001[Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you if I move [Music] thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you foreign [Music] thank you no thank you thank you [Music] we're good [Music] move forward [Music] and it wasn't a major thing [Music] thank you see [Music] thank you [Music] she's dealt with my heart [Music] thank you [Music] thank you yes [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you I'll just make sure [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you foreign [Music] thank you feels good [Music] I didn't mean to keep texting [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you
002[Music] so first we'd like to uh stand and have a moment of silence and a pledge of allegiance okay I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with the liberty and justice for all okay uh board I need a motion for approval of the agenda so Mr chair make a motion that we approve tonight's agenda second okay um all in favor aye all opposed hearing done we have an agenda sir all right thank you Mr chair ladies and gentlemen the board tonight we want to start with with a recognition for the Glad Clorox company and we have a resolution that we want to use to recognize them this will require the board's signature but I'd like to read
003the resolution a little bit of background on it uh the glac opened here in Amherst County in 1991. the factory opened 1991 has been a partner with Amherst County Public Schools since they were opened they've done multiple things I remember when I was coaching football in the state championship 1995 when they were calling for some snow they ended up producing enough plastic to make a tarp to cover the football field so he wouldn't have to worry about snow on the field so that goes back to then but since then they've given us uh funding through the Education Foundation and and through the school system and provided for our schools whether it be glad bags trash bags Ziploc bags etc for our schools they've just been a great partner for us they were going to be
004here this evening but the representative could not attend tonight but um we'll be at the Education Foundation luncheon tomorrow and we'll present this with them there is he here oh I'm sorry all right so I'm just going to uh I'll come up there and read it and then we can present it and we have a we'll have a cardstock version all right so it says whereas public schools and local businesses are an integral part of this community and whereas many local businesses play a crucial role in supporting our schools and whereas the economic health of our community State and Nation depends on a strong public school system and whereas collaboration between local public schools and local business strengthens schools in the business Community alike by providing a well-trained and highly educated Workforce and whereas an
005excellent public school system is vital to the quality of life in this community and fundamental to preserve any strong Society now in the future therefore now therefore be resolved the superintendent after William Wells and the school board of Amherst County Virginia names glad Clorox of the 2023 Virginia school boards Association business honor roll showing appreciation for the company's ongoing support of this Community School Division your work has Aid at this community in focusing on the goal of providing the best public schools we can for every child every day adopted ninth day of March 2023. [Applause] important come on over come on over keep flow okay so hurry up here back to her assigned cheers so moving to 3.01 yes sir so 3.01 is a public hearing concerning the 23-24 school operational budget again comments here
006should just be in regard to our school operation budget and there'll be another opportunity for public comment after public hearing disc is closed so you'll need to have a motion to open the public comment though moved okay all in favor hi ketchup anyone from this yeah yeah is there anyone here who would like to speak to the proposed budget I see none okay I'll make a motion that we close the uh public hearing on this operational budget all in favor I'll pose none okay all right and now you have uh 4.01 public comment concerning School matters okay so we have uh several people who've signed up tonight um first is uh Rachel Martin okay uh William regret wigert sorry about that thank good evening and thank you board we hire armed police officers to protect
007students physically I suggest we need to be equally concerned about protecting them psychologically and emotionally just yesterday the governor of Florida uh interestingly enough outed books found in his school library so graphic that Twitter and Facebook had to restrict the content we don't want that in Amherst County of course and I believe the opt-in policy helps ensure that it does not I don't see any place for sexually explicit material in government schools but it seems today you can't go a day without learning about drag queen Story Time pornography in the library teachers undermining family Authority and matters of psychological and sexual development of children encouraging questions of gender identity or feminizing young men I can't know if it's going on in Amherst County but I'm sure the pressure is coming if it's not already here
008which is why I'm strongly in favor of the safeguards to make sure that it doesn't and I believe the opt-in policy is a great place to start teachers as you know have a tremendous influence on the influence on the lives of students but the downside is that a little power can go a long way particularly if a teacher is interested and has feels a calling to indoctrinate rather than to provide a solid education I think the opt-in policy puts a reasonable barrier against indoctrination and I'm all for it now what I really like to spend time on is the objections to the opt-in policy I think they're all easily dismissed the first one is that puts an extra burden on teachers well that's easy remove any and all sexually explicit material as defined by the
009state from both the curricula and the library and stick to teaching solid content then teachers can focus on catching up from the lockdowns perpetrated by Democrat leaders as James fetterman president of the Virginia Education Association said in addressing a decline in test scores quote we need critical School Personnel to be laser focused on efforts to improve literacy exactly so remove all explicitly sexual material halt any sexual indoctrination and stick to Basics that have served well for hundreds of years objection number two the policy is racist that's another easy one to refute let's not look at the color of the skin of the author if it's sexually explicit remove it regardless of the color of the author's skin to favor authors of color in this regard is well racist objection number three I'm more concerned with
010what parents are seeing on the internet yeah me too to favor over uh me too but this is not a matter if you can't beat them join them we're talking about library books and curricula parents have a responsibility in this matter too and we need to have them own that objection number four it's tantamount to censorship and book burning nonsense a quarter of a million books roll off the presses each year but the average high school student reads what let's just say 10. whatever the number is every book should Enlighten and educate rather than satisfy a student's prurient interests then the final objection it creates an atmosphere of distrust I prefer what Ronald Reagan said trust but verify it could communicate to it on the other hand besides creating an atmosphere of distrust it could
011actually communicate to our that our school engages and empowers parents to take ownership of their children's emotional psychological and sexual maturity and not leave that to a matter of the state is anyone who's been around for a while knows the state will assume more and more power to itself and never give any back for all the good they do schools are no exception thank you very much thank you sir mailing address we just need your voting district sir Monroe Virginia okay thank you no sir good next is uh Morgan Tyree oh that's the letter okay okay so I have a letter here from Morgan Tyree an English teacher from Manila Middle School uh dear school board members I'm writing you in regard to the opt-in policy I wish I could deliver my comments in person
012but due to a child care issue I cannot it was insinuated that the last score at the last school school board meeting that this policy would not create more work for teachers and would minimally affect instruction one of the speakers at this meeting urged you to listen to the teachers on the policy as we're the ones in the trenches with students I'm writing you to share the stories from the trenches last year I taught ninth grade at achs of my 130 students I taught about 50 honors English students and planned to have them participate in a book club as they culminated activity for the year the students could choose between five different novels since some of the novels had recently been challenged in various districts across the country I decided I decided to send out
013permission slips of the 50 permission slips I sent out both paper copies and virtually I received I received eight back the grand total of 16 percent of my students returned their forms I wasted my time and the school's resources for very little response if the permission slips had been mandatory I would have I would have been forced to redo my unit which took an entire semester to prepare now can you understand why teachers are concerned I am unsure of if the board members have actually read the definition that apply to New Virginia code 222.1-16.8 [Music] I urge the school board to read Virginia code 18.2-390 while the new section of the code that refers to parental consent seems to focus on sexually explicit materials the definition used under 18.2-390 are much broader and more vague
014in scope most teachers and Librarians are concerned with the vagueness of the definitions discussed in the code and the wide range of implications it could have could have on instruction the fact is this policy affects more than just anatomy in English classes it affects us all one of the board members asked if we would if we cannot fill positions in the county and how we will address this issue implementing this opt-in policy will not help solve the staff shortage issue staff shortage issue we continue to experience no one wants to work in a place with microman with that is micromanaged we already have enough forms to fill out please do not add any more please trust our teachers Librarians Administration and staff to continue to provide the quality education that our students deserve and change
015the opt-in policy to opt out trust us to put our students needs and learning first so we can continue to inspire every child every day Morgan Towery [Applause] okay next is uh Bev Jones I'm Bev Jones District Five good evening based on comments from the school board during the end of February 9th 2023 meeting I have some concerns it was stated that misinformation was out there and I asked myself why is it because the members of the school board are pushing political agendas and then stealing fear and parents and with that propaganda and bias to me that's political when school board members attend political meetings that address our school's Business Without informing our school staff that's political when school board members use Facebook to push an agenda on Banning books using screenshots from the internet
016and book lists from Far Right websites and promoting ways to encourage alternative schooling that's political I'm not misinformed this boy was elected to represent all students not a political party in its agenda but that has turned out to be a lie the policies that some of you have voiced are created to appease a political agenda instead of ensuring intellectual freedom and the First Amendment rights for all people when you as a board need a library materials Committee created everything about this told me how some of you feel about the expertise of trained Librarians and teachers during Black History Month you as a board mentioned nothing about it I wonder how many schools participated in black history events or even mentioned it where they're afraid that you would accuse them of teaching critical race Theory doing
017read Across America I also wondered how many diverse books were read are discussed in our schools instead of focusing on a political gender you should be focusing on what animals County Public School staff and administrators are focusing on closing the achievement Gap mental health issues and suicide rates are increasing among our youth across our country tardies bullying absenteeism parental involvement recruitment retention of qualified teachers if you recall that school system this year went without science teachers English teachers schools counselors instructional assistants bus drivers and custodians that your staff works on every day it is time to refocus your priorities and let's start doing legitimate school work I'd greatly appreciate it thank you thank you Miss Jones uh next is Lloyd Holman boyleman 143 Dairy Road Amherst thank you sir why are so many of our
018teachers opposed to an opt-in policy as it pertains to sexually explicit material when it's agreed that there is no such material being used proposed for usage or historically used in Amherst curriculum I think I understand why this is the concern is entirely a matter of perception but we must not forget that in most situations perception is everything but plainly it seems that the perception is that by furthering the opt-in policy the school board has signaled its distrust and lack of confidence in our teachers to do the right thing teachers were not consulted as to applicable history facts on the ground or anticipated curriculum development in short the actual practices and teaching in our schools were overlooked in favor of implementing a heavy-handed unnecessary and fundamentally insulting policy that is the perception and I believe that
019it is real and sincerely hell I think it's important that the School Board address and resolve this unfortunate development without delay I also believe that the opt-in policy is beneficial and should remain in force at the December meeting board members defeated debated excuse me and approved language to require that parents must opt their students in to instruction that includes sexually explicit material as defined in the policy this approach was affirmed by the board with no dissenting votes it's correctly noted that the opt-in approaches greatly more detailed and involved for teachers who plan to use sexually explicit material that it would impose a near impossible and unworkable workload on affected teachers this is true but this is no reason to abandon the opt-in policy quite the contrary it is but one of the benefits of the
020policy if we ask for a show of hands of those who believe there's educational value in bringing sexually explicit material into Amherst curriculum classrooms there would be few if any hands raised it's fair to say that the people of Amherst County affirmatively do not want sexually explicit material in classes making it much more cumbersome burdensome and difficult to introduce it is exactly what we need and that is exactly what the policy does at this point today the policy question has moved since the issues aren't present the policy in fact is designed for the future for the future to head off possible situations that have been reported in other areas and is not in any way a reflection on any current activity or educational practice in Amherst schools the board should retain policy IIA as adopted
021the board should act positively to assure and reassure our teachers that there is not any thought at all that IIA is in response to any existing or anticipated situation the policy is future looking only and that's what must be made clear thank you thank you sir next is Irene Dean Irene deed and I am in the Elon School District uh in recent years federal and state institutions responsible for adopting policy in public schools have allowed themselves to be influenced by special interest groups who want to push devisive agendas the consequences have has become broad policy mandates because the problems seen on the national stage and whether we like it or not those agendas by the special interest groups do trickle down to Amherst County that's why I endorse the opt-in policy for sexually explicit material
022the point of the opt-in policy is is to set ground rules for educators who are here or who may come into our school in the future as to how Amherst County wishes to treat sexually explicit material and the parents will be given a say on what and at what age their child learns about sexually explosive material we are assured by our teachers who have spoken out that sexually explicit material is not being taught at Amherst County and I believe them but I also believe the adopted policy was not designed to punish teachers or tell teachers that they're not trusted it is not a policy that wants to exclude any child who may be different it's not a policy to ban a literary classic which may have some sexual material in it but taken as a
023whole is still a literary classic the policy was adopted in good faith to set ground rules and future expectations and provide recourse if something goes awry our school board members expressed on more than one occasion they were open to discussion on the opt-in policy by those who spoke against it they wanted input but it did not happen Instead at the last school board meeting members were taken to task with accusations of creating tremendous work for teachers Banning books on the basis of race and of punishing students who are different and they were told to stop just stop what an unfortunate action collaboration would have been the better tool to use one last point on the comments from the last school board meeting and I stand be corrected if I'm wrong it's not a prerequisite to
024have children in the school system to be a school board member what is required is a willingness to step up a willingness to lead and serve and to be elected in your District thank you and thank you all for your willingness to serve thank you ma'am next is Don Poole foreign so nice to see you all again I know I've been away I have been keeping an eye on things and really just want to express my appreciation for what your vision is and what your goals are for our school I am very very happy to hear about the opt-in policy and honestly hope that we see more policy setting that allows parents to have a transparent communication about what's being taught in the schools I also don't think that Amherst is is is doing all
025of these things that were brought up in the last school board meeting I don't think that's what this is about at all again I agree with several people who have been up here before that this is about protecting the future of our kids and the Integrity of our school as we move move forward so I just wanted to again thank you for putting the opt-in policy in place I will be enrolling my kindergartner and Elon Elementary with the Elon School District by the way this coming Year and that was a hard decision for me um you know I took my kids out of school because of you know things that I was seeing I took them out of the public setting I feel confident that this board is moving forward in the right direction to
026allow us to really be able to work for every student every day and so I thank you for that I also want to thank the administration and I and I encourage teachers to partner with the administration to come up with a strategic plan on how to address the opt-in policy what are those regulations going to be how can the administration support it those things are you know things that we can talk about collaborate with but I do trust Dr Wells and his his leadership team to be there for the teachers to work through that with them I want to address the teachers and the trenches comment parents we are in the trenches too every day trust me like that you know my heart breaks for for kids and and some of the things that they
027have to deal with and as a school board I I think it's important and as an Administration I think it's important that we continue to come up with initiatives like show up Amherst where we're talking about Community effort that is where we need to be so I applaud you for your vision for your hard work that you're doing I don't buy into the propaganda about banning books and Amherst that's not what we're doing again it's about being transparent and for teachers it's not about distrust um you know it's about protecting the future and the Integrity of our schools so thank you so much did you get voting district just making sure she got it right there next is uh Vance Wilkins Vance Wilkins 299 East Marshall Road Amherst Virginia I want to relate to you
028something I saw at the Little Dixie used girls who went to the World Series I went over there to take him a check we've tried to help him raise money to get to go and so one little girl was already there and the other girl got out of the car and they ran and met each other and hugged each other and one of those little girls was white and one of them was black and they obviously had not been taught through critical race Theory because neither one thought that they were the oppressor or the oppressed they just liked each other because they on the same team they were compatible they were friends and they loved each other and that's what I hope our schools help promote not teach the critical race Theory and teach kids
029that you are the oppressor and you are the oppressed it's hard to love somebody when you get that mindset and those kids don't have that mindset they're not born with that mindset just kids if they like somebody that'll like them if they don't even know and we need to get away from that type of indoctrination which is all over the country whether it's here or not I cannot say all I can say is I hope it is not the other comment I would like to make is that you have a good set of rules here of your policies but I'm not sure that there are quite plain enough although people have read them closely enough and that may be what some of the complaints you're getting are coming from and I would suggest maybe we
030look at these just a little bit because the way I read these policies and you can correct me if I'm wrong please it seems like that a part of our policy is not to use sexually explicit materials in our educational system and we were told by the teachers at the last meeting that they don't use that so if you make that the policy then there's no paperwork unless some teacher breaks the rules am I I hope am I correct in looking at the reading it that way because that's what it appears to me that your policy is not to use those things in your instructional materials and if that's the policy then there's no need to worry about having to do paperwork to opt in it is it I mean I'll ask anybody to correct
031me if I'm wrong thank y'all thank you sir next is Reynolds Butler okay thank you couldn't tell it hello everyone I hope you're having a good day I'm Reynolds Butler can you hear yes District sir uh District um Monroe okay regarding the opt-in opt-out debate it is incumbent upon me to mention that the school board is not trying to censor or ban books as they were accused of doing by some of the speakers at the last school board meeting all the school board is doing with the collaboration of supervisor Wells is trying to formulate a policy that gives parents control over their children's education as codified by and in accordance with the code of Virginia Title 1 Chapter 2.1 Article 2 Section 1-240.1 which states that and I quote a parent has a fundamental right
