001M's here just in the split that's why you run the railroad I guess well I kind of you and the Swiss okay all right uh it's uh looks like 602 and I'm going to call this uh senad o County Schoolboard work session uh uh to order and uh we are going to uh uh begin it with a with a with a closed session I'm going to ask for a recommendation from the superintendent thank you I recommend the school board of shanida County convene a closed meeting under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act in order to consult with legal counsel employed or retained by shanida County Public Schools regarding specific legal matters requiring the provision of legal advice by such Council under Virginia code 22- 3711 a28 do I hear a motion to that order Mr
002chair I move that the school board of shinid County convene a closed meeting under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act in order to consult with legal counsel employed or retained by shenoa County Public Schools regarding specific legal matters requiring the provision of legal advice by such Council under Virginia code 22- 3711 a28 oh hear a second this is rut seconds the motion made by um Mr gut Shaw uh all in favor please signify by saying I I I opposed motion is carried before we uh break into closed uh session uh our uh goal is to reconvene an open session at 6 :30 uh and um and I would also like uh the clerks to take notice that all all six members of the school board are indeed present so we will convene um what do
003you suggest thank you okay push me out so all the school board members being uh reassembled I am going to uhu call this meeting back into session uh it's not 6:30 it's 7:20 we apologize to those who have been waiting but we had a uh interesting discussion in close session that had to do with the uh the legal aspects of uh gender identity policy and uh it's a difficult subject and I think you all probably um would understand uh why why we took some time we'd like to acknowledge and uh recognize attorney Daniel Rose from Linton Cy who has uh helped us through some of these topics and appreciate his expertise and um with that I'm going to um ask uh that the school board U members certify by roll call vote we need a
004motion oh to um to reconvene to to reconvene an open motion and Open Session I moveed to reconvene and Open Session second second all in favor say I I opposed Tom street thank you the sheno County School Board certifies by roll call vote that the best of each member's knowledge only public business matters lawfully Exempted from open meeting requirements by Virginia law were discussed in the closed meeting to which the certification resolution applies and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard discussed or considered by the shenoa County School Board each member responds ISO certify when called Mr stre ISO certify Miss careno ISO certify Mr gsha ISO certify Mr RS ISO certify Mr Ricker ISO certify and Mr ISO certified um next on the uh
005agenda is for us to um approve approve the agenda as presented and we have a dilemma here and so I want to get the sense of the board before we before we go on we have two um massive uh things we're going to be talking about here uh one is is the issue that we just discussed which is the transgender policy and the other is the budget which is rolling right along and which the the school board Brit large has had a little to say on the matter thus far so both of these are uh important topics uh and we have a a hard stop in eight minutes uh and at that point we're going to um we're going to um allow public dis public discussion and it looks like that won't maybe take so
006long and if that's the case and we'll be able to go back and use whatever time we need for the rest of the evening for those two topics so uh with uh with 8 minutes until the hard stop um I'm wondering if we should uh Madam superintendent do you think there's any U introduction or whatever we could have to to to to the um um to to the budget discussions we have later since we're going to lead into public or or is it the sense of the board that we have a few more introduct or a few com comments about the the the the gender policy so that we can start that later it seems to me even though there's only a few minutes we we should probably have some some discussion or some a
007scene setting for the budget so I think for the next seven minutes we would be able to get through 3.3 and 3.4 that's a great idea yeah okay then we can start the other two conversations after the after the okay so so so good th those those two um those two agenda items um which Angie Stein will bring to our attention we probably will have a chance to do those and get those done very very wise is that uh indeed the consensus of the the board is there anybody who has a who has a a problem with that it's not Robert R's here tonight so unless anybody has an objection we'll we'll drive on with that so Angie you're on do they need to approve the agenda motion to approve the agenda oh so oh
008so what Okay so we need a motion to approve the agenda uh as as we've modified with those two uh budget uh modifications I move that we approve the agenda as presented with modification just with the modifications that we're going to move on to 3.3 and 3 3.3 and 3.4 great thank you Mr Rickard uh that is a motion second uh Mrs rut seconds that motion all in favor say I I opposed okay now I have five minutes there you go all right so um the the first one 3.3 is um basically a housekeeping um uh um request but um during Co chendo County Public Schools was awarded cares funds as you all are aware and the purpose of these funds um was to provide fast and direct um economic aid to those negatively impacted
009by the pandemic this included the School Division the funds are reimbursable and available over multip multiple fiscal years and scps has obligated all the funds according to the guidance that have been provided by the federal government but to date have not made final expenditures for those obligations therefore this request is to increase the appropriation in the special budget for the remaining amount of 1,963 184 in those federal funds for reimbursement again they have been um obligated um for various um things and Jen procer could answer to those if if you were you know wanted specifics um next is the federal government also awarded localities with a separate amount of cares funds for specific to um specific to the installation repair Andor maintenance of the division's hbac system the amount obligated but not spent due to
010ongoing projects and remaining for reimbursement is a million $11 $1 11,34 and so that just requires some appropriate to and then finally um we're awarded um over multiple fiscal years um federal funds that are subject to single audit these are our title funds and um again they are reconciled and remaining for reimbursement um is $554,000 6276 that just needs to be appropriated and we'll be doing that at your March meeting yeah I just I needed to get that on the agenda here so that we could get it approved and then taken to the Board of Supervisors very good okay any questions on that are there any questions there any hard stop on this money being spent uh it's multiple fiscal years there are hard stops but again we go um under a single audit and
011we have um Federal programs coordinator that takes care of all that um all right thank you okay all right and the last one is um so robins and farmer Cox are our Auditors and um in collaboration with um Finance staff we' um the audit had been completed for fiscal year 2023 and um the computation of the Schoolboard carryover fund balance for the year ending June 30th 2023 has been reconciled and is in the amount of $ 4,249 $249,000 $188 of this amount $4,139 64 is from the division special grants funds those are funds that are specific to certain um projects and programs and have to be spent on those things no local dollars are associated with those the remaining $145,200 of the total budgeted revenues for 2023 car's funds continue to support our local efforts
012as Allowed by the guidance of those funds however the funds must be obligated by this June 30th and all operational costs um revert to the general operating budget the recommendation is to request the Board of Supervisors reappropriate this operating fund balance to account for inflationary needs in the current budget which have not been addressed in several years and a state grant that was extended through June June 30th of 2024 the special budget is being reappropriated according to the project however does not requ ire specific Board of supervisor approval per per their resolution which states whereas unexpended funds if any left in any state or federal grant program at the end of a fiscal year shall be added to and shall be deemed appropriated if so facto the same for the same program in the fiscal
013year ending June 30th of 2024 if otherwise so permitted by the granting Authority so this um to will be an action item on your March 14th agenda any questions on that it's a lot yeah good stuff though and Roberts and farmer Cox will be um presenting for our informational agenda on uh March the 14th the results of our 20 fcol year audit great all right thank you ladies I appreciate that that's brings us very close to the witching hour so it's uh it's it's just about 7:30 so as uh at this point we will um have this uh have the public comments on the budget I wish to um make clear that the public comments will be limited to those comments that have to do with the budget and not any other topics I'm not
014hearing you motion to recess before before we can start um this recess before we start the public hearing do we have anyone signed up I'm sorry is there anyone signed up okay yes I signed up but I withraw that in the interest of your convenience okay so um so if there's nobody here to speak is there anybody here to speak I second an hour ago I had [Laughter] something and then we'll have opening meeting we'll have to the agenda for the public hearing and so we'll have to do the call order the motion she keep this on track okay so we have to go through even though we don't have a speak make ice cream sunday [Applause] difficult I move to recess this [Applause] meeting somebody is thank you I second thank you all all
015in favor say hi I opposed I did Mrs ruts so we're recessing right now now the next I guess I we recess but so we we don't need to take a recess right I mean we're good to stay here and keep going okay actually I do need a minute let me just go real quick here okay just okay so we we do have in essence a recess and we'll reconvene in just a matter of minutes if anybody does need to take a quick break it would be a good time to do [Applause] itate want to have me around for anything or should I don't think so I mean if you want to um I wouldn't mind I mean if you want to stay for some atmospherics but if you don't think that's necessary you yeah
016really be all disposal if you think know Chamber of Commerce does anybody have a desire to have Mr Rose St just to hear I think now if you want to stay on your own dime to contain sure we're sick around but I think we're okay thanks again appreciate thank you say I order this yeah but there's no beginning here's the agenda what there it is right there okay so what are we going to do next we going to do in and then we'll go back to3 you'll ask for the approval of the agenda and then we'll do this nobody will talkish okay so everybody has returned okay so um I now call the uh the open meeting the uh work session of uh shindo County School Board I at uh 7:35 heing on the budget
017and that uh the first item will be the uh public hearing well we've done the public hearing on the on the budget have we not so we haven't no all right um I thought nobody was speaking we still have to go through the motions still have to go through all that okay sorry folks uh so uh we'll we'll we'll explain what what the public hearing is all about then public hearing just talk to me what what the agenda has to be approved first okay okay all right so um so 2.1 is the approval of of the agenda we only have uh two items that that that are on on the schedule at this point uh we do have a public hearing uh uh and we'll we'll um go through the we'll find out if there
018are indeed any speakers um and if not then we'll move on to the uh to the two items that remain on on the docket today one being the U the discussion of the gender identity policy and the other is uh is is the public hearing or the superintendent's proposed budget presentation did we the last motion I'd like to make a motion to approve the agenda as presented motion made by Mr Guta I'll second Mr Rickard seconds all in favor say I I uh so in terms of the public hearing um I um I know that the public hearing is held to receive feedback from the community uh and again um if there's no one do I have to read all this stuff even nobody's here can't we make a motion to adjourn you don't have
019to read yeah okay well thank you all right all right we okay so we're adjourning the public hearing correct all right so I need a motion to um to that effect I move that we adjourn this meeting of the Public Public hearing a second Mrs rut seconds that motion B my Mr Rickard all in favor say I I opposed none right and now do I have to reconvene another meeting or can we just go we do to thee okay so um where am I 31 you need to make a motion to come back and I move to reconvene from Recess our work session yes the work session I moved to reconvene our work session from Recess second all in favor say I I oppos so now we are are in Open session of our work
020session we have um two items that we do need to discuss as a school board and um the order that we have them listed here the first is on the uh the model policies uh that have to do with uh with gender identity and so um the the the floor is open um for any comments before we begin um want to make a few General guidelines is that we'll follow the rules generally that uh that we follow in Robert's Rules which is uh each member of the school board is allowed up to 10 minutes to make any comments uh any uh no one can speak a second time so until somebody has everybody has a chance to speak the first time and uh that we can continue on second round and have people use up
021to 10 minutes for the second round and that will that will be it okay so there are possibility of two 10minute um two 10-minute uh discussions if it's if any of that is needed uh and so I'm U we're open for any discussions on the con concept of of the of the bill should I go ahead and um if I can go ahead since I'm going to be introducing my um policy I'm going to go ahead and you can take one of those packets okay so before we go in so chair recognizes Mrs uh Colo to um to to give her her presentation on um on this concept in I'm going to wait until everybody has a I think there's two um I'm going to wait until everybody goes um to start my time thank
022you everybody have a copy okay so can everybody hear me all right so um and please bear with me I'm still having some issues um with my vision so I'm having a hard time reading but um I wanted to go ahead and have a presentation for this a PowerPoint to kind of under um better explain what's going on I know there's been a lot of back and forth and a lot of versions being circulated around so I wanted to make sure that everybody understood what what it is that we're considering um so the first thing that I wanted to do and I don't know if I'm Where do I where it oh passed got it okay got all right so um just to give you an idea on what's going on here um so the
023initial draft that I uh submitted um I I circulated around the board and on December 18th um I introduced it to the board on our training day on uh the 2nd of January we talked about it I mean we put it on the agenda on the 11th of January we discussed it on the 22nd of January we discussed it on the eth um of the board meeting um then during that time there was a couple of weeks that I was uh talking to um uh Barlo about trying to make some changes to this policy and uh what I did is um until the negotiations um kind of ended um I had I had gone ahead and uh adopted a lot of the changes which were mostly changes coming from the yankan it was I had
