001it is 6:30 or 5:30 this evening so I'd like to call to order of the sheno County school board meeting uh and uh ask if there's a recommendation that we meet in a closed session 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 involv 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 Virginia code 22- 3711 A2 and pursuant to the provisions of Virginia code 22-37 37 11 a29 to discuss the award of a public contract involving the expenditure of public funds including interviews
002of bids or offerers and discussion of the terms or scope of such contract where discussion in Open Session would adversely affect the bargaining position or negotiating strategy of the public body and to convene a closed meeting session pursuant to Virginia code 22- 37188 to consult with legal counsel regarding specific legal matters required IR ing the provision of legal advice by such Council to discuss the audit of special education funds for fiscal year 21 and fiscal year 22 and to discuss the Virginia state conference NAACP at all versus uh County School Board of shanida County case thank you Dr Shepard before I ask for a motion to that effect uh I want to note that the uh two members of the school board are not present uh we anticipate that Tom Street will not be here
003this evening uh but we do anticipate that uh Gloria carinia will be here at some point and when she makes her appearance uh we'll note it in the record okay uh do I have a recommended motion I move that to Shino County School Board convene a closed meeting on the Virginia Freedom of Information Act in order to discuss and consider several Personnel matters involving the assignment appointment promotion for performance demotion salary discipline or resignation under Virginia code 22- 3711 A14 and to discuss Scholastic records involving the discussion or consideration of admission or disciplinary matters concerning any student of any state school system under Virginia code 22- 3711 A2 and pursuant to the provisions of Virginia code 22- 3711 a29 to discuss the award of a public contract involving the expenditure of public funds including interviews
004of bors or offerers and discussion of the terms or scope of such contract for discussion in an open session would adversely affect the baring phys or negotiating strategy of the public body and to convene a closed meeting session pursuing 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 the audit of special education funds for fiscal year 21 and fiscal year 22 and to discuss a Virginia state conference NAACP County versus County School Board of shanida County case thank you Mr Guta for that motion a second second thank you Mr record all in favor please signify by saying I I any opposed none opposed we will reconvene and close session e e e it's 611 uh we would like
005to reconvene and Open Session do I have a mo well before we go into the motion I'd like to note that U Tom Street will be absent for this evening's meeting uh and that uh Gloria Carino rejoined our meeting approximately 5:55 did you note that earli thank you okay so now I'd like entertain a motion to reconvene an open session move to reconvene an open session do I have a second to that motion second thank you Mr Rickard a motion made by Mr gut Shaw all in favor meeting um in Open Session please indicate by saying I I thank you uh 5 Z I'd like to read the following statement the sheno County School Board hereby certifies by roll call vote that the best of each member's knowledge only public business matters lawfully Exempted from
006openening requirements by Virginia law were discussed in the closed meeting to which this certification resolution applies and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion Comm meting the Clos meeting were heard discussed or considered by the shendo County School Board each member responds I certify when called uh and Sher would you call the we call please miss Caren IO certify Mr vsha ISO certifi Mr V IO certifi Mr R IO certifi and Mr bar ISO certified Mr cutshaw uh we'll bring the invocation and the Pledge of Allegiance please bow your head dear God we thank you for the opportunity to serve our community and guide the education of our children grant us wisdom patience and understanding as we make decisions that impact the future of our students help us to work together
007with respect keeping the best interests of our students teachers and families at heart May our discussions be thoughtful our choices be wise and our actions be just we ask for your guidance in blessing and all that we do amen please stand for the pledge I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to theic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all I do I have a motion to approve the agenda as it has been presented I move to approve the agenda as it's been presented thank you Mr Rickard a second second second by Mr carinia all in favor of approving the agenda cons signify by saying I I any oppos not oppos uh Dr Shephard you have some recognitions for us this evening I
008do thank you so first I would like to recognize our shanida County Public Schools music students earning all district selections so shanida County Public School students from stur Central and stall Jackson High School audition for and were selected to perform at the all district 14th Orchestra and band concerts held January 25th at K Run High School and February 1st at milbrook high school respectively I would like to um introduce Mr Devon esle from stbg High School Miss Lauren shner from Central um high school and Madison farmer from stall Jackson High School to come forward yes good evening my name is Devon elck and I teach Orchestra and band at strawsburg high school uh one of my students who participated in the All District Band as a clarinet player is going to tell you all a
009little bit more about what exactly uh these students are being recognized for hello my name is Ruby lens I I played at dist The District Band concert um as a clarinet player um I want to say getting to perform with talented musicians from all over the area was a truly special experience not only did we play music We performed shared resources and most importantly we got to collaborate in December we auditioned against many other musicians from around the district challenged to make ourselves stand out the audition included scales site reading and a prepared piece we were selected as the top scoring musicians for the instrument we play and were invited to play with the group two weeks ago the selected students met at milbrook High School in Winchester to perform together we got our music
010and about after 2 days of rigorous practice we performed our concert in mil Brook's Auditorium this event reminds us of how valuable music education is so on behalf of myself and all of the other musicians here I want to say thank you for supporting music in our schools I have um two students who would like to share a brief statement about their experience with District Band and District Orchestra respectively I'm introducing Haley Wilkins good evening my name is Haley Wilkins and I am a junior clarinet player and drum major at Stonewall Jackson high school I want to say thank you so much for making the opportunity to attend District Band possible rehearsing in auditoriums with guest conductors and with our peers across our County and district is what makes honor band events like all district
011band and P chinoa honor band unique having the chance to attend District Band gave me the opportunity to be challenged by harder music in a fast-paced environment while working with new people in the music Community thank you so much for making this opportunity available thank you hello I'm Ella La CW and I'm a junior voola player for Stonewall like band District Orchestra is an auditioned Ensemble that selects the best students to create a full semi-professional Ensemble or te these students are expected to already have the music under their belts and ready to F tune this year we will we were able to stay overnight which allowed students to work on community building with each other and make the long schedule more bearable this event was enjoyable and we learned so much on not only how
012to play better but to be better musicians and support our music program thank you again for this [Applause] opportunity so we would like to congratulate our band and Orchestra students and if you guys will all come up here and right here we're going to get a a group picture so do sorry thank you so much congratulations thank [Applause] so February is School Board appreciation month school board members are elected to represent the interests of students teachers parents and other stakeholders the school board plays a vital role in ensuring that students have access to a high quality education and members are responsible for the oversight success and effectiveness of school systems February is School Board appreciation month and we would like to acknowledge and celebrate our school board members and at your desk you have a
013certificate of recognition thank you so much thank you and then um School Board clerk appreciation we could not do it without our school board clerks Miss um Jet and Miss Stickley the third week of February has been designated as school school board clerk Appreciation Week in honor of school board clerk appreciation week let's take a moment to recognize and express our appreciation for the outstanding contributions of school board clerks Cheryl Jet and Deputy clerk Crystal Stickley as we celebrate School Board clerk appreciation week let's acknowledge the role the school board's Clerk and Deputy clerk play in the smooth operation of the school board meetings the clerks attend meetings maintain accurate records and address the needs of our School Division Miss Jets and Miss stickley's attention to detail and organizational skills positively impact the lives of
014students teachers administrators Schoolboard members and superintendents we are fortunate to have them as part of our team thank you so [Applause] much thank you Dr Shephard recognitions and um we are ready for Republican staff comments on agenda items and non aend actually so i' like to read the following statement the shanid County Public Schools welcomes public comment from shanida County students excuse me residents parents Guardians as well as some current students and employees of sheno County Public Schools school board members do not respond to public comments during the meeting or hearing each speaker may speak up to three minutes the board generally allows up to 30 minutes for public comments on agenda and non agenda items at the beginning of the meeting if there are a large number of speakers Bo at the time I
015don't think that we're going to have that problem today all comments should address a matter related to shendo County Public Schools comments regarding division employee should be directed to the school principal or an appropriate School Division official School Board expects that each speaker will be courteous modeling for our students how one can respectfully disagree with others views speakers will address their comments to the entire school board and not to one individual board member to the superintendent to a staff member nor to the audience speakers will not engage in personal attacks uh speakers have uh signed up uh for this public meeting on the document provided to me by the clerk uh clerk has ascertained speakers have indicated their roles as stakeholders and have valot addresses uh and the speakers will be called order which they're
016signed up time allows chair may allow comments from individuals who have not signed up um if you do have any written comments they should be passed to the clerk if you have eight copies of that and you have written you may do so uh when you come up to speak and the first Speaker I have recorded is Rebecca troutner is that correct thank you would you just like a copy of this I brought copy thank you okay we ready okay I want to bring to your attention significant concerns primarily in special education I have witnessed and experienced at Sandy Hook as a substitute and parent I have to talk fast there's a lot and this isn't even all of it the federal and state fed regulations are not being followed for example civil rights my
017has auditory processing disorder and as a result experiences severe anxiety which was affecting her ability to attend and participate in school so I began the child study process at her first meeting she was found ineligible for services simply because she had good grades no child can be discriminated against or denied Services based on their grades alone I was issued a treny letter the very next day by the same admin that attended that child study meeting instead of helping the child the parent was punished but I digress Americans with Disabilities Act the playground is not ADA Compliant even though wheelchair swing that was installed just a few years ago is not compliant for inappropriate public education there's a fifth grade student that cannot speak English and cannot read or right in Spanish but was denied a
018translator device to translate their school work because it's a crutch child find it is well known that school does not like testing the younger children we should wait and see or we'll keep them on the radar child find requires schools to test all students from birth to 21 years of age Whenever there is a suspected disability these issues are only the tip of the iceberg I can only imagine how many students have been denied Services they need because the school isn't following the regulations and listening to the parents and teachers when they request testing for a suspected disability there's no one sped certified over seeing the sped program at Sandy Hook to offer daily guidance and support to the sped staff and ensure services are being provided according to regulations in each child's IEP there's
019no one sped certified overseeing 504 plans as a result many students have been affected my daughter has not been receiving her accommodations all year until recently when I contacted her case manager she went from a 61% of each of her reading and math District to assessments for quarter 1 to a 35% in math and 48% for reading in quarter 2 four sped teachers each with their own case loads are forced to share one room that contains each of their desks one shared phone and only their only space to provide specialized instruction small group testing and provide behavioral and academic support this for this Forces Staff daily to try and find space in the hallway cafeteria wherever they can find Space on multiple occasions they have even been forced out of their only room so it
020can be used for Gena trainings we can't expect progress of our sped kids in that type of environment pair Pros are constantly being pulled to cover classrooms for meetings several students have been assigned a one to one pair but some have not even received that support yet because the pairs are constantly pulled the much needed full-time pairs were already removed from the kindergarten classrooms and now sometimes they can't even get there get in there for their part-time hours they are limited to because they are constantly pulled I'm going to skip that next point but you have that information one of the sped teachers left honor around November 22nd parents were not notified that she was gone until December 17th even then they were likely only notified because her departure was made public by the parent
021the day before the parents should have been notified the same day thank you Susie wber my name is Susie wilbour and I use she her pronouns Miss Carino has made it clear that she believes a lot of misinformation about transgender people when she speaks of vile and demonic ideology the truth is that there is no ideology and in fact there are very few places where transgender people can turn for professional health she simply wants these students to go away and is certainly not ready to understand them in any shape or form isn't it her job to care for all the students almost all transgender people diagnose themselves prior to seeking help it is not uncommon for transgender people to report that they understood their identity as early as 3 years old excuse me one one
022second it's can we just hold the time I don't believe that she's supposed to be addressing any one School Board member according to the St that you're at I didn't address you per personally I I was talking about you in general as to your views that have been so it's okay so are you you're going to continue and you're not going to mention any further names sure I can do that almost all transgender people diagnose themselves prior to seeking help it is not uncommon for transgender people to report they understood their identity as early as 3 years old together with supporting medical professionals these individuals can chart a path forward that gives the person the best chance of success there is no single course of treatment when the school system provides acceptance and support needed
023to help that person grow into a healthy adult there are more positive outcomes with trans individuals acceptance or lack of acceptance plays a major role in the mental health of the student studies show that transgender minors in an accepting environment attemp suicide at less than half the rate of those in environments that don't accept them for who they are no parent wants to lose a child I certainly empathize with parents whose children have died too soon no matter the circumstances I lost my own son 10 years ago and it is the worst trust me it's the worst the policies that tell transgender people that Society does not believe what they say is real will lead directly to the deaths of students and parents will be the ones wishing they had done more to help because
024of this I urge that you eliminate the January change to policy INB about subjects the proposed change to the ban allowing counselors to speak with children is a step in the right direction but why are you excluding teachers why teachers while teachers are not counselors teachers often show their students compassion and love though a teacher might not be the right person to offer counseling the teacher can be a thoughtful listener and help guide the student toward appropriate resources resources that we already have at chanille County such is people like Woodstock the proposed change to policy gb/ jfab is ambiguous for everyone The Proposal indicates that the intent for this policy is fear of a lawsuit that has happened in other Federal districts if this is a real worry then the right answer is to amend
025the policy to allow a teacher to opt out and to notify the school in the same way that the parents must this makes the policy clear and gives everyone a path forward while I personally think this allows a teacher to use time is up thank you thank you Elizabeth Straton could I do an introduction before you start the time my name is Elizabeth Straton I'm a retired teacher from central high school and I was delighted to be able to teach English 11 creative writing and most especially Theater Arts thank you in the last six months certain politicians have made transgender people a target of choice because trans fol are few in number and the population at large does not have an understanding of gender non-conforming people consequently lies about trans people have spread our institutions
