SCPS School Board Meeting 09/14/2023

001okay good evening I like to call the uh September 14th uh Shenandoah County school board meeting to order uh Dr Shepard do you have a motion uh for a closed session please I recommend this board can be in a closed meeting under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act in order to discuss and consider several Personnel matters involving the assignment appointment promotion performance promotion salary discipline or resignation of several employees of the Shenandoah County Public Schools under Virginia code 2.2-3711 814 and I recommend the senator the school board of Shenandoah County can be in a closed meeting under Virginia Freedom of Information Act for the purposes of discussing and considering several several student matters involving the admission discipline or disclosure of information contained in the Scholastic record of students in the Shenandoah County Public Schools under

002Virginia code 2.2-37-11a2 thank you you'll hear a motion to that effect please yeah so I moved at the Shenandoah County School Board can be in a closed meeting under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act in order to discuss and consider several Personnel matters involved in the assignment appointment promotion performance demotion salary discipline or resignation under Virginia code 2.23711 A14 and to discuss Scholastic records involving the discussion or consideration of admission or disciplinary matters concerning any student of any state school system under the Virginia code 2.2-3711 A2 thank you Mr Barlow you're here a second second by Mr gotcha all those in favor say aye all right all those opposed the eyes have it we will be reconvened uh seven o'clock you'll hear a motion to reconvene in Open Session please I moved to reconvene and

003open session okay thank you Mr Scott y'all is there a second second second by Mr Keller all those in favor say aye aye all over the pose the motion carried by a 6-0 vote Shadow County School Board hereby certified by roll call both back to the best of each member's knowledge only public business matters lawfully Exempted from Open Session requirements by Virginia law were discussing closed meeting to which a certification resolution applies and second only such public business matter as we're identifying the motion convening the closed meeting was heard discussed or considered by the Shenandoah County School Board each member responds I so certified when called by the clerk certified uh next we have the invocation and pledge by Ms Walsh but prior to uh her remarks uh on our screen we had two uh

004former employees that passed away uh Patricia strodsnyder which was the secretary in at the northern Inn and Margaret K Miller who worked in our cafeterias so if we would pause and remember uh there are families for the service they gave us thank you Miss Walsh Karen would you be would you pick them up and do a very quick invitation since you're here I had something prepared but I know you'll do better Eternal God we give you thanks this day for this opportunity to get together to discuss the education of the students in our County that they may be open to learning be with each of the members here tonight as they consider the business that is at hand we ask your presence in the name of your son Jesus Christ amen amen thank you please

005Stanford I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you do we hear a motion to approve the agenda as presented motion made by Mr Barlow do you hear a second second Mr Keller uh all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed the motion passed by 6-0 vote Dr Shepherd recognitions please so I would like to like to in Norman this evening to recognize one of his Mountain View High School athletes members of the board Dr Shepherd thank you for giving us a little bit of time you're receiving to recognize one of our students athletes who did exceptionally well back in the spring at the state track tournament just due

006to some scheduling conflicts we had a tough time getting him here between that and other things but he's here with us now and I'd like to first introduce to you because Mary clanahan our track coach is going to talk about some of his accomplishments at the state level and school level hi I'm coach clanahan I'm the head coach of um Mountain View High School Stewart participated in six events at the state event this year he was the state champion in the 100 meter hurdles and the 300 meter hurdles he was undefeated in this season in the hundred meter hurdles and he set the school record in both the 100 meter and the 300 meter hurdles this year which is a feat he broke his brother's record watch for their father's record and he was sitting

007in here he plays fourth in the long jump and he plays fifth in the high jump he plays sixth in the 200 meters which he is very close to Breaking bets full record and he placed seventh in the triple jump which he is a junior and he gets to come back this year as a senior so um we're looking forward to this young man coming back this year but he is a state champion in two events and we're looking forward to him coming back again this year and he is at the top of our class right now and this is being said [Applause] you're ready next Miss Holtz will be recognizing our Strasburg High School FCCLA Dr Shepherd Mr Health Sleep members of the board it's always an honor to stand before you to recognize

008our students is exceptionally an honor to be here this evening to recognize members of our FCCLA who traveled in July to Denver Colorado they had an exceptional time lots of fun but more importantly they represented Strasburg High School in Shenandoah County public schools in an amazing fashion I'm going to now introduce Miss Heather heiserman advisor of our FCCLA to recognize These Fine Young individual students from Salzburg High School good evening um as she said thank you for allowing a few minutes of your time to recognize the Strasburg High School FCCLA the family career and Community leaders of America had the privilege of attending the 2023 National FCCLA leadership conference this July um in Denver Colorado uh our chapters for our chapter participated in General Sessions workshops competitive events and we had time to explore the

009city of Denver we saw moose too that was cool the week was a successful one in terms of recognition for our chapter and of course our individual members our chapter received the family's First National program award this included a thousand dollar prize and we were able to share that project with others at the chapter showcase Claire Keefe and Sam Reinhardt were recognizes power one completers this isn't award given to members that complete all five units of Power of One all four members competed in Star events they earned this opportunity by placing first at the state level competitions I'd like to recognize Claire Keith she's a senior this year she competed in career investigations level three and shared a gold medal um page hazerman completed competed in teacher train level three and she also earned a

010gold medal Kennison Huff uh she competed in Hospitality Recreation and tourism uh level three and she heard of gold medal and a first place trophy in the nation and Sam Reinhardt competed in a leadership level three and he earned a gold medal and also a first place in the nation there's a great deal of work that goes into competing in Star events members spend hours preparing often including they have to do displays or portfolios in the case of all four of them they had to do a portfolio Claire had to research a specific career she had to take part in Hands-On career of related activities and then she had to develop a career plan which included her college and all the activities she needed to be involved in Paige created three lesson plans that she

011actually had to go to Sandy Hook Elementary and carry out with a class she had to document that whole process and then she explored the field of Education Kennison she created a fictional event space that she had to come up she had a develop her own website and then show an understanding of how to successfully run a business and hospitality industry Sam took um leader had to participate in a Leadership Academy set leadership goals and then he had to track all his progress along with reading of open writing lots of essays all of these events included a five to ten minute presentation with a question and answer session with judges so it's a real commitment to be able to compete in these events at this level so I'm very thankful for the opportunities that we

012get and appreciate your support and I'm very proud of these kids so thank you thank you NICE T-Shirts yeah yeah they're really cute just a comment well I'm always proud to see Strasburg contends the year Heather Osmond only kids every other meeting seems like I'm wearing Central colors but I want to answer um Stuart pertle if he realizes how good his daddy was and ask him okay and that was back before you had the training that you do now the nutritional things that you do now um you're aware of that aren't you okay Mr prayer what year did you graduate yeah 78 78 okay he's older than me [Laughter] thank you Mitchell for that input uh yes one more I see um she is going to talk to us about the competent learner model coaches

013certification and she is our um transition specialist thank you Dr Shepard and chairman helsley and members of the board I'm very pleased and honored to come before you again this school year in order to bring attention to the competent learner model CLM you may uh here is a program that provides a weekly classroom coaching and there's an online course of study encompassing over 120 hours of professional development it's a demonstration of commitment to Shenandoah County schools and most importantly to our children these hours are completed in addition to the teacher's school day CLM is evidence-based instruction data collection collaboration with school and home instructors learn how to motivate their Learners to participate coaching teachers on direct and delivery of instruction and making learning fun a demonstration of commitment to Shenandoah County Schools again and oh