032to make decisions concerning the upbringing Education and Care of the parents child end quote also one should keep in mind that we're talking about government I.E public school curricula and libraries which routinely ban books and materials with good reason because there are materials that should not be anywhere in or near government schools for example books that promote violence or racism or that contain graphic depictions or descriptions of sexual acts all of which raises the question why in the first place are there materials in the government schools that require parental permission the only subjects the government school should be teaching are basic skills and knowledge Reading Writing arithmetic math science geography English foreign languages history and I mean real history not revisionist fake racist history that demonizes 75 percent of Americans simply because of the color
033of their skin and perhaps I should remind people that judging someone by the color of his skin is by definition racist please address the board so to recap the only subjects this government school should be teaching are basic knowledge and skills and the only people who should be teaching manners morality and sex are the parents if the schools would simply return to the basics instead of trying to be social workers and proselytizers for various bogus woke ideologies there would be no need for any opt-in or opt-out policies and life would be easier and simpler and better especially for teachers whose working lives are so encumbered by nonsensical bureaucratic regulations thank you thank you sir [Applause] next is uh face Smith hello Faye Smith from Monroe District okay I'm opposed to the opt-in policy this is
034a policy looking to solve a non-existing problem if parents are so outraged about the so-called problem then the parents would be completely filling this meeting you were hired you have hired excellent teachers you need to trust your teachers and your staff students do not exist in a vacuum they communicate with other students after a family life class have you seen what happens the first thing that happens after the class is the students of the parents who had opted their kids out run to find out what happened from the other students you now have students telling other students what happened they are empowered to give their interpretation embellish and flankily give misinformation the teacher has now been removed from Guiding the student to understand the proper information when a teacher is admitted from the equation misinformation
035is free to flow unchecked I agree with the teachers that the number of forms that parents simply do not return their students these students will be disenfranchised with no fault of their own the discussion and the speakers all based on that the parents are concerned with their children's education unfortunately this is not always true in Amherst look at the percentage of parents that attend or even email concerning parent-teacher conferences the responsibility and moral obligation to you is not to make the policy based on your own experiences or the speakers hear experiences but to take in account all students and remember that impartiality oath that you took yes parents have a role in their students education but in this rural County County there are levels of Education among the citizenry a percentage of parents in this
036area have never finished high school some students still live in houses without running water there are parents that cannot read the forms that you are even sending home it is a your moral obligation to impartially contribute to the education of these students as well as those who have informed parents to not discriminate against them by assuming that the parents have the best interest of their children at heart and are involved in their education what undeserved students are going for have going for them are the excellent teachers that have devoted their lives and their time to prepare the best curriculum possible to serve all the students it is wonderful when students are involved with all aspects of their students lives but look no further than all the discussions you all had in February and all of
037your other meetings about the absentee problem that you have in this County each of you chose to be on this board knowing the amount of time that this position required the time is tremendous and I understand circumstances Smith three minutes uh well you're on your control sometimes that you cannot attend all the meetings but each of you swore an oath to impartiality you accepted the moral obligation to the citizens what concerns me is a board member who fails to honor that obligation and commitment to the cap to the county in the February meeting I listened to a number of passionate speakers one board member casually came into the meeting after the speaker's comment Miss Beth I need to I need to cut you off sorry ma'am at the end of the meeting this person that
038said that the reason she was absent is but agenda she then from her seat on the board up there proceeded to discuss this partisan politics have no place at these board meetings when impartiality has been sworn to next speaker is Lynn cable thank you hi Lynn cable district one and sorry oh dear well at the last meeting I I mentioned that I'm not a parent I am a taxpayer and I see this opt-in policy as a good way of having to teach two classes for every single book that gets read because you're going to have you're going to have the parents who don't with an opt-in policy you're going to have a whole bunch of parents who do not return the form and you are therefore going to have to come up with another set
039of things to be taught to those people and that means you're going to have to pay for two sets of teachers to teach the same English class at least that's the way I'm looking at it I I have been assured by my friends who are teachers in the school and I do have friends who are teachers in school that they are not teaching explicit materials that they are doing what they say they are doing I know that they are devoted to their students I know that they spend a great deal of time with their students and and um I I just feel that the opt out policy requires the the parents to do something if they if they if something comes home or if something if they get a piece of paper they have to
040know what's on that paper they have to come in and say okay I I want my kid not to have this learning opportunity I want them to have to learn something else that makes them take an interest for them for them if we haven't opt-in policy all I have to do is not do anything and then their kids cannot get the curriculum as it has been designed by Dr Wells and the teachers so that as it would be a healthy way and a good way to teach the material that has to be taught and to and to reach the the the goals that the state wants them to reach in terms of being able to pass the Sol's and things like that so I am in favor of returning to the opt out policy and
041not having the opt-in policy I do believe that they are not teaching pornography in Amherst County and I think I think we should have faith in Dr Wells and our teachers thank you ma'am next is uh Edward cable good evening I'm in District One and state your name please Edward cable thank you uh you know my initial reaction to this was this is nonsense we don't need this we don't sexually explicit material is not being handed to our kids so I asked a couple of teachers that I know and that's what they told me and we've been we've sensed to tonight we've had several speakers including the esteemed Vance Wilkins who tell us no there's no sexuality it's all preventative well let me tell you what it suggests is that people are doing this what
042it suggests to parents is that their kids are being threatened and should be protected that's false don't go for that what you should do is either clarify what really is sexually I mean we've already had somebody tell us that woke woke material may be sexually dangerous we don't need this policy it doesn't solve a problem it simply creates more paperwork and hangs a Sword of Damocles over every teacher to make sure that she communicates with all the parents just so that every so that she doesn't violate any rules the policy is nonsense it shouldn't even be there and I thank you for listening to me thank you sir next we have Gloria Witt good evening everyone I'm Gloria Witt District three uh president of NAACP first off I'd like to say thank you and congratulations
043to Dr uh Wells and his staff and putting together community breakfast a couple of you were there I think it's a powerful move in the right direction to get Corporate America to engage in the uplifting and the op just engaging in education hopefully they will be excited and send some of their employees into the school systems doing work hours so that they can just be a present particular men and also allow internships the program that the school has stood up regarding the CTE is just an awesome thing well kept secret so the challenge is going to be who gets in because it's all about the selection process because can't everybody do it and it appears to me everybody should be doing it that's step one step two um we have been having these conversations for
04418 months I have sit here and stood here and spoke to the school board about uh you wanting citizen feedback you wanting parent engagement you wanting feedback okay this has been 18 months I think we have responded to the call you have heard teachers you have heard parents you have heard citizens and on this issue of opt-in versus opt out we are chasing a ghost I think the common agreement is there is no sexual sexual explicit materials but yet because Florida is doing it and it's the right game right uh political agenda for the right then suddenly it got to be happening in Amherst this is Amherst County and not Florida and breeding distrust and disruption is just a it's it's it's a shame it's a shame you ask for the feedback we're giving you
045the feedback so as far as I'm concerned it's your turn to show up and listen to the feedback and get rid of the opt-in policy after all you we don't have sexually explicit material so what are we guarding against other than disruption thank you thank you ma'am so that's all we had signed in tonight is there anyone from the floor yes sir oh go ahead yes yes ma'am state your name in your voting district please my name is Suzanne Chambers voting district three thank you so we've gone from uh preventing sexually explicit material to the little sneak in on critical race Theory and so Marxist hunting in the 2020s identifies 1619 project black lives matters um and we had to have a victim here and it's white people especially heterosexual English-speaking Christian males you know
046what some of my best friends are heterosexual English-speaking Christian males and and they're not panicked so I guess they're woke or Worse rhinos like what name calling shall we have for this the Christian part sort of implies that all of this everything to do as CRT is anti-christian it's it's really easy to to launch those sort of accusations um the KKK has always maintained that they are first and foremost a Christian organization uh is that kind of Christianity we're talking about there are 200 denominations of Christianity in this country the one I was raised in is considered a cult by a lot of people who live around here so if all this energy and organizing and even money were put into making schools excellent we'd be somewhere we really would thank you in the back
047yes sir you state your name in your voting district please I live at 248 Pierce's Mill Road in Hammerstone I uh I was raised up in the school districts down here went to I was raised up and I went through the schooling I went through Amherst High Amherst Middle and temperance I have two daughters currently in this school system and have one that's going to be in there I do believe it's my you know my and my power to protect my daughters I do believe we should go for opt-in it's you know I do believe that they shouldn't I shouldn't uh let them be exposed to sexually explicit material um I did great anything in this in this school system that we wanted to do extra we had to you know opt in for it
048no matter what the class was I came out good so I do believe protecting my daughters that it is good for opt-in thank you thank you sir any other members from the yes sir name about a district yeah okay um Jeff Porter uh District Five um I think the the discussion we've had through this has been very helpful to see what wide wide diversity of thought is prevalent within our our community um I think for that to be public is important the concern I have is that as I look at and have been here at most of these school board meetings where this has been talked about um I've really seen very very few parents who have come and spoken to the board and I think Dr Wells and this school district are making wonderful
049steps forward and trying to get parents to actually participate be involved in their child's education I think that the percentage that was quoted earlier about 16 percent of parents parents responding to the survey for me just shows that for such a long time parents have not been engaged and this process of slowly getting parents back involved is critical because parents are the very Foundation of our society and we need their involvement we need their input not their silence so on the one hand I'm grateful that we have this open open discussion about what's going on with opt-in and opt out and all the ramifications of that but I really think that all of us need to work for involvement of parents and their presence here at the meetings thank you very much thank you sir
050anyone else from the audience yes sir they're back good evening School Board Sam sober District Two I'm one of the parents so I just want to stand behind our teachers and I want to stand behind our administrators I love what John griser said last month he stood up and I believe he's a good man and that we should listen to him a lot of comments tonight said something like well I don't know what's actually happening at Amber schools right you don't know what's happening at Amber schools but the administration does engage parents to and I really wish that you would just listen to the engaged parents and unfortunately yes there are a lot of disengaged parents in our community so I you know when you talk about them you know where are they or you
051want them to be more involved well there's plenty of opportunities for them to be involved we need more volunteers we need our PTO meetings to be more robustly attended and so I mean I certainly do call on my fellow parents to to pay attention to what's going on but when I do speak to my fellow parents and Guardians a lot of them don't even know anything about this opt-in opt-out issue so that's certainly something we need to work on but board I really wish that you would consider once again what the administrators are seeing what the teachers are saying and the opt-out policy is is is perfect you could opt your student out of anything you want to opt them out on of and if a parent or Guardian is concerned then they they have
052all the tools available to them to you know protect their children from any type of content I mean I hope those parents are also never putting the television on you know what I mean like can't hardly even watch a a prime time football game without there being a questionable commercial or even daytime television you know playing in the laundromat so I really think like books are the least of our problems and it is a a a a a a straw man argument it's it's a a kind of false scare tactic and um I really uh I trust ours I trust our schools my kids getting a great education thank you very much acps thank you for your time School Board peace and love thank you sir anyone else from the audience yes sir state your
053name and address or voting district Greg Tyree Madison Heights I need more detail than that that's good that's fine okay um so this is my first attending a school board meeting I raised my kids up in Hammer some class of 79. I will say this I've learned a lot tonight about both sides I have an opinion that I'm going to keep to myself until I'm more informed and I want to be more educated that being said you can't expect parents to come to school board meetings at our six o'clock they're working jobs so they got to get dinner and all this stuff so if we want parents to be at these meetings it can't be at six o'clock I mean we got to have some type of venue that you've got parents working two jobs
054three jobs feeding the kids getting them from daycare and things like that I Pastor a church I do know there are parents that are engaged that can't come to these meetings they care about their kids they love their school so that's not an indication of disengagement or at least it's not the indication of disengagement so I just want to say kudos to the school board and to everyone who spoke in the night the respect that's been shown to each other it's commendable in my opinion I'm going to keep listening but the main thing is is that we do listen and we do should sincerely hear each other because otherwise we're just sticking to our own beliefs and no one's going to change us regardless so we really do need to listen to each other thank
055you sir anyone else Mr Terry I do have one letter to read oh and then that should be okay all right so this is from uh the Amherst County Sports Hall of Fame and this is I'm just going to read the letter and as regarding the policy change and on behalf of the board of directors of Amherst County Hall of Fame we would like to request an opportunity to come before the school board to discuss the possibility of changing the policy that governs when something such as a field can be named after or dedicated to a deserving person while they are still alive in the past we have nominated their teas into the Hall of Fame sooner than later because of their age or a failing health condition we think it is such a positive
056situation when the person knows of the honor they have been awarded before they pass or the health deteriorates to a point they cannot enjoy the honor the driving factor for this request for the policy changes after the ceremony on Thursday night for Coach procopio I was approached by numerous past students and athletes at achs who wanted to know if I would bring it before the Hall of Fame board and ask them to spear hid the motion to get the existing policy changed with hopes that achs baseball field could be named not of coach procopio thus he would know this very deserving honor was awarded him for credibility he brought to the program and the love of the players who played for him still Kerry with them today on Sunday night the Hall of Fame board
057of directors met and voted unanimously to pursue this action to come before the school board with this request as you know myself and many other of the players who played for a coach have been discussing this for a long time in the ceremony on Thursday put it in their minds of so many people who feel the urgency of this request there is no one who deserves his honor more than coach procopio in closing I would like to thank you in advance for considering our request anyways I'm anxiously await your decision to allow us a spot on the agenda for the next school board meeting to present our policy change request I've attached the list of the Hall of Fame members with this letter in case you would like to discuss this matter further with any
058other members other than myself sincerely Ronnie Adams president Andrews County Sports Hall of Fame thank you sir okay so one last chance anyone seeing none uh Dr Wells we'll move on to five point two 5.01 okay which is the budget so I have a recommendation that you approve the proposed budget is presented at the work session that was held on March 2nd so we can present this to the water supervisors on March 21st board approve the the operational Buzz we've reviewed during our work session presented by Dr Wells okay second all in favor aye anyone opposed hearing none all right thank you go forth all right 6.01 or or six consent agenda do I have a motion so movement's chairman to accept that okay second second uh all in favor aye aye anyone opposed Dr
059Wells put some agenda's approved all right so item seven is regarding policy and the policy is IIA instructional materials and we've had a lot of conversation tonight regarding that um so one area we want to discuss first is and hearing all the conversation this month and last month and in between I know you've been getting between comments here uh probably conversations of emails and stuff from members of the community as well as people contacting my office we felt it would be good in discussion with the board to develop a survey to get more information from our community members who cannot be present with us at these meetings so we have before you a copy of the survey and I don't have written if you can pull that up or not it's not attached okay so
060a copy of the survey and basically what we need to know what I want to get is a consensus before we send this out we have two options we have option one which kind of breaks it down is do you and you know opt-in versus opt out and we have it broken down by grade levels of elementary middle school and high so if parents feel that it's good to have an opt-in for elementary and middle and maybe not for secondary they would have that option to voice that opinion or they could have an option to have say we don't want we want everyone to opt in or vice versa so that is a policy as an option for you there the other option is just the other option for the survey is just do you
061want opt-in or opt out basically this will go to all staff this will go to parents and that way they'd give them a chance to give voice we can give you data and therefore to help you in your decision making process or have you had a chance to look at the survey that was proposed foreign yes ma'am I know that ivory I've read the survey and I do really like the idea of a survey I think that's probably a a piece that we've been missing so moving forward I I would support that I would like to say that I think the policy that we adopted back in December um it was problematic for for two ways reasons I think it was written from a perspective with the lens of an opt uh out and then
062we quickly made some adjustments in our meeting when we were working on it and we shifted it to an opt-in and I can only speak for myself and the reason for me was because we didn't have any and feeling that accountability for parents to understand if these things were brought into the school so I think between it being written with one lens and then us quickly making a shift in our meeting because we were trying to come up and meet that January deadline there's some ambiguity in it I do appreciate the Public's comments since that time because I think sometimes it appears as if when you come to speak to us it becomes this side or that side and it's you know it feels sort of divisive but I try not to look at it
063from that perspective I try to listen to reason in every single voice and one of the voices that spoke out to me was and and this was from a teacher there was a lot that the teacher said that I did not agree with because I think it could go either way but what that teacher said was there's a lot of gray area and when that gray area pops up then I think that's where the fear comes in and teachers think oh do I have to do an opt out or I mean an opt-in for this or that and personally my intention was never to make an opt-in for our curriculum that's already been approved by the board um from my perspective it was we have a curriculum that is approved by us as the board
