School Board Meeting - 5/7/2026 - 5:00 PM

0012026 [clears throat] uh regular meeting of the Bedford County School Board uh to order. Um Miss Johnson, will you please call the vote? >> Mr. Daniels >> here. >> Dr. Hubach >> here. >> Miss Dobson >> here. >> Mr. Hill >> here. >> Mr. Hullbrook >> here. >> Mr. K >> here. >> Miss Parvis >> here. >> Mr. Mr. Chairman, you have a quorum. >> Thank [snorts] you very much. All right. 1.04. Let's stand for the pledge of >> allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Please uh bow your heads for a moment of silence. Thank you. 2.01. >> Hey, Mr. Chairman. [clears throat] Um, if you could request a motion

002to approve the agenda. >> Oh my gosh, I skipped that. All right, let's go back to 1.03. Do I have a a motion to approve the agenda? >> So, move. >> All right, have a motion. Second, and we have a second. Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I opposed. We are approved. We did 104 and05. So 2.01 superintendent student advisory. [clears throat] >> Before I present my superintendent report tonight, I am excited to introduce several members of the students stu superintendent student advisory council to speak to their concerns about vaping of their peers and on their campuses. Students from Liberty High School, Stanton River, and Jefferson Forest have worked collectively this past year on a vaping prevention awareness campaign for their individual campuses and for the school division as a

003whole. We are proud of their work and excited to see their drive to make a difference on their campuses and their communities for years to come. I'm going to turn this over to Dr. Woodford at this point who has a presentation that we've worked on that will show what the kids have been doing on their campuses. >> Thank you, [clears throat] Mr. pair. So, I'm excited to share with you the work of our superintendent student advisory council and the incredible efforts our students have made this year in ways raising awareness about vaping. To begin, I'd like to provide a little bit of background on the superintendent student advisory council. This group is made up of juniors and seniors from all three high schools who have applied at the beginning of the school year and they

004were chosen by their administration to represent their high schools. These students commit their time to attending meetings, providing feedback to staff, and collaborating as a unified team to help improve our schools. The council meets with their executive staff every few months to share their perspectives and their ideas. This year, we expanded the group to include ninth and tth grade students as well, allowing for an even broader representation across our schools. These students met only with the high school teams at their individual schools. At this time, I'd like to recognize our team. While not all members could be here tonight due to athletics, graduation work, and all of their commitments as um teenagers and young adults, every single student contributed to the work that you're going to see presented this evening. Um, the students who served

005this year from Jefferson Forest High School were Leo Chang, Ella Wyn, Audrey Stennet, Carter Woody, Zo Nabila, Sarah Harper Richardson. The students who served from Stanton River High School are Carla Overreet, I'm sorry, Carly Overreet, Angelita Ray Simpson, Khloe Ferguson, Justin Muno, Arrington Short, Logan Bivvens, and Hope Dolan. The students from Liberty High School are Grayson Andrews, Tan Parker, Gary Staples, Stella Kirby, Eli Stevens, and Cara Alfen. Now, you may wondering why vaping awareness. So during the 202425 school year, the superintendent student advisory council spent considerable time identifying problems that affect all schools in our school division. While many strong ideas were discussed, one issue continued to rise to the top. Substance use, specifically tobacco and vaping. students spoke passionately about the disruptions vaping co vaping causes not only within the school environment but also

006in students personal lives. When the executive team met prior to the start of the school year, they reflected on how meaningful and important these conversations had been. Because of that, they chose to carry this work forward with this year's student council. In addition, the executive team knew that the students wanted to bring actionable work to their schools. At our first meeting in October, we introduced the idea of expanding awareness and education around anti- vaping. The central office pledged $200 per high school to support studentled campaigns, giving schools the flexibility [clears throat] to use those funds in ways they felt would be most effective. Students then returned to their schools and recruited two freshmen and two sophomores to join their efforts. This ensured that each school's campaign included voices from across all grade levels. Following that,

007members of the executive staff and the community visited each school to meet with these expanded teams and hear their plans. In addition, principles from each school generously matched the central office funding, providing even more resources to support the students work. Each school team led by members of the student um advisory council developed a plan to educate their peers about the dangers of vaping. When we met again in March, students presented their ideas, plans, and progress. As we all know, the winter months brought some challenges and shortened their timeline. But despite that, the work they shared was incredibly impressive. Their ideas were innovative, thoughtful, and clearly meaningful to their peers. By the end of that meeting, students began working together to combine their ideas into a divisionwide campaign. At our most recent meeting last month, they

008continued to build on that progress and shared additional updates with the executive team. I could easily spend much more time talking about their work um and how it will continue, but I think it's much more meaningful if you hear directly from the students themselves. So, first we have Sarah Hope Richardson, Carter Woody, and Ella Win from Jefferson Forest High School who will walk through their process this year. So, we started off by obviously coming here and talking and addressing all the issues. And one thing that we talked about that we could do was create a podcast, meet with the middle schools, and when we figured out all of what we wanted to do, we went back to JF and we met with our SEA, and we got two representatives from the sophomore class and two

009representatives from the freshman class, and we all met together. And then from there, we broke up into groups. So, one group got to make a Google form that we sent out across to the entire school so people could fill out their forms and it was anonymous so they didn't feel like they had to lie or get in trouble and just to try and gauge how much vaping like the issue was at our school. And that got sent out and I'm not sure what the results were for that. And then we had another group that went to the middle school and they met with I think it was Dr. Norman and then two teachers and maybe an assistant principal. And they introduced the idea of going in and doing fun like pep rallies, posters, and having

010like a moving up day, which would be where um the middle schoolers and maybe even elementary schoolers in the future could pledge that they wouldn't vape moving up just to try and get it in their heads and work everything out. And I don't think that they've gotten back to them yet. Well, we uh designed like lesson plans for the middle schoolers and we talked to the PE teachers because they are in charge of health and so we thought that we could incorporate it into the health um curriculum and [clears throat] we created presentations and like pre-esting Google forms post tests and we got it approved with them but because it's so close to the end of the year they didn't think that they would have time to implement it. So, I was talking to her

011and she's I'm talking to her about getting the juniors to do it next year. A def a definitive thing for next year. So, we're excited about it. >> So, me and Sarah Harper, our little group, we one of us two and then the sophomore that we I guess recruited to help us with our video. We started making we have something called the Cavalier Corner here at JF. And it's just something where people can share podcasts and videos and most of it will get included in the Cavaliere recap that we have every month. So, we communicated to Mr. Newton, the head of the film and design class at our school. And we actually got to go in and use the microphones and make kind of a podcast or educational video that would hopefully be in the

012cavalary recap or even shown to kids in their gym classes next year. And we also got involved with other clubs. Well, I think we're also working to we have a lot of clubs at our school. I think we're act we've already been actively working with the student council SCA as you know recruiting people and do you guys >> um I talked a little bit I'm the president of our key club as well and I talked a little bit about it with our key club and like getting involved with it because I think that well I mean I'm I'm a senior so I obviously won't be coming back but getting juniors to try and start like an actual vaping prevention awareness club for next year and getting kids involved with that like um we've had a

013lot of new clubs this year so it's definitely a possibility to have Um, I think that most we have like so many different groups doing different things across different schools. So, I know that [clears throat] we pretty much went over everything that we have. >> Thank you guys so much for sharing. So, um, next we're gonna hear from Hope Dolan from Stanton River High School. >> Hi. Um, I I was a part I we did similar things to JF. We um went back to our my home school and recruited two sophomores and two freshman and we broke off into groups and I was a part of um I came up with a design for a t-shirt and we um we actually made it was really cool time at the time. So, we made crew necks

014and I don't have it with me today, but I know on the picture um that the feeling good, it's clear lungs, um clear mind, no vape on the back. And it's kind of a spin-off of like the Nike symbol like just don't do it. That's on the front of it. So, we um I'll get to that in a minute, but how we disperse those, but we spent a lot of time um we handmade them like with the Cricut. So, we made those shirts and then we also um similarly to JF, we made a podcast and we got that wasn't my group, but we made we got the SRO and our chemistry teacher to take apart a vape and explain the negative outcomes of um using for long-term effects and just showing like literally what is

015in the vape and what you're inhaling. And we played that during uh fourth period. And we also did a survey as well and um it was anonymous so um nobody's identity was revealed or whatever. And there's just questions about um you know do you babe, why do you vape? like share your story. Are you well are you um would you want to come on a future podcast to um share your story? And um we did get I the results um were almost about 50% of the school um shared their results which was very very surprising to me because I know in my fourth period class everybody was just like oh like just interrupting but maybe that was just my class but there was a lot of participation with the survey which was very good and

016um a majority of school the school did say like oh I don't vape but you know there was about 15% that said you I do. And then some stories were shared which was surprising again. Um and then um survey. Yeah, we did a um in one of our spring pep rallies uh we took time at the beginning and I gave a little speech about um I guess we call ourselves BPA um vaping prevent prevent prevention um and uh just you know who we are, what we do and then that we kind of threw shirts into the crowd and surprisingly a lot of people wanted the shirts and continue to wear them to school today. And so that's a way of um spreading awareness in our school of like you know we're here to support anybody

017and um they're welcome. I know next year we'll probably um do more outreach and you know posters and stuff like that. And then again for future like next year, I know we'll meet pretty soon after school starts again to um I know Liberty will talk more about it, but um doing like a signing off to vaping poster um and that's either can be made or bought and then displayed at lunches or hung up in hallways or bring that to like moving up day for the eighth graders and just have them like sign it and just kind of pledge like I'm not going to vape and that again just brings awareness to the schools. And um also getting a guest speaker. Uh probably well we want to shoot for someone who's on the younger side like

018closer to our age and to someone who's obviously um overcome their addiction to vaping and then just share their story. And I think we all collectively kind of think that having a younger guest speaker would um touch more of the students because it's not somebody of like the wordy, you know, telling them don't do it. So, we think just providing a positive environment for students to come either ask for help or just feel included. Um, we believe that would make a big impact in our school. >> Well, thank you both. Um, lastly, while representatives from Liberty High School were unable to join us tonight, Mrs. Kristen Eins will share an update on their work. >> So, thank you. Uh, like Dr. Woodford said the high school group couldn't attend tonight due to previous engagements. However,

019we still wanted to highlight their excellent work and ideas. They have the focus on bringing awareness and prevention um to students through like visible and engaging activities. You've heard both of the other schools say they want to gain pledges and uh interact with other students during hightra times such as lunches. They actually I think this week got their banner in. We haven't got an update yet. So, um, again, due to weather and closures and things like that this week, we've or this winter, we've we've struggled to keep it going, but they've done a great job building momentum. Um, they actually came up with hashtags for social media challenge at Liberty, one you'll hear about here in a little bit that we're going to use next year. Um, so they're going to hopefully end the school

020year um, with education and healthier lungs. They do want to keep that momentum going through the next school year. The banner they hope will continue to gain signatures through interactions at lunch. They have many engaging glo clubs like Jefferson Forest said and they want to incorporate vaping awareness into those. And then one of their most favorite ideas they wanted to share was next year they hope to work with LHS performing arts to create kind of an interactive play that they can go to the elementary schools and engage with kids and and make it a fun educational tool. >> Thank you. So, let me just briefly highlight what's ahead for our student advisory. Um, as Mrs. Zen said in our April meeting, students discussed how do you sustain this initiative beyond this school year. We have

021many seniors preparing to graduate in just a few short days, and our current juniors have already committed to continuing this work. They plan to develop a divisionwide messaging centered around being uncclouded um as part of the Bedford County Public Schools vaping prevention awareness efforts. This includes creating a shared logo, developing swag and merchandise, and collaborating across schools through social media. They're also excited to expand their impact by working with younger students through open houses, move up days, and even elementary school assemblies. Additionally, they plan to take advantage of awareness events such as April 1st, which is tobacco use awareness day to further educate students across the division. Collaboration will remain a key focus as they continue working with school administration, the executive team, and one another through platforms like podcast, school news programs, and divisionwide

022messaging campaigns. As we close, I just want to take a moment to say how proud we are of these students. Their leadership, their dedication and willingness to take on this important issue truly speaks volumes about the character of our students. Thank you to our students for giving their time and energy even with their many other commitments. Thank you all as well to our teachers and administrators for supporting and encouraging this work every step of the way. We're incredibly excited to see how this initiative continues to grow in the coming year. Um, and I am sure we are the students will be happy to answer any questions. >> All right. Thank you. Any questions? >> Switch it up. >> I love the t-shirts. >> Thank you. >> That's a that's a gift that keeps on giving.

