001[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] whatever [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Applause] [Music] [Applause] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so good evening [Music] okay all in favor in uh approving ms wright and miss bird participating in electronic meetings say i opposed right so i would like to call the regular school board meeting of amherst county to order it is now 601 and it is thursday january 14 2021. before we begin i'd like to ask everybody to join me in a moment of silence thank you please join me in the pledge of allegiance and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice laws [Music] item 1.02 is the approval of the agenda the promotion that we've heard tonight's agenda so okay all in favor
002of approving the agenda for this meeting say hi opposed all right so this is our annual reorganization meeting and so the first item of business is we need to elect chair uh person and so at this time i would like to take any nominations of uh someone to be the chair of this board doctor all i'd like to nominate miss living as chair for the 2021 uh year okay do we have any other nominations any discussion all right so all of those in favor of this priscilla logan being the chairperson for the 21 uh calendar year please say aye all right opposed congratulations ms liggin i'll bring the gavel back to you thank you i'll have comments later but i want to thank the board for entrusting me one more time with this and i
003appreciate that from all of you can you can you all hear me ladies yes okay thank you so we're looking at much and at this time we'd like to elect a vice chairman of school board for amherst county do i have any nominations on the floor madam chair i'd like to nominate miss thompson to serve as vice chair for the 2021 calendar year okay i'll second all right we have a miss thompson's name has been given in second do we have any other names put on the floor if not all in favor miss abby thompson continuing his vice chair of the amas county school board please let me have you say hey all right any any objections thank you so much welcome ms thompson one more time okay thank you okay we have a pretty
004good agenda here ladies and gentlemen so we're going to move with expediency at this time we're going to go into our public comments and i do have quite a few names here we're excited that you've come out to voice some opinions on some things that relate to amherst county school board but we're asking that you be mindful and respectful of the time that we're here tonight for those who have been working maybe since about six or seven this morning but we do want to hear from you and we have a mic here and we will be washing that off in between each person who speaks and we ask that you do have your mask on when you come up at this time we will have miss holly jennings is the first person i have on
005my list good evening can you hear me okay good good evening everyone members of the board i'm holly jenets i'm the supervisor of discipline and compliance for amherst county public schools i want to explain to those that may be watching we were going to present an equity lesson this week to our students in amherst county public schools the word equity makes people think many different things equity to amherst county public schools which you guys the school board should be very familiar with since it's an integral part of the school division's comprehensive plan the each of you approved as a member of this board the word equity means that we strive to have culturally responsive and inclusive schools where all students matter and they get what they need to be successful when they leave us this
006week's equity lesson focused on the various media portrayals of past historical events and how students should go about analyzing that information to form their own opinion and how to apply current events to those same analytical skills to become a problem solver critical thinking skills and how they relate to being a good citizen that was the lesson however this board at the 11th hour chose to cancel or postpone the lesson i am also the equity coordinator for the division a position that vdoe requires each school division to have in virginia i was chosen for this position due to my work and our division with the office of civil rights the only member of this board that was around when we went through the initial ocr process was miss logan we as a division made significant progress
007and changes through that process that made our division better for our students we were recognized both locally and nationally for our work do you want to know why that process went so well in our small rural southern school division it was because we and when i say we the school board at the time administrators teachers and students all supported the belief that all of our students mattered and deserved not only to be treated fairly but to enjoy school to have a voice at school to feel included in the school community and to be able to leave us and be successful in the world through that process we have professional development for staff lessons for students surveys student forums and several policy changes parents supported us through that entire process not once in that process did
008the school board require an option for parents to opt their students in or out of participating in those activities where their voices could be heard or in activities discussed in equity or current events not then or ever has the school board been involved in approving a classroom lesson plan when dr arnold called me to say that we received the official letter from ocr that our case had been resolved and when this board publicly thanked me for my work in that process i couldn't feel relief or even happy at the time it took me a while to figure out why but i came to the realization that it was because i was afraid that without the mandate we as a division wouldn't continue the efforts to make this division an open and accepting place for students
009the board's move to cancel the equity lessons for this week only confirmed that fear i'm very disappointed that at the first operating opportunity to make a non-ocr mandated step forward towards doing what is right for our students we failed as a division very few teachers expressed to me or their administrators and unwillingness to present the lesson there were some concerns about making sure they didn't say or do the wrong thing for their kids so we provided the teachers with multiple trainings and resources one of those resources being bev jones a former amherst county public school history teacher and an active community member she was willing to come in and help guide and model the lesson for our teachers and our students the majority of our teachers were willing and excited to teach the lesson and
010to those teachers i want to say very publicly that i commend you guys you're the reason our kids will grow and benefit from their education beyond just reading writing and arithmetic because they will actually be able to go into the world and solve problems and work with all people to create a world that we want to live in going forward i hope the board takes the time to seriously reflect on the decisions that were made this week and think about what kind of school division you guys want to offer to our students and as always i'm here to offer information training or support in the area of faculty thank you thank you stephanie good evening madam chairperson members of the board my name is stephanie mullenkamp and i serve as the supervisor of school counseling
011and assessment for amherst county public schools i take very seriously my role in the school division and community and with that the responsibility to students families and staff of acps that i have i was extremely disheartened to learn that our planned equity lesson had been postponed by the board a large amount of thought preparation and effort went into this lesson this last minute postponement communicates to me a lack of trust for us central office staff by the board this may not be your intent but know that this is what i felt immediately upon hearing your decision but this really isn't about me and how i feel so i will set that aside to talk to you about what's really on my heart tonight our students deserve better as a school counselor it is my responsibility
012to build skills in our students that will serve them well beyond their time in our schools these skills are the heartbeat of what helps people successfully navigate life and all of its ups and downs things like empathy collaboration effective communication and the list could go on and on these skills are also at the very core of the virginia department of education's profile of a virginia graduate and its five c's the purpose of this lesson in my opinion was twofold one piece was helping students understand that truth is relative to our own experiences and perspectives and how each of us sees a picture or experiences an event differently the second piece was to provide a safe space and a model and practice for having conversations or discussions in a respectful way even on subjects we disagree
013or on topics that are uncomfortable or touchy another valuable part of the lesson was being able to see a variety of media perspectives and portrayals about an event and how vastly different they can be unless you've been living under a rock i'm pretty sure you're aware of the role media plays in our society in our daily lives news publications and especially social media [Music] are a part of our society and unfortunately right now our society is more divisive than ever not talking about things only exacerbates that divide and frankly leaves many in our division feeling unimportant or less than this is not acceptable our motto is every child every day not some kids when it's comfortable or for me i implore you to please help us to move forward with this lesson and lessons like
014it please let's work to find a common ground and put aside personal beliefs and political views to do what is best for our students our students are watching us right now in this very moment we are modeling for them communication problem solving and collaboration please let us send a very clear message that each one of them matters to us that each one of them is valued and that we are willing to experience discomfort in order to solve problems i'll close out with a few quotes that stood out to me as i was thinking about what i wanted to say tonight the first is attributed to henry ford if you always do what you've always done you'll always get what you've always got it's time for us to press forward and to do things differently when
015we make mistakes you bet but we will learn and grow from the process and i'll leave you with this quote from frederick douglass it is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men thank you thank you okay our next speaker is owen mclennan my name is elena mclennan i live in madison heights and i am a transgender woman i'm sure that all of you know that the vdoe has released its proposed policy for transgender students for public comment through february 3rd and i'm sure that you know by now that the policy passed by the vdoe will set the standard that our school system must meet in its own policy beginning at the beginning of the next school year so the process of forming the policy has moved into its next step i have
016read the proposed policy and don't worry i'm not going to read it all to you all but i do want to highlight a few important pieces of it first the policy is proposed was composed by an incredibly diverse group of education professionals parents psychologists gender non-conforming persons and their supporters and mental health professionals it is based on a guiding principle that all children have a right to learn free from discrimination and harassment the document covers bullying harassment and discrimination it covers student prophecy and confidentiality the document discusses the need and methods to respect a student's new preferred identification it states that dress codes should be written enforced and applied consistently and equally to all students regardless of gender the document opens all activities and facilities to all students without stigmatizing stigmatization or discrimination and school
017mental health professionals must be trained annually on topics relating to lgbtq students including support for lgbtq students the vdoe's proposal is comprehensive in its effort to ensure that transgender persons can expect to be treated identically to any student identically to every student and i support their proposal in its entirety i would not add to it nor would i remove any of its goals whether you agree with me or not i encourage each of you to read the proposed policy and to comment on it the greater the number of voices and the more diverse those voices the stronger the document will create i firmly believe that the policies goals are well within our school system's ability to deliver and i hope and pray that you see the need to deliver these goals to our students i
018want you to understand transgender persons as real persons perhaps different from you but with identical day-to-day goals and needs gender dysphoria is not a mental illness it is a form of psychological distress in no way should we fear or distrust each other you and i may disagree and that's okay god guides us to love each other in spite of our differences and it's my love for you and my love for our students that has guided my words to you these past several months and i'm done i have no more to say and as tempting as it is i won't repeat myself any more than i already have and i respect the other important issues that you all must face i'll watch and i'll return when you're ready to debate our school system's transgender policy and
019if i can be helpful in any other issues i may return sooner so thank you good night thank you [Music] miss wanda smith good evening madam chair and members of the board i thank you for this opportunity my name is wanda smith and while i no longer live in amherst county i do work here as a supervisor of math science gifted and elected programs so proud of the diversity council on how we're moving in a more intentional manner with clear strategies and goals of how to make positive changes in amherst county public schools i'm a member of an organizat currently we are involved in a book discussion we're made up of women educators from diverse backgrounds and part of our conversations weekly and reading our book white fragility is to talk in safe spaces and
020have ominous conversations to reflect on the chapters from our own experiences and perspectives we recognize this is how we're going to grow as an organization and to be more diverse and inclusive in our membership and it brings me to mind a phrase that comes up weekly being uncomfortable there's a need in amherst to feel uncomfortable for a moment so we can engage in honest conversations about racism and equity as quoted in the book when we try to talk openly and honestly about race fragility quickly emerges as we are so often met with silence defensiveness argumentation and other forms of pushback these are not natural responses they are social forces that prevent us from attaining the racial knowledge we need to engage more productively and they function powerly to hold the racial hierarchy in place many
021years ago as a teacher in amherst county i was uncomfortable when i witnessed my white students decide that their peer with a hispanic name needed to have a new name because it would be easier for them to pronounce five years ago i was uncomfortable when my daughter was ridiculing her ass on the bus on the way home because of the way she chose to wear her hair just three years ago i was uncomfortable when a parent referred to me using the n-word while explaining her dislike for my policies as a principal these are just my stories and experiences in amherst county public schools continued silence and delaying of this conversation further protects one group from being uncomfortable while leaving the other in a constant state of discomfort without support they feel like they do not
022hold value in the school division this week the equity lessons were pulled from all secondary courses the lessons would have caused discomfort maybe it wasn't a good time could have been possible reasons the equity lesson was about injustice personally i can't think of a better time to do the lesson with all that has transpired in 2020 and is flowing into 2021 this coming monday we celebrate the work of martin luther king jr who wrote injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere how can this not be the perfect time to take an equity lesson on injustice the messages are out there already for everyone to see instead of amherst county public schools creating an educational platform we can help our students navigate what they're seeing and hearing and draw their own conclusions we're going to
023let them flail about and figure it out on their own we need to be better than that in amherst since covet hit acps has been in the lead in making bold moves for the benefit of our students why are we not doing the same here i can say nine years ago i felt supported by my colleagues when we jointly explained to our students they're wrong in making a student of the simulate to meet their comfort five years ago i felt supported by dr wells when he addressed what happened to my daughter in a very equitable manner and fair three years ago i felt supported by ernie quill when he directly addressed the many struggles i had to deal with as a new administrator at a school it all began with open and safe conversations i'm
024not an acps teacher i'm no longer an acps parent but i work in the division there are students parents and educators of all backgrounds who desperately need this work to be done as a black woman who works with educators and families in the division i do not feel very supported right now i feel disappointed as a result my heart is heavy and i work worry for the students in acps and the message we are sending to people of color who live and work here it is not a time to pause it is the time for clear and courageous action thank you [Music] let's keep going madam chair and members of the board i will begin by introducing myself to those of you who do not know me i am mrs kimberly goins school counselor at
025manelson middle school i am a graduate of amherst county public schools and i am embarking on about 30 years of education in this county that i call home i have many accolades and distinctions but that's not why i'm here tonight for the most part i generally sit back and quietly affect change with my students parents and colleagues while i have wrestled with the disqualification of this equity lesson and wanted to speak tonight it became clear to me that this was not the time for my quiet strength there is a time and place for everything and tonight the place for my voice was before the sport as a counselor my mode of functioning is always in the affective mode one of my most powerful questions is how did it make you feel well ap acps board
026i'm glad you asked see when we focus on behaviors and actions they tend to bring about a spirit of defensiveness or arguments we all know the behavior or the action the school board suspended the teaching of the equity lesson so let me focus for you on my feelings as educators and parents we are always looking for those teachable moments [Music] well your suspension of a lesson was a suspension of a teachable moment as the kids would say epic fail as we developed the lesson we were going to establish norms one of the norms we were going to establish with the students was the use of appropriate ways to respond during the lesson i think i feel i believe as i share with you tonight i will model for you the expectation that i was going
027to have for our students that is what good educators do i think i think this lesson was delicately chosen and in light of what is happening in our country it could have had an enormous impact on our children as a parent it is always my desire to have my children have the uncomfortable conversations with adults that are vested and trustworthy a lot of soul searching teaching working and diving went into developing a lesson that i feel could have made a huge impact not only on our students but our teachers now i will interject my hurt here because it was twofold one of my colleagues and i might add here one that i think very highly of is currently on quarantine she humbly asked me if after getting the lesson all set up with mrs jones
028and mrs penn if i would join her students who would be with a substitute i have no words to express how elated it made me feel that she trusted this endeavor to me so not only was i going to be a part of the planning but i was going to be a part of the teaching facilitating and discussion more importantly she trusted me as we prepared this lesson it prompted very thoughts for many of us as we planned and those thoughts were not always pleasant when we as a people are not challenged to deal with what is considered uncomfortable there is no opportunity for growth to change your decision took me back to a board that amherst county public schools i thought we had progressed away from perhaps the questions that need to be pondered
