001I have 430 and I think all of our board members are here so is there a motion that we reconvene an open session I mean we convene an open session Michele Manning thank you is there a second second city walls it's been properly moved and seconded that we reconvene an open session all in favor say aye all opposed say no we are now in open session the Shenandoah County School Board hereby certifies by roll call vote that to the best of each members knowledge only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements a Virginia wall were discussed in the closed meeting to which the certification resolution applies and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed session were heard discussed or considered by the Shenandoah County School Board
002each member responds iso certified when called this is Walsh I so certify this plan this manning ISO certified mr. Keller ISO certified mr. Helsley ISO certified and mrs. Wetzel ISO certified next on the agenda is the approval of the agenda is there a motion that we approve the agenda as presented I move that we approve the agenda as presented Cindy Walsh is there a second second Michelle Manning it's been properly moved and seconded that we approve the agenda any discussion hearing none all in favor of approving the agenda as presented please say aye all opposed say no the agenda is approved the Shenandoah County School Board welcomes public comment during each regular meeting and schedules to public comment sessions during each meeting one for the agenda items near the beginning of the meeting and the
003other for non agenda items at the end of the meeting the Chairman reads the summary of the expectation for public comments before each comment period for the benefit of the audience and for the benefit of the scored members speakers will be called in the order in which they signed up school board members do not respond to public comment during the meeting each speaker has up to three minutes to speak when the buzzer sounds chime is up and the speaker should finish the sentence started and then stop the board expects that each speaker will be courteous address comments to the board and not to individual board members the superintendent staff members or the audience and I think right now we have one person signed up Nick Rhodes I can hear me yes all right hey good
004afternoon everyone my name is Nick Rhodes math teacher at Strasbourg High School and I'm speaking as an individual today and my address is two one six Foxx Drive Winchester first I would like to commend the school board and the administration for the time and effort put into reopening our schools this fall it has not been easy but I am confident in our leadership we're all looking forward to getting back to our students even if our model of school will be different blended learning will provide a unique style of learning and teaching I look forward to professional development on learning how to use school ology when we return on our professional workdays in second I would like to commend the proposed revision of the Student Code of Conduct it emphasizes communication and collaboration among parties involved
005in a student's education good communication is healthy although longer and more detailed the charts of behaviors and responses are clear moving away from a quote zero tolerance and punishment only discipline and quote model will be a challenge for some it will require a change in mindset it would behoove the school board in the administration to consider offering professional development to faculty and staff on the Student Code of Conduct if we can learn and talk about it before school starts then the more effective this code can be having honest discussions with our students will also be important I would like to offer one suggestion could it be possible to add a preamble devoted to proactive and preventative practices that can alleviate many common discipline issues effective discipline is rooted in anticipation I think this addition could
006take the code to the next level thank you for your time thank you mr. Rhodes I don't have anyone else signed up this written error do you have anyone else [Music] hearing dominates madam chair is it within bounds for people who didn't sign up to comment not for me as your package well thank you so is it that is just the time yes capita good afternoon this is Dennis Atwood I'm at Murray town and I first need to ask a question is it correct that there is on your agenda the consideration of renaming a high schools no that is not correct okay thank you that I should not speak at this time and I may wait until item 9.4 thank you oh thank you is there anyone else wishing to speak on agenda items hearing
007none let's move on to the consent agenda is there a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented I move we approve the consent agenda as presented Michelle Manning is there a second second mr. Hill Street it's been properly moved and seconded that we approve the consent agenda you notice there are eight different items on the consent agenda did anyone have questions on any of the items or discussion or dr. Johnston did you have anything to mention I just wanted to mention that the item three point II is a formality we do that each year when we renew our health insurance renewal and so this is retroactive to January 1st 2020 again it's it's it's a routine and technical thing that we do each year thank you hmm and the other discussion or questions during
008none roll call vote please miss Walsh yes this climb miss Manning yes mr. Keller yes mr. Helmsley yes in this wetzel yes and um it appears we have lost miss Klein it looks like she's called in my phone but the phone is great sir well here since we don't hear from this Klein the motion does pass to approve the consent agenda we're now down to an agenda item we haven't had for a while the instructional agenda dr. Johnston do you want to introduce it I surely do and I just want to say at the outset that as you are I believe aware because we've been providing pretty regular communications are preparing for the reopening of school that involves a tremendous amount of effort on everyone's part not least of which is our teachers and our
