001Alawite County School Board's in session. Madame clerk, >> Mr. Collic >> present. >> Mr. Cunningham >> present. >> Mrs. Perkins >> here. >> Mr. Worster >> present. >> And Mr. Marsh >> here. All right, Mr. Worster. >> Mr. Chair, I move to approve the agenda for close session as presented. >> Second. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? >> Hearing none. Madam clerk. >> Mr. Collic. >> Yes. >> Mr. Cunningham? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Perkins? >> Yes. >> Mr. Worster? >> Yes. >> And Mr. Marsh? >> Yes. >> Mr. Chair, I move to approve the agenda for open session as presented. >> Second. Motion in a second. Any discussion? Hearing none. Madame clerk. >> Mr. Collic. >> Yes. >> Mr. Cunningham? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Perkins? >> Yes. >> Mr. Worster? >> Yes.
002>> 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. 2-3711A1 for purposes of discussion and consideration of prospective candidates of Olive White Public Schools for employment, contract changes, transfers, salary adjustments, supplemental contracts, deletions, supplemental pay, resignations of Olive White County Public Schools employees, and to discuss a matter involving four religious exemption students that would involve the disclosure of information contained in a scholastic record concerning students as authorized by Virginia Code 2.2-3711A2 and to discuss and consider one student matter as authorized by Virginia Code 2.2-3711A2 2-3711A2 for purposes of discussion or consideration of disciplinary matters that would involve the disclosure of information contained in scholastic records concerning an
003Alawway County Public School student. >> Second motion is motion and a second. Any discussion >> hearing? None. Madam clerk, >> Mr. Collick, >> yes. >> Mr. Cunningham, >> yes. >> Mrs. Perkins, >> yes. >> Mr. Worster. >> Yes. >> And Mr. Marsh. >> Yes. Motion passes. And madam clerk, do we have anyone sign up to speak in close session? >> No, sir. >> Okay. >> All right. Am I missing anything? >> Nope. >> Close session. Alawway County School Board's in session. >> Over to you, sir. Mr. Mr. Chair, I move that the closed meeting was conducted in in conformity with the provisions of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act as required by section 2.2-3712D of the Code of Virginia and certify that only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements were discussed and
004only such public business matters as were identified in the motion by which the closed meeting was convened were heard, discussed or considered. >> Second motion and a second. Any discussion hearing? None. Madame clerk. >> Mr. Collic. >> Yes. >> Mr. Cunningham? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Perkins? >> Yes. >> Mr. Worooster? >> Yes. >> And Mr. Marsh? >> Yes. Motion passes. >> Mr. Worooster. Would everyone please stand for a moment of silence and the 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, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you, Mr. Worster. Good evening. It is September 11th, 2025, Patriot Day. We are located in Westside Elementary School for our regular monthly meeting. We'll kick it right off into
005Alawawaii achievers, Mrs. Briggs. Good evening. Um, we have with the new year, we have a new procedure we're going to roll out for is of white achievers. And what I'm going to ask at this time is if our members of the board and our student liaison would come down to the backdrop. Dr. Kramer as well, superintendent. Um, and when we recognize our students, we're actually going to have you stand behind me facing the audience, and then after we have called up your entire group or finished recognizing you, you will come over here to the backdrop, shake the hands of the board members and representatives up here, Dr. Kramer and our student representatives, and then we'll get a group picture or individual picture. um with with all of our representatives. So that's a great way that
006they can personally congratulate you for your accomplishments that you're being recognized for tonight. So we are going to start with Smithfield High School and Miss Gats is going to hand out pins for those people being recognized. They already have their certificates. So Colin, you get to start us off. Smithville High School 9th grader Colin Stevenson has been selected as a STEM student ambassador with the National Institute of Aerospaces Center for in Integrative STEM education for the 2526 academic year. Colin was chosen in June from a highly competitive pool of regional high school students for this prestigious role. As a STEM student ambassador, Colin will work to promote STEM fluency and competency across the region, sharing engaging careerline content for audiences of all ages and contributing to the development of an inclusive and collaborative STEM community.
007To prepare for his responsibilities, Colin successfully completed a rigorous hybrid training program this summer. The program included an introductory webinar on July 16th, an in-person training held uh July 21st through the 24th and a series of independent workplace readiness modules developed by the Virginia Tech workbased learning programs. While Colin is the youngest STEM student ambassador selected this year, his mentors at NIA CIS praised his professionalism, adaptability, and strong leadership skills. He played an instrumental role in planning and presenting a STEM outreach event on July 23rd which brought together scientists, engineers, and NIA staff. His ability to motivate peers and communicate science effectively stood out as hallmarks of his participation. Congratulations to you, Colin. And we'll have you come over here and just run down the row. Shake hands, please. [Applause] And in true tradition, Mr.
008David Elliot will organize everybody so we can get a wonderful photo. Yeah. Hold. There you go. Way to improvise. Beautiful. And if there's any family here that wants a photo, this is a good time. Miss Stevenson. Okay. And Miss Stevenson uh is one of our PE teachers at Smithfield Middle School this year after spending many years at Windsor Elementary. So glad to have you here. Thank you. Thank you. Congratulations, Colin. Okay, next we have some national beta winners. And what we're going to do since we have some from several schools, we're going to call all of you up. We're not just going to do it one school at a time. So, we'll get all of you up and then we'll get a picture of all of the national beta winners with our um representatives over
009here. So, National Beta members from Olive White County schools earned accolades for their exceptional accomplishments at the 25 national 2025 national beta convention in Orlando this summer. Uh, starting off, Windsor Elementary's Camden Seward impressed judges with his woodworking skills. Come on, Camden. [Applause] And he placed fifth at nationals for his entry. Um, sponsors for Windsor Elementary include Miss Stephvenson, Miss Bradshaw, and Miss White. So, please come up and join Camden. And while you're doing that, we're going to go on to Westside. Westside also had a standout presence at the National Beta Convention. Riley Joselyn earned a 10th place award in fifth grade creative writing. While Yeah. [Applause] while Max Christensen matched that finish in fifth grade social studies. [Applause] Max joined teammates Ivy Cole, Roger Flity Cross, and Annie Kate Hickerson in the convention invention
010category where their collaboration led to a sixth place ranking. [Applause] and Ary Brown now at Smithville Middle, but as a student at Westside shined in sixth grade science, earning a third place award. Yay. And we invite the Westside sponsors to join them. Miss Wy, Miss Hillyard, if they are here. I know Miss Wy is. >> Woohoo. Okay. Riley Lawrence, a freshman at Windsor High who represented Georgie Tyler Middle School, was recognized for his strong showing in eighth grade science where he finished ninth overall. I'm not sure if Riley is with us tonight. Uh the uh Beta Club sponsors are Miss Griffith, Miss Parsons, Miss Rickman, and Miss Bachmann. Um and Smithfield High also had some representation. Carter Hickerson, who represented Smithfield Middle, excuse me, secured a top 10 finish in US history, earning 10th place
011for his efforts. And I'm not sure if he's here yet. Dylan Fu Fusen, has he made it? Okay, he's coming, but he was going to be running late from Governor School for the Arts. And I'll explain to you why he's at Governor School for the Arts as a ninth grader. He captured first place in the junior performing arts solo duo trio category with a powerful piano performance of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, Third Movement, in case you were wondering. Third movement. So, as soon as Dylan's here, we're going to scoot him back up here uh to recognize him because that's pretty cool. So, these honors followed their success at the Virginia State Beta Convention where they first qualified to complee compete at the national level. The convention drew thousands of Beta members from across the country and
012this year's event welcomed over 3,000 elementary students, 5,100 junior students, junior level students, and 6,900 senior students, making it the largest national convention gathering in national Beta history. And we congratulate you guys for bringing home the bling. Congratulations. So, come on over here. We'll have you move through the line, shake everybody's hands. There you go. And then Mr. Elliot is gonna get you guys all coordinated for a photo. >> Is that Dylan? >> Dylan, come on up. Dylan. >> Oh, yep. She's Miss last. >> All right. >> And ladies and gentlemen, that's Dylan who rushed here from Governor School for the Arts. Yay. Yes. >> We good. Any parents? Photos for parents? Yep. All right. Parents are snapping photos. We all good. One more. Sorry. Come. You can come up closer. Come on. >> Come
013on. It's all good. >> It's a wonderful occasion. You're welcome. Congratulations. Well done. [Applause] All right. >> You are dismissed. >> Thank you. I thought that went well. Are we done? >> We're done. >> Okay. >> I got to do introductions now. >> so Mr. Chair, although this is not Alawite Achievers, I would like to introduce some new administrators that we have um on board, either new to Alawite County Schools or in new roles for the year. They are in the audience and I've asked them to please stand when I call their name and to stay standing while I read to you some information about them. So we are going to first start with Lori White. So Lori, yay. Lori joined the division in March as director of secondary education. So she's been with us
014for a few months. She holds a master's degree in special education from Regent University and is a two-time graduate of the University of Virginia, earning a bachelor's degree in psychology and an educational specialist degree in educational administration. White served in her hometown with Suffach public schools for 22 years as a special education teacher, compliance specialist, and data specialist, as well as an assistant principal and principal at both the elementary and secondary levels. She most recently was the principal of Lakeland High School. White resides in Suffach with her husband and twin do twin daughters. Actually, they are now freshman at Longwood University, so she's empty nesting at the moment. Um, but we are delighted to have Lori White with us. Thank you. With nearly 30 years in public education, we welcome Tena Thornton as the new
015assistant principal at Hardy Elementary School. Know she's back there. Her extensive background includes roles as a teacher, instructional spe specialist, excuse me, principal, and most recently lead assistant principal at Franklin High School. She holds advanced degrees in educational leadership and urban education as well as multiple Virginia license licenses. And we are delighted to have Miss Thornton with us. Yay. [Applause] Next is Sarah Bachmann. Sarah, who is a proud graduate of Isle of White County Schools, is the new assistant principal at Georgie D. Tyler Middle School. Over the past 12 years, Sarah has served the division in various roles, including teacher, administrative aid, and most recently instructional coach at Georgie Tyler Middle School. She holds advanced degrees in educational leadership, teaching, and psychology along with Virginia lensure in administration and supervision pre-K12 and elementary education prek
016through six. And we congratulate you, Sarah, on your new role. [Applause] Also a graduate from our school division, we have Mr. Matt Summit, who is the new assistant principal at Smithville Middle School. He previously Yeah, go ahead and applaud. That's good. He previously served as assistant principal at Hardy Elementary. Prior to his administrative role, he taught music at Carolton Elementary and served as a teacher at an achievable dream academy in Newport News. Mr. Summit also served four years in the United States Navy before pursuing his passion for education. He holds a bachelor of music in jazz studies from Chris Christopher Newport University and a bachelor of arts in US history from Arizona State University. He later earned a master of education in educational leadership and policy studies from Virginia Tech. Congratulations on your new role,
017Mr. Summit. And we have another Navy veteran with us. Uh, in support of our continued commitment to strong fiscal stewardship, the division welcomed Connie Edins as an accountant within the finance department. I think Miss Darius is Have you seen Miss Dvary smile that that big? There we go. Uh, Miss Edins brings over 17 years of experience in financial management, having served as a senior accountant and cost analyst in both government and private sectors. She has led accounting teams, managed complex financial reports, conducted audits, and overseen budget development and grant reporting. Miss Edins holds a master's degree in business administration with a concentration in accounting from St. Leo University. And she spent 20 years in the Navy and retired as a Oh, I got interrupted. First class electronics technician. >> Electronics technician. Sorry, I got distracted.
018And we welcome Miss Edins. And with that, yes, congratulations to all. Thank you very much. May I make a comment, Mr. Chair? These are some really talented individuals. We're very fortunate to have them all. So, please, another well-deserved round of applause for our new staff members. Thank you. And it's apparent the Navyy's running deep in Alawway County schools. >> All right, madame clerk, do we have any speakers this evening? >> Yes, sir. >> Over to you, dear. >> 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 speak will be permitted four minutes maximum time for their presentation. Delegations will be requested to limit their speakers to two. Persons
019speaking 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 schoolboard only in a closed meeting. And first we have Miss Lydia Schaefer. Hi. Good. Okay. Good evening. My name is Lydia Schaefer and I'm the parent of a Carolton Elementary student. I want to begin by thanking you all as well as law enforcement and staff for the way the situation at Carolton Elementary was handled in June when a threat was called in. I will never forget the fear I felt as a parent that day. But I also remember how quickly and professionally it was
020resolved and I'm so grateful for that. I'm also thankful that is of White has an SRO in every school. This gives parents like me tremendous peace of mind and shows real commitment to safety. But at the same time, I have to ask, why do our elementary schools not yet have the same level of weapons detection devices as our middle and high schools? We already know these devices work. In June at Smithfield High, a student was stopped for bringing from bringing a gun into school because of the detectors. And only weeks before that, during the second grade concert at Carlton Elementary, a parent was charged with bringing a firearm into the building. That reality is terrifying and it proves that being buzzed in at the front door is not enough. Threats can come from both outside
021and inside. I've also heard from parents and staff who say the detectors at the high school are not being used consistently. Students who arrive late walk in without scanning, visitors and delivery drivers come and go unchecked, and certain programs bypass the detectors altogether. These gaps leave dangerous openings that undermine the very reason the equipment is there. And this is not just a local issue. It's a nationwide crisis. As we all know, just down the road in Newport News, a teacher was shot by her own first grader. Only after that tragedy were detectors placed in every school. Suffach has also acted. And just last week, two other Hampton Road cities had students bring firearms onto school grounds. Yesterday, Evergreen High School in Colorado saw another shooting. And also yesterday, Charlie Kirk, someone I knew personally and
022worked with as an ambassador for Turning Point USA, was shot and killed on a school campus witnesses say didn't have detectors. These tragedies remind us that this problem is not going away. It is escalating. It is happening in the blink of an eye. And the question every leader must ask is, if something happens here, can you live knowing that more could have been done? I understand that there are challenges, funding, staffing, training, but I also know the goal has been stated clearly, detectors in every of white school. If we agree on the goal, the only question is when. The FY2026 budget shows this division is working with over $und00 million. We've already secured $217,000 for Georgie Tyler Middle School through a state grant. Proof that funding is out there. If we can do it for
023one school, we can do it for all. especially for our elementary schools where children are most vulnerable. Our youngest students are the least able to protect themselves. If we believe our high school and middle school students deserve this protection, surely our elementary children do as well. Today, fewer than 2% of elementary schools nationwide use metal detectors. That's not acceptable when we know that they work. I'm not here to simply point out a problem. I want to be part of the solution. This board should pursue every funding avenue. state and federal grants, public private partnerships, even community fundraising. Parents like myself are ready to help. I'm also working at a broader level to push for more consistent state funding so safety doesn't depend on the county you live in. So tonight, I respectfully ask, can this
024board commit to a clear timeline for when detectors will be in place at every school, including our elementary schools? Because while we can debate budgets, staffing, and logistics, what we cannot debate is the value of a child's life. This is bigger than one parent speaking. This is about our community deciding what kind of example we want to set. Is white can wait or white can lead. Thank you for your time and for your commitment to the safety of our children. >> Greg Brown. Good evening. To begin with, I'd just like to acknowledge that we have a very good school system here in Isle of White. We certainly have our challenges, but our status as one of the best systems in Hampton Roads is demonstrated by the excellent showing by our students at the National Beta
025Convention as well as the recently released so scores. So, thank you Dr. Kramer, board, and the board of supervisors for the support and getting that done. That being said, there are still areas that we should be improving upon and we are in constant competition with surrounding areas to attract and retain the skilled personnel we need to run our system. To address the second point first, there's a significant pay gap between the Isawite pay scale and the pay scales of the neighboring school districts. Uh, I took a look at several of them and at any level of experience I could find on the charts, a teacher could earn anywhere from 3,000 to nearly $8,000 more by moving from our school system to any of Newport News, SUFFK, or Hampton. Uh, and I didn't compare this, but
026just going by the discussion on the comp the benefit package in healthcare at the budgeting, it doesn't sound like we're at the top of the heap in that area either. Um, additionally, I'd just like to point out that a couple recent policy changes over the last couple years, such as revisions to the controversial material policy were adopted over the objections of teachers in Isle of White County. So, we can't necessarily argue that teachers have the full trust and confidence of the school board. As far as areas of improvement go, transportation is going to be a constant need until we can clear the backlog of aging vehicles. Uh, I'd like to thank the school board and the board of supervisors for committing to buy another five school buses this year, but that is something we are
027going to need to keep doing every year until we can get the overall age of our fleet down to a reasonable level. Um, even this early in the school year, since I'm on reminds at a couple different schools now, I've seen multiple bus changes every day. And I know the transportation department is doing the best they can, but hopefully we're achieving enough capacity with both operational buses and with bus drivers to handle day-to-day challenges without having to resort to doubling up buses or doing double back routes. That adds just huge amounts of time. Uh, I'd also like to mention that I've heard or read on social media several questions this year about the availability of transportation for students engaged in afterchool activities. Uh, I think we are taking some steps to try to provide that.
028Uh, but I just wanted to let everybody know like that desire is out there for there to be a transportation option for kids engaged in after school clubs or after school sports. And if we can provide that, it will allow students to participate in those events that otherwise would not be able to. Like even if you have a parent at home with multiple kids, it's hard to get to schools and pick kids up at the right times. So I know it's a lot to handle. I have confidence you all will work on it. Thank you very much. I appreciate your time, Mr. Ozel. Well, well, well. Good evening, board members, Michael District. Uh, hope all has been well since the last time I've been here with y'all. Hope you all had a good summer and
029things like that. Um, and I'm going go with I have um, first of all, I say I got a list of staff people that I want to meet uh, at some point. I'm going hand this to Le Miss Liam Briggs, but she seemed like she had left. So, I'm going to give Mr. Dr. Coleman there for me to uh, talk with those peoples uh, concerning some school issues. I don't know if y'all noticed that, but the Oslac County has put together a commission with adult with disability and I'm on I'm on that board there. Uh we have representative from every district besides the Cville's district. So we're looking for anybody in Cville's district to uh participate in that special ed, adult special ed that Mr. Kramer has he about this thing. Uh, also I have
030some flyers here that I we just had printed out and to give each one of y'all to give you a little summary of what's been taking place. And this will go corresponds with the school special aid committed to as well because we found out that once a student come out of school that has a special needs, there's nothing out here for them to really participate in in the county. So, we have put together a team to help try to solve that problem and uh I will be contacting uh some other of you on that issue. But hoping that we can get some of y'all to come to some of our meeting just to see what we all about. Get some input even though citizens out here as well cuz like I said the program is
031fairly new and we is trying to cover most of all the areas that we can cover for adults with disability even the student with disability because they work hand in hand. Uh because once this child come out of school then they have a challenge then we want to be able to continue to helping that child through the services. Uh, nevertheless, uh, that's about all I got today. But as like I say, uh, thank all of y'all to, you know, just doing what you're doing. And I want to, if I don't get a chance to welcome the newcomers oneonone, I want to welcome all of you aboard. Okay. And, uh, I thank you for your time. >> That's it, Mr. Marsh. >> Thank you, Mr. Ozel. It's good to see you, sir. >> Thank you. Mr.
