School Board Meeting 6/10/21

001um okay we'll reconvene into open session certification of resolution of compliance please madam chair i move that the closed meeting was conducted in in conformity with the provisions of the virginia virginia freedom of information act as required by section 2.2-371 2-d of the code of virginia and certified that only public business matters lawfully exempt from open meeting requirements were discussed and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion by which the closed meeting was convened were heard discussed or considered okay we have a motion we have a second second okay motion and second vote please okay motion carry i want to welcome everyone to our june school board meeting this is the last meeting of the 2020 21 school year what a roller coaster ride this year has been but i think

002i can speak for the entire board in saying how pleased we are of the accomplishments made in spite of the unprecedented challenges okay next on the agenda i would like for miss times to open us up with the pledge of allegiance and moment of silence i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states they'll play for their entry unfortunately the vhsl did not give out best actor awards at the region level and state level awards went to first and second place players regardless the team had an amazing season despite all the obstacles this year so at this time when i call your name if you're here please come forward to receive your certificate and pin leah carroll caitlyn carter rylan ferry maggie minardi ethan phelps caitlyn pippen john post charles ricks natalie spain jackson

003spivey the team is coached by ginger beatty riffle i believe miss ripple's with us so this time we'd like to once again congratulate the windsor high school drama team for another outstanding season and success at the region and state [Applause] level now we're moving to smithville high school the center for advancement of sustainable energy also known as case at james madison university held a virtual kidwin competition this year the competition engages students in stem through a hands-on engineering design competition that gets them excited about renewable energy and teaches them about solar and wind energy the student competitors work to construct a small wind turbines or solar devices that they tested and then presented to a panel of judges the kid win challenge this year included 65 total participants three smith oh high teams competed in

004the wind energy challenge placing third was the pandemic packers team composed of two engineering three students both juniors dylan smith and sean klein and unfortunately they are not able to be with us tonight but i think there we go so there's a picture of them working on the entry their entry for the competition placing second was the flying packers team with sophomore lindsey greer lindsay completed both engineering one and the manufacturing 1 courses the turbine for this device featured a pulley system and blades fabricated from pvc pipe both teams qualify for national competition which will be held virtually monday june 7th through 10th excuse me so held june 7th through 10th teams will submit data on their turbines and recorded presentations and they will participate in a wind energy quiz and compete in an instant

005challenge sent to the schools by the national kidwind organizers mr adam shipman coached the wind energy challenge team so mr shipman if you would come up at this time and as he's coming up i'm going to move on to the other category which was solar smith ohio submitted eight solar projects in the competition placing third was aiden henry an 11th grade engineering 3 student aiden enjoys culinary arts and he decided to create a device that could stir or blend a drink using solar energy pretty interesting aiden constructed a solar array that could power a repurposed computer cooling fan the fan spun a set of magnets that made the magnet in the drink spin ultimately starting the drink that's impressive and first place let's see first place dominic privette a senior engineering 3 student won first

006place with the solar water wheel creation dominic is also unable to be here tonight but dominic wanted to address the problem of ocean litter and trash so he made a prototype of a device that could be used in the middle of the ocean to remove trash out of the water how does it work a solar powered pump spins the waterwheel the water wheel spins a conveyor belt that picks up floating trash from the surface of the ocean the waterwheel invention was also selected for the dream big award in addition chris hall christopher hall a junior in engineering three was announced as the circuit master uh winner of the circuit master award the judges thought that christopher's design for a solar-powered charger was very efficient and showcased a clean design he was commended by the judges

007for his presentation and the layout of the components he used in his device heather greer coached the solar energy challenge teams and i think this career is with us tonight mr square if you come on down so and june is a very very busy time of year for our students especially our high school students so we understand that they're not able to be here tonight you can find all of their names in our isle of wight achievers script which is posted with our board agenda in addition there are links to the kidwin projects and the videos you see screen grabs of the videos so if you want to learn more about these projects you can go look at the achiever script and click on the link and see the students presentation that they use for

008the competition and we want to congratulate all of them and in a as ms carr said in a difficult year they made incredible strides so congratulations to mr elliott [Applause] next we want to recognize several of our students will be taking their skills and certifications from our cte programs and transitioning to careers in their areas of expertise upon graduating from high school first from our welding program we have matthew bowman and matthew's not able to be with us tonight but he will be joining eastern metal corporation ethan bates i believe ethan is here ethan will be employed with ait marine and next we have sawyer cook sawyer has accepted an offer from steel tech industrial fabrication we have elaine robinson with us tonight from steel tech who will be joining sawyer up front gavin sorrell

009will start his career with master machine and tool representing gavin tonight our oldest student mr pike the instructor sorry he said he would fill in but from master machine and tool we have david revere and dustin brown from engineering excuse me from culinary arts jacob bryant i'm not sure if jacob's with us tonight we'll be joining the foxtail wine bar where he will continue his career in the food and hospitality industry and from engineering jonathan major is joining amstead rail i know jonathan's right behind me and we were told his signing package includes stock options with the company and i'm not sure betsy o'dell from virginia federation for advanced manufacturing education was going to be with us tonight is that oh hi betsy come on because betsy facilitated chris's job placement we want to congratulate

010all of these students and thank the employers for providing our students with these wonderful career opportunities and we're going to get a photo of all of you mr elliot's going to come down here really quick [Applause] uh so we want to congratulate them again and i'll just add a comment a couple of our programs like nurses nurse aid and cosmetology their testing dates got pushed back until after school ends due to things this year with covid so so we will have more students who will be placed but they just weren't able to get their certifications complete because of how the testing dates change so but we congratulate the students and we thank those businesses once again who are able to be with us tonight we have some additional businesses we'd also like to recognize the

011virginia school board association does something called a vsba business honor roll businesses large and small corporate owned or family run play a key role in supporting our communities and local schools they contribute to our school division in many ways including helping schools with in-kind or financial contributions donating to scholarship programs supporting extracurricular activities offering internship opportunities volunteering in the schools and sponsoring field trips this type of support is invaluable the virginia school boards association acknowledges deserving businesses by including them in the annual vsba business honor roll school divisions are invited to nominate businesses as a way to say thank you for their contribution and support to public education due to covet 19 restrictions we were not able to recognize our nominees from the 2019-2020 school year at a board meeting so tonight we are including

012those businesses along with our 2021 nominee first our 2021 nominee unfortunately they were not able to have a representative with us tonight but we want to acknowledge them ferguson and their philanthropic arm ferguson cares through a generous donation of 25 thousand dollars to the isle of wight county school building trades program students will be able to rehabilitate homes for those in need while rebuilding the career pipeline of skilled trades professionals the program has completed smaller projects for residents of the community this donation will support home improvements on a larger scale completed by students in the divisions building trades program and we thank ferguson and we hope to get a representative out here and we will make sure we include them at a future board meeting from last year one of our honorees is farmer service

013now farmer service ace hardware and with us tonight we have manager gordon holloway farmer service has been an outstanding supporter of isle of wight county schools and a generous neighbor to westside elementary the business located across the street from the west side playground has partnered with the school on numerous outdoor projects through their donations of soil mulch plants and the manpower to deliver unload and distribute those materials when and where needed we thank them for partnering with the division and supporting the students and teachers of westside elementary congratulations and just stay up here we've got one more is southeast connections no noelle travis southeast connections construct maintain and repair natural gas pipelines and stations representatives from southeast connections held an information day for students in the building trades and agriculture programs at the land lab

014the company demonstrated the machinery used in the field and provided hands-on learning opportunities for students they also discussed skills and certifications required for various careers with the company we want to thank all of our businesses that we've recognized tonight for your support of isle of wight county schools and at this time we'd like to get a picture of you two gentlemen [Applause] now we have a special recognition tonight we would like to honor deputy patricia gwaltney and i'ma ask ms waltney to come forward please you are looking mighty fine an angel deputy gualtney who retired in may from the isle of wight county sheriff's office with 20 years of service where most of her years were spent as a school resource officer at many of the schools throughout the division her last stop was windsor

015high school if you ever visited one of her schools then you know deputy gualtney she was a welcoming site to students staff parents and community members a post on the isle of wight county sheriff's office facebook page about her retirement had when i wrote this had over 300 comments and 200 shares that's that's pretty impressive we have a plaque for her that reads isle of wight county schools recognizes deputy patricia gwaltney for many years of dedicated service to the students and staff of isle of wight county schools congratulations on your retirement while we are sad to part ways with deputy gwaltney we are excited for her to move into the next phase of her life there is a quote that seems very fitting as we say our goodbyes to her i don't know if i've

016been changed for the better but because i knew you i have been changed for good we love you and wish you well [Applause] uh [Music] just curious raise your hand if you've met ms gwaltney before hopefully it was under good circumstances at this time do we have a recognition from ssc yes yes okay mr kenny gray i'll turn it over to mr kenny gray for the ssc employee of the month that's a real tough act to follow miss squadron hello everyone um today i have the opportunity to share with you i've been here about four years this francine's been here for 18. we were arguing back and forth of her start date she's been here so long so she said 2003 and she said wait a minute maybe 2005. i said well i'll graduate in

