School Board Meeting 4/1/2021 - 5:00 PM

001thank you [Music] look at you thank you hello oh my heaven how are you I'm here good hey Georgie very well right there yes ma'am it's good to see you moving around you it's good to be moving around how are you hello foreign enough sometimes which is what it is foreign [Music] thank you and here I am for you foreign scroll down once you got to the page that's not there oh yeah honor no thank you yeah thank you actually more likely turns offensive we're doing a Saturday Night Live a headache for three days need a goodie powder I might take one it just took three hours just make sure I got that picture that's all magic is missed glasses yeah my life and diabetes is tripping my eyes like come on back sitting down

002thank you only was six of those years foreign in real life thank you foreign thank you yes it makes perfect sense foreign [Applause] foreign just said everyone's so quiet the chairman walked in the room all right it is five o'clock so I would like to convene this April meeting of the Bedford County School Board um this is Johnson would you please call the roll here Dr maling here great thank you ma'am and let me take this opportunity to welcome Ms Harrison back in real life it is nice to see your face and hear your voice thank you it's good to be back good all right do we have a motion on tonight's agenda Mr chairman I move that we approved tonight's agenda as presented okay we have a motion by Mrs Kirby to approve the

003agenda as presented we have a second second by Mr leamy any discussion no I'll call for votes all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed like the agenda is approved unanimously all right do we have a motion to go into closed session believe that we go in closed session pursuant to the code of Virginia Section 2.2-3711 A1 to discuss the assignment appointment performance discipline and release of contract for specific School Board employees correct Mrs Kirby has read the requisite language uh for the motion for us to go into closed session do we have a second so I second by Mr Hill any discussion call for a vote all those in favor please say aye and you posed all right School Board is now in closed session and we will ask everyone else to

004please uh leave the room unless you need to remain thank you foreign motion by Mr leaney do you have a second second by Ms Hairston the discussion I'm gonna call for a vote all those in favor please say aye aye can you post all right we are now back in Open Session Ms Johnson would you please certify close me where's the Bedford County school board has convenient and in accordance with the professions of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act and where section 2.2-3712d if the code of Virginia requires a certification by this school board that sets closed meeting was conducted and performed to a civilian law now therefore be it resolved that the Bedford County School Board nearby certifies that to the best of each member's knowledge for the public this matters locally Exempted from

005open medium requirements by Virginia law were discussed in the closed meeting to which the certification applies and only such public business matters as we're identifying the motion convenient excuse me convening the closed meeting we're heard discuss or considered yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes thank you you're welcome and as much as we have no action out of closed meeting tonight we will proceed to staff reports so first update vaccine clinic update Dr Woodford good evening the work of our School nurses this one very important part of their work was receiving training for administering the covid-19 vaccine and then working in our local clinics to give the vaccinations in coordination with Bedford Emergency Services Janet Blankenship Jack Jones and many Community agencies including the fire department the police department the Town

006Police the Water Authority DSS and our school system we were able to offer seven vaccine clinics specific to our staff 56 of our staff that are on site in schools daily receive vaccines through the school supported local clinics which included EMS clinics and Health Works clinics we can only give you the numbers of vaccinations that we assisted in scheduling so the percentage we're able to report is lower than the actual amount of staff we have vaccinated as many of our staff members acquired their vaccination through their own medical providers or in other clinics our nurses and Mrs Knox continue to support the community clinics coordinated by EMS as much as possible as a matter of fact they were at one today since Knox and Mrs Robertson doing a thousand person clinic for the community any

007staff member that was on a waiting list or unable to get the vaccine while our clinics were being offered are still able to sign up through the county sign up system and Mrs Janet Blankenship is prioritizing them in the count in the community County clinics Bedford County has now moved into vaccination phase 1C which will open vaccinations to students ages 16 and up we will be advertising Clinic sign up and information through our social media outlets and at the high schools for students who may be interested in getting vaccinated if a student decides to receive an appointment and it's during school time it will be an excused absence from school so if you have any questions I'll be happy to try to answer them yes sir I got a a call from a a teacher

008who was concerned that she apparently he chose not to get the vaccine when it was initially offered and then changed their mind and and got her first one at CVS and we'll be getting her second one soon and she was concerned about the email that all the employees got concerning the uh the covid relief leave uh thing not going past today and if she got sick from her second shot which you have to use her own cichlid um well what we have done we have given principles of flex member has got a vaccination at some other facility and they are sick that the principal can work with them on that day that they're sick and just like we covered our teachers and we made arrangements and we didn't charge anybody a sick day I believe

009it would be the same now Dr Connor could answer that but I think that's what we all agreed to yeah we have provided a good bit of flexibility and and um in fact we've had a number of folks that have requested and they're speaking about the family first coronavirus response act the ffcra and so those individuals that um are sick due to coveted symptoms or or testing or being quarantined have in most cases again there are several reasons but 10 days that are paid days of leave if they need them and um in some cases as Miss Dr Woodford speaking of those folks didn't even really have to reach out for those days because they were able to work remotely or that type of thing with regard to ffcra initially that ffcra ended in December

010of 2000 and then it was voluntarily extended so employers had the option to voluntarily extend that through March 31st which we opted to do then now it's again been optionally extended to uh I'm not sure if it's September I think sometime in September and um but we have opted not to do that due to the fact that we've had so many people vaccinated we feel like there will be minimal need for that going going forward at this point in time I did talk to some of our um some of my colleagues in the area I know that Campbell County for example is doing what we're doing as well I think Amherst is kind of splitting some you could offer one part of it not the other so they're doing something a little bit different but

011each individual District employer makes a decision as to what they're going to do so that email reflected here locally hi May I just said ask a question for clarification So when you say that there's a flexibility with regard to the incident that Dr Hicks mentioned because I got an email did um so the flexibility the expectation is it will be consistent among all principals and administrators so in other words you're at one school and you decide no I'm not doing that but I decided in high school yes I am no we've asked principals to be flexible with anyone getting their vaccinations and if they have symptoms or feel sick on the second day or I'm sorry after the second dose to provide coverage or even if we need to get a substitute but not charging

012that teacher for the absence and if that's happened you know in some schools there are multiple layers to that so if something's happened that we've made a mistake we can easily fix that if someone they can contact myself or Dr Connor and we'll be happy to make sure they get that sick day back if there's been an accident okay I just want to make sure that everyone's still going to have that option yes definitely okay thank you thank you Mr Hill yeah so what benefit are we providing for employees who choose not to get the vaccine I would certainly hope we're not treating them any different than the ones who have chosen to get a vaccine so during that time period it'll be also allowing them flexibility and sick days not to count if there's

013time needed off make sure I understand what the options are for all employees so one thing is they got they all got the day off uh those that were vaccinated and those that weren't they all had Penn State right they all had that but I'm saying I'm hearing now that for those who go to choose to get the vaccine and need a flexible sick day it's not counting toward their sick time so again are we offering the same flexibility to those employees who have not chosen to get the vaccine but yet may need a flexible Signet because we should be treating every single employee the same starting to understand where we are on that due to getting the vaccine and choosing later on to get the vaccine or just a sick day the flexibility around

014the sick day because if you're saying just because they got the vaccine that sick day is not counting toward their sick time then the flexibility needs to be the same for any other employee during that time period whatever you're extending that to for that employee to have flexibility around it as well and if it's to work from home so be it but every employee should be treated the same and it's a great uh uh we're asking our employees to get vaccines and because it benefits us to be able to open our school uh in in a normal situation in August so they're they're in a sense doing us the favor by getting a vaccine so that's why I think that they should be treated differently than someone who just gets a cold or hurts their

015finger or something so so we're agreeing that employees should be treated differently I think so yes okay for the record I do not agree with that I think all of our employees should be treated equally uh and it sounds like to me we're forcing them to if you choose to do this we're going to be flexible with you but if you don't choose to do this sorry you got to use your sick time that's not fair but I just I think all employees should be treated the same every single one there are some people who can't take it because of health reasons because of the side effects or whatever it may cause down the road they don't know enough about it I get it I mean people are choosing to take it but we can't

016force anyone to take it and to me we're sitting here saying that employees yeah well if you take it we're going to treat you one way and if you don't we're going to treat you another to me that's not right can I just say I I think that um we have been very flexible with all of our employees and some of our employees who got the second vaccination didn't get sick and so we didn't need to offer them any flexibility um I think we were very flexible in the spring when school shut down and we had teachers working from home and we weren't requiring them to come in and aides who were working from home so I just think our principals have have been very flexible to try to be fair and equal to all

017people and I think our HR and finance department has and we surely have and it it's not that someone who gets a vaccine gets a day we're just trying to work with them if the side effects are there just like we've been working with people who get sick in the middle of the day and they're not sure if it's you know related to covet or whatever and we let them go home and we don't charge them for that so I think there's a lot of flexibility we've been offering all year because it's just been the year for flexibility so I just want to say that we are not saying you get a day just because you took the vaccine we're just trying to be understanding that if getting it to help us makes you sick

018we're going to work with you completely understand I appreciate the flexibility but I just want to make sure we're not given a message of hey we're going to be flexible with you because you took the vaccine and sorry you didn't take it we're not going to be flexible so if I'm hearing you say we've given the principles the availability to be flexible during this time or this year I'm fine with that because that tells me we're treating all employees the same but if that's not the message then I have a very big problem with that any questions concerns comments I'd just like to say thank you to everyone that worked so hard on that um Ms Robertson hiding in the back there Ms Knox I've heard so many stories from teachers and other staff members

019that attended the clinic how smooth everything was very different experience from what my father had when he went to a national chain to get his vaccine but you know I know that was not easy so great work to everyone that worked so hard I'm pulling that off I really appreciate it all right to update that many families are anxiously waiting for Dr Francis graduation update all right good evening members of the board I'm going to give you a little bit of background information things that we looked at and so forth and then there are three options and after I do this if you need me to email tomorrow or something if you have additional questions please ask so because we basically do have three options but I want to give a little background information so

020we're all kind of on the same page uh graduation will take place on May 29th a rain day will be determined based on the venue that we have with the three options but all three options do include streaming so that's that's something that we wanted to make sure we had the current guidelines that we had to use were 30 percent capacity indoors with a maximum of 500 or 30 capacity outflow with a maximum capacity of 5 000. you have to take the smaller of those so if the capacity can go up to five thousand but a thirty percent is uh 1500 you have to use the 1500 so that's the guidelines and based on that the indoor option uh was really taken off the table because of the 500 even at a Divine Center um

021because graduates do count into that number so that really was taken off the table for the vine Center or any indoor options currently our stadiums have a capacity of 2 000 for Liberty and Stanton River and 3500 at JF and these are stated capacities in the vhsl directory those have to be stated for things like playoffs games and so forth so uh and based on these standards Liberty and Stanton River could see 600 people and JF 1050. now I want to remind you that does include the graduates uh senior class sizes called 195 at Liberty High School 231 in Stanton River and 373 at Jefferson Force based on that uh these three options have been developed all of the options that I'm going to give you allow for a minimum of two tickets per graduate

022all of the options allow for a minimum of two tickets option one this would be a ceremony for all three schools on May 29th at Williams Stadium at Liberty University uh and time slots would be determined based on Lu working with us because they would have to take care of the venue in between uh ceremonies this option would allow for 10 tickets for graduate because their capacity is about forty thousand in Williams stadium so we could use the 5 000 and so forth so a rain date would need to be established with l l you if they could accommodate the ceremonies and LU is currently working to see if they can do that they have not said no but they have not confirmed yet either so we know we can't use the buyed Center they

