001the Shenandoah County School Board to order uh Ms Shepard do you have a recommendation for closed session please I do I recommend 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 involving the assignment appointment promotion performance demotion salary discipline or resignation under Virginia code 2.2-3711 A14 and to discuss Scholastic records involving the discussion or consideration of a mission or disciplinary matters concerning any student of any state school system under Virginia code 2.2-371182 thank you do I hear a motion to that effect please yes I move that 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 involving the assignment appointment
002promotion performance demotion salary discipline or resignation under Virginia code 2.2-3711 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 Virginia code 2.2-3711 A2 thank you Mr Barlow door here a second second second by Mr Keller all those in favor say aye all right all those opposed it carried by a vote of six zero we will be reconvene at 7 pm hopefully to the February meeting of the Shenandoah County Public School do I hear a motion to reconvene in Open Session please in an open session okay motion made by Mr gutch I'll do here a second by miss rutz all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed the vote carry 6-0 the Shenandoah County School Board hereby certified
003by roll call both to the best of each member's knowledge only public business matters lawfully Exempted from open meeting requirements but Virginia law were discussed in closed meeting to which the certification resolution applies and second only such public business matters as were identify in the motion convening the closed meeting was heard discussed or considered by the Shenandoah County School Board each member responds I do certify when called by the clerk Miss Walsh ISO certified Mr gutshaw hi so certified Mr Barlow ISO certify I'm so certified I said certified ISO certified thank you uh prior to the invocation we like to recognize one of our former employees who passed away since our last meeting her name is Ellen M Ramsey and uh I know the family very well and uh I got a few things to
004say about this fine lady and her fine family Ellen Ramsey started teaching in 1955 at Fort Valley Elementary teaching grades one through three in a single classroom Ms ramsley then transferred to Strasburg Elementary in 1964. taught there until moving to Sandy Hook in 1972 winning open and talked there until 1987 when she retired teaching first and second grade as needed beyond the stories of Mrs Ramsey's influencing young adults in Shenandoah County her Legacy was carried on by three immediate family members who were also educated in the strong and taught in the Strasburg area J Ramsey taught 39 years at Strasburg High School Rosa Rams they taught 33 years as Elementary education teacher Gary Ramsey 32 years as Middle School PE teacher Alan Ramsey 32 years as Elementary education teacher and if you do the math
005the ramsley totaled 136 years from 1955 to 2009. we need more people like Miss Ramsey and her fine family so let us bow our heads in a moment of silence before Mr Barlow will give the invocation please thank you yes if you joined with me in prayer please father would you thank you for this wonderful County this beautiful country you've given us and we thank you for the people and partners in education in this room in this County including parents stakeholders teachers and we thank you for each and every one we convene tonight to ask you to give us wisdom to give us a civil uh discourse with one another to give us empathy we're on another's positions and to give us courage to make wise decisions we do uh bless those who are participating
006tonight and we pray that the things we do will be bound to your glory we prayed in your name amen amen let us honor the flag please 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 we're liberty and justice for all thank you Dennis all right colleagues uh do I hear a motion to approve the agenda as presented saisumu motion made by Mr Barlow do I hear a second second of Mr Keller all those in favor say aye all those opposed motion carried about a 6-0 Miss Shepherd recognition for this evening so this evening we would like to recognize a number of people the first recognition on our list is on Monday January the 9th of this year um
007our one of our school buses was rear-ended and we would like to thank all of the people who helped us with that situation and responded we are so lucky to have such quick responders in our community so after your name is called please come up and get your certificate Dr Hein Garner will be handing those out and please remain so you can get your picture taken um so Mr Lucas long our transportation supervisor Miss Don Miller our bus driver Dr Holly rusher principal of signal now Mr Scott schlittner assistant principal of signoma who I understand was very quick to respond um Miss Melissa Foltz is not here with us she's the principal of Strasburg High School Mr Brandon Burkhart the assistant principal of Strasburg High School the toms Brook Fire Department Jason the fire chief
008Jesse blah Todd Dean Chris pangle Rose Runyon Shenandoah County Sheriff's Office Mr Russell racy deputy and school resource officer Cody Darr deputy and school resource officer Shenandoah County Fire and Rescue Jessie Clark the captain Alonso charity Master firefighter Nick walls firefighter and EMT Thomas Funk firefighter and EMT Christina Compton firefighter and EMT Whitney Tucson firefighter and EMT Courtney minion firefighter and EMT Strasburg Fire Department Brooklyn Henderson firefighter and EMT Middletown Frederick County number 12 also was dispatched so we thank them and then the Virginia State Police that worked the incident were Trooper Craig Klein Trooper Nicholas wakeerman or Wakeman Trooper Michael Albert Trooper John Custer Trooper Marshall Grill and Trooper Jason Street so we'd like to thank them all for their service to our County and for our help thank you very much Mr Housley
009would you like to say anything about the newspaper article and from the bus incident about that state trooper oh I I don't know if I still have that paper I think I do I think I mentioned it to uh at the last meeting um the state trooper uh ml Albert and and the smile on this young boy's face says it all and not only that but all those EMTs that was on the scene it could have been a disaster so we're thank you yes so thanks to everybody that was involved and I know Miss Shepherd and the school board appreciates when things like this turned out on a positive note in which it did it did so I have a couple more recognition go right ahead thank you thank you so much um so it's
010not on our list tonight but we would like to thank Miss Les Paul she's a teacher at Sandy Hook Elementary School third grade teacher for her heroic actions um saving one of her students from choking she performed the Highlight group maneuver so we are so um thankful for her and her quick actions um this week I'd like to add um to the public Miss Shepard sends us Friday notes and uh obviously that was on that week of the incident and um she I know she was relieved so uh from the board I took it on my initiative and contacted Mr Keller and Miss Shepard and we gave her a bouquet of flowers in her classroom the Monday following the incident and uh she teaches third grade she's a very humble educator I think she's taught
011for 11 years if I remember correctly um she didn't know we were coming she did not know we were coming but when you when the uh the principal opened the door the classroom was engaged in learning as a teacher I know when he they were engaged and not only that was she had a learning I mean hearing impaired student and she had a mic on to make sure that student was getting the same instructions of people that did not have that impairment I was impressed and it not only does it go on there it goes on in most of our classrooms throughout the county sometimes we get a bad rap about that but we need to think about the positives and if that was not a positive experience for Mr Keller myself and Miss Shepard
012to visit her or whatever so um thank her and thank for many others yes ma'am all right so a few more so this week is National School counseling week and we would like to recognize our Nationals who are our school counselors for their tremendous impact on helping students achieve School Success and plan for a career school counselors are certified and licensed Educators who help all students succeed the combination of their training and experience makes them a unique and integral part of our schools this week honors school counselors provides a recognition for their position and helps them which is a valuable part of the educational process for all students as they meet the challenges of their 21st century and I know we are celebrating with our school counselors tomorrow at triplette Tech so that's very exciting
013um also February 12th through the 18th is um National is Virginia kind this week the purpose of Virginia kindness week is to recognize that simple day-to-day acts of kindness in awar schools communities and state to be a Kinder safer and healthier more inclusive place to live work learn and play teaching and recognizing kindness in schools and communities Fosters empathy builds Community reduces bullying and nurtures a safe and welcoming environment schools across the division will be participating in the Virginia kindness week and then would like to recognize our school board for their service School Board appreciation month is February and we would like to recognize our school board members for their dedication to public education our school board members serve their communities and advocate for public education with local state and federal leaders on behalf of
014all students in Shenandoah County school board members must develop policies and make tough decisions on complex educational issues impacting the entire Community they bear the responsibility for an annual budget of 76.8 million 5633 students and over a thousand employees in 10 schools even though February is designated as a school board appreciation month our school members are integral to the success of our students so thank you so much and then last but not least we would like to thank our school board Clerk and our Deputy clerk for and this is their appreciation no next week is their appreciation week February 14th through the 18th and we would like to recognize the school board clerk Cheryl Jack and Deputy clerk Linda Hodges for a job well done the schoolwork Clerk and Deputy clerk are responsible for keeping
015accurate records of meetings and proceedings of the school board they interact with the school board and the community to ensure the business of the school board is handled efficiently we are fortunate to have such skilled and dedicated individuals serving these positions and we would like to thank them for a job well done foreign [Applause] moving on 2-6 the Shenandoah County School Board welcomes public comment doing most regular meetings and doing public hearings school board members do not respond to public comments during the meeting or hearing each speaker will be given up to three minutes thank you the board generally allows up to 60 Minutes for public comments on the agenda non-agenda items if there's a large number of speakers the board May limit the time to fewer than three minutes all comments should address a
016matter related to Shenandoah County Public School the school board will not hear public comments that involve a complaint about an individual staff member personal action a student disciplinary action a complaint about individual student or pending allegation the school board expects each speaker to be courteous modeling for our students how one can respectfully disagree with other views speakers will address their comments to the entire school board and not to one individual board member or to the superintendent or to a staff member nor to the audit speakers will not engage in personal attacks the speakers were encouraged to sign up as you enter the room and we are ready to start and our first one is Brittany Silverton okay I'm sorry oh I do I had you in class but you're up all right I thought I'd
