001going to call to order the um January 22nd 2024 work session of the shenoa County School Board pre-budget work session and meeting at 6:32 do we have a uh a motion to approve the agenda move to approve the agenda as presented I second any discussion all those in favor say I I I opposed okay uh before we get into the business of this evening's uh work session and and the information we're going to receive I wanted to kind of lay out the um the schedule for this evening because it's a little bit different than we've done before so you're probably aware we're going to have a work session uh dealing with um the items that are here mostly it's going to be on the uh model policies uh and that will that meeting will likely
002carry us past or up to 7:30 and at 7:30 we have the scheduled meeting not a work session but a a um a pre-budget public hearing and those uh citizens who have come and want to speak on on the uh the budget uh and their feelings on it we'll be given an opportunity from uh 7:30 um on to do that so while we are in recess from our work session we will conduct that meeting that meeting will only consist of public comments from those people here and I want to make this clear to you as well as anybody who comes here that uh the only comments and the only subject we want to hear have to deal with the budget uh because um it's going to be a long night it's dedicated for that there
003will be times for us to discuss the um the transgender uh policies and other things as well later but uh we want to get the pre-budget public hearings kind of u under control and started this evening and uh ladies I'm going to ask you uh Chris and and Cheryl if people come in while we're engaging in business and you just want to alert them to that I don't want somebody to come in at 6:40 and sit there for an hour and then when they get up and they want to talk about a different issue we say sorry you can't do that if I were them I wouldn't be happy uh but uh if they're if they're um cautioned that that's what we're going to do they they'll be able to just U depart and come
004back at at another time um then after the last of the public uh the the public uh speakers we will um close that meeting and then we will reconvene or we'll we'll yeah I guess we will yeah reconvene uh from our earlier recess and we will conclude the business of the work session uh and I I also um at that point I would like to conclude with um a a a we'll see if it's short but a session where there are uh School Board member comments to close out the evening and the reason I'm doing that is it um it does give the Schoolboard members kind of an official time to put something on the board that we don't necessarily need to discuss tonight but we want to make sure it's um on the docket
005or in um the do Loop if you will for the school board and for the superintendent for for future action so that's that's the that's the way I think we'll proceed um so we're um we're here for um to hear the presentation information about the budget development process Dr shepher thank you all yours so I am handing around the presentation you can look at it on this screen um or it's right in front of you um in case you want to take [Applause] notes back that way there's a few extra copies so this evening we're going to talk about um our fiscal year 25 budget um we're continuing our journey to success which is there on the first page and if you scroll if you move to the second page you'll see an overview of
006what what we're going to discuss this evening so we'll be talking about our vision division goals Mission Vision beliefs talking about student and information Personnel Capital Improvement budget process and information we'll talk about the fiscal year 2025 budget focus and then there will be an opportunity for questions so we' like to start our meetings with the division um goals vision mission and beliefs and our goal is really for all students to be ready for what comes next so whether it's a 12th grader who's graduating high school or whether it's a um and heading off to college or into the workforce we want them to be prepared for whatever it is they want to do after they graduate high school or maybe it's our fifth graders moving to sixth grade we want to make sure that
007they have the skills that they need in order to be prepared for the Independence that they're going to get as they move on to um sixth grade or our second graders who are transitioning from learning to read to reading to learn we want to make sure that all of our students have what they need in order to be successful so right after school ended last year we facilitated um some meetings with our schools and their leadership teams at each of the schools and each of those schools were comprised of um principals teachers School leaders and we talked about what we need to do for continuous Improvement so we put together we dissected data we planned for our 23 24 school year and then these plans became our Northstar throughout the summer we met with school
008leaders to St set the stage for this school year we started the school year with 14 new administrators which were new to the county or new to their position we had an incredible opportunity to set expectations for this school year and establish strong knowledgeable leadership we use the information we learned from parents community and staff to establish common expectations and improve impr our school culture next you'll see our division Mission and our mission is to prepare students for lifelong learning emphasizing the importance of student preparation valuing and respecting all members of The Learning Community fostering a work environment built on trust and open Communication in prioritizing continuous Improvement next is our division Vision we want to be the top division in in the state we want um to Foster success in in all of our
009students maintain high standards for our Personnel promote goals and values and recognize Superior performance and we also want to align with our Virginia Department of Education standards of learning and then our beliefs at our core is a commitment to what is best in the best interest of our students we recognize that meaningful relationships are Paramount to student learning and growth at the element at the elementary as the elementary students said in their attendance videos over the last several weeks that our students are worth it so that was our Vis uh division Mission Vision goals and and beliefs now we're going to talk about student enrollment and student information so I think I'm on slide number eight you will notice over the last 12 years that there has been a steady decline of students here in
010chanida County since 2012 we have 581 students less however our fall uh Student Records collection uh indicates that we have 73 more students in K12 this year than we did last year but we have 15 less prek students than last year we went from 199 prek students to 184 prek students so you'll see a slight uptick this year in student enrollment here's a different way of looking at our student enrollment data you will notice again um the dark BL blue column is our um our fall enrollment and then the lighter blue is our March membership so it declines from September through March each year we started the year with 557 K12 students and we anticipate we'll we'll end with 500 or 5,000 400 and some but more than we had last year so looking at
011our our enrollment Trends here are our elementary schools and you will notice a couple of things here at honeyrun elementary school we have 114 additional students in that building um more this year than last year and if you were recall we moved the fifth grade students from North Fork Middle School to honeyrun elementary school in the eighth graders from Mountain View High School to North Fork Middle School to make room for Mass nuton Regional Governor school so that we can add a couple of programs at triplet Tech which was HVAC and occupational physical therapy assistant and you will notice a slight decrease at Sandy Hook Elementary School in WW Robinson um during the year of 2020 2021 we move the fifth grade students to the middle schools during Co the next slide are our middle
012schools and then the following slide are our high schools and again in 2020 2021 you'll notice Central High School and strawsburg High School had a slight increase because they have eighth graders which Mountain View High School already had you'll notice a decrease at Mountain View High School from this year um from last year to this year because the eighth grade moved back to North Fork Middle School and just for your information Mass nuton Regional Governor school has about 80 students so they lost a little over a 100 students and they gained 80 students from Governor School so one of the ways we predict our kindergarten class is by birth rate so we're able to look at uh the Virginia Department of Health to give us this information so you will notice over the last 20
013couple years um the birth rate has been between 400 and a little over 500 that uptick there in 20067 um those are our Juniors and seniors um this year so will graduate so you see 537 births in 2006 and 538 in 2007 those are probably two of our larger classes and they'll graduate this year and next year and if you'll notice the the next slide will show it better um but you'll notice that we had a slight decrease a significant decrease from 2020 to 2022 inverse so the the students who were born in 2018 are our kindergarten students so the dark blue line on this side slide are is the birth rate and the lighter Blue Line are the number of students who entered kindergarten and you will notice that we have fewer students who
014attend kindergarten than were born 5 years earlier so for 2023 about 82% of the children that were born actually made it to um one of our schools as a kindergarten student in 2022 that was 77% so it has increased a little bit over the last year in percentage a students born 5 years earlier versus kindergarten enrollment so any questions right now about birth rate or enrollment at our particular schools we're going to go into some student population information here next I have one question going back to the September enrollment versus the March average daily membership what causes that decrease in the same school year year so a couple of things so one um one of the things that we don't necessarily encourage are students who graduate um in December so we prefer to have students
015all year because we have opportunities for students for the whole year but some students because of circumstances will graduate in December so that's one of the reasons um there are others as well students moving out of the county and so on and so forth so y good question thank you so the next slide number 15 details our free and reduced lunch eligibility so it's fluctuated over the last 10 years uh the lowest number of students eligible for free and reduceed lunch was um 2,621 students in 20145 and the um the high over the last 10 years was in 2020 21 with almost 3,000 students um eligible for free and reduce lunch our this slide shows the number of English Learners in chanida County Public Schools you will notice an increase from 2014 to 2024 or
0162021 and then over the last three years the number of English Learners has leveled off and then we have our on slide number 17 we have our um students with 5504 plans and our students with disabilities uh you'll notice that this year our students with disabilities are slightly less than last year at 900 versus 9008 and then our students with 504 plans um from 356 to 3:30 so 504 is separate from the I DEA special education regulations but provisions of 504 services are similar to the compliance needed for special education so we have to offer specialized instruction or Specialized Care for students who have a 504 plan so there's a lot of um legal requirements for students with 504 plans and accommodations so we're rounding out our student information in population are there any questions
017about any of the information presented so far any additional yes um do we have that the student population for the special education and the 504 plan um split up by school or by level like Elementary Middle High yes yes um we do I have it on a spreadsheet that I can send to you I don't have it with me yeah let me write myself a j a note all right so we're on to Personnel so some of this information may be a repeat to school board members from information that was presented in September of this year but I thought it was worth repeating because this is one of the areas in which um we will be a focus this year is teacher retention so you'll notice that in 2022 23 the column to the to
