SCPS School Board Meeting 10/10/2024

001okay good good so I'd like to call order the October 10th 2024 regular school board meeting of the Shino County School Board and I'd like to um entertain a um recommendation that we meet in Clos session thank you I recommend the sh um the Shido County School Board convene a closed meeting under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act in order to discuss and consider several Personnel matters involving the assignment appointment promotion performance demotion salary discipline or resignation of several employees of the shanadoo County Public Schools under Virginia code 22- 3711 A14 and to discuss and consider several student matters involving the admission discipline or disclosure of information contained in a Scholastic record of students in the shinid County Public Schools under Virginia code 22- 3711 A2 and to discuss plans to protect Public Safety as

002it relates to the threats or vulnerabilities and briefings by staff members or law enforcement or Emergency Services officials concerning actions taken to respond to such matters or related threats to Public Safety discussion of information subject to the exclusion in subdivision 2 or 14 of 22- 37052 where discussion in an open meeting would jeopardize the safety of any person or the security of any fa facility building structure information technology system or software program or discussion of reports or plans related to the security of any government facility building or structure or the safety of persons using such facility building or structure pursuant to Virginia code 22- 37119 thank you Dr Shephard um that's a recommended action do we have a motion to act on that let me take a deep breath here I move that the sheno

003County School Board convene a closed meeting under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act in order to discuss and consider several Personnel matters involving the assignment appointment promotion performance demotion salary discipline or resignation of several employees of the sheno County Public Schools under Virginia code 22-37 11814 and to discuss and consider several person uh student matters involving the admission discipline or the disclosure of information contained in a Scholastic record of students in the sheno County Public Schools under Virginia code 22-37 11 A2 and to discuss plans to protect Public Safety as it relates to threats or vulnerabilities and briefings by staff members or law enforcement or emergency service officials concerning action taken to respond to such matters or related threat to Public Safety discussion of information subject subject to the exclusion in subdivision 2 or 14

004of 22- 37052 for discussion at an open meeting would jeopardize the safety of any person or the security of any facility building structure information technology system or software program or discussion of reports or plans related to the security of any government facility building or structure for the safety of person such as facility building or structure pursuant to Virginia code 22- 37119 thank you for that motion Mr gsha is second second thank you Mr Rick so uh it is moved and seconded that we uh go to close section to discuss those matters all in favor please signify by saying I I opposed none we will reconvene in close session and intend to reconvene an open session at 7:00 e e e so 7:27 uh is the time we're going to reconvene an open session uh and

005first thing we're going to do is we're going to um I'm going to read the following statement based on our um closed session so so um so okay do thank you do I have a motion to reconvene an open session I'm move to reconvene an open session thank you Mr got a second second thanks Mr Rickard all in favor to reconvene to open session please signify by saying I I any oppos none thank you uh and now I'll read the certification for our closed session shenoa County School Board hereby certifies by roll call vote that to the best of each member's knowledge only public business matters lawfully Exempted from open meeting requirements by Virginia law were discussed in the Clos meeting to which the certification resolution applies and nor only such public business matters as

006were identified in the motion meting the closed meeting were heard discussed or considered by the sheno County School Board each member responds ISO certify when call and uh Cheryl would you ask uh the little call V please Mr stre I say certify m careno i so certify Mr bsha I so certify Mr Ricker I so certify Mr bar ISO certified uh this evening uh we're going to have the invocation and the pledge uh from Mr G all right please bow your head almighty God thank you for the opportunity to gather here and serve our community we ask for your guidance and wisdom as we make decisions for our schools help us to act in accordance with your will with Integrity humility and always seeking what is best for our students staff and Community bless our

007efforts and grant us the strength to lead with courage and Grace in your name we pray amen amen amen I pledge of Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all I have a motion uh to approve the agenda as it has been presented to us Mr chairman I do have um an amendment that I would like to uh Pro for the agenda um I don't know if it has to be done separately or together but I did want to make a motion to uh the agenda to add two items um that I had uh submitted last Thursday for consideration um do we do them together or do we do them separately you can have

008a motion to accept the agenda and then do your amendments to add on to it your items okay so so motion to accept the agenda as presented handle it just as you would and then so I don't have to do it um before I was looking at the U Ro rules and say that before the adoption of the proposed agenda I should be making the well there's nothing really out there to approve yet so um you're trying to add to something that's not necessarily well I guess officially approved right oh yeah so that that was a question whether I needed to make um the Amendments the motion before it was approved and then have it approved with the Amendments I would get a motion to accept the agenda as presented then you can do your

009Mo amendments to add on as you got have a motion to have Amendment right so I yes I do want to make sure that the Motions to the amendment um gets considered so motion to approve add on to okay thank you all right so do we have a motion to approve the agenda as as has been presented I move to approve the agenda as presented thank you second from Mr Street um oh soop making now okay so um yes the two items that I wanted to add um um one is a motion to amend section 3. D do4 of the code gbb and I do have copies of those uh here um I don't know if I also presented them um the board has some um and it has to do with the gender identity

010policy that we passed back in the spring uh and the reason we're doing this is because uh there have been two diff well three um Judiciary uh legal opinions that had come down um one in June 17th by the district court that affects uh our district uh the second one is uh on August 16th the Supreme Court affirmed also that uh same legal opinion and then last week we had a court in um West Point School Board here in Virginia that actually um ruled in favor of a teacher that had been fired for this same motion that is actually included in uh my motion and they were made to pay over half a million dollars so I think we need to just to be compliant with the law we need to go ahead and uh

011remove certain sessions from that policy that we passed the second one has to do with vo registration policy because we don't have one here officially in Shor County and U it has been uh called to my attention in the last couple of weeks that several School boards uh or school districts on the Commonwealth have had issues with third parties uh that have come to the schools to do registration voter registration and the problem with this is uh one of them is um some of the students F coed um by the by the people who are coming uh to fill out those applications those uh applications uh to vote were also picked up by some of this third parties um to actually deliver them to the school uh to the voter registration uh sites and thirdly

012that was a big concern is that a lot of this information the private information from these um students was actually been um gathered by this third party agencies and basically was Data Mining um and almost immediately after these students were feeling out this applications they were starting to get text um from these different parties so what I wanted to do I just basically wanted to add these to the um informational agenda so we will not be discussing this today it would just be simply to put it so that we can actually um talk about this at the next meeting and hopefully pass it um um because I know we have a system right now where you have to wait several meetings before you can actually talk about this so if we don't add this today

013then we're not going to be able to talk about it at the next meeting and then uh vote up on it the meeting after that so that is my motion it's just to add this to to the informational agenda what exactly are you adding I want I'd like to hear concise language I want to add such such such to section then also such such such sure so what I have is um the motion to amend the code the first one the motion to amend the code uh gbab uh JF haab of the Schoolboard policy manual um it is going to be deleting section section D um we have several numbers um is going to be deleting sections four and five under that uh policy which says not within the provisions of per pars two and

014three of this section chenor County Police School Personnel shall refer to a student by a name after other than one in the students's official record or by pronouns other than those appropriate to the sex appearing in the students's official record only if an elgible student or a student's parent has instructed Shino County public schools in writing that such other name or other pronouns be used and also so it will be deleting that part it would also be deleting number five which says any written instruction from a parent or legible student under paragraph four of this section shall be memorialized in the students official record and subject to the same retention disclosure and confidentiality requirements as the official record itself the legal name and sex of the student shall not be changed even upon the written

015instruction of a parent or legible student except as specified in section C2 and I have copies of this if um if anybody want to have some of those um the second one is is the voter registration and um this would be saying that the voter voting is a basic civic resp responsibility the school board supports education programs for students that reach the rights that citizens have to register and vote and the role and importance of voting in citizen engagement a the superintendent or School Board design is authorized to develop search programs for students and to allow only the voter registration and Elections office to conduct voter registration programs for high school and adult education students no third-party organization shall be allowed to conduct any voter registration efforts of students on scps property B school officials

016shall not collect any of the voter registrations students uh shall be allowed the opportunity to bring their voter registrations home with them before they are responsible for returning them according to the relevant procedure set forth by the voter registration laws to protect student privacy no data harvesting or any kind shall be of any kind shall be permitted by any entity or individual also we have a section protecting against undue influence a school staff involved in school voter registration programs shall not seek to influence an applicants political preference or party designation two display any political preference or party Allegiance three make any statements to an applicant or take any action the purpose or effect of which is to discourage the applicant from registering to vote or for make any statement to an applicant uh to an

017applicant or take any action the purpose of or effect of which is to lead the applicant to believe that a decision to register or not to register has any bearing on how the student will be evaluated academically or whether the student may receive other services offered through the school finally be uh the decision to register to vote is voluntary students can decline registration for any reason without providing a reason for declining and that's the second language for the water registration you're adding that to the informational to the informational part of the agenda yes so a clarifying Amendment you want to amend the informational agenda to include yes an informational item on the gender identity policy yes and and then adding the voter registration CH when you have um digested that and you're ready to move

018on we right so to amend motion to amend the informational agenda to add an item on the gender identity policy that the board previously passed and you want to add a voter registration policy for shando accouny and add to the informational agenda and item on voter registration policy M yes I'm read that back make sure I have itre motion to amend the agenda to include an informational agenda item to I'm sorry motion to amend the agenda to include an informational agenda to add an item on the gender identity policy that the board previously passed and to add the information agenda item on V registration Poli well the first one is s an amendment um to take out a part of the agenda identity policy but what you want to do is you want to add

019an informational item to the agenda to discuss that to discuss it yes uh well to discuss it at the next meeting yes so it's just going be informational agenda today agenda just for to yeah okay you got a CH to amend the agenda to include an informational agenda item on the gender identity policy that the board produced in T and to add to the informational agenda and item on voter registration policy that's correct thank you is there a second to that motion I'll second discussion I mean if I can just say I mean this is just uh no excuse me no so want to read to make make a we need to discuss this we can get into the into the discussion later about um we we heard what you said and we know what

020the what the amendments are um I have something to say but I want to give other board members something to say or their chance to speak first anybody else yeah I'd just like to say we may have had some communic miscommunication issues along the way but when the chairman and myself and the superintendent when we meet to set the agenda we set it at a certain date and it's the same day of the week on the same week every month and the expectation is when we set that agenda we're setting it for this meeting and we put content into the meeting to be able to have a robust discussion on different business for a certain night and miss careno your comments and your proposals for tonight came in at the end of last week which

021is a couple weeks after we met to create this agenda so I feel like moving forward we may have better communication but I don't like it should be added to the agenda for tonight any other comments I'll have comments but I'll let you go first all right um so um Mrs Carino did uh contact me on Friday August octob excuse me October the 4th Thursday Thursday yeah you're I'm sorry um yeah the response I got was was on Friday you're right uh Thursday October the 3rd thank you um with the a request to add these two items the problem is that we have a schedule for setting the agenda and that meeting was scheduled for for the uh the 20th of September that time was moved but the meeting was held and there was no

022request from anybody on the board to add anything other than we had already added so we had the agenda setting session the agenda setting session uh was as it always is month by month announced by the school board clerk Cheryl Jet and it includes every month my request to come before the board or to bring your um suggestions for items to be discussed at that point uh we did discuss several things and we set the agenda on the 25th of O of uh September and these two items were not requested at that point and uh the request came in quite a bit after that on uh October the 3D the um the request to make input to this meeting as I said comes out every month and has since we first set the system up

023back in March um Mr jet has sent out uh these every month uh actually she sent out two that showed the meetings for the entire year ahead so there's really no reason why something should be added at the 11 hour the reason why we try to have these things set ahead of time is to allow transparency for teachers parents students to be able to have time to see these things before they're actually on uh before they're discussed and not to bring them to the board's attention at a time like this the items that were that are requested to be put on the instructional agenda instructional agenda gives us a chance to hear from various sources generally from the superintendent's office the basis for the policy that we have or the issue that's going to be

024discussed is so the board can meet and get its information in kind of a neutral way from the from the school system and find out what that the status is of that particular issue it is not designed uh the informational agenda to make Arguments for or against but to gather information about that issue so that at the next meeting there can be a discussion that results in an in an action in a vote and so it is a two-part process okay what Mrs Carino is trying to do is trying to is trying to eliminate that first informational piece and instead you know we're getting her view of what that is that's well and good I would love to hear that when we discuss and vote on this issue but um I as the chairman looked

025at these three items and said it's missed the deadline uh is not enough time to get this on there we have a very full agenda for what's going on tonight anyway but I also said I will take those two items and put them in the queue so that we can discuss those at our next work session and had them uh to get on the informational agenda and then finally for decision I was concerned that one of these items that had to do with uh um a o third parties to come in and register in our schools was timely because of the IM of the election so I thought okay maybe we should put that in even though it truncates things I don't like to do that because I want the entire time the entire sequence

