001thank you I would like to call this meeting the Prince William County School Board to order pursuant to school board policy 139 School Board member participation in meetings by electronic communication School Board member Diane rawston will participate in the meeting through electronic means from our home due to a medical condition that prevents our physical attendance the clerk will do will so note in the minutes of the meeting emotions in order for the approval of the meeting agenda Vice chair Jackson thank you Dr Latif I moved at the Prince William County school board approved the meeting agenda is recommended do I have a second any discussion please vote Miss Ralston how do you vote yes Miss Ross and roach yes moving on to motion and or closed session emotions and Order Vice chair Jackson thank you
002Dr Chief I move that the Virginia code section 2.2-3711 and 2.2-3712 at the Prince William County School Board enter a closed session for the following reasons one to discuss with staff the appointment transfer release assignment and promotion specific officers and employees under Virginia code section 2.2-3711 A 1 two to evaluate the school but the cloak of the school board and approve annual goals for the office of the school board cloak for the 2022-2023 under Virginia code section 2.2-3711 a12 to evaluate division cancel and approve annual performance goals for the office of division Council for 2000 to 2023. excuse me 2022 2023 for to discuss and consult with legal counsel regarding requests for religious exemptions pertaining to specific students under Virginia code section 2.2-3711 A 2 and a five to discuss at the division Council staff
003and actual probable litigation and specific legal matters involved in specific staff and students under Virginia code section 2.2-37-11 A7 and 8. six to consult with staff and legal counsel regarding the legal requirements and procedures for collective bargaining by School Board employees which requires legal advice and guidance as provided by Virginia code section 2.2-3711 a eight and eight to discuss and receive briefings by staff members related to the security of school facilities is safety of persons using such facilities and action taken to respond to such matters where discussion and open meeting would jeopardize the security of such facilities for pursuant Virginia code section 2.2-37 11a 19. do you have a second second Miss Jesse seconds any discussion please vote Miss Ralston how do you vote Yes Ms rossen votes yes the boat is seven yes one
004not president vote Williams motion passed the Prince William County School Board now in a closed session and return Open session in approximately one hour [Music] foreign [Music] County School Board will now reconvene to open session at this time a motion is in order Vice chair Jackson thank you Dr Latif I move that pursuant Virginia code section 2.2-3712 the closed session of the Prince William County school board meeting of October 4th 2022 be certified by adopting the following resolution now therefore be it resolved at the Prince William County School Board hereby certifies that to Bevis of each member's knowledge one only public business matters lawfully Exempted from open meeting requirements were discussed in closed meeting to which the certification resolution applies and two only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the
005closed meeting will heard and discussed or considered by the school board do I have a second Mr chairman Mr zargabort I second any discussion please vote Miss Ralston how do you vote yes Miss Ralston votes yes the vote is eight yes unanimous motion passed moving on to the closed session action items emotions in order for 9.01 Miss Vice chair Jackson thank you Dr Latif I moved at the Prince William County school board approved the appointments and releases of specific employees as presented in closed session do you have a second Mr chairman a second zargapore seconds any discussion please vote Miss Ralston how do you vote Yes Miss rossen votes yes the vote is eight yes unanimous motion passed uh next moving on to 9.02 Ms Jackson thank you chair Latif I moved at the Prince
006William County school board approved evaluation of the school board cloak and the 2022-2023 schools for the office of the cloak of the school board as presented in closed session second that's second Miss Jesse seconds any discussion please vote Miss Ralston how do you vote Yes Miss rosson votes yes the vote is eight yes unanimous motion passed all right moving on to 903 approval and evaluation 22-23 goals for division Council Miss Jackson thank you Dr Latif I moved at the Prince William County school board approved the evaluation of division Council for the and the 2022-2023 goals for the office of division councils presented in closed session you have a second Mr chairman Miss Williams second any discussion please vote Miss Ralston how do you vote yes Miss rossen votes yes the vote is eight yes unanimous
007motion passed our last item on is 9.04 Miss Jackson thank you I moved at the Prince William County School Board approving the request for religious exemptions from compulsory School attendance in case numbers re22-5 re22-6 and re22-7 do you have a second I second Miss wall seconds any discussion please vote Miss Ralston how do you vote Yes Mr awesome votes yes the vote is eight yes unanimous motion passed next we'll be standing for the Pledge of Allegiance Miss Williams will you lead us in the pledge one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay thank you all right so we are at the beginning of our meeting at the beginning of each meeting we do our thriving Futures focus and we are pleased to continue that again tonight tonight we're going to recognize
008outstanding so this Focus recognizes outstanding schools students and employees tonight we celebrate two two National Blue Ribbon Schools from 2021 and 2022. the National Blue Ribbon Schools program honors public and private elementary middle and high schools based on their overall academic Excellence or their progress in closing the achievement gaps among students subgroups every year the United States Department of Education seeks out and celebrates Great American schools demonstrating that all students can achieve at high levels Miss Lori Williams of the Woodbridge magisterial District's representative will recognize the 2021 National Blue Ribbon School Award winner Miss Williams thank you Mr chairman good evening because Porter Traditional School earned this honor before we began our launching thriving Futures recognition segment we are certainly overdue and acknowledging this momentous honor however since two schools have now earned this honor
009in two years we felt like this was the perfect time to invite both schools for recognition this evening on September 21st 2021 the U.S Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona recognized 325 schools as National Blue Ribbon Schools for 2021. Porter Traditional School was awarded one of seven for was one of seven Virginia schools who was awarded the Blue Ribbon nomination excuse me designation by the Virginia Department of Education they are recipients of this prestigious award for exemplary High performing schools it is my privilege to acknowledge Caitlin engelmeyer floor 4 excuse me principal of the 2021 National Blue Ribbon Porter Traditional School would you say a few words please good evening chairman School Board Dr McDade my name is Caitlin engelmeyer Forum the very proud principal at Porter Traditional School and have been serving the porter Community
010for 17 years we are so excited and honored to be recognized as a 2021 National Blue Ribbon School a recognition for our teachers students and families on their hard work and dedication to providing the best learning experience for all of our students I have met with me tonight a small representation of our amazing staff including our assistant principal Judy Mears are lead mentors Mr Fletcher and Miss Wenzel Miss Teresa Koenig our lead ESL teacher and Miss Laura Mears our director of School counseling as well as Miss Aubry viricone who is our band teacher the Mary G Porter staff dedication to learning and commitment to Excellence every day proves just how important it is to become a lifelong learner it truly takes a village and each member of the porter Community strives every day to support
011the academic and social emotional growth of all of our students we would not be where we are today without with closing the achievement Gap and achieving Excellence without the support of the school board Dr McDade and our direct support from Miss Porter Lucas and Mr Bigsby in our previous principal Miss Whitehead as well we truly appreciate their support of the traditional model I could not be more proud of our students staff and families to all their amazing achievements to come I know that they they will truly we do not know how far they can go so thank you thank you and congratulations again to the porter Traditional School teachers staff students their families for earning this prestigious honor we really are very grateful for all the hard work you do every single day thank you
012very much Mrs Lisa's argopore of the Kohl's magisterial District's representative will recognize the 2022 National Blue Ribbon School Award winner for her District good evening Prince William County on September 16th the U.S Secretary of Education awarded 297 schools as National Blue Ribbon Schools for 2022. Coles Elementary already a lifetime national green ribbon School in 2015 was recognized as one of seven Virginia Blue Ribbon Schools by the vdoe I am honored to recognize 2022 National Blue Ribbon School recipient Coles Elementary School they are the recipients of this prestigious exemplary achievement Gap closing schools and it is my pleasure to acknowledge Catherine forgus the principal of the 2022 National Blue Ribbon Coles Elementary School principal to come and say a few words yeah good evening everybody I wanted to say thank you to our tiny and mighty
013Learning Community including our hard-working and dedicated team of Educators our students families Community Partners I also want to thank the school board our Kohl's District representative Miss argerpur and our district leadership team I would like to introduce members of our leadership team so Jessica Hale Myra holiday Heather Maine Waring Shannon Fletcher Judy armor Julie keaney Jerica Graham Kathy Miller and Jessica Strait we were honored to be nominated by the Virginia Department of Education for the National Blue Ribbon award and are excited to share the work that we do to support the academic and life skills of all of our students our school culture is strong as we focus on developing Global Citizens by providing students with Hands-On experiences designed to increase student awareness of how they can positively impact our environment and be real-world problem
014solvers we hold high expectations of learning for all our teachers and staff know our students by by name and need our we operate with a culture of collaboration and cultivate strong relationships particularly utilizing our Collaborative Learning teams to work cooperatively to design lessons that focus on the instructional core and engage students in meaningful learning experiences we build student agency through goal setting and reflection which helps students overcome obstacles and improve future outcomes while providing students with opportunities to increase critical thinking skills through leadership and enrichment opportunities we are very proud and honored to have earned this National recognition from the U.S Department of Education thank you congratulations to the 2021 National Blue Ribbon School Porter Traditional School and the 2022 National Blue Ribbon School Coles Elementary we are truly enormously proud of all the work
015and your momentous accomplishments I'll now turn it over to superintendent Dr Latonya McDade to help conclude this portion of our school board meeting after her remarks we will take a picture with our amazing teachers and staff thank you Dr Latif congratulations [Music] we are so incredibly proud and I just want to take a moment to personally not only congratulate you but acknowledge the incredible work that is happening at both Porter and at Kohl's I also want to thank principal Fergus and principal ingelmeyer for for your leadership and for your dedicated staff I want to thank the staff for your unwavering commitment and hard work to building Bright Futures for our young scholars and I Echo all of the sentiments of the board the community our nation in recognizing both of your learning institutions because you
016truly embody what it means to provide students with an environment to launch a thriving future for themselves and for their community so congratulations to each and every one of you thank you for your hard work for your leadership your commitment and most importantly your service to all pwcs students and Families thank you one more round of applause uh Diane will invite so we'll do Porter first and then we'll do Kohl's how about that foreign [Music] one two three one more one two three I want to do one more two three like that's it you got it congratulations [Applause] soon hang on what two three two more sorry one two three black on three one two and three there we go perfect thank you [Applause] okay thank you that is uh one of our most popular
017parts of the meeting okay let's move on now we're moving on to the adoption of the consent agenda uh Madam Vice chair Miss Jackson emotions in order thank you trailer Chief I moved to the Prince William County school board approved the public meeting consent agenda is recommended do you have a second Mr chairman Ms Williams a second any discussion please vote Miss Ralston how do you vote Yes Ms Ralston votes yes the vote is eight yes unanimous motion passed excellent moving on to Citizen comment time this those citizens who've signed up in advance with the clerk May address the school board this evening when they are called to the podium the citizen comment periods for regular school board meetings is limited to one hour the first half hour reserve for comments on agenda items only
018in the second half hour for comments on agenda items or other topics Germaine to the operations and policies of Prince William County schools so I will ask everyone to who are going to be the first 10 to really stick to only stick to the agenda items citizens sign up to speak on genitives must speak to the Gen item they have identified or they will be asked to step down we have 10 speakers on agenda items and 10 on non-agenda speakers have three minutes to speak please use proper decorum and manners while at the podium or you'll be asked to step aside we ask that the audience please be respectful of each speaker and refrain from any clapping cheering or jeering to avoid disruption of the meeting if you do not not do so the board
019will recess and I will ask that the room be cleared to restore public order when I call your name please come up to the podium and state your name and address for the record we have a few seats out front so I'll call the first five speakers up if they'd like to come and take some of the seats up front Maggie Hansford Katie Jefferson Tanya James Randy provenzano and then Jeremy mcpike Maggie Hansford hello my name is Maggie Hansford my address is on file with the clerk I would like to start by giving credit where credit is due I want to thank every single educator in Prince William County that's here tonight um over half nearly half of our staff Works lives outside of Prince William so coming to a 7 PM meeting after working
020all day and with all the responsibilities you have outside of work it is extremely meaningful that they're all here today because it's of because of them that this is happening with collective bargaining so I want to thank every single educator I want you all the board to know that this is extremely personal for every single educator the classroom right now it's extremely difficult to get through all of the tasks that they have in the day with regards to other duties as assigned with the before and after duties unpaid and doing professional development unpaid as well so I need you all to know this is extremely personal this is about them being able to afford living this is being able to afford their family this is about not having a second job this is about having
021children without having to take a loan out to have a child this is about spending time with your child when you come home meaningful time and not doing work and putting your child to the side knowing that they deserve better and you deserve better so I want to thank Dr McDade for some positive conversations moving forward I am elated to see that the resolution came out when it did this fall um and I look forward to important conversations that need to be had because we have still some work to do with regards to the resolution I want you all to know that I did see some um some simple things that can be changed that were changed at the county level and we know that we won't we don't want to treat our school staff
022differently than our County staff so a couple items that I ask that the board consider is that we are the only division um the only County that has excluded staff from developing a resolution or ordinance we are the only School Division who required staff to collect cards to get where we are today um and the um wording of the strike language was taken away at the county level and that's expected here as well because that wording is in the law as well as the election um ensuring that just because somebody doesn't vote it's not a no vote that doesn't happen in elections with politicians it doesn't happen with employees here so I look forward to great conversations moving forward and I thank you all Katie Jefferson oh there it is okay so good evening Dr
023McDade Dr Latif and school board members my name is Katie Jefferson my address is on file I am a proud member of the Prince William Community I believe it's critical for School Employees to have a meaningful meaningful collective bargaining rights and a real seat at the table the school divisions management has drafted a resolution however the current draft does not reasonably provide staff a seat at the table until fiscal year 2025. you know why do we need to consider getting staff a meaningful seat at the table before then well the majority of our staffing shortages do impact some of our most vulnerable students our elementary school students and our special education students so I decided to talk to some teachers and see what their life is like right now a veteran Elementary School teacher with
02436 years of experience said I am the only certified licensed teacher in my grade level one of five the expectations placed on certified teachers who are working with non-certified and non-licensed topas is unfair I have been offered no additional time or compensation to ensure the unlicensed untrained and brand new Educators on my grade level are providing the best education possible to our students as topas are untrained their levels of understanding of the curriculum and classroom management puts students at academic and safety risks I have never felt my role as a certified and licensed educator was not valued professionally until now a special education teacher of 25 years and a single parent of four indicated I teach a level 2 class for students with autism Administration has placed an unreasonal expectation that I must arrive 15
025minutes before my contract and stay 15 minutes beyond my contract every day all year they set meetings which require me to come in early and or stay late for four meetings per month which lasts about one hour in total I work over 130 hours a year for free I don't have planning I don't have lunch because we don't have support staff my school lost 36 staff members last year alone most of the staff left and they did so because they felt bullied and harassed by the administration another special education teacher who left a school last year said I watched the administration create a hostile and volatile work environment full of cultural insensitivity my Administration told my teaching assistant who is Muslim that it was time he shaved his beard and cut his hair to clean
