001Right. I'd like to call um May 8th meeting school board uh to order. Um uh Mr. Marcus Hill um that let us know he would not be here tonight to attend his son's uh college graduation. Um Miss Johnson, if you would call the board roll. Mr. Daniels here. Mr. S. Hill here. Mr. Corbrook here. Dr. Heot here. Mr. Knight here. Mrs. Fergus here. Mr. Vice Chairman, you have a quorum. Do I have a motion to the uh to approve the agenda? Hill second. Any uh questions or comments? Agenda is approved. Uh please uh stand for the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Please uh join me for a moment of silence.
002Thank you. All right. Uh 2.01 superintendent report. Mr. Deair. Thank you. Today, May 8th, 2025, marks 11 days of school remaining for the 2425 school year. Time has definitely flown. As you may already know, my first semester was busy with 53 SWAT analysis to include discussions with the central office staff, executive staff, school-based administrators, faculty and staff, parents, and even students promoting Governor Yncan's executive order 33, a bell-to-bell cell phone free education. I am going to highlight the most prominent again in our discussions uh in this meeting in a moment. But first, as we move to the end of the semester, let me take this opportunity to recognize the seniors who will be graduating on Saturday, May 24th from Stanton River High School, Liberty High School, and Jefferson Forest High School. Whether you move to
003college enrollment, engage in local employment, or enlist in the military, we congratulate you on your accomplishments and wish you the best with your educational and career choices. The BCPS family and your families are proud of your accomplishment. Also, I would like to thank the individual school administrators, leadership team, central office staff, faculty, and staff for their present work in the so testing process and making this a successful year. Your hard work has contributed to an overall success as our division and individual student growth and accomplishment and contribution to our current ranking of 36 out of 131 divisions for academ MIC performance for the 23 24 year. Thank you for your dedication and commitment to making this ABCPS making us stronger. Now you'll see that we have a poster on the back wall there that highlights
004that and as I have been traveling around in the last month and you've heard me talk about that. It is um kind of sad that most people don't know this and so we have to work much harder at getting this out and letting the constituents of Bedford County understand that our faculty and staff have been working very hard over the last 10 years to get us from the 57th range I think 10 years ago to 36. Um just just know that our teachers are working very hard uh to to maintain this and this is very important to them. Back in the fall, I promised to travel back to each SWAT location and have a discussion um of the findings that uh a lot of people were invested in and I want to continue that conversation.
005Uh tonight I'm going to highlight some of the just some of the probably top priorities, but my promise to the schools and I and I've mentioned to a couple of them in the last week or two is to get back next year in the fall and use that time to have a deeper conversation, but this time instead of just mentioning them, let's talk about how we can solve some of these or how we can create solutions for some of these. So, I want to go through what I think are the the the most important ones, and you're going to see two jump out in four categories. And this is why I'm doing this tonight. And and and I can I can tell you that I've had conversations already with with community leaders and even church
006leaders to see how we can give assistance to what I think are the two biggest issues that will show up in weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. So, our strengths, and it's part of what's on that board right there, is passionate, dedicated, knowledgeable, professional, and supportive faculty and staff. Um, there isn't a time that you can't go to a campus and notice the intent of our teachers, the major, a large majority of our teachers, and just the way they go about teaching our kids. The second aspect there is a strong school pride, strong academic achievement and positive faculty and staff influence on the children. The weaknesses came up as salary retention, turnover of faculty and staff, state and local funding, perceived student mental health issues related to ACE or adverse childhood experience, and perceived lack of parental
007involvement. The opportunities are continue to grow local business and donations and partnerships, extend CT offerings, increase student service support, however that perception looks, and again find ways to increase parental involvement. In the threat category, lack of parental involvement comes up again. too many single parent and parent uh grandparent homes, reversion funding, uh vaping, a slowing pipeline of teachers, and social media influence. In my SWAT conversations, um it always came up that there was an issue and I would say it it could start from principles, it could go through school staff, it could go through parents. parents would be very quickly to bring it up because they could see the lack of parent involvement in a town hall or they had friends and they knew the scenarios. But almost always the two discussions that were most
008outspoken were lack of parent involvement. And the one that concerns me the most of the both of them are very concerning is the there are too many single moms and parents grandmothers in Bedford County. Now I don't think it's just Bedford County. I think that's a national trend. Um, but but it does show up pretty prevalent in our discussions. And while I do honor the single dads who have already taken on this role, I need to say that as a whole to get our kids to where we need to get, we need to start generating programs that will not only support single moms, but also encourage dad involvement. And I know what what weekend is the was did we just have the dad fatherhood events on May 17th? May 17th parks and recreation is hosting
009a a father um pres I should say almost like a field day. Yeah. Uh to encourage dad participation. So it's not just noticed in our town halls faculty and staff and administration. This is something that the county has picked up on as well. I do honor the dads that are super active in their kids' lives and it's very uh uh important and they do get it. But I I think we need to have some community conversation about a how we get dads more involved like this field day and also we need to have conversations about how we assist and um single moms and grandparents or even the single dads. And I know that they that that already exists in our local churches, in some of our community organizations, um or you wouldn't see the field
010day coming up, but I think we need to continue that conversation and get a little deeper into it as to how we actually can support better um our single moms. When I go to some of these schools, we I don't necessarily think that we noted on an application, but when you understand and you talk to parents, excuse me, counselors on the campus and in some case parents, um, a lot of the issues that these kids are dealing with stems from the fact that they are they come from a single parent home. So, I think this is a national crisis, but that doesn't mean that we don't take it serious here as our one of our big crisis as well. Um, so I do honor the dads that are doing a super bangup job and uh
011we need to find ways ultimately when we improve in this area it it grows our kids emotionally, socially, spiritually and also enhances their academic development. Um, I also want to thank the community programs that we we I just highlighted because I know in talking to several church leaders that they do have programs, but they're asking me how can they do a better job. So, that discussion is going to continue in the fall. Um last week the executive team met with the superintendent student advisory board and the biggest concern of the students that sat in this room was the volume of vaping on their campus by their peers. And while we were having the discussion, one of the things that troubled me most and I think it troubled the executives that sat here is that these
012students would acknowledge that many, not many, some of the kids actually get their vapes from their parents. I just find that very disheartening. And so I think we we talked about the kids talked about coming back next fall and creating some type of awareness program. But we also need to start reaching out to our parents and say, "Hey, listen. Vaping leads to other drugs. We know that. And so if you're going to be that lax on it, we need to educate our parents as well. Not just our kids. We need to educate our parents as well so that they can understand the significance of what they are doing to their child when they acknowledge that it's okay. Our children need adult advocacy. Their future depends on it. And and so I want to make this
013a fall issue as well, but I'm not going to do anything with that until we sit down with that student advisor again because they had great ideas. They were really engaged and uh we need to look to them for answers as well. My final discussion this evening pertains to the request made by the BCPS school board at our last school board meeting on April 10th. The closing marks of the board chair uh asked for a discussion about elementary capacities and highlighted the force zone where there are capacity issues in multiple schools. Some schools are too are too low, some schools are very high near the 100%. We, the executive team, were tasked with coming up with a redistricting plan that could be initiated as early as FY2526 school year starting on August 13, 2025. The
014executive team has spent countless hours constructing this plan that involves Boonesboro Elementary, Thomas Jefferson Elementary, New London Academy, Forest Elementary, and Otter River Elementary. Following this report, the executive team will present this plan with the justification as to why this is a valid concern of the school board and the executives. And our plan will include our recommendation as to how we move forward and how it prepares us to address the current capacity needs provided providing a full future growth of five elementary schools in the forest zone. This concludes the superintendent report for May. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chair. There any uh questions or comments? Good. Thank you very much. Move on to what you just mentioned. 2.02 forest redistricting board request progress update. It's the whole executive team. You're going to get us
015off in this process. I'm going to lead us off. So, good evening. Um the presentation we're about to present is uh put together by the executive staff and is based upon the once again the board's request to look at reszoning in the forest zone. This was a combined effort that affected many departments. Various members of the team will be presenting as we go forward um uh through this presentation and would would like to ask board members to hold off on the questions. I know you might be tempted but some of the slides might answer those questions and they build off of each other as we go along. So, so the uh the first slide we have here is really the goals that were presented to us uh by the uh the board. The objective goals
016and constraints that we wanted to follow. We did focus only on the force zone and only elementary schools because we weren't going to be switching into high school or middle school. Uh to reduce the student population at Forest Elementary in New London where we saw capacities very high. We wanted to increase the number of students going to Otter River. uh we wanted to create a reasonable timeline to implement the plan which will be presented a little bit later in this presentation and as we were going along we did look at some bus efficiency. So there will be minor tweaks to some things not big movement but some things that would bring some bus in efficiency as we were looking at the overall plan. So uh the next slide is going to take that and that's
017uh looking at new developments in the uh war zone. So, um, about a week and a half ago, I met with Jordan Mitchell, director of community development for Bedford County, and we had a discussion about the 2023 redistricting plan in which there were five schools on it. Two of those schools have been inhabited, as he would put it. There are three still remaining. And the three that remain on page three are are lines one, three, and four. And so you'll see that those completion dates are 26 27. They're they're about a year out um from starting that inhabit inhabiting that. That's his opinion. Um if they get delayed or if there's in some cases houses already being inhabited, it it means completion of that. So the others were left over from the previous and we
018discussed those and complete what he thought was completion dates. Um and so these are not my fabricated time zone timelines. These are his. You'll see the number of students on the right hand side that would be affected by these developments opening up using a calculation of what percentage of the houses would have kids in the elementary level. When you make sure I got the right button there. When you look at page three, when you look at page three and four, you'll see collectively there now are now nine additional uh developments that were not on the 2023. And when you look at and I'm going to go back to this. When you look at these two slides, you'll see that predominantly in 2023, most of the re most of the growth was in the forest and
019New London area. Excuse me, Forest Elementary and New London areas. And what kind of was startling as we went through this is that when you when you start looking at this, you'll see all of the new developments that are now popping up in Otter River, TJ, and Boonboro. And you know, I have asked the question multiple times, and I and over the last month, I now know where the boundaries are more specifically. Um but um when you ask people is there any growth in Boosboro? They're no probably not. It's just it's it's it's not there. But when you look at this, you'll see that it actually is. Now something really intriguing about this stables of on coffee. I pass it every morning and I had no idea where the boundary was. And going through this
020process with Jordan, there are 15 homes in that development. When you drive into the development, the first two houses belong to Bedford, excuse me, Lynchburg, and the other 13 behind it all belong to Bedford. So, theoretically, you could live next door to somebody whose kid goes to another division. That That's how crazy that one is set up. We ran into several developments like that where literally the line goes right through through a through a yard. So, it it complicates things. And what I want you to understand is most of this page and some of the others in page four are what would can be considered new developments. And so there's one of them in there. Um you'll see the second one kits more development. Um in Jordan's mind this gentleman does not move very fast.
