001good evening um it's March 13th the shendo County school board meeting U we called it order um we're going to begin in close session can I have a uh recommendation for uh meeting in Clos session's not here acknowledge Mr Street's absence oh all right that's um uh Tom street is not here uh he's on his way uh estimated time arrival is 510 so we'll I'll talk about the uh the categories for the Clos session and then moved into close session when he comes here uh we'll just pick him up from that point Cheryl will log him in when he gets here and I've asked Dr Shephard if she'll kind of rearrange the the topic so that uh the first ones won't be or the first one won't be as let's say momentous as the other
002ones so okay Dr sheer yes thank you I recommend that the shanid County School Board convene a closed meeting under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act in order to discuss and consider several Personnel matters involving the assignment appointment promotion performance demotion salary discipline or resignation under Virginia code 22- 3711 814 and to discuss Scholastic records involving the discussion or consideration of admission or disciplinary matters concerning any student of any state school system under under Virginia code 22- 3711 A2 and pursuant to Virginia code 22- 3711 A8 to consult with legal counsel regarding specific legal matters requiring the provision of legal advice by such Council to discuss a specific Personnel matter and under the provisions of Virginia code 22- 3711 a29 to discuss the award of a public contract involving the expenditure of public funds including
003interviews of biters or bids or offers and discussion of the terms or scope of such contract where discussion in an open session would adversely affect the bargaining position or negotiating strategy of the public body thank you Dr shefer U do we have a motion to the effect I move that the sh County School Board convene a closed meeting under the VG Virginia Freedom of Information Act in order to discuss and consider several Personnel matters involving the assignment appointment promotion performance demotion salary discipline and resignation under Virginia code 22- 3711 A14 and to discuss elastic records involving the discussion or consideration of admission or disciplinary matters concerning any student of any state school system under Virginia code 2 2.2 3711 A2 and pursuant to Virginia code 22- 3711 A8 to consult with legal counsel regarding specific
004legal matters involving the provision of legal advice by such councel to discuss a specific Personnel matter and under the provisions of Virginia code 22- 3711 a29 to discuss the award of a public contract involving the expenditure of public funds involving in including interviews of biders or offerers and discussion of the terms or scope of such contract or discussion and an open session would it firstly affect the bargaining position or negotiating strategy of the public body thank you Mr gacha for that motion any second second second by Mr Ricker all those in favor please signify by saying I I any oppos none opposed 5 z uh we will um reconvene in Clos session e e e all right it is um 6:30 wish we had been out earlier but we're doing some important business so thank
005you for being patient and uh thank you for coming here this evening so we're going to um me convene an open session now as I said at 6:30 on this is our March 13th chendo County school board meeting uh and so we would like to uh sorry open so I'd like to have a motion to reconvene an open session move to Recon session thank you Mr U cutshaw second second second by Mr Carino all those those in favor please signify by saying I I I any opposed none uh therefore I'm going to um read the following statement U about our Clos session and then we'll move on the sh NOA County School Board hereby certifies by roll call vote to the best of each member's knowledge only public business matters lawfully Exempted from open meeting
006requirements by Virginia law were discussed in the Clos meeting to which this certification resolution applies and only such public business matters as were identified the motion convening to Clos meeting were heard discussed or considered by the shanan NOA County School Board each member repres uh responds ISO certify one called and Cheryl are you going to call the roll call for us thank you Mr stre ISO certifi M careno ISO certifi Mr gsha I so certify Mr B is so certify Mr Ricker IO certify and Mr B IO certify uh now we're going to have the invocation and the and the pledge thank you very much and I would like to invite Pastor Dale Bowers uh to the invocation for us today thank you first of all I'd like to thank you all for the willingness
007and even your eagerness to serve the students and the citizens of shandro county in this capacity I'm sure that it's a a thankless job at times but we thank you for that I would invite you to pray with me Heavenly Father we thank you for the opportunity to come before the Throne of our God our lord lord we just ask that as this meeting convenes this evening Lord that you would be with the church uh the um the school board members Lord that they would uh seek your face Lord that they would seek your wisdom Lord that they would make the hard decisions Lord that sometimes need to be made Lord we ask that you would bless them we ask that you bless their service bless their uh families as well Lord we pray that
008you would bless those uh students of chandel County Lord Lord will only you know those uh uh the capacity and and so forth of the students of shandel County and the potential Lord that are in these students Lord we thank you for the teachers and the administrators and uh also Lord the custodians and the cooks and and all those Lord that uh make a good education in shandel County possible Lord we thank you for the opportunity to meet uh this evening in Freedom Lord we thank you for this great country in which we serve Lord we thank you for the ability uh the opportunity to make our own choices uh uh as far as schools go here and education goes here in Chanel County Lord we ask your blessings on this uh meeting here to
009even first in Christ's name we pray amen thank you Pastor now join me for the allegiance toag of the United States of America and to the for it stands one nation God indivisible with and justice for all do I have a motion to approve the agenda as it has been presented move to approve the agenda as presented thank you Mr cutshaw second second second by Mrs carono all those in favor of approving the agenda has it as it has been presented please signify by saying I I any opposed none opposed and that's us to this wonderful time of the evening for recognition so Dr Shephard lead us through this thank you shanadoa County Public School students from strawsburg Central Stonewall Jackson high schools signal knv Peter millberg and North Fork Middle Schools auditioned and were
010selected to perform in the all district 14 choir orchestra and band um tonight I would like to recognize um Miss Wendy witford northp band and Orchestra Andre susman from Stonewall Jackson course director Josephine Gardner Peter mberg Orchestra and chorus teacher Matt Morosco Peter mberg man uh Band guitar and music teacher Rebecca Cooper Central choir director Ashley Spencer signal knob Orchestra teacher Chris zuba sigal Middle School teacher and regrets from um kylen Robinson who cannot attend due to um practicing for the strawsburg High School Musical fidd on the roof which will be held this weekend she wanted to me to give a plug for everyone here to go see the filler on the roof so um if those um uh band and chorus and um Orchestra teachers will come up um so you can introduce or
011talk about your students please [Applause] good evening guess I'm elected to speak so um we on behalf of the teachers of sheno county music we are very thankful for this opportunity and also that you recognizing our students who have achieved this great thing I did have two students from Central High School who wanted to share with you more about their experience so I'd like to call forth Anna rittenau and brayon lsor good evening Dr Shephard Mr chair and members of the board my name is Anna rittenau and I am a sophomore at Central High School I speak on behalf of us all when I say that we are very proud to have represented Shen andoa County Public Schools at the district 14 honor choirs this February this event is an opportunity for young musicians to
012learn new music meet new people and work with guest conductors it All Began back in November when each of us submitted our auditions each audition consisted of a prepared piece as well as a site reading pie piece which is four measures of music that we are given 30 seconds to look at before performing out of 286 auditions throughout the district only 10 people from each voice part per choir are selected to attend the two-day event unfortunately out of an abundance of caution our concert was cancelled this year due to inclement weather but we didn't see this as a major blow but rather a reason to work harder and we recorded our entire concert on day one although it was not the original plan we all made the most of our time working amongst the best
013young musicians in our great District we would like to sincerely thank the school system for generously funding our involvement and supporting our involvement in this event we would also like to thank you for allowing the morning choir and band classes to meet before school every morning without this opportunity many of us would not be standing here before you today each of us had an amazing experience at the district 14 choir this year and we can't wait to audition again next year thank you hello members of the board I am Brayson Windsor a freshman from Central High School District choir is a memorable experience that celebrates The Talented singers who audition to make it to the event this is important to me because it allows me to audition and know what my true Talent is and
014what I should work on I have been to District choir twice before in middle school and it was a very very memorable experience getting to see and perform in a real Auditorium and see where I'm going to be performing the high school experience is so much more fun the memories I made this year at District choir while cut short are always going to be my favorite I will always remember the bus rides always being fun then getting to meet new people when I walk into my practice room when then we then meet our director and get started getting to sing with some of the best singers in the district is just like my favorite I really think that this event is good for our program because it allows all of our singers to get a
015taste of what it will be to be what it's like to be in a more experienced choir thank you good evening thank you so much for everything you do for our community I'm Ash Spencer Orchestra director at signal knob middle school and I can attest to the amazing experience that these students had at all district um we are incredibly proud of the accomplishments of our talented strawberg musicians especially our ASP aspiring Middle School performers this evening uh they had the opportunity um to prepare a piece and um and also experience a live audition uh which is unique to this particular opportunity and also had the opportunity to perform um as part of being accepted on a professional Auditorium stage uh with March being music in our schools month we'd like to thank our amazing Community
016for their support and look forward to the continued growth and development of our Performing Arts programs and facilities in shanoa County Bravo students and thank you again thank you Dr Shephard and school board thank you again for having us and I'll keep it brief because I think that we would all share a lot of the same sentiments that were shared already but I have the pleasure of representing St Jackson high school students and North for middle school students and I will reiterate that I think District choir and District events in general are a huge Boon to our students um partially as they get to experience that audition experience and go through something that's a little bit bit difficult or a little bit challenging for them to make it into and also get an experience where
017they can share with other musicians who've gone through that little bit of a challenge to make it there and really it takes their musicianship to the next level um so thank you all again for continuing to support music in our schools and for uh the continued support of this event thank you so if all of the students will come forward we're going to try this I don't know how successful will be but to get a picture right here in this space yeah Mr TR and the advis we are the ADV I don't know I'm can I hold up can I hold up like she's Simba yeah just yeah just to the they don't want to be in our picture yeah Adella you need to go up there count three one two one two three jeez
018awesome stay still for just a minute I see all of congratulations so much and thank you thank you thank you [Applause] it's good to see you keep trying to conratulations thank you guys thank you be all right we're going to continue time has U come for school board um public comments and so um we have provided a signning sheet for you and we have uh four seven folks signed up so let me uh read a little bit about how we conduct this and then we'll get started on hearing your comments to us the sheno County School Board welcomes public comment from Shino County residents parents or Guardians as well as some current students and employees of Shino County Public Schools school board members do not respond to public comments during the meeting or hearing each
019speaker speaker may speak up to 3 minutes the Board General allows up to 30 minutes for public comments we should have no problem with that tonight um uh on agenda and non-agenda items at the beginning of the meeting um all comments should address a matter related to Sho County Public Schools complaints regarding division employees should be directed to the school principal or an appropriate School Division officier School Board expects that each speaker will be courteous modeling for our students how one can respectfully disagree with other views speakers will address their in comments to the entire school board and to one not to one individual School Board member to the super to a staff member nor to the audience as speakers will not engage in personal attacks uh speakers will sign up in the order in
020which they have uh signed sign up sheet um and um have ascertained that the speakers are indeed u in here today as their role as um stakeholders in our County um so with that having been um stated I'm going to ask Alinda Thomas fer and she would uh take the microphone thank you uh first I'd like to thank you for your vote last month on not passing the amendment to the policy on Dignity privacy and respect for All shanono County students passing that change would have gutted the intent of that policy so thank you for not passing now that speak about policy INB I'm teaching about controversial issues I have two recommendations here one is I do support the idea of the change that you have proposed but I do think you should add teachers
021to that list of the of the uh of the people who are listed on there most do not have any contact with students and teachers are the most likely person that a students going to reach out to I do think you should remove the change that you passed in December about prohibiting the teaching of gender identity it serves no purpose thank you for your time and consideration and again thank you for your vote last month Patricia BOS hi thanks for having um uh this public meeting so that people could and tell you what they think um it says that um we would have information and as far as I can tell nobody's given us any information but I came in the door and read this thing and it said that um one of the policies
022you were going to modify was the issue of teaching about controversial issues and so I asked Dr Hein Garden what are the controversial issues and apparently it's something about The Fad that the kids have going on where they're um putting their bodies under the surgeon's knife to accomplish some fad that they've got and to tell you the truth when I went to school we learned reading in English and history and religion and conscience and morals of things like that but I don't remember and I'm absolutely positive if I would that I would remember that nobody did any teaching about anything medical that we might do with our bodies and I just think um fads that have to do with schools or what kind of pants the boys wear make a whole lot more sense and
023I don't think the teachers ever mentioned them either so I want to tell you that and uh I'm glad we have musicians and I'm wondering about shop class I know we used to have shop class because they used to let people go down to the shop in the winter time and and use the machinery and I've heard that we're not doing shop class anymore which is really bad because if that's true we need mechanics my husband was a mechanic and and I enjoyed going to the shop class and working on the planer Joiner and learning how to use the tools so if we're not doing shop class I think we should I just paid nearly $400 to someone come from Timberville and fix the switch on my stove in the kitchen these are good jobs
024we should encourage them and basically that's it I don't think the teachers should be involved in the medical issues for the children I think that's things that they should talk about at home with their parents not with their teachers thank you and one King some peeps with me I didn't even know it was going to happen Pleasant surprise just you two even old sister she might be a little shy let me get my glasses school board members Dr Shepard and the residents of shando County I'm here tonight to be the voice for the 2556 students that currently attend our three elementary schools here in the county and all the staff that provide daily support for them 2,556 students which equates to 45% of our total student population if they had the ability to drive and
025reach this microphone I believe they would have been here tonight and I got four of them to tell you that we need you to make a crucial decision that will impact the future of our students and staff in the Journey of success document on page 11 the School division's fifth goal is to have high quality and adequate facilities and learning environments every day at Sandy Hook you will see students receiving instruction in the cafeteria before lunch or around tables and desk in our hallways throughout the building for a variety of instructional interventions and for one toone testing why is this happening it's because we are simply out of space our active hallways are neither high quality nor adequate spaces for our students to learn so if this is truly the goal of our district there
026should be no question as to what needs to come first a new Elementary School the safety concerns that were revealed in previous meetings were either miss or ignored by rrmm architects who were paid over $300,000 for their facilities assessment that apparently didn't include air quality tests and were done over the summer when our buildings were empty which seems purposeful to achieve a desired a desired outcome that would benefit their company why should any one of us trust their assessment and the future needs of our staff and students when several safety issues were overlooked to promote a $60 million project over 41 million project houses are being built hundreds are approved and our schools are not prepared for the additional growth that is coming the needs of our students especially at the elementary level are increasing
027every year and the space needed to adequately meet those needs are no no longer exist at least at Sandy Hook I have pamphlets here for Laurel Ridge Community College here for you to keep our schools have partnered with them for over a decade with dual enrollment programs has anyone reached out to them to see about a vocational dual enrollment partnership a phone call may just save our taxpayers $6 million for educational success of our student I'm asking for the members of the board to select option C for the prioritized longterm facilities plan thank you thank you Rebecca trout good evening just like last meeting I have a lot to say so I have to go fast so let's just get to it Sandy Hook is already over capacity when four resource special education teachers are
028forced to share one room and still expected to provide specialized instruction testing accommodations IE classes and behavioral and educational support to all of the students on their case loads the school is already over capacity when those same sped teachers as well as support staff are forced to provide services to teach students like for IE in the cafeteria and hallway because there's nowhere else for them to go the school is over capacity Sandy Hook desperately needs more sped staff in order to appropriately serve and support our sped students even if the school were to hire another sped teacher there is nowhere for them to serve the students the school is already over capacity there are four reading specialist positions only two of which are filled this year and those two are forced to share one room
029if the other two reading specialist positions are filled next year there is no other room to put them in the school is already over capacity there is talk about adding another preschool class there are no empty classrooms where are they going to put them the school is already over capacity there are new houses being built in schurg as we speak the families moving to those homes will have children that will have to attend school how will the school accommodate all of the children that are moving in and will be attending Sandy Hook the school is already over capacity Sandy Hook no longer has a break room teachers and support staff spend a majority of their day in the classroom they deserve a place where they can go to take a break during the day store
030their lunch and heat up their food but there is no teacher break room the school is over capacity certain staff have nowhere to eat for lunch they often have to eat in the hallway a lot of times some staff don't even get a lunch break because they are pulled or have to provide coverage outside of their asign daily tasks the school is over capacity and understaffed instructional assistants have nowhere put their personal belongings they don't have they don't have a room I've watched them have staff meetings in the hallway during instructional times because they have no room to go to the school is over capacity the staff don't have a work room there are boxes of paper supplies and resources in the hallway there is a poster maker cutting machine and cop you're in the
