001[Music] good evening everyone welcome back to the acps news showcase a little live bit that we're doing right before the school board meeting tonight we're going to be overviewing what i've been able to do this year along with some uh events as we head into graduation season for this month as all the seniors get ready to move on to the next portion of their lives um if you have any questions or comments during this portion please feel free to put them in chat we'll be reading those and answering the questions at the end my name is peter garrison i'm one of the student school board representatives this year and i'll also be in the meeting later this uh evening first off i want to talk about robotics this year you might have heard a little
002about before but nelson middle school has a robotics team that wrapped up its year with a fantastic rocket launch just a few weeks ago it was a really great event students got to build their each have to build their own rocket and then launch it at manelson secondly we have all the events coming up this month so far we've already had the golden tassel ceremony which is public on youtube the golden a ceremony where seniors who performed well enough in their classes were able to recognize a profound educator of their choice that was a really special ceremony but unfortunately it's unable for it's not available for public viewing we have the senior awards ceremony on monday for anyone who is a family member or friend of a senior to attend and we have graduation uh
003next next friday on may 27th and that'll be at 7 pm and we'll be at liberty in the vine center i believe um so and that one will be publicly live streamed as well for anyone who's unable to attend and this year there are no coveted restrictions so if you are concerned as a friend friend or family member you will be able to attend without having to register for ticket or limited seating also spring is here and many schools have had the opportunity to do a trout release and water analysis field trip down at the james river uh each school has had the opportunity to be involved with this or will soon and now we're going to head into a real quick video that hi two quick videos for from elin elementary school and madison
004heights elementary school that highlight some of the activities that our elementary schoolers got up to [Music] so if the water if we have less than 11 bugs was it 11 points what does that mean it's poor if we have 11 to 15 points it's fair fair if we have 12 15 to 21.6 and if we have more than 21.6 and we had 123. so what does that mean the water is super very good it's very clean very good [Music] all right that was our elan elementary school video and if you have any questions or comments about that or anything else that we've discussed so far this evening feel free to put it in chat and i'll be sure to read those and respond to any that need it after this next video this next video
005will be madison heights elementary schools um their their same trip with dr wells going down there looking at the water quality and everything like that [Music] what kind of is the water good bad not too good up here what is it it's good it's excellent excellent it's cold [Music] so [Music] so that was a great opportunity for our elementary school students to explore nature in the outdoors with a pretty cool hands-on activity i actually had the privilege of editing those videos in my internship here with mr cargill if you have any comments or recommendations on those videos i would love to see them so i can make my videos better in the future so that was really cool very immersive like i said um one quick reminder all of our schools are currently doing sol
006testing for the next few weeks through june 8th parents make sure your child is well well rested well nourished and everything as they head into their sol tests because i know i've done a lot of them they're hard and stressful at the very least with that i'm not seeing any chat messages right now but i hope you guys have a great night i'll see you guys in the school board meeting in just a few minutes we have one more video for you guys from amherst middle school highlighting that same trout release field trip everybody [Music] so [Music] so [Music] and then i have a couple of these pennies right here this little guy that's upside down looks like a leaf it's actually a water penny bottom top both oh [Music] everybody way [Music] do [Music]
007approve our agenda i would just like to make two quick statements um one is for anyone that has not been reading the newspaper or been listening to press releases just want to make sure that the public knows that our board is pleased to announce that we have selected dr william wells as our next superintendent of amherst county schools pending just finalization of some contractual details and we're looking forward to formally holding a reception and a signing ceremony in june we're tentatively looking at the middle of june about june 16th but we will announce that date so make sure we all mark that on our calendar so that we can can be here and and celebrate together as we turn a new leaf we also will be recognizing dr arnold and his four years with us
008and expressing our appreciation to him at our next board meeting in june on june 9th we will hold a retirement celebration i'm sure you will have very very many celebrations for your retirement across the division but this would be our time as a board that we can say thank you and to recognize you and so those of you that are in the community that would like to come to that meeting on june 9th and share in our moment that we can um have a look some reception with dr arnold we would have would welcome you so today is not about retirements or welcoming new members or turning that leaf just yet but i just wanted to make sure that information was out there for the public so now board i need an approval of tonight's
009agenda madam chair i'd like to amend the agenda yes mr terry so i'd like to amend the agenda for to add a closed session for the discussion of personnel matters and administrative organizational details okay i need a second second second but mr greiser all in favor say aye aye aye any post okay motion carries we have a closed session thank you um now i think that we need to um approve the actual agenda move for approval of the agenda with the amendment all right we have an approval of the agenda with the amendment second have a second all in favor any opposed okay thank you very much we have an agenda all right so the first thing we have a presentation of respect for mrs gloria walker let's go so uh this is um a
010resolution of respect for ms gloria walker uh joining me tonight are her husband mike son chad and daughter christy and so i'm going to read this resolution and we are today comforted in the knowledge that ms gloria walker lived a full life in service of others for the sake of not only her family but for the students and community of amherst county that she served throughout her service as an amherst county school board member whereas miss gloria walker served as central elementary pto co-president from 1998 to 2000 where they fundraised for playground equipment supplies for teachers in organized school activities whereas ms gloria walker was appointed by the amherst county board of supervisors on january 7 1999 to serve until may 30th 2012 as an at-large member of the amherst county school board whereas while
011serving on the school board amherst county public schools completed the construction of our elementary gymnasiums where she exuded excellence during her tenure on a tenure on the amherst county school board through her advocacy and training with the virginia school board association therefore be it resolved that the amherst county board recognizes the significant contributions of ms gloria walker to the amherst county community as a representative and advocate for students therefore be it resolved on this 12th day in may and the year 2022 that we embrace our family in this community and their bereavement in remembrance of ms gloria walker school board member emeritus thank you joseph so much for this because i know she'd be very proud you so much [Applause] before we move on i just want to say a personal thank you for mrs
012walker's contributions to our school division in many aspects and i know that her family is very proud of her out of all of us i think mrs liggin is the only one that actually has working knowledge um so i would like to give miss legging an opportunity to speak to to that if she would okay i was hoping they wouldn't leave before i said this but um i just wanted to say yes we had a wonderful time working with gloria on the school board and she's very passionate about all the things for kids she was especially passionate about bus drivers and their service because she had been a previous bus driver she's very passionate about working at central elementary so we had a wonderful time together we traveled um to all the meetings we laughed
013and it was just a wonderful experience and i got to know her family during that time and she got to know mine so she'll be sadly missed by all of us thank you so much madam chair thank you so um madam chair school board i have quite a few recognitions tonight a lot of students a lot of staff that have done some excellent and wonderful things before i start on the agenda there is one group the central elementary school archery team we were going to bring them here tonight because they won the state championship in archery however they're on the way to louisville right now to compete in the nationals so we'll bring them back in june hopefully with a couple of things to to celebrate for our archery team there central i'd like to
014at this time recognize amherst county high school welders mr shannon fresnell and craig maddox if you'll come and present okay madam chair members of the board on april the 29th seven local high schools fielded 25 participants for the welding awards held at cvcc on their campus the yearly competition showcased the students and their chosen field of welding to local businesses giving them the opportunity to demonstrate welding skills and personal presentation skills 12 local companies and the pipefitters local 10 union that employ welders were present to interview contestants take applications and make appointments for interviews for possible employment so tonight we want to recognize our students that placed in the competition so it's broken down high school is two competitions two levels level one level two they have a college level competition and a professional level
015competition so our students competed in level one and level two so in level one jonah cunningham first place in welding level 2 competition chase massey second place [Applause] and in level welding two landing coffee first place [Applause] now mr presnell's going to recognize one of our welding instructor mr larry johnston oh take a picture do you want us to stand up we'd also like to recognize the instructor mr larry johnston uh we talk a lot in education about impact and and having our students be life ready and the embodiment of embodiment of that is mr larry johnson's class i've had the pleasure of working with larry for the past 10 years that i've been in amherst county right across from him and having students be life ready is his goal and he accomplishes it very
016very very well he embodies the five c's that we talk about all the time the impact that mr johnson has had on his students is very evident as mr mattis just said you know there's also a professional competition too and i got to go down to weldon wars with mr johnson and the students first time i've got to go and the respect that amherst have walking through the door was mind-blowing in my opinion and as humble as mr johnson is he doesn't want any accolades for that at all um but if you want to see the impact the person that won the professional competition was also one of larry's students about 15 years ago so we took first place in level one high school level two high school and in the professional competition that says
017a lot about his skill that he imparts on his students and just to end this since where i'm housed at right now um they're doing some read aloud sol testing so i vacated that area so i wouldn't bother them and mr johnson's been gracious enough to say come on over here if you want to so i did i taught wood shop for a long time and i like the noise so um being over there and just watching the relationships that he builds with his students the real world experience and the skills they leave with not just technical skills but the essential skills they leave with is unbelievable um if anybody wants to see perfection in cte you can go to mr johnson's class and you'll see it thank you i'll say they started the welding
018wars about six years ago and i went as a representative from campbell county and amherst was winning back then too so i think every year uh amherst walks home with with the the hardware the next group i'd like to recognize are our school board representatives so mr garrison would you come join me right here so unfortunately miss uh cable sienna cabell could not make it but i would like to say a few words about uh miss cabell she is going to go to hampton university next year and major in pre-law and i think dr brown could probably um back me up when i say this i think she's made quite the impact at that school because she has a really infectious positivity about her y'all y'all could see that each each meeting if you came
019to the um the golden days you could see that there so i know that uh she's going to have she's going to make an impact wherever she goes and we wish her the best of luck in hampton next is mr peter garrison and uh you guys know peter has a lot of various uh interests he's done a lot with robotics he's even served as as coach at a middle school team you know that's pretty amazing stuff for a high school student to kind of give back that way you may or may not know that he is very enthusiastic about space peter how many times have you gone to space camp three three times he's gone to huntsville alabama to space camp three summers and because of that experience he's going to go to alabama huntsville
020for aerospace engineering and you say what's alabama huntsville alabama huntsville huntsville is called rocket city and it's called rocket city they have nasa located there they have spacex located there they have aerodyne located there and so peter's going to be an aerospace engineer and we can think of no better place for you to do that and so um you said you wanted to fly in one of those as well so hopefully we can see uh peter's going to be the one that takes us to the other planets that we're going to live on shortly so peter thank you for your representation you have spoken very articulately about uh education and how education should be engaging and so peter thank you so much and we we appreciate everything that you've done for us [Applause] hello [Applause]
021next up is the teacher and support staff of the year and we had winners in both categories and they were recognized april 20th for their contributions in fulfilling the county's mission and vision i'm going to announce them here in a second and ask them to come up but first i would like to read out the the finalists uh for that were recognized at their schools already and so for the uh support staff of the year finalists rhonda sprouse at amherst county high schools as an instructional assistant miss terry campbell amherst middle school school secretary morgan ware minelson middle school instructional assistant sabrina carter amalan elementary school school health assistant joy foster ealan elementary school secretary and nancy jones temperance elementary school instructional assistants so i'd like to give them a round of applause and congratulate
022them for their effort and the teacher of the year finalists we had five finalists aside from the person that won the sarah coleman amherst middle school she's a math teacher it's dorothy brooks amelon elementary library media specialist teresa taylor at amherst elementary mary merritt elan elementary she's a elementary teacher and carrie fleming at temperance elementary school so congratulations to those folks as well okay so the teacher of the year for amherst county public schools is miss cammy mcbride at monelison middle school if you will join me ms mcbride well tell you a little bit about miss mcbride she's been an educator in the division for 18 years she's taught language arts and english at minelson middle school she served as a teacher at the amherst remote academy during the 2020 school year she's currently the
023chair of the english department at menelson middle school this is a quote ms mcbride goes above and beyond to support early career teachers not only does she have an immediate impact on her students but she also has a huge impact on every student at manila nelson middle school due to her leadership amongst the menelaus and middle school faculty that is from mr seeger jordan dean of students at minelson middle school miss mcbride is a fantastic teacher and we are so thankful to have you and congratulations she will be forwarded along mr gallagher for uh recognition as a state so we want to wish her luck in that but we want to say thank you for for the work you do here in amherst county [Applause] i the support staff of the year is miss brittany
