Curriculum, Progress, & Outcomes Committee Meeting - 9/23/2025 - 3:00 PM

001All right, I guess we will call this meeting to order for the uh curriculum progress and outcomes committee. Do we have uh an approval to uh for the minutes from last month? >> Any comments or corrections? >> Glad to see a lot of those things have come to pass. Yeah. >> And that they're now old business, right? >> Exactly. any corrections or addendums that you'd like to make? >> Oh, no. >> You're good. >> I was just I was going to follow up on a couple things today, >> but as far as the minutes go. >> Yeah. No, that's >> you're good. All right. So, the minutes from last month are approved and just we'll hold on to that for old business. >> All right, we have an overview of child find and SCT. >>

002So, can I jump in before you? >> Absolutely. >> So, um I had my team kind of just brainstorm things that we thought you might be interested in so that we could kind of have a list of topics. Um, so you'll see at the bottom that the team has kind of said, "Oh, these topics may be interesting for the next CPO meeting." So, I'm kind of doing that to give you an opportunity like as we're agenda planning. Okay. >> If that's something you want, then we can put it on the CTE, high demand jobs and credentiing. You had asked about that last month. Yes. >> Um, and Mr. Hos is actually out this week on vacation. So that's why we're going to do it at the next month. Um so he'll talk about the CTE

003high demand jobs and introduce you to Zello which is our new career planning platform. Um so we are just kind of just in hopes of kind of bringing you some things that we do under curriculum and instruction things that are happening in our schools. But at any point if there are other things I can add them to the list of topics that you're interested in and we can bump ours up a month and put yours in for next month. So I just thought it might help with planning so we're not always trying to kind of brainstorm, you know, so what are we going to share? So um you asked about childfind last time and so um Mrs. Jennings I asked her to put that together and um share with you the child find brochures. Um,

004and then I can never say this right. Is it >> Vivy. I had it like with phonetic symbols and everything in my notebook. Um, and so Mr. Sexton's going to share about some new technology we have called Vivvy. And then I'm really excited. Miss Kappler is actually going to do a science lesson with us showing some hands-on science stuff that is available to our teachers. So, um, I will now give it back to Miss Jennings. >> Yeah. I don't have anything to play with. I feel like, you know, >> you got game a little bit. >> I know I'm up my game. I know. But um Dr. Whiffer did ask for us to kind of talk about what we do for child study procedures and kind of explain that piece of what we're looking at.

005So in Bever County Schools, um we actually follow the child study process. We know the purpose is that early identification of students with disabilities. Uh making sure we're providing interventions if students may need those interventions and supports. And of course, it's according to IDA and the Virginia regulations that we do have a child find um process in place. Our child find is through what we call SCT, which is our school consultation team. And I'm realizing this isn't moving as we're going, so I apologize. >> So, that just went over that. Um and again the as you're just looking at those purposes it's in IDA it's in our Virginia regulations and as well as our procedural safeguards and timelines. So when you look at child find we have child find and referral. So referral is made

006then a child study team meeting is held. Um we may at that child study decide hey we're going to do interventions. We may decide to evaluate for special ed. I'm going to go more in detail to each one of these as well. Um, and then after that, if we decide evaluation for special education, then we do an eligibility determination because we have criteria that we must follow to find a child eligible under an educational u disability category. And if they're found eligible, then they'll have an IEP implementation of the IEP and then every three years they have a reeval. So that kind of gives you the process of when we are looking at finding a child with a disability. So who can refer? Pretty much anybody can refer a child to Child Find. It can

007be a parent, it can be a teacher, it can be other staff, it may have be a physician, um it may be a community agency. So anybody can make that referral. They can identify any child birth to 21. Um and this includes screenings, review of records, observations, whatever they may have, they can make that referral to us. Once that referral is made, we do have to meet within 10 days. So there's certain screenings that are required that we do within the school and that's hearing, vision, and speech. And you can see there where they're required, what grades that we're doing, and any transfer kids that come in and what when we do them. So when they come to us, we do the vision, we do the hearing, and we do the teachers kind of look

008over the speech, and then if there's a screening for the speech therapist to come in and kind of observe as well. Anytime that any of these screenings come back that there's something not right or not developmentally appropriate, um that is when we would refer that to the SCT team ourselves because of those screenings. Um so those are required by law for us to do those. So once we decide there's a referral and we're going to meet, we have to meet within 10 business days. That is the law that's under IDA and that's in our regulations. We're out of compliance if we don't meet within those 10 days. Um the meeting may include parents, educators, administrators, and specialists. It's dep it really depends on what we're meeting for. So say um a teacher is concerned with

009a student's reading ability. they're not um reading on grade level and they're really far behind, that referral will be made. We would want to make sure we have a reading specialist at the table as well as a parent, special education teacher, general education teacher, and administrator. So, there's three things that we can do in a meeting once a referral is made. Once we come to the meeting, we look at everything that we have. We can say, you know, we suspect a disability and we refer them for an eligibility. We can say, well, we see some things that are happening that may need some interventions, but we think with these interventions, we'll see the child grow. We don't really suspect a disability at this time, but we're going to put in these interventions to see if

010they start meeting some of the pieces that they're missing. So, it may just be like splinter skills they're missing that we're going to work on through intervention or we come to the table. Sometimes parent make a referral. They don't always, you know, the developmental of students and where their child should be and their concerned. And so we have the meeting and we find the child is doing well meeting grade level expectations. There are no concerns and we'll decide no further action is needed. Um so those are the three things that we can decide are outcomes from an SAT or child study meeting. Another way, another thing is if we continue to monitor, we put interventions in place and they work and the child is meeting and and moving along and progressing, we may just said

011no further action either because there's no need for any more interventions. Uh, but this kind of helps us really follow what the regulations and are set forth that we are only assessing students that we truly feel or truly have the data that says that they may have a disability category. uh because you don't want to find a child with a disability who doesn't actually if they don't actually have a disability. It may be they just need some interventions. They need some accommodations to support and help them. So, we're very careful with that as we go through what we do. So, when we do continue to monitor um we do have that tiered interventions, those RTI that we we put in place. These are and put in place in the general education um classroom and setting.

012Um students are pulled may be pulled out. they may work with their reading specialist, a special ed teacher, any staff member to provide that intervention. Um, we document that, we collect that data so that we have that data data the next time we come to discuss that student. Um, and the reason that we do these interventions is we want to see how the student respond is responding. Can the student progress? Is the student meeting um the time the skills that we're asking them to meet? Again, I talked about no further actions. We reviewed all the information. There's no concerns. Students meeting everything and so then there would be no reason for us to meet again. And then if we refer for that comprehensive evaluation, we review the information, we suspect a disability, we have to

013have parent consent. If parent does not give us consent to evaluate or provide assessments for their child, we cannot go any further in the process. So parent must give us consent to do so. Um it can include developmental, functional, academic, behavioral, every all kinds of data that we'll need and it has to come through a variety of sources. You can't just use one source. Um, so many times we may have an outside report from a doctor and parents sometimes are like, "Well, you have the report. It says my child has a disability." In the regulations under IDA, it does say that we have to have a variety of information. So, making sure we see how they're doing classroom performance. Uh, making sure that we're looking at are they meeting grade level expectations through what we

014have, what assessment, district assessments have we provided to them, and what they're doing. So, we have to have all of that information and we generally do assessments, a psychological assessment, an educational, social cultural, we may do a medical if needed, if the child has some medical concerns, um, as well as an observation by the administrator and a hearing screening. We have 65 business days to complete all the assessments and to make sure they are completed and then hold the eligibility meeting all within that 65 business days from the referral. So then at the eligibility determination meeting, we decide do they meet the criteria. We have a list of criteria. We have a list of um disabilities that are through BDOE and how a student meets that criteria. There's three questions that have to be answered

015as yes. When we're looking at a student with a dis educational disability, is there a presence of a disability? Does it adversely affect their educational performance? and if so, do they need specially designed instruction? And those three questions must be yes. And if they are, we'd proceed to an IEP. So, the IEP once a child has a disability that this IEP is written just for that child. We have their presence level performance. We know where they're performing, what their needs are. We plan goals, services, accommodations. Parents are always part of every team. Every team that I've been talking about from child study to eligibility to IEP, parents are included as part of the team members. Um, and we must develop the IEP within 30 calendar days of the eligibility meeting. So in and so just

