001e it's uh 632 and we are going to call to order the April 11th 2024 regular meeting of the no the shenoa County School Board and uh first thing I'm going to do is ask there's a recommendation that we convene in close session you I recommend that the shanida County School Board can be a closed meeting under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act in order to discuss and consider several Personnel matters involving the assignment appointment promotion performance demotion salary discipline or resignation under Virginia code 22- 3711 A14 and to discuss Scholastic records involving the disc discussion or consideration of admission or disciplinary action matters concerning any student of any state school system under Virginia code 22- A2 and do I hear a motion to that effect I move that the shinid County School Board convene
002a closed meeting under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act in order to discuss and consider several Personnel matters involving the the assignment appointment promotion performance demotion salary discipline or resignation under Virginia code 22- 3711 814 and to discuss Scholastic records involving the discussion or consideration of admission or disciplinary matters concerning any student of any state school system under Virginia code 22- 3711 A2 thank you Mr Guta for that motion is there a second to that motion a second thank you Mrs rut for that second all those in favor of convening in close session say I I opposed we will reconvene in Open Session approximately 7:00 e e e you [Music] like session do I have a motion to that effect I move to session motion made by Mr CAW is there a second I second
003second by Mrs ruts all those in favor say I I opposed this point we will have our the closed meeting certification um [Music] the sheno County School Board hereby certifies by roll call vote that to the best of each member's knowledge only public business matter lawfully Exempted from open meeting requirements by Virginia law were discussed in the closed meeting to which this certification resolution applies and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion to meeting the closed meeting were heard discussed or considered by the shendo County School Board each member responds ISO certified and call Mr stre yes so M Caro ISO certify Mr bsha ISO certify m r ISO certify Mr R ISO certify Mr bar ISO certify uh at this point I'm going to ask Mr gsha to lead us
004in invocation and the pledge of allegian please bow your head dear Lord we ask for your wisdom as we begin tonight's meeting we acknowledge that we need your wisdom and insights and we welcome your presence Among Us guide us in our discussions and decisions helping us to seek what is best for all involved in Jesus name we pray amen amen [Music] I pled Al to the of the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for [Music] all approval of the agenda do we have a motion to approve the agenda as has been presented I move to approve the agenda as presented motion made by Mrs R and seconded uh by Mr Rickard is there any discussion all in favor please signify by
005saying I I oppos recognitions superintendent you have any yes thank you April is Autism Awareness Month and I would like to introduce Heather Jones president of the special education ADV bazer committee Heather good evening thank you I'm Heather Jones and I am the chairman of the special education advisory committee for Chenoa County and I'd like to thank you for speaking this evening April is known as National Autism Awareness Month and we are in our eighth year of lighting it up blue um and we're excited to celebrate our students here within our County according to the CDC autism or autism spectrum disorder is a developmental disability caused by differences in the brain some individuals with autism have a known difference such as a genetic condition While others are have not yet known what causes scientists believe
006there are multiple causes of autism that act together to change the most common ways we develop individuals with autism May behave communicate interact and learn in different ways that are different from most of others the abilities of those with autism can vary significantly for example some may have advanced conversation skills While others may be non-verbal some may need a lot of help in their their daily lives While others can work and live with little to no support according to the cdc's 2024 statistics one in 36 children are diagnosed with autism each year while 1 in 45 are diagnosed as adults this is increased by 312 since the year 2000 why has this increase happened over these years well it's a lot of it is due to the Improvement of Outreach and screenings conducted at an
007early age autism can begin before the age of 3 years old and it can last throughout a person's life although symptoms May improve over time some children show autism symptoms within the first 12 months of Life others symptoms may not show until the age of two or later as children with autism become adults and young adult adolescents and young adults they may have difficulties developing and maintaining friendships communicating with peers and adults or understanding what behaviors are expected in school or on the job they may also have additional conditions such as anxiety depression or ADHD some interesting facts and famous individuals that we may know who have a diagnosis of autism Anthony Hopkins who is a famous actor Albert Einstein the most famous scientist Of All Times Susan Bole famous singer from Britain Scott talent
008Elon Musk CEO of Tesla and SpaceX Woody Allen famous film director and Isaac Newton famous mathematician this year the seak committee received autism proclamations from four five out of the six towns here in chenino County we have one more on Monday um this is like I said in our eighth year of being able to speak and ask each town to adopt an Autism Proclamation so we can't thank them enough for their support it's also given us an opportunity to speak to community community members speak to families spread awareness and celebrate our students I would like to close by F finally personally inviting you um April 20th the seat committee um with our special education department is hosting our community fun fair um and that will be from 9: to 1: at Central High School April
00920th um this is an opportunity for the community to speak to resources available um and to be able to access Services we'll have bouncy houses for children free food um we'll have the police fire and rescue there as well um we have autism awareness vehicles coming so you can take your photo um Mac bus and much much more sheno is also offering free Transportation um so the public can just show up to a sheno stop say that they're coming to the shenoa county fair there at Central High School and they have free Transportation so thank you so much I have personal invitations and I have an Autism risen uh ruon for everybody and a hand fidget which is something that is used with a lot of our SP kids thank you so much we we
010look forward to that report each year and each [Applause] year we are about to embark on the U the public comment section which should be very very interesting tonight and uh the board uh a little concerned because we know there's a lot of folks that want to talk we had discussed earlier in the day ratcheting it down to a minute and a half so that we could get done at a normal time and then we thought that over and thought you know a lot of you have worked pretty hard at getting it to your three minute limit and want to say your piece uh and uh we we wanted to make that decision as as a board out here in front of y'all so if you don't mind uh I'm going to ask for a
011motion uh from somebody on board that we um the to uh nominate the amount of time that we um devote for each speaker tonight Mr Rickard I move that we give the public three minutes per per speech is there a second second second uh by m Caro any discussion all those in favor please signify by saying I I okay you guys three minutes but we will be very very very tight on the three minute time how's that that's very you okay with that Steve where's volume two all right so um you will be able to see the uh the time have we adjusted the time yeah we have you guys are really good okay so let me read the uh the ground rules because I think they really apply more than ever tonight so listen
012up the sheno County School Board welcomes public comment during most regular meetings during public hearings school board members members do not respond to public comments during the meeting or the hearing each speaker may speak up to 3 minutes the board generally allows up the 30 minutes for public comments that way beyond that on agenda and non-agenda items at the begin beginning of the meeting if there are a large number of speakers the board May limit the total time uh we're not going to do that tonight all comment should be 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
013with other's views speakers will address their comments to the entire school board and not to one individual board in the member to the superintendent to a staff member nor to the audience speakers will not engage in personal attacks speakers May sign up to speak at the Schoolboard meeting a public hearing on a document provided by the clerk of the school board which I believe you had access to speakers are called in the order in which I signed up if time allows the chair may allow comments for individuals who have not signed up I don't foresee that this evening a speaker may not speak more than once on a specific topic speakers of wish to speak on more than one topic must submit a separate request the speaker would like to Present written comments of school
014board 8 copy should be provided to the school board clerk as the speaker approaches the podium to speak charl street you are first on this list good evening it's good to see a full house here too bad it can't be every month I hope everyone is well elect school board members Dr Melody Shephard thank you for allowing me to speak tonight first I'd like to congratulate the north for FFA cattle working team for finishing 12 out of 17 teams at a regional competition majority of the teams were high school and adult teams i' would like to wish all the athletic teams that are preparing for the postseason good luck as for the transgender policy I support Mike Rickards proposed policy as with all policies I'm sure there's some tweaking and wordage could be involved uh
015the budget I challenge challenge the Board of Supervisors trying to bite business is in the shando county to help increase the tax base most of the surrounding counties have a good balance of business and agriculture we have agriculture but like the business part of it the country is in a silent recession with many business either breaking evening or barely getting by when I've been told the count is receiving somewhat around $1.8 million less from the state that's a big hit to this County the wrongdoings of the previous school board and the deceitfulness of changing the two school names I'm going to read a part of the email that Dr Johnson sent out on June 10th of 2020 and I quote Stonewall Jackson high school is a warm and welcoming School because the students teachers Administration
016and parents have made it so it is diverse and that diversity is celebrated through formal and informal school events I know high schools that have racial divisions that have generic names that being said I recognize that this is not a decision to be made by a superintendent but by the school board and the community end quote in the school board meeting another school board meeting Dr John and Marty Hesley Marty hle asked asked a question is the money's not raised named Stonewall Jackson asked believe will they be changed Dr Johnson replied if the monies are not raised the names will not be changed already asked him again the same answer at another meeting there was stated the monies from the budget would not be used but that was not the case four almost four years
017later the community found fin got their voices heard with all new school board members being elected by a large margin the name changed was wrong wrong Fleet orchestrated and voted on during Co in only 8 days for over 45 years I've been associated with Stonewall Jackson high school and the southern campus and will continue to support along with others here on the southern campus and I'm a proud graduate of Stonewall Jackson High School class of 1982 thank you Catherine doy good evening thank you for this opportunity to speak to you this evening I graduated from Virginia high schools and I never heard about Massive Resistance it wasn't taught I didn't know about it till I was an adult being a white person I had not experiened [Music] Chen County presented as an area when I
018was in school that had few slaves and when in reality there were many slaves and Route 11 was used as a quarter for trading slaves South um so there was a lot of history that we never learned Mountain View High School and honeyrun Elementary School are school names that embrace the beauty of this area and not a historical figure I don't think schools should be named after people just in general the former names of Civil War generals are names that hearken back to a divided nation a nation embroiled in a war that had that side one would have extended that deplorable system of child slavery I don't think this is something to be celebrated I would be ashamed to live in a county that looks backward instead of forward that sides with a misguided Nostalgia
019over showing compassion and Justice and kindness to all of its citizens thank you thank you skipper good evening tonight according to the agenda you're going to go after transgender kids while entertaining the idea of honoring traitors to the very flag that we just pledged allegiance to a tri or a a duplex of right-wing culture wars against imaginary opponents why not focus on accreditation teacher retention test scores bullying and absenteeism the real things that are facing these students in our school system since this board was codified in January one of you has stood here publicly and read pornographic passages from a book that wasn't in our school system yet claimed it was one of you campaigned for your seat while flying an f46 flag and uses Esquire after your name despite not being a licensed attorney
020in Virginia last week one of you posted a video of the Secretary of Education supporting supporting transgender kids and then put a Bible passage with it suggesting he should be drowned not my God by the way so there's two of you who are retired military yet will seemingly support renaming our schools after those that killed members of the very US Army that you served in 159 years ago this past Tuesday this great nation was born again From the Ashes of those that tried to tear us aunder with their agenda of hatred and division supporting traitors including my great great grandfather Henry Alfred Waller who killed the folks carrying the plag that we pledge allegiance to is beyond the pale and absolutely irrational the South lost the last flag was the one of surrender Lee was
021against any celebration of the South Jackson was killed by his own men and Ashby was driven by a grim Vengeance that bordered on blood lust none are worthy of anything but being a footnote in history books in closing when you folks do these things and I have little doubt that you will you'll make us the laughing stock of the Commonwealth the country and yes the world you will destroy any chance of Economic Development and you will have brought shame to all of us I urge you to think long and hard about your legacies and the stains that these moves will make and leave thank you Kevin Rooney is he here no Neil Thorne I have a request um a lot of us can't hear we're wondering hear yes is it better yes t tilt it
022up a little yet again here we stand and a Crossroads of school names but this discussion goes beyond names it's about aligning our actions with enduring values of respect unity and educational Excellence the process under pending this discussion has been flawed from the outset the survey deployed by the so-called Coalition for better schools was amateurish at best and exhibited clear biases in both distribution and framing furthermore Mountain View High School is now the home of the massan nutton regional Governor's School an institution ution that Fosters Advanced learning in science and technology this school represents the best we have in shanoa and surrounding counties where so many of our schools are marginal at best renaming this site to honor a confederate general under Minds The Standing as a beacon of Education in our community and region
023our school district's Mission Vision and belief statements pledged to prepare students for success in the world that values respect for all and the ability to navigate diverse perspectives like the legally and constitutionally questionable divisive gender identity policy renaming these schools in a manner that creates division challenges these policies renaming these schools in a excuse me challenges these fundamental commitments also considering the broader implications of such a decision on our students sense of belonging and mutual respect within our community and World remembering the attention drawn by the last renaming attempt of 2022 should serve as a cautionary tale an event that brought unfavorable International attention and ridicule to shanor County these divisive actions only detract from providing a quality education to all students and deter perspective businesses families and educations from investing in our County if
024your duty to shanid County school mission values and beliefs is not enough let me remind you of each one of your Oaths of office this proposal stands in contradiction to your oath to support the Constitution of the United States and the Commonwealth of Virginia your oath is a pledge to uphold our nation's fundamental values of equality and justice for all for the two board members who are military veterans such as myself this issue additionally touches on the sworn duty to defend these same principles and not Place reference upon enemies of the United States who fought to divide enslave and kill fellow Americans I urge this board to keep the current names of Mountain View and honey run this aligns with our District's stated commitments to educational excellence and Community respect and stop these needless divisions
025Karen casperson good evening I'm the Reverend Karen casperson from Woodstock District 4 and I am here to address you about both the informational item of school names and the action item about the trans policy as much as we would like to turn back time to return to a time when we felt comfortable and safe change is scary anger is a powerful driving force but change is real unavoidable and all around us no matter how hard we try to ignore it those who are yelling the loudest about returning the school names plus demonizing those who are transgender and even the intense unnecessary scrutiny of books are the ones you were listening to but they do not represent the majority of those of us in this County as others have already told the survey you circulated is
026deeply flawed and not representative of the majority many who disagree with your upcoming official decisions do not feel comfortable speaking in public or are simply too scared to voice their opinions for fear of reprisal we can't turn back time those who are strongly advocating for the return to the school names are primarily alumni of those schools back when they were named after Confederate generals they want those times back to avoid scary change to return to a simpler and easier time those who are presently students there have attended Mountain View High School for their entire academic years what kind of message would it send to them loud voices lots of money and power can get their way anger prevails is that the type of lesson we want our students to learn is that part of the
027curriculum is that tested on the SS perhaps we need to demonstrate to our students that adults are not afraid to accept change no matter how painful and scary it might be it's the same with the transgender policy we can't turn back in time it might feel comfortable and safe a desire to protect the normal kids the ones like us but you protecting the wrong students the trans students are the ones who need to be safe we can't shove those who are LGBT Q back into the closet as they were years ago the policy you are proposing and will vote on tonight is cruel and out of touch with reality humanity and compassion should Prevail let's model kindness for our students isn't that the lesson we want our students to learn perhaps we need to put
028the past back into the past where it belongs time to move forward keep the Civil War back in the 19th century where it belongs time to look at the present and recognize that it is our reality the world has changed no matter how hard we try to change it is this the message we want that we want to look backwards and not forward thank you Sarah Kors thank you for allowing me to speak on agenda item 4.4 my name is Sarah Nichols Kors I'm an alumni of Stonewall Jackson I'm a parent of students who attend North Fork and Mountain View I'm also a Community member in District to like many in this room my ancestors came to this country and this County in 1700s the same even said for many African-American friends here as well
029only their ancestors came enslaved if we claim only Confederate heritage then we also claim as just enslavement of thousands in C in this County the selling of them as cattle we also claim as just the rise of the KKK and the county holding a clan day at the fair in the 20s and separating African-American and Hispanic children from the white children for learning in public elementary school we also claim as just forcing those same kids to leave our County in order to earn their diploma we claim as just building a white only High School and then during Brown versus Board Massive Resistance naming it after a confederate general in the ' 50s and then also remembering that we cannot separate these things apart from the Heritage we want to claim here tonight ultimately we are
030all neighbors just weeks ago we rallied around firefighters during recent wildfires and that's what I hope we focus on here tonight what kind of neighbors do we want to be because how we treat all of our neighbors is far more important than being right about a process what Legacy do we want to lead to our children do we want them to keep fighting a civil war or do we want to focus on cultivating a community that's founded or what we hold in common choosing to be a good neighbor takes courage but the United States of America is filled with people of Courage consider all of the US veterans in our County Today some here tonight they took an oath of Allegiance the same one that Jackson Ash and Lee broke when they fought against our
031country the one they were supposed to defend why should we continue to honor such men over today's veterans who are examples of real character and loyalty Nostalgia and tradition should never triumph over freedom and Justice you have the information you need all of it to make the very best decision and you know what you're right you are the ones who have the authority to make this decision to focus on the issues that you want to the but I want you to remember just because you can doesn't mean that you should the rep repercussions from being the first public school to revert to their Confederate names will Ripple in negative ways across this country and one of you wisely noted that African-Americans were never given a real apology in our community consider what your actions will
032be like for them as well as the veterans and as well as the 6.6% pushing you in this issue of restoration please keep Mountain View and Honey Run Dro this issue our community deserves peace thank you Joseph cour good afternoon oh good afternoon I am Joseph Kors a sophomore for Mountain View and I urge you to support keeping the current school names and not pursue agenda item 4.4 after a year of lessening community tension and a positive outlook for the future of the schools out of nowhere this naming issue has been brought back to life a majority of the student body and faculty wish for this debate to end and for people to move on with the current names students including myself will be applying to colleges in the next few years and Incredibly controversial
033names like Stow Jackson do no good on college applications additionally should second renaming uh should the second renaming be prevented our community would put pressure on other parts of the county or country to move away from tendous names and themes if the names are reverted it will create a seemingly unending cycle of renaming breaking the community for indefinite amount of time please end this Strife by opting to close this issue at valvo thank you ngie P good evening board members my name is Angie P good evening board members my name is Angie p and I'm an alumina of Stonewall Jackson High School class of 1999 and a parent of a current Stonewall Jackson Senior and upcoming eighth grader at northw medal School I have spent my entire life in New Market attending all three southern
034end campus schools my year spent at Stonewall still holds some of my Fondest Memories I was a cheerleader for all four years I can stand here today and believe firmly that there was not an issue one with our school's name as so Jackson High School it was never about hate or slavery or Injustice for anyone however what I can tell you was there was a lot of pride in our school I find it unbelievable that some of my fellow classmates that I Stood Beside in the classroom or on the field have supported the name change from Stonewall Jackson high school I know for a fact they wore that name with pride and honor and now they've turned their backs to have it changed many left and came back only forgetting where they came from my
035daughter who is now a senior at Stonewall decided not to get a class ring because she wanted stoneball Jackson and not Mountain View she also made the decision to keep her FFA jacket the way it was with Stonewall Jackson on the back during the fair week our kids marked through Mountain View Mountain View High School on their name stalls and put Stonewall Jackson only to show the community that they were proud to be from Stonewall Jackson that board members is what I call Pride not hate or whatever else others want to call it I'm asking each of you to really consider what our community including our kids want and change our Southern school names back I will always be proud to be a Stonewall Jackson General and I hope my children have the same [Applause]
036opportunity Mike shy good evening chairman Barlo and members of the board uh my name is Mike shyy from quicksburg Virginia um I have uh pained out a document um that I have written up for you um with some recent research um regarding cases by the state uh Supreme Court of Virginia that in regards to um virtual meetings and processes during the pandemic um you'll see on those two those two court cases that I've listed that um anything that was considered nonemergency or related to the emergency which in this case was the um was the pandemic so anything not related to the pandemic was not permitted to be done and the only other thing that was was normal business by the school boards the general running of the of the board um the school or the
037county so those two recent court cases will show that um upon litigation uh all those decisions were vacated uh by the Supreme Court of Virginia so um I'm here to talk about the process um the the violation of the open meetings act um that is part of the Constitution of Virginia and Virginia code occurred during those virtual meetings here in 20 2020 and 2021 our current score or our board at that time did the same exact thing so that is something legally that um you know this could be looked at but um I'm really not here to talk about the legacy of names or anything I'm here to uh address a critical issue that lies at the heart of our Republic the role of we the people in local government when our voices are ignored