024mcnerney and she is she works in hr here at the school administration office so if you would come forward [Applause] miss brittany mcnary has served in the role of human resource assistant in the school administrative office for the past 11 years she is recognized for her enthusiasm and desire to help those she works with she looks for creative solutions to challenges supporting efforts that ultimately impact student outcomes helping the division prepare life-ready students ms mcnary is knowledgeable creative organized and a dedicated team player she demonstrates a spirit of positivity that is uplifting to those around around her and that is attributed to mr jim gallagher chief human resources officer ms mcnary thank you so much thank you for allowing your children to come into our building they are wonderful they they bring sunshine into our
025days as well as you do and so um she is the ultimate team player there's ever a problem she's the first to say i'll jump in and help so uh we'd like to thank you for what you do here for everyone in amherst county thank you hi britney okay let's see if i got my stuff okay at this time i would like to recognize a special group of of people that have been employed in amherst county for 25 years that is quite a long time that is quite a dedication and loyalty to a school system and we would like to recognize those folks so as i call your name if you're here if you come out up i'd like to recognize you with a certificate this is becky johnson amherst elementary school teacher [Applause] michelle
026abbott amherst and central elementary school music teacher deanna ache central elementary school special education teacher lana jackson elementary ella ellen elementary school health and physical education teacher and sharon thomas school administration office accounting clerk and i don't think she's here thank you [Applause] that concludes the recognitions thank you thank you thank you dr arnold and i just want to say thank you to all the teachers that have served us for 25 years i know that's a lot of hard work a lot of dedication and thank you very much and just want to say congratulations to all of those at the school and at the division level that have been recognized for being teachers and support staff of the year um so i know that's a a nice process and just want to let you know
027how much we appreciate everything that you do we are getting ready to go into our public comment time we have two that are signed up at this point so just if you have others that wish to say something will certainly give you that opportunity when you come up just make sure that you state your name and your address for us please the first one on the list is jeff porter jeff porter 478 woody's lake road madison heights it's a privilege to be able to be here and to speak to you what we've witnessed this evening is a commitment which this school district has made to have a strong teacher-based student base and support staff and that is so important for you and glad that you take the time make the time for that to happen
028my concern is twofold tonight one is of a lighter nature the other one is more serious many of you uh hopefully each of you have received an email concerning a constitution day this was specifically designated by a federal law in 2004 designating september 7th as a day for schools that receive public funds to be able to have a special focus on our constitution and it seems to me that in the light of all that's going on in our country that would be a good thing we want to have citizens who know about our constitution but not just know about it know what's in it and so i would encourage you to designate september 17th this year it falls on a saturday so i would ask that you would either have the 16th which is a
029friday or monday the 19th as a time where in class instruction would happen so my second issue is as i said a more serious nature there have been a recognition by cdc and from other people who are doing research that myocarditis is a real issue for young people between the ages of 12 and 18. and there are already a couple of school districts who have implemented that any student athlete who is going out for sports take a physical examination which includes an ekg and i would encourage the administration and the school board to look seriously at that there have been some really um [Music] the nature of the reports that are coming out should be enough to compel you to look at this seriously and i would urge you to do so thank you very
030much thank you mr porter the next speaker we have is karen duff hello hi i'm a parent karen duff my address is 220 brightwells mill road medicine heights my concern is more of anything is what is going on in the eighth grade that you've got coming up into the high school here in amherst um i have an eighth grade student who's at mont ellison middle um that class has been a problem since they were very young there's a lot of drama in that class when he was in the fifth grade at madison heights elementary he had to wear noise blocking headphones to be able to focus and concentrate in his classes um it was major discipline problems um you know then we went into the sixth grade unfortunately you know halfway through the year we
031hit a pandemic and therefore we went to the chromebooks and being taught you know through google classroom i have an issue my son is graduating from the eighth grade and he cannot spell he cannot do punctuation he cannot write he cannot write in cursive he can't even read in cursive it's not taught there's no study habits being taught to these kids teachers are teaching mostly to an sol where they are creating dump sheets so that these kids can learn to pass these sols my son is not a good test taker and when academics and things are based on an sol it's really hard for him there's no accelerated reading program they're basically coming out of the eighth grade academically behind and i just spent the weekend at uva my son is in the mentorship program
032with the monacan indian nation he is going to have a lot of advantages given to him through that but we've got to get him to that point and i just don't feel that moving on with this ninth grade class of this class into the ninth grade is necessarily going to be an option for us and i'll give an example so his language arts grade first quarter he had an a second quarter in a his teacher left she got married and relocated brought in a new teacher there is no control in that classroom he went from an a to an f and do you know no one contacted me the entire time now i could see it in a parent portal and i'd go to my son and say you know this is a problem for
033me and he's academically not able to make himself be able to push himself through he can't he can't physically do that mentally at 14 years old he can't he struggled so greatly last year during seventh grade and if it hadn't been from mr b who was in here earlier with the language arts group um he would have never made it through and he's actually back in mr b's class now because when i called the guidance counselor at the school i said you know he has got this can't happen and she said i wasn't aware let me go back and check some grades and things like that well i had already reached out to mr b mrs steph that's the end of the comment time but i would like to just encourage you to make sure
034that you touch base with dr arnold you have her information but i think that would be a good place to start okay okay all right thank you thank you very much is there anyone else in the audience that would like to have an opportunity to speak okay seeing none we will close public comment okay board the next thing on the agenda is consideration of approval of proposed revisions to the policy yes ma'am madam chair members of the board uh 5.01 was considered proposed revisions and these were to the public schools policy manual uh we gave you as a first read last month tonight's the second read and again is your purview whether to approve but the policies are there for for approval okay madam chairwoman mrs justice yes ma'am i move that we approve sorry
035policies k g a e e a c c f b c c and g b i and that we moved to a work session policies b b a i g d a i g b b b d d f b c b b d b b f e b b b and then i think that's in policy bb the rest of them pretty much for discussion regarding so that we can understand better the changes and the implications of what is being made per each policy there's a lot of changes that may seem simple okay sorry i made a motion i moved to approve can you can you go slower yes so we can repeat since there are fewer that you want to vote on say those okay sure and madam chairwoman i move to approve
036policies k j a k g a sorry e e a c c f b c c and g b i and move the rest of the policies to a work session thank you okay so your motion is that you want to take i think there was five policies that you felt like um you wanted to separate from the others yes okay um and then you want to move those others to a work session yes ma'am okay is there a second to that second i have a second to that um is there any discussion when would the work session be mentioned um well i guess that we could um would your pleasure be to determine a date before we make them might make no i'm just saying that well the next time that we normally would
037have that would be may 26 which is right before graduation and there are a lot of things that are going to be going on at that time in our schools that all of us are a part of it might need to be after like in june um i want you to just be aware that if it's a two if it's two reads that you would have to to do especially if you've if you've changed any of them you'll just have to have that work done by by august so you can you can act on them prior to school now if you don't if you don't approve them then they they stay as is and so just just for that knowledge it doesn't have to rush if you if you don't want it to mountain chair
038oh yes is there any urgency to the ones that have been stripped out and while they're checking i think what i'm hearing dr arnold say is that we probably need to consider a work session in june with approval in july if we were to have it done before august or a work session prior to our june yeah i think you could approve it in august and be in good you could okay so could we we could do it in june as a work session and then approve in august as a second read so there is an option there um i know we have a board meeting on the ninth of june we're looking at a potential signing ceremony the following thursday on the 16th and then the 23rd would be our normal second session that
039might work so i think um based on just looking at the calendar miss like it looks like maybe the 23rd would be a good option of gene mr terry the only one that we feel like needs to be from our standpoint that would be more urgent is jj jj af the one for the sudden card student athletes cardiac arrest that we probably need to have some conversation on because physicals will be yeah we'll start in july they turn over july 1. okay but everything else is okay i've checked with the vhsl there's nothing new in the vhs cell physical form right now it's just other than a screen or a question do you have any cardiac issues but the vhsl is not requiring a uh ekg or anything like that at this time but again
040that's i know that was been some discussion on that but we do under the policy i think it would be imperative for us to uh kind of discuss that okay all right so board we have a motion on the floor that's been second to date we can you know vote on that or you can make an amendment um how would the board like to proceed my original motion to add policy jj af which is the athletic policy to amend that policy to include an ekg for the myocarditis screening okay um i'm going to ask you to if i may rather than talk about the details in that policy i think it would be better if we could say that jjaf would be moved into tonight's discussion so we would now have six and then the
041other ones be pulled into the work session and then we can talk about the details when that time comes is that okay all right so could you maybe restate your um i move to amend my motion to separate out policy jj af to be included in tonight's discussion and vote okay all right i need a second on the amendment second i have a second um by mr terry so all in favor for the amendment aye aye any opposed okay now we need to vote on the original so the original is pretty much what we've already just done but let me restate it that we would be looking at tonight k g a e e a c c f b c c g b i and j j a f and then we would take the
042rest of them and move them to a work session we can determine that date as we move forward okay so that's the motion on the floor i believe is that correct all right um is the discussion any discussion are we ready to vote okay any more discussion before we vote okay all in favor aye all right any opposed okay so motion carries so we have six that we'll discuss tonight the rest will move to a work session um i don't know that we need to vote on it but um would we like to make that um june 23rd is that doable yeah dr wells okay do you have another date that might work if there's 30th uh you know we could do it either yeah the 30th i'm here um i could i'm also here
043the obviously the 16th i'll be here [Laughter] we hope then there's the second yes second of what january in june okay june 2nd of course we can always do a date that's not a thursday it's a lot of these uh madam share i don't i just it's a lot of events going on in schools that i attend and i don't have in front of me right now but i wouldn't i don't know about that first week in june until we all look at that um okay it's just a lot going on with schools uh too that's why i asked when were we going to do this because it's a busy season for me certainly with my i'm trying to get to my grandchildren's activities and we send out a document that y'all can put in
044put in check marks and we'll get the one that has all seven i think that's good and and i will say this um i do appreciate um i know work sessions um are an extra thing but whenever we have policy you know it's it's a lot and i know that it's not just looking at the change but it's understanding why the change so um just my sentiment is i would like a work session every time we have policy to be honest so that's another conversation for another day um is that a motion madam emotion so um another conversation for another day um so now we want to look at our policies k g a e a c f cf bcc and gbi and jjaf board what is your pleasure do you want to vote on
045all of these together do you want to separate any of those madam chair i've moved that we separate out jj af and approve the others okay second second second have a second um all in favor say aye aye any opposed okay um let's look at approving j um kate the k g a e e a c c f b c c n g b i all right i need a motion madam chair i like to make a motion that we pass all of the above name policy changes okay can i have a second second we have a second all in favor any opposed okay we have five policies that have been approved okay now we're going to look at policy jjaf um i don't know if there's a possibility of getting that one up for
046us all but that might be helpful um and i'm assuming that someone needs to make a motion to pass it or let's have a conversation first before we make the motion perhaps madam chairwoman i move to discuss policy jjf okay sounds good so would you like to share with us um why you wanted us to talk about this one um the policy looks good to me i would just like to maybe amend it to include the ekg to help just be rule out any possible myocarditis complications it's a new phenomenon so to speak as far as occurrence and i think it would be a simple thing to do but it would help protect our kids okay um any discussions for anyone else madam chair um i just i have a couple concerns i'm all for
047checking you know my kids older kids all nationally ranked athletes but my concern is for our parents that maybe don't have insurance coverage having to pay for that i would be open to make that on there but make it optional if the parent has the means to do so for all means go do it but for our parents that are struggling to put their kids in sports i would like to have that be an option and also um not to correct you or anything but this has been going on for years i remember when my kids my older kids my oldest is 30. this was an issue back then also so the myocardia okay uh mr i would agree with miss berg as far as uh you know you don't know what the family situation
048is as far as health insurance and an ekg especially with health and health care costs nowadays and i tell them what they could be slapped with that bill where all they're doing is trying to get their child engaged in something extracurricular so i would be uh option is fine um but i wouldn't want to make it mandatory at this point can we use the word recommended yeah but it's optional any other thoughts or comments well what was the madam chair what was the virginia high school league's recommendation so this is not through the vhdl this is um through vsba through the jjf policy but um vhsl has not updated their physical forms there are some conversation on it but what this policy does do it just you know makes them be aware and if they
049are and if they have any issues that are cardiac related they're required to go see a medical professional and be clear about a medical profession before they can return to play as well as already in the policy again the concern i think some of you have already addressed is the fact that the cost associated with requiring every student athlete to get this when many of our student athletes or lower social economic status might be deterrent to them participating in athletics therefore i think as a requirement at this point it'd be difficult i think it'd be a hardship on some of those families to require again if you all want to add a line saying we would recommend that i think requiring it at this point in time without a funding source would be it would
