School Board Meeting 10/14/2021 - 5:00 PM

001TR really [Applause] went up thank you like to call to order this October meeting of the Bedford County School Board M Johnson would you please call the rooll Mr Johnson here Mrs Kirby here Mrs Harriston here Dr Hicks here Mr Hill here Mr Ley here Dr mey here Mr chairman you have a quum great thank you ma'am he do we have a motion to approve the agenda have a motion by Dr Hicks we have a second second second by druss call for vote in favor please say I I all those opposed agenda is approved we have a motion to go into close session Mr chairman I make a motion that we go into go into close session pursuant to the code of Virginia Section 2.2 D 3711 A1 to discuss the assignment appointment performance disciplining

002and release of contract for specific Schoolboard employees and also pursuant to the code of Virginia Section 2.2 3711 A2 for the purpose of discussion or consideration of a disciplinary matter considering concerning a school a student enrolled in Beth County Public Schools being student number one for the 2021 2021 2022 school year great so we have a motion to go into close session by m Kirby do we have a second second second by hariston discussion not call for vote all those in favor please say I I any opposed the school board will now go into closed session [Applause] all right do I have a motion to come out of Cl session motion by Dr hick we have a second second I heard Mr Lei first all those in favor please say I I you oppos all

003right School Board is now out of closed session do we have a motion on closed session items oh certification I'm sorry y Miss Johnson please where the beer County school board has convened a closed meeting on this date pursuant to an affirmative recorded vote in accordance with the provisions of a Virginia Freedom of Information Act and where section 2.2 3712 D 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 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

004in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard discussed or considered yes yes yes yes yes yes yes thank you now action on close session items Mr chair chairman I I make a motion that we accept the superintendent's recommendation for student number 12 2021 to 2022 as modified all right so we have this Kirby making a motion to modify the superintendent's recommendation on student number one do we have a second second miss hariston any all those in favor please say I I I you oppos motion is approved s all right this time we will break for dinner back at back heard anything about Mr Dr Bergen should have heard something oh no it so that good or bad what all right I'd like to reconvene tonight's meeting um would you please rise for the pledge

005of Alle FL of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation God indivisible with liy and justice for all before we proceed we would like to observe a moment of silence for the following staff members who have recently passed away Carn hubard Liberties z bus driver Jennifer buzzo St River High School par professional and Harold Drumheller uh Jefferson Forest High School teacher amen 6.02 recognition of students Andor staff Mr Edwards Mr chairman tonight we recognize one outstanding person and one remarkable career as an unbelievable Milestone has been [Music] reached to I learn to drive a school bus and I took the school bus out one morning and all the the one my family my kids and the kids that uh the children that uh I was driving for

006his I think it two was on the bus with me and that was making so much Racket and the guy that had drove the school bus before had done picked his bus up and went out and was picking up to one so I had to take the bus back to the garage I told him I forget it and I saw where this J was open and that was 1971 is that right that's right okay so tell me 1971 to 2021 what are the differences that you've seen in that 50 years oh gosh when I first started it was kind of like scary because I was on the bed the fast Lan M right there and they didn't want to stop or anything but you know they had to it was went real well I mean

007I enjoyed it I mean I enjoyed being stepping out in front of the people and then um then we had to move you know out here and it has changed from there out here but most of the time it stay about the same app where the traffic but moved you know pretty fast and the people got to know me and so they knew I was out there so they would you know be nice and that was one of my questions you probably can't walk around Bedford too long before somebody says hello or somebody remembers you or somebody knows you right they say h for or H she and I can maybe not recognize their face because of sitting in the car or something but but you know other than that that would be it well

008and after 50 years you're not only I mean the the students that you had in 1971 are grandparents now right oh yeah they're let they're letting their kids cross I had one lady was come up to me couple years before I moved from my into middle that middle school and she says you got some of my grandchildren to come across now and she says they better good and they better mind you or if you tell me I'll get them when I get home I said okay tell me how old am because I said I said every time y'all tell me I've got grandchildren coming across I said I feel a little older scho have you have you worked as a Crossing Garden FL just the Middle School the primary school and this Middle School okay

009so you've stayed in Bedford your your whole time yeah well rushi let me tell you that you are nothing short of one of our most valuable assets this division's valuable assets 50 years it's amazing what you've done and the school board the staff we cannot thank you enough for your service well thank you I've I've kind of enjoyed it but you bounced right back up from it didn't you I jumped [Applause] up told the guy a sto her and I R I got the buses out that was coming and and sent them on and then I ran over to The Filling Station and called in at the time I didn't have a walk you talk anything I called in and told the dispatch I said what do I do if I get knocked down and

010she said you call us I said well I'm calling you and she she was laughing on the other she said are you heard I said no not really well do you need now I said no not really I said but I just want to tell you I was knocked down by a car $25 to knock me down and I'm get over of that for a long time but then finally I just H off and SLA myself upside to face him told myself I said you worth more than $25 every time you let a kid cross that street Safe child 25s I got over that in a heartbeat that's amazing I we cannot thank you enough for your service and we hope you hang in there for many more years to come well I want to

011but asked for M are you going to retire you stay right with us as long as you want to thank you so much M I told him I S as long as God lets me put my hands up and do this and he let me walk on my two feet good for you wow Bergen Mr chairman Madam Vice chair will you please come forward and Miss wdge will you please come forward as well right there [Applause] for [Laughter] just for the record too I Believe Miss warwards tried to retire once now the story behind it is I grew up on the corner where she was at Middle School which used to be the elementary school and then you went to the Elementary School third through seventh grade and luckily she only had class be one

012time that's all it took I tried to behave yeah she tried to behave back she tried to retire one time and I do recall she was back within six months [Laughter] yeah does Miss Kirby behave when she's driving as a kid in the morning yeah I got to have my good morning darling every day she comes by every morning and rolls the winter down and says good morning have good day it makes me like I feel [Applause] good oh yes ma'am and you've been faithful it's hardly ever substitute that for you thank you very kindly no ma'am thank you so at this time we will begin our public comment portion of tonight's meeting the public comment portion is limit of tonight's agenda is limited to 25 minutes individual speakers are limited to 3 minutes while

013anyone representing an organized group will be allowed 5 minutes provided they are the sole speaker from that group or organization speakers may not give their time to another speaker speakers are asked to State their name address voting district and organization or group if applicable the school board is here to listen to your comments but will not engage or respond to speakers during this 25-minute period please remember that this is a public meeting and that we expect all speakers to refrain from any foul abusive or hateful language Mr Edwards will serve as timekeeper for individual speakers with a ringing Bell indicating that a person has 30 seconds remaining and a second bell will ring indicating a person's three minutes have expired Mr Edwards will also serve as timekeeper for our cumulative 25 minute period when Mr

014edwards's three-minute timer Bill Rings please discontinue speaking and allow the next person in line to come to the podium should you be unable to finish your comments please send or give them to Mrs Johnson and she will give them to members Mr Edwards who do we have to speak this evening Mr chair the individuals who have scheduled are Lesley LS Mary Sloan moranda Ray Morgan halt Matt Kane Jessica debor Dave Dietrich Rachel Cooper and Matt Holbrook thank you this L can you hear me I am Leslie LS I live in District 5 at the last meeting on September 9 the bcea president presented a Wordle she created from a survey of teachers in theis Vision some of the most frequent words were overwhelmed exhausted stressed drained and burned out those words are obviously alarming sadly

015a lot of students in our division are feeling the same while we are more than grateful to return to inperson learning it is important to remember that the students in our division have not had a consistent education model since the 2018 2019 school year the inconsistency has been necessary but it's also necessary to consider the impact this is having on them this year as their cour load has returned to normal and along with that the accompanying stress we have to remember some of the things they have lost they have lost the security of predictability we have asked them time and again to be flexible and many of them have displayed encouraging resilience but some have lost much more for many they lost their previous social structures and interactions some have lost loved ones due to

016the pandemic many including my own da have also sadly lost friends and peers to Suicide as depression and anxiety among adolescen is on the rise I don't have solutions to all of these problems but just yesterday I attended a meeting with Dr Woodford where she discussed finding ways to partner with students and parents to try to bring back school functions and events in some capacity that was so encouraging to hear as our kids need safe and fun School functions I sincerely believe partnering and collaboration are what we need on many fronts before we roll out new initiatives time consuming professional development exercises and additional pressure for our teachers and staff we need to partner with them to find out if that is actually necessary at this time or if it's just adding undue stress when

017what teachers need is time to plan breathe and reconnect with their students I encouraged to hear that we are considering adding additional days off to our calendar I sincerely hope that those days Willow teachers and students a chance to catch up and take a breath we also need to see collaboration return to our school board while our teachers and students have been struggling to adjust to the New Year have we really been using Schoolboard meetings in the most efficient way how much time has been wasted on arguing about State mandated masking that is clearly out of this board's control how much time has been wasted on repeatedly asking about critical race Theory when it has been stated time and again that it is not being t taught in our schools and it is evident most

018don't even understand what CRT is how much time has been wasted on targeting the transgender Community whose rights are already protected at the federal level the answer to all of these questions is way too much time let's reset and refocus on what is really important to our school Community our staff and our students thank you thank you Miss Los Miss Sloan Mary Sloan can you hear me good hi my name is Mary Sloan and I live in District 5 as well and two of my children are in bford County Public Schools um thank you to each of your willingness uh to serve as school board members I have watched the meetings via live stream the past few months not coming in attendance and just really appreciative of you all being here um my focus in

0192020 and 2021 was doing whatever it takes to make it work just doing whatever it takes we have to get to school on the two days a week we have to just do what it takes to get by we're in this together this year is focusing on what matters focusing on what matters so how's your year going I find myself asking this of pretty much everyone I encounter whenever I run across a kid I say how's your year going a student a teacher a parent how's your year going and what I've received a lot while I've received a lot of different responses honestly most have centered around grateful to be back coming off of last year and a half we are grateful for in-person learning 5 days a week grateful for athletic practices and competition

020grateful for artistic opportunities and performances and grateful again to have shared experiences that's what our kids need and that's where our Focus needs to be on whatever they need to do to do it safely within our schools to keep them there with shared experiences excuse me it is time to let our children and their families enjoy all the experiences that schools have traditionally provided it's time to let them have sponsored dances time to promote School clubs time to let National Honor Society and annual academic Awards ceremonies be in person and not virtual we can do it and we can do it safely we've proved that it's time to spend our energy f ways to allow our children safely have as many of these opportunities requiring masks or other measures may not be ideal it may

021not be everyone's favorite conducive way to learn but it allows our kids to have these experiences and these opportunities and allows us to focus on what matters I ask you to continue to support whatever measure it takes to keep our kids safely in school 5 days a week and focus on what matters on side note something that I think would be very helpful um I understand that on the website there is a link to the policies for covid and quarantine and what happens feel like there should be a general flowchart document that is at the schools readily accessible to parents if this happens this is what you do this is what you do a consistency I'm seeing from so many people just different different things that are happening across the board and it it shouldn't

022be that way there's a lot of gray area we get it we're flexible but there needs to be a document that's rightly accessible thank you you miss Miranda Ray Miss Ray Morgan Holt good evening my name is Morgan Holt and before I begin I would like to thank the board for for adhering to CDC masking guidance for our schools tonight I would like to share my experience of attempting to access special needs accommodations for my children and to ask that the school board conduct a detailed review of current policies and practices related to special education services in our schools I have four children who have over the past decade been enrolled at Four County Schools two Elementary one middle and one high I'm in District Four and attempting to secure a accomodations to meet the

023unique needs of my kids I have been repeatedly frustrated by obstacles that seem carefully designed to impede access I'll share some examples after repeatedly requesting assistance from BCPS staff to meet one of my children's learning needs and receiving nothing I was finally told by a special education teacher from another school system about the specific process and specific phrasing I must use to trigger the legally mandated response while it was clear what I needed BCPS staff did not educate me about the processes I needed to follow to convene the child study team and only after learning this information elsewhere was I successful in scheduling the uh the meeting in CFT meetings I've been repeatedly told that a child must fall below grade level in order to be eligible for special needs accommodations in Bedford County even

024with a diagnosis a child must already be failing before they can access beducation Services BCPS is current policy as stated to me by the schools says clearly that good enough is good enough it's okay for kids to work below their potential because BCPS is content to allow kids who could Excel with supports to barely scrape by without them I've been told it is up to individual teachers to make accommodations in their classrooms to meet kids' needs our experience of this has been at best inconsistent and at worst completely useless with no oversight even when effective strategies are implemented by a teacher they have no vehicle to be necessarily communicated to the next year's teacher and no guarantee of being utilized if they are this inconsistency is compounded once the child advances to having multiple teachers

025per grade and is generally amounted to a complete deficit of support last year I attended a community meeting hosted by Consultants collecting input about priorities for the incoming superintendent when I raised these concerns I discovered that a majority of other parents and attendance had experienced similar frustrations in working with medical and Mental Health Service Providers as well as special education providers from other localities I've learned that Bedford County is well known for impeding access to special education services these providers has have explained that the County's threshold is set deliberately high in order to exclude all but the neediest children in several cases when describing my experience the provider has interrupted me to accurately guess that my children attend BCPS before I provided that information I want to be clear that my children have been served

026by many talented and dedicated teachers and staff in many instances it has been clear that they wished they could do more for us I hope changes can be made to allow that I know the current policy is financially motivated and I want to emphasize that the many kids whose needs are not being met are worth an investment thank you uh Matt Kane good evening my name is Matt Kaine and I'm in District 4 I'm a parent of a third grader at TJ and a sixth grader at Forest Middle and I'd like to talk to you about the risk of overuse of technology in the classroom I know I bear the risk of being branded a lite but please be assured I am not I've been using computers since I was six bought my first smartphone

027as soon as they were available I typically drive an electric car I have my own 3D printer and I manage the general development Engineering Group at bwxt at M AOS road which specializes in implementing new technologies technology is great for our children however we must be careful of moving too much of our learning online when it's not necessary that is when children are attending school in person the National Education Association says that an environment that maximizes student learning will be a blended or hybrid model situated between the extremes of being technology free or totally online my experience is that at Forest Middle the mix is running too close to totally online despite my children attending in person one study available through the National Institutes of Health found that access exessive screen exposure contributes to structural

