001I'd like to call this meeting of the Prince William County School Board to order pursuant the school board policy 139 School Board member participation in the meetings by electronic communications School Board member Diane rosson will participate in this meeting through electronic means from our home due to a medical condition that prevents her physical attendance the clerk was so noted in the minutes of the meeting also Dr Latif cannot be here today due to a previous conflict a motion is in order for the approval of the meeting agenda chair experience I moved to the Prince William County school board approved the closed session agenda as recommended second a second we're all confused thank you Miss Austin yes okay Miss Jessie versus yes yes um moving on to the motion to enter a closed session I'm sorry
002that's all right the vote is seven yes one absent Dr Latif motion passed all right now moving on to the motion to answer closed session emotion is in order Madam chair I move that pursuant to Virginia code 2.2-3711 and 2.23-3712 the Prince William County School Board enter closed session for the following reasons one to discuss with staff the appointment transfer release assignment and promotion of specific officers and employees under VA code 2.2-3711a 1 2 to conduct the annual go setting for the 2022-2023 school year for the Ombudsman under VA code 2.2-3711a13 to discuss with division Council and staff actual or probable litigation and specific legal matters involving staff specific staff and students under VA code 2.2-3711a 7 and 8 4 to consult with staff and legal counsel regarding policies and regulations pertaining to the employee
003conduct and Personnel matters relating to specific employees which require legal advice and guidance as provided by VA code 2.2-3711a 1 and 8 5 to consult with staff and legal counsel regarding the acquisition of real property for the construction of a school where in the decision where the discussion in an open meeting would adversely affect the school board's bargaining position or negotiating strategy as provided by VA code.2-2.2.2-37113 and 6 to discuss and receive briefings by staff members related to the security of school facilities the safety of persons using such facilities and actions taken to respond to such matters were in a discussion where discussion in an open meeting would jeopardize the security of such facilities pursuant to Code vehico 2.2-37 11 a 19. thank you a second and if I share a second thank you Mr
004um Ralston how do you vote yes the vote is seven yes one absent Dr Latif motion passed the Prince William County School Board will now enter a closed session and return to open session in one hour [Music] thank you the Prince William County School Board um I now will reconvene the Prince William County School Board is now returning from Open Session closed session a motion is an order Madam chair I move the pursuant to Virginia code 2.2-3712 the closed session of the Prince William County school board meeting of November 2nd 2022 be certified by adopting the following resolution now therefore be it resolved at the Princeton County School Board hereby certifies that to the best of each member's knowledge one only public business matters lawfully Exempted from open meeting requirements were discussed in a closed
005meeting to which the certification resolution applies and two only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard and discussed or considered by the school board any second I'm chairman Miss Jesse Miss Boston how do you vote yes the vote is seven yes one absent chairman Latif motion passed before moving on I would just like to make an announcement that Dr Latif will not be here today due to a scheduling conflict moving on to closed session action items a motion is an order for a 9.01 Madam chair Miss Williams I moved the Prince William County school board approved the appointments and releases of specific employees as presented in closed session so second Vice chair Mr cycle a second thank you Ms Ralston yes the vote is seven yes
006one absent chairman Latif motion passed thank you moving on to 9.02 we need a motion Madam chair thank you Miss Williams I moved to the Prince William County school board approved the 2022-23 annual goals for the Ombudsman as presented in closed session I need a second awesome Miss Jesse thank you um Mr Austin how do you vote yes thank you the vote is seven yes one absent chairman Latif motion passed all right thank you that is it for a closed session action items now we will have the Pledge of Allegiance um Dania sharifi is the student representative tonight would you mind leaving us thank you all right moving on to our favorite part of the presentation of thriving future Focus presentation David Futures focus is an opportunity to highlight the exemplary work being accomplished in
007our schools that support our vision that every student will graduate with the knowledge skills and habits of mine necessary to create a thriving future for themselves and their community we will begin tonight with Miss Lori Williams representing the Woodbridge Manchester District thank you madam chair the alliance for a healthier generation a leading children's organ Health Organization named six Prince William County Public Schools as the 2022 America's health is healthiest school awardees e-schools are among 406 Nationwide to receive this year's designation two schools from the Woodbridge magisterial District have been recognized we will begin tonight with our 2021 National Blue Ribbon School Porter Traditional School Porter traditional is being recognized for strengthening social emotional health and learning and increasing family and Community engagement principal Caitlin engelmeyer excuse me floor is here tonight to tell us a
008little bit more about how her school earned the recognition and to introduce her colleagues thank you good evening chairman school board and Dr McDade my name is Caitlin engelmeyer for and I am the proud principal of Mary G Porter Traditional School on behalf of myself and Miss Mears assistant principal at Porter we are excited to be recognized this evening for being a 2022 America's healthiest school for our commitment to strengthening social emotional health and learning as well increasing excuse me family and Community engagement our school Community understands the importance of supporting students not only academically but their social emotional growth we know however that our Student Success in school is led by the unwavering commitment of our teachers and staff through the heels program and the drive of our SEL team who's here with me
009this evening Miss Maddie bablack Miss Laura Mears Miss Tierra Owens and Miss hope white were not only able to take care of our students but we're able to take care of our teachers social and emotional health as well we focus on building Community Relationships by reaching out for resources and support providing opportunities for parents to be able to come and receive support on how to help their students at home including our first parent SEL night where we were able to engage families in coping strategies discussed during guidance lessons zones of Regulation supports for parents and we are excited to expand this opportunity this year to include our students for our staff we focused on providing opportunities to connect and engage with each other through teamwork activities discussion on healthy habits and allowing time for Reflections
010on areas where we can strengthen throughout the year we provided teachers with interest inventories to give us an understanding of how they were being supported and what we could do to do more we are currently hosting a school-wide book talk on onward that supports emotional resilience and Educators we understand that building social emotional Wellness in our community does not end here and will we will continue to show our commitment by adjusting to our community's diverse needs we appreciate the support of the school board Dr McDade and Miss Heather wines for helping us in supporting our community needs through the heels initiative thank you [Applause] thank you Miss engelmeyer Fuller and congratulations to Mary G Porter Traditional School it is now my privilege to recognize Kilby Elementary School Kilby is also being recognized for strengthening social
011emotional health and learning and increasing family and Community engagement this is exciting as Kilby has a new principal Ms Chanel Evelyn who is here to share excuse me share more about this honor good evening everyone we would first like to just thank healthier generations for giving us this opportunity to share all the wonderful things that we are doing at Kilby I'd also like to thank our wonderful professional school counselor Miss Jennifer Hart she serves as our social emotional learning coach and she's done a phenomenal job leading our school and our community and just making sure that we're providing our staff our students and our families with the resources that they need the first area that we're being recognized is our family and Community engagement Kilby is a recipient of our 21st century Grant and we
012have what we call a tiger 21 program so before and after school we have academic programs for our students we focus on academics we focus on enrichment opportunities and there's also a parental engagement component as well we have Saturday stream sessions we take our students and families on field trips and we have some sessions where we're able to share with our parents some things that they can do with their students to just help with their academic achievements we are also providing our parents with opportunities for what we call parent chats so our student services committee our school counselors social workers psychologists and admin they have sessions with our families we provide families with the survey so that they can kind of share some of the things that they're interested in and so we have our
013parent chats where we can kind of teach our parents some of the things that we're doing in school and hopefully that it will carry over to their home life as well and good evening so the second area that we were recognized in was our social and emotional learning and that was based on our implementation of a peace Corner in our kindergarten through fifth grade classrooms what that looks like is having strategies and supports that all teachers can use for students that are engaging in maybe some behavioral challenges because we understand that the year without instruction because we were in a year of covid students were having to deal with certain things without the supports that they needed so we did utilize our peace Corners we also utilized our second step curriculum and that was given
014to all of our teachers so they could understand the importance of the community building a community excuse me with their students and also having a school-wide language that could be used in and out of the classroom and in our community and finally we were also able through the comprehensive School counseling program that me and my cohorts were able to not only implement but push out school-wide was able to promote our social and emotional learning so we do know that through the implementation of these programs and activities they are the contributing factors that have led us to receiving this award and we are so so grateful for get for allowing you all to at least know some of the things that we're doing at Kilby Elementary so thank you Dr mcdake thank you heather wines and
015thank you healthier generations for tonight thank you just going to exercise a little point of privilege and say how much I appreciate both schools they are so very different in my district mediterial district but the hard work is exceptional and I know my families really appreciate everything that you all do I have seen Century 21 Grant um with the tiger program in action and been to numerous programs at Porter and I just cannot ever thank you enough for all the work you do for your staff and the families and communities that surround where you're located it is so very much appreciated thank you madam chair all right thank you Miss Williams and a huge congratulations to the porter Traditional School and the Kilby Elementary School thank you for being here tonight it is now my
016privilege to introduce Miss Lisa zagabor the Kohl's magisterial District to recognize the next School thank you Miss Jackson um I am proud to share that Parkside Middle School has also been named a 2022 America's healthiest school uh Parkside Alum here too so extra congratulations Parkside Middle School has been recognized for cultivating staff well-being the principal Mary J Dr Mary Jane Boynton could not be here tonight but the incredible Miss Aaron America the assistant principal is here to tell us more thank you very much good evening Madam chair school board and Dr McDade my name is Aaron America I'm one of the assistant principals at Parkside Middle School and now on behalf of Dr Boynton our principal who regrettably is not able to be with us evening we wanted to take this opportunity to thank the
017alliance of healthier generations for awarding Parkside the America's healthiest school award and the category of cultivating staff well-being a special thank you to our Parkside heels coaches for all their hard work and time to provide our teachers and staff with support and opportunities to decompress and regroup during a very challenging school year a special thank you to miss gaspari one of our heels coaches who oversawed this application process through pwcs heels initiatives and Parkside heels coaches our teachers and staff were provided Chiropractic Services time with therapy dogs some friendly staff competitions monthly socializing opportunities training on Stress Management weekly newsletters to celebrate and highlight staff members and how can we not forget tax throwing our focus on staff well-being allowed our teachers and staff to be our very best for our students each and every
018day in closing on behalf of Dr Boynton I would like to thank Dr McDade for your inspirational leadership and Ms Porter Lucas for her continued support and guidance we are Parkside proud [Applause] thank you and thank you Miss agapon congratulations to Parkside Middle School three of the six schools being honored this evening are located in the Princeville District Buckland Mills Elementary School was recognized for strengthening social emotional health and learning the principal Maxi Max excuse me Max today oh dadra could not be here tonight but their counselor Kailyn Scott is representing the school Miss Scott could you please say a few words good evening my name is Kayleen Scott and I am one of the school counselors and SEL coaches at Buckland Mills Elementary School we received our award under the category of strengthening social
019emotional health and learning last year we implemented the zones of Regulation the zones of Regulation is an approach that students use to support their development and self-regulation all the different ways children feel and the state of alertness they experienced are category categorized into four zones the children learn to know which zone They are in and how to get back to the green zone Green is calm and ready to learn each room in the building is equipped with a calm Corner these calm down Corners have items like pillows stuffed animals fidgets books and breathing techniques the calm down Corners help students when they are feeling stressed frustrated or overwhelmed they can regulate their emotions in the calm down corner and return to their desk when they are ready to focus and learn thank you to the
020Buckland Mills staff students and Community for working together to support the social emotional well-being of our students also thank you to Heather wines school board and Dr McDade thank you so much um Piney Branch Elementary School has been recognized also for strengthening social emotional health and learning tobacco-free schools and school health services principal Steve Thorne is out of town this evening but Monaco sober is the assistant principal is here to say a few words Miss overs thank you Miss Jackson on behalf of our Piney Branch Community and Mr Thorne I just I want to thank the alliance for healthier generations for the privilege of being one of America's healthiest schools I'm joined tonight by one of our school counselors Mrs Bigler who is also one of our heels coaches in a large part of the
021reason that we are here to accept this honor tonight Piney Branch was awarded this for our practices in four different areas but most notably was our cultivation of Staff well-being and our strengths of social emotional health and learning we've been using mindful practices at Piney Branch for a few years including a mindful moment every morning on our new show Brain Breaks throughout the day where teachers are incorporating those self-regulation tactics and also a calm Corner in every classroom that students are able to use at um whenever they need to our heels coaches are super excited to continue all of the wonderful initiatives that we started last year this year to continue to build our social emotional health of our students and our staff so we thank you all thank you Dr McDade thank you School
022Board have a good evening thank you so much and our final score to receive this recognition is Victory Elementary School owning the award for cultivating staff well-being principal Chad Ray is here this evening to share a little bit about this recognition thank you Ms Jackson um uh I'm just grateful to work with such a dedicated SEL coaches and um and the opportunity to um you know continue the the heels funding for those positions and I wanted to introduce our coaches fifth grade teacher Carol McQuillen and professional school counselor with Jessica Kaiser and Miss McClellan is going to say a few words good evening thank you for the opportunity from the healthier Alliance we are so proud to be here representing Victory we earned this award because of cultivating staff well-being and you've heard the phrase
023a happy wife happy life well we believe it's a happy Teacher happy school when we did little tiny things like we into the walking Wednesday every Wednesday we take a five to ten minute walk outside when you see the kid just getting that extra movement around everyone just relaxes for a minute and they're happy and crumble cookies every Friday doesn't hurt but we are really proud of the work that we've been doing Mrs Kaiser and myself meet weekly and we just come up with many ideas to help our teachers alleviate some of the stress that we all know that we have so we're just very grateful and proud of our school Victory and one celesti always Westy so thank you members of the school board and Dr McDade and Heather wines [Applause] thank you all
024so much for being here tonight and for everything that you do um just so proud to be up here listening to your stories and for everything that you do thank you so much congratulations to our six healthiest school winners I will now turn this over to Dr Latonya McDade to help conclude this portion of the school board meeting at the hula marks who will take some pictures with these amazing winners thank you madam Vice chair congratulations to all of our schools Buckland Mills Kilby Piney Branch Victory Parkside Middle and Porter traditional on earning the 2022 to America's healthiest school award I am so incredibly proud of all of the work that you are doing every day for your school communities and this prestigious distinction really demonstrates your commitment to a positive climate and culture I
025want to thank you each for your leadership in this space to ensure that every single student is in an environment where they can Thrive thank you so much congratulations and keep up the great work we are so proud of all that you are doing for your school students your families and your community foreign thank you Dr McDade I now invite our enemies up forward so we can take a picture thank you guys we're going to take like three shots I'm going to count to three in some click each time okay ready on three one two three two let's do another one two three one more one two three got it [Applause] foreign two three another one one two three and just to be safe we'll do one more week one two and three got it
