SCPS School Board Work Session Meeting 01/26/2023

001wait she's going over there yeah I came up from up North so it's something okay you can look at mine okay okay thank you okay I like to call the work session of January 26 2023 the Shenandoah County Public School Board to order uh uh at the at uh 508 approximately uh do I hear a motion to approve the agenda that's presented okay motion made by Mr gut y'all do I hear a second second second by Mr Keller uh all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed the motion carries by a 6-0 vote uh uh going on to 3-1 uh Miss Shepherd you are going to instruct us to help us with board docs yes yes and we're so excited that you're doing this oh my goodness yeah and you stay there a

002sheet that will help you when I am not here to help you log in and all of those kind of things the very the most important thing is that you log into board dogs so that you're able to access all of the things kind of behind the scenes before the meeting so once we publish the agenda on Friday you'll be able to access things like the Personnel agenda and those names that are on that in the executive content area which doesn't go live to the public until after we approve it on Friday morning so we'll approve it there's the school board will approve it on Thursday night and it'll go live on Friday morning so if you have board docs open on your computer and there is a little per person there you click on

003that and it'll say login here you're more ahead I am and then you should see it see a screen much like that and then you just type in your username and your password now is that same is that the same username and password that I use to get uh my Gmail okay it was probably a username and password because board docs doesn't change there so if I if I need to change that then there's a I don't know I don't know what my username password is if how about Mr Taylor can you okay all right Miss jet there all right if you're lucky your password will just stay in there just click it and it's there yeah okay because I always have to go into the login and then go through that process so all

004right sorry no good question because it pretty much stays static whereas your email changes every 90 to 120 days something like that so once you're in once you've logged in you have access to more information and I'm not going to go to anything that is I'm confidential at this point but you know if you clicked on today's agenda which is um January the 26th and you you see all of the agendas over the past five or six years so and you can see from January 3rd January 12th and the 26th so if we went to the January 26th work session which is right there and we can view the agenda this is also where at the top you would be able to see the video if you wanted to go back you'll be able to

005watch the video from this meeting click on view the agenda I'm struggling with this this mouse here um and then you can click on an agenda item so policy klb lb which is coming up next and then you can see all of the all of the attachments so there'll be three attachments to this policy if we had like a Personnel item it would probably either be under the administrative content or the executive content which is right below that so you can see it up on the screen right here right in this area so that's that's important for for you guys to know so that you know once the the um agenda is released on Friday then you have access to that before the Thursday meeting now typically with a Personnel agenda Personnel list it's updated

006at least once before the school board meeting on Thursday so you may want to check it you know right before the meeting on Wednesday evening or whatever to see what changes there were so another really nice feature of War docs is there is a policy menu right here and this allows us to actually look at our policies that we have in the division so for example we're going to talk about klb this afternoon this evening so I can click on um section k and see all of the the policies under Section K and then there's Kate the current policy klb I see so um yesterday morning at five o'clock I was thinking do we have liberal leave for our staff if they aren't able to come in to work because they live on a mountain

007somewhere and it's snowing and they're not able to go in so what I did yesterday morning is where it says search active policies I typed in leave it's in yellow up there kind of at the top and I hit it or maybe a bear search active policy and it takes a second for the policies to return but then it allowed me to look at all of our policies that have to do with leave so really quickly I was able to scroll down to um staff leaves and absences gcbd and then g c b d r which is the regulation right there and I was able to see if we had liberally and there's there's our policy on staff so if you have any questions about any of the policies that we have in our um

008in our policy manual this is a perfect place to go and if it has a unique keyword the likelihood that it's going to return a lot of results is very slim so you know this is a really good tool to use whenever you're looking up policies for the school division so um so we wanted to point out that as well do not have to be logged into board docs to get our policies you do have to be logged into board docs in order to get anything that's in the administrative or the executive content so um also the very last tab at the top of your screen says Library and here are some of the documents for Shenandoah County Public Schools and U.S board members so if I click on board members here I'm able to

009see who our current board members are and then I can also look at the school board advisory committees here there is right there and you'll see there's like three dots in the upper left hand corner that when it's thinking you'll see those three dots kind of rotate okay and then here's our committees so you're able to click on any of those links there to pull up pull up the Committees which you voted on at the January 12th meeting Mr did I forget anything okay do you guys have any questions I just wanted to give you a little refresher keep looking at us more I'll look at Andrew too the art screen went black oh so we're trying to get it back together plus some power though yeah well anytime yeah anytime you log in you

010just have access to more features than if you don't log in so I would encourage you to log in anytime you need access to that executive and what was the other the other administrator content so um and it's it's helpful between Friday when the board document is released in the Thursday before the meeting all right chairman helsley I am finished with this little section well you did an outstanding job what I learned was about uh they're on policy executive and administrative because I talked to some colleagues and they could see the the Personnel before a Linda presented executive session yeah that's a very surprised though anyway well it's in good hands whatever okay thank you Miss Shepherd any questions for her she was a teacher today I think that's the first time she's done that

011oh my God okay moving on uh uh three two uh Dr heingardner policy of klb-lb all right this evening um the three versions of that policy kob-lb are presented to you guys for information and discussion uh to see where we might want to uh land with direction to us moving forward with regards to those policies oh that's the reason this is here for all ears comments yeah let me let me share this with you guys um I took the uh the three policies and the 2015 policy and tried to break them down in terms of differences in and stuff and it's what I come up with is that I think that when it's all said and done that that the uh all the the policies kind of get to the same conclusions um so this

012is just kind of my thinking it's nothing that that uh is is that crucial but I broke it down into initiating the review procedure for filing a request for review the makeup of the committee timeline and the responsibilities of the committee um outcomes and an appeal so here here's where I am with this is that we have three policies that we're going to be asked to vote on um in February and I would like for us to be able while it's not important that we all are are unified in agreement with this but you know I understand that uh that in a democracy that doesn't always happen but what I've tried to do is I've tried to create a document that would perhaps uh be something that we could all kind of agree to so

013if you're good with that I'd like to hand those out to you and we can look at them and all I did here is I took the the klb um revision that was done in September the policy that we currently have that is I think initially intended for instructional material and I tried to adapt that to library books and uh you okay with me doing with I mean I don't want to step on anybody's toes here um but I I run through some of this that I've done and then we can kind of talk about it uh the first thing I did because the the state provided us a model policy for instructional materials primarily is that I tried to to use some of the the the language that that they had in the first

014thing that they they started off with was a purpose in a goal so that's kind of where I started with this in in you know again this is this is me my words uh you know a certain that they're not uh they may not be that accurate but uh you know here's what I I kind of think in terms of our purpose and that is to ensure public participation in the oversight of books within our libraries while this oversight will address books currently on the shelves within our library every effort should be made to carefully review all library books and other media prior to to their purchase um it's incumbent upon this board and its employees to follow any guidance from Virginia Department of Education Code of Virginia in selecting and reviewing library books and

015other media and this includes expressed definitions of sexually explicit content which I think you know the state has provided us with that we we know what that is by definition and it's the goal simply is to ensure that our libraries and meetings media centers provide an appropriate and responsible selection of books and other media to our students okay the rest of the stuff I took from the klb I may have uh the yellow highlight there is how I broke it down the second part initiating review uh that's the same as klb um except I substituted librarian for for teacher the procedure for requesting a review is the same the makeup of the Review Committee in that's number three there and we can talk about this but but I think um I think Dennis you had

016said that you think the chair should come from central office uh and somebody selected by the superintendent I'm fine with that uh so that's going to be one member of the committee the the other will be the stakeholder who's requesting the review the third will be a librarian um from another like school elementary middle or High School you know that that's I don't know that how you guys feel about that Dennis you had the strongest argument for that so for for what the for for not not being from the sending School um yes okay generally that's correct okay and you're you're thinking there is that you know it kind of takes away the well the bias from well um yeah so let me so I like this framework it works for me I mean I

017like what we're doing here um and I guess at the moment then we're kind of down we're talking about the review yeah yeah so if so we can kind of agree that we're that we're down to that point okay I'm talking about that now uh and so they're um just to make sure everybody understands um where we because this is quite a change from the original klb policy the original the original original yeah yeah it is um there were much as a matter of fact before this year there was almost nothing right uh we were starting so basically we're starting from scratch about 10 months ago so um my concern is that based on even things that have occurred in recent past as well as common sense um we don't want the policy for the