024taken out a lot of stuff from the yunin that was superfluous or that was kind of confusing um we went ahead and and added it and we also did um the format uh we made it more like the yunan um and that's what you'll see in that policy that uh went around with this um presentation and um then a few days later uh we have also the Barlo version um which I'm sure he's going to talk about um which she's un officially circulated um on the 24th and uh just to kind of make uh and I'll let him talk more about that that but basically what you're going to see so there's not a whole lot of confusion is uh the barow policy is basically the policy that I wrote um and drafted and submitted
025on the on the um 18th but without certain provisions and what we're going to do is we're going to go ahead and talk about some of those Provisions as well and I don't know where I'm supposed to be okay there we go all right so the presentation for this summary um I'm going to first talk about some of the endorsements um of this primary version that um I submitted um and these are mostly done by well experienced and recognized Schoolboard experts and lawyers and I'm presenting those because I know Mr Barlo also asked for me to um present some of those uh in the presentation and then I'll go ahead and talk about the difference differences between the Barlo version and um and why I think um is efficient based on what I wrote um
026one of these endorsements this is actually one of the uh newest ones that I have is from U Mr Craig desesa a lot of you know know from him um he's the president of the middle resolution and he stated that this document seems to protect everyone fairly and the parent the student the teacher the administrator and any student who is struggling with their identity um as you know the middle resolution is endorsed by governor yunan and uh it praises the who who praises the organization's sophistication and knowledge of education issues in Virginia a lot of us are familiar with them because they were very instrumental in our campaigns and also going forward uh with what we're doing right now um the second endorsement comes from Miss Sher story from who's the chairman of the Schoolboard
027member Alliance which a lot of us are members of and the sbma is endorsed by uh Mr Todd Gilbert and I believe Dennis is the vice chair if I'm not mistaken um is a powerful network of conservative Schoolboard professionals uh working collaboratively uh to Champion parental rights and prioritize academic achievement in our schools uh Miss story said that this is an excellent document nice work work I cannot see anything I would add or substract excellent to have had Josh who I will talk about uh take a look at it I pray everyone will be willing to sign it I would love to see this as become a template um to other districts also here in the Commonwealth and that was actually another sentiment that was echoed by Miss uh Corey Brewer uh from the Wisconsin
028um um uh Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty who I'll be talking about later as well um the next one is is actually Mr hesler who is the one that she just mentioned um and um just to make sure everybody understand with Mr hesler is actually uh the legal council at the founding freedoms Law Center which is the legal arm of the Family Foundation he's an expert on public policy development and constitutional law issues um I've been working with him from the very beginning back in December 1st he looked at this uh policy he uh provided a number of suggestions and they were all incorporated into to um this draft uh some of those policies are actually some of the ones that Mr Barlo is eliminating um from the policy um I also have here
029so miss Corey Brewer I actually uh talked to her this is the reason why I don't have anything here in writing uh we had a really good conversation she actually would like to see some of these policies and even the resolution um being circulated in Wisconsin um among some other school boards um is Shelley Norton who is the marketing and Outreach shair for the sbma and she's also the one who's been kind of tracking uh what school boards are doing with regards to this policies and miss Nancy Smith who's the political director of the middle resolution and with whom a lot of us have had great interaction she's been a great resource to all of us I Believe Miss Norton and Miss Smith are also former teachers so we're going to talk about the disputed
030provision um because like I said they're basically the same draft policy there's just a few main differences and the main differences have to do with Schoolboard approval for certain Provisions with the safety and protection for girl Sports and the protection from retaliation um uh the B version basically uh just purposely fails to provide Protections in all three of these Provisions by leaving our students teachers and staff vulnerable and um that is basically the main differences uh between our policies now we go along um and talk about the school board approval I want you to keep this points in mind uh one of them is you know the key decisions made under the policy should be subject to Schoolboard approval um that's why we go in close meeting and we talk about who gets hired who
031gets fired who gets promoted those are things that the school board does you're on 11 minutes now that'll be off for now thank you fantastic this is like anybody else does anybody want to yield their time so I I can finish the presentation I'll yield my time who came up with the 10 minutes I mean when you're presenting a draft policy shouldn't you have more time I mean isn't that different than just uh official comment no in Robert's Rules and the other generally accepted parliamentary 10 10 minutes is an except to% for intervention by the members of the body okay well and as I stated earlier you'll have another you have you have another shot to finish up it's just that as wears on other people on the board need to have be able to
032speak if if Mr Rickard is yielding his time I can actually use this well then he has to be then he has to be addressed first and the second aspect of parliamentary procedure is you try to go one side than the other one side than the other right but you have to present one and usually you have to allow the people who are presenting a policy to be able to present it and present what the difference I'm asking you to have a seat uh if Mr Rick Rec is actually I'm I'm waiting to call in the next person who wants to speak okay does any other school board member want to speak in opposition if I mean I think there's some is that a yes yes okay um I gotta be honest here um and
033I'm and I'm and I'm not going to be I'm not going to be um um politically correct um this is a Hot Topic and I and I completely get this but this has come turned into nothing more than a pissing contest I'll be honest um there's a lot of back and forth there's a lot of disrespect of members there's a lot of I mean I'm sitting here listening to this I don't our job here is to for the betterment of 5,500 kids in this community that we that are under us and to protect sh our County Public Schools and I'm a little worried that as this is proceeding that is not our goal here um I think egos are a part of it I think tempers are a part of it um for me right
034now I'll be honest with you um the budget is my main priority we just got it when do we need this approved March March 14th so in less than 3 weeks we're going to be asked to come back here and approve this I would like to put a motion to the board that we table the transgender policy till after the budget's done I think we are do that to the citizens 42,000 44,000 um taxpayers in this County to give this our priority we have I believe two official transgender students or something like that in the county something like that um I think it deserves some time and and and you know some attention I'm reading through Title Nine which we have discussed it is completely different than what we had discussed previously um and I
035think there's some I I think it deserves a step back and a that it deserves some time off and I think that our budget deserves the our attention that's it point of clarification um Dr Cher can you um explain again the timeline for the budget so on March 14th is not the it's that a final vote on the budget so page 13 gives the timeline for the budget in your budget book and March 14th is budget approval that we will forward to the Board of Supervisors on March the 19th I would agree and there's some just just so you know from experience this whole we'll get a second bite of the apple and once it goes there we'll come back it doesn't happen and then April 22nd is the final adoption of the budget and
036that's after the Board of Supervisors have approved their tax rate in their budget adoption so April 22nd so miss RZ I mean you are um what your suggestion is that we table this until what May June July after the budget process is done right so that would be May June July if that's how long it takes so we're going to be in non-compliance continue being in non-compliance that's okay I'm sorry I'm sorry there was a point of clarification which you may you do not have the floor you ask for but that is a point of clarification which I allow that is AIC we're done and we're done now uh your recommendation to table is something we will consider after we have gone through the other uh presentations and interventions other school board members have that's
037fine uh but that's it you have anything further no okay no um so Mr R you were going to speak before um we can yield your time or you can use it I'll yield my time if you want if you want to speak and then no I'll yield my time to you okay so I will continue then um explaining what the draft policy is um we stopped at the school board approval um and I want everybody to keep in mind that we're talking about um this points that we just uh mentioned mention here um the first one that we're talking about in school board approval section 3a3 um the only difference between our two versions is that it should be uh superintendent of Chino County public schools with the approval of the school board again
038we do this for all this hiring and demotions and and firings and all this stuff that we do why wouldn't we do it with regards to an administrator that is going to be speaking to the students with regards of dispositions of changing their their gender um and in fact I I should tell that on the first draft I didn't had not included this um provision because I personally don't think that this should be uh in the in the perview of the school system um and um this was actually a compromise that U Mr Barlo and I had um come to um with that language of the about the approval but then later on she changed uh his mind and uh take took that out um that's the same thing with the school board approval with
039regards to the changing of the students identity uh I mean we have school board approvals for a lot of the student discipline which is I believe even less important than this life-changing decision that we're going to be making um so that's why I think the school board should have an approval of this as it is right now written in the in the Ying policies nobody has some any any overview pretty much the um the schools can decide and every school can have their own different um set of uh criteria uh the next one is the safety for girls Sports we see this all the time we saw it this week where in Massachusetts a male student actually um harmed some girls where they were playing um so we see this all the time um so
040I believe it is our duty to uh protect our girls um that are playing sports um both the Y and Barlo versions are a little bit vague and incomplete in this Sport and uh we did have a a legal um session right now and the question is with regards to title line I actually believe and we're going to get the the legal um definition on this that my version is actually compliant with Title Nine when it allows for girls to uh participate in boy Sports um which Yin actually does not allow that right now um paragraphs H1 two and three truth of the matter is they go to the same thing so they're e going to fail or they're going to uh Stand Together uh and then um again this language is necessary and reasonable
041so that's what you're going to find section h um that's why we added AC uh section H one two and three again this is not working um there we go uh in section second is uh section two is the one that is going to be compliant with title n which as I understand right now the yin policies may have been sued because they don't include that so if anything we're actually more uh compliant than the yuning one is finally the more important one of the most important ones that I think we need to decide to have in this policy is the issue of retaliation and we as just talked about us with a legal council that we should be uh protecting our teachers if they don't use um the pronouns that are other than the
042official record so we're going to have an official record and students who have a gender identity issues can actually go through what the policy states and they can't change their bi their sex as as as it's in the in the record they can still do that question is are we going to be punishing our teachers if they don't follow something that is not on the record so that's what the retaliation um talks about um and those are the the sections that U Mr Baro actually removed again I know there's a there's a commentary about whether compelling is sufficient compelling and retaliation is not the same thing retaliation is an actual established defined legal Doctrine and not compelling someone is not the same thing as retaliating against somebody those are two completely different concepts um we
043have the retaliation language is everywhere this is just one of the many dozens of examples that we have even here in Virginia uh where we have a recent Virginia whistleblower protection it talks about ritory actions and one of the points I wanted to make is due to this discussion the fact that we're talking about this right now if we now choose not to include retaliation um some could actually argue in court that we specifically decided to exclude that um because a lot of the times when you go to court and when you look at policy they're going to be looking at the inter intent and this is intent this right here is part of that um so again the retaliations in sections one and two um Miss rutz had actually uh brought up some points
044of clarification that we could further clarify this with regards to uh the end of section one and just put there as in accordance to the official record I have no problem including that um just to make it even more clear but in the end this is something that I feel is really important um I mean we are I I know I have been working on the budget I've been looking on the budget we've had some meetings um in the finance committee and it's something that is very important but so is this I mean this is something that is going to touch students this is something that could be changing students for the rest of their lives whether is a girl who's participating in the sports whether it's a boy who gets accused of saying something
045he shouldn't have said whether is a kid that has gender dysphoria and it's is now having to decide what gender going to be um or whether it's a teacher or a staff member that could be punished for using the wrong pronoun or the wrong name um this is something that we need to address we are in non-compliance already um since yunin already introduced this back in July uh we've been talking about this a lot and um if anybody has any more questions I'd be happy to answer them but I do think we need to act on this and I don't think there's any reason to be kicking this down the road any further thank you any other comments from school board members okay then I'd like to see something um I applaud the yunan administration