026okay thank you on three one two three all right another one one two three and one more one two and three good s foreign last but not least one two and three good Ness ready one two three focus on them next one one two three all right and one two and three oh good all right one two three one two and three and one two and three thank you okay moving on to the adoption of the consent agenda emotion is an order but before after this one sorry I moved to the Prince William County school board approved the public meeting consent agenda as recommended is there a second or don't I need a second is there a second time I say yes thank you discussion Madam chair I'd like to pull the appointment of safe
027schools advisory Council representatives to board matters all right I'm going to do that for you right now but you're going to have to give me about two minutes to do it and then you all will need to refresh so you see the consent agenda reflected correctly thank you Is there further discussion thank you madam Vice chair I um wanted to thank the individuals who have agreed to serve on the appointment on the gifted education advisory committee I once upon a time served on that committee it's a great committee and has a lot of great dedicated people and so I appreciate the time it's a volunteer appointment so that's just hours and time and out of the goodness of their hearts so I do appreciate the people who are serving on that I also wanted to
028highlight the new course offerings for the 2023-24 year of the bio2 microbiology and forensics and bio2 anatomy and physiology the unmanned aircraft systems and the introduction to early childhood education I think those are Great Courses I'm glad to see that we have that we're increasing some of our science offerings in particular but also our CTE offerings so I'm pleased with this and I think this is a good Advanced advancement for our students to offer these new course descriptions that's all manager any further discussion Ms Simpson should we wait a few more minutes Miss Simpson are we good all right please vote Miss Wilson how do you vote one more time Miss Wilson yes thank you the vote is seven yes one absent chairman Latif motion passed all right thank you Now we move on to
02913 says in comments those citizens who have signed up in advance of the clerk May address the school board this evening when they are called to the podium the citizen comment period for regular school board meetings is one hour and citizens may speak on agenda items or other topics Germaine to the operations and policies of pwcs please use Papua decorum and manners while at the podium or you will be asked to step aside we ask that the audience please be respectful of each speaker and refrain from any clapping during cheering to avoid disruption of the meeting if you do not the board will recess and I will ask if the room be cleared to restore public order when I call your name please come to the podium state your name and address for the record
030I'm going to name the first five and then you can come sit in the front of their seats Jennifer Rakowski laurina Cog Marion Johnson Ken narr Jalen Curtis Jennifer Caskey thank you good evening Vice chair Jackson Dr McDade and school board members my name is Jennifer rakoski and I reside in the Occoquan District I'm here tonight to speak to you about the proposed changes to policy 795 notice of school-wide presentations or readings as a former classroom teacher and current employee in facilities I was immediately taken aback by it I reached out to several principals teachers and Librarians to get their opinions in case they were seeing a side of it that I was not no longer being in the classroom their concern was even stronger than mine because they do know the possible impact of
031this policy especially at the elementary level here are some of the concerns raised what is any book or other material will be read shared performed or broadcast to all students by any person if the music teachers are performing for all students and staff does that mean every piece of music needs to be advertised in advance for parents and Guardians to review what if there's an issue with one song does a student get pulled from that one or the whole performance music teachers are already so dedicated to providing cultural and musical diversity in the repertoire allowing this undermines their expertise and dedication if a picture book or poem is read over the announcement where can the student be moved to so they can't hear the text being read what is school-wide what if it's something just
032for the grade level does that need to be sent out in an update sometimes when teachers or Librarians read a book at the grade level for classes they're doing it based on the level of the students what about opting for a book related to social emotional learning topic during counselor lessons or class meetings how does this benefit the student who will not only miss out on important discussions and lessons but continue the behavior that caused the lesson to begin with what about school-wide non-academic presentations for anything from Awards ceremonies to pep rallies to required County programs like say something training where does this slippery slope stop in general it left a bad feeling in most Educators stomachs teachers principals Librarians counselors School staff they're generally overtaxed when they read this most of them saw it
033as just one more thing being added to their already overburdened plates as you may have noticed when I started my speech I said when I saw the policy I reached out to others for their to get their feedback I ask that you please reach out to those that are in the schools to get their feedback and help alleviate their concerns after talking with some of the school board members I understand your intent behind this policy but it is Broad and open to misinterpretation and potential abuse and I don't see the timer so hopefully I have a little bit of time um 30 seconds yes thank you um if you have a um this past week um Elementary Educators in particular the work day was this past Monday but they also had to do parent conference
034day so they had to get their report cards done in advance it'd be better to have the parent conference day on November 8th um so they could have had time last Monday to prep and then on November 8th to meet with the parents and on a final note on the calendar April 8th 2024 is a total solar eclipse in North America it'd be cool to have an additional day off so people can chase totality so that the science nerd thank you thank you um thank you Miss Simpson is the time I'm going to be okay okay will we give people a 30-second okay all right lavender Clerk they will give you a 30-second announcement okay thank you good evening Dr mcdaden board members my name is Lorena Clark my name and address is on file
035with the clerk imagine 700 students one-on-one testing is required to administer a test each test takes 20 minutes on average that's 233.3 hours to test those 700 students there are seven hours in one school day not counting lunch 33.3 school days to test those 700 students three teachers to administer that test takes it down to 11.1 days the test has to be given scored and entered into a program that is not clearly defined on how to enter the data or what format after it's been scored all by Thanksgiving break four more school days until the Educators that are giving this test are trained in how to give it not how to score it that gives nine days to give the test score it and enter the data for others to review those nine days will
036require Subs to cover the classes for the Educators who are pulled to give the exam zero are the number of known Subs that are available or willing to come to the school and sub zero the number of Educators at the site that actually know what the test is for or why the test is given the new test might make sense to those here in this building however this test is another in a series of tests that pull students from instructional time this test looks very similar to another test already being given to the students why duplicate tests with different publishing companies that cost taxpayer dollars this is just one example of the numerous times students are pulled from direct instruction to take a test for somebody to look at data the state just sent a
037round of data that shocked everyone saying that our math and reading levels have dropped did the state look at how many times those students were pulled from direct instruction so other data could be gathered no does the data show that there are 42 unit county level hmh hmh reading test at the beginning middle and end of the year Sol and VGA tests for the fourth grade which polled or interrupted direct instruction during the year does the data show there are 69 unit county level Benchmark Sol and BGA tests for 8th grade which polled or interrupted direct instruction during the year we need to streamline what data we're looking for to use less tests so the students can stay in the classroom for direct instruction data for the data's sake is not acceptable or valid data
038let's get back to the purpose of education and let the Educators do their primary primary job of educating thank you next we have Marion Johnson my name is Marianne Jensen there has been a lot of talk recently about how we can move forward from the last two years of lockdowns forced masking segregation of students and dropped dropping test scores that talk has primarily focused on amnesty for those who Champion these things the idea is that we sweep aside the divisions of the past two years and start over fresh unfortunately this idea is misguided moving forward in a meaningful way is impossible without addressing the other a word being discussed in the public forum accountability is something that is important to me as a Virginia parent with children in public schools and something we certainly know
039is important to Virginia's voters so I'd like to address the biggest concerns of thousands of parents in Prince William County for context I am out every week meeting with concerned parents and citizens all over our County as you know I'm an involved parent I put in the effort Chief among parents concerns the recent report card grading students test scores around the country and we parents are appalled Northern Virginia Public Schools are typically rated the best Nationwide but according to the naep report card Virginia schools have dropped to dead last in 2022 we are ranked at the very bottom of falling test scores that's an atrociously long way to fall which brings me back to accountability why do you think our County failed so miserably could it be because our school board actively fought to keep
040kids home when schools across the country remained opened and thriving could it be because the pwea was busy with theatrics driving around with baby Coffins on their cars to scare parents into compliance based on irrational fears or could it be because you have all been focused on ensuring that social causes receive more attention than academic with the love this board shows for Dei SEL and CRT it's a wonder Educators had any time at all to focus on providing academic education but don't take my word for it the scores speak for themselves like I said accountability is important I attended last month's board meeting with other concerned parents we came here to just hear the discussion on test scores and academics but instead this board prioritized a two-hour discussion on collective bargaining after you voted for
041a meaningful resolution that dozens of Educators that packed this room left angry and shouting leaving the room nearly empty only a few of us remained until midnight to hear the report on the falling test scores did the pwa leave because they didn't want to see the F's on their report cards this is reprehensible and inexcusable and it provides voters irrefutable proof of your priorities accountability you have thrown out any credibility and have abdicated your responsibility to the children in order to placate a special interest group before parents vote no confidence in your leadership we respectfully ask that you stop giving in to the woke mob and start educating our children we do not want to wait until 2025 for the scores to come up we want it now thank you thank you next we have
042Ken narr okay Jalen custis and then cat after him we had Catherine Alford and then Jennifer Roberts thank you good evening uh superintendent mcday Madam chairwoman school board members my name is Jayla custis I live in the Woodbridge District I have come before the board tonight to discuss Safety and Security in our schools and just recently there was another incident where a weapon was brought into the side of Prince William County School again another weapon how long must we wait before we do something parents shouldn't have to worry whether or not their kids will come home teachers shouldn't have to risk their lives at work and students should feel safe at school I've recommended to the board that we add metal detectors to combat this issue let me make this clear adding metal detectors does
043not fall on a political Spectrum Safety and Security for our students and staff isn't a political talking point it's common sense I would also like to make clear that I'm well aware that metal detectors won't solve all the issues this is a short-term project to do something now to ensure the safety of our schools now the long-term project is investing into mental health for our students I also highly encourage the board to be transparent with the community and ovulate ovulate any public fear that some students parents and staff may have concerning safety thank you for your time my name is Jalen custis and I reside in the Woodbridge District thank you next we have Catherine Alford and after that Jennifer Roberts before I start speaking um I have an eye disorder so it's a little
044hard for me to see good evening members of the board my name is Catherine Alford and my address is on file tonight I would like to speak about transportations financial and emotional abuse of teachers and staff at my school Signal Hill Elementary I've worked at Signal Hill for 19 years my hours are 905 to 405. school ends for the children at 3 55. I'm a salaried employee so I come into work about an hour early and stay later to catch up on working quiet solitude I choose to do that because I understand that some of my work must be completed on time and I prefer to keep my instructional time free to teach my students however since day one of this school year I look out the window at 3 55 and two buses might
045be at our school two years ago 20 buses would be lined up and ready to go and students would be gone by 405. I have about 18 out of 24 students staying in my class every day until 4 25 to 4 45. have you tried completing tasks while tired first graders wait for their bus I do not get paid for my free child care what about teachers with Children of their own who is compensating them for extended child care costs what about our teachers who have middle school students at home alone Transportation places blame on the r carpool line the carpool line has increased and become dangerous with inpatient drivers the increase is due to the lateness of the buses parents need to get students to after school activities the situation is not Equitable to
046Signal Hill employees as other elementary teachers in the county leave on time or get paid for keeping students we do not this situation is dangerous for students who will be walking home in the dark as winter approaches are you okay with shouldering the responsibility of a student getting hit by a vehicle or abducted is this school system okay with working employees against their will and not paying them that's slave labor teachers are leaving because of working conditions you are willing to hire non-certified applicants to fill our place do parents know their children are being taught by unqualified people if you ignore this problem with the buses you are adding to employee dissatisfaction you will see more young and Veteran teachers leaving the school system I want to look out my window at 3 50 and
047see 20 buses ready to go I want transportation to solve decision thank you thank you thank you Jennifer Roberts good evening superintendent McDade Madame Vice chair members of the school board and other Prince William County staff members thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening my name is Jennifer A Roberts of the Gainesville District my address is on file I would like to share my thoughts on agenda item 12.05 International Education week which will be observed by Prince William County schools November 11th through November 18th I agree with the resolution and am a proponent of exposing our school Community to learning opportunities that acknowledge and reinforce our connectedness and interdependence as a global Community I wholeheartedly value the development of healthy Global Citizens so much so that I co-founded the Global Studies program at
048Mountain View Elementary School in 2016 to expose students to the contributions of people from all over the world through Interactive Learning experiences the International Education week resolution States in part by studying the history culture and languages of other countries students gain invaluable insights into how others live and learn important lessons about respecting their fellow citizens I agree with this perspective and want to make sure that while we as a school Community are learning about the history culture and languages of other countries that we do not neglect accurately teaching the important history culture and language of African-American Latino Asian and a plethora of other community members of color who live and work right here in Prince William County I implore us to proactively and frequently seek and Implement creative ways to engage students families and communities
049in truthful meaningful learning opportunities in an effort to develop critical thinkers who are empathetic and respectful let us prioritize understanding the diverse racial and cultural history stories of our citizens and provide intentional and ongoing learning spaces for students and staff members of color to be seen validated and respected by actively valuing the voices and experiences of our racially and culturally diverse community on a local level we can develop leaders who are equipped to represent Prince William County on a global stage thank you thank you and the last three are I'm going to call their names if they were to come forward Jeffrey D Fuller Christopher funderburg and Jorge Melendez Jeffrey Fuller Christopher funderburg hello my name is Chris funderberg and I originally was planning to give a little history of SEL but I'm going to
050Pivot a bit tonight um I'm a little bit confused about the dog and pony show we just saw here for the thriving Futures presentation uh we heard a lot about what staff has done and implemented but we didn't hear anything about what the outcome for the students was has this increased their academic performance has it had any positive impact on the student body altogether and who is Alliance for healthier generation I've never heard of that organization before I could start an organization and by next week be handing out participation trophies to schools across the country so if we're going to recognize people for these things I think we should not just concentrate on what was done but what the outcome of what was done so with that let me get back on to track and
051see if I can fit this in or not okay so I imagine most of you know what SEL is and how it is implemented in Prince William County but what I want to review the history and how it got to where it is today before diving into its use it goes back to Yale psychologist and civil rights activist James Comer he wanted to explore why most black inner city schools in Hartford Connecticut were failing so bad and introduced the idea of whole child teaching this consisted of intervening with students in an environment of the Civil Rights Movement the fall of institutional racism the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King Jr and the broken homes that many of them came from by taking these factors into account and helping the students understand and process these things