009clothes out to the to last year but also the work of the staff here in the central office committees that are working hard to to consider different options that meet state guidelines as they were issued by the governor's office in the state superintendent just a couple days ago and I will say this and I've said this many times here in the last few months but of all times it's been the most helpful team of people very very hardworking very compassionate very thoughtful and so I've asked two of them today who've been relievers in our efforts Gaby Ryman our assistant superintendent for teaching learning and innovation and dr. David high Gardner our assistant superintendent for administrative services and strategic planning and they're going to provide you some updates today that gives you a little bit of
010a snapshot of where we've been a little bit of where we're headed again we we have found that telling the story letting it unfold in smaller doses over time is the most easily digestible because it's not like anything any of us have ever experienced and so in introducing them I again want to thank dr. Hine Gartner and is reimann they have been really instrumental and they've kept me going I will say that so thank you both and I'll turn it over to you and you got on you there you go okay well thank you very much Tracy are you able to put the slide deck on the screen [Music] okay then everybody see that and you make it larger I'm wondering okay very good okay thank you okay um we just I just want to
011tell you that first of all what you see here today is is is not set in stone um it's our best work at this point in time but every day we get new and better information and every day we want to make tweaks and changes to do the very best we can in creating um what we're planning to do in the future but with that being said I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that whatever the final product and the final process I can guarantee you better be it will be good because we have amazing teachers and we have amazing administrators and every one of our schools and and they are masters at creating on amazing experiences for kids every day so that's where the rubber hits the road in the buildings in the
012classrooms with teachers and administrators saying and we're very blessed that they're going to be able to do whatever it is needs to be done they're going to do a great job with it I know that so Traci if we can go to the next slide thank you we're using this slide and you can see the source that kind of gives a little bit of an introductory to the process here and the complexity of the whole process um in one slide um it's from the video II recover redesign or restart document that was sent out just recently but before we look at the red boxes I want to look at the up left-hand corner of the blue words and that's the umbrella under which we are working that's that's the art core that's our center vision
013line that were making decisions around everything from from cafeterias to classrooms to busses everything runs through the vision of health and safety for all students and for all staff that's the number one problem and so everything that we do is in that vein so if we look at this slide right here to the far left we begin with the social distancing and you'll see a little bit what that's going to look like but those bullet points in that box under for the social distancing give you an idea give you a flavor it's not everything but it's many of the things that we have to contemplate and think about how many students can we fit into our buildings when we have to keep that's what that's obviously a huge driver in decision-making ah what's it going
014to look like for kids to move around the building um and get from point A to point B that's going to look different than it has in the past at least for a good while what are some of the guidelines we have to think about in terms of health and safety in checking for sicknesses and in their general health and well-being each day there's some guidelines around that that we have to think about and then there's also training and training on a variety of things um that are important for for our staff and so that moves us over into or breaks that way with regards to training when we look at remote learning plans mr. Romm is going to talk about that more in depth here in a minute but that's definitely a PD area
015where we're going to have to have some extensive PD in but you can see all the different things that go along with that um how do we assess students um what are some diagnostic tools that we'll be able to use a variety of different pieces and elements when it comes to remote learning that we've never had - we've never had to experience or understand or deal with on a large scale we've definitely done those things on a very small scale but now we're talking about doing this with the masses and that's a whole different level of sophistication that leads us over into the calendar and the schedule obviously if we can't get every student into school every day we have to stagger students somehow that's a big portion and a big that consumes a lot
016of our time and has consumed a lot of our time the past month how how can we get kids into the school there's a lot of different ways that we could do this I will tell you some models some places we've read about this happening from California to Virginia all over the country some places are only bringing in a subgroup of students and I will tell you from our building ranks it was loud and clear from our community group that we have working on this it was loud and clear we want all of our kids be able to come to school every week and if at all possible we want to see them face-to-face as much as we can we don't want any of them that don't want to be there to not be able