021So he could move he could move this year or he could move five years from now. The land is there and I think it's even been stripped to some degree. So, it really depends on the builder and how fast they want to move through the process. So, what we've done is we've taken all 12 of these that are either partially or or not started yet. For instance, um I'm going to go back to one another one in my neighborhood. Um I think it's Boonboro. Boonsboro Meadows is in my neighborhood. Um, I drove through that last week and I would say it's only about 40% built out and there are houses under construction, there are lots cleared. So, while it may not show up this year, it will show up in the next five years. So,
022we took all of these, put them into the equation, and then put them into uh our zoning redist. And uh so because here what we don't want to do is we do not want to create this and then two years from now have to recreate it. Did that make sense to you? So plan for five years out and you'll see some of the capacities that we've come up with will show for allowance for growth. Okay. So I'll pass on. So we uh we started looking at numbers and capacities and adjusting for movement between boundaries. also looking at these new developments. So, I'm going to go over some of the logic that we went over to create the numbers that you see on this chart. Uh we took the old capacities provided by previous facility studies.
023That was our starting point and that's what the board is most familiar with when we're looking at capacity of schools. We decided to go back and do a a highle look at that because before you start moving kids, we wanted to kind of ensure that we had pretty accurate capacities and to make sure we're reporting correctly on that. So, we took the number of classrooms that were in the school that could actually hold students in a full-size classroom, multiplied by 21 and a half students, which is our average between K through five for staffing. Um, we then allowed for about a margin of about 10%. Because kids don't always come in need packages where you can divide them up that way. So, if you go to capacity, it might not be exactly like you could
024split them up in the classrooms. So, we took off about 10% to allow for that. and for other uh programs that we might need in those schools. We did look at the common space available in each of the schools uh to make sure that they could hold all the students that were in that school. Um all all of them were fine except we think New London uh the cafeteria and library are very small and so we kind of took a little bit off of their capacity even though they have the actual classrooms the common space would be difficult to hold all those students and get them through lunch. um the executive staff were we were we were moving boundary lines around and we were trying to target about a 87% threshold at each school as
025far as capacity. The actual that we came up with after moving things around was 84 to 93 between the schools. Um so then we moved the boundaries, we moved the students, we added the projected influx from the new developments that Mr. Dear just mentioned uh to account count account account for those over the next five years. And this charts chart lists what the percentages would be once we moved the boundary lines included the new students for moving those around. And you can see how many students in that uh that one column moving from what school they moving from and what school they going to and how many impacted. Finally, id like to just say that this this this chart is only K through five. This does not include preschool programs. We you we place those
026where we have capacity. So those can be moved around if we need to. Those are not factored into this. always want the board to be mindful of that as they look at these capacities. So from that we will go to the charts and look at lines that we drew and uh Dr. Calbert will be be leading us through that. It's hard for me to do this without touching it. Okay? So I apologize. Uh so this is just an overview. We're going to um more detailed maps here in a second, but I first want to give you the four areas that we have changed. Um, the biggest area is down here, the brown section that you see is currently all of this is currently New London. And where we have the red divided line, everything to
027the left of the line will now be, if you take our recommendation, Otter River and the right side of the line will be New London. There is a shift also in forest. Um, this area right here is Lake Vista and currently the right side of Lake Vista goes to TJ and the left side of Lake Vista, which is Forest Lakes, goes to Forest. So, it would have efficiency with buses, possibly talking to Art Lipkcom, our trainer for the Forest area, that would possibly remove a bus because the buses would all be going to the same school. Um, so that's a change in that area. But these changes up in here are very minor changes only to a few students. As you can see, this is a very odd shape. Forest goes all the way up
028in here where this like this is currently forest. All of this odd shape. So what we've done is we have included we've moved we will move this boundary line and this will all be otter river. There is only four students up in here. that will go from being in forest to then going to Otter River. Same thing on this line. There are four students across this line that will be moved to Boonboro instead of going to Forest and that is simply for bus efficiency. So getting more detailed maps just so that you can see uh and we talk about the roads. Like I said before, this is all Lake Vista currently. The right side of Lake Vista goes to Thomas Jefferson. The left side goes to Forest Elementary. So we would be saying that all
029of Lake Vista would go to Thomas Jefferson. Okay, which means the following roads would be affected and those roads would switch from forest to Thomas Jefferson. Now, Otter River is such a big area that I'm going to show you with this map, but then we're going to go north and south of 460. So the Otter River zone as you can see once again the red line kind of following down through Blackwater left of that line will go to Otter River right of that line will go to New London. So if we could kind of expand go to the next slide and go what's considered to be north of 460 because then you can see the line goes across 460. It goes up crosses Harvest Lane diagonally towards Belleview Road and crosses right at Belleview Matthew
030Talbot. So B part of Belleview Matthew Talbot Terrace View Good Road would all be on the Otter River side. If you go south of 460, the line runs parallel to Blackwater Road. Um, so everything to the left of this line would go to Otter River, to the right New London. So that would be Pisga, Cobs Creek, Blackwater. Uh, and there's more roads that are named down in there. And we can give you the list on the following slide. And this is probably this is the biggest move because it's 83 students up here. After the move from Forest Elementary to Otter River, the four students up in here would be Elk Valley Road, Old Sideax Road, and Perry Lane. I think there's like two students on one road and one on each of the other ones
031in Boon. On the next slide, there are four students right along that edge on Scarlet Lane, Grassy Mountain Lane, and Tabernacle Lane that would go to Boon. And like again, these eight that are moved at the top are for bus efficiency. Cleaned it up while we did everything else. So, one of the things that um was mentioned to the executive team as we were working was there going to be a possible financial impact or staffing impact. So, in looking back at our goals for redistricting, our purpose wasn't really to save money. Um, the overarching goal was to balance schools and provide enough room in our current schools for students coming out of the growing number of developments in the forest area and in a sense saving money by not adding mobiles or not having to
032add on to schools. Um, there are a lot of variables to consider when thinking through the financial and staff impacts. If the plan were approved as is with the current enrollment projections that we have, there may be an addition of one FTE possibly at Otter River. Um, currently that school is so small it has a half-time librarian and a half-time counselor, some other halftime positions that would go full-time. So, possibly the addition of one staff member. Um, when reviewing bus routes with um Art Lipkcom, our lead driver, there was some discussion, as Leanne mentioned, that one of our bus routes may be able to be combined, which would reduce a route. But I would say we need drivers desperately. So, we would not reduce a driver. We need um all the drivers we can get.
033Um I think the largest consideration for the board is really timing. Um when we talk about staffing impacts, um there will be some adjustments um in some of our work locations because the teachers will have to follow the students. If 83 students leave an area and go to another school, the teachers for those students need to also go. Um there will be some adjustments even with pair professionals. So, as we've looked at this, it would really be preferable to plan through this um and and give us a little bit more time in our timeline so that we're not telling staff who are going to be signing contracts pretty soon that they are going to have to move locations uh work locations in July or early August. Um right now, it looks possibly like um it
034would affect six teachers and one or two aids if the plan were fully implemented. Um the other thing that I think is really important and very significant and it's a significant conversation that I think we must have with the IG committee and then with the school board as a whole and that's our zone transfer policy. Currently the method of limiting school capacity is denial of requests from parents to receive a a zone transfer to a school that they're not zoned to attend. Um, currently Forest Elementary and New London Academy are closed to zone transfers because their schools are over 90% full. We've also closed Otter River Elementary due to low attendance numbers. Um, and that allows us to keep our class sizes small enough so that we don't have to add additional staff. Um, in
035the past when we've left it open, we would possibly have 11 kids in each class because we've had to add a teacher. So we wouldn't have combined or multi-age classrooms. So we limit our zone transfers at Otter River. Also um you can see in this chart that the current incounty transfers listed um are students that already have approved transfers which allows them to stay according to our policy until the highest grade at that school. or if they have siblings coming into the school in kindergarten that those siblings are also allowed to attend and stay until they're they get through fifth grade. So those students are what we would consider in the zone transfer policy to be grandfathered in. We also do have a lot of employees children um who have students in schools that they
036work in or in a school close to where they work. They may be at Forest Middle or Jefferson Forest High School and they drop their elementary students off at an elementary school. When you're looking at most of our outofcount approvals, which is our current out of county, that 33, most of those are employees, teachers, staff coming from Lynchburg City or outside of our zone to teach for us. So, they bring their children um with them. That's one of their perks. Um we have a few tuitionbased um students who come uh from Lynchburg City over to Bedford County and they pay the tuition every year. Um but that number is small compared to employees children. Um just it's important to note I think that um we start the zone transfer request policy um request on March
037the 1st of each year. So, we've been getting zone transfer requests. Principals have been looking at capacities. They've been looking at grade levels and we have been approving and denying some of those requests already for kindergarten and for sibling transfers for next year. Um, so we've already made some decisions because that um that timeline opened up before the board requests to look at redistricting. Um, the reason I'm sharing this information with you is because if the board votes to move forward with redistricting right now, um, the executive team would have to go back and look at each of these approvals that are currently in place and see if they change our estimates or decisions. And I'll tell you why this is really important. uh if we take and we move forward with the redistricting plan
038and we don't make a change in our zone transfer policy, I think one important thing that we would have to understand is all of the students who have been in schools, let's for example say a child has been at Forest Elementary since kindergarten and they're now in fourth grade. We have to make a decision. Do we allow that student to stay? Do we allow all those students to stay until they reach the fifth grade? If so, this redistricting plan won't work because we're then over putting even more kids on top of that. But let's say we have a student who should be going, I'm making this up, to Bedford Elementary, um but it's easier for their parents to drop them off at Forest Elementary. So, this child has been at Forest Elementary, doesn't live in
039Forest Elementary zone, but has been going there since kindergarten and is grandfathered in under the current zone transfer policy to stay till fifth grade. So, a student who didn't live in the forest zone to start with may be able to stay at Forest Elementary while removing children who are living in the Forest Elementary zone and have, you know, that's where they bought their house, that's where they've been comfortable. We are moving those children out. So, I think that's an important thing we have to talk about with our zone transfer policy. Those are the little snags that are going to, I think, catch us. Um, so when we think about moving forward, I think there are some options that we have to consider so that we don't create unfair caveats for parents um who may not
040want to move their children or who think they may be able to stay under a zone transfer. Um, again, I just want to reiterate, we've looked at the numbers a lot of ways. if everybody's grandfathered in under this plan, we will be over capacity um in what we're suggesting. So, we put some options here. You could think about revoking all zone transfers um in the forest zone and require all students to go to the school they're zoned for. This will reset the numbers and open up capacity even more. Um, as you look at the slide prior to this, you can see Thomas Jefferson has 68 current zone transfer approvals. 68 kids there that um, you know, have a zone transfer. They should be in another school or they live in another school district plus 17
041out of county approvals. That's mostly because most of the forest zone schools have been closed. So, they all kind of end up at TJ. Um, you know, we have 22 at New London that are already there. So, that's a lot of zone transfers in that area that we we need to make a decision about. So, do we um revoke all of those transfers, reset everything um and then look to see what the capacity would be with our changes? Or would the board like us to think about freezing forest zone transfers moving forward, including sibling transfers, and allow the students currently there to stay to fifth grade? This will then take five to six years to make the full change of the school boundaries and it may separate siblings and families um that have to start
042at the new school while their siblings are grandfathered in at the old school. Um I think no matter what if you want to um do something immediately we have to say we're going to freeze any more zone transfers tonight. So, if we're pushing to have something ready in August, then the zone transfer policy, we have to stop those transfers temporarily so that we can get a good gauge of how many kids, where they're going, and what they're doing. Um, and then I think we have to say we have to look at our zone transfer policy. we have to change it to address the future request and how we're going to handle students who are currently in that school, who are moving, who we may consider grandfathered in. Um, and then I think we need to
043decide if this policy also affects the Liberty and Stanton River zones or is it just going to affect the areas we have capacity issues. Um, usually when we have a policy, the policies for the whole division. So, um, there are a lot of things that I think we have to consider because we have to clean up this policy and we have to think about all the consequences of that before we move forward because that's going to influence our decisions about who's going where. Um, again, I I just want to say if we grandfather in every student, then the redistricting plan really is not going to be successful. Um the only way it could be successful is to continue on like this for two or three years announcing that in this particular year the school boundaries
044are changing so be prepared for it. Um but again that would be a board decision. Um I will say that again we think timing is very important if we rush to do the plan and implement it of August of 2025. I feel like families need more time than that to plan for afterchool care. A lot of our families go to certain schools because they can go to afterchool care at the YMCA or they can be taken to some of the afterchool care programs um near our schools. Um I also think it would give our families some time to work with their students through the change. really having an opportunity if this is moving forward um to I know it sounds silly but to say goodbye because they're going to be going somewhere different next year.