017recognized you how many years ago was that been oh I'm not supposed to talk about it called me off guard I apologize yes ma'am I think it's on it's ready to go yes okay there you are all right all right um good evening my name is Brittany Silvestri I'm a mom of two students at ww Robinson Elementary School and um a social worker at a healthy family Sharon County and most recently an organizer for parents for outdoor play advocacy group I'm here this evening to speak about an idea that many of us would like to see happen in all of our elementary schools that is more time an opportunity for our children to Play and Learn outside essentially more recess I know I only have three minutes um but I want to start off with
018a real quick visualization I want you to become your eight-year-old self and I want you to think about what it would be like to sit in a cinder block wall classroom some of them without Windows bright lights and eye strain at a screen or a piece of paper for a good amount of time and just with that quick visual it doesn't feel that great this is the environment that we expect our children to learn and fully engage in which they do but it's also why many of them have issues focusing or see can still including my second grader so now I want you to picture your eight year old self using that pinned up energy and going out into the fresh air breathe it in a deep feeling warm sunlight or cool wind running and
019playing your senses awaken concentration rebooted anxiety should this is what outdoor recess provides for our children unstructured time to decompress and recharge and while I'm describing a respite for children it is not a break from learning it is a part of learning where did you learn compromise or how to stand up for yourself these things are hard to teach in a classroom but they're easy to learn on the playground in our school system grades one through five are currently only getting 20 minutes a day of outdoor recess weather permitting so in the winter some children are only getting 20 minutes a week outside mini Child Development professionals and impact studies show that there are so many benefits to recess which I'm sure many of you already know specifically outdoor play um other neighboring schools like
020Garland Quarles in Winchester City they have worked more recess into their schedule and they see the benefits student improved physical health mental well-being socialization reduced behavioral issues better immunity increase in attendance and even improved academics teachers here agree with this I sent him a survey last week to teachers and staff at ww Robinson many teachers responded and the results were pretty clear 97 so it was all but one teachers stated that they would like to see their students get more than 20 minutes um a day for recess and 97 will support can I keep going okay okay we'll support a mandate from the school board increasing recess time and they left comments for how it can work in their schedule um according to the code of Virginia State Board of Education and recess may be
021included in the required five and a half hour instructional time for elementary school provided that it does not exceed 15 so let's say we're asking for like 40 45 more minutes total that is only 13.6 percent I'm hoping from speaking tonight you will add this as an action item to next meeting's agenda so that the schools can begin to implement a plan as soon as possible and real quick we were we were thinking about it and so we were asking um that you enacted policy that all students and all grade levels K through five in Shenandoah County have at least two 20-minute recesses spoken to their day so a total of 40 minutes and For Recess cannot be withheld for academic or cognitive reasons and be held outside unless severe weather I also propose you
022approved Provisions for less of your letter um including adding Pavilions or having a donation closet for extra jackets I also ask you if they consider helping each principal to implement a schedule or plan whether that be through a known consultant or other means we also need to consider extra playground equipment and finding additional spaces around the school so kids can play safely I can be of help with this personally and I know that others in the community would spend more time helping in this effort uh we need to do our part as parents at home getting our children outside but the schools also need to do their part in what's best for our children and that's getting giving them ample time to play through their bodies and breathe from there so thank you for your
023time and consideration and I hope you continue forward thank you thank you okay the next speaker is there gimpy gimple gimple good evening my name is Sarah gimple and I'm here tonight regarding the book review policy I'd emailed my thoughts to you all a few weeks ago but after watching the work session I wanted to follow up with a few comments before the vote this evening although I thought the work session conversation was mostly a success I was a bit perturbed with one of the members attitudes towards the issue having commented that he had spoken with the librarian question and the policy we have now works it was also noted that this is part of a national movement and I heard a few comments alluding to the fact that it's unlikely that Shenandoah County Public
024Schools would have staff that push agendas or inappropriate material the movement is nothing more than a large uprising of really ticked off parents who are tired of schools not protecting our kids and allowing a wok Jim to woke agendas to be pushed there would be no movement if we could trust our school systems they should have to do their jobs you think it's not happening here in Shenandoah County you're grossly mistaken the majority of our staff our station and are giving their all to provide our our kids with the best education they can but to think that there aren't those who have morally corrupt messages to protect on our children is naive having been one of the two parents that challenged a book I'm curious how many of you ask me or the other parent
025about what our feelings or thoughts were or how the process was before you formed your opinion I only got two emails back from my email to you we were treated with a lot of disrespect the librarian's Viewpoint seemed to be the only Viewpoint that mattered I was called a bully and against human decency by the very same library and for trying to protect my child and that was absolutely uncalled for there was no impartiality when the librarian was soliciting support from staff prior to the meeting I can assure you that the current system doesn't provide for a fair and just process the best policy isn't to enact a procedure for better oversight before the books are purchased but this policy is equally important these children are already being exposed to so much that's not age-appropriate
026and we're watching mental health issues and suicides increase at a learning rates it's our job as parents and Educators to protect these kids to the best of our ability is the world's soon enough going to take their innocence no one's asking for band or burned books we're asking for common sense policy transparency and oversight and I'm sure your minds are already made up prior to tonight's vote but please know these two truths you absolutely do have staff within your school system that is pushing agendas an inappropriate Library materials are one of them and because of this myself and other parents will continue to fight long and hard to protect our kids thank you thank you the next speakers will send uh air back good evening good evening my name is Lucinda urbach and I'm a
027resident of Strasbourg and the librarian at W W Robinson which explains my attire today was dressed like a tourist today we do what we can to keep the students positively engaged this is one way um and as a librarian it is my pleasure to also help students by encouraging them to explore the world real and imagined through books I'm here tonight to Express gratitude to the board and the community for their engagement and the redesign of policy klb commonly referred to as the challenge policy it's not really challenging we are aware that materials may not always be to some folks liking or desires and in place procedure to review them is appropriate and welcome I am particularly grateful for the boards and administrators inclusion of the Librarians the professionals and the policy Recreation process and
028a particular thanks to those of you who took time to talk with us to get a greater impression of how we do our job supporting all of our students I look forward to a continued positive relationship with the board thank you and may you feel blessed and not stressed by your duties this evening thank you next speaker is my record good evening board members good evening superintendent Shepard um first I want to thank you all for putting yourselves out there and putting yourselves in this position uh some of you may or may not know but I've decided to put my hat in the ring and run for Mr Keller's spot for the next term that being said it's forced me to get out into the public to get the signatures on the petition and talking
029to the people um I've talked to kids parents grandparents um I've got to say I'm in shock the biggest thing I wrote this down but I do better speaking from the heart so I'm just going to speak from the heart um the stuff that I hear at these board meetings is not the stuff that I'm hearing from these parents and grandparents these parents and grandparents are talking about bullying they're talking about the inappropriate books in the library um they want to know about transgender CRT what my feelings are on that um I gotta I wish you guys could respond I know you can't but I'd like to know when some when was the last time some of you guys met with the people that voted to put you up here um because I can tell
030you if the voters see fit to put me on the board the last thing I'm going to do is lose contact with them um you guys are supposed to be representing them and representing the best interest of the kids um and I just don't see that happening I've prayed about this long and hard um my wife works in the school system I've talked to teachers and the stuff that's going on in the school system it sounds like the kids are just running them up kids traffic trashing classrooms [Music] fighting teachers kicking teachers hitting teachers I've got to say I'm in shock I'm like the kids are getting away with this stuff um so I just asked tonight as you look at this library book policy I ask that you all pray maybe individually maybe as
031a group and follow God's lead I mean after all these are the kids these are the the people you are entrusted with they're God's gifts to their parents and the parents are trusting you all to make the right decisions we're not asking for books to be banned we're not asking for them to be burned heck when I was a kid when you went into 7-Eleven you went into the grocery store that kind of stuff was kept behind a plastic cover where you couldn't even see what it was now y'all are wanting to hand them out to kids in the library um I think we ask enough of our teachers we don't need to be asking them to be you know a psychiatrists psychologists social workers let the teachers teach that stuff needs to be kept
032out of the school system I just asked once again that you say a prayer before you uh vote tonight and let God in your heart and leave your decision thank you all for your time thank you sir next speaker is Miss uh Whitney Pence good evening Miss Shepherd chairman Housley school and school board members my name is Whitney Pence and I'm a parent of two children at the central campus I'm also an occasional substitute teacher within the county last week my husband and I sent an email to Ms Shepherd Dr heingardner the principal of W.W Robinson the assistant principal at Robinson and our school board members with the intent to bring attention to a second grade teacher whose classroom instruction was interrupted by a student with a known history of misbehavior and a known history
