Prince William County School Board Meeting - February 16, 2022

001i'd like to call this meeting of the prince william county school board to order pursuant school board policy 139 school board member participation in meetings by electronic communication school board member diane rossen of the new york school district will participate in this meeting through electronic means from her home due to a medical condition that prevents her physical attendance a motion is order for the approval of the closed session agenda mrs jackson i move that the prince william county school board approved the closed session agenda as recommended ms jackson by a second thank you mr williams um miss varsin yes yes on the vote okay thank you the vote is seven yes one absent dr latif motion passed thank you um two motion to enter closed session moving to the motion to enter closed session emotion

002is in order ms jackson thank you i move the pursuant to virginia code sections 2.2-3711 and 2.2-3712 the prince william county school board enter closed session for the following reasons one to discuss with the superintendent and staff the resignation performance appointment and release of specific employees and to receive advice on related legal issues as provided by virginia code sections 2.2-3711a 1 and 8. two to review and take action on disciplinary appeals for individual students as provided by virginia code sections 2.2-3711a two and eight three to consult with division council and receive advice on legal matters requiring the advice of council and or pertaining to actual or probable litigation as provided by virginia section virginia code section 2.2-3711a 1 2 7 and 8 4 to discuss with staff and division council regarding legal requirements specific to

003the pandemic which require legal advice and guidance as provided by virginia code sections 2.2-3711a and 5. to consult with division council and discuss with staff the acquisition or disposition of real property for a public purpose where discussion in open meeting would adversely affect the bargaining position or negotiating strategy of the school board as provided by virginia code sections 2.2-3711a three and eight masterworms a second thank you miss austin yes the vote is seven yes one absent dr latif motion passed thank you the prince william county school board will now enter a closed session and we return to open session in one hour [Music] the prince ham county school board is now returning to open session from closed session eight a motion is in order um ms jackson i move that the prince william county school

004board approved the appointments and releases of specific employees as presented in closed session madam chair vice chair excuse me miss williams i'm sorry that's me closed session certification at the top of the pitch we have to certify so was page before on page two at the bottom of page two mrs argofour that's okay number eight yes yes uh just kidding um i moved that pursuant to virginia code section 2.2-3712 the closed session of the prince william county school board meeting of feb february 16 2022 be certified by adopting the following resolution now therefore be it resolved that the prince william county school board hereby certifies that to the best of each measure members knowledge one only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements were discussed in the closed meeting to which this certification

005resolution applies in two only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard and discussed or considered by the school board made a vice chair miss williams second miss wilson yes the vote is seven yes one absent dr latif motion passed thank you nine move into closed session action items a motion is in order miss jackson i move that the prince william county school board approved the appointments and releases of specific employees as presented in closed session miss jessie miss hassan your vote please i didn't hear that yes okay the vote is seven yes one absent dr latif motion passed eight nine 102 approval of the sme pd recommendation for long-term suspension i need a motion ms jackson i move that the prince william county school board approved

006that for the reason set forth in the sma pd's letter of january 20th 2022 the prince william county school board approved staff's recommendation for the long-term suspension of student hs 22-066 through january 27 2022 the end of the first semester of the 21-22 school year and that the school board also approved smapd's recommendation for the student's return to school any non-traditional education eligibility determination contained in the smapd letter the student's placement at the time of his her return to school if recommended by smapd and smapd's recommendation if any regarding eligibility for computer-based instruction while on long-term suspension second miss jessie last second thank you miss austin yes the vote is seven yes one absent dr latif motion passed thank you before moving on to the public hearing i would like to point out that this

007week is virginia school board cloak appreciation week on behalf of the entire school board i'd like to express my gratitude for board clerk b simpson and deputy clerk brandi rees for their amazing and selfless service to our school division and community the board appreciates your hard work and support so thank you [Applause] i declare that a public hearing is now open on the subject of the school board's fiscal year 2023 proposed budget slash the ap any citizen who has signed up in advance to speak on this subject may do so when called upon citizens will have three minutes to speak and are limited to speaking on the topic at the proposed fiscal year 2023 budget cip please use proper decorum there are nine citizens signed up to speak at the public hearing this evening i

008will call the first four speakers up to the front row please take a seat in the front row and come up to the podium when you hear your name is called for any speakers who are signed up to speak who are seated in the atrium please proceed to the open entrance to the public meeting room and you will be directed to the front so the first four speakers i have on the budget are and i apologize if i mispronounce anybody's names jennifer rokowski ashley berger elaine davido and steven lorenz jennifer rickowski hi sorry we they're working on audio out there all right good evening school board members and dr mcdade my name is jennifer rakowski and i reside in the aquacon district supporting our students means investing in our staff one of our strategic priorities

009is to provide regionally competitive wages and this budget invests 61 million to provide for teachers and staff a 4.2 cost of living adjustment and a step increase resulting in an average pay increase of seven percent for most employees the seven percent raise is what was promised to many of us as an automatic and annual increase when we were hired by prince william county the steps were supposed to be tied directly to our years of service with cost of living increases given whenever the federal government recommends it when the great recession hit over 10 years ago teachers were asked to help sacrifice for the locality by freezing steps for foregoing their cola and paying for more out of pocket the county has recovered it's time to show our teachers specialists support staff and central office staff

010that we have appreciated their sacrifice and their current service to our students and community we can all agree that northern virginia is more expensive than the counties surrounding us to the south in fact the current prince william county cost of living is over 26 percent above the national average we can also agree that having staff living in the area that they in the area that they work helps build community and builds for better staff morale however our average starting teacher salary is still over fifteen thousand dollars below the national average average rent in manassas virginia is over fifteen hundred dollars almost the entire monthly salary of a new employee us inflation calculators show 7.5 this is the cola that is being recommended by social service administration a seven percent salary increase a step plus a

011small cola won't cover it in reality it should be a seven percent cola plus the step for that employee's um employment scale if you want excuse me educators are quitting the profession all together news reports show that teacher prep classes are at all time low for enrollment the same can be said for our education support professionals which we've seen through bus driver shortages and our difficulty finding tas and other staff the high intensity tutoring that was proposed seemed like a great start for helping our students build their academic skills however many of my colleagues and teacher friends report that they're just too overwhelmed and overworked to give up their planning to do it or offer times outside of contract hours and they've been unable to find qualified and willing participants for parent volunteers community members

012or retired teachers if you want to recruit and retain the best put the money up towards salaries those staff members who have been in the county for years and have missed steps let's elevate them to the step we should be on if the steps weren't skipped let's do a seven to eight percent cola to cover the rest of inflation thank you thank you miss bojo ashley berger all right we can come back elaine deveraux good evening i'm aileen devereaux and i'm appearing from the gainesville district i stand before you to express unwavering support for the superintendent's proposed fy 23 budget we say as parents it's important to advocate for our children will i agree so let's support a budget that identifies 35 new peer liaisons provides 100 new kindergarten assistants 800 special education assistants and

013an assistant principal for each middle school all schools will now have a full-time gifted education teacher that doesn't just support gifted education students but all children through outreach and there's been valid concerns about school safety so let's fund a budget that provides 30 security assistance for secondary schools as well as security cameras and radios and as a three-year member of the no place for hate committee i appreciate the additional funding to ensure that we provide inclusive and safer schools and this budget provides pay raises for our deserving teachers that have weathered a pandemic new technology just to teach our children now next month is equity and education month and we as community members should want each child to be the best or he she can be but we should recognize that that process does not

014take away from the development or trajectory of our own children it does not investing in our community's children only make us faster stronger smarter better think of a garden some flowers and plants need sunlight while others need shade to thrive some may need more water some may need weeding fertilizer pruning to thrive but we never deny the plants what they need to grow in our yards we need our plants and flowers based on their needs why should our blessed children be any less the budget is a commitment to eighty-nine thousand children to make them a priority because we want them to be successful we have the ability we have the resources to serve all children for ocacorn to woodbridge and of course gainesville we just need to do what is decent not extraordinary just what

015is decent however there are those among us they want to show confusion and ultimately they want us to cut off our noses in spite of our faces there are people who are rather underinvested disinvest in our future generation our children that one day will be in charge well i'm not with that when the time comes i want the younger people to know how to read write think critically and so on our children are watching us and they're watching you they want us to put our energy in supporting bettering our schools partnering with our teachers and staff not getting bogged down in nonsense remember the gospel of luke chapter 10 verses 25 and 37 the good samaritan who is our neighbor it is not based on race class economic status primary language spoken at home learning

016ability and not even district and definitely not masking parents and board members you have 89 000 neighbors precious children that are dependent on you to support this budget thank you thank you steven lawrence i'm going to call the next [Music] no and then come back to those who weren't here for it so um kenneth narr ali iman maggie hansford john d crown james carter wiley and i'll come back to kenneth narr hello my name is maggie hansford and my address is on file with the clerk thank you superintendent mcdade and school board members i'm here tonight to speak in favor of the budget our students remain our number one priority knowing that our greatest impact for each student is to fund our classrooms this means adequate resources and staffing to make this possible our educators

017deserve a livable wage the ability to work and live here and plan adequately for retirement we need to address this year's compensation along with the pay scale adjustment required to address compression wages which means when employees are stagnant on the pay scale when new employees are receiving higher starting salaries an annual raise allows for our employees to provide their families financially with daily living costs consistent movement on the pay scale ensures a pathway to retirement we need to make sure our compensation package addresses recruitment and retention and i believe that this budget does that a livable wage is crucial for retention of our educators during a nationwide teacher shortage we want our public servants to live and work here our educators build trust in our community by raising their families here and building mean meaningful

018relationships they shop at our local businesses buy a home and pay taxes here i appreciate dr mcdade for your tremendous efforts during this first year and the strategic plan i also thank the board for your continued focus on ensuring our students receive a world-class education i'm confident that this budget will reflect our community's priorities and for that i thank you all thank you miss hanford [Music] john d crown or james carter wiley i'm just going to name them again and then we'll move on ashley berger stephen lorenz kenneth narr ali imam john d crown james carter wiley we will as being there are not present and there are no other citizens signed up to speak on the subject i declare the public hearing closed i'd like now to call the meeting of the princeton county

019school board to order we will start with the pledge of allegiance would you mind leading us today individuals 1301 approval of the public meeting agenda moving on to the approval of the public meeting agenda emotion is in order madam vice chair thank you mr i move that the prince william county school board approved the public meeting agenda as recommended i second miss saga for seconds thank you miss vasten do you have a vote yes thank you the vote is seven yes one absent dr latif motion passed thank you adoption at the consent agenda no motion yes ma'am emotion isn't one of the things i removed that the princeton county school board approved the public meeting consent agenda as recommended are there any discussion miss miss wahl i second okay miss well um i wanted to

020speak to one item on the uh on the consent agenda i wanted to speak to item 14.03 so while i continue to have concerns about how equity initiatives will be implemented and in the past we have warned and continue to voice concerns about the potential for government overreach in our implementation i however support equity in the broadest sense especially as it relates to best practices for fairness and opportunity for all students and as it helps us identify and meet the individual academic needs of each and every student so i wanted to point out in september 2016 in an initiative that had broad support county wide gainesville district predecessor on the board ms satterwhite along with mr deutsch from kohl's district and other board members across the county voted to quote add commitment to equity to

021the pi title of policy zero six zero so that policy was renamed non-discrimination and commitment to equity it's strictly in this sense that i support continuing the work envisioned by that board my predecessor ms satterwhite and other former board members who unanimously joined with several current members of this board to establish the superintendent's advisory council on equity back in 2019 and who each appointed representatives to that equity council during my brief time on the board i have strived to stay true to that vision and i continue that tradition by continued that tradition by appointing my own representative to that equity council mr justin kane who serves on that committee and helps oversee the division's equity efforts to support each and every student in their goals so with that same approach to equity that we're talking

022about here and for these reasons i think it's important to express my support for the resolution inspired by vsba designating march as equity in education month mrs williams thank you madam vice chair jackson um i too want to speak to 1403 as someone who just recently attended an equity summit specific to education and this was my third year doing so i am proud of the work that prince william county has made a commitment to do in equity for those who aren't familiar with our definition of equity it is in our strategic plan defined in the back i know there's a lot of misconception about equity being the definite meaning equal outcomes for all but that is not true i would highly encourage anyone who is not familiar to look it up in the back of

023the strategic plan but um having said that i think it's important that we recognize this resolution so i'm going to read it it is equity in education month march 2022 whereas equity in schools has become increasingly significant focus in the united states virginia and prince william county and whereas prince william county public schools has become a global school division and whereas we recognize that factors including but not limited to disability race ethnicity culture language geographical location and socioeconomic status must be considered when providing educational opportunities to students and whereas the mission of ensuring every student will graduate on time with the knowledge skills and habit of habits of mind necessary to create a thriving future for themselves and their community is essential for every child to be successful in school and life and whereas it

024is important for prince william county's families students teachers support staff and school administrators to be aware of the diverse needs and capabilities of learners and to encourage discussion of the challenges as a school community and whereas the superintendent of prince william county schools has established the superintendent's advisory council on equity to make recommendations to the superintendent and to stay at the forefront of discussions on equity in schools and whereas we recognize that equity and resources including but not limited to educational settings supplies technology staffing and buildings impact student learning and development and whereas we recognize that we must look at everything we do through an equity lens because equity is an action word now therefore be it resolved the prince william county school board and the superintendent of schools proclaim march the month of march

0252022 as equity and education month in prince william county public schools spotlighting and educational equity excuse me spotlighting educational equity and best practices for all of our students i really appreciate this measure of someone who's pushed this for a very long time and i stand firm in my commitment for equity for all of our students and staff and communities i'd also like to recognize that this is going to be purchasing month as someone who has done procurement in the past i think it everyone in procurement deserves recognition i see you mr wallingford they are a hidden gem in our school division they keep us afloat within standards and we have not had a procurement issue i at least in my living memory and they don't often get recognized so i just want to say that

026we appreciate everything that you do for us it is yeoman's work to make sure that we are in compliance so thank you it's jesse uh good evening i took my mask off because i've been told that you can't hear me in the back i wanted to talk about uh 1403 and i wanted to bring the i know people have said that they were looking at equity and they started equity but i wanted to bring the attention that in 2016 miss diane roston ms rita goss and also mrs hart and i went to roanoke and we met with the superintendent of schools in roanoke virginia doctor bishop and it was with that patriotic meeting that this county came up with his equity report card and we have been pushing equity for a long time there's a

