001[Music] like to call the Prince William County Schoolboard meeting to order uh we will start with the invocation for the January 18th 2017 Schoolboard meeting will be led by Pastor Barry White of Park Valley Church in Hay Market at the request of Shawn bran of the brentville district pastor white let's pray Heavenly Father God thank you so much for this evening thank you for all the people that are here and for the fact that they care about their County and the school system uh God we thank you for a school board that still opens with prayer uh in a sense to say that you are a priority and that your presence is here uh Lord we know that you see and hear everything that's done in this room uh God thank you so much for
002the board of super the the school board and Lord for all that they do for this County and for the for the kids um God I pray that they would always U remember the responsibility that they have and the decisions that they make and how they affect thousands and thousands of families um God thank you for the kids that are in all of these schools I pray Lord that you would keep them safe and I pray Lord that they would especially see how valuable they are it seems like so many kids are discouraged and God I pray that you would just encourage them I pray Lord that um they would understand just again how valuable that they are they're valuable because they're not um random Lord you made them and uh you don't make mistakes
003and we thank you for that Lord most of all we thank you for Jesus and that he came to this earth and that he died and rose from the dead for us and truly gives us hope because I think everybody's really just in search of hope so Lord we ask that you would bless this meeting tonight all that's said and done in Jesus name amen amen thank you uh we have the Pledge of Allegiance students uh in the crowd if you'd like to come forward Boy Scouts any Prince William County students if you'd like to step forward here I see a couple here in front we can lead us you can lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance if you'd like to come up here forward we have a Cub Scout coming I love there
004we go come on up to the front here everyone lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance and then uh when we say the Pledge please give us your name your school and your grade please here can step right up there I pledge allegiance to the flag of United States of America and to the Republic for which stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all you can give them your name School two young men can you give us your name your grade and what school you go to I go to Henderson Elementary and I am first grader what's your name what's your name young man I'm Jackson Irvin [Applause] go ahead hello my name is Leo D'Angelo and I go to Oldbridge Elementary what grade what grade are you in I'm in
005third grade thank [Applause] you right for all right before our regular meeting today we have a public hearing for the bmic Shores Elementary School Kilby Elementary School replacement and affected Elementary School attendance areas this is item 12.01 under the title of public hearing I declare that the public hearing is now open on the subject of the Elementary School attendance area modifications that result from the opening of The patomic Shores Elementary School and the Kilby Elementary School replacement for the 20178 school year any citizen who has signed sign up to speak on this matter may do so at this time we had several speakers sign up ahead of the uh sign up ahead of time we also had a few speakers sign up at the door everyone will get a chance to speak I'm going that
006signed up for the public hearing again just to be clear this is not citizens time that is part of the regular Schoolboard agenda this is a separate public hearing regarding the boundaries that the regular citizens time will follow during the regular meeting so this is specifically the sign up for the public hearing just just for some clarity there um looks like we had about 26 people sign up ahead of time and two people sign up to the door for the public hearing uh the same rules apply as it does for Citizens time later although I'll get to say it twice here um that everyone will have 3 minutes to speak we ask that you follow proper deorum at all times if not you'll be asked to step aside during that 3 minutes at the 30
007second Mark remaining after 2 and a half minutes uh the the your timer will turn yellow on the board above me I will control the timer here from the de um and at 0 seconds it'll turn red and you you asked to stop and wrap up at that point so um we'll what I'm going to do is I'm going to call the first 10 speakers up so we can kind of f these front rows which are reserved for our speakers and we can kind of keep it flowing a little better that way so when I call your name please come forward our first Speaker I'm going to make sure I'm reading off the right sheet otherwise I'd add to the confusion here um the first speakers is Michael artson then Anna Rodriguez Angela Roth Tasha
008Nelson Mars ouet Terrence Gomez Margaret go go goano Paul pimel Jeremy Secor and Josh G those are our first 10 speakers if I got if I pronounced your name incorrectly I sincerely apologize but those are our first 10 speakers again 3 minutes it'll turn yellow at 30 seconds it's time to wrap up and at 0 seconds it'll turn red and again proper decorum at all times our first speaker was Michael artson Mr artson yes sir hello good evening Schoolboard members my name is Michael artson and I'm a longtime resident of grim Wich Hill I'm here today to protest to propos boundary changes for akaan elementary school the proposed boundary change will exclude Grim Hill which is in walking distance to the school I oppose this decision for three reasons first is the issue of convenience
009aaan Elementary School is in walking distance to Grim Hills many families living here are Transit dependent or have one car parents walk to the school to attend parent teacher meetings and after school meetings as a school district Prince William County struggles to improve parent involvement an important factor in closing the achievement Gap this decision would hurt any advances in that area second the decision threatens our children's future by moving underserved kids from one of the highest performing schools schools in Virginia to one of the lowest performing schools in Virginia would you want that for your child treat us like you want to be treated normally kids from underserved areas do not have access to the best performing schools this current situation is rare this proposal will contribute to widening the achievement gap finally there's the
010issue of home values as you know home values are directly tied to the performance of schools many residents specifically moved to grimage Hills so that their child could attend aquan elementary school this decision could lower the home values of every homeowner in Grim Hills this is unfair treat us like you want to be treated as a taxpayer voter and longtime homeowner I strongly oppose this decision and ask that you reconsider thank you thank you our next speaker is Anna Rodriguez I am going to ask I'm sorry it's it's going to be a long meeting with that S I am going to ask the Applause uh be kept be kept no applause and no booing no hissing any that we we do have a lot of speakers to get through and it can't it can really
011slow things down here so um Miss Anna Rodriguez you're up good evening members of the board my name is Anna Rodriguez and I'm a parent of two aquan Elementary School students I'm here once again to express my concern about the proposed boundary change that will affect my community when green witch Hill I'm strongly I'm strongly opposed to such change it is unreasonable to send our kids to another school that is 2 miles away when we leave two blocks away from okan elementary there are other communities that can be served by Belmont Elementary School those those are communities around the route one green witch Hill is located at okan Road just like okan Elementary this is not about feelings and what make our kids happy it's about what is best for them and this boundary change
012takes if this boundary change takes place our kids are going to be Deni denied a quality education that that oaan Elementary has has GI them has gave them oaan Elementary has achieved so much the principal and his staff are doing what what are doing it's outstanding there are winning Awards high scores in SOS it has been mentioned that okang classroom are overcrowded since my since my oldest son was in kindergarten I never seen problems with classrooms they are well equipped according to their needs they have classes only and trailers only for music class once a week Belmont Elementary is considered one of the poorest performing performing schools in Northern Virginia 49% in Reading 53% in math it's unfair the way this boundary change is planned there is no options for us our little Community is
013going to be carved out because of new developments being built and not looking out after the best interest of our children as a homeowner I'm concerned with the value of my house that is why I oppose to this ridiculous boundary change that will send our kids to a poor performing school and separate them so School socially from neighbor friends leaving just blocks away thank you thank you uh our next speaker is Angela Roth and speakers if you do want to ask people to stand if they support your cause that is that is that is allowed as part of your three minutes but I just want to make sure that you can show support in that way during your time thank you okay um hi my name is Angela Roth I am the PTA president for
014swan Creek Elementary School this is my sixth year holding that title I also happen to serve on the board of Southbridge homeowners association where Swans Creek is currently located um today I'm here to express my support for proposed plan number six of the boundary change in regard to Swans Creek Elementary School and Southbridge I would however ask that the plan be slightly amended to include the five streets in our community that were admitted in doing this it will allow all of Southbridge to remain at Swans Creek 14 years ago my husband and I purchased our home in Southbridge and we did so so our children four Sons could attend Swans Creek for their Elementary education the outstanding Administration and teaching staff led the way and that is why we have remained in Southbridge and at
015Swans Creek and as active community members next year will be a Bittersweet year for our family as it is our last because we have ran out of children to in there in all of those years at Swans Creek our family has stepped up to the call and volunteered our time and effort into building this to be a true Community School we have helped to create a community fundr run a community swim team and we have taught our students both past and present the value of giving back to the community we live in many students from the high school middle school levels all come back to serve as volunteers at Swans Creek the many Community programs and Outreach projects have all been launched from the Swans Creek front doors while our community school has really brought
016us together it also shows that different diverse communities can actually come together as one um we have also been able to Garner different Partnerships to provide a range of opportunities for our students and their families not only during the class time but also when class time is over neighbors have come together to create a safe and supportive School climate for Swans Creek and that diverse student body it is one that I do not wish to see changed in closing I do want to comment that as I've told my other parents at Swans Creek and in Southbridge no matter how these boundaries fall I know and feel strongly Prince William County's education will continue patomic Shores Elementary School will have a wonderful guidance under their new principal Mr Ron Wooten he was at one time our
017vice principal you've chosen wisely and well to have him serve I know that we will partner with this school and both schools will be successful I want to take a moment to thank the boundary committee for their hard work this was not an easy task thank you for allowing me to take a moment to speak today thank you our next speaker is Tasha Nelson Tasha good afternoon uh I should say good evening members of the board um my name is Tasha Nelson and I'm actually a new resident of grenwich Hill Association our neighborhood and I am going to ask if you are here for Greenwich Hill and if you are here for Aquacon that you do please stand in support I have come here today because I am in strong opposition of the boundary changes
018that seems to single out Greenwich Hill Community I recently have bought my home in June of 20 2016 and I came to this community because it is a strong beautiful workingclass community that has wonderful kids in this community and I believe it's all a part of you know the children who attend aquan elementary school and to see that we have been singled out as a community that is between 04 and 6 miles away from the school where there are other communities who are at least two miles away that will still be able to continue to go to the school is very disheartening and you know I understand that home values are affected by that but that really is the least of my concerns but my concern is the education that my 5-year-old kindergarten is going
019to get I work very hard as a single parent to make sure that he is reading or actually he's performing above School level and he's already performing at a first grade level and then he's going to continue to do that with the guidance from aquan elementary school and their staff and so I continue to say that again I urge you strongly to reconsider the boundaries that cuts out this very good close-knit community that is very close to aquan elementary school cuz definitely in the short time that I have been here I strongly see know that aquana elementary school is one of the very strong threads in our community and is very important to us with that being said to know that also the alternative would be to ship our children 1.6 miles away in the
020opposite direction to a severely underperforming school is also another slight to us and as if I sound a little bit angry I do apologize but again this is very a very important issue to me it will for me personally it'll make it very difficult for me to be an active and participating parent in the school because it is a it does deal with traffic going in the opposite direction both going and coming back to our community and I'm very involved in um everything that's going on in aquan elementary school and so I thank everybody who is here today in support of changing the boundaries that again singles out grwi Hill Community and this allowing our children to continue to go to aquan elementary and I hope that you all take this to heart and really
021reconsider the boundary changes thank you very much for your time thank you our next speaker is Mars wet Mars and I apologize if I didn't pronounce it correctly good evening um as my previous speaker um said I'm over here to dispute uh or to oppose the boundary change because I think they well said the reason why they're opposing it um I'm not going to go back and trying to explain why um it's not only inconvenient for us living in that Community 2 minute away from the school to be moved 10 minute away from the school when sometimes I'm at work and then they call me and say your son is sick and I can send my mother that has two hips replaced to just walk to the school and get my son for me to
022call my wife and have her walk or leave a job and drive 45 minutes if I can free myself second of all I have two kids that attend that school one with autism I don't know if when you guys are making a decision on Boundary changes if you guys are even thinking about who going to be affected by those changes I'm not trying to take my my daughter from the a to a C I'm not just going to do that and then I told the assistant principal last month when I was attending the last IEP meeting and I just received one not two days ago I received one and then I told him I am not going to send my son or my daughter to Belmont I'm not doing it and I'm going to fight
023this decision all the way through I'm not even going to waste my time over here trying to argue the reason of why or why not I just think it's unfair for people to just sit on the board and not even thinking about people that live in the community and taking decision that will affect them directly not only it's not fair and you got G giv a service to those kid with with disability for those who understand all autism it takes times for a kid to adjust from one school to another one I came from a Fairfax County where my dog used to go to school it took her time to adjust when I bought the house over here in in in Woodbridge and the reason I bought the house over there is was because her
024teacher told me that she did research on oan school if I was renting I would I would move and find another place but that is my home I bought that home it's mine I can't move if there's anybody here want to buy it I will sell it thank you sir our next speaker is Terrence Gomez Terrence Terren next speaker is Margaret go goano Margaret good evening it's um my name is Margaret jovenazo I am a parent of two students who attend Henderson Elementary School uh we currently live on Edgewood Drive when we bought our house 10 years ago we looked for a SCH School Community we looked for a school with well performing um standards as an educator those are something that I'm very that are valued to me um we are currently for next
025year going to be rezoned over to Patty which is another wonderful School however my children have both made friendships they have built relationships in that building and I am asking that we um make an addendum so that our that area can be placed back into the Henderson School District thank you thank you next speaker is Paul pimel Paul thank you Mr chairman my name is Paul pel I'm here I am a parent from Henderson Elementary School with two children soon to be three there at Henderson Elementary and at first I want to just start off by thanking the boundary committee for the hard work that they did put in uh it's not easy I understand however at the same time uh I am here in opposition as well as many other parents here uh to
026the current boundary plan as is it as it exists the last boundary meeting there were 20 speakers who spoke 16 of those speakers all spoke in regards to Henderson Elementary School and the and this boundary plan and to the fact that right now we welcome at Henderson Elementary anybody who wants to come to this school what we and we do not want to remove anybody from this school but what we ask is that we keep our community together and not divide our community just to accommodate another Community 2.6 miles down the road on Cardinal Road that would be bust to our school this other community Cardinal Grove God bless them I'm sure they are wonderful people and it's a wonderful community but at the same time there is a school right across the street from
027Cardinal Grove you could throw if you were the quarterback for the New England Patriots you could throw a football from within carinal Grove and hit Bonita Fitzgerald right across the street however students at Cardinal Grove will not be attending Bita Fitzgerald instead they're being bused 2.6 miles away to Henderson Elementary School where we have expanded the school and welcome many other people but why should children already at this school who have already established their lives at this school established their friendships have to leave and be thrust out of that Community to accommodate other children coming in from outside that's wrong and I ask this board to correct that error currently right now over a 100 individuals have signed a petition um asking to be to have these neighborhoods placed back in Henderson Elementary School we
028know that Patty and Montclair Elementary are wonderful schools and they are they have great communities there as well and they are worldclass schools however at the same time we feel it would be wrong and it would do violence upon these children and their families to force them to move to accommodate groups from outside of these schools groups that really should be going to Bonita Fitzgerald but for some reason these new $750,000 homes individuals there feel like they shouldn't be going to a school such as that I lead you to draw your own conclusion about that thank you thank you our next speaker is Jeremy seor Jeremy good evening uh again my name is Jeremy seor and thank you for taking the time uh for allowing me to speak um I myself also live on Edgewood
029Drive in the Montclair neighborhood I have three kids to currently attend Henderson and I have one that'll be attending hopefully within the next few years uh like many folks here um I'm also so concerned uh our section of the neighborhood which only encompasses four streets approximately 20 maybe 25 children has been removed from Henderson starting next year I understand that this board has a very difficult decision tonight and I also understand that not everyone in this room is going to walk away happy however I think that the board can do something uh which benefits the community and doesn't take anybody out uh or um disappoints anyone in the room so ultimately what I'm asking is I'm asking this board to uh basically make an addendum add us back to Henderson as I mentioned it's only
030affecting about 20 25 children currently Henderson is not at capacity not near capacity and the uh next five years the projections are not showing it going to capacity as well so I politely ask this board to consider an addendum that to have our children in our SE in the neighborhood reintroduced to Henderson uh going forward thank you for allowing me to speak thank sir our next speaker is Josh G Josh and before you get going I'm going to call the rest of everyone up so you can go and take the podium it's okay if everyone if you've already spoken if you don't mind we're going to we're going to clear out the front row here I'm going to call the next speakers next 10 speakers up who will follow Josh so our next 10 speakers
031after that are Jason coren Heather Hancock baru Rani Deanna berer bear I'm sorry de be uh Bob Hall Carolyn Morland Jamie bin Derek Jones Noel limam and Joseph Irvin those will be the following 10 speakers Mr G right thank you for the chance to uh speak tonight to the um to um the the zoning changes uh for the schools and for the border the boundary changes um I'm a parent at Henderson Elementary School and um speak in support of keeping the uh existing uh students that are that are in uh the neighborhoods of my last few speakers here and my neighbors um to keep them in our in Henderson District um not only that I am also a den leader uh for the for the Cub Scouts among which includes a couple of these these
032students and um I think that Henderson has a reputation as a a very good school and part of that not only is the teachers but also the parents that are in the neighborhood and we all put in a lot of effort and the um it's best if everything can continue if the effort that has been put in can continue um and we we welcome other districts or or other neighborhoods but not at the expense of the students that are already there so I think that it would be very good to continue uh keeping those those students there and to to add that addendum to keep that those neighborhoods and those streets part of Henderson District thank you thank you sir our next speaker is Jason coren Jason good evening I'm Jason coren I have three
033children um one just left Henderson two are still there um I think my neighbors have spoken pretty well about this issue hopefully uh I've passed some letters on myself um past couple years you know we've been excited to see henders Henderson expanding it's a great school our kids have done well there and Thrive there um but they dealt with all that construction the uh playgrounds were torn out they were in the trailers for a little while you know shuffling it out and they dealt with it um we're excited because it means school is getting bigger and bringing bringing more students in then I started attending the boundary meetings and realized there was no plan to keep us at Henderson and again it's a small area of Edgewood Cranberry Court 20 to 25 students um who
034are being sent back to Patty Elementary School which is not the issue it's just really that it's kind of unfair to those kids I feel it's unfair to those families who've been supportive of the school to now so I just like to see if you would reconsider that um making a denim whatever needs to be done to keep our little neighborhood where we uh where we've been at at at Henderson thanks for your time I appreciate it thank you sir our next speaker is Heather Hancock Heather hello um I'm an educator and a mother and I have H A Child going to Henderson currently and I have one that will be attending Henderson within the next uh two years and choosing a school to me was just as important to me as choosing a home
035and when we moved to Montclair we were excited to put down Our Roots as our 5-year-old Ander kindergarten at Henderson uh the school was under undergoing Renovations which we were readily willing to accept we l the school and ultimately we were looking to the Future and the positive impact a newly renovated school would have that is why we were shocked to learn of the Poo's boundaries changes and exceedingly upset by the community that would potentially displace our neighborhood it feels like a slap in the face that my daughter has endured three years of dust workers coming in and out the noise of construction temporary classrooms lack of a playground and we will never reap the benefits of the work that is finally when it is finally completed I understand and empathize with the predicament that
036Prince William county is in the developers are building building new communities so quickly and clearly the impact fees that they're paying are not high enough to build the schools that our County so desperately needs however it seems lot doesn't seem logical to me to split up an established Community uh those those children that have just moved into their new homes and the new development they haven't built those same ties grown the same friendships or volunteered their time in service of their school uh it is my hope that you will empath empathize with us the children the parents of Henderson that have invested in our schools and our community and not let the developers have the final say thank you thank you our next speaker is baru Rani barus good I'm talking we of the north
037gate hwood Anderson School I have two grand kids go over there for years they are over there they have a lot of friend over there they all love their teacher they love their school I don't know what will happen if want you want to separate them from the school to stay somewhere else and what to have their future what they think of my childhood I lost my friend I lost my teacher it takes almost two years three years to learn how to get or come back or to know their schools their kids name or friends name and parents you know working very hard you know to take care of them and school is beautifully School nice school and how come suddenly you all decided you know separate those kids from the school and put a
038wall between this gate and that gate what for please think about before any decision thank you thank you sir our next speaker is Deanna bear Deana good evening chairman sawers Vice chair Jesse and school board members again my name is Deanna beay and I have grandchildren at Henderson that area of Northgate and Edgewood is a very small area an area that's been cut out of Henderson and that's upset me because it's upset my grandkids and as you know as a grandparent if you remember your grandparents or you are one you know you'll do anything to take care of your grandkids over the last few weeks I have walked around this neighborhood this small neighborhood in efforts to alert the citizens of the looming boundary changes many were not even aware it was happening some knew
039but didn't know what to do about it in talking with them about the plans they became clear there were some common feelings and themes since many of these citizens are unable to be here tonight because work schedules child Etc I would like to relay some of their comments that they made to me personally to you many expressed that they saw this as wrong wrong in how the plan move them out of Henderson Elementary School to make room for a newer luxury home neighborhood that sets directly across the street from Fitzgerald elementary school as someone else said they haven't had ties yet to time to make ties to their Community other citizens felt that it was it's good to welcome new neighborhoods new kids to the school that's always good but not at the expense of
040their own children students currently attending Henderson many citizens of all backgrounds and circumstances expressed their reasons for moving to this neighborhood was to attend Henderson Elementary School some of these families are military some lived in government subsidized housing which I guess you wouldn't find in those newer luxury home neighborhoods all the families I heard from love Henderson they're disappointed that both both of the proposed plans none of the plans ever talked about are considered considered keeping this small neighborhood in Henderson generally speaking um citizens weren't happy you heard disappointment you heard a community that feels they're being wronged thank you you heard them Su thank you our next speaker is Bob Hall Bob good evening everyone and thank you for the hard work that you're about to do tonight um so my name is Robert
041Hall and I serve on the Southbridge Community Association board of directors uh where currently 100% of our community goes to Swans Creek and I dare say 100% of our community loves Swans Creek um when reviewing plans 1 through five they all divided our community nearly in half sending half to pic Shores and half to Swans Creek um so at first I was actually somewhat intrigued because everyone loves a new school however from a Community Association perspective putting two sets of school buses on our streets many of which are completely bisected um is is unfeasible from a traffic point of view there's not enough room to drive down these streets as it is uh most of our streets have parking on both sides um so then this week we see in the Prince William edition of
042inside Nova that the VRE station that was promised to alleviate traffic in our neighborhood is not going to be completed until at least 2018 no defined date so there's more traffic plan six came out and I was very excited because it has the vast majority of our community attending Swans Creek so I I urge you to accept uh plan six with one exception um if you could there are there are five small streets barley drive and its offshoots that for some reason is the only part of Southbridge community that has been assigned to go to pic Shores it is the closest part however what it does to us as board members on the Community Association is for that small little section it doubles our responsibility to reach out to the to the schools instead of
043having one Elementary School we now have two and in order to serve and provide equal um service to all of our community members we're going to have to equally reach out to both elementary schools so we're talking about less than a few dozen homes even fewer students and for the residents on in on those streets that I've talked to they are delighted with Swans Creek and and really um would support staying there so I urge you to um please is as far as Swans Creek is concerned uh we support um six but please consider an amendment for those five streets barley drive and its offshoots thank you thank you our next speaker is Carolyn Morin Carolyn good evening thank you for the opportunity to speak um about this redistricting uh I'm here to talk about
044it because I believe that uh strongly that it would make a d a drastic change in my community of Greenwich Hill I believe believe that it would threaten two of the most important Investments that we have our children's education and our home values um I am we currently go to akaan elementary school which as you know is is is an excellent school and you talk to any family there and they will tell you that um so I was disappointed to find that we would be leaving that school what shocked me and urged me to come here was to see that they would be switched to Belmont Elementary School now I I might need someone to check the facts for me but from what I saw on the Virginia Department of Education web page is that
045Belmont is barely accredited it did meet the standards this year but it is uh in a special status for accreditation and I don't understand the reasoning of moving children from a community an underprivileged Community from a school that is performing as a school of excellence to a school that is barely accredited and barely meeting Virginia state standards of what they're supposed to be doing the other issue about our home values when I checked online and looked at the um how that can be impacted by School District I found that it could impact the the the price of homes or home property value between 12 to 18% one place on realtor.com even said that the biggest drag that you could have for to bring your home value down was to be in a bad school district
046uh back to the uh topic of um moving our children from uh a successful School District to one that is failing I believe that number one we need to fix the school before we consider adding any more children to that school the school needs to be brought up to standards before we consider that the other thing is that the the family in the families in Greenwich Hill are already in a school district with a failing middle school that is not accredited what are you doing to our kids when you are taking them out of a successful School putting them into a failing school and into a failing Middle School This concerns me and this is what brings me here I believe that we need to bring those schools up to standard before you consider moving
047children from a success ful School into a school that is not performing thank you thank you can I ask that no applause please uh our next speaker is Jamie binsky Jamie good evening uh thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening um my name is Jamie binsky I'm a resident of the Greenwich Hill development uh I have I'm the parent of a child at akaan elementary school I don't know how much more I can add to what my neighbors have already uh at spoke of this evening um I would just like to say that it it just kind of feels like we've been going through a bad dream here we've we've attended the planning committee meetings we've spoken up we so many of us are here this evening I would urge you guys to
048I know I know it's a difficult decision I know a lot has gone into this but I would urge you guys to consider fairness for CH the children of the gr and Hill development um the aaan elementary is a fantastic school we do not want to pull our kids out of that school go to Belmont uh just please consider uh fairness for to them the families of Greenwich Hill um I I would call on you guys to have an amendment to one of the plans or some sort of an an addendum to make this happen appreciate it thank you very much thank you our next speaker is Derek Jones Derek good evening thank you all for having me the third time now no difference I uh just seven pounds lighter I um I can't say
049anything more than my fellow neighbors and parents have said about gard and chills and wanting us to not be taken away as stated before I really don't have a dog in the fight yet because my kid is only going to be entering kindergart next year and I really hope it's at aaan elementary um it seems just hearing this being at the other meetings you really have two schools Henderson and us that are are absolutely not fine with any of the changes yet I don't have a dog in the fight in Henderson either but it seems fairly simple to take a pencil and draw their Community back in and draw grenage back in and please just let us have our schools back like I said I don't have anything for Henderson I just feel like they
050should get it too we're asking for it um I guess Southbridge now wants their last five streets why not that's five streets 12 homes um I implore you y'all yall are here for the children it's not safe I used to walk to Belmont from greenage all my friends were in Belmont when I lived in Belmont I moved to greenage I walked there simpler times not as busy not safe maybe it was bad parenting who knows so just please take my brity and humor into account realize we're awesome and let us have aaan Elementary School back thank you very much thank you sir our next speaker is Noel lipom good evening I reside in the Cardinal Point subdivision and have a student that currently attends Henderson and we are being impacted by the two proposals recommended
051by the boundary planning committee given that the first several proposals did not result in resoning our community out of penderson to Montclair our family and SE several other now impacted families did not think the efforts were relevant to us however as the waterfall or domino effect that occurred through the process expanded the scope of the committee beyond the route one Corridor and down Cardinal Drive I learned that indeed Henderson and our community would be impacted so over the past several weeks I've been giving myself a crash course into this process and trying to understand the facts that led to the current two proposals and combining coming through the available documents talking to members of the impact of communities and asking questions I realized that there was a lot of information for you all to consume
052and making this decision on whether or not to accept the proposed boundaries um so at the January 4th meeting you heard emotional pleas from imp Ed families mine included um but now I want to take the opportunity to highlight a few facts to support a request to amend the proposals and keep existing Henderson Community Zone to Henderson fact there is no difference between the two proposals with respect to Henderson leaving us with no option other than to request an amendment directly from their board and in reviewing Virginia code 22179 registering boundaries impacting less than 15% of the impacted school's population does not require public comment and given that the 2017 enrollment for Henderson is 641 students and the amendment we are requesting to keep our community Zone to Henderson impacts less than 96 students I
053request that you accept this amendment fact the 2017 to 2026 Capital Improvement plan includes the following elementary schools in the Cardinal geographic area Bel belir Dell City Fitzgerald Henderson minville and Ne absco you'll note that this list does not include Monclair and for good reason given that our communities are less than half a mile from the entrance of to Henderson off of Cardinal Drive um in order to keep the boundaries in alignment with the previously approved Capital Improvement plan I request that you accept this amendment fact in the 2017 school year Henderson will open with a 250 seat expansion based on the current boundaries capacity will be at 79.3% as compared to 88.9% under the proposed plans this number increases to 99% in 2023 however as the county continues to invest funds into expansion and
054acquisition in addition to the likely variability in the ections relative to the actual occurrence Henderson has capacity to support new students from Fitzgerald as proposed in addition to our community even when looking out to the latest production Pro productive capacity proposals as such I request that you accept this amendment and do not shift families out of Henderson until capacity constraints are a more near term time horizon or actually materialized um so in closing I just ask that you consider the facts and vote in favor amending boundary proposals number four our six and keep existing communities so to Henderson at Henderson thank you thank you our our next speaker is going to be Joseph Irvin and Joseph if you can take the podium I'm going to call up the I'm going to call up the next
055uh excuse me I think it's eight speakers and that should wrap up the public hearing um so Joseph you'll be next our next speaker is Darlene Irving Jackson Irving Bruce White Star demory uh Kirsten Hebb Kirsten uh Kristen Jacobson and then on to the uh signups at the door Troy Hopkins and Joshua Smith if you all could come up to the front and we will get moving Mr Irvin you have the floor good evening chairman and everyone on the board I don't want to take up too much more of your time there's not much more that I can say than than all of my neighbors have said already and you look bored enough already so I want to get you out here as soon as possible but I want to speak to you um about
056Henderson I'm in a neighborhood that is literally across the street in Highbridge I don't think anyone has spoken from hybridge but if you look at this logically I'm not going to give you a big Sab story about how this is going to ruin my life and all this good stuff but if you look at it logically we are literally steps from the school we are steps and if if you look at that fact why would you move schools from 2 miles away into Henderson and take one that's literally steps away from the school and put them out um it just makes no sense um there's there's a lot of neighborhoods affected um we're affected pretty good I have um a son Jackson Irving as you see um he goes to Henderson he's made plenty of
057friends as he led everyone in the Pledge of Allegiance he learned the Pledge of Allegiance at Henderson that's our family I taught him how to throw his first baseball on the field at Henderson that's a little bit of my SB story but that's that that's our Legacy we can literally walk there in 5 minutes that's that's where we've been where he goes to the playground all his friends he's in Cub Scouts and he goes there so I know I'm boring you and you've heard this all before but please do me this favor and all of us this favor consider an amendment or whatever you have to do to keep a neighborhood that's literally steps from Henderson in Henderson thank you thank you sir next speaker is Darlene Irvin Darlene good evening Schoolboard members I'm a
