note the SRO are staffed by Prince William
019County PD we don't staff SRO right and we know there's a critical shortage um in police officers so there's not a path forward to to staff and SRO in every single Elementary School and right now the data doesn't necessarily suggest that that is what needs to happen the community um security officers have been very beneficial and have been supportive and we do think that this addition will you know bolster the community and give a little bit more added support and protection and it would be a layer layered approach because they do have the security assistance and then you'll recall even is I think it was just the last the last board meeting when we did the gifted um program presentation there was a discussion by several board members with um Dr Sullivan uh around gifted
020programming supplemental um funds and the way that we currently uh provide supplemental support is through a flat kind of flat rate supplement to each of the programs but what we're doing now is we're going to keep that but uh roll in a per puple dollar amount so that the funding that the gifted program gets will be per the per the number of students that are actually in the gifted program and that's going to be to the tune of about $100,000 and then I've already kind of gone over the math coach support so these are the additional Investments as you'll see they are all directly in support of uh students and schools um and school-based positions and the total here for positions as well as discretionary funds is a total of a little over $7 million
021so that is all of our additional investments in the markup and that concludes our presentation for this evening Mr chairman great thank you it's important to note the board members have previously had the opportunity to share with the superintendent any additions or revisions to the proposed FY 26 budget and those have already been taken into consideration for that we truly appreciate it Dr McDade we'll Begin by going around the table to each board member for opening comments following open comments will follow this process which we do every year each board member in turn will have the opportunity to present any proposed changes they may have that may not have previously been shared with the superintendent if there is a change each change must be moved and seconded followed by a discussion and a vote no
022board member may speak twice about a budget change unless unless and until all board members have spoken once about it after all board after all board comment is complete the matter will be called for a vote by the chair a change may be offered and voted on once should there be any changes they'll be compiled in a final vote on the budget with all changes Incorporated will be taken likewise should there be no changes to the proposed budget a final vote will be taken to accept the budget as presented board members are not so bound but otherwise pledged to each other not to offer amendments to the budget in Open Session as being duplicative of the work session efforts allowing for a straight up or down vote on the budget that is reflected on the
023final vote of the work session board members may make any comments or discuss changes offered in the work session in Open Session okay we'll move now to opening comments uh and we'll start right now with Mr wil thank you Mr chairman thank you Administration I appreciate uh the updates uh and the feedback um like a lot of my colleagues uh number of those represent some of the things I was looking for uh you know I looked at some of the things especially like uh Mr trenic with some of the Safety and Security Dr Latif had a lot of great academic suggestions that he was focused on and paying for other areas of academic support so there were a lot of good things um and some that we collaborated on and that it was great to
024seen multiple board members push for various things that are now incorporated into this budget I do want to say that um you know when the sidewalks were first proposed and I do have to give credit to mck little um a member of the PTO at pic Senior High School uh for really bringing this to the Forefront it's not that this was the first time this was ever presented uh but in the past when this was investigated um there was um I'm trying to think of the right word incision or it was a gray area about who owned that property um the county um said we owned it we said the county owned it and this with a previous administration so we really weren't able to fully tackle it uh because there were disputes about who
025actually owned it and who was responsible for the land nonetheless I'm happy now that we and have acknowledge that we own it and we are completing this project rapidly um you know I think originally we were thinking a multi-year kind of faceted approach but now April I think you yes sir it'll start this April and be completed by the end of April perfect thank you um and and so very thankful for a lot of these uh things um you know the arms of Patrol officers I think that's something I'd like to add more a little bit more every year um Dr McDade and I were at uh a police Appreciation Night uh that Forest Park puts on um annually um you know we're very thankful I'm very thankful for having um a resource officer in
026every secondary school I know a couple years ago um it was a goal of a large number of members of this board to ensure that we could at least get one to one especially at the middle school and originally we didn't have that because of the uh number of applicants and um it's great to see over time that we're almost I think fully at that point with the middle schools is that correct sir I I believe we have two middle schools that share an S SRO currently but yes okay thank you that's great um and so overall like I said you know the last two nights I've been to two different PTO meetings and I briefly brought up the budgets and uh I was at Patty last night was a very active PTO and they
027were you know just profusely grateful for the um security support in each of the elementary school buildings I that it's not just Patty every Elementary School um you know it resonates with the whole community uh I know originally when we were doing security um there were people um who rebuffed or didn't want to actually wear um the security clothing um and um have the uniformity in the presence but that has been very popular uh now that you know families know exactly especially at middle school or High School sporting events and such who the security is and there is a large Presence at these events because of course security safety of our students is a part of the um huge component of the Strategic plan bringing the Evolve uh detectors out to our football and basketball