018the left um we had a 15% teacher turnover staff turnover the next slide you will notice that 47% of the teachers who left had 11 or more years of experience however 66% of our staff have seven or more years of teaching experience so that's 24% have 0 to three and let me see where like green 14% have four to six so 34% of our our teaching staff has 0er to six years so who do we the 15% of of the teachers who left where did they go they went to Frederick Rockingham and Warren and some of them left the education industry all together so this is a fairly busy slide it's slide number we filled 107 teaching positions 16 administrator vacancies 19 PA par of professionals and we still have vacancies actually we just hired
019a speech pathologist recently but we still have an a teacher vacancy middle school math teacher middle school English teacher special ed teachers tech ed teacher school counselors math and some elementary teachers so one of the reasons that teachers said say that they leave is because our health insurance is expensive um so here is the slide where I talk a little bit about our health insurance so we are competitive at the employee only so our rate is $55 which includes Dental a Comprehensive Dental the a th000 uh the ET a th000 plan so it's $505 versus Frederick County's $91 and then Rockingham 71 um there is a note that Rockingham has a wellness employ discount of $25 per month so that would bring it slightly below um our employee only if they do the wellness employee
020Wellness discount you will notice that employee plus child were comparable to Rockingham but well above Frederick employee plus children were the highest of all three employee plus spouse um were competitive there lower a little lower than um Frederick and Rockingham and then employee plus family were higher however we did make sign significant um progress over the last couple of years so last year alone we decreased our employee plus children by $336 so it was about $1,250 per month and now it's $913 and then um employee plus family also decreased by 336 employee plus spouse decreased by $216 per this is a per month cost so one of the questions you may ask is why is our health insurance so expensive and it's because we have a a large number of large claims so um and
021we don't want to discourage our our um employees not to use their health insurance because that's what it's there for but we do have a large number of employees who have large claims uh we are going out for bid and I'm looking at Linda um Miss Hodes do you know when we are when we will receive the bids for our health insurance they're due by Fe February 16th so to see if we can get a better rate we because of our large claims um we anticipate an increase in health insurance Mr Rickard is the number of Staff between us and Frederick County or Rockingham County does that correlate at all to the cost like us having less staff than them we do have less staff than them both but if their if their claims aren't
022as high as our claims um at the end of October Linda correct me if I'm wrong I think it was at the end of October Etna was paying out a dollar eight for every dollar that we we gave them so they were paying eight more cents than what they were receiving to doctors and pharmacist than we were giving them um which is not not a great business practice but um um and last year it was similar but it was a little higher than that joining other school divisions to lower the cost is there any is that even feasible is it even an option so um and I hate to say this out loud but I don't think that anyone will want to join with us because of our experience rate because it's so high because
023it would increase there so like if we went with somebody with lower experience rate it would increase their um their health insurance rates by experience rate you're talking about the dollar eight to the dollar yeah okay and the amount that we use our health insurance so is that on target don't they have a different type of insurance system isn't it like a self a self-funded and that plays part in it as well um and maybe maybe you can explain exactly what that is y so self-funded they still have to have an administrator who who um pays the claims and all of that but it's not with like an Etna or whatever so they they still have somebody that's hired to do that work for them because I know that I wouldn't know what to pay
024and what not to pay so they have to have an expert in the field in order to be able to do that so that does that therefore how does that lower their their payments so I be I don't know do you know I think it has everything to do with the claims their claims probably aren't as high as ours which is always interesting to me how such a small division closely I mean teachers are the same everywhere so what is it about shano County that need that we need to change or help out with to get some of those claims down is it you know student behavior and stress is it offering Wellness you know now that we have a County Wellness facility is it something that you know how do we get those claims
025down compared to comparatively to Frederick and to each end of the county yeah so I put that asri beside Rockingham for the wellness employee discount and I briefly that what they're doing is if a an employee goes to do their wellness check every year then they get this $25 a month discount so you know that's that's a thought is is our coverage better like are we paying more like let's say the claims is our insurance paying say 80% and Frederick County's is only paying 70% right so if you look at ours and Rockingham they're both a $1,000 deductible um program and uh Frederick say I believe was a 500 I didn't look this year um so their their deductible was a little less than our deductible our deductible being $1,000 so um but the plans
026are all typically the same I know when we were trying to um reduce the cost we look at we looked at some of the things and increased some um payouts some some deductibles on our payouts so um so we just have a un unhealthier staff unfortunately is what is what it comes down to some and some are you know those large claims are you know 10 individuals or 20 individuals but it happens how long have we had Edna three years two years years what do we have before Blue Cross Blue Shield so we'll get the results back in mid-February and um we'll see what our rates are yeah so so last year there were more claims paid than the company receive premiums which is not a great business model so we knew they were going
027to have to do something to recoup their loss or do we think that the same trend is continuing this year that yes so we do wow okay it's down from last year but it's still continuing yeah and we dumped a bunch of money into that to get those premiums down yeah we did any other questions before I move on health insurance is a big deal Capital Improvement so this is what you are going to see in the next few slides as a draft um I want to give you a little bit of background on our Capital Improvement plan a team from the division from here visits each of the schools to determine their CIP needs um their Capital Improvement project needs along with principal's input so each of the projects recommended for the CIP list
028are evaluated to determine if the project is ranked desirable necessary or urgent the ranking is based on six criteria um impact on student learning impact on health and safety vehicle equipment facility condition the planning need uh time needed level of service Prov provided an Energy Efficiency and stab uh sustainability so the Schoolboard finance and budget committee will meet on February 2nd at 2 pm to discuss this draft um Capital Improvement plan but I put it in here just for your information on the things that were on the plan the very next slide just shows you the um our facilities the amount of square footage that we have when the building was built and and the renovations and additions that we have had so if you'll notice we have um just a little over a thou
029a million uh square foot feet and you also notice that the last major renovation was in 20034 and they they were at our high schools it's kind of funny to note so that so those Renovations were 20 20 years ago we're still calling the the gems new gems and old gems so on the next um on the next few slides you'll see the uh draft capital projects that were identified and we have them lumped in safety and uh security heating ventilation and air conditioning and you'll notice that second column is the priority whether it's necessary urgent based on those criteria I mentioned a few a few minutes ago and I'm not going to highlight any of these you can look at them at your at your leisure Roofing doors and locks and then other projects
030so at the top of the other projects is to repair the foundation at Peter mberg middle school and this is U one of the items we found last year um when we discovered an underground void and then we need to finish the repairs this year so you'll notice there are two on this particular page I think it's um slide 28 you will notice that there are two on there that are desirable um which may change based on information um or be taken off all together so and so the total for the maintenance CIP is estimated at one uh at 2.1 million and the Urgent and necessary are 1 almost 1.7 million which is off to the side these are the building and fixtures so it doesn't include like desks or anything like that right it's
031just a walls and then fixtures like the HB and all that yes yes it's the the big um missan what is what is included in CIP so anything over $5,000 is considered CIP so projects that are going to cost us more than that if we go and buy a desk or a chair they maybe $200 a piece or something like that so that actually goes under materials and supplies okay so it's by Price not necessarily by what it is exactly these are going to be your major projects okay and you'll see the next slide slide 30 talks about Transportation so over the last number of years we've been trying to purchase buses so um the V Doe recommendation replacement cycle is for 15 years so we we keep our buses for 15 years and um
032we have 52 buses that will need to be replaced over the next 5 years so this um the $2 million here would put us in um in a cycle to be able to replace that number of buses that need to be replaced over the next 5 years um I do have to say that our our um mechanics do a nice job maintaining our Fleet so there is no worry whatsoever that the buses that we have on the road are unsafe for students and you'll see a few other things here so about four or five rows down you'll notice replace driver's education car um we are one of the only School divisions in our area that actually does driver's education um for our students which I think is a great service for our our students and
033our community so and then the total for transportation would be at $3 million but again remember our um CIP committee our budget and finance committee is going to meet on February the 2nd to to review this does the transportation subcommittee do anything about the recommendations or so they have it but we can in the near future yes this most of their stuff is based on um age of vehicle or or equipment so one of the one of the things you may notice on our um on the request is a um tire changer and our um mechanics are actually doing that manually now so this would um help with efficiency and with potential workers comp claims and then we have a few asks for our um Athletics and at the very bottom of that slide you
034will notice that um it's a $5.9 million ask U or almost almost $6 million and then urgent and necessary was uh a little over 5.5 million and then the final I'm sure you cannot read this but I wanted you to be able to see all of the um all of the projects on one page yes I know you need my glasses but so it's nice to be able to see everything all together instead of in you know seven different slides or five or whatever that was so and then the last slide for I think it's the last slide for Capital Improvement is um how what has been funded over the last uh 13 years so um you will notice that fiscal year 23 that we requested zero and we received zero for Capital Improvement and
035that's because we received um quite a bit of cares funding that we put towards our CIP project so um and we also were spending this 4.2 million that um the county gave us in fiscal year 22 so um we were using car's funds and and those funds which almost which was close to $10 million at the end of the day on how much money we spent over those couple of years on on Capital Improvements so but when you have buildings that are the age of our buildings and major Renovations um the last major renovation being 20 years ago we're going to have some needs um capital Improvement needs to be able to maintain our facilities and I think we've done a nice job so it's continuing to maintain our facilities over the next next many