028changes such as reduced volume of the prefrontal cortex of the brain which impede attentional competence processing speed verbal intelligence and sustained attention and they cause increased activation of the orbital frontal cortex which is related to reward and impulsivity furthermore reading online does not promote the same long-term memory formation and retrieval that traditional reading does our sixth grader is on the computer for many hours per day at school with the majority of learning it seems happening online while building technological literacy is important to prepare our children for today's jobs I ask that we turn down the wick on the use of technology in Middle School don't get rid of it just bring back the books bring back paper and pencil bring back the real world I recognize that teachers are struggling this is a whole separate

029subject but I recognize the teachers are struggling uh in a more stressful environment than ever and I thank them for continuing to serve our community as a side note I've seen the pay scales and they deserve more I know I'm willing to pay more in my taxes to see their pay improved last I want to say a special thank thank you to Dr Bergen and those school board members who have protected the freedom of our children who are entitled to a safe space to receive their public education by upholding the governor's man mask mandate because it shows our children that the rule of law is valued in our community no not Jessica deor Jessica the board Dave Dietrich I'm Dave dietr from District 4 in Forest Virginia ladies and gentlemen many Americans are enamored with

030socialism yet most have never experienced socialism let me introduce you to a young lady who did her name was Marita sharkowski she was born in East Germany and lived there all her life East Germany was a socialist State and said to be building communism in keeping with the dictate of Lenin the goal of socialism is communism in 1980 mariaa and two others tried to scale the Berlin Wall to freedom in the west she never made it to Freedom she was mortally wounded by the East German border guards and died the next morning she was only 18 years old mariaa was trapped behind a burl behind the Berlin Wall the wall was known in the east as the anti-fascism protection barrier it was not built to keep Invaders out it was built to keep people in

031it was built to imprison the human spirit and in tunb the soul it was based on a lie today there's another wall it too is based on lies that new wall is called critical race Theory or CRT it is a direct derivative of cultural Marxism it goes by yet another name culturally responsive teaching also CRT the latter name is most Insidious as it is the most subtle according to Christopher Roo rufo Educators and politicians employ euphemisms the high critical race Theory which they know is unpopular with the public these euphemisms include Equity social justice diversity and inclusion and culturally responsive teaching CRT what then is crt's purpose foremost CRP CRT imprisons the human spirit and in Tunes the soul it is a barrier to academic creativity achievement and Industry through CRT Educators and politicians can

032get to determine what culture is parents do not some groups are favored While others are ignored or even dehumanized academic mediocrity is institutionalized so what is the end State socialism and Marxism is the end State all children are equally indoctrinated all children are made equally ignorant children of all Races ethnicities and Creeds become the new m jurowski if only metaphorically citizens can either support CRT or they can defend Freedom one way to defend Freedom may be to elect Matthew HRI and Dwayne Nelms to the board they no doubt will understand CRT as a clear existential threat to our children thank [Applause] you thank you Rachel Cooper my name is Rachel Cooper I'm in district 7 I just recently moved to district 7 um one thing y'all need to handle in school that y'all failed to

033do 26% of students kill themselves every day because of bullying bullying needs to stop I have a degree in criminal justice for Masters all and I'm ready get my doctor in it I also have my ma get my masters and my doctrines in medical science I've seen it I've studied it and I have so much proof on it it's sad to know that there are children ages ranging from age of four to 18 killing themselves because teachers and other staff members are refusing to help them also the mask my son has autism and he has a sensory disorder and he cannot wear a mask has medical documentations on file through beer County Public Schools his doctor who is a pediatrician who also has a doctor degree in doctors to tell y'all he cannot wear a

034mask and when he wears a mask he gets hides all around his mouth he will not wear a mask but when they get he gets told at school you wear the mask or you go to the clothes room really the clothes room no you will not put my child in the closed room he's 6 years old you're not going to to teach my child when I'm finding out from other parents in other school districts and not only in other school districts but our own school districts they are allowing sex education being taught to first grade all the way up that is not okay they should not be learning that every one of these parents out here will agree with me on that a six-year-old should not be learning that at all and for The Mask

035every one of these parents who aren't wearing a mask they don't want their children wearing mask it's not a law it's just a little bit of a mandate y'all chose to go with it because our wonderful superintendent y'all so call it is so Democratic and so l-sided he decided to go with it but yet he refuses to answer emails phone calls or even come out to speak to a parent I have been trying to reach out to him since the beginning of school year and yet he hasn't gave me the common C courtesy or the respect to even come out to speak to me but yet has Mr cornette call me and then has to tell me on the phone if your son's so autistic he can deny it all he wants to that if

036your son's so autistic put him in an IEP no his Peter TR doesn't even want him one you will not dictate what I do with my child he's mine not yours my tax dollars pay each and every one of you to be here and for him to get such an allowance he doesn't deserve a house in allowance what does he do for our parents what does he do for our children no y'all decide to pay $400 for several chairs to be entered into this building when our children need actual school books not computers to learn our children need more stuff in school not y'all getting new desk and chairs I only see three members up there that actually truly respect and they're not wearing masks mat Brook Matt Brook Mary [Applause] Bennett hello Bor and

037thank you very much for allowing me the opportunity to come and talk I'll be honest I'm not as prepared as I wanted to be because I didn't know I'd be talking I knew I was weight listed um in my head I was going to have a whole cardboard poster um with picture of my son um my son is Ronan and he is 5 years old he's a twin and he's also my Miracle him and his brother were born at 29 weeks and for all y'all not there that is 11 weeks way too early okay and when I went in I'm just going to tell you this little quick story um they told me that he would be blind he could possibly be deaf him and his brother both um that they called him a wimpy

038white boy that's what I guess the nicku nurses call him and I was like excuse me he's one quarter Hispanic so he should have a Fighting Chance um and he has done amazing but unlike his brother who has excelled and other than being small is neurotypical um my son Ronan has autism and he really functions more along the line of a 2-year-old um I never thought that I would be changing my almost six-year-old son's diapers but the lord gave him to me and I'm so grateful that I have the opportunity to be doing that so thank you very much but I am talking because I got accepted into New London Academy um as a special needs program and I got to say that the principal and the teachers Miss Lee and the therapist have been

039really great so I want to thank those people um for trying their best I know their hands are tied so what I'm coming to you about is my concern that his sensory um Dr Brennan um diagnosed him as a as autistic and we came in with a medical note last year he didn't have to to wear a mask no one said anything just because myself as a mother said he sensory issues he's pulling it down um he also drools because he has low um muscle tone in his mouth and so he was getting really bad reactions in his mouth so when I went in I decided to be proactive and to respect um as much as I could right um y'all and everything and had a note the note was accepted he went for two

040weeks I believe no problem um and then a letter was sent home saying that this wasn't this even though I had a doctor's note signed it it didn't work um so they told me that he could either have an accept his exception could be accepted only if I'm sorry guys I'm nervous again I didn't think that I would be speaking um I they told me that he didn't have to wear a mask however he could not interact with his peers so those in the medical field and others with a uh children with autism know the whole thing of autism is I by the way I I'm part of an organization so I should have five minutes Bedford County um Patriots I don't know if that works or not is that okay yes do sir not

041identify as being with an organization when she requested to speak okay so it's a three minute okay is that okay she's okay I'm sorry I just again I respect you guys I'm trying to communicate as well as I can and I'm nervous um anyways that for autism you have to have social engagement right they need to read facial features they need to learn um how to handle um emotions better and so he told they told me that if he is not wearing a mask he cannot engage with his peers he has to have a six foot difference um he they're going to go around after him wiping after him with a disinfectant um and also he can't have the hallway I'm sorry the hallway by himself I pulled him out I really would appreciate um

042if y'all could listen and I would be willing to sign a liability waiver we've had covid we trust in our body and I'd be willing to sign a waiver saying I hold you completely completely not liable for anything just something to think about it again thank you very [Applause] much all right that concludes the public comment portion of tonight's meeting thank you all all right do you have a motion on the consent agenda um Mr chairman yes ma'am uh I would like to make a motion that we pull number 79 from the okay so everyone a minute to kind of sett would you like to modify your motion person report' still a little shuffling okay Mr chairman I'd like to make a motion that we pull the Personnel report from the consent agenda okay so

043we have motion by Miss hariston to pull the Personnel report from the consent agenda have a second second Miss hariston second by Dr mu discussion all those in favor please say I I the opposed so we will vote on the Personnel report separately we have a motion on the remainder of the consent agenda Mr chairman I move that we approve the remainder of the consent agenda as presented I have a motion by Dr Hicks to approve the remainder of the consent agenda do we have a second second second by Dr M all those in favor please say I any you post consent agenda with the exception of the Personnel report is approved as presented Mr chairman I'd like to make a motion that we move 79 number 79 from our personal report okay so miss

044Harriston has made a motion to pull number 7 9 from the Personnel reports consideration yes I note taking catch up with's going on all right so do we have a second second second by Dr X all those in favor or any discussion um all those in favor please say I I I any oppos osed right so we will vote on number 79 separately all right do we have a motion on the remainder of the consent Personnel report Mr chairman I move that we um accept the remainder of the Personnel report except number 79 as previously voted on okay so Dr mey has made a motion to approve the Personnel Report with the exception of number 79 do we have a second second second I hereon all those in favor say I I I any opposed

045so the remainder of the Personnel report is approved now motion on Mr chairman I make a motion that we we've done that we have yeah so do we have a motion on number 79 Mr chairman I make a motion that we vote to approve number 79 of the Personnel report so have a motion for Mr Hill to accept superintendent's recommendation from number 79 do we have a second second Dr Hicks call for a vote all those in favor please say I I I opposed yes yes okay N Miss Johnson would you please pull the board M Harriston no Dr Hicks yes Mr Hill yes Mr Johnson yes Mrs Kirby yes Mr ly yes Dr mey No you guys have it with five so in as much as we had an extraordinarily long Clos session tonight

046we are moving items 3.01 through 3.05 down so staff reports first quarter Financial projection Mr Hackler yes good evening um here to present um the uh forecast based upon the first uh three months of the school year um a lot of this data um is very tentative um but taking my best shot at that based upon three months I think at the next meeting um Mark blankin chip will be presenting the ADM numbers but I thought I could go ahead and present on the financials before that time um first we'll cover the revenues on the operating fund as you can see in front of you I did change the format a little bit and um added a column for projected supplemental Appropriations that way you can see what we're intending to to do on supplementals

047not that they've come forward yet and then a revised budget and then I'm looking at the projection compared to revised budget and how we're going to come in overall for the year um you can see there's a a couple supplemental Appropriations there Title One carryover um that needs to be spent down um this is a builtup accumulation of title one that uh we do need to spend down you you're only supposed to be able to carry over 15% of title one year over-ear we do have a waiver but we do have we do have a plan in order to spend that down this year so we do not have that issue next year um the plan for that is that we actually retained additional teachers in Title One schools uh to spend that money down

048this year so that's a a short-term fix that money will not be there continually in the future but for this year alone we do have additional teachers in Title One schools to spend that additional money down so that's why we'll do a we'll have a supplemental appropriation there that was not in the original budget so we'll we've already got got that in place 21st century we awarded one for Liberty Middle School so happy to report that and the rest is car's act funding we did build some cares act funding into the budget a lot of that was for technology um and software um and also teachers but we did add some additional positions to that so at this point I think the cares is the one that's a variable as we go forward we may

049need to pull more of that money forward um as we go through here in the operating especially for cleaning and for custodial and anything else that might pop up that's a necessity through the year especially for learning loss for kids if there's any needs for remediation we'll pull more carees act money through but at this time uh about 1.2 additional and carees act money being pulled into the operating fund for really learning loss and additional teachers um some IDs positions and some other positions to help us get through the year um a little bit of money from a uh Insurance Recovery but we spent that money so the money was spent but it's also going to be coming in uh an insurance claim there on the other category on the top I'm happy to report

050on the state funding the sales tax is coming in very strong uh stronger than I've ever seen it before there's years that the sales tax comes in short you don't recoup all that money it's part of the formula that they do the so few positions uh times the number of students minus sales tax time times one minus your LCI complicated formula but uh you don't Rec want dollar for Dollar on the sales tax but you do you do keep some of that at the end so we'll continue to monitor that as the year goes on but uh it's better than being short on sales tax it's it's coming in very strong um up until September is about 15% ahe of uh of projections so I'll continue to keep the board um updated on that as

051the year goes on so as you can see about 2.1 million um additional and uh supplemental Appropriations with that uh projecting about 1 million over budget on revenues at the end of the year and that's my notes that I have on the uh on the revenue side and be happy to ask answer any questions you may have on the revenue side of the leder Mr H Randy what what is the number um of students that you are using for these numbers um I'm using what we budgeted uh there is a what's the numbers what I'm asking it's right around I think it was around 9,300 I'll pull that exact number up in a minute the the unique thing about the state budget this year and I'll say it's just for this year it was is

052also for last year is there's an enrollment loss protection that means if we have loss in enrollment the state's going to make we're going to be good on that that means that they will put in money to make sure that we have what uh what they had forecasted to begin with so if we do have enrollment loss this year we will not lose funding so if the if the numbers change it's really not going to change our state budget okay I don't know if that answered your question it does so you're using 9,300 when in reality we're somewhere around 88 8900 so we're good for now but the funding will change so my question is this looks good because we're being held for this year for this year yes sir but there needs to be

053a red flag for next year right I I would defer to uh Mr blanken ships uh when he presents on the numbers and the projection and what's happening on there I went forward usually we present at the same time I had the financial data there's not really a risk this year and the in the financial forecast because of membership usually that's a very big critical part of what I present um but I'm presenting tonight at least for this year that there is enrollment loss protection I think at the next meeting am I right looking at Dr DS I think Mr blankers chip will be here at the next meeting to present on the ADM numbers and yes sir if they continue to decree decrease there will be loss in and state funding in the future

054okay Dr um yes my question is on the same line with um Mr Hill I I think it's important for the board to know at any given time um what the difference is between the current funding and the hold harmless funding because I agree we're going to be looking at a a huge amount of money but I don't think any one of us I don't have an idea of what that number looks like so we need to really have that number in front of us all the time so that we're constantly reminded of this is what we were working with this year but had if it's a normal year this is really what we're looking at because I I think it could be very significant yes ma'am so can we get that information and have

055that as part of you know maybe under like a yes A or something so that we can have it I mean do you all agree you know we know there several factors there um what you're going to what I would be doing is projecting an enrollment change based upon the existing budget but there will be a whole new budget next year um you know that the governor is going to be proposing so all you can say you know what I can present is because the enrollment change what would have been the change in dollars to US this year if the enrollment law protection that's an important number toight and um yes I'll I'll send that out to the board and I'll include that in future projections thank you M Mr Hagler um under the car's

