School Board Meeting - 4/10/2025 - 5:00 PM

001I I'm would like to call to order tonight's regular meeting for the Bever County School Board, Thursday, April 10th, 2025. Uh, Miss Johnson, Miss Pervvis did notify me that she will not be attending tonight. So, if you will please take the role. Mr. Mr. Mhill here. Mr. Daniels here. Mr. Sill here. Mr. Hullbrook here. Dr. Hubach. Mr. Knight here. Mr. Chairman, you have a quorum. Do I have a motion to approve the agenda as presented? So moved. Have a motion by Mr. Daniels. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Mr. Hullbrook. Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Any opposed? The agenda is approved. If you will please join me for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the

002republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Will join me for a moment of silence. Thank you. All right. Do I have a motion to go into close session? Mr. Chair, um I make a motion that uh we go into close session pursuant to Code of Virginia 2.2-3711A8 2-3711 A8 for consultation with legal counsel employed or retained by a public body regarding public uh regarding specific legal matters requiring the provision of legal advice by such counsel. Have a motion by Mr. Daniels. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Dr. Hubank. Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Any opposed? We're now in close session. All right. Do I have a motion to come out of close session? So move. I have a

003motion by Mr. Daniels. Do I have a second? Second by Dr. Hubach. Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. I. I. Any opposed? Miss Johnson, if you will, certify close session. where Spedford County School Board has convened a closed meeting on this date pursuant to an affirmative recorded vote in in accordance with the provisions of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act and where section 2.2-3712D of the code of Virginia requires a certification by this school board that such closed meeting was conducted in conformity with Virginia law. Now therefore, be it resolved that the Befer 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

004only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard, discussed, or considered. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. All right. 3.01. Uh Mr. Did you pay a superintendent report? Thank you. Uh I'd like to address a couple issues tonight and just bring some highlight to some things that we're doing as we move forward. Starting in July 2025, the superintendent's report and executive team will begin to highlight the progress of one of our four goals in the BCPS strategic framework, also called the strategic plan. As you are familiar, Bedford County Public School strategic framework is dedicated to setting high academic expectations and supporting all students. Goal number two, to create safe and supportive learning environments. Goal number three, in creating an exemplary workforce. And goal number four, to develop

005mutually supportive partnerships with families and community organizations. Each month we will discuss at least one strategy within the selected goal in an effort to create a transparent viewpoint of what we do and why across all campuses of BCPS in pursuant of the academic excellence in education. The next item refers to a executive order that was issued in January and on April 3rd, 2025. The US Department of Education requested for school divisions of the state and local education agencies to state their portions uh positions, excuse me, on the use of diversity, equity, and inclusion based on a recent federal executive order 14173 issued on January 21st, 2025 entitled Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity. The original request of the US Department of Education, now taken up by the Virginia Department of Education, is to bring

006schools back in compliance with title six of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 that both prohibit discrimination based on race, color, or national origin. More recently, the Supreme Court in 2023 upheld that racebased affirmative action programs in the case of students versus fair admissions versus Harvard were illegal because they isolated, excuse me, they violated the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment of title six. The school board BCPS addressed discrimination compliance in the creation of policy INB which I went through and explained last month uh in June 8th of 2023 entitled teaching excuse me teaching about controversial issues which is mindful that all children are created equal and that race in clause A says no one race e ethnicity, religion, disability status or sex is not

007inherently superior or inferior to another race, ethnicity, religion, disability, status, or sex. The full BCPS policy can be found at our web web page on board docs, policies, instructional program pulld downs. BCPS will continue to faithfully ensure that all students have the right to a safe, supported, and accepting learning environment. This means that continuing to we will continue to provide resources for students with disabilities, EL students and other and gifted programs as well. This is stated in policy IMB as a commitment to our ongoing fair treatment of the of the students. BCPS has filed its assurance letter to the office of the superintendent of Virginia uh Department of Education on April 7th to substantiate our commitment and application to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and Education uh executive order, excuse me, 14173 regarding discrimination.

008Um, as I understand, there will be litigation in courts as we move through this, but we've already established that we will adhere to becoming or being a non-discriminatory school division. Um, the second item I'd like to, again, I don't want this poster to go unnoticed on a regular basis. Um, as we prepare for the closing weeks of the 2425 school year, I I I want to go back and again thank the hard work of the teachers, the faculty, the administrators, the leadership teams, the uh staff members that are basically on the integral part of training and and working with our kids um because they have put us where we are as you follow these numbers uh over the last five or six years. And so we're quite proud of that. We have ordered posters for

009every school to go into their into the main lobbies so that the parents can see that. And we're going to start using this on a regular basis as best we can just to get the public and and the parents in our division to understand the quality of instruction that we are giving to these students. And so you'll continue to see this um on a monthly basis. Um as we move forward um we are looking at the so window opening up here. We have declared to the Virginia Department of Education that we will start the so testing window on April 21st. That's the day after we come back from spring break and it runs through May 16th with the option of using the last week of school should there need to be any retakes. at at

010present. I would like to say this to teachers because I've heard it and parents I've heard it for years and I need to echo this tonight. As we move into this phase, make sure parents that your kids are rested before they come for SOS and that they are wellfed. If they are coming to school to eat, get them to school on time so that they are wellfed and so that we can get them in the best academic condition that we can so that they can actually perform uh to the best of their ability which we know they can do. So parents to your children I say get them rest, get them wellfed and get them in the right frame of mind when they leave in the morning to come to school. The the next thing

011I want to point to is just the hard work of the PPE A and the construction and maintenance projects. You see on the screen right now that there are a host of things that are starting to to be uh addressed right now. And so I want to go through those real quick and want to keep those on in the center of everything that we discuss about how we take care of our facilities. So if you look at this, the BPS school gymnasium, we broke ground on that in the last month. The Liberty High School, Spanish Stanton River High School auditoriums and walkways are being addressed and and prepared for for construction in the month of probably end of April, May. Uh we are addressing the Boonesboro Elementary Lighting U excuse me, the Bedford Elementary Lighting,

012Boonboro atrium, which has had some leaks in the past. Um, the Forest Elementary, Big Island metal metal roof painting, uh, the New London Academy VCT floor replacement, completion of the middle school field at Forest Middle, um, Beford Primary Painting, um, looking down at window replacement for, um, I think that's Mag Medita, excuse me. um and the water waste treatment which has been a huge issue that needs to be resolved this summer. Stanton River that serves both Stanton River High School and Middle School and also the um HVAC replacement at Steuartsville. So you should if if you have students at these campuses, you should see some needed improvements when you come back in August. And we're very proud of what the maintenance group has done to this point. Tonight also you will hear a math curriculum

013adoption presentation. I would like to thank Audrey Bowers who was our supervisor of math and gifted in a textbook committee in advance for their presentation tonight and their diligence as they worked through uh the identification of a K to2 math textbook adoption process. Um a lot of a lot of work went into that. a lot of issues as far as getting it out there for people to see with all the snow days and everything else that we were dealing with uh early on in this process, but um their hard work and diligence should be noted tonight. And I think you'll enjoy that presentation. I would like to say to them, job well done. After tomorrow, uh we will have five weeks remaining uh in the 24-25 school year. Next week is our spring break, April

01414th to 18th. And I want to make sure that we um appreciate everyone's hard work this year. I ask people to be safe and be rested over that time. And then I ask even more importantly that when we come back on April 21st that um we as students, parents, and school employees finish the school year very strong. Uh tonight we're also going to highlight some students who have accomplished excellence in academics, uh athletics and fine arts, and individuals in our community who have provided invaluable services through our community partnerships. Your contributions and hard work cannot go unnoticed. You make Bedford County Public Schools better for your contributions and your dedication. Congratulations to all of the participants that you will see here tonight. We are very proud of your accomplishments and contributions. This concludes the April

015superintendent report. You will find this report in its whole uh on the web page. Um as we did last month under the leadership uh and superintendent link and um it's an our attempt to keep uh transparency alive and so that when we have things that we discuss here, you can go find that on the web page. Thank you for your time. All right, Mr. Haggler, third quarter financial review. to speak. Good evening. Um we're going to go over the third quarter uh projection for this year. Um trying to project out how we're going to end up for the end of the year. This was uh reviewed by the uh finance committee earlier this week on Monday. So they've been through this and asked a lot of questions. So I'll present it to the whole board

016in a high level format here. Um looking at our revenues, um we're looking pretty strong here. And let me say it from the get-go. Um, this forecast is based upon supplemental appropriations that have already been approved, some more that are coming, some some transfers between major categories in addition to I forecasted based upon the general assembly's uh current budget being passed. That went to the governor, went back to the general assembly, it's gone back to the governor. So, we're still in limbo on that. It may not be passed, but I assume that it's going to be passed and I built that into this forecast. Um, so as you can see from our revenue standpoint, projecting about $350,000 less than projected after all those adjustments. Um, one big adjustment on there in the in the general

017assembly's budget for the current year is that there's money in the in the general assembly's budget to pay out a $1,000 bonus to employees by June 1st. So, we're waiting to see if it's going to be passed. With that, the amount of money we're going to receive, a little bit over $900,000 from the general assembly, is not enough to fully fund all of our employees because we have more than the SOQ and uh positions that are out there. So, there's about five $550,000 needed local money. This forecast shows that that is available if the board would like to do that. Once again, that's pending the general assembly's budget being passed by the governor. So, we're in limbo on that. But I did build that revenue in and I did build the expenditures in to provide

018for that on June 1st. Um so our revenues are looking pretty good. $350,000 projected under budget there. Um be happy to answer any questions about the revenue before we go on to the expenditures. Questions on the expenditure side. Once again projecting um where we are based upon having three uh nine months of activity in um we're looking pretty good. It actually improved from the second quarter mid year. So I'm pleased with that. Uh some things that were looking favorable then I can actually kind of uh uh bring in and project that we are going to finish better. Um, when you look at the major categories there, the instructional category looks like it's coming in way under budget there, but we have some all-in money that the state had forwarded us last year that's still there.