036years all right so now on to budget process and information so on slide 36 you will see the code of Virginia that um talks to the duty of the superintendent and the school board to submit a needs-based budget there are nine in this code it talks about classifications nine major classifications are prescribed by the Board of Education and um we use uh six of the major classifications so our categories that we use our instruction administrative uh Administration health and attendance pubil Transportation operations and maintenance and technology so we use all five of those categories but we also use the sixth category of food service um but since food service is self-funded um it's kind of its own separate um category the seventh category is facilities and um it includes activities concerned with acquiring land and
037building and at this time we do not utilize this C ategory the eighth category is debt and is used for principal and interest payments for Debt Service and we do we do not have any such debt and we do not use this category and then the ninth category is contingency reserve and we do not use that category either so we do use um we do use five instruction Administration attendance and health people Transportation operations and maintenance and technology and a six category which is its own separate category as food service and the timeline of preparing the budget it says that the division should should submit our budget to the Board of Supervisors by the first day of April and if everything works out as planned we should have our budget submitted to the Board of
038Supervisors on March the 14th and following is our timeline so you will notice in October we met with the budget and finance committee to talk about the upcoming budget and get the process started and then over the next several months from November until um December we met with our um department managers and our school principales to determine identify their budget priorities and then on December the 20th Governor yunan introduced his proposed 2024 2026 banian budget and then you'll see at the top of that list February 8th the superintendent proposes um the fiscal year 2025 budget and then there are work sessions the general assembly um concludes on March the 9th and then on March the 14th the school board um should approve a budget and then the school board will have another opportunity to look
039at the budget on April the 22nd um after the Board of Supervisors um and adopt their budget and tax rate the dates on this calendar for the Board of Supervisors are um will be approved at the Board of Supervisors meeting tomorrow so they are tentative at this time so where do our funds come come from so preparing a budget is like putting the pieces of a puzzle together we get funds from federal state local and then other funds from Grants and trusts so you will notice Federal is the least um Revenue that we receive about 1.4 million State um is the most Revenue we receive at 45 million and then local um operational is 32 million technology is uh almost 500,000 and then Capital Improvement last year or for this current fiscal year is 1.57
040million and then other which which I said earlier are grants and Trust things like that $276,000 from other so as I mentioned earlier the governor presented his proposed budget on December the 20th um however both the um house and the Senate are preparing their budgets now and um ultimately the governor the house and the Senate have to approve uh a budget you know they have to work together to get a um final budget um and the general assembly concludes about two two months from now so on March the 20th last year the general assembly ended up adopting a skinny budget in April of 2023 and then they Rec uh reconvened in September to pass their final budget uh final fiscal year 2024 budget um and actually this week there were 220 budget amendments released by
041The General Assembly so last week so um hopefully hopefully we'll have state information before we adopt our budget on on March the 14th so if you look at this slide um over the last is that seven years uh you will see that our federal funds have stayed um about the same except for in 2021 2022 and there were some cares funds that were put in our um operating budget during that year so our federal funds are about 1.7% of our total revenue I'm sorry and that's basically the food right is that mostly the food um so no no um Miss Stein do you want us what federal revenue do we receive so basically it's title six for special ed oh is the big chunk of it yes everything that you're seeing tonight is our operating
042budget um we're not including um that that food service budget yeah and food services self-funded so they support themselves by the money they receive for lunches or breakfast and lunch served so um any other questions about federal state funds state funds make up about 54% of our budget and it's divided into four Revenue accounts so we have our standards of quality which is based on our composite our local Composite Index our local Composite index for this BM increased about 4% from the last BM so um which means that our locality um ability to pay has increased so that means we'll receive less um State funds than we have in based on our Composite index for the standards of quality and you can see the chart to the right shows um the three factors that um
043the local Composite Index is based on it's based on true property value adjusted gross income and taxable retail sales and you'll see all three of those categories increased taxable retail sales increased the least amount but uh the true property value increased pretty significantly and we're talking about billions of dollars and not um Millions so like true uh true value of real property increase 1.5 billion adjusted gr income increased by 450 million and then retail taxable retail sales increased by about four uh million incentive program accounts are programs that are not required by the standards of quality but do provide benefits to our students like The Academic Year Governor school um the third category is categorical program account and this is for particular particular educational needs like homebound or Career and Technical education and then fourth
044is our lottery funded accounts um which are funds that we um receive from lottery sales and examples of lottery funded programs are our at risk programs early reading intervention and our K3 class size Reduction Program any question about our state fund before I move on the next slide show our state funds and you'll see there's been a steady increase over the last seven years to our state last eight years to our state funds and this is just highlights um the items that Governor yunan introduced in his by any by annual budget I'm not going to go through these but I will highlight a couple um provide a 1% bonus for instructional support positions for fiscal year 25 and then a 2% compensation supplement for instructional and support positions for um fiscal year 26 slide number
04545 shows update sales tax revenue all right and then moving on to our um slide 46 is our local funds you will notice there's been a increase over the last eight years in local funding and over the last last couple of years we expanded our Career and Technical education opportunities for our students we added H HVAC and occupational Physical Therapy Aid we um as Miss rut said we um spent a significant amount of money uh reducing our Healthcare premiums and adjusting pay to be competitive with those school systems that surround us uh fiscal year 22 which was two years ago we were able to adjust salaries for our teachers our PA professionals our bus drivers custodian and nurses and this past year we addressed adjusted salary scales for our food service employees um and then
046we have also given um some um Cola pay increases uh along the way as [Music] well any questions about local state and then the next slide are expenditures so where does our money go and in front of you have two ways to look at our expenditures to the left you will see we spend 75% of our budget on instruction and then you can see the other percentages there technolog is 2.7 operations and maintenance is 8.5 transportation is 7.6 and then Administration attendance and health as 6.2 and those are the categories that I was talk speaking about earlier that we're required to um our budget's required to have these categories or you can look at our budget on how much do we spend um in materials and supplies and so on and so forth 89% of
047our budgets of our budget goes towards salaries and and benefits for our people 3% materials and supplies um capital outlay is less than 1% principal in interest is less than 1% Professional Services is less than 3% miscellaneous fees is less than 3% questions all right so couple more slides so just about perfectly yes what's our what's our Focus for 202 2 for fiscal year 2025 so on slide 49 you will see um salaries health insurance we anticipate an increase in our health insurance uh we would like to continue to decrease um employees contribution there are several positions that um we need due to class size or because they're required reading specialist is um required due to our lit literacy act we need um additional two elementary teachers third and fifth grade at Honey Run Elementary
048School those class sizes are fairly large one at middle school that's North Fork Middle School I think it's math um OT occupational therapy Physical Therapy teacher position last year was paid by the Claude Moore trust and if we want to continue to offer that program we need to fund that teacher position um we need a one to one PA Pro for a student with a disability I'm not sure which school that is I think it may be ww Robinson Elementary School and then two van drivers for students with disabilities for students who are um going outside um shinoa County for their instruction we would like to increase our driver's education um instructor pay currently um our teachers are making $35 per hour for any after um school activities that they do and our driver ed
049teachers are making $25 an hour and all I have to say is that's um that is probably one of the jobs that would be fairly stressful is getting in a car with kids who um are just getting their driver's license so um we would like to increase that pay that's about 50,000 is that right yes yeah um and then the positions and purchase Services paid for by car's funds and you see the list there so we have nine student support Specialists um a fap coordinator a 504 coordinator half um FTE full-time equivalent of a maintenance secretary nurse coordinator teacher and then software purchase services and we increased our subsid budget as well all of those things were either paid for by cares or supplemented by cares uh and then also budget inflationary factor for um
050you know gas has went our fuel has went down slightly but it's still up from where it was a couple of years ago and we haven't put any inflationary Factor on fuel over the last two years is that right Angie we did put a little bit in last year but not significant and uh so that's Transportation maintenance annual software costs um are increasing mandatory valuations and then mandatory audit requirements so and then here are the next stabs so on February the 8th I'll propose a budget um on February 26th you will um talk about that proposed budget and um we'll have a public hearing on the budget March the 4th we um the school board will meet with the Board of Supervisors that meetings at 1:00 it's not required for school board members but if
051you're able to attend you're encouraged to and then on um March the 14th is final School Board budget approval oh Schoolboard budget approval and then final is April the 22nd so a lot will happen between now and April 22nd any questions on anything that was presented I don't want to um drill down too too much but the second to the last slide there it has the student support specialist and then the other I I know we're going to be considering what they've done how they're needed and maybe how they can be retained and financed sourced funded um but the the five positions below that um those folks are aware that they're working basically with sunset funds right so I'm going to have to let somebody else El answer that because these positions were moved from
052um our operations budget to car's funding before I got here so Angie or Linda that was after yeah for me too I'm not 100% sure maybe so the fact and the 504 coordinator were currently in our local budget before car's money came we had a deficit so we move moov those positions into car's funding um I do not know that those folks would know if their position is in I don't know what that conversation was the Vault proc was always that we would put them back into the operation budgets the other three positions were all part-time positions and so we moved them to full-time uh when car's money came one because all of the maintenance things that came with the car's money we needed a full-time person because a lot of the CP stuff that