045Um and then I think as a district I think it will ensure that we are being very transparent with parents and we are communicating very clearly um and very timely rather than trying to rush it over the summer. I know we feel like summer's a lot, but in actuality, it's about eight weeks. And so that's a lot to get in and change bus routes and communicate and give parents an opportunity to really take this in. So um I think we're going to share a little bit more about some options possibly um for you to consider moving forward. So slide 18 is the executive's recommended timeline. So you obviously at this point know which way we're leaning um and that is to taking all of next year to do this properly. So if you look at
046this list right now you'll see May decided if there is agreement to move forward in the planning that is actually now June and July update and approved new zone transfer policies. And I'm going to explain to you why that's important as to this timeline. In August, notify parents by letters that are affected by changes and also start the public hearing process um which is by law. September, vote on redistricting plan, which means literally focusing on the maps you saw and and hopefully um that those wouldn't change much from what they are right now. October, November, work with the county to have new school zone maps drawn, printed, and give the county a time to update its GIS systems. Spring prepared new bus routes, move staff, and 2026, implement the district plan. Now, as you look
047at that, um, there's a couple little things in there that that I think I'm excited about. Spring of 2026, we're right now going through a bus audit. and to to to move forward in the middle of a boss bus audit kind of nullifies what they're doing. And that bus audit in itself could save us routes and condense. And so that's that that is in process and we'll probably have probably some conclusion to that in the summer. Now, if you go to slide 19. Oh, I guess Oh, I'm so sorry. We have it. We're in control. Nope. Yeah, I had it upside down. If you look at this, there's basically three options for you to consider tonight based on our proposal from 18. And if you redes district by August 25, as Dr. Woodford said, that
048gives us about eight weeks. That means that you would have to literally uh have work sessions to provide parent input change the zone transfer policy which is significant because it takes us about approximately two meetings to to change it with the IGA. Um if you if you moved forward uh it would have to be done done sooner. It there's also um consideration of moving faculty. Uh there's a lot in there. The second option is redistrict by the timeline that we're suggesting on the previous slide. And I want you to look at that just for a second because this is kind of where we got inundated with this process. If you move forward and do the 25 of August, everything on that has to be done in literally 30 to 40 days. and to give you
049another 20 to 30 days because she was talking about 8 weeks to give you to implement. And that means notifying parents of the actual changes of moving staff, changing bus routes, all of the things you see on there right now would have to be done over the summer. That's a daunting task task that in some cases we think would not be fair to students or teachers because we don't want to have a conversation with a teacher in wow late July you need to go clean out your office you're moving over there and in a month you're at such and such a school it we just want to give people more time to do that. So, this would allow us to go through, have our town hall meetings, make the changes to what we think is
050necessary in zone transfers, and to implement the process in a fashionable way. So, have I covered that as far as the the the 30-day to 12 month uh changes? So, what we want to do at this time, there's one more option. Oh, one more option. Yes, there is. You could do nothing. We do not advocate you do nothing. We do not I'm going to say this again. We do not advocate you do nothing because we have schools sitting at near 100% capacity. If these developments that I talked about prior do finish in the next year or two, then we've got major problems of putting kids in those classrooms. And then you could be proposed with I don't know I don't like the idea but but putting a portable on a class on a campus or
051or two or three I don't like that option at all. Um those are throwing money that's throwing money away. Um so to me um option three is not is not a good option. um you understand the difference between option one and option two. Um and literally putting all of that into option one and having it all done is almost insurmountable when you throw in just the transfer consideration. So at this point um we want to open it up to questions and any of us can give you an answer. I have several. Um, so, uh, and appreciate all the hard work was doing this. I get it. That's a lot of work. It's a lot of time, I'm sure, spent in the GIS, and that's not a fun system to to go through. It's not. It's
052not. I'll get it. Um, so, a couple questions I had. Um, when you figured the estimates, when you spoke with the, um, with the, um, zoning person at the at the county, um, did you also consider the type of developments? Yes. You know, town home versus I saw Grand View was in there and they're patio homes. Yeah. Typically those aren't, you know, I would imagine that's probably skews. Well, if you looked over in the side, some of those had really small numbers. Yeah. Um, but if you go into like even like Boonboro Meadow, those are single homes and I would think they're only 40% built out. So, there's going to be a lot of growth in Boonboro over the next two years. They still got to do their next phase. It's going to be they're
053going to do another phase. It's going to be a little while for they're going to get ready on the next phase. Well, I drove through it. Yeah. Just because I was curious. I drove by every day. I drive by it every day and I, you know, I've never driven in here. Let me go in here. And there are there's a circle drive and there are culde-sacs that go to basically empty lots and and there are houses there. They're they're designated. They've got all the underground in. They've got all that stuff ready. You literally purchase that land. They can start building pretty soon. Gotcha. Because you have all the underground. So something like that would really skew and I think there's what did we say 94 kids that potentially could come out of that. I think
054which one uh Boomsboro Meadow 34 I mean 43 43. So um there was one with 90 something and so if we don't make those plans um we're going to be behind the eightball again. I get you two years. Um so I had the I had the advantage of being able to tour several of these schools over the last couple months. Um, I would agree. Force Elementary is busting at the seams. That one, that one is, you know, at capacity. What? Or close to capacity. I'm not sure if it's at it, but it's it's real close. Um, is there an option to kind of skewing your sec first option there of just holding off and just redistricting, you know, because you just got on your pretty small redistricting. Um, just that one subdivision off of Lake
055Vista. Um, and then that little section of Boonboro, taking that away from Forest. Is there a way in our whole procedure to just do that school and then kind of hold off on the rest until later on? Because some of the things I was looking at, obviously, I think my district is probably affected more than most um, populationwise. I mean, the Terrace View subdivision is right now about two miles away from um, New London Academy. If we switch the terrace subdivision over to Otter River, um I was trying to charge I think for the full board in your question and I'll just answer that. They they don't overlap so they can be taken independently. Yeah. If we had some going to TJ Force Elementary New London and they were just all going everywhere, it all
056depended on but I think they're too separate. They're not overlapping. So the board could do that if they like. And I will say this on New London when we relooked at the capacity, you can see we went up on the capacity there. I think you know when you go look at and walk around that school, we think there's more capacity than what we were using in the past. Yep. So that's just for the sports information. And they also have a lot of preschool programs that we could adjust and Yep. Um yeah, that's my big thing is is I I completely agree there needs to be something. I'm just concerned to make this quick of a reaction to where you're telling a family, hey, you've got a and and I have got kids at New London
057Academy right now. If I were to go and tell my wife right now, hey, we're heading out a river, she's going to have to change the way she does her entire life, where she goes grocery shopping, where she goes, you know, she drops the kid off on the way to Bible studies or on the way to pick up things. I think we're asking a lot a lot of families in just three months to go all right change up your whole life. Um because I know that that's that's a big factor at least in my family. I'm not sure about every family but in mine that would be a huge adjustment. I think one of the biggest ones too is we've talked about this is how people use or create their own afterare and so they
058are in close prox maybe their babysitters in close proximity to the school they're at now and all of a sudden they're way over here now they've got to you know make that transition where maybe that maybe that nanny or whatever could pick that kid up two minutes away and now all of a sudden it's 20-minute drive. So I think we've ran into the most conversation about and and a lot of the trans joint zone transfers indicate that is how do people create their own afterare if they don't keep them at school. Yeah, I think I had a question too, but if if we did a limited fix like that, we'd still be tied into the legality and the timeline of direction number one, still have to fit all that stuff in there, public notice and
059all that into a short time zone, making that impractical even if you're going to do a small zone transfer. Everyone can keep asking questions on the last. Anybody else? Um, I I like the idea of waiting for the same reason that Mr. Hill was talking about. I I'm also thinking that if you wait and have a little more feedback from parents as to where they're going to go. Um, and you said something that kind of caught my eye about um, some of them have been thrown into Forest because they or TJ because they just couldn't fit them in other places at the time or No, what I meant was so people ask us for a zone transfer request and they may say Forest Elementary and we might say we don't really have any room at
060Forest Elementary. It's closed to zone transfers. the only option you may have is Thomas Jefferson right now. So that's why there's such high numbers there because a lot of parents because of daycare options headed to work that kind of stuff. So they'll choose Thomas Jefferson because it hasn't capacity. Yeah. So if we did these zone transfers we might have some people who I'm sorry not zone if we do the zone changes um we might have people who would actually be able to put their children into Forest Elementary when they couldn't before. Is that what I'm hearing? Right. As long as we move. Yeah. If we're doing still doing zone transfer. Yeah. But I think it all depends on that zone transfer policy because you you've got some who are grandfathered in because forest hasn't been
061closed that long. So we still have some that are out of zone there. We haven't added any. And it really just depends how much we get the capacity down. So if we get feedback then that's what I'm saying. If we get feedback from these parents and they have the option to put them in forest, that could change some of these numbers a little bit more, too. So, I think it's probably a good idea to give that time to to let parents kind of let it fester and hopefully not fester. And I think it increases transparency. Yeah, it does. It allows and I think it would give us time to go through all the zone transfers and see it may be that students are already at the school that we would be moving kids to maybe
062they it already works for them because they're close to that school or something. Um and and it gives us time to really look at that policy to make sure we make the right decision for families because there are lots of things we can't think about in the brainstorming but parents they're living it so they think about it and can share with us. Um, so on the zone transfers, has there been an analysis of how that policy could be changed and how much it would balance the numbers even if we didn't do it? So much depends on what you do. Yeah, we have not. It's a different number for every single thing you do. That's part of the, you know, this is really meeting with the county and looking at bus routes. it. Even though those
063maps look simple, we it took days. Yeah. I'm trying to So, we didn't get to that part, which is part of what we probably need to do before we talk about time. That's right. Like really looking to see how those zone transfers are impacting all of those schools. Yeah. Because we we want people to be able to do zone transfers if it makes sense. But it's certainly unfair, right, to say, "Hey, we're going to we're going to have we're going to do all this redistricting when we could have solved a lot of the problem by looking at the zone transfer thing first." Right. Um and I know there's people out there that have zone transfers and they don't want to hear, "Hey, we won't have this anymore." But if we're looking at a a fair
064approach, Yeah. Right. We have to at least look at that, right? prior to saying, "Oh, you live here, but we're still going to make you go to this new school." Right. Um my other question was you mentioned that some of the teachers may follow the the students. How will the how will that be determined? Uh in other words, like which teachers is it a volunteers? No, it's youngest person in good move. Soon as the last person hired. Okay. just pure and it may be yeah it may you may be in kindergarten you may have to go to first grade or you might be in second grade you have to go to third grade and there's no option for allowing for for volunteers first I I think you can do that to see but you know