017to be there so how can we make that happen to the best of our ability we know we can't do it every day in every building where every student so how can we best make that happen and miss Rama is going to talk to you more in depth I don't want to steal any of that work that she's done um and she's going to elaborate on that here a minute and then the last piece is the operational consideration and transportation is the first bullet and you know health and hygiene could probably be real first bullet but the second bullet is transportation is a huge operational consideration how are we going to get students to the and and just to cut to the chase the reality of this right now we did not believe if we
018were going to have the capacity to haul every single student who may want to come to school on the days that we've designated for them to come to school and so we're working through a process of how we can equitably to determine what students will be able to provide transportation to that's a constraint we have to recognize it's it's not something that's going to keep us from doing what we do we just have to figure out how we can do it differently okay let's move to the next slide then Tracy please thank you just a couple snapshots here real quick as I kind of wind down to give you a sense of what we're talking about when we talk about social distancing in school what does that really mean what does that really look like
019on the left-hand side in that picture of the classroom you can see that's a typical classroom on the right-hand side of that picture you can see that's what the social distance settle so right now we're probably looking at approximately 10 to 12 students in each classroom maybe a few lessons some classrooms maybe a few more in other classrooms but generally speaking that's what we'd be talking about on the transportation side you can see the right hand picture is a picture of a bus that's typically filled up with students if it's socially distanced we're not going to be able to do that now you'd be looking at staggering seats with one student to a seat obviously that cuts down on our capacity and probably looking at 10 to 13 students per bus we're fortunately able to
020UM have siblings sit together on the bus so that would help us a little bit or students who may live in the same household they will be allowed to sit on to sit together on the bus but that's not gonna you know excuse me that's not gonna be a huge difference maker but it will help a little bit okay and then the next slide Thanks [Music] yeah a little bit further down right there perfect um why don't you try and try and just um give you a sense about um feeding students um we do not have the ability to bring all students even if we reduce number of students in the school we still aren't able to bring them all into the cafeteria as we normally have for lunches so what's that going to look
021like a lot of conversation around this piece right here we're able to put 50 students into a large space and at the same time they have to have a six-foot social distance on between them so cafeterias as we've known them in the past will not look the same but one of the things that we want to try to really think about is how can we keep how can we keep the food items and in the meals preparation and all that in a centrally located place as much as possible to keep from having to to take meals all over the school if we had to feed in the classrooms that that becomes a nightmare in terms of custodians and being able to keep clean and all of that so the idea right now is this is
022not again it's not in stone we're trying to figure out how can we do this can we get as many students to eat lunch in the cafeteria while maintaining a safe distance of 6 feet or more between themselves and still be able to meet the requirements of providing lunch during the time alignment that we have it may mean that a few classrooms do need to be used for for students to eat in but the goal is to have them eat in the cafeterias as much as possible well the last little caveat that kind of goes along with lunches and obviously for the safety reasons both outside food or guess we're going to be able to come in as is sometimes something that happens in our schools so I just want to try and give you
023a little bit of flavor for some of those items that we've been working through hey Tracy you can go to the next slide Tracy all right so thank you dr. Hine Gardner as he has shared with you you can as you can imagine those are a lot of a lot of stipulations a lot of mitigation strategies that we have to work through as we planned to open the school year in August and to that end everything that he just described to you but also pertain to a summer setting so trying to plan for a summer school with the extensive planning that we have for the coming school year we've made the decision to not provide an in person to be able to provide summer school for k-8 students this summer there are simply so much
024planning to go in preparing for the for the school year had to make that decision that being said are I ready and I excel those programs that all of our k-8 students have access to will remain available through the summer for those folks who would like to continue working in those programs this month in June though since we can work with students virtually much easier because we don't have to work through all of those scenarios our high school students are completing apex courses and they often do in the summer completely virtually with instructor teachers who are helping support them through that we have some teachers specifically providing remedial support to students as well I'm happy to report we have approximately 30 high school students participating in those courses across our division and that's compared to