052the schools were able to make a dramatic increase in graduation rates and college entrances in just five years two schools where he introduced the whole child approach Rose from the bottom of the academic list to the top it was truly a miraculous turnaround and success and comer has been rightfully lauded for what he accomplished however over the years applying this program and other schools says in the country has been very hit or miss it turns out that the success of the program depended a lot on the home environment of the students the teachers skill and buy-in and student buy-in were finding that it worked great at an individual approach for at-risk students but had marginal backward success in other environments by the early 1990s the whole child educational approach was picked up by the fencer
053Fetzer Institute in SEO was officially born this is where Castle the collaborative for academic and social emotional learning was created as the implementation arm it meshed with critical education Theory and the Intensive surveying portions were added Castle's SEL had limited success in getting established in schools until the passage of the 2015 every student succeeds acts Essa this act mandated at least one domain of non-academic competency reporting from every school receiving federal education money in steps castle with a ready-made system to provide this necessary reporting that thank you all right thank you next we have Jorge Melendez members of the board my name is Jorge Melendez I'm here in support of the prevailing wage resolution on the agenda today as a member of the UA Local 602 I have been able to build a life for
054for me and my family here in the Prince William County because of the wages and benefits that I made through my work as a union pipefitter as a Young Apprentice I was able to get free and earned as you learn training from my union today my job is to talk to workers young people to offer them the same opportunities that I once had to earn a pass a path to the middle class through a good job in the construction industry a prevailing wage resolution will allow me to offer even more opportunities for the Prince William residents to get good to get jobs with good wages and full benefit the food Family Health Care and a pension to allow people to retire with dignity we need to be to be offering more opportunities for young people
055to have an eternity to college this prevalence wedge resolution will ensure that this the school we build in our community are being done by a local residence with good wedges and benefits I would thank you for the opportunity speaking to you thank you to those who came and spoke tonight next we will move on to item number 14 which is the office of the superintendent for teaching and learning tonight is the 2023-2024 annual school calendar and it is on for information I'm going to turn this over to Dr McDade thank you madam Vice chair I would like to invite our associate superintendent for teaching and learning Rita Goss to the podium to share and present an update on the 2023-24 school calendar good evening Vice chairwoman Jackson school board members and Dr McDade tonight we
056are going to present on the calendar choices and options for next school year and also provide the results to the poll that was put out for the community so here we go some background information for everyone is that the starting place was looking at this year's calendar that was approved last November by the school board we also took a look at what are the requirements from the state of Virginia uh governing how many days in school 180 days or that 990 instructional hours that we must have for students we also took a look at our ability here in Prince William County to start school up to two weeks before Labor day however Prince William county is one of the school systems that's also required to provide our students a four-day Labor Day weekend the calendar
057development process we started out with some initial drafts that were developed for consideration by the calendar committee and those drafts I took into account the holidays that were added for this school year and we took a look at some of the changes being for start and end dates for staff in the length of the winter holiday were some of the focus points the calendar committee held two meetings the first was on September 6th to look at those original drafts and then the calendar committee met again on the 23rd on the 23rd they considered the drafts that have been approved by executive cabinet that were brought back to them they were able to discuss those options ask questions provide suggestions in between those two meetings the calendar committee members were able to provide a feedback back
058to the calendar committee facilitator Dr icorn and then we again elicited a feedback from staff and the community Through the public poll that was posted those holidays again that we looked at those four additional holidays that were added to the calendar for the 21-22 school year reflect the diversity of pwcs and the calendar options we took into consideration those four new days Rosh Hashanah Yom Kippur Diwali and Idol fatier and we looked at those observances if they impacted school days in the proposed option the winter break incorporates the Christmas holiday spring break incorporates Good Friday Easter and the start of Passover uh calendar options that were looked at you see here on this Slide the First Column is the 2223 calendar and then we have the three options laid out side by side uh what
059you see in the differences are the start dates when our new teachers would would come on August 8th or 9th in Option 1 the 9th and 10th on option two and the 9th through the 11th on option three all teachers would report you see the date that they reported this year the difference in those options are by several days are all teachers would report either on a Thursday for option one a Friday for option two or that following Monday for option three the start date for school for students is the same for all three options it's August 21st a winter break is where there is a a difference between the options again the first two options maintain that two two weeks for winter break and the third option is just slightly a few days shorter
060that will you will see impacts the last day of school for students a spring break is the same time frame on all three options and the end date as I indicated is where you see a difference because of that difference in the two-week winter break you see the end date for June 12th for students on the first two options and on the third option you see um June 7th is the last day of school the teacher last day does also have some variants in option one that last day is June 13th and option two it's June 14th and on option three it's June 12th so a summary of these options calendar options to start and end dates for the start date it's all the same for students August 21st the end a difference is those
061first two options have a last day of school for students of June 12th and that third option has June 7th all of them have the total number of instructional days as 180 as required by the state the key difference is are again the days in which our teachers start and the last day of school for teachers and then that option three has the difference of a few days of winter break is slightly shorter we did the public poll which allowed staff students and community members to provide input to the public Poll for those three options we had over 9 000 respondents complete the the entire poll and looking at the results a plurality of respondents about 48 percent chose option three option three would have the slightly shorter winter break and students getting out on
062June 7th and you see here the percentages of the parents and this the staff and the students who selected that option three the key themes that emerged because in the poll of community members staff and students were also able to provide some written comments or suggestions some of the prevailing themes were some families indicated in some folks who filled that out a desire to extend winter break and have an even longer winter break and then we also heard from families that and community members and staff that they would like to reduce the number of holidays that are currently in the calendar so after the calendar is selected by this board everyone will be able to access that calendar online at the pwcs.edu website under the calendar once it's approved and once the student calendar this
063instructional calendar is approved the employee calendars will be built and published as well and of course folks can sign up for that iCal subscription that will also allow for folks to see the calendar is there any questions for Miss gas thank you Miss wall thank you Ms glass that was informative I have a question um my first question is I have several questions um for returning from the winter break is is that the same for all three calendars I I don't think we have access to like every single day off do we or could we look at that in Greater detail by chance or and and are those the same for all three calendars like meaning I'm assuming it's January 2nd it is but I'm just double checking I have all three calendars in front
064of me so I just want to make sure uh so yes we would we would be returning January 2nd January okay um and then um the 9000 number of respondents to the survey correct me if I'm wrong but that seems like it's a pretty good feedback is that pretty good feedback for our division wide surveys it is my understanding it's one of the the highest numbers of respondents that we've had to a calendar survey okay so good job I'm getting parental input this seemed like it was a bigger number than I'd Remembered in the past um and then I wanted to ask one ask and can we look at the actual days to provide some input I know there's some we've received some teacher feedback on October 31st versus November 1st and how November 1st
065might have been a better day off and there might have been another thing like that with the calendar is that something that we as a board member members could weigh in on or or do we have somebody who's kind of looking over that with a little bit more finely tooth comb are you I just want to make sure I'm understanding your question your question is about the days that would be cited as work days for teachers yeah all the days like the complete calendar like if I just wanted to give it a once over and apply all of those um options are attached uh in in board docs where you can see um all of the dates okay for each one of those calendar options and you can also see where those work days are
066okay and where those holidays are and how they fall in each of the months absolutely awesome thank you and the last question I have is the key themes those two at the very bottom the extend winter break and then the reduction of holidays I mean it seems like they're a little bit mutually exclusive um but not entirely um are we going to when we get feedback like that when citizens write comments in where they're like I like it but I'd like a little bit more of this or that what plans do we have to dive in deeper on that or are we going to dive in deeper on those so we we always have the opportunity uh when we're looking at creating calendars uh in in the future to make sure that we consider that
067and we include that as a part of our when we develop options and calendars for the calendar committee to to look at that we take that feedback into consideration okay so for next year just to respond to miss wall the one piece that the calendar committee does not have control over is the holidays so the board the board says that so we would bring that feedback which we did to the board and that would be a policy decision okay and so and and what about um like the end of quarter grading days and those kinds of things like holidays yeah but um you know like the November 1st October 31st thing like when nobody really caught it right but maybe it would have been better to have it November 1st than October 31st so I
068I think that is really good feedback about this year right and so you're correct no one did no one did catch it although we did try to make some accommodations right uh with schools by saying that teachers could host uh their conferences on another day uh and so we don't have that same type of thing in these calendars where the work day Falls uh on like a holiday or a day in which perhaps folks would rather not have evening conferences but the day that and the days are typically in alignment with the end of the quarter so that's how it falls okay okay thanks all right Miss Williams thank you madam chair I um appreciate all the hard work that goes into it and I appreciate everything you do Miss class and your calendar committee
069I see a new face this year um our former principal Dr icorn so I my comment is just to say thank you for all the hard work I appreciate the number of respondents um that you mentioned here I think one of the things that I hear most is that teacher's voice is not included in the calendar so it was nice to see I think he's about 53 of the respondents were actual teachers and staff I appreciate that I think it um just to piggyback on a point that was made just now I think it's important to understand that the calendar is yet again another um tool that the School Division uses that it sort of splits to duties right we as the board approve it but a lot of the calendar is really operational in
070nature we don't set when report cards come out we don't set when back in the day it used to be interims and those kinds of things so I'm wondering if maybe with our calendar presentation if when we do vote on this because it's information tonight if we could do like a little preventive pre-op or prerequisite discussion I guess to sort of set the stage that people understand that some of it's operational some of it is um board related so they can sort of understand the differences because the calendar doesn't really get a lot of attention per se until there's a conflict on it and then all of a sudden it's like oh no how come nobody's all and people forget that 9 000 people Plus have looked at all of these dates and options but
071it's a combination of responsibilities and I think that that's important to acknowledge not for blame but for understanding because I'm a parent too I approve the calendar but you can ask me in February when spring break is and I will still have to like run and be like oh no because it's just um I'm more concerned about code Behavior per se and every family is different so if if we could do that a little bit to help our public understand a little bit more about our calendar and just go over when we do um ask for volunteers to participate in the calendar committee that would be fantastic because I think that's also another Missing Link usually by the time it gets here and we're approving people are like well how do I get to serve
072on this so I think any time we can encourage folks to share their voice preemptively is a good idea absolutely in the calendar committee has representation we have teachers on the calendar committee we have principals we have other central office members and and community members on the calendar committee who also who all participate in that and like you said some of the calendar is organizational right so our every quarter is about nine weeks long and so that's kind of how we chart out the quarters so that we get to the end of the school year and and we're mapping that out so absolutely we can we can provide that information thank you I appreciate it and I just want to say I I love all of the holidays I know it can be an inconvenience
073for a working parent but again I think it it recognizes and and gives the needed attention to that we are the 10th most diverse County in the nation and we celebrate that and I believe this year um and I think maybe last year we had some new holidays and the feedback from that was amazing and speaking personally it was a wonderful opportunity to explain different cultures in my house that I may not normally have thought to do so I just will continue to express my support for that with recognition that I know it's difficult for Working Families but there are options out there available for child care and other sort of things to help out with that so thank you hey Mrs Jesse I too want to thank the calendar committee for comprehensive calendar option
074three seems to be the magical option I'm just wondering how you found out these days and I'm I'm wondering in your feedback did you find that teachers report later August 14th they go home earlier on June 12th students go home earlier on June 7th and so they opted I don't recall ever being on this board where people gave up the holiday that Christmas holiday it just seems like was that the feedback you received from people when you got your survey information back also so we we did look at as you can see um two of those calendar options do maintain that two weeks at Christmas break a winter break that folks have in the past felt very strongly about but there was feedback about having students get out a little earlier and so the way
075to do that was we had to make the adjustments somewhere in that adjustment happened over the by shortening that winter break by a few days which gives that earlier out like you said for teachers but also for for students well I I I'm I'm impressed that we're able to find all those days I'm also impressed that teachers and parents said that holiday that Christmas holiday I expressed earlier my concern about the Thanksgiving break in the 250 employees and I think that's already been stated in uh when we have our two by twos but uh I'm a little bit concerned that certain people have to take hard breaks in order during that Thanksgiving break and I just want to make a note of that thank you okay yes that's part of the the work calendar so
076um thank you for that feedback is there any further discussion Mr Rook this was built under the notion of 15 built-in snow days correct words would cover for 15 snow days or how many what well we built it based on the number of days or hours right that students are required to have instructional day so we built it off of that requirement 180 instructional days and then you see the teacher times for start and end were built off the contract length which is 195 days okay so how many snow days can we have without having to extend the school year I I we know that it goes by hours so you know we don't know what the the winter will bring but um right now the number of minutes that we have scheduled would buffer
077us so that if we have snow days we wouldn't have to add any days on the back end of the calendar I can't tell you exactly you know how many snow days because we never know from year to year what the weather forecast will bring so we we call snow days based on severe weather we don't try to count out and determinate the calendar we just build in enough minutes within the calendar to cover us if we have significant weather events understood I guess I would just like to it doesn't have to be given to us right now but I'd like to see over the last 10 years how many snow days we had each year because we always I think find I mean not always unless there's an unusual situation that we don't use
078many of these snow days and teachers come to me and ask you know why don't we get the cash time back in if we're over the amount needed and stuff like that so I think either that needs to be explained better because that is a continual thing that I hear every year but this is just an ongoing thing I hear and I don't know um I just think it needs to be addressed better well you know we can bring some more information but snowy snow days are emergency situations they are not guaranteed days um there if there's an inclement weather emergency we have to call um we do that but these aren't days that are old uh if you will what we owe is instruction instructional minutes to students so that they can learn and
079if we have a situation where we do have an emergency we want to make sure that it doesn't minimize the instructional minutes that students have on the calendar okay thank you okay is there any further questions all right um thank you Miss gas and your team and the calendar committee and the rest of those who worked on the presentation today thank you for presenting this is on for information and we will vote on it next meeting thank you thank you moving on to 1501 student representative matters our student representative on the diocese this evening is Daniel sharifi a senior at Gainesville High School Mr sharifi um good evening everyone thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight um so as you guys know first quarter has wrapped up for students so I want to congratulate
