ACPS School Board Meeting - July 15, 2021

001should Mo approve tonight's agenda okay M Thompson do we have a second second we have a second probably moved in second all in favor I any opposed let the ministry like that uh Mr Terry is away tonight as well uh at this time we're going to go into our public comments concerning School matters um um no additional comments will be made at the end of this meeting and we will be beginning to time our public comments because we do have a fairly big agenda tonight so at this time um Mr T do we have any public comments that you know of that have been written in the audience do we have anyone that will address like to address the school board if not in audience at this time I do have several letters that have

002been sent to the board and I have been asked to read them and I will do those at this time accordingly the first letter that I have says uh good morning please read this during public comment at tonight's school board meeting thank you and have a great day the letter says hello my name is Christy Davis I the mom of three ERS County Public School students one is in the middle school and the other two are in elementary school I have loved the experience that we have had with these schools however there are some recent issues that have made me and my husband wondering should we look into other options for our schooling I have two issues that I'm concerned with first the transgender restroom policy and also critical race Theory children shouldn't be forced

003into something that is against their religion if people want to be like that that is their lifestyle but I refuse to have it shoved down my children's throats if people don't want God being brought up in school then why should this be forced this setting is up to children for things we would never want them to experience and especially at school a boy with bad intentions and thoughts can easily say that they identifi as a female just so that they can do in appropriate things inside of that restroom do you not realize this possibility as a mother of two girls this is very alarming to me and as their mother I will do everything that I can to protect them the other issue critical race Theory my parents were raised well and they do my

004my parents excuse me my parents raised need to treat everyone how I want to be treated regardless of what they look like I raise my children the same way as well as they do love everyone the same and treat others the way that they would like to be treated we don't need any teaching we teach what we have been taught for many years that is that everyone is equal and to treat others the way that we will Le to be treated yes we have our differences but that is supposed to be what makes us unique God didn't make us all the same for a reason I can tell you right now that if these policies are passed as much as we love our kids being in school in AMS County that my children will be

005taken out of these schools there used to be a time when school was school and it wasn't so political like it is is now it's time that we get back to a school being school that Reading Writing science math and history the way it has been taught for many years be the things that are taught not the things that are trying to be shoved down our kids Strokes currently remember you can't rewrite history but we can change how our history will be written right now history in the past we can't change that just like you can't go back and change time we need to move forward from all of this and not stay stuck in this mess because if we do then we don't get anywhere we wonder why our kids are experiencing mental health

006issues well look at how the world is look at how our country is look at at this moment look at how adults are being acting look at the things that are being talked about putting in schools no wonder they're depressed and struggling it is time to focus on the kids and teach them the way that we all were taught focus on them and nothing else isn't that what you got to this point in the first place the kids is really sad with everything we have overcome this past year in the Co and overcoming so many obstacles that we have to come to this please reconsider your policies and thank you for your time was almost three minutes I'm reading fast you get I'm old tell um just a little joke my second letter says my

007name is Carrie forus and I live on Oakridge Drive in Madison Heights I apologize for not being there in person but I'm currently in covid quarantine when I wrote a letter to the joint committee meeting I spoke of the Trojan Horse of critical race Theory school systems have tried to convince the public that CRT is not being taught in our schools I said at that time that it was either dis disingenous or deceitful since that meeting the heads of both National Education Association and the American Federation of teachers have come out and said that not only will they continue to teach CRT but they will also perform opposition research Church on opponents of it and will legally defend teachers who continue to teach it so we really need to cease the charade of suggesting that

008is not being taught in our schools what I have learned is that many people do not understand that the CRT is and that is a tragedy sometimes we need to educate and Define the terms we use CRT is not just a college course CRT is not a lens through which legal cases are viewed CRT is an active destructive ideology that wants not just equality but Equity about whatever means necessary it is a reverse discrimination on steroids Abram the 10th Hy in his book had to be an anti-racist puts it this way the only remedy to racist discrimination is anti-racist discrimination the only remedy to pass discrimination is to prevent discrimination the only remedy for present discrimination is future discrimination does this school board really want to perpetuate discrimination against any student how that square with

009every child every day this is just the beginning of the many outlandish statements made by office on V website the list is a who's who of CRT WR is to numerous to mention from national teacher organization to our own State Department of Education there's no question of the existence and teaching of this dangerous idea please stop the charades of saying that CRT is not being taught in our schools but CRT goes even further the trans transgender issue Falls squarely into this category CRT has C a wide net to include as many oppressed groups as possible under their umbrella while I do believe that every person is created in God's image and deserves respect that should not include having to pretend that a boy is a girl or vice versa boys should not be allowed in

010girls' bathrooms on the girls sports teams or inside girls locker rooms until a few years ago this would have been common sense now we are too woke for our own good so what do we do about this I first said that this board reject any and all transgender policy changes the school board in Pennsylvania county just showed great courage in voting 43 to reject the Commonwealth transgender policy changes I ask you to do the same our children are not laboratory anal for the Commonwealth experiments secondly I ask that the school board to set aside the Nea and nft and the Declaration of support for CRT it has no place in our school system we we should no longer continue the charade of suggesting that CRT is not in our school this start with the equity

011lesson lastly I ask the general public to educate yourselves on CRT really is read the books and see what the har ideology is should we be for equality absolutely should we expound CRT and Equity they desire absolutely not it has no place in our schools read F okay to be read publicly and into the record for July 15 at the school board meeting meting in response to the Virginia Department of education's transgender policy guidelines the acps administration should confine his policy Provisions rela to transgender students to those traditional and legal protections of General applicability to all students that is policies should be more comprehensive than policies developed by the doe consistent with the goal of maintaining a safe and supportive learning environment for all students rather than focusing on targeting accomodations for this newly emerging

012psychosomatic phenomenon what that means in Practical terms am County public school should recognize that the mere separation of sexes shall be considered discrimination in compliance with the Constitution Bill of the rights parents are never to be out of the loop nor are they fundamental child raising rights to be infringed upon in compliance with the Virginia code 1-2 40-1 and 20-1 24-6 the bodily privacy and safety of all students should always be prior toward as above the wishes of the individual persons with body images of sexuality issues or other manifestations of gender confusion and fourthly no teacher student or other staff members should be compelled to address or to refer to student by other than their biologically consistent name or pronouns in accordance with the traditional rules of linguistics and grammar student time would be better

013spent memorizing multiplication tables and traditional grammar rather than so-called preferred pronouns for every person in the school it is abundantly clear that the own slot of hly cranked our legislation and Rule making coming out of Richmond violates the Constitutional protection statutory laws and administrative procedural Norms these include individual parental rights free speech and religious rights privacy rights due process and equal protection under law law lawsuits are already underway and more will follow for Al County Public Schools it makes more sense to follow the US and Virginia constitutions than to embrace this current war on our culture and our country Universal protections again discrimination and harassment are already in place the public school system and teachers unions across the country are leading the way to brainwash our children into accepting the surrender of the individual freedoms

014to the state in conjunction with the dis disintegration of family Integrity historical integrity and religious institutions it is not coincidental that dividing people over issues that should not even exist to begin with is an off repeated technique used by the progressives and true Marxist to destroy the free democ democr democracies from within tell me Dr an tell me school board members why would you allow even encourage the children you so profoundly influence to hate each other hate their country and be fearful to express their true feelings and opinions this is a serious question demands an answer where do you expect all this madness will end should the progressive elements finally get their way don't expect to be saved by white privilege Equity cultural conferencing intersexuality or any other ridiculous madeup term you may invent to

015propel this Twisted agenda you seem to have no idea how Fortune you are to live in a free Democratic Republic wake up and defend your country and fight for your kids future respectfully Sydney Ros and the last letter uh to our school board that is entrusted with protecting the lives of all children during their education we are sad and shocked horrified and angry to read the specific details regarding the new policy suggestion from the doe we send our kids to school for an education in the basics math Reading Writing English Science and History if they're lucky they can choose a couple good El and call it a day we do not send our kids to school to learn what the doe proceeds as the correct morals and Val to teach this is an area that

016is personal to each family and cannot and should not be taught by the school system as far as critical race Theory this is simply a political attempt to stir the PO within an already vulnerable and vola society that is constantly looking for the next way to divide our nation our children are already smarter than this we don't give them credit for what they already know and understand in their generation being white does not make everyone racist and or ignorant of unfortunate past actions and being black does not make everyone oppressed and unable to succeed with their own life choices we need our schools to Simply teach kindness and move forward together without the propaganda of CRT it is also not the place of the school to teach acceptance acceptance of a value belief moral or

017cultural that does not align with the beliefs values moral of any other person should never be forced on others as part of the school agenda that does nothing but Bel little and to mean one human right to benefit another and that is certainly not equality or imagination a school system should only be concerned with what they're ultimately responsible for and the academic success of the child we are extremely upset and concerned regarding this gender identity transgender LGBT whatever gender it painfully appalling to need to need to put this in a sentence but here it goes I don't know any adult with common sense that would allow students and in or teachers of different biological Sexes to share hotel rooms on school trips period also please know we will never allow our children to feel uncomfortable

018or place at risk by being forced to mix biological Sexes and they try to attend to their personal business in the bathroom and even more important our children would never be forced to change clothes and expose themselves for gym classes in the longer this has been an issue children have already been uncomfortable changing in front of gay and lesbian students but couldn't speak of because they were seen by others as intolerant and unaccept of the gay lesbian population if they tried to discreetly change their clothes many children made fun of because they changed in the bathroom stall or wore extra t-shirt or tank top to safely cover themselves while they change their outer clothes many children want didn't want to participate in gym and want to stay home sick because of the Mandate of changing

019clothes and the fact that the doe thinks that kids should be able to change in whatever locker room they identify with is absurd and would only cause further mental health struggles in children that feel overwhelming uncomfortable in that situation it's not okay for any child whether straight or on the LGBT Spectrum to feel uncomfortable students must feel more comfortable in the school setting then we should always have no less of a standard for our straight children period many schools have a private s many schools have all private single bathrooms and many schools do not ask their students to change clothes for gy so if our school system is planning on to continue this anate process of changing clothes gym you would need to be proactive and making a form for parents to opt their children

020out of changing clothes because we simply would not allow any longer our children will wear gym appropriate clothes on their designated gym days if this is refused then we will assist insist that you re open ARA for us as we must ensure the safety and wellbeing of all of our children when the school system can and should what the school system can and should teach is kindness period all schools should teach kind kindness to others that have different cultures morals values and beliefs being kind accomplish the same goal of comfort but that's not force acceptance being kind still protects an individual's right believe how they want to believe while not offending others conservative families should not feel forced to accept out to accept or condone beliefs that directly contradict their religious practices values and personal

021beliefs Believe It or Not Christians can still be kind to those that believe differently without sacrificing our values Our Lives consist of love loving God and loving others but that does not mean we must be forced to accept the choices of others that contradict that biblical vals if the school system choose to violate our conservative children in vulnerable areas such as restrooms locker rooms school trips we will not stand by and allow this to be accepted condone or tolerate on any level we will not place the ideology of the ridiculous something to our kids we must protect all students thank you for your time and consideration please keep us posted uh on that access AR if this board chooses to accept this unfortunate liberal agenda into our County Schools came from chrisy day we have

022any other public comments if not I want at this time close the public comments section okay where are we we at number three yes ma'am so we uh at your your place at BO Ducks the VBA policy Services agreement has uh been attached it is a a yearly agreement uh as you know we use their services to uh help with our policies and our policy manual and uh opinions from their their legal counsil on policy and uh this is just a a approval that you would make if you want to continue that agreement in those services and we recommend that you do soard members have any comment comments on that policy think we've all read ITB sometime any comments if not I'll ask for vote approval some moov we have a vote approval do we

023have second we've been Pro in motion and second all in favor uh any oppos okay one oppos so we have a one thank you so much move right on Dr the last meeting we brought forward uh Schoolboard meeting dates it was discussed that you would like to see uh what it would look like if we had two meetings uh every month um I did some research on this and um our surrounding neighbors don't do too uh but I have found some some larger divisions that have that do too and um what they tend to do and some of them the one that if you would like to move to two a month this would be what I would recommend is that the first uh the second Thursday of each month which is the first meeting

024which is this meeting remain the same that we we keep all the elements that we currently have um we continue to to live stream things and uh have it a more formal uh setting the fourth Thursday of each month we would like to refer to as a working session which is a more informal much like your board uh Retreats it allows for more discussion more questions more time to kind of work through issues um we would move this off site to another school we would start that meeting with a presentation from that school and um we would not live stream that uh we would record it and make it available uh but by going off site every month is is a great amount of work that we're uh requiring to get it all set up

025and working correctly um I have the at your place or actually it's on board dos now I put what a proposed agenda for example July 29th might look like uh you would you would start a meeting with Mo pledge allegian approval of agenda and then the agenda would go directly into special presentation in this case it would be uh and County High School softball state championship recognition then we would go into discussion items and we would look at from this meeting discussion items that needed to be discussed uh in each area so so for example in administrative Services Dr Wells tonight is going to talk about first read policies and face covers I imagine those are things that we would like to spend more time and deal with in Greater detail uh at a second

026meeting and that's where you would so tonight you'll get the information ask clarifying questions but at the second meeting that could be the time where we spend some time on those things and work through uh some of those issues and then the first meeting of the following month those things come back for votes right okay um and so you can look down the list there are just different ideas on the types of things that we would use to discuss um that is that is so my recommendation first is that we do one a month um the reason smaller divisions don't do two a month is because the amount of work that goes into putting uh what I believe is a very well-run Schoolboard meeting because these folks behind me put a lot of time and

027effort into it um so if we were to go to a second one um I would be afraid that we would be spending a lot more time preparing for Schoolboard meetings than doing the things that y'all charge us with doing every month and so if we go to a second one we would like for it to take this um this work session type model so certainly this is a what you would like to do but uh this is this is what we brought forward based on the fact that you wanted to see what a calendar would look like with two meetings a month um obviously if you look at that CER not every month can have to because of holidays and things like that but um I think we've I think we've met what uh

028you asked for so turn that over to you guys the board have discussion at this time you you heard the recommendations actually two one and a half on the table so um graad you want to start us off sure mam chair um when we start talking about this the more I've thought about it I can't get the image out of my head of this coffee mug I saw one time that says this meeting could have been handled by email and I just I think about the efficiency of one staff's time uh our time and most certainly they probably will lend theirself circumstances or events where we would need to have a meeting uh an additional meeting uh but we have that ability to call a special meeting rather than laying it out um here in

029a in a format that seems more rigid and and kind of restricts the flexibility of course we could always amend it but you know my thought process is why I put it out there as our meeting schedule if we have no intentions of following it not say that wouldn't but I just I don't see this as an efficient model um I I'm worried about the impact on staff I think of not just the people sitting in front of us I think of the go and the Mike CVI world that sit there and do all the streaming and recording for us and they got to be here an extra night you know I'm the older I get the more I'm into this work life balance with family and kids and I just I I don't I

030don't I just don't think that um that this is is an efficient way of handling I think that if we have concerns and we've had some difficult things come up this year uh I'm not too sure we've kind of gotten back on track with getting the weekly briefings I'm not too sure if there's something that we want more explained to us in between meetings that we couldn't create some kind of template and specify to the superintendent say we want this addressed specifically um you know policy concerns that that have reared their head since last week curriculum concerns that have come down from the state um that we need to be aware of and need to be um you know ready to to maybe make some kind of decision or input on I think if we

031follow our current model it leaves less time for public comment in between meeting for policy presentation really unless you would just you skip adopting a policy during that work session but typically we do a first read and then put it out the next month uh well I mean if we follow the first read the me one meeting and then the next meeting then you only give two weeks in in between for the public become aware and make comments and sometimes it can be slow for people to with busy lives to become aware of certain issues so um you know at the end of the day I'm I mean I'm not I'm not in favor of the two meetings a month I'm just I'm just not I mean it just kind of sums it all up

032uh spelled out a lot of concerns I just interested to hear from the my colleagues but I'm I'm not in favor of it um yes I am in favor of it with all these which I call policy duns coming down on us all the time it's very difficult to go through everything and go through everything with a wise eye and open heart to everything that we see it's overwhelming um two meetings I think is needed weide with the school board meetings we can all get together and talk or it's call the meeting this gives us an opportunity to actually get together and discuss these policies and with these policies that are going to be coming forward I think we definitely need to have two meetings a month thank you right I can see both sides

033of that um I was leaning more towards if it was necessary to call the next um meeting in a couple of weeks than to have it always scheduled for two times but um I can see where currently def so I don't know if we would make it a longterm thing if we did choose to do two meetings for a while because currently there's a lot coming at us at one time but it is hard to keep up and like Miss bur said if more than two of us talk it's considered a public meeting anyway so so we're all of course trying to follow that rule so if it could be temporary for a while I I would agree with that got coule calls on that um I agree with Mr giser that um well I