050be a hardship to our families okay thank you anyone else have thoughts i think the um you know voluntary thing um the option for the pam is a good way to go with that okay madam chair that's your rossi has anybody looked at the cost of an ekg what would it actually cost does anybody have an idea i don't you know being in a medical profession for a number of years right off top my head i'm guessing you're probably looking at a couple hundred bucks easily and like you know miss berg said marcolitis is not something new it's it's been a you know an issue for decades so i mean i'm not against you know like i said have them checked but it's not a new phenomenon at all so this policy as written would
051require someone to be checked if they have heart conditions so it's in the second paragraph it states a student athlete who is experiencing symptoms that may lead to sudden cardiac arrest must be immediately removed from play a student athlete who is removed from play shall not return to play until he is evaluated by and receives written clearance to return to physical activity by an appropriate licensed health care provider as determined by the virginia board of education okay all right board members what's your pleasure man i'm sure i just have a quick question um who's to say if the kids having symptoms who what symptoms would they could have to have to even be flagged to be pulled you know we have certified athletic trainers that's sports miss burke we have certified athletic trainers at our
052practices and our games and they will be the first first coach would be looking for anything out of the ordinary if a kid is articulating he's having issues but then also the trainer will be screening students as well i think it's something we need to train our students on to look for us in this i think it's something we could also have in in place that with the parents because the parents have to you know be made aware of this prior to participating in sports so what i look for is related to this and we have to actually develop the regulations that go with this this is the policy but we're still required to update this biennially so i think that's something we would put in place that states you would have to these are
053the procedures you'd have to go through to make sure people are aware of the look for us for that that's something we would write up in our regulation as far as that but our athletic trainer is they are certified to look for these things and then when there are issues um we typically call ems pretty quick when somebody's having a problem all right thank you madam chair mr rossi under the risks will we list the causes or what parents should look for to make their decision whether or not they were going to invest in the ekg or not before the physical or they're like a list of symptoms or something we should say if your child has these symptoms or something along those lines where we can get a medical opinion and say you know
054if you've received a vaccine or some sort of medical history that we would strongly suggest that you get checked without going into their history on the forum itself but where the parents could make that decision um so again i think it comes down to the procedures we write and that's something we need to write by talking with our medical staff and and trainers and so forth so in right to procedures we'll consult medical professionals as to what those risk factors are and have it in our procedures so the adopting the policy puts in place the fact that we have to develop the procedures without the policy we don't have to develop the procedure so we need a policy in place so therefore i can then get with the medical teams to write the procedures and
055then i would update you what the procedures are once they're written thank you okay mr chrysler i was say something about the policy has to be in place before we talk about everything else would good okay there's no other discussion how would the board like to proceed madam chair could we move forward with a vote yes you just need to make the motion oh uh madam cherry i like to make a motion certainly that we proceed with the vote on just the policy the way it is um the policy but with her motion to put in or what we discussed about putting it in there being optional can i make a recommendation could i put that in the pers in the procedures could i under the procedural part could i say the amherst county school
056board just you know do these procedures so something on those lines where we recommend students receive this uh that type of thing in the procedural aspect of it so it's really not the policy because the policy just states i need to write the procedures but that could be in the procedural aspects of it versus in the policy aspects of it okay um i was going to say just help me um we've done a lot of discussion um what is the motion that's on the floor and have we thought i didn't think there was but the way y'all were talking it made me question myself so there's no motion there's not a second yes okay yeah so you can let that die right there and then start a new one okay madam chair i believe right
057now we're still in discussion the when i'm reading the policy here it says after we um in order to participate in any extracurricular physical activity each student athlete and the student athlete's parent or guardian must review on an annual basis information provided by the school division on symptoms that may lead to sudden cardiac arrest so i would propose that maybe i meant no we just did discussions so that maybe what we do is just after the part where it says that may lead to sudden cardiac arrest comma including possible relationships of vaccine to myocarditis being increased meaning for instance when we get our our vaccinations we're given a list of all the things that could happen now most of us have never seen any of them but it's still there for full disclosure so i
058would just propose that maybe we just put that that we note that there's a mention of myocarditis because there are parents that are concerned and there are sources that do suggest that there is an elevated risk of it among youth well i think my my thought is that the policy is what we want to have happen the information that you're talking about can occur in a regulation or information that's put out i mean the policy is pretty much what we're going to talk with your health care provider i mean we could add a line in the procedural aspect of it with states certain research suggests that vaccines did it up and may lead to myocardial infraction if you receive that you might want to consult with your male health care provider regarding further tests or
059further discussion but that's something you could put into the procedural aspect of it but the policy itself i don't think it needs i wouldn't say in a policy that's part of what we should put in the procedures as similar to a regulation and and i think that would accomplish what you're saying and i would agree with them based on just a little bit of knowledge of policy and and i can present once the procedures are written they'll be presented to you so you can see them so it's not like you'll be you won't have any input or knowledge of what's in the procedures so madam chairman it would seem to me that at this point it doesn't appear that we need to make any changes to the policy as it's here that the changes that
060may that we may being suggest is going to be covered in procedure so madam chairwoman i moved to close discussion okay um is there a second to close discussion second i have a second all in favor aye aye any opposed okay discussion is closed i need a motion on the floor madam chairman i i move we approve policy jj af okay up second second second by um mrs burke paul in favor aye aye any opposed all right carries thank you thank you all right now we are down to our consent agenda i need a motion madam chair um mr chrysler moved to approve the consent agenda as presented okay thank you i need a second second second by mr terry all in favor any post okay motion carries update on administrative services i had to
061flip a couple pages all right madam chair members of the board i will start tonight with administrative services on a construction update so the construction mid committee is going to meet on may 17th and we'll have a conversation then regarding the recommendations from the architect we plan on bringing those recommendations to the to you on june 9th at the june 9th meeting so you can have uh information regarding where we are with that because we are at the point where we need to probably start solidifying some of these design plans so we can move forward uh with the bid process and engineering process on these so we can get out to bid in early fall and begin construction in uh late fall early winter so that's kind of the process i have to get so
062we will bring you some information on june 9th but i want to get to the committee prior to that on the 17th and let them have some say in input into it before we bring it to you and mr bauer will be here on the ninth to help present that information and answer questions are there any questions regarding where we are so far with the construction update okay we're good all right thank you uh the next we have is the um central elementary restroom update and i'm gonna have and also mr rosen's talk about the electric buses so i'm gonna have to speak to electric buses and then uh the central elementary school madam chair members of the board in regards to central elementary let's say the contract and everything is in place with the
063uh general contract to start that work uh immediately after the close of school season uh i think like june 10th that first monday so everything's in place parts have been ordered and we have about 24 bathrooms in central to update renovate and so it's going to be a busiest summer over there for that in regards to electric buses the uh the buses have a ride of us arriving at sunday merriman i met with appalachian power company again today and uh to look at routing the uh the power from the telephone poles uh the power poles on the side of our amherst middle school over there or underneath the road uh underneath the gordon's fairground and then uh go underground down to where we'll put the transformer out for the buses we're still waiting on parts
064uh davis electric is gonna be uh doing the um david satellite rather that's gonna be doing the install workforce the electrical aspect of it where they are still waiting for parts uh having trouble getting breakers and uh so we're just in the process that po was signed back in uh early march so just a matter of waiting on parts to get those in and hopefully that be completed in the next month to two months just as soon as we get the parts uh madam chair um i was curious to know what exactly we were doing with the bathrooms at central so the bathroom's essential just like we've done in all the others well most of the other schools not all of them but uh over the last several years renovations have been taking place to
065go and replace the fixtures also go in and redo the floor take up the tile floor and put down a another type floor in the bathrooms which are easier to keep clean and maintained same thing as the walls we have new wall surface that we put on the walls in the bathroom so it's a matter of upgrading the fixtures and those type of things in all the restrooms in the schools and that includes the large restrooms for um you know the multiple has multiple toilets and sinks as well as most of your kindergarten and first grade classes have individual bathrooms in them as well and we'll be upgrading all those as well would there be any way to update the bathrooms a little bit similar to what we're considering for the high school at this
066time no on this particular project as we move forward um you know we can look at that as we move forward we still have a couple of schools left to do but we're i'm guessing like i said most times done prior to my arrival i think we were about 75 to 80 through all the schools uh to do that like the high school had already been done and we still have like milos and middle to do temperance and a couple other schools but for the most part we're getting to the end of the schools so as we move forward we can look at those type of things particularly on the large bathrooms in the hallway we can look at those to see what new years aboard a future wardrobe like to do thank you so
067much and i think it's also at the elementary level that's less of a concern than the middle and second at the secondary levels so therefore it's something we can look at those levels too but that's something this contract is kind of straight with this so we can't really change that contract but moving forward that's something we can you know as we discuss next month at the june 9th meeting as far as the plans and things of that nature we can have more discussions on that moving forward is there any way sorry um thinking out loud here is there any way to at least maybe put bigger store doll or store doors on or stall doors stall doors yeah floor to ceiling yes floor to ceiling i'll have to talk to the contractor about that and
068see what the additional cost would be at those schools again in elementary schools it's not quite as much the concern as it is at the secondary schools but that's something we can talk about and see where we are all right thank you so much yes ma'am the the next thing any any other questions before i move on madam chair yes do we have an eta on those breakers for the electric buses no sir uh campbell county sort of ran into the same issues as well and uh and not only that but apco getting transformers and that's another issue so it's a supply and um i contacted davis elliott i called him again today and i talked to him every two or three weeks to see what an update is and you know as soon as
069they get confirmation from their vendor users about two to three weeks out he'll let me know but i'm constant contact with them to see when it's gonna be coming it's just a amount of getting supplies in so nobody's giving uh an eta on any of these so we could be waiting until when we first placed the po you know they're looking at 10 to 12 weeks 10 to 12 weeks yeah sure it's a possible we could start the school year without these electric bus i don't think it would be that far but i i'm pretty confident we'll be into mid to late june before you know school season will be out before the electric buses will be have the charging stations in all right thank you dr wells ma'am mr roach so when was the
070last time our bathrooms in those elementary schools were updated when they were built which is but yeah 1964. sounds long overdue yay um the second question um as ms burke was talking about the florida ceiling do we know how far the the walls are planning to be right now they usually leave about a one foot gap at the bottom so traditional okay thank you okay then the gang bathrooms now the individual restrooms in the classroom is between first and second grade those are floor to ceiling okay all right so i was hoping not to have to do one of these again but uh i need to update you on some covert information so as of 3 o'clock today since may 1st this is in 12 days of may we've had 31 positive cases among students
071we currently have 19 active covet 19 cases among students we've had four positive staff and we currently have two active cases among staff that was as of 3 pm today i had not updated my number since then so we're looking at you know and the whole division right now we have we've had 35 positive cases since may 1st and again we have 21 that are currently what we considered active whether they're home because they can't come to school because they are contagious okay madam chairman may have a question justice okay dr wells helped me again understand the difference between a positive case and an active case so a positive case means they tested positive since may 1st but they've gone through their quarantine and they're no longer considered contagious so they can return back to
072work or school and an active case will be someone who is considered contagious or still symptomatic and therefore they cannot come to school so of our 31 positive cases as we're all symptomatic yes okay thank you yes ma'am okay anyone else okay thank you and the last thing i have is the suspension report for the month of april and pending any questions board members any questions okay hearing none i guess that we are good thank you thank you very much yes ma'am all right uh finance good evening madden chair members of the school board tonight before you are your april financial reports we have provided you a year revenue and expenditure report for your child nutrition and your operating budget we continue to monitor our receipts and our spend down revenue is being received as
073anticipated and we are operating within our approved budget one item on the other attachment for your local receipts you may have noticed that that is a higher amount than you normally get in a given month and that is because of your educational consortium deposit which is your e-rate and i just wanted to state that because that was almost ninety thousand dollars and even even though e-rate is a fcc it was established by the fcc it is not funded federally and we are required by vdoe to record that as local revenue so that is the cause of that increase this month and next month we expect it to go back down to normal on the object code attachment last month i had pointed out on page four and five where the cares was over budget and