031hallway because there is no room the teachers don't have a work room to use the machines and complete projects for their classrooms the school is over capacity on dayto days the meetings are held in the gate room when those meetings occur the gate students don't get p and worked with because their room is being used for a different purpose and there is nowhere else for them to go the school is over capacity the school is currently unable to appropriately serve our most vulnerable students due to lack of space and lack of Staff our children deserve a school that is safe and accommodates all of our students and services all of in all of their needs for regulations please do the right thing and give these students like these and our amazing teachers and support staff
032a new safe school that appropriately serves our current and future students and when you do please make sure the playgrounds are ada8 compliant because the current playgrounds at Sandy Hook are not thank you Shane wallard good evening I'm Shane Waller um I have two children at Sandy Hook I live in shraberg uh I have a third one that'll be there shortly um first I want to say thank you kudos to everyone for tackling this issue of the Capital Improvements in the needed maintenance for the schools um obviously it's a difficult issue it's a challenging issue and and thank you for shedding light on it and bringing it to everyone's attention and tackling it um one thing that I want to point out is what this budget does and these improvements do is it helps with
033something that we struggle with which is teacher retention um we know that that's an issue there's a high turnover rate at the schools um the county uh arguably the pay rate for the teachers lags a little bit and then when you combine it with facilities that are maxed out it provides just a really it invites a poor work environment um as we heard teachers are eating their lunches in the hallway there's no teacher Lounge they're forced to have student interactions out in put spaces that aren't the the best and most conducive to learning it makes it a difficult place I'm sure for the teachers I'm not a teacher but I can only imagine it makes it a more challenging place a more challenging work environment and so by providing these Capital Improvements we're telling our
034teachers we want to support you we're doing what we can we're trying to make things better for not only our teachers but also our students the other thing I want to address is the the budget does provide a modest uh cost of living adjustment for the teachers and is proposing a sipen uh for special ed teachers because I know that that in the hopes we will try to retain um some more of those teachers because we have all the Physicians that were having hards I'm filling um I I want to applaud everyone for for putting that in there um making a mistake our teachers don't get paid enough they need to be paid more um but this at least demonstrates that there is a commitment to do what we can to pay them more um
035and so thank you for that I hope that you'll pass the uh both the the budget and the Capital Improvements plan thank you thank you cara mosic did go that yes you did my name is Cara mosic I also live in strawberg my spouse was speaking I a parent to two children in the school a kindergartener and a second grader and my daughter will be in school in a couple years um as as I spoke before at the meeting I have volunteered in the school I've seen the commitment and the care that the teachers and the staff are providing to our students and I applaud that and they're doing a great job I have also witnessed the impacts that they the teachers and staff and our students face due to the lagging major maintenance um
036at San hook and we can do better we can do better for our students and we can do better for the staff with the school exceeding capacity and having exceeded capacity this is an issue that needs to be addressed now it's stretched to the max um I talked about this last time but my kids get specials once a month maybe twice they're eating lunch in the morning the drop off and the pickup is just extremely dangerous at Sandy Hook um many studies and I was reading a bunch of studies today about this but many studies on facility improvements and also honestly just common sense tells us that improving the physical uh facilities of the school will help lead to increased attendance by our students it will maximize teacher Effectiveness it will increase student engagement it
037will also provide more opportunities for enrichment for our students and most importantly reduce the health and safety risks that are on a daily basis that are posed by this overcrowding and so I thank you board for considering this issue I encourage you to address this now and not put push this into the future and please vote in favor of prioritizing our elementary students well-being and budget for these long overdue Capital Improvements to Sandy Hook thank you thank you Shelby Gates hi I actually signed that paper not realizing I was signing up to talk but as I sit there as I sit there I've decided that I've come to the bike um I am a new teacher here at shindo County I'm at Sandy Hook I'm a special education teacher I've been a special education teacher
038for 15 years in a private sector and now I'm here and I am loving it but I am not loving being a roommate again I have had to share an office slcl classroom with three other co-workers and we all have to pull out every day multiple times we have testing small group testing one-on-one testing and I walk in to complete my lesson for the day and the room's full and so then now I have to scatter around trying to figure out how I was going to get my materials for my day and how I was going to get the kids to another place that might not be full uh to conduct my lesson that day um so that has been stressful for us um the students um like I said I'm working with the sped
039students so they're already a little bit hard to transition so if I'm transitioning them to our classroom finding that the classroom is full now I'm having to go through and sit in a sunken stage with my children that suffer many days with ADHD so you're trying to conduct a class maybe even in sight words with pictures but they're like oh wait oh who's that hey you know it doesn't get what do we get done what kind of learning am I accomplishing at that point so I like I said came in signed that paper by accident wasn't going to talk but then decided I think I'm going to jump on this because I am being affected um and the young woman that stood here she doesn't work in the school as a teacher but her and
040I have actually come face to face during one of those incidents I walked in and she was subbing I'm like oh you're a rock star but this is my time she's like no it's not and so then we had to figure it out I'm emotional so I stood in the hall crying I'm like what am I going to do but we worked it out and we worked through it but we shouldn't have to do that we're a huge County and I know we all love these guys and I know that I love teaching and I love showing up for those kids every day but we need more room we do and she was saying we need more sped student or teachers where are we gonna go I plan on coming back next year and hopefully
041the year after that and year after that my kids have gone school here you are my teacher for government I went to school here and I plan on sticking around so thank you for your time thank you thank you that uh concludes the um public comments and so going move into um the consent agenda now and so we have a a motion to approve the uh following consent agenda items 3.1 through 3.9 I move to approve the consent agenda thank you Mr Rickard a second second second by Mr Street to approve the consent agenda as it's been presented all what in favor please signify by saying I I who oppos none oppose passes 60 and now we'll move into informational agenda and uh Southwest food Excellence Dr Huard you gonna kick this off yes chairman
042Marlo members of the board Dr Sheard thank you for a chance to chat for a few minutes about our food service um uh service that that we entered into in 2022 and we have our whole team here in the back that um I'm going to ask to come up here in just a few minutes one of them to uh share some information but I just wanted to say you know as we as we start into the fourth year of of a 5-year um potential contract onee um renewals and this will be our this next year will be our fourth year I felt it was important to kind of make sure um that SF had a chance to kind of show you who they are and what they've done for the school system and what some
043of the things that they're planning to do for for the kids um in in the school system so I'm going to ask M Fred Ellis if he would please come up um I got to meet Fred a few years ago and he's been a delight to work with from Southwest food Excellence so thank you very much for being here FR and Lauren mayor Lauren is um are on in in the um here in the district on site manager um Fred travels but uh Lauren is here every day overseeing food service so thank you all very much for being here and and sharing some of the cool things that we got going in the food service thank you thank you Dr try talk good this um so as you just said my name is Fred Ellis
044I'm the senior director of operations for SF so I have actually cover uh basically the east side of the state from Mississippi River uh East Virginia is one of my areas we also have Tim Wilson who's one of our district managers he's in the Carolinas and Tennessee Al lawren she's also got two of her onsight team here I'll let her introduce that good evening Dr Shephard and board members um I would like to introduce Jamie tomman she's with SF and she's our assistant general manager here in shanor county and also Laura pz she is the district liaison so she's our food service coordinator coordinating specialist for nutrition services sorry we're still working out her title as we speak but thank you for having us this evening so as Dr H mentioned uh a couple years
045back we had the opportunity to come in and partner with the school district on the Food Service program prior to that it was done in house as most of you know over the years uh contract and food service has become a big thing and so uh the district uh the division took a chance and said hey we're going to try this out um and see what we can do and I'm very proud to say I was part of that opening more was part we work side by side to make that happen um everybody really embraced it and that was a good thing and we've seen the success of been able to embrace that so I'll talk a little bit about SF as a company and then we'll talk a little bit about the district specifically
046um we were founded in 2004 so we're just going into our 2 uh 21st year um our CEO is a chef and the only thing we do is K12 food service we do not do hospitals or Correctional Facilities or any of those things so we wake up every day and all we think about is how do we serve as students and how do we do it better um so our four pillars food first obviously with the CEO that's a chef everything is foled around our food and what we provide um customized program for the really the reason that's really important for us is we're based out of Arizona but the food that we serve in Arizona isn't the same thing we're going to serve here and so when we look at our programs all across
047the country we customize them to the geographic area to the demographic of the students to make sure that they're participating in our program because it's something that they want and that they desire um Innovation being in our DNA that's something we have to continue to do we have to continue to innovate even for things not necessarily from a culinary standpoint but how the students get their food how the students um are able to access different social media things within the the Food Service program such as our Nutri SLICE program and let them see different nutritional facts about the food that they're uh going to partake of so all of those things we have to continue to innovate and then the leadership um I know I'm very passionate I've been doing this for 22 years uh
048Serv K to our students and I'm very passionate about it and the team here that we have that's why I want to make sure they were recognized cuz that's where the work is really done right I consider myself overhead but the ladies and gentlemen that are out in the cafeteria serving those students they're very very passionate about what they do and that's why I enjoy this so in the state of Virginia we do have three districts so you understand you're not alone out here uh we have Spotsylvania which we're going into our second year there um this is our first year we'll be starting our second year there and then Grow Old City Public Schools which we actually partnered with at the same time so that gave us an opportunity to kind of uh work
049with each other as we open these uh these divisions here in Virginia the sign of strong program and successful program is students eating right and the reason I wanted to show this this graph is if you go all the way back and you look at um I don't know it's hard to see it it's kind of an eye chart but back in 1718 and even up through through Co uh students were participating but not at the level they are now and that's how we judge our success if we have more students coming in and eating breakfast eating lunch uh participating alart program snack programs all of those things that's how we can judge that success and so we're seeing more and more students participate in the program and I believe we served over a million
050meals close it close got right there try to get over that million Mark of of meals but that's a huge accomplishment uh for the students cuz we know if they're getting a good nutritious meal they're going to perform better in the classroom and that's our goal is to continue to get them to uh again that's our promise we want every student to be excited about eating that school um we've did do marketing and branding in the school so that the students have a different feel and it takes away from kind of that Institution cafeteria uh bill that you had you know I know when I was little that's what it felt like um so we try to even take away from that we do promotions taste testing I'll talk a little bit about those things
051as well some mentioned increase student participation that's really about that customized program and focusing on the food giving the students here exactly what they want so they will participate uh we work with all of the staff here they know what the students like to eat and so they help Lauren and her team create those menus so that the students then again have a voice and that they're heard when it comes to uh what they get to have in the cafeteria and then doing the taste test and events and special programs students are are it's a little interested if you go into a cafeteria lot of times the student get let's say a slice of pizza they'll get that every day of the year if they can right because they don't want to take if that's
052their lunch for the day they don't want to take a chance trying something different right because if they don't like it then what do they do right but when we do these taste tests that gives an opportunity to try something different so they know when it comes on the menu that they'll give to oh yeah I did try that I like that I'm going to have that today and I'm going to move away from my my pizza that I usually get or something of that nature so that's why we want to do that to make sure that uh they're willing to try something different as well as to ensure that uh you know again they have a voice if it's something they don't like we won't put it on the menu as much as we
053may like it but if they're not going to eat it we don't want that they do um we increased the number of options over the years for students so that they have more choices uh in the cafeteria we know that that's very important not everybody's going to like the same thing some students like salads some students like pastas so we've increased those options for them so that more students will participate and have more choices uh I talked about the cafeteria signage we did that and all the schools uh went in and refreshed and and next year but the following year when this we go through this process again we've got a lot of new marketing that we will bring into those schools and and do um something a little different to kind of change it
054up and then continue to see that strong participation across the board and more students eating uh every day some of our different programs that uh we service outside of the classroom on the nutritional education side our ring Chef is a huge event that's where one of our culinary experts come in that get group of students and they actually do some cooking with those students then those are things that can make uh you know smoothies or different things that those students can then take home with those recipes to be able to uh try those things at home they get a certificate that says they participated in it they get a little chef hat to put on so very very neat for the students and they really enjoy that um our Farmers Market program that's an opportunity
055to give students just some different fruits and vegetables that they haven't had an opportunity to maybe try things like dragon fruit star fruit those are typically what they're going to have at home right they're going to have apples and oranges bananas Etc but being able to try some of those different things that they may not have um we're pil into some plant-based products for students that may be looking at uh having a vegetarian diet so that's something that's new and Innovative that we're bringing um and then just doing nutrition classes and I talked again about the taste testing events and making sure the students have a chance to taste some of those items this here is just a quick snapshot talked about uh the ren Chev and some of those events the thing you see
056there on the rag of strawberries that's part of our Harvest of the month every month we have a special fruit or vegetable that we highlight the benefits of it the health benefits the nutrition where it comes from how it's served so that gives students a little bit of educational engagement into the Food Service program and then those are just our Cadence for when we like to do things have cafeteria classroom educ ation our farmers markets doing those annually and then the Rog and Chef events we like to do twice a year some of the things that we're planning on doing or the team here is planning on doing as we move forward partnering with the FFA program um to start harvesting some local foods and then utilizing those as part of those farmers markets and
057part of those rolling Chef events that we're doing um we're going to be doing another Roan Chef here in coming up in April so open invitation for you to come and see it it really is a fun event and the students get really engaged and enjoy that so um absolutely will'll get that information to you um and then collaborating with the tri uh triplet Tech uh to talk about a food truck program that's one of those Innovative things that we know food truck fairs and all of those things are happening so if we have the opportunity to bring a food truck here to the county we'd like to do that not only do use that the school but whether there's community events and different things where we would be able to do that and we've
058got settled of we've actually got one down in uh Roll Oak City Public Schools right now that we use in a different lot of different locations and it's customized for the school district so that they uh uh it's not an sfv food truck it has um it's got the Star City Eats and the big Roto star on the side of it and everything so it's part of the community down there then you know a picture says amoun some words right but just these are just some of the pictures from around around the division there's the pizzas that they make some different parfet and food cups the team that we have out in the out in the schools some Halloween decor down there in the the center so just a chance to see some of the
059stuff that's happening out there some different foods and vegetables our our power pack program that we do um so just super excited that we we've got this partnership um I think as we continue to move forward we'll continue to work with Dr High Gardner on things that we can continue to do to make the program even more successful oh yeah those are the little signs that they make things they love the cafeteria workers I'm open to any questions that you may have so um I think those of us have seen this come from the beginning are delighting uh with the way it has taken root um that having been said there's always room for improvement we uh take special delight in our agricultural base here in sheno county and so as much as we can
060you know redouble our efforts to work with FFA uh to double our pleasure fun uh that's good um I think the new push in make America healthy again is a good concept uh it's tough for you guys to make sure everything is palatable when we safy for the kids at the same time to challenge better nutrition habits and so forth it's tough nut to crack because I'm not asking you to serve unsavory food but um I think we any progress we can make in improving that kind of balance nutrition and selling it with your um posters or with the the chef visits or whatever uh I'm personally would um invite you to do so I mean it'll be leaning forward a little bit more uh taking a few more chances whatever but I I think
061the payoff for our kids would be uh worth it and and we would understand I think if you were to um you know have a little you know try trying to decide exactly where that break even point between the kid who eats the pizza every day and and and trying to uh trying to inculcate a little bit more nutritional discipline understanding or whatever with with with the kids would be great so very delighted with what has happened but It's A Brave New World and do we not have to keep kind of U improving on it so so thank you for the presentation question um so you mentioned that you do the health fairs and the get fit with s s SF um and the nutrition classes are you doing that currently already here in shanor
062county or is that something that we could see coming over um because one of the things that that I'm concerned about um we do a lot of the mental health and and uh children and we understand that a lot of it has to do with the kids are not eating the right things or the kids are not exercising enough so um I think one of the things that I would like to see more is doing that Outreach to the kids even from a very young age that would teach them you know what's nutritional and also you know how to get fit and what you know staying active at all times is that something that we're doing already or is that something that we're going to see coming coming that is something that is a work