038the very fabric of our system unravel this future this failure impacts our fundamental understanding of our own governance Action Now is essential in restoration of our Collective faith in the local electorate our government derives its legitimacy legitimacy from us the citizens the Constitution begins with these three powerful words we the people this phrase signifies our shared responsibility our Collective agency and our right to shape our Collective Destiny local government operates close to our daily lives it manages schools roads Etc when local officials dismiss our concerns they undermine the very essence of our constitution the Constitution that our board and others took an oath to defend restoration of school names is imper is imperative in recognizing not only the local Heritage but the importance of the voice of of people in our community in conclusion we
039the people are not passive observers We Are The Architects of our country and let us collectively do what is right here by restoring the names thank you and may your voices echo through the holes of history in shanadoo County Luther is it Santa Mr chairman and other board members my name is Luther santiful and I reside in District 2 at 758 Lance Road in Edinburgh I feel that our Southern campus schools are in a good place right now all students can attend school and feel proud of their schools and the school names recent Mountain View High School graduates are gaining interest into some Elite colleges like Harvard which indicates that the the education at Mountain View is not too shabby when alumni apply for college or employment they no longer get the funny look when
040the reviewer sees the name of the high school they attended do we really want to throw away the names associated with with a cuses mucon setting visions of Mountain View and hunting run bring to mind sugar plum flap fairies daisies mountain climbing camping hiking fishing the Mystique of honeybees all visions that are far more pleasant than War killing and Mayhem there are people in this County working very hard to in increase the economic base so that our citizens can afford and or receive the services expected in today's economy the idea to revert to controversial school names is not helpful my son and I are involved in a wiy tour business you know tourism and agriculture most of our customers come from Pennsylvania as we ride through the beautiful shanor County Countryside they often remark about
041the number of Confederate flags they see some will whisper about them and others will actually ask why they are so prevalent we try to put the best face on it and tell them that this is is an historic area although there are museums here some individuals feel the need to express their solidarity with the Confederacy the next question they ask is what is it like to live here we again put our best face on it and we tell them that there are a lot of good people in this County people that will go out of their way to do anything to help anybody for example we know people that uh get confused about the flag they they like the flag and flat and seat pick up trucks running down street with a Confederate flag on
042one side and American flag on the other side and for some reason they don't know that is it is incompatible to serve or honor both of those flags at the same time Mr sful you're over time already all right the bottom line is I can assure you that there is sub substantial support in District to to keep the names as they are so thanks for listening thank you Lind good evening Dr Shephard chairman Barlo and sish board members my name is Linda kic and I live in Edinburg I grew up here when I was young moved to man Manasses and my teens I graduated from Stonewall Jackson in Manasses my two brothers graduated from the stonewalls here in the shanor county after graduation I worked for Prince W County schools for 43 years I happenly
043returned to my lifelong routs here in the valley the love for this County and our schools run deep in my family even after 50 years plus we still wear our high school name proudly remembering the support of all students that we had with each other and in August of 2020 I stood right here before the board and shared my thoughts and feelings why this County should keep Stonewall Jackson's name as well as the others but sadly it fell to deaf ears the previous board didn't listen to the countless people who stood here and spoke who wrote letters who sent emails pleading with the board not to change the school name the process was as you know rush through and I believe some underhanded dealings were at foot they said it was only a name it
044offends some people this is the valley history no matter how hard you tried you can't rewrite it or erase it as a taxpayer of this County and a US citizen I am tired of all the woke individuals who are eating away at our values our morals our God-fearing way of life and it's just another example of a handful of individuals getting what they want the squeaky wheel you as board members took an oath to be the voice of the people be our voice listen to the majority vote the people's voice reinstate our school names and last but not least I want to say I fully support my recard on the gender identify policy leave that be blessed and thank you for your time Virginia Rosen good evening it's time to correct a mistake that was
045made in 2020 it's a moment to remember who we are the school names have a much deeper meaning than what is on the surface it's not about the negative things you've heard but it's a story of the human spirit so what does it mean to be a general to be a general means doing your best and being your best and showing the world What You're Made Of even when the odds are against you it's instilled in all of us it's our identity it's who we are it's about resolve and perseverance this is something no one can understand unless you were there it's about being the underdog and making the best of any situation it's about teams is going on to win stay tiles because of grit courage and determination it's a fine Spirit which prepares
046you to take on any challenge it's about a community that comes together to make our school a better place it's also about sportsmanship and dignity in the face of defeat you carry it with you it gives you the strength to never give up it's also about a young man lying alone in a hospital not knowing if he will live or die drawing strength in the stories of Stonewall Jackson and channeling It ultimately saving his life then later going on to give back to his community so that others will never forget and be inspired just as he was in the face of overwhelming ODS it was his gift to all of us it's about me making lemonade when life gives you lemons I see this fine spirit in my community it's a shared quality we are
047more alike than we are different this is the story of Stonewall Jackson High School remember who you are we will get through this and come out better on the other side from the words of Stonewall Jackson you may be whatever you resolve to be what a great school model that would be do the right thing and restore the names thank you Ronda Richard good evening Dr Shephard chairman Marlo and board members my name is Ronda Richard and I live in District 2 I would like to ask the board to support the transgender policy presented by Mr rer I would like to thank you all for putting the name change informational on your informational agenda tonight your actions show that you you are allowing all citizens to be heard unlike the last board Mary Payne and
048then student from Central High School collected signatures online wanning the names of our Southern schools changed this online I generated approximately 2200 names the majority of those names are not even from the state much less this County states included were California New York just to name a few was that petition true true Testament of what the people of shanidar County wanted I don't think it was the past School Board listened to her and the other W people that think they the letters on the building cause harm that is like saying Firearms should be banned because they kill people we know how abort that statement is do the days leading up to the name change many many spoke in favor of changing the names but I dare say more spoke out against we were not listened
049to a voices were not heard we were betrayed and lied to April of 2022 we circulated a petition asking District Two representative and chair chair board Marty Hy to vote in favor of restoring the names we only had two weeks to to collect and only and and collected signatures of those in District 1 and two along with students of of the high school we collected 139 student signatures ranging from grade 8 through 12 so so some of those are still in school and 377 voters SL stakeholders again our voice was not heard that vote dropped with a 3 to three I am sharing that petition with the board this evening Community input in the letter sent to the board by the group claim the names they state that 86% of stakeholders from the southern campus
050didn't complete or fill out the survey that they are the silent majority are they really 133% cared enough to respond we don't give consideration to voters that choose not to vote nor should the Coalition Coalition that did the survey votes matter the Coalition cannot force someone to complete the survey and return it does that mean they want the name kept as it is or does that mean they didn't receive one forgot to put it back on in the mail or the doll B who knows you know the old saying about assuming well I'll just leave that there how many emails you received from stakeholders saying that they never received the survey but want the names restored remember that the last board was only able to $36,000 toward the name change after lying to us all
051that board reappropriated $268,800 [Music] have happened there sorry I dare say it didn't Fred n evening folks thanks for letting me speak my name is Fred I'm from district one in New Market I held from holog Halls of stall Jackson first I'd like to thank school board for straightening out the bus situation in district one and especially Mr harlo because you received a brunt of this from phone calls from my daughters it was crazy for them to have to get on the bus at 7:00 a.m. and not getting off to five so thank you all for fixing that problem next I'd like to support the transgender policy of Mr Ricker and uh on the names the schools Mountain views are down a dozen they're everywhere and Honey Run being a farm boy Tom you maybe
052you can relate to this I think of a honeywagon it is let's let's get back to the book learning the three Rs our children need to learn respect in honor speaking of Honor there were no more honorable people than Turner Ashby Robert E Lee and Stonewall Jackson Let's do what was right for shenol County and your store of school names or heritage and our identity you can fix what the previous war tore apart and I expect you to a quote my father and late classmates excuse me Cindy Dinger you so often War supervisor seems fitting now D the Torpedoes supp to be ah here P Murphy good evening thank you all for being here I know you're getting paid a lot of money job I'm Pat Murphy I live in New Market um I did
053get a survey and I filled it out but I didn't put my name because I was afraid somebody would come after me because I didn't agree with the name change going back so just excuse me can't hear you I can't I can't speak okay from a definition of public school I worked for shenoa County for 23 years as counselor Robinson um I was from Pennsylvania and all I knew about Virginia was slavery that's all I ever heard of it now that I've been here for half of my life I see that there's so many other great things about Virginia but I still have my quals um being in northerner is not a problem when I worked at the schools except for one teacher who unfortunately uh had a bumper sticker on her desk that said
054do the north a fa do the South a favor give a northerner a ticket home so that really didn't sit well with me I thought that was kind of rude especially for a teacher to have it on her desk put on your car if you want okay definition of public school an inclusive respectful learning environment all students are valued regardless of race or background that's from the dictionary I didn't make that up okay how can all students be valued if a school is named for white supremacists who excuse me who tried to violently overthrow the government and to pressure for slavery during the Civil War Stonewall Jackson says slavery was sanctioned by God and he purchased a slave to as a gift to his wife Lee also said slavery is necessary and ordered by God
055okay we can commemorate exceptional military skills and soldiers and pride as general soldiers that's wonderful but naming a public school after Confederates slavery proponents does not provide an inclusive environment for our students I agree with putting up statues in private land museums all of that to show the pride of this area in Virginia but God doesn't sanction slavery I don't think let's celebrate the South for all the good things by please staying with the names that have been changed thank you for your time Bob Smith you know I don't understand why we're doing and you forgot this here I believe here I don't understand why we have black people sitting in this audience right here they need to be out of here and excluded from this meeting we don't allow black people to be included
056anymore oh this is 1924 isn't it or 2 oh it's 2024 I forgive you we've come a long way haven't we we have come a long way where we can all sit and talk about what we think and feel but we've got to be able to to do this in a way that isn't continuing to go back to the way it us be Mr Smith yes you're not supposed to be addressing the audience I'm sorry I'll turn this way they can I can block The View I just think that what we're doing here whenever we're looking at the transgender issue is we're sitting back and allowing ourselves to discriminate against students you're sitting back ready ready to make a policy that discriminates against another human being you're going away from any possibility of being Humane
057towards another human being no because you got the old way of thinking about them we can't we've got to exclude the transgender from all these AC oh we can't even go to this bath we'll make the you know what you don't even see the damage you're doing to those individuals that are transgender you don't even see it they have to ask my government is against me my school is against me my room my uh other students are against me because the school board made a policy that allows that to happen that allows them to suffer that allows them to sit back and and feel bad about themselves we have if you look at the figures around this country you see that over half of the number of people that have had the bullying done to
058them the crime is up everything else against bullying because of the policy being adopted Across the Nation it's a shame to sit there and say oh yeah but that's the way I grew up that's the way I feel that's my religion it's not just your religion you're just one part of this Community you can't discriminate against another part of this community you can't sit back and do the damage to those kids I've seen it when I was a teacher in Arlington County we had 48 students that were transgender there and they're discriminating the pain and the emotion when they come to you and they talk to you and they say to you why is this happening to me I'm trying to find out what's going on and you're making policy decisions on the lives of
059these people think about what you're doing whenever you're doing this I tell you this I have my oldest grandchild is transgender I know what I'm talking about in this issue I urge you to not adopt policy you got J V good evening can everybody hear me my name is jool len I'm a registered voter in Shena County district one and I'm speaking to agenda item 4.4 the first point to address is why the school board is willing to entertain the issue of renaming the schools based on a very poorly conceived piece of junk mail when I found this mail in my mailbox I did a Google search to see who the Coalition for better schools represents since I was unable to find any information and being unwilling to share my personal information with an unknown
060source it went into the recycling bin the thought did occur to me can't these people find a more positive way to spend their time and their resources I'm a 1970 graduate of Stonewall Jackson High School my husband is a 1971 graduate of Stonewall Jackson High School although he is six months older he graduated a year later because when sheno County Schools were integrated all the African-American students who were transferred from Creek Creekside Elementary in Woodstock were held back one year imagine if that had happened to you or to your child that pretty well negates the separate but equal argument don't you think this evening I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the prior School Board who made the difficult and unpopular decision to change the school names thank you to the students and
061the citizens who have worked to research these issues and shared their knowledge so generously to support and defend that decision thank you to the committee who found the inclusive and unifying names to move our schools forward your efforts are truly appreciated to those who continue to insist that the school names be changed back I would ask how does the sentimental attachment to your high school Glory Days on a football field basketall basketball court or baseball diamond take priority over the systemic discrimination and Injustice perpetrated over many years by the Commonwealth of Virginia shenoa County the sheno County school system and this school board tonight you have the opportunity to make a small attempt to do the right thing and keep the names Mountain View High School and honeyrun Elementary School I think they are actually
062perfect Jay Jared I'm Jay Jarrett a retired retired teacher from Stonewall Jackson high school there stands Jackson like a stone wall rally I'm talking loud there stands Jackson like a stone wall rally behind the Virginia we have all heard that phrase before but we should be more familiar with our history because because much of it happened right here not just in Virginia but in shanoa County the Battle of New Market numerous skirmishes around Mount Jackson Edinburg and Woodstock the Cavalry battle at Tom's Brook fiser Hill the strawsburg Train Robbery Cedar Creek soldiers and livestock coming back from Gettysburg on the valley Pike the Mount Jackson Hospital the Summers and CS execution those of us who call Stonewall Jackson High School home have a further opportunity to learn because after the federal victory at kernstown General
063Stonewall Jackson retreated to roods hill with an excellent defensive position and gathered his troops to fight again you know where rud's Hill is less than a mile from the school on 11 eventually Stonewall had 6,000 soldiers there plus equipment and horses Kenny's store would certainly be crowded at this time the house which was Stow Wall's command post Locust Road is still standing at the valley Pike those troops were at ruds Hill April 2nd through 17 1862 2 that's 162 years ago this week there is so much history in our County and it is very interesting to trace back our great great grandfathers and find out what Brigade he fought in where he fought was he ever awall or injured my wife who is from North Carolina found out that her great great grandfather who was
064in the 45th North Carolina infant tree was in the Battle of Cedar Creek he was injured and brought to Woodstock where he died and was buried in Woodstock we have we had lived here 25 years before we knew that we need to celebrate our history The Good the Bad the Ugly some of you were born here some of us moved here some of my best friends are even Yankees we need to investigate and celebrate our history instead of tearing it down Mr Jared your members of the school board I respectfully ask that you vote to restore the historical names of the schools on the southern campus Glen o good evening everyone my name is Glenn Ogle and I'm a registered voter of District 2 I have two daughters one that goes to honeyrun and one
065that goes to Northfork I have two points I'd like to make first I'm shocked that the school board has entertaining a conversation based on an unsanctioned survey that was sent out by an organization who main agenda has always been to restore the names why wouldn't this survey be sent out to all County residents all districts um why isn't this something that the school board would send out we actually got the survey it had Confederate journals on the survey why would I fill something out that is not from this body I wouldn't went in the trash if you all would have sent it most likely would have filled it out send it in um my second point is is Robert E Lee Stonewall Jackson and Turner Ashby proudly fought for it and led an army under
066the Confederate flag Stonewall has Stonewall was so proud that he wanted to be buried with that flag known as the stainless Banner we see that with our Armed Forces now right they always drap the flag over the cin um and right now I can respect that I respect that I respect this flag I never disrespected this flag it stands for Liberty freedom and for everyone right um every Soldier dies protecting those freedoms and Liberties just as Jackson did at that time for the Confederacy um but there's a difference between the two um the flag of United States of America America symbolizes equality freedom and justice for all the stainless Banner was adopted as the flag of the Confederacy in 1863 it's the flag that was draped over stonell Jackson's coffin and a replica of it
067is hung at Stone at uh Mountain View for decades it's the same flag that was dedicated to the Confederacy with these words as a people we are fighting to maintain the heaven ordained supremacy of the white man over the inferior or colored race I've got time I'll read that back it says as a people we are fighting to maintain the heaven ordained supremacy of the white man over the inferior or colored race that's the meaning of that flag that's draped over stonell Jackson that is what you want my two kids to go to every day fighting to maintain this Legacy is a fight for white supremacy that is the legacy of the Confederacy and will be the legacy of this County should the names be restored I urge you all not to change those names
068back thank you [Applause] Dennis Atwood a moment please before the clock runs moment please before the clock runs I came with a black and white sheet to uh with my notes and the effort to First restrict and then restore the minutes appreciating doing that it now looks like a Jackson Paul piece of a part so anyway two edits along the way thank you all right I am Dennis Atwood I reside in Mor town I've been following Shannon DOA County School Board activities for about 40 years and I've never seen an agenda quite like this one with the same item policy on gender identity on both the informational and action portions and an item in initiated by an anonymous group providing the results of a flawed survey that they claim resulted in about 2300 folks favoring
069restoring Confederate generals names for our schools 2,300 in a population of about 35,000 aged 18 and over that's a whopping 6 and a half% shing the names of Confederate leaders from public schools reached a peak nationally in 2020 and 2021 why because the impact of white supremacy y on black lives was brought into sharp focus by an event in broad daylight captured on video nine minutes and 29 seconds of police officer Derek Shan's knee on George Floyd's neck 9 minutes and 29 seconds I challenge you to watch that it's on YouTube a murder witnessed by other police officers and civilians that shock engendered thousands of local and state actions collectively called National racial Reckoning and there is a national context National racial Reckoning yes even in districts one and two are part of Virginia and
070Virginia is post 1865 a part of the USA the shanoa County School Board joined dozens of Public School Systems across Virginia and hundreds Across the Nation in taking the proper policy leadership and Justice action to shed the names of Confederate leaders from their schools we should continue to honor those actions taken by the County school board members Karen Wetzel Marty Hesley Cindy Walsh Michelle Manning shabelle Shelby Klein and Andrew mil excuse me Andrew Kelly and superintendent Mark Johnson they really did the right thing even though they've been criticized and chastised they've held virtual meetings because of a public health emergency called covid-19 they didn't want more people to get sick more recently by the way VMI decided to relocate the very large statue of Stonewall Jackson from its campus to the Virginia Museum of the
071Civil War in New Market a proper place bearing a grudge over procedure is the last Refuge of folks who are on the wrong side of facts policies and principles that's the cover story stated by the groups like citizens for better schools when you can't win on policy and principle do not let this go further for the sake of our St students faculty administrators and the reputation of our county in the United States of America thank you Alan doson good evening school board members and Dr shepher my name is Alan doson I live in District 2 Edinburg Hamburg area I am a 65 graduate from Stonewall Jackson high school I support the mik record gender identity policy I also support restoring the names of my schools on the southern campus I'd like to read a letter
072from Mike wman who lives in Edinburgh and could not be here this evening he's right I would like to start by thanking the school board for your recent work in regard to crafting the next school budget I especially appreciate your efforts to balance School needs along with a concern for the taxpayer concerning the name change issue my concern lies more with the manner in which this process was conceived and implemented then with the actual names themselves you will be inundated tonight with a variety of facts and figures both pro and con seeking to influence your ultimate decision I choose to stick to the basics and would submit the following the decision to change names made by the former board considered no account of public opinion it was arbitrarily made based on personal opinion and remains
073highly unpopular the board that made that decision is gone primarily because of that choice and like-minded thinkers who were your opponents on Election Day failed miserably citizens chose the six of you based on your intellect and the common sense approach they knew you would bring to the board the overwhelming majority favors changing the names back that was decided in November all that is necessary now is your validation thank you Mike Ed waitman Edinburg Virginia thank you very much Emily Scott good evening members of the board Dr shepher I can't believe we're here again Mountain View and Honey Run are great names for schools there's nothing wrong with them they don't offend anybody I think they're fantastic fortunately I went to Central I didn't have to go to St Jackson but I'd like to talk a
074minute about right and wrong and I think we have to look and all agree perhaps that Insurrection treason discrimination they're all wrong and when we go back and change the names of the school to honor insurrectionists and traitors we might want to think a little bit about what's right and what's wrong we don't want to honor insurrectionists and traitors essentially Confederate generals were just that they would have been hanged without the grace of General Grant and President Lincoln so when we go back and we name our institutions for insurrectionists and Traders we're simply saying we're proud of being racists we're proud of being being provincial we want to stay out of step with the rest of society we want to go backwards we don't want to go forwards might as will put up a banner
075that says welcome to shador county home of racists and insurrectionists and we're proud of thank you very much Pam Steptoe everyone my name is of all thank you for allowing us all to speak and um giving voice to our passions obviously on both sides of this issue um my name is Pam stepto I am a graduate of Stonewall Jackson High School class of 1981 I was the president of the student body um I was in state government um and this was a great place to grow up and to live flawed but a wonderful place my family's lived in this Valley for over 100 years um they liveed through it all um they lived um so I'm here to speak on behalf of myself and my mother um my family's grown up in the market for
