001Alawite County School Board's in session. Madame Clerk, >> Mr. Collic, >> Mr. Cunningham, >> present. >> Mrs. Perkins >> here, >> Mr. Worster >> here, >> and Mr. Marsh >> here. [clears throat] >> Mr. Chair, I move to approve the agenda for close session as presented. >> Second. >> Motion and a second. Any discussion? Hearing none, Madam Clerk. >> Mr. Cunningham? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Perkins? >> Yes. >> Mr. Worster? >> Yes. >> And Mr. Marsh? >> Yes. Motion passes. >> Mr. Chair, I move to amend the agenda for open session to allow John Collik's electronic participation in the November 13, 2025 regular meeting from 11049 West Broad Street, Glenn Allen, Virginia due to travel to attend the SBMA conference and approve the agenda as amended. >> Second. >> Any discussion? Hearing none, Madam Clerk.
002>> Mr. Cunningham. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Perkins, >> yes. >> Mr. Worster, >> yes. >> And Mr. Marsh, >> yes. Motion passes. >> Mr. Chair, I move to go into close session to review the personnel report posted on board docs under personnel tab number 17.1 as authorized by Virginia Code 2.2-3711A1 2-3711A1 for purposes of discussion and consideration of prospective candidates of Alawite Public Schools for employment, contract changes, transfers, salary adjustments, supplemental contracts, deletions, supplemental pay, resignations of Olive White County Public Schools employees and to go into close session to discuss the appointment, contract, and terms of employment for a central office employee as authorized by Virginia code 2.2-3711A1. >> Second. Any discussion? >> Madame Clerk. >> Mr. Cunningham? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Perkins? >> Yes. >> Mr. Worster? >> Yes. >> And Mr. Marsh? >>
003Yes. Motion passes. And Madame Clerk, do we have anyone signed up to speak in close session? >> No, sir. >> Very well. And all that we'll go to close session. Oh, yep. Eric, testing our um testing our mic. Can you hear us? Hear me? >> Testing two for me. If you can hear me as well. I can hear you, Julie, if that >> Y can hear you, Michael. Yeah, >> that helps. >> Okay, great. We'll go back on mute. Thank you. White County School Board's in session. >> Minister Collet, can you hear us? >> I can hear you. Can you hear me? >> Yes, sir. We hear you. I think we'll call that a good comms check. >> Okay, >> Mr. Chair, I move that the closed meeting was conducted in conformity with the provisions
004of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act as required by section 2.2-3712D 2-3712D of the Code of Virginia and certified that only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements were discussed and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion by which the closed meeting was convened were heard, discussed or considered. >> Second. >> Any discussion hearing? None. Madam clerk, >> Mr. Pollock. >> I've got to abstain. >> Mr. Cunningham. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Perkins. >> Yes. >> Mr. Worooster. >> Yes. >> And Mr. Marsh. >> Yes. Motion passes. >> Would everyone please stand for a moment of silence and a pledge of allegiance? To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible indivisible, liberty and justice for all.
005>> Thank you. >> All right. Thanks, Mr. Worooster. And good evening, everyone. It is November 13, 2025 and we are in Westside Elementary School for our regular monthly meeting. Um, and if you haven't noticed yet, Mr. Colloc is joining us via a video call. He is out of town for conference. We'll roll right into Alawite achievers. Mrs. Rigs. >> Good evening. Uh, as we get started, I'm going to ask our board members that are here in attendance and our liaison to please join us down on the floor along with Dr. Kramer and that way we can congratulate our achievers as they come up and get a picture with them in front of our backdrop. While they are assembling, I will just share that the vision for Isle of White County Schools is to create a
006learning environment that will enable every child to discover his or her unique gifts and talents. The Isle of White achievers section of our board meeting gives us an opportunity to recognize and celebrate our students and staff for their unique talents and gifts. And Miss Gats, could you help me with pins, please? Thank you. Okay, we are first going to start off with Smithfield High School. Smithfield High School junior and JOTC cadet Leela Cameron has achieved an incredible milestone. Come on up, Leela. [applause] Leela became a published author at just 15 years old. Her 42page novel, Destined, marks the beginning of what she envisions as a fivebook series with three prequels to follow. Leela's writing journey began as a creative outlet, a way to explore her imagination and develop her own world, never with the initial
007goal of publishing. But over time, her passion for storytelling grew, inspired by her love of reading and fascination with superheroes. And when the CO 19 pandemic hit, it provided her with the time and motivation to turn her ideas into a full story. Throughout the process, Leela learned valuable lessons about perseverance and growth. At just 13, she discovered the importance of accepting feedback and revising her work and experience that strengthen both her writing and her confidence. Destin explores themes of found family, focusing on the love, loyalty, and support shared among characters who choose each other. The story set in 2021 also reflects Leela's personal growth during the time she began writing. Her attention to detail is evident in her research, including studying maps of Venice, Italy, where key scenes unfold. Leela hopes readers take away one
008lasting message. Perfection isn't the goal. What matters most is the journey and the relationships that make life meaningful. Those interested in supporting this talented young author can find her novel, Destin, available on Amazon.com. And I am excited to share that we are providing our schoolboard members and liaison with a signed copy of her book tonight. So I'm gonna hand that to you while Leela heads over. [applause] Yes, that'd be great. So Leela, if you will go and just we'll get you to shake Dr. Kramer's hand and proceed down the line. Just follow Miss Gets. There you go. You can shake everyone's hand and then we're going to have you stand there. And when we're doing achievers, if you have someone being recognized when they're up here uh getting their picture taken, it's a great time
009for family to come. Oh, we're missing Mr. Collic. So, you hold one, Dr. Kramer. Dr. Kramer is purchasing his own, which will be signed at a later time. [laughter] I have to put the uh disclaimer in there. >> And everybody get close. And I don't know who's controlling the temperature, but down a little would be much appreciated. I don't think I'm the only one. All right. Congratulations, Leela. [applause] All right. Um, do you all want to set your books down? I gave them to you now, but [laughter] I realize that might make it a little awkward. We'll give them to Miss Whitlo and she'll put them at your seats. >> Okay. Well, while they're taking care of that, we're going to move on. Uh we still have Smithville High School. Uh, now we would like
010to recognize Smithville High School sophomore Tanner Brost, who represented his school with pride and determination as an individual golf qualifier, pardon me, at the VHSL class 4 state golf tournament held on October 14th at Heritage Oaks Golf Course, competing against some of the top high school golfers in Virginia. Tanner posted an impressive round of 80, demonstrating both composure and consistency under championship level pressure. Tanner's journey to the state tournament was built on a season of steady growth and strong performances. He finished the year ranked as the seventh best individual golfer in the district, earning a well-deserved spot on the all district second team under the guidance of coach Steven Kim Kimmick. Um co good coach is already up here. As only a sophomore, Tanner success signals a bright future ahead in the sport. So congratulations
011Tanner and coach. And please progress that way. [applause] We'll have you guys uh pose in the center for a photo. >> Where's Chris? >> Where's Coleman? Any f we good? You got Okay. [laughter] Congratulations. [applause] Okay, next we have Windsor High School. And since we have um several members here, what I'm going to ask is as I call your name, come on up and proceed through the line to shake hands. And after everyone gets up here, we'll then get you guys posed. So go through the line while I'm calling names and you can wait over by the side. The Windsor High School golf team had an exceptional season. marked by remarkable consistency, skill, and dedication, earning top honors at every level of competition. At the district level, Windsor captured its fourth straight Tri Rivers District
012title and fourth consecutive district tournament championship. Moving on to regional play, Windsor once again served as host of the regional tournament, its third consecutive year doing so, and went on to win its second straight regional championship. At the state level, the Dukes made school history by qualifying for the state tournament for the second time ever, and for the second consecutive year. They posted Windsor's lowest team score in school history, a 298, and finished as state runner up, falling just one shot short of the championship. Members of the golf team include John Schaefer, Grant Hickman. Yep. [applause] Wyatt Stoall Liam Degro. [applause] Eastston Mitchell. [applause] And before we announce the rest, the team dominated the all district selections, claiming five of the six spots on the team. And that includes Ryan Kaufman, all district. [applause] Ryan
013Patterson, all district. [applause] Canon Jones, all district. >> [applause] >> And we still have a few more team members, but we're going to throw coach Pringle in here now because coach earned Tri Rivers District Coach of the Year, but I didn't finish my sentence. He earned Tri Rivers District Coach of the Year honors for the fourth straight season. [applause] And rounding out the team next we have Kyler Holland who let's let me read his accolades here. He made the all district team and the allstate team for shooting one under par in the state tournament. [applause] And finally Ryland Zamanssky. Hold the applause. Hang on. Let me take a breath. All district team and district golfer for the year for the second consecutive year. Hold on. regional golfer of the year and all state team for
014shooting one under par in the state tournament. [applause] That is pretty impressive. So, we are very proud of all of you. Um, now Mr. Elliot's going to work his magic to get you guys all organized for a group photo. [laughter] >> And parents, please come up. This is a great time to get pictures as well. I think we have several parents here with us tonight for this group. Just watch behind you, Mr. Elliott. [laughter] >> We're not and parents. >> Yeah, that's right. You can get >> find your window. I can't imagine any of them are trying to hide. >> Not not high school high school guys here. Yeah. >> All right, parents. Are we all good? Well, hang on. All right. Wait, wait. >> All right. Congratulations. Nice work. [applause] Okay. [applause] All right.
015We have a special presentation from uh for someone at Carsville Elementary School. And when she comes up, I'm going to ask her to proceed through the line. She can stand in the center while I'm still reading about her because I might have a few things to say while she's up here. We are going to recognize somebody who was our nominee for the Rise Award, which stands for recognizing inspirational school employees. And that was created by Congress in 2019 to honor classified school employees such as clerical, school nutrition, health, pupil, transportation, and custodial staff who provide exemplary service to students and their communities. Virginia invites school divisions to submit a nominee from which from which two state level winners will be selected to continue to the national level. This year, Olive White County Schools is proud
016to recognize Karen Richards as our division nominee for the Rise Award. [applause] >> [laughter] >> Miss Richard serves as a behavioral instructional assistant at Carsville Elementary School, where she truly embodies the school's vision of cultivating a community of excellence. Her dedication extends far beyond her daily work, supporting students with behavioral needs, as she also invests deeply in her broader community. For six months each year, Miss Richards volunteers with Hope for SUFFK, a mentorship program that teaches high school students essential job and life skills. Through this program, she guides students as they prepare land, plant and harvest crops, package food for resale, and provide fresh produce to the community. The experience is enriched by guest speakers who share a practical advice to help students transition successfully into adulthood. In addition to her service with Hope for
017Suffuk, Miss Richards is an active member of her church where she teaches Sunday school to kindergarten and first grade children. Her compassion, leadership, and unwavering commitment to helping young people grow both in and outside of school makes her an exceptional role model and a shining example of what the Rise Award represents. Congratulations, Mrs. Richards. And now we'll get a photo. [applause] Mr. Mr. Elliot is coming up. >> Yeah. and and Miss Outland and Miss Catbone, if you would like to join Miss Richards for a photo. >> Okay. Okay. Congratulations, Miss Richards. We're very proud of you. >> [applause] >> Okay. Um, next we have our seniors of the month. But when I sat down to start, I did not see them here. So, I'm just going to make a quick announcement. Miss Gats is going
018to help me out. Do we have um our senior of the month from Windsor High? Nichollet Lozano Navu. Is she not here? Okay. How about Smithville High School, Sydney Wells? Okay. What we're going to do is we're going to move their recognitions to December because we want their families to be here for them to be here so we can do a great job honoring them. So those are our seniors of the month. Uh but we will do the full recognition in December. So thank you for bearing with me. So let's see what's next. Oh yes, ABC D. Each quarter, we recognize one of our support staff members who has gone above and beyond the call of duty. Anyone throughout the division is invited to submit nominations, and a panel reviews the nominees and selects the
019quarterly winners. Our 2526 first quarter ABCD award winner is Jeannie Coleman, bus driver for Carsville Elementary, Georgie Tyler, and Windsor. High. Come on up, Miss Jeanie. [applause] And while she's coming up, let me read you this nomination. The nomination for Miss Genie states, "Riding with Miss Genie is often compared to being on the magic school bus. A journey filled with care, laughter, and genuine love for her bulldogs. More than just a driver, Miss Genie is a leader, mentor, and nurturing member of the Carsville community. She goes the extra mile, troubleshooting routes with administrators, taking on additional students when needed, driving late to ensure every child gets home safely, and even providing clothing for food and food for students in need. Her communication and compassion set her apart as she's always one step ahead in anticipating
020challenges and supporting families. Known for her infectious positivity and unwavering dedication, Miss Jeanie embodies what it means to go above and beyond, making every ride on bus 30 a safe and joyful adventure for all. And as part of her award, Miss Jeanie is receiving a $50 Amazon gift card thanks to the generous support of our partner, Delta Graphics. And she's also receiving a personalized plaque created in the Smithville High School maker space. Congratulations, Miss Genie. We're very proud of you. >> [applause] >> And Mr. Elliott's gonna get a photo. [laughter] >> There we go. Congratulations once again. Thank you so much, Miss Genie. We appreciate all you do. [laughter] Oh, very good. And thanks to those who were instrumental in getting Miss Genie here tonight. [laughter] It takes a village. All right. Next. This is
021really special. This is very special. So, um, I want to talk for just a minute about Purple Star. The Virginia Purple Star designation is awarded to military military friendly schools that have demonstrated a major commitment to students and families connected to our nation's military. Schools that earn the award receive a special purple star recognition to display on site. A school is honored with a purple star award if it completes all the required activities plus an optional activity. The Virginia Department of Education's Military Student Support Process Action Team reviews all school applications for the award. Final approval on awards is made by members of the Virginia Council on the Interstate Compact on the Educational Opportunity for Military Children. In 2024 2024, Carsville Elementary School was our first Purple Star designated school. I am delighted to announce
022that Isle of White County Schools now has all nine schools designated as purple star schools. [applause] and we are one of just a handful of divisions in Virginia with that distinction. So, at this time, we are going to call the principles up. I'm going to ask for um Dr. Stith Johnson and Miss White's assistance here. Um we have a special banner for our schools to display. First, we have a division banner. So, why don't we hand that to Dr. Kramer. And now we're going to move on to Carsville Elementary School. And I think we have Miss Outland and Miss Catbone. And they have two because they were first. [applause] Okay. Uh do we have is Mr. Brennan with us yet? >> Oh, Mr. Brennan. So we have Carolton Elementary. We have Miss Densen with Hardy
023Elementary, [applause] Mr. Johnson with Westside, [applause] Dr. Kristen Wilkins with Windsor Elementary, [applause] and now we're going to go to our middle schools. We've got Miss Aaron Luck from Georgie Tyler Middle School. [applause] Uh Dr. Chelsea Culp from Smithville Middle School, [applause] Mr. Aston Williams from Smithville High School [applause] and Miss Dawn Carroll from Windsor High School. [applause] And before we organize for a picture, I have two additional people I'd like to introduce and invite them to join us for the photo. And I think one of them wants to make a few remarks. We have Debbie Streer. Miss Strereer, if you'll please join us. She is our military liaison. Um she is from I wrote it down from NSA Portsmith and she's serving as our new military liaison. So Mr. Streer, you come on down.