026up his image the administrator also said cops are murderers the administrator also said men rape people so Society treats them like rapists you know I did ask him I said why didn't you say something what's going on and he said honestly he was scared to have that conversation because they've watched the same person retaliate against staff and he has a baby on the way and his job matters because it puts food on his table so waiting till 2025 is not acceptable to have a meaningful contract we cannot continue to work in an environment where these things happen and we're not safe to express our concerns Tanya James good evening Mr chairman members of the board Dr McDade and staff my name is Tanya James I reside in the Burnsville District I stand before you in
027support of meaningful collective bargaining resolution for teachers and staff to have a seat at the table now under this board's Direction it is true you've done some good stuff from having some of the largest raises for teachers in this in the history of the school division opening up schools safely and students continue to thrive in a welcoming and inclusive environment but this board also has the capacity to do more it has been proven here in Virginia in other places that schools where teachers have collective bargaining rights they have a lower teacher turnover and lower transfer out rates empowering teachers through meaningful collective bargaining is the way that we make Prince William County schools the best in our Commonwealth thank you Brandi provenzano good evening school board members and Dr McDade my name is Brandi provenzano
028and my address is on file I know what you're thinking what could she possibly have left to say she has said it all multiple times in many ways to everyone that will listen but tonight I do have something new to say I'd like to share an anecdote with you about a meeting that I recently attended after school outside contract hours for two and a half hours but I digress at this meeting the school social worker psychologist case manager two general education teachers an interpreter both parents and an advocate were all in attendance we sat around and discussed a struggling student we spent two and a half hours debating and deliberating about how best to support that struggling student the parents had some great ideas that had worked in the past after all they do know
029their children the school social worker shared some strategies that she thought would be really useful the Gen ed teacher had some observations to share and the case manager mentioned some of the struggles that the the student was encountering in the classroom together they crafted all sorts of interventions and strategies for the student finally it was my turn to speak and you guys know how much I love to speak I looked at them and asked a simple question has anyone asked the student what's going on has anyone approached the student and asked them what strategies might be effective and all of the well-educated well-meaning adults looked extremely confused how could so many professionals come together with such great intentions and forget to invite the one person who should be seated at the table our table should
030be big enough wide enough long enough and most of all inclusive enough for everyone to have a seat Educators and staff members deserve a seat but just like the student my story unless we're invited respected and valued we cannot provide meaningful feedback to improve the educational environment of all employees and all students tonight as an ally I am here to advocate for those who do not share in my privilege I am here to remind the students and staff members of Prince William County schools who feel targeted vilified or disheartened by recent events don't give up our table is big enough long enough wide enough and inclusive enough for everyone and should that table run out of chairs I will always stand up and give you mine so that you may rest your weary feet and
031become a part of a meaningful conversation about you thank you uh Senator mcpike and then we have Jared gay Patty Coons Tracy Blake Aubry varicone senator mcpike thank you Mr chairman and members of the school board Jeremy mcpike state center from the 29th District tolls District resident and speak to you tonight on collective bargaining I'm here as one of the members of the Senate and have passed by one vote to enable this legislation to happen because it's important that the members of your Workforce the teachers the support workers have a voice and a collective partnership with you it's important as a parent of five kids that have gone through and are currently going through Prince William County schools first off thank you for continuing to support and making sure Princeton County education is the best
032it can be and you continue to grow and you grow because of the workforce that you enable and with this partnership with the meaningful collective bargaining agreement you're going to continue to strengthen that and you heard earlier today the request that the collective bargaining agreement more mirror and reflect that of the county governments and I think that's important to make sure that there are similar rules of the road and what the County Board and supervisors have been working to strengthen in that language and I hope to see some of the similar ones here today I know you've got lots more to to speak to tonight and lots of the speakers Mr chairman I appreciate your time but I wanted to make sure you heard as one who deliberated in the general assembly this enabling legislation
033the importance to give workers a voice thank you Jared gay thank you my name is Jared gay and my address is on file with the clerk so at the beginning of every school year I have my students do something that we call a class Constitution they craft nine rules as first individuals then as a small group then as a whole class to govern how we are going to interact with each other over the course of the school year every year that I do this I do it for the same reason that I think it's important to start off the year with an environment that promotes mutual respect and empowerment and I think that the best way to ensure that or to at least take a good first step in that direction is to give students
034the opportunity to come up on their own with the kinds of procedures and kind of governing philosophies that they want to see implemented in the classroom both with regards to how they expect me to treat them but also with how they expect to treat me and how they expect to treat one another and indeed every year every class every category the word respect appears and these are students coming up with this on their own you know I'm not leading them in that direction and that speaks to something that hopefully is becoming more obvious as I've started talking which is that respect is I think what all people ultimately desire in their interactions with others both people under who over whom they have authority as well as people who have authority over them and people who
035are their peers and I think that it's important kind of at the stage that we're at to stop and ask ourselves if teachers in this country in this Commonwealth but especially in this County feel respected right now and I think if you were to ask many Educators as well as many who are no longer Educators in the county they would say that on the whole right now they don't I can't speak for everybody but speaking for myself and some of the people that I've spoken with over the past couple of years teaching is already largely perceived as a thankless and underpaid profession and people who pursue that career do so because they care and they want to do something that is Meaningful and helps others but we've seen record numbers of people becoming so disheartened
036with what they are encountering in the classroom the the decreasing levels of support and respect from the community and from elected officials that they receive and they're leaving and I think that collective bargaining is an opportunity not only to ensure that we are not continuing to lose educators to neighboring counties and to you know losing Educators in the profession as a whole but that we are taking the opportunity to do the right thing and to give the same level of voice in determining their own working conditions is I try to give to my students in terms of crafting their own learning conditions I think that if you are committed to that that this resolution will need to change so that many of the things that President Hansford spoke to a few moments ago will be
037reflected thank you have a wonderful knee bye bye Patty Coons Patty Coons Tracy Blake then Aubry varicon and Ken Nar will be our next three Tracy Blake okay Aubry varicon hi my name is Aubry barricone I am a teacher in Prince William County and my child attends school in the principal District overwhelmingly our families in Prince William County rely on our Public Schools provided by Prince William County employees my daughter's school currently opens their doors 10 minutes earlier than the starting bell schedule to accommodate the large population of students who attend the school the administration can help that the number of students is so high the administration can't help that the only way to get to the school is either by bus or car because the area lacks infrastructure to accommodate Walkers to school the
038school day is not 10 minutes shorter though because we can't take away from the academic time I am in a parent group for the school and I know a lot of parents are very excited to be able to drop off their students earlier and that it is such a convenience for them but what about the teachers can you imagine being required to come to work 10 minutes earlier than scheduled and not get paid that's almost an hour a week of unpaid work required by the teachers this is what other duties as assigned looks like in Prince William County schools teachers being required to work outside of school hours because technically it's in our contract that we can expect other duties as assigned it doesn't say that we are paid for those duties that four-letter phrase
039is what motivated me and many of my peers to sign our cards for collective bargaining in the spring this is why I believe that it is critical for School Employees to have meaningful collective bargaining rights and a real seat at the table to negotiate for the things they need to educate our students and Families the school divisions management has drafted a resolution however the current draft does not meet the standard a meaningful collective bargaining as established nationally and by other Virginia jurisdictions for example Section 5 in the draft list School Board rights prohibited subjects of bargaining include H determine the nature and scope of the work performed by school board employees it just sounds like a more wordy version of the school board can create duties as assigned and the bargaining unit has no say
040the timeline for the resolution is also Troublesome there are still 327 certified job openings on the pwcs website I checked before I came here if neighboring school districts have an agreement for next school year the pwcs does not how else will our district be able to compete to attract new employees and maintain the ones we currently have and really it should be 328 openings because all the kindergarten classes at my child's School are over the state limit no teacher has been hired and it isn't listed on the jobs website I'm here to ask the school board to direct staff to make the necessary changes recommended by the workers here today the change is requested by union members are simple clear and are needed to ensure that collective bargaining will work well for everyone in Prince
041William Prince William County educator shouldn't have fewer rights than their peers thank you Ken Nar Ken narr Gainesville District our educators are some of the most competent and dedicated Professionals in our County we continuously hear great things about our teachers and support staff Personnel these committed individuals love our students and working in our schools so why do we need collective bargaining agreement we need a collective bargaining agreement because the collective Workforce is being overworked and underpaid Workforce solidarity is the only way we can ensure our Educators and support staff are adequately compensated in the out years despite the raises and several months of hard and aggressive recruitment we were short several hundred licensed teachers teachers aides bus drivers School nurses security Personnel counselors cafeteria workers and substitute teachers the incentives offered were insufficient to attract
042new professionals into our schools professionals or personal shortages are compromising our world-class education the national shortage of Educators and School staff Personnel is more acute in Northern Virginia six of the top 15 richest counties in the nation are in Northern Virginia neighboring counties pay their personnel 15 to 20 percent more than we do Prince William county is currently unable to compete future raises must exceed those of our neighbors raises by five percent for the next three to five years to Simply catch up higher wages would tell our teachers and staff members we appreciate their devoted service and continued sacrifice they would attract highly skilled Educators to our schools which would decrease the workload on our current staff more bus drivers would allow the school day to return to a more appropriate start and end time
043they would allow more of our teachers and staff to live in our community and most importantly they would ensure this learning and safety of all of our students we need a collective bargaining agreement because nobody can negotiate in Earnest without adequate Revenue Prince William County needs to raise its commercial tax base considerably to successfully compete without a significant increase in commercial tax revenue we will continue to have hundreds of unfilled positions and overwork our current Personnel our Educators need a collective bargaining agreement to thrive in our County thank you okay next we'll move to the non-agenda items we're going to have Heather Oberle Shayna Moreno um Marjorie sieg Janelle Anderson and Leslie Tom those will be the next five Heather oberley good evening Dr McDade and the school board my name is Heather Oberle and
044I'm an educator in Prince William County schools and my address is on file first thank you Dr McDade for respecting the speakers at every school board meeting by acknowledging their existence through looking at them when they speak and acknowledging their presence with eye contact second I'm here to tell you I'm tired it is only October 4th and I am already tired the work of an educator does not stop when we leave the school building there is not enough time in the school day to assess student needs create lessons to match their individual needs score the assignments recreate the assignments to reassess the students Implement required testing look at the data to adjust future lessons build relationships with our students and the list goes on after 20 plus years of teaching I am in the groove
045and with these responsibilities and my family knows not to talk to me when I pull out the English books three years ago something changed the number of required professional development increased at an alarming and unrealistic rate with the pandemic it appeared as if people needed to justify their jobs so they created PD for teachers who aren't working on Mondays anyway and needed something to do believe me we were all working on Mondays pre-pandemic I did not use technology except for the grade book and email I became the expert in my school with technology we were working hard the amount of required PD has only steadily increased since while preparing this speech I looked through the PD list that was sent out to everyone and found that I needed from yesterday forward a minimum of 48
046Hours more required PD for this year that does not include August and September last night I received the notice that my license is up for Renewal this year that means I have five more hours added to my list one of which is child abuse Prince William County has their child abuse PD I have to do the state of Virginia has another child abuse PD I have to do so I'm doing two for the same thing then this morning I received another required professional development but this one's only 15 minutes for Title IX Every Day brings a new pre PD some of the issues that I have all of these have to be done after contract hours because we don't have enough staff they're on top of our required dutings I'm a department chair we have
047to go to school our building meetings clts the amount for new teachers is unrealistic and will never envelop to invite to them into this job some of it also appears insulting thank you Miss over I've had to give the star test three times I'm trained on it this coming Thursday thank you Shayna Moreno Marjorie sieg good evening school board members Dr McDade fellow teachers and parents my name is Marjorie sieg and my address is on file I have been a dedicated and hard-working teacher at Prince William County for 30 years not once have I ever ever come to this school board to make a statement so you may be asking yourself why is she here now I am here tonight because of the extremely heavy burden of required professional development that has been placed on
048us teachers after two years of unprecedented times in which teachers taught virtually in person or hybrid roles we worked through the pandemic we went above and beyond what we were told to do on the last day of school this past June we were told to go check our emails before we left our building for the summer and said to ourselves what's so important that we need to check right away you're probably wondering what was so important so I'm glad you're asking it was compliance based professional learning that consisted of about 12 pages of canvas and self-paced courses after two years of difficult times this is what we get before shutting things down for the year instead of Thanking us way to go teachers this is a slap in our face and didn't need to happen
049like this yet that was not all when we returned to the building at the beginning of the school year there was more I counted about 28 hours of compliance related professional learning and every time I complete a course one to two more comes along it's like playing whack-a-mole game with no end in sight we're overworked overburdened with this compliance-based professional learning I'm not a nurse not a doctor so why are we required to take courses that are not teaching related we have full-time nurses so why do you need anything beyond our CPR training what are you really expecting teachers to perform medically Beyond CPR needs we're not medical professionals I am currently working on a second master's degree from George Mason in teaching culturally and linguistically diverse and exceptional Learners in the international context yet
050I must sit down and listen to these compliance professional learning from people who do not know my job and do not know what I need to teach my students I am a professional I am a professional I am a professional and I know what courses need to be able to do my job most of these required professional development courses do not meet my job performance let me ask you this what happened to a catalog sign up for courses when do we have time for these when are you expecting us to do this surely not the non-teaching staff of Prince William are able to complete all required training during normal business hours this is one of the reasons why teachers need to seat at the table I use you to morph thank you move forward on