027there's a little um there's a graphic where there's a the three kids and you talk about the difference between equality and equity i honestly when i look at some of the things that are happening in the county right now we're not even at that equality level in some instances so we need to move on with that but i wanted to recognize mrs ross and mrs goss and miss hart because we had a good ride down there but we i'm on that challenging school committee and that's where i met dr bishop and that equity report card is something that is something that we can look at and determine where directions and looking at not just academic but infrastructure and various items i also want to talk about uh 1406 social workers i know we're adding social

028workers and there's i'm hearing all sorts of uh problems in schools and as i read the confidential reports each week i am amazed at the number of students that are involved in behavioral situation in fact i got a call today from a parent and uh he said i want to talk to you about something happened at my school and my child did this to my child that did that and he said oh by the way uh he mentioned suicide and i said have you talked to a social worker have you talked to a psychologist i it's something that we really need i'm so proud of the social workers and the psychologists because this mental health issue is something that we need to address the business honor roll when i came on this board i was

029a big college bound person because i'm the first one in my family to go to college but i have come to respect mr wright and the business community and career education and i'm very pleased that we're going to have a relationship with the business community finally 1408 down syndrome special education many of you do not know that my background was in special ed but that my husband's sister was a down syndrome student at this hospital where i work and so it's a personal relationship and i've seen many strides in terms of the life expectancy of down syndrome students and i wanted to bring attention to that so thank you any further discussion boston we can't hear you miss ralston thank you so the vote is seven yes one not president i'm one absent from vote

030dr latif motion passed all right the next section is 15 citizen comments those citizens who have signed up in advance at the clerk may address the school board this evening when they are called to the podium the citizen common period for the regular school board meetings is in limited to one hour with the first half hour reserved for comments on agenda items only and the second half hour for comments on agenda items are other topics germane to operations and policies of prince william county schools citizens signed up to speak on agenda items must speak to the agenda item they have identified or they will be asked to step down we have 10 min 10 speakers on agenda items and 10 on non-agenda items speakers will have three minutes to speak please use proper decorum and

031manners while at the podium if you do not do so you will be asked to step aside when you are called to the podium please state your name and address for the record and again for any speakers who are signed up to speak who are seated in the atrium please proceed to the open entrance to the public meeting room and you will be directed to the front i will start by calling the first five speakers to the front please take a seat in the front row and come to the podium when you hear your name called again i apologize for mispronouncing anyone's names the first five speakers are cynthia kilmer amanda ballard william deutsch erica tudenek and jennifer carrafort first cynthia kilmer good evening my name is cindy kilmer my address is on file with

032the clerk thank you mrs wall mrs jackson and dr latif for placing mandatory weekly testing on the agenda for tonight two weeks ago i presented to you the facts that clearly prove why the resolution of ensuring safe learning in a safe workplace are no longer valid it logically and legally makes no sense and i think those of you who have listened with open ears to understand that there is no fault in change circumstances change data changes necessity changes the new metrics you must look to are focused on social and emotional effects this resolution has caused enormous stress and anxiety on some of your best staff no american should ever be worried about complying with something that violates their rights simply to put food on their table our rights are no ones to take and are

033certainly not for sale for coveted relief money these staff members have struggled worrying about themselves their families the burden on their colleagues and of course their students we care for our students and do this job for far more than a paycheck it is a passion that we chose and love the county keeps referring to learning loss and has asked our teachers to conduct remediation and tutoring sessions outside of contract hours to help our students with lost skills this is so contradictory when you consider the hundreds of certified teachers that this resolution would remove from the classroom our students need a return to normalcy not more disruption unvaccinated staff and students are not a threat to the schools and the climate that has been created by these policies is causing division it is no one's business

034to know a person's vaccination status the execution which was stated by the resolution to be overseen by the superintendent and her staff is full of errors and practices that violate the american disabilities act and the basic privacy the eeoc has made it clear that disclosure of an employee's vaccination status should be information gathered only by human resources and should be kept confident confidential separate from the employee's personal files principles are being emailed weekly reports listing staff that must test and the testing locations are at schools in plain sight of students staff and parents these are there are multiple signs posted throughout the parking lots that specifically say pwcs coveted employee testing there have been this has been nothing but confidential now that the virginia has passed senate bill 739 it is time to allow masks

035to be a choice please remove masks without imposing new mitigation measures that divide isolate and segregate the students unmath students are not a threat to the school the most beautiful thing about what virginia has passed is that it is not forcing anyone to not wear a mask anyone who wishes to wear a mask is of course welcome to do so and at this point free will should be the only mitigation measure stop contract tracing your students 97 of students who have gone home due to coveted contact tracing never become positive these policies are demanding your student or damaging your students in ways that no one in this world is prepared to fix this damage is avoidable and needs to be stopped the new the need to reverse covet protocols become evident when counties like faulkier

036literally miles away have removed masks stopped contact tracing and do not test their teachers covetous does not is not smart enough to stop at the border between prince william and faulkier tonight please remove the reverse the weekly staff testing please begin dialogue that moves towards providing your students and staff the ability to attend school at the discretion of their own personal mitigation um so we have the folks speaking on the agenda items and i would ask you to continue to speak on just the agenda items that you signed up for that would be very helpful next would be amanda ballard after her will be william deutsch and erica trendenik miss ballard hello i'm mandy and i am a mother out of gainesville sometimes parents don't agree with the board that's essential and healthy part of

037democracy however when one side stops participating in dialogue trust in the process begins to fade if it continues trust is lost completely this is the strategy the board has adopted they'd rather file lawsuits aimed at institutionalizing segregation instead of responding to parents concerned regarding the treatment of their children so an effort to give you the members of the board and superintendent one chance at doing the job you were elected to do i have come down here tonight so you can publicly defend your actions on february 1st my six eight and ten-year-old children and only my children who were protected by a religious exemption from mass for nearly six months were suddenly escorted from their classrooms like criminals abruptly denied their education and placed in the front office separated from teachers and peers the entire day

038is ballard no i need to be able to speak to you dr mcdade will not respond to my emails none of you will i have sat and emailed and called and the only person that has emailed me back was jen wall and she asked for dr mcdade to respond to me and i would like to be able to finish my speech because it is my i am here on behalf of my children that you guys have segregated this has happened in the past and it's not going to happen to my children again i should be allowed to finish my speech you've denied people out there the ability to speak the whole point is on section 18 i think the 18.1 on you guys saying that you guys don't want the 30-day posting requirement this is

039the reason why because you guys are trying to pass you are trying to pass policies and hide them i've been told that all of this stuff was based off policy this isn't policy you've referenced me to 275-2 it's not a policy it's not a policy and no one and no one no one has been able to give me the policy stating that my kids are in violation of anything of medical masking or any of that stuff so i should have the right to speak and it's very inappropriate of you to cut me off but i'll be done now and you won't be done hearing from me because guess what i'm a domestic engineer and the job that i have is to continue to advocate and fight for my children it's not done william deutsch and

040uh remind the speakers please speak to the agenda item you said you would thank you mr chairman members of the board i'm here to speak to agenda item 18.02 agenda item 18.02 as a policy change is under consideration this board meeting what that policy change would do would allow for this school division to issue regulations with no notice to the public it strikes out the requirement for a 30-day notice of regulations to the public and changes it to zero so what this policy could do is allow the superintendent to issue a regulation at 5 pm on tuesday night that would take effect at the start of school on the next morning policy like this is highly problematic the na the reason given in the justification document for this policy is quote efficiency efficiency is not

041the only reason why we pass legislation but as we're seeing in other agenda items here today the board is having to revisit their decisions because of their failures in looking at and addressing things so when you look at long-term efficiency long-term efficiency means that you measure twice and cut once you don't rush policies through you don't rush regulations through without any notice to the public and that is what this board is considering doing changing um the other issue with this policy is that in general this board has done a very poor job of spelling out policies policies have been rushed through under this board through the consent agenda with very little discussion with very little amendments and so when you have policies that spell out very little and give almost all the control to the

042superintendent for what those details are and then you're going to change the implementation of any topic under the sun with no notice to the public quite frankly that is the type of thing that builds up distrust and frustration from the public i've seen i've seen things change very quickly here and for this board to move forward with this policy in the name of efficiency and continue their efficient practice of silencing the public pushing them out of the dialogue and ignoring them by advancing this policy would be wrong so it's time for this board to reverse course and again take up what we did under the last board and that was prioritize public input and listening to the public thank you miss erica trendini i just don't want to be cut off like my friend i

043i did sign up to speak on two different agenda items so if they only wrote down one i did put the two bullets in there so i just want to make sure i don't get cut off halfway through yeah i have you down for second quarter performance and update 18 points okay can i restart my time please start the clock my name is erica tredenek and i live in the brunsville district i'm here to talk to you about your continued ridiculous response to this pandemic i have fought from the beginning to send our kids back and unmask them i've spoken to you about the emotional mental and physical toll this has taken on my children unfortunately we tried to go mask free at the beginning of the year and only one of our schools honored

044that request but it came with segregation mitigation that was exclusionary and uninclusive so my teens didn't want that kind of education and chose to comply recently they have wanted to go ask what haven't wanted to go mask free and fear of not being able to play the sports they love they are constantly living in fear worried because our personal medical choices they will have to quarantine because yet another vaccinated and masked kid has magically gotten covered and they are a close contact do you hear how stupid that sounds their grades have suffered their sweet clear faces have increased acne from face diapers enough is enough our children should not have to live in fear or make choices between normal teen activities and life without a mask you have also denied us rights as parents i'm

045not allowed to step foot in one of my son's schools unless i show vaccination status or a negative test but i'm able to enter both of our kids other schools and attend sporting events packed with hundreds of people but you'll only let 40 people in this room again the stupidity hypocrisy and inconsistency is overwhelming what you have done to our teachers and ask them to do is a huge violation of their rights as well making them test or vaccinate or get out where's the freedom i'm also here to say to you that although our governor just signed a law ensuring that our children don't have to wear a mask anymore i'm still weary of what choices you'll make over the next few weeks i will not forget that every single one of you every single

046one of you on the school board voted in favor of masking our children vaccinating our teachers and suing our governor you choose you may choose tonight to take that back this evening but you can't be trusted and the damage you have done to our kids is irreparable this dumb game that we've been playing has gone on too long and filtered through your hands please know that once the masks come off we won't stop there we won't allow your silly mitigation strategies to keep harming our kids we will continue to fight for our kids and their futures and we will do everything we can to replace every single one of you on this board with people that care about our kids teachers and their futures we are watching and paying attention to the continued tricks and

047rule amendments you're trying to escape by us you continue to not want to be held accountable you flip flop when it benefits you we are watching and on high alert and will not continue to allow you to abuse our children the unmasking will be wonderful but the overtaking will be glorious and i also would like to thank you dr latif for your tweets today in favor of unmasking our children and i hope that you back that up now that an election year is coming a point of order mr chairman mr chairman point of order mr chairman all right let's try to maintain decorum in the room please please have proper decorum okay we have jennifer carroll foy next and then kimberly stewart and kaylee bruton good evening i'm jennifer carroll foy and i live in

048woodbridge and my children go to school in woodbridge i want to thank the school board and dr mcday for all of your hard work and dedication to prince william county family students teachers support staff and school administrators i'm here today to speak about my support of the equity and education resolution our children are diverse with diverse needs actively promoting equity in the classroom helps remove barriers so all of our students can succeed and when every student has the resources they need everyone thrives some students need and deserve more help such as our children with autism cerebral palsy english as a second language learners and adhd the evidence tells us educational equity will produce better social economic and civic outcomes for both individuals and entire communities equity in schools has become an increasingly significant focus in

049this country it is important for prince william county to be aware of the diverse needs of learners and to encourage discussion of the challenges as a school community i again thank you our community thanks you our commonwealth thanks you for all of the hard work that you all are doing and all of the harassment that you all receive but you are standing the moral high ground in doing what's right for the people in this community thank you so much [Applause] kimberly stewart let him get excited first my name is kimberly stewart my address is on file educators have enjoyed endured an incredible amount of pressure and challenge the past two and a half years they have sacrificed a lot to show up every day to do their very best in an ever-changing and ever-demanding landscape

050of shifting expectations to do the most with often the least today i'm here to urge you to vote yes to suspend the september 15 2021 resolution that will remove valuable and impactful teachers and staff from our schools and further negatively impact our students these teachers and staff deserve our respect the utmost integrity and right to refuse medically mandated vaccination or required testing they deserve the right to refuse a medical procedure forced upon them without their consent and to not have to choose between their health or their livelihood if this school board votes to keep the unscientific highly political policy you will be choosing to lose impactful and irreplaceable staff that are valued and loved members of this community by students parents and their schools civil liberties are rights guaranteed to us under the u.s constitution

051they have been described and interpreted as natural rights which are inherent to each person and constitutionally protected right to privacy being one of them i urge you to uphold the humanity integrity of our system and vote yes to suspend the resolution these are teachers and staff that inspire encourage uplift support and love our children and they deserve to be treated with dignity and respect good teachers are hard to find great teachers are impossible to replace recent and current cova policies this board has and continue to implement are outdated unscientific rooted in political theater and aren't harmful to our students as we learn more about the cost and risk of mass mandates force vaccination flood testing and practical quarantine and tracing and the harm of lockdowns it must be made known that the outdated policies have

052no place in our county and no place forced upon our children and the staff of this district i urge you to vote tonight to do the right thing to move our county in the right direction to get back on the right track and get back to focusing on the most important job of providing students with pwcs a world-class education that treats all of its stakeholders majority and minority with dignity respect and human decency i commend the teachers who have pushed back on this flawed policy and the parents who have stood up to the tyrannical policies on children when it comes to covet 19. in the words of martin luther king one is not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws conversely one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws an

053individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust and who willingly accepts the penalty in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice is reality expressing the highest respect of the law please vote yes to end the resolution thanks for the privilege to hog the mic tonight [Music] bruton um haley brewton callie ali good evening i'm here tonight to speak again on behalf of the staff members that are working under discriminatory policies and the looming threat of unpaid leave and eventual termination result of your resolution from september if it is enforced it has been said that those of us that are speaking up are only a minority the fringe the few unaccepted with extreme beliefs far right less than whatever the label it may be but these labels have been

054weaponized and will punish anyone who doesn't shut up and comply while i know my personal wish for our path through the pandemic had gone a little different i understand it was a confusing time but lately we have seemed to accept that segregation and discrimination such as these policies are necessary and as many call it for the greater good or for health and safety but it is not 1963 it is not 2021. it is not acceptable to sacrifice our freedoms for the greater good because with the data we've gathered the numbers we've tallied the vaccines time tested and the results verified we have gained clarity it is no longer about health and safety and the political theater needs to end it is time to admit the mistakes and the wrong doings it is time to make