017high school so um literally when i first started she hopped in my truck and said you gonna make it here you gotta rap with me and she has been riding me ever since uh she is the glue she is the mama the grandmother the banker the counselor uh and she really takes hold of her employees they're not mine the custodians have belonged to francine everyone in here you've been in the hallways you've seen francine um and i wish i could say more and stand here and give you more uh but you are the employee of the month employee of the year um um she has been promoted to operational supervisors and we're trying to move her into a manager role throw that in there um but i appreciate you uh to your family that's here

018thank you for sacrificing her we appreciate for you and her uh thanks for supporting her i know you are in your new role with your grand baby [Applause] not yet sorry back up okay at this time still underachievers we have a special presentation we have selected a new school board liaison from windsor high school as you know leah is graduating and with us tonight is our new liaison and if she will come forward her name is kylie sharp kylie come on down here [Applause] just to introduce kylie kylie is a sophomore at windsor high school and resides in the carsville district yep she is a member of the beta club and played both basketball and volleyball for the dukes she is also a current member of the carsville routine club this is a very active

019young lady we congratulate kylie and look forward to having her on the board representing windsor high for the next two years so congratulations [Applause] okay now it's time for this one let me get my paper straight okay um at this time we would like to recognize our outgoing windsor high school liaison leah carroll we have a resolution of appreciation that requires a vote before i read the resolution i know her other liaison her colleague neely from smithfield high school would like to make a few comments so neely i turned the floor over to you yes um i would just like to thank leah for everything that she's done for students in our county these past two years and for taking me under her wing and showing me the ropes of this position because it's not

020something easy to do and i'd also like to say congratulations to her and i know that we're all excited to see all the amazing things she's going to do at uva thank you at this time i'll read the resolution so we can vote after the vote we'd like to have the board members come down on the floor and have leah join us she's in the audience tonight she's going to join us for a photo and we have a little presentation for her so the resolution says whereas leah carroll has served with distinction as a student liaison member of the school board of isle of wight county during the 2020 and 2020 2021 school years and whereas leah has served with commendation as the student liaison to the olive white county school board and whereas leah

021has fulfilled the duties of a student liaison representative with dedication and eminence and brought honor to herself her family windsor high school and the isle of wight county school board and whereas during leah's tenure she studied the issues and came to each meeting prepared to provide input and whereas leah has been an energetic and essential part of the isle of wight county school board and whereas leah's term as student liaison to the school board of white county ends on june 30th 2021 now therefore be it resolved that the isle of wight county school board wishes to publicly thank leah for her service for the past two years and be it further resolved that the isle of wight county school board extends its best wishes as leah prepares for her future and be it further resolved

022that a copy of this resolution be presented to leah and a copy be spread in the minutes of the isle of wight county school board meeting of june 10 2021 so i make a motion to approve that motion second okay motion mate vote please are we all good with the vote it passed yeah okay board members neely dr thornton and tracy if you want to join please come down on the floor in the front leah would you please join us up front as well so [Applause] normally leah would be right up here on the stage at her seat but tomorrow's a big day for leah as its graduation so i think we can all understand why she is bidding ado at this point and isn't she the salutatorian and she's the salutatorian drop that and

023a jefferson scholar at uva with a full ride i know you're tired of hearing from me but i have to say in all the years i've been working with the board each year i'm thinking wow this is great liaison this is a great liaison leah has really taken this to another level and neely is falling right in her footsteps and kylie it's just amazing and leah i get a little bit of goosebumps thinking about that so you have made a tremendous contribution to the board and to the liaison position that will continue for many many years to come so thank you from for me personally with that that's going to conclude achievers and special presentations thank you to all who came tonight to support our achievers and have a wonderful evening [Applause] thank you next

024on the agenda is request to speak okay in accordance to policy bddh-e citizens scheduled on the agenda to speak will be permitted five minutes maximum time for their presentation delegations will be requested to limit their speakers to two persons speaking are asked to be specific state the issues for the board's consideration and attach a copy of your prepared remarks if you have prepared remarks they should be given to the board clerk please do not approach the board members the school board requests that speakers refrain from making references to specific individuals and that any matter related to specific students or individuals be discussed in a closed meeting the first person on our list is a miss minette brooks school board members dr thornton as you know the virginia department of education has implemented governor northam's ad

025equity va initiative i became aware of it about three months ago through a friend and i've spent many hours researching it and its implications for schools teachers and students i would like to share with you a little bit of what i've learned because you are the gatekeepers who must have the courage to protect our students from harm even if it comes from the very powerful virginia department of education i need to know that you know what i have learned the yet equity va initiative starts with the presumption that systemic racism and white supremacy are rampant in our schools and is responsible for the gaps in achievement by marginalized students such as black hispanic latinx lgbtq plus and non-english speaking students to name a few as a retired educator who worked for 29 years in virginia

026schools 19 of them in isle of wight county i say i know this is not true teachers work hard every day to make sure all students are successful irrespective of their race that is what they do i saw this over and over again can you find racism in white supremacy somewhere in virginia schools probably is it rampant and pervasive no do we need draconian measures in our schools to eradicate it absolutely not this initiative further proclaims that the achievement gaps of marginalized students can only be mitigated if we strive for equity not equality and that everything done in schools must be seen through the lens of equity so what is the difference between equity and equality and why is it a cause for concern the wall street journal said at best equality means equal treatment

027unbiased competition and impartially judged outcomes equity means equal outcomes achieved if necessary by unequal treatment biased competition and preferential judging to truly promote equity as an educator you must be anti-racist there is an official vadoe document on their website entitled anti-racism and education it is fascinating reading it states that anti-racism requires acknowledging that racist beliefs and structures are pervasive in education and actively doing work to tear down those beliefs and structures so it's not good enough to say that you are not racist you must actively admit that you're biased and if you're a white teacher a student you must admit that you have benefited from white supremacy all your life then be educated on your biases so you can do better this includes all students from kindergarten through high school i believe this initiative seems

028seeks to make white children feel as if they are oppressors and present black children and other minorities as victims i don't believe it is the way to make children feel empowered or that they can be smart and successful no matter what it is putting children in the crosshairs of activism the yet equity va initiative is already embedded in eyewit county schools we have a director of equity diversity and inclusion she has already trained administrators and will be training teachers next her mandate is to educate students and the community what specifically will she be teaching our students i understand it is not part of the curriculum we also have the student initiated equity club at windsor high school what is its purpose what activities is it involved in in the school i wish i had time

029to delve into all of my many concerns but that is a topic for another day as school board members it is your job to see that students are educated not indoctrinated my hope is that you will delve deeply into the ed equity va documents including the document anti-racism and education you should also delve into the recently adopted edits to the history and social science standards of learning which embeds tenets of the 16-19 one minute our u.s history curriculum finally be sure to look into the new and intrusive virginia social emotional learning standards which will probably curl your toes to conclude equity and anti-racism will not solve achievement gaps all students come to school with a melting pot of issues that affect their learning and that must be taken into account when planning how to best

030educate that child also no student or teacher needs to feel ashamed of their race or culture schools should not be focusing on teaching students how to read school should be focusing on teaching children how to read write do math and understand science we need to be preparing them for a successful future not focusing on what divides us i would like to end with a quote by joseph stalin education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed thank you thank you ms brooks okay next we have miss candice van der break sorry hey how are y'all doing so i also came to talk about the equity um inclusion that uh y'all have online and the videos that's been posted on facebook i was wondering if

031anybody can define the word bias because bias is the prejudice in favor or against one thing person or group compared to another usually in a way to be unfair definition is from oxford languages dr thornton states that we all have biases in his videos on the alawite county school facebook page please tell me one bias that you have discovered that you have what is the establishment clause of the first amendment of the constitution according to cornell law school it states that the government is prohibited from favoring one religion over another or favoring religion over non-religion why is the word religion found in the equity training powerpoints that i received in response to the foia request 15 times why does one of the powerpoints have an angel with the words gender expression gender identity sexual orientation

032and gender roles on it it states three times in dr thornton's videos on alawite county school's facebook page that equity will intersect with k-12 education correct and the power points i received from the equity training at alawite county school educational equity is defined as moral and civil rights obligated to ensure students are provided the tools they need to succeed whose morals are determining this obligation can you define privilege according to oxford language it is a special right or advantage or immunity granted or available to a particular person or group can you explain the powerpoint privilege to bias where under privilege are bubbles with the words white heterosexual cease gender which which is person's identity matches the verse x and under bias are the words bipoc which is person of color lgbtqia transgender genderfluid let me

033remind you that sitting on the school board is a privilege made by the people and for the people thank you [Applause] thank you i didn't get the last name but i got the first miss candice is what i'll call you is that okay thank you miss candice next we have miss heidi schwartz i live on longview windsor smithfield line i'm here to talk about the critical race very first i'd like to ask who decided that the county of isle white needed a critical race theory coordinator at the cost of 80 thousand dollars and viewed the isle of wight school system of having a racial issue especially during a pandemic when the students haven't even been in a person setting for most of the school year for the past year was there a study performed to

