School Board Meeting 7/12/21

001okay we're gonna we're gonna open she's coming okay i'm just making sure this time we reconvene into our open session certification of resolution of compliance please thank you madam chair i move that the closed meeting was conducted in conformity with the provisions of the virginia freedom of information as required by section 2.2-3712-d of the code of virginia and certified that only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements were discussed and only such public business matters as were identified and the motion by which the closed meeting was convened were heard discussed or considered second okay we have a motion it has been second vote please [Music] mm-hmm so um okay motion carry we want to welcome everyone to our july 2021 school board meeting this is the beginning of our new school year and

002i want to ask miss times to please open up with the pledge and moment of silence [Music] i pledge 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 okay at this time we are going to be hearing from our alawite achievers good evening the vision for isle of wight county schools is to create a learning environment that will enable every child to discover his or her unique gifts and talents the isle of wight achievers section of our board meeting gives us an opportunity to recognize and celebrate our students and staff for their unique talents and gifts we are honoring several students tonight who recently participated in state competitions in track and field and

003soccer last year please keep in mind last year these sports were abruptly halted in march with the closure of schools across the state [Music] when i call your name please come up stand behind me and face the board until we have called every member of your group then we're going to have you go to the risers so we can do a picture and possibly have some additional presentations so we're going to start with windsor high school's track and field team and if any of the windsor high school students and coaches are here come up when i call your name seven students from the windsor high school track and field team competed at the state level after a successful spring season first we have sy theron a senior who competed in the 300 meter hurdles zymer

004pearson a freshman in the high jump the 4 by 100 relay team zymer pearson [Applause] [Music] the four by 100 meter relay team of sophomore isaiah brown sophomore isaiah seabourn [Applause] sophomore quincy wellins and senior daquan garrison also in the 4x100 we have preston davis uh let's see daquan garris is not with us meddled and placed eighth in the triple jump and we also have freshman chevelle joyner [Music] chevelle meddled and placed eight in the high jump coaches are tyler mosley and sherry [Music] ashford if we have any family members in the audience that would like to take a photo this is the perfect time to do that you can just come on down the aisle we're used to it and while they're taking the photo let me point out again that chevelle joyner is

005a freshman and she placed eighth in the high jump so i think we'll see her back here a couple more years congratulations [Music] okay also for track and field from smithville high school this time we had several members that qualified and competed in the recent state competition all of the following finished in the top four in the region and qualified for state track and field from the girls team the 4 by 100 meter and 4 by 400 meter relay teams we have sophomore tadiana langston junior haley fowler junior catherine brady and freshman leah moy haley also competed in the long jump she's not with us but leah thank you for being with us tonight if you'll just wait up here facing the board we're going to have the boys group come up as well from

006the boys 4 by 400 meter team we have tyler simon a sophomore [Music] and then we have senior robert mccoy and senior kenneth mccoy and we have senior johnny babiak who's not able to be with us tonight [Music] [Applause] we also have sophomore chris basking [Music] so chris finished fifth in the 100 meter at the state meet and third in the 200 meter at states and he was also region champion in both events and once again i'll say he's a sophomore wow [Music] okay next the 4 by 100 relay team of chris basking who we just had come up here sophomore tyler simon senior nick henson [Music] [Applause] and senior chris gundy who i don't believe is with us tonight so running in that order these four young men placed first in the class four

007state meet their time of 42.69 was close to setting a track record the team is coached by robert mccoy and if any of y'all are here coaches please there we go robert mccoy eric bergie and steve shepard so at this time we are going to have them go over to the risers and um we'll get a photo down on the front part of the risers so mr elliot you've got mr elliot's going to get you and while they're doing that these are student athletes so we're we're really happy to be able to say that those that are our seniors are going on to further their education robert mccoy will be attending thomas nelson community college kenneth mccoy will be attending ottawa university in arizona where he will join their track and field program johnny baviac

008will be attending virginia tech nick henshin will be attending radford university and chris gundy who ran the anchor leg and is not able to be with us tonight will be attending the u.s naval academy where he will be joining their football team [Applause] all right and track athletes you have to stay up there you can't come down yet because there's a few more things and um so we want to congratulate really that four by one hundred boys relay team for bringing home the first state track meet out in track and field school history and as tradition the state champion will receive rings to commemorate their accomplishment but at this time we have a few special presentations for the boys 4 by 100 meter relay team members and we'll have the special presenters use the adjacent

009podium at this time we have special presentation from the town of smithfield and i'd like to call up vice mayor mike smith before i read this resolution i want to uh let you know that i graduated from central high school in 1969 so i know that's a long time no and don't do the math but what i'm really proud of is this accomplishment you've achieved we had a small chance to go to state championships and basketball we missed it by one game but it's something that stayed with me my entire life i'll never forget that and uh you won't forget this either this would be something that you'll treasure you'll tell friends about sitting around the ball having a beer you'll be bragging about it so all i can tell you is it takes more

010than just you i know it took your family your friends your teachers your coaches it just takes the village to make something like this happen so in honoring that excuse me from the town of smithfield i'd like to read a resolution this is to commend and congratulate the 2021 smithfield high school boys 4 by 100 meter relay team whereas the smithville high school boys 4 by 100 meter relay team has won the 2021 class iv virginia high school league state championship and whereas this victory marks the first time in the school's 115 years that any track and field team has achieved the honor of winning a state championship and whereas the board and players and coaches of the 2021 boys by 100 meter relay team committed significant time energy and dedication to achieve this victory

011and whereas the smithfield town council desires to recognize the talent your skill and commitment of the players and coaches of this championship team now therefore be it and it is hereby resolved that the town council of smithfield virginia commends and congratulates the smithfield high school boys 4 by 100 meter relay team on its 2021 class 4 virginia high school league state championship this was adopted in our town on the sixth day of july and signed by the mayor t carter williams congratulations [Music] thank you and congratulations [Music] okay we also will be recognizing the smithville high school boys soccer team the team had a historic season winning the class 4 state championship while remaining undefeated at 15-0 due to covid the championship game was a home game for the packers instead of the usual neutral

012field one more feature that made the accomplishment special the packers defeated jefferson forest high school from bedford 2-1 in front of a crowd of approximately 1 250 people the game sold almost double the tickets of every other virginia high school league match across the state the same day it was a fitting way to end a year in sports that started with delayed seasons and few if any spectators to get to this point they beat menchville high in triple overtime to win the region and defeated chancellor high a school that had ended the packers run to the state tournament on four separate occasions including the latest in 2018. the entire season the smithfield team featuring 12 seniors never played from behind and outscored their opponents 42 to five over the past three seasons they amassed a

013record of 45 and six the year started with a state championship for the boys basketball team another state title for the dominant shs debate team state champions in the 4 by 100 relay team and closed out with the team championship for the boys soccer team at this time we would like to recognize the members of the shs soccer team when i call your name if you will once again line up behind me facing the board and then we'll have you go to the risers for photos and some special recognitions sophomores emmanuel castell [Music] hmm patrick leslie jalen marble tamir melvin [Music] luke skinner [Music] josh vincent juniors jonah ambrosino whit dunleavy [Music] gino fontana [Music] bryson forrest [Music] i'm sorry austin jackson [Music] carson rosenberry braden ross [Music] okay and i'll add to braden's that

014brayton scored the first goal in both the state semifinal and final matches [Applause] [Music] [Applause] jonathan taylor [Music] jonathan scored the third and final goal in the win over chancellor baylor omer [Applause] [Music] and if you didn't see this on social media baylor scored the golden goal which is what it's called to defeat menchville high school in triple overtime and win the regional title for the packers [Music] and now our seniors dusty armstrong [Music] cooper bowley ryan bond joshua condon [Music] and and something pretty special for ryan and josh both of them were also on the boys basketball team so they're double state champions [Music] avery daniel hunter edwards hunter edwards [Music] chris hall carter kelly carter was goalie and is responsible for the single-digit numbers of the other team trevor miller okay well i'll

015still give a shout out here so trevor scored the winning goal against jefferson force that was the state championship liam moore liam scored the second and the go ahead goal against chancellor evan richardson [Music] and anthony walker coaches are grant cummings [Music] and head coach jason henderson [Music] okay so we're gonna have we also have two managers with the team paul pryor and liam lutz [Music] because this was a group effort and everybody counts all right so what we're going to do now is put them on the risers here so we can organize them for a couple photos and some special presentations so mr henderson your coach i'll let you be in charge of that and while they're coordinating all of this i'll also announce that seven players will be playing soccer at the next

016level joshua condon and hunter edwards will both be at virginia wesleyan university [Music] chris hall and anthony walker will be at camp community college carter kelly will be at randolph college trevor miller university of lynchburg liam moore at james madison university at this time we have special presentations for the boys state champion soccer team and i'm going to ask once again vice mayor mike smith from the town of smithfield if you'll please come forward you guys will be up here for a little while so you can still get photos undefeated did you hear that [Music] as you heard me earlier being a graduate from smithville high school in 1969 we didn't even have soccer when i was playing in school we all we had was baseball football and basketball we did have some fearless were

017very scarce about that all of you stand here good looking van good looking men i'm proud of y'all really are i know you've worked hard i know there were times that you didn't think it was going to happen you might lose the game i wish you lost at least one maybe you thought you were invincible but you had good coaches obviously a lot to be proud of and i know your parents are proud your teammates are proud your family's proud your sisters are proud you have a sister your brothers are proud the entire school is proud of you guys something uh to be remembered the rest of your life and you will always remember that today i'd like to read the resolution to commend you and congratulate the 2021 smithfield high school boys soccer team

018whereas the smithfield high school boys soccer team has won the 2021 class iv virginia high school league state championship with an undefeated record for the 2021 season and whereas the players and coaches of the 2021 boys soccer team committed significant time energy and dedication to achieve this victory and whereas in smithfield town council desires to recognize the talent your skill the commitment of the players the commitment of the coaches of this championship team now therefore be it and it is hereby resolved that the town council of smithfield virginia commends and congratulates the smithfield high school boys soccer team on his 2021 class 4 virginia high school league state championship an undefeated season adopted the sixth day of july and signed by mayor t carter williams congratulations boys [Music] but wait there's more um unlike the

019soccer team i'm not i'm not playing a good game tonight so i made a little mistake we have additional recognition that uh i i neglected to call up so we're going to have them come up for the soccer team and then we'll have them do the recognition we'll come back up and on our track team any of the members that are still here we're going to do that as well so first for our soccer team we have special recognition from the board of supervisors we have chairman dick rice and county manager randy keaton well guys this has been an unusual year and first we have the boys basketball team now the soccer team and a 4 by 100 relay team winning a state championship all in the same year that's that's fantastic it's almost like

020the smithfield high school athletic athletic group have started a pandemic on their own an epidemic of championships however rather than being a virus it's the result of dedication hard work athletic talent and outstanding coaching let's hope this championship spirit remains contagious as we enter the new school year the board of supervisors wishes to acknowledge these two champion teams in their accomplishments by official resolution and i'll ask mr keaton to read the resolutions the resolution to recognize and congratulate the smithfield high school soccer team whereas the smithfield high school packers boys soccer team won the 2021 virginia high school league class 4 state soccer championship and whereas the packers soccer team finished the 21 season with an undefeated record of 15 wins and no losses and whereas this is the first state soccer championship in the