080everyone and a special congratulations to our seniors who may have submitted their college applications this past week I would also like to thank our Educators that help us our students become World Learners and aware about the different cultures around the world in order of International Education week further I would like to highlight the additional student efforts as well several of our schools have international Multicultural or Affinity groups for individuals of different backgrounds the purpose of these clubs is to increase diversity and awareness within these schools to foster a collaborative environment where students can be free to talk with peers who have similar experiences as them and most of these Multicultural clubs host sort of international nights where the public is invited to the event and students put on Amazing performances spoken word traditional dances or
081song and then students will bring in different dishes so there's a buffet of food representing cultures around the world they also set up boots presenting the different cultures for attending to learn more about the different traditions and holidays that they do participate in and the student represented and I are hoping to do something of a similar style of these International nights but something as a county-wide collaborative event where we connect all the students Within These different organizations to create set up boots for these type of Multicultural event and we will work towards brainstorming ways we can connect our students to Greater insight for International Education beyond the classroom additionally in relation to this the students are grateful to have the Incorporated holidays as presented in the calendar Rosh Hashanah Yom Kippur Diwali Eid all those
082especially Incorporated in spring break Good Friday Easter and the start Passover it is important to recognize these holidays as it not only helps students who may have fallen behind if they had to miss that date when they were celebrating the holiday but they also really helped other students who are not specifically within that culture understand what is the importance of this Hall holiday in my school's Multicultural Club meaning we go over at specific holidays each month and explain the significance in addition to learning in the meeting students are also able to see the significance of these holidays when the county is you know recognizing them within their calendars and we do thank you for that additionally just a touch base we are in the works of planning our student Workshop where we have individuals around
083the county come to the event and input their opinions student opinions on topics that the Reps and sentence are focused on this year but aims of this we hope to connect their voice to the student School Board that's all for tonight but be sure to follow us on Twitter and contact us if you have any thoughts you want inputted as we want to best represent the students thank you have a good rest of your night thank you Miss sharifi next we will move on to the superintendent's time um Dr McDade thank you madam Vice chair the end of the first quarter is the most critical of the four benchmarks throughout the Academic Year for actionable reflection the end of the first quarter is a major evaluation Benchmark to reflect on our students engagement our students
084attitudes their well-being and their future so that we may act accordingly and it is important to recognize that our students engagement in the classroom begins at home a family that is authentically engaged in their child's education supports their learning at home understands the importance of learning assists with monitoring their child's progress advocates for their child and is an active participant in the decision making at the school and division level in recognition of family engagement month and align with commitment 3 of our strategic plan family and Community engagement I invite families to contact your school and find out how you can partner with us through the school advisory councils volunteering opportunities and school-based events and activities you can also visit pwcs.edu website for more information on how to get involved the more students see the connections
085between themselves their families their communities and their schools the more Dynamic active and significant their education will become but to see these critical connections between themselves and their world students need a positive attitude that motivates them to come to school and to be engaged in the classroom and here I want to extend my gratitude for our attendance officer Appreciation Week in our launching thriving future strategic plan we have made a commitment to reduce chronic absenteeism by five percent because students who are in their seats on time for class will be in their seats on time for graduation our attendance officers work vigorously to ensure students are showing up to school and they need our help to identify at-risk students so we can show these students we care about their well-being we care about their safety
086and we care about their future let us take this Benchmark as an opportunity to change the lives of our students and make sure they are present in class every day and present is not just a physical state present is an emotional mental and social state of well-being School psychology awareness week which is November 7th through 11th reminds us of this fact School psychologists provide direct support and interventions to students and consult with teachers families and other school employed mental health professionals to improve support strategies they also work with school administrators to improve school-wide practices and policies and collaborate with Community providers to coordinate needed services our psychologists care about the entire child their family and Community their attitude and their well-being to ensure they have a thriving future as our students prepare for their future
087as a School Division we must ensure each student is confident of the many paths available towards post-secondary success these paths may be the military career academic or entrepreneurial and we want to help all of our students take the right steps after graduation November is national scholarship month and our College and Career counselors are prepared and eager to meet with your child to plan the launch of their thriving future all pwcs high schools have a college and career counselor to support students in their post-secondary aspirations encourage your seniors and juniors to set up a meeting with their college and career counselor and visit our pwcs scholarship resources and databases webpage for more information in summary take the opportunity to check in with your child find out how they are engaging in the learning process ask about
088their attitude towards School talk about their well-being and help them plan for their post-secondary aspirations as a reminder November 8th is a teacher work day and observance of election day I encourage each voter to cast their voice in exercising their right to democratic freedom November 11th schools and offices are closed in observance of Veterans Day I want to thank each of our veterans for their bravery service and commitment to our nation's ideals Miss Madam Vice chairman this concludes my report thank you Dr McDade the next item on the agenda is 1701 annual report for the ombudsman tonight we will receive the annual report from the Ombudsman Monique bookstein foreign thank you madam chair I would like to personally thank chairman Latif school board members Dr McDade and the pwcs community for providing me with the
089opportunity to serve as Prince William County schools on budsman I am pleased to provide you with my first annual report this report represents those concerns raised to my office for the 21-22 school year next slide please the pwcs office of the Ombudsman was established in 2019. while the Ombudsman field has been in existence for over 300 years it is relatively new to the K-12 environment under one percent of all U.S school districts have an ombudsman pwcs is considered a leader in establishing the role within the division the office provides parents students employees and members of the school Community with a safe place where they can discuss their concerns and address conflict in a non-judgmental way next slide please and ombudsman's role is twofold first they will work with the individual to address their concerns they
090do this by serving as a neutral sounding board for their visitor and helping them to identify what could be causing the conflict while exploring all options which could be used to address it second they will work with the organization to provide feedback which focuses on improving the organization's overall health an ombudsman serves as an early warning system by raising concerns which may not have surfaced without such an Avenue next slide please the Ombudsman role requires Ombudsman to conduct themselves as professionals who adhere to the following core values such as fairness Integrity equity and empowerment these core values were established by the international Ombudsman Association or Iowa next slide please the ioa also established the following principles of confidentiality Independence informality and impartiality or neutrality these principles are the Cornerstone of any ombudsman's office without their
091practice the office cannot be effective next slide please since the ombudsman's role is often misunderstood this slide highlights for visitors what to expect when they contact the office there will be the initial conversation I will clarify my role work with the visitor to understand the situation analyze it explore options available and discuss next steps when I clarify my role as the Ombudsman I explain to the visitor what I can and cannot do for example I cannot mandate change maintain records conduct investigations or serve as notice to the organization next slide please I will now go through the data compiled for those who contacted the office for the 21-22 school year the total number of visitors was 194 which is a 13 increase from the prior school year next slide please of the 194 visitors 56
092percent were employees 37 were parents Guardians and seven percent were community members of the 109 employees 63 were certified 26 were classified and 20 were administrators next slide please the ioa uses nine categories which an ombudsman can classify the type of concerns raised Within These main categories are a number of subcategories for the 21-22 school year the overall top three categories for all visitors were evaluative relationships Services administrative issues organizational strategic and Mission related evaluative relationships refers to questions concerns or issues with a supervisor or employee relationship Services administrative issues refers to questions concerns issues about Services provided organizational strategic and Mission related refers to questions concerns or issues that relate to the whole or part of the organization I will now break down each visitor type to identify what category is of the highest
093concern for the visitor and the top two subcategories within that category next slide please the highest category for employee visitors fell within the evaluative relationship category which is considered the supervisor and employee relationship the most often expressed subcategories were respect treatment which is how the employee believes they are treated and retaliation which is punitive behaviors for employees actions next slide please the highest category for parent Guardian visitors fell within the services administrative issues category which is regarding the services provided by the organization the most often expressed subcategories were administrative decisions and interpretation application of rules which denotes decisions made on matters and behavior of service provider which is how the parent was dealt with by the school system next slide please the highest category for Community visitors fell within the values ethics and standards category
094which references the fairness of organizational values ethics and or standards the application of policies and or procedures or the need or creation or revision of policies or standards the most often expressed subcategories were values and cultures which identifies concerns about the values or cultures of the organization and policies not covered fairness or lack of a policy or the application of a policy policy not followed or needs revision next slide please an important aspect of the ombudsman's office is to assist assist the organization by identifying systemic concerns conflict can serve as an opportunity for an organization to learn and grow because of the variety of concerns raised to the ombudsman's office four predominant themes were identified for the type of visitors these systemic concerns should not be considered definitive or a complete characterization of pwcs but
095rather a starting point for further discussion next slide please I'm sorry can you back up to the previous slide thank you for employee visitors the first systemic theme was work climate and culture employee visitors reported feeling stressed anxious and wanting to leave pwcs these visitors described working in a toxic environment some employees believed raising these concerns would subject them to retaliation in addition the lack of employee professionalism unaddressed by leaders was also conveyed finally several employees who contacted the office indicated their request to bring a Silent Witness was often met with perceived hostility the second systemic theme was communication employee visitors spoke of a communication breakdown between employee and supervisor some employees perceived communication from their supervisor as limited and unclear which they believed caused unnecessary conflicts and tension the third systemic theme was performance
096evaluations employee visitors reported concerns regarding minor behaviors being addressed through a letter of reprimand instead of an informal discussion between employee and supervisor some employees perceived these actions could lead to their removal through the professional performance process in addition the use of the professional Improvement plan or pip process was another concern some employees believe the PIP process is used as a punitive measure instead of one for improvement the fourth is systemic theme for employee visitors was policies and regulations as new policies regulations were enacted some employee visitors reported disparate interpretations and applications of the policy regulations across pwcs next slide please for parent guardian and Community visitors the first systemic theme was navigating pwcs's processes effectively a common theme among some parent Guardian visitors was their difficulty in understanding and navigating School processes such as
097the disciplinary process special education services and the transfer process several parents Guardians reported feeling ineffective in advocating for their child because a clear explanation of these processes was not provided and or explained by the school the second systemic theme was the School parent relationship parent Guardian visitors expressed feeling their concerns were not adequately heard or addressed in a timely manner by administrators some parents Guardians also noticed feeling uncomfortable addressing matters with administrators because of their perception that the administrator was not sufficiently engaged in the matter the third systemic theme was English Learners needs parent Guardian visitors believed if they do not specifically request interpreter Services then assumptions are made by staff that they fully understand the process some parents Guardians Express concerns regarding times when they consented to services and discovered the services were not
098consistent with what they understood them to be they also felt their lack of understanding caused them to be left out the fourth systemic theme for parent guardian and Community visitors was engagement with the school board a number of community members expressed concerns regarding their ability to comment during the citizen time period at the school board meetings the community members perceived the process is not Equitable when the same individuals are allowed to address the school board during these meetings next slide please a goal of the ombudsman's office is to help identify issues manage conflict once it occurs and prevent it whenever possible left unaddressed conflict can have a devastating impact on an organization some of the results of unresolved conflict include strained relationships stress frustration anxiety loss of productivity absenteeism employee turnover Grievances and litigation while
099the ombudsman's office cannot provide formal recommendations suggestions for reducing conflict and addressing systemic concerns are provided for employees regarding the first systemic theme of work climate and culture although there is no single way to approach conflict there are times when avoiding a conflict May create a more difficult workplace for everyone one idea to promote a productive approach to conflict may be for administrators to consider how best to address problematic behaviors in a timely fashion doing so reduces or even eliminates the negative effect the behavior can have on morale administrators could also consider Consulting with the ombudsman's office to discuss ways to approach workplace conflict administrators may also want to consider the benefits behind the decision and employees decision to invite a silent witness to a meeting for example when an employee brings a Silent Witness
100this enables the engaged parties the opportunity to focus on the communication process and not undocumenting the meeting since some employees mention feeling stressed by their environment employees could consult the employee assistant program for additional resources regarding the second systemic theme of communication how effectively an organization communicates is key to its overall success however when communication breaks down it can often lead to conflict improving communication between administrators and employee benefits both parties as well as the organization's climate and morale one way to improve communication may be for administrators to clearly State expectation to employees when possible checking back in with the other party for clarity ensures the communication was properly received keeping staff informed on relevant issues as much as possible could ensure gaps are not filled with inaccurate information administrators could help employees understand they
101are a part of a bigger picture by expressing the administrator's needs intentions when asking questions or requesting information from the employee regarding the third systemic theme of performance evaluations feedback is essential for professional growth while the giving and receiving of feedback can be challenging it is a necessary aspect of a successful workplace the performance process seeks to create a positive working environment where self-reflection and professional growth are desired by all when it comes to areas of growth and or the PIP process employees could ask clarifying questions of their administrator to gain a better understanding on how to achieve this growth at the same time administrators could work with the employee continuously to provide this support finally for employee visitors regarding the fourth systemic concern of policy and regulations when new policy regulations are enacted the
102policyholder could confirm the policy regulation is being applied as it was intended following up in this manner May well lead to organizational coherence next slide please for parent guardian and Community visitors regarding the first systemic theme of navigating pwcs's policy processes effectively schools could ensure the parents Guardians are provided with instructions handouts regarding the process and given detailed information on what to expect throughout doing so could help to eliminate any misunderstandings and or Miss opportunities regarding the second theme of the School parent relationship a successful relationship between the school and the parents Guardians is a valuable one addressing concerns in a timely manner can help minimize any conflict between parties to ease parent Guardians apprehensions regarding not being heard administrators could follow up to ensure the issue was resolved regarding the third systemic theme of