034kind of agree so far with what everybody said meaning sometimes times we need those extra meetings but do they have to be um an ongoing thing where we have it every every month we have two meetings or could we say like we know there's some policies coming up there's some things we need to discuss let's have a meeting two weeks from now and announce that at each school board meeting if we feel like we need to have that exper I don't think that's going to happen much I think on a temporary basis we could say like today let's you know there's some policies let's schedule a meeting for two weeks from now that kind of thing the other problem well there's a couple other one is if I read a little bit further in here

035part of the policy would make it really difficult for me it may already be there right now but with the electronic policy that I briefly read I travel a lot and this would make it harder for me to be available more often now I'm coming off the board here in December but for anybody that's in my shoes it's very helpful to be able to be at at a meeting electronically but if I have more meetings that to be at more time I'll be missing and that that then violate potentially the policy that we're looking to implement about that the other thing is and I wasn't here at the last board meeting um I wonder if there's something else that could be done um is it that what what are we trying to accomplish is it

036is it that we're trying to have more time for discussion about certain policies we don't have policies coming down every every month is it more opportunity just to discuss big topic stuff is there a way that we could Shi what we're doing now at each school board meeting to to allow that rather than extend the time make make what was being presentable or efficient I I don't know but I think we need to ask what are are we reacting to things that have happened this past 6 months have been quite controversial it's been it's been hectic it had it wasn't like that for the last couple of years not essentially um and we fine with it then so after we give it the S we're going to be stuck with having two school meetings a

037month for no reason I'm all about's find the right process put it in place rather than react to something that may have already happened so all that being said I would I I don't favor having to working this um yes you guys know that um I brought this to our attention and made the request um I did so out of response because there has been a lot of issues that our community has been bringing to us I feel like we sit here we did a lot a lot of listening I feel like the um School Board administrators they do an excellent job presenting to us um I feel like I absorbed a lot of material but I don't feel like our job is to just sit here and rubber St and that we do need

038to have some good Dynamic dialogue um we're hearing parents um coming out and asking us you know what's our transgender policy well we're just sitting here we need to be um informing our parents we need to talk with them we need to let them know where we stand I know that we had uh the diversity lesson that we were dealing with but then we only had one meeting and before we could get to our next meeting it ended up on to play to the Board of Supervisors I feel like that was an egregious thing we should have been here we should have been dealing with um I know that we have requested a policy that Dr Arnold has given us that we're doing in house on curriculum we didn't have time to talk about that

039you know he's taken his time to give us a draft but we've got to have time to be able to say this is what we want to do this is what we like this is what we don't like this is how we want it adjusted um and sometimes we can do those things you know one onone but then that also leaves Dr Arnold and pickle if he wants to do what you're asking you know I'm asking to do something we can't always handle our business one onone we need to be upfront with the public um so that's why I would support it do I want to come out here for a second meeting I certainly do not that takes a lot of time I don't want staff to have to come out to us but

040I do feel like for right now um with everything that's on the plate like Mr CI said it's something we can do temporary um we we could have the second one planned on our calendar and we as board members come up with things that we want to discuss give that to you you can give it to us at the first meeting we have enough to discuss we go with meeting to if we don't have enough to discuss then we just don't have meeting to I mean I'm not saying that we need to just sit here and look at each other but I think we have a lot of topics that are important so I'm not in favor of having to come out twice but I am in favor in second me well we've heard um

041interesting enough variety of conversation um I did receive an email from Mr Terry and he was along the same lines that uh if we had a second meeting it wouldn't be a a complete one you know just saying the same thing and and I agree that we don't want to put any more work on staff than they are to have to prepare for the meeting so I'm just not going to be reding my comments um I do agree Mr C I think that um um in the past 6 months we've been loaded uh and everyone has every school board every board that I serve on has been loaded with extras because of Co extras because of political changes and and and the gend Department of Education changes as well I don't predict and I do

042not know don't have a glass ball I don't predict that this will go on forever however we always going to have policies I've been dealing with policies for about 192 years and what we I appreciate that the uh those who are preparing those they give them to us they give us plenty of time to read them they give us plenty of time to consult with them about them and and and we we can either choose to accept them or not accept them so it's not solely about policy I do agree that we would love to to have a random table discussion every other week about things in Amos County that pertain to the schools but that's not practical um so we caught in a hard place but I would say the best thing to do

043here is to vote on it because everyone has a different opinion uh I like the superintendent's recommendation I also like what I heard here they could be temporary could if there's nothing needed to be done and said then we wouldn't have it but is that legal to do do that uh Madam parliamentarian the way your calendar originally is set up is that there is always the opportunity like Mr rler said to have a meeting yeah and so that can happen like maybe M Thompson said as needed you know if the if we feel like at the end of this meeting that in two weeks we need to come back and we make that decision and I think that's what we and be specific about what we're going to do M yes sir and just whenever

044we've had a policy that has been controversial we step back we we I mean the transgender thing came up last fall and we sent it to council for review and so we don't always just because it's in us doesn't mean we've got the authority to to stop and haul it I've been very pleased I think we U you know we stay here sometime till about 9:30 10 that's because the agenda is is packed I believe Mr had a conversation about um it's not so much condensing but what is it that we really need to accomplish when we leave here um and that is that we have agreed and voted on policies and then we have carried out the admission of of the students uh mask or schools opening or buses traveling that's what we're here

045to do so I'm in favor of saying if we need uh another meeting may not be a popular comment if we need to have another meeting we can have one um but um surely just to put it in stone uh we may not need to do that now during this particular time I agree that there are a lot of things that the our parents want to know um you know so much going on I believe that we can do that in a timely fashion at one meeting but if we cannot that we couldn't get to everything tonight that is necessary that's necessary then we would have to say we need to come back in two weeks Madam chair may I make a suggestion that we just have two meetings going into um the new year

046into January and then new board decided they want to carry on with it because there are going to be a lot of policies coming out of Richmond and what what is the difference in what I just say well I just wanted to put it out there that we could have a date where in January when the new board takes over that well this board is going to make a decision tonight well I just thought we could do it until January and then if the new board just vote for having the two meetings per month we're talking about July through through January yes ma'am and the new board when they come in if they want to carry it on they can but we could have it expire at that date if you'd like I make a

047temporary I think we'll take a vote someone has to make a I I accept let me back up I accept or not accept I understand what you're saying Miss so I I mean I'm not one to I really don't like voting on it to be honest I would like for the board to come to a a unanimous decision to to have another meeting well the recommendation of the superintendent will you repeat that again you recommended that at the last meeting I recommended that we would have one meeting per month and have uh option to have a second meeting as necessary as necessary and that's up to the board if the board feels it necessary we would surely have one is that not an agreement at this time until the new board arrives I think kind

048of what I'm saying but I don't think that's what the other ones are saying so don't think there's a consens here okay um if I may um while I would be open to just having to you know like I had suggested um if we were to say at every board meeting that if we had agenda items that we wanted to carry over for the second week and we have an intentional item on the agenda that we discuss that what do we want to carry over we don't have enough and we want to say we won't have it that second month that second meeting we wouldn't and if we have enough items that we need to have discussion then we would be in agreement on moving forward that's that's very good and doable yeah do you

049want to put that in a form of a motion yours was a suggest well I felt like if we've got some consensus maybe we can so what are your thoughts on that that's what I was thinking why we could have the meetings scheduled that there are two a month because then parents are advised there's two a month and if at this board meeting or the next one you decide it's not necessary you vote to not have the meeting or you have the consensus to not have a meeting I think that's easier than to have a consensus to have a meeting you think it be more confusing if you put it out there as having two meetings and decided not to have that meeting be confusing be confusing that's the only I would be concerned that

050people would show up in the meeting we decided not to have meeting because they didn't have to follow just just from historical perspective we've always had the you've had the one and then you you said we need to have a special call meeting we have we have rules that we have to follow to get it out to the public um we're required to have a certain amount of time in those kind of things yeah we so we are we're aware of those kinds of things what we need to do to get it out there and I think we we've done a pretty good job here recently of starting to kind of make make the communications uh better for everybody to kind of get us what we're doing so is that applicable is that advertising for

051if needed we back to the evening yeah so just just clarify I I would be in favor of I understand right at each board meeting if there is topics to discuss we need to carry over the board would essentially vote to say we have a second meeting is needed in two weeks from now um and that would carry on from each main school board meeting right bring our agenda items with us to this meeting and then we would share them then we have enough of those agenda items we would because I'm really want to make sure we have purpose Focus you know and not just kind of a right I think we want to we want to continue to be a a formal board that that's well we could always another solution and I like

052that by the way M Thompson and others another solution we could go to another we could have more Retreats now even though some of us have real jobs we can all still say do we need more retreats mburg to have these conversations where you have the round table more and um we have two at this time right two Retreats a year one in the fall and one around budget yeah so I mean we could say well maybe we need uh the fall is coming up when is that October retreat in October which we usually talk about how schools have gotten on their feet and school session that was um it's September 23rd that's even better so we have this retreat in September that we can kind of come together and and bring these policies back

053we would make sure that the policy that we were concerned about would be on the table for discussion we have more time that day and then we if we needed more Retreats we could stick another one in there if we had to it's better to do that than maybe or not say we want to have two meetings but I like I like the other idea we have here if needed um um then let me make a motion that um we will have a second meeting of the month on school calendar um and that we will bring agenda items to the first meeting of the month that we might would like discuss at the work session and then um we will vote to see if we will have the second meeting based on these agenda items

054and it would last until the next board came on and they could reconsider they wanted to apprach so I wouldn't ask to clarify I'm point a second right I me problem need to clarify well just that you saying on the school calendar so we're going to publish it as a meeting to the public is what if I was going to make a motion what I was going to say is that we continue to Main main our one meeting a month and have discussion at that one meeting whether the necessity of a second meeting is warranted for that month something to that affect with Clarity but as far as publishing it the public I'm I I just I don't want to create that confusion where people you know big you know they might fall into the

055same uh Rhythm as the Board of Supervisors and they just show up for a second meeting each month and it's on the calendar say we forget to take it off you know you know some kind of and I just I don't want to for the sake of not creating Fusion I just think putting that out there and we know we've got the option and I'm I'm in FA I think that's a reasonable compromise to if we have something we want to discuss absolutely okay I am I will amend my motion um I will amend it to that the dates are not put on the calendar for the second one but that we will have a line item on every first month's agenda so that we will discuss if we have carryover items or if we

056have new items because sometimes I think it's difficult for us as board members to say hey I really want to bring this up because you already have a full agenda on the first one so it will allow us freedom to be able to bring things that we want to talk about and and give agenda items to the mo I was say if if someone seconds then I'll ask a clarified question I second that as as so would you want something as an agenda item as like new business something like that or would it be just would it have occurred during each one of your u i I would suggest we do something like have a agenda item set new business right that it would be the new topics that members might have brought up yes

057I think that would be appropriate just that way it's always there and you always have the opportunity to to say this is what we need and whether we have that meeting or not then you you have that option to to make that decision that would be acceptable as far as I'm just trying to get the process s right make sure we're not confused when you know when we get to that top I want to make sure we we do the right things so we have um motion on the FL that we have a motion for Miss would you repeat that one more time okay in a clear clear CLE appication we will tentatively have the second meeting scheduled on our own personal calendars knowing that that's an option for us we will have a new

058business item on the first meeting of the month that says new business we will be bringing forward any agenda items that we may want to have carried over into the next into a possible second meeting we'll vote on that each month you want to second well she still it's still the same same so you second yes ma'am okay it's been propably moved in second and I won repeat what we doing but um um all in favor any opposed okay feel with that I think that's a good idea to do that and not only that but some some other board members here have meetings they've already scheduled Forever on another Thursday um we always said we have to go but we we're dedicated we can always change so Miss th appreciate to bring that up and

059we appreciate the consensus of the school board now that took a minute let's see here we're down to 3.03 is that you Dr Wells yes ma'am okay Madame chair ladies of the board uh place on board docs and I sent an email to you all personally uh the RFP for the auditorium construction new Auditorium construction as well as Renovations of the cafeteria and Renovations of the existing Auditorium in am County High School School the purpose of the RFP is to allow us to advertise for proposals to hire an architect SL engineering firm to design the work at the high school uh this is a project that was on our CIP and our cious Improvement plan it's something that the board and previous meetings has uh shown consensus for as moving forward on and so we're

060at that process right now the reason it's coming to you now is because as part of the Esser grant that we're applying for we have to have a plan to apply for the grant and how we're going to spend our money and this Auditorium project would be a large portion of how we spend that money uh we're getting approximately we're eligible for to receive cosing $7.2 million in Esra funds 20% of those funds need to be spent on Direct Educational Services the other 80% uh we would like to apply towards this Auditorium project which is approximately $5.5 million of that money we could put there we also have CIP money that we could use as well and that's a later conversation but as far as for us being able to move forward in this project

061we would we need to start with an architectural firm to do the design work um so also at your place you should have a timeline that covers where we need to be and how we can get there and the steps involved in that process I know it's small print but I try to get it on one piece of paper so if you look at our project schedule we would have and this is how to get to where we need to we have to get the money spent this is the big kicker in this the money has to be incumbered by September of 2024 and all the money has to be spent by November of 2024 as you know with a project de size you cannot just tomorrow say going to do this and start the

062work it it takes time to plan it takes time to hire firms it takes time to get the the construction companies in place and it takes time to do the actual work so this outline here kind of gives you an idea of what we what we par foresee being the steps involved so you would again uh a kickoff meeting notice to proceed which is kind of what we're talking about now those proceed with hiring the architectural firm a community stakeholder input we would get input from stakeholders and community and that would go through roughly September October um we do facility site service surveys it' be program space development surveys there's option development section and then if you know as we move forward we look at a design phase it takes 8 to 10 months to

063work the design phase and that's when we get input more input from the community input from from you uh The Architects have plans that come back we talk about it and we finally settle on a plan by the July time frame of 2022 at that time it would go to bid and then we would start construction July August September time frame of 22 which will take us into 23 into into 24 this stops at the December of January of 20 December 23 January 24 is when this stops but you really want to allow 6 months of extra time in case you get any snags or things along the way so you still have time to meet our September deadline September 2024 is has to be money has to be incum by that time if we

064don't meet that time and we've gone forward with our project then the grant can't cover the money because we have not completed our construction at that time so we kind of have us on a tighter timeline I want you to understand that we're not talking about going to be we're talking about things right now we're talking about can we hire we want to interview firms for a proposal of how they would move forward with this project I know the board also had questions about uh what CTE and I know earlier in earlier conversations what can we use the the Renova space for Mr at your place we have a memo for Mr Maddox when his subcommittee met they had a subcommittee that formed to look at how we could what new programs we would like

065to put in place based on student feedback and feedback from the schools and the two programs that we that they came up with were cosmetology which is one that's been uh asked for multiple times over multiple years by students and also agricultural sciences and the ex Sciences program would tie in to we are an agricultural community and right now we have Bar Street that's our one egg class egg program at the high school we need other agricultural programs at the high school um so that would tie into that so you could add both of those programs in the space provided um but we would want the Architects to kind of look at the spaces and determine where those where will be the best place to put these programs that be those programs so they can

066look at it in their study and say we think cosmetology should go here and this should go here based on the design of the building and and the structures of the building and Mr Max is here to answer any questions regarding the CTE aspect so had any questions regarding that um so those are two areas I think the board had had concerns about was one what are the CTE programs how could we add to our CTE uh one thing we don't want to do is have anything that we have the new CT Center going getting started which has some of our hbac and stuff like that we don't want to conflict with that so we want to add we don't want to pull people from that back into the building want them to experience that

067but we want programs that aren't being offered anywhere else so we can offer our students and these are two things that aren't being offered at cbcc that we could put in our in our in our building to students that option so that gives us a CTE option that gives us the the time frame where we want to be but the main picture tonight is we want to be able to move forward with the RFP so we can at least have a firm hire a firm to do the initial study and bring us back suggestions and then from there it's based on discretion of the board how we move forward from there any questions yes I was just curious have we looked into expanding our current programs because I know like our welding and building um

068a lot of students put in those programs that are not able to accept them all Mr I would like to be able to expand on those classes and pay care of more students right well right now they offer welding at the CTE academ as well so we have our welding program plus they're often welding at the CTE Academy and right now we do have full students that are seniors that they've been at the high school and decided you know all the past year that they want to get into the welding program so we're we're going to send those students to CDCC for that welding program so if they're not in our program they can go to cbcc is that open for how many students it can take or they just take a certain amount we're

069still going to have students that want to take it that don't have spot class right now they have not given us any limits on the number of students they are working through all of that so right now I don't have an answer for that I know that when I talked with the director he said send us right we have 35 students I know it was approved for 25 right now we have 35 students that's already requested information on those programs at CBC so you know and with this we do not want to duplicate what's at CDCC does not have an ad program even though we do dual enrollment forry they allow us to do that because they can allow because it's not on their campus and they have the authority to anything that's given in