034back this need up was there a question or survey involving teachers students parents i never received or part took of one 20 20 20 or 2021 school year reports between nine public schools serving 5474 students iowa white schools diversity there's american indians 21 asian 72 hispanic 194 students black 100 or i'm sorry 1 473 hawaiian under one percent two or more races under a half percent and white there's three thousand four hundred and thirty three students with these numbers when and who decides what color is and when critical race theory is in play color becomes a tricky thing sometimes for instance my daughter-in-law has some puerto rican in her so where do we classify her in critical race theory until critical race theory was entered into our language we didn't why would we of these

0353 433 white now called privileged students by the powerpoint presentation from the foyer that's been provided we know how many of these are in high school and middle school and may actually be entering into their sexual world and those numbers understood their sexual preferences and if they are white and heterosexual why are they listed as privileged since when is heterosexual classified as privileged and who in the school administrator decides when and when it will be okay to discuss or have a conversation with a student regarding critical race theory for whatever reason do the parents get notified when this happens i'm not okay with the school or anyone having these types of conversations with my child that's an at a home discussion iowa white schools has a current graduation rate at 93 percent the state average

036is 88 percent the teacher-to-student ratio is 16-1 and the state is 15-1 the math scores are charted at 76 percent with the state at 72 percent reading is that an 82 percent in the state is that 80 percent iowa white is succeeding at an above average in the state a reason many of us have flocked here yet in the video on may 6 by the superintendent and this facebook posted stated that they are doing the equity work to ensure that every student will be successful how is teaching this critical waste race theory that white heterosexual students are privileged giving my student better education to succeed what happens when a teacher administrator aide or etc whose personal beliefs do not support or align with critical race theory are they allowed to exempt out of the training

037that you will be providing or will they have to leave their job will we lose fantastic isle white school employees that may wish to stick to their personal beliefs or their personal religious beliefs over this far left reach i see in the training powerpoint that religion is brought up several times isn't that supposed to be kept separate from schools it's a dangerous line when prayer is supposed to be kept out of schools but religion is somehow brought up in the critical race theory what appears to be in a negative negative form and then when we have a school personnel that believes in critical race theory and major minutes influence our children what do we do then are we allowed to be involved schools have three pillars of education curriculum instruction and assessment politics should not

038be discussed in school unless it's in a class designed but critical race theory is now going to be bringing that into it that's no one's business at home but ours i encourage you to continue on a path and focus spending and training that teachers are teachers of education and not critical race theory i could care less with my child's teacher dressed in a tutu with green hair and loved the same gender if they could reach my child and teach them math or english and keep personal views and preferences at the door that's okay by me we need to get back to educating our children the one twos and threes and abc's and keep parenting to the parents thank you thank you miss sword [Applause] okay next we have miss jennifer boykins first i want to

039address something dr thornton said at the southern and central alawite citizens group he said that he had some white teachers that came to him and said we're scared and your response dr thornton was why you are a white teacher in a predominantly white county what are you afraid of for someone who claims they are promoting inclusion and wants everybody to be equal do you think you may have hurt those teachers that came to you with what they felt was a legitimate concern to them why would we make any teacher feel like their emotions concerns feelings are less than someone else's or not important because they are white isn't that racist second i want to address something miss kiana jones said at the board of supervisors work session last week she says she wanted kids to

040be able to walk down the hall and see pictures of themselves hanging on the wall i agree there is nothing wrong with that i have a problem with some of the names she meant to mention she wanted to see hanging on those walls william dubois and langston hughes william dubois was a socialist langston hughes was a communist there are too many great black people in history that we can honor and educate our kids with that are not communist and socialist like sarah breedlove aka madame cj walker she was the first freeborn in her family orphaned at age seven she became the first self-made female millionaire in america when she started selling her own handmade hair care products door to door she was black and she always credited her success to hard work miss jones also

041stated she is getting her masters in restorative teaching also known as restorative justice restorative justice brings the victim and the perpetrator families and communities together to have a dialogue that aims to build understanding and develop agreements to make things right so there is justice for all per one website it has three shifts the first shift is to acknowledge that troublesome behavior is normal i can't even comment on that because it is so absurd now we have to have now we have to justify and normalize bad behavior the second shift is doing away with authority figures now we have to have a convener or facilitator so we can sit in a circle and yes that's what this teaching recommends and talk about having empathy the third shift is to move the focus of responsibility for the

042well-being of the community including the offender not necessarily the victim from experts like councils counselors and doctors to the community itself i have not exaggerated this this is on several different websites it seems the goal of this teaching is to make the victim feel sorry for the attacker and everyone walks away without any consequences basically no one is responsible for their actions and their bad behavior is not their fault now i want to talk about the book the crossover it was required reading for all of georgie tyler this book is described online and i quote about an african-american family living in a rich neighborhood in the suburbs of boston this book happens in the present about 2014 during the fall basketball season when this family is succeeding during the obama era end quote now this

043was not a political book its description would have had a period behind basketball season this book was paired with an activity that involved poetry by tupac shakur that was actually used according to parents tupac's mother father stepfather godfather were all high-ranking black panthers and the black liberation army his stepfather spent four years on the fbi's most wanted fugitive list and was finally arrested and convicted of armed robbery of a brink's armored truck in which police officers and a security guard were killed tupac himself served eight months of an 18-month prison sentence for rape the majority of his lyrics include him using the n-word many of his songs have lyrics such as f the police f the fbi the cia and white people and i'm sure you know what f stands for you say politics isn't

044brought into the school system why was 1995 spent in may on curriculum from breathe for change this company's website clearly states it is for social emotional learning among other things for family schools and organizations part of its transformation of community is called breed for social justice for the website they are proud to offer the world's only 200-hour social emotional learning training for teachers and community leaders inspired to use wellness as a vehicle for social change if the phrase to use wellness as a vehicle for social change doesn't sound any alarm nothing will this is how crt and other propaganda will be allowed to infiltrate and indoctrinate it's all about wording and presentation you school board and dr thornton now ms jones want equity explain to me how that factors into reading writing and arithmetic why

045are we so focused on who's black and who's white when you constantly point out color color becomes the only thing we see that breeds racism and division and our kids deserve better and so do our tax dollars martin luther king jr most assuredly said it best i have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but the content of their character everything you are forcing into this school system and will do the exact thank you is this your agenda because it looks like it thank you miss boykins next mr ed easter good evening thanks for commenting i'm glad to be here after being out for a while i'm responding to a article in the letter to the

046estuarine smithfield times on january the 2nd regarding closed session all right thanks but that closed session got started under dr pereira and a completely different board in this school system and the way it got started because at that time i attended every school board meeting every month i was told one evening when i walked in about four till five oh by the way we didn't announce it but we're holding closed sessions from five to six from now on the writer of the letter to the editor was a member of the board at that time there was no gripes rumbles or anything else about the way it was done how it was done and what what it did to dumb down the citizens at the time i'm here to tell you this board has accomplished more

047in the period of time that we've been here and this superintendent than any board or any superintendent has ever accomplished prior to this time the financial management the physical management of the facilities the cleanness of the philosophies the upkeep of them has been outstanding we've implemented a cte program that is outstanding compared to what we were paying a million dollars a year for for the 60 students so accomplishments are good anybody that wants to sit down and compare past boards i'd be willing to get with you anytime you want to anywhere you want to and we'll go through the history of the school system if you like at the same time the gentleman that wrote that letter to the editor suggests that this board be replaced and asked the citizens of cornfield to throw out

048this car ms clark please don't let them force you to leave this board because you're doing an outstanding job there are things that occurred in this system that have had an effect on it but you board members have not been the creation of that that occurred well before you did not a member on this board has ever been sued by the superintendent not one this board works well with the board of supervisors in this county financially we've had the lowest raise in costs for our school system than we've ever had over a three-year period not one member of this board has had to resign because of racist emails that were sent out on the internet i would say i want this board to stay i want you to keep doing the fine job you're doing

049and anything i can do to help you please let me know thank you thank you mr easter [Applause] okay next we have it's jason messer marsh sorry marshall good evening good evening so my name is jason marsh and i'm one of the many concerned parents in alawite i've done a great deal of research on the virginia department of education's equity initiative virginia mathematics pathways initiative i've looked at countless source documents made available on the virginia department of education website i researched and studied the critical race theory i've studied the definitions of social justice anti-racism white privilege white fragility marginalized and countless other adjectives and isms that are seemingly tossed around regularly to promote this effort to remove racism i've even discussed this in detail with some members of your school administration my efforts have led