028sporting events and other events has um been uh received really well um when I was at Forest Park on Monday night for their pack meeting we talked about a lot of this um The Vape detectors were brought up and um you know the Comm group seemed very you know happy about it we also acknowledge that it's not going to completely eradicate vaping in our schools but it is a step in the right direction um and then of course the turf field coming the Forest Park to um so overall thank you I'm very grateful for what was added to the budget I'm thankful for my colleagues for adding their components to the budget um I think this is a very robust budget and continues going along with our strategic framework and our overall goal so thank
029you thank you Mr wil Mr denck thank you um I just like to say thank you to everybody that dealt with my long list of asks um I I think I last budget season had no idea what I was doing because it was my first budget season I still don't know exactly what I'm doing but I knew that I could ask for more items and at least have a conversation and I really appreciate Dr McDade for being willing to discuss um each item and and even uh explain why or why not um about certain things one of the big ones that I just think is such a great investment are The Vape sensors in the high schools I'm a a big fan of those um um something else that's smaller but means something as the
030referee pay for when um teams make it past a certain point they don't have that in their budget um the additional csos I'm a big uh advocate for safety so I love that uh the gifted programs getting that little extra stien based on um how many people they have in their class the social worker for mckin vento is a big deal um the funds for science I know you touched on it a little bit Dr McDade but it was something that we talked about um especially I know even Dr Latif has talked about um science projects not being a huge Focus can you touch on that a little bit yeah this this specifically um is for supplies in research classes okay okay so things like um beers and test tubes for students to be able
031to have experimentation okay so that's that's particularly what that is but possibly to also encourage them to do science fairs yes yes so so is that right because it's 100,000 so it's not just all test tubes but um but it's a combination of both um you know when we talk about research projects they also have to have the lab equipment to be able to conduct research and experimentation so it's a combination of um participation in science fair and then supporting students to be able to go through the research process and so schools do need funding to be able to do that awesome um the other thing is the math support I think a lot of us had asked for that and that's a a great a great one um I had and the the van
032for the high school programs I think it's such a big deal for some of our kiddos that have to try to figure out a way to get to the the local program so I really appreciate that and I know that that will be um appreciated from a lot of people I just had one more question um the additional assistant principles at the elementary school level I know that was something that I asked for and I know it's dependent on funding um I I do know that there's the reasoning behind it is to help with special ed to help with discipline and I know we have the new discipline admin coming can you just touch on that a little bit if it's a possibility in the future absolutely so a couple of things um it it
033is elementary school is our largest group in terms of schools and so it is cost prohibitive and then the fact that we we added the admin interns and the Deans is supportive however um we do we are costing out right now for those schools that um for example we have some schools that have 11 um level two programs and for those schools we do believe the admin intern isn't sufficient and so for those schools I do have the team right now working on providing me an evaluation of um how many schools have 10 or more uh level two programs or schools that have significant programming where there are there's challenges with the admin team in in handling that and those would be the schools that we would prioritize to have an additional assistant principal rather
034than just that admin in that's at every level and that that's regardless of level it's not just elementary middle or it's it's just depending upon the actual program usually that kind of support is necessary at elementary because they have so much less Staffing um admin Staffing than a high school would have right so that's where you typically would see more and and we're seeing more of the programs being placed there as well but um but as far as future we do we are anticipating that we'll receive some additional funding that'll be able to support the work that we're doing in special education es particularly with um admin support so you should the board should expect that with additional funds I would want to bring forward that we would add some additional assistant principles to those
035schools that really need uh the additional support based on um their special education programming so that is something that I I do want to you know put out now that that is one of the things that we would want to use additional funding for and we'll have a full evaluation for you to show which schools and why awesome thank you thank you Miss SAR thank you dror Latif um when I first started on the board the budget process was very um I don't know it was just kind of wild west I think I used that term before um I mean Mr wil you remember how we would have the discussion about the uh armored car yes good days bud meeting yeah yeah so I I was just want to thank you Dr McDade for bringing