103English Learners needs assumptions are often made unconsciously however incorrect assumptions can contribute to a situation not being properly addressed while there may be a reason why parents and Guardians do not request an interpreter ensuring they are aware of the translation services available within pwcs at the onset may help mitigate misunderstandings and finally for parent guardian and Community visitors regarding the fourth systemic theme of Engagement with the school board when people perceive situations differently conflict can result while a first come first served process for requesting to speak at the school board meeting may be fair the perception of some community members is that it is not therefore the school board could address this concern with an evaluation of the sign up selection process more detailed information about the data included in this report can be found
104on the ombudsman's website next slide please the ombudsman's office is located in the independent Hill Complex visitors are seen by appointment only either in person via Zoom or over the phone again I want to thank you for the opportunity to serve as pwcs's Ombudsman and I look forward to your continued support I am happy to take any questions you may have I thank you we'll take questions Miss Williams hi good evening thank you um and welcome because you're new to our school division as our Ombudsman this is your first year and I believe your first presentation in front of us so I just wanted to welcome you um I I have some concerns with the classification of some of these being systemic issues when it's only been a year as well as some of the
105recommendations are things that we already have implemented in place so I don't want to give the public the idea that we don't do some of the things that you're recommending because we do do them already and have been doing them so I I just want to make sure the public is clear that for example offering translation services right that we we do that regularly and we're also about to roll out a new program for families regarding translation services for every family in the school division as well as the fact of things like timing um I think for me the missing connection is is the emphasis on individual perception because that's generally where we run into problems as human beings right I could consider 24 hours uh response time timely someone else could consider that not
106timely and I think it's important to recognize the individual nuances and these things and that and that a lot of this is perception oriented and we're not saying that to lessen anything that you've said or to negate the problems that people get game to you to seek assistance for because I think um for those who don't know I was very integral in standing up the Ombudsman office so I'm a huge fan um having a background in conflict resolution and mediation sort of near to my heart but I just don't want I want to be careful about our public perception and understanding and because it was only a year and prior Ombudsman presentations we we sort of looked at Trends over a longer period of time and they were broke down a little bit differently so
107I think this is a new look for our board and May in the future need a little bit of tweaking so that we are putting our best foot forward and acknowledging the things that we are doing as well as what has occurred and what people individuals came to your office to report to you so that we could be aware and take action on them and I would be very interested to see what's already occurred in our first quarter of the school year and how that differs from last year's report mostly because some of our circumstances and and needs of our community have changed and again because of some of the programs things that we've rolled out as a School Division to sort of address some of those issues presented I think it's important that we
108continue to advertise your office and make folks aware of its existence a lot of times we do hear staff feeling quite frustrated not sure where to go and we are going to continue to have some cultural disruptions as we change our school culture and we have new new faces new branding new policies and new Services provided so I just want to make sure that the public is aware of that and that this was from last year's report because that was primarily our first year back in full time I do like some of your recommendations uh I I think one of the things that I wish we still did Even though as a parent is I didn't necessarily enjoy um which was having to sign a code of behavior card that came directly almost stapled to
109our coded Behavior because I think some of the issues that you presented to us as systemic issues are the answers are found there right when we talk about discipline or how to interact with school Personnel but I do know that it's one of the most overlooked documents I think one of the the best things we did this year was revise it make it a little more user-friendly and more detailed and easier to comprehend we don't talk a lot about that but when it comes to issues of student discipline and how to interact with our School Division staff and what services are available a lot of that information is there but I know that's a challenge for our School Division this large to communicate to ensure I guess I should say that we we have limited
110ability to ensure that it is read and comprehend because we're in a digital format now it's not stapled to a car to a packet back like it was in the olden days I should say um when I was a Prince William County student but I do appreciate the time and the effort that you're putting forth I also do appreciate your willingness to provide conflict resolution tools to our staff one of the things I didn't hear you talk a little bit about would be maybe mediation in schools providing mediation programs for our administrators and our employees so that they can interact I I heard you mentioned having a Silent Witness there sometimes it's helpful sometimes mediation also is a very good tool in that for problem solving and to avoid conflict or when conflict is arise
111I know that we're doing some professional development with regards to conflict resolution to um and I appreciate that and I appreciate your leadership on that and I'm excited to hear more about that program as you roll it out because again we can all speak English but sometimes we don't all speak the same English and that's generally where our most of our conflicts arise so I just wanted to thank you for all of your hard work I look forward to having these quarterly updates and I look forward to seeing the type of change as some of these new programs and tools are rolled out to our school division employees and to the families and community at large and their impact as it comes as it pertains to people visiting your office so thank you thank you
112hi Mrs Jesse um Mrs Williams and I were instrumental or along with Mr tryna my thinking creating this office I will say this that you can only report what comes to you and when you say you when you use the word systemic it sounds deadly but I don't think you meant it in that way but you did look at patterns and you are new but so is the superintendent so you both knew so I think some of these items on here were previously noted and are consistent with what we've seen in the past and I think it's consistent with what you would see in other school systems also we have we need to create opportunities for people to feel comfortable so I want to make sure that when we say that we're I know that
113Mrs Williams didn't mean that we're already doing that because sometimes that can Yeah because sometimes I think that when we say that if it's been misinterpreted then people coming to your office are going to feel like well they're already doing it so why should we bother to come to your office and I know I know her and I know that's not what she met I want to make sure we clarified that on the English learners situation with the parents I I can understand that because my experience I've worked in those in in those areas where they don't speak English well and they're embarrassed and they don't ask for help so as a principal or whoever the leader in that building they need to ask do you need an interpreter and I will tell one short
114story to give you an example I the the assistant principal of my school handled all special ed so the persistent president was out and asked me to come in and I came in and there was a parent they said this parent has been not she would not come to school at all but not respond to their recommendations for placement for the student and so I walked into the room and the mother was sitting over by the windowsill and I don't know if you've seen those uh those little ladies with the person their purse and she had a purse in her lap and she was by the window and I thought this is going to be a long meeting and I had someone there to spoke Spanish and he started to speak and she changed her
115stance and she moved to the table and I heard her use the word Loco and I said to Andy who was in charge and said what is she's trying to say and she said I didn't sign it because I thought you were saying that my child was crazy that he was Loco and now that I understand that he has a learning problem I'm willing to sign the paperwork so that was and I I learned something from that and I also learned through my PGA meetings at the big at the beginning of my PTA meetings I had lots of parents who didn't speak English there but then as the meetings extended longer that that representation did not reappear and I kind of looked at it as something that was on my end I'm now on the
116policy Council for uh English II not just in Head Start and they have more interpreters and we have more parents coming in so I think that is a legitimate concern and I think parents people feeling retaliation I think that's always going to be in existence but I think it was here before Dr McDade came but I think she's working on those uh issues the last Ombudsman had a category and I don't know what the cat that was a category I don't know if other people remember there were so many people felt they were being discriminated against and did you get that or is that just a category that did not come into play when you did your report that is uh Mr a subcategory and it was not something that I could denote that was
117of significance that doesn't mean I highlighted for you the main category and then the two highest level subcategories so that might have been maybe the third or the fourth within that that falls under I'm sorry I can just tell you real quick um that will fall under the legal Regulatory and financial and compliance category that's number five that's where that would fall so for that one it just may not have been something as significant since I've been here I think that uh maybe there's going to be some tweaking and as we listen to your presentations there may be some tweaking but I I want to say to you that I think it's it's this was a well presented report I thought it was very comprehensive and it just tells us what people are telling you
118and the only thing you can report to us is what people say to you you can't draw a conclusion from a small sampling of people but your your job is a report to us What I Call It The Good The Bad and The Ugly sometimes it's not as pretty as we'd like but I want to thank you for the report thank you very much thank you Miss Williams you want to clarify thank you I just want to clarify um what I did mean what I said but because we are doing new programs and this is last year's report so I don't want to um I I want to make sure that the parent the public understands that this data was from last year and about a very small percentage about I think 109 employees or
119somewhere around there 100 some employees versus our 16 000 doesn't mean any of their issues are not important they absolutely are for taking time to come see you but I do also want to make the public aware that in the 2022-2023 school year we have implemented some program to address some of these issues so that there's a clear understanding of where we were where we are and then of course where we are going so I don't want to minimize any of that or mis have any Miss interperson interpretation thanks is there any further questions thank you madam Vice chair um and thank you um to our Ombudsman for your presentation um I wish to also welcome you because the first time you come before our board thank you so that's exciting um and I do
120believe that your office provides a valuable service to our division and I um I just wanted to piggyback a little bit on the statistics um I was thinking about it you know we had you said 109 employee visitors and we have I think over 12 I think we have about 12 000. how many 16 000 in place so that's pretty that's a pretty actually pretty small group um I mean it's it's important to have lens and who you know who's coming and what they're saying but but overall it's a really small group which I think in and of itself is saying something that we have um that we have that small of a percentage that are actually taking advantage of your services but I do appreciate every time you know every every person that you
121meet with um and also um if I was thinking about the employee the parent engagement um we have 90 000 students each assuming each student has one let's say a minimum of one parent we had um you know I think what was the number 72 or 75. so it's actually a really small number which in a in a way is a message to me that we're doing a lot of things right um and but that if we do have individuals who are on an individual basis have something that they want to talk about in confidentiality that it is an important service that you provide but that we don't necessarily draw like really hard and fast conclusions from our small sample size um yeah and then um so but I I wanted to ask you since
122you're you're new to us what is it first of all what you what is it you like best about your job and working for us as an ombudsman in Prince William County and what is you what do you feel is your office's greatest value to our organization oh thank you I appreciate the opportunity to answer questions such as that so being here for the last 10 months it has been quite the learning curve for myself I have been a nombudsman um prior to coming here so this is my 13th year as a nombudsman uh the the challenge here in learning an entirely new culture has been fascinating for me and I have absolutely enjoyed every aspect of that coming from the federal government that's a different kind of Beast and understanding that I knew when
123I came here that it would be a great opportunity to not just help the workforce which is what I had done in the past but also to help the parents and the community that comes to me so I feel like that has been a wonderful aspect of taking this job the I will say people are people and issues are issues and concerns are the same you know kind of across the board it usually revolves around how we communicate with one another and that makes it challenging for folks I will say because it's been noted specifically in regard to the size of the amount of people who have come to the office as a sole practitioner office the the number that have utilized the services is not surprising to me because a lot of people for
124a variety of reasons don't necessarily come to an ombudsman's office one of which they may not know about it so that's part in how you have to advertise and Outreach for the office others may feel that when I do say I'm confidential they may not feel comfortable in that and may not want to come because of that reason there's also other reasons because they feel like their voice won't be heard they don't know you know if there anything will come of it so there's many reasons why so statistically the numbers for sole practitioner office are not in if you speak to the ioa which is the governing body kind of of Ombudsman they're not surprised in that type of number so I was not in my first year surprised by that but certainly you know
125those who have utilized the office sometimes are coming because of what they feel but also what they feel with the rest of the people around them so that's they're brave enough to come and talk to someone about it and so providing that service for them is what I would say would be my value that I've seen so far I have had opportunities where I've had not mediations because I view media Asians as formalized processes but I've had facilitated conversations between individuals and when people walk away from that and saying I never realized that you had that perspective and I didn't think about it in that light if I helped that then I've done my job very well and that makes me very satisfied I've people have said they feel like they've gotten a safe space
126to talk things through I provide them I'm I tell people I'm like your GPS I'm just there to navigate it you drive it I'm just trying to help you navigate through it so that's where I do find my value and where I find joy in the job great thank you thank you for answering those questions for me and for the benefit of our parent and teacher Community who are listening thank you any further questions Miss Rosslyn okay all right thank you for the presentation tonight and for the questions from the board members I just want to say I saw your poster at one of the schools I wonder if English and Spanish yeah so I appreciate the advertisement um I know that many of the topics you discussed tonight are specifically addressed in our strategic
127plan and that all staff members work hard to be reflective and Implement best research practices and I just I appreciate the discussion points from tonight and um where we move from here thank you wonderful thank you okay moving on to 1702 revisions the policy 795 parental access to information and notice for certain materials [Music] um this policy update was requested by Miss wall and Mr Welk so we can have one of you discuss the proposed revisions and then a discussion and then we can Miss Williams can read their resolution it's only on for information today so miss wall or Mr work would you like to start thank you yeah good thank you Miss Jackson good evening uh I first want to take a few moments to dispel any rumors or misunderstandings that may have occurred
128since this policy recommendation change was posted what is the intent versus what is not the intent of this I know there's kind of some misunderstanding and you know again this could go back obviously this is the first reading and the goal is to get feedback on this to potentially you know not make it as broad as it might appear to shore some things up so first I do want to say that this was not created in a silo a situation where multiple individuals were working on the same objective but not communicating with one another um Miss wall and I vetted the language through the superintendent's office the division attorney the office of communications the result is the currently proposed language from those reviews the conclusion ultimately was that all building leaders should be already doing
129these types of basketball practices personally I am not aware of any administrator in the school division who does not already follow this practice between weekly newsletters s'mores or other vendor products calendar postings website updates it is clear that the vast majority of building level leaders are conducting this best practice I think the last thing principals want to do is not engage in communication with their families the proposed policy change only pertains to building wide events where all students within the building will be part of the presentation Etc since our teachers are already following vdoe pacing guides and the standards of learning this does not pertain to grade level team events student-led events or in individual classrooms again this is building wide events the entire building exposed or being presented something of a nature not teams
