001uh regular school board meeting of the shendo County School Board to order at uh 5:00 on February 8th 2024 and um before we do anything else I'm going to ask the uh superintendent if she has any recommendations for us I do thank you yeah I'm sorry before we go any further I I realize that we we have to make known that that um five members of the school board are here one member um Mrs Brandy rutz is not here uh she has had an emergency in the family and uh is attending to her mom tonight in hospice and our prayers and thoughts go with her tonight but uh so the uh school board meeting will continue with the five other members present I'm sorry go ahead thank you I recommend the school board Board of
002shenoa County convene a closed meeting under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act in order to discuss and consider several Personnel matters involving the assignment appointment promotion performance demotion salary discipline or resignation of several employees of the shinida County Public Schools under Virginia code 22- 3711 A14 and more specifically to conduct a hearing on the superintendent's recommendation to to petition for the revocation of a teaching license of employee a I also recommend that 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 shinida County Public Schools regarding specific legal matters requiring the provision of legal advice by such Council under Virginia code 22- a28 and more specifically to conduct a hearing on the superintendent's recommendation to petition for
003revocation of the teaching license of employee a do I hear a motion yes Mr chair I move that the school board of shinida County desires to convene a closed meeting under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act in order to discuss and consider several Personnel matters including the assignment appointment promotion performance the motion salary discipline or resignation of several employees of the shinida County Public Schools under Virginia code 22- 3711 814 and more specifically to conduct a hearing on the superintendent's recommendation to petition for re revocation of the teaching license of employee a the school board of shinoa County desires to convene a closed meeting under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act in order to consult with legal counsel employed or retained by sheno County Public Schools regarding specific legal matters requiring the provision ision of
004legal advice by such Council under Virginia code 22- 3711 a28 and more specifically to conduct a hearing on the superintendent's recommendation to petition for revocation of the teaching license of employee a thank you for that motion Mr Guta is there a second to that motion I'll second the motion the motion has been seconded by Mr Rickard uh all those in favor signify by saying I I I opposed guys have it we will uh reconvene and close session on the second floor well good evening I would uh like to uh reconvene an open session uh we have just had a a long session and closed session and now we're ready to um ready to begin so I wonder if I could have a motion to reconvene an open session Mr chair I move to reconvene an
005open session so Mr Gall has so moved is there a second second uh M uh Excuse Me Miss Caro has seconded the motion uh any discussion if so all all in favor say I I opposed all right the shinid County School Board hereby certifies by roll call vote that to the best of each members knowledge only public business lawfully Exempted from open meeting requirements by Virginia law were discussed in the closed meeting to which this certification resolution applies and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening to Clos meeting were heard discussed or considered by the shinid County School Board each member responds ISO certify when called uh and I now call for the roll call vote Mr stre yes what I IO certify certify Miss careno IO certify Mr gsha
006ISO certify Mr R ISO certify and Mr bar ISO certif fire uh at this point um we'll have the invocation and the Pledge of Allegiance led by uh Mr street thank you Heavenly Father we thank you for the opportunity for us to gather here this evening Lord we thank you for the many things that we've been blessed with and remember that things that we've been blessed with that many don't have Lord we thank you for the country that we live in that we don't have to worry about the sounds of War taking place Lord we ask that you guide us to take your lending hand to guide us to be able to walk through your will and your way Lord we acknowledge that through the Bible that this is a gift to the positions that
007we serve and that we do our best judgment in a Christian manner because we know that one day we will be accountable for our decisions Lord we ask that you bless us lead us Lord we pray that you keep keep our schools safe and Lord we bless that and take the opportunity for us to work together to be able to make this school system the best that it can be in the lord's name we pray amen amen PL Alle to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all uh before we uh we go any further I would like to make a A administrative announcement that uh you notice that one of our seats is empty night
008um uh Mrs rut's uh mom is in a very very um she's she's in hospice she was sent down to rested today and so uh bry's where she belongs tonight at the side of her mom and our our prayers go with her uh and uh I just I just uh want everybody to know that she uh dearly wanted to be here tonight but as I said she's where she belongs tonight and I think we all understand that so we will continue on uh and I will ask now if there is a um if there's a motion to approve the agenda as it has been presented I move to approve the agenda as presented second the motion uh was made by Mr Guta and seconded by Mr Rickard uh that we approve the agenda as presented
009Dr Shepard do you have any recognitions for us I do thank you vote on the agenda yeah we did moving right along better move on fine okay so um if so it has been moved and seconded that we uh approve the agenda as presented and U those in favor please signify by saying I I I opposed motion carries 5 Z and now we can do those recommendations thank you February is School Board appreciation month school board members are elected to represent the interest of students parents and other stakeholders the school board place a vital role in ensuring that students have access to a high quality education and members are responsible for the oversight success and effectiveness of school systems February is School Board appreciation month and we would like to acknowledge and celebrate our school
010board members and attached to this agenda item is Governor yonan's Proclamation on school board appreciation month February 2024 so thank you very much school board members the second item we would the second group that we would like to recognize is our school board clerk appreciation the third week of February has been designated the Schoolboard clerk Appreciation Week in honor of school board clerk appreciation week let's take a moment to recognize and express our appreciation for the outstanding contributions of school board clerk Cheryl Jet and Deputy clerk Crystal Stickley as we celebrate School Board clerk appreciation week let's acknowledge the role the school board Clerk and Deputy clerk play in the smooth operation of the school board meetings the clerk attends meetings maintain accurate records and address the needs of our School Division Miss Jet and
011Miss tickle's attention to detail and organizational skill positively impacts the lives of our students teachers administrators and Schoolboard members we are fortunate to have them as part of our team indeed we are the next recognition is Honey Run Elementary School wins first place in Fall 2023 stock market game Miss Miss burner good evening so hunting run go ahead they're very good listeners they placed first in the state of Virginia at the elementary level in the fall 2023 stock market game hres fifth graders embarked on the challenge of the stock market game under the guidance of gifted resource specialist Ashley Showalter the fall session ran from September 25th to December 15th Miss show Walter LED team members Eleanor Bosman Harper gangar aan Boer and Tanner Bell on a deep dive into the stock market for about
012two weeks they then analyze their Investment Portfolio on a weekly basis to decide as a team if changes to their Investments were necessary in addition to placing first at the elementary level they also Place 16th out of 137 schools that were elementary middle and high that participated in the competition this is this game the stock market game is designed to build a fundamental understanding of investing while providing students with Real World skills and practice in math English language arts economic social studies and other subjects so we are super proud of this team uh first year doing the stock market game how do I get an appointment all right guys are you ready two three our next recognition is the Virginia act new Career and Technical education teacher of the year Mr sler Mr chairman members
013of the board Dr shepher it does not surprise me that I have the pleasure to stand before you today and introduce to you the Virginia act new Career and Technical education teacher of the year to see how she teaches and interacts with the students in her family and consumer science class it will not surprise me if I'll be coming back here to introduce her as the national champion I can also stand here and talk about her job and why she deserves this award but I feel it would be better just to introduce her and you can hear straight from her all that she does so it is my pleasure to introduce Michaela Omar [Applause] thank you Mr schner good evening to everyone who is here with us tonight as I stand here today not just
014as a teacher but as a lifelong learner who has been given the extraordinary chance to follow my passion for teaching CTE I am overwhelmed with gratitude and appreciation for the support I have received here at scps winning the Virginia act new te new outstanding teacher of the year award is not just a personal Milestone it's a shared achievement with every student mentor and peer whose part been part of my journey from the moment I returned to the school where I was once a student I aimed to make a difference when I reflect on my last three years at signal N Middle School I'm filled with gratitude for the support and encouragement I've received from my colleagues students and mentors it is their belief in me and their unwavering dedication to our students that has brought
015me to this stage I am eternally grateful for their guidance and inspiration receiving this award is a testament not only to my efforts but to the support and inspiration I have found in this community reflecting on the nomination process it's clear that it's about more than just one person's accomplishments it's about recognizing the collective effort to elevate CTE and prepare our students for Meaningful careers as I move forward in the nomination process for the National level I carry with me the pride and motivation from this award and the stories of success from our classrooms and of course I would be remiss if I didn't take a moment to express my heartfelt gratitude to my family and moms here today their unwavering support and understanding have been the foundation of my journey as an educator their
016love and encouragement have given me the strength to overcome challenges and pursue my passion for teaching looking ahead the nomination process for the region to and National level is an exciting opportunity to share our successes and the Innovative strategies we've developed here in Virginia it's a chance to shine a light on the importance of Career and Technical education and its impact on our students Futures this is an opportunity to advocate for CTE on a larger scale to contribute to the National conversation and to highlight the vital role of our programs like ours in shaping the workforce of tomorrow thank you to everyone who believed in me and to those who continue to inspire me every day I hope we can continue to inspire to challenge and to lead the way in education let's keep pushing
017the boundaries of Education together thank you now real quick on an additional note seeing it is School Board appreciation mom we at sign would like to invite each and every one on the school board to breakfast d FFA week which will be Friday the 23rd we will be making breakfast for you as well as our staff so give you a chance to interact with our staff up at signal knob you'll be able to uh come and then after breakfast Miss Amari and her students will actually be doing a presentation to you about the National Conference and all that we are accomplishing up there at signal KN so please on February 23rd in the morning come up for breakfast and great opportunity to see what is going on in SHO County Public Schools thank you thank
018[Applause] you congratulations thank you that's all that is it we have our the point uh where we are ready for public and staff comment on agenda items and non-agenda items so I would like to read some of the um criteria for speaking and um if you have already signed up good good if you haven't there's a sure um space that you can sign up and be ready to uh to uh have your three minutes in the sun here so uh let me read this to you uh the shenel County School Board welcomes public comment during most regular meeting meetings and during public hearings school board members do not respond to public comments during the meeting or hearing each speaker may speak up for up to three minutes the board generally allows up to 30 minutes
019for public comments on agenda and non-agenda items at the beginning of the meeting if there are large number of speakers the board May limit the time uh for comments and or may reduce the time aot for each speaker I don't think we're going to try to uh truncate anybody speak tonight um all comment should address a matter related to sheno County Public Schools complaints regarding division employees should be directed to the school principal or an appropriate School Division official the school board expects that each speaker will be courteous modeling for our students how one can respectfully disagree with others views speakers will address our comments to the entire school board and not to one an individual board member to the superintendent to a staff member nor to the audience speakers will not engage in personal
020attacks speakers May sign up to speak at the Schoolboard meeting uh or public hearing on a document provided by the clerk of the school board which I have near in front of me uh speakers are called in the order in which they signed up if time allows the chair may allow comments from individuals who have not signed up a speaker may not speak more than once on a specific topic those who wish to speak on more than one topic must submit a separate request for each item and with that having been said I'm just going to start to break down this list uh Christina Lawson hello my name is Christina Lawson and I'm with P flag Woodstock my pronouns are she her uh I'll tell you a story there have always been queer people in
021one for or another they include Statesmen artists Scholars doctors teachers you name it they're your neighbors co-workers family and friends they are my father when my parents divorced in 1978 my father came out as gay he and my mother met in college married in 1962 and I came along in 1964 I've had people ask me why did he get married in the first place my answer is because that's what you did in 1962 you got married mared and had children he always knew he was different but back then Society told him he should feel shame he was unnatural my father lived what I call a halflife never being able to live fully as himself even after coming out in 1978 he came out to some family members and friends but couldn't be out at his
022job he couldn't be out to the broader Community only in his later years did he shed the cloak of shame that Society had placed over him and feel more FR feel more free to to embrace his identity I've always been open with people about my family and my father if people were truly interested I would tell my story about having a gay parent I joined P flag last year because I couldn't believe that we're having the same conversations about the lgbtq plus Community all these many decades later the policy that the school board wants to pass is sending a message to the community students and staff that transgender and non-binary people should not exist and there's something wrong with them this policy says they should be forced to live in the closet and be silent