023are working to see if William state is available if they can pull graduation off on that date and so forth but others said we would have to look at a rain date because of the fact that uh the availability of a stadium like that with Team camps and those type of things is is very limited option two is to hold all three graduations at the hillcat stadium in Lynchburg on May 29th at various times to be determined this option would allow for a minimum of two tickets per graduate using their current capacity it may be expanded because they have gotten waivers from Lynchburg City in the past because if we can use seating on the field at the concert tight seating they've upped their capacity so it would be a minimum of two tickets for

024a graduate that might move up based on that of this option uh as I said does provide some very good seating it's seated areas it is covered areas out of the Sun and so forth uh Mr Jones who's Chris Jones with hillcats has done this before when he was in California he actually did it with his minor league park there and they put on um eight or nine graduations in a season so he's had plenty of experience with it and he said he felt like he could pull this off and uh it would it would be no problem uh the only I guess issue with the Hellcat stadium is if it were a rain event and rained out on Saturday they would have tarps on the field we could not go to Sunday and the

025next week they have gained so we would have to do a rain date at uh our schools and that would be on Tuesday June 2nd and I'm gonna go through the third option which would be at our schools at the high school stadiums we would rent equipment from a local company that would include stage sound system seating for graduates and streaming service this option would require each school to have two two ceremonies due to the seating capacities so for us to have uh two tickets for graduates we would have to split the senior class at half and one at one point in the morning in the uh second graduate at a time later and clear the venue and clean and so forth uh the rain date for this would either be made Sunday May 30th

026since it's on our facility and we would already have it set up or it could be June 2nd we'd have to work with the rental company to see what would work best for that so um some of the highlights option one if available you would coordinate the setup and the stream in with the graduation it would require less stress on our principals and staff because Lu would would basically be running and setting everything up option two and three requires some form of equipment run on setup even at the Hellcat Stadium we would have to do the rental for one stage and the sound system and so forth and streaming option three requires the senior class to be split due to the smaller capacities that our state stadiums and option three requires that you have rentals

027for all three schools you have to pay the company to set up the stage the sound system streaming services at all three schools on the same day so that is a factor right now that company says they are available to do that if we need that uh and a final decision an announcement will be made by April 16th on the venue including details such as times and ticket allotments and of course the venue yeah so uh I'll be happy to answer any questions clarify anything it's Kirby um if we did it at the schools and had to split the two the two or split the class and have two ceremonies how many tickets could be afforded to the parents about to to take it still uh some of the schools may be able to get

028three but if we were consistent uh one one class is we might get three that's that's what we said two would be the minimum we might be able to get three at this but but I said you split the class so only half the graduates going to be there and then they clear out and then the other half come in at a later time that day I know you mentioned Lynchburg City Stadium which is a good idea too what about um the Salem Red Sox stadium is what is their seating capacity we didn't entertain that because we had Mr Jones at Lynchburg at the hillcat stadium who volunteered this and said he would coordinate it and he's done it before so that option uh was was presented to us by him he actually has uh

029students in Bedford County Public Schools so he felt like he would love to do it for us so that's that's why we looked at that yeah oh she asked your question okay well then we'll go to Miss Harrison and then Dr Milan thank you my question is regarding option one from the Francis I'm just curious did they give you any ideal as to when they may be able to confirm give us a confirmation bye I asked uh to contact me this week if they could because I knew we had this update tonight uh they didn't last year they flat out said no this year they said they would look at it I think we have to make a decision probably by uh the 12th of uh uh April and then so we can get all

030the plans in place and and so I'm hoping they will email me either tomorrow or over spring break to give me uh an update uh so but obviously if uh Lu can do it that would be our first option we already have a contract even though we're not going to use the vine Center uh they've done an excellent job in the past and coordinated everything so I'm hoping but I think if we got to April 12th and they can't commit and we're probably gonna have to go with option two that which would be the Hellcat Stadium okay so Dr millin welcome back to you yes I just have a question about she said there were covered areas could you expand upon yeah if you've been to the hill cuts the baseball area they have a

031hot home plate and so forth there's an area that's covered so if you had uh uh if you had Spectators that maybe had medical conditions some of those things it wouldn't be good for them to be in direct sunlight we could seat them there in that area because of Porsche up about half of the seating is covered so out of the direct sunlight and so we could we still might require a rain date yeah the rain date would be uh for the Hellcat Stadium would would be uh June 2nd at the high school and we would have to do split two graduations because they would have the tarps down and it just said it would be no way that they could get everything set up you know it's raining so hard we couldn't do these

032ceremonies on the Saturday the 29th right so Mr Leni and then Dr James um with option two you had mentioned with the possibility of on-field seating for spectators uh do you think how many tickets do you think we could squeeze out of that Mr Jones said that when he's gone to the city before and done like a concert it substantially bumped up their seating capacity so if he can get that option we may be able to go with four tickets for graduate so he said he would explore that and see because we are going to be graduates could definitely be seated on the field sure and and that said but if we can use the expanded capacity like for a concert uh then the seating goes off uh from that and we may be able

033to get up to four tickets for graduate yeah because we need I mean we need last year you know my son graduated last year we all know how things went uh last year for everyone but uh we need to afford these families who give these families an opportunity for as many tickets as we humanly can so um you know if option one falls through like you know I think the Hellcat Stadium is powerful fight especially if we can get the on-field seating right Dr Hickson are they cost somewhat comparable for the three options well realistically the most expensive is option three uh you're looking at almost forty five thousand dollars rent the equipment at all three schools on the same time running three sets up uh option two Mr Jones said he would work with

034us the only thing he's going to require is we cover the cost so he's not going to make a profit he said uh he would do this and basically we'll have to cover the cost which sounds like a you know it's going to be cheaper now Lu is 15 000 for all three that's what they've charged us for the buying center now they may ask for additional funding based on Williams stadium and the setup and so forth but you know that that's about uh what they've charged that's going to pass so option two may be actually the most cost effective because of the hill cats working with that as I said if L you left it exactly at 15 000 for all three graduations obviously it would be the most cost effective and seek the

035most if you don't have an idea of the cost of the Hellcat yeah it's going to be we will have to cover the cost of one rental of stage sound system so forth like we would at the schools and then whatever the hellcats cost is as a series basically he's got to pay some of his staff numbers and so forth like to clean the restrooms and and do some of those things we would provide things like to the ushers and all of those type of things but so but that's what Mr Jones indicated that it would just it would just be to cover the cost of what he has to pay you don't have any idea with that no he's going to work on that and give that back to us and uh and it

036definitely as I said if we commit him he'll definitely have a because right now he understands um tell you is the first option because we already have a kind of an agreement with them if they do provide William state he's understanding of that right Mr Hill then I think you just answered my question I just want to make sure option one is our first you're saying that is what we're working toward yeah if that doesn't work then we go to option two and then off and that's the perfect thing because of the seating and the just um yeah yeah capacity we would love to go to LMU if if the governor were to loosen the guidelines to where we could have more people how much notice would you need to be able to provide more

037tickets to the families hmm I would think if we're doing it uh if we had two weeks notice the thing is going to be making sure that you can get those tickets out to the people that need them and so if I would say two weeks we'd have to have two weeks notice to kind of put that in place because of the uh just just the management of it so so if he were to loosen the guidelines two days before uh you know yeah I mean at Lu at the Williams Stadium I mean 10 tickets I think would be adequate for most anymore uh so I don't see that only where it would would throw us a probably a curveball would be at uh Hellcat Stadium or if we did it at our schools because

038two days I don't know that would not be enough I would think we'd need at least 10 days to kind of get that and and prepare for that and make sure that we've got the people working and organized and and this would probably happen anyway um but I'm I'm under the assumption that these 10 tickets with the seating with the covert protocol that all 10 people would have to sit together in a cohort yes so they'd have their own assigned sections more yes we would have to work that out uh as I said the one thing about Williams stadium is they have so many rows they can do every other row that type of thing the hillcats uh Mr Jones indicated that they had done that type of seating and uh configuration so that they

039could work that out at the at our schools it would be a lot tougher because obviously we have bleachers but we also have those areas around so we'd have to do something with having kind of boxes painted or something like that so and one more question I'm sorry um would these tickets be transferable because I know I've heard some complaints with um the games where some people have more people than others so say if a family only had they get 10 tickets family only has six can get they give those four tickets to someone else and then that another family can have up to 14 if they have an abnormally large family what typically has happened is they would if we would ask the student to turn those tickets back in and then we could

040redistribute them through the school so we know what families are going to be with so yes we could redistribute it but we would need to know for deceiving purposes if family X needs 14 tickets for Family Y only needs uh six tickets we need to know that so we would ask the uh student that does not need as many tickets to turn those in and then they we could redistribute them to other families that needed more Dr Francis thank you I know it's kind of like trying to nail Jello to the wall considering that the executive order gets amended like every other week um and trying to navigate that Maze and for a lot of moving Parts here that most of us don't really realize or understand so thank you to you and your team

041for everything that you're you were um doing for that it sounds like we have three really good options and by April 16th we will know exactly which one we're doing unless within two weeks the governor changes the executive order again and um maybe allows for for more uh capacity at the graduation so um stay tuned April 16th I believe April 16th we will have the final plan ready to announce and how will we make that announcement to the families will that be communicated through the schools social media all of the above I think we'll do all of the above there okay and of course phone Masters out to uh seniors in all three schools and Susie Gibson and uh alternative education center and so forth okay any any other questions about graduation plans thank you

042very much all right moving on another anxiously awaited topics uh school year 2021-22 planning update executive staff thank you Mr chairman tonight executive staff will share some preliminary plans for next school year these are fluid plans because we will still be abiding by the governor's orders CDC and bdh guidelines along with bdoe clarification and an example of that is that there is a bill 1307 currently sitting on the governor's desk awaiting signature that we are expecting to be signed and this does um Define or explain that hybrid instruction hybrid hybrid schedule is not part of the 990 hours or 180 days so we have taken this into effect Dr Woodford will talk further about this but that will we anticipate that that will be it in effect at least through next year so that will

043impact our in-person schedule such that we will have I will let her talk about it but we will not have hybrid we don't anticipate hybrid like we did this year um so I will turn it over to Dr Woodford to explain in more detail One update in the current year um for Dr Woodford continues there was a policy last year that we suspended um and once covered um our regulations came into place and that was policy GC BDF and that was uh the payout of the substitute pay at the end of the year for employees for teachers that missed three days or less given the year that we've had this year with mandatory quarantines people being out sick days and everything we have going on it's recommendation from staff that we suspend that policy again

044this year I haven't done the calculations but it could be that there's only two employees that qualify and then you're going to pay out hundred thousand dollars or something so I mean it could be that I've really done the calculation but with everything that's going on this year I recommend we suspend that policy it's also leave that policy in place almost encourages and people to come to work sick maybe when they shouldn't so um it was kind of an incentive to reduce our um absenteeism but I think this year is the year that we should probably just just suspend that on and uh we'll reevaluate next year so I wanted to bring that to the board's attention any questions on that um so as you know over the past month and a half we have

045surveyed parents students and teachers about the upcoming school year and as I shared in last month's board meeting Karen's overwhelmingly wants students to be able to return to learning five days a week and be there all day as part of our survey results we have looked at aspects of the past year that were successful that teachers felt were successful that students felt were successful and that includes small class sizes our mitigation strategies cohort groupings flexible learning days flexible Wednesdays collaborative instructional days and the learner coach model I want to let you know to the extent possible we're going to try to incorporate these into next year's planning but as Dr Rogers mentioned the governor has bills on his desk now and it looks that we will not be able to get a waiver for the