076over 100 years we were here through the days of Jim Crow separate but equal and the 200 years of slavery that ensued um I'd just like to ask all of you we're all talking here about um the greatness of the of the generals in our history but I would present to you if you were not white this would never be an issue if if if a vast majority of this County was other than white we wouldn't be here the school never would have been named sternal Jackson and if it had been this would the vement challenge you this is not about how I felt when I was in high school I love my classmates I had a great time but what we're talking about is what we're telling or what we're holding forward for these
077kids who are growing up right now not us our time is done our heydays are done we were Generals or we weren't these people are going to be from Honey Run and Mountain View hopefully they'll get a good education um I just want you to know that there's no fondness for people who are not white for the Confederacy for slavery for being treated like cattle traded families broken apart and through ensuing J Pro and living in New Market even in the 60s not being able to get a loan when all of the white families were able to get Al loan this is systemic for the county and I was thrilled to see that this School Board decided to make a change what I would love to see however is for us to focus our time
078on what we can do to ensure that the students coming up grow up in inclusive inspired and encompassing academic experience and I would hope that we could use our time and our energy to support the schools the teachers and all of the academic um Endeavors for our children to make sure that they have the best education possible Duke maccaffrey chairman Barlo members of school board mcaffry PG um we live in a different world it seems like it's changing faster and faster and so I did something a little bit unconventional today I decided that before I come and speak out like I have the last several months I probably ought to try to get a larger perspective on things so I decided to listen to podcasts all day about transgender people and how they transitioned some
079of them were about people that had transitioned and then we're transitioning back and um I think it's only fair that we try to at least inform ourselves what's going on as I'm sure all of you all have been for the last couple months as you have debated this um transition or transgender policy it's just part of the world that we live in and unfortunately because transgenderism and and all these different issues are part of the world we live in it does require foresight on your's part I mean it it people say Well it may not be a problem now well we have to look forward to what what could happen what what is going to happen and so while Governor Yan's policy and his model policies that have been suggested for every school board to
080adopt but also saying look we we encourage you all to even go more in depth in this um while they are a step in the right direction I rise in support to uh Mike Ricker's version of this this transgender policy we must take a stand in these perilous days to to keep our schools from being a place where our kids could be prayed upon like in Lon counties um it's just part of the world that we live in we have to as adults as people that are in Authority we have to make sure that we separate our young girls and our young boys in their bathrooms we know that in the high schools there's all sorts of issues going on anyway in regards to sexuality we are in a hypersexualized culture um our Sports um
081they they they need to be fair especially for a young women who um they're enjoying the benefits of those people that have gone before them and and have worked hard for women to be able to have opportunities in in the workplace and in sports and everything else and so we need to protect our women and our young women from having to compete against a former male somebody that was a biological male that may be much stronger and may injure them these are all things that our foresight has to look forward to in the policy and lastly I just want to say you're worried about the legal challenges on this just imagine the implications that could ensue if you do nothing and someone gets hurt like in love thank you Kelly St good evening folks my
082name is Kelly St I live in New Market and a few things here two things I'd like to uh speak on this evening the first is I would like to speak in support of Mr Ricker's version of the gender identity policy seems to me that Mr R's version produced or will produce a safer more solid policy and I hope the board will give Mr Rickards version some serious consideration moving forward second thing regarding the um Southern campus school name changes I was personally never in favor of the changes of the name changes and then you know with the Stonewall graduate from Stonewall 1980 and just I just wasn't I wasn't into the uh the name change however I think think the matter really is a lot larger to do with that and it has more
083to do with the process um the process process by which the name changes took place it felt fell most dirty you know hidden behind the co Veil it's the way I perceived it and uh I don't think the community had a chance at all to provide input um based on the statistical information that I'm seeing I'm not sure if some of the folks Stewart are you back there share some of the some of the numbers of signatures that um that have been obtained I'm not sure that we're getting that that that that we're being heard here um I'd like to encourage the board to evening to take a look at their Community listen to our voices take a look at the numbers and feel good about the process of um changing the name back um
084we just weren't Hur heard at all to begin with and I'd like you to just you know consider our voices this evening please um that's it I thank you for allowing me to speak a little bit thank [Applause] you Carolyn Long Carolyn Long district one thank you for the opportunity to speak um I you've had eloquent speakers on both sides um regarding um the agenda item 4.3 I wrote each of you a very personal lengthy letter and I would ask you to remember that letter I will not share those personal comments in public but you I was trusting you with that information and the idea that our students have to be protected from transgender students the belief if you want to know what students are being harmed in our school systems across the country you
085don't have to delve very deep regarding the name change I I have always been a person that wanted to stay in touch with what my elected officials were doing both nationally Statewide and countywide and certainly the school board and so the idea that that issue with the name I wrote my school board members with my opinions I attended the meetings and I spoke because I knew from reading the newspapers and staying in touch that this issue was coming before the school board there have been many times when things have escaped me was I was not paying attention and I don't go say oh they were Plain Dirty they did it behind my back they didn't let us know if I knew in District one getting the Northern Virginia Daily listening to the local news about
086the name change than anyone else in this area could have I wrote each of you a very short message yesterday you have been charged with the education of the students in shanida County how how will changing the name of mountain and view Mountain View and Honey Run how will they benefit the students in those schools if you change the names how are the students we're not talking about the parents we're not talking about the grandparents we're talking about the students that you serve how will they benefit thank you P pause P BX I saw for you're earlier there she is thank you all for for holding this hearing and I think it's a very necessary thing that you're doing um what I want to say to you and I did write you all a letter
087and I haven't heard anything back but I'm kind of reiterating what I had in that letter and so here's what I wrote down and I'm going to read it school you were all elected to the school board to care for the well-being of thousands of shannona County children they are children they require responsible adult guidance that's the job you signed up for and were elected for believing I could ever change myself from a girl into a real boy by cutting out body parts that I could never get back and taking a permanent bunch of drugs to make me into a male person I think this would be a destructive mental problem if I believ that if I justify this one what about all the other ones psychological intervention is used hopefully end up with a
088person who knows real from make believe that has been the Medical Response for many unhappy people who don't like the reality of their lives this idea is a fairy tale but unlike Cinderella it's very destructive and it is irreversible these are children so that's what I came to say and now we've heard so much about history and Virginia's history and I am a Virginia and I'm very proud of it and I'm proud of The Men Who defended Virginia 150 years ago they fought bravely they were defending their home and that's what you did 150 years ago and it was probably hard for some of them to make that decision but that's what they were doing they were defending Virginia and Virginia wasn't perfect but neither was the rest of the world and I'm tired of
089hearing America take the brunt of all of this slavery stuff because slavery was worldwide and it is still being practiced in many places today not here as demonstrated by the intelligent and educated black people in this room so the world has changed and people are now going to school together and they're doing very well that's it Bill Scott members of the School board chairman Barlo superintendent uh shephard I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak but I think it's most unfortunate that we have to go back and relitigate something that's already been settled the names mountainin View and Honey Run are beautiful names they reflect the beauty of the shador valley they are not controversial they do not raise images of people being abused and don't tell me that slavery was not abusive
090and yes Stonewall Jackson Turner Ashby and Robert E Lee were defending the institution of slavery and white supremacy okay there is no argument about that people say it's about State's rights but yes it was about a state's right to practice slavery into allow it we do not need to celebrate that Heritage there are no there are no statues to adol Hitler but we don't say we're raceing history because we don't have statues or named buildings in this country after another racist and someone who tried to enslave the Jewish population of Germany now on the transgender policy nobody chooses to be trans I have a gay son in a same-sex marriage he didn't choose to be same-sex oriented either any more than I chose to be straight it's just a fact of life and so is
091being trans nobody chooses to be sigh impaired no one chooses to have a heart condition but we do what we can to correct those maladies there was a comment about putting a millstone around the neck of people who uh cause children to sin changing somebody's body correctly to their psych iology that's not a sin teaching children to hate and to celebrate parts of our history that we're doing just that that's a sin thank you Carrie hman Carrie good evening my name my name is Carrie hman and I'm a voter in District 2 first I'd like to see that I support my recruits transgender policy I'd also like to speak to you just a moment on restoring the names of Stonewall Jackson high school and Ash Elementary School I currently have three students or three children
092who are students one is a senior who was present in at stall Jackson High School when it was still ston Jackson High School so we do still have children in the school that was there when it was still St Jackson High School just so it wasas clear on that um I have one in northw who will be a freshman next year and I have a daughter in Ashby Le I myself am a proud graduate of St Jackson High School class of 99 and I'd like for you all to consider restoring the names of both of those schools thank you Bill wine speaking of this like Elvis uh Bill wine a resident of shano County for whatever since my high school years I came from L County back when it still had common sense and culture
093uh I I I'm just I'm just flabbergast I'm I've been a historian my entire adult life actually started with the high school and uh and a lot of it was spawn by Civil War history and there are some things that I've heard here tonight that that I've been surprised to hear some things I've heard that are somewhat appalling you know things that were shared as as legitimate truth and I I came here to suggest to you to consider restoring the names of the high schools mainly because of the rich history that is tied in with these three generals and I bestow honor upon them even though they probably were they probably were racist that was the culture of the day you know that was just the mindset it wasn't because they were were necessarily evil
094men that was just a mindset and that was a mindset long after the Civil War and that was a mindset of people in the north if you read about the Manhattan draft riots where unfortunately people newcomers to New York City were asked to serve in the union to go down south and you know who they targeted they unfortunately targeted blackowned businesses and people and a lot of people lost their lives tragically now that is racist and that's just the whole Civil War thing was an ugly situation there were funny situations and there were ugly situations and in this County very little slavery there was some but very little a lot of Germans here and I would just I would just like to say the people that lived here at that time knew that there was
095a coming conflict and they had to prepare themselves they weren't going to take it lying down and eventually this the union came to Virginia to fight us and we had to defend ourselves my ancestors and you know when they they insult these guys they're insulting my ancestors as well as so many others in this room we are the descendants of of Virginians that called this place home for hundreds of years years and I would just like you to consider that the other side made some legitimate points and I'll give them credit for that very legitimate points and I think that those that would like to see the names restored have also made some as well thank you for your [Applause] time Ronda zing well this meeting has brought out many people who do not see
096eye to eye but the room isn't divided into good moral people and evil immoral people people on different sides can be caring and courageous just like people in this room it would have been true in this country during the Civil War winning the war didn't make Northerners heroic and Southerners demonic Confederate history is full of people who bravely served and sacrificed but that is no reason to memorialize them with their names on our schools because the same history that recognizes their Valor recognizes that they fought for a way of life that deserved defeat it was contrary to Liberty contrary to freedom to equal protection under law to basic human decency there is no way to uphold their names without invoking the white supremacy they defended the request you have to restore these names ask you
097to acknowledge the historical context and cultural significance these code words might mislead some but not many most of us know about that history and culture I suspect that's why most of us who receive survey cards from this Coalition refuse to dignify them with a response so you have an unreliable survey conducted by people who had an act to grind and you'd be wise to deny their request with the time remaining let me mention two groups whose rights are at risk as you vote on gender identity policy tonight one of those is parents whose voices you would only honor if supported by mandatory documentation from outside the family and then approved by this board the intent to uphold parental rights seems to bypass them they matter too the other group is those students in homes with
098parents who are threatening them over gender or sexuality unless they actually wish to kill themselves they cannot turn to anyone at school for safety or support because apart from risk of suicide their abusive parents will be told to adopt that and claim concern for the well-being of all students is a major misstep I think these problems could be addressed and fixed and I hope you will consider how to do that thank you John is it CCH yes sir I have my leg broken in so I'm moving kind of slow but I appreciate the time and we have heard a lot of uh folks thank you very much for listening to us um As Americans where we don't live our lives without controversy my dad was from Pennsylvania and my mom was a southerner and a
099rebel in every sense of the word I'm married to a Virginia and she dragged me up here 3 years ago we live in New Market we love it think about controversies that brings people out and people get very impassionate and compassionate in December 2020 after that horrific death of George Floyd an army buddy of mine sent me a book written by a man named Manning Johnson I suggest everybody pick a copy of it up it's it's titled color communism and common sense it's an interesting read this person was killed in one car accident in the state of California after he wrote the book but he had been a member of the Communist party in America for 10 years and when he saw what they were doing with race he denounced communism wrote the book and
100strange enough he dies the next year in a strange car accident yeah things did happen as far as slavery goes my last name is cotch it's Slavic the word slave came from is a derivative of Slavic my ancestors who for a thousand years were were enslaved by the barar coast Pirates African tribes and Arabs the benan Arabs Thousand Years of Slavery I thank God every day that my ancestors left Croatia and came to America and raised seven children state of Pennsylvania my grandfather never spoke English but he worked in a steel foundry during World War II my aunts my uncles they fought Nazis they fought fought Japanese because they believed in this country when I swore an oath to uphold and defend the constitution in the United States of America I was doing the right
101thing I lost two buddies in the first golf war and many others in places like Afghanistan and Iraq and I can guarantee you this they would still raise their right hand because they loved this country there's no doubt that everybody in here loves this country when we talk about doing the right thing I try to all the time and my wife is the first one that will remind me when I do something that's not right but she's a lot like a voter she's tough cuz she's a Virginia she's smart cuz she was lucky enough to go to college at DCU and she's compassionate and I know this cuz she has let me off the hook many many times when I had made mistakes I'm at of time do the right thing let's write the mistake
102and if we have to reprocess let's do the process the right way thank you very much Michelle Nelson good evening thank you for the opportunity to speak um my um husband and I came to Virginia from Michigan about 25 years ago uh he was sent here with military duty he's finishing up a 34e distinguished career and at one point um led the Stonewall Brigade so I'd like to um just take a moment to remind everybody the rich history here we actually couldn't believe our luck when we were assigned to Virginia to be able to see some of the historical sit that are so rich here and you know a name is a name it it is just a name however I I want to caution everybody about forgetting the history my husband went to war
103college and I don't know if you guys realize that people from all over the world come to American universities to car Barracks to go to war College where they then get on a bus and they come to Cedar Grove and they study the military tactics in this region uh Stonewall Jackson Lieutenant General Jackson is a figure in history that is studied by people all over the world so I just want to caution everybody don't forget your history here it's a wonderful history and let's remember that people are busting from all over military figures not just from the United States but from other countries do come and study what went on in this country 150 200 years ago so let's not forget that this is an amazing place we love it here we are Damn Yankees
104that chose to stay and uh I I just want to make sure that people understand that you know the students themselves aren't really all that concerned about the name we as parents are we as people who who really respect the community really care about those names and honestly let's look at it I don't care about you know Napoleon bound heart but we still study him don't we would I go to a school if it was in my district it was named after Napoleon Shir because that's in my district my kids would go there but we still have to study the person because they were a part of history and they were important to the history so I just want to make sure everybody thinks about that before they poo poo bringing the name back I
105think it's a great idea to bring that name back and I thank you for your time and thank you again considering the voices of the the that live [Applause] here Billy Mullins good evening I want to thank scho boy for offering us this time and school superintendent um and it's I back there listening to the last people just speaking history I think that's what we've have failed to learn and to um to to grasp um I just recently saw a uh docy series on letter to the American church I highly suggest that you see it because the same thing that the Communists were doing prior to World War II we're witnessing it now right before our very eyes uh the breakdown of the nuclear family I mean that was one of the very tactics that
106was used uh they said that so many of the men were killed after World War I that Hitler's thing was I'll be your father and now we we have a government a federal government that want to legislate us down let me let me do everything for you you just sit over there we'll dictate to you at your local levels your school boards you know I think the worst thing had ever happened was whenever uh President Carter initiated the federal uh Department of Education uh it just took some much out of our hands and and put it at that level now there's so much bureaucracy that that gets filtered down we have to do and we can't afford it that's what we're looking at now um and I believe that that is one of the the
107driving forces the purpose for the gender identity thing if they can break up the family if they can have the families arguing which is the very backbone of our country uh they they've got a good a good um foothold on breaking this country down um I don't know if any of you are familiar with uh Saul Alinsky uh he wrote a book of the guidelines they called race radicals uh he explains the way that you break down a constitutional republic kind of government for the people that you just overwhelm it and you just have to look around and you can see at all the different levels of States how we are being overwhelmed with regulations and um that's enough on the history I would like to encourage y all though to uh approve um Mr
108roer's policy uh the I feel like the governor's policy was much too vague it would just left more litigation at the outset because they weren't there weren't really answers it would just left things open and we need to have answers we need to have things to find um women need to be prot sorry about that but anyway thank you for your time uh please support Mr rocker's policy thank you kin fol good evening y'all I'm Kevin FZ I'm from wman Grove named after wakan um I've lived here all my life Virginia all my life I have relatives who go back to pre and have had Lord faira land grants okay so our roots go back alwayss but I'm not going to talk about distance history you all know what happened you all know it was
109wrong in your mind you know that what I'm going to say is I was down at court Square not too long ago a young man was killed serving our country I was there to show him respect with the flag another man comes up and starts talking to me a Vietnam vet well I think you know is you know he starts talking and he just keeps talking and he starts dropping names of who he's related to and kids and this that and the other and then he starts talking about what he believes I know one of those names that he dropped but I'm not going to mention the names was a person who said quote unquote they represented shano County and changed the name of Lord Fairfax okay to what it is now sounds like a
110mental institute so they have this guy's telling me he says this about how messed up our country is and how things need to be uh changed and how the minority the 10% need to rule over the 90% And The 90% have to go along with it and be good with that now fellows ma'am you all know what that is that's what my Daddy went to Korea to fight against one of the last things he said before he died was I'm so ashamed of this country what I did and create and all I did and where it's going this man's telling me that he thinks as a as a veteran and and American that we ought to go and embrace Marxism communism and that's what the last school board did when they changed those names the
111minority changed the names against the will of the majority it's We the People y'all okay I'm tired of watching this Outsiders Dore our I watched the 63 years when they built 81 and it's just been downhill ever since Outsiders coming in and destroying our beautiful shannona Valley and shannona County thank you all very much Steve hman school board members Dr Shephard chairman Barlo thank you for allowing my voice to be heard this evening I'm Steve Heisman District 2 conicville it's good to hear that the weekly religious education program has been a success as the as it winds down for this school year I am in support of the Mike Ricker gender identity policy and hope that this board will vote Yes to put this policy into action it is very important that all students and
112the employees of this entire school system is protected from all this nonsense I also strongly support the consideration of restoring the original names on the two schools on the southern campus I am a 1977 graduate of Stonewall Jackson four years ago as the ridiculous woke movement swept across this nation like a plague all in the middle of the pandemic that was called covid-19 they wanted to rewrite history destroy the past tear down and our monuments and statues all in the name of those fancy words that they you that they used that have little meaning it came to shannond Door County got into the public school system and the school board at that time jumped on the bandwagon as a result of as a request that came in to change the name of two schools on
113the southern campus many citizens in the county adults and students asked for their voices to be heard and let the people decide on this matter their voices were limited and the names were changed the Supreme Court of Virginia stated that during covid and uh and virtual meetings Board of Supervisors and school boards were to conduct essential business only to keep the county businesses operating and to keep the school doors open to educate the children as was which the case of Fairfax County Board of Supervisors you know that the case that was overturned the people's uh Voice Was Heard at that next election two years later the citizens and the students of District 1 and two rep requested a survey of we the people on restoring the names two days before that school board meeting I
114was told that the survey would be avoided at all cost one board member also suggested on kicking that can down the road and let the next board deal with it why was that the reason was they knew what the result of a survey would be and you have those numbers again the people went to The Ballot Box back in November and their voices were heard loud and clear in America we live in constitutional republic and we are reminded of that every single time we cite the Pledge of Allegiance we are a government of the People by and for the people this school board has now heard the voice of we the people thank you very much thank you and our final speaker is uh Stuart dwick good my name is Stuart dwick I live in