055a change the disastrous results of the public school system attempting to become a health care management facility was more than enough we stated this last week but what hasn't ended is our medical and religious beliefs being slandered vilified and publicly placed in the view of everyone to judge all while the shaming done from this department and the threats of what would happen to us is hidden and why is that i believe it's because those put in charge of this policy and these mandates consider us to be the fringe consider us to be less than human consider us expendable and worth losing my mental health has all but killed me this year it is completely as a result of these policies and the vicious treatment of the health department i'm sorry the human resources department and

056the prince william county cova team i have been called a danger to my community told i will be excluded from work and hearing these things over and over sent to my personal cell phone called and had messages sent upon me week after week has made it hell my whole heart goes into my work i work so that my students feel encouraged safe and welcome to share their beliefs their feelings and do their best work but you have not given us the same respect i do not feel encouraged i do not feel heard i do not feel safe and i cannot do my best work under these circumstances upholding this resolution and clinging to the past will do permanent damage to our community in closing i'll read for you the equity statement that you hold so

057dear and that we should stand behind prince william county is committed to inclusive practices that promote equity for all this statement does not say for those who believe the majority who those who stand with a political belief who those who are willing to comply with our medical advice it says for all please be inclusive please continue to strive for excellence please respect us and please vote to rescind this resolution thank you [Applause] jalen custis jalen jalen custis please refrain from mr custis thank you hello good evening uh superintendent mcday members of the school board uh first of all i'll be speaking on eight uh 18.01 and um i'm a wood i'm from woodbridge uh first of all i'd like to make this clear that uh if you compare this to discrimination and segregation and try

058to compare it to what happened in 1963 you are very ignorant that that is that's just how to say that and also hold on one second let's just let's let the speaker speak please no cheering on from from anyone on this let's just let each speaker speak so we can all hear them mr cuss thank you that was just my side note uh my name is jayla custis i'm a senior at forest park high school i'm also the sca president there i was here last monday giving my opinion and suggestions on the proposed budget tonight i'm here to say my opinion on 18.01 which is to suspend teachers and other staff members from habit to be vaccinated against covert 19 or go against weekly testing you know go through weekly testing uh now i asked

059myself why would the same school board who is concerned about the safety of our students teachers and staff members want to repeal this resolution we would why would the same school board who is suing the governor over mass mandates roll back on a policy that is ensuring the safety of our staff and students as student as a student of prince william county public schools and someone who has been following this topic heavily it's quite confusing in multiple statements made by dr midday she stressed the importance of following cdc guidelines and recommendations that all the division that all the decisions made regarding cove it were for the safety of everyone which i totally agree with but what i do disagree with is picking and choosing what to follow if the health and safety of our teachers

060and students are so important then why do we go the whole night why don't we go the whole nine yards of following the cdc guidelines why we can't expect students and staff to be safe if we only follow some of the guidelines we can't expect to make an apple pie without apples i do i do know that the the county still recommends getting vaccinated if you if you can but for the same reason that the teachers are getting a choice whether or not to be vaccinated the parents and students should get a choice whether or not to wear a mask even though the general assembly and the governor are going to get rid of it by march 1st the school board should uphold it i see students even some teachers not wearing their masks properly

061they are useless especially at this point if the school board seems to want to roll back on this uh i want to reiterate that if you pass this resolution you're giving the teachers a choice but what about the students and parents where's our choice i would like to make this clear that this is not this statement is not like representing my views it's just for something for you guys to think about it's just an opinion in closing you may wonder why a student here is trying to affect something that has to do with teachers as i said last week and as i said to my school board member mr justin will privately this the decisions that you make strongly this is the decisions that you make don't affect you it affects us the students greatly

062i hope you strongly consider my words and think about your future actions especially when it comes to covert related matters uh i hope we can go get over this kobe thing i do agree that you should have a choice and i hope we uphold that and not waste our time because we have more important issues and i'm i'm upset that i have to actually take time to speak about this when there's more important issues going on in our county thank you and have a good night carrie dagenhart carrie terry daggenheart and then martha cutsinger will be last please folks let her get through her speech good evening my name is terry daggenheart and my address is on file i want to thank you for your time tonight and especially for having the employee testing on

063the agenda this is my 25th year of teaching and my eighth in prince william county schools every year it seems that my job grows requiring more of my time more of my efforts and more of me the last two years of course have been the hardest years i've spent however not once have i regretted choosing this profession it fills me to be with my students and to see them learn it strengthens me when i get emails and messages from previous students and parents telling me that i'm still one of their favorites it empowers me when these messages tell me that i was the only teacher who ever really understood them recently i received a message from a parent who had been talking with her girl about teachers who'd had a positive impact the girl said

064that i stood alone at the top she said mrs dagenhart was amazing and just understood that i learned things differently and once i get it i just soak it up i remember having those conversations with this girl many times she's always wanted to go into medicine but now she's contemplating being a math teacher now that is empowering to know that five years later i still have that much impact on a student and just as empowering as hearing from another parent that there is a wave of relief that washes over her when she sees my name on that postcard every august i've had three of her four children this year though things have changed with the passage of the resolution ensuring safe learning in a safe workplace on september 15th being told that i must be

065vaccinated or regularly test for covid or lose my job was rather shocking i couldn't believe that was happening here in america the land of the free then the message changed if i didn't test i would be written up for insubordination then put on unpaid leave and if that didn't convince me well then i would be dismissed from my job i have invested my life into i felt so betrayed by the very profession i have been so dedicated to for so long to feel that all of my efforts and care and love didn't matter as much as getting a shot or being tested every week for a virus that every person can get and spread was devastating i have seriously had thoughts of leaving no job no matter the love for it is worth betraying myself

066and my strongly held religious beliefs i have felt dejected and sad in september and the anxiety over losing this profession that i need has been immense so tonight it is with a grateful heart that i am here filled with hope and expectation that i and so many of my colleagues who i'm sure have very similar stories to mine will no longer need to face the premature and bitter end of our life's calling being a teacher i ask you tonight to please help us to be free to teach thank you martha cutzinger good evening hello thanks again for the opportunity i'm here to speak tonight on the equity resolution which as you know is a repeat of previous resolutions the may 2021 equity statement and of the vdoe guidance and incidentally few people in the previous

067years where equity has been a subject have understood what equity is or its agenda but thousands of us understand what it is now equity statement i'm sorry did any of you by the way marches at equity month replaced march um is women's history month did anyone object to that at all because i do your equity committee cites the vdoe and ad equity guidance as its first source your committee that helped you draft the statements that you spot that your resolutions and statements also the states what the says website states this quote education equity is achieved when we eliminate the predictability of student outcomes based on race gender zip code abilities socio economic status or languages spoken at home our definition of education equity is informed by student-centered outcome data the ed equity guidance that is

068your source cites numerous sources amongst them glory lads and billings ibram candy and the national equity project and i'm going to talk a little bit about all three your source labs and billings created culturally responsive pedagogy which led to culturally responsive instruction now required for teacher licensing in virginia i think you know that her 1995 paper titled toward a critical race theory in education was the genesis of culturally responsive instruction last march in the vdoe webinar on equity in culturally responsive instruction for all teachers the the flowchart detailing a culturally responsive teacher used the publication critical race theory today as its source your source the national equity project explains in detail on its website how to defend against the criticisms of crt in schools they reference systemic oppression and equity together from an american bar

069association article article entitled a lesson on critical race theory crt co-founder kimberly crenshaw notes quote crt is not a noun but a verb just like your equity resolution talks about equity the article refers to glory lads and billings as one of the originators of crt your source for your equity documents and to quote mr candy the defining question is whether the discrimination is creating equity or inequity if the discrimination is creating equity then it is anti-racist if the discrimination is creating inequity then it is racist you're supporting discrimination finally you are not reinventing the wheel here you are not using a different definition of equity than virginia department of education i'm sorry you were trying to by saying that it's based only on opportunity it's based on outcomes you're not reinventing the wheel on what's

070next or what road you're going to take to equity there's one road there's one agenda it's disastrous for all students and it's based on outcomes and you will never be satisfied on those outcomes you will continue to judge your opportunity based on outcomes stop lying to us please thank you very much so we're moving to the um next list there are non-agenda items we have margaret franklin richard jesse derrick wood margaret franklin good evening i am supervisor margaret franklin vice chair of the board of county supervisors representing the woodbridge district thank you for the opportunity to speak and thank you for presenting your strategic plan it's a wonderful opportunity to move prince william county forward i want to first start by thanking our school board for the work that you have done over the past

071year couple of years and making sure that our students have the best learning environment possible under a pandemic i also want to thank our teachers for stepping up to the plate and adjusting their learning plans to ensure our students are receiving a good education under difficult circumstances never in my life have i seen teachers be vilified in the manner that i've seen over the past couple of years you are underpaid overworked yet one thousand percent committed to your students and you should be thanked for your hard work lastly i want to thank our parents this has been a tough two years for everyone and you had the difficult task of making sure your children were focused while participating in distance learning we should all thank our parents because no one side of these controversial issues

072that we've had can take ownership of support for our parents we all support our parents thank you [Applause] richard richard jesse oh sorry richard jesse my name is richard jesse my address is on file and my wife is on the school board thank you have some order in the back please thank you it's an interesting chair that uh i appreciate you asking for order because you didn't do it last week and you needed to you know one of the things talking about black history month and something one thing i would recommend the board to consider is that we have the schools have a day or so to recognize the naming of their schools many of these schools in in the county are named after people and after a certain amount of years nobody know why

073their name that and i would recommend that but let's talk about some of the issues tonight you know people have a feeling that they have a right to freedom well we have a right for freedom we have a right to say we don't want you to be teaching our kids not wearing masks not being vaccinated and insisting that you have the right we have the right to say no to you and you know people on the other side want to say we want our freedom we have the right well i'm happy tonight that we have people and i would ask everyone who support me to stand up in this room because we have a right and we now have some people to tell you that they are not the only one talking and i'm tired

074of him and i appreciate you coming tonight and so forth you know people talking about emotional control what do you think about our kids who and parents who have people kids who are sick who have immune deficiency having been taught by somebody who has not have a mask on sitting with kids who are having no experience in fact i'd i'd like to have some order please let's just wrap this up go ahead mr jesse no i would i will wrap it up but give me my you know claim my time you know all i want to say is again we need to come out and we need to speak out because if we don't speak up the other side will dominate this board thank you [Applause] come on folks that's enough mr derrick wood derrick

075wood thank you thank you mr chair vice chair members of this board i don't make it a practice to come to other people's meetings but uh it's a pleasure i'm the mayor of the town of dumfries i come as a as a husband of a teacher who works in the system also as a father who has a child in the system um first of all to to my elected i i just want to commend you for your leadership and serve i think being an elected official is one of the most unappreciated jobs and i don't think a lot of people understand the policy making leadership to me is like the capacity to influence others through inspiration motivated by passion generated by vision produced by a conviction that's ignited by a purpose i want to say

076that that change is one of the constant things and growth and change is uncomfortable in anything you do and so i want to commend you for the decisions you make i just want to say as you make these decisions continue to let your conscience be your guide right continue to vote your values and the things that you believed in we all know that um you've been elected to serve as a as a leader in your community and the voice i want to speak to also um dr mcdade you've been here for less than a year um july 1st you came in and just going over your strategic plan all 58 pages compared to the previous strategic plan and i want to commend you for just the vision that you've done in launching thriving futures um

077the research i didn't go and check all the references but i definitely like the research the glossary returns how you broke down the profiles of the students it reminds me almost of a disc assessment and just to be able to be able to relate to those students and so i just want to let you all know that i support what you all are doing here the decisions that you've been elected to do continue to make those tough decisions and continue to let your conscience be your government as a community leader i don't get to come here that often but i just want to say thank you for your work that you do and continue to serve with passion cozy bailey okay uh good evening everyone uh chairman lachief dr mcdade and other board members my

078name is cozy bailey i'm the president of the prince william naacp and my address is on file i currently reside in the potomac district that's ably represented on this board by mr justin will i have a few words to say tonight but i wanted to kind of divert from that for a moment uh you've heard some pretty vitriolic speech tonight uh as a social justice advocate and one who's highly passionate i know that sometimes the vitriolic speech is very effective unfortunately the vitriol that you've heard tonight misses the mark so you know there there are certain seasons during the year and when for instance when easter comes around i like to watch the movie the ten commandments some of you probably do too when christmas time comes around i'm a sucker for it's a wonderful

079life but here during black history month i continue to watch over and over again that 1987 14 part series called eyes on the prize and as i've been watching that this month i thought it appropriate for me to come to you and to remind you all to keep your eyes on the prize you have a north star uh and and and your prize in my opinion is the strategic plan that was created and delivered and now under implementation uh by dr mcdade it has four simple but comprehensive goals or commitments you know and i carry this around with me my little cheat sheet uh number one is learning an achievement for all positive climate and culture family and community engagement and organizational coherence and then as my good friend mayor wood has already said very

080detailed information follows from that and i would tell you that that is your prize that is where you should keep your eyes we it was done by our the team that's put together by a professional and passionate and courageous superintendent she came to us well prepared well experienced but when she arrived here she did her due diligence in order to create and to try to live up to this mantra that we've had here for years providing a world-class education so i say again keep your eyes on the prize as you go through this the challenges are going to be many and you're going to be under attack as you have been tonight but continue to keep your eyes on the prize don't fall victim and pray to the contrived culture wars that people will try

081to bring in here because what is important is to keep our eyes on the prize of a world-class education for the children of this community prince william county thank you so much for your attention tonight mr joshua king josh king good evening board my name is josh king my address is on file i come here tonight as a parent with three children in public schools at one high school or one middle school and one in elementary i'm happy to say that my kids have come back to school after being out for a while and they're doing well i'm here tonight for several reasons uh first i want to commend dr mcday for her incredible strategic plan uh the pay increases for our hard-working teachers and the support for our special needs is one big thing

082that hits on for me i think it's long overdue that we take care of our teachers and especially our special needs teachers um i want to thank you for making sure our special needs students are not an afterthought for far too long children like my daughter has not been a priority thank you for working hard to change that finally i want to thank you i want to talk about the amazing teachers who risk their lives every day they are hard-working public servants and they deserve a shot at collective bargaining i believe that they need a voice and now it's time for them to move forward thank you so much makiya little after makia little be chloe murphy shawn daly and noveta scott and then emmett fletcher but we'll go with mikey a little greetings dr