046990 clock hours and 180 days of school and that part of that bill says that any hybrid instruction will not count so instruction has to be face to face unless you are in a 100 virtual program or at a community college or something like that um so this is going to reduce some of our flexibility that I think our students and our teachers have enjoyed this year um but it may be out of our control at least for next year we are also understanding that students in grades three through eight will be tested more in an Sol test format beginning next year with a fall and spring Sol type test in reading and math one in the fall and one in the spring that's a cumulative normal Sol test and then in 2020 223 testing

047will move to three times a year with a mid-year test added this would be an attempt to provide School divisions with consistent growth measurement and data so we will be looking at that and what that means for a creation of our own common assessments we don't want to over test students so if students in grades three through eight are tested and reading and math three times a year we're not sure we feel that that's necessary to add testing to that um so in order to begin necessary scheduling and planning um and especially to let parents know what our school model will look like tonight I want to share with you where we are now uh for our girl our goals for the fall we will be returning all grade configurations back to their original schools

048so fourth and fifth grades we'll move back to the elementary schools and our 7th and 8th graders will be moving back to our middle schools students will attend school five days a week all day with the elementary school returning to instructional start time at eight o'clock and ending at 2 30 and the middle school and high school instructional start time of nine o'clock and ending at 3 30. at this time we are planning for three foot uh distancing with a mask and we'll follow CDC and bdh guidelines and if these mitigations are Strat mitigation strategies are eased in the fall we will ease our mitigation strategies based on that information I know at the last school board meeting Mr Hill inquired about areas of the school being designated for a mask and others not for

049masks we have talked about this and don't feel it can be done for several reasons um the first and I think probably the most important is that we as a school system can't violate the governor's order in addition it would take an increased amount of staff and our employees would still be required to wear a mask and abide by the governor's order we would not want to place them in Jeopardy by requiring them to teach in areas where no one was wearing a mask as there will be some classes that we would consider specialized classes that would take a specialized teacher or dual enrollment classes our world language classes our CTE courses and so we don't have teachers that could teach in a mast area at an unmasked area we also plan to continue with

050all of our cleaning protocols and use of hand sanitizer and routine frequent hand washing during the school day in addition we will continue to offer mowing services to assist our custodians with outside work to allow them to be in the school doing the additional cleaning needed uh we will also continue to offer a hundred percent virtual option all students wishing to be in the 100 remote learning option will need to complete a request application and sign an agreement for next year students that have struggled in Virtual learning this past year who have not been engaged have not been attending courses who've not been completing work who have failing grades or have been having issues with truancy will not be considered for virtual learning next year in addition with new requirements for seat time coming from

051the Department of Education and the governor's office we will have to require more synchronous instruction for students to meet those required hours and at this time we haven't gotten clearer documentation or information about what virtual learning can look like um this application and a parent agreement will be available starting tomorrow morning April the 2nd on the Bedford County website all of our school websites and we will be sending information out through our parent call out email systems and our social media and after this presentation I will send you a copy of that parent agreement and application so you can see it these applications are due by Friday April the 23rd at 5 PM I would ask that the school board support this as a firm deadline to enable our principals to begin Master scheduling and

052to allow for central office to Begin work to get teachers placed in schools before the summer break obviously if we have students moving to the area over the summer we would offer them the possibility of 100 virtual but for our current students or enrolling kindergartners Who currently live here we would like that April 23rd date to be solid as a reminder kindergarten registration is now open so we are encouraging parents of kindergarteners who are coming into our schools to register online all of that information is on the Bedford County website and it will be going out tomorrow with the application um that they need to register at the school their child would be attending in person and then they should also fill out the remote application request before April the 23rd if they're interested at

053this time I'm going to ask Dr dewas to talk to you a little bit about transportation for next school year and when he is done we are all happy to answer any questions you may have thank you um this year our school buses we've implemented three feet distancing required mask use you've got windows open whenever possible you sanitize buses between runs and we've had hand sanitizer available loading and unloading the bus for next year we anticipate planning to lessen the distancing for each student seating up to two students per seat as a general guideline whereas this year it's really one student perceived um we don't know what the guidelines and rules will be for that but in order to support five day a week a full day uh return to his regular school hours um

054we think that's the way the bus will need to be bus routine will need to be set up we'll keep all other measures in place if needed as recommended by the CDC and Virginia Health Department um we'll we'll need to also continue to encourage families to bring their kids to school if possible to reduce the number of students requiring bus transportation and we've already begun recruiting additional drivers we'll need to transition from the three bus runs we're currently doing to two next year thank you have any questions we're happy to try to answer questions Dr mealy first out of the gate I do have one um I know part of the issue last year with the firm date that we had was the fact that we made changes so our parents going to be assured

055that what is on the site is what's happening and unless the governor steps in or some other issue comes with the CDC or whatever that that is the yes and the plan the only way that that would change would be if the governor were to become more restrictive um I think we feel like the goal that we hear from the state and the Department of Education is in person all day every day so we're hoping that this won't change okay start to Warford you you mentioned the start and end times for the school days how will the school days run well the kids actually be changing classes again or are we going to stick with the learning coach model or we're going to go back to regular classes well we have it uh come to

056those small fun night details but I will say because of the requirement for face-to-face instruction we will have to figure out how to move students between classes because they will to get that 990 hours they're going to have to be with their teachers face to face so um we're going to work on strategies to make that happen I will say that our principals and some of our students and teachers have also said that if they can incorporate a small part of learner coaching or you know an hour or so where they can sign up for time office hours with their teachers or they're getting support so those are models that we will be talking with principals about we've always given principles of flexibility to work with their leadership teams and their staff so we'll give

057you more information once we know what the high schools are doing but at this point they'll have to move between classes to be with their teachers to to follow this requirement and one more question um what is the I can't remember off the top of my head what is the position of students now that we have in Bedford connects uh that's a really good question it's right about 2100 uh students um which is down about eight or nine hundred from the start of the school year um and based on information from the survey if we were to go back as as close to normal as possible we would see that number maybe falling down to 400 500 students but that may include students who weren't very successful with that this year that we might you

058say that they really need to be in person so I can give you a really firm number on that probably by the next school board meeting um it's a good place yes absolutely Mr Hill Dr Woodford yes sir for faculty that would want to teach remotely but may not have space or connectivity have we thought about any options to allow them to come into a Bedford County public school facility to do the virtual teaching we we actually worked with many teachers this year and they were able to come in and use their facilities and we actually have been talking about um where we would probably put Bedford connects you know last year we were kind of building things as we were going but we are looking at an option um that I will give you

059more information about later where they could actually have um space in a school and possibly even have a small area where students could come in for testing or something like that if they needed to a little bit more flexibility but yes we would figure out how those teachers could get connectivity if they needed it one more the 25 of our students who don't have and forgive me if you said this already that don't have connectivity are they going to be permitted to um participate in Bedford connects well the um what the application says is that we suggest high-speed internet and you know that's capable of downloading videos and doing live stream and that if they have concerns with connectivity if they will reach out to us and then we'll put Dr dewas's team on that

060to see how hot spots and things are working I will say the administrators at Bedford connects have a really good idea about what works and what part of the county because they've been kind of doing that um and we will definitely work with students if there's a medical issue or something like that but I think a large part of what we saw with the disengagement was issues with internet and so we would want to try to get those students back especially there's going to be a lot of synchronous learning I believe where they'll need to be in live sessions with their teacher so internet would be important just a thought but we've we've helped about 80 families this year through donated funds from the federal Education Foundation with either hook up fees for one internet

061company or another or hot spots when none of those work and while we don't know you know we'd evaluate whether we have those funds available or other funds available you know in those hardship cases however that reliability I think as Dr Woodford said is a kind of Bedrock for the for any kind of remote learning so it does need to be worked out in advance great I have a question before I get to my question I'm going to climb on my soapbox for a minute um one thing that frustrates me to no end is at the beginning of the pandemic all we heard was oh we're going to continue to do the best of of what we encountered and now I'm hearing that not only are we going back to the pre-covered standard we're actually

062taking several more steps backward now I certainly appreciate the um uh concern that our friends in the general assembly and perhaps even in the governor's office have about helping to recover learning loss but I'm not sure why we're going back to over testing kids again I mean I understand the importance of benchmarking to kind of know okay where are we where do we need to work from but administering more Sol style testing to kids and especially to some of our younger students it's just mind-blowing to me so um anyway I'll step off my box and just um ask you know on that on that um note one of the things that I've heard teachers really raving about this year is the small class sizes and how they've been able to make very deep connections with

063the students in their classes um and I know we won't have a hard number until we know how many students will be enrolled in Bedford connects but do we have a ballpark for what Target we are shooting for for next year for uh class sizes I honestly would hate to do a guess because I think it depends on the school and it depends on the capacity of the classroom with um the three foot distancing but it also depends on the age group I mean one thing we learned if we are doing breakfast and lunch in the classroom 80 kindergarteners that's really hard for a teacher so the smaller class sizes are good so I think we'll be making some decisions based on what we know and enrollment but we'll also I mean we have um

064written into our cares act money to keep additional staff for this year to help us with those situations so we're going to do our very best to make them very manageable because I do believe that one thing that will help regain some learning loss is not to have huge classes that teachers can't work with kids in smaller groups so um we'll have to firm that up once we know some registration numbers but we will keep you updated as we move forward from here on out with any plans that we make glad to hear the priority is still to keep classes as small as possible yes and I'll go to Richmond and lobby with you if you'd like to get one let's let's go um my question is just kind of out of curiosity because this

065figure was mind-blowing to me at the beginning of the pandemic with the new busing standards Dr do us how many students can we fit on a bus now uh we are fitting 21 or two on a bus now how many will we be able to fit well if we do two proceed we could double that typically for 40 to 45 and what is the bus capacity if we were in normal conditions well well you know I guess that would technically three to a c uh but however I think we know that we don't all come in sizes that fit three in the seats so I think so I think you know in the 50s you know to to 60 and if it's an elementary run sometimes it can you know fit more but um that

066mine's just personal curiosity because I remember it was mind-blowing now we've drunk down and had we done six feet distancing it would have been about eight I was just curious about the kindergarten students the numbers that's in our virtual uh program you know right off how many kindergarten terms I don't know right off but I could initially I'm wondering how many did we have and I'm wondering I guess I'm just trying to get a picture of particularly the kindergarteners and those who enrolled in initially in the virtual program and then of course the numbers that we currently have now I could get those numbers from Mrs Bowyer for you I will say we returned a lot of kindergarten first and second grade students to the classroom during the first semester and again at the end

067of her semester so I think a lot of parents realize their students needed that social interaction so I could get those numbers for you I don't have them at my fingertips but I'd be happy to email them to the board all right thank you you're welcome questions otherwise and just to recap what I'm hearing next year unless something weird happens Elementary will be pre-k through five again middle school will be six through eight High School 9 through 12 normal schedules five day week instruction face-to-face time with teachers and Bedford connects will live on for families that qualify that are interested in participating in that as well so weren't you looking for an amen I'll give you one please all right great so I know a lot of folks at home were really interested to hear

068that so looking forward to it I know it's been a lot of work to get to this point and a whole lot of work to go before August but um dropped a great start and good work that the whole team for that all right well in that case unless there any other questions let's break for dinner and we will reconvene at foreign [Music] this meeting would you please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance of the United States and now move into our public comments portion as soon as I find the script I'm supposed to read so the public comment portion of tonight's agenda is limited to 25 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

069or organization speakers are asked to State their name address voting district and organization or group if applicable the school board is here to listen to your comments but will not engage or respond to speakers during this 25-minute period please remember that this is a public meeting and that we expect all speakers to refrain from any foul abusive or hateful language Mr Edwards will serve as timekeeper for individual speakers with a ringing Bell indicating that a person has 30 seconds remaining and the second bill will ring indicating a person's three minutes have expired Dr Rogers will serve as timekeeper for our cumulative 25-minute period when Mr Edwards three-minute Bell timer Rings please discontinue speaking and allow the next person in line to come to the podium should you be unable to finish your comments please send