115Edinburg I'd like to thank each of you all for the personal time you sacrificed to serve on this board in the past several years over 8 million illegal aliens have simply walked across the southern US border their impact will stagger this country for decades shandoor county has its own version of Eagle Pass Texas ours is 66 West at Manasses fway refugees have streamed into this County for over 40 years some have embraced the history and culture of their adopted home they've become good friends and valued members of the community the others need to be reminded they no longer live in the liberal Cesspool of the DC suburbs they came here as refugees not missionaries a woke movement that has upended this country did not start in Mari town or quicksburg if it had it would
116have quickly ended with a trip out behind the Woodshed the woke movement started in metropolitan areas where everyone gets a trophy and no one's feelings get hurt one of the Prime targets of the woke movement is anything related to Southern Culture our memorials to our family members the names of our highways our military bases and our schools are being erased from history by groups of people who have no clue as to the start of the Civil War I don't have time tonight to educate you on the barell Tariff Act of 1860 the Corwin amendment of 1861 or Lincoln's plans for Cal island off the coast of Haiti but I am here to remind this board you were elected by the people as representatives of the people there's no question what you need to do Americans
117are mad the 3,243 signatures I'm holding from 2020 these people were mad then and they're still mad they're mad about what was done to them by the previous board the road to recovery for this nation starts locally and it starts in this room this board has a moral and ethical obligation to the citizens of this County let me read that again this board has a moral and ethical obligation to the citizens of this County to restore the name Stonewall Jackson and NY lead to the southern campus we need to put Common Sense back in our schools and some backbone back into the United States of America thank you right we have uh completed uh public comments uh we're going to move on in just a moment on for the consent agenda before we do that
118I'm going to entertain a motion for a uh short uh respit so we can take a little break and return here in U Mr chairman I I got a question real quick and I I don't know you have to tell me I have a a resident of my district that couldn't make it but he wanted to be in public comment are we am I allowed to represent him or not I don't know tell me do do you have is there a comment is there a written comment for you to make yes he's given you a written comment well it sent it to me he couldn't make it so I don't know you have to tell me if I'm allowed to do that or not anybody have any objections I don't I'd love to hear it
119go for it right real quick this is from Steve Baker District 2 uh for reason he did not make it here he wanted to send it to shano County school board members thank you for your service to our students community and School Board elected officials in June 2020 decision was made to change the names of two schools Stone Jackson Mountain View and ashp honeyrun Elementary on the southern campus without sufficient public voice and a rushed timeline in point of fact the 2020 School Board decision went from a discussion item to an action agenda within just a few days of during Co during Co the school board should have focused like neighboring School divisions on teaching and learning this decision continues to cause unrest Discord frustration and even division among families and friends my sincere hope
120is for this issue to be resolved soon in the future and the school board will focus on teaching and learning and strengthening our community thank you Mr Steve Baker 1341 Conor bille Road Jackson Virginia thank you so I I'm looking for a a motion for a short recess I move that we take a short recess okay well before we finish off that um there there has been a suggestion that uh anybody that we've gone this far if there's anybody else who wants to speak then uh have at it yes ma'am come on up and you'll be next thank you I'd also like to get on the list oh goodness okay I'll tell you what dead serious get in line get in line when the line is gone we'll stop that's important to do so name
121and residence my name is wel I live here in M Jackson Virginia and I'm kind of a Sojourner and I want to ask has any of you ever come to Hawaii on a vacation on the board so one okay do you know who Queen lilio colam is kind of okay so it's part of the history and um just to give you my background I was born in Chicago lots of crimes I wore a star David armband on my arm in 1977 when I was 11 years old as the Nazis March through my dad was a World War II then he bought an arment against the Germans how to find out if you truly know your history the Germans were brought here Warner Bond Brown look up your history you know and my grandpa was a
122World War I V before they had the dog tags he had his dog tags with different numbers rather than the social security number and I was a military veteran since I was 18 through 42 so we were stationed in some states like North Carolina where the people were pissed off because there was helicopters flying over well you know hmx1 is a pres presidential helicopter Squadron we were stationed there too but in North Carolina when the people complained the Marine Corps finally put up a wall that says pardon our noise but it's a sound of Freedom being a spouse getting stationed to 11 states was crazy we were stationed in quano my kids knew nothing about segregation when you're in war the gulf whatever you know I was a key volunteer for the United States Marine
123Corp not only were my kids in a DOD school they were in a doe school private Christian schools and I homeschooled them in the 1990s when it wasn't popular each one graduated went on got their degrees and are making a huge impact on every one of your lives if I told you what they did but as for history the reason why you guys don't know about Queen lilio Kanani was because she was the first queen ever imprisoned in the United States of America so knowing our history as they're taking our history down it doesn't do anyone good because I'm we're going to repeat our history we saw the Nazis brought over here they're in every single CIA uni third threel agencies I have a degree in historic and political studies and a degree in Psychology
124double majored because the state said I had to have a piece of paper I talked to Mike when we were at one of our meetings and said why did the name change he said through a zoom meeting that's illegal it's unconstitutional and that's what I needed to say please state your name loudly so they can cop it down please uh Katie cley District 3 resident taxpayer also an outsider proudly 20 years uh good evening school board members uh first thank you for engaging in active listening self-reflection and respectful civil discourse when hearing from your constituents both in your district and throughout the Greater Community that you ultimately represent I'm a concerned citizen who would like to speak about the consideration to rename our schools however rather than visiting or revisiting the past I would like
125to focus on the future public interest and economic impact I implore the school board to really look at the recent survey results and what that data is actually telling us and how it relates to the bigger picture and the collateral damage that entertaining this conversation has on the whole of sheno County the survey that went out yielded a 13% response rate which for those familiar with research methods is considered a low rate of response of that already low 133% response rate 9% of respondents voted in favor of keeping the names as they are currently at both Mountain View and Honey Run but perhaps what is most telling is that 87% of those who got the survey card did not feel moved enough or engaged enough in the effort to change the names back to even
126return the card 87% out of 100% of those who were asked did not care to respond which leads us to the sample used for the survey only those in districts one two and part of three were asked however the consequences of entertaining changing the names back impacts every single Citizen and every sing single business in the county whether you care to admit it or not the world is watching this conversation impacts any new residents looking to make Shen andoa County their home and any potential businesses considering Shan andoa County for their operations and any tourists looking to spend their dollars uh these are our three these are our three biggest revenue streams sustaining our local economy as sources of tax dollars all negatively impacted by what will inevitably be a signal to the nation that
127shenoa county is so unabashedly unwelcoming it is unbelievably heartbreaking that the goodness and kindness and wonderfulness of the people in our community will be overshadowed by such hateful ugliness as is the case with the board's intentionally harshen model policy restoring the names of our schools to celebrate the oppression of already marginalized citizens will have a devastating impact not not only from a moral standpoint but also in the wallets of all of our taxpayers so for the well-being of our community please choose kindness thank you hello my name is Miriam mson I live in Fort Valley Virginia um even though I was uh told by someone that um I overstate my importance because I have an opinion on a policy in a school district where I'm a homeowner a taxpayer and a registered voter I'm never
128nevertheless here to use the three minutes I'm entitled to in order to express that opinion this board should not punish biological girls previously referred to in our society as girls for to be which you are does not require qualification or quantification simply because certain individuals choose to live a cross binary life in a binary World binary being bi biological male and biological female regardless of the outcry of a certain segment of the population who are perpetually attempting to be the tail that Wags the dog this is a gender binary Society based on biological sex with a gender binary public educational system that has gender binary facilities and sports teams which meet the needs of at least 99% of the population did I did our society organically evolve as gender binary based on biolog iCal sex
129due to some conspiracy to disenfranchise the mentally ill or the irrational beliefs of a subcultural minority Western Civilization is rooted in reason therefore ladies and gentlemen I beg that you allow reason to Prevail if you do not vote for the rickord policy and protect girls spaces and girls Sports from Cross binary individuals attempting to force themselves into a binary system based on biological sex then you will be to blame if girls who lose sport scholarships have their heads bashed in by Tri transgender girls previously referred to in our society as boys then you bear the brunt of the consequences children should compete according to their biological sex in gender binary Sports even if there has to be a third category of cross binary co-ed Sports in addition to girl Sports and boy Sports in order
130to accommodate those who wish to compete as transgenders to do otherwise is to punish hardworking gifted girls who deserve better who deserve adults with backbones who will have the courage to protect them from this egregious assault on their personhood the yunan policy is a framework with which to build and the Rickard policy complement the the background the base the basis of this and I ask okay Title Nine and the opinion of the Attorney General the Attorney General of Virginia coms up please okay the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics ban trans athletes from competing in women's sports for good reason the shanid County School Board should follow suit hello board members thank you all for giving us this time to come and speak this evening try to use that mic a little bit better Kevin yeah
131it's okay I would like to comment you we need your name and address oh I'm sorry La I live in for Valley so I would like to comment to the discussion of the policy on the gender identity I have been blessed to live in shano County from birth till now and never would I have thought one day we would be here voting on policy on gender identity growing up knowing god created only two genders male and female But as God has been kicked out of the schools and basically out of America it has created a void that the darkness of confusion and Chaos has filled lies told to our innocent children that they can change themselves from the person God created them to be and forcing others to go along with a lie or face
132being called haters and Bullies we need to stand for the truth and to do what we can to protect the ones that are willing to boldly stand Proverbs 22:6 train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it children are a precious gift from God Jesus emphasized the importance of caring for children Matthew 194 let the little children come to me and do not hinder them for the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these and Jesus also gave a strong warning about causing harm to the children Matthew 18:6 but if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble it would be better for them to have a large Millstone hung around their neck and be drowned in the
133depths of the sea I didn't say that Jesus said it so I said it I repeat I read from the Bible so I pray that you adopt this policy for the protection of all involved thank you my name is Gary Warden it won't take me three minutes to say what I got to say uh appreciate yall letting us talk ladies and gentlemen um my problem is the southern campus down here has always been Chanel County's redhead stepchild we get what's left over from the other two schools but that's okay my question is how come if we're going to be so woke on these schools how come Peter mberg schools never changed he was a slave owner did anybody think of that that's all I got yeah Dr sheer Mr Barlo the school board members Pastor
134K gosne District 3 I want to thank you for your continued support of w weekday religious education as our year comes to an end and we'll be having celebration next week giving kids their Bibles and their certificates many have asked why I'm involved with this program and it is because the children are not in the churches the children are not in the churches I've asked 33 Pastors in the last month how many are in their Sunday schools the largest number I got was 32 the majority of the numbers five or less Mainline denominations Brethren Baptist non denominational churches I've tried not to be um focused I've asked churches that are considered healthy and Alive and Well 32 I'm involved with weekday religious education because children are not coming to our churches even though our churches
135love them and many of our churches house after school programs feeding programs we Charter Scout Troops we sponsor summer programs the children come through our buildings but they do not come to learn on Sunday so I want weekday religious education available for those who want to learn from God's word I want them to know of Jesus's dying love for those whose parents want to encourage them in that program 100 kids came this year Dr Shephard thank you so much for supporting a program that gets 1.5% of your school enrollment 6,000 kids and 100 come to weekday religious education school I challenge those who are in this room about where the children are learning about the Bible I want them to know Jesus I want them to know the Commandments honor your father and mother which
136means honor the leadership in your community as well you shall have no other gods before me idolatry the Insidious nature of idolatry and if you don't know that word Insidious think kudu it strangles idolatry is one of The Commandments we need to be most concerned about thank you hello my name is Hunter Rinker I reside from District 2 I graduated from you better speak up a little bit we can't hear you I graduated from Stow Jackson High School school last year I have heard a lot of different views tonight some of these things some of the things that people are saying are not right everyone in in support of the name change not everyone in supported the name change are racist the majority of the people that are here to speak today want the name
137of the school back are people that are wanting to be heard that's what we are asking of you is to hear us there are many students that were upset about the name change not because of they're racist but because they had they had school pride just because of the way people acted and were treated in the 19th century doesn't mean that that's the way it is now me personally I have black friends and coaches I respect all of them and I'm grateful for everything they have done for me so please listen to the people and change the name back thank you good even school board and school members I'd like to thank you for the time here like time I like to thank thank you for the time you taken to hear us name Trey
138District 2 edberg hman I'm currently a senior in sjhs and a resident in District 2 Edinburg in a taxpayer in this County as I turned 18 what happened in 2020 is wrong and I don't feel like why should my hard hard-earned money that I earn go to supporting a name change that could happen in 2020 I think that we need to realize you all realize what happened and it's time to make it right restore the names back Stone Jackson and Ashby Lee so that way my friends that are in grades below me can go and go to a school like that also I've done some research I'm currently a I'm currently a student at triple Tech and ji triplet who is named after it was had slaves so really we're going to change us we're
139going to change a school like Stonewall but not go right down the road a little bit to a trade school and change that as well so there something to think about so hope and pray that you all can come to your senses and the name goes back thank [Applause] you bud my name is H I am a current student at Ash Lee please consider Resto restoring the name the school's names good evening school board members my name is Carter hman I'm currently a student at North for mle school and I am an athlete a JB athlete at Mountain View as I enter high school next year I'm wearing Mountain View and it isn't something I would present I am proud of if the benefit of all this is for the children then please take into
140consideration changing the name back to stall Jackson and Ash Le Elementary so that student athletes like me can go into ours go and play for our high school and wear something that they are proud of and I hope that they're privileged enough to wear ston Jackson on their jerseys thank you so my name is Dorian Langston and I'm in Mount Jackson and most of you guys know my emails you know my phone calls but you don't know my face now you see my face I am very passionate about our schools I love our schools sorry I'm not an emotional person but this whole issue pisses me off my daughter was a last Stonewall graduate my son was the first Mountain View graduate he went through 11 years of school just for someone to take Stonewall
141away from him I ordered his class ring his jackets all of his shirts so that he could get Stonewall on his stuff because the last school board took that away from my son that anybody that knows me know I don't play when it comes to my kids I will rip somebody apart like the whole school board is well aware of this like I'm not saying anything you don't know even in the back my thing of it is is this it was done wrong the whole process was done wrong the taxpayers were not heard nobody listened to us the 10% or whoever it was they pushed through here they got what they wanted and the hell with the rest of us you know we PID tax money too that was our tax money that was not
142supposed to be spent I sat and listened to people tonight it was very hard if you all know for me to keep my mouth shut I was going to walk out that door but that did not happen my thing of it is this it's all these people that spoke about this name change and how great it was they used our taxpayer money that was never supposed to be used that was my money coming out of my kids Pockets my kids schooling everybody else's kids schooling in this room too that money was never supposed to be t touched the superintendent go through this budget and they had to cutch $1.6 million this year because of not having funds but yet we spent $300,000 to change school names and took that away from our kids now where
143is that right who asked our kids who in that that school board asked our kids our kids stood before that school board and told them what they wanted and not a damn person on that school board listen to our kids it's our kids that we representing us parents are passionate because of our kids it's not because of the name it's because what our kids want ask our kids what they want who's done that my daughter is in northp I asked her tonight before I came to this meeting I said what do you want that school name to be my son was mad because he didn't get his voice heard and I sent emails boy did I send emails and I made phone calls guarantee you but my daughter told me she wanted to go back
144to Stonewall and you know what before anybody in this room says a word to me I have a biracial child so I am not racist and the thing of it is she wanted it back to Stonewall because it's what it originally was and that is what she wanted it to be listen to our kids the hell with the parents listen to the kids Mr Richard I think you had moved that we have a short recess I I could definitely use that recess um let's let's let's TR 935 6 minutes from now 9:35 weather e e e we are ready to rec convene have a seat all right Z we are ready to reconvene and we are going to drive on with the consent agenda um we've had these listed now and I am ready to
145entertain a motion to approve um the consent agenda I move to approve the consent agenda as presented a second so we have a motion uh by Mr Guta and second by Mrs rutz to um approve the consent agenda is there any discussion that being said um all in favor of approving the consent agenda signify by saying I opposed pass 60 and uh we will head on into the informational agenda Mr hegard are you going to give us some policy updates I hope you're not going to ask us for any now good evening just uh wanted to bring your attention to I think there's about 58 uh policy updates or um just reviews some have been reviewed not all have been revised but just as you're looking over that document over the next month know that
146where you see um some of the red highlights uh and it says deleted those policies or sections of those policies have been deleted because they're no longer uh required by law and so that was the reason they're removed but if you have any other questions um they're pretty pretty General in nature um don't hesitate to give me a call and I can I can help you before you uh remove yourself from that Podium uh I I want everybody on the the board to know that um Dr he Gardner did provide the policy committee with um a beautiful laydown of the policies and and has given us some good poop on on on how to proceed and the red lines are good for us so I invite you to take a look at those as they're
147put as they're here because they're are obviously available to be uploaded here so take a look at those any concerns you have you could feed that information back to uh back to Mrs rutz Andor myself and uh and it'll be our job to review that carry your information as well as ours back to Dr Hein Gartner and I know we have problem till about June but we'd like to get that done before that so we can move around with some others but again thank you for making that so streamlined for us and we appreciate it yes sir yeah thank you so we have a uh agenda item here for um The Crest to appropriate competitive Innovation program equipment Grant funds and I see before I can finish saying that you're already up here so go
148for it all right thank you Mr chairman M of the school board and Dr sheer um the Sho County public schools has applied for the competitive Innovation program equipment Grant uh this grant is through the Virginia Department of Education and has been allocated for skills trade programs um through throughout the state These funds in the amount of 37,500 if awarded will be used to purchase a training equipment for the automotive technology program at triplet Tech these trainers will advance students abilities to learn diagnose troubleshoot and fix multiple issues within the electronic system of the vehicles with the trainers we will expect to see an increase in Student Success in the electrical ASE credential test this information is being provided tonight for information will be placed on the agenda for Action um at your May meeting
149um the award notice will be received on April 12th so we don't know that we have received the funds yet um but I do bring this for information now um because the funds do have to be expended this fiscal year so it's going to be that we get them quick we have to spend them even quicker um so would like to get it as information so we can get it appropriated um if we get it appropriated and we don't get them obviously we won't spend them so any questions thank you you appreciate it 4 point3 thank you at the March 25th 202 school board work session the school board discussed the model policies on ensuring privacy dignity and respect for all students and parents in Virginia's public schools and the draft sheno County Public Schools
150policy on G identity at Rickard at the meeting um School Board member glor careno agreed to have the draft sheno County Public Schools policy on gender ident identity carlino removed from consideration the decision was made to name the draft shinida County Public Schools policy on gender identity Ricker to draft Shino County Public Schools policy on gender identity there was consensus by school board members to move um to forward any questions regarding the model policy on ensuring privacy dignity and respect for all students and parents in Virginia's public schools or the draft shanida County Public Schools gender policy on gender identity to the superintendent by Monday April the 1st 20124 subsequently I received six questions from um a school board member and three questions from the March 26 work session to um and forward them to
151Daniel Rose of lint and sight he responded to me and I forwarded his answers to school board members on April the 5th um this is an information and action agenda item so there will be time for discussion during the action agenda after a motion is made thank you madam superintendent the last item under informational agenda is the request from the Coalition of better schools uh or better schools to restore school names so policy FFA school name states it is the responsibility of the shanadoo County School Board to determine the name of schools school facilities and areas of school facilities or grounds in the division the board will solicit and accept input from the public regarding the names of schools or school facilities but reserves the right to make the final decision regarding the name of
152any school or school facility suggestions regarding the name of a school or school facility must be in writing must State the name of the person or group making the suggestion and must State the reason reason supporting the suggestion the policy goes on to say the procedures for renaming a school or school facility will be the same as the procedures outlined above the entire policy on school names is attached to this agenda item on on Wednesday April 3rd members of the school board received a request from the Coalition for better schools to consider restoring the original names of Mountain View High School and Honey Run Elementary School there was consensus from the school board members to add this item to the agenda 11th um school board agenda for information there are no questions from members of
153the school board we'll move into action items first is um the need to approve the Personnel list as was presented uh do I hear a motion that we accept the uh Personnel list as presented to us in close session I move to approve the Personnel list as presented second okay we have a we have a motion from Mrs ruts and a second from Mr street that we accept uh the Personnel actions outlined on the on the list that we were provided earlier is there any discussion all in favor please say I I opposed carried six nothing um 5.2 uh is um we discussed or we had information at our last meeting about the easement of um existing water lines uh that had that would impact our I think was it was it honey run uh