021115 year history of smithfield high school and whereas over 1 000 people attended the virginia high school league class 4 state soccer championship hosted by smithfield high school the largest crowd for any virginia high school league championship sport during the 2021 spring season and whereas the board of supervisors desires to recognize and congratulate the smithville high school hikers boys soccer team for its monumental achievement now therefore be it it is hereby resolved that the board of supervisors of the county of iowa white virginia recognizes and congratulates the smithfield high school packers boys soccer team for outstanding achievement in winning the 2021 virginia high school league class 4 state soccer championship congratulations [Music] [Applause] okay next we have with us delegate emily brewer from the 64th district brewer congratulations well first i always start when i

022do these things i start with a quote and i'm going to start running out of quotes that smithfield keeps on winning so much so um first i want to thank the board of supervisors and the school boards for supporting you guys through all of this i know the past uh year and a half or so has been difficult to say the least um but i was open with a quote so the great phil jacksons once said good teams become great when we replace the me with we and you guys must have learned that very early on because i mean undefeated are you serious i mean now i get to troll all my colleagues on twitter about how great you guys are so this makes my night even better um but more importantly you guys have

023really set such an example despite all of the challenges this past year's put before you i'm so very proud of you guys because there are adults that aren't even capable sometimes of doing the things that you just did and so you should be absolutely so incredibly proud of yourselves and i know your parents are as well and your coaches so thank you for that um so as a small token of appreciation from the virginia house of delegates for each of you uh we have an individual commendation um be it resolved at the house of delegates of the commonwealth of virginia thank each and every one of you for your absolute perseverance and success and hard work and bringing home to smithfield high school the state championship i'm so proud of you guys um give yourselves

024an applause they're great [Applause] and having said that uh because uh alawite county has been winning a lot lately so um i'm actually adding a budget to my office when we return in january uh to the house we're gonna be doing a joint resolution so each of you and your coaches will be receiving individual recognitions and i will be getting large frames and joint resolutions that the high school can hang in the wall in perpetuity to remember your monumental occasion because we are all so very proud of you so congratulations [Applause] we want to once again congratulate the boys soccer team and wish you well whether you're coming back next year or you're going off uh after you know if you've graduated we also thank you for being here tonight because we know it's summer

025so but let's give another round of applause for our boys soccer team [Applause] and then after the soccer team it we're going to have the um the track team from simple high if any of them are still here the track team is before high if you'll come back up and coaches and i apologize for this nick are you with me more attention for you okay are we good thanks so much i have no idea well these are these are two of our four from the four by 100 relay um tyler simon nick henshin chris gundy was not with us and i think chris basking might have already ducked out so but these are your state champions in the four by one [Applause] [Music] let's see let's hear from the board of supervisors so once again

026we have chairman grice and county manager keith mr greitz was was for both sports so we're going to let that go so i'm just going to read the resolution congratulations on an outstanding season so this is resolutions recognized congratulate the smithfield high school 4x100 track and field relay team whereas the smithfield high school 4x100 track and relay team won the 2021 virginia high school class state championship and whereas the smithfield high school 4 by 100 relay team consisting of chris basking chris gunn excuse me chris gundy dick heicham and tyler simon won with a time of 42.69 seconds and whereas the board of supervisors desires to recognize and congratulate the smithfield high school boys 4 by 100 relay team for its outstanding achievement now therefore be it and is hereby resolved that the board of

027supervisors of the county isla white virginia recognizes and congratulates the smithville high school packers boys 4x100 track and field relay team for outstanding achievement in winning the 2021 virginia high school league class 4 state championship [Applause] congratulations uh okay thank you and we're also going to hear from delegate brewer so don't go anywhere yet i'll be quick um so i always do a quote it's one of my favorite things to do so um i think that you guys probably embody this very much so i run because long after my footprints fade away maybe i'll have inspired a few to reject the easy path hit the trails put one foot in front of the other and come to the same conclusion i did i run because it always takes me where i want to go i

028have no doubt after winning a state championship both of you and the whole team will go everywhere that you absolutely want to go um and uh if you guys ever want to teach me how to run that's one thing i was never good at so maybe you guys can give me some pointers for a running list but um it is my sincerest honor to be able to bestow upon you guys just a small token of the appreciation of the entire virginia house of delegates on your accomplishments and i know you'll go into the world and do absolutely incredible things from here on [Applause] congratulations so we want to once again congratulate the honorees tonight and thank the special guests that came out to to recognize the outstanding accomplishments i just want to close the achievers

029by saying well first of all i apologize that i overlooked him i got too excited but these vhsl programs all produce state champions let's see smithville high boys basketball team smithfield high debate windsor high forensics smithfield high outdoor track and field smith ohio boys soccer in a year that brought tremendous uncertainty especially for our schools the students and their coaches not only overcame their opponents but also successfully manage covet 19 protocols to achieve their goals we are extremely proud of them and appreciate our students and coaches for providing our community with reasons to celebrate and bring people together in what has been a year of keeping our distance from each other so we thank everyone once again for those of you that came out tonight to support our achievers thank you for attending and that

030concludes our white achievers [Applause] presentations girls on the run board and dr thornton so little girls with dreams become women with visions it is so important that we empower our girls here in olive white county and that is exactly what girls on the run set out to do what are we more aware of we are more aware that girls and women often face structural barriers that threaten their success in school and beyond research from the brookings institution has found that every additional year of school increases a girl's eventual wages by an average of 12 earnings she invests back into her family what are we more aware and alert to we are aware that increasing the number of women completing secondary education by just one percent could increase the country's economic growth by 0.3 girls on

031the run is a national non-profit organization that's designed programming to strengthen our students third through eighth grade physically emotionally and behavioral skills to successfully navigate life's experiences in march of 2021 we launched the nation's first division-wide girls on the run program there have been girls on the run programs in several different schools around the nation however out of white county was the first division to do with all of our schools in third through eighth grade in the entire nation 27 coaches 110 girls free for every young lady participating transportation was included and healthy snacks every girl who participated in girls on the run received a girl kit and free sneakers this is a picture of some of our students girls on the run the purpose was to provide girls with support help to refrain negative

032thoughts and handle social pressures to encourage girls to be leaders and their most authentic selves and we did just that here's a picture of all of our different sites of some of our girls walking running learning growing and becoming their most authentic selves becoming proud of who they are on sunday june 13 2021 we had our first ever girls on the run olive white county 5k all of the young ladies had a buddy and that buddy was either a friend a family member a coach and some teachers teachers came out to run with these young ladies the buddy's 5k job was to encourage the girls and to help them cross the finish line safely we had dads who dressed up in tutus with their daughters we had moms who ran with their daughters and family

033friends and grandfathers and grandmother grandmothers who cheered from the sidelines every young lady that day felt like she truly could run the world she was empowered she was amazing she was extraordinary now here to speak to you today is one of our young ladies tsarnaev from westside elementary school hello my name is sanaya cypress i am the daughter of katie and edith shivers i am also a soccer player and in the fall i will be a fifth grader girls in the run was an amazing group that inspired me and i look forward to going back it helped me in many ways i learned how to open and express myself to other girls it helped me in them in our running skills and to keep a positive attitude in all that we do i enjoy getting

034together every monday and tuesday to run the track and talk about how to activate our lives we also play games to improve our star powers the teachers were very nice and ran with us which made running more fun the journal or notebook that we wrote in was good to record what we learned that day to be honest i thought i wouldn't like girls in the run at first but in the end i really loved it i want to go back next year to learn more i would also like to say thank you to ms jones miss mcgowan and miss goodwin and all the people responsible for making a difference in our lives thank you for this time [Music] [Applause] can we play the video thank you very much and thank you thank you okay next

035on the agenda is citizen's comments request to speak madam chair i'm sorry lynn had one more thing she wanted to do real quick before i just wanted to do two quick introductions we have two new employees with us at central office and they're here tonight and i wanted to introduce them when i call your name you go just stand up we have dr daryl crosby who's joined isle of wight county schools dr crosby has joined central office as an instructional coordinator where he will be overseeing digital learning fine arts social studies and summer school k-8 daryl comes to us from hampton city schools where he served as an assistant principal since 2017. prior to that he was a music instructor with norfolk public schools daryl has a bachelor of arts and music performance and a

036master in teaching music education from hampton university he also has his doctorate of education from nova southeastern university please help me welcome darrell to olive white county schools [Music] also with us tonight and new to isle of wight county schools is julie green who has joined the special education department as a coordinator julie began her career as a special education teacher at csep and then oscar smith middle school in chesapeake she served as a project search instructor and transition specialist and special education administrator with chesapeake before coming to isle of wight julie has a bachelor of science degree in interdisciplinary studies from old dominion she earned her master's in education with a reading specialist endorsement from regent university she's also earned her education specialist degree with the administration and supervision endorsement from old dominion university

037please give a warm welcome to julie green [Music] thank you okay now we're ready for the citizens comments request to speak in accordance to policy bddh-e presentations 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 will speak permitted will be permitted five minutes maximum time for their presentation delegations will be requested to limit their speakers to two a maximum of 30 minutes will be designated for public comments persons speaking are asked to be specific state the issues for the board's consideration and attach a copy of your prepared remarks if you have prepared remarks they should be given to the board clerk please do not approach those board members the school board requests that speakers refrain

038from referring to specific individuals and that any matter related to specific to specific student or individual be discussed in a closed meeting so the first person signed up is mrs candice vander brake yes okay eric is the mic on is your mic going can you all hear me yeah there you go real close um culturally relevant that is the purpose of equity we are choosing the best parts of the program let everyone feel included bring togetherness white privilege is just an example critical race theory is just a tool you know how to talk to students and white rage is just a tool to understand some people these are all the responses i have gotten from the school administration or board members i read those slides we have those emails they do not bring togetherness and

039they do not make everyone feel included out of all the books team building programs diversity training the book white rage and white fragility following slides starting stating white privilege are the prime examples to set forth in your equity program how are we to trust the program when your answers are lacking information and resources you say there are no crt but your response should be there's no critical race theory but there is culturally relevant teaching following by documentation so that parents can read and educate themselves on the program how about every being forthcoming with information like the history curriculum is being changed and up for evaluation this year but according to american bar association critical race theory is just a theory is the ejection of popular understandings about racism such as arguments that confine racism to

040a few bad apples crt recognizes that racism is codified in law and structures and woven in a public policy crt rejects claims of colorblindness these which is essentially what was told to me about the theory of equity when i had a meeting to them equity is moving past unconscious bias that is the exact theory stated from the american bar association again different words but the same meaning the more we do foia the more we find out because any answers that are given are strictly a formulated speech there is no way that all seven people i have talked to answer so indirectly with the same words to get around a question that is the only thing that i have found impressive about alawite county schools thus far in my search the school has no business interfering

041in family values and morals the school has no business interfering in family religion the school has no business telling my child what is acceptable this is just one example of the etiquette program the other side is normalizing divorce transgender and sexual orientation the school has no business introducing subjects for discussion that go against my family values there are policies that need to be put in place to combat the regulations that are being passed down to the schools from the state and it is your job to get creative and stand up for everyone's values we protect their values by diminishing those families who believe in christianity we may not believe in transgender divorce or homosexuality but that doesn't mean that we love you any less jesus said let there let thee who hasn't sinned cast the