070or give them to Mrs Johnson and she will give them to board members Mr Edwards do we have anyone signed up to speak this evening Mr chairman two individuals have scheduled Larry Allen and Brandon Bayes on behalf of BC Performing Arts are you saying Ms Delong is not on that list I had to I had to double check with her before I came up here just to make sure wow wow this is really your April Fool's joke Mr Allen come on up uh I just want to say thank you for this opportunity um we're new to this area we moved here in October and I just wanted to be a resource and bring to the light what's kind of going on in this this culture [Music] um if you've ever heard of CRT I came

071here to uh you know to speak about that and and it's heart critical race theory is a philosophy that views the problem of racism as a power struggle between Collective groups of people and societal systems as a result CRT proponents often resort to a purest type of argument that everything about American history in our society is implicitly racist in that the world is basically divided up into oppressors in the oppressed and thus the only way to fix the ultimate problem is to dismantle the entire societal Foundation CRT also is informed by a Marxist worldview that sees Society through the lens of collective social struggles except that CRP moves the original Marxist focus on the social class into the sphere of racism and I want to give some reasons on why CRTs shouldn't be taught We

072Are All Made in the image of God and therefore have value CRT wants took place you in an identity groups and your value is determined based on different oppression levels Genesis 1 27 says God so God created man his own image in the image of God he created him male and female he created them there is only one race the human race and he is made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on the face of the Earth and has determined their pre-appointed times and their boundaries of their dwellings acts 17 26 but CRT says if you are white you are born racist example Cola training material on being less white 2.3 we don't have a race issue we have a sin issue for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory

073of God Romans 3 23. CRT teaches that by destroying the societal structure that it will somehow fix the problems that which has been that which it has been is what will be that which is done what will be done and there is nothing new Under the Sun Ecclesiastes 1 9 history repeats itself this is nothing new this is something that's been uh handed down through history of Herbert Marcus was one of the people that started um it was an essay I think it was 60 Pages it was called repressive Theory until hearts are changed by turning to Christ and believing the gospel we would be like as a dog it returns to his mom to his own vomit so a full repeats this following Proverbs 26 11. Marxism is bad because it offers nothing you

074end up with the same outcome the definition of Sanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different different results this as I have stated earlier instead of using social class CRT is using racism thank you sorry so you have the press for suppressor Rich versus poor poor become rich and oppress the poor or look at it this way white people oppress black people but now swap it black suppressed white still the same outcome indeed Ecclesiastes 7 20 says indeed there is no one on earth who is righteous no not no one who does what is right it never since x412 salvation is fine and no one else but there is no other name under Heaven given to mankind by which me must be saved thank you Mr Allen Mr Bates Mr baze is

075here on behalf of BC Performing Arts against five minutes my name is Brandon Bayes and I am a junior and Performing Arts student at Liberty High School and I will be speaking on behalf of not only Liberty's Performing Arts but all Performing Arts students in our County including Jefferson forest and Sand River athletes in Bedford County are allowed Spectators to a certain degree for indoor events like volleyball games but Performing Arts students are not given that same courtesy across the county we're not given the same opportunity as athletes which is unfair and discriminatory discriminatory because Performing Arts students both compete and perform just like athletes do we all wear masks and socially distance according to every rule that we are given at every rehearsal live stream and outdoor performance so why are we not allowed

076to have these same opportunities under Governor northam's orders we are allowed to have 30 percent of our full capacity which is 783 spectators 30 percent of 783 is 235. all we are proposing is to have 80 socially distanced Spectators as an audience which is only 10.2 percent of our full capacity that fully meets and goes under the governor's guidelines and as a student who is currently enrolled in both theater and dance with a drive to pursue an acting career in the Performing Arts this opportunity is crucial for my future and the future for any student involved in these programs that chooses to do the same for some students these opportunities it's their Outlet it's all that they have they go home and it doesn't feel like home but when they're in theater you know that

077is their home their family so without having a live performance a real performance it could heavily affect them mentally when I was constructing this speech I tried to active advocate for the resources or advantages that our programs are granted over the athletes this year but we have none athletes are given the opportunity to travel gain scholarships and meet Professionals in the path that they would like to follow they're also allowed to have physical contact which is crucial to the extracurricular that they are involved in but above all they have someone there to appreciate the hard work and time that they have put in to accomplish whatever that they love to do that is what we want we want to be able to meet the people who have walked in the path that we are only

078beginning we want to be able to rehearse our craft without being concerned of the proximity between me and the person beside me doing the same thing that I love to do and most importantly we want to see The Smiling Faces of those who can gladly say that they are proud of the work that we have done the work that we put our sweat and tears into over weeks and weeks months of rehearsals and memorizing of lines and songs we don't just want a live audience we need one and we most importantly deserve one thank you thank you as much as we have some extra time is there anyone else that would like to speak tonight everyone in the room works for the school division anyway but um anyone that isn't on the agenda that would

079like to speak not and we'll go ahead and close the public comment section thank you to both of our speakers for coming out and sharing with us this evening do we have a motion to approve the consent agenda make a motion just a motion to approve the consent agenda by Dr mealy do we have a second second by Mr limey any discussion sure enough I'll promote all those in favor please say aye aye you opposed all right consent agenda is approved unanimously now I understand the quizzical look that Mr Hill was giving me across the table we have a recognition a very important group uh to recognize Mr Edwards thank you Mr chairman um one of the things that uh Dr Rogers is exceptional at is making sure that our employees and students who go

080way above and Way Beyond are recognized in a manner in which we can do it and unfortunately we've got 10 000 students a couple of thousand employees and it's not possible to to recognize everyone at a board meeting there is a group of our employees who have gone way above and Way Beyond over the past 15 months or so somewhere in that neighborhood to keep our employees uh healthy and safe and and prosperous and so that is our School nurses Dr Rogers asked me if I would do something um for them at this meeting to recognize them so I yanked out the Google Slides again and put together a presentation threw it out to to them to watch this week in which they said there's no sound and so I would also like to thank

081Mr Sexton um for helping me and Google Slides learn how to walk and chew slides at the same time last time I ever use them but uh thanks to Mr sex then we've got this presentation oh foreign [Music] I don't know how you do what you do you gotta get it they're all alive [Music] and you always put us first thank you nurse [Music] there will be better days this will be yours soon someday that's what I hear [Music] and she'll carry on [Music] taking care of us is grateful for your tears I know I do what you do you're gonna get it that doesn't bother you they're all alive always in control of your soul and you always put us first thank you next thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] I don't know how you

082do what you do you're gonna do it that doesn't bother you but you still I don't always [Music] put us first I don't know [Music] her soul and you always put us first thank you [Music] thank you thank you [Applause] you rest don't matter [Music] caregivers so [Music] that's great yes absolutely to our nurses thank you for everything I believe you were the unsung heroes this year I can't imagine how we could have gotten through a school year the way we have had it not been for you um and all the work and I know sometimes people don't always like the things that you say in trying to keep people healthy but thank you though for for everything that you do and uh all of our nurses and and to Ms Knox and Ms Robertson

083again hiding in the back thank you um thank you all and I also can't help but think of our uh your friend and former colleague Mr Downey who advocated for a full-time RN in every school and just what could this year Hub look like had it not been for his continued advocacy for School nurses so everyone involved thank you keep up the good work the end is in sight yes that's already approved the consent agenda we will just uh roll into action items the Perkins plan Dr Francis we have attached the uh Perkins plan for the 20 122 school year and this is a plan that uh actually becomes a grant uh to get some application for that and it's used to support CTE programs in grades 5 through 12 and of course we have

084programs that are three middle schools or three high schools and Susie Gibson so these funds that are are there are used to support them some of the things that are permissible to use uh these funds for purchasing equipment virtual programs which we've done a lot this year to help teach CTE courses of a virtual format teacher training student competitions for special populations and travel costs for CT events such as career Expos and those type of things that we have at the regional and the local level uh here in the county which we hope to get back to next school year the plan is developed using CTE comprehensive needs assessment input from the schools and the CT advisory committee which has a member of the three high schools on the committee as well as local businesses

085and organizations and so forth we also use the annual performance report uh because that gives us areas that we need to allot money toward if we do not meet a certain benchmarks and that's actually the reason the plan we're not able to be submitted for our information in March because the uh the performance standards didn't come out until I think March 17th so we couldn't put the plan together since our school board meeting was before that uh we've done very well in all areas one area that we do have to continue to work and it's in the plan is the non-traditional students for enrollment and completers and I'll kind of give you non-traditional students or typically students that are in a gender specific program example of overwhelmingly uh something like Auto Body Auto Tech is

086typically a male driven uh industry non-traditional students would be females we also have things like our nursing program the CNA those are typically females so a non-traditional would be a male so the idea is that we want to recruit and retain those non-traditional students in those areas and we can use funding for this to do that and put things in place to help expose them to those types of programs so we can help yourself and I talked to Mr Doss we do have right now we have some non-traditional students in our uh for next year in our construction program and our culinary arts program and our Auto Body program and so forth so we're trying to increase that now not all programs have that certain exactly business courses they're gender new there's no non-traditional staff

087so not all programs qualify but for the ones that do you want to increase the non-traditional enrollment whatever that gender may be so that's what that means in that area and funding for the 21-22 school years that has not been released but we use the current funding which is 731.91 to do the plan typically we've gone up about nine to ten thousand dollars every year for funding from the federal government so if that were to uh hold true we'd be about a hundred and eighty thousand dollars uh for next year so uh I'd be happy to answer any questions about the plan or any other things that it goes to support yes I just have two questions sometimes you work on major purchase equipment purchases is there anything like that we're currently working toward like

088I know at one time it was part of the culinary program yes we on our Horizon we would love to put in HVAC and industrial maintenance program if we were to put those programs in obviously that would not be next year would probably be the following year we would have to uh plan for that and then basically hear more a good portion of that equipment because you're going to have to purchase equipment for the program so not for this year 22-23 hopefully we will be using some funding sources including Perkins State equipment and even local businesses if we can uh Institute a HVAC and a industrial maintenance program that's that'd be a great program I'm here people are lacking in that uh industry so be great um you mentioned area performance standards where did we

089where did we not meet that standard the non-traditional medical leaders so you've got two parts the first year is the enrollment so if you take let's say a female takes agriculture but they only take it one year we get credit for that thing for enrolled but if they don't take the second course to become a complete or we don't get a complete or uh credit for that so the idea is not only just to get them into one class but to get them to complete and that's the area that we really need to and and most divisions are in that situation so but that's the only one yes thank you so much other questions please yes ma'am um and I know you said with this grant money this is kind of stuff just a little

090bit not much um but you you sometimes have shortfalls with the grant money would any of the cares act money one time spending could that supplement what you need to possibly uh I'd have to defer to Mr Hagler on that uh the second HVAC area so sometimes the equipment may overlap we'd have to look at the details of the grant it's usually uh things that's falling the hvacs that are falling on there are really air quality not training the classroom so we could ask that question if we need to as we get into it some of the some of the grant money Runs Out 24 I believe is the latest stake so we can look into that if we need that but we'll also look at local businesses and stuff A lot of times when

091we get some of them running local businesses really help us out with that automotive shop I think received a lot when it was opened even before I arrived here so we'll do everything we can to make sure we secure the appointment thank you Dr Francis just to clarify this is an info item and an action item tonight because the information was not released until after our our March meeting yes okay I didn't get the page annual performance uh report until March 17th it was released by the ddoe so we are trying to make up for lost ground before the deadline at the end of this month is there any final questions do we have a motion on the Grant application summer we have a motion to approve the Perkins Grant application by Mr Hill we