154or I think it was Honey Run Okay um and so we now are here to approve the deed of dedication and easement for the town of Mount Jackson to take responsibility uh for the resolution on the water line easement uh there are documents here that we were provided as well last time is uh is there any discussion on this or first first of all do we have a motion to approve this deed of dedication I move to approve the deed of dedication and easement town of Mount Jackson and the resolution on the water line eement I second okay so the motion's been made by Mr cutshaw seconded by Mrs rutz to approve this deed of dedication easan for the town of Mount Jackson any discussion Mike personally I'd like to see some kind of guarantee
155from the town of Mount Jackson that if they decide to put in a Housing Development right behind those schools that if it has any ill effect on water pressure or fire suppression for those schools that they're the ones that are paying the upgrade fee to increase the size of that line or the pumps or whatever to take care of that um I think I mentioned that the last time we were discussing this remember we had a discussion on on that topic um so Mr lonus from the town of Mount Jackson was supposed to be here I'm not sure if he stayed thank you there you are so yeah we don't own none lines on school property uh we are contracted to maintain them time and material if anything happens if y'all look on water bills
156y'all pay a far hydr maintenance that's what we serves the fire hydrant once a year pay them do whatever we need to flush them uh this line that we're looking to get an easil goes back to our at as Lee that was donated years ago way before my time and it should have been done a long time ago it's just the main line from the well it goes to Cal Road and that's very good question and that would give us the opportunity to say yay or nay but we would not use that line from the schools from that well because we got a 12in main out long Cavern Ro that would be where where would come from we would not use that line that would be easement for us from the schools could we get
157that in writing uh I believe we could get that in writing from the town manager yes or counsel yeah the line along the road is that is that is that the line you said along the road that you C road that belongs to the town yes is that off is that come from the well does that come from town the town well it all comes from town okay see we feed we got water lines comes all the way from town up to the schools plus we got a well there and we got a tank of Shadow cameras that feeds the schools to so yeah but we don't know like I said we don't know no lines on the school property right now except for a wheel yeah so it should have been done a long
158long time ago deed this water main because all of our water mains belong to us you know cuz we got a well back here we're feeding water to the schools plus to the town through this main so it should be up to us it shouldn't be up to you if something happens to it to pay us time and material for it so um let me ask you this so if we pass this provisionally tonight you could get us is is that Olivia as I talking about if you can get her to provide for us a statement to that effect we could pass it provisionally based on that and I'll get it first hopefully okay I I'll get her on first morning all right yeah good enough thank you very much appreciate that thank you thank
159you Randy you okay with that I'm good okay so uh based on the question and answer uh ready to take a vote on the approval of the de de easement so those in favor please signify by saying I I opposed none opposed motions carried 5.3 uh we uh were provided a rather extensive list of the library purchase materials um this this past year and uh I was glad to see the detail in which we've received those titles and U the fact that uh we had these review processes and so forth that it's going apparently swimmingly is a good news um does anybody have any comments to make about the um the library list that were provided for us and the review of The Selection uh processes that we put in place motion yeah yeah I'm
160just waiting to see if you guys okay so um yeah I'm ready to entertain a motion that we um accept the uh the approval of the spring library book materials purchase list as has been provided I move to approve the 2024 spring final approval Library materials purchase listing thank you Mr Street uh for that motion is there a second second thank you Mr rard uh any discussion those in favor please say I I opposed pass Six nothing we are now talking about the adoption of model policies uh having to do with um yunan model the insuring privacy dignity respect for all students and parents and um the um what we are if it's okay everybody uh we're talking about the the record version which is also uh have been been presented uh it is titled
161on our uh agenda the draft chenodal County Public Schools policy on gender identity and the other that is there is um the vdoe model policy that we have um term for for um short uh short hand nomenclature is the BDO is the the yunan model um I am going at this point to um uh relinquish my post as chair uh and turn it over to the vice chair to conduct this discussion and vote in that as a policy uh member of the policy committee I have worked on this uh extensively and I don't think I would be the the proper one to um objectively conduct this uh this part of the this part of the of the discussion so I'm going to ask uh the vice chair if he would assume the role of the
162chair for this issue only sure all right so we are going to I'm going to ask if I hear a motion related to agenda item 5.4 the adoption of model policies also in there um the gender identity along with the vdoe AKA yonan policy do I hear a motion to that effect I moved to present or I moveed to adopt the uh vdo's Milo policy for denture privacy dignity and respect for all students and parents um in the public school system as presented which is the youngan policy thank you Mr R do I hear a second I second that motion on the floor to adopt the Virginia Department of Education Yan policy has been properly moved and second by Mr varlo is there any discussion point of information so uh what are we how are
163you going to be doing this uh today so we're going to be voting on the Ying one first and then on the uh record or what's uh what's what are you planning on doing here um I just went with whoever made the first motion um so if we would like to vote on this first we can and then okay because how the motion stay have get motion BR back to you I think both of them were poed together okay Mr R would you please reread your motion I move to adopt the Virginia Department model policy to ensure privacy dignity and respect for all students and parents in the Virginia Public School C schools has presented which happens to be the youngan model okay okay so my question is um and this is probably question for
164you um because I can foresee that there's going to be a lot of amendments um added to that one and they're going to discussing all that um I mean would it make more sense to go with the other one first or we're just going to have to go with this one go through all the Amendments and then vote on it at the end we didn't get to this I'm just asking because we didn't get to discuss which one should go first it I don't really see it's an issue that you've got this question before the floor which you've got to handle which is that one that's how her M rs's motion was stated okay so then you handle what she has put on the floor okay so then if this if there's a second model
165out there I did not hear it mentioned in the original motion it was not not in hers yeah definitely not in her you got two separate questions you're going to have to work through the first one from M rots and then if there is a second model that will have to come up separate now so it's got to be two separate questions the way it started out so I would make a motion or M will make a motion for the second one and then we go back and decide which one after you handle this one so we have to vote this one up or down first can I have two motions on the floor thank you okay so then now that she's made her motion now we can start doing all the Amendments and all
166that stuff you can you can handle this question before the assembly um with discussion Pros cons and also amendments now if you feel so LED I guess you could have an amendment to adopt what I'm hearing as the record model as an amendment that would pull both questions into one big box so however you want to sort it out but uh there is a way with an amendment to include what I'm hearing is a quote unquote record model with an amendment to pull that into one big box one big proposal as it is now your motion is only handling what those Ro okay okay I think we got so then that one's already being made and being seconded that is correct so now we're going to start into the discussion so now we would present
167the amendment however you want to change whatever the question that m r presented before the assembly all right so that's part of our discussion discuss not change but however you feel so L thank you Mr bman so M rutz made the original motion so we'll go to her first if she has any comments as part of our discussion on the on the um motion um Yes actually um you know I I have looked at both of these and it's interesting that it comes in a time that with this evening with with all the conversation today um the the word constitution um has gotten rown around a whole lot this evening and um when I look at this um and all the discussion the the back and forth um there's a few things that keep coming
168up that that bother me and I that the yunan policy is okay that I'm okay with first of all the yunen policy doesn't take any rights from anybody the Constitution I believe Rhonda Richards said in our last meeting she did it very eloquently she said my feelings or my rights don't end where your feelings begin um the beauty about that is is it's a two-way street I don't have to like what you're doing but we've had enough people in this room that serve on this country's you know Armed Forces to support the Constitution it may not be what I want you to do but it is what you have the right to do and this whole evening has been about that um when we T tear down this this draft policy and we and we
169go to the Yan policy I pulled up the me um the ads our AGS um um he gave yunan policies a once over we also had um an attorney do the same thing and there was a couple things that I had some issues with um with with the other policy the gender policy um one was the yunan policy is all about parents rights we go back to the 14th Amendment we have Supreme Court's decisions that um parents have the fundamental rights to direct the care upbringing and education of their children it's guaranteed under state and federal law and rights that perhaps are the oldest and funest libert uh Liberty interest recognized by the Supreme Court um code two Virginia code 22.1 directs each School Board to adopt policies that are consistent with these model policies
170but they may not adopt policies or maintain policies that conflict with the duy model policies so for me this opens this board up for some possible litigation because what the model policies do for yunan is to leave that in the hands of the parents four years ago this board decided that we were going to mask kids if you didn't pay attention if you didn't do it you got set out we suspended kids we had masking um you know you you got recessed and sit in the classroom for not wearing your mask correctly and it was wrong so I just I I'm struggling with the idea that this board can take somebody else's child after they do go through the proper steps that the state of Virginia says that they need and the vooe says this
171is what we're requiring and we go n we're just not going to do that um on the record policy it says um maintenance record shener County public schools with the approval of the school board on a caseby casee basis shall change the legal name and sex designation in a student or former student's official records if the parent certifies by doing all these things um first of all there's nothing here that states what we would disqualify somebody on there's nothing that states if there's an appeal process and the code 22.1 directs directs school boards to adopt policies that can't go above what the model policies are so I don't know that we even have a state St statute that gives authority to doing something different can can you repeat I'm sorry for Point information what was
172it that you just R from the rord um policy what number were you reading because I believe that that was also in the Y policy what you just read it's under three under policies maintenance of school records it says Shanner County public schools with the approval of the school board on a Case by casee basis shall change the legal name or sex designation in a student or former student's official record it's not that's number C2 in Young on that the gives the school board as a the authority to decide whether we're going to change a School Division shall change the legal name of sex in a student or former student's official record only if a parent or eligible student submits a legal document s a birth certificate state or federal issued identification passport or court
173order substantiating the student or former student's change of legal name or sex I just read y this says when a case by case faes r says want a case by case basis no point of order the the phrase that Mrs rut just used does indeed it talks about the case by case basis of the sheno County School Board and that is not in the in the yunan SE C2 she's reading which one again then from um record C C2 Section 3 C2 yep yep um and it also goes on to number five it says the legal name and sex of a student shall not be changed even upon written instruction of a parent or eligible student except as specified in Section 3 C2 so again we've taken another spot where we're going to say this
174board is going to have the final decision on whether we change the name and I'm and I and maybe as far as some clarification goes um say for instance a child comes in and has decided that they're going to change their last name and they go down they petition the court they get all the proper documents they get an approval they have to come back here to change their name the same child a different child who wants to go change their name hasn't done a sex change hasn't had surgery but wants to be instead of Jill wants to be Jack would also come back here and have petition the court the court would have no issue doing it state of Virginia wouldn't have any issue to do it and then they'd have to come back
175here so they have satisfied a court order they have satisfied the parental order they have satisfied everything else and yet this leaves it open to say that shener County sh Shen County Public Schools is going to have the the last say let me have ask you a question um when we're talking about disabilities which is basically what a lot of people are seeing that this would be kind of like an accommodation does a parent need to bring any kind of doctor's notice um with regards to what the diagnosis is for a kid before they uh request a disability accommodation which is this is exactly what this is the school board does not um police pav fors ands but it does requ but they do require to have a police NOS right I mean so maybe
176what you could do is we could even just provide a an amendment if you if you if you don't want to have the school board to have any say on that then we can just go ahead and take that could have made a motion to do that well but we should discuss I mean we shouldn't con conflict a name change because you know if it was again we're talking about sex change and gender we're talking about not last names yes we are this is the gender identity policy this is not a last name policy this is a gender they're going to go through here's the thing you can go through a name change legal name change without a sex change in the state of Virginia you can do that but that doesn't change which restroom
177you use or which sports you play this isn't about the restroom that's what the standard identity literally right no no I'm talking about addressing C2 and this board's ability or oversight to to determine whether a parent could go through a a a signature which is all that's required by this by the yunan policy that is all that's required exactly that like I said is in contradiction to what we would require from somebody with an disability anybody who comes with disability and is requesting an accommodation in our schools is going to have to be required to have a doctor's know not just a parent saying my kid is disected you have to do this for me or I disagree all right let me jump in real quick so we're typically doing about 10 minutes per board
178member everyone gets to go around and then if we'll come back through talk again so Mr rut if you don't mind I'm going to to another board member that's fine can I just can I clarify one thing for Miss Caren because I did go to miss Stratton before the meeting we do not require a doctor's note but we have teachers and staff on hand that test those students and can speak to the fact of whether they're ADHD autism spectrum whatever and can recommend further testing if need be but we can accommodate a child showing symptoms of ADHD or whatever it may be I the question is Al because I know for example for the Ada Ada um that is a requirement is you have to have you have to inform the employee you have to
179tell them legally that's what you have to do in terms of an ADA so it'd be interesting to know um with regards to disabilities a medical diagnosis is not necessary to have a plan you do not have to have a medical diagnosis toce okay okay stand okay this would you like to take your turn now uh well Mr R wants to do it first I'm fine with you go right okay well um so I just wanted just to say a few things um because we have been going this has been a very long arduous and and very sometimes quite nasty process to get to this point um and this is why my my policy is not before you but instead we have the rard policy which actually has a lot of theit compromised version from
180a lot of the um concerns that Mr Barlo and m r actually uh raised at some of the other meetings that we had and I didn't want to it's too bad that a lot of the people have left already because I did want to mention a couple of things um that a lot of people have asked me you know why do I why did I push this what was it my first uh piece of policy and also if I know any transgenders and um the answer is very simple I I believe very strongly on this I've been researching this for long time I I feel like this is what we need to do to protect our kids and um secondly I I do know uh transgender kids um I've researched this issue thoroughly I watched
181interviews I read many books over the years um I've actually communicated with some people who have regretted doing these Transitions and um the main case for me was a very personal one because he was one of my daughter's best friends in middle school and this particular girl uh was actually in high school and she had never given any indication that she was anything but a girl um yet one day out of nowhere she declared that she was a boy and um her parents who were very far left leaning uh were ecstatic about this and they quickly announced in a newspaper no l um not just her daughter's decision but how immensely proud they were of him this girl lived in a very supportive Community she was homeschooled and her decision was celebrated there was no
182bullying yet a couple of years later she committed suicide at 18 so I personally don't care if if an adult and and by that I mean someone 25 or older who which is generally considered the age of emotional or physical maturity decides to go through a transition that is their business and that is their life but when we're talking about children who are being led to believe that they are defective having been born in the wrong body and that a lifetime of drugs and perhaps a few um surgeries to fix the problems this is not just a lie this is actually shs of the worst kind and have you noticed how the trans agenda right now which currently Raks in more than $1.5 billion do a year just in the us alone only targets the
183children and they do this because it's easier to sway a kid than it is to S an adult they do it because it will be more profitable for them once they have that child forever hooked on drugs to just keep it going and they do it because in many places and not here in shanor County thank God um a lot of the schools and teachers and counselors have been complicit in pushing this ideology however just because it isn't already a huge problem here in shanor County doesn't mean that we can just cross our fingers and hope for the best I know some view this as a political issue and it is true that political parties are sharply divided on this and Democrats support it and Republicans are against it um I know others view it
184as strictly a Biblical religious issue and for those of us who are Bible believing Christians this is an affront to God and to his creation and a way to establish anti-christian principles in this jch Christian country that we live in but ultimately for me this is an issue of human decency and protecting kids I don't just mean protecting the girls that are being subjected to physical injuries from being forced to compete against biological males or of girls dreams being Shattered by a biological male who couldn't compete against males but can easily defeat a girl or protecting those girls who have been subjected to sexual assaults as some already have no it isn't just about them but about the very children that are being confused and led to believe that changing their gender something that will
185never happen in real life will face their problems these are the childrens who have suffered from sexual abuse or have developmental mental health conditions that are being exploited by the trainers agenda and let me tell you the data suggests 60 65% of transgender are autistic and we can see why because actually exploiting that these are the kids that will be 19 times more like likely to commit suicide and actually this uh rate goes up after the Transitions and this is why many European countries are already retreating from this practi practices and in England the puberty blockers are no longer given to anybody under 18 so I always hear people complaining about how we're losing our country and how our society in general is deteriorating most of these people point fingers at the president the Congress
186the courts the media or whoever think they think that is in charge but sadly when many of those same people do assume positions of power where they are able to make the changes that those who voted for them expected them to make and we heard a lot from people not just today but we have been getting a lot of letters from people supporting the record version not the Y version they become just another politician saying one thing but doing the opposite and as much as we like to blame others the reality is that the true change is going to start at the local level with school boards just like this one we are the ones who are closest to the people that we represent and we are the ones who have can effectuate that change
187I understand that there is some confusion and fear of litigation um Miss R actually just voiced some of it given the uncertainty caused by the Supreme Court's refusal to address this issue however the current case law and the legal opinions of renown and respected constitutional legal expert and most importantly the Commonwealth of of Virginia's attorney general Jason Miis fully supports what this policy says this is a fact just as it is a fact that the risk of litigation exists with any of these policies or if we don't pass any policies at all in fact right now the only policy that is actually the litigation is a Yin policy so we either have the courage to do what is right or we C at the pressure by those who are doing wrong I urge my colleagues
188to pass Mr Ricker's gender identity policy and show with actions that they really do care about the students in shanor county and I also before that I wanted to also mention that just on Monday the National Association of interc Collegiate at Athletics just passed a ban on biological males in in the schools we also have half the states have already passed laws that are supporting what we're trying to do here so to say that all of a sudden we're going to be more subjected you know to litigation it's it's not true so I strongly urge um our my colleagues to either we you know if we're going to be discussing this one first then I have a gazillion different amendments that we can go through tonight or we can try to you know go through
189Mr Ricker's um version which I guess I can make a motion then to make an amendment to adopt the language from Mr rard into the Ying policy and hopefully um save some time that way thank you m car Mr Marlo and then Mr Rickard okay I'm going to talk like I'm from New York I'm going try to make this fast what all right you got an amendment to merge Mr R we have into the motion at hand second and then proceed on that Amendment first I didn't pick that up as an amendment I just thought she was in passing that she could if that's what they needed to do I don't know I heard I heard Amendment mention whether that was a actual plan or not I do know well I I was I I
190do intend to do that I just wasn't sure if we we can have a discussion first and then do that so yeah so you you I'll retire that and then I'll bring it back after everybody talks okay yeah thank you thank you so back in 2021 you remember that the Northam government passed a model policy based on a law was eight8 lines long talking about how transgender students should be treated fairly that law translated into 27 pages of almost impossible to understand leftist jargon and did not really do much and then that's when all the problems started in lden county and others where people were scared to death as of who was going into the bathrooms and it did no matter what anybody says result in two rapes that were covered up by a neighboring
191County of ours so this has caused problems for us it scares the girls it scares people who are protecting the girls it scares people who just don't want somebody to willy-nilly be able to walk into bathrooms and that would be about all of us so Northam excuse me when Northam was gone the yunan team vdoe came up with their own set of model policies were much much shorter and that is what gave rise to this policy that I am supporting this this was done by the youngan administration bdoe it has been endorsed and underwritten by Jason Mar myori so I'm assuming at this point this would be the one that he's underwriting um it does a really good job of laying out some of the problems and what I like is it treats all children
192as if they are valuable and equal in the school system I'm so tired of hearing people say it's because we don't we are bigoted against transgender kids those poor po um poor transgender kids who are wondering about their about their um gender are troubled they've got problems and they are not the enemy they need understanding they need people to work with them but they don't necessarily need people to tell them that the solution to their problems is to become another gender another biological sex in 6,000 years of human history no civilization has ever ever done this as a matter of course suddenly we in 2022 2023 have decided this is the way to alleviate problems for children is to have to to Lop off breasts and penises that's it to take hormonal treatments rest of
193your life to massage your body to keep body parts open do we really think that's the solution okay now I don't think it is but the law says that there are people who who identify with that so we have to deal with that the yunan Administration has taken the concept of those children who identify as transgender and said they need to protect be protect as do the girls in the bathroom as do as do all of us now all of our children what what the school systems have come up with is the single use bathroom which now is kind of the way that we're able to diffuse the situation and that's a situation under which the schools are operating successfully today but we have to go beyond that we have to actually create a policy