026our Public Schools make policy based on these lies and misunderstandings they do immense harm to a group that has done nothing wrong and wants to live their lives the way everyone does free from persecution dismissive policies that Target transgender people and make their lives more difficult are against American values and traditions trans people are not Predators unfortunately I feel that some politicians are preying upon trans people my shanida County School Board must not get caught up in this frenzy of discrimination sweeping our culture if it does I suspect that history will remember this board as insensitive to the point of being cruel and inhumane not a label that any of you wants to have a attached to your legacy as a Shan shanor County School Board member the proposed change to policy privacy dignity and
027respect for all students and parents in chanida County public schools that would remove the section stating that parents can inform the school of the name and pronouns appropriate for their own children is exactly such a policy removal of clearly defined regulations to be replaced with nothing how will individual schools handle this will some schools accommodate this request While others deny it unfortunately written policy will no longer offer Guidance the stated read reason for the change to allow a teacher to weaponize the First Amendment right against children is not the real motivation if it were the proposed change would be to amend a pol policy to allow the teacher to opt out of this request that was not done instead the board was wants to eliminate the entire policy this absolutely does not solve the problem
028instead it creates a vacuum where policy should exist and does nothing to protect the Dignity of our children the same is true of the change of policy the change to policy teaching about controversial issues enacted in January this policy makes the very word transgender Taboo in our schools it makes our trans students officially invisible M thank you thank you uh is it I'm looking is it Lori yes Thomas fower yes okay hello uh the proposed change to policy gbab JF habab is unnecessary and counterproductive it claims to be about preserving the rights of teachers while removing any official way for the parents of transgender students to be sure their children will be treated with dignity and respect it is an attack on one group of people masquerad as protection for another this is a tactic
029that has become all too common in modern America the school board should not be participating in this sort of behavior that it occurs in a policy about dignity and respect makes it even worse it is clear that if the board implements this change that it is not about the assistance for the transgender students but a solution in search of a problem this also applies to January 9th changed policy INB on teaching controversial subjects I don't see how it's controversial for a child to get help that he or she needs for the school to turn its back on these students is the worst kind of behavior it seems the board itself agrees that it has overstepped its boundaries in January however rather than amending the January 9th change it should be eliminated at the very least
030teacher should be included in the sentence about the school Personnel who can speak to students aot ing them to speak does not force them to speak teachers are the mo teachers are the most likely adult that a student might turn to for help the proposed change doesn't allow the teacher to even engage with the student as someone who grew up in a home with an abusive parent I can speak from experience that teachers are a trusted resource again the right solution to the problem is to remove the text the board added in January to begin with the net result of these kinds of changes to school policy is to tell transgender students that they aren't welcome in shann Andor County studies show that transgender students in accepting environments are far less likely to attempt suicide
031than students in repressive environments respect the students and the parents don't make the shanor County School System a place where some students will experience harm fear and indignity thank you for your time Linda Thomas fer the school board through its policy speaks about respect for the dignity and privacy of students the board even names the policy gbab jfab privacy dignity and respect for all students and parents in shannona County Public Schools if this is true then why would the board remove a policy intended to give direction to both the school system and parents on how to handle the name and pronouns of a student removing this policy shows a complete lack of respect when combined with the January 9th changes to policy I andb that prohibit even acknowledging the existence of transgender students it shows
032not just disrespect but verges on being outright antagonistic the board seems to have realized this based on the proposed changes to INB this month but the right solution is to remove all of the January 9th texts not to Simply amend it taboo subjects have no place in our schools where children should be free to learn about the world transgender issues can be complex but experience shows that children handle them very easily unless an adult forces their acceptance to be a problem for them by making the subject forbidden the school board is sending a message that the board doesn't think that transgender people and the medical professionals that treat them are telling the truth indeed comments by one Schoolboard member show that she thinks a vast conspiracy exists to recruit children into a vile and demonic
033transgender lifestyle whatever those motives if the board follows these recommendations then the result will harm transgender children when transgender children are schooled in an excepting environment they're much more likely to grow up into happy and productive adults what she does not see is the tens of thousands of transgender people who have successfully transitioned and gone on to live happy lives they are simply a part of society that we don't notice because there is nothing to notice they are just people who have successfully handled a difficult situation this is why policy INB should be rolled back to the version before January 9th and why the proposed changes to policy gbab jfab should be rejected taking a clear policy and replacing it with nothing will create situations where children can be traumatized by the school system's inconsistent
034handling of their situations if the board thinks that legal cases that are cited as an excuse for changing the policy are a valid concern then it should simply amend the policy to allow a teacher to opt out these teachers though should not be teaching transgender students since they misuse their religious freedom to deny these students the dignity and respect they deserve thank you Rhonda zingraff hello I actually am uh delighted by the draft policy change about treatment of controversial issues I think it's a great step on behalf of all student safety and healthy development in the list of all who may respond to student concern the absence of teachers seems mistaken and I hope that will be corrected and changes be approved and many thanks to all who had a hand in this the proposed
035revision to the policy on privacy dignity and respect on the other hand should definitely be rejected it's simply wrong to uphold parental rights only when you happen to agree with the parents when a family has reached a decision however challenging it may have been to BR a written request for the school's cooperation in a child's name or pronoun change they need for you to treat them with respect and compassion and dignity and your policy already calls for that in section 3D number one and this revision would do the opposite moreover The Proposal is misleading about the law it claims binding federal legal precedent to argue that you can deny parental rights and have the law on your side but the Supreme Court case it mentions only provided quote preliminary injunctive relief in quote from compliance
036with Title 9 regulations issued by the Department of Education that is not the final word on federal law or on Title Nine you can find this very different ruling on a different case at the federal level and I quote from Grim's decision quote at the heart of this appeal is whether equal protection and Title Nine can protect transgender students from school policies that prohibit them from affirming their gender We join a growing consensus of Courts and holding that the answer is resoundingly yes and in light of that Court decision this proposal would violate the law lastly the Motion makes false threats by predicting costly lawsuits over First Amendment rights unless you shut the door on parents' rights it refers to a case where a teacher was fired over a pronoun dispute but why make this
037into a termination issue just as in schools elsewhere why not simply count on most people to be understanding of a family situation and be prepared to mediate if religious freedom or First Amendment conflicts arise your protections clause in this very policy current section I already sets this up thank you Ronda Richard good evening chairman good evening chairman Marlo board members and Dr Shepard congratulations to all the more Grand recipients first off February is School Board appreciation month school board members are elected or appointed officials who serve as the governing body of the school district those responsibilities include setting educational policies approving budgets hiring and evaluating superintendents and advocating for students teachers and staff you work TIR tirelessly to make decisions to impact the entire Community often volunteering your time without seeking any recognition it is
038at this time that I ask that the budget includ a is for the school board members surprising I know coming from me as I don't know anyone that works hours some of you do as a board member for such little pay which is about 200 bucks a month while I understand this job isn't about the pay you receive but appreciation should be given now I personally want to thank those members that take the time to talk respond to texts or emails the ones that take time from the work schedule family time to answer questions or be ridiculed by community members while someone this boor to choose not to give as much as a simple thank you or acknowledge M to emails or texts received those that do deserve a thank you so thank you one
039of the primary roles of school board members is to develop and approve policies that guide the operation of schools this includes the curriculum standards to safety protocols you all done a great job the impact of the school board members and their contributions extend beyond policy and governance it's building strong Partnerships with the community between schools parents and businesses and stakeholders so board members thank you surpr Lauren bitman um I don't have a lot prepared on paper so I'm just going to speak um I've been I'm new to this area 3 years and um so I'd be doing this Maryland if I wasn't if I wasn't here but I I love being in a small town and um I'm from strawsburg and everybody seems very proud of of graduating from their school so I want to
040hand that to you for helping with all that um I am concerned about um uh nationally and what's trickling down about mistreating children children and being judgmental as opposed to accepting uh different children um it it's just um any kind of discrimination or attention to it is going to um you know be harmful to them and uh I've been a mental health nurse also with my nursing for 43 years and it and a school nurse too and um it's um just they're not uh at the you know Elementary even Middle High School they're not comfortable with who they are at all yet and um this adds you know a transgender type of idea adds adds a lot of uh stress to them and when they're discriminated against it it causes anxiety with all the rest
041of the children too they realize that it's not the right thing to do so um I would just encourage everything be of acceptance and not agreement and if there's uh Federal pressure to um write it in a way that that it sounds like you did it but didn't do it and did the right thing thank you Renee I have a problem announcing I'm sure you do is Ino Ino Ino Ino thank you yes all right I didn't prepare a whole lot on paper either so I'm just going to speak to you um I have some questions and some concerns about the new attendance policy that has come into effect recently um I was super surprised a few weeks ago I got a phone call from my kindergartener saying that um he needed to stay after
042school um because he had too many absences so far this year um he has had two very bad ear infections one that needed eardrops and antibiotics cuz it wouldn't go away and he has had the flu which has turned into more problems and now his tonsils are enlarged um on a scale of Z to four four being the worst his are a 4.5 I'm still sending him to school um but he will be having his tonsils out hopefully very soon soon um but when I was called first from the school and I was like but he has doctor's notes so why are we here and she said well doctor's notes aren't um really looked out anymore it's just by the absences and he's been absent a lot I agree with that he has been so
043I said okay what happens when he stays after school because I'm a very nosy parent I like to know what happens with my kids at every single moment and um the lady that spoke to me on the phone from Ashby Lee um she said um she really didn't know and I don't know does not sit well with me as a parent um I was like okay so is it in a group setting is he with one teacher are there multiple students from the whole school in one room like what happens because as a kindergartener in my mind how much can you really be missing at school I mean you have your letter and number of the week but other than that they don't have homework to do so um also saying that he does have
044did have all threes on his last report card so he was exceeding you know his little special self in kindergarten um so I was just met with a whole bunch of I don't know so I elected not to let him stay after school for the time being just because um I don't feel comfortable because I don't as a parent don't have enough information to allow him to stay after school comfortably I ask questions he's a nosy little thing too and he has a lot of questions and he won't take hey you're just going to stay after school and run with that that won't work for him um we did have a round with this whole thing policy was implemented last year the second semester of the school year my son only went to Triplet Tech
045and he did have an autoimmune disease chronic illness 504 everything on plan and they actually told him that he needed to stay after to make up classes he didn't have any classes that semester or he might be losing the chance to walk across the stage to get his diploma needless to say my son elected not to do it anyway because obviously at that point he's like it's not about me and me not having good good grades or not being here this isn't about that this is about something else um they already kept him from getting his driver's license his whole High School career but that's a whole another trajectory there um my question is if there is someone in with special needs are there is there someone there after school that will take care of
046the kids if they have a 504 plan like a school nurse thank you um sha is it Shel sh Shel thank you good evening members of the school board parents and Community my name is Cheyenne sheel and I live here in Woodstock with my family we have two boys ages 8 and N who attend Robinson Elementary we moved to shenoa County 2 years ago settling in quietly to a cack after coming from a much busier area with town homes and rows of neighbors that we barely knew in our previous neighborhood our boys could not play outside without constant supervision however after moving here we found ourselves in a safe and welcoming Community where our children were able to ride bikes draw with chalk and explore outdoor activities freely one of the first friends they made
047was a little girl who lived two doors down from us she was kind polite and immediately made them feel welcome even introducing them to other children in the neighborhood before we knew it our children had their own group of friends and a sense of belonging here in shenoa County this transition helped them with their new school built their confidence and inspired them to participate in more community activities this includes Little League swim team over the summer and basketball all of this was made possible because of the little girl with her kindness and friendship now I'm going to ask you why does this matter because this polite genuine and caring child is a transgender student here in shenoa county and to be completely honest I had no idea at first after multiple interactions with her nothing
048changed she was polite and kind and respectful to our boys and at this point being transgendered was never an issue her actions spoke for themselves now I ask you all a question and this is not rhetorical how many of you personally know a transgender person now keep Your Hand raised if they're actually your friends and family now keep Your Hand raised if they have negatively impacted you on an actual personal level and I'm not talking about potentially affecting you who has actually harmed you I can tell you that I know many transgender individuals in my life and there are well-educated employed taxpaying citizens who have contributed positively to our community they are people I trust around my children they are role models who care who care for them and influence the generation in a meaningfully
049way unfortunately I cannot say the same about certain adults who sit here tonight I would never allow my children to be around grown adults who fixate on children's identities and genitals in such an inappropriate way this discussion of children's personal matters and such a public forum with language that is mischaracterizing and vilifying them is what I consider deeply troubling too many of us parents have seen this as a red flag as a mother my priority is my children's safety well-being and the ability to grow in a community with kindness and respect I urge you to remember why we're here and that is to create a well-rounded kind and supportive environment every child deserves respect dignity and the opportunity to be themselves without fear this is the community I want for my children and I hope
050that you all as well Mike shyy good evening school board and Dr Shephard um and I forgot it was schoolb appreciation month so um I appreciate all of you and the time you put in um but I stand before you tonight um as a father and a concerned member of our community who um really cares deeply about the future um of education for our children in Cheno County at the core of our educational system lies a fundamental truth and that is our primary focus should be on the betterment of education and the well-being of the students rather than nationally spotlighted um political ideologies or or concerns um education is the Bedrock which we build upon which we build our society it is a key to unlocking the potential within each child guiding them towards a