024And did is Captain Steven Ramsey with us? Mr. Streer. Oh, Captain Ramsey. [applause] Captain Ramsay, I think, may want to say a word or two. U Mr. Cooper, do we have our mic on over here? Oh yes. >> Oh, okay. Sorry about that. Or Mr. Elliott. So, and while we're getting the mic on, Captain Ramsey is the officer in charge of NSA Portsmith and we're very excited to have him here with us. Captain Ramsey. >> Thank you very much. Um, I'm the uh the commanding officer of NSA Portsmith, which is home of North Naval Shipyard. Uh, and as a a result, I have the distinct pleasure of coming to events like this and thanking everyone who's in the room here today. And a special thanks to everyone with Isisle of White School District and all
025the purple stars here are amazing to see. You know, like my kids are in the purple are in the uh purple star schools, you know, closer in toward the city where we're in. And it is a fantastic program. And you know, as the uh on behalf of the Navy, on behalf of the base, on behalf of my own family and my own children, thank you. Well done. >> Thank you, Captain Ramsey. Um and now um [applause] for for Mr. Elliot's biggest challenge of the evening, >> can we get can you guys swing over here in front of the stage? >> Do you want me to move? >> Yeah, if you don't. >> Okay. Before I move, please let me say one one last thing. Um, I do want to thank our former military liaison, Melissa
026Johnson. Um, she worked diligently to help us receive this honor. She is now uh overseas in a new position, but hopefully she will see this video. >> School school board, you guys want to join? Can you squeeze in behind them? Kind of step forward, guys. You guys want to slide in behind? Yeah. >> If you can get on stage, otherwise just come in right there. >> Come back this way, guys. Come back this way. >> Oh, Dr. Kmer's right there. Yeah. Yeah, you're fine. Stay right there. Everybody, make sure you hold your sides up nice. [laughter] talking about. [laughter] [applause] >> Thank you. And you guys can be seated. Um, we have we're done with achievers. I do have one other thing to introduce. Um, but I I do want to thank the principal so
027much. That's not an it's not an easy task to complete that purple star application and um and it's not just completing the application. It's doing the work to get the application done. So, they are doing the work in their building and I'm just couldn't be more proud that they were able to get this accomplishment. So, this is a a a perfect segue and I I asked Miss Streer and hopefully Captain Ramsey if they're able to stay for just another few minutes. Um, a good segue from Purple Star is, um, we just celebrated Veterans Day on Tuesday. And one of the things we like to do here in Olive White County Schools, we celebrate all of our veterans, but we especially like to give a a nod to those people who are now out of White
028County School employees who previously served in in the armed forces. And so, we have a a little video. It's um on our Facebook page. It's on our website. I think Eric's gonna queue it up right now. So, I'm gonna stop talking and Mr. Coupe Rider is going to play the video. Heat. [music] Heat. [music] Heat. [music] Heat. [music] Heat. [music] Heat. [music] Heat. Heat. [music] Heat. [music] Heat. [music] Heat. [music] Heat. >> [music] [music] >> Heat. Heat. [music] [music] >> [music] >> Heat up [music] here. [music] Heat. [music] Heat. [music] >> [music] >> Oh, beautiful [music] spacious skies. [music] I am the waves of rain. A purple [music] mouth majesty r the [music] fruited pl. But now wait a minute. I'm talking about [music] America. Sweet America. >> [music] >> You know, God done shed
029his grace on thee. He gave [music] me crown. Yes, he did. Every brotherhood [music] from sea to shine [music] sea. You know, I wish I had somebody to help me sing this. [music] America. I love you. Americ [music] he told me he would [music] love to shine shine. [music] I think it [music] [music] could could I ask if we have any former current military would you please stand up or if you're standing step forward. We just want to acknowledge all of you in the room tonight. I know some of you were in the the video, but thank [applause] you. [applause] >> Thank you so much. Thank you everyone. This concludes my present. >> Thanks, Miss Briggs. And I got to say, you know, it's always an honor and a pleasure to sit up here month
030after month and get to recognize all the awesome things going on in Alawway County Schools. I I'm just compelled tonight to give another shout out to Leela. I don't know how to say it. Cameron, Miss Cameron, listen, I've been sitting around for years telling myself I'm going to write a book. You did it. Give this lady a round of applause one more time. >> [applause] >> Okay, you folks want to take a recess. We're good. >> Let's rock and roll. Mr. Collic, you still with us? >> We're good. >> All right. I hope you were standing up. >> All right. So, that takes us to item 12.2. It's a Noah Grant presentation. >> Yeah. So, for all the achievers, it's a school night. So, if you if you students want to bug out, then by
031all means. >> Oh, I'm sorry, Miss Briggs. I skipped eye on instruction. >> They remember. >> Yeah, they didn't let me forget. Test test. >> Well, those power also work. >> Good evening, Dr. Kramer, Chair Marsh, and school board members. We are students from Smithfield High School's Earth Science and Dual Enrollment Chemistry classes. We would like to share with you our work with CNU's Fear to Hope research program. According statement, fears of these impacts are well founded by conserve to motivate science-based solutions that bring rational hope. I'm Payton Lewis. >> I'm Grace Seoya. >> I'm Sophia McCain. >> I'm Henry Hinkle. >> And I'm Max McDuffy. Am I clicking? >> Oh, you might >> just wasn't active. >> Okay, thank you. >> Climate change is already affecting our coast, killing trees, shrinking shorelines, and changing
032habitats around us. This can sound scary, but it also helps to motivate us to make action. That's why we partnered with fear to hope. Cenure CNU mentors helped us do our research on problems like erosion and rising salinity. Chemistry students studied the changes in our water while earth science students looked at how those changes affect our environment. Through this project, we collected real data and worked with college students. This gives us hope because we aren't just learning about climate change. We're helping to find solutions. For over 20 years, professors at CNU have been taking samples with students to Ragged Island and to study its decay. And to be very upfront with you, the island is dying at alarming rates. A CNU professor named Dr. Whiting described it as pieces of the island going missing every
033single year. This becomes a problem as the ecosystem as well as nearby residents rely on the island for protection. The decay of the island bracket island allows for excess flooding to destroy the ecosystem as well as property of residents in Olive White County. Without action, the marsh will continue to grow and overtake. Raget Island will continue to shrink and often residents will continue to suffer from it. We need more support towards action like CNU warriors program and hope to fear to hope fear to hope which spreads awareness takes data samples and allocates resources to the protection of ragged island and therefore our ecosystem as well as residents. >> Thanks. >> After collecting data in Raget Island, we had post interview questions. As students, we learned that climate change is already impacting our homes. Our findings
034brought both concern and hope. Payton explained her concern with erosion and salinity killing our plants, while Liam stated his hope of people working to help the environment. Now, most importantly, we learned that we were inspired to act as I explained my take in conserving water usage because of increased water salinity. Altogether, these voices help to remind us that the future starts with the choices we make today. We studied on two different types of trees. Uh [snorts] lali pines in the for marsh and Atlantic white cedars in the classroom. Both of them were native to the marsh. And our idea was we will uh test and see how uh salinity affects their growth by having a group of tiny uh Atlantic white cedars grow without any salinity and then another group with different like levels of
035salinity. And while we were there, we mostly saw uh lo lollipines at the marsh. And a lot of them had a lot of brown uh not entirely healthy looking leaves fell onto the ground and all over the place. Not much of them had branches. Uh some were short. Some of the trees were short. And we decided to uh collect their cores and see their rings for it. We used an increment board to take thin samples from trees near the marsh. These samples show tree rings which tell us the trees age and when it experienced stress. Smaller rings mean the trees struggle to grow, possibly because of the rising salt water from storms and flooding. We used an increment bore on the lobly pine because it is visually easier to see and they saw the same
036effects as the Atlantic white cedars. We also noticed dead plants and less green in the area, which supports our idea that increasing salinity is harming the trees. By studying these cores, we're learning how climate change is affecting our environment and why it's important to protect it. From the tree cores, we we can learn what age the tree is and events that happened in its life. And looking at the smaller rings, we can see what days were most stressful and what days it was more calmer. The smaller rings are the stressful ones. And we could compare those rings with recent events like rain or storm and see if the rain and storm carrying salt is what's harming the trees with more salinity in their roots. >> Smaller rings are distressful ones. And we could compare those
037rings with Yeah. >> Uh, one of the most important parts we saw at Ragen Island was the ghost forest. And, uh, these are one of the largest signs of our environment actively changing at Ragen Island. And, uh, on the slide you can see in the picture, uh, the ghost forests are just groups of trees surrounded by marshland. And uh you can see that these are here to serve as warnings for the future of the rest of our coastal forest if no action is taken. Uh our sea levels are rising, marsh is actively taking over our forest and uh more trees are actively dying off and if no action is taken uh we will eventually feel the impact directly in our communities as we see uh sea levels rise and the forest we rely on in
038our community uh slowly die off. So uh allowing us to study these ghost forest has uh helped us to realize the urgency of the issue and uh we encourage everyone here to be even the slightest more mindful in their actions daily as we battle this issue. Hello. Uh so uh we actually encourage everyone here to uh join us again at the CNU symposium in April. uh we will continue our research and have a more formal presentation there in the form of a poster. We'll also have uh some of the CNU mentors and uh more professionals in the topic to uh answer plenty of questions and uh thank you for your time. [applause] >> Hey, where I need some education. Where is Ragged Island? on the right side. >> So, uh, Ragged Island is the, uh,
039marsh/forest land over there near the James River Bridge. If you know where they, uh, just built that new, uh, sort of beach area where they just put all those rocks down. That's actually some of the steps they're taking to counteract the sea level rise over there. >> Opposite side of the uh, oyster. >> Yeah, right there. >> There's the oyster bed and on the other side is all that marsh land. >> And and what is it that causes the increase in salinity? Um so that is the effect of like we mentioned a couple times they talked about rain and uh the sea level rising itself is uh obviously the James River has a far higher salinity than a lot of our freshwater sources. So this sea level is rising and actively moving forward into our
040land. So it is getting into the groundwater which uh many of the forest you know the trees grow off their water and they had fresh groundwater which is now having a lot different of an effect now as higher saloon levels killing the trees as they don't have the same uh healthy environment to grow in. >> Thank you very much. >> Any other questions? >> Appreciate you all taking the time to school us a little bit. on the break. Okay, Mrs. Rogers. I did. All right. Good evening, Chair Marsh, Dr. Kramer, school board members, and everyone here tonight. Um, I am here with two wonderful teachers from our division. We have Miss Dina Hubble from Carsville Elementary and Miss Lori McGurn from Windsor Elementary. and we're going to share a little bit with you about um
041our Noah Bwet grant project that we um got to experience and um do with our kids this year. All right. So, this project was a partnership with Virginia Wesleyan University and um Dr. Bill McConnell and Dr. Mindy Gumper, who are actually both here and in the back of the auditorium, if you'll stand or raise your hand. um they reached out um asking if we wanted to partner through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Chesapeake B wet project. Um they do grants um so that we can um provide our students with education around our wershed which ties very nicely to what Smithfield High School just talked to us about um keeping our land safe and you know watching the salinity and what can we do to help that. Um so it is through that partnership and
042so what the project is is um meaningful and accessible environmental education or in other words it's shortened is a miwee. It is um an experience where it is very learner centered. Students participate in various hands-on activities both in the classroom and outside of the classroom in the watershed itself, not necessarily in the water, but outside so that they can experience the watershed. And so we tailored a former um curriculum that was done through a previous Chesapeake Bay grant and we tailored that curriculum for all students so that we could reach our highest of our high students and our lowest of our low students to make sure we met the needs of everybody that we have. So it is an aligned curriculum to some third grade standards. Um back in August we had two days of
043professional development before teachers contracted time. So, they came out back two days during their summer to attend a professional development and this was a 10-day interactive very handson unit and it's actually culminating with an environmental stewardship project at each school that they will talk about a little bit later. And so, here are just some pictures from our two days. We spent one day at Windsor Elementary and as you can see in the professional development days, the teachers got handson. They got to work through all 10 lessons and engage in the various activities that they would be doing with their students. This allowed us the opportunity to collaborate, talk with each other, and really know and think about our students that were coming to us to know how we needed to tailor it to meet their
044needs. And then our second day, we were at Windsor Castle Park and we did a tour and got to spend some time outside just like the students would. And you can see the picture on the right, probably my favorite lesson. We were searching for macro invertebrates um from the water to determine how clean or dirty the water was. Um and so I just wanted to highlight a few of the lessons throughout the project. Um the first lesson was really letting the kids learn that 71% of our earth is water and not even all that water we can drink or use. So, there was a really neat lesson and how they saw that, you know, of the 29% of water that's left, it's really only a very small percentage of water that we can actually use.
045And then the students got to, you can see they were making bracelets. They were a water droplet and they went through the water cycle. And now when you think about the water cycle, you probably think about the pretty circle where it's evaporation, condensation, precipitation, and then it just cycles all over again. Well, yes, it does that, but sometimes that water droplet might get stuck in the ocean for a while or it might get stuck in the groundwater or in a glacier. And so students got to see that while yes, that is the model, not every raindrop follows that one model. And so all the students and we went and asked them, a lot of them got stuck either on a plant or in the ground or in the ocean. And so it was a neat
046hands-on way for them to understand that the water cycle is not just that one circular motion. Um, the next lesson is another great lesson to show watersheds that we all live in a watershed and all of our water eventually goes to one place. So students took a piece of paper, they crumpled it up and then they created their valleys and their ridges and houses. And what they didn't realize is when they were drawing on there that all the markers were washable. So when they got wet, they were all going to run together except for the trees and the grass. that stuff did not move because that was a permanent marker. So they were able to see once they made it rain with a small squirt bottle that pollutants and everything would get in the water.
047So it helped lead the conversation about making sure that we protect our wershed. Another great lesson um and even now you know a couple weeks after the unit going back and talking to students in third graders were talking about pvious and imperous surfaces. They went out on their schoolyard at Windsor and Carsville, took a walk. They looked to see how much of the schoolyard was pvious, which means that the water can infiltrate, so the grass. And then the imperous surface where we had the concrete and the sidewalks where the water could not infiltrate. And so they got to see how much of their schoolyard had those various surfaces which led to conversations about the infiltration and runoff and really really great good conversations. Um students got to create filters to try to clean the water.
048So using various materials they they made their little filters and got to see the water start at the top and then eventually filter its way out and work all the way through down through the bottom. My favorite lesson, like I said earlier, was macro invertebrates. Um, for Carsville, I put we you take a leaf pack and it's just a mesh bag, put some leaves in it, and go put it in water for several days. And so I put it in the Blackwater River by my house and I went and picked them up. And um I know Windsor they um one of their teachers put their water theirs in and they went and grabbed theirs. And the students they just they get in and they explore and they look for these teeny tiny macro invertebrates. They
049learn that macro invertebrates you can still see with your eyes but they don't have a backbone which for third grade vocabulary you know it's beyond our standard which is actually pretty amazing. Um, but then they took that information, what they found to determine how clean or dirty the water was because some macro invertebrates can live in polluted water where others cannot. And so they talked about how tolerant they were of the pollution. And so now that's a little bit of the lessons, more of the fun, hands-on, engaging lessons. There were other some other lessons where students got to do some computer simulations, um, but I wanted to highlight the hands-on. So now I'm going to turn it over to Miss Hubble and she's going to talk some about some of the experiences that Carsville students
050got to do. >> So first of all, I have to say this is my 21st year teaching. This has been the absolute best science unit I've ever taught. This was so engaging and so hands-on and the kids got it. It was awesome. So um the pictures up there on the left, that is the Learning Barge. The learning barge is in Norfolk and it's basically a floating classroom for environmental education. So students were able to participate in various stations such as looking at the marine life um in the Elizabeth River. They learned about the history of the river. They tested various aspects of the water quality and of course they talked about conservation of the water. They were engaged the entire time and everything was hands-on with that and that trip was funded through the grant.