023It's like that's that's great. And I love the the the posters thing where they're actually signing their name to that. That's fantastic. And you guys are working on getting your forms in like the form that the Google form. >> Yeah. >> And I think we're also working on um making more videos or I guess more podcast episodes every month for next year. And then every month we're trying to make sure that teach like home room teachers are showing the videos at the beginning of like a class period every month. Oh, so those podcasts are actually shown in the classroom. So, >> yeah, we're trying to get it there, but right now I think it's just going to be included vocabulary recap. >> We also talked about um our officers like Dare Days like this what

024she mentioned like with Stanton River and we were going to try and do that too like also have the officers that go in and talk in all the classrooms to talk about our program too and even show some of the videos in there as well. Thank you for doing that, ladies. You guys are inspiring. Very good. Thank you, >> Mr. Collins. Any questions? >> I I have a few. Um, [clears throat] when you did your uh survey of vaping at Stan River, you said it's about 15%. Was that total tobacco use or nicotine products or just vaping? >> Just vaping. >> Did you happen to question about other nicotine use? I don't believe so. >> Okay. If you had to estimate if it Why do you think that the vaping is such a larger prevalence

025as opposed to like Zen pouches or cigarettes, things like that? >> I know. Well, I know cigarettes produce a a smell that can't be easily hidden. And I know just vaping is easier to either hide or just use on the daily. And um I guess it's also cooler. Uh I know zens are they're I know they are widely used. Um we could that's a that's a great idea to ask about that in a future survey, but it's just we just asked about vaping because that's just >> Yes, ma'am. >> Sorry. I know that you weren't asking me, but I just wanted to pitch in on that like question like the vaping versus the cigarettes and the Zen pouches. I feel like personally I think it's because I think vaping is easier to hide as a

026student cuz for cigarettes you have to light them and you can't really do that in school. And also Zen pouches I guess just aren't as cool and I guess you could probably tell if somebody has it. But vaping at school, I know a lot of students, it's just really easy to hide. And I think it's really also easy to get your hands on. And I think that's like a main problem is that people are like sharing it rather than people sharing like other stuff. >> Do you think this is happening primarily at school or do you think it's happening outside of school? >> I think it's primarily happening at school because it's really easy to just go to the bathroom and share something from someone else. And most people, if you're hanging out at somebody's

027house, they're not going to have their vape out because their parents probably don't know that they're doing this stuff. [clears throat] >> Just to pitch in on that, I know um some my friends and other people I know, they only vape at school because again, they their parents don't know. And so they're they get it from their friends. And so it's just easy access to get it from other people who have it from either their adults at home who do it or older siblings. Have any of you looked at the socioeconomic aspect of the vaping with how it transitions across different income levels? >> I know um personally I haven't, but I know um another [snorts] um student a part of this um who's not here today. He he looked into that. I know that.

028So I don't have that information, but it was looked into. >> Do you know what that student's name is? >> Arrington Short. >> Short. Um, also to pitch in on that, I think that a lot of people are uneducated about vapes and they think that they're safer to use than tobacco or Zen pouches or anything like that, which I think it's why it's important that we're making those podcasts because we actually talk about the dangers of vaping, how they're just as dangerous as those are. Like a lot of people with tobacco, they say you can get like mouth cancer, but with vaping, you can get lung cancer, they can cause seizures, which it's important that they like took apart the vape and like did the chemistry of all of that. And we also did talk

029like briefly about when we were all together about like making it known to parents, too, because just as many kids that like get addicted from vaping with their friends at school also have parents at home who are giving them vapes. And I like there's kids at my school that I've known of that have been vaping since like 8th grade and their parents go and buy them vapes and it's just as big of a concern in that standpoint too. So I think that it's important and like one of our future goals is to make it more widespread so that adults can be educated just as much as kids can. >> Thank you. Thank you guys for uh presenting this and becoming part of this uh committee. Um how do would you guys measure success from this

030from this initiative? >> I think um I don't I didn't talk about it but our social media challenge um we would um mainly do it on Instagram. You can create a tag and we would do hashtag unclouded and you can post a picture to your story of just whatever that tag says like to do like go [cough] on a hike and you post a picture on a hike and so that would be a good way to measure our success. Um basically about outreach and people who are influenced by it. I know we can't, you know, get to everybody and ask, "Hey, do you rape now?" or something, but um I think by doing that social media challenge, I know last year a big thing was doing the Ice Bucket Challenge for um the UC Speak

031Your Mind and that was just about mental health. And I know a lot of people, I think pretty much everybody in my school did the challenge, including me. And so I think we can um take an example from that and we could do an ice bucket challenge of our own. and um you know hashtag unclouded and just um put that out to our friends and tag everybody because you like you nominate you know three people to do it and you know they have 24 hours or something. So that'd be a good way to measure outreach. >> In the Google forms that we created for the health classes, we had a pre and post test and so we were going to try to see like how much we were able to teach them. Basically we had

032like really simple questions like a vape? Is it just water vapor or what is it? So, I think [cough] that I mean just being able to see and know that we are teaching kids about so that they know what they're using and how they're using it and how it's affecting them. Um I think that I mean even just the small efforts that we've already made have really reached out. Yeah. We reached people. >> Thank you. I appreciate it. >> Yeah. Thank you guys so much. I mean just education, [clears throat] just the awareness that you're doing. I think that that And obviously it's it's where it has to start, but that's where you you start to make the impact. So good first year. It's going to continue next year and I think that it'll be

033able to snowball uh from there and just get better. So thank you all for uh your effort and for coming here tonight. Thank you. [clears throat] >> All right. I I want to say before you guys might want to exit and just how impressive that this is that you're sitting at a table having a discussion that has so much impact. Uh and if you just touch a very small percentage of the kids that you are going to school with, you have made a huge impact because that has a trickle effect. So I wanted to publicly say it's been a joy working with those of you that are seniors. I know you're gonna you're down to about 11 days, >> if that. And uh for those of you that are underassman, we look forward to you

034coming back next year and participating in making this even a bigger uh project because as you start to trickle down into it, it it it really warms my heart when when you are creating a theatrical play for elementary to engage them because where it starts, as you know, is in middle school. And so you want to affect them before they get to that point of actually deciding that they might want to try this. So I'm just I've been impressed with you guys all year just to be able to sit in meetings, all the executives to have discussions with you. Um and I think those of you that are graduating, we expect great things from you too because don't stop. Stay hungry. Um continue to try to solve the problems that are around you. And I

035want to thank you publicly for everything that you guys have done. Thank you very much. >> You guys be safe. All right. >> It's it's easy to say when you sit down with young people like this and they pick what is a crisis. Even if it's 15% it's a crisis for them. And I it's just been really a joy this year to watch them navigate this and and and start thinking about how they can at this time. I'd like to uh go ahead and start my superintendent's report. But before I get too much into this, I'd like to acknowledge that this week is teacher appreciation week and yesterday we recognized school nurse appreciation day. We're very appreciative of the hard work and dedication of both our teachers and our nurses and all the dedication and

036commitment that they put into furthering our students education and I want to publicly thank them for the difference that they've made in our students lives. I also want to hit two things that are coming up here uh that are important I think uh in the course of our county and that is I want to remind people of the Bedford uh VFW for parade on armed forces day. The parade kicks off in Bedford and celebrates the 250th birthday um of United States uh carrying the theme Bedford remembers 250 [cough] years of independence. [clears throat] Uh there are at this point all three high school bands are participating which uh we're excited about and also uh we have they have upwards of almost a hundred entries into that parade. So we're looking forward to that as well.

037Um also expectations run high in these next 11 days for the graduations of Liberty High School, Stanton River, and Jefferson Forest High School uh on May 23rd to be held at Vine Center. Congratulations to all the seniors and we thank them for finishing strong. Um, [clears throat] last month the school at the schoolboard meeting there was much to be said about decommissioning Steuartsville. I was intrigued enough to go back and start investigating how how this had been addressed over the last number of years. What I found was that there were approximately 10 different um either proposals or plans been discussed since 2012. Um in the middle of that in 20145 we did see the closure of elementary and body camp. But what I want to focus on tonight is what we're dealing with today is

038almost identical topics that we were dealing with as a division in 2012. I sent you guys a document with that in it, but I want the public to understand that this is nothing new um when we have these discussions. So I'm going to go through very quickly just give a synopsis of those. October 2012, there was a proposed elementary redistricting plan that would would address the overcrowding of Forest Elementary and New London Academy that involved five or six other elementary schools that surround them. They include Boonesboro, uh, Otter River, TJ, Big Island, Bedford Elementary, and Bedford Primary. A year almost a about six seven months later uh a proposal for elementary in February uh was addressing the overcrowding of Forest Elementary again except this time New London Academy was pulled out of that equation or

039proposal. September 2019 elementary facility study and survey was done. There were 11 options that included all three zones um that addressed all 13 elementary schools. And in that proposal, there were four options for Forest, there were two options for Bedford, and there were five options for uh Stanton River. In January 2023, addressing school capacity concerns, the school board and the facilities com committee considered to assist uh to assist overcrowding at New London and Forest Elementary. Again, three options considered involving Bedford Primary, Bedford Elementary, Bedford, excuse me, Big Island, Boonesboro, Forest Elementary, New London, Otter River, and TJ. In February 2024, academic and bud budget efficiency options was also in uh discussed and it addressed the forest zone and in projections of the potential growth that was coming in developments. There were four options uh that

040were discussed that also in involved Montville and Good View. Jumping down to September 24, um there was option five added to the four options from February where the board and the uh facilities committee brought forth the idea of leaving Stewardsville open and repairing the roof, repairing the HVAC, and then doing studies on future reszoning. Um May 2025 proposed forest zone redistricting proposal to reduce the populations again of forest elementary London to make room for new housing developments and create increasing students uh capacities at Otter River. Um October 25 public hearing was held at JF. November 25, school board opted to not address forest zone uh redistricting proposal and instead revoking uh zone transfers and grandfathering all fifth graders and their siblings. March, 2026, more recent uh Stanton River zone reconfiguration presentation was brought up again

041for decommissioning Stewartsville, relocate K to4 to Good View, move fifth graders to Stanton River Middle, eighth graders to Stanton River High School with reconfiguring all grade levels in the Stanton River zone with eventually eventually a motion to purchase portables was added to that equation to prevent or alleviate moving fifth graders. April last month, the decommission of Sturgezville was delayed until June 30, 2027. Uh during the school board's comments, there was discussion of the overcrowding of Forest Elementary with moving Weston development to Otter River and creating an overflow model of based on new developments in the New London area. only the Forest Elementary Weston to Otter River proposal was given consideration and that public hearing is being uh held tonight for that proposal. When you look at all of these things over time, the same issues

042do exist and it is one of the reasons in the last month um why in Mr. Haggler's presentation and my request as well, we asked for an all districtricting or or a district-wide all districtricting of all three zones. Um based on that, I want to I want to make this statement very clear as we move the into the information public hearing phase tonight regarding the overcrowding of Forest Elementary. It is recommended by myself and the executive staff to not consider the FY26 Weston assignment to Otter River or the FY2827 reassignment to to Otter [clears throat] as recommended in the consideration of Mr. Haggler's original forest elementary reconfiguration consideration. As a reminder, it is also recommended that the superintendent and the executive staff have brought to a request to the board um in to review on

043June 11th what will be a request for proposal from a third party vendor for district-wide redistricting study and I thank you for moving on that last month. At present, the request for proposal timeline has been initiated with the issuing of the RFP on April 23rd. proposals are due to BCPS on June 3rd with the facilities committee input expected during the week of June 4 through 10 and then a contract discussion held by this board on June 11th. In closing, I would like to state that moving students from Forest Elementary to Otter River Elementary at this time will not only temporarily um will not offer the temp but but a temporary capacity relief. It will also create confusion with future future proposals and precede any benefit of an all-inclusive district-wide redistricting plan. Um and and we'd

044like to make it very clear that we need to look at elementary, middle schools, and high schools when we look at this uh wide review or district-wide review. Forest Elementary School has been the central of redistricting conversation since 2012. And it is our belief that one additional year uh is additional year is the best way to move forward. At this point, as we move into redistricting conversation, I want to make sure that we all being stakeholders in this, whether we're parents or whether we're executive team or teachers and the students themselves, we all have an opinion of what we think we should do. But I would ask for everyone to have an open mind as to why we should or why we should not address this issue. While we can argue with for the sentiment

045of keeping it an under capacity school open for various reasons, it does not stand against financial loss of that that this division is f is currently facing on a year-to-year basis. Nor does it prepare BCPS for the option of a robust academic and financial future for our children's children. And the reason I say that is because if you go back 14 years, um, some of the kids who we were probably defending 14 years ago might very well be parents now in this conversation. And so at some point in time, we have to address this uh on a generational u view. Um, money spent in keeping under capacity schools open is money not spent on academic progress, building efficiency, financial efficiency, a competitive salary con consideration for our administration, faculty and staff, and the overall need

046to support our students academic growth. I thank you for the uh the cooperation to this point, for hearing my concerns, and from considering moving forward with a district-wide redistricting plan. I think it best suits Bedford County Public Schools at this time. That concludes my report. >> Thank you very much, Mr. Pair. 2.03 update on the fiscal year 2627 budget. Mr. Haggler. >> Yes. Unfortunately, this is just a staff report tonight. Instead of an action item to come back and uh finalize our budget, the state has not passed the budget yet. Uh the word we're getting back is it might not be till late June. So that could change um if there's negotiations they come to an agreement. Uh so it's the recommend you know it it's the intent of the uh executive staff that we're

047going to issue contracts with a 2% or a step plus 2% cola. We'll do that at the week of the 18th. That is the conservative approach. If you remember the House had a 2% and the Senate had a 3%. So going out with a 2% contract is the conservative approach and safe approach. If we if the state actually gives that additional one, we will notify staff that there's a change in salary, but there's no need to sign the contract. It's just a notification. So, [clears throat] we want to get the contract signed before they leave for break. And so, we can chase everybody down and get all that taken care of with the HR department. So, we we'll be moving forward and loading those and sending those out probably the week of the 18th, just

048notifying the board on that. That's before we have a finalized budget. There is language in all of our contracts that say subject to funding because until the state or the locality appropriates the funds, I cannot spend them. So that's all dependent upon all that getting wrapped up by the end of June so we can pay bills in July. I I anticipate it will get done. I don't in my tenure here, we've never gone past June. So uh we will try to get contracts out to our employees u uh the week of the 18th so they can expect those and we'll work through any questions they may have on that. So, with that, we'll keep the board updated. Um, I think if we got word in the next week that the state's coming together to vote

049on the budget, we would probably postpone doing that until we have a final word to get the board back to get a final budget. So, we only have to do one. But what we're hearing is that's not going to be the case. And I think our employees are anxious to see contracts and to get things tidied up for before they leave. So, I'd be happy to entertain any questions on the budget. Um, still waiting on the state. I will say that the county will vote on their budget on the 26th. They're waiting on the state too, but I think they've wrapped up their side and I think they've communicated to us which we've passed on to the board what we expect from the county and funding uh for next year. So be happy to answer