058parent of Henderson Elementary and a homeowner of hybridge community and like many of the other families that are here today we specifically bought our home in our neighborhood about eight years ago when we were Family Planning because of the community reputation that Henderson had backed by the test scores published at the Virginia Department of Education our community Highbridge has been a part of Henderson for the 26 years out of the 30 years Henderson has been operating furthermore our neighborhood is the closest in proximity to Henderson off of Cardinal Drive it is literally the distance from this flag pole to that flag pole there where I can stand and see my first grader and the other students of Henderson get on and off the bus every day as you are aware our school has been under
059construction for well over the past year and a half to expand Henderson um that's slated to open up this fall with an additional 250 seats with the expansion of 250 seats at Henderson I question how is it possible that current students who live within steps of their school are going to be forced to be busted to schools that are approximately two miles away from their home Henderson has the capability to keep all of its current students who've contributed to the legacy of the school making it a school of excellence for a number of years as well as accommodate new students from neighboring schools to late the route one Corridor which is the objective of this eastern boundary planning my request is that the board does not approve plans four and six as currently is and
060that you consider the modifications in the Amendments that you hear us all um advocating and that you keep my neighborhood Highbridge specifically Cardinal Point and Northgate all at Henderson because we are a Henderson Family boundary planning should not be done subjectively instead it should be carried out OB objectively thank you thank you our next speaker is Jackson irvan so this is my son Jackson and he wanted to tell the board himself why he wants to stay at Henderson so if we have something for him we have a this is this is the only reason Mr Iman attends our meetings he's he's he's he's in charge of the stool so it's a very good stool my name is is Jackson Irvin and I am a first grader at Henderson Elementary each day I love morning meeting
061because we learned something new from our world pack friends I love math because we do subtraction and addition and my teacher Missy makes it really fun I love recet because we choose what we want to play and I love playing Jelly D hero on the computer I do not want to leave Henderson because I am a husky huskies are leaders of the pack and the pack and we are champions my friends will be sad because I will go somewhere else and I will be sad because I won't see them forever my husy friends are my family and I didn't not want to leave my family I love my husky family thank you Jackson irvan I will allow of Applause for Jackson that was awesome and Mr Irvin you clearly did teach him to throw a
062baseball because clearly he's your closer so I I see I see uh I see how you work um our next speaker is Bruce White Mr White thank you members of the board for allowing me to speak tonight my name is Bruce White and I am a concerned parent of a second grade student at aquan elementary school our neighborhood of greenwitch Hills is potentially going to be removed from this elementary school and I also served as on the uh border um committee uh this past couple months and I found this experience very uh interesting and educational even though with all the information and data presented to us I feel that removing our neighborhood uh from aawan would be detrimental to the continued progress of the students who live in our neighborhood aawan students have are sorted
063into tribes to build community a practice that was um recently cited at the superintendent advisory Council for instruction best practice conference for parents as a favorite among attendees the students also benefit greatly from The Amazing after school stem program and the commitment of the staff I respectfully ask this board to reconsider moving our neighborhood to Belmont and keep them in aawan and also like to mention that akaan has also been um nationally recognized as a title one school thank you thank you our next speaker is star demy star good evening my name is star demy I'm a hopeful husky parent in the Highbridge neighborhood and this is my second time speaking to the board about this issue last time I prepared to speech I lost my place so I figured I'd just swing it tonight
064so um hopefully I get my point across like everyone else that spoke tonight I I don't think that moving us out of the the Henderson neor Henderson school zone is um a fair assessment and honestly I really feel like I'm being discriminated against economically the brand new neighborhood built 2 and2 miles down the road that has the more expensive homes than my neighborhood does is going to be accommodated by their decision making to go for the house versus the school by being moved to one of the better schools in the district I bought my house based on the school not the house so I didn't buy in the fanciest neighborhood but I bought in the neighborhood that's less than half a mile across the street from the school that I wanted my children to attend
065so to rezone me when I went for school in the first place versus maybe someone who didn't have school on their mind but had the best house on their mind it just doesn't seem fair I can't up and move I'm not able to just make that choice and do that so if you don't rezone us back into the district that I bought my house specifically to ensure my children could go to school for then I'm kind of stuck in a bad situation like the rest of us here here tonight so just like them I would ask that you reconsider and that the amendment um is considered in your vote tonight and that you don't vote on either four or six as again neither one of them even gave us a shot at what we should
066rightfully have access to and I'm sure most of us that live in that neighborhood that's why we're there thank you thank you our next speaker uh is Kirsten Hebb Kirsten hello um thank you for allowing me to speak to you all tonight I'm also in grwi hill so I guess you're hearing a lot from uh grenwich Hill regarding aaan and also um Henderson seems to be a big thing where um actually just like like the speaker speaker before me mentioned it was a huge factor in our buying our home I'm the firsttime homeowner and actually a first time Mom first time public speaker very nervous I'm sorry um and one of the things we were looking for when we wanted to start our family was a very strong public school we were incredibly excited when
067we saw aaan when we found the home that we we and we love our neighborhood um I I I hate the thought of of even considering leaving it over this um the we are on the same side of the street next to okawana Elementary School and it it never uh upon looking for a home never would have crossed my mind that I would be here trying to defend a School boundary issue for that school because it simply it doesn't make any sense and I'm I I feel badly for all of you um and I find it a little bit ironic that none of the proposals even allow for our neighborhood to stay in that school so we're really asking a lot we're as I mean I don't know what you can do if it can
068be tabled for later for further review if there's any way it can be voted against tonight but um it's just shocking to me that that would be um that that is on the table to move us all um especially and and the more I hear about it the more the more tragic it see it seems because the school is amazing on paper but now that I'm seeing now that I really understand how Cru like what a Cornerstone it is in our neighborhood and in our community and how excited all the kids are to go there how excited the parents are have their children there it's of it's just amazingly um important and I hope there is some way that we can remain there especially considering that um to to change the boundary and to have
069us go to Belmont it you know to cross a busy road to go down to go that couple miles the logistics of it are uh there there are safety issues there are traffic issues there's all those other things to take into consideration and I really do feel that the the effect that it seems we going going for as far as relieving the overcrowding is so negligible when you take all these other factors into account that I'm I really do feel it there are better options and um I I implore I I'm begging you to please reconsider that uh we were talking the last meeting logic was a came up and I really do think that we can come up with a more logical solution that will also help us keep our you know our Tribe
070School tribe and our families um intact and happier and our students get the education that we want them to have thank you very much thank you our uh last speaker that signed up ahead of time is Kristen Jacobson Kristen wow good evening School Board um thank you for allowing me to speak and um I apologize ahead of time I may not close as well as you did you did a fantastic job um I'm here um as a parent my son goes to aawan elementary uh we are in the mango tribe so uh we just we love it there he's thriving he's six years old in reading Harry Potter which is you know really exciting for me um but when we're looking at the numbers and I and I really wanted to thank the boundaries committee
071because I can only imagine what you all must be feeling as we're all standing up here and I know it must be really really difficult but we're here to kind of add more of a human aspect to all the numbers that's already been crunched and all the colorations all these maps and everything and it really sounds like there's just three amendments that everyone's really asking for and it's to keep our communities together whether it's Swans Creek or Henderson or Greenwich in acaan and um and that's that's all I'm imploring is if we're going to say yes to one of these two plans to please just look at the neighborhoods because moving granich CH is someone already mentioned I mean we're going from a school that is literally a football field away to a school where
072we're busing our children 1.7 miles away which as we all know we all live in Northern Virginia 1.7 miles maybe in Arkansas is not a lot but here it's like 20 minutes and that's without accidents so um I just can't imagine my kid who having to be on a bus on Route One for God knows how long and then I I work in Fairfax and I love being part of the aqua Kang community and I leave work early just so I can be part of it and to be honest having to go to Belmont without traffic again is an additional 20 minutes further to the East part of the community and it's just I want to be there for everything that he does I want to chaperon I want to go to the Book Fairs
073I want to be present and active in a school and I know a lot of our other neighbors want to be as well um we there is a petition going and for some of my neighbors who cannot be here some of the things that they've said are things like the personnel there are doing an excellent job of teaching and caring for our children our kids love the community the school has created and moving my son and the other children would disrupt the community we've been become such a big part of um we live less than a quarter mile from school my sisters go to aaan I don't want them they don't want to leave um this is just again and thank you to the boundary committee but I just want to be here and lend
074as with all of our neighbors just a human aspect to this so that we can just find hopefully a win-win solution to this really tough problem so please and by the way I think we would all just walk our kids to aawan if we have to so we don't need a bus although we would like one but I'm just saying thank you thank you all right on to our final two speakers who signed up at the door we have uh Troy Hopkins Troy Mr Iman how' you not see that coming thank you you're well oh I'm sorry did it the wrong way even there we go there go hello I am Troy Hopkins me and my brother go to Henderson Elementary School you not want to be split from our friends cuz this is our
075pack thank you like everyone to note that he took up 15 seconds take that for what it's worth yeah um and our last speaker speaker for the public hearing is Joshua Smith Joshua 15 seconds Joshua okay seriously uh thank you chairman thank you board for your time tonight I I wish we could have flipped that around and made Troy the uh the ringer for the night because he really he really did good right there and uh the economy of words great job Troy awesome um so I did get an opportunity to speak two weeks ago and I just wanted to reiterate a few points and bring up a few other things uh just some thoughts we've heard from all kinds of folks from the aaan uh Community from Southbridge and from uh my community that
076is uh affected by the Henderson boundaries just to bring up a few points um specifically talking about our uh our boundary in Henderson and these other schools and you can see all these people who have come that are they're animated they're they they want the best for their kids as you would as well they've come to speak about it and be involved in this process and that shows you why these schools are such good schools and that is the point I mean it takes a lot to have a good school in any community and I know that all of you members of the board understand that it takes a dedicated principal that is willing to manage that school it takes teachers that truly care about the students and one of the big big elements in
077having a great school and I think you all know this is parents that come out and participate these parents that have come here tonight to talk these students that have come here tonight they care about their Community they care about those relationships and they want to keep those relationships and so I'm I'm asking you that you look at these boundary chain changes and and utilize that line item veto if you will to uh make some adjustments and we're not talking about major adjustments understand it's a difficult task the problem at hand is obvious there's some overcrowded schools over east of Highway uh one and we need solutions for that real solutions this is probably not the long-term solution I think we all know that we need some more schools over there we need more Capac
078capacity but we can also do the thing that is right for the communities we can save some of those relationships spare some of those kids the trauma of having to start over in a new school my case same as many of these stories here we bought a house for that school specifically we're a military family finally got some stability with our kid and now he's got to move again and go to another school it's just not fair please consider consider some of these things that have been brought up by these parents that have made schools great in our community and go forth with uh great knowledge and uh and do us well so thank you for your time thank [Applause] you there being no other citizens who have signed up to speak on this matter
079I declare the public hearing closed okay we are on item 1301 let's get caught up here okay 1301 approval of the public meeting agenda a motion is in order Mr chairman Miss Williams I move that the princ County School Board approve the public meeting agenda as recommended thank you D have second Mr chairman M Ron I second thank you discussion those in favor of the motion please signify yes by raising your right hand those opposed thank you I don't think I missed anybody those OB understanding okay I got it right I'm sorry I just want to make sure I get it right otherwise it's a thing to fix the vote is six yes one no Deutch one absent sder white motion passed thank you we're moving on to the adoption of the consent agenda uh
080before we do that Miss Urban I would like you to pull um as any any board member can pull an individual item from the consent agenda Mr Urban I'd like you to pull item 14.07 the approval of the school board uh meeting minutes for January 4th 2017 please if you could pull those from the agenda thank you you can move yeah move them to board matters and as we have in the past we'll handle it immediately after the consent agenda there'll be a brief pause as she works with the computer system to pull this off for all right so we are back to the adoption of the closed session let me make sure it's I got it I'm sorry I said closed session I apologize adoption of the consent agenda item 14.01 do we have
081a motion Mr chairman Miss Williams I move that the Prince County School Board to approve the public meeting consent agenda as recommended thank you Miss Williams do we have a second Mr chairman M Ron I'll second thank you discussion on the consent agenda Mr Miss Williams uh I would just like to bring special appreciation appreciation excuse me to cross and guard appreciation day um I'm always reminded sitting in the seat that the former board member before me what is now currently a crossing guard for Prince County schools and they do make sure that our students get back and forth to school every day safely and um I appreciate them for all the work that they do considering I was a walker when I was in elementary school so I just wanted to say thank you
082to them thank thank you Miss Williams anyone else okay those in favor of adopting the consent agenda please signify yes by raising your right hand thank you the vote is seven yes one absent sat white motion passed thank you and we will jump ahead like we do when we pull items from the consent agenda we'll handle that immediately um so we'll move on to just briefly to to to close up the consent agenda item that was pulled we're on to item 19.03 which the clerk just moved down which is approval of the school board meeting minutes for January 4th 2017 I will make a motion that the Prince William County School Board adopt the minutes from the January 4th 2017 meeting and strike the improper special meeting and Associated votes from the record and in
083order to receive proper public input during the normal budget process do we have a second I second sorry no no Mr chairman my fault I was looking for my own name on the drop down menu Miss Williams I second thank you Miss Williams all right discussion um I'll be I'll be brief uh it's it's well known that that I thought that the meeting and made this very clear before the meeting and during the meeting as well that um the meeting was not called properly um therefore it also allowed uh proper public debate to not be held certainly also at the same time it doesn't allow uh for the Gainesville member to um and certainly I I wasn't in the room when it first started but it doesn't allow the Gainesville member um to patently grab
084the gavl in the presence of the vice chairman in gavl in a meeting they certainly don't have the right to do that the board did vote to take a board poll which which also said that the meeting wasn't going to happen so the board would act on that and so would the public um there was a bit of confusion with some legal advice from the D that may or may not have been proper at the time and certainly added to the confusion of all this so uh with that I think that we have a chance now the board of County Supervisors has has um has allocated the money we have a chance to do this the proper way we may end up back in the same position that we are now but at least it's
085done properly and we can have proper public input and proper proper public debate um about uh an allocation of funds that the school board has now received from the board of County Supervisors anyone else Mr DCH thank you Mr chairman uh we H the vote uh the chairman even uh cheered that meeting in the end uh striking the minutes wouldn't even invalidate a properly held vote so um we we should stop trying to relitigate this and actually move forward thank you Mr DCH anyone else Mr W yeah um I'm trying to wrap my head around this so the idea here is so I think everyone in the public knows we're actively are we were asked to be investigated on um and a lot of this stuff will probably come out if there was such an
086investigation so going back to the board poll my first question going to that and trying to understand that so obviously I believe in the validity of polls I actually know someone who's getting sued because of a board poll um and um and so I do believe that I mean I guess there's a lot of weird things that happened I mean obviously at 5:30 A letter came affirming and in my belief that the money was going to come um and that obviously the board poll happened I mean for the audience this is just as confusing as this seems up here uh and the the the timeline that happened with this process uh so with the board poll I I guess and so then when the legal advice was asked which I believe in the past when
087um Council was asked in front of everyone there have been times I believe uh and I'm not I'm not asking to answer her question right now but where she's said that she can't offer legal advice in the public so when this happened it got even more confusing because I believe like the line and I'm not again quoting Miss mcgaan is something along the extent that this you know delegating and directing money is not in their purview or I don't know if different words but then also the same thing got even more confusing because then she said it wasn't illegal for us to accept it so I mean I think longterm as a board what we saw unfold on uh two weeks ago is a problem with the process I think we have to get that
088ironed out and worked on for the next three years um as a result of the confusion as you see uh there are regulations there's policies there's rules there's procedures for all this um so I'm I don't know I guess I'm kind of confused on this right now Miss Williams Mr chairman it um and I'm um going to ask as also for clarification maybe if you can repeat your statement again um is my understanding that this is a procedural issue and has nothing to do with accepting or rejecting funds but uh how the board is going to handle it according to the budget and I just wanted to try to condense it and make it as clear as possible for the public to understand this is not about the acceptance or rejection or any of that
089of the money but exactly how we are going to handle it in our budget and the budget process where it should have been done and not as a separate um item I guess you could say for lack of a better term am I correct in in understanding yes that's that's right and I'll touch a little bit on what she's asking for clarification so I'll kind of combine your points of clarification and if I missed one from either one of you then we can go from there um the the basically saying that yes the the money has has been the money has been allocated to the school board and and if you if you take out the situation as it as it existed over the last few weeks had that money been appropriated to the school
090board we would then handle that money through the normal budget process or if it was an addendum to the budget the superintendent his staff would bring us that addendum and say Here's how they plan on spending it and so the money would be allocated to us ahead of time that process was circumvented and ultimately like I said or in in my original debate comments we may end up back in the same spot after proper public hearing and and and debate and conversation and those types of things but we've got to make sure we get the process right not necessarily the endgame in order to make sure that it's done properly and so we're we're all we can we can basically factor in all of the decisions now that the money has been allocated to the
091school board basically I'm saying that we should be doing it the way it should have been done to begin with and and and in accordance with law and and the Virginia Constitution does that help Miss Williams you still have the floor I was answering your question uh thank you yes anyone else Mr wer are you I'm sorry Mr de I'll come back to you I just want to make sure Mr wil is okay Mr deuts all right it it is Rich for this chairman to talk about the proper um following of process um this is a chairman who repeatedly refused to add items to the board agenda um repeatedly ignored legal counsel didn't even consult with legal counsel and now when we hit a point where he lost a vote he doesn't want he is
092asking the school division to be investigated by the Department of Justice so for him to talk talk about process um as he's trying to at this point undo a process that happened while the Gainesville member isn't even here through a backhanded move that's very questionable on its legality is really over the top and and the shenanigans really need to stop thank you Mr Deutch anyone else all right with that I'm sorry Mr bran since this High School is is going to be in the brinville district I do feel obligated to speak um F first of all I you know I'm a little bit speechless because sometimes I expect the best out of people and I kind of expect that people at certain points will learn how to move on and be a better person I
093think we're seeing a perfect example where we have someone that kind of clings to the same old grudges and can't move on I think that's disappointing and and if you're looking for Le leadership in in this County you know whether it's from the school board the Board of Supervisors please don't look in this direction because we're not doing the right thing when it comes to to showing a good example um please we need to let the board members speak agree or disagree we need to let the board members speak thank you uh a couple weeks ago actually it was last week we had a very um excellent meeting with our Board of Supervisors they made an incredible decision early earlier in the day to provide some funds to us as a school system sooner instead
094of Latter we had a great meeting we worked well together we talked about communication we talked about collaboration yet tonight we see an example unfortunately where any sort of team building that we can that we can kind of do to kind of move forward with them there's a definitely a it's it's kind of hard to find words with these actions um we did the right thing a couple weeks ago when we had our special meeting we did the right thing for the students of Eastern Prince William County we did the right thing for the students of Western Prince William County we did the right thing for all students in Prince William County I don't know about you but I'm a little bit tired of the drama I think we need to move on this is
095a very poor example of leadership and I hope you will not stand for it thank you Mr bran m Williams I'm sorry M Ron do you want to go first I apologize Miss Miss Roston there's very little left to say to this but what I'm hoping you will do is what um what needs to be done you know you come out here in the evenings you talk to us you tell us what you like and what you dislike well my neighborhood and my district doesn't always come so I met them at the grocery store and and Giants is a great place to meet up with people so I ask just absolute strangers would you take $10 million if somebody gave it to you this little old lady looked at me and said honey are you
096okay I said yeah I'm fine I said but would you take the money she said of course it is not a bad thing and I don't know how we're going to spend it the budget Department doesn't hasn't said yet we haven't done a thing about it yet I just have a tough time trying to understand and get a grip on why people would turn down money because they love children so much thank you thank you Miss rosson Miss Williams thank you Mr chairman I really wasn't going to say anything else but I often or I could I guess I could say I've been sitting on this board long enough that I've had plenty of moments where I know that I'm speaking English but it I guess it doesn't come out the same way when the
097words are actually spoken because my understanding this is not a motion about whether or not we take money or whether or not we like money or it has zero to do with that it also is not proper in my opinion to sit up here on the dis and attack one another when we are trying to do the business of the school system whether or not you like what your fellow board member may or may not do you should really Reserve that for your board matters time because that's where it's an appropriate time to speak up against that this is not the time when we're trying to conduct business to me it makes no difference whether I like what the chairman is doing or Mr Brun is doing to my to my left or my right
098it's about the business and what we're doing and I would encourage my board members to make sure that you understand what it is that you're getting ready to vote on the motion and not use your time to to pick on each other because that's not what we're here for and you're absolutely right Mr Brun that is completely irresponsible and not good leadership to pick on board members when we're supposed to be talking about a motion of procedure not a motion of accepting or dis or rejecting funds number one number two what other people don't understand is it's not a simple matter of just since we're going down this road let me go there this is not a blank check for $10.6 million no matter what my Republican or my other counterparts would like us to
099believe because this is what it's coming down to all the time is a a party issue which is completely irresponsible because that's not what we're here for either this is a money issue $10.6 million for one side of a county versus 500 and some OD seats is what the discussion was for the Board of Supervisors number one number two it was already held a vote three prior occasions on this high school and nobody had any issue with it until the last dead minute 12:00 midnight number three this board adopted a code of ethics which is right in front of us and the very first one deals with this so it's not not about going back on word it's about doing what we're supposed to be doing acting like responsible adults and making sure the public
100knows the entire story it's not just about a resolution that came at the last minute it's not about an email that comes at five something from a board of County Supervisors that says it might be okay this is a big deal these are children's lives $10.6 million for a half of a county versus 500 some side seats versus on top of that layer you're talking about code Virginia state code who has a authority to do what whether or not this money is coming in or out of a budget cycle season where it's going to be appropriated from from the Board of Supervisors to us how we are going to use it it's a much bigger issue than should have been decided at an 11:00 hour and clearly from listening to our audience we still don't
101the even the public doesn't understand the level and depth to this money and this issue it's not a simple matter of sitting up here and calling names these is children's lives so as I've said time and time again and I will continue to say this is a matter that should be done and taken extremely seriously not at the 11:00 hour and we should be responsible and act like leaders and not be up here picking on each other but thinking about the children and how this really affects them because it's not just about us sitting up here on the board so if I could with my fellow board members get back to our actual motion which deals with procedure and not funding budget Appropriations or anything else of that nature I would like for us to
102be able to conduct some business without name calling or disparaging each other just for one meeting thank you again keep the Applause down I do ask the board members if you turn off your mics and ask right because it does ultimately get cut off if too many mics are on at one time so just the board member who's going to speak uh Miss Jesse hasn't gone one round yet so then we we'll go her and then and then Mr wil um well I um I had a slide that I wanted to show really to talk about um overcrowding and I had it under board matters it was not under this um discussion here but I am going to ask if uh the gentleman in uh the room to put up the one slide I want
103to tell you what it's really all about and since it's not going to be a discussion about money necessarily but um I want to look at slide two okay may I thank you this is what it's really all about I lost my vote I am fairly a bright person and I don't want this audience to walk away thinking that me or Miss Williams thought it was about it was fair or Equitable what was done now apparently we're going to talk about procedure and everyone is saying I know Miss rosson is saying would you take $10 million this is what it's all about if you will look at this Slide the reason we're here tonight talking about boundaries on the Eastern end is because we are the people who have suffered we are the people who
104are overcrowded and it didn't just start so if you'll see in 2005 elementary schools and I'm concerned about elementary stent school because I don't like elementary kids in trailers and they've been in trailers for years if you will notice in 2005 there were 123 trailers on the Eastern end and by the time we reached 2016 there are trailers on the Eastern end and 2005 there were 62 trailers on the Western in elementary schools by 2016 they only have 10 so yes I was very upset when you give when you say to me I will give you 105 or6 million do to take care of all of these uh overcrowding that's been taken place for 20 years for 10 years on the East and if you will give me 10 million to enhance a high school
105at a cost of $160 million $10.5 million will not take care of the 10 years that our kids on the East have been in trailers the reason you have all these boundary situations because there's just overcrowding everywhere on our end those kids on the west and I know you say don't make it a east west but it is an East West it's our turn on the East you give me $10 million for all of my schools on the East but you take 10 million to enhance a high school one high school on the west there's something not equa able about that last night I spent some time with Lake Ridge because I was very happy to get the you know I've been fighting about these trailers the six year the second graders out in trailers
106I'm a principal I don't trust any second grader to come in doing a tornado drill but we've had to deal with this and the people in Lakeridge in the aquan district I was very concerned about Wood Bridge because she has bathrooms outside on in in the Woodbridge District that's a problem but last night it became clear to me that we have we have added all these rooms and lak ridge has been redesigned or add had additions three times in a row now we're going to have another four or 500 kids and the other side of the county has 20 three undercrowl I agree you shouldn't give up $1 million but I believe that it's time for the Eastern end of this County to have its turn we should not have to be in this room
107begging not to walk our kids to school or not to have their grandparents because we don't have space and I do hold the Board of Supervisors responsible they gave us money only if they got money so it's it's about procedure it's not about the money if it were about the money I'm telling you right now I would vote for the the babies to get all of these babies out of 118 trailers on the Eastern end of this County so don't tell me it's like you don't you don't want to take money I want more money I want more money I want schools on the East where the principls don't have to I've been a principal and I I didn't even have a cafeteria on these I had food coming from across the street so for
10810 years we have just not moved and that's why we have you here tonight I have wanted to say that and with that I'm going to close but the procedural element and whatever's going on where you want to call this man whatever you want to call him he knows I don't always agree with him I'm his viced yeah you're right no because I vote for kids I don't vote for politics I vote for kids thank you thank thank you Miss Jesse again I ask you to hold off on the Applause please what just happened with the screen okay um Mr W and then yeah Mr W yeah I going back to procedure I'll make this quick because I know there's a lot of families waiting for the boundary votes and stuff like that in this
109room right now procedurally I think it was a mess absolutely a mess uh but if that's what we're talking about procedure uh and I think we need to lay a precedent for the future uh as to the decision about the 13th High School I stand by that vote twice I believe that was the best decision but that's not what's going to be argued tonight but procedurally being that unprecedent very likely being investigated by the doj this stuff's going to come out legally I want to make sure the board is protected so looking at the procedures of how it was done that's my concern on this thank you all right we need to everyone's gone I think once or twice who hasn't gone twice through Mr Mr Brandon Mr deuts has already gone twice okay then
110we're gonna we'll call the vote after that Mr deuts just really quick um this vote one way or the other can't invalidate the vote we did before this simply on the minutes and the special meeting happens there should be minutes to reflect what happened um there's no to not have minutes for a meeting that we held um would actually go against any sort of transparency and whatnot it we're just reflecting that the meeting happened with that I'll call the vote um I'm going to go through this one by one Mr WL how do you vote that the Prince William County sorry let me read it that the Prince William County School Board adopt the minutes from the January 4th 2017 meeting and strike the improper special meeting and Associated votes from the record in order
111to receive prop public input during the normal budget process how do you vote Yes Mr chairman point of order we're we're calling the vote why no why are we having a roll call vote when we normally do a vote by hand because because because it's different and I have to because I figur it's not going to be unanimous or close to unanimous so it's easier for me to do this we never use a roll call it's the Chairman's prerogative on how he calls the vote Mr Deutch how do you vote how how is this Mr how do you vote point of order how is this the Chairman's prerogative for how we do a vote because it's how it's I can call the vote however I choose to call the vote where do you get that
112Authority Mr deuts cuz by being elected chairman Mr deuts how do you call the vote well I've or how do how do you vote losing my own words Mr deut how do you vote I vote no but to having a roll call vote Miss Jesse how do you vote I vote your microphone uh read the question to me again that the Prince William County School Board adopt the minutes from the January 4th 2017 meeting and strike the improper special meeting and Associated votes from the record in order to receive proper public input during the normal budget than Miss Williams how do you vote Yes Mr bran how do you vote no Miss rson how do you vote Mr chairman I'd like to uh get a question and miss rson the vote has been called to
113I can't vote if I'm not sure of what it is our legal council needs to explain this to us vote has been called m r you have to vote know Mr chairman you can't keep overriding a member I'm not overriding a member we're following procedure the vote has been called de debate has been Mr Deutch you are not recognized Miss Roston how do you vote you can't deny some access to legal counsel I'm not denying anyone access to legal counsel legal counsel does not give legal opinion from the deis Miss Roston how do you vote no thank you I vote yes let's see where where is it in so I can read them how do you recall something that we did already miss Urban the vote is four yes three no one not president vote
114motion passed thank you we are moving on to Citizens comment time all right we'll try to get to as many as we can I know policy allows for 30 minutes we'll try to we'll try to get there again if everyone sticks at 15 seconds uh then that that'll certainly help um but we're moving on to Citizens T at time it looks like we have 35 people signed up at the door or excuse me 35 people signed up ahead of time and 15 people signed up at the door um everyone that signed up in advance will have a chance to speak um like I said we'll try to get as many in within the 30 minute window as we possibly can the same rules currently apply as they apply to the public hearing um that the
115everyone going have 3 minutes to speak uh you'll have at the 30second Mark the thing will turn yellow excuse me from the de please I'm I'm sorry we're having having a little trouble here you have 30 seconds uh at 30 seconds it's time to wrap it up and at 0 seconds it'll turn red and it's time uh time to step aside I'm going to call the first 10 speakers up the first speakers are joint speakers and as always proper decorum at all times the first speakers are joint speakers um from Grand Park Middle School which is Jessica Asser and sa gauna AA our second is Leo D'Angelo BJ Brown Natalie spado Michelle Carter Robin Gahan Barbara laramore David laramore Caleb and Mary oae and Kristen dangum dangum sorry if I said it incorrectly those are
116our first 10 speakers and we'll see how much time we have for that the time is now quarter till n according to the clock in front of me um and we'll try to get as many many speakers in as we can so our our first joint speakers are Jessica Asser and so GAA lra hi my name is loon and I'm Jessica s we are both from Grand Park Middle School we're from winning companies and we're here to talk about the business program at the beginning of the bus of this business simulation our teacher formed us into groups and these groups soon became our business companies we filled out job applications and Incorporated our company's name with the state then we had to make I'm sorry if you just I I'll stop your time if you
117could speak into the microphone please it's very helpful thank you then we made a pitch for the venture capitalist who were played by the administrators at our school we used the money that the venture capitalist invested in us to pay for financial needs during the design manufacturing marketing and sales phase we paid for the materials we used in the class classrooms salaries and rent if we didn't if we needed more money we had to for to pay for expenses then we had to take out loans which we had to pay interest on at the end of the sales phase we paid off all our debts and calculated or profit or loss and prepared income statements balance sheets in balance sheets companies with the highest profit in each class one we also made digital commercials to