051passing a fair and meaningful resolution thank you Janelle Anderson Janelle Anderson Leslie Tom good evening my name is Leslie Tom I'm a resident and voter in the Kohl's district and a special education teacher in the Gainesville District I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for forwarding me the opportunity to speak to you I am once again asking you for your show of support for educators support professionals and school communities by making amends and actually creating a meaningful resolution for collective bargaining this is not my first time speaking in front of you all it's probably not going to be my last each time I do this I'm often met with a response from my colleagues that I'm brave for speaking out at first I was shocked by this my colleagues are teachers
052we literally speak in front of an audience all day every single day but then I'm left thinking that their fear of addressing the school board is a concern that their voices will be ignored or worse that they will be become a target of retaliation you've heard several speakers say that tonight and I think that should sit with you for a while teachers are scared so are students no one should be afraid of advocating on behalf of Educators students or our communities it should not be an act of Bravery to speak up address concerns or step foot in our schools division-wide Educators and students are listening to your words and they're watching your actions most are weary and desperate for their voices to be heard some are nearing decisions to walk away completely if there have
053been closed-door discussions happening with lawyers to debate the Dignity of our staff and students or to determine exactly how much we should protect the basic rights that is concerning and that should sit with you all as well my colleagues are correct that standing in front of you is an act of Bravery I will continue to speak to show our staff our students and our community members that this is not an act of Bravery but an Act of Faith I believe in you each and every one of you and your determination to uphold the values of equity and inclusivity for all Prince William County students Educators and support staff we should be heard we should be proud we should be unafraid thank you the next five will be Ash hanneman Paul Huber Jalen custis Borah Yoon
054anandia sampath Ash Hanuman first hello uh I am Al shaneman from Patriot High School I'm here today to discuss the topic on transgender rights in the education system now some believe the transgender rights do not exist or transgender people do not exist even though I and many others are standing here before you today and that they do not deserve the same rights as other people who identify themselves outside of the give of the that they don't identify themselves outside of the given gender at Birth we are seen as confused threats and supposed criminals for just being who we are discrimination is not hard to find in Governor young kin's draft policy it's painfully evident now I understand it may be hard for some to find but let me point it out for you the first
055thing I will mention is that part of this policy allows parents to refuse guidance counselor access for their students I do not believe people realize how big of a negative impact this can help this can have and not just lgbtq plus students but also straight identifying people allowing parents to deny access to counselors can have some very deadly consequences for students that rely on school counselors as a support system while they do not have anyone else to turn to now only is this detrimental demand to people's mental health it also makes students trust the school system a whole lot less than they already do secondly this draft policy denies the school's ability to be able to prohibit malicious dead naming and misgendering dead naming is the actor referring to someone's legal name which they're trying
056to separate themselves from due to and not aligning with their gender identity a recent study published in the Journal of adolescent Health cited by Deborah temkin and Claudia Vega demonstrates the power of affirming transgender youth identities for each additional context in which a transgender youth Tran chosen name is used the risk of suicidal behavior is reduced by more than half another study published in the Pediatrics finds that transgender youth have fully socially transitioned to their gender identity have been supported and have been supported in doing so do not have elevative depressive symptoms compared to the broader population in an era in which overall youth suicide rates have significantly increased over the last decade it is critical to take steps to reduce risk for suicide thirdly it requires schools to forcibly out transgender and gender invasive
057students this can be so dangerous to students who have parents against the lgbtq plus community this risk this risk students being kicked out forced to go to corrective camps and or being physically and or mentally abused the last point I'm going to mention is that it prohibits schools from acknowledging non-binary students teens like me and those here to support the lgbtq plus Community are still developing physically and mentally telling kids that what they identify with does not exist can be extremely harmful to their self-esteem is junkkin trying to back children into a corner and force them into horrible situations just because he doesn't believe that something's real is he purposely trying to kill off the transgender youth because he doesn't want to accept the change of equality junkin's draft could kill thousands of children if
058passed if it is not only killing your own lgbtq plus children but the children of your friends your neighbors your brothers your sisters and sometimes your own brother and sisters who identify in the community the reason we're trying so hard to stop this policy is because people are dying and all this is doing is hoping that kids feel isolated thank you very much [Applause] Paul Huber excuse me all right ready my name is Paul Huber my address is on file I'm a father of six to an elementary school there are too many parents law enforcement and government officials and teachers that I've met and communicated with that agree that more needs to be done and better securing our schools I spent a career as an agent with the DEA and the FBI I've experienced people
059being killed in my line of work including a good friend and fellow agent I have seen where proper operational planning and risk assessment succeeds and when it fails and results in the loss of life I have trained law enforcement Command Staff from across the country in risk management at the FBI's National Academy we have an ongoing risk management problem within the district assigning unarmed security AIDS in every Elementary School is a small step forward but falls short in addressing the depth and immediacy of this problem the shootings are indiscriminate of school level they are indiscriminative places of worship shopping venues public gatherings I was with my children the weekend of the shooting of two persons at the Cole Benton campus in May there were 692 mass shootings alone last year in the five or ten
060minutes it takes for an SRO to respond to an active shooting from another venue countless lives will be lost an on-scene SRO will be able to immediately respond Engage The Target and in doing so take the focus away for a moment from the students and teachers potentially saving lives in the process they will be able to immediately communic communicate for backup and where to specifically respond in the school the aftermath investigation of school shootings Nationwide reveal what we see far too often teachers physically placing their bodies in front of their children in a last attempt to save their lives what incredible courage what love we are moved by this it causes us pause and we ready ourselves to make changes to counter this potentiality in our own District but with time for too often we
061lose focus and resolve to mitigate this ongoing threat shootings are on the rise in the county speaking with one of my children who is the Prince William Copp attending Chief newsham's safety briefing briefings we know this is a fact school districts across the country are ensuring sros and all their schools this can be done if we choose to tonight we are afforded for police protection We Gather here and ensure the security yet many of our children many months now from Uvalde are not why does this remain so thank you Mr Alger for Ms wall for your efforts expand the pool of applicants to close those trained at other law enforcement agencies and work with dcgas and the Prince William Police Department to bring about furthering the SRO program thank you [Applause] Jalen Costas good evening
062first and foremost I would just like to say thank you to all the teachers who are inside the building today and also for helping me because teachers don't only teach you uh academic thing they also teach you life skills anyway good evening so pretending mcday school board members uh chairman mcchief my name is Jayla custis I live in the Woodbridge District at the last meeting uh members of the public raised their concerns over school safety due to recent incidents that occurred in our County I would just like to say that in my eight years inside the Prince William County School System there has always been substance and weapons getting inside our schools I would like to see the board come together and add the security Specialists to their agenda to provide a public briefing on
063how the school operates when safely when safety related threats safely present threats such as when we have someone speak on behalf of the budget and where you as a board members ask them questions or where for example during the last board meeting we heard directly from mental health program programs teams doing so I believe will restore public confidence in the work I know you are doing behind the scenes I'm glad that it has been brought up publicly and it looks like the staff here cares about Safety and Security inside our schools hopefully there will be further action taken to prevent any future incidents from that may occur uh thank you my name is Gina custis and I reside in the Woodbridge District Borah Yoon anandia sampath anandia sampite okay that wraps that up move on
064next agenda item will be what am I on student a student representative matters where's my script here who do we got tonight Dania uh our student representative this evening so this is our time for our student to hear from our student we have student representative Dania sharifi senior at Gainesville High School Miss sharifi good evening to the school board superintendent and Prince William County School Community I hope you're all doing well as you just said my name is Donnie I'm one of the student representatives for this year I just want to talk about something that we did yesterday the other reps and I had the privilege of joining in a meeting with the student senate for those of you that don't know the student Senate is composed of one junior or senior from each High
065School within Prince William County the Student Center is just one of the many ways our students can get involved in sharing their voices to those that make decisions so in our meeting with the Senate yesterday we discussed several topics one of which is how they view diversity and inclusivity within their schools the Senate each spoke about the respective high schools and across the board they noted that the Affinity organizations such as Hispanic Student Association and black student union MSA Asian American Student Association amongst their Multicultural and international clubs had an increase in membership and involvement of their schools within the cultural atmospheres at their high schools within my own School Gainesville High School I saw this with our Multicultural Club growing from 80 to 160 members in this past year this is something I'm very
066proud of within our schools because our county is extremely diverse and it's critical for our schools to reflect that which they do additionally in the past week several schools have had peaceful walkout demonstrations which all went well as students were able to peacefully voice their opinions and concerns about issues and point to them without disruptions or difficulties the students appreciate the opportunity they have been given to give their voice of their opinions within the school regarding things that affect the students on the state level additionally in our student Senate meeting yesterday we talked about resources for our current Juniors and seniors and a lot of the discussion did talk about college applications College preparation other opportunities for students Beyond high school that was in college one student mentioned that while there was amazing sat resources
067as the SAT has heavily emphasized in our County he didn't believe that there was enough resources for the ACT preparation while some students may do well in the SAT some may do better in the act and we were told that not many students were even aware that there was an alternative to the SAT until this year and it's kind of late for the students who are seniors to prepare on top of their schoolwork and applications the Reps and I are hoping to resolve that by making easy access and resources such as the ACT easier to emphasize their different paths for careers After High School and then lastly another topic that we discussed were the three goals that the Senate and Reps have for this first half of the year which are drafting the student bills
068of Rights planning a fall mini leadership conference and organizing student voice committees while nothing is official we did brainstorm some possible Clauses for the student Bill of Rights just a little bit of a teaser all students have the right to Equitable academic resources all students have the right to learn a non-discriminatory environment that reflects diverse and inclusive background all students have rights to Equitable disciplinary process and amongst other things as for our fall mini leadership conference we want to include the student Senate reps SCA presidents along with two student nominated from each high school that may have their voices not heard as much and this smaller conference is where we will build a strong community and allow students to network with other similar-minded students within our County to talk about different projects and topics such
069as equity in school environment resource access and availability and inclusivity within our school and in the Chrome if this produced this is great feedback we also hope to connect to our middle school students as their voice is also critical in decision making lastly our student voice committees will be composed of leaders and underrepresented students within each school that will hold their own town hall meetings the discussion Within These Town Halls at each respective school will be sent to the Reps and board to discuss Trends we see across the school either as positives or issues that need to be reevaluated overall it was a successful meeting with the Prince William County student Senate I have no doubt that this year will bring greater connection between our students and the school board I'm excited for what this
070year has for our students in our County going forward and if you are a Prince William County student interested in getting involved do not hesitate to reach out to me with the other reps or the Senate thank you for your time and I hope you have a good rest of your night thank you very much Donya moving on next to superintendent's Time Dr McDade thoughts and prayers for those impacted by Hurricane Ian throughout this week ways that we can come together as a community and support is by contributing supplies donating blood and providing whatever support we can as a community I also wish to acknowledge the demonstrations students held at some high schools across the division last week pwcs students exercised their first amendment rights and School administration and staff members work to ensure that
071there was no disruption to instruction or that it was minimized through these demonstrations students were expressing opinions related to recent guidance provided by the Virginia Department of Education as a reminder those who wish to provide comment to the vdoe on their guidance may do so through October 26 on the state of Virginia regulatory Town Hall website being aware reflective and engaged as a student Community member and citizen reflects our school division's commitment to graduate informed responsible respectable and active participants in our great democracy looking forward I wish to highlight national school bus safety week from October 17th through the 21st this week is an excellent opportunity to recognize and recommit to the importance of safety on and around our school buses during national school bus safety week October 19 is designated as school bus transportation
072employees Appreciation Day our appreciation includes bus drivers bus assistants and Central Transportation teams our entire Transportation operation serves a crucial role in getting our most precious passengers safely to and from school to field trips and home and more we thank them for their expertise patience and concern for our children and their safety as a reminder students parents and staff between September 28th and October 9th the 2023-24 school calendar survey will be available for comment a survey link was sent to all active pwcs emails staff will present the results to the school board at our first school board meeting in November and the school board will act to decide on the final 2023-24 calendar later this month please complete the survey prior to the deadline on October 9th in last week's end of week letter that
073I sent on Friday I unveiled our new brand identity that clearly communicates our mission vision and values outlined in our strategic plan launching thriving futures it was developed internally the Brand's identity is a clear representation of our vision that every student will graduate on time with the knowledge skills and habits of mind necessary to create a thriving future for themselves and their Community the graduation cap is a piece of ceremonial regalia that recognizes a student's rite of passage upon Mastery of educational goals the Mortar Board symbolizes the achievement of a solid academic Foundation as well as a launch pad toward endless possibilities a sparkling shooting star is associated with self-fulfillment and advancement in life the shape of the shooting star's tail represents a tassel and the dynamic motion captures the excitement of our graduates turning
074their tassels and launching their thriving futures the graduation cap sits Atop The four letters pwcs in reference to pwcs's four commitments in lifting our students as our highest priority this change occurred immediately on our digital platforms and will be phased in for other materials as they cycle through replacements finally as pwcs will be closed in observance of Yom Kippur tomorrow I want to wish a meaningful fast to all who practice Mr chairman this concludes my report thank you Dr McDade and we love the logo fantastic congratulations moving on next to 1601 board matters we have an update on for information to policy 134 which is citizen participation this Mr chairman yeah I think this is me yeah um I will turn it over to division Council uh so Mr chairman uh this as you know