016in summary, the reason we do SCT, the reason we do child find, number one, we we have an obligation to our children to make sure if they have a disability that we have that process in place, but that's also under IDA and the regulations of how um we're supposed to do when we're looking at special education and ensures that early identification to make sure that if children are struggling or children aren't meeting those um developmental or educational skills and milestones that who are identifying them and providing them the support and help that they will need. Um, we always have clear steps, timelines, all of those things. Parents are always partner every step of the way like I said. Um, and we always focus on what is educationally appropriate for the child. And I think that's

017all that I have. It's a very quick overview. Um, I've also provided you a pamphlet and I have more if you'd like to have some Dr. Yubach for your practice. um put them out in the community and around um to provide to parents as well. So, do you guys have any questions? >> Um if they don't meet criteria for an IEP, the I know that's not the end of it. Is this a 50 >> 504? So, yeah. So the team can decide that hey they didn't they have a presence of a disability it does impact them but they don't need specially designed instruction they may just need accommodations and if so the eligibility team would refer them to a 504 eligibility. >> Okay. >> We also have medical 504 eligibility. So sometimes you can just

018go straight to 504 eligibility and not have to go through IDA. >> Give them some examples of what a medical 504 might be for. A medical 504 might be for a student who has diabetes that may be missing a lot of class, needs some accommodations because the diabetes and going to the clinic and getting that sugar regulated and when their sugar is not right, it's hard to learn in the classroom as you know. Um, we have students that have seizures that may have a 504 plan. Um, they may have to miss school more often than others. and how are we going to support them and help them in that work when they are there and making sure they're um moving up there. Um we have 504s for students with ADHD that just may need accommodations

019in the classroom as well. So they're not really medical, but um they don't really need specially designed instruction, but they do need accommodations to be successful. >> Yeah, understood. Good. Thank you. And I think that one of the things that we kind of deal with a lot is the definitions. You have to have an educational impact from your disability. And sometimes what we find is that we will get information that a child has a disability or some kind of med not a disability but an education um shoot a medical sorry >> but it's not really affecting them educationally. They're getting A's and B's. They're doing fine in class. And so that sometimes can be confusing I think for parents and and even staff sometimes if we're getting information from a doctor or you know um

020a nurse practitioner or someone saying this anxiety is really problematic but we're not seeing it in school. So we kind of have to make those distinctions. zone doesn't mean it won't affect them at some point, but sometimes like we might have an elementary student who has anxiety, but parents see it more at home. It might hit them in middle school and that's when we would have to go back and look. And >> so, a couple of questions. Um, first of all, I had a a text from one of the um, she's a friend of mine, but she also works substitute teaches and stuff in Bedford County. and she noticed that a while ago it used to be where the core classes for children who had severe um learning disabilities or um you know special needs

021were um they had their own core classes like they had specialized core classes for them to be at their pace. But she's noticed that there's been a lot of kids who are in core classes that should be in there and they're not keeping up and they're having trouble and she wondered what what changed or what happened or what would that be why would why would that happen? >> Um so it's all individualized to the child. So I mean it would depend on where the student are is in that but we develop those IEPs to meet their needs. So there may be students. We have two tracks that BDOE has set out under our regs and that is a VAP which is the Virginia alternative assessment program where the program is modified and then we have

022the so track. So our students have to be in one of those tracks. Um some of our students that have disabilities do not qualify for that modified curriculum because that modified curriculum is really for 1% of our students. U matter of fact, they don't like for you to go over that 1% cap. And it's for students who have severe um needs. Um and it may be with their communication, their learning, all of those pieces that they cannot learn in the regular classroom. Um, if you have students that are having more trouble staying up, say they have a reading disability and they're not on grade level with their peers, what we're doing through IEPs is they may be they are still provided that instruction because that tier one instruction all students need to learn, but they

023may be being pulled out at another time to do special education reading or do more specialized to meet their skills and their needs where they are. Um, so really would just depend on the child. We have many students who um are in the adaptive curriculum that are included in genet classes. Um parents want their children to be included and they want them to be in sometimes we modify the work if they're in those classrooms as well. So um it just depends on what the student needs and what the IEP team decides is appropriate for them. But her observation as she worked with this child was that the child um was very frustrated because they weren't keeping up and it was also a distraction to the other class, you know, other kids in the class. So,

024do you do a re-evaluation when you start seeing, okay, they're getting an F in all of their, you know, core classes, they're not keeping up, there's a problem here. When at what point do you re-evaluate what their needs are? >> If kids are not passing classes and they have a disability, IEP team meetings should be occurring and they should be talking about where the student is and that can happen at any time throughout the school year. So just because IEP meetings are annually, you can have an addendum or you can have an IEP meeting anytime there's concerns. Rios are every three years. Uh, but we can always if there's a concern and we feel like, you know, something else is going on here, we can do a re-evaluation eligibility meeting at any time as well.

025>> And I would liken it a little bit to um, you know, a student who is a slow learner doesn't qualify for special education because their ability and they're they're doing what they're at the same level as their ability, but they're really going to struggle in school. but that's not going to qualify them for an IEP. So, I think in every class you're going to have students who may be frustrated with a topic or frustrated but may not qualify for an IEP or I mean, we have students with IEPs who have all the accommodations that they need, but they're still not putting their effort in just like any other student in the classroom. So sometimes I think um in her situation she's a substitute seeing that student maybe once or twice rather than the whole

026team coming together to evaluate. And typically when a student has an F in a class for nine weeks, we have an IEP meeting to discuss what's going on. Why did the student fail this class? Is it student effort? Is it they need some different accommodations? They need some different instruction. So, I think we always keep that in mind. >> And that child may have another class at some point, like a resource class or something that they're going in that we're reteing the information and supporting them to help them learn it. They may not see that there in that classroom. >> I would assume too that any person involved, the parent or or your team or anybody that is seeing a kid falling behind could call for a reval. >> Yep. Yes. Absolutely. especially parents. >>

027Mhm. >> You know, if they're seeing stuff that they don't like that they can say, "Hey, let's take a closer look." >> What's going on here? Yes. >> So, you Sorry, one more question. Um, you mentioned that if the parents are against it, all bets are off. You can't do anything. >> Virginia is a consent state. They >> And I totally agree with parental assessments of that. But, um, I'm also concerned about these kids. like at ECL glass. I had a student who was in my um Spanish three class and um they were a senior and they couldn't read English and I I did not realize that until I asked him to read something in English and he couldn't read it. Um Spanish is actually easier because it's you follow it phonetically. everything is exactly

028as it's written. You just need to know know a few rules, not dozens and dozens of them. But he couldn't read. And I I took him aside afterwards privately and I'm like, "What's going on? I noticed you couldn't read English." And he said, "Yeah, I've got a learning disability. Even my dad wouldn't let me do an IEP, do anything like that. Do we have any way to like encourage maybe some tutoring or some little extra stuff without labeling them with an IEP or going through that whole whole thing for the sake of, you know, the kid? You know, he's he's graduating high school, can't read English. >> And what are what are the parents afraid of, too? You know, if the kids go through an IEP, does that label them as subpar for the rest

029of their lives or, you know, whatever their imagination is? Yeah. >> You know, how can we help those kids? Because I just felt bad for him here. He wants to go to college. He's a great football player. He's, >> you know, he wanted to go to college. I'm like, >> you're gonna really struggle in college. I mean, I I don't know how in the world he's going to get through it. >> I mean, there is a lot of research that says once you are you're given a disability label that the world sees you differently. And so, I think that's what parents are afraid of. they want the support. And I do think that teachers are really good at trying to give as much support as possible. Um, you know, in that situation, if a student

030didn't have an IEP but was struggling, we would be doing reading remediation. We would be doing, um, you know, there are venues and ways for kids to get their diploma. Maybe by if they don't pass the reading so they can do a work keys assessment which is showing that they at least have the reading skills to hold the job at a certain level. So I think we we would offer them as much as we could but if a parent won't let us test I think we have a really good team of people who try to talk parents through those concerns and th those fears. Um, and I do think >> this was not in Bedford County. >> I think we try really, really hard to help those kids feel accepted and um, and that's why

