ACPS Regular School Board Meeting - Thursday, January 12, 2023

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002you [Music] Thursday January 12th for the jam and for the January school board meeting this is the monthly reorganized the board so I'll be taking the starting off the meeting now behind over to the board chair once we get started before we go into the moment of silence I do want to take a moment to talk about some of our students that were uh we lost two students that have been identified in the accident in Nelson County and rock fish River so we want to keep them and their families and friends and our thoughts and prayers as we move forward we also have an additional student at Amherst County high school that is still listed as missing and that body has not been found so we want to again keep those individuals in our thoughts

003as we move forward I also ask that we keep the staff of the high school and Amherst Middle School as well as the rest of the staff in the county and our thoughts as well as we move forward because not only does it impact the families and friends it also impacts our staff and uh we try to build those close relationships and when we lose students it definitely impacts not only the students but our staff as well so as we go into the moment of silence I ask that we all keep those in our thoughts and prayers moving forward so let's now rise to another thousand Pledge of Allegiance please foreign so first I need a motion to approve the agenda so moved Mr Mr Grazer is there a second second all in favor aye

004aye any opposed all right we have an agenda uh item 2.01 is elected chairman so we need to select a board chair Dr Wells and board members I would like to nominate um Mr Chris Terry as the next chair of the animals County Public School Board second all right anyone else okay all in favor any opposed all right Mr Terry congratulations thank you I'll hand you the gavel [Applause] thank you sir I mean Coke yeah we need to swap your name plates too Go Juice all kind of stuff come with a lot of bags okay I think we've moved all of our baggage so moving on to 2.02 we need to now elect a vice chair and I would like to nominate Miss Abby Thompson second any discussion okay uh all in favor aye aye

005anyone opposed all right Miss Thompson congratulations thank you congratulations [Applause] so moving on to 3.01 Dr Wells you have a recognition for us yes I want to come up there go back and talk enough teacher of the year and support staff of the year and so we have a selection committee every year that looks at numerous criteria in evaluating the nominees to determine these recipients and their recognition these Educators represent tremendous leadership passion and dedication to their respective positions and so we're going to recognize them this evening first I want to start with Miss Allison Ashton would you please come forward read a little bit of a bio here so miss Ashton's been educated for the past 19 years teaching to Elementary Middle School levels she is currently teaching math at manelsa Middle School additionally

006Miss Ashton has a strong background in stem and it's currently teaching robotics to students in grades 6 through 8. she currently serves on the Nelson leadership team the atss team and the sixth grade leader and the sixth grade team leader Mr Ryan white principal man Allison stated everything Mr Ashton does as student focused and she measures her success by the success of her students as Katie Wood Assistant Principal of the Nelson stated Miss Ashton where it's hard to get the students excited about math and Robotics while helping them overcome everyday roadblocks they may have she understands that relationships and communication are among the keys to each student's success so let's ask we want to thank you for all you do for Amherst County Public Schools and your students foreign Alexander would you mind coming forward

007Miss Alexander has served in the role of instructional assistant at Amherst education center for the past nine years and has a total of 25 years experience in education Mr Ernest pen administrator of Amherst Education Center State at Ms Alexander's positive and uplifting attitude is a tremendous asset to our school and the lives of our students and she has great passion for making a difference in the students lives her colleagues know characteristics as Fitness Alexander apart as empathy and understanding kind and caring personality willingness to always Step Up and her encouragement and compassion for her students Ms Alexander we thank you for your [Applause] um episode congratulations congratulations [Applause] foreign will be submitted to the state for the state teacher of the year it's all right thank you Dr Wells thank you so moving on to

0084.01 public comments and right now I see we have one person signed up for public comments so miss Kathleen IL are you okay foreign my name is Kathleen ayal and I am the current English department chair at Amherst County High School I have 37 years of teaching experience 28 of those have been at Amherst County High School on behalf of the English Department I'm sharing concerns over two issues the opt-in for sexually explicit explicit materials and the recent challenges to numerous books in our high school's library first the opt-in policy for sexually explicit material we believe that this new policy is a distraction and a non-issue I can say with reasonable confidence that no English teacher is currently or has recently taught any sexually explicit material in the English Department we are trained professionals who

009choose materials wisely and would like to be respected and trusted as such we are cognizant of the fact that we are teaching minors and we do not seek to teach salacious or lewd materials second we believe that the opt-in policy is misguided if there must be a policy it should be an opt out policy which many of us have voluntarily used throughout the years for material that we'd deem might be sensitive an opt-in policy places a huge burden on teachers to send out and collect forms that will end up being lost or not given to parents teachers will have to spend time we do not have to try to collect these forms phone calls emails resending forms tabulating responses then we will have to research and gather alternative resources for those who have not returned

010the forms this opens up another array of problems what if we do not have enough alternate resources what if we are competing with another teacher for those alternative resources what we do is students who cannot participate in the discussion the rest of the class is having where will they go and who will monitor them and are you willing to pay us to develop and grade two sets of lessons because that is the reality of what teachers would have to do in order to avoid this hassle some teachers may elect to Simply avoid the headache and just teach strictly through the textbook which is currently a good 20 years old and losing relevance by the minute third The English Department finds a dismaying and puzzling that we were never consulted about a policy change that affects

011us intimately with our many years of teaching experience we could have explained the effects this policy change will have on teachers students parents and curriculum we feel discredited and distrusted by the school board we request that the school board change this new policy to an opt-out policy parents who are concerned about sexually explicit material will be attentive to form sent home about this issue and will be sure to send them back creating plans for one or two students who have opted out is much more manageable for all concern than creating plans for 15 20 25 students who simply would not return a form my final concern relates to library book challenges there are currently 11 books being challenged in our library and I understand there may be more coming let's have faith in our Librarians

012they are degreed professionals with many years experience they do not make decisions in a vacuum they research titles read reviews and follow what other schools are adding to their libraries they have an obligation to meet the needs and interests of a desert diverse student population the review process takes up an enormous amount of time that could be much better spent on truly urgent needs may I finished I have like five lines closing the learning loss due to covid improving student attendance and engagement which are truly troubling issues and continuing to ensure school safety when I think of the pressing needs within our schools I do not believe that the countless hours it will take my principal and other staff to review these books is worth it I'm really asking for a reality check here thank

013you into missile so those that's the only name we had on the list is there anyone else who would like to address the board sir please state your name and address and affiliation with school good evening I'm Dr Toby Braden Johnson um while a resident of Lynchburg this is my first year on staff with achs um and I too would like to address both the opt-in policy and the library policy is they do go hand in hand on this and they build off of something that's really troubling and concerning because of one of the things that brought me to achs in the Dr Mr Crawford and I spoke of in my interview here in the idea of moving achs to a program that truly prepares students as we say um cultivate excellence in every child

014every day towards a broader scope of the humanities and wider cultural education and understanding in that manner an opt-in program is unnecessary all parents and Guardians have given tacit if not explicit approval to the staff and administration of acps to determine specific curricula for all courses by enrolling in those programs to allow so-called concerned adults to remove students from certain part of a planned course of study by choosing not to opt in undermines the educational goals and objectives of that program students cannot be assured that all elements of the program are available in alternative models that receive secondary if not tertiary or Worse attention of an instructor already dealing with numerous lesson plans acps's places trust and instructors to craft appropriate and diligent learning programs for students in accordance with vdoe structures and guidelines to

015make parts of that program of study optional undermines the validity of acps's vision to cultivate excellence in every child every day because not all students would be participating in those activities now most of the attempts to seeking to remove a text from either the library or course a program due to the presence of a few or far more likely a singular instance that is deemed inappropriate that's we're confronted with the situation seeking to throw the baby out with the bathwater as the old saying goes explicit scenes of sexual violence are often critical moments and narratives that speak seek to expose the histories of violence and oppression we could just reference Virginians recent objections to Tori Tony Morrison's beloved yet these efforts do not seek to parse the books into what is good or what deserves

016more delicate attention by trained Scholars and instructors who are able to discuss the intricacies of these scenes and their implications rather such objections to explicit material call for the removal of the entire work and forbid teachers from discussing such and no pun intended here seminal works removing valued narratives due to one troubling scene would lead us on a troubling path where classic Works would be objected to for similar reasons and possibly foremost of concern would be the any mention of the Bible which much of Western literature eludes pursue it's Rife with stories and depictions that when taken in isolation would actually draw higher here but as noted above the biblical text taken as a whole is deemed to have serious literary and artistic value as it's been noted for inclusion in many VOD curriculum descriptions

017so too or the other materials chosen for our classes in Alliance with the or in compliance with video structuring pacing guides material and curriculum so what I would ask of the board and these are my recommendations and follow with Miss IO affirm The Faculty input in curriculum decisions as we have you know quite a few years of experience doing this we respect the faculty expertise I have I have two recommendations and it's two sentences may I continue please please do thank you number two respect faculty expertise to make these decisions and three please revisit the opt-in policy as well as the language describing these sexually explicit materials I thank you for your time thank you sir anyone else wishing to address the board them okay thank you hello my name is Cheryl Fales I am

018the aea President of Amherst County I also work at Amherst County high school and have been serving this community in that position the teaching position for at least 20 years I am here in support of course of our English Department our teachers our administrators who also worked diligently on trying to draft or create a policy right now one uh I guess it's IIA that relates to the video code 22 0.16.8 I understand that you had time constraints and you had to create a policy and put it on the books by January 1st 2023 which just passed what I am asking is that we do revisit some of the language in that policy IIA because we do believe that some of the language may be ambiguous when our community reads it we understand that code is

019addressing sexually explicit material I will reiterate we do not have any teachers at the high school level that are teaching sexually explicit material or including sexually explicit material in the novels and the books that they are choosing so again recommendation is to revisit IIA look at the language again we have read the vdoe guidelines as well we do believe that there's ambiguous language the other piece of this is we endorse the opt-out policy the opt-in policy I think both both of your speakers earlier gave good cause to revisit that as well so what's the difference between opt-in and opt down opt-in I understand is specific to sexually explicit material opt out covers every child every day as you know most recently we have suffered a loss and that loss has hit home to me my