014I just repeated myself sorry so we have with us this evening Miss Emily Combs special education teacher from Mountain View High School Emily started as a parapro and moved her way up into the teaching world and this is about her 12th school year and she is an exemplary teacher in the division who always goes above and beyond for her students and her team we are happy to be able to congratulate Emily on this certification and thank you to your commitment to our students thank you chairman housefully those are all the recognitions thank you Dr Shepard uh Schaumburg County School Board welcomes public comment doing most regular meetings and public hearings school board members do not respond to public comments doing the meeting or hearing each speaker may be speak up to three minutes the board

015generally allows up to 30 minutes for public comments on agenda and now on 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 reduce the time allowed for each speaker all comments should address a matter related to Chandler County Public Schools complaints regarding division employees should be directed to the school principal or the appropriate School Division official the school board expects each speaker will be courteous modeling for our students how one can respectfully disagree with other views speakers will address the comments to the entire school board and not to one individual School Board member to the superintendent senate or to a staff nor to the artist speakers will not engaged in personal attacks speakers May sign up as

016you entered the room this evening and I will call the names in order that you sign up the first speaker is uh Brad skipper good evening tonight I am speaking on behalf of the Shenandoah County Democratic committee last month I implored this board to keep politics out of our schools but some of you refused one of you went into a history on a kissy fit claiming that I sent out multiple multiple requests for an all Hands-On deck initiative to have Democrats speak out against this intended government overreach concerning Library policy when nothing could be further from the truth we made three posts to our Facebook page to bring this proposed policy to the attention of our members first to apprise people of the plan next to ask folks to email you with their comments and

017lastly to notify them of the opportunity to speak in this forum same as we do with every other important issue that same member also claimed that I personally call them a fascist racist and a slaver and I would suggest that they need a lesson in reading comprehension to conflate my comments about policies Jackson Lee and Ashby and somehow turn that into a personal attack on an individual who supports honoring them with taxpayer funding is absurd but if one feels guilty about their public support of those who killed American soldiers so be it another board member without warning to those in attendance forced the audience to listen to a self-claimed pornographic Passage from a book and said it was taken from one of our school libraries I've been apprised at a foia request shows that claim

018to be false that book has never been in our school system and that person should apologize not only to the citizens in this room that night who were forced to listen to it but also to the rest of you for lying in their official capacity seems to me that a censure motion would be in order for such an egregious misrepresentation of the facts just to sway public opinion to top it off one of our supervisors who openly advocates for the aforementioned racist traders to our flag sit up and cautioned all of you to avoid personal pressure from a bunch of woke leftists while turning and pointing at me and others and to pay attention only to your constituents who are not in attendance such personal attacks should not be tolerated by anyone much less public

019officials who are elected to serve our entire County and not just the majority that person should also be censured or banned from this room for those divisive comments and lack of decorum living in the U.S allows for peaceful opposition to the government policy or proposed policy with both words and actions when I personally get called out with such vitriol for suggesting that people are empowered to stand up and have their voices heard these actions are incompatible with the very concept of the freedoms we hold dearly let me say this loudly and proudly it is not a sin a flaw or somehow criminal to represent the Democratic party here or anyone else thank you the next speaker Lucinda airbach and evil thank you school board members Administration in Shenandoah County Citizens my name is Lucinda erbach

020and I am proudly the librarian at W W Robinson thank you for your time lately there's been a lot of negative focus on the scps libraries and we Librarians it is occurring in print in this room and on social media vague accusations have been made about us handing individual students inappropriate books grooming students peddling in pornography sabotaging technology and having left-wing agendas to this I say no if we were doing any of these things of which we are being accused human resources department would be very much involved being of HR School Employees are trained and must sign off on pledges that we will conduct ourselves in a professional manner on social media I have no problem with this as it should be the rule in general practice for all that's enough negative My grandmother used

021to say that once you toot their own form unless it remains in a state of untotedness we Librarians and so many working in education are getting little public acknowledgment through the work we are doing plenty of complaints often misdirected at employees who have no control of issues plaguing education in general and scps specifically like lack of bus drivers support staff and substitutes aging infrastructure greater incidence of student aggression oversized elementary schools and classrooms Etc so on to some positive tooting I'd like to thank the school board members who year after year make it a priority to tend to attend the scps convocation where extraordinary employees are recognized it is a simple yet effective way for you to publicly acknowledge our work high school librarians Lisa Gibson Melissa Lewis and Karissa Jenkins have made their spaces

022functional for the modern team they see what their incoming freshmen are excited about and build Collections and programs that will grow with them as they move through to graduation Lisa has been a regional librarian of the year and a mentor to many of us Tina Hartwig Janae Jenkins and Dawn Gilmore our middle school librarians have been working towards collaborating with their teachers maintaining relevant Collections and providing enriching experiences for their students damn Mallory Melissa Boyce and myself have worked to create welcoming libraries maintain collections that engage and excite and teach lessons in unworld rooms serving populations well above the normal Elementary number Melissa will conduct over 25 000 book checkouts before the end of her first year as a librarian [Music] School librarian positions are one of the few in education that have pools of

023applicants we were selected by our administrators who saw value in the extras that we can provide knowing the vital role libraries play in the education of our students we Librarians are not heroes or particularly or extraordinary but we sure do have many things to toot over thank you thank you [Applause] Virginia Rosen good evening looks like it's gonna be one of those nights by the way it's National Virginia day so when you get home you can look it up no at the last school board meeting someone asked what are you afraid of well the answer is nothing because fear is the tool of the devil God is my armor and my shield so I have nothing to fear and speaking of God what books would God like for us to have in the library at

024school and which books would he not want us to have well the answer is easy tonight we said the Pledge of Allegiance and it contains the line one nation under God what does that mean to you for me it means just what it says so would God want a school board member to invite only one of the school board candidates to an event held at Central High School on August 31st did you know that person was wearing his campaign sticker by the way my understanding is that this meeting was for staff only why not invite everyone I think God would frown upon that and personally I think it's shady and unfair you know what else God doesn't like arabis which was on full display at last month's meeting and speaking of God I'm reminded of

025one of my favorite stories from the Bible David and Goliath we all know the story of how David faced Goliath and killed him with just one stone the biblical account of David and Goliath is one of the most popular stories from scripture is a lesson of Courage faith and overcoming what seems impossible this story is relevant today and is a reminder of what we can do if we have faith in God we are in a war right now between good and evil we must fight for what is right and defeat the enemy so choose well and be like David thank you for letting me sweet thank you Mr John Woods would it be possible to yield uh my right to speak now and just speak last at the end would that be appropriate you you

026want to speak last would that be okay that'll be fine uh the next speaker is Erica Hepner hello my name is Erica Van steh hebner and I live in Fort Valley I'm a mom to three current scps students Representatives thank you very much for your willingness tonight to actively listen and discuss these important issues even when you don't agree I've had email exchanges about the proposed Library selection policy with several of you since the last meeting and truly appreciate your time and your consideration it's clear that members of our community have concerns and questions about how library book selection has taken place but it's also clear that there are many different opinions on how to move forward fortunately we now have the option of two draft policies to discuss and consider I applaud the school

027librarians for their initiative to present their own policy suggestions this is an opportunity to show our children that even when we disagree we can be respectful actively listen and work toward our common goals goals like transparency parental involvement effective Library material selection and support for our library professionals National political pundits want us to be divided right against left red against Blue conservative against liberal they tell us the sky is falling our country is in crisis and all it's all the other guys fault making enemies of our fellow Americans but this is Shenandoah County not Washington DC here neighbors don't ask who you voted for before they help you cut up the tree that blew across your driveway this is Shenandoah County where we don't have conservative and liberal seats at the Friday Night Football game

