001[Music] thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you division [Music] [Applause] [Music] are you doing [Music] Terrain [Music] they can give us more to update our buildings [Applause] [Music] all we did was add and Propane [Music] oh Johnny [Music] I'm trying to try [Music] thank you what's going on [Music] thank you episode Saturday I feel fine something I felt terrible [Music] when
002did you come down [Music] thank you they're playing football tonight where are they [Music] thank you foreign [Music] thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] looking forward to order it is November 10 2022 and the time is 6 PM I'd like us all to stand for a moment of silence followed by the Pledge of Allegiance pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all well as I said welcome board members and we need to start off with an approval of tonight's agenda I have a motion to approve tonight's agenda I need a second second the second from Mrs Berg all in favor okay we now have an agenda um Dr Wells yes ma'am Madam chair members
003of the board tonight we want to recognize this one about Mr uh Edgar Fulton Fitzgerald all right that's new all right uh I'll try again let's just stand back here uh Mr Fitzgerald slightly different let's try that that sounds better okay uh Mr Fitzgerald uh was our school board member and recently passed away in September 17th of 2022. but I have a little background on him from his family Who provided this to me and I'm going to read a little bit of this information for you so you understand a little bit about where he was in the county and what he did for the school system uh he attended two one-room schools in Amherst County as a child there was a Shady Glen at the forks of Buffalo and the second was a seventh grade
004year at Willow School just a couple miles from the first he then attended Pleasant View High School through 11th grade but then uh transitioned to Amherst County High School for a senior year in 1946. during his senior year he drove a school bus so he went from school and took kids to and from school his senior year I know he would talk about bus driver situations I think we'll do that now but it might be it might solve some of the problems um soon after a high school of marriage he started the Sawmill business he at Fitzgerald Lumber Company Dr Wells would it help if you I'll come up there and try that since this thing it's gonna be a long night if actually all right how about now there we go all right so
005uh he started at Fitzgerald Lumber Company and his sons attended a new Pleasant View Elementary School uh Edgar became an active member of The Peddler District ruralting club based at Pleasant View School and he was appointed to the Amherst County School Board in 1963 and served there until 1974. during his service on the board he was very supportive of the integration of schools in his later years he often said he was very proud of the people of Amherst County during the stressful times because the peaceful transition to integration it was during those years that Edgar worked to discontinue some remnants of segregation that persisted even after the laws were changed there were still at least two one-room schools in the county during the years of Edgar service one of those schools served Native American ancestry
006uh and one is one excuse to use perpetuate the school was that it was too far to send a school bus to transport the children to Amherst Edgar reportedly said that when he began to push for Amherst to provide transportation and bring those children to the regular schools a high-ranking school official told him at that time if he persisted he might not be reappointed to the board in which Mr Fitzgerald responded with hesitation it didn't matter if he was reappointed it only mattered that the right thing was done also during those years Mr Fitzgerald worked to get approval for the building of the County School bus garage he felt that was important for the county and he also supported the addition to Temperance Elementary School Edgar's Sons daughters daughters-in-laws six grandchildren and many great-grandchildren have
007all graduated from Amherst County Schools two of Edgar's granddaughters currently teaching Amherst County schools and Edgar was proud of a service to Amherst County and his community again we want to thank Mr Fitzgerald for his service and his family now his family is here tonight I'll ask them to come up while Ms Thompson reached the resolution with the resolution foreign Harrison and Perkins and loudly and then Barry Allison and her daughter well it's nice to have you all here tonight thank you for coming to honoring your family member I know that goes from your you said you were his brother from your dad to your grandparents like four generations four generations wonderful well um if I may I will read this and then we'll present you with it but this is a resolution of respect
008for Mr Edgar Fitzgerald a Beloved School Board member Emeritus for Amherst County Public Schools we are today comforted in the knowledge that Mr Edgar Fitzgerald lived a full life in service of others for the sake of not only his family but for the students and community of Amherst County that he served throughout his Service as an Amherst County School Board member whereas Mr Edgar Fitzgerald was appointed by the Amherst County Board of Supervisors on July 1 1963 to serve until June 30th 1974 as a member of the Amherst County School Board whereas while serving on the board School Board Mr Fitzgerald was an advocate for integration of the schools in the division and he was proud of the peaceful transition during this time whereas Mr Fitzgerald was a proponent for the betterment of the facilities
009in the division and helped to oversee the building of a County bus garage and the addition to Temperance Elementary School therefore be it resolved that the Amherst County School Board recognizes the significant contributions of Mr Edgar Fitzgerald to the Amherst County Community as a representative and an advocate for students therefore be it resolved on this 10th day in November in the year 2022 that we Embrace his family and this community in their bereavement and remembrance of Mr Edgar Fitzgerald School Board member emeritus thank you thank you thank you again thank you thank you thank you [Applause] man I just want to thank everybody my dad thought the world of downs County and uh I never forget one time years and years ago and I was real little we were going down the road and my
010dad looked over at me and he said Son you know of all the places a good Lord could have put us he put us on the best place on Earth thank you [Applause] Dr Wells I believe that you are have a special presentation or someone does this man we'll see if this will work it won't it won't I'm sitting too close to that I think we're going to need to use this microphone tonight for everything when the county updated the system the system now the speakers in the um actual roof or ceiling pick up and it is a constant Reverb Loop and they are working on that they know that that's a problem but I don't think it Joe can fix that tonight sorry about that all right so the next I have is a
0113.01 which is a special presentation regarding show up Amherst initiative so we have a little PowerPoint slideshow 40 we're going to work with tonight um and I have the first couple slides I'm going to turn it over to the rest of the team it's going to show up Amber's team so a little bit of background on this we came to us from uh some funding came to us through the Amherst Education Foundation and they had worked with a coordinate with our own lives to come up with some character development uh aspects for our elementary schools and we're sitting there talking and we came up with this I don't know who had the bright idea where it's how it started it was a team effort of this term called show up Amherst kind of go off
012our team Amherst approach so we kind of worked started with that and it was still kind of building the airplane as we fly it right now but I think we're we about to have it built we kind of know what to what it's supposed to look like anyway and so we want to give a little overview of what we're doing and how that looks so our goal here was in the community we look at where did the idea come up from the community we want the need to re-engage with our community we know that is a big issue coming out of covet that to re-engage and all the research is showing that re-engaging with our communities one of the top things you can do to improve schools get the community involvement we need to strengthen
013our relationships with family community so we're gonna we're doing things to try to do that and get families and their students communicating how often do you go to a restaurant and you see people sitting there instead of talking to each other they have this out and they're just back and forth and never never even say any word to each other so how do we re-engage get families to re-engage with each other as well as with the schools and then with students to promote and model positive character development for our students that's kind of the goals we're trying to work towards with this initiative so now I'm going to turn it over to Jenna she's going to talk to you about the funding and where they kind of came from thank you good evening I'm Jenna
014Foster I'm with the Amherst Education Foundation the Amherst Education Foundation is a non-profit volunteer organization that has been supporting Amherst County schools in a variety of ways for many years last year we partnered with a long-standing partner glad to get a generous Grant to support character building in the community in classrooms and we really wanted to focus on the elementary level so knowing that iron lives has a history and a great reputation with character building initiatives and they also work with the schools in a variety of different divisions around Amherst I thought it would be a great partnership and so we started this conversation again like Dr Wells had mentioned kind of building the plane as we fly it and it has been remarkable to see the the teachers in the schools embrace it the
015principles embrace it and just just really focusing on community engagement character building let's be honest what student in in America doesn't need a lesson on responsibility and respect and how to treat your peers and your teachers and things like that and that's really what we wanted to focus on so we have been given the Grant from glad we are so very thankful for their partnership and we are continuing to look forward to how this rolls out so you're going to hear more about what we've been doing with the funding and what it will look like in the coming months so as has been mentioned we're very excited about this partnership we originally when we heard character education we all thought curriculum and then as we got together and we started talking and and we started
016brainstorming about things it was like no the kids aren't showing up they're not coming to school so giving them another curriculum another lesson putting another thing on teachers is really not the way to do this so we decided to go with messaging and with activities and with events and with things to bring everybody together and that's really where all of this came from so we're focusing on responsibility citizenship and Community as part of our character building you can see on your slide there's a um a banner all of our schools got banners and a lot of the kids were able to sign their name to a pledge that's on there I do not have it memorized and it's very small but it was a pledge about showing up every day and it's about more than
017just showing up physically it's about showing up and being ready to learn showing up for your community and giving back showing up with a positive attitude it's about being a good person being a good student being good for your family good for yourself next so as I mentioned it's positive mention messaging where we're trying to get all of the community involved we knew that the last few years we told people don't come to our schools because we don't want the germs so now we're saying come back come back into the schools we're trying to build those stakeholders back up at the same time modeling for our students those positive traits so it's been a journey as you can tell and we are still on it and excited about it so we wanted to share some
018things um that we've been able to put out there so the first really introduction to show up Amherst was a social media video that was pushed out and we wanted to share that with you now hopefully it's not coming up the idea of the video was to really build excitement bench we show up today um it was really about building excitement and anticipation as we were rolling this out and so we had a variety of Staff members basically just saying we're showing up for you and just really being excited and it's it's very cute so hopefully you'll be able to view that at some point foreign and then our first big event was our show up day which was September 30th um September was attendance awareness month and so we really focused on attendance Miss
019Patron put together a plethora of resources for our school atss teams to then take ideas from and really have some kind of exciting event on that day and I think you heard a report about those events and everybody had a great time and again we're building momentum and excitement and also hopefully building skills building those relationships rebuilding that Community feeling that we're hoping for so we also in October had Unity day October is bullying prevention month and so hopefully you saw the social media post from that as well and I think yes I'm Allison Jordan I'm the executive director from Iron lives and I'm pretty sure it was my fault that it turned into show up Amherst I'm kind of the comedian of the group and I've had so much fun with this team when
020you're looking at an entire School Division an entire Community multiple non-profits coming together we're modeling what it's like to show up together for a community and like Marie just said we didn't want it to be one more thing for anybody so the funding has been spent on banners that students are signing think about the importance of a signature think about the importance of signing your name on something so we've been really intentional about pledging to show up for yourself for your family for your community we have also put out little yard signs like real estate signs with prompts I spend a lot of my time in the car rider line I don't know if anybody else does that but those are ours that I cannot get back and last year I had this thought like
021what if we put something out there what if we were having people think about what they wanted to say to their child because how many of you have ever said how was your day and then you do the wait time and they say good so we've tried to put intentional prompts the one outside of the building here says what it's about self-care isn't it you know has Dr Wells had lunch has you know are you thinking about what you're doing for yourself how are you showing up for yourself so I think those have been really neat ways and that's not a heavy lift for anybody but is there a grandmother is there a Community member that's driving through and seeing those signs and benefiting I hope so then we have some tip sheets that the
022team internally um mostly not me because I'm not that creative they're really visually pleasing about the importance of showing up to school think about showing up it's the first step to success it's what you want employees to do it's what you want people to do for their family showing up and putting your phone down showing up and really being present so we did one on attendance bullying showing up and being a good friend being a good citizen in November What's the title of that one thankful gratitude it is an entire Bingo Board of ways to show up and be grateful the blue prototype is a magnet that was shipped today in seven boxes and it will be here soon it's a big refrigerator magnet how many of you can remember somebody putting something up on
023a refrigerator about you an important reminder I still do that so we wanted people to understand that what we are sending home from the show up Amherst team is really important hanging on your refrigerator maybe we'll get back to some old-fashioned things like if they make a good grade put it up on the refrigerator if you're proud of them about something if you want to write a note and show up for your family put it on this huge magnet that will be on your refrigerator so those are coming in soon so we're spending we're spending the grant funding on things that we think are not you know it's not a heavy lift for anyone but it may really impact people Beyond even parents students we hope it impacts the community and businesses thank you for
024letting me be a part of this I don't think you I don't think you had a choice though [Music] so um as I hope you can feel and see there's such excitement about this and there's so much potential um and so we wanted to share some coming themes for months ahead so as you heard November is all about gratitude we're doing thankful Thursdays um and then December is you are a gift and giving back so thinking about what are the gifts and talents I have and how can I use them to show up for others um and then January is going to be about physical fitness and February is positive affirmations so really thinking about not only being affirming to others but to ourselves as well right and that self-talk is so important too and