051brighter future when we prioritize things um that are more National we might lose focus on what is really going on within our schools right now and I think that is a mistake um losing sight of really truly matters is our students um that that is once again a mistake the classroom should be primarily focused on learning and I think that anything ideological or partisan debates that are going nationally don't belong there yet let the higher areas you know figure that out um before we jump forth with um different things in shunda County so um our students come to us with diverse backgrounds beliefs experiences but you know it's our duty to create an environment um where they all um have their needs supported and that includes funding of mental health things where it comes through
052because whether we like it or not schools are asked to do social work and have to deal with mental health issues where they haven't over in the past it's an increasing number of things and schools um we need funding um you know this is a message to our Board of Supervisors and everything we need more student support Specialists um you know and we also need to focus on education here I mean if I take a look on social media or what's going on in most of the comments here we're not talking about funding we're not talking about CP needs we're talking about things that are you know might be in the classroom some but they don't affect the majority of the children so um I think that um we might be losing sight of that
053a little little bit um not that these matters aren't important but they should not take our focus and concentration away from continuing the Improvement of Education in Chen County so um in conclusion um you know the board I hope that you guys can you know put aside all of our Collective differences a little bit and just focus on what's key and that is every single student in our school thank you Caitlyn Johnson um hi my name is Caitlyn Johnson my pronouns are she her I have two step kids in school in chanida County one whom is transgendered recent comments made by certain school board members show that they have misunderstood the factual difference between sex and gender they think that sex determines gender effectively making them synonyms for the same thing this is not correct
054sex is a physical characteristic most people are male or female but a small number of people are simply are simple excuse me uh a small number of people are born with characteristics of both so even that simple distinction turns out to not be so simple in real life gender is a physiological characteristic most people's innate identity as a man or woman happens to align with their physical sex most men were born male most women were born female but for a small part of the population this isn't true the core of human identity develops at a very young age many transgendered people had a very clear understanding of the difference between their gender their physical sex at a young age despite their efforts to force their mind to conform to their physical situation they could not
055change who they were anymore than any of us could my son for example knows he was born biologically a female um or that his sex is female he ENT but his gender he identifies as male he understands the difference and knows how painful it can be to not be himself when a child tells us who they are they should we should listen we should get them the appropriate Professional Care to evaluate whether they are experience a gender related experiencing something that is gender related or something else however if the child is transgendered then allowing them to socially transition at a young age can prevent years of trauma and even save the child from self harm or self-hatred caused by trying to conform to expectations of society that are impossible to achieve I have seen the
056difference with my own eyes how acceptance love and simply allowing a child to be themselves can uplift them bring them peace joy and dignity that everyone deserves to properly take care of these children the school must accept them for who they are and not punish them for fitting not fitting into an overly simp simplistic view of biology especially in a setting where all should be cared for equally this is why the January change to policy INB on teaching about controversial subjects must be removed it makes transgendered students officially invisible to the school by not allowing staff to even acknowledge their existence trans students have or excuse me trans children have always and will always exist the proposed change that is in this month's agenda corrects some of that this policy has no place in a
057school system that cares about all its students it should be removed the same reasoning applies to the proposed change to the policy gbab jfab removing the text that codifies how parents can instruct the Stu the school on the names and pronouns for their children uh takes a clear policy and replaces it with silence how will the schools handle these situations in the future we don't know because the school policy will give no Guidance the reason claim for the change does not fit the solution instead of modifying the policy to handle a special case the school bo boys would throw it out the only reason for this change is to make it harder for parents to make sure their children are taken care of properly which is not right and should not be approved thank you
058um is it Jane Kane thank you good evening members of the school board most of us have never had to question our gender our sense of self is in alignment with our bodies that makes it hard to understand and believe it when someone tells us their own gender is different than their physical sex however we must believe them when we do not we put their lives at risk and deny the reality of their own existence harm comes from attempting to force them into a system that pretends they only two possible ways for people to exist and is a denial of what actually happens in real people and while that reality makes some people uncomfortable it does not give them the right to discriminate against people who have done nothing wrong except to be born differently
059from most of the population this board must not be influenced by claims based on willfully incorrect understanding of biology if this board were to take a biology test in their own high school they would probably fun if they believe that that that interpretation is correct to do so is to hurt these children policy should be based on knowledge that human biology and psychology are complex and that Humanity exists on a spectrum and that Spectrum must be respected thank you um Billy Mullins um good evening U superintendent Shephard um chairman Barlo P chair G Shaw and the rest of the board members uh I want to thank you for allowing me to speak on this important matter as someone who is Guided by biblical principles I feel called to address the topic of children's understanding of
060gender identity from a faith-based perspective scripture teaches us that God created US male or female and that children are inherited from the Lord as we're instructed to train up a child in the way they should go I believe we have a sacred responsibility to Ride Clear loving guidance during these formative years young children are still developing their understanding of the world and of themselves the Bible tells us in Ecclesiastes that there is a time for everything including a time for children to grow in wisdom and stature as Jesus did I believe introducing these complex Concepts about gender identity before children have developed the spiritual and emotional maturity to process them may lead them away from the Divine Design that God intended and I believe that's that's why we see so much confusion as Christians we're
061called to speak truth in love while we must show compassion to all children and their parents we must also be faithful to biblical teachings about God's created order parents are given the primary responsibility to instruct their children in the ways of the Lord and our schools should respect this god-given Authority so I humbly ask that the school board consider policies that honor biblical truth while treating all students with the dignity they deserve as bearers of God's image let us create an environment where children can grow in accordance with Biblical principles allowing them to embrace their god-given identity as male or female and my prayer is that we may be guided by wisdom from above that we make decisions that will impact a spiritual and emotional well-being of our children I pray that we may find
062a path that upholds biblical values while ensuring that all students are treated with love and respect that Christ modeled for us thank you for your consideration our last speaker is u Steven hman good evening school board members chairman Barlo Dr Shephard thank you all for what you do on this school board in shanono County congrat ulations to all the students uh that received the music awards uh this evening that's always exciting to see uh their achievements um I have to continuously give a shout out to weekday religious education that has recently added the fifth grade so it's now two through grades 2 through five and as they get started back up here on about February the 24th uh there are 10 fifth graders that have enrolled taken the enrollment number up to about 162 students
063and that is nothing but positive in the world of challenges that these children have today we have heard some of the comments and concerns uh from other folks uh anytime they can get exposed to the Life of Christ and what he did for us on that tree that day on Calvary it is always a good thing um there will be a throwing in a plug here there will be a Bluegrass concert uh to benefit the weekday religious education um program on Saturday March the 29th at 4:30 at Antioch Church of the Brethren out here on rout 42 the artist performing that evening will be the Larry Stevenson band and five of a kind that's a local group uh I'd also like to give a I have been here for a couple meetings a a late
064congratulations to to uh recently the uh shendo County football players that were chosen to play in the recent Valley League allstar game thank you very much and have a great evening concludes our public comments is there anybody else who wanted to take the floor all right we move on um do have a motion to approve the consent agenda items as put forth this evening move to approve the consent agenda as presented a second second we have a motion by Mr Guta and seconded by Mr Rickard uh that we accept the uh that we approve the consent agenda as it has been presented to us uh any discussion if not all the in favor please signify by saying I I I any oppos no opposed so that takes us to the instructional uh agenda and U
065Dr Shephard you have a somebody's going to tell us all about this certainly our first um presentation is by Miss Stratton she's going to talk about annual child account for special education services mron good evening chairman Barlo board members Dr shefer tonight I'm here to discuss with you um the child count for 20124 we'll go through the reason for the child count and what our numbers are so as you can see up there on the board it talks about the purpose of the December 1 child count this ensures that we receive our appropriate Federal funding to support special education services so all of this reporting that we do is unduplicated student count which actually means a student may have a primary disability a secondary disability or a tertiary disability however we only count the student
066one time under the primary disability and the idea Part B is students ages 3 to 21 up to the 27 second birthday the students that are accounted that are counted must have the three criteria listed they must have a current evaluation or a re-evaluation also known as a trienal evaluation which is every 3 years they must have a valid IEP which is an individualized education program or an ISP which is an individual service plan which means a student may be homeschooled who receives services or qualifies for those servic services or private school that's the ISP and they should and will have to be receiving special education services with or without related Services related Services could be Physical Therapy occupational therapy speech language therapy and so on here's our numbers for the December 2024 under each
067disability category and everyone has a copy of this so you'll be able to look at your numbers as you can see the total number is 884 students at December 1 that are eligible under idea for special education services you'll see a little bit of a difference as um Dr sheeper tells you when she reports out on her numbers our numbers for um actual enrollment is a little different because we go off off of October 1st for our day of checking to see how many students are in enrolled so we go from October 1st that amount of students that are enrolled in our schools and then we look at our total number of students with disabilities at December 1 and then we come up with our percentage from there here's the five-year Trend we're pretty steady
068as you can see about 15.2% this year is where we are went down a little bit in numbers that could be from students leaving graduating and so that can fluctuate or students found eligible those numbers are high 15.2% is well over what the state really wants you to have and the federal government wants you to have so we just have to be very clear to make sure that we're looking at those numbers and the disabilities so questions um I will say that Mr Ricker attended one of our special educ advisory committee meetings and um he did advise and explain to everyone that I have an open door policy I would love for you to come in and ask specific questions if you'd like to and we can go through all of the eligibility criteria things
069that look like how a student is qualified so if you'd like to do that individually it was very eye opening before I ask my question I'd like to point out what you were just making a point of to the parents of any kids with IEPs 504s they are welcome to attend the meeting and we would we would love to have them next meeting is March 19th at 5:30 School Board second floor my the only question I off the top of my head right now missing Gro I think asked about it earlier the after school program um is there somebody in that class to help with 504 or IEP so understanding the difference between idea and 504 504 students that are under the general education population they're not service by a special education teacher they have
070possibly um a medical plan for some reasons that they may need that and our general education teachers fulfill those accommodations special education if there is not someone that's there the case managers do provide information to the teacher who is staying after their school for any type of support that they would need thank you once again I'd just like to encourage involvement with the special education committee meetings um I learned a lot just in that one time thank you absolutely thank you for attending quick question um CU you just mentioned that the number of 15.2% of students are lived above uh state and federal um is there a reason why um what's your assessment of why that is why we are I mean is that we assess better is that we have more needs in the
071community or um I think it can be a little bit of both um absolutely though we want to make sure that we are bringing every student to the table if we suspect a disability and we will evaluate those students and if they qualify they're going to qualify if our numbers go up or not we are just going to do what's best for kids and if that's what we need to do that's what we'll do um they try to keep it in between 10% and 133% is kind of where they want us to lie in there but um again if the students are eligible we're going to find them eligible now is that this follow up um as you know this is curve for me um is this something that they're expecting that some of the
072kids are going to move on that they're GNA you know they're thinking that to keep the lower the the numbers lower will be able to graduate the kids from that or that just something that once the kid is in there usually it's going to stay throughout the school they don't we have a lot of students that's the whole idea of the trienal reviews the re-evaluations that we definitely want to evaluate those students and to see if that success is Meeting those needs so we can move them out if yes but if they're not ready they're not ready if they still need specially design instruction we're going to provide specially design instruction it's not about the numbers it's about doing what's best for the kids thank I ask one more question Mr I thought touched on
073it um and I I'm going back years but is it correct that if a parent requests that we test their child we have to do that abely we should absolutely now it's not a requirement because I go to student support team meeting and so we look at all of the data however you want to air on the correct way to find out to do a full evaluation and we have always as far as I know gone through with a full evaluation however we have response to intervention first we want to make sure that we're not quickly putting a student in to have a label of a disability if we haven't done any of those response to intervention pieces so um we do make sure that we are honing in on what's needed do some of
074those um different types of services within like for a reading Specialists maybe providing some services to see if we can close the gap just to make sure that it's just not that Gap did that used to be a requirement well it's never been a full requirement um we do make sure that we're testing students um for that purpose I'm not going to tell a parent no we're not going to evaluate because we haven't gone through the RTI process we're going to evaluate and then we'll find out because we don't want to keep it hanging on and keep on just watching over the student for this month to the next month to the next month we will evaluate gotcha thank you you can you can talk to the lady on the way back there okay um
075so we're going to move on to the informational agenda and uh are we going to pick up the superintendent's budget so the budget books are at your table or at your place so um please I will be referencing page numbers as we go through this slide presentation and you also have um flags that I handed out earlier in case you want to flag something to look at later so I'm going to start with the um page 13 in the budget book this is the budget development calendar and just want to go through a few of these um items the general assembly is scheduled to conclude on February 22nd and once the general assembly concludes we will have a better understanding an idea of our um state revenue what Revenue we can expect from the state
076so until we have that information um we it the estimate for what we're going to request from the county is just is just an estimate at this point but once we find out what our state revenue is going to be then that will that will help us out with with our um our request from the county our locality um at the February 4 uh 24th school board meeting the school board should come come with their input on what they would like to see in the budget a little later on we're going to talk about those um things that I am recommending and then we're also going to talk about CIP so it's going to be very important that you come with your input on February the 24th so then when we come to the March