051The second set of pictures were Windsor Windsor Castle Park. Like Miss Rogers said, when we were at our PD this summer, we spent a day at Windsor Castle Park. Um, and the naturalists that were there that were educating us on the plants and animals and trees that were in the park offered us the same experience with our students. So, and they additionally talked about the conservation that was going on at the park that I didn't even know about. So, as teachers, we learned a lot ourselves. Um, but based on that experience, we coordinated a Saturday morning that we encouraged all our third graders to attend because it did directly tie into this unit. But we invited our entire Bulldog community. We probably had about 75 to 80 people show up. That was staff and students
052and their families. The naturalists volunteered their time for us that day and we split into three groups where students and families were able to learn about the same things we had learned about over the summer. So my students were able to talk about pvious and impervious and infiltration and where there might have been runoff in the park. And it was really um a great day of learning which is still tying into our current science science unit as well. And then we're leaving from that to work on our stewardship project which what we are going to focus on at Carsville is recycling. So specifically, we're going to start with cardboard boxes. Students are going to help collect and then weigh the boxes. So, and it's not going to focus just on science, but it will pull
053in some math skills because we use the grant to purchase a large scale and a device to hold all our boxes. And so, we will graph and weigh all the boxes that we are going to collect and recycle. uh we do want to involve our stakeholders and encourage our stakeholders to drop off your boxes rather than just throw them in the trash. And eventually we see this expanding down the road to include starting recycling for other materials beyond just cardboard boxes. So that's where we want to go with it in the future. >> Um just to piggyback off of what um she said, we also had the experience to go to the learning barge where students were able to interact with um different activities that did tie into our lesson. I think a personal favorite
054of a lot of the kids was the touch tank. They were able to see native animals and touch them and see them and learn about them. It was also interesting to see that they were making some connections from our reading um curriculum that we're using. We're talking about environment in our reading curriculum right now. So, they were making connections there as well. Um so, that was that was very enjoyable for them. They really liked it. Um and all of our third graders were able to go. Um, we also had a wonderful visit from Dr. Bill and Dr. Mindy. They came to our school. We had two classrooms get together and the kids were able to share what they learned with them. It was amazing to watch our students, like they said, bring up the vocabulary
055words that they were talking about and not only use the words, but understand the meaning behind the words. I think it was very powerful for the students to be able to share their learning experiences. And that ties us into our stewardship project and we decided to go with rain barrels. There is a grassy section at our school over by the uh bus ramp that has been overgrown and messy and the kids um and teachers all we all kind of agreed that we wanted to focus on that area. So this year we've purchased rain barrels which are actually sitting in the front lobby at school right now. so much fun. Um we're focusing a lot on water conservation. They're going to be setting up uh two rain barrels right in the corner that um they're going
056to be using to water the plants that we plan on putting out there. We're going to mess with the garden beds. The greenhouse was moved into that corner. So, the students will be able to do that there. Um we have hose connections. We bought watering cans for the students to be able to interact with that. Um, we also purchased some rain gauges so that students can also watch and see how much rainfall is actually falling and be able to use that math skill there. And we plan to continue to use that grassy area. We're going to um we're pro we're hoping to take over the greenhouse so that our third graders can use the greenhouse. It's being used by somebody else at the moment, but we're hoping we can use it as well. And um
057yeah, we're very excited. And so while tonight we just have representation from Carsville and Windsor, this is a three-year grant. So we will be extending it into Hardy and Carolton elementary schools in the years to come, but we started with two schools um just because of grant budget and whatnot, but it will be going to all of our third graders. And um just like they said, the experience the students got their vocabulary and understanding it and the way they use those words is just topnotch. And so we're very grateful for this grant and we just wanted to share the amazing things that those students and these teachers are doing. Any questions? >> I've got a question. Um I see all the pictures, but has uh and I'm not sure we're still part of WHRO. >>
058Yes. >> They need to hear about this so this can be on TV. >> Yes. That's [laughter] uh do you know if WHRO has filmed any of this? >> Um I don't know. I can reach out though and find out. That's a great addition for them. >> Yeah, cuz this is a good news thing. And uh yeah, and everybody in Ola White needs to know what we're doing, what our kids are doing. This is great. Congratulations. >> Thank you. >> And thank you. >> See, you ladies connected a lot of dots for me. I don't know if you know it or not, but my third grader Hudson, this poor kid, >> every day when I pick him up, he gets the third degree from me. What did you do? What did you eat? What did
059you learn? And he's been coming home telling me about bits and pieces of this. And honestly, I didn't know what he was talking about. >> And he told me one day that he was studying pond water looking for micro invertebrate. And I didn't know what the kid was talking about. [laughter] >> So that's awesome. >> The kid I asked him was like, "Son, what'd you learn?" Don't drink the water. [laughter] appreciate you. >> Anybody else? >> Thank you. [applause] So, that takes us to public comments. Do we have anyone signed up to speak? >> Yes, sir. >> Okay. >> In accordance to policy BDDH-E, presentation of information on any subject will be concluded at the discretion of the board. No person will be recognized to speak more than once. Citizens scheduled on the agenda to
060speak will be permitted four minutes maximum time for their presentation. Delegations will be requested to limit their speakers to two. Persons speaking are asked to be specific, state the issues for the board's consideration, and attach a copy of your prepared remarks. If you have prepared remarks, they should be given to the board clerk. Please do not approach the board members. Any matter relating to specific students will be heard by the school board only in a closed meeting. And first, we have Lee Hanley. Good evening, Dr. Kramer. Is this on? Okay. Mr. Marsh, and school board members, and our staff and our community members. My name is Lee Hanley and I'm proud to serve as the president of the Westside Elementary School PTA, [applause] which is part of the Virginia PTA, the oldest and largest nonpartisan
061child advocacy organization in the Commonwealth. Together, we represent thousands of families working to ensure that every child's potential becomes a reality. Our amazing school is approaching nearly 100 years old. And I'm sure you know that. What an incredible legacy it has. In 1924, the Alive White County School Board agreed to support a school for black students. If the community could raise the funds for land and a building. By 1928, the Alive White Training School opened its doors. It later became Westside High School, which went on to win the state football championship in 1966. After integration, the building served as Smithfield Elementary. And in 2005, it proudly became Westside Elementary once again. This history makes Westside a cornerstone of our community. But with that comes a real challenge and challenges. When it rains, our staff places
062buckets in hallways to catch leaks from aging issues or aging ceilings, cover cracked lenolium with rugs, and work around plumbing issues, all while keeping learning alive for our children. And lately, we've also faced a rodent problem. I cleaned up so much rodent feces from my PTA storage room that I was giving. It was great. not a clear sign that the building's age has reached a point where simple repairs or maybe a flip project is no longer enough. Despite it all, our teachers and our staff and custodians continue to go above and beyond to provide safe, positive, and nurturing environment for our students. The school board recently identified replacing Westside as a top capital priority, and we thank you for that. With enrollment projected to grow nearly 8% by 2034, our sister schools, Hardy and Carolton,
063now have modern, safe facilities, and we understand that Carolton isn't a new school, but it's a heck of a lot better than this place. It's time for Westside to have the same. RPTA's mission is to strengthen the bridge between home, school, and community through programs, advocacy, and resources that help every eagle soar. We're asking you, our leaders, to join us in making every child's potential a reality by investing in the future of Westside Elementary. If our future is our children, then our future is right now. Let's build the school our students, our community deserve a new Westside Elementary School. Thank you so much and we look forward to working with you in the future. [applause] Jennifer McCaffry Hi, good evening. I am Jennifer McCaffy, a proud sixth grade teacher at Westside Elementary. [applause] Our sixth
064grade team recently compiled a survey and we unanimously voted yes that we need a new westside, not more repairs. I would like to also share a few comments why Westside Elementary has proudly served this community for nearly a century. Generations of students, educators, and families have called it home. But despite constant efforts to maintain and repair it, the building has reached a point where it is no longer safe, healthy, or functional for students and staff. The building awful are often fills with a strong sewage odor. Leaks in the bathrooms and classrooms are so severe that trash cans collect the water. Our custodians are very busy on rating days and we greatly appreciate them. And also some of our personal items in the classroom have been ruined due to the water. Some restrooms need to close
065every time it rains and water then seeps and continues to the neighboring classroom walls. Floors and ceiling tiles are missing in many of our classrooms. These leaks then lead to mold growth. Staff members reported that asthma and respiratory issues that worsen here after work after working here. Moisture levels are so high that posters at times do not even stick to the walls. Teachers have had to buy their own air filters and dehumidifiers just to improve their classroom. The pets uh the not our pets, we don't really call them our pets, [laughter] [gasps] but we have some new pets um going there. The building's deterioration allows for roaches, ants, mice, bees, and birds to enter. Teachers are in charge of keeping some repellents and traps on hand. You can imagine the skirmish that that causes and
066distraction in the classroom when they decide to appear. The separate art and STEM building poses another risk that anyone could honestly easily scale the fence and have access to our building. Our courtyard floods so often that it's called Lake Westside. The canopies above the sidewalks leak. Even worse, sewage has overflowed multiple times, requiring major pipe rep pipe repairs, all while we still attended school. Classrooms are small, overcrowded, and poorly ventilated. The HVAC system is unreliable. Some rooms drop as low as 52 degrees, while others are overheating. With nearly 30 students per room, moving around becomes the challenge. Teachers and students work hard to create a positive learning environment, but the building makes it a constant uphill battle. A common concern amongst the survey was where will we students and teachers go while all these repairs
067are taking place. >> One minute. >> Westside has been patched, repaired for decades, but those efforts can no longer keep up with the deterioration. The truth is simple. This building has outlived its purpose. Our students deserve a facility that is safe, 21st century, and reflective of their potential. It is time to invest in a new Westside Elementary, one that matches the strength, the pride, and spirit of this community. Thank you very much. [applause] >> [applause] >> Amy Hurst. Good evening, Dr. Kramer and members of the board. My name is Amy Hurst and I am proud to teach at Westside Elementary School, a place full of dedicated teachers, hard-working students, and an unwavering belief that every child deserves the very best education we can provide. But tonight, instead of speaking about the wonderful things that happen
068each and every day in our school, I'm here to speak on behalf of our staff and students to plead sincerely for a new Westside Elementary School building. Westside is a school full of heart, but our building is full of problems. When I started teaching at Westside in 2018, the first day of school was cancelled because the air conditioning system failed in most of the building. That same year, we battled flooding in multiple classrooms. Over time, the flooding has lessened, but our roofs have worsened. There are classrooms where small trash cans cannot possibly contain the downpour that leaks from the ceiling during storms. In the interest of time, here are some current issues that Westside is facing. Severe plumbing issues forcing bathroom closures for safety. Roof leaks that cause water damage and disruptions to learning. Mold
069and air quality concerns that put health at risk. Overcrowded, aging classrooms never designed for elementary school students. Systems so outdated that even simple repairs are costly and temporary. An exterior ramp whose boards bounce underfoot and are long past due for replacement. Exterior doors that do not always close or latch properly, posing a real safety concern. These are not inconveniences. They are barriers to safe and effective learning. Our teachers and our admin have poured time, money, and heart into making these classrooms bright and welcoming. But no amount of creativity can fix structural decay. This isn't about comfort or convenience. It's about safety, health, and dignity. Every patch or temporary fix is money spent buying time instead of building a future. Renovating a building with this many profound issues is like patching holes in a sinking ship.
070A new westside building isn't just another expense. It's an investment. A modern school would be safer, more efficient, and better equipped to meet the needs of today's educational standards. It would show off our students to them that they matter and that Isle of White County Schools believes in them and their futures. For years now, staff at Westside have wondered when we will receive updated instructional technology like Prometheian boards. Other schools already have them, but Westside does not. Not because we don't need them, but because installing modern equipment in a building this old simply isn't practical. That alone speaks volumes about the condition of our facility. Our students and teachers deserve access to the same tools and opportunities as others in our county. Every day, families entrust the most precious thing they have, their children, to
071us and to this building. Those children and families a safe, inspiring classroom set and hallways that reflect their worth and value. We've said and we've heard that you want to attract and retain high-quality educators. I can assure you those people are already at Westside, but to keep them, to keep us, we must give them a place that reflects the same excellence we are demanded every day. Renovation will not solve the problem. It will only prolong it. Westside's building is on life support. So tonight, I ask you on behalf of every child and every teacher to take a bold step forward. Keep the promises that have been made. Choose to build a new Westside Elementary School. Not another renovation, not another patch, a new beginning, because our kids are worth it. Our teachers are worth it.
072And the future of this community is worth it. Thank you. [applause] If you do have comments, um, if you could email those to me, um, or you could just hand them to me, um, that would be great. Thank you. Um, Teresa Finch. Hello. Good evening. I'm actually gonna summarize what I'm here for because I want to back that up. I stood here five years ago with Matt Johnson's first year and we asked for the same thing. There was a renovation study versus a rebuild study and they were like, "Rovation is not going to work." I was the teacher walking through sewage to move my classroom so I can teach. So, Westside needs to be rebuilt. Okay. [applause] Now, okay. So, I am here tonight though um as a Smithfield High School teacher. Um I want
073to um talk about a concern we have and possibly give you a solution. So the continued substitute shortage falls on the teaching staff at many of the schools within a district. Um when a posted position is not filled by a substitute teacher, the sub does not show up, staff requests emergency leave or many staff members are scheduled for training. The coverage falls to us. This is an additional duty that can extend our work hours just to complete the duties that we were originally assigned to complete within our contract hours. Recently, I lost an entire week of planning due to PLC and coverage. That is a problem. As a CTE teacher, let alone a chemistry teacher, an art teacher. You could only fathom the prep it takes for us to set up our classes. Um, other
074content teachers, they require creating content, making resources, mentor new teachers. This time is needed. So, I want to reference policy GAA. Um, each full-time middle and secondary classroom teacher is provided one planning period per day or the equivalent as defined by the board of education unencumbered of any teaching or supervisory duties. This is code of Virginia and IWCS policy. So, I offer a solution. Substitute teaching can be added to the supplemental pay scale at an hourly rate. Due to the potential burden to the bookkeepers and a finance department, this would be an application-based position that with a limited positions available per school, similar to an admin aid or a coach. These teachers would be solely responsible for covering when needed and will document their hours in a manner similar to that of a homebound teacher.
075The time sheet is completed on a monthly, bimonthly, quarterly basis, whatever you choose, and then submitted to the bookkeeper for continued processing. It is budget season and there is a compensation study taking place. This study did not allow teachers to share their voice. I hope that by presenting our concern with a possible solution, this will be considered and our voices will be valued. In addition, I ask that the supplementary paychart be evaluated as part of the compensation study with transparency and documentation supporting the standards of practice when developing >> one minute >> the amount of compensation per activity and the number of positions allotted per school. Thank you [applause] Jim Fizzoli. Oh, sorry. That's Hello. I appreciate it. Thanks. Uh, good evening, Chairman Marsh, Superintendent Kramer, and school board. I uh before I jump into
076this, as a um a veteran myself for about two months, I enlisted in the Coast Guard in ' 05 as an E3 and I uh retired uh as an '04 uh two two months ago. Um and with two successful uh command rides, both in the Persian Gulf and the North Atlantic. And the reason I'm here, and it kind of ties into what I'm going to talk about next, is had I not been afforded the opportunity by the military to make mistakes and learn from them, I wouldn't have made it through my first four-year enlistment. [clears throat] So, I'm here tonight to express concern about the district's secured assessment procedure. In recent conversations with the central office, I learned that certain assessments given to my children are considered secure. Copies of these assessments cannot be shared
077with students, and as a parent, I may only review them in person during school hours under supervision to ensure I don't compromise the test. I find this troubling, and frankly, it challenges many assumptions I had about ILA White's commitment to helping students learn and grow. Kids need the opportunity to learn from their mistakes. Preventing them from reviewing their own assessments removes a key part of the learning process, reflection. I also worry about the long-term impact. If my children rarely see the value in understanding why they got something wrong, they may not develop the resilience and curiosity that comes from learning through failure. Requiring a parent teacher conference every time a parent wants to review an assessment creates an unnecessary burden on families and staff. Our teachers are already overworked and underresourced. Their time is best
078spent teaching, not supervising parents as they look at tests. And as a parent, my time would be far better spent helping my child learn rather than navigating logistical hoops. Although I've been told that this is not a policy, the secured assessment procedure functions exactly like this. It dictates district-wide actions for both parents and teachers. Policy IL testing programs consists of just a few paragraphs and leaves significant gaps which contributed to the confusion I encountered when I first sought answers on this procedure. A procedure with this much impact on students, teachers, and families deserves to be formalized in policy. Clear policy fosters transparency, consistency, and accountability. Had this been written and approved by the board, I would not have been surprised to learn that every one of my children's maths tests is considered secure. In a
079board approved, a policy is far less likely to obscure legitimate concerns such as test quality or misalignment between curriculum writers and classroom teachers. issues students like my sixth grader probably won't identify. I appreciate your time and the opportunity to speak. I know the board and the entire county team work hard, often with limited resources to give our children the best education possible. >> One minute. >> I respectfully ask that you review this procedure and consider ways to ensure parents can partner with educators rather than be kept at arms length so our children can truly learn from their mistakes. Given the given the previous speakers and the resources that very limited resources that the county has, parents want to be part of this process and we can help. But if we're kept at arms length, it's
080makes it a real challenge to do so. Thank you. Appreciate it, [applause] Adam Shipman. a little taller. Hi, I'm here to talk about also the subpay um situation. In 28 years of teaching in four different uh school districts, Isa White County is the only district where subbing in other classes during your p your planning period is the norm and not the exception. I have subbed more this quarter than I did all last semester. I understand there is a shortage and we are being asked to cover classes. My understanding that is my sick days and my personal days are part of my compensation package, but right now the county is keeping that money when they're when when teachers are covering. If there's not a substitute available, I do feel that teachers should be paid for their
081time. Um, if we're giving up our planning periods, we should be, if I'm going to give up my planning period, I'd be more willing to do that if I'm being paid for that time. And the logistics of covering classes in the morning, you see the scramble, it would happen a whole lot easier if people are willing to do it. I dread that call. It is a call that I hate having and and almost to the point where I don't want to pick up the phone. Covering classes contributes to teacher burnout and frustration and getting paid for that our time would go a long way towards alleviating that frustration. Thank you for your time. [applause] First name is Danny. Is it Herkins? perk. >> Okay, that's it. >> Okay, thanks for everybody speaking tonight. Student leaison.
082[clears throat] Good afternoon, school board. Um, over the course of the past month or so, we've had a lot happen at SHS. Uh, Halloween Veterans Day, a teacher work day. A little further back, we celebrated our 2025 all A ceremony or academic jacket ceremony where students in grades 9 through 11 who maintain all A's the year prior show up to get a medal. And then seniors who were able to maintain a 3.75 GPA or higher during their time in high school showed up to get an academic jacket. Um the jackets themselves come with one initial or letter on them and then our student athletes uh athletes who made varsity over the course of their time in high school get a secondary letter and athletic letter. It was recently brought to my attention however that members
083of our competitive theater team don't receive these. Theater is like track, golf, and just about any other competitive activity you can think of. Technically considered to be a VHSL Virginia High School League sport. They compete against other schools in class 4A. And every other VHSL sport that's not that is offered at Smithfield High School that's not physically demanding in the traditional sense. Scholastic, bowl, debate, even esports, I believe, receive athletic letters. So, it was just it was curious to me that theater does not. um the way we have it now, theater could hypothetically, not this year because they didn't make it past regionals, but in the future they could make it to states and then still come that day they wouldn't you don't get an athletic letter. So that's just something that was brought to
084my attention and I feel like some people told me that maybe the reason for this was because they don't have varsity, but then again there are divisions of our debate team that don't have varsity and they still get the letter. So that that was just something I wanted to bring up. Additionally, this year we've been carrying on and continuing with our afterchool bus initiative where on Wednesdays and Thursdays after school, uh there is an activity bus available for students who don't have other means of transportation to help them be able to attend whatever sports or clubs that they want to. And to my knowledge, as of right now, that initiative is going fairly well. And then I have heard some reports about the men's bathrooms and the commons not being great in terms of the
085soap. But aside from all that, aside from all that, things are things are going fairly well at the field high school. It's, you know, positive things. Positive things. >> Thanks, Cameron. Thank you, Cameron. Um, I want to piggyback off of what she said. Um, we've had a great uh three-day week this week. Thank you for that, guys. I appreciate that. [laughter] Um, good evening everyone. Uh, Windsor has been doing great through the first quarter of the school year. Windsor SGA and Beta are making a terrific effort to distribute food to all students and families in need this holiday season. And SGA is also beginning an annual toy drive this year, reaching out to Windsor Elementary as well as Carsville Elementary. The senior class held a successful bingo fundraiser last night and appreciated everyone who came
086out. Windsor is holding the VHSL tournament theater tournament this Saturday. So come out and support our amazing theater team. As we wrap up the fall sports season, we congratulate all of our teams on a great season. All of our fall teams held a winning record for the first time in too long, including both cross country teams going first overall in the district with uh Bristol Stallings placing fifth in regionals and she continued to states. Our volleyball team placed second in the region and also in the district. And our football team placed fourth in the region. Congratulations to all of our amazing student athletes. And that's all I have for tonight. Thank you guys. >> Thanks, Cole. Comments from the board. Dr. Kramer, >> thank you for your comments both of you. Great to hear that
087things are going well and thank the board for your three-day weekend or your 4-day weekend, I guess it was. Um, and regarding your concerns, Cameron, we will certainly uh address that. I think give Dr. Coleman the eye uh and Mrs. White who's behind him. So, we will certainly gather more information from you and we'll look into that. So, thank you both for your comments. All right. Okay. That takes us to our Tishler Bice report. Mr. Cooper, you need a moment to set up. >> All right. Mr. Mr. Coll, you still with us? >> I'm here. >> All right. >> Yep. >> We are here. >> We have feedback on >> Can hear us. Okay, >> I hear you. Can you hear us? >> We can. Yep. I can. Yep. >> We have Michael and Jackson
088here as well. >> Okay. >> All right. Mr. Chair, >> uh Dr. Coleman, Dr. Kramer, will we believe Dr. Coleman, will you be um introducing us? >> All right. Um I will start off. >> Okay. >> Thank you. All right. Um, Tisha Levice has joined us tonight and as you already know over the last uh several weeks, Miss Briggs, Miss Gats, Miss Amy Ring and I've been meeting weekly with the Tisha Bice team. These sessions have been giving both school division and county staff meaningful opportunities for input and direct conversation and careful reflection on how best to move forward together. They also affirmed that IWCS was already on the right track in our planning efforts even before the expert study was completed. In response to the overall question uh that's in a lot of people
089minds. Yes, this report is sufficient to provide us with the tools we need to plan effectively alongside our partners at the county for future housing projects related student growth. As Miss Ring stated, we believe this report will be a great tool to support our joint planning efforts, and I'm in full agreement with her. It offers a solid datadriven foundation for aligning land use, housing decisions, and school capacity planning in a thoughtful and responsible way. At this time, we're going to summarize the final report which you will see on that's attached to the uh to the schoolboard agenda was a draft and we're going to go through the process of uh Miss Hurlins, Mr. Barlo and Mr. Gilgoogie um through the actual report and uh we can go right ahead and begin. Miss Hurlins. >> Great.