018entire County to be developed under the rubric of just one school and one particular incident in that school and I remember that the Librarians had requested that each School come up with its own basic policy and so this is we're we're trying to achieve a way so that it can it can be a county-wide policy and and and so I I see the the rationale in what we're having so um yeah I think that the the chair member of the uh of the scps staff named by the superintendent stakeholder the librarian uh from another like school that makes sense to me uh I um we didn't have these down there a school principal from another school but I can see the logic in that well so you know I've been thinking about that to be

019honest the I think that the principal from the sending School is more accountable to their parents then you know if it's a book is being challenged in Strasbourg then principal Strasburg High School is going to be more accountable to those parents than say the principals at Mountain View well no no certainly more directly involved yeah yeah sure and I don't know that you know if they're going to be biased one way or the other I would hope not but so um so the number of people in this in this committee uh it's fine okay now um yeah I actually you had given uh right this was some uh some of your concerned last time and I appreciate that and that was that was mentioned in here here's my concern with that number um we can

020pretty much depend that um stakeholders is going to hold the one particular point of view right going through well uh and it very well I mean maybe that uh the librarian May hold to another point of view throughout so um so what we'll be left with is three people and the the problem with that is um maybe to get more of a cross-section and more um people so it becomes more Democratic because basically all it takes when you got three is two people who don't like each other don't like each other you see what I'm saying in in a way now I know what we originally had was like eight not originally that was the um modification that we made in developing it the original was 13. when when we got this from um I

021think it was Gabby Ryman who had done this the original we had three committees instead of two and there were 13 people so we we went it down to to eight now I understand the problem with eight is you can have ties uh the uh the way we indicated that would be broken would be it would if it's a four four tie it would go to the superintendent and I can I can see some wisdom in that and I can see how we don't want to put ourselves in having a position to having tie but uh I um I'd rather see more than five I don't think it's going to be hard that hard to get um a qualified cross-section group in here um one of the reasons that um that we put in um

022classroom teacher who um in which the materials are used is that um I think the intent of a lot of this was to deal with um books of a sexually explicit nature but I think we also need to be casting out that there are other concerns people have as well there are books being written about how to uh how to actually uh conduct assisted suicides there are books on um that glorify um you know random or planned violence that uh that a lot of kids are reading and actually you know implementing some of the shootings and things that are going on so so there are a number of things I think that we might want to review I mean the stakeholders might want to review well yes I agree and but I cannot imagine that

023a principal would want to approve books that had things like that of course they would I mean well I don't know I mean I don't think the principal wouldn't I don't think most Librarians would but um but we do have a situation in which there are activists who are who are wanting those things in and have we've seen some of the things that we don't even like red in front of this board have gotten through and so I I I I I don't I don't think any anybody that we know and love and in the system is going to do that but we have to we have to have um safeguards against it and again this the thing that I want to hang my hat on this is a review it's not the incoming process

024so uh the uh the criteria by which we originally still like it's not here right it's not here uh but but we can only assume good faith on the people who are putting it in uh but this is the check-in case that book on how to conduct how to do a suicide or or or or that's that's overtly championing a a rageful way of ritual killing or whatever is the kind of stuff that we we would have want to have our antenna of and and be able to deal with so anyway I didn't want to get into that discussion here I'm just saying I think maybe but I would I'd rather see us keep it to a slightly larger number just so we don't have kind of a yin and yang with two people themselves

025as controlling this do you know what I'm saying if you do have two people are gonna We pretty sure they're going to take opposite tax and we have the other three um it's less of a brute Dynamic and more of you know a pairing up I'd rather see seven people in that uh than I would five um and uh okay let me learn let me let me finish here and there we go okay we come back no no but but let me finish up with with it because um but um but I I think your cross-section I think the rationale that you've gotten down to this point is is excellent so so I'm good so far okay well then um on the the back page that would be e a parent of light grade level

026student but not a General County Public School employee in consideration should be given to members of the parent and citizen committee so that would make five you're right and maybe we can sort some of that out but uh moving on in the timeline same thing I did add that the process should be concluded in a timely manner I don't know if you want to put in their specific time range the responsibilities of the committee most of those are the same I did add that the committee should review and discuss any guidance from vdoes as the use of sexually explicit content for Library materials and I also added that I think that we should consider the literary value of the material I think I think this is important as we get challenges on some books that

027that you know have historically been on our shelves in in our our novels of some Worth or books of some worth I think we can say Hey you know there there is value in that book um outcomes are the same as klb and I think that was it if you find Ben 's best books that um that are of literary value now when I go and I check lists online that are that have been of the band type banned books there's a lot of reasons they're in they come from both eyes both sides of the aisle on why you know A Wrinkle in Time might be you know banned or To Kill a Mockingbird you know the n-words used quite often there's there's a lot of reasons however literary value plays into that when it

028comes to sexually explicit content such as The Bluest Eye which is pretty graphic I can understand you know the reasonings you know maybe behind some of some of this but maybe we ought to at that point have the committee look at it say okay it's in our middle schools this book is in our middle schools is that appropriate for eight for this age maybe it needs to only be at the high school maybe not at the middle school or you know I don't know if we have a shelf that says okay you know young adult what is young adult I mean exactly what is young adult yeah I think I think all those things are considerations um you know it's it's not the the the end-all um I don't know that they're uh well in

029fact I know that no no board member no board member would support sexually explicit material in our libraries I cannot let me let me rephrase that this board member does not okay and and you know it it's um I always said that a high school it should be at best PG-13 okay because you got 13 year olds sometimes in the building and you're going for better or worse cater to the youngest group in that in that flock um in your elementaries in your middle schools should be G-rated so I don't think that the sexually explicit stuff is um I I just can't imagine that it's that it's going to be an issue I might be wrong but well if you look at what's on the shelves now there's a reason that we're that we're here

030well let me speak to that too because I think this is this is important and I'm not saying that it's not but let's be honest this is nowhere near near as important as when whoever it is that sits down and determines what books we're going to bring into our libraries makes those decisions that's what's important oh I agree and I'm not saying that there's look the reason for this is to give our parents um away in to review it and to have a fair Shake on whichever side of the aisle there is on what we're putting because at the end of the day it's taxed by your dollar and they're not my kids so I should you know treat them with some if you know if you want this your child to read this you're

031welcome to do it but I'm not going to assume that your kids should have access to the blue aside this is was a way to open that up now do I think that we we as a board need to look at what criteria we put into these schools as far as selection prior to buying them absolutely absolutely I don't I don't hesitate to say that at all but like I said I wanted a fair process that someone who reviews a book goes you know I I sat in the committee I was the only one with five hand-picked people from somebody else and you know I felt like the fix was in and I didn't get it get to get to hear it um you know I know one of the one of the objections to

032this we had um what the the pulse cultural pulse of the of the county um and that I think Marty had mentioned that or something there was some talk about what that is um were not Fairfax we aren't loud and um we still are fairly a conservative County who believes that kids should be protected there's a certain time you know some of these books you wouldn't have seen until you hit a college Shelf at you know 15 years ago 20 years ago so now there seems to be you know and I and I want to make sure that I am okay with that cultural pulse I mean if we move away from that then we can talk about that but you know there's yeah I I mean I agree with you Randy but I don't

033think there's anything that um doesn't support that cultural pulse so I totally agree with what you've been saying I um I mean there are great works of fiction that have sexually explicit stuff in it it's done in context it's gone it's done in a way that if you're a read uh the brothers karamazov or something like that you you know you get it you go and it's important I think for um for uh adolescence to read in that context they don't need prurient stuff that's just kind of unwholesomely thrown out there and that that's what they don't need and that's what as a community um you know what democracy is all about is is uh guys are all pups but you'll remember Senator Dirksen used to say I may not be able to to Define

034obscenity but I know when I see it and so um so the community kind of has a kind of a thermometer on that uh but but it does need some uh Kentucky windage from those literary and English sources and others who will say yeah there's this particular book by garter and it doesn't have to be 300 year old book but but it does have to have to be you know something that that would that would pass the the test of of quality or or some positive aspect of of what it is and um and again that's nothing uh we can we can say in any objective way that these words or this you know whatever and and so it does lend itself to it to a community like this it would actually kind of discuss