074we had that major category that was over budget and that supplemental appropriation did address that and so you can see on those same pages that they are they're no longer over budget we are still seeing the utilities in the fuel but it's within what we were expecting so we still have that same plan in place in conclusion my report i do just want just to give you a heads up you may have another supplemental appropriation for cares because we have started today getting invoices on the high school renovation project but that would be coming next month do you have any questions i have a quick one um i could call you about it but maybe you can answer it quickly i saw something on there called joint operations do you know what that would fall
075under that that is usually the tuition payments correct tuition payments for like laurel and such okay madam chair i think this is probably a good time to add this we're still waiting on a state budget we have gotten no information as to when it's going to show up and i tell you because mr gallagher is going to need to send a letter to all staff beginning of next week to explain to them our intent to give them a contract when we in fact have a budget we did this last year the the good thing about this year is that every other school division in the state has to do the exact same thing so we just want our our staff to feel comfortable in the knowledge that they are getting a um a contract so
076if you you see those or hear about those that's that's going out next tuesday tuesday tuesday yeah madam chair um yes dr arnold i had a quick question um do they have a date where they have to give us an answer on that by what happens i think they've passed that i think that was a couple months ago because i was told when i asked you know people in richmond when to expect it and i was told you know don't hold your breath right so my concern is it's been explained that they just stopped the clock yeah i guess they have the ability to do that how are we going to because it's richmond what are we going to do if they don't pass the budget and you know getting ready to open up schools
077purchasing food getting you know the diesel tanks filled you know getting contracts for our teachers or even trying to figure out how to budget in you know the raise that we had to give them i mean we have all this stuff coming up i know i'm from new york and in new york we had reserves for all that we don't have that here no map so do we have any type of plan besides pray and pray really hard and often talk to our representatives every single one of them because we take a lot more money from the state than than most almost close to 70 percent of our budget comes from the state so we can't live off of federal and uh local it's just not possible so we're going to really need them to
078start acting and i'm not you know the the first i saw was last week i saw a couple of news stations do a a feature on it and that was just last week so that's the first any kind of rumblings i've even heard about people saying hey we need we need a budget so i've spoken with several delegates i've spoken with the speaker of the house i've spoken with you know senate everybody yeah it's it's unconscionable we're gonna be in a bad spot and and the other issue for us is is that when we finally do get it we have such a small department they're gonna have to turn around and get all of this accomplished and out to our staff which puts an extra burden on on them is there summer school coming out
079of this past year's budget or okay have care is funding for the summer school program there is some local but you could do that through cares so how long are we good for without them passing a budget i guess the question you want to ask is can we open school it's going to be how long you can have that school open i mean you do have you have the federal funds but they are earmarked for certain staff members and you do have the local appropriation but that that's minimal compared to the state funding you'd have to meet payroll because your folks won't show up if you're not going to pay them and then we're going to have to get buses on the road we'll have to put fuel in them so if we could probably
080open but it wouldn't stay open very long if we're still waiting are we able to borrow from like um the high school building project and then pay okay madam chairman quick question i thought i recalled at a previous meeting that sometimes we haven't had budgets that were approved until september is that no no never okay thank you okay no i think they've always been approved even at the last minute last year it was the longest and the last minute and it puts you guys in a crunch for sure but it was it got done but that's the latest um so maybe a good information for us to have for our june meeting is and just sort of anticipating how long we can remain open yeah you know we may need to have a discussion with
081the board of supervisors um we need to prepare for that and we do need to talk to our legislators and let them know where we are yeah they shouldn't be doing this to our kids madam chair um when do we usually start purchasing like supplies and everything for the next school year from like cleaning supplies you know food and stuff we're using this year's money yeah we've already backed it as well yeah so cleaning supplies and things like that have already been purchased using in the end of year funds and things of that nature but and cares funds but then and we have a chain supply issue a serious chain supply issue where we started um ordering our technology back in november to make sure that we have it and we're still out probably half
082of what we've ordered but since 85 of our budget is around personnel that's where that's that's where our issue is going to be i think we can get paper and pencils and those kinds of things but paying our staff is going to be the biggest issue and if we can't pay them then whatever locality is going to have a problem right yeah i'm concerned even after you know the budget gets passed with you know the cost and food going up d they're saying you know where it's possibly we're going to run out of diesel i don't think it's been on a lot of news but no i mean there's already a shortage i mentioned i'm just saying this is not the first time that richmond has delayed the budget and so i wouldn't want to
083send a message out there to everybody that's listening that we're all the pieces here because every school division is looking at the same thing including where i work so we have faith that they will come through at the last minute well i thank you thank you very much for that i've seen this i've seen this the situation through the years and it's a hold out between the two parties and so when they decide to come together we'll get a budget and so i feel here in amherst we don't want to put another red button out there for everybody crying tonight we're going to be fine i mean we all the other 28 28 divisions 128 vision in the state are going through the same place and it's not just schools it's state police everything law
084enforcement and i agree with you um but we do need to talk to our legislators we put some pressure on the pressure doesn't hurt exactly okay i think we were still on finance any other questions okay thank you very much instruction thank you ma'am madam chair and members of the board i have three items for you tonight the first one i just want to give you an update from our last meeting where i provided you information regarding the new accreditation provisions that were taken on by the state we did have a memo that came out on may the 6th from our new state superintendent regarding chronic absenteeism they have removed that indicator from our accreditation for the 21 22 23 school year and they have actually will still it will still be provided that information
085to the public for transparency and it will be reported and calculated but it will not go into whether or not a school is accredited for us or not and that is based on all of the different concerns that we have had throughout the year in regards to students being able to attend because of covid we amherst county filed a waiver for this back in november and i believe the state has taken a look at those waivers and a request for a waiver and this was their information that they provided to us so we're very very pleased with that the second thing that i have any questions on that i'm sorry okay the second thing that i have for you tonight is just an update in regards to our kindergarten registration i am very excited we
086had a lot of new registrants that came in probably about 60 86 new kindergartners that we have registered so far and we have screened over 198 already which is outstanding normally we do not get that type of screening until right when school begins and so i'm very very pleased in your memo is a chart for where we are at each of the schools and the level of that so you would know but across the division we're we're really close to where we currently are where where we have been in the past so i'm very excited about that the last thing that i just wanted to review with you is summer school we have been in the process probably since about january talking about summer school with our families getting them information last year mr neighbors
087ran summer school for us and coordinated all of that and it was a true team effort by everyone here in the division our our community partners this year dr mcginnis is overseeing that process for us and he is taking the template that was used last year and implementing it once again for our elementary and our secondary the only thing that changes this year is due to construction we are housing our secondary up at the high school so our middle and high school are all based out of amherst county high school which the teachers and our community so far seem to be very pleased with that and then we'll have one from amherst elementary that it will be based there in madison heights we have 32 staff members that have been hired for different components of
088the programs and then right now we are at students that we have seen so far in regards to them attending summer school this year um i did put dr mcginnis did put for you information in regards to what we're doing we have some escape rooms that incorporate math science reading and history that the high school students are going to be participating in and they are all very excited about that we also have a project that we are partnering with i forget the name of it seaquest up at the mall for our middle school students and then how to go about writing in regards to what happens in modern day media and then in our of course our elementary we're once again using the power scholars program which we have seen huge success in that over
089the last several summer school programs where we have shown significant growth in our children in the areas of reading and math so i just wanted to provide you with that update and we are ready for our students to come to summer school i wonder how many of us could get out of those escape rooms it's really hard thank you very much thank you good evening madam chair members of the board i have two items for you all this evening i did want to start by noting that we had to participate in some of those escape rooms last summer and many of us adults had quite a bit of difficulty with those so i'm sure the students will do much better than we did um so what i wanted to start with is update on where
090we stand with our early childhood programming to date we've received 103 applications for early childhood programming that is a huge number for us at this point in the year so we're very excited about that 83 of those students are eligible so they meet criteria that has been set either through the vpi program or we also have local criteria that we put on top of that eight or pending which means that we're waiting on some additional documentation or information from the family to make that determination and only 12 so far have not met criteria would be ineligible for the program of all those 12 we have referred them to additional program that's available at low or no cost in the community we'd be able to partner i believe that we provided some information on that at
091our last meeting so we're still trying to find avenues for those families even though for the vpi program they don't meet criteria um so very very pleased with our progress so far fully expecting to be able to fill all of our projected slots for next year we're also working next week we have interviews for the new classroom that we're opening opening at amherst elementary school very pleased we actually have three qualified applicants for that position which is two more than i thought we might have so very very pleased with that as well hoping that we find at least one good candidate for our students as a part of that process next week i'm certainly able to answer any questions you might have at this point but very very pleased with the work that miss albert
092has done to really pull this together work with our community agencies and we are well on our way to filling our slots and probably beyond for next year madam chair mr russell how many slots are available in the early learning program so for our vpi program specifically looking at we target four-year-olds for that program we have 127 slots available for our standards and what we do in regards to classroom density which really comes down to the size of some of the rooms that we have we're targeting right at about 118 to 120 slots so that'll be our final number and i fully expect we'll probably exceed that we end up having a wait list some years uh most likely that'll be the case next year with our community partners we've been able to get those
093students plugged in even when they're on our wait list we're able to get them in with some of our other community partners as well thank you mr rossi just for perspective each class as we go along typically has around 300 students total so that 120 is quite a large group of students all right uh moving on last piece i don't want to steal any of miss leggings thunder but i didn't want to give the board an update where we stand with our laurel regional program uh we recently had a board meeting and the board was very gracious in approving a plan put forward by the director dr donna lewis in regards to how we can expand laurel and make it relevant as we move forward i'm sure most of you are aware that historically and
094as a legacy program laurel has served students with multiple disabilities most of those being medically fragile students that require a significant amount of support within the school building and throughout the school day our numbers and that population have dwindled significantly over the past several years when i came in we had 13 students at laurel as of today we have four all of that is because we had an older student population those students have moved on either graduated or aged out some have transferred to other divisions but most have just reached that age where they've moved on to other things what's been put forward to the to the board there and what they voted on and approved is the addition of two aspects of the programming so we currently have two classrooms that are dedicated to
095serving students with autism we're expanding that to three for next year and able to grow that program by at least another eight as many as ten students within that one classroom we're also looking to add two programs that are dedicated to therapeutic behavioral support again those classrooms can serve anywhere from eight to ten students and divisions would share those available slots be able to move forward there's already discussion about being able to expand to a third classroom in that particular regard and looking forward other areas in the building that we could utilize to expand some of those programs even further a lot of what the board has been discussing a lot of what has been discussed by the directors group that works with dr donna lewis over there at laurel is the need for programming
096that addresses some of these behavioral concerns that we have with students that go beyond the capacities of our local school divisions and what we're able to do in those typical classrooms having this program available that really is going to serve as a temporary home for students to be able to go have that behavior stabilized really work on a plan develop interventions and then reintroduce them back into the school setting much more successfully than we would be able to do within our traditional settings our traditional structures along those lines we're very excited about that expansion we really do feel like this honors the legacy of laurel but also keeps it relevant moving forward lets it stay alive in a lot of ways but for us and amherst really feel like this moves us in a direction
097where it becomes much more useful to us as a community resource and we can serve many more students as a part of that honestly what's an investment for us um so again would be happy to take any questions or miss ligand if you'd like to add anything you're part of that meeting as well right there yeah but we'd be happy to answer any questions you might have about that thank you uh human resources all right madam chair mr co-chair uh members of the board so i have several things for you this evening the first is our monthly vacancy memo that you have before you uh next month in june just note that all those will transition into just basically one group of vacancies for the upcoming 22-23 school year but uh that is as it