050me to this conclusion this idea all this ideology is based on marxism this ideology is socialism this ideology is contradictory to the civil rights movements of the 1960s and the progresses that this country has made yes we've got room to grow but this ideology is divisive in nature and it is in fact the very racism that it claims to remove now surely we can all agree that racism is bad and surely we can all agree that it exists but telling a child that he or she cannot succeed has not succeeded or that he or she must sacrifice their privilege based on the color of their skin is not the answer we can do better and we must now i attended the windsor town center on may 19th when dr thornton claimed that it was ridiculous

051to think that isle white would adopt the critical race theory because there was no curriculum well i agree there is no curriculum but i want you to know doctor that i found that statement to be misleading disingenuous and personally insulting and i am not alone forcing teachers to read books about their inherent racism biases and privilege because of the skin color is hurtful at best categorizing this required reading as professional development is in my opinion shameful i am certain that treat your morale is at an all-time low and these men and women deserve better cloaking this ideology and palpable language will only go so far i for one see right through it promoting courageous conversations mrs carr is most definitely promoting a component of the critical race theory the real courageous conversation requires standing up

052and fighting against teaching racial division and socialism to our kids i encourage you all to do your own research if you have not already and i request you consider my words as you continue to work to implement the requirements and the suggestions from the department of education thank you thank you mr mark [Applause] next we have mr michael ozil once again i'll come to bring you some good trouble mr ozil can you speak up in the mic please i can't hear you the rain is having something can you hear me now just okay all right anyway good evening once again i come to bring you some good troubles this might be old but uh last month we had a board meeting that the parents came up and said some of the graduation problems that we're

053having at the school i just want to acknowledge that i hope that y'all just solved that for our graduation students and uh that's a lot of concern that's all when they brought it up and said that they were having graduation problems that i kind of take a like to try to make y'all sure y'all correct that they help them out the best way you can i know things are tight but do your best that's all that's funny too um remember some time back i say uh we are not watching what y'all saying you're watching what y'all doing so that means that we all will make mistakes but we're trying to make sure that everybody have a fair chance of what each other's doing and respectful now i'm gonna go to something else here i know

054that we all the whole school all our school system has some type of security from the schools central office the technology and and saying this that if we i know i'm working on some projects if we need to pull a video of something that's going on in our school system there shouldn't be no problem um miss carr and miss times uh it had been delay on some things that we was trying to get back on with y'all and uh we will get back on it to solve these issues but believe me school system somebody in the school says nobody i can guarantee you that because they're going on too long now if they dated don't that's why we asked for the video if there's a video available but like i said all our schools central

055office technology bus garage should have some type of security so if we need to we will have to pull that to prove to you what we are saying along with what we got so that's the one that you know it so won't be nobody coming up to y'all saying to be excused we did not know because this is what not happened it's too much we have and too much is being seen that somebody actually don't know nothing about it i just want to bring that to you and let you know that i know the school time is ending for the year but there's still a lot of work to be done i'm that's here to try to help i'm not here to tell this school something down whatsoever y'all know me by now but when

056there's concern issues that going on that we feel like you need to pay attention to and they give it to me i'm gonna bring it to you all and sometimes i try to get them to call central office and send it to them and so they're gonna talk to what a representative is but believe me hopefully we can solve this when we had this meeting if not we're going to pass this on to someone else to who would look at this from the beginning remember i had stole sessions on this time after time and every one of y'all was there beside miss time so this has been going on for a while and we want to wrap it up and hold all those accountable for what's been going on here i'm not standing up here

057to say it's not but it is i got documented i got notes and i got every conversation that we had in closed session who said what went and said that what they will do and as of this day ain't nothing been done one minute thank you mr ozil next okay and now we have mr reverend willie williams good evening madam chair and school board members uh as you know i'm an advocate of the equity and inclusion program and i'm happy to see that it is working like it's supposed to one thing about the equity and inclusion program it demands a change and i don't know how familiar you are with change management but dr kirk lewin wrote a theory about change and he said whenever a change is introduced uh you're going to have a

058force for change and you're going to have a force to resist change and i'm happy to see that we got some speakers tonight that are against uh change and i'm happy to see that they are against change because that tells me that the program is working you see what i see in what they have said is the fact that change demands a loss you've got to give up something to get something new and we don't lack loss because whenever we are threatened with a loss it sends us to a grievance process and the first step in the grievance process is denial hear what everybody has said tonight that speaks out against the equity and inclusion program and i'm sure you'll come to the conclusion that they are in denial they're denying that there is a

059need for equity and include and and this is to be expected but now watch the second step uh that comes in the grievance process and that is fear and fear can act itself out in many different ways most often it comes through in anger and some of the people are already displaying anger they're doing it through texting and emailing and making threats on you and i know they've made threats on you some of them have made threats on me but it's okay because as long as they don't make a physical threat because if they make a physical threat then i'm going to report them to the police department and let them handle that and i suggest the same thing to you keep on keeping on with the equity and inclusion program and if one if

060anyone makes a threat on you if it's a physical threat report it to the police department obviously the people that make these threats have not gone through the olive white county public school system because if they did they'll know how to respect the rights of others thank you for your night thank you mr williams [Applause] that's it that's all okay um on the agenda is the board member committee reports and information do you have anything to share um last month we had the ciac meeting as usual and you need to talk in the mic i can't hear you dear last month um last month they had to see act meeting as usual and um pretty much they were discussing the summer program um and i there was one thing that i wanted to mention tonight

061that a father said because we hear most of the time sitting in this position we hear a lot of negatives but i was happy to hear this father stated the fact that georgia tyler middle school had he had very positive statements about georgia tyler middle school assisting his well it was actually a grandfather assisting his grandson in all of his educational needs and uh and in doing so he said his um grandson is making a transition from georgia tala over to the high school and um he has been very successful at georgia tyler and he's been successful in his transition over to the high school and i would like to thank this uh grandfather i didn't get his first name but his last name is he was mr carr he had very positive things to

062say about alawite county public schools and the staff of georgia georgia title tyler middle school mrs buggs thank you i met with the committee for hardy elementary that's a group made up myself i represent the board on that committee mr grice from the board of supervisors mr durrig from the planning commission ms getz dr thornton our director of finance is there as well as well as um chris coleman our director of facilities uh we were cutting the um we got bad news that the uh because of the cost of materials it brings up the project so we sat down and we worked together to cut um a little bit more than three million i believe off of the project to make sure we stayed within budget um so we looked at a lot of times

063it was just trading at building materials taking away corrugated metal for all brick that way we didn't have to hire someone to come in to do the metal plus the metal costs have gone up um and that was the main concern we're hopeful that the prices do go down and then we can possibly change back some things but at this point there were some changes made to the general plan um and that's going to go that went before the planning commission as well or will be going in front of the planning commission shortly okay thank you for that update you have anything uh i'd just like to make a couple of comments about the career and technical education program you've seen tonight a number of people speak about the cte program and and i would

064just like to commend this administration for building the type of career technical education program that we have in this division now dr dr thornton and his staff have done a tremendous job in bringing this program to the level that it is now and it's second to none among many of the divisions around us thank you and i just wanted to say i attended and we attended the senior of the month celebration where these selected seniors that we celebrate each month throughout the school year well those seniors came together and they paid tribute to a teacher who had touched their lives in powerful ways and these two nights one was at windsor high school with all the seniors of the month at windsor high school doing this and then at smithfield high school they had picked

065one teacher and they shared heartwarming and at times emotional stories of how these teachers had truly touched their lives and the stories from these few students told were just a few examples of what an incredible impact teachers have on students lives and it was just a blessing but i knew where these were 20 teachers who were celebrated by 20 teachers there's so many more untold stories and i received an email a couple of weeks ago from a parent her name was savannah sunberg and she's a parent of a west side student and she just went on and on and on about how her son's teachers margaret davies and amy hurst had gone above and beyond throughout this year to help her son experience school success like no other year now we're talking the pandemic year

066and this parent is just raving over what these two teachers had done for her son so while this year has been a challenge and no doubt it's been a challenge there still have been many successes that we can celebrate madam chair do you think that we might encourage our audience to stand with us and give a round of applause for the fantastic job our teachers are doing yes [Applause] mr dr thornton did you have anything to share yes madam chair and board members madam chair and board members i'd like to address a few statements made at the last meeting by speakers in order to clarify misinformation that was shared we often send letters back to the individuals who speak however they don't share that information one is the foil lawsuits the four lawsuits continue to

067be brought up on a regular basis the board has made changes to be as transparent as possible with all motions to go into closed session the time of the meeting was an error in how the meeting was published and it's been expand explained numerous times there was not any intent to hide the starting time of the meeting all of our meetings are recorded and put online each month for anyone to watch there was no intent to violate any fire regulation and the board and i did misunderstand some of the information shared from the foyer council in a letter all closed session personnel reports were available for the public after the board voted therefore there was no intent to hide anything from the public we currently share the report publicly ahead of the meeting now to