028or in the church pews Sunday morning we're all on the same team here we're all on the side of wanting educated successful respectful children and motivated appreciated creative educators please don't let the partisan hate and gotcha Antics in Washington become the blueprint for how we do business here this is a wonderful opportunity to come together to sort through our differences and to show respect I've just been very concerned by the example that many of us around the county are setting for our children because they are listening and watching thank you thank you [Applause] Rhonda Richard hello board members Dr Shepherd my name is last Friday I Elon Musk Shepard with concerns about the convocation health for staff at Central High School I noticed along that one of the five School Board candidates was there sitting

029amongst the teachers while wearing this political t-shirt haven't been employed by Shannon County public schools for years part-time as a job coach and sub I knew that this event was for teachers and staff I in my email to Ms Shepherd I asked how one candidate was an attendant in attendance and had the other was also been invited rather than reply to me as she forwarded my email to the candidate directly for clarification he stated in this reply to Chairman helsley invited him and he told him it was open to the public I was originally mad that the shepherd had forwarded my email but now I'm not as we got the answer directly from the person that was in the pictures my question is this could this be considered election interference why aren't all why aren't

030all five School Board candidates invited also change the subject why are you Invaders more hungry at Norfolk why are they running out of food I emailed people about that Dr Shepherds and wouldn't reply they're going they're missing food because they're on it now totally unacceptable I'm hearing that milk is outdated we've been in school one month why are we paying big money for a Food Service Company to come in and let our kids be hungry um there's no excuse thank you for letting me talk Mike Ricker good evening Dr Shepard the school board members I'm here tonight to talk about the Shenandoah County convocation that took place on August 31st for the public that are not aware convocation is reserved for current staff school board members and specially invited guests that afternoon one of the

031candidates running for school board posted pictures to his Facebook campaign page showing him in one of his campaign shirts at the event where it was reported he handed out campaign materials when asked to invited him he responded that he was invited by a current School Board member and was told that it was open to the public this school board member not only gave him special treatment but he also broke one of the school board's own policies by allowing this candidate to campaign on school property once I found out all of this I reached out to Dr Shepherd and all of you school board members via email the only responses I received were from Mrs roots and Dr Shepherd Mrs rutz stated she hoped he wasn't colluding to give an edge to the candidate he is

032openly supporting and using exclusive staff events to do so if he was she stated he should consider resignation for using his board position in a manner it is not intended Dr Shepard responded that she was unaware of him being invited and that if she were going to invite one candidate she would have invited all candidates it's a shame that a board member would put her in such a position I'm requesting you chairman kosley issue an apology to not only myself Dr Shepherd your fellow board members but the other four candidates running for school board as well thank you for your time Charles Street good evening elected school board members Miss Mallard Shepard hope everyone is well I hope things are moving along after one month of school already in session right now I'm going to

033speak for Steve Heisman I'm not as good a speaker as he is but I'll try to use this kind of language I guess uh school board members doctor thanks for hearing my voice this evening at last month's meeting during public comment there was a lot of discussion on the issue of adult sex or conduct content and some of the library books in our Public Schools that's available to students under 18 years of age and updating the school policy for more for more oversight of books chosen for our students to read and getting parents involved in the decision-making process many spoke on the issues from both sides for and against the policy being updated and more oversight into in Reston and wrestling after listening to several who's opposed of more over the site it was clear

034that some had not even read the policy proposal and had no idea what they were even talking about after public comments were over most of the attendance left as usual what I found very interesting was later in the meeting as school board was discussing a policy issue and each member was given comments Mrs rutz Reddit a couple paragraphs from one of these books in our library to show the graphic enrolled adult content being exposed to our students as minors when she was finished reading there was complete silence in the entire meeting room for several moments that seemed like five minutes the silence was deafening nothing else had to been said the truth was exposed and one could sense how wrong this entire issue is especially in the public school system funded by our tax dollars

035and another example of doctrination hidden in plain sight and needs to be eliminated immediately as I asked where's accountability parents who want their children exposed to this adult material can buy them online but keep it out of the public school system and they should be banned on a brighter note the wre weekly religious education has an amazing startup that this fall with three times the number of students signed up for this year from last year as said before it's interesting to see when Jesus is allowed Vikings public school system after 30 years Satan exposed himself no one cares when you bring up Muhammad Buddha or Krishna but the moment you mention Jesus people get uncomfortable demons get uncomfortable that should be telling you something thank you thank you Mr John Woods so thank you for

036the opportunity to speak this evening I'm here to advocate for 111 8th grade students at Northport Middle School and here's what I got to say you're aware five years ago the eighth graders went over to Mountain View well they come back this year so as long as I can remember so the issue was we the eighth grade teaching team have been shorted a math teacher and I'll go over that for as long as I can remember each grade level team and I actually checked with Mr heimgardner has had six teachers to English to math a history and a science teacher this has always been this is all work always worked out it's provided flexibility when the numbers in the classes went up and down each year this is the first time that the eighth grade

037instructional team has ever only had five teachers assigned to provide the instruction to the entire eighth grade class I teach 75 of the eighth grade students in three classes 26 26 and 23 students per class the science teacher Ms Brinkley teaches the other 26 math students and 10 to go to Mountain View for algebra each day so the effect of this decision has been not only overcrowding in the math classes but also overcrowding in the science classes because Miss Brinkley will only be able to teach four sections of science over the course of the Year to each semester for science classes have 27 students per class in addition to this Ms Brinkley has to prepare two subjects each day and she has no additional planning period in which she do this she didn't want me

038saying anything about this tonight I can't imagine that this is what this award had in mind when the short of eighth grade team of teacher this year I'm assuming that this had to have been a mistake so on the off chance that it wasn't a mistake um they hear my comments on behalf of the eighth grade class according to the state of beliefs published on the Shenandoah County Public Schools webpage I'm going to quote this I won't read all of them just the first three but you all should recognize these here are the first three stated beliefs great communities come from Great Schools therefore we believed all decisions are based on the best interest of our students meaningful learning occurs only in the presence of meaningful relationships measures of success are unique and individualized for

039each learner to Settles I don't I don't know how to think through these questions how is increasing the class size from 16 to 27 students per class in the best interest of the students have how could that be how does increase in class size from 16 to 27 students per class help the students to get access to individualized attention that they that they need in that classroom with 26 students or 27 students um how does increasing class size from 16 to 27 students help the students have more access to their teacher to develop meaningful relationships I mean those are directly related to those first three beliefs that we have stated on our website there's only so much of a teacher to go around so okay so I'm wondering did our Direction change because under Dr

040Rayleigh we were moving in the direction of reducing class sizes to 20 or less per class when did we start moving towards larger class sizes in Shenandoah County and why would we be moving towards larger class sizes in the light of socioeconomic factors the reality of trauma experiences and the lives of our students in in the heels of covid We aren't even having that conversation tonight there's no denying that both of these factors are a thing in the southern end of the county so where I come from with evening broke don't fix it right um Mr Healthy Mr Barlow this is your District these are these are the kids in your District uh I implore you on the on the behalf on behalf of the 111 8th graders at North Fork Middle School to fix

041this problem that we now have without delay overcrowding classes in the eighth grade in the eighth grade math and science was not the right thing to do both of these classes have Sol tests at the end of course the accreditation of our schools is important to our parents caregivers and communities I'm calling for you to take I'm calling for you to turn this decision around immediately and to put in place a math teacher that will take away that was taken away from the eighth grade class at the beginning of this year thank you for listening I trust that you hear my call to action in this critical Manner and I'll appreciate you keeping me informed of the quick progress you make in correcting this terrible mistake thank you thank you [Applause] who did not sign

