SCPS School Board Work Session Meeting 03/25/2024

001the shanida County school board March 25th 2024 Edition uh and so we have an agenda of uh four items tonight during our work session and I'm looking for a motion to approve the agenda as has been presented I move to approve the agenda as presented a second motion was made by Mr Guta and seconded by Mrs rutz uh and any discussion all in favor please say I I I opposed motion carries 60 and so we will move right into the work session um our first uh topic is um the school board norms and U I guess superintendent going to take it from here yes thank you thank you so Schoolboard Norms are agreed upon to follow collaboration and teamwork and the boards uh the Norms that you have in front of you were adopted February

002the 13th 2020 tonight gives us an opportunity to look at the Schoolboard Norms review and revise them to give this group of Schoolboard members an opportunity to weigh in on the current Norms um and if you will permit me I will highlight a few areas of the Norms as you know kind of go through them and highlight a few things so you will notice the very first part is is our responsibility so School Board School Board member responsibilities and there are six bulleted items the second bulleted item I'll just highlight um that the um district superintendent evaluation is typically introduced in May at the May the 1 May meeting for discussion and then um at the June 13th Clos session then there's a discussion by school board members for um completion at the final at

003the June 24th meeting so gives you several opportunities to weigh in on um the superintendent's evaluation and then how does the school board govern there's General board participation and here it just says that all school board members will be fully prepared for each of the a board meetings um and that you will read the materials in board dogs prior to AR school board meetings it discusses how the superintendent and the school board chair will prepare the Schoolboard agenda and there are a couple of ways to get items on the school board agenda um the chair will contact members of the of the school board prior to the meeting to determine if there are any requests the chair will continuously poll members to see if there are any agenda items or report items that they would

004like to have added and then um in individual Schoolboard members can um mention at the public at during um School Board comment if they would like to add something to the um Schoolboard agenda and we have if you will notice we have also put a Schoolboard member comments on our work sessions as well so it'll give you two opportunities to during Schoolboard comments to mention things that you would like to have on the um agenda so I'm now under self- evaluation and Retreats um I would recommend that um we take out vsba um as an organization and just put Schoolboard conferences because there are U multiple um opportunities for Schoolboard members to get education that could be through vsba S spma or Noah Webster um just to name a few so there are multiple opportunities

005to do that so I would recommend we strike through that and just put Schoolboard conferences um the self EV the annual self- evaluation Retreat that is discussed in policy AFA which says that the school board will annually do a um evaluation um to review its performance and it doesn't it doesn't have a timeline attached to it but um I would assume it would either be June or December whichever you know June is the end of the fiscal year but December is the end of the calendar year so so that could be an opportunity um and new board members come on in January so it's you know first six months it may be difficult to do a a self assessment at that time you may want to wait but um according to the policy it says

006that the school board members are involved in the development of evaluation instrument in the procedure for the self- evaluation it says that each of the individ um the instrument will be completed by individual board members and submitted to the school board chair for compilation and then the school board members um will meet and then information will be presented at that time and then based on the results of the um evaluation the um school board will develop short and long-term goals and objectives to ensure continued Proficiency in the areas of Excellence to strengthen weak areas and to improve the efficiency of the board yeah I've never seen an evaluation yes no no so I believe um the chair actually starts that process and this has been in effect since 2020 2020 February 13th of 2020 now

007I've been here two years I've never seen an evaluation was there one done prior so or did we adopt something that we just never followed through R in 2020 yep so so I don't know that I would have seen the school board evaluation um the school board self evaluation I don't know that I would have seen those results but I know it hasn't been done in the last two years have you seen an evaluation prior to the two years no okay no thanks for asking there is a code reference here but I'm not sure what it it's 22.1 d78 but I'm not sure what it you know what it says says yeah any other questions about the first page we went through that pretty quickly um I can maybe go through the rest of it

008and then you guys can discuss individually what you would like change what we would like to stay the same and all that so strategic planning um typically at the June school board meeting um the superintendent and the school board talk about strategic planning so that's the June 23rd 24th meeting it's more of a retreat work session type um meeting and that's when we talk about the Strategic plan and then right below that is day-to-day operations and decision making you can read that but it talks about um the responsibilities of the board versus uh the responsibilities of the superintendent below that's how we communicate um and I'll just highlight a few things maybe in no particular order but I think one of the things that we probably need to add to the school board Norms is

009Schoolboard member to Schoolboard member communication and how that works so that's something that you know is not um written in here but there are you know there are some for you um guidance that would say that anything that looks like it's done um at one time simultaneously could be considered a meeting and I sent that to you guys on Friday in the Friday notes but here it is um printed so I would recommend that we add something like that um you will also notice that there is the superintendent communication with school board members every Friday you get a Friday notes from me unless it's a holiday over a holiday weekend or something like that but otherwise you'll have information from me you will receive emergency communication or general communication either through email text or telephone

010if it's not an emergency I like to wait and put everything in the Friday notes so that it's it's a One-Stop shop where you can go to refer back but if it's an emergency situation like we have a Personnel situation I'll typically text that to you um to each member individually right below the communication how we communicate is filling concerns and handling requests and parent Community concerns um it encourages board members to listen but then encourage the complaintant to contact the person closest to the to the complaint so whether it would be a principal whether it would be um a school board staff or the superintendent um to um to talk to the person who has a concern Anonymous concerns on the third page um says that you know we we will take them under

011advisement but unless there's specific information that we can follow through with then you know we're just going to take that information under advisement um faculty and staff concerns again encourage the staff member to talk to the principal or the administ immediate supervisor and then board requests for information from Central Staff office they should all come through the superintendent and the superintendent will then disperse that information request to the appropriate people and then um when I respond it will be um through the whole board if at all possible and again I will save those until Friday unless it's an emergency or or information I think you need to have before that and then the same for request for information from principales and staff um if the board determines that it needs uh to request information from

012principles um please filter that through the superintendent we'll have to change his to [Laughter] their um and there was something on here too okay it is it's on this bottom of the second page um if Schoolboard members are going to visit a school you're encouraged to do so but please let the principal know that you're coming and you know if they need to arrange anything for you to be there you want to see a specific person or talk to a specific group of people then um they can they can coordinate for that for you so that is in a nutshell very quickly the Schoolboard Norm so interested in hearing your your input or thoughts I have a question and I don't know if it's a suggestion or a question um because when we're talking about

013all the communications like Schoolboard you know meetings or superintendent um should we specify whether it has to be email calls or cuz I know like you're doing the email already but I mean um we don't have for example for the uh school meeting the share will contact members but we don't know is it should we do it like uniformally like just you know like an email like you send the emails every Friday notes you know for the Friday notes or maybe the chairman can send an email I don't know however many days before the meeting or whatever so so what is that you once found out if we need to say what kind of communic how we're going to communicate because right now it just says we're going to communicate should we be more specific

014and say by email um okay regarding agenda setting or just any either like either one of them like we're talking about all this Communications and it doesn't really say anywhere how to communicate um so I was wondering if we should specify how we're going to communicate the value and the problem with the with the Norms itself is that it's pretty Loosey uh because and I think that's done on purpose with the fact that it provides um kind of sense of how we do business and then and then come up with the specifics based on that that work in our in continence with the U uh with the policies that have already been derived but um but it it it as you suggest uh for instance um it does kind of make clear getting thing on

015the agenda and yet there are various ways to do it so I'm supposed to be polling you continuously and in fact um two of the newest members had three things on the agenda before January got here so um we're trying to get the word out uh and I've asked um well Cheryl's thinking upon herself to send ticklers to each of you before and I sent the one out before the last meeting but um there's still and we can do it tonight one one of the reasons that I think it's good we have the Schoolboard member comments work session as well as the regular meeting is that those are times to bring up something that you would like to see on agenda as well so uh I think the reason that it doesn't say any specific

016um venue for doing that is that it can be various sources but I think as a as a default for agenda and other items we ought to be using email so that you know that that's that's there but nevertheless you need to be cognizant of the fact that you have school board members comments and telephone uh to let me know anytime you want something on because I read in the policy that it's my job to be bringing your requests for items before that I can't say or nay but it's my responsibility to be bringing them so if you let me know what they are I'll pass them on and make sure that they get U well was in fact it's kind of to protect you um in a way as a share um because a

017share will contact members of the school board if we say well len by writing in that way you can always say yeah I sent the email well I'm not worried about covering my butt I'm just saying we want to make sure everybody hears about it I think it pretty well do but but we've got those ticklers and those that's good so okay Mike I do like your idea for transparency but at the same time I kind of like it Loosey Goosey cuz I know my job and Tom's job were we're not always by a computer so I know a lot of times I can pick up the phone and call you um but I do like the email idea for a paper trail if it's something I want to cya myself on um so I

018don't know I kind of like it loose like that um okay A lot of times if I'm traveling or something like that I can pick up the phone call you and say hey what do you think about this there's nothing that prohibits you from having a conversation say with Gloria and then when you get to your email shootter an email and say hey I'm just following up on the conversation we had today I mean if you you're concerned about transparency you can always do that and you know again transparency is only as good as the person that's going to offer it anyway so you know Gloria hey I you know just to follow up our conversation today we talked about this this and this and this is what I ask you to do and and

019then off you go so I mean you could always always do that but um I'm like you a lot of my business gets done behind the wheel wheel of my Bluetooth and and I'm not always sitting behind a computer so well I wasn't talking exactly necessarily about like Communications among the members and all that I was just talking about like very specific like for example for the setting of the agenda um the superintendent when she's you know writing to us and we already know that she does it um by email but she does that every single week um I was just wondering if that was something that we wanted to include that for purposes of setting the agenda or those Communications that are already more structured if we wanted to um put the stipulation that

020it would be by in writing well I I think U I think it's pretty well covered if if there if there a sense of the of the group that we uh that we need something to specify that but I mean it it indicates here um my responsibility to get it out and we have a sop now that it's going to be delivered so I mean if you want to add more to it fine with me but I think it got I think um I think the issue that Melody uh confronts us with here is and that I think Brandy was starting to um allude to is just the conversations we have among ourselves uh and the uh the the the in quotes threats that that might pose to foer violations and and that reared its

021head very early uh because we were getting emails from one member who would send it all six and then or other other five and then the rest of us kind of wouldn't know what to do with it and so um so I I called the Joe at foyer Council and talk to him uh but it was pretty much the same things uh Dr Shephard that you sent us uh and so the long and short of this if you've read that is that um I'm not I'm not totally comfortable with this but it's their school solution so I'd like to hear your opinions on this uh is that when somebody when when two or more members of the board go out to all six or more than two um then it could be construed as a

022meeting if if somebody in that group were to respond all or to respond to three now I had a discussion with Joe and I I don't agree with that uh because um the definition of public meeting um by three more members is that it occurs in real time and has an element of simultaneity I didn't make up that word I don't think that anyway that it has to be simultaneous and email responses are not simultaneous uh and so you know legalistically I wouldn't have a problem with but um if we wanted to go the route that Joe suggested the Joe whoever he is suggested um um then uh if we receive an email from another member and we want to respond to that we have the choice of sending five different emails or now here's