090Great. Thank you very much. And I believe I like to share my screen. Um second. Okay. Apologies on that. Okay. While we're setting this up, Michael, can you pronounce your last name? >> Able to see my screen. I apologize about that. >> Uh, Mr. Michael Gil Googly, >> I don't want to butcher your name. Can I call you Michael? >> Yes. [laughter] >> Okay. >> Yes. A lot of L's, a lot of O's. It always trips. >> All right. Um, Michael, I may ask you to share since I am my Google is not allowing [laughter] me to share. I didn't test this before. Hold on. Let's see here. Oh my goodness. I apologize on that. Oh my god. Michael, are you able to share or Jackson? >> Um, pull it up. I'll see if >>
091I don't I don't we don't use Google as that often. And uh >> it says they can share >> and they it is not letting me share currently with my new protections here. You have the new the latest one up there presentations. showing this way. >> Okay, sorry about that. I don't I'm not I'm not able to bypass this. Um, >> Mr. Elliot, can you hide the screen for a minute for me? And Mr. Chair, just overall uh as I stated, weekly meetings with uh the county coming in and once again, Miss Gats and Miss Briggs were there able to really talk through it. It was been several occasions where questions were sent off. We had the ability to read through those questions and then give it some time, think through it, meet as a
092group, and then respond to those questions. those recommendations were taken, put into the report and sent back out for more questions. So, this was a um a situation where it was going on and on. So, it wasn't just one report given out. It was a lot of information being distributed each and every every meeting. >> Yes. No. >> Yeah. Thanks, Dr. Coleman. I guess >> there's probably folks listening tonight that are wondering what in the heck we're trying to get to here. This has been going on for what six months >> there in about definitely six months. >> This has been an ongoing effort. It's been a lot of collaboration between IWCS, Alawway County planners, uh, TSL vice reps. Um, we've come a long way from where we were six months ago. Um, >> just
093waiting to receive it. And I think even before the presentation starts, this is going to echo just how many pieces there are to putting this puzzle together and trying to make an informed decision moving forward. >> Absolutely. >> If I may state uh Mr. Chair, we're absolutely pulling this up. I think it's important to note that >> since that time and since some of our previous meetings, as Dr. Coleman stated and I think it's it's important to um reiterate that our staff here in the school division has been working with the county and meeting with tishial advice on an ongoing basis and I think one of your overarching questions several weeks ago a few months ago was is this uh information helpful in helping us with the planning process and I think as Dr. Coleman
094stated and Mrs. Ring uh shared with us that she believes that this report is a great tool to help us with our planning efforts. So I I think that's important that the county has what they need to help us make a decision to move forward. >> That's that's important to note, doc. >> Great. Okay. Thank you. Uh thank you for your patience on that and thank you for for pulling that uh this presentation up. Yes. So uh and thank you for the introduction. Uh as Dr. Kramer and Dr. Coleman have indicated there's been a lot of conversation, a lot of work uh conjunction with the county uh with our staff and with the division's uh staff to uh to get to this point and this uh this uh draft report which is uh still a
095draft in that you all haven't had a chance to see it and provide feedback on it yet. So uh this is your opportunity to do that. Um so the the report the study is focused on four main uh items. Uh developing uh revised and updated student generation rates. Um developing student enrollment projections. I'll talk a little bit about that with two methodologies. Um the uh subdivision uh yield analysis given approved um and approved uh subdivision projects. And then finally looking at school needs and location uh sighting uh criteria. Next slide please. So the first effort uh the first part of the effort is to uh to revise and update student generation rates and uh this was done through geocoded student addresses. You'll see here the uh concentration of uh student uh student residences within the
096county uh with that yellow uh color indicating where there's a a denser uh a denser uh uh condition of of students denser amount of students in locations. And so as you all know uh the concentration of students within the northern part of the county and this uh comes into play later in our uh analysis as well. So given the data next slide thank you. Given the data uh which is a subdivision uh yield analysis with um a some adjustment adjustments on the multifamily side uh which is detailed in the report of the uh the housing units used uh to expand the sample uh to get to uh the the um the student yield the number of students per housing unit by type. Uh you'll see here this is done by grade level. So K3 K
097kindergarten through third grade combined uh with the rate by type of housing unit again single family, multif family and mobile home. And then the overall rate for in each of those grade levels. Um and so we do that in each of the the separate grade levels given the uh alignment the the the organization of the school division currently with some schools having uh a different mixes at the elementary school level. Next slide please. So then I mentioned we did uh we worked on the uh projection analysis the enrollment analysis and again two methodologies used to determine uh potential future enrollment by school. Uh so the first is uh this subdivision yield analysis which is looking at those approved housing unit developments again working in conjunction with the county and county planning staff to look at
098the pipeline activity to determine potential number of students out of those units. And this is done regardless of time timeline or market absorption. Just a maximum amount of uh potential enrollment by uh from those housing units by area of the county by by school. Um and then the others other is uh is a what's called a modified cohort survival uh methodology which then incorporates a timing element looking at population projections from uh from the uh from Wellen Cooper Center um that again accounts for student development or or residential development but also then uh identifies um the overall um im in migration out migration in the county. So it's getting at that timing element uh so that we can then apply the projections to uh to the school to school levels or to schools themselves to
099grade levels and then identify where those capacity capacity thresholds are met. So the next slide shows a visual of the current elementary school attendance zones uh that are in place today in the county and that um uh that we have used in this analysis. So this is important to note that the that the analysis does use the current school attendance zones as they are in place today. So the first this slide is the elementary school attendance zones and the next slide then shows the middle and high school attendance zones um with that split there. >> Can we can we pause? >> So then >> sorry was there >> I do have a question. I just want to make sure that I understand so elementary school does not fit the traditional middle elementary school model. Our
100grades are currently four, five, and six. So, how is that captured? Is that like a blend or or is Westside considered just elementary school on the map? >> I'm not quite sure that I'm asking the question right. >> In the analysis, it is done by grade by by grade level individually and then that's fit into the school itself. Um, and >> it is a blend >> and then it's a blend in this in the visual. Thank you, Jack. >> Okay. So it so it captures the reality today of of how Westside is filled. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Another way to look at it of specifically attendance zones is kind of um you know attendance pathways through middle school. You know if you attend we we split it up. So if you attend this
101elementary school but then you go to Westside that's zone and this middle school to other things that they all you know we capture the different you know pathways through through the school district. >> Got it. So simply put, it's the tenant zones are based off the school, not necessarily the grade levels. >> Yes. >> Got it. Thank you. >> Great. >> Okay. Um so then with um continuing on with the the residential pipeline projection um uh the potential student enrollment, maximum student enrollment from approved residential developments. Uh this is the identification of where those uh where the the modeled pipeline projects are today. Uh this is real time uh the the the current projects uh that we've considered in this analysis today. Obviously as time goes on and that and this map may change this
102would need to be updated to reflect that. Um and then on the next slide using um again by individual school um projecting out the potential student enrollment uh from those pipeline projects um again without a timing element. And so what you're looking at here is obviously the school name, the potential new students from those approved developments that are uh attribute or that are allocated to uh to each school. Um and then the potential future enrollment which is a combination of those uh new students from the approved developments plus the current enrollment today in the school uh in the school building today. So that's 20 to 25 26 enrollment. Um and that this is then compared to the program capacity. And what we what we uh note and and want to uh reiterate or to and
103to stress is that those program capacities can fluctuate year-toear based on various factors in terms of the programs that are offered um ex uh within a school. And so this is the program capacity again snapshot in time today. uh comparing that potential future enrollment plus current to two program capacities and then getting that color coding where we've identified and shown uh where uh where those capacity thresholds are met according to the school division's uh policy FBR policy of those capacity triggers at 75% 85% and 90%. So the the 75% is indicated with that yellow shading, the 85% in the orange, and then the 90% indicated at the um at the uh in the red uh color cell. Um so again just to reiterate there's no timing element accord that that's rel that's uh factored into
104this projection but really again this maximum amount that could be realized from uh from the approved developments as they are today and those assumptions that we that are made today. >> So next slide. >> So then this >> let me ask a question and this this was probably more for Dr. Kramer in the in the team here than anything else. But obviously this will this will be out of date in a year, right? So based off the methodology and and the processes, can you and the team take this and update it periodically? So, if and when, I shouldn't say if, I say when a new housing development or complex is proposed in the county, can you take the student generation reports and update this internally or do we have to contract out Tesla vice? >>
105It's a really good question. >> Do you want to take a stab at this one? But I mean I I think what we can do is perhaps look at what we've done in the past. Certainly we lack the expertise of additional bikes which is obviously why we contracted with them. >> Absolutely. >> Um >> I think we can look at this. >> Yeah. >> You know as you look at some of what they said and I'm actually looking at my notes here on page 11 they talked about some of the data that they've looked at is from you know 2023 and some of the information uh Carzel Windsor is from 2019. So, yes, the numbers will change, but I'm not sure this is going to be obsolete completely. Um, >> perhaps a poor choice of
106words, but something that we can update, I guess, is the point I'm making. >> And Miss Briggs, I'm sorry. Go, go, Dr. Coleman, and then >> Miss Briggs just came up, so she can really go into detail. But Miss Briggs, as everyone knows, was was really performing a lot of this on her own through the matrix that she actually created. And that's what really ramped this up. So to take something and continue to move forward, I just want to let you know it was it was being performed but not at an expert level as Tish Levice has done right here. >> Yeah. So, so we can take their data, the the SGRs are really the the piece that we don't have because they have that expertise to to look at all those the the housing
107developments and to look at the student yields and to look at the um survival cohort and then give us those like multiplication factors that now as we get housing developments coming in, proposed developments, if there's a proposed development that's got apartments, We have a rate that we can now apply to those number of apartments >> that's going to predict how many students do we anticipate seeing from the proposed apartments. So anything that's coming up, we can apply those factors to what's being proposed using those factors. So as we get new developments popping up, we don't need to go back to them to help us predict or estimate the number of students we are expecting from that type of development. >> Right. So if if a if a development Ryan Holmes wants to build a new
108complex called ABC >> Yes. >> and they're going to put in 250 >> duplexes, you can look at the student generation number >> and do the math and come up with a pretty good guesstimate. Yes, and that's what we've been doing actually with our previous study cooperative strategies. But one thing that we've learned and and Miss Ring would chime in on it is a best practice to have that reviewed periodically because of changes in economy, changes in family structure. You might start seeing where those factors um do change maybe every five to 10 years. So it's it's it is something that's a good practice to have it reviewed because the family dynamic situation might change where you're getting 0.25 from a single family home now 10 years later you might get 0.21 >> and so
109just to be a little more accurate it doesn't hurt to get that updated periodically. >> Sure. And I looked at the spreadsheet that you'd put together months ago and compared it to what we're looking at today and your numbers were consistently a little bit more. >> So maybe you were overestimating a bit based off whatever process you were using. >> Yeah. And I I believe that is one thing that I believe Tishler Vice uh brought up in the study is that the cooperative strategies study did yield a higher factor for one particular type of um household. And I I I can't remember it was single family, multif family, I'm not sure, but they did tell us that they got a number that was uh less than what we've been working with, which is why we're
110seeing the difference in their report from what I've been presenting in the past. So that's why it's good to do this. >> Yeah, understood. >> Okay. >> Sorry for the interruption, ma'am. >> Sure. I I do have a question. >> Go ahead, Mr. Collic. >> Yeah, I want to make sure I understand the methodology so that I fully understand this. Um so what I'm gathering is the um methodology is from the current number of households that we have in a county um versus the number of students we have. I guess there's some division there. So for instance, if we're counting a thousand houses, we've got 250 students. That multiple should be 0.25. Is that kind of where we're looking at? Is that the simple math? >> Yeah, that's you know that that's the simple way
111of it. Yes. Um I do want to point out just specifically um you know our analysis does not look at every single housing unit in the county and every single student in the county. um you know was specifically focused on subdivisions um housing units and students in subdivisions um to make sure that you know these numbers >> are properly reflecting um you know what new development in Isle of Voy is looking like um development is been primarily subdivisions so that's um you know but yes it's students figure out how many students live in the housing units you know assign students to housing units and then students divided by total number of housing units um to get a student generation rate per housing unit. >> Okay, awesome. And the second question I I think might have
112been asked at a previous meeting is the um the current utilization does it consider um the sped and the title one uh all those restrictions or is it just total classroom space with a certain number of students per classroom? Yeah, the the program capacity is the school division's program capacity. So accounting for um accounting for specific space needs um and that that is the why those numbers um can fluctuate from year to year. The capacity it's not a it's not a a built environment capacity. It is a programmatic capacity. >> Okay. Well, thank you very much. Thank you. >> Okay. Um just to pick up on um on where we left off in terms of the uh the projection um projection methodologies. So again a second way to uh to do these to do student
113enrollment projections is to uh utilize a cohort survival methodology. uh commonly used in school enrollment projections. And this is to get at the timing component of of the the effect the impact on each each school um given the aging of current of population both the aging of current population through the system as well as new uh as growth from from new units and in migration and out migration. So, uh, what you're looking at here is, um, the, uh, the the raw number projections from of student enrollment given, uh, population projections in the county over 10 years. And then comparing that on to the next slide is the impacts and the effects on uh again at each school at each school with the the student enrollment projection within each of those schools in each years of
114when the those capacity thresholds are triggered again at that 75 85 and 95 um% threshold. So, as um as shown here over 10 years, we're we found we found that the that all five existing elementary schools um in Isle of White County currently exceed that 75% uh capacity um threshold and that they are projected to to continue to exceed and exceed at the 85% capacity um over 10 years and two of them um at that 90% capacity. capacity over again over that 10-year period. Um and then Smithfield High School in the northern part of the county is currently exceeding 90% of total capacity and is um projected to continue to grow. And we do have some additional information on the Smith Smithfield campus um in a couple of slides. So then um on the next
115slide we uh divide uh go further and drill down further into the analysis to um identify capacity needs by sub area of the county group between the north part of the county and the south. Again this is reflective of approved pipeline development. So again uh given that this is pipeline a pipeline approach um that this is to be viewed as a potential highend of um enrollment um again assuming all looking at all of the pipeline developments that are pot that are not under construction and not do do not have a time timeline yet but do but are u placebased so identified within the county um in the north or the south. Um we also again uh I think this was pointed out in the question about the current alignment of the grade levels that this
116is uh the schools are not currently aligned with the traditional K5 68 through 912 and so uh but our modeling does reflect what the current situation is to the extent that might change in the future then then this would uh you know need to be revisited. Um but as shown the capacity pressures from pipeline devel development are uh mostly projected in the northern part of of the county with some amount of pressure on the elementary schools in the southern uh southern uh area of the county as well. And then the next slide I we mentioned uh the Smith Smithfield the unique situation um in with the Smithfield campus uh with uh the shared middle and high school. Um and so we've uh accounted for that by by uh looking at the current enrollment and capacity
117divided by middle school and high school currently. But uh but then combining the two to show uh given that there is some amount of flexibility with the capacity uh between the two within the two schools. Uh so while Smith the high school currently exceeds that 90% capacity the total enrollment of the campus is only exceeds 75% um by um when over over the timeline will not exceed get to that 85% uh capacity by uh over the 10-year time frame. Then the next component of our of the study is um is discussion of school construction guidance. Uh and these are uh summary from the Virginia Department of Education uh outlining those kind of recommended school facility standards. Um uh which is published again through Virginia public schools website. um really, you know, ranges um of uh
118student capacity uh with square feet square footage per student um and the the land uh identification of the size of the of the parcel. Um but uh again, these are guidelines and um and the the school division has its own set of additional guidelines u guidelines to um uh regarding school construction. And so in conclusion on this last slide, so again the study using two methodologies to assess the impact of the count of county's growth on school capacity and both indicate both of those methodologies indicate that the school division will experience capacity needs in the coming years. Uh the enrollment growth as we've shown is most rapid in the northern portions of the county um with elementary schools really feeling the most pressure um in the coming years. Uh, of course, if future development shifts
119higher or lower from current projections, school utilization will vary commensurately from the report's projections and then to your to your uh to your point uh school member on the uh ongoing analysis and continued analysis of both pipeline development and projections. Um key point here that if the school division were to redistrict or reorganize again aligning the the grade grade levels um into the traditional uh uh traditional cohorts, the these student projections will need to be revisited as they're based again on the current boundaries and grade levels of each school. Um we had a question the last time and and added to this report um an analysis and in a look at homeschool students. Um and that that should be uh we recommend that thei continue to be tracked and um and monitored as a ch
120any significant changes in in enrollment from homeschool students uh could there uh therefore impact and affect the school division's capacity and those utilization figures. So something to continue to track. Um, as as you all well know, uh, the school division needs to continue to deal to address and uh and mitigate capacity issues while at the same time replacing aging facilities um with a with with limited resources. Um I mentioned before that the current uh school division's regulation the FBR does provide additional some detailed additional school construction criteria and guidance uh that we've included that in the report but that is your own school division's policy and uh should be considered in in uh construction and sighting of new schools and uh I think as been mentioned that um it is recommended to uh continue to
121monitor and update um these types of figures at a at a deeper overlook really every five years or so, but but particularly on that on this that question about the student generation rates. Uh those those those things do change, situations change. We mentioned homeschool students, other things. So those other characteristics and conditions can change. Um products, housing unit product types change as well. So typically every five years we'll we'll get at that uh review and revisit to to account for those types of changes. So, um, with that, thank you and I appreciate your patience with the, uh, PowerPoint, uh, and I appreciate, uh, it being loaded and and pulled up there on site. So, thank you. >> Okay. Um, when I was running numbers, it looks like from 2015 to 2024, um, we added about
12283 students. So, I know people are going to have questions about how we're projecting 559 new students, um, when the trend seems to be less than 100 every 10 years. And when I was running numbers on the population growth of the county, it looks like the percentage of students in the schools um based on the percentage from the percentage of the county population to the number of kids in the schools has lowered which shows me historical trend is decreasing. So I think instead of doing um a snapshot in time, a historical trend line would give a more accurate representation. H >> how can I ask how how many years are you considering historical trend? How far back? >> Well, I did 10 years. So that's up to them >> because I know I mean I
123will say if you do go back say 30, 40 years, which kind of is what you're looking at with schools, you you'll see that there's been quite a bit of growth. And I and I will without looking specifically at at at something in front of me, the time frame you mentioned, it did put us up against COVID and um I believe there were economic situations where a lot of the housing developments were stalled. So now that the economyy's picked up and we're past the pandemic issue uh era, you're seeing some of these developments that have been sitting dormant for quite a while now starting to um re-energize. Uh I'm not an expert in that, but it's just sort of been an observation from my perspective as to what has happened in the past few years.