064and through our superintendent and we do value our teachers and our teachers are teaching that material and we should be good with that if we've approved it if it's material that's supplemental that a teacher or someone brings in from the outside of the curriculum that's been approved then I wanted to safeguard that we have an instructional technology policy that prohibits certain materials coming into our classrooms through the internet so it was just an extra layer of protection but in the same vein I also saw it as a way that gave our teachers some freedoms to do what they needed and Dr Norman do you care if I use the example you gave me or would you like to share it either way I think actually we've done Wells has a couple examples and stuff okay
065well trying to put this into perspective and figuring out that my responsibility is to get this right and I guess I'm going longer than I need to but before a survey goes I want to get this right for me and the board and then talk to about a survey because I don't want the public confused but the example was that if we are teaching a novel that has some sexually explicit materials in it and it was classic and it's in our textbook but that part has been taken out or removed that it's been approved by us the state of Virginia and we teach it without that sexually explicit part but there could be a teacher who thinks the value of bringing the whole novel into the classroom is beneficial for that student maybe it's a
066you know an AP English class or something that teacher had the freedom to do that but would just have to go through the steps of opting then which is a little extra but it was never my intent for it to be laborious or preventative for our teachers to teach the curriculum that has been taught So speaking only for myself I would like to maybe look at this policy get our attorney to look at it and maybe from my perspective let's be plain this is the curriculum that we've adopted this is what our guidance is as a board and then anything outside of that that supplemental that's resources brought in via internet we have shared resources that sometimes we don't even know where they come from so it just puts a layer of protection for our
067parents to where they have a voice of anything that is supplemental for me so that's that's my take trying to listen to both sides and do what I feel like our parents need but also our teachers so Mrs Thompson I would like to dive into the policy a little bit and have some conversation if that's the purview of the boards we can kind of have that and I can kind of go into the policy and make sure there's a clear understanding of where the policy is based on what is sexually explicit maybe that would help clarify some of the concerns and then we can have further discussion if y'all so these are is that okay with the boys okay everyone all right so I think we need to come to like I said we need
068to come to a consensus on the definition of sexually explicit as a term about Dakota Virginia and our policy and what that actually means for instruction so if you look at the definition sexually explicit content if you look at that part of our policy um the part of sexually explicit content specifically deals with and I have definitions of I need to give the definitions but hopefully I won't need to give the definitions but if anyone so desires the definitions of these I'll be glad to cite them sexual bestiality lewd exhibition of nudity sexual excitement sexual conduct set of masochistic abuse coprophilia urophilia empheticism those are the terms those are the areas that meet the definition of sexually sexually explicit content um I think the one area I think most people have a good understanding of
069sexual bestiality sexual excitement sexual conduct set of masochistic abuse coprophilia urophilia and fetishism but I think some people might not I think the term lewd exhibition of nudity is very vague I think we need to have some more conversation on that so nothing in our policy really says anything about nudity in general because nudity is definition in the definition there just States what nudity is but the sexually explicit content that we're talking about with the state law and our policy basically says that you can't have lewd exhibition nudity right now the state flag right there behind you has it that meets the definition of nudity because there's a breast of a female on the state flag is that sexually explicit probably not I don't think it meets the definition of sexually explicit so we need
070to really think about that so when we look at lewd Behavior the National Law Journal describes lewd as involved in a being sexual conduct that is considered indecent or offensive so we were talking about nudity loot or or nudity that's when we get into the aspects of that is it considered indecent or offensive um there's nothing or policy that states uh we would require parents to opt in under our current policy for viewing the classic sculptures like the David and certain In classical paintings or a video depicting native tribes either in the native areas of Africa or South of South America wherever they may be um it's like a National Geographic video we all grew up with nothing says that would be a violation of policy because that is not lewd nudity however we also
071that would our family life curriculum also falls in there and that would not be that's an approved curriculum that would not meet that definition of lewd nudity or the other aspects of the definition anatomy and physiology classes would not meet that definition the biology classes would not meet that definition so the things we're doing looking at a portrait a classical sculpture or classic piece of art would not meet that definition of lewd um however we look we would look need notification based on current policy if language or photographs meet the offensive or indecent aspect of lewd or if they are otherwise defined in the policy example we go back to the terms of sexual bestiality sexual bestiality does it lead to sexual excitement does it lead does it have sex does it describe sexual conduct
072is it manochistic is it does it describe coprophilia doesn't describe to your affiliate that's a scrap fetish systems if those things are there then it wouldn't eat that definition and it wouldn't need to be have parental consent so I think let's I think the vagueness of the term lewd nudity was what's getting some people as far as and teachers I think concerned because they're if I'm a world history teacher and I want to show a portraits of look at some classical art or classic sculpture do I have to get parental consent to show that I think that's where people are getting a little concerned or if I'm doing family life do I have to have parental permission even though that we haven't opted out policy for family life or do it when they register for
073school that's part of our registration process and before we teach family life we send a letter home again I'll offering to parents to the ability to opt out so I don't think the opt I don't think the Family Life curriculum the world history curriculums and those things about nature as written would quote would be part of this policy as as you've written it as by definition of what is lewd so that might hope they'll clarify some of those concerns and I can we can put that into something that is uh not quite as as more concise than how I just described it to go home to parents and to our staff I don't want you to I think when I look at that definition the lewd nudity as opposed to the definition of nudity is
074what makes it separates it from what we would consider needing parental permission for versus something that we would not as part of the general curriculum so if you have any questions I'd be glad to try to answer them board totally agree with Dr chairman um I think I really appreciate how you explained it and heartily agree with you um I think the only question I have is on the survey if we can have an abbreviated or appoint or definition because I think getting parents to the survey as we know is a challenge and if they have to link on something else that's law that might oh I don't know that's my only input yeah we're going to do a letter with the survey that kind of describes the purpose of the survey and we have
075that we'll have the policy and the excerpts from the policy in that letter so that'll go home that'll go out with the survey so that way they can get the letter that describes the why behind it as well as that survey itself with that definition on there now currently as a parent with a student I get emails and I get text messages that have simple links to these items I'm presuming that that's going to be one of the ways it's sent home that will be one way where else we'll have paper copies for people who want a paper copy at their child school good will you have any paper copies like at the front desk or anything that can be picked up at the school yes and here at the office perfect wonderful thank you
076so much yes ma'am anyone else Miss Thompson oh okay okay that survey that the parents speak on it I think it's been clear I mean thank you Dr Wells from extreme clarification and you'll comments as well so yeah let it go out and see what happens so Dr Wells do you feel comfortable with the way the policy is currently written or do you think that we can do better for clarity Michael I think we need I think our staff needs Clarity and I'll take responsibility for some of that as well that maybe we haven't been as clear on exactly what it is we've been trying to work through this aspect of the policy um so I think clarity as to what is what meets that definition of sexually explicit needs to go out to our
077staffs they get a true understanding of what is what we consider especially at the board consider sexually explicit so therefore they know what that is and it might relieve some of the stressors um if that definition that is that explanation is there um as you know I propose the opt out when we did our initial proposal in December um however again it's a preview of the board but I would think if you did the if you're concerned about certain age groups I think that's where the survey there with the age groups might uh might be more appealing to parents maybe some of our staff as well that you have age bands as to what will be often what will be opt out so I think having that that ability there for people to make comment
078on that is is worthwhile so okay so my last question is if this goes to the parent who's not engaged at this point from the perspective of opt-in opt out and it just hits them while they're eating dinner do you believe that they would understand the policy I just feel like there's some ambiguities there I would hope after I draft the letter we have a version of it I'll need to clean it up a little bit but I would hope by the time I get the letter finalized and in a good place that it would explain um the purpose and they would if they read the letter and it'll be in a format that I hope they can understand it and understand the policy I'm not just going through the policy onto a piece of
079paper and say Here's the policy without some explanation as to what the policy means but again I can't my goal my desire would be to draft it in a way that layman's terms people could understand what it's talking about so Mr chair I think it's one two three four five the fifth line down so this to me brings some ambiguity Amherst County School Board provides non-explicit instructional material and related academic activities to any student whose parent requests the student be provided with such instructional material or activities yeah to me that's what we do it's not something that a parent has to provide permission for so it's that type of ambiguity that I think could be confusing that's why I am pushing for maybe us working on some of the language and the policy before the
080survey but of course it's what the board wants yes ma'am and I'll be again if y'all want to look at cleaning up the policy in general um uh I'd leave in favor of that I think it'll just be good to get some feedback for you in general though on um where we are what the community and what the teachers feel so there's some even if we if we can do it simultaneously we can get the feedback and that could help you maybe draft through Visions to the policy if that's the case on revising the policy but if the board so chooses to read after policy first that is fine with us as well um Mr chairman um I would like to make a recommendation I don't know if I make a motion or not to
081the board that we actually we work the policy first and then issue um question yes um because right now I know the community there's they are confused on what it is and what we're trying to do they're confusing multiple policies and yep so can we make the changes tonight or do we have to I would not recommend we make changes tonight that's kind of what got us into this place in the first place do you have the changes I mean uh I would need to get your uh with the boards recommendations are for any changes and then I can draft changes and we can consult with Mr Wright our school board attorney before bringing things back to you so what I would recommend if if that's the direction you want to go as a board
082um would be to send us recommendations for changes we can draft that we can compile all those or um we could have a work session in which we discussed it or we could do it at our next scheduled board meeting is probably sufficient or do we need public discussion on it we would need discussion before a policy is approved but as far as you making recommendations what that policy would look like you do not need public input on that but you would need public comment on the final version on the final product um quick question it's it's about this topic um I know with my student I get permission slips for field trips what is what what happens when kids are going on field trips do we get permission slips from everyone or do we
083have like only a third of the kids go when the other two-thirds come back um depends on the field trip sometimes that does happen Okay so thank you fine um do they have an option on our paperwork just to say I opt in here's to whatever this guy do you know what I mean so they don't have to a blanket yes a blanket opt-in I mean as as policies again since that's something we could look at doing you'd have to have that in policy that states that where you would have a not or a regulation we could have it as policy because right now the policy states the state where the code is written we have to notify within 30 days of it being done so we'd still have to notify within 30 days of
084it happening um or at least within 30 days so I guess technically from a technical standpoint you could say the first day of school is within 30 days more than 30 days of the content being taught um but that's something we could probably discuss and maybe want to get some legal advice on to miss Justice's point if if there was something at the beginning of the year that they said they opted in and they got a notice later in the year that said hey you've already been told that we're going to study this book it's coming up in the month of January would they need to say again true yes I I opt in I think if it was something if we went to that route I think if you did that then it will
085become more of a lesson no I don't want much I've already approved it once but I don't want much out doing it now I'd almost go back I'd almost revert back to the opt out once that letter sent home because they've already if we went there out I think that's where we need to get some legal uh clarification from from our attorney okay thank you thank you okay yes sir uh Dr Wells um I'm gonna put you on a hot seat for a second our current policy as defined is there anything in our standard curriculum that would require a teacher to send out an opt in form and our approved curriculum I'm not aware of any nothing so no teacher would have to sign out for the current curriculum any for our approved curriculum right
086what the board has approved right there's nothing under this current policy as it's written right now with the opt-in policy that was added two months ago no requirement extra requirement not if you interpret the definition of lewd as I described earlier tonight so so far there hasn't been one instance in any of the schools any of the grade levels that would require a teacher to do an opt-in policy enough to parental notification correct not based off of this now there was some there was some question about um the uh family life but if we go by this definition that I described tonight in family life would not be part of that conversation but family life does not meet that definition anyway but right because of family the the premise of family life there was some
087concern that it that parents would have some concern there but it does not meet the qualifications of what this policy actually States so I think sort of the clarification needs to come from right right whoever is not saying that approved policy but I think I don't want to say that somebody couldn't bring a student couldn't a teacher couldn't say I want you to pick a book to read and have a student reads decides to pick a book off the shelf somewhere correct off the internet that is they could be have that content in it that wouldn't be part of our approved curriculum but a student could have gone home or gone to a bookstore and purchased a book they want to read that could technically meet that definition correct so everything that's been approved by
088the board meets that criteria yes sir Dr Norman Dr Norm for sure you want to use okay we're there I'll give you an example of what anything that you have approved as a board which are textbook materials there it falls in line with the state it falls in line with your requirements and it meets the definition of that however we have um so example an 8th grade literature book has the Diary of Anne Frank The Diary of Anne Frank is an excerpt of that novel in the literature book I as an eighth grade teacher can teach the Diary of Anne Frank I can use the textbook I don't have to worry about anything you've approved it I know that it's right we're good to get the person across the hall from me who is also
089an 8th grade teacher who loves to do those literature circles as a division when we give funding to the schools to purchase novel sets they choose Classics a classic is the Diary of Anne Frank and it's the full novel in that full novel there is three pages in there that meet that definition of sexually explicit material and the teacher must then send out to the parents to say do you want your child to read this novel this classic or do you not and it's an opt-in or an opt-out they give that information up front and if the child the parents choose not to use the literature in the novel set then they're given the textbook of what you've of what you've adopted that is the only thing that is out there that I know of
090when we're talking about classic literature that we have purchased as novel sets for our teachers all right so that's not a DOT that is not approved by you as a board that is a resource and material it is not an adopted textbook all right so the the portion that's been exerted and put into the textbook obviously the material in that is the instructional part yes however the novel itself those three pages that are in there don't have the literary value of the class no you're not gonna you're not gonna extract anything from those pages that's going to give you any great literary advancement right in education it's just the whole novel if you want to teach the whole novel that is available to teachers to be able to do that and that's their professional judgment
091I as an eighth grade teacher chose not to do that but I had people that I worked with that chose to do that yes ma'am this Justice um which part of our definition does that section qualify under I think um yes which one sexual conduct or uh hang on I can pull it out um it's sexually explicit described any pictures motion digital uh ludex excitement of sexual conduct excitement that that added to the previous conditions or does it stand alone that is in the definition of sexually explicit content it's a sexually explicit content as is the founding this policy again it is the sexual bestiality the loot exhibition of nudity sexual excitement sexual conduct masochistic abuse coprophilia urophilia or fetishism so if it if it was a passage that described asexual Act or they could
092arouse sexual excitement then it would qualify as sexually explicit content that that makes it quite broad thank you okay then the other question I have is on our resource material even our resource material I think teachers have to choose from bdoe approved and even no no ma'am thank you you're welcome me anyone else so unfortunately we have to have a policy it's not a we can throw out the policy we have to have an opt-in or opt out we're required under code of Virginia to have a sexually explicit policy and that code of agenda says we have to have something that describes that we have to have within 30-day notice of a teacher teaching sexually explicit content that we notify parents now the op the the question comes down to and code does not say
093we have to opt in have an opt-in policy an opt-up policy just usually have to notify parents in 30 days and give them an opportunity uh to determine if they want their child to participate in that in that content but we're required by code to have a policy in place by January 1st of this year of 2023. okay yes ma'am the policy as we have it written can you think of any way for that section of sexually explicit to be clarified so that Anne Frank you know doesn't fall under that well again I think um reading the definition as the state has written it it makes it very that's pretty clear I think the only I think the only person ambiguous is what is lewd with nudity um clarifying but the other aspect of if
094it describes a sexual act then um if it says a book May describe a rape scene um if that's the case even though it might be important to the character development of the story to know why the person behaves the way they did if it goes into graphic detail about the rape scene then that would be sexually explicit if it just says this the person was raped then it would not meet the sexually explicit definition but if it goes into detail describing that right then it would but Anne Frank does not so I'm still having a hard time understanding it does it's yes ma'am um there's three pages in there where she masturbates and he goes into detail about that now we have the same content covered in our health and family life but it
095is done in a different manner okay so when you read the book and the Diary of Anne Frank it is a portrayed as sexually excited more than anyone else so I think you need the board to suggest a few changes to the policy correct so that we can get it right before we send things out to the parents to do the the survey correct and then we need to make sure that our parents are looking at the survey getting the survey either paper or electronic we understand a lot can't be here at this time we all struggle to be here sometimes at this time but um we need them to show up and participate and we get the versus get some some good data from our our community and our goal will just begin to