025you see in the green heart we are in the beginning stages of working on a community connections dinner we're very excited about this and just wanting to really as you've heard part of this movement is about adults modeling for our students our children and so really wanting to be able to sit at tables and have those conversations be intentional with the conversation take time to be present with each other show up for each other hopefully have some kind of learning component to it and some fun too so um that's about all all I have I'm sure Dr Wells would like to wrap things up and we'll take any questions you have so again I want to thank them for being here tonight and thank you for your for taking time out of your schedules to
026be with us uh but you know our Big Goal here is again is trying to get the community behind it and getting our students to understand the importance of being present and and just showing up and so I think again I think I feel we're moving in a good direction with this we have a long way to go um but you know hopefully this dinner we're planning out in in for January February time frame will will be your success too and get some folks out and kind of have it have a genuine night together we can spend time together as a community and as families and spend some time together doing that so that's our next big push coming forward with this so we'll take any questions if you have them at this time or
027do you have any questions or comments Adam chair Mr Rossi I've seen the signs they're in the neighborhoods I have seen them now I know the story behind them it's good to see yes you're you're definitely out there I I like it now that I've heard the rest of the story very excited very excited I'm chair Mr BK ran into a teacher at the post office and she was like this has been amazing these tailgates these show up Amber sings this is just what our community needed so I'm getting a lot of positive feedback from the community I hope you're hearing it too well thank you all right notes no just thank you guys for all the effort I mean it's like I said it is great to see the community coming back together people
028just getting out having a good time thank you and I'd like to personally thank you all for myself as well as the board for coordinating all that together and coming up with those ideas I'm thankful for glad who helped fund it so I'm excited about the rest of the year and I think it's just a great way to start the year off and keep that momentum going everything that we need as well as our children thank you thank you thank you thank you okay we're down to 4.01 public comment I now have um two people to speak one is Rachel Martin is she present okay and the second is Bill Cox so Mr Cox would you like to come up and talk with us remember to state your name and address and bill Cox and
029I live at 1249 Lexington Turnpike in Amherst and as usual I come to you tonight representing these school bus drivers Association tonight though we would just like to go on record to thank you for your support this last year I mean both an endorsing of air conditioning for our school buses and the Rays we received along with other acps employees in these days of eight percent plus inflation it is appreciated as is the bonus coming our way this month and I can add too that we appreciate the tailgate parties as well that that has been awesome by the way um so thank you again for the attention that you have shown to the transportation department it's hard to put into words but believe me it is extremely gratifying for us to be recognized as an
030important part of Amherst County Schools I know the bus drivers we feel like we are but it is great that you the board and the senior staff recognize the fact that you believe we are as well it means a lot now with that said we would like to invite each of you to our Christmas party Friday December 9th at 11 A.M and be held at our world headquarters on Union Hill Road in Amherst I hope you'll come and meet your bus drivers talk to them they sure want to talk to you and as those of you who have been to one of these before you we can guarantee you'll enjoy great food conversation and you will win some prizes thank you thank you Mr Cox is there anyone else tonight that would like to speak
031in the public okay seeing none we will close public comment um we are now down to action items I need a motion to approve tonight's consent agenda I move second position a second from Mrs legon all in favor any opposed okay we have a consent agenda that's passed um now we have an administrative updates Travis here Madam chair members of the board for under administrative service first thing we'd like to do is update you on the construction project at Amherst County High School Dr Wells and Mr Oaks and I attended several meetings where they've approved the three public hearings for the rezoning in the parking lot and the town council meeting is December 14th so we'll be attending that the SRO Grant we currently have four working officers one is in training that will hopefully
032begin right after Christmas and we also have a few in the hiring processes what they were informed me today so we're hoping that um we move on that pretty soon the DCJS school security Grant we're informed today we asked for about 250 000 we were informed today that we will receive about a hundred and fourteen thousand that didn't actually have it up so we could see all the things that were approved we should know that within the next few days but we're appreciative to the state for for at least that amount of money so we'll tackling that and get those things moving as it's already November usually it's October when we have that approved so we definitely need to get uh get rolling on that we will be um also we've started installing some Vape
033detectors at the high school in the restroom the administration loves them and hates them at the same time but they are working through those and through this grant hopefully we are able to get a few more for uh for at the middle school as well so hopefully all the high school bathrooms and then a few at the middle school will have those as far as the weather tonight we'll be monitoring that tonight and tomorrow hopefully we won't have any issues with that Mr Oaks anything 7.02 the suspension report you have the suspension report right any questions that was 6.02 suspensions report um I don't see any questions on that um just going back to your previous things that you were talking about I see where safety drills SRO Grant and illness are you going to
034talk to us about that sure okay so we did conduct the security or the safety um drills in the schools all the schools conducted lockdown drills they also did the fire their fire drills and every school has turned those into myself and Mr Oaks and we have we have documented on those and during those drills we learned a few things from that some work orders were submitted and we also had the fire marshal that visited our schools these last few days and um we we also have some some work to do there as well I don't know oh yeah right yeah Maurice Marie's coming up after I'm done or do you have any questions um I know Mr Rossi you were talking with me about middle school and the Vapes Vape detectors correct we uh
035the grant that we have um that we're using for The Vape detectors those are only for the high school or no sir so we were just informed today that we got the money when I went on the ssws system it wasn't uploaded yet so that I know what exactly we asked for them in the high school and the middle schools but I don't know exactly what was approved because we asked for about 250 000 because we were awarded 114 so tomorrow or Monday I should know a little bit more about what exactly we were awarded on that Grant currently we just have them right we just started putting them in at the high school we have six at the high school so all the bathrooms have them not all we're working on it so hopefully
036I'll learn that uh in the grant that I asked for them in every bathroom and I'm hoping that that was one of the things that they approved the full amount for if they were then yes sir they won't be in every bathroom we have a cost for each one of those it depends on so what has to happen is we have to run the cable for the poe for the power so it depends on the cost of insulation and so they they run roughly they're about fifteen hundred dollars for the sensor and then putting them in so they're not cheap that's why we like the grant to pay for that yes ma'am all right Miss Patron going to briefly update you on our illnesses that are going around right now the good news is we've
037only had one reported coveted case since October 25th so that's great however the flu has taken off um last Friday Central Elementary School was getting hit pretty hard they had a third of their students out of the building because of the flu it's looking a little better attendance wise this week there but as I've seen in past years it kind of starts in one part of the county and migrates on through so I think what this is just the beginning with flu RSV has also been a big big problem this year Dr Gately told me yesterday in a meeting he's the director of the health department that in other parts of the state the hospitals are filling up with children who have RSV we've been very fortunate not to have that here but we are
038seeing a lot of RSV even in adults so with that said cover your cough wash your hands everybody's listening and um if your your child has a fever over 100 degrees please keep them at home until they are feeling better we want them in school every day that they are healthy for sure but if they are going to contaminate others we don't want them to do that because we do want our attendance to look good so thank you if you have any questions better chair Rossi when when students are calling out are they what's the average time that they're out for oh I don't know that I can answer that it really varies by student and case like a flu case it's usually just a few days but students Miss for all different reasons and
039I don't always know what the reason is to kind of narrow that down and uh are we making any special plans to get them caught up quicker we should be pretty good at doing this now yes we are are pretty good at that at this point so yeah um their work is all available on canvas or on Google depending on what their teachers use and then students have the opportunity to turn their missed work in late and ask for help we also at the high school are having after-school tutoring that's open to everyone so if they're missing work they can come for that is that available to everybody or just the ones that are out sick that's available to everybody at the high school who wants to participate and all of the schools have other
040types of programs I could not speak to all of them though is Justice Madam chair thank you Miss Patron how are our teachers doing so we've had about a third of our students out Temperance was it that was Central Elementary yeah how are how are our teachers doing I I do not know that teacher attendance is any worse than it normally is Mr Gallagher might be able to answer that question better right okay so he said it's about average yep if I could quickly give a shout out to our custodians who are doing double duty wiping surfaces and spraying down rooms they're doing a fantastic job trying to keep this all under control foreign any other questions in the past two or three weeks for RSV slash blue outbreaks in their buildings so uh some
041school divisions have had shut individual schools down the cause of a number so we're not there but that is that is occurring across other parts of the state Madam chair Mr Rossi Dr Wells follow-up question do we have like a set number where we think it'll be you know a point where we might have to close schools so it depends on this Staffing my staff out all right yeah oh we're down to 7.01 financial reports and us well there you are well maybe you had slipped out of there proactive all right I'm used to spreading out so I'm trying to adjust here you can even imagine members of the school board um 7.01 is the financial reports through October We are continuing along the same path as I reported back in October the one thing
042I do want to point out in the revenue is that the Child Nutrition Revenue has caught back up to what we expected I had mentioned that last month expenditures we have the same watch items the same plan for covering those overages and we're going to continue to Monitor and adjust those projections as we have more nodes we are expecting the utilities cost to start going up starting this month and of course our constant fuel question when you look at the fuel line which is on page two the last item on the object code summary um that projection is actually based on 18 additional deliveries at four dollars and fifty cents a gallon and when I was doing this projection I thought I was in a really good place because in September in October we were
043averaging about 380 in one month 388 the second month and actually today we got the first bill for November and it was 481 a gallon so we're going to continue to adjust we will be able to look at also the amount of deliveries we usually go anywhere between 24 26 loads a year and last year it was 24 and I'm project I was projecting it as if we were doing 25 so as we get closer we can look and see if we need that extra load or if we just need to look for the additional funds of the budgets but it is I mean are we always on our radar and again I've mentioned that we have some salary benefit overages in those specific categories that we can use also we are seeing that this
044sales tax is higher than it was same time previous year so we will look and as long as the state doesn't do the new capital and reallocate it to something else we would we're hoping to see some sales tax overage do you have any questions a quick question can you explain the disability for hybrid so there's different plans on vrs and you have a plan one you have plan two you have Plan Three which is your high the third plan is your hybrid plan and the hybrid employees get different benefits than those on one and two so the funding is actually in the vrs number which is showing the excess and then the hybrid is showing that deficit now that we're working on position control because when you hire someone you don't know what plan
045they're going to be in so it's sort of it offsets each other with position control we're going to be able to tighten that up for the budget next year so you won't see that average but again it's just going to reduce the other number and then repairs and maintenance 3310 that one's quite high and as I was looking through one of the reports here I know that it shows repairs and maintenance and a lot of different line items there is because I guess they're like for different buildings or different it's different departments now this the the overage that you're I'm assuming you're talking about on page one the last one it has an average of 25 909 the supplemental appropriation that was approved this evening is taking the insurance we were receiving some money back
046from the some of the damage that they had from the storm and that will be going to that line item now it is just it is 23 000 so it'll still be showing a little bit of overages but we do have those other maintenance lines that can cover anyone else Madam chair Rossi there were some comments made about the drills that happened earlier this month and some maintenance repairs as well as safety concerns is that going to affect our budget have we ran any numbers on those repairs I'm gonna send you to the podium overall the most things are relatively matter we don't have a lot of hot highlighters to take care of and some of the things that she was talking about sort of rolled over from this last fiscal year due to when
047the work was occurred and when the building occurred so some of that happened in this fiscal year during the summer and everything that's why some of those lines are over but as far as the fire drills and the lockout drills we've actually taken care of most of the the lockdown drills items they were like Keys locks replaces some doors that were not solid doors and those type of things most of that work has been completed already the fire drills excuse me fire inspections that just occur within the last two weeks the biggest issue we have and this is something that has has gone on for a number of years as technology in the classrooms have changed so we've gone to more computers smart boards and those type of things and away from the old chalkboards
048and and those items it requires more electoral outlets in the room one of the things that has not occurred is we have not kept up with the electrical infrastructure as these things have progressed over time so there's certain fire codes that we have to comply with that we'll be working with the the local you know fire inspector on because it's not going to happen overnight and it's going to cost somebody to do it the other thing aspect of it is in some parts of the schools you know we have to look at you know how much electricity we have as far as the current load on panels and those type of things and do we have the capacity to make those changes so this is something we're working on this information just came within the