019And down below, I'll speak to that in a minute. So, that that has to be really adjusted for money that is not going to be spent with the all-in money, but has to be spent that way. That money will roll over to the following year. So, um, roughly about $2.7 million under budget there. But if you look down below, I'm taking out 1.8 million, which is the all-in that has not been spent. That will have to roll over to next year. So projecting in Indie bounce right around the 600,000 mark. That's after I've built in the thousand bonus and all the revenues and stuff. So we're looking in pretty good shape off $123 million budget, about 600,000 projected. We still have three months to go um and several payrolls to go through, but feeling very

020confident we can bring this budget in for this year. If you look at the supplementals, one thing that's going to be up later for the board to consider as information bringing back uh to the next meeting, um I am looking to transfer about $400,000 into the maintenance category under the operating fund. Um higher than expected expenditures there primarily in electrical uh $225,000 that is electrical coming in higher than anticipated. So we needed to shift some money in there and we had money in other categories to do that. So that will be later this evening, but that's one of the transfers we're considering. That's the operating budget looking pretty good here. Um be happy to answer any questions about the expenditure side on the operating fund before we turn to the other funds. Questions? Appear to

021be no questions, Mr. Haggler. Okay. Um budget update. Can you do that? And well, I got two couple of fun. Okay. You're doing nutrition fund. My apologies. Okay. Um, we've got a couple other funds that we need to brief on. Operating is the bulk of our budget. Um, nutrition. Nutrition has been running behind uh last year. It's also running running a little bit behind this year. Hope it improves in the fourth quarter, but as you can see, net profit loss for the year about $500,000 in the whole. Uh, we have been making changes, been briefing the uh finance committee on those changes uh to staffing, also into purchasing, trying to get this um this ship writed. But inflation has really caused havoc on this. So we're looking at everything we can to kind of make

022changes. Um next year we're already looking at 12 reduction in staffing on that to trim trim staffing there to control the cost on that. So we're very very hopeful that that will help. Um when we get to the budget we are going to have to increase the purchase price of that for full pay. Uh we'll brief you on that when we're bring when we bring back the full budget and we'll brief on nutrition um on nutrition also. Um the textbook fund you can see $2 million in reserve right there. You're going to have a presentation later tonight on the math adoption. So a lot of that money will go down uh once that math adoption has to be paid for and they'll brief on that. I believe the estimation on the math adoption is around

0231.4 million. So that will bring that bounce way down. We'll have to build it back up for the next adoption. Maintenance reserves looking in good shape. You can see after all the uh Mr. Deair was mentioning all the projects I've reserved for those projects in that um in that calculation about 8 million sitting there, but we're already making designs and working with uh architecture engineer on HVAC renovation at both Liberty High School and Stro High School. The two of those will be about $10 million. So that 8 million plus what we put in there next year will go for those projects. So, we've already got those earmarked for some projects in the future. Uh, health insurance fund. This is where we Thank you. This is where we uh we we probably fell behind in the

024third quarter at mid year. We're at break even, but over the last three months, probably about $900,000 uh flowing out of the account, more than we brought in. So, in speaking with the finance committee, when I propose a revised budget when we get forward once we have final numbers, we'll probably have to go up a little bit more on insurance than anticipated. Um, so we'll present that to the full board. But we continue to see the um insurance costs going up and uh this account being hit pretty hard, but we got to m make sure we have enough money going in there to self-fund ourselves going forward. So, um be happy to answer any questions you might have on all those funds. Um, we're in good shape, but there's some things that we need to

025address. I just want to make sure everybody saw the $525,000 loss in the nutrition fund. We cannot keep doing that. I mean, so we've we've got to figure out um, you know, and you heard Mr. Haggler say we're going to have to go up in prices, but I'm I'm going to say this that at this time that only impacts our forest families and um, because of the the grant that we're getting for the other two zones. But that is a concern to me that we're we're taking a $500,000 loss and it just keeps growing. Um, and it's it's based on strings attached for the funding that we get based on it's both federal and state. Correct, Mr. Haggler. Keep a little bit from state, mostly federal. Mostly federal, but um, you know, it it almost

026makes you question, do we do we stop taking those funds to get rid of the red tape? And, you know, with the changes that are coming, maybe that helps it. But a $500,000 loss and growing, we cannot sustain that. I will say just for the forest families, it's when we say we're going to go up on some of the prices, some of that is strings attached, too. Uh as explaining to the finance committee, um they were surprised by that, but there's calculations and all these metrics that come in place. Uh it's just phenomenal all the things that we've got to check off to do when we receive these funds. And so it's it's not like the board wants to go up on those, but sometime it's just calculations part of uh the federal government saying

027this is how it runs and you're mandated to do that. So we'll bring that calculation back to you when it's and to the finance committee once we do those. Any other questions? We've got seven minutes. Do we want to get started on the budget update, stop, and then come back? How I I I think I can do the update for because this is really for the board to consider. We're not really revising the budget tonight because we do not have final numbers, but this is a briefing on things that have changed that I know. So, there's four changes that I could brief the board on. Can kind of show what I project the bottom line. And then this document will show all of you, you know, what you need to consider when we come back

028to revise the budget if these numbers hold. So, um, Mr. Chair, if you want me to do it, I go for it. Okay. Um, looking at the document based upon the, uh, the county budget, uh, originally we were asking for quite a few bit of increase there. Um, we got some state increase if it gets passed, but the, uh, the current county budget is supporting another million dollars to come into our operating fund. That's on top of the 500,000 they're putting aside for reversion in the maintenance reserve. So, another million dollars coming into the operating fund uh from the state. You can see that they have, you know, u 3.2 million coming in. Um there is a big part of that that's in question because it was a line item amendment by the governor to

029take a lot of that out. It's gone back to the governor. So, we just don't know. So, we're hopeful that that will come through. If those two numbers come through on the on the uh revenue side, there's two changes on the expenditure side. As I mentioned, the health insurance uh is getting hit harder than I thought. We were going to go up 7%. I recommended to the finance committee maybe going up 10% on that to kind of sh up that account. So, you can see that $225,000 increase for that additional 3%. And then taking the third quarter where we're looking better than I thought, I went back and captured some more savings to balance this budget. Um, some of that savings came in off the fuel bid that we approved earlier this week. And so

030about 200,000 there from that fuel bid and then another 200 plus thousand from other things that are coming in more favorable. So I built it into the budget to help balance this budget. Bottom line, if you look at the red number near the bottom, uh, deficit of almost 1.4 4 million between revenues and expenditures that we're going to have to balance its budget. That means expenditure cuts. That's if everything the county finalizes their budget with the million and the state finalizes their budget with that 3.2 million. That being said, the items in blue were things that we really wanted to do that we built into the original budget. uh at at the things you see at the bottom, those things are going to have to be considered if we have no more revenue coming in

031and we're still at a $ 1.54 million uh deficit here. Also on the bottom of the sheet were other items that were not built into the budget, but the finance committee wanted us to just show some numbers. Not that we want to do these or we're going to do these of other cuts that could be make made to balance the budget. So between the blue and those things down below, those are going to have to be considered in balancing the budget once we have the final numbers. So the finance committee wanted me to brief the full board on this so everybody could be thinking about that and then we'll call either a special called meeting as soon as we can once budgets are finalized both from the county and the state. That was brief, but

032um I don't know if the finance committee wants to add anything to that or if you have any questions. I want to make sure. So 1.399234 is the is the number we're looking at right now. That's what I'm looking at right now based upon all those the changes that I'm assuming are going to happen. Uh once again, nothing's final at this point. And and let's be very clear that these are options. These are not things that we're going to go do immediately or take action on. Correct. They're options for this. I mean, things can be swapped out, but all these the things in the blue and the things on the bottom are the options that uh we've calculated. There might be other ones that the board members want us to look at, but these were