07713th school board meeting um the school board is ready to approve a budget for f school year 2026 um also mark your calendars for March the 17th at 1:00 because that is when the Board of Supervisors and Board of Supervisors and Schoolboard will meet in a work session to discuss the Schoolboard budget April April 15th the Board of Supervisors will adopt the tax rate in fiscal year 2026 budget and then on April the 28th the school board will adopt its final budget with input from the Board of Supervisors so on page 21 you will see that shanida County Public Schools continues to be the number one employer in shanadoa county and we have been um for the last 10 years uh the number one employer in shinida County on page 22 you will see the
078bottom of page 21 you will see um the number of Administrators supervisors teachers and support staff that share the responsibility of making chanida County Public Schools function and then below that are the additional positions that we are requesting so they're there we will talk about this a little later again and then on page 22 you will notice our um our staffing and if you look under the proposed Staffing for 2026 or you look at the Staffing for this year you will notice that there are some um decimals there and so I'll just give you an example for principal there's 9.75 principal so how do we have 75 principal that is actually our CTE D director of CTE and he's also the principal of blue um triplet Tech so he's Point 2 75 is a principal
079and then .25 is a director so that will um kind of tell you that how that works also we have um employees that work less than full-time and they may be counted as 75.5 86 whatever so that'll give you some of your your desal numbers but if you have any questions about that I know Miss Campbell is is able to answer those questions I this those are our employees yes so our budget priorities fall under three of our strategic plan goals and those three goals are academic achievement and growth recruit support and retain enthusiastic professionals and high quality and adequate facilities and learning environment so those are the three the three goals that our our budget request will fall under and we will hear more about that here in a minute and that is on
080page 30 page 27 through Page 29 actually outlines our budget practices so policies and practices so if you want more information about how um our accounting policies and practices or what funds we have you will see that on page 27 28 and 29 so before we move on to the financial section are there any questions I do have a quick question um when you we talking about like all the employees in that number is that only I me I'm sure that's what is but all the employees that we employed so it doesn't U count any contractors that we may be having for it's our employees do we have a different area for contractors or so we don't count contractors at all MH all right so financial information on page 35 you will see our proposed
081budget with the information that we have currently regarding our um state revenue the current proposed request for local funds is 1.27 n million in operational funds in operating funds and 6.5 in capital funds I believe as we work through our Capital funds that will decrease a little but you know that's that's our current ask at this point on February 24 the school board will make decisions on our capital projects um which capital projects we should move forward with and if you look at page 38 that details the anticipated revenue for fiscal year 2026 as detailed on this slide for example fund one our operating fund um is $85. million in Revenue our fund two which are of special budgets 5.6 million fund three capital now .8 fund five Food Service 4.3 million and then County
082technology 540,000 I know this is small but you can see it on page 38 and 39 these are the major classifications for expenditures and we use seven out of the nine of these classifications the two classifications that we do not use are debt and contingency reserves we use instruction Administration attendance and health people Transportation operations and maintenance Food Service School Food Service facilities and technology and the next slide will show the funds that we use and the money that we are um that has been adopted in what we are proposing for those funds and you can see that on page 40 all right so a couple of times I've alluded to budget initiatives there's a lot more information in that Financial section if you want to look at it but um I just hit the
083highlights there so feel free to you know ask question questions um as you go through it I'm I'm available Miss Campbell's available to answer any questions that you may have so if you will look at page 41 down towards the halfway down the bottom of the page that's the highlight of our budget initiatives and you can see that the first goal that we've focused on is academic achievement and growth and we're looking um we're asking for new instructional positions in one and that will be four English learner teachers and this is to reely to align with the standards of quality requirements that we have you will see one um full-time Middle School teacher to support increased enrollment at Peter mberg Middle School two full-time par professionals one for students with disabilities and one for additional
084support in strawsburg high school library for bus drivers to to um reduce the double runs that we have at some of our some of our schools three student support Specialists and then on the next page page 42 we've had several grants very similar to our cares fund so right now we're working under the all-in Virginia Grant and we have one um assistant principal that is funded at Ashby Lee out of the all-in Virginia funds we had 0 five of a Health Sciences teacher that was um paid for by the Claude Moore Grant and then one English language learner teacher which was paid by one of our title programs title one and then many of our software packages have been paid through um all-in Virginia and that money is going away um we have to spend
085it um next year is the last year but it is dwindling fairly quickly and then down at the very bottom you'll see launch new Aviation CTE program um there will be no local dollars required for this new um Aviation program it's through a public private partnership that we um will be able to implement this program we have the money in there so that it could be allocated and we don't have to go back and request um additional funding from the Board of Supervisors but the public private partnership is actually going to pay for all of the equipment which is about $200,000 for this program it will pay for a halftime teacher for the very first year of the program and then another um um partnership will actually pay for flights for the students who are
086enrolled in this program so looking forward to implementing that new program this year um with this new partnership we have um yeah so very exciting so the next goal that we're looking at is high quality and adequate facilities and learning environment you'll see Capital funding we'll talk about that here in a minute um really in in great detail but these are our um urgent and necessary items from the prop CIP budget you'll notice below that for fund one is inflation and increased Services cost and this um the increase in student enrollment has increased um needs um funding needs at Peter mberg Middle School inflation of cost of materials at triplet Tech so like the foods food that we serve in our culinary program the cost is increase our our um equipment for our um carpentry
087class or our electricity class all of that has increased and then also we need to um fund the software that um our new bus cameras were purchased this year so we have to fund the software that is going to be um and that's an annual fee that is attached to those new cameras and then the last goal is re recruit support and retain enthusiastic professionals and you will see um the very first item under there is targeted scale adjustments so one of the things we would like to do is adjust bus driver salaries to align the base salary with the increased contracted hours so the base salary is only good for that three-h hour driver not it doesn't align with a 3.54 4.5 or 5H hour driver so we want to align that with that
088and then regrade the athletic directors to align with the high school assistant principles we want to offer our dual enroll teachers a stipend um of $500 for any teacher who teach who teaches a dual enroll class they have to have a higher level degree um in order to be able to teach these classes and we want to incentivize teachers to be able to get the the credentials that they need in order to teach a dual enroll class so incentivizing them with a $500 per class hopefully we'll we'll encourage more of our our high school teachers to become dual enroll certified compensation increase um this is the 3% um 3.16% cost of living adjustment or the step Plus cost of living adjustment so um this is where which they all they equal the same um same
089amount of money which is 2.69 one million and then our allocation for health insurance increase at $1 million um the anticipated increase for health insurance is 12% and we would also like to increase our division contribution for employees and family um so that that can decrease a little more and I'm going to go to the next slide but then I'll I'll head back in just a minute um you can see the very top chart there is 2223 and then you'll see 23 24 and you'll see 2425 and I am just going to highlight here our employee plus family we have made great gains over the last 3 years on our employee plus family health insurance rates we went from $1,250 to $913 to $83 so we have decreased health insurance rates for our employees plus
090family by about $450 over the last three years and we really still need to do a little work um we compare ourselves with Frederick and Rockingham County which is where we lose most of our staff to and we still have a little work to do on that family plan so we we will be working on that hopefully again this year we should have finalized health insurance rates either at the February 24th meeting we're trying to get it for that we at the March 13th meeting so we should know at that point where where we are with health insurance at that point and then um in the chart at the bottom it just shows our um employee coverages our employe empe um calls for our different types of coverage so you have your keare 1000 um
091with preventative Dental Comprehensive Dental we have the keycare 250 which is a little more expensive but if um people may choose that because it's a lower deductible um and if they have health care um concerns then they may want to go with the 250 plan and then we have our high deductible plan so I'm G to scroll back really quick and our po our total potential request from the locality is 1.27 n million so one 1,279 79 however there are some additional things that we would like for you to consider um and they fall under the goal of recruit support retain enthusiastic professionals so one of the things that we've been talking about is a retention or sign on stien for our special ed teachers and that would be a $2,500 um stien for our
092special ed teachers we started the year with four um vac vacancies in special ed and we still have three and we have a number of teachers who are working on their certification and special ad so to implement that $2,500 retention sign on stapen um would be 180,000 if we did that for school counselors it would be 52,000 and we started the school year with six vacancies in School counseling and we still have six vacancies in School counseling so those are two of our harder to fill positions um special ed and school counselors and then the last um the last bullet there is a $2,500 retention longevity stien for all staff with 20 plus years of experience and that would be um $450,000 so those are you know those are just some ideas of um how
093we lose staff when they get you know 10 plus years of experience but we want to honor our staff who have been with shanadoo County Public Schools um and that is a way that we can honor honor those staff and hopefully they would stay with us okay so I've went through quite a bit just now so any questions about any of the asks or any of the um request yes than that's dipen for special ed teachers we talked about this not too long ago um are teachers that are certified in Special Ed but do not teach special ed would that be available to them if they came back to special ed certainly it would be anyone who was a special ed teacher yes thank you quick question so for the compensation increase that the governor
094has signed MH is he providing funds for that I don't fed m so he is providing funds for that but the funds that um the locality always has to chip in because you know the locality is required to to for this much of a match and then the state requires this much of a match so there's always um a little bit of funds that the locality has to put towards a and the governor has um said a 3% and I've noticed in the house and the Senate at this point it's a 3% but I believe both the house and the Senate have indic ated a bonus is that right a one time bonus so this is the the match so it would be twice as much that is needed for that right so that it
095would is that amount the actual match from our side that's no that's the actual that's the toal that's the actual amount state and local yes okay so well we would have to give us only half yeah so really let me go to the number um 2 million yeah the number the number right now that we're asking from the locality for all of the things that are in the top part not the three at the bottom not the retention um sonon stiens but everything that we've asked for above that was 1.27 n million from the from the locality so we're not um so we're not asking million yeah that's no it's that's the total that we would be requesting increase from the locality so the the long-term um CIP and and we were treated to a
096uh to the three all alter there that has not been decided upon correct no okay correct and so when we decide on that it certainly will have an impact on this will we not so this is Operation operating funds um the CIP is is separate okay so [Applause] yes any other questions on the super attend proposed budget I have a few more slides oh I'm sorry no questions just about 50 more slides okay do that no not really um so just a little a little more information so here's the operational budget this is what um we've come up with that we're going to need to operate shinedor County public schools in the next year and I don't have my glasses on but it looks like it is 86 million oh there it is $86 million
097uh let me so that is on page 46 in your book so that's the proposed operating funds and then if you will flip to page 48 you will see the um state revenue um that we're expecting and this is based on the governor's um banial budget second year of the Bal budget and then you also see um what we have received from the county over the last few years um please the 2000 fiscal year 2026 we haven't added the 1.27 N we want to wait until after we get this finalized state number before we before we actually say this is exactly what we need from the county the locality and you guys may have some input um at the February 24th meeting where we can update that number as well F so this is a
098slide that you see in all of the budget presentations and it's how much money are you spending are we spending on instruction and 70 it's about 75% here and you'll see attendance ADM health is a little less than 6% transportation's about 8% operations and maintenance is 8.5 and then technology is 2.8 that slide is found on page 50 and then then or that chart is found on page 50 this graph is found on page 51 and this is um broken down in a different way and I always like to point out that um our personnel and benefits are about 89% of our budget so the majority of our budget is people all right so Capital Improvement so facilities at a glance you've seen this before it shows the year it shows capacity shows all of
099that information and that is that is not included in in this in your budget book that is included in your Capital Improvement plan and you'll see the capital Improvement funding over the last um last 10 12 years you will notice that in year fiscal year 23 um there was Zero request and zero funded and that was because we had received um money from the county I think it was a little over yeah it was 4.22 five million and we were also spending our cares funds um around 10 million on on Capital project so so that year we were completing a lot of projects and we were spending car's funds on capital projects so we didn't request but the other years you'll see where what we requested and what was funded what was requested is in
100a dark blue line and what was funded is in is lighter blue the next slide this is one of the um options you have seen over the last couple of months and I'm hoping at the February 24th meeting we can decide on which draft long-term facilities plan we want to go with this is option A and you can see how it breaks down the um the projects there's option b and then there's an option C so hopefully at our February 24th work session we could come to some type of agreement on this you know we want to go with this option in order to um do a long-term facilities plan and then the um capital projects that are listed in your Capital Improvement plan they're broken down here by necessary and Urgent you can see
101Safety and Security is this first slide and then Safety and Security again and these are the projects that are listed for fiscal year 26 and the total for Safety and Security is 276,000 and you'll notice urgent is 145,000 heating ventilation and air conditioning again urgent and necessary and the total for heating ventilation and air conditioning is 385,000 and the Urgent is 375,000 [Music] Roofing we will have an updated Roofing price at the next at the February 20 um 24th meeting the updated Roofing price we received today I think it was $530,000 so it's a little more expensive than what um what is there but we want to make sure we have as accurate information as we can so we'll update that for February 24th you'll see doors and locks and then other projects and two
102of the other projects you won't see on here but we will have numbers for you for um the February 24th meeting is an estimate on the replacing of carpet U with lvt flooring at all levels of school so elementary middle and high school and then we'll also include a fence um at Ashby Lee Elementary School for the playground so those those are numbers that aren't included in the capital projects but we will update that and you will have them by February February the 24th so just you know scrolling through there these are these are all of the projects for this year and we will take a you know a deep dive here um February um the 24th so if you have questions if you have concerns if there's you know things that you want to