096get some data that I can share with with the board regarding that and get the input from our community and then we can make it you can make a decision based off that information so board um well I don't think we're going to make a decision based off that information I think it'll help us good decision making process that's right this isn't a vote this is a board decision not a so board we need you to send what you see is policy changes or Corrections additions whatever to Dr Wells so we can he can formulate that you can do it either two ways you can send it to chair and you could consolidate it and then send those Consolidated responses to us or they could send it to me and then we can work on
097that independently so if you prefer them to send it to me then that's fine um remember as you send things you can't you can't send it to everybody you can't respond to all you have to send it directly I would say copy the chair and vice chair and then send it to me in that way they're aware but if you send it to everybody then it constitutes a meeting so just be aware of that Ford if you would do me a favor and go and send it to me I'll get it all together that way you're sending just to me and it's only one person and it's not um at everyone and then I'll formulate it and get it to you and um that way then everybody can review what he has to make sure
098that the comments that you had were put in there as you how expressed or expected them to see them okay again once we formulate that I would give it to you as a first read and then we get we'll get um to review it at our next meeting we can have missed after that I'll have Mr Right review make sure y'all are in agreement with what is there then we have Mr Right review and those changes or recommendations and then we can meet we can have further conversation after after that if IV supports if that's the desire of the board um board yes uh yes Mr chair um I'm just trying to walk through the process in my mind on the timeline if we do make recommended changes or things and some clarity comes to
099it um will we end up adopting the policy and then sending out a survey or would we send out the survey on our because we already have a policy so a survey for the parents to look at the one that we are considering moving forward with so what I would propose would be for us to draft a survey and have it reviewed by Mr Wright and once that is done then we can commodify the survey to be in alignment with that new pilot the the draft of the policy updates and then once you get feedback from that then you could go into further discussions on the policy okay board anything else okay send me your comments I will get them together tally them together and send them to Dr Wells thank you before we leave
100this topic just like to ver just like to verify that based off the definition we expose tonight that for family life that as a board we're okay with Family Life following the approved curriculum because you have approved that we would not need to have that as opt-in that will just be continued based off what we did beginning of the school year for those parents they had to go through that and part of their initial be the opt-out aspect of it we will still remind them that we're doing family life right they have the option to not have their child participate regardless but as opposed to having to go through the true the opt-in because it is part of our curriculum and it does not meet the definition of sexually explicit content and that's part of
101our approved curriculum curriculum okay and any parent who wants to review that content can contact our student school and is in the office and they can come see the content of what is a PowerPoint they can watch it and they can sit down and go through it with them if they want to so there's nothing they were trying to hide it's there but I would ask that we had just make that as part of our approved curriculum and would not require opt-in as we're getting ready to start family life here around right after spring break okay I would see that being the case anyone from the board object okay okay thank you thank you sir all right where are we that's what I'm trying to figure out so moving on to 8.01 okay 8.01 Dr
102hoden and Mr roach are going to discuss the construction green applications where we run construction process yes sir chair and members of the board first thing I know this has been a long process but we made some final meetings this week with the Architects and within the next two weeks they expect the project to be ready to go out to bed so we're excited for that just a few small tweaks with the cafeteria and a few with the welding and we're trying to tie up those loose ends and get that ready to go so that that can go out to bed thank you sir yeah and actually today we just received some preliminary bid documents from our architect to review those items and everything before they go out secondary to that the hopefully the first
103visual signs of construction of the auditory if it does go through uh we'll hopefully start tomorrow I've talked to the contractor who will be removing some of the materials from the house and due to their schedule and rain tomorrow they are planned to be there tomorrow so we'll start to see some of that and I've also had contact with the demo contractor who will hopefully be in the next week and if everything goes well by the end of next week 178 Lance Lane house will be demolished so we'll start seeing the first signs of actual construction it's a demo of that house and get ready to get out of there so thank you sir board sure just a question um I'm trying to remember the timeline um where were we supposed to go out to
104bed in February or March are we on time on our timeline we're a little behind we were going to go out and toward the end of February but now it's going to be more weeks off yes ma'am okay thank you and we were waiting on some feedback from the DEQ yeah and some clarification there so but we should we should still be able to meet our June timeline for breaking ground right they wanted that to be a little bit cleaner with a DEQ with the first reading before we put that out in case there was anything major that they came back with and then we would have to already have a change order which obviously cost more money thank you Dr Houghton does DEQ have everything they need as far as we know right now
105that letter that you provided is was the first step so we're we're working through that and we're waiting for them now to respond back but we'll let you know thank you all right next in your packets you have a drawing of Elon Elementary School we discussed this briefly uh last week at the retreat you'll see three options option one two and three uh after our meeting Dr Wells Mr roach and I uh would like to include option two which would be an eight classroom addition to Elon Elementary School and you'll see there it's a little hard to see but the parking lot will be reworked in that way and the main reason that option two is the most uh feasible is due to grade and other things being in the front of the building so
106what we would like to do tonight is to add that back into the CIP so that we could then apply for the grant for these funds you'll notice in the top right some costs we added a few things not just for the classrooms but also for the toilet room demolition of the stage etc those can be removed as if we need to we wanted that cost to be a little bit closer to the 4 million so those would be kind of add-ons depending on depending on the money those the restrooms are in terrible shape but we were going to renovate those to the kind of the standard that that we were at the high school and then the stage would be demolished so that we could expand the cafeteria a little bit to give them
107some more room because the stage really wouldn't be needed anymore right now it's being used as a classroom okay questions so Ford any questions there was Justice did I understand you just say the stage would be gone that's just an addition if we do that if we're able to build the classrooms right now the only use for that stage is as for a classroom and we have to pull the curtain so it makes it a little challenging when um when we have a classroom and cafeterias going on at the same time so what that would do is that renovate the cafeteria for a little bit bigger space for activities when parents come right now if you've been in the cafeteria Mr Terry Miss Thompson especially when parents are there it's it's a pretty it's pretty
108full so that would give us a little bit more room in that cafeteria if you will and if we if we did renovate the cafeteria again that's just another that's an add-on option right um add in the classroom space you wouldn't need the stage for classroom space obviously and then it would create a storage most of the assemblies and things that do now they use the gym for as opposed to the cafeteria so if we're looking at expanding the seating capacity of the cafeteria for still is that would allow for additional capacity in the cafeteria but again it's not it's not a necessity it's just an option we could have we could do okay and then the parking lot expand out a little bit to make their uh parent pick up a little bit more
109feasible as as you know anyone that's been through there the uh that circle is pretty small for parent pickup so that would that would make that a little bit better and safer for parents so if you look at the diagram you can see that loot has found a parking lot over towards where some of the trees are now the traffic pattern will come in instead of having that small little circle they would just come around the existing sidewalk would separate the Bus drop off from the parent pick up and drop off and you still do the loop and you still have parking it would increase parking in the middle along the edge so we'd lose a few trees over on the edge there towards the wood wooded area but that would also give us more
110parking and allow for the classroom addition coming off we could we sit eight classrooms just but you know if we got to a point I think six would meet the knee but eight I'd hate if we're going to build it we can build eight for not much more cost than six and that way you'd have more space for additional growth and first student class and teacher to have some teacher work rooms and things like that in that area well for anybody who's driven through there in the afternoon when it's time to pick up students will this increase the number of cars we can get on the property yes okay yes okay keep them off of the road a bit okay the cafeteria I know you're talking about demolishing the stage because that's not needed anymore
111and maybe remodeling that cafeteria I know we've talked about the space in the office area any conversation about how that space that's the stage could possibly be utilized to ease some of the space issue in the office we crowded in there yeah we didn't look at that aspect of it we're looking at how can we capitalize on the space for our students and the cafeteria in General's wouldn't be quite as crowded talking with Miss Scott it would have an office for a principal and assistant principal and a school counselor and a nurse in there and looking at the value looking at the the most bang for the book there we thought that without having to renovate that space would give us more money to actually put it in towards classrooms so we were looking at
112what could we do what could benefit this that instructional space more so that's kind of why we went that way if it went with the anything in the office area or we could look at some spaces where this current stage is and add some office space there but um I don't think it'd be that much to add a corner office in that area might be kind of loud during lunch but I think you could probably do that without and and still be gaining some space there if that's if that's we could talk to them about the price of doing that and I know this afternoon when I reviewed with um Miss Scott briefly she was very excited about adding that uh in the cafeteria because of the uh the parents and just being able to
113have more things in the cafeteria she was she was pretty excited about that and then my last question is I'm noticing the yellow dotted line is that's the property line that's the current property line yes ma'am all right there is an area there and I don't know where it would be that is part of the water works right there very front right where that arrow is yep take movie cursor or up a little bit to everybody and back right there that little corner not the corners inside of yellow at the corner outside the yellow that's where the county owns 8.357 Acres right there yep so nothing in this new area that you're proposing here would encroach on that no man okay well I know why we've talked about increasing the classroom space there and I
114appreciate your dedication to making that a priority so how many lunches do they have at Elon now I mean how many lunch periods do you know offhand I do not off shopping right here 20 minutes another class goes out kind of rotate some in some out there's never all been everybody out and all okay um with the uh with the additional classes how many students do we have at Elon right now let's throw you a curve keep you on your toes give me a second you find it the fastest 332. 332. 330ish um so we add eight class rooms with with all the options I guess it is yeah so um what would you know what would that capacity do for us I mean how many additional would that allow I mean based on class
115size you know average class size well it would it would right now there's very more little space for growth there um there's most of the areas teachers use for like some of our special education teachers and those teachers to have an office space because they're not they don't have their own classroom per se some some of those teachers don't so it give them us we could use that for some of that space as well but I think we'd I would look at probably adding probably two or three instructional right now but then again we know we're talking about growth in the southern end of that zone so we anticipate some growth coming to Elin um over the next five to ten years so this would enable us to absorb some of that growth without needing
116to put on any more of those uh little relocatable classes out there that we're using right now for for for that so it just gives you more more capability yeah yes foreign Dr Norman had mentioned we actually had to move one of our preschool programs out of Elon in the last couple of years specifically for this reason because we needed space to be able to achieve other classrooms to get other students served within that building we had space another building were able to relocate that so thinking to the Future and that is a growth area for us especially with Early Childhood programs this would be one location because of this addition we'd be able to bring some of those Services back into the elim community so I do think looking at all the different angles
117to it there's a lot of ways where this could enhance what we're doing there at Elon Elementary I mean I know we have them shoehorned in right now the way they are just we have so many I mean it's it's packed so this will help alleviate that I'm just trying to make sure that we already know of things coming that we're we're thinking ahead and getting the biggest bang for our buck and that's why I went with eight instead of six gotcha gotcha good thank you anyone else sport yep Mr chair just one more question um I know we have the portable unit for the art over on the side would this allow us to remove that so that you can have access to the back of the building for emergency vehicles and things like
118that or will we keep that portable unit there well since we bought it we may we may want to keep it just for other purposes but I would like to have all the students inside the school inside the regular school building as opposed to a relocatable classroom so I guess we'll have to look and see where we are but um we could relocate the building or we could just sell it and move it depending on where we are but again for general student purpose I'd like to have them inside the heart structure I just I'm just dumb side you know so like for emergency vehicles to get around to the back correct we have space and Mr Rook so you can we left the room for a gate to get around there Yes actually there's
119there's a gate to the left side of the uh the portable classroom on the west side of the building however um you know this school was built before the current fire codes uh under the current fry codes this design or the layout will not be allowed because you you have to have access within I think 150 fever remember remember correctly to all sides of the building um apparently you could possibly get an ambulance to that gate but other than that you're not going to take any fire products anything like that behind the school but under current fire code you couldn't design it this way anyway but moving that relocatable classroom would would alleviate that issue correct it would yeah remove the classroom but then also if we truly want to do that then we'd have
120to create an access road back there and right behind the school between the school and the asphalt playground there's also septic systems right there so it's not with so much we can do as far as getting access to the backside back there thank you Mr yes sir the um you said something about preferring option two over option one correct and we're working on growth I would imagine with growth you probably would require more teachers so that would take more parking do you think maybe option one would allow for more parking in front of the school is that the reason we went with option two option one does the there's a very steep gradient it goes into a wetlands area before that CDL sits right and so that will require additional funding to one the grading
121but also the wetlands getting DEQ to approve that might be more of an issue so option one option two comes off the front where it's generally the same grade as the rest of the building so it'd be less in in grade aspects of it in cost okay now whether there be uh I don't know option I don't know what the gradient is on the other side of the new classrooms to add parking there so we if you look at the I know there's plenty of trees there we don't have a topographical that area lays fairly flat so you could do more but also make sure we have our sit back off the property line as well yeah well the I guess the gym in the art room are grandfathered in is that why yeah we
122can get a bet where the gym is close to the last but it's closer we can get to the lines where the gym Corner that gym would be right I really didn't want to take out all those trees because I do have some aesthetic value to the property but we can discuss more with that as far as the parking amount of parking we can get but this is just the first very basic run at it and see if y'all are in general the main thing right now see if you're all generally in favor of going up option two and then we can work out some more details later if if it's the purview of the board okay personally I like it I think it's I think it will definitely help like I said the flow
123of vehicles through there the expanding the space that they desperately need at that school and um I like the the concept so okay board anything else oh yeah you need consensus to add to the CIP okay I think you have it consensus to add thank you thank you thank you Dr Odin uh the next thing I have to discuss is was on Mr konich's uh so I'm going to jump in here and talk about we I know we discussed uh some of the transportation needs that we had we had ordered a another diesel bus that was supposed to be built this month I was informed on Monday the debt bus was pushed out until uh August so that led us to kind of scramble a little bit as we had this just last week an
124engine in one bus and a transmission in another which put us in quite another hole I was able to uh Wrangle some things around and find a bus and it is currently having AC put in it and we will hopefully next week take delivery of that bus and the one that was being built in August we will just move out to one of the ones that we we were going to purchase for next year so we're able to move some things around and Mrs o'connets worked with me very well on that and so that's going to help us tremendously especially because we're we're pretty lacking on on extra buses so that's going to really help out so just wanted to let you know on that and then in addition at this current time we have
125we were able in February able to do a few more buses we have four buses currently with AC when we take delivery of this it will be five the bus that lost the transmission was out on cedargate heading up 130 because there's a huge stain going toward the school notice that lost an engine and a transmission so yeah I think the transmission was it was it right there yeah that's kind of what I thought yeah I've followed the trail all the way up yep so okay nice so with Miss laconda speaks to you about um with some Financial things look at that you'll see maybe some overtures but that's one of the reasons there's an overture because we've taken delivery but she can explain that to you okay also my last thing 802 you have
126the February suspension report and funny any questions on that forward any questions thank you Dr Holden moving on 9.01 so now we have missed the congress with Finance good evening Mr chair members of this financial report um from the revenue standpoint so they closed the session adjourned on February 25th and the House and Senate did not reconcile their differences which didn't help us finalize those Revenue numbers for next year's budget but we were pleased that they did pass what they called the skinny budget which they can use until they reconvene and that was addressing that state miscalculation in this current year so we were pleased again that we were notified that we were home hold harmless from that miscalculation so with that being said there's no new calc tool so we're going to use the
127December we're going to keep monitoring off of the December 16th calcul with the understanding that that miscalculation is being taken care of and that if you recall that December 16th did reflect the ADM loss and we estimated it to be around 522 thousand dollars of decreased Revenue but we had a plan and we're going to continue to Implement that plan and sort of just until the official cop tool comes out you know just prepare for the worst case scenario so I was pleased to see that that those fundings were restored um again we're going to talk about on the expenditures there's been two areas this year that I've talked about is the maintenance because of the utilities and transportation and I stated mainly because of the fuel but I'm bringing the I'm going to talk
128about the transportation today because if you look on your optic code summary page five it is showing that the transportation is projected to go over budget and a lot of that is fuel we currently have two buses that have been encumbered so a lot of that you know he just stated that one of the buses we won't get but he was able to replace it with another one so we're going to keep monitoring that we're going to look and see where the fuel is standing but I just wanted to give you some heads up because we are I'm planning on probably in May coming to you with a budget transfer because you don't want to close out the year with any of these major categories in the red so just wanted to bring that to