035that stuff and then come to a decision I think that's the beauty of it uh so uh again I find myself in uh in agreement with with your concept here and how you how you've driven this um I um I I would like to see some some further thought as to how we either the number and how we develop that committee uh but but let me I want to make sure I I've talked about this in the past I want to make sure that people understand this is not me trying to take this out of the principal's hands um but having been in the military I also I see used to see in quartz Marshal that um everybody would look to the commander to see what what he wanted done with that person and then

036he kind of vote that way because uh you know hey the old man saw that I voted for six and six and got that guy in the break so um so we don't want it either way uh so that that uh principle is consciously or subconsciously kind of creating a a kind of movement on the other hand we look at all the things the principles are gonna have to do now with all this stuff and we got to try to make it easier for them because really I don't think any of us want them sitting in their offices 90 of the time because now lists and and and whatever so I do think in the not too distant future we have to talk about the criteria for the selection of these things that's the front

037end of this this is the back end this is merely a review process so I think I think it behooves us to look at the criteria that we would lay down so that the so that the principles can have an easier way of dealing with this and by the way I think I mean if I'm principal I don't want to get done involved with it either because I really don't want factions in my school you know forming you know and and so forth so so I think the whole of County approach is the way to go I think this cross-section of of of stakeholders and officials is the way to go uh and so I I I I endorse what you're well I was ready to come in and make a a big concession because

038I I see you have you were going to uh talk about the uh when somebody challenged the book uh to I think the the concept on the table is maybe uh put it in the library okay was to um just pull the book pull the book and and this the the compromise I think you or others were suggesting was that the book be pulled kept in the librarian's office and if a parent right so they emphasize that they wanted their their son daughter to to get it out then that would be feasible or not feasible that would happen and so I mean if that I think that's a good compromise for having it be somewhat accessible uh while it's while it's being reviewed uh but anyway uh so I'm talking too much other folks won't

039have the stuff to say so Cindy cow so um I actually I like Andrew's introduction because it does take out some of the more worrisome wording that I had the cultural norms of the county probably varies from strasbour to New Market depending on what the issue is so I like that that what Andrew has done here is more General um because who's going to decide what's culturally appropriate um it's it's going to vary um I I still have a bit of an issue with a resident of Shenandoah County being able to initiate a review without parents having a way to um revisit that um because parents if if it's if it's a citizen who doesn't have a school-aged child or isn't is not a staff member challenge is a book A book is removed no

040parents have asked for that book to be removed should parents have a say at that point should it be advertised that that book's been reviewed and should be should it be Revisited um should there be public comment on it something um some way for a parent to to challenge a book that's been removed um I like that the committee is smaller I thought D was unrealistic um classroom teachers have enough to do they don't have the time to be traveling to a different school to serve on a Review Committee um I'm fine with this five-member makeup if I was a timeline um number five I like G and H as written I even the Supreme Court says that we should consider literary value of material um through the Miller test for books so I do

041like that that's in there I think that's really important outcomes are fine except except I do think it should be in the policy something about the books remaining available behind the desk while a book is being challenged uh something to that effect yeah and I didn't include that on there and I'm not sure why but we had talked about that during the appeal process material questions should be separated from accessible Library materials and maybe checked out with parent parental permission and also did not include in their something as to uh that there should be a policy or a process for restoring removed material [Applause] you know the following year or following years if that's possible I'm I'm not real I'm not a fan of that one um I'd like to put an end to these

042things and move on and then if but if if if we want to do something like that I would I would have to indicate there would be a period of time okay uh yeah but yeah and keeping that street runs both ways I mean you know it could be um you know something is that we would want to to have on our shelves that for some reason was uh yeah and then and so in the criteria right uh in the future allows that and then it comes into the gate the way it's supposed to and well but if it's already been removed right but if you're saying if something happens to indicate that that work is now germane that somehow valuable Furbies and it meets the criteria that we have then it comes through just

043as if it were a new book or a new material I mean I I'd hate to see everything that kind of gets reviewed suddenly has an immediate appeal process for each case but or if you're saying that though that if we if a book is taken off the shelf this year then that book can come back next year no all right all right if it's gone it's gone but if indeed rather than a review review if it comes if the selection process is such that is reselected that's okay through the selection process through the initial and that's that's why I think it's incumbent on us to make sure going forward that we actually see a criteria list or whatever again not just to make us happy but to make it easier to judge these things

044and to alleviate the problems that we're loading on our administrators to be able to have to come up with that you've got a bliss which is going to be a bear um so um as far as uh Cindy when I when I came to the meetings before I was a member here there was a lot of talk about how stakeholders have uh a responsibility and a right to participate uh taxpayers uh grandparents um people who see something and want to say something so I mean this is only a review process it's um it can lose and and in losing it's going to lose some real steam but doctor that's exactly the the role of the of the review committee is to give us a cross-section of people that can that can look at it so

045I I my belief is a stakeholder in the system has has skin in the game too and uh but but I I I I just keep that in then then can there be an appeal process there is an appeal process there is an appeal process through the I don't know if that's still in but the concept was um did you do did you leave then in other words um when okay the committee votes yeah yeah four to three I would think and apparent if if um a parent says hey you know I think that this needs to be reviewed I think that's part of the field process and then go to the school board but but but and so it um the process is not outlined in the library policy version though it's outlined in

046the Learning Materials right it was I think it was I can't read fast enough yeah hey hey here's here's the thing is that I'm I'm giving you this Dennis you've said that you'd like to have another member on that committee well I just think it should be um I think I think five given the rolls of the five it could be too easily um skewed by one person or by it by it whereas seven would would probably give us uh committee that Mrs Shepherd has would be an ideal place to pull those I mean her committee comes from all walks of life all ends of the county which was who actually I was hoping that would review the books anyway but you know you could definitely pull from those folks that are already giving of

047their time and say hey when we meet again next month we've got a review on this I need your I need your thoughts that gives them enough time to to review it the other the other suggestion I would have is that the stakeholder whoever it is if he's from District six or District Five he could ask you where I to attend those meetings the same with everybody else that would put board members in with how things are done and you know even just listening to those um to that I know yeah in terms of of how to enlarge the committee and still keep that cross-section um we did you did line out here um I think the subject matter expert group and the teacher group right right we could grab one of each of those

048well yeah somebody from the parent teacher you know a parent-teacher organization sure sure so one of those three and so here's when I say subject matter experts one of the things I was concerned about that so it would if this if it was something that how to make a bomb uh and uh and there was somebody in um you know in a science field that might be somebody sitting on this or something or whether it's a political science thing or whether it's a sociology yeah that could be tough to get that no I know but it could but but um I will take the exceptional with something that Cindy said which is uh when I was a teacher I'd like to be asked to serve on these things I mean it was it was nice

049for me to go to the Head Shed and be able to say I'm a teacher here's how I feel about some things and be included so I think I think teachers from a professional Point of View kind of enjoy being a part of something that's uh that's got a little uh a little juice to it like this uh Dennis can I say something sure you've said that before or yeah but things have changed since you were in the classroom and teachers have so much more on their plates than they did I mean when was the last time you were in a K-12 classroom because these teachers are over burdened right now they don't need additional travel time to another school to participate in a committee and it's not even that they're volunteering for this they're

050put on a roster and they go when their names called they could volunteer for the roster I just uh I just I I happen not to believe that I mean I know they're over one that overworked I know they're worked hard and good teachers always work hard uh and that's that was the case even when I taught so so so that happens and I I think I think giving them and if nobody would sign up for it and they don't want to do it that would be quite interesting to me I don't think that would happen I think we get people who would actually find it part of their professional uh Duty and men to be able to do that but anyway um so whether it's a teacher whether it's uh somebody has and again

051if it were a novel somebody from English Department okay if it's something that has to do with um something that's uh you know like the uh suicide or whatever it could be some uh some kind of nickel people from the community uh in the medical community whatever would be uh feel honored to participate how about this so we could move on what if you crafted what you'd like to see the makeup of this committee be and send it to us okay okay and then you know we can make a decision on on this as option four okay I don't I mean and I think there were some things that I wanted to add as well in terms of the appeal process and what was the other one that kept that y'all said whatever okay right