042first stone and i am surely not going to be casting anything but i have a right to say when and how it will be introduced to my son at what age and at what angle for instance a transgender person can go into a public bathroom of choice that is how it is written online from the state they say that it will be changed but i haven't seen it yet in theory a transgender person can choose to identify differently at birth elementary high school monday friday 1 pm or 9 pm let's say a couple break up and the guy goes into the girl's bathroom to wait for her to rape her he walks out and tells everyone nothing happened and he was just in the girl's bathroom because he identifies as a female he is protected

043under policy and regulations and the girl she just becomes a statistic it's a he said she said situation everyone has a right to believe what they want everyone should have rights but when the rights infringe on others then that's when we need to look a little harder i will teach my children that they are not privileged and their family has worked for what we have for me and my house we will serve the lord and i will fight for all my kids to have a safe place to get educated there is one minute lawsuits all over the country regarding equity programs and you cannot stick your head in the sand and believe that alawite is somehow different than every when every paper or foia suggests that it is not we can either work together to

044move forward by admitting the equity program has pitfalls and creating policy to deter them or you can continue to hide your head in the sand until you're contacted by your attorney for the motion fought against you in the court of law thank you all for your time thank you [Music] oh okay so okay miss times is leaving she's not feeling well okay next okay okay sorry next we have mr jordan van der break and a break good evening um i didn't really have a planned speech because this is not how i operate personally um i just wanted to reiterate on how the stuff that we've been looking at in researching with the critical race theory the equity which i can't really tell what the difference is no one has really been able to tell me

045exactly what the difference is i know we all have issues but i don't understand where equity is the correct issue i don't understand [Music] i just i just don't get it and um i should have had a better speech but we the more we keep digging in the more we keep finding more gaps and issues that we're finding it on how you're training your teachers to train the students and um i mean we're not we're here we're not going to stop trying to find out what the underlying story is so um you know just letting y'all know we're here we're not going to go nowhere so thank you for your time thank you okay next we have mr john collock good evening everybody can everybody hear me good evening well over 245 years virginia's laws

046and local ordinances have been written to reflect our local community standards and values in reading the board of education's new transgender model policies i've found nearly everything mandated flies in the face of traditional american and judaio christian values that is our community values the first amendment gives parents the right to bring up their children according to their beliefs preventing this even under the color of law is not only a violation of constitutional rights but it can also inhibit parents from protecting their children i know this from personal experience we send our kids to school to learn how to read how to write to learn math science and history not to have them indoctrinated into any ideological philosophy children do not have the legal right to make decisions so as parents it's our responsibility to teach

047about life and lifestyle issues at the appropriate ages as we see fit this is both a right and a responsibility neither of which can be delegated to the state nor the school system most of our elected officials and many bureaucrats in our commonwealth have become little tyrants they forget that they're subject to the people not the other way around over the last two years they've made many laws and regulations that are abhorrent to the average person the unelected bureaucrats on the board of education actually mandated that if parents who are aware and do not approve of their child's desire to identify as or use a name associated with the opposite sex the school division will decide whether or not to respect the parents right or let the child veto the parents decisions i have a

048simple question what gives you the right to take away other people's rights these policies that you put into place in alawite schools violate parents rights to raise their children with their own moral and religious values not to mention they have absolutely nothing to do with education you and i know that this is self-destructive destructive to so many children many of whom need years of counseling after they've grown out of this phase not to mention the distrust it serves between parents and their children as well as between the parents and the education system the transgender model policies are a mandate to indoctrinate not educate our children which will cause risks particularly in the traditional judeo-christian families therefore i imploring you this evening to join other christians other virginia school districts and publicly refused to implement these

049policies returning this and all other life and lifestyle related issues to the students families as we all know to destroy our country the family unit must be destroyed first the quickest way to destroy it is to sow mistrust in this case between parents and children these so-called moral model policies make it legal to affirm a minor child's desires while ignoring the wishes of parents including not notifying them doing this you are not only advocating that hiding information from and lying to parents is okay but you're openly advocating it i do understand your initial acceptance of model policies since the superintendent did say at one point it's the law and the school board must follow it but he also said that if he disagreed with a new program or policy and could not stop it he

050would quit his job rather than implement it or words to that effect you cannot have it both ways you either support the policies that you recently implemented in our school system or you do not so as our elected representatives please either explicitly state your support for and defend these policies or reject and refuse to implement them but do not hide behind the phrase it's the law history is replete with good citizens following the law as they committed inhumane acts as i close i have one final question for you to ponder how can you defend policies times you know will hurt children and so destructive between family members thank you okay next we have miss brittany taylor brittany taylor okay she called in and signed up so all right just one more time brittany taylor okay

051just making sure all right um next is mr jason marsh mesh sorry good evening you hear me good superintendent thornton school board members my name is jason marsh last month i addressed this board regarding my concerns with the virginia mathematics pathway initiative and the implementation of critical race theory in our schools since then i've received written correspondence from this board stating and i quote olive white county schools is not teaching critical race theory that's your words quote the division's focus is on cultural competence for our staff and making culturally responsible responsive educators culturally responsive educators your words here's the last quote i'll give you from this piece of correspondence it says let's just assume a black boy with special needs a white girl being raised by an elderly grandmother and a non-english speaking child enter

052the classroom and each of them are living in poverty i ask you this question dr thornton why would you want to force a teacher to not only recognize but treat children differently based solely or in part on the color of their skin what does it matter what color the skin is let us not attempt to present this push of equity as something other than what it is it is racism it is not the racism that we are traditionally accustomed to hearing about but it is racism nonetheless it is critical race theory now i will acknowledge that at this moment it does not appear that isla white county schools is teaching our children critical race theory at least i have not seen the curriculum specifically calling it as such however i have discovered numerous concerning bits

053of evidence that show ala white has in fact bought and paid for various forms of critical race theory all under the name of equity ms perkins you represent windsor and my children go to windsor i like windsor hear me now these equity programs are unacceptable and i implore you to speak up against this immediately superintendent and mrs carr your response to me stated and i quote we will not continue to address comments about what we are not doing please understand me well i will not be distracted or confused with unfamiliar language that attempts to disguise what the virginia department of education is pushing pushing throughout this commonwealth i will not sit quietly quietly as this school board acts to con acts as a conduit to implement and promote these radical socialist racist ideals and you

054will most definitely have to explain your decisions moving forward last month i sat and listened to pastor willie williams and forgive me if i get his name wrong i believe it was pastor williams and he said virginia's ed equity program is working he said you know it's working because it demands change and people are getting mad that's hard to argue virginia ed equity or as i call crt is being forced into our school through you the board and yes many people are mad to include myself and rightly so here's another direct quote from our esteemed coordinator one minute equity in inclusion ms cox jones she made this statement following a recent windsor police incident where she implied all the cops were racist and i quote to my bipark colleagues i stand with you i have

055no sufficient words as to how deeply you are on my mind right now by pop black indigenous people of color how is that not a racist comment how is that inclusive i encourage each and every one of you that are listening to me to do an internet search for w www the bipod the biparkproject.org search it for five minutes look at the origins of that acronym and then ask yourself is this really what we want in our schools i've got a copy for the board and a copy from his ties please make sure she sees it thank you all right next we have ms jennifer boykins [Music] i want to know why tax did taxpayers pay valeta wise 60 000 last month she is a consultant for equity and diversity i have seen her website

056and even some of her videos she believes that babies are born with bias i can only imagine what she had to say for sixty thousand dollars why was her invoice description listed as technology software i could not find anything on her website that indicated she sold software or any type of technology training this in my opinion is deceptive and maybe even fraudulent and why are we spending all this money on consultants when we are supposed to have an equity and inclusion coordinator who to quote dr thornton has the experience and expertise and now over eighty thousand dollars a year it's also disturbing to see how much we are spending on social propaganda for the classroom thousands upon thousands of dollars every month are purchasing instructional materials from companies such as think social publishing really good

057stuff and brain pop these companies sell materials such as you're a social detective explaining social thinking to kids culturally responsive teaching and the brain good intentions are not good enough and social behavior mapping and this is just the tip of the iceberg and why are teachers being told that they have mandatory reading assignments this summer carsville elementary school teachers had to read an article titled why teachers must fight their own implicit biases then they had to write a self-reflection document and submit it to whom do they submit this and do they have to sign it windsor elementary teachers had to read something titled who do you call on rooting out implicit bias it points out who teachers call on in the class do they call on the back of the room versus the front more

058do you call on students who raise their hand more than students who don't do you call on more boys than girls with which students do you use the student's name when you call on them do you call on one race over another and it suggests that you have the teacher confess their bias and then have the students pay attention to the teacher's behavior and the students tell the teacher when they are being biased here's a solution web cameras in every classroom everybody wants police officers to wear them the classrooms should have them so parents in school administration can watch live anytime during the day and see what's going on this is a great idea if you have nothing to hide and no agenda thank you thank you okay next we have pastor scott good afternoon

059good afternoon my name is pastor linda scott i am the pastor the founder and pastor co-founder and of christ the only hope worship center in books virginia i'm also the pastor of the church um i i function under christ the only hope ministries of whom my husband is the bishop and a founder under his father bishops clinton l scott i just came in here uh um to speak tonight i didn't really bring a prepared message but i am very concerned because i have three grandchildren that just moved into out of my county and they have a school age i also have one on the way so i have four children at staking when it comes to the things that i've heard since now i have one my grandchildren formerly all were in windsor went to

060uh school here in windsor in olive white and i loved him i went to programs that they were put they put on for the children we attended and we had wonderful time there to see how well the children were handled were carried and how well they carried out the lesson and carried out the the instructions of the teachers and the teachers uh interacted with the students it was awesome and it was very well done and so i was in great approval when my son decided to move here to olive like county and all three of my grandchildren now have to we have to decide he has to decide is he going to admit them to alabama county schools because of what we hear is going on here what we hear is coming into the school

061i want you to know that as a pastor i've taught my children and my memories that you should train up a child because that's what the bible says in a way they should go parents train up the child not have people coming in from the outside bringing things in to put into our children to cause our children not to know who they are or what they're supposed to do with themselves not to know whether they are worthless or whether they have worth not to know whether they're supposed to be against themselves for just simply being born the race that they were born i want the people to know that it doesn't matter what race you were born you determine what you turn out to be from the inside the almighty god and nobody else and

062through the help of god you change and nothing that can be taught here at school is gonna do what parents can't do parents are to teach the children who they are and who they should be and how to feel about themselves that's to be taught in the home parents are responsible for that and nobody had the right to take that that away from parents parents are supposed to lead their children through life and to a point where they can walk without them it's not uh all these people with these theories that they want to experiment on our children with i have four grandchildren uh three grandchildren i call it three and a half right now even though because one is not here yet and i'm so anxious to see him or her praise god but

063i want you to know this my children are interracial children so i want to ask you somebody who are my children supposed to blame forever which part of themselves are they supposed to blame come on i just want to blame the white house oh they're supposed to blame the blessing one minute who are they supposed to blame for the troubles that they have in mind are they supposed to look in the mirror and they'll be disgusted by the black part of themselves come because that's what you get ready to teach them or are they supposed to look in the mirror and be disgusted by the white part of them i want you to know we're training not to to love themselves because god they are fearful and wonderfully made by god and nobody is going