032Brown, Mrs. Schaefer, I'd ask that you you two not depart to pattern or at least watch the recording later on because I believe much of what most of you said will be discussed at some point this evening. All right, that takes us over to and we're good to go there, Miss Willow. Student liaison. Cameron, ladies first. >> Uh, good afternoon, school board. Uh, we're just starting back with a new school year. On Tuesday, September 3rd at Smithfield High School, students returned back for the 2025 to26 school year. With this return to school, we also saw the return of a number of different policies. Uh we're continuing with our attendance policy from last year, which holds that should a student accumulate more than five excused or unexcused absences, they will forego their exemption from taking the
033exam for said course. Additionally, this year SHS is continuing in their compliance with Governor Yncan's executive order 33 or phone policy as we typically know it. Uh like last year, a first offense will warrant a warning from a teacher. A second offense in the students device being held until the end of the day. A third in it being held until 3 p.m. and only recoverable if the student's parent should come in and take it for it to be recovered. And then the fourth will result in parent conference. and a fifth attempt offense if it should reach that level would result like last year in the student being subject to additional disciplinary action which there's no specific definition for that but it's mostly interpreted to mean OSS or out of school suspension. Uh in addition to
034this uh we don't really have much trouble with either of these issues. Uh like with last year, there's not many students going against the phone policy and our attendance policy seems to be in working because we're not seeing a lot of absences or anything like that. Uh like with the return of last year's attendance policy and the continuation of our compliance with the phone policy, we're also seeing the return of our weapons detection systems from last year. Uh introduced in March of 2025, these weapons detection systems were implemented at Smithfield High School and Windsor High School. at Smithfield with two of them being in the front of the building and the other two being in the back where the buses are. Uh with them opening at 7:10 and then students entering the building, etc. The
035only issue that we're really seeing with these weapons detection systems is just we've kind of fell back from where we were last year. We'd kind of hit a groove and everything was going smoothly and there was less of a time gap for students getting to class because it was organized and there was a system to it. But now we're reaching a point where we've kind of gone backwards with the new freshman coming in and it takes a little longer because everyone's just hurdled. There's not really any two straight lines. And so I think that's an issue that will resolve itself with time. But that's really the only issue we're seeing. Aside from that, everything has been successful with us returning this school year and there's really no issues and all is going well at Smithfield
036High School. So, yep. >> Thanks Cameron. [Music] Thank you. >> Thank you very very much for that Cameron. Very thorough explanation on the policies. Nicely done. Regarding the weapons detection system and that process, I think some of that is to be expected at the very beginning of the school year. Um certainly things that we're talking about and we'll be discussing a bit further this evening. Uh so we'll continue to monitor that and making certain that we're getting students in as efficiently um as possible. But yes, I think you're right that first week, first week and a half of school, it's just going to take some time to work through some of the kinks. Um, so and again, we'll be talking more about some of the other uh efforts and initiatives we'll be putting in place
037to ensure that those systems are working and are being operated throughout the day as well. You didn't speak to that, Cole did the last time, so that's something that we will be addressing later this evening. Thank you. Thanks, Doc. Anybody else? >> All right, Cole, you're up. >> Thank you. Uh not to brag on Windsor and not to shame on Smithfield, but but uh our weapons detect uh detection uh system is doing good. Uh no problems. We're in and out. Uh and we're getting to class before the tardy bill, so I think that's all good for Windsor. Uh good evening everyone. Uh tonight may be a little bit longer, but I would like to make sure everyone is acknowledged for their hard work so far this year. First, I would like to thank the board
038again for selecting me uh to represent the Winter Dukes. It is a true honor for me. Throughout almost two full weeks of school, the Dukes have come out strong. The winter football team is 2 and 0 and playing Middle Sex tomorrow night. The Duke's volleyball team is also standing at 2 and 0 and are currently playing Appamatics at the castle. The cross country team took their opening district meet in a sweep, ranking as the first team overall for boys and third overall for girls. The reigning class 2 champion Duke's golf team is 8-0 undefeated and is still I mean excuse me and is defending their title in September at Sleepy Hole Golf Course. Windsor High School's homecoming is scheduled for October 4th with yours truly um on the homecoming court and we are all excited
039to have a great time at Windsor High at Windsor High's opening house. 24 backpacks filled with supplies for students were donated. So thank you all to who did that for our students and our community. Winter Student Booster Club has worked very hard making theme nights for our football and volleyball games. So, thanks to the Student Booster Club. I would also like to shout out teachers and students countywide who have worked so hard and continued working hard improving test scores and excelling beyond testing standards. More specifically, IWS students outperformed the state by eight percentage points in mathematics. So, congratulations to students and staff who worked hard for all of these results. The first two weeks of school have been successful and the Dukes are excited for the rest of the year. Thank you all for your
040time. >> Thanks, Cole. >> Thank you, Cole. And in Cameron's defense at Smithfield, they are a little bit larger than you all, so it's probably taking them a little bit more time. Just a little bit. Uh, nicely done as well, Cole. And congratulations to your Dukes. You guys are doing well. Two and0 the football team. >> Excellent. Let's go for three and 0 this week. >> Thank you. All right, we'll move right along. Um, and as we progress through the agenda here, Cameron Cole, it's a school night, so when you get to a point where you're ready to pull it, get up at your discretion. It's a school night, so not running you off. Just it's up to you. Uh, so that moves us into 14.1. That's bullying bullying prevention month. We've got a resolution
041up. It's an action item. Um, >> thank you. Uh, Miss Briggs is actually under the weather and I think, uh, is that with the summer sketch? >> Yes. >> Thank you, Mrs. K. >> Yes, I I think we Yes. Um, so October is uh bullying prevention month. So, we have a proclamation before you. Um, this is for action for you to approve. >> Okay. >> Do we want to read the proclamation? >> No. Okay. You have it before you. I don't know if you >> I think we're good. We're all looking at it. It's on board docs if anybody wants to see it. >> Certainly, no one up here condones bullying in any form or fashion. >> No, we do not. >> Entertain a motion. Yes, sir. >> Mr. Chair, I move to approve res
042recognizing October as bullying prevention month throughout Alawway County Schools. >> Second. >> Motion in a second. Any discussion? >> Hearing none. Madame clerk. >> Mr. Collic. >> Yes. >> Mr. Cunningham? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Perkins? >> Yes. >> Mr. Worster? >> Yes. >> And Mr. Marsh? >> Yes. Motion passes. We appreciate y'all putting that together. And that moves us to 14.2. to Georgie Tyler Middle School parking and Suffach Transit Park and Ride. Mrs. Oliver and Dr. Coleman, >> Mr. Chair, school board members, Dr. Kramer. Today we have Miss Jamie Oliver here with us and she's going to go in a little bit of detail concerning the Georgie Middle School Georgie DTER Middle School parking spaces, but more into detail about the Suffach Transit Park and Ride that she's been working on a project for a
043little bit over two years. Where are you, Miss Oliver? You got >> push the button. There we go. Good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of the board. I'm Jamie Oliver, county director of transportation. This is a project that we got a grant fund funding for with the city of Suffach approximately two years ago. We're going to be doing a pilot um transit program where we'll be running a bus route from the city of Suffach downtown through the OBC Health Center and then through Windsor and then looping back to Suffach. It'll be running approximately four times a day to try and serve commuters through the Windsor area into some of the services that are in Suffach. Hopefully, the route is going to start sometime this winter after the new year. Um, once the buses come in, we're
044looking at two stops in the county. One will be in Shirley T. Holland over between Cure Egg and the new 460 Commerce Center that's under construction on Gualtne Way. And the other location that we're looking at is somewhere in this location in the court street near Windsor Community Center. So what the county would like is the school board's concurrence to use up to four parking spaces at the corner of the lot at Georgia D. Tyler to be converted into what would function as park and ride spaces to serve a bus stop, which would be put right there on Court Street itself. If we could flip to the next slide, what you can see here is right there at the corner of the entrance, we have an existing sidewalk there that we'll be putting the bus
045shelter at. The bus itself would not enter the parking lot. We think that's a particularly important feature of having it at this location. That way, pedestrians can access the bus shelter and the bus does not have to go through either the community center or the school parking lot to be accessible. And then we would be able to convert that just those four spaces into possibly one or two regular spaces and one fully accessible ADA handicap space. People could park their car there, catch the bus, and then come back to their car that's parked there. This would not be a 24-hour lot. The bus, like I said, would run four loops a day for the pilot um program. And then as we've spoken with the school district, we're certainly completely amendable and have the same standards
046for any type of regulations in the parking lot as far as what we accept for behavior and expectations for drug-free location um and all the other standards that the school holds for public safety in that location. And we would also put up signage as far as no overnight parking, that sort of thing. It's the same public facility as anything else that the county uses. because you mentioned signs and it is school property um along with drug free maybe weapons free >> weapons free >> I'm I would assume that most people understand that but it's I wouldn't want to assume anything so >> we're certainly glad to coordinate any signage we'll be putting the actual bus stop like transit stop sign out in the public rideway way. Um, and we can put the uh park and
047ride location and no overnight parking um in the rightway as well, but we can certainly coordinate with your staff to put up whatever um safety and acceptable usage signage that you would like. >> And that's a good point. Not only we're going to reinforce that this type of signage is there, but also at every school. this is time for us to do a a nice audit across every school to ensure that that same signage is at every parking lot. So, thank you. >> Correct. Your policies are the same as county property policies. So, >> for the listening audience, are there any concerns from the school's perspective about giving up a few parking spots? I know parking's pretty chaotic over there when >> if there's an event going on or someone's running out the auditorium or
048the the >> the kids are playing football out there. It gets crazy, >> right? Um those four parking spots that we're speaking of, those four are actually occupied by our cars, our county cars most times and there'll be plenty of parking there that does not need those force parking parking spaces. Now when there is little league football and different events of that nature there, it does get very crowded there. But at the same time, that is not a daily issue. So the four spaces will be fine. >> And we are also more than open to re-evaluating the location of the actual park and ride spaces. The bus stop itself will stay in that location, of course. But we're more than open to re-evaluating the location of the spaces themselves as that location builds out because
049I know there's conversations about whether or not another ball field goes there, whether or not the library goes there with parking. As any changes occur at that location or even if the parking lot itself is expanded at the community center, we can certainly re-evaluate. Um, one of the reasons we're looking at that location is because there's very little actual investment needed. The infrastructure is already there. It's just restriping. So, we can always re-evaluate if we need to down the road. >> Comments from the board. >> Yeah, I've got one question. Is is this more of like a pilot um run this bus system or >> It is. So the funding that we have will help us put up the actual the two shelters, create the stops, and then it will also purchase two buses to
050run the pilot program. We have operational expenses for 2 years. So hopefully the pilot program will be able to show us a success rate that allows us to continue in cooperation with the city of Suffach. Um but at the moment it is only considered a pilot run. >> Okay. Yeah. My concern is that I don't go over there often, but when I do, it's usually very limited parking in there. So, that's the biggest concern that I have um with doing this. This is a rare occasion. I we'll only have one question for this topic. Um my I'm pretty much mirroring Mr. Coll's aspect here. My question is will this have any impact on current parking needs or student loading, unloading or parent pickup and drop off? The parent pickup and drop off is literally in
051front of the school. This is near closer to the road. So I do not see it having an issue. Now if there's a line forming, I mean lines will form and traffic will back up. That's at every school system that we have. So those four parking spaces, I do not see that those four parking spaces are going to cause a dilemma in the current operations as we know of at this time. Now, if we were getting into a situation where now it's turning into 10, 15, 20, now that's a conversation I can go back and have and have with the board to let you know, but at this time it's only designated four parking spaces. Just FYI. And I would say as well that we have coordinated closely with SUFFK Transit and explained to them
052that it's very important that we try to avoid the arrival half hour to 45 minutes and the dismissal half hour to 45 minutes. They've sent us a preliminary um route timetable which definitely avoids those periods. It's not finalized, but they are completely on board with that. It's in their best interest from an efficiency standpoint to not be in the area for those periods as well. So, it is also our goal really to not be in that car line at all either. >> Yes, sir. >> I have a question on uh if we find out that the four parking spaces are not enough. Uh where will the people park? I mean, you know, cuz the school's right there. They're going to take some of our parking spots, the teachers or the students parking spots. I mean,
053we need to think about that. Has anybody thought about that? >> So, what a great problem to have that we have so many people to ride the bus, we don't know where they'll park. Um, I I think we would have to re-evaluate at that time about expanding the parking lot to suit that because I think if we were to grow beyond four spaces, then we would need to look at dedicated parking for this use. And I think at that point we would have to look at where we were generating those users from and possibly that the parking needs to be closer to where they're at because I don't feel like the school is going to be generating those users. They're going to be coming from somewhere else and parking at that location. So perhaps we
054need to look at expanding the parking possibly at the community center or adding parking at the vacant land that's nearby. But if it goes beyond the four spaces and we find that we need more room, I think we need to re-evaluate where we need to put that because I don't think expanding where it's at there would necessarily be the right answer in that case. >> But that is an exciting problem to contemplate. >> Yeah. Yeah. Because I'm thinking once people find out uh this service is going to be available and they start telling their friends, "Oh, this is great. You know, we don't have to drive. We can just catch the bus." whatever the case may be, more people are going to want to do it, but then we don't have anywhere for them to
055park. >> Correct. And we've really thought too that serving the community center is is kind of a a primary goal of the stop being in this location. Serving the town in general with the pedestrian access that it has there, but serving the community center users as well. I just think at this time the parking lot is not particularly set up for the buses cutting through to access that location. So I think again as we develop that cluster of use right there, if we look at how we access that site through the parking lot, if we can improve that again, it might be that we move this footprint somewhere else. >> Okay, thank you. >> Will this um add any security issues for the school at all? Do we have any concerns for safety security with
056this? The conversation that I had with Miss Oliver is security concerns will be the cars that are left there and the number of cars as Mr. Cunningham has alluded to. So the security of cars being left there and uh of course the signs out of what's left in those cars, not saying that something will be left in those cars, but what's left in those cars. But once again, that's us guessing at something that has not occurred. maybe occur, maybe not occur, but just guessing that would be the security concern. Mr. Chair, I do have one more question. >> Yes, sir. Go ahead. >> What is the date that um we're trying to kick this off? >> So, at this point, it's partly depending on when the buses that we've ordered actually come in. I think
057our current date is somewhere around February or March. >> Mr. Chair, I'd like to table this um and really let's go look at the parking lot during some peak hours to see, you know, if if we can sustain this. Um I I don't think we should vote on tonight. >> Have has that already been accomplished? >> Has what already been accomplished? >> Have you already been over there during peak hours to assess it? Yes, but I can go over I can take pictures so everyone can get a better understanding from what I've seen. I can talk more with the principal at peak hours and you know I can follow back up whatever that the school board wish for this uh particular uh project. Is that the will of the board? I mean I'm I'm I'm
058personally I'm good with it. It's a pilot. Um, if the pilot doesn't work, we could certainly revisit. >> I think it's a good idea. I I just I'm not convinced that's the right place for it. I'd like to, you know, I'm going to drive over there and take a look during school hours uh on several different days um to see what's going on there and what's going on at the Windsor Town Center as far as parking goes. um if we table this and I think that just gives us a better idea and then we'll be more comfortable whichever way we go for whatever it's worth. I I drive by there twice a day. I would say that the town center for the most part is pretty empty. Uh the exception to that is when um
059there's an event going on the uh and this little sports the name of the football team slips me right now. When the football kids are out there playing it gets pretty hectic. Uh when someone's renting the town center then parking gets tight. Um but by far and large on a normal basis there's plenty of parking over there. Um, and certainly during pickup and drop off, like I pick up and drop off my daughter over there. That's the exception, right? So, everybody's jammed in there. >> Um, because you got two rows of cars driving through the parking lot, >> right? >> So, whatever the will of the board, I'm of the opinion that we let the pilot go, see how it works. Um, I think the idea is to target the senior community >> so that
060we can transport senior citizens down to the oversee and whatnot. >> Yeah, I I think we've got the time. Okay. Um, we've got a couple months and I think we can revisit this next month with ease. So, I you know, Mr. Chair, I'd like to make a motion to go ahead and table this until the next meeting. >> Do we have the time? >> Okay. >> Mr. Chair, I'll second that as well. We got a >> and just one more comment. Um, can you just repeat that? >> Sure. I would I would say that we certainly have time for one more month of consideration, but we do still have to actually put the bus shelter in place before the route starts. You know, we don't have concrete port or anything out there. So, I would
061ask that, you know, if it does get tabled that we can plan on taking action within the next month. >> I think that's fair. Yeah. Okay. >> We got a motion and a second. Any other discussion? Madam clerk, take a vote, please. Dear, >> Mr. Collic, >> yes. >> Mr. Cunningham, >> yes. >> Mrs. Perkins, >> yes. >> Mr. Worster, >> yes. >> And Mr. Marsh, >> yes. >> So, we'll revisit that. >> October. >> Thank you, Mr. Aliv. Take a quick five minute recess for bathroom break. Go That's on hold. Very good. Yep. Ready to go. >> We're back in session. >> 143, Mr. Brinkley. >> All right. Board chair, school board members, Dr. Kramer, school safety officers. We'd like to discuss tonight the status of the school safety officers in Alawite at this
062time. Um there's been a lot of talk. I think uh one of the student liaison pointed this out before um getting the the school safety officers in the school and the things that they're doing in the school, the more powerful uh working with the students and also working with the weapons detection system. And Mr. Mr. Brinkley is going to talk a little bit more about what they're doing in the school and the changes that we've made this year with the school safety officers as it relates to the weapon detection system. >> Good evening board members, Chairman Marsh, Dr. Kramer. Uh wanted to just kind of go into our proposal for what we're what we are proposing for additional school security officers uh and the role that they play in the weapons detection system. We heard
063our liaison tonight talking about how things are going at the schools. Uh and obviously at the at the beginning of the year, we expected to have some some delays versus where we were at the end of the school year last year. Uh one of the big things that we've one of the biggest complaints that we have heard uh for the weapons detection system is them not being run and not being manned all throughout the day uh to account for late arrivals, visitors, deliveries, things such as that that are coming into the schools. Uh and one issue that we face with that is the staffing to do that. We we utilize a lot of teachers. Uh obviously our administrators are are manning these systems in the morning and we have made changes as as a result
064of our incident from from this past year. We're trying to get away from teachers being the ones to do these these bag searches. Uh we would like to have the security personnel and the administrators only doing that. So we have transitioned into that this year. Uh and it has proven to be be very effective. Uh but with that being said, obviously with the the volume of students that we have at at Smithfield High School and and and all of the other schools, it the staffing becomes an issue when we're looking at manning that system all throughout the day. Uh right now we are keeping the system running all throughout the day at Smithfield High School. Uh we just have the ability to do that there right now. Uh but the proposal that we're looking at