052right yeah and I'll add that as well is it okay for him to do that and send it to all of us so I think you have it in the New Year about whether a book should remain on the shelf or not oh I do it just it puts it in your hands yeah it puts it in my hands okay yeah yeah well yeah yeah that okay yeah yeah yeah that's right but but the change would be that the book is pulled from the circulating shelf goes to the librarian's room and then it can be signed by by student if a parent gives their specific permission to take that book out so the notes notes removal from circulation of learning on this particular document in front of us removal from circulation of learning materials before

053a final decision is reached will only be accomplished if the superintendent makes a determination that the material is so patently offensive or volatile that the sake of the that for the sake of Public Safety and decorum it should be restricted temporarily so it would be under my purview if it stayed or if it I'm fine with it left and restricted temporarily could mean it's behind a desk behind the library and prepare permission to check out okay so um so I think you did include that piece in okay in here okay yeah Kyle you and I comments appreciate you putting that together it's pretty good I got a lot of spiritual seems like a good framework and um yeah I think we can I I mean I can understand both sides of the five or the

054seven um definitely needs to be an odd number to avoid putting anyone in a tough spot having to make a final decision I think on one person's shoulders but um I think it's a good framework for what we need to do and hopefully it will be the fourth and final iteration because I know we all want to move forward yeah yeah whatever whatever you know let's move forward in February back to the appeal six six C the only reference to an appeal is if the requester the review requester wants to appeal the decision so that doesn't mean anybody else can appeal the decision well we could we could put something in there as to in the appeal then would would be going before us I don't know so that's or that's what makes it superintendent

055I don't know um you're on 6C right yep uh the review it would go between before the school board within 10 school days if it's as written right but the review requester is the only one who can appeal the decision so what about what if the review requester is a non-parent and there's a parent who wants to appeal because they want it to stay on the shelf where does that how does that parent appeal or that group of parents that's that's my question does it go back through the same process again does it go back well I guess the question is is um if we are going to say all stakeholders have set the same weight or if they don't I mean you're thinking that parents have a more weighted process or a more weighted

056decision in this than parents who than than people who aren't participating in the in the system correct yes and no I think not that stakeholders shouldn't have a role I've come around to that being okay but parental rights are for all parents and if if someone who is a non-parent is challenging this then you are taking something away from a parent of a child if they want that book in the library and available understood now if it goes through the process I mean we have to remember that as parental parental rights we aren't the end all Beetle to accessing books I mean here's Amazon and in the public library and you know all these other things that say Hey you know I want my kid to read assassins whatever it was you know that mentioned

057all all sorts of stuff that's I mean if if the if the schools don't want to offer it um you know you do as a as a parent have a right to access it in in other in other venues I mean I think that's one of the things that that I want to get away from is what our duty as a school is is not to offer absolutely positively everything I mean that's not our taxpayer money isn't to fill the libraries up we should have good quality content in those libraries but at the same time because I catch so much Flack over you're Banning books you're burning books like for God's sakes no I'm not you're welcome to go to Amazon and order that thing and have it delivered tomorrow and give it to your

058child you're welcome to walk into books a million buy it you know that is on you you're welcome to do that if we go if it's if it's a rigorous process that that meets then I'm okay with saying I'm sorry you know we went through the appeal we went through the process and we don't feel that that it's that's appropriate to be here um I and I would think that that if the stakeholder is the one that took it and didn't then then they could appeal it all the way to the the school board if they wanted to but I you know I'm not sure how I feel about well you know Joe schmoe off of it is suddenly got involved in books and he's put up fourth process and parents you know now parent

059you know might want to come in I think we should decide if if the stakeholder has I mean if they're not weighted or if they are weighted I mean parents should have a you know are they the same do they have the same weight I don't want this book to be in constant review is what what I'm saying so you know at what point does that go well you know Joe schmoe got it and you know now parrot you know whatever is going to review it well does that stop there I mean I don't want this constant cycle to be going well you know there's we're going to review it again because it's you know got the outcome that we expected let me add something to that you know the the uh the policy that

060we've had in place for decade did not have that provision right right it only spoke to the complainant being able to make the appeal but what I think needs to be included in this is a again I go back is some way at some after a certain set of time that that book could be reconsidered okay and then it goes to if the parent if a parent then wants to wants to reconsider then they go through the entire process again I think I think it's easier than that I think if the if the book is deselected and it's off the shelf and is somebody in the process next year wants it back in they run it through the front door they're running through which other books are are and and but we don't have a

061process for that we need to yeah all right that's another day right I I know that's what I'm saying it would have been better to have done the front before we did the back door but we were stuck with what we were studying so we do this now we go take care of the other one but I think it should stand on its own in the processes like every other new book or material that's considered that's the process that wouldn't be a European process it would be a consideration process what here's a question for you though what if it what if it's a book that you want you as a board member you've done us want in the library and it's removed what if it's the Bible and it gets challenged and it gets removed

062there's no process for anybody to say no that needs to stay there that's a very important work that's the whole that's the whole reason for the committee that we don't have now that's that's its job right so so if we have if we have a group of seven people from the cross section that decides that the Bible meets or doesn't meet the the criteria and they vote that way yeah we'd be stuck with that and uh until the next holy hell would would break would break loose too because I have more confidence in common sense in people and and concept of not only the Bible is something that's that's germane to the culture but it's also great literature and poetry and so I have every confidence I'm not saying that either but I'm just no

063I'm just I'm saying I have confidence in the system I mean we have nothing now we have nothing now I mean we had that case study from that lady that with two daughters who was basically called a bully because she actually came forward and said she so we won't have a process where somebody could come in in an orderly way and have seven reasonable people from various walks of life with an educational area I I do um I by the way though I um uh the point about the parent being kind of the first among the stakeholders I totally agree with I mean it would be hard for me to look at either that lady or Josh Stevens with his second grade daughter or whatever for me to say I have more skin in the

064game than they do because something that's targeted or aimed toward that person it seems to me to have much more emotional and real appeal to me than the fact that I'm sitting up here and saying oh that bothers me so so I understand what you're saying and so I mean I think that's another reason why my parents should have a a healthy role in this committee well I think sidebar here that we need to probably consider the process by which we select books okay and then in that consideration how a book would get back in to circulation okay but but you know let's Hammer this first okay I mean if the selection we shouldn't say any of these shouldn't see very many of these reviews at all you would think right um you know the

065thing is we do have folks that do select that you know as we've heard well we need mature materials because well sure and there are some things you know um The Outsiders in in Ponyboy is far different from twitching and and some other things that we've seen so you know I am okay and if you want parents you know I don't even really have a problem with that um you know I I do understand the stakeholders things of that nature and but I'm okay with the process I I'm not there shouldn't be any of you know jockey in the system to get what I want I want a fair process for whoever brings it up and if it means that I lose on it then okay if the Bible loses out well then that's such

066a Criterion sets a precedence for everything else we're going to review afterwards because it should all meet the same rigor if you're if you're talking you know about some of those passages and mature content it's gonna We sh we should have what those what those things mean so um you know I'm hoping that some of this stuff like I said is if we do need to look at the selection process and I know that that won't necessarily make some folks happy that there's some oversight but um I think it needs to be done and I think that you know I think it's protection for them too well it is some game and you know we have to so we have to protect what what if Dennis and I talk of this week prior to the

067meeting in and then we come up with the committee membership and I think the appeal stuff that we were looking at this minute to Dave as fourth uh Ops well let me ask you this can we take anything off the table at this point I mean can we take versions one and two I mean this is getting a little confusing my eyes are starting to cross trying to figure out where where the differences are and I mean is there is it safe to say we can take anything off the table at this point or or do we have considerations for uh one or two I don't know you know I would hate to to make that determination I haven't said much on this topic uh but I have thought about it and I met with

068a librarian in the early process and I uh she expressed her views and whatever um I thought the old policy worked well and we got an email from the librarian in the northern campus they had two books that was appealed one was taken off one was put back and I think everything was fine and now this is blowing up which is a national movement I understand that and we have it here and I had uh this was in the policy and and Randy you referred to it I had this note in my shirt pocket when I was on the farm and I've spoken to about me two or three dozen people for them to Define this term cultural norms of the community and not one person could respond to that and to me the Norms