098currently stands still divided into the current year and next year and i'll take any questions that you might have board members you have any questions thank you manager i was just wondering how interviews have been going uh they've been going frequently and and busy and they've been very good we've had some solid candidates we have a lot of interviews upcoming within the next two weeks um you saw miss mcnerney in here earlier who won an award where we kept her extremely busy she's the one who coordinates our interviews so this is an active time so it's been very positive thus far we've had some excellent candidates hired and will be busy with this process through the end of june i would imagine it will continue so but it has been productive thus far and quite
099busy this is the time are we having quite a few people put in for these positions then or we are having um not as many as we would like we have had actually though however compared to what we've had recently over the course the year we've been pleasantly supply uh surprise in a lot of categories that we've had applicants for english for example for preschool teacher for example that we didn't anticipate maybe those numbers so it's kind of ebbed and flowed some areas maybe not as much as others been very strong in elementary teacher applications so we still are typically low in math cte and english overall even though we've had some strong viable candidates it's still not as high as we'd like to see that all right are we pretty hopeful that we'll be
100able to fill all our slots i'm very hopeful we're working very hard diligently we're communicating we're looking at every avenue you know as i told you before this past year is probably the first year at least since i've been in this position where we didn't have 100 fill rate you know by the middle of the school year for example so that made me uneasy that that didn't occur so my goal and my hope is that we'll be at 100 going into the coming school year and i feel confident about that and we know by this time in the year that the teachers that we do have currently that are teaching that we're going to be retaining all that we have left we have submitted actually this evening we submitted our recommendations of all staff to
101return for the next school year and again as dr arnold had alluded to we'll be sending out letters of contract assurance by tuesday just to help ease those those anxieties if any that we do intend to offer them a contract and i also have faith that we will have an approved state budget before it is is too late so i don't want to have oblique outlook on that either i know that will happen i'll trust that the representatives at the state level understand the impact of their decisions on all school divisions in the commonwealth and so that we'll be able to move forward but we're doing all we can to reassure our teachers because we have such value in those individuals and are very thankful that they are returning now um when we send out
102um those letters yes ma'am are we going to be able to hear back within a couple of weeks the teachers that plan on staying or is that going to be a big window until we have our budget pass well hopefully we'll hear quickly and again this isn't for them to tell us that they're not returning if in fact they decide that they're going to leave or someone has a different opportunity they will let us know as that occurs this is really our assurance to them that we plan to offer them a contract in the and what is helpful about this process is it's run through our talon ed electronic system that they're familiar with the evaluations are conducted through that as well so they'll receive it immediately and they just have to electronically click to
103accept that it's going to be easy to track also all right thank you so much you're welcome madam chairwoman let me ask a question mr gallagher yes ma'am when um i know teachers will generally sign i'm not certain the exact title but it's like i'm planning to return letter of intent when do they normally when do you normally see a majority of those is it mid-summer is it are you asking me when the letters of intent are distributed when do you usually receive them because i think they've already been distributed they are you know yeah i believe they were sent out the first of january and then were returned within you know probably i think we gave them a month i believe was the end of january okay um and we have had we've had
104those confirmations so what percentage would you say of our current our current teachers have uh given an intent to return next year well those that have identified either an intent to return or undecided has been a very high number uh there were a percentage of undecided that are still unknown but we have not had an overly abundant number of individuals at least to date and i want to knock on wood and not jinx anything to to to indicate a resignation although that again we're we're in may so that can change final question um the undecided is it about equivalent equivalent to previous years no it's probably higher than previous years i think i reported on that uh when i talked about letters of intent previously and i can't remember the exact percentage but it was
105it was higher than in a typical year thank you and that was probably an early february meeting perhaps is when we discussed that thank you very much you're welcome anything else all right thank you appreciate that uh the second memo i have there is to consider approval of administrative hearing officers that request is applicable to current board policies gbm which is professional staff grievance and also gbma which is support staff grievance the reason that that's applicable is under gbm professional staff grievance under procedures for dismissal that section of the policy under number one there is an option there's not a mandate but an option that the board may appoint a hearing officer that's been an option and in place in our policy for years so in the event that we wish to appoint a hearing
106officer rather than hear a grievance for professional staff dismissal rather than the board hearing that you would have that option and there's no mandate to that under gbma support staff grievance under our current policy there is a requirement under procedures number two where the superintendent shall select an external hearing officer selected from a list approved by the school board so the reason that we have this in front of us today is to make sure that we are in accordance with that policy that have provided a list of individuals who are qualified retired school administrators with experience in school policy school operations and school administrative processes so the reason i bring that before you today is to consider that for approval i don't i hope to never have to be in a position to have to
107use it but if there's an event that we do we have to be prepared with qualified individuals who are impartial and also very knowledgeable of procedures in in public schools and i'll take any questions that you have for me on that questions madam chairman i have a question mr gallagher of the individuals on our list here are any of them new are they all from previous years we have not had a list of hearing officers in the past we've approved the support staff grievance policy was approved in august of 20. and yet we don't have a list for that we'd like to come into compliance to make sure we've not had to have the need for that but if we do we'd like to have that available it has always been an option under gbm
108but we to my knowledge you know we've not had a list um submitted uh for for selection in that regard and it's not a requirement but it still it would if you have if you choose that it would be nice to have someone um available to select from that looks great i know at least as a newcomer i'm familiar with mr quail so and i presume the rest of you are quite familiar with the others so that's great that's fantastic that you've been proactive in getting this list together which is a support to our staff that they're going to get an unbiased um strong hearing here okay i assume that we need to make a motion madam chair make a motion we've proved the list of hearing officers is presented okay i have a motion
109i need a second second second by mrs burke all in favor aye aye any opposed all right thank you mr gallagher motion carry thank you all um the third item i have are the employee work calendars um these are the 2022-23 employee work calendars for licensed and classified personnel in accordance with their annual contract periods so there are two 250-day contracts 200-day contracts 220-day contracts and 190-day contracts these go out with individuals who have contracts within those those time periods uh those date ranges um with their contracts when they're submitted and distributed but each year we provide this to you uh for review and approval so you understand um the the number of days the different days they have off in essence you know their work calendars but we do submit those for your review
110and approval on an annual basis and i'll take any questions if you have but i'm asking for you to review those and if you have questions please ask otherwise we would ask for your approval okay any questions that you might have madam chair mr president yes uh move to approve those uh calendars this present okay i have a motion on the floor i need a second second second i have a second for mrs liggin any discussion madam chair um with this calendar i know that we received an email probably about three weeks ago from an employee who had questions regarding the work schedule do you remember um it was actually about the length of the school year thank you yeah so this has nothing this is not a calendar this is just the days in
111the calendar that each different uh group of employees have off thank you okay yes all right we have a motion on the floor any other discussion all right all in favor say hi all right any opposed all right motion carries okay thank you and lastly and maybe most importantly i reinvite all of you next thursday to pro throw for our retirement dinner that will begin at six o'clock at pro throw sweet fire college i'd love to have you present for that dinner i think it's going to be an amazing event and i just wanted to make sure that i just threw that shout out one more time so thank you and you're welcome and that's all i have this year okay i think we are down to hear from mr garrison good evening everyone uh
112i have a few things i just want to mention tonight it's my last meeting i believe of course um and i've had a really great year i've really enjoyed even though it's been really crazy you know missing one here and there it's been really interesting seeing how the school board works and how things change however sometimes slowly that might happen um but there's a few things that have happened this month at the schools uh prom unofficially happened uh it was a really nice event the parent community did a great job with that mr grizer thank you for helping with the shuttle uh on the bus that was actually very nice i i didn't want to walk all that way um the golden day in the golden castle ceremony um these past few weeks miss logan
113thank you for coming to both of those i'm sorry i didn't get to speak with you but i appreciate you coming in the last uh this upcoming monday we have the senior recognition ceremony at the high school i don't know if any of you guys are planning on attending that's when any scholarships are announced various awards and things like that for the seniors and then of course graduation on the 27th i'm sure you're all familiar with that i know i am um also the other programs such as governor's school stem academy and cvcc are all wrapping up or already finished i know governor school's last day is tomorrow i am looking forward and not looking forward to that i'm sure you understand um also there's a band concert last week i don't know if any
114days were able to go to that my sister played in it they did really well um and then i just want to say thank you for everything from my time here i only moved here in eighth grade so this is my fifth year in amherst county um but almost every single opportunity i've been able to utilize to get into the colleges that i got to get the scholarships that i got has either been directly from amherst county or facilitated through amherst county just to mention a few uh robotics and i want to thank miss phillips i know that she's no longer the school system but i thank her for her initial support mr martin he's always been a supporter of the robotics team most recently miss ashton who just joined the school system this year
115and has been amazing with stem miss gray and mr jordan have also been incredibly supportive this year uh tech club with mr cargill he was actually my golden a profound educator uh really appreciate everything that he does with my internship and everything governor school you guys make that possible you let the students go and have an awesome time learning so much cool stuff i'm sure you're all at least vaguely familiar with the program at governor school and stem academy and the other ones um and a little bit more niche one some online space courses that were shown through the school system um carl hayden i don't know if any of you guys remember him from a few years ago he advocated for that and actually this summer i'll be going to the nasa langley facility
116uh to work with some national scientists on designing a mars mission um just a bunch of excellent teachers i've had the opportunity of having um miss stinson this year especially and last year through the hope through the whole pandemic has been fantastic and then of course you guys for having this awesome opportunity to see everything about what you guys do dr arnold for selecting me and you guys for allowing it to happen i hope it'll be able to continue in the next few years i do want you guys to try and remember that students really want to learn it's just kind of creating the learning environment and that's really hard when students aren't in the building as i'm sure you guys know but a lot of that is supporting the teachers and administration and allowing
117them to create that environment for the students to be able to learn and that might sound confusing but just encouraging the teachers you know i i was listening to your discussion about the state budget and all that and assuring the teachers hey you're good we got you that's exactly what kind of helps them out you know um and then if the teachers are motivated then they're they'll the students will follow suit and be motivated as well um and just kind of with that i think it's important to encourage a variety of activities from field trips like the trout releases that happened over the last month or so with the elementary schools middle school and i think high school as well uh the jag field trips those are also really impressive and cool uh and then
118engaging hands-on activities in the classroom alongside the regular coursework everything works together and i've learned that at governor's school you need all the different activities in order to create a complete learning experience that i feel ready for college between my experience at amherst and governor's school i feel ready and i think a lot of my fellow students do as well um and i just want to say electron mentioned earlier i'm going to university of alabama huntsville um i'm confident that i'm going to be able to do well there and in my career hopefully living on the moon i'm not kidding i want to live on the moon that would be really cool um and i'm looking forward to using the skills and all the experiences that i've gotten here in that career and at those
119opportunities i'm also confident that uh especially robotics you know my little my little baby will definitely continue on and hopefully help with a lot more students as it continues and i think you guys hopefully will continue with those stem activities learning opportunities and hands-on experiences that are really important to students being engaged and learning i want to thank you one more time for this amazing opportunity and i hope you guys have a great next few school years for however long you may be serving on the board so one more nugget for peter at the golden tassel ceremony we learned that for the nhs peter served as the parliamentarian so he could have if y'all would have asked been a great help to all of us next time stand up and say hey well thank you
120very much peter sounds like exciting things ahead and we just have really appreciated having you with us dr arnold spam so i have vsba listed here and that is because there was a request to discuss amherst county's involvement with the virginia school board association i was submitted six questions do you want me to read the questions and answer the questions first and then you go from there because i don't see the answers here right right i think that would be fine i know there has been some give you some some context and then you have whatever discussion you want to have thank you so the first question was what's the contract cost we pay eight thousand dollars a year in contract and then we pay twenty five hundred dollars for policy services so when all
121of the school systems work together and pay twenty five hundred dollars that's how all the school systems get policy from a a on-site lawyer at the bsba second question is what do they lobby for specifically and so there is an agenda that the so ms liggin is the would you like to to discuss this miss lingan is the legislative representative and so they meet every november at the uh statewide meeting and they discuss legislative topics and then you vote on them is is my understanding so so there's a legislative topics put out there every representative in every school division that's in the virginia school board association has a a voice in that room and they vote on it and once those things have been decided as an entire state that's where the lobbyists then go