070the community community college they can offer so but they don't have an EG program they don't have horiculture and all of that so that's that we're spending right now at hmer Middle School we're going to we're putting in a brand new Greenhouse we're going to do horiculture and hydroponics which is really big uh with all the the different uh agricultural facilities we have now and to go with if the proposed act facility gets built that's going to be a combination of the two counties it'll be a great Segway I think one thing do we all need to realize that even with the cosmetology and the U agriculture the the burden to hire staff and outfit the um the labs are not going to be a part of this construction so whatever we add the board's

071going to have to take responsibility to say yes we want to do that and it's going to cost the board on a continual basis that Staffing position right so if we even if we wanted to expand welding the one teacher we have is teaching all the kids that we could teach right now so we'd have to hire another person as well so just keep those things in mind as you factor these kinds of things in that we will as a school system have a recurring cost and that's in people and the um equipment equipment and consumables running yeah I thought with the welding class it was that size because of space and they needed more space he can only there's 20 there 20 kids and right now we have 15 B 20 is a Max

07220 is a Max in in cosmetology Building Trades all those but I mean certainly if if what we're talking about is five b you know even when this RFP occurs the ation can be around that for the Architects to say here's our space can you can you do this because I don't think um I think we have to we have to understand that we have a lot of different space that's that's in our in our high school that can be repurposed reused um we're just not the experts at doing that right and so um I think one of the things that you might not know or realize is that several of the CTE spaces uh our foreign language classes right now and so those foreign language classes an architect is looking at would say well

073maybe we should move those foreign language classes up to where the auditorium is and then use what was originally set up as a CTE um area to use it for CTE area that's why that's why we want to give the architect as much kind of freedom to to be to be because I think the questions that you're answering are the things that the Architecture Firm is going to want to ask like they're going to ask you guys what are you looking for they're going to ask our community they're going to have town halls and roundtables where they say what do you what do you need as a community and once they get all that information then they're going to design it for us I think what's important with the CTE information that you got is

074that was D from students requesting these classes that's the demand so trying to trying to appease CU how you told me cosmetology been you know we we started we did a survey about 5 years ago and had over students I mean counselors every year you know when when are we when can we get cosmology and and C offer kids usually have to pay between and $4,000 get get like 275 take you back on um question I actually had to same one um these are new suggestions based on surveys and um I know that there's a a need for that um and not opposed to this but as far as old U current ones um I know when we did a tour like in auto mechanics there were like 20 students or maybe 40 students that

075were waiting to get into auto mechanics and I know that would be a major production if you were to put one of those um those in but looking for ways to train our students to where they can be live ready and to go out and earn living we need to be making those sacrifices and looking at them so um in our consideration I don't want to just limit us to new ones at least that's my perspective and know decisions will have to be made down the road based on cost and available space but I guess I just don't want to just up front assume we're new ones and not expansion based on need is what I would suggest um and and I'll be honest when I saw this come across it was like wait a

076minute I didn't think we had really decided at all that this was how we were going to spend the money because we really wanted to engage our community in that so I was appreciative of seeing that you have that on your timeline um but that's also coming up pretty soon so that might be U when we do our new business agenda that might be something we really need to be discussing um so it's my understanding that if we approv this tonight we would just be approving to put out the RFP we would not be approving the bid to pay for that contract that would come back to us as far as the the bid for theing the Architecture Firm right yes we would have to bring that back cuz that would be a cost so

077we have time to talk and make decisions before we go down that costly our goal would be to advertise the RF 20 days for for firms to respond we would didn't go through the list of those who responded we do interviews with the groups we want to talk to we make a recommendation and we have to come back to you to allocate the funds we but we can use some of these federal funds to cover the cost of that versus into our CMP okay and as we have discussion on this I'd like to include in that discussion um things that we talked about in the past which was the use of these funds um and I know we have other CIP needs uh we have uh some schools that we talked about maybe have some

078enroll High enrollments that we need to be looking at um how does that play into our use of our CIP funds um we also have talked about you know potential magnet schools or things that we are could help track students into an expanded CT type of environment um so I just don't want to leave that out left feeli I'd like that conversation to come back around when we discuss if we can big plan I think there's a connection right um this is just trying to to to be able to secure money that we have at our disposal for limited time to be able to put the space in appropriately but at some point we got to start that process and get get the Professionals in here to kind of give us feedback on that great

079thank you question I will add M chair that I have the May 1st 1997 facilities Improvement plan CIP and guess what's in here aori Auditorium 24 years ago it would recommended 24 years ago we have a chance that's I think that's the whole point here we it's been one few things in the last 6 months that I when I've talk and I know mentioned at least two dozen people in the commity that that's like it's agreed oh yeah need that thing be changed when he was up here so does the board have a clear understanding of just I use word just what being asked of us tonight from Dr Wells is to get this uh put some keys and get the engine started and you do have a good understanding that he would need a

080v approve to go ahead with I have ation so that do we have a seconder second th all in favor any oppos thank all right thank you get that get it started and as Miss Thompson saying we which we're not maybe we jumped into one Loop that we weren't ready to be in but we understand uh we crossed over here but this is also very vital um and as well as very th but we heard cosmology like we heard about so um try to make some moves here as well as keep the other CD GRS alive and well so that will come back to us another time am I right about that so tonight we just want to be clear we're just getting started getting started is that all right okay anything else on there

081Dr Wills not we move cons agend board M you had time to look at the consent agenda any conversation or we need to pull anything off if not i' ask for V approve uh Madam chair I'm going tostain okay sir we have one okay so at this time can I have a v approval for the consent agenda so moved okay and a second second move to Second all in favor all against opposed and allain for the book before we move forward I'd like to uh introduce to you U some folks that you approved at last month's meeting um one that's already in place behind me Mr Gary Roes he's going to be our supervisor of Maintenance Mr roges attended baram College where he earned his associates degree he continued his education at the Virginia poly

082Technic Institute in State University where he completed his bachelor's degree in business management and he is a certified param uh there are a lot of things that he's done but I'll get to the to the most recent Mr Roes was employed with the county of ammer for 13 years where he served as the Director of safety he Ser he also served as a project specialist for two years with SSC Consulting uh he also spent 14 years with first Brands Corporation Glad Manufacturing we served in several roles B employed with first brand Glad Manufacturing he spent two years as medical coordinator one year as a Corporate Safety and environmental administrator 5 years as a human resources administrator two years as operations resource and one year safety manager where he is uh where he was currently serving

083today we are extremely excited to have Mr gr he he understands ammer County and he is he is worked in this world um and so we're really pleased and uh I know that uh TR is well thought of that he has hit the ground run and so we welcome Mr thank you for having me okay the other uh we made was that uh Jeremy Hutchinson he is uh the new principal at Madison Heights Elementary School Mr Hutson attended raford University where he owned a degree in interdisciplinary studies Elementary education he began his career with Montgomery County Schools where he spent six years as a classroom teacher in the third and fifth grade while serving in the classroom he furthered his education at Virginia Tech where he earned a master's degree in Ed leadership and policy

084studies he joined am County Public School family in 2014 as a third grade elementary teacher amalon in 2016 he transitioned into his last role as the assistant principal of Madison Heights Elementary we are also excited to have Mr Hinson and would you like to to add anything absolutely Madam chair Madam Vice chair members of the board Dr Arnold I am honored to serve as or to be selected to serve as the next principal of Madison Heights over the last five years I have grown to love the school and the community in which we serve and I look forward to working with the board Dr Arnold and our entire central office staff to just provide the best education possible for our community so thank [Applause] you else well I know that Miss pen did did come

085tonight to support Mr but she was also on the uh uh report tonight but we will We formally uh recognize her at the next on so we are board so uh we're going to start construction Mr Roop and he will talk to you about our construction projects good evening board uh before we start on that I guess want to touch on one thing you know I guess our our Mel policy is every shot every day and I that is we're dealing with my on administrative part every employee every day so I don't know if you had a chance to look at this week's progress uh we have Mr Robert Jones who I work with in maintenance he's been with US 41 years I know you recognized him recently off service but front page and Center

086so I just want to bring your attention to that and of course you know we did great school syst did great in this week followed up on the sports section front page with all the regional um awards that our players and coaches got to PR uh our purchas team so just want to bring that your attention area this week as far as the construction process goes and different projects the elementary project is G way uh the FL in the walls are up and painted uh starting Monday the apartment will be in to uh put the pictures back in and the following we uh the Stalls will be uh the schedule be so that project is on on track be finish here in the next couple two to 3 weeks at uh massit Elementary and also

087h uh Middle School that Pro both of those projects will start up uh this coming week um with the showing up at uh Mass nights and uh removing the tiles off of four down there and also the drain issues and things like that at am M school so those projects getting ready to get under way the anticipation is they will be finished before school starts and so we should be in good check with all that and of course other big thing we working on is getting the schools uh the out parage to the schools ready for the school year and uhing those type of things to get schools in good appearance for our students and faculty to come back to school year thank Youk yes ma'am so the next I have is discipline data and

088you should have this on board place to tell as well this it's on board dots uh so we'll go through this kind of quickly I just want say that the discipline data is in here was through 1920 that we presented that two years ago uh has not that has not changed the data for this past year and into March of 20 and then from this year I'll go expand upon a little bit more but really we don't we have inaccurate in not inaccurate data we don't have all the thata for the year for for 1920 because we ended the school year in March and then last year we had very little discipline in the school due to our schedule uh and just how things work out very little so it's not a whole lot there

089for this com years I I was briefly with you and I just going to H so if you go through under average number of referrals by race group again from 2011 2012 to 2019 2020 the data is there but 1920 we had one point more referrals for black students that white students and that is basically consistent where you were in 2011 2012 that remain very consistent in 2016 17 it did drop to 0.2 but in 2017 18 and 181 19 it went back up to 1.2 to 1.1 and again 1920 through March 15th or 13th whatever that magic date was and they shut us down uh we are at that 1.1 referral of black students and white students goes the likelihood of referral by race grp grou again we can see if you go just

090to the there you go so we look at the likelihood of referrals again number of students referred for discipline at least once but only count it once is how we came with these numbers when the percent of students referred is higher than the percent of student population indicates that a group is more likely to be referred than other groups in 2017 2018 black students referred to the office more often than white students a black student was 1.4 times more likely to be heardred than a white student in 1819 it was 1.5 times more likely in 1920 1.6 times more like this that was creeping up a little bit over those three year the threeyear period we go to out of school suspension rate uh race group we can see the high school suspensions disproportionate impact

091in 2012 12 13 it was 20.6 13 14 21.2 14 15 9.8 156 5.9 16 17 9.3 17 18 it went back up to 15.2 and 189 was 16.3 but you'll see in 1920 it was 2.7 and the Major Impact for that was we open the alternative suspension Center that year and that's why our numbers suspension num significantly decreased so instead of being suspended and sitting home and doing who knows what they were in school uh being held accountable there but also getting some instruction but also getting some social supports as well and their behaviors so we can see that our suspension data really shows that has really been a big key a big key for us for lowering those numbers and I really do appreciate the fact that y'all have agreed to maintain that

092program when do we start 18 that started in the winter of 1819 as a as a run and then we approve to follow the next is for length of length of those School suspensions so we can see that in 2012 13 black students were suspended 9109 days longer than white students 134 was5 and it's still on average through that around that for that time in 201718 uh black students were spended 1.9 days longer than white students in 1819 black students were suspended more often for6 days longer than white students in 1920 white students were suspended more often however the number of days suspended was equal the issue we have is when when we do our data we have to put altercations and fights there together and there's not a discrepancy in the data and this

093one PRS are equable so for a fight students are suspended out of school for an alteration most students go to the Alterna suspension Center um but when we do our data we have to put V together so it kind of SK the DAT of this a little bit but really it's really not a major discrepancy with those groups next is percent and length of OSS school suspension by race group for first offense disruptions so look at the first time a student has an offense um in 20134 black students suspended 8 days longer than white students uh 1516 it was even uh 16 177 white students were suspended 1.5 days longer than black students and 1718 white students were suspended .5 days longer than black students in 201819 they were equal in 1920 no students were

094suspended for out School First Defense disruptions because we were able to utilize cterm suspension Center and then the discrepancies percentages is 12 and 13 is 8.6% and so forth down you can kind of Follow that down again in 1920 again then we suspended so we can see this trending in a positive direction percent length of es school suspension by race group for first offense is is number of days suspended by category for first offense disrespect the finance and its coordination you can see our numbers over time again at 1920 there were none because we did not suspend for disrespect Fin and subordination those students either receive some type of in school suspension or we're at the alternative suspension Center so again that is helped keep those students engaged in school as opposed to being know

095and then 2021 data so here's the good data so uh if you look at 2021 this is total for the year you wonder why we didn't have we didn't have any uh sack meetings or didn't have any uh Special School Board sessions for behaviors um our referrals were down uh number of referrals at the high school was 25 students referred was 17 for the year aec had 52 referrals that only 12 but only 12 students those 12 students count 52 referrals at a Amber middle school they had 204 referrals and 18 and manelis which you'll see on a suspension report here in a few minutes when I talk about that um this is as of June second uh so M Ellison had 17 and 14 but the last day of school they had a couple

096they had four kids getting the fight so that kind of skewed that data but it was this is out of June 2nd so we had a situation there last day of school but overall suspension that school suspension numbers uh overall numbers again referred this past year were very good um i' like to say I like to see us again next year however I did not anticipate us having these numbers again next year just due to the nature of where we're going to be with kids in School 5 days a week I do anticipate December's going back up next year and that's all that's all of that I was going to discuss you have any questions mam chair yes ma'am do you have any data on students who go to the alternative education building and the

097return rate of the same student going back I don't have it with me but I can get it I it has been we have very few students that return students I just don't have the numbers with me tonight so I want give you a number but I know historically my dad I looked at some do go back but historically that's a fairly low number I know we looked at that a couple years ago but I don't think I've seen it since yeah I don't you don't think it's a revolving door no and this past year again the numbers so low really don't have any data compared to this past year really have to start with this next school year and one thing that's going to change too is we're changing from the discipline family bance

098report which all all our discipline codes we're now going to a different way of doing discipline codes so a lot of the discipline codes won't match up so we're going to have to really reevaluate how we run these data reports for you because some of this stuff in there is going to be much different we're going to the student Behavior as far accountability report or something like that as what as Acron so we're going to a different way of reporting discipline um so it's going to be a lot of different looking as we get into this school year we'll see be a change any other questions on this um that was a whole lot of data and I appreciate you getting that together for us um I think it's very informative um I need to

099dig in a little bit more um would you agree just sort of overall with what we're seeing is that we are making progress but there's still pockets in areas that we have some work to do yes that would be a good over General general statement I think we' made very good progress with the alter suspension Center and lowering those numbers and disparity there between racial groups uh I do but the referral data is still showing that uh black students be referred at a high rate per percent of population and white students so we have some work to do but we're making progress and giving that attention to that yes thank you El thank you all right the next thing I have is a Noah be Grant so all right so uh this last year I

100was involved with Communications with the James River Association and we applied for a multis school Grant uh so it's it involves am County Public Schools Hopewell City schools and Siri County Schools schools and that Grant uh provides professional development for our teachers and it provides educational uh opportunities for our students so basically all as part of this grant our teachers get our seventh grade teachers get professional development but all of our seventh grade students will get to go to riveridge park and they do the water the me the meaningful watered educational experiences and we think get to participate in that uh part of this grant that goes beyond just doing the water quality work and the macro work and the abiotic and biotic work with this with the water quality of the James River it

101also goes into them doing a more of a program throughout the year where they have to end up with a finalized product in the spring with a public service announcement about the James River also this grant allows us to communicate with uh Hopewell and Sur so in the spring when our students do their PSAs they'll get to present their PSAs to the students in hell and Sur and students in Sur and hell will do the same with our students and see the differences along the James River the whole purpose of this grant the BW stands for it's a ches peak Bay Watershed educational training and so it allows our teachers and students to experience uh things to improve the water quality ches Bay particularly the James River that's kind of what we're working towards to

102make them more stewards of the environment and ties into our 5 C's very well but this is a grant over the next 3 years of a $450,000 Grant Amis County will receive about $45,000 a year worth of services out of this grant it covers substitute teachers it covers Transportation it covers professional for our teachers and it covers our students getting the training and education experiences on the James River uh this will be in September when they do this you're more than welcome to come join us on August 12th when we have our teachers going through the training that the students will go through River Park just from 12 to 4 on August 12th River Park and then in September we have one week for melison middle school and one week for am Middle School in

103the middle of September and I give these St dates to you as we get them finalized and ironed out but we'll have those students on the river doing these projects uh during that time so we have got 45 students a day can go through it that's the max they have around 45 for control and get everything done so we'll do about 45 students a day but our schools are going to do this grant in a way that it's going to be inter inter curricular so the whole grade team math to teachers will be teaching about math that involves the James River how do you how you do the water Po synthes and Ma science do the same thing history can talk about the Civics and looking at um the history of the river and those