069of the people that live in conicville which is my area will be different than the Norms in Woodstock so I understand this committee is going to uh view the book for the whole county is that not correct Andrew and if the book is in all three libraries and it's passed to take off it will be removed to all from all three is that is that our understanding yes well the norms to me is different and um help me understand something else Miss Shepherd what a student a checks the book out at Mountain View whatever the book is the Bible or a questionable book a parent gets an email saying your child has checked this book out is that not correct yes we just started that but within the last yeah month okay are they getting

070for everything they checked out or just sexually explicit everything and we're getting multiple notices too so so to me it looks like it's covered now and I think we are spending too much time on it when we have more important things to deal with in our school system than library books I'm sorry and I don't I agree with they should not be in there and I think the librarians in ordering books since this is a Hot Topic we'll consider that so let me respond Marty we don't have a policy well did we not hold on just let me finish the last policy one Library was written in 96 it was reviewed in 2014 and revised in 2018. it's 80 words it says nothing about review of any books nothing or materials okay the the policy

071that we devised for curriculum materials instructional materials excuse me uh back in late spring early late spring of last year is now the policy for for material so that now is the default position I I could read this I can read this 80 words but I'm telling you here we go here's the policy okay okay I understand each School shall maintain an organized library media center as the resource center of the school and provide a unified program of Media Services and activities for students and teachers before during and after school the library media center shall contain hard copy electronic technological resources materials and equipment that are sufficient to meet research inquiry and reading requirements of the instructional program and general student interest each School shall provide shall provide a variety of materials resources and equipment

072to support the instructional program end of policy there is okay now you mentioned the the the double challenges that happened at I don't even know what school was one of the northern schools and that's the case study that is kind of a nightmare if you read what happened it was I was going to use it it was disorganized and it led to hard feelings on both sides and some pretty um uneven outcomes so we it was pretty clear to me after reading what happened during that that this lack of policy led to a kind of a an ad hoc policy that was left wanting and and Ergo the reason to come up with a new policy for both instructional materials and for Library materials so that's how we got here okay um anything else we

073got other things to move on and so Andrew and Dennis will look for the your addition to come February 9th is it uh Shepherd thank you okay three three Foodservice Dr kind Gardener all right audience of course you know Miss Miss Polk obviously um but we have two other folks from Southwest Food Service um Fred Ellis and who is a account executive and for their region and um based out of Missouri right and of course I don't know if you've Mount Lauren mayor Lauren is our manager for SFA for our division so they've been very instrumental in getting us up and running and moving in the direction that we've that we've moved in this year I really appreciate the collaboration of all three of them see so thank you all for being here even though

074they told me they didn't have to be they said oh we'd like to be so thank you um this handout you should find at each one of your places it's a chart at the top we'll start with a side that has breakfast Circle so that you can see that um I tried I wanted to put the numbers I like the numbers at the top of those bars to make it really easy to read but it um it wasn't quite so easy so I put the numbers so you have the actual data down below but that chart as you'll see from The Breakfast shows a lot of information on on this chart um and you can see the color-coded um Legend there to the right but the blue bar represents our last year's meals for for

075breakfast and this year's breakfast and you can see they might be um it might be a little behind in Breakfast at this point this year but one thing I think I wanted to um to point out last year was of course it was free like it is this year but last year was a lot of grab and go and eat in the classrooms this year's that's not the case so breakfast is may not breakfast may not be where we want it to be at this point in time and I know that's something that we will work towards but I want to highlight a couple other points that you'll see also on the back side when we look at lunch um first of all this is the first year in cep and cep stands for the

076community eligibility provision and that means that's a program that we're part of that allows our students this year to receive free meals and for the next four years they will receive free meals so it's important to know that's a component of this and then also just this year was our first year with sfe um also I wanted to point out the picture down below if you recall some of the photographs that sfb used when they first came they were from their website those very nice pictures of the food that we we saw these pictures are for our pictures from our cafeterias and I wish that they would be up in big and pretty but um you can't tell the difference between stage pictures and these pictures that were taken with somebody's iPhone they look delicious

077all right let's turn our page over and look at some some better quiz here with lunch and and I think you'll see real quick um that lunch has has been a real treat a real hit for us you can see that um if you look down in the data down below the green the green bars in the top chart show it really quickly that um we're we have more students served lunch every day every month than we have and this is a six year chart I believe in the past six years so um but you can see the actual numbers there below in that chart with our 2022-23 numbers up to this point so I can tell you that from from a number standpoint or up um from a conversation with parents parents have been

078very positive given very positive remarks on many say thank you I don't have to unpack lunch anymore the but there's also from students and we've hold students they've done some taste testing with students we've got a very good response from students they're very appreciative of the selection and having multiple choices during launch so I will tell you that I know that you heard I'm sure in the first month six or seven weeks onboarding new staff that that's that's a hurdle and and we knew that was going to be a hurdle going in but I appreciate the work that sfe did with bringing additional staff in to help not just to help serve but to help train um and now just speaking today with with them they've heard many of our staff now saying they're they're

079very happy and they're very glad that they stuck with it through some hard time of learning now you know and we all experienced that from time to time and everything we do anytime you start something new it's hard at first and then it's gotten easier so we're very happy with where we are right now with um SFA and I think in the coming months you'll see some information in the board agendas to to renew our our um contract with them so um we wanted to give you this information now just so that you have it to think about know about and maybe it was for some questions and that's fun thank you drunkard questions I have a couple comments um I'm one of those parents that's very happy my seventh grader gets lunch at school

080almost every day so thank um because she's a picky eater and she she finds options that she likes so I I really appreciate that uh just having options is a great great thing and then the other thing and I I might have mentioned it to melody or it might have been my conversation with my seventh grader but I think one thing that might actually be affecting the breakfast numbers besides the grab and go is the double bus runs you know there's a bunch of kids who are getting there too late so so that that may be affecting the numbers I still think the numbers are amazing um but that could be one thing that was it now I've heard only you know good things you know going into um this decision last year we you

081know it was coming up in regular conversation from our constituents all the time so I'm I'm grateful the food does look wonderful uh you know uh as far as you know the double bus runs very well may be part of the issue um and I I don't know if it plays into it at the high school I know it's Strasburg you know when you pull up in there in the mornings there are kids standing outside you know waiting to get inside which I'm not exactly sure I understand the processes there you know if they can come in and go ahead and eat um you know if if that's a if that's a thing if there's any weight that we can help eliminate that I mean or at the elementary school level you know is there

082enough coverage in the cafeteria to make sure that those kids are circling through and have enough time to go get something um you know because it's it's such a a big part some of them aren't getting breakfast at all um as they process through I know my teenager here always had to have breakfast and then she hit puberty and now I can't get her to eat breakfast so you know if there's something that they can grab and stick with them is is the grab and go in the lunch is did we stop that all together because it was just too much in the classroom or what was yeah that was that was part of it um absolutely part of it and it's it's this is a perfect example of systems you know you tweak one

083thing and it changes something else over here oh yeah important custodians you know all that trying to to manage the cleanup and all that that was that was a big part of it eating in the classroom right so now try this that we eat in the cafeteria not that it doesn't happen occasionally for a certain events or something but is there anything we can do to to tweak that front end to where they can go in you know to help with that time I mean um I'm not sure I mean at this High School like well well I mean at the high school yeah you could definitely you know let kids in inside the door um because you know we have staff walking right past them to get in and they're standing outside but I

084mean if this is happening at the elementary school level that's that's a big deal you know how we get those kids through because you have the numbers the numbers seem to be you know good and then they drop off you know 150 or more so you know I'm just curious what we can do to solve that and those are things we can talk with them what what we might be able to do to help with that but it the reality of it is the size of those schools it's a it's amazing Elementary oh I had no doubt in my mind yeah there's a thousand kids through the watch line you know in the time it takes to get to school to get to class it's it's a challenge but we can always look at those