033of aggression towards teachers and classmates this student was displaying irrational and potentially harmful Behavior I am here this evening to publicly commend Miss Carrie Taylor for her Swift action in calling for administrative help clearing all of her students to another second grade classroom for safety de-escalating a crisis situation in her classroom and then composing herself enough to return her students to the classroom and get them back on task the parents of these students who were rushed out of their classroom were never notified behavior issues and lack of discipline or a problem in our entire School Division and Nationwide prior to forcing our students into virtual learning in 2020. it's now 2023 and it is time to stop using we're coming out of a pandemic as an excuse for the daily disruptive and violent behaviors in
034our schools in August of 2020 a central office administrator was at the front door of one of our high schools denying entrants for students who refuse to wear a mask I ask where is this same diligence and administrative visibility when our teachers are continuously removing the same students from the classroom radioing for help reporting repeated aggressive behavior and being physically hit no teacher should be subjected to any sort of violence and neither should our students by law our classroom should be should be a learning environment where students have the ability to reach their full potential freed from violence misbehavior and disruptions instead of blasting out illegally proactive robocall denouncing bullying and negative interactions the message should have been our school district leaders ensuring the teachers and the parents that our principals have been instructed to
035hand out clear and consistent consequences allow teacher participation when returning a student to the classroom after the student has been removed follow up with a disciplined referral document all calls for help from the classroom even if the incident is not defined by the state as reportable and most importantly have zero tolerance for violence against our teachers and people or in their peers when discipline is broken nothing else as well thank you thank you next speaker is Mr Stephen Heisman good evening school board members Ms Shepherd thank you for allowing me to speak a minute this evening uh back on that first speaker this evening Marty when you and I were eight years old we was driving a two-cellular John Deere tractor with me probably so a couple things I wanted to touch on real quick
036the weekly religious education here we got going on in the county I myself cannot get enough of it the education program is running steady and making a positive impact on the lives of the students that are attending wre will continue to grow one student at a time and what's most important to remember about the wre program as we have heard a little bit this evening about the bullion and rough housing in the schools here and there in the classes of the wre they try to teach respect to one another of the students that's very important uh Luke's backpack everybody's aware of the Luke's backpack in the the program and um on the southern campus I am very honored that uh my Lutheran Church out in the Hamburg areas I Lutheran Church is the uh is
037the Hub or the center point of where we uh house the food for supplying the southern campus and and council meeting the other evening we got a report of the uh Luke's backpack for the month of January and I have to say I was overly impressed at the magnitude of the size of this program throughout the county all three campuses we have about 155 students that are receiving these bags of food that's late in the week like Thursday Thursday afternoon Friday and and they take that food home and we know that they have nutritional food over the weekend there's 12 to 14 different nutritional items in those bags of food and a dollar value surprisingly has been put on each bag of about 11 okay the month of January six thousand seven hundred and thirty
038two dollars worth of food was distributed to these children out through out amongst the county and I find that very remarkable and what is is uh most important to understand is Luke's backpack is very very very very strongly supported by the community and that's what makes it work so one then to this policy I'm going to run out time of a talk fast uh on the policy that is in question here this evening I learned a little bit more about it and uh from last month parents should have the right to see and approve what books are being bought for the students in the public school system this indoctrination that we have heard mentioned a time or two this evening from different speakers this indoctrination of the children in the public schools is sweeping Across
039the Nation and many parents throughout this country have had enough and they're starting to stand up against it one example is uh just recently elections out in the state of Iowa right there's a headline the uh the governor of Iowa takes on this woken doctrination whatever however they come up with that name uh with massive school choice Victory they're going through the systems and the CRT that all of this indoctrination that we have heard about they're getting rid of it the governor of Florida Ron DeSantis stated as school was starting back in the fall he said if students head back to classrooms this fall I'm happy to clear up any confusion that the media may have about appropriate curriculum math reading and writing will be taught in our schools CRT sexualized content transgender transgender ideology
040will not be accepted or tolerated the Florida schools will educate children not indoctrinate them so the question that that we have here in Shenandoah County is the books that are in question here how did they get into our school libraries who approved them and who bought them and also where did the money come from to buy that type of book that has got sexual adult content in that is available to students under 18 years of age that is a very big question to get an answer to where did the money come from when you want to find the root of all corruption and such the old saying is follow the money now I need to say very importantly Shenandoah County has many many many excellent teachers and Educators and administration they really do against the
041best of them in the state of Virginia but if we have these types of leftist Leaning people in the school system that are trying to uh to hide this evil to minors in plain sight like was discovered a year and a half ago with um lives Pride at the southern campus then it's time to remove those employees thank you very much thank you our next speaker is Miss Katie God's line sorry I don't have food for you I've been to enough of these meetings where you get cookies and milk and all kinds of good things I'm just handing you more paper thank you foreign for bringing up Luke's backpacks it is a wonderful program that is sponsored by Shenandoah Valley Lutheran ministries and one which I've been honored to be part of for a long
042time we are celebrating that we have a new executive director and PG coverstone who's doing a great job and um just to follow up with what Steve said Mr um Heisman said students can register for receiving Luke's backpack bags through their guidance counselors at the schools and our delivery people have reported back to me how friendly the staff the the folks the receptionists the administrators the teachers are when they show up with the bags they're always greeted warmly so I I just think that says great things about our schools especially on the southern campus so so what I had to do was our spring forward program again I stand before you thanking you for the support a special thanks to miss Shepherd for the support she provided for Ms Hodges providing a wonderful day uh
043afternoon of boundary training for our volunteers and thanks to Lucas long and Kimberly Wilson who have been working with us through the transportation department and uh we are happy to report that with each day that has passed the kids are arriving earlier and earlier so that has worked out well and it's just great to have them file off the school bus into ours into our social hall and what you have before you then is the brochure for our program and each day Ms Jane Perry provides a wonderful plan of the day with a theme for the day and has fully reversed our tutors in in the different grade levels that they will be working with and the ways in which they can engage those students So currently we have registered 15 children and 11 volunteer
044tutors many of whom are retired educators and our registration is going forward forward are for second through fourth grade but this particular semester we did welcome back some of our former Scholars when spring forward ended in March of 2020 our kids experienced the same sudden stop to their education that they had in their school in your schools as well and we had to close our program totally I'm so thankful for the imaginative ways at which the schools went forward but we brought those kids back because we wanted to have good closure so we do have some middle schoolers right now and it's just going great because they're big sisters and Big Brothers to the younger kids that have registered so many thanks for all your support it's going great thank you thank you Pastor Katie
045uh Miss Richie once I have the four now yes thank you um this um Washington board just before we convene this evening it's a cello school board members unfortunately and I am unable to meet the meeting tonight in Woodstock hopefully you're working reading my comments before the vote I fully support having a book review policy in Shenandoah County Public School libraries it's important in the responsible action to take as a student who is educated in the public school system the books I found in my elementary junior high and high school libraries saved my life as a matter of record I was raped in the summer between third and fourth grades it caused me great confusion emotional pain and some very serious trust issues that have followed me throughout my whole life young people students should
046not have to experience things like this or should they be exposed to reading materials that are sexually explicit they are not emotionally or even socially prepared for that kind of subject matter and it's up to us adults to protect them in every way we can I thank God every day for the Librarians I had in school they exposed me to the classics which helped me to escape from my trauma Gulliver's Travels Frankenstein Romeo and Juliet the deer Slayer David Copperfield and many others helped me through my pain the famous the biography of famous people that were in the library inspired me to keep going we have to ask ourselves what kind of education and Legacy do we want to create for the public school students in Shenandoah County one that pushes them to dream are
047one that causes them possible emotional damage the right thing the more responsible vote is to have a book book review policy in place thank you for your service to to the citizen Street and students of Shenandoah County best regards John T crotec out of Mount Jackson thank you uh anyone else in the audience would like to speak that did not sign up hearing none we will move on all right do I hear a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented I moved to approve the consent agenda as presented motion made by me Mr gutchall do here a second by Miss rutz all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed it carried six zeros okay going on to four uh uh I will like to recognize Miss Stratton about the annual child count