104types of things and then again science of course we'll be doing science but English we'll be doing writing about it so there going to be a cross-curricular uh event for the students and then in the spring again they did a public service announcement when they put all the stuff they' learned throughout the year into a final Pro product so things are very good at Grant and uh we just had five teachers go through training down at Hopewell uh the past two days that just came back last night I got I was able to go down on Tuesday toer from the training as it was very good training with with the group so just make you aware of that uh Noah will have a press release at some point and we'll be going to Richmond to

105be recognized in this in this release but we don't have a date on that yet but because our teachers have gone through the training I want to make sure you aware of what we were doing how it's going to fold out this school year have glad any questions any good okay so next thing I have you also have a memo regarding this this title face coverage but really titles a health mitigation for this school year um I will say that the first paragraph of this um does focus on face covering this is based on CDC guidance and this is based on where we are right now and so we presented this principles today but per CDC guidance face mask should be warn by unvaccinated unvaccinated individuals staff and students and grades 7 through 12 who

106are vaccinated will no longer be required to wear face coverings students in grades prek through six would need to wear face coverings until a vaccine is available for their age groups and we did make this very clear as last highlighted and bold that this is subject to change following the release of BW guidelines expected next week and School Board input so this is where we are right now if you have other direction regarding that we'll be GL we go follow your direction but right now this is where we we had to have something out um some guidance out now based on CDC we have followed CDC guidance throughout and this is this is in alignment with CDC guidance and i' be glad to take any questions regarding that first part of it Madam chair yes

107um so these words in the beginning of the paragraph those are CDC words you have a paraphrase those c i it's not a direct quote but that's their guidance okay so so the word faith mask should be worn is not shall be worn it is the verb is just should should so what's going to happen if someone doesn't think you this full board has to make that decision because it's guidance CDC guidance um I think we started this process last year uh we started off based on guidance and you voted to make it mandatory then it turned into U you know the governor's uh orders and those kinds of things so then it became mandatory even above what the school board was requiring so this goes back to that guidance language so ultimately you guys

108will need to make a a definitive kind of decision on that but the problem is is we're getting guidance once again weekly and you know then this came last week we're going to get more guidance from the VOE and we expect something from the Department of Health as well um so right right now we're still under an emergency order by the director of Public Health in Virginia which says anybody through July 24th if a building has students in it everyone has to have wear a face cover that's what we're under right now but that's expires on the 24th and then we have to De develop new guidance based off of that okay so I guess I would like this to be one of the topics the next meeting because that will be after the 24th

109and before school start yes ma'am okay so the rest of this is just the preventive measures we put in place is very similar last year as far as uh mitigation factors um I can read them all to you or you can I can go we can go through them if you have any questions on them but basically um we're not going to do temp checks at the door this year teachers will visually scan students in their classs just look that they look sick that they feel bad send them to the nurse the nurse will make determination based off of that we will if you're vaccinated there's through guidance we would not quarantine if you're vaccinated unless you are are you been exposed to somebody for example if we have an exposure somebody tests positive in

110a class if that teacher's been vaccinated and and students have been vaccinated they would not need the quarantine unvaccinated students would need to quarantine and if those students or teachers start explaining symptoms they would need to Quant until they had a clearance a test that said they were not positive okay um we'll continue with wiping down desk we'll continue with eating in the classrooms we'll continue with limiting exposure we'll continue with three fet social distance uh basically that's where we're going to be uh we're going to try to keep students in smaller groups again we'll cohort students especially in elementary school but that's that's the general overview of that and I'll be glad again if we want to bring this up at our next meeting then i' be glad to go answer any questions you

111have at that time but I want you to be aware this is what we have proposed um but we feel this majority of this we feel very strong about again the mass policy Mass mandate will be something you probably need to give guidance on so I I won't be at the next meeting um right I can tell you my general idea right now is if we don't have to wear masks prer our kids not our masks the cleaning day on Friday of course we w't have that Friday um will they will is the cust or is your plan to do it in the evenings or a day during the week or our plan will be for them to as during the day have certain time periods where they go through white Services down and evening

112cons staff WIP down Services as well the research is showing there's very little spread of Co through contact of surfaces I think it cut down on other stuff more anything but is actually showing that the touching of surfaces you get very little contact from that exposure to that but we will disinfect Services quick question what's the rale for not taking temperatures when we go in the building and just sort of relegating that to teachers that the kids not feeling well basically we're going to have every student every day come into the buildings and for example the high school would have 1100 12200 students every day comeing into the building and from a Time standpoint it be very difficult to actually scan all those as event where they need to be about guest guest will be

113required do health checks as well as temperature checks so any visitor coming to a building here brother visitors will be required to do health checks and temperature checks students will still be in first to home they have yes cuz just even though it's not Co it could be flu I'd rather not have flu in school too um one quick question Who would keep track of who had the shot and who didn't we cannot well we can't ask that information because if our School nurses can through the VIS system go in there and and check that uh however if someone is is if there's a quarantine situation for example where we have five students that have been exposed we would call those parents that they have to verify their students been vaccinated or not vaccinated if

114they had not been vaccinated they would be quarantined if they haven't vaccinated they prove that show that to us and then they could come to school if they choose not to tell us if they vaccinated or not they would be quarantined but even people that received the vaccination have still come down with Co correct so if they have Co symptoms they're quarantine okay regardless of vaccination status right thank you yes ma' are we still going to be providing the sanitizer and all yes we have 50,000 little bottles sitting up there right now waiting to go out schools I didn't see it on the list I want to make sure buy or not yes you don't need to buy okay I have 55 gallon drum ofice any other question M thing am I correct to assume

115uh from your discussion that we want to make wait and see what July 24th uh decision is come back yeah and if we hear from the Department of Health we'll let you know that prior to 292 so you'll have that information you thought you talking about might 29th that we not I should be for that not right now we got to do it before the [Music] kid okay so next is 5.03 which is policy so this is the first read policiy a there for you to read and review uh we'll take questions at the next meeting and we'll discuss at that point but the policies are there I will say the majority of policies are changing things like pronounce it his and her you know things of that nature as opposed to but that will

116be up for discussion next meeting but this is first reading so to your point earlier about the policies what we what we would do in this case so if we're going to come back on the 29th we would have time to discuss them we wouldn't do a second read on the 29th we would do that second read in August so that way we still get feedback from families and parents and Community but you get the chance to talk about so that was one question um I didn't cross reference but are these the ones that are on the website for the parents to Heaven well they will be tomorrow okay thank we are at 5.04 student suspensions for June and I can answer questions on that but I really can't say that anything particular on that

117but we do have that report for you and Dr I sure with the softball discussion if you want have that in your remarks or if you want to have that now I'll do that in my remarks thank any questions that's all I have thank you for that M CR Madam chairman members of the board you do not have any Financial reports that you place tonight uh we are trying to finalize a year and we are looking at approximately 850,000 to $900,000 after the bonuses were um cut and they should everyone should have received their bonuses today so um but we will provide that information at the meeting in AUST any questions from I have a quick question but on a slightly different subject any update on putting in for the Medicaid money for reimbursements sorry

118John should I tag we are indeed it we are still in the process of working our way through all the uh bureaucratic red tape there a lot of paperwork that he be submitted and things along those lines we have requested again what we had asked for in the beginning which was a a summary of an idea of how many students in a division might be eligible be able to present the board with some kind of projection in regards to what the return on that particular investment might look like we are still waiting for that they have told us they are working on those numbers for us so we're hoping as we come back next time we will have a more completed process um and some kind of numbers to be able to present to the

119board to say this is what it would look like depending upon which route we go with what we decide to reimburse for I know back when I was actually running for this position I was digging around and I came up with about 400,000 a year so based on initial conversations that seems to be a relatively generous projection uh but I'm I'm hesitant to say without getting some of those particular numbers from from the board or from the group that I was just comparing us to another school I knew and how much you know with the size of the schools all right thank you so much yeah good tonight uh we move to instruction yes ma'am Madam chair and members of the board uh tonight I just have information in regards to request on the um

120Baseline data for our map growth assessment I will say that we um met many many of our goals so I'm going to walk you through hopefully you received all of that information on on board docks uh but these are just some highlights for you overall throughout the division I just want to remind you again that this is a norm reference test it's like that um test that we show growth uh height weight uh Childs where where you go in the Criterion reference is that autopsy where you just it's one shot kid may be on that day maybe not on that day and um it's very diff difficult to show student performance growth from the beginning of the year to the end of the year with that so test at the end of the year the

121RIT score that we are using this year um in regards to map is all based on by grade level from kindergarten all the way through 12th where you would start out and and as a kindergarten student in let's say math in the 130 range as you go through uh the year you would try to move to a um like 40 range and as you go to high school you're in the 260s 280 as your top score so as you progress through your grade levels as you progress through your content and the skills that are assessed so does the score and the range that we want you to be in for Norm so that's what we're basing our growth measures on with our students reminders from mid year I just really want to remind you because

122this has been some difficult data to disaggregate for us this year the fall to midy year uh and or mid year to fall both or spring those are their secondary students if you can remember they were blocked so a student who took English course as a nth grader they may have had that first semester so they took the fall assessment and then they turned around and at mid year when their course ended in December first part of January they took the end of the course test and so it was a very short amount of time um as well as the fall to the spring I mean the spring mid year to the spring that would be the second semester students so it's basically comparing those apples to oranges we have very few kids sitting at

123the high school in our secondary who took a year-long course where we could identify fall to Spring uh Dr Arnold and I met with Handover research who is kind of um disaggregating that data for us because we can't get the map program to actually do that for us the way that it's tagged but we did see an improvement in our reading scores across those grade levels by 5.8 and I just want to remind you our goal this year was two points and we have done a amazing job in many many many of our grade levels and our content so this is our elementary and our the f2f is our face tof face it's in-person instruction and these are the students that came in in elementary they came in four days a week they were off

124on that Friday doing virtual learning at home so they had four days in person and we saw in our math scores a growth in every single grade level and these were from fall all the way through to Spring which was the full year overall in our Elementary in our reading we showed growth across most grade levels we did see a slight decrease in our fourth grade but not in the overall from the fall to the spring where we saw the decrease was from midyear we gave elementary students a midyear test and whatever that anomaly was from midar to Spring we sh they saw that decrease it was one or two points but most of our across where we're looking for growth from the beginning of the year to the end of the year with our

125elementary students and reading we saw huge gains more gains than I than I thought we were going to see our fifth grade we are working on that that was our lowest gain at a 2.7 and um we are kind of tweezing that data to see what those are areas where we need to go back and um provide some strategies for our sixth grade teachers because they're going to be moving up working with us so the point gains that you're showing us are an average is that correct yes ma'am we do have it by school and we do have it specific by class and by student um so information that went up in board Docs it it dived out by school for you as well by shows the average gain by school yes ma'am and I

126know that you were shooting for a two-point gain so these are really good um is the two-point gain what map says is typical for student within a half year or a whole year within a whole year you should see anywhere from a two to a 4% 2 to four point gain in a year especially when put the co slide uh into what we were dealing with so Handover research provided us information and how to adapt the map scores and what we should project we should see this year based on students being hybrid face to face and remote so we took the low end of it and I'm very appreciative that we on most of our grade levels met that um and I know last time when you chose midyear data you were gracious to go

127back and give me some percentages yes ma have you been able to do that with the end of the year yet I because I know when I look at the address we have students that haven't shown any growth and we show have students that have made tremendous growth so do we know what the percentage of students are that are making that 2 to 4% gain yes ma'am um as I said Dr Arnold and I met with Handover they have added in and the state is a little tricky uh not so much for elementary I do have that um they just gave me the dashboard to drill down for sub groups and percentages like that um but for our middle and high school because it's two different groups of students map won't let you tease out

128um that child that took it in the beginning of the year to the child first semester to the child who took it second semester it clumps them all together so Handover research is actually teasing that out for us in a dashboard that we can kind of pull it out say here are our fall students from a to December yes ma'am which they should be doing okay thank you and Dr Arnold feel free to add in whenever you uh our middle school and our inperson takeaways for the spring again this this is first semester second semester so our RIT score averages from Fall to spring because that clumps them together we saw our probably our lowest gains in our eighth grade in math um and please remember these are two different cohorts of students uh we

129did see our pre-algebra uh 4.6 gain we did not see that two-point gain that I was hoping for across the board but we um Miss Smith uh Donna Rattler are working on some strategies to give those next course level teachers items to go back and kind of scaffold back in some of the areas that they they missed this year our division reading rent score growth average uh showed up a little bit better in regards to our fall to our spring uh sixth grade 2.7 seventh grade was that point8 and eighth grade again um fell below where we wanted them to be when we did look at some of the spring data at the end we did have some kids who took it in the fall came back realized that they had not passed the class

130the middle school went ahead and put them back in that class second semester so they basically had a year long we were able to do that with um a handful of kids but because of spacing um for the number of teachers that we had who we had an arra uh who we didn't have an AR it was hard to kind of work their ma that master schedule to do that but we're doing the same thing in the strategies um pulling together things that we can give our updated teachers our next level teachers to scaffold back around our High School very similar in regards to U those test being semester test um not the same group of students we did better in our Algebra 1 geometry and Algebra 2 uh seeing some good increases uh the

131geometry which um you'll see later on is um is really a in-person class um it's hard to do geometry virtually and um we saw that this year our reading showed a decrease across the board not just in our face to face but in our hybrid as well and I'll show you that but we saw that decrease in our ninth and 10th and our 11th grade which is where we saw the only increase in our English scores in secondary at the high school was that testing group so those teachers were bringing them in they were doing more remediation um the kids were staying for that because that is a course that is required for graduation and that test is required for graduation in regards to our AR our elementary takeaways from Spring once again we had

132some um high scores in math our fourth grade across the board both in our face to face and specifically our uh remote showed both in m and in reading some low gain no gains in regards to that and um we're working with those kids specifically and have already identified those kids for the administrators that will be at um because those kids are coming back face to face so we need to do something really um immediate with with them uh AR ele reading again we saw some really good gains um but we're focused on some on those kids that we need to scaff back around with ar secondary takeaways our um growth average again from Fall to Spring different cohorts of students but as you can see in our middle schools for our math as uh

133we did fairly well our reading we U were very behind what I had projected that we would be we did a lot of that's probably where we in our Middle School 6th 7th and eth if I went back and looked at my data which I I pulled it a couple of weeks ago hang on I'm G to pull to my notes sorry about that y'all um that what really was where we saw the most U greatest attendance concerns that we had in our sixth seventh and eighth grade as well as our lowest participation in our Google meets where it was asyn where it was synchronous learning um when we went back and tallied all of that up that's where we saw where the partic participation was pretty low in our AR for middle school students

134if you look at our high school students uh we uh did very well in our algebra very close to what we did Algebra 1 and Algebra 2 for face to face but again geometry we were down seven points uh we're working with Donna r at the high school to kind of come back and circle around with those specific students that is a verified course that they would need to have and so we want to make sure we give them what they what they need to pass that course and those test and then again in our English for AR they did much better in regards to that face to face a four point gain 8 gain and a fivepoint gain which I was um very excited about in regards to that the last slide is just

135the hybrid I wanted to just kind of give you where it was hard to kind of siphon out in the narrative so this is just the numbers for you so you can kind of take a look at where we are at each grade level division average across the board in math and in reading and this is just for our face to face P students that we were able to pull this data so you see we have some areas where I know we've already started targeting in regards to our math we we are focused on our um eighth grade right now in in regards to our reading it's going to be in our ninth um our Middle School specifically but our ninth and 10th grade and I'll answer any questions or I'll try to answer any

136questions that you have do you want me to go back I'm sorry y work the very last is just the number of tests that we took and it was a lot um this is with for many AR choosing to come into the building so if you see we had probably around I want to say close to 1,600 AR students I think is what we averaged out but most of them at the end of the year in the spring test came back into the building to actually take the test and please remember also that when you're looking at that 2500 students that took that test total that is only because of secondary it's half of the kids half of the kids took it in the in the fall and the other have took it in the

137spring and I'm only showing you spring data right now and that is quite a bit of information I'm looking forward to seeing this in a full school year yeah I would and I think there's the one thing that shows up I think fairly clear in this is that our elementary students because they had four days with their teacher perform better uh than those kids that two days and then they they went home the other two days I it's why I'm so glad that we're going to get them back in 5 days a week because that's upet all along that's the right way to go questions for [Music] Dr thank you very yes and the next one on registration I I you have on board docs the information when I did this for you back in

138um June wanted to our registration there was 205 in regards to kindergarten and in our 2021 year we were at 302 to as of today we have 288 students that have registered for kindergarten so we're about 14 shy of where we were last school year as kindergarteners um however we already know that there's six or seven that have already contacted us they they can't log in to get the registration right now so we're getting them the access codes that they need um so we're going to be very close to where we were in the 2020 2021 school year with kindergarten registration we may actually be over and also on that memo we and then the following themo as well uh you had asked one of the board members had asked for just a breakdown a

139timeline in regards to the um what we've been doing and what Miss Smith and the division level here have been doing with virtual Virginia So within that timeline and it's several pages on how we went about the process communicated everything out but within it it's also this chart um that shows the enrollment we have enrolled 77 students K through 12 um in our in the virtual Virginia program they start classes begin for all of those students in Virtual Virginia on August the 10th which is about 7 days before the in-person students return to our school buildings on August the 18th so we are doing Lots with those parents and with those students to make sure that they start on that August 10th start date um we're doing some social media post we've already sent out