083mcdade chairman latif and members of the prince william county school board i would like to speak with my fellow co-parents this evening once upon a time an education was something afforded only to those with the resources and means to send their children to school foregoing their labor and contributions to their households horse man a pioneer of american public schools in the 19th century famously called education the great equalizer of the conditions of men the claim has been widely accepted as universal ever since so tonight i have a question if a public education is supposed to be the great equalizer why are so many objections to equity work and equity minded thought within public schools if your child gets to see themselves and their ancestors reflected in the curriculum then my child should have the same

084opportunity to feel connected to the concepts of their lesson plans if you want your child to learn alongside my child and breathe freely my child should have the ability to learn alongside your child without developing a life-threatening illness that negatively impacts their ability to breathe i've had discussions with elected officials within our community regarding our teachers our children and staff being forced to return to the classroom without proper protections in place my question to them at the time was can you guarantee that no child will die unfortunately we experience tragedy in prince william county at the end of 2021 with the death of the first child within the commonwealth as the sister i'm speaking thank you as the sister of a 20-year elizabeth von elementary school teacher tonight i now ask can you guarantee that

085no educator or staff member will die the truth is no in this out-of-control pandemic we simply cannot guarantee that but that is not the job our county's educators signed up for to risk their lives to educate our children and as a mother of three prince william county students yes i also worry about learning loss however how important does learning loss become if my child is dead i for one am not willing to gamble with their lives and i know without a shadow of the doubt and saying that i speak for the majority of parents in this county you do not so if homeschooling and private schooling are what you prefer your child to have at the breathing liberties and lesson plan restrictions that you want them to have cool but for a public education it

086is important that we understand and accept that the public policies and procedures we establish will have to work for the health safety and well-being of the public thank you chloe murphy next yep okay go ahead miss murphy my name is claire murphy i'm a resident of the gainesville district i go to gainesville middle school and i'm in eighth grade my time in middle school has been rough the seventh grade year being virtual took a toll on all my peers and me we didn't get to see each other meet our teachers in person or have any social interaction so that gave me high hopes for the school year whenever i returned it was pretty normal but everyone was masked now i could talk to my teachers but i don't know what any of them actually look

087like the same goes for half the kids at my school some of the teachers have been really rude to us too one of my teachers repeatedly tells kids whose masks have slipped down no one wants to see your ugly nose the idea that adults tell rooms full of teens that they are ugly is more harmful to us than covid today some of my friends actually tell each other they don't want to see their ugly faces without masks great example huh we don't have to wear masks during pe band breakfast and lunch but for some reason teachers and students think that when i go to school not wearing a mask because of a religious exemption i'm killing others now i feel like i'm the virus harming everyone because they separate me from all of their kids

088and put a shield on my desk according to the virginia department of health zero people under the age of 18 have died of covet in prince william county yet in 2020 suicide was the second leading cause of death for people ages to 10 through 34. even though more kids die from suicide than kovid since kova began the school board isn't mandating that we wear straight jackets because that would be crazy right maybe the school board should look into the mental damage that masks shields and other covid restrictions are doing to us you're worried about social and emotional learning right you talk all the time about the importance of that in school what you've done to us has greatly affected everyone's social and emotional interactions if you cared you would remove the masks and stupid made

089up six foot distances and you would let us be kids but this isn't about health is it it isn't about our best interests no this is just political last week our governor of many northeastern states announced that mass mandates as schools were ending all of those governors are democrats a month ago our governor signed an order that gave parents the right to choose if their kids should wear masks at public schools and you all chose to ignore it today our governor turned that executive order into law the superintendent's response is that the school board is revising their mitigation strategies to be consistent with the new legislation my friends and faculty are 10 minutes down the road are masculine we don't need mitigation strategies you need to stop the mask stop the distancing and stop trying

090to use your powers to control us if you choose to follow a democrats executive order but not a republicans then maybe i should follow your lead and tell my friends that rules are optional if you don't like the people that wrote them instead of leading we are falling behind let us breathe and learn we deserve better i'll pray for you john daly [Applause] okay over scott good evening ladies and gentlemen of the board mr chairman dr mcdade my name is over scott and my address is on file with the clerk tonight i would like to express my appreciation of dr mcday for proposing a generous budget that will enable growth to deliver a world-class education for the students in our community the proposed budget addressed critical areas of needed attention that has been neglected since

091the recession the recession of 2008. our county has lagged in promoting stronger aspects of our learning and achievement for all students i am most thankful for the target focus that emphasize organizational coherence on a seven percent pay increase as well as competitive salary adjustments for each employee i stand here tonight with my divine nine brothers and sisters who are our true partners in education dr mcdade lily jesse laurie williams you understand that we participate in serving our community with our youth affiliates at various schools throughout this country this county we are the ones bested in giving back by being mentors expressing exposing the youth to become better scholars productive community helpers and polished social climbers aiming for positive future endeavors we support you and we believe in the work that you are doing for our

092district lastly i know that the general assembly has passed a bill that will allow parents to elect for their child not to wear a mask while on school property i implore discover and body to continue strategies and best practices that will keep staff and students safe for staff this could include flexible work opportunities for those who face peculiar challenges due to covet 19. if you need real-time data i welcome you to visit my school to see the impact that covet 19 has had on the instructional process of students and staff on a personal note my mother has covet and it has caused the lack of functions of her kidneys honestly it's good that i wear a mask to hide from my students the sadness pain and anger that i'm going through i am afraid that

093i'm going to lose her these are hard times for everyone so please consider the mental and social health of everyone thank you emmett fletcher good evening mr chairman board members dr mcdade i want to thank the teachers i want to thank the administration you have our support my address is on file i live in the coast district and jen walls and lori williams summoned up very well we're talking about equity in education but as the old pastor would say i'd rather see a sermon any day than hear one i know for years we have talked about the diversity on the east end compared to the west end and it's been an ongoing topic but i want to see the test scores at the end of the year and see what kind of progress that we're

094making i also was disturbed from the last school board meeting i felt that the meeting was totally out of control mr chairman i'm a starch supporter yours but you let it get out of control and you're doing much better tonight you're making progress and i thank you equity is defined as achievement fairness and opportunity and i believe the woodbridge supervisor as well as the games to gainesville supervisor will be on that and we will make progress because we will be back the priest speaker said something that was very important and i don't know if the board realized that from last week the disturbance that was in the atrium it caused a lot of problems i was watching it on tv we had people come in here today at 4 30 trying to get into a

095school board hearing 4 30 we have people parents that work that want to come for a seven o'clock meeting they getting here at 4 30. then we have the divine nine which i myself ray bell i'm with omega sci fi fraternity we invited the divine nine here they get here at 5 30 6 o'clock they are in the atrium since that time we have people that's trying to get into the building and they won't let them in that's sad i don't agree with everything that my fellow citizens said but the fact of it is we have a right to our first amendment we have a right as divine nine to say what we want to say if we want to support the superintendent that's our right so many people are veterans that have died to

096protect those rights we have 40 seats in here for for the whole parents thank you mr fletcher thank you please please do something about that all right that concludes citizen comment time we'll be moving on to 1601 we're going to go to the student representative tonight's student rep tonight is dania sharifi from gainesville high school junior junior miss simpson joins us this evening go ahead dania hey good evening everyone good evening to the school board and prince william county community hope you are doing well thank you for allowing me to speak to you all tonight as you may already know our goals for this year primarily focus on school start times and dress code you've heard about us talk about these several times this past month so i won't be going too far into detail

097again just as an overview we've done an initial analysis on the perspective about school start times and the benefits of the later start time we've had our student senators ask students around their schools and their overall consensus is that a later school store term would be extremely beneficial on of various levels the benefit was shown last year when we did a push back for semester while being virtual and a lot of students have brought up this example and their experience both having that later start time in contrast with the difficulties of the current start time the representatives and i are working with the office of accountability to develop a survey to send to the students and parents throughout the county this will give us some solid data points to later present as we propose the

098new start times we hope to be implemented in the 2022-2023 school year in addition we will be reviewing the information gathered by past representative bin kim in addition to conducting our own research the proposed start times will most likely be around 8 15 for high school 8 45 for middle school and 9 15 for elementary school this 30-minute gap between the start times for each elementary middle and high school provides time for transition and plus bus transportation while it's still not affecting release times too drastically jobs extracurricular activities child care sports parents in input and family responsibilities will all be considered in the proposal for the new start times ultimately a later star term has a multitude of benefits and is our top priority as student representatives that the prince william county recognizes these benefits

099by implementing the new start times thank you for your time tonight and for giving me the chance to be the student voice for prince william county if you are a student be sure to look out for ways to get involved in our push for a later start time through our survey again we have our twitter accounts at pwcsreps if you would like to contact us or stay updated we'll be posting more about our progress on our goals there thank you all and have a good night [Applause] very good miss sharifi make sure what is the website for the survey it's going to be released soon on through the schools most likely through schools will send an email to all students yes okay thank you all right very good next we'll go to superintendence time dr

100mcdade thank you mr chairman good evening i want to begin by acknowledging that the virginia school boards association has designated this week as school board clerk appreciation week i want to echo the sentiments of the school board in thanking b simpson our school board clerk and brandi reeves our deputy clerk for their outstanding support of our school board and prince william county public schools thank you so much february is career and technical education also known as cte month pwcs offers a wide variety of rigorous and engaging cte programs designed to improve academic and technical understanding offer leadership opportunities and deliver instruction through realistic hands-on applications cte instruction demonstrates the relevance and purpose in learning as students prepare for post-secondary experiences whether they plan to enter the workforce directly seek additional training or enroll in a

101post-secondary institution our learning and achievement for all strategic commitment includes the goal of having at least 1 000 cte students graduate high school with a minimum of six cte dual enrollment credits by 2025. in observance of cte month i would like to share a brief video highlighting one of our newest cce programs aviation maintenance offered at unity reed and woodbridge high schools i'd like to ask our tech team at this time to please run the video i kind of fell in love with aircraft in general and like the history of planes i live like in between an airport and a marine base so i always saw like planes and helicopters flying over so i just got interested on how they worked i've always liked airplanes ever since i was a kid so i would always

102try to keep up with the newest and latest airplanes i heard about aviation mechanics class towards the end of ninth grade we were working on scheduling and it really caught my eye i realized they were doing a class here and i was like that's cool in our mechanic one class our students are learning basic aerodynamics aviation math aircraft physics and weight and balance my second year students they're into all the different tools how we make metal how to clean the different materials as well as prevent corrosion from occurring on the aircraft i would definitely recommend this class it's been a lot of fun with hands-on projects and the teacher's been really cool and i've also been enjoying the field trips and i feel like i've been learning a lot this year definitely go for it

103it's really fun here it's not like a normal class where you have a lot of homework it's mostly all hands-on so the growth rate in aviation is higher than we've ever seen it before airlines are now frantically looking for these aircraft mechanics standard pay for the most part starting out with a company like boeing you'll get start out roughly about 30 dollars an hour but that's not where it stops most companies within five to seven years you can actually make over a hundred thousand dollars as an aircraft mechanic all my friends they said they would go to nova and then go on from there i didn't really know i wanted to do i was kind of just like going with it and see what would happen so i guess this kind of has brought direction

104to what i want to do in the future i was thinking about being a marine biologist but i changed my plans i'm now thinking about going into aviation maintenance doing avionics maybe even becoming a commercial pilot i can learn how to work on the airplanes and maybe when i get a little bit older i can fly or something along the aviation field that would be amazing this type of curriculum helps get them another lake further into an aviation career and the airlines are always always hiring look forward to witnessing how our expansion of students seeking opportunities through our cte programs will positively benefit our students and their future aspirations please also watch our social media pwcs.edu and the scoop newsletter for features highlighting our outstanding cte programs in connection with our strategic commitment of family

105and community engagement i would like to encourage our parents and guardians to register for the parents as partners in special education event scheduled from 9 a.m to 4 p.m on saturday february 26 at colgan high school this event is designed to empower parents pre-kindergarten through 12th grade to advocate for their child and navigate section 504 or special education processes to ensure successful outcomes the event includes online resources pre-recorded and live virtual presentations and a live and in-person conference with parent networking opportunities to find out more information please visit pwcs.edu and click on the parents link i would like to thank our community for their support as we have worked worked together to ensure in-person instruction for our students from the first day of school as safely as possible we are aware that the virginia general

106assembly has passed and the governor has signed senate bill 739 that permits optional masking for students while on school property as such pwcs is currently reviewing and revising practices to comply with the new state law as required and as always changes to our mitigation strategies will be made thoughtfully with the safety health and instructional needs of our students and staff at the forefront while ensuring a smooth transition as we implement any new practices detailed guidance that outlines all of the changes to our mitigation strategies will be sent to families and employees on friday mr chairman this concludes our regular superintendent's report we will now transition into the second quarter 2021-22 data update if you are prepared to receive us for that presentation go ahead dr mcdade thank you in a few minutes dr jennifer quesada

107director of research accountability and strategic planning will update us on the data results for our second quarter we will be sharing a significant amount of data so i want to preview her presentation with a few key takeaways first it is important to remember as i have previously shared the pandemic had a profound impact on our students learning this impact will not be easily solved and will take time our data continues to show that we must remain steadfast in our work and remain deliberative in our approach to addressing learning gaps the data will show that the proportion of all elementary level and middle school level students reading at or above grade level was higher at all grade levels in the second quarter this is positive news and a testament to the hard work of our school

108leaders teachers and students however we have further work to do to ensure we have consistent assessments and application of the data across the school division at the middle and high school levels course failure rates for english learners students with disabilities and hispanic students are higher than the division average although these failure rates are lower than in 2020 the 20 20 21 this is unacceptable and speaks to the need to continue to apply the strategies and resources we outlined in our recovery acceleration and re-engagement plan keep in mind that grades are only one snapshot of a student's performance and that schools will use grades in addition to other comprehensive data sets as part of a student's profile to monitor progress of their continuous improvement plans and make necessary adjustments this data is key as we implement

109our pwcs vision 2025 launching thriving futures strategic plan which provides us with a detailed road map for improvement dr casada will now be invited to the podium to share more details on our second quarter data hi good evening chairman latee vice chair jackson school board members and dr mcdade thank you for the opportunity to present an update on student performance the purpose of this presentation is to provide an update based on data from the second quarter tonight i will cover the following topics first we'll look at enrollment current enrollment at the end of the second quarter both in person and virtual absence data elementary performance which will include grades and reading level and secondary performance which will include grades and a failing courses analysis at the high school level grade distributions are included for all