122do their work so for example one issue i was mrs thompson you might two years ago there was the law that was passed or they were talking about the law that was to give teachers the right to uh collectively bargain uh the board the virginia school board association in discussion about that decided that they didn't think that that would be a good idea for the virginia school board association to uh back so that's what the lobbyists went to richmond and said please don't vote for that right so they're the lobbyist act on behalf of the virginia school board and the school board association is each member right each division that is a part of that organization and that's 133 school divisions the other question do they recommend changes which are more than required by law
123so all school boards have to review policies periodically and so um what it's been explained to me by the vsba lawyer is they they review them she she reviews them and when they find inconsistencies between older policies and things that they've had to change whether that's in language use or or otherwise uh maybe even inappropriate verbage that they'll change that outside of what the law is if that makes any sense yeah um so when you talk about consistency between policy and practice are we talking about they look at our individual policies or okay well our individual policies are their policies because they've written them because we asked them to write them for us we've been doing that since your other question 1992. so amherst county public schools has been a member of the vsba and
124so we do have policies because we don't have to adopt all vspa policies we do have policies that are amherst county public school specific policies they however are not because they're not vsba policies they are not uh supported by the the legal arm of the sba right so that's why it's so important for our own internal lawyer to make sure we are got our eyes dotted and t's crossed so to speak right um and then your at your question was if we do not renew membership we still have access to board docs board docs doesn't have anything to do with the vsva that's a that's a mechanism for for holding information it's it's like a filing cabinet and so that's just a software thing it's not a vsva product so we would keep that and
125then finally do they represent bipartisan legislation if so what are some examples i mentioned the the collective bargaining that one was supported by conservative groups to to not have collective bargaining by our uh for our teachers and so they've they've gone back and forth and i think mostly it depends on what's best for schools as opposed to a political view but i mean i can't say that they are they are not uh partisan or bipartisan all i can say is that you guys are the vsba and you're you're a member of their their group and those were the six questions and those were the answers i came up with thank you i'll turn it over to you guys thank you appreciate that um i want to say that i have been on the board for
126six years and i have not heard a lot about the legislative process so i spoke with mrs liggin today and i know that she has been involved and has a little better understanding of that than i do so perhaps she can shed a light on that i have been with you once to the vsba i think legislative process and i sat with you as we did that but maybe you can share with us a little bit the piece that i would like to help me fill in with my understanding is how do we as a board engage and give input into the legislation that the vsba is considering before the november meeting so that's the piece of gap i have so what can you share with us well um i'll answer your question after i
127ask more information first of all before i answer any questions uh and i will i mean i'm trying to get to the bottom of this conversation uh other than these six six or seven questions and who asked them i don't know if i saw it or not what is the basis for this conversation about the vsba then i'll go forward well i can share with you what i what i know and then others can chime in i know that there have been some people in our community that have questioned our expenditures with the vsba feeling as if it is a a partisan type of organization or at least slant so that i think that conversation has been taking place in the public it showed itself a little bit at the board of supervisors meeting where
128there were public members that spoke against it and us providing funding to pay for this so there was a member on the board of supervisors that you know asked us as a board to look into it and to look at how we were expending our funds so i felt that it was important that we all had a clear understanding of the vsba when there were people calling for us to remove ourselves from the vsba just like the vsba removed itself from the national association so i think i always want to have clear understanding before decisions are made so that's where this has come from i know mrs justice has also in trying to help facilitate that conversation came up with some questions to help lead and start the conversation and then i i wanted some
129additional i just felt that we as a board need to at least address it and make sure we're clear okay that's good that's that's what i was trying to get to um ms justin do you have anything to add to that someone has asked you the same thing definitely yes okay all right well i'm just going to give overall first of all 100 percent of the schools in the state of virginia belong to the vsba as of this morning um i have um as dr arnold said we have been a member of this organization uh since 92 i'm talking amherst is that correct and i came in 99 so we've been we've been around it for a minute just like any other organization that we belong to for instance let me just be quick i
130belong to the board of medicine because of the job i do i belong to the radiology society of virginia and of the state these are things that i've joined to back me up with what i do the vsba is the same thing it is an organization that backs up and supports and provides valuable information to school board members my first meeting there and and i went right away with dr daniels he said to me priscilla in order to know what you need to do you need to go to the sba meetings to have a full knowledge of policy budget laws all of these sort of things now this word partisan i'm not into that these vsba from what i have dealt with since 1999 is for all the kids of the state of virginia it
131does not represent as far as i have noticed any conservative party whatsoever otherwise i wouldn't be there now they we have meetings the southern region which is the president at this time is uh amy mcclure the southern region which amherst belongs to has meetings in the spring where these legislative policies or positions are brought up to all school board members you have the opportunity there to say i don't want tax i don't want electric bus i don't want collective bargaining i don't want tebow uh what is that tebow help me out the law uh this is where we meet and have these conversations also on the web webinars on the website on the policy page and every day from j.t kessler on that vsba news we get they speak about upcoming or events of policies
132or legislation legislation policies that are they're lobbying for enrichment so every school board member not just myself i'm just the one who is uh reading it and no board member since 1999 has asked me or any of the other people before my time to say we don't want that they have read it they have looked at it they're familiar with it and then when i go to the assembly i'm merely setting an audience representing amherst county setting aside appomattox on one side and album more on the other side and these these legislative policies which has been out there for all school board members to look at for a year are asked and voted on majority voting not a partisan not a public not a democratic not a republican party is in that room now you
133may not agree with uh whether we should have electric buses or whether we should raise uh fees of lunch that is the time before november when we have the southern meetings that school board members have the opportunity to voice their opinion or they can tell me at this time i represent us but that don't have to be no i mean if you want me off of that fine i represent amherst county and i asked and i have not received anybody that said go to go to williamsburg and vote against this because they're all out there i could not find my book tonight uh natalia you don't have one but don't bring it this great big book comes of all these things in it but school board members have seen that because it's been out there
134on these pages and no one has said to me yet go to williamsburg and vote against that because i would surely do it now obviously when i'm in that room many things are brought up most of the time no one says anything about anything because it's kind of general knowledge it's just things that are going on kind of like like doctor allen said some of these local policies that we looked at tonight that vsba is supporting these are the type things nothing drastic has come down to pipe collective bargaining was a big article the tebow who could homeschool kids could participate in a sports big article every every school board member has the right to go on the website and find out what is up for grabs and then tell me if you don't want
135it but if you don't attend the southern regional meetings if you don't go to the i go to the law conference every june that i can possibly go to hear what jt kessler has to say now in our last meeting in april i don't know what date it was doctor i was there it was um by zoom this time kessler gave all the things to all the school board members of what's coming down the pipe and he said contact me or contact me if there's an issue or if your school board has something to say about it so it's wide open opportunity elizabeth ewing jt kessel it's not the board of directors for the bsb it's not gina patterson it is the school boards and their representative just like we said here and discuss policies
136uh you might see something that's coming out of espa that's coming up for november and all these things is going to richmond department of education involved we have a lobbyist just like anywhere else that's saying we want this and believe it or not i have found that it's for the the most of the time 98 of the time these have been good rules and regulation good legislative positions for the kids in this county for amherst it's not a conservative issue it is a child issue when i am making a decision and raise my flag representing amherst it is for the good of the children i haven't brought anything back here yet that was bad if we want to open up this can of worms of this being a conservative town and we want more conservative
137ideas in on the vsba so be it but it won't be me because i'm looking after the children and every we can bring to tell you can you find that book for me uh next week uh whenever the next meet you can see some of the positions and some of the things that are voted on by a majority not just amherst and alvin moore and appomattox by the majority of school boards 128 looking out for the good of the children that's it that's the only reason i'm there and i've been a delegate and and i have a backup who is the backup this time i think i am okay so we can get involved we can get involved and i just go i was elected to go i had fun going it's not a big
138deal i don't get paid to sit in there i do listen i do my homework before i get there i do my homework when i get back i talk to all the people around i just talked to james coleman in lynchburg today i talked to some people down in brunswick county we communicate not because i'm the the legislative representative but we just find out what's going on and every school board member should attempt to attend the southern regional that's us meeting in april come to the june law conference at uh short pump these are where you find out what's on the burner and sometimes i come back and report what i heard i usually come back and say at the law conference x was discussed it might not need a vote but i bring it
139back that's why i go i bring back information i mean but i'm willing to turn this over if you feel like i haven't done my job and i'm not on the rebound here and i'm not on the defense but not everything is partisan not everything is conservative not everything is democratic not everything is republican this is virginia school board business and if we decide to come out of it what are you going to do who is going to be your backup who is going to represent you who is going to do your policies we can't create all this stuff ourselves we may think we can and yes people in the public are all of a sudden wanting the school board to do this that pull out get out get rid of people let me tell
140you it is a very bad habit and a very bad road we going down and that's all i got to say well thank you miss legging i appreciate your um your legacy um i know that you have been the longest standing member on the school board and you have a lot of knowledge and i've taken some notes because i'm aware of the november meeting i know when mr dr daniels was not dr daniels nicole dr nichols was with us so that's when i came on and i know that um we got together and we actually went as a group and we went to the southern regional um conference and i remember that it's been a while so that might be something good for us to continue to do well it was open for us this
141year i think i i might have been only one there let's not and i don't want to use this thing about the senior member i'm very old yes indeed but every day i'm renewing my information uh i'm not going back to 1999 when i got here things have changed and i'm changing with them so i'm glad to be a senior member on the board and seeing your age as well but it's for everybody all we have to do is tune in to the broadcast and find out everything that bsba is talking about daily i began my morning after devotions looking at the sba because i got to know what i'm doing and we appreciate that because a lot of us are new i'm not as new i am in tune some but i'm not as
142in tune as you are so that's good information for us to have you know you're talking about a book with the policy that's some of the things that we can look at so i know that there have been some concerns with not just policies not just lobbying some like training sessions so anything that we can do to get involved with the vsb to have that conversation i do know that i have spoken with some at the vsba as i know dr arnold has done to prep for tonight and i do think that they are open to having some conversations and making sure that we understand how the process works it's not a institution or an organization that just says shuts the door to us there are some concerns that i do have that's my own
143personal concerns that we i can share but for the moment for today i wanted us to be informative and make sure that we have there's questions that we need answered that we have those on the books and we can get the answers to it some of mine have already been answered tonight so board members what would you like to madam chair i just had a question i just wanted to thank priscilla for everything she has done there for us nobody is saying priscilla does not do her job and does not represent amherst and represent amherst well i believe that we would like to see a more transparency so we know like hey this is coming up you need to look at this over here that over there and also for um the virginia state school
144board association not being partisan i'm sorry i went to the last meeting or the last um one in richmond that we all went to and they had people up there on like cracking jokes about abortions and about uteruses and hired a democratic strategist that was very political so politics are involved and unfortunately they're involved in everything and some of the things that are happening the virginia state school board association a lot of not just virginia or amherst but all of virginia is seeing it and people are getting upset i know there's no other option right now but i'd like to keep the door open so hopefully one day there will be options out there for people we have all choices and can choose to go wherever we want to and hopefully find a non-partisan one
145because virginia state school bursa association is not nonpartisan not in the very least and one other com one of the comments to you ms logan your comments well taken madam chair um not only do i find out or vsva but vast the superintendents are aware of these um legislative priorities and dr allen has on many occasions brought these to our attention i mean i had when i was his chair uh he and i talked many times about what bass had said and vasco's uh was that stand for virginia association superintendents yeah they uh and they discuss the same things but they're not separate from the school board they are aware of the priorities coming down to pike and he has on many occasions brought that so that'd be another avenue uh madam chair is the
146for the superintendent whoever it is now or later will also be an avenue for you to find out these four things yeah i would suggest because we get about five a day yeah you guys do too emails and i know it's a lot to keep up with but that's that's the first step is making sure you keep up with what is being said and what's being put out there because if you wait until the end and when all the voting happens there's been a year of stuff that's that's gone out but i would just urge you to do that um up front that's the first thing i would do is make sure i knew everything that was put out there i understand that's hard but it is hard and maybe it's something that you know