026to go as it's supposed to go from planning information and then discussion so I called the superintendent and said are we at risk is there a problem having third party people come in and register our students in in classes and she said no there is an operational um I'll call it a regulation that that is under um in place whereby well I'm just telling you what's the superintendent you can shake your head all you want so um so the so so if indeed we have an operational um moment whereby we do not allow third- party individuals organization to come in and to register our students to vote then I deemed that that was not timely and not necessary that we had to interrupt or to uh skew our schedule so um I I wish M

027car when go ahead and met the suspense date of uh coming and putting forth stuff into our uh our agenda setting session she did not uh I had uh not only did we send this out monthly but the superintendent every week an executive note sends out when these meetings are going to be held and anybody who comes to these meetings know that I ask each member virtually every meeting that if you have have anything to add to the agenda please let me know call me right me let me know we'll put it on the agenda it doesn't mean that it leavs ahead of the others it doesn't mean that we skip the informational step what it means is it gets its proper place in the queue when we drive on if that process takes a

028little extra time as perhaps it has for the cell phone policy maybe that's a good thing that we actually gather more information we understand more about it I think we just heard a few minutes ago the reason why we couldn't shouldn't act on this tonight is because it sounds like a very complicated set of things that needs to be discussed and needs to be before us for input from parents teachers stakeholders Schoolboard members so uh I highly object to to these two items being um introduced into the into the agenda at this late hour soorry go ahead I'd like to speak on one thing too because the third item you kept referring to was uh when I reached out to you on October 3rd and I need to know what we do in this situation

029there's a Hot Topic throughout our County right now on this 10% attendance policy it's being called a policy we didn't write it um there's several here tonight I believe to speak on it um that's what I reached out to you on because it is a Hot Topic what do we do when when the county is talking about it kids are missing events um do we just put it off to the next meeting um the board Norms are you're supposed to contact the school board members on a regular basis um the way it's actually worked is the chair will continuously poll members regarding agenda or report items if an individual citizen if an individual or citizen addresses the board during a meeting with a request for information the superintendent May refer the matter to the appropriate

030staff member as necessary the information that is provided to the individual will be provided to the school board in a briefing the chair will contact members of the school board prior to the meeting to determine if there are any requests to include an item or report on the agenda to me I mean the i' venture to say this is going to be a Hot Topic tonight um so that's why I was trying to get it added that that's fine all you had to do was to um was to uh let me know at before we had the agenda set we we have an agenda setting session but if it's not a topic at that point right so turn excuse me excuse me wait so get the answer every this is fantastic go ahead I've just

031been asked a question by Mr first of all let me go back your third point with any individual citizen addresses the board that hasn't happened so it came because of request from you I understood that it was a valid discussion point and I indicated in my email back to you that it that I would put it in for our work session and we would discuss it you didn't get any of the emails about the 10 10% attendance I didn't and but I did ask the superintendent about that and she said there was a policy and there was some discussion about it I'm open let's talk about it but it doesn't go on the instructional agenda one time and then we vote on it that night you know we one of the things that we were

032concerned about was how fast people did these actions when the name change thing occurred over nine days some people up here were very very concerned that it was just made to change the name of our school this is the 2020 board on a Friday and then by next Thursday it had already been accomplished we're trying to increase the amount of visibility and discussion time and I'm sorry it's democracy we give people a chance to to weigh in if there were people want to talk about tonight great I'm ready here to take notes and find out what the issues are okay but I also want the senior staff to be able to be able to give me on the school board a background as to where we are on that issue by have somebody else's opinion

033I also want the other stakeholders to be able to deal with it so that there is a testation period between the information we get and then when we vote on it that that that's that's why it's been said now if if we hadn't decided on this this process back in March that we didn't decide right it was already in place I didn't make this up this is stuff that we had already done but we did cify by making sure that the school board um clerk sends out these reminders um and they're they're pretty I mean they're pretty uh straightforward is what what they require I mean the the headline just says you know requirements meeting agenda setting section it's really clear I mean either you follow rules so you don't you want get your your

034your issues before the the board you bring it the agenda setting section or you mention it up here at Schoolboard comments it goes in not one not one discussion point or agenda item has been left off by this chairman this year not one and most of the agenda items have come from Mrs Carino and Mr Ricker even before they took office I was stepping up and getting their stuff on the agenda this has nothing to do with personality it has to do do with following procedures or don't follow procedures now we don't need to be following procedures just because they are procedures we get to follow them or we should be following because they're proven to give us a good objective way of attacking these problems and making sure everybody's heard and making sure we

035we cast an Enlighten vote if we want to change that so that we just bring in any item on any given night and get the information from somebody's point of view and vote on it that night we're in a heap of trouble we're in a heap of trouble with our constituents maybe with a law can I can I talk to you please uh yeah because I I agree I absolutely agree that we need to follow the law and that's exactly what I'm trying to do here um there's a lot of misinformation going on here right now first of all um Mr V we're not acting on this today we're simply putting it on the informational agenda which is what we have done with every other policy so we're not acting on it we're not even

036debating it right now it was a matter of putting in there so is in the queue so we can discuss it at the next meeting and then we can pass it after that um secondly um no the voter registration we do not have that in policy right now I did speak to Dr Shephard before about this and that is her policy that she does not allow uh third parties to go in there but that's not the policy that this school board has set and I think it's very important that we as a school board act on it particularly since we are in such a um contentious election time to make sure that other parties know that they cannot do that in Shand County but more importantly let let me just um address some of the

037issues that Mr Barlo brought in because this was an issue that I was concerned about back in December when we were having the election for chairman and vice chair because my main um question was I didn't want to have somebody controlling the agenda and not allowing other members to um bring in issues that they wanted to bring in So at the time Mr Barlo said that he does not he cannot keep things out of the agenda um that basically if we brought it in before Friday at noon before the hearing date which would have been last Friday that it wouldn't be allowed into the agenda and the reason was so that it could actually be out for the public to read it um that's why that deadline was in I was not the only one

038who heard this Mr Rickard I believe also was so the same thing so that's why when I have every single policy like Mr Barlo just said I'm the one I brought in a lot of that policy it has always been turned in right before that Friday before the the hearing on Thursday now why did Mr B say that he couldn't keep things out well let's talk about rules here that's the code of Virginia the code of Virginia says uh in the agenda preparation and dissemination School Board policy manual section B Schoolboard governance and operations and I'm going to quote here the preparation of the proposed agenda shall be the responsibility of the school board shair with the assistance of the superintendent any member of the board School Board May submit items for the inclusion of

039the proposed agenda again any member of the school board May submit items for the inclusion of the proposed agenda a copy of the proposed agenda and all agenda packets and materials is made available for inspection by the public at the same time such documents are furnished to the school board members unless the materials are exempt under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act what this is saying is that we can that we don't have some deadline that that somebody comes up that you have to do a month before or two weeks before or some agenda setting um meeting it says that any member can bring it up so long as you do it before this proposed agenda is going to be available to the public which would have been last Thursday when I proposed it or

040even Friday morning if I had done it on Friday morning that is what the code says if we're going to be following laws and following the rules then we should probably be following the code of Virginia in addition to that what Mr Ricker was talking about with the board Norms it's that we had adopted on April 11th 2024 says that shair will contact members of the school board prior to the meeting to determine if there are any requests to include an item report on the agenda I have not gotten any calls or emails because I actually requested that I wanted to be informed by email from Mr Barlo in I don't know how many month so for him to say that the clerk can do that no the clerk can actually notify us and remind

041us that there're going to be this meetings but she's not she's not the chair it has to be you who calls us and let us know right before you set the agenda you know go on Thursday or whatever and say hey you want to add anything but I'm going to venture and say that the reason why the Cod of Virginia is so vague in terms of the timing is that it wants to allow for school members like we like Mr Rick and myself to add things that come up as an emergency we cannot simply say if the emergency comes up or if something really timely like this comes up that we're going to have to wait 3 months to be able to put in an informational agenda then we're going to be able to debate

042it and then we're going to be able to vote on it no the code of Virginia allows for us to be able to do that so long as we do it before that agenda is put to the public and that's what I did on Thursday I went ahead and I submitted all this to the school board um and to every single member of the school board along with information supporting that meaning we're not going to be acting on it but I still went ahead and gave that information so we would know more background on what this is right here um so I don't understand why we're saying that that um that we're going to be acting on it today that's not the subject of this uh it's basically a a tool that we should have

043to be able to put things as they come up and in addition to that like I said the Rober rules of procedure um actually allow for that if you go and look at uh section 4162 and 41 uh 63 they actually have a mechanism for us to be able to do this now now I have no problem if the share and the vice shair want to have meetings and if tomorrow they want to get together and plan out and have a draft for the rest of the year in terms of what policy they're going to do that's fine you can do that but you still have to allow the school board members to bring in items that have been brought up by the constituents or that are timely just like this ones are we cannot

044tie ourselves in such bureaucratic tape that we cannot even put this in agenda so we can talk about it at the next meeting so that's um to me it's unacceptable all along I've been told that I could do that up until that Friday before the hearing um date so that would have been last Friday I turned this in on Thursday so if we're going to be following the following the rules and following the law then we should be allowing this because that's what the law says in the Commonwealth of Virginia and that's also what our board Norms from uh April say any other comments I have something else to say but anybody else I guess you know I just want to ask what what is the norm that you all set the agenda that you

045just said you said it by the 25th of the month or the agenda is set between two and three weeks before the meeting and every every month the school board clerk at my direction sends out a message when that's going to be and as a bold headline says if you want to get anything on the agenda contact chairman bar now in that in that I don't know why anybody doesn't understand the idea of Delegation but as the chairman you know when I go to school board clerks and say I'd like this sent out and they send it out month by month that is me using the agents and using the office I really don't need to be their person or I don't be need to send it out the clerks do a wonderful job making

046sure that this schedule is sent down and they have ever since March when the system was set up and everybody here bought into it okay the second thing is there is a a a a time and I'm not sure what it's about 3:00 on Fridays I think when the superintendent goes public with what we have that's that's the time at which everything is locked and goes out that's that's not the 11th hour that's like that's the time and up until then there are no no changes or additions allowed once that occurs we have to make sure that everybody knows they're dealing with the same issue when they come in and that the agenda doesn't change that's precisely why it's there and this isn't mystery again this anybody who's been involved in this school board back

047for years and years knows that this system has been there to allow doesn't take 3 months but it does take a three a three-part thing where an issues brought up there are uh information briefs given about it so we all have an understanding and then there is a time that we vote on it that can be condensed it doesn't have to be but it still has to follow that agenda and the law says we have to do it before it doesn't say how far before we try to do it at a reasonable time so we can capture everything and it can be changed it can be modified we still if there's something that's an emergency thing that's I that's what I said I went to the I went to the to the superintendent said is

048there anything here of any timely gravitas that we have to really move the fact that the policy does not indicate that we um I I personally think the policy probably does need to be changed on the uh the vo of registration but if at the moment the operational mindset with our school system is that those folks aren't allowed in it's up to the job of social studies teachers then that's the way it is it's nobody's going to come into those classes the super the superintendent told me that if that were different she would tell me she would let me know she checked on it so I didn't see any emergency need to do that but what I what I did do was take those two items as I have asked people to do all through

049the year and to bring them to me so that we can include them never ever did I say and I challenge anybody to indicate that I ever said that if you make it to to the to to the 3:00 Friday deadline you can change your Institute that is not something I said and you will never find me having said that never so and we talk about there are items that the irony is two items they're fairly important items that there are members on this board who just talking about this are not going to get their Fair hearing tonight perhaps because we're going to go to 11:00 or 12 or whatever because we're dealing with two new items that shouldn't be on the agenda are we going to allow that H is that can happen every

050week every month so we can't set an agenda we'll wait till 3:00 Friday before before we know what we're going to able to be discussed the next week that's a terrible way to do business do we want to set that prent everything that we've been doing is absolutely in line with the board Norms everything again the law says that we are allowed to do that because again these are things that are coming up so we are allowed by law to put that so long as we do it before you're actually putting this out to the public on Friday there was no violation of that at all I actually did it the way it's supposed to be done secondly there are certain things that you're not allowed to delegate like right now I cannot tell somebody

051come over here and sit and vote for me okay there are certain powers that you cannot delegate right now on April 11th we have board Norms that specifically say the chair will contact members of the school board prior to the meeting to the ter if there are any requests to include an item or report on the agenda it doesn't say whoever the chair is delegating it doesn't say the the Schoolboard clerk it says the chairman you're supposed to be calling us or in that case you know emailing us to make sure that we don't have anything but the truth of the matter is that even if you had done that a month ago when you set this agenda this things just came up these are things that just came up in the last week or