049last we actually got the first report Friday night so we've been going through those type of things and we're going to try to address as much as we can and I've been working with a local fire inspector in the new public safety director and they know that these type of things just not they won't get fixed overnight that's that's my biggest concern as far as the fire inspections is the electrical capacity that we have to address over a period of time have they given us a day down that or there's certain things that uh is forcing fire inspections requirements you know they'll come back within a month to look at and like I said I've already talked to them with these electrical things that we have there's no way particularly this month you know we're
050basically down a half about a week for Thanksgiving anyway we worked two days so there's no way that those items can be corrected in this amount of time and they're aware of it due to the amount of rooms in all of the schools this is not one school this is an issue in all the schools like I said just the way you know the Electrical Supply electrical demand we have in the classrooms is quite different than what it was let's say five and ten years ago correct right so we have to come up with a good plan about how do we address these things you know what are the the highest priorities and type of things that we can get to the ultimate goal of having um you know the the appropriate number of outlets
051in the room what the issue is is we don't have enough outlets in the rooms and they're usually like multi-plug adapters and those type of things to run the devices so even though they're used out there to Market in a commercial environment in a school environment you're not allowed to by code to do those type of things all right so I guess we have to have a plan together obviously that we'll get some numbers and find out what that is because I'm feeling that it's going to be a priority coming on to the next year's budget I would say is probably something that would correct and likes you know we just you know received the reports and you know we've got to come up with a definitive plan and work with finance and look at
052funding and that may be something we come back with and again working with the public safety department and the uh the fire inspectors and Fire Marshals I've already advised and they know I mean I was in a row for 13 years so you know it didn't happen overnight so they're aware that they want to work with the school system as well that's all I had anything else thank you thank you all right my next item is 7.2 and it is the record retention regulation if you recall the October board meeting we had provided the title for monitoring finding and the corrective action plan that had been sent to the state to vdoe on September 29th this finding was for the need for the division to have a written process or plan in place to ensure
053that we're compliant compliance with the library of Virginia's record retention policy now we have not received feedback from our corrective action plan we did follow up and they have not started reviewing them as of mid-october so it's still going through their process but we're going to proceed according to our plan because our plan has dates tied to it in the plan we said in November we were going to bring the board the regulation so that's what we're doing tonight we have provided that and it is actually the library of Virginia's template that they have provided that is making sure that we're following the code of Virginia and that we're in compliance with the Virginia Public Records Act so that is what has been provided for you tonight um the second piece is in December we
054have to submit a records retention manual and procedures guidelines to the state our work isn't over we have this regulation we have to designate who the people are with those roles and responsibilities we were we set up meetings to go over to make sure the disaster recovery the you know the areas of when we're still storing everything that we're in compliance so we're still working on that but we did want to keep to that corrective action plan and bring that to you tonight it is after we get all that worked out we then need to communicate it to the staff and we will work on that plan and also we would like to have it added to the Amherst County website so that we would have a records retention that could have the links to
055the videos the regulations the locality schedules so we are working on that but tonight we just wanted to provide you with the regulations it is for just it is for information and it is our intent to have this to be added to policy D.A and that is over the management of funds and the reason we selected that is because it sort of encompasses everything in the finance department it includes your budget documents your financial accounting and Reporting your purchasing your payroll it just seemed to fit in that area as opposed to getting each section of it questions um I think it was a nice document and the only question I had was what policy are we going to attach it to and you already answered that so thank you so 7.3 is the update on
056our sr3 funds and we usually take this as an opportunity to update you on all the different cares funding pots um on page one we're pleased to report that everything that has expired we have spent 100 and have been reimbursed so the only thing left on page one is the sr2 funds and you're we're showing that we have spent 62.55 percent and that does expire September 30th 2023. and I want to just say that if we factor in the funding that's still out there for the design of the high school renovation in addition that's another 11.5 percent which will take us up to having spent 74.05 so then we were looking at just under 26 percent about 840 000 half of that is already incumbent in salaries this year so for taking us through the
057end of this fiscal year we would still have some opportunity to do some salaries if we need to next year up until when the grant expires in September as well as we still have some technology purchases in the Wi-Fi and hot spots question is the 840 encumbered for salaries are they for positions that are just within the grants uh yes well we have 843 that wouldn't be accounted for within cares 2 we currently have 464 000 dollars encumbered which would leave us about 380 and that was what we could then look at we have the technology that's going to be purchased we have the Wi-Fi the hot spots and then we would have anything that's left over we can look at FY 24 salaries to take us for the first few months does that help
058right I guess I'm just asking if these are temporary salaried positions I'm saying they are and then we have cares three so some of those positions may go into um cares three for the subsequent care right on page two um we the first one is the American Rescue plan individuals with disabilities we're showing 57.01 spent we actually have a hundred percent if you if you include what's in comfort for the payrolls so that one is good actually the same thing on the following the preschool teacher um that we have those positions and they have several funding sources we anticipate they will be spent down in February of this year the Esther 3 before and after school they are in the planning stages to see how they're going to set that up and what model they're
059going to use to get those spent down but they are working on it correctly the next one is the homeless funds and we have spent one percent we are assisting the families as the needs arise I know there's been more expenditures this month but those fund that funding is still out there the sr2 social emotional we have a position that's funding part funded partially so where it's showing 45.32 percent spent we actually have 100 encumbered with some of it actually going over and we'll go into the cares 3 funding source so on page three the top is the large the largest award that we received the sr3 and we are showing that we have spent 17.74 percent and that we have over six million dollars remaining now of that six million 4.6 of that's going
060to the high school renovation so that's another at 63 percent of the grant so if you factor that in we really have 80.74 that we know is coming now we also have salaries that are running in there so once we take any everything into account we will have about eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars that could transfer over into salaries for the subsequent year the next one has been 100 spent the third one is actually the HVAC again that's going to be the high school project once we get to the HVAC stage and then the final one is the Recruitment and Retention funds we have paid out some of the recruitment bonuses and of course not all of them have been have been filled yet and then we have to wait until they meet the
061criteria for the retention portion of it if you have any questions not Mrs Justice thank you madam chair thank you um the retention bonus um is that only to be able to be used to retain people that were just recruited or is it able to be used to encourage those who are have been here and are still here okay thank you Madam chair I'm just curious what are we doing to keep our teachers that we already have because I know one of our neighboring school districts are actually recruiting our teachers right now so what are we doing to keep our teachers here in Amherst recognize their their efforts from a financial standpoint we have done things in the past like at-home work days and recognizing the need to give them some breaks along the way
062there is a plan in place the voters coming up which is I think the Statewide ways of ways to recognize and support our teachers we have a recognition and wellness team doing that recently looking to do our best but if we had Grant funds that would allow us to provide phones in addition to that you know let's do that not only with teachers quite honestly but with all of our educators one thing we did do with the bonus was the bonus was only funded for soq position which is about 430 of our teeth of our staff we give everybody the business so every every full-time employee get a thousand dollar bonus every part-time employee is getting the 500 bonus but that bonus from the state only covered about 400 so the other 340 of those
063individuals a week found funds live within our own division is at some school divisions weren't doing that so another vessels we did try to make you get it if you're not an soq position you can't get it we didn't know that was that was our employees and does it worked through the budget season hopefully we will be raises for folks to entice them to be a conversation we have with you as we developed a budget moving forward and is it common for schools to go recruit teachers at other neighboring school districts or is it just okay we'll give this a shot with the microphone um you know regionally we certainly work together hopefully professionally and and don't always do that however you can only do so much with recruiting uh individuals from neighboring divisions um
064they are not typically released from contract just because we request to hire them here so they're under contract when they finish the year out then they have flexibility if they're not under contract to come here so formal recruiting I guess I can't really speak to that I'm sure if individuals are interested in coming here from other divisions we would certainly welcome that we don't necessarily promote that in order to take teachers away from each other because we have a good working relationship regionally in our area all right thank you good that almost look Cottage yes okay thank you very much now we're down to 8.01 update on accountability okay I'm gonna try it from here and I think it's just William [Laughter] you can come sit back here okay so the first item 8.01 is
065on accountability and I have three different area three different things for you to take a look at you should have something um office of school quality it is our fall division level information on October 12th the superintendent myself and members of my staff met with the Virginia department now Virginia Department of Education Office of school quality they are the ones who monitor all of the schools for accreditation and we went through a process with them to explain our plan of attack in what we were doing in the schools how we were going to have each of the schools fully accredited those that were under monitoring those that were under academic review and those that were accredited with conditions we went through that and this is the feedback that they provided us we had two commendations
066the first one was on our data presentation which was the exact presentation that we gave to you as a board you actually saw that first then the second one was just our transparency with them and talking about our division findings it if you look on the school profile all of our schools are accredited however we know that if you take current year information from last year we would not be at that same place and so when we talked to the Virginia Department of Education and this monitoring team this review team they were very open to the plan of us determining root causes what we were going to do to turn around that infra turn around what we needed to do in our subgroup areas and in our indicators and that was one of the commendations
067that we received from them on the plan that we already had in place and had already started implementing this year um we did have four recommendations from them that we are currently in the process of implementing the first one is to continue to develop and Implement some systems to examine those root causes have we looked at all the data that they've specifically identified and what were those data points that we were tracking the second one was to attend lesson planning sessions with teachers that way we could assure the alignment of the written taught and tested curriculum we have begun doing that in our Elementary in our plc's and we have already worked with our instructional staff at our department meetings our department chairs have worked with us on that Dr Wells will talk later about
068what he's doing with the superintendent's advisory in regards to that the third one was to consider revisiting expectations with our administrative staff our principals to support the Fidelity of implementation and that was a array of things on the alignment process specifically to lesson plan expectations and what we as a division had expectations in regard for lesson planning across the division Pre-K all the way through 12th grade and what that looked like and we are in the process of course Dr Wells we'll talk about that a little bit later on of implementing that recommendation as well and then consider the fourth one was implementing a process of highlighting our teachers who were successful in this implementation what is the process that we are going to do to recognize those that are going above and beyond those
069that are just implementing what we're asking them to do and what the state is requiring them to do um we have two more monitoring areas winter of 2023 it's our mid-year review that we will go through this same process and then again in the spring in the spring they're actually monitoring us on any school that has a level three indicator which right now is all but two schools that have level three indicators that we're dealing with in regards to anything from reading math chronic absenteeism you name it we have that there um I'll take any questions if you'd like in regards to our feedback from the state okay I think that's just as much Madam chair thank you Dr Norman for your presentation and make Amherst um shine with your visual presentation um when it
070says examining the root cause um what do we have some of those root causes identified yes ma'am so we know right now when we look at and and this is a little bit different than we've done before because we're coming out of a pandemic so looking at root causes are is our curriculum um specific to where we're teaching phonetic base let's talk about phonics and how early on and what are we doing so we've already taken steps to provide our teachers professional development provide information and training for them with our reading Specialists to get down to some very specific things with our students and our reading we've also done that with math so we are have looked at our data most of the summer basically and taken a look and kind of tracked it over
071the last two years to specifically pinpoint not just groups of students but skills that they're missing like that Gap that they're not getting and where did they miss it an example would be in our science when our fourth grade students took the fifth grade test last year they were the they were students who were fourth graders who got a hybrid class so they may have only gotten 30 minutes and it may have been in a cafeteria or a gymnasium and it was mostly online one of the big things that were missed were content on the ocean well that is not a fifth grade Sol that is only a fourth grade Sol but if they missed that Sol now we had to do a crosswalk um Miss Smith worked with with the science teachers and actually