053we had going on um the drama position to make it equal to the other two middle schools because that's at uh North Fork Middle School and then the nurse coordinator we were dealing with covid and we needed a full-time nurse coordinator so thus those three positions were moved to full-time so we probably need to be get a little ahead of this in that discussions with those folks about the fact that this is uh technically going to dry up uh and um even in staff planning how critical those positions are to see how much we have to invest ourselves in retaining them if that's what we want to do uh and some way to um uh to figure that out in term terms of budget requests and requirements as well so just I just don't want
054somebody to be caught short and like I didn't know I was leaving and I got you know I agree okay thanks and that's this year right so he's right up for next year so he's paid for yes throughout this year yes any other questions from the the schard great job thank you all right well um in just a second I'm going to contemplate uh calling a recess of the of the meeting here uh the next um special meeting will'll be hearing from anyone who has to speak on the budget and um Ronda I see you sitting over there are you going to be speaking okay so what we'll do is then we will um if I hear a motion for recess uh we'll we'll recess um the work session that we are working on currently
055at the present moment and then um we will immediately convene the the uh school special session for public comments on the budget and when that is done then we'll end that meeting and then we'll go back to the meeting that we're currently operating on so do I do I hear a motion that we recess the the work session I move we recess this pre-budget work session here second second okay all all in favor say I I closed Mr Street yes um I'm wondering if if there's just one speaker what I would inclin to do is let the speaker speak uh and then take a short break before we reconvene in the meeting so um so I I think that's so now the uh work session is uh is in recess and I'm going to uh
056call to order the uh shendo County School Board pre-budget public hearing uh of January 22nd 2024 and uh I call that meeting at [Music] 7:32 do I hear a motion from the board to um approve the agenda as presented I move to approve the agenda as presented I second all those in favor say I [Applause] opposed okay so the pre budget public hearing on funding requests uh we are ready for um public comment uh and before we do that I guess it's necessary that I read so Rhonda you might as well take a break while I read these things but I'm okay no I know you probably say it by heart but I'm going to read it anyway so uh a public hearing was scheduled for Monday January 22nd 2024 at 7:30 in the County
057Board of the sheno County Government Center uh 6 North Main Street Woodstock for for the sheno County Board School Board to receive news of citizens within the school district in accordance with Section 22.1 d92 B of the code of Virginia regarding the 2024 25 estimate of monies needed for public schools uh Ronda actually I'm going to break here before I go on with these the the the discussion that you're going to give is pertinent to the budget correct absolutely okay thank you uh prior to the superintendent's proposed budget for 20 uh fiscal year 25 the 202 2425 school year a public hearing is held to receive feedback from the community the shenoa County School Board welcomes public comment during the most during most regular meetings and during public hearings school board members do not respond
058to public comments during the meeting or hearing each speaker may speak up to three minutes the Board General allows up to 30 minutes for public comments on agenda and non-agenda items at the beginning of the meeting if there are a large number of speakers the board May limit the total time for comments and or may reduce the time allotted for each speaker all comments should address a matter related to shenoa County Public Schools complaints regarding division employees should be directed to the school principal or an appropriate School Division official the school board expects that each speaker will be courteous modeling for our students how one can respectfully disagree with others views speakers will address their comments of the entire school board and not to one individual School uh School Board member to the superintendent to
059a staff M nor to the audience speakers will not engage in personal attacks uh speakers May sign up to speak at the Schoolboard meeting or public hearing on a document provided by the clerk of the school board speakers are invited 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 speakers who wish to speak on more than one topic must submit a separate request for each item and since uh I'm not going to read the written comments portion um and uh R you all ready to go you you signed up okay good all right oh there it is thank you hello Dr Shephard chairman Barlo and board members thank you
060for allowing me to speak my name is Ronda Richard I live quick as we enter into next year's budget talks let me remind you that your financial support comes from taxpayers taxpayers in shender County are hurting and unless you're employed by scps you are not getting those 5 6% pay rates I was contacted a few days ago by an scps employee this person stated that scps has nonworking whiteboards projectors and desk in rooms that date back to the early 1990s some even have computers that need upgrades or replacing but not having funds available they will need to wait until next year I have obtained via forye requests the following email let me read a portion I'm sending this email to you with the first day of our school administr administrator in Institute you may have
061heard that we are planning a multi-year professional development Institute for Building administrators this this first year will be a learning Journey for us all the goal is to establish a strong knowledgeable and highly skilled leadership team that functions at a high level and is fully supported every day the reality is that we have an incredible opportunity over the course of the next year to evaluate the success of our school system maybe more than we ever have the first phase of the Institute will be July 10th 12th 14th each day will be organ ganized around an essential goal or Focus area for the division day one July 10th we will focus on team building and establishing common expectations lural Ridge Community College Luray day two July 12th will focus on culture climate and conduct day three
062July 14th will'll focus on instructional leadership on July 10th we will meet at Laurel Ridge Community College in Luray at 8:00 a.m. we will spend the morning in productive conversation and activities and have lunch about 12 11:30 after lunch we will will transition to shannond River alfet and enjoy a canoeing trip up on the shannond river at 1:00 talk about team building this email was sent by Dr Hein Gardner on June 14th if this is for school administration why didn't include directors of finance and HR among others from the Schoolboard office not all admins were even in attendance when we when will SB sbh do team building the bonding with teachers drivers PA professionals within the schools as a school board member told me it's not like they were sitting around having Bon bonss eating
063I'm sorry as it's not like they were sitting around drinking mimosas and getting massages well it sure seems like a good time on our dime I was also told that several businesses do this yearly I agree but not on taxpayers bikes of to question how scps can find the funds when it's something that they feel is needed but when it's something that teachers and staff or students need they don't have a problem asking the community parents are literally hit the first week of school with fundraisers and are asked to to supply meals to athletes and field trips Etc the Sai included the rental of canoes to the tune of8 $585 what skill was taught or learn floating down the river 3 days of lunches 40 meals built per day and only 25 people in attendance
064the total for this taxpayer bill was $3,122 38 I know at my house we live within our means maybe sener County Public Schools could learn to do the same thanks thank you Mrs Richards I'm seeing nobody else ready to speak so um I am ready to entertain a motion to uh adjourn this meeting do I have a motion move to adjourn second second all those in favor say I I I opposed right um we are in recess from our first meeting and what I would like to do is uh recommend that we reconvene in 6 minutes at quarter till 8 does that work for everybody you need a little bit more time what do you think that's good that's good all right so uh the meeting will reconvene at U 7:45 right here so uh
0658 uh 8:47 uh we are re uh coming back from our recess from our work session meeting uh prior to the special meeting and we are about to uh [Applause] discuss uh 3.2 the policy on ensuring privacy dignity and respect for all students and parents um Dr Shepard do you have any um uh introductory remarks before we uh before we discuss just a few okay so at the January second um School Board organizational meeting two school board members requested adding the model policy and ensuring um privacy dignity and respect for all students and parents in Virginia's public schools and proposed resolution and revisions to the model policy to the January 11th meeting and so we added it to the January 11th school board meeting and now we're here to discuss it so um um the
066recommendation is to was to introduce the policy um at the January 11th meeting and it's for discussion at tonight's meeting that's all I have thank you we are um operating under modified Roberts rules in that we are not conducting the regular school board meeting and the work session is designed for more uh give and take on discussion and and so we're going to we're going to be discussing this without U making motions without having a an issue on the floor the idea is is is to just generate the discussion about about the topic in hand uh I'd like to give a little um uh background kind of what I hope it's a factual background and how how we got here and what our what our charge is and then what I uh would intend to
067do since um as Mrs carinia was the one who has developed um a a proposal here is to ask her to uh to kick off the the discussion and then from there we'll see where it goes realizing that we also have the uh model policies uh uh on on this uh on the transgender issue um also available for scrutiny and it's been up on online so we'll have the vdoe uh so-called junkan Administration model and then we'll be discussing um Mrs uh Carino's model so uh let me let me I'll try to be brief uh but our I think our our goal here is to create a a standalone policy which fulfills Virginia code 22.1 23.3 uh and to establish protection conditions definition and requirements relating to the recognition status and rights of both transgender
068and binary students the assumption is that the constitution vir Union code and this policy can ensure that all students can depend on protection and rights by following requirements and guidelines relating to the identification and treatment of transgender students both groups binary and transgender students and communities are concerned with safety rights and Equitable access to educational activities a previous set of 27 model policies by Governor Northam was based on eight short conditions that make up that Virginia code uh and so uh those conditions are required by law uh however uh th those eight short conditions gave rise to 27 pages of uh of model policies by the Northam Administration uh various School divisions treated that those model policies in various ways some basically ignored them uh and others were very aggressive at implementing them and it
069was kind of a checkerboard across the state and it doesn't come as I shocked anybody on U around this table that there was somewhat of there was a differences of opinions on our school board that didn't not give rise to any particular action but the default was to um was to um proceed as we had been proceeding and um and with the passage or with the with the election of Governor yunan uh he he came out with his his version through the VD which which was uh his 20 his model policies which we have which we have online today as our as a model has been reviewed by attorney general Miis the um some people have adopted the uh the the yunan uh I'll call it the yunan administration model uh one of those uh
070counties for instance is Bedford which which took it verbatim and and has implemented it um many others including including including shanoa have not passed it and um the the goal would be if we passed a policy to have a standalone policy that would not be tied to um to anything that had that had been done prior in other words rather than having a default position we would select a a position or or create or or pass a a policy that we voted on becomes a standalone if you will um the case or or the situation has been thrown into some uh interesting I won't say turmoil but into some gray uh area in uh the Grim versus Coler County Schoolboard case of 2020 in which the court found in favor of a case brought by