042up would like to speak good evening Dorothy lamb New Market District One I learned recently of the correspondence that was sent to superintendent Shepard regarding the attendance of one of the District Two School Board candidates it appears that chairman Housley has chosen to be the scapegoat for the presence of the candidate at the convocation the interesting thing about the invite that was not attended and not extended to any other school board candidates is that chairman helsley did not attend and Jonathan not a guy asked like use the event as a campaign opportunity wearing a sticker on his shirt promoting his candidacy perhaps chairman Housley you can share with Mr nadagayaslai that he can support that blue shirt he was wearing as it did all that are employed at the central campus but the district 2

043includes and is of the majority the southern campus and a red shirts in order a more more concerning issue is why when the email was sent to only superintendent Shepard was the email shared with the candidate he is not an employee of the system on a much happier note I am hearing positive feedback from staff about how well things have been going this year in fact I'm hearing from one staff member that this has been the best beginning since their first year ever employed here this is an a direct result of the improvements that were made last school year one of the things that stood out in corresponding with staff is that they are not happy with the additional work that will be necessary due to regulating inappropriate book lists and access their position is

044that it is better to remove the books entirely alleviating any additional work required of librarians teachers and administration thank anyone else like to speak hearing none we will proceed uh do we hear a motion to approve the consent agenda absolute motion made by Miss Russ you'll hear a second second for Mr gut y'all all those in favor say aye all those opposed motion carried by a 6-0 vote [Applause] information agenda four one uh Pastor Karen just because I was lucky to get the presentation hi I'm Pastor Karen casperson and I'm the president and founder of just because this is our sixth school year and the reason we started is a lot of my friends are teachers or retired teachers and two of my sons teach in other states I know the overwhelming frustration experience while

045teaching and I was kind of overwhelmed with what they hear so I decided that the problem is very big but the best thing I could do if there's nothing anybody could do and I thought if I didn't do something no one would so just because we started that's kind of our logo to show that we are thinking the importance of children we were organized as an official 501c3 in 2018 and it's our sixth school year the only time we missed our quarterly bag distribution was in April of 2020 and we have 100 we remember why there was no school that year we have four completely different goals actually first of all I consider ourselves educating about education by going around and talking to groups I tell people about the importance of education and our Educators

046and how hard they work and I want to keep education at the Forefront of what they're thinking second is we keep everything local we talk to local businesses I talk to local Civic organizations we want to make sure that local people are aware and can support what we're doing because we know that when people have and can see the impact of what they're doing financially or volunteer that they are more likely to come we also think it's important to take care of our volunteers I have between 200 and 250 different volunteers I have to keep busy which is kind of an interesting problem to have but again my youngest volunteer was four when she started she was a preschooler and she's now in first grade last time she helped with packing and she took a

047lady my hand my age who was a first timer and showed her the ropes about how to pack I want the kids to understand from a very early age the importance of volunteering the fourth of course is the recipients of the bags themselves it may not increase teacher retention I wish I said it could but it's a matter of making each person's day a little better I think you have a testimonial that came to my attention just this past Sunday about the importance of what we do I say a little bit of what our mission is we show a public appreciation to the teachers and support staff of all our County Schools that's all 10 of them and all the employees there so we include the cafeteria people we include the office staff the paraprofessionals

048everybody in that building last year was 903. what we do is regular small Gifts of uh treats of various kinds the last group was six dollars per person last year we gave out two twenty seven thousand dollars worth of gifts they came out to thirty dollars and two cents a person I tried to keep the gifts at 50 cents or under and they include things like hand sanitizer always pencils and tissues uh bottles of water fruit lots of snacks and candy we try very hard to come up with very interesting fun things as you'll see as well okay what do we do those are some of the back items we have and I already said about the price of them on the alternate months because we do it quarterly we've got to the point of

049giving one item so we don't have to have the big packing procedure the packing procedure takes place from 9 A.M to 1 30 p.m we have three shifts and I have about an hour and a half each I average between 10 and 15 volunteers um we again I've already said that part we also have these cute little items we've been making in the alternate months and I love the fact that we have people from all ages we've had preschoolers through the nursing homes to help make these items and I we just start growing uh we received a small Grant from the United Way to put on lunches at each of the nine schools there's no sense in doing triplet no way we could compete with their meals so we've already hosted four of them and

050we had approximately forty five hundred dollars worth of food and homemade desserts and even door prizes so that was the price from last year last month these are the three that are next scheduled I know I've invited each of you to come to the one in your District so please I hope you will come to some we also gave this time breakfast to the bus drivers for their mandatory meetings and another one in March again they were all homemade and donated by um our volunteers okay we just received I'll talk about in a minute from the Shenandoah County pageant scholarship pageant contestants used us as their community service project we received about five thousand dollars in cash we also received about 4 000 snacks in my basement I have a 40 gallon tote filled with

051just pens so we are going to be having an extra packing I don't want those snacks to expire out of the five thousand dollars we gave a check this week to a triplet to the culinary arts department for fifteen hundred dollars I've spoken to some of the music teachers and as soon as they come up with ideas uh we're going to provide up to 150 for each of the 14 music teachers to buy supplies that they need as far as the art teachers we just a teacher passed away in may not of this district and she had more scrapbooking supplies I have seven 40 gallon totes filled with scrapbooking supplies I we figure at least twenty five thousand dollars worth what I'm trying to figure out is a way to get them distributed to our

052teachers and teachers in general I have two over at my house and they were just thrilled with the items that are there so we're hoping to get those within hands of people and then maybe have it open to the public since we have so many and get paid for that and give that money to give supplies to the art teachers these are some of the items that we put in the bags if you see on the right that is probably the favorite craft I've come up with it's called a Twinkie that we turned into a minion foreign received that back she said she enjoyed the laugh almost as much as the chocolate the top one a pen that was made by the four FFA groups at the middle schools and they have they just texted

053me what they want this time we provide the item and they prepare it you can tell who makes a homemade Craft on the bottom left we've taken a juice box and turned it into a buddy and they were given up on the right they are popcorn you can tell which ones the kids made they're more original packing day is done in what I call just because Central is my living room and that's all we have an assembly line set up and we have like I said 10 to 12 volunteers each of the three ships we have the Campers at Caroline furnace and then a Girl Scout cook this is just some of the groups that happen to have pictures of that you can see who they are I'm very proud of working with Shan paycom

054I just gave them 900 packets of tissues and they're putting labels on it that save a packet for your pocket and that that gives some of their artwork in each of the bags and that I just talked about the beauty contestants we with our community service project this year the FFA groups and the interact Club from Mountain View is also there as of this week the sped class from signal knob is helping also with drop several off this week and that is basically the project we offer we hope very much to help our teachers and staff to recognize that they are appreciated by the public because it is totally voluntary people come and do what they want I just went to the post office box and got another check for 250. so this all of

055it will go back directly to the teachers everybody is volunteer and it is a wonderful way to share kindness I think that's something each one of us needs and there may be a short supply so we're hoping very much to at least add to the Educators game thank you thank you board member comments Karen I keep starting at it and you know why why do this but what you do is just it's a little pick-me-up for for the staff and you I don't know how you've gotten all those volunteers um but that's just amazing and I know all of the staff appreciate everything you do so thank you and I have some placements for you at the luncheons I know Mr Healthy was one of them we had placemats and then door hangers that people

056decorated and put on water bottles uh the guidance counselor at time let's see Muhlenberg took those wonderful little sayings and put them on her door so that you know little pick-me-up kind of things so yeah that's great for confirmation class did that thank you they're not quite done yet that's okay next one is October yep anyone else again Karen thank you for all your hard work and uh little things I remember when I was teaching little things like that means a lot and uh the money you raise for the community county-wide it's wonderful so keep up the hard work okay going on uh Dr Shepard the opening of 23-24 school year so we've had a great start to our 23 2023-24 school year the following slides of social showed some pictures of our major events