029off what are you uncomfortable with where is the trust i feel i feel this board made a decision that conflicts enormously with some of our goals as a division the goals of establishing relationships building transparency and collaboration to effectively collaborate you must solicit the input of your stakeholders the stakeholders in this case is your diversity and btss committees i feel the work of these committees is far beyond checking off the box these committees are wholeheartedly committed to making acps a true beacon of inclusivity diversity and excellence your actions made me feel the same way i felt when i began my counseling career at amherst elementary and elon elementary let me set the scenario up for you i would set up a conference with a parent over the phone i would graciously and eagerly go to
030the front office to greet the parents only to have them look at me and say oh i'm here to see miss collins oh you're misspellings we are all pretty intelligent people in this room so i feel confident that you can read between the lines here it is 2021 and i am still explaining myself i believe i believe that acps has the potential to rebound from this but how i'm glad you asked first of all it would be really nice to see some of the board members in our schools interacting with students and teachers i understand the flight of code but pre covert it was generally miss liggin who graced our hallways attended our events and we love having her at manila i am not sure if you all have set schools that you visit or
031have this is done but as a board i feel it would be embraced if you were in all of our schools when you make such a harsh decision that impacts three schools it makes it very difficult to accept it especially when it is handed down from people or on your board but are pretty much obsolete in your schools you know the old adage it is hard for a child to respond to correction from someone they have not built a relationship or rapport with i believe if this board were to make it a priority to be more visible among our students and staff then they would realize the importance of such a lesson whether these observations are positive or negative the need for character and social education is imperative i believe this board made a rash
032decision based on based on the emotions of one group i could be wrong i questioned over and over was there any dialogue with the building principles were there conversations about what and if concessions were made for those educators who indeed did feel uncomfortable with the content of the lesson or did you simply make a decision out of fear mistrust or personal biases did you even realize that the lesson template came from the award-winning magazine teaching tolerance what is teaching tolerance again i'm glad you asked teach intolerance brings commentary and updates on a wide range of social justice issues and then offers the tools to make schools and classrooms a safer more equitable place that is what we want for ambers county correct in closing i came before this board feeling a little afraid afraid for
033many reasons afraid that there was a potential for this board to go back to the board it was years and years ago yes a board that was about to entertain a group of angry caucasian parents who were angry that the only a plus given on a major assignment in an ap government class was given to an african-american female from rural amherst county who chose to do her final project on richard wright's native son well that african-american female is me and that prize writing still sits in my deceased mother's bible to this day we as an educational community have to make it a prize to teach our students about facts in the midst of a social media store if we don't we put them in danger now is not the time to turn our backs on
034our students and look the other way now is the time to be bold stand together and engage our students in authentic examination of themselves and the world around them so that they too can promote positive changes within themselves and our society thank you [Music] miss jones dave jones [Music] madam chair school board members good evening i am beverly jones retired ambulance county public school teacher with 40 years of experience in teaching united states history and civics i'm also the chair of the amherst county branch of the naacp education committee a member of the ellis county public school diversity committee and chair of the amherst county public school education foundation i'm coming before you tonight because i am deeply concerned about two issues that i want to address first comments that have been made by school
035board members who have vocally expressed reservations about the changes that have been updated and adopted into the history and social studies curriculum by the virginia department of education more importantly the issue is centered around the edits from the virginia commission on african-american history education and our commonwealth the governor tasked this committee with thoroughly examining virginia's history standards and professional development practices with the goal of improving the way african-american history is taught in virginia schools which is definitely long overdue there are only 16 schools in virginia that teach a course in african-american studies on the high school level in amherst county is one of them the course is an elective 10 students have enrolled in it for next semester beginning in the 2020 1 22 school year the african-american standards will be taught k through 12
036and become a requirement maybe for high school graduation which i pray i am a product of the public schools in amherst county under segregation i was told of harry tubman frederick douglass and many others of my enslaved ancestors who struggled but i did not learn about gabriel prosser denmark vesey or ned turner who led slavery votes i had to learn that on my own today teachers continue that tradition of telling students about barack obama oprah winfrey beyonce and lebron james as well as martin luther king harriet tubman and frederick douglass and other inspirational leaders they too are to be honored for their accomplishment but we should not ignore lessons that explore the impact of racism in the black experience it is imperative that teachers not reinforce a watered-down version of black history that is anti-black
037because it omits painful truths african-american history is american history and should be taught every school day and not just in february for black history month students should learn throughout the year and throughout all disciplines about the accomplishments experiences perspectives of their fellow black citizens my second issue is the canceling of the lesson uncovering truth in the face of injustice on the secondary level as a member of the ellis county public school diversity committee there is no better time than now to teach the truth perspectives and facts i am once again being put in the back of the bus as well as back into the cotton fields as a board do you lack trust in your teachers to teach without bias or is your trust in lies and misinformation what are you afraid of one task
038of teachers in the classroom is to acknowledge and honor students humanity and that means acknowledging and honoring black humanity as well that starts with acknowledging the good the bad and the ugly of our history as a nation so i asked again why their concerns about incorporating american history african-american history excuse me into the social studies framework and teaching a lesson on truth in the face of injustices it is time to move forward and not backwards it is time for systematic racism to be removed from our schools do not be a clear and present danger to change be an agent of change which is long overdue and do away with this systematic racism thank you for your time miss jennifer cruz i'm jennifer cruise i live in amherst county and i am also the principal at
039amherst elementary school [Music] good evening madam chair madam vice chair and members of the board i come to you tonight to speak about the decision that was made regarding placing the equity lesson on hold i believe that it is imperative to remember the importance of every child every day and what that message means i ask you to remember the importance of opportunity innovation and growth when facing challenges and obstacles i ask that you remember that amherst county public schools has remained fearless in all the things that we've endeavored and accomplished ever excuse me under our current leadership i ask that you remember that we have faced adversity many times and we have conquered these challenges with grace and growth i understand that these are truly difficult times for many reasons but we don't want controversy
040with we want we don't want to confuse controversy with discomfort we want we don't want to confuse silence with uneasiness and we certainly don't want to create a perception that we are not prepared to take our students on the journey to ensure they are life-ready with all the necessary skills upon leaving amherst county public schools i asked to continue to define the path be innovators and create avenues for change through solution i ask that we are willing to come together and create opportunities in a safe environment that will challenge and support our students and our community change is difficult but imperative for growth i stand before you knowing the importance of equity trust respect and belief and the role that that played in my life that all started with my educators and continues with my
041current educational leadership as a student my socioeconomic status my gender and my race could have labeled me an at-risk student but along the way i was provided opportunities for growth and for acceptance because of who i am and that was vital in my discovery and passion to educate others it is a disservice if we are not going to provide our students with all the components to be life-ready lifelong learners and that includes difficult conversations at difficult times we need to teach strength through adversity and do so in a manner that is safe respectful and meaningful we have the chance to provide that platform and it is imperative that we seize those opportunities i come only to ask that we remain open-minded and focus our attention on creating solutions that will ultimately grow our children and
042our community thank you dr brown good evening madam chair madam vice chair members of the board i come to you tonight disheartened and disappointed two words which i never imagined i would utter at one of our board meetings during my short tenure as principal at emerson county high school i've had nothing but praise for your actions nothing but pride in my heart to be able to serve on your leadership has truly been a privilege and i do mean that however your decision to delay the equity lessons teaching media literacy perspective and truth prepared by our diversity council has left me dismayed i've reflected a lot over this over the last two days and it's hard for me to make sense of what led you to make this decision so firmly and to delay and postpone
043this lesson a diversity council and achs team meticulously and painstakingly spent hours ensuring that our lessons did not promote any particular viewpoint that our lessons objectives were clear i personally can attest and provide and provide several opportunities for our staff members to voice any apprehensions that they may have had about teaching the lessons and i've offered additional support and extra training i also informed my staff that i was not asking them to do anything that we weren't willing to do ourselves myself and our admin team offered to co-teach this lesson with any teacher who didn't feel comfortable about this lesson we didn't have any teachers take us up on that offer even though some of our teachers admittedly were uncomfortable they were prepared to teach this lesson i truly believe this was not a controversial
044lesson it was timely and it was good for kids i think this was a missed opportunity the intention of this lesson was to teach our students to listen to others to seek to understand more than to be understood to think critically and to research to find the truth in the world that we live in that is what we all need to do as many have spoken tonight and many will continue to speak i do not believe i can articulate the sentiments any more eloquently so instead of reiterating what has already been spoken i would like to humbly and respectfully offer a positive and productive path forward i conceptualize this path with the following three themes seek trust lead seek trust lead one seek to understand as we want to teach our students seek multiple perspectives
045when making important decisions and when forming your opinions two trust your people trust your leadership we have what is in my mind the best superintendent in the state of virginia an extremely talented group of educators staff and principals i believe and hope that we have shown you that we can be trusted to do what is in the best interest of all of our children if there's any doubt that what we're doing is harmful to kids we don't do it we know it is our responsibilities as educators and we know what our that responsibility is and we take it seriously we don't make haphazard decisions because we know our actions literally influence the present and future of all of our children thirdly lead with purpose i know this board wants to be innovative i know that
046this board wants our school division to lead education in the state of virginia i know that this board wants us to lead powerfully not for the sake of accolades but because you know that is going to benefit our children but i would be remiss if i didn't take this opportunity to share with you my favorite quote a quote that as a leader i live by and is simply this the fish rots at the head as a principal of amherst county high school i own everything that happens in that building i'm fully aware that all of my actions professional and personal impact my students and my staff there are many sacrifices that i've had to make for the greater good of our school and there are many times i've had to hold my tongue not retweet
047or post because i know my actions would distract my team from our mission i would urge you to remember the same our students reflect our behavior i believe it's pertinent that our actions allow our students to reflect courage kindness understanding respect and truth so in conclusion we are a child-centered school division with a mission like every child every day we have to be as principal i realize that my decisions are not always popular and not always comfortable for adults but they are good for kids and i would encourage you to all to reflect as a board and i would encourage you to reflect individually and ask yourself are your actions still putting kids first i don't believe this is a problem too big to be solved i still believe and respect you as a board
048i still love and proud to work as a employee of amherst county public schools and please know while my words are not minced and they are direct i'm still in your corner and i'm always willing to work with you to help every child every day here in amherst county public schools thank you so much for your time [Music] meredith watkins [Music] good evening madam chair members of the board and colleagues a little nervous today as you would think that i'm an educator and i teach in the classroom every day and it should be easy to stand in front of people and talk i serve as a special education teacher a lead teacher ist chair and mentor teacher at madison heights elementary school and i'm one of the members of the diversity council here in amherst
049county i come to you today with the solemn heart as a teacher of amherst county schools of 14 years and a graduate of amherst county schools i have seen so much growing up here and it appears that not much has changed why must our students continue to be exposed to hate negativity and feeling like our voices continue to fall on deaf ears our black brown olive and white students matter the children of amherst county public schools will be the future regardless if you continue to silence their thoughts the equity elementary and secondary lessons were approved by the diversity council and the superintendent these lessons were reviewed by highly qualified professionals we understand the importance of each and we're ready to provide a platform for our students to express themselves and learn that there is more
050to our nation than one side i'm glad that the elementary level was able to do so that is what education is not one-sided but a way to expose our students to events that occurred and occur in america the time is always right to do what is right express from a great man in our history dr martin luther king jr they should be taught about the world as we know it to be and be encouraged that regardless of how much it has changed they will be change agents of tomorrow there is so much going on in the world today that they are exposed to regardless if you want them to or not stop keeping us in shackles and allow us to get to the business of teaching molding and encouraging our students that they matter regardless
051if they live on main street in a trail park or in a single parent home they have teachers that value them our curriculum needs to evolve as our world continues to do so our students should be aware of historical events such as the myrtle murder of emmett till the massacre at tulsa black lives matter or the events that our nation's capital that just occurred this past week can't you see the world is so ever changing every day and we'll continue to do so we cannot continue to hide from it but we can be a part of it these events reserve the right to be discussed in our classrooms so that our students can begin discussions with their teachers whom they spend the bulk of their day with we cannot continue the good old boy traditions
052in our county let us do the teaching and leave the politics out of it enough is enough [Music] miss glory wait good afternoon madam chair and board my name is gloria witt i'm president of naacp organization and i came here to support my lead committee person on their education committee because equity is an important focus area and strategy for the naacp and i had some thoughts in my head of what i was going to say but i'm here of course because of the decision that the board made at the 11th hour to postpone the equity lessons that would already been agreed upon ready for execution why is this so important on a moment like this i want to give credit to your superintendent dr rob arnold uh when he was first hired the school was
053struggling with the ocr incidents there was a diversity type of committee he reorganized it and came up with the number of city council he reached out immediately to the naacp building and seeking as mr doc dr brown said he was seeking voices to get the right people at the table and i like to say in the last two years he has worked with us the naacp we have seen progress so needless to say when i got word that the school board had decided to cancel equity lessons at a moment and a time like this i was absolutely speechless so what i'd like to say today is and what i've heard in my professional life i'm a facilitator so what i've heard as i sit here is are labels like this [Music] this was my label
054you've disempowered a wonderful superintendent who is bringing change positive change to our community you've disempowered rather i would think unintentionally your teachers and so now all of these voices are coming forward and asking for you to trust their intellect trust their experience and educate the young minds of this county and all they're trying to do is create an inclusive learning environment for all of our children and as um the president of naacp and working with dr arno and his staff in the diversity council houston we got some problems as of that november meeting at the naacp and miss bellew you can correct me from wrong there are 16 kids in the gifted program and one african-american and the other numbers are just will make you cringe-worthy and so we're here because what i heard is
055there are some teachers that are uncomfortable well you can expect people to be uncomfortable it's called change it's called growth and being uncomfortable puts you in a moment where opportunity and growth happens and so maybe you were responding to kind of calm things down but to calm things down you gotta lean into the moment and this is our moment as a county the stuff we've seen in the capitol is all because nobody is seeking voices trusting the media and using their own critical thinking skills to separate politics from facts why wouldn't we want to grow children with critical thinking skills that take a lot of different voices and come up with the right rational conclusions so what is my ask you guys rethink it i would like to think when you leave here today you're
056going to go back and say you know what maybe we were a little fast on the draw and we need to lean in and restart these programs immediately everybody makes mistakes but that's called growth and i think tonight based on this stream of people being so concerned and upset this was a misstep on the board so this is your leadership moment stand up reunite and get these equity lessons implemented starting next week would be my ask thank you very much for your time i was trying to understand is this sid storsum madam chair he decided to leave okay and then the last speaker that i have here is jim thompson oh okay i'm sorry that's great oh that's nice yes sir i lord thank you pull this down a little bit so you can hear
057me uh jim thompson 214 camden drive in madison heights [Music] and out of uh fairness my wife was on the board i was here to speak about something else tonight but i guess it's my time up and i feel compelled to speak as an amherst county resident as a citizen as a human being as a christian i feel for everyone that's spoken tonight feels for their needs feel for their wants and desires you know i could have easily been one of those people last week that was standing at the capitol i wanted to be i'm a republican i'm a christian i had full intent of being in washington to march around the capitol as a christian and pray literally that what was right in our nation would be done by all not about us in