071a transgender student uh yet the two to1 decision the facts of that particular case and then the fourth fourth Circuit Court which eroded some of it have have given us or have led us to a position where um I don't think anybody believes that any policy is going to be free from um target of lawsuits or or criticism uh but it's but it's our duty to find our way our way through that um so with that um short introduction I'm going to um ask U and Mrs Carlin um to to um give us a a brief on on on her proposal okay well um do you all have the copy of the well hopefully you all have a copy of the I don't know if you have a copy of The Proposal the draft policy
072um basically what we have done here is uh is a two-part um there's a a resolution part and then you'll see the exhibit uh exhibit side um after that um the resolution part part of it basically States if you go look at the Ying um policy right now um prior to him giv the actual policy on what it is which is what we do in the exhibit a he actually does site a lot of this same um Constitutional Amendments and same codes Virginia codes that we're actually doing in the resolution as well in the in the yes resolution part of it uh the reason we have done this um if you read at the Yun let me just first say we went to the sbma um conference in November and we had the uh Deputy
073um assistant Deputy of Secretary of Education there and um they talked about how they did this for over eight months they actually debated how to come up with this policies um so it was thoroughly vetted there's probably not going to be any other document that is more vetted than this um and then it was followed up by an opinion by um attorney general Miis which explains why there hasn't been any lawsuit whatsoever challenging this in fact the only lawsuits that have come out of this is um some boards have been sued for not passing this and once they do decide to pass it then the lawsuits have been um dropped but those are the only lwuit that have come out out of this um for my for the resolution and the draft that I actually
074presented um is not only modeled on those policies but I've actually had um some of their attorneys actually look at it as well and one of them is the one that I'm going to pass around uh this information is a memorandum on the Grim decision that Dennis just um alluded to so I'm going to go ahead and pass that uh but the reason we did this is because if you read the yunin policies the very first paragraph says that each School Board shall adopt policies that are consistent with but may be more comprehensive than this sample policy so they're actually asking us to be more uh comprehensive to the extent that we can um I am not going to guess but I can give my opinion as to why uh the Yun in policy is
075the way it is I'm sure that he was trying to appeal to a lot of other school boards that may not have a majority conservatives um they may be split um so he was my guess is he was trying to appeal to those school boards as of right now the last count that I heard at least 14 School District districts have passed this or adopted it uh there may be a few more because they don't know about the smaller School District in other parts of the State uh nine have rejected it usually those are Fairfax L um all those and um interestingly when I was talking to somebody about this last week I guess uh Richmond and the yunan um administration were actually asking what's going on with Shen andoa County so uh we told
076them we're actually considering it right now so they are keeping an eye on this I do have um we can actually go through this one by one and kind of explain where we are different the differences are kind of um mostly procedural um in some areas I just kind of changed around some of the definitions to make sure that they were more they flowed better the biggest differences are uh especially in the end of the draft you'll see the athletic teams athletic events and then no punitive actions what that refers to is the first one is about protecting our girl Sports basically saying that biological males should not be competing against our girls um I understand some people have asked why not do it the other way well first of all we understand that let
077me this is just for clarification so uh I I value what you're doing now is crosswalking this with the model policy uh and and so if you can be a little bit more um patient with us as to where you are and where we're going because I one thing I want to know is where where your proposal deviates from the mon policy okay yeah we can go yeah we'll go over that I was just kind of giving an out uh just an Outlook as to what we were go for it whatever you want um just trying to make it a little bit more um explicit in that sense and the other one was with the no punitive actions uh this came out of some of the cases that we've had in other places like Lon
078County where there was retaliation um against uh a teacher that was not recognizing a pronoun so that is just to kind of give you an Outlook of where the me there's a few other differences but we can go through them but basically um those are the main uh differences between them so what we were trying to do is just be a little more comprehensive but in the end if you all just want to pass the model policies that's a win I mean that that's at the very minimum what we should be doing and I I hope that at least we'll do that I was just hoping that as a board we could actually go into this and hopefully uh look into making a little bit more comprehensive in the end this is not targeting anybody
079this is more about protecting our girls and protecting our staff from any kind of retaliation um those are the only differences between them I did want to mention about the Grim case and I passed that information the memo that uh it was given to me by the sbma and Josh hler was the attorney that actually did this he's the one who also looked at our uh sanctuary and provided some feedback that I incorporated into the draft already so uh whatever he told me I went ahead and did that and you can read a little bit about what the differences are and one of the things that kind of sticks out right away is that this case uh for Grim was in 2020 this was before the situation that we had in L County and in
080this particular case we're talking about a girl who was transitioning to be a boy um whereas what we're trying to do with our uh resolution is protect girls from biological males that haven't transition into a sport or Sports system um the sports field or the bathrooms or the locker rooms it does provide I mean as you can see from the policy if you guys have read it is they do say you know there are specific instances where if there is a kid that has a birth certificate that has been changed or there's a court order we have to we have to deal with that we just have to go ahead and accommodate that this is mostly for cases that fall outside of those definitions um so that's just kind of a quick overrun over that
081and we can I have both the yunan the sanctuary and also the differences um in case we want to go ahead and go through those other members I'll speak Mr Rickard first of all Gloria thank you for coming up with this um I've heard through email from staff parents grandparents um I've heard both sides for and against uh the thing I find ironic because I didn't know anything about this Grim case until our last school board meeting it was thrown up several times and I was curious whether after reading it thank you for providing that to Dr Shephard um after reading over it I was wondering if the people that were even throwing it up at the school board meeting even knew what it involved cuz I had no clue it was a girl transitioning
082to be a boy had gone through a double myectomy the parents were in favor of this so it falls under Governor Yan's policies um the school had to recognize her as a boy the state went as far as reissuing her birth certificate as a male to me it was no question um but I think what I like about what Glory has done here is it protects kids like grim um but it also protects us as a School Division it protects our staff um the funny thing was I got an email recently from a grandparent it sounds like her granddaughter already graduated our school system um but at a young age decided she was a boy to me those parents and grandparents should I don't know if they've actually read this because it doesn't sound like
083they have because this protects their kids as well as our kids or anybody else's kids it protects everybody so I say great job I've passed it on to two different pastors that I know the pastors have read it um I kind of like to look at biblical values is this pointing anybody out is this bullying anybody I can't find it in there um I think it's worth looking at and worth talking about um Mrs Russ yeah um first off I can appreciate the work that went into this and I agree um I think something a little bit more comprehensive probably needs to be done um however with that said I was am not a fan of the resolution part um school board's the last resolution I can remember the school board doing was the um
084George Floyd resolution for black lives matter and and you know at that point I was like guys you all have other things to do um that that Foundation paved the way for the changing of of a school name that hung on the belt side of the building since 1958 um for me it pretty much said hey everybody that's in support of this you're a bunch of racist and I I strug I had an issue with it um with this one to be honest with you I don't find it I mean we're talking about kids that are struggling well let's just say this we're still talking about kids I don't think the resolution one is something that the school board should take a position on in declaring a sanctuary City for parent rights um because everything
085that's outlined in it basically looks to me like we are protecting the rights of of parents that agree with us and not necessarily the parents that are going through the struggle of having kids with a mental health issue and um if you haven't had a kid that hasn't that has not struggled with with issues um of that nature God bless you um I didn't find this to be anything where anything close the resolution part to be um what's the terms here um to have um to be respectful I didn't think it was respectful at all I didn't think we would be treating kids with dignity at all um and and the resolution part for me is something that there's some great Parts in it that I think that we can put into hard policy that
086actually can be backed up put in black and white a resolution has no legal has no legal teeth to it at all it just is a statement so you know Dennis mentioned Bedford I think Rockingham and both um Harrison ber City just passed the transgender Poli policies as they stood um I think it's Bedford has got a nice policy that touches that's real short um Handover that's Handover is real short to the point um bedford's is a little bit more involved and it talks to the bullying and harassment it talks to the identification of students it requires s something of the transgender student and I agree with you a lot of this got kicked off a couple years ago not only by Grim but with the events in L County and unfortunately the um the
087media had a field day with it and like the media does it doesn't tell everything and um it presents one side whether you're listening to CNN or whether you're listening to Fox both sides of the same coin so I found a um I found doing some research today I found a um this is called a report on the misconduct of um go I'm lost it here of um Lowden County and um and it was done by blankin ship and and Keith out of out of Fairfax and there's some interesting things about L County's case um first of all the kid the um as salant um was a troubled youth he had sent nudes in the fifth grade to to other kids um he was had a long standing line he was a he was a
088frequent flyer and he his his he lived separately from his parents or his he lived with his mother his father was out of state but there's a lot of things he he said he was pansexual but he did things that even his mother said required you know had attention needed attention um and he was just struggling now the thing was is during that assault in the bathroom him and and that that young lady had already met and had consensual sex at the school once he he wasn't he used pronouns he he he liked girls so the thing is is I don't want to start going gosh we need to Target and I don't want to say Target we need to protect ourselves from transgender students because of some of the stuff that happened in L