031I think we're seeing more of them in the gened classroom because that is their least restrictive environment. They need to be exposed to what everyone's being exposed to and trying to still have high expectations. I would say it's very very seldom that we have a parent that is in agreement of you know we want our child to have help you know we know they're struggling we know that they're behind and we want so it's very very seldom I've ever >> had that situation happen and I think we also I mean in our classrooms we're doing that tier one and we differentiate and we have for VA we have the reading specialist so even students that are receiving um services through the reading specialist doesn't mean they have a disability it just means that they're about

032a little behind it or whatever and reading and whatever that does. So, we're we're always providing interventions. Teachers, we always talk about good strategies for teachers and what to use for all students to learn and interventions for them. So, I think I think Befford County does a really good job of that just in their classroom themselves. And then >> that's good. >> Yeah. I I just Yeah, I just want to make sure that we're not losing some of those kids that and he was a minority. He was and I think there was this well it's you know that pride of you're just picking on my child or whatever and um you know that pride of there's nothing wrong with my child and it was definitely detrimental to this poor kid. I loved him. He was

033wonderful wonderful kid very well behaved very you know respectful good kid really trying but you know unfortunately here he was a senior and he couldn't read English. Um, so yeah, I don't want to see that in Bedford County if we can avoid if we can avoid graduating kids without being able to read, which has been unfortunately the the norm, um, in the US. So, um, >> something else that's new the last couple years with the literacy act is for a student that's considered high- risk with the vowels test, and this is K8, we're required to create a student reading plan, which is separate from an IEP. So that's disabled, non-disabled, and that means they get two and a half extra hours of instruction each week. >> Um, and so that's that is supposed to kind

034of prevent those situations to get kids early. >> When did that come in? >> The literacy act. We we fully implemented it with the vows last year and then this year we've added middle school. This is the first year with I'm sorry, grades four through eight. So it's >> yeah this this gentleman was you he graduated back 200 so >> yeah that's good and that that will help to ameliate some of the labeling and and whatnot >> right >> very good >> good question thank you >> thank you >> I did have one more question about um I don't know I'm sure you guys have probably saw the um press conference about what's been causing the autism them. >> Yes. >> And that was Tylenol and of course the mercury in our vaccines. Um I

035don't think everybody watched that. I I wondered if we can make sure that that information gets out to our parents immediately. >> Well, guess what? It's only going to affect pregnant women for the most part. uh it it is being revamped in the CDC uh vaccination guidelines so that they won't even be offering MMRS and and Vericella to kids under four. And uh the uh the blackbox labels will come out of the woodwork for acetaminophen and Tylenol. I think you're going to see it like on uh like you see on alcohol products and tobacco products for at risk during pregnancy. Uh, all that's going to come rushing at us like uh >> Yeah, good. I just want to make sure that >> Yeah. that our parents are well aware to protect the the next generation

036of kids. And they also had >> hopefully decrease the IEPs that are going to be in public schools. >> Yes. And and they actually also had some kind of remedy for autism or I don't know if it completely remediates it, but it it helps. There's I haven't seen I haven't seen product yeah that they have developed to >> I guess the thing that's causing the brain issues they've have something that kind of helps root >> it's part of a cancer treatment >> is it part of a >> I think it was a cancer treatment um protocol >> well and I'm sure because of the mercury heavy metal details would help as well so anyway I just want to make sure that our parents are aware of the dangers as well as the possible um cures

037hopefully that'll be coming out and um that it'll be that we would amplify that to our students. Uh so is there there's no plan right now to say anything? >> I we have not talked about it. I would say though that I would be a little leer. We're not medical professionals and we would really rely on pediatricians to be giving parents that information. Um, and I don't know that we know enough about it. If it comes through DOE through our health services department, then we would offer whatever they guided us to offer. But just on our own, we probably wouldn't do that without having the medical expertise behind it to give us, >> you know, what should we do? >> Yeah, we really stay with the educational piece of it. The medical piece is we

038leave that to the experts that are in in the medical field. And I can tell you from being in special education for many many many many years, there's been many studies that have come and gone. And I'm sure Dr. Hubac knows that as well. So, it'll be interesting to see how this one continues to evolve and and what happens in that prevention piece and what that looks like. So, definitely look toward the medical providers to give us that information. >> We'll see within a year. >> Yeah. I heard this morning on the radio that um Tylenol is probably ramping up their lawsuit because they think there's nothing wrong with their product. >> So, it's got to you got to sort through that first and before you start making, >> right? If >> you got a

039headache, put a ice pack on it. And you know, >> I mean, how many of us have done that with our children? >> Oh, >> no. Tylenol and ibuprofen. >> What can I take for pain? >> This baby's 10 pounds and I've got sciatica. What can I take? Take Dylan. >> Yeah, that's what they gave us. >> Well, thank you. Very good job, >> Mr. Ston. >> Yes. Um, so today you got >> I'm uh bringing you uh the product that we use at three high schools uh called Vivy. Um this started about three years ago um looking at products and how we can kind of modernize the classroom and get rid of um the projectors that we've been using for many many years. Um projectors are uh great. I'm not going to say that

040they're not, but they there's a lot of maintenance and a lot of cost that goes into maintaining those. And one is bulb expenses. And you know, we have we have replaced thousands of bulbs over the years. And uh bulbs are getting more and more expensive. Um so I wanted to look at a way to >> but they last longer, right? >> Yeah. Not at all. Especially, you know, sometimes we they're accidentally left on overnight and things like that which doesn't help life. Um, so I wanted to look at a way, you know, how can we cut down on that expense and, you know, kind of modernize the classroom as well, get rid of the old pull down screens and, um, obviously we can't afford an interactive panel in every classroom. That would be ideal, but

041um, what we realized is that and after doing some research and and communicating with teachers is that not all grade levels use interactive capability. They just need a, you know, some kind of a display. Um, so we started at Liberty High School because one, their projectors due to the sealin material at Liberty and Stanton River. Uh, those projectors, specifically at Liberty, were never mounted because we we did a trial and we mounted them at Stanton River High School and it didn't work out real well. The Hback would shake the uh, ceilings and so the the image was always vibrating. I mean, it was it was very difficult to get a a sturdy mount on those ceilings. So, Liberty was never done. So that was the first one I wanted to get the projectors off the

042carts and extension cords and stuff running through the rooms. So we put TVs in and a couple a few classrooms did get some interactive panels. Uh they already had a few interactive panels in some locations, but for the most part they got TVs, but the big issue is how do we stream to them? How do we cut the cord uh and enable teachers to if they don't want their desk on this wall this year, they can move it across the classroom without us having to run cable? Uh plus again with no drop ceiling, it's very difficult to cable anything in those buildings. Um specifically, so um we started looking for wireless streaming solutions and obviously in an environment like this, you cannot use consumer grade products. You know, people are like, well, you can go

043to Walmart and buy a Roku. um you can't while that works fine at home in an enterprise environment like this you just you can't do that. So um when we were looking uh Google had just come out with a device basically using their chcast platform which is a consumer grade product but they put a spin on it for education. It was called chcast moderator. So that's the direction we went in and every you know they were working fairly well. They were not robust. Like there's a lot of things you can't do with them, but for a simple casting my screen from here to the TV, it it worked fairly well. Then Google pulled the plug on that. So, it was kind of back to the drawing board. Um, I'm not sure why. Never could I

044even spoke to them. Never could get an answer as to why they're really pulling the plug on Google Chcast for education. Um, I don't know if it was they just weren't making money. Um, not sure what it was. So it was kind of back to the drawing board and that's kind of where Vivy comes in. Vivy is u it it's so much more than a just a streaming device. It is basically uh designed specifically for education. It was not designed for you know corporate world or you know the conference rooms like many of the other pro products are. This is specifically designed for education. Um, and I did give you a little handout there. And we're going to do I'm actually going to show you a demonstration as well. But, um, again, like I said,

045it is a wireless screen monitoring, um, dedicated to the education market. Um, it allows teachers to kind of flow, you know, because all teachers have laptops now, so they can kind of flow around the room, um, if they need to. It offers digital signage, which was a big request that we've been getting from schools. Um, how can we how can we cast announcements throughout the day without disrupting? Um, so the way that Vivy does it and and I'll show you in just a few minutes is that we can actually put digital signage up and the schools control that through Google Slides. They can put up-to-date content on there and when the teacher isn't using it, the TV can be on in the classroom and it will just scroll those announcements. So, you know, if the