058this room but by all because of where our nation has been not just in the past two months been in past five years particularly and many years before that i come to you because i respect this chairwoman probably as much as i respect any woman in amherst county i want to tell you that priscilla liggin is someone that in a community setting i came to know probably 28 29 years ago i respect her integrity i expect her intelligence and her wisdom more than i expect respect most people and that's a lot to say and i humbly do that and i know that amherst county schools in our school system can't typically pull out the bible and i'm going to in matthew and i'm not trying to sound pious i'm just reading to you from scripture
059what is written in the law you replied jesus and how do you read it and as he said that he answered love the lord your god with all your heart with all your soul and with all your strength into all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself and jesus said back to him says you've answered correctly and we've failed on that miserably republicans democrats and everything in between for the past five years and beyond and i'm part of that but i'm here to tell you that when i read that earlier just earlier i thought about your chairwoman because that's what i think of her and i respect her immensely and i know i just said that but i do and and then i looked over to um to micah 6 8 seek justice love
060mercy walk humbly before your god that's what's required of us no matter who we are and regardless of whether i went to dc or not last week my intent was to pray my intent wasn't to raise harm on anyone my intent wouldn't storm the capital my intent was to be who i wanted to be i love i would like to thank all people i have friends that are black that are mexican that are asian that are pakistanis that are afghanis and you know what there's room for all of us and you know even when i heard what was being taught about again whether tonight that's that's not for me to say or not to say what i heard but i do want inclusivity i do want continuity i do want all sides to be looked
061at but in reflection to that if we simply seek justice truly love mercy and walk humbly before god regardless of what your feelings are there we can't go wrong [Music] excuse me are there any other [Music] citizens in the audience that would like to speak to the board tonight because we have a closed meeting at the end this will be our last public comment session don't want to leave anybody out anyone out there miss crouch oh i thought you were there [Music] while she is checking i do have one letter that was emailed to me or to the board to dr allen to myself and others that would like to be read this person couldn't be here so i will go ahead and do as that individual wish i'm going to pull my mask down
062a little bit abby so i'll scoot down here it says to madam chair and the school board members and colleagues i would like to start by thanking you for your investment in our students at amherst county we as a division have taken important steps in bringing diversity to amherst county public schools with that being said i would like to express the concerns that i have in the response to the decision to delay the equity lesson selected by the diversity committee i was informed tuesday afternoon that there was a concern with the lessons timing and over possible backlash the timing was referring to the recent events that took place at the capitol this past week from this information i came to the conclusion that the lesson was not represented fairly the diversity committee including myself chose
063lessons for both elementary and secondary schools focusing on character education and aligning with standards i want to address specifically the lesson for secondary schools this lesson on social injustice was centered around defining truth by identifying facts from listening to both perspectives of any situation our lesson included using the skill set in a safe environment with a past event that dealt with social injustice students could then use those skills to process today's unrest this event took place at the capitol is tragic however it should not deter the effort to provide learning opportunities for our students especially when the skills are relevant to this of what is going on in the world as students experience racism social injustice discrimination rights now and it's becoming more and more apparent that social media apps and other platforms our students
064use if we are protecting our students by postponing the lesson then we are protecting them from what are we protecting them from if knowledge is power has teaching students to use facts to determine what is right and wrong or concerned the timing of the right at the capitol and the date to implement the lesson was merely a coincidence the decision to teach the lesson on january the 13th and 14th was made before winter break more so if now it is a good time when it is truly when is it a truly good time it seems like it is never a good time to talk about difficult things i understand the lesson could be uncomfortable for some but being uncomfortable is where learning and growing take place if we are truly invested in every child every
065day we have to teach important lessons such as equity lessons and continue to vest in our children as a whole person the development of the lesson was done with methodological mythological precision i can say this as i had an active role in working alongside miss kim goings and miss beverly jones a lot of work time and patience and discomfort were into it and i will say in that discomfort a good lesson was created as a parent of a young african-american and native african-american male i was excited for him to engage in such a powerful experience in the presence of his peers and in the safety of his classroom now said hurt as a leader parent and woman of color due to the fact we as a division were not able to provide a great learning
066opportunity for our students based on discomfort especially when students feel discomfort daily please recognize and understand that our students include my son are constantly defending their religious beliefs cultures and race we have to pay attention get uncomfortable and build up our students i will not drag this letter out by describing all the planning that took place and the disappointment failed by the diversity committee but i encourage a meeting of or conversation of some sort it is my hope that we can address the concerns and move toward a solution while discouraged i have not put away the importance of support and diversity in the county including building character and education i would like to thank the diversity committee including dr allen and dr jennings for their continued investment in the thank the diversity committee of all
067they have done i would also like to thank the teachers and the staff who were invested in this lesson i leave you with this quote educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all and this letter is from angela penn and then the final letter that i have it says to the members of the amos county school board please read this at the meeting as it concerns citizen of amherst county i am deeply worried about the news that there are people asking for the resignation of chris terry and gingerberg they have both been active members on the school board and care about the welfare of our students and teachers the constitution guarantees them the first amendment right of free speech and freedom of assembly none of them have done anything to break
068this law i am appalled that people will use this canceled culture to remove anyone who disagrees with them this is not upholding the laws that this country was founded on i support both of them and i'll ask that you also support them at this time please read this at this board mean tonight sincerely jeanette arrington retired teacher miss cross was anyone else okay at this time we have no more letters no more public comment we shall close the comment part of our meeting at this time we've heard a lot and we've been read to a lot and we are taking this all in board members would you like to talk about this now shall we go forward and talk about this in your comments madam chair yes ma'am vice chair um it might be uh
069important that we talk about it um briefly now while people are still here in the room okay give them time to leave and go home if they so desire that pleasure the boy mrs um ladies ladies um they nodded oh you can see them okay all right so what we're going to do uh vice chair uh is we're not going to get too too deep tonight but we have received all this good information but i think you're right there should be some uh addressing uh preliminary addressing at this time so if you would like to start that off we give way to the vice chair certainly i first want to thank everybody for coming tonight for the conversation for the dialogue as so many of you have expressed sometimes dealing with difficult things are difficult
070but the conversation hopefully is always worth it your viewpoints are very much respected i also respect all the work and the effort that was put into the lessons and my heart breaks when you walk away with a feeling as if we've gone back years and years and years without jumping to judgment i would appreciate time for that conversation and i believe dr arnold is going to provide that for us so that we can have that conversation that's the best way to move forward [Music] i appreciate diversity and i appreciate the efforts that we've made here in amherst county and in our school system i can only speak for my own personal decision as to why i asked for those lessons to be pulled and that was for me basically one definition that was in there
071that concerned me and when it defined social justice as a redistribution of wealth to me that put this lesson on a political plane and i wanted to have time for us to talk about that and to make sure the audience was not disenfranchised because of that definition we need to have conversations like you're talking about tonight like we have been working with on the equity council but if you have elected me and i'm talking to the citizens here you have elected me as a school board member you know i've heard a lot tonight about trust you have to trust us as well and i do understand why maybe you didn't but if that trust is there i hope your elected officials that are on this board will use wisdom and be wise so taking a
072pause to have a little bit of a conversation so that the lesson and the intent can be more effective instead of less effective to me is worth the pause so i want you to know that it hurts my heart with some of the things i've heard tonight but i do understand it i do but i hope that you will trust us as you're asking us to trust you and work with us on this i also think it is very important for our parents of all our students to be involved and informed and to have time there are some other lessons that i've spoken with dr arnold tonight that i'm not going to bring up but that i had some concerned about and it is not around race or diversity it is around protest and he's
073promised me that he would look into that so i think having different people with different views with different eyes having that conversation as so many of you have mentioned tonight is worthy of us coming together and i think of [Music] is it a saying or is it a scripture that says come let us reason together that's what we're asking for the pause was not mistrust the pause was trying to be wise and i hope that everyone can understand that because i love every one of you i love the citizens of amherst county i love our students every one of them and that will not change but i wanted to be wise thank you thank you ma'am mrs miss kazeezy so i agree with a lot of what um thompson said and i i don't speak
074nearly as eloquently as she does so forgiving for that but um i i honestly didn't realize it it would it would have hit this hard just to say let's let's pause for a moment make sure we're proceeding correctly and i say that simply because and again it's hard to not speak for everybody else on the board but um i we i think we have a great administration and we we trust them we trust our teachers so it wasn't that um when i when i saw this again i what came to me was it seemed like it could stir up some political issues that is everybody's very hypersensitive with right now and i was afraid that it was going to cause a bigger divide rather than bring people together and this is simply because from my
075perception i had i really had had time to to review this this kind of came up to me uh just i guess that that day it was a very quick thing but it took me like this could cause this could cause some issues um so i asked that it be put on pause i think the conversation absolutely needs to be had i think um it would be great to have it part of a curriculum there's also some other little technical things that i just had questions about that wasn't necessarily a make or break but um with you know my big thing that i've talked about a lot is with kovid we're missing a lot of instructional time and what what was this replacing and who was getting the lesson and i just i didn't know
076those answers so some of this is straight ignorance i will also say it could be some of it is um an ignorant bias maybe that i'm not aware of that i have because like i said i didn't i didn't realize that this was going to that that saying look let's pause this make sure we're moving correctly that this would have been kind of like the result the consequence of it um and so i'll own that maybe i'm just not aware of what i'm aware of you know what i mean and so as we're talking about growth that could be my personal growth as a member of the board but as miss thompson said i want to make sure that the intent is and isn't misconstrued um i very much appreciate everything that you guys have
077said and i'm glad you guys came came out and voiced voice your thoughts on on these things this this helps this helps us understand what we're getting right what we're getting wrong at least see different perspectives of things so i very much appreciate that i i really want to make sure as much as trying to do damage control right now it seems like um that i guess it missed off so good it kind of hurt hurt my heart a little bit to hear that maybe we're moving backwards that is not the intent i certainly don't want want that to be the perception process is a hiccup i do think based on my view we pause and make sure we're moving in the right direction i just think that is a wise a wise thing because
078there's more more things that we have to consider too as a board member um i don't know i kind of feel like i'm rambling right now but anyways that i do thank you you guys for coming out i very much respect your your thoughts and opinions on this [Music] mr um thank you ma'am chair uh just echoing the sentiments of my colleagues uh you know i've grown up in this community for 41 years i've had the pleasure of having a lot of interactions going to school with some of you having some of you as teachers and educators and what you meant in my life growing up and for me to the person i am today you know listen to some of you talk in the in the hurt that's in your heart you know genuinely
079you know i feel i feel bad it was not the intention of this of my decision to put this on hold um you say the 11th hour whether you can fault me as a leader this board be honest that i didn't know about it until the 11th hour and and so i you know as as a duty um you know i hope through my again through my experiences this community i've demonstrated this wit we've worked together when i was at the sheriff's office to demonstrate you know the diver the to demonstrate the inclusiveness of how law enforcement interacts with this community and so you know i champion those things too on this board um but you know i want to make sure that i'm also making good sounding decisions and there were some pieces in
080that thing that i wanted to make sure represented the entire amherst county community and and also some of those discussions like you said are difficult and they may people may feel uncomfortable but and as a parent do i necessarily and not me personally but i've also got to thank these are those people that put me in the office to make decisions for their children too and i've got to look at this language that possibly could create diversity uh or create division within um the the you know this segment of community because i'm ultimately i'm here i want people to think amherst county is a great place to live that we are inclusive that we're diverse that were i was reading an article from 19 uh i think it was 13 or somewhere in there they
081talked about how progressive people viewed the amherst county community then and i said good day i said at the turn of the century we were looked at as progressive so you know i you know i wanna i wanna i wanna create an environment where we appreciate everyone's culture everyone's right and so i wanted to step back if i'd i wish i'd been more involved and knew about what was getting ready to be taught beforehand so i had time to because i didn't want to make an emotional response to the curriculum that was put in front of me but i really felt like i owed my constituents the citizens community to step back and look to make sure that what we were putting forward was a good product you guys put a lot of heart and
082soul into it and it really uh you know again it hurt i took what you said to heart believe me i really did i did i'm not discounting anything you know i will say with dr brown's comment i did get comments from faculty instead because this is a difficult conversation to have and most people as you can think i don't speak up but i i've got i actually have messages appreciating to step back and pause to look at the curriculum from staff members so you know people don't want to have this conversation it's difficult to have but i say that to let you know that i was thinking of everyone and trying to find the middle ground to make the best possible decision for everyone and i this is not something we're tossing to the
083side this is something we're going to reevaluate and have a discussion i'm not a micromanager that's when i studied local government i said when i got on this board i'm not going to micromanage but i also have to find that balance where i look out for the rights of everyone that's involved in this community and that's not please don't twist that words to say that or to imply that i don't respect what the work was done because i i completely do i just want to take a look at this and have a conversation like ms thompson said thank you thank you so much mr terry uh first off i would like to thank everyone who did speak um everything you said has been taken to heart um i do want to talk dr brown let
084off with seek trust and lead that hit home i hope that in in the board's communication we are going to be seeking um more information on this and you guys provided maybe some stuff that we did not have um i trust that we take that to heart i trust that we get it right we feel that i feel um you feel like we let you down i'm sorry to hear that um it was not our intent um i hope that you um feel that we can still lead and do this correctly um dr brown like i said he he nailed it home it was a it kind of took me back i do thank everyone for their input we as a board will be looking at this talking about it further and there will be
085a good resolve i hope everyone can come to a good agreement with it and we can move forward on this thank you ms wright yes can you hear me yes okay um so i made notes as i went i listened to everyone who spoke and i made notes um i might be a little all over the place but i do want to thank everyone who came and spoke and made your viewpoint heard i want to thank the naacp for being here and representing on that side and the diversity committee for all of your hard work um you know you've been working on this for a while so that does not go unrecognized either now um i don't think as a board our stance on diversity teaching and the conversations that need to be had has
086changed i think that acps has made strides in diversity and some of that maybe it's because of the definitely because of the ocr but um as a board member i had concerned parents who reached out to me this week about this and i know that you know we are all about every child every day so those concerns matter too there wasn't a whole lot of time to have the conversation with the committee or the administration um because the curriculum was starting this week when the concerns were raised so we didn't have time to talk or review a lot of the material we haven't canceled the curriculum it's only been post postponed and you know i don't shy away from uncomfortable topics i think that conversations that make you think about someone else's viewpoint and make
087you see things from another side and even if it is uncomfortable i think they have to happen to encourage growth and critical thinking and make better community members when the children are out of school so you know for lack of time to get a grip on it i did see some of the material and dr arnold was kind enough to send all of it to us and there were some concerns there from my point so i look forward to having a conversation with the members of the committee and some of the administration to move forward on this this curriculum but i think it was was the best deposit for now but it has not been kansas thank you ms berg yes ma'am can you hear me yes ma'am okay um i just want to internate