064to teach them or train them to have self-hatred and help and order hate their brother and sister that they look at every day because of what color they are or to try to come up with some theory to blame somebody for the wrong the ills of your life you got the opportunity in this nation to be whatever you want to be i can tell you that as a business owner for over 25 years a successful business owner come on that ran a decorated time's up thank you so much thank you so much thank you miss laura fletcher good evening i am a parent of three children that graduated put the mic up please there you go i'm a parent of three children that graduated from milo white schools all of them from smithfield high school

065and i'm here tonight as a staunch supporter of my neighbors and the families of isla white county [Applause] but i am a critic and a staunch opponent of critical race theory i am shocked that you all have bought into it i understand that it is not here my children who graduated my daughter graduated in 2014 my twin sons graduated in 2019 they say that it is indeed here it is in isle of wight county schools and we want it gone i am unwilling to burden the children of this community or of my state with this pressure of name calling labeling as oppressor or victim it is wrong it is abusive and you all should know better we opened our meeting tonight with the pledge of allegiance to the united states of america we are all

066americans for which it stands one nation under god if you believe that get rid of critical race theory it is a marxist theory it was divided was created to divide and to divide communities and states proletariat versus the bourgeois it was broken down now to do the same in the amer in america and it's using race to do it they see it as our weakness they know it and i say to stand against it i will not put up with it anymore and i'm holding each of you accountable if it continues thank you for your time you will see us again i'm sure i care about this community i care about my neighbors and uh i will not allow critical race theory to continue i'll work my hardest to see that thank you is it

067bob gooden [Applause] all right is josh good in here okay um ethan schwartz three minutes hello board um my name is ethan sports i am a student at smithfield high school i have concerns with sharing bathrooms and locker rooms with people of the same sex from pop from policies that have been put in place from by the superintendent and the school board from my mandate from the governor for the upcoming school year i know the past experiences have been hard enough for students of younger grades in mid of middle school to already introduce changing in locker rooms and share restrooms with their peers of the same gender but now have to do it with the opposite gender this is oh this is a whole other issue i do not understand why the students that feel

068uncomfortable to change within their own classified gender locker rooms in their restrooms must seek out other restrooms and locker rooms because a few students truly classify their gender of the opposite this also often opens up a new world of issues that can be portrayed by just a simple story of a man who says he is a woman for the day uh it goes into the woman's locker room and sexually assaults a woman sure that person may be expelled or suspended or whatever but you can't undo the damage that is done mentally to that woman you can't undo the problems that he has done you can't go back and change the past so i truly believe that we should stop it now before this issue even comes up that is all i have to say thank

069you thank you [Applause] thomas is it dubois du bois sorry dubois thank you i knew i was going to mess it up me too i'm rui so i get it all the time good evening uh my wife and i we just moved here from portsmouth virginia we have six children that are all in school we left portsmouth to get away from the insanity i was raised in something my wife was raised in texas we came to smithfield because we like small town values we don't like crazy whatever you want to call it race theory equity whatever you want to wrap it up and call it we don't like it you're not going to tell my kid that he should feel wrong because he's half white half asian half whatever you're not going to tell him

070my daughter that she can go in the men's bathroom and this uh let's see your i like vision statement to create a learning environment that will enable every child to discover his or her unique gifts and talents so how are you doing that by telling my kid he's bad because he's half white or my daughter you're wrong because you might feel you're 14 and you don't understand your hormones so it's okay if you go in the men's bathroom today but if you change your mind you go to the members bathroom tomorrow and if i don't agree with that then i'm the bad person it's my job my wife's job everyone's doing her job to raise our own kids the first amendment protects that the first amendment says conspelled compelled speech doctrine sets out principles that

071the government cannot force an individual or group to support certain expression so if you're telling me that you're going to force this on my kids then i'm going to turn around and make sure all of you are off this board and then i'll probably call my two lawyer buddies on speed dial and think about suing you at the same time because it's not going to happen we just moved here a month ago if that we made our first mortgage payment and already the drama starting up because i got to hear from someone in the audience that all of a sudden there's this new transgender policy that says my son will go in the women's bathroom and vice versa i don't think so and if any student in here i was a boy a teenage boy

072at one time believe it or not and guess what when i was 13 and 14 years old didn't know any better about how the world works me and my buddies were like oh i'm gary you go do this i day to go do this oh hey i dare you to say you're a boy today you're going to girl's bathroom who's going to stop them are y'all who takes accountability for what happens when that boy who's really not identifying as a girl goes in the girl's bathroom who takes that responsibility who's paying that kids emotional support bills and therapy bills and taking care of them the rest of their life the parents are not you you get to walk away with your terms over and say up done they're our kids we make the decisions we

073put you up there not me but they put you up there they can take you down that's all okay thank you [Music] next on the agenda is committed reports and other information does anyone have anything did you want to say anything i have something to say you want me to go first or you i just wanted to announce the july 28th meeting a special call meeting and it is specifically called to talk about the transgender policies and if you look in the board agenda tonight under policies for first read section 19.1 there are 15 policies in there that address the transgender it is not the vdoes policy [Music] they are there we'll discuss them on the 28th there has been no policies approved by this board for anything to do with transgender at this time

074i will reiterate it is virginia state law that allows a transgender student to go into the restroom where they identify and it was just upheld by the united states supreme court thank you okay i haven't attended any uh com special committee meetings but i have met one-on-one with a few concerned parents mainly about the critical race theory and i enjoyed meeting with these parents and listening to their concerns and having some good discussion and it's no surprise we do have parents and community members who fear that we're going to be implementing the critical race theory and we have said many times that we are not and again we are not i feel the need and you are out of order i feel the need to share a few things based on these conversations with parents

075the fact is that we have some who are very uneasy with things they believe are taking place in our school division they see the critical race theory as part of our equity program they have concerns about the transgender restroom law and all that we are hearing about gender identity with all that is on the news with some of what is on the virginia department of education website and with the slides used with some of the equity training done in alawite without verbal context to go with the slides i can understand the questions in fact i have done my own personal research on the critical race theory and i have asked many questions to leaders at the central office and i have asked and based on my research as to what the critical race theory is

076based on the two equity trainings that i received and based on the answers to the questions i have asked i can say with confidence that the critical race theory is not on our agenda in olive white the critical race theory is divisive and it's to its core and it's not fit in our equity program as i understand that is your second warning you are out of order as i understand there are no changes to our history curriculum for this school year and the changes set by the virginia department of education for the fall of will be well communicated soon to outline the coming changes but again the critical race theory is not part of these changes our superintendent and our leaders in charge of instruction and curriculum have declared that critical race theory will not

077be taught in our schools and it is their responsibility to closely monitor resources and content to ensure it does not make its way into the classrooms and it is our responsibility to hold them accountable i have had citizens ask why did we hire an equity coordinator with that i feel it's important to give everyone some background about three years ago jessica harding a previous principal principal at georgia d tala middle school attended professional development on equity and she became passionate about what she had learned and she came back and presented it and it sparked interest among other administrators ms harding and her family moved and she received a new job in another school system as an equity coordinator but when she left the equity piece was not dropped but dr thornton and his team suddenly

078found themselves dealing with the coveted pandemic at the 2020 july or june school board meeting during citizens comments we were accused of racism the gentleman shared several reasons for their claims and if you choose you can go back and view the video also the naacp requested meetings with dr thornton and me to discuss specific data that had them concerned and the data included the extremely low percent of black professional educators in the classrooms and at central office and the low percent of black students going into honor classes or dual enrollment classes and the extremely high percent of black versus white students being suspended and the list could go on and all of this was in the midst of the covet pandemic and dr thornton had wanted to keep the equity vision alive but he didn't

079have anyone on staff who could take on this along with other all their other responsibilities so he recommended this hire and it was approved and he and his team interviewed candidates and hired mrs jones and here we are instead of being accused of racism we're now being accused of working our way into indoctrinating our children with the critical race theory people are associating the critical race theory directly with equity and it's not the critical race theory separates us by the color of our skin and that alone is discrimination and we have several policies that prohibit any kind of discrimination we are now seeing some division and fear in our community and i read that fear leads to anger anger leads to hate and hate leads to suffering and this is not a direction in which

080we want to go it is good to have questions and it's good to hold the school division accountable and it's good to bring concerns to the leaders but we must avoid being divided in the process united we stand and divide it we fall it shouldn't be what side are you on it should be us deciding what is our goal and what can we do together to get there dr thornton will be addressing some of this during the strategic plan part of tonight's agenda and this will outline the process on how we will determine our divisions goals that will guide our decisions for the next five years you see equity in our school means that a a child's race or ethnicity does not predict his or her success a child's gender does not predict a child's

081success a child's socio-economic status or religion or disability does not predict their success you see equity is when all students are provided the resources and the support they need to achieve their personal best and i'm like i've been in education almost 40 years and i have felt that has been our goal and i feel we have gotten better but there's room for improvement there are good things in equity and we want to take the good in equity and continue to improve i have no doubt we all want the best for our children we are one of the best school systems around and we are only going to get better when we are working together we must recognize that there is more diversity in our world than ever and that means there's more diversity in isle

082of wight than ever before a diverse population has diverse needs and teachers need more support today than ever before i had a parent say teachers just need to go in the classroom and teach and we all wish it were that easy just know children don't leave their problems at home i read statistics that shared one in five children have mental health problems and we have seen a rise especially in our early elementary grades and we've had to hire assistants to assist teachers with behaviors that have affected instruction and learning the the statistics share that there's a 43 increase in adhd and a 37 increase in adolescent depression has been noted and this statistic said that there has been a 200 percent increase in suicide rate of children aged 10 to 14. our children need us

083standing together and working together and we invite you to ask questions when needed and and be that involved parent in your child's school because parental involvement directly impacts a child's success and there will be things that that you may disagree with or or questions you may have go to your leaders and share your concerns and most of the time good things will come from the conversations and solutions are found another topic that has some alarm and we all know that the family unit is more diverse than ever children are being raised today by their biological mom and dad and then their single dads and single moms grandparents or single grandparents are raising children one parent one week and another parent the next or some children that come into our classrooms are in foster care there

084are children who have both parents in jail and are living with relatives and yes there are children being raised with two mommies or two daddies and no matter what a child's family looks like every child that walks into a classroom should feel loved should feel safe and should feel valued and the lgpdqhi plus is part of our world and alawite is part of our world it is here whether you agree with the lifestyle or not and while our world has great influence on children through tv and social media music etc it's the parents responsibility to teach children their values and their morals and their faith and parents should never give up their 14th amendment right in having the liberty to direct the upbringing the education and care of their children this is a fundamental right

085and while one may not agree with someone's life choices and while these lifestyle choices may go against one's faith or religion or personal beliefs we all must respect everyone value everyone that can't be an option and it's the school's responsibility to see that everyone is treated with respect and see that everyone feels safe and valued schools are here to teach children reading writing and arithmetic but we all know we also must understand that our students success with the academic piece directly connects with building relationships and creating a classroom environment a school environment and a division environment where everyone is respected and everyone feels safe and valued and we must be able to recognize conflict and deal with it in a way that brings about solutions that we can that will take us to a greater