046for coming up with this policy um it's a common sense policy IT addresses a lot of the U issues that were facing us under the Northam policy and which um which we didn't adhere to uh for the simple reason that that they were going to cause problems that that could have resulted in students being um harmed and so a common sense approach was that this that the school board in the past um acceded to the new uh the new Administration under under yunan but okay and so we're we're in a limbo position right now whereby we just we we um find ourselves under the code and the code is very succinct there's eight bullets about what we have to do uh to to be uh compliant and we are and as as we speak we
047are we are compliant but the yunan vdoe take I think Giant Steps at trying to be more precise and and provide more protections and I think this is the important part uh across the board for a student no matter what gender identity they may have uh doesn't shouldn't have to be um subject to bully or or to or or to being any any way disadvantage themselves on the other hand we've had a situation where it was considered to be very very um likely that somebody could just decide on a whim to act like they were the other gender and to go into the bathroom or and then to rec havic and we saw that's happen in in nearby communities and we all knew we were at risk for that kind of stuff happening in our
048own schools and for people to kind of play games with this in a political way or even to change things on a day-by-day basis by which basically it kind of throws a school system into turmoil we all we know that one of the reasons that teachers leave uh is because uh they feel uncomfortable with talking about these subjects with having to police these subjects and not knowing what the rules of engagement are and so this this this whole issue has caused major problems I'm personally concerned with what's happening with many of these children who are going through tough times of being 12 13 year olds and going through all the things we went through as middle school kids and then um being told by somebody in social media or by some uh some you know
049political member of the family or something that you know what you just weren't you just weren't assigned properly by the doctor when you were born and so we try to find a a kid who has problems uh Solution by making them part of an oppressed Group by making them part of feel like they're part of a group that somehow needs to be different and so what we have done is something that hasn't been done in 6,000 years of History we as a culture have decided it's okay uh to try to change your biological sex uh and that that is going to be the the the solution to the problems for these kids now as Europe is finding out now as America is finding out now putting your hope into taking hormones rest of your life
050having parts of your body lopped off uh are probably not going to solve the problems that these kids have it's not in our wheelhouse to change the law but it is in our wheelhouse to manage the situation in our schools so that we don't either groom or entice kids to take this drastic step nor do we bully them or persecute them because they're thinking about it or because it's an because that's an issue and so that makes it very very difficult for us to take you know something like the model policy and try to make it more comprehensive or to go with what it is I like what the governor has done I like the B um I I take personal umage at uh having uh this thing um uh given my name uh in
051that I have not submitted a version to be considered by the school board I have not in spite of protestations to the contrary there is no Barlo version there is no Barlo version let me tell you what happened in order to come to agreement on the various issues that we would have in developing our own comprehensive uh version of this Mrs carlino and myself decided to meet several times and to see if we could close the gap between those Concepts and we did we met two different times two hours a piece and some ideas I liked and acceded to that Mrs carinho U put forth I put forth three concepts I thought would make sense to make the identity the new gender identity for students a little higher of a bar so that they wouldn't
052do it on a whim or their parents wouldn't do it on a whim we were working through those kind of compromises I'm told I shouldn't be talking about this but in my career at State Department defense department JMU Princeton I have worked at creating documents like this for countries around the world for agencies okay and nobody's ever said that I plagiarized because I took something out of a document that would make law by doing that one by the way uh or by trying to make it better by trying to talk about what was in it there's only one person around this table who has a version that's been up there since mid January and it's not me so all I wanted to do and still want to do is to close the gaps that exist
053between the those between those two versions or perhaps you default to the safer but not as comprehensive version of the Yun now if we want to do that and I like trying it it means you know sticking our noses out a little bit maybe taking a chance on extra litigation coming our way um I'm ready to do that but it needs to pass muster first it needs to meet this the legal hurdles and Common Sense boundaries of treating these kids humanely and equally and giving them the protections as we do it it's not easy it's not easy but it gets harder uh when we say that one person who's working uh is purposely failing to provide protections so I've dropped out of that process and I don't the the pieces that I put in or
054took out they no longer exist this part of a working process and I don't like them being represented as if it was a version that I have presented and don't intend to present but I do intend to take a greater look at the yunan version and see what we can do to plus it up and some of those concepts are interesting Concepts that Mrs coleno has put in here some I think are nooses and some could very well draw quite a bit of litigation to our County which we may fight and win or fight and lose or fight and pay for but we need to be aware of the ramifications of that so this is not um this is not easy and it's not easy when you get personal or unprofessional and I um I
055would concur with Mrs rutz that uh I am guilty of ignoring the budget process up to now because I've been involved in this I apologize to the board and and into the school system because we owe you guys a better look at the budget than we've done on I give great credit to Tom Street who's taken this on as an individual issue and gone out and G and found stuff I know Mike Rickard is interested in a lot of these topics I know we'll be talking about these in a few minutes um we are safe as we are uh at the moment if we don't make any changes we're probably safe if we pass this the vdoe model relatively or we can be more aggressive and try to find something that's a little stronger I
056love to do that uh but um but it's going to take a little bit more understanding and professionalism that we as a board have demonstrated at this point so um if uh it would be the the decision of this board to table this issue um until the budget issue is more discussed and debated I I could support that but I wouldn't want to see it disappear from our from our discussion but I don't want to see it drive our emotions and our and our decision making over over the next three months I'm sorry I went over my own timeline and I I do have a point of clarification real quick just just one second one second one please please okay um so any any any other school board member have anything else to say question
057um i' forgot which one of you I called on last no I want him to talk but I just have a question U because you said there is no draft uh Barlo draft so the our um legal council which is talking comparing the Barlo draft and the Carina draft so you're saying yours you're taking yours out here I'll make it very clear when I was aware that we were going to have legal uh opinion on what needed to be in and so forth there were some ideas that I wanted to float and get an opinion on from the lawyer and so that's why I left them in or the ver last version that I recall working on so that we could get and I ask questions about those tonight okay but so that's that's why
058that's what he was referring to just because that's what I was referring to so that's what the legal counsil was also referring to yes but not not the same points it was but the same document yes thank you I just wanted to clarify if we're going to run this meeting professionally you just stated you did not have a barow version I have an email right here that went out to every board member here and I believe Dr Shepard on February 24th at 117 from you that says I have asked that my latest draft be provided to the school board attorney who would review it as well as the other proposals those are your words you said you had a draft now for you to sit and look at her and go off on her saying
059and there is no barow draft those are your words I just wanted the clarification there well let let me let me clarify then for you first of all I believe it was you Mr Rickard who asked if you could have a copy of what I had been working on and so I did send it out okay have a draft you can wo wo wo me all you want I'm going to speak my mind but but I'm also going to respond to the question that you ask so if the question is was there something identified as the version that I was working with yes have I proposed it before this body or anybody else as something I would like voted on no is it a working document that I have been working on to try to
060come to uh agreement and consensus yes is that what you submitted to the to the to legal council though when you submitted to legal council what was it that you said you were submitting a a a version for which I wanted legal opinion about about legal sufficiency Point by point in response to miss ruts I believe we should be centering our attention on the budget however I've been doing both because I believe both of them um need our attention um hopefully all of us can do more than one thing at a time but yes have been working on the budget as well as the transgender policy I don't think that the ability to do more than one thing at a time has anything to do with it I think that that is a very clear
061um indication by the the conversation this evening that um that we probably need a time off of the transgender policy I think that we need to focus on the task at hand since it's on time sensitive I don't believe eight months we've already heard that there is no possible way no uh vehicle I think is the word used for the state department or anybody else to come here and say gosh you're not in compliance and then what are they going to do I think that it's waited this long a couple more months isn't going to be that big of a deal considering this is a huge project I don't know about you but this is my third one going into it and it's like drinking from a fire hose oh concur well one second so
062are there any other comments from school board members on the transgender policy I just would like to add that okay you're wrong I just forwarded you Title Nine from the for uh the federal department of educ education and there's some updates there it was updated in 2021 and it does include um language about transgender transgenders and um discrimination that I think requires some some talk and we are expecting some further uh interpretation of that as well correct uh my the point that I was going to make is we're not voting on this tonight I mean we're voting this in a few weeks in March 14th by then um you know like Mr Rickard said I mean some of us I have been working also on the budget um I've been talking to people about this
063um I've been looking at some of the items so I can do both of them at the same time um I would think that by March March 14th we should be able to get all the questions that we have and uh outstanding right now which I guess are mostly between mine and the yunin policy and um you know Mr Rose said that he was going to be able to submit that to us um pretty soon so we'll be able to have that before March 14th when we can finally have another final discussion and then the vote um on this transgender policy gender identity policy all right um I think what I'm prone to do is to call an end to this discussion here um to ask the superintendent at this point in just a moment
064to lead us through the budget discussion uh then at the conclusion of that I think we should decide or have a consensus vote on the um timeline for the gender identity policy and see if there is sufficient um will to postpone uh past the March 14th meeting for a decision do it does that for do anybody has any objection to that set of procedures for the remaining meeting I we we end that first and then move on to the uh I the only thing I was thinking was there might be some aspects of the budget as we discussed that would kind of help us make our minds up on that so uh we're going to be here at that moment anyway so I I'm recommended that we wait till uh what we would U to
065the conclusion before we before we decide whether we want or need uh an extension of uh time to consider the the transgender policy then at that point you're going to do a motion based on what I mean you're going to follow up on her motion discuss it it I I think I mean I could ask just ask for consensus in a work session but I think might be easier to have a have a I mean we'll be here to late but we're going to be here late anyway so that's fine so that's fine that's fine um Madam superintendent if uh if you're ready and you can take us on the marry Chase with the land of budget so um little levity here this is my favorite time of year budget season um so tonight I'm
066going to present and my comrade to my right will present our 2000 fiscal year 2025 proposed budget I'm going to lead you through this I've put tabs at each of your places so that if you wanted to tab a particular section you would be able to do that you will notice that my budget book is already fairly well tabbed um so I will lead you through the budget book and then have entertain any questions afterwards but you will notice that there are four sections to the budget book there's the executive summary the organizational section the financial section and the informational section and if you do not have them there are copies of the budget book over here on the desk if you would like to grab them um you will notice as you thumb through
067the budget book that there are repetitions in the budget book and that is purposeful um if we wanted to submit this book for um consideration for an award then it meets those um requirements for that award so it's no no other um reasoning other than that um you will notice that you have seen most of this information previously um there are three major Updates this evening you'll notice that we have a bit of increased um state revenue um in the house of delegates and the Senate proposal which we um have included in this budget book you will notice that our local ask is has decreased um by about two uh 1.5 million $1.6 million and you will notice that there's a CIP um reduction on page three of the budget book there is a table
068of contents that will help you work your way through um this budget book um in your spare time so if you turn to page 7 you will notice that it lists the school board members and their districts and their term of office and if you scroll through you know this this section it'll talk about our um School administration our division Administration it'll again go over our mission vision and goals which you have heard over the last couple of meetings and you will on page 13 as discussed earli you will see a timeline page 14 I'm going to bring um particular attention to page 14 um you have heard previously that we really have five funds that we um really work with here in the school division we have our operating fund our special budgets capital
069projects Food Service which is self-funded and then our County technology services and there's just a brief explanation of of those page 16 um 17 information that you've seen before the organizational section if you look at page 21 you will notice that um shanadoa County public schools has been the largest employer in shanida county for quite some time that's on page 23 and then at the bottom of page 22 you will notice the um membership of all of our campuses and our schools at our campuses page 24 you'll see an organizational chart and you'll see our um school board members again and their districts and their terms and then goals mission and vision and then you turn to page 27 and you'll see our accounting practices I am going fairly quickly through this this is not