033the ones that we proposed in the first budget and the finance committee reviewed. And from a scheduling standpoint, um, budget-wise, you need budget approved in May. Is that right? If you get the signatures, Yeah. Uh, we'd like to get contracts out in May. Um, the governor has till May 2nd to make a decision, I believe. Um, if he vetos and it goes back to the general assembly, we're in no man's land then and we're postponed. Um, but I'm hopeful before May 2nd we can have that. And I believe the finance committee set uh set up a May 6th date to come back to re to review a budget and maybe on May 8th present it to the full board with a revised budget that we can finalize. So we're hopeful for that. Any other questions

034for finance? All right. Thank you, sir. I I just wanted to say about what was in blue and then the other possible reductions. It's been important for me and and I I want to say for us as a as the finance committee and I I don't necessarily speak for the board, but I' I've sp speaken spoken to each of you guys individually. We are all about transparency here and it's important for us to not only just keep things between ourselves, but it's important for the public to understand the things that we're up against and the things that we're we're trying to accomplish, but also just to bring everybody in on the things that we see. Um these decisions don't happen. We don't make them in a bubble. Um, but we want you guys to be

035able to see this stuff because it's important. You're a stakeholder. You should have a seat at the table and it's important that you guys see what we are up against. So, uh, when we put things on there, there may be no chance that we're going to even come close to even considering it. However, as a community, you got to understand it's 500,000 here, a million dollars there, 250 here. These are decisions that do have to be made. And, um, we're elected to make those decisions. But it's important that that everybody understands again what we're up against and what we're trying to accomplish, not just for this year, but for the future of Bedford County Public Schools because it's it that is important. I've been an advocate that we want to put the money into our

036people, into our students, and that is ultimately our goal because that's how we can drive results. So, uh, I think that's going to be important in my decision-m, uh, as what I'm looking to do and the suggestions that that I'm going to take and what I'm going to have to be able to explain. But that's what each one of us need to go through is trying to make the best decision we can with what we have as a school board, as a school division. We are a net receiver. We don't we don't gain any more funds. It's not a money tree outback. We get money from the county. We get money from the state. We get money from the feds. And we got to figure out and I want to give kudos right before 6:00

037to uh to Mr. Haggler and his team for all their hard work, the finance committee, all of the executives. We work really really hard to try to to get this information. We share the information and everybody up here I mean hems and haws about man is this the right thing to do or not. But kudos to them because you give us all the information that we need to make the most informed decision. And it's our goal is to share all of that with with the community so they see exactly what's going on. Thank you. All right. Mazines. Mr. Chairman, Vice Chair, and Mr. Dupair, will you please come forward to greet our students and staff? Yeah, it's been a few months thanks to Mother Nature since we've been able to recognize our students and staff

038for their wonderful achievements over the past few months. Students and staff, please pause after your group's recognition on stage so that we can get a photo with our board members. But we have a wide variety tonight of accomplishments. So, let's get started. Our first recognition of the evening is for being an outstanding speller. Recently, we had students from all elementary and middle schools compete in the divisionwide spelling bee. It was a tough 20 rounds, but the incredible spellers showcased their hard work and vocabulary skills. Taxonomic was the final word to end the competition. Tonight, we have Mr. Liam Bartell from Stanton River Middle School, who impressively secured second place and serves as the alternate. So, please join me in congratulating him for his accomplishment. Congratulations. Next, we have a winner from the Central Virginia Regional

039Science Fair. Miss Ella Win from Jefferson Forest High School attends the Central Virginia Governor's School, and she recently competed in the category environmental science. She won first place with her project that focused on discovering methods for polluted water remediation in local areas such as the James River. She was also awarded second place for the Stockholm Junior Water Prize. Because of these fantastic accomplishments, she moved on to the state competition and was invited to apply for the Stockholm Water State Competition. Please welcome Ella to the stage. Congratulations. All right, now the the groups get a little bigger. Um, our next group of students are no stranger to this stage or being recognized for their amazing contributions to Bedford County. Here tonight, we have the JOTC air rifle team to celebrate their many accomplishments this year. And

040I'm sure there are more than I'm going to be naming tonight. First and foremost, this is the highest ranking JOTC air rifle team in the state of Virginia for the second year in a row. They recently placed 10th in the US Army Cadet Command's fourth brigade best of the best air rifle match. There were 59 teams from four states competed for a spot and this team was one of the top 22 and they traveled to Hickory, North Carolina to compete. Based on their performance at the 2024 civilian markmanship program uh postal match, the team secured a slot to compete in the service championship at Camp Ferry, Ohio. So without further ado, please join me in welcoming the JROTC air rifle [Applause] team. Congratulations. All right. Tonight is full of recognition at a high level of

041competition and the next team dove right in. The JF the Jefferson Force High School swim and dive team made waves at the recent 4A state championship. I'm going to call each swimmer up by name and state their accomplishment. First we have Ann Margaret Holt who was the state champion in the 500 free and runner up in the 200 free. We also have Max Shoenfelder who was state runner up in the 100 breaststroke. [Applause] Hudson Rice was state runner up in the 100 fly in the 500 free. And we have Noah Casper who will join his teammates on stage as they celebrate the JF boys achieving state runnerup overall as well as state runner up in the 400 free relay. [Applause] All right. Thank you. And that's their great coach who came in after I already

042started talking. Keeping the Jefferson Forest celebrations going, we have another group of students who are not afraid to be in the spotlight. We have many members of Cavalere Theater here tonight to celebrate. So, I will tell you all the great things they've been up to and then we can get them on stage. It's been a while since the improv team won their title of state champions, but they did it for the fourth time in in the last six years. In addition to the improvs team success, a Midsummer Night's Dream was was one act play region 40 runnerup, 40 South runnerup, and also placed fourth in the state. We have Chris Co, Chase Spence, and Lane Tankersley were named to the All State Allstar cast and Lane Tankersley was named 4D South Outstanding Actress. JF's team

043won second in the state in the return of the show tune lip sync battle and special judges recognition for best costumes, best ensemble, best use of puppets. Congratulations to you all and the director Spencer Nikki White. And Miss White is also our Bedford County teacher of the year. [Applause] It might get a little tight up there, but Make two rows. Make two. Make two rows. Thank you. [Applause] almost we've celebrated a variety of accomplishments so far and now we're going to add Liberty High School's Scholastic Bowl team to the list. Not only did they take home region 2 championship, but they also went into the state championship and snagged runners up. So, congratulations to the following members of the LHS Scholastic Bowl. Joseph Fitzgerald, Robert Robert Baker, Jake Warner, Billy Coughlin, Victoria Kohl's, Alex Brown,

044Hon Kim, and their coach. [Applause] S. Thank you. Congratulations. While our students have certainly showed off here tonight, we can't leave here without recognizing some great things our staff is doing as well. On December 4th, 2024, Jefferson Forest High School became the first school in Bedford County to earn a designation of a heart-safe school through Project ADOM and the Children's Hospital of Richmond at VCU. Um, as many of you may remember, um, in March of 2022, staff members at JF responded to a medical emergency and saved the life of an employee when they implemented life-saving efforts, including CPR in the school's AED. After this, Jefferson Forest became began the process to become hearts safe to ensure that their staff and students were safe and had the necessary resources and proper training in the case of

045an emergency. Under the leadership of their nurse, Miss Jenny Davis, and the support of principal, Dr. Ben Martin and the entire administrative team. The school met all 14 standards set by project Adam to become a hearts safe school. We are proud of the efforts of the JF Jefferson Forest High School team and the entire staff for their dedication to this cause. So please join me in thanking the following members of this team. Miss Jenny Davis, Dr. Ben [Applause] [Music] Martin, Miss Caitlyn Wood, Miss Kim Morris, Mr. Ryan White, and Miss Kelly Thomas who's our supervisor of health services. [Applause] Thank you. All right, we have one more. And then we can't brush past the amazing work of the last group of community professionals who provided a service to our elementary school community this year. Dr.