118advertise our products to all the seventh grade students I as a student really enjoyed filming each other and seeing ourselves in the commercials this stage was really fun and encouraging because other students knew that knew what we were doing and were really ex excited about it it is a really nice feeling along with the digital program program we made posters and on that poster we had a logo slogan and company name we did this so we can can catch the customer's attention the company sold the products during two seventh grade lunch periods all of the seventh grade had BBS and were able to purchase items we really like this that this program was a simulation and a competition winning companies got a special plaque and some prices this program helped us interact with other people
119and learn each other's skills we had some difficulties along the way which made this program more realistic the business skills that we learned will help us benefit in the real world it might also help us get part-time jobs in high school or create a business in the future thank you for for allowing us to speak about this incredible program and we had some of our products for you thank thank you and have a good night thank you oh beautiful thank you very much do you want to hand one each to each board member we we can choose what color I'm going to choose one that's closest to the Pittsburgh Pirates colors if that's okay there you go thank you thank you very much it always helps to bring gifts our next speaker is uh Leo
120D'Angelo Leo [Applause] Mr Iman that's stool it's it's cost per use is is rapidly decreasing mystery I'm sorry I'm losing my mind Mr D'Angelo hello my name is Leo D'Angelo and I'm in third grade at Oldbridge Elementary School I'm also on the student council Organization for my class I think that kid should have more energy during the day activity during the day the bad thing is we only get 15 minutes of recess and by the time we line up we already lost like 10 minutes it is also bad because it is hard to concentrate on test and that is hard sometimes I talk during class because I don't get enough energy out and also when I get home from school I don't want to do my homework because I have been sitting around on day
121and need to run around I think it is bad for kids to only have 15 minutes of recess because we need to see our friends and get energy up it is unhealthy for kids to sit around all day and that's why I think it should have more recess thank you school board for listening to me thank you sir again I'll give a little freedom on the cheering for children and that's that's that's about it our next speaker is BJ Brown BJ good evening my name is BJ Brown and I've literally just come from the general assembly for three days speaking to dozens and dozens of delegates and Senators on a very serious topic out of the mouths of babes we now have have one in three boys in areas of Virginia who've been labeled with
122ADHD these drugs and that label disqualifies them for the military these drugs have very serious side effects due to the side effects of the ADHD drugs those children are at a high likelihood of being misdi diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar these labels and ADHD are misdiagnosis and this is right out from the founder of ADHD he has stated these are massive misdiagnosis they do not meet true prevalence ADHD we have put millions and millions of children on antis psychotics our jails are now filled onethird with individuals who have grown up after having taken these drugs and they are there due to crimes of survival they have stolen food and clothing the drugs cause brain atrophy they shrink the brain of the individuals taking it they're in these jails because they become incompetent and incapable of
123caring for themselves why am I here tonight due to No Child Left Behind we took out recess PE and breaks for children they now have longer schedules than adults we have pharmacies pharmaceutical companies who are making billions of dollars off of the drugs that they're pushing they did a massive marketing scheme of getting into colleges doctor's offices and making everyone think they were safe drugs well they are not and the Department of Justice has done the two largest lawsuits in the history of this country and Health Care fraud against doctors who took millions of dollars to be key opinion leaders and to come out and have tainted research saying that these children had ADHD when they do not this is not to say that there are no cases of that there are very few thank
124you thank you all next speaker is Natalie again with the the Applause I'm going to ask that the Applause uh not happen or booing or anything of those Natures our next speaker is Natalie spado Natalie thank you you're quite welcome good evening members of the school board my name is Natalie SPO and my address is on file I am here with Barbara laram Moore and part of this pep rally today and the group of parents that wants to see and change affected in our County around movement in our schools we want to see longer recess and more PE my background in this today is from a mental health perspective of working with youth and families for the last 20 years if you would I'd like to do a 30 second guided visualization members of the
125board and audience please close your eyes and think of yourself in the fifth grade what was your day like what did you do where were your best memories where did they occur where did you learn some of your most fundamental life and social skills where were you the happiest and what were you doing in those moments you may open your eyes when I was in the fifth grade our country was being run by Ronald Reagan we were dancing The Prince and peina Turner and we had PE every day today what do we have depression rates of eighth graders of more than 20% suicidal ideation higher than 11% Across the Nation the CDC reports 11% of children ages 4 to 17 are diagnosed with ADHD I won't get into that now thank you my inherent philosophy
126if you don't remember anything else is that motion changes emotion physical activity helps us to rewire our brains neurons get fired and Physiology changes exercise and physical movement is proven to positively impact move release endorphins necessary to make decisions increase executive functioning and can help alleviate long-term depression motion changes emotion physical regulation is another aspect that we want to look at children get 20 minutes of recess and that only leaves them hyper unable to concentrate in the classroom what happens when a child can't regulate in the classroom they get medicated there's countless studies a lot of research social emotional development children on the Playard at recess they learn about demonstrating empathy they understand social excuse they can learn to problem solve it's a problem our work force to see now members of the board we
127are not asking you to do the impossible we are asking you to get back to Our Roots remember those memories that you had and created in the fifth grade we want to do the same for our children our community our future deserves it thank you thank [Applause] you quiet standing is accepted um our next speaker is Michelle Carter Michelle good evening um my name is Michelle Carter I am a senior program progr manager for physical education at shape America which is a national um professional association for health and PE teachers so I'm here today on a professional level but as well as a personal level um I am a proud Prince William County graduate I went to Garfield go Indian School of Champions um I also have a one-year-old at home that will one day
128God willing be attending Prince swim County public school so I'm here for um a number of reasons I'm here to advocate for recess um and physical education um it's a national recommendation that K through 12 students all students high school and middle school elementary receive 20 minutes of daily um physical activity in addition to physical education um I know as a former educator myself that um the time that a student is in school there's a lot to fill in within that day but there's a lot of research that shows that squeezing in more physical activity will have so so many benefits um to children especially as was mentioned before um social and emotional learning um there's social and skills development that you learn with being physically active in recess in physical education class um sharing
129negotiation compromise um as well as Improvement of concentration and off-task behaviors um I know that currently Prince William County has about 15 minutes of recess in the elementary school so I'm asking for five minutes more I think it could be worth it um you could see it on many different levels test scores behavior um it would be worth the 5 minutes I'm not sure about the secondary level middle school and high school but I'm sure that there would be Improvement there as well um as well as I'm asking for more recess as well as physical education those two go hand inand um in creating an active School environment which is very um important and which is pushed on a national level level recess is a time for students to decompress from the pressures of the
130school day um it's also a time for students to extend their learning in physical education physical education teaches students how to be active ways that they can be active recess is the time for extension for physical education as well as those social behaviors um with childhood obesity and school testing scores academic success um ree say is an important part of the school day um I also have packets of information on uh the effects of physical activity on the brain and test scores if I could present them to the board as well as um information on recess policy and if you're interested um guidance on recess policy as well and strategies in recess that could be used these are all free um at the shape America website thank you do you have information with you now
131I do okay you can hand it to the clerk and she'll and she'll disseminate it thank you our next speaker is um Robin Gahan Robin good evening Mr chairman members of the board my name is Robin Gan and I am the senior director of government relations for the American Heart Association um thank you so much for having me here tonight with a troubling trend of inactivity that we're seeing and the health issues that are facing our children increasing time spent in PE is an important way to improve the health and wellness of every child regardless of their zip code only 26% of children in Virginia ages six to 17 participate in vigorous physical activity daily yet research shows that PE improves attendance test scores motivation to learn and reduces discipline referrals it reduces anxiety and
132depression and I know that adding more time for physical education isn't easy but it is not impossible either School divisions in other part of Virginia as well as across the US are meeting these recommended levels of physical activity and in particular are emphasizing the importance of physical activity through qualified physical education programs as efforts at the national as well as at the state level at the Virginia General Assembly continue to reduce the number and the burden of standardized tests on our students you can make time to exercise their minds by including PE lastly parents want PE as part of their children's daily education and more than half parents believe their children aren't getting enough and that's very evident tonight so I encourage you to make Prince William County schools a leader in uh for children's
133health and well-being thank you very much thank you our next speaker is Barbara laramore Barbara I was going to try a cartwheel but I guess I decided against it it's probably for the best hi everyone I'm Barbara laramore and I am here today to support more PE and recess in our schools um I think it's so important and those professionals from shape America from the American Heart Association um social workers they're here from the American Heart uh from All Pediatrics U where my kids go are all here to say the same thing and agree with me um first of all I want to thank the people who came here today they think it's important to them and they put their money with their mouth was showed up here in the middle of winter on a
134Wednesday so thank you guys so much okay here it is don't embarrass me guys we practice this what do we want when do we want it what do we want when do we want it now he good job ladies okay um I also want to thank my son's teacher who created a uh GoFundMe page to get her entire classroom outfitted with flexible seating which my second grader now enjoys and is really turning the corner on thriving and not just surviving um it's been a great uh journey to try to get people on board with this and it turns out it wasn't that hard I'm already writing WR writing the tide of what's happening in the state of Virginia what's happening Across America is that parents and and children really need this and want to see
135this change happen um I I look to you today to find out what's bre best practices are there can't be 25 different ways to do the best thing the definition of the best is the most excellent I thought that was funny um effective and desire vable type or quality I Look to You to establish a committee to find out what best practices look like in Prince William County and I have a feeling you'll already find it if you look um and get a committee and petition Dr Waltz to do that for us um I appeal to your sense of adventure it'll be fun this is for the kids it's all for the kids I know you guys are here for the kids um I know you don't make enough money to be here any other
136reason so I know that you truly care um to your legacy um I please reach across party lines reach across to each other in this way I think you all can succeed and nobody loses nobody loses and we are all going to win um to better their lives physically socially and emotionally we must give them back the time to be children to play as to learn and to learn is to grow give them back their childhoods and I promise you all of us will win thank you thank you all right well I got some time I got some time hold on what do we want when do we want it what do we want when do we want [Applause] it I'm gonna do that car no I'm not going to do the carwheel okay thank
137you our NE our next speaker is David lore David I feel ridiculous that's okay I hope you don't mind I have an assistant here take me a second to set up all right so we're going to we're going to play here you go Henry you can have this one uh we're going to play a little game here a little a little math I guess uh so the National Academy of Pediatrics go ahead recommends 60 Minutes of aerobic activity every day that can be games such as tag jump rope running dancing swinging on playground equipment just put it down there you go now Prince William County Board of Education of school day is being 400 minutes long so to show you how many 400 is I've gotten marbles there we go that's 400 minutes now including
138the busing back and forth that accounts for 50% of our children's awake hours 50% of their day are spent at school now let's look at what our children actually receive when it comes to physical activity on most days students only receive 15 minutes no just right oh sorry this is it so of the 400 minutes they spend at school this is all they get for physical activity now for those of you who don't want to do the math that is less than 4% of their school day that also means for every 22 minutes of instructional time they get one minute of actual physical activity which by the numbers is 50% of what is recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics I'm here today to get us to that 30 minutes so our children can Thrive
13915 minutes to enact change that's what I'm here for thank [Applause] you thank you our next speaker uh I have it as a joint speaker is Caleb and Mary oae good evening I'm here speaking um on my behalf but also on behalf of my wife who's not able to join me this evening um I guess I'm the first person to be speaking about the task force uh according to agenda item 19.02 um I'm a parent of six children and uh a taxpayer and a homeowner and I live in the Kohl's District really my comment is is more procedural than anything else uh this task force it says was being formed for the purpose of soliciting further Community input relative to issues and concerns arising out of the proposed revision to policy 060 which was last
140debated if I remember correctly at a September school board meeting um I thought that's what the public comment section was for of these meetings and so I don't understand why we need further uh task forces to solicit uh feedback from the community because truly I mean the last meeting that I was at was I think close to seven hours long there seemed to be quite a bit of community interaction quite a bit of feedback perhaps the feedback wasn't everything that the board wanted to hear but there was 7even hours of feedback um having worked around the world with different governments I see that there's a very dangerous Trend when you try to separate accountability from representation it's very easy to set up committees in such a way that the committee can take the blowback they
141can do all the research with all due respect to the committee members um in this task force they can do all the research make a recommendation and then the board simply says oh well this is what the committee said this is what the task force said and then they adopted wholesale without actually being accountable and being held responsible for the decision-making powers and so I would ask all of you again from a procedural stance not to use this task force to engage the community but rather to let the community come to you in these board meetings so that we can hold you accountable so that we can tell you how we feel about these very important issues because we don't want this to be outsourced if you don't want to hear us then we can
142find other people to do this job but we want to be heard we don't want it to be going to some other task force the gentleman has please so I I thank you for this opportunity to speak um and um again this is an important issue this this isn't something that we want to have shelved or or dealt with by any other task force and if indeed there is a task force being set up um as it seems like it has been set up and there's going to be a report to you this evening then I would ask that you stick very closely to the mission of the task force which is to solicit feedback from the community and not to go off about well how would implementation be what does this look like that's
143not the point of the task force it was to solicit feedback and so stick to the mission of the task force if it indeed needs to exist and I would ask all those in the community who are in favor of what I've spoken about this evening to please arise thank you sir thank you and our final speaker will probably be right on the button here our final speaker is Christine uh Dan I'm sorry I know I had it right Christine and how do I pronounce that Christine I'm sorry denum denum thank you Christine you have the floor yeah um my my point is further to Mr OA um I concur with everything that he said said um and I just want to present to the board some questions this evening these are questions that members
144of this community deserve to have answered last September we overwhelmingly asked you to reject or at least postpone a proposed change to policy 060 we were grateful that the board attended to this outpouring of concern and voted to postpone the decision until more clarity could be provided by the courts but weeks later you voted to create a steering committee commissioned with forming a task force whose stated purpose was to seek Community input last week's public steering committee raised serious questions as to the true purpose of this committee and the task force that it has created my questions are these where are the promised mechanisms for Community input what opportunities are being afforded to voice concerns to this task force about the safety of their daughters and their special needs students the public whose input you
145profess to desire was allowed to attend the steering committee meetings but not to speak will we will the public be permitted to speak at task force meetings will we even be permitted to attend why is the Task Force being structured as if it is presumed that they will be implementing policy changes the substance of which will not even be voted on until this summer if at all was the board September vote a charade did the board give the steering committee a charter to add to engineer changes to county social to County policy or did the steering committee act outside its Charter and if the latter then is not the school board exposed as an irrelevancy and in that case why have we all so many of us sacrificed our evening to come here and present
146our views to you are we wasting our time and our breath if you cannot produce compelling answers to these questions then perhaps they will be answered for you at the voting booth because it would appear that you are attempting to ra railroad through a very unpopular policy change by designating a group of unelected anonymous functionaries to overturn centuries of Law and tradition endangering the safety of our children in the process this community your constituents and your employers made it overwhelmingly clear last September that its interests lie in the public school system maintaining neutrality on the question of gender identity since this issue is rooted in a deep ideological divide if this school board has no business taking a stance on the only feasible way to maintain this neutrality is to keep in place a policy
147on bathroom use that is based on observable scientific fact a policy by the way that has been observed for all throughout all of human history by all of the human race up until the past 5 years or so therefore I urge the board to listen to the citizens of Prince William County you saw how many people stood up I don't know if they're all going to get a chance to speak today but you saw how many people here support this steering groups and task forces are not accountable to the public the school board is please represent your constituents in good Faith thank you thank you all right having having fulfilled the first 30 minutes of citizens time we're going to move we're going to move on to item 16.01 which is the student housing Elementary
148School attendance area recommendations for 201718 bomic Shores Elementary School just as a reminder before before moving on the uh the rest of citizens time will happen um as per policy um after the remainder of the agenda has been completed we are on the um student housing uh like I said item 16.01 we're on the student housing I'm sorry so we have a motion in order for the boundaries um for the patomic Shores Elementary School Mr chairman Miss Williams I uh Mr chairman uh I moved that the Prince William County School Board table the issue of the pic Shores Elementary School bounding planning committee to uh meet in a work session to discuss what we have heard from public comment and in time uh it seems to me let me stop before I enter into discussion
149sure I get this right that go ahead that I have so far that the prince Willam County School Board postpone the vote and I'm not table youan you mean to a later time right so it would vote until after the board has had time to discuss the public input concerning aaan concerning acaan I'm watching them type it m Henderson I'm sorry and there was one more thank you Swans Creek sometimes the brain appreciate that Mr chairman hold one second I just want to make sure I got this right then then I'll then Mr Ron I'll come to you that the Prince William County School Board postponed the vote until after the board has had time to discuss the public input concerning aaan Elementary School Henderson Elementary School and Swans Creek Elementary School Miss Williams is
150that the motion andate meeting yes okay I'm going to read it one more time that the Prince William County School Board postponed the vote until after the board has had time to discuss the public input concerning aawan Elementary School Henderson Elementary School and Swans Creek Elementary School in a separate meeting is that your motion Miss Williams thank you do we have a second Mr chairman Miss Ralston I second our motion thank you Miss Ralston debate or discussion Miss Williams thank you Mr chairman I felt that it was important at this point in time to postpone this discussion on boundaries um I don't think that it is an imperative that we make a decision tonight um on who attended the school that is not yet um ready for occupancy um it seems that the public has
151um significant uh comment on the current boundary plans both four and six they don't seem to satisfy um they don't seem to satisfy my needs for my district that's um the main portion of the boundary uh plans the Woodbridge District um I am concerned personally for acaan elementary school and Belmont uh the numbers and the overcrowding issue over the long course of the term as well as Greenwich I mean I I can say honestly ly to you grenwich families I drive by your neighborhood every day every single day go to commuter lot at uh3 in Oldbridge Road I have to drive down acaan element uh aquan Road I then turn right and go down Route One past um the intersection where Belmont and the V is all of that I'm extremely familiar not only did
152that but I grew up in mmco Village directly across the street from Greenwich so I I feel your pain honestly I can say that I understand the difference in that small percentage of mileage I know on on a map it's uh numerically it doesn't seem large but I can I can absolutely testify to not being able to get home if there is an accident or a traffic light that's out or anything cat ran in the middle of the road it doesn't even matter there's just nowhere else to go um and I understand the cross traffic I as far as one school better being better than the other school um my comment to that is I don't like to pick on schools especially because it's always something that's in transition based upon the makeup of the
153neighborhood the school itself um aaan hasn't always been the highest rate of School Belmont hasn't always been the lowest rate of school um something that the public often is not privy to is that it takes time to bring those numbers up and I don't want our school system or our elementary schools to think that we are picking on them we don't appreciate them I most certainly do um so I just wanted to say that while I had the opportunity but I do understand how that works um my concern is the same for the districting with Fanny Fitzgerald the new neighborhood um that's coming in Henderson parents having have a goddaughter who went to Fanny Fitzgerald the boundaries were changed she ended up at Henderson I know that both schools are great I was there in
154Fanny Fitzgerald open I had another go daughter who went through Fitzgerald so it's not about a quality of school issue for me I still have um serious concerns and issues and I would just like some more time to talk to the constituents like more time to talk to my fellow board members as a board about this um and see if maybe we can make some adjustments or changing I just think it's worth the effort so um that's why I asked for this motion thank you thank you Miss Williams uh Miss Jesse I'm sorry Dr Waltz you you had something to say then miss Jesse yes thank you um again we serve at the pleasure of the board but I think it's important to understand the budgetary implications and the timeline associated with that and I'd
155like Mr Klein to briefly speak to that Mr Mr chairman members of the board Dr Waltz the the timing of the boundaries is aligned with the development of the budget process and the preparation of the budget uh we are currently in the process of working on the superintendent's proposed budget which would come to you at our next meeting on February the 1st Our intention in fact is that tomorrow we would be revising all of the school allocations that are impacted by boundaries in order to align them with the budget process if the vote is essentially if you're if you're going to wait and delay it what we would present as the budget the preparation of the budget the executive summary the budget documents will all be incorrect relative at some point down line we would
156have to stop the entire process and start over that makes a mess of the budget process the the recommendation in a sense is you can certainly make modifications and amendments to what has been proposed on the boundaries this evening to make adjustments and amendments that has traditionally been the the prerogative and the manner in which the board has adjusted what's come forward in the from the recommendations of the uh the boundary committee to an adoption by a final board so I think it's important to understand it creates significant issues in the budget to delay it Beyond tonight M Willam you have a question um Mr kin if I understand you correctly then if we still make amendments to the proposed budget will we not still have to make I mean amendments to the plans will
157we not still have to make the school system make Chang to the budget based upon whatever amendments we or changes we make I'm confused because I know that in the past that we've done boundaries and then they've been changed later and it's been sometimes during or after budget cycle so I I just want to have a better understanding of what it is that you're telling me the in the context of the normal cycle and why we've lined it up this way is such that we would have essentially the boundary changes that were adopted tonight whatever they may be staff would go back and basic basically make a change to all of the school enrollments tomorrow to align what that revised enrollment would be for the changes in the boundaries then we immediately turn around and
158prepare the budget documents for for school budgets to align them with what the revised numbers would be uh the only so one is if we were dealing in one school or two schools it would not have the significant impact that we have here of what is it 15 schools it dramatically affects what that uh the the preparation and distribution of the budgets now in one sense potentially that the total number of teachers is not affected in the context of where the enrollment is the problem is that they're all in the wrong schools and when the the principles would then go work on developing and preparing their budgets their budgets will be wrong now we have not typically change boundaries at this this stage in the process that there have been occasions in which we have
159done boundaries in the spring boundary changes that have been done in the spring have been typically effective in the following year not three or four months later from from a historical perspective I make am Miss Jesse yes do you have a substitute motion Miss Jesse um I have a substitute motion okay um I would like to amend I would like I like plan six but I would like to amend plan six to remove acaan Elementary from that plan uh and um I I don't see the need to delay that can I would just like to make an amendment to uh remove aquan from that particular um plan okay hold on one second I'll get there in a second I got to get this right there's there's a lot to type in I want to make
160sure just uh that we need to get this right that the Prince William County School Board adopt plan six and that the O the the boundaries for aquan elementary school remain unchanged is that correct yes yes I'm sorry let me get I'll be there with everybody in a second hold on testing my typing skills Mr Harbaugh from sophomore year uh typing class keyboarding class would be impressed Miss Jessy I have your Mo I have your substitute motion in fact I'm going to make sure I put that in there just so everyone's clear from a historical perspective substitute motion that the Prince William County School Board adopt plan six and that the boundaries for acaan Elementary School remain unchanged is that to your satisfaction Miss Jesse uh it is but I I guess my question is
161in my motion to for the purpose of time and I'm not sure about the legality of this can in that motion I include um Henderson um or let's let's we can make yeah one second we we can make amended motions to to this m to this Mo this substitute motion that might be a little cleaner if we leave it like this right now now and we want to make additional amended motions we certainly can um but why don't we just keep it clean right now so are you satisfied with that Miss Jesse I'm going to have to ask for a second if you are yes do we have a second Mr chairman Miss Roston can I speak to it before you no you can second first you second and then miss I'll speak to miss
162no Miss Jesse as the maker of the motion gets the first crack at talking and then you get the SEC you get the second shot talk next yeah you you'll you'll be second I promise Miss Jesse um the parents of aaan has spoken and I've lived in that area I moved in in 1970 I lived in aawan I know those tow houses I know they're right next door uh there's much been said about the high performance at aaan and I don't want to uh compare schools but I have to say this the superintendent has an objective to close the achievement Gap aqua an elementary is not just a high performing school aaan elementary is a model school for the nation because of performance and closing the achievement Gap and it can continue to be if
163we had a a a ceremony at um that school last week and we're on the web uh to move to they're going to California and this County will be re recognize because we're one of two schools in the nation to close the achievement Gap at such a level that we are recognized that's not the only reason those students really shouldn't have to cross Route One when they can walk next door to a school so that's my rationale for doing it and they have some overcrowding issues that I think can be worked uh with down the road but um this is a school that is a model school that can help other schools in this County and these kids should not be punished by removing them from a school uh we wouldn't remove kids from a
164traditional school because they have achieved certain uh certain levels so I would like for that to be at account and I don't want to do the big comparison but I don't want to neglect the fact that these people have worked really hard to make this achievement for these kids thank you thank you Miss Jesse Miss rollon I'm going to ask the board I realize that there's a chance there may be multiple amendments here I'm going to ask that if we can just do one Amendment a time it's going to certainly make it easier we can do as many as we want obviously but I'm just going to kind of again you can UL make any motion you want I'm just recommending that it might be easier to do it kind of one one at a
165time um from from from a discussion sake but Mr rson it's your turn in the amendment I'd like to add so that you don't have much more to type Henderson stay where they are well we can't add to the motion we can we can make a second a third we we can have one we can by Robert rules we can have one more one more Amendment at a time um that we're adding that we you know we can make a motion to add this to to to this amended motion so um let me my ADD motion button Miss Ralston thank you m rson I have amended motion typed in and then that's it for now what would you like me to add that Henderson's boundaries do not change point point of order point of order
166Mr do that Amendment would go beyond the Patty and Montclair and also keep any of Fitzgerald from moving it to Henderson is that what you intend Mr chairman M Ron you have the floor U Mr dorch it said I'm just saying that I want to add Henderson parents I want them to stay where they are are how that affects the others I don't know so so I guess to be clear you want the section from Henderson going to Montclair to State at Henderson and the section going from Henderson to Patty to State at Henderson is that correct yes okay and nothing more beyond that just want to make sure we get this right whatever El is do you want the Henderson I'm just trying to make sure we get this right that the Henderson Elementary
167School boundaries remain unchanged is that what you're saying or yes they're just unchanged entirely yes okay point point point of order I think hold on hold a second Mr D so that amendment's not going to do what you think does if if you make a motion at the Henderson boundaries don't stay unchanged then you would be keeping def anything from Fitzgerald going to Henderson I I agree I we just have to see if there's a second to this motion or not and then and then if we want to we can we can go from there okay so the motion is the amended motion that the Henderson Elementary School boundaries remain unchanged is is there a second to that motion I have a specific one for Henderson well we just need to see if this Motion
168makes it then we can ultimately come back to yours we just we need to see I need to see if there's a second for this motion first and then ultimately you can't add to M rosson's motion so is there a second for this motion with no second the motion falls to the floor all right so we're back to the to the to the substitute motion I've lost track the floor we're back to the substitute motion uh Mr deuts would you like to speak you have your microphone on thank you Mr chairman yes I would like to offer one large but very specific Amendment okay Mr deuts give me one second fair enough thank you is this going to be an amended motion Mr Deutsch well it's it's an amendment to the current motion is amended
169to the substitute motion yeah thank you I just want to make sure I'm on the right page here before I start typing and just just throw it out there I'm going to make four it's going to affect four sections I go about 70 words a minute so that's that's about that's about how fast you can talk fair enough yeah um so the first part is that the sections of neabsco being sent to Wilson and Montclair be left at absco say that one more time Mr Deutsch that the sections in the absco being sent to Wilson and Montclair be left at neapco in the neapco magisterial district to NE ABCO elementary elementary school yep I'm sorry which one to NE absco Elementary School okay that the sections in the absco elementary school remain that are being
170sent to Wilson monair remain in the yes Wilson and Montclair yep the next part hold on one second sorry Cate Wilson Elementary mular elementary school remain at neapco yep okay second part is that the portions of Henderson being sent to Montclair and Patty remain at Henderson Mr deuts that part I have is that the portion of Henderson that's what you want that the portion of Henderson I just want to make sure let me read it to you just so I make sure I have it right um that the portion of Henderson being sent to Monclair Elementary School and Patty Elementary School remain at Henderson that's the second sense is that is that the entire motion uh and then one last and my apologies this is going to be a little more spe pafic um but
171that barley Drive uh essentially this is the back end of um Southbridge Community um but that barley Drive barley Court Terry Court Terry yeah t r r y thank you Glenville drive and nicely Court nicely Mr you know n i c e l y l y yeah Court uh remain at Swans Creek Elementary School Mr T you know I have to read this back to you the amended motion that the Prince William County School Board keep the sections in in neapco Elementary School uh that are being sent to Wilson Elementary School and Monclair Elementary School remain at neapco that the portion of Henderson being sent to Monclair Elementary School and Patty Elementary School remained at Henderson also that barley Drive barley Court Terry Court Glenville drive and nicely Court remain at Swans Creek Elementary School
172is that to your satisfaction yes into your microphone please I'm sorry Mr Deutch yes thank you Mr deuts do I have a second I second Mr wel we second to your amended motion Mr deuts I think there are a number of amendments that are responsive to the desires of the community and uh we should pass them thank you Mr deuts Mr W yeah I agree specifically about uh Henderson and Swans Creek uh Henderson uh it's we've heard a lot from the Northgate community and those residents and they would like to stay uh we're talking 20ish plus students we're looking at with that total group of students there from at least the particular one in the pic district and then with Swans Creek and Southbridge we're looking at as one of the speakers earlier said the
173uh head of the homeowner ERS Association we're talking about a handful of students although Mr Deutsch read off a couple streets there we're literally talking about a handful of students to keep the rest of Southbridge and Swans Creek that's the only part that was cut off thank you Mr W Miss Williams I was just wondering if staff had any input that they'd like to add before we vote Mr Klein input I can get the experts up here I think the first comment is that the change on neabsco would leave neabsco Elementary at 129% of capacity based on those adjustments I'm sorry could you repeat that Mr Clin say one more time the proposed amendments would result in the absco elementary having 100 being at 129% of capacity next year I have a um just because
174obviously it's not my end of the county I have a kind of a question for Mr do since it's your motion maybe you can't answer this so I'm not trying to put you on the spot if you can't I I please um the neapco if again and I'm sorry if this put you on the spot please please feel free um the neapco elementary school and wils I'm sorry neapco elementary school that's being sent to Wilson and Montclair does that was that what how does that relate to maybe even some of the citizens comment time we'd heard during the public hearing what portion is that relating to was that brought up during the I'm just trying to wrap my head around which areas we're talking about in the county lots of neighborhoods obviously and I I
175don't have them all memorized so sure if you're looking at uh plan six it's the yellow and blue section uh and I guess light blue whatever we're calling um next to the abisco um while it doesn't relate to Citizen comment time here it relates to other comments we've had through throughout the process and meetings that people have had emails that have come Etc um so I mean I've I've had numerous meetings um recently um it it's a result of community feedback Mr W thank you Mr deuts sorry put you on the spot Mr W I'm ever thinking of Monclair Elementary what would that do to the capacity where would that leave Montclair Elementary at with capacity 76.8% I think um I think for for clarity sake maybe um we need to we need to I