025about 18 last summer so when compared to a traditional summer school scenario we do we are seeing an increased amount of participation there additionally as I know that you all have heard have heard we when we the school closure happened in March there was subscribers at instruction that is required to participate in person and the students didn't get to complete depending upon the school it was approximately 10 hours worth of instruction the guidelines that we have been given continue to require that to be in person in the sense that at least could be virtually where the student is actively synchronously engaging with the students during that instruction so we are able to do that virtually as well and we have about 120 students across the division wrapping up that instruction as well this month for
026the month of July we hope to tentatively plan to reoffer both of those things the apex and the driver's ed to any students we couldn't capture in June or who maybe their schedules conflicted but we'll see who we get for the month of July as well miss ronberry you just let them know too about the difference between the classroom instruction and behind the wheel instruction correct so the driver's ed instruction that they are receiving now is the in-class instruction they receive with the basic education about signs that you need to know when you before you drive versus behind the wheel which is physically in the car with an instructor of practicing your driving the guidelines that we have been given still prohibit that due to the inability to social distance in the vehicle so we
027are unable to provide that instruction at this time thank you thank you all right Tracy can I have the next slide please okay so looking ahead to 2021 so much to think about so you heard about all of those mitigation strategies from a physical safety point from dr. Hine Barner so I'm going to share a little bit with you about instruction given what he describes I think it's very clear we're unable to have all of our students every day as we have as far as we you know the past that we're that we know the life that we've ever lived and while that is not something we would choose that is the reality we are faced with so the planning has been based on how are we going to best work with the scenario we
028have and our students with solid sound instruction thus the blended learning model those family what this will allow is those families who choose to stay at home and have their children stay at home to learn can still learn from Shenandoah County Public Schools teachers this does not mean anyone has to resort to homeschooling in its traditional sense they will still provide that instruction those who are able to come to school choose to come to school will be able to have the same access to that instruction just in a blended model since they'll be able to be in person at times how do we do that one of the best ways to do that is through a learning management system we have elected after a great review of multiple platforms chosen Schoology as the LMS the
029acronym part that we would like to implement I want to start by saying very specifically that Schoology is not a program in and of itself Schoology is a platform so use an analogy dr. Hine Garner and I were almost both simultaneously thinking about earlier today it's kind of like the new file cabinet Schoology is just the platform where all of the instruction that teachers are teachers plan they place it there and by placing it their students at home or students at school have access to the very same thing so this platform will allow us to do that k12 for all of our students and it becomes a one-stop-shop for students parents and teachers so if I am a parent that has a child in 3rd grade 7th grade 10th grade I have one login as
030the parent and when I log in i stub tabs to take me to all of the coursework all the instruction for each of my children with one login we have really been utilizing Google in the past two years and our teachers heavily relied on Google during the school closure which was wonderful and exceptional where Schoology and a formal LMS has an advantage is just what I described that ability for everything to be in one place and that one-stop shop it allows solid parent communication through that one platform Schoology integrates with power school which our student is our student information system where we take attendance students grades and the gradebook are there so when a teacher is signs and assignments and Schoology and students complete it they can have it automatically graded and that grade imports
031directly into the gradebook automatically you don't have some we don't have that ability in google this program also integrates with the platform excuse-me integrates with existing instructional tools again Google everything that our teachers have been making that they've had in Google for for a couple of years they can easily transfer over into Schoology class dojo is another popular platform that our teachers use see saw all of those things are compatible in Schoology they can make and build assessments there give assessments and we can provide professional development through Schoology as well so those are some great benefits to having this platform one thing that I did not put on there and I met you because this is incredibly important I apologize for not having the bullet one of the biggest concerns we know for families is
032internet access we know may have families in the community who don't have strong internet access school achieve will give parents the ability to upload and download work as needed so take for example and the day of the week is irrelevant but for the sake of example I go to Food Lion on a Saturday or outside Lowe's on a Saturday with my child and we don't have internet at home so I want to be able to get access to those materials that the teacher has provided for my student they can download those things when they have a internet access whether that be a public public building or in our parking lots on our campuses where we have extended Wi-Fi the work everything can be downloaded student family go home child can work on all of those