023about their true selves this policy says they should be forced to live in a way that doesn't make the straight and cisgender Community feel uncomfortable recent polls show that 14 million adults in the US identify as a member of the lgbtq plus Community gen Z adults are more likely to identify than the older Generations does this mean that there is a queer sickness infecting our country as some might suggest no what this means is the LBGTQ plus Community is no longer willing to stay silent they're no longer going to be a shameful secret they're no longer willing to be treated as second class citizens they're going to stand up and demand the same rights and opportunities as others I decided that I could no longer be silent about another generation living through some of the
024thing same things my family and my father did that's why I'm speaking out tonight I'm speaking out for others who are unable to speak up for themselves or their family members don't let this school board make the community staff and students complicit in dehum dehumanizing and traumatizing another generation of queer people please do your own research about how these types of policies harm queer youth go to P flag.org or the Trevor project.org for more information thank you thank you Christina um Billy Mullins thank you Mr chairman Mr President and rest of the board um this is really a difficult time that uh this boy is serving on I I appreciate your uh being able to being willing to stand up and to make hard choices um when I look at this you know it's really
025troubling what we're hearing and uh I think it really goes to an individual's conscience about doing what is right um that is something that U we've been asked to uh push aside um I really have compassion for the people who are caught up in this this whole quag matter because there are people pushing this agenda that really doesn't care about these children and that's really what they are uh the things that we're being asked to do uh the schools are being asked to do I'm sure it probably goes against most of your conscience and U it's there's a lot of people good people I think that are willing to step up and to help address this issue but we need to address it in in a civil way uh we we see all the stuff
026going on around in our country right now uh and I frankly I think these people really hate the country that we're living in and it's the best country in in the world we have the most freedoms uh the same freedoms that protect are for everyone uh everyone are created equal and we need to do uh our very best that we can to protect everyone's rights uh you know we hear about the bullying going on in school uh I guess that would fall back on the principles and the schools and the the safety officers that they have to really address this uh probably some of the children that are doing The Bullying well they were bullied in their in their past and when they were young but that's that's really not an excuse it's some hard
027issues that we have to address at this time and uh I just so appreciative of you all each one of you to uh to look hard at this issue and to accept the resolutions that have been put forward to to addition to what the governor has uh said as a minimum and U just think long and hard about your choices I appreciate each and every one of you thank you thank you Mr Mullins Duke mcaffrey Duke mcaffrey 2799 for Valley Road I learned to drive when I was 11 years old um I used to speed up and down Tanner Ridge Mountain on my dad's property and by the time I was 12 or 13 I believed I was pretty good at driving I would have said that I identified as a safe driver but unfortunately
028the Commonwealth's laws said I had to go through certain steps before I could drive a vehicle on the road why did they say this they said this because they wanted to protect the majority of the people out there on the roads they didn't say this necessarily because of me or because they were saying I was a bad driver they didn't say this because they felt like I was incompetent or I was underqualified they said this just because as a rule they had to protect the general public we live in a way that protects the majority of the people that's why we have driving ages that's why we no longer have smoking sections in restaurants when I was a kid kid you went in you said hey do you want to sit in the smoking or
029non-smoking all of a sudden something happened and they said you know what smoking isn't safeer people so we're just going to Outlaw it all together because we don't want somebody to possibly get secondhand smoke we live in a society that says we're going to look out for the majority of people we're going to look out for the safety of the majority of people that's why we can't buy alcohol until we're 21 years old that's why we can't buy tobacco until we're 21 years old we understand that people at a certain age don't have the qualifications or the mental capacity to make be able to make decisions that will affect them and other people this transgender resolution that's in front of the school board I would like to speak in favor of it's a common sense
030policy that seeks to protect the majority of the students in the school system while I believe there are only two genders this policy does allow for those that have worked with parents to change documents and go through certain steps to still be able to practice an other than birth gender it's not quite as far as I would like to see it go but it's a step in the good direction it protects our female athletes from stronger male bodies that identify as female erasing their success or Worse calling injury causing injury to the female athletes it sets safe boundaries for when issues arise so we don't end up like lden County I would hate for something like what happened in lden County to have to come before this school board and I just assume go ahead
031of it and try to set some common sense batteries in place remember school board members your constituents you all got voted in by people that sent a strong message to yall remember your constituents it's not about you it's about the people that voted you in I urge you to vote Yes to this resolution thank you Mr mcaffrey Sean Graber good evening ladies and gentlemen of the school board thank you for the job that you do it is often a very thankless job but I appreciate that you folks are willing to step forward and meet the challenge at hand I'd like to speak on two items tonight the first one is the lgbtq activities that have occurred within the public schools I have had several folks within the congregation in which I serve that have come
032to me and said I no longer feel comfortable being in my band at school because of the LGBT actions that they were required to take as a part of their routine duties how do you counsel a young person when they are confused on seeing the lgd LGBT activities but not allowed to do the activities that they believe in it is a challenge also I would like to ask advocate for the resolution this evening that is before us on the transgender policy but I think it needs to go a little one step further I think it actually needs to be policy so that all of our principes and staff know exactly what they are supposed to be doing you see we were all born with either an XX or an XY chromosone an innie or an
033Audi it's not that difficult to figure out if you have trouble you can go to the doctor and they can help you out but what you do in your bedroom is your business and that is strictly your business but I kindly ask that you do not push that on everyone else that is around you and let me explain just a little bit I've had a 14-year-old young lady come to me that attends my congregation and has said I'm not sure what to do I know that there are some boys that have said they're going to join the girls basketball team I don't want a boy in my locker room now I don't know how many folks out here would like to have a boy in their locker room with their 14-year-old daughter I doubt that
034there's very many you know we worked so hard for women 's rights in this country for the opportunity for women to have the same opportunity as men are we going to take that away with One S we've worked so diligently to allow women to excel in their Sports in their careers in employment let us honor our ladies our young ladies who want to play sports who want to be protected let's not allow the continuation of lden County to come here thank you so very much for your time thank you Mr Graver uh Reverend Karen casperson good evening I'm the Reverend Karen casperson of Woodstock and I've been an ordained Lutheran Pastor for nearly 30 years I believe strongly in the values of compassion dignity respect and kindness what a shame that I don't see any
035of these qualities in the draft on policy on gender identity it's the underlying uh premise that those who identify as trans Stander are somehow a menace to the general School population it promotes the idea that these individuals are somehow dangerous in some fashion that they might enter a girl's bathroom or locker room with the intent to molest the girls that happen to be there is the underlying premise that these individuals are inherently threat so it is mandatory to draft a policy to keep them in their place as a way to protect everybody else I suggest that the opposite is true those who identify as transgender or lgbtq for that matter are the ones who are in Peril from other students they are the ones being bullied and subject to physical abuse they are tormented on
036a daily basis they are the ones who need a policy for their protection not the reverse I hear so many concerns about bullying in the schools that it's no longer a fully safe place to be we ring our hands wondering what on Earth we can do to diminish this Behavior what I see in this proposed policy is promoting the problem it has adults modeling the very same bullying behavior that we are trying to eliminate from our students the draft targets students who are already receiving abuse verbal and physical and exposes them to additional ridicule by suggesting that they are the ones who are the monsters compassion dignity respect and kindness too bad none of them exist in the draft policy on gender identity thank you thank you Rend casperson Mark Pierce thank you my name
037is Mark Pierce I'm a retired physician I live in marown um so as with so much in life the determination of an individual's biological sex is far from black and white or binary in the most simplistic view someone with XY chromosomes is male while those with XX chromosomes are female except in the case of ambiguous genitalia at Birth um that is genitalia with both male and female characteristics the vast majority of us are assigned to biological sex at Birth it's it's uh duly noted on your birth certificate and that's that you are either male or female where that it was so simple in very basic terms there is a gene on the Y chromosome called Sr Y which turns on other male Associated genes and hormones thus producing a male without the s Sr y
038Gene of the Y chromosome the embryo with it with only its two X chromosomes develops into a female still pretty straightforward right but what happens when the SR y Gene is transferred onto an X chromosome instead of remaining on the Y chromosome these individuals will have XY chromosomes but not testes development uh they will develop uteri uh and Fallopian tubes but non functioning G ad they usually have a female gender identity the XX syndrome occurs when the sry Gen attaches to one of the X chromosomes through a process called translocation these individuals have male physical features but no Y chromosomes even if the SR y Gene is present on the Y chromosome of an XY individual is if it is mutated or defective these individuals will develop as females and then there is the production
039of numerous sex related hormones during embryonic and Fetal development the most wellknown being testosterone if these hormones are not produced in the appropriate levels or sequences it can lead to an individual being hormonally and or physically nonbinary as you can see even from this very basic discussion this is an incredibly complex process and the more you study it the more complex it becomes add to this the equally important and equally complex psychosocial development of individuals uh and you see the problem of one size fits all uh both as regards to an individual's biological sex and their gender identity my purpose here is simply to highlight what an enormously complex issue this is and why an individual's gender identification is based on a myriad of factors be genetic hormonal psychological or some combination before you discriminate
040against someone on the basis of biological sex and identity ask your yourself have you seen your chromosomes do you know the genes of the people you love the hormones of the people you work with of course not with that in mind please be kind to respect people's right to tell you who they are and remember that you don't have all the answers biology is complicated kindness and respect don't have to be thank you got John chroniger hello thank you all for giving me the opportunity to speak I come here today to remind all of you that the reason you sit where you are is because of the voters here in the county you all ran on the specific ideas that you are representing the electorate and their ideals today we as voters can celebrate a
041board that represents those ideals it is true that your decisions have to be thoughtful and weigh all the various positions proposed by the various points of view however several issues are in the Forefront of the agendas that got you elected one is returning the name of Stonewall Jackson to our southern area high school another is the issue of gender and how the schools deal with the implications it has on Sports bathroom usage and name identification there are more issues to consider such as books curriculums that bring a liberal or Progressive ideology without a balanced point of view and more to those opponents of these conservative positions I only offer the point of view that former president Obama stated to Republicans after his inauguration that elections have consequences and today we have won each of the
042six races involved here and hopefully you will remember the percentage of your vote to get elected and vote the way your constituents wanted you to thank you thank you Mr carer Aaron Walker thank you Mr chairman Dr Dr shepher and the board uh I I want to be very brief uh this policy makes this policy makes no sense uh as uh someone has already pointed out you cannot tell someone's uh chromosomes by just looking at them so this policy if enacted would you know how would how would any of this be put in place is there someone going to be appointed to make sure that someone of the of the wrong sex goes into the restroom uh what would that entail that seems pretty outrageous and uh this policy is just a bigger form of
043the bloat uh that the government would have uh and it would not focus on education like the school board should um well thank you thank you Mr walker uh Carol where are you I I tried before I'm going to try it again so is it bser B I should have put the Z in there all right come on hi everyone thank you so much for the opportunity to speak tonight um my name is Cara balach I'm a resident of District 3 and I recently watched your January 22nd Work session and I just want to start by thanking you all for the time you took to discuss the transgender policies um I think you had a thoughtful discussion and I really saw most of you genuinely wanting to educate yourself and learn more um and you're
044struggling to figure out what's right which is what I'm doing and and Hope hopefully all of us are really thinking about that um so I'm a straight cisgender woman but I've had transgender people in my life for more than 20 years and so that's why I care about this issue because those relationships have taught me to be compassionate and I've also worked to educate myself about the topic so I can be a better friend and family member and I want to just focus tonight on uh responding to one suggestion that one Schoolboard member made that the school shouldn't change a child's name or pronouns just because a parent requests it but that more documentation like a medical diagnosis should be required and I hope you'll reconsider that idea for a few reasons uh the first