057and then we'll talk a little bit about enrollment at the very end so we started our year with welcoming our new teachers at new teacher orientation on August the 3rd we had three action-packed days and evening events for our new teachers which I really think they enjoyed the evening events were local things that they could do at um at their either Northern Central or Southern campus and I think they had a great time so just some pictures of we changed up our new teacher orientation a little bit to celebrate our new teachers coming to choosing selecting Shenandoah County Public Schools foreign August 10th we held our open house at all of our schools from two to seven or one to seven our staff and teachers were excited to welcome students and parents back to school

058we had a great turnout at every single one of our schools we also sent out a survey to determine whether because we moved open house from Friday to Thursday if that worked out well for our staff and 81 percent of our staff said they preferred having open house on Thursday as opposed to Friday because it interfered with yard crawl and and other things we will so next year our open house will be scheduled for Thursday there are a few details that we need to work out but I think overall it went very well then on August the 15th we welcome students back to our buildings and you will see that we had several of our mascots available at our schools our students really enjoyed that and then on Tuesday August the 29th and Wednesday August

059the 30th our second and fifth graders took a field trip to the fair students were able to visit the triplet triplet tech building they visited the exhibit hall they visited the farm equipment and then they also visited the livestock bars the second and fifth graders were LED through these tours by the FFA students at our middle schools and they learned a lot about the Shenandoah County Fair during those their time at the fair on August the 31st we had Congress convocation after school started Lydia dinardo was our speaker and then we also had a video with several current and graduated students celebrating our teachers and our staff we sent out a survey to our staff about whether they appreciated having convocation after school started and the um the consensus on that was they would rather

060have it after school started than before school started it allowed them more time in their classroom so we just want to remind parents that students receive breakfast and lunch for free this school year thanks to being part of the community eligibility provision program excuse me this year food service has served 16 641 breakfasts and 36 448 lunches in August which is an average of 1 387 breakfast and 3037 lunches per day in August of 2022 Food Service served an average of 1434 breakfast so we're slightly down on breakfast this year by about 47 breakfast per day but we are up about 283 lunches per day across the division last year we served a little over a hundred thousand more meals um from the previous from the previous year so our lunch our the number of

061lunches that we serve are more this year than they were last year and they were more last year than they were pre-bandemic so 2018 2019. and then our September 7th enrollment so this year you'll see that number at the towards the bottom our enrollment is 5688 students um pre-k through 12. the number of students we have that are K through 12 um are let me find that number um 55 513 students were up 43 students from last year um and the big jump in our students let me is the students who went from 8th grade to ninth grade last year we had 427 students in eighth grade this year we have 481 students in ninth grade so that number more students signed up to go to Shenandoah County Public Schools from 8th grade to ninth

062grade in our number of kindergarten students last year was 369 our number this year is 394. so slightly up our kindergarten students are slightly up this year from last year be happy to answer any questions I have I have a comment um and I shared this with Dr Shepard at Peter Muhlenberg they did a meet the admin night because it's too new um the principles there and it was great it wasn't very well attended but there were probably 15 to 20 families there and four of those families were families that I knew who had either homeschooled or sent their kids to private school I was really surprised to see them at that but I but I was happy happy that they were coming back and I have only had a chance to talk to one

063of the moms about it and what she said was it was important for them to send their kids to private school when their kids were young because our schools are just so big and they thought it would be overwhelming for their child um but their kids are coming back in middle school because of all of the not just the the education they get but all of the other things the sports the clubs the socialization all of that stuff so um I thought it was great to see these families coming back and and some of them are mixed you know some of them still have a young kid in a private school and then the middle school kid is back and there was one family that one homeschool kid came back but the other one won't

064come back until ninth grade so he'll be one of those he'll be one of those eighth graders that decides to come back in ninth grade so I just I thought that was interesting out of maybe 20 families four of them we're coming back Mr Barlow yeah I'd like to uh congratulate you on a really great opening I think a lot of this is um directly attributable to the Leadership Model that you uh Dr Shepard showed in picking your cohorts and your leaders and new principals uh and was such a a large percentage of new principles for things that go so well shows uh that the vision has been accepted and and bought into and I think that's really wonderful and in just terms of one of the activities um I am concerned sometimes about the

065the uh the Gap we have when we have the the fair but I think the I think the field trips that the elementary school kids take to the triplet Pavilion is marvelous because uh the trivial kids get a chance to show off a little bit but with bricklaying and building tables and doing Hands-On stuff like that and I think it's it's really cool that the elementary school kids can see what's down the road for them and what what's feasible in a sense of you know kind of looking up to the Next Generation and and I think that's a good way to stitch together the fact that it's school but it's still part of the fair and I think that helps kind of bring the community together so that's just a small aspect of opening but

066I I think I think it's it's a good it's a good way to again stitch together the aspects of the community so uh so so well well done on that other comments no congratulations you did well the only thing I like to add is that muenberg I attended with Miss Walsh the meeting the new Administration but I the way that building looked in July the rooms that they tore apart and trying to get the foundation uh safe for the students to show up and then in late August you never knew that the construction was in the building and so someone worked extremely hard maintenance janitorial staff I mean it was just amazing so uh what it looked like it was going to be a Troublesome situation of course they're going to have to come back

067this summer to to repair it uh it's amazing they've done that so yes Dr Shepard Dave was a smooth opening anything else on the opening okay moving on uh massages Staffing report good evening our administrators and staff have done an amazing job of hiring and onboarding through another very challenging hiring season ongoing teacher shortages have made headlines for years now fewer people are going into the teaching profession and there's a much smaller pool of candidates plus there's so many districts competing for those talented applicants that the hiring process has become very high stakes the Winchester Star recently printed an article that shared a poll by the National Education Association and this poll reported High percentages of burnout lack of adequate pay and pandemic related grievances among U.S teachers in a recent research study by MDR

068which is a company that specializes in collecting statistics on teachers only 10 of current teachers reported that they would strongly recommend the teaching profession to a young person it's important that we continue to promote positive messages about teaching and learning in Shenandoah County Public Schools our teacher retention rate for 22-23 is 85 percent remember that retention is the opposite of turnover so 85 percent of our staff chose to continue teaching in scps this year this also means our turnover rate was about 15 percent which is just under the national national teacher turnover rate of 16 as reported by the national Center for Education statistics in 2022. here is a list of all the positions that were filled this year including transfers I've noted and read the positions that have experienced the most turnover which includes

06916 administrator vacancies at the school and central office levels within this list 112 are new to scps we utilize a number of methods for recruiting and advertising this past year we attended 15 in-person job fairs in four states as well as five virtual job fairs we also advertise vacant positions on electronic job boards with colleges and universities and we do paid advertising on Google and indeed and through social media sites and some advertising through our local newspapers both in print and online new this year scps has partnered with iteach which is an alternative teacher certification program that allows teacher candidates with a bachelor's degree to complete coursework for Teacher licensure within just one year this program was approved by the Virginia Department of Education and will be reevaluated in three years as of today we

070have 14 unfilled teacher vacancies we started the year with eight long-term Subs in banket positions and several who are finishing the requirements will be appointed finishing the requirements to be appointed as a teacher in second semester principals have worked to cover the remaining vacancies by assigning additional blocks to teachers and increasing class sizes where they can due to the shortage of school counselors we also hired several counselor interns to assist with providing counseling services these interns are in counseling programs and we hope that they'll choose to return to us when they complete their program overall we've filled 150 of 164 vacancies we had and again that includes the internal transfers just this morning I saw an article in my news feed that was in the Richmond Times Dispatch earlier this week it reported that Virginia