110courses and then specifically for our weighted courses before we start i'd like to share some context first in terms of our virtual and in-person comparisons these comparisons are included in multiple analyses it's important that we use caution and interpreting data for virtual students giving the small number of students at each level and second by way of reminder prince william county grading policies follow a standards-based grading approach since the focus is on students mastering standards and content the policies allow for grade remediation and replacement as a result second quarter grades may be amended as a note some first quarter grades were amended after we presented to you in november which would explain the slight variations in the numbers showing now for first quarter as compared to when we presented them in november before we dive into

111performance we need to take a look at student enrollment this table includes enrollment at the end of the first and second quarters the second quarter ended on january 27th you can see that overall enrollment increased slightly you will also see that virtual enrollment decreased slightly at the end of the second quarter virtual students made up 2.3 percent of the pwcs population down from 2.6 at the end of the first quarter the table also includes the breakdown of enrollment by level and by student group high school had the lowest virtual percentage in middle school had the highest but at all levels there were decreases from first to second quarter and decreases in the counts of students participating in virtual instruction were shown for all reported student groups this next chart shows us absence information for the

112first and second quarters and totaled for the first semester this table includes both unexcused and excused absences since all of those absences count in the state's chronic absenteeism calculations there are comparisons for in-person and virtual students you will see that virtual students have fewer absences than in-person students please also note that students who have been isolated or quarantined due to covid and were participating asynchronously are counted as present we will now spend a few minutes looking at elementary student performance first we will look at grades in the course subjects for grades students in grade three through five you will see that the vast majority of students are earning grades of b or higher with the biggest increase in awarding of a grade to coming in science from first to second quarter you can see that

113very few students are failing core subjects at elementary school this next slide takes a look at the distributions for second quarter by virtual status again it's important to use caution in interpreting the data for virtual students as well as any comparisons between virtual and in person due to the small number of virtual students and the vast difference in counts between in person and virtual while all distributions show the majority of students receiving grades are b or higher the grade distributions for virtual students tend to be more at the extremes than the grades for in-person students the next slide shows elementary reading level this information is based on the instructional reading level as reported on elementary report cards dr mcdade indicated in her introduction that the percent of students reading at or above grade level increased

114at all grade levels and overall increase from 61 percent to 68 percent from first to second quarter again this information is shown for first through fifth grade and will be included for kindergarten students at the end of the year here are some takeaways at the elementary level first grade distributions were pretty similar in first and second quarters we did see increases in the proportion of students reported reading as reading at or above grade level from first to second quarter as i mentioned grade distributions for virtual students were slightly different than for in-person students with more extremes and again as dr mcdate indicated pwcs is moving toward more common assessments which will allow for additional in-process analyses including from the hmh benchmark assessments and reading that connect directly to the instructional materials now we'll be moving

115to the middle school data the next two slides show grade distributions by subject for first and second quarter this one shows first quarter across the board slightly percent slightly higher percentages of students earn grades of a in the first quarter than in the second quarter this is not a new phenomenon and the shifts parallel what we saw in the first two quarters of 2019-20 before the pandemic the second slide includes the second quarter grade distribution as in the first quarter the highest proportion of a's were awarded in the subject areas of fine arts and health and pe with the lowest in mathematics and language arts and the highest proportion of f's were awarded in world languages the next two slides look at the proportions of students failing all i'm sorry passing all classes failing one

116class and failing two or more classes by quarter overall 84.8 percent of students were passing all of their courses at second quarter which was down from 86 percent in the first quarter and the proportion of students failing two or more courses increased slightly from 5.2 to 6.5 percent this slide breaks down performance in the area in this area by virtual status and then by student group as dr mcdade mentioned english learners students with disabilities and hispanic students were all failing courses at higher rates than the division average and higher proportions of virtual students were failing courses this next next slide is a new look at the data and let me take a moment to explain it to you the slide is looking at how students did in terms of failing courses at second quarter based

117on the number of courses they were failing in first quarter the blue bars represent those students who passed all courses in the first quarter so overall 93 of those students who passed all their courses in the first quarter were still passing all quarters on all courses in the second quarter conversely seven percent of those students who are passing everything in first quarter were now failing one or more the gray bars show those students who are failing one or more courses at first quarter overall 15 percent of those students are now passing all courses and 85 were still failing 85 percent were still failing at least one course here's some middle school takeaways again the overall proportion of students failing multiple courses in the second quarter were similar to both first quarter and in 2019-20 that

118proportion is significantly lower than in 2021. course failure rates for english learners students with disabilities and hispanic students are lower than last year but still higher than division averages the shifts in grade distributions that we're seeing from first to second quarter parallels those parallel those in 2019-20 and finally again over 92 percent of the students who were passing all of their courses in the first quarter were still passing courses in the second quarter these next set of slides are going to focus on high school data for high school grade distributions data included for the first quarter the second quarter and first semester as a whole this first slide shows the grade distributions for the first quarter as with middle school the grade distribution shifted downward from first to second quarter with those first in the

119first semester grade distributions are somewhat higher than second quarter this slide just shows you at second quarter and as in first quarter the highest proportions in high school of a's were awarded in fine arts and health and pe with the lowest in math science and language arts and at high school the highest proportion of f's were awarded in mathematics the semester distributions show more a's and fewer f's than in second quarter since they represent the cumulative grade again the highest proportions of a's were found in fine arts and health and pe with the lowest in math science and language arts and the highest proportion of f's were awarded in mathematics the next three slides take a look at grade distributions again but this time only for our weighted advanced courses the counts of students are

120included also on these slides this slide shows the first quarter you can see that the grade distributions are skewed more toward the higher end of the scale with more a's and b's and fewer f's in the grade distributions for high school courses as a whole this slide shows second quarter distributions as with high school overall the distribution has shifted downward slightly as compared to the first quarter fine arts and cte courses had the highest proportion of a's with math and science having the lowest proportions of a's just with the overall distribution and finally this slide shows the first semester distributions for our weighted courses again as with the overall distribution the distribution is somewhat higher than second quarter you can see that lower proportions of students were receiving f's at the semester than in the

121second quarter individually this last analysis is again the course passing and failure rate analysis the proportion of students passing all courses decreased from 69.9 in first quarter to 65.7 percent in the second quarter comparison of these numbers by virtual status shows little difference at second quarter fewer virtual students were failing multiple courses at the second quarter again we do need to use caution in interpreting the virtual numbers the slide as in the others includes a breakdown by student group as at the middle school level our english learner students with disabilities and hispanic students were failing multiple courses at higher rates than the division average so here's our final data slide just like with middle school we looked at how students did in second quarter based on the number of failing courses at first quarter again

122the blue bars represent those students who were passing all courses at first quarter overall at high school 85 percent of the students who were passing all of their courses in the first quarter were still passing all courses in the second quarter that's the tall blue bar on the left conversely 15 of those students who were passing all of their courses at first quarter were now failing one or more and then the gray bars show those students who were failing one or more courses at the first quarter of those 22 percent are now passing all of their courses and 78 were still failing at least one the data for high school show that the proportion of students failing multiple courses are a cause for concern but the course failures are down from last year at this

123point in time course rate failure rates for our english learners students with disabilities and hispanic students are lower than last year but again are still higher than division averages the shifts in grade distributions from first to second quarter as with middle school parallel the 2019-20 patterns and finally again 85 percent of students passing all courses in first quarter were still passing all courses in second quarter dr mcdate indicated that some of the unindicated some of the ongoing work that's occurring in response to the student data not just at the quarter but through the regular progress monitoring of schools continuous improvement plans schools use the data at the individual student level to determine appropriate interventions as part of multi-tiered systems of support and students are targeted for support through the interventions that are defined as part

124of the unfinished learning plan and as you know the new strategic plan details out the short and long-term strategies to support students and improve student outcomes thank you again so much for the opportunity to provide you with this update mr chairman that concludes our presentation and the superintendent's report anybody have any questions for dr mcdade miss jesse i just wanna take my mask off sorry about that i i wanted to thank uh dr mcdade and dr quesada for this very interesting report i i looked at the report and i was very interested in knowing that in several slides and i i have them numbered i don't want jennifer to go back and pull them up but i'm concerned about the are we just looking at data are we down the road we're going to look

125at root causes because i'm concerned about the math the reading scores the reading grades and modified the special ed grades also i looked at the virtual learning and i'm glad you brought that up because i was wondering why there was a higher percentage it has to do with the the smaller numbers is that what you're saying jennifer i mean dr dr so the numbers are easily more easily varied when when the numbers of students are smaller so the um i i think that's answering your question and so it's um there definitely were higher at some of the grade levels higher proportions of students struggling virtually but not at the high school level but again my caution was because you have hundreds of students as opposed to the thousands of students we have in person so

126making the comparisons just has to come with a caveat and i was also looking at that you're going to be using more common assessments or you have a new language arts program so that particular program comes with its own assessment is that what we're saying we're going to be are we using it now we're going to be using it later yes ma'am they started implementing those this year and so those will be part of future analyses okay and the english learners hispanic learners again i'm very concerned about those scores i know you guys are too uh i don't know when we look at some root causes and share with us what we're going to be doing differently down the road you know when i look at numbers i wonder why so i'm just wondering when

127we're going to get some information on why first of all let me just say this we have never gotten this kind of data so i'm very pleased with the data thank you dr mcdade thank you mr chairman um i do want to note that the data that we're sharing tonight you'll take notice that it is similar to data that we've reported on um in the past and the unfinished learning plan has identified root causes for a myriad of data which is why i wanted to point out that this is only one snapshot and we have to be careful that we don't you rely on one snapshot of data to represent the entire academic profile of our young people the unfinished learning plan as well as the strategic plan was based on the root cause analysis

128that used comprehensive data sets across the board inclusive of grades and while these grades are similar to other grade patterns that we've seen we are staying the course with the plan that we currently have in place to ensure that we implement with fidelity and give it time to actually show evidence of recovery and acceleration miss williams thank you for this presentation and the second quarter update i appreciate the consistency and reporting i also appreciate a little bit deeper dive at looking at our middle school elementary and high school for our virtual learners i think we don't often um recognize them in when we talk about our children holistically but they are still part of our division and our learning um i also appreciate dr mcdade you adding that caveat because i'm i'm very concerned when

129i look at this data it doesn't really tell us so much why our students are performing the way they are and so i appreciate you bringing that to the forefront because i think it's important that we look at it from a holistic measure as well i think the um one of the things that we don't talk about very often we say the word pandemic but we don't always address the trauma that has gone along with the pandemic that will naturally impact our students performance academically and trauma can be defined in many ways so i think at some point in time it would be nice to hear a little bit more about if we have that information available or if we're able to gather it from our students or our counselors the different ways that that

130has impacted their performance in school and if what measures if any that we are undertaking to ensure we can minimize that impact so thank you miss wall thank you mr chairman um and thank you dr quesada um for this very great and useful information i have just a couple of questions one question is slide on slide five for the absences and i'm assuming that um i'm gonna move my thing to five that i i'm assuming this does not take into account any kids who are sent out on quarantine so my question is and that is correct right this is just absences it's it is absences and it's everything coded as absences in the system and so students who are out but are participating asynchronously are not counting but students who are out and are not

131would be counting as absent so it records everything that's in the system as an absence okay and so if a student is out but they're participating through canvas or turning work in then we count that as a present as opposed to an absence that's a present code in the in the system yes ma'am okay and so do we have specifics um could we get a breakdown of um i don't know how we would capture this but the amount of absences that students have faced from including quarantine so that we can see a little bit different angle on you know um not not present in the classroom okay that'd be great um i looking at this data it's clear that we have a a lot of work to do and i'm i'm encouraged that we seem

132to be going in the right direction the slope seems to be improving but i'm still discouraged that we have so many kids that are struggling um especially at the high school levels with those stem classes like math and science um i'm discouraged by that um it i'm traumatized by last year and trying to get um kids in person for this particular for this reason for what this data is showing um that kids are still impacted by um how long it took for us to get them in person so i just i do appreciate everybody's hard work and trying to recover and and i just it's clear we have a lot of work to do but i do appreciate the work happening um my question um with the multi-tier system of supports approach i think it's

133slide 20 maybe no it's not um 24. are our schools following a particular model um is there consistency um for what multi-tiered systems of supports that are implemented or do we have kind of a site-based approach to the multi-tiered systems of support i guess what i'm getting at is like are some schools doing it differently than others and are we look and if that's the case are we looking to see like which schools are being more successful in getting that unfinished learning taken care of as opposed to other schools that maybe have a lot of kids that are have high failure rates just kind of curious on that process of what we're looking what we're doing to kind of anyway that's a couple of questions right in there i'm sorry do do you understand what

134i'm getting at yes that's and that's i want to ask um our uh associate superintendent for teaching and learning rita goss to address that um as that's not a part of the work that um dr quesada covers so she'll come forward and talk a little bit about our mtss framework so a good evening school board chairman latif of vice chairman jackson school board members thank you mrs wahl for that question it's an excellent question so it is a process that we are working on doing more systematically and consistently across the school division it is a part of the strategic plan and is a part of that four-year plan that we will be working to have the more consistent processes from school to school we certainly do have a state framework and a county framework that

135we've been utilizing but the implementation fidelity is the piece that we'll be working to improve over the next four years so that we do have those consistent mtss processes at every school across the division okay great um and the reason i ask is because when i was looking at the data per school you could see that it seemed that some of our schools were more successful in kind of catching kids up and other schools seem to have some really obvious deficits and so i thought maybe you know if there is a system if as we're implementing with fidelity our systems if we can figure out like wow this school is doing this and it's really working and kids are really getting caught up those f's you know are getting turned into c's or b's or

136a's absolutely awesome because absolutely part of the strategic plan is to really replicate that excellence across the division and do what you're saying right is to look at those places in which the systems are working well and how we can replicate those more consistently across all all schools okay thank you miss miss sargopour uh so just really quickly we did lose a week in the second quarter because of all the snow um and correct me if i'm wrong we there is usually a dip in the second quarter right it seems like people talk about the second quarter lull right we have christmas we have a big break and we come back from the break we still have to finish the semester correct yes thank you i'm just now i'm just yeah jennifer i don't know

137if you want to speak to that from um a data sense and it but we are seeing comparable to prior this particular data set is comparable to prior years okay that yeah i just wanted to to know if this was i mean i don't want to i don't want to say normal in terms of hey this is normal but but i i feel like i've heard before that second quarter sometimes some problems show up there which is not always a bad thing because it gives us an opportunity to address what's going on um and then the other thing i wanted to just just find out if there's any um so we sit here in this space and we're looking at data from from this big perspective but when you're inside a classroom you know your