063in progress that you will see coming kind of something is it new to to get fit keep is it going to be like an app or so it' be it' be like nutrition education that we can actually go into the classroom and do and talk about most of the stuff that we've been doing is stuff that you see in the cafeteria like with the Harvest of the month and how strawberry is going to pit you or certain things like that um but moving more into the classroom one of the downfall because I can say is here is we don't have a restor dietician on staff we have Regional ones but we don't have one on staff a lot of our school districts have them on staff so you can execute a lot more of those
064you know nutrition education type things in the classroom but I'll work with Laura we've got some down in some of our other locations in Virginia I I'll make sure we work with Laura to get them up here for some support in that area that would be great if you can keep me posted that' be great keep us posted I've heard issues I know your audience is picky um but of course our our school lunches are spread out because of the number of students in the school and we may start the day with two or three different options but as it gets later in the day those later classes it's been reported to us that there may only be one option by the time they make it to the cafeteria is there anything we can do
065to improve that without wasting a lot of food yeah and that that's the tricky part is to sure that you don't waste but we would definitely work on that if there's some specific locations uh where you're hearing that's happening just let us know and that's something we'll absolutely address I want every student to have every choice and I know that that means that we're going to have a little bit of waste but that's a sacrifice that I and our company are willing to make just to to ensure the students get that choice I don't if we have choices in the same and the student doesn't get it then it's not working for what we want so absolutely just letting us know is enough and we'll be able to work through that with those different locations
066great thank you um this is definitely a topic I'm interested in when it comes to food um and I think you have a big challenge because back when I went through school it's kind of more or less on the average you just you would eat what was what put in front of you and and I was that person that you know they would if if if ter Myers hied pridor didn't want your peas they just pass it down to me you know it just automatically came my way so but I think I kind of feel you know today I see it more it's probably more of a challengeing I'd like to um with my job position my my personal job has shifted a little bit and it gives me the opportunity to be available during
067the day so I plan to stop in during the day normally I would be at work um and I have to admit some of the pictures I saw here you know it looked very those salads I was like oh wow um and and so I understand it's probably challenging and I'm big about you know eating healthy the the I saw the pictures with the fruits and the things and and uh so that is um um very impressive on back there we go I like that picture um and you know and I've always remembered years and years years ago you know pizzas can be healthy um is you know yeah when you go to um your local pizza joint I don't want get anybody in trouble but a che a four cheese pizza and I'm a
068I grew up on a dairy farm and and I support cheese but let's let's be realistic you know um so you know so ice ice cream is also a dairy product too but let's be realistic so you know a pizza can be healthy with the with the vegetables on it and the protein meat you know um in a certain if the bread is a certain way and so um so you see do you all see it challenging let's face it you know broccoli um just playing broccoli but you know if you make it a pealing with a little cheese and seasoning do you all see it a challenge is getting students to eat vegetables it's it's always going to be a challenge but as I mentioned our CEO is a chef and we have a
069team of culinary experts that put these recipes together and so they are proven and tasted and that's what grows that participation where students will participate I mean that pizza right there I'll put up against any local pizza place you have and that's a whole grain dome right I don't advertise that that's a whole grain Dome because students may have a different perception of it but those things all meet those nutritional guidelines that the US puts for and we just work diligently to make it happen there's certain spices that we can use that don't have any type of you know they don't have nutritional value to them but they're not bad for you but it'll help with the flavor profile some of those things so I'm not a culinary expert I'm an operations guy but our
070culinary team does work very hard and while it may be challenging theyve came a long way in terms of uh the ability to come up with different recipes we have over 3,000 recipes in our database uh that all meet student nutrition guidelines you all cuz let's face it um you know the big thing on you know is is processed foods is not very healthy you all try to stay away from processed foods as much as possible um yeah so if you can if you see up in the right hand corner those that's uh fresh vegetables and as long as we're giving our students the ranch ranch BS with them they eat them do they they do as long as we have the condiments they will what school am I going to find that salad at
071that's Peter mberg really yes Peter mberg I'll be making the visit um so we offer Sal fresh salads and a fresh cold sandwich every day on our kind of side if you would okay um back to the what is what it might not be possible but is there any possibilities if there are Local Food suppliers do you all work with them is it not enough to is it Ys demand too much or is there any possibility with local farmers um or is that not it's it's not so much demand sometimes it just comes down to liability um for example when you know gets sick and something happens where does it come from and all of that stuff most of the liability of the larger companies you get away from when you're dealing with somebody local
072sometimes they don't have the liability insurance is to be able to support somewhere that's a public type restaurant I guess you could call it right a public service they can sell to a place but then that place has to put it into all those different protocols where we wouldn't be able to do that so we can work with some things but for the most part it's it's going to be from a larger distributor that distributor however may be purchasing from that local Farm but it's going we're not purching it directly from that okay all right um interesting okay thank you really appreciate the presentation thank you all for for being here appreciate it very much and and before we close on this topic just really fast I I just want to give a shout out
073to all of our food service staff workers in the kitens those ladies and and some gentlemen do amazing job every day of putting these together and they'll do all the smile on her face and um they're they're great group of people um so I just wanted to make sure to mention them and thank them thank you Dr Shephard you're getting ready to disc the budget and the capital Improvement plan a couple of minor topics yes two of my favorite topics so this is uh tonight will be a recap there's maybe one slide or two slides with new information but it's a recap of what we've been talking about since October so we'll go ahead and get started um just a um reminder on March the 17th we will meet with the Board of Supervisors to
074present our budget and then on March 18th the Board of Supervisors will have a work session to set their advertised tax rate on April 15th the um Board of Supervisors will adopt the tax rate and budget and then on April 28th uh the school board will have their final budget adoption tonight we are um recommending that you approve one of our budget proposals so just um highlighting our budget priorities this year fall under academic achievement and growth recruit support and retain enthusiastic professionals and high quality and adequate facilities and learning environments this slide highlights the information on um the new positions that we are requesting some of these positions are mandated by our standards of quality or standards of accreditation some of the positions were um Grant funded for a year or part of a
075year and then at the very bottom of the slide is the new Aviation program that we would like to introduce at triplet Tech um with a halftime Aviation teacher and just as as a reminder um this is budget neutral for shanid County for this year as we are have a public private partnership that will pay the $200,000 for the equipment and also pay for the first year salary of the teacher we have um been talking about our Capital Improvement plan for the last several months and in that plan we have about 6.5 million plus some additional funds but um 6.5 million in capital projects inflation of increased service cost uh this is student enrollment at Peter mberg has increased so we need to increase their their money um in their fund uh inflation of and
076cost of materials at triplet Tech and then software that um to run our bus cameras the last goal was recruit support and retain enthusiastic professionals I believe and um the recommendation is to adjust the bus driver salary scale to align the base hourly rate with the increased contract hours and then also regrade the our athletic directors dual enrollment stien of 27,000 to um give a stien to encourage uh teachers to either get their dual enrollment certification or to remain dual enroll certified teachers um to teach our students so that our students can get dual enroll courses at high school and then our compensation request is a step Plus cost of a 2% cost of living adjustment or a 3.16 cost of living adjustment one or the other and then um remember we talked about health
077insurance last month our allocation for health insurance um we budgeted for a 12% increase our increase was less than 10% and um we also wanted to increase the division contribution for health insurance so that our employee plus family pays less for their premium I want to point out um just so as um when we move to the action agenda that um please remember that the stiens that were proposed for the special ed the counselors and the longevity stien aren't included in our base budget so if any of those um stiens um you would like to see in the budget we will need to include those in there whenever we move to the action agenda so in your budget book you will remember that uh we had our expenditures were about7 $7 million we've had some
078adjustments since that time when we published the budget book our health insurance increase actually decreased from 12% uh to 99.4% so that was a savings of 161,000 uh we adjusted some Grant budgets in our fund two which was a little less than 10,000 and then adjustments for option C which is the option that is recommended for the long range U facility plan which puts uh the elementary school in triplet Tech being um completed first and that was about 1.6 million and then um the county has asked us to include cyber security funding um in the amount of 57,000 and that's in fund six that's that's an entirely a county um funded um fund and so our you know our request is for $109 million budget so scroll forward a little bit and you will notice
079um there's a new number here originally we were requesting 1.27 n million that request has decreased because of the new information that we have and that request is now 1,123 so a little less than about about $150,000 decrease our Capital um fund three we're requesting $1 million but remember $3.6 million of that is for some type of design so whether it's you know a triplet Tech architectural design whether it's for triplet Tech or a new elementary school um that that 3.6 of that is um is design costs and then County technology funding you will notice that that increased and that's due to those um those funds that's been requested by uh the county and the county for uh cyber security stuff that's a real technical word there stop so and I just want you to
080remember at this point that the we do not know how much money we are getting um from the state if we um the general assembly concluded a couple of weeks ago and in their budget um they had approved approximately $1.2 million in addition to what we anticipated that we were going to receive from the state we likely will not know what the state is going to fund us until later in the month um the governor will either approve or send it back to the general assembly around March the 24th and then um if it gets sent back to the general assembly then it it'll be a a month or two before we know exactly what we're getting from the state but um the what we know from um what we've read about what the general
081assembly approved it was about 102 um million dollar in addition to what we had anticipated got a question M um you were talking about the plans for the new Elementary School in the new triplet Tech are we still requesting that carry forward money that we return back for that yes so um Miss Campbell will talk about that at our April meeting so she will have a presentation either her and the Auditors or she will have a presentation on our carry for funds um for at the April meeting we'll have more information thank you great question any other questions before we move toward CIP so here are the three long-term facilities here is option A a no this is option C this is a recommended option which has my recommended option um and it has the
082elementary school and triplet Tech um on the same year and then it has um the elementary schools listed first the transportation and maintenance facility um in the next category of of um phase two and then phase three is our high schools and phase four is our um middle schools now we can't forget that that the three schools that had the highest need for renovations were triplet Tech our maintenance facility and our transportation facility so there is some need for some serious work at all three of those facilities whether it's um inadequate power or um windows that have broken and and haven't been able to be replaced because um of issues with them so question MH um you've got Ashby Lee up there above ww Robinson but if we build that new Elementary School wasn't the
083idea to move some students from Sandy Hook and from ww Robinson to do the renovations to those two schools so all of these details can be worked out whenever we decide what we're going to do but as soon as we as soon as we adopt what we're going to do first um you know is it is it a new Elementary School is it a new or renovated triplet Tech then we can actually work out the details because there are so many plans or so many scenarios that could happen if we built a new elementary school what it would look like and and where the students would come from and you know would we move three grades first and then you know and then move the other like ww Robinson students next or you know it
084just there are so many options that we have that we would have to decide what that would look like to move forward so you know this is just this is a a long-term facility plan that will likely get changed every year for the next um 22 years thank you so our draft capital projects um these are the things that you have seen since probably November and December um we have added a few things let me look at my notes we have added the uh lvt um tile we've updated a few estimates like our um estimate for roofing at ww Robinson went up a little bit um we just scroll through these just to just to remind you what's on here so the total for maintenance was $9.4 Million but you can look over to the
085right and you'll see that um urgent was $2 million and you know in the past what the board of supervisor at least last year what the Board of Supervisors maybe the last two years what the Board of Supervisors funded was our urgent project so then we go to Transportation here and you'll notice that urgent is 1.3 million ion and then we scroll to Athletics and so there at the bottom of this slide is our total capital projects so our total is 11.5 million but again that includes the um the design for some type of architectural design and then um our urgent is $3.5 million so be happy to answer any questions that you would have on our budget which is um going to be uh recommended for approval later this evening all right thank you
086the rest for the weary yes so um I'm just going to highlight the school board Norms um attached to the agenda item or the current School Board Norms along with two draft documents outlining proposed modifications these drafts were initially presented as an informational item on um the February 13th meeting there was an opportunity for discussion at the school board work session on February the 24th and the recommendation for approval is at this evening school board meeting and I know there's an opportunity for um for approval at this meeting I'll move on to um 4.4 which is modified policy INB teaching about controversial issues at to January 9th um school board meeting the board approved amendments to IMB teaching about controversial issues following this a school board member requested a revision to the policy to allow
087School administrators counselors student support Specialists social workers and psychologists to respond to student inquiries about gender and gender identity and age appropriate factual and neutral manner the modification is attached to your uh to this agenda item for your reference we will be um talking about this at the work session on Monday March the 24th and there will be a recommendation for approval schedule for the um April 10th school board meeting um I have a point of order on that one um because we what we have done in the past is we usually have at least one meeting one public meeting with people can come and discuss so if we're not uh talking about that today then I would think that the April meeting would be the one that we would have it informational for everybody
088to talk uh about it and then vote in May at the earliest yeah I thought we voted to discuss this tonight and that's why I held on to what I had at the work session for tonight so I guess I just need some clarification on that because if we are going to be voting on it um um in April then I would like to talk about it and discuss it today and I would have a presentation to give on this the uh now the the way this came about was at our last work session we were in the process of discussing and uh this Carino uh suggested that in order to have u a full discussion we should have uh Tom Street available uh since he had made input and so we uh scheduled that
089discussion for our work session for March the the 24th so there will be full and ample opportunity to discuss during our work session um later this month and then for after that information then then then for for action on or April 10th so it seems to me that the that the um timeline that we've developed was in response to your recommendation and the board uh as a matter of fact concurred uh in a consensus way and so there was a unanimous decision to move ahead with that timeline I guess it was a miscommunication because I was under the impression that the um that this issue was going to be discussed today in front of everybody in a hearing um this is this is actually a very substantial policy it's probably one of the most substantial
090policies that we're going to be discussing here in chor County because it directly um affects everything that we're teaching right now so and essentially nullifies um the the one that we already passed as well as um possibly even the Youngy one that we passed last year so in that sense I think this is important enough that it needs to be discussed during a hearing in front of everybody um and then come up for a vote and a different here and not just a work session where people don't necessar now I have no problem if we want to talk about it at the work session but what I mean is then the April meeting should be the opportunity to discuss it in front of everybody um and have people come and talk and then vote in
091it after the following which has been the rule um that you have established this last year I mean that's what we have done every time that you say that you need the time to curate this these policies um so in the past as have done you have said okay informational meeting one time and then we're going to have another meeting where we're going to have the discussion and then we're going to have another meeting we vote so I guess what what my question is right now is we're missing one meeting in that curation period no we actually began the discussion two months ago and so it has been under continuous no has been under continuous uh schedule since then now uh we were once again I it's very clear that during the work session that
092we had uh in February that it was your suggestion that we postpone that discussion until the work session in March which which I'm I'm sorry but that's the uh the minutes will indicate that that we took a consensual we made it a consensual decision at that point with a five remaining members to uh to to have that discussion and a work session is still a still a Schoolboard meeting it's not less official it's just more informal in terms of allowing discussion so we're perfectly well on that three-part int introducing the subject uh having discussion on the subject and then having it for Action uh in in April so I I think we we made the decision we it on your recommendation and that's the way it stands I think we should not I don't I
093think it would be out of order for us to have a discussion tonight when nobody was prepared to have discussion on this tonight other than the fact that it's on our informational agenda well let me clarify a couple things now this this this do not start two months ago this started last month when we when I first heard about the fact that the dis Amendment even existed um so that's number one we already we're talking about a policy that we already passed pass unanimously so that that was case Clos then another member or two members have um come up with um language in opposition to that amendment to that policy that we already passed and um that just came up last month and it like I said it essentially changes the entire so this is
094not modifying the the policy that we already have it's it's basically overturning it and um that that that's a major step that we would be taking as as a school district so the reason I objected last month uh no I should say at the last work session was because the person who introduced this amendment wasn't here to actually introduce it so if the person is not here to introduce the amendment how can the amendment be introduced so it wasn't mean having a decision and and and deciding oh let's just talk about it next month it was in tech true technicality there was the person who was gonna be introducing this wasn't here that's the reason why we decided to do it now when I did it I I when I made the proposal I was