065that's doesn't usually happen the principal has their grade level so if somebody wanted to go to the other school the existing principal would go what's that going to do with mine and stuff so that would be a discussion we're not saying we wouldn't consider it we're saying it doesn't usually happen that way and we have to go We use the same policy we would if we were riffing or something. It's the same. And I do think I was just gonna say on the transfer policy cleanup, I don't think that fix fixes Force Elementary. Yeah. You got 19. You got 12 or 13 in there right now. Yeah. I don't think so. If you say everybody goes away from their 13, it's still with all the developments coming, Force Elementary is going to be kind of
066a bug. I don't think so either. But it may help with some of the smaller Yeah. moves. But even if it doesn't help, it's still the the idea of looking at that prior to telling people that they have to go to a new school, I think is it's just a fair approach in my opinion. So, here's here's a oddity. If you decided you were going to stay on the August 25 date and you did not change zone transfer, what would you suspect would happen tonight as soon as this meeting's over? It will work if there's if you allow zone transfers and we move all the lines. It will not work. Agreed. It will blow it out. Yeah. Well, I think we I'm not going to speak for the whole board, but I think we all
067agree that uh moving this in eight weeks is is tough. It's really tough. I think we all see that. But in that year's time, looking at the zone transfer is a big part of this, I think. I mean, you know, I'm sure the teachers will understand, but when you're told that you have to go work somewhere else, that's a big deal, right? And a lot of times we can handle those issues when we have a year. We kind of know somebody might be retiring or resign. So, you can start to move people and have good conversations with them. Sometimes it just works itself out. Tell them when they're hired, you might be right. I think the last thing we want to do is walk into a school and say, "Hey, all you new people, you're
068going over here." I that's just not the way we want to do business. And I'm not on the HR side, but you know, you're one school teaching kindergarten this year. You go to the other school. It's like in July, we're going to say, "You're going to new school, but you're going to teach fifth instead of kindergarten." And it's all the lesson plans and stuff, and it's a lot for a teacher to do to get prepared for. So, we're trying to be considerate of that. So, I think what we're all saying, and I'm sure Mr. Goldberg might want to say something is we definitely want to we have to look at this obviously but we want to do it the smartest way possible that helps our families as much as possible and our teachers we don't
069want to you know we're we're playing with people's lives here so we have to be methodical and their children I mean they've it's their elementary schools are like your home so it takes time to make uh another question I had um and this is just from my personal experience Um, we're adding 87 students if if we did all this adding 87 students to Otter River. I know right now if I am coming from Bedford to Lynchburg in the afternoon, I try to avoid 221 right there like the plague because they're already cars backed up into the road. If we add 87 students to this, that's potentially 87 more car riders. I don't know that Otter River can hold that, you know, that capacity of of car of just car riders there. Um, just I know
070I know I went to Boon the other day. They have a nice long route. Obviously, New London has a a long route to kind of they don't have that at Otter River and I don't know that they can have that. I'm not sure how the back of the property looks. Um, but it's something we I would also like to see in this is kind of a traffic study. Uh I'm sure VOTE would have something like that of the other thing that one of the caveats that the board gave us was just to consider forest zone and not cross the zone but as we are looking there are some if these areas closer to Big Island, closer to Bedford Elementary. So I don't know if that's something if we're going to take some time you know
071think about that as a board if you want us to look at that or just keep it within the forest zone. So I know that the Big Islands teachers have voiced that because they're so small, they don't have the funding for sometimes for the extra counselors or whatever. They want more they want students. So, um I know that that doesn't always isn't the most popular thing because Big Island's kind of tucked away, but it's beautiful and it's it's a wonderful little Most of our zone transfer requests are due to daycare options. We have issues with that at Big Island at Manita Huddleston. So, when we're developing, it would be nice to develop after school care. Do we have an option to add? I not within the school. We've tried before, but yeah. All right. Um
072six o'clock. So, we're going to go we're going to go to public comment and then we'll come back to this. Um because I have some I don't know if Mr. Hullbrook had any questions. Um but I I do and have some statements and then we'll we can move on. But we are going to move on right now to public comment. Looks like I'm not going to have to read the closed session notes. Uh what we have to say to go into close session, but I get to read this very long statement. So, my amount of reading is not going down, it's going up. So, public comment, uh, the public comment portion of tonight's agenda is limited to 40 minutes. Speakers are asked to state their name and voting district. Network is here to listen to
073your comments, but will not engage or respond to speakers during this 40-minute period. Please remember that this is a public meeting and that we expect all speakers to refrain from foul, profane, abusive, or hateful language uh during their comments or any time while in attendance during this meeting. We also ask that speakers keep their remarks objective and about the school in nature. Please keep all comments limited to matters related to the public schools and any comments that are harassing or amount to a personal attack against any identifiable individual whether a board member or staff or student for having the potential to cause unnecessary delay or disruption to this meeting are prohibited. This is a public meeting for public matters. If speaker is not present when their name is called, we will proceed with the next
074name on the list. An individual who has 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 the individual has 30 seconds remaining and a second alarm will sound when the allotted four minutes have expired. When this second alarm sounds, please discontinue speaking and allow the next person in line to come up to the podium. Should you be unable to finish your comments, please give them to Mrs. Johnson and she will give them to the board members. Please do not adjust the microphone at the podium as it has been positioned for optimum audio quality. Public comment tonight. First on the list, we have Amanda Dean. Good evening, members of the board. My name is Amanda Dean and I am
075a proud graduate of Jefferson Forest High School and a dedicated teacher in Bedford County Public Schools. Over the past 21 years, I have taught in two counties. After a decade in a neighboring division, I returned home and I'm now in my 11th year with BCPS. I am here tonight to speak regarding policy GCBDC and its impact on teachers needing sick leave donations. In my first year of teaching, I needed a tonslectomy. To minimize disruption and save sick days, I scheduled surgery around Thanksgiving break. At that time, my school system had a much more flexible sick day donation policy than our current BCPS policy. Teachers could donate days to anyone at any time without requiring the recipient to use all of their own days first. Thanks to the generosity of my colleagues, I did not have
076to use a single sick day of my own for this surgery. The support I received allowed me to focus on healing and returning to my students at my best. That school division still maintains this policy today, and it continues to make a real difference for teachers in real need. In Bedford County, our current policy requires teachers to use all of their own leave before receiving donated days with additional restrictions. I recently experienced this firsthand. After months of illness, a hospital stay, and 7 weeks of FMLA leave, I had to exhaust all of my sick days and personal days before I was eligible to request donated days despite colleagues offering to donate their time to help me. Only after missing 15 consecutive days could I ask for help and I could only accept enough days to
077cover my remaining FMLA leave. Now I have returned to the classroom with no sick days left for ongoing medical needs and must choose between working while unwell, balancing early morning appointments with teaching or taking unpaid leave even though colleagues are willing to help. Now that I have returned, given the number of days left in the school year, any additional days I need to take off due to my health will be unpaid since there are no longer 15 consecutive days left for me to miss. My doctor recommended half days, but financially that is not possible under the current policy. Additionally, next week I will lose pay for necessary heart procedures that will require me to miss a day of school. Although colleagues continue to generously offer donated days to support my situation, both they and I
078feel frustrated by the restrictions of the current policy. My experience is not unique. The restrictions in our policy can force staff into unhealthy situations affecting both teachers and students. While I believe the policy I experienced in a neighboring county might be too flexible, I do feel that adopting a more flexible policy in BCPS would provide much neededed peace of mind and vital support for our staff. By allowing teachers to access donated days without such restrictive conditions, we can foster a more compassionate and supportive work environment for everyone. The following are proposed change suggestions to improve the current policy. Allow teachers to access donated days before depleting all of their own or at a minimum permit them to retain any unused donated days as a reserve for when they return. Remove the stipulation that teachers can
079only ask and receive days for consecutive days missed. Increase the cap on donated days so that colleagues can provide greater support during extended medical absences. In closing, I know we all want our school system to be the best that it can be for both students and staff. By revising policy GCBDC, we can demonstrate that we truly value and support our teachers, especially in their times of need. If a neighboring school division can offer a more supportive policy, there is no reason that Bedford County can't do the same. Let's work together to make Bedford County a leader in supporting its educators. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you, Dean. Um, that is all that is uh has been signed up to speak tonight. Would anybody else like to speak? All right. Hearing nobody else,
080I will close uh public comment. All right, we're going to go back to 2.02 for the redistricting. Um, Mr. Hullbrook, did you have anything? No, I don't really have any questions. I mean, it's about the fourth time we've been over this, so something's got to happen for sure. I mean, I'd like to see it happen this year, but that I think that would be a little pressing on him, but guess something's going to have to happen for sure. Okay. Um, we did this or we tried to do this. It was brought up either last year or the year before. We had um one of the committees uh took this on. Which committee was it? Was it facilities? Is that what I remember? Might have been in the past. Seen that one. Yeah, facilities. Took that
081on. Um tonight, are you just asking for consensus that we agree to move forward with a plan, not necessarily this plan? Okay. Um before we this just a a plan. I I mean, look, I I think that anytime in business or anything else in life, you want to make sure that if you're going to do something, you do it right. And I I don't think that we or anybody should ever adopt a ready, fire, aim mentality. Ready, aim, fire. Let's do it. Let's do it right. Let's give every community member the opportunity to to comment and to get their affairs in order and to figure it out. I think giving the most time. I I would have loved to got something done. It is just it's not feasible. we're gonna rush it and when you
082rush things you make mistakes and I don't I personally don't want to do that. So, um I would think that we need to get the ball moving and this would have to be for the f you know after the next school year. Not yet. Uh one other question. So with all this being said, the chairman Hill has brought up several times had several concerns about Forest uh elementary. How can we still with not taking action on on this now? how can we alleviate some of those concerns that he's had moving into next year? So, we could revoke all zone transfers in that school. That's part of our current zone transfer policy. We did do that at Otter River. Um, two summers ago, we kind of went through, we had some classrooms that were overloaded and
083we were recognizing uh that for instance, a first grade class of 21 was much better. We had six zone transfers that made that class 27. So, we could do some looking at those zone transfers and notifying families that we have capacity issues and revoking those zone transfers um for anyone who's not currently at Forest. Um what you see there's not that many there really. We've kind of limited it a little bit already. So, there's only 13. Four of them are out of county. So, they're most likely employees because we don't know. Well, when we changed the zone transfer policy last year, didn't we give the staff the ability to do that? We did. And so, and and that could be for any school at any time, and that also could have been um grade specific