046student needs to look, you know, they can read it right in class. Um some of the schools we have put TVs in the hallways to scroll announcements. Um Vivvy also has little plugins that you can add to it. At most of the schools we do weather. So after the scrolling it will pop up and give the time and the weather um forecast and then it will go back to the digital signage. Um one piece that we that that I'm very excited about is the emergency alerts that we'll be able to implement. We haven't done that yet. We're trying to work out the bugs and everything on the initial roll out and then we're going to add the emergency alert as well. And what that will do is talk to our raptor product which also we

047have alert us too which is part of that mix. They all talk to each other and this will get the emergency alert information and it will prioritize that. So even if a teacher is connected with their screen with their laptop uh and an emergency alert comes through it takes over. if the TV isn't turned on and it's a newer TV, it will actually turn the TV on uh before it makes the announcement. So, um again, I'm excited to get that implementation started just to uh just one more addition to add to our uh emergency uh platform that we have. So, I'm I'm really looking forward to that. The other big piece to this is announcements. Um, besides the, you know, the digital signage piece, we're talking about like live announcements because, you know, traditionally schools

048get on the intercom, they make announcements, which in a lot of the cases they still do. But, you know, back in the day when we had cable distribution systems in schools like Channel One News, you may be familiar with Channel One. Um, it was in a lot of public schools. It was in Bedford schools. >> Hey, hey, hey. I remember teacher doing it. >> Oh, yeah. I mean, I remember when I was in school, we had >> Yeah, but you were watching it. I was turning it on. >> I was watching it. But it it's And what they did, they they actually come into schools that didn't have cable distribution, like coax throughout the building, and they they gave away they put TVs in every classroom as long as you watched a percentage, I think

049like 90% of their news, which it most of it was for advertising to be honest with you. Um but once they went out, no one was maintaining those cable distribution systems. Of course, when we built Liberty Middle School, when we remodeled Forest Middle School, there was no provisions for cable distribution. So, they were all pulled out. Everything was gone. So, it's kind of like how do we do live announcements again? Because, you know, some of the schools were even years ago, they had a camcorder and they were just broadcasting it through the old television sets. Um, so that kind of went away and we're like, "Okay, we've got to come up with something else." Vivy allows that. So Vivy, um, in fact, I just met with Stanton River High School today. We kind of went

050over the some a few equipment pieces that they need to make it happen, but they want to go to like podcast type situation for their announcements. Uh, and it will be broadcast live on all their TVs. Uh, I know Jefferson Forest High School's been interested in it as well. Um, so that's something that's also we don't have any schools participating in as of yet, but um, that's going to be rolling out soon. Um, which will be great. >> Is there is there a budget for that? I mean >> for the Vivy. >> So the way that the TV the the the whole TV purchase, Vivie purchase and all that. The way that I'm doing it is not every year because these are products, these are items that are not in any sort of a replacement

051cycle. Uh projectors are not part of a replacement cycle. I mean we still have a lot of IT equipment that is not. Um our main you know we we replace Chromebooks routinely as needed. We replace teacher computers, staff computers, but there's some items that we just replace when we can. So, there's some years that if not if if I don't have to replace as many staff computers, um I use that money and I spend it on projects like this. And I kind of have it to where I'm going to eventually be able to get this equipment on a replacement cycle of sorts. Um by knowing what years I'm I'm buying more teacher laptops and then maybe next year we don't we're not buying nearly as many because none of them are due for replacement. So,

052we can spend some of that money. And that's how I'm doing this. um able to do classroom TVs and eventually I'm going to roll this down to elementary and we're going to start, you know, giving those classrooms um modernizing them with the same sort of setup. Um so it's not really budgeted per se. It's just as I have money left over after, you know, uh replacing what we need to replace as far as the teacher computers, then I spend it on that. So um but what we've learned you know in looking at these products many of them also don't have any way to manage them and that's where um Vivy actually really stands out too because we can go in we can manage them from a central console we can see which ones are maybe

053need updates we can um monitor you know if they're online or if they dropped offline we can kind of address those issues before even you know the teacher has to put in a help it. Um so that's what makes this a whole lot better. Plus we have the the central um capability if we needed to send out if every this is you know going on the assumption that every school will eventually have bivvie. Mr. Deair could send out an an announcement say hey I'm going to send this announcement out and actually go live on every TV that has a bivvie connected to it um in every school. So the capabilities are there. >> Security. Yeah. And so the capabilities are there. Uh and they keep adding products. They take teacher input. They take it input

054for added features. Uh and they roll them out uh very often. And there's some that are in the works now that I think teachers are going to get excited about like customizing their dashboard. So when the TV's on maybe they can set their own wallpaper and things like that. Um, but so quick question is is Vivy a product or is it a subscription or >> it's it's both. It's and that's the other piece is that I wanted to try to find a product that didn't have a subscription. >> No exist. >> It pretty much doesn't exist anymore. You there used to be, you know, you used to be able to buy maybe a license and it was uh basically it was the life of the device. Those days are long gone and it's it's sad

055because the it's caused the price of software to skyrocket because of the subscriptionbased. >> Yeah. >> Um but basically the way that this works is you buy the product and really you don't even buy the actual hardware. They just kind of give you that. >> It's all on the cloud. So >> you buy the the subscription. >> Yeah. >> Um but it is a device. It's a it's kind of like I have there in the handout. It's just a physical a little box like this that >> just has Ethernet. That's essentially what it looks like. >> It has several expansion ports on it for I think things in the future. It's got several USB. >> Uh the other positive thing about this device is that it can be hardwired. Like it can be plugged in

056physically to the network and not have to rely on our wireless infrastructure, which is, >> you know, of course when you have every student on a Chromebook, it's it's overwhelmed at times. So, we wanted to get this off of that so we can plug it in in the classroom uh behind the TV and um it, you know, you don't have to worry about the wireless connection. Uh but I did give a few screenshots here just to kind of show you, but what I really wanted to do was u to kind of show you firsthand. So, right when I switch over to this, this is Liberty High School's current slides that are going um through the school now. And again, there's someone at the school that maintains these. It updates the uh the content that's on

057there. Uh all three high schools are really taking advantage of that. Uh updating their slides. Uh I know JF has really put a lot of slides and graphics and things on theirs. Stanton River the same way. Uh but this is kind of scrolls when the teacher isn't connected. This is what will be scrolling in the classrooms. Um in commons areas if there's a TV. uh we just kind of have this going 247 as long as the TV is on. Now, I will say that there is a schedule set and at the end of the school day, maybe a little bit later, uh these are set to actually turn the TVs off. So, we don't have TVs being left on overnight. Um and most modern TVs it can control through the HDMI port and shut them

058down. Uh in that on that same note, if the TV isn't on and the um announcement schedule starts, it will turn the TV on for that announcement as well. So again, this is kind of what they see, but if I were to um >> So this school, you've actually got the Vivvy in that in that that's Or is that what they have currently? >> This uh our three high schools, we have Vivvy. >> Oh, you do? >> Yes. We we purchased that. that rolled out the beginning of this school year uh because we had to come up with a solution. Uh Jefferson Forest, they got new TVs as well because they were the last high school. So, we did TVs and then we did Vivy in all three schools because of the chcast moderator going

059away. Um they were no longer going to be supporting that. They were kind of like if it works, it works. But the minute we were expecting an update to come down, that just pretty much wipe that out. And that's just a risk because that would leave teachers with nothing to display to. And um you know, as we're persuading them to only use Chromebooks when necessary and things like that, we have to give them the ability to cast content up front if we if we don't want the students on Chromebooks all the time. Um, so again, this will scroll if >> and I don't know if this is what you're asking, but he's actually pulled up the vivy that's now scrolling at Liberty High School. This is my kids are seeing actually at Liberty High School

060right now. >> And I just put the the Liberty High School signage schedule on my demo unit. >> You can you can from there you can go to a different high school. >> Um, I would have to set it up at the console. Okay. >> Yeah. Yeah. I could add make this box basically a part of any school's signage. >> So if I'm a parent of a Liberty High School student, can I go on the Bedford County website and look at the announcements that are scrolling? >> That's I don't that's up to the school. Some schools may re that. I don't know. Um >> I'd love that if I was a parent. >> Yeah. >> Right. >> Number one, I want to know what I want to know what you're exposed to. And number two,