065is utilizing a contract security company. Uh and this in doing this we are looking to add seven school security officers to our division. Uh this would include one SSO at Smithfield High School, one SSO at Windsor High School. uh in addition to the ones that we already have. Uh as you all know, purchased out of the capital improvement plan for this year, we have just purchased the weapons detection systems for the middle schools. Uh so moving forward with the gaps that we've seen as we've as we've rolled these out at the high schools. Uh in order to fill these gaps in staffing, these additional personnel are are much needed. So, at Smithfield Middle School, we're looking at adding two school security officers, two at Georgie Tyler Middle School, and then one divisionwide lead or a
066rove position. This rove position, what that would allow us to do in the absence of any of our other SSOs, we don't have those gaps. Uh, this person would be able to float throughout the division and fill in those gaps if they were out due to illness, training, different things like that. So, this would give us that row of position to to fill in those gaps. Um, and I I I can tell you in just in talking to the administrators, the the SSOs that we have right now have proven to be very effective, not only with increasing the safety patrols, helping with the weapons detection systems, but also in in just building relationships with students and being being a positive mentor in in that role as well. Um, one of the issues that we did
067face uh when we got the initial three positions was uh filling these positions. Um, we we did have some struggles getting qualified applicants and finding someone qualified to to fill these roles. Uh, so that is one of the reasons that we're look looking at going into this contract security and I'll let Dr. Coleman talk more about that as far as the contract security goes. >> Do Mr. Brinkley, before we go any further, give us a little background and refresh the board's memory and the listening audience. So, today we have funded positions for SSOs at which schools and how many? >> We have two positions at Smithfield High School that are that are which are both filled currently. We have one position for an SSO at Windsor High School which is also currently filled >> and
068no one else. >> That's it. And if memory serves, last year, one of the items requested was additional SSOs and it didn't make the cut, >> right? >> Yes. >> Okay. I just wanted to make sure everybody was squared away on that. And so you're asking for seven more. And tell me again where those sevens are going. Smithfield High School, you want >> one additional at Smithfield High School, one additional at Windsor High School, two at Smithfield Middle School, which they currently have none, two at Georgie Tyler Middle School, which currently have none. And then it would be the one divisionwide lead or rove position. Got it. Thank you, Mr. Brinkley. I do know that one SSO moved and I believe another I could be wrong on this one. I think there was two that
069left. What happened to those positions? Were they filled or are they still vacant? >> The position was filled. Uh we had one that left from Smithfield High School. That position was filled. Uh and then we've actually had two that have been hired and left from from Windsor High School, but that position has also been filled. >> Okay. Thank you. >> And with the conversation concerning the field, when those SSOs do leave the division, there's going to be a time period before you can feel those SSOs. But at the same time while they are not in the division uh operating must go on the daily operating must go on with the weapons detection systems and items of that nature when using an outside agency and there's several national organizations that we looked at in order to
070do this. First thing we did was look at who's operating in Virginia at this time. What national organizations are large enough to staff and operate in Virginia at this time? what are other school divisions doing? So, we researched the other school divisions in there and then of course we went through DCJS. We looked at what organizations outside uh uh in various counties in Virginia have uh have operated under DCJS, meaning individuals being trained by DCJS. Uh one thing that Mr. Brinkley assures is that all of the SSOs that come to Alawite are fully trained through DCJS. So what outside company can actually provide those with all of the training needed and also which company can provide uh SSO at the last second personnel issue occurs and one of the SSOs have to leave and we
071need one tomorrow who can provide those SSOs fully certified ready to go. So one thing that we looked at is um once again the outside vendor now getting into when do we need the SSOs? We need the SSOs when staff and students are here. So, uh, looking at hiring and then at the same time outside vendor, we're looking at 12 month contracts and eight-month contracts. So, using outside agency once again, we can really focus on the eight-month contracts. We really don't have to pay an individual to be here over Thanksgiving break or over Christmas break or over spring break in uh, areas like that. And I also want to point out, Mr. Brinkley uh has stated that there is a lead involved. We have the SSOs are there. There's a lead. There will be a
072lead to consolidate everyone's time sheets to make sure that everyone is doing the right thing to make sure everyone is uh has a point of contact. But at the same time, the lead is boots on ground. The lead will be utilized wherever we need the lead to be utilized. It's not a position where he just sits in the office. He or she just sits in office or something of that nature. their boots on ground and they're working out um they're working right alongside where we need them in the division. So that'll give you a little insight on the different companies that we've been looking at, talking to, discussing with uh concerning moving forward. >> Can I and one of our one of our concerns as we move forward with with vetting some of these security
073companies is we know that the security officers that we have in our schools, we need consistency for our students. We don't need to we don't need to have one security officer there one day and then somebody completely different there the next day. Um so that is one of the things that we have looked at when we've been vetting these companies is that we will have that consistency. We will have the same person in the buildings day after day so that they can build those relationships get to know the students get to know the staff so that we so that they're able to form a a cohesive work environment. Uh so that is one of the things and as Dr. Dr. Coleman mentioned uh most of the the reputable companies provide their security officers with the
074DCJS school security officer certification uh which is a it's a two-day course but it goes through a lot of the legals uh on what they can and cannot do their roles uh what what their capabilities are. Uh, so they actually have trainers for these companies that that train all their staff to the DCJS standards. So we don't have to worry about about that either. They're already trained up to the DCJS standards. >> With that said, um, are there any questions concerning information? >> Mr. Cunningham, go ahead, sir. Uh Dr. uh Coleman, I I know people are wondering what's what's the cost going to be. I mean, that's uh that's one thing. We know we need them, >> but we need to know how much it's going to cost because we're going to have to take
075this to the board of supervisors and try to get the money. >> Well, if if I may, Dr. Coleman, so for this year, sir, we will not go to the board of supervisors. We have worked with uh our CFO and we are committed to identifying the funds for this current school year. So we will find the funds. This is important enough for us to find the funds whether it's through uh vacancy savings, whether it's through us reallocating resources. Uh but the school division will identify the funds for this current school year. Now, as we have budget discussions for fiscal 2627, yes, that will be a discussion about where we um going to the board of supervisors or me as superintendent asking for that >> in my uh proposed budget. But for the current year, we
076will I'm committed to working with uh the CFO, Mrs. Severi, and our staff to identify the funds. Just wanted to make that clear. >> Okay. All right. And that's that's what I wanted the audience to hear because we've already discussed that. But you know, people are saying, "Well, you know, how much is that going to cost?" I'm not worried about the cost. >> I'm worried about protecting the kids, protecting the staff, protecting everybody in the school. So the cost, you know, we're figure it out. But you gave me the answer that I wanted the audience to hear because a lot of people who don't have kids in the schools, who don't have relatives working in the schools, they're going to have to, you know, they're thinking, well, what is this going to cost in the
077future? But thank you. >> Absolutely. And thank you for the question. And I think you said it well. The cost is certainly secondary to the life of a child or a staff member. So, thank you for the question. But, uh, I think we can provide, um, cost and look at what that would cost relative to actually hiring, uh, if we were to do that. So, I think Dr. Coleman does have a quote uh, for what each position would be. If you could share that, sir. >> Right. And the overall cost for these seven SSOs will be 305,000. That is for seven uh, DCJS trained uh, SSOs. the 305,000 there >> and approximately per um per position what would that be? >> It was uh 40,000 per position and 60,000 for the lead if I'm not
078mistaken here. >> Say it again, Doc. I can't hear you. >> It was 305,000 overall and I think it was 40,000. I have to look at my notes very quickly. 40,000 for each officer and 60,000 for the lead. And and to be clear, we're not adding positions. You're asking not you're not asking to add seven positions. You're asking to purchase contracted services. That equates to seven positions. >> Yes, sir. That is correct. >> I think that's important to point out. We're not adding seven positions and I think you guys have covered this well. Mr. Cunningham nailed it. So you you have to stroke the check, right? >> And due in large part to that nice lady right there, Miss Derry, we ended up with a roughly $2 million. >> She'll be sharing that later as
079well. >> We'll get into the numbers a bit later. But between the the excesses that we found which were by large part rolled into our healthc care fund were mainly due to unfilled positions. Again this year we've started out with some unfilled positions and coupled that with Mr. Collic and Mrs. Perkins initiative for the fiscal efficacy working group. I think we're in a good spot if we can identify these funds and >> make it happen and and certainly there'll be work to do as we roll into the budget season for next year. But >> yes, I think you're correct, sir. >> Mr. Coll, you had something. >> Yeah, just to get some clarification. So, I heard two different things as far as the training goes. Um, I heard first that they were trained to the
080DCJS standards by their employer, but I think I also heard they are trained by DCJS, which which is correct. >> And >> so they they the companies that we have looked at have staff that are certified instructors for the SSO program through DCJS. So they're trained by their employers, but they are certified through the Department of Justice. Get a certification. >> Yes. >> Okay. Very good. That that was my question. and you train ours initial. >> Yes, sir. >> Dr. Coleman, I know we've talked about this previously, >> uh, but looking at the, uh, weapons detection systems, >> ultimately, and I'm going to speak for myself, my goal >> is to eventually have them in every school >> and staffed for the duration of the school day. That would be in a perfect world where
081we have everything in place. Um, I told you before that if we have the detection systems in place, if they're not staffed for the duration of the school day, when you take into consideration the number of visitors, parents, uh, maintenance workers, whomever comes into the school after that initial arrival of students, if there's nothing to vet those people coming through, we might as well not have the systems. So, this is not a question per se. It's just more of a support. You know very well I've supported this from day one. Um and correct me if I'm wrong here, but in the beginning teachers were utilized to staff the weapons detection systems. Correct. >> Yes. And and just to clarify that the teachers and other staff are still being used for this process. We've moved them
082away from the role of actually conducting the bag searches. So they are our greeters. They are the ones monitoring the systems as the students are coming through and then directing them to the secondary screening areas where then their belongings are being searched. We we tried to get away from having teachers and other staff conducting those searches. We've tried to have the school security officers and the administrators doing that now. >> Okay. So, that does generate one question for me. If the teachers are still being utilized and they have not been trained at this, is that opening up them for any legal liability should anything occur? >> No. And we have we have gone through through training at both high schools this year prior to prior to school starting uh and gone over the roles and
083the and the training on the systems and how they operate and what they need to do in certain situations. >> Okay, that's all I've got. May I respond uh to Mr. Woo's question? First, I want to thank you, Mr. Wen, for your comments and I totally agree with you, sir, that without the proper personnel, just having the devices, it's honestly, it's almost for show. Um, so we are going to need the proper personnel. So, thank you for that comment. Regarding uh using the teachers, I think yes, we can use them uh as students are coming in just directing them. But uh in terms of checking badge bags and doing things that are more in-depth that would warrant the attention of a certified security personnel, I think we're removing them from that process. So I appreciate
084your comments and your concern for our teachers. >> Yeah. I just I want to make certain that we're not putting them into any potential liability or you know physical risk of harm in that position. That's my main concern. >> I totally agree with you sir. I I would like to also say that we don't often you know compare ourselves to to other districts but I'll tell you in most places many places let me say uh in many places I've worked at former high school principal uh many schools and we went to visit some other districts when we were looking at implementing this uh many schools individual schools have as many security as we're asking for in total we're talking six in certain high schools in this region. So, there's a lot more I think we
085can do. Um, you know, Mrs. Schaefer, our parent, who's still with us, I think, spoke eloquently to what the issues we are seeing in our county, in our region, and unfortunately in our country. Um, I don't think we can do enough and I appreciate you all uh listening and hearing us out and and being supportive uh of the new efforts we're making to provide more security uh to our schools. It's it sounds like we're we're going to take some action and you're you're being supported up here. What would the motion what what are you specifically asking from the board tonight? >> The motion. >> Go ahead, Mr. Uh I think we've written out for Mr. Worster, but uh Mr. Brinkley, would you verbalize what the ask is? >> Oh on my computer. >> Just looking
086for the approval to to employee contract security for the remainder of the SY 2526 school year. >> Okay. Do we need to tie a dollar amount to it? I I I think not. I think you're giving us we've articulated what that is because we are going to be um responsible for this year uh to find those dollars. So that is incumbent upon me as your superintendent to find those dollars. Um and I think the beauty of this is if we get to May and realize that there might be a better option for us, we're going to be committed to this contractual obligation for the year. Uh so it doesn't tie our hands indefinitely. Uh but yes, I don't think you need to. I would rather not because again it's going to be incumbent upon me
087as superintendent to identify where we find those dollars. >> Now I do have a question about that, Dr. Kramer. Um if you find that you're moving, you know, $300,000 from from one category to another, that would require the board's approval, wouldn't it? >> It would. >> Well, we are no longer funded categorically, so that's no longer a uh a limitation. I would absolutely um make certain that we make you aware of the funding source and where we're moving the dollars. Uh but again, that's going to be my responsibility as superintendent to ensure that we fund this initiative. >> There's no requirement. I'm fine with it then. >> So that that would be my ask uh Dr. Kramer and and Mr. very as we march through this current fiscal year, we keep a run and tally
088of items that we've purchased that are above and beyond stuff that was formally budgeted for. >> And I won't call Miss Derry up to the microphone. She can speak to this when she comes up later, but she and I had this conversation as well. And we will only pay them for the services that are rendered, right? >> So, they're not going to get a $300,000 check upfront. they will only get paid as the work is is right being provided. >> I guess the the just kind of to echo what Mr. Collock's saying as we move forward with the efficacy group budgeting uh looking for excesses and and basically cleaning up any slop in the budget if there's any slop looking for vacant positions that have historically went unfilled. I think it's important to capture where
089that funding is coming from. Certainly >> because it come January, February, we'll all be sitting up here scratching our heads trying to figure out what's going on. >> Absolutely. No, I think that's a fair request. >> That lady right there will know, but everybody else will be trying to catch up. >> Yes. No, I think that's a fair request that we uh inform you as to where we're providing the funding. Yes, sir. >> Where it's coming from. >> Mr. Cunningham. Oh, go ahead. >> Okay. No, wait. This is a quick one. Uh, if we do vote yay tonight, how soon would the SSOs be here? >> And yes, sir. It will take 30 to 45 days for the SSO to be fully uh background checked, trained, and ready for service in Alawawaii County. So, upon
090the permission to move forward, that's how long between 30 and 45 days. So, we're talking around November >> if we move soon. And it's uh making certain that we find the, you know, uh appropriate personnel. That's going to be seven individuals that they have to find. And we're looking, I think, Mr. Kick asked this in the one-on-one conversations. We're going to be looking for continuity. Uh making certain that we're not just being sent uh different people. Uh so, we do want that. We've spoken with one of the firms and we are going to ask that they wear the same polo. uh security outfits that our staff will be wearing. They may have the logo from that company, but we want as much continuity and consistency uh between the individuals who will will be assigned to
091us and the individuals we currently have on staff. >> Thank you. >> Uh sorry, go ahead. Cole, what say you? Um, I just wanted to thank you guys for making this a priority and taking it out of not not going to the um the board of supervisors, but taking it out of your pocket uh directly. I really uh as the voice of the students, I know every student at Windsor is very very happy about this and I I'm very appreciative for the board for this for making this a number one priority. Thank you very much. >> Thank you for your comment, Cole. >> Yes, sir. I'll make a motion. >> Yes, sir. Make a motion. Mr. Chair, I move to allow the superintendent to engage in a contract for security services for the 2025 2026
092school year. >> Second. >> We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Hearing none. Madame clerk. >> Mr. Collic. >> Yes. >> Mr. Cunningham? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Perkins? >> Yes. >> Mr. Worster? >> Yes. >> And Mr. Marsh? >> Yes. Motion passes. Go do great things, Mr. Brinkley. Thank you all. >> Mrs. Gets. Yes, sir. Mr. Chair, members of the board, Dr. Kramer. Uh, tonight we are asking um approval for the addition of 12 part-time uh lunch and recess monitors for our elementary schools. Uh, currently our elementary school teachers um have an an encumbered lunch, meaning they have 30 minutes for lunch, but it is on duty in the cafeteria. They eat while they monitor their students. Um, we are asking for these positions so that we can hopefully uh allow our
093teachers to have a free lunch period um where they can eat, plan, make phone calls, do whatever they need to do. Um, and it's actually part of um the code that they should have an unencumbered lunch. Um, I'm here to take any questions and again we're asking for vote tonight for approval. >> Say that last bit again, Mrs. gets >> uh the part about Virginia code um states that elementary teachers should have a 30 minute dutyfree lunch period. >> I I won't give you any names, but I know that a school division in our region is currently involved in a lawsuit for that very reason. >> Sir, Mr. chair, if I may. Um, this is one of the things that I've already mentioned to Dr. Kramer. I'm glad to see this is finally being addressed
094because I have brought this up in the past. Um, the Virginia code and the board of board of education stipulates that teachers will have a 30 minute unencumbered planning period. You are correct. That is found in code 22.1-291.1. Um, I have no problem with this. So, that's all I've got. I'm just glad it's finally being addressed. >> Great. Thanks, Mr. Worster. >> I think the same questions will apply regarding funding. So, if you could rattle through this the same >> just >> Yeah. And because these are part-time positions, the cost is going to be significantly less than what we uh discussed a bit earlier. I think uh and please correct me, Mr. very I think we're looking at somewhere between uh 100 approximately $130,000 for the year which I honestly think is a modest uh
095amount to extend this and it's not a courtesy. It's a it's something that they are entitled to >> um to all of our elementary schools. I I think this is going to be uh a major benefit and it's going to give them some time back hopefully uh approximately an hour a day I'm thinking for recess and lunch when you combine the the two times together and as Miss Get stated uh time for them to make copies call parents um planning what have you and hopefully a little bit less time at the end of the day or at home or on the weekends. So, this is occurring in most districts and virtually every place I've worked in the past 20 years prior to here. >> Lunch and recess monitors were a standard. Um, and that's what
096we're asking here. And I I thank you for your comment, uh, Mr. Vice Chair Worster, and thank you for your comment, um, Chair Marsh, and all of you as we head the discussions one-on-one. Uh, I think you're supportive of this, but uh, yes, we will, uh, for this year. Yes, Mr. Ver and I have had discussions and she's met with our team as well and like the uh previous conversation, we will figure out a way to pay for it this year. Now, again, moving forward for fiscal 27 as we have those discussions that will be a a topic of conversation, but for this year, we are committed to finding that approximately $130,000. >> Dr. Kramer, I think you mentioned this at the convocation uh that this was something we're looking at. Yes. >> And uh
097that night after the convocation, I was told by quite a number of teachers this is something they want. So um I I think it's the right thing to do and it's the right time to do it. >> And thank you teachers for advocating for yourselves. >> It seems as we you know we there's a lot of moving pieces coming this budget year. Pay pay and benefits is a big part of that and it certainly plays into the overall package. Dr. Kramer, I know in previous discussion we were looking at part-time for the lunch recess monitors. Is that still the same? >> Yeah. >> Yes. And thank you for the question. U you finished it. >> Uh well, I'm just the other part to my question is how many persons would be needed to accomplish this?
