School Board Meeting 9/9/2021 - 5:00 PM

001yeah my big leg you'll figure it out if you want to know something days might get around the my glasses six months ago and I still can't adjust I'm still wearing Conta I to the C wantes either I said no no cot but you're building office caned it's 2 hours 20 minutes I'm staying in L last time I drove home got home 12: my kids just started back to school yesterday days just chaos the bus the bus system was they having real problems yeah they actually right good evening like to convene this September regular meeting of the Bedford County School Board um M Johnson would you please call the role Mr Johnson here M Kirby here M hariston here Dr Hicks here Mr h here Mr Ley Dr here Mr chair you have a quum

002right thank you ma'am pass the quum to conduct business do we have a motion to approve the agenda Mr chairman Dr yes I would like to um make a motion to increase the uh public comment time this evening to 50 minutes okay so 5050 okay okay so well I I have a motion of my own I okay so since Dr Milly has a motion on the floor we have a second and if that fails then we will hear another motion second okay any discussion on thatone I will call for um Mr Anderson would that be correct voting on one motion at a time well Mr Ley has a friendly Amendment she accepts it then she can amend hers okay my amendment is that we allow I think we've got 21 folks that have signed up

003we allow the 21 folks that have signed up to speak not limited to 50 minutes okay no I don't agree to that for my motion my motion stands stands okay then you have to vote on her motion motion and then it fails okay all right so any discussion I'll call for vote all those in favor of Dr M's motion to extend public comment time to 15 minutes say I I all those opposed no Miss Johnson please pull the board Miss hariston yes Dr Hicks yes Mr Hill no Mr Johnson yes Mrs Kirby no Mr Ley no Dr mey yes you guys have it with okay so with that would we to like I move that we allow everyone who has signed up who is on that list sitting on the podium right now the opportunity

004to speak public yes yes motion to for Mr to allow everyone signed up to speak do we have a second on that second motion by Mr Hill second by second motion by Mr ly second by Mr Hill any discussion on that can the people that are signed up to speak they're individuals correct are there any groups two GRS two groups so we're looking at roughly 20 more minutes if we got 21 people 3 minutes 63 63 plus four more minutes 67 about a little over an hour so yeah so we're just looking 17 more minutes over the current motion over okay so just for 17 more minutes so we're asking okay okay any other discussion all right in that case we'll call for vote all those in favor say I I all those opposed no

005no Miss Johnson Miss hariston no Dr Hicks no Mr Hill yes Mr Johnson no Mrs Kirby yes Mr ly yes Dr mey No and those have it with four have a motion that to approve the amended agenda Mr chairman I make a motion that we approve the amended agenda okay second on that second motion for Dr M we have a second second by any discussion I'll call for a vote all those in favor please say I I those opposed no no all right Miss Johnson Miss Harriston yes Dr Hicks yes Mr Hill no Mr Johnson yes Mrs Kirby no Mr ly no Dr me yes the eyes have it with four right all right so the amended agenda is approved do we have a motion to go into close session Mr chairman I move we

006go into to close session pursuant to the code of Virginia Section 2.2 3711 a to discuss the assignment appointment performance disciplining and release of contract for specific School Board employees okay great so we have a motion by Miss Kirby to go into close session do we have a second second second by Mr Hill not all those in favor please say I I can you post board will now go into Clos session e can read man great we have a motion to come out of close session so mode have a motion by Mr Phil do we have a second second second by m Kirby the first all those in favor please say I I any opposed now out of close session Miss Johnson would you please certify Clos meeting for County school board has convened a

007closed meeting on this dat pursuant to an affirmative recorded vote and in accordance with the provisions excuse me with the provisions of of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act and we're section 2.2 3712 2D of the code of Virginia requires a certification by this school board that such close meeting was conducted in Conformity with Virginia law now therefore be it resolved that the bord County School Board hereby certifies that to the best of each member's knowledge only public business matters lawfully Exempted from open meeting requirements by Virginia law were discussed in the closed meeting to which the certification applies and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard discussed or considered yes yes yes yes yes yes yes sorry thank you thank you Miss Johnson all

008right item 3.01 curriculum update for 2122 Dr Whitford Dr trer and supervisors good evening tonight members of the instruction team will be presenting updates from the core content curriculum as you know from the School Board office restructuring all of us here are new to our individual roles and one individual is new to Bedford County tonight I want to introduce you to the four content supervisors who make up the instructional team present tonight Audrey Boer supervisor of mathematics Crystal dong supervisor of social studies Fine Arts and World languages Allison kapler supervisor of science and computer science and Diane Eisenhower supervisor of literacy and title one other members of the team who are not present this evening Kathy brisen team Lead Teacher for offsite learning and Sydney Purdue the kindergarten read facilitator our primary focus on the

009instruction team is on fulfilling the mission of bford County Public Schools which is empowering learners for future success the team is doing this by supporting schools and addressing unfinished learning from 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 competencies 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 build connections and value for interactions with diverse communities so as you can see we have a challenging task

010the purpose of tonight's presentation is so the instruction team can share more about the work they have done time and we'll continue to do to support schools so as you already know the so scores from the 2020 21 school year were released in August while the previous school year was challenging in many ways we are very proud of the work done by our teachers students and other staff of Bedford County as an instructional team we have reviewed the scores and we have already begun the work of addressing areas of need across the division but there are a few things to keep in mind when we look at these scores first because accreditation was waved for the previous school year so test data will serve as a tool to set Baseline for recovery and measure growth

011so test results will help make sure that we know where students are in their learning right now so we can design plans to help them recover from the pandemic it's also important not to use this year's data to compare to previous school years just as each student's path through the pandemic was different with virtual hybrid and in-person learning the amount of extra support that each child is going to need will depend on each student's unique characteristics and is not a one- siiz fits all solution the goal for our schools is to provide each child a plan to help them grow and recover from unfinished learning so results are one of the many data points that teachers and school leaders will use to support students academic needs this year the intent of so results is for

012schools to know how students perform so they can design a plan to help get students back to where they need to be so again this year's so scores are primarily Diagnostic and they are not a tool to rate schools against others or to compare to previous years and they are also not to be used for evaluation purposes of Administrators and teachers they were given this spring primarily because they're mandated by federal law and whereas the federal government gave State some flexibility they did not eliminate the requirement that we do annual testing in schools so finally while accreditation was W for the previous two school years School accreditation will resume during the 2022 23 school year so these ratings will be based on scores from this school year the 2021 22 school year before the supervisor

013share I want to call your attention to the Beford County instruction page as we have worked on pacing guides and curriculum resources we have linked them to each content specific page giving ease of access to our staff and to our families for teachers we have created content specific canvas courses these courses provide teachers of those content areas with links to content specific documents important information and other resources we plan to continue to provide more resources as well as content specific announcements to teachers through this platform as well so first I would like to introduce Dr Eisenhower thank you Dr trer good evening everyone the K through2 reading and English pacing guides have been collaboratively updated to reflect standard alignment and applicable revisions here is an example of our fifth grade English language arts pacing guide

014these pacing guides were formatted to include each strand in every nine weeks to follow the vdo's recommendation of comprehensive literacy instruction and seamless integration of English Concepts skills and content feedback forms have been provided to teachers to allow for input and suggestions as we continue to add resources make revisions and collaborate with the goal of developing pacing guides that are useful tools for daily instruction to support this new approach to literacy instruction the doe has provided instructional plans and webinars that are organized by primary so but integrate at least two or more English standards in each plan these resources provide teachers with a framework for the creation of lessons that promote thematic units the spiraling of essential skills and a focus on background knowledge the videoe resources also provide a balance between both relevance and

015rigor relevant instruction allows for student Choice includes topics of student interest books students love practice with foundational skills adequate time and text and opportunities for performance-based learning rigorous instruction includes complex and grade level text distinguished writing intentional text selection the 5c's and the standards of learning both relevance and rigor are critical to student progress and achievement in addition to the literacy plans and webinars English so conferences were held virtually this year with two days dedicated to each grade span these conferences emphasize the science of reading cross-curricular and authentic literacy instruction and and the importance of acceleration versus remediation for unfinished learning for teachers who were not able to attend the live sessions recorded sessions have been made available two of our very own teachers from Liberty High School presented during the high school conferences Matt

016uselton and Nia Smith presented all in a day's work finding language arts Connections in real world tasks it was great to have our district so well well represented by these English teachers as a division we have created an assessment schedule for both reading and math to ensure common data points are available for data discussions and planning we will be implementing quarterly data meetings with administrators and instructional leaders from each school to discuss results make adjustments in instruction and provide professional development based on the data patterns and Trends reading Specialists will participate in monthly meetings to focus on Pal's data analysis and daily literacy instruction in elementary schools as a county we are offering some upcoming upcoming professional Dev development for teachers to support literacy instruction in September all teachers will participate in hoton Mifflin hardcourt

017hmh training hmh is the K through2 online literacy program that provides assessment reading and writing tools an example of the hmh kind kindergarden modules is shown here hmh literacy programs utilize different instructional approaches for different age levels to ensure every student succeeds the hmh progression begins with building strong foundation in grades K through two developing confident readers and writers in grades 3 through five and meeting higher standards in grades 6 through eight and preparing for lifelong success in grades 9 through 12 additionally teachers will participate and understand scoring verification training understand scoring is a web-based application that provides Educators with information about Virginia's writing assessments including the rubrics and aor papers that illustrate each score point on the composing and written expression and usage of mechanics domains used to score the short paper component of

018the writing so the website for understand scoring is shown here in the presentation and highlights the tools and resources that teachers will access when participating such as the use of anchor papers annotations overlays rubrics and other virtual supports all fourth and fifth grade teachers and 6th through 12th grade ELA teachers will complete the new practice and verification sets on the VOE understand scoring site to gain a better understanding the assessments and to develop consistency in scoring Papers written by Virginia students we are also encouraging our teachers to use understand scoring with students to facilitate their understanding of the expectation in each of the writing domains lastly we are beginning the process of textbook adoption for English K12 with the anticipation of implementing the new textbooks in the 2022 2023 school year we are excited to

019have the opportunity to work and collaborate as a team with our our teachers to support the achievement of our students and now I would like to turn it over to Miss Crystal dong good evening it is a pleasure to be a part of the instruction team as a supervisor of History Fine Arts and World languages and as you might expect there's been quite a bit of time devoted to the curriculum updates more social studies one of the first first things we worked on in the instruction team was streamlining our pacing guides and curriculum resources so that they're consistent across all subjects if you go to the BCPS instruction page and then social studies you will find those resources scrolling down the page you see all the pacing guides for social studies the pacing guides are

020available for the public to view we have them for each grade level and eventually hope to have them for each of our electives let's look at one sample for World History 2 here you can see our world history 2 course pacing guide which is taught in nth grade suggested pacing is provided for block and 45 minute periods and each course also has a curriculum Resource page there are links back to the pacing guide on the resource page the standards as well as each so or unit and this page provides an overall resources that have been vetted for use in the course when vetting resources we critically look at the content accuracy and maturity level of the content moreover we veered away from items that had an obvious bias or had an agenda here's a sample

021for so world history 215 which covers world religions and this is taught in ninth grade here you can see that each has a the standards vocabulary and this is the same for every history course that we offer resources approved videos suggested activities and lesson plans any new instructional materials have to be approved and we have a curriculum feedback form for teachers to use we want to be transparent about what we are teaching and teachers are encouraged to post all of their instructional materials in canvas in 2014 the general assembly the general assembly amended the code of Virginia to replace five history standards of learning tests in lie of an so test the legislation requires each Local School Division to administer a locally developed alternative assessment consistent with the vo's guidelines the guidelines provide some flexibility

022and autonomy for the local school divisions that allow for multiple assessments throughout the school year instead of one test at the end of the year we have alternate Assessments in English science and social studies but social studies has the largest number of required assessments we created videos explaining the process as well as how to score assessments using the new common rubric developed by the vdoe letters were also prepared for schools to send home to each grade level that as an alternative assessment explaining why we are doing the alternative assessments these assessments were designed by our Beford County Teachers graded rubrics will be sent home to the parents so they know how their students performed on the assessment our emphasis is on skills that align with the five C's in the profile of the Virginia graduate

023this is one place that allows teachers to address unfinished learning there is some repeated content over the years in social studies and our Focus for our social studies Learners is skills that transfer not only across grade levels but into the real world this is a list here you can see of the so tests versus alternative assessments fourth grade seventh grade and e8th grade continue to have a required so test nth and 11th graders may have to take anol test if they need it for graduation we also wanted to follow up regarding questions that were brought up at the last board meeting we reviewed all of the V African-American history resources found in in the course map available online when vetting the resources our criteria was to find resources without bias or an agenda our Schoolboard

024policy INB states that quote teachers are expected to establish a learning environment where each student can study the issues within a curriculum that is appropriate to his or her knowledge and maturity and provide instruction in an atmosphere that is free from bias Prejudice or coercion and that was the criteria that was kept in mind when vetting the resources the African-American history pacing guide and curriculum resources for our elective course are available online we have formed a very collaborative environment that includes the three African-American history elective course teachers at all three of our high schools we've carefully reviewed the resources used in African-American history elective course our collaborative team is designing all of the lessons that are used in our African-American history elective course we steered away from any any resources that were considered to be

025more extreme such as the 1619 project or the Zen project or resources funded and supported by the Southern Poverty Law Center we reviewed all of the 45 resources in the references and other resources section at the end of the course map we also went through the online course written for virtual Virginia by whro as well as reviewed the resources to consider that are meant to be more Virginia specific and support the online course that is available for use there have been some questions regarding the use of the v's African-American course map it is meant to be a resource not a mandated curriculum at a recent presentation for history supervisors we were reminded that all School divisions now have full access to the course map and accompanying online modules you have the autonomy to review everything

026to make a local division decision as to whether the state developed elective course aligns with your curriculum needs and the school board's goals we have vetted all the resources that we are suggesting for use and what our three high schools are teaching in their classes we took out any questionable resources suggested by the V doe when making our curriculum resources for this course again any new resources have to be submitted for approval Dr Trosper and I went and met with each secondary history Department as well to discuss these procedures and the use of resources in the classroom I also just want to re reiterate that we are not teaching critical race theory in our classes this was repeated in a recent history supervisor meeting that I attended the state developed African-American history elective course does

027not include teaching about the critical race Theory we have great teachers in Beford County most of them are member of our Beford Community they live here they work here many of them are graduates from our Beford schools what you may see happening in Northern Virginia or even California is not what is happening in our bever school Community standards are considered when vetting resources for our curriculum now while critical race theory is not mentioned in any of the curriculum resources in the vdo's African-American history's course map there are some links to critical race theory on the Ed Equity Virginia resources page we want to assure you that we are not using those resources in our BCPS classroom thank you and now I'd like to turn it over to the supervisor of mathematics Audrey buer Dr uh

028Dr trer yes um in light of the time would it be appropriate to resume this after the break this is actually a good stopping point so if that's that's what You' like so we can resume this and have word questions after item 8.0 thanks so in that case the board will assess for dinner and we will return at 7 you know the people have missed their suffers in order to be here and do the county can do is honor these people to pay taxes pay your salaries instead of walking out on people e Mr Simmons we got one more too there's one more down here we're going to move somebody up here I'm sorry I apologize sir got a car H thank I remember you a couple weeks ago like to reconvene this September meeting

029of the Bedford County School Board everyone please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance flag of the United States of America and to for stands one nation under God indivisible with libery and justice for all right again the public comment portion of tonight's meeting this time is limited to 50 minutes individual speakers are limited to three minutes while anyone representing an organized group will be allowed five 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

030all speakers to refrain from any outbursts 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 bill will ring indicating a person's 3 minutes have expired Mr Edwards will also serve as timekeeper for our cumulative 25 minute period uh 50-minute period when Mr Edwards three minute Bill Rings please discontinue speaking and step aside to 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 our clerk Miss Johnson and she will give them to board members so again please refrain from outbursts we do not want to clear the room as we did last month and we want to make sure all speakers

031are heard and um and treated with respect all right Mr Edwards who is our first Speaker tonight Mr chairman our speakers this evening consist of Virginia delegate Wendell Walker Lacy Johnson Jessica deor Charlotte deor Le an Norman Christina childis on behalf of the Education Association KJ frell Jennifer balena David Bard Jason Bender Daniel Crawley Michelle Madrill Gina Dudley Sherry Boer David Dietrich Kayla Parker betus iara Lis Rodriguez Joshua bur Patrick kado and Claire mcney delegate Walker good evening Mr chairman and members of the board Dr Bergen I'm delegate W Walker I represent the 23rd District which is probably the best part of Bedford County I'd like to think uh that's about a third of it because you're represented by delegate Terry Austin as well as delegate Kathy Barron the reason I'm here tonight is because

032I have a number of constituents in my portion of Bedford County that have contacted me and concerns about the education the decision of the boards and things that are taking place here actually tonight this almost feels like I'm back in Richmond and I and I'm not ready for that yet but anyway we appreciate the opportunity to uh be here and to speak with you for a few moments this evening what I'm here to do tonight is to try to listen and understand and try to help you as far as the citizens of this community and the board members the decision makers because that's what I have to do on a full-time basis when I'm in Richmond we have have to be good listeners and try to understand how we can best serve the Commonwealth the

033citizens out here and so as I go about listening to bills that come before us I think about how this vote is going to impact the citizens the lives out here know we the people and when I'm thinking about those decisions that I have to make the first thing I always do and I hope that a lot of people will agree with me is I always ask God for wisdom we need wisdom amen and discernment and making decisions because the decisions that we make whether it's a local level or whether it's a state level or you could russal level they all have impact on every life here in the Commonwealth and so as I think about the wisdom that I need I also remember something that's very very important and I read this all and