084if I Right. It is. And and you know, Mrs. Manley and I've talked specifically about zone transfer. She does have some siblings applying for kindergarten. Um and she feels like her numbers are kind of right where they need to be. She's not taking new families. She's she like she wants to honor the siblings of families that are already there and so that's why her numbers are really low. We're just trying to be super careful there. Okay. Um any other questions? No. No. So I think we just need consensus to move forward with something. Um if we do that, would you guys utilize any committee in particular? um or obviously we've had several board members that have had suggestions here tonight would I don't think we need to create any new committee but and I know
085facility and or and every committee is pretty busy um but how would we want to maybe consider talking since we all really don't I don't think we need to do it in a work session I think that someone should come up with this and go this is where it may be doing all of these things it may be first we're doing this then we're going to look at that and then it may be several steps So, um, any thoughts to that? So, I know IGA we're going to have to address the zone transfer policy, but I think before we can do that, I feel like we need to the numbers. Yeah, we need to really know also about the facilities and what the facilities can hold and not hold and look at those routes that,
086you know, we've looked at. Um, I think you could probably put it in any committee except CPO, right? That's mine. Maybe don't we don't need to necessarily decide that now. Um, but um and then also on the buses, I know we may save a bus route here. if we make any of these changes, the the current uh audit that we're doing now, would we still be able to kind of I don't want to say throw them a curveball, but would we be able to say, "Hey, we're also considering this." I've already talked to our consultants. Um she's actually coming next week to work with our transportation department so I can, you know, talk about the timeline. The audit is over. We're doing the audit for this year for next year. So hopefully the audit will
087be over and they're helping us change the routes by the middle of summer. Um we can start talking about what needed to change is Art Lipkcom, I know I know Leanne and Karen talked about Art, he is a wealth of knowledge about the forest zone. He knows those bus routes. Um so he feels very confident that he can adjust those. Um, it just takes some time, but we can we can also get feedback from the the auditing company as we go through this and we went with his suggestions like he was with us when we were drawing lines and stuff to make sure it would work. He was with us the whole way. He literally knew like every bus route, every stop. How many kids were on the bus? How many kids were on the
088bus? It was just mindb blowing. So, we were taking his suggestions. Okay. He already had some ideas of how to like I think Dr. Woodford said how to make a couple of routes combined and and make it because we're all already looking at efficiency for our routes combining routes just because we don't have full-time drivers all the time. So we're h you know we've done that so many times already. Mr. Daniel, we were just talking it was and when you look at it we did consult our our lead driver there and looking at Otter River because it's so big. I think the lake areas like you both of them go down 221. One takes a right on Parville and one takes a left on 8 811 to get to TJ or to Forest Elementary. Not
089as complicated. Thought River is just big and we're saying can can it go here? Can it go here? So we were we were looking at that. I think the biggest thing and we were talking about the biggest thing that's the complex thing is the zone transfer policy. It affects people. Is it fair? When you get down to the end of it when you guys make a final decision, I don't know if it's going to be fair to everybody. That's just not going to happen. But what could be the most equitable and what do we have to do? That's the complicated one. I believe I think the lines aren't going to change that much unless you say the development's not coming. So redistricting is convoluted by the zone transfer policy. So we can't work in a
090in a vacuum. And I think this applies to a lot of the things that we have to deal with here is just because we've always done something some way doesn't mean it's the best way to move forward. Things change. We we you know population has changed and has shifted. So certain ways of the way that we've done things, we can't we have to be flexible. We've got to get to the line of scrimmage and be able to call audles when we need to, but we have to take into consideration, you know, all those other dominoes that then move because of the things that we're doing. So, we have to do what is needed. Um, and then it may it may be multiple steps. I think what you're what you're asking for is a consensus to
091say let's spend the next year figuring this out and then there will be a vote in the future on if the plan that we figure out is one that the seven board members they tentatively have a September voting on a redistricting plan. Could it be sooner than that? Maybe. Depends on what we what we put together. But you're going to need that you're going to need that time again to do it right to get input um to to to figure some of those things out. So, yes, I I would like to Last question. Sorry. If we were to do this plan as it sits now, how would that affect um any of our special needs uh kids? If it's if it's something specific, are they still able to go to the school? You know, I
092just don't want to take that into consideration. So, we always take that in consideration for their least restrictive environment. We do have special programs for um our early childhood special education, our adaptive programs. We don't have an adaptive program in every one of our elementary schools. So, in some cases, we do have students coming from other schools to those programs. That wouldn't change. That's just part of our special education. We put them where we can meet their needs and the programs that meet their needs. So in that case it wouldn't change unless we moved unless we said we need a little bit more room or we have room and we move the program somewhere else all the kids would still go there would still provide the transportation and um when when we've kind of looked
093at it we took a little bit of that in consideration especially at New London they have several preschool ECSE um adaptive programs and we actually kind of reserve some classrooms for them so that they wouldn't have to be moved. So, anything else? I like the idea of of waiting, but I also would like the opportunity to be given for parents to be able to go visit the other school be transferred to as well. I don't know if you have have any open houses or or whatever where people can get a little bit of, you know, show. Yeah. just so that they can buy into the new schools as well. So, all right. Do I have consensus to move forward with uh planning this uh redistricting for the forest zone? No. Okay. Yeah, you don't have
094consensus. I did not catch everybody. If you don't it was only Yep. No. Yes. Yes. Yes. Your consistency by majority. Testify majority. Okay. All right. Okay. Um I'm going to move on to 3.01 the gifted plan. Dr. Sean Truster. Yes. Uh every year we are required to get board approval for our gifted plan. the plan that you see is the same as last year with a very very small change. Um so there's there's no presentation just something for you to consider and then we'll be asking for action next month. If there's any questions from the board I'll be happy to answer any questions from this side. Good. All right. Uh 3.02 seak bylaws. Miss Jennings. Um yes. So um the CAC is our special education advisory committee that we're required to have through regulations. This
095committee is made up of parents and community members as well as um advisors such as myself and a school board member, Mr. Hill. So um they have reviewed their bylaws and they have proposed to change um certain bylaws um that includes some of their functions as well as their membership requirements. And so I've provided those bylaws to you um as a board for you to review and for action for next month and I can answer any questions. I had a question on article three membership. Okay, it's a little confusing word composition of the committee is for eight parents of persons with disabilities. I'm not understanding what that is all about. um for the eight parents of persons with disabilities. Is that what you're asking? Yes, ma'am. Um yeah. So that would be a parent. So
096it would consist of instead of what we've had what they the committee has had of up to three members um and 12 and all of that. They would extend instead look for eight parents to be participants on that committee. And they have to be parents of students with disabilities or people with disabilities. That's for the committee. Okay. Yes. [Applause] Any other questions? All right. Thank you, Miss Jennings. We got 03 title grants. Dr. W. Thank you. So, the title grants are federal entitlement grants. Um, we bring them forth every year during this month. Um, Title One Part A provides resources for our qualifying elementary schools in the Stanton River and Liberty Zone. Um, the money that we received through that application um used for lowering class sizes um adding reading specialists, professional development and family
097um engagement. Um, our title 2 application u provides funding for division support of salaries also some tuition uh tuition assistance for employees and professional development in support of improving instruction. Title three um is support for our English language profic proficiency learners. Um and so that provides um enough money for tutors and materials to work with our EL students. Um and our Title 4 Part A grant provides funds for programs and activities to improve students academic achievement. um helping students with a well-rounded education and improving school conditions for learning. Um these four applications are presented for information this month and we ask for action next month um so that we can receive the money. They have to be signed by the superintendent and board chair by June 30th for submission. So I'm happy to answer any
098questions or any of us can answer questions over the next month as you read them. Some of them are lengthy. Any questions? I know it takes a lot of work to put these together and you guys have to do that. So, I'm very appreciative of that. I cannot stand the overuse of the word equitable. And so, I'm kind of aggravated with that. And when you guys are answering the questions on that, if it asks that word, I understand using that for there. I just want to say that we provide equal treatment to all of our students. So, thank you. Um, okay, we're good there. Um, so then I guess we move on to 6.01. Additional action items. First on that list is budget transfers. Mr. Hackler. Yes. Um, this was presented last month. There was
099a slight change made to this uh transfer request for our budget this year recommended by the finance committee. Um, we were going to transfer uh money over to maintenance, some money over from maintenance from uh transportation. They requested that if we don't do that, we may have enough funds in transportation to buy a couple buses right here at the end of the year with because we switched off financing those, we're not buying as many and so we're building up to that. So, we're going to fall a little bit behind on our replacement cycle that this would help. So, if there's funds there, I'll negotiate with Sunny Marman and get some more buses here at the end of the year if the funds are there. So I I switched the money of 200,000 coming from uh
100transportation. Now it's coming from instruction to move to the maintenance department. So we can do here. So that was a minor change uh from what we presented last month. All right. Thank you very much. Um any questions for Mr. Haggler? Um do I have a motion to approve? Excuse me, Mr. Daniels. Need to wait for Dr. Hub before taking action. Please. We're just going to hang out. This is why you said please keep me honest. He did not hear anything that we said. So should we repeat it when he gets back? want to throw it back. I think I I think we should Yeah, we will get back. I can't I'd have to say in a minute that he didn't vote. So, I don't know. Why don't you embarrass? I got yelled at. So maybe
101I did not. I yelled at you. Didn't happen. 6.01 01 budget transfers. Mr. Haggler, just repeat. Let's see if I can do it real quick. Um, this was a uh budget transfer request presented at the last board meeting. The finance committee made a recommendation to make a little change. Instead of taking 200,000 from transportation, but we're taking it from instruction instead. So, there might be some money there at the end of the year to buy some buses and our replacement cycle. So, that was a slight change by the recommendation of the finance committee. And this is for your approval to make. Dr. Hubac, any questions? I do not. All right. Uh, do I have a motion to approve 6001? So moved by Mbrook. Second. Second. Second by Mr. Hill. Any discussion. All those in favor
102signify by saying I. I. I. 61's approved. 62 supplemental appropriations. This one was presented at the last board meeting uh in anticipation of the budget being signed by the governor. Um he has done so. So, this is impacting this year's budget. Uh, $950,000 coming from the state to support a $1,000 bonus for uh employees. Um, we did make a change on here. This is a recommendation from staff and also the finance committee. So, there was another whereas included in this, I want to make sure the board knows what we're voting on tonight. This bonus, this bonus is going to be treated as a retention bonus. Um, that's a recommendation from the finance committee. it will be issued to current employees who are going to be returning under contract next year. So, um that's the stipulation.