075the uh series 100 of the policy manual belongs to the school board and the citizen participation policy there was a desire on the part of the board to make a few tweaks not a major overhaul but a few tweaks to the policy and those include uh providing some more specific definition of what a business partner is if a business partner chooses to speak uh as a as a part of Citizen comment and uh updating the sign up procedures as you may know the the sign up procedures to speak at board meetings uh sign up started as soon as the agenda was posted which could be a fluctuating time depending on when the agenda is ready so uh the new policy changes that to be a fixed time so that everybody's clear when the when the
076sign up period begins and finally the most important and substantive change was to eliminate the distinction between speaking on agenda versus non-agenda items there were occasions where the agenda item speaker list was not full and I think there was a desire to increase participation where we could and doing that by is by a limit you'll no longer if the board passes this at the next meeting then speakers will no longer have to identify an agenda item versus non-agenda item to speak and we'll just be signed up uh in order of contact to the clerk I'm happy to answer any questions you may have thank you Mr Anderson this is on for information we will be voting on this in two weeks at the next board meeting and we're happy to take a comment from citizens
077by email as well as during comment time seeing that there's no oh miss Jesse you have a question I just wanted to I know we sent information in on this policy was there a reason why we didn't consider the two minutes each for so we could have more students more speakers okay thank you um moving on we'll move on to 1602 this is the collective bargaining resolution this also is on for information we have a presentation by division Council Mr Wayne and Wade Anderson who will update us on where we stand on this resolution Mr Anderson go ahead thank you Mr chairman it's very weird to be on this side of the the Deus you all look different from here um so that looked thinner yeah well I hope the same is true for me
078um let me see if I can get this to work and I have my own printouts because I can't see that far so what is collective bargaining for those of you know we had several presentations on this and but essentially it's the relationship between an employer and a designated labor organization representing a unit of employees to negotiate a written contract outlining the terms and memorializing the terms and conditions of their employment um why are we talking about this now we've as we've mentioned in Prior uh presentations uh two years ago state law changed to allow localities to End School boards to allow collective bargaining for its employees if it decided to do so and we'll talk about the timeline here in just a little bit as you know on March 18th in 2022 we were
079in receipt the school board received a petition from the pwea for collective bargaining asking us to adopt a collective bargaining resolution on behalf of all certified employees that began 120 day clock within which time the board was required to take a vote on whether to allow collective bargaining there were some rules uh issued by the board and amended by the board on March 24th and April 6th and then on May 10th of 2022 pwcs verified that the uh pwea had submitted in fact all of the signatures of a majority of the members of the certified collective bargaining unit once that was verified the school board received another presentation on collective bargaining on June 1st and then finally on June 15th School Board the school board voted to adopt a resolution providing for collective bargaining and
080directed the superintendent and division staff to draft a resolution for the board's consideration and that leads us to tonight where we are presenting for the first time to you and the public the administration's proposed collective bargaining resolution uh and as as you'll know this was at the very beginning of the summer in Wade which slide are you on to have that yes sorry I didn't write this as you'll remember June 15th was right at the beginning of the the summer break and staff diligently worked over the summer with the superintendent to uh as the board had commanded to come up with a resolution which is being presented now it's important I think as with context that we understand the sort of unique constraints that apply to collective bargaining in Virginia first of all Virginia law
081expressly provides that no resolution and no adopted by a school board can restrict the board's authority to establish its budget or appropriate funds so there is a significant limitation in the law itself uh that is a constraint on collective bargaining uh also the Virginia law is very um vague as to any of the details it really does leave it to every locality and every school board to come up with its own version of collective bargaining there's wide latitude on the part of the board to make these decisions and I think it's also important to recognize distinctions between school boards and localities localities obviously have taxing Authority in Virginia school boards do not um as you know we have a financial arrangement with the county that's been long-standing we get 57.23 percent of the General John
082remind me what the term is General County revenues he was very specific that I have to say General County revenues that that is the agreement we have and so that's what we get and that's what we have to spend the interplay between contract provisions and obligations and other laws in other words since Virginia did not have collective bargaining until recently many of the things you would see in collective bargaining agreements and the framework already existed in Virginia law an example of that would be the state grievance procedures there have been State grievance procedures in the Virginia law for a long time and every school board was is required to implement those procedures so in other words there was already many of the things you would see in collective bargaining because we didn't have it in
083Virginia those things were enshrined in statutes so that's something to keep in mind and also it's important to recognize that Virginia law specifically and expressly prohibits employees from striking and that is very clear so what are the components of our resolution first it's a determination of appropriate bargaining units in other words which groups of employees will we allow to bargain again the school board has a tremendous amount of leeway on that how do how does an election occur how do the employees choose what whether they want to have a union and if so what union they want to have that's in our resolution the determination of the subjects for collective bargaining in other words what things may they bargain over is in our resolution the collective bargaining process what's the timetable there are budget guidelines
084the state has very specific laws about when we have to have our budgets approved that we are bound by impasse procedures what if we and the union cannot or the uh whoever is the is the collect exclusive bargaining agent for that employee group what if we can't reach an agreement and there's a deadlock these are called impasse procedures and the impasse procedures govern what happens in that instance uh so that's contained in the resolution the determination of what constitutes prohibited or unfair labor practices is in there in other words it prohibits certain employer conduct on the behalf of the school board it prohibits certain conduct by the Union and also it establishes a mechanism to administer the resolution provisions and how violations would be dealt with so looking at the specific resolution pwcs proposed a
085resolution has two bargaining units the first bargaining unit is what we call grade 12 employees these are licensed employees that have licenses by either issued by either the Virginia Department of Education or the Virginia Department of Health this would include things like nurses school counselors teachers Librarians instructional technology coaches athletic trainers the second bargaining unit is essentially anyone else that is not in the other bargaining unit with some exceptions that would be teaching assistance bus drivers Technology support Specialists and clerical employees but there are some employees that we've excluded from collective bargaining and those include supervisors employees have access to confidential information such as HR and finance employees administrative employees such as principals and assistant principals interns volunteers and temporary employees are excluded instructional Specialists are excluded and participants in the and participants who have
086retired but but work in our retirement opportunity program so they are already retirees from Prince William and they participate in our extended retirement program they would be excluded so how would an election work an election would work when 30 percent of the members of a bargaining unit express interest in being represented by a union and they would do that by having signatures or cards signature cards and submitting those to a neutral third party the neutral third party would establish the procedures for a secret ballot election the secret ballot election is required by Virginia code secret ballot the union has to get a majority of the votes in the election so once that once they've shown interest in the neutral decides and verifies that yes 30 of the employees who work in Prince William in this
087bargaining unit so let's just call them the grade 12 employees the licensed employees once the union once the neutral has verified that 30 percent have agreed that they want to have an election the notice is given to HR and the the parties start discussing how the how the the election will occur what the parameters will be and it will take place in 45 days there would then be an election by the members of the unit and at least and this would be everybody whether you're in a whether you're a member of the association or the union that's seeking to be uh nominated as the exclusive bargaining agent or not and at least uh 50 of the members in the unit would have to vote so there's a participation rate that we expect that would be
088and as an example we have roughly seven thousand and some certified employees so let's say there are seven thousand at least 3 500 of those employees would have to vote on whether to have a union and if the union gets 50 percent plus one of those uh so in that case it would be 3 500 have to there are seven thousand so thirty five hundred would have to vote and of that the union would have to get 1751. so as long as they get 1751 votes in that in that and of course it would depend on how many are in the unit on the day of the election that changes we have you know from day to day um and they would vote in person assuming that they approve of the union and they nominate
089they elect the union to be their exclusive bargaining agent then they would be allowed to bargain over wages benefits and other terms and conditions of employment so going back to this concept that there are because we did not have unions for so long that the state law has many of these Provisions they wouldn't be able to bargain for instance over Virginia retirement system benefits we're required by law to enroll employees in the vrs and the vrs retirement system would not be something for by which the school board has any control over and therefore that's a benefit they could not the bargaining unit could not negotiate over um and they also could not negotiate over things that have been reserved to the board some of those things reserved to the board are the the ability to
090discipline employees the ability to promote and assign and schedule trans and transfer employees to determine job qualifications that would be a school board right Staffing levels board functions and organizational structure of the board itself set the budget obviously we talked about that earlier um they could we could not bargain over the school board's ability to contract out services to vendors or anything anybody else we might bring back in and then to set work roles and standards of conduct but they're also Union and employee rights in the resolution what are some of those the union would have a right to meet with employees during non-work time as an example they would have a right to get quarterly lists of employees contact information including name job title department and work email address this is I want to
091be clear this is not their home contact information this is their work contact information they would have the right to receive authorized dues deducted from employees pay employees would have the right to discuss Union matters and terms and conditions of employment with each other so long as it didn't interfere with their work they also would have the right vis-a-vis the Union to Fair representation so and this is a point I think that needs to be clarified if those seven if those 1751 votes for yes for the Union all seven thousand employees are then represented by the Union regardless of whether the employees are members of the Union or whether they pay dues to the union the union then has a duty of fair representation for all seven thousand employees so employees would have a right
092to that fair representation they also would have the ability to meet directly with management without Union intervention except in a limited circumstance if the resolution so if you're an employee in the bargaining unit and you want to meet with pwcs Administration to talk about some Personnel concern you have no resolution that we could offer to that employee could contradict or expand what is in the the collective bargaining agreement we have with the Union so once that matter has been determined and decided in our contract remember the whole point of collective bargaining is to get a written contract and have terms and conditions in there that are enforceable against the parties so long as that employees the resolution they were seeking did not run counter to anything in that contract then that would be okay the
093employee would have a right to that they would not however have a right to any resolution of their problem that contradicted or was not provided for in the collective bargaining agreement what's the timetable and we heard you know some consternation I think from speakers about the fact that it's not 20 it's not until 2025 that's sort of a misnomer because that's fiscal year 2025. so I want to walk through that so that I make sure everybody's clear the resolution states that negotiations between the school board and the union cannot begin until on or after April 1st of any year when an agreement is sought to be effective at the beginning of the next fiscal year for example negotiations for a collective bargaining agreement scheduled to take effect July 1st of 2024. which is fiscal year
0942025. could not begin until honor after April 1st of 2023 well then that's this April so if the board were to pass this resolution tonight I know it's not up for a vote of course but if we were there still would have to be the showing of interest there still would have to be an election there still would have to be a the union who is elected presumably would then have to negotiate in order to get uh the contract in place and it just wouldn't be doable until because of course our budget our budget this year is set and we're in the process of setting the next year's budget which then has to be presented so that's the timeline so at a collective a contract a collective bargaining agreement between the union and the school
095board the deadline for that would be December 1st of next year so I know it sounds like it's a long way away but because of the budget cycles and when you have to plan for how much money you're going to need that collective bargaining agreement would be in place by December we need to be in place by December of next year meanwhile man remember the negotiating started in April so about whatever seven months from now something like that there's also impasse procedures so what if what if the school board cannot reach an agreement with the Union on any particular issue there's impasse procedures in place which are modeled on Arlington County's resolution and then if agreement is not reached by October 1st then either party can say there's an impasse we've reached an impasse we
096can't we're done we've tried our best we can't get it done then either party could request a mediation with the neutral third party that would have to continue for 30 days and we would share the parties would share the cost of that mediation equally in attempts to get it again by the December 1st deadline to get some movement on the impasse what's an unfair Labor practice so there are unfair labor practices by the school board in the resolution there are unfair labor practices by the Union in the resolution first the school board the school board it would be on unfair Labor practice for the school board to interfere with restrain or coerce employees in the exercise of their rights guaranteed by this resolution so there's no retaliation allowed under the resolution to dominate or interfere
097with a labor organization or contribute financial support to it to discriminate in hiring your tenure of employment or any term of condition of employment to encourage or discourage membership in a union the school board could not discharge or otherwise discriminate against employee because of their exercise of rights guaranteed by this resolution and the school board could not fail or refuse to negotiate in good faith a critical concept of the collective bargaining Arrangement is the duty of both sides to give it their best and be and negotiate in good faith so unfair practices by the Union uh the same essentially interfere with restrainer coerce employees in exercising their rights under this resolution to deny union membership or fail to represent an employee on any basis prohibited by federal or state or local law to fail to
098properly represent an employee in the bargain unit concerning matters within the scope of collective bargaining and without regard to membership in the union or whether they pay dues if they fail or refuse to negotiate in good faith again that's a very standard bilateral responsibility of both parties to negotiate in good faith they cannot retaliate against any employee for exercising their rights in this resolution including fouling charges against the union and refusing to participate in Union activities and also of course they cannot violate the strike statute that says that where they encourage strikes work stoppages sick outs and things of that nature strikes that are pseudo-strikes that would be an unfair Labor practice and if one party believed the other party had engaged or committed an unfair Labor practice that party would submit a complaint about
099that practice to a neutral third party that third party could either dismiss the complaint or have a hearing on that charge if a hearing scheduled the neutral third party can hear evidence and take except evidence on that and the neutral third party can issue findings in fact and conclusions of law if an unfair Labor practice and make a decision on whether an unfair Labor practice some of the things I just talked about had occurred and they can order it to be just they can order the offending party to cease and desist that practice if an employee files an unpaired unfair Labor practice charge against the union remember there are guarantees for the employees vis-a-vis the Union as well a duty Affair representation if they feel as though they have been unfairly uh not represented in
100collective bargaining because they don't pay dues as an example then they may follow the employee May file an unfair Labor practice charge against the Union and if they are successful they can recover their attorney's fees and costs and any party aggrieved by once the neutral third party has made their decision on the unfair Labor practice any party who lost that decision can go to Circuit Court in the Commonwealth here in Prince William let's talk about union dues I'm not good at advancing the slides union dues expressly provides that employees cannot be compelled to pay union dues and that's been the law since like 2018 or something um and that dues cannot be deducted without written authorization from the employee and finally that authorization can be revoked by the employee with 30 days notice to the