098>> Miss Guest, would you speak to that? I can speak to my experience uh many places I've worked. So, Mrs. gets um and the um director for elementary schools, Dr. Smith Johnson. We're looking at different models, but by and large in many places, you use uh part-time uh individuals are will the positions will be pardoned part-time, but you often use individuals who sometimes are stay-at-home moms, retirees. Uh we've even discussed uh using some of our bus aids offering this is an opportunity between runs during the day. Um, but we need people who are doing this part-time, but doing it on a full-time basis, meaning you're not you're only working four hours a day, I think, is what we're looking at, but you're doing that throughout the year. Uh, I think when we talked about this
099before, someone mentioned using volunteers, and you can't do this with volunteers because it's got to be something you're committed to doing five days a week, every day. Students are there. So, we need dedicated individuals who are paid to do this and we're looking at uh I think >> 12 individuals total >> and we may use some other staff members uh in the building to make this work. Correct. >> Uh IAS etc. So that discussion is occurring uh and I think we're looking at approximately what two to three uh per school approximately. >> Does that answer your question sir? >> Yes sir. Thank you. ready to entertain a motion. Sir, Mr. Chair, I move to allow the superintendent to add positions for the purpose of lunch and recess monitors for the elementary schools. >> Second. Have
100a motion and a second. Any other comments? >> Madame clerk. >> Mr. Collic. >> Yes. >> Mr. Cunningham? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Perkins? >> Yes. >> Mr. Worster? >> Yes. >> And Mr. Marsh? >> Yes. Motion passes. For the listening audience, if you're looking for a part-time gig and you want to come hang out with elementary schools during lunch break >> and recess, contact Mrs. Sullivan at HR. Thank you all very much. >> Okay, take care. Cole, have a good night. >> Mr. Fe, thanks for the shirts, by the way, sir. >> Absolutely. >> Good evening, Mr. Chair, board members, Dr. Kramer. Um, I know you have the list of auction items for the transportation department, the 18 items in front of you, and I'd be happy to answer any questions you have with those.
101When is the auction going to be held? >> So, it's going to be an online auction. Um, so, uh, really we put it on there. It's, uh, it's an online platform. There's a set period of time. Um, our goal is to get the, um, so, you know, we have to do the work behind it. So, that's going to be our staff. That'll be Mr. Sullivan and his department. So, we hope to have those up there. Uh, we're looking October, November. Uh we do anticipate it being this fall. Okay. Anybody else? >> Over to you, Mr. Hooster. >> Mr. Chair, I move to approve the transportation vehicles list that has been presented for auction. >> Second. Motion and a second. Any discussion? Hearing none. Madam clerk. >> Mr. Collet. >> Yes. >> Mr. Mr. Cunningham? >>
102Yes. >> Mrs. Perkins? >> Yes. >> Mr. Worster? >> Yes. >> And Mr. Marsh? >> Yes. Motion passes. Mr. Fe, are you going to give us an update later on about your first couple weeks of school? >> I will be back. That's right. >> Nice. >> Mr. F, I've just got one question for you real quick. It's nothing ma major. Are you going to be here for the rest of the meeting or do you have to take off? >> Uh, no sir. I will be here. I'm on the agenda and a couple more items coming up. >> Okay. Okay. I just need to see you at the end of the meeting if you're still here. >> Sure. Absolutely. >> Come in late tomorrow. >> Okay. Moving right along. That takes us to our capital improvement
103plan. It's another action item. Dr. Coleman presented this last month >> formally. It was our first formal public look last month. >> It was the unconsolidated version. This is consolidated for the ranking. >> And then last month we we agreed to put a little bit more work into it. >> Absolutely. >> Can you enlarge that at all if you can't? I understand. Okay, there we go. >> I just read the board. That's right. It keeps changing. >> Do you want to talk through this, sir? >> Yes, sir. All right. What you're going to see is the template from the last year. We thought it worked pretty well. So, we went and go back with this template. All right. What you have are the items on the CIP and um just to recap from last month,
104we took the items that were unfunded last year, the items from the community survey and the items from the new CIP this year, combined those items, and that's how we form this list. on the left hand side of the proposed cost is in the second column and as you can see there's two question marks one beside new west side and one beside the Smithfield High School renovation this is because we do not have architectural plans drawings or designs that can give us an idea of exactly how much that project will cost. Next to that you have um the five school board members and their rankings. Lower number means the higher priority and higher number is lower priority. And in the red the school board member um there we go recommended deferral until later. Under that
105column you have the other items and these are items you can slide a little bit to your left and these are items like the unplanned capital needs. This was a one-time expense. Fleet service building and band room renovation. These are has been initiated with architectural design purchase and has been unofficially earmarked by the board of supervisors as of FY2627 uh to be a funded expense. So, if you remember correctly, we already earmarked the funds for the architectural designs and those are going to be the funds for the second wave of um of the project. And of course, it's our five school buses annually. So, I just wanted to ensure that I listed that out for the public could see those items that are funded and still in leeway. So, that's what we have at this
106time. If you go down a little bit further after everything is calculated, and of course I know that we're going to come back up, we have the overall school board priority listed at the bottom. One, two, three, four, five. And it is 10 sets of elementary school security equipment, aka the weapons detection devices, divisionwide bathroom repair, replacement upgrade of the HVAC systems at CES, and replacement upgrade of the HVAC system at Windsor High School Disaster Recovery Center and in New Westside with the question mark there. any of these items you need me to go into more detail about and explain um uh at this time, please ask away. >> So So doc, I think it's important to kind of give a little background. So and you keep me give me some rudder orders here if
107I'm something wrong, but >> historically the Alawat County Schools CIP is done late in the year. >> Later. Yes, sir. >> Later in the year. So we've already been working on this for at least two months. >> At least. Yes. at least. Uh, and the reason this got initiated early is because the board of supervisors are working to update the county's comprehensive plan. >> Yes. >> And a part of that comprehensive plan includes a CIP. >> Yes, sir. >> So, there's been a lot of discussions early on with the county uh just to speak plain language. The ask was put out for the schools to give us a five to 10year capital improvement, lack of a better word, wish list so that the county can not only plan for future funding needs, but also as
108these housing developments come up, they can look at what we really need and if the opportunity comes up to solicit profers from developers, they have something to use and go by. >> That is correct. So, and this is in in Marsha's mind, the top two, three, four, five things are probably the most important. Everything else on that is literally a wish list that will undoubtedly change as other funding opportunities come and go. >> And that is correct. Also, >> for example, we uh perhaps the county were to receive some sort of PL offers and somewhere one of these items that was lower in on the priority because of the way the profers are written, maybe they could solicit a funding item for something that wasn't necessarily a high priority for us. >> Yes, sir. >>
109Um >> and that's what occurred with the band room and the and the funding of the band room was through the profers. >> Yes, sir. That's exactly right. So last year we didn't prioritize the band room on top but we got funding because they were able to utilize proper developers >> and it was on the CIP. >> Yes sir. >> Yes. >> So that's kind of the idea behind this. It's it's a overall ranking and uh we have a meeting scheduled for a joint work session the school board and the board of supervisors next month October 7th. >> Yes. >> Will be a work session. Uh and this will be one of the things that's discussed there. >> This that is correct. >> Comments from my colleagues up here. >> I think we've already done
110the work here. It kind of stands on its own. We've already ranked them. >> I' I've got a couple questions. >> Go ahead. >> Just and this is just, you know, so I fully understand this. Um, so over in the green, uh, where we've got the fleet services building, the ba band room renovation and the five buses annually. So they're already on the SIP, correct? Or are they going to be listed with the others? >> They are not going to be listed with the others, the ones in the green. They are the unplanned capital needs, maybe a one-time expense. Um and the FAF school buses have already uh is the let's just say once again the handshake the unofficial >> and of course the other two items they are not funded but they are stated
111to be funded. >> So if you would like to put those items on the list I can slide it back over to the list. >> Yeah because I I want to make sure they don't fall off because we've already started all the work on them and everything. So, so that's really my question to make sure we we have them in place so they don't fall off. Yes. I don't want the board of supervisors to look, oh, here's six more. Yeah. We can take care of them and ignore what we asked for, you know, last year. That's actually a bigger priority. >> Yes, sir. I'll make sure that that is slid back over on the list. >> Thank you. >> All right. >> Thank you, Mr. Chair. >> Thank you for that, Mr. Coll. If I
112may, Mr. Chair, I I think you're right. Although, as Dr. Coleman uh suggests that I think there's been a sort of lady gentleman's agreement. Uh but I I would like that to be codified somewhere so that you know people come and go. I would like that to be uh evident somewhere that that's a commitment. >> Yeah. And that's that's that's a huge part of this, right? So even though I don't know there's something may be it may not happen 10 years down the road this year when Mr. Cunningham decides to depart the pattern. Whoever walks in here can go, "Okay, well, this was what the priority was." >> Okay. Um, it is an action item. I I >> Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Rooster. Go ahead, >> Dr. Coleman. >> Yes, sir. >> You saved yourself
113quite a few questions by breaking it down like this. >> Oh, that's outstanding. Um, looking at the overall rating priorities, um, I notice you've got two that are ranked at the same. Are you looking at the top five or the top six items? >> All right. So, uh, those two items, the replace upgrade HVAC system at Windsor Haskell and the disaster recovery generator, uh, equal out to the same points. So, what we did last year, we was listed just like that. We listed two items for one ranking. So with that stated, uh it's up to the board to decide two items receive the same ranking. It's up to you to decide which one should be a should be 4 A should be and next one be 4 B. But that's um that's up for you
114to decide. >> Okay. I was just curious on that. >> Okay. Um, and I know we've talked about it before, but I'd like to discuss it a little bit further for uh, you know, the people listening in and just for transparency and clarity for the public uh, dealing with the HVAC system at Carsville uh, for $330,000. >> Yes. >> Can you explain the reasoning and whether or not that could actually be held over for a future date? All right. Um, when looking at the HVAC system, it was easiest just to state replace or upgrade the HVAC systems. Uh, as you've seen, the one in car, um, in one in Carlton was 7.4 million. That was a complete HVAC system replacement. The one in Windsor High School has had several items performed to it. A new
115boiler has already been put in. A new chiller has already been placed in. And several new mechanical parts have been replaced that reduces that amount lower and lower. With Carsville, you have two sides of the school. The side um the school that was uh renovated and the side that um was new. With the side that was renovated, that side has a boiler that's in it that's approximately 38 years old. um based off of the asset schedule the boiler should be replaced after 30 years. Now the bowl is 38. So it pops up on it pops up on the radar as it needs to be replaced soon. The ball is still going on, but these are the items that the school board asked me to look at that so we're not waiting until the last minute
116to identify identify these areas early. And that's what we built the asset schedule off of identifying these items early as we did with the uh with the Carisville system and the Windsor High School so that we can start getting in front of it, start being more proactive than reactive. That's why that system is 330,000. It's only one air handling unit and once again it's still moving forward but it is it does need to be replaced. Okay. So leading to the next I'm sorry line item uh replacing or upgrading the HVAC system at Windsor High School for 1.7 million. Um, again with that one, I'm pretty sure the justification would be the same thing you just mentioned. >> However, I'm asking these questions because this is one of the two that is tied with the disaster
117recovery generator, which I'll get to in just a second. Is that HVAC system in danger of a catastrophic failure? the system at Windsor High School has already, I should say, I'm not going to say already went through a failure, but parts of that system has already failed and has been replaced. Um, the office staff can tell you from Windsor High School that the office was out of commission for quite some time. That was just repaired. And right near the end of school, there was other portions of that system that failed. uh we were just happy that the kids were out, but still the staff had to work through those um conditions. So those portions have been repaired. So once again, if we start to really dig into the the the details of it, the 1.7
118is probably going to be reduced just based off of 20 days ago when that system finally came up and running again. >> Okay. And moving to the disaster recovery generator. And believe it or not, I'm actually getting to a point. The disaster disaster recovery generator for 140,000. Uh we've already discussed this, but I'm going to ask you the same questions again for transparency and clarity. >> What would be the main purpose of that generator in and of itself? >> All right. I'm gonna uh lean back for Mr. Eric Cooprider to come to the front for me. And Mr. Cooper is going to go into the details of what we use for a disaster recovery generator. We have always had one, but we was at the existing one was at old CO. So I will go
119into detail about why we didn't just bring the one from old CO to new CO and that's because first of all it's 20 years old and then when looking at all of the vendor quotes to move that generator it was between 60 and 75 to 60 to $80,000 to move the old generator. So we decided not to move that generator leave it there. But Mr. Cooperata can you go into a little bit more detail about uh why we need this disaster recovery generator? >> Yes sir. So, the generator's primary purpose is to maintain the backup systems for the entire division. Um, about 15 years ago when I started, we were over near actually right behind this building and we ran off of the generator that was there at central office. Um, we then moved over
120to Smitha High School and we've been utilizing their generator and now we're moving to a location that doesn't have one. What the purpose of that system is is all of our systems back up to what's referred to as our DEA disaster recovery center. That's our student information system, our authentication systems, our databases, all that sort of stuff. Just in case something catastrophic were to occur at the courthouse, we would not lose data in two. So, we keep them in two physically separate uh locations inside the county. Um, we have had to utilize that system a couple of times when the wires have been cut from between here and um the courthouse. What we have to do is then fire up our backups and get them live for a while and then when the wire is
121repaired we uh take our backups and make them the live systems again. It has some off time but it's not you know complete loss of data. Um those systems are a significant expense probably $200 to $300,000. They do not like it when the power immediately shuts off. We do have battery backups but those are limited capacity. So, you need something that um the battery backups keep it running for the period of time it takes for the generator to start up if power were to be lost. >> Thank you, Mr. Cooper. >> Yes, sir. >> So, hypothetically speaking, let's say we get hit with a major hurricane. I hope we don't, but let's say it does happen. Um it's happened before. Always lost power for several days to weeks. If that were to happen, um, and
122this generator was not approved, could there could there be a potential data loss and disruption of education? >> Um, if the data, if the destruction were that severe, >> we're just talking about power loss. That's it. I'm not talking about physical damage. >> So, we're just losing power, >> correct? >> Yes. um without a backup generator. The potential for this system if it suddenly loses power and cuts off the the system does not like being shut down that way. Um every time that it happens, there is the strong potential for data corruption. The reality is we also back it up offsite. Our student information system is backed up off-site to the cloud, but that is a significant expense or a significant time investment in order to restore that. we could recover it, but you're talking
123about a major financial impact. >> And how long would it take to recover if it was offsite? >> Um, if the disaster recovery center were to fail and it was unreoverable and the courthouse, we're talking weeks, but it's recoverable over time. It's not complete loss. it's recoverable, but we're talking weeks, if not longer, before this um primary system such as the student information system was fully able to be utilized again. >> So, you're talking weeks to possibly longer to do recovery. >> Well, we would have to uh obtain hardware. We would then have to restore data and then you'd have to verify all the data, figure out where it was the last time it backed up. You're talking a significant time impact. So based on that, how how long of a time would you anticipate
124disruption in education? >> I'll put you on the spot here. >> Before I could get the student information system back up, which is not necessarily a disruption to education, that's why I wanted to hesitate on the answer. I would hope I could do it. I mean, if I called in every favor from every vendor I had out there, I might be able to do it in 10 days. And that's 15 hour days. >> Okay. Now, for this particular generator, disaster recovery generator, uh we did talk about fuel sources. >> Yes, we did. Um, one of the things that me personally I would recommend is if there is a natural gas line that could be tied into that would be a cons continual source of fuel for a generator versus you know an above ground propane
125tank or you know a diesel fuel tank which both have to be filled. Has any of that been identified yet? >> The gas line is at the road right along the road in front of the um front of the location. It was always there. area which is tied to the old Hardy when it was there. That line has since been replaced. The gas line is still at the road. So, we'd have to go back and reconnected. So, I would have to get quotes from that. So, I would have to deliver quotes to you concerning the natural gas and the uh diesel fuel and then look at the cost comparison. >> Right. So, basically that would be an easy fix with VNG >> as far as a natural gas goes. >> Yes. All right. So, with
126all of those questions, since we're looking at replacing the HVAC at Windsor High School for 1.7 million or purchasing a disaster recovery generator for 140,000, they're both ranked the same. This question is to each of you. Which one would you choose? Well, because I've been to Windsor High School several times and and I would love to keep Miss Carol and her staff happy. Uh, sitting here right now, I'm going to say that both are very important. And um, I would say the upgrade the HVAC at Windsor High School. I'm going to make sure that I say that, >> Mr. Cooper. >> Um, >> I believe that my choice would also be to follow Dr. Coleman's lead. >> That's a very good political answer. >> Thank you, sir. >> You You see what I'm getting at,
127though, >> right? Trying to decide between which one. >> Well, one of them is going to have to go away, >> right? And at the same time, um, with that thought pattern in place, you you never know. You never know the the cause comparison. As I stated, the the HVAC systems for Windsor has just three weeks ago. We replaced a lot of items. That 1.7 could be reduced incredibly right now. Right. >> Um, and don't don't get me wrong, I support both of them. >> Absolutely. Absolutely. That's all I've got for that. >> Right. >> Thank you for not asking me that question, Mr. >> Anyone else? I will say that it's pretty surprising me to me that the new Westside School, which is something that we've been banging the drum about for the better
128part of two years, if not three, about needing to replace this school being a top priority, just barely made the list. Um, not only have we banged the drum up here, but we've banged that drum with the board of supervisors and vocalized to that group of people that we need to make efforts to start planning now to replace this school. It's the oldest school we've got. So, everything's a priority. Um, and then it's interesting to me how replacing a roof on a school that's as old as this one just in my mind doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Um, I don't know. Everybody's got their own set of goggles on how to do this. Just that's just my two cents on the matter. I would say that uh we take what we got, we
129rack it and stack it, clean it up a little bit, add those things off on the side, put them on top, don't rank them, just annotate them as something that's been verbally agreed upon. Um >> and be prepared to talk to it in a couple weeks at the >> Yes, sir. >> board of supervisors. >> Everybody agree with that? I mean, it's it's I I would say that the county is probably going to have information that we aren't privy to yet. >> They've certainly I know that they're working on some of this stuff. Uh I'm pretty sure they're working on figuring out how to take out a bond for Westside. Um or at least thinking about it. So, who knows how next week or the October 7th turns out. So, I think we've got a
130good start if we could get Dr. Coleman to kind of clean it up and be ready to present it and talk to it at a joint session, we'd be >> in a good spot and certainly ahead of where we have been in years past. >> Absolutely. Absolutely. Without a doubt. >> Is that agreeable with everyone up here? >> Mr. Cunningham, sir. >> Mr. Chair, I do believe we need to do a 4A and a 4B tonight to help Dr. Coleman or or have we already decided uh the A and B? >> It's not my decision to make. It's it's the board. >> Yeah, we we got to do it as a board. >> Okay, let's let's do it. I think we did that last year. We had an A and a B on a couple
131of >> Yeah. >> So, let's just say by a show of hands, who wants the um the big one here, the Windsor High School HVAC? By a show of hands, who wants that 4A? This is tough for the whole >> Okay, there you go, sir. >> 4B is the generator. >> Yeah. Doc Dr. Coleman did mention it may not be that expensive. It may actually be $140,000 cheaper >> than we get both. >> Sure. >> Absolutely. So, and I don't think we'd be able to do that if we said that this the recovery generator is is number one because if we got that cheaper, it would not >> pay for an HVAC system. >> That is correct. >> So, >> okay, we're good. I don't think this needs to be an action item, does it?