072embedded fourth grade science Sol's into the fifth grade kids that they are have right now so we'll make sure we catch those up and we that is considered a root cause um that they missed that actual content and so we're addressing those when Madam chair Dr Norman um when Governor Younkin gave his speech a few weeks back one of the things that um Mrs Balo or Dr Balo brought up was that the losses in Virginia were not limited to covet but they were long standing and it seemed that curriculum was um uh highly paid attention to what are we doing to shift that as we're looking ahead in regards to curriculum I think curriculum yeah it seemed like he was saying that our standards have been lowering and this is not just something from Coba
073this has been going on a long time and how are we addressing that or how how does that speak to you as I I think one of the things that we had to do was to go back and look specifically at well we're not crazy if the state is going to make sure that I am accredited and they're going to look at math reading and science I'm going to focus on math reading and science so the first thing that we did as a division was actually look at those K through 12 curriculum what do we have in place I already know that we have new standards right now for science for 2023 that are implemented right now well until those science became those standards became approved it would be crazy for me to adopt or
074go through an adoption of a textbook because then I wouldn't know if that textbook aligned with what the standards were so the processes that we use it usually takes two years for a textbook adoption from start to finish we we have to wait on the state to actually provide us what their state approved curriculum is they have to then develop the standards that go with that and then we fall into place on that so there are things that the state does that impact what we do and then we as a division knowing that we've got kids struggling in Reading we've got kids that are struggling in our math and now we have brand new standards in science there are things that we've put into place specifically at elementary for our math and our reading but
075across the board so every summer we have a group of teachers who actually review our curriculum review our Curriculum maps our pacing guides and then adapt any lessons or things that need to be and these are teachers front line in the classroom that know where their kids are and we've done that probably the last five or six years that I've been here do we have any districts across the state that are seem to be doing better doing things a little differently as far as maybe methodology textbooks are really important but methodology is in pedagogy it's right one of the things and maybe I said it wrong the textbook we don't that's a resource for our teachers it is not the end-all be-all they have to be the we consider them Professionals in the classroom so
076they have to create those engaging lessons they have to make sure that our our kids are learning at not just at the standard but above the standard because we want them to advance into those AP classes and those dual enrollment classes and move on into either college or career so yes ma'am I I totally agree with you on that we we do work across the region region 2000 with multiple divisions that come together with not only our director of instructions but our student services department to see what strategies what methodologies are working and and we feed off of each other to see what that that looks like thank you very much Madam chair Rossi background the um the way you execute a plan and know if it's successful or Not by monitoring it yes and
077I know that testing is a great way to do it but putting more work on an already stressed environment for for our teachers uh just from what I'm taking in you basically have a teacher teaching fourth and fifth grade at the same time only parts parts right well you've got your your classroom and you've got it broken down into your blocks and you're teaching fourth fifth grade it's still teaching both whether it's a portion or the entire class now how can we gauge that moving forward consistently enough to assure that students are getting that level of Education that they they're going to need and also to move Amherst forward without putting more stress on the teachers is there another way to evaluate it without putting more on the teachers and getting more from the students
078I I think I understand what you're talking about um or what you're what you're asking one of the things that we're trying to do this year specifically specifically with science that's why I gave you the example is make up ground where we know we saw kids not getting content so that is not something that happens every year it's something that we're trying to do to kind of fill the Gap because we know if we don't fill it now it's just going to spiral up when they take earth science or biology or chemistry and so we need to catch it as early as we can and we try to do that across the board with all of our content area and we rely heavily on our teachers they are the experts in the classroom I can't
079sit here and tell you that I know everything that goes on in every content area but I can tell you the teacher that I would pick that knows that and um we rely on them completely in regards to that yeah please so I would add to that that you know with the science says she brought that science example up we'll see how close I can get up here as she brought that science example up you got to remember our fourth grade science last year they still miss instructional time due to either due to covet related instances so the fourth grade and fifth grade you take the science as fifth graders they don't take an Sol test in fourth grade for science to take it in fifth grade so in order to make sure those fourth
080graders get the content that they might have missed last year we're doing a little extra in the fifth grade courses as opposed now once we get through the responses of covet the last couple years we should be able to make sure that instruction should be going on well enough in the fourth grade class than the fifth grade but we also need to make sure we're reviewing content from fourth grade because I know me when I was in school something I learned in fourth grade I might not retain into fifth grade so I still need to make sure I'm going back and teaching some of those content areas from fourth grade because they don't get tested until the end of the fifth grade year on stuff they might have learned the first week of fourth grade
081year in science so it's kind of one of those as a double-edged sword there with that one because of how the state is assessing is a fourth and fifth grade combined assessment so some materials taught in fourth grade does have to be retaught or just reviewed in fifth grade does that help answer that question a little bit yeah um my my concern is how are we gonna how are we gonna know we're on the right Road to success before we get to that point where the tests are taken and we found out that our curriculum fell short that that that's my biggest concern is that we're putting all this effort into into a plan and and we're in Uncharted Territory bringing kids from two years behind I mean Statewide and bringing us up to grade
082level it's a daunting task to do within a school year yeah we do we we really do periodic checks our teachers are very good at doing quick checks with the content that they teach they also have are required in their grades each nine weeks to do a Mastery of content as well as a measure of progress I always forget that one which is formative are they working through it and then summative did they get it do they know it and and that is that's they're great that's what happens in the classroom um and then at the division level we just purchased you know over the last couple years we've done map assessments for math and reading but we really didn't have anything for the other content areas we chose to go and revert back to
083what's called performance matters where teachers knew and teachers had actually requested it to where they can create their own five or ten questions and they can actually monitor along the way and kind of revert back to say okay well that child this group of kids didn't get that concept let me work spiral that back into my lessons over the next two or three weeks so it's a it's a constant monitoring that they're doing throughout the throughout the year now I I understand that we have a large group that are that are catching up and they will move forward at different rates we understand that now do we have anything in place to help students that are a little bit slower moving forward what does what does the school offer the students and the families to
084be able to move forward at a pace they can keep them up with the rest of their class that may be moving faster than they are yeah what program is out there for those students well I hate to say it it's not a program we have multiple strategies and processes that we use with students we are required under video e and the federal government to have an early intervention program or process which that is with math that's with reading that is our Pals our title one so our elementary gets lots of supports in regards to that we have algebra Readiness which is specific to our math programs we also have a in-school remediation and an intervention time an intervention block so they have we're getting ready to go through with the end of the semester
085another round of remediation the the high school does a phenomenal job um Donna Ratliff and a team of teachers up there actually work with students every single day to kind of get them where they need to be so it is a it's all hands on deck I would have to say and if I may interject for just a moment Mr Rossi I don't know I know that you have shared some thoughts that you have had about maybe a think tank of coming up with ways to help some of those students that are behind and you had some very novel ideas I thought from my perspective for the sake of time that might be something that you could go and sit down with Dr Norman and Dr Wells and maybe share some of your ideas I
086will say this um for those of you that are new on the board we have been here before we have been at a place where we have had a lot of challenges with accreditation and bringing our students up and we have watched all of the things that we've heard Dr Norman talk about and the staff they have a lot of things in place they know they work and they actually worked and correct me if I'm wrong but I believe we had our final and all of our schools accredited right prior to covid but when I came on the board there were a lot of challenges sort of like what we're seeing now and the same type of discussions and so I will say the staff has learned a lot they've put a lot of things
087in place it has worked before it will work again but given the challenges of covid it's going to take time it is and so I don't mean to cut off the discussion understandable but just for the sake of time I think his you're and correct me if I'm wrong but I think your inquiry is coming from your desire to look at some novel ways that could help those students right we're struggling in our children's education and you said it's been that way before the state has put things into place that's why we go to our our different levels for our schools so there are alarms in place so to speak but we're in Uncharted Territory I don't think we've been this far back and we don't know how long it's going to take to get
088there we have conventional ways of doing it but we may need to think outside the box to get ourselves forward a little bit quicker and maybe you know together and it's only what's going to happen together as a team and and move our students further faster and set the set the tone for the rest of the state I don't think we can it's it's not undoable for us I think we can do it I'm pretty sure we will do it and and I agree with you Dr Wells I'd just like to add that you know the elementary level especially you see it I've been in schools quite often the past few weeks but when you go into a school at the elementary level they have the groupings and they group their students so they might
089have a high reading group a middle reading group and a lower reading group for example and so those students are grouped and they and they go to the teacher for that specific instruction that they need based off of where they are and so you'll see that especially at that level and so some of the things you're talking about we're doing in that capacity because they're identifying those students that are struggling in a certain area and they're putting resources in place to assist those students with those while you're kids that aren't struggling as much or doing maybe research on this topic for that 15 minutes while this teacher is working with those individual students who are struggling with that concept too so you'll see it especially at that level but he also stayed all the way
090up especially Elementary where we do the grouping and break them down in classes they can get the assistance they need but I will say this um I think you made a good point Mr orasi is that we're an unprecedented territory as far as the amount of gaps for the number of students that we have um and so being able to be expeditious and to make it happen quickly for the sake of our students I think that we do need to look at some ideas that maybe think outside the box but I know he has a few that he might be that would be great we'll take anything I appreciate that all right thank you okay thank you Dr Norman uh reading night um yes I have two more things that I'd like to just give
091you a quick thing one of them is a standards update um so it just gives you information in regards to what standards are actually new and now being implemented and what year it will be assessed this is just we give this to you every October November when the state comes out with all of their information and that's just for you your reading pleasure this the next thing is just information um on vkrp the Virginia kindergarten Readiness program is an assessment that is um it's a kindergarten screener that happens with all kindergartners across the state it is something that Virginia Department of Education now requires every kindergartner to participate in and we it is a 47-page document that I have provided to you from this past year's information um one of just the highlights we're about
092five points off of the state average all of our kindergartners tested this year we began this process we actually piloted it for the state of Virginia back in 2018 so we don't have an enormous amount of comparable data but we will be taking this information it's provided to our Pre-K so they'll know how they did in working with their children it'll go to our kindergarten or kindergarten teachers and then of course we'll show the information to our first grade teachers as well but that's just for your information Dr Norman that does that break that down into specific content skills yes ma'am it does and by school so it's it's tested on two different areas big areas the first is the actual self-rate I mean math performance it's specific to math and then the second overall
093is self-regulation and social skills and then it breaks it down even further and it's lots of charts and data for you to take a look at and uh either myself Miss wheeler or Miss Smith if you have any questions if you want to email us we'll be more than happy to answer those for you okay the next thing I would like to um first I miss Berg's not here so I'm not um she had requested the last time information on outcomes from a reading specialist their progress in in areas and I had asked Miss wheeler to pull together some information just so y'all could see the type of data that comes from our students that are working with our reading specialist so I'm going to turn it over to miss wheeler and then she's going
094to actually talk to you about our title one story time to pass that I'm sorry Madam chair members of the board what we've pulled together tonight is just a sampling of some of the pals data that Mrs Matheny and myself work through along with our reading specialist so they're on the first tab is what we typically do each year with our data to compare where we are division wide with the number of students that are identified on the pal screening the pal screening is a phonological awareness screening that we give in Amherst County with all of our students K-5 those students in K3 who do not meet the summed Benchmark score which is made up of a spelling or a phonics inventory and then a word recognition component in kindergarten they also are asked to
095look at letter sound knowledge rhyming some of these foundational reading skills and so the pals assessment really does give us a minimal Benchmark of where we want kids to be when they enter and in the fall with us and then if they don't meet that Benchmark we provide them with that two and a half hours of remediation support either through the title Title One Specialist or a Pals provider and in some cases are sped case managers so this data here on this chart if we look specifically I'm in column K and it's a lot of data here to look at so I just want to hit a couple of high points but in column K row 24 it's showing that in the fall when we took our assessment in Fall of 21 we had 37