033assignments have access to all of those things complete assignments and then the next time they're at a Wi-Fi access location all of that gets back uploaded then to the teacher whomever needs to see it so this will not be a limiting factor for those families who do not have internet access okay Tracy and fast line please and a couple other things to keep in mind as we move forward all of our teachers have participated in an online blended learning workshop they did this in May before the contract year was over at that time we completed that through virtual Virginia which uses an LMS called canvas and it's one of many offerings out there in essence every LMS has the same nuts and bolts down to their nuts and bolts they do very very similar things
034by allowing teachers to give assessments post assignments etc what makes each LMS a little different and in why it's so important to study each one is the way they look in the appeal one of the reasons we settled on Schoology is from the feedback we got from teachers and staff and others who reviewed the platforms is that regardless of whether I'm a second grader or I'm a seventh grader or am a tenth grader schooler geez interface the way it looks the ease of moving around the platform was easier than some others but the purpose behind the blended learning workshop participation was to really get at the pedagogy around blended learning instruction I know I found in participating in it as well it gave me a lot of background knowledge to carry into what would this
035instruction look like and it let us play in canvas another LMS that again kind of gives you that background knowledge you carry into the one that we're actually going to use with Schoology so it had that exposure that we can transfer those skills our ela and math curriculum specialists are working with professionals doing professional development with teachers this summer to help adjust and accommodate content pacing and curriculum that we may need to implement to recover from the school closure any of those key power standard sol that we may want to circle back to that we didn't get to spend the time remediating you may have wanted to or never were able to get to in those last weeks of school and we also have our newly adopted ela English language arts instructional materials have been
036arriving and in the month of July teachers will be receiving virtual training on those tools in those textbook materials and I have to say that because those are online as well they integrate with Schoology and will be accessible there as well so that whether it's in those actual textbook resources or whether it's within the platform itself even our struggling readers can still have access to materials due to the read aloud that the platform provides voice to text various other accommodations that will help us be able to still provide instruction and supports to students I think I think that's it Thank You Tracy thank you does anyone have questions or comments hearing none thank you dr. Hine Gardner and Miss ramen and like dr. Johnston said thanks for all everyone's been doing since March it's been
037a tremendous effort thank you very much moving on to our informational agenda we have policy updates and dr. Johnson well dr. and I'm gonna be handling this one actually I'll make a few comments and my gardener has something to add he's more than welcome to start bye-bye and I know your colleagues appreciate this but miss Manning and miss Wetzel are the serve on the policy committee so what we have today is we have some new policies coming as information they'll come back for action at Argyl I'm eating and then we have policies that were information last month and are now action this month actually they yep so I know they miss Manning and most Walt of Wetzel have been working very very hard in reviewing those on as representatives of the board and so the
038ones that are there under the informational agenda are the newly proposed changes again we subscribe to the vsba policy servers so these align pretty well certainly verbatim with those I don't know dr. hai Gardner did you want to add anything okay so happy to answer any questions about those as I'm sure miss Manning and miss Wetzel would be as well what they are not the only thing I would say is the link should you should be able to access the policies in the blue link in more Docs but if by chance someone can't just let me know and I'll make sure to figure out the problem so that you can view it thank you I just like to notice in that last paragraph there were eight policies policies that have been reviewed but not revised
039we are required by state law to review policies every ever so often even if we don't change them so that's one thing the policy committee on does is reviews policies any questions on policy updates under information and these will come back to you next time next on the agenda action items the first action item is the personnel list is there a motion to approve the personnel list as presented [Music] thank you man I can't Sindhi walls in this wall any discussion hearing none roll call vet on the person Ellis please miss Walsh yes miss Clyde yes miss Manning yes mr. Keller yes mr. Helsley yes flat sole yes thank you next on our action agenda policy updates now these are the ones we were presented last month is there a motion that we approve the