132>> It normally we we do this as action >> item. So, um, I move to approve our 5 to 10year capital improvement plan as presented with exception of listing Windsor HVAC as 4A and disaster recovery generator as 4B. Um, and be prepared to present it to the board of supervisors in joint session. >> Yes, sir. at a date to be determined. >> At a date to be determined, October 7. >> Missing anything, Doc? >> We are missing nothing. And to your point, we are far ahead of where we've been in the past. >> Yeah, we there's worse things we could be arguing about in September. >> There's a motion >> and a second. >> Who is a second? I'm sorry. >> I did. >> Mr. Collic. >> I second. >> Any other discussion? >> Madame
133Clerk. >> Mr. Collic. >> Yes. >> Mr. Cunningham? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Perkins? Yes, >> Mr. Worster. >> Yes. >> And Mr. Marsh. >> Yes. Motion passes. Dr. Coleman, I appreciate you working on that. I know that you've been juggling phone calls and emails with five people for some time. Kudos to you for putting up with five individuals that see everything different. >> And for the record, Mr. Chair, if I may, we will share this with County Administrator Robertson as well, just so that he's aware of the action the board took this evening. >> Perfect. Thanks. And Mrs. Whitlo, could you when we get done with it hanging on board? >> I'm working on it right now. >> You're awesome. Thank you, ma'am. >> Okay. 147 Special Education Advisory Committee. This Magn's been sitting back
134there patiently waiting forever. >> All right. Good evening, Chair Marsh, members of the board, and Dr. Kramer. Uh, I believe the first thing we have for you tonight, and I I'm noticing now it says 2525 school year. That should say 2526 school year. Um, that is our CK. Um, our CK information and includes our board as well as our schedule for the year. Um, this is for approval. And I do want to point out, however, um, a small, uh, plug for our first meeting of SEAK. It's going to be September 27th and this time we're actually doing a back to school bash for um students with disabilities and their families. Uh we're going to have a vendor fair as well as um a silent uh touch a truck event and other activities for kiddos. So
135just a plug out there. Notice that's the first SEAK meeting we have at the end of this month. Um and the rest uh is there for your approval. happy to answer any questions you guys might have. >> Miss Magnar, is this something that you'd be willing to look at and see if maybe that fit in? >> Yeah, absolutely. I I can't see. I'm thinking >> Mr. Oswwell had is did Were you here where Mr. Ozel spoke? >> Oh, yes. Yes. Yeah. >> I think this is kind of right up his alley. >> We I'm happy to reach out. We've reached out to several um vendors within the community. Still waiting to hear back from a few, but yeah, absolutely. >> He's still back there hiding, too. We got you, sir. >> Okay. It's action item.
136>> I think so. Yes, sir. >> Mr. Chair, I move to approve the special education advisory committee board members and meeting schedule as presented. >> Second. >> We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? >> Hearing none. Madame clerk. >> Mr. Collic. Yes, >> Mr. Cunningham. >> Yes, >> Mrs. Perkins. >> Yes, >> Mr. Worooster. >> Yes. >> And Mr. Marsh? >> Yes. Motion passes. >> And we'll see you in September 27th. >> Cool. >> Back to school bash. >> Yes. >> Carolton Elementary 2 to 4 p.m. >> Yes. >> You got the next one, too. Over to you, ma'am. >> All right. So next we have our childfind event schedule. Childf find is however an ongoing process throughout the school year. Currently we're conducting kindergarten screenings as an example. Uh these however are
137the actual events that we're hosting for the fall and the spring both at the Carolton Elementary School and Windsor Elementary School. Again this is or this is just for information. Um and if you have any questions I'm happy to answer. question questions, comments. >> Do you usually have a lot of turnout for this? >> Um, not very many. No. And I do believe it's because we have continuing conversation with early intervention. We receive a lot of our um students who are in need of screenings through that process. We also conduct kindergarten screenings currently the first 60 days of the school year. Um and then again we we we hear from families throughout the year. Um and we and bring those students in through child study processes. So this is an event but we're constantly um
138screening and looking for kiddos who might have disabilities that we need to address. I I'll give you a shout out and I know I did it once before, but the last time I was at one of your SEAK meetings, I called my best friend who has a special needs daughter >> and told her about some of the stuff that you had cooking. >> Yes. >> She was blown away, impressed. So I I think you guys are are leading the charge here in Al White with >> Yes. Thank you. >> special needs. So kudos to you. >> Thank you. >> Anything else? Thank you, ma'am. This gets >> All right. Good evening. Um tonight Miss Loud and I are going to share um P so pass rates. Um we will come back um again once we
139have more um a definitive answer as far as the accountability. Uh but tonight we do have so pass rates. We want to begin sharing those. Um and so we're going to get started. >> Okay. So first just a reminder with the change in accountability. So accreditation is now solely based on compliance. It's about ratios. It's about staffing, the instructional program, things like that. So the school performance and support framework is what is how school performance is measured and compared across schools and across divisions. So the schools are going to earn ratings of ontrack, offtrack, distinguished or needs intensive support. Um those were not in in order. I'm sorry about that. Distinguished on track, off track, and needs intensive support. Uh it is based on multiple components. We talked about those uh last school year. Um
140and because there's so many components and they are fairly complex, there's no final data yet on a lot of those. So those should be available by the end of September if VDOE sticks to their timeline. Um, so I should be back next month with some uh accountability results for you. Okay. So, first let's take a look at chronic absenteeism. Um, and as you see all the schools are listed. We have data from um three years. Um, and as you can see, we really have made some gains in um reducing chronic absenteeism. Um and and particularly I want to give a little shout out to Windsor High School. Um they have made just uh such an impact on reducing their chronic absenteeism and it has been with a lot of hard work and a lot of
141effort um from that staff to to see that number go from 20% to 12%. So now we're going to get into the the pass rates. Um so these are aggregate results and they're comparing our performance to the performance of the entire state. So as you can see we were above the state in uh in terms of pass rates in all of our areas. So even though I think Dr. Kramer said we weren't going to compare ourselves to other people. We are going to do that tonight. >> Just a little bit. >> And and just to Oh, yep. Go ahead, Miss Marsh. >> I've said this before, but I it's worth stating again. Um I fiddle around on the Department of Education site >> a lot. I think it's an illness. um specifically the amount of
142money that school divisions across Commonwealth are spending per pupil. >> And it's worth pointing out that even though white is above average there in every category, >> if you rack and stack how divisions across the Commonwealth spend money per pupil, we're way at the bottom. So yes, you folks are literally doing a lot more than most with much less than the majority. >> Yes, thank you for pointing that out. >> So let's take a look at um how we compare to the schools in our region. Um so if you take a look at the top line, you will see where we rank out of the other schools in our our region. And so for reading we are five out of 15, writing four out of 15, math four out of 15, science 7 out of
14315, and history five out of 15. So again, those those those look pretty good. And and if you see below, those are the other divisions in our region. Um the the the line below where it says the difference between um Isawite County schools and the top rank. So that's looking at for example in reading we are 10 percentage points below the highest in our region and seven below in writing six in math 11 in science and six in history just for comparison sakes. >> So you're comparing Alawite to all the divisions on the below. >> That is correct. >> Got it. Entertain me. Who's doing the best? >> Who's doing the best? >> Yeah. >> The Kosen is really high up there. They are, but it does depend on the subject area. >> If you
144want to know who's on the bottom, you got to look it up. >> Uh, we're not going to share that. >> We're not doing that. >> Yes. >> Okay. So, these are the overall pass rates for the past three years in for the division in all five subject areas. Um, so as you can see, reading we went down just a little bit. um from 79 to 78. We did go up in science. That was due in large part to the great increases that our middle schools had with eighth grade science. They really really focused in on that and worked hard there. Um and then we stayed the same in all of the other areas. Uh one of the things I do want to point out though is we had new standards last year, last spring
145for reading and math tests. So, historically, we've had a dip in so pass rates every time there's a new set of standards, and we did not see the the kind of dip that we have historically seen this year. Um, and so I really do want to call out the work of our coordinators, our content area coordinators. They worked on curriculum assessments. They worked handinhand with our teachers to make sure that their that what they were teaching was aligned with these new standards and so they really did work very hard with that. Um so I just wanted to kind of call them out a little bit. >> I do and I do think it's >> Oh please Mr. Collet go. Yes. >> Um so we're seeing like in English for reading we've got a 78 pass
146rate. >> Correct. So that's 22 22% that's percentage correct? >> It is. Yes. >> Okay. So 22% don't pass. How do we re we remediate those that don't pass? >> Yeah. Um it depends on the level quite honestly. We have extensive remediation plans in place um in every school. Uh for example, in elementary school, if you are not mastering the reading standards, we have um title one reading intervention that you go to every single day. Um same thing for math. Uh it looks a little different. Um similar but a little different structure in middle and high school. Um and actually next month um I will look to bring um some more specifics to share with you about how we do remediate our students. But every school has an has a very extensive remediation plan in
147place for students who are not mastering the standards. >> Okay. So one question I'll probably have next month is how do we measure >> the remediation success? >> Yep. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Absolutely. >> So Mr. call it. We So we I've asked her this question before and I you got a pretty good response. You just answered it really. So if if 22% of the kids don't pass, but we've got a 96% graduation rate. Somebody's hustling behind the scenes to make sure these kids get out the door with a certificate. >> They absolutely are. they they do a lot of remediation at the at the high school level um so that students who don't pass on their first attempt uh can retake it and that's what this is representing. This is first attempt for
148the high school tests um so the the passing tests later on um they aren't necessarily reflected here. So >> great. And keep in mind at our at at our elementary and middle school levels, they can they take the test, they can do an expedited retake if they score within a certain percentage, but in high school, you can have multiple attempts to pass a test. Okay? So, it does look different. >> Remediation is in place. It just looks a little different, >> right? And if I understand some of the some of the changes that the DOE's had last year, there was a lot more emphasis on growth and they've shifted some of that focus. You covered that a few months ago. There's less emphasis on growth. >> We did. >> And more emphasis on pass or
149fail. >> Yeah. In the in the previous accountability system, um, elementary and middle schools for reading and math had a combined rate, which was their pass rate plus students who failed who showed who showed sufficient growth. So that was their combined rate. This year with uh the school performance and support framework, it's a mastery index. >> So growth is still in there, but it's not uh it's split out >> and it's a smaller portion. Great. Okay. >> Okay. So, let's take a look at um our reading pass rates. Um and and I would like to point out in elementary school um it was our first year um with a new curriculum. Um so sometimes you do see a little a little dip when you are implementing something brand new. I I do anticipate that that
150will be better. Um we also have um you know new tests that have the the reading tests I will say are probably the ones that have become the most rigorous. Um and so we were actually pretty pleased when you look across the board at the results with the more rigorous testing. Okay. So here you have your math pass rates by school. Um so six of our schools actually increased um and then two two of them went down um slightly and then Windsor Elementary stayed exactly the same. So you know it were pretty pretty even but there were some um there was some variability. There were some really nice gains but there was some jump some drops that we're addressing. um science pass rates. Um as Miss Loud mentioned, um we did see um some nice
151gains in middle school. Um but this does this is an area that we are continuing to focus on. Um we know it um we recognize that it's an area that we need to grow in. um we are working hard behind the scenes to put things in place and to make sure that the resources that we need to teach because it's not just you know it's application of science. So it it is rigorous and so our students definitely need more practice in that. Um, and so that's what we're working on is trying to make sure we have the materials. Um, especially for our elementary. Um, and also that they have the time because what tends to happen in elementary is reading in particularly in particular take priority. And so when something kind of falls short, it
152tends to be science and history and reading and math get a lot of the focus. And so we have really worked on the master schedules in elementary school to make sure there is um a lot of time that is there for science and history and you must stop and you must teach when it's that time. Um so those are some of the things um with um our high school um in particular. It's really about alignment rigor of what we're teaching um and then just consistency with staffing as well. One of the things that I kind of think about is I know that we came up short staffed this year. I know that you had to combine some classes and you've got bigger class sizes. You we spoke about this a little bit earlier. >> Yes.
153>> My fear is that because that time gets constrained the student teacher ratios. My fear is that those numbers decrease the coming year. I I am worried. Um especially at Westside, we have u very high class sizes at Westside this year. Um and so yeah, you're right. We'll see. We'll see. I mean, we're going to support them as as best we can. Um but their class sizes are high when you look at compared to the other schools. >> Okay. And history. So in history we saw um much the same in terms of um the impact that sometimes happens when the focus is on reading and math. Um so five of our schools did increase with history. Uh but we did have three that that decreased. So really focusing in on those master schedules and making
154sure that that time is held to teach the to teach the content. We also are doing some things like, you know, obvious we can see that Carsville is killing it with um fourth grade history standards. So we've actually reached out to them and to Windsor Elementary and said, "Hey, you're doing a bangup job. can you share some things with our other teachers? So, we are we're doing things like that. We're using our other teachers to actually help teach and provide staff development for others. Okay. So, let's take a look and just comparison of um preandemic to how we are doing now. Um if you look at the first two columns on the left there, those are um state pass rates um compared to um if you well if you look at the state pass rate
155and then you look at our division pass rate you can kind of see if you go across all the way to the right um you can see that we are exceeding as missile we already stated that we are exceeding the state um in every category. Um, when you look at how we are doing compared to how we did pre- pandemic, we in some areas we're doing pretty well. There's other areas we're still we are still making gains. We're still trying to catch up, but if you look at where when we came back in 202021, oh yeah, I mean, it's it's much much better. Uh, but there still are gains to be made. Um, and and let me say the standards have changed, the tests have changed. So, we're not exactly comparing apples to apples when
156we look at those pass rates. Um, but just to give you an idea of where we stand and if you look at the state, we are doing we are doing well. Do we have room to improve? Absolutely. Um, it's a continual process and you know, one of the things that we battle it's turnover and staff. If you look at schools that have more consistent teachers every year teaching the same content, they perform better. When you have schools that have more of a turnover, it is harder. It is more of a struggle. Um, so that's one of the things we know in our department that we have to work with. Do you have any other questions for us? >> Okay. Oh, you're at >> Okay. I was going to save my questions for last, but I'm
157assuming nobody else has any. >> Okay. >> All right. Looking at this, and I know, you know, the whole methodology changed and how to figure this. Um, when you're going through the slides and you're looking at a regional comparison, uh, truth be known, that to me is irrelevant comparing it to the rest of the region. My main focus is going to be on Alawway County Schools. With that being said, every other slide, uh, these numbers are in percentages. Correct. >> Correct. >> Okay. So, I'm just going to skip right over to the reading so pass rates. Um, looking at this, yes, we are above the state. Now, maybe I'm interpreting this differently. I'm not sure. If I am, please correct me. Uh, we have dropped 1% overall from last year. >> Correct. >> Okay, that's
158not bad. That's not bad at all. Uh we're let's see Carolton is up. Carsville's up. Uh I'm not going to go through all this. Uh the main thing I want to get to is the overall. I'm not going to tie everybody's time up. What I'm mainly looking at on the pandemic recovery progress. This is what actually concerns me uh for the English reading. All right. In 2018 2019, state level was 78 if I'm reading this correct. Uh 202425 state level actually dropped to 74 which is down 4%. But if you look at the division in 2018 2019 which is considered precoid uh for English reading we were at 84%. Mhm. >> Now that did drop during during COVID 2020. 21 was down to 73. There was an uptick 2122 and 22 23 up to 78.