020voice will probably shake at this point I am going through a grieving process my students are going through a grieving process with opt out if we have a book that we're reading that touches on subjects that perhaps families are going through trauma or they've lost a loved one it's much broader of a policy from our perspective and from our point of view um so that's one of the things that the English teacher shared with me too we believe that opt out again reaches every child every day it's not just about sexually explicit it's about whether or not they're grieving or if they have a religious objecting so again I ask you to support our teachers between the English Department and the history Department we have 318 years of experience we have one PhD we have

021a postgraduate candidate we have 14 Master degrees and five BAS so please consider our expertise and revisit this policy with our Administration with teacher voice I thank you so much thank you anyone else would like to approach the board seeing none we'll move on uh 5.01 that's where we are right 5.01 yep yes that's you yes okay so under 5.01 we have the pointing of the clerk and Deputy Clerk on a through G I believe y'all can pass those all in one Motion versus having to vote independently on that so that'll be my request if y'all could just approve those uh SAR versus having to vote independently um board you see the the list that's in front of us um any objection to any of it chair move we approve are the items in 5.01

022as presented a second okay we have a motion and a second any discussion hearing none all in favor aye anyone opposed none all right thank you again tomorrow all right and then 5.02 representatives and representative and alternate alternate to the Laurel regional board okay and last year Miss ligand was the representative and Miss Justice we'll see alternate okay Mr chair I'd like to nominate Priscilla liggin as the representative for Laurel okay thank you um there's a motion second any discussion all in favor aye anyone opposed congratulations Ms liggin congratulations now you need to have an alternate oh okay um yes I'd like to nominate Don Justice okay alternate if I hear a second second you have a second any discussion all in favor uh aye and you want to post okay congratulations Miss Justice okay

0235.03 is a delegate for the vsba Legend Miss Logan last year Miss liggin was the representative and Ms Thompson was the alternate okay do I hear any motion Mr chair I'd like to dominate Priscilla legan there have a motion you have a second any discussion uh all in favor aye anyone opposed hearing none all right congratulations Ms lady thank you now we need an alternate now we need an alternate anyone make a window again can I do it I'm happy to do it okay I'd like to make a motion that we nominate Miss Thompson to be alternate second okay there's a motion and a second any discussion all in favor aye aye anyone opposed all right nope thank you congratulations 5.04 appointed representative and I'll turn alternate to the Central Virginia Governor's School governing body

024last year Mr Grazer was the representative and Ms Berg was the alternate okay there's a motion do I hear a second second any discussion all in favor aye anyone opposed okay hearing none and they would need an alternate okay John foreign okay you want to do it okay I make a motion that uh we appoint Mrs Thompson as the alternate second any discussion all in favor aye anyone opposed hearing none okay thank you congratulations and next we have appointed representative and Alternate to the regional STEM Academy and this past year Mr Terry was the representative and Miss barragilisti alternate Mr chairman I nominate Erica Rossi Houston representative second that second any discussion all in favor aye anyone opposed hearing none congratulations sir all right and then we need to alternate now we need an alternate

025okay how many Ginger cancer since Miss Berg's not here you can throw her in a hot seat if you want me to let me know Mr chair I'll nominate Miss bird yeah second is this for the alternate right or Jordan yeah it is alternate yeah okay okay so we have a motion and a second any discussion all in favor uh anyone opposed okay thank you yep so moving on to is that all of them right okay 6.01 um agenda item so say statistic consent agenda Okay so so you need a motion to approve the consent agenda Mr chair I've moved that we approved the consent agenda is presented thank you no motion on a second all in favor aye aye anyone opposed no okay All Right Moving On never enter administrators 7.01 all right Dr

026Hood Mr chair members of the board our first item here is a construction update this week we met with CRA uh to talk about the updated plans about the project tomorrow we're meeting with the cafeteria to discuss that plan and also the hardware and Mr Brooks is going to give you the new project schedule for bid Etc so as Dr Hooten mentioned we continue to or the architect rather continues to work on the drawings and have our regular meetings to updating us as far as what it's going to look like in in some amount of tweaks they've made to it as far as our schedule goes the bid will go out sometime hopefully early February and we'll give them the contractor's time to to respond back to that we have hope to have a bed

027opening sometime in the March April time frame and from there we'll have a contract processing in the April May time frame and then from there we go to hopefully mobilization sometime in May and June probably realistically June immobilization me will mean moving dirt so from that aspect it'll be approximately 18 months from there so we're looking anticipating somewhere by December of 24 to have the project complete and again that will be strictly the auditorium aspect in the cafeteria in that aspect it does not include the field house or anything with the the stadium at this point so we're strictly focusing on on the main part of the building at this time any questions yes sir I got a is when you say 18 months is that 18 months to get it completed or 18 months

028for the show 18 months completed from the time we start breaking ground will be complete and a lot of that is dictated by the extra funds as well and you know the grant is that we secured for this okay thank you weather could also play a factor in that but we're hoping 18 months is realistic okay thank you any other questions Mr chair sure Mr Austin uh have we gotten uh any of our quotes back yet are we seeing the inflation Factor yet or no delays that will not go out until February so as we were uh in our meeting this week with Josh uh he informed us that prices have stabilized as a term that he used right thank you they did feel it has some Confederate local uh some local contractors would have

029some competitive very competitive bids because some of them really want to bid on this project so we're hoping to be very self-competitive bids in there that we can they'll want to they'll want our business I hope so maybe get us something to help us out a little bit okay thank you next item is just a quick reminder that our discipline board will change so Ms Thompson Miss Lakin and Miss Justice will be on that and I anticipate our first case would likely be Thursday January 26th but we will notify you of that questions on that and lastly the special election was held this past Tuesday at Amherst elementary amalon elementary Central Elementary Elon Elementary and Temperance Elementary the voters were only able to access the gym we did not have any issues reported other than

030maybe a little bit of traffic during the arrival and dismissal I think the the turnout was was pretty low so we did not have any issues with that thank you sir and then 7.02 you have in front of you the suspension report for December Ford have any questions for Dr hodden Mr chairman I actually can't access any of my Docs can I get some help thank you work okay do you want to move on okay okay all right thank you moving on to 8.01 so next we have finance and missile economics okay good evening Mr Chan the Child Nutrition operational budgets I've provided you the standard reports the revenue and expenditures your local Revenue as well as the enrollment since I have two items tonight and the second is an update on the current year

031Revenue I was going to focus on the expenditure and direct you to the expenditure object code summary I always like to point out things that may come into question on page one under the bonus you will see that look it's showing a deficit of 596 000 and 30 dollars um this is the bonuses it's funded through two different Federal sources it was going to be that pandemic Leaf bonus payment with any non-soq going into cares three just logistically for the timing of wanting to get the bonuses to our staff before the holidays and because mostly most of the time your bonuses are coming out of the operating budget with the schools and the county having it set up that way it was more efficient to do it that way and we are in the we

032are in the process right now of transferring it to the appropriate each of the two appropriate funding sources so that will actually come off next month and you will see it under the cares item um on page two I'm going to always talk about the utilities I'm going to always talk about the fuel because those are the things that are really impacting our budget this year and we I'm sure will be something we're discussing in the budget process for next year um the electricity I will want to just point out that we have not changed the purchase order which is the encumbrance amount but after getting our January bill which was for the December it had gone up 39 over what we were charged in November and I know there's usage differences we compared it

033also to the December of 2021 and it's up 26 percent so we're going to get another bill we're going to adjust that so while this is what we're we're showing today and that's what's in our system we do anticipate that electricity to go over we will also look at the water and heat and do the same thing and just update it as for the fuel which is also it's at the bottom of page two we have not adjusted that purchase order either and currently that is what is allocated for about 10 more loads of fuel at about four dollars and 20 cents a gallon and right now it's it's trending lower but we all know it's been a roller coaster so we're going to monitor that so I'm going to pause do you have any

034questions on these reports Gordon John care the waste and water services did you touch that the one at the negative 181 is that this is going to be your water and your trash pickup and when when you pass the budget it's actually a one line item and it just gets allocated to those three areas and unfortunately this year there's really no allocation that's going to cover those so we're going to address that in the budget when we bring that to you next month anyone else on the board okay so 8.02 is so we always look forward to December 16th when we get the around that area when we get the new comp tool from the state it helps us with the budget process for next year it also provides an update to it because it's

035a two-year budget it impacts your current year as well as a future year so with the December 16th cup tool there was an Upstate to the sales the sales tax and Lottery Revenue projections it was also an update based on recent enrollment projections and program participations and while we're bringing this to you it is something that we have been monitoring on a monthly basis it's one of the reasons why the enrollment numbers are put under the finance section because your enrollment does impact your funding sources so we want to just point out that at the projection our budget is built on 38.38 and it was updated to be 37.71 10. so it's a reduction of 66.9 students so we are looking at a revenue um shortage reduction of about 522 thousand dollars so we did

036want to bring that to you it is something we have been monitoring our final 80 that our funding is based off is our March 31st ADM but we don't want to wait till March to come up with a plan and we have been in those discussions and I've we're anticipating your second guess is going to be your next question is going to be how you plan on covering it so we are looking at we looked at our local budget for the maintenance projects and there was one school that was slated to get painted and we were proposing to push that off and that was about 145 000 we do still have a second school bus that we may not even be able to get in this year anyway because of the delay but we would

037have that as something that we could push off if we need to with our budget being 83 Personnel we will definitely look at any vacancies or any savings we have in those areas for the remainder again not touching the things that we have said with the bus driver vacancies covering any fuel and the custodial covering any electrical okay any questions from the board I have one question um our the money allocated for full-time employees are those all filled I don't think they are yeah okay um how much is that amount of money do we know um I mean it's it's on your optic code summary you'll see those available balances and a lot of that is coming from your any salary if someone left and someone came in that made less money or you had