023what asked Doug and we don't know the answer to this yet but I've seen two different tracks on this in the Foya discussions one is that and maybe somebody even knows if you hit respond all to something that has a BCC blind carbon copy which I still think is courtesy anyway if you do that um does it go to those other five people or does it go into The Ether and we need to find that out right and so um uh so that would be and somebody who was arguing with a fo I don't want to go to sorry about this somebody was arguing with the foyer people were saying the that doesn't do any good anyway if you can still respond all and it goes to the same people then you really haven't accomplished

024anything you you haven't you haven't done anything so um nevertheless the foyer Council recommends that that's the way we handle it that after the first trunch the first message um to be on the safe side that um that any response um or that uh response has to be sent blind courtesy copy car carbon copy uh or send one to each individual but both of those seem like just fictitious workarounds from what you do anyway if you just didn't respond all so I think we're in the horns of a dilemma here and I'm not sure we want to get is that because it the top just technically doesn't say everybody whereas you you're blind carbon copying it I guess on the foia end of it somebody's going to see that I sent it to you but

025I didn't but they didn't catch it that I send it to Gloria as well but I did I mean I mean it makes us look even more underground than if we just talked everybody since we're going down this rabbit hole Yeah and maybe Melody could answer this um to me I haven't done it a whole lot but when those big emails come out to all of us what difference does it make if we reply all and we have a conversation in there if somebody fores it it's Freedom of Information whereas if you send it to each person individually and have your own conversations which it's same thing right I mean if somebody foes it they're going to get the information yeah based on there's two court cases in this Foya document um and one is

026Beck and the other is and one is um hill hill versus fear yeah um and one is about simultaneous and one is about um three or more members so you know both of those are considered a meeting but don't forget that whenever we have a meeting we publish it at least three days in advance that there's going to be a meeting so if we're you know if we are sending emails between school War members and we're talking about something that's on um the agenda let's say budget fiscal year 2025 budget and the meeting is um three or members are are simultaneously so you type something you hit send off um Brandy typed something and hit send off you know right after she received and then C it that may be considered um a meeting but

027who knows because you know that's when the court would have to um weigh in however we didn't send out a message that we were meeting you know three days in advance to whenever that email happened does that make sense it does mhm so my question to that is would be the context of the me of of the email if we are come conversing with which most of our our stuff is conversing with emails we get from our constituents we're not actually conducting board business among the three of us I mean during a Schoolboard meeting we can't talk to any public anybody in the public during those times and and technically and that's well I mean you can can but I mean we don't respond to public comments I mean that's what we don't do so

028and that's during a meeting but you can there's no rule all you have to do is direct the chair hey I'd like to respond to this right but I mean we give that up front that we're not going to respond to public you know to do to do that as I've read it interpreted it I think Mike's right that we are allowed to ask clar ifying questions now the intent seems to be not to get involved with a dialogue right the intent like you said 45 students did you mean 45 students would be a fair question to a public comment okay but do you really believe that load of garbage you're giving us would not be a proper question so whereas a lot of what we respond to in email is correspondence with the public

029not that we're taking consensus necessarily sometimes we are we may have opinions about you know you know something coming up which might in indicate a um you board board business but if we are responding to the public and we respond all so everybody knows what we said to you know Susie P you citizen I don't know if that's necessarily would be considered you know board business you know I mean I I I don't know I guess that might be something that a judge would look at it and go okay so I responded to her glory responded to her Mike responded to her is that is that an a meeting or is that just us having a conversation with constituency that's a good question it deals um so Foya really deals with something that would considered

030School business right so yeah and if you're getting a complaint from or a concern from a Citizen and you're replying all I don't know that that's going to necessarily be that's going to be a school board member's opinion it's not going to be the board's opinion the other question with that would be on committees there's two policy committee teacher committee you know if you're conversing via email on that is that and your discussing agenda setting for your next is that board you know that's only that's there's only two that's a committee three yeah three or more well but if it's a committee it's a given official you know from the from the school board then it's just like a regular meeting it has to be publicized that I would think is still a a a

031board business even though it's two of us well we specifically addressed that a few months ago in that we did say that the agenda setting session was not per se a committee meeting but the other committee meetings would be and that's why the last meeting CP that those would be officially charged by given Power by the by this board so it's a committee I'm GNA ask Jessica if she wants to weigh in at all but since she is our FIA officer I'm not an attorney though so keep that in mind so the document does say or a quorum so for the Committees it would be um it would be the two would be a quorum however I think as long as you're not making decisions that the committee would be making you're okay so like

032if you're setting the agenda or hey I'd like to talk about this when we meet or something like that I think that you would be okay but I think if you're trying to communicate by email instead of having a committee meeting and you're doing it simultaneously that you probably be violating Foya at that point but it does say a quorum in here so the Quorum is the is the is the kicker here so we you send something El say about giving an extra day at Spring break that was email and it went to we probably shouldn't rep hit ply all on that because we're actually making a decision about some of them so if a teacher contacts us on the Personnel committee or any staff member and just forwards her email email or his email

033to Gloria and myself we can respond to that and talk about whatever their complaint is or whatever their issue is that's not a fo you violation because the rest of the committee is not involved correct so are you acting as the Personnel committee at that time or are you acting as a school board member sometimes I just act as myself so you know and make sure I say I'm not speaking for the board there are very um there were two lawsuits in this you know so it really if it has to be litigated before it you know you actually get information on whether it's going to be upheld or not so it's kind of like it's only illegal if you get caught kind of I mean they leave it so gray it sounds like you

034have to fight it legally if somebody brings that issue up so I think if you'll ask Mr Barlo his experience with the Foya Council um they do leave it gray because there's not been a lot of litigation to determine I use the old sweaty Palms thing if you got sweaty Palms about something you probably better treat it like it's uh like it's a a meeting and I mean if you're not I I think if you guys are talking about something that's perking and you want to find out more about it and you're going back in no no I don't think so and and if it does come that we're called out on something like that okay we Face the music and without sweaty Palms explain why we did it if you got a good reason

035for doing it it'll be okay I think Tom and I had a good question and that was why can't just the six of us sit down somewhere and talk and have an open conversation without no offense to you guys but being worried about what we might say offending you guys or what you guys say offending us it just kind of stinks the way this is set up that it's always got to be in the public eye and everybody's got to that's a good observation and I uh I admit that I really hadn't thought about a retreat uh until uh Dr Shepard mentioned a few minutes ago and I do remember a couple years ago that first Retreat uh did break down some walls that maybe the six of us haven't had a chance to do

036uh and so I think it would be a healthy exercise to to have done that so and to do it so I think that I think it's it's a good thing the June time frame looks pretty good also because we we have to do the Strategic plan as well as and that's when it normally might be done so it's going to say something I'm not going to say okay so um well here as as we go through this uh we we can't change it tonight uh but we can't change change it next time we meet uh with a with or if we if we put it on the agenda um so as we discuss the various aspects of the of the Norms if there's anything that you need to be changed then be ready for

037us to um take a motion to that effect because this document belongs to us and we can change it I will say I I I think the vision here is good uh I've said this before the person who consistently follows the best is superintendent and the rest of us like I didn't know was in there anyway um so but if there's any further discussion about these I think those are kind of the the two major issues that bubbled up so if there are any if anyone has any modifications other than the one and I what I'll do is I'll under like our policy modifications I'll underline them to say that it's new um please have them to me by let's say April 3D and that way I can make sure that um it gets on

038the board agenda for the next one because we'll publish the board agenda on um Friday April the 5th for the April the 11th meeting and I don't think there'd be anything wrong with collaboration among a couple of folks here with what they want to do to come up with that so it any any other uh questions or comments on the board North before we move on to our favorite topic the budget Dr Shard I prepared um a presentation just to help us um look at the information and review what we've done so far perfect thank you Derek so the reason this is on the agenda again um so quickly after you approved it at the last school board meeting is because the Board of Supervisors met on get these dates right March the 15th which

039um Miss stun and I presented to the Board of Supervisors the approved budget and then they met again on uh March the 19th and after the March 15th meeting the Board of Supervisors indicated that they were um interested in cutting the operational budget by $1.2 million and the capital Improvement projects budget by$ 575,000 after they met on March the 19th they their um budget work session which was dedicated to setting an advertise tax rate the Board of Supervisors decided to advertise for a 5cent tax tax increase um with the additional 1 cent earmarked for the school division which would mean that our operational budget would need to decrease by $620,000 so and in that meeting it was clear that the board of supervisor would like supervisors would like to have some indication of where that

040money would come from so that um the 620,000 or the 1.2 million so as we go through this slide uh these slides we'll we'll talk a little bit about that but I want you to have that little piece of information before we actually started to talk about the our budget so our um our request for local funds for operational was $3.5 million and our request for capital projects was um 3,922 40 and anticipated budget reductions this CA um this comes directly from the Board of Supervisors conversation both on March the 15th and the 19th the operational budget um a cut anywhere between 600,000 to 1.2 million and then the capital Improvement projects was 575 I just wanted to review our our sources of revenue you will notice the state revenue is 47 yeah 41.4 s

041is um local revenue and that's $ 35,6 51,1 the technology um budget is $465,500 and you will notice that our expenditures 75% of our expenditures are um go towards instruction and the slide I did not the chart I did not put in there which I wish I would have is that um 89% of our um budget is people so it's wages salaries and benefits so but you'll remember that our budget priorities um our fiscal year 2025 budget priorities um was a 2.35% cost of living adjustment in a step which is a a little more than it was but it's a 2.15 million um allocate funding for 5 and a half% health insurance increase and increase employer contribution towards premium little over a million dollar additional instructional position 733,000 fund positions and services paid for by

042cares funding um 1.6 million increase driver ed pay 50,000 increase uh due to inflationary costs 326,000 Capital Improvement plan again 3.9 million so the next couple of slides you will notice um I put I went through all of the um salary scales and put what the 2.35 cost Cola and the step would actually mean for those employees so um there's three slides that actually go through all of our all of our salary scales so so you'll notice that teacher at the top 2.5 Cola and the distance between each step is 1.1% so a total increase of 3.45% athletic trainer would be 3.39% % admin 3.1% I won't read them all you can read so um what you can't see at the bottom of this screen is the star under position the one Aster denotes that

043those scales there is let me make sure I have this right um yes that there is a between step one and step two so it's between steps C and D there's a larger percentage increase about a 4% but then the rest averages out to be 1.04% or 75% or whatever but that first step C to D actually is is a larger jump um so that's the one Aster the two asteris on under the step means that there's a little bit of a variance that's the average so if you look at the clerical it says 1.75% is a step but it could be 1.74 up to 1.76 so just a little bit of a variance and it's probably due to rounding um in previous years tell me if you need me to slow down or go

044back so you'll notice custodians at 3.85% but then our bus drivers are at 3.35% so the next thing um the next few slides will be health insurance rates and um this was a slide that I presented previously on proposed health insurance rates versus current rates which is which are at the bottom this is a new slide um some of the same information from Frederick County and Rockingham County but it has our proposed rates proposed 2425 compared to their 23 24 rates and you'll notice that you know if we do the if we move forward with the rates that we um have proposed that it puts us really in line with the employee plus um child with the other two divisions and then the family plan comes down a couple hundred um we're still a little