046Lee and her team with Johnson Health C Center's mobile dentist spent 34 days among our 13 elementary schools serving over 380 students. With parent consent, participating students receive preventative dental exams that may have included teeth cleaning, fluoride varnish, x-rays, sealants, and application of silver diamond fluoride, which prevents, slows, or stops tooth decay. If students needed further treatment, Johnson Health Center provided families with referrals. This group of professionals, including our school nurses, Mrs. Thomas, and other coord others, coordinated these days to seamlessly accommodate dental appointments without disrupting the school day. So, I'm going to introduce you to the following individuals. If you guys want to start making your way up, we've got Dr. Jana Lardier, Dr. Paige Lee, Hannah Ing, Tabitha Gaddy, Janelle Brown, Lendra Nen, and Miss Kelly Thomas. [Applause] Thank you so much. [Music]

047Mr. Chair, this concludes recognitions. It's always good to recognize the good things that are going on in Befer County. and I'll echo um and I'm sorry I missed her name, but she just walked through and she's like, "I'm from here and I'm glad to be back here serving in this community." That says a lot. So, um congratulations to all who were just recognized. All right. Um next is 4.01. I'm sorry, that's not correct. We're going to public comment. Give me a second here. All right, public comment portion of tonight's agenda is limited to 40 minutes. Speakers are speakers are asked to state their name and voting district. The school board is here to listen to your comments, but will not engage or respond to speakers during this 40inut period. Please remember that this is a

048public meeting and that we expect all speakers to refrain from any foul, profane, abusive, or hateful language during their comments or anytime while in attendance during this meeting. We also ask that speakers keep their remarks objective and 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 board member or staff or student or having the potential to cause unnecessary delay or disruption to this meeting are prohibited. This is a public meeting for public matters. If a if a speaker is not present when their name is called, we will proceed with the next name on the list. An individual who has not signed up to speak may not substitute for that

049time slot. Individuals will have four minutes to address the board. An alarm will sound when an individual has 30 seconds remaining and a second alarm will sound when the allotted four minutes have expired. When this second alarm sounds, please discontinue speaking and allow the next person in line to come to the podium. Should you be unable to finish your comments, please send or give them to Miss Johnson and she will give them to board members. Please do not adjust the microphone at the podium as it has been positioned for optimum audio quality. Uh, we do not have anyone signed up to speak tonight. Is there anyone here tonight that wishes to speak? All right. Yes, ma'am. You need to I have uh some recognitions that came that we weren't prepared for, but we would like

050to recognize them if they're here. Okay. All right. So, I'm going to close tonight's public comment time since there is no one here to speak. Uh, and then we're going to go back to recognition to absolutely recognize a a group that is here. So, Miss Seen, and I apologize. Um, but we have two very important gentlemen that are here tonight with Jefferson Force High School wrestling. So, we're gonna continue our our JF celebrations here. We have DJ Trent who is the state champ at 175. And we have Luke Worth who a state runner up for 150. I'm sorry about that, guys. Got it. I'll get him to recognitions and public comment. uh staff reports andformational items not addressed at five o'clock session. So, we're going to go back to 4.01 um which is the math

051textbook adoption. Uh I want to make sure I call this out because some may see that this is on the agenda as information, but later tonight we're also going to be taking action on this. uh and that is based on feedback from CPO uh and uh the fact of uh overwhelming response uh positive response from the community uh in the textbooks and moving forward with that. So wanted to make sure uh that was clear that we are doing information and action tonight. So uh I will turn that over uh to Dr. Sean Trosper and Miss Audrey Boler. Good evening. Miss Boer and I this evening will be presenting information as you said and an action item uh after an overview of the math textbook adoption process that took place throughout this school year and then

052we will be making a recommendation for what textbooks we want to adopt. Uh we plan to use these textbooks for the upcoming school year. Before we start, I would like to recognize those that served on the math textbook committee and thank them for their time and for their contributions. And I also want to thank Miss Boer for her leadership. She's provided outstanding leadership throughout the process. Uh and I appreciate her hard work and the members of the committee. Uh when we did form the committee, it was important to have representation from all three zones to have elementary and secondary to have representatives from special education, gifted as well as instructional technology coaches. So all of those were represented on this committee. We did form it in November of 2024. Uh we selected them based on

053their expressed interest in being on the committee. They met with textbook vendors. They listened to virtual presentations, reviewed samples of materials, discussed the teacher survey data, which we'll share later. Uh, all of that was factored into the recommendations that we're going to make tonight. The recommendations we are presenting are result of of the work that really started in August. I just want to give you a quick overview of what that looked like so you understand how we got to this place. Uh first of all, the DOE gave us an approved textbook list in February and in March of this year. We went ahead and convened a committee in November uh because we wanted to get ahead of the process. So we essentially started reviewing books that we anticipated would be on the list uh and

054and so anything we did not expect we did add later, but but really the way we expected it to turn out it did. Um we reviewed virtual presentations from each company in November. At this time, the committees engaged with representatives about what the product offered. They had the ability to ask questions. Then in January and even up until uh very recently, samples were sent to schools. So the company sent samples for all the the resources being considered. They were also available at the school admin office. We encouraged not only our teachers and our staff, but also our families to go to one of their local schools if they would like to review these materials. Um then we had a sample review feedback uh in February 26th to the 28th and so the community was invited

055to come in and look at tech samples. Uh we were not we didn't quite get the participation we looked for so we actually extended that process for two weeks. Uh we ended up getting a great deal of participation and again we'll share that but we're very pleased with the amount of people that did participate. Um and then on March the 18th we reconvened the math textbook committee. We reviewed the feedback from our community, from our teachers. We made the final recommendation and then that recommendation was presented to the CPO committee on March the 25th. Um, at that point, members, select members of the committee, uh, Miss Ber, myself made those recommendations. So, uh, Miss Boer is going to go over what the feedback looked like and then some of the the rationale behind our recommendations.

056All right. So the first feedback that you see in front of you is we did an initial teacher survey in October and November where we just um engaged teachers in asking what were the five or most important features that they wanted to see in a new curriculum in a new textbook. Um so according to our survey the top five most important features to teachers were clear alignment to our Virginia SOS and our standards. Number two the ease of use um for students and for staff. Um, three, the inclusion of print resources. Number four, supports for intervention, remediation, differentiated instruction. And then lastly, but certainly not least, they also wanted to see an inclusion of some digital resources and detailed lesson plans. We had 109 responses on that initial survey. Um, and just so that you

057are aware, we have approximately 208 um, teachers that are teaching mathematics in the division. So, at least almost a 50% um response. I'm sorry. Um on the second slide of feedback that you see in front of you, this was after we reviewed all of the samples. Um so, like Dr. Trosper said, we sent samples to all um community schools and um had them at the schoolboard office. It was very important to us that even though we were running three community days um where we stayed after hours so parents could leave their job and still be there at 600 7:00 and kind of still review those resources. It was also important to us that if they couldn't make it to a central location in the middle of Bedford that they also have the opportunity to review

058those resources at their local school that was near their home. Um so all samples were sent to all um 19 schools that we have. Um the response that you see in front of you is the teacher feedback. That's what you're seeing on the graphs. Um we ran this for the entire month of February and initially we only had 28 teacher responses and one community um parent response which we did not feel was enough um engagement in the process. So we asked the CPO committee if we could extend it by two weeks and we would like to publicly say thank you for the C to the CPO committee for allowing us to extend it for two weeks. The two weeks in March we garnered much more participation from our teachers. So we were able to get

059118 responses which is almost about a 57% um response on feedback of the samples. We still had low parent and community involvement, but we did get two parent responses and three community member responses. Um I listed in front of you on the graphs um what was considered the first choice for the community or for the teachers and what was listed for the second choice. Um like I said, the graphs represent the teachers um wants and desires. the two parent and three community members. I will say that their feedback does follow um suit with what the choices were of the teachers. Um so for first choice for elementary, you can see that we had almost a 57% um choice first choice of Kdum Virginia math. Um and then in middle school 68, there was almost a

06091% choice for um math space. And then in the high school, I would like for you to notice that the first choice was actually tied between two options. So when the committee met back together, we discussed the fact that there was a tie. We looked at the number of responses. There were actually only six responses in the high school um feedback from actual high school teachers. The rest of the feedback was from middle school teachers who teach um high school co courses at the middle school level. So what we asked is on our textbook committee, we had a representative from all three high schools. And so when we looked at that, we asked those three committee members to go back to their high school teacher staffs and just poll them, get them to dig a

061little bit more deeper into the samples and at our textbook committee, we asked them to bring their results back from that. So, while it's not represented here in this graph, um what we found when we did that is some um high schools they could go either way and they weren't quite sure which way to go. Others typically looked at the alignment and what they found is the two um choices that they narrowed it down to were math space and McGra Hills reveal mathematics. And what they determined in alignment is the higher that you got in the course. So for instance, algebra 2 in reveal mathematics, the less aligned it was. So for that reason and for the fact that um we really wanted to make sure that we had some consistency between our secondary schools

062and middle school and high school, we are actually um going to be recommending something similar for both middle school and um secondary. The other thing the textbook committee looked at was the alignment to the Virginia standards. Remember that this was number one on our teachers um list of important factors when choosing a textbook. The chart that's in front of you was taken from our consortium CIP that we are members of. The data that is represented here actually comes from the Virginia Department of Education's alignment documents that they produced after they did their textbook review at the um state level. And so when they were looking at alignment of standards for at the Virginia Department of Education, they ranked every standard that we have in mathematics three ways. They either said it was adequately met, it

063was limited, or there was no evidence that it was in the curriculum at all. So CIP decided to give each one of those ranks um a numerical value. So if it was adequate and it was met, we may we gave it two points. If it was limited um per se, it was there but it might have been in a different grade level. So it didn't quite line up with the way the state standards flow, we gave it a one. And if there was no evidence that the material was there according to the alignment documents, we gave it a zero. And as you can see, these are all of the approved list of textbooks that came from the Department of Education. And you can see that two stand out as all green across the board. Um