15923 24 is up to 79. But now we've got dropped back down um to 78. If you look at the original precoid, that's down 6% from precoid rate uh pass rates. for English writing. Uh it was 78 for precoid. Um I'm glad to say that this year it's 82% which is up 4%. But history and social science that was 80% precoid. We're that we're at 73 now, which is lower than pre-COVID, but we went from 65 to 72 to 71 to 73. So from 2122 to now, it seems like we're pretty flat. You know, not much of a gain. You're looking at 1% 2%. That's it. For math, pre-COVID was 87. Of course, it dropped down to 61. when it came to 73 77 up to 80. Um we are still at 80 which I'm
160glad to see. However, that's still a 7% decrease from precoid. And then with science you've got precoid was 83%. It seems like it's remained pretty close to the same through the 2021 2022 23 24 running between 67 71 67 71 but we're 73 now. So, it's an increase, but from precoid, we're still down 10%. The reason I'm going through all this is I'm looking for a solution or an answer. Um, why do you think we have these decreases now? Um, postco, why are we not seeing increases? And what can we do as a division to get these students to where they were precoid? >> Yeah, I would like to and I'm going to let Miss Loud, but here are my thoughts on this. Um, I would ask that you take a look at where the
161state is because yes, I understand what you're saying about pre- pandemic, but we were working off of different standards and different assessments. the standards and the assessments are more rigorous than they were precoid. So I would ask that you look also at where we are in the state because if you look at where the state is when they were precoid and now postcoid and then look at where we are now we are we are doing well. I mean do we need to do better? Yes, absolutely. But you're not really when we look at precoid to now, it's not really apples to apples because the tests and the standards are different. It's not the same. Okay. And then the other thing is what I mentioned before about the teacher turnover. When you lose teachers and you
162get a lot of times you're losing veteran teachers and then you might not be replacing them with veteran teachers. It does take time to get those teachers to learn to teach that at the same level of rigor to learn how to assess to interpret the data to apply that to um their instruction. It's it's not just equal as you lose one you get one and they're exactly the same. And so I know we harp a lot and you y'all are probably tired of hearing me say teacher pay, but it does matter and we want to keep our very strong veteran teachers. And I think you will see and and I'm going to use an example. I'm going to shout out Windsor High School. Windsor High School has very little teacher turnover and they are doing
163amazing. Their teachers are there. It's consistent. The teachers know how to teach. They know how to disagregate their data. They know how to remediate. I think that's what you can see when you have consistent staffing. Um I'll let Miss Loud if she has anything to add. >> No, I would agree. Um and one thing I think to look at is how did we compare with the state in 2018-19 and then how did we compare with the state in 2425. Um so for example with history both the division and the state were 80% pass rates but now the state is only at 66 and now we are above where the state is. So are we at the levels that we were pre- pandemic? No we're not. And you know for all of the reasons that Mrs.
164Gat just said. Um but I think when you compare division to state in 1819 and then division to state in 2425 we are getting there and we are surpassing that comparison in in three at least three areas. So >> I mean I I can see the comparison uh to the state pass rates. Um, I'm I'm the type of person that I just I don't want to focus on state pass rates. I want to go well beyond that. And I'm sure you feel the same way. Um, when did the new guidelines go into effect as far as what you were just discussing a few seconds ago? >> Depends on the subject. Can >> Yeah. So, new standards went into effect this past year for reading and math. Um, we had new standards in science last year.
165Um, >> for the 23 24. >> Yes, I'm sorry. Yes, 2324. Um, and then history, the standards really haven't changed all that much. We're still giving 2015 tests based on 2015 standards. U, we expect those to come out this spring. >> There. Yeah, there will be new. >> So, they they were in effect last year. The standards >> for which area? >> Uh you said the history. >> So history history is actually the only area where the standards haven't changed since before the pandemic. >> Has not changed yet. >> Okay. Yeah. >> The other changes were they in place last year? >> The test hold on. So new standard. So the new standards were assessed in the 24-25 school year for reading and math. >> Okay? >> And new standards were assessed in 23 24
166for science. >> Okay? So what I'm doing is I'm comparing the 23 24 and 2425. Um not much of a change regardless of what standards were in place. Um actually English reading went down 1%. English writing maintain an 82, history and social sciences maintained 73%. Math maintained 80% and science gained 2%. So I just I don't mean to be a Debbie Downer. I would expect more for the students. So I'm just trying to figure out what we can do as a division school division to increase these students capabilities. >> I think we could start by giving them more pay and more teachers. It's I mean staffing the fluctuations in staffing when you have um you know 10 new teachers every year it impacts it impacts your scores and and and Mr. Wer I'm I'm not
167Am I satisfied with where we are? Absolutely not. I mean I'm not like oh my gosh we don't have anything else to do. Um, but I'm I'm I'm encouraged by what I see um and in the direction that we are going. Um, so I I feel like we we have plans in place. We're implementing plans. There are many many factors to student achievement. But the most important thing is that teacher in that classroom every single day. We want highly qualified teachers who are certified, who are here consistently. That's that's going to help us tremendously. >> I have nothing else. >> Okay. >> And just for one of the things I'd asked about one of your upcoming presentations was how many junior teachers we have this coming year. You said we've got 44 in the zero
168to three year mark. So that's a lot of junior >> a lot of new teachers. >> Teachers. >> Yes. >> That are learning how to teach. >> Yes. So >> yes, and they're often times replacing veteran teachers. So it is a lot of catchup. It is. >> May I, Mr. Chair? >> Yes, sir. >> I don't have anything to add. I think uh both you ladies did an outstanding job of making some very nuanced and complicated matters for lack of a better term understandable for I think lay persons who are looking at this. I would say uh Mr. was thank you very much for your questions and I don't think you're Debbie Downer but uh appreciate you pushing back and I think Miss Kat stated it correctly and that is we should never be content
169with where we are. We should always be you know making uh gains and striving for better for our students. So I think we would all agree with you there. But I do think it's important that we look at comparisons. We have to compare ourselves to the region. We have to compare ourselves to the state. Um and I think Miss Gat stated it well as in her statement and that is you know looking at the single greatest impact on student achievement and research bears this out and I think these ladies would agree with me here is a quality teacher. I mean you have to have top tier teachers. We can do all the things in the world that we are doing and training and and providing professional development and learning etc. But we need top tier
170teachers and we need experienced teachers. And I'll tell you this is the first time since I've been here. I've said this to uh my colleagues on our staff quite often. It's the first time I'm more concerned with staffing than I am with the budget. um never thought we'd have an issue, but we are now losing teachers in Isawa White and we're losing teachers for one single reason and that is our pay is disproportionately lower than most of our neighboring jurisdictions. Uh so you talk about what we can do, I think the chair stated it very well. We are going to have to address that and we're, you know, implementing a compensation study. So we'll be talking about that. But let's be absolutely candid. Having quality PE uh people in our division is essential and that
171is something we're going to have to focus on because again for the first time since I've been here at least uh we are beginning to lose teachers and we're losing them because of pay. So thank you for the question. Um and I'll leave it at that. >> Thanks ladies. CTE. This white >> and welcome, Miss White. It's your first opportunity to present to the board. >> Yes, sir. Thank you all. Um, >> no pressure. >> None at all. None at all. Um, well, good evening um, board chair Marsh, Vice Chair Worster, members, Mr. Collague, Miss Perkins, Mr. Cunningham um as well as Dr. Kramer. First, may I say as it is my first appearance before the board, thank you all for allowing me the opportunity to join Olive White County Schools and to serve its
172students and broader community. I'm incredibly excited about the things that are already in place and how the direction that the division is going. So, thank you for that. I am here tonight to discuss and give you a report on the CTE, our career and technical education program from the 2024 2025 school year. I always like to start with our outcomes because the students are why we are here and it is our mission certainly to have them college, career and life ready. So one of the first things we would like to highlight that we finished this spring was the second annual CTE reverse job fair. So for those that may be unfamiliar with what this event is, um our industry partners come into our buildings and have an opportunity to see what our students are doing
173on a day-to-day basis. We had 42 industry partners um in attendance this year and that was I believe it was eight partner increase from the previous year. So we are looking forward to see what happens as we move into the 2526 school year to enhance opportunities for our students. Our partners that came in gave us a lot of positive feedback telling us that it was wonderful to see a school division where we were investing in our students and the power of career and technical education. Our CTE signing day event was also a huge success at multiple sites. So, thank you all who went to all of the locations alongside us. We were able to celebrate 24 students who signed commitments to local businesses. Also, we had Smithfield Rotary who awarded eight honorarium scholarships to our
174students and each of those were in the amount of $500 for those are a wonderful start for our students in their careers moving forward. an update on the Isle Maritime Trades Academy, which is the lab school partnership with Camp Community College, Huntington Les, and Old Dominion University. We opened our doors eight short days ago on September 2nd. We currently are serving 18 students in that lab school. A few of the things that we would like to note, uh we've been very very busy over the course of the last year with planning as well as the summer right up until our our start date was the installation of 10 new welding machines um right outside of Smithfield High School. We are very excited about that. The electrical classroom also has experienced some modernization as well. um
175interactive whiteboards helping to um enhance, excuse me, the technology in the classroom as well as seating arrangements and other items. Going back to the importance of our teachers and really investing in our teachers so that they can then further invest in our students, we certainly want to highlight the high quality professional development that our instructional staff was able to attend over the course of that year. We had seven total instructors who were sent to trainings. Each of these individuals, if we kind of go down the list with our welding and cosmetology, their focus was specifically in OSHA training. Um, over in our agricultural land lab, we were able to send those individuals for Virginia Association of a Agricultural Education. Miss Finch in engineering went for MTI and 3E accreditation training. and Chef Horn and Chef
176Hagen in our culinary arts program received training on now ProStart instruction. And I do want to highlight that because I'm incredibly impressed with the willingness of the staff to grow and really network for opportunities on behalf of our students. In a few slides down, you will note um specifically culinary had some incredible progress based on the fact that Chef Horn and Hagen um and all county schools were able to provide them this opportunity. Just to review from the 232 24 to 2425 school year exams and credentials offered just to be clear on what these numbers are. We have the ability um to assess in many different areas. This specific number is the actual different number of assessments that were taken in a specific school year. So in the 23 24 school year there were 17
177different credentials or exams tested and in the 2425 a total of 19. I will go down to the number of attempts that the number of attempts we do have some students this is not necessarily an unduplicated number. We do have students who may test um in more than one area in a given school year. We certainly want to highlight that average pass rate. It was a 2% increase from the year before. Our CTE completers, for those that may be unfamiliar with what that means, that's certainly a number that we want to continue to push to um higher numbers, which means higher credentiing. Kids that are CTE completers had a sequential course. So, for example, a welding one, two, engineering one, two, and then they also passed the industry credential that was relevant to that specific
178field. So, um, very pleased with that increase there as well and something we will continue to push. What we have on the next few slides is a breakdown of the business courses that we currently offer, uh, excuse me, not simply business, but CTE courses broken down by category in Olive White County schools, along with the percent pass rate. Uh, you will see there as well the specific courses that those exams are tied to. So for example uh we may have multiple courses that have students participate in a single exam such as the Microsoft PowerPoint exam examination very top line we have I believe it's three different courses that offer students that specific assessment in our industrial trades um we certainly want to highlight the success of students and staff on the MTI level one certification
179as you can see there as well that is offered to students students across multiple classrooms. And if you take those numbers and average it together, that total percent passing for all students who took that test was an 84% as well. In health and human services, I think one thing that is important to to kind of point out here is the continued forward motion and offering our students kind of the latest and greatest as we continue to keep up with what is high demand, high wage fields. the patient care technician fields that you see there um those were new assessments in the last school year for students and the students were very successful under the care of the instructors that were in that classroom. So that certainly speaks to the knowledge and expertise was there. Um
180and again that was a brand new examination and addition. We saw something very similar in the culinary arts as I mentioned earlier with the ProStart training and professional development that instructors participated in. There are also three new assessments last school year, the two pro starts and the leadership assessment. And if you look across the board at the percent passing there, the students were highly successful in that examination as well. So kudos to the students and the instructors um in that area as well. Also want to make sure that we demonstrate how our students were performing in our army JOTC. The ASVAB is your top line. That is our students that are currently in CTE that take ASVAB. Of course, we do have other students not enrolled in specific CTE that test, but these are specific
181to CTE. And we also have cohorts of students with JOTC that participate in leadership assessment. We always look for opportunities to highlight our students and I'm sure you guys have seen these faces before, but we would be remiss if we did not again have the opportunity to highlight some of the accomplishments. Um, our students and staff put in a lot of hard work and this is the reason that we are here. As you all know, we have one world championship group, which are our Kidwin students up there top center. I believe we had three different groups that made national level appearances, FLA, for the first time ever. Um, we had our ProStart region 2 winners. Those are the students who also were participating in those assessments. And we had one representative from HOSA, and I
182believe that was also a firsttime appearance. So, there's some really great things happening in our classrooms. And if you have any questions, I would be happy to answer comments from the board. >> How does the enrollment look this year compared to last year? Pretty much straight across the board with the CTE programs. I have not looked at the current year enrollment as that compares to last year enrollment at this time, but I can certainly pull that for you and get it to you very shortly. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Absolutely. >> Anyone else? >> Thanks, Miss White. >> Thank you all. Okay, that takes us to 154. Good evening. I'm here to present the annual professional development update. Um this is our second year with if you remember we um have an initiative with Wallace
183where they provided a grant for two years to support with leadership pipeline. on the left picture that is the cohort. Remember we are in the co cohort with Franklin and Picosen. Um we meet annually and working on our strategic plans within the Wallace work plan. And then to the right was our first aisle lead cohort. These are teacher leaders who are looking or are currently in a master's program towards administration. So this was their first year. Um it was a wonderful group. This group of isle lead also mentor our year two teachers. So after they complete the isle lead or the excuse me the new teacher cohort with us for their first year with us they are then again supported with strong veteran teachers in their second year and that is given by our al
184leads. >> May I interrupt you for one second? Could you just remind them that these are via grants? The Wallace. >> Yes. We're in year two of that grant. >> Yeah. >> This summer, leadership met at the Smithfield Center because um we were fortunate with the Wallace grant to provide us that opportunity. Um we met over um three days and focused on these topics. I do want to point out that our coordinators and coaches provided the professional development within these sessions. Um we are really looking at current high quality PD that we need to give our leaders who then can support their teachers. So you'll see the explicit instruction is a focus for this year and of course AI. We're doing a lot of work with that. And then when our new teachers came back,
185we had two weeks of um strong professional development for all teachers. Um we gave a almost full day with our instructional assistance. They have been seeking some professional development. So we wanted to give them um strong high quality behavior PD. We partnered with TTAC from William and Mary. They came in for free and provided that professional development to all of our instructional assistants. And then we continued with sessions provided by coordinators, coaches, and looking at behavior, technology, and classroom management. These are some ongoing professional learning opportunities that we're going to be taking advantage going into this year. I do just want to point out a couple things. Um you'll see in the third bullet point instructional rounds. This is our new learning walk process that we implemented last year. Um we had the high quality
186instruction training that a group of us went got the training came back we trained our administrators and now all administrators will be instructing these learning blocks or instructional rounds. And I think this goes to support the data when we're really looking at and making databased decisions. Um, these instructional rounds are very very specific to what the school needs at that time. So depending on what the school needs, we then go through the classrooms, give them feedback, and admin teams from the schools can make decisions right then and there to make changes for instructional or behavior. So it's great feedback. These are the 60 new staff members that we welcomed um to Isaite County Schools. They come from all different walks of life and all different kinds of experiences and we are welcome. We welcome them.