034I think this is one thing we don't read enough of this is a copy of the Constitution of the United States I would I'd like to read just a short paragraph from the Declaration of Independence and this is for me as well as for everybody else because I think sometimes we just need to stop and take a breath step back and think about how great America is and the freedom and the liberties we have to enjoy here to make decisions about our future here so if you and adults me for just a few moments here I'm reading the second paragraph from the Declaration of Independence which says we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal and that they are endowed by their creator which is god with certain unable rights

035that among these are life I think about life when I make decisions Liberty the freedoms that we have and the pursuit of happiness we all want to be happy and have wonderful families now these rights uh government are initiated among men deriving their ja powers from the consent of the Govern the people out here that whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends it is a right of the people to alter or to abolish it and to Institute new government I'm not here advocating that we overturn government what I'm here is to remind us that we have great wisdom here I believe Godly wisdom that is inspired this is a Christian IMM moral Nation that's the reason so many of us care about reason we're here so as I think about decisions that

036I have to make just like you have to make here tonight and the impact it's going to have on the future residents here in this County I hope that you'll take time to listen that is the most important thing because we in leadership positions whether the superintendent Dr ber myself we are all accountable at the end of the day we are accountable God gives us the opportunities to serve people but I think we're also held accountable to those people that we serve as well so I trust people at the end of the day Richmond does not always get it right I don't agree with every policy or mandate so-called mandate that comes out of Richmond at the end of the day I think about how this is going to impact the citizens here in the

037Commonwealth is it going to infringe upon the freedoms and Liberties is government going to try to reshape Our Lives whether it be be through curriculum CRT other things like that we know what is right I look around this room there are a lot of smart people I believe that love God they love their freedom and their Liberties so we have some great challenges ahead of us and I'm trusting the people here in this room to make the right decisions I challenge you encourage you please listen to the people because in the end elections have consequences contract can be voided that's right and you have an obligation to serve the people and I want to thank you for your willingness to serve out here it's not a fun job it's not an easy job I'd love

038to be home tonight with my family but I think that I'm here doing what is in the best interest of the people to ensure that we have the freedoms and Liberties so tonight I want to thank you for the opportunity to serve you and God bless [Applause] you Walker Lacy Johnson I don't really know how but every time I've spoken I get stuck behind a delegate and so it's really hard to come up here right after a season professional and try to speak to you um my name is Lacy Johnson I live in Montville um and it seems like you all have forgotten though you've been reminded regularly by Bedford County citizens from this very Podium that you are representatives of the will of the people there's really no question as to what the will

039of the people is in regard regards to mandatory masking critical race Theory rebranded as culturally responsible teaching and transgender policy we've heard parent after parent speak about the research surrounding covid in children we've discussed how ineffective masks are for our children how children don't spread covid how very rarely children die from covid and it would be a complete waste of breath for me to stand here and reiterate those numbers for you everyone here can interpret the chart from the CDC that reflects the survival rate of individuals particularly children who contract the virus everyone here should know by now that the covid germ particles are smaller than the spacing between fibers and threads on your mask I think it's safe to say that we know this is an absolute farce it's pretty clear to me and

040it should be clear to every individual in this room that this is not about Co I've watched the video posted about 24 hours ago where Dr Bergen is discussing Co mitigation strategies and he spoke about defeating Co we aren't going to defeat Co we need to learn to live with Co yes um we've never defeated the flu there's a flu shot we've never defeated the common cold and I propose that you pull the students and staff in this County and get a number of how many are not interested in participating in mitigation strategies and if it is the majority I highly suggest you move forward with the will of the people front of mind and rework the plans for this school year we heard weeks ago about the statement I will not co-parent with the

041government that Rings true for me and most of the parents here tonight are not interested in parenting with government concerned parents will continue to pull their children out of public school opting for home school or private school and leave behind the drgs right Public Schools will become an absolute Cesspool you need to consider the funding that has been and will be lost because of your fool foolish actions I'll tell you about my recent experience of co-parenting with the government my son has a documented medical condition and his physician signed uh much my sh Gren signed off on page three of your little pamphlet that came home and um the paperwork stated that he is not to wear facial covering at any time during the school day last week my child was coerced into wearing a

042mask and later on the same day a face shield overriding the guidance from our physician and my question to you is this what will keep the county from imposing a vaccine on my child or another unwanted medical uh device or unwanted medical attention it won't be me because the county doesn't abide by my wishes and it won't be my doctor because the county overrides what my physician has set out as best for my child that's right when the public school overrides the parent and the position we have a problem yeah let's get the board I'm sorry thank you I'm almost done your time is up the spirit of cowardice has pervaded this board and with the exception of three individuals there is no backbone to be found here to stand up to governmental mandates or

043CDC recom recommendations other schools in Virginia are overriding stop we're going to have to remove you because your time is up remov other schools are overriding and making choices that echo echo the will of the parents if the lawyer we use for the county advises against action in line of the will of the people we need to find a different lawyer I want to thank the three individuals who abide by the will of the people I [Applause] [Music] [Applause] appreciate I'm Jessica deor um I reside in Bedford County and my daughters both with the 10 Bedford County Public Schools I'm in Martin lem's District um I didn't plan to come back to this room again I spent several Thursday nights here with most of you pleading for you to see the innate value and worth

044in my oldest daughter she has multiple disabilities and I begged on three separate occasions for her to receive the services she was due by federal state and moral obligation she was placed in a seclusion room the equivalent of a jail cell that I'm told by a local Co would be onfit for a prisoner to in habit for any length of time my daughter was only four at this time and incurred a concussion screening and had to go through uh the crisis intervention because she was shamed to the point of saying she wanted to die and felt she deserved to at 4: I researched how many preschoolers with disabilities have been put in similar rooms without Consequence the majority have something in common they began to feel such despair they became suicidal in preschool there are

045no logs no documents no lists of occurrence in what she was placed in there and so there's no paper trail with which to file complaints with the Department of Education and recently I attempted to Foya my daughter's security camera footage and a friend of mine's daughter was recently placed in there the initial fee is $3,000 we will pay for it and well they're going to say it's a violation because you only deserve to see your child's this room has been refused to be seen by parents claiming that it's a risk of safety it's an empty room it's a janitorial closet then no one's allowed to see it and you put my preschooler in there and when I showed up to the school and was attending a public book fair I was called for trespassing for

046being on school property at a public event and upon the retaliation investigation Beth Robertson told me that banning me from my daughter's school was totally justifiable because I misrepresented why I was at the book fair because I was trying to see a room that my daughter was put in and they thought I had press with me I I tried to play a video tonight which I was refused and I asked for reasonable accommodations after my speaking to have a video of my daughter played she has selective mutism autism which is a social communication disorder and generalized anxiety disorder she was eager to have herself heard and what being in that room was like but she was denied because the board insisted on in reviewing it first and I wasn't about to have her record something

047to have it not played tonight because you don't want her voice to be heard stop putting our kids in this room provide them appropriate Services stop producing suicidal preschoolers thank [Applause] you VI Norman can y'all can y'all hear me is good okay well good evening Mr chairman the school board um my name is Leanne Norman I live in Manita and I'm a product of bford County Public Schools my mother's a product and all my cousins are so I just wanted to say tonight that at the last school board meeting I was met with hateful comments and actions from members of Bedford County while this Behavior was overwhelming it's something that I've always been subjected to as a black member of this community based on these statements and actions it's clear that this County still has

048a long way to go when it comes to empathy and respect while I'm thankful for the work that the Bedford County school board has done in order to help students from all walks of life there are still some disparities that need to be remedied I hear so many people in this room talk about right and wrong Christianity and Justice what's troubling is that these same people look at me as less than a person because of the color of my skin and my sexual you lead with hate instead of love we love you I have seen firsthand what racism and ignorance look like in a school system it's not a personal problem it's institutional statistically the Virginia Department of Education has stated that only five School divisions out of 132 in Virginia show no disproportionality among

049black student suspensions furthermore black students who are exposed to one black teacher by third grade are 133% more likely to enroll in college I say all this to say that as a community we should want every member and student to succeed not just those who are white Christian heterosexual and cisgender I hope I hope that the school board continues to try to advocate for the students that have been overlooked disrespected and dehumanized and to the people here tonight you speak of God and I ask you when you get to the Pearly Gates will you get your white robe the answer is no we still love thank you thank you Miss Norman Chris [Applause] children um I sent an email with a graphic if you want to pull it up you're welcome too um and Miss

050Johnson has a copy of it's survey results and they're in color if you check your email so okay so good evening um tonight I speak as the president of the Bedford County Education Association which is the local professional organization that represents staff at every single School in this division uh the BCA for several years has held the position that teachers deserve financial compensation for losing their planning periods in an August 30th LT principles were directed that secondary classroom teachers will be compensated at $27.97 per hour of coverage time and we want to thank you for finally making paid coverage happen thank you for trying to find a temporary solution to a very real problem but we must also advise that it needs to go even further what could possibly be the rationale behind compensating secondary

051teachers teachers and not compensating Elementary School teachers who lose their planning time as a secondary teacher I am baffled by everything that elementary school teachers have to do every day but I also know there are certain days where resource teachers such as art music library or PE or out and many times the classroom teacher doesn't get a single break all day the elementary teachers deserve to be compensated for losing what precious little time they are scheduled to have in the first place we know that the lack of staff and lack of substitutes is a very real problem especially this year and we know that overwork staff can lower morale and consistently low morale will lead to burnouts which in turn impacts employee retention at the beginning of the school year every year the BCA surveys

052its membership as to what major concerns they would like us to advocate for last month I sent you uh results of that survey the top concern from the very start of the school year was salary shocker especially as it relates to that of our PA professionals the other major top concerns involved health insurance class size and employee morale but it seems now that these concerns have shifted a bit after hearing from hundreds of employees in this Division I felt like we needed to do a little pulse check of sorts the word that I kept hearing time and time again was unsustainable so I sent a survey called the pulse check survey uh which elicited three words from each BCA member and I simply said tell me how you feel about this school year give me

053three words after a 7-Day time period we closed the results and I sent it through an ed Wordle analysis algorithm and that's the print out that you have the more frequently a word shows up the bigger the font so check that out um since not everyone can see that I will just say the most common word on there was um some form of the word exhausted I'm sorry overwhelmed was number one exhausted was number two and stressed any form of those words showed up the most often which is normal at the beginning of a school year it's normal to feel stressed and overwhelmed the words that I did not expect to see and have never seen in 20 years of doing this were words like dangerous invisible draining burned out and defeated those are not

054words that we as Educators say in August or we wouldn't go into this profession these results have kept me up at night they've made made me wonder how we're going to get through this year and they've made me wonder what's going to happen to our students when the people they spend the majority of their day with are disguising despair because the educators are not going to show it they are not going to show their feelings to their students they're not going to even show their discontent to parents who berate them at bus stops who scream at them on the telephone or who posts on social media platforms I don't have a solution for you I wish I had an easy one but I kind of feel like that's your job whether anybody wants to hear

055it tonight or not our staff is struggling and if our students were struggling to this level that 97% of their responses were negative we would call that a crisis we're still hopeful the word hopeful is on that chart it's real small but it's on there we are still hopeful that you will hear our plea and that you will try to consider not only what is best for students but what is best for your staff in the decisions that you make from this point on AJ frell one second [Music] okay hello school board members and Community my name is KJ frell I live in District 3 us kids need your help do you want to know why I was unenrolled from in my inperson classes two days ago me too but first I wanted to say

056that I have had the best teachers and per professionals please use the co money to pay Paras for overseeing classes and others for their extra work please acknowledge your community's authority to make their own health choices this is about way more than math please use Co money in ways that really help why are you buying face Shields and forcing kids to either wear them or go in isolation rooms the CDC and Virginia Department of Health say that they are not recommended seriously why are you letting the superintendent go against the CDC recommendation and why and why did the superintendent unenroll me and many others against our parents Choice my medical exemption to not wear a face covering was accepted last year and this year then the new superintendent made a bunch of chaotic changes now

057he says that my doctor's note doesn't matter he told hundreds of families that we had to sign his medical release form giving them the permission to talk to all my doctors look at my records and allow stranger strangers to treat me medically please project project my privac protect my privacy and dignity he he required hundreds of others to document personal detail about their faith to name their religious leaders to interview them since my parents were would not get would not sign those forms he made our principles put us in isolation rooms starting last week on Monday they only let us move for 10 minutes and we had to work on our screens for 7 hours my principal marked us absent without telling teachers so they could send so they couldn't send us materials the health

058order said that everyone could be in PE banned and lunch unmasked but none of my jail mates or I were allowed to be with them my brother was isolated in a teeny room room with no other kids no one was allowed to teach him there are people locked outside who want to expose the mistreatment of their kids Mr Johnson why won't you let them speak if you are one of the four who voted against parent choice would you please raise your hand to complete the superintendent release form so that so the town could review your doctor count review your doctors counselors and religious leader and so they could can treat you it sounds silly doesn't it if you choose not to fill out the superintendent's forms why would you let him kick me out of

059my classes when my parents made the same exact Choice that's [Applause] right thank you can everybody hear me uh good evening thank you for allowing me to speak uh my name is Jennifer balina I um I live in Forest I just moved here uh in February so I'm not really sure what district that is um my until last week my kids went to Forest Elementary enforce middle um we actually pulled them out on Friday and they're being homeschooled Now by my husband yes um so everybody comes to this from a data standpoint I'm going to read you the religious exemption that I was forced to send in with my with my with my children and they were still isolated um my son was in the room with KJ um they became good friends I think

060so um my children qualify for religious accommodations due to our family's strongly held religious belief against face coverings therefore they should not wear a face covering of any kind as it covers up the glory of God's creation the Bible says let the children come to me and do not hinder them for to such belongs to the kingdom of God that's Luke 18:16 along with this accommodation my child is not to be segregated in any fashion for Genesis 2:18 States then the Lord said it is not good for man to be alone the Bible also States not to neglect in gathering together as some are in the habit of doing Hebrews 10:25 this family fully Embraces the spiritual conviction that we are created in the image of God and that our breath is sacred and shall

061not be restricted God created us through dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and Man became a living being that's Genesis 2:7 maske wearing restricts the lifegiving Breath of God and our full expression of existence with our creator Leviticus 13:45 and I've been committed on this one because I was told that there's no way I could tie this in but uh States the person who has a case of serious illness is to have his clothes torn his hair hanging low and he must cover his mouth and cry out unclean unclean therefore forcing my children to wear a mask is convincing them that they are unclean and unhealthy when they are not they are perfectly fine yeah this family fully rejects the fear and anxiety that a m represents the

062most common phrase in the Bible relates to the command to not be afraid and to trust God there's no rational reason for children to be MK other than to bind them in fear this directly goes against God's constant reassurance fear not for for I am with you do not be dismayed for I am your God that's Isaiah 41:10 I will not teach my children to go against the word of God for Luke 172 States it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and tossed into the sea than to cause one of these little ones to stumble there you go what you're doing is wrong my 11-year-old my 7-year-old and my 8-year-old were put in a room by themselves and made to stare at a screen all day my oldest

063son teacher had no idea where he was he was marked absent because she didn't even know where he was and when he came to school the next day and went to his class because they let him walk through the hallway because it's here or there or you know whatever depending on the day he told his teacher that he was supposed to go to a separate room and she said I have no idea what you're talking about she told him to go talk to the principal what the heck man it's wrong like I said we decided to pull our children out and we're going to homeschool them because we believe in teaching them values and that they're not unclean they're not unhealthy and for all of you that voted against parents' choice I promise you you

064will answer to God for causing his little ones to stumble David Bard all right my name is uh David borgard and uh I'm in Mr L's District um what's it going to take you have been listening to you have been listening and hearing but you haven't been responding to your community we don't want you to just listen and hear because you're accountable to us we the people and you're not getting that you have said you will not answer questions during the comment period and now with the new policy review that you're going to have a little bit later tonight you're going to reinforce that mandate this is neglect of Duty under the code of Virginia that you so often quote for your Clos meetings and all the other things that bar the public from hearing

065what you're doing upon a petition a circuit court May remove from office any elected officer or officer who has been appointed to fill an elective office residing within the jurisdiction of the Court based on number one neglect of Duty Miss of or misuse of Officer incompetence in the performance of Duties when that neglect of Duty misuse of offic or incompetence in the performance of Duties has a material adverse effect upon the conduct of the office your conduct is adversely affecting your community we don't go home in peace there is much trouble in our hearts on on every on every issue and on every side whether you believe in this or you believe in that but you are not listening and following the will of the people and just to reiterate the Virginia Constitution Bill of

066Rights with i' which I've been saying since I've been coming article one section two people are the source of power that all power is vested in and consequently deriv from the people that magistrates are their trustees and servants and at all times liable to give an account for their behavior for their actions period a code of Virginia is in violation of that Constitution and as Mr Walker put earlier when it comes to a point and that's what I'm asking what is it going to take for you to heed the people is it going to take more a majority of the people to alter and abolish you and abolish this office I'm not even close to Don you swore an oath to God what God did you swear by is it the god of the Bible

067the father son and a holy spirit then if so then you're refusing to honor him it's a rejection of him his name and his eternal Authority it is rebellion and stubbornness and he is clear about this because Rebellion is as the sin of Witchcraft stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry thank you Mr Bard when you swear you swear to your own hurt are you bold enough do you have the courage to stand time up your step away from the microphone and allow the next speaker to approach okay I'm not going to cause a scene tonight but when what is it going to take thank you Mr bard Jason I'll be glad when somebody else is in that seat right there at your end it's time right coming son I'm Gonna Leave off where my brother