064so for those reasons the committee would like to put forth a recommendation that for K5 we recommend um Virginia math powered by Kdum and for six through algebra 2 we recommend Mathspace Virginia. Both of these companies are companies that were not national companies that started with national books and just put in um sections that say Virginia, which is currently what we have. These are both companies that built their curriculum and their textbooks from our standards from the ground up. And we thought that that was very important. I would like to call your attention to the next couple of slides. I the textbook committee put together a lot of effort in looking at pros and cons of each one of our recommendations. No textbook um committee or textbook company um curriculum is ever going to be

065100% perfect in everything they do. And the textbook committee took that to heart and they wanted to know if there were cons, how would we address them? And so on the next couple of slides we're going to talk about that. So, for the K5 curriculum, some of the pros are the alignment to Virginia standards, the print and digital resources. Um, KDUm has actually um this company and our sales rep has actually promised to print and provide digital resources that align not only with our state standards, but in the order that we teach it in. This was highly recommended by our um teachers. They would like the fact that the book print and the digital resources that they have would go and flow in the order that we teach it in and not just be we're

066going to work on chapter 1 now and then chapter 12 and then come back to chapter 3. They didn't want to do all of that. Um KDUm also provides hands-on conceptual learning experiences. All of the activities um involve some sort of manipulative or conceptual understanding of the process. There was a consumable layout, which means that each student would have a book where they could write responses. Um, and there was lots of room for students to write and explain their thinking and justify their mathematics and not just do wrote memorization of numbers. Um, there was also prepared slide decks already created for teachers and they are editable which means a teacher can add in things that she needs to in order to meet the needs of the students in her classroom. There is also a piece

067of adaptive planning um for pacing changes inside of KDUm. For example, if we are on a two-hour delay, the teacher can go into this adaptive planning feature and they can say we are cut and our math block is now 30 minutes instead of 60 and the system will spit out a new lesson plan with the most vital pieces so that teacher can continue teaching in the time frame that she has. Some of the cons with KDM K5 was we felt like there it lacked a little bit of pre-planned independent practice. The company has stated that there is digital practice there and it's adaptive. Um but we were looking for something that wasn't just online. And so we would like to say that our plan for this is to create um some sort of process so

068that teachers can submit resources that they already have that are vetted that are not copyrighted material that we can share out across the board that we know are working. Um and also utilize some of the products that we already have um without purchasing something else. So for example, we already have which provides an adaptive um practice already. Um one of the other cons is the amount of classroom space to store unit consumables. These consumables that will be printed and provided to the schools each year um are printed in units. So it's one unit at a time. So when the school year starts, the teacher is going to have all the units for all the kids in her room. So, we do we do realize that teachers and administrators will have to figure out where to

069store that um until teachers are ready to use the materials. Um, one of the things that we did want to highlight was math for missing lessons. So, I'm going to take you back to the alignment chart for just a second. If you look at KDM math, you can see that it's not 100% aligned to the Virginia standards. It is the one that is most aligned with the Virginia standards, but we did notice that where there were some gaps where we found some standards that were limited or no evidence. And that is most noticeable in fourth grade. So, the division's plan for this is to write supplemental lessons over the summer so that when the teachers roll in in August that those lessons are ready and prepared for them. Um, I've actually already began that work

070and I've already completed um supplemental lessons for K1 and two. All right. Um, and so those were our pros and cons on KDUm. Um, some of the discussion um that we just talked about was there. Um, one thing that we did want to note is based on feedback from the teachers um, that filled out the survey, we left a box for them to write comments and also based on the textbook committee feedback. So, we had two kindergarten teachers on the committee. One thing that they noted with KDUM is in the consumable there are giant boxes for students to write and explain thinking. And when you think developmentally about a kindergartener who's 5 years old who's coming in to learn letters, they're not necessarily forming giant sentences where they can explain their thinking. So it was

071actually a recommendation on a couple of members who filled out the textbook survey. Some of those teachers recommended that they would like the option to just print the resources as they needed rather than buy and purchase the consumable that a student may not write in. Um, and so when we did our quotes and we are starting to negotiate, that is what we are recommending is that we buy the consumables for grades one through five so that they can explain their thinking. But for kindergarten, we buy the digital and we buy one um of those consumables for the teacher to use and decide and print as needed. um because we really think it's important that especially in that kindergarten um aspect that those students are using the manipulatives and they're they're learning that way rather than

072just writing for math space for 612. If you go back to that alignment chart, you will see that is the only choice for on the BDOE approved list that was 100% without any holes aligned math 6 all the way to algebra 2. So the alignment to Virginia standards was the number one pro for mathspace 612. It also provides hardback student editions and digital resources. It has higher ordered thinking questions and inside the textbook itself in every lesson there are is scaffolding present. So the first couple of questions hit the bare minimum and then as you get further into um the lesson, the harder the question and the more rigorous and the deeper understanding is there. There are problems that involved application and real world use of the content. There is adaptive practice available based on

073students needs and it was easy to navigate for teachers and students and in the digital component all teachers would have access to all digital resources for all purchases that we make. So, if a um algebra 1 teacher had a student in their room that was struggling with an eighth grade concept, they would be able to easily search that standard, find it in the eighth grade book, and assign a student a practice. Um some of the cons is that Slack's um slide decks were not there for the teachers. They weren't already created. I have been in talks with this company and they are working on um doing those. So, at this time, I'm going to talk turn it over to Dr. Dr. Tros is going to talk a little bit about implementation. Yeah. Upon adoption, we

074are going to be communicating our expectations to our teachers about how they're going to use the curriculum and just wanted to share that uh with the board quickly. Uh the committee understood that these would be the expectations when making the decisions and again the recommendations lined up with this. And so our expectations for math teachers will be that all math classrooms will use these resources as their first and primary resource when delivering tier one instruction. That means all students will receive instruction using these materials and so they will have some flexibility to provide supplemental intervention resources where necessary. Uh so we certainly respect them as professionals in doing so but that is only after they have made full use of the curriculum uh before doing that. So uh that's going to be very important. We

075believe that's best for instruction that's best for our kids that improves the instructional practice across our division. So again, uh the first and primary resource will be these. Uh the the resources also align with our goals for math instruction in Bedford County, which is to see instruction focused on real world application to emphasize conceptual understanding, other words, the reasoning, the rationale behind the math to help with deeper understanding, um a processoriented thinking. And then finally, students just engaging in mathematical discourse, discussing um through the process uh again, which should lead to hopefully better deeper understanding. So our next step will be is to ask our principles to fill out a manipulative inventory. And what that means is KDUm especially is very heavy on manipulatives uh students using their hands, students interacting uh more so than

076just uh rope memorization of problems. We think that's going to help us be effective or excuse me more efficient with our resources because the the we think a lot of these resources are already on campus so we won't have to order those when it comes time to do that. So um as I said that we will bring this back this evening for uh action. Uh so at this time if the board has any questions we'd be happy to answer questions. All right. Does um Kdum is that's for the elementary does that focus on times tables? The the fact fluency piece is in all of the curriculums. Um, obviously we have that as part of our standards. So, for example, if you were to pull up the grade three standards of learning, the fact fluency and

077the automaticity of knowing your times tables is part of the standards. So, anything that wouldn't be there as part of the activity that you would need to do. So, for instance, flashcards or anything like that, those would be the supplemental resources that Dr. Trosper was mentioning that teachers would have to also be part of. There's also centers in um inside of KDUm and some of those centers do focus on that fact fluency. Um as far as the materials that are being ordered, you know, using per units, etc. Um, do we have a plan in place to make sure as that material comes in, we are making sure that our teachers are using it or going to use it uh instead of I forgot it was over there or um, you know, it's stored in a

078closet somewhere and we find it. I I just want to make sure there's a plan in place because you mentioned storing it and and using it during units to make sure we have that plan in place to validate that we're using what we're ordering and paying for. I we had a principal meeting just this week and the expectations I just outlined that was explained to the principles that would be our expectation and so we directed them to start talking to their staff now that we expect these to be used when we go into classrooms. So as Miss Ber and I go in the classrooms observing as principles are observing they're expected to give feedback on that. Uh over the summer we'll have our administrators conference. We'll dig deeper into how to use it and really

079help them understand what it looks like. uh and and that is going to be a big part of our discussion is are we are we using the materials with integrity. Additionally, we have already earmarked with both companies um hopeful that it is approved tonight um so that we can make sure that we provide training with them to the teachers. I think that training piece and the back to school um will be important. The digital resources could be available as early as June 1st for both companies. um the print resources they would be trained on as when they return to school. Great. And then as far as the kindergarten, love the idea of waiting to print as needed. Um but you know there are times feedback of well we don't have ink, we don't have paper,