045more expensive um employee plus children and employee plus family we're still a little more expensive than both Frederick and Rockingham and employee plus children um and an employee plus family but it gets us within the range so we wouldn't have have to do all of the the um heroic efforts that we've done over the last two or three years in order to get our health insurance more affordable what is the deductible under that plan so ours is a $1,000 deductible yeah and you'll notice that Rockingham is also $1,000 and then the Frederick County it's a keycare 25 I'm not sure what their deductible is um but that was their their um base plan so are we staying with Ed now no we're going no we're going with Anem okay yeah yes I should have changed

046that sorry about that and then the next slide this slide actually Compares um our health insurance to the County's health insurance and you will notice and that should have said Anthem to um oh it does under the proposed so you'll you can see that our employee only is a little more expensive than the County employee pays our um employee plus child's a little lower our employee plus children's a little you know slightly higher um employee plus spouse is slightly higher and then employee plus family and again that just Compares it to this year's rates not next year's rates and then the final slide um on health insurance shows what what shanadoo County Public Schools this current year pays for um monthly for health insurance and then what chin DEA County contributes for health insurance and

047you'll notice the two employee plus children employee plus family are the places where um we fall a little short the Count's paying a little more for their employees than then shinida County Public Schools is paying for their employees $224 if my math is correct would it not serve the county better to combine it all so you'll notice that the county has at a 500 or 500 oop sorry um so their plan is a little richer than ours and ours is ours will be Anthem 1000 and I think they'll probably go with anthem 1,000 as or 500 as well so we have a less Rich plan which costs us about the same than the county but um we are we are talking about combing with the county unfortunately I think it's going to bring their premiums

048up um and make it unaffordable we had our health insurance consultant do that last year for us and do you know if other counties are have combined school with County I don't know Rockingham does Rockingham if everybody's under the same plan if you're uh employed by the county or the school system to me that just seems like the obvious I would assume most of the counties are set up that way so we'll over the next year we'll explore that um because it's not going to be easy to transition all of our employees especially if we have a 500 plan and they have a th000 plan or we have an a th000 plan and they have a 500 plan so then thoughts on budget reduction um I mentioned earlier that our um our budget is 90

04990% people so I really only have two thoughts and one of them is we reduce the um the cost of living increase um to something less um maybe about 05% so that would be um 1.85% plus a step or we could do a three % from a 3.5% either way um and then um money towards health insurance we were going to put additional money towards the health insurance and that that would get us to the 600,000 um to hear your thoughts those are the only two areas we can cut from so we have cut thank thank you for asking that we have cut 30 over 30 positions over the last two years so and you will notice in this budget year we have added three positions back it's because our Cuts were a little too

050deep um we now have some class sizes that are 27 students in third fifth at Honey Run in eighth um so we've you know we I study the numbers of students per class and um we have maximized that savings at this point so there's there's no funding there um the those are the two places that you know it were people 90% people I'd kind of like to revisit I know it was the only one that voted against it but the whole step deal I mean we added I think 14 to 15,000 something like that just by moving that around and then you saw the teachers are actually getting less this year was three what it was 3.4 3.45 um so I yeah and you know long term again that has a that strains the financial

051Outlook and I've talked about the last couple years um so I'd kind of like to look there and see how we can I know it obviously won't make up 600,000 but to kind of look back at where we're at there and try to get that adjusted appropriately and then mean I wasn't that 177,000 I mean it's not right well yeah and we would have to knock the percentage down but it's either yeah one point whatever Plus a step or you're getting 3% for example so it's just a matter of do people want to do people want to earn I guess longterm it would help them again I'm not sure but um would you rather get a 1.5% raise this year or a 3% that's kind of I think how we have to look at it

052um that was what I posed to over a hundred of the staff members I talked to and every single one of them was step bottom line I could walk up to a teacher in the grocery store and step or no step step they didn't even care what the percentage was that's how adamant they were you think based on this information that you know we've just put out that it would make mean anything different to them now it's it's we'd have to go back and revisit it I mean what's different looking at this when you're trying to to imagine what numbers are during a budget and what the significance are I I mean I don't know the origin of the step where they came from you know we talk we have talked endlessly about um pay

053and raises and and you know how the school system is one of the few places that we don't give Merit increases to folks that are getting the job done and and this is going to probably take some people off but we have people that perform and we have people that don't and we and the the the sad thing is the people that perform they're the ones that leave the people that don't stick around so you know it's like Math teachers and and in those positions where s so's are really high I mean we've had teachers that stuck around their so scores their Pass rates are awful they're not getting the job done and they're here because they have tenure um you know you can't kick them out the door but then we can't attract folks

054that really we should that are high performers and and then everybody you know the raises or the steps aren't I don't I I don't know the rhyme or the reason of who gets a step and what the percentages or where that came up with it's it's like the new math it doesn't make any sense to me so I wonder if the whole step conversation um because I've been racking my brain trying to think of where it's coming from during the recession 2008 9 10 the our salary scales were compressed and so a teacher who was on step three could be making the same amount that a teacher was on at Step at year zero because there were no pay increases those years so I wonder if that's when um the step became all important because

055we would have a scale that went from 0 to three 4 to 7 9 to 12 because there were multiple years where there was a 0% increase and I'm wondering if that so that's called a compressed scale versus a you know a step and I wonder if people have that conf confused or not I I don't know that answer but you know doing this is the real math here you know plus or minus 0.01 to 03 that's accurate so so how hard would it be to go through and like the ones making over 4% on the raise take some from there but leave the step how hard would it be to do that to say okay if you're getting a raise over 3.5% total based on Cola and step we're going to knock the cola

056down to make everybody in line so then why wouldn't you just give a 3.5% increase if that's what you're you know I don't know see that's what I I said at the last board meeting I said I still don't completely understand this whole step thing but when I go out and I poll all these staff memb throughout the county and I'm not just talking teachers I'm talking teachers bus drivers office staff they all said the step was important I'll say for bus drivers it doesn't make a bit of I mean can you go to the next one for a second bus drivers are getting 3.35 I mean if I'm a bus driver and I see everybody else making four I think I'd rather take my three and a half per. the way they've the way

057they've explained it to me is it has to do with years of service but you're already getting a bump as well on on your years of service I mean if you look at the the scale I mean a new a new teacher will come in here say at 52 something then following year that they don't start at 52 whatever they've already they receive that bump automatically plus they're getting a Ras it's built in I mean those there's a little bit of money now it's not significant it in the grand scheme of things but there is and no other occupation no other job no other industry does that I mean Tom you don't get a you you're next year isn't automatically a raise is it is it damn I need to work for the railroad do

058you think I can see over the dash do you think I can see over the dash you don't have to you just hear whatever's in your way is that how the federal government does it the federal government still has stuff they do and they have specific years in between their steps so like year one two and three they get a pay increase each year and then year four then it's three years and then year seven it's maybe another three years but you know they have a 30-year career built in their 10 they don't increase I mean they stay they stay stable and they get a cola yeah so yeah but but the St you don't leap um steps you don't add steps you do at certain points in your career yeah yeah so again that's

059not going to make up $600,000 but that's kind of my thoughts are it just to me and I'm not you know not a teacher I'm yeah I haven't worked in the schools but just from looking at from this View and all these other positions I mean um especially the bus drivers one of the lowest probably lowest paid whatever section of employees that we have they're hard to they're hard to keep um and a lot of them we've I mean had some working here 30 40 50 years um so we have a bus driver that's getting ready to retire is it 47 years7 Lucas that is correct if I remember correctly 47 years so that for me I have a problem with that but again I you know I haven't heard I've heard online some people

060have talked about this step um but again that has an impact down the road as well on the financial landscape so we never go backwards there's never no I mean it's just it's always up there's always we're always chasing the the other counties we'll never catch up to loud we'll never catch up and unfortunately the folks of the county are the ones that have to pay for it and they're not getting a Col increase every year in fact they got less money from the federal government this year with their ability to pay I don't know to look at that as a great thing you know because the county that would that would indicate the Count's doing better you know we should be able to pay our fair share but at the same time it means

061less money and we still have you know what still 50% of our our students are at of course everybody's at at a free reduced lunch but if it that was what what we were still going at we we're still at 50% yeah so the LCI I think the Board of Supervisors would say that it wasn't a positive you bring up a good point can you clarify since we are open to the public right now not a lot of people caught on to your explanation of LCI the last board meeting so they don't understand that we're not getting as much money from the state so naturally our budget to the Board of Supervisors has gone up yeah so um I don't know what page it is in our budget book but our our property value went

062up increased by over a billion1 A5 billion dollars and um so there were three factors it was the our property value um retail sales thank you retail sales and adjusted gross income all three of that all three of those factors increased so what happened is our um Composite Index Rose by about 4% 3.96% which means that our locality has about a 4% more ability to pay 62 divisions in Virginia went up 62 divisions in Virginia went down and the others remained the same so we were unfortunately in the group that went up and on page what is it 39 39 it also lists those counties that surround us in their um their LCA their ability to pay as well so can I ask a hypothetical question here let's say we were to propose or I

063guess we would have to go with it but let's say we were to do 3% with no step what what would the cost savings be there 300,000 to say so you get about halfway there and then and then you would hypothetically take what do we putting a million towards the insurance right or that's the proposal the other 300,000 would come from there that would be my recommendation however on page 45 of the budget you will those are our budget initiative so you know um there are things that we could talk about as well and I'll scroll back to that if everyone's right here these are the major initi major highlights but on page 45 it has so if we were still going to give the staff their step how much would you have to cut

064that percentage by to get that 300,000 it would be 1.85% plus a step now the um Drama teacher the nurse coordinator and sorry Danny the um um maintenance secretary what is what is the significance of those are part-time positions yep so they were part-time pre-co and we made them fulltime during Co and I can tell you that all three of those positions are full-time employees and they they work their 40 hours plus um but they those went full-time during cares dur so in in reality that full-time position isn't any different than the six of sports specialist that we took on um and the fat coordinator and the 504 coordinator those two positions were in the operational Budget prior to co and um I think the year in 2020 2021 they switched over to cares because

065there was a budget they needed money to balance the budget and that's where the money came from and if those the three part-time positions what if if those were to go back to where it was have how much what kind of a savings are we looking at there give Angie just a minute that's half the maintenance half the nurse coordinator and half the Fine Arts 150,000 so again how hard would it be to go through in any of those colas plus steps that go above 4% we knock those colas down till it gets to 4% how hard would that be so then I believe I'm correct you would have employees that would be on a salary scale what do you mean so if I'm understanding your question correctly let's go back to that slide let's

066say I had a clerical two yeah at one at every school and we said okay all the clerical twos we're going to take your percentage from 2.35 down to say 2% Plus a step to get you down under 4% what do you mean that wouldn't what you're saying is it be a cap put a cap on it you get the percentage of a step but there's a cap mhm let say 3.75 but aren't the steps built into that specific scale scale the step doesn't change though according to what you're telling us right so what we would do is um we would take the this year salary multiply by a cola whatever that Cola is 2% and then they would step from there yeah 2.25% whatever and why did you say the steps are all so