124Uh I don't know if that's something that Tishler Bice has seen through their work across the country but um for here I think that might be what's happening >> right and and you know the the the second method so we have two methodologies that we're using to do the projections one is you know the the the land use related the the residential development um applying the student generation rates to those approved pipeline developments that again don't have a timing element. But the other methodology um using those population projections does take that is from uh those are um uh uh vetted approved uh Welen Cooper Center population projections that does take into consideration the historical trends. They've looked backwards to go forward. So that's just not shown. But that is it's it's it's a it's a
125com it's a a combination or a a their methodology um in terms of the the counties and the the state they do it statewide for each county each municipality um those population projections. So point well taken uh kind of thinking about what has happened in the past but but know that that the Welding Cooper projections that is part of their um their methodology as well >> and I did use Welding Cooper to get my numbers. >> Okay. Yeah. and and I think his personally I think historical is a a great perspective. I actually would take it back even further than 10 years and that might be something uh we can do even separate from the report uh just to show the trends we're seeing in the county. >> I I think to make Mrs. I
126understand what M Perkins is trying to ask. I think taking any one of these spreadsheets, I'm looking at figure three, your enrollment projections. Turning that into a line graph is pretty simple task. If we could do two lines on a graph, one that just showed population growth expectations without taking into account any of the proposed housings, just straight across the board, our estimated enrollment projections based off population, which would include aging, >> so on and so forth. And then on that same chart, draw another line on top of it that took into account the proposed and approved housing projections. If you were to do that, I suspect you could go back 10 years or so and move it all the way to 2035. I suspect that around now you would see a pretty significant spike
127based solely on the housing that's either approved or in progress. I I think that's what's driving these mass projections. >> And I'll let the Tishler advice people chime in if I'm off track, but that's kind of how my mind's working. >> You know, I just want to piggyback off something that Julie was saying, too. Um, you know, and I think, um, and I want to highlight, you know, something that we made sure that we did with this study. Um, and you know, >> you good? >> Yes, sir. >> All right. Then we'll move forward. Thanks again [clears throat] >> for giving us your time tonight. >> Thank you. Appreciate it. >> Thanks for having us. >> We ready for five. >> Let's take a five. And make sure you go back there and meet Mr.
128Gerard Ford, our soon to be >> new school board member. Thanks for coming tonight, sir. Till five. Mr. Coll, you still there? >> I am here. >> All right, we're back in session. Mr. Vary, finances, please. >> Yes, sir. um don't really have anything out of um the normal to um to let you know about. Um I do want to point out on the health insurance fund that you will see how claims are up about 11.6% as compared to this time last year. But you also need to look at the deposits that have been made to the fund and they are up like 21% as compared to this time last year. So, we actually are in a a positive side right now. We've had more deposits than claims that have come out. Um, and it's
129all in line with, you know, we budgeted a 22% increase in claims. So, um, I think we're in pretty good shape this year so far. >> So, we're in a good spot for the moment. >> For the moment. >> Did you have any other questions on the financials? I had a couple other updates for you, but I figured I'd >> I had a few onesie twoosies, but you've answered them already. Um, and then the large the energy savings project. I'm pretty sure I asked about that last year, too. And >> it's it's commonly referred to as from Amoresco. >> Yeah. >> And it was uh equipment and different building improvements that were done that are supposed to turn into energy savings. It was originally um done and financed in 2014 and then we refinanced at
130a lower rate in 2021 I think. [snorts] >> Okay. Anything else from the board? Mr. Collic, you good on finance? >> No, I'm good. >> I'm good. >> Okay. Couple other updates. The compensation study is um on track. We are to receive a draft report before Thanksgiving that staff will be reviewing and then hopefully be bringing something to you after that. Um we've also the uh 27 budget process is underway just as it was on the schedule. We kicked it off, sent everything out to the departments in the schools and as you requested, we did implement a zerobased budget um approach, meaning that um you know, if they basically need to start out at $0 and they need to justify or provide an itemized list of every expense, you know, that they're requesting. Now, I
131didn't um we didn't enforce that with say things like u materials and supplies or instructional materials. Um I didn't really think it was, you know, worthwhile for them to, you know, say how many pens, construction paper, markers, all of those things, but to give a generalized um description on it. But everything else um they're supposed to be providing an itemized list. So requests are due back next week and um staff will um then evaluate them of course discuss them with Dr. Kramer. So we're well on our way. >> Can you confirm whether or not the uh compensation study will address some of the questions that Miss Mrs. Finch and um Mr. Shipman had about the subpay scales and whatnot. Yes, we um we've asked them. They're supposed to be looking at all of our pay
132scales. >> Okay. >> And making recommendations on that. >> Good deal. So hopefully Mrs. Finch and Mr. Shipman are still listening and the questions will be addressed or looked at rather. >> Yes. >> Okay. And I just wanted to clarify as far as the teacher feedback, there was a survey that was put out for anyone not on the instructional pay scale, but that was because we're reassessing the classification of our job descriptions um across internally and both externally to make sure that you know an admin one and admin 2 are ranked appropriately. But because teachers fall on their own pay scale at that time, their review of their job description wasn't needed. So there's certainly going to be time for teacher feedback. um the draft is going to be presented at these meetings so that
133feedback can be given. It just was on that particular portion of the compensation study which was a review of job descriptions. We didn't have to it was kind of a gift to not have to go through that part of the process because it was very time inensive to have to give that feedback. Um but that was just about job descriptions, not about the compensation study as a whole. >> Right. And I think the board got a copy of that too. That was district news if I recall. >> Yes. >> Right. >> Okay. board. >> The other item, just to let you know, um the annual audit for our operating fund is underway. The auditors were on site yesterday. So, um as far as I know, everything's going well there. >> Good deal. Good to hear.
134>> Then the next item is the school activity funds audit um which was attached under board docs. Um and uh it was a lot better than than last year. Um however, we do still need to work on um our documentation processes and making sure that you know every transaction um is documented properly. So I'll be working with the bookkeepers. >> So I read through it sounds like some of it might have been staffing related. >> Yes. Um, in fact, at one point last year, we had three bookkeepers that were out um on medical leave. So, we had temps um that came in and filled in, which it was um it was a challenging time. >> I'm sure I can't I'm trying to wrap my head around having someone come in and temporarily balance my checkbook.
135>> So, it's remarkable that the audit report came out as well as it did. Okay. All right. Any comments on the audit? >> Okay, we're moving forward. Everything sounds pretty good this year. Knock on wood. >> Thank you, ma'am. All right, 15.4 update on RFP and architectural services. Now, just FYI, we have officially released the RFP, the request for proposals for the architectural engineering services to design u the new Westside Elementary School. Miss DV is here to go into more details. She actually put together the RFP and rolled it out. Go right ahead, Mr. Ver. >> Yes, >> that was also attached on on board docs. Um, it was issued on Monday the 10th, and it has a return date of December the 10th. It was posted on EVA, which is the state's procurement website,
136as well as on our um website. And um in the scope of work, I don't know if you had a chance to look at it, but we are requesting design of a prek to fifth grade elementary um with approximately I think it's a thousand students. >> Yes. >> For the sake of clarification because there appears to be some sentiment in the public that we're favoring one architectural firm over the other. In layman's term, this is a request for proposals and it gives a fair bid to any company to offer their services. >> Absolutely. And I just want to go in a little bit more detail. Uh Mr. Marsh just concerning it. That's something that we have done for years and years. It's not something that we just started doing this year with all of the
137RFPs, all of the uh items over the $200,000 limit. We have uh performed RFPs for that. just sending out the information, ensuring that we're taking the lowest bidder. We did it for Hardy and we did it for several other uh several other projects, large portion as you just seen that we did with the uh Carlton Elementary School HVAC system. We went through the RFP process, lowest bidder, and we went with it. >> Lowest bidder or the best value. >> Or the best value. Thank you. >> That's right. The end goal being to make sure that the taxpayers get the best bang for their buck. >> Absolutely. And with putting this on the state's procurement website, EVA, um, it automatically because of the commodity codes used, it automatically sent it to 88 different vendors. >> Oh,
138wow. >> The day it was posted. >> Okay. >> Appreciate the work that went into it. I don't have any comments, questions. Do you board? >> I just got one. Just out of curiosity. Um, you said potentially 88 different vendors. How how many do we normally get a response from? >> Well, this is my first one, so I'm not >> That puts it on you, Dr. Coleman. >> Well, I think we believe for this particular for the architectural engineering designs, I think it was maybe 12 uh 8 to 12 last uh time for Hardy. So, that was that was it. about 8 to 12. Um, >> okay. I I was just curious how many responses you normally get. >> Absolutely. Absolutely. >> That was for that one. >> It should be a pretty good turnout.
139>> Absolutely. And just remember when we when we performed that RFP, it was right on the verge of coming out of COVID. So, a lot was a lot of factors that went into it between um escalation of uh cost going up, down, the bids were all over the place. So it was a lot more going into that scenario than going into this one also. And with it placed on EVA, I expect a a larger output. >> Okay, that was all I needed. Thanks, >> Mr. Chair. May I highlight a point you made? >> Yes, sir. >> Just because you're lowest bidder doesn't mean that you will always get the contract. I mean, someone could start a company two weeks ago and be the lowest bidder, but not capable of performing the work. So we have
140to look at that as well. So just wanted to highlight that that that's not always the case that you get the contract because you're the lowest bidder. >> And this is a request for proposal for professional services um under the Virginia Public Procurement Act. So it's not going to be based on price initially. Um we have evaluation factors that are laid out in the RFP. So we first will evaluate them based on those and then um discuss pricing but that's not the sole factor in this one. >> So for setting expectations what what's next after the time period expires? Is it December 12th? >> Um December 10th the bids are due in. So um I'll put them all together and we have or Dr. Coleman has assembled a review team and the re review team
141will get all of the proposals. I have evaluation forms that are reviewed, fill fill those out and then um we will interview um at least the top two >> and then at that point you'll come to the board and say >> we'll discuss um then we'll also negotiate prices with them. >> Okay. Okay. um by Christmas maybe. >> Do you have a board meeting before then? Because we we get back on the 10th. >> No, I think that's that's probably our last board meeting. >> Yeah, probably >> that probably be in January. >> January. >> Yeah, I've been on boards for this. Yeah. Uh December is not going to happen. probably January from what I looking at the amount of time you have and a number of people or companies who have submitted uh yeah
142January February I'm thinking yeah because you got to give the uh the the board not us board but your board you got to give them enough time to really look at all the proposals because you've got 80 whatever I think you said 88 >> that's how many were notified of the >> Oh okay Okay. Well, who if whatever comes back, some are going to be just out there. >> They're just they're new and they're going to try to get a contract because it's great to get a contract. It's money, but then they'll realize they can't do the job. So, yeah, your board is going to make that decision on who really gets the job. And it's uh it's a tough job, long hours. Don't look forward to it. But, you know, y'all have got the
143right people. Thank you. [laughter] All right, Miss Caulk, you good? >> Yeah, I'm good. >> All right, just making sure you're with us. Okay. Um 155. Little bit of instruction. Okay. Good evening, Mr. Chair, members of the board, Dr. Kramer. Um if you recall last uh month we reported on our elementary interventions and so this month we wanted to share um what interventions we do in secondary schools. Um with us with me tonight is um Dr. Tiffany Truit. She is our coordinator who oversees secondary English and history and some other things. Um and Christopher Mela was supposed to be here tonight but unfortunately she is ill. Um and she oversees um secondary math and science. Uh, but we will be doing it in her place. I'm gonna turn it over to Dr. Truit. It was
144on. Uh, good evening. So, um, as you may remember from last month's presentation from Miss Cooprider and Miss Rogers, I wanted to kind of first set the stage with some common terminology as we go through this um, discussion around intervention. Um, so the first thing to point out is tier one. All students, regardless of if they qualify for intervention or not, have access to tier one instruction. So that's instruction that's typically aligned with grade level standards. Um, and it's typically presented whole group with appropriate scaffolds where needed. Um, if you'll notice tier 2 and tier three, it's a little more specialized. So interventions are typically provided in our middle and high school classrooms primarily in small group within the 90-minute instructional block by our highly capable um classroom teachers. Where it may become a little
145differentiated is in that tier three where they may be provided access to a reading specialist or a math interventionist. So the greater the need, the more intense the remediation or intervention is and the longer in terms of time. So for middle and high school reading, we have uh several intervention options. Uh the first is that all students in grades 6 through 10 have access to a VD VOE approved intervention program called Lexia. And I think it's important to know that all students are provided the opportunity to engage with this because it's important that all students have the opportunity to grow. So it's not just our students who have demonstrated some academic weaknesses, but also um our high achieving students who need to be pushed a little bit more because we know that we are um
146very focused on increasing our past advance rates as well. So, Lexia um specializes instruction based off of the students current level of performance in three different categories. Word study, grammar, and comprehension. So, all students access that at least uh two times a week for 30 minutes. What the program will do is it will then flag when a student needs remediation. So, that's when the teacher needs to step in, provide a small group lesson. So again that is offered to all students where it becomes a little differentiated according to the tiers is um who leads the small groupoup lesson and then of course increasing the time um with the teacher and on the program. So for students who um are tier three or who qualify for tier three interventions that's especially in middle school th those
147are the students that get to see our reading specialists. Prior to this year, we did not have certified reading specialists in our secondary schools. As a result of the Virginia Literacy Act, we are required to and and are very excited to have them. Um, in addition, we have other um curriculum supports including Scholastic, which is also on the VDOE approved list, and we also use some small group remediation um curriculum that's out of STAR. This is our current data that we pulled at the beginning of the year. So where our students are currently falling. Um it's a few slides ahead of this but it's very interesting to note that the data is pretty consistent across math and English. Um so while we are providing interventions uh with smallroup instruction, vetted curriculum and access to interventionists
148and specialists um there may be some other factors at play that we h also have to look at because students seem to the same group of students seem to be struggling in both content areas. And here are a few examples of students working on word study uh in some of our middle school intervention uh small groups. Um we did pilot uh this type of program last year at Smithville Middle School. Um they did have the uh highest English so pass rates compared to the middle school that did have it this program and the middle school that did not have it. and we saw significant growth as a as a result. So, I'm excited to see uh what the results will be now that we have certified reading specialists at both schools. Um so, this is
149our math uh tiered intervention. So, just like with reading, um we have established that all students will get personalized instruction based off of their current level of performance. um we have utilized um here. So as students qualify for different interventions, we increase the time uh that they engage with STAR and then we also provide them access to math interventionists. Again, I believe that this is the first year in quite a long time that we were able to staff um both middle schools with a certified math interventionist. And so, uh, students who qualify for math intervention are pulled, um, I believe it is at least five times every two weeks for at least 30 minutes. In addition to being pulled for small groups, our interventionists and literacy coaches also push into classrooms to help that teacher
150with that tier one instruction. And then through an additional intervention is the teacher can specifically uh set personalized pathways for the student on previous year's skills to help close gaps. So again this was the slide I was referencing just a bit earlier very similar to where students are identified for English. Um so again we look forward to coming back you know at the end of this year and comparing this data now that we have um these programs in place. We've always been doing intervention so I don't want anyone to feel like we haven't been putting in the work we have been through targeted instruction and small group but this year we have additional human resources um that we hope will support students. Yes sir. Just to clarify, you have a benchmark test early in the
151school year and then a second one towards the end of the school year. >> So, we actually, this is based off of STAR. And so, we have STAR in the fall, we have a mid-year STAR, and we have an endofear STAR. >> Got it. And where are we at now? We're we're early on. >> We're early on. Yes. >> Okay. Do you expect or anticipate your at or above benchmark numbers to increase? >> I I am fairly confident given the intense support that we're providing um that they will increase. >> Okay. And is that historically how it goes down year after year? >> Yes. And these numbers too are also kind of with an asterk and this is my call to parents. Um the STAR test is um not always and this is what we're
152using here. The STAR test is not always historically taken very seriously by students. And so sometimes we have to look beyond that this one piece of data to other data sets like SOS or benchmark assessments to properly place kids. But you know when we communicate to families like hey a STAR test is coming up because it's a very short test students take it in 30 minutes or less. um you know encouraging students to perform their best in that moment so that we have a true understanding of where they're currently performing. students well I just students not receive a grade for star test correct so that is why sometimes they do not take it seriously um but we use it to assess where students are academically um with other things but this is a um a
153ma a major thing that we do use um but students don't always take it seriously because they don't get a grade for it >> well so as you ladies well know I've got one in in the seventh grade And I give Mrs. Luck and everybody over there nothing but kudos for sending those messages out. I mean, good lord, I get a text message. I get an email. I And I get them numerous times a day, every day of the week. The message is sent. I don't know how to force people to read the message. >> That's right. >> But I will say from a parents perspective, I don't know that the significance of the star test. >> Okay. Maybe that could be conveyed a little bit more. >> Okay. Yeah, that's good information. >> It's
154a star test. I know what it is because I sit up here and I've asked you ladies repeatedly, >> but perhaps parents don't know exactly what you're doing with that. >> And I do feel like this year with um you know, student reading plans through VLA and intervention groups, parents are hearing a little bit more about it because their students are now being pulled you know, within the instructional block or sometimes within exploratory. So I think there's more discussions happening at home. So I hope maybe that will have a positive effect as well. >> And then here's just some examples of examples of some of the hands-on activities. You know, we did mention several computer-based programs, but our interventions are not limited to that. They're still focused on teacherled instruction, and you can see that
155here um in some of these pictures. So at high school intervention looks slightly different. So um all schools actually have something similar to what we call packer or wind block which is typically around 30 minutes. And this is where teachers can pull students for small group or one-on-one remediation across content levels. So this is not just limited to uh math or reading all areas. You know you can pull for art if that's an area in which you need additional support. And then we also have what's called project graduation. So this is where teachers are compensated to provide remediation for those students who need to meet verified credit. So if you know little Bobby didn't pass his algebra one so but needs that for a verified credit for graduation these teachers will tutor students during their
156planning blocks and we provide compensation. So I think that contributes to you know some of the successes we've had with graduation rates because um they're getting that right there personalized instruction. So intervention we typically think of in elementary school but it's also happening here in secondary. And that's Miss Gats unless you have something else to add. >> Any questions? >> Um the Lexia power up. Are y'all pushing that out to parents for the parents of the kids that aren't behind or anything? Are you pushing that out to the parents so they know that it's a tool they can use when they want their kids to do some more? >> Sure. I I think we can definitely do a better job of um making parents aware of all of the benefits of that program and how
157they can utilize it at home. So um that's good feedback. Um we are required by VDOE to do um middle school literacy nights this year. So that can certainly be a huge component of that and maybe provide parents some opportunities to engage with the program. Can you go back to one of the earlier slides, the color-coded slide? >> That That's fine. So, this is a snapshot of an individual class, sixth grade, at the beginning of a school year. >> And you said that at the end of the school year, you would anticipate them to be much more than 65%. Mhm. >> I would anticipate that the majority of the students on watch would move into at or above benchmark. >> So, let's just say theoretically, >> you said the majority of them. >> The majority.