068make it even easier for the public to have access a couple other items that were brought up and these have been brought up for several years in a row and answered the exact same way for several years in a row the soq standards of quality documents were brought up and the school board and i have signed off on these documents with the knowledge that staff has reviewed all the information and we believe all information to be accurate one example that continues to be brought forward is that cte teachers are not getting a planning period many of the cte teachers teach two double blocks and are paid an additional one quarter of their pay to compensate them for a planning period either before after school this meets the state requirements the other one on the srqs

069was policies policy review continues to be brought up when ms cook was on the board she recognized that many policies were way past due from previous school boards this board took on certain sections of the very large policy manual each year and have reviewed all policies the next accusation that has been brought up several years is that the school crisis plans have not been reviewed by board members these do not have to be reviewed at a school board meeting mr coleman has worked closely with local and state police as well as rescue and fire to put together extensive plans at each school and they are updated every year the next was the accusations about graduation an outdoor graduation had been planned in two time slots due to covert restrictions and a single graduation was planned

070as soon as the restrictions changed as far as the yard signs the principal had already ordered these as a surprise for seniors a senior prom was also planned outside seniors have always had their senior dues applied for the breakfast at smithfield high school school board funds were used to pay for prom and all other graduation expenses at both high schools i'm very proud of the efforts of both of my high school principals and staff to make this senior year the best possible under the circumstances the other comments that are very frustrating i think to the entire staff isla white county schools was one of the only hampton roads school divisions to open in person since day one of school middle and high school followed shortly behind many school divisions did not open until after march

071of this school year i applaud our teachers and all staff that came to work during this very troubling time another one is budget and finance we constantly hear the same thing that we're not managing money well how did the fiscal budget from 2016 to now 2022 increase from 59 million to 69 million the federal increase during that time is about 875 000 the state increase during that time is about eight and a half million dollars the local increase to local taxpayers over the same six-year period has been 1.5 million dollars or 6.2 percent this is an average of one percent increase each year therefore the state money has paid for the majority of raises health insurance and other increases with the cost of living over the last six years this is the most fiscally responsible

072board and county board of supervisors that i've ever worked with i'm proud of my entire staff we run a 69 million dollar business of educating feeding transporting counseling over 5 000 students a year with over 700 employees we are going to make some mistakes along the way we always try to remedy any mistake and do the best we can for our students and families we have a fully accredited school division and have upgraded our facilities to provide a better environment for our students while working closely with our local board of supervisors to keep county taxes down and if you indulge me for one more comment from some of the comments i heard this evening and i received some emails this morning that i responded to in a similar way i just want to clarify one

073i know critical race theory is on people's minds i know it's on the news every day i see it on the news every day i see loudoun county virginia on the news every day and i know that it's close to home i don't know if you want me to answer this differently but i've been pretty consistent how i answer this question so i'm going to answer it again we are not teaching students about equity and inclusion our focus in the training is for our staff to be aware of the diversity that we do have in iowa white county and look for ways to provide the resources necessary to meet individual students needs we are focusing on any child if they are not performing well in our school what i have found through the training is

074that i am more aware of all social identifiers which make our students and staff diverse this is enabling me to be more cognizant when making decisions that affect many individuals the training for teachers will take place over the first semester next year and we'll examine our data through an equity lens and start to make plans to adjust achievement gaps that continue to persist we are not asking teachers to implement anything into our curriculum or discuss any of these ideas with students in fact they will be instructed to use this training for their own awareness and not for anything else again this training is just to inform just to inform teachers of the language around equity and diversity that is coming from the state and give them another lens to look at each student's needs i

075agree that is a parent's responsibility to discuss these topics with their children our guidance staff and teachers will be trained to direct students to their parents if they have questions about these topics we are an educational entity we believe in lifelong learning the only way to address issues that continue to come down we cannot wear blinders and pretend equity is not an issue in the world everywhere but iowa county we have to educate ourselves on what that means what the language is look how it affects our students and when i say intercept k-12 education that's what i mean is we are going to address equity as it pertains to our k-12 education and not get involved in the bigger world of critical race theory in fact i hate to say i heard the word critical

076race theory more tonight than i've ever used it and that i've heard in our school system so if you want to keep critical race theory out maybe don't bring it into the school system because we're not talking about it thank you okay next on the agenda is financial presentations and mr steve is not here so dr thornton you're going to i'm in charge of that tonight okay where are we okay so the check registry and our large ticket items are there any questions on any of that information i have no questions this month okay what is the next year okay the next area is annual contracts as you know the board votes on any contract that is over two hundred thousand dollars but we have continuing contracts with chartwells with southeast service corporation which is

077ssc virginia association of counties which is vacore that does our insurance and james river solutions which does our bus fuel these are continuing contracts that are renewed every year the board has already voted on these contracts so i'm just bringing it forward tonight for information okay are there any questions on those contracts okay next is the isla white county schools payroll calendar and this is an action item and you have the dates for the payroll in your packet madam chair i make a motion to approve the attached payroll calendar for the 2021 2022 school year okay we have a motion and it has been second vote please okay motion carried next on the agenda is the lunch breakfast prices yeah so uh board members in your packet is a sheet with recommended lunch prices and

078if you see in there there's a 10 increase on lunches and this was to protect against inflation in the minimum wage that has increased and the last time there was an increase it was 10 cents in the 1920 school year also i want to mention we don't know the status of the free program at this point and as we get more information i'll let you know for next year if we're going to continue to have free breakfast and lunch at this time uh we are not sure apply to kids who want free and reduced lunch correct because they already get crazy meals from us correct and so this also is an action item yes and there's no increase in the reduced rate no increase in reduce rate okay i need a motion okay madam chair

079i would like to make a motion that we approved the 10 cent increase on uh lunch and just lunch dr thornton the increase is lunch and breakfast or just lunch lunch breakfast it's breakfast and lunch okay the ten cents increase for breakfast and lunch prices thank you okay i've got a motion so i have a question but um how much is that a year if a child was buying lunch we need a second first a second okay so um how much would that be a year for a family buying lunch if they did not qualify for free and reduced better have a calculator it would be it would depend on how many uh uh lunches they get but it would equate to like 18 dollars for the year for one person for the whole year

080yes if they lunch for 180 days okay all right okay that was my question i'd do quick math check me but there it would be 30 something 36 dollars if they breakfast okay motion carried next on the agenda is the amendment to the food service budget okay madam chair that's in the board packet as well in the form of a memo from mr kepnes and the original budget for food service revenue and expenditures was just over two million dollars and because of the free breakfast and lunch program and and serving more students the more meals we serve the more reimbursement we got back from the federal government to the tune of about 1.3 million dollars more than what we normally spend and what we normally receive in our food service budget so we need to

081ask the board of supervisors to amend our food service budget and add 1.3 million dollar appropriation to that and um we need a vote to do that as well so we're not asking for more money we have this money coming in it's just got to go in this line item i'm just trying to make it clear it's really for auditing purposes so that it's so that it balances that's the chair i'm sorry i was just going to say this is a huge different conversation than we were having a couple years ago with our um deficit now it's over a million dollars plus plus madam chair i make a motion to improve an increase in food service budget in the amount of 1.3 million for the 2020-2021 school year second okay we have a motion and

082it has been second okay motion carried next on the agenda is the support service and we're going to begin with the transportation update every time i fight with this thing and it always wins and i lose so i tick it off tonight so good evening everybody and i just have to say five five more days so every every month has an average of 20 28 and 31 days except for the last month of school that has 1732 days that you have my report in front of you i'm here to answer any questions you might have one thing i'd like to add we're enjoying our new pavement dr thornton you and i won't get our feet wet when we get out to put gas in our cars now so it's beautiful thank you very much and

083i wanted to let you know that uh i suggested that next month we will come with our new attire i'm sorry what'd you say you need to talk in the mic miss times we can't hear you i suggested that next month that we the board will come and dress in their new attire thank you you're very welcome thank you so if you care to wear yours that day you're welcome thank you okay next is the support services and operations full report dr thornton i'm going to take that one tonight too there's only two slides i'll let you click eric there's only two slides sir all right so um first is the yearly inspection update that uh mr coleman wanted to share with you and you can see you can see on that is pretty extensive

084list of inspections that happen and when they happen throughout the year with fire alarms fire sprinklers backflows kitchen hoods elevators everything as you can see mr coleman has done a very very good job with safety in the school division i know we talked about i talked about safety a little earlier with the police these are all fire things and you will be getting the reports this summer on the schools and their safety plans as well and next is the new hardy engineering meeting this is coming up next week uh june 24th so miss eulek we'll have another chance to look at and meet with the architects and the builders and talk about where we are with the cost of the building now that it's going to be 65 percent designed after that meeting the next

085time we'll meet we'll be 100 design and we'll get at that point close to the guaranteed maximum price and have that discussion so we're getting very close to the point of hopefully putting a shovel in the ground but as miss eulek stated one of the things we're closely monitoring the construction company at this point is when do we buy materials so they're looking at prices whether it's steel or or brick or or lumber and they have a very large warehouse to hold that so as prices come down they're then going to make very large purchases even if it doesn't make sense as part of the construction timeline at that point so we're looking at and trying to be creative to keep the price of hardy down and that is all that chris had if anyone