061uh, my kids brain dead when it comes to telling me about announcements and what's going on at school. And >> that's true. >> Yes. I've experienced that many times with my >> brain dead. >> Like you asked what what what did you do to school today? I don't know. >> Lunch. >> Yeah. >> When's this activity happening? I don't know. >> Yeah. I don't know. >> What would that be to make that accessible? >> Each school. So that each school has their own web master and so they would basically just need to link the slides um do that if that's something that they choose to do. That is not something I'm really a part of. But they just share with me. They create the slides. They share them with me and I put them in

062the digital signage for this product. Um but they >> it's a Google slide. It would be a piece of cake to do. >> It's a Google slide. >> You may be doing it. I don't know. Oh, so you >> if if they're not, I think that >> it would be a reasonable ask >> from the board to say, "Hey, would you guys >> So from the dashboard like I will uh choose this one and then click join room and then you'll see a code pops up and this is the important piece because the code prevents just anyone from basically you know hijacking a teacher's display, uh, which will happen with some of these consumer grade products like a Fire Stick or a Roku. They're easily hijacked because they're meant to be used in your home,

063not in a classroom setting. So, you don't have, you know, 70 people trying to to connect to, you know, the display and then you accidentally take over someone else's. And, and back in the day before they really were making any device for education like this, we tried some chcast consumer products and that happened. a few people a few people's displays got hijacked and it was uh we knew then that was not going to work. >> Um but they use um now they lock them down with security so you can't just hijack a display so 569. Okay. So I can So on your handout you'll kind of see um it's on the second or the third page at the bottom where it says the dashboard displays tools. There are multiple tools there like share screen, share

064window, um share camera and that works very well for we have teachers using that uh with their document cameras. So they don't have to tie up their computer and they don't really have to tie up uh or have the document camera physically connected to the to the TV. They can just share their camera and it goes basically uses the software on the computer, but it it's not actually displayed on the computer. It goes directly to the video, which works well for the science classes and and other subjects where they love their document cameras. Um, the other good thing about this is that it can play content directly. Uh, which is what I'm going to kind of do now. I have some examples. Um, >> so, sorry, just >> Yep. >> Just so I'm clear, you

065have Vivy in all three of the high schools. Is it just does do every te does every teacher have access to it already? >> They do. >> Every teacher. Okay. >> Yes. Yes. every every classroom um or every instructional space, conference rooms. Um we rolled it out to the three high schools and so far it's been working great. Um you know, we're we're able to accomplish a lot of things that we were not able to do. And one, like I said, is these live announcements that the schools are actually starting to get excited about uh bringing back. And um I'm excited for that as well because I feel like that that's they can actually incorporate that into like some of them were doing classes like multimedia classes or yearbook um and they had them doing

066announcements u the morning announcements but uh that kind of fa you know faded away because of the the lack of just infrastructure to do it in modern schools and with channel one going away you know >> so that's a visual as well as audio >> right >> okay Yeah, I mean it's it's students like actually sitting live on a camera doing podcast or live announcements like they're at a news um you know they're a news reporter or something like um so let's see >> I have a couple of questions when you're finished. Okay. >> My son used to do announcements at um EC Glass and he dressed up as Ron Burgundy. >> Got a mustache and a >> and the kids were like, "Oh, it's Simeon again." Cuz he was always cracking jokes until he

067made fun of the food cafeteria and then they then they said, "Nope, no more jokes." So he was bummed, but they would always look forward to him being on announcements because he was always doing some kind of funny thing. My playlist um doesn't seem to be But I will do see share screen. Okay. So, this is actually doing and you can also do split screen. Um, as you see, like that's on my computer, but I can drag over so it can be like a second monitor for teachers. So, they can be working on this one. They could have their email open, but have something displayed on the second screen. Um, which a lot of teachers love. That way, they don't have to type their computer. Um, but right here, uh, I did want to show

068you this play content. This is something I was trying to demonstrate. It's not working correctly in this, for some reason. I don't know why. I probably need to restart my computer. But play content is important as well because teachers like to obviously they use video um in a lot of instruction and this enables them to take the link. So say they find something on YouTube or um another video platform. If it's shared publicly, they can take the URL and paste it into play content and it will go directly to the Vivvy. And again, it doesn't tie up their laptop at all. They don't have to, it doesn't take over the screen. They can and they can create a playlist. I created like a playlist with some math content, some engineering stuff. Um, and it will

069go through those videos one by one or you can play just one video out of your playlist. But it enables teachers to build that playlist and if they they can go through select the video they want to play and just highlight play and it sends it directly to the screen and their computer still usable for whatever else that they may be doing while the students are watching that. Um, there is a new feature that just rolled out in August, of course, so we I haven't even had a chance to test it yet, but it enables teachers to anything that's being casted to the display, it enables them to also send it down to the student devices. So, if you have students in the back of the class, maybe they can't see well or something of

070that nature, they can then display it on the Chromebook exactly what's on the screen. Um but that is a new feature that again I have not had a chance to really test. Um my priority now is basically to get the emergency management stuff going and then we can kind of start testing that feature too to see if it's if it's something that we um that would be beneficial for us. Um but yeah, like I said, they're always adding features and and and different things to this product. So um so far so good. So far, we really we really like it. And it's um also the other piece of this, our middle schools, we have interactive panels in most of the classrooms at middle school, and they're they're aging like Liberty Middles. Um Clear Touch, uh

071this model is actually one of them that's that's getting some age on it. Clear touches, they eventually stop sending out uh software updates to these and the app that's used to connect to these old Clear Touches, it updates, but the version of software on here does >> doesn't. So then you have a mismatch and then it eventually and it's planned obsolescence. That's what it is. You know, they want to push you to a newer hardware. But what Vivy can do is actually breathe some life back into these because some of those connections that's on the back, you can use those as touch. So then I can share my screen like this and enable touch and still use the interactive portion of this board without having to use the software that came with it. >> Yeah.

072>> So we've been able to do that. We've tested that in several locations and um it works well. um which pretty much brings back the use of these you know if the if the board if the screen is not dead >> but it's just the software well then that's kind of the solution to that >> circumvents their planned >> obsolescence it absolutely does >> and let's just hope Vivy doesn't decide to not work anymore like Chrome did >> yeah I know that was that was very disappointing um David can attest to this my feelings were hurt big time when that's uh because it was a a they could have done well with that. And I'm not I still don't know why Google pulled the plug, but I have a feeling it was it was about

073money. >> So you said that this is >> specifically for for education as opposed to corporate. How is it different? >> So they because they, for example, we use another product um that was kind of the the middleman for a while before, you know, the chcast came out. It's called Air Tame and Air Tame is a very good product. It's a streaming product kind of the same way that's designed for enterprise networks, but it is not designed specifically for education. So, you don't get like the emergency management, uh the emergency notifications. You don't get the whiteboarding, all the whiteboarding features, um that you do here. You know, there's even um some features like the timer um you know, if a teacher wants to have the students do a project and sets a timer, um you

074can do that with this. Those those are just some things that corporate you know >> yes >> streaming devices that are yeah they don't have all those other features built in u you can you know purchase separate apps that will do that that you can build into those but um Vivy I mean it just it's part of it and that's that's what I like so much about them because they they only focus on education and I I love the the where you can give them feedback and they do take it seriously and you can like there's all kinds of features that teachers and and IT staff have submitted to them and you can vote like, "Yeah, this is important to me." And you can vote and the higher that it gets voted, it goes into

075actual um testing. And um they've rolled out several like that. >> And who puts it out? >> It's it's the company is Vivy. >> Is it national? >> It is. Yes. So, I had a couple of questions for you regarding the the financing and things in terms of um proposed expansion. Where are you headed? >> So, right now it sounds like all three high schools have all the equipment that they need and you're just on an annual subscription with Vivy, >> right? It's it's uh the when I purchased Vivy this last time, I was able to do a five-year and of course the longer you purchase the subscription, the cheaper you can get it. Plus, because of our chcast snafu, um they gave like several of the units for free u because they knew, you