040policy updates listed under 6.2 I move we approve the policy updates listed under 6.2 I think mr. Rhodes idea can be considered to add an a preamble or addendum to that policy but I don't think I think we can move forward with approving this at this time and make any additions or because it would just be an addition to the policy so it's just my thought thank you Miss Manning is Nathan Ocean is there a second second Cindy Walsh it's been properly moved and seconded that we approved the policy updates any other discussion hearing none roll call vote please miss Walsh yes is Manning yes mr. Keller yes mr. Helsley yes miss Wetzel yes number seven on the agenda is superintendents monthly reports dr. Johnston do you have anything to say about the monthly reports
041just a couple things on the nutrition report as you'll notice if you look in comparison to previous years because of the conditions under which we've been operating you see a little bit of a production in unbalance nothing too alarming at this point so we continue to monitor that in terms of the budget status report I think you'll find that interesting in terms of looking at some of the savings at the end of the fiscal year I do want to note just that it's important to remember that when we look at that lottery revenue reduction that we're experiencing that is on the order of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars so that was two hundred fifty thousand dollars of lottery revenue and this is approximate not the exact amount that was a reduction in watery revenues
042so we have to make that difference of course and so the savings and fuel savings and snow removals make savings in lawn maintenance you know keeping the grounds mowed and trimmed and all that that while there are savings and all of those categories again keep in mind that those savings have to go to offset the drop in revenue we're starting to get in our projections for tax revenue for the month of June that's the lot last month of article here it it we learned today that state revenues are down a little over one percent so we look again very likely that we're going to be able to get through the end of the fiscal year with our finances intact and we won't know until now charitably auditors finish their work and so on but we
043should have a fun balance from for next year as well so all that's pretty good news well it's very good news considering we were worried about you know ending the fiscal year with no balance which is any questions for dr. Johnson Thank You dr. Johnston well next we have board member comments I've been doing it different ways starting with different people but tonight I think I'll go ahead and start the Virginia School Board Association Board of Directors met last week and did approve a statement on diversity equity and inclusion which all of our board members call this week and as I was a I attended virtually no Board of Supervisors meeting and I know they adopted a resolution on Tuesday and I've seen several statements from other school divisions and I think we will have
044a statement but I like mrs. Walsh talk more about that in her comments second we have a meeting scheduled for June 17th for our superintendents evaluation and I found out one member one board member will not be able to attend so without objection I'd like to look for another date for that meeting on I asked mrs. Walsh to help me do that I do think it's important for every board member to be present and I would like to do that not virtually but that may not be a possibility so without objection and you can tell me when you make your comments we will not have that 17 me but I will be getting out the materials for you that we'll be using for the superintendent's evaluation third we have a strategic planning meeting scheduled for
045Thursday June 25th from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. and you should already have that on your calendar it will probably be virtual because that's the way things are going but instead of working like we usually do evaluating our pastures for the plan and tweaking it will probably be more urgent planning for school reopening etc and we may have some informational items and action items that we go along with that work session so please keep that data in mind and plan we'll plan to have it virtually and then later hopefully we'll be moving into a lot of meetings so those are my comments miss Walsh vice chairman do you have any comments we yes you have it on and then it went all okay my mute button is painfully slow I don't know why can you hear
046me now yes okay so just following up to what Karen said miss Wetzel said about the resolution I think there were several board members that liked the draft resolution that the SBA a sent but had some edits and I really liked the very strong resolution that the board of supervisors presented the other evening it passed but I thought we needed to just slow down a little bit so that we could have some time to get and gather input on that resolute resolution so we're gonna work on that over the next couple weeks if anybody has any any suggestions or edits please send those to miss Wetzel and dr. Johnston then the other thing that I wanted to mention is well I want to thank dr. Hine Gardner and mr. Aiman for their work on getting
047us all back to school in the fall and I just wanted to ask everybody for their patience we have almost 6,000 kids in our schools students in our schools but we don't have 6,000 teachers so we can't we we have to we have to do the absolute best we can but we're not gonna make everybody happy every minute along the way so I just I just hope that everybody will be patient as we go through this process you know from teachers and admins to the community to parents to students just just be patient this is unprecedented this has never been done before it's a big huge load so um so I appreciate everybody being patient about that I have my own questions about exactly how things are gonna go and whether things were considered but