101school board and the Union and that is the end of the presentation that essentially there are FAQs online as I think the board is aware that addressed most or all of these and answer some other questions that people may have so that's another resource that people can can get and of course the whole resolution the entire resolution is posted on our board doc system so I'm happy to take questions if the board has any anybody have questions Miss wall thank you Mr Anderson for this information I have a number of questions so I don't have to need to ask them all at once I can ask a few and then Circle back my first question is just a clarifying question then my second question is a little bit more substantive I'll ask two right now
102if that's all right yes okay so my first question is to clarify in particular um substitute teachers are not part of either bargaining unit correct because they would be considered temporary correct substitute teachers whether short-term or long-term or not in the bargaining unit are not allowed to collectively bargain okay thank you and my second question is about costs um can you tell me what the cost to the division are expected to be I know I understand it's it's somewhat speculative at this point but it's narrowing in Focus I think um with this resolution so with respect to the additional employees that will be need to be brought on to handle the increased work that this will cause the division and maybe any structure that will be needed could you speak to those sure at this
103point Thank you sure I think in one of these presentations we mentioned that you know because we got this question earlier and I don't remember if it was you who asked or somebody else but I remember getting the question and it really is determined by I think I told you at the time it's kind of determined on what the resolution looks like because there's so many variables about what processes are put in place and what things do we have in the resolution that might impact the cost and so now that we have one I'm not going to be able to give you a number actually but it but I think it's very reasonable to expect that Dr Eagle the chief of Human Resources will need additional staff that Mr Wallingford in finance the Chief Financial
104Officer will need more staff certainly there will be legal expenses whether that's from increasing staff in my office or using external counsel um and and probably a combination of all those things uh will be needed but there will certainly need to be with two bargaining units of roughly 14 000 employees there will be administrative costs to that and and and there will be um things that have to be done to administer any collective bargaining agreement that we reach the terms of that agreement making sure there's that we adhere to the terms it's a contract we need to hold our end to the contract and and and so administering that is going to have a cost um I think it's entirely reasonable to expect that on an annual basis it will be seven figures um I
105think that's without question really uh in terms of because there are also costs and there there are costs external costs like the costs of mediators in some circumstances like if we have to go to a third party neutral who charges by the hour then there are those costs as much as they are for legal fees um so that that's the best I can give you and without a number okay thank you um I know it's something that we'll be looking at really closely as this goes forward Miss Williams okay Miss Jackson then Miss Williams then Mr Wilk I um thank you Mr Anderson for your presentation tonight um when I when we discussed this in the spring I discussed one of the reasons why I need to take my time and make an informed decision
106was that collective bargaining would substantially change how um and other board members advocate for staff well I know you kind of touched on this briefly and I know it's a very complex question that you may not be able to give an example in every instance could you please describe how a board member's advocacy for staff will change after collective bargaining is implemented sure section 3D on page three of the resolution discusses and and I touched on this a little bit in the presentation that nothing prevents an employee from discussing a matter with the school board or the administration if they have a some Personnel matter uh with the important caveat so long as the resolution is not inconsistent with the CBA in other words we can't negotiate with the exclusive bargaining agent for one thing
107and then deviate from that in an individual case and there could be any number of examples I mean and I'm just going to make something up that it's say it's you know the collective bargaining agreement says that um every school board employee gets 10 personal days again making this up um but uh somebody has an issue and they go they go to the principal or they come to the administration say I really need an extra personal day for XYZ problem we can't give them 11. when we've promised in the when we've contracted in the CBA for 10. we've agreed to give them this and there's no deviation from that in an individual case so it's not a you know it's not the perfect example but it is it's what I can come up with my
108wife's a teacher she doesn't get 10 personal days I can just say um that's the case Williams thank you Mr chairman I have a few questions I'm gonna try to keep it brief um so could you speak to um the difference between sort of at a high level the difference between what occurs at a school level for collective bargaining and accounting level for collective bargaining because I believe there's a lot of um rhetoric and narrative out in the community of how they should be mirroring each other but um I think there's some very clear distinctions and I want to be sure that our School Division um families and staff really understand what separates the two because it's important as we travel down this road that we are all on the same page and that we
109all are working from as much as we can the same set of knowledge points so if you could elaborate a little bit on that specifically when it comes to ordinances working groups taxing Authority that sort of thing well and you've hit the nail on the head I mean the biggest difference between school boards in Virginia and the localities who are associating Collective bargain is we don't raise our own Revenue I already mentioned that we have a long-standing policy and agreement with the county that we get 57.23 percent that's it and so whatever that revenue is on the county side we they're going to cut off our 57.23 and give it to us to run our School Division the county has on the on the other side of a negotiating table with the Union let's say
110the union says we'd like a seven percent increase and over there I believe it's police and fire but we want a seven percent pay increase and the county says well gee we can only afford a five percent increase this year revenues are down that that kind of thing if push came to shove and the county decided you know what we really do need we've got big attrition or for whatever the reason we need to pay seven percent they can generate Revenue to pay seven percent now I'll probably get hate mail from them later when they see this but but that's the main difference in terms of just Revenue generation we don't have the ability to say well yeah we'll give you seven percent because we don't know if the 57.23 percent is going to cover
111that and so that's a huge difference in terms of now there are other specific legal differences in the code for instance there are in title 15.2 there are statutes that specifically address um arbitration binding arbitration by localities there's not a similar statute entitled 22.1 that talks about school boards so there are major legal differences in terms of just what counties have the ability to do and what school boards have the ability to do so those are some of the main ones but obviously the revenue generation is an important one I think it's critical and um again just for the public and knowledge information as well as our own School Division staff a lot of the that information is referenced in our FAQs it is and and anyone who has any further questions um we're happy
112to address the next thing I wanted to talk about which I think is really important um because again there's a lot of narrative around this discussion and it was even brought up this evening and during citizen comment time and that is the notion of school board authority could you speak a little bit about that because I don't think um your average teacher or parent really understands what school board authority means and where it comes from and I think that's really important because we talk about it as a board when we go to the general assembly and we talk about local local control and there's also things in the statute but I think that's a very key factor when we go down this road of collective bargaining that everyone understands what that means and where to
113go to find more information about that and when you say school board authority you're let me just clarify to make sure you understand what you're what you're meaning so I'm I'm the School Board rights things that are given or authority provided from the statute or in um so obviously so so localities or school boards have sort of several bases of authority in the the pr the preeminent one is uh the Virginia Constitution Article 8 section 7 of Virginia Constitution quite clearly and simply vest the authority over schools in elected School boards well could be appointed take them in school boards so just by that statement it is clear that school board and this and this goes in into the arbitration agreement and into the arbitration discussion that's been had about could you is there a
114way to turn over that Authority to a third party and the answer I think is plainly no in in and we're talking about in an impasse right so the let's use the impasse uh example right the school board is negotiating with the uh exclusive bargaining agent the exclusive bargaining agent going back to our example says well we'd really like to have a seven percent increase this year and we say well all we have is the ability to do five percent um what there are a couple issues if we were to turn it over to a third party right they if you could say well we're going to go to a neutral third party and let them decide whether it's seven percent or five percent well first the constitution of Virginia says that it's invested in
115school boards not that you can take it and give it to somebody else a third party so that's a one legal issue two the statute quite plainly says that nothing that is bargained over can impact or or impinge on the school divisions ability to control its budget well if you say if if you're having a third party tell you that you have to give seven percent you're not controlling your budget so that's a legal problem um and then also there's a and I could get really esoteric and bore everybody who's watching tears if we talk about the Dylan Rule and sort of you know how school boards only have the rights to see Mr Wilkes a thumbs up you know it's not aboard every I'm sorry to interrupt but this is a really big momentous
116change in our school Division and I think it's I'm always going to be the one who's like please bore me because I think it's everyone's responsibility to be as knowledgeable as possible when we make such a major shift it impacts so many employees and as we continue to see it everyone has a vested interest so I'm sorry to be the one more people but I I mean I'll bore you it's hard to for us as a board to make a decision without doing our fair share of responsibility of educating the public but also learning ourselves if if members don't know which hopefully everyone does because we've been trained in presentation doubt but it's still a matter of how much can you explain this to the the folks that we have a responsibility to that's what
117we're elected to do and it's really important I think so I'm sorry to be such a hard-nose about it but I still have conversations with employees and bus drivers and people who have no idea this is even going on so I it's such a huge responsibility on everyone's part that if you don't mind I'd really know well then let the boring commence uh the Dylan rule is a is a probably centuries-old uh legal doctrine that essentially says that that school boards and localities only have the powers that are delegated and expressly given to them by the general assembly or that are necessarily implied there from so those are the parameters on on what school boards are allowed to do and if that power and there's there was there there have been cases of course in
118other contexts where you know there has been a tension between article 8 section 7 of The Constitution of Virginia which says School boards you know take it on its face it would say well School boards have carte blanche Authority and total and power over the school system but we know that's not true because the general assembly every year gives us a bunch of stuff we don't want to do or maybe we want to do it but we don't want the money to do it or whatever it is but there's always bills that come out right so obviously you can't just take it in context the article 8 section 7 that hey you guys run the school um because the general assembly can expressly authorize you to do things like collectively bargain right so they've they've
119expressly allowed that with caveats that hey by the way nothing can impair your your right School Board to control your budget and part of that is probably because it wouldn't take long for a school board to sue the general assembly or the and say well wait a second the Constitution says we run schools and you're saying that uh we don't have authority to over our our budget and so there there would be attention there if they had not included that provision as an example so that's in essence the Dylan rule so there are basically and and of course as I already alluded to there are statutes that apply to localities many statutes that apply to localities and counties and cities that do not apply to school boards and and this is not a collective bargaining
120reference but there as an example counties can give money because again they are the revenue collectors and generators they set the tax rate they decide how much revenue they need for operations and they set the tax rate accordingly and then they are allowed unlike school boards to fund things like the Arts or um outs give money to outside entities museums things of that nature school boards can't do that school boards are expressly required to expend their funds for educational purposes with the only exception being School foundations so education foundations so that's just an that's that's not a collective bargain example that's just an example of how there are many differences between the powers that Counties have and that school boards have I hope that answered your question it does I think it's a very good
121um sort of short and sweet summary and I think writing an ordinance is applicable to that too because it's a difference we don't do that as school boards but counties do that so that's another good example thank you I'm going to stop now because I think everyone's I have a law professor somewhere who's very proud of me right now I appreciate your time Mr Wilk thank you so much um yeah this has been a long process and I'd like to think I've you know by documentation as the evidence shows I've been at the Vanguard of this for almost 14 months um as I said in the paper and I reiterated with my colleagues this is a start what we're at um we never know what's going to happen in the future laws may change the
122general assembly May tackle this maybe address some of the limitations that are currently in it that are the law at the state level um but I also you know when we're talking costs I also do believe inaction does have a cost too I think we've heard tonight a lot of testimonials of you know what our educators are facing um I see it at home my wife is a teacher the work that she's taking home the changes uh the number of professional development days things that are being added days after the kids get out of school but other things potentially that are concerning to me um but I also like I said I think there's a cost in weighing the pros and cons with everything and and this is not necessarily for you uh service probably
123maybe questions that came up in my mind that maybe we can look at as a division that I don't want answers necessarily right now I don't think we can but I think there is a cost resulting from every time we lose a veteran teacher of 10 plus years I'd like to know estimated costs of what that is for the division when we lose a veteran teacher I want to know also how much in the FY 22 budget we've designated towards all the recruiting that we've done to fill all these vacancies over the course of this year and then I also think it would be good to figure out what in the budget has been allocated now for the increased number of subs and temps that we've had to fill some of these voids so balancing
124out the cost you know with some of the what my colleagues have said I think you know it's important to also weigh that with the ongoing situation that we see with the national teaching shortage that we are not immune to uh here in Prince William County but that's all I wanted to say thank you for the presentation and I think again collectively as colleagues we we've come up with a good starting Point thank you and I'm glad you're not asking me to answer that no but hopefully Dr Eagle's watching yeah Miss Jesse hi first of all I want to thank you and the your legal staff at Dr McDade for putting together this comprehensive package and involving Us in the process we initially we had this question about who the neutral party is going to
125be you know and so I know there's going to be a neutral party for mediation there's going to be a neutral party that will determine whether or not we have the number of votes needed who determines how is that neutral party determined who who selects what's the process for selecting that person well I went back and looked at that again today and and uh so there's a federal mediation conciliation service called the fmcs and uh they for free the one maybe one of the things that's free um is that they will give you a list if you need a neutral third party and these are people who are experienced I mean only people on the list are experienced in labor relations and the kinds of things you would need and we can ask for a
126list of seven uh people to choose from then we get with the union and we basically agree on one but I what I looked up today was there's actually a coin flip uh the coin toss provision in here that says look if and let's hope it doesn't get to this but if the if the union and the school board can't agree on who the person from the list is going to be then you toss a coin and whoever wins starts striking like if we win we would start we'd get to strike the first one and then the union would get to strike the second one until we whittled it down to one and then that's the neutral we'd use you know come leave it to lawyers to come up with a a coin toss for