038vacancies that haven't been filled so if you're on on the object code page the second to last column you'll see available balances and it's categorized by the object code which is the 1000s are your personnel costs and we have it by board salaries your administrative your teachers so you'll see that there are some Savings in that area we would not look at you know when we look at substitutes it's not encumbered so we would not really want to spend that because we still have half a year to go but the good thing with when you look at this report the administrative teacher salaries it is encumbered for their contracts so our current staff is covered so we will look at that excess and then we also have to look to see are we going to

039be filling those vacancies because we don't want to consider this money is something that can cover this revenue shortfall and then we hire that position so but we're we're we have been watching it we were hoping that when the capital came out perhaps there would be some enrollment loss funding that was not in okay Mr chair yes yes sir the um allocated funds for the school that's slated for painting is that one of our regular scheduled maintenance yes that's in our uh we budgeted it for that this year okay but looking at we had it has not occurred yet obviously but looking at where we are right now and the school we feel we want to hold off on that until we know exactly where we are at the end of the year all right

040so when we allocate funds for that we we did an estimate and do we receive an outside contract for that or we haven't gone to bid yet we have an estimate from the painters and they we use that as our estimate to drive the in their budget from last year the numbers okay but we haven't gone to bid so we just have a rough we have what we anticipate that the project costing that's what we budgeted okay but that money has not been spent no and neither has the money for the bus we have not received yet now we haven't we have not um even issued a purchase order for it we are planning on issuing that purchase order just because of the delay and timing of getting the buses but be but we can

041always push that off if needed and receive it out of next year's budget and that's that new bus is that an electric bus or is that just another standard standard bus to increase the well to retire another buses right is that what we're looking at yes sir and will we recoup anything from the sale of that older bus we will get some money back from the sale but it goes through the auction process and and so therefore does it have to go through auction or it will be minimal maybe two thousand dollars that we would get back from an auction of an older bus and I was just wanting more creative ways of uh painting a school and if maybe a community outreach and volunteers and we could save money by having volunteers or instead

042of hiring a painting crew possibly if the maintenance department would supervise uh attempt staff to come in and paint might be more cost effective in the long run just more creative ways and we can say you know I've been in a few of the schools and and some of them really need some pain and it can uplift Spirits believe it or not and I really don't want to try to postpone it anymore okay so maybe look at some more creative ways of uh trying to get some paint on the walls be some color on the walls okay anyone else on the board okay hearing none thank you Mr Carnage moving on to 9.01 Dr Norman the floor is yours thank you very much Mr chair and members of the board um the first thing I'd

043like to allow to happen tonight is Mr Maddox but if I can give you a little bit of some background on this about six years ago I believe I stole Mr Maddox from Dr Wells from the high school and brought him up to the school board office because we needed to focus on um Future Ready students kids who may wanted to do an associate track they wanted to get their hands wet on multiple areas to find out what they wanted to do in life weren't really ready to make a decision and he oversaw the CTE program at the high school but based on legislation CTE then was pushed down all the way to the elementary school school so we needed a division person and the idea is that he has brought to the table in

044regards to what we do for our students K through 12 for Career and Technical education has been phenomenal and so thank you for that Mr Maddox the bus that he's going to talk to you about came out of that initial meeting where I said yeah I really need you at the school board office to oversee the whole program and he says well I got an idea and so Mr Maddox ideas coming to fruition after six years and we I certainly think it's going to be an excellent idea so I'd like to turn it over to Mr Maddox so he can explain to you this wonderful wonderful project that he's got going thank you thank you doc Norman uh I hope you all got a chance to see the bus outside we just got it back

045from Sunny Maryland today with the outside paint with the uh the wrap and the the Amherst Express for career awareness so you know what we're hoping we had some Young Folks up here tonight and all of the different modules and the different equipment that we're going to have on the bus you could see the excitement and that's what we hope to do with the bus as we take it out to our elementary schools is to get that ex the students excited about something and start talking about careers and then start working with their parents and get them excited about things and it was really great tonight when we had the the folks in there and they were just oh look at this you know this is wonderful and I it just I mean that's that's

046the real and that's what we want to do with the bus that's the reaction building excitement we're going to have not only the equipment that you see out here tonight which is the robots and the virtual welding and of course the 3dz space but we're also going to have some CNC machines on the bus we have the drones that we're going to have on the bus we have some electrical training and some circuits that we're going to put on the bus to for students to to gain access to to run in electrical wires and and things like that so I can only see the uh the potential and some of the things growing and we really were trying to concentrate on the areas that our Workforce need right here in our local local manufacturer and

047local construction and of course Health Sciences so um we're excited and just look forward to to getting the bus we're going to we're starting on the inside now so we're we're going to get that get that rolling so we can actually take it out to elementary schools and and it'll be a mobile lab available to to set for those schools so teachers will sign up and bring their students but uh but again we're we're excited so it's taken a while any questions and regarding it forward you got any questions Mr Maddox I do have to say you brought the best toys tonight so uh thank you I'd like to throw back to the early 90s uh Amherst football team with the dancers yesterday get on the express the career Express hear the train whistles of

048the game we're getting a whistle just saying and also we want to thank the Education Foundation for providing some grant money for this uh as well and they're able to help support something some of the costs Thompson here just a quick follow-up question I loved the display tonight and all of the I think you called them toys but I know that they're really not toys um you mentioned that you would be doing the bus on the elementary Futures night can you remind me on what is that March Are there specific dates um Miss Smith first we can email that out to you yes okay thank you yeah each Elementary School will have their own night we'll send those out that'd be great because I think just a step in the the right direction yes ma'am

049okay next on the agenda I'd like to give you an update in regards to our accreditation and academic review and monitoring process and the first thing I'd want to say wholeheartedly is how proud I am of our instructional staff our administrators and our teachers the work that they have put in right now to date has been unprecedented the things that we have asked people to do they have willingly put forth the effort to make any numerous changes that would impact kids and the moment that you say here's the benefits that's going to happen with the children in our division it's an instant yes what do you need me to do we've had tons of of teachers just have ideas and contact us and really put forth an effort into making sure that we are closing

050the learning gaps making up for learning loss and really getting on a path of where we need to be not just with the state but what's in the best interest of children in Amherst County and I just want to say a big thank you to all of those that have been involved in it it's been an amazing process that we've done we are not finished yet we have a lot to do but I'd like I'm required to give the board an update in regards to our academic review and monitoring process and I've asked my staff to help me with this but I'd like we have a PowerPoint presentation and you can go to the second slide you I'd like to go ahead and discuss with you what is in board docs just so you have

051that a knowledge of what is available to you the first thing is a actual um academic review at a glance it's a one-pager that tells you from the state exactly what we're required to do and exactly why we're required to do it so it's very specific that's in there for you just to kind of it's the who what when where and why we do what we do and that's for you to take a look at there's also a memo that is available that gives specific information that we're going to talk about tonight and some very um school specific information regarding each academic review and monitoring along with that is available to the public along with that in the administrative content you have as board members all of the reports that are required to go to

052the state and that we were required to fill out for each of the schools there is very specific Personnel teacher lessons all types of information in that document that is confidential we have to keep that confidential so you have that available to you as a board member for you to review if you have any questions in regards to that please make sure if it's teacher specific or anything like that that you keep Mr Gallagher in the loop because that is a Personnel matter that you would have to go through him in regards to that um so that's information that you have in in there you also have this PowerPoint that gives you all the information that you were going to provide to you tonight the next uh slide is just a reminder we brought to

053you in September all of the information that we were provided from the state in regards to the accreditation for each School in the division then we provided you information on what was required for each School and this is the level of status that we have for each of the schools that are under academic review and monitoring and what their designation is and so for each of those five schools that we have whether or not we went in until the full academic review whether we did a monitoring or whether we had to do both and that's just for you to refer to in regards to the content based on each school and what that looks like for achievement gaps okay the next slide is again just a reminder we gave you a lot of information in

054September and I don't expect you to remember it all so we're just trying to lay some foundational stuff for you this is where we actually are at the beginning of the school year and I wanted to remind you that if we used current year okay so right now we have schools accredited all of our schools are accredited but there are different varying levels but if we used current information or current scores none of our schools would have met the benchmarks for accreditation based on where we dropped and during the pandemic and so the process that we are required to use for our specific struggling schools that have already been identified from the state we are using that with all of our schools just to make sure everyone has the information what is good for one

055group of students at one school is good for another group of students at another school and we wanted to make sure that administrators in every building gets the information from the state that they have the same process maybe not as intense trust me not as intense but the same process so they get all of the tools all of the professional development all of the instructional materials and everything we provide that to them in the principals meeting each month we're required to go through training with our administrators of those five schools but we give the training to all of our administrators and we follow up with our assistant principals at their quarterly assistant principles meeting the next slide is the required actions that we provided to you in September as to what we were required to

056do for the Virginia Department of Education to meet their stipulations we have accomplished all of them except for three and we are in the process of those three two are ongoing they started at the beginning of the year actually they started in July and they will go all the way through to the end of the year when Dr Wells signs off on all of this to the state and then there's one at the at the very end where we as a division have to have a office of school quality review that we must go through at the end we've already done our fall review as a division where they've met with Dr Wells and myself and members of the staff and gave us recommendations and then we will do that again at the very end

057of the year okay any questions so far on just the background information of what led us to where we are okay I would like to turn it over to miss Robin wheeler who oversees our school improvement process and title one for our schools and she's going to talk to you about the mechanism that we use specific plans and so the comprehensive needs assessment is the first step that we use division wide in establishing those plans so each school with the support of their school leadership team went through a comprehensive needs assessment to really take a deep dive into all of the data sources that they have Sol assessments Pals assessments attendance data discipline data graduation rates anything that you could think of to really determine what the areas of support or where those areas of

058support were and that information then was put into the state required comprehensive School Improvement plan and so the state of Virginia requires that schools have this Improvement plan as the mechanism to kind of track progress and establish those goals that csip was developed after the CNA with the leadership team that plan is developed to last multiple years we don't expect that we put a goal in place and that we automatically meet that goal it definitely is a progress and so we uh monitored those goals that we put in place over those years and again that csip is developed based on what that CNA has told us um that csip also includes the findings from the academic review that Miss Cecil will talk to you a little bit later about we asked that leadership teams through