092have a second second by Dr Hicks any other questions discussion no I'll call for a vote all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed Grant application is approved as presented good luck thanks Dr Rogers superintendent's report we have a number of things um but I want to start with um first tonight I'd like to Echo Dr woodford's and Mr Johnson's comments and thank the nurses for the incredible job they've done this year supporting the coveted mitigation efforts with contact tracing and Manning the vaccination clinics in addition to all the day-to-day regular activities that they do also thanks to the dynamic duo of Patricia Knox and Beth Robertson who have diligently overseen the contact tracing and organized the vaccination clinics sometimes working making calls and rescheduling schools on nights and weekends so that we

093can make the best use of our time and vaccine also thank you to Dr Woodford who has ever seen the entire operation and has labored over the schedule decisions about coverage and school closures she and the entire instructional team as well as administrators and School staff have covered many classes so the teachers could be vaccinated and lastly I would like to thank our parents for their patience and understanding with a vaccination schedule and school closures I'm sure many of them have been inconvenienced but their flexibility has allowed our staff to receive the vaccine as quickly as possible along with our community counterparts and your support as board members This truly has been a community collaboration so I'm very proud of I'm very proud of that very proud of all of our staff um the second

094thing I would like to announce or recognize there are several staff members that I would like to mention who have been recognized as outstanding individuals by their peers on March 19th we recognize the three Bedford County Public Schools teacher of the year finalists are Brian Miller a math teacher at Jefferson Forest High School should we given a theater teacher at Stanton River High School and Matt usselton an English teacher at Liberty High School so all three High School teachers this year they were all noted for going over and above their daily classroom expectations to provide unique opportunities for our students so even though they are already winners we wish them the best of luck in the final announcement of Bedford County Public Schools teacher of the year on April 16th um I would like to

095give a shout out to Deborah Blake as central office staff member of the year she is truly the friendliest most genuine person you would ever want to meet she's always positive she always has a smile on her face and she's been that way since the first time I was in the central office 20 years ago and she hasn't changed a bit and lastly I would like to commend Elizabeth winland Susie G Gibson Science and Technology teacher for being named Virginia Association for teachers of family and consumer Sciences teacher of the year she has provided our students practical opportunities to work with early childhood and educational programs he's done an awesome job so I know from working with Leanne Calvert actually work with it he works for the teacher of the year program and she has

096mentioned how very difficult it is to make those selections because we have so many incredible teachers so just a shout out to all of them um next I would like to mention that we've had several questions and concerns expressed about the Fine Arts performances and we had a student tonight who expressed that as well and I certainly certainly understand their concern and desire to have their performances there are still questions about how those performances are considered in the governor's order um and we even um talked somewhat about that with the state superintendent on Monday and then again I asked for an update before this meeting from him because in some cases people are considering them to be to fall into the social gatherings um guidelines and in some cases that some consider them to fall

097under entertainment they do not fall under the Athletics guidelines and all of them are a little bit different with regard to the capacity of Spectators and attended attendance currently the state superintendent is still awaiting clarification himself from bdh in the governor's office regarding the got those guidelines um and he anticipates that regardless of that we're going to have an updated executive order by May 1st so I believe that even though we haven't had specific conversations with principals I believe that all of them would be in favor of of doing what what we can once those orders are clarified the other issue that we have is that in the original Bedford County Public Schools plan that was approved and well it was submitted by Dr Shook and his team and approved by the school board in

098the fall said that there would be no outside people parents and so forth allowed in the buildings we're still following that the only exception has been for our volleyball parents uh and spectators so a couple of things here uh I guess we would need to have consensus if we wanted to change that and allow indoor Spectators for Fine Arts performances we would need to have a consensus that that's that you would agree to that the next thing is we don't have another if we want to wait until a clarification or uh another amendment to the executive order and that's not until May 1st we don't have another board meeting until May 13th what I would suggest is that if you would allow the administrative team to make that decision I I would be happy to

099do that and to let you know you know what we've heard prior to that or you can make that decision tonight but I think to wait until the next board meeting would be too late what's what's the board's pleasure first of all I would say let's start with allowing parents to access for uh well I mean here's a deal data is entertained any place that here performs is a de facto entertainment venue so I don't understand where the confusion is here as to whether or not a theater performance and an auditorium would not fall under the entertainment venue provision in the governor's executive order which would allow uh 30 30 with a Max of 500 people to me that's just common sense no-brainer kind of thought process and I just don't understand why we wouldn't

100allow our theater kids to have spectators under those circumstances we're talking about Richmond though well yeah I will say that there are some school divisions that are considering that to be the guidelines we have looked at our capacities um at 30 percent and at JF we're looking at a 240 Spectators and performers Liberty High School will be 235 Spectators and performers Stanton River would be 168 and that is a little bit more than the social gatherings at 50 indoors and 100 Outdoors but does the theater performance fall under entertainment or a social Gathering well the last word that I got was that they had been considered social Gatherings but I do know that there are different that our school divisions treating it differently so we have that we have that option to treat it as

101an entertainment well correct my guidance was it was a it was has been initially considered a social Gathering no the state superintendent I would love to hear that line of logic where he arrived at that conclusion because that's I mean that's so that's intuitive to me that I can't even process it really but I guess my question is do we have does this board have the authority to consider theater to be entertainment which it is and then you apply those guidelines to theater performances it's difficult for me to answer that except to say that we have been following vdoe guidelines and and um and we've applied those pretty consistently overall uh with regard to what the governor has said in his orders I would before I would change what I have been directly told from

102video E I would prefer that they would clarify that would further can we revisit that because again this is just so counter-intuitive to me that what is traditionally considered entertainment I.E a theater performance is considered by the Virginia Department of Education to be a social Gathering so can you get further clarification well I will continue to work on that for sure I appreciate it yes sir Dr Rogers and I've been back and forth about this several times right this is yeah if you can't make this up no you really can't I've really been apples just thinking about capacities for athletic events but yet we can't have any spectators at all for an indoor so anyway um Miss Harrison and Dr mealy okay um if I understood it and Dr Rogers please help me to better

103understand what you had stated in terms of the board tonight if we choose to we can certainly make a decision uh regarding the students being able to perform the arts program being able to perform did I understand you correctly that that is something that the board could consider tonight it is the first thing you need to consider is amending your original plan and allowing people to come into the buildings for at least four performances for Fine Arts performances well um you know I've thought about this long and hard and um knowing the importance of what the Arts meant to mean even as an elementary and a high school student and certainly taking under consideration the times in which we are in right now and all of the mitigations and the rules that we have to

104follow I really am of the belief that just as we have allowed are sports to return and we've given those students that opportunity I think the same should be afforded to our students and in their Performing Arts um this is an outlet for so many of them just as it was for me and it meant the world to me um and listening to the student tonight Brandon Bayes um who certainly was a former student at otter River and he was quite the performer and actor he was just awesome in lots of performances that we had um I know the importance that it means to so many of our students and um I I would like to see us reconsider and allow these students to have this opportunity um I agree with both Mr leamy and

105and Ms Harrison thank you so much for all the checking you did and I do believe I understand what you're saying in terms of we are trying to adhere to the vdoe guidelines and certainly I'm cautioned before that that is a slippery slope once you get on it um but I myself have struggled with you we are allowing and I understand why I'm just the logic is the problem we allow parents of volleyball players to come in and scream in an environment you know cheering on their kids but we wouldn't allow the same amount of parents to come in and sit quietly in an auditorium it just makes no sense to me I I think that we really need to do this even though I I do understand that that's you know a slippery slope

106and and I do think that probably it would be really imperative to say for Fine Arts performances so that we don't get caught in when you're letting this one do it or that one do it but um I just don't see the difference in yelling and screaming for my child playing volleyball to cheer them on and yeah but I can't sit quietly in an auditorium to watch my child perform sounds like we're developing the consensus here yes and again it's just something for my own education isn't um theater covered under some under vhsl guidelines quality theater on the vhsl is the one-act playing our performance it's called the resurrection curriculum so when I play is we have talked with several with the number of superintendents in this area most of them are doing virtual performances

107I do understand that some larger performances have been done in a close another division close by I do know that in another School Division and for Virginia Beach that they're adhering to the 30 percent capacity so that just gives you an idea that that there are some different School divisions doing different things so you have to you got that option I think we ought to be one of those School divisions that does different things I mean because I mean I mean right things it really is and if we can you know our amend our amend our original plan specific to dinner performance by consensus this evening let's do it 30 capacity follow that question would you say in theater are we saying theater and yeah Mr Hill we had a question comments yeah so I

108feel like I'm in a comedy skit with you people right now so that's part of theater um it's um I'll have to say I support giving our students options offset it from the beginning but it's interesting that I heard through the right things because I know how it impacted me in theater I know how it impacted or I heard someone speak tonight if I recall we had almost 50 players come and speak about what an impact winner Sports were and I think one of our board members said they had just as much fun practicing as you know playing at a game or you know basically it was oh well winter sports so I think it's the right thing to do and I've been saying that all along is to give our students choices but what

109is all of a sudden change that we're okay for these people to come in and um see or cheer or I guess I need to understand I mean and again I think it's the right thing but aren't we being hypocritical to say oh let's bring it all in now but yet we turned our back on winter sports yeah what what's changed is the positivity rate is down to five percent where it was 20 when we made the decision about winter sports exactly and and the name calling such as being hypocritical certainly I think against that I didn't call you you said I remember and so I I take offense to that you know because we turn our back on winners who knows I mean those students were highly effective well it was a different circumstance

110at the time it is what it is I just think it's very important to call out that you know we're we're treating some different than others and but I wanted the players who came here and spoke to us and told us how important they need to hear why we're making this decision and that's my point I'm all about giving all of our students choices I've said that from the beginning and I don't care if it's theater if it's band performing arts or athletes but I think we owe it to them to help them understand why all of a sudden we're making this decision and we it sounds like we have consensus which is great because that's the right thing to do but I think it's important for all of those athletes who came here and

111practically begged us and told us how it affected them and why they needed it and why they needed to take part in playing those games and the majority of this board said no and so now we're showing a consensus which is a great thing I just need to make sure that those players and parents understand why we're making that decision chairman I I think still get back to where we're we're not looking or or when we made the decision I'll speak for me uh for winter sports we had a very high positivity rate our hospitals even in this area were becoming overwhelmed our 14-day average was significantly High there were no vaccines on the horizon and everything was really just getting worse and worse and worse so that's the reason that I voted that way

112at this time we do have a very low positivity rate you know our hospitalizations are way way down the community spread is way way down it's no longer a significant Community spread do we still have spread yes but that's what these players need to understand unfortunately their sport occurred at a time when the pandemic was extremely bad and so I'd still think the prudent thing to have done was to eliminate the winter sports this is a different situation so it was really looking at the data that was in the science that was before us for me to make that decision and that's what the players need to hear from me Miss Kirby has been waiting patiently with the question for Dr Francis um Dr Francis how many uh I'm not curious here how many people

113are we letting into a volleyball game now 25 uh right now it's uh two tickets for uh home player up to 25 yeah about 225. so what is just what would be if we went to 30 capacity on that too well I actually have a proposal from uh I can talk in a few minutes for where the athletic directors okay well that's coming up later okay yeah you wanted to expand what we're doing for the rest of fall starting Monday and going into spring okay thank you so other discussion about now and the uh the current theater issue um having Dr Francis just said do we need to expand that to include increased capacity from volleyball well that's going to be a separate yes Okay so what is the board's wish in terms of permitting