052in the last couple of weeks and these things are going to keep on happening like what Mr Rickard said these are constituents that are calling us to put things on the agenda and what you're saying is I don't care what the constituents say I'm going to do it to my convenience on this particular set of meetings and I'm not even though the law says that you're supposed to to allow all of us to put these items in the agenda you're saying well no that's not convenient I'm going to have this agenda setting meetings a few times a year and that's when we're going to do it and by the way just so you know you you said that not only was it not going to be in the informational agenda for today but you also

053said that it wasn't going to be on the next one either so um so yeah so I guess it goes back to are we going to follow the law and and look at the intent of the law which is to encourage Schoolboard members to bring things to this body that either they feel are important or that are actually timely or that constituents are bringing in or are we going to be the kind of board that we're going to say well no we're only going to be doing doing this to our convenience whenever we decide that we're going to have meetings and these are the things that we're going to allow so that that's all I'm going to say um of course it's up to the board to vote on this um if not I'll bring

054it up again next time but as we're talking about it right now this are timely things and and again this is setting I brought it up not because I want to be here until midnight as much as I love being here um but because this is important enough this is what it's going to Define what kind of a board we are and who we're working for Mr chairman I call I move to call the question there has been a move to call a question is there when you when you st just strike the motion just call question and that signifies to the board that you're ready to vote okay call the question if you want in debate yes then we can do a motion to end debate on this and rock and roll but uh

055just just forget you said motion unless you want to actually live a debate call previous question on this previous question would end all debate so if you if you just expressing your opinion to vote you can say question or you want to force an official discussion previous question Mr bman so when he calls the question that's just his personal opinion he's ready to vote right and so he can move he can if you want official motion to end this debate I move the previous question on the matter before the house so he's just made a comment and I'm thinking he just made a comment that he's saying he's ready to vote but I'd like to end debate so we can move on we've got you a lot of to all right you want then you

056would move the previous question on all matters for the house it takes a second 2/3 majority neither amendable nor debatable and that will immediately force a vote if the passes of 23 to end debate U first on the Amendments and on the agenda I've got one question no it's for you I just want to make sure there wasn't a misunder understanding I wasn't trying to rush anything through I wasn't trying to get a vote on anything tonight I was just want to discuss it um I guess that would have been informational um I just wanted to make sure there wasn't a misunderstanding no let me make it clear because I understand we I want to find out about all three of those issues I do I want to hear what our staff has to say

057about where we are I want to hear what folks have to say about okay but uh I do not want us to have a debate before before we get that informational stuff I I want to hear from our staff I want to hear background first and then we move to another stage where we discuss and vote the action part and that's why they have to be separated uh they don't have to be separate by months but they do have and by value we really did set a system I don't mean we I mean shevo County if it's against the law then shevo county has been operating against the law for long long time because these agenda setting sessions have have happened you only break the law when you're not allowing the members to include something

058so you can do that it's fine the problem is when the member wants to bring something into the agenda I'm sorry about I'm sorry about the redundancy once a month for the agenda setting session is there and I think the idea we going to consider his motion he doesn't he doesn't have a motion if you want talking thank you if you want an end debate just stop talking first thing second thing and I don't mean that flippantly it's a very simple concept secondly move previous question on all matters before the house that is neither amendable nor debatable and a passed by a 2/3 majority into the debate on the question which is the agenda items that will immediately if it passes with a 2third vote no more discussions you vote on the Amendments then you

059vote on the agenda as amended that's three votes or two votes first one is to vote to close debate with previous question if you if you opt to do that but it takes I call I move the previous questions all I move the previous question and matters before the house second all right it's neither amendable nor debatable so Mr chairman you'll you'll and it will be a roll call vote because it's a counting vote all right so we all understand that that the vote is just to consideration it's just to close the debate on this on not not up or down on the mo on the Amendments themselves so uh Cheryl are you ready to do a roll call so it's moved to close the date for previous question is that do correct yes Mr

060all right so your voting on move to close the date on the previous question Mr stre yes Miss careno yes Mr gsha yes Mr rord yes and Mr Barlo yes okay previous question has passed uh say at 5 to Z now you vote on the amendments to had it and then you vote on the agenda would you like me to read the amendment uh I think I think so yeah read the amendment so we know what what we're voting on thank you so motion to amend the agenda to include an informational agenda item on the gender identity policy that the board previously pass and add agenda item vo registration policy is made by Miss careno and seconded by Mr Mr Rickard yes Mr gsha no Miss careno yes Mr stre no Mr Barlo no motion

061has been defeated 32 the original motion motion to approve the agenda as presented motion by Mr gsha seconded by Mr stre Mr Street yes M Caro no Mr betaw yes Mr Rickard no Mr bar yes yes motion carries 3-2 do I have a motion to approve the minutes from the September 12th school board meeting as has been presented I move to approve hold on no no I'm [Applause] sorry all right so we are moving on to the um recognitions portion that long last um Madame superintendent so thank you um this is um National 4H week and I would like to introduce Mr and Miss Circle who will be introducing the 4 officers um to talk to us about 4 good evening I'm here on behalf of Carol nansel who is our County for extension agent

062I'm Christy zurl I am uh one of the leaders of the 4 honor club for Senor County during October the members of the eight Shor County 4 clubs join 4ers across the entire country in celebrating the power of positive youth programming during National 4 week 4 is the largest informational Youth Development organization in the US do you remember when you were a little kid exploring everything asking questions discovering who you are and what you want to do with the rest of your life it's like finding your spark that ignites what you're passionate about well these moments haven't changed but the world has and it can feel a little overwhelming sometimes but guess what kids don't have to do it alone the good news is that 4 AG helps kids find that spark and a pathway

063forward whether they're five or 18 for over 120 years 4 hsl kids grow lead f and get back up make a difference PVE a path forward and be ready from Hands-On projects that are proven to work meeting other young people from around the country sometimes the world to Epic Adventures and trips to places they may or may not have been before for each is all about gearing up the Next Generation to be ready ready to lead ready to serve ready to build ready to succeed ready to make a difference ready for anything tonight I'm pleased to introduce a couple of our best and brightest foragers who are currently serving in leadership roles they'll be sharing their own stories of growth and Readiness and they've also brought a special treat for you so first up we're

064going to have Savannah Rau who is our County forage Council reporter and after that we'll have Lizzie zurl who is our County forage council president good evening ladies and gentlemen of the board my name is San row and I'm currently 13 years old in an eighth grader at Peter mberg Middle School I am president of the Fort Valley for club and reporter of the Shino County for Liv Jing in skon team in addition last month I was elected as reporter of the shindo county 4AGE Council as a member of the livock judging team I compete on the local and state level I show livestock specifically B on the county and state level with anticipation of showing on the national Le level next year at Junior her Herford Nationals in addition to 4 AG I am

065also a member of the Peter Mard Middle School FFA chapter and a member of the junior Virginia her Association the 4 theme of this year is beyond ready 4 is teaching me to be beyond ready for my future in a variety of different ways through partic participating in the livestock judging contest I'm learning new and effective ways to communicate with others about my opinions evaluating livestock has not only taught me to value my own personal opinions but also to Value others as well specifically through reasons I have learned how to properly organize a speeech and use special terminology to describe lifestyle in a persuasive way lastly life Jing has also taught me skills that prepare me for selecting and calling cattle that I choose to ship through the skill on contest I am encouraged to

066study and practice at home on my own time which has improved my time management and Leadership skills skillon has also taught me materials that apply to real life scenarios in the agricultural industry which in turn is helping me prepare for my future career PA lastly showing cattle has been one of my favorite parts of forage thus far showing has Tau how to properly feed handle and care for cattle it has taught me patience organization and determination the project book that I complete as a part of my project has taught me to manage paperwork create a budget and create ACH and Achieve goals for myself being in the show ring with my peers has taught me good sportsmanship skills and how to work with others for a common goal overall 4 is teaching me to be

067beyond ready every day by improving my communication patience and organization skills being involved in showing in my two clubs has taught me to work with others for a common goal and how to set and achieve my personal goals serving in an officer position has taught me to be a leader in a variety of different aspects while also improving my listening skills thank you for your time today any questions okay thank you good evening my name is Lizzie zurl I am 16 in the 11th grade in homeschooled I'm the president of the shindo county forage Council I'm a proud member of the shindo county forage honor club and the shindo county for livestock judging team I'm very involved at theater Shino in Edinburg where I currently in Christmas Carol I've been in Fiddler on the Roof

068White Christmas and your A Good Man Charlie Brown last year I spoke to you about failure and left you with one quote One's best success comes after their greatest disappointment this year I'm going to speak to you about perseverance the definition of perseverance is the steady persistence in a course of action a purpose a state Etc especially in spite of difficulties or discouragement to understand how I've persevered you have to hear about what I've gone through this year alone this February my grandmother started having health issues and passed away in June I had already applied and been accepted to the shindo County Chamber of Commerce student leadership shindo County and went through that the week after my grandmother passed I got to learn so much at that camp that I would not have gotten the

069opportunity to do if I would not have had forage to teach me perseverance as Winston Churchill once said Success is Not final failure is not fatal it is the courage to continue the camps I went to State forage Congress in the end of June to compete in the forage table setting with my white Christmas theme table where I had to present a three minute long speech that showcased my my table I did mind from the perspective of the character I played in theater sho's production of White Christmas Judy Hanks I ended up winning Grand Champion overall table setting for the state of Virginia which is truly an honor this isn't the first year I've competed in the TBL setting competition at the state level I persevered through failure to get to that medal while at

070State 4 Congress I got tapped as a 4 Allstar which is where 4ers become a member for life just because you fail once doesn't mean you're going to fail at everything Marilyn Monroe this August I got the opportunity to apply to be a Virginia state 4 livestock ambassador I went through an application process where I had to answer questions about my time in 4 Ag and the livestock industry I then had an interview and found out last month that I was accepted as one of only 10 out of 21 applicants we had our first outing at the Virginia state 4 where we handed out ribbons helped with the skillathon and got to meet Governor Yan sometimes you have to persevere throughout failure to get to the next good thing last year I told you I

071was trying to build back the courage to go for bigger and I did and it worked forage has taught me to persevere through failure grief and all the hard stuff forage teaches you real world Solutions I will leave you with one last quote all our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them well disne thank you any questions good job thank you we will come around with cookies and milk and some other goodies from for get did you know longe no I did not thank you good great job thanks thank you thank you very much thank you thank you great congratulations thank you thank you hey guys how you doing good congratulations oh thank you thank you [Music] thank you and those three left thank you it's always such a treat

072to have our 4 AG students here okay um we moved to that portion of the meeting where we're going to have public comments and so um I'm going to read the uh description of of that and we'll we'll move right into it the shann andoa County School Board welcomes public comment from shann andoa County residents parents or Guardians as well as as well as some current students and employees of shinid County Public Schools school board members do not respond to public comments during the meeting or hearing each speaker may speak up to 3 minutes the word 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 speak speakers the board May limit total time for comments and or

073may reduce the time I don't think we're going to be doing that tonight um all comments should address a matter related to sheno County Public Schools complaints regarding division employees should be directed to the school principal or an appropriate School Division official the 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 School Board member to the superintendent to a staff member nor to the audience speakers will not engage in personal attacks speakers May sign up and speak at school board meeting with public hearing on a document provided that's we have here by the clerk of the school board School Board clerk will assertain and has that um the

074role of stakeholders and uh have addresses valid addresses speakers are called in the order in which they signed up um and um we have a situation tonight where um three folks want to speak together and I think that those folks have been told that they'll have three minutes total for the three so as long as that works for you guys works for me um so um the first name I have here is I'm sorry um BR can somebody tell me the first name darl is it Daryl thank you Dar yes okay my name is Daryl last name Brown address is 392 Z Church Road martown and you're the board so I kind of just want to throw this out here I don't have the esteemed accolades of the kids that left and I barely graduated

075kindergarten but I would like to know about swim and where it sits with the school board I've talked to the county already as far as getting the practice facility we now TR all the way to Manasses and that's all three schools and those kids are really coming out for it each year they have more and more kids at every division so I mean you don't have to answer me now but I'm just kind of wondering where is it sitting with your guys do you have the backing I know you want to build a new school and it would be the perfect opportunity to put in an Aquatic Facility the county is all with it I've talked to Parks and Rec director Mr Hoover there and I've also talked to Mr Taylor with the county and

076they've been doing work sessions and he's been bringing that up but they also said come and get it on the notes with you find people so that is my statement I mean I don't know where you sit and where you stand or what information you need for me probably have it on machine do okay thank you so justes send me an email or do whatever I mean I didn't want to show up but nobody returned my call so but understand you're busy you're busy people um an wine King I just I had some visuals for you tonight might be two there yes sir thank you thank you I have a feeling I'm want to go over but I hope you list want to hear what I have to say good evening members of the school