068left off I'm going to continue my name is Jason Bender I'm a Bedford County resident School Board I want to ask you directly are you listening I know you can't verb tell me that but be genuine and sincere and answer honestly shake your head are you listening the people have spoken tonight they've spoken it's nearly unanimous we're talking about children's lives parents are upset my daughter is homeschooled I don't even have my daughter in the public school system but I'm here because I care about the kids of this community do you shake your head please I won't tell if you shake your head I want you guys to know this morning I was praying for all of you I don't know if anyone has a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ but I was praying

069that if you have yet to repent of your sins because we're all Sinners we've all fallen short of the glory of God Amen my prayer to you was that you would repent that the Holy Spirit would convict you of your sins and your trespasses against the holy God I also prayed for those who might be Christians here that you would take a stand of truth that you would not be in submission to Richmond or a superintendent yeah and I want to share with you a scripture here from Proverbs 24 it starts in verse 10 it says if you falter in times of trouble how small is your strength rescue those being led to death hold back those staggering toward Slaughter do you hear those words it goes on to continue if you say but we

070knew nothing about this does not he who weighs the heart perceive it that's God does not he who guards your life know it and listen here please listen no one's shaking their head listen will he not repay each person according to what he has done whatever you do whatever you don't do you will be repaid there is a day of judgment coming where you will have to meet your maker whether you believe in him or not you will meet face to face for everything you said done didn't do every decision thought every social media post you did everything that's on that screen if you're legitimately teaching CRT and you put that you're not that's a lie there will be judgment for that there will be consequences and here's what I gathered from some comments on

071Facebook my son gets migraines they were minimal last year but they have started back up this school year there were comments on that post it said yes uh they have gotten phone calls already this year for two of my kids with bad headaches I also had to pick up my daughter last year for a terrible headache as soon as she took off her math outside it got better my son textt me and said that they were sending students up to the office to have Q-Tips up their nose my daughter opted for going back to classes today with the whole mask off in class masking the hall routine her homebased teacher proceeded to pull a desk away from everyone in the back for her to sit at I'll go on to the next one there was

072a photo on this one get this a photo of a principal in a Bedford County School that said principal in the hallway with his mask down when our children are being segregated and denied an equivalent education for not wearing mask in hallways B rules for thee and not for we it's all about control you know the truth with mask you know the [Applause] truth you got this brother um members of the board my name is Daniel Crawley I live in District 3 I have two two children at New London Academy second grade fifth grade my wife and I are here tonight representing them and our authority over them and not yours amen there you go it's our job to choose what's best for them not yours years my son is 11 at the age of

073three he was diagnosed with autism and ADHD for 7 years he has struggled to communicate with his friends to associate with his peers to interact with the children that are of his age we were told when we was diagnosed with autism that he may never do that as a normal child he currently works with specialist for speech and OT through his IEP at New London Academy he also has some sensory impairments that make it difficult for him to wear a mask so we recently held an IEP meeting and at that IEP meeting we were informed that the only accommodation for him if he wasn't able to wear a mask would be socially isolated from his peers so tonight you know I'm not used to standing up in front of people and talking you can see

074I'm emotional cuz I'm talking about my kid and you don't mess with my kid no so as I was thinking about what I was going to say cuz I am upset clearly I went to your website and on your website your words your mission statement to prepare our students to be productive and responsible citizens of our community and the world it's Noble in Your Vision a community dedicated to our students in the future your words not mine how is isolating my son and the rest of these children from their peers from their ability to receive a free and fair education preparing them for the future I'm asking you the masks all of what we're talking about here tonight is fear driven it's fear driven and you're more afraid of that and a lawsuit or whatever

075it may be than it is you're willing to do the right thing exactly right so I'm asking you to do the right thing [Applause] I don't know but that free proba you pay that man right there $200,000 a Michelle Madrill yes good evening I'm Michelle Madrill and um I will apologize in advance if I am redundant in anything I say I've been unable to hear anything because a public meeting is is not open to all of the public I would like to request respectfully a bigger venue for future meetings so that we can all listen the purpose of my statement tonight is to speak to the um the motivation behind some of the decisions here in March 2021 Senate Bill 1303 passed with a clause providing School boards the option on how best to implement

076the practices on July 29th 2021 Bedford County School Board voted four to three to uphold the parents right to decide whether or not to mask their children on August 3rd just 5 days later a special session called for consultation from legal councel regarding the 4 to3 vote to reject Mass mandates and transgender model policies from the Virginia Department of Education after legal counsil advised the board voted unanimously to approve their previous decision supporting the Parents Choice for masking their children 2 days later on August 5th 2021 the governor issued a statement regarding Senate Bill 1303 on that same day Dr Bergen received an email from superintendent of Public Instruction James Lane which reinforced the governor's announcement additionally an email from Jason Johnson was sent to the board asking for their guidance on how to proceed

077given the information shared in the governor's press conference on August 6 2021 an email from attorney Gary straw was received by county attorne attorney Mr Skelly and the school board moms for Liberty received this email via Freedom of Information Act submitted on August 19th the email threat was expecting a change in maass policy prior to opening School citing compliance with Senate Bill 1303 from August 6th to August 11th numerous responses were sent back from the board to Mr Johnson here is an example of Dr Susan melees and I apologize if I pronounce that incorrectly hey Jason as I've always thought yes adopt the recommendation of the CDC as Wade's initial responses of parsing words was to me a lame argument I believe we should also vote to reverse our original vote rejecting masks God Bless

078America Common Sense Prevail I will call tomorrow Susan Dr Hick's response included this statement I agree with Mark that an announcement needs to be made before Wednesday letting parents know about the change before they send their kids to school according to to Jason Johnson's recap of these events which he gave at the August 12th school board meeting I spoke with many of my fellow board members to determine interest in the action the majority many of the members were not available or in favor of holding an emergency meeting however a majority of members were in favor of updating our safety plan to be in compliance with SB 1303 prior to students returning to school per Jason Johnson's own summary of the timeline and decision on August 8 I informed Dr Bergen that all board members could

079not be assembled for an emergency board meeting on Monday but a majority of the board members Now supported an inherence to S sp303 and the mitigation set forth by the CDC I suggested to Dr Bergen that he draft a statement by myself and an attorney at that time a Public Announcement by Bedford County Schools was released indicating that mask were required to be warned by all persons in the school building beginning the very next day at back to school or five minutes get five minutes I'm sorry Dam sorry beginning the very next day at back to school orientation August 9th let the record show that not all board members were informed of this per Martin leny statement during the previous board meeting also know that Marcus Hill requested religious exemptions be offered and those requests

080were ignored what exactly is the real motivation of the school board is it the health and safety of the students and abiding by the will of the parents who elected them or is it the threat of legal action is this decision made under duress whose hand was involved in sending the threatening email from attorney Gary straw on August 12th Governor Northam dictated his lawmaking to the health commissioner with the newest mandate note that we now have a mandate yet we reportedly already had a law the latest mandate supports the weak argument for Force masking under s sp303 also on Aug August 12th at the regularly planned school board meeting the members voted four to three to mass children in public schools in spite of many concerns from parents advocating for Parental Choice hundreds of medical

081and religious exemptions were submitted by parents at the beginning of school in fact 241 letters were submitted at Forest Middle School alone these have subsequently been rejected in various Fashions and even students with substantial documentations from doctors via letters IEP and other sex records are being told that they are still required to mask in the hallways and common areas please tell me at what point a superintendent principal or School nurse's review of a student's medical information supersedes that of the child's own physician our goal in sharing this timeline is to speak to the motivation behind the decision of the school board and to draw attention to the overreach of Dr Bergen's Authority in compliance with Richmond politics instead of the will of the Bedford community at Large [Music] Gina Dudley she's coming okay hello hi

082Gina my name is Gina I'm in District 3 uh I'm really just here to make a statement mainly to the four board members who think that you guys know better than our than the parents of these kids um I've recently withdrew my three children from school so there's another 39,000 that you're going to lose and I hate that I hate that for the kids but you guys have clearly lost your minds all of you have especially you you okay you're ruining Bedford County soos to you we already had a high number of of homeschool kids now it's climbing because of you because of your shady acts because of y'all's Shady acts because y'all think that you know better than the parents I would love to see how y'all would react if we were telling you

083your children that they couldn't wear a mask what if we said you cannot wear a mask what if we told all of you you could not be in here right now without a mask on because the mask makes you feel safe so I don't understand why we don't have those same rights for our children and if this is actually about Public Safety then how come is it on Friday nights the football team can go out there and be in a football be play football together spitting on each other high-fiving each other out in the in the locker room unmasked you pack all the kids together in their little student section some of them don't even have shirts on you know they're spits flying when they're talking but then come Monday morning oh guys pull your

084seats AC away six feet put your mask on don't talk to each other don't touch each other that's asinine that makes zero sense whatsoever so the best decision that I could have made unfortunately I was forced into it was pulling my kids out of this tyranny of a public school system I [Applause] [Music] ladies and gentlemen we were a prized of an educational initiative called culturally responsive teaching or CRT I want to visit that topic it was deafening that CRT was never defined although we were told it was different than critical race Theory yet in many ways it is not culturally responsive teaching is a program promoted by the Virginia Department of Education it is said to be a key element of Virginia's road map to uh academic Equity according to the Department of Education

085Equity or more precisely Ed Equity involves the elimination of disparities and academic outcomes among students those disparities are assumed to be the result of various cultural racial and gender biases native intelligence Talent discipline and hard work are not considered CRT also appears to have been adopted without proper scientific inquiry or with the broad consent of We the People culturally responsible of teaching is also related to two other Concepts critical theory and critical race Theory critical theory was developed by the cultural Marxist Frankfurt School an intellectual movement created by leftists in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s it was later introduced into prestigious American universities it has since metastasized throughout most of Academia critical race theory is a derivation or sorry a derivative of that concept the Assumption in both theories is that disparities in Social

086and economic outcome exist because of class and race exploitation a Marxist theme has been carried over into education through culturally responsive teaching that considers desparate academic outcomes as exploitative resources are diverted from academically successful from the academically success UC F to ensuring absolute equality of outcome this is equity and it has consequences rather than resources made value uh available to all students equally equality of opportunity resources are reallocated based on bureaucratically perceived group needs in his Communist Manifesto Carl Marx wrote from each according to his ability to each according to his need cultur responsive teaching with its underpinning of critical theory and so-called Ed Equity will impoverish all students intellectually it will also relegate otherwise academically gifted students to second class status I know what I'm talking about ladies and gentlemen I spent 20 years

087of my 40-year professional life as a sovietologists in this room has ever done I was in communism behind the Iron Curtain in several countries I know what people are thinking they want and they don't realize what they're asking for thank [Applause] [Music] you C Parker hello I am a 10th grader and my name is cayb Parker I'm going to speak about the injustices that I and others have been put through with the The Mask mandate Monday the 30th of August I walked in the school and I was sent right to an isolation room by principal Wilson where I saw my friend sitting there alone I didn't know this before but she was moved three times before she got to the specific room and it was only 8:40 in the morning we were Overjoyed when we

088saw each other because we didn't feel as lo as alone two others came into the room and followed by them was principal Wilson the principal took us one by one into a storage room that was connected to the isolation room and told us all the same thing you can either go to class without a mask on and wear some type of face covering throughout the hallways or you can be put into a room that will be away from everyone else and continue your work I felt very uncomfortable going into this room alone with him because first of all it was not easily visible to others and the fact that I was alone with him my other friends felt the same exact way and we didn't know what to do there were four of us in

089the room in the beginning and then there were only three and he took us three to the main office so that we could go into his personal office one by one again so that we can discuss our curricular options he questioned me once again about what I wanted to do and I told him I wanted to call my mom he called her and they talked and my mom brought me home once I got home I found out that seven others joined the isolation group along with somebody reading the Constitution of the United States to everyone I also found out that there were other isolation rooms all throughout the building so that we weren't um wouldn't be in the same isolation room knowing that we would stand strong together I came back the next day and

090the situation seemed unbelievable first every entrance of the school um there was an admin checking to see if everyone had a mask on one of the ad administrators asked if I had a mask and said no no and I said no and he tried to hand me a mask but I said no then he told me which isolation room to go to 12 of us were put into one of the smallest rooms in JF throughout the day we were made to feel like we were less than people and were a disease throughout the day the vice principal stood in front of the window that was that was on the door during the Bell changes and if anyone asked who was in the room she would simply say these are just some students that are trying

091to finish their work and comply do and completely dodging the idea that we were putting that they were putting all of us into an isolation room and not even getting proper instruction from our teachers my grade in my classes dropped from a to a c in one day because I was knocking proper instruction and the teachers weren't grading my work correctly our teachers had to send work to our room because we weren't allowed to leave the room but only to go to the restroom after the Bell change I asked my band teacher what I could do um to continue playing my music and he said that he would figure it out and my vice principal said that I was not allowed to go back to class but she said I was allowed to participate in

092the band concerts which made completely zero sense thank you Miss Parker is up I asked we said earlier no Outburst or we will have to clear the room Parker your time is up please step away from the [Applause] mic good evening my name is Beatrice iara I am a resident of bed for County and a member of District 4 I am speaking tonight on behalf of the organization moms for Liberty but this is my family story I am a grateful believer in Jesus Christ I am the first generation of Jesus followers in my family born and raised in medin Colombia South America in a non-religious home I am the oldest of four siblings both of my parents were College professors I attended a private Catholic school and college where I never received a any biblical

093instruction but instead a set of rules to follow growing up in Colombia in the 80s and 90s I learned how to survive during fear persecution and intimidation and I also what it means when somebody wants to give you something for nothing and you ended up getting nothing for something I made my husband in 1998 in our last year in college we got married in 2001 the same year we immigrated to the us we fled our beautiful Colombia and left everything behind our families friends culture our careers Our Heritage trading those for Life freedom and the pursuit of happiness that only America could provide for us at that time this country has been our sweet home for the last 20 years we have climbed the professional ladder we became investors we are raising our family here

094we have been blessed by three spirited children we travel from cost to cost we have traveled overseas we go to restaurants checking at hotels and have never felt rejected discriminated by anybody by any way we have been able to achieve the American dream after coming here only with a piece of luggage full of hopes and dreams for a better future for our next Generations I have a moral and spiritual and patriotic duty to speak against this increased toward secularism moral relativism and antichristian mindset I won't be a victim of ignorance poor decisions or laziness like Frankle grham once said I know that we are going to be attack no matter what we do if we stand for God's word if we stand for the truth but for me the worst thing that could happen is

095for the Lord Jesus Christ to come back and find me sitting on my hands and keeping my mouth shut amen when he comes back I hope that he finds me fighting and standing for the truth is standing up for this Onslaught this tsunami this tired of wave of evil that is coming down on society today in 2 Timothy 3 the Bible speaks of a time in which those who follow biblical standards of morality will be despised and persecuted and the truth will be resisted by men of corrupt Minds it is vital important that we do not C to this pressure and losen our grip on biblical and scientific truth I am not willing to give up my freedom for a false sense of security I know from personal experience what happens when a society surrenders

096individual liberty to the state and the state never gives it back the target terrorists are no longer in the Middle East the new enemies are those who refuse to give up their rights here at home now is not the time to sit and E all and hope for things to get better as Ron Paul said earlier we will allow these people to use fear and propaganda to do for their hand to our society economy and our children or we will stand together and say abs absolutely not not this time I choose Freedom the definition of freedom is not safety Freedom comes with risk and it is up to us to assess those risk and make our own decisions government can eliminate risk and only tians claim to be able to do so it gives them

097complete control over your life will be one will you be one who chooses freedom and and assess your own safety or will you continue to believe in the totalitarian fantasy that this government is creating a war without risk the choice is yours do I have more time okay thank you so much thank you m and just to clarify she was part of a group so she got five minutes all right point we will move back to the other items on our agenda so item seven approval of consent agenda Mr chairman uh I'd like to consider item 7.07 Personnel report separately as an action item from the Personnel report or I'm sorry from the okay so uh consider item 7.07 separately from the rest of consent okay speaker list so in that case we right yep

098on what no we vot on the consent agenda well I'm reading right here last paragraph uh last sentence last paragraph items may be removed from the consent agenda at the request of any board member I'm any board member I'm requesting it be removed I don't think that takes a vote okay Mr correct okay okay all right so then in that case do we have a motion on the other items of the consent agenda 7.01 02 03 04 05 06 and 08 Mr chairman I move that we accept the consent agenda uh except for the item noted by Mr Lei okay so we have a motion to approve the rest of the consent agenda with the exception of 7.07 do you have a second second second by any discussion not call for a vote all those

099in favor please say I I I youst all right consent agenda is approved all right so Mr chairman I would like to uh consider uh employee 123 123 separately from the personel we have motion to separate item one employee one two3 one two3 we have a motion by Mr Lei to do that do we have a second second can you all speak up no one can hear so we have a second by Dr Hicks any discussion not call for my my moot okay so this is to consider that that item separately or that employee separately okay um all right so all those in favor of Mr Li's motion to consider employee number 123 separately from the rest of the consent agenda please say I I I any opposed right motion is approved unanimously Mr chairman