096percent of our students tested who ID they did not meet that sumscore Benchmark if we move over to column o row 24 we can see that in the spring those same students when tested we only identified 30 percent of the student so division wide we had a seven percent reduction which is what we want in Pals we want a reduction in numbers and Sol's we want an increase in our numbers and so then additionally if you look up at the top in that blue section of the chart that is showing the number of students who had a reduction who were receiving that direct support so from our reading specialist from our Pals providers that we have come into our classrooms and work with students from our sped case managers looking for those students who got
097that systematic and explicit support for phonics and word recognition we saw a set 27 reduction which is a good thing for those students and that's looking at 599 students so we put a number to that in the fall and then 159 of those students no longer identified they met the benchmarks of where they need it to be the second way that we look at data for Pals in the division on that second tab is looking at Trend data we do this at the division level we do this at the school level this information is given to our reading specialist into our building administrators as they work through their cset process looking at all of their data points and going back to some of our conversation tonight about what instruction looked like pre-coven and what instruction
098looks like now you can see when we look at those Trends from the fall which is what identifies the student and then in the spring when they take that assessment again you can see from that fall of 21 to Spring of 22 that's where we had that seven percent reduction if you look at previous years the year before when our students were back with us we actually had a six percent increase in the number of students identified and then pre-covet you can see that we didn't really see much change for students from the beginning of the year to the to the end of the year so we're very excited about some of the things that we've implemented with the recent edition of the Virginia literacy act really trying to focus on that phonics instruction to
099meet kids where they are to go back and fill in some of those holes that we know that they've missed that they're struggling they have to be able to read in order to comprehend and so that's what we're really trying to work on specifically with those students the third piece of this data the third tab there is how we're looking at this data this year so each year we take this data we look at it we try to respond to what we're seeing we think what else can we look at what else can we glean from this data I mean so we're doing just what we showed you on the first tab looking specifically at the school but as we know with our schools that are having issues with their accreditation looking at where we
100are with our school Improvement efforts through our CNA process with our principals looking at data and identifying needs and trying to develop goals we felt like it was important to dig a little bit deeper and look at some subgroup data and that's really difficult with Pals and the way that they give their data out and so I have to give a big shout out to Ruth Matheny who has been frantically working to pull this data we've chosen as you can scroll down it's lots to look at and it's kind of overwhelming to be honest but we chose to really look at our subgroups of our students with disabilities our black students our L's and our economically disadvantaged because through our seats up process those were our subgroups we've identified as those that we need to
101be mostly concerned about right now and so just really being able to look at each grade level for this specific elementary school and just seeing where those students are following within those groups and as we continue to look at our Pals data and have it kind of finalized for the fall assessment window we'll be happy to bring that back and share it with you but just wanted to give you a snapshot of kind of what we're doing with our Pals data what our Pals data is showing and how those students are responding to the intervention that they're receiving any questions I'll be happy to answer them or I'll move on to literacy night so we are very excited to be hosting our Title One virtual literacy night our theme is learning is cool and we're
102super excited because we are collaborating for this particular session with Miss Wanda Smith our supervisor of math science and gifted to really bring an awareness not only for the importance of those foundational reading skills that we just talked about with our Pals assessment but also to reinforce and support parents on how to encourage science inquiry at home and reading support at home and so we want to officially invite you invite our school Community to join us virtually we've given you a Google meet link there during our session we'll provide some tips for parents on how to support literacy and how to support science inquiry at home we're going to participate in a very simple investigation learning about how a polar bear stays warm in the winter and in their environment with things that you families
103is confined right into their kitchen so they can join along with us and do the investigation we also have a guest reader that's going to read a bedtime story for our students and then offer some door prizes for our participants and then close out our evening with a survey to figure out what else can we do to support our parents and families at home so we just wanted to officially invite you to that as well thank you that sounds like an exciting event thank you Miss wheeler okay moving on this is the last thing 8.03 this is regarding the policy under code of Virginia 22.1-16.8 it was from Senate Bill 656 that required you as a board to adopt model policy by January 1st of 2023. I'm going to turn it over to Mr Maddox
104who has been overseeing this particular policy working Madam chair members of the board the instructional materials Review Committee has met several times to discuss the video e model policy and also most recently the policy updates from the Virginia School Board Association that addresses SB 656 regarding sexually explicit content contained in instructional materials and all of our discussions has kind of led us as a committee to recommend using the update sent from the policy services department at the Virginia School Board Association if you look at the at the policies put out by the vsba the first one IIA which is instructional materials the SBA has updated the policy to reflect the enactment of the Virginia Code 22.1.16 by SB 656 which requires each School Board to adopt policy consistent with the requirements of Virginia code and
105the vdoe model policy by January 1st the legal references and cross references on the policy were also updated the changes also include additional information to ensure parental notification of any instructional material that includes sexually explicit content is provided as well as the definitions if you look down at the next policy which is i i a b the supplemental material selection adoption the vsba is updated the policy to include the references to procedures required by the policy I a instructional materials legal references and cross-references were also updated on that policy one sentence was added to that policy to ensure that teachers follow the superintendent's procedure that's required in policy i a on the policy I update the bulleted items that you see would be described in a separate document which would be the iiar which would
106be our procedures and regulations to the policy IIA the library media Specialists have already met and we've begun revising our current procedures to reflect changes needed to comply with the new policy I'd like for the library media Specialists to continue to work on this and give us a rough draft so that we can bring that back to this committee to review so and make that recommendation to Dr Wells so this is a first read I think I can talk back here this is the first read this is just for your information and then we just want to make you aware that we're the the committee is recommending that we go to vsba because it covers everything that's required in state code um therefore if we feel would be good just to use this as opposed
107to creating their own and then also the regulation aspect of one we wanted the board to be aware that we are creating the regulations that will support all the requirements and those bullets from IA so the regulation will be developed what goes into how are we going to do the things that are discussed as far as the sexually explicit content the library books or other books in the division that may or may not be used so the regulation will come but we want to let you be aware that this is first read for policy take time to read over it over the month and in December we would like for the policy unless you have any any major heartburn with this policy for us to be to approve this policy to make us in compliance
108with the code of Virginia by January 1st and then we'll have our drafts of the regulation to you in December as well okay board do you have questions comments yes Madam chair um thank you um Mr Maddox um so if I'm understanding correctly vsba has provided a template that is the base the the minimal requirements and so we can add to it and raise the bar so one of the things I don't see in here is parent an opt-in for parents um I when it comes to sexually explicit materials um to minors we need to have from my view I will urge the board to consider um making certain that our parents opt into this and don't accidentally Discover it because they didn't read their notifications well um the second thing is I don't see
109a rubric of any kind that would give basically um a definition of what parents can expect in certain categories so in the absence of one that's been professionally developed by vsba or by our department I would urge I would urge to booklooks.org it is not a um it is not a tool to determine if something should be in the library it is simply a tool to Define categories we'll say blue category green category orange category this is what is it this this one has oranges this isn't has apples so if I want a book that only has apples you know I get that one so I would urge the board to um ask for that policy is where we set the goal and if we don't stipulate those things to be included in our policy
110there's no accountability for the regulation well I and I think when we meet as a committee we can address some of those things and we hope that the regulations would cover all of those things that you just talked about also I I want to ask this question of our committee I know that you're presenting this policy to us which just covers instructional material that's basically being used in the classroom the teacher is requiring that I think the policy does a good job of laying out expectations as Ms Justice said to the minimum of what we're required to do we have talked about doing an opt-in and she's mentioned that we mentioned that at the last meeting and I know at this point only two board members have voiced that concern but is that something that
111you feel would be in the better in the regulation or better in the policy I would have take that to the committee I know we've been talking about those things that that would be in the regulation okay how we would address that so the the board to Mrs Justice's Point may want to address that with your comments as well as to whether you think that would be an appropriate place in the regulations or in the policy um the second question I want to ask of the committee is I thank you for just naturally going from the policy which we have to have on the first and so that's timely and then moving to the regulation one of the questions that I have is that this is addressing basically the instruction within that classroom that a
112teacher May assign but is the committee considering moving into maybe a third level after the regulation is written for instructional material that will address some of this sexually explicit materials that are within the library is that like a natural third step is that the committee's understanding and the reason I'm asking is that as a standing as a committee that's been set up by the board once that's been accomplished that committee is dissolved so I'm trying to clarify tonight as to whether the committee's understanding of the board's understanding of the work to be done is aligned that makes sense so I'm hearing from you that the committee does feel like that it's a natural the policy the regulation and then address the more specifics in the library which may or may not include ratings and things
113like that when I met with the library media specialist what do what they're trying to come up with is a regulation that would not only be followed in the library media but also by teachers and stuff in the classroom so it would encompass this regulation or whatever we do with our procedure would Encompass not only instruction materials but also how we would adopt and purchase and everything in the library media so it's so we're consistent across what we want to do with this policy talk to us our regulation again would be written to a fact that you have classroom instructional materials as well as Library meeting materials and in the library so their goal is to Encompass both of those into regulation uh not just have it focused on instructional materials in the classroom but
114also have the regulation have it be consistent enough across those that it can speak to both but also have the verbiage in there for that so that's our goal moving that forward to have both of those in there so again we hope to have a draft to you of that in December at least a a good working draft of that and we'll continue to revise that based on feedback but yet you know that's our goal but our main priority though is by January 1 to have some type of policy in place that covers us to be in compliance with the code of Virginia um I would be interested in board's opinion on whether you think that incorporating the library component under this instructional policy is adequate or if we need a separate policy I'm a
115little concerned about putting it under here since it's very definitive I don't want it to be that we don't have any policy for our selection of our library books so I would like your guidance and your thoughts Madam chair the um Rossi the materials for classroom and research materials I believe is addressed in the policy is did I read that correctly so it was talking about media supplemental materials right right and that would all have to come from the library but we don't explicitly say from our library so if it comes from an outside Source how do we control that well again it's up the way the policy is written is up to the superintendent and his they went down to the principal to identify the I'm reading right there the NFI process uh for
116identifying instructional materials including supplemental uh materials which we could be library books so I think I think it's in the policy it's not verbatim saying library books but it's any material in the building that a student would have access to they would use then I think it would cover us on that but I can get some feedback from other folks and see well I and I agree that with supplemental it could cover that but I tend to think of the supplemental as as the teacher wants to bring in these supplemental materials to go along with their curriculum that that's my take on it personally so it may be that we need some different opinions on that to just verify and make sure that because I think some of the library material can be just conceived
117as recreational use and if that's there you know we do have to inform the parents as well we're clear as to how we want to do that one of our suggestions right now to the committee is that any book that is deemed to have be sexually explicit in their library that gets noted anytime a student were to try to check that book out the parent would have to give parental permission for any book rated as sexually explicit so to speak would have to approve a student checking that book out student couldn't check it out without parental notification parental permission so that's one thing we're talking about in the regulation how that would work in the rig so regardless of whether these being for instructional material or not if a student were to check it out
118and it does deem to be sexually explicit again a parent would have to have permission to be flagged with student could not check out without and the other board members have thoughts or questions okay thank you very much and thank the committee for their hard work yeah all right 9.01 yes indeed Madam chair Mr Vice chair members of the board good evening the first item I have before you is this month's vacancy report and I'm prepared to answer any questions that you have regarding that information foreign anybody else nope okay thank you for that the second item is just a review of where we are with our calendar committee uh it is calendar time um to start proposing a calendar for the 23-24 school year so our acps calendar committee met on October 20th initially