086place and this isn't easy but our children are worth it we are all here for our children we have just experienced an incredibly stressful year and in the midst great things have happened in alawite we had open doors for in-person learning when divisions around us remained closed as we all know that in-person learning is best for students academic growth social development and more and more great things are to come but in order for this to happen we must come together and work together and we invite you to be involved and be a part of what is to come in making olive white county schools even better and next of the agenda is our financial presentation madam chair members of the board dr thornton good evening good evening included on the agenda were your uh your

087financials inclusive of your facility usage report we did bring in about nineteen thousand dollars during the month of june in facility use you had your bills list your financial statements so are there any questions on the the bill list or the check register in your financial i just wanted to point out a couple things from your financial statements ending the month of june uh we are what we call period 13 meaning we've started the new school year but we are still entering items as they come in closing out june right so that's an in-between period i just want you to know these financials uh were closed out really the first of july so these have probably changed since you've seen but it does reference a utilization of your expenditures of about 96.7 so you didn't

088spend your entire budget last year it was about 98 at this time of the year about 810 000 unspent compared to last year in ending your health your health fund this is important to know we've more than doubled your reserve which is critical because we know that health insurance doesn't send its its claims from the doctor's office immediately it's about sometimes up to a three-month lag so we have have 1.1 million dollars in reserves on your health fund last year at the end of the year you had about 507 000 so i thought that was outstanding it's 1.1 enough for those reserves it's hard to say until the claims start to come in so that's what i have on your financials if there are no other questions i'll move on to the next agenda sure

089and this is the american rescue plan so there's a presentation powerpoint presentation i want to start the presentation just reviewing some of the legislation there's many acronyms that we've thrown around and i've gotten them confused i'm sure you've gotten them confused so i want to put them on the screen and really summarize what all of these acronyms are and how we interpret them we'll look at the allocations for each of your covid funding all of these are are basically because of the pandemic with the most recent one which is the american rescue plan we'll look at what does the federal government require us to spend it on and then we'll get into a spending plan that i want to share with the board with dr thornton's leadership the administrative team or executive teams assistance we've

090put together a plan that we will ask the board to take action on to accept the plan at your august board meeting between now and then at the end of this powerpoint you'll see we're going to put a community a brief community survey up so we can gain input from the public at your august meeting i'll share with you some of those statistics and if and how those um input comments have changed the plan and then we would ask you to approve that plan it's due by september 1st so these are some of the um statements that fall under what i call esser e-s-s-e-r the elementary and secondary school emergency relief fund so when i refer to esser that's the federal government's elementary and secondary so it's not college elementary and secondary school emergency relief

091fund we receive esser and these are the two statements that kind of capitalize what the esser funds are to be uh implemented for ultimate ask a question so does this it was this use was this called cares funds or is there good question so under esser we had an sr1 which is cares we had an sr2 and i'll summarize those on the next slide okay we have an sr2 and the most recent one which i'll summarize in the most detail tonight's presentation is esser3 we i have made the mistake of calling it all cares funds and that that was incorrect okay when i put this together i finally was able to put it on paper and summarize to myself really what the federal government was intending to do so here we go under esther a

092is your cares fund coronavirus aid relief and economic security act they passed along the cares act and our first allocation called sr1 was about 529 thousand dollars then later on letter b uh coronavirus response and relief supplemental appropriations act you can't really say it but it's crrsa and we received about 2.1 million in those funds and then lastly the most recent i think it was the tail end of april we received the american rescue plan the arp act and you'll see that's about 4.7 billion so here's a summary and again this is in your packet you'll see the cares act at 5 29. we have until september uh 2022 to spend those funds then the crrsa act we have until september 2023 to spend those and lastly the most recent american rescue plan all of

093these are under esser we have until september 2024 and it's going to be it'll be the 4.7 that i'm speaking of to summarize to you so that in august you can approve that application to the state of the 4.7 question is we have they're going to allow us to spend 4.7 but on what and i tried to highlight the essence of the american rescue plan so they said at least 20 toward learning loss you'll see the allocation of 4.7 in the top right 20 is about 949 000 at least so it won't the the program with the state won't allow us to submit if we don't add up to at least that 949 thousand we will exceed that and you'll see what we're applying towards learning loss in on the next slide planning for technology

094needs and long-term closures we don't want to close it's not our plan to close but in the event that something comes up and we do we need to be have systems in place with our technology uh purchasing educational technology for students certainly assists for that virtual learning implement procedures to improve preparedness again it's teaching our students on these these items these devices that we provide and also you'll see what we're doing in our classrooms to assist our students lastly it does allow us to apply the funds towards facility repairs to reduce risk of virus transmission and health hazards but health hazards are also social distancing so you'll see there's a piece of that so we can continue to social distance i'm going to have two slides on the spending this first slide breaks it down

095into the what we are calling the addressing learning loss so up at the top we'll have uh many teachers that were planning to apply towards these funds to discover and address the learning deficiencies of the students we don't know exactly how many it depends on what scale and departments that we bring them in at which again is still for discussion you'll see 80 000 for letters that's an acronym it's a it's a software that assists teaching literacy and language 36 000 or online resources that assists in curriculum it has videos involved and it's it aids the teacher and curriculum for all types of different learnings students who learn in different ways your interactive whiteboards will be ideal these particular ones can really do anything in the classroom for all types of learners so we would

096output all of our classrooms with these interactive whiteboards you'll see the ipads for our younger students pre-k to two and you'll see laptops for our older students so if you remember it was just over nine hundred 000 was the number we needed for learning loss we're at 3.6 million so that's much of the allocation that we're being given that we're applying towards learning loss the other the other piece you'll see uh two mobile classrooms in carsville that will allow i know it's very tight in carsville there's not extra space this will allow us to apply flexible learning spaces that we have in other schools but we're not able to apply those in cars boiler replacements again it's efficiencies for the building air quality so there's you'll see the three schools up listed but there's a

097need for two boiler replacements in each of those schools heating pipe replacement i believe that we've discussed this uh regarding the carrollton facility um the the pipes are literally rotting out from the inside out in what i consider a relatively short period of time and that is something we have to do and i think with these funds it's a perfect match to apply these funds to get that project done we'll be renovating some empty space at the smithfield high school here for additional classroom which again applies towards your social distancing hvac funds to i see that as allowing us to do preventive maintenance but more frequently so this will allow us to buy more filters for the unit ventilators this will allow us to tend to our equipment more frequently and apply those funds whether

098it's cleaning them more frequently repairing them more frequently and having a better environment or air quality for our staff and students and then lastly we will be applying funds for chairs tables that will be give us a flexible learning space whether it's professional development for our staff or testing for our students that will be able to use the that equipment folding chairs and tables for more opportunity that total is 1.1 million so i summarized the two other than learning loss the top row you'll see is about 24 of the allocation and then the learning loss is 75 almost of your allocation so when i look at this the state this would certainly be acceptable to the state but i ask you to consider this for your august meeting are there any questions on what i

099have so far it's very detailed right thank you and lastly um we are required to invite input certainly your input the community input so beginning tomorrow morning we have a very brief survey that will be open on our website for the public you're welcome to join in the survey um it'll as as terrible as a name as that is that's the name i just utilized so if you see that on the website that will be your sr3 survey there's a handful of questions for you to to ponder i'll take those results we'll look at those results collectively and we'll present that to the board and see how does that impact um our tentative plan now will the survey have some type of descriptions that the parents will understand what the survey is yes okay maybe

100i'm not sure i understand your question well like you said the name if they just see a survey and discussion community input they might not even pay it any mind we'll have to i i i'm not the website expert okay that's a good answer yes is this going out in an email to all parents you know i get the 50 million ones about the lunches going out but um will this go out in an email as well that at least all the people on our email list as well as being on the website for access for community and then parents to get an input in it as well anyone else thank you thank you okay very good that's all i have on your sr3 or your american rescue plan all right okay next on the

101agenda is um 14.4 sir three is that correct this was the amendment to our agenda yes so so madam chair uh i've been talking to randy keating the county administrator about these funds esther iii was approved by the federal government to spend two-thirds of that money that uh mr keptness just described and you could start spending that april 30th even though you don't have to submit your full plan until september 1. and those hvac the trailers the facility type work that was the little over one million dollars that was in the presentation we need that work to occur now over the summer to get it done and so i've talked to the county about approving those funds for us at their meeting which is thursday and asking you to request a uh one million forty

102thousand eighteen dollars under the category of operation and maintenance and then we could spend those funds because we can't spend the funds until the county allocates it madam chair i'd like to make a motion to authorize the superintendent to request from the board of supervisors an appropriation of sr3 funds in the amount of one million forty thousand and eighteen dollars for 2021 2022 school year in the operating operations and maintenance category okay we have a motion it has been second vote please okay motion carried thank you thank you okay next on the agenda is the transportation update good evening everybody good evening you notice what we're wearing right i was just going to say i must say that the apparel on the stage looks beautiful just for you thank you for the gift tracy i

103think we have a couple that might might need uh might need hooked up yet so if you get any sizes i'll see if i have okay okay you've got my report in front of you i'm here to answer any questions you might have no questions i did want to highlight uh one thing uh i can't remember if i listed it but we received a couple of uh multi-function activity buses uh they're small vehicles uh one will be at each high school these are non-cdl vehicles so you don't need a cdl to drive them and are 14 passengers once you go to the 15th passenger it's required as a as a commercial uh commercial qualifications to drive them but they're built with the same structure that a regular school bus has built rollover protection side protection

104emergency exits so on and so forth they even have the child check systems in them um so they'll going to be used for our some of our smaller groups some of our coaches will be using them for some of our smaller teams to kind of help out with when we don't have a cdl driver available to take these kids to where they need to go we're excited about implementing them and we're going to do some training with our staff starting uh the first of august and we'll just have them on the road okay sounds good thank you thank you busy summer though right yes it hasn't stopped since march last year yeah but you're getting the routes now prepared for pickup for all kids i'm sorry what will you you're planning bus routes now to

105pick up all children like i know last year it was that's what we're planning right now okay thank you thank you okay next is support services and operations full report mr coleman good afternoon good afternoon madam chair school board members dr thornton i'm here to present the actual support services and operations full report first i would like to bring your attention to the new inclusive playground at windsor elementary school now this playground offers more options for the actual students as you already know there are six self-contained classes and students with intensive support needs as young as two years old now can play on this actual playground as you can also see you see a little tricycle right there the actual surface is so smooth they can actually ride bikes right tricycles and different things of

106that nature all right what you see in the background is one of the actual apparatuses there is the sensory car wash so now the students can actually go through with the wheelchair next is a breakdown of the school safety arc all right there's been a lot of questions concerning the school safety order and things that actually go into the school safety audit so today i wanted to actually explain it first of all let's talk about the school safety audit itself each school within the division shall conduct school safety audits a safety audit means a written assessment of the safety conditions in each public school identity identified and necessary develop solutions for physical safety concerns including building security issues and different things of that nature and the actual principle does this the administrator of the school

107does this okay solutions and responses may include and recommendations for structural adjustments so the principal actually goes through a checklist that checklist is then turned in to actual central office to dr thornton or the designee so that is the school safety audit now the steps in the school safety article is this each school submits a copy of the school safety audit to the superintendent which has already been accomplished i've just received notice from the state that all school safety audits have been turned in for alawite county next the superintendent correlates and submits all such school safety audits in the prescribed format manner and make it available to the chief of law enforcement agency and to any sro that has actually been performed now too what i do is i take all of the school safety