045one is that denying a parent request about what's best for their child such a dangerous precedent where teachers or School staff might feel they have the right to question parents decisions on other kinds of issues as well the second one is access because finding a doctor to support and diagnose a transgender person can be really difficult they might have to drive really far to find that doctor or pay a lot of money out of pocket that their insurance doesn't covers doesn't cover and so that means that kids whose families don't have a lot of money would be NE negatively disproportionately impacted by that and finally I just want to reference that some of you seem concerned that a child might want to just change their gender on a whim um but if a boy wakes
046up one day and decides to wear a skirt that doesn't make him transgender right some boys just want to push boundaries or experiment with fashion um and most transgender people spend years thinking about their gender before they actually start to transition socially and publicly so I just want to ask you to not not sort of confuse teenage experimentation or a person's unconventional clothing choice or somebody's joke that they'd like to a boy joke that they'd like to go play on the women's team and be in the women's locker room let's not confuse that with a person who really knows that they're transgender and has thought a lot about it and I think we should trust parents to know the difference between those two scenarios finally we know through data and research and through people's stories
047that acknowledging names and pronouns helps trans people's mental health and reduces the high rates of suicide that exists among transgender youth so I hope we can all put aside any discomfort we might feel about something that we don't have a lot of experience with and just the wellbeing of our youth first by respecting the names and pronouns that students and their parents ask us to use thank you so much for your time thank you m b Dennis at wood evening U chairman Barlo and board members superintendent Shephard um I paused to note the absence of M rutz this evening and wish the best to her family on on that occasion I'm Dennis Atwood my pronouns are he him I reside in martown I'm speaking to agenda item 5.3 to paraphrase the policy regarding transgender students
048it is appropriate even necessary that you have delayed this action uh on your vote uh until March because it surely needs more work in order to create and approve a fact-based effective legal policy that puts students needs first indeed needs more work first and fundamentally I repeat my requests to each of you included in my remarks of January 11th and emails to you that you gain at least a basic understanding of the human gender spectrum and you need to pay serious attention to the professional medical information that Dr Pierce gave you a few minutes ago the science of sex and gender inform us that both exist on a spect because you haven't personally met some individual like that doesn't mean they don't exist they're not binary instead of referring to science the resolution attached to
049your policy under consideration calls students confused and makes the outrageous depiction of a parent who's decided that she's not content with her child's biological sex that's really troubling the resolution is distracting unnecessary and potentially harmful you should remove it from your deliberations there are several TED Talks that's well curated informative people out there on the internet that are NE they address this topic two basic ones that are well recommended to you but you can just go into tedtalks.com and if you care to do a search on on two presenters um Sammy n yon s m y n o r y u n s and Jackson bird spelled like it sounds I also recommend that you pay full attention to the information and advice provided by Susie Wilburn the president of the local chapter of P
050flag and if you don't know what P flag stands for it's parents and families and friends of lesbians and gays it's an organization that's been in existence a long time and to quote from their literature P flag envisions a world where diversity is celebrated and all people are respected valued and affirmed inclusive of their sexual orientation gender identity and gender expression secondly chairman Barlo has often expressed the need at a proper need for a thorough legal review of whatever policy you agree upon and before implementing it you are still vulnerable in this Regard in my opinion because I have it on competent Authority that Governor Yan's 2023 model policies fundamentally conflict with relevant federal and state laws so adopting Young's model policies could expose you to Legal liability thank you I wish you well as
051you move forward appreciate this opportunity to speak thank you Mr adward Ronda Richard good evening Dr Shepard chairman Barlo school board members my name is Ronda Richard and I live in quicksburg thank you for allowing me to speak I want to take a moment to applaud everyone involved in the planning and success of out of the dark basketball game held at ston Mountain View High School sorry old have it this event was held to bring awareness to Suicide Prevention raising over $3,000 for the American Foundation For Suicide Prevention Steven City's office as I mentioned last month mental health needs to be addressed more within shener County Public Schools and the community thank you for your time thank you M Richard Sean cleal I can't believe you pronounced my name correctly thank you for that I've
052dreaded it since kindergarten uh thank you all for being here this evening uh it's kind of a thankless position to be on the school board and I really appreciate the time that you put into this work I just want to speak in in favor of this resolution the gender identity policy because I think that it's Paramount that parents be kept in the loop there's a couple of recent stories that came out nationally in the last week where parents were removed from the process in fact in Montana a child was removed from the home at age 14 because her parents would not affirm her current identity another case in Olympia Washington where a family from India that had been immigrants here to the country had to take their 10-year-old daughter out of school because she was
053being groomed by her teacher to change her identity so I speak in favor of this resolution because I'm in favor of Parental involvement in the entire process and I think that that's what this policy does thanks and I appreciate your time thank you Mr G Kelsey Lawrence is that correct Lawrence good buckle up shannona County School Board because it's time for a reality check this resolution you're waving around like a flag on 4th of July it's about as legal legally sound as a leaky boat you're violating more laws than a teenager with a fake ID specifically the code of Virginia Human Rights Act the transgender student code and the equal protection clause which I believe is federal congratulations on turning discrimination into an art form now let's talk about the so-called parents Rights bill last
054time I checked parents come in all flavors like a box of chocolates some want their children to be treated with respect and called by their chosen name others seem to think their personal beliefs should stamp on anyone else's rights news flash that's not how democracy works as a young parent myself I'm livid watching you folks try to parent our kids based on religious beliefs instead of you know the law common decency and the Constitution here's a tip religious rule rules belong in church and at home not in our schools and I say this as a practicing Christian who spend Sunday mornings running around like a crazy person trying to get four kids nine and under ready trust me Sunday mornings at my house are more akin to wrestling alligators into tights and Bows it's not
055about my beliefs or yours it's about the law and you may you my friends are breaking it if you're itching for a lawsuit faster than you can save budget cuts then go right ahead but don't be surprised when the taxpayers start demanding refunds for this circus act how much are you willing to pay for your bigotry some something I found appalling in this resolution is the sex-based dress line it's like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole awkward and downright uncomfortable it may not outline what sex based clothing is in this resolution but how this line can be interpreted puts all of our children at risk it's discrimination and a violation of my right as a parent I'm the one who buys the kids the clothes my children wear the clothing line
056is not an issue of safety or practicality it's control plain and simple you have a duty yeah I said it a sacred duty to make things better for our County and our kids this resolution it's like trying to put out a fire with gasoline you're not just harming our students you're torching our future so how about we toss this dumpster fire of a resolution and actually focus on what matters creating a safe inclusive environment for all of our students where they can learn and grow that's the kind of County I want to live in thank you and try not to trip over the law on your way out we wouldn't want any more lawsuits on our hands now would we thank you m War Randy Gilbert is he here oh There He Go yeah Randy
057Gilbert first district and uh I really appreciate being able to have the time to address all you folks uh and uh going to do a little bit something different and actually uh I'm I'm speaking tonight uh for for someone uh who can't uh my wife Kathy passed away and and uh she loved teaching children uh and and anyway she spent her entire life you know really giving her best you know and Life to Children through through teaching uh and uh Kathy really would have enjoyed uh this uh the personel committee meeting that I was able to be a part of uh this week uh actually yesterday and thank you in for inviting me and and for you know giving me the chance to attend and to actually witness uh you know with with you know
058school board members and and staff and and admin folks uh actually solving problems and that's what's needed in this County and and that's what's needed now uh Kathy loves solving problems uh maybe 20 plus years ago there was some really big problems that the county schools had uh because they weren't ready for immigrant children and it really bothered her to to to not have a a school system however uh she you know was actually able to uh to be a part of uh and and and basically uh in committee groups uh like I saw yesterday uh she was able to uh to actually see those problems solved uh and uh and and that's something that she really enjoyed working uh to do uh and she believes that she solved or we're able to to work
059together with the school board with the administration to solve every uh problem that that had come up and being able to list all of those that were solved all the solution ions probably be longer than my arm as far as the list and it really made shannona County the Envy uh of Virginia as far as being able to have a school system that really worked well with immigrants and so I just really want to commend you guys for for doing that and I look forward to being able to participate hopefully to uh to solve some of those problems but uh one of the things that uh I believe that she really was good at for solving problems was because of the the truths that she followed uh and one of the truths that she believed
060in very strongly uh was that there's basically one force that is the sort of the steal kill and destroy force of of our world and then there's the other that brings life and life abundantly and that was something that she uh said that you know bringing children hope and love and life uh is is really what's exactly what needs to happen and it's the opposite of the woke religion that we're we're seeing uh the W woke religion basically broke her heart uh in in seeing that come into our our country the way it has and she definitely would love to have seen uh the resolution and the uh uh the basically the policy that's there and I I believe that what she would want to to do if she could say it now would be
061to say you know separate the resolution and the and the policy get the policy passed get something going thank you guys Mr again appreciate your work thank you Steve Heisman is that Steve Heisman good evening Schoolboard members and Dr Shephard thank you for allowing my voice voice to be heard this evening I'm Steve hman I live in District 2 out in conicville so it's always good to hear that the weekly religious education is holding steady and doing very well with 104 students as we move into the Easter season the students will be learning the real meaning of Easter and the significance of the empty tomb on that Sunday morning the 5.2 policy discussion of gender identity and such there are viewpoints and opinions of course from both sides I know that you a new and
062energetic school board will make the right decisions when it comes time to vote but the fact of the matter is our identity is determined at the moment of the miracle of conception who are we as a people to deter to determine we have the right to change that each of us are miracles of creation some of us are made boys some of us are made girls and all of us are made and and are here for a particular reason we live in a world here today where there's a major battle going on between good and evil and let's not let evil win thank you very much thank you Mr Heisman Katie Gowan I am Katie gosne Edinburg Lutheran Church and I live in Dr Shephard chairman Marlo our County Board School Board administrative staff thank
063you for the privilege of talking tonight on the proposed transgender policy and asking uh your support as well for the students support Specialists that are in our school most of folks know me as Pastor Katie and I'm a Lutheran pastor and I am privileged to serve two congregations out in the conicville area and they know me as one who is formed by the weekly and daily readings of our church here and they know that I believe God has a strange sense of humor sometimes because um this discussion regarding the transgender policy is coming up for us on the week of transfiguration Sunday this Sunday Mark's gospel will lead us up a mountain with Jesus and his disciples where he will be transfigured before them metamorphosi in Greek and it is one of my least favorite
064Sundays in the church year because I as a pastor struggle with speaking to the the many ways in which God presents himself to us the spirit I know will be faithful in inspiring me for Sunday's services but right now on Thursday I'm standing terrified humbled and speechless before you in this meeting as well as waiting for the spirit's movement for Preparation and so I stand in silence and I take a deep breath and I struggle with the depth of this moment and struggles are not a bad thing silence is a holy thing first Kings 19 reminds us how I Elijah was humbled by the silence that God presented him with the prefix trans means across Beyond through and our language is always a sign of our times and so it isn't surprising in when you
065put the word trans into a search engine it comes up with all kinds of things about transgender I'd like to encourage you to be remindful of the fact that trans is across Beyond translate transform transport live into this world of trans before you legislate I encourage you to continue as a board doing the hard work that you started on January 22nd and listening and going across and Beyond and through to listening to the people here how our current solutions to the things that are being addressed in this policy are already being lived into in our schools listen to the people who are in our schools our administrators the guidance counselors the school support Specialists the resource officers the multitude of voices of our staff those who are in the schools if it isn't broken then
066what are you fixing and if there isn't a requirement of adoption then for whom are you doing this I question whether it is your constituents remember less than 50% of those who are in your area turned out for the polls they didn't come out to vote in some cases it was as low as 30% that came out to vote and each of you only received a percentage of the ones who came out to vote maybe that's what deserves our attention getting people to vote and teaching our youth the power of their vote and the power of their voice whatever the case I pray you take time still to listen and to support those student support specialist positions that are being lifted up in the budget thank you for the extra time it was not lost