103change on this Now's the Time to do it because March the 13th is when it actually gets approved for submitt to the board supervisors happy to answer any questions on our capital projects Transportation sorry I missed a few Athletics any questions any question 37 yes all right thank you thank you all right thanks for that presentation um a lot that's happened in the last couple of weeks so good stuff um we're now we're in informational agenda portion and we have come 5.2 which is um policy INB uh and I'm going to get an update from Dr shepher yes so at the January 9th school board meeting the school board approved amendments to policy um IB teaching about controversial issues uh School Board member um Mr Street requested a revision to the policy to allow School
104administrators counselors student sport Specialists social workers and psychologists to respond to student student inquiries about gender and gender identity in age appropriate factual neutral matter um this is being presented for information tonight we will discuss it at the March 13th school board meeting okay and um the draft policies that sits um now is there but the policy that has been passed is also so the vote there correct and discuss will occur at our work session okay um next item is the library book review announcement Dr Shephard yes this is the announcement a parent requested a review of library book The very smart p and the princess to be by mini gray following the review process the committee voted 5 to one in favor of retaining the book in general Library circulation determining that it was
105age appropriate for elementary students in accordance with policy klbl lb public review of learning resources library books once a library book review process is completed the superintendent announces the committee's decision this serves as the official Public Announcement for the book review of the very smart PE and the princess to be requested by April Warner and held on Wednesday January 22nd after careful consideration the Review Committee voted to maintain the book in the general Library circulation thank you 5.4 School Board Norms so at attached to this agenda item are the current School Board Norms as well as a draft document document highlighting all of the proposed modifications the draft um School Board Norms will be presented as an in informational item this evening and there will be an opportunity for discussion uh at the school board
106work session on Monday um February 24th thank you Dr heinner we've had U some more questions about the uh attendance policy and probably going to make us a little smarter about it Dr thank you good evening chairman Barlo members of the board and Dr Shephard thanks so I'm calling on uh asking my trustee sidekick uh Deb and if she can join me Debbie works behind the scenes at putting the the numbers together and make sure all of our attendance reporting is accurate um so she's going to kind of give you the nuts and bolts but I did want to mention uh two things to to before we get going um one you know there was some question about um the term poor School standing um and using that and so we we looked at that
107and discussed that and and we're going to shift to um term of um chronic attendance Improvement um we felt like um calling it exactly what it is so that so that people understood you know exactly what you're talking about it's not it's not kind of gray or foggy um so instead of using the poor School standing um terminology we'll use chronic attendance Improvement and then the the second thing and thing I think that's probably more um important to to folks is after talking with the uh administrators in our last last month's U principal's meeting we talked about shifting away from um a percentage based time approach to a straight numbers approach um so we we moved with eight eight days in first semester 7 Days second semester or a total of 15 days for the
108school year um that's those are the targets that would then um you know administrators would be ask asking students um to attend now of course as I mentioned once before any student can attend any time the ASAP program regardless of whether you've missed any days or not um but those would be the days we're trying to keep attendance um 15 days or less um for students for the year so I'll let Miss lton kind of share you share with you some data um might give you a little more insight into the program thank you Mr L I appreciate it thank you Dr H Gardner uh chairman Barlo members of the board Dr Shepard just want to give you some numbers to look at on our after school attendance program also called the ASAP program um
109it was established in January of 2024 when we opened it up to middle and high school students it's also referred to the in-person flexible instructional time program um and this all came down from the Virginia Department of Education um regulations in September of this year 2024 uh outlined it for elementary school so this year it's it's across the board K 12 the purpose of the program is to augment all of the activities that we do every year to improve our attendance students can't learn if they're not in school and we want students in school so that they can be academically successful uh and all of this is funded through the Virginia Department of Education through the all-in Virginia grant that Dr Shepard had mentioned earlier and that pays for the teachers who are providing the
110after school instruction um the criteria is that if a K through five students must attend two hours after school grades 6 through 12 attend three hours after school and one day of absence is reduced with each session that you stay and a student can only reduce 15 total absences so you'll see that 15 is kind of reverberated throughout the program um the Virginia Department of Education runs the calculations at the end of the year and adjusts our chronic absentee as rate and that publishes that out at the end of the year but chronic absentee is in percentage for each school when you want to be 15% or less so uh you're chronically absent if you miss 10% of the school year which is really hard to track because as you start the school year you
111haven't been there that many days so you may be chronically absent at the beginning of the school year but you're not later on because you've been in school more days and so it takes away that 10% but the School Division I mean the school itself is looking at 15% is that percentage so what has been the impact of the ASAP program at our high school level you can see there I went ahead and did the 2223 because there was no ASAP program at that time 2324 was only half a year and then I'm giving you the totals um of first semester this year so you can see how each of the high schools the impact that ASAP program made in those percentages um is noted that The Chronic absentee is is the only factor that
112prevented strawsburg High School from being fully accredited in the 2324 school year fully accredited for the numbers before so that was the only thing that they have did not have a a green check on so attendance matters a quick question that slide um so are those the kids who are actually attending a session or those are kids who are absent whether they attended a session or not that is The Chronic absentee percent percentage for that school for that year so Central High School at the end of the year 22 23 school year was 30.3% very far away from the 15% that is our goal or last that's that's regardless of what did they attended the ASAP the ASAP that's right that that's right that's right you have it right before before that the point of
113the point of the numbers is to show the decline of chronic absenteeism yeah The Chronic absenteeism rate if Central and St had the same percentage how come stollberg was the only one not accredited yeah that's that's a good catch I had the same question and when I investigated Central and Stonewall were accredited on threeyear average that year strawberg wasn't that fortunate and that that's the reason why cuz I wondered the same thing and you know there and that's that's a great example just move quiet I know that's a great example there's always a story and the numbers you can't just look at the numbers and think you know there's always a story and a reason behind what things are way they are so when you think of a threeyear average it is there were two
114previous years where Central High School average to be you know had had good attendance they met the requirement um but strawsburg high school did not at the middle school you can see the same thing there's their chronic absenteeism percentages each year so again you can see each year it the ASAP program is helping reduce The Chronic absenteeism rate at the middle school level and then again if you remember here's the elementary school 22 23 23 24 they did not have the ASAP program that's what their percentages were and this is what the percentages are now with the ASAP program for this year 2425 so it's definitely impactful to our schools and just to give you some session numbers um this is uh the number of students who are staying now it's not individualized students it's
115every time they have a session how many kids stayed and so this just as a total number uh I could have had three sessions at this school and five of those kids stayed for all three sessions but they get counted because it's how many kids are coming at each session so you can see that students are taking advantage of the program um it is part of our attendance process that we are talking to parents hey have have you thought about um having your child stay for the ASAP program so that we can get the attendance down for your child uh we don't we want to use every opportunity that we can to help improve attendance and get our parents to be engaged in help with the process as well so right now it's about a
116total of 1,00 total session numbers SL if you can go back to the criteria slide I think it was slide two one thing just wanted to make mention um we've recently been informed that um we're going to have to shift to a 3our time frame even at the elementary level so that that was not the case or ear that is the case now and so that's a transition we're going to have to start um communicating and start um how are you going to keep a kindergartener engaged for three hours if there's one teacher would say six kids in the room so we've talked about we're not keeping them for three hours that's impossible I mean I've heard plenty of stories and I've got lots of questions um so we um we haven't met with our
117principles yet about this our next uh the next opportunity we'll meet with our principles I think it's Tuesday and um we will we will discuss this and you know but I don't is it a two-hour session or is it 2 one and a half hour sessions we don't know but we got this information probably Thursday last week that this this a change kind of mid year so am I understanding correctly since we're getting away from the 10% the whole dance thing or after school activities is that after you've missed eight days in the first semester that a student is missing after school activities right that would be that would be the time frame that they would be deemed chronically um absent okay yeah um I had one parent reach out to me in particular about
118their student who has some m health issues and has to miss for a mental health evaluation that takes all day um is that excused or the only thing that I know of right now that that I'm not going to say is excused but is not marked as an absence is if a student is in the hospital M if they're in the hospital it's not marked as an absence if we get proper documentation to that effect so so if a student is going to get tubes in their ears or tonsils taken out they're not in the hospital but it's out patient procedure and they're probably going to miss a few days after the fact those students are they considered chronically absent well you're chronically absent when you miss 10% of your day so it depends on
119the other absences that that child has go let's say a student gets the flu during first semester and then later during that semester they have to get tubes in their ears or tonsils taken out and they're missing over the 8 days are they have to serve um ASAP program for that time well they would be eligible too yeah and they they would be deemed chronically absent until they had fewer than that than that 10% of time I mean yeah I don't know thank the good Lord above my kids have never never had issues making it to school I just feel like uh we're getting out of a little bit out of touch with when we were in that position um like the the student that's got to go for the mental health evaluation putting them
120in ASAP to sit there and read a book because they missed a day for a mental health evaluation I don't know that that's doing much for their mental health so let me let me ask a further question and and and try to elaborate on that um first of all I want to thank you for changing the word from to Chronic because uh nobody wants a tag with being in in the poor category and I can understand why some people would record with at um you can look at this glass as being half full or half empty if for whatever reason excused unexcused good bad I miss a week of Algebra 1 and I don't know how to do a quadratic equation I'm either forever going to be behind or I'm GNA be given a chance
121to catch up so I thank you for creating a program that allows somebody to catch up and so I see it as a remedial program that allows students good reason bad reason to get instruction that you talk about the old days you probably wouldn't have gotten just catch up or fall behind it's your choice so I I think that the school performing a service there for those students um and I also think it recognizes we put a lot of emphasis on trying to raise expectations raise academic standards and we we've talked about things like cell phone impact we talk about things like um just codes Behavior discipline and certainly attendance is a very good predictor of success not only in school but in life and so it's it's tough because as my suggest there are
122people who who missed school for entirely understandable and bent reasons but they still need to catch up now I the the discussion about kindergart so forth is it an interesting question to me because I can understand why how you try to catch up somebody in chemistry or biology or algebra and so forth and why that might be a little bit difficult and there might be some sort of you know modification ation is as we do this based on the academic rigor but the whole idea of facing up to it and dealing with it uh is uh is is really a tough task that you guys have taken on I'm not sure if we can ever do it Dr Shepard but you're such a lover of data it'd be interesting to know if we could ever
123find if we could just suggest a measure of Effectiveness by which uh the ASAP program has proven to be you know an enhancer uh to uh child's education so anyway that's uh thank you thank you I do have a question um so when you said that we're going to have to now do the 3 hours for the El is that the state requiring this and we have no say on this um with regards to what we do for the elementary school kids like like M said I mean I can understand it for the high school students but we get a kindergarten first grade that's seems successive and and as m Proctor said I think I think we'll look for ways to manage that time differently but the hours 3 hours will equate to one day
124absence so however if they get that in three settings or they get that in one setting it's three hours to equate to one day absence can we um I mean can can time the playround be part of that I mean I don't understand what we doing in the program instruction instruction yes a there's there's defined criteria on what has to happen what what happens if we don't do that well I think is that when accreditation comes in question we risk accreditation by by not meaning The Chronic absenteeism standard and if Miss Linton would go back a I don't know back or forth to the um without yeah I think that's it without um ASAP then there's you know there's where our numbers were at our elementary level so you look at ww Robinson and Ashley
125Lee uh even last year they didn't make the 15% number you know that and that's the that's the frustration on our part but the reality of it is is exactly what Mr bar say many students I'm I don't know how many but I I know that there are a number of students who stay and they're not chronically absent they stay to get the assistance to get the help after school and so I can't imagine that this is not going to help those students who are chronic in the action to stay and get caught up on their school what's most important about I've got to add on to what chairman barer said I thank you guys for doing this it's a great program for the kids that want to take advantage of it um one more
126question that I've been asked by several parents is could we possibly change the name of it because when they hear the term ASAP I guess that's a term used for alcohol substance abuse when you get caught with DWI or something and that's what I said like um okay but what I was getting my mind was getting off topic what I should have said when chairman Marlo uh was talking about that my first question to parents when they contact me about this is Hey how are your kids grades you know are they meeting are they getting A's and B's or are they getting D's and Fs um and so far all but one one said they've got a D in something so I'm like okay you know maybe that would help um but other than that
127most of the parents are like my kids AB this doesn't gain them anything except that take away that absence um but yeah a few parents have requested we changed the acronym of the name for it I got a little chuckle out of that I didn't realize that that's a good thank you Debbie is a acronym Queen and neither one of you all right our final um informational agenda item is 5.7 which is the request to increase the the fiscal year 25 special budget and uh Campbell is approaching the microphone even as we speak good evening members of the board what I have before you tonight is a request to increase the special budget in the current year fiscal year 25 we received a school Improvement grant for Ash Elementary School in the amount of $
12848,2 27 20 these are federal funds they're reimbursable they do not require a local match we are requesting action tonight because we are hoping to support planned activities with regard to this grant I'm happy to take any questions what are the strings attached to it I'm going to turn to miss Proctor so it's not necessarily that there are strings test with but there uh we had to write a plan for the funds and it is professional development that teachers are participating in after school to help improve their scores thank you now we have um six action items and I'm wondering if we shouldn't take a short recess before we Plunge in do we have a sense of the board is whether we take a short recess drive drive I already used M restroom breaks yeah