108audits and make sure that it's available to law enforcement in the room so they can actually review it next the superintendent establishes a school safety audit committee now this committee is um is made up of representative parents teachers local law enforcement emergency services local services local community services individuals of that nature we would take the results take it before there and then we'll get comments on those and then actually after that we'll actually bring it to the board at that time okay then number four the school safety audit committee reviews the completed school safety audits submits any plans as needed for improving school safety to the superintendent for submission to the school board that is the process of the school safety audit once again i know there was a little confusion on it before but

109that is a breakdown of what actually occurs now when looking at the school safety audit committee all right we have miss burgess from windsor high school miss stratford from hardy elementary school lieutenant edwards of course chief riddle chief howell sheriff clark mr drewery from emergency management coordinator ms jeffries is our parent mr jefferson mr mortico from central office and of course myself those are the individuals that actually make up the school save the committee and once again we get all of the committee all of the results put them together and then we actually talk through those results and bring anything evident to the school board do you go and visit the schools or is it just based on that audit from the principles it's based on that audit from the principles in the past one

110to two we have went out to a school if the request is there but it's basically the audit from the principal and going through it and a lot of times the principal might walk with other individuals on their administrative team so yes ma'am are there any other questions concerning the school safety audit all right next i'd like to bring your attention to the mou with the sheriff now the school board and this is the mou with the sheriff concerning the sros for the division the school board and the law enforcement agency review and amend or firm the memorandum of understanding the mou at least once every two years or at the time upon the request of either party we actually do it here every single year we do it every single year but we have

111to do it at least once every two years the school board provides notice of an opportunity for public input during each review period for the memorandum of understanding so i'm bringing that to you tonight to let you know that you have a copy there but we can open it up for the actual input so the current memorandum of understanding will be published on the division website so we're bringing it for you and then actually we're going to get input throughout this month and then we can make a decision on it all right okay is this something we're going to do now it's on 15.5 on the agenda madam chair we we actually have no one signed up for employment okay so then we are we need a motion madam chair i make a motion to

112approve the sro memorandum of understanding [Music] second okay we have a motion it has been second vote please tulip yes it's car yes ms perkins yes mr wilson yes thank you and there were no changes in the mou based from even last year no ma'am there were no changes in mou and as you already know the sheriff's department has signed off at this time right okay all right there's no other questions i just want to bring your attention to the rfq for architectural services um at this time the architectural services that we had i actually ran out after five years so it's now it's time to renew a contract or i should say put it out to bid so at this time i'm preparing a rfq to actually put out the bid to acquire a

113new architect um this is an information only so i'm just letting you know exactly what i'm doing and for the school system at this time so if you have any questions concerning architect just know that we are moving forward with an rfq if there's no other questions next mayor madam chair i want to bring to your attention auction items there are several items i need to put into auction at this time with all of the new flexible furniture that we do have we have some furniture here that actually needs to go into an auction and we need to uh move forward with these desks as you can see are age desks some of these are 10 to 15 years old items 175 elementary desks and chairs and at least 200 and 250 secondary desk desk

114chair combos that need to be actually okay this this is an action item yes madam chair i make a motion to approve the auction sale of 175 elementary desks and 250 secondary desks with chair attached we have a motion and it has been second very pleased it passed okay motion carry the consulting services that was just a informational for you for the consulting services just to let you know so you didn't have to do anything okay okay okay all right and we've done the sro so is there anything else um just wanted to go over two more slides okay get out your way um this is the proposed awning replacement for carsville just to let you know as you already know early april it was accident out there until the but we're in the process

115of actually putting it together this is going to be this is the proposed look for is this the side this isn't the front end this is not the front okay i know exactly okay all right next is the new hardy status the new heart of status update i know that last time you had a couple of questions concerning new hardy status where exactly was staying at we stood at it exactly so i just want to run through a couple of um notes that i have here for exactly what's going on first of all it's the approach to the 65 sandy estimate and the major detail quantity survey efforts now this was a quantity survey defines the type of amount of materials that was needed for the various trades these are the things that actually went

116into place for the 65 meeting okay just to give you a little background for this with estimates of major categories this included concrete masonry carpentry these are just some of the surveys that was actually done that's one thing intensive market outreach now both firms khan and heartland are in a bid market every single day they made a point of encouraging all vendors to participate in the pricing and the bid process simply put competition brings lower and more competitive pricing so that's another thing they were actually doing trying to bring down the actual price validation of material pricing khan and heartland team contacted and received pricing from multiple vendors on major major materials in multiple categories um another additive that khan and actually heartland did uh moving it to the 65 percent an extensive subcontractor input

117was actually taken from the market rather than just relying on historical calls the team contacted over 100 subcontractors to get their input from estimating the process analyzing scrutinizing over 75 quotes and just current market correct estimate every estimate is a snapshot that is a picture of what the owner should expect that the project had gone to bed at the time the estimate was prepared it's just a snapshot the picture changes as the plans become more fully developed and market conditions adjust so just to let you know we're still moving forward still still breaking away still looking at prices and making changes now from the 35 percent to the 65 percent where we stand at right now we had a 1.7 million dollar uh deduction in some of the choices and the decisions that we made

118at the actual committee this is based on inflation and stuff based on inflation different things the different uh value engineering that we had to actually decide on so yes we saved 1.7 million dollars at this time and we're still going to be moving forward to the 95 meeting at this time now what we're going to do is continue to monitor pricing trends of course we're going to stimulate subcontract and vendor interest optimize documents and develop a strategic purchasing plan now the biggest thing here is prepare early site development package now this consensus of the team is that the time to get started on site development and that means clearing grading storm draining and site preparation is right now you have to do it in the fall so wait until winter spring can result in significant

119delays so we anticipate rrn architects anticipate handing over 95 documents at the end of july so we're looking for one last meeting well one more meeting at the end of july for 95 percent completion and then we can actually move forward to the 100 and then shovel in the ground that's what we want to hear all right all right are there any questions concerning information i just went over all right thank you mr coleman thank you okay looks like we're ready for the report from the superintendent the equity update madam chair board dr thornton so the virginia department of education says that equity in education is achieved when we eliminate predictability of students outcome based on race gender zip code ability social economic status or language spoken at home unbeknownst to us we do we

120do predict students outcome based on social identities it doesn't make us bad it makes us human they're human mistakes however equity out of white county schools equity and inclusion initiative is just about awareness awareness awareness is becoming more awake to alert to and more sensitive to all of our students needs and it's not one person's fault one person one group's fault this is all of us becoming more aware to better educate all of our students and to give them the best possibility we do this building community creating new norms with our equity community agreements meaning listening to understand and not listening to respond approaching courageous conversations and topics with openness creating a safe and a brave space getting to know ourselves and each other asking questions and considering inclusive language and expecting and accepting non-closure

121it is a journey not a final destination equity and inclusion it's about having courageous conversations respectfully we will have to have difficult conversations when we talk about students and the data and discipline and test scores but we have to do it using courageous conversation model and that is equity it's giving everyone what they need it's becoming better educators the world is changing and our educators deserve training that helps them understand all the unique differences of all of our students their parents and our community equity is awareness it's when we're thinking and we're feeling are we more aware of the expectations for all of our students are we more alert to the educational systems that have regulated marginalized students to lower educational opportunities we should be frustrated about this that all of our students don't have

122access to opportunities are we more sensitive to the opportunity gaps that continue to lead to achievement gaps the more opportunity gaps our students experience the less achievement are we more alert to the barriers that impact our community are we more awake to the fact that some of our students and some of our family members and some of our community members don't feel included in this community they don't feel like they are heard they don't feel like they are seen equity and inclusion gives them a voice and make sure that we all are better than what we're doing when we first started equity and inclusion training leaders did not know what to expect they were nervous [Music] but once we started our journey i watched admin leaders our superintendent i worked i watched principals and aps

123and instructional coaches i watched them go along for the journey i watch them become more aware i watch them acknowledge i watch them learn and i watch the most importantly have courageous conversations in a room together without arguing without disagreeing with disrespectfully but they were able to have courageous conversations about what's best for our students and to do it respectfully let's take a look at what they had to say can we play the video training provided me confidence on how to approach uh courageous conversations i really feel like out of this training i have become more aware of the language that's used around me and kind of the words and the language that i'm using everyone knows the old saying think before you speak but i really feel like this training has kind of brought

124that back to the forefront and kind of put that back into perspective i have learned so many new terms that have really helped me with understanding my students better in order to provide a more inclusive environment language changes so much nowadays and when we're having a conversation with a student or about a student a common common definitions of terms really help to prevent any misinterpretation that might happen if we're using different definitions i feel like i'm so much more aware of the terminology and the many categories as they relate to equity um for example it's not just a race concern but it's about gender it's about religion it's about weight and age so many more that um i had not i it hadn't come to my attention or [Music] my thoughts as far as how

125far it really goes after doing the equity training and having open dialogue with others i had opportunities to self-reflect on my own personal life experiences and with that i think it has better prepared me to help support all students and it's helpful to me to realize i come from a different place a different lived experience and it's good for me to understand what it looks like and feels like through the eyes and the minds and the lives and the hearts of people who do not look like me this training has really brought awareness to me when it relates to inclusion specifically making sure that all of our students are included within the classroom specifically their cultures making sure that they are seen and that teachers recognize them i have the ability now and the knowledge

126to actually build those authentic relationships with everyone in my building because when we embrace our diversity it will lead to academic and social emotional excellence i think you know being able to provide teachers with this lens so that they can help guide our kids through the school year and when they come up with problems or situations that's the key the equity training for me has really made me take a look at the difference between equity and equality and what that means for the teachers and students in the building what the training has really allowed me to do is to pause be more reflective and to make sure that i'm not making any assumptions about any individual based off their background and i'm treating them all with the same equitable high expectations our equity training has

127prepared us to see how access and opportunity are distributed across factors such as race class gender ability and language what i've realized is we need to be very careful with that we need to make sure that we listen to our students we listen to our staff [Music] and we hear them so that we don't put labels up on people that are not how they envision themselves or their futures it's helped me to understand where children are coming from that not all children have the same opportunities and then we need to treat our children equitable now when i look at children i see do you need a pair of shoes do you need food and just really being there to offer a kind ear a loving heart and to be there for our children and so

128i really feel like that is made this is going to make me a better educator because when i think about how i can best support my students and my staff and reaching their goals i really consider in all of the different ways that they identify themselves it has helped me become a better educator by giving me a new approach and perspective when i'm working with students and teachers it helps me be way more curious and really seek to understand the person first and how i can best help i'm just really looking forward to more people going through the training so that we can begin to have conversations um that respectfully challenge each other and our biases in a way that makes sure that ensures that we're putting students first we want all of our students

129staff and families to not only feel included in all of our decisions and experiences but we want to make sure that they feel a sense of belonging and feel that they're valued [Music] this training is not asking people to give up their values or their beliefs it's asking us to come together as a community and have courageous conversations so we address the needs of all of our students it's asking us to have empathy even if you don't fully understand it can you respect and appreciate other people's experiences i can understand the nervousness it must feel as a parent to hear what's going on in other counties but here in isle of wight county we're just teaching equity and inclusion to teachers and admin leaders only we're having courageous conversations so that we can be better