187We held um you can see our beautiful new central office space where we fit all of them in there. We gave them a tour of the county. They got to see the Windsor side, Smithville side, and really we looked at what do they need to know to be successful for that first month of school. And I do want you to focus about mentor mentee meetings because I know this was a question. Um, Chair Marsh, we uh because we know that our new teachers are coming from all different experiences, we pair them up with a mentor veteran teacher who um also got training at the beginning of the year as well. We will continue into our second year. So again, those out of the 60, 44 are falling falling into less than three years experience. So
188last year we started the new teacher cohort. This is in the St. Luke's community room. They come in person from 8:30 to 3:30 and myself along with coaches and coordinators provide them with high quality professional development that will get them really through the month of what's going on currently. Um, and this was our cohort from last year and they got their certificate of completion and many of them stayed with us and we're very excited to have them again for year two. questions, >> questions from the board. >> Thanks, Mr. You. You answered my question that I'd answer asked. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. Merry >> Oh, sorry. Jumped a gun. It's Mrs. Yes. Okay. Oh, um before you you have the annual fundraising report. This is just information. If you have any questions,
189I'd be happy to take those. questions. >> Lots of busy people. >> Yes, busy people. Exactly. And they're steady coming in already. >> Questions, comments, >> questions? I don't have any of this stuff. >> Thanks, Miss. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Now, Mr. Barry, good evening. Uh, whoops. Where'd that go? Thank you. I thought I would start the um financial reports this month on the fiscal year 25 and year-end results. Um I think you all are aware but also for any of our listening audience to see how we ended in the black uh by about $2.2 million. Um, as you see with the revenue, we actually received over almost $250,000 over what we had budgeted. And these funds will be returned to the county once the audit is complete. Uh, the additional funds came from
190um the -ate program, which I think I had mentioned to you previously. That's where uh we get discounts on our telecommunications and um high-speed internet between the schools and so forth. Um we also received more from our Medicaid recovery program thanks to Mrs. Pulley and we received a little bit more in sales tax than originally anticipated. expenses came under budget uh by 1.97 million. Um and this was pretty much solely due to staff vacancies. And if you will recall um our health insurance claims as well as the the cost of these claims increased significantly in fiscal year 25. Um as comparison year to year-over-year it increased about 33%. So we started the year with health fund reserves of about 1.3 million and because of those increased costs we nearly depleted all of our reserves. So
191with this excess um or funds remaining in expenses we have transferred that to the health fund reserve bringing the reserves now up to about 2.23 23 million which is right uh the recommended reserve level for a plan our size that is recommended. Um please note these are um these results are currently unodudited. The audit will begin uh the first week of November. So and if anything changes certainly drastically you know I'll let you know. Since you're talking about health care, can you give us a little update on what we're doing moving forward as far as exploring alternative options? >> Um, I have been in communication with our consultant as late as today and we they will be preparing an RFP on our behalf. I will be posting it and issuing it. But um we will
192be exploring you know similar plans like we have right now which are self-insured plans and then we will also be looking at fully insured plans. Um the problem we have is that uh the the the cycle the timing of when the bids can come out and when health insurance companies will make you know any recommended um plan pricing is not going to be we probably won't get those back until late February. So we should get some preliminary um renewal rates in December, early part of January. So the 27 budget will be prepared based on you know a similar plan and those renewals and then of course you know we'll bring you the results of what we find out from the RFP as soon as possible. But of course, I'm familiar with the deadlines for for
193the budget and um you know, we'll work around that. >> So, ma'am, and and Dr. Kramer, just so in and my colleagues up here, I get reminded probably weekly by supervisors Roundtree and Distano that they are anxious to entertain that discussion and help the school division find alternatives. So, >> uh, I I feel confident that that question will come up next month when we're in a joint work session. So, >> it's already >> everything you just said is good talking points to bring. >> It's already in the works. >> I have no doubt. Thank you, ma'am. >> Any other questions with regard to fiscal year 25? Okay. On to 26. >> Before you before you move on, uh, if there are no other questions, I'd like to take a moment. I don't want to gloss
194over this 2025 financial update. I think this is the healthiest by far we have been in the last three years at least since I've been here. And I think that this warrants a bit more attention than I think we're giving it. And I want to acknowledge our entire staff, um, my colleagues at central office, and I'd like to acknowledge the work of, uh, Miss Davi and her staff to end this year with a $2.2 million um, surplus and to be able to shore up our health fund. Um, I think we started the year with $1.3 approximately million dollars in reserves. now because of where we are being very fiscally prudent, we are going to be able to shore that up and for the first time I think since I've been here as well uh have
195what's been recommended and that is over $2 million in reserve. So again, I I I think it's important that we take a moment and it's okay, I think, for us to pat ourselves on the back and celebrate where we are and to acknowledge the work that many people have done to get us to this point. So, I wanted to say that if that's okay. >> It's that's well well said, Dr. Kramer. And I I think I alluded to it a bit earlier and as we move forward with uh the budget discussions and we've got the compensation study going on. You know, just using big round numbers, we $2 million surplus this year by far and large because of unfilled positions. Uh, I think it's reasonable reasonable to expect something similar coming this year, assuming nothing
196catastrophic comes up. Um, I think it's going to make the conversations easier when we get the results of the compensation study and we start making those hard decisions on what we need to do and where we need to put the money. So, certainly a welcomed number to see up on the board. I would echo Dr. Kramer's sentiment. Thank you. And speaking of the compensation study, I also just wanted to let you know that that's underway. Um the data was provided to this consultant earlier this week. Um Mrs. Sullivan and I had a a Zoom meeting with them today. The market survey um on the salaries will begin next week. And then um later this month, 1 of October, they will start a um job performance review where staff will be able to give some input
197on their own job descriptions and where some changes may need to be made. So, they'll get to put some input in. Now, we won't be doing that with the teacher job descriptions, but for the rest of of the staff, um that's part of this this study. I don't want to put the cart before before the horse, but I I I think that's important. I I've personally heard at Nauseium since I've been on this board that the central office is overstaffed and overpaid. And after sitting up here and watching you folks do what you do for nearly three years, I do not share that opinion. I think by far and large, every one of you do wear multiple hats all the time. So, I think it's incumbent for you all to advocate for yourselves and do
198not hesitate to put down everything you do with your job descriptions. >> Um, I I don't know how it is in other school divisions. I but that's what we look to find out. >> Well, this includes all support staff, you know, not just administration. >> Um, and >> that's the that's the general stereotype that gets thrown out there. So, >> you're right. There's a lot of support staff that aren't necessarily in a classroom behind a chalkboard. >> I don't believe the district's been through a compensation study for close to 20 years. I think it was 2006 >> since this division. >> Yes. >> Yeah. I I think again I don't want to put the cart before the horse, but sooner the sooner we can figure out what the number is, the target of what we
199need to start looking at and we can see what we've got to work with. Those conversations need to start happening early and often with our friends at the county. So, leave it at that. And we expect to have a a draft report like November, December, so we know what we'll be working with in preparing, you know, the preliminary budget for you. >> Good. That's sooner than I expected, actually. >> So, on to um 26, the current fiscal year. There's I'm happy to say there's uh nothing out of the ordinary um to report. Um, you will note on the grant fund report, um, I am showing there's, uh, I'm estimating there's about a $350,000 carryover from unused grants, um, from, you know, this year that rolls into or from 25 that rolls into 26. I also
200want to note that we still have not heard about our title grant awards. So, title one, two, three, and four. title uh and and they all total probably about a million dollars. Uh title one and title two do support paying um teachers staff. So we'll have to take that into consideration too as we you know the the months progress here. But with those being federal grants I would think we would know shortly since federal year starts October 1st. >> Yeah. So, we have that to, you know, be monitoring as well. >> Um, one thing that caught my attention and I appreciate I'm assuming you added the uh screenshot of the uh you have to excuse me. I'm getting tired and drawing blanks here. our our $250,000 capital pot of money that we have. It caught
201my attention that of the 250k, we've already expended or encumbered all but $23,000. And I do see that you're requesting some reimbursements. I would assume >> the welding is from INTA. You're going to try to get that back from >> No, these um and Dr. Coleman and his staff prepared this. Um I believe this first one on the the welding um these are filters that we purchase, but they really should be coming from out of a CTE budget. >> Got it. >> So it's just so there'll be more money in there once we just do some accounting reclasses. And even if those asterisks were pulled out of it, we've still spent >> 200 of $250,000. So that doesn't leave us much to play with for unexpected capital. So >> correct. >> And we're September. >>
202Yeah. That that maintenance budget really needs to be a half a million. >> Yeah. >> Or more. >> Okay. I appreciate you answering those questions. Um, for the sake of time, I won't cherrypick through the ones you've already answered. >> Anybody else? >> Well, I'll just end with the annual school report was submitted to the state yesterday. >> Oh, outstanding. >> Thank you. >> Which is also huge. I want to acknowledge that. >> Well, we were late that one year, right? We we're in and most districts you get a what a two-eek extension usually from September 15th to usually uh >> 30th >> September 30th and we are already in prior to the 15th so >> huge shout out kudos to you Mr. Barry and your team for being early. They It's almost a standard
203where you get an extension. Yes, we were not only late one year, we were >> into the next year, calendar year submitting it. So, uh just again, I can't say enough about the work that >> finance folk are doing. So, quite impressive. >> And you everything's working good with the county. I know they had a little staffing changes over there. Everything's good. >> Yes. Um, I actually attended an audit committee meeting this past Monday out there and met their new finance director, CFO. >> Good. >> Yes. >> Good to hear. >> Thank you, ma'am. >> Thanks. >> UK is good. You want to take five? >> Five. >> Doc, we're going to take a real quick fivem minute recess. with two slides. >> Yeah, I like that. >> All right, we're back in session. >>
204Over there. >> Okay, >> Mr. chairman, school board members, um with the operations update, just scroll that very quickly. We have Mr. Brinkley here and Mr. Fight for the transportation update for the first two weeks and security emergency management update for the first two weeks. Mr. Fight. >> Alrighty. Good evening once again. So, um, I have a couple points I'm going to make. Um, so I'll kind of, uh, plow through those points. Uh, feel free to interject if you have any questions and I'll entertain, uh, whatever questions you have at the end. Um, so I don't want to miss this opportunity. I want to start it off. We're talking about the start of the school year. So, I was just telling Dr. Coleman a few moments ago, but he already knows. Um, but I just
205want to say it publicly and make sure everybody's aware of it. We are in the best position we've been in with our fleet services department in years. We We really are. It's been so quiet the last two weeks on that front. Um, so kudos to Mr. Sullivan and his staff. It really has been absolutely incredible. Uh, the work that they did over the summer to end the school year. We didn't have like a, you know, a back lot of broken buses sitting all over the place. We kept going through the end of the year. As a matter of fact, he got every single bus going um on the first day of school except for one school bus. We've been waiting on a part for about six months. We probably never will really will find that
206part, but we're still waiting on it u because they don't manufacture it anymore. So, he's done a tremendous job uh getting us ready for school this year. Um so, just kind of an overview of our operation. I know uh the board members, Dr. Kramer, you guys are aware of all this. So, our operation is growing. Um and certainly, you know, we look at the things we put in place with fleet services and with our personnel. We're hiring bus drivers. We did have some pretty good gains over the summer. A couple of our new hires didn't work out. Um, and even we heard earlier in the meeting about some of the bus changes and so forth. So, um, and I can address those kind of speed bumps, I guess, from the very get-go. Um, in the
207last nine or 10 days, we've actually had three staff members that are out for very valid reasons. And and I'll leave it at that point. You know, you don't plan on those things, but they happen. We're human beings. You know, we work with people and these things come up sometimes. But I have to say our drivers do a really phenomenal job of scooping it up and they know what needs to be done and you know you don't even have to tell them twice. You don't even have to hardly tell them once. They go and do it and they really kind of get us through. Um so for this school year we're looking at uh we have a total of 106 school bus routes. That's in the morning and that's in the afternoon as well. So
208so think think about these numbers. all these routes. Um on average we transport about 3,200 3,300 students a day. So that's about 55 60% of our student count. Uh so those numbers are very very high. So in addition to the 75 school buses we run, we have eight cars and vans. So they run specialized routes um out of the county. I'll talk about that in a moment. Some special education routes and some McKenna Vento routes as well. Um, and our service, a lot of people don't realize it extends well beyond Iowa White County. There's a tremendous amount of things that we do within within the county, but we actually service we have special education programs in Southampton. Uh, two programs in Suffach. We have the governor's school. You heard that earlier in the meeting. So,
209every day we send a school bus over to Hampton. Every afternoon we send one over to Norphick. And that school bus doesn't get back to about 6:00. Uh, we have Plan B. We have Rivermont. Um honestly the average school day we have buses on the road for probably 15 16 hours. Um just a little bit ago I was checking on our field trip bus. It's coming back from Picosen right now. Must be a volleyball game or something like that. So uh literally these things happen and uh we're we're we're always on when the buses are on the road. Couple Fridays ago Mr. Sullivan and I had to go chase a bus up to um where was that Dr. Coleman? I was up by Gloucester, I believe. >> Yeah. Football bus. So, like a breakdown happened,
210you know, on a Friday night and off we go. So, really just kind of the size of our operation, everything that uh it involves. So, like I said, it is growing. Uh but certainly we have a lot of things in place to help us with it. Um so, an update on the My View, my next point. So, uh as you recall, we we launched this the end of the school year. It was a success uh at Carsville. So, we are continuing the pilot for this year. Um, this week it has relaunched at Carsville. It is all set up. So, I sent all the information to Miss Outland. She pushed it out. I got a question through my email today. So, I know people are uh latching on to it again. It is coming soon. We're
211going to expand that pilot. It will be coming to Westside by the end of the month. I'm going to reach out to the uh principal, Mr. Johnson, about that very, very soon. So, anybody that's watching, listening, it's going to be coming to Westside as well. And our intention is to expand that to the whole division uh later this school year. So, we're doing it piece by piece. Uh the westside piece is going to be a considerably big piece. So we want to make sure we have that straight. Um really it's just um it kind of speaks to our mission for providing reassurance for parents about the bus, where is the bus, when's the bus coming, my child's on that bus, where is it, when will it be here, all that sort of stuff. So certainly
212it's moving us towards that. Um then the last point, so like I said, I talked about the size of our operation. So really I just I want to say publicly to the board, Dr. Kramer or anybody that's listening at home, we appreciate everyone's patience. Um the three weeks, two, three weeks before the school year starts and then the first three weeks of the year are the longest weeks of the school year, right? It's it's it's tough. The days are long. Um myself, my office staff, Miss Tracy in the office, my two technicians, Blake and Adena, we work nights, weekends, and we do it like constantly. So, we work non-stop. So, we worked tirelessly uh to get things in place and you know, we we try for we try to be perfect, right? I was talking
213to the school administrator that earlier this week. We try to be perfect. We're not perfect, but we try to be and we work as hard as we can to try to make it perfect. So, uh just putting things in place and I know it it's frustrating. You're out there and where's the bus? The the sheet said it's supposed to be here at 7:52 and here it is 10 after 8. And you know, we're dealing with such a large operation. There are so many variables. There are so many parts. We rely on people. We rely on equipment. We rely on, you know, factors we can't control like the weather and the traffic and uh we had that really bad accident. I think it was the first or second day of of the school year last last
214week in the afternoon. So, we have all this stuff. So, we have to kind of, you know, we have to do our best and we have to juggle. We have to move things on the fly. Um, but I'll kind of close with uh reminding everybody. So, we have a very, very small staff at transportation. So, there are three people down there to answer the phones, answer the emails, answer the voicemails. We get multiple of those a day. Um, I'm handling all the administrative stuff and there are some days I'm only in my office for maybe 30 minutes because I'm on the run. I'm doing things. Uh, yesterday I was driving a field trip, for example, in the afternoon and I had folks calling me, you know, calling my office. They they texted my cell phone
215and everything and I got back to them. Um, so we really appreciate everybody's patience. So, we have a pretty good system in place to manage all those, but I know uh people they get a little bit upset when they call three or four times in a row and they get the voicemail machine. Um, you know that. So, we tell people all the time, leave the voicemail, we will get back to you. We will get it. It goes straight to our email. So certainly um I would say where we are where we were two years ago when I came in. I sat in this chair and I remembered some of those questions, some of the comments, some of the um you know the interested stakeholders that that spoke and everything like that. We are making a
216lot of progress. We really are. We're not there yet, but we are making a lot of progress. Um so I'll close with that and I'll open it up for any questions you may have. >> Mr. F. I don't have any questions for you. I just want to let you know I have not received a single complaint this school year about buses arriving late or anything of that nature. So, I think everything must be going well. >> I appreciate that. Thank you. >> Here. Here. I just took the words right out of my mouth. I think the last couple years this time in the school year had parents burning the phone up getting ready to read us the riot act. So, whatever you're doing, kudos to you. That said, I'd ask you to recall what Dr.