076know, I was like, well, we've while chcast is not very expensive, we it's still an investment that we invested in. Uh, so I wanted to make sure that we saw some sort of a return on that. And in my negotiations with them, I'm like, you know, you're we're going to have to do something. You're going to have to show that uh because we haven't had these other devices all that long. Um, and they did. They pretty much bought them. Uh, but they didn't require us to send them back. U, that's kind of how they did it. They're just gave me >> Yeah. Oh, trust me. Yeah, I I negotiate. Make >> sure your last name's not Heaggler. >> That I negotiate with him because I plan. I'm like, I know you can do better. Let

077Yeah. But um >> Yeah. >> But anyway, we um my plan is because middle schools, you know, of course, when Liberty was built, Liberty Middle, we went with this device. Well, then when we've um when Forest Middle School was uh added on to and kind of remodeled, we purchased clear touch panels for them during the construction. Stanton River, they used a lot of um PTA funds and some other things. And then it also pitched in to make sure so that way we could have consistency in all three middle schools. So middle schools are not so much my focus now. It's looking at some of our elementary schools that have, you know, aging projectors. Um, some schools, some of the elementary schools have really high ceilings and so the the down rod that holds the projector

078is less than desirable in that location. So, sometimes you still get some of that vibration from anything in the building like HVAC systems. Um, and I want to try to do something to modernize those classrooms. So, elementary will be my focus as funding allows. Um, like I said, I just usually look at what's left. um end of the year if I don't have a big year with expense on staff computers I'm able to do more with this sort of thing but uh you know and this is without asking for an increase or anything like that we're just trying to these items that don't have a replacement cycle we're just trying to build that in >> that sounds like financial gymnastics not uh budgeting >> yeah that's I mean it kind of is and and but

079I feel like that we're able to once I sat down and looked at the budget and determine what it is. I'm still trying to gain that year after year to determine, okay, this year I'm going to replace this number of computers. We're still trying to work that out. But, um, so far, I mean, like I said, the last three years I figured it out and have been able to do the three high schools. So, um, year one, two, and three. So, they're all three done. And I feel like I can kind of get on that same routine with the elementary schools. Um, >> okay. Is that all on you or is that something in conjunction with Mr. Haggler and with your your team? >> It's kind of um it's kind of with me. I mean,

080of course, Mr. Haggler will help me in any way possible and and you know, if if there's any funding to help pitch in for this, I mean, you know, >> to to me it sounds like, you know, a big deal and and yet on the other hand, it seems a little sketch in terms of well, we'll we'll find it somewhere. I I just want to make sure that the kids are getting what they need to meet the needs that are that are at hand and to keep up with current technology. >> And again, you know, we always have a display device in the classroom. if if it's a projector, you know, they work, but it's just something that I want my goal is to try to get away from those just because of the the

081bulb, the increasing bulb cost and that just the, you know, constantly having to clean the fans out of dust and they have filters in them. It's just a lot and they're they're obsolete. >> They are. They are. And uh it's time that we move forward. But again, I don't want anything else to suffer. I don't want to not replace teacher devices or, you know, things like that. So, that's why I'm kind of using the money from the years where we're not replacing quite as many devices. >> I I'm going to do a little bit of a shout out to Mr. Saxon and his team. They are constantly looking at negotiations and deals. We changed cell phones and saved thousands of dollar. I mean, they're constantly doing that. finding overages that people are charging that they're

082hoping we won't catch, things like that. So, I think part of it is they do such a good job managing their budget and trying to find where they can cut and better products that are um not as expensive. So, they do a great job with that. >> So, we leave him to do what he's doing. >> We need him to to negotiate. Yeah. >> Yeah. We try. We definitely try. I do not take the first like when someone gives an offer I'm like >> no I I I go back and sometimes probably I I end up making some enemies in some places but I'm like you know I think we could do this a whole lot cheaper and that's what we do. >> Well thank you. >> No problem. Thank you. >> Keep up the

083good work. >> Yeah that's great. >> I mean as a teacher that that would be great. I always have to tie up my computer, >> plug it in to >> and that's we we kept getting that complaint, you know, I always have to tie the computer up and and while you can still share your screen, obviously it's if you can put videos and other content on without tying up the teacher computer, it's so much better. >> I'm ready for a science lesson. >> Yeah. But just really quick, I'll set it up for so we one of the things we wanted to show you is just some of the ways we're spending our title one money. Um, and as we I know there's been some discussions kind of just with questions about that. And you know,

084to to receive title one money, the school has to have a certain percentage of free and reduced lunch or kids in poverty. And so there's a lot of uh impacts that we could we could spend, you know, hours and hours discussing how that impacts student learning. But one of the things that we've we've noticed is with the new science standards especially is the idea of there should be scientific investigation and they should be looking at phenomenon and doing hands-on learning. Um and some of the concepts they learn are a bit abstract. And so sometimes these kids come to us not prepared to think that way. And so for our title one schools this is just one example of something we've used to try to promote that. So Miss Kappler's our supervisor of science and computer

085science. So uh you are never going to be the students. So, she's gonna teach you a lesson on waterheds and just demonstrate how this works. So, um >> over there. >> Yes. So, if you don't mind to come over this way, that'd be great. I'm going to give you a little handout just so that you can see how this can be used at different grade levels. Um so, like Dr. Trasper said this watershed kit envirroscape model um it actually comes in a rolling suitcase and um one was purchased for each of our title one elementary schools and you can see that it spans from second grade content and then you can adapt the lesson and use the same model and just teach it in a different way up through sixth grade. And then our um

086I do have one, this actually is the one additional kit that I have that um teachers can borrow if they are not a title one school or um a middle school. So, our sixth grade teachers can also use um the one kit that I have that um I got with >> there's a cow in I know when you um Bedford area education grant is how I got >> so um so >> that's aution >> waterersheds are a really abstract thing that is hard for kids to understand. Um, so I'm gonna kind of show you a brief uh version of the fourth grade lesson that we would do. And I actually um have offered for teachers to have me come in and co-e with them or model. So I taught um this last year at the

087end of the year in a fifth grade classroom because it's a fourth grade standard that they needed to review for the fifth grade so um so it's just a really good hands-on way to um reiterate and show them what a watershed actually is. So, this is these are a few slides that I have that I share with teachers so that they pretty much can just plug and play and um use the question stems that are on here to go along with it. So, um the this is an actual watershed which is the area of land that all of the water drains into. >> Looking at that question, I'm already thinking all the different answers you might have. >> Yes, exactly. So you can see that when I'm actually doing this with students, it takes a

088little bit of a a long time to question them and pull all those pieces out. But um so I first have them think about all the different types of bodies of water that they know and then they can identify some of them on um this watershed example and then thinking about what happens to a river when it rains. Um so you can see our two rivers here and ultimately they flow into this larger body of water. So that's just kind of the primer to get them get them thinking. Um, so now we're going to look at our actual model and I want you to identify some of the like areas that you notice. What are some things that you notice that might be similar to things that we see around in Bedford County? So I

089noticed a farm. >> Farmland. >> I don't some mountains. Yep. Anything else? >> Industry. Yep. Here's a factory. >> A factory. >> Um, this is more like a neighborhood and then con some construction going on which we see a lot areas. Yep. Here's New London right here. >> Exactly. >> Here's the south side. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, just relating it to where they are and then thinking about like mountains and what happens when it rains on a mountain. Just kind of starting to think through that. So thinking about our watershed, we have some pollution that happens um throughout every watershed um in the nation, but specifically around here. What are some pollutants that you know of that can happen from these specific areas and then also get into our water eventually? >> Chemicals. Okay. Wait.

090>> Chemicals. All right. So, here's some fertilizer. So, where would we see fertilizer? >> On the farm. >> Probably on the farm. Okay. We'll probably see it over here in these fields. We might see it in the housing trying to get plants to grow in our yards and grasses to be green. >> Yes. Okay. >> Green for two months. >> Okay. So, fertilizer. Um, what is another pollutant that you might see? >> Chemicals. Pesticides. Right. We had a whole discussion about what pesticides are. And surprisingly, elementary students know a lot more than I expected them to know. I don't know if my own kids would be able to talk about what pesticides are, but um so we would see pesticides in our neighborhoods and trying to keep insects off of our plants that we're trying

091to grow. >> People hate stink bugs. >> Yes, exactly. Trying to trying to get rid of those lantern flies. >> Okay. What are some other pollutants that you might find like from our animal friends? >> What's fertilizer? >> Well, organic fertilizer. >> Yes. >> Manure, right? Okay. So, our cows, especially if they get into our um streams, like there's nothing keeping these cows out of our streams, right? And then maybe if people don't pick up after their dogs in the neighborhood, on the side of the road, you know? Okay. So that symbolizes manure that we might see. Do you know what factory waste is called? >> Sludge. >> Okay, here you go. >> Chocolate syrup. >> Where would we find sludge? Go ahead and pour it. >> Okay, that is very lovely. >> Smelling good.