130not grade levels building wide the goal of this policy change is to put practice into formal policy parents should not have to rely on having an extremely communicative principle or assistant principles at their child's building the proposed policy change formalizes best practice for organizational coherence I would like to now discuss the alignment with this proposed change with two of our pwcs strategic plan commitments first organizational coherence objective 4.2 states that Prince William County schools will remove barriers to communication to facilitate collaboration across offices schools and families in the spirit of customer service in my opinion parents should not be cut off guard or best practices should not vary between individual school buildings if we know that the effective communication is currently occurring we should align the practice in policy with the Strategic plan objective 4.4
131States Prince William County schools will work towards convergence operating as a unified school system with shared accountability for school and division goals the goal of formalizing this best practice in the policies to protect our division and or individual buildings by developing an organizational design to be a hundred percent optimized and aligned to facilitate the effective delivery of instruction and Operational Support finally under 4.4 of our strategic plan it states quote pwcs commits to developing renewed standards for site-based management end quote again my belief is that the proposed policy formalizes Best Practices across the entire Division and not something that can vary depending on the site where students attend this policy adoption also aligns with our division goal of family engagement which represents our school division's commitment to building collaborative meaningful Partnerships and trusting relationships to
132Foster the success of all students pwcs it says will ensure honest transparent and two-way communication with families schools and the community to Foster trusting relationships Miss wall will add additional context behind the proposed policy as well thank you Ms thank you Mr Wilk um I thought that was a really great explanation for some of the thinking behind what we are trying to do here um you know as board members one of our one of our key responsibilities is to enact policy and to engage in governance and in particular policy and governance are at the heart of our functions and our roles and as Mr book said you know we have our four key commitments and this aligns with two of them in particular the family and Community engagement commitment and the organizational coherence um it
133formalizes in policy what we do in practice and for that reason I believe our policy should reflect what we're doing they should be an accurate reflection of what we ask our administrators to do our teachers to do our students parents and everybody else so according to the plain language of as Mr Wilk addressed it is meant to address school-wide events not teacher individual teacher or classroom activities grade level activities student-led activities it's but school-wide events where children of multiple ages and circumstances are addressed and so hence the language school-wide presentation including guest presentation assembly or book other material content that's red shared performed or broadcast you know typically things that are outside the curriculum we're not noticing every aspect of curriculum that we're going to be doing that's already covered so um it is in
134the promotion of family and engagement that parents receive notice of events and other large-scale um participation kinds of items I know as a parent I've been in situations where um in both kinds of situations where I had notice of an event coming up and I appreciated it and I was able to inquire and be prepared for maybe even show up or prepare my child for what was the event or activity and there were also have also been instances where I wasn't prepared because I have two graduates of Prince William County Education who started as kindergartners and went all the way up through 12th grade and I have a 12th grader now so I've had cumulatively quite a lot of years of consuming Prince William County Education and so I can say from experience when a
135child comes home from school and starts talking about something and you don't know where that's coming from and it could even be something a little bit concerning like maybe trafficking or you know maybe some Discord or something like that and you're wondering why your sixth grader's asking you about these topics it's it's it's best practice to let parents know hey we're having a Schoolboy presentation on you know gangs or anti-trafficking or social media use or whatever it is so that you as a parent are aware and can have those conversations with your child and so I think in doing that we really invite parents to be partners with us and we help parents collaborate not only with the school but also with the child and have the conversations the parents need to have um so
136I also like the provision in here where the notice includes the date time and location the title and a brief description and the name of a person to contact especially the name of the person to contact because sometimes you might have questions like what is Good Touch Bad Touch parents of kindergarten or Young Elementary School kids will know what I'm talking about that's you know a program I I guess and I um you might want to know like what is that and who can I talk to about that to find out more about that and um that's useful and that facilitates communication and it invites parents into our learning environment and I think that's appropriate and it establishes that customer service um connection that we are striving to achieve in Prince William County schools and
137I think what will lead to good results my last point is just reiterating what Mr Wilk said that many if not most of our schools are already doing this and in checking with division leadership and division Council this is something that we have already done and I look forward to additional comments if citizens have comments or if citizens have feedback they want to send an email or let us know through other means or board members have other questions we're happy to engage in that dialogue recyclable uh thank you Miss Jackson um I'll just I'll just add to this conversation um yes the intent was to keep communication clear as somebody who has orchestrated uh a school-wide event um not coming up with stuff last minute so a parent could ask if they had wanted to
138like a Winter concert or something like that I would already know what we're doing um I also think it's a good idea to have that point of contact because I can say as a teacher if another entity say the Marine band is coming in to do a concert I can't answer those questions but they have an office that could so it is hopefully going to take some pressure off of teachers and administrators as well if there's a guest coming in so that is another thought for for why something like this could be useful just wanted to add that thank you Miss Williams uh thank you first I just want to make sure the public is clear that this is an existing policy that we've had since 2004 um and that it is just being updated
139and really the the majority of this updating is sort of to correspond with our regulations and for those who don't know regulations in the school division are actionable items on how to enforce the policy so I don't want anybody to be confused and think that this is just something brand new um as I've mentioned several times I was a Prince William County School student and I have been a Prince William County School parent for going on well a little over 12 years so um I think that the majority of this is already being done because it's in our regulations so this is not new information for most of us I think codifying in policy to some respect to match the regulation is a little bit backwards from our normal procedures um but I do understand
140that there are certain parents out there who um appreciate the update to the policy I am concerned that nowhere in this policy um either in the update or the one in 2004 which probably wasn't as big of a deal back then but there's no notice in here for Guardians everyone doesn't have parents despite popular belief there are plenty of students who participate in our school division who do not have parents and to available to a system but legal Guardians so if we're going to do any updating I'd like to be modern in our updating and recognize that there are students that don't come to us with parents just legal Guardians if we're going to be validating everyone in our school Division and dotting our eyes and crossing our T's I do have concern about um
141a little bit more about the name and person in contact for information and I'm also a little concerned that there are caretakers in our school division that aren't receiving this information because it's a regulation and because um my experience as a parent has been pretty much everything is posted in canvas and is widely accessible and as well as you know newsletters that go out all types of field trips or specialty assemblies or presentations there's usually a permission slip so that students can attend so I just want to make sure that we're not overburdening our current staff and that we're not duplicating work so I think that that's something that we as a board should look into I do believe that this policy needs updating but I just want to make sure that we're not duplicating
142work or actions that are already required of our division staff and I also want to um know a little bit more about maybe we can again discuss with legal offline because this is not an appropriate format um what this exactly what this means for giving notice to because I think that's very broad as well and the the regulations of parents are or Guardians are concerned they're also found in in board docs there's a matching regulation that goes into far greater detail about how we actually have been implementing this policy um which again like I said has been around since 2004 under our school board policies and regulations but I know this has been a common practice at least since when I was a student in school so I just want to be careful if we're
143going to update again that we add the words Guardians if possible um and that's it thank you Miss Madam chair I just want to clarify something because I think Ms Williams brings up a good point because it's a little hard when you look at at the policy red line that is available on board docs with the agenda item it all appears in Redland but in it but it's not all new so so the only reason that that section one appears that way is because because we were adding a second part of the policy that we put in Roman numerals and so the the first section under the protection of people rights amendment is entirely the same as it was before and as it is hard when you look at it it looks like it's all
144new but I just want to make that clarification that the the first part under subsection one or Roman numeral one is in fact identical we didn't change anything in that part um and so because of that we didn't put I didn't I didn't add Guardians in but you make a good point that we could update that to say that um but all the new um policy proposed by Mr Wilk and Miss wall is found in section two of the policy so just if you're looking at that online it's just someone to clarify that thank you I appreciate that because it looks like it most of it is like an update from the what's currently our regulations so thank you Jesse uh I just want to put my pair I wondered if maybe um the three-day
145why why not five days I guess that's my question I was a parent and I heard my my daughter singing this song in the back of the car and I remember the exact place where it was and I said what's happening I said what song she said we're having a play I said when tomorrow night and I thought okay so I called the school immediately and she said oh the secretary I talked to the wrong person she said just put on our Sunday Best so I bought a beautiful white dress I get to the play and everybody's wearing cowboy outfits and this lady sat next to me said who is that little girl with the white dress she must have a lead role I said I don't know that little girl but my point is
146that I I think most parents would need it I I is it is that was that a part of the the original regulation which yeah 30 days I think at least five days I I don't know I I just think that I would need more than three days to be notified that I because I have to get babysitters and all these things and I'm just thinking about parents to know is that possible is that something that which you could consider maybe five days that would give me time to to really realize you should wear a cobwear outfit yeah I I think it's all open to discussion I don't think there's a hard line on three days yeah I I also want to point out just for a point of order that a previous speaker asked
147about duplication of work this was vetted by the office of communications who took it to I believe the principles and not to speak for them so I would encourage other board members to ask them about that type of workload or duplication because it did go through them okay this is we're having a little confusion with that statement okay so the regular ly uh Mr Anderson yes nothing nothing in the regulation changed and and it has so there's no part of the regulation that's currently attached to this policy is pertinent to the new language in section two so it all relates to section one which has been around for as you know in a long time so I just want to make sure everybody's clear there's nothing nothing in the regulation as it exists now addresses
148the new portion of the policy so I I just want to jump in really quickly I'm sorry so the regulations generally are updated when we update policies or they follow and comply with policies so that was my comment to make sure that we weren't doing anything duplicate um was pertaining to the regulation and the policy that vein um because I don't if we pass this then the regulation will be updated to reflect the new policy so they're not Standalone items necessarily they're usually sort of we do a policy the regulation is how we implement the policy that we pass so there would be updated need updates needed and I was just concerned because we added a portion to the policy which is already in the regulation just speaks to different times it speaks to different
149things so that's why that's where my I don't want to duplicate things that we're already doing part of it um it I I just want there's that concern from our staff that we're adding more workload we're doing things I'm not into building day to day but there is a very extensive regulation where we do do most of the stuff so I wanted to make sure as board members that we are aware that this is there and that we're not causing further hardship and that some of these things are already in practice so that that was where I the the uh duplicate work comment came from just so that we're all on the same page thanks is there any further discussion Ms Wilson do you have any comments thank you okay since the board spoke specifically
150to the proposed language changes and additions and to the existing policy I would encourage the public to go to boy docs and read the red line justification form and since there was a lot of discussion about you know changes Mr Anderson would you mind speaking to next steps between now and like when the policy will be put online for people to see when we're voting on this just quickly and then we'll move on uh yes uh Miss Jackson the next steps will be to take the feedback that we've heard tonight from and that has come in by email from citizens uh the sponsoring board members uh certainly I think would be consulted to about any changes we want to make in light of that feedback uh I think the intent would be to bring this
151back as a second read which is our usual practice on the 15th so there would be an update between now and the next time that the agenda is posted and some of the language may change and I'm going to take Miss Williams's a good suggestion and go back and add Guardians to the section one that has been around since 2006 I think that's a good idea um so so there will be a red line posted that shows changes between tonight and the the new version so that the public will easily be able to see what modifications been made also instead of three I'll defer to miss wall and Mr Wilk on the three versus five days that's a that was what I just thinking a little bit more time three seem Ed like a mix
152between um principles usually administrative administrators needing to know kind of okay what's coming up and how long to give parents notice and um you know but we I mean we can we can have that discussion could you just consider it thank you yes okay thank you all right we're going to move on to agenda 17.03 prevailing wage resolution this is also on for information and um this resolution is new so Miss Williams would you mind reading it before we have our discussion thank you sure um so this resolution prevailing rates excuse me prevailing wage resolution was introduced by Dr Latif this is something I believe that the board received an update on was it pre-covet does anyone it was June was it June sorry my timeline sometimes it's messed up um because of covet and
153everything else going on so this is um a discussion that was had in June by the board the resolution on board docs currently reads um resolution of the Prince William County School Board adopting the payment of prevailing wage for the work performed on Public Works contracts as authorized by section 2.2-4321.3c of the code of Virginia whereas in 2020 the general assembly amended the code section uh 2.2-4321.3 to authorize localities to adopt an ordinance requiring that when letting contracts for Public Works paid in whole or in part by funds of the locality or when overseeing or administering a public contract it's bid specification project agreements or other public contracts applicable to the public works shall require bidders offers contractors and subcontractors to pay wages salaries benefits and other renumerated and and other renumeration to any mechanic
154labor or work and worker employed retained or otherwise hired performed services in connection with the public contract at the prevailing wage rate and whereas Prince William County School Board oversees and directs the mission and operations of the Prince William County schools through the development and Adoption of policies and resolutions now therefore it be resolved at effective January 1 2023 the Prince William County School Board here by adopts hereby requires the payment of prevailing wage work for performed excuse me prevailing wages for work performed on contracts for public works as that term is defined in Virginia code 2.2-4321.3 be it further resolved that the requirement of this resolution do not apply to contracts for Public Work projects one valued at less than 250 000 to already subject to Federal prevailing wage laws three awarded to a
155successful bidder in response to request us for proposal invitation for bid or other solicitation issued by the school board prior to the effective date of this resolution including any renewals or for exempt or excluded from the Virginia Public procurement act be it further resolved the division superintendent is authorized to modify or or establish any regulations or departmental procedures necessary to administer this resolution and then adopted and approved thank you Miss Williams is there any discussion Mr Walker thank you Miss Jackson thank you everyone so this is a very exciting uh that we are taking the steps to include prevailing wages in our future construction contracts I've always considered myself a champion for career and Tech education growing up in the wonderful state of Michigan where CTE is attached to almost every school district in the
156state I am proud of the direction that we're going as our division Dr mcdade's commitment to making College and Career Readiness start as early as in our Elementary programs because it starts there to reinstituting and re-revamping some of our middle school programs for exposure and Partnerships I think this is great when I first came on the board one of my first projects and commitments was trying to finalize that partnership with the International Brotherhood Electrical Workers out at Unity Reed high school and making that program and build a partnership with those the school and that Union uh but it's important that we recognize that we can do more to set our kids up for Success we can ensure that new schools we build offer opportunities for good wages benefits apprenticeships and actually Workforce Development within our