095under the impression that it was going to be discussed today so that's why I'm actually ready and I have a presentation ready I have this documents that I have for everybody so I was ready for this because I was the impression that it was going to be done today well why why is it on the agenda if we're not talking about it today information just the way we've done this discuss board Norms okay so so it's on the informational for tonight so next month's meeting not next work session next month's meeting we're going to discuss it the public can come talk about it and then the next month it'll be action the next work session I won't be at that work session when we vote when we voted at our work session it was to
096discuss it tonight I looked at you I said chairman I said should I pass these out tonight I won't be at the next work session I said should I pass these out tonight or save them for the meeting you said save them for the meeting I did not say that I said whatever you want to do well if it's on the informational agenda for today informational agenda means that we're going to be giving information to then if that's the case then I'm going to go and um and pass this on and have my information um and the presentation if that's what we're going to do now if we're going I was draw it from today and not have a discussion on it then it would be on the informational agenda for the next meeting and
097then we would need the one for the public meeting to people to come here and then the following be the one we made no provision for discussing this tonight and it has not been on the agenda to do so is the information right now the information is when the superintendent let us know what the status is of various things and what we're going to vote on so we had already made up the timeline at the last meeting now the work session is a regular it's a scheduled Schoolboard meeting and so we will be discussing it on March 24th in an informal setting when we we've actually discussed the fact that we need to have more times like this where we can discuss these things and and talk about them collegially and talk about issues that
098AR nobody's prepared to do this except for the presentation you have tonight well so um my recommendation is keep that make sure it's Gris for the mill for our 24 March uh work session and then it when it comes up for Action in April that's that's also a time under Robert's Rules when we debate that's when the debate occurs so we're we're not shutting down debate debate will occur on April 10th when we vote uh discussion will occur on March 24th and the issue has been before us for several months now uh the cation of this is that it is um uh it is an amendment to something we already passed it's not so so um you can call it whatever you like uh it's it's out of order this evening well if it's informational
099agenda then the whole point is to give the people information and to discuss information no that's not that's not exactly so what is informational agenda is what we've been doing this evening uh in under informational agenda which is here about the the Food Service here about the the plan for for our um changes in our budget to hear about what the status is of the board Norms but they're not we we're not having discussion on those we're not having debate uh we're we're getting information from the staff as to the status of these so that we can move on into the information gathering discussion among ourselves and then for final decision during Robert's rules during a regular school board meetings well it was already on the informational agenda before and we decided not to talk
100the reason why we didn't talk about it at the last meeting was because Mr Street wasn't there to present it so right so that's what you do you present something so exactly because that was the right thing to do because if the person is not there to to introduce it then we should be introducing something so the whole point now is if you had so what you're saying is the informational agenda is basically just a bulleting board and then we don't get to talk about it until I don't know but you said that the work session and then hopefully you know vote on it in April yeah we set it up you're right we we set it up as a topic that needs further discussion we've scheduled it and then we have an action item
101that follows behind that that's exactly the three-part um plan it is agenda what I'm going to do then is I'm going to pass this on and I'm going to talk about it at the end of the meeting um during the board member and anybody who wants to stay for that is welcome too question chairman yes if if we made a motion and we agreed to it at the work session that because Tom wasn't there we were moving it I'm telling you now I won't be at the April 24th I have something I'd like to present can we go ahead and make a motion to move it to the April meeting meting I don't I don't think we're going to accomplish anything by I mean this the the issue that that we brought up just a
102little bit more background um when glor is exactly correct that we passed uh the U the policy by 6 nothing vote um there were concern terms afterward that maybe we had missed some considerations now that was a few members of the board may have felt that um I was uh asked by one of the school school board members is there anything we can do to reconsider I called Mr bone and said I know that's been very quick but is there time to reconsider this or how should we do it and he he thought well it would be reconsideration was was possible because it had been such a short time but then um I think the next day he called me back and said you know it probably needs to be Revisited uh in perhaps a
103different Vue so at that point it seems to me we were at the position that had had already been passed and we would have to at that point um approach it as if it were an amendment to it because it had already been passed so I don't think any of us had quarrel with the fact that it was passed legitimately at that at that evening but there was concern that we re visit it in the near future to see if if if a if a an amendment was was U feasible or likely or we wanted to consider and that's kind of where we were when we decided uh because I know that Mr Street did have some concerns and so I think do some of the others of us about about if there should be
104an amendment and and that's where um when uh Tom had to leave that meeting uh that um Gloria indicated that the thing to do would be not to discuss it that night but to move it into the next realm of discussion which should have been the work the work session now I didn't make up these dates these are dates that we agreed to uh in a cons consensus way so I I I I really think it's very unfair for us now to have somebody present their side of the argument when it's not under discussion uh and um and we're you know those of us who wanted to talk about there are other action items tonight uh that we still have to take care of like the board on uh and as well as as our
105uh as well as our budget so kind of springing on this on on us tonight without the chance for the rest of the board to be prepared is isn't fair that's why I'm asking that we move it to the April meeting so that I can be in attendance to discuss it with all yall I'm telling you I'm not going to be at the March 24th meeting or work session and in fact I remember my saying that and I know I would have never ever suggested oh let's talk about this at the work session I thought that we were talking about this meeting tonight and that's why I came prepared for this meeting tonight on this so if you're saying that I'm the one who came up with that well I'm telling you no I did
106not I mean we can go back and look at the tape but what I thought we're going to be doing was at this meeting tonight and we're going to be talking about this and let's just make sure I mean we're calling it an amendment but it's not an amendment that policy was already passed you do an amendment during the discussion okay hold it hold it let's all understand what's happening you all passed the policy it's in place you're not amending it amendment is an amendment to the main motion you got this motion done so you're going to come back with a subsequent motion to revise policy AB c d line six paragraph 3 sentence two and it's going to be its own motion and what you plug in there will go back into that policy
107so we're not revisiting rehashing this policy is already there all you're doing is through the separate motion to make an addition a deletion or a substitution of word okay so the polic there so in Ence it's not an amendment that would be no no it's it's its own you I move to change policy manual page six paragraph 6 ABC striking the words such and such inserting ice cream or something like that which probably be a lot more fun um and then this is discussed ex so I'm just asking that we move it to the April meeting I'll how you all handle the dates of that's that's among yourselves but but to clarify this this block is already there you're either adding deleting subtracting or or changing word so thank you that was my understanding uh
108it was pretty clear to me um when Gloria made that suggestion uh and we all thought it was a good idea um if are you suggesting that um so what are you suggesting happens in April we discuss it that it gets moved not to so it right now it's in the information agenda that in instead of having it today for a discussion instead of doing it at the work session which is where he's not going to be here that we do it on the April meeting that's the meeting that we're going to have a discussion okay and then have the vote I'm still missing why we can't why we can't discuss this at our work session on March 24 first of all because Mike is not going to be here that's number one but number
109two apply this as important is because when I said let's talk about it at the next meeting two weeks ago the next meeting was today the next meeting was in the work session and that was what I talked about when I said well Mr stre is not here today so I think we should move this to the next meeting meeting today say problems going forward put dates with meetings please yes no now I know are those minutes readily available Cheryl I have no problem with us discussing it or or or taking it an action item in April um what I don't understand is why we can't discuss it at the work session uh on March 24th I we can but what I'm saying is that we should have another discussion Day on in April so
110he can be here and then not have a vote until May I mean I have my draft here that I'd like to present but I won't be at the work session so as long as I can present it in April I I'd like to see your presentation as well so I'd like it all to be moved to April but um Mr street I'm going to ask you if you would like to weigh in and any other member of the board before we uh try to your conclusion here um Tom oh i' like to keep things simple when we move to April that's fine with me doesn't matter to me okay because um I think it was your your initial concern uh with what we had passed with which which brought about the the question to
111to Mr Bowman and how we could approach this um I don't think we've reached any point of criticality with this being in place the way it is at the moment um but I'm willing to entertain any any other discussions from Mr Vance or Mr guto April works for me okay um make sure then we have the so I I recommend that we still keep this on discussion for Mar March 24th if you're not going to be here um we can still have discussion you can have your there's no way you can I guess Zoom or or some okay okay so we can have discussion am among the group and then um on the uh and you you were requesting that then we have on the informational agenda again on a the April 10th meeting and
112then schedule it for a vote on the May 8th me give me the dates yes dates assum nothing yes every time thank you so you want to talk about it on the 24th that's fine perfectly ready to do that then we have another um discussion at a public hearing on the April 10th and then you want to have a vote you can have a vote on the 8th of May any U objections to that time time frame Cheryl do you think you've capture the dates I think so okay I want to go back and take a look at the other ones anyway but uh okay so you want you can keep on well you may want to change it and decide as it goes forward so we'll see we're not going to discuss it tonight
113um Dr Shephard we're uh going to be talking about um Library material selection M so attached to the agenda item is the library material selection regulation which outlines the operational framework for implementing the library material selection policy which was origin L adopted by the shinid County school board on November 9th 2023 and revised on February 13 2025 the regulation ures Library materials are selected on um age appropriateness while allowing parents and stakeholders to review the prospective Acquisitions um it also mandates parental notification of materials containing sexually explicit content the regulation is policy BFC actually says the superintendent can do a reg regulation unless the school board um request otherwise so there's nothing you need to do unless you do not agree with this regulation and um did you include 4.6 in that or is that
114your your next topic so that was 4.6 4.7 is um the library material selection um now we're going through a new process which was was um due to the um Library materials policy being approved um at the February meeting so for this month we have February's final approved Library materials list for high school and middle school um for your um information and from here on out we will put the um there will be an informational item every single month for Library material selection because we're doing it monthly and then under the consent agenda there will be um the approved list the second month so that you guys can um approve it if you if you see fit so um so this is the February the February list we're getting ready um I know our directors
115of instruction are working on the March list so we will be um presenting them at the next month great thank you yes so 4.8 is member Alliance policy Services um School Board member Alliance offers policy Services designated to help School divisions stay up to- dat and compliant with state and federal laws each year the general General Assembly passes legislation that impacts educational policy which requires us to update and review and revise our existing policies um by partnering with s spma we would receive by annual policy update packages in May and November feing red lad revisions that reflect legislative changes including link legal references for E of review and then in February and August we would to receive an annual policy audit which would identify those policies that are requiring review so um my recommendation is
116to contract with spma to um for policy services in the amount of $2,900 and we will recommend this for approval at the Thursday April 10th school board meeting okay any any questions on the sbma policy services and the final information item and is the request for reappropriation for the prior Year's Federal reimbursement endysis good evening members of the board Dr Shephard what I have before you tonight is a request to increase the 2025 budget that is this year's budget at the end of last fiscal year on June 30th 2024 we had a number of federal grants that were incomplete the period of performance extends into this fiscal year these are reimbursable grants that we did not realize the revenue for what we are asking for is just to reappropriate the expected Revenue so that we
117can spend through those grants and make sure that we're completing them in a timely fashion this request asks for a million do a, 42,45 14 for the special Revenue fund and then additionally $66,667 329 we be voting on okay thank you all right you're moving into the action items uh and 5.1 is the approval of the fiscal year 2026 budget and fiscal years 2026 2030 Capital Improvement plan uh do I hear a recommended motion I moved to approve the fiscal year 2026 budget including a compensation increase consisting of a step plus 2% cost of living adjustment for all staff in the fiscal years 2026 through 2030 Capital Improvement plan including option C of the long range facility planned as presented okay uh is there a second second second by Mrs Carino and um discussion elementary
118schools I mean that's that's my big thing right now we got to get that done and moving forward uh to me that's moving in the right direction um triplet right there at second but if we only find the funding for one I think it's got to be the new elementary school elementary students can't be put on a waiting list uh and I agree with u Mr Rickard that elementary school should be the first priority under cfp yeah I agree with that um the only other part I disagree with is I would rather support the 3.16% um cost of living adjustment rather than the 2% in the step other comments I got to go with the staff I've heard from once again this year they're all asking for the step again so I concur that we
119um I think that the elementary school um is the priority right now um it pains me because I know we need um some help with triplet and and uh we need to help those students as well so I'm hoping at some point we'll be able to find some way to um fund both but at this point it would have to be the the elementary school as well and um I concur also with Mr Rickard be a step because that's what we heard um time and again that that's what the teachers want so a step we heard it right now Tom you have anything to say Yes um I'd like to propose that we remove one student support specialist and include an assistant supervisor for the transportation department which I think is highly needed that position
120does not have an assistant so basically um for whatever reason they have a right whether it's vacation emergencies there's no one there to really um that I feel is uh how do I say it I just think that that that position the director needs an assistant and um I'd like to propose every move one student support specialist and and replace that with assistant super supervisor for transportation and I'd also like to amend in the budget that the purchases for school buses be cut in half um in regards to my research um and looking into it I don't agree with the vdoe and I called Richmond and talked to him about it they say the lifespan of the school bus is only 15 years and through discussion the only reason they recommend that is for budgeting
121there is nothing physically wrong with the buses um as long as they pass inspection they're fine and I think that we need to be more responsible with taxpayers money instead of just wanting new school buses to extend the lifespan when there's nothing physically wrong with buses that only have 115,000 Mi on them um that are diesels and nowhere near the lifespan of of a diesel engine so those are the two things that I would like to amend to this uh budget proposal yes well first of all I want to commend you for doing that research for us and contacting Richmond um being that you're recommending we cut the purchase of new buses in half could we still fund three support Specialists plus an assistant director with the money we're saving by not buying the buses
122that were recommended so one is um the student support Specialists would be in fund one and the um Capital would be in fund three we can't move that money at all so we could request more for our operate operational but I um I get the feeling that we're going to be asked to um decrease our operation operating our request for operating funds anyhow how long have we had a director of Transportation without an assistant yeah he's a supervisor for transportation and probably a as long as I'm looking for Lucas along but as long as he's been here um for who fills that spot that like Tom was saying if he goes on vacation or a family emergency who fills that in his his um maintenance staff member this is transportation so his route coordinator M
123yeah and I don't know if it's just for various reasons without going to deep discussion but for looking into it I don't know if it's fair to put people in other positions to be put in a supervisor position responsibility um I feel comfortable do we need more student support Specialists maybe so but I I'm kind of under the impression that three we might not need three maybe just one or two um is why I'm you know is also another reason um and I don't and the only reason I I'll be honest with you the only reason that I would recommend only cutting the the purchase of buses in half I almost would go with none but when I did the research in 2008 2009 for some odd reason the school syst for whatever reason they
124bought 21 so I'm looking down the road and I did the math I don't want to be hit with another huge purchase so I'm trying to spread it out and be more pace you know long spread and not a big budget not a big purchase down the road when they become 20 years old so I feel comfortable that we only need to purchase three or four now to say you know I I just don't think you know well I told you the reasons and I think we need to be just I think just being more responsible with the taxpayers money we and yeah it I I don't know there may be a newer bus might be safer but I can guarantee you one thing 2008 models 2008 school bus is a lot safer than bus
125number 61 in the mid in the late '70s that I rode on you know and it was fine when we rode on it no I'm not opposed to your idea I just want to ask the questions yeah no yeah I just I just wanted to yeah feel free I just try to explain my view on this and wanting to amend this Budget on that because I do think it's only fair that um the director of transportation and I'm not about creating jobs I I you know don't get wrong here I'm not one to just try to create jobs but I do think um there probably is a need there um for the right person to be in that position um in the duties and I looked into um and Mr long did show me the
126job descriptions of Fredrick County Warren County rocking in county of their assistant Transportation because as far as I'm concerned hey if this assistant this position can be in the garage you know service and buses you know that would be I don't that doesn't bother me one single bit but I'm being told that no there's enough job duties that that prob that wouldn't happen but um but you know I like I said a part of the research I looked at other assistant Transportation directors and in the surrounding counties and what their job duties are one of our dilemas here is that I mean there's a motion on the floor um and uh Tom as I understand that you've got a Amendment you would like to offer um you to to that to that motion uh and