056act funding indicated that we have 1.2 million in that we use that money for various positions um maybe um PPE different um um health things for custodians to use you also stated other positions and so my question to you is um have we under the cares act funding that we have have we used any of that money for additional Staffing for example PA professionals to hire additional pair professionals we've used that we've used funding um and I presented uh what the plan was for the cares act all three of them on how we were going to use that funding um Dr calary you can correct me if I'm wrong on this I think we have 21 22 teaching positions out there this year that we're using that funding for M I think there's four IDs

057positions intervention design specialist we have uh learning coaches that are helping with the online um another learning coach at Liberty Middle we have um a grants coordinator that is organizing and helping me keep track of all this all this money that's flowing through here um additional uh supervisor for special education to help with uh this year and and then just various different positions where where there was need based on right and do any of those positions include PA professionals and where I'm leading to this is is that we all know that our teachers are under a great deal of stress um and we're asking a great deal of them and um having extra hands in the classroom certainly could be very beneficial so my I'm just curious if we've used any of that money for

058uh the hiring of additional it's been focused on teach uh we have not used any for pair of professionals um I will and when we've talked about all this money this is short-term funding right we're going to need to ratchet this so these positions are going to either have to be supported locally or Statewide or eliminated in the future so um it's nice to have right now we'll have more cares act money next year to use in the 23-year budget um because the amount that we have we're going to spread it over but we'll probably start ratcheting that back into 23 and then into 24 so uh if if there's a need but our Focus has been on teachers and um where there's needs and Dr calber and the HR team have come to me

059and said we need to play somebody here here and and I've been keeping track of how many positions that we have alloted out have we had any administrators to ask for additional Staffing support such as pair professionals they've asked for it was the calculation of FTE and they ask for additional FTE um I do believe they're they're used for teaching staff um but they would kind of justify the numbers we' look at the numbers coming in and then we would award additional staff based on the enrollment numbers coming in based on need we um have done that we did that in the month of July in the beginning of August um for most of them that were showing need the I I think the requests that have been coming through which we've been trying which

060the board has heard of you know at the meetings also is um not me substitutes so Dr Cal and her team have really been trying to address that teachers having to take given up their planning period we've addressed that um even AIDS coming in and teaching as a substitute we've addressed that um trying to find more substitutes or more long-term solutions for schools that have um a chronic problem of getting substitutes we're looking at uh solving those so we're looking at where where are we hearing the problems and trying to respond to that very quickly so the school based Subs would be an addition to the 20 some that are listed here that I have that we would hire right um you know I'm looking at the student teacher ratio um and also trying to

061adhere to our mitigation plans and and all of that uh I'm just wondering if more hands in some of the classrooms could make a difference um in terms of having the Care Professionals thank you Mr he Mr chairman yeah I just want to go off of what Miss Harriston was just talking about from an FTE perspective I I think Dr Cal mentioned that my question to the staff would be based on I'll be nice the mitigation processes that you have put in place and the requirements for our teachers to ad here have you added that into the FTE to say oh I've got 25 kids that can't sit on a rug at the front of the classroom which is one of our teachers telling us this and oh by the way they're a year and

062a half behind already because of the pandemic and oh by the way I'm supposed to teach them to read and catch them up but I can't have them sitting at the room they're spread out so my question is have we added those scenarios to your FTE to use the funding that we've been given for Co to address those issues and if you haven't I would ask that we're looking at that to and I get it we're asking if we've hired pair of professionals we can't even find teachers we're using our pair of professionals so we've gota we've got to do something because our teachers are screaming out to us we need help so either we need to relax some of these mitigation rules that you've got in place or we need to add something to

063that FTE calculator that gives them some help so sorry to get off on the budget piece but it it started with the questions but I think it's important for us to be looking at how FTE is calculated I've heard you say over and over and over we're in a different world right now well then we need to get in a different process of how we're doing the FTE we can't ask our teachers to do additional work and not give them a resource to fall back on so we need to be looking at how we spend that money differently other than $700,000 to clean duck work if we can bring people in to help with our students and take away the overwhelmed stress of our teachers that's what we've got to do so uh and and

064I would say listening to uh your comments and the other comments anytime if there's a need and and we're looking at that and administrators are really crying out and stuff a lot of the a lot of the things like you mentioned for duck work or you know for agac and stuff but the learning loss is primary and so you know we're listening to that and trying to respond to that and so when when the needs are presented to me it's like yeah we got cares act money that should be at at the Forefront of what we're doing I hear you um but it's not easy for our teams out at the schools to say hey I need some more money because usually they're used to saying at sorry ain't GNA happen so we've got to

065be that voice and so we're coming to you guys to say we need you to figure it out if we're going to continue these mitigations and these rules that we're forcing on our teachers they got to have help and FTE calculator doesn't fix the problem now if you want to add more to it based on the rules that we've got set then we've got to add rules that give them additional help to spend the that's what the co money's for um we need to utilize it for that one we need to catch up a year and a half worth of student loss learning laws and then I know we're going to get more to a calendar change but they're telling us they need more help I'm done um I'm going to also go off of

066uh the same idea that Mr Hill had um I um and I know again calendar change is coming Co can be used for substitutes is that correct hiring substitutes yes ma'am okay um when we ask a par professional to be a substitute we're giving them an extra $30 a day to do that substitute position is that correct like C yes okay is that equal to what we would pay a sub it would be more than what we would pay a sub it's so so the pairs are getting more than what a pair isting with the $30 yes with the $30 most of the pairs are getting paid more without the $30 but not all of them there's about per day this is per day okay Subs are paid $11 an hour without a degree and

06713 28 with a degree so most pair of not all but most make more on a daily basis but with the 30 they yeah okay I just want to make sure um and I agree with uh Mr Hill I have um quite a few emails from people uh from teachers who are just completely exhausted frustrated um and just really don't know how they're going to continue so I I think we have to come up with something to help these people this is the second month I know I've gotten quite a few emails um but I am concerned when people are telling me they're they're not getting to you know they're they're expected to do all the planning and all the collaborating and reaching out to parents and and everything we we normally need to do

068plus some in a situation that really doesn't lend itself to do that anymore because of the the the mitigation strategy and the fact that our kids are a year and a half behind um so I too think we need to really look at how we can further support um teachers and and just make sure that our pairs are also you know getting paid what a sub would be if that sub is in that classroom and I I believe you if you say that I just have pars who are very upset that they they believe they're that they're not getting that money um and that may be something you want to address with them you know it might be as as simple as a memo you know the principles who can help pairs understand that this

069is what you get per day we're giving you another $30 this is what we pay us up um because they they are you know they've always been crucial but they're even more so these last couple of years I will say just because you were talking could it be applied to covid I have not applied any of that to uh cares act funding as of yet if we need to we will that's where there might be changes in in future uh projections here um all that money is being diverted to the substitute line because it's really a substitute's not coming in is what's causing the problem so a lot of these mitigations are going against the substitute line we already had budgeted if that gets exhausted I will dip into K act money to make a

070whole that so that that's the strategy we've put in place for this year and we are attempting to hire school-based Subs at um several locations we're starting with the needy of schools and working up it how and how are we determine media schools the ones with the lowest fill rate for substitutes i' would like to get them at most of the schools but it's it's difficult to find even a full-time sub with Benefits it's difficult hard to read that mask on isn't it so Dr calber that would mean these School based Subs would go to that school every day yes okay so they would just report as if it's a regular job and they get there and they find out what class they're covering that particular day right they would report to the school every

071single day okay other questions yes Miss Harrison Mr chairman I would ask if you would ask our guests that they do not shout out and make a comment while our meeting is going on that that is a great Point yes please everyone has been those part very good tonight but please refrain from speaking out during I'm sorry she keeps removing her mask sir maam this is your warning other questions for Mr Hagler did okay that's the revenue side fli page no worries that's try to get more information just uh it's a it's a first look at how how how we uh stand on the year on the instructional side once again I built in the supplemental Appropriations that I plan on um putting for board on the instructional um about 86,000 21st century um 650,000

072for title one which I spoke about and then about $800,000 for cares that's on the instructional line there for supplemental um on the administration line about $240,000 for intervention design specialist with Car Act money the maintenance um 279 extra for care Z funny for extra custodial Services mainly did I not forward it I'm sorry I'm looking at my screen I was like there we go sorry there we are multitasking here got a paper screen and this okay um so the 1.5 and proposed um revisions there um as I mentioned 86,000 21st century new grant that we were just awarded at Liberty Middle School Title One positions the oneyear spend down of 650,000 and cares act teacher positions about 800,000 000 there under Administration 240 soy can pres uh makes up really intervention design specialist we're

073using with cares act money maintenance um 279,000 this is just a projection it may go down um we're using um an outside Source um to um help mitigate um and allow our custodians to stay in the schools rather than going out Mowing and so this this number may go down but I projected at 279 000 for extra custodia to help for cleaning and about 50,000 extra for cleaning supplies uh cares act funding um so what I want you to focus on here is all the categories look pretty good um I think Transportation even though I'm projecting it to come over budget I I don't think it'll be a problem bringing that one in on budget I do want you to focus on the maintenance line um it's getting hit pretty hard um and I want

074to talk to you about a couple things that are really kind of causing the stress on that um overall category electricals first pass when I looked at about $172,000 more than projection if I project out the whole year I'm just taking the first three months multiplying you know and divide by three you know multiply by 12 so we'll see what happens with that the maintenance department uh I've talked to Dr dewis and our maintenance department they're looking into some of these issues to see what might be causing the stress on the electrical and also water um was over 100 ,000 yes sir so is that a run rate compared to previous year look I can see where it would be now yeah I look at previous year and it's running higher um the overall electrical

075line probably has a 5 to 8% cushion in it uh from what I would expect in any given year and it's running even faster than that right now so we're looking into see if some bills and the Run rate were doubled um not that we paid double but it may have come in there and caused a problem so at the next when I do my mid year hopefully we get a much better picture but we're looking to make sure that n none of the buildings are having any issues are are running continuously with their HVAC so we're looking into that so hopefully more information on that the next one the water we're also seeing an overage of about $100,000 so both of those maintenance department are looking at right now um the repair and replace

076line um we had a lot of units break down here at the beginning of the year I think everybody knows that um so some of those units we had to put some things in place some Band-Aids until we can get some other things and major units replaced but that's running about $200,000 over all that being said we are watching this line um I don't expect it to come in this high at the end of the year um so but we are um kind of giv our attention to it but that's the one category that I probably have concerned with you know overall when you look at your seat overall though um ending budget uh we're in good shape we're coming in over budget on Revenue will still come in under budget on um expenditures just

077not that category so roughly about 1.51 1.6 million ending balance very early to make that guess but you know that's it's my job to kind of look at these things and present to the board what I see here in the first quarter so we're in a strong financial condition I don't think there's any risk on the revenue side from the state which we were facing last year we had a lot of unknowns um I I I think with the whole harmless we good for this year I will bring data back on what that impact might be in future years I heard the board earlier on that so have it answer any questions on the revenue uh expenditure site any Co dollars and you may have already said this are there any Co dollars included in

078these figures oh yes sir the same was what I spoke on the revenue side it's a one for one if I'm bringing in uh um cares act funding I'm referring it to cares act Co dollars if I'm bringing in Revenue I have expenditures to match those so it's a one for one I'm G be interested to see your numbers one when you take the students out and two take away Co funding I think it's a train wreck waiting to happen and we need to be aware I will say from a cares act funding standpoint we built in roughly over a million dollars into the original budget and you can see here that I've added about 1.2 to that so you're over $2 million in cares act funding for this year alone just in cares act

079funding so I understand your concern it's m too okay so we we've as I've said when we built this budget and as we go forward in future years we're going to have to I don't want to crash land the plane I want to bring it in slowly so we're going to have to weed oursel off of a lot of this funding over the next two years I mean it's a 23 budget and the 24 budget so to spend at this rate continually will could be problematic once you hit 24 25 sir you can't keep spending that this right not forever other questions from Mr Hagler so I will forward to our other funds there we go nutrition fund um as always this fund uh runs behind at the beginning of the year we are paying

080out over uh July and August um the 10 months uh contracts for the previous year to our employees not as much revenue coming in uh so um right now about a 582,000 loss uh through the first quarter that's every year we're sitting about this point um to put that in perspective um previous last year at the first quarter we were at a $628,000 loss and the year ended with a $93,000 loss so we're doing a little bit better than the previous year overall and we'll continue to monitor this as we go forward textbook fund uh you can see the beginning balance there um that's the state that's the state uh Revenue so far this year we'll continue to get more Revenue into the textbook fund roughly over 600,000 comes in from the state over the

081over the year we have spent 9 94,000 in expenditures so far this year and uh any balance of over $600,000 in the textbook fund we are um planning at looking at some adoptions this year with KAC funding helping us do that um so more to come on that later as uh the instruction Department goes forward with that but some of that funding will come through here's oops make a correction on textbook because we're are buying textbooks and a lot of that is digital contact and we'll span over six to seven years I had to make a correction in this it will not we will not be utilizing care SE fun for that you can't as if the contract goes over the life of that we will be using carryover money from the previous year to

082do that instead of cares with textbooks and sorry Chromebooks is that part of technology or is that didn't we use some textbook funding for that at one point we did but um that I've moved all the state textbook money into the textbook fund we're not using that anymore we I believe we're very close or there on the replacement of Chromebooks um Dr Ho 10 will give me some updated data as we build the budget next year to make sure that our replacement cycle and funding is appropriate for what we need um but we've put a lot of money in there over the last five years for that so I think we're pretty close to a replacement cycle every three to four years on that without having to put a lot more money in so um

083maintenance fun Lots going on here this is where all the the big dollars for maybe covid or cares act funding will flow through for uh HVAC replacement or air quality um a lot of the all the carpet went through here and some some bigger units that did break at the beginning of the year we're we're Expediting those using cares act funding to replace those units they're on order um and so some of this stuff is just back ordered it's taken a lot longer to get to um so we've got three I think Replacements um in different areas that have already been ordered been worked in we're just waiting for the parts to come in and get to those and then we're working on I think three or four schools for next summer that we'll use

084um uh car's act funding just a side note there was additional dollars from the state uh through cares act funding um that we got notice of about two two or three months ago specifically for haac it can't be used for anything else but that and it's a dollar Ford dooll match we were awarded 1.8 million so we have to spend 1 .8 million on that we did that this past summer so that will qualify so we don't really have to go we can use that money from this past summer and that will qualify for that um that the uh the county gave us to replace the at the four schools this past summer so that's another 1.8 million that I'll be bringing in and we have already pretty closely matched that at this point so