119which is made up of representatives from different positions throughout the division as well as a parent for stakeholder input from that meeting we came out with two draft calendars potential for the next school year that is based on the priorities that were identified last year in calendar building one of those drafts reflects a very similar framework to what we have this year and the second calendar is based largely on more recent and current um hopes and priorities you know from a lot of our instructional staff that we end our calendar year our school year by the end of May so this this current year we go through the first week of June um and the reason for that is largely due to the different breaks that we've built into that calendar whether they be holiday
120breaks whether they be planning days professional development days we tried to schedule it so there was never a long stretch or period where there wasn't some type of break there we honored their their request of the committee and throughout the division that we provide a teacher worked at the end of every planning period grading period and so forth so in order to come up with calendar a which is the one that ends in may we did have to remove numerous teacher work days or holidays from that calendar in order to get to where we want it to be for that proposal so with that we sent on November 4 an email out that you auction have received that had both drafts attached for your review and we also had a survey along with that so
121that individuals could identify their preference between the two drafts but then also provide us feedback or input suggestions on what we might change or tweak with those drafts our goal is to the 18th of this month is the final day for that our goal is to collect that and review it before the committee on November 29th and then I will we will potentially make some revisions submit an updated final draft maybe with one option in December just for further feedback and input received that back in January review about committee and have a draft for first review to you all by the February 9 board meeting so thus far we've had 242 responses you know hopefully we'll get more because we have about 715 employees the largest number of respondents have been teachers in in instructional
122assistance and those those individuals in particular have more favorably voted for the the calendar that lets us out in May 64 percent of the respondents actually preferred that draft but with that the Nuance to that is they they don't like the fact that the holiday break over the winter right that we have has two days where we come to school Monday and Tuesday and that's certainly a division concern also because attendance would probably be significantly impacted that matter so you know they may throw some suggestions out on how we might get those back and still stay relatively within that end date and with that 36 percent of respondents preferred the the counter draft that reflects the framework that we're that's similar to what we're working with now I'll probably say the the higher percentage of
123those individuals might have been 12-month employees and other individuals that that are here in the summertime anyway but I'll monitor that they have more time to provide responses we'll submit that to the committee and continue our work and we will send that out for feedback one more time before we come up with our final draft to propose to you all so do you have any questions about that process or survey hmm okay the third item is just awareness I wanted to bring your attention that upcoming we have our elementary and secondary new teacher forums I talk about these every year I love this opportunity this year it will be in person we have done them virtually at times but Thursday December 1st we will have the Elementary new teacher Forum that'll be in the the
124Manila Middle School library and that'll be from 4 15 to 5 15 to give everybody opportunity to get there the secondary will be on Wednesday December 7th from 3 15 to 4 15 that will be here in this room and we provide those questions that we've reviewed and updated you know among senior staff and among others who have reflected on making sure that we're addressing everything that we wish to get back from our new teachers they have those sent to them already so they can reflect write down their answers if they wish and just kind of helps you know create better participation and we do also start off by letting them know that certainly this is an open forum and we really want them to share and be honest about the things that are positives
125for them but also the challenges that they've faced and along with the different programs and supports that we do provide we talked about supporting our teachers earlier so we discussed the mentor programs we talked about other supports within the buildings administrative support different things that we provide to them for their feedback on how that's going we talk about the induction process new teacher orientation all those different things so we can get information from them directly on how we might get better so I always look forward to it it's usually a good and engaging opportunity but just be aware of those and I will share out probably if I have data to share out in the December board meeting pulled together I'll certainly give you what I have at that point and if not in January
126we'll reflect more fully on on those results so and that's all I have this evening so if they're questions or we'll pass it over to Mr Neighbors yes good evening Madam chair members of the board and I thought I'd try out the human resources section tonight and see how that felt um I wanted to make the board aware uh that due to a very recent and significant influx of students with particular needs at email on Elementary we are looking to add an additional teacher in the Adaptive curriculum program there so currently we have two one that teaches K through two another teachers three through five introducing a third teacher into that program so over the last two and a half weeks what could be as many as eight students have either come to us through
127transfer or been identified through our eligibility process that require Services through the Adaptive curriculum that's a significant number it's essentially an entire class full of students that have come to us over the last two weeks so we're moving forward with that we've actually had staff in place at amalon that is licensed to that effect so we've kind of been seeing this as a possibility for some time we didn't expect it to be this sudden or the significant so we do have staff that's able to fill that role but we are needing to create an additional position to be able to fill the role that person's currently in serving our students in the general curriculum so that is a position we'll be moving forward with we have identified a funding source for that out of our
128611 Grant the grant that I get work with our special education students but want to make sure the board was aware a that we have that influx of students but also we need to Impact Staffing as a result of that I'd be happy to answer any questions the board might have Madam chair um thank you Mr Nabors yes ma'am um what are the ages of these students so they're actually primarily K one and two students as much younger students that we're seeing come in yep so is that like three four-year-olds or no all five through seven okay so we're seeing at this point thank you very much excuse me okay well we're down to you have something Dr I'm just going to add to student reps because I had to make a little comment that
129Fatima Grace is not here tonight but she did record a video and because she wanted to share some information with you she's actually at the football game tonight and by the way we're winning 20 to 7 right now in the second quarter uh she's actually there cheering but she did record this video today so uh please if you can get a chair and they'll give it to everyone good afternoon Madam chair members of the board first I want to start by apologizing for not being able to be there in person tonight we are currently on our way to our first playoff game of the season in Orange County but a few things I want to touch on that are taking place here at the high school are first the show up days and field days
130at the elementary schools football players cheerleaders and National Honors Honor Society members have had the opportunity to go to some of the elementary schools and volunteer and just spend the day with them and I think that was a great opportunity all the students were super excited we were super excited some of them even asked for our autographs wanted to take pictures with us um and we're like this was the best day they had ever had at school so I just want to thank you guys for putting that on for us and I know we had fun I know they had fun so I just think that was a really great day um and then also I wanted to talk on senior SGA I'm senior class secretary but myself as well as the other officers and
131Ms Holmes have all been constantly working together to try and come up with new activities and events to keep our classmates involved and just eager to come to school every day um one of the first ones that we've put on that's new this year was this chunk or treat I think that was very successful we had people coming back like asking us to promise that this would be an annual event and all of the candy was gone by the end of it all the kids came and it was just like the seniors were involved because we were all able to decorate our cars and even lower classmen had the opportunity to be involved as well um so I just think that was a great thing and something that hopefully they will carry on each year
132um another thing that we put on that was new that was very successful this year was The Powder Puff game we had members of the community coming out the stand was almost full um it was super fun for us to just get to play football for the night and kind of reverse roles um upperclassmen won so um that was really great and then we have new things that we're constantly coming up with especially for the holiday season so that's been a really good thing um and then I also wanted to touch on the future Center they are constantly just coming up with new colleges to present to us and new opportunities for even if that that may or may not be college for some individuals um we're constantly having new information sessions even now field
133trips um we had the onset admissions day where people got to students got to go into the future Center and meet with college reps and find out right then and there if they're admitted to the college so they're just constantly trying to prepare things for us and that's just been a really great opportunity for everyone um I also wanted to thank the sros and you guys for putting this in place I just think that it's been a great safety measure it honestly does feel safer in the school and I just appreciate them always being there and helping protect us so thank you and thank them for being there um and then the last thing I wanted to talk about was homecoming that was a very successful event everyone was just I think excited to have
134a school dance finally again just with covet and everything um and I was very honored to be able to represent my senior class as homecoming queen and like I said I think just having a school dance again and being able to feel like a breath of fresh air was really nice so thank you to everyone who helped put that on as well and yeah thank you guys for your time and again I'm sorry I'm able to be there in person yeah follow that one up now again I don't know if there's much I can add to that but a few things I would like to mention is more about the future Center I believe during a Virginia college application work 75 people on the senior class apply to college and 24 got accepted within the
135same week the place was doing great I'd like to thank Mrs Wong for the great help she's given me and many other people she's reading my college Yesterday by the way and uh yeah it's pretty good time last home game was last week and now we're going off the playoffs it's getting a little bit colder and yeah everything seems to be going so good there was homecoming there was a trunk or treat there was a lot and track started up for me and a lot of other people and everything's going pretty good I still love that radio voice all right Dr Wells the one night I did my notes on the computer I can't sit here and read it because of the technological issues so give me one second all right so I'm gonna sit
136back here I made it like 200 so I can actually see it uh so uh I wanted to talk first about the legislator's visit and we picked November 29th and we'll do it at the high school we're going to do a lunch brunch type thing this is gold starting from nine o'clock to till we get done we sit down to 12 but it takes that long it may not take that long but we're kind of blocking off nine to twelve uh we've reached out to Ronnie Campbell he said he can be here Mark Peaks he had a prior engagement so he's initially declined but we're going to send him an invitation anyway so hopefully he'll be here we've also reached out to uh Congressman Good's office and waiting to hear back from him they're supposed
137to let us know something in the next couple of days we hope and then we've we've talked with the mayor we're reaching out to the Town Council reaching out to the Board of Supervisors and reaching out we've reached out to Jeremy Bryant who's now the acting with the county and he said he could be there so we're hoping to have the our local County and town for folks as well as our state delegation and maybe someone from the Congressional Delegation as well our goal would be to Heaven there uh tour the facility there the CTE facilities we offer discuss the construction and then look at some of the Jay Lark report uh we it was just released this week you may have may not have seen it but it talks about teacher shortages and where
138we are there and I was going to give you more on that next month but hit the Dre luck report and some other teacher report and some funding issues we're facing especially SAQ funded positions for us and the fact that you know only 400 in our positions are funded by the state the other 330 we have to have local funding for and the state has a very a very good Surplus right now so we're hoping we can maybe have some conversations along those lines but again November 29th we wanted to make sure we could ride a Campbell some of those could be here before we really pushed it out too hard but right now we know we have a few of that can be here so we're going to try to that the high school
139and the culinary arts department there's where we'll meet and then go from there any questions on that okay I want to hit Veterans Day uh Veterans Day is tomorrow and so to all our veterans out there thank you for your service I can't Lean Forward because my microphone will mess up uh so I also want the hit that several schools are also conducting uh Veterans Day Celebrations and ceremonies tomorrow Amherst Middle house there as no ambulon has one I went to Elin today and spoke to their second graders there and had a good time with them had some nice nice interactions with them so a lot of our schools are doing things so if he can get out to the school tomorrow it'd be great but also tomorrow we're having a red white red white
140and blue day we're encouraging all of our students and staff to where patriotic color is the school and honor a Veterans Day and our veterans we've held our superintendent's advisory Council so we had our second meeting of this Council and based on feedback from the council and feedback from from staff we've been focusing on lesson plan development and our goal is right now we do not have a standard so to speak across the division of what should be in your lesson plans when Allison may have one set of Standards the high school may have one set of Standards the elementary school may have you know may have a set of Standards but we're not speaking the same language across the division so our goal is to get to the point where we're speaking the same
141language and using the same verbiage across the division everybody you ask knows what should be in a lesson plan if you go to a school they all say the same things but we need to get some type of General verbiage so that the superintendent's council is working on with that verbis and we'll take it back to the schools talk to the principals they'll bring it back to us we'll revise that a little bit um and go there but we also I've been talking to to our teachers the past three three or three weeks or so and we don't necessarily need a division level template to use but we are going to develop different templates of people could choose to use if they so desired but not have a standard that you have to have it
142done this way but there will be certain things that we are seeing as a division we expect we should see in a lesson plan and it will move that forward so that's kind of what that the focus of that committee is right now um mental health Team committee the mental health team has reconvened for this year and they were given some homework at our meeting in October we meet again next next week I believe we have a meeting next week and so we're meeting then they'll bring the homework back and they're going to be developing a list of needs and priorities and we'll move that forward to as we go forward of the mental health discussions for our staff as well as for our students next week is American Education week so every so we're