140letters and cards uh Miss Smith is doing a weekly reminder with each of those families and those students we just don't want them to miss a whole week of school in Virtual Virginia U when virtual Virginia has always told us from the beginning that they would start ahead of time before us and so we're just trying to make sure that we get kids in as quickly as possible and I will answer any questions that you have did I'm sorry I stepped out the denied applications I saw that on there did you touch on that in regards to our prek no just I saw the statistic there was denied seven yes sir um these we had had a set criteria in regards to what that looked like if a student had failed a two more courses

141and they were core courses uh we denied it in regards to that if they were attendance truen issue uh that was denied and if they had um a discipline issue in regards to um virtual uh being a virtual learner so it they got on a Google meet and were inappropriate in that class environment those were tonight as well thank you all right good evening Madam chair members of the board uh I wanted to give you a quick update on where we stand with our summer programming as most of you know last Friday was our last day of in-person summer programming we've moved into the completely virtual phase and will'll be there through the end of this month um but I am happy to report that when we're talking about the numbers I want to reiterate

142um this is the number of students that were consistent attenders that we feel like we really got that good time with and are going to be a good part of the data that we're going to talk about uh here shortly uh at our prek through Rising fber Elementary programs we had just over 300 students that were consistent in attending that program for the middle school and high school programs were're just under 200 students that were consistent in attending those so we will write out that 500 number for our inperson programs that were there the majority of the time for inperson programs we had a number of other students that came for maybe a week or a couple of days here or there U we're very very pleased with that number of 500 students that we

143feel like really got significant benefit and significant time with instructors during that inperson program uh we do have 80 students currently in our virtual program not all of those students have logged in or done something meaningful at this point so we want to see how that participation continues to grow uh we also have an additional 40 students that have been invited to an S so CTE remediation week the first week of August um so we're hoping that we're going to be very close to that 600 number number of total attendees for our summer programs this year which of course is a wonderful number we always wish it could be more but uh certainly a significant growth from the last time we were able to have summer programs in 2019 uh we are working as you

144would expect the number of students that are participating on the data for that we were able to collect pre and post assessment data for our Elementary programs we were also able to compile profile sheets for middle school and high school students targeting specific skills within English and math in regards to what growth was shown and what those markers were uh as I have that data and I will have that the next time I Frid we only have about a week with it at this point uh to be able to show you what that data is but early returns indicate that a vast majority of students while over 80% have demonstrated some level of growth within those skills that we've identified this summer so all in all we feel like from a mediation standpoint it was

145a very very successful program uh one number that I do know at this point uh as part of the power Scholars Program again that's our elementary program they track retention so students that come on the first or second day and persist through to the end of the program for both sites that number was almost 96% so the students that came first and foremost on those first couple of days they stuck it out to the very end through those four weeks and again especially with those those grade levels and those ages that's a tremendous tremendous number for us and we're very very happy with that so all in all very satisfied with how the in-person programming went uh hoping that we had the same success with our virtual programing hopefully all of you were able to

146uh at least hear some things or see I didn't have my newspaper I should up G that was a good example for me I think we were in the newspaper not too long ago over some of our Summit programming but just some of the highlights I wanted to share with you tonight some student experiences that occurred all of our elementary students were able to attend a field trip to Liberty University they were able to experience a college campus and really talk about what it meant to be able to move to that phase of their educational career what that is what that entails you get excited about that the students that came back from that trip were talking about just seeing what a college looked like for the first time and thinking about some of those

147things and what it might mean for them in the future I was able to work with Mr Maddox to set up a CTE showcase at both sites so we had five CTE teachers from the high school that actually came down and worked with what ended up being relatively large groups of students we're rotating a lot of students through and having them experience what they would experience if they were students at the high school in their CTE programs um we had snakes we had welding machines we had all kinds of wonderful things going on all was well controlled of course but students were very very excited about what they could be experiencing as high school students at amers County High uh we also were able to work with second stage to have visitors Loc artists musicians

148other individuals that were able to come in on Fridays and talk to students about what career choices they had made what paths they had followed to meet some of their goals and what that looked like at the secondary level I hope you're able to drive past em Middle School from some point the campus has been transformed uh by that summer program they were able to set up veterans Gardens they had a wonderful event where they were actually able to bring in veterans from the local area uh and talk about their experiences and the veterans were able to hear about what the student students have done and why just a really meaningful experience for a lot of the staff and students up there uh I encourage you to stroll past the courtyards at melison middle school

149and ERS County High School theyve been significantly upgraded as well with the summer program students put in a tremendous amount of work to figure out what should be done how they could do different things what plants would survive U there is a brand new pond at amers County High School the students had to figure out what depth had to be H to how big they had to make and how much water and dirt had to be brought in the uh little Atrium there between the outside entrance and the courtyard entrance was filled with dirt at multiple points where they were trying to figure out what that looked like think students also spent a lot of time figuring out how to get out of moving that dirt back and forth from outside into the courtyard but

150uh again some wonderful efforts that would um there a couple others that I wanted to highlight uh manelis and middle school students were able to design and develop their own sports franchises we had students that were uh working on uniforms and drafting teams and doing all kinds of wonderful things figuring out budgeting hopefully as they're moving towards some of those careers and millions of dollars in regards to what that could look like um we also had a very unfortunate incident with some Wildlife there all uh not real of course but where they had to figure out what happened a crime scene investigation occurred and I believe Miss gray was heavily implicated in that particular incident but again some wonderful experiences for students there was a substantial amount of learning that occurred in the areas of

151reading and math that students really got to experience something new and different this year we're able to create new and different things because of that so very very pleased with how that went and I would be remiss not to thank the many many staff that put in quite literally thousands of hours to make this program possible this year uh so again once I have that data compiled and at the end of our summer programming on August 6 be able to report back to the board on how we sh saw that growth in regards to the academic domains but very pleased with what we were able to offer our students this summer so be happy certain any questions you might have it was a success we definely come a long way from a 4 Hour something

152to a very meaningful Su thank you for that all right gallager you all yes ma'am Madam chair members of the board you have several items in front of you for human resources tonight uh the first is a memo with our current vacancies uh just so that you can reflect on that where we still have to hire for some positions with about a month to go so we've hired um in quite a few areas and sometimes we've hired and then that's result that do need to hire um but for the most part um I feel good about where we are uh there's one or two areas um you know math and and interestingly art there continue to be um challenges to fill but we do have plans in place to where I feel like we're going

153to be in a good place across the board before we start school um so this has have and flowed over time this giv you a brief snapshot of where we are but I'm happy to take questions if there are any that's where we currently stand Mr gallager second document I hope the second document in front of you is our 2021 2022 new teacher orientation schedule um a couple of dates and and things to look at uh to prioritize for you all um would be the Thursday July 29th which is our welcome breakfast U that is at 8 to 8:30 I will say that it does indicate there that that would be an ERS County High School cafeteria as it was last year and some of you had attended that uh to help uh greet and

154welcome our new teachers um however uh we will be relocating I believe that there's U some air conditioner issues that may not be resolved until August 5th is what I currently understand so um I will make sure I confir confirm with you all the exact location as soon as that's identified at this time tentatively it appears it would be in the Mellon Middle School library um but I will I will certainly confirm that with you but I I welcome you all encourage you all to attend that welcome breakfast um just to make connections to uh get introduced and to meet our our new group of individuals joining the family uh in ERS County um we are going to have a new teacher luncheon on Friday June 30th which is the following day uh from 12:

155to 1:30 and that is again a sweep R our College Pro throw um so we are we did not have that last year and definitely missed that opportunity uh and so we are looking forward to to having that this year and uh we would invite you all to participate in that as well uh do you have any questions about the schedule for new teacher orientation you said Friday July 30th is the luncheon that is correct but is that sweet for right it is [Music] something any further questions on that thank you yes looking forward to that uh the last thing that I placed there which we'd like to provide annually is just for your information are the the uh the work schedules the for different employees and different groups you have the schedule for our

15612 12 month employees 11mon employees 10 month and also our 190 day uh employees and the 190 day employees are our classified staff uh just kind of outlines what their work calendar looks like for the different groups um what days they are working with days they're off uh due to holidays or otherwise and the total number of days worked within their uh within their calendar and that is something that we provide with their contracts each and every year uh but we also like to provide that to you in advance for your in case you have any questions annually as [Music] well I'm happy to take questions if there [Music] are including work yes ma'am and that's all I have see moving on to Dr yes ma'am at our last meeting we pulled five policies from

157first readings they were um around updates to the sex offender policies I ask that our legal council um take a look at those uh give you more information as to what the the changes were I have put it your place it is quite a long memo uh and it and it's attached to all of those policies but in discussing with legal counsel and I'm going to give you the highlights it certainly could be something um I'm making an assumption at this point that that could be something we could talk about in more detail on the 29th uh but in essence what uh legal council has said is that there there basically two changes that were that have been put in place and one is the use of the sex offender registry information and the second

158is access to school property by the certain uh offenders so let's talk a little bit about about the sex offender registry information in our current plan uh there is detail on how that information is put out okay so if you look at the current policy it tells what my responsibility is Dr Wells actually has the responsibility of checking that and disseminating that information what the VBA has done with this is uh their intent was to uh ask the the superintendent to have a separate regulation on what um what the those procedures would be so I think they're trying to give school systems the ability to tailor it to their unique needs uh and but what he he lets us know though is that this is not part of the changing code so it doesn't have

159to change at all the part on how we disseminate information so uh this is something we can talk about we want to just leave that part alone where the the information is still intact and and we'll continue doing what we do in terms of disseminating information U but the the only difference there is that it would go from being explicitly stated in the policy to saying you have to have a regulation that lays out your process right the second part was access to to property by offenders and uh much of this discussion centered around using the tier one tier 2 and tier three language um currently U any person that's on sex uh offender registry uh they have to get permission to be on school grounds uh the the offenders who are sexually violent so

160uh those are those are folks that have to go to court and get permission from a court and then they have to come to me and get permission from me so so that's what we currently do okay uh the the people that are on the sex offender registry that are not violent offenders have to get permission from the principal okay and that's what we're currently do what this is doing is trying to line up the Federal tiered codes uh with what we used to do so tier three think about it as the violently sexual offenders right so they're going to fall in the same C that if they're in tier three they have to give Court permission superintendent permission the other two tiers have to go through the same process that the other um sex

161offender registry currently have so I think what our Council thought was that it it doesn't change um policy as amended still bars any registered sex offender from coming onto school property without permission from the school system system um and that obviously there there are currently narrow exceptions about voting and kids not being in the building and those kinds of things uh but he did not think that by putting the language about the tears uh would substantively change what we do right because I think the worry was oh now we're going to just allow folks to come in our building uh that's not changing uh but I would like for you to have opportunity to read this um I just got this from him U very recently and so I'd like for you to to read

162this and it could be something we can certainly discuss uh in a couple weeks we don't have to put it back up on the table until you're ready to do that um and and at that point our current policies stand right so what we've been doing is already in place um he said that the KP KK and djf were just language changes to try to match changes that you might make to the [Music] other those are the last three yes I'll be glad to answer as much as I can I know that you you just got this so I'm want to either give you some time to look at it or we can just say this is what we'll do on [Music] you pleasure I'd like to talk about on the 29th the 29th yeah

163that's my make sure we understand it that's right and and and it's not even on the table for for any first read or second read or anything like that so you're still two months away after the 29th if you if you intend to to change it so you have time and in the meantime we will have a policy in place where we're doing what we're doing right now which we feel like it's safe okay uh the second item is the American Rescue plan act or sr3 or sometimes known as cares act so this is the money that Dr Wells was discussing earlier and so I think it's important to understand so the process that Dr Wells has talked to you about is the the process that our School Division has to go through from a

164construction standpoint like there's a long timeline uh to get that construction to occur what this process is we got to get the money to do it and so there certain requirements that we have to to make and one of them we've already done right um as you did last meeting you um approved the plan for safe return to inperson instruction uh and continuity of services that was done at our last meeting that met the requirements it's on the website it is there um and so we've met that requirement our second requirement is to then apply for the grant um and so what is required is to produce a document to tell our public what we're doing with the money what we intend to do with the money um what I'm doing tonight is presenting it

165to you but it's going to go online tomorrow and we're going to ask for public comment on uh this document and then uh the the hope is is that one we can talk about it July 29th and two by August 14th at our first meeting in August you would be in a comfortable place to approve it so we can uh put our application in this Crouch has until September 1st to apply for that money and so but we have to get public input prior to that happening so uh so our timeline I don't feel like we're rushed but we have to I have to present it to you it is um it should be very similar to what you've seen from Dr Wells uh on the on the uh construction piece and you've already seen

166the instruction stuff so it's it's not drastically different one thing to understand about a grant is that we always have the opportunity to amend that Grant as we go okay it's just it's like our Title One grants our title two grants that if we feel the need that we have to spend our money in a different way we can make that Amendment it just has to be approved by um FAL federal federal government yeah uh so I I need you guys to have this that's a requirement for me to make sure that you have that in your hands so I can then put it out to our public I would I would suggest in July 29th we we have conversation about it but you can also ask me questions about the process um you know

167the did I hit it all I did it's it's it's become very When we dropped all this in June on us and then they give you a September deadline and then they say you have to have it out for public you know so they they start to squeeze the schools to get it done and so we want to make sure that you you guys have enough time to feel comfortable with it and also our public cast down to se um when we talk about this on the 29th if you could just give a little bit more uh maybe transparency about how social emotional standards will fit into this um maybe even the Performance Based assessments that you have on the first page you know how those are going to be developed and the content that's

168going to be in those I know the social emotional standards are um believe are supposed to be coming as part of Virginia MH standards of learning for the upcoming year yes so I think we need to make sure that our parents know how that's going to be utilized and implemented make some more information on that thank you is this supposed to be an making sure we weren supposed to have a you need no I just want to make sure okay any other questions on this which is very good yes how about um and I don't know do we need a math specialist in elementary school we have one we do we already have we have a division level math but we we have math leads at each elementary school that's okay we also have she's

169a division level person um to piggy back on that that triggered me um the uh positions that you have listed here are they just temporary or is that going to be I mean you can certainly once the money is gone can continue these forward the idea with the money is okay you have uh following year and the year after that and then partially the that year is to provide enough money so schools can put enough resources in place to help our kids catch up because remember when we talked last year we knew this wasn't going to be a we're going to get them fixed right away it's going to take time and so we need those resources and people to get there so you would expect that to be two maybe three years uh well

170I would say two and a half for sure because it's that that 24 uh November 2024 is that that cut line on um so we would for sure get through two full years with this and then and then beyond that then it becomes what the school board then would decide what do you want to keep do you want to keep can we keep you know those kinds of and that would be the same social worker that you're recommending well that's the there are social workers in this plan the social worker I'm Rec we'll have a conversation about that in close session about the are you talking about I was talking about this position oh yeah no everything in here is not is doesn't have a no it's not permanent right it has to it has

171to end on 2024 but we want to take advantage of the resources that to us anything else on this one gr I would just like to request um I would like to have a hard copy of that if possible was thank you so much nothing else talk on okay the last day in 23s we've had the entire leadership team at monelison doing leadership training uh two days ago we spent the entire day um our plan and I I think this will make you happy is that in March of 2020 kind of our all of our momentum with 5 C's and Innovation kind of stopped uh we are picking that fall back up uh and we are starting to to head down that road again we spent the whole day trying to give our leadership team

172capacity the capacity for themselves as Leaders to be able to support their staff as we start to um add more Innovative practices in our building how we integrate the five sees into uh the work that we do so some of the things that Dr Wells talked to you about today the uh the miwis the uh the things that those are the types of things that we want our students to start doing um and so they went through training on Wednesday to kind of start to get the understanding of what it means to be a critical thinker right what it means to be creative what it means to be a good communicator so those are the things means that we want our entire division to have the same language right when we're using that language what

173does it mean to be a critical thinker because I think we could have a million definitions of it uh but we want to be consistent as a School Division so every student that if you're a student in amalon or a student Temperance critical thinking is critical thinking right and so we want to be able to be consistent with that but we want our administrators to understand it and be able to support it in the buildings we're not going to come out of the gate and ask our teachers to change their practices uh because we understand what they're going to be dealing with they got to get back into the rhythm of what they do but over the course of this coming year we're going to start to support them that if they want to take

174uh the opportunity to start to incorporate these things and they they've done this they do this already um but not everyone does it um um and they also could use support in doing that and so it was a great day the the administrators I mean it was the most engaged thing you know we've done one of the things the culminating activity um each of the the three levels the elementary administrators went to one room the Middle School administrators went to one room and the high school administrators went to one room and we instructional staff put together Escape rooms and the Escape rooms were all built around Elementary standards of learning or middle school standards of learning and they had to to do things to Escape the Room uh so the elementary had to get out