085good news on that point M has a question yes ma'am Mr hler if we could go back to the hes I at at a previous board meeting I had asked um regarding um those schools that we were going to be targeting yes and so you've mentioned that U you're going to focus on um this HVAC system can you identify or just refresh my memory of what schools ma'am and where are we with all of that uh this past summer Big Island Forest Elementary School Huddleston and Manita were all done okay uh our Focus for next year Dr D correct me if I'm wrong we're looking at Bedford Elementary Boonsboro good viiew and TJ mville and t uh Thomas Jefferson for next summer so do have we already taken the steps for beads and all of

086that or am I just too far ahead we are working with our um engineering firm to to so we can go out for bid all right as you can see there's there's time delays on this say so we want to get them out the bid get the bids in so they can order and it might take 6 months to get the know so uh we know that so we are moving forward as quick as possible we got these others okay um but in the meantime there are a couple other things we had to give our attention to for breakage bigger units and we had to get on top of those pretty quick so do you anticipate bringing the bids to us within the next month or so um we're doing our best to have that

087at the November meeting okay if there is a a if there's any delay could be at the December meeting we think either one will allow um uh uh a company to Begin work then before the winter holidays so U that's our Target because we want to give that whole winter time and late early Springtime for them to order and procure what they need to be able to to do the work starting in the spring and finishing in the summer oh absolutely okay thank you Dr doas Miss Harrison he said Boonsboro I know I'm soed excited about that and finish up foral yeah we had to do part of that that's part of one we're trying to fix right now from what happened at the beginning of the year so down the the list on the

088agenda so I was going to wait all righty okay and then the last fund is our self-insured health fund um as you can see we began the year roughly 6.2 million in reserves um it's at 6.5 that's typical in the first part of the Year where we have a high most of our employees are high deductible so they're playing they're paying the deductibles at the beginning of the year and then it kind of ratchets ratchets back I will say because of this healthy balance it's been hovering right around six million for the last two years we've not really had an increase in our premium to our employees or to the board that um for probably like four years here so very glad um very healthy um fund balance that we have um the plan that

089we do for our employees and encourage them to participate in and also a lot of information we put out to help go to the doctor when you need to but sometimes there's you don't need to go to the emergency room you can go to a clinic and when do you do uh when do you do that so we we do a lot Dr Connor oversees that program that wellness program and I believe it's really helped our self-insured health fund so happy to report on it any questions on those four fund so what percentage of change have you seen the balance here over the last say five years and I'm really really interested in the last two of how it's changed have we seen an influx in expenses or the ending balance I heard you say

090it's been healthy the last two years which is interesting if we're in a pandemic that that balance we do have um when you have a a big plan like this with as many employees have um we do carry a stop loss catastrophic insurance policy okay uh so any claim over leave $275,000 um um the reinsurer will start paying on that we had none two years ago and I think one this year just one one from 21 previous year so those are the ones that can get really expensive if you have five or six that even hit that stop loss at 275,000 that's a big hit on the plan so that's been relatively flat the last but most people that maintain a self-insured plan like this they'll tell you about every 8 to 10 years you

091have a bad year and that's when you dip into your reserves and that's what they're there for um when I say A bad year you could have several people go well over that amount and get towards a million dollars um the biggest change I see and I think the biggest pressure I see longterm on our on our plan is um there's a lot of new Innovative drugs coming out that are very very expensive and I think you'll see the pharmaceutical side becoming a larger and larger percentage of the overall plan uh than it was in the past um some of these Pharmaceuticals um are used instead of a medical procedure and some of them are life life saving but when when you talk about a prescription that could be $30,000 for one script a month

092that's that we pay that so it is but that's what insurance there you know we all come together to share for those that are in need and going through a difficult time but I see the Pharm the pharmaceutical being the biggest um that's future you have future yes sir but um I can get you that over I can get you ending balances for the last five years and so I just wanted to know if we've seen a huge increase you've answered my question the answer is no it would it's been above 5.5 probably for the last two or three years so it it hasn't changed drastically any other questions I think there's a last SL that says questions umy could have saved them all but I I think going through the revenues and asking after

093each slide is probably a little bit easier easier but overall um a good report uh I don't see us uh in any Financial um strain this year um but it it it is the future years that we didn't even concern yes sir any other questions from Mr hegler on this we'll hunt it right back to him school activity audit okay not as exciting but uh you I I did pass out to all the school board members I believe I photocopied or scan those in so they were electronically also this is not the school board or your budget or what we do up here's audit this is the school activity funds this is what's happening in the schools um with all the funds that they collect uh from clubs from Sports and also we do a

094lot money to the schools for instruction materials and other things we did uh we did receive a in accounting terms it's a qualified opinion uh it means that when you go into a school the bookkeeper has a lot of tasks that they do individually normally you would separate those duties out it's near impossible to do that with limited staff um so they give a qualified opinion everything looks in order U all the financials um uh bookkeepers did a great job this year very clean a lot of things that we'd seen in previous years was cleaned up and so I'm happy to report that um except for that which they do to every school district um we we received a clean audit this year on the activity funds a lot of information to digest there but

095I be happy to answer any questions if anybody's to Dr yes um can you just explain to me the material weaknesses that were noted on page three the material weaknesses is what I was explaining when you set up a control environment County and control environment you want separation of Duties well in an elementary school and some of these schools the bookkeeper receives the money accounts for the money they also uh cut the checks and then they give them to the principal for Signature we do require two signatures on the checks the bookkeeper and the principal I will say that um unlike other districts I don't know of another District around here um shortly after coming here about a year or two after I was here I did make a control change um we do do

096the bank reconciliation at the central office normally the bookkeeper does the bank wreck so they receive the funds they cut the checks and they do the bank wreck that's just too much all together so somebody here at the central office does the bank reconciliations um uh to add some control to that but it wasn't enough to overcome in the auditor's opinion that material weakness and control um unless you had two or three people doing it uh bookkeeping in each school you're not going to overcome that material weakness is that the same thing with the cash receipts yes ma'am the cash receipts primarily come to the teachers they turn them into the bookkeeper um we try to keep that separated it doesn't always happen that way people walk into the office but we have been moving

097to more of an online payment of cash receipts which will um limits the exposure with cash and that's that's your big concern uh is when you're uh doing transaction with cash around is that what you're talking about is that what they're talking about like just physically having cash yeah cash transactions is your biggest weakness in any environment any other questions yeah I do have one so Randy with these funds where you know let's face it we're we're not spending dollars in certain areas because of not being able to have certain activities yes sir are are the clubs or whoever is responsible for these dollars are they allowed to make Don to certain events can you give me something more specific on that yeah so like for example a JF I see class of 2020 has

098a balance of 8,667 correct well class of 2020 doesn't exist anymore correct so can that class donate that $8600 to another event um typically what they do and they usually usually principles will talk to me about that after the class is finished that money was set aside for them to use for end of year things and there's usually a bounce there for each class A lot of times that will be split up or donated to the class that's coming behind maybe the Freshman Class you give them a good starting point sometimes it's been used to buy something for the school in memory of the class so they usually ask and they're I've given the okay to do those types of things so they can donate their money and make a decision on where they want

099that money to go the class is usually gone by that time so it has to be the Principal with the leadership saying you know what are we do the principal approves that they can donate that money to another yes sir um and and if it's if it's if it's questionable anyway usually the principal will call me up and say Randy we're thinking of doing this what do you think of that is that is that okay thank you it's usually the principal with the leadership team deciding and looking into that other questions thank you updates on that audits are always fun reading materials so all right lacrosse update Dr cornette all right good evening members of the board um as you know afhs lacrosse program offered two lacrosse clinics one at Liberty High School on September

10018th and one at St River High School on September 25th to gauge the interest for the development of lacrosse teams across those two schools as requested I will share the participation and interest data from those two clinics so if you'll look at the first table here you can see um on September 18th at Liberty High School there were 10 students that that participated nine of those were Liberty High School students and one was santon River um as far as the grade break down participation data really shows that upper classman 10th through 12th graders were were very much more represented than the other um age groups there were four parents um from Liberty High School and two parents from St River High School attend that clinic five students from Liberty High School did show express interest

101however they were unable to attend that clinic um and I think it's important to note here point out that out of the nine students at Liberty High School that did participate four of those indicated that they do play currently play a Spring sport and they would not choose lacrosse in L of that sport so moving on to the lacrosse clinic at Stanton River High School on the 25th um very similar data uh no Liberty High School students attended that one eight Stant River High School students attended once again very heavy on the 10th through 12th grade students um no parents attended that one Stant River did have five students say that they were interest interested in Lacrosse but weren't able to make either Clinic um one student played spring Sports and that student uh indicated

102that they would not be interested in playing lacrosse in leou of that so in summary the data from both schools were similar school had nine students attend over the two clinics um the majority of students were were 11th and 12th graders both schools did have students that indicated they um played current spring Sports and would not choose lacrosse over that Spring sport after speaking with Mr zaring um jfhs athletic director and Mr Jeremy Carroll jfhs uh lacrosse boosters president typically varsity teams needed a min minimum of 18 to 20 students uh to safely and adequately build a team so that would be 18 to 20 girls and 18 to 20 boys um around 35 to 40 students would be ideal to adequate adequately build a JV Varsity combined program so again 35 to 40 girls

103and then 35 to 40 boys um the data indicates that there is not adequate interest at this time to implement girls and boys across at srhs and LHS um if that interest builds however in the future we will certainly work to provide that opportunity at either Liberty Stant River or both schools um jfhs has certainly modeled how to build a sustainable lacrosse program and it's evident that the feeder programs through W and travel opportunities in their Community um for students at an age are just very very critical in developing in reaching that JV and varsity level um we want to sincerely thank Mr Carol and the entire jfhs program lacrosse program for providing this opportunity for both St River and Liberty students um I was able to attend a portion of the clinic at Liberty

104and it was evident that students really enjoyed the opportunity um at this time I can answer any questions that you may have why do you automatically look me yeah yeah actually I dopr so if you and I talked earlier this week so it is my understanding from our conversation that once we okay this program for JF that it will be in place it may not necessarily be funded but it will be in place at the other two schools should the interest arise to where they can just move right into it correct yes ma'am policy dbaa um clearly says that if one school in the division has access to a a sport then all all three in the division would have that access then and I'm well aware of of I I don't want the perception

105out there that we're going to give to one and not provide to all um so the programs will be there just they need to be fulfilled right the polic go ahead I'm I'm sorry you go ahead Dr cornette so the policy says that um yes all three schools are would be eligible for that sport however it says that no team is required to fill the team if one there's a lack of interest um or two that it would hurt a current program or or activity at the school so to piggy back off that it's kind of like what we say about U fulfilling the HS that you can't see it so you can't see that we have these programs in place now for the other schools because there aren't any participants are there any programs

106that Stanton River and Liberty could use to where it we're giving an opportunity to them to participate in a different sport than what they have now yes ma'am I understand the question um I I met with the BCPS Athletics team which is all three principles High School principles all three Middle School principles and both uh sets of athletic directors and all all three schools Clearly say that there they feel like there's a need to extend the cross country and track programs to the Middle School level so a Middle School cross country team and a middle school um track program so now what do we need to do to get the ball rolling on that so back to policy DBA um it it it states that that the school the it starts with the principles but

107I can help facilitate that if if that's the the board's wishes um would would demonstrate interest so we have to show interest and um also Financial commitment there if if those are established it would be taken to the superintendent to Dr Bergen and um if he agreed with that recommendation he would make that recommendation to the board during the next annual um budget process could you I I I would like to see it move forward to see if there will be an interest from for for participation and I'd like to know how much it would cost us agreed I can work with the athletic team thank you very much Dr I appreciate it yes ma'am any other questions on Lacrosse you didn't wear your Lex FR uh flow tonight I was expecting yes sir it

108seems like every board meeting I get I talk talk about La cros that's great thank you sir okay World languages and Fine Arts curriculum updates Dr cornette and Miss right for this presentation I will be representing Dr Woodford and Dr Trosper from the instruction team um at the September board meeting Dr Trosper and the instruction team uh share curriculum updates in the four areas core areas of math reading Science and History uh tonight miss dong has joined us again to share the great work being done in the world language and Fine Arts curriculum we were asked to bring back a report on CT and dual enrollment courses offered at each High School which we will be doing next month when Dr Trosper can be here and hopefully our new supervisor of CTE as a reminder

109our primary focus is on fulfilling the mission of Beford County Public Schools which is empowering learners for future success the team is doing this by supporting schools in addressing unfinished learning from the previous two school years and implementing knowledge skills attributes and experiences identified by employers higher education and the State Board of Education as critical for future success the profile of a Virginia graduate includes confidence es in critical thinking creative thinking communication collaboration and citizenship by the time our students graduate we want them to be proficient in these skills additionally we want them to achieve and apply appropriate academic technical knowledge attain and demonstrate productive workplace skills qualities and behaviors align knowledge skills and personal interests with career opportunities and build connections and value for interactions with diverse communities to accomplish this we have to

110meet student needs in academic classes and in elective courses elective courses are where students can express their passions and interests and are often often the courses that keep students coming back when things become difficult I will now turn the presentation over to miss dong to share more noes sh good evening our world languages program are a significant tool for increasing college readiness for our Learners any student seeking an advanced studies diploma is required to take three years of One World Language or two years each of two World languages based on Staffing availability and student interests we offer the following World Language options of Spanish French Latin German American Sign Language Arabic and Chinese taught in person when possible to help with learning losses teachers have spent time at the beginning of this year reviewing the

111essential standards and Concepts from the prior course teachers have also added resources and canvas to support the learning gaps that they see in class I met with our world language teachers on September 20th during our BCPS professional learning day to begin our work on developing curriculum resources that will support our peace and guides that align with the new 2021 World Language s sols we last updated our pacing guides in 2007 we will be working on those in the spring collaboratively we developed a look fors list which is to support our administrators when they come into World Language classrooms to do observations we will also we also provided uh training on our online textbook curriculum which is the K Carnegie Learning passport on October 8th for all of our new teachers and a refresh for any