143working as our our Educators there and part of that we have a pen I think you all should have one at your place that's what all the staff are getting it's really nice Panda writes really well I really like it um so the staff will get that and then also an honor um a view we also have uh the the pictures that we took for us with our administrators earlier this year so our principals will get that uh Monday at a principal's meeting but we wanted to give y'all a copy of that tonight questions so far keep going all right I'll keep rolling uh statement of economic interest you should have a copy of that at your place you cannot date it before January 1st you can start filling it out but you can't date
144it before January 1st and it has to be turned in by February 1st just a reminder on that um I attended the bass Conference October 30th 31st and 1st on Sunday we had a new superintendent's meeting orientation which was some good background information had a very nice dinner that evening Monday Governor young can spoke uh superintendent of instruction below spoke and Secretary of Education kadera spoke at the conference um one thing you're going to hear from them for those of us going to the vsba conference you'll hear that but also I think you can also hearing this from the state if there is a desire to change or raise the cut scores and Sol testing this year before the spring the only problem with that is schools are on a 4x4 block those two half
145those students will take their tests in December and then they'll take another test that so they take algebra first semester they may have taken algebra tests in December but then other students who may take algebra second semester would take it in May but have different standards of which they're being scored by so the state may need to have some conversations there there's also a attempt or a desire to raise the accreditation standards so what they were basically saying was you can expect schools across the state to not be accredited next year because they plan on raising the accreditation standards which means less schools will be accredited based off of where they're going that's basically what they said so we'll find out what all comes to fruition on that there'll be more coming down the pipe
146on that I think but just give you a heads up on that Tuesday Dr Constantino spoke Steve Constantino spoke and he was really talking really about engaging disaffected public education families of the topic so I got a lot of good Insight from that on how do we re-engage with our community continuing our move my goal and it really fit into what I've been trying to do is get our community re-engaged that was a very good conversation there um again more to come on standards and accreditation uh I don't know I'll be quiet for that okay Hanover survey um we developed a survey through Hanover research and it's been pushed out it was pushed out to families and and staff we had 494 responses and so right now Hanover's going through it but we developed this
147because part of my goal was to get an idea of how the community and the staff felt about where we are and the job they expected out of the superintendent so a lot of that is focused on me not so much on division but the state of the division but more how I can support the school system how I can support the community to help guide me in my planning as we move into the second semester into the year um I did want to talk about nape and you've heard a lot of things about nape at the state level okay we only had one school take the nape test and we had 40 students that were selected to take the Nate test I get no feedback about the Nate test I have no idea how
148our students did on the Nate test so I cannot sit here and comment on what are we going to do regarding the Nate test because I don't know how our students scored because I don't get that okay there are roughly 20 000 students in the nation that took the nape test and so we're using that nape that the state wants to use the nape to really look at how we're doing across the nation which we did score last I can I can agree to that but to use that as the test as the catch-all kind of worries me because you really don't get a good sense of where Amherst County students are because Nate decides what schools some school divisions in the state didn't even take the nape test because they weren't selected by Nate
149to take it we had one school chosen this year so to use that as a saying that well you're not doing what we need to be doing I think is is an injustice because it only hits a very small 40 of 4 000 students as I give me a very good you know it's not a very good uh amount of students not a very good not very good Baseline there and only fourth graders and eighth graders take it none of your high school students take it nobody it's only select fourth graders and select eighth graders and they ask they tell us we want we're going to choose this year they can say we want Amherst Middle School to take it and they would take okay I want the eighth graders the name or eighth graders
150middle to take it and then if they're there that day half of them take the re some some are just selected for reading some are selected for math it's not really in it but I get no feedback I get no data from that okay so just need to be aware of that so people start talking nape we don't get feedback from it I can't use that to judge how we're doing as a School Division because I don't get that it just Compares States it's at the state level so I want you to know that background of it some people start having that conversation you at least know a little bit more about how nape works okay not every student in Harris County took the need okay so just need to be aware of that um
151other news school psychology week was this week it was November 7th through the 11th we have three School psychologists Martha Anderson Shannon nebaticola and Jeff Williams and they do a great job for us I want to recognize them and I'm sorry I should just pull the table back that's good all right so quarterly reviews we're doing quarterly reviews with our with our administrators our principals and there's three areas I'm going to look at one is behavior one is academic and one is teacher observations on the behavior front they're going to come in and brief me on what behaviors are seen what kind of discipline are they seeing how are students doing in schools and kind of give me a for the students that are meeting tier three or at that level they're going to give
152me a name list of what they're doing and what interventions are putting in place for those students we're going to look at academics again look at where we are academically and kind of look at where we are first nine weeks data and what students are doing really well what students are we concerned about the def list and so forth and identify those students by name and what interventions are they putting in place to identify that now they've been identified what are we doing to give us students the needed resources to improve where they are and then we're also going to look at teacher observations and then teacher observation front how many have they done who have they observed who are the standouts who may be some people that need additional supports so we can get
153the instructional office to go in and provide additional supports to those teachers who may need the supports to be more effective so that's kind of the big picture 30 000 foot view of those starting those in the first I think November 30th right for Thanksgiving breaks when we start them we'll do them all in about a week time frame so every every school administrator will come in and brief my team here and then we'll go through that with them so that gives us more feedback on what they're and how they're doing it makes them have to look at their data a little bit and really put some things in place for their students the last any questions there before I get to my last talking point okay last thing I have is faculty meetings and
154do we have you're just going to push it through Brittany okay so I might stand up for this one I can't cuss this thing I'll go to it the past three weeks we on to all the schools and I hit my last school this morning I went to Amazon this morning and we've talked about instructional expectations and supports so in the earlier in the year there are a lot of people saying I really I'm not sure about the lesson plan aspect of it I'm not sure what you're expecting of me I'm not sure what we need to do and what can we do there so we did it we prepared Dr Norman's team helped me prepare a little little slide show a little PowerPoint here and we hit so I wanted to make sure that
155everybody knew where we were again prior to the pandemic all of our schools are fully accredited we know that Marshall 2020 we know what happened we know we are shut down students were sent home teachers were sent home we did the best we could given what we had but really couldn't do a whole lot for March of 2020 into the summer 20 20 21 we were very limited we can only have about six or eight kids in a classroom because we had the spacing regulations we only could put half the kids on a given bus so in any given day at the high school you had students come in either Monday Wednesday or Tuesday Thursday at the elementary school level you had them in school Monday through Thursday but half of that day was direct
156instruction with teachers the other half of that day was indirect instruction in the GM Auditorium giving given virtual learning during that same time frame we had 1800 students receiving remote instruction or virtual instruction at home who opted for the virtual option 2122 in June of that summer I felt really good because I briefed y'all said hey Cove numbers are down we're ready to get back to school July we had new teacher orientation within July and this thing called Delta started popping up and rakland schools started it hit Amherst County pretty hard we made it to school for about a week and a half we had to shut down for a week two weeks and test everybody bring them back to school and all that so that hit us in January through March of this past
157year we kept school open I briefed you every month on that but I cannot say that we had quality instruction taking place because any given day we had a third of our students out or a third of our teachers out and they just weren't getting the instruction they needed based off of that because they were in a school because our staff and our illness rates we had other things to think to consider or during 21-22 school year we had 13 751 hours of substitute teacher time a lot of that was due to the pandemic and teachers being quarantined or be or just illness in general um that just that does not include the use of virtual days that does not include teacher coverage that does not include contract of Subs that's not include when that
158team right there went into into schools and taught classes and covered for uncover for administrators that's just straight substitute teacher time we had students have to do state and local assessments we have you know 31 hour we lost roughly 31 hours of instructional time based on substitutes another 10 for assessments another 15 for Teacher coverage so you look at last year we probably lost about 11 days of instruction based off of that we also also talk with staff about the importance of their classrooms and this is something I think is important to remember we nickel and dime ourselves to death if you go to McDonald's and you buy that cheeseburger for eight dollars every day you just think it's just eight dollars but by the month if you go every day it's 240 bucks you're
159spending on those cheeseburgers uh same thing happens in the classroom if we use five minutes to get in the class getting started and not really doing much instruction in five minutes at the end of class wrapping up and getting kids pack up early not doing much instruction then we're losing 36 class periods a year so I really wanted to illustrate that with our staff make sure you understand that once for you know every now and then you can you know okay but if it's every day that adds up the time so be be cognizant of the fact that you need to really take time and be a win and use your time wisely in your class period secondary level that hit sometimes at the elementary level is recess five extra minutes at recess no big
160deal one day if it's every day it adds up okay uh then we hit lesson plans so when I was at the high school we had the same conversation 2015 when I was principal at the high school we're talking about what should be in the lesson plan so at the high school I brought my faculty together we sat down put your black papered it up and came up with components of a lesson plan and that's the memo I sent my high school staff in 2015. uh the components we came up with though were pretty much the components that we should be in lesson plans in general a date a class period a subject a goal or an objective an Sol or a competency and activities or tasks to include introduction anticipatory symptoms of instruction and
161a closure activity those are all things that should be in a lesson plan what I'm telling teachers is that's the stuff we have to have I don't need I'm trying to explain them we don't need a 50-page lesson plan I don't want them spending more time writing lesson plans than than teaching okay you need to know where you go and what you're going to do but we don't need it to be something we don't need a dissertation for a lesson plan every day but we need to know these things that have to be able to address these things when they talk so I've been trying to get teachers to realize that maybe we can answer some of those questions and now if the committee for what we're doing with my superintendent advisory committee we're taking
162some of these things and just kind of fine-tuning that as to what should be in that lesson plan so it's a division we have a vision of what that should be an expectation of what that should be and then we also made sure they understood that I know they have a lot to do but I wanted them to see what our administrators and what we have to do regarding School Improvement and that is all of this stuff has written here that we have to do on a daily basis and our principles have to do so it's not just something that we're asking teachers to do but we know that our principles that's what they have to do in order for the Improvement School improvement process too so there's a lot to it it's not just
163one of two things there's a lot going on here with this that we need to do then we also want to talk to them about the uh what we can do for them professional development if they need it if they say there's a need if we identify a need we're going to push professional development in we're going to make sure they have PLC times we actually talk about their data and their instructional planning and then time at the end teachers just don't have time to get this done if they come to their principal and say I need an hour or two or a half a day to work on planning then if that principal approves it we're approving it and we're making sure they have coverage in school we're trying to give unencumbered teacher work
164days so as a teacher work day or planning day we're not taking that day up by us going into schools and tell them you have to be in these meetings or this meetings we're giving them time to plan and also to get into planning work sessions um and then I think that was then I asked they had a chance to ask me questions asked questions for some reason I don't know why they don't ask me a lot of questions but we gave him a question section and then I also talked about the mental their their own personal well-being and the fact that they need to take care of themselves and focus on their own mental mental health and their mental well-being by finding something that's positive they can do to relieve their stress we talk
165about the different types of stress and we don't need to be into the distress area when they start getting to that point we got to find something they can do and they need to really reflect on themselves for that I can't tell them what works for them I can tell them it works for me but they have their own things their own stress releasers um but it's been a few minutes talking about that and then I want to close with this uh and this kind of talks about our why and when we look at sometimes we get to a point where we can't see past right here because our focus on we just can't see it we can't get past the immediate to see down the road and sometimes as people in this profession we
166kind of forget why we do what we do so I played this little video and I like y'all to watch this about four minutes as to our why and uh let's see if it'll work all right [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign foreign [Music] foreign [Music] so I think it's important that we realized and we bind everybody that we all have our douglases and why we do what we do in this profession and it's not about all those Tang all his intangible things that's the kids and we do this for the kids and it's important for us to remember that when we get sidetracked on everything else that's going on in life and in the world that we take a step back and remember that we're in it for the kids and that's why we