175of the submarine before all the air ran out so they had an hour the Middle School folks were trapped on an island that lava was getting ready to take over the island and they had to figure out all of these math problems English they had to write do writing assignments they had to understand history things and and then the high school they had stop a train that had biohazardous material on it and so it was quite interesting to watch them all work together or not work together in some cases and get frustrated and fail forward you know all the things we want our kids to do but so that was just a way to show them you know we can really get to academic work but also in a way that's going to make students

176collaborate and think critically and creative with how they how they solve problems and to be able to communicate with one another and so all of those things um we we videoed them all so I think we'll put together something so you can you can see what our our folks went through but uh it it was a great day today was more about you know we're going back here the different rule changes here the things that have to be done so it was more uh administrative today but um all in all it was a good two days and I just wanted you guys to know because I think I've been patient and waiting for us to get back on track and so I think I'm I'm reporting right now that we're moving in that direction so

177we feel really excited about that questions about that one I just wanted who created this room well we had three people working on each one so my instructional team um in order order for us to ask teachers to do this we need to feel their pain um in order for principes to go into a building and say this is what I want students to be like or engage in we had to make them look at it through the lens and feel it like a student would so my instructional team we had three members for each group um M madx he did the lava he he's he got him off the island and that was the group that won Middle School Middle School team won um and we had Miss ju Juan Smith led the submarine

178for elementary and then we had a team of teachers from the high school who volunteered to do their work for their building administrators so they could see how frustrated they could make them and they were last took that a long long time and then my last question was in the um material that you went over I know you were talking about innovation of bringing back those 5c's and I know this has been a highly unusual year um but I get a sense from some of the teachers that they're missing some autonomy in the classroom so returning back to normal might mean uh teachers will see a little bit more of that not so much and we're we're also hoping that there's uh some some folks that would be willing to if they're excited about it

179and want to do these types of things that they feel empowered to go do those of things um now of course we we always understand understand that we have standards that we have to teach but how we teach them should be up to the uh the administrator or to the T thank okay so uh also going back to our comprehensive plan we uh one part of that asked for a communication plan for the division and so um you have in your administrative content section uh the draft of the communication plan I think what I wanted to do today because we it's there's nothing official and we haven't started with it yet uh but what I wanted to do was to get it in your hands and to kind of tell you the process that we

180went through um obviously it came out of uh the comprehensive plan but uh there was a communic committee made up of of teachers and staff and parents and and um community members that worked uh with me on the communication committee we had a parent advocacy group uh that worked on different portion of this plan to to kind of what do we need to do to help parents be better advocates for their students and then we had staff input we had uh central office input and so taking all those things and put putting them together we have quite an extensive document um and what I think I would will share with you is kind of the the highlights of of what like our our objectives are so our first objective is we have to determine what

181the school Community needs expectations opinions um and knowledge level so if we're going to make changes we need to know what those changes need to be so the this objective talks more about what is it that we're going to do to find out what people need what our staff need in terms of Comm better communicating what does our community need in terms of better communication so that'll probably look more like surveys uh initially to be able to get that information and then we can do something with that information our second objective is to make sure we have a really strong mechanisms to communicate what our division expectations are for our students our teachers our parents our community and then what opportunities are available you've probably heard me talk a lot about you know how do

182we connect our students that are Elementary uh age to the things that they'll be doing in high school in College and Career like what is it that what is it that makes this a vertical process for kids and not just I'm going to school because somebody may go to school um so we need to make sure our parents understand what all the opportunities are out there so they can help their kids navigate that world too I mean as parents you you all understand uh how important it is to know how your your student is doing and what they're doing and what they can do and I don't think that all of our parents have that information or at least can be Advocates that way and so we have to figure out better ways to communicate

183that to our our our families the third objective is is more about the um the types of forms we use the types of having diverse uh ways of getting information whether that's snail mail email uh online YouTube TW all of the different ways all the mechanisms to make sure that we hit everybody and do it in a way that everybody can can uh get the information that we're trying to get out to people so that's what objective three is about objective four is about helping our staff become better communicative so giving them the skills to become better communicators I think one of the things that we find often is teachers do a really good job and feel really comfortable talking to students but they don't feel as comfortable talking to parents and lots of times

184there becomes a disconnect there so we feel like it's important to give our our staff uh whether it's office staff or teachers uh skills that are going to help them be better communicators and help to kind of bridge that gap between school parents and then the final one is um our crisis communication so what are our what are our processes there that's pretty much in place already because that's something that Dr Wells worked on the first year uh he was here and so uh that's the plan it's in draft form so it's not it's not done but I wanted you guys to be able to have it look at it we have some more work we need to do with it in terms of like what are resources and timelines and things like that but

185we want to get this moving sooner rather than later because as y'all know communication is is very important in that spot uh even during the co year we felt like it was important to do that work so to get this document together so um share Tom you want to take a look at it um but it's it was it was is more for uh just knowing that this is what we're working on and what we're doing and okay so we are we are going to be back on July the 29th yes so what I would like to do uh as part of that July 29th is uh because I think it is also a good time to be able to do uh special presentations in a more timel fashion and we want to recognize our

186our softball team their coaches the players and to do it with a resolution and do it in public um is Dr Brown still here are you still doing something on the 30th um we are we're in talks with the coach in town but not at a place to solidify that right okay we want to do our official thing before before then so I'd like to be able to invite them here on the 29th uh so we can recognize them formally because it was quite quite a run and really exciting for for the schools as a matter of fact all the spring Sports were had had a great great year so um we want to be able to do that um unless you would like to do it in a different way um but I would

187like to do it in a formal way for sure I agree are we going to do it here yes yes we're going to do this one here because you know it's school's AR ready for us you know they're not they're just quite not quite there yet um and then there two that aren't on the list that I want to it's it's a reminder you all probably received an email inviting you to the Central High School historical marker dedication that's on Saturday July the 24th at noon uh Mr Holmes has uh offered uh his services in his building for the folks that that attend so they can come in and do a walking tour and to have some food as well so uh certainly you're very welcome to attend uh it'll be a nice thing and

188the fact that all the swich middle school students did a lot of work to make them look good and and and they actually put some plannings around that that historical marker so it's going to be a nice really nice day last thing I have is that you have in your packet your uh Virginia School Board Association activity pass so if you want to go to events and we're going to have events you can go to them and you can just share your we got to charge everybody else I just want yall to know that we can't let people un free anymore we have to we have to pay the bills but um that is your Virginia School Board Association passing there I chair that is all I have anything else any questions okay um do

189we have any reports have reported individual doover was a comme yes um we did T we discuss something solar yeah solar there that's still the solar thing still getting kicked around um so uh that's still on the horizon for too um as far as individual matters uh Mr took some my thunder I was going to recognize that we had some good stuff in the news uh between employees Miss B and Mr Jones and softball team in the summer program so it's good good good publicity for the division and excited to see that just uh thank you all for uh hard work You' put in every day that's it um I just wanted to say thank you to everybody that took the time out to come here tonight and the people that wrote in also um

190to have you read so graciously for us tonight and speed mode and um also thank you to our softball team great job and I believe the boys did something they had a good run to they won the distrib okay congratulations them too and thank you so much right we had a special call me for governor school but it was to address the calendar things nothing really of substance um I just wanted to say I know I saw it on social media I don't know if all parents are aware that we're not being charged for meals this the students aren't in charge of meals this year so lunch and breakfast both right are freid of the students um so yeah I'm just looking forward to the new school year to start in a month one month

191I don't want to have a whole lot welcome Mr R good to have you on board um appreciate everything that you guys are doing always um can't I can't wa for this school year to get back to normal and and like I said whatever my my decision will always be far as the mass social distancing as much as we can get back to to normal within aw just like to say welcome to the new folks um congratulations to the softball team and um the boys team um so it's shaping up like a good school year and I'm looking forward to normal thank you all all of that and I just want to back up to Mr R on your CIP girl softball field been brought up in that's going to possibly be the Fieldhouse and

192all that dend them on all a car item on the on the project so that's something that we on on this project right and we've also gotten getting we have prices from last year for the stairs and we'll revisit that once we get updated prices on that for stairs at theof I would ask ask that I I witnessed that myself Cas getting all those rocks snakes and and broken ankles so we got to look at that but yes congratulations to the softball team to the baseball team and all the soccer everybody had a good spring and uh it's always good to congratulate the the super intendent and the uh principal of these Championship state championship people so Dr and uh Brown congratulations on you all having state championships so that also goes on record I

193haven't had any I did have legisl U meeting yesterday and I couldn't attend because uh I was having new student so I will get the information that was given to us from that and I have already coming up other than that it's been pretty Qui not had yet and and um we just all been enjoying all the activities here in Amon you right the Jus the paper is just wonderful just around I do thank you for all you and M Luther for um all the great articles not just about our things but the entire County Sports and and all so I'm looking forward to getting back to normal um and we're on the way so with that said we just thank everybody for I know there's been some concerns and some emails and some some

194social media which I do not read social media um about attrition and retention in this County and Gall want to thank you for all that you're doing to answer those questions and uh as I had a comment from where I resign and and work and do things that people leave jobs now um I was talking to a friend you don't find folks that work 40 50 years in a place anymore uh we love that when people retire and say I've been here 45 years but we I think we need to recognize now that this generation of workers may stay in a place two to 5 years and move on for many reasons uh we always want to make sure that they didn't move on because of something we intentionally did I don't believe we'll do

195that as the school system so just want people to know that people make their own choices as to where they want to do in that employment and but if we can help um if there was something that needed to be told to Mr the gallager or to the to the administration that can help the situation we hope that people would do that first and then if you still choose to leave this system all we can say in good faith is good luck and we were glad that you were here for the time you were here but we can't depend I don't think anymore on anyone working 50 40 years anymore um maybe but I don't think so I have students who I just graduated 5 years ago theyve had a couple jobs already feeling good

196about it too you know just time takes you different just want to throw that out I want to thank you m scall CU recruiting and ret retain paining and all these sort of things is not as easy as it seems and we are getting exit interviews um am I right so we know you all know I don't need to know all the time but you aware of why I person leave the system so s with that said I believe we have to go in first of all does the board have anything else at this time for open if not um I believe we have Dr reason for going into close meeting yeah pursuant to section 2.2 3711 A1 of the code of it is recommended the board convene a closed meeting for following A1 Personnel

197matter superintendent evaluation do I have a motion to go into close session so we have yes and then we have a second by one of you right all right all in favor okay we should go to close session thank y'all for are here and we not be when we come back thank you Mr R also don't forget those bleachers yes maam I'll send you a memo [Music] wello [Music] he [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] he [Music] [Applause] [Music] a [Music] a [Music] he [Music] n [Music] n [Music] n [Music] w [Music] w he w [Music] w [Music] oh [Music] oh hey ohy heyy [Music] ohy [Music] oh [Music] he [Music] oh [Music] a [Music] oh [Applause] [Music] he [Music] oh [Music] a [Music] [Applause] a [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] a [Music] a [Music] [Applause] a

198[Music] [Applause] [Music] a [Music] ah [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] a [Music] [Applause] [Music] I am a scholar I am a scholar I am the future I am the future I am intelligent I am intelligent I I am unique I am unque when the time comes when the time comes I'll be a leader I'll be a leader when there's in Justice when there is Injustice I will take a stand I will take a stand I will be ambitious I will be ambitious and I will suce and I will succeed because I am because it will always be will always be a power [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] col [Music] a [Music] almost a year ago to the date our world changed in a way we never would have imagin the covid-19 pandemic has dominated our lives

199for over a year creating anxiety stress fear and uncertainty I would like to however talk about something a little more positive and hopeful and that's vaccinations while Amber county public school's initial goal was to vaccinate uh our entire staff in an attempt to make a return to fulltime in-person learning a greater possibility we quickly realized that we had the capacity to host and staff these vaccination clinics in an efficient manner we understood that our community's health is tied to our school system so we began lobbying the Virginia Department of Health to allow us to provide vaccinations for the Amor community in a partnership with the amers County public safety and the Virginia Department of Health ammer County public schools has now been hosting the mass vaccination clinic for the amers county community for several weeks

200at our high school so the event today is uh hitting the vdh phase 1 C uh so those people are identified on the on their vdh site uh but basically everything today is appointment only but we do operate from 9:00 to 12 today um and so we're trying to get everybody in we're doing about 3 50 shots today uh going hit in Phase 1 C next week we're going to go to phase two as anticipated and then that'll be open for almost everybody in the state who's above the age of 18 for madna or 16 over for fizer uh you can go to the amers county uh website or the am County Schools website and there's a link to the Eventbrite site and Eventbrite is where you will sign up for these clinics this what

201we're doing this for the community uh you know we if if you need the shot or you need to get that shot just go on the event site let us know if you're having any issues with that feel free to call us we'll be glad to help you through [Music] it almost a year ago welcome to am County Public Schools my name is Dr Brown and I'm the proud principal of am County High School I I guess you're wondering why should you come work for amers County Public Schools but the question really should be how can you not work for emers County Public Schools this is an amazing place to work with amazing people and with the mission of every child every day if you love kids this is the place for you emers county

202is a beautiful place to live we have Scenic mountains we're situated really nicely between Lynchburg which is a small urban city and Charlottesville which has a lot of amenities U they have resch venues and there a lot of recreational things that you can do the town is just amazing U place for it to be it's got that Old Town feel it just really makes you feel like you're back in um like a a really close-knit small town but the county as a whole these are just great people around here that love AMR County and they love AMR County Public Schools education is really really important to our community and we do the absolute best here to provide the the top-notch education that our kids need and deserve we are all about promoting life ready students

203and so for am County Public Schools it's not just about teaching to the test and passing s sols and accreditation we earnestly want to build our students to be thriving engaged citizens and and focusing on character and communication and critical thinking and creative thinking and citizenship um we are doing things that are going above and beyond to promote those within our students even with the pandemic uh and the covid-19 situation we've looked for opport unities amongst all the obstacles and we want to try to promote a educational system that is allowing our kids to experience the things that a normal school system would uh even amongst these difficult times when the when the pandemic hit one of the first things that we did was to to continue education and so we partner with our local

204news station wct to create these amazing engaging lessons teachers sprung uh sprung to action all across the county to create these awesome and engaging lessons um our teachers have really done an amazing job of collaborating this year we've had more collaboration than ever so if you're coming onto our team you can be sure that you're going to have awesome um Educators that have a amazing experience that are going to be able to walk alongside you and really help navigate this new educational situation that we are in but at the end of the day what makes amers County really special is our kids these are some of the best talented amazing kids that you're going to find uh here at amers County high school ammer middle school manelis middle school all of our elementary schools our

205kids are constantly winning awards they're constantly going above and beyond they're inquisitive they are talented they're gifted um and they really care about each other so it's beyond just studying and learning the facts our kids are doing amazing things to make our community better and I think that's one of the most powerful things that I can say about our our kids they're not waiting to be the future they are the future right now and they're having an impact in our community and they want to serve and they want to do things to make our world and our community better as a new teacher coming into our division we're going to provide the support that you need and we have an amazing research-based mentoring program we have seasoned experienced teachers that are Mentor teachers and they're

206going to come alongside and help you with lesson planning and help you create engaging lessons and help you think outside the box and really push you to be the best best version of yourself as an educator here in the school system I think one of the things that really drew me to the county is our desire to be Innovative and we have started an innovation cohort and we are really taking the walls down on education and telling our teachers to just go for it think about things that are going to be engaging for your kids think about jobs that haven't been created how are you going to be able to promote uh students uh the skills that they need not just the soft skills but the essential skills that they need to be successful in

207the workforce uh here at ambers County High School we have an amazing CTE Career and Technical education program that is really preparing our students to be work ready on day one and so these are things that uh we have available for our students and these are the type of people that we're looking to have come here and work for ERS County Public Schools again you might ask yourself why should you work for amers County Public Schools why would you want to and I would again say how can you not after hearing everything about our kids our beautiful County that we have here amazing staff and peers this is the place to work if you want to be Innovative if you want to teach more than to the test and if you want to prepare students

208to be life ready Amis County Public Schools is the place for you I hope that you apply and I hope that I see you around and I always like to say and go [Music] lsers hi my name is Carla Stinnett and I'm the third grade teacher at Temperance Elementary School I would like to say thank you to the ammer county Education Foundation they recently accepted my grant for an Echo Show since students are required to sit in their seats more than ever as we deal with co9 an Echo Show allows a touchless way to access music videos read alouds poetry Brain Breaks timers and even daily jokes the students are loving the Brain Breaks throughout the day um we can also ask Alexa questions such as Alexa how long is the Amazon River the Amazon

209is 4,300 45 mes long great um the Echo Show is a great tool and I thank the emest Education Foundation for supporting the teachers and students of amers [Music] County welcome to amers County Public Schools where our mission statement is every child every day if we look back to March 13th this past year 2020 when the governor decided it was best for the school systems in the state of Virginia to shut down most of the state was caught completely off guard I can proudly say that within one week amers County public schools had a Chromebook in every single child's hand within another week we were offering at home learning opportunities and we closed out the last 8 weeks of the school year with different material for every subject including elective classes such as course band