129your attention again we're going to continue to monitor make adjustments where needed and this continued to communicate with you as such of what we're doing do you have any questions um this question for Dr Houghton actually uh the bus that met its maker the other day um was that what how old was that bus I was just curious you know we talked about having some some buses that were getting to the point they needed to be replaced I was really hoping it was one of those and not a newer bus that we've gotten yeah a few buses that have uh that are sitting on the lot that were kind of scrapping off for parts we're currently in the process of seeing if we can maybe Rob a transmission off of an older bus to hopefully
130lump us along so that's that's kind of where we're at on that the one that lost the engine was done it's not worth yeah yeah the good news is it wasn't all robust and not one that's yeah well we know that we have some that you know are to the point they've got to be replaced and you know if we know they've got to be replaced I'm at least it's that one and not one of our newer buses that we don't want to have to replace for quite a while yes sir and like I said the the kind of unfortunate news as you know with everything else right now order a bus it's at least a year to 18 months out so we're kind of lucky that I was able to Wrangle this one and
131then keep the one that we're going to get and just kind of move it till next year so that gives us at least a few on track yep thank you sir yes sir report anything else for Mr Cottage thank you ma'am all righty let's see moving on to 10.01 10.01 is updated on accountability measures and this is Dr Norman and she's going to go through mid-year data with you this evening you're stuck with me now okay so the first thing I'd like to be able to tell you is that in the month of January and February we our students took 6936 tests that's an awful lot of um time spent assessing our students but I will tell you we received some really good data to give us information on where they currently stand we're gonna
132I think overload you with data and I'm sorry about that and I'm going to try to give you as a concise bit of information as I can to kind of walk us through we have I'm going to discuss with you three different types of data tonight the first one is student growth assessment which is a required assessment that all third through eighth graders take in the area of reading and math they take it three times during the year Virginia Department of Education requires this the second one I'm going to give you is information on the division Benchmark these are not required by the state but they were something that we felt as a division last year the last two years we've done map assessments and reading and math we needed to find out where our
133students were in the areas of Science and in all of our end of course Assessments in English and math and science and so we gave those mid-year benchmarks where we created those and then the third is mid-year Pals data for our K through fifth grade students in the area of reading so we're going to try to walk you through all of this information so the first thing is our student growth assessments if I can give you some information on vertical scaled scores at the beginning of the year I talked to you about and you should have in your packet I think a copy of the presentation at the beginning of the school year I talked to you about the vertical scaled score that was actually developed by the Virginia Department of Education and they were
134going to give us a scale for the beginning of the year and we would be able to use that same scale at the end of the year and we could be able to determine if our students showed growth or not in December they changed that and said no we're not going to use the same scale we're going to change the scale we got the new scale on Tuesday so they told us they were going to change it and then we didn't receive it until this week so what we did in order to provide our teachers with information and they could use it to be able to project where they needed what they needed to do and redirect instruction with their students we took the vertical scaled score that the state gave us for reading and
135math and over I think it was in August that we got that August and September and it was in a four quadrant we took that four quadrants and we mirrored it to match up to what the state accreditation requirements were a level one a level two and a level three the green the red and the the green yellow and red and so that's where we're kind of showing you what that looks like and where we are so this is the math vertical scaled scores for Amherst County public schools that mirrors what we would see on the state accreditation and these are the levels for each one this is where our students had to fall in order to get to these red is bad green is good that's all you got to remember okay on the
136next slide I'd like to be able to show you math growth assessments and remember this is yes ma'am the numbers here no that is the range of pass rate that a child scores on that test and that's really all that the state tells us exactly it's like a Lexile score so if you look at this this is math growth assessment and what we wanted to be able to see is in the fall in level one we wanted that to decrease and show in the winner that we moved kids out of level one and into level three and we wanted level three in the fall which was high which was low to increase so if you look at third grade in third grade level one at the beginning of the year they had a 43 of
137their of the students actually fail the test they had 36 percent passing the test they had 20 percent that were bubble I call them are Bubble kids they were right there in the middle one test they would have one question they would pass one question they would have failed those are the ones that we that we target specifically so level one 43 moved to down to 26 failing level three moved from 36 to 50 percent so we saw great gains in all of the grades three through eight in math we actually moved and progressed with our students the way that we needed to and and anytime Mr Nabors wants to jump in please feel free okay going to the next slide it actually yeah quick question um the test or the assessment that they took
138in Fall versus the assessment they took in Winter was it the same content or was it like you know the content they've covered in the middle of the year was a little different than them same test same same actual standards were covered in both and they will take it that and this Sol test will be taken in the fall in the spring and so it covers everything actually the spring is a cumulative test yes ma'am so were they given that cumulative test at the beginning the middle and the end so this is not even um the beginning of the year assessment correct this is the end of the year assessment given three times yes that's how it was explained to us at the beginning of the year so far that's how it's kind of rolled
139out good thank you so does that mean there would be material that they haven't covered yes sir okay we're going to talk about that too okay um this is just the summary of it if you kind of take a look grades three through eight we increased from Winter 24 24 percentage points with grade 3 17 percentage points um in all the way down to 8th grade we saw huge success I believe to be very successful it followed the trend of over the last couple of years our map scores where we had seen growth throughout the year the next one is our reading vertical skip yes sir ma'am we started the growth assessments and I'll get the correct date for you I believe we started them in September the first week in October we had a
140window all the way at the beginning they don't start right at the beginning of the school year but very close to the beginning yes ma'am so this is the reading vertical skilled score we did the exact same thing with reading that we did with math we took the four quadrants we mirrored them to the three quadrants for the state accreditation and um structured it that way if you take a look at the actual next one the same type of chart where if you look at third grade we wanted to do the exact same thing take our level Reds and decrease that from fall to winter take our level threes in green and increase that from fall to winter and this one we actually showed the same rate not as much but the same going from
141Level ones all the way to level threes and moving our kids by the grade level I would like to point out in sixth and seventh grade if you take a look at that at our sixth grade if you notice in the level two that stayed the same 16 percent we didn't make much movement in our with our level two kids and in seventh grade we actually showed where we went from a 35 to a 36 where we really didn't want to do that so that Middle School grade level in the area of reading that is one of the where one of the places that we're concentrating on right now yes ma'am so would you assume that you had some move up and yes right right right how does how we broke it down here well
142um since it's 4 000 tests that I have to analyze I really haven't had time to do that right yet but I'm working on it I promise and Miss Goyle I will give a shout out to Jill gwel and Ruth Matheny who have pulled data and analyzed data to pull this together for y'all it's it was a quite an undertaking and a task and they did a phenomenal job yes yes we did but then we have to take it's called the CSV I always want to call it CVS but it's the CSV file that has thousands of student data pieces in it then we have to take that information and disaggregate it again on the next page it really is just the breakdown and it shows you grades six and seven where we're we're going
143to concentrate specifically I believe I talked about that I don't want to linger on it I will move right along um the next part really is our benchmarks and this is the test that we chose to give to see where our kids were because they will take a Sol test at the end of the year and we just wanted to take a a checkpoint a dipstick just to see how they were doing in regards to it we taught for we took we created a test based off of the state blueprints our teachers did pulled it together gave it across the division Algebra 1 geometry Algebra 2 reading end of course tests Science five physical science earth science and biology so let's talk about yes ma'am yes ma'am um they everything is able to be in
144our favor except for chronic absenteeism and I'm gonna let Miss Patron talk about that yes ma'am it will it will count for us um so in the area of math mid-year benchmarks Algebra 1 pass rate currently right now and if I can just make a caveat they took a test that is for the entire content beginning of the year to the end of the year so when they took it in January there's half of the year that they have not been taught yet okay so just I'm going to say that over and over again if I can one I want to information currently right now we have a 61.54 pass rate last year our pass rate at the end of the year was 57 percent so we have already moved above where we were last
145year and I'm excited about that geometry we're at a 36 percent pass rate right now last year we had a 69 pass rate algebra two I'm going to talk about that in a minute we're at a 30 percent pass rate we were at a hundred percent pass rate and let me talk to you about geometry and algebra 2. geometry is the required Essa test it's required by the federal government because we teach Algebra 1 and we test students in Algebra 1 sitting at the middle school as well as the high school we needed a high school test and the state of Virginia chose geometry so every kid in the school who's sitting in a geometry class right now must take the geometry test not every child has to pass the geometry test if they have
146already taken Algebra 1 and have already passed Algebra 1 and received their verified credit they just have to sit for the test and click click click and they don't have to pass because they've already received their verified credit Okay so we do know who has to pass yes ma'am yes I was just curious um Dr Norman could yes 57 percent is that the end of the year yes yes okay end of the year all the comparison numbers you gave us for algebra one geometry and geometry Algebra 2 were compared to end of the year correct okay so 57 last year for algebra one we're already at a 61.54 69 percent for geometry we're currently at a 36 percent Algebra 2 last year we had a hundred percent but if I can clarify one child took
147that test and the reason that was the case is we normally we don't have to have children take that test unless they're sitting in the class they don't have to pass it the only people that have to pass it are like right now we don't have anybody last year this was a transfer student in and they needed that verified credit so they had to take that and they had to pass it and that counted for us me too every student the geometry test the Intercourse test the credit counts for them but they've already received their verified credit so you have a certain number of verified credits where they have taken the course and they've actually passed and mastered the course and we have one that is and of course reading and writing they have to
148have that as a verified credit that's the only one that's given they have to have a math verified credit they have to have a science verified credit but they can take earth science biology chemistry and all of those are tests that are given an end of course test they only have to receive one verified credit which means that they have to pass that one they don't have to pass any of the other ones so if they passed algebra one and of course test for algebra one they've received their one verified credit even though they're in the geometry class they're not required to pass that test and meet the graduation requirement by the Department of Education therefore some students don't take it as seriously as they should and I'm going to give you some numbers here
149in a minute okay any like as a board have you put anything in our grading system that says no ma'am we don't so there's nothing that says that the Sol would be part of their grade no ma'am actually in all honesty the state says they used to have it in the standards of accreditation that you could not count it as a as a grade in your actual and I'll have to check like I couldn't use the Sol score for a grade in my course it just concerns me that we are being rated as a school system using low standards instead of having a high Benchmark for our students and we don't have control over that correct and I I don't know if people understand that that's yes my question would be what options do we
150have to put it within our control um to motivate our students right another discussion maybe for another day but that's eye opening yes ma'am um so yes ma'am prohibited we I'll I'm gonna check on that I think we still are but we used to have a sliding scale I believe when I first came here to Amherst there was if you got this on your SOS if you got if you passed your Sol test you got a A for an exam or something like that but then the state said no you can't do that anymore so but I'll confirm to make sure that hasn't changed um so let's talk specifically about algebra one Benchmark in regards to our subgroup data the 299 students actually took the Benchmark in February I think it was in first last
151week in January first week in February I would say we had the greatest gain in our subgroup of two or more races and we saw a significant Improvement in regards to our students with disabilities across the board in regards to that the next page and this is where I'm going to talk to you about the geometry in this for our geometry test we actually gave 288 students the geometry test that they took that test only 18 of those students actually have to take it and pass it for their verified credit 288 took it 18 are the ones who have to pass it because they did not pass that Algebra 1 Test those are the children that we're working with and that we're focusing on because that impacts them on graduation and our teachers are putting
152together incentive programs and you know high expectations for them in class so we're we're trying our best on that the algebra 2 again the same pretty much the same we had 190 students who took the test nobody needs to actually take it actually pass it they all if they're sitting in the class they're required to take it we don't have to have anybody pass that for their verified credit which is a good thing regarding graduation but it's not a good thing regarding Sol Pass rates okay so the takeaways for our math benchmarks algebra one I'm really excited about this pass rate I know uh um that sounds crazy but moving that far into being over where we were last year and them only getting half of the year's content already and we're above where we
153probably I expected us to be we are right in line to hit our state accreditation and probably even hit our Essa requirements that are new federal accountabilities which is 72 percent now which I'm gonna talk about that after I show you some data algebra one three out of five of our subgroups exceeded the overall division pass rate of course our areas of concern are still supporting our black students as well as our student students who are identified with a disability and really pinpointing areas that they are weakened and then providing them remediation and interventions over the next couple of months then we're going to go to reading speed this up okay so two in the end of course test last year we had 88.62 88 .52 pass rate right now we're currently at a 62.21
154I will like like to tell you that that's 254 students that took the test but this was only the reading portion of the test I want you to know that that 88 percent pass rate last year was also combined with the writing test that they take and they take that in March and they usually do very well on that as well as workkeys tests that are given throughout the year for any student who does not pass those tests so we're actually on par for where we have been pre-pandemic this is where we usually would average out so I was excited to see that we were not any lower than that in regards to our subgroups our pass rate our greatest gain was seen by our white students again not as much gain with our students
155of disabilities but it was higher than it had been in previous years so I was very excited about that we do have some work to do across the board in all of our subgroups and our instructional Specialists are working directly with teachers at both middle schools and high schools to work in our area of reading and writing Benchmark takeaways for EOC reading we are on par at 62 to get to the standards of accreditation for a 75 percent um the new federal accountability for Essa is now at a 77 and if we do comparable us to last year which was right out of covid then I see us surpassing that 88 percent that we had two out of the five subgroups of course exceeded out of the division overall Pass rates and we are continuing
156to work with our black students our students with disabilities and those who identify in two or more races and they showed a low pass rate on this reading in the area of science our mid-year benchmarks we had fifth grade pass rate of 52.49 last year ending out we had a 40 percent pass rate so we have already surpassed our fifth grade science from our um sols last year physical science last year it was at a 36 percent rate right now we're hovering at a 32 33 percent so we're very close to surpassing where we were earth science we were at a 57 pass rate last year we're right now at a 54 55 percent and then biology last year it was a 51 percent pass rate and right now we're sitting at a 33 percent
157pass rate again I want to remind you about biology it's the same thing we're dealing with in math well first of all we are still working to get a licensed biology teachers at the high school so we have some vacancies there we have put into place um an Edmonton program to help with the curriculum and the substitutes that are in that classroom we've got an instructional specialist in the area of science that's been pushing into the classroom and supporting the subs and then Dr Wells is working on some support for the high school as well in the area of biology um Mr Norman yes excuse me um how how long have we had this dysregulation between everyone that's in that class has to take the test but they don't have to pass how how long
158has that been unequal um about this is our I'd have to go back and check but I think this is our fourth fourth or fifth year it's when the new um every student succeeds act went into place by the federal government and they set new graduation standards across the country and that is when Essa actually made regulations on Virginia and Virginia had to put in its consolidation plan which we can talk I got a packet for you on that in your information because they've changed it again um so 269 students took the let me go to the next one so let's talk about grade five science grade five 268 students actually took grade five science our largest gain across the board in content area specific with students with disabilities when they when those children took
159reading math and science science was the one that they showed the most game with and I'd have to say that is really attributed to what the teachers are doing with some Hands-On experiences and getting out into the community getting out into the Creeks you know Dr Wells puts on his waiters and goes out there and catches trout with them or releases it you don't catch them I'm sorry he catches them later I'm a city girl so we've been very excited to what we've seen this year in our in our elementary science programs the physical science um in regards to where they are 269 students took this test I will tell you that I am continuing We are continuing to struggle with our middle school science last year we were at a 36 percent pass rate
160over at the end of the year this year we are sitting at a 32 at mid-year so we are and that's the whole content area from start to finish so we're doing better we are just not back to where we were pre-pandemic um and I will tell you our teachers they're doing me whis and they are getting in there with science experiments and they are adjusting their lessons so it's just really what do we do next and so um Miss Smith has worked wonders with our science program this year and I've been very very pleased with that biology no earth science let's go to our science sorry 254 students took earth science of course we teach art science at the middle school level our [Music] area that subgroup that saw the largest gain was our
161Hispanics I'd like to remind you that the small population so you're going to see a bigger gain with that but across the board we saw nice advancement in there in that area last year we were at a 57 percent pass rate we're already sitting at a 55 54.7 now biology okay so biology 324 students took the test 106 students need to pass the test okay so when you look at where we currently are last year we were at a 51 percent this year we're at a 33 this is our largest group of students who took a previous Sol test and did not pass it so they took earth science last year sitting at the eighth grade level um remember they were on a abbreviated schedule um and a lot went online and so they did