194that's going to make that work into the future and what I like about what junkan steam has done is they have created a system that respects all students it doesn't it doesn't lionize or Dem demonize any of them they all deserve good education they all deserve protection respect for all students the number one issue out there is is safety in the schools it wasn't that way 30 years ago but it's that way now we need to restore a safe and secure environment and it's being done and this is a blueprint for doing it it restores parents fundamental rights you think Glenn yunan and his team are are not paying attention that that's why I got them elected the schools must under this plan keep the parents informed administrators are to consult with the kids there's
195supposed to be material information that the kids have that are provided to the parents and so this gender information that the students have that's not proprietary with between them and and the teachers that's something the parents need to know about and Glenn Yan and the team says yes that's what has to be done so this policy I think is smart because it protects all students and not just the girls were trying to protect in the bathroom and not just transgender where do we are get the idea that creating another tribe of people who is a group of victims is going to enhance that group we really think make making people victims and treating them as if they've got you know special problems that need um gender affirming care okay do we think that is a
196solution I don't I don't think so and Nei neither does the governor he has come out with something that says you know what sex is in school it's biological sex it's not the gender you think you are it's the biological sex that you indeed are but the law says that there are students who have transgender tendencies identification and they need to have protection and so there is the ability for them and their parents to apply for certain uh categorization in that regard and that that also is what the youngan measure allows not that it presumes it it just takes the law and deals with it as it is it does I think I think a very credible job at at doing that um I do think that there's there's there are several things in the
197record version I would personally like to see included in an amendment to to what we do but yun's on to something now of the 132 School divisions in this state only 13 have passed the young version the rest are either lagging behind or they're liberal they don't know what to do with it uh and so if anybody's trying to tell you that this is kind of a this is kind of the middle of the road thing only 10 schools that are conservative have passed it and two have made it more liberal and the third Handover done very interesting and is split it up in three different policies which is kind of a smart way to do it actually but the point is that the yunan mayoras team has given this OverWatch through through vdoe and
198it's something right now that we have facing us and and we can deal with it is true that Governor Y and my have asked us to like it to look at this and see if it can be more comprehensive but in making it more comprehensive if we make it more vulnerable not only to litigation but litigation that could be successful at derailing it we're going to take a giant step backward a giant step backward and I think what what what what this does in terms of parental rights in terms of student um uh notifications in in ter in terms of student Protections in in protection I mean it talks about overnight travel locker rooms bathrooms all being reserved for a biological sex of one or the other except in those cases where people feel safer
199to use a single-use bathroom that's pretty Comm Comm sense to me and that's and that's what we're dealing with so I I think we can look for ways to tweak this but it based it's based on First Amendment rights it's based on protection and safety of our students it's predicated on making sure the parents have in writing uh and you know a a set of protections and I I just think it's a it's a it's a very very good base article the one place where probably needs some work is on athletic uh games and who you allow to participate and I'm afraid that's going to have to be in a slightly different venue from this we could lean forward and try to do it uh but as we've been told by one of our lawyers
200um this is going to put us at risk for Title 9 litigation and we can expect it and it's possible we could lose on that so my recommendation is we kind of drop that one out and we look at the athletic contest to be looked at in another venue while we past the but while we pass the base document here and it when we go on I'm I'm Sor I'm almost done when we when we go back again I want to talk about some of the other things that we can take from the other policy that would butress this but right now I I feel very strongly about staying under the rubric of the governor thank you Mr Marlo Mr Rickard do you have your thoughts well I guess first and foremost since you left
201off on the sports um my policy is pretty Point Blank and if you look at what attorney general Jas Mi put out there um his exact quote was consequently the exclusion of males from female sports teams does not violate the equal protection Clause Title 9 does not demand otherwise indeed comingling both biological sexes in the realm of female Athletics would threaten to undermine one of title 9's major achievements giving young women an equal opportunity to participate in sports therefore I conclude that sex separation of athletic programs determined by biological sex rather than gender or gender identity comports with the equal protection Clause Title 9 and VH um I I also want to clarify something um Miss rutz had said this board uh mandated mask I was not on that board um I was not part
202of that board um and Dennis I believe it was your exact words that parents have rights but to a certain point um you wanted to you you and I had been working closely back and forth the past few days and uh you had some great ideas one of them uh you wanted to keep in there where the child had to be persistent and consistent with the gender they chose um which goes past Yan's policy um which I got to give you the benefit of the doubt you said you'd like to see some of my policy implemented into the yunan policy um my main thing was was the sports girl Sports we shouldn't have boys playing girl Sports I don't care if you dress up the outside the inside is still what it is God created
203you male or female there is no difference um swimming it was already proven boys have bigger lungs bigger Hearts greater capacity it's been proven um the inter Colgate at Athletics they just did the common sense thing and said hey males aren't competing in female sports um my other thing was to protect our staff um I saw something today and I had told Miss rutz at our last work session that I would protect our staff up until the point where a child chose to uh legally change things and then I saw something on my way today I was I listen to podcasts constantly and try to try to educate myself and this was one I hadn't seen before and it was called the cast report and uh the lady that runs the cast report was interviewing
204a female um the female identified herself as they them and the lady that runs the cast report I don't even know her name she looked at the lady and she said I speak speak English I do not I'm not going to give in to you and call you they them anybody watching this can see you're a singular female they them is plural and I thought to myself this woman is talking Common Sense we shouldn't compel our staff um to buy into this whole thing it's a mental disorder um call it what it is protect our staff protect all the kids these people that came in here tonight and were worried about us singling out transgenders let me tell you something I'll protect them just as much as I will my own kid we have singular
205bathrooms in the schools they can go use them just as my son can choose to go use a singular restroom to dress out for PE just because he goes and does that doesn't mean he's transgender it should be afforded all the kids in our school system and we should look after every single kid um parents do have rights but you can't walk into the school today and say hey Johnny Suzie for today that's the kind of stuff that led to what happened in lden County um to me if it lines up with common sense you can find me right there and to me my policy lines up with common sense all the way around um it's it's been tested by numerous attorneys um the I should say not my policy uh the policy mine was
206based off of has been reviewed by many attorneys uh we sat through a conference we have to go through conferences and learn about being school board members you you don't just get elected and come up here and get to voice your opinion um so we were at a conference here recently Miss rutz was there as well they had some professionals there that spoke on the whole transgender thing and some of these people were psychologists and psychiatrists this one that spoke he gave the statistics he said the kids that are bought into that have bought into this and are affirmed in their pubescent years are 19% more likely to commit suicide if you let these kids go through their puberty and get into their late teens and early 20s most of them revert right back to
207what they were born as and go on with normal day-to-day lives um to me it's a no-brainer like I said I line up with common sense this protects everybody it goes a step further when it goes to sports Jason Mi agrees with it um if you go back to the whole we had people in here the last time that spoke about Grim versus Glouchester uh where it went to the Supreme Court and they upheld her becoming a male she was going through surgeries she was going through the full extent parents condoned it the whole nine yards that's a totally different situation um to me that's something you have to look at if a parent is willing to let their child go to that great length then you need to look at that and you need
208to realize okay we've got a situation we've got to deal with here and maybe we need to start recognizing this student as a male if this is what she wishes she went to the went to the extent of changing birth certificate driver's license the whole nine yards um to me I would make a motion that we adopt the Ricker policy this evening second said I would you didn't move oh okay we got now we're going officially have two motions can I ask you for a clarification now absolutely as a as a professional in your area are we better off going through this policy the yunan policy and voting it up or down before we move on so we don't muddy the water uh it's going to get very confusing so in fact my brain is
209tur the most trying to figure out whose policies who the moment so you've got a motion you can handle it and work with it you can amend and bring merge yours in on top of it um and I'm not familiar with either policy how similar they are I is it a one one or the other type policies if it's not one or the other we're going to be here very late tonight okay so you can you can hand you got to handle the motion at hand I'll refrain mine for now correct all right so let's go to Mr Street if he has anything as we go through our discussion before we call the vot the street wow I was hoping this thing would get more simp um but obviously it hasn't I think it's G
210the other way but hey I I really like this opportunity for us just to be able to discuss things I I just feel like we never really get we're kind of like in a well you know you've seen what it's like you know GB I really appreciate the fairboard meetings because we sit around a table and we can just talk instead of being you know under the microscope um so anyway so I enjoyed this opportunity for us to kind of just talk about things and not be so you know um just maybe in a kind way and so I guess my view is um first of all I I don't think you know to everyone out there and I feel very safe saying this I don't think there's anybody on this board that you know
211really opposes junan uh a policy or that we're all on board of something to protect our kids and I guess that's you know my view is and I'll come back to uh what I've always kind of said said and mentioned um but you know my view if people are wondering and everybody 82% voted for me and they know that I view things um uh I'm from the Bible is very important and I'm very biblical how I view things and so in in in Genesis and in Psalms it without a doubt God makes it very clear he is the one that decides male and female it says it very clear and I understand people are going to say well we're all God's children God loves everyone true very true that doesn't mean that you get to
212do what you want to do or it doesn't mean like back in the day at Burger King you can have it your way no you have to be obedient to his what he also says in the Bible um so it's our job to protect the well-being of kids under good faith and I resort to you know I think in my mind GE there's a reason why our government back in the day in order to buy a can of beer 18 19 now it's 21 there's a reason why you have to be 21 to buy a can of snuff there's a reason why you got to be 21 to buy a cigarette why because obviously our society government under good faith they feel with those choices um if you're under 21 you're not quite mature enough
213to make those choices so you know when I was at a town meeting with representative Congressman Ben Klein uh the other evening you know I I wanted to tell him I wish you all would have put that underneath that same umbrella so that these School divisions wouldn't be an issue you know um and that's kind of how I feel about if you have to be 21 to buy a can of beer a can of snuff of cigarettes and to decide whether you're a male or female that probably should have been under the same lines but anyway I'm sure I'll probably hear people complain about me and my views but hey I follow the Bible I don't get to pick and choose what I want to listen to what I want to follow I'm obedient and
214I'm fine and I stand on that and I'm very fine with that um the other thing is um I'm going to back up what you're hearing tonight about what happens down the road and kind of what Gloria was touching on I'm going to step out on them on them here raise your hand if you ever had a child commit suicide because something they did when they were teen nature I'm the only one so it's going to be hard for somebody to tell me that and with that with respect to the rest of the family I'm only going to say so much that it's going to be hard to tell me that there might not be an impact on a child's life down the road because the note that my daughter left went back to things
215that when she was 16 or 17 unfortunately I can say that and I'm in that position so under good faith I have to look out just like our government has to be 21 to do certain things which that sounds pretty simple just to buy a can of snuff and we're talking about you want to decide whether you're a male or female but sex and what God Said in the Bible he is the one that dictates that now with that being said what I've always said all along with the two policies on the table uh I guess in like with your with you know we call your policy what was the lawyers is there any Lo recommendation on that policy the only one we have is Daniel Rose the the policy that it's based on has
216been reviewed by Josh hesler with the uh Freedom Family Foundation it's been reviewed by Corey Brewer with the Wisconsin uh they they help write policies for school boards in Wisconsin they were at our last conference she reviewed it um those are the well Daniel Rose those three attorneys have reviewed that policy um and given the one from Wisconsin wanted to know if they could use it in Wisconsin um was there any so my question is was there any concern of being targeted highly from Los the only one that voiced that was Daniel Rose and he gave no examples to back up his beliefs most attorneys give caseby casee basis to back up their beliefs uh there were two things in his diagnosis of the policy where he act it up with a case case law
217but if I can add I mean basically one of the things that he said about the biological Nails plane was just batly wrong I mean we have the mi's uh opinion that said this does not violate tle line or um or the equal protection clause or what was it the Virginia what I read was word for word what Jason me already said I can pull it back up here um because what I'm getting at is simple you know this is all so many just like so many things it comes down to the legality you know I run trains for a living I don't know anything about the legal aspects so I have to go by the lawyers recommendations uh you know how far do we go within legal limits to protect our kids and protect
218our staff protect the other kids uh that really brought to my attention um you know we and there's no and it's not a form of bulleting bullying or anything like that um we're just trying to protect all the kids and and everybody in this whole picture and so I I really am Weighing on the legal advice Jason M's exact words were it does not violate the equal protection Clause Title 9 does not demand otherwise um and leading up to that he said the exclusion of males from female sports teams does not violate the equal protection Clause it doesn't violate Title 9 and it does not violate VH so that's our attorney general his words um so to me if he's willing to State those words I could pretty much guarantee he'd be willing to back
219us on this if I can answer that question a little more um because basically the only three differ that we have between the Yan and and the Rickard um have to do the main ones um with the student record what we're saying that we're going to be requiring of of students um and again I'll talk about that later but the second one was the biological Mal W in in the girl Sports if that's what uh Mr R was just talking about um that Miis and the Constitutional attorney that actually looked that stuff said that does not violate T line or the equal protection Clause um and the final thing that is different is the retaliation Clause that we put at the end so that you won't retaliate against their teachers and that one everybody said
220that it was fine so there was nobody complained that there was any problems with that and that is not covered in the young policy right all right let me jump in here and try to keep us moving here um Mr Barlo well okay so a question's been asked and been responded by two people so I I want to I'm going to respond to it myself we have a legal memor from a lawyer attorney that was specifically tasked to review this issue for us and we and we have his response here the other me mentions that have been made here of Josh hler and Corey BR were not under contract and they were speaking at at at a conference and giving opinions and it was kind of a Roundtable discussion I'm putting my money right now
221on the lawyer who responded to us with specific questions we sent him in which case he said regarding the rord version that not using the term transgender even though it's captured in the law could put us in risk for not using a referring to that term he said putting quotations under gender identity which reflects hostility or other negative sentiment toward a Cher student could cause litigation he said that messaging that ascends to a reviewing judge that may be be viewed is a refusal to use the term transgender student could cause problems um I'm sorry just a question when you're reading that can you please cite other legal citations that he actually provided I can't I I'm merely responding telling you I'm telling you what our attorney sent us back with our with his caveats now
222but that's the question was can you at least no no I don't know what site there is but remember we asked him his opinion on these and he gave us his opinion okay so the there are seven seven of these concerns that he has that could put us in the crosshairs of of litigation I'm not afraid of litigation but I don't want to do it willy-nilly or if we think we're going to lose and and he mentions several places here where in my view this change poses substantial legal risk of a lawsuit I don't want to put a substantial risk of a lawsuit now what Jason marari said is that we keep s saying that he would like the one we have we don't know that because he hasn't applied but he does say that
223the one he reviewed for the governor he likes okay so I feel pretty firm about that and I'd like to tighten up some of these other one so that we don't like we took out an anti-discrimination Clause I don't know why but when you take out an anti-discrimination Clause it makes judges wonder why did you take out an anti-discrimination Clause so why did we I'm not sure okay but having said that let me say that I've been wrong on a couple things that this thing has gone along I did say that I would like to see it so that when a when a child is about to be certified as a um transgender that we would have a healthc care official kind of say that that he or she agrees with that or and or
224I would like to see the case that that we would actually show that this child has had persistent and consistent feelings like that okay but I have to deal with the reality that that probably isn't going to pass muster you know with the law as it stands today so I'd like to lean forward and do that as as a gut reaction but I don't want to put us at risk of losing what is a really good law by leaning too far forward and this would be more far forward rightwing than any other division in Virginia which is which is going name one it's some more conservative so it's more than just the yun's policy that you're having no no no the these is these are responses to the rickord version okay the the ones I
225just read to you did the lawyer suggest any removing anything from the record well actually uh yeah those the things I just mentioned but now I'm going to I think one of the important contributions of the careno rord version is that it mentions protections for our teachers and our staff and our students I think that goes above and beyond the young conversion and it in it deserves to be included I would be prepared uh to make an amendment that that that those protections the final two blit in the record version be included in this and and I feel confident we could stand with that and it would push us further out for the youngen version by by accept that but beyond that I'm just worried that this thing is going to cause us to be
226in the crosshairs where we don't need to be we're just by taking out an anti-discrimination Clause we're just kind of asking a judge to say why did you take out a clause that forbids you know um discrimination against somebody why would you do that and that's a question we're good we could get asked in in some sort of lawsuit I have a I mean and that was a clause I mean it's really very meaningless it can actually be added at any time and that that let me just mention one thing um because I think there needs to be a clarification here um Mr Rose the attorney who gave us this um opinion has never worked on any of this he's never worked in school issues he's never worked in constitutional issues um he's actually a
227very young attorney who's only worked in business issues his opinion which did not have any legal citations and as an attorney or previous attorney no matter what some people try to say around here um I can tell you that a legal memo will always always have citations of cases and laws in order to actually support that point that you're trying to make um his did not include any of that furthermore a lot of these points like the ones that Mr Barlo is talking about actually went against what attorney general Mi is actually say so if I'm going to have to put my faith on this attorney or the Attorney General in addition to all the other constitutional attorneys and experts that we know and that Mr B himself knows I'm going to put my my
228faith in the ones that actually know what they're doing in terms of um the mi's um decision a lot of the the language that we got from there and that we got from yanin comes from the Mi um opinion so and in fact um there was actually even a you know if you wanted to just change it directly to the Mias you know word for word we can do that in the end it does not change that the what we're trying to do with this one but what we need to understand is yunan um first of all with the Trans gender term that is actually an incorrect term the gender the correct medical term is gender dysphoria that's why it was changed gender identity um when you're talking about transgender is somebody who's already um
229completely transitioned and these kids are not that so that's what we had Chang that that is not open to litigation and the attorney was not able to explain how that would be a cause for litigation in any way um the other thing is according to the yin a parent can literally just write a note and say I think my kid is transgender and I think we should go ahead and you should make all the accommodations for them that is literally what the young king does and this is my main problem with the youngin is that because we have in this County parents who in their kindergarten they have a kindergarten that they actually transition you cannot tell me that a kindergartner knows if they're a boy or a girl they haven't lived life yet so
230that's what we're trying to prevent here um the other thing that biological males again our this attorney said that that was wrong and that was going to open be open for litigation not only do we have the Miis position saying no that's not true and it does not violate the equal protection clause or This Ti line but we also have the national um Association of inter Collegiate Athletics doing that and we have 25 uh States so doing that so that is also Incorrect and again another point that he was not able to defend and finally then there's a retaliation cause uh that the yin policy does not have so the Yin policy um as we've been told by many people who met with yunan during the time that he was drafting this and it took
231him a long time because he was trying to do a compromised version that the more liberal leftist um school districts would pass which in in the end it failed because most of them did not do that um but it says right there in the very first sentence as we said many times each School Board shall adopt policies that are consistent with but may be more comprehensive than this sample policy yes that's what these are and these are not in any kind of contradiction to our current law the equal protection law or the title mind so we as a board can decide we can decide to go with the yankan which barely does anything and in the end is going to allow parents to just write a note and say yep sus is going to be
232Joe this you know from now going forward or we can try to protect the kids actually passing something that does pass constitutional mustard and cas law and that's what the record version would be and let me just add one more thing about the whole parental rights CU that keeps being thrown around and parental rights is not the right of a parent to do whatever they want with a child it's the right of a parent to decide what kind of education they're going to have their right to know what the schools are teaching them their right to decide you know what the schools are not for me I'm going to homeschool that's what parental rights are parental rights are not any right to say you know my kid can be sexually abused or I can decide
233you know I don't think that they should eat any meat or any stuff and then have them just develop some kind of um um condition when they're growing up it's not that you can do whatever you want with your kid so a parent saying deciding for the kid before the kid is old enough whether they're boy or a girl that goes well beyond what parental rights are it's actually child abuse it's not parental rights all right so continuing on I know we we still have the the main motion on the floor do we have any amendments before we try to move forward and vote on the original yes I'm gonna I'm GNA I want to do I get the last here do I get the last here can we do the Amendments first how we