067on me thank you Pastor gosan that's the last speaker I have is there anybody else who wanted to take the opportunity all right then we will move on and we will now consider the consent agenda items and so the uh the various items there donations overnight field trips approval of paid bills Etc uh I'm ready to entertain a motion that we approve the following consent agenda items I move to approve the consent agenda as presented second the motion to approve the following consent agenda items has been uh made uh by Kyle ghaw and has been seconded by Mike Rickard uh any discussion if not then um those in favor of accepting the consent agenda items as they are listed to signify by saying I I any opposed no okay we will move then into the
068instructional agenda and um we are going to hear at this point I guess about the annual child counil special education services is that is that correct Jennifer Stratton is approaching the microphone I am approaching superintendent Dr Shephard chairman Barlo and board members thank you for the opportunity of being able to present to you our December 1 child count 2023 so as you can see this slide discusses the purpose of why we have our December one count School divisions are required to report an unduplicated count of students with disabilities meaning that students who have disabilities that are being served in our division possibly at Central High School also triplet are counted one time we're not counting them twice if there is a student that has a primary disability and a secondary disability we count them once
069so that's our unduplicated count so December 1st count is for state and federal reporting and this is under the provisions of the individuals with disabilities Education Act idea Part B meaning school age children 3 to 21 so this is how we come up with the count and who is counted so as you can see all three of the following criteria have to be in play before we can actually count a student in the December one child count so the student has to have a current evaluation or a re-evaluation they must have a valid IEP individualized education program or plan or an individual service plan meaning we Ser as students that are homeschooled or private school students under an ISP so we do count them if we're servicing them under that criteria and number three they
070must be receiving special education with or without related services on December 1 so here is the child count F disability category they're all broken down the 14 categories as you can see the number that's under the December 23 column shows the number of students we have under each of those disability categories as you can see the total number of students we had December 1 2023 was 98 students you'll also notice that the enrollment is from October 1st so the October 1st enrollment was 5,749 stud students in our schools there'll be a little bit of a discrepancy when Dr Shepard talks about the student count because her count is from a different month okay I wanted to stay in sequence what you'll see in the next slide regarding our October 1st for the past several years
071shann andoa County Schools base their numbers in the trends of fiveyear trend on October 1st enrollment to get the percentage here is our five-year Trend so so as you can see again it's the number of students that qualify under the different disability categories that are tallied under each of those years so you can see the difference in 2022 and 2023 we had a total of 899 students that qualified under the idea Plan B the individuals Education Act okay and this year we have 98 you can see the difference it was 15.6% and 22 15.8% and 23 not a big increase as you can see 899 to 98 any questions anything that we want to ask discuss understanding clarification you can always call touch base never no clear and you have access to the slides and
072also I left for you the discussion in the disabilities categories acts in front of you you have that so you'll know what the definitions of each of those categories are actually I do have a question Jennifer well it seems pretty remarkable that that there has been such low amount of deviation year to year I mean that's we've done a lot of training a lot of understanding a lot of support um and understanding which child or which children we should bring forward to the child study Table after that we're very diligent and ensuring that we're testing students and looking at the criteria sheets so Virginia Department of Education gives us criteria sheets for each of those disability categories we make sure that we're adhering to that checklist of that category before identifying a student with a
073disability so we've been watching that very closely to make sure we're following those procedures correctly else thank you okay thank good evening Mr Barlo chairman Baro board members and Dr Shephard uh thank you for giving me a chance to speak a little bit and um bring along some friends to talk about our special programs and our alternative programs so have Jamie arur out and Miss Debbie leton are going to join me uh they're going to talk about some more of the details I'm going to give give you some high level or um 50,000 foot view a little bit of history and background in the programs um I will tell you two two important things the the two real overarching goals graduation and positive School climates those are two highlevel goals there are a lot of
074goals that are involved in alternative programs but big goals helping kids graduate and maintain good positive School environments and you'll see how those come to meet in our alternative program so um it started just with a little bit of overview what we're talking about is our alternative suspension Center our bridge program and our restart program um and I'm going to give you a little bit of history of each one of those so we'll start on the left hand side of that slide um and talk about the British program we're going going back the furthest and starting starting back a little further that began in 2014 and 15 and basically I don't want to get too many details because that's what these folks are going to talk about but but basically in a nutshell um we
075were we were running into a a number of students who were what we call um overage and under credited they were 18 with nine credits to graduate or there were 17 with two credits to graduate that's not going to happen and so we had to figure out ways to expedite their their time in school get them into some small group settings and do some things to help them on a much much more individual level than we can do in a regular siiz High School um and so that's what credit recovery really means um there's lots of reasons a student would end up um there and it's not necessarily disciplinary which often times is our first line of thought it's it's life most of the time the fourth bullet is an important one and you'll see
076a a through line there provide academic support and a chance to return to their home school I'll come back to that one again we'll go to Alternative suspension Center ASC was started in 2018 2019 school about Midway through the school year and it was it is it is used as an alternative to out of school suspension the reality of it is most administrators that have put students out of school Under understand a lot of times that really doesn't do a whole lot of good um it it keeps people it separates people from aggravation for a little bit and calms the waters a little bit and those kind of things but usually if I put a student now for dipping snuff he was probably going to go home for three days that I put him out
077and probably use snuff okay that's the reality of it we all know that um so so we had to start thinking about what can we really and truly do number one when kids are out of school they don't do their most of the time they don't do their work nothing is 100% that's not always the case but most of the time they don't do their school work they get further behind they come back to school they're frustrated and aggravated they probably get into some more trouble and the cycle continues so we were trying to figure out some different ways that we could support students and make sure they had a chance to return back to their home school if they do what they supposed to do and so there's those are a few of the
078reasons why the alternative suspension Center was born it doesn't mean that an an offense that is deemed to be an out of school suspension necessarily always 100% of the time results in a student going to ASC that's not true we have students every day who are placed unfortunately on out of school suspension because they've done something that may warrant that so so it's not 100% of the time it's a one: one correlation but if it's if it's appropriate the student would be assigned to the alternative suspension Cent the third program started in 2019 uh 2020 and that program it's called restart is an alternative to expulsion so as ASC is an alternative to out of school suspension restart is an alternative to expulsion that is the last thing we ever ever ever want to have
079to do um and so this is an opportunity for students and again they'll they will talk more about the nuances and the details but that's that's an opportunity for those students to again have academic support and a chance to return to their home school now if you look at the bottom box down here these are some of the high level you might want you could call them part of the Phil you like um why these programs assist schools with major discipline problems although there's not always discipline problems students have caused a problem in terms of discipline and it's not always the reason while they're there but sometimes it is another thing is helping students with academic support that's very very important because of the third bullet we always want to make sure we're doing everything
080we can to keep students on the path towards graduation and you see the common thing in each one of those there's there's support and one of the things that that we know with children and and let's be honest it's no different for adults when kids lose hope that they have a chance to go back and graduate with their same age peers and the kids they start at school with then we've got an even bigger problem and so we try to mean maintain that at all costs the most we can we don't always do it but to the best of our ability and we got amazing teachers that work with students down there to the best of our ability we try to make sure that we keep that hope alive that if they do what they're
081supposed to do they're going to be able to go back to their home school and graduate with their peers and so the the thing that the thing that I think is important for you all to know and understand with these programs is if and when and hopefully it's not going to happen but if you get a student who's presented to you for expulsion you should rest assured that we have done everything possible to try and help that child graduate and be successful so it's important to know that just a few nuggets over in the bottom right hand corner and then I'll be quiet um it's you know we don't do this for free you know there is a budget you know these things cost money um they have to be staffed um these programs do
082help our attendance as we know how important attendance is to our school accreditation so they do help our attendance some and then there are certain rules that we have to follow in regulations we can't just you know design something and and and and there are some rules that go around what we have to to do with in terms of our alternative programs but so far I will tell you and I think these ladies would agree our graduation rate has been very good for a long time and part of it is because of programs like this that really help us work with individual kids to get them to that point all right I think our first um yeah is ASC so as Dr Heim Gardner said I'm Jamie arra and I'm the assistant principal at triplet
083Tech but part of what I do at triplet is I also oversee um the alternative suspension Center so the alternative suspension Center actually serves um all three middle schools and all three high schools um so there could be a a big variety of kids that we have um but we do have a Max um of about a of 13 kids that we can hold at a time um as you can see and you'll see a little bit later in the data there are times in alternative suspension that we are full um and you'll see as you know the honeymoon period wears off with kids and going back to school and you know um teachers uh and kids get a little more comfortable together uh some of those um behaviors do act up but with the
084alternative suspension Center the the instructors work directly with the home schools they provide the work and um our instructors really just try to help facilitate that um communication and that help back and forth so that student can can stay on you know progress we actually have a lot of students who end up in alternative suspension and are actually able to get that one-on-one help to get back on track um to improve their grades when you know you know they've kind of dug themselves a hole um it is located at triplet but it's actually in a separate building behind triplet um if you've ever been back there you'll see the brick building um and it has a sign on it and then um we do transport students uh through Consolidated stops so they don't go to
085their homeschool as part of the suspension um we do pick them up at um the strawsburg mill we pick out out here in front of the DSs building in front of the old shintel building at Edinburg and then there is also stop at the community center in um New Market as well um because of that extra Transportation our hours are from 99 to 2 um you know and we do provide lunch from uh North Fork Middle School and um for that I think the biggest thing that you all as school board members often hear is the parents who who are complaining about discipline being you know through the roof and things like that but I think that this piece of data is probably the most important out of the almost 6,000 th000 students that we
086have the ones that are in discipline situations that are rising enough to be an out of school suspension is really only about a 3% of our students 6 through 12 so it really is a very small percentage of our student body who really falls into this category um here is just some other additional data um for just the fall semester of 2024 you can see that um we at this point have only had 95 students total that have been assigned um and honestly every school kind of assigns um for a variety of things but most importantly the alternative suspension um Center is used as part of a progressive discipline system so the home schools have tried you know some some lower levels of discipline options like maybe lunch detention maybe um ISS um you know
087some have after school detention to kind of mediate those situations before actually having to remove them from um the the actual School building um you can also see that um like many of you probably suspect 8th nth and 10th grade kids are kind of not human I like to think um and so there's a little bit of a learning curve with that transition so um you know they're testing the water they're getting some Independence and because of that um you know I do think we see a little bit of a spike um in discipline and those you can see uh the bottom data just kind of shows you um on average um or how many kids uh total were assigned during those months so as you can see um September and October uh is usually
088about that when that honeymoon period wears off and you know kids have been in school a little bit more consistent um and some of those uh misbehaviors start to arise thank you good evening I want to talk to you about Bridge which is um an acronym standing for building responsible independent decision makers Geared for education and it really is just that it's a bridge between the the schools and tripl Tech where this program is housed to uh work with students on a more one-on-one basis so that they can quickly get called up and return to the school so that they can graduate and be with their peers that is the the major goal uh this program is Bob principal referral so all of our schools have um student concern committees and they talk about students
089on a regular basis and when we see that the students are faltering then we need to maybe get them to to bridge this is a high school program only uh located at triplet and it's for credit recovery as Dr Hein Gardner told you earlier it's for that 17-year-old who only has 16 credits and he's not going to have enough room to get all the all the classes in this semester so he can walk across the stage come May so we got to make sure that we have a different plan um some schools some students just don't do well in a regular school setting they need something just a little bit different in order to be successful so this program is just that um they are only there a half a day and then they go