086had questions that we took off all right any questions no no all right i have one question dr thornton mrs hewlett can answer that because she's on that committee uh can you pretty much maybe give us sort of projected or a tentative date maybe when the shovel may hit the the shovel will hit the ground is that for hardy elementary the new audience yeah so we're so we're hoping at the june 24th meeting that they'll be able to tell us okay a date or close to when that will happen yes ma'am okay thank you thank you and next is the report from the superintendent starting with title one two three and four grants miss cummings is on her way good evening um madam chair school board members and dr thornton i'm here tonight to ask

087you to approve the title one two three and four grants that are before you these grants basically there are no major changes from last year the budgets that you see are based on last year's allocations our new allocations will come up late summer early fall and so unless you have any questions for me we can vote right yes ma'am madam chair i make a motion to approve the title one two three and four federal grants for the 2021-2022 school year second okay we have a motion and it has been second vote please mission carried next we have the summer school update and miss cummings is going to present us with that information yes ma'am so um we are having our summer school for 2021 again at windsor elementary school and our summer school this year

088will take place between july 6th and the 29th monday through thursday it will be of course half days we are doing this summer a k-8 program again our target for student participation it was 214 but we have a solid 200 students who we are anticipating attending um this is larger than than in the past much larger yes even um before covid we would usually run about 100 to 110 students so as you can see it is much more in demand and we had enough teachers to apply yes we did barely barely barely and um there was lots of competition out there because as as you may know the high school is also doing a program of their own so we were kind of competing for teachers so it got a little interesting um but we

089do have 15 classroom teachers this year we're also having two special education teachers in particular that are joining us we are having two reading interventionists joining us and we also which we're very excited about we are going to have an el teacher who is going to join us and she is going to spend 90 minutes a day with um we have 11 el students that we particularly invited um that she is going to spend that time with per day to focus on their progression learning the english language once again we will be doing door-to-door transportation and we will be serving breakfast and lunch daily like we we have for a while now all right that's a question i had because in the past our summer school it wasn't door-to-door transportation is this the first year

090we've gone back to that we did did we do that last year we did do it last year it was in previous years okay so we started doing it again last year which is good um our administrative team this year we um laura deweese from hardy elementary is joining us deb oakes from smithfield middle and we have three interns this year nicole white lisa meyer from windsor elementary and aubry ellis also from windsor elementary so we will have a strong administrative team there to help support the teachers and the students our instructional focus this year is going to be again of course math and reading we have built a schedule where students will be receiving approximately 90 minutes of math and reading per day the instruction will focus on mastery of grade level and prerequisite

091focused skills both in whole group and small group settings so that's where your reading intervention teachers and your special education teachers come in they will be pushing into classrooms to help with those small groups i'm delighted to see that you all have enlarged the sum school program because i think it's definitely needed yes ma'am definitely um we are still going to continue with our theme this year under the sea where um it's not going to be you know as thematic as before because we really are focusing on strengthening those just basic skills but we'll throw some some little marine life in there our reading curriculum we are going with you know it will be focused on the american reading company again in that framework to expand their understandings of both fiction and especially non-fiction text

092because that does tend to be a little bit tougher for students than the fiction they will have an opportunity to re read research and write about different marine life and their ecosystems and they will also be presenting their research findings our math curriculum will be based on or students will be my little pointer's gone wacky on me there we go maybe i shouldn't hold it um students will use the math manipulatives such as pattern blocks quiz narrage unifix cubes we will have all sorts of math manipulatives for them to use to make the math instruction much more hands-on and engaging and students in kindergarten through fifth grade will also be using their st math program daily students in sixth through eighth grade we also work on algebra readiness skills with them in addition to the

093focused skills and this year we are introducing a new program for the first time during summer that we are intending to continue during the regular school year and that is for a program called freckle that is a renaissance program so if you have heard of our star 360 testing that we do with students that is our growth monitoring tool and our predictor of sol success it takes that data from their star 360 test results downloads it into freckle it builds a program for them that is adaptive it differentiates both math and reading instruction it builds an instructional program for the students that is interactive differentiated for each student and so we will be introducing that this summer to those students it's going to be a little bit of our pilot program before our major rollout

094in the fall okay so is the freckle all computerized it's like a program that that child will go on and the program is to meet their individual needs meet their individual needs there's an instructional component of the program and then there's also built-in practice with with goals in mind and incentives so if there's no other does anybody have any questions no yes thank you okay all right thank you thank you mr cummings you're welcome okay next is the annual reports of gifted education and local plan so we're going to hear from dr kale and dr thornton good evening there we go i think good evening madam chair members of the board dr thornton i'm going to give you an update on our uh gifted numbers and options for this year so um screening as you

095know last year was interrupted and also this year was a little bit challenging with covid but impressed that we were still able to screen a similar number of students as we were last year so we screened 86 students in grades k through 8. 30 of those students were eligible and we now have 420 eligible gifted students k-12 in the division um next year it is our intent to go back and screen uh second and third and then fifth and sixth and then we will redouble those efforts for testing to make up for the fact that we weren't able to do a large screener this year a governor's school program so 36 students in grades two through six applied for the 13 slots available in the tidewater regional governor's school that program will be held here

096at georgie tyler this summer it's unusual that we have students apply to the residential governor's school it is exceptionally competitive it is housed at william mary and we actually had three students apply this year and one was accepted so we're very very excited about that for governor's school for science and technology we had 25 students apply 15 were accepted bringing our total enrollment for the coming year to 22 students and for governor's school for the arts we had 30 students apply 10 were accepted which brings our total enrollment for the coming year to 27. we had 434 students participate in 13 different advanced placement courses they cover everything from science math government literature and studio arts and 432 students participated in dual enrollment that includes english 12 math analysis pre-cal calculus probability and statistics marketing

097and now also biology so some interesting um accomplishments for this year when i contacted gsa about the number of students that actually applied versus how many got in and was looking for that breakdown they said that they've noted that over the past four years we have actually exceeded the number of allotted slots so we're allotted 22 this year we have 27 and they said for the past four years we just have a large number of very talented children coming out of isle of wight and so when slots aren't given to other divisions when they don't fill them they're allocated to other divisions so that was kind of neat to hear them say yes we also increased our dual enrollment offerings this year we added biology at windsor high school and we look forward to continuing

098that for the coming year and our gifted research team has been meeting to discuss and revise our current gifted plan with the goal of ensuring a more diverse and inclusive student population um giac has met with us twice this semester one they we got some feedback from them around our existing plan and some possible areas to consider for changes and then also we followed up with them and they've given us feedback on where we are so far right who is them i didn't hear you i didn't the gifted education advisory committee okay and that's it you finished i have a question um if you go back i think one slide that's the one of the 300 and i mean of the 434 students are taking the advance placement classes or courses and you have 432

099students in dual enrollment will any of those students uh overlap like some in the advanced okay yes i'm just wondering and it also doesn't that's seats per course so that may have a student that's only taking english 12 it might also include a student who's taking english 12 marketing and biology okay all right thank you do the students at windsor high school versus students at smithfield high school are is there a big discrepancy for the opportunities at one school versus the other are they basically the same i wouldn't say there's a big discrepancy you know there are courses that are available at smithfield high school that aren't available at windsor high but the the same is true the other way around so for example de marketing is something that we do at smithfield high but

100de biology is only available at windsor high so i wouldn't say there's more opportunity there's just different opportunities can we improve on that we can get a breakdown to actually look at that okay we we have done a transcript study for our teachers at the high school level in working with quality camp to see what opportunities there are um and so a lot of that just comes down to staff having enough credits post master's degree in a specific field and it's so that's that's the real challenges getting yeah i knew it had been i didn't know if we had gotten a little better with that but we've we've evaluated i think almost every transcript that we you know cheryl and i worked together to get that done through paul d camp at the beginning of

101last year so something we're always revisiting okay any other questions i think dr thornton's going to yeah i need someone to click for me so we the gifted committee that met i just wanted to share the individuals who served on that we had wayne briggs from smithfield high school jennifer smith from westside and smithfield middle school shale fortner from west side brandy robbins from carrsville shantay denson from hardy elementary school ellen couch from windsor elementary school elizabeth everett from carrollton kiana jones from central office tiffany truett from smithfield high school natalie street from carrollton and then lynn briggs marsha kale and mike lombardo from central office and we they shared a lot of ideas with the central office team about identification for the future and i'll talk a little bit about that in a minute

102they also shared ideas for new services and one of the things that came through loud and clear is to get more opportunities for students to be identified that they would do want to do push in grades k through two for all students to be exposed to some gifted lessons and i'll elaborate on that as well and then new plans for next year i'm going to discuss some of that with you and then future research on items that we're not ready yet to proceed next year so first is two gifted teachers at each elementary school except for carsville and this is to do the push-in that i just explained pushing in in k-2 for all students to be exposed to gifted lessons and these are going to be in science exploratory in nature and the the