070this is not really what you're interested in you're interested in the financial section so I'm I'm getting there um but I think it's it's important for you guys to understand that there is more information in the background that could help you as you're making decisions so on page 27 you'll notice our accounting practices and Po and policies and again we list those five funds that we fund um that we use and then it talks about our our processes here on page 28 and 29 how come we don't have a fund four to that so fund four is usually reserved for um like a Fleet Management um fund specific funds um we we follow under the uh uniform chart of accounts um that's under the Commonwealth of Virginia and the um auditor Public Accounts and so
071they have they tell you what each fund could represent we don't have Fleet Management fund so then I am going to um flip to page 35 which is the financial section which is where you'll probably want to start using your tabs to start you know documenting where you want to look at your information so our operating budget for um fiscal year 24 was just shy of $80 million and then our proposed fiscal year 25 budget would be um 86,4 33,2 61 if you scroll to page if you turn to page 3 6 you'll see State funding has in increased by the amount of 2,991 396 and Miss Stein that was the house the house version version which is a little less than the Senate version at some point over the next couple of weeks they'll
072come to some form of agreement and then the governor will need to um to sign off on that so on page 36 you will notice that you know that's that's our increase but remember our local Composite Index increased by almost 4% so is about 3.96% which means that our locality has an ability to pay so we actually are going are funded $1.9 million less in state funds for this fiscal year than we would have been had our local Composite Index stated what it was last year which was 3852 we are asking for a I am asking for a local funding um in operation of 3 3.5 million and you know take into consideration that almost 2 million of that is funding that we aren't receiving from the state had our local Composite Index not increased
073on page 37 you will notice that 56.5% of our funds come from State funds and 41.4 S come from County funds and if you look at the 41.4 7% our local Composite Index is 4248 per. so that's what the state anticipates that the county is able to afford I'm going to go slow here to see if there's any questions so please ask them while you're thinking about them um page 38 are the revenue Trends the this is the money that we anticipate to get from all of our um our Revenue sources page 39 you'll see the local Composite Index indicators you will notice that the true value of real property went up 1 Point um almost 1.6 billion and that is 50 that is weighted 50% of the local Composite Index our gross income increased
074by almost 500 million and that's 40% that's 40% of the local Composite Index and then our taxable retail sales increased by 50 almost 55 million which is 10% of that that formula so you will notice in all three indicators of the local Composite Index we increased and if you look at um the chart below that graph you'll notice that we compared ourselves to the surrounding divisions and there were three um counties that increased near us this year um Rockingham increased by 6.7% shanida County increased by 3.96% and then um paage County by 1.9% warrren was 1.3% not quite as much and then FR uh Frederick County was Point um. 1% and Augusta County County was 1.37% so the LCI for this fiscal year from the state 62 divisions increased 62 divisions decreased and the remainder
075there were no change or they were capped be happy to answer any questions on local Composite Index so then on page 40 you'll see the expenditures and you've seen this chart before about 76% of our funds are spent on instruction so that's one way to look at it and another way to look at it is on page 44 we'll flip back to page 40 in a minute but 89% of our of our um budget is people so it's salary and benefits so if you flip back to page 40 you'll notice that there are um several of the um funds that are underlined instruction Administration attendance and health pup Transportation operation and maintenance food service and other non-instructional operations and Technology previously um our Board of Supervisors had requested categorical funding and those are the categories
076that we would use are the ones that are underlined so um on page 43 we have divided our budget into categorical funds so if we if um the Board of Supervisors wanted to fund us categorically it's right there for them to to use so page 45 are the highlights of our budget initiatives yes going back to 44 for a second for the cost per people know obviously we're trending I would say in the wrong direction in that category you know I mean why are we why is this continuing to happen because we talked to other school systems and their number is not near as high Y so um if you look at the estimated typically that goes down um because the estimated is not necessarily what we um what we expended so um and I
077don't remember uh fiscal year 23 but we spent 3 we gave $35 million back to um to the Board of Supervisors that we left unspent so it's still estimated because these are numbers that come from the state and they haven't finalized those numbers yet and we just had our um yeah they haven't finalized these numbers on the State website um when when health insurance increase then your per pup cost is going to increase when you salaries and your per pupil cost is going to increase so um I don't have the information on those counties that surround us but I definit we can definitely look into that probably for previous years not for this year we can get a number on that so on page 45 highlights of the budget initiative you'll notice that 733,000 um
078will go to um I'm recommending for um a reading specialist to meet the vaa Virginia literacy act requirement two Elementary School teachers to reduce class size we have um a fifth grade classroom that has over um that has 27 students at Honey or four of them have 27 students at Honey Run Elementary School and then the third grade classroom second grade has five teachers and third grade has four teachers have to stay under 23 I'm not exactly sure the what we're getting we're at 23 right now so yeah and our second grade class has more teachers than our third grade class so could be four could be five but absolutely I have a question U for the reading specialist wasn't there a yunin progam program that was going to be um giving funds for that
079or not y yes so yeah so that's included in our state revenue yes yes so that's already allocated for that yes okay um but it's still a position we have to include okay yes got it um two PA Professionals for students with disabilities that serve as oneon-one um two van drivers for students with disabilities our occupational therapy Physical Therapy um teacher position was funded by Claude Moore we added that program at Triple A Tech last year so we need to fund um the the position for this year and then we um are requesting for three floater custodians one for each campus we have um some cust we have custodian vacancies and we have custodians at on FML FML Family Medical Le that um these three floater custodians would help with with um cleaning our making
080sure that our facilities are clean for our students I'm sorry just kind of related to what I just asked now is there a way that we can know like which ones of these positions are already funded for like if we're looking at any Cuts cuts for example we would know well those are already allocated for and paid for so we shouldn't even be touching that um is there a way that we can know that like you know what's funded by the club more or what's funded by the yunin initiative or do we have that anywhere so no no it's not in this book but um I can tell you that the reading specialist is funded through um we don't have to do that now I was just wondering maybe later on we could do that
081so that as we're looking through the budget we can say okay let's not even look at those to be cut or reduced because it's already they're already funded yeah the um the two elementary teachers if we don't if we don't fill one of them then we actually lose State funding okay it's called Class K through three class size reduction and I did forget to mention that we have a middle school teacher to reduced class sizes that's that's math at North Fork Middle School and and again there are 27 students in each class there yes please sorry um so I don't know if this will help or not but when when you ask if it it is funded it's it's funded by state revenue that we'll get but it's not currently in our budget so we
082have to increase our budget for that position as the expenditure and then match it with that Revenue that we're getting from the state but that position does not currently exist in our current budget okay I I was just looking in terms of these are things that we don't want to cut because well funded you know and that's why Dr she's recommending them because we we have to have them yeah and that and that's what I was wondering if there was a way that we could have um you know which ones are absolutely don't even look at cutting them because we need them you know like they're already funded or they're already appropriated or yeah none of them are appropriated as an expenditure okay we'll be receiving funds for them but we have to increase our
083expenditures in order to get them in our budget thank you so right below that is um are our cares funded positions and um items and that's 1.6 million and you'll notice that um we currently have nine student support Specialists this um we're requesting six so that's a reduction of what we currently have um the fat coordinator and the 504 coordinator both of these positions were in our Budget prior to um car's funding however when car's funding came about we transferred those positions to car's to be um funded by car's money um our 0.5 um full-time equivalent for maintenance nurse coordinator maintenance secretary nurse coordinator and Drama teacher those were all funded by cares um we have some software purchases that were um previously funded by cares and then increased in our budget substitute budget at
084the bottom increase in driver's ed pay we increased our um pay for our teachers for after school activities or or um summer work to $35 an hour a couple of years ago and we did not increase our driver's ed instructor pay so we would like to um remedy that with $50,000 and I believe that driver that pay has not been looked at for quite some time 16 years 16 years Mr Street says I do want kind I make a comment uh certainly I am proud that that we do offer driver said that we take that burden off that financial burden off families that they have to do it privately don't we still have to pay in there still a fee there is a fee but it doesn't cover um right the whole cost absolutely I
085think a couple years ago was like20 and some dollars I thought um10 110 or 120 yes yeah State sets s Us in the fall what we s there yeah it's it's far cheaper than what but it's not as cheap as it was when I was in school which we covered so you turn to page 46 you will notice that the capital funding and I'm I'm going to hand these out now um there'll be a couple of places we'll see this in our in our budget book but we went from five um9 million to $3.9 million um on our capital and you will notice on this uh sheet here what is in maybe like an orange color um is what we had proposed initially and then we revised it which is in a light pink color
086um so you you can go down through there and see what what's been modified I have talked with a um County Administrator and we on capital projects and I think um they are considering it's not a done deal but considering 2 1.2 million funding capital for 2.2 million so we'll still have some work to do if that is indeed the case I'm say you repeat that again so it's 2 and a half million is what the county has the County Administrator has indicated okay there's been conversation around and we're at 3.9 so that would be another 1.4 million what you're saying Miss column as what was proposed and which is this is the current yeah the the yellow or orange color was what was originally proposed and then the pink column is what we've revised
087it to so you can you know you can scroll down there now if you know if the county um does fund us at 2.5 million we'll need to go yeah 2.5 we'll need to go back and and do some more revisions and again your you know your eyes immediately go to the school buses of course yep um mine went to the stadium lighting at the schools that uh they're relatively big fun um big project and I I reached out because that's what I do uh for a living and I can still readily get all the lamps and the ballast and I mean just for example Central High School their football and baseball fields we could retro I mean not retro we could rebuild every light they have existing the material cost alone is only 14,000
088um we're talking about doing a retro of 210,000 so I mean retro for people that don't do electrical work you're just replacing the light that's there with a an LED or something more cost efficient but like I said you could relamp and rebalance every light there which is leaving the housing replacing with a brand new bulb brand new ballast the material cost is only 14,000 I could figure up the labor cost if you wanted me to but you can see the Stark difference between 210,000 and couple electricians with a bucket truck out there for a week relamping and rebaling them all so there are two um items on there the stage lighting at Central High School I think that's it and stage lighting at Mountain View High School those did those those move to another
089year those could possibly be done um funded by a grant that we received so we're um Mr Hensley and I are meeting with um that Grant fun and to see if that would be a consideration for them so I'm sorry those are the um Stadium or the no the stage uh stage lights stage okay yeah now for the stadium just a question um because Mr record um kind of provided that we could potentially do it for a lot less um that kind of brings back to the point of um where are we sourcing the estimates from I mean are we like getting three estimates out and who's actually in charge of getting um the whatever estimates we're getting for this budget so I'm going to let um Miss St answer that so when we go
090to put together um a CIP um we don't go out for procurement um we do get one person that we've worked with before something like that so we have a number um so that we can build the CIP when when an amount is approved by the board and then subsequently um we're funded by the Board of Supervisors we then go back and we we follow our procurement um policies so if if in this case it's over $210,000 so we're going to have to go out for um an RFP or an ITB an invitation to bid or a request for proposal at which time we will obtain three four um quotes or more if if we actually have to go out for for bid um like a sealed bid or something like that so all of
091that will happen after the funding takes place then we go out we can you know you can bid on it or or whatever um because it's it's publicized and things like that at that point then we get the number in and can put an actual number to it in this case if it would be under $80,000 we wouldn't have to do that do you know what they were proposing there so we had those lights done at um the Mountain View softball field and it cost us $220,600 our maintenance supervisor um has relationships with a lot of of these types of people and you know can make a phone call for us so that we can get get going because you know this is this is the long process for us too to get it to