103So, those that are leaving would not receive that. It's for people that are staying and coming back under contract next year. And just want to make sure the board knows what they're voting on. So, that's the recommendation. And when would they receive the bonus then? It would be in their May paycheck. So before they come back, uh if anybody leaves, if anybody leaves, it will be deducted from their final paycheck because we do have money in a rear on most of their 10-month employees. If they were to leave, if it was paid out and they said they were coming back and then over the summers they didn't come back, it would be taken back from their last paycheck. Yes, ma'am. And that will be communicated from the superintendent in Minnesota this week if that if
104this is if this is the board's wish. Any other questions? All right. Do I have a motion to approve 6.02? Mrs. Pervvis second. Dr. Hubach. Any discussion? All right. All those in favor of approving 6.02 signify by saying I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. 6.03. Approval of propane bid. This was a late ad. I apologize for that. Uh working on redistricting and budget and all that. Uh we had a uh propane bid out separate from our uh heating fuel and uh transportation fuel. Uh you can see the bids that came in on that. We do recommend moving with uh and awarding the contract to Glenwood Energy for a two-year contract. Um and that will lock in that price for two years. So that's the recommendation of the board. Any questions? All right. Do I have
105a motion to approve 6.03? So move second by Mr. Hill. Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Any opposed? By the way, um motion passes. All right. 6.04 approval of final fiscal year 2526 budget. The financial committee met we met with this week to consider the superintendent's recommendation for budget for 252.6. The financial committee came back with uh some changes to that and I'm going to let um Randy Haggler present that. Try to do the best I can. The document that was presented in board docs showed really what originally was recommended by the superintendent and executive staff finance committee came in and recommended some changes to that. uh it's for the full board to kind of debate which one they take and which direction we go and so I'll walk through
106some of the changes on the revenue which doesn't change regardless of what you do and then the expenditure was how we were going to bounce the budget. So I'll work through that and try to brief you on that. Um the state budget uh provided more money than uh what the governor's original budget back in December did from the general assembly. Uh so that was an uptick in the amount of money that we're getting there. Uh we did have requests to the board of supervisors uh for 4.2 two or close to 4.3 million. They provided 1 million in increased funding. We did get more from the state, less from the board of supervisors, but it didn't net out. So, we needed to cut $1,156,000 from the budget on the expenditure side to make up for that
107revenue shortfall between the two of those. Any questions on that revenue? That's not going to change with regardless of the plans. Um, for both plans, uh, the salary scales are going to stay the same. Uh, we're recommending a 3% increase. That's a combination of a step and a cola. So if you're at the high if you're at the top of the scale, you just get you just get the cola, not the step because we don't go any higher. So but most employees receive right around 3%. But not all. Uh so that's the same in both plans. Uh the insurance rates are are the same for both plans and um and the revenue same. The thing that kind of might change is the staffing standard and how we staff for schools. So I'll brief on that
108as I go down through the expenditure uh changes as we were going forward. I based our insurance renewals off a 7% increase in uh in rates. Um it's been a bad quarter. Um so I recommended to the finance committee we probably should go up to 10%. That that was going to cost another 273,000 to the board. Uh they agreed with that. Um and so we're going to increase that to make sure we keep that self-insured plan afloat. Um it's been it's been a rough year again uh after last year. The next item is a technical adjustment. I looked at the third quarter forecast and I went up and down on different lines and it all netted out to about a $5,000 savings. So, not much, but some lines I had to adjust up and some
109down. The the increase in teacher staffing standards was not in the original proposal from the superintendent. That was put in to balance the other things that the finance committee wanted to put back in that were that was part of the board's original budget that we passed about a month and a half ago. So, we were uh the things that were going to be taken out, the finance committee asked to be put put back in. You can see I've got line and I got things in yellow hopefully to make it clear. There was the restoration step for employees. Um there were seven years of frozen for new board members. There were seven years we froze steps for all employees after the recession in 200910. Teachers, aids, bus drivers, nutrition workers, and aids have all received their
110restoration steps. All seven of them. clerical workers, garage employees, maintenance employees, uh health care employees, IT professionals have not. They've only received one or two of those. We've never fully restored those. We estimated it cost about $200,000 to restore all that. The finance committee thought that was non-negotiable. We needed to get that done. So, they asked for that to be put back in. So, you see that $200,000 would not be used to balance the budget. The other item, um, the next item on there was a 1% additional to the 3% in cost of living adjustment. That's a big lift of $850,000. When we were cutting 1.1 out, the financing committee agreed that we probably couldn't do that at this time. So, that is going to be removed from the budget. Um, security equipment. We had
111a recommendation to increase the security equipment mainly to maintain our replacement cycle of all of our cameras because we're we're counting on grants, but that doesn't always keep up with the camera replacement cycle. Our IT um uh staff came up with a replacement cycle to make sure I think it's seven-year replacement cycle on those before they're kind of done. The hardware and all that has to be done. So, $150,000 increase in that. If we took that out of this one, the finance committee said if we took that out to balance the budget, we're kicking the can down the road. We need the money to maintain those systems or we don't maintain one or the other. So, they asked to put that money back in uh to uh for this budget and recognize what the true
112cost is. Remove the SRO funding. That money was put in there. There is enough money in the budget to pay for the SRO's in the 2526 budget. There's $200,000 in the budget. It was in the current budget. Next year is the last year of the grant. The following year it will go from 200,000 to an estimated 800 to $900,000 to pay for the SRO's. The increase of 200,000 this year was let's do 200 this year so we don't have to do another 6 or 700 next year. It might only be 4 or 500. So it was recognizing to do that. That money would be used to catch up on some security equipment this year because it's not going to be used for SRO. we would use it for equipment, but it's putting the money into
113that so when we have to pay the full cost of that, it wouldn't be as big of a cliff. Uh the finance committee strongly recommended we put that in to kind of deal with that. We're going to have to deal with some more of that next year, but that would restore that back into the budget. And the final one was we had recommended originally and the board approved this that we have um several um 11-month elementary administrators, assistant principles that are on 11-month contracts. Uh the recommendation is move those to 12-month contracts. That would be 30,000. And the finance committee felt strongly to put that back in the budget. So if you put the restoration steps, the increase in security equipment, the SRO and the contracts, if you put those back in, we needed to
114cut 580,000 somewhere else. The recommendation from the board is to cut that by increasing the staffing standards by a small amount up by one or 75 on the staffing standards which reduces the number of teachers we have in the schools. The caveat to this is that we still have allin Virginia funding available. We'll probably have about 1.8 million that we have to spend next year. We have we're going into our last year on that. And um Dr. Woodford said that that money could be used to offset that for one year. So that means we would go down eight positions next year in the staffing standards. That's a budget cut. When I reappropriate the money at the end of the year, when we have any balance for next year, that all in money 580 would be
115used to sustain those eight teachers next year. But I want the board to know the following year they go away. Theoretically, we got to balance the budget next year. We don't know what the revenues and expenditures are going to be the following year, but I would build those in. Those are those are cut out of the budget. The all-in money would sustain that for one year. Then that's gone and then we're left with new staffing standards. So that was what the finance committee debated a long time. We spent a lot of time on this budget back and forth where could we go? And so I hope I explained it clearly what was in the original superintendent's recommended changes that we took to the finance committee and then what the finance committee changed and is recommending
116to the full board. The board can discuss this and go either direction or um so I'll stop at that point. Mr. Daniels is uh uh was on the finance committee. So I'll let him speak and uh take it from here. Yeah. So I mean not a lot of easy decisions when we you know we make our wish list and we would like to do a lot of things and you know we have a very limited amount that we get and um seems like we always get the information that we need at the absolute last second when other things are already in process. So, um, you know, putting the other teachers back in for this year to balance the budget was, you know, there's, um, um, master schedules essentially are already made. And to have to
117if if we had to do that, which we don't really want to do, but if we had to do that, it would just really upset the Apple Card. There'd a lot of moving parts and principles would be pulling their hair out. It's just it's just a tough lift for them to do at this late stage. Um I I feel you know very strongly I I called a couple of you guys yesterday. I know Miss uh Chairman Hill called um others as well. Um we both feel very strongly that the uh options that the finance committee came up with um is the is the way that we should go. Um you know next year if if nothing changes we will have to lose those eight positions. Um, we're kind of treating it this year like when
118we had esser funds or we had co funds, we had extra teachers that were built in and then each year I know Mr. Heg worked really hard to make sure and the team worked hard to kind of slowly wean ourselves off of that because it just and we're just paying for it and we had to find that money somewhere. So, um, we debated long and hard about that. Um, used looked on spreadsheets with the numbers to try to figure out the least impact that we could that we could do. But uh as you guys all know, money is always finite when it comes to what we need to do and there are tough decisions, you know, everywhere that we look. So uh we do feel that this is this is the right way to go
119for where we're at this year. So um if anyone has any questions, we can go through. Um I think was was anyone confused or needed any uh clarification from Mr. Haggler on because I think what we should do is we should probably at at some point say does anyone want to have a motion to approve um would be the superintendence recommended budget and then we we say no to that then we'd have a motion to to approve uh the finance committee's budget. So we'll do we'll do it that way if that's okay. If anyone has any questions please ask either uh Mr. Haggler or any anyone on the executive staff or if I can help I will. The only thing I I would say is when we talked budget a couple of meetings ago, there
120was a lot of concern in the community about some of the options that were presented for ways to save money. Um, one of those was closing a school. I know Susie G. Gibson was was talked about. I think we should just make it clear to the community that those options were not selected. Yeah, I I think that I think that uh someone had mentioned uh also when we were talking about um the the um moving that moving all the kids around that we wanted to be transparent. As long as I've been on the board and I I know all of you guys very well that we want to be extremely transparent. It's important for the community to know there are lots of options for things we can do. It was important to put those options
121out there just so they could see like these are options. By the way, we're not considering these, but these are things that we could do, but we want to do the best we can, I would say, with making the least amount of we don't want it to hurt, you know, and I I think that that was clear and I think that was what all of our intent was in saying, hey, these are some of the options that we have. I don't think we were going to do that. And another one on there was, you know, SRO's. It's like as a parent, you know, what? So, uh, but again, those are options. So I think it was just trying to be transparent with it and I think you're right. So none of those options that were
122on that sheet are are here. Correct. See I think in the ones that were underneath that potential options about are none of those moved up into the budget to actually uh execute any of those. I think in simplest terms we don't have as much money as we need. So people came up with options of you know ideas let's say of how we could save money but and some of those were concerning even even to us right and I know for one one was Suzie Gibson I got a lot of calls about that um this board I can speak for the board in this statement I think is very pro Suzie Gibson uh if anything we wanted to see it expanded not taken away so I just want to make that statement clear to the community
123that um we're pro Susie Gibson It's not closing. None of those options were selected. Um, and we've found a way to b balance the budget for this year and it'll be challenging again next year. It will be. And for the finance committee, they hear more details, but I it's my job to paint a picture down the road, not to be not to be the doomsday guy, but to say, you know, there are challenges to pay for all the SRO's next year, another 600,000 for reversion next year. You know, health care costs go up. Um, is there going to be revenue to cover all that? plus a step for employees. You know, those are concerns. If the re if the revenue is not there, we got there's cuts on the expenditure side you've got to do.