067different so it's how the salaries are built the scales are built so if you yeah one I mean obviously one's 84 and then one's 1.7 I was just curious what what the difference why why is that so different so if we put 1.1% between each of the steps or if we did 1.75 between each of the steps for some of them your salary scale would go from you know just take admin for example would go from um 60,000 to 100 ,000 whereas now it goes from 60,000 to 86,000 now totally made up those numbers but you know it it would increase the um the distance between the steps and what's the significance between an admin at grade three and fourth grade admin so at the grade four is the um thank you um that your

068coordinators and your Specialists and Elementary School assistant principles your grade one is your assistant superintendent your director and your high school PR your directors and your High School principles are we paying the new admins that we have that have no previous experience as admin at admin scale or still at teacher scale so they'll be on admin scale even though they don't have the the degrees to be where they're at if they're not degreed that's different they are paid on the admin scale levels even without the credentials to be in that position that's why they're on level zero they have the respon responsib same responsibilities there's a whole lot more work on some other people well yeah but still at the end of the day it's that person's tail in that's on the line it's not

069everybody else's I mean in the end of the day the admin still are responsible for what goes on in their buildings whether they have the experience to do it or if they didn't that that was on us when we hired them what would it look like if we gave 2 and a half% with no step how much would that save just trying to get to 600,000 without cutting that insurance so the one thing about health insurance versus wage increase is 75% of our staff have health insurance 100% of our staff get paid yeah so serving less um with with doing a fix to health insurance but you're absolutely right next year we're going to be you know chipping away at it again yeah nevertheless the those 75% that have the health insurance it's I think

070monumentally important to them it is absolutely and so I kind of like Kyle's idea of and I think yours too of lessening the Pain by having two separate Cuts right rather than just everything coming from health care or everything coming from from the cost of living and it says 627,000 yeah but right now that's what it saves to do two and a half no step so we go to exactly what we need to be the only thing with that is your boots on the ground per se just for expression your folks that are making $20,000 or less that's a $500 a year increase your folks that are making $100,000 or more that's a $2,500 increase but it's also it'd be nice if we could spread that across the board a little more fairly it would

071also be that much cheaper though to for insurance we'd be able to put then we ought to take care of the staff that doesn't use the insurance too they're not getting that I think the people that are leaving insurance is a big reason the people that are the people I've talked to it had nothing to do with financial well I'm not so convinced I'm not ready to take it all away from employees I'm not giving up I mean that's me personally IE Bank speak for themselves but why are we focusing on taking away everything we're going to take away from employee is there still any other area does it all have to come from the employee I mean I'm I'm looking over this CIP here and is there some more things to cut Mr ORS

072it it can't be out of CIP it can't no it has to be out of operational which starts on page 45 all right yeah it was it was coming out of both pots there and I'm I'm hesitant to cut anything else I hate to cut anything else I mean your pictures of CIP and in the issues that we have with our buildings I mean breaks my heart to have to cut $500,000 out of CIP but it's on both I think we have to take this two pots well the fact of the matter is we have no Choice it's not like we're doing it because we want to do it it's because the money is not going to be there I mean that's the fact of the matter so we can either take it out of

073one pot which is the pay unfortunately or you're taking out of two pots the pay and the healthc care so it's just where we want to go in that direction but that's ultimately unless someone else sees somewhere else we can take from there um we don't want to do it I'm not excited about this I don't think anybody is but but when the money is not there you've we have no other options so um it's an unfortunate reality that we've now had the face a few times um so we don't have to make a decision tonight right by any means but we will have to make a decision after the Board of Supervisors come back sorry Tim to keep looking at you understand they were just they we're just really interested in what our thoughts

074were um April 3D is there there's a public hearing on um the proposed budget and tax rate April the 16th the Board of Supervisors will um adopt a fiscal year 25 budget and tax rate and then April 22nd is really the day that we have to make a decision um you know based on what we get from the 16th and I guess the last thing I'll say is we don't even know for sure it'll be 620 right I mean if they don't pass that so if the public comes out and says they don't want to pay more taxes next year and the board members go that route well then we're looking at 1.2 million instead of 620,000 so should I wait to pull our employees and ask them would you rather have the step and

075a cola in you know decrease or do you just want to have the cola and just have like an survey sent out and see what comes out we could that's easy enough yeah I like that idea good idea so we can say whatever you were saying before about what the percentage would be for Cola and the step or just do you know K's idea of just the the the cola and see what comes back anyone else have any ideas those are the only two areas out of our whole budget so 10% is fuel for heating and buses um electricity water sewer stuff that doesn't change paper crayons pens that's 10% 11 11% 89% is people and like I said we've cut over 30 positions over the last two years that um I mean this is

076peanuts the driver education increase $50,000 is that saying we're going to increase it to $50,000 or increase that one position $50,000 so there are six six or six or eight so we're increasing them my average of 6,000 per person we're going from $25 an hour to $35 an hour which is what our teachers make for any extra stuff that they do during the summer summer school things like that and that hasn't been changed in probably 20 years you don't a group that hadn't had a pay raise in 16 years at least at least so what do you you know like I said it's peanuts when we're talking about the big picture but just wondering where it was where it was in the grand scheme of things software purchases Services how much is that do you

077he a question STW purchase Services uh is that the edge log is that I mean what all is that site virtue brain Pop um Camy so how it's it's our financial package it's how we perform our day-to-day operations um we haven't even in increased the budget for um increases annual you know rate increases in that for a couple years so we're we're pulling from other pots just to pay those um so like Google and Power School are non-negotiables we can't you know right in the finance software um yeah and what will happen is like brain pop is something that are our schools use um for science um if we don't pay for it at the division level then the schools will pay for it which will then reduce their budget um by that much money

078Mr Taylor is that correct Brain Pop is one that comes to mind using School person individually it's going to cost more using a discount price and it's used it's one of the yes we have a soft applic called War platform that shows UC see staff ISU is there anything that's not Adobe are we using tutor are we using tutor tutor software pay for called what using what tutor it's a map called tutor for the students it's for the students Varsity Tutors huh Varsity Tutors no software so we really did provide a needs-based budget um well I think we we're going have to monitor Board of Supervisors see what happens kind of makes a good point we may hear more from the taxpayers uh or the board may come up with a different algorithm who knows

079but um April 22 we have to cut our fish bait and um it could be that if we're trying to discern who feels the most pain and who it may be that that's survey is a is a good way to kind of get the the lay of the land and and actually get people to participate I I'd feel better if I had a chance to have a say in it if I were professional out there so if that's something we could do in the meantime of course once we do that it's going to raise the Spectre that that's going to happen and but it's very likely to happen anyway so I think it's a good idea all right any further thoughts on the topic of the budget so what are we going to do in

080the CIP area so um we'll need to cut 575,000 Mr long I'm so sorry but a lot of it will probably come from buses school buses as far as not purchasing school buses yeah um and I appreciate this information um and and if did you see the ridership I don't know if everybody it's in my Friday notes yeah for staff or for the other Schoolboard members um you know we have some buses that are at 41 41% capacity 35% capacity I mean they seat 77 and we're carrying 32 32 kids um 77 we average rers ship is 37 kids is you know I don't know if um if you know what can be done there I you know it's a lot of a lot of fuel a lot of um to carry you know it's

081it's of course you know when you stick 81% you have 62 kids God helped this the bus driver but um you know when you're carrying 37 and and the bus is isn't you know halfway full or almost halfway full you just kind of wonder what what we can do there when you know if you've got 31% you can haul 77 but you're hauling 20 you're only carrying 24 on average and some of those are where the buses go too so sure you know if if they're going um to Fort Valley we may have have less students because the trip is long anyhow but like you there were you using the big buses in Fort Valley and like I know that they were saying you know why do we have these big buses um for Fort

082Valley one thing that actually I was talking to um one of the bus drivers from Fort Valley and they were talking about just if we could just consolidate the one route and just do Fort Valley one route instead of having them split up um that may be a way to to also help out with that that will significantly increase the student time on the bus that will add to their day okay so you might sacrifice that and we're trying to minimize the amount of time that a student's on a school bus um just by doing the Fort Valley only yeah that's one consideration to the point of Miss rutz as well is far as um where that school bus goes and how it affects a student learning especially on a hot day or a cold

083day how long they're on a school bus um that poll was taken across one week and unfortunately some things that you have to consider is a student can only be assigned to one bus and students don't always ride one bus they might be split between homes so one week they might be assigned to one bus and otherwise not so much the next you have Athletics and um other things that taken place with that also when you say 77 passenger that 77 smallest kids we have three to a seat so that's not 77 high schoolers that's 77 three little Bitties on one seat so it's not optimal to suggest that you know that's what we should be operating all all buses and again the more students on a bus the longer the route so there is

084some happy medium there I knew this information last year two years ago what what time does our first bus pickup students spot um I'm prepared for that um approximately all a lot of our buses actually start on the road at 6:00 students start boarding so uh our early students uh start boarding between 6:15 and 6:30 that's not ideal lessen the amount of or increase the amount of students on a particular bus will also affect that start time and um some of our buses are we have attempted to get all students home even on our longest run prior to 4:30 um in order to do that some of the buses aren't at capacity as you indicated so implying that you would operate at full capacity would also increase the amount of time that students are on

085the bus such as 6 o' in the morning that I don't like that for myself I have students 6:00 in the morning's early 4:30 in the afternoon's late and when you take both of that together and you add that to the students day that's a big big increase and typically our students who are picked first or dropped off last yes if you live because of where they live yeah I'd say one of the biggest pucker factors out there with parents is that is that bus time I agree when and when you get over that amount they get understandably High rate U you know it's one thing to have your kid at school all day and when you can't see them and they're on the bus for 45 an hour and 10 minutes each way you

086that's that's that's bad I mean we want to do all we can to economize but I'm sure you guys are doing that I mean if there's any other well I mean do we do I you know I think years ago you used to have Collective you know bus stops people got off and now we're individually stopping at a lot of places um which takes up time and fuel um you know the county hasn't grown in lengthwise I mean I grew up way out on Route 55 and getting on the bus out there 7 miles or out by Mile Ridge and and you know those now our our day has gotten longer cuz I think we started at what uh 9:00 it used to back then in the day correct yeah so you know we weren't

087I I can't recall what time I got on the bus out there but I I you know I'm not far from school now and like I said you know I called you today they're on the school bus at 7:00 in the morning 5: after 7:00 it breaks my heart but 5 after 7's awesome time sure yeah if you're and if you're not back at Cedar Creek or back at at Fort it's stainer yeah it is 6 o' the reality is is I always use an example if you were to drive to Alum Springs which is the backside of Bassy from our southern end of the schools in a passenger car you're running half an hour 40 minutes and that's a straight shot and we do pick up um Consolidated stops as often as we we

088can but we also try to service our community the best we can but when we have for example Frontier Fort um which is off of 55 in the northern end we have two stops and it practically fills a bus up so we're not stopping door too you obviously once you get into rural areas you must support that for the safety of the student so we try to have as many Consolidated stops as possible that still keeps safety at its priority okay speed limit sight distance all those things come into play thank you yes absolutely all right before we uh as Mr Lyn to um entertain us absolutely inform us is what we want um I'm going to see if there's a consensus that we take a very short break uh and uh take uh 5