085things I know at the high school to the to the point you're making it's about making sure there's ample supervision inside the school with contract time so there's a lot of moving Parts with that but we'll definitely look at is anything we can do to get kids eating more in just healthy meals we want to try and do yeah I mean you know looking at the processes from say you know 500 feet and then at 50 feet and looking at seeing where we can flip those take them you know pull it pull some of those folks in and have conversations where can we where can we change this where can we gain three minutes here or five minutes here that all adds up in the you know if it's as we're circulating one group out

086the other one's already inside the door we're not cleaning up before we get another one you know whatever it is that we need to do but this is fantastic I mean I'm very pleased with the numbers and and the staff uh is we have a solid staff they don't need any help to wash dishes were you volunteering Okay go again that was experience and a half they don't want me I don't see those and hopefully we will look at the uh the pay for cap uh cafeteria workers in our budget you're going to hear that in a few minutes uh yeah it was a good line yet anything else for uh Dr Ann Gardner and the lunch if hearing nothing will go to three four the presentation on the budget process Miss Shepherd is up

087again there ain't something that Dr heigarter said and I know he said it twice but lunches will be free breakfast and lunches will be free for four additional years after this year so that's part of the cep program that we're in um and I don't know that we've said it enough so we need we're going to say it a couple more times maybe even today so you but we're very grateful for our Our Food Service staff this is just an overview of the things that I'm going to talk about this evening we'll talk about our goals and we'll talk about enrollment our CIP which is approved at the last January meeting we'll talk about student population and Personnel information talk about the proposed state budget next steps and then give you an opportunity for questions

088so I have about 30 minutes before the public hearing so if I go a little longer than that and there's people who need to speak then we can take a break or or I can finish up and and then we can have the public hearing afterwards depending on where we're at in the in the presentation so you know we want to write um relay everything back to our division goals which we uh tweaked a little um last fall as academic achievement and growth positive School climate and culture family engagement retaining supporting um enthusiastic professionals and then high quality and adequate facilities so you'll see that as we as we move through our goals for budget this year two enrollment information if we could do a trend line you would see enrollment is declining um year

089after year after year so um you know we we had a pretty significant um decline the dark blue line is K-12 and then when you look at the light blue line it's it's our preschool students all the way through 12th grade so we're at 54 34 5434 students this year which is a um around 75 students less than last year so we do know during the pandemic we lost many of our students to homeschooling and so we currently have 200 more homeschooled students than we did in 2019. so if we could attract those homeschool students back which means that Shenandoah County Public Schools need to be the best school in Shenandoah County so that we can we can attract those students back um we would be you know our number would be at 56.34 we

090have 15 less religious exempt students than we had in 2019 so that declined slightly but our homeschool students increased significantly we also took on more K more preschool correct yes so um and I don't have that number here but you could subtract the um the dark blue from the light blue and it'll give you that number no I meant I mean we started out with K4 and now we're down to two-year-olds correct yes and that's you know that's pretty much our students with our preschool students with disabilities is who we serve at age two so we do a child fund and child fund is that they need their students that need services and we provide those services for those two and three years old three-year-olds so that when they enter school they're at a greater

091Advantage than they would have been had they not seen school at age you know at age two and age three so and you know Jennifer could probably talk a little more to that but they're not in school for an entire day it's part of a day and that's not new the two and three year olds is not new we picked that up with we've always had to serve our community in that regard less all right I I was under the impression we had picked those up I know we picked I remember when we picked up three you know three-year-olds I didn't realize how much of that population was two-year-olds and because I know the state is pushing towards birth to to whenever to Infinity but um so I was just curious if we I mean

092those K preschool numbers have have risen which gives Lynn to to some of this so if you look at this year we have 199 uh preschool students and last year was 168. so a few more so this is a busy slide but it will show you each school and and where their enrollment is um the enrollment Trend over the last 10 years so you'll look at Honey Run Elementary School they're up slightly this year than we were last year um Sandy Hook's down slightly and then WWE is it's about the same but you'll you'll see a at Sandy Hook and at ww you'll see during the 2020-21 school year a decline that's because the fifth grade students went to the middle school and then the Middle School eighth grade students went to to the high

093school North Fork Middle School so there are 350 students at Norfolk Middle School we anticipate great this is grade five through seven we anticipate the six through eight will be 350 students because it's the same students that'll be there this year that will be there next year as well since we're doing a grade reconfiguration down at the southern campus Peter Muhlenberg we're down slightly I'm going to go over birth rate here in a little bit so you'll see some reasons for that as well and then signal knob is down down slightly as well you'll see the 2021 school year at Central High School and at Strasburg High School has a has a significant increase that's because again our eighth graders went to the high school whereas Mountain View were were already serving um eighth grade

094students so you'll notice that you know Central High School there was a slight decrease at Mountain View High School there's a a little increase in Mountain View High School's numbers will drop next year because of the eighth grade we'll be moving back to to North Fork there were a lot of seniors in that Central 2020 class yes and then here's our birth uh our birth rate so um if you look um and what I did um this year for this graph is I included so here you will see that there were 485 um in 2010 you'll see there were 485 children born in you know that related to Shenandoah County it didn't matter if they were born in Shenandoah County or Winchester or or wherever they are were attributed to Shenandoah County and of those

095485 410 entered kindergarten five years later so our kindergarten class of 2016 in 2011 there were 464 children born attributed to Shenandoah County and 417 entered if you look at 2017 our class of 2020 our kindergarten class of 2022 you'll notice that there were 450 50 Children attributed to Shenandoah County and 346 entered the our kindergarten class and then you will also notice that the number of children born in 2020 is significantly higher than was born from 2010 to 2019 so that kindergarten class we expect to be larger than our other kindergarten classes and as I pause along the way if you guys have any questions feel free to feel free to just ask so not only do we need to look at those children that were born in in our community we also need

096to look at some new new housing developments that are you know that our potential are popping up so I confirmed this information over the last week and you know Edinburgh has 30 lots that to be developed Murray town has 125 units Strasbourg there are three housing developments there we have the summit Crossing which you know has a potential of 256 homes some town homes and some single-family homes The Village at Cedar Creek 32 and then also Skyline Ridge 32 homes and town homes tend to bring more children than single family homes and and I do have a number of you know of of school-aged children that that would bring but you have to know that you know in just say the summit crossing the 112 Townhomes you know if there was one child per home

097it doesn't mean that all of those kids are going to go to Sandy Hook Elementary School it means that they're going to be spread throughout and not all of them are going to be at you know a fourth grade student so you know it may increase a class size at that we would need an additional teacher at one level or not so you know it just depends on you know the people who move into those spaces and then at Woodstock we have quite a few um housing developments that are they're on the books the largest is 244 at Glenmont and then 214 at Eagle Ridge followed by Woodstock West at 110 so so Capital Improvement plan Dr heingarner yes sir so nothing in New Market or Mount Jackson so nothing in New Market um or

098Mount Jackson so Dr Hein Garner did a nice job of presenting the capital plans projects that we have on um that we've planned for the fiscal year 24 or 2023-24 school year so you know you'll see and I just broke it out so it was a little easier to read than that chart that he had but you know we have security and safety we have heating ventilation air conditioning and and many if you look at the heating ventilation and air conditioning HVAC you'll see that many of the systems are beyond their their life and if you'll look at the very bottom uh like the last uh Row in the last column um the units are between 22 and 40 years old so talking about past their useful life we've really extended them well beyond their

099useful life and that's you know that means that we have a great maintenance crew that keeps up with the equipment and does the preventative maintenance and and fixes them and finds parts for them whenever whenever they're broke so you know we have to um you know give them a pat on the back because you know if we didn't have a good crew then we wouldn't be able to keep our equipment running but past its useful life to the other projects we have stage lighting at Mountain View we have some gates that need to be replaced at which pose you know it may this could have well went under Safety and Security of students because these gates are hard to use and um you know they they could um hurt somebody if if they're um if

100they're trying to open it and can't get it open or closing it and and so on and so forth upgrade restrooms at the elementary schools this is a continuation of a project that we started a few years ago and then repair some gutter at Strasbourg High School near door 4. so the total the total CRP for maintenance is a little under a million dollars but remember that there's a couple of other things that are included in our CIP Transportation so we have 52 buses that will need to be replaced over the next five years so we're um we're on a cycle of replacing 10 8 to 10 buses a year replace high mileage Vehicles replace them maintenance bucket truck which is beyond its useful life and in constant need of repair and maybe even be