234discussion all right so M ruts you finished things up here yeah um I'll be honest with you I'm disturbed by what's up here and I'm going to be real Frank there are people sitting on this side of the aisle and people sitting on this side of the A and I'm fairly certain that there are people on this side of the a wouldn't want people on that side of the AIS telling you how to raise your kid and I don't know where anybody on this Authority gets gets on this board is any idea to tell anybody else what's child abuse what is a child abuse or what they can do and what they can't do we can talk about Christ if we want to but the Constitution isn't for just the righteous and it isn't for
235the self-righteous either we can talk about what Jesus wants to do and Jesus doesn't push his will on you either and he sure as hell isn't tossing the first stone at anybody that he finds to be distasteful or wrong we're here to to to affect education and educational outcomes if you want to go and you don't like transgenders fine head to freak en richond this isn't where we do it here and I take extreme offense to think that you or anybody else thinks that you can override my parental rights you don't have to like it so I can walk into the high school tomorrow and say hey my son point of order go ahead point of order I think I made my point I can have people on this side call me a racist for
236for for one and stoneball Jackson doesn't mean they're correct and everybody's view is what everybody's view is If the child comes in they're happy they're fed they're well I don't necess I don't agree with the process of transgenderism but it's not my job to tell them how to raise their kid it's my job to figure out how the best way to educate their kid is that's where we're at you know there's some misguidance here on what Miis has said what the what the attorney said he had problems with verbiage he had problems with the school board determining after a parent goes through a court or and and through the state and gets a name change why this why we would have the last rights to it I understand protecting girls I do but again our
237policy negates the rights of somebody else we don't have to like it but it really does sound like we're bullying kids it's not our job to to mandate um religion it's not our job to push our you know I get it but I'm not going to walk into somebody else's house and say look this is this is how I see it I think your kid ought to do this I think your kid ought to do that and while they're under my care this is how it's going to be not point of clarification I need to answer two question question because you're talking and talking about that and I want to answer I want you to answer two things one is what constitutional rights as you keep talking about the Constitution what constitutional rights have been
238violated by Mr Ricker's version and two this whole policy is not negating anybody it's actually saying these are the steps that you have to comply with in order to be considered a different gender I mean that's what it that's literally what this is it's saying if you do all this stuff then yes you're going to be considered to be a a a girl even though you're biological mail so can you please also state where exactly does it negate that here's the thing although this article vest school boards local school boards with General authority over the Supervision in each division that power is not absolute just like you earlier said just because you're a parent doesn't mean you get to to to gate this there's Middle Ground here it says as a result of of the
239Supreme Court of Virginia consistently held that school boards only have those Powers expressly granted and necessarily implied by Statute moreover a school board May adopt Poli policies only to the extent such policies are not inconsistent with State statutes so where is it inconsistent where it where you in this board decide that a a note isn't enough because they can take a note and go down to the courthouse and change a name can they not it's not the same thing we're not talking about that they can change the name to you know The Lion King if they want to we're talking about that's not what this says this is about gender if you look at the title of this this is a gender identity policy this is not a gender and last name policy this is
240this is a very specific what is the criteria that we're going to be using for kids who are being transitioned to be something else we're saying okay that exists that is happening so this is the criteria that we think should be happening in order for everybody else to have to be to accept that and to be subjected to that it's not it's not our job just like that that that kindergartener that hasn't had a sex changed and somebody went down and signed her name over she has every right to do it don't have to like it but she doesn't have disagree all right that's not what this says so that'll conclude I think our discussion I want to say before would it be wise you know we have one we have a view from one
241lawyer and and I acknowledge that but would it be wise for another lawyer to Mr Riker's uh policy and get another lawyer's recommendation would that be in the long run well spent money instead of to be fair about 100% we can probably get it for free thank you Tom y I mean I'm just I'm just being fair I just would like to point out that if we don't get the answer that some of us like here then we then we end up defaming The credibility of the attorney well only to the extent that the attorney doesn't produce a legal memorandum like he's supposed to okay I would like to point out one thing never once tonight did I hear anybody come up here and go vote on yin's policy our job is to represent you
242the people you all had all the information um if you came up here and said hey we support the Ricker policy I'm assuming you read it I'm assuming you read yin's policy all right so we Okay so we've concluded discussion before we vote on that do we have any amendments to that original motion oh no I'm I'm not done discussion but I would like to make an amendment but but I want to speak to some of the misinformation that has been put out here today because I don't think it's going to help us I said earlier that one of the things I would like to see is holding the parents responsible for not just a note but to be able to get some sort of indication from a healthcare official or that there's a constant
243and persistent emphasis of uh transgenderism in that child's life for us over time okay and I was I was in favor of that I was the one to put that in we got a response back from the lawyer who said in my view this change poses substantial legal risk of a lawsuit any parent who has met the requirements under 2023 model policies either provides legal documents or makes request and writing but does not or is not willing to meet the extra steps providing medical paperwork and other evidence May file a lawsuit challenging these requirements as being inconsistent with the 2023 model policies and therefore illegal now it has been charged that the attorney that we hired to do this wasn't capable we all had a chance to weigh in on them and we all used
244them and sent stuff to him the first thing that he sent us included all the sites that you asked for excuse me it did then a second set of questions went to him asked his opinion on some things and this is the second set that came out so he provided sites he provided rationale and he was the one now I'm not saying he's right about everything but he's got his opinion in two different sets of documents and we can we and and and I invite you to take a look at those in terms in terms of in terms of in terms of the place that this is decided is with the school board it's with the school board and I have not gone out on the stump to tell people this is my version that
245I want you to vote for I've been been holding my fire until we had our discussion here so no there weren't people came forth and said Y and youngan plan no the argument was for us to make it to each other and to talk about the evidence that's presented here before us I've indicated that I think yunan and myurus and I have to assume one more time that myurus is probably in favor of the myurus version um is the safest and most prudent way for us to go I also said that I think we could plus it up by adding something that Mr Rickard had mentioned here several times I think I think glor's mentioned it as well is the protections that have been included in your version and I would like to move to
246delete section D number six from the yunan policy which in the body names that protection wait but I said I was going to make a motion first I said that I was going to wait until the whole discussion was done and I was going to make a motion that I'm sorry it was have to turn all right let me let me ask Bo a question I've heard very good and healthy and spirited debate and that's what this is all about are you all ready to make a decision tonight if you're not then postpone it to the next meeting and hash out the differences that's just that's just a question I'm asking there is a procedure that you can delay it till the next meeting if you so choose if you're not ready I was told
247we weren't allowed to do that you can postpone it till the next meeting yeah you can always table well you don't want to table it because tabling is a procedure that's used if the building is on fire and you want to move out of here pretty quick postponing it to a certain time to the next meeting till two months from now um would work very nicely because if you table something you technically need a motion to pull it from the table if you postpone it to a certain time then it automatically drops on to the agenda I don't care what you do but it sounds like I mean you we keep pushing and working through it but I say I'm here in very healthy Spirit ADV POs to debate on this thing and if you're
248not ready then don't don't bot it with a bad decision but that's that's your that's I support I support Mr Bowman's uh uh recommendation all I absolutely don't support um continuing to move this down the road in fact if we do I'm very much inclined to just not support it whatsoever in any way um this is just it's it's getting strung out way too long and we've we've had this information we were able to answer ask questions and receive answers we have done so and to me it makes no sense moving this a month two months three months down the road um it just it it absolutely makes no sense to me um I think that we vote tonight and we come to some conclusion and we live with with that one way or the
249other um the community's had opportunities this has been going on for 3 or four months now um so those are my thoughts um but we'll see if we have a consensus to what we want to do but that's my personal opinion um and the longer this goes the more interested I'm becoming in this I hate to say that but I think a lot of people in this room are starting to feel like that um it's just it's getting more and more out every month and tabling it or excuse me um postp postponing it um is not something I'm in favor of at this point so I guess at this point we're going to vote Yun and up or down and then go on if you want somebody to propose that's correct I'm then if we're
250not going to postpone it then I'm going to go ahead and propose an amendment um to the Y and if that fails and we'll just keep oned I was I was in the middle of my Amendment IED at first no actually he was cuz I think you got told you have to wait your I know but I was I had originally said I was going to do it and then I said well want to hear from everybody and then I'm GNA make my Amendment but all right Mr Barlo please go ahead I move to delete section D number six from the proposed policy the youngan policy and add section one or I excuse me number one and number two I have printed below I'm going to pass this out and this is a direct copy
251from the rord version just have one paper yes it's one paper all right I'm going to read this because everybody isn't to have a copy in front of them the one thing that I believe that the young conversion does not do properly and which I think the Rickard carlino team did provide was a set of protections for students staff uh and parents uh and the protections uh are as followers and again you could read this from either the rickord version or the or what I'm proposing be uh amended to the youngen version not withstanding any other provision in this Poli say shanida County Public Schools shall not compel discipline retaliate against or otherwise disadvantage any student teacher staff member or other person to address or refer to any students using pronouns or other words in
252consider consistent with a student's actual biological sex or is reflected by the official record so this does this takes that pucker Factor away from teachers and students who don't know how to prefer to each other and worried that they're going to use the wrong pronoun that number two no person including any student teacher or staff member may be disciplined retaliated against or otherwise disadvantaged for his or her refusal to participate in school sponsored activities or EV and or the teaching of principles related to sexual and or or and or gender identity and I think that is a really important concept that students teachers staff cannot be raled against or compelled to do uh something in terms of gender identity or sexual identity that they that they disagree with so those two set of protections to
253me since yankan and makes it probably the most conservative policy dealing with transgender in the entire State because that last portion to me tightens it up um and so that I'm going to leave that Amendment and ask for a second and see if if we can work on that one I second so Mr Baro made a motion to delete section D number six from the proposed Virginia Department of Education model policy and adding section I number one and number two after Section 8 at the end of the proposed virginity Department of Education policy and Miss rutz has seconded yep discussion I would agree that it does tighten this up what this does is is it says that um not only we're not going to retaliate um against our students or teachers or staff um also
254goes to participate in their activities so um what this does is it gives leeway to both sides of the spectrum both sides of the of the issue being able to keep their rights to bail out of something for instance if the um band teacher at one of our schools decides to play a a u fly a trans a uh LGT flag and um play a um popular or um lbgt um music on our homecoming field um then someone that disagrees with that can say I'm out of here I'm not going to support this and there'll be no retaliation on the other side of that if we have a prominent Community member who says there's too much Jesus in in in the Christmas Coral um we won't be changing um changing that for them either they
255can pull their child out of out of that with no harm no foul so it again I don't have a problem with it because it gives ures up rights to both to both sides to not participate in something they don't believe in all right thank you any more discussion on this amendment all right Mr Bowman do we go ahead and vote on this amendment or do we take up any more Amendment there is no more discussion you handle you answer the question at hand which is the amendment okay so we will now be voting on this is just this amendment to the yonan policy uh um so we're going to do it separately so miss Jack can we do a roll call vote Please Mr straight yes Miss careno yes Mr gsha yes M RS
256yes Mr R could I get clarification please I move to delete section D number six from the proposed Virginia Department of Education policy and add section I number one and number two after section H at the end of the proposed Virginia Department of Education policy so we are not voting this as a policy we're only voting to amend it this is just the amendment as of right now First Amendment I'll vote Yes on that Mr par yes all right the amendment carries by a six to nothing vote now ask if there are any more amendments yes yeah I would like to offer Amendment um I would like to change the language from D4 um to the record Lang uh language um also in D4 and the only difference would be um where it says not
257withstanding the provision of paragraphs 2 and three of this section sheno County Police School Personnel shall refer to a student by a name other than the one in the student official record or by pronouns other than those appropriate to the sex recorded in the student's official record only if the student has been officially designated a gender different from his or her um her sex pursuing to section 3c2 that's the same as Yin I would change the word or for the word and the legible student or the student's parents instructs the school uh divisionary writing that such a name or pronoun be used and this is the one word is what changes um whether anybody can just write a note and say yeah this kid is going to be uh different gender um and that's uh
258at least keeps a little more protection for to the children can I change the word and for amen change four minutes did I get that real quick to read it all right do we have any discussion real quick before we vote on this particular Amendment will you read it again second a second okay so is there a second to miss Carino's amendment to amend section D4 of the Virginia Department of Education yunan policy by changing the word four for and will you read it out so I can hear okay all of it the so it would Now read um not within the provisions two and three of this section CH County Police School Personnel shall refer to a student by a name other than the one in the student's official record or by pronouns other
259than those appropriate to the sex recorded in the student's official record only if the student has been officially designated a gender different from from his or her sex pursuant to section 3c2 and the elgible student or the student's parents instructs School Division in writing that such other name or pronoun be used I'll second all right we have any discussion I'm I'm unclear so so you want to change so are you are you dealing with yunen version as the base right so and and so are we dealing with D4 D4 identification of students and tell me tell me what line so 1 2 3 4 on the fourth line it says or only if an eligible student or um let me make sure that I got this right section 3 C2 and the elgible student or
260the student's parent instructs the School Division so after Section 3 C2 we're changing that to and instead of or but we are differentiating between eligible students and the students parent no so before that um so the language that I am proposing right now is not withstanding the provisions two and three of the section sheno County police schools Personnel shall refer to a student by a name other than the one in the student's official record or by pronouns other than those appropriate to the sex recorded in the student's official record only if the student has been officially designated a genda different from his or her sex pursuing to section 3c2 and the elgible student or the student's parents instructs a School Division in writing that such other name or proun be used okay so that's more
261than just the word Andor there's a whole new phrase in there is so miss Carino you were reading from Mr Ricker's policy okay yeah instead of Governor y's policy so yeah and there's a there's um in Mr Ricker's policy it also there's an um statement in there that says that it's not in the Yan policy that says Says student has been officially designated a gender different from his or her sex pursuant to section 3 C3 and so so then I'm yes okay so then that's the language I'm proposing is the one that I read from the reg you guys have the record version it would be C I mean D4 D4 but we can't use that because C maintenance C two and three are talking about a case by case basis where they can change
262the legal name am I correct in that I mean it's referring back to that to that right to the number which is not in the what is not it's not in the the yunan policy at all okay so I guess we're going to need to move um then I'm sorry then we're going to have to move make a motion to then change C2 first and then do that one I mean this is why I thought it would have been easier to work the other way around but it's fine um okay so then I'm going to so let me just then I'm going to take down that take back that motion and then the motion the first motion is going to be to change C2 the language of C2 to the language in the record version
263so we'll take care of get rid of that and then instead do sheno County police schools with the approval of the school board on a Case by casee basis shall change the legal name or sex designation of a student or students uh former students's official record only if a parent or legible student certifies that status by submitting for approval a a legal document such as a birth certificate state or federal issued identification passport or court order substantiating the student or former student's change of legal name or sex designation and in the care of changing a student sex designation B an official medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria which is the official um name of this diagnosis U by a licensed health care provider and see substantiated evidence that the students gender identity has been both persistent
264and consistent over time and just to make an explanation on that um gender dysphoria is the actual diagnosis for somebody who's going through this transition or anybody who's a transgender transgender is somebody who's already um transitioned so that's why that that terminology should not even be in this uh policy at all um the idea of entiated evidence that the student's gender identity has been both persistent and consistent over time actually comes from the Grim decision that we have here in Virginia that actually defines what a student had to do in order to be considered a different um gender so that's actually complying with the law as we have it right now so all right I take it there there was no objections from any of you all withdrawing the bogus First Amendment correct correct okay
265then minutes can show it's been withdrawn so we'll go for pit number two yes now in C two okay generally withdraw procedure before it's discussed we kind of skipped on dance and Shadows on that aspect but long as Mr chairman as long as there's no problems with withdrawing the first one you should be okay now we have the second please make the minute show that the first amendment was scrapped the first one miss car made so we're going to do that one next but this one um the first was withdraw yes so now um we're just going to do the first seure so your amendment is I to amend the Virginia Department of Education policy to amend c number two to the language in the ri that's correct and then do we have a second
266I think Mr Rickard I'll second okay so so the amendment on the floor is to modify the virginity Department of Education yunan policy section C2 by moving the Rickard C2 writing and formatting to the Virginia Department of Education yunan policy so C2 from Rickard to C2 in Virginia Department of Education yunan that's s right Miss car that is correct okay okay so we will do I need to explain it discussion have any discussion okay yeah so do I explain first so she can get first word since she made the motion the amendment okay so um I said this is one of the areas that um we're not saying that a kid cannot be transitioned I mean that's beyond the discussion here if kid is going to be going through any kind of transitioning because they
267are have gender dysphoria um this is something that is going to obviously affect everybody else not just the teachers but the other students that are going to be in the class we going to be sharing the bathrooms we going to be competing against them in the team what we're saying here is let's make sure that we have the criteria um and not make it just so willly neilly I this is going to be a decision that is going to change that kids life forever I mean kid goes through that and I'm telling you because I from my experience that's what happened I mean this girl was very much the parents were in favor of that they celebrated it she you know for people who actually have studied this they understand there's a lot of psychology
268um that is behind this decisions um so it should not be something that somebody with something you know watches the video on Tik Tok and decides to go ahead and do it so what we're doing is we're putting some criteria here that is very specific as to how and a student or a parent can actually change the student record for that student that's what it does it's just clarifying it all right Mr Barlo these are the words that I put in here several months ago and I felt and still feel that they make sense the problem is that they're not going to withstand muster with the law the way it's written being interpreted our attorney says in my view this change poses substantial legal risk of a lawsuit a reviewing judge could find that the
269school board by adding requirements on top of the Furnishing of legal documents is through the legal process in essence attempting to create for itself sort of an appeal power over what a court or other agency has already permitted so I reluctantly have to conclude after listening to council that this puts us in the crosshairs of looking like we're we are trying to be a greater Authority than the legal authorities you know that that develop this process before us and and for this child and for this for these parents so I have to I have to I have to say in spite of the fact I'd like to see us ask for indications of persistent or consistent um gender dysphoria or or that had some psychiatrist would say yes that child is suffering from that but
270being able to lay that requirement on our ourselves apparently is going to put us at risk can can I have a question to you I'm not quite done I'm not quite done so um once again I want to say that the yunan policy has given us something that 10% or excuse me less than that the 10 school systems have said is going to pass mustard we try to add things like on that we're putting ourselves at risk I'm not saying we shouldn't take these things on we can take this hill now and then move on to other aspects of Athletics athleticism and so forth for athletic competitions uh but um I I think I think if we're just trying to be too greedy and get all of this at once and push it too far
271we're just going to wind up right back here but unfortunately we're going to be facing litigation costs and even more turmoil with the school board I just have a question for you um what because you were the one who had actually suggested that language especially with regards to the um consistent um the persistent and consistent where did you get that language from um probably Josh hler yes but expressly you had said that you had gotten us from a certain case oh it came from Grim it came from Grim so Grim is actually the law right now so if it is the law and we're actually F but the court says how can did Mr Rose even make an allusion to um Grim in his decision when he said that no we don't know what we
272know is that one thing that Grim did was have a consistent and persistent uh time when he sorry um you know wanted to acted that way that gender and so he was able to show that he had done that and that's one of the reasons why the case was overturned and that that's legal basis to back us up yes I mean why our attorney couldn't see that I have no clue but he didn't I mean if it's already been practiced law in a case and went to the Supreme Court it backs us up I mean we're not asking for anything special but everything that groom did didn't wind up being I mean he did like 17 things you've seen it okay about 17 different things that's one of the things he did and and we
273could say well let's Lean Forward on these various ones and hope that's not the one that triggers it but according to our lawyer it does I mean you go out and playing traffic you could get hit by a car but I mean it to me we take our chances we we come up with what we think is common sense and what we think is best and we take our chances well and I think the thing is if I'm not mistaken it's been a while since I read that group decision but I thought that was expressly what the what the judge said when he made this decision it said one of the major criteria that he was actually based it on was the fact that there had been persistent um uh whatever the terminology was I