127something as unexciting as picking a neutral third party um thank you but and I also want to thank you for including classified Personnel bus drivers I think I know we received some calls and I want to thank uh your staff and Dr McDade for including them as part of the bargaining unit I have a question that maybe doesn't I was a little bit confused about you don't have to pay and you don't have to pay for the union dues but you're part of the pro the package so if there's any negotiation you can still use the union resources I'm not sure am I clear do you get my I do I think Ms Jesse the the the the so the law changed in 28 I think it was 2018 and I know Mr Paul tell
128who's been invaluable in helping us with this is watching from Maryland um and he he uh you know there was a Supreme Court decision that said look you cannot require the employees in the bargain unit to pay dues um and so but even if they don't pay dues you Union must represent them fairly um even if they choose not to join the union or pay the union dues and those that negotiation that the union when they sit down with the school board to negotiate the contract the union has a duty under the resolution and frankly long-standing labor law to fairly represent those employees regardless another comment it's not a question because you know you and I I asked the questions earlier we're going to provide it for that whole voting process to take place because
129over that could not be an overnight kind of thing yes ma'am I think so so just for those who are following along the 30 percent is the showing of Interest right so so if if the if the if a if a exclusive bargaining agent like the pwa gets 30 of the bargaining unit signatures they submit that they notified HR Dr Eagle that that's occurred and then those go to a third party that means that an election then has is going to be held and that's where the 50 comes in I know you know this but I'm just making sure those who are trying to follow along though this then the 50 would be um at least half the bargain unit has to at least participate in the election right so I think your question is
130well would we be devious enough to go say that the election is going to be from Midnight until 2 A.M and it's only going to be voting down at samsky's out here and you have to you know no I mean you know the procedures are set in in conjunction with the Union discussing it with the third party neutral because the third party neutral is overseen the election and I assume she doesn't want to be at samsky's from Midnight to 1am either or he and so so to your point we we would that is a process that would be designed with the third party neutral whose role in responsibility it is to oversee the process okay well again I want to thank you for this and you know I've been a supporter of collective bargaining for
131quite some time I think I think Justin was born supporting collective bargaining but uh since I've been on this board I've always supported Collective bargain but I know that they're always caveats and sometimes you have to be careful what you say what you support because when things go Haywire then you think well maybe I should have thought something differently but I I just want to thank you guys for the comprehensive plan and putting this together for us thank you Miss Jesse and Jim can I get this screen so we can see Miss Ralston again oh oh she's up there so I can't but I can't see it on our screens I need no we need to see it on our screens all right so I think I had Miss wall and then oh Lisa and
132then miss Walden Miss Williams for a few years I've been collecting bargaining agreements from across the country and you're aware that I'd had a number of questions so this thing is really tiny compared to what it's going to be right the you mean what the what the collective bargaining agreement itself will actually look like right well I mean it could I guess yes it will it will we have as you you're you're my diligent researcher and you have pointed out that there are some collective bargaining agreements run 150 pages right no 204. 104 was the maximum I'm sorry yes okay so so I think also our employees also need to know that this is not your actual thing you've got you've got all the little things that will be listed under many chapters and verses
133it's it's it takes quite a while I believe um many of the agreements that I have seen um will put in kind of um it's almost like an employee manual it's almost like what's already in um so right now for the for the general public if you don't know we all have this teachers have a basic contract every division has something it's not very long it talks about how many days you work and all those things it's real basic but this thing would explode it right and it would like list all these other little things yeah or do we not have to do that that's one thing I've never under never well it would it would depend on the the number of issues that the party's resolved and decided to enshrine in the contract it
134would uh depend on on many of those things now some of those things again because going back to what I said earlier about how Virginia had filled in the gaps in the code because there weren't collective bargaining agreements that addressed things like grievances right there's a there's a statutory grievance procedure that is already enshrined in law there so so those types of things you might cut and paste and say well in the collective bargaining agreement this is the same process the law requires us to offer this is the same one we're going to have and you put that in so that may eat up a few pages right so right right you know in theory Sure it could be as long or as short as as long as it covers all the the terms that
135the parties have agreed on covers the things all right and I wanted to piggyback on a question that Miss Jackson had asked earlier about um you know as a board member we've been used to listening to employees come to us for a number of things one of the very first things Miss Jackson and I did was we met with an employee who was bringing it was the it was the baby um yeah it was maternity um and and I mean it took a while to get to when Dr McDade made changes to it but um so that's an example of of an employee that came with a concern that can affect a whole group of employees it wasn't just one thing in one building it was it was an idea for a whole group and
136we're still quite used to getting maybe emails about concerns about HVAC or concerns about we obviously heard about the the multiple trainings and things like that so are employees going to be able to still talk you kind of to cover this but but that's another another thing that comes to us too it's it's these very they sound sort of specific but they could apply to many many people across the division are we still going to be able to convey those things to division staff or are we just sort of Well you certainly could convey those things the any you know look employees are going to have the right to contact you as an elected official as their representative those kinds of things um and they can certainly just based on what's in the resolution can
137talk to you about any issue or concern they're having it's it's the resolution of that concern that has to be sort of we have to be wary about in terms of right is there something in that big hundred please don't let it not be 150 Pages um in that document in the contract that addresses what it is that employee is seeking and if so then the answer is going to have to be employee you need to go talk to your union leadership and express that this is a concern that you and other employees may have and the union leadership will then bring that up when it's time to collectively bargain that and say is there something we could do around the leave policy that I'm now concerned about so gotcha that certainly will be the
138case for some concerns that is going to be the mechanism by which the employee gets it to the administration gotcha okay just want to make that clear because um I know in in some of my research because I wear the two hats I wear the teacher hat I wear the school board hat um I've I had been advised at one point that um you know once once we do this that there is no more discussion and then um but but I can't imagine that you totally shut doors with that it's still people can bring you concerns it's just which Avenue is most appropriate for them to be addressed that's right and we've Mo and we've certainly not shut that door in in here right okay um but but but again it's it's going to be
139very case specific right thank you um Jen General all right thank you um um I have a couple of questions along the lines of um uh union dues and employees being contacted by the union so I understand that unions want information on who our employees are in order to reach out to those employees and explain to them why it makes sense to join the union and pay dues and so my first question I have a couple questions that are related to this but my first question is is this a fairly common provision we have in our draft here that the list that could be termed would be turned over yes it is a fairly common provision for school boards to provide unions with the new mem every quarter we have it in ours every quarter
140that as a new member that we would share the name title position and and business email so the pwcs email of any new employee that was higher than that quarter right so so that the union has access to that and can communicate with those employees okay thank you so then under our resolution is there a provision for an employee who didn't doesn't want to be contacted by the union or represented by the union and would and could ask for that information to be withheld let's say they they don't want to be bothered by the union they already know they don't want to be represented they don't want to be contacted you know kind of like an unsubscribe there is not a provision in the in the resolution that provides for that um certainly the union
141could uh you know allow them to opt out of contacted once they were you know we hand over the list they reach out to them and they say thank you I don't want to be contacted again that certainly the union could offer that that is not a provision that's in here that's not to say it couldn't be put in here or probably in the collective bargaining agreement itself maybe the parties would agree that that employee X could opt out of receiving email solicitations or Communications so okay it's not a current provision not currently in here we could add it or we could put it in the in the agreement in the contract that once an employee has stated that they do not wish to be contacted the union should refrain from yeah right and I
142and I do I think it's important to just to reiterate again that this is not home contact information we're not handing out employees personal home address and those kinds of things the Unions would get that for themselves uh presumably but um this is just business contact information okay all right thank you um and I wanted to go back to the question about costs I I uh you know there's some narrative that says that um collective bargaining is going to solve the national shortage of teachers and I think that um that would be inaccurate because most states do allow for collective bargaining we still have a national shortage of of teachers so I wish to point out that that's not necessarily going to be our solution if if people want collective bargaining because they think that
143we're going to solve our teacher problem I don't see that happening because that's not directly a cause causal cause um or it's not a direct causation but I do have and I have another question but I don't know if I should ask it now or should we go around go ahead go okay so um I had a question with regard to employees rights to converse about Union activities during their teaching and working day right so um what enforcement mechanisms or monitoring mechanisms what we have in place to provide that such Communications are not materially interfering with the employee's job duties because that's language that's in the in the resolution that it should you know they can talk about it but if it's material interfering so do we Define what is a material interference and then
144how do we know if we if we conclude that we have a material interference you know perhaps like you know employees are getting harassed or somebody's you know doing collective bargaining instead of their job whatever it is um do we have some kind of way to to to a mechanism in place to um to determine that there's not a defined process for that essentially it would be like any other you know disciplinary issue or supervisory issue I should say maybe not disciplinary supervisory issue where and I'll use the example um that let's say that it's after school and two teachers are stuffing packets for whatever activity I don't know and they're you know they're across the table from one another and they're stuffing these packets and they're talking about Union stuff right at the time
145it's not interfering with their ability to do their job it's not interfering with their work and the principal wouldn't presumably and and again it could be as long as nothing that they're talking about is interfering with you know it could be last night's game I don't you know whatever the same rule would apply right I mean if if it is keeping them from doing their job the supervisor would be able to take corrective action and that's regardless of whether it was Union talk or or any other uh talk um but if um Joe comes to the principal and says you know Jerry next door won't leave me alone he's always haranguing me about being a newspaper pain member of the Union um and the principle certainly would be within his rights or her rights to
146go ask Jerry to knock it off that you're you are interfering with that employee's ability to do their job they've come to me and asked that you stop and so in that case you certainly could take disciplinary action whatever that would be a verbal counseling a letter of concern or an email hey knock it off whatever it is okay so it would be employees using the regular process of maybe complaining to their supervisor or assistant principal principal or whatever it is you know that something's interfering with their ability to do that sure if and if it Rose to the level of something and I'm trying to I'm hard-pressed to think of a an example but if it Rose to the level of something that was an unfair Labor practice I mean I you know I
147suppose it could in theory then there are mechanisms for both the employee because remember both employees are being represented by the union um you know not just Jerry the newspayer right these this so is so is John is being represented by the union too so John certainly could report that to the union and ask them to make it the Stop and conceivably I guess if it was severe enough it might rise the level of an unfair Labor practice for which John could file a charge and recover attorney's fees if it was found to be an unfair Labor practice I think that's kind of an extreme example but I suppose it could happen so an employee could complain to their principal but they could also complain to the union well yes and they could and and
148depending on if you know the facts they could follow a an unauth a um unfair Labor practice charge okay okay but could you shed some light on the duty to bargain in good faith um I know this is a standard that applies to both the union and management uh correct but I think you know years of you know good it's like the reasonable person standard like what what does it what is a reasonable versus standard right what is what does it mean to bargain in good faith could you shed some light on um what kinds of behaviors or actions would constitute a lack of Duty of good faith well I think is there case law on this there is and in fact uh and Mr paultel who's watching will uh you know send me a
149nasty gram later because I don't remember the the term he had there's actually a term in labor circles for this exact thing um where uh the school board rep you know Dr McDade walks into the room and says I'm not giving you anything our discussions are over and that's it now there is a term for that that I am not able to remember but but essentially that would be a bad faith bargaining right we have walked in and said uh I'm not doing it not interested in talking to you uh I know all your concerns and we're not going to address them that would that's an extreme example obviously but it is nonetheless prohibited on either side you know the union can't do the same thing either okay so refusing to even engage in the
150negotiation is Right you've got to put your your best foot forward and listen and and participate right so you just can't um you know because by and large in negotiations I think it's everybody's experience there are going to be a few things you can probably agree on um in the hole I mean you know there are there are typically going to be these issues that some of which might be minor some of which might be major and and and and having agreed to several items and then saying well that's the bridge too far for me I can't get there on that one but I can do X Y and Z that that shows good faith bargaining right so that is that is it's sort of I hate to use the old cliche I know it
151when I see it right I mean I you know I know obstinence and not bargaining good faith when it happens so I hear you say is that bargaining in faith with both parties having this responsibility both parties are going to have to come to the table and make concessions absolutely so not just management but also the Union absolutely I mean I think that's just part of the give and take I mean that's that's you know uh and I think I think it's having negotiated things with other attorneys before it's not as you know you always start out with your best ask and then your Whittle your way down from there you know and you've got certain things that you particularly really want and and you try to get there uh that that's what has to
152happen here okay thank you very much thank you for your answers and thank you for your work sure miss Williams thank you Mr chairman um I know it seems like we're taking a lot of time and some people um care for that and some people don't but again um I'm gonna take as much time as we need or as I need because I think this is really important um it's just as critical as what our staff is being asked to do in their day-to-day this is this is all part of that um I just first I I am a a fan of collective bargaining I'm still my problem with collective bargaining rise at the state level not at our level here um because one of the things we don't talk about or we haven't really
153discussed is you know what what happens um because the point of collective bargaining or one of the things that that makes collective bargaining so amazing is it's an opportunity to level the playing field it's an opportunity for staff to have a position Express their position and there be repercussions for it which is why I like it so much um one of the things that is I find very disappointing in the Virginia Statute is a lot of that is taken away from our staff they don't have the ability to strike they don't have the ability for a stick out could we talk a little bit about what our and I'm sure it's not you know it not a favorite topic of discussion maybe on the board side um but because we would sit on the opposite
154side in an actual collective bargaining discussion or negotiation that would not be our our role right but if I put the other side's perspective on the table for a minute what advantages do employees have in this process I mean I know it's a give and take process and there's a lot of we hear narrative from people coming to speak to us about what they want but what are the guarantees so to speak for our employees who engage in this process what what is the advantage that they're getting out of this process I don't think anyone's asked that question I don't think we've addressed it and I think there's a lot of he said she said this is what we think but I don't I haven't heard anyone on this side of the diocese or explaining