158>> So, >> little Bobby graduates the sixth grade. Next year he's in the seventh grade. >> Do you expect him to be at or above benchmark again >> during that initial >> or is it kind of a reset? >> Um, it again it kind of depends on the student. If the student is performing to the best of their ability, then they should probably remain in the at or above benchmark. Um, but if the student does not take it as seriously or diligently as we would wish, he might go back into on >> and there is summer slide. That is a real thing. We do see that students leave us, you know, in June and they're at one level, they return to us and they there might be a slight dip. That does happen. >> Some
159slide. I've never heard that, but that makes certainly makes sense. >> So, I would assume and Mrs. Gets, we've talked about this before, right? So, my daughter, I think she's in a pretty sharp class, >> just generally, there's a bunch of sharp kids in that seventh grade class, >> and I look forward to what happens to them as we watch them go to graduate. >> Um, but they're not all like that, right? So, if you've got a class that's not they're starting out at the at at the maybe next year's sixth grade class comes in, is it possible that they all start out 60% or so, something below the average? >> Absolutely. I mean, every year you're testing a different group of kids. So, you cannot compare sixth grade to sixth grade to sixth grade
160to sixth grade. I mean, yes, it gives you something to look at, but it's a different group of students every year. >> And I do know that when we were going through the budget session and when we you guys hired all your teacher contracts for the beginning of the year, we were short. >> You hired quite a few young teachers with not too much experience teaching in on their hands. >> Y >> um how's that working out? because I know that during budget season there was a comment made that they were going to require a lot of coaching. >> Yeah, I would. So, right now um and Miss Sullivan, if I'm saying anything incorrectly, we have almost a quarter of our teaching staff who are provisionally licensed, meaning they don't have full lensure or they
161are unlicensed, almost a quarter. And so those teachers require an extraordinary amount of work because they haven't necessarily been through a teacher prep program. So they may have a degree um they could have a degree in math, a degree in biology, a degree degree in psychology. They have a degree but they have not taken any teacher prep courses. And so what the coordinators and instructional coaches and building leaders have to spend a lot of time doing is teaching the teachers how to read a curriculum framework, how to um analyze test results, how to look at um the verbs that the SOS require and how to align that with your teaching. It is a lot of work and this is something that 20 years ago we did not do. We we hire teachers who went through
162teacher prep programs. They came to us as teachers who went through student teaching. The people we are now hiring, they've never gone through student teaching. They've never done any of this. >> So, they're coming in and they don't have the the skill sets necessarily. No, >> I would imagine being a teacher is is to some degree an art as well. >> It is absolutely an art. And let me just say, we are grateful that they are in our classrooms and that they are learning to become teachers. So, I don't mean this, you know, negatively at all, but it is different than what we were dealing with years ago in that they are not as prepared and it's not their fault. They just haven't been through a teacher prep program. And so, what they know about
163teaching is what they learned from being a student. And so, there's a lot more to teaching than just, you know, what you experience as a student. And so we are having it's just we're in a different it's just a different age. We are having to do the teacher prep work. And I would like for Miss Sullivan to share just a little bit about um you know the teacher shortage and just kind of because it is it is interesting and it absolutely impacts our student our student achievement. I mean the number one factor in student achievement is a teacher. >> Well that's what I was getting at. Right. So these numbers, they're it's a product of the student, but it's also a product of the teacher. >> Yeah. I mean, in terms of the teaching shortage,
164and I think I've shared this all with you before, um, with all of the teacher preparation programs in the state of Virginia, all of the candidates that they produce on a given year can all be hired by one district in our state and it still will not fill all of their vacancies. So all of the people who graduate from a teacher prep program in all of the colleges in the state of Virginia, Lowden County and Fair Lowden or Fairfax, one or the other, has enough vacancies to hire every single one of them and it still won't fill all of their vacancies. And so when you think about in our state how competitive that then makes those jobs and and then again how important it makes teacher pay to remain competitive. And even in talking to
165the compensation study, the people that we're working with, they've done a lot of the compensation studies in our region, and they keep talking about how competitive our area is because of how close geographically we are and how many students we serve in this region. So, compared to like a region further out west, um they might be a larger geographical region, but condensed wise, they don't have as much competition between their school districts for teacher pay because they're more widespread. So people are going to live geographically where they want to live and then they're going to serve that school district despite maybe what the pay might be. Whereas in our area our teachers have a lot of choice in that which is great for them. Um because of how geographically close we are and how many
166options they have. Um and so I think just kind of realizing what a shortage there is in our state and we are not the only state with that shortage and so there's even difficulty in pulling from those other those other other localities. And I think what Mrs. Get said is very true in terms of like we are now like our human resources department is a academic advising department for 95 adults in our school district. Like we are working with them individually for pathways towards lure and they all look very different based on what they're coming to us with. And then our central office, our administrators, our instructional coach, all of those individuals who work in our school district who are not individually in the classroom are working as the teacher prep department. like we are
167serving as our own grow your own on a daily basis um because of the support that that our teachers need and again they are doing miracles in their classrooms these teachers who do not have that traditional training um you know like I give them major props I had that support and went into the classroom >> still hard >> yeah and it's still hard and so you know the work that they're doing is amazing but even just like not even the assessment for data and reading curriculum but it's the like talking about student motiv motivation. These teachers do not have professional training in classroom management. And to say we do have several teachers that we've hired have come out of teacher prep programs. Um but for those who don't, they also not only are they coming
168to work and performing miracles in their classrooms with their students and working extremely hard for those hours that they're in the classroom, but then they're going home and completing coursework and studying for state testing. So their job does not end with the the work that they're doing. they are doing they're a full-time student as well going home and so that they can keep the jobs that we're paying them to do. Um they have to go home and then be a student while also having families and having you know a a life. Um and so it is a a miracle >> [laughter] >> um you know and the work that the hard work that they're putting in to maintain the um the level of success that they're having in the classrooms with our students and we're
169very thankful for them. >> Thanks. I I think it's important to continue to kind of bang the drum and bring awareness to that. There's it's good to talk about all the good stuff we're doing, but it's also important to talk about the challenges because that's that's real stuff. >> It is. >> So, >> and it really shows like how amazing the positive work is when you see what goes on behind the scenes to make it happen. >> Thanks. >> Thank you. This is couch. Good evening, Dr. Kramer, board members. It's so good to see all of you all this evening. First thing I want to do is formally introduce you all to our new child nutrition technician. This is Chanel Williams. Um she is joining us. She started in July. I did >> and um
170she has background with us. She was the manager at Smithfield Middle School. Before that, she'd been a cook with the division. And so she is feisty and full of energy. And you're going to hear from her tonight as well. So I'm so excited that she can join us this evening and we're excited to present to you tonight. All right, scratch cooking. I know I believe it was last month this came up in a presentation and Dr. Coleman was explaining scratch cooking, but we're going to go into a little more detail and explain to you what scratch cooking really is. Um, we are part of the Virginia Foods for Virginia kids initiative. It is the fourth cohort to come through the state of Virginia. Um, I went to some training in July. They're going to come
171out here in December and do some shadowing with us. and really what they want to do is see how we are getting back to homemade food, scratch cooking. So, we're really excited about that. Um, and we've been able to participate in some offsite learning this summer over in Suffach. We were able to take some cooks and some managers over there to really dive in deep um with how to prepare fresh meals for students. And then we've done some in-house training. And I'm going to let Miss Williams explain to her because explain to you because this is her passion. And as you see the pictures on the screen are from our kitchen. So I'm gonna let Miss Williams talk a lot about scratch cooking and what all she's doing with that. >> Um so good afternoon.
172So when we um talk about scratch cooking um being back with Alawite now for um the second school year um our scratch cooking really has to come on a continuum which basically means that we were coming from uh a lot of heat and serve things. So, a lot of our students got used to heat and serve. So, now that's what they love. Um, also a lot of our cooks and our staff members also got use of that process as well. Um, scratch cooking on a continuum may not necessarily mean that as soon as we get in the kitchen, we're going straight to maybe a, you know, your grandmother's recipe or something like that. It basically means that we can start um small. So instead of having a whole pan of maybe frozen Alfredo, now we're
173boiling our own noodles and we're making our um sauces from scratch. Um one thing we do like to keep in mind is that some things is not always possible to make from scratch just really because of the equipment that we're provided. Um and then we also kind of want to keep our students happy as well. So, um, one thing that our students love, like you can see on on the on the, uh, slide, is that they love breakfast for lunch. So, we can't really pump out hundreds of waffles, but what we can do is is you see our spiced apples. So, our spiced apples are generally made from scratch. So, fresh apples, fresh spice uh, spices baked in the oven. So, we just try to create little elements of of scratch cooking throughout our menu
174um as best as that we as best we can still keeping the students interested and happy and eating. >> All right. The progress we're making in child nutrition, as Miss Williams said, we're scratch cooking something daily. Um so, for an example, just today at Hardy and Carolton, we offered Thanksgiving meals to all of our students. Uh next week is at the other schools. If you want to join us, come for come and join us. I know some central office staff joined us for lunch today. Miss Whitlo came over and got lunch. And Miss Williams challenged all the managers, not the cooks, but the managers to come up with a scratch dessert. So today at Hardy, if you came to Hardy and had lunch, you had homemade banana pudding. And if you went to Carolton today,
175they had homemade individual pies and the pie crust was made from scratch. So, next week, to be determined, there's lots of neat scratch cooking um desserts that will be at the other seven schools. Um the right now we're about 40% scratch cooking. As Miss Williams said, we were doing a lot of eat and serve. We've gotten away from that and our goal by next year is to be about 70% scratch at breakfast and lunch. We've been able to make some equipment purchases with having um child nutrition outsourced with contracted vendors for the past eight years. They did not replace equipment. They did not think to fix things when they were broken. We just recently purchased and it was up and running today for the first time. Thank you maintenance if you're watching a combi oven
176at Windsor High School. Um it's beautiful and Chanel's mother is the cook there and I know she was so excited. But now they can cook exactly like they need to at Windsor High School. We've purchased Robocus for Smithville High School, Smithville Middle in Windsor. That's a food processor on steroids so they can make those fresh salads and everything is um the same size when you're making cucumbers or cutting onions and it saves so much time and manpower. We've been able to purchase small wares for our schools. There are things like our um pans, our ladles, different things like that. And then we've been able to purchase milk boxes for Carolton, Carsville, and Windsor. At Carolton, their milk box had been out for some time to the fact that they were taking ice from their ice
177machine, dumping it in the cooler, and then putting the cartons of milk on top, something they should not be doing. So, they are so excited that we've been able to replace those items because they were things that were not working and not good for students. We're also in the process of applying for a USDA farm-toschool grant. Last year, they were frozen and we're back in the trenches of that. So, we will be applying for that in December. Uh, we're getting ready for our federal audit in January. I'm ready. I talked with to it with them today from VOE and we're ready to roll. And I can say sitting here tonight, we are fully staffed in all kitchens. So, we have staff in all of our kitchens. >> So, I'm going to let Miss Williams share
178a little bit about some of our new initiatives that we have in place. Um so with our new initiatives of course is the scratch cooking that we're implementing um across our nine schools daily um a lot of our um cooks and a lot of our um staff members have taken initiative to kind of create like um own their not own but um special um extra items for um students like we have some schools that will do a chicken salad um using leftovers um that that is not going to be thrown away and so they utilize it to something else. We have some that do um we had somebody that did a pasta salad. That way things were not being um thrown away using items that may be about to go out of date, but as
179opposed to just letting them go, they can turn them into um something else. Um so we are not using styrofoam anymore um per the government's mandate. So, um, that's kind of like a a [laughter] it's it's it's great. We love it. But the styrofoam, I mean, the the the trays that we use are different from the styrofoam. So, sometimes it might be a little harder for the kids to grab them, but um we're definitely um working through that. During the summertime, we were able to go to a training um with the chef and foundation. So, we did that and we took some of our staff members with us. Um, some of our cooks, some of our managers, uh, I think it was a total of four of them and they were kind of able to
180see where we were going with our scratch cooking initiative, trying to use those fresh uh, vegetables, the fresh produce um, to really kind of make our school back to a a healthy eating and and just being more conscious on um, those sort of things. Um we are doing our um form to school. Um we actually just took a trip to um our uh land lab farm behind Windsor on our PD day. It was absolutely great. Um we were able to get lettuce uh I think we had like 138 pounds of lettuce um delivered to our nine schools. Um so those things will be used to be able to make fresh salads um and then even utilized just throughout recipes throughout the week. um maybe on a hamburger or a chicken sandwich. Um it's really great
181for the kids to see that hey that lettuce came from um Windsor Elementary and even for the CTE students who actually participate in the program, they now get to eat it at their actual school. We also had some sausage that um was delivered um pinky links, piggy links, and um it it was a great thing to have in our school to kind of talk about with with the children um and kind of get them interested in where things came come from. Um it'll be great to have a little bit more um staff um interaction with kids and and and just kind of letting children know like, hey, this lettuce came from the uh the garden, you know, when they come through the line. And I know we we try to like, oh, we got to
182eat, we got to eat, but maybe a little bit more conversation on what the cafeteria staff is trying to provide would would kind of get the kids more interested and actually uh wanting to eat and wanting to participate in lunch. If you look at the bottom left hand picture, that is actually a picture from um one of the green houses. I was out there with Daniel Judkins last week and he was able to pick this lettuce and the students washed it and some of the managers even want to make like chicken salad wraps and things like that for students. So then you're not even using bread so you're saving carbs. And so Mr. Judkins is so excited about this and and as Miss Williams said the staff we took them out there Monday and you'd
183have thought we gave them a million dollars. We got them off site. We took them out there. We did our PD. They had a tour of the farm and now they can say this is where the tomatoes came from in your salad next year. This is where the lettuce was last week. And so we're very excited about those initiatives. And I believe Dr. Coleman ate some of those piggy links the other week. >> Yes, he did. [laughter] >> Uh we are doing a new program this year where we are recognizing staff. We're calling it the Golden Spatula Awards. And so we're going around each month and we are awarding staff who've gone above and beyond the call. Um they've covered for other staff when they've been out. They've come up with a new dish and
184they've researched USDA recipes and so you'll see some pictures there. Um Dr. Kramer and Dr. Coleman joined us um hall was it Halloween? >> It was right around Halloween to do the October ones. Um and we will be going out next week and doing our November um golden spatulas. But those folks are so excited. You give them a spatula and some ribbon on it and a certificate and it just shows them a big thank you for the hard work. These people today, we were in the kitchens working. They're picking up steaming hot pans with their bare hands and I'm like absolutely no wear the hot mats. They are working above and beyond because they have a passion to feed our children and ensure that they are doing um everything they can to provide healthy meals.