112returning teachers based on Staffing availability and student interest we offer the following Fine Arts programs at the secondary level Art band choir dance and theater our elementary schools have both music and art programs last year when the seventh and eth grade read the high schools some students were exposed for the first time to some of our Fine Arts programs our fine art programs as well as our summer programs saw an increase in enrollment due to that this fall we also met on September 20th during our professional learning day to begin our work on developing curriculum resources that will support our pacing guides that align with the 2020 Fine Arts SOS we also developed look fors to support our administrations when they come into Fine Arts classrooms to do observations our theater and band programs are

113currently running performances as well as choir under BCP PS covid protocols we also have displayed teacher and student artwork throughout the school administration building we decided to feature our art teachers work until we could gather enough student work for the school year and we plan to add more currently have another dozen sitting in my office that I'll be putting up on Tuesday we also plan to add and switch out more student work at the semester point and I have a little video that features some of this work [Music] [Applause] [Music] e [Music] we have some incredibly talented teachers and students and we're excited to continue to feature their work in the building we also are going to be returning to our student art exhibits at the bower Center for the Arts we're very lucky that

114they have partnered with us we'll be having four art exhibits this year this is the uh um advertisement for our first one our elementary schools are divided into two groups on November 16th through the 20th we'll be showing work from Bedford Elementary Boonsboro Forest good viiew Thomas Jefferson and Otter River then March 15th through the 19th we'll be showing work from Big Island Bedford primary hudleston Manita mville New London and Stewartsville in April the end of April we will have our middle school art exhibition and then finally we will have the Bower Invitational that will showcase our high school students work which will be uh May 14th and uh we will send you all an invitation to these I also wanted to share with you uh some of our upcoming music performances from not only

115our marching bands but also our concert bands and choirs from all three schools middle school and high schools there's a lot of coordination between our middle schools and high schools as far as music is concerned as well um I wanted to share with you upcoming theater and dance performances from all three zones as well and I know many of you attend them and we just are very lucky we have some really fantastic talented people in our County and at this time uh we would be happy to take any questions well hearing none Miss D long I do um first of all love the art displayed in the back really makes the the office pop so thanks for bringing that in looking forward to seeing the student work soon a couple questions so um I liked

116the list of high demand languages that we are now offering but I'm wondering about their availability in all of our schools so I know for instance uh when the legendary Lisa Butler retired Latin has not necessarily been available in person um so I'm just curious uh you know if I'm a student at liberty or a student at St River or JF how would I access some of these language classes my answer um since all the others aren't here um yes so if a student if it's not offered in person so for example Latin is offered in person at JF but they we don't have the staff at um at St River the majority of the courses are happening through virtual Virginia we do have one um that's through uity and I know through the virtual

117Virginia that you actually have to like call in or do like for the sign language you do video uh so it's very interactive with the um foreign language program with virtual Virginia Okay so we've even had Russian offered like we don't have a student currently taking that but I know of a student who took Russian through virtual Virginia so we very much work with students if they want a language that we don't have like currently offered and we have students taking AP in some of these as well okay excellent so these are available countywide if we don't have the Personnel to teach them face to space we have virtual options to support that excellent and then my other question is I know prior to co we had had some conversations about extending the drama programs

118down to the middle school I know Forest Middle School has uh the the great uh Mrs White that has really created quite a farm team for cavaliere theater and there was some hope of getting similar programs at Stan middle and Liberty Middle where are we on that that is something I think I'd have to give back to you um I know of one of the zones but I'm not sure what I'm at Liberty to say or I mean I don't know the progress ex officially so um we will find that out for you and get back to you on that that would be excellent thank you ma'am thank you both very much okay item 3.05 options for board meeting locations uh know Dr mey had asked um Dr Bergen to develop this presentation so it

119looks like Dr dewis is the one presenting it okay yes sir thank you um Dr mey had requested information about options for potential meeting venues that have larger capacity than this regular board meeting room so this presentation will offer several locations for consideration one possibility is to have board meetings at a school location um three possibilities uh for regular use uh would include the Bedford Elementary Gym Liberty Middle cafeteria and the Liberty High Auditorium um those have been locations for special meetings over the past several years um any school location is challenging because of the student and other school events that occur on campus that would need to be rescheduled or modified uh to accommodate board meetings additionally um AV Equipment would need to be set up and taken down for each meeting um which

120could take two technology staff members the better part of a day to do um other factors to consider include uh include ways of restricting access to the rest of the school facility just for safety reasons um the current health order requiring masks of all in attendance and the amount of parking available which in most schools would be ample uh Susie G Gibson Science and Technology Center um is another possibility for Schoolboard meetings um the Schoolboard met at Gibson for many years until April 2013 when meetings shifted primarily to this room um the auditorium capacity at Susie Gibson is 475 without any physical distancing if we did Implement any distancing it could uh 6 feet I I estimated would be around 120 and if we have that to 3 feet it would be maybe 240 um

121of course as a school building the health order requirements for masks and other mitigation steps would be in place there uh it does have ample parking some of it is at a distance from the auditorium entrance um there's an existing sound system that could be used in part um and it would have to be supplemented with with new equipment um closed session space uh at that location um could occur in an off in the office conference area call from the auditorium and um the auditorium is not used regularly for school function so some some furniture and Equipment could be left um standing there uh for for board meetings and other similar meetings uh it's important to note that at Susie G Gibson there are some Americans with Disability Act accessibility concerns there that have been

122noted in um reviews of that facility uh through um the Department of Education and just just um by our own staff um we would want to make sure that there's adequate parking um that's accessible um the slope of the auditorium floor would not meet current code it's too steep um and so individuals with Mobility concerns are in a wheelchair that that could pose a real risk um we we would have to make sure that there was signage for an alternative side entrance which would allow um folks with Mobility concerns not to have to use stairs or and and to avoid that slope uh we would have to adjust some seating in that Auditorium to allow room for alternate um seating as needed um adapted seating uh in addition rest there is no restroom access on

123the level of the auditorium there are six stairs um to the closest restrooms uh we have got a cost estimate for a lift that could be used on those six stairs it's about $30,000 that's only you know and that would only be for the restroom access it wouldn't address any of those other Ada concerns um these are a few pictures of uh showing the lobby entrance to the auditorium on the left uh spruced up uh in large part by the staff and alumni group um in celebration of the rename in and rededication um there the middle picture has a view of the stage uh where the board may choose to sit and the front area where tables could be set up for staff and the on the right there's a view of the seating from

124the rear of the auditorium uh another option considered is the town council chambers um which was used for this uh for the August 2020 Schoolboard meeting we borrowed that space it has a capacity of 154 without any physical distancing I estimate that that would be probably down to 50 at 6 feet or maybe a 100 or so under 100 at 3 feet um there is ample parking there some again some of it's at a distance from the municipal building entrance um the the town council chambers is on the second level of the Town Municipal Building however there is a stairs an elevator there the closed session space is on the first level that's where the Town Council holds their meetings um there's mobile uh audiovisual equipment available for use um with the right coordination with

125the town it may be that that could be set up for um more permanent use um there um depending on AR you know how those arrangements could be could be developed of course meetings would have to be scheduled around town use to avoid any conflicts and um I I think that the town manager has assured uh Dr Bergen and me that we would be welcome to to use that facility I think of course if it were to be a long-term arrangement we we'd want to make sure that um the board and the Town Council communicated and work that out um in the way that they needed to um these pictures show a view of the seating for the board and selected staff on the left you can you can see there um that availability and

126also a view of the audience seating area from the view the board or council's vantage point so I hope this information gives you adequate information to consider other potential venues for board meetings uh are there any questions at this time uh just as you know and and and just to say before we start just just as we did with this room the staff is ready to make another venue of uh work for inperson and stream meetings you know at at your direction so so Mr ly and then miss Kirby um school look well I'm gonna think of out loud here fford Elementary Gym we're setting up chairs Liberty Middle we're setting up chairs correct uh at Liberty Middle we we would be setting up for the board uh tables and chairs we'd set up for

127some audience there is that telescoping seating that comes from the wall which could be used and and would not require setup other than just to but we'd be taking out cafeteria tables and okay so that's yeah know we're we're getting into yeah there's some work to be done right all right so liy high school has seating in place uh it's got the stage talk to me about the setup substantial setup and takeown that would be required at liby high school well um when we were there before for meetings um the the board seating area would need to be established uh and chairs um staff seating area would need to be established um the audiovisual equipment um is available and could uh would need to be set up however and tested um the thing about I

128think what what I what I would worry about at a school like Liberty is that they would they would need to use the auditorium on any given day for the the drama program or the dance program or a school assembly and and so there would be the set up and take down each time um for that it couldn't be left which would primarily be tables and chairs correct tables chairs and AV Equipment um cameras Etc is does the possibility not exist to set up AV adequate AV on a permanent basis to which would alleviate doing set up and tear down each time Dr hor do you have any thoughts on uh permanent more permanent um streaming capabilities uh microphone capabilities all the all the AV uh equipment that a meeting would require at at a

129school like Li High School right I mean we're we're still talking about an auditorium that is used for for students so um we have purchased a camera that can be set up we have purchased mobile audio system with uh 14 mics um all that has to be set up I don't know that we would want to leave that stuff set up on a stage so that's just a matter of setting set up yeah I I totally get that piece of it I'm talking and I'm I'm a I heard the word let I Ed earlier this evening that's me um I'm technologically challenged but uh in terms of you know Mary what all do you have going on in the bass there the main the main issue would be to set up some monitors so like

130the last time we had to go to classroom pull out the clear touch panels to use those so we would need something more permanent that we could use and we wouldn't have to go for out of classrooms uh to utilize that the audio system that they have there is is decent it works pretty well and U we would just need to kind of tie into that more permanent way than what we did last time we want something stablish so we could just come in plug in the laptops for live stream and we'd be ready to go the camera is something that would not be able to be set up Perman we have to and we probably would end up needing more than one camera for that um but you know and then we would have

131to run cables to that so that's something that could be left permanently okay fair enough um if you were to set up as much of the gear on a permanent basis that you realistically could without interfering in daily operations of or capabilities for that uh room so that it wouldn't interfere with um school stuff how much time would that cut off from your setup um if you could do as much if you could do as much permanently without impacting negatively impacting daily stuff that goes on in the auditorium how much time would that cut off from your set up it would uh it really depends on on what the school would be so like if they have functions in there where they are actually having you know shows uh band performances and things like that

132where they may have to adjust the equip equipment we would need to allow ourselves plenty of time before the board meeting to get in there get everything set back tested and to make sure you know that it's um it's really hard to say you know if if we have screens there that we can just pull out of a closet somewhere and and connect that would be great if it's something where we have to actually truck them in um because you know if they're in classrooms it's kind of hard to CH to pull them down at night and all that um so again it would a lot would kind of play into that to determine how much time okay but you could you could knock a pretty significant chunk of setup time off if we had

133some permanent the greatest degree possible of permanent fixtures set up okay um next question do we pay for uh use of the council chambers uh we we did not the the only cost we had at that meeting uh was to kind of rent the streaming service that night um and and and uh the the town manager did not discuss a cost with us when we when we discussed it so so the answer is I don't think so so but I don't want to speak for the council okay well that's probably something we need to I need to check out because that sounds like it would have the less negative least negative impact in terms of Av set up for our technology folks uh but we also need to know whether whether we're paying for it

134and how much it's going to be I in in the short term I think there would be no cost uh according to Mr Warner um I think he what he just said is any any long-term arrangement we just need to have further conversation but certainly if it's for the next few meetings or few months that would be that would be just fine um I I remember back in the day when meetings were at Susie Gib uh but it sounds to me like that's that would probably be the the most painful option available to us so I mean just from mainly from the Ada aspect um okay that's all I got for right now so miss Kirby and then Dr mey just a statement that I I just I just want to make just I remember

135when we were talking about traveling to the different schools within the county in a pre-co world and we were going to go have meetings in Stewartsville so Stewartsville parents can have the chances to come and and have them in Forest make it easier for them and when we were doing that and again this must have been a preco world because everything seemed so easy then we didn't have all these hurdles and it wasn't going to be that hard to get them in in the in these different locations as it is now um so I'm not sure what happened if Co really has hindered that much um back to Susie Gibson um I do remember meetings being there as well you said that the latest meeting that was there was in 2017 correct uh we uh

136Miss Johnson looked back at the board minutes it was 2013 really when the shift came to this room so what Ada regulation changed from then till now that would warrant $330,000 uh it no nothing changed in the law um we we had a review since from around that time to now we did have a review by the Department of Education of all of our career and technical programs in our schools or high schools including Susie Gibson and um that was pointed out to us uh explicitly as well as any number of other um gaps that we had which which we remediated for the most part um our answer to that one was really just not to use it very often um so the school really doesn't use that space very often uh and and there

137are very few public meetings in it either and also too it it you because to me I I know it says 30,000 but I don't believe that it would be that much to get it compliant um and then you have an auditorium capacity of 475 and and I and I understand mitigation factors trust me I get it um I'm not that naive and know it's not out there you talked about how with the space in that this number would probably cut in half maybe even more than half to allow the space in between them but these chairs in here will set up tonight right beside each other we didn't set those up for distancing this was just shown as an example not not that we would need to U but if if it were to

138if the board needed that or that became a a requirement that I just put those numbers in there for that purpose just all Dr M um yes and I think one of the reasons too that chairs are like they are here is because this is not a school it's still school property yeah but it's not I think that the whole SB 1303 is schools I I think that's what it is um as far as this um I was just interested in in trying to get some information so we could all think about whether or not this is something we wanted to do certainly I don't think we to make a decision this evening but my thought after listening to this and thank you Dr dewis for all that information is and you said something very

139pertinent just to miss Kirby that it the auditorium at Susie G Gibson is very rarely used by anybody it's a historical building at this point um I think anything we due to this would probably be covered by covid money because we're trying to create a sa space you can think about that a second um but it might be nice to put the money into that space because then it would be fixed number one it's a it's an additional space where not only we could use it but the community could use it um other schools might be able to use it for programs Community people um could use it um I just think it might be worth the thought to fix that building so that we I mean the space is just sitting there wasted um

140and the reason that I'm a little bit hesitant after this presentation for schools is that um Mr zon and his team were hired for our schools and our students and I really I I would have a little bit of a problem every month with pulling people to have to do something so we could meet if we could make it permanent at Suzie G um I think it's worth the the considering investing the money and I I think you said you know in terms of access you could have a side entrance I remember when I first came to the county that was the big issue was Susie G just wasn't accessible so if we can make a side entrance um if we can pull out some I'm just talking here you tell me if this is