092>> It does smell good. >> Smells better than sludge would. >> Exactly. Um, let me see what other Oh, okay. So the one of the big pollutants in the James River that especially with all of this brown area that we would see is sediments which is just loose dirt and soil that then gets into our water. >> So my shakers are a little bit >> Yes. Woo. So anywhere that we see our extra our um open dirt areas, we're going to put some of the sediments cuz um those make our water cloudy and then animals are not able to live in there. Okay. So again, that would be a much longer process. Oh, we forgot about one thing. What about litter? >> Like from humans littering things on the side of the road. >> Um

093>> that still >> Well, exactly. But sadly, it still happens. >> Yeah. >> Flies off of their trucks and huddles. >> Yeah, exactly. >> All the all the plastics, the microplastics. is. So, what do we think will happen if it were to rain and we have all of these pollutants in different areas? What do we think would happen? >> Our sources of >> the water would take down to the >> to the river. >> Okay. So, it goes into the river and the whole idea that fourth graders are supposed to understand is we all live downstream from something. But like if you have no frame of reference, it's super abstract for them. >> Yeah. >> Dr. box. You want to make it rain. >> Make it rain. >> You might have to really get into

094it there. >> Yeah. >> You mean like take the lid off and pour it in with the sludge. >> All right. So for a long time on >> I know. Okay. Here I'll do I'll do some special areas here. Oh yeah. There we go. It's a stream effect. sit down for. >> Okay. So, you can see once we get enough, you can see it's washing down the mountain. And we can kind of talk about the fact that one side of the mountain might lead into one waterhed. The other side of the mountain might lead into a completely different watershed area. Um, even the factory sludge that's coming down. And eventually it's all, you can see it's already kind of washing into our big body of water down there. Um, so then after it finishes raining,

095we can kind of brainstorm ideas. So, how could we prevent this from happening? Um, third grade talks a lot about plants and how plants can help um, keep like some of those sediments from washing into the water. So, we can use some things to add some plants. We can talk about using a fence to keep our cows out of our river. So they can kind of then brainstorm ideas of the prevention which ultimately is the goal of understanding, right? Um so >> you smart kids probably know about no till farming. >> Some of them do. >> Yep. >> Some of them on farms may have had their parents do the grants for fencing in water, you know, the ponds and creek. Yeah. >> Five years ago. Yeah. >> Yeah. So, um that was a very

096very condensed version of what we would do with actual students, but um that is one of our examples of hands-on learning that we are providing to all of our >> elementary kiddos. And I can just see the kids. >> Oh, yeah. They love it. They were actually >> They would love it. >> They want to drive the tractor. >> No, let me do it. >> Yeah. I hate to date myself, but I can remember teaching watersheds and not really understanding it myself, >> right? >> And then like now having something so visual for our kids. >> I'm all for more hands-on. And I know that even the stuff that you're working on, you know, making things more visual is important for the kids, too. Um to visualize things. I just don't want them sitting on

097a Chromebook the whole thing, you know. >> Yeah, understood. Well, and after they do this, we also have um see if Dr. Trosper can get me a little a mouse real quick, but we have access to our GIS system. So then they can apply >> the knowledge of watersheds to the map in their local environment. And thank you. I didn't even think about that before. what they're >> exactly. So, actually applying to and um I did this last year at Huddleston Elementary and so we looked up Huddleston on the map and we talked about um what creeks do you know? They knew the names of their creeks that were in their local watershed and you can use this map to zoom into areas and then add different um layering effects. Here we go. There's a

098topographic map. I already have that layer on. Um so then we can talk about like well why on this side of the mountain would it drain this way but on this side of the mountain it would drain over here into um this creek. So then we get into more practical and their the impact on them >> and then that's why they they call it mountain spring water so that >> it doesn't have all these pollutants in it. >> Yes. >> Cool. There. >> That's beautiful. >> A thank you. Very nice. >> Thank you. Love it. >> Thank you all. >> Now you got a big mess to clean up. >> Hurricane. >> Bring in the hazmat team. >> Hurricane will clean it up. That's why >> she has Dr. Tros. That's my role for this.

099That's your role. Right. Or you had some old business you wanted to talk about. >> Checking on. Um do you know of any other math fees that are going on? >> I do have it. Look right here. Business. Um so I chatted with the principles. Uh right now we have Otter River does a multiplication bee and they just host that on their own within the school. Um Jefferson Forest High School sends um students to the LU math competition. Um and they are part of it's a math club that they have at the school and last year they sent five sophomores and five seniors who um won at the school level and they went on to LU. Um those are the only two schools that say they do anything like a math B or competition. Um,

100but I do have two elementary schools who are interested in possibly doing something with a math be and I'm thinking I might hook them up with Otter River because they're all in close proximity to Otter River to see if they might want to do like a school winter and then three. >> I know Bloomsboro Elementary was doing something. >> Well, I asked him and he said they hadn't done it for a couple of years now. I talked to last year Mrs. exposure or math supervisor and she says, you know, it's probably the most familiar math competition is math counts. And that's where they actually send students a book and they work math problems and then they send it back in to the company and they score them. It's it's pretty costly. So, I'm thinking that

101we might just start with the two elementary schools that might be interested in doing a multiplication be with Otter River and then I will get um maybe the principal at Otter River just to share with the elementary principles what she's doing to see if they might all be interested. Um, but there are a couple of things like that are specific to Virginia, but right now Virginia doesn't have like with the spelling bee, you definitely have like a division regional state. Um, and so some regions have a lot with mass, some don't really have a lot. So there's not a lot around us, but that doesn't mean we couldn't get involved with some other regions. So, um, but I did reach out to all the principles and got their like, what are you doing? So, >>

102thank you. >> Yeah, I'd like to to see that. I mean, we obviously are in a technology um, science, math boom, I guess, in our in our world. And so, that, you know, that knowing your math and being good at math conf build confidence and >> yeah, >> it's also important. Definitely. >> And um Mr. Deier, do you have any updates on the library books? >> Um updates as in >> reference to >> Well, you were you were looking at parity and you were looking at um trying to find some other sources as opposed to just only the national or the >> Well, there was no other source >> American. That's what I discovered when I was at Liberty is that she said, "Welcome to our world. There is no other association other than the

103two that exist." So she says they have the same issue. It's a library at Liberty that is for the elementary ed program. And so it's it's a it's twice the size of this room. And um it is she goes through the same pro process we go through elimination review um and she said welcome to our >> so she doesn't do anything else differently. She doesn't have any other ideas. >> She just scrutinizes what they purchase >> because there is no association other than the two. One is a one is one that would be predominantly for um public libraries and one is for public for school libraries. >> Absolutely. >> Yeah. >> I know that um speaking with the public the public libraries, not the school but the public libraries um they started a program where

104they ask the community to request books >> and we have the same thing on our website. People can put in requests. >> Okay. Awesome. All right. Y >> if you can um send that to me. Can you email >> email you the >> the link to that? So >> I think they're on the they're on web pages. >> You could go to a library. You could go to like >> go each library. >> Yeah. >> I see. Okay. >> The county website and then to the individual libraries. >> No. The confusing part of that is some some of them have more extensive web pages on their library than other. >> So you'd have to go to each individual school. That's what I did. I and Dr. Wford did the same thing. We we kind of

105set off on the same exploration and came back together and pretty much found the same thing uh as to what was in the libraries and how you made requests and things like that. >> And so some of those books that I had suggested that we look into, have you incorporated any of them? >> I have not yet >> recommended them or anything. >> I would say the better way to the better way to do that is is literally having parents request it. Okay? >> Because that to me um brings it. So if I'm requesting a certain book and I have a certain population that's saying, "Why are you doing that?" If you request it as a parent, then it gets legitimately looked at. >> Okay. >> Now, I don't disagree with any of those. It's