176need to make a motion to divide this vote this this amended motion um because it's a lot lumped into one um and basically by dividing the vote we would break it down into its three portions um that the neapco Elementary School uh being sent to Wilson and Montclair remain at NE abscope that the portion Henderson being sent to Montclair and Elementary School remain at Henderson and that the also B Bailey Drive barley Court Terry Court Glenville drive and nicely Court remain at Swans Creek I think it might be easier if we break these down piece by piece as opposed to taking them in one lump sum um I'm just I'm making a motion to divide the vote into into three separate pieces so we can vote on them all individually as opposed to that so
177to divide Mr Deutsch's amended motion is is there a second to divide that is there a second to divide that motion real quick we just have a motion on the floor then then Dr Waltz I'll come to you is there a second to divide that or would we prefer as a board I'm just throwing the option out is there a second to divide it or we want to vote on it one lump sum with no second that that motion falls to the floor I'm going to make sure I don't lose everything I'm so nervous I hit the wrong button here all right I think I think I've got it so that falls to the floor so we don't want to divide the vote uh Dr Waltz you have you have some input Mr Klein uh
178could you tell us where that leaves Wilson Elementary for next year 68% as I think was somewhat described in the earlier process part of it it's a very difficult issue in the in the sense of what's occurring within the schools and there is I think as somewh been described somewhat of a domino effect so if if you're not moving it out on one end then what's happening is we're not moving there's a capacity at Wilson then that would be at 68% if we're not moving students out of neabsco we're still moving students into neabsco that's why neabsco fills up but if you're not moving students into neabsco then you're going to have an issue with Fitzgerald so it's that has long the complication within this this particular uh boundary process Mr chairman Sorry Miss rson
179trying to run the board and also think about this all at the same time Miss ralon um what is I can I'm trying to visualize neapco and we have a wing coming on is it neap scope correct okay how many was there how many classrooms was there or any classrooms could you repeat the question please how many classrooms in the ab uh we're doing a 10 RM Edition in the absco I'm sorry I can't hear you 10 RM Edition can you name for me the streets the streets that we're adding to that you're that you wanted to move yes bringing to neapco the residences access off of Cal's Muse the residen is access off of katana court and then there are residences is currently assigned to Belair um barkdale Square Community as well as those
180accessed excuse me zoomed out what is does it make then Belair overcrowded if I move some of those students into Belair it would in fact our intent or the committee's intent was to move some students out of belir into the absco to take advantage of the addition that's being constructed which other direction can we go just give me another Direction look at the there there are um more minimal modifications that can be made to plan six that would Embrace some of the input that was given tonight and would for the most part balance our enrollment in an effective manner I knew you could I'd be glad to speak to those if that is a question impos to me so ask okay um as far as the the South Bridge um area that is completely reasonable
181to completely unify South Bridge to remain at Swans Creek that would have an effect of roughly 17 students between pic Shores and Swans Creek that's completely reasonable and doable uh for the Henderson Community uh there could be a motion put forth that did not remove any residences from the Henderson attendance area but kept the additions and the and that's the only adjustment you would make and then as for aawan you could leave aawan Elementary unaffected um the committee or the the staff would offer up a consideration to reassign part of the morco Acres Community that's currently assigned to pomac view that could move up into Belmont if that's something that the board would find appropriate do I have a second for that motion m rson still has m rson still has the floor um I'll
182accept that okay we just keep keep in mind the motion currently on the floor is is Mr Deutsch's amended motion I just want to make sure everybody's I'm just trying to make sure everybody's on the same page here so M Mr bran you you you have a first crack at it here thank you Mr chairman Dr carage I'm I think we're all confused a various varying levels at this point I've been I've been trying to keep track Lori said she's not confused so she's good to go so that's good so I'll I'll get some input from her um but it kind of sounds like to me that you're suggesting potentially moving some folks that are aren't here tonight that haven't had a say that they potentially could be moved if so I I I don't
183agree with that you know if we if we gave all these folks in this room tonight a voice that's not fair to those folks that don't aren't here tonight to have their voice so I I I definitely will not support um that decision so thank you okay Miss Williams um Dr cart can I can I follow up with that one part real quick Miss Williams she has the FL yes Dr carage all right thank you u fair point just want to make sure that everyone is aware that that component is only true for the bomic view aspect all the other suggestions that were made those were communities that have been involved in the process from the very beginning so that is a valid point for morco Acres but I think that everything else could be
184passed forward U and everyone be adequately represented in that process okay okay yeah now Miss Williams you have the floor thank thank you I'm just going to say as the wiers District representative as a resident of rumco acres and as someone who lived here a really long time I would like for the bomic um View Elementary School Community to be able to provide input um because I know that we have a mix of residents who've been there for a lifelong um multiple Generations as well as new residents and I also understand the school has a new principal as well as um they're just really landlocked and would hate to make changes um in addition to what's already going on in that area without getting their input and um and I also understand that a lot
185of those families are like myself where um they would need time to make schedule adjustments in order to um be able to provide input so um outside of that portion of your recommendation I am very pleased with what you brought forward okay but just so we're all clear your recommendation is not on the floor I just like to make sure everybody on the same page here uh we we certainly we certainly heard that but Dr Waltz you have your hands up thank you so I I want to just uh reiterate what you just said the things that Dr Cartage is saying are not his recommendations they are not the staff's recommendations they're not the superintendent's recommendations what he means by doable is yes you could leave one school at 150 some per over capacity yes
186you could leave another school at 60 some per capacity but I just want to make it absolutely clear that when he says it's doable that doesn't mean it's the administrative recommendation understood thank you Dr Waltz for the clarification I don't know if I want to chime in yet so we we are I just I just again for the sake of clarity uh let me let me Mr bran I think probably good for both of us at this point let me let me reread the current amended motion that's on the floor to the substitute motion U but not the main motion um that the amended motion currently on the floor is that the Prince William County School Board keep the sections in neapco elementary school that are being sent to Wilson Elementary School and Montclair Elementary
187School that remain at neapco that the portion of Henderson being sent to Montclair Elementary School and Patty Elementary School remain at Henderson and also that barley Drive barley Court Terry Court Glenville drive and nicely Court remain at Swans Creek Elementary School just for clarity that is the motion still on the floor that we're out right now with the amended motion does that help Mr bran because it it actually helped me to reread it a little bit although yes thank you I have a point of order point of order Mr will I don't believe there were Henderson going to Montclair is that correct yeah oh thank point of order with no further discussion Mr Ro discussion on this amended motion can we get to calling the question no that's well you had your mic on I
188was I was getting ready to do that all right um okay we're going to call the vote on this amended motion um Mr wil how do you vote Yes Mr Deutsch I miss Jesse yes Miss Williams no Mr bran yes Miss Rolston yes I will also vote Yes sorry so many buttons to click I apologize everyone the vote is six yes one no Williams one absent sat white motion passed okay so everyone that brings us back to the to the substitute motion we still have to vote on this The Substitute motion so those those are now the the motion that we just passed is now part of this substitute motion um and then so the remaining part of the substitute motion that we need to pass is that the prince Willam County School Board adopt
189plan six that the boundaries for aquan elementary school remain unchanged is there any further discussion on that motion with that I'll call the vote I'm did I'm sorry did I not I didn't see you I'm sorry sorry Mr deuts go ahead I apologize for missing you sure I will um I think there is a map that probably everybody can live with for their districts um I will just make the point that the one school left at the largest overc capacity at 158% is occup Elementary so I think in aquan people need to figure out if they want to reduce trailers or not thank you Mr Deutsch Miss Jesse you have your microphone on as well yes the people from aaan have spoken and uh I think in the future we I'm I'm I'm asking Mr
190uh kleene and Dr Waltz to look at the land in back of aquan and look at some of the park land there uh they to move these people you're talking about percentage what is the actual enrollment at aquan how many kids are we talking about moving how many students are we talking about moving to Belmont there'd be approximately 100 students being how many approximately 100 students being reassigned from aaan to Belmont they have spoken they have done well in this particular School setting how many trailers do we have at aquan we have six portable classrooms at aquan elementary yeah are there any second graders in in trailers at aquan I'm unaware of how the principal Brewer is using this I think one of the parents that were that was here asked that uh we consider
191the fact that uh they don't have that situation I would like an alternative plan for aqua Kuan Elementary to allow these kids to remain in their school at least for one year until we develop another plan that is the current motion as we have right now that the Prince County School Board adopt plan six and the boundaries for oaan elementary school remain unchanged so as of right now that's that's how that will be if this passes thank you any further discussion on this matter okay with that I'll call the vote on this as well uh M Mr Klein did you have something before before we get totally to the end there is the issue of rising fifth graders that you might want to take up is that a matter of thank you we did that
192I believe last time as well was is part of the motion it does have to be part of the motion to to to be guaranteed correct it'll be rising fifth graders how about somebody amend the motion if that's what we want to do then why not what are we amending if someone wants to I'm just saying do we want to do we want to protect the the the fifth graders having the rising fifth graders M M M Miss Ralston I move that we include the rising fifth graders in this motion and historically that has been subject to providing their own transportation yes from from their school anyone be being moved has the right what he's saying is anyone being moved has any fifth grader being moved current fourth grader this year would have the right
193to S at their school as as they provide their own transportation so been a motion that I would like to make another consideration hold on one second we have I have to I have to get a second for this motion first let me get it typed in please the amended motion that Rising fifth graders can remain at their current School provided they provide that makes sense provided they provide their own transportation M Mr rson I have the amended motion that the rising fifth graders can remain at their current School provided they provide their own transportation is that how you'd like the motion to read is there a second for that motion I'll second Mr deuts Seconds discussion Mr Ron yes um one of the good things about this little piece of it is that they
194get to graduate from fifth grade you know with their friends that they have grown up with uh I've watched this happen in my district they parents really did not have a big problem with getting their kids to school they car pulled and did all kinds of little things so I appreciate U if I can get the vote thank you m rson anyone else Miss Jesse I would like to make a motion that those families in Greenwich Village that live right next door to the school be allowed to consider Ride Transportation or be allowed to to walk to aquan Elementary I believe with the current motion Miss Jesse that that if gr is gr please someone correct me if I'm wrong Greenwich Village is currently in the aaan district is that correct correct so as a
195motion reads now if left unaffected yeah currently the aaan the current motion on the floor The Substitute motion is not aaan will be remain untouched there's I think that would be redundant to add that to the motion because they are currently not they're currently not being moved at all under the current motion okay thank you Mr Deutch uh I have one last Amendment um let me hold on a second let make sure how many I have on the floor here so we got a substitute Motion One amended motion um we can do we we can still do one more we can still do one more amendment to this substitute motion right now question on this amendment and then just let me have one more Amendment we certainly can yes if that's I I think that
196wouldd be a little easier from the computer perspective uh not trying to avoid what you want to do I'm just trying to get this get this right I'm sorry the ladies I need to be able to focus on this the amended motion that Rising So currently the rising fifth graders can remain at their current School provided they provide their own transportation I will call the vote um Mr wil how do you vote just that yeah just for the amended motion that Rising fifth graders can remain at their current School provider they provide their own transportation Mr deuts hi Miss Jesse Miss Jesse how do you vote that that Rising fifth graders can remain at their current School providing they provide their own transportation which is again the normal thing that is typically done sure okay
197Miss Williams and your mic please I'm sorry yes Mr bran uh yes thank you Miss Ralston yes I vote Yes Miss s is not present vote is seven yes one absent sat white motion passed okay now we're back to the substitute motion Mr Deutsch all right one last Amendment and I think this uh hopefully addresses some of the other concerns we have um but this would direct staff that um the next time that we boundary uh schools on the Eastern end that we do it um we reboundary everything planned for the next four years and phase it in at once so it lets us consolidate and um not keep disrupting things Mr deuts I'm sorry I'm going to and we can certainly talk about this but um I'm going to have to rule that out
198of order simply because it's it's not what's on the agenda today which is the current boundaries if we want to talk about future boundaries and put that on as a different agenda item that's certainly something we can discuss but the board is not prepared to to discuss those types of things at this particular time so I just have to roll out I'm not saying it's not worthy of a future debate I'm just saying it's not it's not germine to this conversation uh here today today so all right so we are back um we are back to the substitute motion that the Prince William County School Board I'm sorry I'm just going to make sure everybody can hear me so we're on the same page we are back to the substitute motion that the Prince William
199County School Board adopt plan six and that the boundaries for the acaan elementary school remain unchanged knowing that the one amended motion Mr Deutch amended his motion pass 6 to one to to one not present that is also included in this but now we're just voting on the The Substitute motion that Prince William County School Board adopt plan six and the boundaries for acaan elementary school remain unchanged as as amended correct yes the amended is the amendment is already passed that is already in the system further debate Mr wil how do you vote Yes Mr deuts how do you vote I and your mic please I'm sorry Mr deuts I thank you Miss Jesse how do you vote Yes Mike please yes thank you Miss Williams how do you vote Yes yes Mr bran how
200do you vote yes thank you Mr Ron how do you vote Yes I also vote Yes Miss sat white not present I'll probably hit the wrong button at this point the vote is seven yes one absent sat white motion passed believe it or not we're on to item 17.01 on to item 17.01 which is on for information the employee compensation study uh seagull Waters Consulting Mr Johnson oh are we done just so confused thank you sir good evening chairman Sawyers school board members Dr Waltz the school board authorized a salary analysis and classification reclassification study at the March 16 2016 meeting as part of the fy1 17 budget and CIP approval process the last division-wide salary analysis and reclassification study conducted by an outside agency or a Consulting was done prior to Dr Walt's arrival
201in July 2005 seagull Waters Consulting was hired in compliance with our procurement regulation and kot of Virginia to get to know and understand our unified pay scale Mrs Heather casimi our consultant is vice president and Senior compensation consultant in the public sector compensation practice at the SQL company which she joined in 1995 she is located in the Washington DC office Mrs casimi is responsible for managing and conducting total rewards Consulting projects for public sector clients Nationwide this include the design and administration of Market studies to determine prevailing salaries benefits packages HR practices to assist SQL clients with evaluating and redesigning their total reward structure she also manages classification studies and responsible for conducting employee opinions surveys and engagement studies prior to hearing from our consultant DEA SPO director of benefits and retirement service will have
202an opportunity to speak with you to give you a quick overview of our current situation in Prince William County Public Schools and Mrs um Sparks has worked closely with the consultant in myself on this project at this time Debbie good evening chairman Sawyers Schoolboard members and Dr Walts just to reiterate what Mr Johnson did say is that the school board did approve authorize the salary analysis and classification study at the March 16 2016 meeting as part of the fy17 budget and CIP approval pwcs does compete with the largest school divisions in the Commonwealth of Virginia and also in the state of Maryland as well as Washington DC we are the second largest School Division in the Commonwealth with Fairfax being the largest Fairfax is also considered the 10th largest School Division within the United States
203Montgomery County in Maryland is the 15th largest and Prince George's County is the 21st I say that because we are the 35th largest School Division in the nation which I think we all should think highly of that Prince William County is the 12th largest employer in the Commonwealth of Virginia and the largest employer in Prince William County with 13,000 employees including substitutes and Temporaries our payroll each time probably we cut approximately 15,000 different checks over a course on every payroll this past year we projected a thousand new teacher hires for the 201617 school year and we to date have filled 944 four of those vacancies we are still experiencing a large number of vacancies in the teaching area for the month of January so far we still have 70 vacancies and that is the largest
204number of vacancies since 2005 pwcs does enjoy a teacher turnover rate of approximately 10% which as you can see is much lower than the national average which is 16% per the national Center of education and statistics our goal is to remain under 12% at any one time during the exit interview survey which we um offer to employees is through either an online session or a face Toof face consistently it shows the top three reasons that certificated staff leave is because espousal transfers long commutes or family responsibilities recently we received data from the from the Virginia retirement system to show that teachers who left Prince William County do they go to Fairfax or do they go someplace else what we found this year is we had 68 people go to Fairfax and we receive 68 teachers
205from Fairfax so it was a wash this year in past years some of those we've received more than they have received from us um the VOE every year puts out a listing of critical shortages uh in teaching as you can see we have a listing here for Prince William County there is mathematics there is special education there is career and Technology ESO sciences and middle school and for the first time it is also elementary school so we have a shortage of elementary school teachers in non-teaching positions we have the technology at all levels we are short and then of course the HVAC positions in facilities and and School nurses as a way to try to encourage some of our staff to get a teaching degree and also to keep our teachers we do provide tuition
206reimbursement and for teachers on an annual basis that's a $700 every year and for support staff it's $350 for that support staff who is interested in achieving a teaching degree at the program is on a first come first serve basis and it is ALS always Contin upon the availability of the budgeted funds the budget this year was 209,000 809 if you want to get down to the specifics and then the balance currently is 63,000 per my office we will probably uh exhaust all of those funds prior to March 31st other ways of compensation is pwcs provides additional annual compensation to the national board certified teachers of $2,000 and for PE speech pathologists we offer $2,000 for those who uh achieve their certification in the three C's which stands for certification clinical and competency bdoe the
207Department of Education provides additional annual compensation to the no to the national board certified of $2500 a year and then in the stem program for those teachers who after one year of teaching in a stem program in a middle school or high school can receive from the state $55,000 a year pwcs does have our own recognition for our Stu for our employees and that is in our Service Awards and after five years of service with Prince William County we do provide a pen and a $100 check after that every five years that increases by $100 so by the 25th year you do get 25 get 25 yeah you get $500 and then for every five years after that you get an additional $500 Prince William county is one of the uh few School divisions that
208does have site based management which means that the principles receive the funding for the staffing and supplies and they are responsible for managing those funds and for their student outcomes lastly just um Prince William County we do pay out 10% of the value of an employees ACR sick leave when upon separation I recently did a survey of all the Region 4 School Divi divisions and what I found was that in Region 4 the payout is given at retirement only in majority of them after they have been in their positions at least 15 years and that many of those payouts are capped so with that I'm going to turn this over to miss Heather cimi from C go [Music] hello thank you for inviting me here um and for giving your attention to this information I
209know we've all had a long day um so I will um go through these slides as as quickly as possible I have about 30 pages of information to share with you tonight um as Mr Johnson said my name is Heather kazmi I'm a vice president with seagull Waters Consulting U just a a short bit about the company the seagull Group which was founded in 1939 is a nationwide Human Resources consulting firm with 24 offices and about a thousand employees in North America for the past 22 years my colleagues and I have specialized in providing comp compensation analysis and advice to public sector organizations throughout the country including public school districts so this evening I'm going to share with you the results of the recent market analysis um and uh these 30 slides are show are
210so that I'm going to show you summarize the findings but we uh were also finalizing a written report that provides more detail so the agenda for this evening uh first I'll talk briefly about the purpose and methodology of the study then I'll share the market study findings first the findings for teachers um and then findings for staff positions classified administrator and managerial staff uh lastly I will speak to some recommendations and next steps for for you all to consider so the goals of the study are twofold uh first to evaluate and quantify the school division's total compensation Market position and when I say total compensation I mean salaries and the employer cost of benefits of employee benefits uh for all employee groups including Educators administrators and other staff uh the second goal is to update
211validate and modernize the job classification structure and the job descriptions for administrators and staff the primary objective of the analysis is to ensure that Prince William County schools has policies and practices that enable you to successful recruit retain and recognize qualified and committed Educators and staff so that you can provide a world class education the next slide shares some information about the methodology uh to measure our Market position we first needed to Define what is the market and you can see on the slide this is uh We've segmented the market into four areas the first is the eight the other eight School divisions in the Washington can area Boards of Education are the way school districts the second segment include two other neighboring School divisions that is faul here and Stafford um and for those
212positions that are not specific to school environments we also looked at local area governmental employers as well as private sector employers so in total this study includes 17 public sector comparator organizations and four data sources representing the private sector a little bit about the current Workforce um you see here the um approximate number of individuals as well as a percent of total uh of course the largest group being teachers and other certified professionals um that are paid on the on the teacher portion of the unified salary scale comprise 58% of the workforce here the largest proportion classified staff covers 37 7% um and those includes that category includes those who perform support and Technical work such as teacher assistance Food Service workers office support facilities technicians bus drivers and so on that's who's in the
213classified staff section um and then the smallest group administrators and managers make up only 4% of the workforce and those are uh School principls assistant principls instructional leadership and other professionals that lead and support the School Division so the market study findings I will share with you tonight are segmented by these three categories so let's get to the findings on this slide you see a um a picture of the current teacher salary ranges this is part of the unified pay scale um there are traditional Lane and step model designed for teachers that is pay Lanes based on education attainment of the teacher and then the pay steps you see here there are 29 steps um that are there to recognize or designed to reflect years of teaching experience and you see here in this uh
214table I thought you might like to know how your current educators are distributed among those pay Lanes uh about a third are in the bachelor's or The Bachelors plus 15 pay lanes and then 2/3 uh have a master's degree ree or higher now you see there are those 29 pay steps um this is how the current teachers and educators are distributed along those pay steps so this this covers all the pay Lanes um and all the teachers in the school system right now um so going from step one to step 29 you'll see about three quars of teachers are in the first half of that pay range this will become important as you see more of the findings so I'm going to show you a series of charts and tables that compare current the current
215teacher salary ranges to the market average um so what we see here this is the bachelor's pay Lane and you see steps 1 through 29 and the green line is Prince William County schools the red line shows the uh the average of the other eight wavy school districts and then the dotted Blue Line right below that is what I'm calling the wayby plus two that is the way school districts Plus Stafford and faul here so what this shows is that the starting salary at step one for teachers with a bachelor's degree again just the bachelor's Lane is very close to the market average in fact most of the way School divisions have have a very similar starting salary of around $47 to $49,000 for teachers with a bachelor's degree the similarity continues for about the
216first three set steps of the salary range with most School divisions paying about $50,000 at step three at this point Prince Williams salary scale Falls below the waybe average and stays about $2,000 to $33,000 per year below the average till about Step 13 where it begins to exceed the market average so again a little bit below the way be average about 2 to $3,000 a year until Step 13 um but the Gap continues to grow throughout the steps after Step 13 reaching its peak at the top of the scale exceeding the wavy average by about $24,000 at step 29 in short the current teacher pay scale is similar to others in the beginning dips below the market uh for steps in those sort middle career years but then becomes highly Market competitive as a teacher
217progresses through the range so this was the bachelor's pay Lane um and now here's the chart for the Masters pay Lane picture here is similar but the scale remains below market for longer than in the bachelor's Lane with steps 4 through 22 below the waybe average by about $2,000 to $6,000 depending on what step you're on again $2,000 to $6,000 and then above the market average starting around step 23 so the findings for the other teacher ranges and lanes are similar to these what I'm sharing with you tonight the bachelor's and the Master's Lane so the next page here shows uh the same same information but in a table form for those who like to see the numbers um this one shows the Master's pay Lane and selected steps along that pay Lane step one
218up to the top step first row was the waybe average then Prince William a percentage difference and a dollar difference so again the same story close to the market average the beginning dipping below the market um until step in the 20s and then above Market by the top step so what this means is that Prince William is vulnerable to losing trained experienced teachers during those highly productive middle years in their career that's a step five to step 20 in there those are intended or designed to reflect years of teaching experience so in addition to looking at the pay scale we looked at the weighted average salary Sal let me explain what this what I mean by that um we looked at how Prince Williams teachers are currently distributed along the pay lanes and the steps
219and we took that same distribution and we overlaid it on top of the pay scales of the other school divisions so we said what if all teachers work 10 months and what if the distribution that we have here in Prince William is the same in the other school divisions and we use that to calculate a weighted average 10mon salary for for each division um so out of these 12 school districts you see Prince William is ranked seventh uh with an average teacher salary of about $64,000 it's almost $10,000 less than the average salary in Arlington about $77,000 less than Alexandria and $2,000 less than in Fairfax the average among the way school districts is $60,000 to $74,000 and the salaries of those non-w School Districts The faul here and Stafford are significantly lower at about
220$50,000 so this next page shows the same information but in a graph form so as I said in the beginning we looked at total compensation that is salaries as well as the cost of benefits so this next page takes a look at um you see those same weighted average based salaries there um and then the average medical vision and dental costs this is the employer portion of those costs and then the average retirement plan costs so in terms factoring in the percentage contribution for retirement plans and then the last column is total compensation so without getting too much into the numbers you see Prince William County School's ranking Falls from 7 to 8 um and that's because uh in overall uh the health benefit costs here are a bit lower than the other school divisions
221and the retirement plan costs are about the same same information in graph form on average um just to for uh in case you're interested benefit costs generally reflect about a quarter of total compensation costs and that's pretty typical throughout all these School divisions so a little bit about the structure of the teacher uh pay scales and pay Lanes um you see here the number of pay steps and the range width and what I mean by by range width is what's the distance from step one to the top step so for example um in Prince William you see the number 126% that means the highest salary in a pay Lane is 126% above the starting salary so by contrast for example um you see in Fairfax it's 84% that means the top salary in any uh
222pay lanee is 84% higher than the minimum in Step One um so what I noticed about this is that um Prince Williams range widths are wider that is the number is higher than in many of the other school districts and generally there are there are more steps than in some about half of the other school districts but about the same in the other half so let's move on to findings for staff all staff are paid on the unified pay scale um here is a uh picture of the portion of the scale that covers classified staff again classified staff are those that perform support and Technical work such as teacher assistants bus drivers Food Service workers office support and so on the salary ranges for for classified staff include 11 pay grades with 29 pay steps
223just like the teacher scales each pay range is 123% wide that is the top rate at step 29 is 123% above the starting rate at step one so this is the portion of the scale for classified staff this picture shows the portion of the salary scale that covers administrators and managers there also 11 grades on this scale grades 13 through 23 but the number of steps varies from seven steps you see in those highest grades um to 25 steps at the lower pay grades the range widths for these grades range from 20% to 103% wide so there are about 400 or so job titles um that are paid on this these this portion of the unified scale that is classified staff administrators and managerial staff and to do the market study we had to select
224some Benchmark jobs that is some jobs that represent those we can't collect Market data on all 400 some OD job titles so for this study we chose 108 Benchmark jobs that represent about 2third of all staff in the school district both classified and administrat or managerial staff uh give you a sense of what kind of jobs are covered into in this study it covers all departments and all employee groups including instructional and student services jobs as well as support functions such as Facilities Management Food Service it and so on so here are the high Lev findings for all 108 job titles that we looked at on average across all Benchmark jobs we found that the current minimum pay rates that is step one of the pay ranges are slightly below Market about 4% below market
225for the classified staff about 1% below market for the administrators and managerial staff so when you see that 96% that says Prince William County schools is 96% of the market average um the midpoint and the maximum pay rates are on average um above the market as you can see in these numbers about 26% at the top of the scale for non-exempt jobs and 11% for exempt jobs not exemp being the classified staff and exemp being the administrators and managerial staff so I'm going to give you some examples um show you some selected job classifications um this chart shows prce Prince Williams schools pay ranges for selected classified jobs is not all of them just a few um compared to the overall Market average including all of the data that we we collected uh so for
226example you see on the far left the food service associate um the starting rate of $11.36 is a bit below the market average but that the maximum at $25.3 is above the market average and that's a pretty typical pattern of what we've what we saw among the different classified jobs so you see here results for food service associate custodian teacher assistant bus driver uh school secretary and school nurse I'd like to spend a few minutes talking about two more job two of these job titles in particular um that have come up in in recent conversations one is a bus driver and the other is a school nurse so starting with bus driver I wanted to share with you the data we collected from all of the other school districts so Prince William is blue here
227and this data is sorted in descending order from highest to lowest with a starting pay rate so these are hourly rates so you see here Prince William ranks 10th out of the 12 school districts for starting pay for bus drivers and that's step one and it's the lowest among the WBY School divisions however the top pay rate that is at step 29 you see there's about $36 an hour is the highest among the school districts in the study um so you see again this is you know bit lower in the starting salary but a bit higher at the ending salary the next slide shows the same information for the same school districts for School nurses again showing hourly rates um for School nurses Prince William ranked sixth out of the 12 School Division so right
228in the middle uh with a starting salary or starting rate of $27 65 cents per hour uh the maximum rate at step 29 however is in the top three of the school divisions at $61.60 so we were asked to do a little extra work with the school nurses here that I wanted to share with you um we were asked to identify which school divisions pay nurses on the teacher pay scale as opposed to a separate you're part of the classified staff or the administrator staff um so you see here we've noted three School divisions with an asterisk and those are the school districts that pay School nurses the same as they pay teachers so they're paid on those teacher pay Lanes based on education that's Alexandria Manasses and Falls Church are the three on the
229left so by way of comparison we've added the pay ranges for Prince William County teachers at a bachelor's degree and a master's degree to show you by way of comparison so another words we're saying if School nurses were paid on the teacher pay scale here's what the market position would be on an hourly basis so those are the um the two blue ones on the left and again that's different based on education of the individual so we've shown here the bachelor's Lane and the Master's Lane now I'm going to share you share with you some examples from the administrator and managerial group you see here very similar stories to what we found with a classified staff jobs um salaries a in in many cases a bit lower than the market average average and then maximums
230very similar to or above the market average so that is the top the bottom of the scale versus the top of the scale um and one last slide on administrators uh I thought you like might like to know about School principles um and here we see the the salary ranges for Elementary Middle School and High School principles uh comparing Prince William to the wayb average and that wayb plus two average again similar story with some of the other jobs bit below the market at the minimum and a bit above at the maximum oops now I mentioned that we looked at four different um Market sectors um and I wanted to show you how the um the results differed somewhat among different Market sectors uh we divided this into the smaller school districts and then the
231larger school districts the local governments and private sector um so across all jobs this is showing all 108 Benchmark jobs we found that Prince William is generally competitive with all four market segments but the starting rates are below the private sector average and the larger School Division average now the reasons for the differences in the market position between the minimum and the maximum has to do with the width of the pay range so I'd mentioned this earlier uh with regard to teachers um and here showing the this is the average distance between the minimum to the maximum pay rate for classified staff jobs so that top bar there of course is pwcs at 123% wide and you see this is average across all the different jobs that we looked at for the other school divisions
232so you can see the average range width for these jobs um ranges from 43% in Montgomery County Schools to 108% in Stafford County so the next page shows similar information but for those administrator and managerial jobs again because some of those um some of those pay ranges at Prince William have fewer steps than others uh the range width is 80% um which is generally a bit wider but not significantly wider than some of the other school divisions and the local governments so have one last slide about um the market study findings before we move on to recommendations um again looking at total compensation looking at classified staff again because those um health care costs are a bit lower um and in some cases with classified staff um retirement contributions are lower our Market position dips