080the printer, how are we addressing those concerns to make sure that all of that is ready for kindergarten to be able to print on a as needed basis? Yeah, we'll we'll make sure they know that if if they need more resources and they can reach out um to to our team or uh Mr. Hager, we'll make sure they have what they need. Uh it's we don't think it's going to change much more than they already are, but we want to make sure we support them in that. Most of the lessons are scripted for KDUm and so that scripted activity piece would be something that the teacher could do verbally without having to print, but if they wanted to print something, then they would have the ability to do so. So, we're not assuming that it

081would be a large amount of printing. I heard positive reviews of the CPO and and reviewing the book. I I can't remember if it was you or Miss Pervvis that said it actually made you want to stay and do math. It was you. Okay. So, that that's great. Um that's what we want to hear. So, kudos to you guys for for bringing that um to the team. Yes, sir. Um, how much does this curriculum still allow for the freedom of teachers to be able to uh use their skills that they've that they've gathered? I think the most important message we want our teachers to know is what was on those charts. I mean, when you use this curriculum, it is in almost every case fully aligned with our standards. So, when you use it, you

082will find success. So what we have taught as a as the best practice for instruction is that um every student should be exposed to high quality instructional materials. And what happens is that mitigates the level of teacher in terms of if if one teacher might be more effective than another teacher at the end of the day all kids. It raises the floor for all of them when they're exposed to this high quality curriculum. That's just best practice. re research shows that um if they feel like they need to go back and retach or remediate um and in some cases like math grade four there's going to be a few areas that we'll need to supplement then they'll have that freedom to do that um but but quite honestly the way that we've gone with the

083Virginia Literacy Act um there's an approved list that the state provides that they have to use that there is laws right now that are waiting to be signed that essentially requires core curriculum to be adopted and used based on that approved list. So, it's it's different than it has been. That's the trend of of we need to know what's being taught in our classrooms. Uh and again, there's many reasons for that, but from our perspective, that is best practice for instruction. And we will also have that process where teachers will be able to submit um supplemental resources that they have so that we can see um we will we want to be able to bring all three zones together um in order to share resources. A lot of times we have great things happening in

084one building or with one teacher and we want to make sure that we can replicate that everywhere. So we will be building that process to where they can share some of those supplemental resources amongst each other. Yeah. If I can just comment the one that was one of the things that that struck us as a a big positive isn't that is the ability for the teachers to collaborate across the the the school areas u all the school zones as well as um to be able to scaffold as the terms are kind of foreign to me until you get into them. the the ability for them to start at that base level and take the the excelling students higher and um but make sure everybody is getting the basics. Um and Dr. Trosper, I wanted to

085see if you would just um elaborate a little bit on the uh advantages of making this an action item tonight so that the board understands why we're doing that um in terms of how it expedites getting the materials into the hands of the teachers, etc. Absolutely. Yeah. and we we really appreciate you um bringing that for a vote. But if we if we're able to get that approved, we can quickly start to survey the principles on what manipulatives are in place so we know what to order. Um we can figure out what we want to order and that puts us ahead of the really of a lot of divisions. Um even going back to when we formed the committee, we we anticipated what would be uh on the list and and thankfully we were correct

086in a lot of it. Um, if we can get those ordered, there's a good chance we can get those materials in. Maybe not before the kids go home, but we can at least get access where teachers can start to look through their teachers editions. They can start to look through online. So, should they choose, they've got the summer to do that. Um, it it would be very frustrating as a teacher to come back to school in August and be given a new curriculum. We we want to try to avoid that. So, this helps us get that going um and get that ordered and get our training set up um hopefully before a lot of other divisions do. Additionally, both of these companies are Virginia specific, which means they are printing them on demand. Um, they

087are digital companies that have um changed into print materials because of of a request. Um, KDUm specifically will print the books in the order of our pacing guides and the order we teach it, which is going to take some time. So, the earlier we can have the order to them, the faster we can get those materials printed um and shipped. And it also sounded like uh in the CIP group that the vast majority of all the school divisions are ordering these same materials and so to get a jump on that will put us at the head of the line. We our understanding is it's first come first serve. So whenever they get the order that's when they print. So I I had two questions. Um the first one cost is there a significant difference between

088what you've chosen or what has been chosen and and the other options? I will be honest. Um once the committee narrowed it down, we did not go back to the companies um especially after the alignment came out to the other companies. They were not really in the green with the alignment. So we did not go back in full disclosure and ask for cost effectiveness for them. I will tell you in our last adoption it falls in line exactly at the same price. We're not see price point. We're not seeing a big um jump or an increase. Um some things that we have done to kind of mitigate the cost is the original quote from KDUm included all the manipulative kits. Looking at the list of manipulatives, I believe they exist in every building already, so

089why would we purchase them again? Um so things like that we are negotiating and taking out. Um, but it does line up with most textbook adoptions that we've done in past years. And my second question, and this may have been discussed, and I'm sorry if I missed it, but is this a contract that you sign with this group for x number of years? So, you know, we're talking about how it's aligned with the so, but we also know that so changes, right? So what happens typically and this we're in unusual times but typically every seven years the state adopts new standards uh and then immediately after they pass the standards they have a list of approved text. Uh this is this will be a seven-year contract. So we will that price that we get will

090get consumables delivered every year um as part of that contract. Um, so it's it's not always a perfect seven-year, but we we do the best we can. And so that's um, you know, hopefully, but once we order that, it will get us everything we need for seven years, and we can always extend it if we need to. And and is it the same? You're getting the same thing over and over again for seven years or some of the things reusable? I would think some of it is reusable, right? The digital access would be 7 years worth of digital access. um for math space for the 612 um that's a hard book textbook. So we would get those shipped at the beginning. We wouldn't get an additional shipment. We could additionally um get um teachers editions

091as needed, like if they go missing or things like that, we can always supplement and add that for KDUm. Those are consumables. So the way that works is you are you sign the seven-year contract, but you are only shipped the materials you need for that one year. And then you pay upfront. So, we've already paid for the full seven years and then each additional year after that first year, you're you're given your year's worth of materials. And this this is a new so year. This is a new Virginia adoption for SOS and math. So, this is year one starting off. All right. Thank you so much. And Dr. Trosper, thank you for entertaining and letting me go to 8.02 2 and skipping over 8.01. Um the uh Perkins grant. Okay. Yeah. So the uh the

092Perkins grant is we sent a memo um between the last or after the last board meeting. I'm sorry. I'm getting ahead of myself. Okay. Let me go back. Let me go back. You're you're good. We'll come back to the action items. I had actually looked at the math, so my apologies. That's an action items. Um budget transfers. Mr. Haggler. Yes. Um as I went over my uh third quarter forecast earlier, I mentioned uh both of these. Uh the first is um the category transfer um is to move money into the maintenance uh maintenance category and the operating fund from three different uh areas. The finance committee has asked me to look into maybe not moving everything out of the transportation, maybe looking at buses and kind of utilizing that as we've moved out of the

093lease purchase and we're purchasing to kind of keep our fleet updated. So, this might change by the next time, but it's forformational purposes to move money to make the uh maintenance category whole. And that was the first one. Are these two separate items on the agenda? Budget transfers and supplemental appropriations. So, I don't know if you need to vote on that one and I'll go to the next one. Up to you. This is forformational. Sorry. Apologize. Getting ahead of myself. That's what happened to me. I went ahead. Sorry. Okay. Okay. Um, the second one, as I mentioned in the report, uh, this $95,000 would be a supplemental appropriation if the current budget for this year is amended. Um, as the general assembly said, if we get to the next meeting and it's dead, then this

094will get pulled and it won't be voted on. But this is assuming that the general assembly finally gets approved by the governor. We move forward and this this amount specifically is $4,000 bonus for employees payable by June 1st questions. All right, policy updates. Mr. Deair, excuse me. The Intergovernmental Affairs Committee met on March 10th, 2025 to review proposed revisions of the following policy GCBDC sick leave donation. Proposed edits include addition to requirements for an employee to be a VRS plan one two employee to receive sick leave donation and to 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. This will be brought up for vote next month. questions on policy updates. All

095right, Dr. Trosper, my apologies. We're at 8.01 Perkins Grant. What's that? It's a musical chair. Yeah. Right. I'll be joined by Mr. Hos as well. So, we did send a memo on March the 19th just explaining an overview of the Perkins grant. And the reason we did a memo and did not do traditionally an information in the next month because the information for the grant was not available by the last board meeting. And so we wanted to make sure you had that information to vote on tonight. So um after reviewing that, uh is there any questions from the board before you vote for for action? Have a motion to approve 8.01 Perkins Grant. So moved. Have a motion by Mr. Hill. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Mr. Daniels. Any other discussion? All