114Spectators a limited number of Spectators for Performing Arts indoor Performing Arts performances yes okay but what uh I mean I think that's kind of been at 30 okay since we've mentioned Athletics let's go let's move on we don't want to leave Sports out of our conversation so let's have another athletic Athletics update Dr Francis all right exported Athletics uh I do have an update based uh because of the governor's expanded uh numbers uh on Sports uh and what the high school principals and athletic directors talked about and what we felt like we could do and it's two parts of this the first part would be for fall sports starting Monday not tomorrow because I talked to the ads of principals and to expand this for tomorrow would be very difficult because they've already got the

115guest list and everything for the will call they got that this afternoon for the games tomorrow starting Monday which would be any volleyball games or any football games they may have if they're playing plus one at homes the recommendation is to go from two tickets for home athlete to four beginning Monday so to give all those uh four which would then still meet the 30 capacity or a hundred indoors or uh if there's typically we're talking about volleyball it would still be for 500 or 30 percent capacity for our stadiums so that's the first part of it would be starting Monday April 5th to expand that and have more uh fans home fans at the contest but the spring which the Seminole district will meet later but they have not uh made any adjustments for

116spring yeah they did make some adjustments for fall which only allows home taters but they did go with the uh 30 or up to 500 people so they're allowing their schools to go up to 500. if you want to but still no away spectators the spring Sports recommendation would be four tickets for home athlete and two tickets per visiting athlete and one of the big reasons why we wanted to do visiting athletes for this is for sports like baseball softball and Tennis we don't have currently with pixlot we don't have the capability to stream those we do for soccer or lacrosse which are played in the stadium but they're sports that right now we may not have the ability to stream so people can't watch them if they don't attend so that's why we would

117bump it up to four per home athlete and two for visiting so we we're suggesting allowing visitors to come in the spring baseball softball soccer and so forth and we would have all guests on a pass list and that has to be submitted from the visiting School the day before the contest and also from the home school so that we're checking people off we're not just giving tickets they're only yes this so we know who's in our stadiums who's in our facilities uh if we were to host a regional estate event the recommendation as we go by their guidelines which do follow the governor but I'll give you an example if you were hosting a regional baseball uh championship uh what the region has said and the state would say is your whatever your capacity

118is at 30 you give half the tickets to the visiting team out to the home team so if you have 300 uh tickets available based on your capacity 150 go to the visiting team for the regional game and 150 go to the hub because uh when you get into the playoffs it's a little bit different there with regional state guidelines um streaming options as I said are available at our stadiums we are looking at some possibility to stream baseball and softball with some technology but that's not through pixel live there's some schools that do some streaming with using some GoPro Titan equipment and that has worked in the past we're going to look into that we obviously can't make any guarantees on that that's why we want to allow visiting teams to have their parents

119come to see their children play because if we can't do that we want to have them able to see their children play uh the schools would also like the option to recognize the home homecoming court at a uh home soccer game uh and just have them come in and uh be recognized and their parents uh come see the home homecoming court so uh we did not do that for fall because of the limited tickets and so forth and we feel like we can do that and do it safely uh at a soccer match uh the ads would also like flexibility using this 30 percent and 500 tickets for things like track one of the big things with track is sometimes you have two track two or three teams competing sometimes you have seven or eight

120that changes the number of tickets so they would still use the capacity of the stadium and uh go that route which would be 500 but they could distribute the tickets it may only be one ticket per family because the based on the number of athletes you have and the track meets if you have six or seven teams there it's going to be thus tickets obviously so I can't give you a number for track like I can for baseball or softball and that type of thing oh and uh one of the things that was made which is a change and it does help us to some extent but it does spread us a little thinner is uh for the spring the JB and the varsity games will be played on separate nights not back to back

121that helps us for transportation but it spreads our coaching staff and the use of our facilities out so if you had a home game you're going to be playing the JV hung baseball game on third uh Monday night you're gonna play The Varsity home game on a Tuesday night like that so it's two nights that you'll be playing games but for a way it helps us for travel so we don't have two buses on the road at the same time and uh one of the things that we decided for the spring is we're going to provide at the central office financial assistance to schools to cover cost of Rental Vehicles when buses are not efficient or not available [Music] and I will be happy to answer any questions or clarify anything it's curvy oh great

122so fall Sports is are any of them actually going past Friday past tomorrow playing uh there's a possibility of us volleyball uh I don't I don't have the update it does not look like football related to the playoffs uh and but Stanton River may play a plus one game possibly against north side but it would be at North Side so that that's uh probably not going to come into a they had to cancel the north side game because North Side had covered related uh situation so but North Side may make the playoffs so they make the playoffs obviously Stanton River wouldn't go play them if they don't then it's scheduled for the Friday but that's a way so we'd be following the fact I see the way yeah yeah so but if if we did

123have anything inside and I know all spring sports are outside we would be at 30 capacity for the gems too uh or up to a hundred thirty percent with a cap of a hundred yeah the cap is a hundred for Endless it's 500 per hour and all of our gems obviously thirty percent will be more than 100 so okay so there's absolutely no way humanly possible to allow for four tickets per student or for athlete for tomorrow's games here's the concern from the president the decision is made tonight they're not even going to have time to get this out tonight to their families to say now you can bring four people instead of two some people may get that information some people may not and then we would have to have those names in by

124say 12 o'clock here's the fear one family gets the information another family shows up and says well if I would have known I could brought two more I would have brought my children in such last minute that the coordinate they get their list the past list turned in this afternoon was the pass list so that's where what they're going with so I'm not going to tell you it's not physically possible it's a lot of challenges and it it it it would create some real issues I think with communication well I mean I would imagine that I mean this is a this has been a big concern with especially with the football uh football families I imagine that uh a fair amount of them are watching this meeting tonight and I suspect that the fair amount

125that are watching the meeting tonight are going to reach out to the ones that are not watching the meeting tonight and this is Bedford okay you can't keep a secret in Bedford especially when it relates to sports and social media and I you know I just think that we we should do everything humanly possible to allow these families the opportunity to bring as many of their family members especially when you consider for the seniors you know this is this is their for many of them this is going to be their last last football game there's a lot of them aren't going to go you know go to the next level so I mean I mean it would impact two schools Liberty and Stanton River they both have home games tomorrow night right Jefferson forces on

126the road so it does not impact you I mean the the will of the board is the will of the board and if I will tell you my the principals will make it they're great they'll make it happen with their ads it's going to put a sprain and I do here's what I don't want I don't want to have people yelling and screaming at our principles because they didn't get the word out and it puts them in a real bad situation seeing that this is eight o'clock on Thursday night and we play Friday now could it be done it could be but could we miss people or people not know we could and and so that's that's the fear of fish well I think we're penalizing the majority for some that that may not get

127the word I mean I think you know I think the majority of the parents are going to get the word the vast majority if not all but I don't think that we should penalize the majority of folks just because we think we might miss a few or a few might not get the word well that's all I got to say I told the parentals that this might be a discussion I know so hopefully they're watching uh I'm sure they are so uh if the decision is made to go that route they will have to put their plans into place but uh there may be parents that don't get the word and so forth or get their information in Dr Francis I guarantee you right now phones are ringing all over Bedford County saying turn on

128the school board meeting I I guarantee everyone call Three Friends uh Mr Hill yeah so if we can't do I think every kid gets two tickets right now is there two tickets for the home team so even if we can't get it to where each kid gets four could we do a we're opening it up to capacity it's first come first serve if you're in line we like you know what we've always done is have that guest list that pass list so we know who's coming in and that you know that they're associated with a certain student athlete I just want to ask I don't think we should shut them out if we're saying the rule says we can have a capacity of up to 500 why would we not let them in negation and

129control of the event and making sure that we keep people socially distanced and all of those things our principles felt like four tickets we could definitely do now we could do four tickets if it wasn't tomorrow if it was a day but now as I said the principals and ads will make it happen if you if you deem that to be the plan I think I've made my feelings clear can I can I just say something it might be helpful for our staff um you know prior to covid we had a little bit more flexibility as a staff as we were getting updated information to make some decisions only having a board meeting once a month when we start hearing that we could open up we have to wait so that may be something you

130want to consider I can promise you that we are always thinking about what's best for kids and parents and we will be safe and we will provide with updates but that may be something you want to consider if things are opening up and we're moving into spring Sports if you would allow us to make some of those decisions without bringing them before the board that's totally up to you but um we we talked about this earlier in the week and we were we knew we could make it happen early in the week so I just I would just want to offer that maybe as a future solution if it's a good point it's curvy I just want to say that Mr limey hit right on the money well we got to get especially if we

131can get four people in there per athlete and being seniors there and for the chance for more family members to get to see them at least once a year um I actually had to go out to the school earlier this week and I dropped off uh where do I went out to school and I ended up standing by the get fence to watch part of the JD football game and it's just wonderful to stand there and watch those kids play but if we got a chance for a kid's grandparents to come in and see them play because some of these kids didn't play till this year so we've got to get them there and if we can make it happen we need to make it happen and especially now that this is being said on

132YouTube I'm sure social media is blowing up like crazy saying that we can take kids there I'd hate to not give it a shot and try now and to crush people after their hopes have been gotten up for the last five minutes Dr Francis could you kind of explain the process of how names get on the um uh we'll call list I mean is it does that go through the A.D through the coach to the principal uh 80 gets currently gets with the uh coach and the athletes and basically they give the names of their two guests it could be parents it could be siblings whatever it may be and they record those and when they come in they get checked off of the will what typically it's called a well-called list and do it

133that way so uh I mean uh as I said we'll do whatever and I said I prepared that I told the principals this was probably going to come up I said but but here here I won't understand this as well about it it this would only be home fans okay I know you may have gotten some emails uh but this is good uh so uh that would be only four not the two visitors like we're we're proposing in Spring correct spring because of the lack of some of the streaming options so uh but as I said if the decisions made we go before I will be on the phone with the principals after this and you know we'll make it happen if it's not as I said I just had to pass that that was

134their biggest concern was that you know it wouldn't be difficult but as I said they always do what works and they'll make it happen so if we were to permit this tonight then the ads are going to be very busy on the phone at least tomorrow morning yes okay no problem we call tomorrow morning because so many parents are watching you know they'll be able to put a voicemail to get through when they get in the office yeah it's going to be taken care of oh yeah okay so that would be if you're considering it would be four tickets per athlete and cheerleader cheerleaders okay so what's the board's will in that yeah yes yes yes yes make it absolutely Mr Hill you're not on the fence notify the principles then I think you just

135did yes yes uh we have another uh report from Dr dewis on facilities usage just and this is really just a restatement of where we stand with outside groups using our facilities um you know we began the Year by by having no outside groups using our facilities and part way through we in the fall we amended that to allow out use of outdoor facilities of four groups that might need to use a parking lot or something like that where it didn't involve any cleaning um the only exceptions to that were that Rec Sports who had their own mitigation procedures were using outdoor fields in some of our schools um we maintained that practice and so no indoor use of gyms or cafeterias or auditoriums by outside groups and um we have had some outside use

136of facilities namely Rec Sports but there have been a few other instances um and so um really just just a restatement of that current practice you know I know that we're we're able now to talk about opening up in other ways but at this point I'm not recommending that we that we deviate from that practice at this time questions comments do so we're letting at the outside facilities be used such as ball fields are there any requests for anything inside um the indoor requests we would have would be from a handful of travel basketball teams that you played outside of winter season you know probably we might have some requests for that if we were to allow how much do they pay us to use the facilities under a policy for facilities travel teams or