036in um the idea that we need to be evaluating what our programs look like what they need if what we are doing is working um and and being able to to be nimble and pivot in things so um and and even in our sip looking at all of our properties and deciding how are we going to evaluate what school or property needs whatever they need and making it um easier for our principles and our school communities to be able to make those requests so I all of that just makes this process so much better um like my colleague said I'm appreciative to all these these things that we've already have in the budget and the the the ideas that the board has come up with or things that people were concerned about I I'm I'm
037grateful for um being able to have this our our funders need to know um our our our local taxpayers this is really important it's it's it's it's not easy to add things to school divisions money is usually pretty tight and um and and we find in times that we'll we'll have things that get taken away so I'm really grateful that uh we are able to be adding things that are important and will make a difference for our students so thank you Mr Jess yeah I want to thank everyone for all all that they have done with this budget it is impressive to me and I I see that we are doing a lot of good things uh you know for some reason I I I think that we are way ahead of a lot of
038systems uh divisions and so forth uh with the organization with the attention to detail that we are doing and I think this is great I do have one question for Mr uh for Vern uh which is I noticed you you're saying that we putting artificial turf on the practice field uh does that include the the softball and and hard ball fields it it does not that includes um where we had um natural grass as the practice field we're going to be taking that up and replacing that with artificial turf um one of the reasons that we that Mr Blake had suggested um you know delay and Garfield was to get a little bit more of a comprehensive look so we are looking at that we're going to take more of a comprehensive look at some
039of our other schools as well that's something that we're taking a look at okay thank you but over all I I'm very impressed with the budget and I think we are doing a lot of good things thank you Miss William thank you Mr chairman um I'd like to Echo the comments made uh by my board members prior this this markup session is um a lot less stressful than Years Gone by I appreciate the um attention to the organization and not just listening to board member comments but from the public from your own staff um and really getting down on the ground level to make that difference for people who work at all levels of our division it's very much appreciated I just had a few questions and and I don't necessarily need all the answers
040right now but if you could just when you talk about fully funding for cost for AC academic competition travel and participation what are those and I don't need like a full list but like just couple examples I I I don't we don't have like a list of ones but for example we do have situations that arise where a team may be um going to compete and they don't have the funding so I'll give an example international science fair it could be it could be any activity I'll give an example one of our schools um uh I think it was FFA that was competing um and they were they tried to like raise the money to go they were going to National and they were trying to raise the money and they couldn't raise the money
041and then um we ended up I ended up um you know giving them the additional funding to be able to support it but they actually asked about it right like asked for the additional support and there's sometimes situations where the school might not have it and they don't they don't say anything if they're not able to fund raise so we just want to have um in our um a Athletics and and Student Activities Department we want to have money available so that if a school is going to compete for anything academic or Athletics if they have to travel if they have to pay registration fees and the school doesn't have it in their budget we don't want it to be a situation where students can't participate so I couldn't tell you that um oh it's
042going to be for robotics or it's going to be for um fcla I can't tell you specifically but I will tell you that we have a lot of award-winning teams and a lot of schools that compete across the board both um Athletics and academics and there are times where the schools can absorb the cost and there's times when we have some schools that don't have the budget for it and we want to make we want them to know that they have um a department that they can go to to say we're we're going to National or we're going to State and we need buses or we need registration fees and we have money designated for that thank you I really appreciate that that that's a major deal for most of our students and for most
043of our schools because travel gets more and more expensive every year and I don't think we've ever uh had something like that from the division level um CU one of the things I I well I don't talk about as much but like schools having discretionary spending that could look very different different school to school most of my schools are tighter wi schools discretionary spending is usually mandatory spending so where at another school it's not so that I really appreciate that um the next thing I wanted to know about was we're going to do vape sensors at all the high schools for the stting next year could we get a cost estimate or what it would look like to expand that to Middle Schools as well I know we have some pilot programs but um lucky
044me I'm a Middle School Parent so I'm hearing about this all the time from the Middle School level so I know it's the activity is just as uh active students are getting into it at younger and younger ages and I think a lot of them have figured out for the evolved system so I'll just leave it at that um the next thing you talked a little bit about budgetary funds for science I was wondering if we don't have all of our schools don't have science labs and I know that's a process and we're getting there and it's going to take a while uh is there uh when we talk about maybe we may be receiving additional funds possibly putting together a plan or what it could look like for a board to look at of