141what you were thinking pull out some seats on the top or the bottom where orever so that a person in a wheelchair or people with mobility issues could just go down you would have that area either in the front or in the back I don't know what would be best um it would give us just a really nice space in a historical building too just my thoughts Kirby I just wanted to peig it back off of something Dr M just said too um Mr Dr the stor there a historic Mark or historic plac when she presented to us didn't she present that that would help us that that organization would help with or help reimburse some of our cost for fixing up the buildings do you remember that is that something we could check into

142because it seemed like that there was something there that they would share the cost of Renovations I know they offer to do work too yeah whatever so I mean is that something we could follow up with what organization was that the the the hisorical society one on theal registry the one U Miss jro was in here presenting to us so she would be a good source there's also a tax credit for historic buildings right right up to up up to 25% of developer so why would we need tax well a developer a developer I a developer can claim 25% U historical tax credit in in their work and I think we see examples of that going on just just within our neighborhood so um of course all of that can be explored I've been having

143conversation with Miss jro and the alumni group about the the the plaques that will designate the Virginia National Registries and so um we can certainly follow up on that I mean I still would like to see it usable whether or not we use it good okay Dr hickon then Mr lenie um we have two high school auditoriums that are in dire need of renovation I think before we go spending a lot of money on on an auditorium that we don't use we should fix up the auditoriums that we do use are there any any limitations on modifications that can be done to Historic structures such as Su I I think there are some expectations with regard to materials and design uh I I don't think those are um insurmountable U and of course with the

144tax credit I think it more than offsets that so um in the models that I see Mr Hill so general statement little disappointed that these recommendations don't include how to go out into our community this is basically keeping us here in Bedford I know I've been requesting for multiple years that we get out into the different schools that allow our parents and community members to attend these meetings um it cannot be that difficult to figure out how to make it happen so I want to challenge our staff you got to figure it out we need to be out in our communities it also gives us as a board the opportunity to go into our current buildings to see what's happening it gives us an opportunity to see community members and parents and students that cannot

145drive to Bedford for our meetings I know I keep hearing about the schools are using these these areas are they using them every night and we're not married to Thursday night for a Schoolboard meeting correct I'm not aware of it being there's got to be ways to make this happen to get us in our community um a Live question that come from one of my parents is does it have to be live stream if we've opened up the capacity for more people to attend still record it but then as soon as it's over post it and it's out there for people to view so it's not that we're keeping you from viewing it it's just that we're we're changing our venue or our way of doing things to get out into our community into our

146school buildings I still think it's important for us to go to every single building every single Community to give people an opportunity to attend and to participate but but then you've got parents that have to drive from Boonsboro to Stewartsville to attend a school board meeting and vice versa or they can view it afterwards I would have to earlier when um Mr Hill had mentioned the ideal of us going to other schools to conduct our our board meetings and giving our community an opportunity to come and participate um who lived in that particular Zone I was all for it I still believe that that's a good ideal um and certainly one that we can certainly pursue but the opportunity for us to partner with the Susie G Gibson and the historical society and and think

147about uh working alongside of them and giving the community an opportunity to utilize this building uh um to have our board meetings in I think is is one that I'd like to see us really strongly consider um I I just think it would be a a wonderful wonderful uh way in which to utilize the auditorium the meetings were held there and I'm dating myself um our board meetings were and I thought that they were it was a good place uh certainly there are some limitations that need to be looked into um but I think it's worth doing so um it's you know the parking there while it's uh it's somewhat limited but there's still a very large parking area now um that can be used as well so my thoughts are let's look at Susie

148G Gibson as a possibility strongly consider that and still not rule out the opportunity for us to be in various communities in our schools dist I like the town council chambers I think that that has the the uh the least amount of obstacles uh it's right here in town it's convenient now ad set up everything's there for us other other thoughts on that Susie G Gibson or checking getting more information on possible Partnerships funding versus maybe Town council chambers versus Liberty High School I'd like to get some more information again I don't think we have to make a decision tonight but it's certainly something that we can work need to look into I mean do Dr du you mentioned short term no problem long term something we'd have to talk about I think that's something

149we need to address with uh Mr Warner find out what you know what they what they would want will we to use the Town Council chamber Chambers long term is the um Board of Supervisors room their meeting is that any bigger than this was that looked into bigger than this yes was that looked into I I we did not um you're looking at County County County to County as opposed to County to town right uh if that's something the board would want us to follow up on and talk with I mean your option and I believe Mr Ley made a a good point as well when you check back with the town could you also check on the streaming services and if there's charge long-term charge for that I remember something about that at the

150time yeah I think that price tag was a lot higher than we thought it would be that's part of the long-term consideration is what equipment could be our expectations for for streaming a meeting may be different from from the the town council's uh routine and so um it that would probably be part of that long-term conversation is what equipment we need to be there who who who provides it how to you know is that part of the part of the uh the deal you know that could be worked out so sure we can do all of that yeah I remember shop yes about that okay and then other other staff logistical issues could you also think about that as we're transitioning from being in the same building as offices to you know everyone is having

151to transport everything to different location how we could affect that as smoothly and seamlessly as possible so could we get an update to the update in November certainly work toward that y y so we should get more information on this at the November meeting thank you all right action items 9.01 calendar revision for 2122 school year we're just skipping up it okay uh yes good point um fiscal year 20 2022 23 budget calendar Mr Haggler yes since we're just talking about the first quarter of this year I thought I'd bring up budget for next year um which we already started discussing and things that are going to impact and concerns about the future year um I did uh on on presented to the board tonight is a proposed um draft of the budget calendar very

152similar to what it was the last two or three years with uh proposed dates uh for meetings in which we can um get a first budget over to the county um so they can build that and uh consider that for their budget uh sessions and have time to um review and have questions on that so I present this to you tonight um I believe last year we added in a meeting in December for board input so that stayed in there that was a change last year uh so on December 9th and uh be happy to answer any questions or any modifications questions from Mr Hagler on the budget calendar okay bring that back action at the next meeting great that again in November great Poli the updates this is SE this evening we are presenting

15325 policies and regulations for information these policies will be brought back to the board for Action at the November 11th board meeting assigned members of the executive team are available to answer any questions policy bbba qualifications of Schoolboard members addit to include changes in wording as recommended by BDA as well as the elimination of outdated information in the policy that refers to appointed school board members are there any questions yeah what does outdated information mean can can you who's got the mouse to scroll through the presentation I do okay let's just scroll down so we can see what it's not working once upon a time I don't know how far back were board members appointed as opposed to elected so this policy had some language in it that still reference back to the days who

154could be appointed 30 years ago back next one yes ma'am policy BCE School Board committees this policy has been edited to allow for standing committees including a budget and planning committee question is that limited to budget and planning or can other because at one point we had a facilities committee so now we had talked about public uh poliy well no we talked about a um governmental Affairs we talked about that at one point yeah something about legislation govern it could be anything you want this policy can be updated you can we could just say there should be there can be standing committees of the bed County School Board to be determined by the school board okay yeah because I don't I think the way it's written right now it's it's it's implying that those are

155two standing committees that the two committees that would be allowed under that does that make sense except I intended to be one committee the budget and planning is a s commit same yeah same thing yeah it this is a proposed revision for the board we can have as many standing committees as you'd like um I know there's a lot of interest from the board there a lot of conversation about the board members having more upfront input in the decisions we make around the development of CIP and the this committee Network we could change language to say there may be standing committees or the desire of the school board to have standing committees we would need to Define that so every in most School individuals that have standing committees they list the standing committees as they

156created okay well I think we need the facilities I think we need and does the second paragraph there special committees may be appointed by the chair or created by the school board created by School Board action those are special committees are not standing committees they they fix for one function create it topic topical really could you put put both together and just leave it open no special standing and special committees may be appointed by the chair or created by the board by board action certainly can yeah cuz right there it's says there shall be no standing committees of meford County School Board except for Bud plan just just combine them into that second paragraph and then um my question that I had um created by Ford action could we also put something in there or

157is this not appropriate to put within this policy um created or terminated by board action because if we see 5 years down the road we don't need a certain committee can we vote to eliminate that Committee of course would you that so I'm happy to do whatever the board would like to do you want to me to bring this back for information again next month with just leaving it open to however we want to Define Committees and not limit it to any one particular committee for would you like us to list the committees as Mr suggested when we bring well you want to amend it tonight and bring it back for Action that I I think the sooner we can get this pass the better because you need to finance and budget F okay do

158you want to spend meeting time now thinking about the wording or would you like me to create some suggested wording and send it out for all the board your consideration before we consideration time circulated to all of you after yes yeah okay very good okay regulation BCE School Board standing committees this is a suggested new regulation to supplement policy BCE the purpose of the regulation is determine how and when appointments to standing committees will be made how committee meetings should be conducted and the responsibilities of the budget and planning committee so that may need to be changed some too Poli are there any questions on that one policy CBG evaluation of the superintendent edits include additions and changes to the vsba recommended policy to incorporate language from the superintendent's contract and the board's recently adopted

159norms and protocols document are there any questions policy efb food services policy language has been edited as recommended by the vsba to reflect Amendments of Virginia code section 22.1 n. 7 by House Bill 2013 legal references have also been updated to conform to state law are there any questions policy gbb staff weapons and school this policy has been rewarded to conform to vssb recommendations and to reflect enactment of Virginia code section 22.1 28.24 by House Bill 1080 legal and cross references hav't also been updated are there any questions policy gcpd professional staff discipline policy language has been edited as recommended by vsba to reflect amendment of Virginia code section 22 . 1-37 by House Bill 570 and Senate Bill 167 and cross references updated accordingly are there any questions policy gcqa non-school employment by professional

160staff members policy language has been added as recommended by vsba with updated cross references are there any questions policy gdn evaluation of support staff policy language has been edited and legal and cross references have been updated as recommended by VBA are there any questions policy I school year school day policy language has been edited as recommended by vsba to reflect amendment of Virginia code section 221-9800 are there any questions regulation ICI Elementary recess requirements this regulation is recommended for deletion by BCPS staff since the language has been incorporated into policy IID are there any questions so just to clarify we're combining the two policies we are not eliminating anything yeah the the policy was just it's added to the bottom of the it's just a s that right there on the screen was just taken

161that's all the regulation was and it was just added okay great thank you policy IG AJ driver education policy language has been added in the first paragraph to reflect amendment of Virginia code section 22.1 205 by House Bill 1918 and text in footnote 2 has been added to reflect amendment of Virginia code section recommended by vsba legal and cross references have also been updated are there any questions regulation IA field trips this regulation has been updated as the companion to the policy and denotes the approval process for field trips are there any questions policy igd College and Career Readiness policy language has been added as recommended by vsba to reflect amendment of Virginia code section 221-2535 1 by house bille 1276 are there any questions policy J student absences excuses and dismissals policy language has

162been added along with with other edits as recommended by VBA to reflect amendment of Virginia code section 22.12 54 by House Bill 1940 and the definition of an excused absence has been updated to follow examples from Virginia code section vac 20-1 13-10 legal and cross references have also been updated are there any questions can you go back to that are you saying that we're adding the word counselor yeah why would why would a counselor be involved in illness as document about parent physician counselor why would a counselor be involved in I'm not a school counselor this was Dr woodford's policy um yeah I have Dr woodford's policy um my guess is mental health yes I don't want to guess I want to know why we're adding the word counselor I mean to me that's apparent

163I but it's a licensed physician or licensed counselor I think that's the meaning of mental health counselor if medical condition is documented by the parent or the physician or the m is that is that given any rights over the parent no any of those it's not a school counselor it's a licensed counselor like or a note a documented Note coming from one of those three people yes any other questions regulation Jed student absences excuses and dismissal this regulation has been updated as the companion to the policy and includes examples of excus absences and has been edited to reflect a change from paper emergency card record to digital emergency contact information are there any questions policy JF CD weapons in school the policy language and legal and cross references have been rewarded to conform to vsba

164recommendations are there any questions policy J gbj G student suspension expulsion the policy has been edited to change grade configurations for short-term and long-term suspensions to conform to state code so that that's all that changed right here policy JG da disciplining students with disabilities policy wording changes and legal references have been updated as recommended by vsba are there any questions policy JH Suicide Prevention all policy changes including legal and cross references have been updated based on vsba recommendations to reflect enactment of Virginia code section 221-2007 point21 by House Bill 2107 policy language has been added in the duties of teachers and administrative staff section as well as the removal of wording and the abuse and neglect section and the addition of a parental review of material section are there any questions policy KGB public conduct

165on school property policy language has been added to expand the ban on firearms from schools to include all school-owned or leased facilities and expands the ability of school officials to remove or prosecute individuals who disrupt School functions from schools who include all functions are there any questions policy Ken sex offender registry notification the policy title has been updated with additional edits as recommended by vsba to reflect amendment of Virginia code sections 9.1 92 and 18.2 37.5 by Senate Bill 579 are there any questions policy knna violent sex offenders on school property this policy is recommended for deletion by vsba since the substance of the policy has been incorporated into policy km are there any questions policy La Education Agency relation goals policy language and cross references have been updated including the removal of some language

166previously added by BCPS staff to correspond with suggested revisions by vsba are there any questions thank you thank you you you earned your pay tonight my goodness right additional action items okay so now1 do earlier calendar revision for 2122 School Dr calber yes um over the past two months Dr Bergen has been meeting with school level groups including School staff and BCA as part of his transition planning based on feedback teachers are't aable to get planning and Grading completed during their scheduled planning times during the day because they are covering classes and remediating students the executive team would like to alter the current 2021-22 school calendar and add five more work days to the year to allow a planning day approximately every 3 weeks this would include four additional work days added to the calendar

167which are indicated in red on the draft attached to the bardocks the fifth day is February 7th which was originally a professional development day which we recommended changing to a staff planning day the state of Virginia is still requiring 990 hours or 180 days of instruction for the school year we would be uh using banked hours that we acrew each year for days We unexpectedly have to close school by using four Bank days we would not have to add any days to school um to our calendar and there would be enough banked hours left to cover potential snow days or other unexpected Mis dayss do you have any questions about the calendar revisions then Mr Hill uh yes how many many snow days would we have then you have Banks from what I have from

168Dr Woodford uh we usually have 90 additional hours each year four days would use 24 of those hours leaving us with 66 which is 11 days thank you Mr Hill these additional days are these additional days that the teachers will actually get their time or will it be days filled with backtack meetings backtack training back to back to back and they have no time to themselves these are teacher planning days Team Planning days they are not to be used for professional development so it's for the teacher to decide what they do with those days we're not directing we're not directing okay um I'm all for giving additional time here's my concern um we have students who are consistently out of school because again our mitigation um we've got some students that have been in the