137groups like that that have all Bedford County student members pay a flat fee of 400 for a season to use that because otherwise what we were I think the board years ago found that charging by the hour made it cost prohibitive for teams that were our own students teams really outside of school so so but if we did rent them out it would be no different than our home volleyball teams playing there would be different mixes of of people coming in the building different additional cleaning protocols and not and no tracing of uh really out you know after hours or weekend use of who's coming in what what school gyms would they use um in the past we've had some some teams using a few of our elementary school gyms sure they don't go into

138any other part of the school yeah most of our most of our facilities can do that what's wrong with them why would we not open it up we're allowing people from the outside to come to theater we're allowing people to come in to other volleyball games so why would we not open it up for our students to be able to practice basketball and our gymnasiums get to school with a chance to make some money if you're missing from their Gates and stuff what's the typical practice schedule like I mean would this be school nights would this be weekends what some above I think could restrict in the weekends if that's what if that's a concern I'm just thinking too though um custodians like would we need to have our custodians on hand and pay them

139more over time for cleaning or with the travel teams have their own custodial services that they bring in like how would that work by charging of those groups of flat fee we're not different you know we're not doing a typical Arrangement which would be you rent the cafeteria for three hours you pay x amount per hour plus the cost of a of a custodian at a time and a half or a you know there's a sheet we figure all that on um the flat fee doesn't account for that it's just a benefit really to teams that have our you know our Bedford County School students on them um so that so it's not cost prohibitive to those groups it began when we did not really have middle school teams in all sports and those middle

140school teams really were travel teams they were Club teams really um and so I wanted to pay by the hour they were it just charged that flat we got to remember though if we allow them to come into our gyms and practice we're keeping our students Stanton River Liberty forest from getting in a car driving to Roanoke where they're going to be mixing with others bringing it back they're going to Sweetbriar playing with others other teams are coming in I mean so oh I mean they're coming back to our schools on Monday um why would we not open it up to our community to use should to be clear what that will mean is let's say we do allow a weekend Sunday afternoon practice or Saturday evening practice um it will mean it will meet

141our custodians on Monday morning will be cleaning bathrooms cleaning gyms sanitizing uh you know what they need to do and not doing their you know or adding to their other routine and we're charging those groups a flat fee of 400 which would maybe be 15-20 hours of time total if that's okay uh worth of time so it's there's that effort that's that's that would be the extra important Dr mealy I just have a question how would contact tracing come in um well we wouldn't we typically wouldn't have anyone on hand after hours or weekends to do that I guess we could ask for a submitted list um would be the only other option I would think there'll be nobody to contact Trace right so we could lose a whole bunch of possibilities because no one's

142there to do it I may have missed it but are we contact tracing for theater in Performing Arts it will be because the students so for outside guests it's like we have a Wilson for athletics I think it would be the same thing for Fine Arts performance um I know from my experience working with the rec department when we would because when we would use Bedford Elementary especially there were custodians up there all day anyway so how are we compensating them pre-covered either they were already there working so how is I think the rec department hired I think the our writing trip with the rec department is that they hired uh cleaning crews directly to do that and we're not we're not directly paying them I think they make those arrangements outside of the um

143you know we we don't charge the direct Department to use our facilities as a county agency so they pay their state they pay directly to a site supervisor or in custodians anybody else think we need well I mean the rules may have changed and I may be putting some age on myself here which I tend to do but at the time that I'm referring to the the custodians that were there were wearing public school uniforms with their shirts and their name tags so they work of it from the schools so my question is and I understand that we have to go through extra protocol now and we have these hydrostatic sprayers or whatever could we adjust the cost that we are charging these travel teams to use our gym to compensate for the additional costs

144that we are having so say instead of 400 charging five hundred dollars we could that that is currently in the policy kg um spelled out so um policy can be changed and then how how when do we say no you know because you're coming to the end of the year you're going to have a lot of end of the year events you know Pre-K stuff and fifth grade graduations that might you know people might want to come in I mean I'm just really concerned I mean one of the things that we've done really well has been contact tracing and if that falls by the wayside um and and I know that we've had some and continue to have a lot of quarantine issues related to sports so that's going to be dropping a big piece

145of what we do to help keep our students and our staff safe but miss yeah Miss Hairston and um just a question to Dr doors regarding the custodians we've talked about looking at well there was discussion about looking at our custodial staff and perhaps having them do work work um again I'm going to go back to reflecting a bit and hope that I don't offend anyone as I reflect as a former principal I know that there were difficulties uh in getting custodial staff your current custodian staff to work over time one of the schools where I worked at we often had after school activities and so trying to get one of the custodial staff members to work over was very very difficult for us and so I'm thinking about time in which we're in now

146in the word capacity and the burden that's on our custodial staff everything that's going on uh what's the likelihood of us getting our custodial staff to be able to work over time like that what's your what's your thoughts on that I do think that is an issue in some schools especially small ones you know you might only have two custodians on staff um I think if we're talking about about travel teams we're not talking about many schools I think we might be talking about a couple um and um so I think we'd have to find we'd have to figure that out if you know do you think we that would I mean we'd have them lining up saying that they want to work um we probably could you know if admit if if they work

147from one school it might there might be one from another who who might be willing to pitch in in these few instances it's you know during the height of wreck basketball for example all basically all schools are used um you know for that and that's different I don't think we've been talking about that here it could be just a few um but it is a concern and we certainly have to ask and make sure we had them I'm looking back at the policy uh if the policy itself says that groups like the ones we're talking about that are that are only Bedford County Public School students um she'll pay a reduced flat fee and pay all custodial lighting staff or other expenses necessary so there is the ability to charge them additional from that clarifying

148that wording Miss Kirby from your earlier question and um and and that number is not listed in the policy it's actually in the agreement which we could update um but I think by allowing the charge above and beyond the flat fee where we can take care of them schools that have the ability to shut the gym off from the rest of the school so you don't have little ones running around in the hallways and we're talking about during summer time when you have summer school but you're not in full capacity I think these teams are actually playing now um in the springtime probably not summer but could I mean could we open them up possibly with the stipulation of saying start once school is out and use it during the summer and I don't know

149if those teams employ they're practicing their Marcus I'm not in practice all year yeah I don't know the requests have only come in the springtime really for for groups for our schools to this point over the last few years and really not many of them but a few the summer start would be good and then it kind of yeah and then yeah because then you could actually have your constantial staff come in on Monday not really worry about it until Monday you don't have to pay them overtime just look at gym up keep it set off other comments doctor yes um of changing our current policy I I think we are still ought to exclude outside groups from using indoor facilities for the rest of the school year anyway for the rest of the school

150year so you would be open to possibly the summer possibly okay other thoughts I was just the only thing I want to say is I'd like to point out we with summer school it is a full day summer school so we will be using the gym and we also have YMCA and tdt programs that we will be having in some of our schools not all of our schools but I want to throw that out it's just because it's summer doesn't mean that area won't be used and um with the major waxing and cleaning sometimes and Summer Schools extended for quite a bit of time six weeks instead of three summer as well that we can do those certainly is um as I can continue to reach out to the school where I know that has

151happened and if we're getting those requests coming in we can have some dialogue with those teams we can see what they need um and we can you know we can listen to that and we can consider going forward if you know the metrics continue to come down and and you know we're seeing that continued at some point we're gonna we're gonna not have some of the same worries that we that we currently have um you know we don't have to you know it's a delay forever you know on this um you know we can have some dialogue even now but to see what the needs are and what other options they have and you know if it's a hardship we can we can talk some more about it I would also like to see us

152wait till at least the end of the school year and then um open it up possibly this summer but yes if you could keep the the lines of communication open and let us know as you're getting more of these requests we can if we can continue that conversation I was sitting here and I was still want some now it's scary um but with the 30 capacity and to revisit back to the Performing Arts and do long Mr Hill's line of wanting to keep things equal um fall Sports we have a 30 capacity with a hundred cap um if we do 30 Capilla never mind I think it just answered my own question out loud um but that's a Jefferson for us it's only put us at 72. but it's whichever is the smallest number there's

153no way we could do 100 caps could one of the big differences there is in athletics the uh participants do not count in the service center labels on each team that does not count yeah whereas my understanding here this 30 just like in graduation and so forth the 30 does count any of the performers or the adults working so that's a little different because the half of 100 for athletics does not count as I said the uh the athletes that are competing okay would that number go up for the outdoor theatrical Productions like SpongeBob that opens later this month at Cavalier theater yes now I can tell you how Athletics did that is they put the guidelines out it's 40 square foot it's 40 40 square feet per uh individual and then you take the

15430 percent of that and that's how we got for baseball softball venues tennis and so forth so uh but if it was a venue that doesn't not unlike a stadium or something then you'd have to use the 40 square feet and calculate it that way in 30 percent of that so yes in theory you would because outdoor for athletics is 500 Max so or 30 percent whichever is fewer so if you had a large area you could have 250 300 People based on the 30 percent 40 square feet and to think in middle school I thought I would never use math again in real life yeah here we are today any other questions comments about capacity issues or excellent usage Dr Rogers anything else uh yes okay finally an update on our new superintendent's transition

155to bed he has been touring to schools along with school board members Mr limey and Mr Hill so far and meeting with principals staff members and students and he will finish school visits on April 16th after that Dr Bergen will return six more days throughout April and May to meet with community members and individual staff members so we anticipate a smooth transition and we're excited for his full-time start date of June 1st visiting uh staff reports that we did not get to before dinner the long-suffering Ms Jennings who has been here longer than she anticipated I'm sure with the annual special education plan thank you good evening I'll be quick um this is during your plan is informational I've attached it of course with the um with the board that I sent and it's the

156annual plan that is required by state and federal laws that all leas submit to vdoe for the provision of special education and related services to eligible students with disabilities to reside in the jurisdiction as an agreement for implementing federal and state laws um so this is that plan our special education advisory committee reviewed that plan on March 18th I have that information as well and so I'm providing it to you guys and as for the next board meeting it would be an action item any questions I just want you to know I read the plan I thought it was really good and and please don't take the time now to to do this but I'd just be interested in what professional development since that was mentioned so much in there has been provided and what

157instructional software we currently can use throughout the county but just email the questions comments Tomorrow's World Autism Awareness Day where are you buying yeah thank you so Ms Jennings did did you get some uh useful feedback from the uh special education advisory committee when they reviewed the plan um they were very interested in that conversation and um what it was about but you know not a lot of input because of course you know the funds have to be provided for what they're provided for but some good conversations surrounding the annual plan yes sir all right great thank you so we will see you again next month and the plan okay all right matters to the board we'll start to my left this week or this month Mr Hill yeah um so um as Dr Rogers

158mentioned we did tour um today at Forest Elementary School Forest Middle School and Jefferson Forks High School which I thought were very good visits um it was good to see uh our kids uh in their collaborative spaces and doing school as usual or as normal as normal can be tomorrow's visits will be TJ for me TJ and Boonsboro Elementary and I know there's some other schools that are being taking place also um one of the things that I wanted to bring up so I have my list theater capacity and what we do to have around options so I'm glad we were able to to get that taken care of for our theater and Performing Arts students um football games as well glad we were able to work that out Liberty parents are planning a community

159event this weekend it is not school sponsored I understand it is not school sponsored however I have a concern that for some reason our staff teachers people who are in our community has been given a message that they're not allowed to attend so I need to understand how we can control what our staff teachers Etc do outside of working hours and if I'm misunderstanding the message just need somebody to help me make sure what the clear message is to our teachers and staff for attending community events that are not school sponsored I need to I need some help on that we have given them the message that they should that one events that are not school sponsored the new administrator or School Personnel should um um I guess function in any official capacity or their