100um I moveed that we reject the superintendent's recommendation for employee 1 23 all right so Mr Lei makes a motion to reject the superintendent's recommendation for employee number 123 right do we have a second second all right so motion by Mr Lei a second by Mr Fu discussion not I'll call for a vote all those in favor please say I I all those opposed no no Miss Johnson please pull the board Miss Harrison no Dr Hicks no Mr Hill yes Mr Johnson no Mrs Kirby yes Mr Ley yes Dr mey no those have it with four do we have a motion on the rest of the personel report Mr chairman I move that we accept the uh rest of the Personnel report as presented okay so we have a motion by Dr Hicks to approve

101the rest of the Personnel report do we have a second second second by Miss harston discussion not all those in favor please say I I any opposed the rest of the Personnel report is approved unanimously item eight so we will pick up where we left off before the dinner break with math I believe Okay so we've heard updates about English uh and about social studies and now we're going to hear from M Audrey Bo you're the supervisor of mathematics good evening during the 2020 2021 school year the mathematics pacing guides were adjusted to match and cover only the priority standards given by the bdoe now that BCPS has moved to in-person learning for all students pacing guides have been updated for the 2021 2022 school year to address all standards of learning video resources such

102as the just in time Quick Check chairman I'm sorry I cannot hear could you hold on everyone apologize the room quietly thank you Mr chairman I apologize again M like me to start over please would you like start thank you good evening during the 2021 2020 school year the mathematics pacing guides were adjusted to match and cover the priority standards given by the vdoe now that BCPS has moved to in-person learning for all students pacing guides have been updated for the 2021 2022 school year to address all standards of learning videoe resources such as the just in time quick checks co- teing lesson plans mathematical instructional plans and Rich mathematical task have been embedded into all BCPS curriculum guides for each grade level K through Algebra 2 teachers are also utilizing the vooe just in

103time quick checks to reveal common misconceptions and student errors they are essential in assisting our teachers in identifying unfinished learning and planning instruction that will fill potential gaps in learning and guide small group and tiered instructional needs teachers are utilizing these vooe resources along with our district pacing guides and best practices to develop short and long range plans that align curriculum instruction and assessment BCPS instruction promotes the following best practices on the teaching framework of mathematics as adapted from the national Council of teacher of mathematics explicit instruction includes modeling facilitated by the teacher guided and independent practice and consistent dialogue teachers facilitate mathematical discourse through purposeful questions the use and connections of mathematical representations student thinking and explanations and productive struggle as students reason with my mathematical Concepts immediate feedback for students allows for growth

104and Mastery of those Concepts the use of formal common mathematical language and vocabulary increases students understanding of mathematical situations and tasks that promote critical thinking and problem solving increase students reasoning skills and understanding of mathematical Concepts to provide teachers with the necessary knowledge regarding resources that will identify and address our unfinished learning professional development is being provided in September to our teachers on the use of the booe just in time quick checks and on the diagnostic and skill plan updates of our ISL online resource based on the 2020 2021 so results the grade levels that demonstrated the most significant deficits in math were grades 6 through eight the data shows the need for improvement specifically in the areas of number and number sense and computation and estimation meetings are being scheduled with Middle School administrator

105math department chairs and algebra Readiness teachers to develop algebra Readiness intervention plans that address number and number sense and computation and estimation our middle and high schools have an allotment of algebra Readiness funds and are required to provide identifi students with an additional two and a half hours of extra instruction funds are typically used to compensate staff for providing these intervention services which could include the hiring of additional staff members algebra readiness intervention services can be delivered face Toof face virtually in small groups or individually the videoe algebra Readiness initiative resources along with the vooe mathematics vertical articulation tool will be utilized to provide staff with individualized student remediation plans quarterly data meetings at all elementary middle and high schools involving the division instruction team and school administrators will focus on school data and providing

106resources and strategies to address individual School needs in the area of mathematics we will continue to provide Direction and important information to support teachers throughout the school year through our BCPS math collaborative canvas course now I'm going to turn it over to our supervisor of science and computer science Miss Allison kapler hi hi science standard updates were released by The vdoe and and we have been gradually adopting the 2018 standards kindergarten through third grade has already begun teaching with the new SOS I have met with fourth and sixth grade teachers to create their pacing guides they will be using this year with the new standards and fifth grade 7th grade and above will begin using the 2018 standards next school year there have been not major changes in these standards but a few SOS have

107shifted grade levels this is a crosswalk testing year which means students will be tested on the 2010 standards but will have some field items on the new 2018 standards next year all students will be tested on the 2018 science standards this year we will begin pursuing a science textbook adoption to then begin using next school year as you may or may not be aware the VOE released computer science SOS in 2017 for grades K through 8 with the intent that these standards would be integrated and taught in core content classes in order to continue moving Bedford County forward with computer science integration curriculum guides were created and will continue to be further developed in it with integrated lessons and activities for teachers a computer science support team has been created with members from throughout the

108district from varying grade levels with different expertise to develop resources and strategies for all teachers to be able to use a monthly stem newsletter for all staff will also be released the discovery Hub gives a spotlight of Bedford County classroom or schools a stem tidbit with a focus on vocabulary exposure or teaching strategies an activity takeaway section with integrated lessons teachers could take and easily use in their classrooms as well as a looking ahead section to give highlights of upcoming events and opportunities both locally and world wild I want to thank the supervisor for all the hard work over the summer and their support of schools during the beginning of this school year so the focus of tonight's presentation has been on the core subject areas uh we certainly are willing to come back to

109report on progress on Fine Arts and World languages PE and CTE so at this time I'd be happy to answer any question word member questions Mr Ley yes uh this long would you mind you know I'm technologically challenged uh would you mind emailing me a link to where I can take a look at the uh the uh African American history elective curriculum sure okay thank you other questions okay Dr M and then miss Kirby um yes um Dr uh crer I'm not sure um I'm just going to put both of these together and need to answer them that's fine definitely it's fine um I know we're looking at a new reading series and we're looking um I did not know that at a new science adoption so um will there be some sort of plan

110drawn up for this and my concern is that um and I'm not saying necessarily it's occurred here I I've been here you know was in division for a dozen years and I'm not sure we adopted much but I I would really like to see um for reading or for science say that um any science teacher would be able to review how we're going to go about this how we're going you know how they can provide inut instead of just typically you know books show up at a school and there's maybe not a way to accurately review that um so that's one question will there be a plan and then the second one for that is are are these teams also going to spend some time looking at the literature to determine like especially for a

111reading series and especially since we haven't adopted one in so long what are the mo the the best research based components of that so that we can kind of all agree when we're all finished yeah we agree this Series has this and maybe this one over here we don't even have to look at because they don't have it so yeah so those are very good questions and I'll just say we're very early in that process so I don't I don't have answers for you but what I will say is we've started discussing what that process will look like uh We've started by looking at board policy on textbook adoption um and we absolutely intend to get feedback from teachers from community members uh from variety of individuals and we've even discussed uh bringing in all

112core content areas in in the science textbook and and reading and um and and absolutely when we make decisions we want to make sure we look at evidence-based practices so we will certainly be considering that as well uh we want to be transparent with that process so as I said we we have not we're very early in this process but we certainly intend to do those things that you mentioned okay thank you um I just want to say um our new Assessment program Mastery connections or contact okay um have our teachers been um have they received professional development for that at this time or are they not using it are you all doing that how so right now the division team has been trained uh this coming Tuesday our principls will be trained on September

11315th and 16th each school has selected um someone from their school to be trained and then they will be trained staff in October and then our hope is to give principes time to start rolling that in their schools October November and then by December we'd like to start giving common benchmarks for the division great um and and we would we would have loved to have started the year like this but we we want to make sure we do this right we think it's a very good program we think it's very data driven and uh we want to make sure that we give our teachers an opportunity to learn it um and and to use the data effectively okay well I appreciate that because I think common uh assessments of some kind are really Val that's

114going to be our goal moving forward as common assessments um I Heard um a lot of people several of our supervisors say that um we are vetting the resources that are on pages and I'm so grateful for that as well who exactly is doing that yeah so we we do it as a team and so the first person that it would go to would be the supervisor over that content area um they look at that they discuss that with myself Dr Woodford has been involved we look at it as a team okay it's it's important that not just one individual has only eyes on that particular area or subject um the assess ments that you're doing it is will there be a schedule set for that in the division since they're going to be common

115within a range I'm not saying everybody does it on Tuesday December 10th or something but we we actually have created a division assessment calendar that we've asked administrators to follow it's it's really important that we have common data points across the division uh and so so Master connects will start in in the second semester but for um some of the schools that have have shown that they have some extra work to do with scores from uh previous school years we've purchased an extra program called Maps testing and that's that's something that has been well researched and we think is a good program so we wanted to get that data quicker uh and so there is a count I'd be happy to share that with you you can see what we're thank you yeah um and

116you also or one of the supervisors um mentioned assessment for scoring uh the writing uh portion and um that the teacher some teachers didn't get their PD with that um but are are we sure that our teachers are all going to get this well it was sent in in ltp and and linked to that was a was a video that explained how to do that so that should have been shared with teachers um if they didn't get it please reach out to myself for Dr eisenh how yeah I don't know that anybody didn't I'm just wondering how we're we're we're following that and making sure that they they are aware they know that's already been shared um I I just want to thank all of the supervisors truly I think the fact that you're you've

117redone those pages and those resource and you're really looking at vetting resources because I'm sure as you went through the page Pages you noticed that there were a lot of resources that really just weren't appropriate um or cost money math was a really big one he had some good resources but they all cost or a lot of them you had to pay for so thank you so much for that I know that's a lot of hard work and I I truly truly appreciate all that hard work I think it's really going to help our um our teachers um thank you again too for focusing on school data and and meeting with people and that that's just another another great thing um so uh that's all I had but thank you so much that really was

118just wonderful work thanks Miss gby um well actually Dr mey got answers most of my question um but I did have one more um and I understand the purpose of doing this is to create Level Playing Field across count County have everything on the same page um what is being done though and and Dr Bergen I've talked briefly about this but what is the plan because we still have some schools on a block schedule and we still have some schools on a period schedule and we need to get continuity among that as well so what is the m what is the plan to get there no so Dr Bergen and I have talked about that as we start looking at strategic plan with the board and talking to our principles so that's definitely something we

119are looking at for the future especially as we are trying to offer more dual enrollment offer more CTE opportunities um the ability to share resources between schools um so the instruction team and I have not spoken about that yet Dr Bergen and I have talked about that is a direction that we're going and it's kind of on our list of goals so you will be hearing more about that and one more question um I've heard wonderful things about the dual enrollment CTE and when you said you're going to bring things back I'm assuming that could possibly come back next month to let us know more about that sure yeah we're ABS we're happy to do that absolutely yeah okay thank you so much Mr Hill um so fresh Dr Woodford block schedule versus period schedules

120I want to make sure we're not shafting one high school to benefit two other high schools based on numbers no sir I want to make sure it would benefit all and not just you have to change this because the other two are this way well what we would do is we would have our principles in on those discussions that that wouldn't be something we would do on our own and defin there's three principles absolutely two on one schedule one on another so I want to make sure we're not shafting one sure to benefit the others absolutely I mean it needs to be a playing field but if it's working for one school and it's offering more classes more schedules more dual enrollment Etc I would hopefully think that you're going to get both sides the

121benefit of the doubt and not just shifting to one yes sir okay all right just wanted to clarify all right so Mr trer Dr trer I apologize uh social studies updates who is involved I'm sorry who is involved social studies updates who who who are what group of people are involved in in terms of selecting the curriculum all of the above so I heard from the supervisor social studies updates okay I want to know who is involved well as I said the team is involved and mainly Miss dong and I work together we we've talked to Dr Woodford she has worked with teachers uh she spent a lot of time with teachers we've met with every uh department so essentially I think it's fair to say all the secondary or high school um history teachers

122um and then also we're we're our goal is to really be committed to to send information then be transparent about about the resources we we do have so we are getting feedback from teachers sure it was I'd add Mr Hill to that um so it covers everything from K through 12 so we reached out to teachers in all three zones uh from all different grade levels what are you already using you find that you like that is really good uh What are the areas that you find like that you have weaknesses in so we we definitely have got and then like specifically the African-American history course we've been working very collaboratively with the three teachers who are uh teaching that course but it's definitely all three zones and impact and input from our teachers all

123right so I want to get to the African-American history in just a second but I got one more question around updates uh biased or agenda items have been removed what does that mean and can you give me some examples do you want me to answer yeah you want talk about sure so we're we're looking at thing we're not saying no bias because it's pretty much impossible to find ones we're but we're looking for things that have the least amount of possible bias so for I'm sorry but can you define that I mean I I want to understand sure anything that we feel that is really kind of I would say promoting agenda that's leaning towards one side like you can clearly see when you're reading it that it has a more um liberal bias or

124conservative bias that's not towards that middle what we're looking for to for our students we're looking something that's kind of free from politics if you will we're thinking about except of course if it's a government course but um looking at two also when you thinking about bias who is the sponsoring agent of that is it a group that's paid you know for this or is it something that is um kind of outside but I want to make sure I understand you're not removing facts of course not or history of course not okay and we use the the standards of learning that's our basis and we're using the resources to support the standards of learning that gives me Comfort but I I I want to understand you know when you say bias or agenda that is

125not removing facts of course not and it's not being played on emotion oh of course not okay so the team which would be Miss dong um teachers from all K through 12 and any others that are being involved in that Dr chord Dr Woodford we've had some other questions okay all right so a African-American history elective uh wrote course standards for our BC BCPS curriculum who who wrote that so so if you look at for example she used the world history courses they have specific standards the Virginia Department of Education has written so those were actually not written for this particular course there was a curriculum guide that we shared with you at Dr woodford's update that you can get on our website um so we had to essentially go out and kind of create

126those and so we found um standards from another state that we felt um as best as we could in the spirit of unbias and so we adopted those and of course we made some changes for example we use figures from Virginia history as opposed to this state's history and so we did essentially have to work on that together but again those teachers of that course were involved in that process so three teachers and I don't want to put words in your mouth so who else workot that curriculum uh Miss Miss dong myself um and and with some input from the instruction Team all right all teacher created resources are reviewed and vetted my question was by who Dr mey had asked ant asked that question so the supervisor over content and a team my question

127is does that include teachers um here's what I will say our teachers are professionals and we have never been this involved in in in selecting their resources for them um and you know as a someone who taught social studies I've never had this much involvement from Administration but we've heard the concerns of of our Board of our community we just want to make sure that we have other eyes on those resour ources that are adopted to make sure that we're doing what we say we're doing we we sat here and we said we're not teaching critical race Theory and it's important to us that that happens um and we expect that to be followed so we are involved in that but our teachers are professionals and I trust them to select their resources but we're

128here to support them okay so I'm taking it that as a a yes that the teachers are okay all right so I wrote to sound we are not teaching critical race theory in our classes which you just reiterated so I appreciate that uh Mr dong you also mentioned we are not using the Ed Equity Virginia resources um which I wrote critical race Theory underneath that but what is that can I I actually if you don't mind defer to Dr Woodford about that if she wants because she's a little more versed in the Ed Equity answer for that so on the doe website there's a link to a new site called Ed Equity uh Virginia and um we were kind of alerted to that site a little bit after our first presentation with the board um

129because it's not under the social studies curriculum it's not under the curriculum and when you go to that site which takes you off of the doe site there are critical race Theory resources in that um so we made the decision that that is not a a page of resources that we'll pull resources from um and so it's part of um the work work with the doe with Equity um and so um I think the concern people had in the community about critical race theory in history we weren't seeing it in the history content because it's actually linked on the Ed Equity Virginia site which is a link on doe that takes us out of the doe so what we're saying is we're just not using we we've gone through those we have some concerns so

130we're not using those resources we have that blocked on our website well it's on the doe site so it the any web address can be blocked so are those blocked those links no they're not blocked there are some good resources on there but we just have concerns about some of the content so okay have we used Ed Equity Virginia resources in the past no sir um any new resources have to be approved is that a true there is a yes there is a curriculum feedback form that we have for all subjects it's not just for social studies and teachers are expected to use that um I can give you an example just recently um one of the uh African-American history elective teachers sent me a link to a uh video that he had found uh

131that was through PBS and he's like I I feel like this is good he's like I just want to you know double check that this is is good I reviewed it approved it and so there is a um so it's teachers are giving us stuff that they already want to use and then whatever content it is it goes to that supervisor to look through and if we if I had been haded question then that would go to Dr TR where maybe even get another teacher's input okay are we tracking those requests yes there is a form it's a Google form that they fill out so we have those to be tracked yes um so if we're not using the Ed Equity virgin Virginia resources what resources are we using um and what specific books and

132specific resources well as Mr lii had requested that link if you go on our web page you can actually look at particular for that African-American history course you can look at the curriculum guide and you can look at all of those resources there um are you spe speaking specifically to the African-American history elective course so the three teachers sat down and um really kind of designed out a unit plan that uh was based on kind of it's a pretty much a consensus of what is kind of taught in African-American history elective courses it's broken down into time periods unit one it goes up I believe there are there's 10 or 11 units and they're broken by uh by time period basically and so right now they're uh finishing up the kind of uh uh American

133Revolution time period they're getting ready to start into unit three and so then based on those units then we based on the standards there's topics that are covered within those making sure that we teach uh different important people and such there we do not have An approved textbook at this point so um as happens in a lot of our social studies courses like for example uh many of our textbooks uh for social studies are dated like 2002 and so we use a lot of online resources to support those and so there are a lot of fantastic resources that use primary sources and that's again like we said we really want to focus on those skills so really working on that creative thinking that critical thinking uh collaboration and so there there's been um a lot