077board Dr Shephard and citizens of Shino County my name is an wi King and I have lived in shanida County since 1977 I currently a school counselor at San Elementary the purpose of my being here tonight is to put the breaks on the tripl tech proposal that was presented to the board in the previous meeting in the minutes of that meeting Dr Shephard said that triplet in her opinion is one of the top three facilities that needs major Renovations according to the facility study done by rrmm all with all due respect Dr shepher I couldn't disagree with you more however you did also state that there is an element school right on the heels of triplet Tech I'm not sure which Elementary School you were referring to since you also cited that two of our

078elementary schools are presently at 91% capacity those schools are Honey Run and Sandy Hook and Mr Fergus Ferguson asked you if triplet was your number one priority then what would be your number two and the time frame of that need appet it would be for a new elementary school at the end of 5 years unless there was a lot of growth in the community we know that there are active proposals and plans to build hundreds of homes in strawsburg and Woodstock so that Community growth you reference is coming in will be here before 5 years as far as I know our schools don't have the luxury of Turning Away students the way a vocational school can the capital Improvement plan has Sandy Hook at a capacity of 91 however I personally disputed that figured with

079you and Mr hegner in an email back in August because of how we have to use some of the classroom space within our building so dear board members I can only speak on behalf of Sandy Hook but we utilize four classrooms for a total of 20 students so but that would actually have the capacity of 92 to 96 students so if you add that we are actually at a 95.23% capacity so I'm asking Dr Shephard and Mr hegard and my question tonight for you is what is the capacity number you are looking for it appears the elementary schools that are not at 91% have been high enough to take priority over triplet Tech I would like to present to the board additional facts to support an elementary school over a new vocational facility the structural

080conditions of Sandy Hook ww Robinson and Peter mberg are becoming increasingly hazardous to the physical wellbeing and health of our staff and students and I've shared with you tonight recent images of the current conditions of Sandy Hook as you can see there's visible black mold in the ceiling of the indoor gymnasium where hundreds of our students exercise every day with a roof that actively leaks when it rains as you may know a new roof was installed this summer and now we have more leaks than before we as Sandy Hook have had raw sewage backing up through the bathroom floors and drains at least seven times if not more so far this year this sewage has filled the H hallways with potentially hazardous fumes and the toilet areas have liquid fecal matter and urine while hundreds

081of students had to walk to the other side of the building to access functional toilets there's feeling pain at several entrances around the exterior of the building your way over thank you very much I appreciate how you finish as parent I'd like to hear this it's fine I don't make the rules I want Shannon B sh I'm going to talk really fast so I don't go over so just in so I want to talk to you about the punitive attendance policy that has been put in place in a couple of our schools the doe website provides a wealth of information about the attendance matters program here in Virginia it includes Flyers to educate the public as well as a webinar called Doe's best practices for reducing chronic absenteeism that includes best practices and rubrics for

082school systems to use When developing their attendance programs it includes things such as posit positive rewards Outreach and support for students that struggle to attend focusing on the academic impact of adenes and creating a system that allows for the disaggregation of attendance and categories to better understand and support our students that may be at risk as a parent of three teens and a teacher of almost 30 years I think that these are all good policies however what I want to talk to you about is how this policy is being interpreted and implemented in my child's School my children did Miss 3 days in September and prior to missing these days we contacted all the teachers and got their work as is suggested by attendance matters they returned to school completely caught up upon return one

083of my children but not the other two was called out in the hallway by an administrator handed a letter telling him that he was now considered to be in poor standing because he was chronically absent and no longer able to participate in any after school activities or go to homecoming this student is an early scholar a member of the National Honor Society trium music Honor Society drum major for the marching band and is currently taking seven courses this semester when a full load is actually Four and he maintains an a average in every single one when my oldest child tried to advocate for himself he was told this is a new policy across the entire County and there was no room for interpretation I know that this is not a countywide policy it is not

084being implemented in this manner in every school it appears we are targeting our most engaged and active students nowhere in the Doe's Publications does it suggest or mandate that students should lose privileges such as after school activities sports or clubs in fact it suggests the opposite it calls upon schools to reach out to support these students and uh help them with things that affect their attendance to engage their parents and Community to better support them and to encourage them to be active in participating in their school Community my son just missed three uh just went to school 3 days hiding the fact he had 102 fever until his fever hit 104 he stayed home one day and then went back sick why would he do this because he's afraid that he's going to be removed

085from the field or stopped at the door at the homecoming dance this weekend his siblings are also sick after his second visit to the doctor he stayed home one day to rest and recover and on the day he returned he too was handed the letter that told him he is now in for standing and would be losing his privileges I'm asking that you take a serious look at this punitive nature of how attendance is being handled in some of our schools I'm also asking that a written policy that is in line with the best practices suggested by the state be crafted and shared with parents and parents being given a chance to share their concerns so we can ensure that we are doing the best thing for our children and our community at large thank

086you so is it uh Faith Brooklyn and Reagan we have it okay good evening Dr Sheard and board members and now I see four of you yeah yeah I'm under them I'm faith I'm Reagan I'm Brooklyn now Marana we are Chee leaders at Central High School we are here on behalf of well in support of our head coach and the unity of our team so under our head coach we went to invitationals um we placed third with a total of 12 two points she was since put on administrative leap under not our head coach under our acting head coach we went to two more invitationals where we placed last and second to last out of seven teams when we were third out of 17 with our highest points being 107 and our lowest of 77

087as you can see really high numbers change big difference um under our head coach we felt more safe more un united we felt more like a team without her that Unity has dissolved completely there is such a divide on our team it's affecting our mental health and our physical qualities we no longer feel as close to one another and supportive of one another and there's very a very obvious divide it has felt as though we have no longer have a trusted adult to turn to because the one that we 100% could count on was taken away that's that's really that's all we have to say thank you thank you thank you great job uh that's there were several folks who left but U I's see it's that's the end of the U Is there any

088anybody else who would like to speak move on it's okay before you do so though we're going to need um your name and address and so forth so maybe you can uh see the the clerks when when you no when you finish okay good sure Daner 14 frw we what's that we at Sandy Hook is that where you were I think so okay we at Sandy Hook have had raw sewage backing up through bath and floor drains at least seven times if not more so this year the sewages filled the hallways potentially hazardous fumes and the toilet areas have had liquid feal matter and urine while hundreds of students had to walk to the other side of the building to access functional toilets there's peeling paint in several entrances around the exterior of the building

089and some some areas with more visible mold the exterior gymnasium that was constructed in 2017 to 2018 was designed with no Plumbing or water fountains and there is no protection for our students from adverse weather and God forbid someone see the threat someone who would see the threat of protection for students oh shoot sorry want to cause our school harm uh in all types of weather our children who need to use the bathroom during the gym time have to go back inside the building using a badge they are unattended and you can probably guess which bathrooms are the closest on for them to use yes the bathroom at the backup was sewage along with the plumbing issues and leaky ceilings we have a failing H system last winter we had a classroom had classrooms that

090were consistently below 60° while other classrooms were too warm with virtually no air excuse me circulation into other rooms with humidity so high that the glue on the students's work wouldn't even dry in the previous meeting Dr mentioned that behind Peter mberg some carse anomalies were discovered over the last two years for those of you who may not you familiar with that term it means there are sink holes on the property and not just behind Peter mberg but underneath it too here's a picture taken this summer of a repair being made inside of Peter mberg due to a sinkhole under a classroom in closing I'd like to propose to the board that funding be used for a new elementary school and that the land in martown be considered for that construction this location could help

091Elevate the traffic alleviate traffic issues from both the northern and Central campuses as for triple Tech I would suggest our high school Personnel reach out to Laurel Ridge Community College to see if they could provide opportunities for students through their Workforce Solutions program the community college has provided dual enrollment for high school students in other areas for years so why not approach them about vocational training opportunities for our students the time has come and the time is now our schools have pre-existing conditions that the temporary slapa bandaid on it approach is no longer an option the capacity and structural conditions are beyond that our Educators support staff and students deserve enough respect to do their job in a safe in safe and healthy facilities so what's it going to be a new school hasn't been

092built in the county since 1994 that's 30 years ago the same goes the picture says a thousand words well if that's true these images before you tonight are currently the writings of a non-fiction novel about the tragedy slowly taking place in the sheno County Public School System a novel that has the potential to have a happy ending but it's up to you as to how the next chapter of the story story will begin or end thank you for your time and on a personal level I have a child who's starting kinderg next year at Sandy Hook and I P those pictures that is appalling we we have to do something about that thank you for bring that to our attention I had no idea thank you just me the last speak would you take this

093over and there's just enough space for you to have your name yes sir thank you I want to speak hi I'm snal I live at 294 East Reservoir R here in woodst also would like to speak to the attendance Poli I have a six-year-old that attends first grade at ww Robinson Elementary School she had her TOS was removed by doctor's request she had to be out of school for over a week for healing and I received this today they want her to attend the ASAP program for after school where she would not only miss time with her father she would miss our dinner time because we work and we have dinner early so she would no longer be there for that I think this is ridiculous she's six and if she doesn't attend then she

094gets to miss recess or field day or possibly field trips it's a ridiculous policy that I think yall need to severely look at and consider thank you down there we're uh now moving to the consent agenda um this consists of the minutes of September 12th minutes of sept September 23rd donations overnight field trips and approval of paid bills do I have a motion to approve the following consent agenda items I move to approve the consent agenda as presented got you second from Mr Street all in favor please signify by saying I I any oppos none Now we move into the informational agenda Sheriff Carter he's still here we appreciate that thanks Mr chairman my presentation is going to be brief uh just so the public is aware we had a earlier meeting to talk a

095little bit about strategic uh safety issues and other items that are not here in public meeting uh this is basically a snapshot of U calls that we've been on at the beginning of school to October the second um as we talked earlier the threats we had 18 threats so far at school the year nine of those were verbal nine of those were what we what we would refer to as more social media either originated or driven um and all of those to disappoint as my understanding been resolved one way or the other either by a criminal charge or by um determining that the threat was not credible now Eco and TD I probably should have spelled that out that's emergency custody order or temporary DET temporary detention order those are calls that we've been on

096that we've physically taken a child in custody because they're having a mental health or behav Health crisis okay below that is a number called we just call it mental health those are similar issues but those are uh issues with children that their parents and the child is voluntarily basically seek help I mean we may get to call at school but we don't have to physically take the person for help in in a crisis um those are things that we've uh we've seen on the rise over the last few years drug violations those five are basically um charges we've made with the U The Vaping pin that had the uh THC and Pens have been those call those calls interventions we created that call because that happens so many times in the course of a day

097um those could be anything from just sitting down and talking to a child that's U maybe had you know an issue that that occurred over the weekend or at home or any type of thing that doesn't rise to the level that there needs to be uh Crisis Intervention things of that nature so but those are interventions um that we have on children investigations are basically anything that range from sexual assaults that are reported to us we've had two I think this year both of those occurred off campus um in off- campus setting assaults lses vandalisms and that kind of thing so those could be incidents that occurred either at school or or reported to us at school that occurred off campus and then of course extra patrols and foot patrols those are basically just things

098that SRO are doing every day as far as checking doors walking walking through uh the buildings and that kind of thing um but that's basically a snapshot I just wanted to give you all I do want to say um there's a lot of work that goes into the U the training the planning the pre-planning the preparation um the investigations with regard to school threats School violence school safety I can't say enough about the um support that we get from school staff all of the principles and your school administration as well um and we don't talk about a lot of that publicly um sometimes you may see something put out regarding training or something like that but uh I do think Shannon do County they took a position the school board took a position many years

099ago and um I think you guys have uh you know this board and previous boards have put yourself on the right path with regard to continually improving school safety here in Chandler County and I appreciate that from this board and previous boards so really those are the main things that I wanted to to bring up tonight in case you all had any questions Sher any questions from the so this is just since August pardon me this is just since August this is just since August right yes ma'am very active very I wanted to say that when U we travel when I travel uh to other divisions or organizations you know school systems um one of the places where we immediately kind of see that we're we've outstripped them is in our relationship with the sheriff's

100department that is something that is aspirational for a lot of the other divisions and if they do have that system it seems like uh seems like we've we've got a really good one to here from that so well I mean I I can you know I can testify basically as to what it was like 28 years ago 29 years ago and uh I believe the consistency in training the consistency in planning the consistency in preparation policy uh the consistency and communication um has has improved tremendously over those those 2019 and it's been interesting to watch the kind of um integration if you will of your folks and school folks and and and the kids that's palpable so anyway thank you guys for that thank you appreciate it we got Whitney walk here and Denise bmer

101from my office I didn't introduce them so they stayed through the so guys again thank you all look forward to coming back and breing you in some future time and also talking about maybe some security enhancements as we move into the next FIS year thank you thank you thank sharff um we had a request uh for information teacher assignment for the upcoming school year Dr Shephard are you going to give us some information on that I am going to let Mr Hensley and Miss Proctor share information good evening members of the board Mr chairman M of the board Dr sheer thank you for giving jennif opportunity to talk a little bit about the elementary and secondary process that we go through and some things that we experience when scheduling courses for students and also assigning