147if we can have you say plan backwards you know if there's a southern regional um meeting in the spring um we've just had that is that correct yes ma'am okay and was policies yes and and those were presented there so perhaps we can in part of our work session we can talk about and have those presented to us um so that we can talk about them and we can respond to them um i know that i have spoken with the the chairman of the vsba board um he is very open to us contacting them and talking with them um so i think that that might be a place you know maybe we could have started earlier than that but it's never too late to start so that might be something that you would like to
148consider if we can talk about what was said at the spring regional conference what was being presented what we can find avenues to express our viewpoints as a board perhaps madam chairwoman miss justice thank you so um i cannot speak to others experience i can only expect to my experience when i went to the new school board association the virginia school board association new member orientation it was very clear i had i have the list of them here where um the lawyer i don't remember her name but she went through all the bills that were in the legislative session there and who was sponsoring them and took an active part against all bills that were giving school choice parental choice money following the child being more inclusive towards um homeschoolers and other programs and and
149even charters and was actively ridiculing the policies and the lawmakers and it was nearly 100 all directed towards one side of the aisle i've received action alerts that have said contact your legislators they're trying to pass this parental rights thing when you mentioned vass bass in the last two months sent out that one letter that said all superintendents are opposed to the what governor yunkan is proposing in this executive order and it was an order on parental rights and the um the right of parents to know what's best for the kids and to be involved in the education of their kids and how it's happening and to provide greater variety of choices for students and more unique opportunities so that was one of the things that i have had a problem with with vsba in
150my experience i've also received action alerts and professional development on how to how to racially hire um divisive issues yes about how to support critical race theory equity and education not equity of opportunity but equity of outcome which is very different and these are not issues that at least our voters have appeared to support um as far as alternatives to the training and stuff the sba offers um my understanding is previously there were not options but over the last year and a half there have been a lot of options you've had middle resolution which had an educational policy get together where you could have you had legislators there you had school board members there you had non-profits there and they were collaborating and sharing you have so what my concern is that one yes we
151need to be more involved but from what they've been sending out to me and my emails at least it has not been pro parents it has not been pro-child through parents it has been central authority in the schools is knowing best and we need to keep it here and not collaborate with people that see differently than yourself so um the policy side of it that does become the oh the other thing for myself is i have i know that last fall they sent down the policy kna on the sex offender registration notification that policy was um reducing the um the steps that should be taken to take keep our kids safe and it was minimizing reducing um information that was being dispersed and disseminated to those who were on staff and who were taking care
152of the kids our the policy tonight i think it was bb sorry it was talking about reducing it was changing the language of our legal status as school board as school board as a school board from obeying the constitution deriving our authority from the constitution of virginia and the virginia code and the board of education i think bdoe anyways it was reducing it down to the constitution and laws of virginia when it comes to policy and law specificity is really important and so i have seen very few policies come down in the last eight months that were beneficial okay um thank you um dr arnold i know that we've talked about the cost of our contract can you talk to us about the costs that would be incurred and what we would have to do
153if we were not members of the vsva there would be one of two things you already have an attorney on retainer or you can hire somebody that that's their job in the school system however i would suggest it would be an attorney so either way you're going to pay an attorney's fees because none of us in this room are up there have the the legal wares i guess unless you went to law school i'm sorry i didn't know that to to put policies out there that are going to keep us straight with the law so as you know the amount of conversations we had to have with our attorney this year uh due to several things that we had to bring him here what that cost us it's quite significant so anytime you talk about
154a you know and i have no idea how to put a number on someone that's full-time writing policy or reviewing policy or updating policy so i that that would be a well let me say this we're paying currently 2 500 that's not even close to that um i i don't know how to i can go an hourly rate that we currently pay uh but i would i would suggest it's going to be significantly higher well that's just a money because that person would not only have to write the policy but that person would also have to stay abreast of the legislation and yeah and make sure that they understood the alignment okay all right um so board and we'd still have to vote to approve the policy so if they wrote it some way we
155didn't appreciate it just like when vspa sends us something we have the ability to approve it right right with the vsba we don't have to approve it the way it is we have the freedoms to make those adjustments to the policy you always do yes that's right and you have an attorney on retainer that can update those those things for you right okay any other discussion okay i was hoping that we would have a discussion tonight then you guys can talk about it and decide how you want to move forward but i think discussion would be plenty for tonight if that's okay all right let's see what do we have um i have continuity of services that is the that is the plan that this board uh approved in june and august of last year
156that was how we were handling covid we had to have that plan in place so we could receive the uh the the funds from uh the care packages right and so uh we are required by uh law to to update you on any changes that we need to make based on changes to either health mitigation strategies or the fact that all students are in the classroom you know those kinds of things every six months and so we brought it to you in december here are the things that have been updated we have to bring it to you now because we have to post it in june uh to the to the community to see what's actually been changed in the plan so there's a lot of health mitigation things that have been removed from the
157plan that's the majority of the changes i have both dr wells and dr norman with me if there are any specifics that you want to ask about but they are those changes you can see there they've been they've been crossed through or highlighted if they were added but it's it's mainly to reflect what we're currently doing it's it's not a it's not a document that says here's what is going to happen six months from it is what's happening right now but we have to present it to the public in june it will go on the website again well it's already on the website but the updates will go uh on the website and so it is completely out there for everyone to to to look at to comment on and we haven't had any comments
158on on it uh at all actually in august yeah yeah in august but since august stuff we've not had any but it's my responsibility to present it to say we've we're we've done that certainly if you have questions in the meantime you can ask us you know if you don't have them tonight we can certainly get you answers one are you planning to put this on the website it has to be june june 1st okay there were some things that i had a little confusion on when i was reading it just because it said like we'll continue as stated so there were just a few things and some of them revolved around the kobit 19 mitigation plan there were a lot that was extracted and i'm just going to give you one thing it said
159like in cte the students that use common tools will use gloves so i'm thinking are we really still doing that you know so that's just a detail that's just a detail i'm not asking you to address it at this point but what i'm trying to say is there are little things that i noticed and so i didn't know when it was going on the website so we could address some of those with you so maybe we could deal with that um just with an email or something but then there was one that i noticed uh life push llc and that was a new one to me i don't know anything about it yes you do that's the organization that works at the alternative to suspension center it's the counseling piece that's all approved three years
160ago when we did i guess i just didn't recognize them i know the counseling skills that we put in yeah so they're the group that when students go there for behavior uh they work through those behaviors with the the students on how to better handle situations so they don't end up back in that situation right yeah okay um so that's that's very helpful i appreciate that so i don't know about you guys if you have looked at it and you have other comments so i had a few that i wrote down but i can handle them not now i know yeah you just send it to us because if we miss something like the gloves yeah we can certainly because we certainly aren't asking i didn't think so but you know anyone else june 1st
161would be when it would go on so if there's things you see and you need to address before that time or if you have them now i only had one question i think i was trying to find it again and i believe it was with the special needs and it was referring to items that could not be washed that they would be removed whereas prior um during covet it appeared that if it couldn't be washed then it would be dedicated to one student and so it seemed to me that by doing that i'm trying to find it sorry that by removing the item and not just dedicating it to one person that you were reducing resources that it was reducing resources so i can that's the only question and i can as soon as i
162find it i can send it to you okay that's fine and i have one more um this is a general thing um i understand that this was uh plan for safe return turn to in-person instruction and during the the time frame that we were dealing with covet and returning it was very much about covet strategies and and all of that so i get that but where we are now i feel as if maybe we need to turn a corner and let some of the focus be on our instruction and how we're going to get our students back to where they need to be there is a small section in here on that but i still when i read it i read so much that makes me think we've just come out of these past two
163years i want to move forward and this is still the use of grant funds and i know we're using it for instruction don't know that this document is reflective of that so we are actually given a template from the federal government the virginia department of education where we have to follow not just what we have what we are currently doing but we have to show the longitudinal information so there are certain things that have to stay in the plan so it can show a trajectory of where we were pre-pre-covered during covid and post coveted based on the funding mechanism so there are certain things that we cannot remove um but and then i do agree yes ma'am that as we get for move forward into the upcoming school year and we bring this plan back
164to you that it would identify more instructional components of it based on what we are doing with our funding but right now the way that we have to develop the plan it's very specific to the templates that the state gives us well like i know in section 3 continuity of services academic services you know we have like just two paragraphs and then we talk about communication daily schedules yes those are transportation technology and all of those are worthy things we do have a little bit more down below for student learning with the pbls but you know we've got and the pbl's are are good but we've got to talk about getting our students back to reading i mean we heard that today with public comment and we're hearing that across the board that our kids
165if they're a year behind or however far they are behind what would you say um at least two years behind at least two years ago so i think i understand what you're talking about right now i've been working with my staff we'll talk about literacy um miss wheeler and miss matheny and i met today specifically about the reading of science and what that looks like and how we're doing that at the elementary school we piloted it this year utilizing some cares funds at central elementary we have seen enormous growth in some of our most struggling students and that is things that we're taking over into the plan where we're updating it instructionally and we'll do that for reading we'll do that for math we'll do it for our special education our economically disadvantaged hitting all
166those subgroups but the the way that the state has laid out how we're supposed to develop these plans i can't really do that until it ties to the actual grant that we've written so we've put these broad um pieces of money twenty percent of our of our cares three i believe it is that we have to spend on instruction and so we have to take it in big huge clumps so we gotta give a broad and then as we move into each school year we got to tell specifically what we're doing so this past year let me i think i think the problem with it is that we're having to present it now but we don't have all of our data on where specifically all of our students are right to make a more i
167guess what you're looking for is a more uh specific plan well i know there's a specific plan of how we're going to address academic issues i think this is how we're spending cares funds for addressing some of those things and if i were just to be a person in the public and pick this up i would say that we were focusing on all of those things from coveted days and you know they're not really focusing a whole lot on instruction i know we are don't get me wrong but this document does not portray that to me and i wish that it did because i know the great things that we're doing so when does this get updated again at the beginning of this school year so when we review our data we will adjust the
168plan purchase what needs to be purchased or implement what needs to be implemented and then you receive that plan as an updated plan of what we're actually currently doing in december if you want that earlier we can bring that back to you earlier okay and that's the data that dr arnold's talking about so that is your plan to get the data then update this the plan basically tells you what we just did for the last six months and then we'll that's what this tells us yes ma'am i'm with you now okay okay madam chairwoman yes um i found this section it's at sensory classrooms and it says sensory rooms will be limited to students who require this accommodation as part of their iep sensory equipment that cannot be wiped clean will be removed from the
169classroom all equipment will be sanitized in between uses prior what was crossed out was should a student require an item that cannot be wiped clean such as a swing then that item will be limited to that student's use so it just appears to me in the language here that something like a swing is no longer going to be used which i highly doubt right that's yeah that's not that's not yeah yeah that's what i figured so i'm just that that's not going to be an issue anymore the swing is going to still be there good okay so so when it says sensory equipment that cannot be wiped clean will be removed from the classroom oh you're behind me right i'll say that's probably something we need just reviewing this update great thank you thank you
170and ms thompson the last thing i have is just it's date reminders i know ms cecil sent you on may the second list of all the schools and what they're doing in may and june we certainly invite you to come to those things because our students are doing some amazing things and we're recognizing them for those things there may be some adjustments to elementary schools in june just because they add things on later as they go they're still trying to get through testing right now and so that's gonna that's gonna take a bit but as it's updated we'll get that out to you and then are we good with graduation in terms of everything's been given to you very good thank you so that is all i have uh madam chair okay and as far
171as graduation goes you're going to give us information about where to be and what time and all that right we can we'll in the past we've we've taken vans to certain locations and then driven people to where they need to be that way they don't have to drive in and try to get to where okay thank you yeah thank you that's always very helpful okay we're down to items from individual board members um i'm going to start in the middle first so we're going to go um mr gryzer and down and then we'll come back to miss lincoln um gov school did not meet last week we won't have another meeting until like august i think so they did have their senior recognition on may 1st i believe and uh so that's as far as