167do what we do and so when we get focused on this other stuff and we can't see past here again the kids are why we do it so I just I left the Stu I left all his teachers with that and um I'll answer any questions y'all have I hear none I'll turn it back over to Miss Thompson so thank you very nice presentation and I think the video that you showed at the end really does say well it's why we're here um okay board members we are down to your committee reports and your individual comments um Mr Terry would you like to start us off sure so I have no uh committee report we don't meet till next week so the stem does not have a committee um but as far as as tonight's
168presentations you know the show up Amherst thing is it's a really neat concept I think everybody has gotten a a lot out of it I hope the students have gotten as much out of it as the teachers and parents have um it's good to see people doing things together again and being part of the community and the community being part of the schools so Mr Cox also um thanks for the bus you know for our bus drivers they are the first people to meet most of our students they see them every morning see them in the afternoons um they do a great job I know they're they're stretched pretty thin but they do a great job of doing what they do so um just keep up the good work and thanks for all the you
169know that just all the different projects and things you guys are presented tonight it's it's always a lot and you guys do a great job um really look forward to all the projects we got coming up at the high school all the things there um and I'd like to give a shout out to our veterans I know we have several here in the room tonight thank you for your services um we wouldn't be here doing what we're doing if it wasn't for you so thank you everybody and um yeah that's about it for me so like I said thanks to everybody for all that you've done okay Terry as well I'm going to tell Mr Terry because um so much good information tonight from so many people and so much hard work it doesn't go
170unnoticed we may not call you about it by name but you know just trying to fill these vacancies and trying to keep everybody happy and the bus is rolling in the food cooking and grades going out it's just just a lot of work so I just say kudos to everybody I've enjoyed myself where to show up Amherst and I got to two of the tailgate parties the other two I it takes so long for my grandchildren to get in the car so far so I'm not gonna make no excuses but by the time we got everybody loaded up it's game time but um we've enjoyed all of the things that have gone on so far and Dr Wells we thank you and your staff for all your work that you're doing um I'm not sure
171I agree with what's coming up about raising the cut scores uh I'm pretty sure I don't like that I'm not too excited about the accreditation standards the bar being raised I understand somewhat of the concept but I'm just saying um it's a lot to Fathom I'm sure we get more information as we go down the road on that but it's it's just a lot going on I um as far as the Comm that was my personal stuff before it's a committee report I did attend the delegate assembly today and uh virtually and it lasted from 12 to 3. um I did that through at the request of the board chair um I voted no and abstained from some just because the board did not get back to me about what they really wanted to do
172and most of these legislative positions are already in place and that's why they all were adopted today what it was is Fairfax County made a few adjustments in some wordings and a few temporary things that they wanted to add for discussion and what happens in the spring if we attend the Southern Regional meeting these positions are talked about in our border and other board can bring up what they want to put in there and then again throughout the year prior to today these legislative positions are out there for us to look at what I did and I take responsibility it may not have been I thought I I thought I had another week we usually do it next week before we go to Williamsburg and it wasn't anything underhanded or no trans transparency it was
173just a date that I looked over so I sent it out to everybody and said hey look at it and see what you want me to say on your behalf and Mr Terry I appreciate what you sent me and then the chairs spoke to everybody else so what happened today is the and you can take it home with you the block vote they vote they voted in a block for 189. everything else they pulled out and discussions were on a similar discussions for instance about the school buses being electric uh some some counties uh some school boards see that as an expense that they can't afford um but they'd added some language not just electric and Diesel but also propane I'm not familiar with that but I'm learning a little bit about that so it
174was adopted anyhow because the more we can get money from the state or from these grants to assist us in getting these electric buses the better and that's all it was Fairfax was saying hey can we can we put another something there to get some more money another example was in fact Dr Wells said something about it tonight the shortage of bus drivers in the in the state and everybody's talking about that and they said well what do we want to do about that and so they were just making a suggestion and let the state help us with something to do with how we can do something better and that was a man from another County in Florida perhaps I can't remember who said that yes getting 18 year olds to drive buses it's what
175he used to do and he had to go to school anyway so he might as well have drove the bus with everybody on it I thought that was interesting these things sound easy but I I don't know you know in reality how the 18 year old might go to McDonald's and and Walmart everywhere before he takes the kids to school so we just have to that that might not be in my lifetime so but I'm just saying these things were brought up and that's what this discussion was uh it was nothing on there those 11 positions or 12 positions that I thought that Amherst would not want to be involved with and I felt comfortable uh is on behalf of you voting for those for 23 years I've been to Williamsburg and voted on behalf
176of Amherst and I've never in my life had to say no or abstain but with my negligence on the date and not being able to bring this to you I accept that responsibility however um they were all adopted and it would be out there for you to review and once again I probably will not serve in this this role again so I will pass that on to you Mr chair that I resigned from that position but um uh next week when we go to Williamsburg you may hear some more about these but it was nothing out of line I feel good about everything that was adopted so that's my report it's all good Miss Logan and I thank you for serving in that capacity very much thank you for representing us um Mr kreiser yeah
177again thank thank you all for the information that you've present this evening I'm glad we got to honor Mr Fitzgerald service the school board and what he his contributions to this County um looking forward to participating in amalon's Veterans Day ceremony tomorrow I've sung the Star-Spangled Banner about two dozen times this week helping my son because I think the third through fifth grader so we're going to be doing that part of the ceremony so looking forward to that and all the events that are going on tomorrow in the school system's very encouraging I hope the weather will cooperate with us so uh but other than that the gov school did not meet in November we didn't have enough things to put on the agenda so Dr Smith just decided to push anything over to December
178so we'll meet in the first part of December and I'll have a report at our December meeting but other than that that's all I have thank you justice thank you um Madam chair and board um so much information so many decisions that impact our kids and I am struck again that we're not going to get it perfect but reaching out that hand to that kid or that teacher is making all the difference and um so I find comfort in that everyone has said many positive things so I don't need to reiterate them lots of lots of great things going on um I think one of the things I really appreciated Dr Wells was your presentation on the lesson plans because we're hearing a lot about lesson plans and it so I really appreciate if you
179keep it simple smarty attempt to help those teachers um be able to make the most of the time to meet the need but not have to take away from their instructional time as much as possible to you to use it as a tool to serve them not for them to serve the tool um policy I wanted to suggest to the board or Madam chair that maybe next meeting that possibly we could discuss policy klb which is our challenge it's our our policy about challenged reconsideration of learning materials that possibly we could amend it to add that when sexually explicit materials are are being reviewed if they could be withdrawn from the shelves just until the committee makes a decision so I was wondering if we could maybe include that in our next meeting um as
180the board and division are in the process of determining the appropriate handling of sexually explicit materials in our schools as parents there are things that you can be doing our school is very um supportive of wanting to honor parents involvement in their kids and what they are taking home with them or checking them out so if you as a parent have some concerns about what's in the library um you can reach out to your principal and you can tell them I'm concerned about this this this book and this book and they can make a note to your student's library account so you could have confidence that your student is not accessing a book you're not comfortable with so that is something you can do in the meantime and I just want to say um do
181not weary of doing good for in due season there will be a harvest and just take things one day at a time all of us as we're trying our best to serve our community and take care of these kids that are our future Mr Rossi yeah um tonight I look back over all the meetings since I started on the board and with our new superintendent I every time I sit down in a meeting I know that we as a board made the right decision um Dr Wells you've done a phenomenal job and you keep moving things forward to show up Amherst initiative and everything is moving forward and it's amazing to see how you've rallied the troops together and put what you said into action and executing that and and I know you know you
182have a lot of support your team is great and I think you're doing a job that warrants good recognition you know as well as the rest of the people that are here with you tonight your administrators you know sometimes you know we recognize top management and I know you guys do notice the bus drivers the custodians the person that's running errands you know and and it's it's a team effort and it's Pro I'm proud to be part of this board here at Amherst County at this specific time you know we have struggles and I know there's a lot of concern about raising the bar um while you don't know this my brother was actually a school administrator up in Upstate New York and he was really worried and this is a long time ago that
183the bar was being lowered he was worried what it was going to do to the country and it unfortunately started to come true and I don't think raising the bar is a bad thing the challenge will come up to the challenge and that's what we have to do the problem is the bar was lowered enough to where we weren't challenged enough we need to be constantly challenged we feel the struggle we don't take the challenge head on and I think by raising the bar we're going to come up with new ways to reach it and and striving for Perfection it's a moving Target and if we don't challenge ourselves and I think we can do that in Amherst County I think we can move forward and I think our students our teachers our parents our
184community is going to make sure that we achieve the highest highest Awards in you're turning it around Dr Wells or actor Wells you're turning it around and moving it forward and I appreciate you for that you know and your team is it's a pleasure to be here all the hard work that goes into it it's it's really incredible and I'm proud to be here thank you all thank you Mr Rossi I'd also like to um just say thank you to all the veterans that have served our country I just want you to know that we appreciate you and and recognize what you've done for us and look forward to that recognition tomorrow in their schools also Mr Fitzgerald his family that came and the honor that or the resolution that we've bestowed on him the
185information about him I thought was very unique and very worthy of his honor about his contributions to our schools our community and the importance of making a difference when it really matters um I continue to be impressed with the partnership between Amherst Foundation iron lives matters and Amherst County Public Schools and I just still want to thank glad for their assistance financial assistance with hashtag shop Amherst the energy from that and just the the communication of responsibility citizenship and Community is so important for all of us as adults and students and once again every time Mr Cox comes to the podium he always is so elaborate and says things so much better than I do he was thankful that we saw the bus drivers as part of our family I just want to say to
186everybody who is on our staff that you are a part of our family and we appreciate everything that you're doing and all that you give for our students that goes for everybody um I also am thankful for the safety grant that we are receiving and I want to say that Fatima's words and her video she said she was appreciative of the sros which the safety Grant will help but I heard her say that the students feel safe in our schools that's that was such a wonderful thing to hear I know that we have you have been working hard on that this year and to hear students say that made me feel good I also really appreciated both Evans and Fatima's comments about the the College Center um what are they what do we call it's
187not the college teacher Center future Center thank you I know we've had that for a while and I think Dr Brown for bringing that to our students and it sounds like it is a continuation of something that is is really being good for our students 75 applications and 40 accepted within one week I thought that was amazing and I don't care those College applications in the process is daunting and having assistance with that and encouragement and that is just phenomenal I also want to thank Mrs liggin for representing us with our legislative positions I know that when the vsba adopts these positions that they are things that they're going to go to Richmond and and Lobby for and I just want to encourage our board members that when we meet with our legislators on over
188November 29th for our breakfast or brunch that that is the beginning of when we can Lobby and I know that Dr Wells you said we're going to be talking about soq funded positions and so one of the things that I felt when I looked at the current vsba positions is not that any of them were bad but it was a lot of money and I didn't see very much that addressed the learning loss of our students and I really want to make sure that this year this board is on the front end of having a voice so when a year from now we have some legislative positions that really are addressing some of our needs of our students and that learning loss and while I do appreciate the positions I did wish that we had
189had time to discuss those as a board but miss ligand you you did as we asked and I appreciate that very much I also have been enjoying the tailgating and just the community that that's been providing and as I close I want to say that it it is a very difficult task that's in front of everybody but I am just amazed at the energy and the level of professionalism and expertise that you are approaching it big picture wise as well as the details there's no stone that's left unturned and I just want to as Dr Wells has said to remember to keep the main thing the main thing that good quality instructional expectations and supports that is one of the things that we need to remember and it does get heavy to Terry but we're
190doing it for all of our students every single one of them and I just thank you Dr Wells for your work and your just the personal touch that you put to that um and talking with our faculty and staff because it is a heavy task for them but I have confidence in them I know that they will do it and it's going to take time but we will get there and the last thing being the month of Thanksgiving Fatima also said that having the homecoming dance was back to normal and it felt so good and I'm so thankful for that every time I hear back to normal but I just want you to know that I do not take back to normal for granted it is something that I am appreciating every day and we
191need to remember that it is not guaranteed to us tomorrow so for that I am thankful so anything else from board motion adjourn all right have a motion to adjourn do I have a second second second for Mrs Justice all in favor aye meeting is adjourned thank you everyone [Music]