071is facing an unusually large teacher shortage with about 4 300 teacher vacancies at the start of this school year this is over 700 more vacancies compared to last year this article included data reported by Jake jlark study that showed Virginia's overall teacher vacancy rate at 4.8 percent it was 3.9 percent last year and 3.1 percent the year before prior to the pandemic the teacher vacancy rate hovered around one percent our current teacher vacancy rate this year is 2.8 percent we currently have eight unfilled positions of the 63 support staff vacancies the total number of positions filled in the division due to resignations and transfers for both professional and support staff positions is just over 200 positions this chart shows the experience of teachers who left scps grouped by their years of experience the purple bar

072on the right represents this past year 47 percent of the teachers who left us were our most experienced teachers who had 11 or more years of experience this year 53 percent of our new teachers have zero to three years of experience we will provide them with support through our qmet program which stands for Quality mentoring of exceptional teaching and they have each been assigned a mentor as well only 21 of the new teachers are more experienced teachers with 11 or more years of experience but they'll still need support to learn scps practices and procedures I've shown you the experience that we lost and the experience of the new staff that we hired this slide shows the total experience of our teaching staff for the current school year for the 2023 school year 52 percent of

073our teaching staff have 11 or more years of teaching experience I'd also like to note that almost 12 percent of our teaching staff have a provisional license we have 22 scps graduates returning as new teachers this year this is the largest number of scps graduates to return since I've been tracking this data point over the last three to four years these are color-coded by the campus at which they'll be teaching we had four support staff in the division who have become teachers this year three transferred from paraprofessional positions and one transferred from a clerical position here you see the top three divisions that our teachers went this year with Frederick County being the highest at 13 percent to share another perspective this chart shows where our teachers live who travel here from outside of Shenandoah

074County while 13 of the teachers who left us went to Frederick County eight percent of our staff live in the Frederick County Winchester area and travel here to work likewise five percent of the teachers who left went to Rockingham County but 11 percent of our teachers travel here to work from the Rockingham County Harrisonburg area about 73 percent of our teachers live in the Shenandoah County area during the exit survey process the top three primary reasons teachers know that they were leaving or retirement family or personal considerations such as personal health or caring for a family member with a health condition or to stay home with children and dissatisfaction with school or division climate related to discipline teachers also noted relocation or demanding workload as secondary reasons for leaving through exit conversations many discuss being

075overwhelmed with testing child study meetings IEP meetings lesson planning and large class sizes several also mention concerns with negative Community perception that's not realistic and lack of parent involvement they're also feeling outside pressure from parents and the community particularly on social media in general teachers feel undervalued as professionals some of the positives that came out of the exit surveys and conversations teachers continue to praise the division and that all decisions are made in the best interest of students they recognize that students truly are the number one priority in scps they praise division efforts for career Readiness for all students they feel a strong sense of camaraderie and support from their peers within the schools and the division they appreciate relevant professional development opportunities and instructional support from central office and they also feel the division

076does a good job of recognizing student and staff accomplishments so what can we do most importantly we need to show all staff that they're valued and appreciated in an article published by synijics in February of last year the Virginia Education Association EA stated that in order to retain teachers we need to provide them with who are most in need this includes support for student discipline and also with the support for resources and services that are provided by our student support specialists the vea also cited that schools must offer competitive compensation staff recognize and appreciate the efforts towards competitive pay and addition and the additional contribution towards dependence health insurance because of the salary increases that you approved for this year are starting teacher pay ranks second among our surrounding divisions keep in mind as I

077mentioned a few minutes ago that 53 percent of our new teachers have zero to three years of experience we need to continue that momentum as we lean into budget planning for next year the Bea said that schools must offer effective training and professional development as well as learning learning communities where their professional judgment is considered valued and respected and they also cited the need to create a climate of safety in their schools noting that this isn't just about preventing violence it's also about creating safely safe places for teachers and students to connect when schools facilitate personal connection connections and a sense of belonging its teachers feel at home professionally this also includes having a school safety plan that nurtures a sense of safety for teachers and students as a nod towards additional efforts to make

078our schools as safe as possible the division is updating Elementary School entrances to create a vestibule for greeting parents and visitors the division also has recently purchased and is currently implementing a school safety act called life spot which is a communication tool for mitigating active threats within the School geofence location I just shared a lot of information with you what questions do you have for me questions you were pretty thorough that was good as I was going through it I was writing but then you answered them so you did thank you you did well well what uh you talked about support I think uh Pastor Karen and her program just because I mean that's huge absolutely I mean even though they're small things they give I think the teachers understand that how's it going any

079other comments thank you Linda okay moving on uh 4-4 draft for proposed Library material selection positive Dr heinburn I don't uh I don't have much to include here other than what's what is um there on on your computer that uh those two policies but I do want to say because the Librarians were very um and please make sure that you would understood that what they presented are suggestions um they don't want it to appear that they're trying to compete with another policy it's not of this versus a that is these are some suggestions if you would like to use them that's great if you decide you know you don't lose them it's fine too they they understand they'll work under whatever needs to be done but that these were suggestions so they said please make

080sure the board understands that with that I'll do my best to help answer any questions but it's really you know what you she's Dennis so uh we will have time to discuss this at the work session it's been scheduled the uh the vote is scheduled for next month the only things I would like to say to further um elaborate on the process is that as part of the policy committee with Brandy we do appreciate the continual input we've had from the librarians uh I um want to thank Andrew for coming up with some really good points that he's added to the discussion the last month uh you're probably all aware that Andrew I'll use his good offices for us to strike a balance the last of the first policy for review so I wanted to

081thank you I wanted to thank Erica Hepner for uh providing I think some really good guideline questions for us for me personally that has helped me clarify some of my Physicians I just want um you to know that and everybody on the board of course that um I'm open to any uh amendments that might clarify this based on some of those points um just uh so we have a little prep one of the things that might be open to amendment is the weeding process trying to either drop it out and take care of it another time making it something that would be the pervula Librarians or believing as is but I think that's one of the things that would come up for discussion and I think another one would be something based on I think

082some points there and I've provided my response to Erica at each of you is that I I personally would would think we could take a look at um uh there was some kind of subjective views that were indicated there about um book reviews and and so forth and so I think those are some things that we might specifically want to take a like look at it for discussions on for amendments uh but um as I said there's time for discussion and debate at another time but just wanted to lay out the process a little bit more specifically and specifically to thank your office for keeping us up to speed and on your ticklers have moved us along and I appreciate that thank you other board members yeah I'd like to add um you know this

083is it's it's a really um emotional of all the things that we deal with um emotional topic and I understand the passion um behind it please don't think it has anything to do with your professionalism it it doesn't um and I know that that seems to be in a where where it's going um there is a policy that we have I think it's one one is it uh one 11 no lla you know there are currently 101 actually up until last week I think my shepherd ads I ask you to add another one um titles in our libraries with sexually explicit material in it 102 or so right now um and I'm I haven't checked the one I asked you to um to add is called Red Hood and it's by um Alana Arnold and

084um it starts out the tight black curls of his pubic hairs surrounded his erection it's wet tipped and Urgent and stroke it with your fingers find his penis and guide it towards the entrance of your vagina it feels thick there sort of scary and there's a moment when you wonder how on Earth it's going to fit inside but James doesn't rush you and you lower yourself on to him um for those of you that want to foyo it when you do for you if you squirrel all the way to the bottom there's a there I took a video of it so you can see that it's there um that's the store of stuff 102 titles that we have um I have not asked just for clarification I'm not put through anything that has asked for