050any questions you might have. >> Any questions? >> Questions? >> Um it it it may require a special called meeting to get the final budget done depending on when they do that. Well, we have 1500 contracts that go out or that need to go out here. Multiply that by 30 something divisions and however many students we have. It affects a lot of people. It's amazing that they could not get this done should have maybe spent time actually trying to solve this problem versus playing politics. I guess um I was told that they are um they're blaming each other and it's amazing because they're on both of the same side of the aisle, but leaders lead and I I expect that uh we all expect I think everybody expects that they get the job done and

051pass a budget in a reasonable amount of time. That's my aside. Thank you. All right, we got some time. Informational items 3.01, Mr. Hagar, redistricting of Western >> I think 2.0 Oh, wait. Hold on. 2.4. Sorry. I That's two mistakes today. I'm really must be the ring. Strategic [cough and laughter] update. Mr. Sex. >> Yes. Good evening. Tonight, [clears throat] I will be sharing our next strategic framework update. Um, this uh slide is very familiar. We've seen it uh quite often, but it's important because every initiative that we're discussing ties directly back to our main goal, and that is building citizens, promoting success. Through our mission and core values, we ensure every student has the opportunity to learn, grow, and thrive in a safe and supportive environment. Um, as a continuation of last month's meeting,

052uh, presentation by Mr. Tucker, we will again focus on goal two, uh, which is Before County Public Schools will provide safe and supportive learning environments both physically and emotionally, which enable all students to think, critically, collaborate, create, communicate, and become productive citizens. The focus tonight will be on strategy three uh which is cyber security and healthy digital habits. Um strategy strategy three focuses on establishing safe, secure and responsible digital environment for all students and staff by strengthening cyber security practices, promoting cyber training and encouraging healthy digital habits. The division the division aims to protect critical systems and support positive informed technology use throughout Bedford County Public Schools. Um I will briefly talk about the action steps that we have here. Um and kind of to start we will uh strengthen technology pro protections. uh improve

053cyber security awareness, enhancing incident response readiness, conduct tabletop exercises, and strengthen vendor and application security. Uh while these action steps outline what we are working toward, the next slides highlight the indicators of success we will use to measure to measure the progress, effectiveness, and account accountability in each area. Um so we have recently rolled out endpoint detection and response or EDR to all Windows endpoints across the division. EDR is is an advanced uh security solution that continuously monitors our devices and servers for suspicious activity and our systems are actively monitored 247 to help quickly identify uh any kind of u you know odd oddities. uh they kind of get a baseline of our systems and then kind of go from there if there's any kind of uh you know thing that they see that is

054high risk. Um it's almost like having another position a cyber security expert full-time. Um we have also implemented multiffactor authentication for signins and that is done on you know through Google. We also have MFA currently on Windows accounts uh for employees working in critical and high risk departments such as payroll, human resources and information technology. We will measure progress through expanding EDR f uh MFA coverage and reduce security threats and improved response times. Uh the human cyber risk is a very important part of cyber security. Uh we've recently implemented new uh human cyber risk platform that we believe will help build a stronger culture of cyber security awareness across the division uh through ongoing cyber security awareness training for staff. We want to achieve 100% completion, lower fishing email click rates for both simulations and

055real world emails and threats and increase reporting of suspicious emails by our staff and a stronger over overall awareness of cyber risk and the seriousness of it. Uh as the program continues to grow, we would like to expand specific cyber security and fishing awareness training opportunities to our students as well. For incident response, we really want to establish an annual review and update process for our cyber security incident response plan to ensure that it remains current and effective. Success in this area will be reflected through re routine testing of our backups and recovery systems, improved communication and response procedures, and the ability to restore critical systems and services as quickly and efficiently as possible. Um, we will conduct and complete annual tabletop exercises to practice responding to realistic cyber security scenarios and incidents. This work

056will involve full participation from leadership and key departments while helping identify and address areas for improvement. It will also in uh strengthen our overall prepare preparedness by ensuring staff understands their roles during an incident. And we also would will be establishing a formal vendor risk assessment process to evaluate applications and vendors before approval is granted for use within the division. This process will help strengthen the protection of student and staff data, support compliance requirements, and reduce the use of unauthorized or high-risk applications across the division. As we move into next steps, our focus shifts towards implementation, consistency, and continuous improvement. Moving forward, we will establish annual targets for security coverage, staff training, and incident response readiness to help measure progress over time. We will continue to formalize security processes such as strengthen device protection, multiffactor

057authentication controls and vendor and application review workflows while expanding cyber security awareness training and fishing simulations to reduce that human risk part. In addition, we will conduct regular testing through our incident response plan and update as necessary. uh tabletop exercise. We will continue with tabletop exercises to ensure that we remain prepared and strengthen our overall security posture. And with that, um I thank you for your time and would be happy to answer any questions. >> Right. Thank you, Mr. Saxon. Any questions? Um I know that we had um and this is not necessarily for security but we had done um you had done some research on how much uh Chromebook use is happening [cough] know I I don't know Mr. if you're um to answer this, but we talked about having a campaign to tell

058the pe the teachers to, you know, make sure their Chromebooks are closed when they're not in use so that we are not getting false data. Has has another uh have you been keeping up with what's going on? Has that improved or what's been >> So, I'll be honest with you. our team, the instruction team talked about that and right now with the last six weeks of school, we didn't want to limit we're preparing for so test which is they're all online and so we just felt like at this point in the year teachers are we wanted them to focus on instruction and catching up on all of that missed time. Um so we'll look at it next year. I think I there's so much happening in the classroom. I honestly I don't want to burden

059our teachers with worrying about if [clears throat] we're going to be taking data off the Chromebooks and things like that. I just I'm I'm trying to balance out the stress for our teachers. We're also one of the lowest paying divisions. I I just want to keep our teachers and not keep pushing things down on them. So our team will continue to talk about it, but we discussed it after the last board meeting and felt like it just wasn't the right time right now. So we'll be looking at it again and you know uh you know our message has always been as much as you can your instruction should be face to face and not on Chromebooks. So that's I think we want to focus on good instruction and and teachers having tools that they need.

060fall by the wayside. I want to make sure that we keep now that we have the program to to to do that. I want to make sure that we're using it and um encouraging holding teachers accountable to that. I know that I've talked to some teachers basically just have the kids on their Chromebooks most of the time and um they argue that that's because of the SOS they have to prepare. So all year long all they're doing is is being on their Chromebooks. >> And I don't want to see that continue. I want to see something >> I think what our instructional team is seeing is that that's not really what's happening. There are some schools that we are using it a little bit more than we would like for them to be using it

061and we've addressed that with administrators and them talking about their strategic planning and working with their teachers. Um and so we'll continue to work through it. I mean we don't want kids on Chromebooks all day. That's absolutely 100% and we hear those isolated incidents too that we aren't happy about and we try to address those as we hear about them. Um, I think I would rather our the program work to try to really see active activity on the Chromebook rather than it just sitting. Like I think the product could make some changes so that our teachers aren't always worried about, oh, oh, if you're not, you know, close that because we're going to talk about this for a minute and open it back up and wait for it to come back. I don't I I

062just felt like I my message would rather be I want you to be using this tool for really good instruction and and spending time with kids. So, we'll continue to fine-tune that and make sure our teachers are hearing that. >> Any other questions? Have you noticed, you know, putting some of these in a reduction in some threats attacks? >> Yes. Um, I will say that, you know, it's it's never ending battle. Every time you put one block in place, they will find five more to try to get around. I mean, just recently, you know, we received an influx of um like fishing emails. All a lot of school districts did across the nation just in the past couple weeks. Um and we felt a little bit from that, you know, folks uh getting their account

063compromised. Um, [clears throat] you know, so the more that we can do to train, I think I think our biggest issue is that we just really have to make our staff understand how critical it is that they pay close attention to these emails that they get. You know, one of the things that we we try to tell them is, you know, if if you're not expecting an email from this person and it has an attachment and it has this weird link in it, um, contact them some other way and make sure that it is legit. Just don't randomly click on links. don't download attachments. And you know, this cyber security training platform that we have, it's actually uh it kind of changes the way that we do things. We want to celebrate the people that

064don't click on links. Uh and so I'm we're trying to change that whole attitude uh that that people have towards cyber security and um you know, we're doing like little prizes and things like that to folks that earn points by not clicking or by recognizing those emails and reporting them. But honestly, our weakest link of course is staff and that is across no matter what. If you're in corporate, if you're in education, it's the same because all it takes is one click on the wrong link and you can be compromised. So again, we just have to do we have to do our due diligence and make sure that our staff are properly trained. >> Do you do sorry that again, but do you do testing like that? I had that happen to me when I

065was teaching and said the administration would send a fishing email and and see how the teachers are responding to it. >> And we do and instead of the platform we we had a different platform that [snorts] was not dedicated only to K12. Um and it was very much you know they would click on and it would tell them it was a fishing email and then later we would have to revisit them with additional training. But the new platform that we have is very much dedicated to K12. So if they do click the link on one of the fishing campaigns, it immediately takes them to like a small micro training. And if you know if they go through the training, they can earn points that way. Um so again, we do the fishing campaigns because I

066think it's very important that we recognize folks that may need additional training uh in which we even do in person sometimes. So, we pull them in and we go through scenarios and uh bring up example emails and u you know just try to uh hit home with how important they are as far as protecting our systems. It's not just an IT thing at this point. I mean it's everyone that uses a computer is uh you know they are basically our protection. >> Anything else? Thank you Mr. Saxon. Um 554. Can you can you get at least get five minute and then we're going to have I know we tried to move it so we can get it. >> It's up to you as Mr. Chairman. You take a recess and wait or you can let

067Mr. Hager [cough and clears throat] um and then we can hold questions from the board until after. It's totally up to you. >> Can you get it in five? >> Very similar to what I presented last month. So yeah. All right. >> If you'd like. >> Well, let's go. >> All right. We're going to go to redistricting Weston Village 3.01. Mr. Her. >> Yes. Good evening. Um, this is a very similar presentation to what I presented at the last um meeting on April 16th. The board asked that this be brought back. That was a staff report. This is for information for consideration um either in the U FY 2627 or 2728 or other options or may want to consider um specifically at the last presentation was looking at New London and at Forest Elementary and

068different uh developments. I've stripped a lot of that out just focusing on the West Village K through 5 is um projected at 373 for Force Elementary next year. Capacity is 387. You can see we're right up against the 100% capacity. 96 um projecting 18 teachers for next year. This year they had 19. That was there's one additional one with the all-in Virginia funds for that. So that one is going away. So really kind of the same type of projection for membership, but that additional is going away. uh in the 2526 year uh they had to reconfigure the classrooms um to fit that 19th and take away the uh music room and that was done on the stage or in the cafeteria for the year. And so theoretically with our projections that would not have to

069be done next year. Um but that's once again based upon our projections. The uncertainty that we're looking at is the Weston Village right there on the corner 221 in Parville. Um not all the apartments were built out last year. So, we know how many kids were in Forest Elementary this year, but it's uncertain how many will be in there next year. It's just an uncertainty and it's too hard to predict, but we have to kind of project and and do the best we can with that. For those that aren't familiar, I've got a big map here, and you can see the red dot on there in the center bottom is Forest Elementary and the purple or blue dot there is the Weston Village um right there on Purville and 221. Um, I will note, um,

070when we were looking at this, when you look at the boundary lines of Forest Elementary, it doesn't include everything because it goes way high up and there's like one or two kids further up in the middle of nowhere almost. But with that, um, along 221, there's really no other big developments further west towards Otter River. And so there's probably, I think, three kids between there and Otter River still within the Forest Elementary and single houses. So there's no other larger developments that way. Um when we look at uh the numbers for the 2728 this is the projection of 42 students that's based upon this year uh kindergarten we don't know about they're doing registration but we don't know have all the numbers yet so projected kindergarten the same as what the kindergarten was this year

071that's a guess and you can see the other numbers there uh 42 students um upon the completion working with the facility committee um our modeling says that a development this size would produce up to 30 more students in that 42 up in the 70 range. Now whether those materialize or not is yet to be seen, but when we plug it into our models based upon town homes and also apartments from previous developments, we would expect around 70. So if 30 more kids come there, then you would be back in the same scenario, worse scenario than you were this year with Forest Elementary. And we thought, you know, it's just an uncertainty on that. Um, this is hard to see. You can see it. It is posted on board docs, but this is we we gave

072a little bit more detail on the class individual class sizes if our projections come true or if the redistricting was going to happen next year and um how big those class levels would be uh grade by grade by moving those students that we do know about. Um doesn't fix everything. You can see with Otter River and force elementaryaries there are still some higher class sizes but that's with our overall staffing standards and that's at other schools too. But it does level out a little bit for Otter River. Um 32 33 students that we know of right now. That excludes fifth graders that are going to be going to the middle school. Um we did send out letters to everybody that we knew about. Projecting nine new kindergartens coming in. Cost impact uh at Otter River.