092you guys and prepared and ready um so the number could go down it could go up um you know again it's our first number and it's it's it's one phone call usually so how excuse me how reliable cuz I know know Mr warts has got you know there's a lot of knowledge that he has to have about buildings and things of that nature you do this and you are looking at it and going well we don't have to really replace them you know how often does that happen that we actually have somebody come out or you know to look at some of this stuff and go you know XYZ down the down the hallway will be glad to sell you $250,000 worth of Lights but you really don't need it I mean you know how
093often do we look at these projects and go okay what is do they have to be replaced can they be retrofitted I mean are there something else and I don't know I think Warren County has has picked up an extra position where they actually have somebody that does that kind of stuff there I mean just like with Peter milenberg we went out hey we called you know somebody come fix it this is what they you know what are the other options and especially in an emergency situation not everybody has that wheelhouse to to be and I appreciate the fact that you've looked at it I just would consider that um you you have um I mean we are bound by you being on the board and having uh things done for us so you know
094uh conflicts of interest and things of that nature but it's good to know that like said that's a that's a ton of money if we can we can do that so um Dr hner do you want to talk about the facility study and kind of where we're at with that sure sure that um fortunately we've been able to partner with with an architect um to to do a full scale facility stuff um I know what you're talking about on on an as needed basis um with that versus that the facility study should get us the goal is is to get us a baseline for all of these types of things um and I especially included and ask them to include our our outdoor athletic facilities which haven't been touched for 25 or 30 years um
095so that's that's going to be a nice Baseline to find out you know the the intricacies of a lot of these parts um and a lot of the facilities that we have I will tell you um what what Danny typically does with this particular case um often times the things are so old they don't make the replacements for them anymore and so that that causes a good example is are door locks this that's a perfect example clocks when we replace the door locks in the school buildings in in the classrooms we will save the hardware for years because that's the only Hardware we have to to fix the ones that break um because they haven't been updated in so long so a lot of times that drives up the cost of things because you can't
096it's just not you just don't go to a store and get it it's different switches or it's different um parts that need to go together um it's it's just not it's so old it needs to be placed and that's one reason why he's looking at strawsburg and centrals because I think Mountain views is the newer newer type of light so we we think it will last longer but so I don't know the details of it um Danny does um but I know that's a lot of the information that he's given me when it comes to these types of things I know I know they have shelves of locks over there because you can't buy the parts anymore when a door lock breaks in a school we've got to go get the parts and I would
097just like to clarify what you were saying I have not personally been out to meet with Danny and look at these lights and person um my only point of reference is going to the actual games um but I did request the information of what the wattage was uh what type lighting we were looking at the numbers so that I could compile this list I mean to give you an example one place alone we use 1500 W metal halight lamps in those poles one place I reached out to alone has 283 of those lamps in stock right now if we needed them um so there again if we're just rebuilding Lights making them LED we can get the lamps and the ballast readily available so I mean anybody that knows me knows I'm very much into
098our Sports um so I would not take money away from it but if it's not needed if it's not an emergency I would say we either allocate that money somewhere else or cut it from the budget yes me I have a question um on the replace the '90s uh Wing gym and rooftop units in the elementary schools uh that went down from 425 to 165 is said and I can see that it keeps on going on the 202 25 26 to 26 and 27 we spread it over we spread over couple years y so are we just going to do like some schools one year then another school another year and then and we know which ones require attention forther okay yes sir I'm back to what Mike was saying I guess I'm kind of
099a little confused cuz when I I did talk to Mr ORS um you I've been told that you can't get you can't get them so I I guess you know I'm kind of confused cuz cuz other people say you can't get to Parts you can't being forced to go to LED um so I don't know the truth um I can tell you right now that I can go online right now and show you one place alone has 283 of those lamps that we could order right now at a cost of $50 each um the ballast right now they have 92 in stock uh with a three-year warranty those are $185 a piece um so I mean we do this every day yeah and it obviously common sense is maybe you know it should be looked
100into I mean that um that was why that was one of my points of looking into is because that's what I do on a daily basis and that being that I'm in Northern Virginia DC and in Maryland therefore I haven't been able to make it out here in time to meet with Danny I need to make that a priority yeah um did he when I talked to him did he say anything to you about staging that Central needed to be done priority but then yep uh we could stage the other two that weren't as bad or or we still did he I know she want to do two I notice the two schools yep some of the schools we some of the projects we did that on staging like the roofs at the the '90s
101wings rooftop units I think is but I mean we did it on some but not on all yep and that's how we got down to 3.9 million but I was just curious he when I talked to him he he was okay to Stage them but I noticed here you got um Central and strawsburg are both on the list here right or correct I'm wrong do you guys remember the conversation I me I'm just asking yeah well I think I think we were looking at at a number at trying to get down a couple million um and and our thought process was is that the costs would continue to inflate over the next several years so if we could get two of them done now at the lower cost then it you know we wouldn't have
102to put put it out to a future year because every time we put something out to a future year inflation and it increases the amount for that year too so um but it is something that uh like Dr Shepard said we can cut we can move um I I was just curious yeah cuz when I talked to him he he said it it could it could be staged but if if the need is two you know both of them this year then when I have another question I mean it may be a silly question but um especially when we're talking about things like that like the electrical work and um being able to get some of the um parts and stuff I mean is that something that our students at triplet could work with under
103the supervision of something and then maybe bring that cost down or so our students at triplet actually do a lot of work for us so um under supervision I don't know that we would have them up on um a poll that's what I was wondering that you know yeah in a lift um but ground work or ladder work absolutely so may but maybe not that maybe not that one yeah it is something worth looking into I mean if have the proper PPE on it's what they're going to be doing in the real world I'm sure our uh triplet instructors wouldn't be opposed to it if we could look into that it is a good opportunity I mean it's safe work they do that quite a bit in fact they just finished up wiring up um
104the new building up at um Mountain View a new concession Press Box um building that's awesome fact might still be working on but they're Clos yep and our masonry students are doing the some WS in is it Mount Jackson in Mount Jackson so they're out in the community all the time doing actual work for people I just mention it because see maybe the difference between getting this done or abut or cutting it off altogether so that was maybe an option that we could kill two birds one stone and I'm not sure about these um these particular lights but I know there are some lights um light poles that need to be replaced as well well just because they're leaning or and that is where I need a clarification on because he uses or whoever put
105this together use the word retrofit when we talk retrofit out in the world you're just changing from we're changing the pole and the wiring is all pretty much staying as long as it's still usable all we're replacing is the light itself so when you use the word retrofit that's what I went by if we're doing a total replacement of the pole and everything then yeah like I said I don't know about these particular lights but I know that as you know you're making your rounds to our schools that there are some that need to be replaced or on wooden poles and you know they're leaning a little right yeah so what is considered high mileage I'm kind of cracking up because i' I've got um every one of my vehicles they're not even broken into
106to 100 100,000 miles um I'm not one of these person that understands getting well experience is getting a new vehicle every two years but current driver Ed's vehicles have over 100,000 miles um replace high mileage vehicles um what is considered so high for staff is different than high mileage for students so the um the driver's ed cars if I remember correctly Lucas long saying that we would um get new driver's ed Cars one per year for the next three years and then that car would go to replace one of the um much older vehicles that our staff drives in like old more Crown vix and stuff yes do what more Crown vix and Crown vix yes we go to replace a Crown Vic that we still have running around um so 100,000 miles is considered
107for students 150 175 yeah um I may be able to elaborate on this um when I talked to him I had the same question same view and after looking into it and talking to him I was on the understanding that it's been seven years since they I think he said it's been seven years since they purchased a driver's de car and they wanted to get into a cycle where they would purchase maybe one every 3 or four years to balance it out because they didn't purchase any and I guess it kind of caught up with them and they were thinking about trying to balance it out to purchase one every 3 or four years for each campus but I have to admit that that vehicle then when it gets finally gets replaced then that vehicle
108moves to another department and gets used and then it finally gets it gets used and used until finally it can't operate anymore then it goes to Triplet tech for them when the transmission goes out then it goes to tr trip tech for them to work on or the end engine so the way it was explained to me I have to admit it it it there was a cycle that it goes through right so it's not being just um disregarded so what are we I mean what are we buying are we buying Chevy cruises are we buying um you know here at $30,000 a piece is that is that the estimate here I'm going to have to defer I mean the estimate C estimated cost is 101,000 um 30 ,000 in 2024 25 another 30 in
1092425 I mean at some point we're up to $40,000 vehicles I mean do they require are they um what's special about them to be spending 30 grand they're typically a pretty a pretty standard General vehicle now they are retrofitted you know with some equipment in them but um but you know they're certainly not you know the high-end vehicle one of one of the questions though has come up on whether or not they're going to be able to continue to use cars because many manufacturers don't make cars unless we go to a different brand than what are typically here in town um but I don't you know in other words SUVs I don't think it would look at trucks but certainly potentially SUVs um but typically it's been a very standard you know base model you
110know Chevy or whatever Woodstock Gage we've gone through them before you know many many years ago probably when we were in school dealerships donated them that doesn't seem to happen anymore no well I don't know you know if we went to say Criswell and and asked for a deal or whatever but you know like I said $3,000 for a vehicle for um you know new drivers to to to run around in is is uh you know uh is interesting so like I said I didn't know if they were Chevy cruises if we're buying you know something a little bit more high-end like a Malibu or whatever or um like I said $11,000 um you know I would think that if you shopped around we could definitely uh you know maybe covered that I don't know
111like I said at at this point we're up to $38,000 so I don't know just a question thank you but you just having here it's what's in here is about one C 30,000 right yes yes I would say 30 don't get me wrong but I would think 30,000 that's retrofitted for the driver's ed instructor and all that probably pretty standard 30 grand I mean one more question um cuz I know that we went down on the um school buses how many we replacing with that million dollar and do we ever figure out the cost of each one of those botes there's um eight they're they're about 125,000 125 okay so that's still cuz I know you told me that okay so that's still the price so we're how many are we um eight are still
112in there eight okay we're replacing eight okay I don't see anything in here about playground equipment am I missing something other project yeah above on the first page above the school buses and in our fin in our finance meeting Gloria and I and the others kind of came to the conclusion that would be one of our top priorities up there with the handicap uh where did that go handicap ramp yeah and the playround sa yeah stuff that yeah I just I wanted to see something on that with Miss tuing and her students reaching out to us they they put forth a very compelling argument about the dras difference that we don't think about the you know being on the Northern end we've got a lot of businesses that are willing to contribute down on the
113southern end there's not such a great number of businesses that can contribute to playground equipment and stuff for the schools yeah so setting at each of your um chairs there's a packet of information with a letter from Miss tuing and some opinion writing from her students so um when you have an opportunity you know take a take an opportunity to read through though so but I just want to kind underline what what um Mr gush was saying that when we had our meeting we kind of said um at least that was kind of our agreement that anything that has to do with safety and um you know areas of their schools that need to be yeah repaired um at least we believe should be a priority Y and we receive a um money from a
114trust it's a star trust that actually may help with playground equipment for our students with disabilities so not a lot every year but you know maybe 10 or 15 20,000 every year to go towards um and 10 to 20,000 doesn't go very far when you're talking about playground equipment it's it's a slide yeah one slide yeah one swing yeah so you know we're going to use some of those funds to um to outfit our playgrounds with some some special playground equipment so we try to find funds where they're available to help supplement appreciate that any other thoughts about capital so we're still on page 46 the next item is inflationary um cost increase 326,000 we have not increased for inflation for two years three three years and you'll notice that Transportation fuel is on there
115um maintenance the cost of um Parts going up the cost of um custodial sodial supplies have increased you'll notice um annual software cost have increased then mandatory valuations and audit requirements that that's something that we're not able to to negotiate so that's 326,000 um you will the next item is the um cost of living adjustment the cola 3 and a half% that way um I am passing around um this slide wasn't filled out at our last budget presentation because the house and the um senate had not yet um did their budget presentation they did that on February the 18th and you will notice um as soon as everyone gets one good um you will notice that the governor's proposal December the 20th had a 1% bonus for all instructional and support positions which is the