096those in favor signify by saying I. I. Any opposed? All right. Perkins grant is approved. Um 8.02 math textbook adoption. Do I have a motion to approve as what was just presented by Dr. Trosper and Mrs. Ber? All right. I have one by Dr. Hubach. Do I have a second? Second second by Mr. Hullbrook. Any other discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. I. I. Any opposed? Math textbook adoption is approved. And 8.03 approval of 202526 special education plan and funding applications. Miss Jennings, any updates or anything you want to tell us before we Nothing has changed and I'm just here if you guys have any questions. Do I have a motion to approve 8003? Have a motion by Mr. Daniels. Do I have a second? Second. Second. Second by Mr. Hill. Any

097questions for Miss Jennings? All right. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Any opposed? All right. The 2526 special education plan and fund funding applications are approved. All right. Do I have a motion to go back into close session? Mr. Chair Chair, I make a motion that we go into close session pursuant to Code of Virginia 2.2-3711A13 2-3711A13 one for the discussion consideration or interviews of prospective candidates for employment assignment appointment promotion performance demotion salaries disciplining or resignation of specific employees of Bedford County Public Schools and three for the discussion or consideration of the acquisition of real property for public purpose or the disposition of publicly held real property where discussion in an open meeting would adversely affect the bargaining position or negotiating strategy of the public body. I have a motion by

098Mr. Daniels. Do I have a second? Second. Have a second by Mr. Hullbrook. Any discussion? All those in favor of going back into close session, please signify by saying I. I. Any opposed? All right, we're in close session. We come out of close session. So moved. I have a motion by Mr. Daniels. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Dr. Hullbrook or excuse me, Dr. Dr. Hullbrook. Hubach. Sorry about that. All right. Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Any opposed? All right. Uh, Miss Johnson, if you will certify closed meeting. Whereas the Beeter 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

099Code 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 Beer County School Board hereby certifies that to the best of each member's knowledge, only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements by Virginia law were discussed in the closed meeting to which the certification applies, and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard, discussed, or considered. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. All right. Do I have a motion to uh for the approval of the consent agenda as presented? So moved. Have a motion by Mr. S. Hill. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Mr. Daniels. Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. I.

100Any opposed? All right. Consent agenda is approved. All right. Matters from the board committee reports. Let's start with you, Dr. Hubach. Right. Well, the CPO met and uh we move forward with the math curriculum which has been approved tonight. So, I just wanted to thank uh Dr. Trosper and Audrey Boer and the entire committee for what they did and um it was a lot of hard work, a lot of hours and uh thank you guys for taking action tonight on that so that we can get that curriculum in the hands of our teachers and get them prepared. And we know that when there's a new adoption with SOS that scores tend to drop and getting that in their hands early I think will hopefully make a difference in keeping that up. So um that's all

101I've got. I know the family life curriculum uh committee met and uh they've moved forward with moving some of the uh elementary school uh curriculum forward which we have not had in the past which is a big difference from all the surrounding counties um and it's it's a gap in our education so something that we'll be addressing hopefully starting next year uh yeah we had the uh PPA a committee. Um we've broke ground on the uh Bedford Primary Gymnasium. We're next going to be u they're starting on ENS measures starting to uh mitigate some of the the dirt out there and start getting it ready for um actual construction. Um we also have the um Liberty High School and Stant River High School project coming up this summer. We've been continually getting favorable bids. So,

102we're we're etching down on that price a little bit and everything seems to still be on schedule um to finalize those bids in the next little bit. We're about 50% finalized on on those bids there. Um I've also got CTE. Uh we've got two reverse career fairs coming up. Um on April 30th, uh we got a reverse career fair for Liberty High School. Uh I think there's a lot of a lot of good attention there. And on May 2nd, uh there's a reverse career fair at um Stanton River. And both of those reverse career fairs are where the students will be presenting to employers, uh giving presentations about, you know, why they they should be hired, uh and the employers get to actually walk around to see the booths of each student. So, I think

103it's a a novel idea and I think we're really excited about that. Mr. O'B had a facility meeting since I guess we had since the last meeting March 10th before the and that was just the lighting bids approval and we don't have one scheduled uh as of now and he covered the PPA and the CTE so it's all I got no recent meetings finance but uh IGA, we met um and presented the policy that you guys saw here tonight. We have another one on April 29th. That's it. All right. Um we did have a finance committee meeting this past Monday. Mr. Haggler covered a lot of what uh we talked about um on tonight's uh report. um talked about the third quarter forecast, operating revenues, etc. that we talked about tonight. The supplemental appropriations, Mr.

104Haggler presented a supplemental appropriation of 95,926 for the employee bonus, which he also brought up tonight. Uh budget category transfer. Uh again, the 400,000 to the maintenance fund. We discussed that. Uh and then, uh pending the governor signing the state amended budget. um uh talked about the 26 uh budget update, state revenue, uh what we're getting from the board of supervisors, and then potential adjustments based on third quarter forecast. And we talked about that again tonight, but just to encourage um you know, be thinking about where do we want to cut? I mean, we're going to have to cut somewhere. Uh so, you had those options presented again tonight. Uh do we go from 4% to 3%? um where, you know, we've got to do the 3% because that's what's passed down from the governor.

105Uh but we were talking about doing another an additional 1% increase uh cost of living, but um you know, that's one of the options that we talked about in finance committee, but uh definitely look at your options and uh you know, try to have that ready for May because that's going to be coming to us quick and we're going to need to be making those decisions. Uh also had a SEAK meeting last night. I was in attendance. Um, one of the things that um, SEAK talked about, there are some events that are happening in May. Uh, sort of like an end of year event. They're trying to schedule that and then they are going to schedule uh, something with the new playground um, which is for uh, the sped uh, community um, in uh, Bedford

106uh, on Falling Creek um, toward August September time frame. really want to do it the week before school starts to try to uh get parents out and get some information. So, be on the lookout for that. So, both May and uh August time frame. The other thing that I wanted to mention for SEAK, uh we're looking for partners. Um and they didn't ask me to do this. This is Marcus mentioning it because we talked about summer opportunities. So, if if you have a business or uh if you are a church with with camps or or properties to offer where you have plans, uh SEAK is looking for opportunities for our uh kids for this summer to uh to be able to have something to do um while they're out. Uh so, if you have something

107that you have in mind, please reach out to myself or Kelly Jennings and we can put you in contact with that committee. But uh they they're definitely looking for some uh summer camps uh and looking for partners for that. So, okay. Uh that is all for my committee. Um we'll go back to um school board member comments. Uh Mr. Knight, you want to go first on that one? Sure. Um, I think many people that are here or uh watching on YouTube um probably heard about um the little girl in the area that recently um passed away due to suicide. Um she was 10, I believe, maybe 11. Uh Autumn Bushman was her name. Um, so first I would just like to publicly offer uh sincere condolences to her family. I know. Um well, I I

108I really can't even express the the grief that I'm sure they're facing, but um the father of the of the little girl is um on a mission to um do what he can in her honor to stop um bullying. um this little girl um had been bullied and I think um was obviously um affected by it in a way that that led to you know the unthinkable. Um I think that people have talked about bullying for a long time. Um and there's policies in place, you know, at schools. Um and I think schools are trying to do their best with the situation. But ultimately it comes down to uh you know parents, other students, people um being kind and um teaching our children, teaching the people around us to be kind. Much of bullying is

109is not physical. It's it's often verbal. in particular um these days with you know social media with the internet and the ability for multiple children to gang up on another ch child through social media is just it's horrific and um you know I think that it should be all of our mission um to do whatever we can do to to stop this because it's it's it's potentially the saddest thing I think that's happening in our culture today. Um I' I've seen recent numbers that show childhood suicide has skyrocketed and um I don't remember as a child ever hearing about that sort of thing. And and I'm sure it happened but not like today. And you know, I know for me as a parent, it's my responsibility to teach my children to stand up for children,

110for other children, not to not to bully them. And if they see others ganging up, you know, be the voice that um stands up for the vulnerable and the weak. And uh again I just my wife and I have have thought a lot about this and talked a lot about it and you know we've seen it uh personally we've experienced you know various things throughout the course of uh our children's lives where they were hurt and uh you know people take advantage of that and we as parents just have to stand up you know and I know the school's working hard on it. I know that Bedford County has policies in place. Um, but a lot of this happens after school and um, so I just I challenge everyone to support the Bushman family and

111their push to um, to stop bullying in the name of um, their sweet daughter that they lost. Normally I would say no comment, but I would like to add to what he said. You know, it really it really mainly is up to your pe the peers and the students and and and the kids more so than anybody else, you know, cuz it's not cool to be a bully. It's not, you know, no matter what what you might think or or or you know, how it's portrayed, I guess. Uh if you see something happen, you know, stand up, say something, you know. uh that's the first line of defense. By the time it makes it to a teacher or an adult or whatever, the damage is done, you know, and um it you just you got