085them to be removed but they are there any parent can go look at those titles can do their research I feel like hope that you do that's it anyone else I think it was policy IIA IIA yes thank you I just I brought a copy of this because I had mentioned it last time but just for board members so you can see what the emails look like that the parents get every time their kid checks out um and Maggie was not home when I got the email so I decided that I would check Destiny as a um as a citizen not as a parent so I exited out all of my school board stuff and I went in as a citizen it was a little bit hard to find but um but I got it

086in three clicks and was able to look at the book and what it was about so yeah the um the I'm not sure what they've done with the analytics on that when you scroll down to get that search bar it disappears at least mobily a couple times I haven't tried it there but um it's it's a little not user friendly on that respect but that's a that's a follow-up thing so yeah I used my computer because I wanted to print it out anything else okay we will look at it in our work session later this month okay moving on four or five request to increase the 2024 operating budget idea Part B flow for special education this time you're already here here I am thank you um so the 20 23 24 individuals with Disabilities

087Act Part B flow through Federal allocations has been approved and finalized and as such we have received achieved in 2024 allocation of 1 million 527 612 dollars which is an increase of what we budgeted of a hundred and forty two thousand six hundred and twelve dollars so I'm here just to uh requests that we um appropriate those additional funds these funds are restricted for um certain uses and uh will be available to a reimbursement process so this will be um is for information tonight we'll be up for um vote at your okay questions okay thanks hearing none going to action items uh five one school board advisory committee Dr Shepard um you have two motion colleagues excuse me college you got two motions there uh Miss jet wants either the first one or the second

088one okay who yes summer like to make a motion I moved to dissolve dissolve the agenda setting and the Agents to approve bills committees okay motion made by Mr gutchall go here a second second sacrifice Mr Barlow discussion they're not they don't need to be official committees if they're just roles okay that's fine and it didn't have to be advertised correct it's not a public meeting if you know we have a um we have a resolution for the agents to approve bills and then the um we have a policy that takes care of the um agenda setting so we have other opportunities for those to be not committees anything else roll call vote all right I'm going to re-read the motion oh I moved to dissolve the agenda setting and the Agents to approve Bill's

089committee is emotional with the Lord that's correct motion made by Mr gut y'all and Say Goodbye Mr Barlow roll call vote Mr Barlow yes 12 yes Mr goodshawn yes Miss rutz yes Mr Keller yes Mr House yes motion carried by six zero vote five two request for reappropriation of a lease Revenue funds that Miss Stein mentioned in our last meeting you'll hear motion able to request the uh that the school board reappropriate the remaining lease Revenue funds of 7208 728 000 uh 213 uh dollars to fiscal year 2024. okay motion made by Mr callow do I hear a second that's second second by Miss Russ discussion hearing none uh roll call vote Mr Barlow yes Miss Walsh yes Mr godshaw yes Mr Rhodes yes Mr Keller yes and Mr House yes motion carried by a

0906-0 vote okay five three requests to increase the 2024 special budget Claude moral more Foundation still hear a motion I'll move to request that the Board of Supervisors increase the F5 2024 special budget Claude Moore Foundation by 114 167 due to receiving a grant to benefit the new occupational therapy Physical Therapy aid program thank you Miss Brooks do I hear a second second second Mr Barlow discussion broke all votes please Mr Marla yes Miss Walsh yes Mr godshaw yes Mr Mr EDS yes Mr Keller yes Mr House yes motion carried by 6-0 votes 5'4 request to increase the 2024 special budget new teacher recognition oh do I hear a motion please I moved to request of the Board of Supervisors increase the FY 2024 special budget by five thousand dollars for new teacher recognition for

091donations received for our new teacher orientation thank you Ms Smith Miss rutz do I hear a second I could Zach In by Mr Keller discussion roll call vote Mr Barlow yes Miss Walsh yes Mr gotcha yes that's right yes yes and Mr House yes motion carried about 6-0 vote five five request to amend the special budget for changes in allocations from the approved budget they're here in motion I moved to requests that the Board of Supervisors revised the fiscal year 2024 special budget to 6 million nine hundred three thousand three hundred dollars to align with current allocations thank you Mr gut y'all go here a second last second Thank You by Miss Russ discussion roll call voted yes Miss Walsh yes Mr betcha yes Mr Rhodes yes Mr Keller yes Mr House yes motion carried

092by six zero vote uh going on five six requests for appropriation for remaining grant allocations you'll hear a motion colleague I moved to request that the Board of Supervisors increased the fiscal year 2024 Grant allocations and the amount of 298 267 dollars and two cents for additional funds awarded for special education thank you Mr got y'all do here a second second sector Mr Keller discussion roll call vote Mr Barlow yes Ms Walsh yes Mr redshaw yes it's Reds yes yes Mr House yes motion carried about six zero vote five seven Personnel do I hear a motion I moved to approved Personnel list as presented thank you Mr kellinger here a second a second think about Miss rutz uh uh discussion roll call vote Mr Barlow yes as well yes Mr Vega yes yes Mr Keller

093yes Mr House yes motion carried by six zero proceeding with the agenda superintendent's monthly report questions for Dr Shepherd so I have a few comments oh comments first yes I would like to thank our students parents in Shenandoah County Public School staff for making attendance a priority this year in August 2022 our division wide attendance was around 92 percent this year it is up more than three percentage points in 95.75 which is a great celebration we are also excited to participate in the script spelling bee again this year we want to wish a lot to our students in great spot through eight as they begin their classroom level bees this month grade level bees will be held later this fall and the county B will be in January our triplet Tech carpentry electricity and masonry

094students completed I'm competed at the Rockingham County fairs construction trades skills competition students brought home first place wins in all three areas and all students who competed placed in the top four so congratulations to those those students Aidan Compton was one of our first students to graduate from our triplet Tech firefighter slash EMT courses and he was just hired by our Shenandoah County Fire and Rescue um Athletics our fall Sports have seasons have kicked off and we would like to wish luck to all of our athletic teams and our marching bands as they compete this fall and then we would like to thank shaffer's barbecue sheets and Route 11 potato chips for providing lunches to the first annual special ed Academy in July the special education department would also like to thank the Strasburg American

095Legion for providing space for safety care training for our teachers and then I have two more North Fork Middle Schools FFA along with their Booher the teacher has raised funds to build a pavilion for outdoor for an outdoor learning space at North Fork Middle School you will notice several donations on the fundraising list this evening and then there will be additional donations at on next month's list and then you may have noticed that there is an additional fundraiser added today on the fundraising list and it was Central High School volleyball dig pink event to benefit breast cancer we happy to answer any questions for Dr Harper hearing none thank you uh the one thing about the Pavilion uh the fundraiser uh it looks like this it's going to be very beneficial to North Fork they

096can host Federation events where usually they have to travel to other schools for that and I think the concrete has already been poured yeah it is it has yes okay board comments who would like to start Mr Keller um sounds like everything is going well good back to school stuff my grandkids are happy so you're happy so I'm happy um and it sounds like to me that teachers are are back to the task of teaching kids and that's what they wanted to so all systems go Miss rutz um we I can't remember when we toured it's it's been a very long day for me it was right before school started um we um we took a a grand tour had wonderful um tour guides um in our in our maintenance department Mrs Jack kept us

097on task we had great conversation um and I appreciate you setting that up and US looking at the conditions of our schools and what needs to be fixed and and so I appreciate that I'd like to open up some discussion regarding well before I go there um we had some pretty hot days in the last couple weeks and we had some air conditioning issues and I appreciate the fact that they are all taken care of and we have those those units running I think Mrs Dr Shepard said that we had ordered those units months back for a replacement and they just had not come in yet um so I appreciate that they're they're up and going um would like to look at some some discussions you know we're in a in a unique place not