073Uh they would go up over the threshold and qualify for a full-time librarian bookkeeper. So there's costs associated with that. Two teachers would move from Forest Elementary to Otter River. Drive time is 12 minutes distance 8 miles from West Village to Otter River. Forest Elementary would go to 86% capacity compared to 96 uh where we're rejecting right now. Otter River would go from uh to 68 from 54 capacity where they would be projected if this were to take place. So we bring all this back very similar what we had last time. I I think the biggest unknown is how many more students will come from the western village. Um we do the best we can with projecting but we don't have all the enrollments done and so really for board um staff's looking for board

074to make direction on is this something we do for the 26 27 year 2728 wait until redistricting uh studies complete um and then if it is done for [clears throat] the 26 27 year and the board votes for that then u is there any grandfathering that we would apply to students that are already there. So, those are the directions staff's going to need in order to move forward. Um, and I know there's some public comment that's going to happen, but this was the presentation. And after public comment, I guess if you'd like, you come back and ask questions and staff about this. It's up to the board on that, >> which we probably will. >> All right. Thank you, Mr. Haggler. All right. Next on the list is public comment. Uh, the public comment portion

075of tonight's agenda is limited to 40 minutes. Speakers are asked to state their name and voting district. The school board is here to listen to your comments, but will not engage or respond to speakers during this 40-minute period. Please remember this is a public meeting and we expect all speakers to refrain from foul pro abusive or hateful language during their comments or any [clears throat] time while in attendance during this meeting. We ask that uh speakers keep their remarks objective and about the school in nature. Please keep all comments limited to matters related to public schools and any comments that are harassing or amount to a personal attack against any identifiable individual whether schoolboard member or staff or student or having the potential to cause unnecessary delay or disruption to this meeting are prohibited. This

076is a public meeting for public matters. If a speaker is not present when their name is called, we will proceed with the next name on the list. An individual who is not signed up to speak may not substitute for that time slot. Individuals will have four minutes to address the board. An alarm will sound when an individual has 30 seconds remaining. And a second alarm will sound when the allotted four minutes have expired. When the second alarm sounds, please discontinue speaking and allow the next person in line to come to the podium. Should you be able to finish your unable to finish your comments, please send or give them to Mrs. Johnson and she will give them to board members. Please do not adjust the microphone at the podium as it has been positioned for

077optimum audio quality. Um public comment tonight, we will start with uh Casey McKard. >> Good evening. My name is Casey McCricard and I live in district 3. I understand that redistricting the county is currently being discussed for a solution to overcrowding in our schools, but I'd like to present another idea, one that Mr. Daniels mentioned, but has not been fully explored. Year-round schooling at schools that are nearing or already over capacity. I propose implementing a multi-track year-round calendar at Forest Elementary, New London, and potentially Good View. In a multi-track system, students and teachers are divided into four tracks. Each track attends school for nine weeks followed by a three-week break. And those schedules are staggered throughout the year. So, at any given time, only about 75% of students are in the buildings. That means we

078can immediately reduce overcrowding without building new schools or without redistricting families out of their communities. Each grade level would have one to two teachers per trap and that would follow that teacher would follow the uh students schedules. This allows class sizes to remain manageable which uh is making better use of the space we already have for resource and special education teachers such as PE, music, art, library, and support staff. Those roles would likely transition to 12 month roles because they would serve students across all students. However, they could still be provided flexible time off throughout the year. I understand a concern families may have is how year- round calendar would align with the traditional calendar, especially for families with children in [snorts] multiple schools. But in districts that already use this model, major breaks like

079Thanksgiving, winter, and spring are aligned so all tracks are off at the same time. This helps maintain consistency across the district and allows families to plan ahead just like they do now. It's also important to note that students would still receive the same 180 instructional days as they would in a traditional calendar. The difference is instead of one long summer break, they would get shorter, more frequent breaks throughout the year, which can actually help reduce learning loss and burnout for students and teachers. Most importantly, this is a solution we can implement using what we already have. [cough] Redistricting [clears throat] can be disruptive for families and communities. Building new schools takes years and significant funding, but a multi-track calendar would help us relieve overcrowding now by maximizing the buildings we already operate. This is something

080that can also easily be converted back to a traditional calendar if and when population slows down. This isn't a new concept. It's a model that has been success successfully used in other districts facing the same challenges we're facing today. The board has often made comments that they want solutions rather than complaining. I think this could be a practical solution and I think it could be I encourage the board to take a deeper look into this option and consider piloting a program at one or more schools before making permanent boundary changes. Because before we move families, redraw lines or invest in new construction, we should fully explore solutions that allow us to keep communities together [clears throat] while still meeting the needs of our growing student population. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. All right.

081Next on list, Janelle Rine. [snorts] Hi, my name is Janelle Rossine. I'm District 2 and I actually want to talk about a topic you guys were talk touching on earlier. uh the growing reliance on technology for in-class education at all levels, but especially the elementary school. My daughter is in fifth grade at Manita Elementary School. I recently became concerned when her grades started slipping and realized that many of the tests and schoolwork she was being graded on were not coming home. She would get the test or the assignment in class and I would be notified by the app, the P school app that she had been graded on the assignment, but rarely was I seeing the work return home. I tried to be proactive and reach out to the teachers and ask for copies of

082tests, assignments, whatever she was struggling on so that I could help her with her work and help her learn from her mistakes. And I was shocked to learn that a lot of these platforms that are being used in schools don't allow the teachers to print out the results, the tests, the assignments to send them home for students to review after the fact. My daughter's math teacher doesn't have that ability. And so they're doing their work on a scrap paper while working off a workbook, but answering questions on a test. They're going back and forth between three different things at once in fifth grade. And reverse engineering that to try to help her has been a nightmare. I already addressed this with my daughter's principal, but it's the end of the year. She's moving on to

083middle school, and I know it's only going to get worse from here. I know many parents echo the concern that the technology use has become more of a hindrance than a benefit. I attended the Virginia Department of Education listening session last month and the concern about the reliance on technology to do in-class work is statewide. In fact, it's c countrywide with initiatives like the schools beyond screens coalition and even just recently in Los Angeles where they have their own school board just passed a set of limitations on in-class screen use to prioritize handwriting and in-person interaction. For years now since covid the increase of online education platforms there have been studies conducted on the use of technology and versus p paper and pencil. Time and time again these studies are showing that students in grades

084K12 learn better when they skip the screens [clears throat] the and focus on analog learning. Technology is faster but it's not necessarily better. The speed can actually be a hindrance to students by writing notes by hand. It forces the students to process the words slower. It helps them retain the content more thoroughly and encodes the information in their brains. Typing is so automatic that it actually has led to lower retention rates. Handwriting notes and homework also improves the students handwriting and fine motor skills. It improves cognition and has been proven to increase attention span. Handwriting and printed materials also reduce the risk of cheating in academic settings. Tools like Chat, GPT, AI, Cheg, Quizlet, and other purposes or other sites for the sole purpose of providing answers without actually teaching the students exist. And even

085without the cheating, studies have found that students who take tests on computers are more likely to just guess at an answer and not actually do the workout to get to the correct answer. In fact, studies comp conducted have found that standardized testing scores have lowered over the years since the implementation of digital testing. Obviously, so testing is statewide. There's little we can do about that, but I think we need to look at seriously reducing the amount of one-on-one computer use in classes for our K12 students. >> Thank you very much. >> Next on the list is Robert Ashwell. >> Good evening. I'm Robert Ashwell. I teach at Stant River High School. Uh I would like to speak on the chronic student absenteeism in Bever County. Um, attendance is an ongoing issue u impacting the suspect

086the success of our students. Um, so here's kind of a quick overview. Um, there are students from last year who had in excess of 40 days who were unexcused um through it. And so this does not even take into account the fact that a student can come, they can check in, they can come to one class, they can get checked out and that changes the code. So technically speaking, um some of the ones that have high numbers, that's not even that's not even attesting to the number of classes they've actually missed. Um so the the current attendance policy at St. River is uh 5 days they call UT unexcused truin uh principal contacts with a parent. They have a meeting at 10 days the principal and parent conference and they have a best meeting from

087there. It goes to truency court. um and that is kind of out of the hands of the county at that point. So, one does not need to have a PhD to understand that this is not working. The whole point of school is giving students a free and appropriate public education to prepare them for the real world and holding down a job and being productive members of society. Um no job would tolerate a fraction of the absences that occur daily in our schools. Um additionally, as mentioned before, the rigor of so tests is always increasing. um it's required for student graduation and diplomas. So no amount of engaging quality instruction from a teacher is going to reach a student if the student's not there to receive it. Um so I took the liberty of making a

088graph correlating the rate of absenteeism with the biology as well. U I'm give this to y'all. Pass it around. >> So I'd like to take credit for this but my wife she had to >> [laughter] >> But anyway, I mean, there's a direct correlation between score and uh the amount of days that are absent. So, this is what I propose. Um, Before County should adopt a countywide policy where students do not receive credit for a class that say 15 days of unexcused absences. Um, in a similar policy, when I graduated in the year 2000, uh, I believe Mr. Hol Brook graduated in as well um was in fact so looked it up. Bottom Top County currently has a policy where if they miss eight days unexcused then they just don't receive credit for the class.

089Um considering that they have a block schedule, this would be roughly equivalent to 15 days. Um Susie G as well, Susie Gibson also has the ability to remove students from a class if they've [clears throat] missed too many hours of instructional time. Um, so the words rigor and accountability are often thrown around in reference to public schools and teaching and rightfully so. We owe it to the families and students in this county to prepare them for the real world. Um, but that door swings both ways. There has to be some accountability on students and families to do their part to ensure the success and preparation for the real world. Um, I hope y'all will give this matter serious consideration. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. That is all that was signed up for public

090[laughter] comment. So, we have a public hearing that's next. So, I'm going to go right I'm going to close public comment and go right to the public hearing. Um, this is on uh redistricting of Weston Village. This portion of the meeting is design uh designated for public comments regarding the redistricting of Weston Village only. The public hearing portion of tonight's agenda is limited to 40 minutes. Speakers are asked to state their name and voting district. The school board is here to listen to your comments, but will not engage or respond to speakers during this 40-minute period. Please remember this is a public meeting and we expect all speakers to refrain from any foul, profane, abusive or hateful language. During their comments or any time while in attendance during this meeting, if a speaker is not

091present when their name is called, we will proceed with the next name on the list. An individual that uh who has not signed up to speak may not substitute for that time slot. Individuals will have four minutes to address this the board. An alarm will sound when an individual has 30 seconds remaining and a second alarm will sound when the allotted four minutes have expired. When the second alarm sounds, please discontinue speaking and allow the next person in line to come to the podium. Should you be unable to finish your comments, please send or give them to Mrs. Johnson and she will give them to board members. Please do not adjust the microphone at the podium as it has been positioned for optimum audio quality. All right, so we are going to start and I

092will apologize on the name. Um, Shu Jang Kim I'm sorry. Can I just speak to Panda? I have only nine copies. >> Yes. Great. Great. To Miss Johnson. [cough] >> So, good evening. Uh, my name is Henjun Kim. I work at Liberty University as professor. Uh, so I already shared several emails and report with the board. Uh, and I sinc appreciate everyone who took the time to read them. And tonight I just want to emphasize a few key concerns. So my main concern is that this proposal may not achieve its intended goals. Unfortunately the current assumption is that the enrollment as really uh steady while in reality it can be dynamic system influenced by policy and housing decisions. Ever since we we receive letters I have consistently heard two reactions. First this doesn't make sense

093does not make sense. Second is that if this happens we may need to move. Okay, but this is a reality and some residents already said they may not renew their leases and some homeowners are seriously considering relocation and I am one of those. If this proposal move forward or remain unresolved, more families are likely to consider relocation and because of that I believe the actual balancing effect may be much smaller than expected. Uh secondly, I want to mention some concern about the uh serious conservatism in the projection of 72 students. I saw in a handout maybe some tight time about this analysis to save time most of our apartment have already been occupied for years there's no apartment construction recently and then we have recent town completions and as I know based on the town

094site map only 16 towns remain unsold given those condition the idea that 30 new student will suddenly pops up in the coming fall or next fall is just very unlikely and my own analysis suggests that we may have up to 46 or 50 student this estimation assuming full occupancy assuming full occupancy I don't think that'll be happening this fall one or near fall so again when human behavior and policy effect are considered the actual number may ends up being even lower and please note that student distribution across the different grade so they are not in the same grade so removing four or nine student from the single grade does not empty classroom approach so moving west student does not solve the classroom capacity issue at the forest elementary school in my helping you. I'd like

095to briefly comment on the distance and community structure because some people will see that just 15-minute driving may not be a big issue because they're happening all the times, right? But uh in our case uh we are living in their breast and then there's there's some connected to Lynchburg as a living area but yeah um uh in school community are formed through the shared daily living patterns but unfortunately river has no sharing with our daily routines. So which means this is not simply extended distance. This is simply uh fundamental difference different community and then uh use new user for their children families. I understand board members should consider worst case scenario. I totally get that and there should be some kind of concern with the benefit and cost. While the expected benefit may be more

096limited than assumed the cost could be much significantly higher. Please consider the financial, emotional, logistic and educating impact on children and families as cost on your spreadsheet. I beg you given the uncertainty in both benefit and cost I respectively urge both to withdraw this proposal for at least several years and then monitor actual enormous trend and then we can really discuss what could be what could be permanent and uh some solution. Finally regardless of the decision I simply ask that the grand fing can be included for all current student in any cases. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. Next on the list, we have Lexi Darnell. >> Hi y'all. My name is Lexi Darnell. My stepson is from [cough] Forest Elementary and we live in Western Village.