210PE and all the core classes Social Studies classes science classes English classes Matic classes having the material for the students to learn at home from their Chromebooks in addition for students that did not have uh Wi-Fi at home we offered handouts at the school of flash drives so the students could still continue to participate that's the mentality of ERS County Public Schools we made sure that every child every day was taking Tak care of and that's how we approach every situation that we have we live in an area that is close to not a big city but Lynchburg has pretty much everything you would want but it doesn't cost nearly as much as a big area might be now if you're watching this part of the video then it's a good chance that you're considering

211secondary and not just secondary but Middle School it takes a special breed to want to educate middle school students because they are a different breed on their own I truly believe that when a student is in grades 6 through eight that is the easiest time in their life that you can mold them that's the easiest time in their life you can make a huge impression on them as Maya Angelou said they're not going to remember what you taught them but they'll remember how you make them feel and I can promise you that means more in the Middle School setting than any other time in their educational careers you ought to really consider coming to ammer County and being part of our team we've got a really good thing going here where we truly believe in

212every child every day thank you hi my name is Julia Simon I'm a first grade teacher at Amherst Elementary and I use the Amherst Education Foundation minig Grant to purchase these lap desks for my students we take them outside to do our reading work and we use them in the classroom for our school work thank you so much for giving me the money to purchase these I'm really thankful for [Music] it [Music] hello my name is Melissa Ferguson and I'm currently the assistant principal at Central Elementary School in ammer County Virginia thank you for your interest in our school system personally speaking I can say that this is probably the best system to work in having transferred to Amis County Schools last year I have held nothing but support or felt nothing but support from

213my central office staff when you enter any school within our County you will immediately feel a sense of belonging we take pride in developing positive relationships not only with our staff but our families and students as well and let's not forget the beautiful views you will encounter once you enter Amis County whether you're teaching Elementary or secondary level you will be supported starting with our school board members central office staff building level administrators and the fellow teachers work with within your unit we are all here to help and support you ammer County Public Schools administration encourages an open door policy so don't ever feel as if you cannot ask a question to anyone at any level again we're here to help you Amis County Public Schools administration is committed to supporting our faculty staff and

214students we want to provide the best education possible for all our students meeting each student need our school motto is every child every day children are our Focus making sure they have a strong foundation and their educational support starting at freek levels is something that we strive to do all students experience a higher level of positive educational outcomes within our School Division the diversity of our staff within our buildings reflects the diversity of the population of students that we service we have students that come from different background and ethnic groups which each adds to our uniqueness to help Foster this diversity each School presented diversity lessons to our students to help understand the uniqueness of everyone involved here at Central our expectations are to be safe be responsible and to be considerate as a new

215hire you will be able to participate in a new teacher mentorship program each new teacher will be paired with a mentor within the school division to help help support you throughout your first two years of teaching you will also have the support of the division staff members the purpose of the mentorship program is to provide you current best practices to implement into your classroom to help support you with classroom management curriculum and instruction ammer County Public Schools also has wonderful support from our community each year the amers Education Foundation Awards grants to teachers to utilize These funds to help enhance student learning opportunities within their classroom each grade is up to $1,000 and you can apply for them twice a year this year has been unique in itself we've been faced with the pandemic but

216in order to support the needs of the students our School Division was operating during this pandemic successfully in order to meet the needs of our students and staff and to follow safety calls that were put into place we have implemented daily health screening wearing of mask and maintaining a 6ft distance in the classrooms buses as well as in our hallways in addition the county provided families of our students with recorded lessons that were aired on our local television program station W to help reinforce skills that they would learn in school we know that social emotional learning is very important so that was prioritized this year in which every school did a morning meeting to help address any concerns that students may have had we have live streaming for athletic events this year this year is

217something special for the class of 2020 we could not have a unique graduation program so we had a drive-thru graduation at ammer County High School which was awesome I must say that was the only one that was presented that way in our division or in our area that we live in students did receive meal distribution throughout the Summers and mobile hotspots were added to our buses and trailers to students and teachers could access the internet for their learning needs again I can say am county is the best school division to work at as I stated earlier you will feel part of this division no matter what school you walk into there is a positive atmosphere in every building you will have support not only from your fellow teachers Within your unit but at the building

218level Administration and your central office administration as well you will see your students show growth throughout the school year resources will be provided to make sure you have a successful first year in Amis County Schools remember working here working together we can make a difference in each student's life teamwork is our motto we're all in this together for the benefit of our students [Music] oh a [Music] oh hi my name is Naomi Giles and I'm the school librarian at Temperance Elementary School I want to say thank you to the Education Foundation for two grants that I received last year that have um drastically changed my library and impacted it in a very positive way so the first grant I received was for these playway audio books and these are just little um battery charged books

219that are audio format I did not have any audio format prior to this in my collection so the kids absolutely love these I cannot keep them on the shelves um it's primarily for um second through fifth graders and they can take these little books put their headphones in and listen anywhere they go on the bus at home um whether they're on vacation wherever they can listen to their audiobooks and they absolutely love it um I also received an iPad and I use this with my green screen so this is great when I collaborate with teachers we're able to do some really neat projects with the students we can also make schoolwide videos and the kids love using it and learning about that technology so thank you to the Education [Music] Foundation my name is Tom

220McBride I'm an assistant principal here at Amis County high school and I love Amis County I've always lived here my entire life I'm a graduate of ammer County Public Schools and in particular here at Amis County High School I've taught here for many years and for the last four years I've served as an assistant principal here you might wonder what I like so much about ammer County Public Schools and there's there's a good number of things one of the things in particular is we have a great mentor program here at Amis County when you're are hired in you're not just thrown to the Wolves so to say or thrown in the deep end of the pool they actually get you a lot of help they have trained mentors who work with you constantly uh throughout

221the teacher work week to prepare you for the school year ahead the mentors spend time with you throughout the semester have regular meetings they do two observations to watch you teach your class and make suggestions to help make you a better teacher and so they're constantly working to help you improve and help you grow in your career here in amris County but amris County truly TR does appreciate and recognize each and every employee uh for the good work that they do they they love hanging on to Good employees they also have good employee engagement ammer county is not a school system that kind of tells you this is what you got to do and just uh pours it down on you but rather they get involved with you they want your input anytime they have

222a new program a new initiative they're trying something new they always get input from their employees and want to know what's working what's not working and what we could do better that's the thing that we're constantly striving for it's it's our slogan here at the high school is intentional excellence and I think that carries on throughout the county we want to make sure that we're intentionally excellent at everything that we do and we want our employees involved in that emis county also has great extracurricular activities whether it's Sports Scholastics Bowl band theater the different clubs that we offer Amis county has something for everyone and we want to make this a good experience not only for our employees but our students as well and so Amis County goes out of their way to offer as

223much as we possibly can to anyone that wants to get involved and finally I'll say this Amis county has benefits and salaries that are competitive with anybody in this area this is a great place to live as I've said I've lived here my entire life and the salary that Amis County pays is very competitive with all the other areas and when you look around the cost of living is fairly low here in Amis County and I guess in short I would say Amis County Public Schools is a great place to begin your career and hopefully end it here as well hi my name is Jennifer Fitzgerald and I am the art teacher here at Amherst Middle School we just wanted to um say a huge thank you to the Education Foundation and the grants that

224they provided this year for art education um here we have were severely impacted by the covid restrictions this year and not being able to have Community sets of art supplies so we couldn't share our supplies like we usually do uh when we're working on art projects so so the Education Foundation grant money was used to purchase more supplies individual art kits to provide individual art kits to our students so that we could we could use a variety of mediums and use lots of different materials uh instead of just paper and pencil so one of the things that we have done this year is to use these Cubbies for each individual student they have their own little basket that contains their supply they have uh non-consumable supplies that were provided so everyone would have their own

225like scissors um and they also have consumable supplies like glue sticks markers Sharpies pencils that sort of thing and what I would do each project would be to fill up these baskets with what they would need to use for that project and then they could all keep all of their um papers and art projects set separated here in the Cubbies we we did some really cool stuff this year uh one of the things that Education Foundation supplied was these individual watercolor trays we each student would have their own housing their own case for their watercolor trays and the Education Foundation um money purchased these inser inserts refills type watercolors and I would pop them in their tray so every student had their own own set of paints paint brushes um to use for their class

226hi my name is Joey Crawford and I'm the principal of temperance Elementary School and the secondary ammer remote Academy I'm also a proud Alum of ammer County High School graduating class of 2003 I could not be more proud of the Ed edtion that I received from amers County Public Schools and from the working environment that I've had since 2007 when I returned to teach and coach at amers County High School I spent 11 years at amers County High School as a teacher and a coach I taught social studies many different subjects including government US History world affairs World History 2 geography and I was a coach and I coached baseball football and basketball I'm I'm so proud of the experiences that I was able to have as an educator in amers County Public Schools I'm

227so proud of the work that we did in the classroom and on the fields and on the court I'm so proud of all that we were able to accomplish but the number one thing that I'm proud of during that time was relationships the relationships that I've built with students both past and present and with my colleagues over the years I can honestly say that I have the same relationship with administrators that I do with teachers with custodians with bus drivers with nurses with cafeteria managers it doesn't matter in ammer everybody is one in ammer we have a saying it's every child every day and I can promise you that it goes beyond that our students are our number one concern they're why we have a job they're why we're here but we're there for each

228other too and I can tell you that over the years years in my experience at AMR County Public Schools I've never been met with a challenge that I had to face alone the support system in ammer county is unlike any other the support system that you'll have through the challenges that you'll face like a CO year are are so spectacular that you'll never feel alone I can say that in my many different roles as a maintenance worker as a coach as a teacher as an administ rator being both an assistant principal and now a principal I've had the same level of support no matter what job I've had in this County no matter who the superintendent was no matter who the central office administration was no matter who the building principles were I had the

229same level of support every single time I was met with a challenge and I can promise you that that will continue ammer County Public Schools is one of a kind because of our tight-nit community we're such a tight-knit community because we're family oriented having one high school in the county probably helps with that but I can tell you with the six elementary schools and the two middle schools that we have it's the same everywhere you go whether you go to Temperance elementary school or whether you go to ammer middle school and Nelis Middle School up to the high school or any of the other schools in the county you'll get the same level of support and the same level of care and preparation that you'll need to be a great teacher or to be a

230great coach or to be a great administrator or to be whatever it is that you're choosing to be in ammer County Public Schools I can honestly say that working in amers County public schools has been the best decision that I could have made professionally in my life I've gained so much in terms of relationships and in terms of experience that I could have ever imagined in amers County I'm one example I started as a teacher and a coach coach during the Summers I would work maintenance and I built on that and my school division supported me in going to receive a master's degree in educational leadership and I turned that into becoming an assistant principal and a principal and I was supported along the way the entire way and I was supported at many different

231levels both at the building level and at the central office level I can say that amers County Public Schools give back we have a saying it's every child every day but it's more than that we support each other I don't think that you'll find a better place to work than amers County public schools for all of these reasons there's really nothing like being at Lancer Stadium on a Friday night in the fall and you'll see that family atmosphere you'll see that small town atmosphere you'll see the care and the compassion that people have for each other there's a lot of changes that are taking place in education right now but I can promise you that no matter what comes ammer will be prepared will you be a part of us make the best decision you

232could make come join us at amers County Public Schools we'll be happy to have you thank you hello my name is Sandy jennen net I'm the library media specialist at AMR Elementary School I'd like to thank the Education Foundation profess providing our students with lots of stem materials to work on in centers while they're in the library it allows them to use their creativity in their Innovation skills as well as cooperation to help build their own designs and use their own ideas to create things that they want to [Music] see [Music] he [Music] a [Music] a [Music] [Applause] a [Music] a [Music] a [Music] n [Music] w [Music] hey w [Music] w [Music] [Applause] heyy he ohy he [Music] oh [Music] w [Music] he [Music] oh [Music] n [Music] n [Music] [Applause] he [Music] n

233[Music] w [Music] [Applause] [Music] n [Music] [Applause] [Music] n [Music] a [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] n [Applause] [Music] n [Music] [Applause] a [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] n [Music] I am a scholar I am a scholar I am the future I am the future I am intelligent I am intelligent I I am unique I am unique when the time comes when the time comes I'll be a leader I'll be a leader when there's a Justice when there is a Justice I will take a stand I will take a stand I will be ambitious I will be ambitious and I will suce and ice because I am because I am it will always be it will always be power scholar power [Music] scholar [Music] [Applause] [Music] love [Music] love [Music] yeah welcome to am County Public

234Schools my name is Dr Brown and I'm the proud principal of AMR County High School I I guess you're wondering why should you come work for amers County Public Schools but the question really should be how can you not work for ERS County Public Schools this is an amazing place to work with amazing people and with the mission of every child every day if you love kids this is the place for you em county is a beautiful place to live we have Scenic mountains we're situated really nicely between Lynchburg which is a small urban city in Charlottesville which has a lot of amenities U they have concerts venues and there a lot of recreational things that you can do the town is just amazing U place for it to be it's got that Old Town

235feel it just really makes you feel like you're back in um like it's a really close-knit small town but the county as a whole these are just great people around here that love AMR County and they love AMR County Public Schools education is really really important to our community and we do the absolute best here to provide the the top-notch education that our kids need and deserve we are all about promoting life ready students and so for am County Public Schools is not just about teaching to the test and passing SOS and accreditation we earnestly want to build our students to be thriving engaged citizens and and focusing on character and communication and critical thinking and creative thinking and citizenship um we are doing things that are going above and beyond to promote those within

236our students even with the pandemic uh and the covid-19 situation we've looked for opportunities amongst all the obstacles and we want to try to promote a educational system that is allowing our kids to experience the things that a normal school system would uh even amongst these difficult times when the when the pandemic hit one of the first things that we did was to continue education and so we partnered with our local news station wct to create these amazing engaging lessons teachers sprung um sprung to action all across the county to create these awesome and engaging lessons um our teachers have really done an amazing job of collaborating this year we've had more collaboration than ever so if you're coming on to our team you can be sure that you're going to have awesome um Educators

237that have a amazing experience that are going to be able to walk alongside you and really help navigate this new educational situation that we are in but at the end of the day what makes amers County really special is our kids these are some of the best talented amazing kids that you're going to find uh here at ambr County high school amers middle school monelisa middle school all of our elementary schools our kids are constantly winning awards they're constantly going above and beyond they're inquisitive they are talented they're gifted um and they really care about each other so it's beyond just studying and learning the facts our kids are doing amazing things to make our community better and I think that's one of the most most powerful things that I can say about our kids

238they're not waiting to be the future they are the future right now and they're having an impact in our community and they want to serve and they want to do things to make our world and our community better as a new teacher coming into our division we're going to provide the support that you need and we have an amazing research-based mentoring program we have seasoned experienced teachers that are our Mentor teachers and they're going to come alongside and help you with lesson planning and help you create engaging lessons and help you think outside the box and really push you to be the best best version of yourself as an educator here in the school system I think one of the things that really drew me to the county is our desire to be Innovative and

239we have started an innovation cohort and we are really taking the walls down on education and telling our teachers to just go for it think about things that are going to be engaging for your kids think about jobs that haven't been created how are you going to be able to promote uh students uh the skills that they need not just the soft skills but the essential skills that they need to be successful in the workforce here at amers County High School we have an amazing CTE Career and Technical education program that is really preparing our students to be work ready on day one and so these are things that uh we have available for our students and these are the type of people that we're looking to have come here and work for ERS County

240Public Schools again you might ask yourself why should you work for amers County Public Schools why would you want to and I would again say how can you not after you hear hearing everything about our kids our beautiful County that we have here amazing staff and peers this is the place to work if you want to be Innovative if you want to teach more than to the test and if you want to prepare students to be life ready Amis County Public Schools is the place for you I hope that you apply and I hope that I see you around and I always like to say and go Lancers [Music] ah [Music] a [Music] a [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh a [Music] ah [Music] w [Music] oh [Music] w hey [Music] heyyy [Music] w [Applause] he w

241hey oh hey hey heyy [Music] w [Music] w [Music] oh [Music] a [Music] [Applause] [Music] n [Music] he [Music] a [Music] [Applause] [Music] n [Applause] [Music] n [Music] [Applause] n [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] n [Music] n [Music] [Applause] [Music] a [Music] [Applause] [Music] I am a scholar I am a scholar I am the future I am the future I am intelligent I am intelligent I am unque I am unque when the time comes when the time comes I'll be a leader I'll be a leader when there's in Justice there Justice I will take a stand I will take a stand I will be ambitious I be ous and I will succe and I will succe because it will always be will always be a power schar [Music] [Applause] [Music] power n n n [Music]