127um is it and it it sounds like it's two parts to me go go ahead yeah one in budget and then one in capital you know put the positions and then okay and if I may as far as the pay increase I'll comment on that at the same time um I'd like to know Mr Vance's opinion because he was a retired teacher I what what do you think a step in 2% or just a 3.16 you've been a teacher I don't mean to put you on the spot but you did I think I'd go with the step into two okay cuz I you know I have to value your opinion cuz you know I run trains for a living I've never been a teacher it's a healthy pay increase uh I sat down and did
128some Maths for example on the just one level level 10 and um it works out you know with the other levels and I think it's agreeable to our budget yeah and I and and to the taxpayers you know I hear um you know can we and and I have to admit in the past if you look in the past three or four years our staff has gotten some good pay increases but to the flip but the on the flip side of that I think it kind of just brought them up to power with you know competitive um so one side of me you know to the taxpayers is yeah I'm not about just giving raises all the time but at the same time I understand inflation and the cost how much the cost of living
129inflation has gone up in the past just the past two years so I feel that you got to be a little responsible uh if we can to to to give a raise to to also go with you know inflation so that's just my personal opinion on that view anyway that's all Mr chair that's to help get Larry off the hot seat our financial director did point out at one of our closed sessions how important the step was session yeah so I mean that's coming from the Director of Finance so apparently there's some value to that um we didn't see it last year but the teachers did they voted 61% that they wanted to step so Ian we didn't pull them this year did we I think we'd end up with the same same percentage but
130we've got some teachers here tonight and they uh they applauded for the step so apparently there's something to it anyway that was my view and my recommendation or uh Mr chairman so um I'm going to go back to the uh to the your options for for the buses and um so enlighten me Dr Shephard is that is that um does that impact the capital Improvement plan or does that impact our next year's bu so the buses would impact our Capital Improvement plan so that would be fund3 so instead of 11 um .5 million maybe it's 11 but I'd have to do the calculations because I take Tom's point that um if there's a savings from bus purchases um that I would like to see that bus dividend kind of reinvested into buses in other words
131a management structure that would back up our one supervisor so that it doesn't fall just to maintenance folks to kind of deal with all the problems which apparently multitudinous that have to do with our um have to do with our um bus problems I mean because of the new because of the garage and how it's managed and all the problems with not only maintenance but with also uh routes and drivers and all the things that that happened during in Clement weather and otherwise that uh that we would be probably wise to increase our management capability or OverWatch of the system but I'm not sure I'm not sure how we attack that right now of order uh would it help if we just treat this um amendments one at a time just like do the one
132for the transportation vote on that one then the one for the C support speci we can discuss that one and then vote on that one yeah the original it does not officially amend not yet it has been Second Amendment yet and and it's also dealing with three different parts of the budget so that's why I was wondering if it'd be helpful to just do the amendment on the transportation I I was just tell my views you tell us Mr Bowman how I need to do it it's not an amendment no it's just your opinion uh at the moment yes so you can amend by whatever you would like to do no it's just been purely purely discussion so do we vote on the first motion and then no you got you got your motion which
133is the first choice and then you're going to amend that with whatever the pleasure is buses or Specialist or whatever so you're saying to be clear we need to the board has to vote on his motion uh no no I move to amend by adding the words reducing school buses by half and does it need to be like Gloria pointed out does it need to be two separate ones or comb together go either way it could go probably easier just to make it separate so it's easier to follow and track so I can just make two amendments correct yes correct all right so I would like to make First Amendment to the motion is I propose that remove one student support specialist and include an assistant supervisor of Transportation now do we need to take
134care of this first there has to be a second all right that's discussion so the students Bo specially that was the one request that I made on this um budget and the reason was because uh I know last year we cut this um against the advice of a lot of the people in the community we had our very first um mental health task force that we had back in March of last year that was attended by all the captain of the different uh police departments and our sheriff and our judge and uh social services and all these people and they all said um how important the student support Specialists are as the connection between the students and the the the legal service and also the the administration so that is something that um it's very
135needed particularly when we ourselves as a school district don't really have a lot of resources in terms of counselors and a lot of um social workers or that kind of stuff so those those people um have been the link between those the schools the students and the legal um services and also the social services that they're receiving um so what we did is we cut that back and we now have them spread out very thinly and in fact we just received uh this last year a new um Grant um from Anthem Blue Cross that actually relies on the student support specialist to um help actually um utilize those that money um in the community so I'm very uh afraid of starting to call back on this I I would like to hear more from maybe
136Dr Shepard she's ready to I don't know if you have any information on this because I know de is not here to the right um to see exactly if how that would work and if this is something that we can make work that way um because um with all the stuff that we have going on and all the different challenges that our kids I mean I we live in in a community where our children have a lot of challenges that they may not have other in other districts I mean we're talking about a lot of kids who have who are living with grandparents um or that the parents are using drugs or they're unemployed or they're overwhelmed and and there's a lot of things that are going on with this children that is impact the
137way they learn and also the way they learn how to live and and and live happily and and be able to you know build that resilience that they need um to move forward and in many ways those student support Specialists are link that help those kids overcome that um or offer the help that they may need that they would obviously um not get otherwise so that's my um reasoning for supporting the student support specialist I supported them last year I support them again just because I hear this all all the time from the community I hear it from the school um staff I hear it from um the police I hear it from a lot of different people that this student support Specialists do serve a very um integral Link in the community and that's
138something that you know one of the things that we have learned through the mental health task force is that they F in a need that social services doesn't you know is very specific what social services and what counselors and what all these people do I mean what they're supposed to do is already very different from what this student support specialist are doing so that that's my concern um but I you know if Dr shepher can offer some feedback on this if you have any again not to put you on the spot um then that may be helpful um to see if we can in fact operate with you know just two additional ones the one thing that I can add is the greatest need that I've heard um for our students support Specialists is additional
139support in student support Specialists who are able to speak dual language so um now whether that's one two or three that's not been ascertained but I hate to put you on the spot as well Dr Shephard but you come up with some great ideas when it comes to finagling money is there a way to find the funding somewhere else to support three student specialist and still take care of the assistant so no because we have done um off the you know the top of um my head the answer would be no um because the budget that we have is really based on um this is this is how much it's going to cost to run scps and this is how much we need so this is the state funds we're these are the state funds
140we're getting these are the local funds we're getting so the money that we've requested is the money that's needed so there's no you know there's no additional funding but if you will remember um on that one slide that um I highlighted we were asking for 1.27 n million originally and now we're down to 1.23 1 something like that so we're asking for a little less than 150,000 um than we had originally thought however I do have to caution that um you know in my conversations in my um hearing Board of Supervisors talk there's there's uh quite a big deficit that they're going to have to make up for so we may be asked to cut another million dollars at the end of the day or $500,000 so um I don't know that asking for more
141is going to get us anywhere that helps I have one more question um how about um gosh remind it's just so much stuff um there was the money that we may be getting from the state that that would actually may help fund that position or was it wasn't that it it could so we're getting an additional we anticipate we are getting an additional $1.2 million from the state um that's what the general assembly allocated for Senator County Public Schools however that the governor hasn't signed off on that and we don't anticipate we'll know that before March the 24th um remember on the uh schedule slide there is an opportunity for us to revisit this in April is it April the 28th so um we will have we should have more information about the state funding
142at that point it's not guaranteed but we should have more information at that point and we will know what the Board of Supervisors is funding us as well and are there any ties to that money like does it have to be used for specific so then uh the $1 million um addition from the state it is um to fund s soq positions that were reduced during the recession in 20101 um and then the there's 200,000 that is to be used for special ed while we don't have the exact langu language of what's being required we believe that the services that we offer will fund that so um I guess there's nobody here to represent that department like in other words if if there if there is anybody here from that department would that could I
143mean would they uh support that two adding two positions which is basically a third I guess would handle the need I support these positions you're talking about student support specialist yes and Ling I mean I'm not a student support specialist but I work closely they're part of we consider part of our team and and I think the most important part of them just being as a school counselor and I've worked very closely with Social Services as a foster parent but that student support support specialist is critical because they have they have the ability to go into homes and talk and be face to face with parents and and and get into the home stuff that we can't do yeah I'm not I mean I I've just saying that and to have I mean I what
144do we have now three left or six we have six I think losing any one of those would be detrimental to our our student population and their families because they have been able to get resources I know what they I support what they do but the the question is or the thought is I'm under the impression from that department that two can easily handle the workload that is needed Miss Stratton is sitting over there and she is yes addition too yes ma'am because I think we need to keep in mind that this is non-educational funding I mean non-educational services that we're providing so what they do they connect the student the families with Services outside of the educational Fields so they're writing individual plans they take it to a Family Partnership meeting and they look
145at that and they discuss services that are needed um I do agree that we don't need to lose any but I do feel that you know we can definitely have two I would love to have obviously three that would be ideal for our schools each school to have one um and they do take on additional things they do help with um checking in checking out with students helping with the plans of behavior helping with having groups so they do do things within the school that's very important and aren't they doing social cultures for IEPs it's not for IEPs or for eligibility but it's only initial eligibilities or if there's a change in that so they're spread out so um because they are licensed most of them social workers to be able to do that but
146other people are doing those too I just know that ours has been doing them yeah and yeah I'm not definitely their job duties yes I agree with absolutely what I'm what I'm talking about is I'm under impression from that department that two can easily handle additional two can handle the workload that is there that's what I'm talking about not really what they you know I understand what they do and I support that right but that's my looking at that that you know one of our campuses has a smaller school that the other two could help and team with that school and possibly look at it that way too if we're looking at the southern campus for instance we have a small Middle School there high needs so we do want to say that we have
147some high needs where there's a lot of work but that doesn't mean it's not going to be manageable for the other Elementary or High School doent support specialist to go over and help with that too so um Dr Shephard let me ask a qualifying question everybody's putting you on a spot so um I just thought I heard you say a few minutes ago that there would be a chance for us to um kind of recalibrate some of these things in April um if we felt strongly as a board that we would like to support option A M um would there be the option for us to recalibrate in terms of uh transportation management service for uh Specialists um and especially you've seen where the state funds and other funds would come from or is that
148taking too much of a chance of kicking that down the road and then not getting not not having the capability to re to recalibrate So based on what I know um regarding State funding um and what I believe I know on local funding and we're going to have to recalibrate anyhow so April the end of April is an opportunity for us to to do some of that absolutely so if I may point of order um if I'm understanding what you're asking and I don't know if I am are we better off making the only change tonight the change that Tom's recommending of cutting the bus purchase in half because whether we have three students support specialist or we have two and one supervisor that's something we can decide once we realize how much our actual
149budget is correct is that what I was hearing from you yes so is that possible Dr Sher I think we need to get as close as we can to what we're looking for I'm going to look at Miss Campbell to see if she agrees they're not a one for one trade no one costs a different amount than the other keep that in mind and then I would look at Miss Hodges on hiring all of these positions are vacant and there's a timeline where we can get these positions buil I like the idea with the buses I mean that just makes sense that's common sense the student support specialist the assistant I'd like to sometime to do some research on that but I mean I'm just like I'm under impression from that department that two EXT
150two more could handle the workload the extra workload I'm not sure that um you know looking at looking at the case you know as those case loads they're high they're very high in some of our schools where they're helping one another out even um if we're looking at a couple of the schools there are our student sport specialist are crossing over to help each other so granted I think that possibly they could handle that but it's a heavy workload and I think that um Miss l king can even speak to the point that they do help with our students some of those behaviors and some of those plans and making sure that it's carried over into the community too so don't we do to I don't want to second guess the fact that yes we'd
151love to have them we need them that they would necessarily not be working as hard if we have three as opposed to two they're going to work hard no matter what because this way they can take on more cases so the fewer we have the less cases they can take on and we may have kids that are not having any of their needs met because of that that makes sense if I can add something else I mean we've heard from a lot of teachers that have complained that they're the ones who are having to take some of this um additional responsibility because there's no one else to do it so um one of the good things about having this student support especially that it takes some of that load away from the counselors from the
152teachers from you know especially special ed where we're hurting so badly um no they don't do any of the educational piece of IT service providing they're they're taking a case for instance if a student may need some outside services and some mentoring or some you know Counseling Services outside school they're taking those cases on but they're following through the school to make sure that doing what's needed my point is that there's nobody else to do it so either they do it or it doesn't get done um Bic because there's no one else to do that Dr Shepard your recommendation two or three what's the need you're the head of the school division I'm glad I'm not the only one on the spot tonight so we currently have six adding an additional two would be more
153than they currently have you're going to get a diplomatic answer here right um so adding an additional two um will be more help than they've had so we go through a year and have eight instead of nine see what that looks like and we add assistance to our transportation department um as an assistant supervisor that's my diplomatic answer I could follow up but it just puts you on the spot again so so I'll refrain we still have a motion on the floor um Second and we have a second uh and so uh unless there Tom do you want to make an amendment I did I did okay yeah on the floor second just need to vote I'm sorry before we get to that one more point of order um question shepher so no it's not
154a hard question um if we decide today on the two and then we do get that money from the state then at April meeting we could add the third yes okay want to get that information so um Cheryl can you remind us what the U amendment was so you have the original Amendment and Mr stre is asking to that as presented with the amendment to the budget request to remove one student support specialist position and add an assistant supervisor of Transportation okay so so that is the that's the Amendment that's on the floor that has to be decided before we can go vote on the the uh the main motion uh is there any further discussion and are you ready for I will call vote on that Amendment I'm just going to say um since
155we can actually um revisit this if we get that additional money I'm fine with that Amendment so I'll vote Yes cherl you want to do a roll call vote on that Amendment Mr Street yes Miss caria yes Mr vshell yes Mr vs yes Mr Rickard yes and Mr bar yes so U the amendment passes unanimously and uh now we can return to the main to the main question uh which is um you want to read that as well or I no he has Mr chairman I'd like to I'd like to add another amendment go for it I'd like to make a another amendment under the capital um on the capital part of the budget that the in the budget presented for purchasing school buses be cut in half when you've got that ready chery can
156you read it to us a second I know but I want to do that has it been second no but I don't even I would like to know what the what the um amendment is your Amendment you want me to repeat or you yes yes please just um my second amendment is under the presented budget under the capital CIP I guess part of it that the item of purchasing new school buses be cut in [Music] half have a money figure on that in the budget it's a milon 68,000 if I remember I I'm not looking at it but I'm pretty think that's what it was 64 it's a milon 64,000 so half of that would be a 532,000 it goes from how many buses to how many buses can can you tell just that's roughly
157eight to four okay I could you know like I said I would go lower but just trying to look down the road because there was a big purchase in 2008 and 2009 don't want to be hit with that again down the road in years okay so that is that's your second amendment is there a second to that Amendment second second by Mrs carinia uh discussion Miss Carino second yes yes any discussion I think we're ready for a roll call vote chery Mr Street yes Miss careno yes Mr gut Shaw yes Mr B yes Mr V yes Mr rord yes and Mr bar yes the uh Second Amendment passes six six to Zer unless there are other amendments then we're ready to take up the main uh motion uh to approve the fiscal 2026 budget consisting
158of a step plus 2% cost of living uh and for the fiscal year 2026 2030 Capital Improvement plan including option C of the long range facility plan that is the motion uh it has been moved and seconded is there any discussion roll call vote Mr stre yes M careno yes Mr gut Shaw no Mr Vance yes yes Mr Rickard yes Mr bar yes motion passes 51 concludes our um action item for for the U fiscal year budget and the capital approvement plan uh the next action item 5.2 is um current Schoolboard Norms U there are three versions of the Schoolboard Norms uh before us tonight um the first is a uh is the school board Norms that that were adopted in uh April of last year and were basically I don't I think they were
159changed with without modification uh if I'm correct uh from uh years past um second version um uh titled draft one is a um is a version that has been provided to us I Believe by Mrs careno and the draft two is a um is a version that uh that I drafted um at this point since uh one of the drafts is uh something I worked on I would like to turn over the U the chair to the vice chairman uh to U conduct this discussion and vote so Mr G all your do I have a motion for one of the versions 5.2 the adoption of school board Norms I moveed to adopt shinel County School Board nor nors uh draft one with the following notifications number one what this um I don't understand what this