129I know you broke out here um I'm good okay I'm I'm hearing consensus that we move ahead so we'll do so um Personnel 6.1 um do we have a motion to approve the Personnel list as it has been presented to us earlier I move to approve the Personnel list as presented thank you Mr Rickard a second second thank you Mr ksha all in favor of accepting the Personnel to be recommended to us Personnel matters please signify by saying I I I any opposed not opposed okay 6.2 the uh proposed revision to policy gbab JF haab privacy dignity and respect for all students and parents in sheno County Public Schools um so I'll um I think we we have background here um do we have a a recommended action on this policy um I move to
130approve um to adop policy GB a JF HD privacy dignity and respect for all students and parents in Shino County Public Schools as presented with the removal of sections 11 I mean one uh 3D point4 and 3d5 section 3d. 6 will be renumbered as section 3D point4 okay thank you for that motion is there a second second thank you Mr Ricker um we'll have discussion um this car have um the first word I believe thank you um and I do have a presentation that I wanted to give just because I think that will help clarify some of this stuff that we're doing I think there's a lot of um misunderstanding from here or before we begin the uh discussion portion so um we do uh generally a form uh conformed to Robert's Rules so uh
131the time limit for speakers is generally 10 minutes so we'll stick with that we can go around again but 10 minutes per presentation okay thank you um so I wanted to just prepay this real quickly because I think there's a bit of a misunderstanding you what we're talking about here um we got motion to amend so this is here what we're talking about um it's a motion to amend that was circulated internally on October 3rd 2024 um and despite Mo efforts to include a motion on informational agenda for October 14th this was actually delayed so that's why um it was included on the November 14th and now we're finally talking about it so basically what we're talking about in section 3.4 is again not withstanding the provision of paragraph 2 and three in this section
132Shor County public school's Personnel shall refer to a student by a name other than one in the students's official record so you can read here um or by the pronouns um other than those that are appropriate to the sex appearing in the students official record uh the motion seek to delete the two number uh paragraphs in section 3D of the gender identity policy um there are no other changes we just go ahead and move the other one up the case law for this case is actually for this reason is actually very clear um and again as as I just read it's it's talking about what the staff and teachers what their rights are um and whether the personel are going to be um required to use this pronoun so we had the state of Tennessee
133and versus Miguel Cardona which is the ttle line case which actually became National um law um January 9th 2025 we also had Virginia was a co-plaintiff on this um on this uh legal case um in know certain terms the judge held that the First Amendment does not permit the government to compel teachers and others to use gender identifying based pronouns gender identity based pronouns um the judge also powerfully rejected the argument that title line includes gender identity that that's the case law that we just saw in addition to that we also have several cases here in Virginia um and two of the most pointed ones are the one in West Point um School Board which had to pay $575,000 for violating the First Amendment rights of a teacher refusing to use as refering pronouns that
134just happened um last year yes on September 2024 prior to that um probably the thing that started it all and we know that this is why yunin actually uh won Governor yunan um it was a l County teacher that was famously reinstated by law by by a court um because his first amendment a violation of a preferred pronouns in addition to this we have um the executive order that President Trump just signed on January 29th in ending radical indoctrination in k through2 schooling and in that one it talks about eliminating Federal funding or support for illegal and discriminatory treatment and indoctrination in K through 12 schools including base on gender identity uh gender ideology I'm sorry and discriminatory Equity ideology that just happened a couple of weeks ago um so that was a trump agenda
135so we as school board members have to decide on whether we're going to go with what the president is asking of us um he's done already several executive orders regarding federal employees that were told to remove the pronouns from email signatures so at the end of the day um we have his executive orders of keeping men out of women's sports uh we have the Trump order restricting sex change procedures for minors in line with do not harm and I need to say the rules matter um scps policies should not have any language requiring a teacher or employee to use a preferred pronoun even if a parent writes a no requesting it it's just unconstitutional so I must say that whether we pass this policy or not um I want to Echo what Mr Rickard said
136last uh at our last meeting last month where no teacher and no staff here in this scps should ever be um required to use a pronoun that goes against their first amendment rights um or even the right religion First Amendment um citing the anti- retaliation section that we have in this uh policy to argue that a teacher can break the existing rule without being punished is illogical and confusing because basically what we're saying is this is the rule that you must follow but if you don't follow it you won't be punished it's actually very confusing um most teachers meticulously follow the rules and may feel properly pressured to comply we know this most of our teachers are really good about this but why should a teacher have to bring break a rule that is unconstitutional
137now there's a question of parental rights that a few people have actually raised and there is no parental right to transition your kid or to use refer pronouns in public schools that is not what parental rights are I think people have there's a little bit of a discussion that needs to be had about what parental rights are and here we have some of the legal definitions of parental rights is the right to direct education decisions is the right to be informed about curriculum and instruction it's um access to records is it Up Up Out rights for certain activities or content is a right to be notified of certain um occurrences in the school is protection against privacy violations and again the right is um attend to attend certain activities or not be able to attend
138the activities that is what parental rights are that to expand it beyond that is to give meaning to parental rights that do not actually exist there so we have to decide are we going to follow the parental rights definition legal definitions or are we just going to try to do what California nor Virginia is doing um the legal risk that some people have talked about here let me just say every single action that the school board takes has legal risks and right now we have President Trump that is taking all these decisions he has the best lawyers that are advising him right now including the uh attorney general and yet all of his policies already been challenged in law there is no such thing as airtight or bulletproof legal decision no attorney can ever tell
139us that you do this and nothing is going to happen to you because every single action that we take has a legal risk and I think we've seen that already um the risk of doing this is lower than some of the other action that the school board has taken and the name change is a perfect example even the model policies themselves um so we need to stop taking advice just from all the attorneys who maybe liberal or maybe inexperienced in this area um we were elected to make the decisions ourselves we weren't just um elected to punt the ball and say well this attorney said this or this attorney say that because the reality is we don't know and I can tell you this as an attorney every time we have a a client and
140we can tell them well this is what I think or this is our best way to try to avoid a lawsuit but we don't know for certain how anything any of this is going to go how the judges are going to Ru that's what the the law in our country is as we have the civil law and um I mean the common law and that that's how it works um overwhelming the majority of shanoa County residents do not want prefer pronouns in our schools um and find we need to do what is right even if there is risk or push push back um it's what good leaders do and I just wanted to say you know we get a lot of um questions about whether we just don't like the the transgender students or whether
141we are going to be discriminated against them one thing that we must say you know children need to be protected and our our job here in the school is to actually teach our kids the fundamentals of Education um I don't believe that teaching them about transgenderism sexuality political partnership has any rule in role in our schools so we need to let our kids kids be kids K young kids should not be thinking about sex they should not be thinking about whether their identity is right or wrong most of these kids and this is the data I mean I I invite everybody to go and read all the data that is out there especially the the data that has been actually put out by doctors that that are not biased um that most of the people
142who actually think that they may have a problem with gender confusion most of them actually outgrow it by the time they're 24 and the reason is is because that's the time when the brain is finally developed fully and that's when they should be making this decision again I have no problem if if an adult decides that they want to be transgender that is their prerogative I'm talking let's protect these kids let's make sure that they have a childhood let's make sure that we teach them what they need to learn in shanor County and in old schools around our country and let's not burden them with this this confusion and whether you're a boy or whether you're a girl let's just go ahead and take that out of out out of the curriculum that we're teaching
143but we're not looking at that right now we're talking about this one and this particular policy right now is about protecting our teachers on our staff for being punished and I'll have to tell you we have received uh several staff that have actually told us that they are afraid because there are some kids that may have some gender um dysphoria or are deemed to be transgender and they don't know how to call that kid so no teacher and no staff should be afraid that they're going to lose their job that they're going to be punished because they're having to use a prent that goes against their constitutional rights and I'll be open for any questions thank you very much other discussion excuse me sir no these are discussion among the school I I understand that
144sir I just would like to no no no please have a seat you know we we listen to yall early on you can listen to us now have a seat absolutely thank you thank you appreciate it uh Mr V same uh the same concerns that I had at our last meeting are still evident today um first of all the code of Virginia says very clearly a parent has a fundamental right to make decisions regarding the upbringing Education and Care of their children in the executive order cited in the the uh the PowerPoint section two of this policy reads it is the policy of my Administration this is President Trump speaking to support parents in choosing and directing the upbringing and the education of their children four years ago a man by the name of Terry
145mola was running for governor of Virginia he insisted that parents should have no role in the upbringing of their children well we know how that worked out for him except for his very thick checkbook and lots of ink I think he's been relegated to political Extinction the policy that we have in place reminds me of a baseball it's probably an idiom but I'll use it anyway I heard someone earlier uh speaking about the Cincinnati rids happens to be one of my favorites or it used to be so imagine Johnny Bench is at the plate he gets the fast ball he likes bada bing bada boom it goes over the fence Marty brenman or Joe du uh KNX Hall am I right about this Mr duta will sometimes say well he gets to touch all the
146bases on his way to the doo pretty good and I think the policy we have in place touches all the bases if provides for the parental right of waiver it allows the student who is of age to sign their own waiver it protects parents in the upbringing of their children it is memorialized in recor and the teachers have a shroud of immunity and finally paraphrasing uh Michael Corleone and The Godfather my objection is not personal it is business it is business there is or there are laws against discrimination I understand the objection based on the First Amendment but if a teacher is uneasy or objects to using that pronoun as I said they have a right of immunity against retaliation so let's move on let's put this to rest there's a budget there's Capital Improvement
147there are some other issues that need our attention and um I shall vote no on the Amendments thank you Mr record I just wanted to point out uh a few things um a employee emailed us all on December 12 and this is her quote she said everyone at I'm not going to give the school because CU I would give that away has been wonderful with my son he has been referred to as his preferred name and pronouns since he started grade level redacted um so that's accolades to our staff a staff member messaged me on January 9th while we were on this very de and we were talking about this and this staff member said the issue right now on the board meeting about the gender policy is an issue currently exclamation point I've had
148two students who considered themselves transgender one is currently a freshman and we were very nervous to deal with the situation we decided we were only going to call pronoun by pronoun legal name regardless of what pronoun peers called pronoun and what pronoun wrote on papers I believe our teachers should have that right all of our staff should have that right nobody should feel required to part participate and whatever another family believes um that's my thing on it I think we should follow what's going on in the federal government and the current Administration matter of fact I'd like to see us revisit uh what I proposed when it comes to uh girls Sports within our high schools um I think it's pretty cut and dry our staff is looking for Direction um they're looking for Lanes
149to stay in thank you Mr Guta so my perspective on this um you know we we adopted this last year um the yunan policy it was known as the M policy it switched names three or four times um you know we adopted this four to two last year and I know we added some extra pieces in there um before we all voted on it but again I want to reiterate you know this is the yunan policy that we voted on last year and we supported it and there have been no changes from the governor or MZ as far as changing this policy so I know the talk about Washington DC and all that but you know what we have to remember is at least from my perspective I don't want to get involved with how
150kids are raised and how their families you know you know how their lifestyles are um you know one thing I've learned now in my fourth year is we have to make tough decisions sometimes that we may not agree with when it comes to other people and their lives but you know ultimately for us we have to do what's best for all the students and sometimes that means we have to do go extra lengths so we may not feel comfortable in some ways but it's for the best it's for the betterment of all the kids in the school system so um I know there's a lot of controversy around this and um you know ultimately what we adopted last year I don't see an issue with it um you know if the the governor wants to
151update things moving forward um from the state level I think that's something we would look into but again I'm kind of with Mr Vance I don't see why we would get involved with um the lifestyle of families that are in the community um I a statement and then Mr Carl need go have the last word unless we go around again we can't do that so [Music] um the young model turned out to be really really a good model uh and I think it did so because it guaranteed people's constitutional rights across the board and um I think it did it did wind up being a bulletproof policy for teachers uh we teachers are no longer at risk for being censured or disciplined or using you know not preferred progs it doesn't happen anymore in this
152school in this system uh where it did where it was not implemented that's where problems occurred and we've seen several cases of people in the DI ion walk teachers walking away $470 $450,000 settlements because they were forced to so we avoided that and we have protected our teachers uh paragraph H does it specifically and uh this board actually made it a little stronger and reinforced it so we we actually had yunan um on steroids not M many steroids but it's stronger it it it specifically added to concept of no retaliation against teachers specific words um I was going to talk about how we spent a lot of time on this back in Spring and I do agree with Mr Vance that we um there are a lot of other topics we probably should have been
153taken on that have to do with uh education and raising educational standards rather than rep plowing this field two or three times and we've had a really really good policy what what I what I would not like to see us do is to get it in imbalance so that a parent who does what the law requires at this point to change um the name of the student on the record has the right to do that still has the right to do that and uh our attorney general Maris who wrote or oversaw the writing of the of the youngin policy has agreed with that um a few of the people who people on this board know and I think respect have spoken out on this topic at the December 5th SPM Symposium Tim Griffin who's a
154a delegate uh and a lawyer from Bedford um said the trans the young transgender policy should have been passed without changes otherwise we are at risk Josh hetler at the Family Forum uh Family Foundation said that what that group does mostly is concerned with supporting parental rights said on top of this uh with what's happening today the the Family Foundation will come out soon with guidance based on all the law suits that are breaking out but Mr hler cautions about doing anything until some of these cases are decided and one of the cases that we're waiting to hear about is the Grim case which we've been which still drives uh state law in some ways but um is being challenged and there should be readings on it very soon um at the U January 22nd
155sbma legislative Round Table in Richmond uh attorney general Jason meori spoke to a group of about 15 of us and when asked about this question about trying to improve or amend the yunan policy he said follow the yunan model a lot is happening judgments the next 60 to 120 days will come through the Department of Justice and Stafford and will provide C and then his quote was the Cavalry is coming the irony he said is that we could be facing Federal violations if we act proactively now and then lose the case and he said the irony would that be that our attorney general's office would have to be in the business of uh Prosecuting those cases of those people who acted preactive proactively he observed that the public sides with I think most of us