124So, there's challenges ahead and I'm keeping the finance committee up to date on those. So, those those options were presented like there's several more years that some tough goes here and and I just to be clear with when it comes to the the finance committee, we passed this tonight. The work does not stop. We are going right back in and we are looking again at every area that we that we can. And the staff has been great with trying to just kick over every rock and find suggestions. I there is a bit of a game of chess. There's certain things you can do, certain things you can't do. Certain things that get passed at the state level or the federal level, you have to do them. There's not necessarily funding to do them. You know,
125one of the things that's that's in here, which you guys all know about special needs AIDS, we absolutely it's the absolute right thing to do is make sure that if it's in an IEP, we are doing it. And I know Miss Jenn, they work really hard to do that. That's $4.5 million a year that we don't get funding. We have to do that. That's all local money. And until something changes, we're still going to be doing that. So, I think it's I think with that other list that we had, it was important to get that into the community. It's, you know, it's public, right? So that means our delegates and all of our representatives see that our you know the board of supervisors see that and then hopefully we can everyone can advocate for this
126is why we need the money. We're not just hey we got extra money. Let's just find something random to spend it on. There are legitimate needs and I I think it was important to get that get that out there. So but the finance committee we're going to go right back to work and say we know we got an uphill battle next year. Let's sharpen our pencils even more. see what we can find and continue to present that in in regular updates to the board and to the community. If I can add to that, that list shows the value of those products and it says, as he said to the board of supervisors and others, this is why we need more than a million dollars from them. And when you look at those those lists, this
127is the value of Susie G. it doesn't mean we're taking away Susie G. Um because we're all an advocate for that. I think it on one of the SWATs that was one of the things that I even mentioned and when on a comical side Dr. Cornet and I had to almost resuscitate the sheriff when he saw that because this is the value of my background. I I would never go into taking SRO's off of a campus. In fact, I'd like to see them do more. So, for me, the way that I explain that to the people in the public is this is what it's worth. This is what we're we're getting. This is what we're not getting. This is the importance of what we need. And there will be discussions of what is the difference
128between a need and a want down the street. That has to that conversation has to be had. Protecting those things that were highlighted in that blue box are they're not wants, those are needs, but it still is important to put that value out the table. I have a question. Um, Mr. Haggler, and this is just me being new. Um, what is the all-in uh fund you were talking about? Allin funding was I'll refer to Dr. Dr. Woodford, but it was funding that the state had available to help remediate and catch kids up in academics and we had really a three-year cycle which is spend that even though they gave us the money like in like January of one year so about two and a half years. So there's one one year left to do that.
129It was a little bit over $3 million given to us and that's been used for um catching kids up in their academics uh through tutoring and remediation for um I think truency and was there one other area that we kind of put some money into mainly in those areas and we're monitoring all that I guess the other part of your question the other part of it was so you said there was $1.1 million left is that what I'm well I don't know right now at the end of the so what functionally will happen at the end of the year it's kind of quirky they already gave me all the money two years ago so it's kind of weird that the state did that so we will have an ending balance in our operating fund at
130the end of the year that's going to be inflated whatever we didn't spend from the all allin is part of that ending balance has to be spent on allin next year so that's where I'll come back to the board in July or August and I'll do a reappropriation of some of those funds to go back in the operating fund usually our ending balances with the board of supervisor goes into our maintenance reserve fund something like that onetime expenditures but this is going to be any amount that has to be spending the operating under all in so I'm estimating right now about 1.8 Dr. Terrific. My second Well, I was just going to say and and the idea behind it is smaller class sizes, teachers being able to really work with kids. So, kind of falls
131under that catching them up academically and that kind of stuff. So, y sorry about that. I think it's just I didn't know what that was. Yeah, we throw out acronyms and names and that's appreciate it. Any other questions? So we we what's the what's the other um budget that that the board had because I'm only seeing one. This is what we is that what we approve this is what we approved from several months ago. Okay. Right. And that was necessaries and wish list, but we didn't actually we moved that budget ahead, but that was it was not finalized because we need to see what the revenue was going to be from the state and from uh board of supervisors. So when we vote, we're voting on that or we're voting on this. We're voting on
132You're going to vote on a revised? You're voting on the revised only on the revised. Okay. And if there's a consensus, you can if you can just choose which one. And if you think if there's consensus to go for one, you can just go through one vote on that. I do have a final document if you have consensus that I'll have you look at the final number because I don't know which one. So, I want to present you with documents here. I would like to ask for consensus to um to vote on the um amended um 2526 budget that the finance committee um has recommended. Do I have consensus on that? Yes. Consens of the board members and one of you could read just the final number at the very bottom 136 million and and
133just read the whole number and recommend the pass of the budget. I'll give you two pages. Detailed line item, salary scales, insurance, everything, uh, staffing standard, everything will be posted online for tomorrow for the public and for employees to see all the supporting documents for this. So, very transparent on anything you want to see that supports all these numbers. So, I'll walk around and pass out. When do contracts go out? Uh, we are targeting to try to get those out by next Friday. Um, we're working through that, but that's our target. I mean, it's just it might be the everybody just delayed it. Not we're we're a receiver of funds. We don't make our own the money tree is long gone. But, uh, nothing like getting it out at the absolute last second to make
134all of our staff sweat. So, it's been a lot of work and I appreciate, you know, uh, Mr. Haggler and his team and and everybody here for all the work that they've done. So, okay. All right. So some so someone has to make a motion to uh to approve the 2526 budget for that grand total down there 136612318. Do I have a motion? Um I make a motion to approve the 2526 budget of 136,612,318. I have a motion um by Mr. Knight. Do I have a second? Second second by Mr. Hullbrook. Any discussion? I just want to say that there are other schools divisions that are not near as transparent as you guys are and I thank you very much. Thank you for that. Any other comments? Okay. Um all those in favor signify by
135saying I. I. All those opposed motion passes. working on those contracts. All right. 6.05. Approval of policy updates presented at the April 10th, 2025 board meeting. Mr. Deair for action. The intergovernmental affairs committee met on March 10th, 2025 to review proposed revisions of the following policy. GCBDC sick leave donation. Proposed edits include additional addition of requirement for an employee to be a VRS plan one two employee to receive sick leave donation and an employee who is a member of the sick leave bank may use either the sick leave bank or the sick leave donation plan within the same year but not both. Right. Do I have um any questions? Do I have a motion to approve the policy updates? So move. Mr. Pervvis on first. Second. Second. Second by Mr. Hullbrook. Any discussion? All those
136in favor signify by saying I. I. All opposed. Motion passes. Um do I have a motion to go into close session? quickly. So moved. Pursuant to code Virginia 2.2-37A17A 2-37A17A for the discussion, consideration, or interviews of prospective candidates for employment, assignment, appointment, promotion, performance, demotion, salaries, discipline, or resignation of civic employees of Bedford County Public Schools for briefings by staff members pertaining to actual or probable litigation where such consultation or briefing and open meeting would adversely affect the negotiating or litigating posture of the public body. I have a motion by Mr. Hill to go into close session. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Mr. Hullbrook. Um, any discussion. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. All. Close session. Thank you so much. All right. Do I have a motion to come
137out of close session? Brook second by Mr. Hill. Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. All right. All right. Whereas the Beer County School Board has convened a closed meeting on this date pursuant to an affirmative recorded vote and 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 was conducted in conformity with Virginia law. Now therefore, be it resolved that the Befford 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 ident, excuse me, as
138were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard, discussed, or considered. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Right. Um, do I have a motion regarding closed session items? I make a motion to approve the legal documents as presented. I have a motion by Mr. Hill. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Dr. Huba. Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Any oppose? That passes. Um, number eight, approval of the consent consent agenda. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented? Mr. Pervis, do I have a second? Second. Second by Mr. Hill. Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Any opposed? Consent agenda is approved. Number nine, matters from the board, committee reports. I'll start with Dr. Huba. Uh see IGA didn't meet
139uh CPO. We discussed jump on in. You guys can tag team that. That's fine. We can cheat a little bit. We can read. Uh yes, we we we definitely discussed dress code and um some uh other policies regarding graduation and uh those sorts of things, but um family life curriculum is uh pretty much set. That is probably the big advance. Um still working on the elementary, but that won't be implemented till next year. uh Laurel School Board met and um things have actually been pretty good there. They've approved some new building projects and uh they have a new transportation bus allowing the special needs kids to be able to transport to um field trips and and whatnot and they've been doing great. So that's all. So STEM Academy um we meet next Tuesday on May
14027th. So we have not met for a while. Um and they're they're gearing up for their graduations. Um Gov School, there were several things that happened. One was they had their um graduation ceremonies and all of their scholarships on Sunday. I was not able to attend that um but I heard that it went well. I did work um at the research symposium that they had on April 23rd where um the students would present their research and what they did and um and then we would just give them some feedback on that. Um, we also met for our our regular gov school meeting uh May 20 or May 7th and which was yesterday and we discussed the budget which um we are going to be charging $5,000 per student which is a $300 per student increase
141for next year to cover the rising cost of um supplies and so on. Um so that is an increase for for the gov school and the CPO meeting. Um Miss Dr. Dr. Hubach already talked about but we also talked about Chromebooks and the usage in each of the different schools schools right we don't have individual some of them we're working on Saturdays more than we're going to continue to do some more evaluations on the Chromebooks as well um in the dress code we're going to continue to talk about that next time um yeah and thank you to Dr. about for working on the family life, right? Yeah. Um uh just want to talk a little bit of the CTE. Um we had a uh reverse career fair at Liberty High School on um on first
142the excuse me, the last day of April. Um and it was it was about 15 students were there. Um they did a fantastic job. I was able to talk to several of them. Um a lot of the trades ended up coming out. So it was it was a really really good opportunity. It was a great novel idea. Uh I'm excited for it to to develop in the the other schools as well, but Liberty did a great job putting that on. Um also with the facilities committee, we've got a bunch of projects uh coming up this summer um that we're trying to to get accomplished. Um we've got the uh the big ones we're kind of working on is um force middle school baseball field, practice field. Take a look at that as well. uh Bedford
143Primary Windows in Manita Stewartsville HVAC uh the wastewater um at Stanton River uh the lighting project at at Bedford primary and then we're going to we just voted on um fixing there's some HVAC leaks that need to get fixed at JF um that are causing some issues there so trying to get that done. So a lot of stuff the Mr. Bell and are very very busy this summer. Well, the uh PPE a um committee met on April 29th and we are as of now we're $253,68 below the original. Um and of course we hadn't started yet. So, uh, we're going to have a groundbreaking at Stanton River and Liberty High School, uh, May 27th for this project. So, along with all the other stuff going on in 25, um, they're going to be doing the
144going to be doing the asbesus abatement, new roof and downspouts, um, paint, relocating all the low boat voltage at Stanton River. Um, that's just this summer. And then we're going to start the end of this month, as a matter of fact, on that stuff. Um, so by 2026 should have the aluminum canopies, the lights, um, replacing the existing storm piping, stuff like that. Great. So, moving along. Good to see it rolling. Um, Mr. May, no committee. Committee, I I'll just talk briefly. We we kind of covered a lot about finance. So, basically covered it all. We're just going to get right back to work. No rest for the weary and we're going to just keep getting after it and keep reporting back on any other things that we can find. And for IGA, we'll get
145another meeting on the books. I think we have a zone transfer we going to need to look at. So, and you have something else. Yeah, it's okay. Sorry, I forgot. Um so Shane Bright we um there was the students went to the science fair for a gov school um the V Virginia State Science Fair and um the there I think there was three or four of uh students won awards and they were all from Bedford County. So I was very proud of them. Shane Bright from Jefferson Forest was awarded second place in physics. Leo Chang um also from JF was awarded honorable mention in microbiology and Shane Bright and Leo Chang both from JF will attend the international science and engineering fair with Miss Shamant was who is the um the instructors there. So it
146was it was just those two Shane Shane Bright and Leo Chang. And the other big information is that um Dr. uh Smith will not be returning after next year. So he's the um superintendent basically of gov school. And so he will he will teaching and working next year, but after that um he will be leaving. He's going to be retiring. Um I think he's been there for over 35 years. So he's been there all a while. So the position is going to be posted in September for his position. Um so we'll give you more details on that later. All right. Um comments and concerns from school board members. We're going to start on this side with Mr. Knight. Sure. First. Um so I wrote it down because I'm my memory is bad when I'm sleeping.