059their CNA process establish goals but then through the academic review process go back and meet some of the recommendations that the team has provided as well um the cset process also includes a rubric that we use at the division level to support administrators and Leadership teams I'm in evaluating the comprehensive School Improvement plan looking at those goals looking at the steps that are put in place and then help to monitor that again through the leadership team and at the division level making revisions is needed monitoring progress collecting data and that kind of thing so I'll talk a little bit more on the next slide about the comprehensive needs assessment as I said it really does help for the administrator and the school leadership team to go through a systematic review process looking at that data

060looking at Trends over the last three years even with some of that data to really help prioritize and set a focus in that csip and really lays the foundation for continuous Improvement cycle because we know that Improvement is ongoing and we can't meet it in that first Fell Swoop the next slide really shows an example of what the comprehensive School Improvement plan looks like this was the template used by all of our schools when they're created their csips at the top there is a smart goal for the overall Focus area and that is measurable it is time bound as I mentioned typically we did them for a two-year some moving as far as three years as far as their goals and then the csip plan template also asks that leadership teams think about essential actions

061evidence-based strategies that the team can put into place that they can monitor and then really prioritize honestly in a timeline for how those steps will be taken in order to meet that goal and again just outlining evidence as Miss Cecil will talk about through the academic review administrators are collecting evidence to show the progress of these action steps that they're putting into place to make sure that they're going to go back and meet that smart goal that they've set up um we started this process on the next slide with a opportunity to meet with the office of school quality and their school Improvement team who really worked with the division to look at the data that we had offers some commendations as well as some recommendations of what we at the division level needed to

062do in order to support our schools to go through this improvement process and as you can see on the slide the majority of the action steps provided to us from the osq office of school quality were specific to supporting alignment of that talk tested and written curriculum so Mrs Cecil is now going to talk to you about the monitoring progress that we used here in the division thank you Miss wheeler so I'm actually going to skip to the next slide first and I'll come back I promise um so after the CNA is developed and the development of the csip schools and the division is required to monitor for implementation and impact and so evidence that supports that the processes that are outlined in the csip they're continuously reviewed and evaluated to determine if those processes

063have been supporting or not supporting student outcomes then as Miss wheeler stated csips are revised and updated as necessary and then back to the following slide um oops um the division is also required to conduct a division academic reviews for schools with level two School quality indicators in English and math or science as well as any schools with any level three School quality indicators and those were the schools that Dr Norman shared at the beginning of the presentation and so in order to complete this process a division academic review team is and has been established and the AC acps members of this team includes our assistant superintendent our chief student service officer our supervisor of literacy our supervisor of math and science the school building principal and their division liaison and division level representative in

064the area of English language Learners and counseling and just as a reminder each school is assigned a School Division liaison in this liaison they do attend leadership and faculty meetings to support the ongoing process of the csip and to monitor the actions and strategies that are outlined in there and so um the monitoring process this this slide just gives you some specific checkpoints for csip monitoring and academic review and as we previously talked about we did conduct csip reviews in the fall to ensure that those key components and processes were noted in there as identified from their CNA or their comprehensive needs assessment and so by conducting division instructional rounds the division team was able to collect some baseline information regarding instructional alignment and student engagement and they're able to use that data to support

065and then evaluate the implementation and impact of those fall csip goals so in the winter division LED reviews we use some specific components provided by the vdoe academic toolkit which Mr Nabors is going to speak with you about and these tools include a set of criteria that represent best practices and so the academic team then reviews um this evidence and identifies areas of strengths or areas for improvement and then these essential actions are then included in the comprehensive pilling and updated and so now I'm going to pass it over to Mr Nabors who will dig a Little Deeper good to see something good evening Mr chair members of the board so what is the academic review process look like what are we using there are two tools that are required by the state for all

066schools for which we have to conduct an academic review or academic monitoring and what we have up here for you is an example of those also the packet that you've been provided that Dr Norman spoke about earlier specific to each school for which they were completed but just giving you a visual of how these are set up and what the state has given to us to look at it does provide some examples so thinking about what is our evidence going to be what are we actually pulling and looking at to make sure we're making the progress we're meeting the criteria set forward by the state it's always helpful to have what some of those examples are the body of the document itself takes you through not just the category but also very specific criteria set

067forward by the state what does it mean to be moving towards that full implementation be where we need to be in these particular categories of the state has identified within that evidence column we're actually pulling physical documentation so quite literally documents presentations that have been made to the staff in some situations purchase orders about technology that's been purchased for the school anything that we can pull that's existing that gives evidence that we are doing these things we're meeting this criteria set forward by the state we do provide a rating for each criteria area and there's a definition kind of outline of what that rating looks like there at the top and then we have the ability to comment so provide some narrative to that evidence all these documents that are listed here at hyperlinked in

068the document what does that actually mean what is the school doing to meet this criteria that's been set forward by the state it's a simplistic looking document and even when you're looking at what we have there in the very simple way that we've listed out that evidence it looks like a very simple piece it represents a tremendous amount of work on the part of staff and buildings the administration in buildings and it is amazing and commendable going through this process how much evidence there is of all of the things that the state expects us to do at each of these schools so I did feel like that was worth repeating accommodation there for staff and administration there's just a tremendous amount of work going on in each school but it's amazing to see the evidence

069of all the things that are done for our students on a day-to-day basis what we wanted to do for you is drill down even a little bit further uh give you a snapshot of our most comprehensive academic review that we conducted at Amherst County High School you will notice there are six snapshots on this slide because we went well beyond the required two how to complete all six for Amherst County High School Mr Crawford was kind enough to give us an entire day of his time staff from the division as well as staff there at Amherst County High School we're in and out of the meeting over the course of the day it was so intense that I actually fell out of my chair at one point so it was really quite a quite a

070serious process that we were engaged with there a lot of the evidence that we were pulling from again the Cecil mentioned this earlier based on those instructional rounds that were conducted and evidence that's been created and collected over the course of the school year by staff and administration the six tools are listed there and they really touch on every single aspect of instruction and operations of the school building there at the high school because there is so much that goes into what that looks like for those High School age students the different considerations there it's why there are so many tools to utilize but again even with that level of work the level of evidence that was able to be gathered that Mr Crawford was able to bring forward that his staff have completed this

071year was staggering for me it was quite impressive to be a part of that process from this and completing these various tools we're able to identify some common themes and strands and you see those essential actions listed there those are the components where we felt like these are pieces that can be implemented or put into that CSUB with the blessing and coordination of the leadership team there at the high school to ensure that we are still moving forward and meeting that criteria set forward by the state so as we're looking at that level of implementation how we rate it these various criteria Within These categories and tools provided identifying where we can provide support from a division level what can we do there at the school to perhaps streamline process add support to be able

072to meet that criteria in a more comprehensive manner we don't want you to just hear from us this evening we also wanted to give Mr Crawford an opportunity to speak to the process because he was so heavily involved with that so I wanted to invite him up to provide some of his own Reflections on the process and the work that he's done with his leadership team all right so there's a quiz at the end of this so you need to make sure that you know all of this stuff um a joke but you know that's how I felt this entire time honestly it was you know it's my first year at the high school going through this entire process been through school Improvement plans with with Temperance Elementary School the last couple years um nothing

073quite like this and I can say it was helpful it was grueling it was long it was very informative though and the things that we took away from this process have gone into our school Improvement plan the things that we've taken away from this process has helped us reflect on the practices that we do have you all probably know I was a coach for a long time at the end of every practice at the end of every game I like to be reflective what did we do right what did we do wrong what can we do better tomorrow that's how I approached this process it was it was a lot easier with our senior staff and our administrative team up here and our instructional team because if I didn't have them I probably would have

074been lost just looking at these documents not completely understanding exactly what I was getting into in September when we started the process we had a meeting up here with the office of school quality and I think all of the principals at the end of that meeting we all looked at each other like oh what are we going to do but our instruction team and our senior staff made it so much easier for us they we have a checklist that has been created for us that we go through the process of each and everything that we need to make sure that we do we when we met they they came in they they were prepared they gave us a heads up on what we needed to bring we had data that was presented the process was

075was a lot easier because of them but the process was really hard and it was really long the good thing is that it was so informative and we always like to talk about using data to drive our decisions and we did that this is a process that allowed us to do that we took that data from the entire process we made changes to our school Improvement plan the key here is to remember that our school Improvement plan is it's a living document and it's a process that is going to take a couple years to accomplish this is not a document that we expect everything on here to be completed at the end of the year it's a multiple year process and knowing that a allowed our teachers to understand it that yeah we got a

076lot that we need to do but we can take a step back and breathe because we just need to take it one chunk at a time this process allowed us to make those changes and the key here is this that yes we have certain areas of our instruction that we need to look at that that we can improve we have certain areas where we would be a level two or a level three but it's not just about those areas for us it's not just about math it's not just about science I've said it at multiple faculty meetings this year I've talked about it at PLC meetings or department meetings and and everything else that you know our CTE department is incredibly important our health and PE department is incredibly important World languages Fine Arts they're

077all important now are are they determining our status as far as accreditation like math or English or anything like that might not be to that level but you know it does our graduation rate and sometimes those students that come to school because they want to be welders or they come to school because they play a sport and they want to be eligible to play that sport they get to that graduation line and they're willing to do all of these other things so our teachers know that they've taken this data they've run with it there's been zero pushback you know so it's been a great process for me to be able to reflect to see the things that we can do better to see the things that we need to make a few tweaks here and

078there but to really reflect on the good things the things where we can improve and honestly it's it's about every child every day right that's what we're about and going through this process helps us to remember that so thank you Mr Crawford and again publicly just wanted to commend Mr Crawford on his leadership as a part of this process and again just restate the incredible work everyone at the high school is doing it really does give you that picture going through these documents how much is done each day for the students at Amherst County High School when I just wanted to repeat that again felt that was worth that one more piece for me I wanted to give the board a picture of next steps as Dr Norman mentioned we are not done yet working