172committee reports um can i add those sure one thing that i believe they send out is uh our students one of our students received the ann wells yes scholarship which is their big their big their big one um we and actually two years ago we had the winner and then this year we've had the winner so that's very appropriate yes yeah go ahead sorry mr crosby no no that's fine sorry just on that topic actually two students from amherst county won that scholarship were you one of them i was one of them all right that's the one i was talking about i don't know the other one thank you um ella lewis also uh received the uh ansiwell scholarship which in case you aren't aware is fifteen thousand dollars a year which is renewable for
173up to four years so so good things from from amherst kids as far as matters before thank everybody for their what the information they prevent presented tonight i like when we can do the also the recognitions at the beginning that's always nice um a big fan of our welding program here i was right before kobit and i went to one of the cte open houses and got to take a good tour of the the welding shop and talk with mr mr johnson he is very a very dedicated man and those are the people that make cte happen because it's hard to replace when they get when they go because you know any pulling anyone from a trade like that is always tough to especially to come into a classroom with high school kids so it's
174um we're fortunate to have people like that our student reps i'm sorry ms cabell couldn't be here but miss garrison uh you've impressed me since i went to the robotics thing at monolithin one saturday uh before you got on this board and i've appreciated you i admire you for the things that you do um as as a high school student going and choosing to mentor to middle school students man yeah awesome awesome stuff and i wish you well huntsville is a beautiful area i like huntsville i got a friend in decatur and i've spent some time down there and it's a nice place to be so good luck when you get to school down there uh and and send us a postcard from the moon yeah as far as as far as that just looking
175forward to these conclusion activities graduation the retirements and things like that coming up but uh i'll give the floor back miss madam chair thank you mr greiser mrs burke um yes i just wanted to say thank you um to gloria walker's family for coming tonight and they'll be in our thoughts and prayers and also congratulations to our archery and our welding i know they're both i mean second to none those are great and also a thank you to the coaches and also the teachers that help the students get to where they are and to our student reps you know thank you guys for being with us um this year and peter i think this is like the most i've heard you talk the entire year is like you wait to your last meeting to come
176out of your shell but good luck to you and you don't even need good luck i mean you got this you could just tell you know what you want you know how to go and get it and good welcome good luck even though you don't need it and um also congratulations to our teachers that were nominated and also to our teacher of the year um ms mcbride and also congratulations to our support staff of the year mrs mcnary and also thank you to our veteran teachers and staff and to public comments thank you to jeff porter and the constitution day great idea um i was thinking about that the other day we already do that we we do in every through the daughters of the american uh revolution they they work with us and we
177do something in every school on which day constitution day well thank you and also um thank you to karen duff for coming and speaking with us tonight um hopefully you know good things happen with her son and we could start working on implementing some more reading programs and getting our kids caught up thank you mr miss justice thank you madam chairwoman i'm so blessed to be a part of the acps community mr porter thank you for engaging with us on a regular basis and sharing your ideas and concerns i hope that the discussion here tonight may have encouraged you that you're being heard and considered mrs duff thank you for speaking up please continue to interact with your board and i appreciate you contacting superintendent arnold i'm so glad to know we already do constitution
178day that's fantastic and i'm sure we can make it more even more robust um i have the highlights for the last month for me have been being in our schools i got to go on a trout day um with dr wells and kids what a fantastic program it's just amazing talking with dr mcginnis and mr cargill i got to go in during the lunches and interact with our our cafeteria workers and our teachers and our principals and i was so blessed and so welcomed by central elementary school and by amherst there we go amherst and i'm just so impressed with the caliber of our teachers our staff our students all the way down to our custodians and our of course our bus drivers they keep us working and so i just wanted to say i
179think in listening to everything going on tonight thank you mr garrison and the teachers the teachers that have been here for 25 years in amherst county truly amish is just phenomenal in a world that is becoming more and more distant and disconnected even from family to have a community that is generationally giving back to a rural community is phenomenal and it speaks to the character of this area and i really appreciated the discussion tonight even on topics that were not easy but that's how we work together so congratulations and happy graduation as it comes up thank you miss justice mr rossi can you hear me now well uh tonight has been interesting uh i started off here on the school board just recently along with don and i'd say it's been quite an adventure um
180learning about school policy and procedure and watching the school go through covid wow it's been amazing and and the dedication that the teachers have and the students resilience to just get through it and push and fight hard and and now they get to the fruits of all that labor and it's nice to see the students that have put forth all the effort all the effort and getting the rewards um you know i wish you all the luck peter i i think you're gonna do great and and i know a lot of seniors are gonna do great i don't think we should leave any of them out because it was a struggle for them to get here nobody had it easy everybody had to work hard and and the teachers and obviously staff had to work
181incredibly hard to make things happen it wasn't anything that one person did everybody was was working hard they had worked beyond and i don't want to leave anybody out because it wasn't one person it was everybody everybody working together and and seeing the community come together and and the the senior prom isn't that amazing you know the community comes together to make that happen and that that just goes to show what amherst is what amherst is about you know the people that are here and and coming up to the podium and putting forth their concerns it's just great and it's a great time to be in amherst and and i think we're going to do great things and continue to do great things and i wish all you the best of luck in in your
182future endeavors and maybe send us some rocks from the moon that wouldn't be too bad uh but that's all i have to say tonight thank you thank you mr rossi this is lincoln okay i'll be kind of short uh we've heard from uh mr neighbors on laurel and it was very thorough and things are great beginnings over there uh the only thing i'll add is that the graduation is on may the 24th uh at laurel and we do have one graduate from amherst county and i think one or two from campbell county something like that but from amherst so we excited about everything that dr lewis is doing as far as loyal is concerned we're dedicated to that school and to the process that they're going through um other than that uh i don't have
183report i think i made my report on vspa and i will be considering if i'm going to continue in that role but at this time i'm just keeping myself aware of all the alerts uh miss justice to your point when you do hear of alert or when you do uh receive some information and the policy is not agreeable to you that's when you would uh write your comments or contact your representative senator newman or whoever put the bill out that's how you that's why they sent it to you all so if you don't like it right then you can go ahead and say something or you can tell me if i'm the person so your point is well taken and so i'm not angry i'm just saying that we do the best we can and
184we're not all going to agree on policies depending on what side of the road you own if you like to gravel if you don't so um i have no i'm not mad about i'm just saying we need to consider uh what we're looking at before we come out of things i want to congratulate everyone i can't call all these names things have been wonderful tonight this is the season of rejoicing and greetings and saying goodbye peter and uh uh miss kaplan's at uh the graduation at cvcc that's where she is so we don't want to think she just didn't come where i'm supposed to be but anyway we made some we made an adjustment on that but peter you just have the greatest time and i'm so excited for that enthusiasm that you've had you
185make me feel good about what's going on in school uh and i want to say that mr terry was with me at the um golden a he slipped out before y'all called that name so don't leave that out but uh if i take anything away from the golden a is that 75 young people receive golden age that's the third of the class that's the third of the graduation class so even though we hear all these conversations at public comment and other places about what is not being done let us try to consider what is being done and some good things are going on we need to stop stereotyping when i heard tonight of a particular grade that was this great we don't want to do that we don't want to bring any grade into the
186conversation i have grandchildren in eighth grade hello so let's not do that i don't i'm not putting down the public comment i'm just saying i'm not going to stereotype any school i'm not going to stereotype any great we will try to do things the best we can and not make anybody feel bad because if somebody was stereotyping me i would and i was like oh you talking about me i mean that would make me feel really bad so in my closing comment going forward with graduations uh recognitions luncheons and dinners we need to consider that things are not as bad as we would like for them to be you know i'm trying to see some light myself we made it through covet almost i said almost because there are a lot of cases i know
187some personal people going through it right now i know some people in the hospital so we still need to wipe our surfaces off wipe our microphones off and wear gloves when needed we still need to be careful that's just my comment we still need to be careful i just said we had to put the mask back on make everybody upset but i would be careful out there now another thing that when young kids go home to their grandparents um and that's one of the things that we consider that the older generation as well as myself the immune system is not like it used to be so when the kids are in school we want to keep them as immune we want to keep them as germ free as we can and we need to continue
188to remain to do that um but i'm just excited about the activities um the golden age the tassels and i did go down to emblem i scheduled in the lab two months but i did get the amalan to give out some lunches what a wonderful time i had down and just talking to the teachers no one said anything to me that they hated their job i didn't ask them though you see i didn't approach that i said i hope you had a good year and i hope you'll have a good summer and i hope you like this chicken salad and i didn't invite any other conversation i think we all could learn from that i'm trying to do better myself uh life is too stressful and when we bring up stressful things the mental health
189of everybody goes down so let's not add teachers i hope you hear me there will be some kind of budget made and you'll be fine okay just keep on buying expensive gas and expensive eggs and we're gonna make sure you make it next year that's all i have to say thank you hi mr terry thank you madam chair so the stem academy um they did their internship presentations i was able to go over and see those um those are always a lot of fun to see what the kids have actually been able to do hands-on with um we had four students from amherst county participating and um those are uh i didn't get to do any of those things when i was in high school so a lot of fun i did participate in the
190golden a's and it was when you see that many students come across with uh such exceptional gpas more power to them peter you guys you guys crushed it this year um and i did get to help with the elan teacher appreciation week so that was that's always a fun thing to do and show the teachers how much we do appreciate what they what they do for our students and our our kids so and then as far as tonight i think everybody loves seeing all the recognition stuff that goes on um the welding group just hearing uh well just like dr arnold said you know even when he was representing campbell county amherst was winning those things so that's uh it's great to see that that's a legacy kind of thing for us and and the
191people at the national archery tournament are going to get tired of hearing amherst county's name this is not their first year it won't be their last so it's it's it's great to see the kids uh succeed in that kind of stuff our student reps um sorry sienna couldn't be here tonight but peter you guys uh you guys kept us very informed this year uh it was it was great seeing you know the two of you be a part of it so that you burton wasn't always on one and you guys split the split the bill pretty well so uh good luck to you uh in your future endeavors um you'll do well um thanks for our speakers coming tonight um i always like to hear what what is out there in the public and what
192people like to say and um you know we talk about the longevity of our teachers you know a lot of us in this room are lifelong amherst county people and it's great to see those uh teachers when they do come here if they're not from here when they come here they stay mr gallagher hopefully you can retain some of those students who are going out getting those education degrees and maybe they'll be our next 25-year recipients here for long but one of those uh lifelong amherst county people is dr wells and i'd like to say congratulations dr wells uh we look forward to many years of service so congratulations sir that's all i got thank you mr terry well it seems like everybody has said it all so i just want to say just really
193briefly i have participated in some of the constitution day events that we have held over the years and they have been really good so i'm looking forward to the one for this year that's coming up and just make sure you let us know about it so we can participate um i also want to thank peter and sienna for all that they've done and wish you the best of not luck but just the best for you because i know that there's a lot so we will miss you thank you for all you've done to contribute to help our students as well as to help us also want to thank all of the teachers the staff you know the bus drivers the nurses the custodians this has been you know it's been a year i remember we
194went through covet and everybody said it was a difficult year and then i've heard this year that it was even more difficult than the coving year so you know dr arnold you um have helped steer us through uh four years and they have been some pretty tough years so hopefully we'll be able to turn the corner with with pushing some of this covered behind us and us i want to say thank you for that that leadership during those tough years um and that we will be able to um look forward to starting i'm trying to already get excited about next year and want to like mr terry said just say congratulations to um dr wells and we look forward to working with you and just want to say thank you for every single thing that
195you've done to help us to have a successful year for our students and i know that we'll do that again and to miss ligon's point yes teachers staff we will be fine the state and the fed government will take care of us but the point tonight was to make sure that we contact them and that we get a decision sooner rather than later because it is hard on our staff when it comes in at the last minute so i want to say um congratulations to mrs mcbride and mrs mcnerney you represent us well and to all of the teachers that were recognized in their building levels and i even am excited about the kindergarten and early childhood numbers that we have there's any parents out there that haven't taken advantage of that make sure you
196contact the school system so i just want to say thank you and looking forward to a wonderful graduation ahead okay um i believe that we have added to a closed session so i need i got it thank you pursuant to section 2.2-3711 a1 of the code of virginia i recommend the board convene a closed meeting for the purpose of discussing administrative and organizational structure issues all right i need a motion that we go into closed session motion we go into closed session all right the second second a second from mr arasi all in favor aye any post all right we're in closed session when does the school board rebel one second is the motion to go into close