233a little bit below where it was with salary only when we're including benefit costs but for administrators and managerial staff it's day is exactly the same we're nearly there so to continue to attract and retain highly qualified Educators and staff we suggest you consider a few things a few actions um as Revenue becomes available number one for teachers we suggest you consider modifying the salary scales to reflect Market rates throughout the ranges what that would mean that would require raising the salary rates in the middle of the range and lowering the rates at the end at the top of the range it's changing that curve a little bit uh for School nurses we suggest you consider addressing their request to be paid on the teacher pay scale giving the given the information I shared with
234you tonight placing them on the teacher scale would compensate nurses based on their educational attainment um and would raise their salaries to be among the highest in the metro area keeping them on the unified scale or on the um classified staff portion of the unified scale means that starting rates are ranked in the middle of the pack that is six out of 12 with top salary rates among the highest in the area number three um giv given that we are expecting to experience a nationwide teacher shortage in coming years we suggest that you consider enhancing the tuition reimbursement budget for teachers and support staff with a focus on encouraging staff to pursue a teaching degree uh last for staff we suggest you consider modifying the pay ranges to more closely reflect the market that is
235with narrower pay ranges um but to recognize career path hierarchies by potentially expanding the number of pay grades so now they're wide make them a bit narrow but perhaps have more of them based on a career path progression um and also we are finalizing some specific recommendations designed to modernize and update the classification titles um and the job descriptions for the school division um and to ensure internally Equitable and Market competitive payg grade assignments for all of those jobs so I'm going to end where Mr Johnson began uh with repeating the uh the board Direction and uh what you requested thank you ma'am thank you questions comments Miss Jesse um first of all I it's a lot of information and I and a lot of work and I just want to compliment uh the staff
236for the enormous amount of work that I see here this is not my forte but I I still know work when I see work um what I see as a pattern is that you have another name for it but I I see that we have a what I call a longevity uh pattern if you live long enough you can make more money than other people but you have to live long and then you're above everyone else that's that's what I see as a pattern uh I love the idea of School nurses being considered as professionals I think that they really are professional people and that we need to consider that for uh the career path um you know we've been comparing ourselves as a nation to um various countries and we're not doing well and
237the number one research piece that says that these countries the key is the teacher uh the key is collaboration and collegiality but it is treating the teachers like they are professionals and one of the thing that I have noticed is that there and you know and i' I've worked as a principal and Amy white and I work together and you know I I I think she and Mary page and all these people said Miss Jesse I don't want to be a principal I don't of course they weren't telling the truth and they later became principls but they really did not want to become principles they wanted to remain as good teachers and I don't know how we can do this but um I think it's in uh one of the highest performing countries they say
238one of the things that he teaching teach treating teachers as professionals that you can become what they call for lack of a better word a master teacher in other words if a teacher demonstrates high levels of skills but she doesn't necessarily want to become a principal she doesn't want to become an administrator because she's watched us long enough and she knows she doesn't want to do that I think that we need to begin to find these career ladders so teachers who are great teachers by some rubric can become um Master Teachers and not necessarily administrators I know we've got different administrators On Assignment but some people just want to be good teachers and we need to keep those people if we're try if for example we find there are teachers who really can close the
239achievement Gap and they have that gift they have that skill set that how do we keep them in the classroom and uh provide the support I I know as a principal and Amy will tell you this I was always trying to promote people up but then when they left I I started thinking what were you thinking because you got this great teacher and you kick her up because you don't want to just keep her uh there to help you know with work at the school level I just think that there's something that needs to be said the bus drivers uh when I look at the bus drivers it seems to me that we have a um the longevity pattern too if you stay here long enough you can make more money when I look at
240Prince William county is not as transient as it was when I was at vaugh but we had people coming and going all the time there's a military base here so we get a lot of people coming and going so I think the entry level if somehow we could improve the pay scale at that entry level to keep people and for bus drivers I think the same thing we've got issues with with bus drivers and you know I watched the the retirements and there's a d if you look there's a drastic difference in even the physical appearance of the retirees some of the classified in order to hit that higher scale they are some of them are just physically barely getting across the stage and I've been here long enough that I began to look for
241a pattern and I think we need to think about compensating our bus drivers in a in a different manner but again I want to thank you this a very very comprehensive report and I appreciate your work thank you thank you Miss Jesse anyone else Miss uh Williams thank you Mr chairman um thank you for presenting a study this evening thank you U my question relates to um pay in regards to the number of staff that we have doing a particular job um my concern when we talk about salary and things of that nature especially at the upper levels for our administrators um and most senior staff I'm I'm wondering if any consideration was given to how many like say for example we may have one administrator that does the job of four or five in
242another County um it was that any of that type of factoring done looking at this report because I think that's important when we talk about changing salaries or pay scales and and of that nature if we as a county have a smaller size staff that does the same amount of work then I think they should be compensated equally so it's not just quite as black and white as what's on paper so I was just wondering if any of that was factored into the report you presented tonight um the short answer is no we did not look at um Staffing levels or whether the the jobs carry the same workload we did look at positions with the same kind of respons responsibility that's what we were matching jobs to so the same level of responsibility the
243same type of work um for example looking at a Director of Human Resources um that was one of the Benchmark jobs we looked at so we compared that to other Director of Human Resources positions um but I understand that the school district um also worked on um a staffing study recently and has that been discussed if you can recall um at the time that you made disapproval there was also an approval to look at administrative Staffing as well this is not part of that report that should be coming up in about two meetings from now oh thank you um I just want to follow up just for my own understanding um for that Staffing report that's coming is there salary information in that as well or are we just two separate is two separate two
244separate I'm just going to go ahead and ask now if we can compare those two when we get the information in that we have a um a fair picture of what we're looking at as a board because I think both parts um make a whole picture as to how we pay our St our staff in comparison to other jurisdictions and counties and that's very important um as someone I I can tell you does the work of multiple people I do appreciate my check reflects that I'm doing the work of multiple people and not just what my position description say so I I want to be mindful of that as we move forward and um hoping that we can um have some sort of comparison eventually of the two I'm sorry that wasn't really a question
245for you um sure but but what I did want to I think you raised a good point because I meant to mention in one of the the earlier slides we're talking about the number of staff and each of the employee categories um that at the administrator and managerial staff I mentioned that's 4% of the total Workforce um that number is a bit lower than I normally see so I did want to put that in there I haven't done a you know a a survey of this but I've done a lot of work with other school divisions around the country um and I typically see that number being about five to 10% of the workforce so if if that adds to your understanding of this it does thank you very much appreciate that sure thank you
246Miss Williams Miss Rolston thank you Mr chairman thank you for coming thank you I'm glad to see that you had the uh school bus drivers on there cuz I'm going to have a little stick saying pay raise pay raise so and I'm also glad that you have the same value for nurses that I have and to move nurses out of the classified range into with the um with the teachers is a whole lot better if nothing else they'll feel better and feel more appreciate but let me ask you when you were looking or putting this together the thing that stood out the very most to you what was it that just tops everything that what you put in here so if you if you were going to diagnose us which you basically did what is
247our illness I need to think about that um I would say that you that at the higher end of your pay ranges you are positioned to retain some very highly qualified talented committed Educators and staff at the beginning of the range I don't know if you our are positioned adequately to recruit the type of St St that you want to bring to the school division think that's that's how I would answer your question thank you very much thank you Mr rson I'm sorry Mr R go thank you Mr rson anyone else thank you very much thank you all right moving right along superintendent Time Dr Waltz thank you chairman Sawyers members of the board nearly 900 people attended the fourth annual parent Summit on January 7th several of the sessions were videotaped so if you
248were not able to attend you can see many of the sessions in our video archive along with the PowerPoint presentations check out those by following the link from the parent tab on the school division's homepage um I was there myself as we have a uh Rising high schooler and so was my wife and it was really really uh helpful and amazing I thank School board member Lori Williams for being in attendance and supporting the parents Summit I congratulate all those who organized the summit and all of the volunteers who came to help we sincerely appreciate their commitment and dedication to our students and their families and many thanks to our very talented Hilton High School television production students who assisted in videotaping the presentations for those who were not able to attend I had the
249privilege of attending the Martin Luther King Day orator iCal competition on Monday along with our daughter Delaney I saw and heard our students speak and all I can say is they were awesome um all six finalists three Middle School three High School were just amazing congratulations to the student winners into the Delta Sigma Theta sorority on another memorable event and I just want to take a moment to recognize our aaan school board member and vice chairman Lily Jesse who is the founder and the first chairperson of the youth oratorical contest 27 years ago on behalf the School Division I thank you for your foresight Lily and uh Miss Jesse and your ongoing efforts we're proud of the students who participated in the oratorical contest we also had individual School winners and each one of them
250as well as the finalists received um some nice checks uh for their work and effort all gave eloquent speeches the recipients of the best before the audience awards were Abdullah ususa zi from Ronald Reagan Middle School and Norman Jones from Stonewall Jackson High School best before the judges Awards went to Norman Jones and Janine Farooq at Stonewall Middle School winners of the judge's Choice Award are Claire Lloyd marstellar middle school and Beverly sacki brentville District High School first place in the fifth grade essay contest went to McKenna Howell from Porter Traditional School special thanks and congratulations also go to the coordinators teachers and coaches who encouraged these students congratulations to Woodbridge High School senior Fatima dyen on being selected as one of three finalists for the Harry F bird Jr leadership award she will learn
251in the next few days if she was the winner for her congression Prof District Fatima is class president at Woodbridge and has held numerous leadership roles in school and in her community we wish her well and hope to hear more of her success congratulations to Mountain View Elementary School on being selected for a stem Excellence award the award will be presented to principal Adrien Harrison and instructional technology coach Terry Jeffree next week at the future of Education technology conference congratulations to Battlefield High School's Orchestra and director of orchestras Zack Saunders on their selection to perform on the Kennedy Center Millennium stage on Thursday March 2nd the orchestra is one of four musical groups to perform from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. Garfield High School recently held a ceremony honoring the 2017 graduates from the international baloria
252program I want to thank board member Rolston for attending that with me this program began at Garfield in 2001 36 students took 924 exams a significant number since most of these courses are two-year courses and are limited to just 11th and 12th graders next week January 23rd through 27th is Virginia schools principal week this is a time to honor and thank our principls who are among the greatest educational leaders in our Commonwealth each day our principles and assistant principles are responsible for the safety as well as the education of almost 89,000 students we applaud them for their leadership and dedication and it's a privilege to work with these exceptional leaders I'm pleased to note last year's division wide survey showed that our teachers and teacher assistants had a 92% overall satisfaction rate for the teaching
253learning and working environment provided by the School Division similarly parents reported a high overall satisfaction level of 91% with our School Division which brings me to this year's division survey which is now underway the survey has been distributed to parents your feedback is very important to us and we ask that you respond to the survey by January 27th and lastly we cannot recognize too often the dedication and hard work of our school board members I invite our schools to recognize and celebrate the work of their school board representative and our chairman especially during the coming month of February since it marks the annual observance of school board appreciation month let them know you appreciate what they do for our students and our faculty thank you thank you Dr Waltz um moving on to item yeah
254I just want to point out that on the boundary vote we never actually approved the main motion but only the substitute motion The Substitute motion replac the main motion it was a substitute motion yeah substitute motion still doesn't actually replace the main motion St to approve the main motion um item 19.0 onece Willam County School Board I'll make the motion that the prince Willam County School Board confirmed the board poll dated January 3rd 2017 regarding the request of two school board members to hold special meeting on January 4th 2017 19.0 one miss Jesse 19.0 one that's the motion I'll make that motion is there a second is is there a second yeah for 19.0 one we on the just what again what's already put into the into the system is it just confirmation yes confirmation
255of the board poll yes sorry 19.0 one everyone Miss Williams second Miss Williams second okay discussion Mr Deutch thank you Mr chairman um we we passed a board poll policy last fall uh that specifically required the superintendent and division Council to be notified about a board poll we didn't have to get their approval but they had be notified before one was issued they weren't notified I I understand the the legal gymnast astics that were explained to the last board meeting but there was no notification about this specific board poll so this board poll VI violates the uh code or the policies that we just amended last September so at some point the lawlessness has to end thank you Mr I I'll explain um again the the request in my interpretation of the policy is that
256when two board members uh request a special meeting um that essentially initiates the board poll that is the warning that that is that is in order basically that is the the heads up that the superintendent and and legal council would get um that it would be coming um again happened during the holiday season and certainly I wish the timing would have been better um but that's that's ultimately uh the the reason for it so um that's why we're moving forward with it and and going from there so anyone else have any discussions all right with that I'll call the vote Mr chairman Mr D all right but the division Council and the superintendent still didn't know about this before it was issued so you you can come up with legal gymnastics they literally physically did
257not know about this board poll so it violated the exact wording that we approved thank you with that I'll call the vote uh Mr wil how do you vote Yes Mr Deutch uh no Miss Jesse yes Miss Williams yes Mr bran Mr bran no thank you Miss uh rson I abstain okay I vote Yes the vote is for yes wil Ro Sawyers Jesse Williams two no dech and bran one absent sat white motion passed and one abstaining as well is that correct I'm sorry one abstain Ralston motion passed thank you all right on the item this this one is on for information only item 19.02 um this is the initial report to the school board about the motion proposed uh the unanimously passed motion October 19th of 2016 about the LGBT uh Q task force
258good evening chairman Sawyers members of the school board and Dr Waltz thank you for the opportunity to provide you with an update from the lgbtq task force steering committee the purpose of this presentation is to obtain further direction from the school board relative to the role of the task force and the composition of its membership I would like to introduce the members of the steering committee and their current positions I am Carolyn kuster director of student services and am currently serving as the chair of the steering committee and at this time I'd like to introduce the other members and ask them to stand when their name is called Mrs mayor Macwan division counsel Mr David hish spark Education Foundation board member Mrs Heather principal woodb Senior High School Mr Fred Milbert retired Title 9 coordinator
259and before Mr Milbert retired he served as the supervisor of health physical education and Athletics Mrs Rebecca schlater supervisor of secondary counseling and student support services and Mr Keith Iman associate superintendent for communications the school board directive to the superintendent taken from its October 19th motion was to provide a suggested framework for a lgbtq task force and to report back and to report back with the information in in January the purpose of this task force is to solicit further Community input related to issues and concerns arising out of the proposed revision to policy 060 non-discrimination and commitment to equity the members of the steering committee met initially on December 14th to organize to review the school board's directive to the task force and to discuss preliminary recommendations for the suggested framework at its initial meeting
260the steering committee identified six Focus areas related to issues and concerns arising out of proposed review Visions to policy 060 and those Focus areas are community outreach to facilitate school board's directive to solicit Community input Communications to assist the task force in soliciting Community input and then also school facilities athletic programs and Title 9 professional development vment and assessment of current level of support for LGBT students and programs the steering committee agreed that in order to carry out the school board's primary directive to provide mechanisms for further Community input on the issues and concerns arising out of the proposed revisions to policy 060 that the task force should have a community outreach subcommittee once that subcommittee is in place it can make recommendations such as Town Hall meetings presentations or other opportunities for Community input
261from all representatives of the school Community the community Outreach subcommittee will need to remain relatively small in order to expedite the process needed to procure Community input prior to June of 2017 when the school board intends to revisit the proposed revisions to policy 060 we seek further direction from the school board on the timeline and activities of the community outreach committee Additionally the steering committee discussed the best ways to identify School personnel and members of the public who could provide expertise and differing perspectives to the task force and its subcommittees with that in mind we initially reached out to a small number of individuals suggested by the school board and to others who have expertise related to the six Focus areas to determine if they were willing and available to serve on the task force
262in the interim however the steering committee determined that it needed further direction from the school board relative to the size and membership of the task force the steering committee met again on January 12th our recommendation is to form six subcommittees for community outreach and the other Focus areas in an effort to do the following identify mechanisms to solicit Community input prior to June 2017 identify issues and concerns for each Focus area Benchmark other school divisions who are grappling with the identified issues and concerns provide recommendations to the school board at their last meeting in June again we ask the school board to provide further guidance and Direction regarding this recommendation as it relates to the timeline role and expected activities of the task force as it relates to membership of the task force our recommendations
263include the following the school board provides specific guidance regarding the composition and method of appointment of members of the task force members of the task Force who bring differing perspectives and expertise to each subcommittee are selected task force and subcommittees be limited to a workable number to ensure a workable number we recommend that the school board limit its appointments to only one individual per Schoolboard member and that the steering committee be given Authority to exercise his Collective judgment to invite other community representatives and School staff to serve on the task force in order to achieve a manageable and balanced membership thank you thank you um I just have a couple quick questions so how many and maybe said this and I apologize if this is redundant um how many people would be on the task
264force not counting if we appointed how many people would be on the task force now um as it currently stands rough I mean roughly if you're off by one one or so it won't chairman I'm sorry m i could answer that question right now we we we don't have definitive number for the task force okay we just have this skeletal steering committee bringing these initial recommendations we were hoping we would get guidance from the board on and people people on on the size and the membership okay so people on the steering committee May or may not stick around to be on the task force or do we expect that the steering committee will be on it as well as anybody else most members I will only serve as a as needed as legal basis as
265legal counsel or whatever okay that makes sense okay um I mean I'm I'm fine I guess ultimately with the recommendations if we if the board wants to app point one spot per member I mean that's kind of typically how some of these things have gone in the past I mean I I'll kind of leave that up to the straw poll here of the board for kind of guidance to form this committee but um and then like you said I guess you know that you it would be up to you guys to to kind of add add as you see fit so um I'll leave other comments up to the board to see how they would like to see it formed but as as far generally speaking as far as the recommendation goes I'm I'm I'm
266you know fine with it because as long as we it achieves the goal of the task force which is to get community input on the situation to begin with anyone else Mr Deutch Mr Deutch you're recognized okay Miss Jesse sorry um when this initially came before the board um there was such a community outcry that uh there was not a lot of um input from the community and so the recommendation regardless of what happens in the Supreme Court Prince William County schools is going to have to deal with this situation and have some type of uh framework of how we're going to deal with the the issues that are going to take place I like the one person person Schoolboard member but I think the the variety of people on this committee should be is
267important for example there are people who have opposing views I think it's always good to have someone that does not always agree with everyone and I think there are students that need to be considered and I don't know how we work that out as a board but they are uh uh when I was a principal I I often remember thinking but what about the people affected you know the adults can get in and talk about a lot of things but there are kids who need to be a part and that can bring Insight uh to this this uh committee then there are the parents the parents of students who grapple with this uh the teachers uh one of the teachers that talked to us talked about um suicide and how some of these students are
268are considering suicide so I think just the the one person per board member is important but I also think the composition of the uh that task force is important and and and particularly this particular issue to me there are different points of views from the religious community the religious community when I listened to all the people that came that night uh there were there was large numbers from the religious community and I think that we need to think about uh people in the religious community I don't know if you need to rotate it or how you might deal with that but I think each board member maybe should have some input on there but I think that the variety is also important and there may be other categories of people but I I just think
269that those are some of the people who and and may I also say that that night um I kind of watched who came up to the mic and there were friends of students in the community who were advocating for their friends because their friends were a were too embarrassed or afraid to come out into a public setting so I know the kind of work that you guys do and I would hope that someone from your office with your expertise would you you've you've put together some preliminary kinds of framework already in Prince William County it's not that we have not been thinking about this at all uh not as formal but I would think that the people in the school division who um have expertise in counseling and all these things uh would also consider
270uh then there's of course the bullying part of it the social media uh how that affects many of these uh students and you hear all the time about students uh who are considering suicide because they're grappling with that issue and these kids are going to need support groups around them uh to watch them in a professional way and I really like the fact that you have professional development and training for staff uh I think that's really important that you have that so those those are just my thoughts thank you Mr chairman thank you Miss Jesse Miss rollon thank you um what are you offering what are you asking or telling or what kind of things have you come up with any ideas you mean as of right now well um right now miss Rustin we
271are just in our preliminary stages and that is tonight we would like further guidance and direction from the school board as to what you would like for our steering committee to do so that we will be able to move forward is that what you mean no because if that's the I thought I I'm probably wrong but I thought that this task force was coming together to put some ideas out there that you could give give back to us just in your preliminary state so you have been meeting correct we had two meetings you had two meetings the the let me just point just point of clarification the steering committee has met in order to try to shape the task force the task force is not yet formed to come up with the ideas that you're
272ask that I think you're asking about all they're doing is just trying to shape the task force at this point then the task force will reach out to the community and go from there okay so in the two months do you feel that you have anything that you could tell us that we don't know probably a lot with okay so what have you guys been talking about so and and please jump in and uh Mary please jump in I think like on our at our first meeting we just wanted to make sure that we were clear with what was expected of us okay and then at our second meeting jump in we wanted to ensure that we had your approval to uh create subcommittees to be a part of the task force for differing perspectives
273and different um parts of the community and so that we could gain Community input so would you like to add something Becca hi I'm Rebecca schlater when my boss tells me to jump in I jump in um one of the things I also just wanted to bring up was that you know we did discuss these areas of focus and and in looking at you know what we've learned from our experiences so far what do we need to look at for example professional development um you know we're have staff in our buildings that are dealing with a lot of different issues so we need to work with those staff members uh we need to reach out to the community we need to hear from parents so a lot of the the areas of focus were from
274just our very practical dealings with this um in over the past couple School years as the person who was sort of put in charge of the community outreach subcommittee talking about it um we discussed all of the groups you talked about specifically focusing on having members of the religious community um I also have done work working with students training them against uh being peer Educators to stop bullying in the schools and so I have many contacts with students in the county um um and so we were talking about bringing students involved I also know many parents and we were going to look to to have a mechanism to make sure that we had the community input but we were not in any way working on recommendations at this at this stage Okay the reason I
275ask is because how many people are here to speak on the transgender that's a lot of people and to ease some of their concerns is what I'm really trying to get at that if you are in just in the process and have just started this is really a big thing that we're asking you to do and have given you no direction on how to do it so what I guess what I'm trying to tell you is that there's people that are very very concerned about their children both on the trans the the parents whose child is transgendering and those who are not these people are saying is my child safe is my child safe so as you proceed on I would appreciate it yes I'd like to present somebody if that's the case superintendent and
276chairman to be on that task force uh because and I'm sure there are people sitting out here that might would also like to be on the task force so don't raise your hand because I can't appoint you so if we give you time so that you can really get your thoughts and get it all in place before we keep putting it out here on the on the agenda I think we'll be a lot better are off because we are kind of making people a little bit nervous that's it thank you Mr Rolston Mr oh sorry Dr Waltz you you had your hand up thank you chairman Sawyers so just to give a little bit of a recap um the purpose of coming to you tonight was you gave this to me and members of our
277staff to explore and as part of doing that we needed to create something some type of framework what we were charged with doing was coming back in January to present a framework to you to say is this how you'd like us to proceed are we doing the things that you would like us to do a majority of the board are we looking at the things that you want us to look at are we including the people you'd like us to hear from are you comfortable with the fact that we're going to try to have a series of ways to get the community involved because this has such emotion attached to it which you spoke to I felt it was very important to not get too far out in front of this until we came back
278as you directed me to do in January and say this is what we're looking at tell us if you think this is the way we should proceed we've really done nothing at this point I know beyond what you've seen so we would need the board to basically give me give us direction to move forward from this and that's what we're trying to see how you feel about what we've done today thank you Dr Waltz thank you Dr Waltz uh Mr deuts you're up next thank you Mr chairman uh first I would like to thank the members of the uh steering committee for this task force uh for the work that you've put in so far uh in a lot of ways it's a uh thankless job and uh you're put in a very hard place
279uh the board's kind of punted a lot of decision-making things to yall and put you guys in a very sticky position um so anyway than thank you for for what you all have done so far I want to make I guess I guess the first I I have a number of concerns with kind of what I've been seeing so far and none of this is a reflection on the steering committee but I think it just the way that I think we're going about this process I think is kind of leading to some of those things um and just kind of the lack of specificity that we've given to you all so far so this isn't directed towards yall in any respect um but I think first of all I'm I'm always concerned when you know
280the public when board members don't really see the presentations we're getting uh well in advance um I don't think this was finalized till maybe Friday um and even now I'm seeing slides that weren't emailed to me when when it was emailed so just this um getting things out to the public um is always important so everybody knows what's going on um it's also I guess slide six says reached out initially a small number of individuals suggested by board members it it was my impression that what we had agreed upon was for the superintendent to pull this together the important part behind that was to kind of keep some of the politics out of it um and so I'm actually surprised that board members were suggesting members for this committee and you know myself I've talked
281to other board members weren't consulted on who um some of these people who were who are suggested which begs the question of who's funneling what in um um the other concern I I I see is I guess this assumption that we're definitely going to have a vote at the second June meeting now we could and given the way things are I think there was probably a decent chance but the board didn't say that we would it said we wouldn't discuss it until then at the earliest so I'm I guess I'm kind of concerned by that assumption I guess the other thing that's been very odd is process for the creation of this committee um I think for the for the steering committee um we have a lot of different opinions on this board um and
282sometimes reading the tea leaves can be uh challenging uh so this is up for info today I don't think that there should be any expectation or understanding of the voice of the board until we actually vote because that's the mechanism by which we actually express our voice so we haven't given any response or guidance to the steering committee until there actually is a vote um and the other right which you know is what is kind of the process that we were establishing and honestly this isn't a very abnormal process even for this board we did a very similar thing with the infrastructure task force committee you know we we directed staff to create a pro a uh committee structure staff came back back with bylaws uh I think we just straight approved it and then
283you know over a course of a couple of I think over the course of the summer we added members and it started to meet so um from the from the motion we had I think that was a very similar thing so I those are those are a couple of my concerns so far I think um at the end of the day for this to work on a very delicate subject it takes people of Goodwill who are going to listen hear and try to understand each other it's been done before even on this very difficult subject um the state of Utah was able to bring at the state level the religious community the LGBT community together both activists and legislators they'll sit down hear each other out come to an agreement um and something that both
284sides were happy with at the time so it is it is possible um the challenge is at the end of the day it has to come to this board um and I think this board has to look at itself and go are are we up to that kind of Challenge and you know I I think is we as a board keep punting things to staff um and really burdening up y'all's plates um you know we're we had we had Staffing study earlier I mean we keep we keep adding more work on your plate and like I said I think this is a very challenging position this board decideed to put you in and I I'm not sure that it has a a positive outcome in the end um because it where has to come um
285just you know I but at the end of the day you know as well I think there has to this has to be predicated on a discussion of public Outreach to even determine if changes are needed and what those changes should be not assumptions that we're going to be making changes um but anyway thank you Mr do Mr bran you're next then Mr W okay thank you Mr chairman actually my my comments tonight are twofold uh Miss satte as you know couldn't be here tonight uh because she is recovering from total knee surgery so she could not attend tonight's meeting she did uh type up a prepared statement that she did ask me to read so I I am going to do that for her this is from Mrs satwi uh she created this last
286night and emailed it to me from Mrs satwi on September 7th this board was discussing proposed changes to policy 060 I had a prepared statement that evening expressing my concerns and questions the following is from my comments that evening I quote I highly suggest that we wait until the federal courts and probably the Supreme Court weigh in on the current cases with so much existing litigation even Fairfax County Public Schools whose board rushed to pass a policy change in 2015 are now at a halt in their implementation as they wait for the courts if we make a decision now and the courts later change rulings and we are talking then we are taking all of our constituents on a legal and very emotional roller coaster we owe all of them better than that in bold
287this decision must be thoughtful well planned out and deliberate on Bold our students cannot be used as pawns to try to make political points we are talking about the lives of our students I do not in any way take that lightly I propose that this board ask the superintendent to form a task force of employees and community members in bold after we have more guidance from the co courts excuse me on Bold this task force can evaluate and plan how we as a division need to incorporate any updates into our policies and regulations in regards to what has been proposed for policy 060 they can formulate the plan for the school division on implementation they can take their time to evaluate what the full impact of those policy and regulation changes will be to the
288division and assess any costs associated with the changes the task force can also formulate a plan on how to how to begin their how to begin to implement any proposed facility changes or updates after this process the school board can be presented with a proposal that accompass ACC compasses a comprehensive approach end quote today as a suggested framework for the task force is scheduled to be presented I am still of the strong opinion that other that other than the organization of the task force the real work of this group should not be should not begin until we have rulings from the courts to move into the full work of the task force before even knowing the scope of the decisions just do just does not make sense and is a waste of time and resources
289thank you Allison sat white in terms of my own opinions I you know Al Allison said it quite eloquently I'm not sure if I can duplicate her efforts um I'm of the mindset as well uh that we're that were put in the court excuse me the what's what's the statement I think Ryan actually emailed it to me once the cart before the horse um when it comes to this uh this policy what we're doing here uh I do believe we should be waiting for Court decisions before we we go too far down the road I think our communities deserve deserve a voice on this topic I I know the emails that I've been receiving of the last couple days have been overwhelmingly opposed to any changes to the policy any formation of a task force
290and any going too far down the road on this um before the courts really make a decision um I I thank this this steering committee for the work you've done so far um definitely you do not have easy job so I I thank you for the for the time you've put in so far but I think when it comes to your steering committee and future subcommittees I I think it's a waste of your time and a waste of the superintendent's time for us to be putting too much effort in this too much time into this if things change later that affect the work that you put into this um and following up what Mr deut said it I kind of wish this topic could have a moderate Middle Ground I unfortunately think that because this