089minutes I mean a real 5 minutes and come back is that does that work for everybody okay we're adjourned and we'll reconvene at 8:00 on the dot thank you thank you I they are going to but it e well so I don't understand how that Miss we're good yeah I lied it's 802 but we're going to reconvene anyway at 802 and um there's a whole lot happening in the world of cure and Technical education and Mr Lynn's going to tell us all about it that's right it is uh it is a great time to be in curent technical education I can tell you that um it's a lot of it's a lot of fun we're doing a lot of good things across the division um in all of our buildings but it is in green

090because wellp was doing a some amazing things as well so uh talk a little bit about what we're doing now and what we're where we can go in the future with this just a quick overview of where we are in terms of program size scope and quality um and I always like to to talk about CTE in terms of being on a career Highway we TR we try to provide students with opportunities they can leave us and go right into the workforce but they also know hey if I get some more schooling if I get some additional certifications Hey where's the next exit where's the next exit after that so we're a stepping stone and we know that um we offer 14 different career clusters so there's 17 total um we offer 14 of those

091uh energy is a new one um that we do not offer manufacturing um is one even though we have one we have some that are transferable skills um and the other one we dabble a little bit in finance but I don't say that we have a a real good path there sorry Miss a um we have over 100 different classes in grade 6 through 12 uh so there is a lot of classes a lot of options for our kids to take um total enrollment that's a duplicant count that's 4,600 students that are enrolled in CT classes so uh if you come to Triplet and you're an auto body and you go back and you take small ones and repair you count twice in that report um but that's still a lot of kids uh and

092through your support uh this past school year we were able to add HVAC one and one next year we'll add two um and then we were able to do pt Physical Therapy occupational therapy one and two this year so uh we've been able to grow our programs um and add more students uh as we go so specifically at triplet um we offer eight of those career clusters that we talked about in 18 different Pathways uh so you can see all the different classes all the different things that we do at triplet um it's fairly amazing what we do uh one of the things that that I added on there is we're hoping to add medical billing and coding next year uh we'll be able to do that at at the price of textbooks um that

093will be covered within the CTE budget uh next year and so when we look at Health Sciences we have a nice wide range uh of that in that pathway kids take the introduction to health and medical Sciences class they take the medical terminology class um and then that kind of leads into the into the more specific certification classes as seniors so um that's a nice pathway for us obviously uh architecture and construction we've continued to develop that one developing the hbac class there uh and we added 13 new students uh to that class and and what I mean by that and I think that's uh going to be really important as we go down into this conversation we didn't take any electricity students to start an hbac class we didn't take any carpentry class any

094carpentry students to start an hbac so we truly added more kids to Triplet um by doing that so um but you can see it's a it's a nice wide range and what we offer triplet and so where do we go next for career development right and so you know we talk about Career and Technical education but also talk about on terms of career development and if you've heard me speak before um I often bring out the the three-legged store um and if you don't have a leg you fall down uh and so one of those legs is is where's the labor market trends what do we need in sheno County what do we need in the sheno valley and what do we need in the surrounding area second leg what do our students want they

095might want underwater welding but it doesn't help us here right so we've got to we got to come up with that that plan there and then the third leg is how do we fund it how do we make it happen right so you got to have all three legs and so as we look at some of the labor market data you know where do we align you know I I pulled out the top five and I got those from a variety of sources the vdoe sends out stuff Bureau Labor Statistics CT Trailblazers is something specific to us um that we get and there's some jobs EQ data there what you see there is growth right it doesn't account for those that are retiring so this is simply new jobs like we know that the construction

096industry there's a lot more jobs that are open because they're they're retiring so the 4% growth is just new jobs new construction jobs that are open um same thing can be said uh you know in education we know that there's people retiring we know that there's there um the new one that's to this list is information technology and we're going to dive into that a little bit more um two years ago three years ago when I did this that wasn't as big for us um it is growing significantly um in our area so what do our students say what do they want and so when we opened up um and we started doing the looking at expanding triple expanding programs we surveyed our students we had over a thousand kids uh complete the survey and

097we kind of knew knew we wanted to do something in Health Sciences we were getting introductions to Aviation and we knew we wanted to add something in in construction trades and so I took out HVAC I took out PT because we've added those and so this is what's left uh so in the construction trades out of those thousand students 466 said yes I'm interested in construction trades 131 in 2021 said hey I'm interested in engineering and Architectural design welding heavy equipment operator and plumbing those were the next that that's the order in which they wanted classes we've been able to meet that heavy equipment operator in in conjunction with Laurel Ridge Community College we found some extra funding um through some Grant resources um and working with Miss Proctor uh to provide that as a

098night opportunity for our students so we're doing that some um but we've got a lot of interest I've got six six kids that are taking that right now at Laurel Ridge uh 387 students wanted Health Sciences um the next one is is radiology tech rad teex X-ray tech um and then laboratory Tech and so again I think when you look at what we offer now as a division not only at triplet Tech but you know at the biomed Academy at Central High School we offer a wide range of classes it's a different student that we're attracting right nurse aid is the bedside Manor EMT is my first responder OTP is I want to work on rehab medical billing and coding I just wanted I just like the the the research behind it not the research

099I just like the the medical terminology I don't want to talk with people I want to stay at home um and then the biomed Academy is a lot of research and a lot of innovation so these are all different types of students that are interested in healthcare and when you look at radiology tech lab tech again it's a different type of student than what we already have the other one that's very interesting and and continues to pop up is Aviation there's a lot of talk in that uh field a lot of kids want to get their pilot license aviation mechanic and then a man aircraft drones um is out there too so uh again that's what our students are saying another piece of data that I took um is from we use major Clarity in

100grades 4 through 12 uh for our student they can go on they do some interest inventory um it's pretty neat to watch over the years like Health Sciences and agriculture kind of flip back and forth you know this year a's number one uh the number one item out of that is animal Sciences vet Sciences um and then you can see through there one through six kind of where we are with that so again looking at what our students want and looking at triplet Tech requests we're still in this process for this year but you can see in 2023 24 319 students requested to come to Triplet we were able to admit 300 of those this year that number has grown again we're at 368 students and it's still going um so we have students that

101want to come to Triplet they are interested in what we're offering uh we're not going to be able to service all those kids I think the other thing that I put on there is we're getting a lot of calls from private school students and hes school students that are requesting um to come to tripley and so the way our policy works is it goes first to our students and if I have space if I have space in masonry if I have space in networking if I have space wherever it may be then we can open that up to our hom school students to our private school students they enroll with us um as a part-time student so that we collect their ADM for that and then we go on from there right but we we've

102gotten several calls from some private schools we already have a waiting list of homeschool parents when are we going to know well it'll probably be July um well we want to know as soon as we can I understand that and I explain the policy but I think that's I think that's worth noting um when we talk about what do our kids want so where do we match right so obviously there's some matchs there in welding Plumbing engineering and architecture is there when you look at the construction trades um and architecture that's under one Career Cluster Aviation uh we've got students that are interested both on the unmanned aircraft and the drones and on the other side of asan whether it's fixing the fixing the plane um or becoming a pilot areas that we still need

103to look at that I still hear a lot about um about emerging jobs things that are coming this way uh those two big ones in the information technology are the data center technicians um and then you get into machine learning automation robotics uh that also kind of starts dabbling into the manufacturing world so I don't say that we have a we don't have an advanced manufacturing class but when we talk about Robotics and automation you're talking about Manufacturing um transportation and Logistics diesel technology what does that look like what does a diesel program look like um and then in the construction trades uh fiber technicians telecommunications that kind of go together um but what does that look like what does that certification looks like we know that everything's going towards fiber um you know do

104we have students do we have the the interest that's there uh for us to kind of look deeper into those into those programs so the Third Leg of the stool how do we make it all happen right and so this is kind of this is we know we've got to do a little bit more study on some of those other things uh I would say as you look at the programs that we've talked about the welding the diesel tech the drones uh all of those I think they're a good match for triplet you know are you going to have 20 students at one any one of our high schools that want to take that class no probably not are you going to have six seven eight at each one of our high schools so that

105I can get a class of 20 that come to Triplet I think so I think we would have that um but I think things that we have to consider um right now if you come in the morning it's it's an awesome time to be at triplet every classroom is full uh the first day of school when we had our opening ceremony our opening uh student meeting standing room only in our cafeteria kids lined around the outside it was beautiful it was hot um but it was good uh in the afternoon we have three or four Open Spaces that are more of a traditional classroom um and what I mean by traditional classroom um and I say three or four I've got a small CNA room that's open in the afternoons I got a small criminal

106justice room that's open in the afternoons um I've got an early childhood education room that's open in the afternoons but it's kind of they're small spaces they're kind of defined spaces for what they can be used for um so they're there but we've got to figure out you know what is the best use for those in the afternoon and it doesn't help us in the morning uh some of those programs if we want to look at diesel um you know we've got to look at high Bay spaces you I've got to be able to put lifts in um there's not going to fit in a 10ft ceiling it's not going to work um and I don't have those uh if we want to look at welding um I don't know that I have enough power

107to put in a welding program at triple so uh and then I think some of the other space you know you need large spaces uh that we got to look at whether that's for fiber whether that's architecture and engineering you know you've got to be able to build things you've got to be able to put things in their place uh and then we have to look at the outdoor instructional spaces uh we use if you know you guys some of you guys have been down there recently you know we're building a tiny house outside um we're all the time in our compounds with cars um the other morning we've got we've got 26 students that are co-oping and doing internships and so they still come to school one or two days a week I was

108out of parking spaces um so if we did want to host an event I couldn't do it I don't have anywhere to put people um we had to move 15 cars to the back um and so they're parked in the grass next to the solar panels right now just so I had enough room for student parking uh and if we had people come and visit we don't have we don't have those spaces um career or testing center um lab space you if we're going to put in you know laboratory technicians Med lab you got to have lab space you got to have places to do that so uh those have all become an issue um recently and then if we're looking at expansion of Career and Technical education um we've got to address these needs

109uh I think we've got a lot of student interests we've got a lot of places that we can go with this um I think there's funding opportunities that are out there there's different grants there's different things that are available um but if if we're going to grow in the world of CTE and we've shown that students want to come and and they want to they want to be more interested in what we're doing then these are some of the obstacles that we have and so that's that's quick um but that's kind of the the the quick state of where we are within Career and Technical education and like I said it's an amazing time to be in it because I can prepare kids for jobs today I can send them off to college we can

110find ways to get them more training um we can let employers pay for their training so they don't have to get that debt um it's a neat time to be um in Career Technical education so happy to answer any questions Dr Shepard if I missed anything first off doing a very good job as always um I was going to mention I don't I didn't know if it was list or not but with the whole growth and you know with me being at JM you ai ai ai that's like the big topic now and I don't necessarily know if it's you know you think of AI as like technology but I think it's more behind it is like coding and and actually programming these systems to I guess dat I don't know that would fall under