088on what everybody else said um we didn't cancel the lesson we just simply postponed the lesson i know myself um i received concerns from you know both faculty and um parents within the community um i know we just have some questions on perhaps the verbiage being used but we are all on the same page we're striving towards more diversity within our community and hopefully together we can work together and get closer to where we want to be as a goal set for everyone at our school and i apologize my life was cutting in and off and i had a hard time hearing all the statements but thank you so much okay i'm not going to say too much right now but maybe later first of all i thank um these great speakers for coming and
089and voicing your viewpoint um what all of the diversity committee members stand up just so that the board knows who you are we know your names and we have seen your writings and there are some others i imagine that i read miss penn so thank you so much i want to thank you for the work that you do all the time and then uh ms whit and the naacp want to thank you for coming and all the others who spoke to make life short i think i'm going to use some verbiage myself i think there's been a misunderstanding that's the first word i'm going to use i think that everybody has tried to maybe be on the same plane but the plane took off for we all could get on it and um i'm gonna
090be like mr cassisi this kind of hit me like a ton of brick in in just for a minute let me clarify this uh i didn't get any calls uh ms berg and mrs um help me out right ms wright and ms thompson and some others might have got some calls from some concerned citizens parents and teachers i didn't get any uh my phone is wide open if i could have i would have and then i would like to just say this that we also understand some of this other verbiage [Music] not wanting to get into unfamiliar territory and for uncomfortable situations and this is one but i want to assure you and thank you again for putting your trust in me to go a little further but we want to assure you that we
091are going to take this under a quick advisement hopefully a retreat in february early february and uh as some of the board members said perhaps some of them did not understand everything that was going to be taught and had was going to be taught no matter what had been into it i did understand it i have read it i've attended quite a few equity inclusion meetings through my life on the board and through my other dealings as well i want to appreciate dr wells and and dr jennings for helping me as we went through this ocr situation now somebody said well what has that got to do with anything that's got a lot to do with a lot because it taught us a slap on the hand that we had to tighten up in amherst
092with some things that we needed to do and immediately upon the arrival of dr allen even before he got here we put things into action so that this situation like we're dealing with tonight would not occur just to be honest with that but there has been a little bit of misunderstanding perhaps we all were not uh fully aware as mrs cassis so nicely stated of everything that was being said and everything is going to be done so as some have said ms uh vice chair here said we're going to dig into this a little bit more and come out on the good side and it's not going to be a long time coming we're going to look at this pretty soon i was preoccupied to be honest with the covet i'm just going to be
093honest that was my first thing going on uh whether i returned this chair or not my objective was that we get through this nightmare of covet and we keep these kids in class so i kind of lost for a minute what was going on here i didn't get the call that they wanted to post it was to be postponed and so i'm not throwing anybody on the bus i said okay and it was 11th hour so we do apologize for those who've done work but my apology is more than that as i conclude um mr thompson said it some other people have said it all these great quotes from great people and the bottom line is that we have to work through this together we cannot send out some type of stigma to the community
094that there's an issue now for some that could be but we all got to get back on the playing field and get the ball game going i'm all about inclusion and anything else we want to put up there so let's not get things twisted that we're going backwards i'm not going backwards my bus is going forward i'm too old to go back but i can't walk forward good so i need y'all to hold my hand board as we proceed with caution analyze all the materials that's going to be presented to us let's have a retreat uh when i see a retreat not a whole lot of coffee drinking and tea and come up with no answers we're going to come there look at what the uh i don't know what was said by the parents
095or the teachers but we need to know that what is it that you're uncomfortable with so we can address that perhaps have diversity community present to understand that's how you solve problems what is the problem who don't feel good about teaching i've always said that teachers should go to first the chairman of their uh if it's the history the chairman of the history department and then from there to the building principle and then from there to dr norman and from there to dr arnold that's how you can kind of solve this but if we go to the school board members i have no issue with that we're here to represent but at the end of the day it's got to come back into the building principle it's got to come back into the central office
096so as i conclude at this time on this comment we're going to clear the air a little bit let us go out in peace let us find out what went wrong do not cancel any of the material you have into the board and everybody has looked at it and that's all i have to say about that then somebody is that a comment is that all i have to say about that all right any other thing board members yes sir go ahead chime right in all right i was going to bring up later because it's my responsibility to build that bridge and create that path forward all right and i think we have an opportunity to move forward you are right you you postponed and it is my intention to have a a retreat in february
097so we can actually have the conversation on how to find a path forward a positive path forward because like all of our speakers said what we're trying to do is give our students skills to live and be a part of this world that is is pretty tough to deal with right now and so i will i will make sure that you guys get some dates to look at i will be meeting with the diversity council too to kind of talk to them about what they would like to come to bring to the group and so i would hope that that would be amenable to everyone here i'll give you a a i'll give a different a list of of dates to choose from and then we can we can move forward if that uh pleases
098the board that please the board ladies did they shake their head yeah since you could see them okay so i think at that point miss legend we're moving on we're moving on uh where are we oh yes four so now it's time to just reorganize some people um we hope that you will stay with us those who spoke but if not we will be uh in contact on 4.01 let us think about reorganizing the amazon school board for the january through 20 from january to december and the what is the first thing that comes up so you can take this as a group so you can move to uh reorganize under 4.01 a through g if if you are okay with the the whole list okay let let me ask this for time purposes ladies
099and gentlemen um was everyone happy with the appointment that you had last year absolutely yeah and we'll do those at 4.02 4.03 so yeah ladies what did this okay now what anyone uh feel free to jump in would you like a new appointment off of this list we won't be mad all right in that case let me start with laurel if it's the board's pledge later 4.01 is the reorganization yes a it's like the clerk yeah you people the superintendents yeah we got we gotta get us straight yeah i make a motion that all the positions listed in 4.01 a through g will be reappointed uh to their positions for the 2021 calendar year gotcha okay see that's not showing them i think okay it's all in favor any opposed all right now we're good
100now you got the more reporter now we got the all the others um and i just i'm not playing around just want to expedite um so for laurel if the board's pleasure i'd like to continue with that and who was my ultimate is that you mr mr cece are you good good all right and then we're going down to um so we'll have to take these each each one at a time so yeah i'll make a motion to reappoint you as the primary representative to the laurel board and then mr cece is the alternative i'll stay in it all in favor and opposed okay now we have the delegate and also to the vsva and that with the current uh representative is miss ligand and the alternate is miss thompson i'm gonna let you hand
101it in is that all right madam chair i'll make a motion that we reappoint you as the primary and mrs thompson is the alternate for the representatives to the espa for the 2021 calendar year second all in favor aye aye all right okay any opposed to the central virginia governor's school who do we have last time uh mrs wright is the current representative and the chair of that committee and you're the chair okay and the alternate is mr terry mr terry would you consider cons all right can we have a vote of approval for that 4.03 we'll make this even copy and paste it miss crouch i make a motion that we we keep the same assignments for the 2021 school year with ms wright uh representative and mr terry's alternate second all in favor
102uh and opposed and now we're going down to stem who was that mr terry missed it the alternate is mr cassisi is that still good gentlemen that's right all right go ahead all right you ought to roll now madam chair i make the motion that we appoint mr terry's primary and mr cece's ultimate ultimately represented to the stone kid regional stem academy for the 2021 school year or 20 calendar oh okay we have a second all in favor all right any opposed great now 4.06 some conversation there so the only one will lead us off yes ma'am at the last meeting we came to you with a proposal to approving an at-home learning week february 8th through the 12th that is between our first and second semester we have lessons uh project-based lessons that are
103have all been developed for our students while they are there and then it gives our teachers and administration uh the ability to make the changes and uh prepare for all of the different changes that i could have miss dr norman give to you what those changes are because we today was the last day that people could declare which direction they wanted to go in the second semester so would y'all like it's tomorrow well tomorrow the 15th yes yes sir in your packets ladies and gentlemen and members of the board you have several items that you can refer to one of them is a chart that lists out all of the project-based learning opportunities that we're providing to students as well as the for each one of them grade level and then the the titles of
104those as well the the next thing in your packet that you have is the parent student information so that way you actually have what we're going to provide to the parents if you approve this week where they can have access as well as an faq for information for them and their students we also have information that you had requested earlier in regards to the numbers for the transition going back and forth dr norman yes this is all under that down later under the transition plan i would apologize that's eight 8.02 that's where all those documents are on your board docs yeah we were going to present all of this to you later but you'll yeah you well and you'll need to know um to make this decision um then if you if you approve it
105then we'll kind of give you a lot more detail but we want to answer your questions first in terms of how many students are going in which direction and what that actually means from a preparation standpoint so as i as you had requested there is a chart also in your um request for change of instructional modality that lists out all of the information in regards to each school transfers of in-person learning transfer to remote learning what those totals are for each school we have a total of 293 change requests that have been made either going to a school or into from a school to ara what i also you had requested is what that impacts or what things that we would have to do for those particular changes [Music] the major impact that we have
106is an impact on master schedules so when you look at that for a secondary level there's four different courses that a child takes right now we have 161 student request changes meaning that multiply that by four that's 640 changes to their master schedule that they would have to take care of um in for elementary we have three different courses we have homeroom we have health and pe and we have the stem course by the 152 change requests that we have had for elementary that would be 456 changes that our elementary principals would have to make this would total a possibility of like master scheduled changes that would need to take place knowing what our current schedule is right now we would end the semester on february the 12th and they would immediately turn around and
107come back to us on february the 15th which gives our administrators under our current calendar without this week basically that friday february the 12th to make 1100 changes and that's at the minimum right now they still have tomorrow to put that in aside from the master schedule the impact on the student-teacher ratio what we have to do is actually make sure that we meet the soqs the class side maximums that are allowed we are utilizing the waiver that's been presented from the state back in november i mean december for people teacher ratios and with those new standards right now all of our elementaries will fall in line for the new standards that we have so we feel pretty comfortable in that it's just a mass it's just making sure that we're doing that and we're
108meeting those benchmarks that the state has provided us the last that's difficult and dr wells can speak to this if he if he likes is we currently have 56 bus routes or buses that travel our roads each and every day and they are three routes per bus six trips a day which totals a possibility of 336 routes that we would have to change so if we have 1100 changes that we would make with students and 336 bus routes every change that's made for a student may impact a bus route as well um and i didn't know if you wanted to add anything to that dr wells i can just add that you know to make those changes does require quite a bit of time at a transportation department to grout every student and go back
109to the trial surveillance change routes around so that would be a very time consuming process not something we can do in in two days and get it turned around there's something going to start working on now and hopefully by the time we get to february uh when the semester ends we'll have it fixed um it is a time it's a new process so anytime we can have the direct disrespect and what we do what we do we want to make sure [Music] what we do want to make sure is that while our students are away from us and they are in their remote learning setting at home learning that we they have sorry that they have um good quality rigorous activities and creative and collaborative and items that we know that are beneficial to them
110as well as their teachers and so what i've asked is for mr neighbors to show you two of the problem-based the plbs that they would be conducting so you can have an understanding of what it is that we're going to be asking our students to participate in while they are at home [Music] madam chambers put together a free presentation to give you some examples of what we're looking at with these project-based learning activities thank you just to reiterate these have been created for pre-k through 12. k-12 is going to be available on canvas as well as download on the chromebooks pre-k because the nature of the activities obviously for that age group is much more hands-on we're going to be giving that out as paper packets physical items for them to be working on and
111completing for each grade level there's one stem and one humanities oriented pbl will kind of become clear as we're going through the examples you guys here in just a moment these were developed by acps staff you know where they utilize resources from pbl works which is a fantastic resource gave us a lot of the outlines for the project-based learning activities as well as some of the resources that we were able to incorporate for those uh with any pbl i just wanted to mention it reiterate it the process really is more important than the product which is a little bit unusual kind of typically what we would look at with education but we want our students to really work through this process that's multimodal they're bringing out a lot of academic skills and understanding as they're
112going through we want them to really work through that process in a way really gain that deeper understanding of the concepts and form their own ideas and opinions about how they solve some of these projects and problems that they have been presented the first one i wanted to show you is our grade three humanities i also wanted to give you a vision for what it's going to look like for our students so when they pull it up in canvas have to download it it's going to look like this really laid out with a summary and understanding what the objectives are for the project but then giving a day by day accounting of the activities they're going to be completing which all are going to be pulling together to get to that end product this one
113is called breaking bread in our community and the essential question is how can we plan and prepare an event for a meal for our heroes in our community so they were doing all the different things would be required to essentially plan a big party for heroes in the community including figuring out menu how much it's going to cost where could it be who do i need to invite what is a hero what constitutes that within our community a lot of different concepts they're pulling together to try to figure this particular part out as you can see in the summary here it's really getting them thinking about what all these facets are how they work within this idea of this project to pull these different pieces together and ultimately plan an event for individuals that they've
114identified in the community as heroes individuals that they want to celebrate with that for the first day we're kind of getting this idea of heroes out there and obviously with the grade level we're talking about we are hooking in uh with something a little more familiar with the superheroes they ever bring that back down the community level who is that what does that look like allowing them to really explore that talking to other individuals within their home with their community see how they feel about those things and who do we want to pull in and really celebrate with this event that we are planning the second day working through an activity is a little video that's provided about a family reunion that was planned and all the different pieces that went into that and you
115can see even though this is humanities pbl we're getting into even some math as we're thinking about what's going to be required how many people can i invite i'm starting to put together my list of food that i need to buy working through how much that's going to cost how i budget for those things what i'm going to need to do from a resource standpoint to make that happen and continuing on and giving additional ideas what that could be helping them think through what this part of the fafsa might be and then encourage them to create a survey of actually getting input from others if it's friends if it's members of their household other members in their neighborhood figure out what would they want to be what they want to do at an event such
116as this continuing on to the third day this is really where we're getting into the nuts and bolts of planning this particular event this is where they're going to have to think about what their grocery list is the logistics behind it how are they getting the resources to be able to make that happen who can they go to to get some of their resources and how much is that going to cost encourage them to go online pull out a flyer from the newspaper or in some situations hypothesize how much some of these things might cost and pull that together and start to develop what looks like a budget for this event so again even though we're at humanities we're talking about a lot of those types of activities pulling in as many different academic skill
117areas as we can together to get to that end product so moving from there again continuing on with planning there asking some essential questions having them think through critically what is all this going to look like how we're going to get to that place is this meeting what we kind of sought out in the beginning our objectives for planning this event and making sure we have all those aspects accounted for finally they're going to pull this together in a presentation and be able to talk about all the different aspects of this event that they have planned where is it going to be who's going to be there how much is it going to cost what are we going to serve how are we going to bring all this together and have that good and entertaining