291topic is so and there there may not be one I think people are going to have strong opinions to one side or the other um perhaps I'm wrong um but I believe we're rushing things and we need to slow it down thank you thank you Mr Brian Mr wil again I'm sorry Dr Waltz thank you chairman soer so I would just like to to respond to a few of the concerns that I've heard uh first of all to go back and talk a little bit about how people get appointed or how people got appointed so essentially the individuals that you see sitting in front of you on this steering committee were people who I approved as the result of a meeting uh that involved the deputy superintendent who is worked very closely with these issues
292as they arise in the school and legal counsel Macwan because again she has been involved with many of these issues so the three of us handpicked the people who are sitting in front of you we have selected no one else to serve on anything as happens often when we have issues before the board board members may call me and say you know hey if this thing moves forward I'd like you to consider this person in the religious community or this person who came and spoke before the board so we have a few names from some board members they have not been they're not committed to doing anything at this point again we wanted to come and get direction from the board tonight we wanted to make you aware that some board members have had specific
293people they're interested in so that all board members know what some board members have put forth so that you too would have that that same exact opportunity if in fact that's what the majority of the board chooses to have us do just in response uh Mr Deutsch to the assumptions piece um you know as basically the head person that ultimately is has the responsibility for this even though I thankfully have a lot of help I'm not assuming anything um this has been put on for information it is not on a future board agenda it it may get put on the next one I don't know what the board officers will choose to do but it is only on this tonight for information and again we serve at the pleasure of the board and are willing
294to do whatever the board would ask us to do thank you Dr Waltz Mr welome yeah a couple quick questions um when it when and this is probably you've answered actually a couple of them for me actually already when you guys say solicit further Community input is that strictly an overall arching goal and then you're looking for the board to tell you for example how many I don't know X number of town halls or things we'd like you to do or is that something that the task force would ultimately determine it would basically be the the steering committee and again I would be kind of an EXO ficio member of that um but if you like the concept that we've presented of town hall meetings then we would make sure that we we had multiple
295Town Hall meetings so that we didn't just have them in one place but that we had uh you know multiple opportunities in during and over multiple areas of the county so we wouldn't ask you for that specificity of exactly how many just knowing that just like we do for boundaries or anything else when we get community input we try to have multiple opportunities and try to look for uh different times and dates okay thank you Dr Waltz uh in the six Focus areas uh was there any discussion with the steering committee about forming a committee or a a subcommittee that looked at existing data and issues that have Arisen in the school system as a result of discrimination or lgbtq bullying thank you um the area of focus where we were looking at kind of
296our current level of performance in this area support for students I would Envision that that would include an analysis of data in looking at what what do we have reported to us um are there certain schools that are having issues so I I would see that if the board approved these areas of focus I would see that um being a task that the chair of that committee would take on that subcommittee okay thank you um I think this was touched on by another one about how the original motion uh when we voted on it in October said with the directive to report back to the the school board uh at the end of June and my only concern is again as we're approaching we're in mid January probably going to be February by the time
297if this was even put forward for action or approval so that 17th it's very likely the task force or the committee could come up and say something like we are not ready to make a I mean it's not definitive that on the 17th of June that there would be a recommendation brought before the school board I guess that's it M Dr wal well again I would defer back to the chair for the direction I believe that's what was directed that there would be information coming back then but I don't have it correct I mean that's my understanding as well Mr wook that that that ultimately the task force would ultimately come back with what they come back with and if it's if it's not ready for a recommendation then it is if you know or
298different different it could come back with anything essentially or nothing um you know ultimately depending on the time and everything else but just to be clear the task force would not have any Authority or any power to implement these decisions that would ultimately be the purview of the board to accept all any none of the recommendations or or create our own I guess for that matter too so option four but but just just to be clear on that as well you still have the floor Mr W okay no I appreciate that Clarity um I think a lot of people probably want to know a lot a little bit more detail um and then just a couple General comments about the recommended number size of membership I have concerned about only one member per uh per
299School Board member I I like the idea of two at least uh for diverse viewpoints uh as as was recommended um by Miss Jesse um if that was going to go forward um and then it was also mentioned about having uh a students possibly sit on the board I'm not comfortable putting a kid uh or a student on something like this and that's just my opinion I I the heated and the nature and the emotional component of it I think getting their input as one of the gentlemen said out there uh is a is a key thing but having a student be actually on the it's or the yeah okay yeah okay so I yield to remain there my time Mr chairman hold on one second it's Miss Miss Williams is next Miss Williams thank
300you Mr chairman um a few things I would just like to remind everyone as we discuss this and this topic of lbgt um that these are people's lives and it's not to be taken lightly it absolutely is a life issue it is no different than um when we discussed how your the color of your skin your disability or your abilities affects your day-to-day life so I would caution my board members when they um or anybody else in the public when they are very dismissive because you are actually dismissing someone's quality of life and we should be very respectful of that when we talk about these issues whether we're in agreement of the lifestyle or not it is still a matter of respect for people's lives um and having said that I just um I'm concerned
301because I feel like as a board when we've asked in the past for a committee or or a group to be formed it was done and we were just asked simply who we would like how we would like the appointment process the committee was formed they would come ask questions make reports back to us we would make modifications as we go along um as always the board had the final decision and there was no decision-making Authority with these committees but I feel like with this one we're almost tripping over ourselves it seems like to me and making this much more complicated issue than it has to be I think what we're losing focus on is this is not just about trans gender Community the task force is for lgbtq which is inclusive of a large
302variety of people not just transgender people a b policy 060 is not a transgender policy this is a non-discrimination policy this is not Reinventing the wheel we are not making this up as we go along I'm not sure if anybody realizes but these are people who exist and we interact back with on a day-to-day basis every day right now whether you under whether you know or not because it is up to the individual to self-identify and let you know whether they are a member of the lbgt community so I would just um ask for the public and the board to be respectful always when we talk about this um because it's very important um and it's a reflection of ourselves and our reflection of how we view the community and the people that we interact
303with when we are not considerate um I'm also confused as to why I'm not seeing anybody um why I'm not seeing in these area Focus or how we are in getting input from the community I'm not seeing any specifics to mention members of that Community um having a voice on this task force that's about them so I I would hope that we would be mindful of that at all the various levels of that um students should be involved because they are directly affected by this and this is um that Community last time I checked statistically is the highest rate of teen suicide they're in that group so absolutely they deserve a voice on this committee whether they are directly there when you meet whether it's by email by FaceTime I don't even care but they
304absolutely should have a voice on this um it my understanding also is when you say further input from the community it seems that from the emails and the things that I received today in the past few days that um our community that has been responding to me seems to feel that that is the only way that we have Community input I would just like to be remind um the public that Community input for board members can be received in multiple ways so it's not just coming to the meeting for citizen comment at time you have the option to call your board member you have the option to write a letter you can send an email those are all ways that the community and can get into contact with your board member I would also caution
305the community and the public as we travel down this road not to assume that the people here are the majority of the voice that is being heard by the board um what you don't see are the emails and the calls that we get the people that we run into in the store or on the street they are also their voices are also just as valid as the amount I mean I'm just saying over here just kidding I'm just kidding I just want us to all be mindful because as my fellow board members said that this is an emotional issue but it is also an issue of reality that we have to deal with and and as a board we're human of of course our emotions will get in the way but our job is not
306to vote based on our emotions our job is to vote based on um our responsibilities to our district and to the school district itself and to the school system itself and that's very important and um should be taken into consideration as we travel down this road I personally would like to see um a more developed framework I feel that our staff here is um highly competent and can do and and report back to us and we can then as a board as we should do take the the $50,000 uh 50,000 foot view excuse me and look down and be able to make line item adjustments or say to the task force it should be this way or that way um I think that we haven't had an issue with that prior to in any committees
307that have been developed so I'm not quite sure why we're here with this one um I would like to see that changed and I also while I have them time I did respond to a constituent today because I was under the impression that the task force was being formed so that's what I had said I didn't realize that we were still at the committee steering committee portion U of it so I wanted to make sure that I made that correction publicly while I had the opportunity I just hope as we travel down this road that we were mindful of those things and that we can move this further along and I just want to again state to the public that committees and task force are not the decision-making body of the school board it is
308the school board's authority to make those decisions thank you thank you m Williams uh m Jesse you have your mic on would you like to speak um I I I have an expression that says that you are who you were uh there are people in this room who grew up having points of views and I grew up in South Carolina and people were called all kinds of names uh my daughters have helped me grow in this area whether we wait for a date or wait for a Supreme Court ruling this group of people will exist and they exist right now and I doubt very seriously if many of them are in this room right now because they know what is going to happen to them and what's going to uh I'm told that one of
309the students that came really had a hard time when she went back the other thing is that um I don't know if Dr walz remember saying this it's not like Prince William County schools have been sitting around doing nothing they've had programs in place and they're doing things and when this Supreme Court ruling comes down everybody said let's just wait for the Supreme Court ruling well you wait until the Supreme Court ruling like oh well we better get together and start doing something we know that we have students who need support we know that we have firm opposition to certain kinds of things taking place in our schools and I understand that when I was a principal I always told the teachers you can do a lot of things but if you don't keep people
310parents kids safe we can talk about learning you cannot teach a child how to read and they'll forgive you but they will not for for give you if their children are not safe so I understand all of your feelings out there but when you look in this room there's probably not a lot of people who are affected that are here there are other people who want to tell us tell them how they're going to fit into our society and so I think a lot of growth has to take place and I'm in a growing stage uh and I've grown a lot but I had to grow out of how I grew up and also out of the views in churches and you'll find that there's not a lot of African-American churches here now the African-American
311church has a very strong View and they'll start citing scriptures on you and my girls said to be once like oo we don't share those views because the 30-year-old and the 25 year olds are not us they have a totally different view but I understand the people someone called me today and said um well I was surprised you answered the phone and two that you were pleasant uh I am Pleasant about it because we've got to establish a balance and no we can't just wait until something happen and react I would say to the committee and to Dr Waltz to to go back and look at some of the things that you already know cuz you've not been sitting around for a task force you've done things without it being called a task force and
312you know and I know Rebecca Slater and I I know how she works and I know how Carolyn custard Works they're sitting there right now and in their heads they already know kids who are having problems and miss the new Miss Woodbridge High my principal she talks to kids all the time and she knows that there are kids out there that are suffering and the other piece that I wanted to add is that I also think somebody from the adult community in the workplace there are people in this workplace right now who will not tell you who they really are there are people in this workplace right now probably con contemplating suicide so while we're playing around with the politics I keep hearing politics politics politics it's not really about politics it is you are
313who you were and these kids are who they are and it's our job to protect the kids who are not and to and to open the doors for those who are thank you thank you Mr Jesse miss rosson last year when I asked to have it set aside to the last school board meeting of this school year it wasn't because there was nothing else for us to do it the law as we are waiting to hear what it has to say if the Supreme Court gives us a directive that we have to follow if they choose to say something and leave a lot of plug in it to where we can manipulate around it that's different too but we also have to look at what the state's going to say we're not the only people
314in this country that's faced this that's facing this problem and like in um Fairfax they got started they were moving ahead and everything had to come to a screeching halt that to me is more harmful than anything else you can not start out that way I'm not even thinking that you guys aren't going to do a good job but you don't know what your job is uh do we run out right quick and build bathrooms or do we run out real quick and do something else I guess I'm calm about it only only because I don't know why I should be upset just yet I haven't heard anything that says this is being thrown in your lap not yet but one thing I will give credit to is the fact that the superintendent and his
315staff here are trying to think of the what ifs what if we have a directive that says you will do do da da da school districts our States but if you get too nervous before we have an opportunity to find out what we're going to be nervous about you'll always run down every time you see 060 and the other piece to this is that when they said um someone mentioned um the uh clergy the some of the clergy is on one side and some of the clergy is on the other side so I don't know if that's your guide but whatever your guide is just really try to stay just as calm as you possibly can I don't believe anybody in this room would want anything to happen to any of your children I have
316granddaughters and I don't want anything to happen to them but at this point I'm not scared or nervous or anxious only because superintendent said we've been handling this for a while so and nobody knew it it wasn't put in the middle of the newspaper he handled it the principles at the schools handled it and quietly and people moved on be patient be patient here's old saying because God's not through with me yet so be patient thank you Mr rosson Mr Williams you said you had a brief statement uh yes I also just wanted to make another clarification it's really hard to um I don't want the task force to be expected to gather information on discrimination cases um against lbgt Community or that they have put forth when they're not covered under the policy so
317there's no way they could have a discrimination claim um for because they're not covered which is the point of this so um I just want to make sure the public understands that there's never going to be any of those claims because they can't make them they're not currently covered which is what we're talking about for the policy and just to remind it it's for staff and students not just uh students that we're talking about there's a whole section of a staff uh that would be fall under that uh non-discrimination policy as well thank you Mr Brent just a couple quick things because I know we have a lot of people that are patiently waiting to speak during the second part of citizens comments um I'm not a mathematician I was an English M Mr Sawyers
318is just cut me off I'll forgive him this time so so we love to talk about data and education so just some numbers for you um we did receive a lot of emails on this topic and my numbers are not there may not be entirely accurate I did a very quick count but just in the folder that I have related to this topic I think I received a total of 81 emails that had very strong opposition to any sort of variety of topics but just opposition and I think I had two in favor of the task force progressing um so the opinions are very strong with this on this topic and I I feel like they're very strong one way but it doesn't mean I didn't read every single email you know it didn't matter
319what that person's point of view would I didn't I apologize I didn't respond every single email but I did read them all um in terms of uh Communications I I don't think a town hall is a town hall may be a good idea um I do have concerns about what could happen at Town Halls um but I know a lot of people that are in this room tonight that are waiting to speak during citizen comments probably would gladly show up at a town hall to voice their thoughts on this topic and I know others would as well I I I don't see it as as kind of a scene where people need to be scared if you know if something is important to them I think they will they will show up and and and
320talk um this Soros that's all I got try to put a quick bow on this um is that I I know the direction you probably received so far is as clear as muds so I I I fully I fully appreciate that um I I guess I guess and and I I'm not expecting everyone to agree with every single thing I'm about to say but I guess for for lack of complete Clarity uh out of I know there seem to be some consensus that the board would want to appoint whether that be two or one I I think ultimately we can determine um you know through an official vote and we actually get to vote and and and form this committee uh that can be you can recommend one or the other and if if the
321board chooses to amend it then they can choose to amend it um and basically come for with with the structure so we ultimately can't can't dissolve the task force at this point that there's not there's not an action that action has already been taken um and it's your job to form it at this point um and so I guess the recommendation that I'm hearing based on you know pretty mixed reviews depending on what certain aspect we want to talk about is you know based on the recommendations you gave us you know I I would suggest I guess bringing bringing those forth to the board and the board May ultimately choose and be fully prepared they may ultimately choose to to carve out some of them they don't like or or add different members or appoint
322one two Zer they they might uh you know decide to change certain parts of what you're doing but I think based on the recommendations provided so far you can move forth with that and then and then the board again may choose when when that's when that is ready uh may choose to to alter that as it sees fit by majority vote um but I think you know at least you're on the path to to to doing that as as the board asked for on October 19th so I think that's that's where we are with it at this point okay all right thank you thank you yes we're moving right along um as we traditionally do uh we'll let the CI before the board matter side of things we'll we'll get to the rest of citizens
323time um we had like I said 35 speakers at the door um another 15 sign up or so um at excuse 15 35 ahead of time 15 at the door so the same deal ahead of time 3 minutes 30 seconds 0 seconds yellow red decorum all that stuff right right um so we can go back to it so I'm going to call up the next 10 speakers uh and go from there so we got Arthur dagum David shrock Mary riller Frank Rogala Bob Martin William card Mark Bolin Andrea deivon Deborah Hunter and Mark Hunter those are our next 10 speakers Mr dagum you have the floor thank you Mr chairman and members of the board last fall I came here to voice my concerns over the actions being taken to vote on a change to
324the 060 discrimination policy the people spoke and the board heard or at least the board delayed the decision to this June sometime some progress was made because a compromise had been reached our nation was built on the principles of democracy where the people's voice would be heard these de Democratic principles allow for two practices which I'd like to discuss with you tonight one that those who govern are accountable to those governed and two that in order to make progress among factions compromises need to be made to the first point I was disappointed to hear that the board just a few weeks after the decision to delay any vote on the proposed changes to policy 060 decided to form a steering committee for the purpose of forming a task force unknown until tonight to the public
325was how the steering committee task force is or would be formed how they would operate how much weight their conclusions would carry if contrary to the public opinion it would seem that the task force has no accountability to the public at all and yet they would be the ones who steer the board's decision the committee has already acted in ways that presume a change to the policy so how can this be so much for this transparency and Democratic accountability I understand that our democracy has a proud tradition of protecting the minority opinion as well it should compromises must be made for the protection of all but I also know that compromises should not extend to the minority opinions that are with all due respect unscientific as responsible civil servants and as decent human beings you
326ought to think act and judge according to reality and what is reality if not at least that which we can know through the Sciences science is neutral ground unblemished by emotion as it is based on objectivity and is something which everyone can plainly see and understand yet this is is not the direction the board seems to be taking rather it seems that this movement is digressing to historical behaviors that have ended in tragedy that is making decisions based on either ignorance or personal gain if the government bends to the will of any faction that undermines true science whether it be by majority or minority this can only be out of ignorance or tyranny there's an agenda here however if we were to reason according to what the neutral and objective Sciences tell us it is
327that a man is a person of the homo sapien species with a body to say anything else is to change the definition of man in defiance of and contrary to Scientific evidence in fact again this would be a terrible mistake to make unraveling much of the progress our society has made how can a people be governed according to Virtues Of Justice and Equity if we do not even know the definitions of the terms please do not compromise on Truth rooted in scientific evidence for political gain please do what is right and act according to reason I thank you for your time and [Applause] attention board members uh Mr Waltz chairman when he returns and it's good to see you this evening uh now to this morning um I prepared remarks but I just want to
328thank you for clarifying a number of things uh I came in this evening with great concern uh that of lack of transparency uh with the uh the task force uh coming present uh as well as what the framework would look at Mr wal thank you for uh sharing a little bit more about that uh I think many of us are still concerned that the task force would be used to implement instead of to discuss and to receive the uh the diverse uh opinions diverse convictions of those uh among Prince William County uh and so my desire and my encouragement is to continue uh to allow that discussion to happen before implementation because it' be very easy to slide into implementation uh instead of continuing to have the discussion uh that is needed I think at
329the same time to contined transparency is important as well uh we're talking almost at midnight now Beyond midnight uh to be able to have this conversation in full view of the public it needs to be earlier in the day uh to push it to the end of the night gives the appearance uh that it is not in front of the community and so as the taskforce is assembled I would encourage you uh to have as many Open Door uh conversations as possible and to do it in the beginning of the sessions as you talk about it in the future I think that would help immensely um yeah I'm going to see the rest of my time because it is late have a good night thank you Mr [Applause] shock next person is ly riller Mary
330riller next on our list is Frank Regala thank you uh this has been quite an evening for my wife uh and myself this is the first uh opportunity we've taken to attend the Schoolboard meeting and it's been quite an experience uh I'd like to thank you for uh allowing me to speak here this evening on uh the revision of uh policy 060 I'd specifically like to address the task force in the policy itself I prepared my comments uh prior to coming to the meeting of course and I had limited information about what was going on with the task force excuse me frankly I was confused in many ways uh as I understand it at the 21st of September meeting the board uh voted to postpone any change to the current policy that's in effect until
331approximately June of 2017 which it was understood that uh by that time perhaps the Supreme Court would have had some input into the decision in the October 19th meeting the board established a task force to address community input my question was what is the membership of the task force and is and is the role of the task force limited to coordinating Community input on a policy update or does it have further responsibilities and Authority it is unclear to me what the exact mission of the task force is what its Charter and agenda is and more importantly what its role is in implementing policy changes if a task force is taking on authority to implement changes to the policy when will they be implemented and further uh are they going to wait until 2017 June 2017
332uh what is the uh what is the uh the uh plan there I firmly believe that no task force should be established without a clear definition of its role and responsibilities nor should it be the decision Authority for implementing changes to the existing discrimination policy now I listen to the presentation as a side note to my prepared notes I listen to the presentation of the task force uh and uh to be honest with you I was a little bit confused before I prepared my statement I'm very confused now uh no offense to the task force uh it's not intended to be that way but that's the way uh I feel it regarding the policy itself I'm opposed to changes because uh we're all given a gender at birth that's not something that we choose to
333to have as a closing statement I like to say my wife and I had the opportunity to take our granddaughter to a military facility and as a three-year-old will do I got to go to the potty my wife takes her into the bathroom my granddaughter says boys go that way girls go this way as she's sitting in a stall she sees a set of combat boots in the next stall unaware that that's a female uh Soldier the point is the three-year-old thank you Mr Mark understood where boys go and where go girls go and it's uh unfortunate that the grown-ups don't understand the same thank you very much thank you very much Mr card William card thank thank you I uh my name is Bill card I appreciate the opportunity to speak um I still
334believe in my heart of hearts that this is a solution in search of a problem and all the data that we've seen and heard uh bears bears that out uh I'm you know reminded you know uh of of the guy that goes to the doctor and he says Doctor it hurts like this when I do this when he hits himself in the head with a hammer which is exactly what you all are doing and the doctor says stop and and I think that uh where where you're going where you're headed is is very very wrongheaded uh for a lot of reasons I'll share with you that U Back a couple of things about uh elections uh you some people are citing this as a partisan issue in cucko central California you know Miss Ralston uh
335in 2008 they had an election there were two major things on the um on the ballot that year one was a liberal senator from Illinois and the other was gay marriage the liberal senator from Illinois won an overwhelming victory in California and gay marriage received an overwhelming defeat so I can tell you if it isn't po already obvious to you by the by the responses that you've gotten that you were out of step with your county and there's there's you can't take it any other way if you're if if you were sitting out there listening to how you're making decisions I can't understand how any parent at all would surrender their children to you and and you've got you've got to get in step and align yourself with with the majority of the people of
336the county that at are not are not in common with your views a few people from a couple of neighborhoods came up here and talked to you and you threw out the policies of the staff and you threw out the study that had been done about the school teacher the world class meeting of this body has been on this topic you might re remember the Overflow crowds into the side room out in the atrium the the county is not with you thank you Mr card uh just to be clear we were making sure we didn't want to skip over somebody did Mr Martin have you spoken Mr Martin we we did a jump ahead of you one I apologize it it is it is your turn to speak Mr Martin my name is Bob Martin
337and somebody already stole one of the lines I was going to use for you you got the cart before the horse if you dis assem distance yourself from proposal 060 Dr walz's staff is well positioned to take care of any problems or issues that come up that's my opening comment I would like to say it is a pleasure to be here because I'm a citizen and I have the right to be here and to speak openly I want to exercise my obligation to speak out against erroneous and egregious actions that have been and are being taken by this board that violate my god-given responsibilities and represent social engineering which is not the purview of this group instead of directing time energy and tax dollars toward improving the overall education of our children and addressing the
338needs of specific underachieving schools and schools with trailers you've engaged in an effort to address perceived needs for indefensible purposes The Proposal policy 060 was a mistake misguided disruptive to the schools the community and the children in our schools the proposal to delay voting on policy 060 was equally misguided the presumption that the issues involved gender identity would be resolved in the federal courts by June 2017 is erroneous those issues have already been resolved on November 8th 2016 the task force that was created following the misguided policy of 060 to delay that decision was another waste of time energy and tax dollars that could have been spent in the construction of schools or buying textbooks and this board's responsible for that waste specifically what I heard this evening was the last minute change to the
339original agenda item because the policy the agenda that came forth did not address its Charter soliciting further community input relative to issues and concerns arising out of the proposed revision to policy 060 having failed in its purpose the task force proposal should be rejected outright and the extent task force should be disbanded for failure to perform its assigned task and all proposals related to 060 should be set aside and nothing should be done without community put I would leave you this God created man and woman and he Creed them male and female and it was only when man thought he was smarter than God that things got screwed up and that's where you are thank you our next speaker if I'm on the right page here our next speaker is Mark Bolin Mark okay Andrea
340deivon Andrea she's going to talk about reset oh no the PM P I'm Andrea Delan I have a kindergartener at springwoods Elementary in Lakeridge and I am including slash deferring my time to miss barbar lore in our fight for more PE and recess at schools I'm sorry I have to jump in here you've already spoken once at Citizen's time we can't you can't defer your time to someone else you have you have to speak for yourself if she's already spoken at citizens Time by policy so I apologize but we have to otherwise it could be crazy if we don't follow that policy so can I help her with the skit you sure can you sure can I don't like you you're ter I don't like you at all you're worst you're mean it's so late
341I don't like this should do that all right let's go outside and play together that's a great idea I love you we're best friends y so much better than just staying around in the classroom all day and having to sit and hold ourselves together and hold in all that energy thanks for going outside and playing with me Barbara you're my best friend [Applause] Andrea thank you I know so that was weird yes thank you for putting up with us um it is crazy the long the longer I sat here and watched everybody the all of these adults myself included that none of us can hold still for hours and hours and hours and again to ask our kids to do that at school and to sit there and actually listen and pay attention and learn
342we're all back here zoning out playing on our phones everybody is and the kids are being asked to actually concentrate and study and pay attention and they cannot do that they cannot do that without exercise and recess I mean attention deficit you know like you you you can't be expected you can't ask people to pay attention when when we can't do that either it's just it's not enough the kids need more time the little kids especially they need more time to get up and run around I mean there are board members sitting up here right now that are not paying attention and that's okay but you're not paying attention and how can you be expected to do that how can you ask the kids to do that when you can't do it either thank you
343very much thank you our next speaker is Deborah Hunter Deborah who new glasses uh good evening ladies and gentlemen thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak um as I understanded a task force for uh was for to ask for public input so here's some public input um I am a parent I'm a citizen I'm a business owner and I'm a voter I have a son who is 26 years old eight years ago he graduated from Woodbridge High School a very proud Viking he attended Woodbridge midal I have an 11-year-old daughter who has attended minville Elementary School Swans Creek Elementary School springwoods elementary school and is now at Lakeridge Middle um she's had the finest educ education in the world um really some exceptional teachers at all of these schools in addition to the
344basics of her education Reading Writing in arithmetic she has learned to be independent um both of my kids by the way are special needs kids my son is diagnosed with ADHD and my daughter has cystic fibrosis um despite that she's learned to persevere she has phenomenal problem solving skills she is a patriot she's learned to judge others based on their actions she's learned she has the right the obligation obviously to speak her mind and you can't shut her up that her humanity and her value is not limited or defined by her gender and neither is anyone else's and that religion is a personal matter she's young she still has a lot to learn and I hope in the future she'll come to understand that freedom of religion does not mean using a Pulpit to deny
345freedom to others that in this country we do not punish people for things we think they may do that in this country we do not punish people for their thoughts that in this country we do not punish people for who they love she will spend the next several years figuring out who she is I'm counting on the Prince William County schools to provide her with the tools and guidance to accomplish that daunting task in an increasingly complex world I'm counting on you to ensure that her search is not limited by the restricting religious beliefs of others I respect that others believe that members of the lgbtq community are sinful I don't agree but I respect their right to their beliefs if those individuals want to teach those beliefs to their own children in their churches
346and in their homes that is also their right I do not recognize that they have the right to use the public school system to teach those beliefs to my child I hope that our Public School System continues to teach the history of our great nation and includes the lives of George Washington Carver the agricultural Pioneer Oliver Sipple a highly decorated marine and Vietnam veteran who saved President Ford's life Bayard Rustin adviser to Dr Martin Luther King Jr and planner of the First Freedom ride in protest of Interstate bus segregation Daniel Hernandez Jr and staff sergeant Eric Alva the first Marine injured in the US evasion of Iraq all of these heroic Americans are or were homosexual do not send the message that their accomplishments are less heroic because they are lgbtq thank you our next
347speaker is Mark Hunter Mr Hunter hi thanks for letting me speak tonight um that's the wife she's the smart one in the family so I I'm more the emotional one the guy that get kind of fired up and I always been pretty fired up all night mainly because I I I forget how government works and it's slow and it's methodical and sometimes it works for you and sometimes against you I get that my problem though is that that we have kids who are dying today they're not going to die in June they're not going to die somewhere down the road they're dying today and that's a problem and if you don't see it as a problem well then there's something wrong with you folks I I get that people have their religious takes on on
348whether to be gay or not gay whether it's a sin whether it isn't okay but they haven't done anything to me no one's throwing a rock through my window and didn't come in and say I'm sorry can I pay for it maybe if they did that I'd be okay I'd be a little cranky if they didn't do that but they haven't done anything to me they haven't changed who I am they don't change the way I I go to church how I pray what my God is I I I assume we're all have the same God but at the end of the day I I promise I will never tell you how to worship I will promise never to make fun of you while you're at your church the hymns you sing the the homes
349you hear all of that but don't bring your church into my schools have the same kind of courtesy let my kid decide what she wants to do and where she wants to be that's all I want and I want her to be protected if something happens if she decides at some point that she's going to be gay okay whatever it's still my kid I'm still going to love her today as much as it today tomorrow the next day it doesn't matter with the fact that we have cystic fibrosis in our family that adds another little wrinkle to it but it doesn't Define who she is gay people are probably the strongest people we have in our society why because they get ridiculed the most and God help you if you're transgendered because then you're screwed