098only in the middle of the our central campus but our Stratford campus with the traffic um what we can do um whether it's staggered times for pickup or rather it's staggering times across the divisions to help with those you know to help with those traffic situations I know that you've got a little bit of experience with this because Warren had implemented it with our County we're um we our distance traveled it's hot a lot greater than Warrens but it it's probably some conversations that would benefit being had so I found out that the BOS meeting I guess it was last week or whenever it was they tabled the whole um adding the resource officer floater which is kind of frustrating because we as a board sent the money back and I'm sure it'll still hopefully

099it'll still get passed whenever they vote but you know we received the money um and we could have just spent even though we as a board didn't officially ask for that extra bunch of money but we sent it back because we wanted it to go towards a floater that would benefit the sheriff's department and the school system we know how important school safety is nowadays so to me it's a no-brainer to allocate that money towards the resource officer floater I know all of us it would leave a kind of sour paste in our mouths if they decided to not spend that money towards that when we could have just spent it on whatever um so I encourage the BOS to put the money where we asked um they don't have to but I feel like

100that would be the right thing to do considering we sent it back instead of spending it on whatever it could have been school safety is important especially nowadays and that's my feelings on that um something else comes up broadcasting a football game last Friday in Mountain View and the generals football team they may not win often but the last two times they've won I've been there broadcasting and this one was it was pretty impressive I mean they ran all over uh Thomas Jefferson out of Alexandria but they outplayed them we only got the half time because the of course it wanted to rain that night after we hadn't gotten any for a long time but congrats to the generals of course Central they continue to play well to a good 3-0 start I think the

101Rams are undefeated as well look they played this Batman a couple of times they beat Skyline and we priority but Central's got one more win than Strasburg so yeah okay uh Miss Walsh um let's see uh I just wanted to thank Pastor Karen casperson again for hopping up at the last minute and doing the invocation and also just giving us some of the details about just because it's a great program and I'm happy to hear how much um one thing that's near and dear to my heart as you guys know is performing arts and our kids from all three high schools participated this week in a choral festival at Bridgewater College and it's such I love it when all of the high schools do things together and my girls look forward to it to things

102like that as well um Molly was excited to see some of her friends that she hadn't seen in a while and then Maggie went to the world of work um was it yesterday they're all running together what wasn't it today no maybe it was yesterday no it was today Thursday um anyway which is just an amazing opportunity for kids to visit different uh Industries and different kinds of jobs and I really appreciate all the people who volunteer for that I saw that they they even had a writer's Booth this year and there were a couple of our local writers who were stabbing that Booth but Maggie was thrilled because the Strasbourg campus also sent their kids at the same time so she got to see all of her strasbord friends um so I just I

103I love it one all three campuses do things together um I will tell you one other thing that I have learned from my children this year is discipline is a serious Focus this year in the schools and it's not um I I really appreciate that Dr Shepard and her staff worked really hard on this over the summer so that we're all on the same page or all the schools are on the same page as far as messaging and the seriousness of it my girls really appreciate it because they cannot stand when classes are interrupted by kids who misbehave so um so thank you for that it's uh I think it's making a difference already um and then lastly I just went and looked at the donations because you had mentioned the Outdoor Classroom wow there

104are a lot of donations for that Outdoor Classroom but there's also a lot of donations for other things and it's it's individual donors on up to big companies um and then churches there's all kinds of groups making donations to Shenandoah County Public Schools and I just appreciate the um generosity of our community that's it for now to Barlow yeah so I got three things one is the most Pleasant to mention which is I'm very much impressed with our attendance improve them which was one of the big things that it is one of the big things that employers are interested in and a two percent gain at that point at that upper range is so impressive already uh so kudos and I think that does indicate that those messages and the vision from the top has

105had its impact where there is no vision that people perish and there is vision and when that vision is articulated and strong as it is for attendance Improvement and for discipline academics uh we're going to see that that rise so I think that's that's great news uh when we do discuss the library policy uh in a couple weeks I hope we can talk about the issues themselves and derive some some of the atmospherics out of it I was first of all I want to uh emphasize that when this issue started about a year and a half ago the first part of the the review part um it was a request from The Librarians let me take this in two steps and I was the first to agree that we should do that and uh the

106policy committee has met with the Librarians and has ex has up to this very moment has requested input has accepted that input graciously and has worked on it um and at no time do I believe that anybody on this board has denigrated our librarian staff so it's interesting to me that there are those who spoke last time about an implication that there was some sort of denigration that may be from some people other folks who have engaged in this on social media since I don't engage in social media I don't know but it hasn't come from this from this board uh just total respect for librarians as professionals unfortunately there are those who have decided to denigrate our parents who would be the ones who would participate in this program and a lot of people

107apparently did not read a policy or they would know that the parents do not have veto rights or powers but can form only part part of the committee that overviews a list that's already been developed and the characterization of our parents who would participate as unqualified radicals contemptible suppressive Lilly white uncomfortable uneducated biased untrained judgmental disrespectful people who had been Johnny Appleseed or people who would be afraid of having books about hurricanes and in which Johnny and Jamie's citizen would screw up this process have kind of caught this uh this discussion a little bit and it bothers me that there is there is an attempt to make this in US versus them issue and I would like to see it as a US issue combined the whole the whole group the whole community of Shenandoah

108County Public Schools all all the stakeholders and indeed the policy includes participation of every single group um and my third issue was not pleasant at all but um I have been called out several times by the chairman over the past year or half year for making a political statements that weren't even political um during a budget discussion I was charged with making political pay for which the chairman apologized I appreciated that but yet again in an agenda setting session something that was already on the agenda was taken off by the chairman and he said he was taking it off because I was acting political I asked him what that political was and it was because I wrote an op-ed for the Northern Virginia Daily I advised him it was my first Amendment right to write

109an op-ed it happened to be critical of the Biden cabinet although I wrote another one about the the problem with cluster Munitions being used by the Earth condoned by the United States and Ukraine um so this has kind of been a pattern of the chairman of making kind of arbitrary decisions that really go against um are code or policy and Norms throughout the year and I'm not going to go into those that they've occurred in the past I'm not going to ask her any action from the board um but the very fact that uh that the chairman has accused me of these things and apparently has has involved themselves and himself in in political uh issues I find disturbing and I would like I would like for us to drive on and leave this behind

110us and um and and leave the uh labeling of positions which mine are driven by conviction and not party is not important to me but my convictions are and I'd like to be judged on those rather than what are perceived um political points of view so um sorry I have to do that Mr chairman I just felt that I had to clear the air that's all okay thank you um I will start by saying I will apologize to the candidates that were not invited to buy me personally uh and I apologize for Dr Shepard I could have checked with her I did uh it was an oversight I did not attend because of a family emergency that I could not attend if not I would have been there it would be my last convocation okay

111it was very special to me and miss seagrassed me to take some of my remarks which I did and uh the staff saw them whatever um the only thing I got to say Dennis to you is I got three months and then it's yours uh one thing um what Mr Woods raised Dr Shepard about the enrollment at at North Fork math can that be looked at or how did that become an issue when we moved from Mountain View to Northport yep so Dr Julian's in eighth grade move into the district from from last year so moving from Seventh to eighth grade and then also it's very difficult to find another math teacher okay we likely have make it we have vacancies in math and we have some that are filled with long-term Subs okay yeah

112so we're aware of it whatever uh the other thing I like to close was I uh I found uh the uh the book I think two years ago that the day that farmers quit that teacher from Rockingham published a book the day teachers quit and I've been asked to read in the northern campus one day in October and I'm going to share that book with them and also I think all the families in Shenandoah County got the Shenandoah County recreation guide Parks and Recreation and we have six pages at the end of that I hope you will look at it okay that note the meeting occurred at 8 35.