130people better educators and make sure that all of our students get what they need that is equity thank you madam chair one comment i just wish the people who had spoken out against the equity at the beginning of the meeting had been here to hear this because i think it was very well done and i appreciate it yet and i do believe that there are some folks here and we appreciate that as well thank you sir next on the agenda is annual fundraising report madam chair members of the board this is the annual fundraising report and it's just information i'd be happy to answer any questions the board may have okay the cte update you might as well take that mic out and hold it you too tall there you go madam chair honorable board

131members dr thornton thank you for giving me a chance tonight to provide a cte update um i will try to keep it brief but hey that's okay this is good stuff so this is good stuff it's a lot of good stuff we've been awarded the planning grant from the claude moore foundation through the claw more foundation planning grant we are proposing financial support for the implementation of a patient care technician course to enhance our health and medical sciences pathway so why patient care technician patient care technician because hampton roads workforce council which is serving as a conduit to the baltimore grant for us and is working with us on that they surveyed the regional hospitals and patient care technician was the number one independent position identified by our local hospitals certifications that students can achieve

132through patient care technician is ekg certification they can receive a phlebotomy certification uh which i'm sure all you know what that is but if not it's drawing blood from the veins so they will be allowed to do that and they'll get that certification and also the patient care technician certification this course would be offered after nurse aide one and two so would expand our health and medical career sciences pathway so that would really um be extremely valuable to our students as they transition into their post-secondary endeavors as we expand and give them these additional certifications as you can see the proposed location this is a drawing of layout of the career building you can see in the upper right hand corner that there is an open space currently and for future renovation and that's where

133the patient care technician course would go the location of the space is extremely advantageous for collaboration between the patient care technician course and our north nurse aid courses they could share the skills lab there would be intense collaboration between the two programs i wanted to highlight a partnership that we've had for a while with sumatomo drive technologies and the things that we're doing to enhance and improve that partnership as you can see on the left that is a piece of our amitrol's mechtrainix training equipment we are working through sumitomo and with our engineering program we've been teaching megatronics through our engineering program from the beginning with that said sumitomo is currently assisting us as we continue to implement megatronic modules into our classrooms on the right you see the building trades we're also partnering with

134sumatoma drive with our building trades program i want to go back as a side note with engineering we had a total this year this is something really really exciting we had a total of 40 engineering and manufacturing students pass the manufacturing technician level 1 certification this spring semester [Music] the mt1 certification is rigorous and extremely valuable to our students as it addresses the core technical companies required for skilled production occupations in all sections of manufacturing this is by far 40 students passing the certification by far the most that we've ever had past during pandemic year what's that during the pandemic during the pandemic so huge kudos to our manufacturing and engineering programs ms greer mr shipman did an amazing job of preparing our students during a pandemic year for success and like i said it's

135a very rigorous but it's a very well recognized certification by industry on the right side with our building trades program we will be completing approximately two wooden projects per month for sumitomo this upcoming year these products will assist sumitomo with increasing their efficiency they will provide the materials and the drawings needed to complete these projects they will also pick up the projects once completed sumitomo sees the skills that are current that our students master in the building trades program as transferable skills that can lead to success in high debt demand positions such as machinists and machine technicians this is not only for students that may want to go to the career pipeline in sumatomo but other manufacturing jobs that relate to that the next is during the pandemic year we did a building trades home

136rehab rehabilitation project i say home rehabilitation project it was done on the outside and i think i'm just going to let the movie play because you know what it speaks for itself and a huge shout out to mr elliot who once again brought this story to life um in this project where is this this is in zuna so we went through the we actually went through the [Music] the social services i'm sorry social services the adult portion of that social services and they provided us with some with some homes that would be good for us to look at and what might fit for our kids and the things that we could do successfully in the time frame we had so if you could go and play that video i'd appreciate it [Applause] so [Music] i'm

137carol meck and this is my brother henry richards we're both retired my brother came to live with me four months ago um from new jersey and um he needs help taking care of himself so here i am my brother's legs aren't so good he's had two strokes and um and one thing that i could not physically do and didn't have the time or i just couldn't do it um was build a ramp if i could walk i'd do it myself i can't walk anymore so but uh i i put a deck on this house up in monaco i built the whole attack on that house with the stairs out uh came up [Music] just come out nice beautiful but i can't do it anymore this ramp was something that we absolutely needed but i absolutely

138could not do it so [Music] i am very very thankful for for these kids for you guys and these kids coming out and doing this for us [Music] so we framed up the deck and now we're floating into the trailer and this is the ramp right here i think we really just wanted to see if all the framework would fit we had the right stuff and kind of get a feel for the project before we go out in the field and just try to put it together there what do you expect them when you get over there a lot of work we're demoing this deck and then we're going to uh put in another deck we prefabbed over in the lab there was rotten nails rotten screws the wood was all rotten a couple places

139were pushed in on the deck board the other class did the outer um of the port so we just have to put together the main sides for the ramp and i was thinking for the corner side so that we can put concrete inside to keep the whole porch stable we're just working on filling in the holes with concrete we're going to put like posts in the hose that's to hold the porch together it's been it's been fantastic watching the progress and seeing the the steps and stages of all this the kids are all involved they've made mistakes they've had to take them out and undo them that's part of life it's a learning experience for everybody here we do like all the landscaping anything to do with plants and animals we we needed around the

140pond that he has and then we pulled up some limbs and some roots and we took out a tree actually the stump that was over here they needed a shovel a like thicker shovel and uh building trades had a shovel that they used for the concrete that was real thick so they let us use that which was really helpful it's kind of nice because you get to see other things like what they're doing and they can kind of [Music] see what you're doing and it's just a different environment to be around it's nice to be around sometimes [Music] but i think this is a super i'm sitter before a super project for the kids to learn the actual hands-on a class like this it's giving me more hands-on experience it's getting me out and doing

141stuff getting my hands dirty the fact that we're out here actually putting it directly to the house it gives us experience working on the field already before even getting out of school so i don't really like to sit and take notes he kind of just sends us off and we figure it out and then when we need help he helps us i really like that way of learning i think that works best for me so i like i like this class a lot yeah he'll sit in that doorway and he's got to be up and and at that door when they get here and he watches every step of the way it's been very good for him very therapeutic with the memory issues he can connect to things that that he knew i live on

142thomas woods trail which is probably three minutes from here you kind of know the people so it makes you feel like yeah i'll help you anytime i live right down the street you can just call me and i'll come help you i love to see smiles on people's faces it would do a good day in my heart he's watching us and it looks so much exciting to him so i think if we're making him happy at the end of the day we built this deck for him so he could get out and go around places and everything and doing it through school i think everybody it just everybody gets a learning experience and everybody feels good about it once they're done [Music] a huge huge thank you i couldn't have asked for more um that

143kind of sums it up there there aren't aren't enough words to uh to thank everybody enough my original um search was looking for someone to do a ramp we got that and so much more wow [Music] that was amazing i definitely would be remiss if i did not thank mr rogers his patience with the kids is amazing it speaks volumes also miss chapman this was a collaborative project this time where we also included her horticulture classes and they went out and were able to do the landscaping piece okay so that wasn't the farm it was the that was the particular transit chapman's class okay most definitely so you know all the support from dr thornton um the board thank you gracie greatly appreciated to allow us to keep doing these things and to keep enhancing

144our programs to give our kids more skills to prepare them for their future yes you know i thought the project that you guys did last year for the the family that needed help was fantastic and to continue that i think is absolutely wonderful because it gives the kids the feeling of being needed being wanted and being able to do a good job for people who need it you can't beat that that's what education is all about thank you and it certainly takes a whole village for a project like this to come together thank thank you thank you thank you just so you remember we have the 25 000 donation from ferguson that will be going to our building trades projects for next year and we're really looking to up our game for our kids so

145how many projects did you say were planned for next year uh we haven't decided yet because we're going to see what the projects are and then we'll assess okay do we want to do you know how many projects can we do with this money do we want to do a bigger one and some smaller ones or you know so that's that's going to be once again we'll be work reaching out to social services and saying hey give us some places to go look at that need this type of help and support and assistance and then as we look at those then we can make decisions based on the homes themselves okay thank you thank you any no more questions thank you okay next on the agenda is the gifted education plan revision uh where's the

146clicker good evening madam chair members of the board dr thornton uh last month we came and spoke with you and shared with you some proposed changes to the gifted plan for next school year and so i'm here to just show you exactly what those changes look like on paper and then ask for you to approve those changes for us so um in the previous planner what is current plan um under in the instructional delivery model on page 16 it just loosely defines that services will be provided a minimum of three hours of push-in or pull out that's pretty much all it says under the amended plan we would be specifically stating that students in grades one and two all students in grades one and two would receive push-in services for a scientific investigation type course

147students in grades three through five would receive pull out services for a math stem integration and students in grades six through eight would we receive pull out for a community service learning project-based learning experience okay i got a question so the three through five that's a pull-out are these the identified gifted students they are both identified and cluster placement and i i talked a little bit more about that in the more specific in the next one so also on page 16 that's where all the changes were limited to the previous plan loosely identifies that they're served push in pull out that's all it says under the amended plan the students in grades one two receive push in in three through five the teachers of gifted students will become the math teacher of record what we

148heard from our students over and over and over again was that i get pulled out for for search and then i have to come back and make up all of that work so if you remember last month when dr port thornton presented he showed you the model involving freckle and how they would be able to identify where students are and then take that and go deeper and go farther and so that's what would happen during this time not only would that happen during that time but they get more than three hours of service since they would have that math class every single day and they're not sent back to another class where they have to make up stuff that they weren't there to receive instruction for to begin with so it keeps students from pulling

149double duty because this becomes their math class does that make sense okay um in grades six through eight students will get received that pull out service where they would complete a community service learning project so we are giving teachers the teachers of gifted students we are giving them very specific parameters around what it is they're doing during search time and what that looks like for students at different levels i have a question yes for the six through eight where you're pulling them out still are we still going to have that issue of making up the work when they get back or is there a way to make it and like a whole i know you don't do a whole class of search kids but there are groups that are heavier in search and not heavier

150in search but i mean it doesn't fix the problem for these kids who've had this whole problem where they're getting pulled out which is great because one of my three is in search and she loves it um and she's never complained about having to go back and do the work but she has had to stay for extra stuff to finish the work so are we going to do anything for them to fix since we know it's a problem what are we doing to resolve that issue for the older kids so that's what the gifted research team is looking at right now so these are just some preliminary changes you know we had talked about the the timeline for what a new gifted plan would look like and what those revisions would look like and that's

151where that would be addressed so this is this is really a pilot it's kind of the first time we've done it um and so that is something that we did hear from students and will try to address moving forward but some of the benefits for right now immediate benefits this is more service for more students so all students in grades one through two one and two are being exposed to those gifted services every week so it's more students it's more service that's more of a teacher of gifted students having their eyes on those kids every week that also means that we're saying this is not just more work it's more rigor which is what our gifted students really need and what they deserve also it gives them more time there's entire class periods dedicated to

152more rigorous more higher level thinking critical thinking skills collaboration those sorts of things for the gifted students and last it gives those sixth through eighth grade students some parameters and some more opportunity to engage in that project-based learning a community service project which we think that they'll really have some some good things to say and ideas around what they can do to give back to our community so that was all of the proposed changes it's really just the two on page 16. and if you have any other questions i'm happy to entertain madam chair i make a motion to approve the revised gifted education plan did you second the stories okay we have a motion and it has been second vote please thank you thank you dr ko okay next on the agenda is the