048for special education services in our County please good evening chairman Housley superintendent Shepherd and members of the board I'm here to present to you our December 1 child count so first we'll go over the purpose of the child counseling under your folder on the other side yeah right so this is the purpose for the December one child count as you can see the school divisions are required to report an unduplicated count of students with disabilities receiving special education on December 1st it's for state and federal reporting under provisions of the individual Disabilities Act idea Part B so encompassing that is how we receive some funding and assistance from States for Education funding and it also incorporates our preschool grants so who has counted in this December one count as you can see they must meet
049all three of these criteria to be counted they have to have a current evaluation or re-evaluation have a valid individualized education program which is the IEP or an individualized or individual service plan which is an ISP by December 1st they must also be receiving special education and related services on December 1st so this is our December one count for 2022. as you can see on the left side is the disability category you can read down the different disability categories in December 22. is what we reported out the total students that we counted for idea is 899. looking at the October 1st enrollment and we did that because that's been consistent with the last five years looking at October one enrollment it was 5751 students so looking at that we are 15.6 of our students are
050identified with a disability this is the five-year Trend as you can see disability category on the left 2018 through 2022 as you can as you will notice if you would look at the total enrollment October first for those five years how it's fluctuated not really that much when you look at it you look at it as a whole you look at your percent of students in special education again we've been around 14 to 15 percent ideally we should not be over 12 of our student population and please note this does not include our students that have a 504 plan this is only students that qualify under idea questions questions yes colleagues what is the difference between an IEP and an ISP individualized service plan is for a lot of our students that are being service
051also possibly in a private school that we provide services for or they have a plan that they need that specialize that's not the IEP plan fruit not in our school but we do servicemen so we can count them because they're in our County but they may be elsewhere yes they could be Elsewhere for that Jennifer can you remind everybody what unduplicated means that you cannot count the child more than once even though it counts even if they have a secondary disability or a tertiary disability they're only counted the one time under the disability category and it would be the primary disability category that they would be tallied under thank you okay what classifies as a speech or language impairment so they have to go through obviously the criteria eligibility criteria and um we have our
052professional speech language Pathologists that actually provide testing for them and it could be articulation for instance that's the majority of our students and so they would qualify it with a criteria sheet so the team would come back together and go over that and make a determination regarding the Virginia Department of Education criteria sheet for the speech and language thank you give us some examples of other health impairments um it could possibly be a student that has attention deficit that's impacting but needing specially designed construction behavioral concerns could also fall under that that don't necessarily fall under the criteria of an emotional disability I'm going to ask you a question you can't answer okay if you went back 10 years 20 years what do you think that number would be if we're saying it's 15.6 percent
053now of our student body what do you think that number would be well I can tell you from 10 to 15 I don't know about here but I can tell you over in general for Virginia it was about eight percent eight yes okay my question yeah are we getting better at diagnosing problems or are more kids coming to us with problems are they too possible I think they're both a possibility absolutely that I think I think definitely gotten better with the way that we are identifying students we have better criteria um better understanding of disabilities and the impact and the education um also do I think that we are over identifying at times I absolutely agree that sometimes we do that because we want to do what's best for students for kids and we feel
054like that what's the what's the answer for over identifying kids so I don't know that there is really answer for that I think sometimes that we may be kind of quick to not give the child that's a young child a little bit of time to grow and to learn and to be able to you know develop that part of the learning process um there is a criteria so we have to follow that criteria and if you can answer yes to the criteria after looking at testing then we're definitely going to identify I think what we need to do when we go back to reevaluation is look at that criteria reevaluate not roll testing for three years but reevaluate that student and a lot of times we'll find soon we may not qualify how often do
055you reevaluate every three years every three years we suspect another disability possibly or we feel that you know maybe we need different testing then um we would actually bring that bring that back to the table eligibility what kind of um disabilities or conditions fall under specific learning disabilities um just less the uh processing auditory processing visual processing um dysgraphy of this calculator or anything like that would be are all these uh uh students these 899 we deal with the services in the county we do not uh they're all of them are in the county and we do not send any I remember when I got on the board I think we had one in Florida uh count what's that they're not counted in this count if they're outplaced in that case is that what you're
056talking about yeah yeah some will it just depends on if there's somewhere that maybe their own Lea we may still support and help write that IEP but if they have their own Lea then they're not counting under us education Authority so it really depends so we still do have students who are outplaced um whether it be Grafton or minute or other locations yeah absolutely and they're serviced obviously through not our teachers because they're outplaced but they have teachers their special education teachers that are servicing them I understand obviously we want to keep them here yes right absolutely okay because if we send them elsewhere the um among other things we incur the cost of that is that correct um it depends sometimes they're parentally placed so we do not but we still have to serve
057service for them um other times they may be through a Medicare um they also could possibly be receiving Services through the county as in if they go to fact in Partnership team and sometimes they will help with the educational or that they will pay for the educational services do we provide a program such as therapeutic day services for that we are looking to try to have an agency come in to help with that piece for the day treatment yeah typically does that only uh administer to students with an IEP yes yes through hours if it was going to be a special ed day treatment obviously you can have therapeutic and you have agencies come into schools and work with general education students also it would definitely be first that was a Medicaid funded initiative 10
058years ago and um Medicaid stopped funding that at the same level that they were funding it so that's why I kind of worked well it just to catch up everybody therapeutic day treatment was a program that uh provided counselors in schools for identified kids when I was working wasn't necessarily special we had kids yeah kids that have behavioral problems and gave them a place to de-escalate I think probably the turn so okay I've taught day treatment so they were getting paid treatment but it was through a special right um but absolutely we do have you know counselors that come in and work with you know the students that aren't identified necessarily with IEP I know that um the program here that we have um that is pretty tough to sometimes have teachers with that endorsement
059um what is the if you could pick a number of folks that we could hire or that would help with with covering these these children what would it be to cover for the students like what we were talking about that would need the therapy yeah if yeah if you felt wonderful about the program if you could feel wonderful about the program how many more special ed teachers and and could you would you have on staff so if we're looking at that then I'd have to look at it as a whole so I would definitely say that we would probably have to have two extra teachers in elementary school and middle school and high school probably could do one because you could do the classroom and you could rotate them in and out through that okay
060it's it that would that would help be helpful to you to have at least three other staff members in in that position correct personal Center you know that central campus would have it would be two one-on-one and that's just for tdt that's just for trt yes not that women not what we really need for special education no right I think that's what Randy was asking I'm sorry for she was Maybe I'm Wrong no I would love to know how many special ed teachers overall overall if you could if you could have a wish list that you know we rubbed a lamp and poof what would that number be and if I'm only looking at special ed then um I'd probably say four in the elementary school I would say three in the middle school and
061more than likely two or three in the high school at each campus correct yeah however just knowing I'm not sure you know how families are familiar anyone is with the RBT um those are paraprofessionals that have been trained under a bcba network with bcbas a registered Behavior Tech um they could do a lot of those supports in classrooms and things also um and it's a different school name different education piece for that is that a schooling for an education piece that requires a whole lot I mean we currently stick children in classrooms with teachers that do not have a special ed endorsement we currently will Outsource them to What's called the think room or a de-escalation type room with parapros that aren't trained either so what are those I mean and I think I'd ask
062Mrs Shepard you know what is the what's what is it that we need to do to help us with these because you know when these kids aren't getting serviced it it's it's not good for them but it's not good for everybody else either uh in some of these categories so you know is there is that endorsement something that you know would take six months to get is that something we should consider as something we should help a parapro get um you know I'm just looking at you know how to get you to those numbers and how to get these these serviced the best way we can well looking at rdt and their training that they would need um are trained through a bcba a licensed bcba which we have three license bcba support certified behavioral
063and yes or certified Behavior analysts yes which we're lucky enough to have one at each campus and so there's a certain amount of hours I believe is between 10 and 15 depending on the certification piece that they certify them and then they do the training with them and then they take the test so it can be on job training we actually have one that I've been I'm familiar with now that has her RBT certification that's a para she's very effective about 10 or 11 positions I I started counting and then I lost Counting please remember we we failed to fill six special ed positions this year because there weren't qualified applicants well and that's what I mean what do we need to do well I mean the other part of it is we don't want