090back to the regular school the other half of the day uh go to the Bas school and take two classes there uh we do use a program called Apex is an online curriculum at uh bridge and then they can do work at their own pace so they may be able to uh complete several classes while they're there up there for the semester um they do ride the regular bus they use ride the regular triple Tech bus they ride their bus to school bus up to to the bridge and backe so transportation is full for them and they always get back in time for lunch so that they always have their lunch or have lunch before they come up um there are two instructors at Bridge and like I said they use uh the Apex uh
091program we also have our GED program there but uh we have very few students in fact we only have only had one student in the past two years who have finished their GED there because GED now is very very difficult um it has been revamped and you have to have a 10th grade reading level and have knowledge at least through geometry if you're going to be successful in GED program and that's that's very difficult but we do have a GED prep program there that we use and to help students get through that as well by the data graph you can see the the breakdown uh of number of students that we've had a grade at grade level for this semester we've had a total of 21 students in first semester and about half of those
092students have returned to their school and and have a full schedule at their school and then um principal referrals can come in at any time and so we we just call the committee together whenever there's referral to see if if this program is appropriate but we found that this has been a very successful program although back from 2014 and we are very proud of the success that this program has shown uh students uh do well at at the bridge and they do well on the so tests that they take in the in the instruction at Bridge so we're very pleased with with their perform performance and those are two very special instructors um at the bridge who work with at risk students any questions about Bridge question are you students usually in more than one
093any time or you know like they could have been a the alternative suspension at one time and if that didn't work then they go over to bridge or how does that well Bridge really is a a a principal referral process uh when you get into um ASC that's that's discipline but it doesn't necessarily have to be disciplined for this referral uh it may be uh the the student has truancy they're in the court system a lot they have a lot of maybe Behavior concerns and they're just not successful in the regular classroom setting um and so it it could be discipline can be part of it but it doesn't always have to be okay but it could be that one have through this it could be yeah basically you know bottom line for bridge is
094Credit Recovery I got to get you caught up so that you can walk across the stage with your peers at one time well first of all I want to thank you all for what you're doing um the ASC do you all see a lot of repeat offenders so you can um if you go back to um on this slide you can see it has the um there's only one high schooler at this point uh in first semester that has been there more than one or more than three times um and you can see that um for the middle school there are only four students that have been there three or more times and truthfully we do probably see um repeat offenders more in Middle School um and a lot of what the middle schoolers tell
095us is like it it's a double-edged sort of we don't want them to enjoy coming there but some of them do thrive in in a lack of stimulated environment and so that's you know we do kind of try to play that in and our instructors there are very good about trying to stay connected with those students to help promote their um you know their abilities at their home school but still like you know kind of foster that connection that they've built with the kids while they're there so um and and a lot of the middle schoolers also don't like it because it's just very it's very very quiet if you've ever come visit um and and it is very very quiet for sure based on the information you just gave us do you ever see
096kids that just aren't challenged enough in the general classroom that end up in ASC I don't know that there is I don't know that we really have definitive data that says that do I think that maybe we have some kids who um struggle to what I I would call play school you know they maybe they are um you know a high academic um individual but maybe it's a student who suffers from ADHD so being in that stimulated class room with 25 to 30 kids doesn't allow them to be able to you know participate and do what they need to academically because of the simulation around them so sometimes that kind of manifests into well then it becomes a behavioral issue you know and and they just can't be successful in that regular classroom because of
097that but I don't know that we specifically see any kids that you know because they're bored per se um you know end up having discipline issues thank you so the last alternative program that we have is called um restart and uh restart is our it's actually at triplet Tech but it's the evening program um we have it two days a week from 3: to 5:00 p.m. it's the same instructors as our ASC um at as our ASC instructors but this is really kind of The Last Resort in lie of expulsion um there are a couple of different things that could land a student here um a lot of times it is drugs multiple offense of um some type of drugs um in school uh sometimes it is for um excessive um or fights that have
098caused um you know some pretty significant um physical damage uh in terms of assault and um some concerns about safety of other students with those um and really I can't really think of anything else that we've had right now other than those two situations um so basically the goal is you know we know that it's not good for any kid to be without education for 365 days so the restart program was developed um as kind of an in between where those students are still able to access education um and continue towards their path for uh graduation but um they're doing a lot of the stuff on their own but then they have access to teachers part of the time on those two days a week so even though it is only those two days a
099week they do have access um to communicate with the teachers back and forth throughout the week if they have concerns about you know questions of content and you know information that they need additional help with um sheno County Public Schools does not provide transportation for this um the parent is responsible for providing Transportation we've uh even had a couple of students that have um utilized our public transportation option you know to get to school on these two days and um this is really only an assignment um a placement here is really only an assignment from Dr Shepard or our discipline committee so it's not something that a homeschool principal you know would send a student to um for a temporary time you know it's usually you know for a longer um suspension greater than we
100can do for the 10 days so so you can see um right now for first semester we've had three nth graders one 10th grader and two 12th graders who have been with us um of those students um four of them have now transitioned and returned back to school full-time um we do still have two students who are um well one that is still in the restart program one who actually just recently transitioned back into the bridge program as a transition back to um going back into regular school any questions about any of the alternative education programs yeah I I have one the um the more you talk about these various categories the more I'm thinking of a student child who is marching to A Different Drummer than most of us and uh but I also
101think about the teachers of this group I mean they must be a different kind of duck too to want to do this um where do we find those people and do they like doing it or is this a kind of a Purgatory that they're in no so again I invite you to come spend some time with our um our individuals for alternative suspension and um you know with our bridge program because I do think that one of the common factors that you'll see is they are able to um really kind of approach students in the aspect of what is in the best interest for this student at that time and how they can help the student find strengths um you know kind of that hope that Dr um hind Gardner was talking about because for
102a lot of our kids especially those that end up in the restart program they are not at a place um emotionally mentally that they can function academically um so this is kind of the The Best of Both Worlds to allow them to have that progress but it also allows them to have time to work on that emotional that mental um you know part and our student support specialist have really been um instrumental in being able to okay now we have these kids now let's put them in contact with the supports that they need so that we can get them back to a place um you know where they can function in a school building thank you any other questions okay thank [Applause] you Dr Shepard are we ready for the wonderful world of budget I
103am I mean so there are a few extra copies of the budget presentation if anybody else want um a hand out they up here at the desk BL jerl um our Clerk and Deputy clerk several of these slides I'm going to um Breeze right through because you've seen them before I may add a little bit of um text to it but it'll be very quick so these are the things that we're going to talk about tonight um as we get towards the end of the the presentation the 20 uh fiscal year 2025 budget priorities that's where you'll see some numbers attached always want to start our budget presentation with our goals Mission Vision and belief statement and as I said at our last school board meeting the um our goal is for our students to
104graduate ready for whatever it is they want to do next so if we keep that in mind student academic achievement whether they want to go to the workforce go to the military enter a two or a fouryear college we want to make sure that they're prepared for that our mission our vision we aim to be the top School Division in the state by Foster success in individuals maintaining high standards for personnel promoting goals and values recognizing Superior performance and aligning with the Virginia standards we are making gains we still have a ways to go and our beliefs at our core is a commitment to what is in the best interest of our students we recognize that meaningful Rel relationships are Paramount to student learning and growth and as I said the last time we had
105some videos done by our elementary schools on attendance um in the month of November and December and their tagline at the very end is that we we are worth it our students are worth it so at our last SCH War meeting we talked about enrollment and as um you see a steady decline of enrollment over the last 10 years you see a little uptick this year here in our K through 12 and our prek through 12 birth rate again this is a um a slide that was presented at the last school board meeting and you will notice birth rate was up in 2020 um it is down slightly uh or significantly in 201 by 111 students in 2022 um the last time birth rate was that low was in the early 2000s so who are
106our students we have 284 students who are eligible for free and reduced lunch and we have 580 students 81 students that are English learners and the free and reduced lunch eligibility may be a little misleading because we do offer free breakfast and free lunch for all of our students but these are the one this is the population that is eligible for that and um just as a side note we will continue to offer free um breakfast and free lunch for the next three years our student population um for students with disability heard just just a minute ago Miss Stratton talk about the the students you'll notice that there's a slightly different number my number is taken from the fall and hers is a December one count so there were eight more students in December 1
107than in um September 30th so just wanted to point that out that we know our numbers are different but they were taken from two different times and then our um students with 504 plans 330 students and just to recognize students with 504 plan there uh 504 plans there some legal responsibility to make sure that we're meeting their their specialized criteria for them so Capital Improvement it's our next slide um this has been modified slightly from the last um from the last meeting and it will be modified again before the next school meeting you will notice um I handed out a long sheet 11 by 17 that has all of our capital projects on it I've highlighted in um the amount in a I don't know an orange um that point out the Urgent um projects
108and then in yellow there's a um those are the necessary projects so feel free to there are a few of those on the on the desk there so you will notice under Safety and Security we um added an item clock upgrades and fire alarms which was not part of the um capital projects that we presented earlier you will see that two of those projects are Urgent and one is necessary heating ventilation and air conditioning we have two projects on on this at the bottom of this this page and more on the following we removed a big ticket item um we removed reinsulating the pipes at all elementary schools that was a 20 2000 um $200,000 project that we removed from our Capital project Roofing replacing the '90s wing rooftop units um or hbac sorry sorry
109I'm one behind um Roofing replacing original roofs uh at Sandy Hook Elementary School 325,000 and then replace um roofs this is the second one is new um at our storage buildings at Honey Run and strawsburg High School we' reduced the amount of door reing the doors at our middle schools we have completed two of those and we only have one remaining under other projects repair Foundation at Peter mberg Middle School um this is urgent this is a project that has to happen this summer um we started the project last summer once we found a car anomaly at Peter mberg middle school and this needs to be completed this summer to shore up the the floor the foundation repaving the student parking lot at Central High School um constructing a handicap ramp at the um at
110ww Robinson Elementary School which will also help improve our um access to our playground replacing stage curtains um at Central High School stage lighting at Central High School replace stage lighting at at Mountain View High School upgrade playgrounds at all of our elementary schools and this is an item that was added um and there are emerging safety concerns the playgrounds have not been um renovated for quite a few years if at all and then repair sidewalk on our uh central campus Mr Ricker did I see a question okay I think I'm good thank you transportation um this is where we'll probably um between this meeting and our February 26th meeting I believe um we will do some modifications here you'll notice that we have school bu bus purchases in the amount of two uh $2
111million uh and the the Virginia Department of e of Education recommends replacing buses over 15 years old so um this would put us in the um cycle to replace our buses at 15 years old it's not a requirement it is a recommendation replacing high mileage vehicles um we may continue to um hold on to some of those vehicles and um do the maintenance that's needed in order to make them continue to run for the next several years hydraulic press that's something that um we need we need it's urgent to um service our buses driver's egg car you can see there um the last one was purchased over 7 years ago purchase School Bus tire changer 22,000 um I consider this one urgent because it could be a workers comp um issue and also it will
112speed up productivity La connectivity for bus cameras edog um this allows um students to log in as they enter the bus and log out whenever they've reached their house or vice versa um so it gives us an opportunity to see um where our students are it also gives us an opportunity for our bus drivers who are substitutes to actually have the route in front of them um and if we have a substitute bus driver they may be on a different route every day um for five days a week or whatever so it will give them an opportunity to view the bus kind of like a um Ms for our bus rout and then renovation of the bus garage um the bus garage renovation is more than $200,000 this would just be a start for that