350a whole lot of their different ways we better than that we had an election it was a it was a brutal election I don't care who you voted for I'm just glad you voted but at the end of the day you can call it religious freedom it's still bigotry it's a circular argument don't do that to our kids protect them save them help them when they need help places in California other states have solutions to these problems reach out to them see what you can do see what we can adopt they deserve to be protected thank you thank you Mr Hunter and I'm going to call I should have caught up the next 10 speakers after that I'm going to go ahead and do that now our next p we got a joint speaker for
351number 21 which is Amy nudi and uh Jos Lee parda and then Patrick O'Neal joint speakers Aaron and Bridget Atkinson joint speakers Dustin and Julia Atkinson Mary Peterson Xavier Torres Robin Anderson John czecho Corey Holman and Robert Bartlett those are our next 10 speakers I'm sorry I should have given you heads up and I apologize for getting ahead not getting ahead of myself there so the next speaker number 21 on the list is joint speakers Amy and and Jos Lee hello good morning I thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak uh my cor josly had to leave early I have a lost attention myself it's been a long night I'm a nurse I'm a register nurse at o Pediatrics I have been a nurse for 10 years I work with children so my
352job as a nurse is to advocate for children not only my P by all children in my community again I've been working for 10 years with children as each year see increased number of children with ADHD uh during the first couple months of school we received calls from parents for you know because the teachers are complain that the children are not paying attention in class I mean I was just wondering what is going on with this community what is going on here in the US I mean I grew up mostly in Africa no food no close but we went to school 60 children in class 80 children in class but we're able to stay quiet and pay attention to our teachers and do well academically why now here where they have everything you know I
353came to think about here of course children are sitting like we're sitting here all night you just have a bathroom break you don't have it you know there's no recess time so that just from experience or from what I see also as the CDC has did has done some some studies about five studies on physical activity affect children more children who have more physical activities they perform better they pay more attention also it helps them you know with their health we can say all this try to make everything better for our children School laundry all kinds of stuff but you know if we are not taking good health uh care for our children physically then nothing is going to be accomplished we're just going to raise children who's going to end up being obese die
354early now live longer as they should now be able to see the grandchildren because they have diabetes they develop second um type uh type two diabetes hypertension all stuff of disease out there uh I'm sure each one of you have went to a doctor's appointment and the doctor have told you okay eat better and exercise if none of you have received the recommendation you can raise your hand each person from now on we do assist our children uh we do blood work to make sure the cholesterol lab are fine we tell parents you need to take your children out outside for exercise you know a couple times a week but that doesn't happen because at home of course children are glue on video games and TVs parents are busy so while we decide to help
355with our patient and the community we have developed a program called walk with the dock which the third Saturday of each month we take you know we uh we pass our fly to our communities not just our patients just to go to the mall or some school just walk with the patients if they have a questions with the doctor they talk to doctors so we ask for the community board to please give our children more time to exercise more physical activity and res thank you thank you our next speaker is Patrick O'Neal Patrick wasn't quite expecting to be called so soon I'm sorry well good morning I hope you've had time to prepare your remarks I I don't know it's going to be tough we've had maybe just a few hours for sure for sure
356I haven't had a lot of time in in in in in response to uh to the task force but Mr chairman members of the board uh my name is Patrick O'Neal and I was born uh raised live and own a business here in Prince County I'm going to take a different perspective than than perhaps some some other people have this task force is quite frankly completely unnecessary the board's ruling on this is completely unnecessary we have a policy in place the policy has received zero complaints as of I believe Bob Marshall had a foyer request that showed zero and I understand what you said Miss Williams that that these folks aren't covered our policy states that it doesn't that we don't discriminate based on race sex that's in there so that leads me to sex
357sex has always been binary that's male or female you can take hormone treatments you can have surgeries but if you're a man you're going to genetically test as a man same for a woman if sex is not fixed at Birth utilizing a binary definition but is based on a person's private sense and subjective feelings there's no workable definition anymore are you guys aware of what the real problems here are a recent idea of gender the recent sort of view of this is fluid it's continually evolving it has evolved so much that Facebook had identified 71 different genders 71 that's a lot to work through 71 before they stopped that leads me to perhaps the Native Americans who believe in two Spirits some believe this and means that you could interchange between male and female daily
358maybe even hourly which bathroom and locker room do we allow these folks to use are we going to end up with 71 portapotty we already have issues with trailers what's 71 porta potties just line it up you can't equate gender identity with sex it's simply unworkable not logical how would you under Title Nine provide a separate bathroom Locker Room Shower facilities on the sole basis of sex if sex means gender and gender now means whatever you want it to mean what are you guys prepared to do when we have all of these other issues that aren't lgbtq and I'm not downplaying that these folks have real needs and real issues but I think we already have a poliy that covers it I think we open ourselves up to Future issues that we don't have an
359answer to thank you our next speaker is joint speakers um Aaron and Bridget Atkinson or maybe just a single speaker good morning School Board um chairman thank you so much for letting us come and speak this is my first visit to the school board and it's been an experience so thanks for having us um I am a high school teacher here in Prince William County I am a high school sports coach here in Prince William County I am a mother of six children here in Prince William County my children range from Age 4 to 15 so you can imagine that we have a lot going on and it took a lot for me to get here tonight so and I also represent many many families of course here in the county um so many that
360that I know of and um and and have heard overwhelmingly since the last meeting um these are families that that really do rightly feel threatened regarding the safety of our children in regard to policy 06 zero going forward you have heard through the the meetings and through the many emails and the calls the very serious um concerns from the majority of the people in the county um and I think at nauseum from what I heard from the last meeting there was a lot of issues that were brought up about inevitable abuses of the policy that would come about um and that that's a huge huge thing um and my biggest point today is that this isn't in the hierarchy of issues about discrimination against anyone um or judging or bigotry or anything like that it
361is about safety first so in the hierarchy of issues you really have to be I think worried about the safety of all of our children um when something like this with a lot of abuses that can come about goes into effect and that has to come before the non-discrimination of a minority group plain and simple again the safety of our children has to come before a non-discriminant accommodation for the minority group um in the hierarchy of things so Schoolboard you have heard the issues and concerns again about sexual predators whatnot taking advantage of this non-discrimination policy if it goes forward and a lot more Mr chairman you saw your own um School Board affected by what people were saying in the last meeting I wasn't at that one but I I I know that that
362you saw you were affected by that and the board and the vote was postponed so I really implore you to take that into consideration and please listen give me a chance listen to what I'm saying saying and everyone else here thank you so much thank you um our next speaker is again another joint speaker I have listed at least is Dustin and Julie ainson not here Mary Peterson Mary thank you for letting me speak today I'm here as a concerned grandmother of six children my daughter's children and I like to reiterate her position I am concerned about the safety of our children not because I don't like let me say lgbtp people I or I don't think I think they're bad it has nothing to do with them it has to do with the safety
363of somebody who is not gay but uses misuses the opportunity to use a common bathroom to sexually pray on children this is not a a hateful position this is not discrimination this is not bigotry this is a right to privacy of all children it's a right to be able to use a bathroom without having somebody of the opposite sex in there with you it is not discrimination if you have to pass this measure which I hope you do not but please make a workaround where there are boys bathrooms there are girls bathrooms and there are gender neutral bathrooms people have a right to privacy it's part of the Constitution if no workaround is done by this committee or if this is passed without it it's quite possible with the new Administration coming in to Washington
364DC that there may be a school choice a voucher system there will be an awful lot of parents who will use that voucher to go to school school that has separate bathrooms thank you thank you our next speaker is uh Xavier Torres I've only been in Virginia for a year and a half and I'm here for the second time in six months speaking of the same diarrhea of the mouth issue and I cannot believe it but last September we voted to post P this until June of this year but here we are again why are we rushing to create this back door for creating a policy without proper public input you're going to argue it's not back door but I'm going to tell you if you look up a definition of what a task force
365is it is by its very nature a path to overcoming impediments in order to implement a policy or a plan or a goal that is by V very nature what a task force is created for just do the research and see what it says has there been an epidemic of suffering children from not being allowed to use the bathroom of the opposite sex I watch the news all the time and I have yet to see this come on the radar screen anywhere where's the data on that if it's an issue surely it's being driven by data but we don't have it do we people in this room know who the main proponents of this are even on this school board people aren't stupid children are less stupid and a child knows that another child of
366the opposite sex seeing them undress is wrong they know that it's wrong for for the victim it's even more wrong for the perpetrator because that's the way it's going to be viewed as a perpetrator even from our earliest years watching Sesame Street we learned one of these things is not like the others one of these things just isn't the same we encourage that in our children to develop the sense of compare and contrast we call it early childhood development that got lost somewhere but you know it takes many years to be educated into imbecility you ever try a root a boat with only one ore takes two ores like the ores that represent faith and reason you take away reason you end up going in circles Mr chairman you may think you're doing the right
367thing but without reason there never be there'll never never will be a straight line you can spin in circles and hope somehow the current's going to take you where you want to go but unless you have two ORS you will never know with certainty I can only ask you one question why are you doing this thank you our next speaker is Robin Anderson Robin [Applause] good evening thank you for allowing me to speak this evening I live in lak Ridge and I have three children who attend an outstanding Public School in our neighborhood Rock Ledge Elementary School is a warm caring environment that has nurtured my kids well-being as well as their intellect I am an extremely happy mom so thank you I also happen to be a Baptist minister my faith is rooted in
368following the ways of Jesus the Jesus who welcomed children and always gave special care and attention to those who were vulnerable the sick women those who for whatever reason were social outcasts lgbtq students are often treated as outcasts in school the Center for Disease Control has verified that they are more likely other students to be bullied or harassed those who are bullied or harassed at school are more likely to avoid school and hence rack up unexcused absences they are more likely to experience depression and to succumb to substance abuse and lgbtq students who are harassed at school are more than twice as likely to commit suicide as those who aren't even at some of the steps that we take that we think are helpful prove to be damaging schools often times Force transgender students to
369use separate bathrooms like in the nurse's office but doing this forces students to out themselves and there are reported cases of students being harassed and attacked because of this there is absolutely no data I know we have fears about our daughters but there are cities that have had bathroom protections for Trans gender people for decades and none of them have higher reported instances of anything bad happening in a bathroom other than people going to the bathroom but we do have data that says that allowing transgender people to use the restroom with which they fits their gender identity puts them in less danger if we want to nurture the well-being as well as the intellect of our lgbtq students we need to go ahead and update our discrimination policy to protect them from bullying and harassment
370many counties have already done it even counties right here around of around us and none of them have expressed any concerns or regrets about having done so as a minister I seek to follow the ways of Jesus and when he saw a woman being publicly humiliated and physically threatened he protected her her accusers thought that she deserved to be treated badly because of something that she had done sexually but Jesus didn't care about that he cared about her thank you he stopped her accusers thank you thank you our next speaker is John czecho John morning Mr soyer board members it's with disappointment and regret that I'm here again speaking about proposition 060 and the Fallout thereof I came here tonight in ignorance I couldn't figure out what was going on or what was going to
371happen tonight or what the issues were about I couldn't find out so I came here to find out and I'll tell you that there was a perception right or wrong that there is an agenda to implement change um I think that goes to show a lack of communication between the board and the members of the community which is what we spoke out against back in September it was our I think our outcry was let us know what's going on let us be heard let's move forward in a prudent manner but here we are again why I don't know why it comes to this but um there seems to be a lack of trust between members of community and the board at this point and I don't know how you overcome that but we got to
372talk um as we develop form and direct this task force please keep in mind what we've asked it to do I I what I've heard is solicit information from the community um I believe that we are trying to define the situation identify problems that the board can actually address not necessarily um Implement policy as the board has already identified in closing I would like to remind you that it is critical to listen to the community and also to act in good faith and it seems like we haven't had a whole lot of good faith tonight remember the issues we brought forth in September we were concerned for the safety of our children not just the East Side children or the wests side children not just the type a children and the type B children but
373all the children we were concerned about safety guarding against the abuse of any new policies and we want to make sure that we protect the rights and dignity of our children I think we can agree on that so let's move forward in the Civilized manner like adults and like Jesus would ask us to do and get the job done thank you thank you our next speaker is Corey Holan Corey good morning um I promise you I will be extremely short my name is Corey Holman and I am happy to be a Prince William County resident my address is on file I'm here to talk about a subject that has not been addressed yet today it's not even on the agenda I know you have a lot of lot to do with the zoning issue and
374I know that's the most important decision right now with the bomic shore school but I would also like to remind you that the next decision you will make is what to name the school I would like to submit the name of John Harper um Mr John Harper's resume which you will see very soon uh is loaded with service to our country and service to our community I'm not going to go over in detail but you will receive emails and you'll receive plenty of information on it um but I just wanted to say that it's it's very easy to name a school after the community Mr John Harper never took the easy route being a Vietnam veteran and being the first African-American to run for and be elected to the school board he took the hard
375route when he came home War is not easy I encourage you to name the school after Mr Harper one of the fa my favorite awards that Mr Harper has received is the Trailblazer award from the Virginia Leadership Institute I like that name Trailblazer I want to encourage you don't name a school after a golf course name a school after a Trailblazer thank you thank you our next speaker is Robert Bartlett Robert are you here Robert okay I'm going to call I have the remaining five from the signups ahead of time then we'll on to the at the door signups uh Jay tato Wally kubitz cozy Bailey Patrick fuchi Harry Wiggins and then on to the signups at the door and again this one always gets me um the handwriting sometimes and I apologize Steve Bender
376is it Steve Bender okay Steve Bender Pete block Hayward Stackhouse Andrea Miller and Ruth Thorne those are our next 10 speakers Jay you have the floor sir good morning J tato my address on file um pretty much everybody took the great lines already regarding I'm just going to keep it real short probably the shortest one is uh number one the constituent spoke already to you guys and told you what they wanted okay you decided to form a committee to form a task force who then is going to go and form subcommittees to go get people's opinions you guys got offices and you got staff I think you can can go directly to your constituents and interview them and get information okay uh to get these um committee people to go out and get more more
377make more subcommittees to get more opinions seems like you're putting a lot of buffer between yourselves and your constituents number one um something I was very disappointed on let's say you're going to go with this committee or this uh steering committee I think the least they should have done was kind of waited around and hear their opinions our opinions if that's what they're being formed to do um as I'm not going to speak about I don't think this issue has to do with uh a lot of people spoke about LGBT and uh religion um I'm a retired captain from New York City Police Department uh recently retired so bullygang by taking a male who identifies as a female and allowing them to use a female bathroom it's not going to stop them um from receiving
378uh bullying a female thinks it's a male goes to the mail bathroom they're not that much safer if the issue is safety uh you're going about it the wrong way now I know that's a different issue that's probably going to end up in Supreme Court but almost 25 years being in Brooklyn Manhattan the Bronx um I seen bullying um you I seen um what dri what drives it okay uh you're not going to stop it by allowing them to use the bathroom that they choose and I'm going to posit to you that's it's actually going to be it's going to make it worse and uh what the Baptist lady said uh Minister wish she would stuck around um by allowing them to use the nurse's bathroom is going to out them well then what's going
379to happen with the girl used the boy's bathroom and the boy used the girls bathroom that's not outing uh that's outing and it's putting them in a place where they're not being supervised uh years ago and and and in the high schools people were going into each other's bathrooms and problems were starting in that amount of time just before I retired I was seeing it at the elementary level boys going to girls girls going to boys and assaults were happening and they weren't supposed to be there now you're giving them permission to be there how do you think those numbers are going to go and ultimately you're responsible all right thank you thank you our next speaker is Wally kubitz W I ask you tonight why the frenzi push to ramrod through this gender identity
380policy change briefly by way of historical parallel 30 years ago in 19 87 our state board of education proposed sex education for all Virginia Public Schools this resulted in a huge controversy at the time it was known that school districts like Alexandria Arlington and Falls Church that already had extensive sex education also had the highest rates of teenage pregnancy in the state and yet in spite of that our state board of education mandated extensive sex education for all school districts in Virginia including down to the lowest Elementary grades which seems quite counterintuitive today 30 years later it's a different battle but the principles are the same those being an obsession with sex and a throwing of all a throwing to The Winds of all sense of caution today we debate a policy that we know
381will lead inevitably to school girls having to undress before their male perod and that we know will lead inevitably to rape and humiliation board members it is hard to believe that an intelligent society would consider such a dangerous course of action and yet that is what we are considering tonight that's what Fairfax and Lowden and other places have considered we can say it's because the federal government has mandated it and that's part partially correct but what an evil like this Bears out is that the movements toward gender identity rights and toward homosexuality are the hand of hell we all know that this old world can be a pretty bad place we've all sense the decadent decadence that seems to just keep coming at us Christ himself hinted at this in Luke 17 when he said
382it is impossible but that offenses will come he went on to say but woe unto him through whom they come and he said this in the context of making comments about children board members this gender identity policy is too much of an offense and too fraught with Peril to be allowed to go through thank you thank you our next speaker is cozy Bailey Mr [Applause] Bailey good morning Waffle House anyone I come before you this morning okay to inform you of an opportunity to recognize one of the true Jewels yeah there I say Heroes of Prince William County and I speak of none other than Mr John Harper I recommend that you choose the name to the school that's is under construction currently called uh pic Shores after John Harper and name of the John
383Harper junor Elementary School Mr Harper is known to all of you some of you know him through his Stellar reputation others of you have witnessed firsthand the role he has played in the history of this very School Board as has been already said he was the first African-American elected to this August body serving from 1995 to 1999 now I'm not asking you to name the school for him solely because he's African-American and I'm not asking you to name the school for him solely because he was the first African-American to be elected but you know n of that think of it that's a pretty good reason and from the standpoint specifically of historical significance I'm really asking you to name this school after John Harper because taking that action is in keeping with the policy for
384school naming here John served with distinction during his time on the board working hard to secure increased funding for for the school system during the time when Prince William County began to experience significant growth he was instrumental in the creation and incorporation of your Rue sharing agreement that agreement that codifies and guarantees that funding funding for our schools back then and even today I'm asking that you name this school after John Harper because his body of Public Service absolutely demands that you do John began his Public Service in Prince William County long before he was elected to the school board and he continued that long after his term was completed serving on a variety of boards and commissions at the local and state level John is an icon within our community now I'm not going
385to overwhelm you this morning with an avalanche of facts and information about the totality of service that John is given to our community I'm not going to De belabor the courage and determination that was instilled in him in his childhood sharply honed during his service to his country as an army officer and recognized through the award of multiple bronze Stars medals for his Meritor service during a time of War I'm not going to harp on part in that pun there that you didn't get that harpa that some of you sitting on this board tonight might not might not be there had John Harper not step forward over 30 years ago and taken that significant step for you what I will do is end with this you may be presented with other recommendations for a name
386for this school but none of those Alternatives will be a better choice than John Harper Jr thank you thank you our next speaker is Patrick fui Patrick i' say good evening but it's more like good morning I come here um hopefully to bring truth what do y'all have in common when youall were born conceived and brought forth we brought forth as a baby girl baby boy as a girl you had all that you needed that made you become a woman you had all your ovaries your eggs everything the complete gender right there if you were a man the same thing you had everything you needed to become a man but let's look at transgender today a man a man can never truly become a woman he does that is he going to acquire the ovaries
387is he going to acquire the eggs is he inquire all the 100% completeness that makes a woman special at the moment of conception and birth can a woman truly become a man 100% man internally and externally you see some people some people have these feelings emotions Euphoria now they may think they don't feel like they're a man because they don't measure up to what a man should be like i' I've carried these soft feelings a lot in my life but you know what they're just emotions they're just feelings that's all they are they come and go I'm a man because I was born at Birth and um people have to look at this but why why do we have such issues Les being gay transgender thing why goes back I think goes back decades you
388know you know perhaps we given an up on these people a man and woman if if a man and woman in marriage have a stable family you have children and if you raise them in the faith you know they receive that Mark of baptism of Christ as a child and you keep that to them that Mark on Christ will they will know I prevent them from going haywire prevent them from becoming gay whatever you call they will keep their Chastity as well to marriage see I don't believe in hating anybody I believe Christ can be found in all people but are people willing to give their lives over to Christ I believe gays I I think everybody can be rescued from their sinful Lifestyles everywhere but do we want him to do we want to
389keep it I I pray um I've been praying a lot for Muslims that God will open up Pathway to heaven for Muslims if I have to pray that way for thank CH I will do that too thank you our next speaker is Mr Harry Wiggins Mr Wiggins thank you Mr chairman members of the board I'm going to actually speak about something different uh I attended the uh uh a meeting at Lakeridge uh Elementary School last night uh Lou Jesse was there as well and I attended as a grandparent of three kindergarteners at the lake Bridge Elementary and the presentation made by the facility staff uh was proposing uh 13 uh 13 addition uh classrooms to lak Ridge Elementary 13 uh classrooms to antium which is two blocks over and 13 to springwoods the 39 classrooms
390are actually a uh a school and there was Universal opposition to this proposal I think most of you know Lakeridge Elementary uh just completed a 2-year add-on and now there's a proposal to add on again uh that site is not conducive to adding on 13 additional classrooms what needs to happen you you're creating 39 classrooms build a new school and that was what was UN universally proposed last evening you need to go back take the CIP that you put together build a new school forget the 131313 cost is the same a couple other issues the uh I think most of you know the Woodbridge District uh Miss Williams District 1,088 students overc capacity th000 that's an elementary school 1,88 over capacity when you take when you look at Aon Woodbridge and bomic just the elementary
391schools 2,000 students over capacity when I look at Tyler Mullen Sinclair Sudley all underc capacity when I look at Gainesville coals those elementary schools are at roughly 80% capacity when you look at bomic Woodbridge acaan you take out the trailers you're at 160% capacity we just uh you just uh approved a new high school and you're going to approve another one something's got to be done at the elementary level this board has done nothing at the elementary level that makes anything meaningful happen I urge you to re to go back to the CIP reject this 131313 proposal thank you all right we are on to the signups at the door um uh Mr Bender Steve Bender you are our next speaker I'll try um it's been a bad week since Friday the 13th when I
392walked out of the house with two pairs of a pair of two right Shoes On My Feet Saturday I was hit by gunfire and since this afternoon I've been exhibiting four different signs of a heart attack so don't worry if I drop down dead it wasn't the chairman okay I was going to talk about the agreement with the county and the meeting last week and the response of three members who from what I learned from Mrs sat White Once Again violated law by signing a letter without the direction of the board on board letterhead and there were some statements in that letter that were not 100% clearly made there was this claim that 10 million for an High School in a predominantly white district and 10 million for dozens of elementary schools in the east
393in a predominantly Black and Hispanic district 10 and 10 what it didn't talk about is the Z dollar for elementary schools in the west and the 53.2 million for additions to various elementary schools in the East or the zero dollar for new elementary schools in the west and $11.7 million for new elementary schools in the East that's 234. n Million To None in the CIP and that is completely different than what the letter said for the three of you to go out and invite the Department of Justice in again is just crazy and the shenanigans tonight with undoing that vote and and all of that is just going to put us in a state of war between this board and the County Board there will be significant ramifications from that and finally Mr chairman I
394know you shut down Mr Deutsch but if you review the meeting tonight you will find that you had a motion on the boundaries a substitute motion was offered that was amended up several times The Substitute motion was passed which makes that substitute the initial motion that final initial motion vote never occurred so you technically have not yet approved that school board boundary I know you said you did but the fact that the chairman says so doesn't make it so by Robert's Rules of Order and I would strongly urge you before you adjourn tonight once the citizens are done to maybe take just a second and by show of hands go ahead and approve that last motion on the sub to pass the substitute Amendment as the original motion thank you our next speaker is Pete
395block Pete no okay uh Hayward stack house Andrea Miller good evening my name is Andrea Miller uh board members Mr chairman um it seems that a new level of absurdity may have been reached um I'm absolutely surprised at why a steering committee and a task force is needed right now um we are your community input we your red t-shirt wearing uh parents students teachers priests imans homeschoolers coaches lawyers drivers uh computer geeks spent many hours here last fall telling you that we do not want you to force our daughters to undress and shower with biological boys my teenage son Joshua was here with his identity issue saying that he wanted to be called your highness um he and my daughter do not undress in the same room they do not bathe together and they have
396not done so since they were about four years old is just not done in our household and probably not in many households um we do not need a task force nor a steering committee right now to recommend to you that strangers be permitted to undress and bathe with our daughters put your please put your lgbtq task force on hold and do what was decided and voted on in September and wait until the Supreme Court decides whether any changes be implemented on policy uh 060 Miss Williams you said that the lgbtq um issue is an individual issue it is not not anymore the lgbtq agenda is shoved in our faces shoved down our throats we if we do not agree with the agenda we are called haters if we do not accept their life lifestyle we
397are called bigots I am not a bigot I do not accept their lifestyle I am called a bigot where is the acceptance of my difference in this issue the lgbtq issue is no longer an individual issue when you or anyone tries to force my daughter to undress with teenage boys when you or anyone tries to force my daughter to shower with boys it is no longer an individ individual issue you have woken a mother bear who will protect her cub I may be five in five feet 3 in tall but I will protect my Cub thank you very much for your time thank you our next speaker our next uh speaker is Ruth Thorne Ruth are you here okay I'm going to call the speak before you get started Ruth I'm going to call up
398the next speakers behind you here um John McCardle Muhammad Gabriel Abram Marsh Ken bod yatu Allen Chris Smith anybody number 14 can anyone read that one looks like Hagen might be the last name c haen 68 Paul uh St Paul that that's that's I'm sorry I can't read your handwriting I apologize and then um father Thomas Vander Woody is the last speaker so I apologize that that's going to be the order next speakers Ruth you now have the floor okay um yes my name is Ruth Thorne I speak as both a resident and a teacher in Prince County Schools um I'm 25 years old um I went to express my concerns regarding the lgbtq task force and policy 060 which was previously tabled until June or until the courts could act um my concerns have
399to do with um a lot of things but um particularly the part of the policy that would allow transgender students and and non alike to pick their restrooms locker rooms and even to my understanding hotel rooms for overnight field trips um as a teacher um my number one priority is to create a safe and respectful learning environment where all of my students including the lgbtq students are respected I work with these students every day um I can think of one in specific who is transgender um and I just see a lot of potential issues for those students as well as the non-lgbtq students um namely uh and this was mentioned earlier but you know if a if a biological female transitioning to a male is in a male restroom I fear for that child um
400that there may be not very tolerant people um in that restroom or people who would God forbid do something to them I don't want that for them them um and the reverse is also true um if there's a transgender boy in a girl's bathroom or locker room um you would hope for the best that that child would just be there to use the bathroom but how do you protect those children I don't understand how you can do that um in with hotel rooms I mean that's even worse um and I just have a concern in general I mean if you're letting people pick their bathroom you're going to have an increase in heterosexual activity in bath boms it happens um I mean I hate to I mean I've talked to other teachers about this who
401have said I'm not my concern is more that there would be guys going in girls' bathrooms because they want to and because the girl wants them to maybe I'm totally out in left field on that um I just think that really what you're doing is creating a free-for-all um with this idea that you can pick um and that people will unfortunately abuse that um ultimately I just want everyone to feel safe and I want everyone to feel respected and I don't think that um allowing transgender bathrooms locker rooms and overnight field trip issues um allowing that to happen is going to increase or allow for that safer more respectful environment um I have friends who are lgbtq and they know that I love them and have the most respect for them um I just want
402there to be order um and respect for the natural order of male and female and and keeping that separate so thank you thank you our next speaker is John Mardo John good morning um so here we go again and unfortunately there is somebody touched on this a little bit ago there's a lack of trust these days um you guys are failing in that regard um we were here four months ago thought we had a lot of this settled worked out um you guys voted and said we're going to wait until June on this we're going to wait for the courts and now we feel like you're doing an end round on us you're coming back you have an agenda some of you have an agenda I guess and you are forcing this on us um
403you're devoting a lot of your time staff time on this you're devoting a lot of my money on this it's taxpayer money it's not your money to play with um so this task force steering committee is out there they've had a couple meetings um not well publicized there's a lot of talk in the slides about there being um public uh input and at this meeting last week I know there was no public input allowed they were not allowed to speak um and again that's something we are you know parents we are the ultimate educators of our kids um we hand them over to the schools um you know on a daily basis but ultimately we are their Educators and we decide what's right and wrong for them and at the same time we elect you
404to to help us in that role but again this task force you know some of the things that scared me with that is um on the agenda they had last week their meeting they talked about six different areas they were looking into including facilities and hiring an architectural firm this sounds a lot like going down implementation as opposed to discussion when you're talking about hiring architectural firm you know again very costly when we don't even know where this thing's going um one of the things that's really missing on that list two things maybe one safety there is nothing on that list about addressing safety nothing at all and does anybody see a problem with that I know it's getting late and but again here we go again there's nothing on there about legal issues and
405if you don't expect there to be legal issues they're going to be we know that it's happening in other states right around the time we were here four months ago Virginia Minnesota had a big lawsuit because people were abusing this it was a wasn't a transgendered student who supposedly we hate we don't but again it was somebody taking advantage of these laws and abusing the system and there is a huge lawsuit and that's going to be on you so things need to change um you know what I've heard tonight mess dysfunctional confused lack of transparency and those are words you guys have used to describe yourselves that's not coming from us that's what words you guys have used so you know things need to change if you want to regain our trust the trust the
406public your constituents the taxpayers there has to be change Mr sawers you've been outspoken and acknowledge your you aren't going to let this issue go it's your agenda you've said that and if the politics in this border um are going to end if you're going to put an end to the dysfunction if you're going to clean up the mess if you're really looking for out for the kids as you say you are it stou to the top and Mr Sawyers it's time for you to step aside and resign thank you and if not I ask the public to join the recall Sawyers movement at recall sawyer.com thank you yeah sorry next speaker is Muhammad Gabel Muhammad no Abram Marsh sir good morning I'm here to stand before you to to ask you to consider renaming
407uh the new school and uh poic uh Shores with uh Mr Harper Mr John Harper Jr uh many of my uh fellow citizens have come before you to talk to you about his many contributions to Prince William County but I'm here to let you know that you have here before you your own hidden figure many of you know the movie that is the number one movie in America today called hidden figures you indeed have that here and you have the opportunity to name a school after a hidden figure of Prince William County as identified earlier uh in his being elected as a member of your August body he helped lead and push through a cost sharing uh deal with the County Board of Supervisors we would not be having the opportunity to have a discussion
408of school boundaries had it not been for such a effort because of that Revenue we have a worldclass education for all of our students here in Prince William County we had a briefing on the pay even though the pay is lower than it is for our sister schools it's much higher than most anywhere else in America America again providing our students a world class education the discussions of East versus West on 10 million here or 10 million there you'd have no million anywhere had it not been for the efforts of Mr Harper and the cost sharing uh deal that they were able to work out 20 years ago looking forward to where we would be today again this is our hidden figure and I implore you to look beyond all of those other things that