064to chase those qualified out of that field which is something we Face across the board I mean I think Mrs Hodges will tell us how many educators are are leaving the field of education and I can't imagine that we don't have special ed teachers going you know elsewhere or into just regular education to where you know the stress of dealing with some with with some students um so I'm just curious of you know what I'm looking for solutions to to help those out I mean right you know what is it that we need to do to invest for people to get back into those um you know things I appreciate you thank you okay anything else thank you thank you thank you thank you okay moving on uh information agenda uh Miss Shepherd will present
065the long-awaited 23-24 budget okay thank you oh this is my thank you so there it is so um board members should have a copy of the presentation in front of them there are a few copies in front of Miss jet if you would like to come pick them up um for those in the audience but we'll be going over this you're welcome we will be going over this and it'll be on the screen so here's our fiscal year 24 recommendations here's an overview overview of what I will be talking about this evening so our goals considerations which some of this will be a repeat from our previous meeting we'll talk about budget priorities about County technology services our Capital Improvement plan Revenue Center then we'll have a summary next steps and then questions so we'll
066start out with our division goals and we always try to tie back our budget initiatives to our division goals and you see our number one goal there is academic achievement and growth positive School climate culture family engagement Community connections the fourth one we just talked a lot about recruit support enthusiastic professionals and then have high quality learning environments so our considerations we talked about this at the last meeting our enrollment has become over the last 10 years we have a few more preschool students that we've had in in previous years and we have to develop our our budget based on a number of students so our fiscal year 24 budget was built on 5425 students which if you'll notice is about nine students less K-12 then we have this current school year my information is
067based on the fall report the information that Ms Stratton just presented was based on the December report so know that those numbers will be slightly off here's our birth rate so if we look at our class our kindergarten anticipated kindergarten class for 2023 which will be this coming fall we have a slight increase in the number of births here in Shenandoah County from last year to this year so we anticipate we'll have a few more kindergarteners than we have last year the dark blue line is the birth rate and then the light blue line is the number of students who actually entered kindergarten five years later you'll see our free and reduced lunch and visibility has um there's not really a trend it's been a little bit all over the place over the last eight
068nine years and then our English Learners have increased slightly over the last eight or nine years I do want to remind everyone that our lunches and breakfasts will be free for the next four years so that was we're enter we entered the community eligibility Provisions program and that allows us to have free breakfast and free lunch for five years so breakfast and lunch will continue to be free after this year for four additional years we can't say that enough so I'll continue to mention that our student population for students with disabilities on the left you'll see that that's been slightly you know we've been increasing that over the last seven or eight years and then our students with 504 plans are on the right and that's kind of remains steady over the last four years
069so then the budget properties so on Sunday February 5th the house and the Senate release their crossover and both the house and the senate had a seven percent increase for for teacher salaries so the governor had in December 15th or 16th said um you know a five percent teacher salary increase for fiscal year 24 which is a self-coming school year the house and the Senate both said that they would like to see a seven percent salary increase so the recommendation is a seven percent um plus step which will is uh to the tune of 4.7 million dollars we want to look at our food service staff salary scales so we don't really Benchmark those skills and there will be more information later in this presentation um our food service staff at the very beginning are
070barely making minimum wage so when you see the um the salary scale leader in this presentation you'll see that we try to address that we would like to give them a seven percent uh plus step as well and the cost of that will be a hundred and seventy thousand dollars as you know our health insurance continues to increase our utilization is above what we're spent um what we're paying Aetna so for example in the previous years experience rate is was 12 percent more than what we're paying Aetna so for example if our bill if we used 100 if we were paying that in a hundred thousand dollars they were paying out a hundred and twelve thousand dollars for our experience so that's not a good business model for Aetna so they're gonna you know they're
071going to want us to pay a little more money next year we anticipate that increase is going to be 15 which will cost us about 1.13 million foreign health insurance increasing but our health insurance is more expensive than Rockingham and um Frederick County so we would like to increase the employee plus dependent or spouse am a 300 additional dollars a month and then employee plus family of 400 additional contribution from the school division for employee plus family fuel costs have increased significantly over the last few years and that calls up excuse me is um 150 000. anticipated we would like to add two new CTE programs and the cost of that will be 330 000. the HVAC and OTP OT occupational Physical Therapy Program would cost a hundred and fifty thousand dollars for materials and
072supplies and the salaries and benefits would be about 180 000 we have space at triplet tech for both of those programs because we are moving the Massanutten Regional Governor school to Mountain View High School and then the safety Grant each year we apply for a safety Grant and we have been delighted to receive it over the last many years our locals share our local match for that is 62 500 and we anticipate we'll receive this grant again and it has um helped us by adding security cameras to our locations we have been able to do secure door locks we've been able to do things like that with that money so we would like to continue to apply for that Grant but our local part of that is 62 500. so in front of you you
073will see the proposed salary scale for our food service workers so if you'll look the yellow is what they're currently making so I believe the um minimum wage raised in January to 12 per hour and that's what our beginning Food Service employee is making and what we would like to increase it to so this is to a restructure plus the seven percent so they would be making 14.43 an hour and then you know it it would increase for years of experience please interrupt me if you have questions or thoughts cafeteria manager same thing with that and um so just to commend our food service employees this is a self-funded program and we had we are only allowed to keep three months worth of Revenue or expenditures in our bank account for our food service fund
074we had over eight or nine months of Revenue so the state says you have to spend a million dollars and so one of the ways that we're spending the million dollars is to increase um because people make a difference um so that's that's one of the ways we're finding this and food service is self-funded so what they make is what they're able to spend so here's our health this is really hard to read but here's our health insurance information most of our employees if you look at the second set of information right there most goodness gracious most of our employees are on this band right here Aetna 1000 with Comprehensive Dental so the majority of our employees take that insurance plan so at an employee only is pretty you know this is not bad fifty
075dollars a month but when you look at employee plus family that's one thousand two hundred forty nine dollars which I would consider unaffordable so if you look at our health insurance premiums compared to Frederick County in Rockingham County and I know all three of our plans are different we have Aetna 1000 Frederick County has Blue Cross Blue Shield keycare 25 and then Rockingham has keycare 20. but these are the closest that we had to compare so at employee only we're you know we're knocking it out of the park but our um our employees pay less than both Frederick and Rockingham but then that's where we fall down after that so you'll see employee plus child 544 dollars compared to to their rates and you know the negative thing about putting this out there is that
076our employees can see this and they can say oh my goodness I can make a little more money if I go to Rockingham or Frederick County but hopefully they'll want to stay with us because we're trying to do something to to correct it did you I think at the last board meet or the last word session I had asked um regarding the I think Cindy mentioned the contributions we also talked about the uh the rates you know I I reached out to Brandon monk in Frederick County they're gonna they're gonna have the exact same conversations because I think they're going to be switching providers looking at an increase of like 10 percent and then the whole Valley Health debacle is going to play you know come into play with that but um you mentioned we
077couldn't go out I mean that really at this point going out for RFP to see what was going on is we ran out of time right no we could go out for RFP but realized that Blue Cross Blue Shield um and Valley Health I don't know where they're at in their negotiations but that would knock them out if they haven't negotiated a contract because many of our providers are many of our teachers go to valley health organizations for their health care and there's only one other organization beside Aetna that actually services our area so I'm curious is Frederick County going to Loudoun as far as Services because you know us and us and Frederick are using the exact same Health provider right that they're going out for bid this year maybe because and I'm not
078going to speak for Frederick County right maybe because of the valley how glucose windshield lack of contract so these numbers are may not exactly be true as far as what they're going to be looking at in their current budgets right so they're true for this year they're true for this is this year's millenniums so let me you prompted me for the next slide okay thank you um here is what we pay versus what they pay for each of the plans so Shenandoah County Public Schools score pays 762 dollars for employee only Frederick County pays 534 dollars in Rockingham pays 310 and you'll see how that you know um is for all of the different plans so given the fact that we're spending more money we're actually contributing about this same across the board it's it's
079not well there's a lot of significant difference correct we've just had more expensive Insurance um it's not more expensive insurance we have higher claims but we don't know that we actually have higher claims than the other two counties because there's there's no way that folks in Frederick and in Rockingham are not experiencing cancers and health mental health issues there's just I find that difficult to believe so there's more employees at both of those so we're about half the size of both of those organizations so you think the quality quantity is play A Part possibly so we will have our health consultant do a presentation in the next couple of months so you can ask them all of these questions because they serve others um counties and school divisions so they they have a wealth of