113renovation it would be a multi multi-year project Athletics renovate Mountain View um High School Athletic Field um I was talking to a school board member earlier and and he said that there has never been a crown on the U Mountain View High School athletic field so um and there's been work done on that field multiple times over the years replace um Press fox and sound system at Central High School and you know that cost increased one of the things that we have to do for Central High School graduation is um rent a sound system for graduation because um names and speeches are are um you can't understand them whenever um you're at graduation so we need a sound system system that we're able to do that or we'll have to continue to Outsource and and
114that's you know in the tens of thousands of dollars um to to rent those 10,000 to rent that for the the weekend um and then stateum lighting this will help on our energy bills it not to the tune of 210,000 but it will help and we replace incandescent lights with LED and you notice under each of the the tabs I have um total the estimated cost and then I also to the right um total the Urgent cost at $6.95 for athletics and I've done that across um all of the the codes and then at um Sandy Hook Elementary School a covered walkway between the gym and the um the school and at the very bottom you'll see the total for our capital projects is 5 point um almost $6 million urgent is 4.4 million any
115questions about Capital before I move on the next slide is all in one page it's it's um impossible to read but if you have the um the printed version it may be a little easier to read but I wanted you to see all the projects on one page I think that's important that you see you know kind of what's there um at a glance in the next couple of slides you'll see um our facilities at a glance you'll see the years uh the year they were built their um our square footage and the last year that they were renovated so and um I pointed this out at the last meeting that our last major Renovations were at our high schools and it was in 2003 and our middle schools are 30 years old is that
116right and they've never had any major Renovations we've done some hbac work um over the last few years with car's funds and um funds from the county and uh you noticed um back when we were talking about Transportation the bus garage um was built in 1967 and one of the reasons we want to renovate the bus garage is because um the sizes of our buses will not fit in the current garage so part of the bus hangs out as our um as our mechanics are working on the buses we built our bus garage to accommodate buses in 1967 this is an a slide just that just talks about um Capital improvement over the last uh 10 years years you will notice in fiscal year 23 that we did not request any money from the county
117and U we did that purposefully because we were using some of our car's funds car's funds were coron Corona virus funds that we received federal funds that we received and this is the last year um for those funds we have obligated all of those funds and they will be spent um by year end so the car's funds are no longer available you'll hear about that when we talk about some personnel and then here's a fiveyear look at um the capital so for example fiscal year uh 25 you'll notice that we have $5.9 million there if the county would fund us a million dollars then that 1. or that $4.9 million would slide to the next fiscal year and so on and so forth um we we may um do some modifications where we're stretching a
118project over 3 years or whatever um so so you know maybe um replacing a roof we replace part of it one year and the next another part of it the next year so we can do some of that as well but um we have labeled all of these capital projects important they're either urgent or necessary um so at some point in the future they're going to have to be done um in order to maintain the viability of our buildings so here are the two codes that really um point to our budget and um these These are are repeat from the last meeting but um the second code on the bottom is that our our budget is due to the County government by April 1st of each year if everything runs the way it should we
119should be submitting our budget to the county by March the 14th um it's a lot of information to go through over the next month and then it's our respon it's my responsibility to provide a needs based budget which is the first code so Revenue so where does our money come from um so this is just an estimate of what we think we're going to get for this potential sources of revenue for this year okay okay um Federal is our least amount of funding so about 1.6% State um is 53.8% almost 54% local is 40 um 43.6% and you'll see operational and Technology there and then other this is money that we receive from RE rebates and refunds things like that so you'll see where our money sources come from so it's mainly from the the
120local locality or from the state and let's see what the so here's just a um um an 8-year look at our um eight or nine year look at our funds from federal revenue you'll notice in 201122 there was some cares funds um placed in that federal revenue budget but it's remained about the same over the last eight8 to nine years and then let's talk about State funds and if you were here at the um January meeting you'll will have heard me talk about the local Composite Index so the local Composite Index has increased by almost 4% over the bayum so in uh the the local Composite Index now for 2024 to 2026 bym is 4248 which is 42. 48% or um but the previous B&M it was 38.5 2% which is an increase of 3.96%
121so almost 4% and what determines our local Composite Index our true property value our adjusted gross income and our retail sales and you will notice there that each one of those increased um our true value of property let me look at my notes increase by about 1.5 billion a little over 1.5 billion our um adjusted gross income increased by 450 million and our taxable retail sales increased by 54.7 million so what is this saying this is the state saying that our locality has a greater ability to pay and it also says that we're going to get um if we were at 3852 we would have received $1.8 million more from the state than we're going to receive this year because of our um Composite index of 4248 so our um our revenue from the state
122is going to decrease because our Composite Index increased 62 School divisions in Virginia's Composite Index increased 62 School divisions in Virginia's Composite Index decreased and the remainder stayed either flat or the same so our state revenue is going to deine decline this year because of our local Composite Index and you will see there um it increases slightly but not as much as it as it has in the previous years now the 24 the fiscal year 25 is just a a guesstimate because right now all we have to go on is what governor yunan has um issued December I think the next slide will tell us December the 20th Governor yunan um announced his budget highlights and they are listed there on this Slide the house of delegates and the Senate amendments will um be released
123on February the 13th so we have one piece of the puzzle we need two more pieces of the puzzle in order to know what our state funds are going to be um and um we understand that there um we anticipate that there'll be additional funds um from the house and the Senate so we shall see and hopefully I'll have that information by our next our next meeting but you can see there that the governor um Governor's amendments or proposal not amendments proposal included a 1% bonus for instruction to reduce the UN unfunded liabilities for teacher retirement so for vrs update sales tax revenue support um expanding the reading specialist Staffing provide reliable um laboratory funding for Laboratory Schools and then um for fiscal year 26 because this is a B anym for two years um
124a 2% compensation for all positions so you'll notice um a significant increase for um the request for local funds from this year from last year to this year or next fiscal year we'll get into more detail here in a little bit you can see instruction is about 75% of our budget P transportation is 7.6 operations and maintenance is 8.5 Administration is 6.2 and technology is 2.7 but if you add all of our um the information there on benefits and salaries that's almost 90% of budget our people so two different ways to look at the same information so we'll talk about County technology services and then we'll go back to um locality so in 2020 or fiscal year 2020 which was um the 2019 2020 school year the county uh schools and the county combine their
125technology services and support So this year the request is is fairly nominal at $2,559 increase and then here are my budget priorities so salaries get to the right page here so the recommended a recommended 3.5% cost of living adjustment so in comparison um I'll compare it to Social Security cost of living adjustment last year Social Security so calendar year 2023 uh 2023 Social Security increased by 8.7% and for 2024 Social Security increased by 3.2 2% so that is a little higher than the Social Security increase cost of living adjustment for 2024 the governor's budget included a 1% bonus and we will know more about the um House of delegates and the Senate's proposal um on February the 13th if we receive more State funds the request for the local locality will decrease so we anticipate
126a million dooll um increase in health insurance we met with um the health insurance committee today and um it was not good news so um you know that's um we we are going out for bid for health insurance uh we will have those results by February the 15th so hopefully at the February 26th meeting we will have more information to share and hopefully it will be possible positive so I I threw these slides in here um because I know there's been some information in the Northern Virginia Daily and the Winchester unstar about um about our pay and so um where are we losing our teachers so uh 47% of our teachers who leave have 11 or more years of experience so just keep that in the back of your mind here's our pay scale so
127I've highlighted in yellow where we are higher than Rockingham and Frederick County and there's some danger in doing this because now we've told our staff where they can go to make more money um however I hope they do not um but you know in full transparency you know Rockingham starts out slightly higher than we do um 70 um $82 and then you know and then we um we come out ahead for steps years of experience one through eight and then at nine Frederick County out at ways us I don't know what happened to um Step number 15 but you know uh and then after step 15 then um Frederick County outweighs us the the next 30 Years now our our salary scales go on after 30 years but you know um so people could see
128this I put it on one slot I I stopped it at year 30 but I thought it was important for you to see that you know we we do um we are our salaries are competitive at years one through 1 through eight Oh wrong way and then our health insurance we talked about this a little bit at the last um at the last meeting um our health insurance for um has gotten better we're still not where we need to be yet but this Compares us to the same two counties um Rockingham and frederi because that is if you remember from the last meeting that is where we lose our staff to the two top Frederick is number one and Rockingham is number two or vice versa yeah I think I'm right but if you look
129employee plus children um we made great gains we made great gains this year there is no doubt about it so um our employee plus children was um $1,250 last year it's $913 so that is a great gain in employee plus family the same um we also reduced employee plus child and red uh employee Plus spouse from last year to this year so we have made gains but our health insurance is going to increase uh again um as it has in the last two years if you look at Rockingham they have a wellness employee discount of $25 a month for doing their Wellness checks um once a year so you know that's something we can consider we talked to to our health uh Insurance person today and um he said that's a possibility may have benefits
130in the long run not short term so additional budget priorities um I talked a little bit about car's funds uh a minute ago our car's funds um are going away this year they were the Corona virus funds and we funded um student support Specialists from that um from our car's funds we funded a fat coordinator a 504 coordinator we increased um by one and a half full-time positions combine those three but halftime U maintenance secretary halftime nurse coordinator halftime Drama teacher at North Fork Middle School um we also had some um software purchase services from from car's funds and then we increased our substitute budget so our substitute um we increase our sub rate during the pandemic because our our sub fill rate was falling between 50 and 60% we stay between 80 and 90%
131now um there are a few days that we we take a dive down into the 70s usually Fridays or days before holidays but um some Mondays but you know we are providing substitutes for our our teachers who are out and I think that's important I know that the school board has heard a lot about um teacher time and if we don't have substitutes in our classrooms then um our teachers have to fill those those voids our teachers and our our PA Pros so it's taking their time away if they if they have to do that so we increased our sub budget and then um some positions that we are going to need and I'll go uh through them one by one we have Specialists uh reading Specialists um that's required due to the literacy act
132two additional teachers due to class size two at um Honey Run Elementary School uh their fifth grade class has um 27 students in each of the classes at fifth grade so we need another teacher there and their third grade class uh their Rising third grade class I believe is fairly large and one at North Fork Middle School to teach math um and we heard about that earlier this year in the school year we hired um we added two new programs at triplet Tech last year one was hbag and the other was otpt uh Claude Mo trust funded our otpt teacher for the first year so we're grateful for that money but now we need to include that person in our budget um we have a one-on-one PA Pro for a student with a disability need
133two van drivers to transport students with disabilities and then I am also requesting three custodian floter um positions um we have a high um either vacancy rate or absentee rate both or um at all of our schools so this would help um alleviate some of that uh there are times where we have two two custodians who are at a school in the evening trying to clean that entire ire school this would help with ensuring that our schools are cleanly our driver ed pay um we uh would like to increase that and then we have inflationary factor for transportation maintenance software costs these you know these were costs um that we may have paid for by um our cares funds and then stip in for dual androll teachers our dual androll teachers um above and beyond
134they teach um so their classes are both High School classes and college classes and so they have two um two separate systems that they have to keep track of um two separate grades that they have to do so and they have to have coursework Beyond a master's degree Masters plus 18 in order to teach dual enroll classes so um want to um honor the work that they're doing for us because it allows our students to get Associates degrees before they graduate from high school which in the long run saves parents money um when they send their kids to college if that's they're that's what they're doing so here are the dollar amounts plus just you know a one page I like to do one pagers so you can see exactly what we're looking at what
135we're requesting and there are the dollars that are associated with each of those I can come back to the slide but I've got maybe two or three more so it's um so our request for um locality is 5.1 million what um this will go down if we receive addition funds from the state we should know more we will not know the full story until the general assembly um concludes but we should have more information by our febru our next February meeting and I think so our next steps our next meeting at February 26th you'll hear more and it'll give you an opportunity to talk about the superintendent's priorities um give you an opportunity to talk about what you would like to see in the final budget and what you would like not to see in