111there maybe but um don't know if it would necessarily affect shanida County as much because it may be limited in the usage but I know in the surrounding areas even sure um and there's probably remote jobs and stuff that that starts with this but I think we're only at the beginning of the whole AI thing I mean you already see what it can do and you you don't even think about it but Google with the whole Gmail when they give you those little three responses that you can use to that's been on there for a few years now I mean that's using the email structure and reading what you're saying to provide you um examples but I just find that to be something that would be helpful in some way even if it doesn't affect

112sheno County as much I would probably put that under I mean I understand where you're going with that machine learning automation robotics programming I think that all goes together it's all the algorithms the the pieces behind that um but I understand where you're going with that I have a question you have someone there uh cyber security uh how does that work I mean is that for somebody who's going to go study in college um so we have cyber security at triplet um it's a year-long course that we teach there we get them an introductory uh credential um in defense um I forget the exact name of it it's something something defense um computer defense um and so I think that opens it up it's a good introductory to get you in the door somewhere but

113I also think it opens up to look at what Laurel Ridge does on their Workforce side but I also think it opens up the door to go to a four-year institution where if you wanted to study cyber um I think one of the things that we found with cyber it's the guys that have in the gals that have the the certifications um it's not necessarily a degree it's it's how many firewalls can you protect um and how fast can you do it and and if you have these stackable credentials if you looked at Laurel ridges programs um you know there's six or eight classes you can take all in cyber security that stack those credentials and those guys are getting they're getting gobbled up quickly okay it's like certification so it's mostly to get admitted

114into the program just ma or an entry level position or entry level okay it firm all I can say is you're doing a heck of a job down there thank you as always I'm always astonished I was down there for the more Trust banquet and that was my first time really getting to walk around that place and there was an electrical class going on and I was like hey there's a class going on in there yeah um but I mean you know being in my trade I'm behind you 100% and uh you know a lot of these kids in shanoa County aren't looking at College after they leave high school so we've seen that as a trend we survey our seniors um that are down there and say hey what where are you going next

115and more more as I look at the three-year Trend hey I'm going to go straight to work or I'm going to go to work and I'm going to have my employer go back and and pay for me to go toight class so I can get my journeyman's license or I'm going to you know I got my CNA I'm a nurse aid I'm a certified nurse aid I'm going to go get a job at this place healthc care place and they'll pay for me to go back to get my RN or my LPN and so kids are kids are getting pretty Savvy um they understand hey if I don't have to pay for it and somebody else will okay um I'll go go that rout keep up the good work thank you yeah I can I

116can comment I've visited uh trip Tech with Mr Lyn and um I tell people I was telling the guy I work with today I nothing but great things to say what you're doing there at trip Tech and keep it up I mean and definitely the reality is like you said there's so many jobs here in the valley um you just mention them that the reality is kids are going to be looking to do that and we and you know hey if we can make it better we need to make it better so the number of kids that um Todd said was Mr Lynn said was had signed up for classes was 368 right and um we can only admit 300 so that means that kids aren't getting a skill that they could get if we

117had either additional programs available or whatever and then a few slides later um Mr Lynn then says that we're at capacity at triplet Tech so you know so what does that mean that means we need space and where are we going to get space so that's you know those are conversations that we probably need to have sooner rather than later because if we keep kicking this you know can down the road then we're going to have kids that um don't have a skill that they when they graduate that they can go right to work and make a living wage the positions the um programs that we have at triplet Tech um most of them are living wage jobs absolutely yes oh yeah yeah absolutely yeah no I mean the the jobs you're offering you you

118drive out to Winchester by the hospital Valley Health is growing by Leaps and Bounds those are construction jobs lab tech jobs x-ray jobs once those buildings open so I mean this is all geared to the valley the data centers they're on their way out here they are um I mean you've got all your bases covered it just it kind of stinks that we're sitting here talking on the same night about cutting the budget but yet we want to expand this um funny you say that because I think what's ped is prologue and it's time that the board probably needs to lean forward and plan for enlargement and plan for expansion numbers of people on the board have been contacted already by people in this field who have are telling us there's money they're also telling

119us that there are new technologies that they would like to see offered they're also telling us things that we already know that there are a lot of jobs specific to shanida Valley uh that um could be conducive to things we we would could get here which suggests Partnerships with companies that are here that would love to have a homegrown work Force skilled technical professional all of them um and uh right now there are grant opportunities we could take some of the money off of the taxpayer burden and get any number of these grants which are out there um now that means the hard grunt work of first of all deciding on what kind of programs we want to have what kind of expansion we want to have you got room to Triplet how much land

120is out there so um it's a very narrow space it's like this um so the buildings here there's some parking over here there's solar panels here and then there's a little bit of um property there and then it's 81 so it you know so it so are we out of room for expansion there depends we may have to go up so a second story or whatever but we're working now we're doing a facility study with rrmm and I was looking at my calendar a minute ago we're meeting with them on April the 11th to see what the capability of expanding triplet Tech is those panels are that those panels can be yes we could put them on the roof we could you know whatever so you know is that um the building was built in

121four so you know is it and we're going to have to make sure that we're able to expand it you know are the you know is the structure good enough to be able to expand and I don't know that answer does it meet code or is it going to take more to renovate it than it would be to build new those are all questions that are our the architect is going to have to answer for us so and at the same time can we still hold classes there while it's being expanded possibly yeah well I think that's part of what Mr bar saying we might need to lean on our business partners if if that if we get there yeah but this will have to be a a synergistic effort as we move forward for

122instance right now I think we would be uh wise to be able to brief the next tip of the spere the next program that we think needs to be funded and go out there and make a brief to a funding a donor a potential donor and I think they're ready right now to hear that kind of thing we have to thinking about enlargement we have to think about space have to think about teachers have to think about uh our grant writers uh have to think about kind of a murder board that would look at the new programs coming up you know Kyle talked about AI we've got some flight Technologies in the southern part down year that are quite exciting there's a lot of folks around here that are quite Innovative and and and ex

123excited about doing this people have helped make a mass messut and Tech of reality want to help with this so what I'm thinking is maybe some sort of I don't want to call it a task force but some sort of group where we kind of um look at funding opportunities looking at potential donors potential programs um that we would kind of uh assess and and see which ones look like they're would be U valuable to our community which we could partner with you could receive funding from that would be possible in your space or other spaces uh and then this doesn't have to be just near-term we get one of these short-term things and then we have a longer term program for development so um now we we upgraded our if you will our CTE

124committee I'm looking at you and Mike so you know the kind of thing maybe we can get some some of these folks together in a room and kind of as I say murder board or just spitball some of this stuff um and with guidance from you Todd about where this could go and so forth and and and how we need to think about all the things that M superintendent you were just talking about it's it's not going to be easy um getting everything to jail but it's important that we try and so I think what what I wanted to hear tonight was was was was a a really great success story that has next chapters to be written and uh we can't kind of wait for U it to evolve by itself we have to

125be a little bit out in front of that so um I'm just U suggesting that as a Bo board we consider ways that we can frontload this thing a little bit and have a and have a way of planning ahead of time what whatever U manifestation that would take but I think it's something we ought to be about anyway I've spoken enough what that uh would this be part of the strategic planning that we're going to be talking about in this summer I mean would that be something that we would include in the strategic planning in terms of where we're growing so it could um usually the Strategic plan is you know where are we going to go with um student achievement and um parent community relations and things like that but it does have

126adequate facilities in in there as well absolutely it could um but I think it's probably going to be um a separate topic that we'll want to tackle I was going to say a beast of its own right because it's going to be it's going to be big yeah nevertheless there should be hooks on that strategic plan allow us to hang these ornaments on so I think as we develop it we'd be remiss if we didn't keep that in the back of our mind even though the Strategic plan is kind of a a rubric document nevertheless as I said to have those little hooks on it for different objectives down the road is a smart thing to do and we'll want to partner with our community colleges and our our universities um because for example we're

127getting ready to start the um future Educators Academy um we're partnering with Laurel Ridge in 2025 and 40 students from across our you know area will actually be able to get an associates degree when they graduate from um high school and then they can go to additional years to have an elementary or special ed endorsement I mean would it be I don't know just just people in here but um would some of the hospitals have um the opportunity to kind of sponsor some of those programs and then have them held within their uh facilities so we're part of the Valley House system education Consortium um we meet quarterly six times a year um where we talk about those opportunities and so they they very much are interested in the products that we produce they need

128they all all the time need nurse AIDS they all the time need PT AIDS it's part of the reason you know that that we started the PTA that we program that we started so um they have been very instrumental in helping us get equipment and and there is the possibility of some space Maybe um but again I think that's part of where do we want to go as a as a collective of shandel County public schools in CTE because if you could move those to areas where they're going to be closer to whe they're supposed to be serving it open up some spaces somewhere else it would not High Lab space where you would you know that's what you would need for your wng in your right drones maybe no but if you can take

129some of those programs out of the triplet then these are conversations that we're already having so yeah so it's um it's really exciting but I think our HC program that we just started this year is a perfect example of getting community support and being and and moving forward with it because we received a lot of donations for H program that's great and lest anybody be um fearful what I'm talking about like a task force or something is like like you guys have to come up with the answers I think what what would be a better way to approach it is for us the board and for the staff to be able to appoint subject matter experts to come in and help us write the grant figure out the new program so that you guys can

130kind of put it together and ask the right questions nothing that you'd have to do that grunt work but have those folks come to you so we could sort it out and then and then just design it so I think HVAC the story of HVAC and how it developed here is is the power of ceral education and business Partnerships it was it was eight businesses said I need people and I need them now what do we got to do well okay well we got to talk about curriculum we got to talk about equipment I need a teacher I need these things and here's the price tag okay where do we go next well we go to the school board okay we got to go to the board of supervisor okay we go and then it

131happens right and so it's not Dr Shephard it's not toddlin it's not Mr Barlo it's our business Community saying we've got to have these things to stay in business I got to have this program and so I think that's what you're referring to it is and I and I actually think that this could help us Force the Board of Supervisors to have more of a comprehensive plan that includes us Us in education and so if this draws us closer together to the supervisors you know that's a good thing so uh and and most of them are let's face it wired into the economy of this that's what their job is so um I can't imagine they wouldn't be of spectacular help when it came to to making this thing work anyway somebody else is paying

132for it sh yeah that's true you brought up that health Consortium are they financial partners with triplet Tu they have been in so that Services the region um so it's all of Valley Health Service areas that are part of that and so they have provided money um to all the schools uh and then when we've had specific requests when I've needed hospital beds when I've needed certain pieces of equipment you know I I borrow our box truck and and I go get it um and they give it to me um they help me load it up and then I take it to a school and offer we go so um they've provided both Financial Resources in the past they haven't done that in a while but they've also uh they helped pay half of some

133of our teachers to go back and get their credentials to be a doing rolled anatomy and physiology teacher um so they paid half we paid half so it just cost the teacher time to go get those 18 hours shanadoo University um put together a quick program that was a summer fall spring summer um so that teachers could do it quickly and do it in in 18 months so U there's been a lot of good things that have come out of that Consortium from preparing teachers to equipment to getting programs off the ground it's been it's been really it's one of the highlights of my career being there from the beginning and watching it grow and the things that it's been able to do right nice any other comments okay going head into our last item