162not pass their earth science test so they moved to the high school knowing that not only did they have to take the biology test they have to pass the biology test 108 of them since I've been here in the last 10 years it's the largest number of students that we had failed one year and moved to the high school needing to take a test to graduate from school that is why we've put lots of things into place in regards to those vacant positions and this is an area that both Dr Wells and myself and and Mr neighbors are very concerned with in regards to this this is we're talking about students in their graduation right now don't know if you want to comment on anything or we'll move to the next thing foreign science takeaways
163so fifth grade I will tell you that we have concentrated specifically there because we have two schools that are accredited with conditions Central Elementary and Madison Heights Elementary's and both of them have made very significant change advancements so let me give you some numbers Central Elementary last year as their Sol score they used what was called it the combined rate it was a three-year average and they passed they had a score of a 61.59 it was not the 70 percent so they went under conditions of accreditation the actual kids that tested last year fifth grade they scored a 38.89 so even though the school as a whole got 61 pass rate the testing year showed as a 38 percent fifth grade science right now is sitting at a 57 so they've made huge gains this
164year and [Music] re-working spiral reviews with their fourth grade content to make sure that they kept that in the loop because the fifth grade science test is fourth grade material and fifth grade material um Madison Heights has done something astronomical I would say they in their last year's score to the state three-year combined over was 62 percent but last year's current year meaning a one year where in may they took the test those kids only passed rate was 15 percent they've gone from 15 pass rate and they're sitting at a 60 percent pass rate right now they've done a lot of Hands-On experiments they've done a lot of inform of providing the kids opportunities to work together it is they do small group instruction and science which is amazing to sit and watch because normally
165you see that in math and you see that in reading but you don't see that across the board in any other and it's it's nice to see that happen overall the areas um we still have concerns in those subgroups and I specifically have some concerns regarding our middle school science and our biology and Dr Norman I wanted to jump in there before we move on to Pals talking about subgroups specifically so obviously we don't look at our subgroups across the board as a whole lump them all together we have to do something about our subgroups we talk about our individual groups of students down to the individual student because that's really what it takes when we're talking about not just recovering some of this knowledge and stabilizing where our students are but being able to
166get them to that point that we need them to be at the end of the year I do think it's important for the board to know specifically for our students with disabilities we present the data as students that have passed there are there is I should say a structure for credit accommodation specifically for our students with disabilities if they don't quite meet that threshold they are still able to get that verified credit towards graduation so we don't take that into account for the data because we want our students to pass that test we want to prepare them to be there at the end of the year but important I think to Echo what doc Norman has been talking about and the amount of work that has gone into really drilling down to the individual student
167level that's how we're going to be able to bring these subgroups up to that expected level of performance working with each individual student figuring out what those needs are what might be impacting them within these different content areas and developing those plans and Pathways for them to be able to achieve at that higher level it's amazing to go into classrooms and see the work that our staff is doing places where we wouldn't typically see small groups operating we're seeing small groups operating because we have that many different skill sets that many different deficits that we're trying to address within some of these groups of students so just kind of wanted to reiterate some of what Dr Gorman said but also put that plug out there for our staff they see this not as a subgroup
168concern or as a subject level concern this is really about the individual student what they are showing what their data is demonstrating and how we're trying to meet those individual needs and there's just been tremendous amount of work with that to plug the work of our staff but obviously we're going to continue to work for that I know my area specifically when we're talking about students with disabilities we are not pleased with those numbers those are not the numbers that we aim for as a staff and if any any of my teachers are up here right now they would say the exact same thing but we are proud of the progress they have made so far this year I know they'll continue to do that through the end of the year thank you Mr Neighbors
169Pals so Pals is a required video e reading literacy screening Ruth Matheny pulled all of this information together for you you have a huge packet that not only gives division information but it goes school by school by sub group I am not going to go through all of that but I am going to show you how to look at the chart okay so the first thing is just I need to give you some background information in regards to Pals so we give Pals in the fall we give it in the mid-year and we give it in Spring last year we had a seven percent reduction in our number of students id'd which is really really good we want to see a drop in those numbers from the beginning of the year to the end of
170the year it's kind of opposite of the Sol's sols you want to see the number grow Pals you want to see the number decrease we had 28 percent reduction of identified students in Title 1 program those that are receiving Services is huge and that was a nine percent reduction with specific groups of students across the board seven percent reduction over the summer which had us having 30 percent of our students identified in the fall and I will tell you that we maintained that which is unheard of we had a great summer program that was able to support kids and that helped us when they came back and they took their Pals test in September September and October I believe is when it's given the next thing this is the chart that you're going to see
171by school by division by subgroup it's just a lot of data I want to point out three different areas for you the bottom quadrant the bottom left portion of the chart where it shows fall to mid-year comparisons that fall to mid-year comparison what you want to be able to see that increase right there where it says three percent that is a good we want to see that more students to be reading on grade level and that is where you want to be from Fall to mid-year we want to grow so we went from 63 percent in the fall to 66 percent we grew by people reading on grade level by three percent across the division if you go right on across this is what we're projecting in the spring so on the right hand bottom
172it is the spring ID projection and that is at a six percent and we want to see this number actually decrease as we end out the year so we want to make sure that we have students who are still students are still below the Benchmark we've got to calculate that somehow and we want to project where they're going to be we're projecting that six percent of our students will still be below where we need them to be last year if you can remember that was seven percent and we maintained that through the summer so we're seeing some actual growth there we've gone from seven percent last year we're projecting six percent this year and then if you follow up on the right hand top side of the screen that is that eight percent that increase
173is actually good because those are the students that um who were below the Benchmark at the beginning and at the fall but they've met already met at mid-year they've met that Benchmark they are on grade level in their reading ability and we're very excited about that and we want to maintain that through the end of the year and then over the summer and if you have any questions about any of these charts reach out to ruthmatheney at R Matheny at amherst.com sorry Ruth I know she's listening okay Pal's mid-year data overall three percent increase in students um reading on or above grade level which is tremendous growth right now so we're very excited about that eight percent of them across the division have made sufficient progress to meet their mid-year Benchmark we're projecting a two
174percent reduction in the number of third grade students that are id'd and I will tell you the state is concentrating specifically on third grade students because they are those kids that were at home during covid were on only in like two or three days at school or doing online and so they have really targeted that third grade group and then we're projecting a six percent overall increase in students id'd improving of the reading and the hiring of our reading resource teachers I would in regards to across-the-board division we have a phenomenal reading specialist in our division in our elementary our middle and secondary we have the instructional coaches that are really pushing into our middle schools as well as our high school and I would say that we've we've seen gains that we have not
175seen before is that can I say 100 percent that that's the reason no ma'am I can't say that but I would have to say that if I didn't have those people in place our our licensed reading Specialists that we would not see as much growth I do think that they have brought a tremendous amount and our programs the science of reading that has been brought in that's been um great for our students especially our younger kids all right thank you so much thank you for asking the last thing that overall um I think I did that and these are our takeaways our Title One intensive systematic support we want to give explicit instruction to those students I would say that we're noticing an increase in students that are reading above an on grade level and
176they are it tells us that our students are gradually improving with their word recognition their decoding and that's important to us and focusing on that in in their core instruction so tier one instruction what every kid gets if we can push in and do some significant things for every kid what we do for one kid is great for all kids and so when we when we get teachers doing that we get our reading specialist pushed in that's that's amazing and that's wonderful for our children and that's what we want and I am finished unless y'all have any questions and I'm going to turn it over it over yes I have a question I'm looking at the mid-year data takeaways and on your last bullet it says historical increase in first grade identified due to the
177change in tasks that removes letter sounds what do you mean yes so in regards to what we currently do so we've implemented the science of reading in our um in our elementary program Central Elementary actually piloted that program last year it is now required through the state and so all I would have to I think all but six teachers are now um involved in it that specific task we've removed how there's two things that happened over the last three or four years you know how you go into an elementary school and they have the letter of the week you know we're going to start with a and a mean stands for apple and that's gone away we don't do that anymore we don't teach letters just by themselves it's a different way of going about
178Teaching Letter sound word recognition and how the decoding comes into play I am not or well I took reading classes but I'm not a licensed reading specialist and I can get you the specific information but when I actually go in and talk about how to teach children to read that specifically that letter recognition that word recognition being able to uh the automaticity that we have that is all encompassing and our reading Specialists do a phenomenal job with that I would be interested thank you I can make sure that Miss Matheny and Miss wheeler reach out to you you're welcome all right Mr chair members of the board I have the pleasure of talking about attendance I'm going to start by kind of explaining the difference between chronic absenteeism and truancy so often when people think
179about students who are not attending they immediately think of truancy and they're they're very different things so chronic absenteeism is when a student has missed 10 percent of the school year so right now we're at 120 days of school a child who has missed 12 days of school would be considered chronically absent when we finish up the school year we'll have had probably about 175 school days if there's some snow or something so we tend to look at 17 days for the school year as being chronically absent because we never really make it to 180 days to have 18 days truancy on the other hand is when a child has missed 10 days without an excuse so they're very different things as you know chronic absenteeism is what our accreditation is based on it is
180focusing on misinstruction and trying to encourage students to be in the classroom as much as possible truancy is Outlaw outlined in the code of Virginia so it's it's basically following the steps in the law and there are legal consequences we have two very different approaches to handling chronic absenteeism and truancy so to talk about that a little bit with chronic absenteeism some of the things that we've done are like our show up Amherst initiative where we're trying to build a culture that is belonging and inclusive and everyone wants to show up and be there every day where we're trying to teach kids good skills and and how to be a part of the community and all of that that all is our tier one type of work to encourage students to come to school every
181day when we're looking at truancy on the other hand we're holding meetings we're calling parents we are um holding people accountable we're having conversations about if this doesn't change we're going to go to court so there are two very different approaches go ahead yes um switch from truancy versus chronic absenteeism so truancy is again it's it's in the law but chronic absenteeism is the state's standard for accreditation it's not an Amherst decision Department of Education uh put that as an accrediting Factor uh prior to the pandemic it was first put in prior to pendant but it didn't come into effect until correct um under every student succeeds act by the federal government one of the you have to have grad you have to have different levels so we of accreditation and part of our accreditation
182is attendant or chronic absenteeism as well as graduation rate that's a part of it as well sick a lot but still gets their work done correct and someone who is just not showing up correct and that is a state decision it's not anything that we have any control over it's one of those kids who had to do a lot of work to keep our grades up I see that it's very unfair we would agree with that okay so looking at how the state breaks down the accreditation requirements um for this the attendance that we are experiencing this school year will affect our accreditation for next school year if a if our attendance or I'm sorry if our chronic absenteeism rate is less than 15 that school will be fully accredited as far as attendance goes
183they would have a level two level of performance if they're between 15 and 24 percent and then level three which would be 25 and above um going forward we kind of started over this year we have a three-year average typically where we can say like we can average the last three years and you take the best of what you did that year or that three year average and pick your level that's starting over and we just get what we get this year next year there'll be a two year average because they'll have two years to work with and the year after that they'll be a three year average again so this year Mr chair yes ma'am so this year has double um double the impact exactly yes and here is where we are as of
184um when did I pull this February 23rd which was 11 days um so we were at 110 days of school at that point and that meant 11 days was considered chronically absent and to just kind of walk you through this chart obviously the school is there and then the next three columns are the number of students who would fall into that bucket for it to be that level of um accreditation so at the high school if they have 202 students or less who are considered chronically absent they're in the green if they have between 202 and 316 students they're in the yellow and if they go above that they're in the red right now I know it's kind of hard to see up there but right now they're sitting at 235 students so they're already
185in the yellow and if we look at their accreditation or their predicted accreditation it would be um the second column from the right to where it says current chronic absenteeism rate they're at 36.66 percent I need to look at this here because I that's what it is yeah okay it's hard to see up there um and so that's where they're at right now the next column is where they were at the end of last school year so you can see there's been Improvement at the high school and some of our schools have improved some of our schools look worse this year it really just depends on the school and and what they've been going through and um my next slide kind of speaks to that this gives a progression uh every 10 days throughout the
186school year of what their attendances looked like the darkest red is when it's been the worst or in temperance's case the darkest yellow that's been their worst number of the school year and then the far right column where it says 110 days is where they were when I pulled this data to give you some good news it's 120 days now so I've pulled it again it just didn't make it into this presentation and Amherst Middle School has moved into the yellow and Temperance has moved into the green so so we are continuing to make improvements every school across the board improved by at least a percentage point at 120 days so we're continuing to make improvements I feel like part of what has happened I feel like this is going to die on me too
187part of what is happening is that the students have learned that a sniffle doesn't mean you stay home anymore last year we were saying stay home with everything if whatever's wrong stay home students and parents it took a while for them to kind of get that message and now they're they've been hearing so much from their schools and they're getting so many letters and so many phone calls about attendance that they're starting to say okay you just have a sniffle go to school and so we're starting to see some improvements in that area there's a million other reasons for why our attendance looks the way it does there's definitely the impact of anxiety on our students and not just our students but what I'm seeing with truancy specifically is with our parents having anxiety about
188letting their children come to school so there's there's a million different reasons but we're working really hard to do those tier one types of things like show up Amherst like having incentives for improved attendance like targeting students and having them come and have lunch in specific places where they talk about skills and they're trying to talk about that like what would it take for you to improve your attendance how do you how would you feel more comfortable here in this building and so we're doing all of that stuff trying to improve these numbers and I you can see it working it's starting to progress and things are getting better and that's yes Miss Justice yes um with the parents who are afraid to send their kids to school have you gotten a feel for what
189the number one reason is is it health or is it safety or whatever yeah it's there are health concerns a lot of times I think it's just the individual's mental health so the parent is struggling and they want their child by their side and that's that's what's going on any other questions about attendance so Mr chair I would want to thank you Dr Norman and memory for this information but I think we knew they'd emphasize the fact that you know they can't learn if you're not in school and so we look at our attendance rates being where they are and look at our projective Sol scores and where they are and I think there's a correlation there so we really need to make sure we need to emphasize if we do nothing else tonight I'm
190going to do our comments that we emphasize the importance so again as we have throughout the year being in school makes a difference and you can't learn if you're not here so please do anything you can to come to school and that'll help the student learn more and that'll help us get through this process okay okay Dr Norman could you go back through all that again okay no okay may I may I explain something to you in your packet you also have buy school information we don't it's in board docs it's not actually in your packet that you have but it gives you very specific information regarding each school we don't provide that to the public because some of our subgroups are so small that it's identified by a student okay okay um do you
191have any questions because I have one more thing to talk to you about report any other questions so I would like to thank thank you for as an echo I'd like to thank you for all that it's um the numbers are going in the right direction they're not where we want them of course you know but um but they're going in the right direction so that's that's positive to see we just want to encourage the students to hang in there keep the parents keeping them keep them coming so thank you sir I agree with you on that um the second thing that I have and the last thing that I have as you notice throughout the entire presentation we talked about the changes from what the federal government is now requiring us to do and
192you should have a packet like this that starts um it is information regarding the Consolidated Virginia's Consolidated plan they are required to submit this to the federal government in regards to every student's succeeds act it is what we are then held to so we have the accredited State accreditation information and then on top of that we have the federal accountability the federal accountability was changed about we got the information in January we provided that information the end of January we provided the changes to our principals at their February principals meeting we are now providing that to you it is too much to discuss with data and I don't want to confuse the two with what we have to do with the state and what we have to do for the federal government so we will
193come back to this at a later date so you can add you can read through it I wanted to give you the information if you'll notice this piece right here this is where we took all of the information that the state and the federal government have given to us and this is what we actually gave to our principals so it was a easy snip by snip of what the changes are and what that would look like for them as they then start to and this is a change that has to happen at the end of this year so they changed mid-stream to us we thought we were starting out on one thing and it's not and December and January we found out that they've moved the cheese and it went all the way to the