156in this board who are concerned with the protection of women in locker rooms in athletics and in terms of confusion between the two genders as they participate and he said with the realization that the public is with us on that uh we have to we still need to be careful and be consistent he said compassion must be shown to those with gender dysphoria even though it goes away by age 17 to 24 in most cases that compassion and understanding is still necessary he says be careful of invoking the executive order because has no lawful Authority for us and then I further wonder if indeed the President says what he does what he says and says we're not going to have Department of Education then there's not going to be much of an executive order left
157for us to be able to Bay because what we're going to be stuck with is what I think most of us want which is a state controlled educational system the final uh person who spoke that day was the person who actually helped rank this and it's um Elizabeth Schultz the Virginia assistant State superintendent for the Department of Education um at one point and a senior fellow for the parents defending education um she's now in charge of the task force for marijuana in the state and he said she said the model policy was so very well crafted and she made an analogy I thought was a good one and I like to end with she said you talking to the school board members said you have a chance now to get behind the snow plow and
158let it get the stuff out of your way so you can move ahead or you can jump ahead of the the snow plow and try to move the snow yourself and you're going to get hurt in the process and you're going to um incur risks that you just don't have to incur so I think the I think uh those for folks have kind of um butress my feeling that um my base feeling which is um Governor youngan probably did win the election based on parental rights and we would be silly if we tried to pick which parental rights are Sac or san instead of saying parental rights or sa that's all I have quick question when was that meeting again that you had the um the legislative Round Table yes was uh January 22nd in
159Richmond at the Family Forum so it was before the executive order was actually unveiled I'm not sure what what it was but I do know that that's when well the executive order was unveiled on January 29th that's okay so well you asked me the question let me answer it um so um attorney general uh mayori said uh be careful of invoking an executive order it has no lawful authority to us so there you go okay I'm just saying he talked about a executive that had not been made out public yet so um I just have a few things that I wanted to kind of address again um um one of the things that Kyle said for example it's about the Y policy uh you know that we passed and the um was very much one
160of the drafters in there but just to a point of information that actually happened well before the cases that were decided that I actually cited um so the cases that I cited with regards to the um uh case law the case from Tennessee and versus Cardona um as well as the lawsuits that we saw in West Point Virginia happened after that policy was drafted but before I do my final um comments I just wanted to see uh can Mr Vans read that code again that you just read before the Virginia code Virginia code 1-24 yeah can you read the language please that you read before I'm sorry can you read the language that you read to us before Aron has a fundamental right to make decisions regarding the upbringing comma education comma and care of
161a parent's child right so I'm still not sure we're exactly in forcing our staff to have to use a pronoun in violation of constitutional rights actually violates that because what we're saying here is is a parent still has the right to do that a parent can still do whatever they want at this point um and some people talk actually ask me well what if a teacher wants to use the pronoun fine you know if that's what they decide to do they can use that pronoun if they want to what we're doing is we are um deleting the part where we say that the staff and the teachers have to use a pronoun now again I actually um said that this is according to the case law and according into the case that we've had here
162in Virginia uh to uphold the constitutional rights of our teachers so let me ask you um Mr V as I'll ask everybody here um which one takes precedence is it the Constitution or the Virginia code I don't see the Constitutional issue there because we're not compelling speech it is compelling speech if you're telling a teacher that they they have toor uh can cannot use the pronoun and not be retaliated can the Virginia coding speech can the Virginia code violate a teacher's constitutional right no it doesn't no well no he can't right there was a Supreme Court case called Hawkins in which the Supreme Court held that parents have absolute autonomy in the upbringing of their children okay but again nobody is questioning that what we're talking about is what is a teacher and a staff
163going to be compelled to do so again the parents rights are not being violated at all we're talking here here about the Personnel I'm going to read it again the Personnel shall refer to a student by an A so we're talking about Personnel this is about protecting our Personnel so again I ask can code of Virginia violate the the constitutional rights of a person any state law must answer to the Constitution because of the supremacy CLS that's that's exactly right so what I'm saying again is let's separate the the the two arguments here because everybody keeps talking about parental rights and saying the the parents still has the right to do this and again if a teacher wants to call that that student by that pronoun they can't nobody's saying that they cannot do this
164this is about whether we're going to be forcing a teacher to have to use a specific pronoun especially if it goes against their constitutional the First Amendment right so that is all I'm asking I put it all out there I put all the information up to this board members to decide what they're going to you know what kind of protections they're going to afford to our Personnel well in answer to your question the uh policy the yunan model itself under protections uh says notwithstanding any other provision in this policy sh County Public School shall not compel discipline retaliate against or otherwise disadvantage any student teacher staff member or other person to address or refer to any students using pronouns or other words in Inc consistent with the student's actual biological sex or is reflected by
165the official record and so it is iron CL no no teacher is going to be disadvantaged or any or have any of these negative aspects occur to them if they if they decide that they're going to use the pronouns again because language I'm not it's it's pretty clear it's pretty clear but but there still gives the parent the right to change the official record of the of the child's name so it's a parental right we're talking about there we are not talking about any threat to to to the teacher or the staff member involved again and again recognize you in my time but I'm glad that you said that um because we're talking about the Personnel I mean that's what we just talked about right now is what the Personnel is going to have so
166yes it has nothing to do with I don't understand what I maybe if I speak in Spanish that would be EAS to understand but in no way are the parental rights being violated here the parent still has the right to do this and and again teachers and staff who want to comply with that are more than welcome to we're talking about the teachers who are being compelled to actually use that pronoun in violation of the constitutional right but you know what like I said it's fine um as you suggested before I have a feeling that a lot of this is going to change in in the next few months so if even if we don't pass this right now I'm sure we'll be right right here again in no time the job the Shand County
167public school system is sorry I thought I had the final word are we going to go another round are we going to go another round yes okay thank you yes absolutely so who has the microphone Mr Parliament whoever the chair recognized Mr V you have the floor sh County public school system has the responsibility to educate all and not set personal agendas there are there will be diversity there will be different backgrounds there will be different beliefs and has been cited U long ago you just never know the luggage that students bring him to the classroom uh that we don't know about so I don't see the compulsion and as I said previously the job is to educate thank you anybody else Mr Ricker Kudos do you I'd like to uh I'd like to address
168our job is to educate and as long as we stay focused on that um and one thing you pointed out is nobody's being compelled but heaven forbid the first time one of these teachers or staff members brings a lawsuit against shannona County because they don't want to participate in this um I personally will stand by their side my wife is a staff member of shannona County and I don't think any of our staff should feel like they have to participate in somebody else's mental illness um Point Blank but like said our job is to educate I'd like to stay focused on that anything further now anything further well you're done to I'm done um no again just I want to re reiterate once again and we welcome everyone and the reason why we're doing this
169I don't know how any other reason anybody else said I have met transgender people and one of them is dead even though they were completely accepted by their Community even though their parents pushed for that that IDE happen and the reason that happened is because that child had different problems had been sexually abused for many years by a family member but in that confusion they were told that well maybe it's just that you have you're really a boy and not really a girl to tell a child this kind of stuff it it it's it's very mind buing especially when a child does not understand what life is what's going to bring what sexuality is what gender is I mean I was a tomboy I love playing with with boys I love playing with Hot Wheels
170I love doing sports that's how I grew up um and that's how a lot of kids grew up when when I was growing up this is not about this this is about whether we're going to be forcing our teachers to have to comply with an order from a parent from a with an order that a parent has a right to do because we wouldn't have this amendment this paragraph we wouldn't have it if the parent didn't have the right to do this so if the parent didn't have the right to do this then this problem wouldn't exist but because the parent has the right to do this and they can change the record and you know some teachers may want adopted or non adopted that's fine he not touching that what he's touching is the
171fact that the parents that the teachers that don't want to use this are not going to be um punished and I understand the retaliation part that we put in this cuz I'm the one who included it in here but what we're talking about is there's confusion we have one side of the uh policy that is's saying one thing and then we have another one that he saying another one personally I like to have Clarity and personally I would like to have a policy that actually applies to everybody but that's okay we can leave it like this and I'm sure that um we'll take the vote and um most likely we'll be revisiting this at some other time hopefully it'll be after K's gone so he doesn't to go through here I know you don't like
172it call for the question call for the question we just okay yeah um so remind us again um Cheryl of the the amendment and what a yes and no vote indicate thank you I'm sorry go ahead Miss carinia was I move to adopt policy GB AJF privacy dignity and respect for all students and parents in shedo County Public Schools as presented with the removal of sections 3 D4 and 3d5 section 3d6 will be red as Section 3 D4 and it was seconded by Thank You Cher roll call vote please M car yes Mr bsha no Mr V no Mr Ricker yes Mr bar no the uh measure fails 3-2 and we move on Riv okay all right 6.3 is the uh exess word Riverwalk Dr Shephard do you want to give us background or um
173so the only uh the only thing that I'll say about this is I had the opportunity to talk to the football coach um last week or two weeks ago and um he said that option one and option two would actually interfere with their football um practice because they use every single um bit of that football field so his um I guess my recommendation at that this point based on his feedback would be to go with option three which would be just the parking parking area and the path to the boat launch uh is there a um we have three options here we just heard the rationale from the superintendent um we can have discussion bit but is there a proposed U motion based on either that recommendation or another point of view I moved to
174to approve option three granting the town of strawsburg permission to establish a parking area and walking path on shannela County Schoolboard property along South Holiday Street thank you Mr Rickard is there a second to that motion I'm the second the motion thank you Mr Vance for that second uh is there discussion Mr rck um the reason I was going with that option originally I like the idea of the Riverwalk going down through there but I did go and meet with um our athletic director Matt heiserman um I also spoke on the phone with Coach lamb and Coach gueras um both football coaches within the program there um why I like the idea of extending the Riverwalk down through there it would definitely impede um practice and school usage um and make it unsafe for citizens
175to be in that area during those times as well so to me after speaking with them the only logical thing to do was to go with option three uh likewise I spoke to some folks including the mayor of strawsburg the vice mayor the football coach um principal faults and aside from the uh the 10t not being available I walked down there one Sunday morning uh after church and um I was hoping to see lots of of overhanging U Sycamore limbs where they they didn't need that 10 ft but that that didn't exist so actually the the reason why we endorse option three is a safety Factor because you're allowing a lot of uninvited guests on school property during school hours possibility as you said of interfering with the football practice both varsity and junior varsity
176and uh I agree a a river walk is is very refreshing I enjoy mine but I don't have to worry about a 230lb linebacker knocking me uh down in the river over the uh the river bank and probably 99 and 44 100% of all the people using the River Walk are good wholesome citizens but it's the complement to that that could cause a lot of a lot of mischief and if you know where the phrase 99 and 44 100 % came from I'll give you a dollar at the end of the meeting it was an advertising gimmick and I'll be around to give you your dollar all right um other comments no comments I have no comments U and so we can call the question on this as well and U if you would like
177to call so once again the motion is I'll just say is the is the option three granting the town of St sturg permission to establish a parking area a walking path on Sho County School Board along South Holiday Street Cher M car yes Mr bsha yes Mr B yes Mr rer yes Mr bar yes I would like to personally commend uh Mr Rickard and Mr Vance for putting Eyes On Target talking to the people who were involved finding out what was actually going on there on the ground so that was invaluable so thank you very much for your input appreciate that policy 2bp Library materials selection so goes back to the uh the library material selection policy that a year ago over a year ago and the uh effectiveness of it since then and based
178on Library visits by members of the board uh and subsequent uh reactions from the staff uh my librar materials selection uh has been revised uh and uh it is before us before us today um do we have a motion to approve the policy 2bp the library material selection as revised I so move uh thank you Mr Vance any second second Mr Gall thank you for that is there any discussion are we still um I'm sorry um are we still giving the parents time to review this is there still time for that review to happen yes indeed and I would uh I could I could ask the superintendent to tell us about that she's been more involved than I in that aspect so let me turn it over to her if you don't mind on thank
179you so this goes from a twice a year review to a um a monthly review or submission by the um Librarians for the books that they want to purchase uh the principal review it monthly the directors of instruction of Education review it monthly and um then it gets posted to the website after that for the parents to be able to review so it it'll still be a two-month at least a two-month process before it gets to the school board for approval but then it'll get to the school board for approval um the review commit committee if there are any books that any of the groups along the way would like to review then um the Review Committee will get together every six months to review those books they will not meet monthly to review any
180books that have been requested for further review does that answer your question yes ma'am thank you so motion as I move to approve policy IP Library material as rised motion was made by Mr B and seconded by Mr bsha Miss careno yes Mr gsha yes Mr Vance yes Mr Rickard yes Mr bar yes and before we move on I would like to uh say that um that the process over the last year especially in December was I'll use the word delightful in that um um Mr Guta and Mr Vance uh and I formed kind of a tag team group that went around to all the libraries um we were accompanied by or maybe we were B babysat I'm not sure by the superintendent Dr Hein Gartner and others and those from the instru instructional uh
181staff so uh it was all hands- on Deck uh the Librarians were gracious learned uh proactive uh and uh even though knowe was impacting on Christmas holiday quickly it was uh it was a very positive U interaction and I want to I want to commend everybody who was involved for I think really positive action so thank you for that um 6.5 is a request to increase the uh fiscal year 25 budget as was uh presented to us uh was that presented to us earlier um no this is um so this is this is um an adoption of from the 2025 budget the amount it's 97 million so this includes um this is our this is our Target at this point this is an additional appropriation in the special budget for 14,653 okay are we talking
182about um 6.5 yes okay okay I'm sorry you're right that so the net at the bottom there is 14653 thank you for that correction I appreciate that okay um so do we have a a motion to approve that U the request to increase the special budget by $1 14,653 197 I move to approve the request to increase the fiscal year 2025 special budget by 14,650 $3.97 as presented thank you Mr Ard second second second Mr Vance um any discussion if not a roll call V Cheryl M Caren yes Mr bsh yes Mr B yes Mr Ricker yes Mr yes so passes uh five nothing and we move to to our last agenda item which is 6.6 um and do have a motion to approve that request to increase the budget by $4 49,27805 special budget