242n [Music] hello my name is Sandy jennin nevet I'm the library media specialist at AMR Elementary School I'd like to thank the Education Foundation for providing our students with lots of stem materials to work on in centers while they're in the library it allows them to use their creativity and their Innovation skills as well as cooperation to help build their own designs and use their own ideas to create things that they want to [Music] see hi my name is Joey Crawford and I'm the principal of temperance Elementary School and the secondary ammer remote Academy I'm also a proud Alum of ammer County High School graduating class of 2003 I could not be more proud of the education that I received from amers County Public Schools and from the working environment that I've had since 2007

243when I returned to teach and coach at amers County High School I spent 11 years at amers County High School as a teacher and a coach I taught social studies many different subjects including government US History world affairs World History 2 geography and I was a coach and I coached baseball football and basketball I'm so proud of the experiences that I was able to have as an educator in amers County Public Schools I'm so proud of the work that we did in the classroom and on the fields and on the court I'm so proud of all that we were able to accomplish but the number one thing that I'm proud of during that time was relationships the relationships that I've built with students both past and present and with my colleagues over the years I

244can honestly say that I have the same relationship with administrators that I do with teachers with custodians with bus drivers with nurses with cafeteria managers it doesn't matter in ammer everybody is one in Amis we have a saying it's every child every day and I can promise you that it goes beyond that our students are our number one concern they're why we have a job they're why we're here but we're there for each other too and I can tell you that over the years in my experience at ammer County Public Schools I've never been met with a challenge that I had to face alone the support system in amers county is unlike any other the support system that you'll have through the challenges that you'll face like a CO year are are so spectacular that

245you'll never feel alone I can say that in my many different roles as a maintenance worker as a coach as a teacher as an administrator being both an assistant principal and now a principal I've had the same level of support no matter what job I've had in this County no matter who the superintendent was no matter who the central office administration was no matter who the building principles were I had the same level of support every single time I was met with a challenge and I can promise you that that will continue amers County Public Schools is one- of a kind because of our tight-knit community we're such a tight-knit community because we're family oriented having one high school in the county probably helps with that but I can tell you with the six elementary

246schools and the two middle schools that we have it's the same everywhere you go whether you go to Temperance elementary school or whether you go to amris middle school and Nelis Middle School up to the high school or any of the other schools in the county you'll get the same level of support and the same level of care and preparation that you'll need to be a great teacher or to be a great coach or to be a great administrator or to be whatever it is that you're choosing to be in Amis County Public Schools I can honestly say that working in amers County public schools has been the best decision that I could have made professionally in my life I've gained so much in terms of relationships and in terms of experience that I could

247have ever imagined in amers County I'm one example I started as a teacher and a coach during the Summers I would work maintenance and I built on that and my school division supported me in going to receive a master's degree in educational leadership and I turned that into becoming an assistant principal and a principal and I was supported along the way the entire way and I was supported at many different levels both at the building level and at the central office level I can say that ammer County Public Schools gives back we have a saying it's every child every day but it's more than that we support each other I don't think that you'll find a better place to work than am County public schools for all of these reasons there's really nothing like being

248at Lancer Stadium on a Friday night in the fall and you'll see that family atmosphere you'll see that small town atmosphere you'll see the care and the compassion that people have for each other there's a lot of changes that are taking place in education right now but I can promise you that no matter what comes ammer will be prepared will you be a part of us make the best decision you could make come join us at amers County Public Schools we'll be happy to have you thank you hi my name is Jennifer Fitzgerald and I am the art teacher here at Amhurst Middle School we just wanted to um say a huge thank you to the Education Foundation and the grants that they provided this year for art education um here we have were severely

249impacted by the covid restrictions this year and not being able to have community sets of art supplies so we couldn't share our supplies like we usually do uh when we're working on art projects so the Education Foundation grant money was used to purchase more supplies individual art kits to provide individual art kits to our students so that we could we could use a variety of mediums and use lots of different materials uh instead of just paper and pencil so one of the things that we have done this year is to use these Cubbies for each individual student they have their own little basket that contains their supplies they have uh non-consumable supplies that were provided so everyone would have their own like scissors um and they also have consumable supplies like glue sticks markers Sharpies

250pencils that sort of thing and what I would do each project would be to fill up these baskets with what they would need to use for that project and then they could all keep all of their um papers and art projects separated here in the Cubbies we we did some really cool stuff this year uh one of the things that Education Foundation supplied was these individual watercolor trays we each student would have their own housing their own case for their watercolor trays and the Education Foundation um money purchase these inset inserts refills type watercolors and I would pop them in their tray so every student had their own set of paints paint brushes um to use for their class hi my name is my name is Jennifer Fitzgerald and I am the art teacher here

251at Amherst Middle School we just wanted to um say a huge my name is Tom McBride I'm an assistant principal here at Amis County high school and I love ammer County I've always lived here my entire life I'm a graduate of ammer County Public Schools and in particular here at Amis County High School I've taught here for many years and for the last four years I've served as an assistant principal here you might wonder what I like so much about ammer County Public Schools and there's there's a good number of things one of the things in particular is we have a great mentor program here at emis County when you are hired in you're not just thrown to the Wolves so to say or thrown in the deep end of the pool they actually get

252you a lot of help they have train mentors who work with you constantly uh throughout the teacher work week to prepare you for the school year ahead the mentors spend time with you throughout the semester have regular meetings they do two observations to watch you teach your class and make suggestions to help make you a better teacher and so they're constantly working to help you improve and help you grow in your career here in amris County but Amis County truly does appreciate and recognize each and every employee uh for the good work that they do they they love hanging on to Good employees they also have good employee engagement ammer county is not a school system that kind of tells you this is what you got to do and just uh pours it down on

253you but rather they get involved with you they want your input any time they have a new program a new initiative they're trying something new they always get input from their employees and want to know what's working what's not working and what we could do better that's the thing that we're constantly striving for it's it's our slogan here at to high school is intentional excellence and I think that carries on throughout the county we want to make sure that we're intentionally excellent at everything that we do and we want our employees involved in that Amis County also has great extracurricular activities whether it's Sports scholastic bowl band theater the different clubs that we offer Amis county has something for everyone and we want to make this a good experience not only for our employees but

254our students as well and so Amis County goes out of their way to offer as much as we possibly can to anyone that wants to get involved and finally I'll say this Amis county has benefits and salaries that are competitive with anybody in this area this is a great place to live as I've said I've lived here my entire life and the salary that Amis County pays is very competitive with all the other areas and when you look around the cost of living is fairly low here in Amis County I guess in short I would say Amis County Public Schools is a great place to begin your career and hopefully end it here as [Music] well hi my name is Naomi Giles and I'm the school librarian at Temperance Elementary School I want to say

255thank you to the Education Foundation for two grants that I received last year that have um drastically changed my library and impacted it in a very positive way so the first grant I received was for these playaway audiobooks and these are just little um battery charged books that are audio format I did not have any audio format prior to this in my collection so the kids absolutely love these I cannot keep them on the shelves um it's primarily for um second through fifth graders and they can take these little books put their headphones in and listen anywhere they go on the bus at home um whether they're onac wherever they can listen to their audiobooks and they absolutely love it um I also received an iPad and I use this with my green screen so

256this is great when I collaborate with teachers we're able to do some really neat projects with the students we can also make schoolwide videos and the kids love using it and learning about that technology so thank you to the Education [Music] [Applause] Foundation hello my name is Melissa Ferguson and I'm currently the assistant principal at Central Elementary School in ammer County Virginia thank you for your interest in our school system personally speaking I can say that this is probably the best system to work in having transferred to Amis County Schools last year I have held nothing but support or felt nothing but support from my central office staff when when you enter any school within our County you will immediately feel a sense of belonging we take pride in developing positive relationships not only with

257our staff but our families and students as well and let's not forget the beautiful views you will encounter once you enter Amis County whether you're teaching Elementary or secondary level you will be supported starting with our school board members central office staff building level administrators and the fellow teachers you work with within your unit we are all here to help and support you ammer County Public Schools administration encourages an open door policy so don't ever feel as if you cannot ask a question to anyone at any level again we're here to help you am County Public Schools administration is committed to supporting our faculty staff and students we want to provide the best education possible for all our students meeting each student need our school School motto is every child every day children are our

258Focus making sure they have a strong foundation and their educational support starting at prek levels is something that we strive to do all students experience a higher level of positive educational outcomes within our School Division the diversity of our staff within our buildings reflects the diversity of the population of students that we service we have students that come from different back ground and ethnic groups which each adds to our uniqueness to help Foster this diversity each School presented diversity lessons to our students to help understand the uniqueness of everyone involved here at Central our expectations are to be safe be responsible and to be considerate as a new hire you will be able to participate in a new teacher mentorship program each new teacher will be paired with a mentor within the school division to

259help support you throughout your first two years of teaching you will also have the support of the division staff members the purpose of the mentoring sh program is to provide you Rec current best practices to implement into your classroom to help support you with classroom management curriculum and instruction ammer County Public Schools also has wonderful support from our community each year the Amis Education Foundation Awards grants to teachers to utilize these funds to help enhance student learning opportunities within their classroom each grade is up to $11,000 and you can apply for them twice a year this year has been unique in itself we've been faced with the pandemic but in order to support the needs of the students our School Division was operating during this pandemic successfully in order to meet the needs of our

260students and staff and to follow safety proc calls that were put into place we have implemented daily health screening wearing of mask and maintaining a 6-ft distance in the classrooms buses as well as in our hallways in addition the county provided families of our students with recorded lessons that were aired on our local television program station wct to help reinforce skills that they would learn in school we know that social emotional learning is very important so that was prioritized this year in which every scho scho did a morning meeting to help address any concerns that students may have had we have live streaming for athletic events of this year this year is something special for the class of 2020 we can not have a unique graduation program so we had a drive-thru graduation at amers

261County High School which was awesome I must say that was the only one that was presented that way in our division or in our area that we live in students did receive meal distribution throughout the Summers and mobile hotspots were added to our buses and trailers so students and teachers could access the internet for their learning needs again I can say ammer county is the best school division to work at as I stated earlier you will feel part of this division no matter what school you walk into there is a positive atmosphere in every building you will have support not only from your fellow teachers within your unit but at the building level Administration and your central office administration as well you will see your students show growth throughout the school year resources will be

262provided to make sure you have a successful first year in Amis County Schools remember working here working together we can make a difference in each student's life teamwork is our motto we're all in this together for the benefit of our [Music] students hi my name is Julia Simon I'm a first grade teacher at Amherst Elementary and I use the Amherst Education Foundation mini Grant to purchase these lap desks for my students we take them outside to do our reading work and we use them in the classroom for our school work thank you so much for giving me the money to purchase these I'm really thankful for [Music] it welcome to amers County Public Schools where our mission statement is every child every day if we look back to March 13th this past year 2020 when

263the governor decided it was best for the school systems in the state of Virginia to shut down most of the state was caught completely off guard I can proudly say that within one week ammer County public schools had a Chromebook in every single child's hand within another week we were offering at home learning opportunities and we closed out the last eight weeks of the school year with different material for every subject including elective classes such as course band PE and all the core classes Social Studies classes science classes English classes Matic classes having material for the students to learn at home from their Chromebooks in addition for students that did not have uh Wi-Fi at home we offered handouts at the school of flash drives so the students could still continue to partic ipate that's

264the mentality of ERS County Public Schools we made sure that every child every day was taken care of and that's how we approach every situation that we have we live in an area that is close to not a big city but Lynchburg has pretty much everything you would want but it doesn't cost nearly as much as a big area might be now if you're watching this part of the video then it's a good chance that you're considering secondary and not just secondary but Middle School it takes a special breed to want to educate middle school students because they are a different breed on their own I truly believe that when a student is in grades 6 through 8 that is the easiest time in their life that you can mold them that's the easiest time

265in life you can make a huge impression on them as Maya Angelou said they're not going to remember what you taught them but they'll remember how you make them feel and I can promise you that means more in the Middle School setting than any other time in their educational careers you ought to really consider coming to ammer County and being part of our team we've got a really good thing going here where we truly believe in every child every day thank [Music] you hi my name is Carla Stinnett and I'm the third grade teacher at Temperance Elementary School I would like to say thank you to the ammer county Education Foundation they recently accepted my grant for an Echo Show since students are required to sit in their seats more than ever as we deal

266with covid-19 an Echo Show allows a touchless way to access music videos read alouds poetry Brain Breaks timers and even daily jokes the students are loving the Brain Breaks throughout the day um we can also ask Alexa questions such as Alexa how long is the Amazon River the Amazon is 4345 miles long great um the Echo Show is a great tool and I thank the emis Education Foundation for supporting the teachers and students of ammer County [Music] welcome to am County Public Schools my name is Dr Brown and I'm the proud principal of AMR County High School I I guess you're wondering why should you come work for amers County Public Schools but the question really should be how can you not work for emers County Public Schools this is an amazing place to work

267with amazing people and with the mission of every child every day if you love kids this is the place for you ERS county is a beautiful place to live we have Scenic mountains we're situated really nicely between Lynchburg which is a small urban city and Charlottesville which has a lot of amenities U they have concerts venues and there a lot of recreational things that you can do the town is just amazing U place for it to be it's got that Oldtown feel it just really makes you feel like you're back in um like a a really close-knit small town but the county as a whole these are just great people around here that love AMR County and they love am County Public Schools education is really really important to our community and we do the

268absolute best here to provide the the top-notch education that our kids need and deserve we are all about promoting life ready students and so for am County Public Schools it's not just about teaching to the test and passing s sols and accreditation we earnestly want to build our students to be thriving engaged citizens and and focusing on character and communication and critical thinking and creative thinking and citizenship um we are doing things that are going above and beyond to promote those within our students even with the pandemic uh and the covid-19 situation we've looked for opportunities amongst all the obstacles and we want to try to promote a educational system that is allowing our kids to experience the things that a normal school system would uh even amongst these difficult times when the when the

269pandemic hit one of the first things that we did was to continue education and so we partnered with our local news station wct to create these amazing engaging lessons teachers sprung uh sprung to action all across the county to create these awesome and engaging lessons um our teachers have really done an amazing job of collaborating this year we've had more collaboration than ever so if you're coming onto our team you can be sure that you're going to have awesome um Educators that have a amazing experience that are going to be able to walk alongside you and really help navigate this new educational situation that we are in but at the end of the day what makes ERS County really special is our kids these are some of the best talented amazing kids that you're going

270to find uh here at am County high school amers middle school manelis middle school all of our elementary schools our kids are constantly winning awards they're constantly going above and beyond they're inquisitive they are talented they're gifted um and they really care about each other so it's beyond just studying and learning the facts our kids are doing amazing things to make our community better and I think that's one of the most powerful things that I can say about our kids they're not waiting to be the future they are the future right now and they're having an impact in our community and they want to serve and they want to do things to make our world and our community better as a new teacher coming into our division we're going to provide the support that you

271need and we have an amazing research-based mentoring program we have seasoned experienced teachers that are our Mentor teachers and they're going to come alongside and help you with lesson planning and help you create engaging lessons and help you think outside the box and really push you to be the best best version of yourself as an educator here in the school system I think one of the things that really drew me to the county is our desire to be Innovative and we have started an innovation cohort and we are really taking the walls down on education and telling our teachers to just go for it think about things that are going to be engaging for your kids think about jobs that haven't been created how are you going to be able to promote uh students uh

272the skills that they need not just the soft skills but the essential skills that they need to be successful in the workforce uh here at ambers County High School we have an amazing CTE Career and Technical education program that is really preparing our students to be work ready on day one and so these are things that um we have available for our students and these are the type of people that we're looking to have come here and work for ERS County Public Schools again you might ask yourself why should you work for ammer County Public Schools why would you want to and I would again say how can you not after hearing everything about our kids our beautiful County that we have here amazing staff and peers this is the place to work if you

273want to be Innovative if you want to teach more than to the test and if you want to prepare students to be life ready Amis County Public Schools is the place for you I hope that you apply and I hope that I see you around and I always like to say and go [Applause] Lancers [Music] w [Music] [Applause] [Music] w w [Music] w [Music] oh [Music] w [Music] he [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] oh [Applause] oh my oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] w [Music] yeah [Music] yeah [Music] he [Music] he [Music] w [Music] oh W wo wo wo w oh [Music] now do I have a motion come out to close meeting yeah May motion May motion second second second where the am County school board has convened in the close meeting of this date pursuant

274to affirmative recorded vote and in accordance with the provision of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act and where 22-3 712 of the code of Virginia requires a certification by this board that such a closed meeting was conducted in Conformity with Virginia law now therefore be resolved that the am County School Board hereby certifies that to the best of each member's knowledge only public business matters lawfully Exempted from open meeting requirements by Virginia law were discussed in the closed meeting to which this certification applies and only such public business matters as were identified in this motion convening the closed meeting were heard discussed or considered motion to certifi motion is certifi second all in favor Miss lean yes Miss Thompson yes Mr C yes Miss rght yes Miss B yes Mr yes motion to make motion

275to adjourn second onew your motion yeah we got um yeah some business I was my sorry somebody want make make a motion to approve the superintendent's evaluation is present is that yeah second all in favor okay thank you motion to motion to adjourn is [Applause] accepted oh