079through we will have csip school reviews with each administrator in February obviously a significant component that processes collaborating coordinating with them and also helping them prepare for what's going to be coming down the road in regards to presentations to the state of that data we're going to be conducting our final instructional rounds with the team in schools in March continued support for administrators on implementing those essential actions that we talked about earlier that have come out of this academic review process provides support to classroom teachers as needed and really getting down to the individual classroom level at schools to make sure we're providing all supports that we can we will have meteor data to review again using that as another data point for the csip to ensure that we are on the right track at

080each school and as I mentioned before beginning those preparations for our end of year presentation and the division monitoring from bdoe there are also individual steps that identified schools are taking which we have included there leadership teams obviously are heavily involved an important part of that csip process and review process making sure that continues to reflect not just essential actions but current data and they're continuing to monitor that throughout the process and again I won't read all those on the right side there but a lot of steps still being taken not just from the division level but each individual school as well to ensure that we're reflecting all the good work we're doing or staying on track but the goals that each school is set out for themselves I believe I'm turning it back over

081to Dr Norman to close out our part yes and I plan on paying Mr Crawford later thank you very much Mr Crawford for that um the last slide I'd like to just reiterate the the process that we use as an intent process intense process but there are in there are benchmarks along the way that Dr Wells is our superintendent must meet in order for him to remain a superintendent sorry about that Dr Wells so we're meeting our first deadline right now and tomorrow morning all of the components that are up on board dogs for you to review he we will be submitting on his behalf to the state where he has signed on the dotted line saying that we have accomplished our first big huge task and I am thrilled with that the second one

082of course is our spring monitoring where we'll have to go through this again not as detailed as we have done with our academic reviews but there is still monitoring that has to take place and eventually he will have to sign off on all of that the end of the year are those School reviews we are actually starting those with all of our schools those that are identified and those that are not identified and we'll go through that process starting in February and that'll run through the end of the year when we get their data back from the end of your assessments and the end of your pals assessments and and all of the things that they're going to be doing to kind of take a look at okay this is a two-year plan that we

083asked them to write on their csip what do we need to do over the summer get ready for the school year and then push to into next year so it's a time consuming process but it's one that I think we are well prepared and I cannot tell you again how impressed I've been with the the staff of Amherst County Public Schools it has been phenomenal I do not want to leave out our administrators my staff here we can talk all day long about school Improvement but when it when the rubber heat meets the road it is the building principle who is the instructional leader for that school and I do not want to leave them out so if I would ask if as an administrator if you would like to comment or to discuss your

084pers I know we gave Mr Crawford because we used him as the guinea pig but I do want to open it up to any of our administrators here who have gone through that process and just kind of tell what has been going on in your school and how that has happened now would be the time thank you Mr White well when I found out Crawford got paid for his speeches I figured I'd come up here and see if I could get paid too as well um yeah yeah okay you know this is the uh this is only the third time that I've been up at this Podium so I don't I usually sit back and listen a whole lot when I was announced as men Ellison principal came up here and the last time was

085when I came up here begging and pleading for another week to get the schedule ready for the high school when covet kept blowing it up over and over and over again so and you gave me that week so I appreciate that I'm not asking for a week here maybe some snow days but I did want to come up here and just again Echo everything that Mr Crawford had said this is not my first rodeo with academic review I participated in it as an interim principle at a neighboring school and I got to tell you when I was there and I won't mention that name it felt like it was me versus the vdoe that's that was that kind of sense I remember sitting in a room a alone with them basically with nobody else from

086my staff there and talk about very intimidating for a interim principle again so just kudos to the entire instructor team they've been all over our building running through schools doing observations sitting down the Liaisons my Liaisons all right and it's been a lot of a lot of I don't want to say heated but a lot of good conversations in there going back and forth and figuring out okay here's what the video is telling us we got to do the criteria and I feel like they have done a great job and our Administration staff and my assistant principal too as well my dean of students are figuring out okay we got this Chunk we got this bear of what we got going on how do we put it in an effort of what's going to be

087best for the kids and what's not going to break the backs of the teachers and that's kind of the mindset that we've had and I appreciate them taking that mindset into it's not you gotta you gotta you gotta it's let's figure out how we can do it and our teachers have responded greatly with that they're doing a great job with it we get feedback all the time from our leadership meetings from our faculty meetings this document is up and it's living they go through and check to make sure hey this is what we're doing this is what we're doing but it doesn't feel like it's so much pressure that we can't do it and that's great especially for our first year principal because there are a lot of other things that I'm learning to as

088well so again just want to Echo everything that Mr Crawford said and thanks to all you folks um have a great night anyways good evening I don't mean to sound like a broken record but I do want to extend appreciation to the Amherst County Public Schools team this has been a process and it is a living document but you know to try to take all this on as an individual it's not possible and I shared a story about Molly a son Miss Smith when I was first told that you know she would be assigned to Amber Smith School I was like okay that's good we have a liaison but today and going through this process I I could hug her every day she's just been such a huge part of this and been so helpful

089and Dr Norman and and Dr Wells and the the staff here at the central office and I'm very fortunate also because I have an amazing assistant principal and guidance counselor an amazing Amherst Middle School team that helps us along with this so again it keeps us focused on the most important thing the reason why we're here and that's our student and and their growth and and their accomplishment so again just want to say thank you and uh you know it has and it will continue to be a process and a lot of work uh but you know doing it for our students it's all worth it so thank you thank you Mr Holmes anyone else okay I would like to turn it over to Dr Wells to wrap it up and just kind of give

090him a chance for input that Wheels thank you Dr Warren OH first I want to start by thanking Dr Norman and her staff and all our school administrators and teachers in the buildings for all the work that has gone into this um I was told you know I can't go into buildings these days because they're there doing their observations things like that and have to stay away and uh so I was I was trying to get some some of my stuff in too and I couldn't go there the same day so there's a lot going on um because we all want to get into the schools and get things where we need to be but um just understand that this is a very intense process you know it's not um it's a lot goes into

091this and as our staff really puts a lot of work and effort into this it has and we'll continue to do so um again it's not just the teachers with the lesson plans it's our building administrators and the amount of work that goes into it it's Dr Norman's staff the amount of work that goes into it because they're in every school so I just want to thank them for what they're doing um our Improvement you know we're looking we will improve this year we're going to have growth this year um but we're looking at it you know a three to five year process to really be where we really want to be and where we tend on being so I think you'll see growth this year but every year after that you should see exponential

092growth and it continues to develop as we work through this process so just understand that yes we will and we are improving we are getting better but this is a you know the same takes a long time to turn around an aircraft carrier but we also have to really understand that this is a process and it's not going to happen overnight it's going to take us a couple years to get where we need to be but we are going in that direction currently the vdoe is not solidified how schools will be accredited for 23.24 um excuse me so we don't know how they're going to use growth assessment scores we don't know how they're going to look at Chronic acid T isn't as a baseline College and Career Civic Readiness Benchmark so all those things

093are still up in the air we haven't gotten it off in the doe yet and then we also have to look at the impact of student attendance and academic performance so you know kids learn best in in school in front of their teacher and we really need them to understand need to be in school if you're going to get that education that they need our accreditation is based on it and we need to keep reiterating the fact that you know the doesn't matter if they have a note or not if they're excused they're still absent from school so accreditation from the state perspective does not care if they have a note if they went to the doctor or not if they miss school they miss school and they can't miss more than 17 days of

094the year without being a set of chronically absent so we need to make sure our parents continue to understand that we are continuing to reiterate that I do think sometimes they get confused on the fact that well if I sign a brand note in because they were sick yes it does excuse their absence but does not the state does not care about that as far as the accreditation is concerned so we need to continue to educate our families on that as well but again the main thing here is that I do want to thank everyone for the work they have done to get us where we are and we will continue to get better so thank you as you go through the documents that you have on board docs there is a packet for each

095school that gives you everything and if you have any questions in regards to it of course please what you can ask whatever questions you want to now we'll open it up to you to ask questions of any of us or the administrators in regards to the process but if you have questions specific to a school I'll be more than happy to answer those you can email me call me or you can talk directly to an administrator okay and if you have any questions I'll try to answer them thank you Dr Norman board do you have any questions okay Dr Norman I would like to say thank you to you and your staff it takes a village I'd hate to see any of our principals have to go through all this on their own and uh

096I think they feel the same way so it's great to see the support that they've gotten and uh and it is it's a process it's not something we're going to flip a switch and make it happen so uh would you like also to reiterate what Dr Wells said about you know the absenteeism to any of the parents are listening you know a trip to the beach because you've signed off for it just doesn't count so just make sure that uh we got the kids in school we learned from covid we need to be in school so yeah thank you thank you very much okay uh let's see moving on I said 10.01 yes Human Resources missed again so Mr chair Madam Vice chair members of the board good evening so I have a few items

097for you this evening the first one is our vacancy report so if you want to take a look at that I'll provide that to you and I'll take any questions that you may have regarding where we currently are forward any questions okay okay just making sure you're good another yeah all right thank you the second item is not something you have in front of you just want to review a little bit about the secondary new teacher uh Forum that we held on January 2nd that was just coming back from break I gave you some feedback on the Elementary new teacher forms that we hold I've told you before that I love this opportunity to get to discuss with our new teachers and get feedback from them from what's working and what's not it's not always

098just the positive and the glows but sometimes it's some of the needs that they have and ultimately I share all this information not only with senior staff and the data but with building principles that will be going out to them as well so we know where we can improve and as it relates to any of the preparation and orientation processes for new teachers we work to make sure we improve those before those happen again in August so some of the positives from our secondary teachers new teachers we're the new teacher orientation process itself the time in classrooms especially the bus tour which is always something that typically gets remarked upon mentors and Veteran teacher support that's provided during that process effective communication from building and division level was pretty unanimous and they did actually specifically