118event for our heroes and our community for each of our pbls we have attached a rubric so they can understand what the teacher is going to be looking for when they actually get that submission and they're reviewing the work it was completed giving them a context for how that's going to be evaluated what that's going to look like moving forward each of the pbls have this attached to it in that final day when they're looking at submission of that product whatever it may be do i need to go through more examples or because we're going to make these available too to you and to our to our families yes yeah do y'all need to see another example i just i just want to respect your time they're worse not sure um a couple things what
119i've learned from this experience what's come up with the last few days i would and i don't want to get off topic but we're kind of talking about access to stuff i think the board members should have access to the um and not for the purpose of to be able to answer concerns to the curriculum on canvas uh i can't log into that thank goodness i have a wife that's an employee that i can go in through her account but i would like to have some kind of readout just so i can look at this curriculum was brought to my attention my my course of action is still going to be have you talked to the school but i want to have an understanding of it so that i'm not called off at 11th hour
120and creating controversy when i've got time to look at it in advance so i will make that request sure please um i want to reiterate what mr greiser has said i've already gotten concerns about waiting on the world to change um is that one on this slide i think it's on the 12th grade um this is the 10th grade under humanities so i've already that's the one i responded to and so i did i dug in today and i have concerns and i think some of the parents concerns are legitimate and i didn't want to bring that topic up at the beginning of the board meeting because i don't want some things that are on this to tank the diversity uh council and the work that they're doing but i think if a parent raises
121concerns about some of the pbls and the one that we discussed today was about i think it was on day three on that one if anybody wants to look at it tell me which one is it it's um waiting on the world to change it's a resource in it and it has a young child protesting on the shoulders of the back of a grown-up and a mob or a crowd and then the resource goes on to talk about the middle east and why it's in civil unrest and then it talks about peaceful protest versus violent protest and it gives advantages and disadvantages of both and so i i think the concerns that i'm hearing from parents is they don't want any validity to violent protests they don't believe in violence so that's something that i
122would like you all to look at and dr ronald has ours right already started on yes yes i appreciate that very much the point i want to make is if these are available and parents can see them and they have concerns that's going to open that line of communication that we talked about tonight being so important that we can share that with you before it becomes a crisis and we have to pull something at the last minute it's just good and they will be made available they will be available to our i mean that's what all of those documents that dr norman was was discussing okay so parents need to look at those yes they have concerns touch base with you guys and address them share them with us you can communicate that's a process
123right so at this particular time at this time every child already has them downloaded on their chromebooks for parents to review before we would go through this process so they've had that that ability to do that since the first uh the second week in december okay well i just want to reiterate you know to the parents that are listening you need to go look at those and if you have concerns let us know that's right um there were some other ones brought to my attention i just don't see them and mad one more thing just to make sure that speaking to the parents too it's the same process that we would have with any type of curriculum that we provide and parents are given the opportunity to take a look at it that's why it
124was downloaded to chromebooks on every child's chromebook before we left for winter break but they have the opportunity to opt out and begin another assignment well well i know that i have been told that parents have the ability to opt out but i also know that that wasn't the case with the one that we talked about tonight on diversity these are two different things i do understand they're two different things but do you see how parents can conceive them perceive them as the same and i don't want our parents to be involved and i represent them so i want them to make sure that they're asking those right questions okay drug man all right i apologize just to speak because i have to be familiar with what you referenced earlier i just want to emphasize
125that the resource in question does emphatically emphasize that nonviolent protest is certainly the way the things that has to be done and emphasizes that component and really talks about the negatives associated with violence but i think to your point looking at the presentation of that information would be an important thing for us to review correct because i believe it said that there are some advantages to violent protests and i think that's where i can see parents being serious when you take the approach of throwing something to the wall and so much of it's going to stick someone's just going to hit the floor and you wonder what's going to stick in their head because one of the bullet points on the non or the violent protest piece was to affect change quickly well who doesn't
126want to see their change or their v point affected quickly but is that the right way to go about it and so that's why i have an issue with that bullet point specifically in that slide and i think there was another uh piece that you know i'm all for critical thinking and trying to figure out what we can how we can teach our children real thing because i agree to sit there and you know that's what i've been arguing against some of the sols and how things have gone for all these years because we're just feeding them facts they regurgitate on their tests that's all they know so then they can't make the decisions when they get out in the world but i want to be careful because when you start messing with people's ideologies
127it really really you know if we can put out wildfire before it happens then i think that we have that duty to do that and one of the things i'm talking about i think there's a piece in there about uh democracy you can't the summation of it where i scanned through it was and maybe i'm all for scanning through it but that you that they basically almost couldn't coexist because capitalism and democracy are basically counter productive to each other and so i just again i worry about already getting into as far as the parents their ideology what you know i think a lot of these discussions at what point do you make them part of the culture in their home place and what part do we have a duty as public educators to to to
128have in the classroom and that's a tough decision it's not black and white it's not it's there's a lot of great interpretation some subjectivity that and i just want to do the best to encompass and make as many you're not going to make everybody happy but try to do the right thing moving forward and that's why i just want to make sure that you know i have access to kind of look at this so i can if i it's lost my attention again like i said earlier the last thing i want to do is to get in here and start correct changing the curriculum because again we put we vote for you to be in positions we you know you're hiding because we trust your leadership we really do and it's not an effect on
129that but we have we also behind us is 31 000 plus citizens that vote for us to be in office and we have to represent their desire so that's what we try to balance right every day and it's very difficult so let me let me try to get us i'm sorry no it's it's just i think what i'd like to be able to do is because what's on on the plate or what's being asked is can we have the week right now the materials we can also deal with that and we will deal with that because i've already requested that we deal with that um so i guess my question is maybe one i do have some questions about the week and i'm sorry right now is this some of this stuff and again i'm
130i'm listening to parents saying man i've got to make child kinder arrangements for another week but on the other hand i'm going to defend just like when mr wells chimed in on the uh through the phone last time i want to respect and provide you all with all the tools to be able to do what you got to do in complete consciousness thinking about this or some of these changes can they not be because we're going to find out tomorrow when's the second semester february february february the 12th can like the bus schedule if we already know in advance can we not start slowly trying to implement these plans beforehand i'm just i just think about like how much edu educational opportunities we keep and i know i know what you're advocating here but i'm
131still i'm still on the pumping thing for in-person face-to-face learning and and i'm still the you know all those things that i've talked about previous meetings haven't gone away and uh and i'm just worried i i don't want to continue i know why you're asking for this but i want some soul searching here do we 100 need a whole week now i know with our schedule it doesn't make sense to come in for one day because you can't do that because we have alternating schedules but i don't know if it could be something that could be accomplished in a two-day window or we switch that week and we don't make friday our disinfecting day that that we you know that we look at maybe giving you money tuesday wednesday and thursday friday they come to
132school of course then you got the cleaning piece but that's what i'm trying to figure out is it's something reasonably we can look at an alternative to a whole entire week that's my opinion four members that's that's where we are now we're asking are we going to approve this week or not and so the discussion is wonderful mr terry what's your thoughts on this so um i i want to make sure the administration has what they need to be successful in this transition we've heard the you know how many people we're gonna how many students we're gonna have to go back and forth from one to the other and i can see it being a scheduling nightmare um i'm hoping that um that we can make everything in in your week time frame or if
133it can be shortened that's that's fine but um we need to support them to make sure that because they're going to be providing what we need our students to have and so i i'm in favor of you guys getting the time if you need it if you truly need it thank you sir mr sisi coming on down the line here oh ladies i'll be right back um i i've been on that whole as much in personal learning as possible also so i would state um i think i feel like we've seen this before yeah we did with it um as much as possible if if there is a way great but i will also say if you guys say no we we have to have that week i'll crush it that have you have been
134you guys thought that fell through it's better have that week than [Music] have a couple of in in-person days or whatever i mean like risk-reward time that's that's where i unlocked it so if if you're saying you need to eat i will trust that you need ms um berg um yes i was just wondering if there's any way possible to shorten that up some between the 8th and the 12th we have our kids missing school way too much i think and also on the lessons um i would just like to say i feel that some of our community and also our staff they think that we're they're afraid that our school is blurring the line a little bit between you know education and indoctrination we have to make sure we make everybody comfortable and stick
135with the education part and stay away from everybody's philosophy and politics and everything else thank you [Music] call her first name i don't want to miss right yes yes so we did ask at the last meeting to wait until this time to have all the information we could so i'm going to trust that if it's the week you need that um that's what we do i agree with mr kassissi and miss berg that we need to be in school more but we did ask for you to wait until all or most of the data was in so i'll trust your decision ms thompson i feel this i feel the same i you know if you can be in the classroom more i think that's good for our students but if you need the week i
136can support that i haven't had any parents even though i know it may be hard on some of them i haven't had any parents speak up or anything so if that's what you need i trust us that's what we need well i'll tell you i've had two emails uh from parents and at the beginning of all of this the covid y'all asked us to ask you guys what we need and i would trust that the reason this is all gone so well relatively speaking for as well as it can go is because we were planned and we were measured and and we made the right decisions and and we we believe we need it again and that's that's all i'll say yeah i i'm just ditto and i i think i got one or two
137people who said you know child care why are we being out again we all want we all want the same thing but i also know that i too have to plan in between my semesters and with all of these things you have to plan and we don't even know yet what is going to happen uh we might have to plan double time if we have to leave another school so i'm in favor at this time that we allow you to take that week i guess it's really just four days of learning and and get everything in order so we can proceed on into the summer so um would someone like to just make a motion that we uh have that pb what's those alphabets well it's [Music] okay miss thompson do i have a second
138on that second oh the board in favor say aye and we all understand where we're trying to excuse me okay okay so it is what is six to one okay all right thank you mr okay now back to part b of the discussion on the lesson as we were beginning to do that uh ladies and gentlemen do we need to do more with that tonight or should dr allen talk to everyone as they have already asked him for information and mr greiser has said we'd like to have more able to get into that do we need more discussion on that now or later i will get you i'm probably questioning later okay but feel free to later access feel free to do that thank you mr neighbors for your presentation and i'll look at this
139again as well okay one more yes ma'am one more question uh with regard to um the lessons um i know that you were mentioning that parents can opt out so one have the parents been told to make sure they go in and look at these and if they opt out do they know who they can talk to and what is in place for the students if they're not going to have this particular activity will they have an alternate or will they just not do the lesson oh no ma'am they'll have an alternate we have several of them already set up um several of our teachers are working on those the elementary students were sent home with information by their principals that just stated that the information was on their chromebooks they were allowed to take
140a look at them we did not want them working on them the email blast or power announcement went out from the secondary schools stating that information emails were sent as well i think dr brown actually sent an email out um to all students as well some parents they can opt out could i make a recommendation if we have alternate assignments it's always a good educational practice to have choice why not put both of them up there and let the two students choose oh and if you've already got them anyway we're working on them right now now but yes ma'am we have a couple of weeks to be able to do that [Music] anything else on that right now we can always revisit you good okay 501 and 502 is the consent agenda of first of
141the school board minutes and then of the superintendent's personnel actions i'll entertain a vote of approval if there are no amendments or addendums or pull out uh madam charges yes sir whether it's done through amendment or whatever i just noticed when i was reviewing the minutes that it indicated that i was in favor of the transition week which was true but there was also that that discussion was kind of strung out a little bit and i just want to make sure that the caveat in there was based on the data that we were presented with tonight um so we can either move to midnight or oh well at least as far as possible trust that we will make that amendment then yes i did i do said good yeah make that incentive yes ma'am okay
142so with that uh can we get approval of 501 and 502. uh like motion to approve the consent agenda okay so we have a motion and a second all in favor uh any opposed thank you so much moving on dr arnold uh yes i'd like to turn this over to dr wells for information items under administration mm-hmm dr wells madam terrell is joining the board let me get my microphone situated here i first want to start with 6.01 administrative services and we have a few things to talk about and one was the safety grant at the december board meeting i informed you that we had received 168 779.43 in grant funding through the school security equipment grants program that is running the department of education there were questions raised by board members about the grant
143program address those questions in email to our board members during the month and attached information regarding the grant and the materials and the materials that were approved we were approved to install the grant requires us to uncover this equipment no later than march 1st 2021 which is quickly approaching that being said i need to move forward with the procurement process immediately to ensure we meet the march 1st 2021 deadline uh i need to know if there are any questions or concerns from the board before i move forward if y'all have any major concerns with this if not we will we want to move forward with the procurement process and get these uh items installed in our schools i'd like to answer any questions if you have board members [Music] it doesn't require a vote it
144just yes i'll answer your questions and no no more or less this is just a statement i actually talked to mr wells about this one of the things the only thing i was concerned about with the background check is to ensure that there was a policy because there's just from my experience with utilizing background information sometimes it it you get information back based on the scriptures don't that are similar to the person but not necessarily the person in general so that i just wanted to ensure that and i feel confident dr wells will put this in place but that there's a policy to ensure that there's there's a secondary check if you do get a hit or confirmation that somebody could possibly be whether it be a sex offender or something that precludes their contact
145with children that there's a follow-up to sure that because i ran into when i was at thai river for a little bit i ran into an experience with a parent that was kind of embarrassed because the once you check the descriptor information it obviously wasn't that parent but the initial response from the lady that did the background checks was to prevent him from going on a field trip with his child and luckily i was there to help hash that situation out but i i think i feel comfortable but i just wanted to make you all aware that was a conversation that i had with mr uh dr wells about that okay it's a good conversation and week into the procedures as i told mr garza we'll have procedures in place where if there's something questionable
146we will contact the school resource officers and they can do the follow-up background checks if there's someone who the obviously information seems to be incorrect any other concerns from anyone or before we [Music] good okay what do you need a um no i just want to i just want to make sure i answered your questions and we were in agreement all right good thing keep going all right a cip building committee when the cip was approved in november the school board expressed desire to develop a committee to study the proposed improvements in addition to amherst county high school we're at the point now where we need to start forming that committee and start looking forward with the cip is this is you know two years out now we need this is going to be a
147prolonged process we need to get this committee to be formed uh mr grouser has expressed interest in being on the committee we also like to get a board supervisor's member on the committee the community members on the committee as well as school administrative staff as well so if we'd like to get the committee form mr grouser are you still i'm i'm fine if it's the pleasure of the board i don't want to yes sir okay and then i'll ask miss league and dr arnold today to communicate with the board of supervisors uh to maybe have someone from their side identified to be on the on this committee as well and we'll start getting it together i would like to have the first meeting hopefully in february if not be in early march as we get