160one have modifications and the other one just is presented so I just going to say I move to adopt the shendo County School Board Norm St one with the uh ESR motion on the floor by Miss careno to adopt version one do I have a second second second by Mr Rickard discussion um can I go first um so um some of this um let me just find it real quick some of these U modifications or amendments that I have uh provided come from different instances that we've had uh throughout this last year um um were things that were not particularly clear or we thought or I thought um they should be clear the first one has to do with the agenda setting meeting and I know we've discussed this before right now we have what
161we have is um somewhat of uh fussy kind of way of putting things in the agenda where it's board member has to talk about it and the board member comments and they have to actually submit it um before some agenda setting meeting um which dates are not one set time every month we have different dates um and the agenda setting uh meetings are set I'm assuming by the chair and the superintendent at some time before the year starts in the past uh it was my understanding and I've talked to many people from other years where we always had the opportunity to have um anything that we wanted to include in the agenda be put in um the the Friday before the meeting the the meeting the next week and uh this is actually supported by
162the statue which says um that any school board member can in fact add something so long as they do so before the agenda is made public well our agenda is made public on Fridays so that's you know that so long as you do it before then you can include the item now again as we had the the conversation today um this is to put in the informational agenda and as Sherman bow says um usually when you put in the informational agenda it's just out there to get information so we're not going to be talking about it we're not going to be voting on it so it's just an opportunity for the the members to be able to include some something in the informational agenda and then from there go to the next meeting where we
163can actually talk about it and then discuss it and eventually vote on it so my point is we need to have a rule that is set in stone because the reason why this came an issue back in um October of last year was because we had some issues that have been brought up I had a timely issue that I wanted to include regarding the voter registration Mr Rickard has something that a lot of people have been bringing up regarding the absenteeism rules and we wanted to add it for the informational agenda um in uh was it it was October and we were told that no the agenda sitting meeting have happened on September 22nd for both October and and November so at that point we couldn't even set anything on the agenda until December so
164you know of course that that came us a surprised to me because that's not the way we had done it before but more importantly um we had one agenda sitting meeting that was taken care of two months so we as a board cannot tie our hands and say we are not going to be able to bring up issues that are brought up by our constituents or issues that arise um that may be of importance or issues that are timely we must be able to have that flexibility that we should be able to include this um issues the week before so that's why um I proposed um that we set it down in the agenda setting that the the any member can bring something up that Friday before um other than that the next one um
165is in identification of all requests for information and or action questions and policy sponsorships one of the things that we have right now um is that every time a member makes a request then and um Dr shepher will let us know well a member has requested this most of the time we don't know who requested that or who's doing this or who's promoting this or who's um um requesting some information or more importantly who's sponsoring a policy um in fact we just had this issue this last month where you know one member wrote suggested the policy another member wrote it but it took a while for us to be able to even find out who did what um in the in in terms of transparency if we're going to be a transparent board we should
166be able to tell everybody who is doing what if if I'm the one who's doing a policy I'm going to put that as my policy if um U Mr R is a policy when I would hope that he would say it that way the public knows who's doing what but more importantly also for the board members if somebody has a question they know who to go to um and and talk to and ask questions or whatever um I also put some time limits on the discussion the board comments um flexible what we can do but it was just a matter of making sure that everybody on the board had the same um amount of time because what has happened in the past um and I'll speak from personal experience twice I have been stopped before
167my time was already um up um one time I had 10 minutes and I was stopped at 7 Minutes uh another time um I was stopped um before I think even before then and and I know because most of the time when I have my comments I actually them and we went back to the videos and in fact that's what had happened so we I want to make sure is that everybody is going to have the same amount of time and then we can have a timekeeper actually keeping that time um I don't care what the time is we can agree on if we want more time or less time but it's just a matter of having everybody be able to have that time and generally speaking I think um that whoever is introducing or
168explaining the policy should have more time to actually explain what it is that they're introducing um um the next issue that I had was with the close session um and one of the things that I heard that we and and we can do because anybody can actually go in there and actually record a meeting was to have this meetings recorded for future reference and the reason I'm saying that is because in the past we've had advice from say legal council um or statements made that would have affected future actions or future lawsuits and now we can't go back because we never recorded those meetings and obviously I can't talk about the details because that would be confidential but that kind of situation has already happened um let me see what else um I think oh
169and then also with regards to attorney accessibility you know we pay for this attorney so it it' be ideal to have right now A a more robust section that we could talk about and say okay when is a member going to be able to seek This legal advice can anybody do it if anybody can do it that's fine but we just have to make sure that we know who who is that can go and talk to an attorney and does it need a board approval or um or can anybody do it individually and I think those were the main issues that I had um but if anybody has any questions I'll be happy to answer them thank you um Mr bar yeah so um when we when we discuss this at the work session there
170were a few things that that I wanted to point out one is that um this is Gino's uh version here actually severely truncates the amount of time that something would actually be viewable so she wants to be able to bring something anybody could bring something up on noon of the day of the agenda meeting so all the planning for the agenda the last two weeks ahead as we plan uh to take on agenda items and issues suddenly is kind of Knocked into a ATT because the last second somebody comes in with two more ideas that they insist you know are suddenly included ours and this is my key concept ours is a deliberate planning process we are a school board that uh who's charged with making sure that the sweep of the law is followed
171and that the policies are developed in a coherent and in a um effective Manner and so transparency to our constituents uh allowing them time it's kind of ironic tonight we we're we're now looking four months out at at discussing one particular issue and it's okay because because um we just want as many people to be able to weigh in as possible and to have the community aware of what we're talking about but um I think Mrs Carone herself made the best argument at the work session saying that the 2020 board which changed the names of the schools in a 9-day period used exactly this concept of kind of ran things through in a week or so before people had the ability to respond to what was on the docket what was coming up as an
172agenda item so my basic concept or or problem with with this version is that it it puts a great deal of effort into hurrying and rushing and not into making sure that we've got the U not that we have a a comprehensive View and that we get various different points of view and discussion before we before we make a a decision because we often wind up doing cleanup on aisle 7 when we discuss a phone policy or something that has ramifications we didn't think about until we heard from different people or different points of view um that one of the things um that is in this version says that neither the chair nor the vice chair will have the discre disc to keep items submitted by this deadline out of the agenda there are only
173a few um Powers authorities if you will that the chairman has one is to run the meeting uh one is to uh select those people who are on the Committees committee chair and committee members and the other is to work with the superintendent uh in consultation to develop the agenda and so it is one of my responsibilities to make sure as shair to make sure that the items that are brought in by the members um are stacked in the order in which they're presented or maybe maybe even heard ahead of time based on priorities or timing uh but nevertheless is at the discretion of the chair and the superintendent to make the best plan we can going forward what I find ironic is that um at no point in this uh 14 month Journey uh
174has anybody on this committee been denied the ability to have a policy put forward my predecessor scaled a few but I never did and uh it would take something you know pretty drastic for me to do so because I actually believe in transparency and allowing those things to be discussed the time L on the discussion School Board member flying face of Robert's rules um the person who introduces something gets 10 minutes but so does everybody else uh not five minutes and then three minutes and so forth so um the and the fact that board member comments would know down to five minutes none of those things basically work the basic concept where Robert jules's people have 10 minutes to discuss whether you're the sponsor of that particular action or not um there are a few
175other things here that I not particularly concerned about at the moment uh but um I do have a concern with how closed sessions have been handled and how we Monitor and manage those and um and I'll probably defer that to another discussion but um I I think this is uh I think this is taking us in the wrong direction thank you Mr Barlo any more discussion yeah um Gloria on yours I see that you have in there no electronic devices and closed session are you keeping that in there or striking that I'm striking is that in there shouldn't have been to maintain confidentiality electronic devices will not be used during closed session all CL that should have been there sorry no I um no yeah think confidentiality electronic devices will not be used during the
176close section I don't remember including that one maybe I just didn't delete it from the other one but no I yeah I do not want that one in there so just point of clarification draft one is actually a combination of all of the um all of the changes that were requested so some and that's why on the motion it said mod what did it say um modifications with modification so that was to take out those things so it was um that was I know that um several board members had maybe one or two were and okay so so draft one is not just m um it's everybody else's as well yeah and then Mr Barlo did his own separately okay yeah I did not put that one in there so I would um really strongly
177suggest an amendment that we actually take that out because um we I have actually talked to several people that um and in fact I actually asked a question of the Foya um office and they said that um usually those are really hard to um enforce because and again I we can start getting inform a discussion of the legal um repercussions of that but we as a board cannot um infringe upon any of our rights that are already put in by the state or the federal government that's the deal dealing rule that's what our our state is our Commonwealth so we cannot if I have a right to be in there and actually have my um elect device about and to record it and whatever you can't come over and say no you really don't have
178that right to do that um with regards to the um Electronics is it's kind of interesting because I think with the exception of of Mr vs everybody else here uses their Electronics um and their cell phones inside that room um and I'll say something cuz originally I wasn't too you know I didn't feel too strongly about that one but it wasn't until the last time we had a meeting when um I had a call from my son as we were stepping into the meeting that he was being rushed to the hospital so if I'm going to be in a close session or in an open session or any kind of session and I get that text from my son guess what I'm going to be using my phone and I going to be looking at
179my phone and nobody's going to stop me trouble looking at my phone so um so I would definitely strike that one out um I did want to again uh uh point point of order um so um will made the comment I responded and now who was answering the question other board members should have the speak uh the chance to speak before somebody else speaks a second time yes I have asked a question yeah he was asking me a question two debates per person 10 minutes usually you go through and pick out try to alternate pros and cons second round comments be given everyone has had the chance to speak the first time a question does not account against the person asking the question but the person answering the question that becomes their second debate well
180then in that case I'm going to keep on talking because I have other things to say and I was just answering his question that you Crossing if you're going to split hairs and do it this way you need a timekeeper and I really think you're going down a slippery slope but you all do what you but you're going to have to start timing and and enforcing person makes a motion gets the right to talk about it then you open it generally if possible opposing Viewpoint and you alternate back and forth a question is asked the person answers it becomes their debate and got 10 minutes so I mean you can set your for of however you want that's how Roberts set it up I have a question so if somebody asked a question but I
181still want to reut with somebody like what Mr B said then I don't answer the question I mean you it there you can defend your as long as you're within as long as you dropped number three on your discussion you're just going I mean if if you want to split airs on debate then be prepared for consequences and no member may have a second turn onto all members who desire to have a first ter no member can debate more than twice on the same motion on the same day it is postponed to another day each person may speak twice again members may also debate twice on appending amendments answering a question is not counted as debate asking the question but answering it is the time limit for each speech is 10 minutes no member can
182give unexpired time to another member the motion proposer is given preference and recognition for his first right to debate the motion even if he or she may have risen and address the chair first all remarks must be addressed to and through the chair the item not the person is the subject of debate um members may not speak against their own motions however they may vote against it so if you want to go down that road then you're going to lose the nature of being able to Hash it out so just be careful what you wish for because it might come true okay so basically say if I was answering his question I still would have time to finish up my debate because that would be my second time yeah so um okay so what I
183wanted to say was I mean I just wanted to re and maybe have a question for Mr Barlo because um again we he keeps saying that that by doing the agenda the week before and like being able to submit items the week before that we are rushing things through or that we're doing what the 2020 um board did which is kind of ironic um given that last meetings um but what we're doing here is saying that any member can actually have a right to put something in the agenda that it should not be the discretion of the chair whether that item is going to be put in there or not I don't I don't care if um and I thought I had put that in there that if we need to have a co-sponsor for
184a policy and have you know two people sponsor it and then to put it in the agenda I'm fine with that we can do that as well but what I find it kind of interesting is that he's saying that this is going to be taking to much time and we're going to be rushing through things when just earlier today he made the point of saying that whenever we put something on the informational agenda it's just put out there for people to know that this is coming down the road that we're not talking about it that we're going to be talking about it at the following meeting um so what we're talking about here is we put something in the agenda for one meeting for the informational agenda so people know that this is coming down
185the pike like Mr paros said earlier today and then we don't talk about it until the following meeting which you know ideally it would be public hearing but if he wants to do it a work session I'm fine with that um and that's the meeting that we get to talk about it and then the following meeting after that is when we get to have more discussion and finally um have a vote so you know it can't go both ways you can't say that yes said we only put stuff on the informational agenda so people know that it's coming and we can gather information and get you know the school board involved um and then also say oh no but that's when we're going to have the debate because the time that it's going to that
186it's going to take is just whatever seconds or minutes it takes Dr Shepard to read what's in the informational agenda so again that kind of goes against that um the other thing is um I've said it many times before I have no problem whatsoever with the chair and the and the superintendent putting on a a master uh schedule for the rest of the year of when things are going to be discussed whether it's going to be budget whether it's going to be a staff or whatever we're going to be doing but again we should not not tie our hands and say that we as school board members cannot put this until you know a month or two months later whenever that that um School uh agenda setting meeting is which is what happened again in
187October when we had the meeting back in September and we weren't able to put anything until December so um so again it it does not interfere with that agenda setting of the chairman and the superintendent what I'm trying to make sure is that a we allow every member to introduce policies um and again for the informational agenda not to be discussed not to be voted on um and secondly that we don't have anybody whoever the chairman is having a discretion of saying no I'm not going to listen to your or no you're going to have to wait two month or no you're going to have to wait three months until we put this in the agenda so again it's all about transparency um it's also why I want the names of whatever member is introducing
188something to be attached to that um agenda um or that policy rather and um and these are the things that I think we need to do in order to move forward now I don't know if I need to make an amendment because I do not think that we should have um that restriction on the uh electronic devices so I don't know if I need to make that or somebody else wants to make that um I'd be willing to entertain that and and again with the time limits I'm fine if we don't want to do that at the end of the day we can follow the r rules and I'm fine but I agree with you I think that we need to start doing the timer just to make sure that if that if somebody has
18920 minutes to speak then the next member is going to have the same 20 minutes and not I'm not necessarily advoca any timer I'm cautioning you that if you get into that brid of debate you're going to lose the conversational between the six of you no and I understand that I'm just so if you want that formal debate on a smaller board set to a six of you then you can you can work things out ably and neighborly and discuss among yourselves but if you want formal time limits and all that it Roberts does provide that opportunity absolutely well and I'm f with that I'm just want to make sure that you know I've already been cut off twice before my time was up I want to make sure that that doesn't happen doesn't happen
190again all right thank you um we haven't heard from Mr Vance or Mr Street yet I'm putting Mr Street on the spot first oh I guess the old s comes before B yes it does I'll be real simple after reading them and evaluating them looking at everything in these drafts without going into the depth I'm going to keep it simple me personally I have to uh support draft number two for various reasons that's just my simple answer without going into depth of time uh my bigger concern is the recording of the information in a closed session a closed session is closed for that purpose for privacy I think you get a more unvarnished debate when it's not being recorded and the security and safety of what is discussed uh I think is is is imperative
191um I understand the value of a record but I value privacy more than more than that and that's why I support U Mr Bar's set of norms because he does not call for recording any other discussion are we allowed seconds now or do we need to wait for you and chairman bar to talk um yeah I don't just speaking to the policies um I'm not big on the recording thing I think if we maybe added a provision I'm not going to do that on this policy but maybe on the other one add a provision to um by board consensus or something like that if we wanted to record on a um different on different cases Case by case basis I think we could do that I'd be okay with that um um but overall I'm