089County Grim deserves to be deserves to be um to be responded to for me I would like to see the policy shredded of the resolution I would like for us not to use what the news is saying and take a hard look at what goes on and how it will protect kids um transgenders kids struggling with those those identities should be able to produce certain things they should be able to see us be under treatment they should be treated in my opinion like our 504s they're asking for accommodations those 504s require medical backup they require parent backup they require teachers they require input they require parent input I would like to see something that says hey if you're struggling with this we'll set up a meeting and have a meeting you don't want to tell
090your parents let's do it in a safe environment let's have that conversation if you truly need to work through this then let's help you with it but at that point we are also I don't think that we need to just take anybody willy-nilly off off on any Wednesday or off day who's going you know what showing up in a dress tomorrow and uh you know we'll see if Mr Dorman kicks me out of the bathroom again you know that's not fair either so I think it needs to be addressed um and I think there's some things that you know we talk about it's a bigger issue than just the bathrooms you know the uh locker rooms I don't know what vhsl says about that I mean we participate in the Virginia High School league you
091know are we going to just say you know we're just not going to participate anymore if you put one of our girls up against a guy a biological man then you know we have a problem with it those are there are deeper issues I think for me that need to be considered um we can ALS Al you know start tying in some other policies such as you know what our staff is doing we had um we ran off a um a Orchestra teacher a talented one um because once somebody in the community happens to be part of this community that's the influential said hey you know there's there is um your your lineup for the Christmas concert has got too many too many Christian stuff in it we turn around a couple months later and
092have one of our van teachers fly the you know put an lbgt flag out in in on the field at homecoming we have a teacher that for my understanding will ask you to hide a crucifix we have teachers that ask for pronouns at the beginning of their semester there are things that we should probably be looking at in how we interact with our students to say we're here to support you but we're we're you know we're we're going to stay out of this for the most part unless you end up in the counselor's office and you need help you're struggling with it we care about you and we're going to help you out but we're not going to start pushing agendas one way or the other the left would be completely upset with this if
093we start baptizing kids after after school um and we should address the fact that there are a lot of things going on we're here for Reading Writing arithmetic and we need to get back to the basics but there needs to be some there needs to be some lines drawn but like I said I think it needs to be um addressed but I'm I'm not crazy about the resolution part could I Mr Rickard the only reason I'm asking forgive me if I'm wrong I'm asking for clarification the last minute or so did you were you condoning meeting with children without their parents if they were struggling with this no my condoning would be let's bring your parents in and have a conversation I thought you said but if the kids's not okay with that you would
094meet with the kids no no that's that's not no we we should never had anything from our kids from our parents and you know unless there's proof of abuse or something along that line and if I said something out of line please excuse me but no if they are struggling with their identity there's a good chance a counselor knows about it somebody knows about we have but nine support Specialists you know we can set up a meeting with parents to say hey we need to have a conversation about what's going on in your kids's life okay thank thank you um anybody else on the school board you gentleman haven't spoken yet you want to Mr Street no Mr cell I guess I would say what a lot of what Mr rut said I agree with
095especially with the resolution part I do think there are some positives from Miss car Leno's um proposal um I guess where I'm at personally right now is I think I I'm more in favor of going with just what yunan proposed but at the same time I do see parts of the other proposal that we could you know integrate or whatever it may be um because there are in my view there are some positives but again with the resolution I don't know how I feel with that I I think what you said was kind of right you know you look back to the to the previous resolution that was made by this board and I don't know how much significance or standing it really has I think the main thing is we get it right with
096the policy um like you mentioned Rockingham and there are other boards that are currently looking at this or have recently looked at that at this um so I'm right now I'm more with kind of the the uh the governor's proposal but at the same time I'd be open to looking at somehow working in some parts of the other one and making it um making it what it needs to be because you could argue that there is a lot of room for improvement in the governor's policy and proposal um so it's just a matter of us figuring out what we would want to integrate into this one so again I do appreciate your your input and your policy um we have received a lot of feedback we've received emails I've heard from different people phone calls
097texts conservatives liberals people that I know um and on this topic obviously it's a hot topic it's something that's a bit controversial we've seen it nationwide we've seen it Statewide um and it is important that we protect all of our students but we also have to protect the staff in our buildings with you know there's a lot going on here and we have to make sure we're always protecting them and making sure that they're not being put in a tough spot because of what we're asking them to do um so that's kind of where I'm at but again I'm open for suggestions and I I think we could definitely make something work here and we just want to make sure we get it right and we can leave it how it is and then kind
098of move forward um and have something in place because I expect other counties will be doing this throughout the year after the elections and all that um Rockingham you know if you said two years ago when when the governor was elected that they would have something like this in place they would say you know they wouldn't believe it but an election they have some new people and they saw the value and in the governor's policy so and I believe it was adopted exactly I can't say for sure but if not very similar can I can I you can what I was going to do was I was figuring I would finish off for the school and then give you the last word to come to talk so but if you want to go now go
099ahead yeah um and I fully appreciate what you just said and that's literally what we're here for um to kind of go through this and and decide what's in what uh what we want to change um a lot of what Miss rut said I think a lot of it was all over the place I mean there's a lot of policies that yeah that would be a good idea to work on those but that's not what this is doing this is actually a very specific um policy that is dealing with very specific issues um one of the things that I would like to know and and I I have asked before because again if you actually read through the resolution I mean you can see that a lot of the references are First Amendment 14th Amendment
10014th amendment protection of people rights you know they're all codes they're all parts of the of the uh law and we're basically put them in there just to say this is what we're basing our policy on I see it more uh a resolution like you said is not law um it's mostly a statement I see it a lot more like for example we have the Declaration of Independence that's not the law it just kind of gave the guidance to everything that happened afterwards in the Constitution likewise here uh the idea of the resolution and this and and this um resolution and the policy are to give the school board the I mean the school district the policy and the ideas of how to develop that those regulations going forward so that was the the reason
101behind doing this um one thing that I did want to say before I asked the question was regarding the lden County case it's a little bit irrelevant whether the kid in in Len County was cisgender transgender or whatever that that that what happened was a kid used that to get into a bathroom he put on a skirt and got into the bathroom and B things happen so this is kind of taking care of that because if a transgender student wants to go into that bathroom then at least we're requiring that that student is really proving by a court order or birth certificate that they are indeed that so they this actually takes care of that case and and that problem that they had in GL County um but since like Mr godell said what we're
102here to do is kind of discuss this and what can we uh include what can we take out maybe it would be a good idea for M to decide to say what parts of the resolution are not acceptable to you me what areas in there are saying that we're not welcoming to kids that are transgender that are different from other kids okay um actually you have a short response to that um yeah all of it none of First Amendment the Second Amendment clarification clarification 14th doesn't say anything about kid Mrs rut yes are we talking just now about the resolution are we talking the resolution I want to make sure okay go ahead yeah I don't the 14th Amendment doesn't say anything about it it it talks about life liberty and it it talks about
103and and and here's the thing life and Liberty is also entitled to those folks that we don't agree with so you know I don't have to like what you what you say I just have to defend it that's what America's about but I don't think the resolution is needed I I I think it's I think it's uh as I told you it's it's a it's a broad statement the Declaration of Independence was was was pre seeded by War I mean we we were a bunch of insurrectionists at that point um and we have ended up with a great country afterwards right so that would be a point for this if I may say that well I mean and and this is why actually we put the the resolution uh because like right now you mentioned
104the 14th Amendment and what it does here it actually cites the case that was found you know that was based on the 14th Amendment to say that he protects the rights of parents to direct the upbringing of their children so that's what this does it actually educates people as to why and where we came from you know this ideas this is the law that's what this is doing it's establishing that so when people read it they can say well it's not just a 14th Amendment it's a 14th Amendment under you know traxel and Granville from 530 us uh 5765 from the year 2000 so that's what this is doing so I was just asking more in terms of if there's something in particular that was offensive um or if you just pretty much saying you
105don't like the resolution no I don't care for the resolution at all I don't think it's needed okay thank you so what I intend to do is unless another board member has any anything Mr straighten a few minutes of your interest after I have my intervention and then I'll turn it back to you Mrs carlonia for summation of your proposal I think I'm going to start with uh agreeing with you that the U model policies given to us by the Yan Administration are pretty solid and have not been challenged at this point and they even more to the point that they're kind of bulletproof to some extent is the fact that I I like the fact that they protect everybody there's no victimhood there's no somebody who's put off to the side or EXT it
106it protects it protects everybody it protects that student who is uh transitioning or has become transgender it has it protects those students who do not want to be confronted with the unsafe or unsavory situation in uh sports or in the locker room or in the bathroom so I think the model policy is sound and I I I I think you're right it would be a a slam dunk to just do as the as several of our neighboring Counties have already done however I do take a point that you made earlier uh seriously which is we are invited to make it more comprehensive I do have a problem with the uh with the uh model policy in that in order to a stu for a student to become uh registered or accepted as a transgender student