148this committee started but we need to start looking at this and getting some ideas together because with the amount of funds involved and the amount of work involved i think we need to get a consensus move forward okay thank you any questions or comments okay construction construction at amherst middle school school you know we had the facility study suggested indicated some issues there with the with those buildings and the structural areas of both schools we are moving forward with the engineering study architectural planning for the proposed work of those two locations we have sufficient funds in the cip to cover the cost of the study mrs crouch just additional information on the amount of funds available in the cip if you have any questions about that we do continue our plan is to have construction
149take place this summer so we're going to start moving forward with the planning process and that aspects of that those programs those two buildings we can get those two buildings uh under construction this summer are any questions regarding look at that or if you miss cross may have some better numbers for you than i have that's this time fourth okay okay uh so covet 19. uh again that's been a major focus of ours this year so first i want to thank you for a journey for the january 4th workday that allowed us to make over 500 phone calls to parents and staff [Music] we were able to identify students that were quarantined during break and were cleared to return to school as well as identify over 120 students who were exposed to covet during christmas
150break that we had to place on quarantine before they could come to school on the tuesday so the nurses and the administrators really do appreciate having that day because we were able to get if we had to do that while students were in school that monday would have been a very uh difficult situation for us to go through so that they really did was appreciate it really did help us with the safety of our students code numbers as of today right now we have 223 students on quarantine we have 11 positive students and we have 30 staff that are quarantined and five positive staff this is well below where we were in december and we hoped we'll continue being lower than we were in december but in december around this time when there were 400
151students quarantined so right we're about half where we were in december right now um so on that you know any any questions or comments regarding our covenant 19 numbers another arnold will have more about that later not about the numbers but i'm just curious about the vaccine have you all heard any okay i'm getting there all right um before i get to the vaccine i do want to mention avalon as you know we had to place that we had to put amelon in a remote learning status for this week i want to re-emphasize as i said in my statements and the message that went home to parents from amalan this was not due to an outbreak but the due to the staff that was already quarantined and the additional staff had to be quarantined due
152to the positive case cases that were there that were reported monday that impact really that impacted our staffing our ability to staff the building effectively and safely which required us to have to put them in a remote status for the week the teachers are placed on quarantine will be cleared due to the cdc guidance they're cleared to return on on tuesday and so forth we feel we can have resume in first instruction at amalan on tuesday students do have to quarantine a couple more days but the teachers can return but this was due to a staffing issue not an outbreak we did not have an outbreak at amalon we had two cases reported but those two cases in addition to the other staffing issues we already had due to people being placed on quarantine caused
153us to not have enough staff to run the building effectively and that's where we were with that mla are there any questions regarding regarding that okay so vaccination information um as you may know as most of you know the school employees fall under phase 1b uh the governor's vaccination plan um the central venue health district can still operate under phase 1a uh in conversation with the health department we anticipate theory moving to phase 1b but in the month into early february we are developing plans to begin vaccinations for staff but we do not have a couple did not have concrete information from the bdh yet on their plan and how they would plan to disperse the vaccine to our staff so we're in communication with them and central we've been working with central quite uh
154quite a bit with their process i will say that our nurses had the option to get their shots last friday and our late responders those who wish those who opted to get the shot can get theirs first round tomorrow so our nurses and first responders they have a lot of are under 1a because they deal directly with the medical side of it saying get their shots now but the rest of our staff has to wait till we move into 1b uh as a region so our region is still in one a there are other regions in the state that have moved to 1b but our health district is still working under 1a our goal and we our priority is when we do move into 1a is to prioritize those people that are the front-line leaders
155so our bus drivers our teachers are those who work with the kids every day are the ones we have to get and now that's also at 65 and over um those folks that are 65 which again are bus drivers or cafeteria workers those people we prioritize when we start doing if we have to prioritize and say this group is this today and this group is tomorrow we will start with the ones that are at highest risk so we feel that's important but we do have that prioritized list out and we're just waiting for the health department to move into one beat so we can start the process along the vaccination front i was contacted by mr sam bryant from emerson ems and he was with the state regarding having to have a mass vaccination site
156in amherst county the health department is trying to set those up across the state and we've identified emirates county high school with service at mass site just due to logistical reasons so we can entry and egress from this from the facility by the roads and so forth that's the best site we have in the county this is going to be run through the health department we don't have a lot of details yet on what that would look like but they mentioned setting up a national guard and other groups to come in and set up tents and things like that which we could easily do in some of the parking lots but we still maintain school operations you know but we also have this area set aside in the back of the school either the back
157parking lot or this or the stadium parking lot to run this uh this mass vaccination site again those details are still yet to come but we have identified that as a site for amherst county and in coordination with our ems and the vdh questions on vaccines out of curiosity have you not been in specifics has everybody been pretty receptive to taking it or are you having we're about 50 okay that's good those who have the option to get it but we're about 50 percent of those who are willing to get it and that's talking to other school divisions in the area they're in that 50 to 55 range as well of against people or you know uh that's what we are right now with that 50 range right now absolutely thank you anyone else okay
158thank you uh winter sports uh we began winter sports last week we had our first games we had some wins uh very good there who were very positive i was at russeburg high school last night officiating a wrestling match and i got a call stating that one of the teams we played against had a positive case on their team which required us to place our jv girls basketball team in quarantine for 14 days because the young lady on the other team was definitely on the court definitely had contact with our six students we don't know how much contact with each one but out of a uh caution we went ahead and placed our jb girls basketball team and quarantined just due to the fact they had exposure on another another player on another team uh
159who did play the whole game uh did test positive two days after we played the end of the game they cleared they went through all the clearance they were cleared to play then two minutes later they did test positive and we were notified of that yesterday and we made it we went through our mitigation steps and placed our team on quarantine the varsity team since since we have them separated was not impacted um by this but the jv team girls basketball team was along the same line the as you know the seminole district did initially say no fans no spectators at games after talking with some of our senior parents and the senior athletes it was amended to allow a senior night so each sport will get to have a senior night in which the
160parents can come and be recognized watch the children play at least one game and be recognized before the game for their senior night we already had from for boys basketball that was the first game just in case we had some code related issues that krav maga to play they went ahead and had the first one the first home game and they're moving through with the other teams as they have home events to have a senior night so at least one night they'll get to come each senior can invite two guests their parents into to for the game and be recognized so we are moving ahead with that no similar district decision so all schools across the district are doing the same thing um are there any questions regarding our sports programs glad to hear about
161the senior united states yeah that was a that was a positive thing we could do that the district agreed to do that absolutely then the last thing on my list is suspensions for the month of december which were two and if you have any questions regarding that i'll be glad to answer them if not uh that is all my time for the evening oh thank you any other questions for dr wells very thorough thank you for all the covet and all the other work you're doing as well miss crouch madam chair members of the board you have at your place the budget monitoring forms enrollment information and other financial reports for the month of december you will note the enrollment is at 39.05 which is about 55 lower than what we budgeted instead when the
162governor presented his budget on december the 16th he did place in his budget enrollment loss funding for the for the state of virginia with that amherst county could see additional funding over and above what was budgeted of approximately 213 thousand dollars and that is due to they use the governor's budget numbers which was at 39.92 instead of our budget numbers which was 39.60 so we should finish the year in a very positive way we have also received notification that amherst county public schools will be receiving over 3.2 million dollars and the cares funds number three we have until september 2023 to obligate those funds and november 15 to spend those funds therefore we can continue with some of the expenditures that we have had this year such as child care the additional custodial staff instructional
163assistants and other items that will be presented in the upcoming budget we have spent the 450 000 invoice the board of supervisors and have received that money back we have also spent the 699 thousand dollars on ppea and other items for the cares act 2 money that report has been completed and submitted to the department of education i would be glad to answer any questions both numbers good news yes there are one important thing there in good shape yes well said all righty let's see here accountability accountability measures so the first thing on accountability is history update and i'm going to provide you with that uh presentation and so there were many questions over the last couple of months regarding the history standards and i just want to kind of walk you through what has
164happened at the state level uh what we're required as a division to do and then how we're going to respond to all of this and so here's a timeline if you look at it in 2019 the fall the 2015 history standards were approved they were implemented in the fall of 2020. now um what happened in the fall of this year with the 2015 um standards there were edits made there were additions made and those editions are are the uh the information that we've been discussing about what has been added there was no public comment provided by the vdoe for those edits but those edits were made and they were approved by the state board of education and we they were approved in the fall and they require us to start implementation of them in in
165fall of 21 so next school year what will happen then is that they're going to start working as well on the 2022 standards the new standards and so what will happen here in the next month or so is that our community will have the opportunity to speak to those standards and so we are going to encourage our community to look at those standards and to to speak at a state level what we uh so that's kind of the timeline of what has happened and so i'm going to kind of talk a little bit about what we're going to do with that and answer some of your questions that you had at the last meeting so as i said the video e approved the standards and amherst county public schools is to implement those standards according
166to this timeline established by vdoe it is important to note that [Applause] the school board policy i f calls on us to follow the standards of learning at a minimum and so we are required by our policy and the state department of education to follow those standards and those standards include those edits that were made this fall since there were no comments that would be enabled were made available we are going to take our own communities comments and questions and try to give feedback on that so i will show you at the end of this presentation what the screenshots will look like on our website what the the post that will be on facebook and twitter and those kinds of things to make sure our families understand what is going on with those edits we
167will provide training we're supposed to receive information and resources from the state we have not received that yet but we will not start teaching those standards until our teachers get the appropriate training [Music] do we anticipate them anytime they said march march okay um so and there was another question as to whether our history teachers are responsible for teaching them uh as they are our standards uh they are going to be treated like every other teacher that are required to follow and teach our standards because eventually if you if you know that they're going to be tested on those standards and so we want to make sure that our students have every opportunity to succeed on those tests the review process we will make sure we follow the same review processes that we always use
168for updating standards and as some of our speakers talked about tonight we do in fact have an african-american history course it is currently an elective and vdoe right now they're actually running a pilot program to get more of these courses into schools and so we weren't selected for that but there is discussion and i know miss thompson you would ask this question on whether or not that course was going to be required for graduation that decision has not been made at the state level but we certainly could um make sure that the your voice is heard in in those matters here's what it's going to look like we're going to have it on the front page so you'll see tomorrow morning at 7 00 am this will go on our front page updates to the
169history and social science curriculum parents can go in there and look at every single update that's been made they can and then they can click on a link that will take them to a google doc where they can put in uh what standards they reviewed and what questions or concerns they have and then we'll collect those and we'll respond individually to those parents or community members that have those questions we'll also put it under our curriculum and pacing guides so we want to make sure it's in several places so it's not difficult to find but we are going to put it it's going to be the top piece of the website so that's the first thing they'll see this will be one of our posts we just want to give you an example of one
170of our facebook posts that are going to allow our parents encourage our parents to review these standards and this is kind of where you would go once you click on the link to go into the uh the google form to fill out uh any questions or concerns and so that's what we know right now to this date now we understand that there will be more things to come including training resources for our staff [Applause] and so we'll keep you up to date as those things occur i hope that they answered the questions that this answered your questions about those standards but i'll be glad to take any other questions that i did not cover [Music] first i want to say thank you i am not opposed to changes i really don't know them or understand
171them yet so i appreciate the education about timeline that helps me i think it also helps our community and i really appreciate you reaching out to give parents feedback opportunities to review and feedback to be very transparent about that that's what i was hoping for um right wrong or indifferent i think that it's good communication like we've talked about tonight to be transparent to give our parents time to review and look at the changes and to make comments i think that's great and the changes that will be coming in 2022 i believe public comment will be taken by vdoe on those changes and we believe that's going to happen in february so it's almost like these things are running on separate tracks and so the 2022 ones are are going to be discussed while we're
172implementing the 2015 ones i know that sounds strange but that's it's kind of because it takes the state years to make all of this this happen and so uh that's that's exactly our understanding is the 2022 standards will be available for public comment in the next month okay but in order to do that they would need to go to ddoe to find well we will not as that said once that happens we will put that out there to our community thank you very much appreciate it [Music] okay okay uh the next piece is gifted ad report and i'll turn it back over to dr norman if i can add one more thing in you have in your packets information regarding the testing updates um this is the emergency guidelines for locally awarded verified credits the
173reason i'm bringing it up at this time is because we are utilizing this as you learned in december for our writing sols and um we are also using utilizing this for our history sols so we are in order to do that we are establishing a local review panel on that panel will be a division personnel from the content areas that are specific to the sols that are being addressed as well as myself special education and the assessment supervisor so that we can review all of that information if you have any questions i'll be more than happy to to take that but i also have in their updates for you regarding the specific um history sols that will be assessed this way and then an update on the writing sols and those history solves don't include
174the new no the gifted report that you have and is the state the state comes out annually and provides us with the virginia department of education gifted report there are several things that i just wanted to point out for you this is for your perusing as you see fit [Music] the state of virginia's gifted is 13.6 of the students in virginia public schools are identified as gifted while the national average is 6.5 in amherst county public schools in our population we are 6.2 identified as gifted i would like to say that our black and hispanic students are disproportionately underrepresented in our gifted programs we have 6.2 of our black students identified as gifted in comparison to but they make up 18.6 of our student population 81 in comparison to 81.7 of our white students while
175their population is 66.2 we are working with the diversity council in regards to making sure that we are identifying students that we are reaching out to that community that we are reaching out and making sure that our gifted specialists are working with all students and we'll bring back additional reports to you later on and it's important to to remember that is a part of our comprehensive plan uh that that we uh passed last year so just that specific issue trying to improve those numbers part of that plan you know what do we know why why like underrepresented represented what what white turtle i mean is there a cause i would have to say that um probably um information we're trying to get out as much information as possible um that our parents they a lot
176of our parents actually request for their child to be tested we don't see that a lot happening in our middle grades our middle school students and then once you hit middle school you're you're in that track because most of our tag respon our tag programs run through our advanced courses so we started probably four years ago maybe three years ago actually taking a gifted assessment of all six graders so we could identify them as well so there's another barrier because normally that happens in the second grade and then you it's by a student can you know present themselves or a teacher or a parent so that's probably that well and i think one thing to to consider too is that parents that are are engaged in and know the system uh tend to have better
177access to that and what we're trying to do is to make sure that our all of our parents understand the system and what's required and that way they can advocate for their child yeah good okay [Music] also in your packages for your information i usually give this annually is the program information for each of our areas one of the things that i do want to provide to you on the back side just to give you information our ap courses the school year since we are blocked this year it looks like it's been a decrease but it's not we just haven't had the second semester yet and then our cte credentialing in regards to the programs there they are always one year behind and so the 2020 information will not come out until 2021 so we're