147Um, I'd like to say first and foremost, thank you to Bedford County, to the Bedford County community, the students, parents, teachers, and the staff, uh, for allowing me to be on this board and and serve our students and our parents. Um, it's been a pleasure to be involved at this level. I believe that over the last two school years, we have accomplished some good things for our system, and I believe that this board, current and future members, will continue to work hard at making as many improvements as possible. I truly believe that my fellow board members serve in their roles because they desire to help our students have the best opportunities for education possible. Since I joined the board, two significant changes have occurred in my life, including a new position with my company that
148requires me to be out of town every week. Um, in fact, that position just got extended into February of next year. So, it's going to be longer than I thought. Uh, and therefore, I do not have the time available to properly serve this position. Um, with that being said, I'm stepping down from my board position, my board membership in order to allow someone with more time um who can better serve our community to step in. Um, the position needs a person that can give more attention to the problem to the problems at hand. I trust that this board will select a proper a proper temporary replacement and the community will select a proper long long-term replacement. I will continue to be involved in our community and continue to help improve education opportunities for our students
149as long as I possibly can. However, my role as an official ends on May 31st, 2025. I thank you again uh for all the support and I pray that God continues to bless you all. Well, good luck. Hate to see you go. You've been around what almost two years? Two two school years. Two school years. Well, that's the only comment I got. Uh yeah. Um been great getting to know you, John. Uh it's uh I've been very short on this board myself. Um I would also like to mention I I know the um I'm not sure about the rest, but I know the elementary school students were working through SOS this week. Um, and I I was able to go to Boonboro Elementary School as they were finishing up that and just uh I know
150from the experience of my kids, uh, the teachers, the staff, the principles did a fantastic job preparing these students for the SOS. I was I was really pleased with with my students. Um, how seriously the teachers took it, but also, you know, made it fun, made it exciting. um you know they as far as parent support you know they we were able to write letters of encouragement to our students and all that. So I was I was really pleased at how that was handled and I I look forward to uh to when we get those results later on this this month. So first of all I want to say and I said this earlier but Johnny we're going to miss you a lot. You've been awesome. Um, and I also want to thank all the
151students, teachers, administrators, and staff for their hard work this year. We are almost done. What? 11 days now. That's awesome. I also want to especially recognize our teachers. I had the privilege of attending the teacher of the year banquet last week. Um, congratulations to all the teachers who went above and beyond your regular duties to create an atmosphere of excellence in your classrooms. Um and as we know teachers cannot do this alone. So thank you to the parents s the support staff and the administrations um for your dedicated and hard work. Your dedication and hard work. It truly takes a village to prepare the next generation for adulthood especially in this day and age and your hard work does not go unnoticed. Um, I also want to public publicly thank central office administrators and staff
152along with my fellow schoolboard members um who have helped me navigate my own responsibilities as a schoolboard member. And one of the things I learned recently was the procedures that need to be followed whenever there are concerns throughout the district. Um, and I want to take the time to share this with everyone in case there is are some people who don't know where to go for help when challenges present themselves. Whether you're um a parent or a a student or a teacher or any kind of um staff person, uh the first choice of course is to go to your own teacher um or if if it's a teacher going to the principal or vice principal in your local school. This applies to um even parents, you know, go to your te your principal if if
153your or your teachers. Um hopefully most conflicts will be resolved through good communication and bas basic conflict resolution in the local school. However, if you have not been heard or if you've um gone through all of the different things that you need to do in order to um make your voice heard um and you still do not have um don't feel like you are heard, you can come to the board as well. Um so there is a complaint form that sometimes teachers do not know about or uh parents and students do not know about. It's the complaint form um GBLA-R it it's on board docs. You just go to the Bedford County Board Docs. Um go to policies, change the drop down on the left to rules and then you click on G personnel and
154from there you navigate to GBLA-R and the form um can be clicked on from there. So again, you can add um you if you go through the the chain of command, that's the best way to deal with any kind of conflict resolution. And I want to encourage everyone to please do that. Um and so finally, I want to wish everyone a wonderful summer. Um but not until the SOS are done and the final exams. Um, and to the class of 2025, may you know peace, joy, and prosperity, and may your future be blessed as you continue to bless those around you. God bless. Thank you, Johnny. It has been a pleasure to serve with you and uh always appreciated your keen insight and and depth of thinking into the problems that present themselves and you
155will be greatly missed. Um, congratulations to all the graduates that uh have worked hard throughout this year and are continuing to work hard to get those final test scores in. Um, good summer and uh the best of you, best uh to you in the future. Um, a lot of things have happened this year and uh it's it has been a busy school year um with the uh a lot of the things that uh Mr. Dr. Dupair mentioned in his uh announcement, but I I think it's been a very productive year and some good things have happened u in the school system and I look forward to more of that in the future even though we have some hard decisions to make. Um that's what we're here for. All right, Mr. tonight. It's been just like
156everyone said, it's been just an absolute pleasure getting to know you, uh, knowing what you're all about. I I I think you you nailed it. Just the your ability to analyze every situation, look at it from different angles that I myself might not see, I think has been a tremendous asset, you know, for us as a board. I think the you treat everybody with such respect. Um, and I I I definitely know that's going to be truly missed. So, uh, whoever sits in that chair is going to have some pretty big shoes to fill. Um, you you're you you deal with things very humbly. Um, you know, there's always heartfelt like you I can tell that you wrestle I know you wrestle you wrestle with um with the decisions. I think we all do, but
157I mean just I can I can watch you and see and I know he's thinking about something over there and um it's just been a real pleasure to get to know you. Certainly will be missed. you've been a tremendous asset to this board. Um, and you've you should take a minute to to realize you you've accomplished a lot. You've helped us accomplish a lot on this board and um we I think we're better for it. I think you know, everyone in the county is better for for having you been on this board. So, I truly just want to say thank you um from me. Um we made it I guess to graduation. I mean, we we're almost there 11 days. It is has been a long ride. I think that we've gotten a lot done
158this year, but you know, for the staff here and us board members, I mean, the work doesn't stop. I mean, we have to keep going. You can kind of pat yourself on the back. We got through another year and you get right back to work. So, um, but for this the teachers, I mean, the accomplishments, how far we've come and and and this year has been great. Um, and again, this is only the beginning. So, I think that we have a bright future. A lot of tough decisions and we're going to deal with that. Uh, but we're going to deal with it very open, very transparent, and we're going to get input, and we're not going to be able to please everybody with every decision. But no, just like Mr. Knight, we take those decisions
159very seriously, and we try very hard to make the right decisions. Um, but congratulations to the students, congratulations to the teachers, staff, everybody for for getting getting our kids through this year. Um, this graduation is pretty special um to me. last year uh had two kids graduate. Um this year uh my one son Cash who um is a special needs student. He's got cereble pausy. He's in in a wheelchair. He will graduate from JF this year. Um his entire team, the entire sped team over there at JF is unbelievable. And my experience with um has been just fantastic. As a parent, there's always times where you just don't maybe you just don't understand like you have certain ideas for your kids and you have certain, you know, wants and needs, but they have to show
160it. There are certain needs that you have to get. It's up to you as a parent to do. It's not necessarily up to the school. The school is trying to prepare your child for life after. And once you the best thing is just meeting in those IEP sessions and just talking things through and saying, "Okay, we're a team. This is how we have to go after it. Okay, break. Let's get to work. And it's been fantastic. Um, he can go back to school after he graduates. He does not really he goes back and forth. He doesn't like getting up early. I can tell you that. Doesn't like when I got to put him to bed for during Monday Night Raw, but he he will uh but so he's going to um he's been working at
161school three days a week. He gets to go to work and he gets he goes to work at Cravables uh which is an ice cream shop uh for special needs and his former teacher uh for Bedford County teacher M. Perkins um runs that organization. So he's going to get to work with his buddy uh a couple days a week and he's going to get to spend some time doing some more therapy and just getting to kind of be our right-hand man at home and uh getting to enjoy uh some some life. He's gonna want to go back and visit his aids. He's gonna go want to go back and visit his teachers. He's very close to Deputy Hopkins. He's been in the He's been in the vehicle before in in the front. He's not I
162mean, he's not he's a good kid. Um but he just it has been such a pleasure having him in Bever County Public Schools for the last three and a half years. Um and uh I know that there's going to be days every day he's going to truly miss uh being there, but he's on to the next stage of his life. And um you know he continues and I say this in IP meetings he always continues to impress me with what he can do and the teachers and aids and staff have gotten so much out of him and I'm so incredibly grateful. I cannot express how grateful I am. When he was a baby I was told hey you have some decisions to make. He doesn't have any brain function. He has proven everybody wrong in
163his 18 plus years. So, um, kudos to everybody at JF and I know there are stories like this throughout our division and I always say share your victories and I I just think that we really should. So, uh, again I bottom of my heart incredibly grateful. A lot of great things happening and um, congratulations to all of the students this year. I will be at the JF graduation. We got obviously got people coming in. He's going to keep me pretty busy. But, um, just congratulations to everybody. So, that's all I have. Um when with that do I have a motion Daniel did you want to share next steps for district one se Oh or I can Yeah. Can you I got really deep there. So So yeah, sorry. Sorry. No, I I spoke with Mr.
164Hill earlier this morning and I thought Anyway, whatever. Um we will be putting out tomorrow morning the invitation to apply for a district 1 seat that will run for one week. Um once those applications are received it they will be shared with the board. Uh the board will then decide who to invite for an interview and those interviews will take place in open session at the Janu June 12th meeting and the board at that time will then decide who to appoint for the remainder of this calendar year. Excellent. Sorry, I didn't mean to put you on. I need to give you something to just throw at me. All right. Um, with that, um, do we have a motion to adjurnn? So moved. Second. Second by Mus. Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying
165I. I. Any opposed? We are hearing.