116top the top row here the house has three um three and 38 or 3.375 um increase but it removes the bonus and then the Senate proposal has a 3% increase so not sure where um where the house and the Senate are going to land at the end of the day but they're fairly close in their um in their increases um so so just um wanted to share that I have proposed a 3 and 1 12% increase let's just address it now the whole step deal so we can yeah yeah no I I haven't proposed a step increase at all just a 3 and a half% COA I just want that to be out there so we know straightforward moving forward we all that again yeah is this 3 and a half% countywide including Schoolboard office
117stuff and let's see hold on 3 and a half% and so my number was somewhat um taken from the um Social Security increase which is about 3.2% this year so for calendar year so how much 3.2% and last year it was 4% yeah for Social Security yeah now and then go ahead because Kyle brought it up um the step increase M from what I understand from talking to teachers and staff the step increase is more important than this number here yeah so um that's maybe a myth um our salary scales are a percentage between each sta so you know teachers are 1 .1% so yes it's a 0.1% more than um a percentage but um there's no some salary scales actually go to year 10 and then there's like a $5,000 bump ours does not
118do that it's a percentage between each of the scales and I can tell you a teacher it's 1.1% a nurse it's 1.1% a bus driver it's 1.0% an administrator's 0.9.8 or 7% so it you know it just varies with the different SC salary scales so um there's but there's no real reason to for there to be a step or any concern that you're not getting a step so is the correlation between steps and years of service is there any correlation there meaning if somebody were a teacher were to leave shannona County and let's say they've got 15 years with shannona County but they were only on step 12 when they go to another District No that's years of experience so if they would come to us with 20 years of experience they're going to go
119on step 20 if they see that's what I'm getting at is if we've got staff here now that have 20 years but we haven't given them their step all this time now you bring a teacher in that's got 20 years with another County and we make them a 20 step 20 they're above teachers that we've had here for 20 years that are only step 12 or Step 13 because we haven't given them their steps no they're going to be on step 20 so it'll say years of experience 20 and if we have a teacher who has 20 years of experience they're going to be on 20 now our teachers Linda our teachers and our who else have years of experience professionals par professional athletic trainers but like what you just said let's say we don't
120do the step this year now next year that teacher that has 20 years with the county they're still at a step 20 well there's in in there built in there's built in if you look at the salary there's there's built in I mean there's steps already built in and then you I mean there's level built in for those things and I would recommend that anybody that is going to redo their contract go out anywhere else remember that you have the ability to negotiate and you should negotiate your your your contract and your worth I mean that's what the private sector does you should do that in this but if you look at the S if you look at the steps there's already I mean once you hit a a a next level up there's there's
121already a bump already included in that much less to do a step so if you look at page 81 and I'm just going to pick one so um and I hope the calculations are [Laughter] right years of experience 11 so that is uh 57 ,110 so next year you would move to years of experience 12 at $59,750 that should be a 3 and a half% pay increase so if you're if you're at an 11 this year and we don't give a step increase you're 12 next year you're still a 12 because I thought that was a step now the step is additional step additional yeah she would know I didn't hear what you said to me if you're an 11 I thought it was kind of like the government scale if you're an 11 and
122we give you we raise the 11 from 57110 to 59108 that means you're getting a $22,000 raise but you haven't moved to the 12 that's a step am I right I only heard part of your conversation so Kyle said that you're going to get a step based on years of experience what I was saying is if you're at 11 now let's say you're making $ 57,168 or next this next year do they go to 12 so you kind of have to it it because we aren't you have to kind of look at FY the current salaries so current step Z makes 51 191 if you take 51 191 and you multiply that by the 32% proposed hold on and your calculator works right you get 52 982 so if you look at the 2425 proposed
123scale they're they're they're at step one now for their years of experience so they went from zero years of experience to one year of experience so they got their year of experience and they got the 3 and a half% increase but what I'm saying is we were talking we were talking about a year 11 this year okay so a year 11 this year is making 738 57 what 738 110 57 110 11 oh Step 11 I'm sorry so that's what I'm getting at is let's say you're making 57 110 right now last the current year that's so you get your contract for next year yep you get your contract for next year is your offer 59108 or is your offer 59759 so somebody that's making 57 1110 this year that's what I'm saying you have
124to look at that right if they're making 57 110 this year and they get their contract for next year yes are they offered 59108 or are they offered next year they move 12 right so be 5 59 no because next year 12 12 is I want a definition on a step because that's what the teachers talk about that's what the step exctly and I and I get that the the problem is is that we have to we have to have a Step Zero um and and in order to give them their years of experience we have to take I wish we probably needed to I mean it to me if you're at 11 and you're making 57 110 this year your next contract should then move you to 59759 if we approve this budget because
125now you're at 12 years of experience and that's where this that's where this becomes a little bit misleading to them currently somebody that is on step 10 no step step 11 I'm sorry but currently somebody that's on Step is and you're saying Step 11 here 57 110 that's the that current step 10 that you're look or Step 11 that you're looking at is actually step 10 in the published budget for this year it's it's but we have to add a Step Zero each year so so that's where it's misleading you see where I'm saying because I guess a question is so if somebody's right now on 11 and they're currently making 57 110 how much are they going to be making next year if we pass the budget 3 and a half% more so next
126year they will be making the 59 108 as opposed to the 712 1.035 they will be making 59108 yeah next so 3 and a half% more but then somebody from Frederick County comes over here with 11 years of experience and they're coming in making the same amount of money years experience yes next year yeah that's this person is currently zero in the in the real technically that should sh down one or or the other one should sh that's what it is that's the problem addition so we can that but yeah because the 24 25 will be next year yep which you should have another year of experience so you should be at 12 if you're okay yeah yeah that's what you mean that's the way the government now I understand what you're saying yeah yeah
127that's right so page 81 should shift up so if you look at the 2023 24 salary it should be shifted up so Step Zero should be 51 191 Step 1 should be 517 765 and you would move from 511 191 down to Step One at 52 983 and anyway we would actually yeah and that's the same for um page 84 our pair of Pros as well so you are saying shift up you're saying an 11 is going to go from 57110 to 59759 no it would be 59108 because remember an 11 is going is really a 10 year what she's saying is so so the 11 should really be 58466 next to it yes yes so next to 57 11 10 the 2425 should be what's really 10 right now so the way another way
128to think about it is if I'm an 11 year like next year I'm 11 last year the 11s made 57 1110 this year the 11s are making 59108 but I'm but I was a 10 last year so My salary wasn't 57110 my salary was actually 56 488 so then what you're saying should correlate to the 11 and 11 making 57 1110 this year should go to a 12 making 59759 but I wasn't an 11 okay let's say you were a 10 you're a 10 making 56 488 you're what you just said you're going to be making 59108 but I'm not a 10 so so you your years are changing so but this is not so attend this year right now a 10 this year is making 56 488 but I'm not a 10 next year
129I mean but a 10 another person that's a n moving to a 10 will now make 58466 right but you're saying you're a 10 this year what are you next year should be shifted up should be shifted up if you're 10 if you're a 10 this year what are you next year I'm an 11 you're an 11 so you jumped to 59108 what they're saying is you're still a 10 still making what a 10 got raised to I think I mean what you're saying is this this is a mistake right yeah this is a Mist this is wrong remember got this has to be shifted up so then just to make sure so the 11 next year would be making the yes because that should that shows right now under and that's both page 81
130and 84 this basically a typo we just need to fix that right is there a difference between your service and the step I'm just I'm was is there a difference between years of service and a step so a step um yes a step is you actually aren't necessarily on your years of service so a c doesn't always mean three years of of experience or uh e doesn't mean 5 years of of experience where are these letters coming from so if you look at page 83 or page 85 you'll see the letters so yeah they're they're all different and this gives an opportunity um it they're not based on years of experience necessarily there's a scale for for where you fall into C's D's you know and and certain range certain range yeah your your grades
131of of service is that is that because you can negotiate something different or yes or we can look at outside experience as well so and and give you credit service for that so and how about um additional education you know the Masters and all that that that falls into the steps okay whereas teachers and Par Pros are really about years of experience athletic directors but when you come from a county that's paying more money across the board to to hear that makes a difference as well I mean we can't compete with 12 years of experience in Lowden County with that pay scale in 12 years of experience here in shano County it's it's something we'll never catch up to that's correct so if Angie has if we're both teachers and she has she's coming from
132Frederick County 20 years of experience and I've been in chanida County for the last 20 years we're going to make the same amount of money unless I have a master's degree and she has a a doctoral degree or whatever then I'll make a little less than she does because she'll get the stapen for the master's degree and the doctoral degree unless you negotiate that not as teachers it's experience okay yep but the the step there really are certain percentages between steps like I said teachers is 1.1 teachers last year was a better budget book for that nurses 1.5 yeah bus drivers 1% so yeah it's it's it's a tad bit more money I mean and and and in this business they look at it every little bit especially on your the scales your every little
133bit counts so are we proposing that our six-digit a year salaries also get a 3 and a half% increase [Applause] yes we're going to hear a FL on that so um moving on down to health insurance we page 46 at the bottom a million dollars for health insurance we sent the proposal um we sent out a proposal we received four um proposals one from Etna one from United one from C Centura centa centa which was formerly Optima and then one from Anthem and we are currently in negotiations with Anthem um to um determine what our costs for next year's health insurance is going to be um Mr Street has been invited to our um because he's a health insurance person he has been invited to our um health insurance meeting on March the 11th it's
134a month day with our teacher committee so um I think our teachers will be very excited if we do negotiate with Anthem because they were very H happy with Anthem whenever we were with them before um not sure what the final negotiation going to be but if our um rate comes in at less than 12% then um I would recommend that we take some of that money and continue to work on um our employee plus children and employee plus family to get those numbers down um we know there's going to be an increase we're just not sure what that percentage is going to be is that fair no but I I've never understood the the massive difference in these three um is it is it I mean I know that for two years we've had
135incredible claims and we're paying for that I mean we're paying for that um and we could talk about long-term health of our teachers and staff um but still this the these amounts are really staggeringly different um I mean is are are I mean is part of it really that that the other divisions are um putting in less claims or some yes some are have less claims like our top claim was um 600,000 right at $600,000 we have 16 claims over $1,000 so you know that's and we're paying Linda help me for every um dollar we pay ETA they're paying out a dollar n nine now Etna negotiates its costs with um our healthc care providers so um my understanding is that Etna May pay more to our doctors and our physicians and so on and
136so forth Than Blue Cross Blue Shield so there's a possibility that we could Anthem we could decrease our cost going with if we get uh ambitious and and try to think of ways that we can create a healthier Workforce in the future but I mean nobody wants to look that far out I mean it you know what I mean we're interested in this year's budget and suddenly you're trying to get um creative smart about nutrition Health exercise whatever um you know we're probably never going to get there I guess but it it's uh it's staggering the number of U of high claims that we're putting in and that um you know that I guess and this is the second year so I don't see that Trend debating it's kind of scary whether it's going to
137take us well how long has this been probably 10 years it's had to have been to get this bad I mean and it would take 10 more years to try to get it in the right direction so that's one thing I mean it's been developing getting worse and worse so better start tomorrow so Rockingham um you started two years ago I think I presented um that inham has a wellness benefit and that's to get your annual physical so you know there's I know one of the companies that bid actually um said hey we'll give you $25,000 for um some type of incentive so maybe it's the annual um physical maybe it's Health um membership to a gym I I don't know we don't know what that looks like so that's what I'm saying we can
138get aspirational about it but that going to take a while for that Collide path to to have effect and when you're building annual budgets it's hard to it's hard to you know right and if if we pay for um a wellness visit then it may actually increase before it decreases so because they're going to hopefully find things early and be able to treat them we lower the cost maybe get better coverage if we teamed up with the sheriff's department the public utilities for shanoa County do you want to answer that we're already we're looking into that previous answers is they didn't really want to sign on to us is is what they had said in the in the past when I I reached out to the Board of Supervisors and they're they they they they're