097Um, I'm just kind of confused by all of this if I'm being really honest. So, I work in education. I don't work in Bedford County schools. So, I know how redistricting goes. I know that it happens. [snorts] Redistricting a community that is directly next to the school that it's going to doesn't really make sense to me. We live about.3 miles from Forest Elementary. We also live about.3 miles from the aftercare that my son goes to. This makes everything very easy. Right? Just like what was said if we had to move to Otter River. And I want to be very clear, we're not saying Otter River is not a good school, right? I've heard amazing things about Otter River. That's not the issue. The issue is that logistically it does not make sense. We live right

098next to Forest Elementary School, and I know that this is something that you're going to hear from plenty of other people as well. Um, it would radically change our life, right? It would go from my partner being able to drop him off at school very easily, only taking about 5 minutes. It would take from us and his grandparents being able to pick him up from daycare, which only go afterare, which again only takes at most 5 minutes. And that's cuz the check-in line is long sometimes to my partner when she drops him off at school having to drive 15 plus minutes depending on traffic. It would mean on the days that she can't drop him off, I would be late to work because I would have to drive an additional 15 minutes. It means that

099if there was an emergency and my partner, we both don't always necessarily work in Bedford or Forest. If my partner had to go out like some like today she was employed, right? So she had to be employed and I work in Roman Oak City. that puts us in a situation where we cannot get anywhere quickly at all. Right? So, we live where we do because we're close to her parents and that they can always be able to do something. You add in that extra 12 minutes, it doesn't seem like a lot. That could become almost impossible if something catastrophic happens. I just I find myself confused because this also feels almost as if it is a hasty decision. the school year is almost over and we're talking about doing this for next school year when

100there hasn't really been a reasonzoning study. It just doesn't make sense to me and I would like to urge the school board to do a full resoning study before they make any decisions and definitely not say that we're going to be doing this right away because again it just seems incredibly hasty. >> Thank you, Miss Darnell. Um, next on the list, Angela Wit. >> My name is Angela Wit and I'm here to speak in opposition of this proposal to move Western Village. I know this is a situation of overcrowding, but it's also not only overcrowding, it's long-term planning. Moving about 30 to 40 students will not meaningfully resolve the underlying issue or underlying challenges facing the county. forest is cont going to continue to grow. It serves only as a temporary measure that fails to

101address the root problem. Continued population growth without sufficient expansion of school capacities. Families in western development live directly adjacent to our current school 2 miles to.3 miles. We intentionally chose our homes based on existing school boundaries, proximity, and stability for our children. Redirecting ch students who live next to the school to go to one that is eight miles down the road places the burden not places the burden of planning shortcomings on the children and families than addressing the systemic issue. I grew up in Campbell County during a similar period of growth. At that time the solution was not to move children to another school district completely. They actually rede routed the children to the middle school, had them go there for a year while the local elementary school was expanded and then sent them back

102to their original home school. I would be far more willing to consider a temporary solution if it included a clear plan and timeline for expansion and a return to our current school. What is being proposed now not only does not offer that reassurance. If the goal is to put students first, the county must invest in expanding existing schools and redeveloping sustainable sustainable forward-looking solutions rather than shifting small populations and children away to disrupt their education and family planning decisions. Our family and many other families in our areas have built strong positive relationships within our school community. Our children feel safe. They feel supported and connected to their teachers, classmates, and staff. That sense of stability plays a critical role in their academic success and emotional well-being. Redirecting would bring s significant disruption not only academically

103but socially and emotionally. Many students would lose their trusted teachers, peer networks, and access to programs they rely on. For some children, especially those with with need consistency or additional support. That type of change would essentially be difficult. I'd also like to explain this the school board explained to us how student enrollment at in Western Village it is projected to increase from 35 to to 72 given the facts that the apartment complex did not finish completion now they completed 3 years ago. I live in one of the last buildings that was built. There are 384 units there currently and only 12 of those units as of today are vacant. Most of those units are one and two bedrooms. At this point, the majority of families who generate the school age children already reside there. So

104if this development was really going to significantly impact school enrollment, that impact would already be reflected in current attendance and numbers. Based on this timeline and occupancy data, it is unclear how such a substantial enrollment increase is projected. Now I respectfully ask the board for transparency regarding the data that they have for the assumptions and methodology used to calculate the assumptions and explain how the increase has not already materialized at this point in time. I respectfully ask you to reconsider the proposal and p pursue long-term solutions that reflect the growth of our community and the needs of students. They consider, please consider alternatives that would reduce enrollment pressures without moving our neighborhood to another school, such as boundary adjustments elsewhere, program expansions or phase plans that allows families to opt in rather than be reassigned

105completely. >> Thank you. >> Next is Jacqueline Atinson. Hello, my name is Jacqueline Atinson and I also reside [clears throat] at Weston. Um, and so I'm here just to advocate for my son who's enrolled in 2026. He'll be supposed to be going in August. Um, I'm not one to typically go against the grain, but because of my family's circumstances, I just wanted to come up and advocate for them. Um, so [laughter] my daughter is disabled and she attends Jefferson Forest High School, which is across the street from our apartment complex. And the the premises of us moving to Weston was so that way my children could be close to each other. Um, my husband has to be at work by 6:30, 7:00. He works at Rivermont schools and he's there he's not home until about

1063:30, 3:45. So, I'm the only parent that can pick up and drop off my children. And so, that would mean that I would have to walk um eight miles to to my son's school and back um four times a day. So, I will be walking him coming back, walking him, coming back. And I have to be available for my daughter who is disabled and she she can't care for herself. And so this situation would just be a burden on my family and it just wouldn't be feasible for me as the only parent that's home. And so um I'm here just to advocate for that and for you all to just take that into consideration when making this decision. Thank you. >> Thank you, [snorts] Miss Atinson. Um next up is Dana Lee. Uh, good evening

107and thank you for allowing me to speak tonight. My name is Dana Lee. Um, I'm a resident also at Weston Village and a parent of a first grader Forest Elementary School. Um, first I want to sincerely thank the board for your time and willingness to listen to concerns of the families of this neighborhood. Um I understand a difficult responsibility of having to balance enrollment issues and capacity. So we respect that. Uh but tonight I would like to speak not only uh for myself but also on behalf of many families who signed a petition um which is included in the handout that Mr. Kim just um gave you. Um we received over um 96 96 signatures of which 79 are from Western residents of which 35 of them are um current attendees of Forest Elementary School.

108Um and from the responses collected overwhelming concerns were not just centered on convenience alone. Parents repeatedly express concerns about like uh Miss Angela with um mentioned emotional well-being, stability and safety and development of our children. Uh for many of our kids uh for us elementary school is not just school building. Um they it is where they learned how to make friends for the first time, how to trust their teachers, feel safe outside their homes and build confidence in themselves. And research consistently shows that stability and secure relationships are critical during early childhood development. The American Academy of Pediatrics emphasize cons consistent environments, supportive relationships are essential for children's emotional well-being. Harvard Center on Developing Child also highlights that stable routines, familiar environments, supportive adult relationships play a major role in their brain development, emotional resilience,

109and academic outcomes. When these support systems are disrupted, children can experience increased anxiety, emotional distress, academic difficulty, and challenges adjusting socially and emotionally. Many families in the western village intentionally moved there to put their children in Forest Elementary School because of its walkability. Not just because of its walkability, but also there's a strong sense of connection in the school. The parents are supportive, teachers are wonderful. A principal probably knows all the students by their names. And this is the very reason these families gathered here to put their uh so that their children could go to Forest Elementary School. Our children walk there, families gather there and children even play on the play playground uh during the weekends and the school is woven into the identity of this neighborhood. So, we're not asking the board to

110ignore capacity concerns uh given the enrollment projections and what other parents have mentioned about um highly estimated projections. Um we respectfully ask whether a delayed or phased approach could allow the district to monitor actual long-term enrollment trends uh before implementing permanent changes to these children. Um we have also learned that maybe we have to also address under capacity issues at Potter River Elementary School. So while we have thought about modular temporary classrooms while investing in programs improvements that could strengthen enrollment in under capacity schools like STEMmies, arts integration, language immersion, special art programmings and while also we came up with maybe implement optional transfers, voluntary attendance incentives or while preserving the walkable neighborhoods like Weston Village. But more pertinent to us, we would like the board to consider a more gradual phase investment approach, delayed

111redistricting until enrollment reaches a sustained and proven long-term capacity thresholds, and a multi-year reassessment plan that uses real data. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. Um, Deepo Kumar. Good evening members of school board, fellow parents, residents and community members. My name is Deepa Kumar. I have two school age kids and I live in Western village within walking distance of Forest Elementary School. My family specifically chose our home because of its close connection with the with this school. I really appreciate thought behind this proposal for effective utilization of his school resources. But as a resident, I would like to share a few concern regarding the proposed redistricting plan. First, this proposal takes away something very valuable for our children, the ability to walk to school. Right now, our children attend a school that is only.25.2

112miles from our home. Under the proposal, they would instill travel nearly 8 miles each way. A neighborhood school is more than just a building. It creates independence, community involvement and a healthier daily routine for the kids. Second, our children will lose important relationship they have already built in the school at the forest elementary with the classmates, teachers, librarians, counselors and other staff members. These connections play a major role in child's development. They are going to rebuild all these relationship at the new school. Third, assigning students to a school much further away increases transportation and the safety concern. Our insurance [clears throat] cost increases as we add more mileage to our driving because as much you drive that much you are more prone to the accident. So more driving means more exposure to traffic risk especially

113during busy morning and afternoon hours. It also increases stress and daily logical challenges for working families. For many families including mine, we have made significant financial decision based on access to the forest elementary school. We paid a premium for a home in this area especially [clears throat] because of its proximity to the forest elementary school and it was John for this school. Fifth, both my wife and I work in the opposite direction from the proposed new school. This change would add approximately 30 minutes of additional driving to our daily schedule. Over time that becomes a major burden on working families reducing valuable time with our children and increasing transportation cost. I would also emphasize on numbers that western village units in full capacity increased from 458 to 484 units that is 7.8% of increase compared

114to 2025 and 26 school year. On this basis, count of student increase from 35 to 70 should be revisited. Finally, I request to board members to consider the broader impact on our community. Many residents in our neighborhood live in apartments with limited term lease. If families begin relocating to remain within the forest elementary district or move closer to new assigned school, this could create inest instability in our community. So I respect respectfully ask the board members to reconsider this proposal and preserve the connection between our neighborhood and forest elementary school. Thank you. >> Thank uh Jerry Madi. >> Good evening all. So two years before I ret I came to US and and initially we faced some cultural I mean cultural shift for my kids. My kid was very you know shy and she couldn't

115cope up with the school initial days. She she initially took 6 months to get you know adjust to the environment. Now she she got a very good bondage with the school and she's coping I mean she's doing very well and she recently I mean here there is concept called ER score. She crossed 500 marks and she got some shield also saying that she liked the school very much and she has a good connection with the in school and all the enrollment here and we generally walk walk during summer I just walk and drop them and and evening we'll go to that playground only for every day. So we have a very close association with that school. So this this I mean this uh restructuration will impact the you know the stability of my kids. So

116please reconsider this re I mean based upon this all this you know uh I mean most of my friends shared everything. So just I wanted to share my I mean my kids connection with the school. So thank you all. >> Thank you. Um Aaron Bond. >> Good evening. Um Aaron Bond. and I live at uh 1210 Weston uh Village Loop. And a lot of what I'm saying will probably echo uh those tuned before me, [clears throat] but I do want to acknowledge um or I personally believe in the resiliency of our children and uh my own. Um I also have heard great things about Otter River um Elementary. Um, and I do see the need for a more comprehensive look at um, re reszoning for uh, the county. [snorts] That being said, um, just looking

117at the proposal, um, I don't see how it's warranted and I don't see how it's reasonable. Um, some of the numbers that have been discussed um, were of the apartments in the town homes. I connected with TPD properties. There are 384 apartments currently. Um, and it's completely built out. Uh, there are 100 town homes as part of West End Village HOA and only 15 of those have not received a certificate of occupancy. Um the numbers from the presentation stated that there are 42 students that are currently uh going to Forest Elementary from this area and just a um 15 home increase uh could not possibly bring on the amount of uh students that the uh impact model uh showed. So more transport more transparency with those numbers would be um very helpful. Um also I

118just wanted to state that I don't see I see the proposal as contrary to two priorities that I think the county should have. One being um providing security for our students and their families. Uh this area has a lot of newcomers. it has a lot of renters um that they're not totally representative of this area, but um those two subpopuls um the the school is is is a is an anchor as um said by those who followed or preceded me. Um it's a entryway into the community, a way uh to really connect with the community. I know it has been for my family. Um and uh that that would be jeopardized by this transition. Another thing is uh we should be looking to create more walkable, more connected communities as well. Um, as part of

119the, uh, site plan for Weston Village LLC, uh, those that, uh, built the actual town homes, they were were require, sorry, were required to put install a sidewalk on Perville Road um, by the Bedford County subdivision ordinance. Um, that, uh, investment is basically rendered, um, useless, uh, by, uh, this proposal. um families take that sidewalk and they go to Forest Elementary. Um we should be looking at putting the sidewalk to connect that uh sidewalk to Forest Elementary and not um take away this opportunity for children uh nearby to walk to their school. Um those are uh the main points I wanted to share. I just want to ask that the board um uh reconsider the the proposal, look for more comprehensive um options, and give more opportunity for the community to weigh in on this

120very important issue. Thank you. [snorts] >> Thank you. Um next is Janelle Rine. Hi again, Janelle Rine, District 2. Um, switching gears obviously to the public hearing matter here. Uh, I know I do not reside in Forest and to be honest with my child not a good viewer Stewartsville, a lot of the things lately haven't necessarily been directly impacting me or my child. But [sighs] I am worried about the precedent that the board is setting with matters like this. And by that I mean in the last meeting after most of the public had gone after the closed session is when the vote happened to early redistrict forest. It had already been talked about earlier in that meeting and it got brought up again and voted on when most of us had gone. Uh there were

121concerns by your own board members about it being so late in the year and what that would mean for the students and being so unsettled and displaced this late in the year. There were concerns by you guys as well about what that would mean if the audit that you're potentially conducting ends up saying that this is a bad idea and we should put them back and then we're moving the children more than once, especially given how close I'm learning this village is because I hadn't even looked that up. And clearly with an audit, this village is most likely going to end up being put back in that school after the audit is done. [cough] Perhaps instead of looking at things like overcrowding in one school and under capacity schools like Steuartsville, we should be looking