178usually one year behind on that but that is just for your information then i'll move on to the next item i'm going to skip the transition plan because we've already reviewed that information and i would like to provide you information on our virtual learning one of the things that was requested from the board last month was just some specifics on differentiation and student engagement and what we have done with our teachers and provided them support so the first part of this document deals specifically with the professional development that we provided to all of our teachers at the beginning of the school year in june and august that was focused specifically on student differentiation in the remote setting and what that looked like and then throughout the school year we've been working on these strategies that
179we were provided by hanover research that are research based and best practices and we've been working not just with our face to face and in person but specifically our remote teachers our ara teachers and we'll be utilizing these throughout the year and just honing in on what how we can get our students engaged and then how we can differentiate and how we can adjust to whatever level that they come to us and meet the needs of each individual student that was just for information for you based on a request at last meeting the last thing that i would like to talk to you about in regards to virtual learning is just to give you an update in regards to our home visits and our hot spots so this coming um january january 25th through the
18029th we have five teams made up of three pers three employees per team an ara admin a division level person and a instructional support team member who will visit we're thinking it's going to be around 135 somewhere around the somewhere around there homes that we will visit of students in our remote academy these may be students who are struggling they may not have access to wi-fi they may have low attendance or not engaging in their google meets or turning in their paper packets but we've done we've made the calls we've talked to them we've done parent conferences one of the things that we haven't done is actually make that in-person visit to them and we're going to be completing those the last week in january along with that the hot spots that we purchased um
181250 of them 189 of our ara students we've we've tracked they have no access to internet so we have set aside those 189 hot spots that we'll be taking out to them when we do our home visits mr goldman and one of his technicians will be working with us to make sure that the hot spot is either a verizon or a t thank you very much which one would work best in the location that they are and will be working with him as well as the teams that are going out to visit the students and their parents and i'll answer any questions that you have in regards to that any any questions or comments well i'm watching my head i don't know if you're aware of a new internet option uh that i've been talking
182to some family t-mobile has got a new unlimited uh and if you can put their address in i know some people up in monica park that traditionally have not had service uh who were testing and got some really good and in the healing areas that's good because t-mobile we we had we tested t-mobile yes around too so that's good to know i'm thinking about that i just i just the parents listed that maybe all of that it's 50 a month which is very reasonable and they may be tough for some people right but uh depending on what their economic status is but it's an option and it looks like it's hitting in areas of the county that weren't typically provided or had other options that weren't as reliable [Music] i'm not paid endorsement disclaimer yeah
183i think the home visits i read the article i think it's going to be wonderful and um that starts win again end of the month what did you say yes january 25th through the 29th thank you and i do have um some of my team members by the time you leave tonight you should have a flash drive with all of the ppls on them so you can take with them because i know i can't get you canvas access until later on next week it's going to it'll take time okay and that's all i have moving on mr gallagher human resource chair members of the board good evening good evening um i'll start off tonight with a vacancy report as i typically do we do have two professional vacancies open we have two secondary science positions
184open one at amherst education center and one at amherst county high school one due to retirement mid-year another due to resignation just following a different career path so we are actively looking to fill those we have two classified positions open both custodial vacancies and both at amherst elementary school so we are actively also interviewing and to hire for those one is a full-time budget position the other is one of our one-year positions and somebody that left to move out of the area i will take this opportunity to again express my gratitude and thank you all for giving us what we need and allowing us to hire you know throughout the year to make sure that our students and our staff have what they need so thank you for that second an update on the school
185calendar for next school year the acps calendar committee met on january 8th and january 12th we did analyze division priorities to include those driven by the acps comprehensive plan some of those priorities probably got put on hold this year and it's been a very different year our calendar has looked very different and it's been a little difficult to meet some of those priorities that we are now back on track and moving forward to do that we developed two initial drafts options for the 21-22 school year and provided those two drafts to you along with a memo that kind of outlines the factors that we're taking into consideration the priorities that the committee considered in making those drafts i won't go into great detail at this time on the different priorities but we'll be sending those
186two drafts out to all of our employees for input and feedback next wednesday so you'll get that as well and it'll go out to all acps and that way we can seek their input and seek their preferences as there are two different options to choose from once we receive that feedback we'll take that input and i will provide a final draft for you all for the february in advance the february 11th board meeting at that point in time you can consider that and if it looks appropriate to all based on the feedback we've taken into consideration he may vote on it at that point in time so it's a little difficult to project what we're going to be looking at next year but we've done our best to anticipate that and take all the factors
187and consider any consideration and propose a few drafts that may work for us i'll take questions though on any of those if you haven't anybody we'll we'll look at the calendars as well when you send it i appreciate your input along with everybody else's and if you need to submit and put it directly to me once you've reviewed those as well uh feel free to do that the last time we met in december i had given some information about the new teacher forums for our elementary teachers we always appreciate the opportunity to get feedback from them to see how we're doing really and supporting them and bringing them along on friday the 11th after our last board meeting we held our secondary teacher forum a lot of the the things that were brought up in
188the in the elementary forum were similar to that in the secondary forum um but some of the challenges that they expressed at the secondary level were getting to know their students you know behind the mask sometimes it kind of creates that barrier even in the classroom when they're right there limited opportunities to be with their students to build those connections especially knowing that so many are remote some challenges that come with remote learning as was expressed by the elementary teachers in inconsistent work submissions sometimes student engagement especially in the lower levels in the ara and some school home communication so i think they've continued to work on those things and they've continued to get better and better as well uh the things that were most rewarding to our secondary new teachers were were also very
189similar to those of the elementary teachers and it came back to students and it was the interactions the relationships seeing them excited seeing their progress um and the opportunities to to be there make a difference for our students and so they very much have appreciated that they also noted that they were very happy with the administrative support and the mentoring supports that they've been provided with so that was a that was nice to hear back from them in a positive regard uh at the secondary forum and that's all the information this evening that i have for you but i'm happy to take any questions regarding any of that okay i just had a note that came to me uh could be for mr gallagher or dr arnold or teresa it says i'm not sure if
190you watched governor north from state of the union speech but in his speech he mentioned that virginia teachers had received a one-time bonus i just wanted to acquire as to why amherst teachers and staff did not receive this benefit i'll speak to that okay in my section okay all right thank you mr anything else for mr gallagher okay we're moving on uh okay so it is our the young people student reps yeah yes hello hello hello all right well hi i'm colson davis i'm back again um good evening madam chair members of the board uh currently we are getting back into the group of school uh coming back to the christmas parade and probably one of the longest one i've ever had which i fully enjoy and um there's not much to report on but
191i do have something our school has developed a group of students that have space in their schedules to go and fix chromebooks that have had damage that have been damaged and luckily i have been i got to be a part of this group and it's it's pretty cool i guess learning a new skill something that i guess i wouldn't really have done before ever in my life i now have that new skill and uh you're also doing a favor and fixing these chromebooks at the same time which i think is a really cool opportunity to have it's about all i have and i'll say that's in conjunction with that help desk that we talked about earlier on this is wonderful good evening board members and parents hope everyone had a great christmas and a new
192year the pandemic has changed a lot has changed the school year a lot due to the new class schedules this year and limited face-to-face time some of the teachers are talking are having difficulty in a reduced amount of time in my experience teachers are either covering the subject matter too quickly or are not able to cover all the material based on my interactions with students they are having a hard time learning online in my opinion any additional resources would be helpful the national honor society students have the opportunity to get volunteer hours by tutoring students virtually at this time mr crawford and mrs cruz are organizing virtual tutoring and will send out information to parents and students thank you good inside information yes absolutely thank you so much dr allen okay so the first thing
193i will do is talk a little bit about coven 19 beyond what dr wells talked about in december we were as a community at 76 cases per 100 000 and of course dr wells talked about all the quarantines that we had we have seen a recent spike uh it actually the end of christmas break went over a hundred we are back down to 89 but that is still rather high but as he has he uh shared with you our quarantine numbers and our positive cases are down so that's that's positive for us we still have a concern over parents sending sick children and or exposed children to school we understand the difficulty but we cannot stress enough how important it is to keep a child at home if they've been exposed if you know they've
194been exposed or or they're feeling poorly it is it is of utmost importance to us and so i say that because i want you guys to know that we continue to be committed to staying open i know lots of school systems still have yet to find a way to get open and so i'm very proud of what we've been able to do and we've often been asked what's it take to close the school well we found out this week what that took and it took about half of the staff being quarantined or out due to covet related issues and so we could not run school with that uh that few staff so that that will be why schools close um and because otherwise we feel like we're doing a really good job of continuing to
195move instruction forward and that that's uh due to a lot of effort by the folks in our buildings and dr wells and his team one of the other things we continue to get and mr cassisi i know you bring this up a lot but there's more and more data that is starting to come out since we've been in in this uh covet for quite a while now of the amount of students that are dealing with emotional distress the numbers of hospitalizations are increasing and so i think just as a justification of why we continue to press to be in school it's because some of the unintended consequences of not being at school are pretty devastating too and so um i know that i'm preaching to the choir here but i just wanted to to share
196that and and especially for folks that might be listening and wondering why we remain open because i think we've been able to to to handle it in our buildings and then provide quite frankly a safe haven for some of our students to be able to come to a safe space and and have positive interactions and so that's my covid update i know dr wells covered most of it especially the vaccines which is very important to for us to start moving forward i have a technology update dr norman took some of my technology updates so i got one for you the scs mobile units that we showed you at the last meeting three of them have been in place they are in place now uh one is at the tanglewood mobile home park ones at mount
197pleasant united methodist church and then one's at the monroe center we're currently trying to find one north of elan we're having problems finding a place where people can park and when we find the place where people can park we don't get a signal and so we're still working working through that so we have that one and one more to go but and we also miss ligand sent me some information that the cvcc center right here in the uh in the shopping center they have made their internet available to the parking lot basically so so we we have all of these units going in that give people more opportunity to be closer to where they are if they don't have internet and of course we're using the hotspots to to get there and i don't have
198any new updates on the fiber but it is still happening and it's still going very well so we'll we'll keep you updated as that goes are there any questions about technology specifically i will say just beyond the uh the student impact the learning impact with the availability internet the community in fact i talked to a woman that was able to facetime she lives up in the around the temperance area and she was able to facetime with her family over the holidays because of the internet there at the temperature so you know it's just the the the community well and i think and another thing that's really concerning in the medical field is the telehealth and able to get some of our families the the appropriate care that they need and so that's that's we feel
199like we're doing a service for the community as a whole okay governor's proposed budget so on december 16th he put out his budget if you'll remember in the spring of last year they had a special session where they they pulled back uh they they put out the forecasts of all of these declining revenue streams and so we were looking at a budget that was very different than what he had put out in the first part of the biennium sales tax and revenues in the state of virginia have far outpaced any of the projections that the governor made in the spring they keep going well beyond what's projected and and so the we're actually in a better place now with our budget than we would have been last year at this time which is it's pretty
200amazing uh but i think a lot of people are are shopping online uh that's where they're buying goods and then the sales tax continues to go up so what that means is the governor's budget he was able to restore a lot of the things that was taken out and add more to it so here are some of the things that were added so as we talked with our legislators about uh and miss crouch talked about this budget getting the adm hold harmless monies our next year's budget is also going to get the adm hold harmless and one of the things that they have advised us to do is to use the governor's projection so you know we have lots of debate over what what number we should be using they have advised us to use
201their number which they have it at 39.34 i believe so that really gives us because we get the adm no no harmless hold harmless money that gives us some cushion next year as well if we fall below that number so that was really good news and very helpful to most uh school systems i think it would be probably appropriate this time i didn't i didn't bring it up in the i should have brought it up in the cove section i meant to but since we're talking about numbers one of the things that we we got from the state was a comparison of k12 fall enrollment from last year to this year and as you can see in the red column all of the students that have left public education and if you could look at
202the top line and see the percentage decrease in amherst county in relation to the state average and our neighbors i want to say that our plan and what we're doing in our schools are keeping our students in schools they're not they're not fleeing for other opportunities and i'm very proud of that number uh because i think it is a it is a real testament to the work that's been done here that our community trusts us and and they're staying in school um because i'll be honest statewide 38 000 students have left public education and that's a real it's a real problem when you're talking about getting most of your funding from adm and so i want i just wanted you guys to have that because i think it's a bit of good news and i
203think that's important to hear uh the good news but uh so that's that was one of the things the adm hold harmless so i appreciate you guys advocating for that with our legislators the two percent bonus was what governor northam put in his budget in december so nobody's received that two percent bonus yet but what he stated this week was that if revenue projections uh continue to uh outpace well what they had they had said they would be he would move to make it a two percent raise or higher that was the exact language because i went back to the newspaper article so it looks like as opposed to a two percent bonus which doesn't impact vrs and uh it's a one-time uh number two percent raise would be much more beneficial to our staff
204and so we we we hope to get some more money there to to make that happen uh one of the other things that they were providing money to make sure that we had 325 counselors to one student to one 325 students to one counselor that makes more sense but amherst county already does that right so uh i just wanted you to know what the governor put in his budget but we're we're we've already met that uh they're they're increasing the per student allotment for vpi students so those students i know that the governor's one of his big pushes has been early childhood education and he wants to provide more money per child and so we're going to get some more money there and of course the cares act which ms crouch talked about 3.2 million
205dollars we can use that to get us through the next couple of years especially since things might not change completely back to the way it's always been and so it's going to require that added resource and so we have we'll have some we'll have some ideas about that for you guys when we start to present the budget we do anticipate some increase in expenditure so we we're receiving more revenue from the state but as always our bills go up too we are waiting for our consultants to give us the health insurance uh projection we uh we we anticipate that on the second weekend second week of february so y'all will know that by the time we put the budget out there but um of course in most cases that insurance rate goes up and so
206we understand that that will be an increase to our expenditures we mentioned in the fall the hvac maintenance contract that we have with southern air that has been unchanged for nine years they want there at the end of their cycle and so we're gonna have to re-up uh we're we're seeking different options out there but we we believe it's going to go up so that yearly maintenance fee is going to go up and so that's going to be an increased uh reoccurring expenditure to the to the school system and of course staff compensation which i know is always important and uh so that will increase what we uh what we have to expend it but those are the three things that we are certain of right now that are going to be increased expenditures so