194other end and we must meet those goals now and so we're kind of in the process of making those changes we wanted to give that to you and we will come back to that at another date and Dr Wells I am finished thank you so I like to move into Human Resources there Mr chairman thank you 11.01 yes Mr chair Madam Vice chair members of the board we're about to make up some ground here um the first thing that I have tonight is our vacancy memo and this month we have it broken out between current vacancies that that are that do remain in this current year and then those that are open next year next school year based on either retirement or resignation so you can take a look at that um you've had that
195to review I will note a few updates we're moving and shaking here so um actually the English teacher for the current year that should be a one now we have one of those filled and accepted so we have the three science teachers that you see for the current year that that is correct but they're all filled for next year so that's a good thing we have hired from all our science teachers in biology for for the next school year that's that's a plus um I wish we could fill them right now we're working on that as well so Elementary teacher for the current year that's actually zero as we had an individual who had been filling that position as a student teacher slash long-term sub actually accepted position um school counselor we do still have
196one position this current year we do have two candidates that are in the process of review for that so hopefully we'll have some movement there pretty soon for next year um what is pretty amazing is under elementary teacher where you see six we actually have one position now we have hired five of those so that that is positive news so all told that is the vacancy memo that I have for you this evening do you have any questions about any of that information Mr Gallagher so you're saying for 23.24 we would be looking at four positions open well if not exactly it's close but if we don't fill that CTE that will ultimately move over okay if I get it filled then it will not uh English teacher we have two ultimately one currently open
197one open next year due to retirement gotcha if we don't fill it this year that's going to move so so it works okay okay so there is potential for some of the ones on the left to move to the right if we don't fill right okay good question is a little bit confusing there thank you board anything thank you very much absolutely uh the next thing that I have is not actually I think up on board docs but it is something that I asked to be placed at your place in front of you there and that is an update on the acps career fair data we talked a little bit during the Border Retreat I told you I'd provide a clear breakdown of the participants in that we felt very good about not only the
198numbers but just the quality of the candidates that came through that day and uh I appreciate uh Mr chair Your Presence at that career fair as well that was meaningful and helpful so that's a breakdown of all the different areas both the in-person and virtual per um per per content or grade level and so forth for your information what I feel like is is worthy of note I placed at the bottom which is just from the career fair itself the one that we held that that previous Saturday the 25th I think it was in February we have hired one English teacher and five elementary teachers just from those individuals we still have two um offers outstanding that that may be accepted so those are the two in the waiting for acceptance and we have several
199interviews scheduled with some of the folks from that fair uh that have yet to be held but that sure they show problems as well so um we just feel good about that if like that's a good return on the investment that we put into bring some of those uh excellent candidates here to Amherst County to meet with everybody um all told we've hired 13 teachers for the current or next school year positions um you know as you can see six of those are from the the career fair but 13 in total and that's kind of how we also have those biology positions filled so we are we're rolling we're doing everything we can to to expedite these processes get the interview scheduled quickly provide tours as necessary in the schools and get individuals to join
200our team thank you sir all right yes Miss Justice Mr Gallagher looking at this how does this compare to pre-covered as far as our our hiring and because it looks pretty good well so I'd have to look back to be quite honest with you I will tell you though and I think I've referenced this before and this is my fifth year here but uh the prior two years or the first two years that I can remember that we went throughout school years without being roughly fully you know filled you know with vacancies that still existed throughout the entire school year so we did have successes you also saw the applicant Trend um in during the Border treaty so you know that pre-covered we probably had a higher number of applicants to select from so we
201we probably weren't pressing it as much you know and trying to have to hit it so early to make sure we can compete for these applicants I will say that our career fair showed successes I know the one that we held actually during uh Kobe that we did fully uh virtually I think we hired five or six at least candidates from that so we had you know fortunately we have shown success from the career fairs that we've hosted and put on on our own so that's been very successful going in a positive trend yeah absolutely it it's uh it's promising good which is helpful thank you you're welcome born anything else so Dr Galla I mean Mr Gallagher I would like to say that uh you know the um career fair was was very impressive
202you know to walk in and see all the schools doing their stuff there was not a single room that wasn't being used for interviews when I walked in and uh everybody and people were waiting for Rooms To Do interviews so I mean it was it was impressive to see the volume of people coming through and doing things so uh keep up the good work sir and thank you for saying that just because you said that I don't want to forget to thank all the administrators and uh you know from the schools and central office for participating and helping with that because that was that made a huge difference I think right thank you okay moving on uh were we 12 12 12.01 awards from our student reps can you hear me Jen that March 17th
203we're having another show up day as well as combining that with reading Across America and I got to participate in that last year and it was really cool um but I think this year will be even better because last year we had to do it virtually so we read to the elementary school students like via zoom and this year myself as well as others are going to have the opportunity to go to the elementary schools and read books to them as well as engage in their day so I feel like that's exciting considering all the things you guys have been talking about with like attendance and just wanting to show up and come to school another thing is April 9th is the day of giving and neighbors helping neighbors opportunity that I'm also volunteering for
204as well as some other classmates so again I think that'll be nice to like get the community involved and we're doing that during the school day so I know emails have been sent out to a lot of parents to try and get students involved in that and then also the Amherst Theater is performing their musical at the end of this month so if you haven't already you should go online and try and buy tickets to go to the show I know the open night is March 30th and then I think they go all the way up until that Sunday on that weekend um I know I got my tickets and I'm excited to go so you guys should all go but yeah that's all I have thank you hello all right so a couple things
205I have to mention are that I'd rather want to mention a lot of sports are studying back up I believe there's soccer tennis softball baseball it's like a total of I think 10 scrimmages today so that along with outdoor track which I'm a part of it's all really cool to see start back up that nominations for homecoming queen king are coming up prom generally that's a big deal for a lot of people especially the lady to the left of me and then yeah uh cool what's cool is on March 28th a tour to cvcc is going to happen with the seniors and maybe some Juniors from Amherst County high school and it's also been pretty cool because I'm gonna be giving the tour uh uh and yeah that's pretty much all I have to mention
206thank you thank y'all 13.01 all right superintendent matters uh first I want to talk about spring monitoring so on Tuesday we had our meeting with the Department of Education and actually this afternoon we received our follow-up email from the Department of Education and it was a very positive response basically they hit some several points the division leadership team implemented initiatives including the Amer show up days and Back to Basics and the lesson plan expectations the fact that our staff is very involved in instruction um division leadership team intentionally focus on required lesson plan components the advisory committee helped develop the different lesson plan templates the highlighted the principal's monthly meeting and quarterly reviews and they also highlighted the need to differentiate and support to individual schools so but overall the feedback at the meeting and
207through their communication back to us for individuals at things for schools are very positive that we are doing the things that we need to be doing to improve our instructional programs so I want to thank part of this process I want to thank everybody engaged in that part of this process was that uh Mr Hutchinson from Mass Heights Elementary uh Derek Adam from Central and Mr Crawford from the high school all had to endure 30 minutes a piece in front of the state um given if given a overview of their programs but also answering questions throughout the process needed an excellent job of communicating to the state what they are doing in their schools and at the end I get I got to have my 30 minutes of time as well in which I had
208to talk about the division aspects of and Dr Norman assisted me there but I think for our principals it was I think they felt the pain a little bit leading up to it but overall did they did an excellent job of communicating what we're doing to the state and the feedback was very positive so uh I just say thank you to them for and their staff for all they've done because it's thinking the principles communicated the information but you know the teachers and what they're doing in the schools and the other staff and the schools doing the things they're doing uh gave them the data they had to have to give the state this information so it was a it was a definitely a a team effort to get all this done and Dr Norman's
209team for helping compile all the data made a big difference too and we greatly appreciate all their work everything you want to add to that so very positive it was good to have some positive feedback from the state on that um next I have policy klb and I just wanted to spend a few seconds talking about policy klb klb deals with the public complaints about learning resources that's the title of the policy and there's been a lot of communication at our meetings about that as well and so I just wanted to clarify that that community members have the authority to question learning materials and learning resources when that is done a committee at that school is com comprised it usually it consists of the building principle it consists of library media specialist it consists of
210the parent and it and usually a teacher and then we can put other resources there as well including central office staff to assist the net review process so in that review process is initiated then you'll have to review the books and then the decision is made by that committee as to what the outcome is whether that book is removed or other things are done regarding that that material of the two of the materials in question so far they've met on two of the two of the books and it's been placed in Destiny as a parental uh consent parental permission for the student to check out but those books have not been removed from ourselves but the parents do have to get permission in Destiny based off those two books that have been reviewed thus far
211I believe they're going to continue well I know they're continuing to review other materials that have been brought to their attention and so as they go through that process you know that will be but there is a policy in place for that review process so people need to understand if there's a question about a book that we do have school board policy klb specifically details how that process takes place so I just want to put that out there and just make sure everybody understands there's a policy in place for that it's policy klb okay Dr Wells quick question yes um so you said the committee is formed and it includes the parent two questions yes the book okay yes um so a new committee is formed every time that a a book or a group
212of books or uh a parent comes up with something is that that what you're saying at any school so for example um let's just use xamaris better for example if it parents Amherst Middle wanted to challenge the instructional materials and materials in general then they would bring it to the principal's attention then the principal would form that committee that consists of him or her the library media specialist a teacher and that parent and he could also include other people but at least those four people are involved in that committee they read the material they review the material they discuss it as a committee and then they vote just like we do here like you do as a board and then the decision of that committee is it goes into effect it is appealable to me
213and or my designee and then it could be appealed to the entire school board if that was the case but that's the that's how the policy is written okay thank you board anything just a little clarification on the committee it says that a Review Committee consisting of the principal library media specialist the classroom teacher if involved a parent and or student and the complainant if the complainant is apparent then is an additional parent on the committee we've been using the parent as that person okay we can have more but in the essence of time and the amount of material being read with the parent that is complaining or the caregivers complaining is who we've had on that committee okay support any more questions okay so Community leaders breakfast I'm gonna switch it up a little
214bit um sometimes you gotta be careful what you wish for and I'll say that the good idea fairy hit earlier in the year and I said let's try this and so Brittany went to work and got things working as for us um Bo had a great turnout uh we had six around 60 people show up from the community from various businesses we had community members leaders from County government uh Sheriff's Office the sheriff was there a town police and so forth so it was a great uh Jeremy Bryant was there and just a good turnout um and we had some good I think some good conversation and good discourse and of course some of you miss Lincoln was there and Miss Justice was there and Mr Grazer was there so it had some good conversation
215um I wasn't really wasn't sure what the turnout was going to be at first when we first do this out there within about three or four days that we had 30 people saying they were coming and I was like man that might be okay and then uh but then the nerve started hitting make sure it hit the right stuff but I just wanted I just focused on where we are as a school system I really wanted to make sure people understood our budget process I really want to make sure people understood the need why we need parents and the community members engaged with our students and focused on that and then we also want to make sure they understood our needs in the CTE Department what we're doing is CTE but also the fact that
216we need those Partnerships with local businesses for our internships and our work-based learning opportunities and I feel we had some good good conversation I've already met was talked to a couple of folks after the meeting who are some some of the larger businesses in the county who want to get involved with us in a different capacity so I really feel that's been a that was a good meeting it also just allowed people to have some time to talk about at their tables about what they're doing and just build that sense of sense of consensus there among the community so I felt really good about it we've had some results from the survey and this the results have been have been really positive as far as the information we've received back so uh we'll probably try
217to do it in the fall and in the spring and maybe mix it switch it up a little bit that's what our Focus points are but we'll try I think we're going to try to do this a couple times a year from the survey Dan that's what people said well they they would like to do it at least at least a couple times a year and have this opportunity to get together and talk about the schools and what we're doing so I felt really good about it and um again I'm glad we did it I was kind of dreading it yesterday morning about nine o'clock but I'm glad we did it so uh any questions on that board any questions okay thank you so school calendar uh want to make a couple recommendations and this
218is for you to consider and Ponder but we've missed two days of school this year for weather and it doesn't look like we're going to have a blizzard anytime soon uh who knows what's going to happen but if the conditions stay the way they are right now we have Bank 25 days above the 990. because we haven't missed we haven't been going two hours late that we've had two two hour late days we've had two days we've been closed um so that being said I would like to make a couple recommendations to the board regarding our calendar for this year first would be April 17th which is a day the Monday after the spring break that that Monday would be to have that as a um a no school day for staff and students the
219next would be graduation day May 26th um would be a no school for students but a work day for staff at his grad again that is graduation and for those of you who have never been involved in the high school we do rehearsal that morning with students that are seniors and half the teacher probably 30 teachers have to be over at the vine Center to do graduation rehearsal which means we have 30 less teachers in the building so it makes a difference there and then we also have families teachers who have students that are graduating who have families coming in town and things of that nature and since it's on that Friday night I think it'll be good to be off to be able to have a work day that day that would free up
220our staff to prepare for graduation and things along those lines those are my two big ask well those are two of my Ascot lights you just strongly consider another ask would be if we don't miss any more days of school for weather whether it's severe weather from Spring weather or whether it's winter weather that we really look at that last week of school Miss Patron talked about our attendance rates and how that impacts our accreditation and so forth we know historically the last couple days of school they're nowhere and a half a week it's not attended as well so I'd ask you to con to think of it we don't need a decision on this tonight and or any of this tonight but one thing I would like to consider we'll be looking at that
221week of June 5th through the 8th currently the last day of school for students it's June 8th um with a teacher work day on June 9th we discussed this a few a little bit as a staff and like to consider the last day of school being June 2nd and then teacher work days at Monday and Tuesday and and call it that will still have us at 18 days 17 days above um our 990 hours given effect we haven't missed any days of school and we're finished all our Sol testing by that time so it will not will not impact Sol test you know that level of instruction um there's something to consider but I think it would um with everything that's been going on this year and the amount of stress we put on some
222of our staff I think that will be something that we'd like for you to think about as a board that would help with the summer school teachers too that gives them a little break between then and summer school starting so this again it's just something to consider um I'll be glad to answer any questions you have regarding that one question yeah let's Justice Dr Wells um one of the things that had been raised earlier in the year was the idea that teachers had to turn in their grades before the end of school and then you had students that weren't showing up because their grades were done so this might help avoid that well regardless grades will be due the last day of school rather the last day of school is so so we made that
223made that way I made that decision thank you so that was a that was a Dr Wells decision um because I know being another situation however looking at the big impact it still comes down you know on a partial week and sols are finished it just makes it so anyway yes ma'am yes ma'am I was just wondering if you needed a consensus with the board or you actually needed a motion since it is changing the academic calendar I would need a motion to approve any of those changes that we're making I believe that would be what we need because it is you voted on the you approved the calendar by votes I think we need to have a vote by the board to change the calendar do you need a motion for each one or
224do you need us to decide it depends on how you if if you feel comfortable with all we have stated now I will say this regarding those last four to three or four days of school if we have weather that goes away that goes away that would that be off the table if we get if I have to if God forbid something happened like the Elon tornado again let's just go to school for three or four you know for a week then that will be off the table we would make those days up but if we don't miss any days of school that's where I like it so that you like us to approve everything except for that week for now or is that or do we have to come back if we have weather
225and we've already removed those days have we got to make a motion to put those days back on I think you could I think you could say it as your you could say right now that contingent upon not missing okay then we would do that if that's the fs desire of the board it can be changed during Clement weather makeup days which we've had in the past those end days Mr chair yes ma'am um you know one of my my thoughts is about the end of the the school is if we say it's dependent on not missing any more days I know that is contingency but if teachers go ahead and make appearance and make plans then it gets reversed it's going to be really a hardship where they're just not going to show up
226so for me I think it would be prudent that we approve the April 17th and the graduation date and maybe push the other one off just a little bit to get a better feel yes ma'am but that's just I understand what you're saying making it contingent but you know why don't we look at April 4th as our as our board meeting in April and April 6th April 6 for the board meeting in April if that's three weeks away if we don't get any weather between now and then I anticipate it's not having any we won't get snow now who's saying them all could a severe thunderstorm but you know um we could make a decision you could do the other one then if that's your desire I just don't want to wait if we're going