048my plan is just to those questions on to dr. Johnston or put them on the QA document that we already have going so that they can be answered and they can be shared with dr. Hine Gardner and Miss rhyming going forward and we can get those answers out there that's all I had thank you and thanks for that reminder about being patient's patient I think through this whole ever since March we've we've needed to be patient and extend some grace to one another and so thank you for that next I think we'll go to miss Kwan can you hear me yes ma'am okay because it was a thanks to Tim who's having a lot of difficulty the first half of the meeting I just would like to again say thank you to dr. Johnson and
049his staff to our teachers to to everyone as Cindy was saying to have patience in this pandemic that we're experiencing and moving forward would just do the best that we can and that's really all that I wanted to share I you know I thank you to everyone and you know that means food service everybody that works and our parents the community and so forth that's all I have thank you thank you miss Klein mr. Helsley thank you miss Wetzel I have a few things the variety of comments I received from instruction from only clubs who on March 13 has been varied I had a parent with four primary students is the system and F how poorly they instructed and assistant I had a parent of a second grader ask for filling lists for her daughter
050and none was provided a simple task of providing a spelling list on a weekly basis then I had parents of special edge to that said they got no support while that student was home since March 13 today I talked to a seventh grade teacher at Muhlenberg who was more positive that they gave packets to their students they reached out called them but only 10% responded with I thought was was not good as well the visual learning workshops that all the staff was required the tank they told me it was a big waste of time and obviously we're not using that format what miss mr. Hein Gardner mrs. Raman said when we go into this new format so maybe I hope education will pick something up that they can use in this new format that we
051can go into the fall smoothly and a lot better than we ended the year I know y'all send a survey of parents and I don't know how much they're gonna have to stay in this reopening but I would like to just need their response and I know we can't do that a lot of parents think but their students Oh didn't you go back if they go back to work the students should go back to the school and I know what the gun regulation but I like to see what the response would be we sent out another survey what they think on that topic and then I want to end on a more personal note we all just approved Tracy rid our resignation of course I'm knowing her a long time she's my neighbor she lives
052in comics Ville how helpful she's been too - I know Andrew now for six months that we directly contact her but I've known her for a number of years and her daughter Heather was awarded the Harry poem scholarship from Central High School to attend UVA and mrs. combs insisted this was the first recipient of the it scholarship and since the that we take her out to eat and what a pleasant lunch we had the three of us and she kept in contact with mrs. combs four years since she completed her degree at at UVA and that speaks volumes of a concerned parent and the the leadership she instilled on her daughter I didn't get to meet or worked with her son but I know he was just as corresponding and helping others as Heather was
053so we're gonna miss her we will not replace her for sure but we wish you were there well in Fairfax thank you thank you mr. Hales Lee last but not least mr. Keller [Music] I think we needed mr. Keller he's getting that big now yes did you hear me yes yes okay good I think the thing about going last is that you guys kind of touch on a lot of things and certainly my appreciation to Tracy written R for helping me out as transitional to the board I would like to also take a moment to recognize Gabby Ryman for a work on the back to school committee dr. Hine Gardner I'm a part of this committee and I can tell you that being charged with figuring out how to return to school in the fall
054is a is a pretty big task and having done a master schedule before I can tell you that that is small peanuts compared to the scheduling and all the factors that are going into place now with with trying to figure out how to how to return to schools so great job by those two appreciate working with you guys on that and I think Shelby you may have said or Cindy or somebody's in said that that you know the back to school process is not going to be perfect and not everybody's going to like it but I think it is it is going to be reflective of what's best for kids and certainly keeping safety priority thanks a lot thank you and I think I skipped miss Manning you'll have to excuse me this morning I'm
055trying I was trying to go on a I've been trying to listen to the young covered 19 updates and I've tried to log on and I couldn't gonna email somebody and they said that's tomorrow so I'm sorry miss Manning no worries um just echoing the sentiments of all the hard work that everyone's put in I still hear mr. Keller's comments several meetings ago you know maintaining the ability to morph and change as the situation continues to morph and change I know we have more guidelines of things that we need to meet going forward but I really appreciate all the input there was giving so thank you to everybody miss Wetzel had been possible to for me to make a comment I guess so dr. Johnston I should have done and under superintendent's comments and I
056want to first ask miss Manning and you you had finished correct I apologize if I interrupted you I think we've lost her but she's froze up I'll go ahead and what I wanted to say was this came up in our steering committee meeting this morning from a parent and what she what she wanted to express was she had been in some conversations with members of the community who had expressed sentiment something along the lines of well why doesn't Shenandoah County Public Schools just do do what they should and just bring every kid back and ignore the governor's orders and ignore those directions from the Department of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and all that so let me share with you what the implications of that would be number one it would jeopardize 55