207i think overall very good news um and i think we can ms krauss and i've talked several times about being able to put together a very positive budget for you guys moving forward i've received a couple of a couple of folks have put input on some of their budget priorities if you've not done that please do that before we you know we're gonna start getting into the uh crunching numbers piece of this and so if you can do that i'd appreciate it but this time i'll take questions about his budget now remember the house and the senate still need to to do their thing but it's uh that'll happen in uh late february i believe yeah february 27th anything right now gentlemen please jim jim i think it was that question that you got was
208in rel because i think one of those what people are seeing in the use locally in some other schools right so in other schools so other school systems gave bonuses but it is important to note that amherst county gave raises to their employees that these other school systems did not give and while bonus is nice it doesn't impact long term it doesn't impact your vrs and so um we felt really good about the fact that we were the only place that gave that kind of raise last year so i hope that answers that question sure the person is listening anything else now it seemed like pretty good news so far early on yet very early on i'm scared because last year well we failed fairly well but also yeah you're right all right um continue
209on okay for uh this will be the last time i can remind you that your statement of economic interest is due to miss crouch by the end of the month she will come looking for you don't get it to her and if you need help or assistance you certainly can reach out to her i put down here uh our our retreat uh information about the vsba in our retreat so as i was thinking about this today and a couple of days before i wanted to make sure that we use that time wisely i don't think we're going to need but half a day at that retreat for our budget so i want to use the other half to be productive and so we had decided that we would use time in february to deal with
210the equity so what we would like to be able to do is find some time that vsba can work with us as a a group on uh governance training and and and re-looking at our norms and making sure that as a as a group we're still going in the right direction ms liggin and i have talked about that they have reached out to us and they have space available so what i would like to do on march 4th is do half the day with budget and half the day with the virginia school board association i just think it's always good to to kind of keep up with uh what what is new and what is what is expected of all of us and so any questions about that i'm just um what day you throwing
211out there so that's march 4th that's on our budget calendar and then i'm going to get you uh options for february for the equity discussion everyone okay with that we already knew about the march yes okay and my last piece is school board election cycle so up in the fall we have three of our members ms wright i'm sorry for the third straight year you have to go through the process and so um you're up miss thompson i believe you're up in the fall in mr sisi europe in the fall i'm just giving you the reminder that if you intend to run again filing is due by june 8th and they'd like you to be a little early on that so they can process it all but just just um and certainly if if you're
212thinking about not running or running i it would i would appreciate the the conversation uh prior to that um as we move forward and my last piece is you have a magazine at your place lynchburg living we have marked the pages that amherst is on uh we have uh one ad on one page and then the the top school award on another page so those are your copies we wanted you to have those i'd like to say as well lynchburg living's parent company virginia living does a top schools school systems in the state and amherst is also going to be recognized in that publication so when we find when we get that we'll we'll forward those along to you as well so really good news for our schools obviously that the work that they're doing
213is being noticed miss liggin that is all i have okay well we're gonna expedite once again boy members do you have i don't think um let's see stem so um i would like to thank again everybody who spoke on the equity issues please give the board a chance to get it right um we want to make sure it's right um mr thompson thank you for sticking around um i jot down notes when people talk also and my notes said that you're just a very powerful speaker appreciate everything you said it hit home thank you very much for coming um i wish she was here again i would like to thank her again for showing up i'd love to hear her perspective everybody administration provide a great amount of data uh i'm glad you're keeping up
214with it because there's no way i could do it all you guys always provide us way more than we can keep up with reagan i love hearing the information from the students it's one thing to have programs in place but if somebody's struggling we need to know about it and we can't fix it if we don't know about it so anything you bring to us is great we'll make sure we get somebody on those things um like you said um we have got a great program we want to keep it that way and you guys helped us with that uh i'd also like to express um uh thanks to my fellow board members and people in the community for supporting you recently and um that's it for tonight thank you okay guys no committee reports
215but uh thank you uh for those that spoke public comment uh for sharing their perspectives um reagan uh thank you you know i'm just curious i don't get too much cross dialogue here but as far as the when they said they were having difficulty learning online did they give any specifics of why is it because of would they rather have the interaction with yes i think and i'm not trying to that's that's that's the same kind of thing i keep hearing i just i use this as my platform to reiterate that i really really really really really believe that's an important piece of education so just continue to try to find opportunities to work on that and i look forward to getting this budget cycle i am hoping teacher raises was one of my uh
216top three budget priorities so you know i'm always trying to keep very happy i hope they do remember i saw some comments online not too long ago when the other localities started giving bonuses and i want to say that hey do you remember in july we stepped up we were the only locality that did the raises and in 20 years from now when you start getting that vrs retirement check you're going to thank us because that 1500 or 500 or whatever it is is going to be long gone so just uh please continue to remember that and don't have the short term you know let's keep the long term vision going so but thank you all for your hard work all the staff the the employees that spoke tonight you know i know this is
217a very sensitive topic to a lot of people but in no way in no way does it take away from my appreciation for what they do for this school system every day and they might be a lot of personal feelings tied up in that but if anything especially those individuals that spoke tonight that work in the school system they are appreciated they are loved and i value their input so thank you stop we'll go go back with you a little bit uh miss berg as i just called i can't hear anybody okay um yes i just like to say thank you to all our community speakers that came out tonight um your voices were heard and we will try to get some actions going to make everybody happy if we possibly can and also our
218student reps i always enjoy hearing you guys speak and looking forward um to a new year and hopefully a fresh new start here and we could move forward and hopefully get our students back in school soon thank you [Music] yes uh the governor's school didn't have a meeting this month so there's no committee report and i don't want to belabor it i want to thank everybody again for speaking and all of the hard work and i look forward to working together on this equity matter and another school year hopefully we won't be where we were last year this time so so proud of all the work we've done so far thank you mr cece uh same goes for me double now we we i don't want to fall into the ears i mean i think
219when we say we really thank everyone we really do um you know we're not in your shoes and so we can't we can't really relate to how much you're doing but as much as we understand it at least for me i know you guys are working your butts off and so um everything that your effort you're putting into helping our community helping our kids it really is appreciated even though sometimes it may seem like it or we have some disagreements um i think overall we have the same goal we're on with the community members i appreciate everything they're doing i mean this is one journey that we're taking together and there might be some mistakes and some disagreements but it's okay to agree to disagree that's how we move forward it's how we resolve things
220is to acknowledge where our weaknesses are and rise above it be better the next time so i want to thank all the community members came out to speak um you you were definitely heard uh it it really does mean a lot that we had that much um that much input because it shows that it is a subject that needs to be talked about um i also want to say the home visits i'm very happy that home visits are happening because of course don't hurt me right about some of this emotional mental health stress and so forth this is any another avenue we can help with that as well as other things so um and i do really like the idea of this virtual tutoring um it's kind of a win-win situation and um any any
221kind of win-win is a win so um again i guess guess that's all you got thank you so much ms thompson um i want to let you know that i'm very thankful for the amateur county public school family sometimes families don't see things eye to eye all the time um but in the same vein we are able to talk about it like i said be a team work on it together i do appreciate all the work and the effort that has been put in as mr cassisi said you know we're not there with you every day so we don't actually know but in the same time we see the results of your work and we know that you're working hard and we appreciate every single one of you know that we represent the community and
222while we love our family we also have a responsibility to answer to our our constituents so for that reason we do sometimes see things from different perspectives but for family to be able to come together and reason together and be open to dialogue and for moving forward i really appreciate the family for that so thank you very much well as usual well said and so i'm just going to conclude by saying we have a great deal of work that i look forward to being a part of it's not individual situation uh the to-do list is going to be pretty good for us we really want to dr norman you brought to light one more time why we wanted to have an equity officer here in amherst county uh because we're slipping a little bit on
223what we said about five six years ago about the gifted program we had the conversation about the numbers of the gifted program the unrepresentation and now we've seen it going back to where we were so i don't it's not about his fault but we need to best practices only as good as the practicer so we need to look at that we need to be sure that we include i'm not i've heard this before about parents not knowing but but see the counselors do know if your student is making straight a's then someone should know and someone should say your student or your child qualifies for this program so we have to reach out from the other side especially now with covert and all these sort of things we can't expect for parents to say well
224so there's a gifted program i need to call somebody no it's to reverse your student is an a student i'm going to call you and get you involved i've had that before and so we do want to look at that uh with a great deal of meaning and then of course dr arnold we do want to appreciate what the diversity committee is doing and we don't want their work to go in vain so we we're not going to let that lie we need to get right on that get information uh have a conversation and let's try to get that in in the middle not the middle but the upper part of february so that we can put the community we don't want the community thinking that we have uh deep rest if you will but
225other than that i'm excited to be here and back to what i said that keeping the main thing the main thing is that we are still in a pandemic and we appreciate what you all are trying to do to carry the school through these dogs and we hope to everybody continue to be well the vaccine whether you choose to get it or not could be a turning point could be a turning point something's got to be a turning point so that we can all do something that we need to do but thank all the committees and all the central office workers and ms krauss for keeping the money so wonderful for us and wayne and company for keeping the buildings up and every time i pass the school bus now i don't pass it like
226i used to wayne um i want you to know i stopped now except i saw somebody who didn't stop at the pizza hut again but i did he knows what i'm talking about so i think we have a good time ahead of us so if nothing else we're going to dr all you have a reason for us to go into closed session respond to section 2.2-371181 of the code of virginia i a closed recommend for the purpose of discussing a personality matter do i have a vote all right emotions session second all in favor will any action be taken no ma'am no actually we'll be safe okay we're going next door yes thank you so much thank you everybody for justin and all for waiting [Music] so [Music] foreign we're on this uh wonderful uh
227float here that uh has a ceiling which is which is great and we have a couple of some a lot of a lot of amenities around us and that is because the amherst county uh lancer tech club and the building trades classes uh collaborated on putting this whole set together it was quite a project so i want to first thank mike cargill and the amherst lancer tech club and mr roy pryor who is the instructor of the building trades class this is all student generated and it and it's and it's fantastic and once again it's why amherst county public schools is such a wonderful place because our students are involved in in all of these projects so if this truck is ready to go we uh i think we are ready as well yep let's
228roll on and show everybody what we have to offer tonight oh our chauffeur is working his way back now i just saw him come back well for everybody's perspective we are at the uh the second amherst exit uh we're at the end of north main street up near grandview drive and that's where we'll be starting and uh mayor tuggle will talk to you a little bit as we we go down the street about the house decorating contest get on the trailer once we get close to the houses i'll walk but i don't want to have water so just just be patient with us we usually have technical difficulties in the best of situations and circumstances and these aren't the easiest circumstances to deal with but we will be with you shortly all right so i'm
229being told that to fix some of these issues we're going to go to a quick two minute break and we'll be back with you [Music] shortly [Music] uh [Music] papa [Applause] our finest gifts we bring [Music] so to honor him [Music] my i am a poor boy shall [Music] all right welcome back and uh just a little uh idea about what's going on right now we're traveling down north main and we're getting up to the best decorated residence awards they were given out by our secret judges for decorate best decorated residences and business our secret judges were linda gartler and colleen martinez these ladies drove up and down main street several nights viewing the houses and the business displays they said it was fun to look and experience the level of spirit and christmas and
230the beauty of the decorations we thank them and totally agree with all their choices the first number one for the best residence is 369 north main street if you're traveling south down north main street it's going to be on your right hand side um so make sure if you're coming down there's a uh a banner out front saying that it was the actually in traffic so that's what's slowing us down that it was the number one house uh number one residents and uh so we'll stop in a couple minutes by that house and uh then we'll move on dr ono so i think right now we are we are in the line to uh to view all of the the parade on the parade route and we're at the back of the line so uh
231we will be moving slowly to get to to get to these houses so we can show the viewers what uh what won the decoration awards i'll save mayor tuggle even though it was very rainy at 6 30 we had cars backed up to 29 waiting to to start the start the parade and so we have a lot of folks out there right now on the parade route watching despite the weather and so i think it really shows the the need for this type of event uh during this this uh crazy year that we've had and so uh the goal and what amherst the town of amherst has done is is to to provide some some cheer some holiday cheer uh during a very difficult year and so uh we want to thank them for all
232that they have done this year yeah it is uh it's unbelievable i think people just uh needed to get out and some to have some as i said have some happiness and that's what this is about and as we're heading down main street we see in the the other houses and stuff everybody's decorated um is coming up right about okay mark need to go to mark mark okay we are pulling up to the uh best decorated house and in a few minutes you or less than that a few seconds you will be able to see the house our camera guys are on their way so just uh just to help people understand uh there's one side of this trailer we cannot see out of and the other we can and of course the best decorated
233house is going to be on the side that we cannot see out so we have to send a cameraman over to that side and show us everything people that are going to see the parade i need to hand like the headlights yeah i guess it's actually it's not it looks pretty good on it uh no because everything we have is on this is all i think the people that are going by i think we're a float yeah and i guess we are well one other thing i'd like to go ahead while we're waiting and they're getting the camera out there uh we would like to give kudos to the uh village garden club uh they deserve mention because in a big shout out because for their contributions to the decorations at the traffic circle the
234post office the museum town hall memorial park the fire hall and the library so we need to give them a big shout because uh they came out and did all this and year after year they're right there doing it right there's not a better not a better scene in amherst than that uh that circle going out okay let's go ahead and bring mark back let's go ahead and bring mark back and then we're going to go on to the next house uh duane was there anything we're supposed to be giving them no we uh will not give them anything until uh they've already everybody the residences and the businesses has already received their [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] merry christmas everybody this is my gift for you [Music] oh the weather [Music] so
235[Music] so [Music] do [Music] blue [Music] which is great people here uh looking at the lights and just enjoying an old-fashioned christmas which is a theme for amherst so uh we've been told from the uh the studio that there are 35 people currently watching on facebook and you're making some comments and mr campbell had asked um mayor tuggle to smile more so we're going to work on that as we move forward here mr campbell and uh get some joy in there thank you a lot mr campbell i appreciate that and as you put in some things on uh youtube and facebook we can we can uh respond to them accordingly yeah it's gonna be another minute or so before we get down to the second and third place winners here in the house decorating contest
236but if uh in your live stream you're seeing the other houses here on main street that's uh decorated i think i'm going to make a decision here but you guys are okay with this i want to instead of stopping so we're going to drop mark off with two light people at the house and then we keep going so that we can and we'll use his camera so we can continue to get down the road faster okay okay hold on we got a change in plans jeffrey says these two houses are across from each other [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] as we're coming up uh we're coming up on uh we'll be coming up on 227 north main uh it is the sparrow house uh toesie and stella we just did at 360. okay that's not the
237house then jeffrey how far are we a closed meeting on this state pursuant to an affirmative record conv to an affirmative recorded vote and it's in accordance with the provisional virginia freedom of information act and whereas 3712 22.3712 the code of virginia requires a certification by this board that such a closed meeting was conducted in conformity with the virginia school law now therefore be resolved that the amazon school board hereby certifies it 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 motion were heard discussed or considered motion to certify a commission certified second miss ligand yes ms thompson
238yes mr cassisi yes mr eiser yes yes this is right yes mrs berg yes thank you do i have a motion to adjourn um what's this [Music] uh [Music] time [Music] foreign [Music] two [Music] it