138kids you know what they need so this is exactly what you were talking about this is a data point and i know these conversations are going on in the schools and teachers and administrators are doing everything they can to meet the needs of our students and there will be a little bit different look from school to school just because our children are different um so i just think that's more point but i just i just wanted to kind of put that out there too because um i have a lot of hope that um that that that we have really great teachers and administrators who are who are working with this data to do the best for our kids and just remind people of that thank you dr casada you want to speak to the second

139quarter comparisons um you were you were correct dr mcdade and so when we started doing these types of um great analyses in 1920 you're seeing very similar patterns in terms of that slight um decrease from first to second quarter it'll be interesting to see what type of rebound um you see that's the other reason we included at high school the first semester um based on discussions with high school principals because again one of the reasons for semester grades is to make sure that one quarter does not doom a student right and so we'll be looking at that we'll look at third quarter and then fourth quarter and the um end of year right and again with the grading um practices but you are seeing similar trends um to the past right and i think that's

140another important point for our students because um when you start to feel a little like you're struggling that you're underwater um i don't want any of our students to think that that's it you're done you know that's that's the end of your career because we have all these people who want to support so i just wanted to make sure we we have our students hear that as well um wonderful um not wonderful i mean it is the report and as pointed out in our strategic plan as as we enter the beginning of this year for recovery re-engagement and acceleration this will be a long-term challenge and uh mr lep can i get miss ralston back on the screen when you get a chance um whenever you get a chance oh great thanks um this is

141not going to be easy i think you know i have four children all throughout the school division one gone now but um you know the root cause in my house has been that the pandemic and the the virtual learning was was tough on them last year and it didn't prepare them for this year and um this year their expectations are what we expect normally and has been tough and so we're seeing that um play out in in my house and in households across my constituents the idea of social emotional concerns you know kids didn't come into the year necessarily depressed but getting hit and hard on the tests and working through school has been tough and so you know i i really appreciate our counselors for the effort that they've done the work that we're

142really working hard to sort of address the fact that you know last year was brutal it's causing some brutal grades this year that we were not expecting especially amongst our high school students who are trying to get to college and and you know under enormous pressure um our students who are trying to achieve in in in their in their course work whether they be in their cambridge ib programs governor's schools we're seeing students across the division struggle and continue to struggle the pandemic has been absolutely brutal virtual learning was brutal and it has been a tough recovery but we said it would be at the beginning of this year we said it wasn't going to be easy i am heartened by the fact that some of these numbers in reading are improving at our younger

143levels is that correct ms quesada the math still is sort of lagging is that correct are we starting to see any improvement in that um so yes no math is the area um of most concern across all levels yeah and so dr mcdade i i i really appreciate this the the the first question the really the only question i have just i know the answer but i'd love for you to sort of share with us you know we're we're when you say the schools use this data as part of an ongoing progress we're not waiting till the end of the third quarter to address what we saw now we're not waiting to see what happens third quarter fourth quarter tell me tell us what we're doing in that i know you mentioned it a little

144bit but but i know this is the heart of your work and what you wake up every morning thinking about all schools have received they have their data level associates have been working with principals to create action plans identifying students who are in need of additional support across the board not just academic having check-in check-out processes with students to ensure that someone is supporting students in you know monitoring not only their progress but ensuring that the support that they need socially and emotionally is addressed as well so this is timely data for where we are right now no we're not waiting to the end of the year or waiting until high stakes testing results come back we also have other data that is coming in we've been implementing we just implemented the star reading and

145math assessment so we have some preliminary data coming back from that to just show where students are so again we're taking this as one component but then looking across the board at different data sets that we have and it is a regular process within schools to not just progress monitor but then address and um you know intervene as necessary so it's an ongoing process schools are implementing different processes within the uh and strategies within the unfinished learning plan and as well as some of the tutoring opportunities that we've talked about and now this is yet another data set that helps for planning preparation for how we address different areas like math problem areas like science etc dr mcdade i assume that had you joined us if there was never a pandemic the strategic plan wouldn't

146look the way it does so i think it's important for everyone to know that the strategic plan um is based on the damage done by the pandemic and the recovery and re-engagement that is so highly necessary that we have to get back to and you know i want to you know reassure the public as far as i'm concerned this is my number one priority is to make sure we get our students back on academic track and it is what i worry about every single day as i talk to the students as i meet with them as i hear about their concerns students on our board students in the classrooms and and i know the principals are working on this as well and this is the the greater part of what we have to do you

147know there's a lot of noise out here about you know different things that are you know bothering folks and and that bother me as well but but the main thing that should bother all of us is how do we support our students and our teachers as we try to recover so i can't thank you enough for this effort and i appreciate it with that we'll move on to the next board item which will be let me get my agenda back up 18.01 this is the motion is in order on this miss jackson i'm moved that the prince william county school board suspend the resolution of the prince william county school board ensuring safe learning and safe workplace of september 15 2021 and furthermore that prince william county schools continues to strongly recommend that all eligible

148staff receive the covet 19 vaccination as the best mitigation strategy available to combat negative impacts of 12 19. mr chairman mrs williams a second miss williams seconds of motion discussion we would like to go first miss wall sure either way miss wall all right thank you mr chairman so in the beginning um in the beginning of the school year when this resolution was passed you know our focus was getting schools open and wanting to keep them open and we have shown that we've succeeded in that over these last five months we've met that goal um without this program being in place i think some people assumed that this testing plan was in place from the beginning but it wasn't um through um so through all those months we were successfully open we only had to

149close i think one classroom or school one school but that wasn't due to unvaccinated staff or anything like that i think it was a birthday party or something like that so so um i think that the biggest point for in support of this motion is that fact that we were successful despite not having this in place moreover many of those underlying premises upon which we based our decision have changed transmission once thought to be only occurring among the unvaccinated if you can remember back back when vaccines were just kind of starting to get going we thought that was a done deal right but we it's now widely established to be occurring among vaccinated and unvaccinated as regardless um and so we have disconnected transmission from vaccination also since september vaccines have become widely available for

150our school children we started out the year without that benefit for our younger students here in prince william we have high rates of vaccination among most student groups for example our 16 to 17 year olds are fully vaccinated at a rate of nearly 82 percent which is very high you have to get up into the 55 plus group to get to that high of a vaccination rate 12 to 15 year olds are vaccinated fully vaccinated at a 72 percent rate even our five to 11 year olds who are at some of the very lowest risk of covid um complications have 42 percent have had at least one dose that means you know parents are taking advantage of that now we also know that vaccinations have been widely available for for over a year now for

151adults and we have booster shots which increase the power of the vaccine and that has been proven we have effective therapeutic treatment options multiple effective therapeutics for the treatment of covid19 we know so much more than we did even back in september and death and hospitalization rates are very low in prince william county as of yesterday 215 the seven day average of new hospitalizations reported in principal county is one the seven day average number of new daily hospitalizations reported per 100 000 population is 0.1 the seven day average of daily new deaths is two and if you look into the data it's not children it's not young people it's it's our probably our most complicated um uh citizens health health complications overall our staff is vaccinated at a rate of 93 percent which is just

152absolutely an amazing number of the remaining staff who are not or who have not disclosed their status due to personal privacy reasons many of those individuals are subs or temps bus drivers custodians others who are not in classrooms regularly or who may not even interface much with the public at all and percent positivity continues to rapidly fall and is now at nine percent that's what i looked at most recently which i think was earlier this morning this number will most certainly fall even further over the next few weeks all regions of virginia are reporting an r number that's a significant number in epidemiology of less than 0.8 and statewide the r number is less than 0.6 why is that significant the r number is the average number of people one person is likely to infect

153in the future when that number falls below one the virus will continue to infect fewer and fewer people and is on its way out the door lastly this program has placed a very heavy burden on staff to administer and it has proven difficult and time consuming and very stressful with very little added benefit in accomplishing our goal of keeping schools open which we have been able to do and which i spoke about earlier above and beyond what we expected back in september despite not having this regulation in place so for those reasons i see no no good rational reason why not to suspend this board action and in my mind at least it is the right thing to do mr will thank you mr chairman a lot of what i'm gonna say is probably gonna

154be repetitive to what you send this wall but i'm just gonna go with um kind of the theme here so similar to her theme is when the board voted for this resolution back in the fall the science did tell us that the vaccine would help prevent the spread of covid upon reflection this vote made sense to me with the information available at the time about coven and the delta variant however covid and the information are fluid and we have we as a board owe it to our citizens to be adaptive to reflect to what we do currently now today we know that both vaccinated uh sorry a lot of the same points jen but today we know that both unvaccinated and unvaccinated are now capable of spreading the viral load of the omicron variant and

155therefore targeting only the unvaccinated for this testing is unfair on february 2nd 2022 the cdc stated in quotes the cdc expects that anyone with omicron infection can spread the virus to others even if they are vaccinated and don't have symptoms given the data we know the only way to accurately and effectively test employees would be to examine vaccinated and unvaccinated employees in conversations completed with nurses in my district as a lot of you guys know i talk to them a lot the most isolated people are those who are fully vaccinated right now again both unvaccinated and vaccinated teachers can spread the variance i also wanted to clarify that the test itself is only for a moment any person tested can develop symptoms late that evening and carry covet for the week before the next weekly

156test according to my conversations with nurses and administrators there are several days between testing and results arriving delayed testing results do not increase safety for staff and students today with what we know the common theme when talking to staff and building administrators is weekly testing takes time away from the employees and the energy away from more critical tasks the current testing program is taxing understaffed and overburdened staff and benefits in our hr department building staff is pulled to cover rooms when colleagues have to go testing in an environment where we already face teachers bus drivers and other critical position shortages we cannot risk losing employees for a test that only targets one group of spreaders today with all the downside testing now puts an additional burden on our system with little upside to summarize the

157most crucial factor when passing this resolution back in the fall was leveraging the information we had to protect the sat the safety of staff and students fortunately many of my administrators have informed me that there's a large supply of rapid tests available to staff who may be symptomatic we also have a variety of other screening and mitigation strategies in place for all these reasons and and the many conversations i've had with district nurses and administrators i support support suspending the mandatory testing at this time given the current information available it does not make logical sense to mandate the testing of one group when the other group also spreads the current variant thank you can i get and i have some just folks just if we can have some order we'll get through this and i

158appreciate the applause for the board members and and and and the jeers for me that's fine um but but but let's let let me just get through this and try to get this done in an orderly way um who's miss argopor finish up on that side yeah um so i agree with my colleagues here on the board and i'll just give you a brief personal story back in november my father went into a rehabilitation facility he's 88 years old and he was there due to just muscle weakness and things like that and shortly after that he had to go to the hospital due to some other health issues and of course he was tested for covid multiple multiple multiple times so i was visiting him in and out of different hospitals different rehabilitation centers and

159all this time the omicron variant was was increasing and um the facilities i was in and out would maybe limit how many visitors could be in a room but as i spoke with the medical professionals they were they were just kind of letting letting me know that there wasn't a whole lot i was gonna be able to do um you know we're all gonna we they would sort of say things like this one's so contagious it's hard not to catch it um and they weren't necessarily afraid of people catching it that that's the other side of it so back in november when i was seeing these things in my own personal experience i had questions about it um my father did end up catching it and we don't know from whom because we don't no

160one he was interacted with was ever positive so that that makes it even more of a mystery right he's fine he slept it off and he had an upper respiratory cough and i am grateful that he is uh um great he's fine and he's getting even better with all his other stuff um oh thank you for the little clap there um but i agree with my colleagues for the numbers of reasons that they had um i'm also concerned about the impact that it's having on our staff with like mr wilkes said just finding subs getting coverage but it is also turning our school division into a health care system and we absolutely cannot do that our teachers are burdened enough as it is and our administrative staff our managers are burdened and i've heard enough

161about this is just a it's a little extra work and it's a ton of work right the other thing i'm a little bit concerned about um is that you know this this coven's been very dynamic so yeah we can change with with the um we can be flexible about this right we what we know what we knew back in september is is different from today so i fully support this and um thank you for your time miss williams thank you mr chairman um so i do not fully support this resolution i do not agree with suspending it i would have liked to see this board maybe modify the current resolution or at least have a viable discussion about it because it is our responsibility to act as a corporate board and as an employer testing

162programs are not uncommon in any corporate setting or any major corporation or any major large organization the implementation of those programs is where you have the the devil and the details what we have done was partnered with the virginia department of health using a grant program called visa to implement the testing i think what we hear is a lot of rhetoric around how the testing is implemented and how the school division did such a bad job however that actually was not us doing the bad job those that contract was surprise supplied by the virginia department of health through our grant program so i absolutely agree they could have done a better job but that is not the fault of prince william county schools we were supplied that vendor by the state this is a program

163that the entire board agreed to participate in it's still our responsibility as an employer to ensure the safety of our employees to the maximum extent of our ability this is current guidelines through this current administration it was in the last current administration and i think as long as it stands it's something that we should really consider especially considering mitigation factors are rapidly decreasing due to like new state law there will be no masks while i understand that omicron is a variant that spreads no matter whether you're vaccinated or unvaccinated unvaccinated unvaccinated individuals still carry a higher risk i think that that's something as an employer please i'll have to start removing folks please i think let everyone finish i think as an employer it's our responsibility to at least have these conversations well i understand

164the burden that is going on with staff it is absolutely a positive that in this school division we not only cover the cost for our employees to get tested we provide time and coverage in order for them to do so in other places most employers are not doing that you have to go get tested on your own time at your own expense that is not the case with our staff our staff are provided time our staff are provided time during the work day i completely understand please no comments from the um audience please when we talk about following the rules and we talk about following current regulations these are still valid actual recommended regulat valid actual recommended procedures that are still in our current vdh health regulations as of february 11 2022. do i agree

165that everybody should be tested if it's going to work to our maximum benefit absolutely but that's not what we're discussing because this board didn't even entertain that conversation what i do know is out of the staff that have been tested absolutely we have had staff staff staff test positive so i know that there is value in testing staff when i hear the rhetoric from the public talking about it being a discriminatory discriminatory measure it is not according to to not only our state code but according to osha regulations which anybody is welcome to check out and i also verified with our own legal staff because i also was concerned it is not discriminatory it is not a violation of hipaa we are well within our rights as an employer to do so and it is