185Now the numbers. I know you all are numbers people and so am I. So I want to do a comparison of where we were last year with elementary um breakfast sales versus this year. Elementary lunch, secondary, adult and alak cart sales. As you can see, our elementary breakfast numbers are up. There's a huge um competition between Windsor Elementary School's manager and Hardy's manager. They're doing over 400 breakfast a day. Over 400. Um, and now they've re um turned it into a lunch competition. So, as you can see in the numbers, we're up our breakfast, our high school numbers aren't as high. We do see an uptick, but not as high. But we think a lot of that is we've stopped selling pizza every day. We're alternating pizza to chicken sandwiches and burgers. And I think
186that was a great move on Miss Williams' part to try to entice children to try something new. Um, so you'll see our elementary meals have increased by over 3,000. Our secondary have increased by over 300. And our alle cart sales there, the chips and those cookies and all those those ice cream sandwiches, we've we've gone up over $4,000. That was just the month of September. It's increased even higher for um about 6,000 additional dollars for October. So, we're very pleased u with the progress we've made. As I said, Miss Williams is a firecracker and a go-getter. She's in kitchens every single day rolling her sleeves up shouldertosh shoulder. Um, and we're just so excited about where we continue to go and we welcome any feedback or questions or comments you may have. [snorts] >> I
187tell you what, it seems like every time you give one of these updates, you've only solidified more and more that it was the right decision to bring nutrition back in house. So, kudos to you and your team. >> Thank you, ladies. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Thank you. [snorts] >> It was great when we um were able to go visit the kitchens to see the camaraderie, the collaboration, especially um over at Smithfield High, how the two schools work together. Um it was great seeing the passion and the teamwork that they displayed. It was a very welcoming atmosphere. Thank you. Thank you. It's really it's really fun to watch their own personal Facebook pages, especially the cooks and how they're posting on their Facebook pages, what they're making every day and the love they're putting
188into it. And that just shows their commitment, their dedication to what they're doing, and we love that about each and every one of them. So, thank you. [snorts] >> Anything else? >> If I can just say before you move on, uh I think you two said it well. I think bringing food services back in house is paying dividends and I think we see that. I often ask the staff when we're in the schools um our our child nutrition staff and I think universally across the board they are elated that we brought it back in house and I think you said it well Mrs. Perkins, the camaraderie that we see, the collaboration uh works really well. And I think you're absolutely right, Smithfield High and Smithfield Middle to see two groups. I mean, it's it's reminds
189me I think it's analogous to a restaurant where you have this large >> group uh having to work together. And last point, I knew that we had a collaboration with the agricultural land lab. I didn't know to that extent. I mean, we are literally feeding children our produce and meats um that are coming from our land lab. So, uh kudos to your staff and to uh Mr. uh Judkins and Brittle for their collaboration with our school. So, great job, uh Mrs. Couch and Mrs. Williams. >> Thanks again, ladies. Dr. Coleman, talk to us about the fire marshall report, sir. [laughter] >> All right. 15.7 Fire Marshall annual inspections. I'm pleased to report that our most recent inspection by the Virginia State Fire Marshall Office has resulted in no violations at any facility. Inspector Bridget Dugan
190conducted a thorough review and noted no deficiencies, confirming that our division is in full compliance with the Virginia statewide fire prevention code and the inspection requirements of the code of Virginia. Um the state fire marshall of course is required to conduct an annual fire inspection of public schools yearly ensuring that all school facilities are regularly evaluated for hazards that could endanger life or property. Now, this clean report reflects not only our compliance with state law, but also the day-to-day diligence of our principles, custodial custodians, maintenance teams, and safety staff who work continuously to maintain safe code compliant learning and working environment for our students and employees. And that is it. you will see all of the reports from the schools noted and attached to 15.7. >> I was I was pleased when you told me
191that there is little to no notice when this happens, maybe 24 hours. So, that's good. >> Um, that means it's basically a come as you are inspection. I haven't heard anything in quite some time about this the fire alarm system at the landl barn. Has that been >> it? Yeah, absolutely. It was the smoke detectors. The smoke detectors had to be replaced and in order to replace the smoke detectors, we had to get new permits for the building because smoke detectors came in the building. So, we worked everything out at this time. >> Mr. Rooster, this is your your Bwick, sir. No, I'm just glad to see that there was zero issues. >> Yes, sir. >> You're here. Kudos. >> All right. Let's move right along then. >> operations update. All right. As a part
192of our ongoing commitment to safe, modern, and well-maintained learning environments, we're addressing a series of targeted projects across the division. What I have here on the screen for you today is just a snapshot of the month of October. So, um, what you see here are not all of the projects and the completed issues that we've been looking at, but just some of them just to bring to your attention. the curtain replacement for the stages. Those curtains for that we replaced, some of them were 25 to 30 years old and they need to be replaced at every school. The CES bowler repair and expansion tank replacement. Another one, the Windsor High School softball and baseball dugouts renovated things that are put back in place. of course digitize blueprints for Smithville High School, Hardy Elementary, GTMS, and
193WHS, which helps us out tremendously in the future that uh there's no more blueprints stuffed away in a closet. Now we have all of that digitized. And once again, this is just a snapshot. Uh from this month, we probably have 80 90 other work orders that were completed by the ABM staff and different things of that nature. But this is one some of the ones I wanted to really pinpoint. Also, I just want to let you know that the repairs on uh west side has uh begun. So, I just want to make sure that you're aware of the um well of the roof repairs and uh some of the restroom repairs has started last week. >> Good deal. >> Keep some of the rain out while we work. >> Yes. Uh, next time that we
194have a heavy downpour, I'll be happy to tell you exactly what occurred after that, but that's what does it. All right. Next will be the security emergency management update. Mr. Brinkley. >> Good evening, Chairman Marsh and board members. Dr. Kramer. Uh, and going into this update, uh, we have a lot of a lot of very exciting things that are happening in the in the security and emergency management realm. Uh, and and Dr. Dr. Coleman kind of had to rein me in and and limit my limit my time on on what I was able to talk about. But just touching base on the uh crisis management plans, we began the school year with uh version 25.1 of all of the crisis management plans. And already we're looking at making revisions, and I shouldn't I shouldn't say
195revisions, but updates to those plans as this plan allows us to do. The new template that we're that we're now using allows us to make these updates throughout the year. And included in this next update will be some updated maps. Uh updated mapping for each school as well as the cardiac emergency response plans will also be added into the the crisis management plan as as as an integral part of that. Um, as I mentioned, we have a lot of a lot of exciting things that are that are happening and and very thankful to not only our board, but board of supervisors uh for for meeting our needs on the CIP with the weapons detection. We do have additional weapons detection units that have arrived uh for uh secondary schools. Uh we're looking forward to I'm
196sorry, the the middle schools and we are looking forward to being able to roll those out. Again, there's a lot of moving parts to that, a lot of other things that we have to put in place before that can be done, but we are we are looking forward to that. Uh, and with the inclement weather plan along with the weapons detection, I have to give I have to give kudos to the to the admin and the building staff at both Smithfield High and Windsor High School. Met with both school both schools. Got a lot of lot of good feedback from the administrators there. And we at both schools, we were able to develop inclement inclement weather plans. uh as you all are aware like for instance at Windsor High School uh in the morning as
197the students are coming in through both entrances there's there's no cover there's no pro protection from the ele elements uh so what we were having to do was to just halt the weapon screening on those days. Well it didn't take a genius to figure out that you begin to learn that on inclement weather days we know that the weapons detection system wasn't running. Uh so working with the administrators in those buildings, we came up with inclement weather plans for both schools. Uh and I do know that Smithfield High School has run theirs several times and I believe Windsor High School has run theirs one time. U the other days the the weather wasn't wasn't bad enough that we had to had to run those routes. But with that being said, the need is still there
198for some for some weather protection for the students. Um, so one of the things we are looking at in the near future is at Windsor High School is the awning on the front of the building. We've been working with the administrators there and staff there on designs for for what that will look like. Um, we're working through the process now with getting quotes and and trying to achieve basically about a about a 35- ft awning out in front of the front doors, which will allow them to have some have some cover as they're coming in on those on those inclement weather days. Uh, and then one of the other big projects that I'm working on right now is is our re is updating our reunification plans and our reunification sites. When I took over this
199this position, the way we were conducting our reunification was each school had its own off-site reunification sites. Uh and in in working with the sheriff's office and Will Jury at the emergency management for the county, we're we're developing and what we're going to now is we're going to potentially have two sites for the entire county, one in the north end and one in the south end. Uh at that point at the point we are having to use reunification sites, we're having to bus students to those sites anyway. This allows us to to developus with those sites. And >> what what does that mean? Reunification. >> So, in in the event of an emergency at at any of our any of our schools, in the event that we have an emergency, whatever it may be, uh
200where we have to evacuate those students and it's going they're going to be evacuated for a prolonged period of time and we have to do an offsite reunification. Typically, most of the emergencies that we've had in the past uh have have not required off-site reunification. We we've been able to still do that reunification on site, which is much easier if we can accomplish that. But dependent upon the emergency, the state of the building, whatever that may be, there may be a time where we have to to bust those students to another site and we have to reunify them with their parents, with their loved ones at that location versus being able to do that at the school building. planning for the unspeakable, >> right? And the whole purpose, well, not the whole purpose, but a
201large portion of the purpose of re reunification is that accountability factor, ensuring that we know uh where each and every one of those students and staff members are. And that's what uh Mr. Brinkley is really working toward with that unification site as he just mentioned theus that go into what what are we going to do when the buses arrive, when the parents arrive, when the newspapers arrive, when the police, what do we do? And that demo will really lay out those step by step. >> Got it. Controlling the chaos is what? >> Absolutely. >> Any any questions on any of that? >> Uh no question. Maybe a suggestion. Perhaps if you haven't already considered perhaps Mr. Rogers in his construction course students could entertain an awning for the high school over there perhaps. I don't
202know. >> All right. >> I think they were chomping at the bits for something to do. [laughter] >> All right. We'll look into that. >> Anything else? >> Yes, the last. >> We'll leave that to you. >> All right. There's a couple of questions concerning the fuel report. Um, now one thing that you're going to see is an increase in diesel fuel and u just talked to Mr. F and just working out exactly what's going on. Now the propane and diesel prices are holding steady, but overall fuel consumption has increased. Now the increase can be attributed to a greater demand for diesel. Of course we were going with more diesel buses. Transportation is currently running three to four more diesel buses than this time last year. This increase is due to the arrival of the
203four new buses, of course, in the spring and the addition of several full-time route drivers over the summer. All right. Lastly, one or two buses were utilized for uh after school as was stated earlier also. So, all of those are going into the increased diesel costs. So, I just wanted to make sure that we all understood exactly what was going on. If there's no questions, all right, that is it. >> Thanks for the update, Doc. >> Yes, sir. >> Let's see. Dr. Kramer. >> Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chair. All right, let's move on through here. So, superintendent's update as he's pulling slides up. We are going to start with uh our is awards. So, the inspire award was presented to fellowship, our harvest fellowship church here in Smithfield. The succeed award was presented to
204Smithfield police and town manager Michael Stalins. And the lead award was presented to Mrs. Angela Wallace, music teacher at Carolton Elementary. And the Empower Award was presented to the Obese Healthc Care Foundation, and you see the pictures there um with those recipients. So, uh thank you all. If we can, let's give them a round of applause for their [applause] support. And I'm going to abbreviate uh some of the comments here because we have quite a few slides. So, next we have the Virginia School Counselor Association Conference. School counselors from across Isa White County schools attended the 2025 Virginia School Council Association Conference on October 16th and 17th, joining colleagues from across the state to learn, connect, and grow. This year's theme, advancing and enhancing our impact, focused on deepening professional expertise and discovering innovative approaches
205to school counseling. Uh through workshops and collaboration, our counselors explored new ways to strengthen the vital work they do every day to support students academic achievement, career readiness, and social emotional well-being. Next, we have the Virginia Association of School Librarians annual conference. And our IWCS librarians recently attended the Virginia Association of School Librarians 2025 annual conference. 50 years of leading learning um in Williamsburg, which is which is where it was held uh November 5th through 7th. And we see pictured here uh Mrs. Hattie Garrow uh Smithfield High School, Mrs. Jessica Winkley Windsor, I'm sorry, Westside Elementary and Mrs. Leslie Hammer at Smithfield Middle. And those professional learning experiences brought together library professionals from across the state uh to explore ways to inspire the love of reading, support student engagement, collaborate with classroom teachers, and strengthen
206instructional strategies. So, thank you librarians. Next, we have Ms. Virginia visits Westside Elementary. So, on October 10th, uh we had Ms. Virginia 2025. Madison Whitbeck visited Westside Elementary School for a special presentation with our fourth and fifth grade students. Her visit was part of Virginia ABC's Miz Virginia School Tour program, which promotes healthy choices and substance use prevention for elementary students across the state. Uh during the event, uh Madison led students in songs and games, shared positive messages about making smart choices, and even took time to answer questions from the excited audience. And we thank you uh Miss Virginia, the Virginia ABC Education and Prevention, and Miss Virginia opportunity for bringing this engaging and empowering program to our students. Next, we have Windsor High School Leadership Conference. The Windsor High School Student Government Association and
207Government classes had a unique opportunity to participate in a leadership conference on October 16th featuring an inspiring panel of local and state leaders. Panelists included school board chairman Mr. Jason Marsh, school board member Mr. John Kick, State Senator Emily Jordan, Delegate Nadarius Clark, Windsor Mayor George Stubs, and Brigadier General Retired Tom G uh Gulcoop. Students and staff heard firsthand about leadership, public service, and how local and state government work. Thank you board members for representing our school division at the event. Next, we have Omega Man Empowers Carlton Elementary. On October 7th, Carolton Elementary School had a super visitor when Omega Man came to town. Students dressed as their favorite superheroes and gathered for an unforgettable high energy assembly that blended bully prevention and positive behavior reinforcement into one action-packed uh packed experience. As uh we
208see here throughout uh through incredible feats of strength, audience participation, and empowerful messages, Omega Man inspired students to use their own superpowers for good, showing kindness, standing up for others, and making positive choices every day. Uh so we thank you, Omega Man, and Friend School assemblies for bringing so much energy, inspiration, and heart to our school community. Uh yes, there we go. Lots of superheroes on that day as we see there from the images. Next, we have Carsville Family Day at Windsor Castle Park. On October 18th, students, families, and staff from Carsville Elementary gathered at Windsor Castle Park for a special family engagement and outdoor learning event. In connection with the third grade watershed unit, the entire school community was invited to explore and learn about local plants, trees, and conservation efforts while enjoying the
209beauty of nature together. Hands-on experiences like these help students make real world connections, foster curiosity, and strengthen the bond between school and and family. Uh, and I think this aligns with some of the previous presentations we saw earlier. So kudos to you, Carsville Elementary. Now, some uh shout outs for our bus drivers in transportation. Uh bus driver appreciation lunch. As part of National School Bus Safety Week, White County Schools held a special bus driver appreciation lunch on October 23rd to celebrate the amazing men and women who keep our wheels turning every day. All IWCS bus drivers and transportation staff were invited to Turner and 10 at Smithfield High for a delicious lunch catered and served by our talented IWCS culinary arts students. Uh from the food to um the service, our students made sure this
210event was filled with thanks and gratitude. So, uh, thank you bus drivers for all that you do and thank you CTE students for helping to acknowledge those, uh, individuals who transport our students on a daily basis. Next, more uh, shoutouts for transportation school bus safety week. October 20 20th through the 24th was National School Bus Safety Week. PreK, kindergarten, and first grade students from four IWCS schools participated in school bus safety presentations which were led by transportation CDL trainers. Uh we're pleased that our youngest IWCS students were engaged with the presentations throughout the week. The week was a success and we appreciate the opportunity to educate our students on the importance of school bus buzz safety. So again, thank you Mr. Fe and staff. Uh one more for transportation. Transportation CDL graduates. IWCS Transportation conducted
211CDL training for new drivers during the summer. As of last month, all three trainees passed their DMV road skills test and are now certified to drive school buses for IWCS. Congratulations to Jared Griffin, current subdriver. Kim Sawyer, full-time route driver, and Tracy Bab, administrative assistant to transportation. Uh, way to go, Mrs. Babs, we're proud of them and we would like to recognize all of their hard work. So, great job transportation. Next, uh Smithfield Middle School Felts Legacy Run. On October 24th, uh Smithfield Middle School held the Christian Wy Felts Legacy Run, a heartfelt tribute to the beloved PE teacher who made such a lasting impact on students, staff, and the entire school community. students ran and walked in her honor, uh, collecting laps and donations to support the Felts wellness room, her new memorial garden