099note Dr Wells newsletters to be very helpful also building relationships with students and seeing the progress that they're making throughout the year as a positive that they were marked on and the division level supports and Specialists there are also challenges and some of the biggest challenges are ones that we're familiar with and we've heard and the lack of substitutes continues to be one of those because then it's difficult to to have classes covered and not have to jump in and support others there but and student discipline which we continue to work on and I think that's not just common to us but it continues to be one of the concerns especially for new teachers coming into the division and how to support that some of the suggestions that I found helpful maybe differentiating new teacher

100orientation based on levels of experience so maybe they're new to the either new they may not be new to the profession um but they are new to Amherst so maybe they don't necessarily have to participate in all the activities and days that we have for a new teacher orientation for example and to differentiate that some systems to better monitor student laptops maybe was one of the issues that came up resource provision and training for late hires there were a few people that got in maybe missed a lot of new teacher orientation post that information for them but maybe we need to make sure that we have opportunities to meet with them and actually walk through that so they have a better understanding of those things and some some additional resources perhaps to support lessons and

101unit development for new teachers coming in and those are some of the reflections I had from that but certainly would take any questions that you might have in that regard board okay okay thank you thank you uh next you have a memo we are proposing our calendar for the 24 uh 20 23 24 excuse me school year um I kind of talked about that in December and walked through the process that we went through in proposing several drafts um getting feedback and respecting that feedback among our committee and then coming up with kind of a compromise calendar uh to try to meet all the the hopes and desires and needs not only for the children but for the staff and faculty as well so the counter that you do have in front of you represents

102what we have come to propose as our calendar moving into that school year it is for your first review this evening but also if you've had enough time to reflect on that and again we've had that in front of you some of the information about that in December I've outlined in my memo some of the factors that went into the development we did survey individuals December 6th that survey went out regarding this particular calendar an overwhelming positive responses to this calendar from our staff at almost every response was positive and affirmative there were some comments the biggest comments of Desire with this calendar may have been wishing that we had January 2nd coming back as a teacher work day it's a Tuesday coming back from break so you have two weeks plus a day on

103January 1st but it is always nice to have that transition but unfortunately it's always it's also tough to come by when you're trying to make the other adjustments to make sure we're out in at the end of May it does provide that that end in May which is a nice option does provide for the full winter break and it also does provide with some of the breaks that are necessary I think to prevent some of those long periods in between where we didn't have race before so I'd like you to review that and it is your discretion as to whether you are at a point where you're familiar enough to vote on that or you can consider it for first review and come back in February and if you have any kind of direction for

104me regarding your Reflections I'm happy to take that as well chair yes sir maybe we approved the 2324 school calendar is presented motion on floor do I have a second second any other discussion uh all in favor aye aye anyone opposed hearing none all right thank you thank you all very much I appreciate that the last thing that I have this evening I believe this is the last thing yes it is is a memo regarding our recruiting calendar I've talked about the recruiting calendar I've talked about some of the universities that we've added to that and attempted to go to we always look for a diverse group of universities that have Effective Teacher preparation programs so what you have in front of you is the list of those that we've already registered for and anywhere

105you see TBD means they have not yet established their date for occur and education career fair and some of those I have found recently may not even do that for example Hampton I don't know that they're actually going to conduct one of those so we will go to the ones that we're able to since this document was provided to you on Friday we've actually registered for Longwood which is 317 23 and for North Carolina a t one of our largest historically black colleges in the in the United States for February 15th of 20 three so we've added a few to those and also worthy of note is our own education career fair which again is on February 25th that's a Saturday we are doing that in two parts so there's going to be an in-person

106portion to that from nine o'clock to 11 30. we'll be here we'll also have a support staff version of that in the supervisors conference room down the hall on the other side of the building to promote hiring bus drivers custodial support instructional assistance and so forth which has been productive we look forward to that we're also going to hold a virtual aspect as well beginning at 12. that'll be 12 to 2. that has been very beneficial for us in the past that's why I don't want to let that go I'd love to have an in-person career fair but we have really gotten good results and yielded a lot of good teachers from our virtual Affairs in the past as well we've even gotten them from out of state in that manner so as you know

107we absolutely need to put that net out as widely as as possible so that will be a full day I've asked our instructional supervisors and principals to save that date so we will all be here on the 25th of February and hopefully acquire some amazing new talent for the following year I'll take any questions you might have regarding that memo okay board okay thank you chairman thank you on the survey that was done September 6 what percentage of respondents did we have what percent uh we had I don't have that in front of me I'm going to say we have about 40 minutes before it was the 400 something Mark as far as respondents so at about 715 right so it's a good that's actually a reasonably decent number uh compared to some surveys but

108and very very favorable and so overwhelming the support I think the adjustments made between the two calendars really met the needs of most everybody to them for the most part can't have everything but thank you very much you're welcome anyone else on the board okay thank you very much all right thank you so next we have information from our student Representatives kind of Mike Kelly you probably wore the batteries out of it okay good afternoon um I'm going to start by saying we're super excited to be back in school this week ends the first semester for us so that's super exciting but also sad considering graduation is coming up um this week we had or we are still having Manila middle school and Amherst Middle School come to the high school for eighth grade tours

109and I was actually a tour guide and I will be a tour guide tomorrow so that's been super fun and exciting um getting to see the new faces that'll be in the building for next year and just getting to show them around answer questions um but yeah that's all I had to say I'm just excited to be back in school hi my name is Evan Fink and overall it's been a short time in school-wise there's been a lot of break time between our last meeting but a few things have happened VMI made a trip I know Wednesday and it was really cool to see them because they brought some alumni which made it very interesting and I don't really know how it works but it'll be very intriguing to see that happen more often including

110you know seeing the people who went to college who are doing well now really inspires the students today to do better and another thing I would like to note on is uh I'm a cvcc Ambassador at the community college and they often do tours like for example we did a Rustburg High School tour about a month and a half ago and it was really successful and I got a lot of people interested in going there and there's a lot of good opportunities and trades and mechatronics and HVAC and I would just like to note that that's very important and I think that could be look forward looked into a little bit more and the opportunities there but other than that I mean school's going pretty well it started back up I know track and basketball

111have their team pictures taken today so yeah that's pretty much all I have to say thank you very much thank you any questions from the board comments from the board okay hearing none move forward all right 12.01 I will try to talk as best I can if I lose my voice or it cracks up please bear with me so I wanted to start with the overview of the governor's proposed budget um we're going to get approximately 1.2 million dollars more in proposed budget uh than we got this past year however we're also looking at some areas of areas where we need We're Half concerned about we have to pay a one percent we're under Governor's budget if the one percent bonus for all staff that's the staff that just covers soq staff that does not

112cover the other 300 and some staff members so that has come from local dollars uh a five percent pay bonuses in there again that this covers the soq funded staff not the other staff that are not soq funded which is additional funding we have to come up with from local dollars um so that that's going to cause us to to have some be looking seriously at our Budget moving forward and what we need to do coming coming forward out of this um we're waiting on the house version and the Senate version to see what that looks like and once we get that then we'll have a worst case scenario and a best case scenario and maybe the middle ground might be where we end up we don't know but as soon as we get those

113when they go into sessions and start developing their budgets we'll know a little bit more um I don't want to give you a number or or as far as what we're going to need to ask from the county but we probably will be asking for additional funds in the county to cover uh a shortfall from where we need to be um so but that's just kind of a broad picture of it right now and as we develop it more we'll we'll get more detail on that but we're kind of waiting to see what the House and Senate versions come out to be as well so are there any questions there important okay Mr Cottage anything you need to add to that okay all right next we we're also looking at additional funding sources um so

114we continue to look for funding sources one thing we're looking at is a literary loan um that is for construction and it's capped at a two percent interest rate if we get those loans so we could possibly look at getting literary loans to help offset some of the cfp costs and construction costs that would take us going to the Board of Supervisors because it doesn't add to their Debt Service so I've been talking to Jeremy uh Bryant the acting uh County Administrator and we're kind of having some conversations about that and we'll have more continuing conversations as we move forward there's also going to be Construction Grants coming out the state is supposed to release details on those on applications in January sometime this month and so what that is uh it can pay it's

115between 20 and 30 percent of a project through the grant so for example if we had a 19 million dollar project it could pay five to six million dollars of it if we get if we were you know awarded the grant so once that comes out we will be applying for that grant for our high school project to offset some of those costs as well as for the windows and other Pro other CIP products that we have to work on that we know are coming up in the next couple years so we're we're trying to again look at other funding options and do as best we can with the grants that we have any questions for that important okay the next thing I have to remind you of is a statement of economic interest so

116those are due uh February 1st is the deadline and make sure if you use it it has to be the 2022 version so if you had one that's a another older version has been in 2022 version I'll be getting I haven't completed mine yet either so don't feel bad and we'll get those but get them into us as soon as possible get them into Miss mcderney so she can document and get those turned in we have we have also um put out an RFP for mental health services and I spoke to this when we did our retreat with the legislators back in November but we we know we have uh shortcomings with our mental health supports and things from the community supports and in our buildings and due to how the funding goes and things

117like that they're pulling back so we're currently with Harvest um they've indicated they're going to give us to be less for us from Harvest so we actually are doing an RFP just see what we can get and I'm gonna let Miss Patron kind of speak to that in more detail background on our situation with day treatment and Medicaid across the state kind of in the hopes that if you're talking to any legislators or anybody that's in a position of power to make these decisions that you have all the information and you might be able to advocate for us a little bit so um about 2014 the state privatized Medicaid it used to be a single-payer public option and so dmas would pay all of the therapeutic day treatment and other Mental Health Services as long

118as they were recommended by a mental health provider so after they privatized uh different insurance companies like Optima Anthem Virginia Premier they got to have a say in whether Services were approved or not so fast forward to 2019 right before covid we were having lots of issues with getting students approved for therapeutic day treatment which as you know is is a vital service in our buildings for students who have behaviors or who are struggling with mental health or emotional needs so at that point we we've put out our first RFP we had Horizon Behavioral Health we put out an RFP and we went with Harvest Outreach this is not a reflection of either Horizon Behavioral Health or harvest Outreach this is a reflection of the State Medicaid system because the same thing continued to happen