183by $ um any discussion then roll call vote please Cheryl M car yes Mr bsh yes Mr B yes Mr rer yes Mr bar yes again five nothing vote and uh we have now completed the uh action items it's time for superintendent's monthly report thank you so happy School Board appreciation month um we had two 22 students from our three elementary schools and three middle schools compete in the annual County Spelling be on January 24th after several rounds of intense spelling the six finalists qualified for the regional spelling be the top three finishers were Lindsay King who was first Leon Gerald second from s Boo from signal knob middle school and James Funkhouser third from Northfork Middle School the regional spelling is Saturday March 1st at 10:00 at Skyline Middle School in Harrisonburg I hope
184to see you there um members of our high school and middle school FFA chapters participated in FFA day at the Capitol in January joining nearly 700 FFA members from across the state our scps representative shared the importance of FFA and agriculture education with Senator Timmy French and delegate Todd Gilbert delegate Dolores oats and other elected represent pres atives all three of our elementary schools celebrated the 100th day of school this past Friday students and staff alike dressed up and participated in a variety of activities to Mark the Milestone of being a 100 days smarter since the start of the school year this past Friday Mr Hensley and myself had the pleasure of delivering um the news to nine of our staff members that their proposed grants have been approved for the more educational trust Grant
185the project ranged from a new Courtyard at Ashby Le Elementary School to an interactive projection and computer system at Sandy Hook Elementary School I always love this day getting um to see staff and their reactions when they learned that they were selected for this this grant um I would like to congratulate the central um boy swim team on their region 2B title in Warrington on Monday the Falcons were led by Junior Grayson Dalton who was named the region 2B buy swimmer of the year strawsburg finished second in both the boys and girls meets with sophomore Emily Davis Davis being named the region 2B girl swimmer of the Year congratulations to strawsburg wrestling team on winning its sixth straight region 2B wrestling title the three-time reigning Class 2 state champions had 11 wrestlers qualify for the
186class 2 state meet in Salem U congratulations to Stonewall Jackson high school on winning the Scholastic academic bowl and being named this year's Bull Run District Champs and congratulations to strawberg senior Willow Willow musterman Abigail Jones and Avery starky on being selected to the class two All State cheer competition cheer team musterman and Jones were named to the first team starky was named to the second team and then the last thing we had um last but not least we had students from all of our high schools and middle schools elected to participate in the district 14 choir Festival this past week unfortunately weather ended up cancelling the all district choir concert on Saturday but we wanted to congratulate all of our talented singers who got the chance to audition and rehearse be happy to answer
187any questions thank you a lot of good news in there thank you yes I've got one question um I was going through the transportation report mhm and I've gone through it before and I had questions and I guess I should ask Lucas about this maybe you can answer but if I've got two buses that are the same year make and model and for instance I'm looking at two right now that are 2020s and one traveled 496 mil and used 75 M 75 gallons of fuel but then I see another one that went less mileage 475 miles but used almost twice the amount of fuel do we know why that is has anybody ever asked that before so no one's ever asked that I don't have the answer I'm looking at my colleague Dr hner to
188see if he has an answer there's there's quite a few in there where it's the same model same year but one goes one a certain amount of Miles the other one goes less but Burns almost twice the amount of fuel they probably going to for valy so I'm going to Valley I'm going to guess it'll be interesting to see what Dr H Garner finds out but it is the number of students on the bus of the load versus where they go whether it's town or Mountain that's my guess we'll see we'll see if I'm right I'm just curious but thank you School Board member comments who wants to start off sure you want to throw it to me I'll take it um whoever wants to step up go for it mine's short and sweet um
189I've had some parents reach out to me here recently on the southern end and um apparently there's an issue I had heard with kids wearing headbands with ears on them and Tails um I've since reached out to a parent I know well that has kids that attend that school and they confirmed that yes those kids are wearing Tails they're not sure about the ears so I went back to our student handbook last night and on page 40 we have on there about hoods hats or face masks um are not allowed inside the school so I would like us to discuss if our boys can't wear a baseball hat in school then we shouldn't be allowing any kids to wear headband with ears on them and Tails behind them I don't think it's proper dress code
190and I would like to see us discuss that topic if any school board member would like to know what school in particular you can reach out to me and I will let you know I've heard the same thing um and I think it's I mean this is what Schoolboard member comments are for uh I appreciate you bringing that up I think we in context of um not only the headgear limitations but also in terms of dress code large it's worth conversation so um I think we I think I appreciate you putting that up there and that will be a discussion one other the only other thing I've got is the uh the public comments tonight they made our school system sound horrible our staff sound horrible I want to give kudos to our staff our
191staff does a really good job of taking care of the kids talking to the kids like the kids want to be talked to um and I want to make it clear that all I'm trying to do by strengthening our policy is is making it to where our staff doesn't have to feel like they have to do something our staff does a pretty good job of doing what they want to do and respecting all the kids I have yet to hear about any of our kids being discriminated against in any of our schools um so I just want to tell the staff that's here tonight all the staff that works for shannona County Public Schools you all do a great job I know I'm getting invitation after invitation for breakfast lunch for Schoolboard appreciation month the
192Kudos go to you guys in the buildings um you guys are the ones that make this County look good you guys are the ones boots on the ground educating our kids day in and day out so thank you I had a um very enjoyable and positive visit at Peter mberg Middle School last Friday happened to be in the library when uh some folks came in with some money for the library that was a good feeling um it was such a good visit I was invited back in April Mr chairman you'll be happy to know they'll be doing an exercise in the library involving classic lature which I know is is one of yours and U did anyone figure out the 99 and 44 100% cuz yes sir you're you got it Bingo we have Bingo
193do not hold your cars cuz he gets the Dollar Short age good job sir you know we're going to have a lot bigger crowd this trying to get some money out of here Kyle go ahead Mr Rickard mentioned it I'd like to highlight um with it being February it's a good opportunity typically we're invited to all sorts of different things and um it's always a good opportunity to go into a school that you may not it may not be on your campus and you may not contact the principal very often but they're contacting you inviting you in and um it's a good opportunity to see different people and see how each school is working whether it's in schellsburg or Woodstock or Mount Jackson so I encourage everyone up here I know it's time consuming sometimes
194and it can be hard to fit in your schedule but um it's definitely a good experience going in and seeing what all the schools are up to and um how each one is a little bit different so I encourage everyone to do that thanks thank you um yes I just want to say I'm very glad to see people U coming to our meetings um have some notes here um because I'm hoping that they can see that we do a lot more um that would you get what get to Al reported on the news and I've had people reach out to me and say oh all you're doing is gender ideolog and um unfortunately that's what's more problematic and that's what what gets to be have more conflict but the truth of the matter is um
195when people reach out to us if you're really listening to all the other meetings we do a lot more than that um and even a lot of the stuff that you see here um like for example in the budget you know when you talk about the student support specialist you know that's that's kind of my my request um when you see stuff like when we're talking about the incentives that's something that we've been talking talking about so there's a lot of things that happen U behind the scenes that you don't get to see um until unless we're actually talking about it uh one of the things um Mr rer and I keep doing working very hard in the Personnel committee and and talking to teachers and we're going to start doing our meetings pretty soon
196again uh another one is the mental health task force uh we have some members here today but uh we just met uh earlier in the in the month and it was great because we got to talk to the student Representatives again and that that's always something that we always look forward to because we get to listen to them and what their concerns are and uh it was interesting to hear for example about the cell phone policy uh you see the middle schoolers kind really like it they they said they get to talk more they they get to be more kids again the high schoolers that are a little bit more used to having that cell phone in their hands are a little bit more weary about it so so you can tell that the younger
197they are and they get started on this the better it'll be for them um they also talked about a few other things like uh one of the kids actually said that we should be more tutoring um several of them actually said that they like the program that we used to have that was a friendly Giants and we're going to be looking to see if we can we still have that or if we need to implement it again um and uh also just uh one thing that's kind of universal and I keep hearing this all over the world uh all over the area is how much they hate the Chromebooks um so I don't know if that's something that I I want to see if we can start looking into using the Chromebooks less and less
198and less um cuz I I just don't think the kids start learning enough from that I also wanted to address some of the things that were said today because um you know I and still a lot of people have left already but you know I understand why there's a lot of um um assumptions that there's hatred towards some kids or that we hate the the transgender people that they're predators and that's that's not right at all I mean the reason why I've and I've written about this and I've talked about this before but the reason that I've made this issues because I know the suffering that goes on with a lot of these kids they are actually the victims we should let them be kids we should let them grow we should let them learn
199about the world before they make these decisions that are going to be for the rest of their lives I mean they're going to be mutilating their bodies they're going to be hooked on drugs for the rest of their lives there's a lot of things that go on that only adults that know what their cussions are should be making and I know because I have met some of these people and I also have met I have several good friends whose kids are actually facing that that problem right now so I know the suffering that goes on on both sides so that's the first thing that I wanted to say um I also wanted to you know it's always interesting when we talk about di diversity and all that and um you know one of the things
200that I I always chuckle about is trying to say that we should treat everybody with equality while also highlighting how we're different and to me that you know I'm Puerto Rican I was born and raised in Puerto Rico Spanish is my first language I never ever felt discriminated against or like I was not welcome at a school because they weren't talking about Puerto Rico or because they wer talking about me in Puerto Rican now if anything I enjoy being able to to feel like I'm part of the group without having to be different so um again that's just my perspective on that um I also want to um just make a mention of the discussion that was uh brought about in the comments and also in the amendment that is up in the informational agenda
201which um have an issue with that but beyond that um what I wanted to talk about is that the policy that we passed last month unanimously was about was band teaching of gender ideology um this is something that was just part of our teaching about controversial issues there's other controversial issues that we don't want to have our kids be discussed right now we everybody talks about how we need to kind of focus on the reading and writing and arithmetic I agree that's exactly what we should be uh focusing on so the idea of removing some of these issues that have no place in a school should not be controversial but um but that that's that's what the that particular policy was about so the amendment that we have been discussing actually has nothing to do
202with the teaching it has to do with advising and counseling which um that was actually submitted by uh Mr Street and um written by Mr Gosha um and his concern and I understand it his concern is that we want to make sure that all the kids have access to counseling and that's correct we our kids should have access to counseling and they do we already have this policy that we just talked about today actually has all the provisions regarding all the kids having access to that so that's that's not changing um I don't think he it was particularly understood that that was already in place um and that also that particular policy that we passed last month was in the teaching in the instruction category of our manual so um so I'm hoping that that's
203something that we'll be able to discuss uh because again trying to say that the counselors and the advisers and a lot of people that actually shouldn't be teaching would have been allowed to teach the gender ideology pretty much renders the whole policy mood so I'm hoping that we'll be um able to discuss that and um and not mention the fact that again I know some people are saying that we don't need to necessarily follow executive orders from the president but the president in his executive order expressly provides that schools that allow their Tech Coles or counselors to advise students on these issues will lose the federal funding so that's something that we're going to have to understand because yeah we may we can decide not to follow it but then we may lose our federal
204funding um another thing was that regarding this there's been a lot of back and forth in and uh the former School Board member brandley RS um who quit this board in October actually made a mention in an email today and I'm going to quote what she said she said currently there are two students in scps that are identifying differently than their sex both of these children are parent pushed I have a problem with this and and I hope that here um that everybody understand that here in shanor County we are going to be we're going to welcome everybody regardless of of what their um sex or ideology or whatever it is we are going to love our kids the same however if we have if we know of any kids who are been pushed to
205do anything that could be harmful to them or that could be something that changing their lives we need to be aware of this because we're all mandated reporters and there is a kids that has been pushed to do something like this and we need to be able to um notify the uh pertinent author so they can actually treat with that so um and again to reiterate what I said before and what Mr Rickard said I understand we did not pass the amendment to um the policy today but any teacher that feels like they've been forced to violate their constitutional rights um using that pronoun I'll be standing next to Mr Rickard as well um if they decide that they need to sue the school well I doubt if they're going to be doing that because
206the policy already prohibits it so they really won't need your support that's right so uh let me U say one thing I wanted to say which is um the last uh almost well the time I've been here um I've been kind of figuratively wagging my finger at the staff and teachers and the superintendent to raise expectations increase academic performance um enforce a fair discipline disciplinary code uh We've tackled the ideas of uh of now of attendance and we we we gestured at the are dealing with dress codes and things like that all of which I think have impact on education and achieving those two goals so good um now it's time to kind of wag my finger figuratively at the school board for um kind of gone off off off the track a little bit
207here and I um I look at the school board norms and see what is required of us and the Heart and Soul of how we govern in our school board Norms is that board members agree to being involved in our to our individual level of comfort and to operate in a collegial and friendly atmosphere and will value a consensus rather than a majority rule um there have been some behaviors from members members of the board uh not pointing fingers at anybody perhaps pointing fingers at myself more than anybody I don't know but we have to work better at being better together and uh we haven't done a good job of it recently and I don't think uh anybody would look at our behaviors recently and say we're uh strongly um strong model for students in
208our in our system and so so I encourage us as a group as a board to uh to try to be a little bit more civil with each other to try to be a little bit more U working with each other rather than outside of our comfort zones or our buls so um I hope we can rededicate ourselves to working as a as a board a little bit more effectively than we have been in the recent past um I that sounds harsh uh but um if we're going to hold the our kids and our stakeholders and our teachers and our our staff to a a standard of doing that I think we should we should try to ra raise um raise ourselves to that same standard so with that I will ask for a motion
209to adjourn move to ajour thank you Mr gut second second second Mr Rickard all in favor please say I I okay we are adjourned at 9:25 I don't have my three minutes H thank you alls I know that's why