169school a total of 10 days this entire year and so here we go again we're four more days for the kids to be out of school how do we address you already heard we're a year and a half behind in some areas how how do we address the student need and again I don't want to get it mixed up that I don't support this it's just a concern knowing we literally have students that go to school they're sent home for 10 days they come back for one day and they could have possibly been around a positive student and they go home for another 10 days that is ludicrous and yet here we are we're going to do another four days of them being at home I'm a little concerned about our students so while I

170agree with the policy change in the calendar days for the teachers because I've heard loud and clear from our teachers they're overwhelmed they need time hence the reason why I ask do they truly get those days you said yes but my concern is how do these four days affect our students because we've got way too many that are not in class class so I'm just making that comment that is a major concern we need a plan of how do we get our students back in school and we say we're back in school five days a week we are not in school five days a week um our students are at home 10 days at school a day home 10 days and we've got teachers that have told us it's like a rotating door where a

171set is here and then they'll be quarantined and they're gone for 10 days and then they're back for a day and they're gone again so we've got to figure that out other questions me I'm I'm just curious since we have all the technology of being able to log on because these kids in quarantine and having an does this affect them actually getting a snow day I mean will they still get snow days or will they be required to log on and so I remember wake it up and he in the snow day was the best thing in the world remember you know I mean I want kids to be able to kids so do I mean will they still get snow days and teachers have snow days where they have no obligations of a work

172day it could be either way could choose choose yeah yeah this that affect my my opinion one way or another I was just curious because I just thinking how much fun it was being a kid okay thanks I'm glad Mr Hill asked that question because I actually had a teacher ask me if I could get Dr Bergen to pinky promise that she would not have um professional development okay on on those those days um you're not having professional development for this day did you hear that okay um so that that is great I'm sure that will reassure a lot of people and I love hearing as well that this is a more sustainable model than maybe some of our our neighbors have um implemented as well and it's something that we can continue all year

173to give our teachers that that time they def desperately need to get caught up on work lesson planning um and working with students in multiple different um different situations so really appreciate staff being responsive and working with their teachers to develop a good compromise for for getting them the time they need any final questions on this if not do we have a motion Mr chairman I make a motion that we accept the calendar revision for 2122 is presented by Dr calber okay so director mey makes a motion to approve the calendar revisions as presented to have a second second all right heard simultaneous seconds so we have any final discussion I'll call for a vote all those in favor please say I I any opposed calendar revisions are approved unanimously 9.02 approval of a bid

174for Forest Middle School hvc mechanical unit replacement Dr D us yes uh we we discussed earlier how uh we had an ambitious plan for six schools to uh receive HVAC updates next summer and we're already in the design phase for that there are two uh mechanical units at farest Middle School that have failed and we're not we're not working during some really hot days um this fall uh we tried to mitigate that with some all sorts of strategies and it I guess luk lukewarm at best so um we are trying to get ahead of the springtime and the the warm weather at the end of the school year at Forest Middle School by replacing those two units uh earlier uh than the summer um the rest of the project would catch up in the summer

175so this is a portion of what would be would have been done in the summer but just done a little earlier so that the spring is more comfortable there for learning so uh we had uh The Firm who's designing the overall work designed this uh bid spec and um we had two firms uh put in bids uh by October 7th Honeywell and Waco out of Richmond uh and as you can see wo was being substantially lower and so the recommendation is to approve wo as the low bidder and authorize staff to enter into a contract for that uh those two hbac units to be replaced yes sir um there's a pretty significant Delta between the bids Honeywell and Waco what to what do you attribute that I mean that's that's significant and that to me

176indicates there's something going on in terms of quality or follow me absolutely so what's what's the story with that absolutely we asked the same questions fortunately representatives from both companies were at the bid opening um and honey will as you know partners with us uh for um some ongoing maintenance as well so we have a a longer longstanding relationship with them I think that firm um explained to us that um that that um this was Apples to Apples they did not um decide to to purs do this very quickly and so their numbers weren't uh precise and so they hadn't done the kind of precise value engineering that they could do to get to a a number that they might have pursued otherwise so um I I while that certainly on the face would be

177a concern um this is a reputable company and um we we haven't used them in recent years however they work around the state and we're confident in the number Okay so we've done due diligence on this company W yes okay so the equipment is the same the whole thing is Apples to Apples yeah and this work we'll we'll need to go on with school in session working around school working after school working weekends breaks days so um I I think firms that aren't you know 100% in are going to put costs in their bid to make sure that they can mitigate overtime hours and all those sorts of things so um I think Waco had a good plan and um we're comfortable moving forward with it any other questions so this means the legendary Stella

178Osborne and her Halloween collection will stay a more comfortable temperature in the future for the spring and then the rest of the system will catch up in the summer that's okay great then do we have a motion on this Mr chairman I'd make a motion that we approve the bid for FMS HVAC mechanical unit replacement to the lest bidder so Mr Hill makes a motion that we approve the lowest bidder for the first midle school we have a second second all right again simultaneous any final discussion not all for vote all those in favor I any oppos so the low bid is approved forward to hearing reports of cooler temperature at Forest Middle School and the months ahead me too 9.03 approval of policy updates presented at the September 9th board meeting Miss seon yes

179at the last board meeting we presented 24 policies for information are there any questions or concerns from the board before you take action any questions on any of the policies presented last month and we are not going to make you read them all again word words thank you right so hearing no questions U we have a motion to approve all the policy changes as a block Mr chairman I make a motion that we approve the policy changes that were presented to us on September the 9th 2021 we have a motion by Miss Kirby to approve the policy changes presented at September 9th meeting do we have a second second byon any final discussion call for vote all those in favor please say I I any opposed no okay Miss Johnson would you please please pull

180the board M Ariston yes Dr Hicks yes Mr Hill no Mr Johnson yes Mrs Kirby yes Mr Lamy yes Dr mey yes guys have it with six great okay superintendent comments well good evening Mr chair board members C mentioned just a minute ago that part of my entry plan I've been meeting with our school staffs if you're familiar that really active in the community I did the library sessions I've done many Community engagement sessions organizations that have invited me moving for supervisors I met with the Town Council earlier this week uh but I want to make sure that I was hearing from the voices of all of our employees so I I prioritized on my calendar to set aside time to meet with everyone who works within a school and ask principles to look over

181a variety of dates and times and schedule a time when I could be online in a zoom meeting for all staff that wanted to participate and have conversation with so in the last several weeks I've had the opportunity to be with 14 Schools so I've got about a half dozen left from the next week to two and I've been uh in these meetings I've been asking teachers and staff the same few questions that I've been asking everyone because I'm new to BF for County and learning about our strengths I ask folks you know what is it that you love about our County the things that you hold dear to your heart uh strengths that we can build upon as we begin a new strategic planning process over the course of this school year for next

182year here and what are some questions and concerns you have which would be our challenges that we can address together and so I received a notebook of information from our staff about strengths and those challenges but I also wanted to just check with check in with them on the here and the now so I I would ask you know aside from these big questions just talk from your heart and let me know how are you feeling right now and uh it's really been um difficult in these sessions someone breaks down te they talk and talk about the cost on those physical and mental health right now all the challenges that being open person instruction in this environment we find in some some of the comments I I just made a note of just some of

183them um many positive comments I just want to reflect on some of the challenges that I heard teachers saying we're working at an unsustainable pace we're mentally and physically exhausted we feel overwhelmed tired we feel stretched them due to a lack of substitutes and having to cover for one another we're with students all day including lunch uh and when they would normally have a planning time often times that individual who would be providing that planning period like Bart music PE is not in school and there's no substitute available so they're literally with kids the the entire time and they're attending not only to the needs of the children that are with them in person but they're also keeping up with kids who are out ill we've had hundreds and hundreds of children with Co who

184are out and even more so who are out under quarantine so caring for the needs of both those that are physically with them and those that are not with them because of all of that they're working many many more hours at home they're accustomed to taking things home but this is just even more so for all of those reasons you know I want to thank the board for your support of our teachers and the adjustments that we've made to the calendar but these adjustments will allow our teachers to have on about every three weeks an opportunity to know that they're going to have I'm making a pinky promise here individual and Team Planning time that they control so that they can collaborate with one another and share resources and be of support to each other

185or just do what they need to do closing the door where we're not doing staff development we're not doing professional development they're in control of their about once every three weeks they're going to have a day to a time back for all the time that they're missing on from the train those uh this is in addition to some other things that we've been doing uh we we've shared with the board we've shared with the staff I'd like to share with the community to know that when our teachers are covering for one another which normally be the time that they have for their individual planning time but because they're having to work during that planning time to cover each other we are compensated and because our instructional assistants who are hired to be an assistant and

186not a Lead Teacher are in many cases being asked to be the teacher and not the assistant to a teacher we are compensating them an additional $30 um uh bonus month an additional $30 for that day an additional whatever their normal paycheck would be we uh I think Dr coward also mentioned we are working to hire permanent Subs so these are additional uh people who will be available to report to a school every day and it's a position that would include salary and benefits so it's attractive to folks and so we're looking to hire more people in and we will assign them to the schools we have the lowest fill rate we've shared with you previously our fill rate is only about 30% every day for every three teachers that are at we can only

187find a substitute for one of those that's on our best so in those schools where we can't find any substitutes we're looking to hire permanent Subs who be an additional person of those builds but despite all of those challenges I also want to make sure that I shared during my superintendent's comments uh some of the positive things that are happening in our school division we've had a number of students and staff members who have been recognized for some of their amazing accomplishments since we were last together in September uh this information may or may not be new to you depending on how much you you follow our Facebook page and our Twitter account because every time we have a piece of good news if you try to share it with the community through Facebook or

188or other social media platforms just want to make sure you aware of a couple of things but so we're going to go ahead and put up on the slide just some of these images that we have been tweeting out so that young man there Noah ninger from Stanton River High School is a freshman he was selected by USA Wrestling magazine in World of Wrestling 23rd annual World Allstar team this is an elite group comprised of five age groups and 72 weight classes throughout the country so he's he one of the top kids in the United States of America congratulations to the Jefferson Forest High School Marching Cavaliers are excited to be back out on the field and Performing they were just named the grand champion with the highest score across all classifications at the 47th

189Annual Lynchberg classic marching band competition they finished in first place for class 4A in all categories which include music visual General effect percussion and color guard congratulations to our marching Cavaliers also congratulations to Katrina Caesar uh Katrina is the at Liberty High School she is the cheerleading coach there and she has been named the seal District competition cheer coach of the Year congratulations also Liberty High School and Stant River High School Future Farmers of America the Liberty FFA senior and Junior forestry teams won the Hub Federation forestry contest and Stanton Rivers Kelsey Weston placed first individually and Sarah tuck fifth individually with the team placing second overall very proud of our FF kids um is that Kyle Petty in that picture so uh so you know uh fifth graders at Bedford had a chance to

190uh interact with Kyle Petty they raised $330 for victory Junction Camp which is a a part of the Kyle Petty organization and that money will be used to help students who have disabilities to attend that camp you see a picture of Kyle Petty there and the charity ride that ended at the e we mentioned cheer earlier here's another cheer celebration the new seminal District Champion competition cheer team is our very own Jefferson Forest High School congratulations to our JF cheer team and then lastly we've made several references tonight that Dr Woodford was not able to be here with us tonight she is in Richmond this evening she was invited by the governor to come to the mansion along with that young man on the screen Matt hlon uh you know Matt is one of our

191finest teachers at Liberty High School he was our teacher of the year last year and we were celebrating that Matt uh we are celebrating at the community today that Matt was the region five teacher of the year which made him one of just eight teachers as a finalist for Virginia teacher of the year so he was being recognized in Richmond this evening with his family and he was accompanied by his principal Mr Tucker and uh I was also invited by the governor but I opted to spend my evening with you and go and represent me and we'll bring uh Matt back next month so that we can congratulations so uh that concludes my report Mr superintendent I just uh again want to thank the board for your uh empathy I I know our teachers have

192been contacting you and they have been speaking with me directly and uh I'm hoping that all these measures that we' put put in place and your further actions tonight are going to help lift them up and continue to let them know that uh we are all standing with them together as they uh to educate our our children and congratulations to all those that we were celebrating tonight thank you thank you and I know I've heard from a number of teachers that appreciate you attending their staff meetings and having that conversation with their schools so thank you and and good luck as you continue visit with the rest of the staffs that you've not yet met with right Matters from the board or comments and concerns from school board members Mr Hill um oh sound like

193a broken record but I'm I'm glad you recognized them uh congratulations to the Jeff marching band uh again first place in class 4 a uh with first place in all captions music visual General effect procussion and color guard and named Grand Champion for highest score regardless of size classif at 47th Daniel Lynchberg classic marching band competition so congratulations to them um condolences uh I know uh chairman mentioned this to uh Mr Harold drumheller's family if I'm saying this correctly it was 41 years uh as an English teacher um at JF and uh also huge um relationship with the JF baseball team um so his his um his presence will be missed um I know I mentioned earlier as far as staffing needs um I'm just going to mention it I've heard from several teachers from

194Forest Elementary School um they are concerned that they're not able to meet the needs of all of their students um because they're not able to get to them like they feel like they should be able to um so um I know it was mentioned that someone from staff would be reaching out but I want to make sure we're looking at all schools I'm not going to go over what I've said I've already said it we need to make sure FTE is covered based on these mitigations um speaking of mitigation rules and quarantine um is there something we can relax uh that keeps our kids in school yes it's just it's amazing to me that we have kids that have been in our school buildings only 10 days this entire year that just blows my mind

195there's got to be something that we can do that allows them to stay and to be in school period um I heard you say we're paying teachers who are using their planning periods um I also want to make sure that um and look I know we've got to do what we've got to do to cover classrooms but I want to make sure our teachers are being compensated for it there are several teachers of the Arts that are basically having to miss their class period to go cover for other teachers and their students are not getting the lesson so it's okay to skip one of the arts classes so we have coverage in English or we have coverage in science but if that teacher is having to cover two different teachers are we compensating them for

196both of that uh for missing not only their planning period but also missing their class because then they're having to go and do online to get their students their their information so I I I get it we've got to cover classes but those teachers are just important of what they're teaching uh Cavalier theater presents clue October 13th through 17th uh so uh lots of opportunities there uh if I remember correctly the only time is Friday night it is not showing because of the football game uh congratulations to jfhs competition cheer um so lots of good things happening and that's all for me Mr um planning day uh that's that's a good start uh to take some of the pressure off these teachers however we need to get get more bodies in the buildings and that