112to it does boil down to being kind to just being kind, you know, treat others as you would want to be treated basically is what it is. Um but I'd just like to add that to it. Yeah, absolutely. Um, echo what these guys said absolutely about, you know, bullying in school and and how important it is that we address it. Now, um I I had a chance this this last couple weeks to meet with uh Dr. Trosper and Dr. Hos about uh CTE and how important that is to our um our community and our students. I also work in the construction trades. Um and so there's a disconnect right now to in trades we are always complaining about not enough people to help and um with CTE we you know one of their things is

113trying to get community members involved. So it's something I would really like us to to engage with and and I think it comes a lot from the construction community you know being able to uh reach out to these students and get them trained up to where we can implement them in our workforce quickly. Uh, and so I'd like to really focus on that going forward. Um, with again with Dr. Troser and Dr. Hos, Dr. Kot. Yeah, it's hard to hard to follow those kinds of comments. It's very sobering about the um a young child taking their own life. uh nothing else really seems to make a whole lot of important impact. I did have some comments that I wanted to make uh regarding nutrition and uh how you know our one of our main goals

114here is educating uh the kids so that they are prepared for for life and u nutrition is a big part of that. It's it's a big part of their ability to cognate and to learn new things, to process and um and it also is a a financial issue for us as we talked about earlier tonight, how we're we're losing money and the uh uh nutritional plate of our students is not good. We see childhood obesity uh continuing to rise. uh so that it is well over 30% of of all of our kids and probably more than that. It's approaching 50. Um, and yet we throw away so much good food in the cafeterias and there just has to be a way for us to address the the waste uh the financial loss and to improve

115the nutrition and uh I want to explore the options that we have you know both in the finance committee and in our policy committee and um within the confines of what the laws will allow so that uh we can improve those things. So I I implore everybody to think along those lines and to work with us so that we can make an impact for the community in that respect. Yeah. Um just my my heart breaks for um for that family. I have a 10-year-old daughter and I just can cannot imagine it. So, um, you just want to keep offer prayers to the family and and you know, anyone else in the community that, um, if you have a child that's maybe acting out at home or something, something may be bothering them, I I I

116just ask that you just talk to them and say and just say, "What's going on?" Just with a with a kind heart and just just just listen. I think that's the most important thing that we can do for our kids is just listen. they might not be able to express how they're feeling. Um, but I think that it is important that we do and and be able to recognize that. And as a parent, I think it's really difficult to um maybe sometimes feel like you don't have all the answers um for your child, but there are resources out there. There are there people that have gone through uh through this and and there's people out there that can certainly certainly help. Um I know for one, as a parent, you think I you know, I

117have five kids. you want to think that it's one sizefits-all, but it's certainly not. So, if if your struggle even as a parent and you don't know what to do, reach out because it just that's like we'd have a child reach out. Reach out and see if there's something we can do because it could make all the difference. Um I don't know how to transition uh necessarily from from that, but um we talked about the budget a lot tonight and I know that in finance when we found out that that hey, we we're looking here. We're going to have a shortfall and there's some things that we all as board members are going to need to consider and that's tough. That's that that's always tough. I mean, I don't think any of us really want

118to be in that position where we have to tell, hey, we're going to have to make some changes here. It's important. That's what we are. It's part of what we are elected to do. I I will say that um this goes in in life. Actions have consequences, but also inaction also has consequences. Um you know, last year we were presented with some options. And I don't want to say they were perfect options, but there were some options that that were out there that we could have saved anywhere from 800,000 to $1.2 million a year every year. Now, we are short this year $1.4 million. Um, and we've done some tightening. Uh, I mean, Mr. Haggler is a a wizard at some of the things that we're able to do and the things that they present

119and the executive staff of um, doing more with less when it comes to a lot of things that we do. Uh we have to always evaluate what is the best thing for again the the the students and the staff here at at Bedford County Public Schools and how do we get the most out of what we're given and how do we get the best results? We see that chart. We see where we are. We want to keep driving forward. How do we do it? I personally believe we have to put it into into people and not bricks. Um but there are things that need to be done and we just have to be smart and and there are tough decisions but we do have to look at things from that where do we gain other

120efficiencies to even get better results. Does that come from you know where kids are going to school and and how many kids are in a classroom and you know you heard today even hey we're looking at this math curriculum. We didn't need to buy some of the stuff that was there and we decided not to do it. That's great. That's very smart. I I I love the proactive approach. Sometimes we do need outside of the box thinking on things and I think with between seven of us up here and then the greater community, we can come up with some some good ideas of things we can do. Understand that we are hamstrung. I don't want to say hamstrung, but it's like a game of chess. Certain things you can move and certain things you can't

121move in certain pieces. So, I think for the community it's also important to understand those things that we cannot do. Um but we do have some decisions to be made and I just hope and I pray that we as a board um would have courage. I think courage is the top virtue because all the other virtues rest upon courage. And I think we need to have the courage to be able to take action where we need to but also be able to explain it and say, "Hey, listen. This is not exactly what we want to do, but we have to stand stand by this decision because it affects all of us. But at the end of the day, if we're doing the right thing for the kids and for the for the community, we can

122rest easy at night knowing that we're making the right decision. So, um that's that's all I have. And I just I just ask that we we think long and hard about the things that we have to do um not just for this year to bring this budget into balance, but how does how do we set ourselves up um for the future of this county, the kids that are coming into kindergarten, you know, next year. So, that's it. Thanks. Thank you, sir. All right. Um, I have a couple things that I need consensus from this board on. Um, some are easier than others. U, but, um, if you remember last year when we, um, removed the SBA from our services and we started using the schoolboard member alliance. Um we I know we discussed it um

123of there would be times when we get new policy that we would have our attorney review it because it's it's not the same services as VSBA. So I need consensus from the board that we understand there are times when we get policy that we're going to have to reach out to our attorney to understand how that policy needs to be written. So, anybody have any concerns with consensus on utilizing our attorney? Okay. Is that Do I need to go through each member, Miss Johnson, or Okay. All right. So, we have consensus. Everybody gave a nod or something. Everybody gave a nod. That is correct. All right. Um, the second piece that I want to talk about, um, Miss Pervvis and I have had several conversations and, uh, this is something that she is very passionate

124about and I want to support her in it. Um, several months ago, we talked about a retreat. Um, and we had it scheduled and then we unscheduled it. Uh, but she has a passion to want to do, you can either do it as a retreat or work sessions. So, we're not trying to add additional time to our meetings, but she would like to have some of the meetings throughout the year start at five o'clock, but start as a work session where we can have candid conversations. It's it's a public meeting. So, it's no different than what we do today. But she wants to have topics, strategic conversations, facility conversations, different topics that we can talk freely. We're not taking any vote, but we're really talking as a board. uh around certain topics. And so she

125would like to take a look at a possibility and consensus from the board of being able to do some of those work sessions. It won't be every month, maybe eight or nine. Uh and really even if it's that many, but it would be more when we have slower months of the agenda. It wouldn't have been tonight. Um you know, because we had, you know, a good portion, but when they're slower months, uh and we have topics that we can throw in there. So any concerns of having work sessions, it would be from 5 to 6 just like our normal scheduled meeting, but then we would begin our normal meeting at 6 on those nights. Got head nods over here. Good over here. All right. So we have [Music] um All right. Consensus on that. All

126right. The third and final topic that I feel um it's time to really talk about um is the redistricting for elementary schools in the forest zones. And I would really like consensus from this board to give an action to our uh executive team. Um, we, you know, we're at capacity at Forest Elementary. We're at capacity at New London. And I know everyone has a different definition of what's capacity and what's not capacity. But when I walk in a school and I see or a principal introduces me to a closet where our kids are learning, I have a real concern with that. Um, and it's um, growth is not going away in Forest. It's here. It's not going away. and we've got to be able to readjust what um the lines are for our elementary schools.

127And so I would like consensus from this board to give an action item to the executive team to take a look at the forest zone and the redistricting of elementary schools. And I want this plan presented and ready to put in place by August of 25. That gives us almost four and a half months. But the growth next door to Elh Forest Elementary alone, the building is they're not stopping. And we've got kids that are going to be coming in there and it's right next door to Forest Elementary. We've got to have space. Um and with the under I'll call it underutilization of Otter River, this is an opportunity for us to take a look at all of those elementary schools in the Forest District. I'm not leaving Boonboro out. So I I think it

128behooves us to look at every single elementary school within the forest district forest zone, excuse me, to redistrict for those elementary schools. So do I have consensus from the board to ask the staff to start looking at that? Got a head nine three head nine to yes. All right. So, we have consensus for that. So, at this time, I'm going to ask the executive team to uh research and come up with a comprehensive plan of redistricting the elementary schools in the forest zone. And it is I I I would like to see first steps starting in May for more discussion in June. and we need to make a decision quick uh to be able to implement for the start of the uh 2526 school year. Any concerns or questions on that, Mr. Dupair? All right.

129All right, that's what I had. Um do I have a motion to adjurnn? So moved by Mr. Hullbrook. Do I have a second? Second by Mr. Daniels. Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Any opposed? All right, we are adjourned.