157County we are a commuter County but this is a great opportunity to bring our kids and bring jobs high paying jobs to our students and our graduates a prevailing wage policy will make sure that the contractors who build our projects pay Prince William County residents what they are worth that's good for the taxpayer because we're getting a better end project it's good for the workers who live and work here and it's good for the local contractors who are no longer underbid by out of town competition and it's good for our students who can see an alternative Pathway to college right in front of their eyes we need to continue moving beyond the myth that all students need to go to college what better opportunity showing action beyond words than providing our CTE students and our
158graduates with high-paying jobs within Prince William County I also looked into what prevailing wage rates were for Prince William County prevailing wages differ from minimum wages in that they are a reflection of the market rate for a construction worker in a particular construction craft so for example a carpenter making prevailing wage will make 31.40 cents an hour plus about 13.86 in benefits an iron worker which we all know I've seen the reports that we need more of these would make 34.85 an hour plus 24.84 cents in benefits and so on and so on these are wages that don't break the bank but they allow someone working on one of our projects to actually be able to afford and live and work here as far as the question of need yes I believe we need this
159resolution what I want to try and avoid with our Contracting is a race to the bottom even if many of our contractors are already paying paying prevailing wages it is important that we set a wage floor so that an out-of-town contractor can't come to our County and under bid our local contractor Base by cutting their wage bill by setting a prevailing wage rate we are maintaining a competitiveness competitive business environment for our contractors while doing right buyer workers I do want to thank the groups who have written to support us and this ordinance the D.C Metro Building Trades which is an organization representing seven construction unions in Northern Virginia has communicated to our board their support for this measure I look forward to continuing to work with our trade unions to provide viable Pathways for
160our students and graduates to get good middle-class jobs and live where they work right here here in our County thank you thank you Mr welcome thank you Miss Jackson um Mr Wilk that was that was amazing I'm going to add just a couple things um I've had an opportunity to talk with some of the trades about this um kind of adjunctly because I'd had some students who were looking for apprenticeships internships things like that and um especially in their senior year of high school there was an issue with some students at one of my schools being able to complete a program and I worked with some of the trades to help them help these students find some opportunities for them so I know that they're working hard for our students and I just want to
161thank them for helping me understand a little bit better about what prevailing wage will do and Mr Wilk just explained it very well and I just thank you thank you so much Miss wall thank you Miss Jackson um I actually have some questions that I would like to ask um so my first question is can you please um explain to me how we determine a prevailing wage yeah prevailing wage act well first off good evening uh Madam chair board members Dr McDade prevailing wage those wages are set and established by the Virginia Department of Labor and Industry okay actually I just want to clarify that they're actually set by the U.S Department of Labor and then but they are obtained from the Virginia Department of Labor okay so set by U.S Department of Labor and
162then uh Virginia Department of Labor okay so we we can know that number like we can know those yes ma'am and is it per industry or per trade it's by trade I know we PR are we is this going to affect every contract or is this for our like construction contracts like our CIP type right this this would impact any contract over two hundred and fifty thousand dollars and that floor is set um by the prevailing wage act a minimum of 250 000 or the floor is 250 000. okay wait when you say that that so my next question was going to be why the 250 000 threshold you're saying that's set by I think Wade's going to chat about here miss Walnut the the prevailing wage act that was passed two years ago that
163authorized localities and school divisions to implement a prevailing wage set a 250 000 floor in other words you cannot uh you are not allowed to uh to require prevailing wage for any project less than 250 000 and so we've got that in there the board can actually change that amount and make it whatever amount they'd like as long as it's either at 250 000 or above you cannot you're not authorized to do it below so we could set it at 500 000 we could set it at a million could we have some information on why that might be advantageous to raise it or why not like who would that benefit would that benefit us for instance if we raised it to 500 000 or we raised it to a million yeah how would that benefit
164us well it uh so the estimate that we provided uh and obviously this was back in June we looked at eight projects locally uh four in Virginia and four uh in Maryland and it's tough in Virginia because not a lot of school districts are providing prevailing wage or paying prevailing wage so there was some variability there within the Virginia projects Maryland was a little bit of a better example because there's more stability there and uh and they've been doing this for some time but we're estimating it'll be about a 10 to 20 percent cost increase within our construction projects oh across the board yes ma'am we would pay like 10 to 20 more for building a school or whatever potentially that's what we're estimating and that's using the 250 000 floor correct and that and
165that is a state that's the Virginia General Assembly right just to be clear that everybody understands that yes yes man it was a general assembly that passed the 250 000 for and that was in 2020 2020 yes ma'am okay thank you um can I ask a question about um so to me this looks a little bit like it removes the those contracts from that the competitive bidding process on school construction process projects um you know now we do engage in a competitive bidding process I've seen those reports and then you know we get the spreadsheet with the different bids that came in and it seems that we usually generally go with the lowest cost bid um so I guess my is that is that correct that that process would still remain in place Miss wall
166the difference here is if the board uh you know moves forward with providing prevailing wage that that would be a part of those contracts we would still go with this man cost um okay and my last question is related to our bond rating so I as I understand we have a solid AAA Bond rating which is a poor a point of Pride for the School Division and allows us to borrow at good rates um and our and that is looked upon favorably for us is a low risk in the bond market so my question is how would this affect our bond rating and our financial reputation would there be any effect and if so what kind of effect would it have so Prince William County's schools or Prince William County excuse me is one of
16747 Nationwide triple triple A rated localities it's something that both the county and us are very proud of this if the board chose to go forward with this prevailing wage requirement it should have no impact on the County's AAA triple triple A rating as long as we continue to meet our obligations just like we have in the past I don't any further questions at this time thank you very much this is Jesse I just wanted to support this this resolution and to address what Mr Wilkes said about careers and college I was one of these people who believed that everyone should go to college because I was the only one in my family to go to college so when I was a principal I created this key to kindergarten to college and we took our
168fifth graders to Virginia Tech for several years and we were the first school to do that and I was very proud of that and then I met Doug Wright and went to Potomac High School and met the welding class and it changed me it changed my thinking that there are kids who are hands on kids and there were kids there who had left High School and came back to be in the welding class and then I learned a lot more about welding and that the average age for retirement at this point is 55 years old and that they're looking for welders and these kids made phenomenal pieces of Art and I've learned a lot and of course uh at Potomac High School they also have their culinary arts program and I think we and I
169talked to superintendent I said I want everybody to go to college and she said and have a career she said oh yeah so we want both and I I'm very pleased to support this prevailing wage I don't want to go into the intricacies of it but I think that we need to think outside of the box I think if every student could graduate from if we had a goal that every student either went to college or had a career option when they left this this school system we wouldn't have the level of crime that we have because I think when people are employed and successful you don't have that and I don't have any stats on that but it just makes sense to me thank you Miss Jackson okay um so I looked up the
170dollar threshold amount for contract coverage by state and many states are like two thousand one thousand twenty five hundred so or just even as a county above that also um when I had asked earlier because uh it is concerning are we going to be is it going to cost more to build things or or you know whatever we need um just getting some information back about the Sip budgets and other counties that have adopted this have not had to increase their budgets they haven't had any significant increases um right now we're in an inflationary period so it's you know it's kind of a different thing altogether but um that was one of the things that I was very concerned about and there's no evidence right now there was a report I believe about Montgomery County
171that turned out to not be accurate so um is there any further to miss wall um I'm glad you actually brought that up as bizarre her because um that is something we don't need to answer staff doesn't need to answer this right now but I am concerned about the effect of having to pay 10 to 20 more for our contracts across the board um considering one the volatility in the market that I know we've experienced I mean I remember the presentations that we got last year and the year before with the price of lumber the price of Steel Etc and I know we even had to delay the beginning or the the opening of Rosemount Lewis Elementary School partially because of covid but also because of the cost of and sourcing the materials because some
172of those raw materials were so much more expensive and I also am concerned because we are in an inflationary period so we're already paying a lot more for things that we that we need because we have students and we have to build schools and we we need to not overcrowd our classrooms so we got we kind of stuck we have to do these things not like we can just decide you know we don't need a new couch you know we can put off getting a new table for five years now we need a new if we need a new school we need a new school so um you know those factors of volatility in the market with commodities and materials and the inflation and everything are driving our costs up anyway and creating a lot
173of volatility in an unpredictability in our budgetary planning and then we lay on top of this the effect of having to pay 10 to 20 more for our contracts I'm concerned about where in the budget would we take this from because it's money I mean yeah I mean where do you take it from because money doesn't grow on trees so um unless we you know then I mean I guess then we look to the board of County Supervisors and they raise the tax rate on everybody because we need more money for schools because we need to accommodate a bigger budget um anyway those are some of my concerns so maybe um I don't know if that's something we can talk about next time but I don't I don't expect you to answer any of that
174tonight I was gonna say we so we probably um can do some projections up that probably would be the best we wouldn't have any hard and fast concrete numbers um and then we could to what Ms argopore stated we can kind of look at other regions others divisions and see those who've already implemented what their numbers look like I do recall being told that out of a project Labor's about 20 percent of the cost so if we're talking about inflationary costs it's usually um I mean I remember the price of steel back when we were talking about this earlier had skyrocketed and then it began to drop so I I know that's that's part of the volatility but I I don't believe that the wages are necessarily a big chunk it's like 20 percent Miss
175Williams thank you um admittedly this is not my subject matter of expertise but what I will say is that I think our major problem with construction is in addition to when we had supply chain disruptions was um contractors finding employees because um what we're not talking about in this conversation is the fact that young people don't work for the same wages that we work for they can go on Instagram and make double what a lot of us make in an office just doing what they do on social media so I think this is reinforcement to our youth that we are graduating through all these wonderful programs that they will graduate and be paid a fair and living wage which is the point because if we don't continue to then encourage them to come through our
176system be well trained and then we don't pay them when they get out it won't make any difference because they won't be construction workers you can drive on the way here I think for the past year and some change there's is um contractor construction worker jobs I think now it's like 20 an hour of forty dollars an hour now for like a lead manager there's big Billboards everywhere because they're just not simply getting paid enough money to justify the work that they're being asked to do so I think this is a good thing for our school division to reinforce to the children that we're graduating that we are committed to not only your education but for paying you a living wage as much as we possibly can once you graduate and hopefully you'll stay here
177or find employment within our County because that's continuously been a problem so thanks is there any further comments questions okay based on the presentation that we hold in June 1st 2022 prevailing wages a rate is defined in Virginia Public procurement act the PPA is the rate amount or level of wages salaries benefits and other remuneration prevailing for the corresponding classes of mechanics laborers or workers employed for the same work in the same trade or occupation and the locality in which the public facility or immovable property that is subject of Public Works is located this item today is on for information and there is time for feedback I appreciate all the discussion tonight and all the work the board has done to increase pay for employees this draft resolution is consistent as right now it appears
178consistent right now with the work that we have done to take steps towards people being paid a fair and competitive wage there is one point I would like to emphasize that other board members said that I'm just going to re-emphasize is that Prince William County's Vision that every student will graduate on time with the knowledge skills and habits of mine necessary to create a thriving future for themselves and their Community we have committed to ensure our students have a plan after you graduate and as such we should build and continue to promote CTE and strengthen Partnerships and support our students post graduation as well that includes fostering pay competitive pay I appreciate the input of constituents employees trades labor on this issue and I again appreciate the discussion and I think we are anticipating to
179vote on this for the next meeting right Mr Anderson yes okay hit the fam okay that brings us to 1704. which um the motion has changed so if we could please refresh our computers it's on the bottom chair or my name is vice chair okay I moved to the Princeton County school board approved the appointment of Victoria Cole Roan Roland as the nabsco District representative for a two-year term from 11 November 2nd 2022 to June 30th 2024 to the safe schools advisory Council any discussion a second me second Miss Jesse now any discussion please vote oh miss no okay please vote Ms Ralston yes vote is seven yes one absent chairman Latif motion passed thank you all right that brings us to 1705. okay board matters we now move on to board matters this is
180our last meeting ended late and board members agreed to waive their board matters time with no objection from the board tonight um we would like to extend board matters to four minutes each person are there any objections all right thank you um if you don't mind Mrs Jesse would you mind starting tonight I'm sorry thank you first of all I want to congratulate Woodridge High School for winning their homecoming game and I thought that the queen you did the queen wave quite well in the parade but it was really a very uh if the weather was great in the game I didn't stay until the end I thought they were going to lose and I didn't stay because I thought they were going to lose but it was very cold and we wanted to get
181home we got home and they won and then we felt guilty so let's get in the car and go back but it was too late but anyway I want to congratulate them as you know I've been going on these what I call the Gratitude tour and in the Gratitude tour I give this cup and this cup started when I was a principal every Friday I'd give a cup with music and I didn't realize how much it meant to teachers a single cup meant so much to them so all of my schools now have what I call a a cup of gratitude and this year I decided to give a cup to teachers and I'm not going to share all of the uh cups I've given but so far I've given a cup to Rockledge Lake
182Ridge Middle Lake Ridge Elementary Woodbridge High School Spring Woods Jenkins and kerrydale I think we have Occoquan West Ridge and Marshall and Antietam still left we need to set up those but I just want to share a couple of photos and I think we have them this is each person reacted each School reacted differently and this particular individual at a really great middle and her name is Kimberly Dean she when we I gave her the cup and it was a drawing and she said well since you said this guy said this cup could be shared by all of us I would like to share my please go back to that slide please slide one that my cup with everyone so she plans to put her cup in the faculty room and we took a group
183picture the second person to received the cup that I have a photo is a first-year kindergarten teacher her name is Andrea sportner and you'd think I'd given her five thousand dollars you know when I gave the donuts I said you guys are hugging me for a donut and I I just think that teachers do need this recognition and some of the things I heard tonight I know they're doing wonderful thing and my final photo tonight is of this man when you go to Woodbridge High School as a board member Mr Walker or she always has someone meet you at the meet you in your car and he's sometimes as a student but often as Mr Walker and if I'm late or if I come to him it was raining one day and he was standing
184there with that umbrella I just wanted to give him a cup of gratitude and he is their behavioral specialist I think in that building I just want to say thank you to Mr Mr Walker for everything you do I do not know his first name because I called him Mr Walker because that's who he is and so that's all I have to share tonight because I wanted to say to Dr McDade and to everyone that um the teachers are stressed and since you've been here you've done a wonderful job but it's something that we need to continue and some way to recognize teachers and the gifts and talents that they bring and it was not just the teachers it was everyone in the building thank you madam chairwoman I just want to start off by