136the final budget we have a work session with the Board of Supervisors on March the 4th at 1:00 school board approval of the budget on March the 14th and then um and then it's Board of Supervisors tax rate proposed budget and adopting the budget and then our final slice at the pie is on April the 22nd where we will adopt a final budget so we do a budget approval at March the 14th but we have another go at it on April the 22nd questions it's a lot of information I'd say we're overwhelmed but I think that would be an understatement so um it's been a long evening to be continued for sure but uh I do want to complement you on the completeness of this thank you this data that we're going to have to
137deal with so we have a we still have a a headyy part of our agenda ahead of us um I'm going to suggest that we take a a five minute break and reconvene because that um does it work for you okay and let's not make it 10 or 15 let's make it five uh so it's just about 9 after 9 after so if we convene at exactly quarter after we'll get started uh can I have a motion that we uh recess we recess until 9:15 second I second that all in favor say I I okay wasn't 9:15 but it's 918 so we'll reconvene 9:16 closer than I thought okay good thanks how you saved me all right uh we're going to continue on informational agenda uh and uh do Dr Shephard you you can get
138from into the frying pan Into the Fire and you can uh you can give us some information if you will about the model policies yes so I'll introduce the model policies at the January 2nd School Board organizational meeting two school board members requested adding information on the model policies on ensuring privacy dignity and respect for all students and parents in Virginia's public schools on the agenda for the January 11th School War meeting attached to the agenda item are the model policies on ensuring privacy dignity and respect for all students and parents in Virginia Public Schools and a draft resolution on designation of shindo County as a school safety and prot Child Protection sanctuary and policy on gender identity both the model policy on ensuring privacy dignity and respect for all students and parents in Virginia
139Public Schools in the draft resolution on designation of shanida County as a school safety and Child Protection sanctuary and policy on gender identity were presented at the January 11th um meeting for information discussion on both policies can occur this evening um occurred at the January 22nd meeting and there can be discussion this evening there will also be additional time for discussion at the February 26th meeting recommendation for approval will be at the um Thursday March 14th meeting there has been some work on both of these policies by school board members to try uh to align the policies and better reflect the needs of the school board so I will let um the school board members um have an opportunity to discuss the policies as they so choose let me um Let me let me take
140the uh the privilege of the chair and and try to frame the issue uh and I'd like to do it in terms of informational um issu since that's what we're required to do here is to is to take a look at this in terms of of an of an informational presentation the the expectation has been and we have actually U scheduled a um action item next month on on this issue and so we are as uh this concept has been um brought up brought before us by by two members of the board as Dr Shepard has has indicated the the two items that were kind of on the on the uh put on the agenda one was the set of model policies that uh the vdo e uh has uh developed and which the Attorney
141General uh has reviewed and um vdoe has um suggested that they be passed uh or even made more comprehensive so that that's some guidance that we've gotten from the yunan administration uh as has been mentioned earlier uh in public comments there is not a requirement to do anything uh and there is a default position which the school system is already implementing and then then there is the possibility of adding a further um in quotes more comprehensive version uh of these model policies and um Mrs uh carono has developed the draft of the first of those that she submitted and that and so those are the two uh those are the two versions that are before us for decision next next month next meeting in in in March however we are not bound to just stay
142with those two as have have been stated has have been um posited here we can make as a board any changes we want and uh in that regard uh I think it's good that the board know that uh Mrs Carone and I and I have been working on trying to um change modify um the draft resolution and the policy and then someone again mentioned this during Public public statements uh so that they may be considered separately resolution and policy all those things have yet to be be decided and so it's up to the board to decide which of these items in in what form we would like to vote on if we if we bring this to to action as it's scheduled uh so there's every possibility that we that there could be that the
143draft resolution could be changed significantly uh and so it may not be the same one here uh but as soon as that happens we will present it to the superintendent who will make sure that it's available for everybody to see the um one of the things that was mentioned earlier too was that um we want to make sure that the lawyers have eyes on this and can give us a um an idea of what we can expect to have in terms of challenges or more to the point the the validity or ability for for um for that policy to be implemented successfully so it's it's um it's it's a it's a moving developing issue and I think it's we've actually we've used a model we've talked about before of having a a three month gestation
144period which I think has worked well because we've heard a number of people number of ideas and and and we we we take those in into consideration so um we I uh am inviting the other members I'll I'll be working with Mrs Rodell and policy committee but also be working with uh Mrs uh careno for for any way we and we may not come to a to to a a joint um agreement we may have yet another a third that would or we may put one of these on the floor and it may be amended in the in at our next meeting but the point is that we are developing as we go along um we're looking at we're assessing different aspects of this that take into account and I don't want to talk about
145what we think is more important and not important because that starts to get into whether we now start to talk about what we think is the proper way to do it and what I think is right and what you think is right and and and I don't think that's proper for us to do um in an information brief I think that is more proper to do under Robert's Rules when we actually debate and then decide to uh approve but but I do think that we are still eliciting input from board members as well as the public um and as always we look to the administration as well to let us know things that are workable and and particular insights but um for so this is a work in progress It's something which is iterative and
146which will be very active in the next week or so uh because we want to have time for the lawyers to be able to look at this and to be able to give us some advice be before we before we put it up as a as a proposal um again I I it is not our role I think to debate the the pros and cons of any particular role tonight but I um do um invite Mrs caria to make any comment she she she would like to about about how she sees the process without getting into the again the you know the pros or cons but just the process well so I um I guess what I'll do I have some remarks that I was going to give today that address a lot of the
147issues that we um have been brought up by people in the public and also some questions that it seems people have both in the public and also in the board um I probably serve that um I will have some comments prob at the end of the meeting um just addressing a couple of the things but um I just want to reiterate that yes we have been working on this we've been putting many hours working on this um alternate draft um we're incorporating a lot of the things from The Young implicit policy in there and then we're also um trying to Define better A lot of those terms uh because the yankan policies are a little bit more vague and they're vague on purpose they're actually just model policies and then they're given to us and
148then we have to fill in the blanks so we are working on that um and I appreciate that because we've been putting a lot of time into that so hopefully we'll be able to to bring that um forward um by the next meeting and have a vote on it and and uh I would like to um reiterate uh what M Mrs careno just said in terms of school board members should not worry about speak during school board member comments tonight it if we want to say something about this it's it's it is germine and it's right that we do so so but but I I do not think it's proper that we do so during the informational brief so I think with that uh Dr Shepard we've we we we try tried to give a
149sense of process here uh and then and so I I think we can we can let it go with that for the moment and then if any uh Schoolboard member does have any thing they want to say in terms of advocacy or whatever during Schoolboard member comments uh that would be the proper time so um with that uh we're going to move to uh we're ready to um to hear from um Miss Stein never thought you'd get a chance did you but it long last we're going to hear about the U request increase of special budget fund for fiscal year 24 thank you Mr chairman thank you members of the board um first I'd like to bring tonight we're requesting to increase a special budget for um The Early Childhood originally licensed teacher Grant um
150this is uh funding to support highly qualified um high quality instruction in early childhood classrooms specifically to support Early Childhood teachers um it helps them become fully licensed and it was awarded to shander County public schools in the amount of $24,000 so this is for information tonight and it will be on your action items um on your March 14th meeting questions are there any strings attached to this no strings attached um when when um I believe this hges applied for the grant um it goes back and forth a little bit um the process goes back and forth and they check on the teachers they verify everything before we actually get the award thank you yep keep going I'll keep going all right the next one is the request to reappropriate um a reimbursable grant um
151for those of you that were on the um board previously uh you remember we got um about $106,000 uh for a simulation ambulance um because of supply and demand and the building it it ran into the next F school year so we actually didn't get that um finished until September of this year so in order to finish paying for that we need to move those funds from last year to this year uh the amount of that is $71,900 it's completely reimbursable no local funds um and it will come from the claore grand questions one more go for all right we're just bringing you lots of money tonight uh this one's this one is small but it is important um it it helps support the mentor teacher program um the purpose of the grant is to
152provide funds to compensate Mentor teachers those um specially trained um Public School teachers who serve as mentors to provide assistant and professional support to teachers entering the profession and those that might need just a little bit of extra assistance um to become at acceptable level so the amount of this grant was $492 and um we just need you guys to appropriate it so again it's for information tonight and we'll vote on that um on March 14th great we you get very little push back when you bring us money I know no questions thank you thanks Andrew we move into the uh the portion now where we will take uh action items under consideration uh subject to 6.1 uh is uh the recommendation by the superintendent to petition the Virginia Department of Education to revoke the
153teaching license of employee a do I hear a motion from somebody on the board move to approve the recommendation of the superintendant to petition the Virginia Department of Education to revoke the teaching license of employee a the motion um of said motion has been made by Mr Rickard is there a second to that motion second Mr careno Seconds that U Move that motion um is a roll call vote necessary okay so um you're on Cheryl roll call Mr stre yes Miss caria yes Mr bsha yes subject uh 6.2 also personnel um do I uh hear a motion that we approve the Personnel list as was presented earlier this evening I move to approve the Personnel list as presented motion has been made uh by Mr Rickard is there a second second second by Mr Street
154all those in uh favor uh we're going to do the roll call again are we okay okay Mr Street yes Miss careno yes Mr gut Shaw yes Mr Ricker yes and Mr B yes okay so 6.3 action is to request to increase the fiscal year 2024 operational budget for additional State funds applied for and received for reimbursement to teachers enrolled in and have paid for dual enrollment courses I move to approve the request to increase the fiscal year 2024 operational budget in the amount of $10,000 for additional State funds applied for and receiv received to reimburse teachers who have enrolled in and have paid for do enrollment courses thank you Mr Guta for that motion is there a second to that motion second Mrs careno seconds the motion um and we will take a roll
155call vote Mr straight yes M careno yes Mr Guta yes Mr Ricker yes and Mr Barlo yes 6.4 policy bdde Rules of Order um there was a recommendation uh last month or probably previous made by Mr Rickard that we codify and um that we accept for our rules Robert's Rules of Order uh and uh there was a consensus at our Workshop or work session that that happened uh and there was further discussion that we would consider uh Contracting with the parliamentarian to make sure that we do things the right way correct way streamlined way and um we are now entertaining a motion to uh to that effect is anybody ready to make that motion I move to approve the modif ation to policy bdde Rules of Order as presented into contract with a parliamentarian for
156school board meetings um I'm wondering here if we need to if I think our discussion was that we make it Robert's Rules of Order what I think Dr Shephard had Redlin yes and and so that was Dr Shepard that was the way you've actually presented to us yeah the shanid County School Board adheres to Robert's Rules of Order and adopts bylaws policies and regulations it's a little further down in the um explanation summary yes okay so that would um who who made that who made that motion was that you okay would you would you restate that then please I move to approve the modification to policy bdde Rules of Order as presented into contract with a parliamentarian for school board meetings all right thank you Mr Rickard is there a second to that motion second
157Mrs careno seconds it and we're ready for a vote Mr stre yes Miss caria yes Mr gsha yes Mr Ripper yes and Mr bar yes now we're ready for the superintendent's report monthly report thank you academics congratulations to our scps Belling be winners um kayen Adeline deala Lindsay Leighton and Trevor they will be uh represent chendo County public schools in the regional Stell andby in March in Harrisonburg Virginia our January attendance was 94.23% an increase of almost 1% over the last year and we would like to continue to thank our families for making attendance a priority and to thank our teacher staff and administrators for their hard work this year to improve attendance under the music category congratulations to our music students who were selected for all district orchestra band and choir and School Musical
158spring concerts and District concert assessments are coming up I encourage everyone to come out and enjoy our music and Theater events our students and staff put a lot of hard work into their performances and they always do a fantastic job Athletics congratulations to our all of our swimmers who competed in the Regional Championship the strawsburg girls swim team won first place and the Mountain View boys team finished second the strawsburg wrestling team won their six straight District team title good luck to all of our wrestle wrestlers competing in the regional tournament this weekend and then also congratulations to Macy Smith for becoming the strawsburg high school basketball alltime leading score so be happy to answer any questions regarding the superintendent's report there any questions for the superintendent lot of big news coming out of stroll