102classes for teachers so um one of the things I want to point out when we start out there's some challenges that we have I know that Miss hajes has spoke before about Staffing currently we have 30 unfilled Staffing positions so that plays into some of our decisions that we're making but I'm going to let Jennifer start with the elementary and then I'll move to the high school so as uh Mr Hensley was saying it excuse me my voice is a little froggy I've been sick um as Mr Hensley was saying uh at elementary is a little more straightforward because we don't have lots of different courses that we have to take into account students are all pretty much in the same path you're a first grader all first graders take the same amount of courses

103you're a fourth grader same thing goes so it's really about the numbers that we have and um if you're not aware in shindo County we participate in the K3 Reduction Program and so that means that all of our classrooms in kindergarten through third grade have to stay 23 or less and so that really plays a big part and what happens so sometimes we don't know until right before school starts or the week that school starts that we might have too many kindergarteners because even though we push out for parents to register they don't always do that and so we get to the first day of school and we're like uh oh okay we're over our numbers so we start to look um so for example this past year at ww Robinson uh our first grade

104our kindergarteners going to first grade they were already maxed out at 22 and 23 already in those classrooms well that doesn't give us any wiggle room for transfer students and we know that we're going to get kids coming back to sheno County moving in moving out but it didn't give us a lot of wiggle room but our fourth grade group we can go over 23 and our numbers were a little uh lower there so miss Mason was able to take a fourth grade teacher and move her into that Kinder that first grade spot so some of those things we don't know until we get closer to the start of school um last year and the year before we had to add some classrooms we added a third grade classroom in Ashby Lee um so those

105are things that happen and then we also have to take into consideration the certifications that our teachers have so for example if the opening is first grade but the teacher that I have that's applied has a fifth grade certification we might have a fifth grade teacher that can teach first grade and so we might go to that teacher and say hey would you be willing to move to first grade um so those are some of the things that we take into consideration but it's a little more straightforward at the elementary level because we're really just looking at numbers so we try to so we stay below 23 at K3 and then at fourth and fifth grade we really tried to stay less than 25 but this past year at Ash Lee we did have some

106classrooms of 27 so would have been nice have been able to add a teacher there but we don't always we can't always predict those things we do our best projections Melody does a great job at looking at birth rates and things like that um but it is always just a numbers game that we have to play and then that certification also plays a big role in it so over in mid High School not as clean it's not about numbers it's more about courses and sections and certifications of teachers also um so the one thing that I know people ask like what what's really driv in that and when we think about it it's our student requests we're getting ready to bring our program of studies to you to approve that we just went over this

107past month that'll come next month but with those requests become certifications for teachers that they have to have we have go enrollment courses sometimes we don't have the individuals to teachers courses or that an individual may have ch to go to another division which we like this year at Charlesburg we had three courses that a teacher had to pick up that were AP courses instead of do woman because we didn't have someone certified to teach it so in those cases we actively search for someone that wants to do it and we help help them get that cation and do enrollment the other thing that comes around it also is the schedules when their kids schedule they pick what they want and they run the schedules and it may not fit perfectly and it doesn't work

108really well so here's some num to kind of give you an idea across our high school this past year of dropped courses coming in so Amy Miller does a great job working with our counseling staff I asked her I said how many drop courses did we really have this year so in high school with manipulating schedules there was 1,438 schedules manipulated because things didn't work and that's hands on touching from our school counselors and our principles to help move those students around and make sure things balance out um out of 1400 that was that was 763 students that that involved at our Middle School we had 742 students that involved and it was over 2300 schedule changes not just with core more with electives and things that they're moving around so there's a lot of

109moving pieces in that at the middle school and high school some things that happen also is that some teachers may get extra sections added in I had principal call and say I need an extra section of algebra one our enrollment is now up to 30 and and for us to put 30 students into a classroom is not really fair to the students so then we have to be creative and go back to teachers and ask them what you pick up in another section so teachers may be teaching things that they may not have known when they left um another example is that strawsburg high school we had a a large population of students request physics usually we have one section of physics so a teacher had to pick up an extra physics so they dropped

110a course that they were teaching to pick up the physics so things kind of move around it seems pretty you think pretty simple people put in the schedule and you should be able to print it out and they know the schedule but sometimes numbers within classrooms we may have students that schedule and might five students that selected that course obviously it's not very economical but five students in the course when you have 38 students assigned to another course so for those reasons things may change around a little bit that's that's it for the hous schol do you have any questions it's um so how many schools this year did you have more students than you did when you first thought you know because you said a lot of people came in at the last minute

111um is this something that is happening all across our schools or some schools more than others I would say our elementary schools are feeling some growth right now okay I'll see them Jen well well you're what is the possibility of letting teachers that are returning know what their assignment is by June 1st that's going to be really difficult because so let's I'm going to use when I was a principal as an example so when I was a principal I knew that I had maybe three classroom openings one of them might have been first grade one of them might have been a third grade and one of them might have been in fifth grade I get applicants I look at the applicants and as a principal you're looking for the best fit for each one of

112those grade levels and I'm going to be tell you every one of those grade levels takes a different type of personality of a teacher fifth grade teachers can be a little more bit more like Middle School teachers first grade they need to be a little bit more loving caring you know they're they're a different type of teacher they're willing to be um pseudo moms and so you're looking for those different types of personalities so when you get your applicants in and you do all your interviews you might get three applicants and you'll say oh I could see this teacher really fitting in at fourth grade but that's not where my opening is so then you go to your fourth grade teachers and you say hey guys I have a great I have a great person

113for your team are any of you willing to move to another grade level we always try to do it by choice first but I'll be honest my first or second year as principal I had to move people because it was what was needed by the school so in best case scenario we always want to tell teachers we going to be in June but we also tell them we will let you know as soon as we possibly can um and the teachers are pretty used to that I feel like um but we also don't do teachers any service by keeping them in one grade level for their whole careers I that's a and that's a life according to J Proctor like that's a philosophy that I have I feel like teachers need to be able to

114uh grow and sometimes to grow you have to go outside of your comfort zone and teach in a different grade level um so yes in a perfect world we would always want to tell teachers where they're going to be in June but reality is until we finish that hiring season we don't always know and it's even harder now with the teacher shortage and so sometimes we don't know exactly how all the chips are going to fall and so our principles are doing a really good job at trying to match up the teachers with the people and the personalities that they have in their school so that it makes the best scenario um did that answer your question yes ma'am okay thank you I just have a question regarding that um I'm sorry were do want

115I was just going to add at the high school um we we try to schedule out as best we can to the to the end but there's always uh scenarios where we can't get students in the classes so we go back and we have extra sections so Mr Barlo May typically teach three sections he's being asked to teach a fourth section um and we have about 20 of those this year that we've had to go back and do so we've had to do it across schools also because dual enrollment with our students now a lot of students want dual enrollment this past year uh we had teachers at Stell Jackson teaching to students and strawsburg and also teachers from Central teaching to students in strawsburg just because we didn't have the staff to be able

116to do it and we wanted to try to make that work and our teach we have great staff and that's our teachers agreeing saying I'll do that so lot of Applause to them that they're picking up extra duties to do that to help students even at other schools um I just have a question um because I think we had a situation where sometimes it's that you're hiring the teacher for I when you're doing your hiring I mean are you looking at a particular position that you're going to be hiring or are you just looking to hire that teacher and then just plug them in wherever you think you can put them in we usually know where the openings at um and that's what we're looking we're hiring for that position but if we don't get

117the applicants for that position that's when we have to start thinking creatively and thinking at maybe okay I have an applicant that could do fifth grade but not first grade and so that's when we have to as principles figure out who's the best person then to go to first grade thank you and that happens from elementary all the way to high school because we'll get to a point in the summer that Jennifer or myself also at the middle school and high school we'll start contacting principal say okay you have three positions that's unfilled we can't there's kids sitting there in that section obviously they can't be in that section how are you going to be creative how are you going be able to serve these kids and we start talking about our plans um moving

118forward because one thing we want to do too is we don't want to try to overstress our teachers either we want to we don't want them have negative experience either so we work together with them to try to elate that thank you allk Dr Shephard are you going to tell us about the school board member lines I am I'm just going to highlight um I'm passing to you and there's a few extra copies here um information on the school board member Alliance legislative review and policy update services so the SP spma School Board member Alliance has two Services really the first service is their legislative review and policy updates which is currently under under review because they said they want to make it as cost effective on school divisions as they can because they said

119that the Virginia Department of Education issues a legislative review that is pretty comprehensive however there is still some need um in order to make sure that that gets implemented into policy correctly so they um they offer that service and at the very bottom of the page you'll see that the approximate cost is $22,900 however like I said they're reviewing that to see if they can get that that cost even lower with um uh collaborating with the Virginia Department of Education on that and then the second policy um the second uh service that they offer is a full um policy audit which is to ensure that all of the school division policies are fully compliant with state and federal laws so and that price is not included that would be a negotiation with spma if we

120wanted to move in that direction so wanted to just um highlight those two services that the sbma offers um we currently do not have um a policy service so we we probably need to figure out what we're going to do with policies in the next few months um the legislative session will start here in January how much were we paying with the um over 3,000 I don't I know if it was 3,000 or 3200 MH thank you so Dr Shephard we have the um the discussion about the budget development calendar yes thank you so attached to this agenda item are two calendars one is school board meeting calendar for next year for the um calendar year 2025 and then also a budget um calendar I would like for you to look over them in the

121next couple of weeks and I will ask for this to be approved at the um November 14th school board meeting so please let me know if there are any conflicts on either one of those two calendars so that we can get it um get it approved so that everybody's available and then finally in the informational agenda uh we have this uh request to increase the fiscal year 2025 special budget yes so this is one of those um time sensitive items we spent all of our cares funds and we were rewarded by getting $32,000 extra um for summer school so we have those um funds um we we have to encumber and spend those funds by October the 15 15 so we wanted to make sure that it was on the Schoolboard agenda so that we

122could um go ahead and do that so that we could receive those funds because we we did spend all of our car's funds previously so all right then that's um that'll be we'll we'll take that up under action items tonight correct yes yes be happy to answer any questions about that thank you so moving into the uh ction items um we um we have already discussed the Personnel list has been presented to us uh do I hear a motion to accept and approve that Personnel list I move to approve the Personnel list as presented thank you Mr Guta that's is a motion any second to that second thank you Mr Rickard um any discussion if not all in favor of accepting uh the personnel please signify by saying I I any opposed thank you uh

123unanimous um 5.2 request to increase the 2025 operating budget um do we have a motion to approve the request to increase the 2025 operating budget by $16,784.23 for the additional Ida funds that we've received I move to approve the request to increase the fiscal year 20125 operating budget by $16,784.23 any opposed no similar uh 5.3 is a similar request to increase uh the budget um by an additional $9,100 25 special budget in the amount of $917 for the additional Perkins grant funding that shano County Public Schools received thank you Mr Rickard for that motion any second sir thank you Mr G um all in favor of the motion to approve the request to increase the the budget for 9176 for the Perkins Grant please indicate by saying I I any post okay 5.3 uh passes

124unanimously 5.4 um need to consider increasing the 2025 special Budget on the amount of $32,000 based on the superintendent's memo which announced initial uh the initial American Rescue plan um for addressing unfinished learning uh before and after school programs and summer programs do I have a motion to that effect I move to increase the fiscal year 2025 special budget fund for the fisal year 2025 amount of $32,000 thank you Mr Street for that motion any second second thank you Mr gsha so um any discussion if not all in favor please signify by saying I I and uh final um on now we have two things that are not related to the budget and these will require some discussion so um the first um is um that any uh we're dealing with a request to perform

125an audit of special education funds expended uh in fiscal year 21 and fiscal year 22 uh and uh at a recent school board meeting a member requested an audit of special education funds uh for FIS school year 21 and 22 be conducted uh specifically the audit would investigate funds used in 2021 for the name changes of Stonewall Jackson high school and Ashby Lee Elementary School as approved at the March 11 meeting um so is there a motion that we move ahead with the um that line item audit of fiscal year 2122 special education funds so going a discussion or what are we after a second we'll have discussion yeah if we have a motion I move to approve an audit of the fiscal year 2021 fiscal year year 2022 special education funds thank you Mr

126street so we have a motion to that effect a second I'll second it discussion I think unless we're going to move forward with uh any type of legal action or anything like that I think it's a move point I think it's a waste of taxpayer money um sure we we've got the initial estimate at what $5,000 um but it of course if they find anything there that number is going to continue to rise I don't see a point moving forward on it unless we're going to agree that if we're going to move forward we're going to move forward full steam ahead and we're going to take legal action should we find anything other discussion um I yeah I I opposed this AUD for several reasons um one is what Mr um said that this is