101unrepairable at this point hydraulic press is a you know as a lift and then replace four activity buses per year this allows some of our smaller teams in our um our FFA organizations and FCCLA to go on trips without having to have a bus driver so there's some flexibility there and then the last thing was the um the late ad to the CIP which where's the edge along so that's you know a little over about 1.6 million and then athletic so you know we we can't forget forget our athletic facilities we want to repair Crown damage and and sod for student safety at the Mountain View High School resurface track at Strasburg High School um indoor running track at Central High School and and we have our indoor tracks every year for the next three

102years at all of our high schools so one a year for the next three years resurfaced tennis courts um that's around the gym yeah in the inside right it's outside the gym it's that you know it's yeah yeah it's kind of a I didn't know it had a name yes the floor has a little give so the the kids can run and run on that in that space as well that's good because I know like soccer practices there when it's raining and sometimes the boys are in the gym and the girls are in the hall so yeah um the tennis courts I think Dr heingardner and and Miss Stein can tell you that the tennis courts are in dire need of being replaced resurfaced and then um so retrofitting some Stadium lights at Central High

103School which is about eight hundred thousand dollars um Mountain View High School softball lights are all my stuff we're waiting for electricity is that right that's right yeah little update there and then physical education resurface the track at signal now middle school so the total is three million 426 000 and this is urgent internecessary let me see if I and here it is just you know if you wanted to print this page to see it just all in one you know one page here it is you know for that so and it gives you the total in all the projects that um that our maintenance department will be mainly our maintenance department will be um facilitating for next year if if the funds are available well and that amount is what industry standards say we

104should be spending a year for CIP for maintenance of what we what we currently have the footprint we have the facilities we have so yeah so um so this is one of the charts that was in the CIP h manual that Dr hunger and Miss Don put together but if you'll look at fiscal year which is this current year right now fiscal year 23. um where the county pays 3.15 million dollars in debt service for the School Division and I wrote a note I think that is the high schools are dropping off the debt service so um the renovations to the high schools yeah additions and Renovations are paid off so that will go to 1.12 million so you know the county will be saving a little 2.02 million or 2.03 million from from debt

105service from this year to next year so just wanted to to highlight that and then um and then you know we'll pay the same or the county will pay the same for fiscal year 25 but then in 26 it drops off a little bit as well and then by fiscal year 28 it drops it's uh our debt service that the county is paying will will be paid in its entirety questions so far student population so this is our free and reduced lunch eligibility numbers for for the last eight years and you'll notice we're kind of all over the place you know we're we're 2600 to you know up to 2 900 I'm not sure of why the spike was in 2020 2021 I could theorize that it's possibly because people were getting pandemic related funds

106if they were free and reduced lunch so they may have applied to get the the pandemic related money that was available for families yes yes I don't know but you know there was a a significant increase there in um and you know and we're up slightly from last year from our English Learners um and and all of this information is taken from the fall report so I just want you to know that's a September 30 snapshot um Jennifer um Stratton is going to be talking about some special ed numbers at our next at our February meeting that you know her number is going to come from December so it may look a little different but mine's from the September snapshot hers will be from a December snapshot so increase and decrease in things but our

107English Learners are at the September snapshot was 576. um students are English Learners you're relation also varies with what we actually have as as population correct I mean those numbers you had given what our enrollment was so they they're changing 2020 was a higher enrollment than what what we have now right so that would technically drop some of these numbers right okay our students um and you know we take we really for student population we take two snapshots one September 30th three snapshots one's September 30th one's March 30th and then we have a summer a summer snapshot as well so those you know that's where we gather all of our numbers um but taking it from the same place and taking it from the same place for previous years is good for comparison so um

108so all of these numbers are from the the September 30 snapshot of these particular years so our special ed population is is up um about 56 students from last year which is these you know these Setter numbers right here our 504s is down slightly from last year from 375 to 356. but for a total of 1 264 students so you know our special ed students our students with disabilities in our our 504 students there's there's a lot of compliance that we have to to meet whenever we have any student under either one of those two program Federal programs so um and then Personnel this is information that Linda Hodges shared earlier with you but I just wanted to to re-highlight that for you um in 2019-20 during a recession and during the pandemic our teachers

109stayed put you know because they weren't sure what was coming and you know we only had a six percent turnover that that 1920 school year and then 2021 we went back to about normal which was about losing about 15 percent of our our teacher teachers to turn over and then last year we were at 14 if you look at the little sticky note at the top it's you know the national teacher turnover rate was about 16 percent and you know who who is leaving um Shenandoah County Public Schools well you know we have our one to three year um teachers are are leaving and then our more experienced teachers so 48 of our experienced teachers who have 11 to 11 or more years of experience left us last you know last year however so our

110teaching staff this year 66 of our teaching staff have seven or more years of experience which means that 34 of our teaching staff have zeroda zero to six years of experience so you know we still we're still above the 50 Mark with experienced teachers which is a positive and then our high quality you know our high quality licensed teachers our turnover for the last four years we typically lose to Frederick Harrisonburg Rockingham and Warren but you know um massages collected the information 10 percent left said they were going to leave public education altogether which is heartbreaking um because we need more teachers so we failed over 119 positions last year and we started the school year with those vacancies down at the bottom we started the school year with 27.5 positions vacant and then we

111we currently have 20 vacant teaching and counseling positions of those 24 counseling so 16 are our teacher vacancies and um the way we're filling those is we're asking teachers to teach additional classes or filling them with substitutes who are doing a really nice job for us but um you know their substitutes so I would like to pass by this slide without even talking about it but you know it this is one of the factors we do a really nice job with our health insurance with our employee only you know of 50 and this is Comprehensive Dental so you know our employee only pays fifty dollars a month for their health insurance but um but after that we fall short so you can see the numbers compared to Frederick and Rockingham in Frederick County I wasn't

112sure if this was Comprehensive Dental or where there was basic Dental they didn't they didn't identify so I just didn't put it up there but um but it's like for like here and and I can tell you that our health insurance is slated to increase again for next year our experience rate is 50 14 percent 14 more this year than what we're paying to Aetna so Aetna so we're paying just assume we're paying Aetna 100 000 Aetna is paying out a hundred and fourteen thousand dollars so they're paying out more than they're receiving from Shenandoah County Public Schools and so that will be you know so we will see an increase for next year so what do you reckon the I mean is it Anthem to to Aetna is it because they're a larger school

113system therefore the buy-in is better or we just um ill individuals here in Shenandoah County I mean what's what's the deal why I mean this employee and children I mean twelve hundred dollars to 163 I mean that's that's huge so we have some really high significant claims so if I look we have 10 and this is by no way saying people don't use your health insurance that if we have health insurance for a reason and if someone is sick or needs to go to the doctor or needs to get a wellness visit please absolutely that's not what I'm saying but we have 10 claims that are over a hundred thousand dollars we have uh 20 claims that are from 50 000 to a hundred thousand and we have 31 claims that are from 25 000

114to 50 000. and this snapshot was taking taken in um in October so you know so that's you know we we have a lot of a lot of large Health claims and um now we don't know we're just assuming that Frederick and Rockingham don't have the health claims or is I mean but we don't know for certain if that's the case or I mean yes we don't know we don't know but I can I can tell you their pull is larger because um they have more staff so you know Frederick county is about two and a half times larger than we are in Rockingham is probably about the same two times I mean across across the board when it comes to teachers every epidemic that we have with teachers you know overworked discipline everything else

115is it just Shenandoah County it's it's across the board everywhere so you know I'm just curious to know I hate you know I can't say well I would love to know whether this is you know what they're doing differently do they have healthier healthier you know teachers or do they just have better insurance I you know I don't know what the deal is I would love to know that answer so you know just a couple of our our top claims are cancer heart I mean coming out of the pandemic everybody had the you know like I said it wasn't just it wasn't just us we're so you know like I said I can't imagine that they don't have some high that they're healthier well isn't it also traditionally Shenandoah County just has not paid into