134of collaboration with the three of them and myself and designing they're writing their own lessons um and coming up with different activities to do those resources for units one two and three are available on that link yes they are I can I can copy you on that one I send to Mr Lei tomorrow if you like okay um math um you said at all inpersonal learning don't think that's a true statement so we force students to viral Virginia and some of them are still in our classrooms so I want to make sure I understand how does that affect the students that we have in our buildings that are doing virtual Virginia have students who are bed for connects that that do virtual Virginia and they were informed and I checked with the administator last night

135there's 180 of those so so certainly those are not imperson um and and so as as as for the others um you know maybe you could take that most of those students in Virtual Virginia are at home um and at this point uh from my understanding from the principles we only have two students who are doing virtual Virginia at the school and um they have uh someone that we've hired ired to work with them and provide them help or remediation if needed okay but is virtual Virginia is it considered inperson learning um I would think that it's it's a virtual platform I mean you know they are getting uh instruction from teachers from virtual Virginia so and getting their content from them I just want to understand what you're saying that I want to understand

136the context and then my last question uh for math pacing guides what's the feedback from the teachers so back in the summer I um asked each principal to send me a name of um an individual from their school from K through 12 that would be willing to go through our pacing guides and um provide feedback on what we were putting out there um feedback on pacing feedback on how we were using what we were teaching in each nine weeks and also the curriculum resource guides that go along with those pacing guides um the feedback from teachers it was um um most of them said I don't want any changes there were a few I have reached out to those individuals and I had asked them if there was any way that we could wait so

137that we could get more consensus once teachers came back to school and bring them back together um if we could just leave the pacing guides as is for right now and then use this year to get them back together and get more consensus before we change um what time period we teach something in so if they most of the changes they wanted were to move something from third n weeks to first nine weeks so overall would would the teachers agree this is the right thing for the kids okay Miss Kirby and then miss hariston um Mong I'm sorry to put you back on the hot seat that's okay this is what I signed up for right I'm glad you look at it like that unfortunately right now you really are I'm sorry um when you

138were talking before you said you were looking for um curriculum that had the least amount of biased and you're also kind of middle of the road curriculum um I'm not going to lie middle of the road when you made reference to midle road that concerns me um how hard is it to find curricul that is strict fact and does not have the least amount of bias or middle of the road how hard is it to find that anymore so there are I would say that there are several sites that are consistently very good uh for example the National Park Service like you think oh the National Park Service but yet they have fantastic resources on say Booker T Washington just a neighbor of ours and literally giving you the facts information about them um there

139are there was some places like I would start at a site I'm like okay then you start to read and then it becomes very clear there's somebody you scroll down you see who paid for the site and you're like well that's kind of what I expected um but there are those sites that are very consistent like the National Park Service there's also um some teacher creative materials we use a lot of go open Virginia which are teacher resources um actually worked on a committee a year and a half ago creating resources from that it's an open source where teachers can upload their lesson plans and they tag which so it goes with again it's open Virginia and that's been an excellent resource there um and so we've also looked at there's been ones where literally

140the teachers are creating something um I've been working with them for example you know creating a Lessa plan that I found from someone it's like okay this could work let's adapt this maybe from something that came from world history let's adapt this to something that we're doing in African-American history there's a lot of our materials not just in African-American history course but K through 12 where we have a lot of teacher created material for example once you hit third grade our textbooks and social studies in elementary school they don't match the SOS at all and so they're they're doing teacher creative material um yeah I remember early on when when I was first here I remember plea that the history books didn't even have 911 yeah um so when you say very good Define your

141your your standard for like a very good resource so this would be something that I would say would be something that I feel like is really truly free from bias as much as possible it is a something that has that rigor and kind of that creative thinking um ideal resource would also have um tiered activities or a lot of the some really good lesson plans that are online will have how you could adapt this for different grade levels especially because in our elective courses we have it can be anybody from nth grade to 12th grade in there so how do you make sure that you're teaching something that you can differentiate even within your class also the teachers really want to make it an engaging course as it is an elective and so it's what

142can we do to really uh do activities that are you know moving around they did a when they were doing uh African origins they did poster presentations you know some different activities to really get them but that's that's what we're looking for things that are going to engage our students that are factual like it's good content that is factual we're definitely definitely reading through the content we don't want to share anything that is not correct and and and I'm hearing I'm hearing exactly what you're saying would you just confirm for me um because I'm sure this isn't true um is CRT considered in the teacher evaluations and when we evaluate teachers I can't speak to teacher evaluations I'll let yeah um status what you're talking about being culturally being able to culturally relate to students

143that is a change that the doe has proposed for Teacher evaluations for next year I believe 22 23 yes so it's not in our teacher evaluation right now so will but it will be coming up if it becomes a requirement from the doe we'll look at how we would Implement that and we would work with the team of teachers on that it it when we look at teacher evaluation systems that's not just administrators that's teachers bringing together committees and looking at that um so you know we we will definitely address that when we get to it but we haven't there's a guideline out there but there's not a mandate yet yeah okay well and of course you guys are the Educators and and I'm not so would you clarify for me exactly what that part

144of the evaluation would inel the CRT I mean why I I don't have that in in my memory bank right now um we can get that information we probably have to look into draft from the do website thank you very much thank you m d you're very welcome I'm done all right thank you should stay right there it's my turn um Miss tone you correct me if I'm wrong but I if memory serves me correctly you were literally selected by the state to serve on the African-American history study is that correct yes ma'am one of the two teachers from the state that were chosen well what a great honor for our division to have you serve and I'm I'm sure the fact that you were selected to me speaks volumes to your ability your skill

145your knowledge level regarding history and so we're we're really fortunate to have you uh serve in the capacity that you're serving now um I do have a question regarding uh first let me just say that the requests that have been made by by uh the fellow board members Mr Hill and Mr leeny I I too would like to receive that same link perfect make sure everybody gets it perfect I appreciate that I also have a couple questions regarding the African-American history teachers you said we have three of them okay those individuals um have they taught African-American history before one of them has taught it before um all three of them are um history US history teachers that's their core content um I know that two of them are currently the uh AP US History teachers

146well as well which means that they've had extra training as well on those things um and they've they've been putting forth some fantastic materials there's also a real desire um I'll share this too to really involve our local history that what we can do um especially as we get to the more contemporary like I know we're planning to do something special about Susie Gibson you know and making sure that we're using our local history as well as part of this that's one of the things that we've made sure that it represents Virginia as well as much as we can oh you know you must have been reading my mind because I was about to ask you uh certainly that we should include that rich history that we have right here in Bedford regarding Susie G

147Gibson um absolutely um I also wanted to know and I'm going to kind of um direct this question to Dr Woodford but I'm coming back to you so don't go anywhere Miss um so Dr Woodford the Ed Equity yes ma'am okay you had indicated that you guys decided uh not to look at that not to include it now my question for the history pieces of it for the history pieces of it and I will tell you Dr Miller before she went um she was our Equity coordinator for the division and she attended all those doe meetings um and I have actually taken over that and I have they haven't had any meetings yet um so part of that will be in what do we use the Ed Equity site for um and then I will

148go through and vet the resources there are some really good resources on there and then there are some we we don't want to use so um as I take over that role in Dr Miller's place I'll be looking more into that site right now we decided as a team let's stay away from it until we can really dig into it and spend some time with it um because we didn't want to do a rush job and look through things too quickly so um I asked the team if they would let me get involved with being Equity coordinator for the division and then we would look back at it again okay all right um to be Contin then yes ma'am the questions uh okay U Mrs delone um can I conclude that you have been work

149working closely with the three africanamerican history teachers yes we sometimes we talk several times a day um when we were first kind of starting out um very much so we have um um I'm actually designing one of the units to help them out like writing all the lessons and everything um they're amazing to be working we're a great division but I'm going be honest we don't always work very well all three zones and and um I think that's something you all know and this is all three zones working together very very well and it is lovely to see and uh yes but I'm definitely working a lot with them and talking with them thank you okay other other board questions right I I have one quick question for Miss Boer that sure Mr talk you

150get an extra brownie I am I am so happy to see you I mean you you were such an amazing math teacher every time I visited Stant River Middle so to now see you sharing your gifts with our teachers across the county is is really wonderful but um I know earlier in the summer there was some questions about whether or not advanced math courses would still be taught just to confirm we are still teaching advanced math in Bedford County right correct okay thank you that's awesome she got off lucky she did well I mean there's nothing else to ask that hasn't already been asked at this point so um so Dr Trosper and and team thank you all very much for providing that we look forward to learning more about CTE hopefully next month then

151right staff report item 3.02 fiscal year 21 end of year Financial forecast Mr Haggler yes good evening um bringing to you uh a preliminary um look at what our end of year looked like last year um for our financials um we still have to go through the audit process with the county and once that's concluded I will be bringing a supplemental appropriation to this board and also then taking it over to the Board of Supervisors as we talked um in inding Balance we were thinking of splitting between the textbook fund and also the maintenance Reserve fund um textbook fund really $2 million planning to go in there for the science and the English uh adoptions that we were uh the team was talking about tonight so um on the revenue side on the first page

152um came in roughly about a million dollars over budget we' already put in a lot of the supplemental Appropriations throughout the year for the cares act that we were using last year and also State funding came in a lot better than projected mainly on the sales tax if you look at that area right there um a lot higher than projected um it never really dipped um like they had anticipated like we were preparing for so that that drove the biggest part of that so that contributed to our ending bounce um coming in a lot better on the revenue side any questions on the revenue side before I go to the expenditure side yes I just have a couple um I know we talked about it at several other board meetings but is it possible for

153us to get a breakdown of that money for ex example I don't know what other is um and you might have said I'm sure you did I just can't keep that in my brain um the the federal what goes into that $4 million there um and then the you know we talked about too the the listing of that $6 million and a date of when that was going to run out so that would always be in our heads there um because this is year end right this this is just year end this is just looking at and I do a quarterly each year so I'll do the first quarter for this year in October uh once we have our membership numbers and our all of our salaries are loaded up in the September payroll so

154um that will be coming in October hopefully and I'll present something simar list this is really just a snapshot of what we're going to look like on our funding our bounce and and making sure we're looking good for the whole year so we're making a lot of assumptions a lot of projections very early on the year before we've used a lot of our fuel we don't know what the Winter's like um and so but we usually know what our salaries are we know what our membership is probably going to be it does fluctuate through the year but we can get a pretty good snapshot to make sure there's no issues or we have making sure we don't have to cut back on our operating to come in on budget so with this this is just

155looking back at last year what you're referring to is really a a future budget this is really not a budget document it's just a snapshot of where we are financially for the current year uh but what you're referring to is reversion in 29 and how we're doing on that so that'll all come through the budget process and do that in regards to what these major categories on Revenue are can provide more detail on that okay uh just at a high level the other is anything that's locally we receive um non-resident tuition um uh CBC dual enrollment um you know anything that we we're charging for that we might get on that um use of our facilities uh the common Commonwealth of Virginia and sales tax have separately that's really the state funding the federal is

156Title One title two and 21st century are primar the big drivers of that um and then the local transfer so yeah I'll be happy to get more detail on that I'll front of my face to know where those that money comes from y on the expenditure side um we came in quite a bit under budget that was forecasted uh almost in the first quarter because of some of the cares act money that was coming in some of the expenditures that we were not really going to be doing in a modified school year uh so we were seeing some savings on that uh when I was over at the board of supervisors I kind of gave them a heads up that we were probably going to be the $34 million range coming in with our funding

157boun so I gave them a very early notice on that when all the cares act money was coming through so um that kind of came in pretty strong you know in combination with the uh the sales tax so it came in a little bit higher because that sales tax uh com in a lot stronger that was last three months but um ending projecting budget right now preliminary before audit's done 4.4 million 4.5 million so once again 2 million would go to the textbook The rest would go into the maintenance Reserve so we could do projects a lot of the caraz ACT money is being diverted in look at for cleaning supplies for extra teachers for uh materials in the classroom but a lot of that is being looked at for future HVAC and air quality

158projects um so that money that we would transfer from here would not have to be used on HVAC it could be used on other items that uh wouldn't fall under that those Federal Monies okay I have a question y I'm really I'm trying to understand this stuff so this is year end did this report here yes ma'am so okay help me understand why we have an actual column 2021 that's exactly the same as the projected call I just take the same spreadsheet because when I do the first quarter I'll do actual as of the first quarter and then I'll project out the rest of the year I just modify this the spreadsheet for year anim make them the same number instead these are actual actual numbers they're no projected anymore so that column really doesn't

159need to be there it's just using the same spr I used for the first uh three quarters okay but the projected versus budget and projected versus budget the last two cols are actually supposed to be actual yes okay well it is pre- audit so we got to go through that audit process make sure everything's accounted for and clear before we can go and give you the final account for that right but when you give it to them is it it's it would be the actual right because we're we're all done with this money we are all all the transactions are in I'm pulling it I'm pulling all the data from our financial report but those are una audited so if there's a missing journal entry or anything that needs to be corrected we'll catch it

160we'll catch that as we go through the audit and reviews so you keep it as projected even though the all of our uh expenditures are finished until the audit then change to actual y okay thank you just trying to understand okay um so that's the summary of the um major categories behind that is a breakout of the major categories and sub uh subcategories in those um be happy to answer any questions and then we on the final page we have our other fund balances that I usually go over and uh that's the nutrition fund um nutrition fund uh early projection on that um believe all the entries are posted but once again sometimes there's a delay in that but um uh we finished with a loss of about $93,000 in the nutrition fund fund balance

161is at about 1.8 million uh the state is actually telling us to spend that fund down uh so we only have three months of uh operating expenses at one time um so there are some capital things that need to be done this year but um long term that will have to be looked at um in kind of addressed um we got a healthy fund balance but if we continue with that year-over-year that will erode so so um Dr dewis and Karen Authur are looking at that as far as from the sales point but there are driving factors on the expenditure side they're a little bit out of you know beyond beyond her control or the operations control any questions on the nutrition fund I'm sorry ma'am um the the uh the loss of 93,000 why

162did we have that I mean I knew we do we did a lot of feeding but didn't our covid money cover all that Co money we could go back and probably reimburse some of that with uh with car's act money I can look into that when the first cares act money came out for the summer feeding program you had to show that you were operating at a loss in order to put any money the Kos act money into the nutrition program so the initial summer we weren't operating at a loss the federal money we were bringing in was was stronger than that this is a possibility where you can go back to the year and probably recoup some of that loss uh with cares act money and uh you know bring that balance back up

163once again though the state is telling us that we have to spend down that that 1.8 million fund balance is too high they want us to bring that down some and so we have to have a plan of action to bring that down operating in a loss limit this year um will help that situation and sometimes you have to look at nutrition they're they're they self-funding so sometimes they're buying some equipment or freezers that they've got to fix or repair and replace they might have some expenditures in some year that are higher than other years just because of that uh the fixed assets or the the repair and replace line on some equipment can be a lot heavier in some years and other years so so you're going to rep that 93 out of the

1641.8 is that what you're saying um we could but I don't know if I'm going to recommend that because uh the state's actually required us to bring that fund balance down okay and and that 93 actually helped bring it down this year I'll also add that um you know while we've largely maintained our nutrition staff last year about 20% of our students weren't at school um eating and and and while we did provide meals for pickup and we had a number of families doing that it wasn't anywhere close to the number of that 20% who would have eaten at school so that revenue is was less than a typical year we did reimburse um for all the deliveries but that was really out of the transportation fund for fuel and bus drivers and what what

165we were paying for there so it really didn't hit the nutrition fund but we did use Kaz act money to reimburse for all of our additional cost for delivery meals last summer and last year I have one more question um what is reinsurance now at the bottom there self-insured health fund what's reinsurance I'll get to that I sir okay sorry um the textbook fund ending bounce um any other questions on nutrition I think Dr I have one um uh we we still have some kitchens that are uh don't have air conditioning is that correct we have um we have uh window unit type air conditionings in all but uh in all the ones that don't have central air except for one where that's not been a very easy solution to find that is a goal

166we have to to to beef that up and improve that situation my question is could we use some of that 1.8 million that we need to spend down for that actually as we look at all the HVAC projects across the division and all the schools we'll probably use kazak mddy to help uh alleviate that situation in the kitchens so I think uh we've kind of asked uh sheling cash and M M maintenance department to look at that for each cafeteria that doesn't have air condition and see what we can do there and so we'll probably be using some of that U car's act money for hbac renovation for the for the uh kitchens and for example in hudon and Manita that were just uh HX systems were just replaced that was extended into the kitchens

167so they now have it where they didn't for um and we'll look to do that in any any future project although lots of our schools from the 90s on had air conditioning built in the ones before may not have so so we are addressing that can't tell when each one will get done but hopefully you can get them all done here with with this money thank textbook fund ending at about $600,000 once again we'll put some money in there for uh the adoption of those two areas um maintenance Reserve fund uh sitting at about 1.1 one 1.2 million we have ongoing projects going on uh we got tennis courts um we've got some other projects that are going to use up some of that local money so until I can reappropriate that ending balance into

168there we have to put some of those projects that require local money on hold but we're going full steam with the H projects I think today we are um there's three projects that are slotted almost for next year that we're already getting engineering studies on and and so hopefully that's out forbidden we can get to that soon as summer hits and we're ahead of the game on that so we're going Full Steam on those projects but for local money we have to wait till some more Appropriations have a question yeah I I do since we were talking a little bit about the HVAC systems I was going to save my questions but I think now is a good time since we're on this topic um I'm I'm wondering just in doing some of my research