080information he is from McGriff McGriff it's a Consulting yes thank you and I think they spoke last year any other questions about Healthcare so we're asking for some increases but we also you know said okay what can we decrease and you'll see the very top one is replace already we currently are using Pals but we'll need to find something with for math I'm not sure if that'll be IXL math but we'll have to do something with math so that'll be a sixty thousand dollar savings and then we are also reducing nine and a half positions through resignation or retirement I do not want anybody to think that they're going to lose their job but through resignations or retirements we're going to reduce nine and a half positions and that'll save a tune of a little
081over seven hundred thousand dollars we're looking at our class sizes to determine what positions we don't have to fill if they become vacant and so our you know our our optimal numbers between 20 and 24. so you know if we have class sizes of 15 we may not replace a teacher of class size of 15 if there's multiple teachers in that grade if it brings it up to 20 if it would take it to 30 we're going to replace that teacher because we want to we want to remain around you know 15 or excuse me 20 to 24. and then the capital Improvement plan we're going to remove edulog which was 000. that is a great program but unfortunately you know the the cost is expensive to um to initially implement but then also the
082reoccurring cost is something that we can't afford at this particular time it's great for safety of students it's great for knowing where our students are but I think at this point it's it's something that's not affordable for us foreign technology services in fiscal year 2020 which is 2019-20 the technology services for the county and the School Division were combined and all of the county technology services are managed by School staff code is in his and his group do that and um so the increase for fiscal year 24 is 1 359 and the county just transfers that money to the school division speaker whatever please correct me is there a capital Improvement plan this is our uh a repeat from our last budget meeting I just want to show where we have Cross Blue Edge log
083and so that brings you know the table for transportation down to 1.3 million and then we calculated the total for 3.157 million okay and this is where I get to give some some news you have not heard before so we have just finished our audit with Robinson farmer Cox and Associates thank you and um we are going to return okay this first number is not the the real number of what we're going to return to the county we are going to return 5.439 million however of that 5.439 million 1.65 million is in special budget so we'll ask that to be returned to us and then 220 000 worth for softball lights which we're just finishing up that um that construction now so we will be returning and not asking for it back 3.56 million dollars
084in fund balance so we are good stewards of our money and where some of that money came from was from us not filling positions last year and we used a lot of some of our peers money for things that we would have spent out of operations so you know when you think about we're returning 3.56 million and we're asking for a 3.1 folks 3.157 million um you know that that there's a difference of about 400 000 there for the good so miss Don will do a presentation on the fund balance early I think it's the March meeting isn't it okay yeah in a couple weeks and then if you wanted just to have a one-page summary of our capital projects I updated this to exclude the Edge along so some more information about Capital Improvement
085the county guard 4.2 million dollars this school year 23 and we use that for fiscal year 22. because school year 22 in fiscal year 23. we also use almost 3.7 million in cares funds to do some Capital Improvement projects so over 7.9 million has been dedicated to Capital Improvement projects over the last two years but when you have buildings the age of our buildings roofs need to be replaced HVAC units need to be replaced and that you know and that doesn't go away so we need to take care of our facilities so that we can continue to use them I know on the CIP plan you'll see where we've some HVAC units have outlived their useful life they're 40 years old I don't know how many homes have a 40 year old HVAC system so
086you know we take really good care of our stuff and we try to be good stewards of the money so just wanted to the fourth bullet there is in the fiscal year 23 the governor's budget included 2.2 million dollars for school modernization we're working with a architect right now to redesign the entrance of Center Elementary School so just know that um that they're working on those plans now so we should have an update from them in the near future to make sure that they have secure entrances in all of our elementary schools and then here um this graph over here to the right is you know the fiscal year the CRP request for fiscal year 24-28 this next slide is the funding history and you'll notice that um for school year 23 um but we
087asked for zero because we were we were using cares funds and um the money that the county borrowed to do our CIA key projects and this year we will ask for 3.157 million and we had other things you know the school debt service that the county pays drops off the school year 24 so coming up a little over 2 million dollars so that's two million dollars that the county was paying for the I believe it was the renovation of the high schools so Revenue summary this just highlights of few of the budget amendments from the governors um Amendment on December the 15th the house that was released on February the 5th in the Senate that was released on February the 5th on crossover day um so the state's revenue for the school division will be
088somewhere in between all three of these so the um we should have more information by the end not by our next meeting but by the end of February because that's when the general assembly concludes and you'll notice the second row there hold harmless for tax miscalculation so that was really good news for for us and it's included in both the house and the Senate amendments so here's expected we are supposed to receive a budget count tool today have we received it yet in this time yes so we're supposed to receive a budget count tool today with the state's anticip anticipated Revenue that breaks it up we should see the house what the governor Governor's amendments were The house's amendments and then the Senate's amendments but we have not received that yet so we should have
089a better idea so this is you know this is our our best calculations and you can see the state you know we anticipate about 2.7 more from the state federal will remain about the same other County operation this is you know this is this is the number that we're going to ask the county for because it's 1.9 million 1.95 and then three million 157 000 for CIP and that will fully fund the things that I highlighted earlier which I think you're going to see here in a minute I know you will here's the budget priorities I think for over two slides here so the operating budget the calls Food Service budget and the cost accounting technology budget Capital Improvement projects and then reductions to budget at the very bottom I did not include the edulog
090because I just decreased the capital Improvement project number so I did not include that in the reductions to budget when we haven't seen in cares act funds we have still have any of that left we do I mean it's which one of these pots is that in so that's not reflective at all in here that will be reflected in let's see if it's in here that's in a special budget um so you'll see that the budget okay which is February the 23rd so we still do have some funds left so one of the things in the Senate budget is um thousand dollar retention bonus for instructional and support staff so the state will give us 660 000 of this makes it through um will give us 660 000 that costs us a little over a
091million dollars so last year we used 340 000 worth of cares funds in order to fully fund that so that you know those are some of the things that you know if belt on their portion the state will fund their course and then we have to come up with a rest for the non-srp positions yes foreign we're here at February the 9th seven o'clock February 23rd we have the public hearing it'll be a budget work session you will have we will have our budget book available for that meeting um school board will approve the budget on March the 9th we'll have a work session with the Board of Supervisors on March the 16th at one o'clock we will um that Board of Supervisors will establish the tax rate for budget and advertising it on March
092the 21st and they'll have a public hearing and then they'll have a budget adoption tax related budget adoption on April the 18th and then the school board will get one more opportunity to look at the budget on April the 27th and then hopefully we can issue contracts to our teachers in in the first of May all right question it's a lot of information I know it's my favorite time of year I think it's Angie's favorite time of year so uh what I've heard from you this evening is we're going to ask the county for for about 700 and some thousand less so no we're going to ask them for 1.95 million for our um operating budget and 3.15717 million for Capital but we're giving them 3.5 million from our fund balance from last year that
093we had left over from last year so the the wait we'll discuss this end of the month any more questions thank you Miss Shepherd and staff foreign moving on action items six one policy klb-lb do you hear a motion yes Mr chairman I moved to approve version four uh policy klb slash lb motion Bank made by Mr Keller to approve uh draft number four go here a second let's second that second about Mr Barlow discussion yeah you know what this is it's an iteration of what we discussed in the January work session and later reviewed or revised by Mr Barlow and myself well I don't think that any plan or policy holds the the mantle of being perfect I believe that this effort combines the the need to uh in the responsibility to empower parents
094to question what's on our library shelves with the professional Judgment of our staff so I do think it does that it in no way is a call to question everything in order to nor is it a mandate to leave all as it is it is at its core an agreement to ensure that our libraries and media centers provide an appropriate and responsible selection of books and other media to our students it is nothing more nothing less than that okay that's rich um I'll be honest with you I think it's great and I applaud you and I applaud Dennis for coming together and working on this when I initiated this eight months ago this is somewhere somewhat similar of what I had in mind um I am saddened that it's taken eight months to come up
095with something we changed the name of the school in eight days um so yeah these are library books this is intended to give parents um some transparency and some say in what their kids are reading and you know we're here to protect the minds of kids not not necessarily that we're here to the word indoctrinates come up a couple times but some things are just not age appropriate and I wanted something Affair that's fair across the board I realize as Cindy made a comment at our last meeting that you know things such as the Bible will come up and could come up or is come up um I'm okay with that I'm okay with Affair and um you know fair and um transparent policy I think our parents deserve that they pay for this we're