103principles will work with the gifted teachers to how often this will occur and and depending on the size of the school this won't be like a resource it will be like where the teacher and the gifted teacher working together and when they push you yes and they'll push in and do a gifted lesson in science exploration okay and then in grades three through five the gifted teachers will actually teach math with a stem theme to a gifted cluster of students and what that gifted cluster of students means there might be six students say in hardy elementary school in third grade identified gifted and so the teacher is going to teach 15 to 18 students so there'll be a rubric for those students to be placed in the class and actually teach math the standards of

104learning for math in that grade level with a stem theme and the next slide shows kind of the format for that which which is nothing more than the instructional framework that we ask everyone to do so a short lesson in direct instruction and then you'll see students then break into three groups the freckle software that lord just talked about self-paced and that's really important with gifted education so the teacher's going to do a pre-assessment if the students in that class have already mastered let's say five of the standards in third grade sols the teacher's not going to teach that standard why would you do that right and and then they're also going to be self-paced and be able to progress at their own pace then they'll also be the teacher meeting with them in small

105groups to differentiate their needs and then a pbl stem theme lesson where students will have voice and choice as well and and this is the model that we want for all instruction but this is what we're looking at and this is different than what we've done as we research what was done in each school it was just far different in every school we wanted some consistency and we thought math and stem was a good theme during the projects they'll be they'll have to write about the projects they'll have to do presentations so we'll still bring in a lot of our reading skills as well now that three four and five cluster will that be at carrsfield two yeah so we're still working with uh pam at carsville with how we're gonna do that because there's

106only two teachers there per grade and so we're still trying to fine tune how we're going to do this at carsville so we'll update you on that okay and then middle school the media specialists will actually do pull out three times a week with the gifted students to work on a community-based project-based learning unit and again this will have student voice and choice what are some things our students can work with the community research in our community and assist our community in and this uses all kinds of creativity and critical thinking skills and with this we're able to move the gifted teachers we have in middle school down to elementary school we will still have to hire three additional gifted teachers for this to work and as we looked at at this and actually with

107an equity lens we haven't done anything for our gifted program the entire time i've been here and i don't know how many years be before we keep doing the same thing i've said it myself i'm guilty of saying it oh those kids are bright they'll do they'll soar in spite of us well that's not what we're supposed to do if we're meeting the needs of all students and where they are we're not supposed to have a ceiling for any student we're supposed to take them to the next level so this is investing in and you often hear some of the things we hear with equity we're taken away so we're going to take away from certain students to give it to other students we look at it as adding to adding resources wherever we need

108it if it's remediation if it's for acceleration whatever it is adding two so i'm asking the board to invest in this program three new positions we can do it through attrition and so that's why i wanted to move forward with this next slide the future committee work was going back to identification the committee wanted to use reading and math achievement tests as well as a general intellectual test and general intellectual is more of a iq type tests and they feel like if we use reading and math achievement tests that may give us a broader range of students that may qualify but they're still researching this we're not ready to implement this so we'll research it next year and possibly by the spring of next year maybe make this recommendation but it gives a hard-working student

109the opportunity that maybe they haven't had before absolutely yeah and also middle and high school talked a lot about the fine arts and cte we have many gifted students in those areas as you can see with the governor school of the fine arts and how many students we have and but giving students earlier on an opportunity they did a lot of talking about this and researching but again we have to do more research to what does a gifted student look like in the arts or in music or in cte and do they just meet the minimum requirements of cte or what is a gifted culinarian what does it give gifted welder so we're going to research that further and we'll be bringing recommendations for those levels as well because in high school we generally have

110the governor's school programs and we have ap and dual enrollment so we're looking at expanding opportunities for students in the area of gifted and i will say the committee they did not bring a recommendation of how to provide the services like with math they were still working on that but they they did such a great job presenting to the executive team we sat down afterwards and then with principals and brainstormed about how to service better and provide more so that's where the elementary plan came in and the middle school plan came in and we're hoping to implement that this fall was this the committee that the parents were involved i know no this is the school committee the school committee and and we'll be presenting this uh to the g uh okay as we move

111forward and even this this is a i think a step in the right direction and bringing a theme to what we're doing and then we'll assess how we did in a year and and there was some thought of you know we're coming out of a pandemic should we just go back and do what we've done with gifted in the past and we talked about and said if we if we have the resources available and we can make a change now we can do it let's do it let's not waste another year we weren't ready for the identification we're not ready for fine arts and ct but we feel like we can do these other areas so that's why we're making this recommendation to move forward sounds good thank you madam chair can i request a

112five minute recess sure five minute recess i am freezing my heart's getting noticed so you may want to be aware if you're traveling uh back north and um there is water on the road so just be careful as you go home this evening okay we're going to reconvene the next item on the agenda is the annual shab meeting miss elliott and dr kale um madam chair oh i'm sorry i'm sorry let's do that i'm sorry the vhsl membership application to hear about shabb so excited this is just an approval for vhsl the application for both high schools you need action yes it's an action action yes ma'am hold up i need to i'm writing that up madam chair i make a motion to approve the vhsl applications for the 2021-2022 school year second okay we

113have a motion and it has been second vote please okay motion carry next is the annual shab meeting all right good evening again madam chair members of the board dr thornton um miss elliott unfortunately heard her knee today and so she was unable to be here with us tonight so i'm going to present the annual update for shad it supports our priority number five ensuring a safe healthy and inviting learning environment for all students we held meetings at the beginning of the year throughout the district in august to discuss mitigations and strategies related to the code of pandemic and how we could best support students and staff as safely as possible during that time the shad committee met on may 14th to discuss impacts on student health and well-being as related to the coveted pandemic

114some challenges that were noted parents were able to opt out of our standard health screenings so as a result some of those screenings were missed driver education and family life were addressed first in our pe classes so there wasn't as much emphasis on the physical aspect of pe some students didn't have access to be able to view the videos or to zoom directly with their teacher students commented that they can't run as fast or lift as much right now as they could before the pandemic and so we had to be real creative when they were in school around equipment and wiping it down and those sorts of things meals were provided for free for all students to satisfy fdi guidelines but there's been a lack of fresh produce as a result of the the bus

115distribution kind of thing so it's hard to determine if meals are being consumed by all students as well parents have reported that their kids seem mentally down some direct services to students were limited they didn't have that daily access to the guidance counselor in the same way or a counselor to really see and notice that something was frustrating to a student which was also frustrating for teachers and counselors so we talked about some creative measures that we use throughout the year to try to address these things free meals were offered daily to in-person students and served in the classroom or an environment where they could socially distance there was a consistent five-day meal pick-up offered to all students that was the friday meal deliveries nurses reached out to individual families to either encourage them to

116come in for those screenings or to walk them through doing it themselves at home and then pe teachers even tried to help students learn first aid and cpr using pillows or stuffed animals or things that they could find around the house to kind of practice the compressions and that sort of thing so they were real out of the box thinkers um going forward we'd like to use the farmhou the farm or the greenhouse as a means to offer access to locally grown fresh fruits and vegetables um offer tasting tables so that students are being exposed to those different flavors videos and signage to highlight healthy meal choices also throughout our cafeterias and buildings a survey of students to find out what they actually want in their their meals because we think well if we can

117get what they want maybe we can give healthy options and more consumed and so we did that and several expressed that they understand usda requires us to provide milk but they'd really like us to also provide small bottles of water at lunch one idea that we had to kind of heighten awareness around student health was to offer a student family wellness day perhaps at the fairgrounds partnering with parks and rec and the ymca to feature local opportunities food tasting health screenings dental services mental health services information resources connecting our community partners so that's where we are right now and chad will meet again in the fall any questions thank you okay next on the agenda is the transgender policy update madam chair and board members as you are aware virginia code 22.1-23.3 was enacted in

1182020 and that statue requires the vdoe to develop model policies concerning the treatment of transgender students in public schools we've talked about at previous meetings those model policies and what they cover and they're in your packet i'll just go over just a couple of them it talks about compliance with applicable non-discrimination laws a safe and supportive learning environment prevention bullying harassment maintenance of student records etc um oops my policy went off here for a second sorry we have heard from the sba that does our board policies and they have identified 15 policies that address the various topics listed in section 22.1-23.3 so in your packet i have shared those policies and the first 11 of them have very few changes if you go through them we highlighted the changes for you mostly it is adding

119the new state code to the requirement and so if you see ac is non-discrimination we've have non-discrimination of students already so now just by putting the code it meets the requirement so so all of the very few changes in those policies along with the next four which were not changed if you group those 15 together it meets the requirement of the new law so we do not have to have a separate transgender policy they fall under these 15 other policies that protect all students and so we're not required to adopt the language that the virginia department of education has developed and i'm recommending that we do not adopt their language and i talked about some of that language and why i don't think we should adopt it and one of the biggest issues that continues