169I've noticed that some surrounding counties um certainly have upgraded their um HVAC system and they're also including like air purifiers and ionizers so I'm wondering at um was it hudston that you said we we've done that was one of the four we that was one of the four did we do any air purifiers that yeah we have not done that um at this point um I I in fact tomorrow we'll have a a meeting with one local company to to to study what they did with another school district um we have um you know we have some some newer schools and some Modern systems but as you know and that's why we're doing it we were woefully behind in making sure our systems in many schools work when a school's struggling to circulate air because

170the equipment's not it's just old you know it's not functioning at its best putting a higher quality filter that's going to restrict air flow um and and and some other Technologies might strain the system even more in some of those places so we're trying to vet through all of that to determine what's the right technology what makes sense and we'll keep studying it right so what I'm thinking is for those uh schools that we've identified that we want to put new hvc systems in are we also considering and I would like for you to investigate and and do some research on including those air filters are the ionizers in it what would that cost look like uh I mean all the research that I've seen and we've got a neighboring County that has actually used

171it I mean they've implemented it's in their schools and I'm hearing really rave reviews regarding it so even long term down the road good clean air is is very crucial and important and we've got the money I certainly would like to see us go ahead and get the big bang for a buck here mask will give you good clean air okay yeah other questions before so on the maintenance fund as Dr DS is saying um they're going to have a meeting tomorrow to start investigating this so we're already looking into this and so additional monies would have to be you know put into that I will say um I don't have all the details but there was even an additional Announcement by the governor that more money coming down just for HVAC right repairs on

172top of all the cares act money one two and three that we're working with right now so we're looking at that and what are the requirements on that so it's going to allow us to get a lot of things caught up here um and that's good news for the county on that one other question if I may ask too uh just I'm hearing from members of the community where uh parents really would like to know and we may have this posted somewhere and I can certainly direct them but they're wanting to know you know the timeline in which uh their schools um are going to be slated for this upgrade so do we have an ideal of what that timeline looks like Dr Lewis and I have been talking about this we're updating the CIP

173schedule adding to the CIP schedule more details timelines when are they going to be repaired so instead of that one little document sheet that we have which is a great summary sheet whereas where the money is coming from and when is it slotted but a lot more detail and he's preparing that and we'll be bringing BR into that the board to the board a later date and then we can publish that so yes we'll have that thank you all um you know in addition to just let the board know some of the projects that were done out of the maintenance projects this summer we had some mold removal issues that we took care of we did um we cleaned duck work in several of the schools we're going to continue to do that um and

174u a lot of carpet came out so I think Mr H remembers that and was very grateful to see a lot of that coming out so some great things were accomplished this this past summer the last fund I'll talk about is the self um insured health fund that's where we're self-insured for our health um we actually pay the premium we pay the cost as they come in so each week I'm sending money off to Anthem for whatever the claims are for that given week um this gives you kind of an overview of where it is um very healthy uh began the year with 6.1 million in that fund and 6.2 million 6.3 million there at the end of the year so it kind of stabilized and kind of stayed the same over the year and

175that's what you want to see you don't want to see a big decline in that but we have plenty of reserves there for even a if we have an off year or a bad year uh to sustain that um happy to report I think it's been three or four years we've had no premium increase for employees or for the board which has allowed us to accomplish a lot more on our operating fund by not having to you know do that premium increase so very happy to report on that I think some of the success with that is also with um Dr Connor and the wellness program that we have with our employees and having everybody saying hey we're all together on this uh live a healthier lifestyle so we can maintain and we don't have

176to put more money towards Healthcare um so the reinsurance um on the revenue side is when we have a stop loss carrier meaning that we we reinsure meaning that if the if the loss goes beyond a certain amount I don't have to pay for that income that stop loss is set at $275,000 so up to 275 we pay after that the stop loss carrier pays so as you can see we didn't have too many claims that went above that last year that's only $28,000 I was reimbursed for for above 275 and some years that's been over $800,000 so depends on the year that you have you can have good and bad years Pharmacy rebate you can see that's pretty healthy you can look at that two ways it's a large rebate but we're using Pharmacy

177a lot heavier and you're seeing the pharmacy overall cost creep up to where the medical is you're seeing that as a higher higher percentage each and every year especially for some specialty drugs that are very expensive so we're going to have to watch that I think that's probably going to be the main driving factor of escalating healthcare costs is on the pharmacy side going forward and then you can see the contribution from the board in employees uh that rounds out the revenue side on the payments we pay for administrative costs you can see the reinsurance of almost a million dollars of protection there that's on the individual claim and also the aggregate if we had a really catastrophic year and our claims went above like say 12 million for the year then I don't pay

178anything else either so it's an aggregate uh safety net for us too um then you can see what went out on the pharmacy almost three million which is about half of what the medical is so you can see that's been escalating and then dental insurance we ALS we're also self-insured so overall the pl functioning very well and happy to report that uh ended the year very well and we did program in um a zero increase in our uh premium this year and with it ending this way that just you know you set that rate back in March and you're hoping the next three months kind of you know pan out and in this case it did so happy to report that any questions on those funds yeah um the contributions in the revenue section that's

179for the employee what the employees pay and what the division pays or it's both it's what the employees pay and the division it all goes into this uh bank account that we have to pay all the claims so that's both those contributions are both dental and medical because they're both self-insured is it about even or is there more employee oh there's much more employee going in yeah um our rate sheets are online I don't know the exact percentage um but uh the division's put in a lot for for for an employee only um and then it changes depending on what tier you're on employee plus spouse employee plus children or employee plus family thank you questions so overall Very Good Year so happy report thank you Mr hler Right item 4.01 policy updates Miss ton

180you've already been told good evening but I'll say it again um I'm presenting 24 policies this month for information which can be found by clicking on the link within the agenda that I talked about last time the majority reflect updates to code or policy changes as recommended by the Virginia School Board Association and as always I'd be happy to defer your questions to someone who can answer [Laughter] them okay yeah so Mr Hill Mr uh yes so miss ston um the one for IA Pledge of Allegiance minor policy wording changes what would be those minor wording changes Dr I knew it was going to be me I have to look back Mr Heel I apologize I think it uh [Music] actually um I'm not trying to speak for you please speak for me I do

181see that it's really just changing word like silly stuff like shall be to is um he and his to the student or students his to the students and shall to r i mean it's not it's not anything it's a lot all right any my next one is for KK School visitors minor policy wording changes as recommended by vsba think that's there are some updates to the cross references to other policies and to code sections the only wording section in that policy is um in the uh the name of uh an accompanying policy a name policy knen has been renamed uh it's just saying that the U policy that deals with sex offender registry that's used when you screen uh visitors who come in um is now called uh something different and knna um has been

182uh uh is being removed and merged with kayen so it's uh sex offender and crimes against minors are merged together now in the wording that it it's really just um in changing the title of that of that other policy so it's still keeping them out of the school correct absolutely yeah yeah okay so make sure we're we're on the same page KK School visitors and it has to do with this policy just says that you know we welcome visitors as long as they're not disruptive it says we screen them we follow the uh this the sex offender and crimes against miners registry when we do screen them that's that driver's license check in the office um uh and and just gives expectations for people's behavior when they visit school so good Mr um the texting

183IG AI character education what's that about that would be Miss Robertson and Dr Woodford Dr Woodford and Miss Robinson Robertson sorry to be shot one of you I'm looking I had to get there to the policy just to see because we're trying to do so many me a I think it again was just um it's it was very minor it was it's minor wording changes just like the other one with the sh and the yeah there there are no wording changes there's just an addition of a legal reference and a cross reference of a policy that we already have okay now where can you send me like like I said I'm I'm a technological idiot um I realize what my limitations are would you be so kind as to send me or the link to

184where I can actually look at these minor wording changes for myself yeah it's actually in the agenda but I'd be happy to send it to you okay well I'm sure it is that's I'll go ahead and take a look at I don't want to the meeting next M Dr me sorry um yeah I think this might be for Dr cornet I'm looking at policy CLA Dr dewis it's Dr D okay one of the doctors good doctors um I just want to try to understand there there's saying like in in uh number one acts reported to the principal and superintendent and crossed out superintendent and I get that and then but a then absolutely turns around says except us by Otherwise required yada yada made to the superintendent and the principal so is it to the

185principal and superintendent or just to the principal for those are acts of violence and substance abuse this is a recommendation from VBA on that wording I will study that to to make sure that that's not a uh um that those two things aren't compatible with one another okay um I know that there are there are crimes reported to the superintendent that are communicated with the principal um as well just when we're considering how to follow up with that um if if if needed but let me before um uh that's fine you can get that to I will make sure that that's not those aren't incompatible with one another I and I have one other and I think um Mr Anderson you might need to help us with this if if we can even do this

186and if the board wants to do it um so it's policy CBG and that's the evaluation superintendent so I'm wondering we we had um talked about the uh August um goals and then a January review and a uh evaluation no later than June 30th um how do you all feel about actually putting that in our policy and can first of all can we do that I guess and I'd have to look it's probably in his contract uh spelled out as to the date um i' have to go back and look at this contract but you could put it in policy but it's also in the contract if it is that that's I don't know if it is or not to tell you the truth I think because with uh previous superintendent sometimes that didn't occur

187so maybe if we had it as part of our policy if it's not in this contract that would help us stay on point with it Dr Bergen yes Mr chairman I'm was a little slow in the uptake here as you all were asking questions I was fairly confident we had the redline version available for you and maybe it's just not linked promly enough that you see it but on the public content site at the very top it says complete changes to policies can be found by clicking on this link and if you click on that link it will show you every word substitution in that policy we could project them up on the screen as you ask question I'm sorry I just I didn't think of that but as you were asking how about policy

188fill in the blank we could put it up on the screen and we could literally go through the it's an important process and I'm happy to do that want to go back and look at that or look on your own uh these are for first reading they won't come back for adoption and go you know a month away so we we have a month to review them if we have any questions or concerns but I wanted you and the public to know all the changes are publicly available on our website want to go back and review any of those or just wait I found excit see technology get along together right okay any other questions on the proposed policy updates not then we will revisit those next month all right now getting down to action

189items 9.01 approval of policy updates presented at the August 12th meeting this T and again yeah at the last board meeting I presented 19 policies and one regulation for information and if you have any questions or concerns before take any questions on those not do we have a motion to approve the policy updates as presented Mr chairman I I make a motion that we approve the policy updates presented at the August 12th meeting as presented okay so Dr M makes a motion to approve the policy updates present at the August 12th meeting do we have a second second second by Dr Hicks any further discussion on this no call for vote all those in favor please say I I any opposed no Johnson M Harrison yes Dr Hicks yes Mr Hill no Mr Johnson yes

190Mrs Kirby yes Mr ly yes Dr mey yes you guys have it with six thank you ma'am 922 salery study proposal selection Dr kelbert and Mr Haggler yes good evening a request for prop proposal RFP to conduct a compensation and classification study was issued on July 13th which elicited bids from six vendors two vendors were selected for interviews on August 30th um Dr Connor Mr Hagler myself interviewed they did a presentation we did questions um we are coming to you with a request for the board to approve management advisory International um for the firm for the staff to negotiate a contract if that is accepted tonight they would get to work as soon as we got that final contract with collection of data we would have um December January a draft project report and on

191February a final project report and board presentation from the company did did um did this not come with a bid I've not seen a dollar figure here okay this is a this is like a request for Professional Services so it is not awarded based upon lowest bid it's it so this allows us to go but just understand that however it would be nice to know I mean I'm not comfortable the improving this without seeing you know some sort of ballpark figure we had budgeted 50,000 we budgeted 50,000 in for the salary study um that was that made it into the budget for this this year uh the estimated cost from The Firm was $45,000 okay so it's not to exceed 50,000 right yes okay so it did come in under what we had budgeted for

192this project yes um on this salary study proposal is it just covering teacher salaries or teacher administrators is it also covering cafeteria workers bus drivers yes the whole gamut the whole gamut um they would be it would be competitiveness with surrounding school districts as well as competitive with local market for like it positions and things like that they will review our entire classifications or are all the classifications and jobs in the right place the the they interviews with employees this was done five years ago with a different firm uh to make sure that everything's in alignment they compare to other districts gather data um they're also going to help us uh look at compression uh because of minimum wage and help us you know kind of come up with a plan for that um we

193spoke with each firm uh that we interviewed on that we Fel we felt both understood what we're facing and it's um cross the nation in different areas and uh and challenges that we have so um all the things are going to be looked at and so a comprehensive study we could potentially see the step our existing step structure modified yes sir that could be could be a result of that it they they'll look at what we've done on our last study it wasn't fully implemented but this would be a new study that we try to implement as quickly as possible thanks were there any local companies that showed interest um this company that we selected is um in Virginia Fairfax local to me is Bedford Rona I'm looking at the addresses Well ma'am there was

194one out of Houston Evergreen isal talahasse Florida Louisville Kentucky that's everything again someone left with the basic there was one out of Midlothian and I've got one more if I can find their address there were really two that stood out because of their work with school systems and the amount of school systems and the amount of school systems in Virginia Maryland was the last one and I'm taking that this is one that stood out work with school systems in Virginia yes school systems in general and school systems in Virginia some of them had done more County studies City studies than they had done school systems so other questions for Dr Calbert or Mr Haggler not do we have a motion Mr chairman I make a motion that we accept the S study proposal uh company

195that was selected do we need Mr hegler do we need to include the not to exceed that be f okay let me amend my motion I make motion that we accept the Sal study proposal selection made by our staff with a dollar amount not to exceed $50,000 we have a motion by Dr mey to accept this with um the bid not to exceed 50,000 do we have a second second second m is harston any final discussion not call for vote all those in favor please say I I any opposed it is approved right superintendent report Dr Bergen thank you Mr chairman well first of all thank you board members for all your insightful questions to our curriculum team on the curriculum update this evening and really thank you to our curriculum team also for that

196upate and all the work that they've done on instruction on the pacing guides that was a a terrific and very thorough report was really super proud Dr Woodford of you and your team and Dr Trosper and the entire instructional team particularly are instructional Specialists uh you know many of whom are brand new to their job and that's just a reconstituted team so so well done to to all of you uh thank you board also on the uh on your action tonight you approved a slight modification to the organizational chart which I had explained to you by memo a couple months ago uh so congratulations to Dr Trosper who is now the sole director of curriculum instruction instead of having two directors of curriculum instruction as we explained in the memo we're going to use those

197same dollars and we're going to be looking for a supervisor for CTE and Workforce Readiness so that's very timely because you know I think one of you had requested an update at the next meeting and that's certainly going to be a ke part of of what I would like to continue to talk with the board about as I've heard from the community is more offerings in CTE and Workforce Development uh for our students uh college is a great choice for a lot of kids but so is going straight into the workforce into the military and so the more that we can offer for students uh so they can work locally there are plenty of jobs right here in the region for them if we can have't qualified for this for that work uh and and

198thank you to Melissa ston who's just a a just a true gem in our in our school division we I learned as I came on board here that we're pretty far behind in the policy updates for any variety of reasons and so I've asked her to really push hard to have at least 20 policy updates so that we can get caught up on cycle because we're quite a bit behind on cycle once we can get back on cycle we will not overwhelm you and the community with quite so many policy updates it is quite a bit a lot of them are legal technical they minor changes again I just want to reemphasize I'm sorry that we weren't projecting the start of the meeting we can certainly start to do that moving forward because it is

199very transparent for you and the public what we are recommending is changes to policy it is there on the on the public agenda and it's easily uh I I don't know that we we've talked about it tonight but you know we're coming up on a significant uh date uh the 20th anniversary of 911 and I'm certain that you walking remember exactly where you were on that day I can certainly remember uh you know my wife was s months pregnant and my son was born two months later and I just I I just remember that feeling of that day and and just what a A Dark Day and and our what a dark day that was uh we want to make sure that our students who weren't alive you know on 911 the students that we

200have in our schools now are aware of 911 and so because 91 11 does not fall on a weekday this year uh tomorrow we will be uh observing a moment of silence in all of our schools and all of our schools have received and will be flying a freedom flag and during the course of the day in an appropriate place from one of the teachers students will be learning about the symbols on that freedom flag which are designed to honor and remember all of those who lost their lives at the Pentagon and in New York City and on American Airlines flight 77 uh and then lastly um I would like to introduce uh to you with a picture do we have that picture ready to display um at your August board meeting you all approved

201one of our newest administrators the assistant principal of Stanton River Middle School Jan Douglas and he was here uh with a guest to be introduced but when the board paused and I was not certain what was happening at that moment in terms of getting to his introduction uh he he had it home and was not able to be here this evening but I wanted to make sure that you know you had a chance to you might have recognize him if he was here last week but that is Joad Douglas uh he comes to Bedford County directly from Ron Oak City Public Schools where he served at William Fleming High School as a health and physical education teacher and a driver education building coordinator and he was the defensive coordinator for their varsity football team prior

202to being at Will William FL in Mr Douglas worked for Lynchberg City schools at Dunbar Middle again as a health and physical education teacher and he was the varsity head basketball coach at EC class he began his teaching career at North Stafford High School where in addition to teaching Health PE and driver education he was by no surprise also very involved in athletics and was involved in multiple Sports including football boys and girls basketball tracking field Mr Douglas was born and raised in altab Vista Virginia on graduation from high school he attended Longwood University where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in K Kinesiology with a concentration in health and physical education and he has a master's of Education degree in educational leadership from a university he resides in Lynchberg with his wife Cara