155to us what that means or what that looks like for an employee and if you don't have an answer right now that's fine because um I sprung this on you but I think it's important yeah I and I'll attempt to answer it and then if I don't if I answer it poorly I'll come back to you and I appreciate it do it again but but I think the advantage for employees is the ability to um have a unified structure the union and Leadership let's say who can see that there's a concern at the school way over here in Woodbridge and there's the same concern by an employee way over here in Gainesville right so ins whereas those two teachers may never meet may never discuss that they have this common interest this common concern whether
156it's the excessive PD or whatever it is that the Union as a funnel now knows oh we this is a concern for our members not just one or two but 200 right and they can they can unify that concern expression of that concern to the school division in a unified way and and ask the school board to do something about it and to memorialize that resolution in a written agreement um and so to Mom on that's one of the big advantages um and you're asking me to be a you know a union lawyer and I'm happy to do it um but but you know there are advantages to having that system of funneling concerns so that we know it's not just Mary over here in this one school who's expressed this one concern and it
157made its way up to a board member it's the union coming forward and saying hey Mary and Jane and Joe and a bunch of other people have expressed this exact same concern and so it's clearly on their mind and something that we would like to address with you when we get in there and start swinging the coffee and eating the pizza and Dickering right I mean that's you know um so I think that's an advantage I'll say I'm sure and and I'll have to if I can digress for a second Mr Paul tell was kind enough to send me the term as borerism which I can hardly even say but I'm going to the font of all knowledge Wikipedia which says that ball wereism is the tactic of making a take it or leave it
158offer in negotiation and it was named after some CEO somewhere who basically took that approach I'm walking in and telling you I'm not doing anything um so and could you elaborate a little bit for me um I'm just going to take the the position of one who what does not know the difference between this and and like our meet and confer process because what we hear in a lot of the public hears is that there's not a seat at the table employees don't have a voice at all and this is why this is coming up but I think there's also um it's important to talk about that because until this process enters the actual negotiation stage of it I want to be clear to the public and and to those who may not know within
159our School Division that there are still Avenues to express your voice and that this is not the the the first time we've ever done anything like this um or this is the first time we've considered employee voice outside of this boardroom or people emailing us because I want to make sure that the employees know that that there's still options until we get to that point where we're negotiating at a negotiating table right because I don't want to leave that out well Dr Eagle could speak to this far better than I and she has at previous meetings I think there was a presentation the board received in the spring that talked about the meet and confer process that where where groups of employees can meet and they're you know to lesser degrees it's not I don't
160think it's actually meet and confer but you know there are advisory councils I think the superintendent has a principal's advisory counter there's teachers advisor there are other avenues but this the meet and confer process contemplates a sort of formal uh periodic meeting with employee groups to discuss concerns they have the major difference of course is that collective bargaining it results in an enforceable contract that then the terms of which can be adjudicated uh if either party were to violate it so that's the main difference I mean in other words and um you know obviously just the process of negotiating and there's there there are I don't know that there are specifics to our meet and confer process to the degree there are specifics I'm sure there's not to the degree here as an example uh
161the resolution requires that each side the union and the school board bring uh uh I think it's five negotiators um and that's it you can have five each and then you that that's it and somebody has and one of your team has to be um experienced in labor matters right so it's much more formalized in the collective bargaining sense because we certainly don't have any of those kinds of strict requirements for a meet and confer process thank you I appreciate that I mean the legally binding agreement is one of the things that I am the most um excited about because I do I believe that that gives our staff who are participating in this process a guarantee of sorts and I think that's from the individuals that I've spoken to that has been the major
162factor and that was one of the major um that made the most impression on me because again the state unfortunately took away some of the other means for negotiations as the strikes and walkouts that you see in other areas of the country and we don't have here and our employees don't have and so I think it's important that people rely is that there is some sort of guarantee and that there is some sort of Leverage still in this process because on its surface value it doesn't appear to be so when you just look at the statute and they're still people asking like why would you do this if you can't strike or you can't do this or you can't do that and so I think it's I think it's important to speak to some of
163the positives and that's one of the things I like the most about it the last thing that I will say on in this discussion this evening is I I don't need this answer now I just want to piggyback on of what Mr Wilk was asking for information at a later date from human resources and I'm interested to see what some of our exit surveys say um since we're going to talk about why staff is leaving and on things that nature I would be curious to know what some of the top reasonings during and for leaving if the school board could be a little bit more informed on that and sort of like a um a collective process not just sort of happenstance um and again I appreciate your time thank you you thank you Ms
164Williams Miss Jesse uh Ms Williams said that members of the board have not said discuss what's in it for why would we want to do this why do teachers want to do this they're tired and they're tired throughout the United States of America it's not just Prince William County and I've been a principal for 20 years and I know there were times that teachers could not come to me and they needed a voice and they would come to me and then they would go to various people and uh I was uh very supportive of teachers but at the same time I was always very supportive of teachers of students and so I had a high-powered running School and so people had concerns and they would take them to various people when I came on the
165board I was very naive I thought that uh I could help solve some of the personality issues and Dr McDade I've learned that they're not supposed to come to me for personnel matters teachers don't feel they have a first place to go to and I don't know if collective bargaining is going to solve everything for them but it's very simple and why are people leaving because there are other opportunities for them in other arenas and it's very simple to me and Ms Williams said I don't I don't know if we realize how serious it is I realize how serious it is because people come to me all the time they when during the pandemic I heard this little movement on my computer was like dude what's going on I got 300 emails and people were
166very upset before Dr McDade because they felt their voices were not being heard I don't know if collective bargaining is it but we need to deal with the reality that we're losing teachers and we have to provide mechanisms for them to have their voices heard this is a very comprehensive plan that you put together I know that there's going to be some give and take but at the same time I think that there's I don't know why there's a question to me of why people join a union they join unions because they feel they're not being heard and whether or not they're going to be heard is going to be up to Maggie and her group when they're unhappy they're going to call you and they're going to say why did you solve my problem
167but I don't think that it's your job to answer that question because the surveys are going to come in and I will tell you people do not put on surveys what they want to put on surveys because they think that someone will find out they they don't complain and maybe this is a mechanism I just I just want to speak on behalf of teachers and say I understand why you are unhappy and I understand why we are it's very difficult and this pandemic has made it even more difficult we've asked you to do things that we shouldn't have asked you to do with many instances I think we put them in too early that's just me and we they were In Harm's Way and in some summons because we didn't know what was going on
168that's just my opinion so why are they what's in it for them that says that they have somebody that they think will listen to them and I hope we can create a mechanism where it works for the board and for teachers thank you thanks Miss Jesse I'm sure I'm not going to be a popular person for them to call but there I'll welcome all calls so it's Mr Wolf kind of going off that and this idea that there may have been a narrative tonight that collective bargaining was going to be the Silver Bullet of curing one's all for the teacher shortage and I I wish it was that easy I wish something like this in passing this was going to address the teacher shortage uh here and in this country if it was that easy
169I I think you know people have done way more studies at UVA of course and other educational institutions and other programs about what is causing the teacher shortage and and I think until this country has a paradigm shift and starts holding teachers at the stature that they commend as professionals with many with Masters or multiple Masters and respected for the position and the position that they are I do believe there will continue being a shortage I do believe to the point though that if you look at the top 10 perform forming States or the states where the teachers have the highest pay nine out of ten of them I think the last one I looked at Utah was the only one that was a non-collective bargaining state you now look and see teachers have their
170pick before where they didn't in certain states to be able to find jobs and if you have a teacher now that can move back home to Pennsylvania yes they can be back home to their family but they can make way more for the cost of living and they can feel much more secure in their jobs same thing for New York State Connecticut Massachusetts I could go on the list and continue but there's something to be said that those teachers have more of a voice and more of a stake at the table they're making more money for the cost of living they have strong benefits we're doing a great job trying to compete with that but to the point here is I think there's got to be a correlation to where these people are going and
171why they're leaving and leaving and looking at maybe more attractive areas of the country where they will have a stronger voice but that's just my thoughts I just want to clarify something Miss Williams thanks I just I just wanted to clarify something and Justin my cousin give you a run for money per money with the Pennsylvania Union thing just talked to her last night but I just wanted to make sure it was clear I was asking for just exit survey data not General survey data because there's a big difference in what people put on like Miss Jesse said a survey you may receive on a random weekday versus when you're leaving an organization so that's all the information this is where I'm phoning a friend I hope somebody over here is taking notes about what
172it's recording so I'm just going to wrap up with a couple questions really quick what other districts have passed collective bargaining in our region Richmond schools schools uh Richmond and Arlington I believe okay and then who else is Alexander City I think did it as well is that right I don't know that they've passed there we haven't passed it yet who else is working on it I know Fairfax two years quite a long time quite a long time right yes any any any chance they're gonna pass it soon I have no idea I know that there were 17 different groups involved in the negotiations over there right okay and then when I when I took the board when I started on the board we were the lowest per people spend rate of our um region
173here of all the school districts is that right John Dr McDade we're the lowest per pupil spending right one up from the bottom where are we this year after five years we're in the same place one up from the bottom we've made ground up for people spending correct and but everyone else keeps going up right um so we'll pass collective bargaining I anticipate that will happen um I assume they'll all pass collective bargaining as well I have the same problem that I had when I started on this board that we continue to pay teachers and our per pupil spending in Prince William County is the lowest in the region or near the lowest in the region and so for the folks that are um so I I truly appreciate chair wheeler and her commitment over
174the last three years to get more funding for schools we've had record funding and even tonight if you saw we voted on more monies coming from the county about 20 million from last year's fiscal budget we moved over as a transfer from the county she has made a strong commitment and has looked for ways to get more funding for schools so that we could do the kinds of things that all of our teachers want whether they wanted it before collective bargaining and certainly what they're going to want after collective bargaining the folks in the general assembly though um haven't contributed to schools like they should last year or this year Mr Wallingford correct me if I'm wrong it's the first year we're going to get funded at the level we were pre pre-recession in 2007.
175inflation-adjusted inflation adjusted this is the first year we're back from funding from the state and we depend 40 percent of our monies come from the state so while we have the general assembly down there and there's a three billion dollar budget we have a governor talking about a half a billion going back to tax tax cuts fine I hear nobody down in the general assembly talking about more funding for K-12 after last year's record now they did give us a record amount last year but it doesn't just stop right it's not a one-time thing and so for us to be able to make Headway and not be the lowest per pupil and commit to paying our teachers more in the region we need more money whether we have collective bargaining or not is that correct
176I mean I need more money is that right oh I think you need more money yeah if that's the question so so so so so what I what I what I think it's really important is um over the last five years we have done a terrific job in the school division of trying to make um uh uh play catch up four point eight percent raise four point eight percent raise 2.4 percent raise 5.0 and 7.0 plus more raises at different job positions over those years we've done things like heels baby bonding we've we've kept health care premiums this year won't happen but Healthcare premiums stayed uh zero for three years in a row three four years we'd self-insure and we do a good job of that we made real progress um in in these last
177few years on this but again this all requires money doesn't matter whether we have collective bargaining or not and we also don't have taxing Authority as you pointed out and so I think it's I think I'm glad you you presented you know some of these facts tonight that you know those folks going to Richmond on behalf of us should understand that if they want us to pay more to our teachers which we want which which is what I fought for for four or five years then I expect more from Richmond meaning I want our money that goes down to Richmond coming back to Prince William County and the way it comes back is the way we pay our folks so passing laws down there asking us to spend money without giving us our money back
178to do so is unfair and unacceptable um but I and I bring this up because you know as I said I expect this this to pass in some form or or way but in the end when everyone else passes collective bargaining in five years they're all doing it and we're still one from the freaking bottom that's a problem bargaining didn't solve anything what we need is more money funding our schools from both the County Board of Supervisors and from the general assembly and there's no other magic way to do that there's no other magic way to do it other than we get a commitment from the County Board of Supervisors to fund our schools find more ways to raise revenue to get them into our schools and or you know we'll start cutting things to
179get things done so you know I I think it's just important that I appreciate your presentation tonight because it outlines many of the challenges the slide on constraints that we face with collective bargaining is really important um and but but I I find it remarkable that you know I've heard General Assembly members say oh we funded schools a lot last year was a record we're done and I've heard that on both sides of the aisle they're not done and I want everyone to be crystal clear as we move forward with voting for programs like this and efforts to as collective bargaining will become another tool in our Arsenal to find ways to to really take care of our employees and let me remind everyone Forbes Magazine recognize this as the top school district to work
180for in the Commonwealth you know this is on top of all of our raises on top of all the work we're doing on top of the good work Dr McDade has done as she came in expanded and worked harder on meet and confer and all those things this is this is not easy work so there's no magic bullet um you know as Mr Wilk and Mr wall point out we're not solving teacher shortage with this because if we're still one from the bottom I'm still fighting with everyone else for teachers around here and so I think it's really important for everyone to consider that you know as we move forward in in whatever way we do um and and again I'm just you know I think it's very important to point out so I appreciate
181this evening's presentation thank you Mr Anderson for your presentation tonight thank you Mr chairman I'm going to move next to we are on to uh just an update on the Governor's School Miss Williams um thank you Mr chairman just to keep it very brief I did speak to this a little bit at the last meeting um the Governor's School Board did meet on September 1st 2022 virtually we went over the school calendar which is public information the meeting dates um upcoming and throughout the rest of the year highlighting when the joint board would meet alumni day research Symposium graduating day and this year the Governor's School will be hosting his graduation ceremonies at Manassas City Public Schools who is the leader this year we rotate who's chair and vice chair for each School Division of