160official capacity uh representing the schools so and or in other words they should not chaperone they should not supervise they should not fund these events as a part of the school um are there parents who are also also teachers and want to see their kids at these events that's certainly different parents can go to events obviously um but what if I'm a mentor to a student and I just want to go see them have fun and I haven't sponsored it I'm not paying anything but I do want to go and support you're not if you're not mentoring him as you would in the school setting and of acting in an official capacity that that should be fine okay so our faculty teachers have an understanding that we can't control that they go participate it's just

161that they can't act as a chaperone or funded in any way that's school you can comment on what their understanding is but yeah I want to make sure we're given a message that we can't control whether they go or not is that a correct statement we can't control whether they go okay I just want to make sure because I I've received several calls and not understanding why we wouldn't want Community involvement for something that is encouraging our kids 9th through 12th grade and again it's not school support and I understand it based on the guidelines that we've set but I want to make sure because I I couldn't explain it and we'll be happy to put out a clarifying message to our principals tomorrow okay that they cannot represent the school in official capacity at

162a non-school sponsored event um thank you to our nurses I know we had uh some information and pictures today so I do want to say thank you since I got to go first I figured I was going to be echoing um I am excited at getting our kids back to school five days a week so I do appreciate all of the work that has gone into that I know there's lots more to do I wish it was a plan going into effect on Monday I've been very vocal about that but uh the good news is that at least we're working to get them back in in August so very excited about that um see here the last thing that I'll say is just a statement um after the the conversation we just had about our

163facilities and I guess we spent 15 or 20 minutes of trying to figure out who would clean it how to clean it and it baffles me that we have received as a as a public school system millions of dollars in cares act funding Millions not not hundreds but Millions and yet we have spent more time trying to figure out how to keep our kids out of our facilities versus how to use that money for what it's for to get them in to our facilities to use them for things that help them in their Mental Health Athletics all of the above and so just a general statement it it just baffles me that we're why wouldn't we use that money for what it's for instead of coming up for reasons of not to allow these facilities

164to be used that's all let's believe me cut you with your mess down yeah you did um one on a visit to Liberty High School Liberty Middle School with Dr Rogers and Dr Bergen um through the week before last and a very good visit uh the weather could have been better but um I think it was overall very very productive time spent and I hope it was instructive to Dr Bergen as he uh as he learns about Bedford County and Bedford County Public Schools I appreciate the clarification on uh County Public Schools staff being a I want to say it loud but they're not being an issue with them attending a community event as a private citizen as long as they are not and they're serving as in their official capacity I think that's an

165important distinction that they need to understand so again thank you for that clarification nurses you rock keep it keep it up and um I'm glad that we were able to get a couple of additional tickets for those seniors that will be playing their last football game tomorrow night and um thanks to Mr base for coming in and speaking uh he uh he generated some conversation this evening that had a in my opinion a very positive outcome that's all I got it's Kirby I reckon three skips of a record are totally repeating everything um again I want to thank I want to thank all the nurses for all they do not just during covet um but they're always there for support for our kids and and there to take care of our kids when they are

166out of our immediate reach and then that's invaluable as a parent and as we were sitting here watching this video I was just trying there's no way that you've been here multiple years and got Tricks and it's really I wonder how many of these videos we've watched over the last number of years and Mr Mr Edwards has always pulled these off and put them together I don't want to thank you for that too they've always been classy and in good recognition for whatever we're trying to recognize um like Miss Hill like all of us um I'm super excited that these kids are going back to school um they really really need to be there when when you hear your kids begging you for them to be able to go to school more and you never

167thought you'd hear that because they always wanted to skip school but they've hit the point of where they want to be there um and I commend everybody for the awesome graduation plans if families could have 10 tickets to get to graduation that would be unbelievable compared to the fact that last year we were sitting in cars um so that's that's come a long way and parents especially those of football players get on the horn tonight spread the word that you can possibly get four tickets call the schools beat them to the punch help them out get your name on the list and um thank you Miss Hairston thank you Mr chairman well I'd like to congratulate all of our teachers of the Year candidates in various schools I've been watching the postings from our division

168and I just want to congratulate all of those teachers and also the finalists that Dr Rogers shared with us congratulations to them and we've had a number of students received so many awards too so I want to just uh give a shout out to those students so I'm thinking in particularly of a posting just recently of the students at bstc I think there were three young ladies that received really an outstanding State award so that's fantastic and like the others I want to Echo to the nurses and thank them for all of their hard work and all of their support and and also to Patricia Knox and Beth Robertson and all of the work that they have done I know it's probably been some really difficult times for you guys but you're very much appreciated

169and we thank you for your hard work and then lastly I just want to say to the staff as a whole everyone spring break is coming up so I just hope that everybody has a relaxing fun-filled spring break and nice to hear you say this in person yes Dr Hicks well uh I would also like to uh say thank you to our nursing uh staff and uh congratulations to all the teachers of the year um uh I did attend a STEM Academy um Zoom meeting and um they uh will be having internship presentations uh virtually this year instead of in person and their senior award celebration will also be virtual uh applications for STEM Academy for next year are due today and acceptance emails will be going out uh by April 23rd uh the plan

170that this cash the director has submitted to cvcc has STEM Academy students meeting in person five days a week in the fall and tuition for STEM Academy will remain the same next year uh I I really enjoyed watching the Stanton River Middle School 30th anniversary video uh congratulations to everyone involved in making that and it was great for me to see several of my old colleagues from Stewartsville years on that video um I'd like to congratulate the uh students who uh won awards at the Central Virginia Regional uh science fair um uh I think all of these are uh our Central Virginia governor School students the grand Award winner for biological sciences this was Beverly ebourne from Liberty High School uh the first place winner for uh behavioral and social sciences was Sarah Blair from

171Jefferson Forest High School first place winner for computer science was Bethany Duncan from Liberty High School we're in third place for that category was Lily Van Bergen from JF for energy and transportation the second place winner was Grace Steele from Liberty medicine and health the first place winner was Leanne Ranger from Jefferson forest in third place with Lance Martin from Jefferson Forest physics and astronomy second place winner was Landon Epperson from Jefferson Forest plant Sciences the first place winner was Beverly eborn from Liberty uh the special awards that were given uh the Naval Research award was Bethany Duncan from Liberty Air Force award went to Grace Steele from Liberty U.S metric Association award went to Bethany Duncan from Liberty the Yale Junior engineering award went to Landon efferson from Jefferson Forest the Virginia Dental award

172for recognizing science Talent the grand Award winner for that was Leanne Ranger from Jefferson Forest the APA award went to Sarah Blair from Jefferson Forest and there were six students nominated to attend the virtual Virginia State Fair they are Sarah Blair from JF Leanne Ranger from JF Hannah Kim from JF Bethany Duncan from Liberty Grace Steele from Liberty and Landon Epperson from jail good news there yes [Music] um also want to thank Mr Edwards for his video it was great um I really appreciate you always putting that together for us and I know the nurses do as well so thank you for that the nurses as well I can't say enough you all are the backbone really of what we tried to accomplish with our contract tracing and our vaccination clinics uh certainly led by

173uh Miss Robertson and Mrs Knox and and certainly with the help of all the volunteers and Community agencies so I really do thank you for your dedication not only to the health needs of our division but to our community at large I don't think we can say thank you enough during this time for what what you have done and I'm so appreciative that that you're there to do that and I totally agree with you thank you Mr Downey because he fought to get nurses everywhere so that's wonderful I also want to recognize um the special accomplishments of four young ladies at Susie B Gibson who were top state honors in the educational education who can't speak educate Educators Rising competition excuse me Abby Delong Cheyenne Haynes Harley Martin and Harley Stanley so congratulations to all

174of you we always need people wanting to go into education it's not been a great field for people to enter in the last few years so I'm always happy when people are interested in in coming into this profession um Dr Bergen I'd really like to thank you for all your visits out here I have heard nothing but completely positive Overjoyed excitement from the people who have met you um so I just think it's wonderful you're already reaching out and becoming involved and visiting as many people as you can and I just have quite a few people who just call me and you know I saw him today oh my gosh what a nice man they're just really the people I'm hearing from are just really thrilled so thank thank you for your part in just

175reaching out so soon to to our community um I also want to uh thank all my colleagues on the board for uh our work tonight with the Performing Arts and football I think that's going to be uh We've made some positive changes there and I think that's a good thing for everyone I also would like to congratulate all of our teachers of the year um and I wish them back best in the in the finals um I will also uh go along with my colleagues as uh we work to get these students back in school five days a week thank you all so much for your work with that I know that it's very difficult having been in education as long as I was um it I I truly wake up some mornings going thank

176God I don't do that anymore but you all have tonic you know a great job in trying to work out these plans and I thought your work in that area is very much appreciated and as well as the graduation plans I know that parents were very anxious to hear that so I'm so glad that we have options available and that we're we're pretty much ready to um go with that so thank you for that as well and I'd also like to congratulate uh Stanley spool with our years that's a lot so thank you for that and I think that's all I have thank you ma'am well I would be remiss if I didn't first acknowledge that Dr Bergen is here tonight as an observer uh Dr Bergen it's great to have you hope you're getting

177acclimated to the environment because you know we're going to be spending a lot of time together in this room uh starting here in a few months so welcome yes it is slowly inching closer to the table for those of you watching from home um so thank you it's always great to have you back in the county and um as Dr Miller was saying uh I'm frequently hearing from people and they say I met him he's really nice oh yeah how how is it going moving all the animals so uh the Bergen family animals um are also already a big hit in the county um a couple of weeks ago I attended a virtual Town Hall along with my counterpart On The Board of Supervisors Edgar tuck of Senator Mark Warner he met with local elected

178leaders in the Central and South Side Virginia areas just to talk about the most recent covered relief bill that that Congress passed um and to offer his office's support if we needed assistance navigating the channels um cutting through red tape um dealing with issues with the administration that we might encounter on how to spend that money there weren't a lot of definitive answers it seems like a lot of that was still being um hammered out at the time but it sounds like we will have some one-time money coming in not a recurring funding source but some some one-time money there and appreciate the Senator's time to brief us and answer a few questions that that we did have um so would like to congratulate Stanton River Middle School on their 30th Anniversary um 30 years

179ago it became an independent school it stepped out of Big Brother's Shadow and cease being the annex and became the Standalone Middle School the community engagement team there did a fantastic job on the video If you haven't seen it yet it's on the Stanford Middle School Facebook page please check it out you might see a few familiar faces um and as part of that they also had the soaring for Success 5K uh great job to the very talented Marie Levine for Designing this t-shirt and to the sponsors who made this 5K possible it was scheduled uh last May I think April May prior to covet so because of this everything of course got changed and it ended up being an on your own 5K uh first 5k I've ever participated in I walked um by

180the way but it was um a lot of fun a good cause and here's to at least 30 more years of the the Little River um again like to just Echo everything that has been said tonight thank you to the staff you have been doing God's work this month in terms of graduation plans back to school plans plus continuing all of the other very heavy day-to-day work um I know from from my own job I have to plan events for freshmen and when you are trying to get teenagers together in person masked and for social distancing contact Trace clean it can get a very difficult very quickly and yet you monitor this every day and our teachers and our school staff are Paris enforce us every day so you know good good work keep it

181up as I say the end is Insight summer's coming spring break is almost here so I I truly hope that that you all enjoy a very relaxing week away Mr Edwards again thank you for the great video after spending 5 000 hours in the last week making a video for uh for my job I have even more appreciation for the time that you you put in your recognition videos um and so finally to everyone um happy Easter Happy Passover and as I say Enjoy your much needed uh and much deserved spring break so Dr Rogers were there any board requests that we needed to recap tonight great well in that case do we have a motion to adjourn some food Mr Hill makes a motion to adjourn give him a second thank you good afternoon

182any discussions if you're none all those in favor please say aye aye all right we're adjourned great evening