153appointment of compliance officers good evening this is just um information just to let you know and to let the community be aware that um cheryl elliott will serve as the compliance officer for the 2021-22 school year and jeffrey mordeca will serve as the alternate okay thank you mike drop drop the mic okay next on the agenda is the superintendent's designee for school year 21-22 madam chair members of the board dr thornton this is the superintendent's designees for the 21-22 school year i'd be happy to answer any questions you have you can see the um the designees identified for the 21-22 school year and again we will be asking for the board to approve these designs madam chair i make a motion to approve the superintendent superintendents designees for school year 2021 2022. okay we have

154a motion and it has been second vote please could you bring me the clicker [Music] thank you okay motion carry next on the agenda is the strategic plan timeline and process [Music] so madam chair board members it's time to update and develop a new strategic plan and a strategic plan is done for a variety of reasons one to set the direction and the priorities of any organization it's to get everyone all departments working to achieve the same goals to simplify decision making because you have set your priorities drive alignment ensure hard-working people are putting their energy actually into their priorities and to communicate the message clearly to all stakeholders we are using advanced learning partnerships to help us co-facilitate and support the development of the strategic plan they will facilitate 12 professional learning days throughout

155this year to assist us in this planning five of those days are agenda driven sessions and that empower a staring committee of diverse stakeholders so the the steering committee will actually consist of approximately 25 members including central office school administration teachers staff students and community members and they will convene under the direction of the superintendent in the board in order to maximize community input throughout this process we will include students of diverse ages backgrounds and learning pathways as well as working groups consisting of diverse stakeholders as well so you will have a main steering committee but for sub topics that are identified as we go through this process we will have additional work groups of those same type of stakeholder groups so there'll be a lot of community input along the way and they'll will

156also facilitate two community dialogue sessions so after all these groups have gone through all of their processes which i'll share with you we'll have a white paper it's called it will actually explain the entire strategic plan that will be available for the community it will be well advertised so that we have two community sessions to hear feedback on that plan before it finally goes forward so in september will be the first daring committee session and at that meeting they'll understand the vision and process by which we are engaging in the strategic plan so our our partners will explain to the standard community the entire process and what the next steps are along the way we're going to unpack and reflect on the current mission and vision and our core values that have influenced us since

1572015. the last plan started in 2015. consider the changing nature of learning and work and what it means for our schools review and assess diverse strategic plan examples we're going to prepare work group outcomes and approved protocols for brainstorming and data gathering we're going to conduct a community session to share timeline and process and acquire feedback in october the next session for the steering committee it's a framing the strategic goals and work group planning so we're going to study the current state of the division in broad terms with an emphasis on multiple data sources we're going to carefully unpack the deeper learning model and its alignment with the current and future iwcs vision mission and values we're going to participate in a future protocol that visualizes what the scaled realization of the deeper learning model

158looks like in 2027. so this plan will start in 2022 and go through 2027. brainstorm and priority prioritize three to six strategic goals that will drive the successful realization of the vision of the alawi county schools by 2027. if you remember our last strategic plan i believe we had six goals it is recommended to have no more than like five to six goals that you focus on and and of course we have a wide variety of things we're going to be focusing on but what are we going to prioritize on is really what is in the strategic plan so then we move to november and the third stay in committee session and here we're going to be vetting the work group recommendations so along the way as we identify the different areas we want to

159work with we'll be identifying new individuals to be in those work groups and provide information and feedback back to the steering committee so it's not the staring committee driving everything again it's reaching out into very specific areas once we identify what those areas are and then to review the performance objectives that are generated and review the strategies generated and consolidate these into a finalized set of goals as we move forward into december is the fourth session and that's analyzing each goal in accordance with pertinent division state national evaluation metrics so how are we going to measure our priorities as we move forward how are we going to report that out to the community how do we know if we're successful as we move through this process then in january and february we'll be aligning these

160resources and communicating the support needed to implement this plan it's fine to develop a plan we need to be able to implement the plan at that point we are going to reach out again to the community staff student surveys looking at qualitative and quantitative feedback on the current iwcs perceptions and recommendations we're going to have web based pdf content that clearly defines the strategic goals and as i said we'll be developing matrix as well as how to measure these goals continuing on in january and february along that same timeline that is when we're going to have two community dialogue sessions that invite parents citizens and local leaders to understand the iwcs vision the deeper learning model as well as the district's active strategic planning efforts and these sessions as i said earlier will be communicated

161well in advance we want to make sure that we get a lot of feedback to the final document and and then we'll be looking at sometime in march for the final session of the staring committee after they've heard all of the committee community input to put a final document together then for the school board to review and i think one of the important things that we talked about already in this process is that our goal throughout this process is to have a deeper community co-authorship through this process we want to hear from our community along the way on the syrian committee in the work groups and then with the final process so that we get a strategic plan that all stakeholders have a say in as we move forward over the next five years and

162with that that's just a brief outline of the process do we have any questions how will the steering committee be selected so as far as the steering committee selection as dr thornton said you can see that it includes an array of stakeholders so we'll be looking at how do we populate those slots with participants so we'll be reaching out to folks whether they're community members whether they're staff within and asking if they would be willing to serve in that role the work groups again will be reaching out and asking for again folks representing those different stakeholder groups if they'd be willing to participate in the actual work groups if you're going to be part of the steering committee or involved in any of the work groups that dr thornton identified that's going to be a

163real commitment a time commitment there's going to be research reading contributions you're going to have to make and then of course beyond that the the community dialogue sessions folks would be able to participate in those even if they're not willing to make the time commitment of for instance the steering committee or the work groups and of course as we also noted there with the surveys and the other ways in which we're going to seek feedback again there's rich opportunities there for community members depending on the amount of time that they want to devote to this process to certainly contribute and be heard so part of the process with advanced learning partnerships they're going to have conversations with us as well who are the the key groups in your community because each community is far different

164what other clubs what are the organizations that are heavily involved in the schools and and so we'll be reaching out to them now we'll probably only be able to ask for one person from that group to serve as we only will have 25 par participants around foot 25 is the recommended number so we'll be going through that vetting process we'll bring that to the board again we'll be asking you for suggestions with possible community groups that you work with etc okay and and like this was the year we were supposed to start a new strategic plan but we couldn't because of the pandemic and all we were dealing with last year so as we're working this year are we working still from our old strategic plan continuing some of the goals with that while we're

165working to develop a new strategic plan yeah so there used to be a timeline of five years but that no longer exists so we can work under the current strategic plan in which we will as we develop this one okay and again we're going to put a five year time frame on it it could last longer than that and as we go through the years and adjust and we could continue some of our current goals that we still feel like we need to so it's it's absolutely okay and i believe next month is it next month that we'll be reporting out on some of the strategic plan results yes or early fall yeah i'm sorry i don't want to put too much pressure all right okay thank you okay next is action on closed session

166items personnel report and addendum madam chair i make a motion to approve the personnel report and addendum do we have a motion and it has been second vote please did we get a second yes mr wilson okay i'm sorry my computer literally just died so i'll do a verbal i can take it verbal yes so ms hewlett yes thank you the rest can vote man has it come [Music] hoping it would make it okay motion carry next on the agenda is the adoption of the consent agenda madam chair i make a motion to adopt the consent agenda okay motion made and second vote please ms hulick mr wilson can you hit yours one more time okay motion carry next on the agenda is policy updates and revisions we had a number of policies for first

167read any questions on those i have one on the igai which is character education and i'm just wondering is when i was in the classroom that kind of thing was just taught when needed like honesty and and respect for one another there's is there a curriculum that goes with this policy there is not it's what i'm thinking of now sometimes the um guidance counselor did come in and do specific lessons called character education and it was on like honesty and um lots it was like seven different things that she would do so are those things still going on with this as well great and grit okay okay that might be good to add in the policy then like to word it put that in there what oh we do do by vbs the sba and

168one of the things included in there too as teachers develop their own procedures and routines in their classroom they may they may hang words up like fairness and teach what that means within their classroom and so it's really dependent on the the teacher okay now and some of the the policies that i reviewed it was no change it was just for us to review correct because i didn't see any changes i saw that too yes right so yeah let me address that so i'll give you an example a policy ac non-discrimination if you read that they did cross out disability status as a veteran and they added the word military status and then they also if you look under the code of virginia added 22.1-23.3 which was the law that passed about transgender students so

169by adding the code in there this is one of the 15 policies where the vdoe document says you can't discriminate against transgender students instead of having a separate policy for transgender students by themselves it is this non-discrimination policy includes everyone and by including that code it meets the requirement of the law and that's what we'll explain more at the july 28th meeting we'll go through all 15 of those policies at that time and we had added some already and included that verbiage hadn't we no we didn't add the new code because it's a brand new number we didn't add to some of them previously the recommendation is we just haven't voted on it this is the first read but you haven't voted on it yeah and then the only other one i had was the

170gcl where every employee holding a license issued by the board of education is required to complete a cultural competency training in accordance with guidance issued by the board of education at least every two years um do we have any details about the training like will this be online will it be in person how the length of it do we know anything about this so we don't have any details we're waiting from the state okay okay next on the agenda is um board comments um regulations and exhibits yeah oh i'm sorry i feel like i'm missing something on my paper the regulations and exhibits are pretty much they go along with the policies for first read that are on there this month so okay so and they're just information also okay it's information so i can't

171just go right straight to board comments unless anybody had it yeah question did anybody have any questions on that no not regulations so um if you aren't a facebook follower of mine which there's a few people i'm sure whether they're not on facebook or they don't want to follow the school board members facebook page um i have served for about about six years on the board i represent carrollton bartlett rescue battery park um in the six years i've been on the board we've done the cte program we're building a new school possibly two we have reading programs we have math programs we've got more instructional assistants in the room we've upgraded and done maintenance on all of our buildings to name just a few things of the many things that are really positive that we've

172implemented in the school system my family and i are moving we're moving into the smithfield district so i will once we do close on our house in the carrollton area i will be stepping down from the board i do love this position very much and anyone who knows me knows i work very hard and i do the work i put in the work i i'm in my community my children will still be going to isla white county schools all three of them um but i'm i'm sad to go but i'm excited for the things the board will continue to do in the future and i do appreciate the kind words on the facebook page the emails i've received and the messages i've received those have not gone notice this is a very thankless job and

173to hear some of those kind words were very spiritually uplifting so um i do thank all my constituents for voting for me um continually supporting me even if we disagree and having um hard conversations sometimes when we do disagree but ultimately knowing that we care and that we're always in it for the right reasons we may have different ways to get to the right outcome but we always agree we want what's best for students families and community and so um just getting there sometimes is a difficult part what path do we take so um just wanted to put that out there in case you were not a facebook follower and i figured i should publicly announce the meeting so i appreciate all the support going forward in the future and i'm still around and i'm

174not going anywhere so i will be active everywhere so thank you very much and man [Applause] can i just say that how much we appreciate your service on this board and how much you have meant to uh to us as a as a board and we appreciate it and thank you very much thank you and you will be missed thanks thank you she didn't have anything did you have anything to say miss perfect um did you have anything to say no mr dr thornton okay with that our meeting is adjourned