192supportive of option b I guess back to me yeah everybody that knows me knows I ran on transparency um you talk about robust conversation but how many close sessions have you been in where you know emphatically you weren't recorded while you were back there none but I I trust that I wasn't we had some pretty robust conversations I'm not going to say what I've recorded or what I haven't um Mr Bar's policy also calls for us to have to pay our foe fees for information as a board to me that's ridiculous if I request information um that the board has discussed or that has to do with the school operation we should not be required to pay that I understand it was added after a 4-year request was made and some stuff came out here
193recently um like I said I'm for transparency and charging board members when we make what is it $265 a month for all the time we invest in this to charge us for a foe request I mean to me that's ridiculous um and as far as the recording goes I mean that's all covered under Dylan rule I'm not worried about that um to me we're all adults handle yourselves accordingly if you can't go back there and handle yourself accordingly and not share information that would void furpa rules then we've got issues I mean there's people sitting up here right now where I was in a meeting and a police officer got up and left the meeting because he realized he was being recorded So to to call for cell phone policies when we're in Clos session
194when things are happening up here I got text messages while we were sitting in Clos session about stuff we were talking about and it was one of you guys that had shared that information with somebody that was sitting right out here in the audience so if you can't conduct yourself properly in Clos session then I would advise you to leave your phone turned off but there's nothing that requires me whether you all vote on these board Norms or not that requires me not to use my phone when I'm in close session I've got a daughter that's 45 minutes away in college I've got a son that plays High School sports tonight I got a half an hour with my family before I had to be here that's my line of communication they're going to be
195in bed by the time I get home my day starts at 4:00 in the morning you all do what you want but I handle myself accordingly when I go to bed at night I can look myself in the mirror and I know what I've done like I said transparency is key foure fees for us is unheard of worried about whether you're being recorded back there that's unheard of nothing I say back there that I won't allow any of y'all to repeat out here as long as it doesn't have to do with any of our students or staff any other discussion thank you Mr a point of order um because the motion on the floor is regarding draft one so shouldn't we voting on draft one and then if you guys want to consider Mr barlos
196and we have to have a motion for draft you and then have a new discussion on that so the motion on the floor by Miss pareno is draft one with the following modification no no motion right now is I move to adop the shend County School Board Norms dra one as presented okay so then I would have to make a motion or M or Mr whoever to um since I did not put that in there um to take out the um take out close session to maintain confidentiality electronic devices will not be used during closed session so are you're making that Amendment officially yes okay yes so miss Carino is making an amendment to remove um for remain confidentiality or to yeah to maintain confidentiality electronic devices will not be used during Clos session so
197the amendment is to remove so the amendment is to remove the section that says to maintain confidenti devices will not be used during close session that's correct and that amendment is do we have a second on that Amendment second amendment has been seconded by Mr Rickard is there any more discussion before we vote I'm not quite connecting the dots between the Dylan Rule and the discussion about recording Clos sessions I mean it's only 9:30 so brains get a little dull uh who can connect those dots for me there's nothing that requires us not to use our cell phone back there we're elected officials but that's not the Dyan rule no what um we're talking about is that the come with of Virginia anybody has the right it's a one party um oh gosh what's the
198name one party one party consent consent one party consent uh Comm state so that means in the Comm of Virginia only one person needs to know when you're recording something so it is your right to record that at any time um you just need your own to do that so that's why um we received some legal council that had said that any of those Clos sessions any of us can actually just record it I mean that that's just a legal right yes Virginia is a one- party recording State and we are under the Dillan rule but the Dillan rule doesn't apply to recording of sessions the Dillan rule says that local governments are only empowered to do what the Commonwealth of Virginia allows them to in an expressed way and in an implied way to
199carry out their expressed powers right but that doesn't have anything to do with recording it it is I think I sent it to you um the other day so let me see if I can find it again in other words I can't I can't justify recording a closed session based on the Dyan rule there where's where's the rule that says that you cannot record a closed session say that again where is the rule or the the law that says that you cannot record a Clos session they're two separate things no no you need to have one then you can have you can record the closed session because we're a one party State exactly but it's not justified by the Dylan rule so take yes that's yes because that is your right the Comm gives you
200that right as a one party consent person you can actually do that recording so you we as a board cannot say no you cannot can the shadow County School Board launch a rocket tonight to go out into space and retrieve those astronauts no why it's irrelevant because I know it's irrelevant because it's it's not a power granted to the school board by the Commonwealth of Virginia that's okay um I'm talking specifically here about the dealing Rule and the one party consent and so what is what is the I think I sent you the statue the other day I'm trying to find it um what is a statute say on the one party uh consent what is the statute on one party consent yeah here in the Comm of Virginia that one party May record without
201the knowledge of the other party all right so and then what's the dealing rule that local governments are empowered to do what the col north of Virginia asks them to do or empowers them to do that you cannot infringe upon those rights that's kind of an important part of it the D rule is a legal principle that states that local govern can only exercise powers that are explicitly granted to them by the state government this means local authorities have limited autonomy compared to home rulle states where municipalities can govern themselves more freely unless specifically restricted by state law and the implied powers to carry out the ones that are delegated can only exercise powers that are explicitly granted so then you have to show me where does it say that the where the state says
202that you cannot absolutely report a session because we make the rules that govern that closed session but you cannot make a rule that actually ex that that it's not granted to you by the state government and the state government has told you that you have you're a one party consent so the state government has told you you have a right as a one person to to do that but the one party consent may not apply to to a government entity that's not what that's not what what it says it's not what the de rule says so that's what I'm saying you have to show me where in the law it says that no and in Clos sessions you cannot record that okay all right point of order so I know Mr Ricker just went to
203the bathroom but do we have any other discussion from someone else Mr Barlo Mr Street on the amendment that Miss careno put forward specifically Mr Street anything no all right I guess we'll wait on Mr Ricker just to make sure and then we'll move forward on voting on that you have the clerk read the amendment please when when Mr sure for Mr hind I want to appreciate you for staying around you need to be at food line by 11: before 11 all right we're prepared unless there's any more discussion to vote on the amendment by Miss careno m jet would you please agre that Amendment remove section to maintain elect will not be used during session everybody hear that clearly yes sir all right roll call vote Please Mr stre no Miss careno yes Mr
204gut Shaw no Mr Vance no Mr Rickard yes Mr bar no all right the vote on the amendment failed four all right now we will I guess refer back to the original motion which which was I moved to adopt the sheno County School Board Norms draft one as presented and we had a second on that I think that was Mr Rickard at the time trying to think back yeah a second y so the original motion was by Miss careno and seconded by Mr Rickard any more discussion before we vote on draft one as it was presented originally hearing none roll call vote Please Mr Street no Miss careno yes Mr Guta no Mr Vance no Mr Rickard no Mr farl no motion to adopt board Norm draft number one as it was presented fails by
2054-2 or two to four vote five to one I'm sorry 5 to one do I hear a motion regarding the adoption of school board Norms Mr acting chairman I move to adopt Shand County School Board Norms draft two as presented motion on the the floor by Mr street is to adopt the shendo County School Board Norms draft two as presented do I hear a second Mr actor chairman uh I second the motion motion has been properly seconded by Mr Vance discussion I'd like to make a motion to amend okay I'm sorry but before that um shouldn't Mr vlo presented and talk over the his changes he has anything well there's a lot of changes in there I think it'd be good for him to explain them I'm ADM minable to them I think it'd be
206good for the public to hear about the foe charges and the uh uh I I can explain it very well Mr rard thank you um so sheno County School Board Norms has been a really nice flexible policy for us over the years years that I've been involved and it's um it's it's a collegial type type of document meant to be somewhat elastic uh but but supposed to be collegial and uh allow us to to work together as as a clo close closely knit group um it did have some archaic stuff in it some stuff that just didn't uh didn't seem to uh be relevant as much as some of the other things we probably needed to add and and it did need to be brought up to date with some uh some of the uh
207current uh issues facing facing education leaders across the country so uh I wanted to um since there's been quite a bit said about it I'm going to U I'm I'm going to refer to the base document but only refer to those things which uh I have included in in in this draft uh draft to um and it um there's a the second major heading is called how we govern uh board members agree to be fully prepared for the meetings by becoming familiar with materials provided by a board do prior to arrival which is one of the reasons I think we need to have time to know what's on the agenda ahead of time and that we can use this three-part um process to become cognizant of the issues that are about to be raised over
208the next several weeks or months that has been before I got here the concept was that we as a board would be brought up to speed about a particular issue by the staff members uh and what find out what the status is on something like a budget or something or the buses or or the Food Service program and we get a baseline information and then based on that if we decide that there's further action then during work sessions and other meetings we get together as a school board we discuss it so that's the reason why uh and it was just with this school board that we started actually having work sessions that those things could be dis discussed so we have actually energized that system of being informed by the staff uh having work sessions
209so that we can engage in um joint discussions among ourselves uh and then strive for consensus agreements um in work and close sessions that's what the board Norm stressed consensus and that's how we try to do business we try to agree with one another um however majority rule is the norm for our regular school board meetings and we use Robert's Rules so that's why for tonight we do things differently than we do during the work sessions um and to that uh end I reiterated Robert's Rules of orders uh Robert's Rules of Order excuse me um and put in the time limits and the um and the uh limitations on speakers uh just as they are are read in Robert's Rules uh which includes members may not Reserve time or nor may they yield their time
210to other members and so um that's a direct L from Robert because that's that's what governs us and that's that's what how we should um promulgate what we do um in close session board members agree to maintain confidentiality regarding all matters discussed in close session as Mr Vance is pointed out in this lies a great deal of security for us because the code Virginia code mentions over 50 different categories of things that we could discuss that are sensitive and for which we need some degree of if you will defense uh to be able to say what we mean at those kind of meetings when it has to do with personnel and it has to do with uh attorneys when it has to do with uh a Personnel sensitive information and we perform a public trust
211by doing that um and so so we must adhere to the concept that information shared in close session will not be disclosed to any enti not privy to the meeting session it protects us on the school board it also protects those people of whom we we're speaking about and so the very concept of of the Privacy is is is key to the Clos session uh and to maintain that confidentiality um we have we have the right to ask that electronic devices not be used during the closed session nobody would ever suggest that we don't have access to our phones for emergency situations that we can't still communicate with people but it would it does create a very very tough situation if as I've heard members of the school board say that they individually preserve the
212right to record and transmit uh regardless of what the board says um remember and we often forget this the school board members exercise No Authority individually we are a member of a corporate Board of six people and the majority decisions or the consensus of that board is what drives us and gives us authority authority and so one person deciding that they are going to record or transmit or otherwise convey that information uh makes kind of a mockery of the whole system and makes that one person uh kind of the one who's Keeper of the flame while the others who are maintaining the convent the confidentiality are disadvantaged so um it is not uh to me that much of a u i don't feel that hamstrung not being able to record uh or to have electronic
213devices uh there there and certainly even last meeting I think I I showed Mr Rickard when I was working on something that that um Tom was coming in later or something that I just wanted to show to him that I was getting updates when Tom was going to come in so I felt it was important to disclose other members that I wasn't communicating with anybody else I don't yeah we're all adults but adults do crazy things uh and that's why we have laws not just for kids um the I have um brought forward multiple times of the last 14 months ways in which members of the school board can bring items to um our attention to be on the agenda I'll I'll say it for the the 10th time and never turned down anybody on
214any issue yet and so I have no idea why people feel disadvantaged and not being able to get do do you do your policies always go to the head of line no and I have in times past as chair with the superintendent worked on those things we felt were most important timely relevant and those are the things that I'm required as the chair to do by by Virginia Co um so it's spelled out very clearly in here the various ways and there's at least three different ways people can bring um comments or agenda it items forward um and and they're spelled out and I made them I I put them in different order just to make it more cogent more more flowing about how all the different ways that that school board members can bring
215um items before before the chair and the vice chair and the superintendent for inclusion in a schedule by which these items will be uh discussed um just went through things that haven't been changed uh one addition that I have have um suggested is a is a a section called policy and oversight and uh it reads as following uh as follows the core responsibilities of the school board relate to the development of policies and providing oversight of our school laws therefore our core core methodologies relate to deliberate planning and information analysis we charged by law to secure as full information as possible about the conduct of public schools our key objective should be focused on reaching a clear understanding of the macro challenges facing our schools as opposed to being more involved in day-to-day operations which
216more properly are concerns of the superintendent therefore it's a greater need for issues taken up by the school board to be comprehensive and thorough and not driven by a desire for haste except in extraordinary circumstances um when an agenda item is brought forward which indicates that it might be an issue with policy ramifications it should undergo an evaluation within the current set of policies a potential policy agenda item will be passed to the policy committee to provide analysis and context regarding the Virginia code and policies the policy committee will work with a member requesting the agenda item and developing a recommendation for the item's disposition many of the if not most of the divisions in Virginia use their policy committee for exactly that it is a it takes the concepts that Schoolboard members would like
217to have considered as a potential policy and gives in some um some grounding and some some research and uh a place to be considered so what's that okay um I wanted to speak to the Freedom of Information Act request that uh Mr Rickard spoke um the foer council does not exempt uh Schoolboard members anybody else in the educational room from paying fees um there is a certain discount for those involved in education uh I I certainly think anybody wants to do that can can Pony up the money and pay for that uh and and use that um use that U foa format uh however um you know when when we are um looking at words like agenda and policy and people's first names and things like that uh that that takes um an ordinate amount
218of staff time uh it seems like um it seems like if somebody wants to do that kind of fishing Expedition that they can follow the rules of the foyer Council and actually pay um if the school board through a majority VOE or consensus agrees to a specific foyer request then there should be no charge assessed that's that's is it has been written here um the attorney hired by the school board members of the school board individually or collectively May request a legal opinion of the hired School Board attorney relating to pertinent education issues the query may may be individually made but the response of the attorney belongs to the entire school board that is the school board corporately so if one person wants to ask our lawyer a question that question is Germain and is
219allowed but the answer belongs to the full School Board not just the person who asked it that is uh and that is a um a uh a principle that is laid down to us by um by the the prior as well as our current um uh um lawyer um I don't think there's you you've been very patient with me I think that's That's the basis but I the final thing I want to say is my at my belief in the the board Norms is that it promotes a deliberate planning process for our school board and not one that reacts to the Hasty um issues of the moment and allows for a Fuller and more comprehensive debate that's all sorry thank you Mr Ricker did you still want to make a were you trying to make
220an amendment before you started talking oh I was going to amend that we move the Freedom of Information Act request you know what it really it's pointless because I know the vote's going to go through I just want the members of the public my constituents to know the freedom of the information act request works great as long as you're not the one being shed in the bad light because you're sharing information about the board or whatever talking behind the scenes um so when the corporate body of the school board four of us votes together then they can circumvent the whole fo you fee process um so I just want the my constituents to see also the attorney hired by the school board um if we can all contact the attorney separately and this has happened
221where two board members don't see eye to eye let's keep in mind it's your taxpayer dollars every time one of us picks up the phone and calls the attorney and then somebody else doesn't like the answer the attorney gave us all and they pick up the phone and call the attorney that attorney's fees are going up every time that attorney picks up the phone um so to me we should have one of us contacting the attorney based on us coming up with the question or whatever um I mean y'all are going to do what you want so so it it doesn't matter to me any other discussion uh yes and um I pck you back what Mr rard said uh we know how this is going to go but I want to make sure that
222people know exactly what it is that we're voting on and I hope that every school board member has actually read this and understand exactly what we're voting on um beyond what Mr Barlo talked about but let me just uh talk a little bit about this um for example um I know at one point there's a part of them and it was actually from the old one um as well where it says that the shair will continuously uh pull the members um about what we're going to be putting in the agenda well I can tell you I can't remember the last time that Mr Barlo actually did that so even though it's in in the the rules right there um I think February or March of last year may have been the last time that this
223was done which is part of the reason why it was so important for me as a board member to know you know I haven't you know that Friday until the meeting before to add some kind of policy um because just because we have actually written that in there doesn't mean that it's actually being followed but more importantly um this is quite the Bible of rules um that we have here before us and um one of the things that um some of the my biggest concerns are uh if we talked about for example in that policy and oversight uh what we have here is that if a member has a policy that they want to bring forth they have to bring it to the policy committee well who's the policy committee that's Mr vlo and Mr