127a waste of money and resources um in the past we have been very stinging with the money that we have we didn't support uh the student support Specialists um there's there's a lot of other instances where we have said we do not have enough money so I don't understand why we would be spending the money here um when at this time we don't even have a finance director that would be able to oversee this um but more importantly I think for me the biggest issue is that we get nothing out of this um right now this is not money that we're going to be getting back this is not money that is going to make us um find an employee that needs to be uh fired uh we don't even have the it was a

128different superintendent um so we gain absolutely nothing out of this I think at most we would be able to find out if there was a wrongdoing which is a very big if but more importantly I think this actually could open us to liability I mean if we're talking about federal funds or state funds that were misspent that doesn't mean that we're going to get that money back that means that we're going to have to give that money back to those agencies so I don't see any upside whatsoever to this um audit so I I'm going to oppose it any other discussion yes well it's just hard for me you know being a representation of the taxpayers I just feel obligated that if there was mishandling the funds I feel obligated that the taxpayers know about

129it now you're right yes it is you could use the Terminus water over the bridge or what water over the dam whatever but me personally um what has been over what has been looked into there's a lot a lot of a lot of question marks and I just feel obligated to the taxpayers that um within reason you know was there a mishandling of funds especially when it involved the special ed department and I just feel obligated as repres repres you know representing my constituents in the southern campus where it took place thank you Mr Street any other comments I didn't even think about the aspect the Gloria brought up that if one second um I just want to make sure everybody has a chance to speak twice before we talk again anything any comments I

130would just say you know we I think we want to close the book on the whole thing and I don't know know maybe this is a way to kind of close it down for the final time not sure just yeah I have something to say but go go ahead you can go okay okay fine thank you um yeah I know that we uh we've been talking about this for probably months uh and I think um some members of the board and some folks who have U been in contact with us have indicated or shown that there have been some things that look like there are bad practices that um that occurred during this during this time period um I think um we there was a feeling that maybe this is just I think water under

131what is it under under the bridge over the dead whatever it is and uh and that maybe it's a waste of time uh but um there there just seemed to be enough discrepancies here that I wonder if we are ignoring or closing our eyes the fact that there might be not only just bad practices but some practices could have be could have been negligent or maybe still going on and the line item U audit I think was U estimated to be about about $5,000 I'm not sure I think that's the figure that was mentioned so um I think we were we were actually you know wondering whether this is indeed a waste of time and money or whether we're uh to take Mr Street's U admonition that uh may we owe to our constituents to

132know why uh the special education funds um were impacted and why uh certain positions were frozen at the southern campus as a as a result of this so there are numbers of issues here that could be investigated and resolved uh so uh I I think and again I'm not the one who brought this forward but um with hearing the uh hearing the number of concerns about uh lack of best practices and some questionable um transfers and so forth uh it seems to me it's a it's it's a small amount if we can write some wrongs and and um and uh write some some best practices or even some some questionable ones so I have a point of order um because unfortunately uh m is not here um but maybe somebody can recall because I I

133remember that when we had that work session I thought she said that at the minimum it would be 5,000 but that it could actually increase greatly and be over $100,000 if they keep digging and they don't know exactly where it is so I just want to put the point of order I mean I don't think it is $5,000 that's the beginning step and then she said that it could go forward um significantly I I I think that's was a point of order than a debatable point but I I take a point no point order because I wanted to know what she said if anybody can maybe somebody from the school board I mean well I would like to speak to it so yeah it yes she did mention 5,000 as a uh what it would

134likely cost and um if we pursued it beyond that it could indeed cost more and she indicated that as well uh she also indicated that if anything was found that looked like it was um egregious or questionable that at that point we could turn it over to the state police or to the Attorney General's office for further action so we wouldn't necessarily have to take it beyond that line out IM me detail so um that's that's that's what I heard um Mr RI my only issue is if if we were to get a questionable auditing firm in here for the let's say $5,000 for the initial thing um and then all of a sudden they say well there there's some there there here but it's going to cost you more to do this next step

135and then all of a sudden we're doing the third step and we're doing the fourth step and we're getting roped into something and Gloria brings up a valid point too where if they do find something there we could be held liable to pay all that money back to the state or the federal government wherever that money came from sometimes I think it's better to let sleeping dogs lie as much much as I agree with Tom and I would like to find out I just well I would hate to see us being a situation where especially the school system where you know um basically the bottom line is if we find an issue we find very big questionable things I I don't want to be looked at as we just turn our heads the other way

136and not do anything about it I would think that if the initial let's just use numbers it cost 5,000 then I would think that the audit firm would come back if there is more if there is going to cost more then the firm would come back to the board and say give a report then we would make a decision whether to continue on or not or or what direction go in there but I would hate to see us the um there's been a lot of question marks there a lot of things discovered and I hate to see this as a school system just basically take the stand of turn our head the other way and not do anything of a matter of what's right is right I'm sorry Dr Shepard did you have you said

137that you look into this in terms of the cost um did we get more clarification on that so I spoke to two firms and one is the one that we currently use to do our compliance audit which is done every year and then a second firm um which is very similar and um I think that they would do the line line item audit for $5,000 but I didn't go out I didn't go further than that so yeah both firms were the same amount thank you any further board comments let me just say that going into it if we do this um I will say that I think all of us up here would hope that nothing is found because that would indicate that there was either unethical Behavior or something illegal done and we all

138know that the decision by that school board um made all of our Lives complete hell for he it's been years now Dennis and I and Brandy at the time um going through this because of their actions and again I hope nothing would be found but I think it's sometimes you need to kind of close the book on things and you know we've sat up here for the last few years and especially this year um to make a decision on something that should have never been changed in the first place and we had to wear it one way or the other and very frustrating so if we could get some answers on this I think it would be helpful um to try to move past it and again hopefully nothing would be found but um if

139it was then we would have to you know move on or proceed appropriately on whatever we find or what would be found so um I just think that with all that we've had to go through as this board and then the previous board um the actions taken by the 2020 board were uh very consequential for not only our County but the people that have had to sit up here and deal with it uh so I I wouldn't mind moving forward with it um at at the requirement that you know we don't go get into Pandora's Box and start spending you know 2550 $100,000 um but if we could somehow limit it to 5,000 for the brand of data that needs to be audited um and then go from there I think that's reasonable and I

140would think that they could offer that is a possibility rather than just you paying $50,000 or you being required to pay that um so any further board comments oh I guess one question was um did anybody ever looked into having the Commonwealth Attorney or I mean the the attorney general or bpe look into this the feeling was that U if they that we wanted to present them whatever that was State Police or States Attorney uh that we would provide some basis for that for that request and so having done our own individual audit and seeing what that turns up would give us the option to to to actually give give it to the state police or whatever but that it probably wouldn't go anywhere if we just said check on this well I mean cuz

141that that would be for a criminal I mean if we're talking about the state police so my question is more if we're talking about some um if you think there was something wrong with the way they did it with the fund spent have we gone to the agency that actually gave us that money uh whether it be the federal agency or the state b or whatever agency gave us that money have we ever gone to them and asked them if this looks irregular to them to to my to my knowledge that hasn't happened but um uh but again this is it's not here say but it's just people who have been involved with this have indicated that if we don't have any there there then it is it is a waste of time but if

142we do is I think um Mr K was saying if we find out that there is something there more than just so and if we just find that there are some bad practices that we've either overcome or need to be over come maybe that would be enough and that would be the best possible outcome but uh the feeling was and might still be that that if we do our own internal audit not our own but I mean have have done locally uh that that we'll know whether we need to proceed that way or not that's what the motion's about are you ready to vote on the motion so the motion is to approve an audit of the fiscal year 2122 special education funds and I guess we should have a roll call vote Mr jet

143Mr stra yes Miss careno no Mr Guta yes Mr Rickard no Mr bar yes the motion passes three to two our final action item this evening is the um the cell phone policy there are two um two recommended actions before us um two versions of the cell phone policy um and uh just kind of short circuited a little bit um draft a and draft B are very much alike with the exception that draft B uh in my informal way I'll just describe it as allows cell phone use basically during lunch lunch time which is the the core difference um and I'm ready to uh to entertain a motion as actually um I think we decided maybe I should turn this over to you Mr Vice chairman if you like to take it from here all

144right opening uh looking for a motion on the cell phone policy I move to I move to approve draft B of the cell phone policy which requires the cell phones be turned off and stored away during the school day except for use during lunch for middle and high school students effective Monday October 28th 2024 thank you Mr Rickard motion on the floor to approve draft B is there a second ask a question yeah how does Mr B yes if you want to approve B but you'd like to change something in it how do you how do we go how do I go about that okay uh first of all we'll need a second and all a second does it says you the item is worthy of debate it does not mean you are in favor

145of it so we have a motion of no second so if you are interested in working on that one I would secure a second and then you can start amending the motion which is draft B okay yeah get it on the floor and then you can start amending and changing and my warning will be is if we go down the path of B and we're not ultimately going to vote on it we don't even want to open that box up you know what I'm saying so we need to figure out if we're going to have I feel like we need to find out if we're going to have support for policy B first because if we start making Mo amendments and things and we're not going to ultimately pass that one and we're get back

146to a then it feels like a moot process I hear what you're saying but you can't really discuss something that's not yeah how we going to discuss it you can't discuss disc either need to Second it and rock on or for no second and load of di okay so we're still looking for a second on second all right so now now you can amend away rock on yep y y all right so discussion I support B but I'd like to make an amendment myself I would like to see as far as yes during lunchtimes but only for 8ighth grade and I also have thinking about it on field trips I don't have a problem with it being if they're on a bus for an hour and a half I don't have a problem them on

147their phone when they're on the bus for an hour and a half field trip I think I think the consensus of the board is and the staff that it's this is about instruction during instructional time in the classroom I know that's what I'm worried about so those are the two amendments that they can have it during lunch high school but in Middle not the whole Middle School only including 8th grade 8ighth grade through high school but allowing it in Second Amendment allowing it on a field trip those were my two amendments okay so Mr sh you're proposing to uh amend draft B to allow a graders to use their cell phones during lunch along with during field trips for 8th grade in high school for eighth grade in high schoolers not um in other words

148simple terms not the whole Middle School okay so for eighth graders during lunch and field trips along with high schoolers yes okay any comments or discussion on those amendments and can I just add to that and that's what I'm going by is my feedback talking to staff you know that's not just something Tom Street wants it's just kind of my feedback okay is there a second for the two amendments that Mr Street put forward I'll second that I've heard the same thing from staff all right all right so the Amendments have been made by Mr Street and seconded by Mr Rickard let me read to make sure I have it correct so yes motion to amend draft B to allow self during field trips and for eighth graders for field trips for eth graders and

149high schoolers and also for eighth graders during lunch SCH and high schools during lunch okay I just want to be clear e8th grade I just didn't want no technicality come back and I just bottom line is 8th grade up to 12th were you choosing eighth grade because of the sports eligibility yes well that and um you know my conversations uh you I know Dr hegard I had a conversation there is time eighth grade is kind of in that uh gray area they can play a high school sport possibly and then you get into you know it is convenient I admit now my personal experience instead of me calling the school office and and and bothering them at lunchtime my child can send me a text hey the ball game tonight's been canceled due the rain

150um that e8th grade is kind of a in and out of high school like I agree Mr B discussion and then yes you just handle like a normal yes all right yeah you got a you got an amendment in a second well you speak okay um so a lot here um one of the reasons why most School boards that we know of a school districts are doing the bellt Bell um cell phone policies are are various reasons um one of them um to begin with is the enforcement it makes it a lot easier uh that nobody's going to have a phone and if you see a phone then you know that person is not supposed to have it I have no problem with the kids having the phones in their backpack just because the kids

151have gotten used to that um however what we have seen and the reason why I think a lot of the school boards um and school districts want to have this cell phone it's because of the effect that this cell phones are having on kids um it's a cell phone it's a social media I mean we can talk about a lot of the things about bullying and and um just whether you're watching in there I mean you just don't know I mean for example most of the porn in in this country is actually watched through the cell phones um so it's either you have a policy or you don't have a policy and the reason why we're doing this is because we want to make sure that our kids brains SC develop that they can actually

152socialize um we were just talking a couple of weeks ago and and I think we've heard this from several school districts where the school districts that have already implemented this from Bell to Bell have said that they can see a difference in the kids almost right away they can see it at the lunch time they're talking to each other or they playing um in fact I remember seeing one school district where the um School members said that in high school they were playing tag for the first time in in years so one of the things we need to understand is there plenty of research on what this cell phone use and the um social media and all that are doing into the brain and let's just say for example it just take it takes just

153one hour um of use uh to push the adrenal system Beyond its normal limits and what we have right now we have kids between 8 and 18 that are spending an average of 7 to 10 hours a day um on technology I said before this is something that is really AC affecting our kids um that's this what we're having a lot more short attention span we having more ADHD symptoms kids are not talking to each other so they don't even know how to address problems how to we solve problems by talking to each other we're breaking down the human interactions between these kids um and this is why I would rather see it uh completely banned from Bell to Bell make it easier to um also enforce for the teachers and and it's interesting because