106just trying to find a proper way to not put the target not put the target on. Yeah. >> Yeah. That's exactly what Yeah. the public school, the public libraries are doing. >> Yeah. You can like I said >> individual >> like I said we we probably need to go through and look at our libraries are not our library pages are not all consistent some are very extensive some are less >> well and that's because of the OCR complaint we >> correct >> we don't have staff that just focus on web pages and we had an OCR complaint that's why they're very bare because we have to do so many things to make them ADA compliant and that's easy if you purchase is a web page person who does all your web pages like you can

107buy subscriptions and all that. We tried to do it in-house as an extra duty. Um, and it's hard like to keep it up to date. I'm looking at Barry because like I don't ever do anything on the web page because I I struggle with, >> you know, you have to do like all text and you have to do the pictures. It's really really difficult. Um, so a lot of people have pulled things off so we could get through our OCR complaint. >> As far as parody, we're probably way ahead of the game on other divisions. >> I'm sure we are. >> Just because it has been scrutinized way before me. >> Yeah. And uh so we we were amazed when we started going through and looking at books that we didn't have that somebody else

108might or and what I did was used the list of books in the Maryland case that went to the Supreme Court and literally there's 20 titles. It took me a while to find them all, but it some of them were listed in the um the Supreme Court would would write a pro and a con. I forget what they're called, but um they would write the statement and some of them actually listed the books in them. So I just kept going until I got about 20 um just from researching it. And uh I would say what would you say maybe 10% even showed up anywhere. >> I think out of total it wasn't even that. I think it was like >> couldn't find >> five. Like it it was like minimal. >> Yeah, it was really

109really small. Yeah. >> And so when you but when you Google other things like Bibles and stuff like that, it's like man, we got they're everywhere. So, and even like I think I said last time at a board meeting, the Barrenstein Bears actually had have stuff on faith and >> I thought that was pretty cool. >> Yeah. And I'd like to make sure we have the classics too again because there was this push to get rid of all the classics. So, I would like to >> So, I don't know if I said this in a board meeting, but I think it was Cinderella. Was it Cinderella? >> I don't remember. >> One of them I found over a hundred versions. >> Yeah, there's there's hundreds of but even though the classic ones were there, but

110I could find them for just about every native tongue. I could find them from Korea >> in our libraries. >> Yeah. >> I mean, it was >> and modern renditions. >> Yeah. like >> modern versions and so >> okay >> you would have had a hard time it's amazing how many we had >> Alabama version Smoky Mountain version >> was crazy >> that's funny okay great thank you thanks for checking into that thanks for looking at that I appreciate that >> I do want to go back at some point and meet with those ladies again because they have so many librarians there it's just like >> it's a whole building of librarian areas at Liberty and they all give you a different perspective of of how they brings the conversation. >> Oh, they find more

111books. >> Mhm. Yep. >> Good. The only other thing I had was um that we have talked several times about parent education uh especially at the elementary school level in terms of trying to educate our parents about some of the things that we're implementing in terms of the dangers of uh smartphones in the hands of young children and uh just some of the internet safety things that won't be addressed until family life curriculum in fourth grade, right? But by then the horse is out of the barn for a lot of things. So in terms of how do we engage the parents um and disseminate some of that information, we talked about, you know, one sheet fact flyers. Um we talked about um engaging them at uh presentations at the school. you know, they show up

112for the kids to recite poetry or whatever and we've got a captive audience. How do we >> I think the last time we spoke, um, I talked about doing it through a superintendent's letter and then link >> link it where you could go and get resources. >> I know at Big Island >> speak about it publicly and then show it. Big Island, they they incorporated with some kind of art displays and then they had a meal dinner and then they presented the cyber security stuff and that was pretty effective. They had quite a few parents there which was good. I don't know if we can do that more. My my goal is to every month and I just started it last month with chain of command is to pick a topic that is slightly controversial

113or slightly informative, intriguing um to try to have those conversations with parents >> with how when >> starts here verbal verbally but also then goes >> and then goes into letters or whatever >> because I do a I I do a periodic and Kristen works on this with me periodic superintendent letter not just a superintendent's report but a letter so if I do that I think it's maybe four times a year >> to start slipping in >> well >> it's nothing new it's it's it's literally taking something like executive order 33 and and all the stuff uh that that book used that they they were looking at and other data and saying hey here's here's It's a social media topic. Here's the links that you need to go find. Um because and with statistics that

114say how it affects a young a young mind. Um there's several topics that I' I'd like to interject during the course of the year. >> Yeah. I think it's a small percentage of parents that are going to take that information and actually go home and get on their computers and look it up. And you know, whereas if you hand them a fact sheet when they come to watch the kids do a play at school, if you hand them a fact sheet that has half a dozen bullet points, um, they're going to see that. Whether it resonates or not depends on how many living brain cells they have. Uh, but I think the more venues that we have that we can educate them, the more traction we're going to get. And >> and and there's some

115big events that some of these schools do. Like I know that they did a glow party at um Boonboro Elementary and it was packed like everybody was there. So that's a captive audience to be able to say, "Hey, you want to make sure you're keeping your kids safe, you know, internets." >> Yep. And even in your newsletter, if you're saying, "Okay, these are some issues we're seeing in our county, you know, among our schools or whatever. Please talk to your kids about it or whatever." Um, you know, because we have a little bit more of a handle on what's going on countywise than the average parent who's just working and trying to feed their kids and going home and putting them in bed and all of that stuff. So, um, just >> I just want

116to keep the information out there in front of us so that we're so that we're active so that it becomes part of their strategic plan, right, to incorporate parental education into it. That it's not just about the kids, it's about what their home life is. Because we've seen that time and time again that the schools that excel are the ones that have the greatest parental involvement. And uh you know the parental involvement is a strength from from all your SWAT work. >> Yeah, it's important >> you know and if we can capitalize on that improve it then the kids are going to get more traction in school. >> Well and I'm I'm I'm kind of picturing like a red light, yellow light, green light. Like be aware this is very dangerous. This is going on.

117Yellow light, keep an eye on this and green light. look what our accomplishments are. You know, I don't know. Just making sure our parents are well aware of what's going on in the community in in um positive ways as well as dangerous, you know, to them. I mean, I know as a parent, my son was 14 when he first got a cell phone. We were trying to do a flip phone. We didn't want a smartphone, but they had Well, if you don't if you do a flip phone, you It's cost you more money. They had this whole thing. And as soon as we gave him that smartphone, he was 14. And I saw him again hardly. >> It was he would come and eat and sleep and that's it. you know, he was on his

118phone and it was just a it was very very I mean we had we tried to do you know okay it has to be put away at 9:00 and whatever but it was a huge change in him and I don't think parents realize that and >> no they realize it because they go to their bedroom and do the same thing. Well, >> yeah. >> I don't think they realize that until they get the kids this the phone and then they realize, "Oh, wow." >> I mean, I I do it because I've said it before and I don't know why, but I need to know the baseball scores before I go back. >> I don't know why. It doesn't It doesn't change my sleep. It doesn't change. I just, you know, it's it's the it's the

119way we now, you know, move. We We get news instantly. Yeah. I mean, it's like I'll end that this thought on this. When I was a kid growing up in the 60s and 70s, Vietnam was raging. We only heard about it from 6:00 to 6:30 at night. That's when the national news played it. >> We never knew another thing. Now you can see everything that happens everywhere instantly. It's too much. >> Yes, it is. All right. Okay. >> Shall we adjourn? >> We shall. >> Anybody else? >> The topics we have to look good. >> I like I like that. >> And if there's anything for next time, >> um the CTE, high demand jobs and credentials. >> Oh, those that you said. >> And we're going to introduce you to Zello, our new career

120planning platform. And then Mrs. Jennings is going to share about our high schoolers and working with them starting in middle school on their transition plans for life and after school I should say life after school and how the DAR program we work with them to support students as they're transitioning. >> So one other thing >> out of high school >> one other thing is we never um what's the status on the survey for the dress cup? Where is that? she and I she's been working on it and and so to be honest with you, we've had so many little crises and it's it has set aside for those this week. >> That's fine. It's not an urgent thing. I mean, I'd like to >> No, she she I'm not we don't need to move on

121it until next year, you know, but I just want to make sure that it'll be done that there's >> so will we get another >> opportunity to see the updated. Okay. She already started. She started that. >> Okay. Thank you. Thanks for all you guys are doing. >> Now we're turned. >> Thank you.