119we then have noticed that certain insurance companies most of them in fact instead of approving the service for the entire day are only approving slivers of service so just to give you some like easy numbers day treatment is built at five units a day let's say it's ten dollars a unit so that's fifty dollars a day right now they're only approving one unit per day for a student so the reimbursement that the day treatment providers are receiving is one-fifth of what it used to be they're getting ten dollars as opposed to fifty dollars a day so it's not a sustainable service at this point most of the providers in the state have stopped providing in fact intercept who was the provider all through the Roanoke area pulled out in October with very like with a

12030-day warning so we've been very fortunate that Harvest has been willing to work with us this long they will continue to provide day treatment to all of our students through the end of the school year but we have put out an RFP requesting school-based Mental Health Services and we're hoping that the the people who reply to that RFP will be willing to do more than just therapeutic day treatment since that does not seem to be sustainable so that RFP includes substance abuse Services gang Prevention Services Outpatient Therapy mentoring type services and we're hoping that we can meet all of our children's needs in a very creative way uh but we wanted to give you a heads up on all of this um it we should have responses by the end of this month and we'll

121start interviewing with the people who provide us with proposals and we'll make decisions after that is are there any questions about that thank you chair um this is Patron thank you so much for your information um how long has day treatment been provided in school how many years I honestly I moved to Virginia in 2004 and it was provided then I don't know how long before that it went um the day treatment is this one-on-one care of a student that is not able to behave in class yes so the students are every clinician has six students assigned to them but they only work with one student at a time so based on whichever student is in need at that point you know they do provide one-on-one pull out there's usually a few clinicians in each

122of our buildings except for some of our buildings that have fewer students so they can work with more than one student at a time when there's more than one clinician thank you any more questions from the board thank you Mr Trump uh the next item I have is this recognition and for delegate Ronnie Campbell as as you know he passed away on December 13th uh after a battle with cancer and he was able to even though he was battling cancer he did come to our meeting the end of November and was able to come to our legislators meeting so again I just want to pass on our respect and condolences to his family and uh just um just you know thank him for the service he gave our school system and uh you know his

123his current wife was just the elected as the uh new Delegate for his district and so look forward to working with her as as we move forward but I did want to just just you know make a comment that we do appreciate the support he gave us and the fact that his sick as he was he still managed to was able to come to our meeting um next on a positive note Community dinner so we have our I'm gonna call it our first annual community dinner so we hope to have it again next year but on our dinner um January 19th at 6 pm at Madison Heights Community Center and uh you know we'll be providing that we have about 255 that we have signed up we'll had to cap it because we couldn't have

124too many more people in it was just from the budgetary standpoints because this is getting paid through our uh show up Amherst and our initiative with some of the grant money we have there um so we have 255 people that have signed up we also have a representative from Horizon Behavioral Health we'll have a representative representatives from Amherst County EMS and also from the Amherst County Sheriff's Office will be there sitting up in in there as well to give information to parents if they need it at their request and also to build some positive relationships uh with them but our goal for this in general is just provide opportunities for our families to interact in a positive manner and for our guest speakers you'll be talking to him about you know family engagement and positive

125interactions and positive ways to communicate with your families and stuff we focus this more on the elementary schools because basically where our grant but also going to focus on elementary students as I said in the past you know it's so often if you go out to a restaurant or even sitting around your own house you're sitting there at the table and all you see are these things in front of everybody's faces you don't see anybody actually talking to each other so I think it's important for us to remember how to interact with each other and engage each other in conversation and have those conversations as families so that'll kind of be one of the focus points of our meeting and Miss patreon is there anything else you would like to add to that I would

126just give a plug to shamila Keenum she's our guest speaker she's a licensed clinical social worker with grounded path counseling over at second stage all right so thank you uh another one I want to talk about too is the we've identified a need for alternative um programs for elementary and middle school students we're looking at how we can do that in a manner that's within our budget for next year if there's something we can do I'm going to try I'll come to you when we do our budget discussions and and talk about that but we have some ideas but we have some you know we we have some Elementary age students it's a middle school age students that right now I think they could benefit from placement other than where they currently are so we're

127looking at that middle school you know right now sixth and seventh graders we go to we send to Fort Hill we don't have a program for our sixth and seventh graders our eighth graders we have a program for at aec but our sixth and seventh graders we do not so we're kind of looking at that a little bit to see what we can do and we don't have large numbers of elementary students middle school students but we have enough that we feel that is something we need to look into so as we get into into the budget more detail I will be talking to you about that it may be something we can't do this year from the budgetary standpoint but it is something I think we need to look at and discuss a little

128bit because I think there isn't there's definitely a need there especially if some of our therapeutic treatment services are reduced so we have we have that we don't have the ability to really work with those students with the day treatment staff so something to think about but we'll have more details getting to budget season a little bit deeper so I just want you to bring it to your attention uh tonight uh the next thing is on January 20th I have we have scheduled coffee with the superintendent even though I don't drink coffee there will be some orange juice for me and some coffee for everybody else uh but we'll have some snacks and pastries and things like that um for people and it's from 7 30 to 9 30. you're all invited to come by

129and just talk it's just a matter for the community to come in and talk with me about their concerns or issues they may be having and just some some positive interaction with people so again on the 20th it's a Friday morning from 7 30 to 9 30 and we'll be posting some some information about that to uh publicly to make sure that goes out but again I invite you to if you if you can get by that morning you're more than welcome to come by we'll be in here in this room and just having some some social time together uh Miss Virginia Miss Virginia came to Amherst County Schools um thanks to Gary roakes for driving her around she had a vehicle issue the morning and she was supposed to get here so we had

130to go pick her up Miss Ferguson from Central actually went out and picked her up and brought her to the school and then Mr Oaks agreed to graciously agreed to drive her around for a couple days and uh he wanted to pick Nick lunch and went to Briar Patch and you know had a good time so uh but thank you Gary for doing that but what she what she did she really focused so Victoria's Victoria schwa is Miss Virginia and she came to elementary schools and on the fifth and sixth and she spoke about making Positive Choices and positive decisions and uh the dangers of drug and alcohol use and and also how to be a leader and what is a leader and she spent about 30 to 45 minutes at each School talking with

131the kids and she was very personal and interacted well for students I got to go see her a couple times at some couple different schools and it was we had very good response to students were talking about her and uh going home and talking to the parents about her so it was very positive interaction with our kids so we really want to thank her for for coming here and and doing that and if hitting that chance to see her um yeah she was it was a good good presentation so we do want to thank her for doing that the next thing I have is budget priorities um if you have any budget priorities that you really that you feel we need to uh have uh moving forward if you could email those to me and

132miss leconage uh the next week or 10 days or so and just get those to us so we can make sure we're incorporating those into our thoughts as we work through the budget process I'd greatly appreciate it so anything you have that you feel is a is a is a hot topic for you please send it to us so we can make sure we have it in budget discussions okay and then the last thing I have is the May school board meeting and so may school board meeting right now is scheduled for May 11th um and it's also the night of cvcc's graduation so I know Miss liggin is very much involved with CPCC and by Clerk of the board uh has a child who will be graduated from CVC the cvcc that evening also

133several students in the school system that graduate from cvcc and so I'm proposing that we move the school board meeting for May from the 11th uh to May 4th and move it a week early so that those who would like to go see the graduation and participate in graduation are able to do so so I'd like just uh I guess consensus of the board to do that and we can advertise as necessary in in the uh is the April meeting during spring break we've already moved they've made into the week before yes that's the figured that's the fourth as well we were at moving meetings to address something too yeah so we I didn't realize they were going to have a graduation that date but that is the date that we've been told so um

134because do we need a vote or just a consensus board what do you say I'm fine with I think that is one act play but doesn't that run through the weekend it's not just a one-nighter I don't believe so okay so it's fine with me okay I think you got it okay all right we'll we'll do the proper advertisements and get that out there as everybody's awake okay all right and uh if you have any questions for me that's that's all the all I have so thank you bored any questions for Dr Wells hearing none all right thank you so now we're moving on to uh committee reports and we can do individual School Board member has information as we as we go so Mr Rossi would you like to start us off sure um

135I'd like to take a a moment for everybody to keep the families of our our past students in our prayers and the families and the faculty that are still struggling um and the community and take a moment to pray for them and and keep them in your thoughts um congratulations to our teachers and our teacher award tonight was uh they're actually teaching robotics to 6th 7th and eighth graders that's that's incredible uh I'm not surprised by what I just saw out there in the hall that is some incredible stuff I I can only imagine what a world would be like if if we maybe had the opportunity to see some of that technology when we were you know in grade school what a what a great impact it's going to have I'm looking forward to

136uh being part of of stem and uh really excited about that and technology in the the bus looks incredible that rap is something huh you know the uh you know I've seen some raps on different vehicles and they're a great way to show off but that's doing it with class it really is and and I I kind of want to be around that bus I want to visit those schools when that happens I think that's that's going to be that's going to be worth every moment every moment those eyes it's going to be better than a Christmas morning I think and I'm real excited about that I know I know everybody's back from break now so there's a lot of stuff going on um I know that there were meeting some challenges I know everybody's

137working really hard and we're going to keep moving forward because uh that's what we have to do and I appreciate everybody for coming out and as far as comments tonight the board does hear our teachers and our community and I I think the vote last meeting brought up conversation and I think that the topics that have been brought up are now being discussed and policy can be changed it's it's it's there for us as a guideline and as we start picking up comments and and understanding concerns and supporting our teachers and supporting our community which is very important that that we move forward with this I've heard you know the phrase that we don't teach that here which is great then opting in or out shouldn't affect the teachers so keep it clean and we

138won't have to worry about anybody opting in or out so as long as we continue to keep things the way we should then the opt in platform shouldn't have an effect on any of those teachers now there is some verbiage that will be addressed I'm sure and we'll be waiting for more comments and revisiting that that policy and that's that's all I have thank you Mr Rossi Miss Justice thank you chair um thank you everyone for sharing tonight Mr Maddox thank you for the vision you have pursued with passion over the last six years this afternoon my children and I enjoyed exploring your presentation Show and Tell I look forward to seeing the broader Horizons for our Primary students this is just fabulous Dr Norman and team what I really appreciated tonight in addition to