409may tend to cause us to to look and snipe and and not necessarily appreciate the work that you all do every day you all are exemplary members of our community you represent each and every one of your districts well and we think highly of that and I would like like you to consider uh renaming pic Shores against a or for a hidden figure uh Mr John Harper thank you very much thank you our next speaker is uh Kenny bod Kenny good morning board Dr Waltz everyone else who's still here um I first wanted to thank uh Barbara lmore and the folks that uh came out today to talk about recess it's a fairly important issue and that's what I'm going to talk about today um recess is one of those things where it not only
410uh positively impacts the students um because you know as been said several times by a lot more folks who are a lot more uh specialized and knowledgeable than I am um it helps attention span helps performance helps all sorts of things for the students but the other side of that is it also helps teachers too because if the teachers are spending more time just instructing students as opposed to dealing with with disciplinary are issues that helps them um there was a study done back in 2014 it was a Stanford study where they looked at not only the impact on students but on teachers too and if there is a structured positive recess and PE system that makes it so the the teachers and the coaches who are involved in administering that that uh recess system
411they can structure the rules of the games that kids play um then they're on the same page because what happens is if you have these chaotic sort of forall recesses there's an issue there where you know kids make up their own rules and then there's disputes and all sorts of other stuff and it's more stressful for the teacher so that's the other side of it um the other side of it that hasn't been talked about very much is how recess and positive experiences can impact disadvantaged students because for a lot of disadvantaged students they don't have a lot of stability at home they don't have a lot of uh places where they can just have fun and they can say hey this is my stable place with folks that I I enjoy spending time with
412um recess is one of those places and I know that because the family I come from uh I I come from a broken home I I didn't have a lot of opportunity to sort of have a safe place when I was at home to sort of just relax and unwind um so having a place where I was able to spend time with my friends able to just hang out able to have positive experiences with other people outside of all that craziness of home was actually a really helpful experience for me um the last thing I'll talk talk about is the fact that this sort of issue about us not having enough time for recess and PE is part of a much more underlying symptom that I don't think we've talked about a lot we've talked
413about tonight but it's over testing in our schools um the fact that we spend so much time Benchmark testing standardized testing all that stuff it makes it so it it creates the exact opposite of what a good PE and a good recess system will make because there's kids who are over tested evene at the elementary school level they're overstressed all that good stuff so what I'm trying to say is less testing more recess and I think that's the key to making sure that our our our kids in our schools will have a much better time thank you thank you our next speaker is yatka Allen yatska Allen okay Chris Smith chairman board appreciate the chance to talk I'll keep it short and sweet because it's late and I can barely keep my eyes open here
414uh speaking um in concern about the task force for the uh issues surrounding non-discrimination policy 060 that was proposed back in September I about a week ago I found out about this item being on the agenda I had a number of concerns and I sort of wrote them up and uh then earlier today I think it was I got a copy of the presentation that was presented from the steering committee and so I ripped up that original one and wrot up a new set of concerns and then after hearing the presentation and testimony from the different members it's I have a a whole new set of concerns and I think the point here is that there's a lot of misunderstanding about what this task force is charged to do and it doesn't sound like it's
415what the voice of the people back in September identified to the school board that we want that we need so I would suggest that given that we that the board takes a motion to reverse the decision to create a task board at this time and instead to wait until let the courts work out the issues and then we respond um I would also urge everybody because we all do care about the children and safety and and making sure that we have an environment where our children can grow that each of us sort of walk away from here tonight committing to individually reaching out to children to our children to teaching our children what it means to show respect what it means to show understanding to to dialogue with other children so that ultimately we can
416get to the heart what these issues really are right and I think ultimately it's family members it's it's uh you know school counselors It's Community it's it's friends that are going to help each individual person not necessarily a state and not a task force thank you thanks sir our next speaker is the one I can't read um looks like the last name may be he Hagen I'm sorry thank you very much your'll time will start when you come up my name is Karin Hagen and I chose to speak to you because I'm from Holland and I recognize some of the policy and procedures that you're trying to implement here with great difficulty from the country I was born in I was born 20 miles Northeast of Amsterdam Northwest of Amsterdam and um I can speak
417from personal experience that Holland is said to be very very tolerant and very very open and very welcoming yet there is a lot of unspoken violence in Holland a lot of clickish communities that if you're an outsider of you cannot enter um living there as a Dutch person is very opposite of what an American considers life in Holland to be when Americans go to Holland they think tulips windmills wooden shoes which are all great but living there is very different is not not nearly as tolerant as it's ever been for me here so I left Holland 25 years ago about and it's been this has been like very a very good life for me I've done I in Holland I barely scraped by it it was very hard socially for me and I came here
418and with the laws that were in existence you know in Holland with the laws that were in existence really it was a hard life I come here it's hard but I really got ahead I got ahead as a English at the third language not even English as a second language I speak French German Dutch so really English is a fourth language and I made it I made it and yes it's not a perfect Society no and you address those issues but it's the best thing we got is the I've been in many places I've lived in Africa I've lived in Europe I've lived in Holland the most H place I come here the doors open it was a it's as good a life as I can get and I appreciate it and I ask you
419not to change it too much because if you go back to where I came from it's not as nice as it is now thank you for your time thank you and our final speaker is uh father Thomas Vander Woody father I think I pronounced it right this time close got it good that's good yeah well hello again you'all um good to see you um and uh just uh just a few thoughts to perhaps consider on the uh what the steering committee was sharing with us a little bit and then going forward with the task force um uh as it's considered um just some and then some other um related topics I guess going back to 060 um first of all um I guess the question is why why task force is what um I have
420a question about um it's you know it seems as if the um there's so many people here last September to speak um uh hundreds and hundreds uh that were present and then over well over 100 that spoke um and just uh it seemed like there was just such an upor of of of public sentiment on it that people showed up um so the task force is supposed to one the key uh is actually to gather more information um I wonder how that would how would that happen um it seems um to be a almost a barrier I've mentioned I've heard that a little bit tonight uh between us and you um between this constituents in the board um can we just come straight to the board or do we have to is now it's going
421to be a task force course and if we can go to one of the things that they that is you know offered uh to speak but is that information going to be filtered is it going to get to you um after all you're are elected officials um they are not um you have accountability they do not um and it could almost be SE to just to build a case for when June 2017 comes around that well okay we got this case built so we have to go with what the task force is saying and it's like whoa hold on a second um is that the case um and definitely hopefully they're going to take a look at what Bob Marshall uh brought right before you back in September about the known cases of bullying and
422uh uh things that may have come up for those who struggle with gender identity um now let's let's be said very clearly there are a couple statements made earlier that you know if this you know somehow if this is religious it becomes bigotry and if somehow you don't agree with the way someone's living that you're a bigot and I I know this is we're taught is you love God above all things your neighbor as yourself and we all have different struggles uh we're all Sinners you know I look in the mirror we're all Sinners um so we all have different struggles but I'm called to love each person you know as our Lord does and um and so I'm I'm sorry that some people have actually really perhaps have experience that love um but that's
423no reason to really put others in danger especially the young and our daughters um and when it comes to those who would use and abuse this policy if it were changed um and I'll just end with what you sp earlier the people have spoken that was with 10 people for the school but hundreds and hundreds came in September thank you thank you all thank you all right we are on on to uh board matters I've been starting to my right all evening so Mr wil will start with you oh did you want to say uh just real quick um wanted to um mention some things I've done the last two weeks the MLK speech competition was outstanding uh had a great time great speeches I found out later I was like I thought I knew
424that s uh girl from Woodbridge High School and I did I taught her sister uh so that's really cool she had an outstanding speech uh congratulation to all the students uh to MLK celebration I want to thank uh the Southbridge Community um for inviting me uh Friday night last week to their HOA meeting uh to talk about the boundaries and the presentations I think they'll be satisfied with what happened tonight um I also want to mention um I did go to pic High School's uh specialty program night um outstanding programs that that building offers um you know I was very blessed to take and inherit that building from my predecessor who as the principal of patomic high school said at her uh goodbye event last year that pic High School is Betty Covington and what
425she did to incorporate and bring the cyber security program the culinary arts program the welding program it's just amazing what they have to offer um and as I go around talking to people in pic Shores uh I talk about the great things that are happening at patomic high school um and uh it's more than just going to greatschools.com and looking at a score you have to go into a building and see the wonderful programs that are being offered there so great stuff go to pic high school I know Miss Williams Miss Jesse go all the time and and big Advocates of it and uh it's a great building a lot of good things are happening and of course the basketball team is you know phenomenal as well so a lot of good stuff happening there
426uh just wanted to say and closing um you know yes procedurally I think the whole process of you know the vote as I voted and said the procedures were screwed up uh yes there was a board poll which that came out and I said yes admittingly to that uh what I will say what came out of that meeting however is the fact that there are a majority member of the board who support building the 13th High School price Model I don't see that changing whether it comes in in a CIP meeting whether it comes in another meeting where one other individual could bring it up at this point there's the five votes so procedurally it was a mess um you know the board poll closed the meeting before however I think what we do know
427is that at some point the majority of the board has to say on what to do with the model the 13th High School I do not agree with the Department of Justice letter I believe you know my board members have a right to compose that um I don't believe uh that what we did was anywhere to the violation of the level of that I believe it was a excellent bipartisan agreement um between the two boards but we probably will be going through this process again but I'll leave it at that good night thank you Mr WL Mr deuts wow it is uh late I uh I told my wife when I was driving over here that it wouldn't be the earliest meeting but it wouldn't be the latest meeting and uh maybe I'm wrong um
428I I guess I I keep keep re have for about the last week and a half keep thinking about what I'm going to say here um because what happened a week and a half ago was on a whole new level uh at the end of the day I'm reminded of very famous quote from the presidential election cycle and we probably all know it uh when they go low we go high and what we saw was the lowest of the low to have board members use letterhead with our names on it to call a majority of the school board and a majority of the Board of Supervisors racist and then to go beyond that and to call on the doj to investigate our own division our staff and our administrators know what that looks like they
429know the time that that has cost to them when they've had a doj investigation before they know the paperwork that that mounts as it takes away from teaching time and to wish that back again on the school division is quite incredible a word like racism shouldn't be thrown around willy-nilly and I mean the way that it was thrown about is is laughable that it cheapens the term for when it should be used um at a time when we need to show to the community that as elected officials we can be better than certain ones that are in DC right now what we saw from certain board members was the ongoing normalization of ugliness and it really was sad and I hope that certain board members apologize to the school board and to the Board of
430Supervisors um you know to to go further on this this allegation of racism what was accused of being racism racist is that we would ignore students and trailers on the Eastern side and then at the end of the day we left an elementary school at 150% capacity because we were listening to a community so people really need to make up their minds on how they Define racism here um enough said on that front [Music] um then I I guess when when when I never think I can be shocked we we continue to be shocked um and what we what we saw today now we continue to ignore legal counsel and we've just run ourselves into even more legal issues for a board to vote to eliminate um its [Music] own uh recorded minutes without even
431talking to legal counsel runs you very quickly into a whole lot of foer questions uh and Virginia state code 2.2 3707 meetings to be public notice of meetings recording minute requires that minutes for meetings be recorded um and requires that they be saved and uh retained um to to take a vote to officially delete and Destroy them uh without any cons uh consultation with legal council is is quite something um and and I I know because we' we've been here before that I'm about to get hit up for um you know not not respecting um already made decisions of this board but um you know at some point it's quite something um when board members have now gone to the point of violating that by calling for a doj investigation because they lost a vote
432so I I really don't want to hear that again um you know and you know at some point we actually have to start sitting back and listening to the communities that our decisions impact we we're going to keep running into trouble when we keep running rough shot and we're walking right back into it again we just set boundaries so when we have a school naming we should actually go ahead and listen to the people we just voted to go to the school that we just set the boundaries for um you know to we're going to walk back through where we have people from outside those boundar areas come in and campaign aggressively again for us to name a school after one of Miss Jesse's donors like at some point this has to stop and we
433you have to actually start listening to communities anyway thank you Mr Deutch Miss Williams thank you Mr chairman um yeah staying focused right challenge at30 actually not really because I'm usually up at this time anyway so um yeah I have three-year-old done sleep been doing this for a couple years we're we've been here few times at 1:30 something in the morning so let me just start with um my f to my fellow board members if you have an issue or a problem or or a concern with something I've done please address me directly I don't shy or have any issue standing up for what I've said or done or believe in especially publicly I'm not going to I haven't before and it's never going to happen I have no issue with my involvement in the
434doj letter and I'll tell you why it's cuz I lived here when my parents moved here they couldn't even buy a house in the neighborhood they were looking that cuz lak Ridge was I don't know red line so the school that I went to was comprised of zero mixed children it was Mah and almost all of Caucasian children a few African-American children they got moved when miniville Road widened and they tore down their houses through eminent domain there's a lot of things historically here that have gone on that make me um don't make me that I feel 100% justified in my participation in the D letter and I will never change my mind I will not back down from that does that's just my opinion and we are all entitled to agree to disagree we
435do not have to like the things that our other board members do but we should not be attacking them for it um that's just my personal opinion if you don't agree with me that's fine we're allowed to do that that's our right to attack people I think takes it to a whole another level and sets a bad example I disagree with my children all the time but and my spouse but I don't attack them for it we try to have civil to conversations and in my house if you don't want to be civil we walk away from each other that's how it should be done um I I don't agree nor will I ever agree to uh a situation where uh you're talking about a high school versus an an entire half of a county
436and I have not said this before um but you know our action here for some reason makes people feel like as boards we can't ever get along because we made a disagreeing v a vote I'm not sure if you're aware we weren't really getting along prior to that we made progress to that after the vote in the resolution having a vote does not mean now that we can't proceed in a positive direction it means we disagree disagreeing doesn't mean you can't learn to work together doesn't mean we're uh on opposite ends of the spectrum for the remainder of our lifetimes I mean I'm not sure when we got so concerned with or and forgot the word and cuz and is a very real thing you can agree to disagree and still move forward and still
437work together that is the point of all of it um I don't know I would just like to um ask my fellow board members if we could just be a little bit more conscientious and and respectful of each other um Mr Brun and I had a disagreement earlier I don't like Mr Brun any less I'm not going to interact with him any less I'm not going to not whatever if I see him and he's Stranded by the side of the road just because he didn't vote the same way I didn't I'm not going to not stop and pick him up that's our job here we're not all going to get a long all of the time it it wouldn't make any sense if we did but it doesn't mean we have to attack each other
438and um like I said please if you have commentaries don't include me in the board member just I'm right here for you every time all the time um I don't change and what I say in regards to that um moving on from that MLK Day celebration thank you to Delta Sigma Theta on uh sorority Incorporated again for a wonderful program I was there I was very moved um I want to thank um Dr Hampton and Mr Fletcher for uh allowing my son and my godson to sit next to you uh I'm sure they don't understand the significance of that right now I know my son did not at his lovely 15-year-old self my godson a little bit more because he's an Omega U he's still grinning so um I just wanted to thank you yes
439I wanted to thank you for that and I also wanted to thank Omega um sci-fi fraternities Omega you program for bringing so many youth to come and participate in in that program um little things like that make a difference and we don't often speak about that but um that's how I got to where I was where I am now is because a parent or a concerned citizen said hey come join this program hey come volunteer hey come do this and I was exposed to lots of different things as a youth so that as an adult now I can have uh better informed decisions from what I was exposed to as a youth and so I appreciate that um I also want to thank um my fellow uh it's late so I'm missing a word presenter
440excuse me um at the parent Summit I presented as a parent not as a board member from uh tradition from on transitioning from middle to high school um it was a lot of fun I cannot think of because of the late hour my fellow presenters names but they were also um parents and staff members in the county and I had an absolute blast I also want to thank our staff who presented um on the same topic from the perspective of staff because I've heard so many wonderful um comments from the uh people who attended on how wonderful that that session was and I hope Dr Waltz that next year we can have two parent Summits maybe one on one end and one on the other end of the county so people don't have to try
441to get all there at once and fit everybody in at one time because the information is is definitely um is just absolutely wonderful and necessary I think um to all of our um Rising ninth grade in high school parents and students um in addition to that um I know I'm trying to go fast but it's a little late um what else did I want to say I just wanted to thank everyone who came out to speak tonight I know that um there's been a lot of Confusion And um sometimes often misinformation when the board does stuff uh like someone mentioned earlier sometimes we are a little slow and sometimes information gets out to the public before it's even being presented to us like this evening with the task force a lot of lot of us
442couldn't answer you questions because it hadn't been presented to us yet so it's kind of unfair to jump the gun especially when we have a committee that's here to make a report to us for us to have a response back on what it is they're going to do that's the purpose of them making a presentation tonight so I would ask the public sometimes just to give us a little bit of a minute where we may be a little bit behind but it's not in a sense that we're trying to hide something for you especially if it's on the agenda for presentation um and on that note I also would like the public to understand that just because you come to a school board meeting does not mean that the people who attend are the majority
443of people who are voicing their opinions to the board because I want you to understand that where this building sits there is no bus stop there is no if you do not have a car if you do not have a friend to take you here you're not coming so and I know this because there's plenty of nights before I was a board member I didn't have a car I couldn't come so you're I I would like for us to always be mindful of the people who cannot make it here who do not have a computer to email or maybe only have 30 seconds out of a day where they can call and if they miss you they're not getting to talk to you cuz trust me I had a job where you couldn't call at
444all any personal calls during the work hour and this was a professional work environment so these things happen and I think sometimes we get a little ahead of ourselves in assuming that just the people who show up are the people who are speaking for everybody it's not necessarily true because I haven't yet to see someone come and speak Urdu in front of us so I I I know that there are people here who don't even speak English in our County and and who have um comments and input that are worthwhile and should be heard by this board um and the last thing I want to say is um for me it's a personal issue and it's a big deal um because our students aren't always here to voice their opinions that when we do talk
445about issues that are sensitive to their daily lives as adults that we be very mindful of that um especially when it comes to LGBT community issues isues or race issues or any of those things because those are real life human being issues and we don't know where someone else is on their spectrum of uh emotional Wellness whether a comment they may have heard inspires them or makes them want to retreat and I think that we owe that to um each other to be respectful and dignified when we're talking about these issues we don't have to agree like I said um but I think we should be respectful and mindful of others um at all times so that's I have thank you thank you m Williams Mr bran thank you Mr chairman uh first of all
446I want to say uh thank you to Pastor Barry White at Park Valley Church uh for taking time to attend tonight's meeting and give the invocation uh Park Valley is currently holding their services one of our Prince County Schools Battlefield high school and it's definitely worth a visit if you've never been to one of their services I'm related to Prince County Education I want to wish a belated birthday to one of my greatest teachers my father Ralph BR he turned 88 years old excuse me I was will say young cuz he's he's still a working man a few few days a month on Monday January 16th so I want to say happy birthday again uh to my father um I want to thank the Prince William County Board of Supervisors for a very productive discussion
447on Tuesday January 10th in our board to board dinner and meeting I believe continued collaboration and communication with BOS is definitely the best way forward for this board um then then I'm kind of all over the place I will tell you I always kind of type up my notes in advance but this meeting definitely has um brought out a lot of extra thought so I'm kind of gonna go off my game plan here and kind of go in many different directions uh first of all thank you to miss Larry m uh you know for bringing up the res recess I saw you had a sign for me is that correct were you the one all right I I really appreciate that and I will apologize to you for not being in the room when you
448actually spoke I will go back and look at the video um unfortunately I had to depart for a bit to uh settle myself down we'll say so we'll we'll go back and look at the video and I I definitely want to hear what what your words were so I promise to do that and I I want to thank uh all the speakers that came tonight to talk about a variety of topics um you know thank you for taking time and and those of you in the room you know I don't want to call you nuts but you know it's it is late I want to be in bed but you're still here so thank you for for taking time to to come here tonight um boundary committees as a boundary committee veteran um maybe I'm
449a little bit offended but I'm kind of not sure why we have boundary committees for elementary schools because we we don't we seem to have them go do all the hard work you know they have many meetings they I know they get together on a weekly basis they have Community meetings and then they you know they send us their plans and then we just change them all um so that may be something we need to look at from a policy perspective because if we're not going to Value the time and effort that they put into creating their plans and coming down to a final plan or two then maybe we need to change the policy and you know I know we eliminated at one point for the high schools maybe we need to eliminate for
450the other the other levels I don't want to do that but if we're not going to kind of value their time and efforts then there's really no point um see number five here and I I got a whole bunch of things I'm I'm on all kinds of directions here um Mr chairman the um my Robert's Rule of Order is not perfect but um I think the your motion to resend the votes from the legal special meeting on January 4th was out of order um I'll do some more research in that but according to the research I did tonight it does require 2third Vote or five votes based on Robert's Rule of Order to to do that so we'll do some more research on that we'll we'll definitely talk more about that topic and the last
451paragraph I've here is it's a big bullet and I will tell you I was when I was pissed off earlier and I I'm sorry to use that word but I definitely was you know I I took a big X and wrote it through this paragraph right here because I'm like you know what I'm angry I'm not going to read this but I'm going to be a better man and I'm actually going to read these words that I that I that I wrote prior to this meeting um I could probably talk for hours about the recent letter sent to the US Department of Justice by three of my fellow board members but I won't instead of throwing daggers I would prefer to extend my hand if quote Walking In Another Man's Shoes requires me to visit
452other schools around the county for A New Perspective let's make that happen invite me to visit schools in other districts of the county I would love the opportunity for other board members to visit schools in my district with me in the end I think and I hope that their end goal is creating an incredible atmosphere of learning for all students in Prince County Schools we can achieve this success if we work together more than working apart I I you know I could I could be angry all night you know and I you know I'll probably drive home angry but um I know I have some great citizens in the brinville district and and they'll they'll pick up the anger the anger for me and they probably their voices will be heard and they probably will
453be here in two weeks and they're going to have a lot to say so I'll let them be the voice um if they have some issues with some some board members up here they will definitely express it and they will definitely show up thank you thank you Mr bran Miss Roston thank you Mr chairman um I too attended um the ML King event I the kids are just tremendous um just very well spoken they're trained well and they thanked uh their trainers but I thank their trainers too because they are fabulous the organization itself is top drawer so I really appreciate it and I'm glad that Miss Jesse told me about it and I'm glad to have been a part of this one it's my second time so I guess I'm a little bit behind
454everybody else um oh wa you mentioned I think it was you just now that mentioned where was somebody sitting up here about the people that come out to the board meetings and that and those oh I'm sorry it was you I'm sorry I just remembered if you don't have a car no you won't get here so why should they have to come here why can't we go to them twice a year we should have our school board meetings out in the community the community that we say we serve but you can only be served if you can get here that's not service so you pick a school on the East and you pick a school on the west for those that can't drive here and I think that's a great idea so I'd like to
455put that on the agenda for discussion I'm still trying to figure out what happen happened when um on this vote we had regarding the uh oh the vote that we took that five of us took so since I'm so confused I'm going to I need legal help to help me understand exactly what happened and how it happened and why it happened um to some degree we're just going to have to do better I'm sorry it is it is it gets to be tiring that we don't even have the compassion to work well together we don't play good in the play pin we just don't do it so and then the funny part about it to me is that everybody has great personalities great personalities sit up here um Dr Waltz I'm asking you you would
456please get me personal letterhead so I can write thank you letters I will not do it on the official School letter head thank you thank you m rolon Miss Jesse well isn't his special um first I want to talk about the MLK day and I uh we were above the fold I'm a member of Delta Sigma Theta sority and the um the concept of MLK um you know you guys can say whatever you want to say about me but I have 40 Years of high levels of service so this board can't destroy who I am because I know what I've made a contribution for and for me it's all about kids and so I these these are my babies and every day I cared about the babies why Aquin because Dr Walt says that he
457has a Clos in the Gap formula closing the Gap you don't take a school that has achieved National recognition and send the kids whose parents know their kids will rarely get that type of level of achievement 94% pass rate in math the highest in the county you don't penalize them by separating them and sending them to a low not low but we know it's the Lord's performing school that's just not fair so that's what I'm all about there are always exceptions to the rule on MLK uh you know our little guy Norman always wins you know not sure what's going on with the green tie but uh anyway it was just phenomenal and this year uh sunrust because of your neighbor Dr Waltz Sheila Mitchell do tell her I mention her name uh that girl
458can take what is it what is it blood out of a turnup I think my mother used to say anyway we were able to get $115,000 from sunrust and years ago I was able to get $110,000 from Hilton chapel and they have sponsored that program every single year these I'm always looking for gifts in people and these kids people used to ask me how do you select these kids do you select um a a gifted kid I believe that all kids can learn at high levels so when I saw a kid with red hair I said I found Malcolm he was in the cafeteria gave him the paper he learned the speech kid walked down the hall had big ears I said There Goes Barack he learned the speech the little girl came down the
459hall with Graves and then I said you know I think I found Rosa Parks you give them a speech and they can do it all of these kids can learn and so that's why Aqua Kuan is so special special because I'm going to tell you something it is just plain hard work when you get kids who don't have parents at home who can read like most of us in this room you know I was I was watching you with your baby and there's just a love affair there and you probably read to him you're advocating for him those people in some of these schools they're not going to come out the people tonight I know you guys feel like we have heard all the voices we haven't they're not going to come in here and
460be humiliated we are the voice for the voiceless so I I I I what you're doing the task force was never designed to bring back something the task force was developed because you said you don't get in community input and that's the purpose of it and I'll just jumping back to MLK I want to thank uh I hadn't worked with them in a long time but my friend Danny Armstrong cuz he and I used to hang out together and he said Lily why you have these people saying Mrs Jesse's coming Mrs Jesse's coming you know you and I just hang out together but he and and been and also um not Ben worker I'm sorry uh I wanted to to say thank you to Sharon Henry and I want to thank all of you Dr
461Waltz and your staff we look good when they say stand up people from Prince William County Public School stood up and I truly truly appreciate it now um to the the issue at hand which was not going to be my issue tonight and I don't like calling names but you know this we go we go high and you go low I don't know there's certain people in this room who've been talking about people all night long I don't know why you think that's high you know the board our ethics say that once you vote on something you don't vote on it again yet you guys kept bringing back that fifth 13th high school until you got it done you didn't follow the ethics so uh this is the problem so I want I I I
462want them to you to put up slide two again please for me because I want to end with this I've been in this County a long time I've been on this board for quite some time and David Klein knows and you know Dr Walt I have tried to get these kids out of these trailers and when I was written in the newspaper that no we don't go through the Board of Supervisors the Board of Supervisors doesn't have any respons responsibility we get we buy our land you know how we've been working to get land through the Board of Supervisors down that aquan district there is a role so I was insulted when my name was in the newspaper but I want to just say this look at this I want while we're here late I
463want you to look at this this didn't start yesterday this is 10 years of kids in the lower income areas and in the middle areas last night was revealing to me because I started to realize although I I kept advocating until I got the extra wings that at Anum you're here miss Larry Moore talking about exercise we're not going to have a playground over there because we are being renovated and an itions taking place if you're in a school that's undercrowl night one of the people said well I hope I'm sure we're not going to they're not going to move me right because I live right next door and I said I can't guarantee that so these people in middle class America at on our end that school has had three Renovations three that principal
464is not going to have the luxury of a year to open her school she's going to have new kids and she's going to have to do that extra work I've done that before I was at vaugh I had Renovations I had uh additions I had all kinds of things things done and I had to do my job I had that thing where you the kids go out for three months and then they come back in you haven't lived until you did that I didn't have a cafeteria and I accepted that and I came up here and I saw that certain schools had certain things I did not know when I asked Dave Klein to look at give me this chart that I would see this 10 years where you had 123 trailers 111 and then
465you go down the only time we were close to the West is In N 2009 and then we took a steep incline 79 80 84 93 100 116 118 trailers we went from 123 to a low of 118 the other people on the other end call it West call it whatever you want to call it started at 62 and ended up at 10 so one side of the county has 10 trailers the other side has 118 and if you don't call that inequity I call that inequity no I don't apologize like she said for going to the uh justice department I don't apologize for that if by now if you don't haven't figured out I'm a civil rights person I don't know what you know you can't do anything to me up here I I
466was in jail two times you can't hurt me so all of this stuff that's going on there's inequities in this County and we know it so this is my final saying on this in summary the straw that broke the camels back for me the straw that broke the camels back when the Board of Supervisors pretended that they were giving us money $10 million but what they were really doing was having another vote so they could have a bigger school we get 10 million for all of these kids over here and you get 10 million to enhance the school we get the renovations we get the additions you get the the we get the crumbs you get the bread so no I don't apologize I don't apologize for having concerns about the numer Rous trailers and
467second grade is out in in going outside they're going outside right now in the rain no I don't apologize for that and I never wrote the justice department about Prince William County schools actually I was saying that you have done your job the Board of Supervisors has not we've done our job it's not about this and I don't apologize for pointing out the number of trailers I don't apologize for advocating for the approval of land for building new schools on the Eastern end I cannot apologize for the fact of the high number of rezoning projects that have been done by the Board of Supervisors that created this I can't apologize for questioning why 23 schools on one corter have empty classrooms and empty space while we are just adding adding adding and having this big
468board meeting tonight because all these babies have to be moved around it's not fair and I don't apologize for pointing out that at patomic view even when I was a principal had 37 kindergarteners and two teachers because she didn't have the space when you have two when you have schools on the west where they've got undercrowl where kids are going outside to a restroom trailers no I don't apologize for that how did we allow that to happen I don't apologize so don't try to roll me under the bus and then finally I don't apologize for saying there are safety concerns at these schools people who have written me and have said we tornado drills and you need to check it out there's not enough room to bring all the kids in for a tornado drill
469they're having tornado drills in the cafeteria and in the library it's just not fair so I will say to you to people on the East it's our turn it's our turn I waited and waited and waited it's our term and so Equity means you got to double double down to fix what's going on on this Eastern side and to the people in lak Ridge I was so concerned about route one that I hadn't thought as deeply about what happens when you've got all this renovation going on so Mr douch is not here but he can get it on video I hope thank you thank you Miss Jesse well said I've got nothing out of that with no further business before this board this meeting is adjourned it fast how dare you s