107um it requires U parental Le to be to be given to the school system and then that's pretty SE not severe but pretty um important ramifications of that which is then that gender becomes permanent it takes a lot to change it and you kind of stuck with it uh and so I'm a little concerned that an overzealous parent uh could this this is a very very lifechanging situ uation for somebody to decide to become another biological gender uh and uh I as much as I believe in parental rights I believe that they're not absolute they're critical but they're not absolute and so I would like to see um I would like to see some further indication of the seriousness with which the parents and the student are taking this change uh and um Josh hler
108who is indeed the author of this particular piece on in and uh interpretation of of grim indicates these things that um I forgot what is Grim's first name anyway it doesn't matter but what is it Gavin Gavin Grim thank you um that what um that what he did uh early on was um had undergone uh hormone injections and gender reassignment surgery uh they had a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria by a licensed psychologist um and uh the gender identity was persistent and consistent for years uh and so I want to keep from happening a tragedy of somebody who had a bad hair day or somebody insulted him feeling that they they now have to have a gender change and that'll solve all the problems in their lives so I just want to make sure that
109before a a student or a parent make that leap that we have some expert um evidence whether it's an expert opinion from a doctor psychologist whether it's a history of of of of seeking uh uh these kind of uh uh surgeries or or psychological uh and and other because there's like 15 things that Gavin Grim did to make me convinced that she was serious about becoming a she and and and so and that student should be taken seriously and but not I I don't think it should be willy-nilly that I shouldn't use that term it shouldn't be so quick and easy so that a parent could make a uh a quick decision and that one note from a parent winds up changing that that kid that kid's life forever uh so so I I would
110actually uh toughen up that's the way I would make it more comprehensive however um with the resolution I um we're trying to write policy policy is what we want to give to the superintendent to give to the the the schools to create regulations so that they know how to deal with this um I think there's some great antecedence that you've got here but it's sorry I keep doing this and it's it's my life so I have to I I go back to to the military if I if I'm giving given an order and I know what the doctrine is and I follow the doctrine I'll be successful and if I'm not at least I've done what I was supposed to do uh but I don't need to be told at that point that I need
111to be doing this for motherhood apple pie and you know and and that's kind of what the resolution does for me it these are all wonderful antecedents most of them are but I just don't think it's necessary in a in a policy document that just tells people how how how we want them to to set the regulation up I'm frankly more concerned and and what I would like to hear from you as we as we conclude here I'm more concerned about the sanctuary status because I am I don't really understand that Mr Carin and I'm ready I'm ready to be convinced uh of what that would do for us but my guess is that would seem to create an US versus them mentality that would draw fire on us and that's that's my fear about
112invoking Sanctuary status that's all I have anybody any other school board members before Gloria finishes it all for us if if that wouldn't have to be the last word but okay I I think BR Brandy missed one key point about that kid that kid was moved to a second school and it happened a second time with a different female who I don't know whether he had sexual relations with the second girl before whether it was consensual or whatever but wherever you got that information from that kid was convicted twice at two different schools that's why Lowden County got in the ringer was they moved that kid well L cting got in the ringer because of a whole lot of things the way they handled it but I said sent you the report he didn't have
113a he didn't have a dress on that day they had had sex before and he also had you know assaulted somebody else it wasn't because he just he he used the transgender um umbrella to access a bathroom they had had sex in that bathroom before so just this time she wasn't willing so there that combined with the fact that the way uh Len County handled it created The Firestorm but you know this is what one of the things and really it was probably more so this than Grim that started this Firestorm across the state but I have sent you that I have sent you the report you're welcome to look but it's it changes what we've heard from the the details of what we've heard I think another thing I think we get lost in
114the fact that it's boys going into girls' bathrooms we're not looking at the Grim case we're not looking at the grandmother that emailed I'm assuming she emailed us all today um the girls that want to be boys we have to do something to protect them whether it's offer them a different bathroom to use whatever but picture Grim going into a bathroom with half a dozen football players in there that find out she's a girl she's not truly a boy we have to protect her physically so we need something in place the one thing I love about this draft is under letter I of the draft it protects our staff because I can tell you that this has been around a long time my daughter graduated 3 years ago and before that there was a girl
115she was friends with that decided she was going to be a boy there was staff that wasn't comfortable with changing that Student's name from what they had known for8 years um we have to protect our staff and the school system as a whole if the staff doesn't want to participate in the pronoun thing or changing a kid's name then there's got to be something there to protect them okay Mr gutel just real quick Dr Shephard or Dr he Gardner we can you give us a quick rundown of what we do have because when this came up last year we decided to just keep going because we thought what we had was adequate and can you just run through a couple of things I mean the bathroom I know we offer you have the clinic bathroom
116you have the office bathroom um some things are already in place yeah so um we I have some notes here um when the young um northern policy came out we had non-discrimination let me look here we had policies that actually um addressed sensitive information and made sure that um we weren't there we go um non-discrimination character education equal Educational Opportunity non-discrimination prohibition against harassment and retaliation among all other policies that we had already in place that addressed what you know what we needed to but what we were doing in the schools is that um students who um felt uncomfortable going to a female restroom or a male restroom because they were transitioning to um transitioning or whatever went to their uh Clinic restrooms or a restroom in the office which were single single use restrooms
117so only one person could go in there and actually we reaffirmed that this summer at the administration Advent admin Advance um where we indicated that you know students who um were transitioning or identifying as transgender would go to single use restrooms I I just think it's important to note that you know there's some people out there that think U neglection or we're we're being overly disrespectful and I don't think that's the casee because if you look at what you just said and what's been going on here we haven't had that issue I mean we've had policies and practices in place that we've followed and whether we do miss Carino's policy or Governor Yin or we work them together that doesn't change anything that we're you know I mean we're still doing what we need to
118do so I think that's important that members in the community that think that we have the wrong intent while we're doing this I think that's important to kind of lay out um something quite interesting that that came to mind Dr Shepard when you were talking about our policy Hanover has written a very interesting policy that they adopted just a couple months ago restroom and locker room policy which flowed from this but they they took an interesting tack which was students who were identified uh as transgender students were of course allowed to use single use bathrooms but so was anybody else in the school who felt that that situation threw them into uh a situation where they felt uncomfortable which actually diffused the whole situation because now when you saw somebody going into a single use
119bathroom it didn't signify anything other than they wanted to go to a single bathroom and I asked the uh the chair of their school board did you you you got like a big line up at the doors and he said that one of our concerns was people would be five deep trying to get to these and he says it just hasn't happened so I'm not sure I'm not suggesting that's particularly a way ahead but it does suggest to me that treating people equally and not you know not identifying who they are when they walk through that door uh probably can diffuse a lot of this correct um okay one thing we need to look at with that policy I've heard from teachers that are tired of going in the bathroom and having to clean up
120from kids before they get to use their bathrooms I was talking to we have a kid that plays on soccer team in strawsburg plays with my son the mom teaches in Prince William County we were having this discussion about this policy CU I was trying to get input from anybody and everybody from all different counties um and and when she heard that kids were allowed to use staff bathroom she she was like flabbergasted she goes we have our key our key works our bathroom when we go in there we flip it to occupied or unoccupied it's a dead bolt lock can't be unlocked from the outside and she's like kids do not use our bathrooms if you have this situation there is one bathroom in the school that that kid can go use that's uncomfortable
121using the male or the female um I think we need we need to look at that because we have staff here in shannona County that's already told me they're tired of going in the bathroom and cleaning up after others well I don't know about the cleaning up but I do know that you you rais a point that arose in the Grim case too which is that um if you have one room and it's too far away to get to um Grim actually claimed that um that uh he had problems and actually was diagnosed with some problems infections Etc from not going to the bathroom so it's going to require some Logistics to do where there is probably more than one if it's a larger school but it's something I think that the regulations will have
122to iron out when we get there I'm going to I'm assuming that other board members Tom you look like you're cogitating you have anything to say well everybody really wants me to say something don't no you no I didn't want you to not be able to say something I just can't think it I'm just sit there take all in well you know I'm a bottomline person I'm probably not a very the subject with me I struggle with it yeah I apologize I do now number one mental illness I fully support will not you know I fully support that if a if a child has some kind of mental illness we want to help them so to me you know I kind of separate you know that and this transgender thing because I'm not you know
123and I admit I'm not fully educated on this whole thing because I'm a bottomline person and and I apologize but that's just the way I am you know I've said since day one how come this whole ISS how can we make this issue like alcohol or cigarettes you can't make a decision to you're 21 I I I wish the government had back more of a backbone to say you know you got to be 21 to buy alcohol well you going to have to be 21 decide whether you're going to be a girl or boy otherwise it's you know pretty much like Governor yunan says so I you know I really struggle with this because I'm not too much of a I've said I use this term a lot and you'll probably hear quite a bit
124I I don't support this pacifying society and I think a lot of this this is what it comes down to my child oh my child today wants to be a girl my child my child another day wants to be a boy and unfortunately my child uh next week wants to be a cat you know I I what do you nip it in the butt um the the pacifying society as I call it um so I but I understand there's I guess what weighs on my mind is there's a legal issue to it also and that's kind of one area that I kind of want to be educated on is you know legally what in other words how far can you take it to where could be possibly sued or the legality of it um but