154I have talked to a lot of Staff um here in scps and most of them seem to say that they wanted Bell to Bell and we do have a lot of uh research done here in the Commonwealth of Virginia and we know this from all the information that U Mrs yunin actually gave out um where the majority of the parents are saying that they want to see the band from Bell to Bell something like 69% now I know we have gotten used to a lot of this technology but I we really are stealing away our kids um childhood by doing this and it's also affecting their their learning ability um if another thing that we needed to to also address is the fact that um a lot of people want to have them because of

155an emergency because we have all the you know shootings or violence in those moments we don't want a kid to be worrying about getting their phone and trying to call their parent what we want the kid to do at that time is listen to the teachers and listen to the SRO when they're actually going to be you know told what they should be doing in such an emergency and um and I've had some districts that have said yeah that is a problem because then the kid is just thinking that they need to use the phone um so yeah there's a lot of reasons why I think we should do the Bell to Bell um I think this just by doing some kids can use it some kids can't use it they can use it you

156know during um lunchtime but not between classes makes it really hard to enforce and and in the end is not achieving the purpose of trying to get the kids away from this technology when they're in school to actually learn thank you Miss Caren anyone else well she has a good point and I and I I I support some of a lot of things she says but I think it's probably a um a mutual meeting in the Middle with parents you know we'll probably hear a lot of other parents their opinion but I think the focus here again was during instructural time that the cell phone is not available um so I don't think for 8th grade higher I think it's kind of a negotiating a little bit maybe satisying if it is the other 31%

157of the parents that they um may have that possible contact with their kids I I I don't know for whatever reason you know if a kid's not feeling good just that simple thing of how getting along today um but for the various reasons uh I guess it's just kind of a compromise as the way I see it even though I do agree with with gloryia on on some of the things is there and they I'm fully support kids uh they yeah I definitely agree and support they need to be more interactive with each other instead of just looking down at that phone um but I guess this the way I see it just during lunch just during the higher classes is just a a form of compromise um across the table just during that lunch

158period thank you Mr Marlo so I um I I agree with Mrs car car I do believe that this needs to be a clean easily enforced uh issue uh having car bouts whether it's for certain groups or certain times is going to make this much more difficult to enforce and um while I understand and I was glad we've had the discussion for the last few weeks because I understand Sports being called off and and personal problems so forth but I I believe we can we can the operational end of this by the staff can be can take care of that uh I I believe that we would be doing our teachers and our administrators a service by making this as Crisp And as clean as we can rather than having having those car bouts that's

159all anybody else all right well I'll just excuse me Echo what I said at the work session of triplet my concern is with not doing a bell to Bell is the enforcement is going to be very difficult um especially at the high school level um again like I said that night you've got different gems you've got the library you've got the cafeteria um you you've got a lot of different places to be monitoring it but then when you come back from class from from lunch excuse me it's not easy to put that phone back away and and lock back in on what you're doing um I can attest to it it's hard it's hard not having one and I like I said that night it's going to be difficult regardless of what we do whether

160it's Bell to Bell or you get Lunchtime with the phone it's going to be difficult because we're especially young people we love the cell phones um but sometimes you have to focus on your t at hand um and better your education and your learning and um you know I believe that overall it be more beneficial to have it um Bell to Bell or just throughout the entire day if we don't want to use the Bell tobell term um so those are my thoughts and if no one else has anything to say we will get ready and have the Miss jet call real call please so I'm going to read the am motion to am of the phone policy to allow cell phone use during field trips for eth graders and high schoolers and also for

161eighth graders during lunch so I'm sorry order so if we vote this down then we go up to the next one to the next all all for one money I mean you the amendment is a two-part so you can defeat that and then you're going back discussing this B you're back on B because that's your original motion right okay and then if you don't like that you can defeat it then and then go to a yes yes thank you Mr Street yes Miss careno no Mr gsha no Mr yes Mr no all right so the Amendments fail by a vote of 3-2 so now we will move back toward the original motion which was by Mr Rickard to adopt draft policy B yes I move to approve draft B of the cell phone policy which

162requires that cell phones be turned off and stored away during the school day except for use during lunch for middle and high school students effective Monday October 28th okay Mr Street no Miss careno no Mr gsha no Mr Rickard yes Mr bar no all right that failed by a 4 to one so now we are looking I guess we have one other option so do we have a motion so I move to approve draft a of the cell phone policy which requires that cell phones be turned off and stored away throughout the entire school day affected Monday October 28th 2024 all right motion is on the floor by Miss careno is there a second second second by Mr Barlo discussion I um I would like to um make a make a motion to uh to

163amend that motion um and what I'd like to do is if I can pass this out I'll pass a bunch out can you guys can over cler [Music] please okay on um page three there is a head u a heading called emergencies and there is a second sentence which says staff may authorize student use of cell phones in the event of a school emergency my motion would insert the words personal or between school and emergency so the new statement would read staff may authorize student use of cell phones in the event of a personal or School emergency so Mr Barlow's made his amendment is there a second H second all right so the amendment by Mr Barlo and seconded by myself discussion well I I believe that a school emergency the the school of hierarchy

164will be involved in that and monitoring and trying to solve it but if some student becomes aware of something that either personally is happening to them or has them particularly concerned excited sick they don't they're they're confused whatever uh that they wouldn't feel um that they would feel empowered to go to a staff member and say I would really like to call home and talk to Mom or Dad about this um and uh I I just I just think that that would if I were a parent that would take a little bit of the um angst out of my wondering uh what was happening to my kids if I knew if they had something like that my personal belief is I don't believe that would be abused I believe that um you know the same

165student would be asking for that every day just so they can call their friend I believe it would be U I believe it would be uh that would be rarely not rarely but not used often Not to cause any disruption and it would provide a a little bit of a qutis feeling with parents you must not have had kids in a long time have grandkids I have a question because uh they can be sneaky let me tell you um my concern would be I mean don't we I think we already allow for this by going to the um office I me Cera remember I I brought the wrong policy with me um but I thought that that we were already providing for the opportunities for the students to go to the office if they need

166to call their parents or somebody else yeah I'm I'm sure they yeah I'm sure that's there I'm just saying that the staff and that means anybody that that the student so if the student is in a class and wants a call from there it doesn't have to go to the office and then come back that's all anyone else I I guess my my concern is um going back to what we're talking about just getting a clear um policy U without getting too many exceptions um the other concern that I had is what I talked about before that I had that I've heard it from several people saying that one of the concerns that they have is that if there first of all we're not even defining what an emergency is so student could say you

167know I'm having anxiety teing to call my parents right now whereas what they should be doing is getting some help um in able to be a you know to get some help before just calling but my other concern would be if there is an emergency is a student going to be trying to get to the parent getting to the to the cell phone and putting them in danger rather than listening to the teachers and to the SRO and what they're telling them to do I don't know this is just something that I've heard from many people and um my my thing is if we are allowing the kids already they can go to the office and they can make the fun call to their parents um I think that should be enough um in this

168one you know the only way I could see it maybe going like that would we would have to explain first what kind of emergency and then second you know is it in the classroom is it you know anytime or are we going to say they can only make the phone call from their um office I don't know it's just a little bit um a b it's funny that y'all bring this up because uh I stopped to grab a bite to eat on my way here to this evening and uh two of the strawsburg ram football players were there between practice and the homecoming parade and I asked them their feelings on it one of them was a senior the other was a sophomore and both of them looked at me and they said we don't

169think it's a big deal as long as we can have it at lunch you know if we need to make a phone call to our parents or we need to shoot them a text at least we don't have to go down the office where people hear our personal business and I'm like I had to give give them credit they thought this thing through um however I think if we're going to implement anything where we cut off uh cell phone use during the day from Bell to Bell we need to open up our our uh email on these Chromebooks to where they're able to email their parents um right now from what I understand with the school's email they can only email each other or their teachers um and there's no way for the parents to

170email their kids so I think if we're going to implement a bell-to-bell policy where they're completely out of touch at least they can send a quick email or whatever or the parent can send them a quick email I don't see the harm in that um when these kids are bullying each other over email it's not like you're causing any more harm I guess my question is I mean what what are we saying that an emergency would be you know like back in the day my kids would have said you know I left my lunch that would have been an emergency and and they would have been allowed to call or not call um so that that's basically my my concern is you know I I can understand if they're in the middle of emergency and

171then um after everything's being cleared being allowed to make those phone calls I could see how that would be applicable um it's just the way it reads right now it kind of keep keep very open with a personal or School emergency you know to say oh I forgot my assignment so you know I get to call my mom and and tell her to bring it over well um I'm sorry yeah so that that's my concern right now so it's um that we have staff who are professionally trained they've taught kids I you were asking about my knowledge kids well I taught 14 years in a history classroom and you know kids were saying I want to go to the bathroom eight times so I tried to keep them here but when somebody says I don't

172have to go to the bathroom they went to the bathroom I'm not going to keep them from doing that if if you know I've had kids who come and say there's a funeral today I wanted to see how my mom's do I mean yeah make that phone call um if yeah was an art for being a teacher and or or and so how horrible would it be if a kid once every two months said something like that and it turned out to be somebody who was just trying to call their their girlfriend or boyfriend maybe that wouldn't be the worst things ever happened in our school system I'm just saying that um I would have less of a pucker Factor if I were a parent knowing that if my my student really felt bad they

173could go to a teacher or somebody on staff and say really like to call a home now that's all anyone else before Mr Street do you have anything no I mean I understand I guess I would say like Gloria said it does leave you a little bit kind of murky as far as what may qualify as an emergency I don't want it to be abused I'm afraid it could be abused um I wonder if we could just if there's any way we can just leave this out of the policy but it kind of be an obvious given where if there's something extraordinary going on that a student would be given the privilege or the ability to use the cell phone you know if something happen with the family or whatever I think it's pretty obvious

174that the kids should be involved and know what's going on I don't know if we necessarily need to include that in this policy because I feel like it should be obvious to do it um because I don't want it to be abused and I feel like if we leave it up to our staff they're going to be forced to have to deal with it and you have some students who have the right intentions and want to do things properly and then others that would probably try to take advantage of it um or advantage of whatever they can do to try to get their phone out more I can add something because I I like what you just said um m r um and we have to think about is that the worst that will happen

175at that point is that their phone it's going to get taken away and they're going to have to go pick it up at the end of the day so it's really not the end of the world even if if the teacher said no and there was a real emergency the students still decides to do it against the policy you know that's the worst that's going to happen so I I don't think um I agree I think it's going to be a lot easier to implement this policy if we just kind of keep it clean and not start carving out too many exceptions all right any other discussion before we vote on this amendment again it'll be in paragraph 3 P3 emergencies second sentence currently is read staff may authorize student use of cell phones in

176the event of a school emergency the amendment it would be quote staff may authorize student use of cell phone in the event in the event of a personal or School emergency so that is the amendment on the floor Miss jet so I'm going to read the motion again motion to amend the motion for draft policy a as follows on page three under the heading called emergency second sentence motion to insert the words quote personal or end quote so that the sentence says staff may authorize student use of cell phones in the EV of a personal or School emergency Mr stre yes Miss careno no Mr Guta no Mr Ricker no Mr bar yes the amendment fails by 3 to2 vote do we have any of other amendments for policy a I have a second amendment

177the last one so for me anyway um I'm going to do the same thing if you please pass that down as it's uh as it's coming now let me U give a little Preamble here um we on the board know that uh executive order 33 from Governor yunin directed various agencies to prepare guidance in the form of model implementation plans and listening tours and so forth have occurred over the last several months based on that executive order um and it requires adoption of a cell phone free policy by January 1st 2025 however the executive order nowhere mandates the specifics of such a policy and I contend That Remains the purview of each School Board individually so my concern is that I do not want to set a precedent of having a governor of whatever party

178um impinge on the independence of school boards by demand by uh mandating these to executive order so um my Amendment would be to insert not to change anything in the wording at all but to insert at the end of the policy the paragraph which I provided which says should I read it again I pretty much said the whole thing okay we'll just let it go I think we're good okay so you understand it is intended to maintain the the independent viability of the school board and yet follow the guidance of the governor to um deal with in model implementation plans which he has ordered his various agencies to prepare for us okay is there a second second amendments been made by Mr Barlo and seconded by myself or is there any discussion I think what

179Mr bar is trying to say here is it could be a dangerous precedent regardless of Republican or Democrat Governor for school boards to be given almost you you know the requirement to do this because you could easily have a different Governor you're going to have a different Governor um come next year or 2025 and I think what Mr Barlo is trying to say is we don't want to be told by the governor that we must do something because of his or her executive order um you could clarify if you needed to but I think that's how I'm kind of interpreting this better than I could have said it thank you is there any discussion I guess I just kind of throw this out there you I've been thinking you know since you explained it and