203and her dog Kobe we just wanted to congratulate Mr Douglas on his appointment to Stanford Middle School and welcome him to the Benford County Schools family so if you have a chance board members at your convenience if find yourself down at at the Little River you will see Mr Douglas is in place and at St River Middle School and is off to the terrific start that's that's my report this evening thank you Mr chair great thank you Dr Bergen and welcome to Mr Douglas if you're watching at home right now Matters from the board item 11.01 review of school board norms and protocols document at our last board meeting m Mr Hill had actually brought up um a matter about um our our board members commenting on the the specific County be County Public Schools

204Facebook page and at our of course we meet once a week to go over the agenda prior to and we brought this up at our meeting last Thursday and and looking at this and and taking into consideration what Mr Hill was talking about I personally saw it too um wanted to bring this to you if you look on page three of our adopted norms and protocols that we were to follow one change if you look at the redline version the Senate board member shall follow all vsba recommended guidelines regarding social media usage um luckily Dr Bergen and Miss Johnson looked into it there are no vsba guidelines so let's admit that just to make things simpler and this is my wording to add to it because I I believe this is the direction we should

205go whatever y'all think board members wishing to react or comment upon post from the beer County Public School own social media sites may do so by copying or sharing to their own social media site or your Schoolboard page um we said early on that we are not that is if anybody's going to speak on behalf of the board to the public if you're speaking on behalf of the board we go through the chairman I think this would further clarify the fact that we are speaking on behalf of ourselves individually if we copy it to our P to our own page and we refrain from putting it on the public site and I'm not sure what what do y'all think make sense I agree so we do not comment if we if there is a beer

206County Public Schools Facebook page congratulating someone we are not even going to comment and say congratulations we are going to share it to our page and make the comment at the top of the post correct yeah I think that's what that states okay so will we bring this back next month can we do it by or you won't do it by consensus now could we sure we just do it by consens okay so board members do you approve of the what do you think marus yeah I'm fine with of course I'm fine with it yes consensus can chair I ask a question is is this consensus to update the final document to the redline version as the final document yes ma'am okay thank you than Miss Kirby all right uh comments and concerns from board

207members Mr Hill Forest Middle School kind of update do we have with no air condition on two halls um there are two large rooftop mechanical units that serve the upstairs and downstairs on one side of the original part of the building uh one of those units is functioning at a partial capacity um and so there is some it's doing some work and certainly that works better on a day like today than it does when it's 96 degrees outside um it's really not good enough and so what we've done is um kind of two strategies for the short term uh one is the school has moved a number of classes to the newly constructed Wing which is much more comfortable uh also we have taken in portable uh room units to cool um that have that

208have helped to some degree um if we're able to double up on any of those units in the next week when it's really hot we will do that if uh putting two in a room uh if if others can move to other rooms to make it more comfortable um uh I'm going to send some information to the board um soon about our uh what what we'd like to do to try to uh do part of the farest Middle School HVAC replacement uh sooner rather than waiting till next summer um those two units uh can be uh just replaced straight up one for one uh much sooner than that and so uh we'd like to go out to uh well in fact we've already posted a bid uh request for those two units um and we'll

209ask you in October to approve the low bidder for those um so that um at a day when when nobody's in the building they can crane can come in put them on the roof and uh it may be as early as February uh beat the spring heat so those units are working um certainly not the total replacement but it's going to be the building's going to be much more comfortable because of that but it will still all be tied into the overall project the same Engineers who are designing the overall uh uh replacement um wrote the specs for for this bid and so um it'll all be consistent and and then that'll just be less we spend on the on the project in the end so really it's going to be a you know we

210either spend it sooner or later to do the work and and we certainly want to make spring much more comfortable than it has been this fall yeah and I know you and I had spoke I was more interested in the two units and where we were possibly getting that done sooner yeah we get those we hope to have several bids we've sent them to all the local companies who who who we work with as well as Statewide and we hope to have lots of bids on those um and get that ball rolling quickly okay um I'm hearing a lot that we are utilizing Paras and other positions in classrooms where substitutes are not available um I would hope that we are paying these employees the higher rate of pay so if the higher rate of

211pay for a substitute is higher than what they currently make I would hope that someone can confirm that we are paying these employees the higher rate um and this is not just a once a week thing I'm hearing it's daily um so morale um we definitely need to make sure we're addressing that um we've heard loud and clear tonight um that our staff are struggling overwhelmed stressed and exhausted um this is a two-part so uh I know it's easy for BCA to stand up and say hey here's what's going on here's the here's what we're hearing so I'll be interested to hear from bcea what are you guys doing to address that with your members since you're an organization but then I would also put that back on staff to say how are we partnering

212with bcea and or getting with our staff to address these concerns uh again Dr Calvary comes to us constantly talking about retaining recruiting um how we treat our current employees uh which the last three weeks have not been a good three weeks based on the conversation I'm having with our staff uh and so I want to make sure we're addressing that and it doesn't have to be big but it has to be something that lets them know we really appreciate what you're doing uh and that we want you here we want to keep you here uh but we need to make sure we're addressing that um so the last thing uh Dr Bergen you and I had a very simple conversation this morning uh and you assured me that you were going to clarify some

213things during your comments I didn't hear that and so I'm going to make this statement and I told you I was going to do it um but this staff I will say congratulations you've put his much lipstick on the pig but we are still discriminating against some of our kids and it needs to be addressed uh and you assured me this morning that you were going to address that and make sure that the communication that had been shared in your three-page letter was clear and you did not do that so I will tell you I'm very disappointed that you did not make that clarification would you like me to make it now my I had I had the sheet right here and I'm sorry it's sitting right in front of me that's totally up to

214you um I'm all about accountability and you made a promise and a commitment to me you did not keep it and that does not bode well with me so thank you Mr H for reminding me that I I would be happy to address that right now if the please do is okay please do the start of this school year the board had determined that uh the students were here that by 4-3 vote that masking would be optional and then just as we were preparing for the start of the school year in the span of three weeks the governor spoke twice so the first time he SP spoke he said it should be optional and 3 weeks later he said no it shouldn't be optional he we've heard all about that we so I communicated to

215our principales that any parent that had a concern about a student wearing a mask we' follow the same procedures that we had in place last year when I was not your superintendent last year from what I've heard from staff there were very few people who were asking for any exemption or accommodation for masking but all we required of them was that they communicate with us so at the start of this school year we asked parents to communicate with us if they had a concern about their child wearing a mask for any reason we had about 500 people across the School Division who made a communication to us which is about 5% of our student population fast forward the uh that we've talked a lot about the Executive Health order was then released by the governor

216and the public health commissioner and had very precise language as to what the requirements were for the public health so I like every other superintendent uh work very closely with legal counsel and with our insurance provider to find out what are the requirements of the law and how should it be implemented and we took our time and you referenced the three-page letter we we put out a communication to the families that had requested that they had a concern and we said to them that if you have as a parent you have a concern that's medically based or for a sincerely held religious objection let us know by returning the first of those PES that you referenced Mr Hill of the 500 we immediately heard from 250 families or 260 families 130 of those have been

217accommodated since then for the last several weeks which put you in our retirement isation so 130 students are coming to school every day they are only wearing a face mask when they are in transition or within six feet of another student so if you're a middle school or high school student and you're transitioning from class one to class two to class three the only time that we're asking that we're accommodating the parents concern which was duration of time from asking is while they're passing from class to class once they're situated in their classroom those 130 students are not wearing a face mask that's about 90% of their day there are another 13 students separate from those who indicated that they had a sincerely held religious objection so like the students who had whose parents had

218a medical concern we said and we want your child to wear a face mask or a face shield while in transition from class one to class two to class three once you are inside of your classroom and we can situate you with physical distancing of six feet you do not need to wear a face mask so that's that's 260 families who we were able to very quickly and very easily accommodate um there's some concern you and I talked about that some families and we heard some comments that we were asking for a physician authorization form to review all of the medical records that is not the case in the 130 students that I just went there are 14 students total in this school division of 8,900 14 who signed that they wanted us to have

219communication with the child's doctor because the health conditions were of such severity we need to know everything that we can about that job that left approximately 50 families that our principles were communicating with in the same way we were communicating with the other 250 that I just refer trying to get to an understanding of how we can accommodate their children uh over the past week uh I believe we have now accommodated all of those children and Dr Woodford you you have those those numbers I believe for me how many of those 50 families are being accommodated in the same way that the 130 medical children are no medical authorization form required of a doctor not just the parent signature how many of those 50 we accommodated that way how many of them uh we are

220able to accommodate through virtual Virginia either in school or at home and so Dr Wood what where do best numbers break down um so we have 31 who accepted accommodations um 13 who are opted to do virtual virin Virginia at home um and we have two students in school during virtual Virginia how many pulled out so please approximately 30 I would add to the 130 that I gra this early so you're looking at two so you're looking at you know nearly 300 students which is about 3% of our student population have asked for and received an accommodation that's the truth the whole truth of nothing but yeah it's all documented so I didn't produce a form on every single one of those students let's do it I can scare seveny olds too they need to

221please if you continue to interrupt Dr Bergen and staff we will have to clear the room you've been so good all night I would hate to clear the room at this time Dr Bergen so you know we've heard cons one of the things Mr Hill you and I talked about was uh some people who feel as though we want to exclude their children we don't want them to school and that is the farthest thing from the truth we want every child who wants to be in school to be in school and nearly all of our 8900 kids are in school every day um are the staff tired you know this is well you know what I'm not going to say well you just asked me to address that one thing I won't address I want

222to address those other comments but uh we worked tirelessly to try to accommodate because I heard this board and I heard this community that you want parents to have voice in these decisions and so we they those who asked for have received these accommodations we just we just laid it out for you so I'm understanding that if there are any children that you currently have in isolation rooms who want to return to their classrooms they will not have to wear a mask in their classroom but you are asking them them to wear a mask to transition from one room to another yes and when they're in class in less than six feet like if they were work in a small group with a group of students have to have a mask on otherwise in the

223classroom we would position them so they're separated six feet from others which we're trying to do for most of our kids three to six feet so that we don't have to do quarantining um so I had one more thing I wanted to talk about and that was the co numbers that are published on our website so Dr Woodford I know I reached out to you and asked and again I want to make sure that public understands those numbers that are published are both students and staff per School correct okay so isolation or excuse me mitigation and quarantine can someone talk to me about because I saw quarantine numbers this afternoon and I want to understand that if I'm a student and I'm in a classroom and I have my mask on which you continue to

224tell me mask work and someone is a positive case why are you sending me home well every case is different it mean it's based on contact tracing um based on lots of factors it it may not just be one incident with you and I it may be how long we've been maybe in a small group with one person without a mask or with a mask there's so many factors I mean we could get into the very specifics Mrs Robertson is really the expert in with the nurses and understanding that contact tracing but every case is different and that's what we're finding we're finding that you have to do the contact tracing and you have to ask the questions and so and our nurses try to explain that to to the parents when they call it

225it just varies it depends on duration of Time how close people were um you know it could be activities at home that you know with they together so I don't know if Mrs Robertson wants to jump in but every case is different I don't know that I could give you a clean clut cut answer and so if I'm looking at these numbers should I be looking at every 10 days should I be looking at the average of every 14 days because I've got some information the public don't have as far as number of students and number of staff and so I'm going to go through and I'm gonna say oh we had three positive cases that's 0.000000 two% of the school but my question is based on quarantine should I be looking at a 10day

226average or should I be looking at a 14 day average answer that for the number of cases or for the for the quarantine totals I'm interested in both so you're telling me the website is just positive cases correct it doesn't include the quarantine correct so if I'm looking at that website do I look at the average for every 10 days or do I look at the average for every 14 days to tell me what we've got at each School you mean based on length of quarantine and that's what I'm asking I mean I want to know the logistics of this whole thing and the math that you guys are doing to close Stanton River Middle and Stanton River High School I I want to understand those numbers sure the first if I could address just

227to go back the the question about the trace investigation because that kind of leads to the answer here uh when we're conducting a trace investigation it there are a series of tools that our Trace investigators are using to collect information and interview staff such as Google forms direct interview um observation um assessment of the physical facility itself all of those things so with those tools uh they make an assessment of several variables it is mask usage uh for instance if I were sitting here by Dr Trosper and I lowered my mask and wasn't maintaining my mask we're both going to be quarantined regardless of who's positive that's the CDC guidance masks must be maintained by both so you're telling me that his mask doesn't work no I'm telling you what CDC says as a require

228requirement for Trace investigation now I won't say that masks don't work I'm just telling you the requirements is that but what I'm understand you said if you pull your mask down and he keeps his own well it's no different than him not wearing a mask we're less than three feet apart of you so so we assess several things we assess the the physical space of the area the proximity of individuals The Mask usage the duration of time the actual activity that they're engaged in because that changes if it's students sitting versus students singing versus students playing a game in a small group so all of those variables are assessed with the trace investigation now when we're making determinations about uh quarantine it is if any of those questions were determined to indicate an exposure or

229if the collection of evidence couldn't identify those concerns so if a teacher says I can't recall exactly how much time they were together um we're we're going to look at other variables and assess on the side of caution thankfully now we have many to seating charts was another tool I'm sorry I forgot about we've got seating charts for all the activities so our goal is to get as much information as we can to limit the range of quarantines that are required what's happened is we have had some more significant or high volume quarantines because of specific activities that resulted in a broadscale exposure um that's the the circumstances that happened with Stant River Middle and Stanton River High that there were um large volume events where the the transmission was much broader in the population

230the risk of transmission and we had multiple Transmissions that constituted an outbreak I hear you okay um heard a bunch of disturbing things tonight uh I'll start with the the least disturbing I think the the last three school board meetings have shown everyone that we have outgrown this room a lot more parental participation in meeting or attendance at meetings more student attendance at meetings more citizen attendance at meetings this room is inadequate myself Mr Hill almost as a habit request a change of venue to accommodate larger crowds that is denied I would like to know the rationale as to why it's being denied we pulled the board and a majority of the board said we want to stay here fantastic why I want to know why want to know why I want to know why

231okay I'll tell you why security concerns one two how many you got outside one or two were you aware that a weapon was brought into this room last month got two on I'm asking were you aware no okay well there we go Okay so this can be observed and controlled in a larger environment it's harder to control that Liberty High School has you can access limited access to Liberty High School to the to the auditorium entrance in the courtyard same thing here that's no that's not a good excuse even when there are students nearby practicing marching band uh football cross country all the after school activities there's students nearby if something happens you would be willing to have that happen on a high school campus what I'm saying is I have confidence in these gentlemen

232here to do their jobs to ensure the safety of everyone that's what I'm saying okay safety what else they were here last time they were here last time and it still took a long time to clear the room when the crowd got out of control so what you're saying is don't want people in here this is going to be the norm where we've got people standing outside in the weather thunderstorms freezing temperatures you're okay with that we will take it on a month by month oh okay well here's the deal consider me making a request preemptively every month for a change of venue to accommodate any citizen any constituent any voter that wants to attend our meetings they have that right taxer and if we deny them the opportunity we're not only being dismissive of

233them we're being disrespectful conratulations [Applause] is noted yeah I know I know it's noted and I know where it's going to go nowhere until January that's right second thing if 1% of what I heard here tonight about student treatment is true it's unacceptable amen I heard about segregation I've heard about face Shields face Shields are political theater okay face shields were designed to keep solid and liquid matter out of the eyes nose and mouth of dental people and surgeons they do nothing to prevent the spread of any kind of aerosol droplets it's political theater that needs to stop I heard about waving of Hipp orites y yes on some of the forums that apparently were generated by the central office that's got to stop these kids have no business being treated like second class citizens

234because they have requested a waiver it's got to stop Dr ber and it's got to stop now am I responding or am I just listening you're listening okay that's [Music] allair I Dr bin to respond Dr Bergen would you like to respond to that some board members I'm respectful of your protocol if you want me to respond as you raise concern I have to respond or not why don't why doesn't Dr mey address him when it's her turn that's I am interested when when that time comes hearing as well miss Kirby first of all I'm grateful for Dr Bergen to mention 911 I'm glad that that part of History will still be in our classrooms and and teaching our kids the the respect for our country and let's never forget 911 and let's hope for

235the America that we had on um hopefully on a brighter note Miss Harriston I want to wish you a belated happy birthday have a wonderful birthday um she celebrated all the way to Labor Day good um Dr cornette yes ma'am next month we should have the updates from the lacrosse clinics and the success rate of those correct that yes ma'am okay thank you so much and I just want to confirm that we are going to have the CTE dual enrollment update next month the deal okay thank you so much um Miss Robertson I'm glad you're still there is it my understanding from what was said here with and this is the good part about coming Behind These two they gave me great ideas um but it's my understanding now that these students that are in

236isolation can go back to their classrooms is that my understanding or do we need further clarification on that they will be back in their classrooms if the if the parents have opted for any of the accommodations that address public and common spaces and physical distance so public and common spaces is the key variable um what we know from our health dep Department officials and their guidance is that uh especially the Delta variant moves in aerosol form form so we are working to be very cautious about how students move and interact with each other there is that 15 minutes of exposure but from the guidance that we have the opportunity for spread is more significant so if an individual is willing to wear a face mask or a face shield in public and common spaces until

237they can get to a classroom and if when in that classroom they are able to maintain six feet of distance from their classroom counter Parts The Mask or the shield can be removed for the duration of that class again so long as they can maintain that physical distance if they are going to approach other students work in a small group or a specific activity that would uh breach that distance we would want there to be a face shield or a face mask well then you said something key there to me um 15minute exposure I want to do the kids have to change classes in between Bells I mean we just have five minutes to get across campus yes so so either way you wouldn't hit your 15minute limit but as we've said because the exposures