116the benefit as much as other school divisions have so those School divisions are taking on that cost so that they're employees can pay a lower rate this this is not based solely on we have sicker people it's that us as a School Division have not contributed as much toward the insurance for our employees well I mean I don't have that information either I I like I said I don't know why it's significantly different is that the case yeah um I will try to get those contributions um for the next meeting that's a that's a good point well and that's you know that's anecdotally teachers that I know that my kids have had that have gone to Rockingham County it's because they paid 6 000 less for insurance so that's like getting a six thousand dollar

117raise so even commuting they're making more money oh no well I said I you know there's got to be more to this number than than just yeah than just that I would like to know you know what those factors are so we have talked with our consultants for health insurance and one of the um we're we're ready to go out for bed for health insurance I think two two things put us at a disadvantage and I don't know if this is a year we're ready it's the RFP is ready to go one um is that our experience is higher than what we're currently paying so you know 14 more than what we're paying and then the second thing is um and Blue Cross Blue Shield and the um the negotiations with Valley Health so yeah

118that is still going on so you know we can go out for bed but is it going to be advantageous to us because Aetna will respond and maybe another um health insurance agency but you know is it would we consider Blue Cross Blue Shield if they're not going to be a Valley Health partner I I don't know they look like Fredericks about it well exactly that's what I was about to say I mean we are I mean there's not options for Health Care here I mean we're either going to Rockingham or we're going to you know to Valley Health so we're all hidden to the same direction and we I don't know what they're doing if they're gonna you know go out for bed to see if they you know um this year um because

119because Valley Health is going to be out of network now for Blue Cross Blue Shield maybe possibly possibly yeah and I don't think we'll know until the information I have I don't think we'll know until May yeah in our renewal is July 1. 100 times Winchester City let me make sure I've got that right has opened an RFP for their health insurance now and I don't know who Winchester City currently has foreign we're still in our other meeting so please go ahead and sign in if you want to and we'll we'll go to the public Hearing in just a few minutes thank you state budget information um so this these are um on December the 15th uh Governor Younkin presented his proposed amendments to the biennial budget and hear some of the highlights so I'm

120extend reading Specialists support to grades four and five Miss Proctor will tell us we've already checked that box so um uh providing math Specialists and low performing schools one percent retention bonus for instructional and support positions five thousand dollar bonus for performance pay and vdoe will has not identified what that criteria looks like yet so we we do not even know what that will will look like when it's you know when it's if it if it's approved if it's when it's passed down to us so um one of Governor younkins initiatives is to make sure that we our students if they want our dual have to access to dual enrollment so I'm increasing some availability of dual enrollment increasing a college partnership for Laboratory Schools so again dual enrollment credentialing for teachers recruitment incentives for

121hard to fill positions and hard to staff schools provide targeted support for early childhood education these are all the Amendments but they're you know some and then expand school-based Mental Health so for these are my highlights and um so you guys may want to add change whatever amend so salaries I know we looked at teachers last year but we want to re-look at teachers this year and we still fall short of Rockingham County at the beginning teacher salary with Frederick County we fall short kind of in the mid to Upper upper experienced teachers we want to look at our paraprofessionals again and increase their salary we want we did not look at clerical maintenance mechanics or technicians last year these are a group that we want to want to look at this year and then

122School nutrition which would be a significant increase for for our school nutrition staff so um fuel budget that's a that's a have to that's not a want to um our fuel for our buses and our and our Heating health insurance I mentioned earlier we're anticipating a 15 increase and we'd also like to increase our contribution to her dependent coverage to make it more comparable to Frederick and Rockingham because that is real money and then with the health insurance um you know we can send out an RFP but I don't I don't know if it's going to benefit us at this time we are you know we are talking to our Consultants now to see to see where we would land and then the two CTE programs that we would like to um add which are

123heating ventilation and air conditioning and then otpt Aid assistant three and then here are the next steps so you'll have more information from me at the February 9th meeting and then again into February 23rd meeting and then at the March 9th meeting we will ask you to approve a budget so that we can forward that to our County Board of Supervisors and then ultimately we would like to have a an adopted budget by April the 27th um and that you know that depends on whether the general assembly is able to have an approved budget as well I think we were a little later in May last year because of the length of the the general assembly sessions and then questions so questions or thoughts or um I like that I don't like that you've got

124this all wrong go back to the drawing board we have a budget book for us not this time that will either come let me last year that that was either at the February 23rd or the March 9th this is last year's budget book so um and I I just wanted to highlight a couple of things from last year the county contributed 41 of our budget and the state contributed 56 percent of our budget and the other thing I wanted to highlight is 89 of our budget is salaries and been as people salaries and benefits so um so I wanted to you know just highlight those couple of things and you know and I can't say this enough it's people who make a difference it's people okay so you said budget flops are when oh so

125probably either February the 23rd or March the 9th but you're hoping for us to approve it on March the 9th okay so it'll be okay okay so yeah February 23rd yeah definitely about February 23rd but this meeting here is to gather your information if you were hopes and dreams and wishes are different than mine then you know Now's the Time to say because this is what I'm going to work from so yep I would like to know about the unilogue um and and the I mean that one stands out to me edulog or Edge along and yeah that however you said that that's that one too yeah um I I would like to know more information about that like I said um what that's about then and what what we're hoping to gain with that

126I can give you a very that's the software that will allow parents to track where their students are on the bus and give them an alert when they're like five minutes away or it also gives um substitute bus drivers the route and every stop so that they don't inadvertently miss someone or you know they know that Johnny's getting on at this stop and then um Bill and Susie are getting on at the next stop so we don't have that currently we're not do not have that currently okay did I miss anything no real important point of this is we all came through an error where the bus driver we had probably was our parents bus driver they knew where every stop was it's not the way it is today of course you're getting on that

127bus may or may not know exactly where to go when they figure it out this will be a system that basically is a GPS in the bus and this is the route you follow um because of the turnover of bus drivers and the hard to get pieces right um how many do we have data that supports how many times we're missing stops and things of that nature I don't have a number I can find out you know you know I can certainly talk to Lucas it's not every day but it's a challenge well I don't I don't doubt that um like I said for me it's how much money um that's the original that's the original cost the reoccurring cost is um something different right so that would be a question you know um that's

128that's a lot of money um and you know bus drivers quite frankly I'd rather take 200 and some and find somebody as a bouncer to sit on the back of it with them and so you know they've got some some discipline back there and somebody keeping keeping track of what's going on because it's so hard to drive a bus figure out where you're going and watch somebody in in the far back but you know the reoccurring costs um like that is is a big deal I mean if what we say initially again wants and needs I mean is it something that we we have so many other places that we need need things so that was so that's something I'd like to know about well this is and just because I've looked into it myself

129it's not just for the bus drivers it's for the parents too because there's not enough staff at the bus garage if a parent is calling and saying where's my kid his bus is five minutes late they can look at it themselves so it's it's saving hiring a staff person an additional staff person but just I mean they get an amazing number of calls in that dream well I said I would like to know what that number is yeah I mean I I mean I don't have any idea and I can tell you um the very first day of school every year um we are very anxious until we get the call and the in the the late in the evening that all kids have been delivered home safely because there's always a kid that you

130know um has got on the wrong bus and this will this will be able to track it and say oh this kid is went on bus 33 it should have been bus 33 2 didn't know his threes from his twos and you know are they scanning something in when they get on the school bus you know they this system would potentially allow for that type of thing to happen that's what I mean that's what we're going to start scanning your accountability any kids when they get on the on the school bus so they're going to have to have their ID and know what that is that's right there's there's so much um or a lunch code we can have a keypad it's you know but again kindergarteners the very first day of school it's going

131to be fun yeah if you have any any data to like I said to kind of support how many get how many were missing how many times we miss a bus drop or how many calls are going into the transportation department that would be great any other any other questions coaching supplements uh I did think about uh but I couldn't remember to start with capital Improvement I had is it can we any way possible expand triple Tech on the real estate we have there because uh Saturday I ran to a parent and wanted to get in electricity and There Was X number of spots but there was more people applying for those spots so anyway all right any other questions all right uh during this meeting at 7 13 P.M and that will lead us

132into part two of the Shenandoah County Board free budget public hearing uh and I will call that this part of the meeting to order