224Vance right now and according to this rules that Mr Barlo is actually um proposing uh the policy committee let me should read it so I'm not uh in any way accused of not reading it the right way it says uh the policy committee okay potential policy agenda item will be passed to the policy committee to provide by analysis and context regarding the Virginia code and policies you know I'm perfectly fine with that for the people who need to have somebody else do their research for them um I feel pretty confident that I can do my research and I can talk and I can do what Mr stre did that he called Richmond and we can uh do a lot of that information ourselves so usually when I um have a policy that I consider and
225I propose is something that I've already done my research uh so I I don't need to have Mr Barlo or Mr V do the policy uh that research for me and I don't need anybody else to do it in the times that I have needed like for example the cell phone policy that is something that was that we actually benefited from having the school board um the the school uh administrators actually talking about this and talking to the principles so we did that because that was actually appropriate but when it comes to the laws um I feel pretty confident that I can do my own research but what it's important here is that it says and the policy committee will work with the member requesting the agenda item in developing a recommendation for the items
226disposition so that means that the policy committee gets to decide whether a member's policy is going to be put forth for consideration of the of the board or not so whereas Mr Barlo says that he's never going to stop anybody I mean I I I know there's been delays and and usually I I fight pretty hard for the policies that I believe in um what we're putting here is that whether it's Mr Barlo or somebody else in the future actually has the right to stop board members from actually putting policy forth because that's what we're saying right here that whoever is in the policy committee can actually put a stop to that um the other thing is uh like Mr said the the idea of doing the legal analysis of what is written here is
227that every agenda item will usually benefit from a legal analysis from the school board attorney again that's uh taxpayer money that we're we spending a lot of money on ni fees uh just to propose any kind of policy that we have now the Freedom of Information Act request that one is very interesting because um uh let's just talk about it the reason why and Mr rigard um he's talking about that 4ye request that was my foryear request and the reason I did this was because for those who don't know the ins and outs of this board transparency is not really the biggest name um around here and there's a lot of things that go on where I can tell you Mr rer and I are very frequently left out so for example uh with regards
228to this INB policy that we have right now I had received a call from Mr Street back in uh February 6 regarding um he waned to change that policy that we had already passed unanimously and I will talk about this a little bit more at the work session and also at our next meeting but that was the first time I ever heard heard that they were trying to overturn the policy that we had just passed because let's just make it very clear that Amendment essentially nullifies the the policy that we already passed so when I asked Mr Street he told me no that that was his idea that he was the one who had written it and that that was it well com to found out later on that Mr Street had not written that
229Amendment so I'm trying to find out well who wrote the amendment and I asked a shepherd and nobody wanted to come forward and say who exctly had written it until finally Mr gell said that it was him he had written the the amendment um I even which I'm calling an amendment we know it's not an amendment but I asked him well did you do it by yourself you know what kind of you know feedback did you get what policy were you modeling thisas and all I got was oh I got some people to help me that's all we have not a whole lot of transparency so I'm trying to find out exactly who helped and who wrote this and who did that actually has to be asking all these questions to find out what it
230is that board members are doing I mean this is just ridiculous absolutely ridiculous that I have to do this so I asked Mr um Tran you know can I have some clarification of this I need some emails about what is going on and who exactly did this or not so that's when we decided Well it's probably going to have to be a Foye request come to find out in the Foye request that on January 31st Mr goshaw actually sent the his proposed amendment to Dr Shephard that's over a week before Mr street called me to tell me that he had this amendment so again this is the kind of thing that we're working on right now you know that I we have to kind of start calling and and trying to find out who's doing
231what and what's the pro the the purpose behind it and in fact even that draft instruction policy that Mr gotell sent on January 31st is different from the one that was ultimately um introduced so that kind of stuff should not be happening in that board that has transparency the same thing that happened with the agenda setting again all the time because pretty much let's be honest here all the policies that we have has even been introduced by myself or by Mr rord some of them are done in one month of them are in several months but eventually they may get into the agenda but it's said back and forth having to fight for those items to be in the in the agenda um in October we find out well now you can't do it because
232the agenda meeting was in September so again is a lack of transparency that that lack of you know even like today you know we I thought that we were going to be talking about this uh policy so I got ready for this policy because at the last meeting I had said let's just do it at the next meeting and this is the next meeting again because there's no communication there's no information I we don't know half the time I come in here and I have no idea what's going on what changes are going to be done or what the members that are not Mr rer and I have decided to do about this so so yeah so it is it is important for those of us who are in the in the dark with a
233lot of the stuff that is going on in the in the board and I can bring up a whole lot more let me tell you I have Pages written of some of the stuff that have happen been happening behind closed doors and I'd be more than willing to share that if we need to if that's what the board wants to do I'm more than happy to do it because I have like I said three pages of stuff that's been going on in this in this uh board where the of transparency or the changes or the try or not returning calls or just making changes without telling us has been happening for over a year so yeah I'm very concerned about this rules um the fo request fine I can afford it but like Mr Rickard
234said we as members should not have to be doing a foyer request to find out what is happening in our own board what our fellow board members are doing um the the the whole idea of the of the U electronic devices every single member of this board again with the exception of probably Mr vs is always texting or on their phones back there the sh are more than more than most of the people because I get to see him across from me so I barely ever I hardly ever if ever use my phone part of it because I can't even read it on unless I have my phone I have to look at it right there so I'm not usually using my phone yet this request came immediately after I had my computer during during
235a legal session with with the legal council where we were talking about statutes and laws so I had my computer so I could look up the statutes and the case laws that she was actually me mentioning and talking about because as a board member not just a lawyer but as a board member I want to know when she tells me something I want to be able to look it up and see what kind of in informed and smart questions I can actually ask and not just take her word for it or whatever the members are saying so I had my computer and immediately after that the week after that all of a sudden we don't want any electronic devices on the close session what a coincidence again so yeah I'm getting tired of of of
236always being targeted um every time that I do something that is completely fine and it's actually what should be expected of a board member and the following week we're going to get some kind of a policy or some kind of way of trying to um herb my job which is what I was elected to do um so yeah so just so you know that's what the electronic devices are it it's not not a concern over the text use or the or the phone use because everybody else has been using them and like Mr Rickard said one of his members actually was texting somebody in the public about a close session the same close session that here in Mr baros is saying that we should not be discussing with everybody any member from the outside so
237yeah so I have a few concerns about this I know it's going to pass because that's what this board is going to do anyways but I do want the public to know that yeah the reason why we are actually against this is because of the lack of transparency and of the targeting that has been happening and all the stuff that that has been happening on this board which is just absolutely regretful any other discussion um yeah I just want to say I I apologize when you asked me who read read who wrote it I I thought you meant like the way I did my internship and the way senators and congressmen it's their ideaal it was my idea but they don't act physically write it that's what I thought that was my what I thought
238so I apologize that you wanted to know who physically wrote it I thought you it was my thoughts I didn't know that that it was you know that you wanted to be that detailed about it so well I asked you did you write this I was very specific about it I'm I'm just explaining what I'm used to in life and what elected officials they don't actually physically write it it's their thoughts that's all I'm sorry right well let me respond to that we each come up with ideas based on what we read what we see who we talk to and we come up with different things that we think should be implemented uh there are there are people here that tend to talk to each other all the time um uh I haven't gotten return
239return call a return call from Gloria Carino in 14 months you haven't called me what are you talking about I have called you and I've respons I'm just going to tell the truth now I'm just going to tell the please do that would great um I have U been accused twice of here tonight I Once Upon a Time Mr Rickard in close session indicated that uh I had been giving information about Clos session information that turned out to be absolutely bogus I had told somebody somebody was going to come late to the meeting I said you'll be okay because we have four items we're talking about in Personnel closed session I didn't mention anybody's name or any of those things that came back to me through Mr Rickard and now it has become like legendary
240and nothing happened I'm not one of those people who uses the phone back there you never seen my phone back there I just saw you today gu you were protection the whole time we were there when this Dr sheer was talking you were on the phone the whole time I even made a motion to Mr Ricker to say look I'm who's actually using the phone what are you talking about that simply isn't true so so these things so if if Mr Street has an idea for something that he wants to do and he wants to ask somebody else how do I write this he's right he he has the ability to go to anybody on his board or a friend of his or his wife or anybody else and come up with ideas that make
241sense to him and shees no apologies to anybody for who he sees and who he talks to there's no shelf life on B on bad ideas or good ideas and people can and and for for for you to be saying this is absolutely unbelievable uh so um how that she just made that accusation why don't she just explain that right now please can you please explain that instead in said you know I I get this I've been incredibly transparent incredibly transparent you sh shake your head all you want um I wanted to make a couple points there one is the policy committee I'm not the chairman of the policy Comm just V and regardless of who's on it this Board needs to take the committee assignments seriously including personnel and Trust each other and not
242say oh they've got it I'm not doing business with it if you had heard what you said before the policy committee doesn't determine the disposition it makes a recommendation for the disposition that recommendation can will be done in consultation with the superintendent with the other members of the board so that we can figure out the best way forward so uh I think these charges of of um of uh not transparency are are are ludicrous and I I I I find them personally insulting but that's um that's all I have to say all right so we are going to get ready here and vote excuse me vote M shck could you read the motion I move to count School dra as presented motion made by Mr stre seconded by Mr Pro call vot please Mr Street
243yes Miss caria no Mr bance yes Mr Rickard no Mr Barlo yes Mr gsha yes version two passes 4 to two Mr Marlo turn it back over to you [Applause] action 5.3 is the request for reappropriation of the prior's federal reimbursal balances you heard the information earlier uh do I have a motion to approve the request for reapo appropriation move to approve the request for reappropriation of Prior years Federal reimbursement balances as present second um any discussion if not uh R call both Cher Mr stre yes Miss caria yes Mr gsha yes Mr B yes Mr R yes Mr Barlo yes the final action item uh 5.4 Personnel um is superintendent recommended the Personnel actions outline on the list be uh approved um do I have a motion to approve that Personnel list so move
244Mr Vance uh it's a motion second second second Mr Street all those in favor please indicate by saying I I I any opposed 60 and it is time for the superintendent's monthly report thank you it was wonderful to see so many students and families participate in the College and Career scholarship Fair held at Central High School we want to thank Sida County Chamber of Commerce for helping to put on this great event for our students and all of our high school guidance counselors and Community groups that provide a valuable information about scholarships career opportunities answered questions and even conducted mo mo interviews for our students this year we had some outstanding swimming performances the central boys swimming team placs third overall in the vhsl class one and two swimming championships behind the second place finished
245by the 200 freestyle relay team of Grayson Dawson Brady Hecker U Bruce Mitchell and Elliot arts in strawsburg Emily Davis won a pair of state titles in the 200 individual medley and the 100 butterfly we want to also congrat ulate the strawsburg Jr um Hudson Conrad for the state wrestling championship which capped off a perfect season on the mat where he went 34 to0 um with 27 pens North for Middle School 7eventh grader Jaylen price was our top local finisher at the Rockingham District ruitton spelling be she placed in the top five overall Peter millberg middle school held a Hoops for heart fundraiser collecting donations and holding a series of grade level students and staff basketball games over two days that were enjoyed by the participants and the fans overall they raised over $1,000 for
246the American Heart Association I would like to congratulate the Central High School ff8 meet evaluation team on winning the state contest and earning the right to represent Virginia at the National FFA convention um I mentioned this earlier strawsburg High School opens our spring musical schedule with a three night performance of Fiddler on the Roof we got A Sneak Peek last week and they have put a lot of work into this production looking forward to their um performances this weekend we also held our annual more banquet more Grant banquet last Wednesday at triplet Tech it's always one of my favorite nights of the year we not only get to celebrate this year's nine more Grant recipients who received a total of $188,500 um have done with their more grants today 235 grants totaling 2,454 47 and
24773 cents have been awarded by the more educational trust congratulations to the Central High School basketball team on winning the Bull Run District title the Falcons went to reach the class 2 region B championship game in the state Corner finals and then also congratulations to Stonewall Jackson wintergard team on placing third in the k Ada competition in wesboro Pennsylvania happy to answer any questions I guess there are no questions thank you so um 7.1 board member comments who wants to kick it off I guess I will um I'd like to extend my condolences to a pillar of our community in strawsburg jimo Stout uh he served our community well he uh he coached my kids um I got to coach alongside him all I can say is if you didn't know him you didn't know
248him but so many did and he made such an impact I would love to lead the Legacy that man has left um it was all about the kids of stws and it extended past there I mean Central Mount Jackson um he had a bark about him but he had a love for each and every kid that he coached and uh I would like to make a formal um a formal request I know I emailed you guys but I would like to name the field at signal knob after him um if I need to get letters of support I can do that um but I would like to do something to honor the man his family how much time he's got invested in all the kids over the past 34 35 years um not only did
249he coach football but he coached basketball with parks and wreck um you just had to know the man he was quite incredible he devoted so much time to the kids to the coaching staff um all I can say is my condolences to the family thank you I had prepared a PSA on the uh musical at stsb high school but someone at the other end of the table's already done that for me I'll just remind you that tomorrow at 7:00 Saturday at 7:00 and Sunday at 3:00 and hope to see you and your family me okay well I just try to get along with everybody um Mr hin you get the award I guess thank you for hanging in there Mr Bowman thanks for keeping us straight keep it up hope you enjoy that Virginia Maple
250c um just want to I'll back up uh Jimbo Stout definitely a great great reputation uh no doubt about it did um back up with um what Mike said about him and he did have a bark no doubt about it you could hear all the way um just want to point out real quick uh congratulations Central basketball like Dr shepher pointed out um a few things real quick um I want to thank uh Dr Shepard um and the that was in the budget it it it kind of bothered me because because somebody an employee brought something to our attention that wasn't right and it it's not about what the pay is it's just about right or wrong and basically bottom line bringing to our attention that um I've never heard and I represent the hourly
251paid employee ever since jobs in college is just like everybody in this room and I've never heard of a system where this is what you get paid an hour but after the fifth hour we're going to pay you less per an hour so nobody in this room wrote that up not blaming anybody in this room that's something in the past but I just will simply say that I'm slightly disappointed that um that was designed in a school system where we're supposed to treat each other with respect and and and fair that's something that a greedy Corporation would do um in life so I want to give credit to Dr Shepard for making a wrong right and just under good faith and being fair which I highly support and adamant about sorry it's just the way
252I was raised um also congratulations to her and her staff I and I hope employees talk about we made a wrong right um congrat you know kudos to her and her staff for working on the health insurance um I'm proud that Shand County Public Schools and and I hope the employees really appreciate reducing basically our health insurance they've been working hard and and basically an example I'm proud to say that um an employe employee plus family has been basically cutting 50% roughly over $600 so um that's a good job for for Dr Shepard and the staff for working on that um she mentioned tripet Tech um a lot of great things going on there and and we met there and and also along with all the good things there I know that that uh you
253forgot to add in that uh this Paige with the MH um fabulous the kids make a fabulous meal there so um that's also a good thing about it um other all with the other good stuff um basically that's it um I just want to point out to the public real quick you're going to hear that I said the exact same thing probably a year ago and how do I say this real briefly when you get a front row seat of doing the budget and the financial part it's a different View um it's an eye opener and I still come back to I I just don't know how to make the numbers work and and and I I I'm not don't take this the wrong way but it's frustrating because I came up with two ideas
254that I worked with Mr Mor Dennis Morris on and The Other Board of Supervisors and you know you think you got a way of generating Revenue because hey the last thing we want to do is touch um the taxpayers we don't want to do that but you know we had two ideas both of them got knocked down because you know we're told by Richmond we can't do that so it's just frustrating because we'll come up with ideas how can we generate revenue and then and at the end you're working on it and it gets squashed so my point is to the taxpayers um I feel I I I don't you know I feel for the Board of Supervisors because they're under a lot of stress because they're trying to figure out how to make this
255work um with all the departments in the county if you have any idea de s feel free to contact your Bard supervisor they'll be more than willing to to listen to you so you know don't you know what I guess what I'm saying is I feel I feel for them they're under a lot of challenges if you got an idea reach out to them they're doing the best they can do with what they have so anyway um that's all Mr chmer thank you m car you can go first um lot of good things going on with the schools getting the budget First Step um and then seeing how much we get from the Board of Supervisors and then going from there making the best out of what they give us so a lot of good
256things going on with the school system busy time of the year coming up with all the different events um a lot of good opportunities like last month for us to be involved and visit the schools so looking forward to that Mr Carin I don't think I have anything for now I'm sorry I don't have anything for now yeah I have nothing either uh do I have a um motion to adjourn I move to adjourn at 10:23 1023 thank you for that second second Mr Ricker thank you all in favor please signify by saying I None