212and bench, and future PE equipment for IWCS schools. So far, over $800 have been raised, a true reflection of the love and appreciation this community has for Mrs. Phelps. And thank you, uh, Smithfield Middle School and Dr. Cult for recognizing uh, Mrs. Phelps's contributions. Next, the Wallace cohort meeting on October 24th. Our Wallace principal pipeline cohort came together this month to deepen their work around developing future school leaders. Uh the sessions focused on strengthening strengthening our respective divisions and remember this is a partnership with other divisions uh Franklin City Public Schools, Picosen Public Schools, and Isa White County Schools. uh the approach to succession planning, building leadership structures that support emerging leaders and identifying the critical experiences uh aspiring administrators need to be ready for the next step. Leaders also align their action steps to
213Wallace grant priorities, ensuring that our local pipeline remains sustainable and responsive to long-term leadership needs of the division. And again, this aligns with uh the comments made by uh Mrs. Gets and Mrs. Sullivan regarding uh recruiting and retaining high qual highly qualified staff. And next we have uh IWCS central office dedication ceremony. Proud to present this on October 29th. Our proud I am proud to share that Isa White County Schools held a ribbon cutting ceremony for the new school administration building which is renovated space of the former or the old Hardy Elementary School. And we are proud of the fact that we did not use local taxpayer dollars for the limited renovation. Uh and although I I you know I'll state this, someone shared some information which was inaccurate in the Smithfield time regarding uh
214this uh we did not use uh county funds to move into that building and we'll share more about this um later. Um, in fact, our staff did much of the work. And again, we're very proud of the fact that we found the resources locally and used some state uh funds to uh make the limited renovations to move our central office into that building. Next, uh this was mentioned earlier as well by our student liaison, our high school academic jacket ceremonies. Congratulations to uh the outstanding scholars at both Windsor High and Smithfield High students who received their academic jackets and or acknowledgement for all A's. Smithfield's uh ceremony was held on October 21st and Windsor's was held on November 3rd. Congratulations again scholars and please know that we are tremendously proud of each of you and
215wish you we wish you all continued success. Next, our central office professional development. Uh, just this past Wednesday, November 12th, our central office leaders engaged in divisionwide professional learning centered on building trust and effective communication. Our central office leaders identified concrete strategies to model transparent, timely, and supportive communication with schools and departments, reinforcing a culture where feedback feedback flows freely and teams feel empowered. uh to work together and we know that we must model what we expect uh to see in our schools. Uh next, IWCS celebrated Veterans Day. Thank you to all of our student, staff, and schools who celebrated our veterans uh last week. Uh the schools that celebrated our veterans with a special event were Carlton Elementary, Carsville Elementary, Westside Elementary, Wor Elementary, and Smithfield Middle uh with special ceremonies. And I think
216I have everyone. If I miss someone, please let me know. Staff and again, thank you veterans for your sacrifices and service to our country, including three of our board members who served our country. Uh, Chairman Marsh, board member Cunningham, and board member Khik. Uh, thank you, gentlemen. And again, thank you, uh, students, staff, and community members for uh, celebrating our veterans uh, last week. And last, our education foundation gala. Yes, you see these masked men and women here. The annual education foundation gala was held on Saturday, November 8th at the Smithfield Center. And this year the theme was a it was a masquerade ball. Uh which is why we have mask on. Uh the event raised over $65,000 with $44,000 going to our schools in the way of grants that can be submitted by our
217teachers. Uh again, thank you all who attended uh and supported the event and thank you foundation members for organizing uh this wonderful event for being for the well-being of our students and staff. And uh uh we have a story that we won't share this evening regarding some of those photos. I'll leave it there. Uh but it was a great evening and it was for the benefit of our students and staff. And with that, Mr. Chair, that concludes uh my superintendent's update. >> What'd you do with that Ford bumper, sir? >> Uh actually, it's in the uh in the office, sir. We uh it's on display, so come and see it. >> All right. Kudos on your win for that auction, sir. All right, let's see. Personnel report. >> Mr. Chair, I move to approve the
218personnel report is presented, a copy of which can be obtained from the school board clerk. >> Second. >> Any comments? >> Hearing none. Madam clerk, >> Mr. Collic. >> Yeah, I will abstain. >> Mr. Cunningham? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Perkins? >> Yes. >> Mr. Worster? >> Yes. >> And Mr. Marsh? >> Yes. Motion passes. 18.1 Consent agenda. >> Mr. Chair, I move to approve the consent agenda as attached and presented. >> Second. >> Any comments? >> Hearing none, Madam Clerk. >> Mr. Collic? >> Yes. >> Mr. Cunningham? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Perkins? >> Yes. >> Mr. Worster? >> Yes. >> And Mr. Marsh? >> Yes. Motion passes. Let's see here. 19.1. Mr. Collic, you're up, sir. All right. Um, so I'm going to talk about the fiscal efficiency working group. So, please keep in mind
219this is still a lot of raw data. We're still trying to um figure out the right ways to analyze a lot of this stuff. Um, but we are we have gotten together and we're working independently on several different tasks. Now while we are still we're still in the preliminary phase of studying everything um I think we can say that when we're looking at salaries in proportion to number of staff in any given work center the percentage of salaries actually align with the percentage of work with employees in that work center and you know what generated me looking at that was the perception that hey all this money goes to central office. So I took a look at that and I said no absolutely not. Central office has about 8% of our employees and they get
2208% of the salary. It's you know perfectly consistent. Uh again that's preliminary. We we haven't analyze what all that means. Um also when we consider the amount of money that we dedicate to administrative functions we're among the lowest in the state of similarsiz school divisions. Our admin costs are approximately 2.4% of the entire operations budget. So that's good. That's a real good thing. And we also found out that our unfilled positions and in the school division equals about $2.4 million with those that haven't been filled in and the last with currently aren't filled. And then those that haven't been filled last year and this year adds up to just over a million dollars. So out of that 2.4 million, about 1 million is for people who or billets that haven't been filled for two years.
221Um we've got a spreadsheet of positions and a separate document with um position descriptions. They're really two separate things. Um but they don't seem to align very well with each other. We haven't been able to really move forward with that. Um unless Mrs. Perkins uh may have something better she can elaborate on it. Um but that's something that we definitely have to get with um Mrs. Sullivan on so we can um align those together so we know what we're we're talking about when we're talking positions and position descriptions. And then uh lastly um I requested a report. It's not due until uh November 21st concerning the number of sped students in our school division. And basically we just need this data u so that we can ensure that the staffing calculations that we um create
222are accurate and and defendable when we bring it before the board to make sure we've got a good solid sped program. Um but that's all I have right now and um if Miss Perkins or if Dr. Roberts is is there um if they have anything to add or clarify um please you know please chime in. No, John summed it up. >> Mr. Collic a couple things. Could you clarify what what you were talking about your report? Do you >> Yeah, [clears throat] that's I I asked um I I sent a request to Dr. Kramer um a week or two ago and asked him if we could get something by November 21st. We we need the number of sped students in the school division. So when we're looking at, you know, the capacity and everything and
223the staffing levels, we get it right. We don't say, well, we got 30 kids here, you know, they take two instructors. No, we got eight sped students. We got to pull that out of the mix and do that separately. We're looking, we want to look at that separately because we've got to get it right. and looking at the considerations of the needs of the sped students as well because different needs require different um qualifications or whatever. So >> yeah, >> Dr. Kramer's nodding his head. He he's >> Yes, I received it and we shared it with staff. Let me uh check with our staff. Uh Mr. Collic and we'll get back with you on your request. Oh yeah. And and like I said, that's still another week away before we even can start working on
224it. >> So, thank you for that. Mrs. Get is looking at me like, "Yes, we did that." Um, so that was provided to the board via a board memo. Um, we can get you the date, Mr. Khaled, but yes, that was >> if you would. >> Was it last Friday? It was shared back with >> and we can get you the exact board memo. Um, Mrs. Um, Whitlo can share that with you. Do you have it up, Mrs. Whit? >> Yes, I do. It was >> I know we sent a lot of board memos, but um >> I think there were four board memos on that one. >> It was board memo memorandum 202623 and there was also an attachment. >> Mrs. Whitler, would you resend that? >> Yes. >> To the board. I know
225there's a lot of information, sir. So, let's resend that to you. Thank you, Miss Kettz, for reminding me of that. >> Thank you. >> Yes. >> Hey, thanks, Mr. for for filling us in. And just for the listening audience, who did you guys bring into the working group as a neutral party? >> Oh, well, that's uh Dr. Jim Rob. Um he's retired CFO and retired superintendent. Um and I want to say Ches Public Schools. Um and I want to say Yorktown or Virginia Beach, I don't remember. >> Chesape. Yes. just chess speak. Okay. But he had held both positions. >> Good deal. Well, it sounds like it's working well and appreciate the update. >> It's slow. It's slow, tedious, but we're moving. >> That's all right. Thanks, sir. >> Yes, sir. Okay. That takes us
226to 192 regulation and exhibitsformational. Any comments, questions from the board? >> None. >> We got crickets. You good, Mr. Collic? >> I'm good. >> Okay. The 193. We've got policies for first read. There's four of them on the agenda. >> I'm good. >> Questions, comments? >> Nope. >> Okay. I hear nothing. Mrs. Mrs. Briggs, do you want to add anything to first read? >> No, sir. >> Okay. And then 194, we've got action on second read. Got a handful up here. I'll open it up for comments, questions. >> Question. >> Go ahead, Mr. Cunningham. >> All right. Looking at uh let me see here. Policy EB. Uh third page bleeding control program. I have a question on uh the first line of the uh bleeding control program. The piece that says subject to and with
227funds provided by the general assembly for such purpose, the school board develops a bleeding control program. I don't have to read the rest of it. Uh, that's something new, right? >> Yes, sir. >> Okay. All right. So, where did that come from? Because that's not not blaming you, Miss Briggs, but but that is not a duty of the school board. Uh, if you look at the duties of the school board, we oversee. We don't create anything like this. We don't do that. Now understand, I'mma stop the bleed instructor. Mr. Worooster is also uh one day we won't be here. So who on this board is going to be able to do that? I believe a correction would be um Isawite County schools or the superintendent something like that instead of saying the school board develops
228a bleeding control yada yada yada. >> That's just my view. >> Uh I mean that's this is second read. So we're going to have to say yay or nay to this. We need to make a decision tonight or table this until a later date. But that's all I have. Mr. Chair, >> perhaps we could, if I make a suggestion, and I don't disagree with you. You, you two gentlemen are certainly the experts here when it comes to bleeding control program. And this surely ain't me. Um, maybe we could just exchange the word develops with approves, and that puts the onus on the superintendent by default. He can present it to the board, and we can bless it. Yeah, last last month we had another policy that was similar to this. It said that the board
229shall and we ended up changing it. The superintendent shall because we we approve it but you know he'll [clears throat] develop the program through his staff. So I agree wholeheartedly with Mr. Cunningham. >> Yeah. I and actually I believe the one Mr. Coll's referring to is on for second read tonight. Student representative to the school board. >> Yes. It had said therefore the school board selects the student representative and the policy committee reviewed that and changed that to superintendent. >> Yeah, >> Mr. Chair, if I may just chime in. >> Yes, sir. >> Um, Miss Briggs. >> Yes, sir. >> The changes that were well, not changes. The new policies and other changes that were enacted are due to legislative changes. Correct. >> Yes, sir. This particular one is also a legislative change. >> Yes,
230sir. >> Is that the same wording that was used in legislation? >> I will have to look that up. I I don't have that legislation in front of me at the moment. I can pull it up on my phone in a minute, >> but I don't have it right this second. >> The the reason I ask that is if they've got specific language in their legislative changes, we need to go with that. So if need be, maybe we should table that one particular policy until we find out definitely. >> Sure. >> I mean I I have no issue with any of these policies this go around. >> Yeah. I mean it is it is fine if we need to extend it to December just to be able to come back and answer some questions for
231you. I mean essentially whatever's in Virginia law whether we have it in policy or not is what we're supposed to be following. So so doing this piece um we can wait to get that straight but you know depending on when if this has an enactment clause and I would have to go and look at that. Uh but we still would be held accountable for whatever is in state law whether we've got that policy adopted or not. So, it's no harm to wait till December. >> It go either way. What's what what's the will of the board? >> Want to the gist of the policy is we're going to start this program. >> I'm sorry. Say that again, Mr. Collic. >> I said the whole gist of this policy is we're going to start that, you
232know, stop the bleed program within the schools. That's in there. That's rock solid. That's in there. It's who is going to write the policy. And like I said last at the last meeting is let's put in the policy. Who's going to who's going to write that? Who is going to who's going to do that? Because like Mr. Cunningham said, we're not sitting back. We're not sitting down to write it. Let's give credit to the person or group of people who are going to do it and let's task appropriately. So, so in an attempt to make sure we're dotting all our eyes and crossing all our tees, I would suggest that tonight we strike the word the school board, replace it with superintendent, vote on it, make a note, and if it needs to be adjusted,
233we can adjust it, get it rolling for the sake of time, and if we need to substitute schoolboard back in there, then I guess we can change it again where we are. >> I would agree. >> Well, if we are willing to give Lyn a minute, she can probably >> We can do that, too. I'm in there. >> She's looking. >> I'm looking. >> Take your >> It's a lengthy. It's lengthy. Um, oh, bleeding control kit. [sighs] Okay, here we are. >> Okay, here is the exact language. Thank you for your patience. With such funds as may be provided by the general assembly for such purpose pursuant to the general appropriation act, each school board shall develop and implement a bleeding control program in each public elementary and secondary school in the local school division
234whereby the school board colon number one requires bleeding control kits. It's probably verbatim, isn't it? >> Sounds like it. >> Yeah. Um and and sometimes we'll see language that will say school board But the school board is is able to designate that responsibility. >> It that's your power to to designate that responsibility. So while it may say school board, you may say we're designating that to staff as as your authority. We I would imagine most most code that puts an onus on the board says the board, but we've got numerous policy that designate the superintendent or the CFO or yada yada yada to do X Y and Z. >> Yeah. It just it it essentially it's coming back to you to make sure this happens, >> right? I would say >> ultimately we're we're we're
235charged with making sure all these policies are >> right. >> Correct. I I I I dare say school divisions are expecting their school board to develop. It's the oversight of that development. Perhaps um you know perhaps there should have been um maybe it could have been written a little bit better but >> well nobody up here is going to charge a politician with doing >> was I was going to say >> language that isn't subjective or ambiguous >> was a good attempt >> but I would I would propose that we just substitute school board with superintendent. It's We still own it, but it puts the task on the superintendent. >> You >> Does that sound good? >> You want the original? >> What do you say? >> I'm not going to I'm not going to
236down the cross over this tonight. What do you say, Mr. Pollock? >> No, I'm going with uh what Mr. Cunningham originally said. I think that's appropriate. Um, I think we need to follow whatever state law is personally which says school board. I don't want to put a policy that is not following the state law, whatever they're doing. >> Mr. Chair. >> Yes, sir. Uh, I mean, if it's not going to hurt waiting until December, I recommend uh just rewarding it uh and and bringing it up. It'll be second read in December and we'll be able to vote on it in December. I mean, that's that's an easy fix. It's just, you know, changing some words around. I mean, very very simple and it's not going to hurt anything to wait a month. Okay, someone make
237a motion. Whatever that motion is, someone make >> I don't know what that would be. >> Um, okay. Before we make this motion, what about the other policies in here? Are we going to what are we going to do with the other ones? Are we going to say uh the other ones are good and we're table uh EB something like that? >> That's what it sounds like. >> Yeah. So, >> so is is that what the will of the board is? You want to table one? >> Get us out of here. >> So, your motion is just to table EB. >> Yeah. >> Until December. >> Exactly. >> I don't think the the end result's not going to change. >> Yeah. Here's the bottom line. Three of us >> the wording. >> Three of us
238seem to want it to read the superintendent. Two of us want it to say the school board. So, we can either motion to uh adopt this policy with a change. We can table it or we can adopt it as is. That's where we're at. But delaying it is prolonging the inevitable. I just we just do it. >> Who wants to make the motion? >> Well, then you need to pull that one up for a separate vote and then vote on all the others together. >> Okay, >> that'll work, too. >> Let's Let's do that. >> Okay. Well, that's policy EB. >> Yes. >> [sighs] >> Board, I move to adopt policies BBB, DK, EB, CB, G A D, GB L A G C L J A G and K L as presented. Second. >> Any
239discussion? It's funny. That's why no one else wanted to make the motion. [laughter] That's I jumped on that grenade. >> We have a motion. Can I get a second? >> Second. >> Any discussion? >> Miss Perkins. >> She already second. >> Okay. >> Yes, she did. >> Madam clerk. >> He's used to hearing. >> Mr. Collic. >> Yes. >> Mr. Cunningham? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Perkins? >> Yes. >> Mr. Worooster? >> Yes. >> And Mr. Marsh? Okay, Mr. Cunningham or someone. We've got BB. >> So, >> I lost B E. I'm I lost it. >> Okay, Jason. BB. >> I know. I'm tired. I've been up since quarter to 4. >> We all lost. I move to adopt policy EB with one change. Strike the word on page three that says the school board develops
240a bleeding control program and replace with the superintendent develops a bleeding control program. Second. >> Any discussion? >> Madame clerk. >> Mr. Collic. >> Yes. >> Mr. Cunningham? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Perkins? >> No. >> Mr. Worster? >> No. >> And Mr. Marsh? >> Yes. >> Mr. Marsh, on the previous mot. >> I'm sorry. on the previous motion um for the other policies, you voted yay. >> Yes. >> Okay. All right. Thanks. [clears throat] >> All right. That wasn't that bad. >> Board member comments. Miss Cunningham, >> I don't have any other than have a happy Thanksgiving everyone. Uh hopefully your families will make it home with the uh ATC problems we're having now. I guess everybody's uh or the bulk of people going to drive. Safe travels. >> Thank you, sir. Miss Perkins, >>
241Mr. Worster, >> Miss Collic, >> I am good. Thank you. >> Enjoy the >> holiday >> meeting tomorrow, sir. Uh and tomorrow night is Georgie Tyler Middle School Beta Bingo. Be there or be square. >> I'll be square. >> Meeting is adjourned.