274they use um throughout years and that's why they had actually ruled that way now I just have to say I mean we have like I said before everybody can believe whoever they want and obviously going to be voting on this but to to decide that an attorney who's never dealt with this before and who did not even make any citations about any of this actual case law in the memo over what the attorney general and what in this case an actual Court here in Virginia decided it's it's beyond any comprension to me I mean I I guess I'm too legal about it how can you keep saying that my Aries that supports us when he didn't well he supports the other areas but what I'm saying even the areas that M does support Mr Rose
275said that that wasn't that that wasn't allowed and I think he went against Ash mies and I think loading up on a lawyer I mean gender transgender law is being formed it's not settled law that's 30 years old it's emerging now and we take cases like grim and other cases and we parse them together and we see how kind of how to flush us out exactly but leaning forward on it and taking a point on these things and and putting the our policy at Jeopardy not a smart idea well no my point is if we're actually following a court but then what you're saying is this attorney who didn't even I don't even know if he read Grim um completely ignore what the judge and the courts actually said you don't know that he completely
276ignored he did not make these assumptions about he did not mention it in there I'm going by what he put by by the work product that he he gave he gave us the sites in the previous you don't do a site before you do a paper you do a paper with it was not a legal brief we asked him questions and he answered our questions okay but when you do something like that and you're actually providing opinions I mean even our high schoolers have to do that if you provide an argument you have to provide the supportive evidence of why I think you're complaining because he disagrees with you actually all right I'm going to jump in here we've I think there's been an ample amount of discussion here I have one thing I'd like
277to add okay and then we got to keep going code 22.2 D 23.3 directs each School Board to adopt policies that are consistent with these model policies and accordingly to comply with this law school boards may not adopt or maintain policies that in conflict with duly developed model policies how is it model policies right now says a parent can sign off on anything comprehensive doesn't in my view say hey the School Board gets to do it and we don't even have a a a policy for procedure on what that looks like if we want to turn somebody down so that's case law I understand I'm not an attorney or been educated in law but that's what that says all right so I so if you want to put it to a vote so we are
278going to vote on the amendment by Miss careno of moving section C2 from Mr Rickard policy to the Virginia Department education youngan policy roll call B please Mr Street yes M careno yes Ms no Mr Rickard yes Mr Barlo no Mr bsh no the amendment fails 3 to three any other amendments that the board wants to make uh yes yes all right miss all right so I guess the other one is not going to be um okay so the next one then is going to be um I would like to add the language from the rord um version um H regarding the athletic teams and athletic um events hel County and replace yonin is just H yeah so it's going to be uh replacing um yonin H is that with Mr Rickards H Sor what's
279the replacement so we're going to replace the language um put U Mr Rickards language from age into uh and replace the one for young in age okay all right to replace yunin H with my h12 and 3 correct that's correct thank you I'll second okay so amendment has been um made by Miss careno to and properly seconded by Mr Rickard to move section H1 H2 and H3 of the a covering the athletic teams moving that from policy Ricker to policy Virginia Department of Education Yan policy is there any discussion I can you tell me that again I move to amend the Virginia Department of Education policy H one two and three no you're taking out the state's policy H as in Howard and inputting H1 2 and three from the Rickard policy so I move
280to amend the Virginia Department of Education policy H H yes ma'am all right is there any discussion on that amendment I do well um since I presented it I should probably just explain it so um this actually just goes over the uh information that we've been talking about with regards to athletic terms and actually um teams I'm sorry and athletic events and being more specific um using what jasonaris did talk about and again what we've seen also with the NAA and also with the other states um uh in terms of um legislation we know that this is not in any way um contradictory with the uh um equal protection Clause of the Constitution so this actually passes a constitutional moner and also it's not a violation of Title 9 which Mr rigard has already read
281several times I'm to read that again any other comments yes m r um this is one of again another area that the attorney um kind of warned us about um one thing about Title 9 and one of the Provisions for that for execution is is that the language and how it's written cannot be discriminate discriminatory in nature um so um he says and as we discussed Mor detail from my Memo from February 19th the paragraphs uh 3 H2 and H3 um provide protections to females and that are not also available to males so um He suggests that we figure out how to word it to where it's not purposefully discriminatory in language um so it says for any Athletic program or activity that's designated for females no biological males could be permitted to participate um
282however subject to parental consent female athletes shall be permitted to participate in athletic activities designed for males um for an athletic program or activity designed for female athletes held at a sheno County County sheno County facility field again we're not we are not over everybody in shed into a county or a field no biological males can be allowed to participate that verbiage will will get us in trouble because it purposefully discriminates against males so if there's another way of reworking it to where it it sounds it's it's not purposefully sounds that way then we can roll with that but as it's written right now there there will be a challenge or could be a challenge thank you m RS any other comments on the amendment Mr Barlo yeah I um I want to Second what
283uh what um Mrs rutz just said um and once again um Daniel Rose says that H2 and H3 um especially provide protection benefits to females that are not also made available to males this poses a risk of a legal challenge that the policy violates Title Nine and the equal protection Clause so if we want to set ourselves up for litigation then uh and as this goes Mr Ricker was talking earlier about Maya was talking about not comingling um the uh the the Sexes and and this is what we open ourselves up to is allowing ourselves for comingling at this time based on female participation rather than male so I'm so I can't support it thank you Mr Marlo any other thoughts before we move yeah let me just I guess we do have to read
284the um Jason's opinion again again on this um because it's been apparently very misunderstood um consequently the exclusion of males from female sports does not violate the equal protection Clause title line does not demand otherwise indeed commingling both biological texes in the realm of female Athletics would threaten to undermine one of title 9's a major achievement giving young women an opportunity to participate in sport again specifically this is allowing males into the female Athletics therefore I conclude that sex separational athletic programs determined by biological sex rather than gender or gender identi comports with the equal protection Clause Title 9 and DH these are all pages five and six in's official advisory opinion so I'm going to go with M Jason mies and his opinion and not um Rose's um opinion that he just came on
285one day if I could under Section seven of Title Nine it reads as follows overall determination of compliance the department will base its compliance determination under 86- 41 C of the regulation upon determination of the following a whether the policies of an institution are discriminatory in language or effect what you said had nothing to do with the way it's written it's discriminatory in the way it's written here and that is what Rose has saying not that it's discriminatory against you know boys and girls it's discriminatory in the way it is the language and and rather um and rather disparities of the substantial and unjustified nature of the benefits treatments services and opportunities afforded to male and female athletes exist in the institution of programs it it can't read like that if if you want to
286rewrite it that's fine but as it's written we're we will be in direct violation of title none Mr rard anything my money's on the Attorney General I I'll follow what he advis I have no problems with my verbage like I said if it lines up with common sense that's where you'll find me Mr car Mr give anything before we go to m car to wrap it up so Mike you U I guess what I'm hearing here is uh I like you know once again I think we're trying to be lawyers instead of hearing it from lawyers that's just my opinion we're not lawyers I'm more of a bullet point you know this this and this without all this us trying to be lawyers and I have a I have a duty to follow a lawyer
287than TR us trying to be lawyers but anyway is there any way you can change the language the terminology to satisfy uh equal grounds we probably could and there again we can't to me we're trying to rush this thing through yes I was happy and trust me I don't like kicking the can down the road but I want this thing right I totally agree when that's what IED ear through if I'm going to be forced to rush it then you Witnesses I'm forced to rush the first thing I said to Chairman Barlo when I got here tonight was hey you and I didn't have a chance to talk today we had planned on it can we extend this out a little bit he said no absolutely not well whoa whoa whoa you said it was
288on the action agenda whoa who I don't like to be misquoted and I don't like to be for the last two months I sat down with various people trying to come together on this and have people say that's it we're done we can't or I'm seeing things the who said EXC said that excuse me excuse me do not lie what you're the one who said that the want you were the one who CAU you walked away after our second meeting and said you weren't going to get okay so let me Bo that rules of the Quorum is we address the issues not the person okay I will state I will State for the record that for two months I've Been Working for with anybody who will work with me on this on this up through
289including this afternoon and yesterday and this particular issue is one that was raised I I I'm flabbergasted that we keep quoting myis whose endorsed version is in front of us to be passed and we're say well we think he would probably like ours when he says no comingling of sexcess hello no comingling of the sexes in you know and we have two things here that have carve outs for female participation why we're just asking for trouble what is I I guess my question is um the model policy says for any Athletic program or activity that's separated by sex the appropriate participation of students shall be determined by sex rather than gender or gender identity and the School Division shall provide reasonable modifications for this policy only to the extent required by law I mean it
290covers the exact same thing with without being in violation of title nun's polic of enforcement so I'm not sure why it is that we have to go well it's it's all about girls but you can't write it that way so you know again I don't know what H does that or what your AG does that this age doesn't do I have no issue with a girl that wants to play football wants to wrestle they know they're at a at a physical disadvantage going into it the parents know that um that's why I've coached girls in football I've coached some phenomenal girls in football that are playing at the JV level now at strawsburg high school I have no issue with that um to me they know they're at a physical disadvantage but males playing in
291female sports is totally different uh so in other words you're not going to be happy until we distinguish between the two which will be in violation of title n well I'm sorry let's just go back a little bit because again so let's just think about the timing this came first right the Y king um appointment U policy then Miis actually reviewed that he went a step further and said what I just read you that's an actual quotation when he's talking about the comingling he's talking about the comingling of both biological sexes in the realm of female Athletics he's very specific on what he's saying he's not just saying commingling of allal sexes or commingling for whatever you know you want to think of he's very specific indeed commingling both biological sexes in the realm of
292female Athletics but he said before that consequently the exclusion of males from female sports teams does not violate the equal protection Clause title n does not demand otherwise so it's actually very very clear you want to take it out of order then you can actually go ahead and say you know up with what assumptions so this is not me saying oh this is what Miis must have thought no this is what Miis actually said after he reviewed this so this came first this came second and he said not only this but this and this what he said here is what we put in the language um in my in my policy and then what Rickard also included ex said that he also added the U idea of having the coaches right the coaches of the
293female um athletes being able to decide whether they want to be participating against biological males correct it does not violate any I'd like to call the the vote now if if all of our discussion is through on this m on this I I have know the comment okay go ahead yeah so um so Mike here's my problem with the car Val for for females it's not the case that it's just what if a girl's particularly good at playing football what if you know you know a 13-year-old any of you guys old enough to remember Nadia kones I mean she was a great she was a great gymnast and she was like 13 years old no male could have competed against her okay and she had she had the advantage okay now there are there are
294places in sports I mean if you're if you're a middle school wrestler and the girl's going to be big you know more developed at that point than you are there are just you know I I think that title 9 requires e equality and division for both not for one and other we allow females right now to wrestle and male we do and and we have made certain car bats for those with with those delineations in mind but we haven't made blanket statements that that that cover it the way this does and that's why I say we would have to develop which would which is what um Handover has done is to bifurcate the policies into so and then they're working on Athletics separately which which is a whole separate subset but one I don't think
295we can tackle this is why I would like to work on this as a board and get the two policies comingled on a work session or something like that and then we come before the public and vote on it to me I mean we're trying to rush this tonight and it's going on midnight I've been taking heat seeking rounds to the chest for 2 months because I'm the one blam for dragging my feet the last two months because I wanted to get all this done and so this comes as kind of ironic to me well considering we tabled it and then the very next meeting you all put it back on here so it and I and I guess that's because you all thought you had a slam dunk so uh you know I well
296let me just make a point of clarification here because I'm the one who who drafted the original policy this board did not did nothing last year um with regards to this younging policy I first circulated that the draft policy that I circulated back in November mid November I've been since this November December January not any comment whatsoever from anybody here except maybe Mr rord did a couple of times February um you actually decided that you wanted to work together we met together for like 5 hours and then out of the blue you sent me an email saying that you did not want to do anymore um that we were done with our negotiations you can look that up um since then we had the tabling and um now we have this Mr Rickard did you
297get a lot of um questions from this board with regards to your um policy and trying to clarify this or trying to work this out from anybody because I know I didn't when I did it so I think whatever few uh suggestions were made during the work session is what Mr Rickard actually included in there a lot of these other stuff is just coming out for the first time then how did my stuff get in there because like I said when we were there for 5 hours we added that in there was there before that no it wasn't in there we added it when you said that you wanted to added the Grim language you literally wanted to add the Grim language so we did all right so we are going to vote on this
298amendment now again the amendment was proposed by Miss Carino and seconded by Mr Rickard to move uh sections H1 H2 and H3 from the Ricker policy to the Virginia Department of Education yunan policy so we will have a roll call vote Miss jet thank you Mr stre well under lawyer advice uh no M Carino yes Mr no Mr rer yes Mr bar no Mr no all right this amendment fails four to two or two to four um do we have any other amendments no I'm just going to wait until the next board okay if there are no other amendments the time has finally come I believe where we will be voting on the re Virginia Department of Education yunan policy with the amendment that Mr Barlo or yeah Mr Barlo proposed earlier and that was
299to move section D number six from the proposed policy and add section I number one and two after section H at the end of the proposed policy so that was the amendment we approved what feels like a couple hours ago now happy Friday morning by the way so we will now vote on again the amended Virginia Department of Education yunan policy roll call vote please m jet Mr stre yes M Caro no M yes Mr rer no Mr Barlo yes Mr bsh yes yes the item carries 4 to2 and with that being said I will now relinquish relinquish the chairmanship back to Mr Barlo do you have to it' be my honor thank you all right we are in at 5.5 for Action items adoption of school board Norms we read and reviewed the school
300board Norms last meeting at our work session I believe and they are stated for us once again we can't open that up is there anybody who would like to make a motion to adopt the sheno County School Board Norms as presented if I can find it out I would be glad to make it I move to adopt the shannond County School Board Norms as presented I second the motion has been made by Mr Rickard and seconded by Mrs rutz that we accept the shinid county school Lord Norm's draft as presented to us any discussion those in favor yeah no I do want to have some discussion go for it um I wanted to include in the board Norms um I wanted to add the requirement that we be notified by email um as of right
301now I just I haven't be notified every time we're going to be having items in the agenda and I know that's part of the board Norm so I would just like to make an amendment and say that the chairman will be notifying Us by email um of the need to do that we agree that that would be done and you have also received your last version of that so oh I don't have oh so that is included in there you got it from Mrs Jack well then I is that if that's already there then I'll retire my my motion put it and I I do remind the U the board that there are there are two ways to get things on the agenda one is to let me know and I will will carry everything
302as I did back in January even at the first organization meeting and if you don't want to do that bring it up at the school board uh members um comments at the end and we give it to the superintendent for uh inclusion so both of those things are in place so I just have a question um so I'm talking about the S says a share 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 corre she saying that one included by email yes okay so I have the the old here okay then I will remove but yeah but by the way it is my responsibility to constantly poll you so when I ask you to call me or whatever
303that would help so there we go okay um no further discussion all in favor of accepting the uh School Board Norms as we have reviewed them please signify by saying I I I opposed passes 60 the superintendent's monthly report thank you I only have um 100 bulleted items that I would go through right now so if you'll just be patient with me um congratulations to Signal non Middle School uh student Piper delinger for winning the Virginia Municipal league if I were a mayor sa contest also I hope to see you this morning at North Fork U Middle School's Outdoor Classroom ribbon cutting ceremony so I think that starts at 8:30 at North Fork Middle School so hope to see you there in a few hours attendance increased uh slightly in March from 93.1% to um
304last year to 93.9% this year thanks to all of our students families and staff for making attendance a priority and we would like to congratulate the mut Regional govern Governor school students who won the Lord Fairfax Soil and Water Conservation District and viron M uh muton Regional Governor school has three teams that participated and they plac first second and third we would like to congratulate all of our students who participated in the music assessments our schools are um all performed well well there are many music concerts from now through the end of um the school year Peter mberg middle school will be presenting their musical for uh Frozen JR this weekend the Mountain View High School Musical Anastasia is the first weekend of May and the schurg high school murder mystery musical is the second
305weekend in May I encourage everyone to come out and support our students and staff they work hard at these Productions and they always do an incredible job we have a um band concert the paig shanida concert which will be on Saturday tomorrow at 3:00 at um Laray high school so I hope you guys will attend that um spring sports are in full swing good luck to all of our teams and then um this week we announced our um School teachers of the Year division new teacher of the year Team of the Year and employee of the year and we will be announcing the division teacher of the year at next week's staff recognition banquet I hope that all School members will attend that um staff recognition banquet I think it's Thursday April the 18th and
306then congratulations to Signal non Middle School egg teacher and FFA adviser Dakota strad on winning the teachers turn the key award from the Virginia Association of Agriculture Educators be happy to answer any questions thank you that was the most succinct report I've ever heard excellent uh School Board member comments Tom do you want to start off I have none okay um just a couple of things um well three things actually uh one was the mental health task force did meet um this last week uh two weeks ago and it was very successful we had a great session coming up with some priorities we need to start working on um secondly we had a Personnel committee uh meeting last week uh where we got to talk to a lot of the teachers at the central campus
307and that was actually very informative and we are very happy um to have gotten a lot of feedback and we had about 40 people there so that was great um and thirdly you know I want to thank everybody who came over to talk on both issues um obviously uh from my perspective of the gender identity um we received a lot of letters and we had a lot of people coming over um talking trying to support this um unfor we weren't able to do what we uh wanted to do but I I pledge that I will not let this go and um we have to wait two years to try again we will Mr Rick um Miss ruts would you like to go before me I believe um Miss jet could you pull up the two
308pictures that I submitted I would like to um do you have those there we go I would like to like to give a huge thank you to Mike shyy he went out there on a weekend uh those are the pictures of the the playground equipment that had the caution tape all over it he made some temporary repairs cleaned it up um as you can see the the kids can go back to using it for now um I believe he's he's studying ways of making a permanent fix when the kids are not in school uh but a huge thank you to you for going out there and taking care of that for us um that was under his expense and his time uh so I thank you for donating that um second of all I I
309want to give a huge shout out to the teachers on the central campus and the staff that came out to our Personnel committee meeting um I believe Dr Shephard uh estimated the number to be about 50 um I was really really pleased I didn't think we'd get much of a showing at all and they showed up and I I just want each one of them to know their voices were heard um we will make changes uh to shannona County to make it better for the staff the kids everyone um it will be a work in progress but we will make shannona County the best we can um thank you to all of you that have stayed to this late hour we appreciate your dedication we appreciate you coming out and speaking tonight um that's all
310I've got I got to be in DC in 5 hours um I Believe Miss Pence probably gave a had a little bit of a part in the purchase of the partner and crime there for um the materials for that um and uh Mrs penel also um has has um given um paid for entryways into like the Virginia froner Museum and and things of that nature there are folks such as Mr Street and Mr heishman and Miss Ronda and and those that have stuck around that um just so you know you know your dedication your money your time showing up here um is always welcome and it's always appreciated um and uh it doesn't go unnoticed you know this this whole um school thing started a while ago and you know I've gotten to the point
311that I look forward to Charles's comments and uh and uh so I you know I look forward to seeing you because you haven't given up you haven't given up on on the education here and um it's a big deal so I appreciate it I appreciate the have stuck around this evening our staff and um I'm not going to say anything else cuz I'm tired and I want to go home so big thank you to everybody who stuck it out tonight last time I checked we still had like 90 watching on YouTube from their uh couches I'm sure a lot more comfortable situation than we've been in but um I mean we have to make difficult decisions up here um you saw the kind of crowd we had tonight it's there were some good points made
312by both sides um you know we have to consider what our constituents believe individually we have our own districts we have our own people um with the policy we passed tonight obviously um you know different ideas going around the room and I think it's a good thing that we're having these tough conversations rather than just uh you know stamping yes on everything and passing the through so um hopefully this is just a little road bump for for us and we can keep moving forward and being productive and um trying to improve our discipline here in our test scores and teacher retention and everything that's relevant in the school system so um optimistic for that and hopefully everyone will get a good good night's sleep tonight yeah well said I um I think if we look
313back a little bit at this it it it is a little bit like making sausage uh but we took what I think was a really good yunen premise and we made it even better without putting ourselves at risk and uh I I think that's I think that's commendable um even if uncomfortable and I um I do want to thank Mike it's uh you're keeping the the the tradition of the Southern campus Alive by having all the self-help from the families go over there and and keep things up so I I like I've always liked the the fact that the southern campus has a lot of uh energy that parents and uh community members put into it and I I think it shows uh and I I think it pays dividends as well so thank you
314for the staff for St from 11 April to 12 April and so I think we'll just ring this one up should I am I supposed to ask for a motion to adjourn it just one it doesn't matter okay we're going to ring it to close at 12:15 am for