182that comprises the Governor's School in avicia park and this year it is um Manassas City Public Schools so I look forward to further updates after our next meeting in November thank you thank you Miss Williams um we'll do board matters we'll start with Miss Jesse oh uh who is that okay okay we'll start with Mr Wilk es okay clock boom yeah okay no no clock um it's like your dream Miss Jesse it will be three minutes I haven't changed it get a clock up for these folks thank you um I would like to start um thank you everyone this has been a lovely meeting um and I will be brief this time I've talked a lot tonight during the collective bargaining discussion I want to talk about some of my Ventures uh the last two
183weeks um I'm visiting a lot of my schools so on September 22nd I attended the Forest Park football game at home at Forest Park uh where Forest Park was Victorious over their opponent on September 23rd I attended Montclair Elementary School's Boosterthon Boosterthon Fun Run I want to congratulate all the students students who did break their record for the funding goals and the fundraiser there on September 24th I attended Henderson's Elementary a Night Under the Stars walking Paws the mascot around the facility a good turnout from the Montclair Community as always and I want to thank Henderson for putting on that program back when the weather was warm enough to where we could do that I don't know if that would work now on September 27th I attended the forest park girls field hockey game where
184the forest park girls were victorious over Garfield on September 29th I attended Covington Harpers back to school night for their fourth and fifth grade students with Potomac Shores I attended in three events within the Potomac Shores Community at the middle school as well so it was great to see the Potomac Shores families at these events on September 30th I had the pleasure as a big proponent of the Watchdog programs within our schools Ashen Elementary converted their Watchdogs into what they call Falcon Force falcon Force which is really cool and I appreciate kind of the creativity there and I had a chance at doing a shift since it is also my oldest son's school so I was there for that on September 30th uh that evening I was invited to be part of the crowning ceremony
185for the homecoming football game at Potomac High School I want to thank principal Brandon Bowles for arranging that and then finally last night I was at triangle Elementary's back to school nights and many more events coming as we continue the festivities and kick off still back to school nights at our elementary schools thank you all I'll end with some time Miss Argo thank you Dr Latif um I got to go to several of my schools back to school night um and I got to revisit Parkside and middle school they had sent a small group of Staff members to Cambridge to uh take more training on the Cambridge program I talked a little bit about that before and they came back and just had so many great things to say they represented not just Prince William
186County but the United States as well and I look forward to seeing what things they will be developing they talked a little bit about how Cambridge is interested in partnering them on some research and possibly they do professional development for other divisions as well so I'd be interested in hearing more about what's going to be happening at Parkside with the Cambridge program I got to visit McAuliffe and Rosa Parks on the same night for back to school Unfortunately they were close together um and I got to again if you have a book fair in your elementary school let me know when your evening is so I will come by and get more books from my grandson I love adding to his Library so thank you McAuliffe for having a book fair and and allowing me
187to add to my grandson's Library um I got to watch the many of our marching bands compete at the Colgan Invitational and what's really nice is watching The Arc of improvement you know so we're in education we want to see continuous improvement in our academics and all kinds of things but it was interesting to just be able to watch what had happened within just a few weeks with marching band because many of these bands we'd see at their very first football games that I went to and they were only able to do part of their show and now they're doing their whole show and it's just the amount of work that the kids have put in and all the parents who have been supporting these bands with it with you know getting equipment to these
188kids uniforms all those things feeding them it's really important so it was just really neat to watch that growth through the lens of uh just just marching band and I got to spend that day with Miss wall and Dr Latif had stopped by so it was nice to to see other board members at an event like that last thing I'm going to leave you all with is I have some concerns about social media make sure that if you are a parent and you see something on social media check in with your school first check with your teacher before making assumptions about things we want to make sure that we keep things within our schools and always go through your teacher and your principal first before worrying about too many other things the other thing I
189want to talk about briefly about with social media is make sure that our our kids are not sharing it's cyber bullying guys if you share stuff and you're being snarky about it and it gets sent around you're making someone else's life miserable so let's let's knock that off all right with that I will leave you with the last 14 seconds have a good night good week as well all right thank you so I just want to begin by saying I think we're off to a great start here we are in the first week of October and I've been in school now for five or six weeks I want to express appreciation to our fantastic teachers administrators nurses Specialists counselors everyone who has played a very important role in setting the tone for this school year
190um and I I've been out in the schools I've been hearing parents talk about how happy they are and how pleased they are with what's happening at their schools how great it is to be back and I want to say thank you to all of the individuals in our school division who are making that happen by their dedication and selfless service um as I travel around my district attending back to school nights I also see that the children for the most part are happy to be back in class there are those occasional children who will tell you that they don't want to be in school but I know learning is taking place um and that makes me very happy because that is our core mission is to help children learn and grow and fulfill their
191full measure of talent and ability I know we're not perfect but we're doing a good job and we've had a good start so thank you back to school nights have also given me a chance to introduce myself to parents and wish them well and hear some of their concerns in the past two weeks Elementary School back to school nights of started up so I've been able to attend events at Alvey Gravely and Mountain View and I am looking forward to attending events Sudley Sinclair Mullen and Tyler in the coming weeks those are my seven elementary schools over the last few weeks for professional development I attended a vsba legislative advocacy conference and learned more about the new Virginia literacy act which I am excited to learn more about because I feel like reading is a
192fundamental skill and I'm very excited to see that we are going to be focusing as a state and also as a division on what we can do to help children read better because I feel like it is absolutely essential um I also attended a training on Title IX which I felt was very useful to me I appreciated it a lot I loved Colgan Classic on September 24th it was awesome um such a fun thing I'm a band parent or was a band parent always a band parent so um it's just I just know how much work goes into it I just appreciate all those people who worked in that um Battlefield was the AAA division winner the first place overall winner and took home first place wins in the categories of Color Guard Visual and
193general effects so my last comments in the last 17 minutes is that the bad support organization at Battlefield is hosting a charity car show on Saturday November 5th in the battlefield high school parking lot so if you want to be a part of that take a look at the battlefield band's Facebook page thank you thank you Miss wall Miss Williams thank you Mr chairman um so I like many of my other fellow board members attended a bunch of back to school nights I promised to my schools that I will do better about posting the pictures on social media I always take them very rarely do they make it up but I was there and from what I understand they're now tweeting them out for me so um thank you but I was able to attend
194featherstones um Woodbridge Middle School River Oaks Elementary Belmont Ripon been to a couple different ones because again most of our schools due to our growth in our County have smaller parking lots than they have parents and Guardians who want to come and participate in these events so they're often broken up into multiple nights I did also attend Featherstone Elementary's Title One math and reading night which was amazing to me not so much to my nine-year-old who was a little dismayed that he had to pick a book but it comes from a long line of readers so um like Miss wall was saying I also attended the vsba a legislative advocacy conference and this past Friday I believe it was myself and Miss dagapur were in attendance at Hilton planetarium for the first Imaging first viewing
195of the images from the James Webb Telescope and the nerd and me was just really excited to see the difference between and learn the difference between the Hubble and the new telescope and if you haven't had a chance to visit our very own planetarium in this County I would highly encourage you to do so there's some fantastic shows at Hilton I also want to bring up for all of those virtual learning families because we still have so many in our County I want to congratulate and give kudos to proximity learning for sending out their inaugural newsletter they highlighted all of the things that October is about and gave great and useful tips for parents to talk to their parents and Guardians to talk to their students about bullying and cyber bullying and the like like
196I'm also excited about their launch for proximity and Beyond events there was the first one in held this evening which was a read-along for Choose Your Own Adventure anyone who's been out of school probably about we'll just go with 20 years or so choose your own Adventures or probably the highlight of our reading Library life because you had to say in what was going to go on in the book so I was kind of excited my elementary schooler was again not as excited but he'll get over it um I did want to bring up and remind our listening public that we do have an ombudsman if you are not familiar with what the role of the Ombudsman is there's more detailed information on our website but for those teachers that we hear or staff members
197that are dealing with conflicts or issues in your school day or environment I highly recommend you visiting our Ombudsman that is one of the reasons why they are there and they provide service to our school community in addition to that I just want to say congratulations to Dr McDade and our Administration on our new rollout for our new brand and which I hope will bring new rhetoric new culture and remind everyone that in order to move forward we also have to change the language that we use so thank you and look forward to seeing you in the next school board meeting I also love the new brand it's beautiful and it it it speaks to who we are and where our goals are I just wanted to say that uh I have two new schools
198and those two schools are Marshall and kerrydale now each school is very different on my visit when I went Marshall I don't know where they find these parents but they're all over the parking lot you cannot get into that school they're the parent participation is off the hook and I was also able to visit one of the class several of the classrooms the next morning I went by and the classroom were very different and they're they're when I look at classrooms I look at a lot of things but the personalities of the teachers were there I just want to tell them that I'm really excited about working with them kerrydale um kerrydale is the best kept secret in Prince William County they are involved in this visible learning project John had his research on meta-analysis
199what works and I just so today I thought I'd just share with you some of their scores reading they went from 56 percent pass rate to 74 above the county mailed from 41 to 74 above the county in the state signs from 36 to 69. maybe they didn't hear there was a problem with science above everyone and in history 85 percent pass rate so I'm very excited about that project and I'll be visiting them again I also went to Occoquan when I came on the board I I didn't know I was not supposed to get involved in Personnel nor did I know that I should visit all my principal friends on the Western on the Eastern end and realize that we had a property problem here not a property problem we had a problem of
200finding space and so I realized that we had all these trailer situations and I started doing some research on how we could one get the land and how we could look at a different way of using space and I went to Aqua Quan last night and I want you to know they are so excited about being the first Net Zero school but I want to give special thanks to Buddy Lynn for his work but to Hamish Bureau who he knew I was looking at schools and he said you know for space he said Ms Jesse look at this land in the back of the school that he was the first person to point out there was land at Occoquan so I'm very very excited about the possibility of building a new school there on the
201land and believe it or not the first principle was Elizabeth Vaughn who never was never a principal at Vaude and the second principle was herb Saunders so I'm excited about all the possibilities Rockledge and Lake Ridge I really enjoyed being there also and Lake Ridge I need to come back for your back to school night so I just want to thank everyone and the teachers hang in there Miss Ralston I just want to thank good day and a good season thank you Mr Austin Miss Jackson hey thank you since the last meeting I was able to attend back to school night at Gainesville Middle myself to a victory Lake um T Clay Wood Alice in Cedar Point thank you to staff and families for taking a moment to talk to me back to school nights
202are a great example of the important partnership between families and schools this relationship is fostered through relationships and direct communication I know as an educator I appreciate when a guardian reaches out to me directly to problem solve a praise that direct line off social media is important to Foster and utilize also I have relayed your concerns about transportation to the division October is successia Awareness Month dyslexia is a neurological condition that is characterized by difficulties with accurate word recognition decoding and it can impact leading comprehension speech Chapel identifying left to right so I just wanted to take a moment to just say that dyslexia can impact as many one to five students and there's a parent Resource Center here at the Kelly Center whose mission is to assist parents and families of children with disabilities
203to become active participants in the child's education pwcs also has some resources on their website for dyslexia October is also National Physical Therapy month physical therapies and our schools assists in achieving educational goals relating to positioning a Mobility that I developed by the IEP team they play a vital role in helping students achieve knowledge skills necessary to create the fighting future for themselves that we talk about every day at every meeting and I thank them next week is school lunch week and I just want to take a moment and thank all staff who make sure our students are fed and safe and lastly thank you to all staff I know this year has been a well-run filled with Full Speed Ahead to a sense of normalcy and on top there are a lot of trainings
204from my experience this year some of these trainings are State mandated because I also attended the vsba legislative advocacy session I just want to just take a moment and ask any state representatives that were here or maybe listening that they consider the workload when advocating a workload on staff when advocating for schools and um just thank you to the students who are here for coming and all students who've ever come and spoke to us love and respect to all y'all all right well so I got a little impassioned earlier I'm not going to stand up on my chair this time um but what I what I want to um say is as you heard some of the things that I said you know we're at the bottom for per pupil spending what I want to
205tell everyone is this is the best School Division in America I firmly believe that I I wouldn't put my own children in the school division keep them in the school Division if I didn't believe that and I think it's one of the best damn School divisions in the country and I will tell you that the rest of the country is seeing it as well and is an example is the niche rankings who rank um School divisions in every state it's niche it's called Niche if you um their newest rankings came out last Wednesday and they had you know when we took office in this board on 2019 um Prince William County schools ranked 26th in the Commonwealth in 20 21 we went to 20th and this year we went to 17th as best School Division
206in the Commonwealth now I don't live and die by the rankings you know there's a lot of reasons for what goes into those but certainly Student Success goes into that the way we treat our employees goes into it and it's a trajectory we've moved nine spots in three years that is remarkable you add on the fact Forbes Magazine by external surveys ranked us as the 11th best large organization to work for in the Commonwealth number one for school divisions in the Commonwealth you added the fact the United States Department of Agriculture recognized us as a greed and ribbon School Division for our sustainability sustainability sustainability and energy initiative you added the fact that we continue to have a AAA Bond rating which recognizing recognizes our financial responsibility and and our our good work with our
207finances those are all really important things and and so while I will complain about our per-pupal spending because I know we have just a tremendous potential we can realize in bringing Dr McDade in over a year year ago she has outlined our trajectory for that potential you've seen it in our logo you've seen our strategic plan it you know we have an exciting future ahead of us and and I would not send you know if anyone were asking me if I'm going to move to the DMV area where would I live I would say you should live right here in Prince William County school because our schools are the best and I firmly believe that and they only get better and they're great because we have fantastic teachers that we do work hard to try
208to recruit and retain and keep them here that's the work we've done I've outlined you know the numbers and the raises we've given and so it's critical most importantly after all of that fact because we want our students to have tremendous post-secondary success our seniors need to be working on their senior application their applications for colleges but parents the FAFSA forms opened up a couple days ago and Dr McDade is the biggest fan of FAFSA forms will tell you that it is very important to fill those things out accurately because whether you're applying for financial aid or not or you believe you can or can't or don't you know you don't qualify even if you get scholarships the scholarship organizations need to see your FAFSA so please fill out your FAFSA do not know how
209to do it go to the counselors they will give you advice there are a lot of resources online thank you very much at this point the school board meeting is adjourned