120to happen and i wanted to clarify is the bathroom issue and so we will be identifying single user non-gender bathrooms in each school for any student to access we will continue to work with families on an individual basis as the need presents itself but i do want to make the board aware and the public aware though that virginia law right now is clear that transgender students can use the bathroom in which they identify if they choose to do so that is the law right now so we're providing these other facilities we're working with families but i want to make it clear that that is the law and so next month we'll be putting these policies up for first read and then the following month for adoption and if we do that we will be ready

121to start school and meet the code are we going to have any kind of workshops to go to look at those policies those identified policies where the uh were the statutes been added to clarify this is what it's saying and this is what you need to do based on this policy right we we can provide that if you'd like to schedule a workshop i would think that would then we can evaluate go through each policy and what that means and why i don't know how the board feels about it but i do i concur okay i will set something up okay thank you all right next on the agenda is the sy school year 2122 school board meeting dates madam chair i make a motion to approve the sy 2021-2022 meeting dates as presented second

122okay we have a motion and it has been second okay motion carry next on the agenda is action on closed session items and we're going to begin with the personnel report madam chair i make a motion to approve the personnel report as presented second we have a motion and it has been second vote please okay motion carried next on the agenda is the superintendent's evaluation and contract we're going to start with a motion it's going to be second and then we can begin discussion madam chair i move that the amendment to the superintendent's contract that was proposed in closed session be adopted you need a second second okay discussion eric can you pull up us miss time's a slide yes i have something i wanted i have something i would like to say to the

123general public is just fine thank you well let me uh begin the discussion in general then while we wait and um when we look at the contract and we constantly evaluate people throughout the district we evaluate our teachers and their pay scales we evaluate our aids we evaluate anyone who works for the county we've been evaluating and making sure they have salaries that are comparable to other districts that are competitive the other district it's important if you want the best you have to be able to retain the best as well um this year was i think we can all have been a crazy year um with dr thornton's leadership we have done so much more than so many other school districts with a lot less we've opened our schools starting with the younger kids and

124we maintained virtual schooling for the families that felt that was the safest for them we let our families lead and guide us together so we could grow effectively as a division this is not something most divisions did most divisions locked themselves down completely and again didn't open until march we had cte students still coming in getting certifications getting jobs where other divisions again do not have this happening and again you have to have a solid strong leader in dr thornton's vision along with his experience helped guide us through a very difficult time for any school division we met he we met and we looked at the comparables and i think miss tines is going to talk about the the pay of other divisions that are comparable to ours obviously we have some bigger divisions around

125us and those wouldn't be numbers we'd be specifically using to determine salary but we did look at places like surrey gloucester those places are comparable in size surrey is actually a thousand students and was making significantly more with two years experience so we do have to take that into consideration into account when we're moving forward the board is recommending a 13 raise for dr thornton i don't remember the number off the top of my head but it was i don't think i have to go like that okay we can't pull it up i'll just read it off yes um mrs hewitt just uh she just mentioned a few of the things uh for instance the county of gloucester which is very close to alawite county in size as far as students and um the county

126of gloucester the superintendent there is two is earning 202 445 dollars and with 5 000 students uh surry county which is neighboring uh 175 thousand dollars with a thousand students and i understand the superintendent there the the years of experience is less than five years southampton county 169 950 dollars of 2600 students and the city of franklin 165 000 with a thousand students and i guess some of you would say well how come you didn't uh do newpo news or s uh the city of newport news the city of uh suffolk because they are neighboring jurisdictions as well of course the key word is city they have more students more buildings and everything and of course the superintendent's there it's going to get an enormous amount i'm not going to say enormous but they're more

127money much more we compared uh dr thorton thornton we compared alawite county and dr thornton's salary with those jurisdictions the size of ours pretty much and the school district the schools of the same amount of schools now alawite county i think we have nine schools here including the cte program and everything uh none of these schools had that many buildings per se and i just we the board we thought about this it wasn't just something out of the hat and just as mrs uh helix said we have gone through something major this year that we have never experienced before and uh he brought us through i'm proud to say that alawite county was one of the school districts that kept the schools open and um the only other one in our region i think i

128could be wrong was the city of chesapeake thank you so we are proposing the 13 raise to dr thornton's salary effective i believe july 1. madam chair i'd like to to point out uh another what i believe is a major accomplishment since dr clinton's been here and that is the uh cte program uh the career and technical education program dr thornton came we were in the district with suffolk and at the prudence center and he had the foresight to establish a cte program here in in this division which i think is second to none in the commonwealth of virginia it is a fantastic program uh with and it's very diversified with the farm with the culinary arts with the welding program and the cooperation that we've had with the private sector the people in those

129enterprises that have assisted with the program has been phenomenal and i think it's a i think the board did a pretty good job thank you miss perkis uh before we go further uh mrs ruit oh reverse the two i'm sorry because i read the motion thank you and i just want to reiterate how much we have done to see that our salaries whether it be the teachers or the building administrators or the central office administrators we have really done a lot of work making sure that our staff's salaries are at a comparable rate to those divisions around us and we need to do the same for our superintendent and that was a significant reason why we felt like that this raise was was necessary and i and i understand like some people say well why

130didn't you do it earlier the superintendent's evaluation is is done we do it may we review it in june his contract comes up in july so this is why we do it at this time of year and not during the budgetary process in the beginning because we haven't done his evaluation yet and it wouldn't be fair to do contract negotiations before a proper evaluation is done we have a motion it has been second vote please commission carry next is the adoption of the consent agenda madam chair i make a motion to approve the consent agenda as attached and presented second we have a motion that has been second commission kerry next on the agenda is the policy updates and revisions that was two days worth of reading but you you ready for that this is

131the second read yep yeah it's an action item for the second read madam chair i would like to make a motion to approve the attached policies for second read second okay motion mate and it has been second vote please okay motion carried next is the board member request and comments yes i have one madam chair um i did have a nice little speech prepared for tonight but i decided not to do that speech because i wanted to say something positive and i've had a positive day and i want to continue to be passive normally during this time i thank our staff for the great job they have done and i want to continue thank all of you everyone for the great job you have done this school year but most important i would like to

132thank the people that normally do not get thanks from us and they are the parents this year last august we all sat at westside elementary school and we had speaker after speaker parents coming and they had concerns we had expertise there in the medical field that brought information to us and we had a whole lot i over since then um the parents they came together they join in with us um and help us this year to raise their children not raise their children but teach their children because they are going to continue to raise their children but to teach their children and i would like to thank them for a job well done i don't think we lost any because i haven't heard staff mrs guest hasn't told us any about losing any of the

133students by the wayside meaning we're just going to give up at the beginning some of the parents said it was rough but after a while we stopped getting complaints from parents we all made it through this hopefully we will never see this again during our lifetime but just in case amen keep that keep all of your little ipads laptops and everything dust off parents because dr thornton can just push a button and say hey my parents are ready to go thank you parents thank you you did a wonderful job and when i say parents that includes anyone in the family or anyone that sat down with these students and helped them help educate them during this pandemic thank you very much well said denise wilson thank you miss perkins i want to focus on something

134really quick because i know the storm and the weather um so i'm kind of cutting in half what i actually want to say but there's a misunderstanding of what equity and inclusion looks like in our community okay equity does not mean we are focusing on people's negatives and telling them they cannot be successful equity is about having a room full of kids one doesn't have a pencil and you hand them the pencil not everyone needs a pencil so you give the kid who needs a pencil a pencil now they have an equitable chance at being successful that's what it's about giving everyone an equal start your success is still based on what you do and the choices you make we believe in personal responsibility as a board and i don't think that would change anytime

135soon but equity is about making sure everyone starts at the same place so they have an equal opportunity for success and that's what we want for our students in our school to be able to start in the same place so they all have an equal opportunity for success and i hate that this word equity is getting dragged through the mud like it's something bad or evil it's not taking away from your ability or skill to make sure someone starts at the starting line with you the olympics we don't start someone two feet back because they're taller you start at the same spot and it's only right that we do that in education with our students and as for the inclusion aspect our school should be a place where everyone feels loved and safe and that

136they can do their best work if you don't feel safe in an environment you are never going to do your best work you are never going to be able to achieve your maximum potential if you don't have an equitable start and the feeling that you actually can achieve and do those things and that you are part of this school community that is what the inclusion and equity is about it's not about teaching something or corrupting minds it's about giving an equal start to everyone and if you don't understand what it's like to not have an equal start that could be the biggest problem it's the empathy and the understanding that not everyone has an equal start that that's all i'm saying i mean you don't know my whole life story and i don't expect you

137to but not just because you see where someone is right now doesn't mean they had an equal start to someone else in the same place some people have to work harder but it's taking away some of that hardship if we can start them equally and that means giving equity i think that's very clear about what the difference between equity and equality we want all students to have have an equal opportunity but to do that we need to have equity within our schools for those students to have those opportunities thank you thank you [Applause] thank you okay i just want to say the next few days are big ones we've got smithfield high school graduation windsor high school graduation and i think we have um the retirement celebration next monday night so it's a lot of

138fun things coming up and with that the meeting is adjourned everyone drive safe