122at our county as a whole. Maybe if we looked at the forest border toward Huddleston, some students could move to Huddleston and then Huddleston students could move to Stewartsville. We keep looking at each of our divisions as separate entities, but we're one county. And if we do this redistricting and look at all of us as a whole, I think we could find a solution that is comprehensive and works for everyone. It shouldn't come down to us gerrymandering the school district now by excluding a school here or temporarily reszoning one there. It It's a shortcut and a half measure. The board really needs to conduct this audit of the school zones correctly. It needs to be independent. It needs to be full and comprehensive. look at options for both with and without Steuart's bill and where

123we could move schools and students. That is going to be the most logical. This is clearly not the most logical solution we're hearing. I mean, if people are walking to school, how are we expecting them to go to one that's eight miles further up the road? My daughter used to walk to school back in our own town and I can't imagine having no car and being asked to go [laughter] that far away. Anyway, I kind of got off topic here, but I just want to say it. This is our youngest generation of children. I mean, these are little kids here we're talking about. They are the most vulnerable and we really need to be doing what is in their best interest and constantly moving and shifting them and not giving a full and comprehensive plan

124in advance is just not going to work out well for these kids. >> Thank you. Uh Alexis received >> sheened. >> All right. Well, we have only one person left. So, we're going to go lose on with the weight list. We made it. Will Sherry? No. All right. But that that is everybody that has signed up to speak. How much time do we have? We got time. If anybody else would like to speak, we have time for one more. All right. Hearing none, we will close um the Thank you to everyone who has certainly um came here tonight to speak. All right, let me find my here. All right, we will go back um to Mr. Hagler and put back on the hot seat and see if there was any questions or comments what you

125had presented. Start over here. Anything? >> Well, I I voiced my concern the last time is that if we we put Weston talking about >> Yes. >> If we put Weston in um Otter River, it's right near Forest Elementary and we have this there's it's very unlikely that it'll be left in Otter River when they do the full redistricting. So then we're going to be moving back and forth and it'll be disruptive. I don't I don't like that idea at all. I'm looking at the map and I'm thinking how in the world am I going to are we going to do this with Forest and JF [clears throat] Jefferson Forest Elementary also close together and then there's Otter River way out there in New London. There's definitely going to need to be some professionals looking

126at this and and a a third party is is what I really think is our only solution in this respect. questions. One for Forest had previously been uh 98% is was the redistricting from this past fall, did that have anything to it going down to 96% and allowing for the music? What allowed the music room to go back to a classroom? what position should >> um so the previous year the school board in order to balance the budget had to go up on the u staffing ratios so that decreased a um teachers across the board so that means more kids in the classroom to balance our budget financially that was done for the 2526 budget we did still have state funding called all-in funding that we used to postpone that by one year so for

1272526 they had an additional teacher that went away for the 26 6 27 years that we're going into. So that's the reduction there. It's about the same amount of students, you know, year-over-year in essence, but that one additional teacher is a reduction. >> Okay. So the numbers are increasing size. >> Yeah. And I know there's some questions and I Well, I'll let you finish your questions. There are some questions that were brought up and for the public and I'd like to address some of our methodology. I'll get to that in a minute because um >> Sure. they've come out and I think we need to answer some of those if I can do that but I'd be happy to answer you have a question here. >> Okay. Um I have a few but I also

128have one about that as well. um at 31 projected students for Otter River for the one fifth grade. Sorry, I'm going back and forth from my notes to [snorts] >> uh what would allow for an additional teacher to be at Otter River to go from 10 teachers to 11? >> Like so there was a one class size that >> that would go from 27 students to 31 >> two classes. Uh it would be two class and I believe it was the fifth grade >> maybe. Sorry. Um, [clears throat] hold on. I found it. >> You're looking at the class size changes at that projection on our class sizes. >> So, Otter River, actually, it was one third grade class. It would go from 27 with one teacher >> to a third grade of 31 with

129one teacher. >> Yeah. >> Saying that the numbers are still are what we're projecting. >> What would allow for that third grade? What are the numbers >> like how close are we to another teacher? I'd have to look for the overall school. Our staffing standards are based on the total number of students for the school. And so, as we as uh Dr. Woodford presented, I think two meetings ago, our staffing standards work pretty well, but the smaller the school or even a midsize school, all the kids don't come in the same amount of buckets. And so, we have grade configuration problems that we have to deal with. And this just kind of highlights overall the school gets a certain amount of teachers, but the grade levels are different and it causes problems. Uh especially for

130smaller schools. The larger the school, the more they're spread out. They come in in nicer buckets and you can deal with that. >> Um I haven't looked at that in particular, but they might need five, six, eight more students before it would trigger another another teacher. I I don't know the exact number. >> Okay. Now that >> but there's calculations that we look at. >> Absolutely. Um, and as far as transportation goes, we've heard a lot that from a lot of parents that they're taking their students to school. Um, we are planning on providing transportation if this were to go through. So, if all of the projected students from Western Village use transportation, would one bus be able to support them or would there be multiple buses? >> I'll refer to uh Dr. Cornet to

131answer that. >> Right now, uh, Mr. Lee has worked with our transportation department and we would not need to add any more bus drivers. We could shift a route down. Right now we project all those students from Weston would be on one bus. >> And um and also I did have um a question so that you had an opportunity to discuss the numbers um and where you came to the numbers. Um, you had mentioned the facility committee. Um, and I just wanted to give you that opportunity to to where these came from. >> Yeah. And I appreciate the public speaking out and going sometimes it doesn't make sense. Um, projecting how many students are going to come from a new [clears throat] we do the best we can. So to to let you all to

132let the public know and everybody know the facility committee uh worked with uh staff and we went back and we looked at other apartments that have been completed in the last three or four years and how many students of a mature apartment is actually in our stu in our schools right now. We looked at recently completed town homes and how many does that generate and also single family homes. That's the number we've been using to project. It doesn't mean it's going to generate that many. Um um Mr. Hullbrook and Mr. Hill are on that committee. Um and you can look across our county. We're going to use the same metric, but I you know there's there's developments out by the lake that are being developed at town homes that might generate no kids because it's

133right on the lake and it's marketed different. Every property is marketed different by the builder and who it's targeted for. But sometimes and you know I'd use the Gables and things like an example. We had projections that have generated this many kids. It generated a lot more. So, it's not a precise precise science. Um, I know it's mostly built out, but we're looking at once a development's mature and been there for a couple years. What's what's the probability? So, the numbers we're presenting are not, we don't have definitive numbers on those. Those are just uh making the board aware that this could potentially happen. And if it does happen, we we need to be forward looking at it rather than saying, "Oh, a whole bunch more kids showed up. What do we do?" This is

134a potential. It's not automatic. And so it it's not a we're doing the best we can looking at what has happened in Bedford, not what's happening nationwide, but what what what generates from a new development for Bedford. That's where we've got the numbers and those are actually on uh we have a membership projection that I do uh for the following year and we've actually put those methodologies on there. I communicate with the planning commission when they have a new development going on, what's going to be the impact to middle, high, and elementary school and what elementary school. So when they uh present to the board of supervisors in the community, they're saying this is the potential impact. Not all developments produce the same amount. It varies. So I just want to let the public know

135we're using the best meth best methodology we can with the most recent numbers. As more developments come on, the committee will look at that to see if those can be revised down or up based upon what we're experiencing in Bever County. >> Um and and last thing, we are looking at Western Village because because it is the newest development that's impacting force elementary school at this time along with being the newest development that is closest to >> yeah it and I appreciate the comments too when you look at it you're going it's right next to it but when you go along the 22 border to the nearest school where we have capacity I mean TJ's getting up there too so that's longer um Otter is the nearest school that we have capacity to and and

136really Weston Village is the nearest one to that everything else would have to go past Western Village to get there. So, not that we're kind of singling it out. We're just looking at, you know, proximity. Um, and that's why it was probably brought up and the facility committee and stuff that we looked at it. Um, I know when you look at it from a map, you're going, but that's where there's capacity. And granted, uh, long-term, I will say for the community that's come out and spoken, uh, in the last presentation, I didn't go over it over tonight, but, um, there are four more developments going along a parabol road that are going to that could potentially generate another 60 to 70 students to come into Force Elementary. One is underdevelopment. I don't know if that'll

137generate any kids because of how it's being marketed, but there's a couple more. And I think, you know, some people in Farmington have come out and spoken in regards to that. There there's other developments coming along that Paraveville Paraveville Road past Forest Elementary that could generate additional students within the next two years. Not guaranteed. Once we see gra uh our facility committee looks at it like once ground breaks then they know it's more imminent and we have to address it and kind of put that forecast in there and alert the board. So [snorts] um that's another factor that we're looking at that's coming down the pike in the next two to three years. >> Thank you. >> Questions? Mr. KS [clears throat] skipping right to me. Um, have we looked at the legality of targeting

138a single development? Does are we are we covered um if we just do Western Village and nothing else? >> Um, uh, redistricting and great, you know, we're where, um, students go is under the preview of the school board um, solely. So >> that's school board works just like that. >> And then it looks like right now uh you're projecting Westonville is to generate another nine students uh next year for kindergarten. That's our projection roughly. >> Well, the projection is that's [clears throat] how many kindergartens were this year. >> Okay. >> I I mean so >> I'm just putting nine in there. Um >> if it stays the same, the net sum of the fifth graders moving out is two additional students. We have seven seven moving out, nine moving in. So, there's two additional students.

139>> And and I will say when you look at the breakdown, and I'll just say this for everybody here, a [laughter] very large fourth grade moving up to fifth grade at Force Elementary. A lot larger than the other grade levels. >> So, uh once that grade level moves out, [snorts] don't know what else is going to come in, but it is a very significant large one that's moving in the fifth grade. Um that has been moving through the school. um with the there are some students that have stayed uh we grandfathered in from the Lake [clears throat] Vista area the previous year uh previous board's discussion um and what that is but people make different decisions each and every year so some of those may move out this year or may stay but that was

140a decision made prior >> thank you sir >> oh I have a you answered most of my questions. I I listed out 30 some questions I had and I think you answered most of them already. So, um and this is actually for Dr. Cornett. Uh with obviously we are increasing if we were to do this proposal be increasing the um travel cost on students. Is that is that a number we can put to that of hey it's going to increase it by this number >> as far as the actual amount gas increases that >> I mean I guess a little bit of that but you know we're potentially bus route but you said you should shift bus routes around >> right so there would be no additional cost right now as far as personnel goes

141as far as our plans go now I don't think Mr. Haggler and I have sat down and calculated the actual amount of increase in fuel from >> Yeah, it is about 8 miles more. >> There would be an increase, but it would it would be >> minimal, right? Minimal. >> Yeah. >> Um, so with this plan, you know, we've got uh West Village. Could you pull up the the map for me? >> Yes, sir. And and this is something that I was I was actually discussing with someone else today. It is true that this development is one of the closest to Forest Elementary School and also it is true that it is the closest development to Otter River at the same time. >> Yeah. When you look at that blue line on the bottom 22

142um that [snorts] separates out. So the 221 is the line uh um that is worse elementary. So as you go along 221 from where Western Village is and going along 221 there's three students and single houses between there and the line for entry. So Western Village is you know is right there on the corner. >> So this is not necessarily using like an overflow model where we're where we're taking one development. We're going to be proposing to move the entire line down towards that intersection. Is that correct? If the board likes to would do that, then it probably would gobble up probably. >> It would probably it would probably we'd have to draw down and we'd probably pick up those other three students along. >> You pick up the maze farm as well in that.

143>> Um >> I think one of those was a fifth grade student moving up. So >> um you labeled out the uh is there any this might be to you uh Dr. Woodford. Um, what would be the would there be a potential impact in moving students like this during a transition year? You know, your third grade, your fifth grade year where you're where you've got testing and that kind of stuff. Is there a any particular impact on that? >> I think every student is different to be honest. Both of both of these schools are high performing schools. Um, [snorts] you know, every child is different. So what that impact is to them personally. I don't think there's a way to predict. Um again both schools are high performing schools and so um you know kids

144will be in the school a whole year before they take a test. So you know I I don't know that there would be we could pinpoint that being the reason if they did or didn't. Um, and I'm putting you on the spot a little bit and >> I I believe we looked at this previously in the last work session. Um, was there any impact thus far from the Grand View courses uh area? >> No. Uh, Grand View there were a couple um from looking at the maps and stuff. It looked like some were built. I don't know if it's all built out, but we had no kids in there um attending Forest Elementary School at this time. Yeah. And those town homes audio homes. I think they're more marketed towards retirement. Um, so once again,

145I might project off that because I'm going to project worst case. >> That's right. >> And then once it's done and developed, then we know what the impact is. And that might not seem fair, but I' I've got to prepare the board for what could come. Um, and so when we're looking at next year, the hard call here is it's just like you're looking at it, it looks like it'll be fine, but if we get to the fall and there are more kids there, then you're going to give up probably your music room. And if there's two teachers added. We're probably [cough] giving up an art room or doing something because there's there's not another classroom um to add two teachers. Um so, um my projection says that we're going to have 18 and that

146music room should go back all things being equal. But uh when you have new developments coming in, and this would be for any district in America, when you have growth and developments coming in, you don't know the full impact until it's really there and it's more of like um been established for a year or two, and then it's kind of you kind of see the impact. >> So, and I I know you're not going to want to project out like this, but um let's say we do nothing. We we continue to let you know this growth go. Um, we've got currently we've got music on a stage and we can put it back there. What if there are additional students that come in from additional developments, not just this development, >> any development? What happens

147if we're sitting here starting in August and we're at 105 110%. What's the what's our release? If I look at the numbers, probably you have to have at least 20 25 students to get that 19th teacher back. That and what they did this year was to give up the music room to do that. Um, which means you'd have to go another 25 above that before you get your additional one which might jeopardize the art room or some and I don't want to uh pigeon hole the principal. They may have to do something else. I there's other options and I would defer to probably the instructional staff about what you could do in a school to get through a year like that. Um, I to be honest with you, it'd be too late to really throw

148a mobile in and get it in in time for it to be effective. Um, it, you know, you got to go through a lot of hoops and stuff to get something like that put in. So, um, I think that's why initially I was, you know, I might have said, you know, for the following year looking at it before the board said, "Let's do redistric." So, there was a lot of things that have happened since I presented on that. So, um, but, um, you know, staff will do what we need to do and I'm sure the principal, Miss Panley, will do whatever she can to make it, uh, you know, with whatever kids show up, do the best we can on that. But that 19th teacher, which they had this year, they had to give up.