166recommended so i think whether or not you disagree that is a personal opinion and you're more than well within your rights to do that but i think it's important to bring to the forefront and conversation that we are in compliance that's that's the bottom line so while i would have supported a modification to this resolution i do not support an out suspension of this resolution and i hope that this board would in the future consider having more discussions before we just take action thank you miss jesse good evening this the main issue of this resolution is whether unvaccinated or those who refuse to disclose their vaccination status should be subject to testing certain members of the board would like to keep this resolution and i'm asking they would like to get rid of the resolution

167but my vote is no and i'm going to tell you why it's no and i'm going to ask the audience i'm not sure that the board chair can control the audience but i'm asking if you allow me to speak because i did not speak when you were speaking first of all first and foremost i would like to see this virus go away so there will be no need for any mandate in any place i've worked in a school and i know how difficult it is i talk to principals this week some said they're exhausted teachers are exhausted one principal said i'm just dead i'm running around from class from the classroom but it wasn't related to the testing of whether or not they were testing their teachers we still remain at a high positivity in

168prince william county i don't know what the numbers are where those small numbers came from but we still do i have been and continue to be a fierce support of teachers and their right to be heard whether you're a small group or not you guys have the right to be heard and i applaud you for coming to this board room because there are people out there complaining but they don't come in the board room like you you did so i support that the first i heard from those who had personal when i talked to the teachers i'm a fierce supporter because i when it first came when this virus first happened my i was sitting in my office and this my computer was going zoom zoom i was getting hundreds and hundreds of emails from

169teachers and they were sending these emails to me because they thought i would listen they feared the first i heard from those who had personal issues their parents or their daughters who had health issues they feared exposure and asked for my assistance some of the most heart-wrenching stories involved those having the sole responsibility of transporting or caring for individuals with cancer and other compromising immune disorders it made me very popular but please do not ask me to support allowing what could become a danger for 95 for the 95 percent of our staff that are vaccinated and would be exposed unknowingly to a coving virus i do not however support i do however support your right to confidentiality i received some emails and i received many but i sat down and i read them and there

170were teachers telling me that their confidentiality was being violated and they gave me examples and i passed this on to human resources because that should not happen in a school there's a system in place i talked to dr mcday was not a part of this it was a school board but her staff had to implement it so i spent some time asking for data and i spent some time talking to dr uh eagle and asking what this what the system is i want you know i i know i don't have the votes i'm not worried about the votes to be honest with you but i just want to make sure we understand that i go on record to tell you what i know to be true and what i know not to be true first

171of all as a principal we had this chat chat right right so there's been she explained to me that there's a chat where you say i'm noticing and there's another chat there's another chat there's a right there's an action and according to what i'm hearing no teacher in this county has ever been removed not or dismissed because of the cove environment because they didn't want to participate last year we had many teachers who and i i didn't blame them because although there are people on this board who were very proud of having these kids in these schools at the beginning without knowing how this virus was going to affect i did not support that and i did not brag about it because i felt we were putting teachers at risk we're putting kids at risk

172so i am evidently opposed to having people coming to this coming into schools when we don't know what's going on so that we said we got all our kids and we have to get our kids in i don't think we should do that so i when i'm talking to her she's reminded me that there are teachers from last year who said i don't like what's going on and they were allowed to come back so they weren't dismissed i want to make sure everybody understand that they were not dismissed they were allowed to come back my vote is no for the following know that as a principal i was anal when it came to safety i often told my teacher and they'll tell you the quote was this you cannot they a parent will forgive you

173for not teaching their kids how to read but they will not forgive you if you don't keep their kids safe i had a handbook that nobody wanted to read i don't know any teacher out there raise their hand and love to read the handbook but as a principal you have to have one so i had this little section it was called where are you when the f wall fell down now i'm older so i remember this phil donahue or someone where this principal in california the wall fell down on the kids in the cafeteria and he was a hero until he came on tv and people said where were you when the wall fell down he said well i was in my office well why weren't you in the cafeteria why did you look at

174the structure as a principal we have to make sure everybody in that building is safe so you look at the structure or i told the staff when a child runs across that street out into woodbridge middle you better have your foot in the face and in that photograph because i am anal when it comes to safety so my safety concerns are the following students and our staff who may get the virus as a result of exposure i've been told by many on this board that it makes no difference that those who have a shot and those who do not and i know my research is very limited but i do have a slide that i'd like to have put up the slide says researchers say that vaccinated people may be even less likely to transmit

175covert 19 than previously thought and i think there's a second slide no i'm sorry i didn't see it but it says no vaccinated people no vaccinated people are not just are not just as infectious as infectious as unvaccinated people if they get coveted so uh that's that's a question students i'm concerned i say no because students and staff who have parents grandparents or live in intergenerational homes not like in in middle class america i've been in those homes they're they if you covered enters that house it it affects everyone the death rate is at a high all-time high for the elderly because these kids go home to grandparents i say no because students are staff who live in a home that lack the space to quarantine effectively as i've said earlier i say no because

176students and staff who live in the above space also have the sole source of income one of my friends had a person working in his yard and he said uh well the school is open he said my kids are not going to school he said why because if any if anyone in this house gets coveted my entire income is affected so i want you to know why i'm voting no and the last time last reason is principals and administrators who have to navigate the privacy of non-vaccinated so how do you tell a parent well your child is in the classroom and this person is not vaccinated you have a right to privacy as you do and i agree with you but how do i navigate that as a principle who decides that who the non-vaccinated

177people got a child who's going to be exposed what do we do with those kids who are have medical conditions on the front page of the times there are special education students who have immune conditions so my re my rationale is very personal and it's very uh it's based on my my belief in safety first and i have said and i know that members of this board have heard me say i know justin has heard me say this winning for me is not always numerical so excuse me thank you i appreciate your listening thank you winning for me is not always numerical i know i may lose this vote but i've stood up for the safety of kids and there's a majority of you talk about the teachers here who say they're going to quit

178there are teachers in your schools who are saying they're going to leave because they have taken the shot they have taken that shot and they don't feel as fair for us to give so much attention to the smaller group of people which is about five percent but i believe in the five percent i believe that you have a right but i just don't agree with you thank you miss jackson thank you dr chief i believe that tonight's discussion shows how hard these decisions are for me every vote weighs heavily on me i've always prioritized student and staff safety along with following the guidance of the cdc the bdoh and the superintendent's team reviewing my history of voting and the intention behind each vote helps me reflect and also increase transparency during the vote on september

17915th i stated that i voted against the resolution last spring urging staff to get vaccinated for a variety of reasons in spite of voting against the spring resolution i stated that i supported and encouraged staff to receive their vaccinations this vaccination resolution this past fall was not a mandate and it took into consideration frequent concerns raised by brentsville constituents regarding vaccinations it also took into consideration the concerns of a number of elementary aged parents including staff members whose children at the time could not be vaccinated a few things have changed since this resolution was passed as many of the my fellow board members have stated i know that some see the resolution of prince william county school board ensuring a safe learning and safe workplace from a place of concern and i want to take

180a moment and empathize and explain where i'm coming from the action on today's agenda is to suspend testing for a specific group of employees because of current trends of virus transmission this action item was guided by up-to-date scientific data as the environment has shifted from the initial resolution it is to suspend within today's current guidelines and recommendations this pandemic requires us to be fluid and flexible in government and i would add also parenting instructing and managing when the school board passed resolution insurance safe learning and safe workplace we were restarting a school system at 97 capacity without social distancing while delta was surging and it was the dominant strand fast forward to today including the statistics discussed about testing and staff being um being able to transmission transmit the virus regardless of vaccination status 93

181of our staff is vaccinated please note i am not against testing but rather with the current strand we must reevaluate tactics nor am i against vaccinations i've currently stated and consistently that i encourage staff to get vaccinated i do appreciate what everyone said tonight i believe in a productive discussions and think we are better for it but at this time i cannot support continuing to test a specific group of employees thank you thank you miss wall or miss jackson thank you mr jackson um in my facebook memories i keep popping up every day of folks um and on our school board members who volunteered and in our pandemic team to do the vaccines last year one year ago exactly we started the vaccine program teachers got to move to the front of the eye in

182front of the front of the front of the line from the queue and we started vaccinating teachers at the end of january and all through february and march and we were doing them over at unity reed high school we were doing them over at kelly building we were doing them at the at novant uva hospital and i was very proud of the effort we made i was very excited we were able to get it done last march um i put on a resolution on this board to ask that the board consider that we highly recommend that all our staff and faculty get vaccinated i was a resolution i worked with with a number of members and hr superintendent and pandemic team thinking that this was a good idea it's a great vaccine let's let's get

183this to work because my goal last year and continues to be his five-day in person school i've been extremely consistent about that voted to get special ed in early before the vaccine we we did that we got students in early before the vaccine in october november i've been consistently consistent on that and i lost the resolution to encourage staff to get vaccinated five to three i was stunned i continue to be stunned by that vote probably the most stunning vote i've been a part of in four years fast forward to september we want to get schools open we want them to stay open we want to do everything possible that included masking which dr mcdade asked the board to consider and do and in in in implement that program before the governor or vdh recommended

184we went ahead to do it because our number one goal has been to get kids in five days that was the highest priority to keep sports extracurricular activities everything going and we did a great job throughout the fall fantastic job we voted on this resolution in september because we thought with delta surging this was the right thing you heard all the reasons i'm not going to repeat those reasons and it made sense but we never implemented the program because of testing kit shortages with our vendor and our own testing kit shortages the program never actually got implemented until january 24th which was the first time we asked teachers to submit who chose not to get vaccinated for weekly testing we were able to navigate the entire fall without the program that we had voted on

185here in september times have changed omicron is on the downside of its huge peak it continues to look like it will do that we have unlayered mitigation at every point we could from the minute we started the pandemic whether it was getting kids in special ed whether it was getting students in hybrid whether it was getting a robust summer program rolling whether it was getting five days in person and getting rid of social distancing on the bus and to get things moving we aren't one of those school districts that you know made kids sit outside to eat lunch or or when we for the most part said you know recess gym classes you know whenever we could we we tried to relax some of those rules and we've done that the science i have followed

186the science has been controversial throughout there have been uh in my opinion a general lack of support from the cdc on good science i have not been shy to say that i don't believe the vdh has been consistent and i don't believe that the cdc has supported us the way we should be supported there hasn't been talk about natural immunity so we're up to 93 percent was that miss while on our faculty being vaccinated but then there's another six percent who may not have disclosed plus many of those had had covet which provides natural immunity and so as we look to what we're going to do and what we're changing we have unlayered mitigation we aren't flipping here we are adjusting what we've done and you know decisions that we made before in 2020 hindsight

187don't look like the best decisions like the decision to not bring students back in fall of 2020 full-blown all-in in my opinion was my greatest failure and continues to be my greatest failure and my own children are paying for that failure as are i believe students across this nation who couldn't get in sooner and so i have been very consistent um you know i believe very strongly in the work we've done as this board we've looked at these matters we've worked closely with dr mcdade her number one priority is to get kids in five days i fully support that that is what i'm here for i will not risk a day when we had to close bennett elementary i nearly had a heart attack four days we lost of a whole school being shut down

188in the fall that we failed we couldn't keep it open there were classrooms shut here and there those were failures but they were efforts at containing the virus and hopefully keeping people from getting sick there's a lot of studies that show that you know if you're going to do a testing program with omicron effect infecting those who've been vaccinated it doesn't really make sense to just test those who haven't been vaccinated everyone's carrying it and it's spreading all over and so you know the hospitals here in california actually hear some have said to the nurses and to physicians like me if you're covid positive you come in unless you're febrile so we are changing healthcare settings are changing cdc reduced isolation quarantine guidance we did that as well so we're going to continue to adjust

189and change it might not be as i stated fast enough for some and it might be too fast for others but i will support this resolution because it is the right thing to do at this moment in time please please please i'll just i'll wrap up and say you know support the resolution um i will um ask miss ralston do you have anything to add to the conversation no okay at this point we will call for the vote um please vote miss ralston how do you vote i vote miss ralston did you say no okay miss ralston votes no so the vote is five yes three no jesse ralston and williams the motion passed motion passes moving on to please we're going to move on to revision and policy 102 18.02 there's a first reading

190division council do you have anything to add other than just noting that it's up for first reading and for public comment and for the board members to digest and send questions to you this week is that correct i have nothing other to add thank you miss marshawn appreciate that um does anyone have any questions about ms williams um i i don't have any questions i just want to um note for the record uh that this is the same procedure we use anytime we adjust the policy we do a first reading and then we at the second reading take action there hasn't been any change in that it's the same policy this board has always done so i just want to make sure that people who are new to watching school board meetings or policy adjustments

191are aware that there's been no change in procedure this is normal for those who are just learning how policies are made with schools from the school division so this is standard we have a first policy reading then the second time around it's for vote so if members of the public have any um concerns this you also have an opportunity to weigh in at that point as well miss jesse your lights on did you have anything to add sorry okay um at that point at this point without any further questions we'll move on to 1803 update on the virginia school board association capital conference ms williams um thank you mr chairman i asked for this to be put on the agenda because every year this board attends many conferences especially with respect to virginia school board

192association this year i had the pleasure of attending in person with a few of my board members i know miss wall was in attendance miss dog report was also in attendance myself miss jackson and miss jesse i believe attended virtually because it was a hybrid conference the purpose of the virginia school board association capital conference is to provide school board members with information and education on current budgets the current standard of the budget in the state of virginia also to meet with their legislators so we do that every year specifically with prince william county schools we meet with our legislators in a and share our legislative priorities which we vote on annually the members who were in attendance in person were able to meet with the majority of our representative delegation which is also kind

193of rare because this legislators are in session at the time so it can be hit or miss i can say overall it was a good visit we were able as i said to meet with the majority of our legislators and just share our legislative priorities and discuss upcoming impending legislation uh that was going to be addressed at the general assembly there's also an opportunity for board members to take courses or to take attend a training session this year they did one on collective bargaining there's always one on foia and new school board members and new superintendents um i am very proud to say that our own superintendent who is new to the division participated in the new superintendent training um in the past our superintendent has attended this conference with us so it's nice to

194see that tradition continue it's also an opportunity for our superintendent to meet with our legislators as well because our legislative session here in virginia is very short quick and you don't always get an opportunity outside of our legislative breakfast to interact with them especially in person um so i highly encourage if people are not familiar with petunia county schools as legislative priorities uh they are available for the public to um review uh so i think that's pretty much all i have but i put this on the agenda also in case anybody else who was in attendance would like to share another perspective okay we'll move on next to okay so we're going to have to we we need to reconvene closed sessions we need to re-enter closed session emotion is in order point of voter