045maybe having mobile science labs or something of that nature the reason why I bring that up is because I know there's been a few times in the past where students are scheduled to go on a St stem field trip whether they can't go so for I'll just use my own son he's 666 Raider he hasn't actually been in a science lab yet and through no fault of the division through no fault of his own right it's just something construction here or there's a Mis field trip or a what so I was just I I know that those things exist I don't know how practical they would be but I I can see that we are upping our investment in science and I would just I know he's not the only one and any opportunity I
046think for students to do more Hands-On learning would be uh great and that's not to um undervalue the lab uh the think big Center at River Oaks those are wonderful um but they're also for students who are absolutely dedicated to a career in science the level of rigor that they're looking for or the extra participation I think we're missing out on and so not asking for it now cuz I don't know if it's still a thing uh but if we could look into that if there are extra additional funds that would be fantastic and when we talk about special and adding interns do we have one of the things that I had heard this year and I'm not sure if it's gotten better is just a little bit of extra staff for the buffering like
047the difference between Tas and our special ed uh teachers and having their schedules and I don't know if interns help with that is that something that would also provide some cushion for our teachers during the day like say there's someone out you can't find a sub that kind of thing do we have any Breathing Room in those areas for our special EDS because I know they're they're in a classroom all day we generally have a hard time finding special ed teachers and so I don't know if there's anything position wise or if that's part of what that person would be doing or how we could sort of build some cushion around our special ed teachers I I don't know that that's like legally like I don't know the teacher has to provide the instruction to
048the student and so um the coverage is based on the instructional actual minutes in the day but but you'll see we made a significant investment to add additional taas so that's above and beyond what would be required in the classroom um and so Dr so uh Dr ryer has done um a lot to take a hard look at the programming to make sure that not only the required number of Tas are there but we we've added additional support so I know teachers have been appreciative of that but outside of adding the additional Tas and then adding the support for the case management um I mean the teacher is the teacher of record to provide instruction so there's no way to um you know remove time from the day for them they would they would have
049to deliver instruction for the full instructional day and of course they do get the same um you know duty-free lunch and things like that in their preparation periods that that every other teacher gets but they do have the additional we did try to provide some additional human capital in those classrooms to support the teachers by way of the teaching the teaching assistance and we've added quite a bit this year is 50 but Dr ryer do you can you recall the total 300 so to the tune of 350 okay thank you we just really haven't talked about that for a while and I think it's just now the best time to bring that up so thank you Dr ryer for I'm moving because I can't see you thank you Dr thank you Dr ryer for uh
050looking at that program and building that in I didn't quite phrase it right but you hit the nail on the head and I really appreciate that and I know our teachers do too um and again just general thank you for uh keeping us informed and um really being on point about what we're hearing so thank you thank you Miss Williams Miss wall thank you Dr Latif um I want to start out by saying that I think this is a great budget um I think that the pay scale initiative is the biggest thing in this budget um and it is very what I'm hearing is very welcome and the staff really appreciates it um it is a significant investment um if you look like the the average saling salary increase over the last five years is
051is absolutely stunning so I want to highlight that and and say that I appreciate that and I think um hopefully we'll see some returns on that investment in um happier students happier staff St and and great um result in academics and on and off the field also so um with those General remarks being said um I also appreciate um and acknowledge that our top priorities are reflected in this budget which I appreciate I also appreciate the process of the Strategic plan driving the Investments I also see that is happening in this budget which I also want to draw attention to and appreciate and acknowledge um and and that is also true for the CIP I appreciate the Fidelity to taking a look at our facilities and our fields and evaluating where our needs are and
052and prioritizing um our investments based on the data that we're collecting and the knowledge that we have of um our facilities so thank you very much to the team that worked hard on that um and including the um evaluation of the turf practice fields which for our student athletes is going to be huge to see that um compression of the schedule and to be able to get all those other high schools up and running with a a Turf practice field I I think it would make a big difference I really focus on academics because that's where my heart lies but I do know that the a the Athletics make a big difference for our students they love the Athletics it's often a way that they um achieve their personal dreams um on and off the
053field so I I really want to thank everybody for working hard on that um couple of things that I appreciate in particular and want to highlight is the additional I mean I know this is 7 million additional um funds uh that's a that's a big number and I really appreciate it um the covering of Summer virtual courses such as HP one and two and econ and personal finance that's been a big thing for kids when that sticker shock when you want to you want to take you know an advanced course and marching band and then you want to take a summer course and then the price is $400 it's really hard for some families even if they can afford it they often complain about it you know because it's a lot of money um so