096sitting here talking about budget I mean all of Shenandoah County at some point when it comes down to end the line is going to fund our our requests and they should have a say so on how their funds are spent so um I think you did an excellent job I I do I think and I applaud the both of you for for coming together and and coming up with version four I was uh I was pleased with it so thank you Mr gacho I would also like to thank Mr Keller and Mr Barlow for coming together and working on this policy um there were some different ideas floating around and I appreciate that you two with our input as well put some ideas Together made this work it's nothing more than you know a common
097sense policy in my opinion so I do appreciate what you all have done taking the extra time to work on it clearly this has taken a long time as Miss Brandy Miss rutz said um eight months plus uh so it's time that we get it you know moving forward and again you know from myself I appreciate the time that you you took to work on this it's uh like Miss rutz said it's a well put together policy and um I think it covers the basis and it has compromise on it which I appreciate Miss uh Walsh um I too appreciate the work of Mr Barlow and Mr Keller um to come up with a policy that's more acceptable and somewhat more concise um it's not perfect as Andrew said I still have some concerns um
098but it's workable and our Librarians have said it's workable and that's what matters I think as long as we continue to respect our Librarians and treat them as professionals um and realize that this document maybe maybe changed again um depending on what comes down the pike it's my understanding that as of yesterday the only Library Bill Bill library book bill that's still alive in the general assembly is one about a model policy on library books so we may be revisiting this sooner rather than later but for now it's a good document it's acceptable and um I appreciate your work on it Mr Marlow I think the important thing about this policy is we recognize the right of stakeholders especially parents to be involved actively in a review of materials that are in school we've already
099passed one policy for curricula and this was the one the twin to that actually part of the family of this policy grouping that will allow parents to um and other stakeholders including teachers to be able to um to bring these uh issues forward and to be reviewed uh we have streamlined the appeal process and two complex committees to one uh we have hopefully destigmatized uh as citizen wishing to exercise this review uh we've taken the principle out of the line of fire by not putting them in the position of being accused of influencing the outcome of the review we provided teachers with a sense of empowerment professionalism by by being able to be part of this system we have tapped into the um our senior administrative staff to Monitor and help run this uh we
100have included the possibility of subject matter experts to weigh in in the process we have listened to the Librarians and actually created a compromise along the way whereby many of their concerns were met and included in what we did uh but in the last analysis the transparency to our communities is to me what is so important about this this policy and I strongly endorse it okay I work it out I'll say go last um we mentioned about the Bible and that is going to be the first book that's being challenged by this policy and yesterday I visited four Librarians and I talked to them about the policy and I got some highlights on the appeal on the Bible that the committee at the school level and then eventually we'll go to the the Review Committee
101and here are some of the things Pastor Katie you can probably speak more to this than I am one of the concerns in the Bible is that reference lot's daughters got him drunk and raped him to get them pregnant uh a human sacrifice Abraham was tested to sacrifice Isaac The Song of Solomon had sexuality throughout and the Israelites were told to kill all the men women and children and the Nations they conquered I mean that's in the Bible and I would not have thought that I would have to deal with this policy and one of the Sacred books that I was brought up in and The Holy Bible is going to be questioned to take down from our Public School libraries and it may withstand the challenge I hope it does but that's that's it
102and the other thing I will say about this and all about the libraries they need to see us they want to hear from us and yesterday I took about 30 minutes and talked to four of them and their support of the policy and when they said that to me I want to support the policy but as one of uh my friends that I had breakfast with uh superintendent made this statement who major in social studies a lot more intelligent I am made this statement at breakfast and I'll never forget it history has not looked kindly on society say abandoned books you can interpret that wherever you want and that resonates with me but anyway um anything else question I mean roll call please before we do that we should be clear we're just not offering
103okay I'm just quoting the person I understand I I just I understand but we should use correct terminology I appreciate you thank you but I appreciate the gentleman for sharing that with me roll call vote yes Miss Walsh yes forgot y'all yes yes no Mike but sorry I have two if you want one of mine it's Roots yes the Keller yes yes about carried 6-0 and I like to come in uh uh Mr Keller Mr Barlow for getting the compromise that we just voted on moving on Personnel do I hear a motion to approve the personnel motion made by Miss Walsh right yeah uh do I hear a second second of Mr Keller uh uh discussion roll call vote yes Walsh yes yes no okay moving on to superintendent uh uh monthly reports Miss Shepard
104you have anything to add here I do not are we happy to answer your questions any questions about the monthly reports the attendance is about consistent in the low 90s of course okay moving on the end is near uh uh board member comments who wants to go first oh should I just do it at random I can go first okay Miss rutz um again I just want to have colleagues for working together on I look forward to starting to craft a policy that will put some guidelines in place on what we initially purchase purchase what we want to be in our schools we are discussing the budget and um there are some research the other day and um was passed this um this bit of code that I thought was um important and it says
105the general assembly and the Board of Education believe that the fundamental goal of public schools of the Commonwealth must be to enable each student to develop skills that are necessary for success in school preparation for life and reaching their full potential the general assembly and the Board of Education find that the quality of education is dependent on the provision of one that are appropriate working environment benefits and salaries necessary to ensure availability of high quality instructional personnel the appropriate learning environment designed to promote student achievement quality instruction that enables each student to become a productive and educated citizen of Virginia and the United States of America and the adequate commitment of other resources in keeping with this goal the general assembly should provide for supportive public education set forth in article eight um section one
106of the Constitution of Virginia we talk about all the time pay um we talk about benefits but I think where we're missing the Mark is environment now I look at the founding fathers when they wrote the Constitution and I I sometimes wonder if um and I feel fairly confident that freedom of speech and and freedom of press those things came first and of course I'm a believer of a strong believer of the Second Amendment um which supports our right to do first I mean to do second now um they came second I don't know when they crafted this um if it was thought out that working environment comes first and should be a um a big thing benefits and salaries in that order but um I would like for this this board to start considering
107what we need to do to improve the working environment for our teachers and the Educational Learning environment for our kids not I mean not just part of them all so um I think that that's something that you know a wise woman told me today that um you know we don't have um um you know educate um Quality teachers just beating down our door to get into this County and that's a shame we have such a great thing going on here or it could be so um we ought to retain the haunts that we have um and that may not be tossing um every dime item it could be listening very closely processes putting processes in place that protect the student and protect a teacher and just having some open dialect but looking at what we're
108doing and what we're getting yes Mr Keller well I guess to piggyback on that I I would again this is my opinion so take it for what it's worth but I do think that 95 of our students do do the right thing and I think the vast majority of that 95 percent do it without being asked to now at least five percent that are in this this group it's and I'd say about half that five percent you got to tell them multiple times do the right thing but they'll do it and so that leaves a group of students that don't do the right thing whether it be habitually or in single incidents or what what have you but those are the ones that are wearing out teachers those are the ones that are uh driving
109our administrators crazy those are the ones that we are spending a vast amount of resources on uh but I would I would say this that that public schools are at a basic level or just a miniature copy of our communities uh their snapshot of of what what's in the mirror of uh of our of our homes and um I think you can see this if you scan the paper and you see the police blotters and we should we should remember that our schools aren't immune uh to misbehaviors in neither our communities in the difference uh is simple yet I think represents the greatest intervention that that we we have for our students and that is this unique ability that we as Educators have to recreate those kids you know you fashion them in a way
110that's both respectful and just and appreciates the law appreciate things that are going on teach them the importance of understanding that critical relationship of cause to effect and provide lessons that encourage our students to predict outcomes and consequences those are things that I think are really important in in whether that kid is is part of the the child count that we we talked about earlier or is just you know a a typical kid that that's coming to us remember that there's some there's in many cases there there's there's some paths that they did not get that way by accident uh but part of our job part of our job is to uh is to help straighten that out so that's it thank you Mitch got y'all don't have anything tonight okay Miss Walsh um couple
111things I haven't said much the last couple meetings so um I think I think we all agree that Student Success and well-being is at the top of our priority list Mr Farlow said a couple of weeks ago his Mantra about discipline um and I agree that discipline is part of it but but Student Success and well-being is what we're here for and the best indicator for Student Success is high quality teachers and relationships matter between students and teachers so keeping the good ones is really really important so you know I agree with Brandi it's a bad environment it's about pay it's about health insurance we need to make sure that teachers and staff are respected and appreciated this other thing is something I've been wanting to say for a while now um with all the