139before EXP exploring that so yes they're they are exploring that and U the bottom line is they're exploring that and see if we combine with the county will it help but uh have we got an answer on that or we just still anticipating so they're willing to to look and see what it would be but I know we explored it last year and it would increase the County's um health insurance significantly 10 claims over 100,000 yes yes I would recommend um in my um mother's um position uh prior to prior to D is to look at the is to look at your bills and I don't know if we have a medical billing you know that we would you know somebody that actually could look at them a lot of stuff is Miss bued a
140lot of stuff is Mis buil so you know if if you're getting claims and you're taking claims question how it's coded how because because a lot of times it's wrong anything else with health insurance so on page 48 you'll notice the total cost of the priorities but that's not the total cost of our ask so um you know just don't confuse those a lot there's numbers in here that don't necessarily match with anything because as U Miss careno pointed out earlier we're getting some State funds for our um Virginia's our reading Specialist or we're getting um federal funds for something so um so that's our total increases and then on page 49 you will notice that um State we anticipate an increase of almost $3 million and for our local funding we're asking for my
141proposal is that we ask for three and a half million for operating page 51 you will see special um budget fund two and um Miss Stein mentioned that earlier this evening special fund um budgets come back to us from the um County by ifo facto is that right yeah so on the textbook funds I mean I'm seeing at the high school level there's a I mean they carry around a lot of Chromebooks is textbooks are are we loading digital books at this point I mean how many classes are still using hard copies what all is included in your textbook fund so it depends um like in high school there's some like in science It's All Digital um other areas we do we try to buy print and digital a lot of times together as a
142package to the fact that it helps with special uh population that may needed to right we have that um a lot of times it's it's just feasible both together to have online and textbook at the same time it depends so what we're looking at with the digital with a digital version a lot of times those are access codes that are used one time are we having to repurchase those every year so typically when we do textbooks we do uh a cycle usually how the state used the Run standards in a cycle and then redo them we would buy in a cycle so we'd buy like a sixe license okay and we'd have a six-year license for does that make sense it does it does and then some at the high school you'll purchase half of
143what you need because they recycle into the second semester so you may purchase 120 licenses that are used during the first semester those licenses are then used again during the second the second half of it um does this include the second quarter or some does this include um any of our I think and I think I asked about it last year online things I mean we got rid of I ready last year or u i Exel um you know those licenses does this include those as well no here okay that's an instruction instru constructional fund thank you any other questions about special budgets page 52 CIP we talked about that and 53 54 um just mention again on page 54 the last time one of our buildings was renovated was 2004 um major Renovations was
1442004 page 55 you'll notice um fiscal year 25 fiscal year 26 27 28 and 29 um the the plan for CIP which may change whenever we get our facility study back but this was um an estimate for the next four five years and then you'll see the chart page 57 that we um that I handed you in a larger form page 56 you'll see what the cost is for Safety and Security HVAC Roofing doors and locks and other um broken down by individual fiscal years page 59 will notice um our food service fund which is um self-funded so what they make they um used for operational expenses and you'll notice that there was an increase in lunches and breakfast served as well as their alicart sales for last over the last couple of years so
145exactly how's that being funded now so currently our um we're under Community eligibility Provisions where um the the USDA um provides funds for our breakfast and lunch and they're free they were free last year they're free this year and they'll be free for the next three years for our students they locked in for next three years students M yeah okay questions about food service and then technology um County technology funds um we share our technology with the county the local government so um there was a small increase of um about $2600 in technology funds and then you'll on page 61 you'll notice a um combined operating budget Capital special budgets food service and County technology funds and then that leads us to the informational section where this is probably some new information for you so
146there's some old information and some new information but will'll give you an opportunity to look through um page let me find it page 73 talks about graduation and page 74 Compares us with those counties around us talks about our dropout rate page 75 talks about um what our graduates are planning on doing for last year you'll notice that about 57% of our um graduates get a standard diploma and 41% get Advanced on page 76 you'll see the first um you'll see last year's internships job shadowing um externships and then you'll see the first semester um at the end of this year the numbers will look the same or even higher than than last year here you'll notice our College acceptance rates on um page 77 on page 78 you'll notice industry certification and lure you'll
147notice our dual enrollment you'll you can see the number of students who earn dual enroll credits last year we had um 14 students graduate with an associates degree so they receive their Associates before they um receive their high school diploma and you'll see the information about yes I'm back up one page sorry I'm a little I was going fast um so dropout rate mm I guess uh you know our our school system Des deserves a lot of credit we're the we're the lowest yes yep in the counties that we've listed there in stay average is 5.4 so we have about 2.1 students drop out now is that something that I mean is that something that we try to give attention to and we do we work very hard to um keep our dropout rate low
148and our graduation rate high yep okay well good yep our high school's do a nice job with that and then on page 81 you'll notice our salary schedules and we will I saw Angie over here working on the salary schedules as we were talking so we will replace page 81 82 and 84 for the next meeting just to clarify something on that I hate to keep bringing it up I heard the past boards arguing back and forth about a percentage plus a step increase am I correct in looking over page 81 through whatever page I mean the only page that talks about teacher salary is page 81 so a step increase never it's never in relation to teacher salary am I correct in making that statement because the pages I see letters on like CDE
149are like the custodial the bus drivers um the clerical so when past boards were talking about doing a percentage plus a step that step did nothing for the teaching staff no it did so if I were so if I were to Pro if I were to propose a I would have said let's do a 2 and 1 half% increase in a step so that would have given every bu close to a 3 and a half% pay increase so it would have give given teachers a 3 3.6 instead of 3.5 it would have given administrators a 3.4 instead of a 3.5 but most people would get 3 and a half% pay increase so let's say you're a a 10 just use this scale for example if you're a 10 10 years of experience where does that
150step make you fall on the scale yeah so it's all in how the scales are um shown on the page that determines the so if you were a 10 you would step to an 11 yes yes okay so the years of experience do correlate with steps teachers for teachers mhm yes okay but you would have received I don't know how to explain it um that makes it easy to understand but if I would have proposed a 2 and a half% pay increase most people would have received a three and a half give or take .1% that would so so you would get a step plus of 2 and a half% s because all steps are not the same it's based on and I I'm going to look see if I have it cuz I asked
151the same thing last year it's different by levels um yeah it's not flat across the board the money that you're getting is not flat across the board well it would be 2 and a half based on the salary you're making and then you step it up so I think the best way is to get last year salaries and see where you fall this year yeah so something totally different um I can understand where math science teachers to pretty much we know where you know what increases are and pretty much it's going to be pretty stable but with um but with a special ed there's so many more of the idea categories uh and they're increasing and I've heard you guys talk about how having different models for teaching be able to mainstream some kids and
152still take care of the others who um it's pretty hard to um plan increases or or even salary inrease um you know with that kind of change and even changing teacher functions um so I mean that really makes it difficult for budgeting and for planning uh if we're trying to look ahead to how to mainstream more of the special ed kids and having you know two teachers walking together that didn't work together before that sounds like an increase to me if we want to do it the right way um so did we do we have any of this time I mean do we do we do we try to increase some some of that uh the teaching or are we just trying to keep the line there and and work with what we have instead
153of trying to maybe um create some of those more U my word team teaching capabilities so we are actually looking at the number of special ed students currently and the number of students on teachers case loads so we're we're doing that work now but we have not asked to increase our number of special ed teachers across the board we are using our all-in money to do um instructional coaches for special ed um which will be housed at the schools okay thank you so page 95 t uh starts our supplements and you'll see the supplements for um drama you'll see music supplements on page 96 vhsl which is um on page 97 which includes a classic Bowl debate forensics one act play and then our coaching supplements on 98 and then just some um other supplements
154on page 99 on page 100 you will notice some local information from um our Board of Supervisors um budget book from last year CER audit it's from the CER yeah acfr and then the glossery starts on page [Applause] questions lot of information a lot of information we keep in mind that though we raise salaries there are positions that will get that increase but once that we raised the insurance rates what they gained is kind of washed out so last year we were able to not have that happen um because we put more money towards our health insurance and we made significant gains on our health insurance premiums last year um previous year I don't remember this year we're going to try to do the same thing so we we will see what that those negotiations
155come in at we'll know more information on March the 11th um which will then present to you guys on March the 14th and I get what you're saying but if you got staff at the school board office that are making 80 plus a year that 3 and a half% they're paying the same as the teachers as far as healthc care oh yeah the teacher that gets 32% at 40,000 they're definitely losing more they can't they very well can I mean in the past I've pulled enough I've pulled up several um contracts where teachers say I didn't get a raise well and then you look at their base you pull the contract look at their base they did however all the cost on the back end Rose so therefore it they didn't see anything significantly in
156their in their paycheck as far as when they're thinking they're getting a raised so yes when we put a lot more money to it last year and lowered some premiums that may have helped um some of it we're we're trying to make it a positive on all of our you know all of our staff nobody wants to go home making less money next year than they made this year um and we want them all to fill a 3 and a half% pay increase that'd be good yes that's my recommendation it's good it just puts us in a tough spot cuz of course we have answer to the taxpayers that's correct and those are the ones we hear from MH trust me I know we all want to go home and everything but you know we've
157had this same issue as well if if if you adjust the Schoolboard office employees then you take the principles down too correct that's correct so if we were to give them 1% your principles go to 1% and if we're going to do that let's do it now so we're not going you know on emails talking about it so do we want to do the three and a half or are you making that proposal I'm fine with three I mean if we want to do that then that's fine but I just don't want to have to you know go through email for three weeks so um I don't have it with me but we have a um I have a document of um the highest pay people wi in chinoa county and of course I'm one
158of them um but we have um a teacher a 12mon teacher that's right in the middle of our um of our principles making a sixf figure salary correct and um are we talking about a teacher that's been here for 25 30 years more than that y but we have principles who've been here for 25 and 30 years as well and we have assistant principles who have been here for 25 and 30 years as well so um and I'm not devaluing teachers work it's great but I can tell tell you that um our athletic directors our principals um our high school principls are 3 days a week until 9 9:30 10:00 at night and on Saturdays um oh yeah do an event so you know as um I work until 9:30 11:00 at night 6 days
159a week I don't know when she sleeps but I haven't figured it out yet no I'm not taking away from athletic directors principles because trust me I mean my kid I've got one that's third year at JMU so I've been in the school system for a long time the and the other part of that is is administrators have different responsibilities different I mean they're hiring they've got you know a whole lot of other things in their wheelhouse than than than just teaching so you know I know Mike Dorman's on call 24/7 even when he's uh on vacation he takes he takes calls Saturday Saturdays and Sundays we get Google Gaggle alerts gag that um you know a student's threatening to commit suicide or you know something like that and we can't let those go we
160we answer them immediately so you know it's it's um it's 247 and if we had them punch a clock we probably wouldn't be happy with the outcome of that oh yeah and we have great people we have great teachers we have great staff we have great administrators um I still want to research the step thing more I still totally don't understand that if we can give our teachers us step our staff US step y so if you'll stay for a few minutes afterwards um Angie's got some something she'll show you that may make it easier to understand all right all right thanks for going through all that and U the iterations of these help I was able to get a hold of Steve Arrington tonight he said he'll be here next Thursday or Friday so
161if we want to try to get him to help us kind of dissect analyze the budget so we'll see but he'll he'll be back in touch how much is that how much is he charging to come here for that uh he doesn't want to be charged uh so I think but he wanted us to give something to a charity and that's harder to do than to pay him so my my guess is we should probably pick a a low ball figure and give him a stipend and let him give it to his and give it to his uh to his charity but um anyway he'll he'll be back in touch with us over the next several days um okay before we uh wrap it up um there's a discussion topic on the table as to