054I do really appreciate that I think that's going to make a big difference um also covering the tuition fee for summer High School Accelerated courses kids who want to get a jump on so they can take some of our other electives um in our that we offer and we offer so many really great electives so I appreciate that um I also wanted to highlight that I particularly like um the investment for supplementing Elementary School gifted programs to bring a little bit more um I guess I don't know if the word is parody but uh you know the flat rate supplement plus the roll in per people people cost I think that'll make it easier on our schools to do what they need to do with the gifted and talented programs and and and really reach
055out to more kids in an effective way and these additional supports for math education math Elementary School Specialists and Science Education sorry Elementary Specialists I think that is um also going to make a difference and while those are essentially there centrally based positions they are directly reaching into the schools and I think that's really important to notice that while we have Central staff they are giving direct support to schools and that should make a difference um for our teachers that gives teachers support and um hopefully we make their jobs easier as they help kids so overall um any further thoughts from me if we should have additional funds I don't know if this is the appr proper time to make that but um I do know that we have um in the music department sometimes
056Instrument Repair can be expensive for schools um especially in band um when you have needs for that and I don't know how we fund that but that might be something that could really help our schools out also additional money for sheet music music rights to like a band show things like that that um schools do often bear the cost of um to get appropriate music and instrument repair and replacement so that might be something that if we did have additional funds we could we could take a look at um supporting from a central office position and other than that I really appreciate it and I want to say um thank you to everybody who worked hard on this budget I know you probably been breathing eating living this for months so I'm sure you're happy
057to see us be coming to the end of it thanks thank you Miss wall Mr Blake thank you Mr chairman good evening everyone uh I'm very pleased with the progress we've made this year on this budget and I believe that it is a strong Forward Thinking budget that not only aligns with our um needs of the community but also reflects the goals of our strategic plan and I just want to take a moment to thank the superintendent and all of her staff for the commitment to listening to the school board and uh taking a careful consideration of what we all said and um reflecting it in this markup and uh I really appreciate it and thank you everything they all said so thanks okay great um so going back to the main part of the
058proposed budget I am you know really excited um the fact that this budget does reflect our values it reflects a strategic plan um you know just for me the highlights really are you know we we've added more specialed teacher assistance we've um uh added Behavior Specialists graduation coaches School psychologists and kindergarten teaching assistants all of these positions will help all students regardless of what level they are at uh a behavior specialist a school psychologist can help all students not just gifted students or students with English learner these are all students so the commitment in this budget everyone should really recognize is that the dollars being invested here are for all children not just particular groups of kids or certain demographics they are really um thoughtful um Investments that will impact all students across all grade
059levels and I think that's truly appreciative I'm very grateful for the additional Investments specifically um very happy to see that we are going to be able to fund and cover some of the High School summer courses um the tuition for summer classes is and you know is and can be expensive for many and I appreciate that I think I think that's a great investment uh that's about a million dollars going to help pay for students um and again that's all students right that's any student who wants to do those programs and I think that's really important and I think families should really take advantage of that program um I really appreciate the other aspects of the additional Investments that we're doing many of these are based um on science and math areas that I think
060we have a lot of work to do um and a lot of a lot to make up since the pandemic especially um and so I truly appreciate that effort and the commitment the continued commitment that this board has uh and the superintendant to Safety and Security for having more folks in the um uh the security office what do we call that the sock sock Security operation Center security operations center right center and so very good okay um those are the just of my comments we'll move now to the second part of uh work up um is if anyone has any proposed changes um does anyone have a proposed change Mr wil thank you sir um give me one second sorry I wrote this right before usually when my mind is most fluid and I wanted
061to have it written so I projected the right tone uh on this and put some more context um this has to do with the CIP a recommended change I'm going to put forward um I didn't really Lobby anyone for this um I guess we'll just go how it is uh to see if I could get support for this um but for the past few years I have been asked by community members and elected officials what are we going to do with dumre before I joined the board in 2016 dumre Elementary underwent Renovations in the early 2000s I do not know the story of what occurred but I have heard rumors that the district had the option to renovate the existing building with primarily interior upgrades and some exterior changes or to pursue a complete overhaul
062with the possible M multi-story expansion my understanding is that the previous representative opted to preserve the building's historical nature and focus more on interior Renovations while changes were made inside trenchant disparities remain there is no loading dock forcing boxes to be stored in the main office the gym is nearly oneir the size of those in my other schools the cafeteria is the smallest I've seen in any Elementary School two years ago the dump Town Council held her swearing in ceremony at the school the feedback was staggering elected officials from across the county couldn't believe how small the cafeteria was when I showed them the gymnasium they were shocked dumpy's Elementary is landlocked and surrounded by homes in a historic slave Cemetery I believe the only viable option is to rebuild part of the structure and