112talk about parental rights I'm a parent I still have kids in the school system along with parental rights come parental responsibilities and whether it's library books or behavior or drug use it can't just be the school system it's got to be the parents the parents have got to be involved parents do have access to the books that are in our libraries what their students check out what they have on hold um like I said last time we even get notifications now what our kids check out so there's nothing being done on the slide in that in that regard so parents do have a responsibility to check in with their teachers check in with the librarians make a deal with the Librarians I don't want my kid to check out this kind of book for this
113author or whatever um just be involved um that's it for General statements a couple of things um all three High School swim teams did amazingly well um this year and all are sending teams to states which is really exciting I think Strasbourg girls and the other two schools are sending boys teams um wrestling especially Strasbourg is doing really well uh District choir and band uh students are doing amazing our district choir performances this week I think band was last week and all the kids who make it into District choir band Orchestra they then can try out for all Virginia so that's a really high honor when you get when you get to all Virginia not not very many kids go there but fingers crossed well we find out tomorrow for choir um musical season is
114about to start Once Upon a mattress is the first one at Central it is next weekend uh the 16th through the 19th and then Strasbourg and Mountain View tend to do them later in the season page counties showing or presentation of The Adams Family is this weekend and if you would like to see a nice Auditorium go see a musical in Page County they have two um and I think that's it thank you first of all I I want to make the observation over the last uh year and a half two years since I've been coming into meetings before I was a school board member and now that I have been uh moved by the um particularly the mothers who have come here and told us the challenge that they're facing uh with their kids
115in school and I think I think Cindy's point is really about taking that it's a and uh Mr Cutler is a lot with it it's a it's a society-wide issue that we're dealing with nevertheless the um the passion and the energy that those moms have shown and coming forward uh especially we've had three really good examples tonight of uh young moms who have made their way into the system to make an impact in a positive way but an aggressive way and I think that's extremely healthy and uh I um I want those folks to know that we on the board read those emails Ponder them and consider them and uh I'm I as I say I it's not a group I think I'm more moved by than that group and seen that kind of concern
116and energy and willingness to participate and get involved is uh is encouraging to me as far as the policy ants taken us a long time to get to this policy I think I would shout out to um uh to the superintendent staff uh and uh Dr Jennifer and others who have helped us uh which I think which is a really good um Matrix type situation that helps us figure out what the policy requirements are and gives us a blueprint for way ahead it was kind of like making sausage but I in a democracy that's what you do and I I think I think we I think we did it so thank you for the staff and for uh and for our school board to work on this uh and including the Librarians who made I
117think what which was which was uh unusually not unusual but I mean very good uh impact and considerations for us I do uh make the point however that just having a review uh committee is not enough and uh three members at our last work session talked about the need to have uh a better handle on the criteria by which US Library materials are selected and I think that not only protects us further but it actually gives principles and librarians a way to handle this almost insurmountable challenge that they have now of being under the gun for keeping sexually explicit and other kind of inappropriate materials out so we can do that as well as ourselves a service like taking a look at the front end of this issue of Library materials um I will say
118very quickly in passing that I uh I do endorse the point that Mrs Brooks made that um oh when somebody tells me that we're in the business of book Banning I got my hand on my wallet because they know that we're not bearing in any books anything that you wanted to see or hear and you can see on uh YouTube or books a million or anywhere else uh and generally with some Hollywood celebrity reading it so it's not like this stuff is not available if somebody wants wants to find it um so um you know it when I go to the store and I decide I'm going to get newslets instead of Captain Crunch I haven't banned Captain Crunch but I've just selected something better for uh for my family so that's that's the way
119I look at it is selection and deselection um finally um well no not five I'm sorry I have two more things one is that um I will continue to um emphasize uh discipline and Decor because I think we've all realized it's kind of got a little out of kilter over the last six years for various reasons and it's hard it's hard to take license back when you've granted it it's hard to do that it's painful but it's necessary and I do credit the school system I think for only up to it and taking that challenge on and we're part of that challenge and I I think that's it's tough but it's necessary uh and I look forward to uh like an input on on that connect that round and um in that regard uh I
120like what um Mrs Walsh said about about the teacher and the key role my father would call up the fulcrum my father was an engineer and he believed that that folk of everything's balance is there and the teacher is the fulcrum as far as I'm concerned uh and that balance occurs right there with the teacher in the middle so I do believe that um that the teacher is the key I don't believe that high pay is the only answer and I'm going to give you uh short example of how I know it's not I don't imagine my experience as a teacher at the last work meeting and I was reminded that that was a long time ago and maybe it's not relevant but I will propose to you that it is relevant uh as as
121a teacher I taught four different preparations in one day taught five classes and one period off the other period I was assigned to go to the bathrooms get the guys out of there who were smoking I was given job to go to the dances to keep the guys and the gals and coming in drunk or getting drunk before they left and I was given a an office in a book room with a spare desk that I was able to find and um I didn't feel particularly respected uh by my Administration uh even though I volunteered to teach those extra courses I was very happy to participate in book review committees and curricular writing assignments I coached for nothing they're paying me now but not much 19 cents an hour I think is what we decided
122Dave 19 cents an hour but it was wonderful because opening Minds is a wonderful thing I was attacked by a student who gave me about three stitches in my left arm uh he was back in school before the end of the day I've seen this happen and the death sent me this was the Eastern Baltimore County uh I hung around until my review came in and there was a big space for my review and the review I will never forget it till the day I die was after I had done all that that year I was I was uh right it's a successful contributing teacher that was that was the sum total of what I was told and given a mediocre reading and I decided I can put up with the abuse but I don't
123think I could put up to the disrespect and uh we have to do whatever we can to um to provide an atmosphere where uh teachers are felt are respected and the most important word I think in their lives is professionals they want to be treated as professionals and we should demand that they act as professionals objectively passionately about learning but not being provocateurs or not just being propagandists but as being dispensers of wisdom and encouraging those who want to learn so I have a particular warm spot in my heart for all the teachers who are going through some of the problems that the parents have gone through and that we're going through in our society it's not easy and we have different frames of reference but I think there's a positive attitude about how we
124can get out of this dip if you will and get and get back into uh back into the swing of things but I would once again um emphasize that it's not just raising the salaries of teachers that's going to do it you can raise the salaries and lower the standards I don't think that's going to solve our situation and the fight one final thought which is talking about education I was reminded when somebody's talking about the outdoor play today that the Greek ideal of uh of a perfected mind and a perfected body is important and the concept of uh of a good robust physical education program that includes an outdoor stuff and as well as academic is uh is pretty much a model we should try to adhere to as well so going forward those
125will be some of the things that I'd like to see us they going Mr chair that sounds good to me I'm done all right uh I know it's late and I don't have much um I like to uh Miss Walsh mentioned about the swim teams I see Mountain View boys team won the count of me for the first time ever in school history I think I picked that up in the in the Press and the other thing I want to talk about is command uh one of my colleagues from Rockham County Public School Board uh Dan Breeden uh uh has is completing its 24th year in district one and that's Elton and when he ran uh it was the time they combined Elkton high school and Montevideo High School into Spotswood and his community said
126there will never be another High School in Elkton but during his 24 years they built two elementary schools in this part of the county and they built a High School East Rockham high school they renovated mcgakisville Elementary Spotswood Elkton Middle and Elkton Middle which was Elkton High School Dr heingardner they put air conditioning into school and his Patron said they will never see AC in that school again so I want to commend him for in service he is he's retiring at the end of their term and then the last thing I want to end on a a break note I hope to build your spirits up this is February and Valentine's and I got this from Facebook Kyle from one of my former girlfriends in college which was about 50 years ago and she sent
127this to me or she posted this and it said a group of professional people asked this question to a group of four to eight year olds and the question was What is love and here are some of the responses when my grandmother got arthritis she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore so my grandfather does it for her even though he has arthritis in his hands that's love when someone loves you the way they say your name is different you just know your name is safe in their mouth love I like this one love is when a girl puts on perfume and my boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making
128them give any of theirs love is what makes you smile when you're even tired love is when Mommy makes coffee for Daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him to make sure it tastes okay love is what's in the room when you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and just listen if you want to learn to love better you should start with a friend that you hate we need more of that do we not I like this one love is when you tell a guy you like this shirt then he wears it every day afterwards uh uh let me see uh let me go I'm gonna finish this up but but all these are so cute but the last one is the best one of it all and I will close
129with this the winner of this contest or this thing that the professor asks a four-year-old girl whose next door neighbor was an element elderly gentleman who has recently lost his wife upon seeing the man cry the little boy went over to the old man's yard climbed her in his lap and just sat there when his mother asked what did you say to the neighbor the little boy said nothing I just tried to help him cry during the meeting at 9 15. good evening foreign