057percent of our funding for our operational budget which is the majority of our budget that's number one but perhaps more importantly and this really is a matter of life and death that if we were to choose to go our own route ignore the guidelines and directions were being given the Health Department rules that were put in place resolution and God forbid we had a staff member or a student become infected and died that would be on our hands and we would be liable for that and that is not a risk that anyone is willing to take so no matter what one believes about what the rules are or are not the state has given us as much flexibility as as they can as far as we can understand and I would note that the visions
058that have few cases counties that have few cases are going to be able to exercise more freedom but the fact of the matter is Shenandoah County cases and Shenandoah County deaths are among the highest in the state of Virginia comparatively at least per capita and we are not in a position to chart our own course and not follow the guidelines as they've been laid out with the force of the governor's order and with the backing of the Lord Fairfax Health District local health authorities as determined by the Centers for Disease Control so going our own path is not an option so she wanted me to share that I'll probably share that with our parent community as well because I know that has been on some people's minds and I've heard those comments but that is
059not a that is not a course we were able to take nor are we willing to take thank you thank you dr. Johnston we're now to the point on our agenda where we have public and staff comments on non-agenda items I'm not going to read all the rules like the three minutes and the board members did not respond because I think you all remember this and I do have two people signed up first I have mr. Jeff Rudy Shenandoah County Education Association president mr. Rudy are you there I am thank you your good afternoon my name is Jeff Rudy and I'm the president of the Shenandoah County Education Association I'm here this afternoon to applaud dr. Johnson on his recent acknowledgement and recognition Nishan of the death of George Floyd racism in America today and
060the marginalized members of the african-american community in Shenandoah County Public Schools his statement is not alone as various communities throughout Virginia are speaking out including the city of Harrisonburg Albemarle County and Prince William County to expand on dr. Johnson's ideas the Shenandoah County Education Association is asking that we are provided with diversity training for all teachers staff and student bodies hire qualified minority candidates for employment review the demographics of the school board office develop a diverse K through 12 curriculum aligned with the video II standards protect marginalized students from attacks in school and online re-examine the Student Code of Conduct and provide a safe outlet for minority students to voice their opinions and we call upon Sean chendo accounting public schools to utilize institutions and the SCEA to work collaboratively and with intentionality for the
061elimination of racism and bigotry in our schools and community the SCA now has a leader of equality and justice chairperson trained to recognize disparities and in justices in the communities and schools and to fight for equality for students and educators and we hope that our leader of equality and justice chairperson will be part of the conversation of growth in our school systems in the upcoming school year and the future of Shenandoah County Public Schools furthermore the SCA calls on all people of moral character in our community to stand with our brothers and sisters of color in demanding an end to the hate and oppression created by racism and we applaud the Shenandoah County Board of Supervisors adoption of their anti racism resolution on Tuesday afternoon we know true change will only occur in Shenandoah County
062Public Schools as our Virginia Secretary of Education tells us when policies and practices are reviewed and revised and at the very local level this starts with our school board our school system and within ourselves the SCA thanks dr. Johnson for his statement we hope his words begins with help from the school board the Shenandoah County Education Association and our community to change policies practices and processes that negatively impact the african-american students and other marginalized members of our community in Shenandoah County Public Schools thank you thank you mr. Rudy and then I have Dennis Atwood on the list mr. out what are you there oh thank you very much thank you very much chairman wet so I actually my subject of my comments are not germane to this meeting thank you for the opportunity nonetheless and
063I commend all the updates and issues and the way the whole school system has been coping with this done these unusual times thank you thank you mr. Atwood is there anyone else who wanted to speak hearing none I have my gavel I've had it I've had it all along but I forgot to get it out but before I gavel the meeting closed I'd like to do my personal thanks to miss Tracy right now who keeps me on track somebody else is gonna have to take over that big responsibility and I'd like to really thank my fellow board members you've been so so good to work with on these virtual meetings which make me very the meetings make me very nervous but you make it you make it easier so thank you very much board members
064and without further ado the meeting is adjourned [Music] you