195we have stopped born batteries um do we do that afterwards or you want to do that now oh i see okay yeah sure go ahead do board matters we'll start with miss jesse actually i wanted to just share with you that i attended the board of supervisors meeting when the racial and social justice committee made its presentation and i i know that mrs williams said this but i wanted to make this explicit that there were many questions from the board of supervisors that related to data and how our schools were performing and i think ms williams tried to say it in so many ways but i want to be explicit that we have a partnership with them but we have the sole responsibility of implementing practices and that my recommendation to the board of supervisors

196is to look at the superintendent strategic plan all the questions that were asked are are there and that they will be working with the equity advisory council i think also that they'll be working with you guys also but just uh it became very obvious to me that there was some confusion about their role and that they were asking questions about data that to me were a little bit too specific and really to be honest with you they were uh questioning our ability to do our job and in my in my observation so i just i just want to say to anyone that if you read the strategic plan or the superintendent you will finally answer all of your questions and tonight we had this quarterly presentation of data which we never have never had so

197there's data here but i just wanted to make sure that that was clear thank you miss williams thank you madam vice chair um this is our last meeting for february so i'm going to continue what i started at the first meeting when recognizing black history month in prince william county i would like to acknowledge as last time i did with the school division our county level own black history makers and that would be the first elected black supervisors to the prince william county board of supervisors the first on the board was victor angry and then has been followed by a supervisor my own supervisor whipper's district supervisor angela franklin along with kenny bode and andrea bailey i think it's important that our public and our students recognize that we have our own living black history

198right here in prince william county considering it's black history month in addition to that i just want to also say that i had the opportunity to attend potomac shores middle school they invited me to judge a art contest which i know mr wilk will fill you in in greater detail later but i did promise to show some artwork mr wilke brought it so i stole it from him because this was one of my favorite pieces from the art competition it appears to be done in pencil and color pencil and it's just simply amazing there's more artwork to follow i appreciated the invite i um try my best to attend schools when invited i don't like to do any surprises um and that was really an awesome opportunity i liked how they did the judging using

199qr codes and there were also students who participated in the displaying artwork that was not part of the contest so i think that was a very inclusive contest i'd like to say congratulations to potomac high school boys basketball team um for winning a playoff game but i'd also like to acknowledge freedom high school for making it to the playoffs um i myself am guilty and slightly biased we spent a lot of time talking about potomac boys basketball traditionally they have been wonderful but i don't want any of our freedom students to think that their effort was not recognized because it was and i'm very proud of them as their representative as ms jesse alluded to the racial and social justice commission presented their report to the board accounting supervisors the school division does it in

200partnership with that it was um interesting to see other commissioners here tonight in their apparel we did have our report accepted the next meeting will be in march of 2022 in addition to that the governor's school will have its next meeting tomorrow that meeting will be held virtually we'll receive updates on our governor's school students and then lastly i just want to reiterate again that while this board has undergone many changes majority of our operational procedure changes have not changed in years despite what we hear from the public we have been consistent in the way that we address policy and operate and i also like to bring recognition to something we don't talk about with regards to mental health and that is that we are in a pandemic but along with that two-year pandemic we

201also lived through the largest sustained racial and social protest in american history and that's important to recognize the trauma that our black and brown students well any student really affected by that has endured and we don't honor or talk about that enough and i think it's high time that we recognize all trauma that we live through through the pandemic so thank you miss wall thank you mr chairman um so to teachers and parents thank you for advocacy um on the behalf of a group of teachers who very much appreciate your letters and your support and the freedom to choose thank you me to be simpson and brandi reeves you keep us going you guys are awesome you help us keep keep us organized and do so much more that we are probably not aware of

202i want to highlight one of our very own students who will be participating in the olympic games for usa's sled hockey team evan nichols who is a senior at battlefield this will be evan's first time competing on international ice with the national team so evan we wish you great success and go team usa they will be competing march 4th through 14th on he will be competing with the us paralympic sled hockey team and it will be march 4th through 14th so i hope we can all tune in and watch um i uh also want to congratulate battlefield girls and boys swim teams battlefield girls were the virginia region 6b champs and the boys came in third in the region so that was really awesome i just want to say a couple of things first of

203all i'm just not happy with how we have been interacting with the public um one final note about the group of citizens gathered here tonight and and many many who showed up and were not allowed in the room or who were not allowed to participate in this meeting and presently i know it was hotly contested issues a lot of tension a lot of you know emotion on the sides of this but i do want to say that i we represent the public and the public does have a right to participate in our meetings you are welcome appreciate it so very much um i would like to see us return back to more of how it was before where we had people in here and we kind of sat in a normal way i think we

204gotta we gotta start thinking about that um i'm not happy with how the public is perceiving um our procedures i um also would like to see a change in quarantine rules i know this is something a lot of people feel strongly about i believe that this is there will be changes in at the state level and i hope that we move forward with that um last year i consistently pushed for children to be live in person learning through a series of votes and i've argued consistently for parents to have the right to opt their children out of mass policies i mean out of mask mandates um i do feel like we need the opportunity as a local school board and that is our right to balance the costs versus the benefits and we need to

205have discussions about that um finally with the immediate effective date of the new state bill 739 i wish to say a few words first of all i hope we do not insist on irrational mitigations like plexiglass and face shields that have no basis in science nor that we exclude or marginalize children from full participation classrooms or any other mitigation efforts that make them feel ashamed to exercise their rights under the law i recognize that some people will be uncomfortable very uncomfortable with today's change in the mask policy it is a tenet of many faiths mine included that the spirit of contention is not of god the coming weeks will provide us all with a good opportunity to practice tolerance and respect for others choices whatever they may be and practice not judging others as we

206exercise grace so i think as we move forward we need to recognize the need for adjustments with the goal towards normalizing normal and eventually this will end and we will all return to our normal lives and fight about normal things like boundaries and school names and you know we recognize that we work for the people and we represent the people that's our job and so as we peel back a layer of mitigation i say part way because i fully expect that there will be many students who will choose to wear a mask which is their right and those who choose not to which is also their right i urge that we remember the slogan that was coined in 1939 by our neighbors across the pond be calm or keep calm and carry on thank you

207mr chairman go to mrs argoport thank you dr latif um so i'm gonna try to be short tonight um i was in a training this week um on community and family engagement for my teaching job and i was surprised no one here knows this right now i was surprised that they mentioned prince william county as a an example of some of the things that we do very well they mentioned the parent camps and specifically an interview with dr colon so i wanted to say congratulations on setting those great examples and in the vein of parent and community engagement i want to just remind you all that we have advisory councils pto pta booster parents you guys rock i mean if you're sports boosters music boosters cheerleaders i mean that's sports too right i mean just

208everything we need our volunteers we need our families involved um so just and and just remember that um it is a community effort it's it's all of us um i want to remind our our students that there are many scholarship opportunities that have come up spark foundation here with prince william county and we pull that up again that was powered by spark.org has a whole bunch of scholarships available that you can apply for payton's place which is a really important organization that's doing great work here in the county also has scholarships available so seniors please take a look at those things i went to see a couple basketball games i went to hear the district nine chorus both the middle school and the high school um and the district nine band uh last weekend or

209the weekend before um you guys i i i was the one sobbing in the back it was so beautiful the middle school chorus sang a song called clouds and it was just absolutely stunningly beautiful and then i went over to woodbridge high school to hear the senior group sing and it just was really great to hear all of these beautiful music so i just want to remind people that we are inching our way towards more more back into more normal i'm looking forward to continuing working here for our students in our community um and the other last thing i want to mention is there have been a flurry of communications to the board and sometimes when we receive the communications you have emailed all of us we don't always know if you are our constituent

210and i like to make sure i respond to mine but sometimes i can't tell if you don't say whether you're not whether or not you're in one of my schools or you live in the district that would be helpful i think all of us would like would like that um i do respond to other people but i don't want to step on other board members toes either so um so when you are communicating with us just if you could let us know which magisterial district um you're in that would be helpful and as always everyone stay safe and have a good week mr wilk thank you mr chairman thank you board members uh been a busy uh two weeks uh since um since our last board meeting uh basketball's been mentioned a lot but we

211are at regionals and uh you know my first start of the the session i went to potomac boys they defeated the woodbridge boys basketball team in overtime which was a great game the students rushed to court it was a lot of fun and i want to recognize former potomac grad keith honore coached and won his three excuse me he won his 300th game um during this time the potomac boys varsity coach and his son is a senior on the team right now did have a chance to visit paddy elementary visited students participated in a student restaurant theme going on fun times in a kindergarten alphabet game went to montclair elementary of course made my rounds visited pe the music room an autism classroom visited henderson elementary visited all grade levels including music and the pe

212i went to forest park hung out with the a street bruins which is an outstanding program and inclusion program that they do at forest park i also saw the unified team they're doing some great things and i had the opportunity to taste some cupcakes in a cupcake competition went to covington harper visited all grade levels including the art room did a doodle and a sketch and then also watched the kids play with ukuleles in the music room went to dumfries elementary uh and uh they had a great welcome for me and a nice sign thank you they're very pleased that this budget includes things like a community liaison additional funding for a small school and a full-time itc which they have not had i wrapped up that day by visiting swans creek which is my

213neighborhood school right down the road and was there for about an hour uh as miss williams said i i did kind of surprise visit and steal her thunder a little bit because she was already judging but i of course popped in yesterday and uh there were some cool ones i like this one uh it outlines kindness and it shows it's actually the planets it's really nice uh then you know it's always nice to hear kindness is magic whatever and uh be kind that's always nice and don't be a bully be a friend and then of course this is the one that miss williams held up she liked this one so um anyway so it was great to be over there um and then uh finally uh as ms williams mentioned uh last night the potomac

214boys had a regional game and they defeated victory this has not been an easy year for potomac it's not a normal year they're not like the completely undefeated uh given regional champs uh so i appreciate the perseverance and there is a game tomorrow uh that i will be at i do want to obviously thank my wife a lot of people say how do you do all this why does she let you out all the time and um she's very accommodating she knows this is what i love to do and be in schools and be at events so i do want to thank her and i want to wish my mom a happy 65th birthday uh during my call today it was more about my stress and my fun um than unfortunately talking to her but

215um my mom's a former elementary p.e teacher and uh just wanted to wish mom a happy birthday so thank you thank you mr wilkes miss wilson miss wilson do when we have board matters okay thank you miss austin all right um i'll go uh since the last board meeting i was able to attend 101 dalmatians at cedar point elementary i love supporting um student-centered activities and events and this was another great performance i just want to echo on what ms zuckerberg said about emails please be patient as we navigate emails we go through periods when they increase volume and i really do appreciate your grace um and i want to reiterate that every vote i cast weighs heavily on my mind thank you to those who came and spoke on the budget today please continue

216to read the budget and email us questions thank you to all those who came today and have emailed us and also thank you for highlighting the aviation maintenance program today this week is kindness week i want to reiterate what i said last week about encouraging our leaders today to lead with love and acceptance to create unity and conversations let us show our true intent and minor model kindness today we were fortunate to talk to patriot high school students before the meeting who have prioritized kindness throughout this week alexis francis brea defeve carbon and olivia carbon and i'm really sorry if i mispronounced people's last names um were a member of a student leadership group from patriot and today they spoke of their efforts to spread kindness through our community because as they said everyone deserves

217kindness they spent the week visiting elementary schools passing kind notes they're going to decorate rocks and spread it throughout the community so if you see a decorated wrap please tag patriot rfk they're going to deliver flowers throughout their school while donating to the american heart association and then they're going to collect canned goods all in the name of kindness these kind high schoolers brought a gift for all of the board members today first there are calendars by jill cahill of patriot sports and then we also have t-shirts made by employee by uh by patriot high schoolers so they're asking that the board members wear them while they do something kind and please consider tagging patriot r a k while you wear it and again i just want to say that it was just really kind

218that they came down at a moment of their time and came to talk with us and i hope everybody enjoys the gift from um patriot high school thank you thank you miss jackson all right i'll be brief congratulations to all our amazing basketball teams who made districts and who've had terrific seasons and there's too many of them in the name so i'm not going to name them because if i name them i'll forget some but they have done an outstanding job congratulations all our coaches particularly sherman rivers had a big historic win over their patriot um i think it was his 100th or 500 500 wins anybody know it was a big win but or 200 but anyways congratulations they've done a great job um continue to congratulate all of our students who are continuing

219to work hard our seniors as they continue to march towards college and they're hearing about their admissions good luck best wishes our juniors start getting ready for that work a lot of work ahead for that but it's fun exciting stuff um and with that i really you know i want to thank dr mcdade for the the report on the second quarter grades that again continues to be my my number one concern is our performance and that's my number two three four five and sixth and seventh and eighth and ninth tenth concerns as well is our academic performance by our students um so we'll continue to monitor that and move forward at this time we need to go back into closed session so i will ask ms jackson to read us back into closed session emotion

220is in order miss jackson i move that pursuant virginia code section 2.2 3711 and 2.2 37-12 the prince william county school board enter closed session for the following reasons one to consult with division council and receive advice on legal matters requiring the advice of council and or pertaining to actual or probable litigation as provided by virginia code section two point two thirty seven eleven a seven and eight and two to consult with the vision and excuse me to insult with to consult with staff and division council regarding legal requirements specific to the pandemic which require legal advice and guidance as provided by virginia code section 2.2-37-11 a and 8. have a second mr chairman mrs argiform any discussion please vote miss ralston how do you vote yes miss rawson vote yes the vote is eight

221yes unanimous motion passed the board will reconvene in the closed session room at 10 25 please take it okay uh we're back uh motion's in order miss jackson don't we we have to certify again hers is not right for some reason but i can read it thank you i just did it mr chairman yeah i moved that uh pursuant to virginia code 2.2-3712 the closed session of prince william county school board meeting of february 16 2022 be certified by adopting the following resolution now therefore be it resolved that the prince william county school board hereby certifies that to the best of each member's knowledge one only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements were discussed in the closed meeting to which the certification resolution applies and two only such public business matters that

222were identified such business matters as were identified in the motion convening close the closed meeting were heard and discussed or considered by the school board have a second high second any discussion please vote moving on to the approval for the directive to division council the vote is seven yes one absent ralston motion pass 2101 miss jackson i move the the prince william county school board direct division council to take such actions as discussed in closed session have a second mr chairman it's williams second please vote or any discussion please vote the vote is six yes one no wall one absent ralston motion passed at this point the prince william county school board will be adjourned