149[clears throat] >> Well, I appreciate this. I appreciate thorough presentation there. Uh, that's all the questions I have. >> Hey, so I would So, any new developments would be going to Otter Otter Hill? Uh, no. The board has not voted on an overflow model for any of those. I presented on it, but all those developments. Um, you're talking um town homes on Parville. Been a lot of talk about that in the news and planning commission board supervisors. Um, you got the Grand View, you have the corporate park, which I haven't seen construction on, but that's across the street uh from probably Weston behind the um Dollar General, I think. Um, and then you have there is still in the master plan for more apartments within Farmington, but I don't think any construction's there yet, but

150that's a little bit bigger number, but we don't see any movement on that, but it's still in their master plan to build out some more apartments there. When they do that, I don't even have a date for that one. I think the Grand View and the town homes along Parabel are going to come sooner than later. And I don't I'm not sure about the corporate work. >> Okay. Um there is other land along Paravel that have been that's been bought by developers, but there's no master plan of what they're building and what's to come. But there's some still bigger properties out on Paraveville. And I think that just alludes to the longer term problems the county is going to have because um I think some some spoke to it long term you build a lot

151more along Parabel Force Elementary can't handle all um and so you know is it you know additions another school rid [cough] I just think there's more development coming there and there's things other decisions have to be made um long term Yeah. No, >> I'm sorry. I When you call on me first, I'm not always [laughter] ready. >> You always be ready. >> Um the chart that you have for changing in um changes in class sizes. Pull that back up. >> Um if you look at the first one, okay, >> it's kind of small for everybody, but >> Yeah, I know it is. I have to zoom it in myself. Um Forest Elementary current and then you've got Forest Elementary with the redistricting. I don't see a forest elementary without the district is just redistricting on

152that this >> so the forest elementary would be what I'm projecting next year with with western village still going there and then the other one is if western village went to Otter River two different scenarios there >> with the current so I just go with the current one is >> is what you >> so that would be if there was no change for next year and that's what I react conservatively >> okay >> and as I said with the facility committee I know some people spoke about that, but I we just use our modeling and say that Weston could produce more kids than I'm projecting. I'm just looking at how many kids are coming from there right now, but our modeling says there could be more. We'll see. Um, >> so I guess my point

153is that you've got 18 teachers and then if we do the redistricting, you're going down to 16. >> Yes, ma'am. But then if you look at Otter River and you're putting the students over there, you go from eight teachers to 10. >> Yep. >> So we basically >> two teachers >> just move them over. But then if you're looking at um the third grade with only one teacher teaching 31 students, which is not possible. >> Um so that really shouldn't be 10, it would be 11. >> Um in our staffing model, that's how they're staffed. Uh, and so >> can you have 31 students in one class? >> Oh, >> well, >> you can if it's a singleton. >> Um, >> what does that mean? >> It means it's only one one class of third

154graders or one class of second graders. We and I think what Mr. Haggler is doing, we when you apply the staffing standard, you get a certain number of teachers. Then the principal really has to decide are are you going to have, you know, a combo class, a a mixed grade level, are you gonna have a large class? I mean, they may decide to put that the teacher [snorts] somewhere else and have two third grades. We're just I think Mr. Hegler's just doing a chart of, >> you know, just putting the numbers in. Um, and that one just happened to be the 31. Um, but yes, in Virginia by SOQ's you can have a class of 31 at that grade level if it's a singleton >> and >> you would probably put an aid or somebody

155in there. But >> you need >> I would add that the reason I I put this chart in there was to reflect our staffing standards and kind of reiterate what Dr. Woodford presented I think at two two meetings ago. But also um the the the idea that if you put more students in our river it'll fix all the problems. Not necessarily. Uh it's still of size where it's not big enough to really kind of flush that out where it's kind of like even across all grade levels. You still have difficulty um and we have difficulty with schools the same size of that that that would be but the smaller the school the harder it is to kind of level that out across the board. So I just wanted to reflect that. >> You good? >>

156Yeah. Okay. So, but in that scenario, it's also assuming that nobody else is going into Otter River from anywhere else. >> Correct. >> Yeah. And that's the other thing that redistricting, if you did a whole countywide [snorts] redistricting, still doesn't solve for necessarily is odd, you know, classroom sizes where you have that one year where you got 31 kids. So, it's just the the problem with Forest Elementary is just the capacity right now and where we're projected. I mean, we got 14 kids and then you're at capacity no matter what. >> And that doesn't matter. It doesn't mean that they come from Weston Village. It could they could come from anywhere. >> Yep. >> You know, I have friends that live right around there and they had four kids that are graduated high school and

157into college and they're going to be moving. That house when that goes on the market is a perfect house for a family with four kids to move into and guess where they're going. Forest Elementary. So, that's one that comes in. Now, you're you're you're getting pretty close. So anyway, there's a lot of different scenarios. Of course, the other thing too is I know it's like, well, this could be temporary. This could be a temporary fix. Um, and that [snorts] that could be very true, but if we get a plan to redistrict the whole county and if we approve a plan, that also does not mean that that plan gets put into place day one and everybody moves that first year. They may come up with a scenario that says, you know what, you really got

158to expand Forest Elementary School. You got to put mobiles in there. You gota you you got to save some money and then you might have to build on to that school. That would be a a longer term thing. Well, what we heard in the last several meetings is well fifth grade I want to put fifth grade in the middle school. That was a So, every time there's another solution, there's a another group of folks that definitely have concerns and viable concerns. So, um it's that's that's that's a tough thing that we need to we need to deal with. Um, a lot of these are just obviously statements and feel free to jump in, Mr. Haggler or or anybody on staff. Um, um, I do think we need to look at some staffing standards. Um, again,

159just take a look at these things and determine full-time aids. We in the classroom when we have these things. I I know there's a cost to that. I know we talk about, well, this is going to add to a full-time librarian or full-time bookkeeper there. I think we need to we need to take a hard look at that stuff, too. I appreciate you saying that on a 31 they probably could have full-time aid or there can be I know combined classrooms some people are like hey I'm all for that. A lot of people are certainly against that as well. We've dealt with that. Um with Otter River growth whether it has to do with Weston Village or or not. Um have we accounted for um the car line how we would make that work in

160221 >> at Honor River? Yeah, >> we're going to have to address it at some point, but >> right, >> Mr. Nazigan has been there to look at that and and Miss Moore has a a plan to to work with Mr. Naz Nazigan. I would say with the number of students right now projected, if we did move just from from Forest Elementary to Otter River, the Western Village, it would not impact it substantially um at this time. But we we do we are working with Miss. >> Yeah. There's other things that are happening in good and again if we come up with a redistricting plan that's going to we're going to have to have that plan ready to go. That school could be at 85% pretty quick. And I I just add that, you know,

161with the facility committee, we've identified with uh the um the county planning developments that we know that were developers have bought and submitted a master plan or or an idea of what they're going to do. If there's a developer that owns property that hasn't done anything like that, it's not on our radar. So in in our projections for membership which is presented to the board usually around November December um and the public can go look at that from last year our methodologies there and we actually list the developments that we're watching. These are on the watch list. These are going to come into our school >> and these are just >> yeah there's one big development in the Otter River zone. I don't think they've broken ground yet but that you know it could be

162coming. So >> but those are also not taken into account. Someone's got 10 acres and they sell oneacre pieces and it's not really a subdivision, right? >> Yeah. We're to watch smaller. We're looking for the bigger developments. Yeah. >> But those do have an impact. >> So, we're we're keeping an eye on the Ottawa River because there's a lot of land out that way and, you know, seems like development's moving out that way. So, it's something we got to keep an eye on too. >> Trying to keep push back. >> Yeah. >> Try to keep push back. Um, the other thing that I that I heard and I uh again I came from an area when I lived in Raleigh that they did this and they did do year round school and they did it

163because that they were there were more students moving in than they could build school. They couldn't build schools that fast and schools are not cheap. They cost money to to build of course and they take time. Um, it [clears throat] did work. We did enjoy it. I know that's just just one person saying that they enjoyed it, but we did. Um like like it was said earlier today, it was nine weeks on, three weeks off, and it was great. It is hard for people that maybe have both parents that work. Like what do you do when you have three weeks off? Well, we had it was it was a gym that was attached to the school that was that was owned by the county and uh there was a trackout program. costs money to do,

164but you could send your kids to a trackout program. So, as we if we as we're talking about potentially thinking about year- round school, and I assume that a redistricting study is going to give us options and tell us lots of different things that we could do or we should consider. Um, but that is also something for people to realize is like we're going to need some sort of help somewhere to have uh, you know, like they sometimes counties have summer programs and stuff. It's sort of like that. Um they would you kids would go to the zoo. They would go to you know you know to uh place where the little aquarium in the mall. They they go to jump park. All sorts of stuff that they would do and they had transportation and

165everything else. My son's special needs in a in a in a wheelchair. They had a a special needs bus for him so he could go to all those things too. But if there is a cost for us as a family there's there's there's other costs. I know there's a lot of afterare and some other care that's in forest. That's great but it's not free. And so that all these things just need to kind of be taken into consideration as we're as we're discussing. >> And for the board, I know some people that spoke tonight might not not might not have been here for previous meetings. When you look at Bedford County, we have gone down in here 10,665 students. We're down to about 8,300 projected next year. We have a capacity of almost 12,000 and

166we're going we're going near the 800, you know, 8,000 mark. we have excess capacity, but just like when the grade level configurations come into a school, they don't come in nice packets. They're not coming in nice packets where we have capacity. And so to maintain those buildings is very costly, operational cost, long-term uh facility cost. And so the board is wrestling, I know, with all that. We we've been talking about it a lot, but for people that haven't heard that before, that's an overall thing that is kind of like um having to be balanced out with limited funds. and you know what is the building configuration and how many buildings do you maintain and and and what's appropriate. So it's a tough thing u but our enrollment has gone down. So, and we have overall

167capacity in building we're about 70% of what the overall capacity that we're doing is actual forest could have x% of the of the group and the and the students that would be going to school and you know twothirds of the capacity that they would need for that as of as of now. All right. So, definitely lots to uh still consider. So, um we will move on for informationational items back to 3.02 title grants. Dr. Woodford. >> So, this um we're presenting as anformational item tonight. Every year we um receive information for our federal title grants. Um I want to just commend the staff because we only received information about three weeks ago. Some of them were in trainings last week and they were pro u preparing and got these grants ready for posting for you

168to read through. [cough] Um so you'll see four grants. The title one um grant which provides resources for eight of our qualifying um elementary schools. Um we um allot that money or the federal government allotss that money based on disadvantaged populations. It allows for uh professional development, but most of the time we use it for additional staff to make smaller class sizes in those particular buildings. The title two application provides funding for some of our division support salaries, tuition assistant for assistance for employees and professional development. Um our title three application provides support programs to address English language proficiency and academic achievement of our English learners. Um, and our title four grant provides funds for programs and activities to improve students academic achievement by increasing the capacity of the school division to provide students with

169a well-rounded education. These applications um have to be approved and submitted by June 30th of every year. And so we're presenting them tonight for information and action next month. >> Thank you. Any questions? Good. >> All right. Want to go to 3.03 gifted plan. >> So, um, every year division school boards are required to approve any updates to the comprehensive local plan for the education of the gifted. Um, again, this plan is being, um, offered for information this month at action in June. Um, it was just recently updated with input from the gifted teachers and the parent gifted advisory. Um, no, no really big changes, just some a few updates and um in organization, but it'll be um up for action next month. >> Very good. Thank you. Any questions plan? >> All good, Mr.