125you know I guess uh we we we we can we can discuss that I mean we can do it now but I we can also do but I'm I'm probably um but anyway that's just my take on it mental illness I fully support definitely there needs to be help but on this topic um you know I I guess I'm more of a um I don't know what to call it um probably following the lines more of you and and Mr gut Shaw kind of what you all thinking you know if take Governor junan policy and maybe if we can tweak it a little bit more stronger um any that's just not take thank you Mrs Street and uh Mrs uh kin yeah so um so again what we're doing here is basically taking those um
126policies from yunan and then just making them a little bit stronger as I said before if you have read the yunan um policies and you have the whole document that you'll find most of what this resolution says already in there right before it has the policy so it it we just put it in different areas um because it is stating in there also this same laws that we're actually basing it on and the reason to put that in there was so people would know this is what we're basing this on we're not canceling anyone we're not canceling transgender students um one of the things that we're doing is like like you said we're making very uh very specific criteria because unfortunately like you said the government hasn't taken care of this and we as a
127school should not have to be dealing dealing with this and we should just be educating our kids but obviously this is something that has been um in the minds of a lot of people and it's been distracting to a lot of the school systems so we definitely need to get ahead of this have a policy this is not discrimination this is just protecting the girls and just um you know putting in place something that it makes it very clear what it is that we're going to do moving forward um I may say that right now just so kind of because we have been talking about this but we Al also are going to do a mental health task force that I mentioned in in the paper and um superintendent Shephard and I have been starting
128to talk about it we're going to have a meeting in March 6 and we're hoping to start bringing a lot of people from the community Sheriff's Office police attorney uh Comm withth attorney social services and school members into this mental health task force that will hopefully not just help with this but also drug addiction and and just help our students that are struggling um this like I said is we're not providing any guidance we're not um students who are struggling we're not telling them you can't be you can be what we're saying is this is what you need to comply with in order for us um to identify you as something of somebody of a different um sex from the one that you were born with and we're also um explicitly explaining what the accommodations
129will be um so I'm open to you know we can just do the model policies we can do the model policies with um the Amendments that we've been talking talking about we can take the resolution and take out anything that is particularly problematic uh but like I said I haven't heard yet specifically what it is that is problematic about I have a request that could help us do that yeah I tried to crosswalk your version with Jan's version and 90% of what you 95% of what you have is in his policy but I couldn't find it because you moved it around a little bit I things a little B um if you could make those for fure right no for editing purposes so we could compare them you know phrase by phrase yeah and then
130if you wanted to reorganize again because it makes more sense to you that's fine but it would really help us uh to go to 1A and one a and and contrast them is that okay absolutely do that um yes I I I have that I can actually do that and uh we had a red line version but that's as I was reading it it doesn't perfectly help because like I said I moved some things around just for the purposes of it flowing a little bit better um but I can actually go through what I have and um tell you what the difference that would be a magnificent help and I appreciate that now do you want that now or okay no no no problem um okay um I am going to call this discussion to
131Halt andless well yeah I so what what is the we have this on the agenda for our next meeting to pass or or not so you know I guess my question is is if we're looking at a majority here that says okay we need this or this we need to come up with something that's going to be workable and present it at our next meeting to where we can do something with that's a that's a great point if not this gets put put on and and the Assumption here is that we will not probably be able to vote on this at the next meeting because the time's going to take to look at that decide what things need to go back into it and the other aspect we haven't talked about is something I suggest
132heavily is that we have uh a lawyer that we designate go through this and make sure it's bulletproof make sure not just bulletproof make sure it's right make sure it passes muster make sure it's not going to be declared invalid the first shot out so I think part of the time and and I don't want to stretch it but I do think we we need to have legal eyes on this to make sure that when it's when it's passed it's it's not going to run into a legal uh roadblock immediately so I mean I'm guessing what we're looking at is pulling it for another informational on this next meeting and not action that's that's that would be my suggestion I mean we have a we have a policy that's working we don't have a crisis
133I'd rather you know spend the extra 3 weeks get it right and and and make sure you feel confident legally going forward that's agreed that that's I don't think this I definitely don't think this should be rushed I think it should be okay very handled carefully okay was this reviewed by any attorneys yes that was reviewed by Mr hesler the entire draft resolution and the exhibit so you want somebody in addition to Mr hler yes no I mean he he he has a lot of skin in the game and Mr H and I work together too on the stuff that so he yeah very world I I think I I won't I I i' feel better if we had somebody I w't say mainstream because I think Mr has incredibly Adept but I'd rather use
134a a lawyer that probably we will will use or have used or or have the school system has some uh have somebody who's um who can talk about the Constitutional issues and all that not just that that's it we want to do a somebody who is policy wise not necessarily uh school function wise yeah okay so I I think that's a good way ahead um Dr shepher you're on 3.3 policy bdde Rules of Order yes so according to policy bdde Rules of Order the shanida school board has the authority to establish Rules of Order as well as to adopt bylaws policies and regulations a member of the school board would like to discuss the Rules of Order specifically Robert's Rules of Order so the recommendation is to discuss The Rules of Order this evening I
135believe we could um have a motion at our next meeting that just says something to the effect of um that we recommend um to use Robert's Rules of Order and um go from there so that's my recommendation we have been using Roberts rules of orders unofficially and uh Mr Rickard pointed out that that is not specifically called for in our u in our U policy but that um I'm hope I'm not taking words out of your mouth but that we should uh and so uh I think there's there's probably a consensus that we that we do that but if there is any discussion now about uh not adopting the Robert's Rules we probably ought to have that discussion now does anybody feel any reason why we why we can't or shouldn't I would also suggest
136that we consider um appointing a uh a reputable parliamentarian uh to attend our meetings and keep us on a straight and narrow and so um I've asked uh Dr Shepard if she'll help us Identify some community members i' would like to have the members of the community if they don't have to travel we don't have to play travel costs Etc but somebody who is objective some somebody who will be um good at keeping us on Target and yeah yes sir my view would be that we add Robert's Rules of Order to the policy in a future meeting yeah so the policy that we had discussed absolutely you mean yeah so we have it more explicitly stating that we're utilizing Robert's Rules of Order in indeed and so I mean so we have reached a consensus
137this evening but then would it would be basically Bally an action item at our at our next meeting and there's no reason why we couldn't do that is that correct Dr Shephard okay so we can do it I've reached out to school board member Alliance they are working on finding as a parliamentarian to sit in on our meetings um I just felt bad because I had gone to school board member Alliance Symposium and at our organizational meeting we were all looking at Miss jet for direction and she's great as a shanoa County Public School employee and she does a great job for all of us on board but to look at her for direction in the middle of a meeting it kind of I couldn't imagine being put under that pressure if we all know
138Robert's Rules and we were supplied to book by Dr Shephard the um I think if we I think one of the I'm sorry I didn't mean to one of the great things in our county is FFA and they are so it's going to use a bad word they are so strong on Robert's rules that there are numbers of folks who have very good background in it so I think we can stay close to home uh and still assure the kind of professionalism objectivity that we need okay uh I said we were going to take time for Schoolboard member comments I'm going to ask politely if you would kind of keep those uh comments truncated short and to the point and this is the way you can get something on the table for future discussion so
139um with that in mind I'm just going to go right around the horn I started with you first last time you're going to get it again Mr Ricker oh boy um man this is a learning experience um the big thing for me right now I guess the Hot Topic other than this is the planning time of the teachers after our last meeting I had two people reach out to me that are way more schooled when it comes to Virginia law they were like Mr Rickard we want you to know there's two laws that back up exactly what you were going after was planning time for the teachers they've given me the law numbers if I need to quote them um I can but one was Middle School and High School teachers get 40 5 minutes
140a day planning time uninterrupted uh Elementary School teachers get a half hour per day uninterrupted um to me the only time our admin should be interfering with that time is if the teacher elects to give up that planning time to meet with the admin or or do things to admin ask such as call parents or whatever um to me that's their time to plan for teaching um and then the second thing is uh Rhonda thank you for coming out and speak in this afternoon this evening um I know what the intent was we've got a lot of new admin time to get them together working together I would like to see that team building done within the buildings between admin and the teachers or admin and the staff so that the staff doesn't feel like
141they're not necessarily inferior but it's like an us against them thing and I think the team building needs to be within the buildings um that way all the staff and admin are working together um I applaud you Dr Shepard for what you were trying to do with all those new admin positions that had just been filled and getting them all together and learning each other and learning what expectations are um I think we're off to a good start this is right they don't have anything I don't have anything either Street uh yes um anyway I only thing I had to share is um I had to one day to go visit uh this the southern end of the campus and really only visited one as a as a school board member officially visited Honey Run
142and uh but also have been at North Fork to eat lunch with my uh son and that I was just there for that not as a school board member anyway one thing I want to share but why I have the floor in one of the first times speaking in front of everybody here I guess um I don't want this to come I don't want this to come across the wrong way but just really briefly um I'm the type person I want to be a part of something okay and it was just like I was telling the principal Mrs burner at honeyrun don't take the wrong way if I'm here I'm I don't believe in micromanaging it's not I don't believe in hey this is a you know new board we're going to you know keep
143an eye on things you know no the goal my goal being here reason I'm here is to make shanid County Public Schools the best it can be and you just said that in your pre presentation earlier tonight earlier tonight to be the best we can be and I'm here to work together I want to be a part of it so I don't believe in micromanagement I don't believe in you know that kind of stuff so I don't want to it's like I told uh honey run I don't want to be that school board member that they can say well G he's been on the school board for a year and a half and we haven't even seen