180that's a that's the way I took it but I wasn't quite sure but I am now so what you're saying is we can just we can add something that we don't have to follow the Mandate by the governor we can do that I me that's good if we can no Mr Barlo the executive order it does we are not directed to do this according to the executive order um directs has the governor direct the various agencies to prepare these implementation models for the school board we are we are not told to be we are not directed doing anything there but we are directed to have a policy in place by January the 1st 2025 yes and this amendment would say that while we understand that requirement to consider that those implementation policies that we we

181deny a mandate that would require specifics of such a policy it would be up to us to decide the eaches of that policy rather than an executive order from the Govern govern ask K he did better than I did so well I'm kind of with Tom are we able to override a Governor's executive order I but I think what you're saying is we're not overriding an order we have to the order is to have a policy but it's up to us what the policy is or well exactly the same thing happened in when Governor noram put out the transgender policy there were it was called the model policies 27 pages with all kind of stuff that was in there that a lot of people didn't like and a lot of school boards said we're not

182doing that including this one and so um so I I just want to make sure that that there are some people that are that are just a little nervous about an executive order that would specify but it doesn't it does not specify this is kind of stating the obvious if we don't pass it we could still claim it I would just like that shoe horn it in here as a as a uh marker all right any more discussion before we call the Miss Jack calls the vote Miss J will you reread the amendment please thank you motion to amend draft policy a to insert at the end of the policy quote note executive order 33 directs various agencies to prepare guidance in the form of model implementation plans for Virginia Public School boards while requires

183adoption of a cell phone free policy by January 1st 2025 the executive order nowhere mandates the specifics of such a policy which Remains the perview of each School Board unquote Mr Street yes Miss careno sure yes Mr betaw yes Mr Ricker no Mr bar yes all right the amendment by Mr Barlo passes by 4 to one vote now we move back to polica to try to get this through or not so including the amendment which we just approved we will now vote on policy a if there's no more discussion I don't hope we have enough breath left in us to I'd like to know what the possibility of opening up the email between parents and kids would that be a separate issue yeah I think that'll be separate not fall under cell phone cling okay

184yeah it's just a question that's all I was asking he's just asking the question just do that address that separately we'll address that separately all right so all right so the motion is I move to approve draft a of the cellone policy which requires that cell phones be turned off and stored away throughout the entire school day effective Monday 2024 as amended Mr Street no M careno yes Mr bsha yes Mr no Mr bar yes the cell phone policy draft a including the amendment passes by a vote of three- two and Mr Barlo you can have it right back I don't know you did I guess you all can keep me for one more year made your case Madam the superintendent we're ready to hear all of the wonderful things you guys have been doing

185thank you so signal knob FFA chapter has been named a National FFA finalist um in the country for the Middle School models of Excellence award they will next have the opportunity to compete in the finals Hall at the uh National FFA convention in Indianapolis for the chance to be named the number one Middle School FFF FFA chapter in the nation which is really exciting they do a lot of really good stuff in at signal knob and across the division in FFA strawsburg senior um High School senior Braden West becomes the first scps student ever to pass the required certification to be considered a Microsoft Office special IST expert so very excited about um Raiden West ww Robinson hosts um it's bring your parent to PE week which I participated in I think it was yesterday

186might have been Tuesday um but it was very fun to participate with our elementary school students in PE at ww Robinson um we had over 75 colleges military branches and businesses in attendance for our College and career career and Military Fair hosted at Central High School this is a great opportunity for our Juniors and seniors to ask questions and get information and talk directly with Representatives about their future plans don't forget the scps education showcase is coming up on October the 19th this is our third strawsburg high school will be hosting it this year and it will feature music performances by schools across the division free books for students interactive activities and many of our partners will be there with fire trucks and police cars and things like that and then um and actually I

187just saw that there's going to be a helicopter there as well so um Stonewall uh Jackson marching generals placed first in a pair of tournaments of bands uh band competitions in September the first was held in Eldersburg Maryland on September 14th and the SEC second was in Martinsburg West Virginia on September 28th and then um we had many of our chapters compete at the State Fair of Virginia Central High School Stonewall Jackson North Fork Middle School and signal knob all sent students to the State Fair of Virginia earlier this month and we had several teams who uh several people who were strong finishers be happy to answer any questions you have refresh my memory who's the FFA adviser at signal no Dakota mhm wow that's great any other questions for the superintendent thank you thank

188you board member comments who wants to go first well I can go first um well first of all I will of course well I already have submitted so those motions that fail today for the amendment and for registration we'll be hope added and some future agenda um as they have already been submitted um another piece of uh policy that we're going to be working on and and this is just something that we've been we've talked about before because we've had a lot of people that have expressed some concerns and I know I spoke already to Dr Shephard about this that we're going to be working on a retaliation policy um exactly sure how that's going to look like but we're going to be working on that because we do need to have that so that

189the staff feels um safe if they want to come up you know or bring something up um one more thing was we had our mental health task force on the second and it was great we had a great presentation by the Shino County adult recovery uh Court which was very uh enlightening we got to learn some really great things from them and if I'm not mistaken at the next meeting we're going to be having student Representatives so we're going to um invite the representatives from the middle schools and the high schools um to this task force because we kind of figure we need to hear from them uh right now we can sit here and think of all the things that they should be doing but if they don't want to do it then nothing's

190going to happen so we want to hear firsthand from our students what the concerns are um how we can address them and hopefully come up with more uh programs and um and initiatives that will help them so that's all I have thank you next Mike you ready sure sure um well as you heard tonight uh parents were here discussing this 10% attendance rule I don't even know it got out there on the social media everybody was pointing fingers at us thinking we wrote this thing um I just want the public to know that's come to me um Dr Shepard and I have discussed this this was a rule that was devised by the uh administrators in the buildings from what I was told principles and assistant principles um and they decided to go with it

191anybody that knows me knows that I line up with common sense everything comes down to common sense I understand it's not so common anymore um however I believe every rule needs an exception um Miss Bowen spoke about her her son tonight uh exceptional young man um I don't see where ASAP would do anything for him um and I believe there's more throughout U through out our County that are in the exact same situation um I did hear of another student who had to go out of town to attend a family members funeral I think punishing that child because they had to go to a family member's funeral is just ludicrous um I heard of another at Central High School a football player who got pushed down stairs on our watch was hospitalized Miss time from

192school and had to go to ASAP before they could return to football practice you guys really need to relook at this re-examine it um see what we can do to fix it um I think it's over the top um I don't know what the answer is um like I said I think there's more things you need to look at than just whether they were in school for the day or not um other thing I want to touch on um Miss wi King brought it to our attention tonight and we got an email earlier today from a teacher down at the southern end of the county about air quality in our elementary schools um have we done any air quality testing at our elementary schools I know hva C was on the list for Sandy Hook

193but have we done any air quality testing I know we've done some air quality testing at some elementary schools have we done it at all no not at all not all do we um the plumbing issue she brought up today do we know what that issue is and is it in the process of being resolved Monday we're going the line which is like a drill in there to drill it out it's actually in the diamer of old right it's the main line the other two lines Ti from the old Wing so we're going to get that mid it's about 120 ft that'll be done Monday morning because kids there so we have to do it like and we haveed out the vacuum has been brought out I appreciate that update Danny thank you um I

194think that's all I've got we were contacted also by um a middle school student did you get that email as well about their rigorous schedule I did I am forwarding it to Dr Nan okay um yeah of course worrying about the kids mental health um if there's some breaks that can be added in or I don't even know do they do recess anymore or have any breaks like that at Middle School level at middle school they have breaks I don't know that they have recess every day gocha that's all I've got thank you Tom you got any comments uh sure um well Mr Bowman I think probably after a couple more months you may have us trained on our procedures thank you doing fine you you didn't get by tonight too easy did you well

195it's a hoop somebody thinks so that's the nicest thing we've been called in a long time I'm not the one sitting up there voting I'm just advising well thank you um uh just a g just a short u you know I want to thank everybody for what everybody does the staff again the teachers um you know I hope in the future we've had some discussions up here tonight and I'm more of a person that um to me there's things that um you know I just think that there's ways that we can kind of work things out I hope that we can in the future work things out a little bit more without friction um you know and and try to you know we have to accept that there are policies in place and procedures and

196and you you know uh you know if there's no dates exact dates set and if we have a procedure we kind of follow it um if we want to change it that's fine not a problem but you know I hope we can uh there's ways that you know you know I hope we can find a um maybe a little bit more better ways to discuss it in a lower key um in appropriate times maybe um but anyway I apologize this you know some of the things we talked up here kind of dawned on me and I'm a person of reality and and I apologize maybe to the teachers because you know I think there was some of I'm sitting here thinking and well you know I'm not in the classroom every day I don't do

197that for a living and I understand that and I kind of wish maybe I yeah I know we did talk to some teachers but uh I know they know best uh in regards to the cell phones and and they do know what's best and and and there's just so many different views but I apologize to them that uh they may be thinking you know well you're sitting up there you're not in the classroom and and and and yes I agree I acknowledge that um so anyway um there's just a lot of things in the picture and down the road and and I I appreciate the sheriff Carter and and his uh Administration here and and and like I've told Dr Shepard and I've told uh Sheriff Carter um we have unfortunately in today's society we

198we do have to be proactive and and and we have to take the safety of our students and our staff uh seriously um and a lot of those things may be discussed uh as I can say maybe not publicly um obviously for you know it doesn't make sense to talk about stuff in the public and and and and there is no I'm not talking about any specific things I'm just talking about in general cuz you know it's not good to publicize your views or your hey we have an issue here we we have a concern here this security um to give anybody any individuals out there that may be thinking in wrong ways any kind of clues or any but but we but my point is you know we we thank Sheriff's Department and their

199resource officers and and their um and the the the work of the effort the working together between the the school the school board the superintendent and the sheriff's department um working together and ultimately being proactive to provide a safe environment um anyway uh I guess I can't really think of anything right now Mr chairman thank you obviously an interesting discussion to start the meting meeting I think that's the first time we've had people walk out before we've gotten the agenda approved which is pretty sad but that's what we had tonight um obviously we're still not getting along all that great I will say that we are more alike than some would think um we're all up here for a reason um think we all have good ideas I'm I'm glad that we don't have a

200bunch of six nothing votes I don't think we really have any of those besides um the most basic and non-controversial things but um we're going to continue to work hard together we know that we have different ideas and sometimes that can become difficult and frustrating um but I do think we're doing good things there's a lot going on different you know talking about triple attack and school safety do appreciate Sheriff Carter and um his staff being here tonight and we'll continue moving forward and keep making the school system you know a better better every day so thank you Dr Shephard for her continued hard work and all of our folks down here at the Schoolboard office um kind of like what Tom said you know we have challenges ahead we have difficulties but I think

201we've got the right group of people here to accomplish what we need to accomplish and keep making the um education better here in the county thanks C I'll wrap it up won't be long just to draw some conclusions from the discussion earlier so uh I have assimilated from the group here three items of f discussion that we will investigate more thoroughly we'll get information briefs on them and we'll have discussion and decision um the uh and the all three have been mentioned here by two members already and the additional issue of air quality testing which came up is a discussion which could lead to that uh as I always do invite you to call me or email me about any items you want on the agenda but I also will not fall off the position

202that the monthly emails from the Schoolboard clerk alerting you to these meetings are real and they're not jokes and they're not coming from somebody else or com from the authority of the chair like it or not so I I hope you can accept the fact that those those messages are coming from the authority of the chair do not follow the board not the other thing is that the other place that school board genda items come from are from school board member confs and we have meetings every month and we have work sessions 10 of those months and the school board member comments also generate those items there so and I do think it is an incredibly important uh function that we have from the staff to provide us the instructional basis we need to understand

203issues going in so that we can have a spirited and impartial debate before we make our decisions I think we're there I think we're okay um I think I think Kyle said it best there's there's a lot of likeminded here but there's a lot of strong personalities and different ways of coming at this I just hope we can drive on and I think we can um I do want to say yeah one more thing um attendance um one of the speakers tonight made a really good point I thought in saying that the policies are fine uh but the implementation begs some my words fine tuning that would make sense to me um we have tried to attack attendance which has kept us from being accredited in the recent past and so trying to get kids

204in school and to get back up to the level where we were before so here they can learn is something that the school system has taken seriously and um if in driving toward that goal there have been instances where these anomalies when have hurting people that's that's really a problem that we need to work on and um you know I I think that the operational end of this thing uh can be if not solved can be a greatly by our staff and by our administrator so um rather than seeing this is a All or Nothing thing I I really think that our policy can be fine-tuned so that we can uh sand down some of these U some of these rust spots if you will so with that I'm going to um recommend that we

205have a uh motion for adjournment I'm move to adjourn second second I think all in favor say hi hi oppos none meeting is adjourned at 10:28