227to do something I want to give people enough reaction time to adjust schedules if that's the if that's if we're going to make a change okay next month would be I think I can give them a heads up that it could be happening and go ahead and put a contingency plan in place at the school so if it if we if we do change that to the June 2nd being the last day of school for students so they could have a plan in place to accommodate that Mr Jerry yes Dr Wells um opportunity it sounds like is happening right now I think maybe floating around the fact that we were because of the weather or lack of weather we had these extra days and uh maybe next year if the attendance is better we could
228erase some more of those days well yeah we're based on I know we can't move the days from one year to the next however it does give you an opportunity to say hey next year if we had this many days left over it's a possibility based on attendance yes sir you know maybe more days could be it is important remember the next year we do end earlier with the with the adopted calendar we were able to end at the end of May and not go into June next year so right and that might push the Sol window and graduation a little bit so it may not be as available as all I'm saying I understand yes ma'am how does this affect teacher contract days I mean they have like 200-day contract yeah yeah they do
229have 200-day contracts and typically they do have um roughly six discretionary days what no it's probably six I may be seven in this count I could look back at that pretty quickly and tell you what's your days that they work above and beyond the contract for all the different activities that they're performing so already they're working about 193 days of that 200-day contract this this would um if you remember two of those days would still be teacher work days so there would be three days uh at the end of the year that would be basically lifted off of their 193-day contract at this point and not needing to be worked so yes that is that is something that will be given and you know for those that have been working tirelessly beyond their contract beyond
230their their regular school day throughout the year I'm sure that would be much appreciated as would the day after spring break of course the other one was converted to teacher work day for graduation so that would have no impact so you're looking at a total of four days Beyond and if you count the discretionary days because that really is work right so it is a 200-day contract if you do my actual physical attendance is 193. but I don't believe they count for their discretionary days do they they were so when they had those discretionary days in it's because they're actually working they're they're expected to be at meetings after school activities all these different things but I actually just work it's a discretionary day doesn't mean you're you're freeing off I mean they're accounted for
231by all the additional time that you put in throughout the course over the course of the year and there are many teachers probably put beyond that and this year there were four built into the calendar oh four thank you I mean we did reduce that a little bit yeah previous year so I guess I guess what I'm trying to wrap my mind around is if a teacher has used all of their discretionary days and then they get additional discretionary days versus a teacher who hasn't is there going to be Equity there for our teachers well the discretionary days are based more off of them performing the extra duties so if they come the great the evening events where you have the evening meetings early morning meetings that's how we build up the hours for the
232discretionary days parent-teacher conferences um the spring flings and those types of things that's what builds up that hour so it's not days they don't have to come to work it's just hours they put in that adds up to those additional days correct so the discretionary days are built into their contract of 200 days is that correct correct so the essence doing this would give them paying them for three contract days and they don't have to work for it okay they don't have to report that is correct but throughout the year I've you know you've been there so as we recognize and appreciate and provide those incentives to the teachers for all the hard work and also help attract others when they see the things that we do to try to support our teachers I think
233it would be beneficial in that regard so and Beyond the teachers that is that does impact others when we're off as well so that is throughout the employee population commotion that we for April 17th graduation day May 26th yes ma'am second any other discussion board all in favor post hearing none thank you and it will continue to Monitor and if it was with the Boris discretion I'll bring it back to you in April we can kind of look at the that last week of school okay thank you okay and chairman yes real quick uh earlier when Dr hodin was talking about the buses you asked about the age of the buses with the motor and transmission I reached out to Miss Campbell and I got her response back the motor uh was on a 2009
234bus and the transmission was on the 2014 bus to give you an idea on age 10 to 15 years okay and the last thing I had this was on the letter from uh I got I had from the uh Amherst County Sports Hall of Fame regarding the policy change I just think it's something I'd like for you to consider we don't need a decision you know immediate but it would require a a change or a I guess you don't need to change policy but you could do a amend a policy to our exception to policy to do that if that was so what you chose to do but right now our policy does state that in order to a facility it says a school or facility is how it's phrased that it would uh require
235the person to be deceased for 10 years before something can be named after them um obviously they're deceased 10 years they don't see the benefit of something being named after them um but that was a that's a request of the Sports Hall of Fame so I just want to bring that to your attention with what our policy currently States Dr Wells if we um made other exceptions there the only thing I know of is um when Dr Nichols was a superintendent that the area where we built the Outdoor Classroom uh he recognized Mr will and it was named after him but again I'm not sure where what the board did to do that but I know that's what I was told to name it so that's what we named it so I'm not sure if
236he got permission from the boy you know I just know that's where we are but it has been done yes so a facility structure was named after but I think it depends on what you can it's a baseball field or facility right or is it a field or it's not a building it is a space yeah and event space so I think I'll be if you have questions about that I think that might be another conversation have of Mr Right I know we're going to talk to him tomorrow about some other issues so maybe we can bring that up with him then okay what is the policy number it is policy FFA let's see if you don't have strawberries speaking of strawberries they're in the refrigerator oh really yes we have them for you then
237you have to bring my card he didn't I have them for you I must forgot all right and then the last thing uh the session dates for our proposed session the Google Docs Google forms out there if you would just please take a look at that and go in and fill out the day you feel you can be here um the dates in question are March 29th uh March 30th or April 19th or that you know so if you could just go on that Google form and Dr Miss mcnearney is going to send that to you again so it's at the top of your inbox and then you can so it's not lost and then you can go ahead and please let us know what date works for you okay and that's all I have
238thank you sir okay so moving on now to uh we'll do 14.01 and 15.01 together if we could so uh Mr Rossi would you start us off please yeah uh sure we didn't have any uh a meeting this month the stem committee um tonight we heard a lot um I'm glad the public is getting engaged and we heard a lot of commentary um I think the board's decision to review the policy and Define the policies making sure that we get it right is is very important I know when the policy was initially passed um the state sends us stuff that we have to adopt um sometimes there's not enough time to really dig into the meat of it and get all the input we need other times it's we have enough time this policy seems
239to have touched on a lot of things and I'm glad that the conversation happened and will continue to happen and we'll move forward to make the right decisions for our school and to move every child every day in the right direction you know it's you know something we had in our Retreat and we talked about you know what our goal is you know is division as as a school board and it is it still stands as every child every day so I think we take time to reflect on that anytime a policy comes up is will this benefit every child every day before that decision is made I think we'll always go in the right direction I think that's that's something that's shouldn't Ben shouldn't yield it should benefit every child every day and if
240it can't do that then maybe we need to rethink what we're doing um I mean we've got a lot of work to do ahead of us coming out of the pandemic I see you know I'm I'm very concerned with middle schools right now um the data is showing we're struggling there but we're not going in the wrong direction we're still moving forward and we're going to continue to run over hurdles and move move our division forward move our schools forward support our teachers and keep our students moving in the right direction I'm excited to hear about new construction however I think maybe instead of just the old straight Square pattern maybe we can angle that building but we'll have that discussion later we'll we'll look at some architect and curb appeal for that building um
241but yeah that's a conversation for another night but there's a lot of a lot of data thrown at us and it's good to see that and that growth in the right direction your team put together a great presentation that's that's that's good stuff and uh I think that's about it our students are now are getting excited proms coming up what's going on over there yeah wake up here yeah I think maybe uh we ought to move the student portion of the meeting earlier I I mean they do have finals coming up there's there's a lot of studying maybe some dance moves they got to pick up before prom but yeah uh it's exciting to hear from you and and all the things you're going to be giving a tour at the college all right all
242right good looking out for everybody I like that good stuff and I think that's about all I have okay thank you Miss Justice please all right thank you sir so um the I'm we met at the Governor's School this month to discuss budget there was a lot of good conversation and some Innovative thinking on how to perhaps reduce some expenses and increase some flexibility um so I really enjoyed that um tonight I really appreciate it as usual all the community involvement representing a broad spectrum of concerns I'm so thankful for everyone that showed up a particular interest to me is the um Hall of Fame request to amend the policy so that buildings or Fields could be named for those still living um sounds like we're adding that to the agenda possibly for next in
243April um greatly appreciated the suggestion from Dr Wells and Dr Norman to make IIA clearer and more user friendly guys as far as reading it and understanding and I really appreciated all the examples you put out there of how it could impact our teachers and how we could make that do what we wanted to do as a board um having heard from our bus drivers throughout the past year I'm really excited that instead of having to wait until August for a new bus due to Mr roakes Ingenuity and your team to instead have a new bus in a week I believe is that correct Dr hoden thank you that is definitely a silver lining to the saying goodbye of an old bus our student representatives were a highlight as always having a high school senior
244in my home prom and graduation are high on our radar for spring excitement community community what a delight it is to live in such a close-knit area I have enjoyed the community events Dr Wells has promoted and been able to attend my kids whenever I say oh well I have to go to a board meeting they're like are we going to play football can we eat have hamburgers I'm like ah not yet I'm gonna like when and I'm like ah I don't know so it's you know everywhere I go you can see people acclimating back to being knit together you can see hope and for our parents that are scared to send their kids back to school I really hope that they're able to continue in this healing journey of recovery after a really traumatic
245season um finally Mr chairman I'd like to suggest the formation of a standing Library committee uh surrounding area divisions have or set up that maybe that discussion could be added to our April meeting um different like Shenandoah and Bedford and even Campbell some of them what they've done is anyways I'm suggesting that for our April meeting all right thanks and finally I love reading and I'm really looking forward to reading Across America and I'm going to try to get into one of those schools to read out loud thank you Miss Berg um yes thank you I wanted to say a special thank you to glad for everything they do and supporting not only our community but our schools and well-deserved resolution for them this evening also it's always great hearing from our community members and
246what they have to say and I'm looking forward to working on improving and clarifying our opt-in policy for the community so they could comprehend exactly what it is we had meant for it to say and be more clear for everybody to understand I think it a lot of people took it the wrong way and didn't understand what we were trying to get at um also thank you to Dr Hogan for keeping our buses on the road and Scavenging parts and putting them together okay well thank you for telling us about it um also thank you to Dr Norman for putting that presentation together with all that data tonight that was really helpful I really appreciated it and I'll be looking over it again when I get home thank you to our student reps it's always
247great hearing from you guys and again you should get into radio your voice is just great he's got that cool smooth radio voice all the time um um thank you to our teachers our staff and our Administration for moving Us in the right direction with the Department of Education you know we're going the right direction we're going to have Improvement and get back on the right track and also thank you to all our Librarians and our library committee for everything they're doing right now doing the reviews thank you so much thank you Ms Berg MS liggin well I think uh we've had a good night we've had a lot of conversation and I too thank all the community people that come out to share their thoughts it helps us to make decisions we've been busy
248all week the community breakfast was a success we went to Mecklenburg one night Tuesday night and things going around a circle and we enjoyed their presentation of that CTE program down there and it's always good to see what other people are doing so I think we just been having a good time thank you Dr Norman again for the extraordinary amount of data I'm still concerned with the subgroups I've been saying that now for 24 years so I don't know what we're going to do but I did hear you say that there's some activity there to uh maybe Mr neighbor said it and you do really have to pull people out individually or cohortly or something to kind of raise that a little bit and then I was listening to the science where we are with
249science and I've heard this before and I picked out something that uh some years ago we experienced an issue with science the numbers being down because we had a sub I remember being at the table on that conversation and I said we hope that doesn't happen again and we can't do anything uh I'll always about not having a teacher in place and we're doing the best we can so G is not about you um but I'm saying that when we bring that into the conversation though that the numbers are reflecting not having a teacher or not having a stable teacher we try to keep that try not to have that happen too much I'm not sure what's going on with science not because of that but I've been hearing this whole science thing now for
250a few years you just not hear anything negative about science so I don't know if we need to have more experiments blow things up to get people's attention you know I don't know you know got to do something to get everybody interested in science again because that used to not be on the radar now nobody we're just not doing well in science a math and reading we've always did this with that but I do thank you for the growth though you know I'm not saying negative to everything I love growth but I but I am seeing some subgroups that remaining the same and I would like to see what we can do about that um and then my last thing was um thank everybody all your central office staff for everything they're doing in doe
251great report and Dr Wells now you become a real uh Community activists out there yourself you I don't know what you're going to come up with next uh you know we've had picnics and we've had dinners and we've had community breakfast so I'm waiting to see what you're going to do in the summertime maybe we're gonna have some swimming Resort thing going on I don't know but I said that to say this we thank you for all that that's it I don't Wheaton Laurel has not met so I didn't have a committee committee one thank you Ms Thompson well if it seems like everybody has said it all um I do want to take time to thank glad and all the companies that support our schools but I know that glad continues to rise to
252the top in quite a few different areas when we have a need and their partnership and everyone's partnership in our community is welcome and and needed so thank you and I appreciate you very much for the community breakfast I think it was a great idea and the fact that 60 people came I think that shows the interest and the support that we do have in our community and I apologize that I was not being able to be there as well as other events this week um I also want to thank you for the budget and your staff it was a very to me a very good budget a budget of need but you worked with folks here as well as in the county and made that a smooth transition for us as a board made
253our our life easy so thank you for that I think our students will do well with that budget I also want to thank you for the Insight of including Elin on the CIP list and hopefully be able to look at some grant funding for that they've been busting at the seams for a while and making do without classrooms so I think I think that will help them feel better I think that will help them be uh um even better at what they do um and I just want to say the data that was presented tonight in the midst of all of the different benchmarks and Hoops you have to jump through you were able to make it clear help us see how we were doing in different areas and like you there's areas of concern
254but the fact that we are moving and we are I mean I've seen you guys do your magic before so I know that you will continue to do that and I just appreciate it but I know behind those graphs um it's the collection of the data it's the administering of the test it's the teaching of the students it's pulling those small groups together it's the after school work it it is an insurmountable amount of work from teachers administrators students and parents and you guys so it's not just a number on that screen I know what's behind it so I just want to say thank you to everybody and I had forgotten about the discrepancy between graduation and accreditation and I'm glad you mentioned that because I I've been real concerned about math at the high
255school now I know why so it doesn't necessarily reflect our teaching it reflects the discrepancy there so anything that we can do to help build that back I mean someone pulls the rug out from under you we need to put that rug back under there somehow so I just want to say thank you and Fatima and Evan thank you for being patient and dealing with us tonight it's always good to see your smiling faces even though I know you're tired because your day starts early um for uh what someone suggested maybe we need to bump you up a little bit so you can slip out towards the end but thank you for being here and that's all thank you Miss Thompson so um I'd like to start off with um just reminding the community recently
256there was a young 12 year old daughter a 12 year old girl who was shot in Lynchburg she was a student at Lynchburg City Schools she was a student of Amherst County Schools before she was in Lynchburg so um you know our thoughts and prayers go out to their family and her teachers her previous classmates so I'd like everybody to keep those families in your prayers um I'd also like to create a reiterate you know thanks for glad and Clorox or glad Clorox wherever they are now that you know for all that they do they I mean it's it's great to have a company that's uh of that size that close making that much of a difference so uh it's great to see that kind of support um and thanks for the people who came
257to speak tonight we do plan to readdress the policy get some I'll say better information out there will be a survey for Community input um we ask the community to show up and take the survey tell us what you think um yeah and when it comes to speaking of community um when we hired Dr Wells we put out a survey asking people one of the things that they wanted to see in a superintendent and one of the biggest things we got is we wanted somebody who would um unite the schools with the community and I think a lot of these breakfasts the tailgates the things that we've had going on they definitely do that that's that's part of showing up Amherst so they show up for us we need to show up for them so
258and we you know we tell them to come to our stuff we got to go upstairs too so we just we just remind people of that but part of that also is making sure your kids show up at school I don't think we'll say that enough Miss Patron if I'd say it too much just let me know okay okay um but um and you know there was a there was a question earlier tonight about you know what time we have our meetings um I know I can speak for myself a lot of times I leave work come straight here and uh you know eat dinner at 10 o'clock at night so uh um I wish we could have a maybe more convenient time but I don't really know when that would be so uh the
259uh I'm looking forward to the musical um if you've never been to any of the musicals or the plays or whatever they put on uh you have definitely missed out they are they're always you'll never walk away and go Darren that was no good it's they're always great so uh I look forward to coming to the high school and seeing those and uh if you're any kind of sports fanatic there's always a sporting event going on so please come out and see them uh support them all and um I hope we can work out something for the baseball field um I think it's um I think it would be greatly appreciated and uh so and with that um I really hope we can do something with with Elon um they've had they've been busting at
260the seams for quite a while and it would be great to to see that come to fruition so um with that that's about all I've got so thank you guys for everything okay next anyone might need a motion make a motion that we adjourn second all in favor all right thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music]