238now are occurring in in of earlier the communication was to be very cautious of respiratory droplets um now they are talking about aerosol movement so what you would have is an opportunity for a student to move throughout the day with their classmates which could increase the risk of exposure with every movement so that's why we're because we we do not have students that can maintain six feet of distance when they're in movement they're students they're children we understand that so because that distance cannot be maintained in movement and Transitions and in public and common spaces and those are cumul over cumulative overtime it's 15 minutes within a 24-hour per period not 15 minutes at one sitting or one duration so we're still again I'm I'm a simple person I'm kind of like these guys um

239oh wait I I can be a little more complicated than you but so we're still going to have students in isolation yes we we have a very few students who none of those accommodations are acceptable so we have provided a separate learning environment because again um as I've indicated The Mask usage is a component for quarantine so any student that's in a space that that can interact with other students and create that exposure um if that individual were to be positive that's going to place other students at risk of quarantine whether they're wearing a mask or not because the trace guidance is that both parties have to be wearing a mask so we're trying to um make sure that we are providing an equitable opportunity for all of our students to access their educational program

240but students who are opting and making the choice to wear a mask shouldn't shouldn't face a quarantine simply because there is a non-mas participant within that proximity now come on you guys guys come on keep keep it down okay let's finish this up um the kids that are in school that are vaccinated do they have to quarantine not typically there may be some situations where they're asked to quarantine those are few few and far between and often relate to if they um I was going to use the word intimate and that's not what I meant when I'm talking about students household exposure so so if you are in a living situation um if you're vaccinated but you're in a living situation with someone who's positive we might recommend that you quarantine at least until you

241can test five days out simply because we are seeing breakthroughs with vaccinations few but not many so um generally our students that have been vaccinated um we make sure we consult with the Department of Health follow those guidelines and generally they return to the school setting without quarantine out of our positive cases that we've had do you have any data to let us know how many of those are vaccinated positives I I don't have it specifically I I can only speak to the cases I know but I don't know that that's comprehensive and I know of three that have been breakthrough of our positives but there may be more I'm I'm only speaking to the ones that I know because I I don't work as the nurse in direct contact with that information it's information

242that's been shared with me personally I hate to hear of our kids in isolation we need to figure out some way that we can get them back in the classroom um I I Am pro apparent choice there's there's no doubt about that um you know and I understand everybody's position here um and and I want to thank everybody for coming out to speak um I remember it wasn't that long ago I was standing on that side of the podium and it's kind of nerve-wracking when you're looking at us and we can't say anything back so I appreciate you coming out and and I really appreciate um the little more the fact that you let us conduct our business some fewer Outburst I really do appreciate it um but I want you to know that I

243will stand up and I will keep fighting for the parental rights thank you Mr chairman um Mrs Robertson I have a question we won't let you go back and sit over there just yet tell me a little bit about bus um mitigation do we do any mitigation that may involve our buses well students yes face Mas are required on all of our transportation um we do and and Dr dewis might be a better one to speak to this because we do try to um provide um some staggered seating we try to seat students uh that are in the same family together and increase the space um and we try to be cautious with loading and unloading and then cleaning between runs and I don't know if I and and obviously drivers are wearing their mask

244as well because that's required so so there's a positive case on the bus we learned that there's a positive case well if if we learn that there is a positive case then the trace investigation is going to try to address what's whether that student is a bus rider a car rider and those kinds of things okay yes ma'am and so with those families if say we have a positive case on the bus with those families um and through your contact tracing would families be notified to quarantine it would depend on the result of the trace investigation did all the students keep their masks in place did all the students stay in their assigned seating chart did they have um opportunities to interact with students outside of their their bubble so to speak their physical distancing

245um generally we've tried to organize the buses so that if all of the mitigations are maintained the other students on the bus would not be required to quarantine but we have to verify with the driver or check tapes as to whether those mitigations were able to be maintained okay okay um that's all the questions I have regarding the mitigation uh I'm going to shift a little bit and kind of piggy back off with something that Mr Hill said uh regarding our pair professionals um having served um as an administrator uh I can tell you that our pair professionals are very hardworking and I know that all of you all know that so I'm kind of I know preaching to the choir here but they are very hardworking and um I believe we're using them as

246substitutes are we not can someone answer that are we using our parents as substitute teachers when it's necessary yes when it's necessary we are well I think it's necessary for us to pay our pair professionals I think that it's it's it's long overdue for them to re receive the pay that they are deserving of if they're serving as a teacher then they should whichever one is greater they should receive that so I don't know what we need to do to make that happen but we need to make it happen for our PA professionals they are hardworking they're dedicated Mr chairman I'm going to refer to you in terms of what our drct Bergen what our next step should be um you know there's caraz act money uh I just I want us to move forward

247on this I'm very passionate about this I also heard um you know I heard from uh the BCA and and and I'm very very bothered by uh our teachers and our staff feeling exhausted feeling frustrated um and I have lots of teacher friends who reach out to me and they are certainly I know working extremely hard and they are very we all are very exhausted um but I just want them to know I want all of them to know that I appreciate everything that you do and I know everyone else here does too I know many of you are working long long hours you're working and taking your work home on the weekends and and you're tired and I just want you to know that I appreciate every every minute every ounce of work that

248you do um I just can't say it enough how much we truly truly appreciate you I do have another question regarding our Preschool teachers I was I'm curious in terms of what the the ratio is between uh our preschool teacher and the student ratio so if someone could provide me with that information I'd appreciate it and that's all that I have thank you Dr all right uh I'd just like to thank uh Dr Bergen and his staff and all the building administrators for their vigilance and implementing the mitigation strategies uh uh that are that are ongoing I think these are the only way that we can keep our schools open five days a week and keep our extracurricular activities going and to keep our students healthy I'd also like to thank uh M Robinson and

249her team of nurses for all your hard work in the uh uh quarantine situation um I did attend the centr Virginia governor school meeting uh last week and uh the enrollment for school year 2223 will increase to 150 students uh due to uh Lynchburg City Schools buying the extra Slots of uh that were open and that brings the uh the uh uh building up to its maximum capacity and for that reason uh there will be no tuition increase for 2223 um and the uh uh the uh cbgs board voted to give Dr Smith the authority to quarantine Andor uh go virtual as the need arises uh due to any Co situations Dr M yes well I want to also Echo um Mr Hill's concerns and Miss Harrison's concerns about our par professionals um I'm hearing

250from them I'm hearing from teachers um a pair of professional signs on for a specific job and right now they are being a disciplinarian a behavior management person and an instructional person and I I think it's absolutely imperative that we pay them for that um I think we're going to lose a lot of them I I wouldn't blame them and I don't want to see that go because I've worked in other school divisions and I will tell you that I believe the pair Professionals in Bedford County are some of the finest trained people I have ever seen and I know that during the time I was a principal uh that Miss Robertson did a lot of the training for them and they knew their stuff and it it's they're amazing people so I I agree

251with Miss Harris then you know I'm passionate about this so I want to know like do you all would we have consensus to have Dr Bergen bring us some suggestions or or or Mr Haggler with regard to how we might do this next month are you all on board with that yes okay so can we record in the minutes that we have consensus for a report about how we can pay these Paras who are walking into classrooms because my understanding is we have about a 39% fill rate in our substitutes because we can't get any and I do get we've got to call on these people but then we have to pay them and I would also like in that report if there was any way that we could address that retroactively to the beginning

252of the year um because we owe them this that I mean I think we're asking them to do a job and then not properly compensating them so I look forward to next month when we can you know get this going if we possibly can get a report and and make some decisions about that I think it's crucial if we're going to maintain these individuals in our in the Bedford County staff on the Bedford County staff um I have a couple of things um Dr Bergen um Senate Bill 11:32 the no more snow days in Virginia have you heard anything about that or about no more snow days yeah what they're saying is because we have virtual uh opportunities that school systems can use that that instead of calling a snow day so I was just

253wondering obviously yall haven't read about it or whatever yet it's new uh so um I was just wondering where we where we were it says um public schools in severe weather conditions and other emergency situations can uh schedule remote learning days um and that it prevents the closing of school in School Division so I was just wondering if you all had heard anything about that so I'd just be interested if you did know anything um I'm sure we're going to hear more about it as those days uh come um also um in July I had asked about seeing the discipline reports um or some sort of discipline report and you had said that you would investigate what might be available to us so if you could just let me know where we are with that

254I would appreciate that too um Miss Robertson you had said that um tonight that you um there were broad events that were impacting the quarantining and identifying of positive cases what are those broad events well most of our high volume not all but most of our high volume quarantines where we've had a really significant number have come from groupings whether that is um and some of these things we can correct and some we're we're trying to address some are are perhaps not avoidable um uh PE activities where students are not using their mask because it is PE um and you have large volumes of students that are interacting that's resulted in broader transmission and quarantining um sports teams and and sporting events have resulted in larger scale Transmissions because of the exposure um many of

255our higher volumes have been teamed uh quarantines so that's had a significant impact on the numbers um and and the the quarantine impact is real I if I may I I just did some calculations with the number of students um between those positive and in isolation because they were tested positive or quarantined with 21 days in school we've already had 6,29 instructional days lost to quarantine collectively so if you if you calculate students times in quarantine that's pretty significant so the average um generally a quarantine period for an individual we're advising 10 days if there is a negative test after day five of exposure they can return on day eight so my calculations were with an 8 day quarantine and of course taking out a weekend so I did a a general estimate at five

256school days sorry I'll I'll come I I don't want my concern is as we say we've lost 6,000 days of instruction well we have now I said inperson instruction okay um well to piggyback on what you were saying too I I also looked at some of our our uh division data and and I am concerned about what I see when you talk about students that are diag noosed and students and staff that are quarantined and the impact it has on the schools um I mean we have some schools that have uh a a percentage of students negatively impacted which means they're either diagnosed or they're quarantined as low as 2% but we have 12 of our schools that are way in excess of 5% and I'm talking numbers like 15 7 13 9.5 32 um

25713 16 um these are are getting getting to be very disturbing numbers because you know at what point does it become impossible to maintain open schools um so it it's very concerning I would urge everyone to to be looking at this because this is this is what impacted us last year especially in the area of sports so um it's it's just very when I ran these numbers today I was I was very concerned about the percentage of students and staff that are impacted which means they're out of school yes ma'am relative to the school number of kids in the school yes ma'am and I I will say I think um the shock and the spread of our first few weeks um and and students and staff seeing the rapidity of transmission um the the the

258quickness of spread I I do think it's been um an eye opener for many I I am seeing um broadscale convers ations about really how to pay closer attention to our mitigation efforts to be very conscientious um to be diligent about providing student reminders to break up some of those larger group activities like PE and find ways to mitigate that into smaller groups so I think I I think all of us are learning um we came back to a to a different virus the Delta variant is very different and the way it's impacting our schools is very different so so we are adjusting and adapting and improving our responses um and we're continuing to try to refine procedures that will help maintain that focus of inperson learning for as many students as we can every

259day we can and and Dr cornette um I'm just going to direct I hope I'm directing you to the right person um with regard to the fact that some of this is happening in in these broad events have we been meeting with our coaches and drama people and all that to to take a look at what's happening and how we might make it a little bit better Dr Woodford and I actually met yesterday um with all of our athletic directors both middle and high schools and all the principals middle and high schools as well as the athletic trainers and we emphasized the mitigation plan that's in place on the importance of following that from from that the 8S the ATS all the way through the coaches to the players um we emphasize plotting keeping the

260the teams separate as much as possible as well as plotting within teams when possible so I I believe that our principles and our ads and our athletic trainers will communicate that with coaches and we will see stricter mitigation okay thank you for that um I have just a couple more things Dr uh Bergen at one time you had discussed a the uh forming a financial committee to work uh through the budget process next year is that still something that you plan on doing that's that's the will of the board I'm happy to bring you a change in your policy that would allow for a standing committee and that could be the first committee that you all want to want to have it's not it's very common in other school divisions to have a budget finance

261committee anybody here interested in that or interested in allowing other people to serve on it or think we had that conversation over the summer we're supportive of creating committees a matter of how toy them in policy so what do we need to do we need to ask Dr Bergen to update that policy for us bring a policy recommend recommendation policy change yeah happy to bring I'll bring you a policy change recommendation at the next meeting for first reading and then second reading and then you can form a commit okay thank you um I also want to just say thank you to everyone who's working so hard this year um we are in a very fluid situation and the ground is literally shifting under our feet um um you know the board has asked each member

262to work so hard in our on our staff and and do more than they've ever done before and I just want you to know that um I I do appreciate everything you're doing even having been in education for so long I have a hard time sometimes wrapping my head around all of the other things that are now impacting our staff either as bus drivers secretaries teachers whatever your position may be everyone's has changed so um I really appreciate everything you're trying to do and I agree also I think Mr Hill said you know we have to really look at morale and see how we might be able to improve that I I was distressed to see the the um information from the bcea so I I think we do need to absolutely um uh take

263a good look at that that's all I have Mr chairman Dr mey just to clarify when you said that you would like to have subay the Retro Pro active to the beginning of the year did you mean school year or fiscal year school year school year okay all right recently I visited Manita Elementary School had a wonderful visit with the kindergarteners there got to see um even in the first few weeks how much they've already learned how well they're getting along uh we can learn a lot from kindergarteners in that sense um as part of that and then subsequently I've heard from a number of teachers so far this year um and teachers are having a very difficult time I know Miss jris presented uh the data tonight on that about I I heard very

264similar themes tired exhausted overwhelmed at this stage in the school year that is that is very troubling um and it's it's things that we can all understand um teaching in Co is not easy I'm probably one of the few people in this room that actually do it and not just teaching but teaching in a mask I understand that can be challenging but it's also issues that they're hearing um families that aren't respectful of teachers families that are taking out the masking policy on teachers please don't do that don't take it out on the bus drivers they had nothing to do with it REM it so my I I just want to speak to the teachers watching home tonight if you're still with us you might have gone to bed at this point um but thank

265you teachers Paras Subs bus drivers nutrition workers everyone involved in our school operations thank you for everything that you're doing this year please know that you are valued and you are appreciated and Dr Bergen I would love to um love to have some conversations about ways that we could we could support the teachers I know firsthand uh teaching this year seems even more challenging than it did last year for for some inexplicable reason um so anything that we can do to support them and help give them the tools they need to succeed this year that that would be amazing um I I want to Echo Miss kiry's point about 911 and thinking about where you were on 911 I think a few days after after 911 I was at the dday memorial for um a

266memorial service that the community held um dday Memorial has a very special place in our community so I I really I cherish that that spot cherish what it stands for and what it symbolizes and it's something that we should not take for granted or belittle but we should respect um we should respect D I also want to thank everyone for all of their prayers tonight I really appreciate those uh greatly um I don't talk about my faith often in public because my my faith is a A Private Matter it's between God and I um but I I do want you to know that I am a Christian I do have a relationship with Jesus Christ I'm not perfect I fail every day just like every believer does but I Look to Him for guidance when

267when making decisions and you know we heard a lot of scripture tonight there are a few scriptures I would also um like to share so once Jesus was asked what were the greatest Commandments and he said they're they're twofold first love God with all your heart and second love your neighbor as yourself who is your neighbor not necessarily the person that lives next door everyone everyone is our neighbor in Genesis um when God confronts Cain what was kan's question am I My Brother's Keeper at times like this part of being a community means yes sometimes we have to be our brother or our Sister's Keeper that means sometimes doing things that we don't like I don't like wearing this mask I don't like I don't like a lot of the the quarantining and the mitigation

268strategies that we have to do but if this is what we need to do to try to maintain in-person learning for as many students as possible then we need to as Paul also wrote bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ or look not every man on his own things but every man also on the things of others the essence of our faith just as the essence of anglo-american conservatism is rooted in the community what can we do together to support one another um the they so one of one of my earliest memories after um getting on the school board was visiting stamp River High School and I you know sometimes I I I kind of push it with with time and I'm almost like right on the deadline uh but this

269time I was uncharacteristically early for my my visit and I didn't want to go in the office and make everyone nervous and upset so I I sat in my car for a while and while I'm sitting in the car the bill rings and students are moving changing classes and I look out at that point and I watch those those students going by and I think that was the moment that the gravity hit me that as a school board member I am responsible for these students part partially responsible one 7th I say um so I I want to see all of our students succeed I want to see them have good happy healthy years and yet at the same time I also understand a little bit about the law and Virginia is what we call a

270Dylan roll State and in Dylan roll States local governments only have the authority expressly delegated to them by the state government earlier this summer when the governor gave localities the ability to choose masking I along with the majority of this board opted to give Parents Choice when the governor changed that and later when we got the um executive order from the state health commissioner we lost that ability to have that local choice I understand your passion direct it to Richmond let the governor know elect a new governor in November that's right we are but remember localities hands are tied right now there are only certain things that we can do and what happens if we violate this we're told the School Division can have a legal injunction filed against it and if we disobey that

271legal injunction further legal action will come this is why we see localities across the Commonwealth very conservative counties getting to the same position that we are in currently I understand where everyone is I understand how they feel but this is the reality in Virginia we're not Florida localities do not have flexibility to do what they they want to here in Virginia so on that note I will just um I will just encourage everyone to take some time thank a teacher thank the staff Dr Bergen you and your team have done great work under really bad circumstances this year I know none of us were hoping this was the year that we were expecting but here we are so thank you for your time thank you for your effort and and so anyway keep up keep

272up the fine work administrative team and everyone in our involved in our schools that are children can continue to receive in person instruction so on that note do we have a motion to adjourn directions all right so for Miss Kirby first call second all those in fav please say I sry the minute show