063add a second floor I want to acknowledge that based on my research the same amount of money based on the division's research I should say was spent on dumre as other Elementary School Renovations at the time I also understand the division conducted a sous facilities assessment despite these trenching concerns the building is filled with dedicated staff and happy families I rarely hear complaints and every time I visit I am greeted by a friendly and collab ative team the building is well lit the floors are spotless and the walls showcase vibrant murals and student work this is not the first time I have pushed for Change and likely will not be my last as the pic District representative I must uphold my community's trust and advocate for equal resources across all schools tonight my ask I'm
064seeking the board to support moving dumpy's Elementary from the 29 renovation renewal year to FY 27 ensuring that the issues hitherto overlooked are finally addressed you have a second I'll second it Miss MC Dr MCD do you want to make any comments on that well well first I'll say um you know I do understand some of the concerns that uh Mr wil has brought forward however I will just remind the board that in our strategic plan we committed to evaluating all of our facilities to ensure that in our CIP there is um a a strong rationale for every facility that needs a renovation or needs support that shows that we're prioritizing the buildings that are in the most need so that's not to say that dumre does not need additional support to their facilities however
065we did share with the board the full um facilities uh assessment that showed the schools that were in the poorest condition in terms of their facilities and those are the buildings that you see prioritized in the CIP and while dumphrey certainly can um benefit from additional renovation they did have a renovation do youall what year that was um I don't have that date um okay well we we did share um with with the the Dum um Town Council the the mayor of dumes the actual date of the last renovation that was that you know uh the board was a some of the board members here were a part of and we also shared with you the facilities assessment for dumph in comparison to other schools in the school system and right now they are not
066the school that has um the most dire need in terms of facilities renovation and I'm I'm really um really excited about the fact that the board supported going down the path of hiring the external um evaluators so that there's fairness in our CIP and I personally believe that we should stay the course in ensuring that those schools that are showing in the orange or in the red um are prioritized because in some instances even from a safety perspective you know we do need to address those facilities first any further comments Mr wer yeah um thank you for that I appreciate that I understand your um your your thoughts behind that um and the logic to your uh rationale um if well first I don't know if anyone was on this board when it first occurred
067because if we subtract 25 years from 2029 it definitely I I was not on the board and Miss Williams you've been longer than me I don't think so it was prior to this board's terms um but I just wanted to add that so um yeah just wanted to put that there okay we'll take a vote um all in favor of Mr W's motion for moving the dumre renovations up uh signal with a hand raise any opposed all opposed hands up okay opposition wins moving on next to who's next anybody have anything else to add to mark up any other proposals um okay Dr Latif um could I just add you know I was listening you want to add something in the budget no no I do but I don't have any money so uh we
068don't we're we're we're done until we get some additional funding but um I just wanted to respond to two things one um Miss wall in terms of the just because I know that if we do get additional money I want to make sure that I'm addressing some of the things that I did here tonight and um Miss wall you asked about additional money for the instruments and repair and I just do want to remind everyone that that's I do want to reassure you that we have money in the budget for that already um just a refresher last year um we did we added $169,500 th000 for to support um the music instruments uh and repair and then the other thing I wanted to call out was um Miss Williams with the special education um you
069know I know you were probably referring to kind almost teacher burnout with special education in addition to what I I didn't think about um was in addition to the taas remember we um in the original proposal we did add the 15 behavioral specialist which is a support too um for and and and Dr ryer I just want to give some credit to Dr ryer when she came in she did kind of an overhaul and looked at all of the positions and worked um collaboratively with the the CFO and so now we have additional uh teachers to support inclusion and so that's a big benefit as well and those were two things I I didn't think of so I just want to thank you um Dr ryer for bringing that to my attention if we're in
070the business asking for more when more comes um you can just refer to my list and take a look at the fact that I still um am pushing for more guidance counselors or um Career College and Career counselors at the at the high schools um okay great thank you all uh for that um are we uh in the work session final Mark uh votes accept Okay so as as presented um I need a motion Mr Blake how about I move I'll move I move that the Prince William County School Board accept the fiscal year 2026 budget as presented in this evening's work session and final markup do I have a second second second any all those in favor hands up all those opposed no opposition motion passes okay I moved that to Prince William County
071School Board accept no we don't have to do that oh okay yeah I think we're good we have no changes right did I get that is that right Council okay all right um that being no further um action before this board with this meeting is adjourned