159you going to say that all right um then I suppose we on to the uh board members comments is anybody who would like to go first I guess I can go first um so as we said we I had a little remarks that I wanted to give regarding the policy um I'm going to go ahead and stve them for the next meeting but I did want to address a couple of the things that have come up um regarding uh a few of the main questions U for example the whole idea the whole question about illegal liability and um I just wanted to to say that absolutely everybody knows that anything you do these days um can be subject to litigation um but what we have here in this policy um is something that Governor Yin
160has has passed has um suggested and has actually been seen by General uh attorney general Miis and he affirmed it um and his constitutionality in a form of written legal opinion um as today there has been zero lawsuits with regards to this policy and in fact the only threat of litigation was um against the Virginia Beach uh school board for not adopting the policies so it wasn't until they actually decided to adopt the policies that the threat of litigation went away um the other thing is we get a lot of questions about the Y model policies and why aren't we just passing that and aren't they good enough and the answer is no and both government Yin and attorney general mies both of them stated it in their statements when they said is School board
161shall adopt policies that are consistent with but may be more comprehensive than this sample policy uh throughout the process of drafting this policy I have spoken to more than a dozen people uh either attorneys or people who have actually worked or spoken personally to Governor Yan yon regarding this policies and every single one stated that the model policies were a watered D down version of what the governor really wanted uh designed to have those politically split uh split school boards um it was always the expectation that predominantly conservative boards such as ours are supposed to be would actually adopt this more stringent measures um another thing that I wanted to kind of address is the idea of um just this is not something that we should be focusing on and this is very important it's
162important because we're trying to protect all the students not just the girls um not just the boys not just the teachers much as the staff but even the transgenders or or the students who are facing gender identity um questions um as well and I will talk about that more next time but I did want to mention that just because we're working on this doesn't mean we're working we're not working on anything else and I can assure you already in the first month that I've been here I've spent a lot of time I mean dozens and dozens of hours that we have spent talking to stf talking to miss Shephard talking to other school board members going to the schools so we're doing both things at the same time I can actually walk and shoot gum
163at the same time believe it or not um but um just wanted to bring those issues up because I know a lot of people have brought them but um I do have a lot more to say next time and I just want to say a lot of the comments that I heard today I'm even wondering what polic is going on I mean it almost seems like there's an alter alternate policy out there that people are reading that I don't know about because what this policy is doing is just setting some parameters for what we're doing we're not Banning transgender kids we're not uh afraid of them we're not denying them we're just saying what parameters need to be put in place for a school system to be able to to recognize them and what kind
164of issues we're going to have to deal with once we have them in school so um I urge everybody to go ahead and read the the policy and if they have any questions please um feel free to reach out to any of us and again thank you all for coming here today and for everybody who spoke up um one way or another I appreciate that thank you how good next go um I gotta kind of tag on to miss caria the stuff that was said here tonight about bigotry and bullying you're not going to find people that love our kids any more than we do and bottom line is it's our job to protect them that means protect every single one of them it doesn't matter whether they're having gender identity issues whether they identify
165as queer or whatever the bottom line is when one of those children go into the bathroom it's our responsibility to make sure they're not bullied or beat up or anything like that in the bathroom so that's what makes policies like this necessary when you got to spell it out so that everybody understands including the staff this policy the emails I've received I sit there and I read the email and I go did this person even read the same policy that I'm reading because I don't think they did I don't think they can get past the word transgender on the policy um the bottom line is this protects our staff it protects the parents it protects the kids um I'll have more to say about it in the work session and in the upcoming meetings I
166really hate to look like we're kicking the can down the road cuz I can't stand that that's one thing I can't stand is red tape um and I know several of these board members had talked about how they couldn't wait until we got on the board with them and we could Co collaborate and work together and it seems like that's that's tough job these days um the one thing I will end with is I urge our admin uh when you go to meet with a teacher remember your days as a teacher we have a lot of teachers reaching out to us right right now that are suffering burnout and they're uh they're on the verge um so when you go to meet with those teachers maybe ask yourself does it need to be an hour
167meeting can we condense it down to 15 minutes um we've got a lot of good staff and I hate to see any of them leave thank you you what uh yes real quick um I guess I am I'm also a bottomline person um I do look forward to seeing um what can come together between governor yunin and Mrs carlino's proposal what we can intertwine and come up with I do agree with what already has been said um protecting everybody all the students the staff and uh um what is it it you know frankly I think sometimes the more we you know been B this or B that it becomes more complicated um but anyway I am looking forward forward to what we can come up um yes I don't want to kick the can down
168the road I don't want to drag out but at the same time I do want us to do our due diligence and and make sure we feel comfortable and right what we come up with um moving on I want to thank uh ww Robinson for the thank you card that they sent me I appreciate it means a lot um also just want to throw out there what I've kind of been up to here uh since January 1st um officially visited Honey Run Elementary um had a good a great tour and a great um opportunity there with Mrs burner um also officially toward North Fork Middle School with Mr Dunham um so I have yet to go um the next on the list down the road is um officially visiting Mountain View High School um I've
169taken the time to spend with the transportation department um there's no doubt about it um that facility is uh it needs attention it needs to be brought up to speed in time to day are they skimping by yes but I think um they deserve some attention um so meaning in that department um uh also taken time to deal with um Dr shepher mentioned the healthc care met today trying to do the best that can be done for our employees is uh very big on my list um I do um I'm a person that's all about respect uh respect is very high on my list um how we treat one another how people are treated um we're we all are human beings and and so respect is how individuals are treated but so under that I
170you know she can tell you you know I'm not not even on the shandai employee healthcare system and it really I was really bummed cuz I you know we're trying our best to do to help these employees out and it's U there some hurdles um all I can say is we're doing our best we're looking at all options we you know how can we make it financially better for our employees so all I can say is we're doing our best um I've had time to um even though um may not be uh my committee but I did have to take the time to spend with uh Mr Danny warts today under these um facility projects and you know looking into that what what the needs are and and just giving things attention and how can
171we do it better um it's you know I hope that somehow some way we can um juggle this whole budget thing and I hope that we can work together with the Board of Supervisors because you know they need to be a part of it too you know um you know yes they're Board of supervisor of the county we're the school board but in my book we have to work together we have to make them a part of this school system um you know they have kids you know some of them have kids they're in the school system so we have I'm hoping and look I'm looking forward and hoping we can work together to somehow juggle this big um equation uh the needs you know that we need um and um what can be done
172there in the revenue where that comes from and and how can we make this thing work so um so far I do want to compliment Dr Shepard I've enjoyed working with her so far this year and uh she's a great person to work with and uh that's all I have thank the uh finance committee met when was that last week Friday U Miss careno and I met with the part of the finance committee and our primary objective was looking at the capital Improvement um Capital Improvement plan that's something we went through tonight there's probably I don't know if there's any more left over there but that's this big list here saw it on the slideshow earlier uh um so a lot of discussions and some of our priorities we I'm sure we'll get to that
173at the next work session and then at the next committee meeting um other thing is got I got to go to ww Robinson I was invited like a week or two ago the um positive peer leadership team so when I got there I was given cards if all the board members would lift up their cards that'd be nice so we all got our own little cards Miss rutz has one as well um this leadership your you got two of them I what you talking put right there there you go he's the only one that got two and he couldn't find one black um this is a group that I think it's like a maybe fifth graders I can't remember what the group consists of but they're trying to Mentor I guess you younger kids first
174grade second grade and and yeah um but I think they they meet every once in a while they have a couple of different leaders or advisers within the school that kind of operate it so it's always good to have you know leadership groups whether it's at the elementary level or middle or high so um thank you to the schools we've gotten plenty of invitations this month to different events and stuff and I think that's one thing that we probably do better than a lot of school systems is it's a very open and transparent um process for the most part you know our schools actually want us in there which I know some places that's not the case um so I'm glad that they're willing to have us in to see what's going on um one
175thing for the new board members to know is February you eat really well there plenty of uh meal opportunities but anyways um a lot of good things happening inside the schools and um hopefully board members will be able to attend some of the events throughout the County during the month that's all I have Mr chairman I have can I say one more thing I forgot go forward um also I forgot to mention because I was very impressed and I apologize forgetting about I also visited and toward trip Tech um I was very impressed with that um when I went school I went through school I didn't go through trip Tech so I wasn't didn't really know much about it I admit um but I do want to compliment the administration there Mr Lynn uh very
176impressed with that school and all those departments and the and the direction that they're getting our students in and all kinds of different fields I was it's it's it's amazing amazing and that school deserves a lot of credit um so anyway that and um also I just ask everybody once again that you keep Brandy and her mom and our prayers tonight uh for their situation no I forgot I'm sorry I I did forget Mr Gilbert actually mentioned it bit but we did meet with the personnel and I know um Mr R actually mentioned it a little bit but we did met met um for that committee and we're trying to come up with ways that we can better retain and and recruit teachers so uh it was very informative meeting so U we look forward
177to getting a lot of stuff done well don't act like you're getting up yet come on just uh I'm not going to say anything else basically about the model policies because what you had said as a group I'm with you I I I think the we're in the business of education and anything that distracts from us achieving education is bad and uh so um we need to make sure every child is valued is protected and every child um has the ability to learn without distractions that can be even worse than distractions that can be dangerous and and I think we're on the right track that's that's my opinion uh Second and so I'm just going to leave that that issue till we get back to it to it next month but we'll we'll be developing
178uh I want to as I do a lot I I I think that the U superintendent and her staff have done a really good job of reiterating the uh the anti-drug and the and the pro attendance the the messaging that keeps coming out uh I'm I'm working with a another committee I'm on i' I they told me that you have to repeat something nine times before they get it well you're you're telling them often enough so it's making a difference so so good for you and thank you for not falling off off of those important uh messages it's very very important um the what I have been impressed with with this board is I I've never seen uh five people jump into being independent actors as I have with this school board uh with with
179personnel with the teacher retention with morale with with the budget with um Miss Carino had an idea for um a whole of I'll call it whole of government but a whole of County uh interest in mental health uh which which we know is important and um I want to see uh and and and Tom going to places like transportation and and and uh health insurance and things like that and not acting like Grand Puba but soaking up what he can find and come back and have an understanding of it and this is what I see this board doing um I just think it's God is is very very ironic when when our youngest member has to be the guy who's the most unflappable and the rest of us are out there spinning around God does
180have a sense of humor the um I I'm going to give I'm going to end with my you ever see Ben her I love Ben her but um everybody else loves The Chariot scene okay I guess but um but I like the part where um I I should call him Ben her I'm going to call call him charlon hon I just love charlon so charlon hon is out there and he sees these four white horses and they're not pulling together but they're incredible horses and he can't he can't figure out you know the the the the guy who owns horses can't understand why they're not winning in the chariot races and and and and benur says you don't have them harness properly this one has this Talent this one has this T and I think
181that's what you guys remind me of of we we need to be harnessed to pull that Chariot and we can win the race and we're doing a lot of independent stuff I again I I've never seen such quick action to get into and be part of these committees never so it's it's really gratifying and and it it it speaks to your professionalism whatever so I I I think we need to keep that up and so yeah Schoolboard um recognition but but later it's going to be I mean this month it's going to be the Schoolboard clerk recognition and So based on what I just said about the benur thing I'm going to I'm going to quote Cheryl you ready for this whenever you get an email from from Cheryl it says at the bottom if
182I get this wrong I'm in trouble okay here we go so our duty is not to see through each other but to see each other through is that it isn't that a great concept I love that and so I I think we need to keep that in the back of our mind as a team and uh and uh and and with the school system as well so um so thank you guys for just jumping in with both feet and and doing it in with the proper spirit I think it'll pay off for every everybody so and you guys I've never seen some many people here at 10:00 usually it's one person in the back so anyway um I am ready to entertain a motion for dismissal I'm mov to ajour Jour well I could get
183it out of my mouth okay well I'm just going to make okay then meeting is adjourned at exactly 10:00 p.m. thank you