139all your hard work is what I heard from our principals they felt supported and they didn't feel alone and that spoke volumes to me as a board member Mr Fink thank you for your input regarding the opportunities available at cvcc which we might want to take more advantage of as a district I really appreciate you bringing that to light and your encouragement in that um teachers I hear what you're saying what I hear loudest is we don't have sexually explicit instructional materials in our classrooms and that is the way it should be and as we don't the opt-in would be for that what if situation is establishing a policy for that Rogue hopefully won't happen event where there is a material like that and then we have the opt-in version for parents so that just

140like a field trip we get permission from them before we are teaching them something that may not be age-appropriate as far as Library materials as as you shared there have been 11 challenges thus far and most likely will be more regarding books that do have sexually explicit material in it and what I would urge us to do as a district from my perspective as a board member is that we revisit our weeding policy and that we be able to show how does this sexually explicit content contribute to our curricular goals as a district and what is our deselection policy and what are the standards for our selection policy I would like to see those procedures as a board member and Final my heart broke over this break that on December 26th five people in a

141family after the holidays were swept Downstream in our community that is a deep loss that affects everyone and my heart goes out to you teachers and you students who have poured your heart and soul into them and we're praying for them and I know that these situations will draw us closer together as a community but I just want to say I'm so sorry thank you all right up school didn't have a January meeting so I have no report from the gov school thank you all for the information you presented tonight uh thank you for our comments congratulations to our teacher and support staff of the Year and thank you student Reps for your input as always appreciated Miss liggin um I want to Echo all the all the good information tonight and yes as Ms

142Justice stated our hearts are heavy over the tragedy that was that took place over the holiday season and surely we want to reach out to teachers and to administrators whenever we can know that the board is supporting and feeling your feelings on these sort of things you just don't know what's going to happen sometime that's why the event is coming up next Thursday the community dinner is just one opportunity for people to get together and to enjoy themselves in a happy situation because you don't know what the next minute is going to bring uh thank you for letting me be on Laurel as we finish this up I've enjoyed myself and uh great work is being done there as far as vspa delegate um I'm just one of your representatives now I do want to

143encourage you that the legislative positions are already out there just need to look at them and go over them and and read your reports from JT Kessler weekly read all the priorities that's be happening in Richmond and then we can all work together on this ahead of time but we're just happy to just be that representative one more time and yes extraordinary amount of work is being done uh Dr Norman and your crew and and your administrators and I've been down this road with you all before and so the road looks long but it's going to it's going to wind up really soon it's going to be some good good information come out of it I deal with outcomes and assessments daily and uh Mr Crawford you'll write sometime when you first see it you're

144like and then and it's like ooh we again then it's like okay I got this so um we're just happy and we can help you don't call us okay y'all just keep up the good work okay don't call uh we're praying for you but uh that's what I'm saying no I'm just kidding everybody's involved in this and we too the board too uh analyzes and looks at things uh we don't just take all that home and just throw it somewhere I look at it and I'm always I've always been interested in this is the solution I haven't heard it in 23 years 24 Years yet what is the solution uh even though we see all of this information I think we you know we have achievement gaps and and we have disproportionalities and all these

145big words and at the end of the day I'm I'm still looking and I've been reading and I'm enjoying reading and getting information on what the solution is and I think it's everybody family members and teachers teachers and administrators can't do this by themselves so the whole Community has to know that we are trying to improve things I've been just quickly this whole absentee thing is all to pieces I mean um the state I'm just upset the way they look at it I understand what they're doing but I'm telling you people are sick and I've probably been sick haven't missed any work yet but I've probably been sick more this year than I ever have and it's only into January you just wake up and you can't go to school I can't go to work

146I mean I don't go with a fever and so kids are sickly and parents are sickly and and so absentee is occurring now not everybody's sick they don't go to school so we need for those people to come to school and I think Dr Wells and others have said you can't learn if you're not there but the state needs to have someone really talk to their ears about some types of absenteeisms not just going to taking a trip to Orlando in the middle of the school year but you you have 101 fever and that might be that way for a couple couple of days so don't come to school and give it everybody else but we understand that I understand kind of what the state's doing but then I don't particularly like it but in

147closing uh congratulations Mr Terry thank you congratulations Ms Thompson congratulations to all of us we all gonna try to make this thing happen one more time this year with with a lot of help I'm excited we got y'all got a lot of work to do y'all got a lot of work to do that we are encouraging you to do so Mr Crawford you know I just don't know you're just killing me um because I know him like that I mean y'all just working you know but for the kids you know I make jokes but for the kids and so we all going to come out really good with this um I'm excited um um yeah excited to try this one more time so call us if you need us all jokes aside okay all right

148that's it thank you Miss Thompson um well I just want to say um thank you to the staff for all of your presentation on your school Improvement efforts I know it is a heavy lift but looking at what you've done so far I have great confidence that we're going to see as Dr Wells does that that growth this year that we want to see and it is going to take time over years but you know as long as we're gaining we're going in the right direction and I want to encourage all the principals and the staff to know that I really appreciated something that was said tonight is that we wanted to find out what was most effective for our students but that was doable for our teachers because it is a balance so I

149know that that's going to be something that you will be giving a lot of effort to and just want you to know that you have our board support in that I also unlike everyone else here tonight just want to extend my condolences to the family and the schools and our community for the loss of our students it is a time of sadness and a time that's very difficult cult a time that we can come together and a time that we can love one another and just appreciate all of the extra support that was placed into the schools and it's going to take time in our hearts and our prayers will continue to be with you and all that are involved I also want to say Mr Maddox thank you for your presentation tonight and bringing

150that to us that and the elementary future night I think it's just a step a huge step in the right direction and I love to see the focus that I'm seeing on the elementary schools because that's where it starts you know then our students grow and and we will see those Blossom as as they go into the middle school and the high school I want to say congratulations to our teacher of the year and our staff member of the Year Mrs Ashton and Mrs Alexander so congratulations and thank you for such a stellar job you wouldn't have received that award if you weren't an exceptional staff member and teacher so thank you um I also want to say um that board anything we can do legislatively wise to look at our Mental Health Services and

151things that we when we talk to our legislators about that discrepancy that was presented to us tonight it's definitely something that we need to advocate for as we talk to those that are at our state level I'm looking forward to the community dinner appreciate that very much I'm also looking forward to working with everyone here on the board one more year Mr Terry congratulations and then as I close I want to say two things one I want to thank the teachers that came and spoke tonight about our policy IIA and Mrs fails as she said that we do have some ambiguous language that I think from my perspective we probably need to clean up and work on that but I do thank you for your viewpoints and your input that you've given tonight and then

152lastly I want to say to our community to our parents to our students one of the things that is most important in order to remove learning loss in order to improve learning for every student every day and to make a difference in your life as you leave school and go into the workforce is attendance you have to show up every single day and so my heart breaks when I see students that aren't coming to school so parents please please please please encourage your students to come to school every single day we can't make a difference in their lives if they're not here and we're trying hard as you can see with our staff tonight so thank you again I appreciate you allowing me to serve as the vice chair one more year okay thank you

153Miss Thompson so um we did not have we have not had our stem meeting yet it's actually in a couple weeks so I have nothing to report on for the stem and uh one of the disadvantages sitting to the left is everybody has said everything that you wrote down here so uh but um I do um I I do want to you know say how bad everyone has hurt over this uh this loss of our students and and community members it's uh it's a tragedy that nobody should ever have to go through but do we do want to uh move forward so let's support our students support our staff support our faculty those who need it whether they know they need it or not they do um but thanks for the teachers who came tonight

154and spoke we hear you um we as a board will look at that and see what we can do this makes things like we need it to be and um thanks for all the updates tonight the construction stuff I'm really looking forward to finally seeing uh a new building go back there something was long time coming thanks for the schools who you know made an election happen you know it's It's A disruption of their day it's not something that they do all the time it's you know they have to make arrangements so uh um I did stop by Elin I think I was the first person there but um it's it's great to see uh our schools utilized the way they are um the student reps you know when you guys talk about tours and

155kids coming up to the high school you know you guys make such an impression on the on the middle schoolers it's a it's an awesome thing that they get to see what their um what they're coming to and and like you mentioned the tours of you know cvcc and those places like that you know encourage your you know fellow student to take advantage of those you know they don't know if they've the other places have gotten until they go look at it and you know too many times there's people just write off what they don't know so uh if they get involved and do those tours they you know they they get engaged more so thank you guys for bringing that up um and I would like to say you know that we did see

156that it was principle appreciation week this week so um I you guys have quite a job you guys have got a lot on your shoulders you've got schools to maintain you got you know your Administration looking down at you you know but they're here to help you they're here to support you um we're here to support you but you guys do a fabulous job um the students they won't say it as much but they appreciate it they need structure and you guys are the the first block to that so uh thank you for all that you do um uh you know I said it earlier uh Mr Maddox brought the best toys but um Mr Oaks brought the biggest smile tonight so uh thanks for taking care of Miss Virginia uh Miss Miss Virginia while

157she was here and thanks to miss Virginia for coming to the school I mean it's neat to have visitors anybody who comes and you know you know brightens the kids days and lets them see you know things that are out there and uh it's just neat to have visitors from outside the school come so I would also like to thank the board for putting your trust in me I I hope I do as good a job as you expect and um thank you guys for all your support okay thank you so before we move into closed session Ms Thompson I just want to thank you for your time serving as chair and working with us and getting us where we need to be so thank you for that and Mr Terry looking forward to work

158with you as we transition into you being chair so again thank you for your time so we have to go in closed sessions so pursuant to section 2.2-3711a1 of the code of Virginia it is recommended the board can be in a closed meeting for the following A1 Personnel matters to discuss the superintendent's Media review do I have a motion to move second uh all in favor all right I'll post you're numb okay borders and closer [Music]