134tonight um and I do want to remind uh the board members that um there's still board member comments afterwards so other things that are on your mind can still be brought up at that point but our last U discussion is on the uh the model policy um that have to do with um gender identity and um were you going to take us through this lucky you okay so I have my notes here so I really just going to make a few quick comments about this um attached to this agenda item are three um policies on gender identity the first one is the vooe model policy then there's a draft from um that was uh crafted by U Miss careno and then we have a third draft that was um crafted by um Mr Rickard and

135what I would propose that we do is that we um if there are any questions that we need an attorney to um weigh in on on any of these the model policy the um carlino's draft or Ricker's draft if you could have those questions to me by Monday April the 1st um I will get responses from an attorney by Friday April the 5th so that we could put it on the action agenda for the April 11th school board meeting yeah yes um but I would need those by April the 1st Monday April the 1st so that um the attorney has an opportunity to um review and provide information so that I can get you the information by April the 5th and then put it on the um okay agenda that's a good timeline everybody on

136board with that so um any questions to the superintendent you'll callate and and forward those to the attorney for us and we'll be able to um put then this on the agenda for decision in April meeting the 11th any um I'm going to assume we have a consensus agreement on that timeline anybody object to that I'm fine with that okay can I can I make a request though whatever instead of calling it The Record version could we just change it to the compromised version cuz I mean all due respect I reached out to Gloria because her policy had been vetted by several different attorneys and then we had met with Daniel Rose so that was where that policy was based was hers um I just went in and made the changes per Daniel Rose per

137bry's questions per Dennis's questions so I mean I I don't I don't need like my name attached to it you can just make it the comp compromised version if you want I don't care well are you adop it's well I guess my question is is we have a Carino version and a record version are we taking one off the off the off of the board for um are we you know considering all of you know all three I'm actually fine you know after seing this and the fact that it is kind of a compromise um between the videoe and mine I'm fine with withdrawing mine if we just um want to focus on on Mike's um version of this just because it does kind of include um some of the compromises that our board members

138had talked about so I think that actually makes it more makes more sense um since it is an improvement up on mine so I'm fine with taking it out well I I still have a few issues with it um there's two things and I did see that you had had um you know changed the liced healthc care professional um and the psychiatrist that that was kind of a back and forth there you know it it kind of uh contradicted each other um and again and you may want to take this I I don't know if you're going to reach out to Sans Anderson or if you're going to reach out to Daniel Rose again um the under eight where it says for any Athletic program or activity that's designed for female athletes no biological males

139shall be parti permitted to participate except in the cons extent that Federal Law requires when you bring up title N9 in the office US Department of Education Office for civil rights um the scope of Title 9 is that you um a recipient Institution that receives Department funds must operate as educational program or activity in a non-discrimination manner free of discrimination based on sex including sexual orientation and gender identity some key issues areas in which recipients that have Title Nine obligations are recruitment Admissions and counseling financial assistance Athletics sex-based harassment so one of title n's things is that you you run into is that you when you are blatantly discriminatory like this states which is what I think that it states um that it will set us up for litigation somebody's going to say well you

140mean this says hey um it's designated for females and no biological males can participate well we allow biological females to participate in in male Sports it I mean it's I don't know if there's a different way to craft it to where it's not blatantly says sorry if you're a male you're not going to you can't play here um but I do worry about that that spot there um where it you know it says no female athlete or coach um you see for athletic programs design for females or biological males or pred But no female athlete for Coach I mean does that offset the one prior does that take care of the of the the Discrimination that looks like that's what that says well how is that different from the yunan language because the yankan language

141says for any Athletic program or activity that is separated by sex the appropriate participation of students shall be determined by the sex rather than gender or gender identity yep so I mean that's the state already backing you up on that correct um but it's worded a slightly different it's saying the same thing I don't like I understand this is why I don't write policy because mine's plain and simple bottom line no I and I get that and I'm not that's not the that's not the the qualm about it the qualm is is what it says here it is to make sure that we're not I mean somebody is going to say this I just want to make sure that whatever attorney because that was one of the issues that we had you know when it

142came forward from is that we have heightened for this um when you were like this is there a way around that is there a way that it doesn't look um you know does these two offset each other does that take care of the fact that well we're really not being I mean the question is if the young one takes care of that why do we change it well and I was going to say uh part of the reason was because right now the the only litigation that we've had um that there has been here in the state of um in the Commonwealth has been because of that language when they threatened to um Sue Virginia Beach for not adopting any policies and Virginia Beach decided to go ahead and adopt it uh I mean one

143thing that we need to understand is right now we're going to be facing litigation one way or another uh you do it you don't do it until the Supreme Court of the United States decides on this there's not going to be Clarity on this and right now as it is the courts are split we have some courts that say this is fine and there are other courts that say this is not fine um so is it really is a split so until we have that um chances are we're going to be uh liable for any kind of litigation one way or another and and I'm okay I understand that it's not here's the thing litigation I'm not afraid of litigation what I'm afraid of being is blatantly just in your face flipping somebody the middle

144finger and saying we're going to do this I mean if the yunan policy pretty much said the same thing without saying it like this then why don't we well I guess because in the end I think it goes to the whole purpose of what we're trying to do here and if we're trying to protect girls from having to compete against biological males um then that that is actually the whole purpose of having this policy so in in the end it's going to come to that do we want to protect our girls from having to compete against a biological male or this is different then this is different than what the yunan says well yunan just says the same thing just leaves it a little bit more vague um but it still says that you have

145to any Athletic program or activity that is separated by sex the appropriate participation for students shall be determined by sex rather than gender or ID gender identity that is literally what it says and if you go back to the definition it tells you what that means which is the birth um the the sex at Birth the reason H3 was added and the reason it's so cut and dry is I had a daughter that played volleyball soccer basketball for our high school she's since moved on to JMU but volleyball we don't offer that as a male sport so if she came into the gym one night and school X had a boy on the team and my daughter decides she's not going to play and next thing you know the rest of the team follow suit

146and they want to sue us over it so be it I'm not going to make girls play against biological males I don't care what the federal law says what the state law says if they're not comfortable it's their choice that's and and again that is their choice but what this says is is we remove that their choice from there we're removing we have we have taken that on no I'm saying in there right but no female athlete or coach or shall be forced it's left up to them if they step on the court that night and there's a girl that kind of looks like a boy or a boy that kind of looks like a girl to me it's up to them at that point and they have that choice right now we don't have

147to have an policy correct I don't know you'd have to ask Dr shepher that question I mean a a student can refuse to play for whatever reason am I correct could the whole team coach yeah the team and the could the coach make that decision we walk on the court for a volleyball game and it's blat and there's a boy on the opposing team and the coach says we're not playing your team the other part of that is do we take girl wrestlers or girl girl football players and say guys you don't have a choice but you've got a you've got a Pinner I mean do we allow that as well cuz we don't protect guys either oh I know so that's what I mean is it are we discriminating in thought and I coached

148girls in this County in football in the division they play at the JV level now at our local schools in strolls some of the girls I coached um but the parents know going in that the girls are at a disadvantage whereas it's the complete opposite when you put a boy on a volleyball court it's espe when you're talking about safety we have yeah I mean so there's so it's what it is is is is known in what you accept when we have girls that walk on to to a a a wrestling map they know what they're getting themselves into now does the boy get to to bail on it if he doesn't want to take the opportunity you be in a position where he might hurt her they'll forfeit I don't see why H they'll

149forfeit yeah they'll forfeit they do that to me okay so I mean what we're doing here again is like I said I want to make sure that the verbage is inclusive all the way around and I know there are people don't like that word but when it comes to to um being sued over something we should make sure that it's it's correct and it protects both sides because that is title n that is what the the the spirit of Title 9 says says you can't discriminate we may not like it but we should have verbiage that makes sure it's not just really in your face is my thought so superintendent has given us the ability to frame any questions uh on H I'm going to call the rord policy for the moment you can call

150it down and and or the vdoe model policies um if if I'm hearing you correctly you're withdrawing yours yeah I'll withdraw mine so we can just concentrate on that and so thank you and so anybody who has those questions I have questions uh will be will be um gathered by the superintendent and those will be common knowledge among School Board I guess and as they go forward for our attorney to to respond and then we will have debate based on not only those responses but also other feelings that we have about this issue when it comes to to to be U determined or again say again what's our timeline again on April 1st or um questions that goes to our attorney right April 5th they'll Return To Us answered and then April 11th we will

151have this action item before the board we actually on April 11th have it for discussion and then action okay um so that we can have some rich conversation before the approval okay good good okay so if there's um see there was one other thing that I wanted to make you think about that one I um I don't really like the idea of calling that the compromise version um now since there's only one draft shendo County public school policy on gender identity I would suggest you just call it that that works okay and then and then the other one that will be left on the table with the VD model policies okay the other question I had for you has to do with um um the requirement by staff um in one spot we said once

152they've gone through transition that we will refer to them and and I'm guessing that is all the way through legal we the um you see official record the st's legal name and talking C C2 yeah bless bless you bless you so once they've gone through two MH um where's the talk about pronouns uh four shent County Public Schools shall refer to the student by name or other um on the student record or by pronouns other than those appropriate sex in the student record only if the students's been officially designated with a gender different so you've got that one and then at the botom you are saying that um staff will not be held um liable or um if they choose not to use the pronouns so which is it if it's been changed in the

153student's record then the staff need to use whatever it's been changed to but I mean then they've gone through the process you're getting into the case of grim versus Glouchester correct um I'm trying to remember whether um that was required of of grim as pronouns were part of that other than the facilities but then it says um no person including the students teacher or staff members may be disciplined retaliated against or other disadvantage for his refusal to participate um where was it we were talking about that's more we're talking about the kid or a parent on a whim wanting to change the student's identity without actually starting or going through the process or getting a medical diagnosis right we're not going to change based on requests by parents or the kid without the parents knowledge

154um so what you're saying is is they will be required once once the transition is over with once they've gone through to use the proper pronouns and there and if they choose not to I still don't think there should be retaliation but well that's why are we even using pronouns call the kids by their name so if they've gone through the process and changed their name from a girl name to a boy name or vice versa call the student by their name well I mean sometimes dialect doesn't exact allow you to put the put that in I mean and use bob every time that you you if a teacher screws up are we going to let them be sued over a screw up you know what I mean well that's why I'm asking for clarification

155yeah I mean to me nobody no te teacher or staff member should be should have to worry about retaliation at any time I mean anytime a teacher or a staff member could screw up a pronoun or whatever that's why I just stick with names well and that's and I can appreciate that but we have two different we have two different things here in policy that offset each other so which are what is are we going to require it once they go through say well you know and if you mess up only makes sense if the student has gone through transition you Chang their pronouns you Chang the school record okay I I think it's those two things and I'm sorry I don't have your policy in front of me but I think what it was

156was um I think you changed in the oh thank you in the in the protections number one um you changed you added the um as reflected by this official record so that means that the the teachers or the staff are going to be using the pronouns as is reflected in the official record number two actually refers to um having to participate in school sponsored activities or events so that has nothing to do with pronouns no I thought we had something that said State um they wouldn't be a uh we wouldn't hold accountable um staff for not using pronouns no number one is for the pronouns number two is for the refusal to participate in school sponsored activities or events and or the teaching of principles related to sexual and or gender identity correct d prot