185talking about something that was brought up this evening but also Nationwide which was the nape test scores I want parents and Guardians in the public just to understand that that test score is reflection of the rigor of standardized testing in Virginia and it is not an Apples to Apples comparison to test scores across the country it is not something that measures learning of students that is done on other tests this test score is reflective of the rigor of standardized testing in the state of Virginia and that was changed under multiple administrations so both parties had a hand in changing those uh test rigors for math one was by Matt one was done math I think it was McDonald and then reading may have been Northam and McAuliffe so um I I always pick at these
186things like I pick at the niche report and I pick at some of the other things because there's a lot of misunderstanding people hear a headline and don't always understand all of the the nuances and the details that go on behind that Virginia is still at the top of the Heap for student learning we are um in the top four for uh fourth grade math and reading and eighth grade math uh around average for 8th grade reading so I just want parents and Guardians and members of the public to go out there and do a little bit more digging when we see these headlines because they can be confusing and sometimes detrimental to our own staff and morale especially in the state of Virginia with our teachers it would be if I didn't know if
187I didn't know and I heard that and I would go to my teachers and be like what's going on and they'd be telling me that this has nothing to do with what your student is learning this has to do with the standard the rigor and the standardized test that your student is taking and that's a big deal and a big difference um I want to also moving on from that and want to talk a little bit about the fact the racial and Social Justice Commission met it is something that the school board participates in partnership with we did that last Thursday it's every third Thursday of the month and I sit on that it was not really education focused last month moving on from that there were several events that I was able to participate
188in I did a webinar with children healthy family focus on gun violence in schools participating back to school nights at various elementary schools I want to apologize to Kilby and marumsko I did intend to attend two of their events but I had a family issue that came up and I was not able to participate but I will be there I want to give a special shout out to our virtual Learning Academy proximity who we contract with on their proximity and Beyond series that they will be holding all year for Virtual Families to participate in with their students and it's grades k through eight because again the state has a virtual program I was able to also attend a regional elected leaders fall webinar the Dumfries mirrors ball where I got to participate in honoring a
189former School Board member Ms Betty Covington as well as congratulate the teacher of the year for Dumfries most importantly two things I want to congratulate everyone who had a hand in the Family Camp for title one I was there as a board member and as a parent I'd like to give a special shout out to Mr Edwards who are sitting in our audience for his YouTube video on school security and safety my son I took him with me he is still talking about how cool that was so he's extremely introverted so that is just very meaningful to me as a parent and I appreciate all the work that our security team has done to make our Safety and Security relatable to each age group so kudos to you and then on that note I also
190want to make note that I was able to attend a School Division in Charlotte Mecklenburg to look at their version of of um excuse me metal detectors and I'm going to end there because I'm out of time thank you Miss wall thank you Miss Jackson um Tuesday October 18th saw the wrapping up of back to school nights at Sudley Sinclair Tyler and Mullen elementary schools it was a pleasure meeting so many parents and Educators I'm confident we're off to a good start um Saturday October 15th I caught the end of the 50th anniversary celebration at Sudley Elementary it was a great event with fun outdoor activities and there were some returning teachers and principals and families and graduates and schools have changed quite a bit over the years so the building there were building tours
191as well which is fun for people um I attended on Wednesday October 26th Sinclair Elementary's Title One family night which was really a lot of fun the staff did a great job um I got to meet the teachers play some fun math and reading games and and purchase some fun things at the book fair um I want to congratulate Battlefield cross country teams for their first place win at districts they have regionals tomorrow good luck everybody cross country is a great sport um one of my one of my daughters ran in Cross Country in high school is awesome Battlefield held their amazing pink out game last weekend which was awesome attendance was electrifying I'm looking forward to a good contest against Patriot this Friday um always a good Ravelry I held office hours with Ms
192Jackson on October 26th at the Brunsville District we had some good one-on-one visits with parents and grandparent members of the community so appreciate those people who came out on Thursday October 27th I joined misograpur Dr McDade and Chief of Staff Ms Batello at the 31st Annual food show at Colgan High School which was really fun and I admit my eating habits are probably mostly like the kids I love the cinnamon rolls and the dessert those are my favorites um and I'm I'm a member of the school health Advisory Board and on Friday the 28th we met and we reviewed some really important topics and I'm happy to hear that all of our schools are staffed with full-time nurses this year and that we also have over a dozen nurses working as clinical team leaders which
193is a new role for pwcs this year to support our school clinics which are very busy I really appreciate all those individuals who are working in that new capacity this year and providing a great service for our students the board met on Saturday the 29th with superintendent to discuss goals and working agreement and all of our efforts towards organizational coherence and a cohesive leadership team are done with one goal in mind which is that of promoting and achieving higher student achievement and for all of our students so I'm proud to be part of this team to all of our seniors keep at it November 1st deadline has come and gone but there are still applications to fill out and plans to make keep at it this too shall pass you shall pass take advantage of
194the counselors and resources that are available to you I know it's stressful I remember it very well and sometimes have nightmares about it still um this many years later um this has been a most beautiful fall um I love the beautiful trees I know I've seen a lot of trees on social media which is a nice change actually I like we should keep posting about trees on social media everybody um but it does remind me about the passage of time and even if mortality as winter draws near and my third my thoughts turn to a poem that I love um as a Humanities English major in college so I want to close with this thought expressed by the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins one of my favorites It's called Spring and fall Margaret are you grieving
195older Golden Grove unleaving leaves like the things of man you with your fresh thoughts cared for can you ah as the heart grows older it will come to such sites colder by and by nor spare acai the worlds of one would leave me a lie and yet you will weep and know why now no matter child the name sorrow Springs are the same nor mouth had no nor mind expressed but heart heard of ghost guest it is the blight man was born for it is Margaret you mourn for beautiful poem we could analyze this if we were doing a senior seminar the poem expresses to me among other ideas the idea that oh no my time is up can I have like 30 seconds okay okay if you want if I can have three more
196seconds I'll finish it's up to the chair okay I don't know if we want that okay all right well we're going to a musical we'll do it almost a musical it's the idea the individuals grieve all individuals grieve for themselves and their fate I know that the effects of covid linger and are very real in some measure not one of us came through what we've all been through unscathed there are parts of our Lives we certainly mourn for and especially our kids our kids are actually I think believe they're all mourning in some part something that they lost I want to renew my commitment to always fight for your kids to give them the best education I can in my role as a board member to advocate for what is best I appreciate your trust
197in me and I would encourage you to give your kids a hug and tell them you love them and that you'll help them get through whatever the whatever it is they are facing and that those are my thoughts on this beautiful fall night and with that I say good night all right I'm missing thank you do I get the ah thank you very good all right so really quickly it's been a busy month I went to the Westgate back to school night uh and their fall festival and got to meet this is a new to me school so I got to meet so many families and the kids and the teachers and had such a good time there um got to meet with the Boy Scouts of America Cub pack 11.95 and we talked about
198what it's like to be an elected official and you know how do you run for office what does my actual office look like wherever I'm standing is my office um so they had some really great questions and I appreciated being invited to talk about that I went to Hilton High School's homecoming game the Osborne Park athletic Hall of Fame was uh always a great thing to go to to hear how uh School specifically uh these athletes and who are my age some of them younger just remembering how those were really formative moments in their lives and what it meant for them carrying through into you know to today was really just something I needed to hear I went to the op homecoming game um Patriot High School and not my school but I was invited
199to play my flute on a chorus concert and had such a good time the chorus was amazing um I I love it I'm happy to play anywhere so um Hilton High School I went to their esol night and Maria iardia is the um apparently liaison and she was absolutely amazing she called every family to make sure they knew about this night to make sure that there were kids who had just started school that week so make sure that they were connected with all the things that they needed to be successful in school I went to the yorkshire's international night last night there were 25 someone told me 35. it was only 25 countries represented people were dressed up they brought their best food it was amazing I went to the Saunders Fall Festival last week
200Coles Elementary School had their fall festival and Kyle Wilson had a bingo night I got to call one of the games which was a lot of fun and you've already heard we went to the the food show I loved everything but I love food so it's good and I also got to see my niece in a one act play at Colgan get to celebrate Bennett Elementary School as a purple star school so I would can't wait to see what they're going to be doing with their military families I want to also mention we were talking a little bit about CTE in one of my school well two of my schools have Automotive programs I happen to buy a car a couple weeks ago over at um it's a Volkswagen the one on Karen Radley I
201think on everyone stop so I happen to be there I'll talk to anybody and the guy who was filling out my paperwork my financial paperwork we were talking about my job and I'm like well I'm gonna put my teacher job down but do I can I put my school board job down because you know I want my income to look good so I get a good good rate right and his name's Eugene and I'm talking to this guy Eugene about hey I have these Automotive kids in in my high schools who are taking these programs and some of them do get some apprenticeships and get good jobs but it wouldn't be really neat to like kind of formalize this now I do know Hilton High School's teacher Mr Stevens is very proactive on this because
202I went to his um awards banquet last year with Dr McDade remember Dr Mr Stevens he was he was great and he makes the kids bring the resumes he has different dealerships there but I think I I got a chance to see these kids take apart an engine and put it back together again a team of five in like 17 minutes it was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen and I think we need to start connect making sure we're connecting all of our CTE to the trades to to apprenticeships so I found out there's this grant program through Dolly we've heard about Dolly tonight a lot tonight that's the Department of Labor and Industry they have something called a craft Grant and that is three thousand dollars that these um different organizations
203either it's the dealership for um apprenticeships maybe it's some other industry but they get the money to help see help move these kids along in their career and you can take 12 in each in each business so I really hope we've got Mr Ayub I hope he can help connect these kids I would love for some of these people to come out and take a look at what our Automotive kids can do y'all have a good night thanks for the great poem Miss wall oh and oh before I forget sorry we're going to hold office hours I'm going to do with Miss Jackson and with Mr Wilk we'll put that out on social media and to be to yeah keep it keep it keep tuned all right uh thank you Mr welcome thank you over
204the past 30 days I've been blessed to partake in many outstanding community events first I attended the following back to schools nights Ashland Elementary on October 11th Montclair Elementary on October 11th Henderson Elementary on October 12th Dumfries on the 13th Mary Williams on the 13th Patty on the 17th during these annual events I've had the pleasure of meeting and reconnecting with families in the district outside of back to school nights I did make a daytime visit to watch instruction at Dumfries elementary on uh 10-9 I went to swans Creek's Fall Festival on 10-7 and finally ran the concession stand at Patty Elementary School movie night on 10 14. I fervently believe that parent involvement in their child's education is Paramount to their future success the further engage my constituents I've done two office hour sessions
205in September the Southbridge HOA hosted my first session on 9 24 and the Montclair mpoa hosted mine on 10 15. as a person of faith I also realized that not everyone has kids in our schools and may not come to my office hours within the buildings themselves so I've gone to churches on Sundays and remained after to talk to parishioners I went to Grace Church three weekends ago little Union two weekends ago I didn't get to talk to people about the school but I did attend First Mount Zion 150 year anniversary two weeks ago what 155 I'm sorry yes 155. um uh I do want to take a moment and recognize our high school marching bands for their outstanding performances this year Forest Park has performed well in competitions these recognitions include best drum major
206and class double a second place Color Guard in class 2A and the award of best percussion class 2A at the Stafford showcase Potomac has also done exceedingly well these competitions winning first place in their class in all three invitationals they were also awarded the blue Division champion in the Stafford showcase more recently um let's see 10 20 triangle had their book fair I attended that on 10 20 10 21 Forest Park had their choral concert for the fall on 10 25 Forest Park heads or orchestra concert on 1025 Patty had their book fair on 10 30 Forest Park had a successful homecoming victory over Colgan I also attended the Trunk or Treats at both Henderson and Ashland Elementary getting most use of my Elvis costume which is now officially retired um on 10 30 the
207Dumfries lit Fest occurred I attended with um my colleague Miss Williams hosted by uh Dumfries councilwoman uh Cindy Neville uh 10 30. I always love attending these uh and being a part of Eagle ceremonies I went to the Marine Corps Museum as I was invited as a guest to watch five young men four from Forest Park and one from Colgan uh get promoted to this prestigious honor and then also last night I attended the forest park girls homecoming uh not homecoming girls volleyball won their first Regional game against Colonial Forge and the senior Powder Puff Girls team beat the Juniors um and of course Mrs zagreport mentioned I'm going to try to do something in November for my office hours I do want to stay in closing uh that um that while we are required
208to follow laws and policies that are Virginia Department of Education sets out I do want it known to all parents that your child's safety is always the goal we are focused on for parents and students who are part of the lgbtq community I do remain an ally and will listen and help when needed the recently proposed changes do not give permission in any way to bully harass or demean or shame and it will not be tolerated and with that I end the knights thank you Mr Wilk um Miss Ralston do you have another closing word matters everything sounds great and good and I'm glad that everybody is working hard and I'm glad I'm out here to help with now all right thank you Miss Madison um I just want to take a moment and say
209that I greatly appreciate working in this board um with my fellow board members and I appreciate the poem Miss wall it made me think of the seasons of the school year and the season that just ended which was back to school nights I ended it with wonderful Piney Branch and I just want to take a moment to thank all staff and community members that took time to speak and meet with me also during the month of October I attended Patriot Brentsville Gainesville and unity Reed homecoming games Miss wall myself held office hours and we'll be scheduling one hopefully soon in November but there's some decreased times at Haymarket library that we're trying to work with also as Mr soccer Point mentioned we're going to be holding office hours and are working to finalize the details
210it'll be posted on social media happy anniversary to Marcelo Middle School I enjoyed attending and watching some very talented middle schoolers perform Shakespeare I'm also thankful to be invited to the Brownsville District High School orchestra concert and 8th grade strings from Knoxville it was marvelous congrats to the Burnsville District High School cheer who won 3B Regional cheer competition I was sorry to miss supporting you but we had a meeting on Saturday congrats to the pride of unity read marching band on the wings at Colgan classic and placing third in class A and the best color guard gold lions and go Tigers the next school board meeting is on Tuesday to allow for school board members to attend the vsba conference before I forget I want to make sure that I thank the Patriot High School
211for inviting me to celebrate with them our First Responders and to the troop at the Knoxville school for having me to talk about the role of a school board member thank you to attendance officers for your dedication to student attendance and as you may have noticed we have evaluated and considered Community feedback and changed and amended citizen comment time so I think they have been posted online and you may have also observed that the board is working towards reaching more members of the community Through monthly board meetings excuse me board updates and I have mentioned this before but I I'm gonna it Bears repeating there are translated agendas posted for board meetings and let's talk allows for you to communicate in your home language and thank you to those who came and celebrated School accomplishments
212today and to those who spoke and I'm going to end it and have a wonderful night thank you there being nothing further to come before the board and not excluding declare this meeting adjourned there we go