217Kramer said during convocation. You got to take care of yourself. You don't want a bald spot like me. >> Yes, sir. Thank you. >> Appreciate you. >> All right. Thank you. >> Yeah, >> Mr. Brinkley. >> Good evening again. I just want to kind of fill you in and give you the updates of where we're at so far this school year. Um, and we've been over a lot of it already. You heard Cole and Cameron uh speaking on the the weapons detection and how we have had some minor hiccups just with some of the newer students learning that process and getting through. And what we are seeing is in that process, some of the some of the upper classmen like kind of doing our jobs for us in a way because they're they're telling the
218other students what to do and they're guiding and directing them. Uh, but I I have to have to give a huge shout out to the staff at Smithfield High School and Windsor High School for the work that they're doing at arrival uh with the weapons detection systems. Um, they have put a lot of time and and effort into this and and reworking plans so that we can so that we can get those teachers away from being the ones searching the bags. Uh, and so they they've done a lot of work in helping with that. Um so we we do have those up and running uh at both high schools. That is going well. Uh we have completed all of the crisis management plans and revisions which I think are on the agenda for next month
219for to be presented to you all. Um and we had two SSOs at Smithfield High School that returned this year and they're obviously playing a very active role in in everything going on at Smithfield. And we hired a new SSO for Windsor High School. In fact, I think he did his onboarding the day of convocation and then came to convocation. Uh, and starting right then, he he immediately fit in and and started building those those working relationships with the staff and so far that's that's really working out well and the relationships that he's building uh with the staff as well as the students. Uh, so I will I will I will mimic some of the things that Mr. Fe said in that I am I'm very excited about where we're headed. Uh I'm I'm excited
220about a lot of the things that are that are happening and some of the decisions that have been made. And I will also mimic the fact that those first these these last three weeks and those first two weeks of school are by far the longest weeks. Uh there's some there's some late nights and early mornings uh dealing with everything, but I'm very excited about the the direction that we're going and the things that we're accomplishing. football threat weapons detection devices. Are you guys moving those around? So, >> we've we've started. Yes, we've we have started that and we are working on that as far as the the SSOs, working those at for afterhour events and getting getting those out to the games as well. >> Good. I'm just going to piggyback on that question. Um,
221if you're if you're utilizing weapons detection systems, you know, for for game nights or whatever, um, as far as battery life, what are you noticing on that? How are they holding up? >> Uh, so even the even the units that we're running throughout the day, we're finding that we're not having to recharge the batteries at the end of the day. Uh, a lot of times we'll swap them out with the detectors that we're that we're not running all day. Uh, and but the the battery life we're we're typically getting two full days uh of running the systems out of the out of the batteries >> on one charge. >> Mhm. >> That is impressive. So yeah, I was just I was just curious because >> obviously the obviously the SSOs at each location, that's one
222of their one of their responsibilities uh is to is to check that battery life and we we tend to go ahead and recharge them even if they're even if they're not all the way low just to make sure we don't run into any issues with with losing the battery life on those. >> I know eventually we'll have to replace batteries. I was just curious how long they were lasting right now. >> Yep. It's it it's usually about two days. Yeah. >> Thank you. That's it. >> All right. No uh introduction there tonight from you, Mr. Chair. >> Over to you, Dr. Kramer. >> There we go. >> We're getting tired. >> Well, no, no problem. I appreciate that. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. No problem. So, didn't want to uh be presumptuous. >> Good evening,
223everyone. As Mr. uh Elliot, our co-riter, pulls up the PowerPoint there. So, as you all know, this is the first board meeting since uh school started Tuesday, September 2nd. So, this is in essence really kind of the first seemingly a real board meeting of the year given that we have students and staff who are now uh back with us. So, let's start with our I think we're get you to go back a few slides here. Let's start with the um I'm not sure what order we have here. We're a little bit mixed up. I'll tell you what, we're going to get through this, Mr. Cooprider. Let's start with the annual convocation. There we go. All right. So, we started with our annual convocation and a few of you have referenced that uh this evening where
224we brought together over 700 staff members to celebrate the start of the 202526 school year at Smithfield High School's auditorium and virtually everyone who works for Isa White. For those of you who are listening, they were invited to be a part of that awesome event. Uh the event was filled with excitement, energy, and inspiration as we honored award recipients, celebrated achievements, and looked ahead to another incredible year. And despite all the fun, let's be clear, it's not all fun and activities. I do spend a significant amount of time discussing the state of the school division and what our focus needs to be for the upcoming year. Uh so thank you all for making this year's convocation a success and making it uh so enjoyable and appreciate your reference earlier Mr. Chair. It shows that somebody's
225listening when you reference one of the things I think I ended with and that is staff making sure that you take care of yourself because if you're not taking care of yourselves can't take care of our children. So I appreciate you referencing that. And uh do look at some of the costumes here. Uh, we had our annual competition uh between schools and I think Hardy, help me, Miss Getts, Hardy Elementary won this year. And I did tweet out uh some other photos as well with uh board members and I uh the cowboy boots and the cowboy hats and that was a theme as well. So again, lots of fun and almost all of you attended. I think one of you had a prior commitment, but everybody else was there and uh great way to launch
226the school year. Now, if we can go and I know we're kind of in different orders here, uh, Mr. Cook Ryder. So, let's go to first week of school. Uh, so there we go, sir. Thank you. As you will see from the photos here, we had a successful and fairly uneventful first week of school, which is exactly what we want. Absolutely. I was able to get out to all nine schools on the first day and uh I can tell you that our teachers, administrators, and staff members were well prepared for our students return. And I want to thank all of you for being out as well. I know many of you were at different sites. I think I missed some of you, but uh was with uh board member Cunningham and Perkins. We were at
227Smithfield High School and Smithfield Middle. Um and as you see from the smiling faces there, students are learning basically on day one and events are well underway and as we heard from our student liaison uh the athletic events are in full swing and we are doing well. So school is well underway and that's a great thing. Uh let's now go to the IMTA ribbon cutting ceremony. There we are. So, as you see from the photo, we had the opportunity uh to participate in the ribbon cutting ceremony at the newly renovated and recently opened Isle Maritime Trades Academy uh with officials from Paul Damp uh Community College, Old Dominion University, and certainly members of our school board. And I think you see there uh Miss Perkins and Chair Marsh is tucked in the back somewhere there.
228And Mr. colleagues on the front inspecting the sciss scissor cutting there. Um, and then I think we have some students not unfortunately in this photo, but we have some of our students who are represented in another photo. And remember that the IMTA is a partnership between Isle White County Schools, Camp Community College, Newport New Ship Building, Huntington Engles, and Old Dominion University. Uh, also it's important to note that this new academy will give up to 80 juniors and seniors the chance to earn a high school diploma, an associates degree, and industry credentials in ship building trades like welding and electrical. So, we're very excited about that. And, uh, also coming up pretty soon, we're going to have a guest uh, if everything works out, we may have our governor visiting the Isle Maritime Trades Academy.
229So know how busy uh his schedule is. So if there are no cancellations, we'll be sharing a little bit more uh with you about that in the coming weeks. Next, if you can go to the ribbon cutting ceremonies for our new tracks, fields, and tennis courts at both high schools. There we have it. Okay. So, we were able to celebrate the uh ribbon cutting ceremonies for the newly upgraded athletic facilities at Windsor High School on September 4th and at Smithfield High School on September 8th. Uh just this past week, the ribbon cutting ceremonies uh gave us a chance to formally thank all who made these upgraded facilities possible, starting with members of our school board. So, I thank all of you uh gentlemen and lady uh for making these upgrades a priority and thanks to
230the county board of supervisors for their support and for providing the funding uh for these upgrades. And a special thank you as well to the Opusy Foundation for funding the repairs and upgrades to the Smith I'm sorry to the Windsor High tennis courts. And as you see there uh some of the guest speakers, Mr. colleague uh brought greetings at Smithfield. Chair Marsh brought greetings at Windsor and we have Mr. Cole Munford, our student liaison also bringing greetings and you see uh our tennis courts, tracks and fields. Uh very proud of that and again I extend a heartfelt thank you to each of you board members and to the supervisors for making that possible. >> Absolutely. just for whatever it's worth to you. I got a I got a phone call night before last from a
231gentleman uh retired out of the blue. Uh first I thought I was going to get laid into and he goes, "Hey Marsh, how much did that track cost over at Windsor?" And I divulged as much as I could from my memory and he goes, "Man, it looks good. I sure appreciate you guys getting that done." So I I share that because it's not just the school division, the community benefits from those facilities as well. Absolutely. Thank you. That's a great point. That's right. This is not just a win for our school division. This is for the entire community. No question about it. So, we should all take pride in this. And now, uh, sharpening skills for a new school year. Slide. So this summer, over 25 members of our IWCS child nutrition team participated in
232the summer manager workshops and culinary workshops for frontline cafeteria staff hosted in partnership with the Virginia Department of Education School Nutrition Program and the Culinary Institute of America. Uh, and over the two days of hands-on learning, our staff trained in scratch and speed scratch cooking techniques, reading and following standardized recipes, knife skills, using herbs and spices to reduce sodium. Mr. Worster, in other words, less salt. Sir, I think you can appreciate that. uh strategies for lowering added sugars in our students meals and preparing fresh nutritious meals that reflect the cultures and taste of our students. So huge kudos and thank you to our food service workers and all the work that they're doing to ensure that our students have nutritious meals every day. And a shout out to uh Mrs. Couch and to Mrs. Williams
233uh who are leading that area as well. Uh, next we have a state of the county event. Uh, I had the privilege of attending the state of the county event that was sponsored by the Isa White Chamber of Commerce on Monday, September 8th at the Smithfield Center. Um, if that was not up there, don't worry about it. I think we somehow I don't know if I went in and did some things late and didn't get that to you. So, I apologize for that, Mr. Coot Ryder, Mr. Elliot. Nonetheless, uh, Mayor Smith of the town of Smithfield, Mayor Stubs of the town of Windsor, and chairman of the board of supervisors, Mr. Rosie, all presented on their respective areas. Uh, it was great hearing all the exciting initiatives that are occurring in Isa White. U, so,
234thank you to all that you gentlemen are doing in our community and thank you for allowing us to be a part of that initiative. And last, and too bad we don't have this up there, but uh we had an image for the county fair. I think one of you alluded to this earlier, as most of you know, we have the Isa White County Fair, which starts this evening, uh September 11th, and it runs through Sunday, September 14th. Uh, isawite first graders, first grade students in the division will attend the county fair from 10:00 a.m. to 2 o'clock p.m. tomorrow, Friday, September 12th. And during the visit, students will enjoy carnival rides, interact with the animals, and live performances at the Barton Ford stage. Additionally, the Smithfield High band will be performing between the hours of
23510 and 10:45 a.m. and the Windsor High band will be performing between the hours of 11 to 11:45 a.m. As part of the fair festivities, each participating school has also created a themed hay bale display celebrating this year's fair theme, which is there's no time like fair time. Um and I think help me uh Miss Getats um our agricultural land lab students are usually there as well. Didn't want to neglect mentioning them. So they will be there throughout the week as well. So our students and staff will be well represented and we also I won't mention all the staff members names but we'll have staff members who will be at a booth uh sharing information from our county as well. So, we will be well represented throughout the week at the fair and uh I
236look forward to being there in the morning and partaking as well. And I hope I'll get a chance to see some of you good folk there if your schedules permit. Uh with that, Mr. Chair and members of the board, that completes my superintendent update. Any comments? Doc, for whatever it's worth, seems to me like you've got a welloiled machine going your way. Last couple years haven't been so smooth. Even my boss, my wife said everything seems to be going pretty well. So kudos to you and the team, sir. >> Well, if we got the real boss to give us that kudo, Mrs. Marson, and that matters. So, thank you very much. >> She certainly runs my house. >> Okay, that takes us on to personnel report action item. Mr. Chair, I move to approve the
237personnel report as presented, a copy of which can be obtained from the school board clerk. >> Second motion in a second. Any discussion? >> Hearing none, Madam Cler. >> Mr. Collic. >> Yes. >> Mr. Cunningham? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Perkins? >> Yes. >> Mr. Worster? >> Yes. >> And Mr. Marsh? >> Yes. Motion passes. And Mr. Worooster, I understand you're going to lump some of these together. Uh, that is my intention. Yes. Mr. Chair, I move to grant the exemption from compulsory attendance for student RE X 26326. >> Hang on. Now I got my glasses on. REX2526-03 REX2526-04 REX2526-05 and REX2526-06 [Music] second motion and a second. Any discussion, Madame Clerk? Mr. Collet, >> yes. >> Mr. Cunningham, >> yes. >> Mrs. Perkins, >> yes. >> Mr. Worster, >> yes. >> And Mr. Marsh, >>
238yes. Motion passes. >> Back to you, sir. >> Mr. Chair, I move to uphold the superintendent's recommendation for student matter- 2022. Second >> motion and a second. Any discussion? >> Madame clerk. >> Mr. Collic. >> Yes. >> Mr. Cunningham? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Perkins? >> Yes. >> Mr. Worster? >> Yes. >> And Mr. Marsh? >> Yes. Motion passes. It takes us to the consent agenda. Mr. Chair, I move to approve the consent agenda as attached and presented. >> Second. Have >> a motion and a second. And friends, I would ask that you divulge me for a second. Um, there are a lot of donations on September's donation uh memo, but there's one in particular I want to draw attention to. And as a representative for district four, Windsor, it's been brought to my attention numerous
239times that Windsor does not have a Smithfield Foods. So, it's not very common that Windsor gets a new $30,000 scoreboard like Smithfield High does. So, this month, the Peanut Soil and Water Conservation District donated $40,000 to Windsor High for a new greenhouse from Rimmel. So I >> Nice. >> That's that's an awesome donation and a huge contribution to the Windsor High School, >> sir. Please. >> Yes. And I appreciate you acknowledging that. Dr. Coleman had to leave unfortunately. Um but wanted to note that we will be acknowledging them uh at a at an upcoming event. So didn't want anyone to think that we weren't uh aware of that and weren't going to uh acknowledge that at the level it should be. So, we will be providing more information to the board as we acknowledge that
240in at an upcoming event in the very near future. >> Thank you, doctor. >> Um, any other comments, >> Madam Clerk? >> Mr. Collic? >> Yes. >> Mr. Cunningham? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Perkins? >> Yes. >> Mr. Worster? >> Yes. >> And Mr. Marsh? >> Yes. Motion passes. Uh, let's see here. And then we've got policies for first read. Miss though, this is listed as an accent item, but I think this is just an info for first read. >> Should be info. >> Yeah. >> Yes, sir. It's just information. >> That's okay. >> I will correct that. >> That's okay. Um, and Mrs. Briggs left because she's a little under the weather, but there's roughly 50 some odd policies up there for first read. >> It's a lot, that's for sure. >> Yeah. Um, I
241did spend a significant amount of my weekend going through each and every one of these and I'll spare the board all the questions. I will say that between Mrs. Briggs and the other staff, they answered all of my questions. Most of it was just me trying to get a better understanding and for the sake of time, I'll certainly share that all with you individually and appropriately. Um, just from where I'm sitting, there was nothing that really jumped out at me. There's one uh there was F policy FEA. I had asked her to add the new regulation FBR which is the one we use to uh kind of help shape the goals and vision of the division. Um, EEBC was was a new policy based off new legislation that was opioid antagonists. Um, I asked what
242that was and who administers it and who has the training and the short answer was the SRO's or the authorized administers currently and the school nurses are due to receive the same training on the 22nd. That's what she said by our partner Western Tidewater. Um, and then there's one in there that talks about um alcohol. There's there's a policy GDQ that talks about um submitting for alcohol and controlled substances testing. And I asked the question, why does that only apply to bus drivers? I understand why it applies to bus drivers. And the response I got was they're currently working on a regulation that would expand that to all employees. So that was for me that was a welcomed response. I don't see how bus drivers should just be singled out. Um the other stuff was
243administrative for the most part. >> Mr. Mr. Mars, >> guess what am I missing here? Yeah, I'll I'll just add on that policy. If there is a suspicion of alcohol or drug use in employees, we can require them to be tested. So, it's not going to be the random testing like the bus drivers. >> Right. >> Understood. >> Any other comments from the board? >> No. Okay, I guess we'll move along. Second read policies. It's action item. Mr. Chair, after reviewing the policies for second read, I would like to pull remove policy KGD for future review or future review and possible updates. The rest of those policies I am currently fine with. Is that a motion? I could make it a motion. >> I don't think you need to think a motion to do it.
244Accept that. >> That sounds fine. I think and this is get you keep me honest here. I think KGB because this was up for first read last month. You weren't here. I think that's based off new legislation. >> I'm sorry I don't have this in the packet. What is Can you tell me what which one >> it's school connected student overdose notification and privacy policy? >> Yes, that is that is based on legislation that is it the 24hour we have to notify in 24 hours. That is legislation. >> Correct. >> And that's already it's required by law as July 1. >> That is correct. >> Right. I'm I'm not questioning that aspect. Um, I'm actually looking at possibly adding to it just a little bit to tweak it. >> Can I suggest that we approve
245it and then >> Yes. >> get it in place and if we want to amend it, you want to vet it through the committee, then >> we'll just throw it back on next month for another first read. >> I'm good with that. >> Yeah. >> I think we should go ahead and get it in place. Um, most of the policies don't we usually have what it what law or whatever it addresses at the bottom of the policy so people can reference it? >> Am I missing? >> If this is new legislation, should we have what piece of legislation should be attached to this policy of why we're requiring it where it's coming from? >> The the bill number actually. >> Yeah. >> Is that what you're referring to? >> Typically, if it is Hold on.
246>> It's just not on this. So maybe we need to >> add that. >> It's not on that one. >> Okay. >> I'm not seeing it on here. So if it >> Mr. Chair, I do have a question. >> Yes, sir. >> If we didn't pass this, if we didn't have this policy in place, don't put it in place tonight. We're still legally obligated to follow this. >> We are. >> Correct. So I think we're we're talking semantics. I understand what Mr. Worester, you know, wants to do. Um I definitely don't disagree with it. um because I think there's a few things that should be tweaked and the the first thing I see is you know the definition of overdose. Okay, that's really not 100% accurate. You know, you can it it says consumption or
247use of a controlled substance. Well, you can overdose on Tylenol, you know. So, so I think tweaking a little bit like that. >> I believe that is the part from the code, Mr. Collague, but we can go back and double check on that. So, what's the consensus here? Do we want to bless it and and throw it back for first read for review? >> We could do that. >> It honestly doesn't matter to me. Uh, but I do think we need to review it. >> Okay. So, then I would I would uh be my my wish to go ahead and approve it and then roll it right into the committee for further review. Okay. >> That way it's in place. >> Yeah, that that's fine by me. certainly look at adding the cross references. >>
248Yeah, we need to add that. I see where you're saying >> she did that last month. So, she did that I think she did it before she had her uh our model policies. So, >> probably >> she probably pulled it from scratch. >> Dr. Kramer, anything you want to add to that? >> No, it's board's preference. So if you were, my recommendation would be to move forward with this and make the adjustments later as you recommend it, but certainly we would move with whatever your your preference is. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Yes, sir. >> Mr. Chair, I move to approve policies for second read as presented. >> Second. >> Any other discussion? Madame Clerk. >> Mr. Collic. >> Yes. >> Mr. Cunningham? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Perkins? >> Yes. >> Mr. Worster? >> Yes.
249>> And Mr. Marsh? >> Yes. Motion passes. And Mrs. Getser, are you going to send that to Mrs. Briggs? Thank you, ma'am. We're there. Peoples. Ward member comments. Who wants to go first? >> I'll do it. >> Go for it, Mr. Mr. Klet. >> Okay. So, uh, since the last meeting, uh, I attended the IMTA ribbon cutting ceremony as Dr. Kramer showed, uh, the convocation and I was able to take a tour of Carsville Elementary School to see the renovations and the updates that were done. Very nice. And I've got to say, I have never seen Carsville Elementary as clean and as bright and as full of energy as I did then. And I think that's a testament to Mrs. Outland and her leadership uh, and all the staff there. They do a wonderful job.
250>> Thank you, sir. Mr. Worister. Um, I really don't have much. Um, I will be at the fair tomorrow because I can't wait to see the band playing and if I run in anybody, you know, hope to see you there if you are there. >> Thank you, sir. M. Perkins. >> See you there, >> Mr. Cunningham. I'll be okay. Uh I was at a convocation uh ribbon cutting for uh at Windsor High School, Smithfield High School. Uh attended the first day at uh Smithfield High, Smithfield Middle, Hardy Elementary. And uh I will be at the FY also tomorrow. And it looks like I'm going to be there at 9:30. I was thinking it was 10, but I'm going to get there early so I don't miss anything. Other than that, hey, uh I want to
251thank the staff for everything they've done to make this first or the first week uh actually that was last week, wasn't it? Yeah, this is the second week uh a success. I mean, all the kids love it. It Well, maybe not going back to school, but they seem happy. They have smiles on their faces and uh and they're safe, and that's the most important thing. So, thank you. All I have. >> Okay. And no sense in repeating everything. Ribbon ribbon cutting, all that good stuff. >> Yep. It's been busy. Appreciate everybody. Um it's late. Good night. Meeting adjourned.