157if you look at D3 they are protected once they've gone through unless the student has been officially designated a gender different from his or her sex pursuant to section 3c2 so once they've done the process then we're changing the name we're changing the pronoun but then the protections are number one has to do with the pronouns that the staff is going to be using and number two has to do with right um the refusal to participate in school sponsor activities or events and or the teaching of principles related to sexual and or gender identity and if I'm not mistaken that may actually be in the yuning one too not withstanding any provisions of this policy Sher County public school should not compel discipline retaliate against or otherwise disadvantage any student staff teacher or other person

158to address or refer to any students using pronouns or any or other words inconsistence with the students actual biological SE sex or reflected by the official record correct now if you go back to no person including a student staff may be disciplined or retaliated against Brandy that's that's this was from the the young converion and under D6 it says notwithstanding the provisions of paragraph for the section the School Division shall not compel School Division Personnel or other students to address or refer to students in any manner that would violate their constitutionally protected rights okay so that's that's that's the youngen right um we just changed it put in a different place okay on the retaliation right but in the top we're saying once you've changed that once you've gone through the the process legally we're

159going to require you to do that yes but that's number one so that's already taken care of it's already been said once you've changed the student record that's where the students going to be addressed as reflected in the official record so which off sets your constitutional rights or or school policy you're both you're covered by both both your constitutional right is what in fact I think he actually added that because you had actually suggested that at that Clos meeting that you had said that well what if somebody's already uh changed the official record you raised that point correct um so he added it in there and so that that's what that addresses is well if it's already changed why would they be able to just call whatever they want well no that says right there

160that the teachers and the staff have to call whatever is reflected in the official record number two has nothing to do with number one number two two has to do with compelling a staff or a teacher to have to participate in gender identity issues that go against their principles or whatever that has nothing to do with the students themselves it has to do with activities and or the the teaching of principles related to sexual has nothing to do with students at all so a teacher has a CH a right to say no I'm not going to be part of that teaching okay but once the official record's been changed the has nothing to do with a official record number two has nothing to do with an official record of anybody okay like it's under number

161one number one does right number two has nothing to do with that okay so go back to number one what we're saying is is once it's changed the requirement for shener County Public School staff is to use the proper pronoun right as is as it says as it stated in the official here correct but then we say we're not going to retaliate against you if you don't do it that I guess we need to clarify in there that that's if requested by a student a parent we're not partici if the staff doesn't want to participate they don't have to but if you've got a case like Grim versus Glouchester where the student has gone through all the Hoops to the point of surgeries and everything else then it's kind of pointless to call her by

162her original given name if her driver's license her birth certificate and everything else show her as a male it would be kind of stupid to not recognize her as a male okay but like I said I just want to clarify that is what we're saying though I mean we're not going to retaliate you against you if you don't I mean we're requiring you to do it but really we're going to not retaliate we probably don't have a retaliation now if a teacher doesn't want to teach a certain student because of conflict or do we have any kind of policy like that has a teacher ever asked for a student to be removed from their class because of a family conflict or anything like that had students asked to be removed from classro not necessarily because

163of family conflict but you know for various reasons and we just oblig sometimes we do and sometimes we don't depending on the situation I said to me it kind of offsets each other we're going to require you to do this but we're not going to hold you accountable if you don't I just want to make sure that that's the expectation because that's technically what policy is saying well the retaliation would be for somebody for a teacher who is um been forced to use a name or pronoun that is not on the official record okay so that's when the policy is actually enforced Course once the official record has been changed then everybody's going to use whatever is used in the official record I mean if we got to spell that out in there somehow we

164can well I think that's what it says I thought it was pretty obvious the way it is any other comments from the school board okay Madam superintendent we thank you for using good offices and to um coate those questions and uh we look forward to a robust debate yes sir I ask one more question I just thought of are we only directing these questions to Sans Anderson or are you going to get a couple of different opinions so I wasn't going to use Sans Anderson at all but Daniel Rose who had um previously provided us with some information okay all right we have completed our uh four topics for the work session so it remains for us to hear School Board member comments anybody want to go first around to Horn and start with you

165you okay Mike I'm good good um two things I can think I've right off the bat I've been approached by um two veterans that are one I know is a long-term sub right now in our school and I know there used to be a program vets to teachers is there any anything we can do to help veterans FasTrack or whatever to become full-time employee teachers and you may not know that right now I'm just putting it out there as something maybe we could review um because I've been approached and there is an interest um and I mean as we know we don't have a overabundance of males in the schools as as teachers and staff I applaud you you gentlemen that have had long tenure with the school system um but I thought it was

166interesting I didn't even know there was such a program until I started researching and it turned out it was done away with a few years ago I don't know if it's been brought back if there's a talk about bringing it back you know uh that's a really interesting sorry you okay no you're a veteran I mean you could speak to Once Upon a Time um Coen pal came up with the uh with the concept that those who are getting out of the military should be uh given um impetus to be hired in education and um there were um benefits that ACR to um discharge soldiers who would take on educational um careers uh but the uh the remuneration and the advantages they got came from the federal government not from the county uh because we

167probably couldn't afford that but it's it's a really interesting concept especially as you talk about the dir of male teachers uh to be able to um I mean it's something that maybe our Congressman could could look look into because it wasn't very much cost to the military to do that because they were SE soldiers were going to separate anyway but but whatever advantages they could acrew to them would cost money that the feds would have to Pony up but as Mr street so eloquently pointed out to us at our last meeting the federal government doesn't give that much education anymore percentage wise so maybe they should get back on board uh anyway I think it's a great idea but uh it I think it would have to come from the feds but but we we

168have a federal I I'd like to see if there's anything we can do to make that easier process um the only other thing I have was I was contacted by a constituent today and I was a little alarmed it wasn't one of mine um but the caller stated to me that they had reached out to their board member um couldn't get a hold of their supervisor for the county um she was able to get a hold of a supervisor uh on the board and the first thing the board member asked her was are you in my district I thought about that and I thought about all the emails I fied and the calls I take and never at once has it crossed my mind to ask the person if they're in my district I was

169like holy cow I was taking a back I'm like as school board members as Board of Supervisors we represent shannona County we don't represent I mean sure we represent a district but I don't care what district you're in if you call me with information or a question or what have you um but this caller stated that she had approached her school board member about a subject the school board member said she'd he'd look into it um and get back to her and never did um this was back in mid-February it was a little alarming to me that we're getting phone calls or we're getting emails and we're not addressing them um the other thing was I'll let you all know the board of supervisor or the supervisor she was able to get in touch with

170pointed to finger right back at us as to why the tax increas is happening he said Point Blank he's he did say we had a needs based budget but the reason the tax increase is coming is because of the school board so just to put that out there that's the information that's being put out with the public so if if we could represent ourselves better responding to emails responding to phone calls we might be able to have help people understand the local Composite Index and the fact that we're not getting as much money from the state um because this caller had no idea how that worked and the fact that we're not getting as much money so it's got to be made up somewhere um but if we could respond to our voters I think

171it would go a long way that's all for me I got nothing althor I guess only I have to say is U it's a tough situation I mean um trying to figure out how to make this all work and um I don't know how it's supposed to work just seems like a broken system from the top so hopefully we can are you talking about the budget or budget yeah yeah the budget and but everything you know but but let's face it I mean everything stems off the budget you know um so everything stems off that and that's where it all starts so I I don't hope we can somehow get through it or come up with something that's all I have to say um I don't have a whole lot just um a reminder that

172the mental health task force is going to be meeting on April 3rd and um right here for lunch and uh that meeting the last one was actually very very good and we did a lot of introductions with the community and all that but we're trying to really uh identify what areas of our community especially for the kids we need to address most um and also see how we can come up with the resources to kind of fund um the help that they're going to need um so that's going to be April 3rd here and there is lunch um and other than that I think uh Mike and I are looking into doing some meetings uh for the Personnel committee and start talking to some of the teachers and see um see if we can go

173to a different um campuses before the end of the year just to get more feedback from the teachers and the staff that's it the only thing I would have to to bring U up is U the whole concept of our work sessions because uh I think the superintendent was kind of um you don't know what I'm going to say next do you but no u kind of shocked when you when you came here and found out that work sessions were not part of the Daily Grind of this previous school board and um I think it's it's important that we have these sessions and I appreciate the fact that we can delve a little bit deeper into topics and and have some back and forth we can't always have uh but uh it did create kind

174of a dilemma for me last time around because um we try to use Robert's rules in a kind of a hybrid way because we tried to or I tried to and I made a dog's breakfast out of it so um we have to figure out uh if we want this because as I read the policies we have regular school board meetings and we have special school board meetings that are caused that are called when uh when the chairman or when two people request special meetings the Assumption here I think the implication is that if there's something that really pops up we need have meeting um so the question that I have for you is um do we need to create uh a third uh set of um uh rules of the road for work sessions

175uh does this work okay that it are the wrinkles out of it um I don't know but um but it really isn't is n covered uh by our Norms or by the policy the work session so we may want to think about what we want to do to capture um the work session and uh it's its um mechanisms believe it or not that's all I have I mean is that something we need to vote on or we just need to kind of agree on it well I think we'd have to vote on it um I mean if we again interesting the Norms indicate that during meetings like this we can come to consensus okay well the problem is consensus is hard to determine the best I can come up with is you reach consensus when

176nobody objects so that's why I've been asking if you if you all consider nobody objects the question is is that binding a couple years ago we tried to have uh consensus on whether we should have a survey to have the name change and we had consensus but then next month we didn't have consensus and so if we don't pass it as part of you know I'm I'm not sure how much water it holds so there's we're on the horns of a dilemma so I I just want you to think about the uh the rules of the road for the work sessions going forward just give a big a quick feedback I kind of like this sessions to be what you guys were talking about you know just had the opportunity of here just Hammer this

177out answer questions just uh a lot more relax and not as structured as the official meeting well that's the intent and and the the question is how to make that H happen well and maybe we're okay so anyway think about it and uh I agree with Gloria I like the the laidback atmosphere I mean the last time we had a work session I walked away going holy cow how did we even know we only had 10 minutes to present something because to me it was never stated before the meeting well as I indicated then uh we were operating under what we were trying to do was operate under Robert's Rules which has that as one of his premises so yeah I think as I said try trying to come up with the hybrid was was

178difficult and and so I'm not taking responsibility for it I'm just saying Where Do We Go From Here uh we have to be aware that give and take is fine until it's not no I think Robert's Rules is great when we're up there in front of the audience and in front of the public but when we're here we're trying to have open discussion dialogue and more laidback atmosphere I like the idea I like the way things went tonight technically we're not supposed to be voting at a at a work session right in any any way I mean I know we there's been a few times that we we have been those rules and and done that for for whatever reason but um I think what the the consensus thing was a a consensus and because

179there was no official record it it made things okay to change it at the last minute you know cuz nobody was paying attention so officially all right well there's no further discussion I think we're going to adjourn this meeting at 9917 I ask for too l no I didn't have to oh my you have a second I talk to you