197that's the only way that we're going to actually take pressure off of them long term so we need to look at how we're going to do that and when we're going to do that um thanks to everyone who came out tonight um just that's been one of my frustrations since I've been on the board is folks not taking an interest in what we do and I'm seeing a positive change uh toward towards people taking more interest in what what the board is is doing um tonight we took a step towards finding a permanent larger venue for meetings thank you that's all I got M Kirby um have we heard anything from Mr oslon tonight how how did he do have anything anybody said he he was a finalist he was one of eight we yeah

198but I didn't know if he night if anybody got the text or anything the the ceremony was happening while while we've been meeting so I haven't had a chance to check um and I know he's he's a great asset out at Liberty and we appreciate him kids kids really like him um thank you to to teachers to administrators to parents to bus drivers everyone is doing their best to make a school year work I know it's hard um again it's hard as a parent too and we're we're doing the best we can and feel free teachers if if if parents can help you in any way you know which ones you can reach out to and and they'll be happy to help you um do what we can um it is not school sanctioned um

199but Liberty High School PTSA is having a homecoming dance Saturday and they need chaperon so if anybody's willing to go watch some kids dance for a few hours I knew they would appreciate you going up to Liberty Lake Park and helping them out yeah right thank you Mr U I just want to Echo a lot of the things that the other board members have said previously you know I'm just so grateful that we were able to support our teachers by giving them some additional days um so that they can have some planning time and focus on on those particular particular areas that uh they've not been able to because they've been taken away to to sub and all so I I want to applaud the team that looked at it and sat down and really

200gave thought to it and so I'm I'm very pleased that we were able to do this um I I'm not going to you all but because I I want to say that many of things that Dr Bergen has talked about in terms of recognizing various individuals um I had the same list pretty much here so I'm so proud of all of the accomplishments from all of our our uh students and our teacher Liberty High School Mr oerton congratulations to him and his family what a wonderful opportunity for him to be there um being honored in such a way um I'm looking forward to going to the production of clue uh this weekend so I'm really excited about that um I wanted to I do have a question uh in regards to toner um that um

201our teachers and our schools use for copying and all of that I'm wondering it do we have a shortage of toner in our schools are we struggling with getting toner not that I've heard of um we do a lot out money um technology money to the schools and a lot mens from here to allow them to do that type of stuff uh we do encourage all our teachers and kind of put in place they might these little printers that you get are cheap but the toners are expensive and it's much cheaper to drive all the printing to our big copers that we have un lease so that being said those the toner for that is under contract it's it's applied whenever we need if you're responding to a little inkjet at somebody's desk I've not

202heard anything from my bookkeepers because I would hope that we would not that the teachers would not be struggling in making copies because there isn't uh toner available for them when we've got funds that could certainly be used for that so um I'll get back with you on Pacific schools apprciate have not heard any request my bookkeepers or anything on that absolutely um I don't have anything else okay thank you I just like to say congratulations to mron for B name the region five teacher of the year and congratulations to uh the JF marching band for their big win uh I recently attended the Improv Aon put on by the students in the JF theater classes and I was really Amazed by the creativity of these high school students and I'm looking forward to attending

203their production of clue on Saturday night Mr White new students always put on a great performance and I encourage everyone to attend I would also uh like to comment on something that uh our chairman has Ted on several times and I think needs to be reiterated there have been a lot of speakers uh talking about our mandatory mask policy during the public comment periods over the last few months the reality of this is that it's not our policy it's state law and we as a school board obligated to follow that law arguing arguing with or complaining to us about this law serves no purpose if you want change the law then talk to email or write to your representatives at the general assembly they pass the law on a bipar basis and only they can

204change it it seems to me that there's a lot of energy being uh put into a battle with the wrong eny thank you Dr ask it's law Dr M um I also would like to uh thank the staff and the BCA because I know they work together in in getting those extra planning days for our teachers I am very grateful that we can do that for them um but I also think that I'm hearing from lots of teachers about um support and then the same things that Dr Bergen points out the being overwhelmed and stressed and and some of the things that have been mentioned by some of our other colleagues so I think anything we can do is going to be helpful to our staff um we have had several of of our employees

205pass away over the last few weeks and um you know certainly condolences to the families who've lost loved ones I would like to know what we do as a division for that and what we as a board intend to do um to recognize the passing of these people do we does the division do anything when an employee passes away does anybody know if we don't I I personally think we should be doing something if you mean send something or something I think we attend the services okay and as a board do you think it's important for us to send at least a card or something to these these families knowledge you acknowledge that I think coming from the school division as a whole is is really I think the best way to show our cond

206to the families is is sending something just from the school division as how do you all feel I think we should do something I'm I'm up for that too I just feel badly that def find something a a card from the division it could say that you know bever County School Board board and and division or something but I just think we need to do something to recognize that these employees work for us and have passed away um so I think um we need to get that in place as soon as we possibly can um I I just want to also just make sure I understand Dr Bergen um we are I know we're looking at the multiple approaches to reading that we have with the hope of establishing a particular method that we believe

207would be best for a countywide program um and is that something that we're going to look at all year and then look at a reading series after that or are we looking at that and at some time this year already looking for a reading series it's my intent over the course of this school year engaged the entire community in a strategic planning conversation and I I that surface it is surfacing when I'm in the school meetings and when I'm in community meetings conversation would occur this year we would look at um different approaches to early literacy instruction that are currently in place across the School Division we would look at the results that we have in place we would look at the research on these programs we would engage with our teachers and our reading

208specialist administrators for parents you about that data and then we would build it into our strategic plan for next year sorry to tell the last part again for next year would be part of our strategic plan that we would would move in one direction for a literacy framework okay and would that plan do you foresee that plan including some sort of uh acquisition of something whatever that might be and and will we have that in place so that our teachers can rece received the professional development they would require anyone who's teaching uh that particular content area before they left in the the spring so that they had the summer to review these materials and because sure so it's it's my intent to conclude this process which I'll explain to the community in great detail next

209month after I share with the board uh as part of my goals for this year but it's my intent that the process would conclude in May so that we would have at the end of our May meeting we would have an adopted strategic framework so to your question that as we go into June we know what our strategic direction is that would be a piece of it so yes we would we would be looking to develop assuming that we've landed as a community in in one approach in this conversation thank you um and I to you know I'm just going to um call out the the JF marching band and the Liberty uh competition cheer coach of the year and the liberty and Stanton River FFA I think we all had the same list um

210and mat Matthew uselton um I think I have one y'all didn't have maybe I'm incorrect congratulations to Emma Jackson it's dant River and McKenna Garrett at um Liberty High School and Kevin shod I think is how you pronounce his name at Liberty and to their success in Nebraska at the um aeran contest the live judging contest livestock judging contest um I also had no and n and G so congratulations it's so nice to have a long list like that of what our students are doing so just congratulations you bring so much uh Pride to bredford County and we appreciate that I also want to thank uh Ryan Edwards for his wonderful recognition of Miss Woolridge great job and congratulations to her um 50 years like wow and she's still going as long as as I

211can wave my hands um I also want to give a special thank you to the culinary arts program students Who provided our dinner this evening fabulous um that was a really really nice treat so thank you for that um it's nice to see one of those uh programs um in action um and and Dr Bergen I too have heard from a lot of people about your approachability and your accessibility um willingness to speak to um teachers and they're so grateful so thank than you for doing that uh and I too just want to thank everyone who's um who's working for us I know these these situations have been an educator for so long I just can't even imagine the circumstances are so unusual they're so trying and it has got to be exhausting and frustrating

212and a hundred other things and I just want every single person that works in this division to know that you know you are appreciated and um you know know we we just everything that you do for our kids every day is important so thank you thank you Dr mey um I would be remiss if I did not begin my comments tonight in remembrance of Mr tet Huff who previously held this seat on the school board um he passed away recently leaving behind his wife Shirley your daughters and six grandchildren Mr Huff is truly a pillar of the community and the Heston part of Smith Mountain Lake and he leaves a void that will not easily or ever be filled so um to the entire Huff family um you were in our thoughts and our prayers

213recently I also had the opportunity to visit Huddleston Elementary had a nice chat with uh principal M Oaks uh visited a second grade class and they were all wearing neck ties and you do not normally see second graders wearing neck ties um but this was tie in kindness day a and so all of the the kids were wearing ties to remind one another to be kind to one another and to really create the kind of community that that you want and I think we can truly learn a lot from the children they can teach us a lot about um how you treat one another um I also had the opportunity to accompany Dr Bergen and it seemed like the entire central office to to Liberty High School last week for the surprise announcement that that

214Mr uselton had been named the region five teacher of the year and one stat that I think is really important to note that Mr Edwards shared with me I believe Mr uselton was the sixth region five finalist in 13 years from bford County and this is a region that includes Charlottesville and Harrisonburg I believe Salem a lot of um a lot of very large urban districts and the fact that we can consistently field finalists in that region speaks to the high quality of teachers that we employ in this County um these are the teachers that we're hearing from that are struggling and we want to support however we can see Miss chus on the front row uh you know tonight was a step but you know please we want to continue to support our teachers

215during this most challenging of times so um please putting that out there but anyway that's that's a little aside um it was a it was a wonderful event Mr uselton looked genuinely surprised and um he that we couldn't be there to cheer him on tonight but um No Matter How It Ends he is one of the finest in Virginia and um a true blessing to the students I know at Liberty High School um also attended the advisory committee meeting for the Rono Valley Governor school got some great updates on Outreach that the governor school is doing for middle schoolers especially to try to get more uh economically disadvantaged students involved in or aware of the existence of the gifted programs at the middle schools and how that can then become a feeder for the governor

216schools um so we look forward to seeing more students that may not have traditionally even known about the opportunities available at rvgs uh getting to take advantage of of those in uh in the future right now the the budget is looking solid we are down about 10 students uh from projection at the Governor's School um and and so we were just talking about some potential repercussions from that so if School divisions are having trouble uh they do want someone to reach out and talk to Mr Levy about about that he will he will go from there last Thursday night actually I was believe I was sitting in in Miss Harrison's seat uh for the special special ed advisory committee meeting um and there were a couple of topics that came up that they wanted me

217to bring back to the full board for discussion uh first they would like to have a standing quarterly update at our board meetings and I said I would be happy to bring that back and please M Jennings if I if I uh leave anything out or mischaracterize it please let me know um so would would the board be open to to having that on a quarterly basis seems like a very energetic uh group of families they want to get out in the community more so that uh families that uh have children that's qualify for services are aware that they are here as a resource for them as well and so they're going to be attending um some different events uh to really get out there and uh connect with those families so they want to

218share some of the good work that they're doing on a regular basis with the board the the second um item that they had mentioned was that similarly to the way we have have the Rona Valley Governor school and the Central Virginia governor School Advisory Board and we have a sitting and STEM Academy and and all the others and we have a sitting board member that is an advisory member of that committee they would be interested in potentially having a a school board member as an advisory committee member for the seak is that that's correct okay so is that something that this board would be open to um Miss Jennings do we have a timeline for when their next seak meeting in November November yes is it before or after our November before we do it

219before the CF meeting is before the board meeting November 5th is in my head but I wouldn't swear on that okay so I'm just curious maybe if if we wanted to send someone temporarily and then make a formal appointment um at the November meeting or the board would like to like to do that or just relay that we will take formal action on that at the November meeting what should the board would be for that I take action November meeting so if anyone is interested in serving on that let us know and we will unless somebody else wants to so we'll put the two of you in the middle of the floor you can for yeah I'm not seeing any other hands I would be interested in talking to them to understand what they're looking

220for okay so the next CF meeting is November 4th 4th November 4th okay can you meet here yes at 5:45 so any of us can anyone can attend absolutely y now do we have to announce that two or more if we had three or more here it would have to be shared on the site and Mr Hill if you want to do that that's fine second I I was saying you want to be that representative that's fine no what I'm saying is if more you know to attend that we need to announce that on the website that's all I'm saying I believe there's three more attendance that constitutes a meeting so everything would have to be conducted just like a why don't we let Mr Hill attend and and see what he thinks about that

221and we can go from there let me get my times right November 4th and say the time again at 5:45 5:45 okay and then finally at the same band competition at which JF did so well St River High Schools Marching golden eagles uh participated this was their first um competition since Co um and their first competition in their new uniforms their brand new uniforms that they've been raising money for for several years so congratulations to Mr Elder I know he and his crew have had an interesting year trying to get their show finalized um but so proud of them um Second Place overall in class 1a first place music second place General effect and second place Color Guard um great sh and considering all the challenges even more exciting and especially uh to see them

222in their in their new uniform so congratulations to them and then finally just as as a personal note I did attend um Miss buzzo's funeral um she was one year older than me and so I remember her from our own days at Stant River High School every um every time I would visit Stant River High School you would always run into her somewhere in the school and since Co she was the health screener at the front door in the office She always told me she she loved it when I came in because she could actually reach my forehead unlike when when Dr dewis would come in and she would have to jump up to try to try to catch him um and and so miss buzzo was just a one-of-a-kind human being um she leaves

223a huge void at Stant River and the Stant River family is so close and so tightly knit to lose a member in the way that we did and the time that we did uh was especially challenging so you know my my heart goes out to her husband her 13-year-old daughter who now has to go through her life without a mom and to her mother and everyone who loves her um please know that you know she and the entire family are are inner prayers all right so on that note um we have some unfinished business and closed session so do we need to suspend the rules or can we just vote back into close session at this time Mr chairman due to unfinished business I move that we go back into Clos session pursuant to the

224code of Virginia Section 2.2 D 3711 A1 two to discuss the assignment appointment performance discipline and release of contract for for specific Schoolboard employees so we have a motion by Miss Kirby to go back into Clos session do we have a second second second by Dr all those in favor please say I I we'll go back into close session and this morning I broke my glasses and poked my poked myself in the eye so I can't see my glasses right do we have a motion to come out of close session I make a motion that we come out of close session and I second it too I don't think we can legally do that someone else second this Kirby first all those in favor please say I any oppos M Johnson would you please certify

225the second CL session where beder County school board has convened a closed meeting on this date pursuant to an affirmative recorded vote and in accordance with the provision provisions of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act and we're section 2.2 3712 D 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 beder County School Board hereby certifies that to the best of each member's knowledge only public business matters law 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 yes yes you

226have a motion to adjourn move all right Miss Kirby second you didn't ask all those in favor what's of it all right we're still green Barry thank you sorry to keep