170Kins. We're good. >> Excellent, sir. >> Excellent. Good. All right. [clears throat] So, that's it on that. So, we will move to action item 7.01, 01 approval of policy updates presented at April 16th work session. Mr. Bear, >> there are eight policies up for action. ACCA new policy directive from the attorney general to prohibit anti-semitism. GBA employee version and JFHA student version prohibit prohibiting uh harassment and retaliation. IG A is teaching about drugs, alcohol, and tobacco in our schools. And IGBI, advanced placement classes, and special programs. Ike, student promotion, retention, and remediation. JED, student absences, excuses, dismissal, and JGB, excuse me, JG DB, discipline of students with disabilities for infliction of serious bodily harm. All right. Uh, do I have um a motion for approval of policy updates? >> All right. We have a first

171by Mr. Hill. Do I have a second? >> Second by Mr. K. Is there any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. Any opposed? No. >> All right. All right. >> Mr. Daniels, >> yes. >> Miss Dobson, >> yes. >> Mr. Hill, >> yes. >> Mr. Hul, >> no. >> Dr. Hubot? >> Yes. >> Mr. KS? >> Yes. >> Miss Pervvis? >> Yes. The eyes have it six, Mr. Chair. >> All right. Do I have a motion to go into close session? >> Mr. Chairman, pursuant to code Virginia 2.2-3711A119 2-3711A119 for the discussion consideration for interviews of prospective candidates for employment assignment appointment promotion performance demotion salaries disciplining or resignation of specific employees of Bedford County Public Schools and pursuant to code of Virginia 22-3711A19 for discussion of plans to protect

172school safety and consultation with law enforcement officials where discussion in an open meeting would jeopardize Security of school facilities. >> We have a motion by Dr. Cub. Do I have a second? >> Second by Mr. Hullbrook. Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. Any opposed? We're in close session. Second. Any discussion? >> Johnson, will you? >> First, could you tell me please who made the motion on this? >> Oh, uh, Dr. Hub second. >> Thank you so much. where the Beth County School Board has convened a closed meeting on this date pursuant to an affirmative recorded vote in in accordance with the provisions of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act and where section 2.2-3712D of the code of Virginia requires a certification by this school board that such closed meeting

173was conducted in conformity with Virginia law. Now therefore, be it resolved that the Beer County School Board hereby certifies that to the best of each member's knowledge, only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements by Virginia law were discussed in the closed meeting to which the certification applies, and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard, discussed, or considered. >> Yes. [laughter] >> Thank you. >> All right. Uh, approval of the consent agenda. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? >> So, move first by Mr. Hill. Do I have a second? >> Second by Mr. KS. Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. Any opposed? Consent agenda is approved. Matters from the board. Miss Pervvis. >>

174[cough] >> doing that combined with our committees. >> Yes, please. >> Um we just met school yesterday and um we did not have a [laughter] but we did have cake. We celebrated um Mr. or Dr. Smith's um retirement and the um the initiation then of Dr. Mr. Douglas. So, um there's good rapport in that in that group and we're looking forward to seeing what Dr. Douglas has in store. He's got some great ideas, new things for the gov school. Um and Dr. Smith is still going to hang around and just kind of continue to mentor and just be available. So, um I'm excited about what coming up next year. Great. >> Any other comments? No. All right, Mr. Dobson. >> Um, I just wanted to thank everybody that took the time to email and speak

175tonight um on all the issues, but specifically Weston Village. Um, and I want to thank everyone in administration for your time, effort, and willingness to continually go over all the scenarios that we throw at you. Um, you guys have a lot on your plate, and it is very much [snorts] appreciated. And um I know that we are trying we are all trying to find the best scenario for the kids at Forest Elementary and the kids at Otter River and all of our schools. So um I just want to thank everybody for their time and commitment to just making sure that we have all the facts um before we make a huge decision. So that is it. >> Thank you. Uh shout out to our graduating seniors. It's a it's hardly possible that that's already happening,

176but uh it's been long four years ready to graduate. So congratulations to all of them. Um also thank you to the community that came out tonight to to speak on behalf of Western Village. [snorts] Um, we're listening and uh I think that uh there's there's a solution um and putting our heads together and listening to some of the great ideas that came out tonight. We got some tough decisions to make as u Thank you for your input. Um also the public speakers tonight. Um, I was impressed with the uh the IT limitations, the one-on-one, the data that we've seen in our emails lately. And I think that as a board we need to uh consider some of those uh limitations um and also uh the awareness of the absenteeism. I appreciate that. um because that

177is a huge problem and um you know we are preparing our students for real life and that doesn't apply in real life. You know you miss a couple of days of work and you're out. So reality is is uh uh upon them as they graduate and it's it's part of our education to to teach them those things. So, um, >> yeah, thank you. >> Can I just share one little thing? It's It's funny that Mr. Ashwell came tonight because the principles and and the directors and our instructional team, we've been actually working on an updated attendance policy that actually says that students will not get credit for courses if they meet uh miss I think it's 16 >> 16 classes. Depends on the number, but we and we kind of after bodataught which you mentioned

178um but our principles have been asking for that like give us a little bit more teeth with students not going on and not getting credit for a course if they're not in school. So we have already started addressing that and you'll start to see some regulations and stuff come before the board that will have those updates in them. >> May I ask on that? Is that done per class or is that done per school day? So at the middle and high school they mark attendance [cough] by class. So it is written the way we've written it. It would be how many classes they miss toward a high school credit course or a middle school course that has that. And then for the elementary it's um the possibility of retention could be discuss discussed after so

179many absences in the school year. >> And this is unexcused absences. Um, it actually could be either one >> really >> because we have a lot of people who um have unexcused, but then we have a lot that just go to the 24-hour clinics and get notes all over the place and they get up to like 40 notes from different doctors and it's problematic. So um we what we've done is we've given principles the flexibility to have something other than just going to court because that's it's not that's not working. So >> I echo everybody else here. um you know the I'm glad to see people coming out and giving their opinions on um the passion that they have about being redistricted. I'm excited to see, you know, like Mr. Ashwell come out and give

180us issues that they're seeing in schools. Um [clears throat] these decisions we make, we don't make lightly and they're not they're not easy to make. I would like to take my time to though in address a couple of questions people have about decisions we make. We make these decisions based off the best information that we have at the time. We cannot constantly seconduess these decisions. The decision is made. We now have to make a plan, move forward with that decision. Last month, we made a decision to close a school because that's what our community asked us to do, to give them an extra year to close this school. That's what we voted for. That's what we did. Now, we're getting burned in effigy a little bit. We're doing exactly what they asked us to do,

181which is close this school because we've also made a decision to redistrict in that same era. We have to continue with our decision. We might find out that it's a bad decision and then we can adjust it. But we cannot continually backtrack on this decision that we've made just because it's not popular. We have to move forward with these decisions. Otherwise, the amount of staff that we're or amount of work that we're asking for our staff to do is moot. They can't believe anything that we're asking them to do because they're constantly having to go back and rehash and rehash and rehash. So, um I understand people don't like when we make hard decisions and this Weston Village decision is going to be a hard one as well. We are making it with the best

182information that we have at the time. If new information comes out, we can look at it again, but we still have to move forward with whatever we do. We can't continually go backwards. Anyway, that's all I got. >> Thank you very much. uh we haven't had any committee meetings no [clears throat] new updates on any of the construction PPE or that and then u we don't have any other comments I would like to ask Dr. with on the attendance policy. So that's irregardless of the grade that they had. >> Um >> so if they had like excellent grades [laughter] and they had done missed or if they're failing already and on top of that. >> So what it does is it gives principles the ability to make that decision. So it says if a student

183and I'm going to throw an arbitrary number because I don't have it in front of me. If a student misses 16 class periods, the principal may >> may. Okay. It's not >> may not as >> Yes. And then there is Well, it might not be the principal, but then we also allow parents to appeal and it'll probably come to like so that we have multiple people. >> So, it's not just you miss 16 days. I don't care if you got straight A's, >> right? And we also are very sensitive if a student is ill or you know we just have so many systems we can work with like homebound and homebased instruction and medical plans. So um it really is for the kid and and what we have problems with and I think probably what

184Mr. Ashel was referring to kids who come in late every morning, kids who leave every day. You know, it's those classes on the ends that kids are missing because they're not getting up and so but okay. >> So, it just gives principles the ability to do. >> It doesn't it's not an arbitrary you if you do this you're going to fail at last. >> It's per case. >> It's Yeah. individual basis. >> Gota. That's all I got. >> Yeah. I I want to echo what everyone said as far as thank you so much for coming out. Um I really wanted to highlight one of the speakers talked about um you know a different creative option being year round school. I know Mr. Daniels has mentioned [snorts] that in the past. I do think it's something

185that we should at least entertain um as far as we need to be looking at all of our options. I don't want to be uh strung up to just this is the way we've always done it so we will do it in the future. Um, so I think that's something we need to, you know, as we're looking at a redistricting model, maybe something we we look into as far as, hey, this might help solve problem. And it might not [clears throat] be countywide. It might just be a couple schools, but something that at least I'd love to get more information of. Um, in saying that, um, we did, speaking of information, we met, um, with, uh, everyone that was, um, starting to put bids [clears throat] together for our potential redistricting. Um, in doing that,

186we kind of just answered questions or sort of things. Their bids are doing, correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Haggler, June the 3. >> Yes. Um then u Matt and I will review those um and we'll bring them back to you guys at the next meeting to kind of see what we recommend as far as moving forward with you know the different companies available. >> That's all I've got. >> Um with let's say we select you guys have a recommendation for a company would we then we would ask our questions and everything else we would then work with them to develop like a plan. Yeah, >> that plan may include >> the what would happen is you you're basically picking a partner based upon recommendation of the committee because they're going to be vetting that

187making recommendation. You'd then enter to negotiations for a contract and in those negotiations you're defining the scope of the project. >> So if they give you an estimated cost but you say oh I want to add this this and this cost might go up or it might go down but you're negotiating this is what you want what what we want you to deliver and this is what we're expecting and this is what we're going to deliver. So basically once the board votes on a partner then you start negotiating. >> And again to to to echo what Mr. Kin said you know they're going to be trying to gather the information that they can gather with us what is readily available what those projections could look like. Um but again it's like how hard is it

188to predict the future? It's pretty hard. So I mean again this [clears throat] would still just be a best you know a best guess of what we can do but we can see over the course of years and the course of what in action gets you what does it do so they're going to have I assume they're going to have lots of suggestions add on to schools um you know build a new school somewhere that may be like hey we need to close these two schools down but we need to build a bigger school here and this is instead of putting all this money into you know a CIP you got a new school you probably don't have a lot of CIP to start you know what I So, um I I think they're going

189to give us options like that and I think that we would like to see that. Um I do like the absenteeism policy. Um do we need to make that a policy or is that just going to be a regulation? >> So the the specifics are typically in the regulation. We're going to go back um and look at the policy to see if it needs any updates. So, we have kind of gathered information and we're working on um whether the policy and the rig need to be updated or if we can just go to the rig. >> Okay, sounds good. And if we need to, we can even if we don't need to do a work session, you can work with um the committee and we can get it pretty dialed in information and then and

190then vote so we can roll with it before next year. All right, great. Um, you talked about decisions that are not popular, not been popular since January for sure, but when you go to redistrict the entire county, you're definitely not going to be popular. >> Everybody has said, "We understand there's tough decisions that need to be made and we appreciate you making them." And then there's the caveat, there's the butt, because they don't want it to affect them. And I completely get it. But I think that if you've been watching these meetings for a while, talking to any one of us, again, these decisions are not taken taken lightly at all. Um, and we are trying to do the best we can, not for one section or another section, for the entire division and the

191long-term success of that division. We got 8,500 kids that we are trying to do the best we can. We got 1500, you know, contracted people. These decisions are they weigh on every one of us. They are not like, well, I didn't prepare. What are we voting on? Let me just vote how I feel right now. There's a lot that goes into it. We appreciate what I would appreciate, what I appreciated tonight, what I appreciated at the last several meetings where people were coming with issues that they have, but they were trying to provide some solutions. And I think that's where a discussion happens. And sometimes we as board members can say, "Hey, that's a great idea. It doesn't work because a state law says we can't do this or federal law says we can't do

192that, but this this idea over here, okay, maybe that's something we can work with." and hopefully we can come to a solution. But at the very least, we're educating people on again what we're up against, what we can do, and what we what we can't do. Um, but it will not be popular. But again, I I think everyone's got to understand sometimes we got to bite the bullet a little bit and make a move that's going to help us here in the future. Um, again, sometimes they may seem like that's a temporary move. Why'd you do it? Well, because that we needed to make that jump so we could get to where we needed to be. [cough] And I know that's definitely not popular. We may, you know, vote like, hey, we may have to

193do this with Weston Village because the redistricting plan that comes may say we're not doing anything in that area for two more years or three years. Have we done mobiles in the past at Forest Elementary? >> We've had them in the past. Yes, >> that's that's an option, too. Especially if it's not just Weston Village, it's the other things that are going to come around it. And what do we get with that? So, I think those things could could could be looked at. Um, you know, one thing I would like to ask staff to to think about, um, because it's been brought up several times about year round, um, is talk to other divisions in other places and say, how does it work when you went to it? What were the thought processes? What do

194we need to think about outside of just the normal school day? Um, you know, the teachers still get their time off. They just don't necessarily get all in summer break. Um, but the whole school's out on those, you know, Easter break and Christmas and stuff like that. But, uh, and then how would it work when it comes to testing? Um, I think that that's also something else, but >> and sports >> and well, yeah, what's well it would be elementary school really >> right now. Um, so yeah. Um there's transportation, there's what do you do if like said both parents have to work and um a lot of different scenarios and there's tons of individual scenarios that we we talked about tonight. We feel for everybody that has them. Um we got to make the

195best decision we can for the entire county and that's that's the really tough part of what we what we do. So um congratulations to all the graduates. Um guys out there this morning it certainly did not feel like May. I don't know what's going on with the weather. It's really ridiculous, but it's May and our next meeting is in June and and we will, you know, we'll be at graduation and it's a very exciting and fun time uh to be there. Um and um yeah, just congratulations to all the all of our students. They have a lot to look forward to. I would say enjoy their summer. Um, but get ready to get after it because I mean when I was in high school and in elementary school, man, those days were those days were

196certainly long, but once you get through that, man, it goes by pretty darn quick and you're, you know, almost 50 years old complaining about the weather. So, enjoy it. Congratulations to everybody. Congratulations to our teachers and staff. you everyone plays a part in helping these kids succeed and uh you should be very proud of that for sure. So and the parents the parents of course parents grandparents family uh community everybody plays a part in helping develop these kids and I want to say that kids in Bedford County should have a leg up on a lot of other folks just because of uh of all the people that have have come around and supported them through the years. With that, do I have a motion to adjurnn? >> So moved, >> Mr. Hullber on the first.

197Do I have a second? >> Second, >> Dr. Hubach. Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. Any opposed? Where is