162whether uh the gender identity policy is as as it stands now it will be voted on on 14 March there are still some outstanding pieces we're waiting to come in from a few folks but um Mrs rutz made a suggestion earlier that uh we extend the time until it's voted on do you still feel that way and are you ready to make a motion um yeah I I I actually am going to stay with it I mean when I said that this was a lot of information now you know what I mean and you know every year I've I have gone back and and I and I'll request it again this this coming year is that this budget book and I know it's a lot of work but to have public meetings without solid numbers
163and to have us sit here you know and we split we split our time tonight and we had questions we're here late um our next meeting is a joint work session and then we're going to be asked to vote on this I mean we are literally pushing $100 million or so in in in two in two meetings um I don't want to see I mean March 14th is a regular school board meeting and budget approval I I think that it would do would be prudent to have it dedicated to the school board to the budget there's things Tom's working on things you're working on you had questions I know I have some some things you know I've asked um um Jessica about uh Chromebooks in the elementary schools um you know how funding is is
164worked for um administrative travel how we pay um for field trips there there's things that there are nuances with this that I think is that we're we're doing a disservice to to cram into to two to two meetings and um and then to have to share it on March 14th when obviously there is a whole lot of animosity about the the transgender policy and I think there's a whole lot of questions that shouldn't be shorted either so I'm going to my motion on the board is is to postpone the March 14th vote on the transgender policy in Le of the fact that we've got a budget to pass is that a motion that is a motion I second it so there is a motion on the floor to postpone the vote on the gender ident
165identity policy um you have not given us a date so as the motion stands it's open-ended um so we have a motion and a second now we're ready for discussion yeah um go ahead yes um as far as just my opinion I I I agree with uh Mr ruts and I I I'm not kicking the can down the road we'll we'll we'll get we'll we'll give us attention as soon as we can but I do feel obligated to focus on the budget because that is a time that is like she said that's that's a time limit and and there's some things that I still want to look at and I just feel obligated to the taxpayers I feel obligated to the Board of Supervisors that we do our best to you know we do our
166best to what we to look at the wants or look at the needs and but you know I just feel obligated to those two that we do our best to concentrate on the budget get this out of the way the timeline and then then focus on the because when it comes to the policies the transgender policies I I just I do want to feel comfortable looking at all the aspects of that um not just not just the transgender person but also the other students uh you know whe the the the females the males The Faculty so I I do want to be a little bit more cautious about about that so anyway that's all I have to say well um I mean obviously I I disagree with this I think we are kicking it down
167the road I mean we've we've already met uh five times and talked about this including today um I remember a time when we were all or some of us or some people were complaining about the fact that we weren't moving on a library policy just because there was one you know the argument was raised that was one book that was and wasn't in the shelves and that was important and we needed to go ahead and move in with that um and pass that policy and there were people saying oh no we need to just you know let's read it better let's just talk about it next meeting and and I remember that being the the subject of a lot of discussion that that was being kicked down the road by some of the members of
168this previous School Board um in this case we're not just talking about pornography or violence in books we're talking about people's lives being affected I mean children girls lives being affected um children that have gend gender identity questions being affected and we're talking about the potential of Staff being affected and being retaliated against um from our discussion with Council and even a such what we've been talking about today um the only area that um I thought still needed further clarification from Council was with regards to the title 9 Protections in the Athletics um there was no he never raised anything about the school board approval that was not subject to any kind of um dispute um with regards to the retaliation he did agree that we needed to have um language that protected our um
169staff and teachers so that was not a a source of any kind of problem it was just the Athletics and we can actually talk about that he's actually going to go ahead and and do some more research because it was obvious that he needed to do a little bit more research on that um as it stands right now that is pretty much the only area that we need to kind of um hash out and um just doing it March 14th after all the work I mean we've been talking about this for four months now um I don't think that would take too much time um so I disagree that we should be kicking this on the road even further especially when we know we're still going to be talking about the budget for the next
170couple of months um and this is something that we can do some of you guys already have experience with the budget so you kind of already know what you're looking at the rest of us have been working you know pretty diligently to get better ideas and I'm hoping we'll have more finance committee uh meetings so we can talk about this a little bit more um so I don't see any reason why we can't do both anybody else I agree the budget the budget should be the top priority um but I do believe we can do both um I keep replaying in my mind when this policy was introduced with the resolution there were several people on this board that said you know what if we got rid of the resolution I'd be okay with it
171the resolution was taken out and now it's still up for debate I don't understand um but that being said I feel like I can do both but it's going to be put up for a debate I just want the the coaches the kids the staff in shannondell County to know I've got your back [Music] um if we run into a situation where our girls basketball team is facing a team with with male players on it in my opinion you all can forfeit the game and I've got their back no matter what vhsl decides down the road um staff members that don't feel comfortable with that in the classroom I've got you back there um speaking for myself personally not the board as a whole um I'm here for everybody kids with gender identity issues you
172can reach out too I'm here for everybody I want shanoa County to be a positive environment for the staff the teachers all the kids um I'll leave it at that I mean you don't have to you know I'm not I'm not overly passionate about this like some people in here and that's fine I mean you know I I just don't I don't I don't get passionate about this for some reason but you know what I will say is we are not going to make it two years at this rate if we keep going like this the way people are talking to each other treating each other you know that just the last couple weeks has absolutely just I mean it drives me nuts because you know you've got six people that get elected that are
173very similar like-minded individuals not exactly the same and we don't want to be exactly the same you got six people that are very similar and yet there's more back and forth than it was the last time where you had three to three and that is just to me it's it's mindboggling you know it seems like everyone someone's got to be the last one to to get their you know someone's got to be the last person to say I got it or I you know I won or whatever the last word and you know it's just it it's driving me absolutely crazy and and you know for me personally if I feel more comfortable with the yunan one right now so if we were to to vote if if we want to say let's vote on
174it next month then right there I am Glenn yin's policy um and that again that doesn't mean that I don't like some of the things and Gloria and you know I don't and I you can you can quote me I said it last time around that we you know last year that we shouldn't be pushing policies down the road and I would love to be done talking about it um but if we want to to delay it and talk about the budget um that's fine with me and if we want to vote on it next month I'm I feel comfortable with the the model policy and you know that's kind of where I'm at but again it's what you know all the bicker in and back and forth is not sustainable for the next two
175years and you've got people probably watching this right now that have been laughing at this all night long because of how it has looked um at least earlier not during the budget but um so I'm hoping we can get along a little bit it's just perplexing but that's my views those are my views um I agree um and again if if we want to if it's if if this is where you want to go and you think that that this is what we need to do I'm behind throwing up the yunan policy and moving on and taking a vote it votes up or votes down and we just move on um I think that we've there's there's been again like Kyle a lot of a lot of um just wasted time and um animosity that
176is not what we need um if you decide to table it in the policy uh continues to to to progress um you know I would ask that the policy committee you're part of the policy committee that it be brought formally in front of a policy the policy committee one of the purposes of the policy committee is that it promotes transparency once we meet as an official it it has to be there there has to be some notification to the public um I would ask that changes be made back and forth I mean Mr he Gardner was fabulous when we were working on the library policy to keep track of what we took in what we took out there was no this he said she said kind of a deal and it took eight months for
177the first policy it took that for the second policy and while I was frustrated with that I don't want to put something forth that is not correct that is not going to that that should be right and it should be right for everybody you're correct I didn't like the resolution because I don't think this resolution stood for parents when you back it with the policies that we had I don't think we should lie about that when you can't write a note that says my child is going to Y yada yada and you're going to require all this backup then it's not and and you're going to shoot down parents with a simple swipe of the pen I agree it's not a it's not a parent Sanctuary it's not a parents right Sanctuary it's it's a
178Rouge so I think that that's just where we're at with it does it is it important do you want more I'm okay to entertain that but it should be correct it should be done right um but as you can see we have this meeting and we have a joint and I don't know how much discussion will be made if you want to suggest that we take the top down and then then let's talk about about that I mean do we really want to spend money on new buses we should have that conversation but we can't wait till the last minute to do it or we can't split time spending all evening going back and forth and and just being just flat out laundry to each other to to to accomplish nothing other than hard feelings
179so that is my thought process you were allow the last word but I have yet to speak so U is it okay with you I thank you so I think the policy at the moment does not as we as we said before anything's passed we're not at risk we are in compliance with what the state requires us to do and we we're not operating under the silliness of two years ago where we're waiting for some guy to bolt into the bathroom in any minute so uh I'm not saying that that we want to stick with that status quo but it doesn't look to me like there is a requirement for us to rush to get this done uh the library policy has been brought up I think there were people who dragged their feet to
180for us to do the library policy and you know what it wind up giving us a better policy because we actually looked at more questions and saw more behaviors and so forth that made made it much more clear to me about about the policy that we wanted to implement so it actually I think our policy got uh got better in the long run for for it and I still still think there's some hair on this dog and and we do have to have some questions some of the questions came up to me in our uh in in the in Clos session that I hadn't asked before or at least uh make me want to read question for instance I mean I'll talk about I said I said I wanted set a higher bar for uh
181for for parents who want to name their kids as uh transgender um I still want to do do that uh but I want to be careful about um doing it in such a way uh that and I I'll use a word we heard earlier tonight that we do not create a a uh and use hostile words that will invite um those who want to pick a poal political fight uh to come to us and allow a judge to rule against us so I think we need to be careful about our choice of words and um make sure that it doesn't come across and it doesn't mean um it doesn't bespeak a political agenda but it bespeaks an interest in education and making sure that we get rid of the distractors that we have in schools
182that are driving not just teachers away but driving students from participating in class or even talking because they don't know what to say and what's allowable and what isn't allowable and what they're going to be jumped for and I think we've we've reached that situation I'm not talking about our County I'm talking about this country of which we're a part um so I would like to use a little bit more time to um to U scratch some more of this uh and um and take a look at it uh while and I don't I'm not making the case that this um budsman from Bedford who's going to come up here is going to open new vistas of understanding for our budget but uh but it would be good to have somebody come here and kind
183of uh walk us through a real uh analytical look at this thing that you know we well we need some expertise and some help and uh and I uh I want to commend a superintendent for being willing to do that uh there are a lot of superintendents in the state that would not have allowed that and and I I I think that tells us a lot about the openness and the uh ability of this um system to to to take a look at these anyway I'm saying I don't think we lose a lot by um getting a little bit more information on the U on the the the um gender identity policy uh but I am questioning some of maybe even my hard stance on on that high high bar and I want to rethink
184or at least think about it uh a little bit more um so that that's all I have to say so um unless so I I've heard no on we got a motion correct we do have a motion on the floor uh and um I'll call for the question unless anybody has anything further to say so the motion is merely to postpone the vote on the uh gender identity policy to some future time when this board decides correct is that is that is that the basis of it y all right and I think we um even though it's a work session I think we should pull the uh pull the uh the school board members so um Cheryl if you're ready Mr stre yes M Caro no Mr bsha yes M roods yes Mr Ricker no
185Mr bar yes so uh you have the the 42 vote the four votes carry um we will um during the next sessions we have other agenda items such as uh uh Schoolboard Norms that are up for discussion so it's not like we lack uh things that we'll need to be talking about but I think at each of those meetings we need to be uh including uh where we are on this issue and and and incorporating more uh information and data into this body of work that we've done thus far so um without leaving it behind right or just having a pause I I hope that what we do is is gather more information that's Germaine as as we uh consider when when we had the final vote all right with that I'm going to uh
186ask for um a motion for adjournment move to adjourn a second all in favor say I I meeting is adjourned at 10:18 no that was that was my PO catch it I apologize so we'll this is how it should look um and and I'll show you in a minute but