001mr wilson too he's going a long way trip um it is now six o'clock and we will reconvene into our open session we will open with certification of resolution of compliance thank you madam chair i move that the closed meeting was conducted up in conformity with the provisions of virginia freedom of information act as required by section 2.2-3712-d of the code of virginia and certify that only public business matters lawfully lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements were discussed and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion by which the closed meeting was convened were heard discussed or considered second we have a motion it has been second vote please okay motion carry and this time i want to welcome everyone to our april school board meeting and at this time i'm going
002to ask our vice chair mrs times to lead us in the pledge of allegiance and the moment of silence before you stand and start the pledge of allegiance or the moment of silence i would ask that you keep the families of the two smithfield high school students who recently passed away unexpectedly in your thoughts and your prayers at this time we may stand thank you i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you okay this time we're going to open with our olive white achievers good evening everyone it's great to have a lot of students here and staff members for recognition um and i'll just remind folks that our vision for
003the vision for our white county schools is to create a learning environment that will enable every child to discover his or her unique gifts and talents and the isle of wight achievers section of our board meeting gives us an opportunity to recognize and celebrate our students and staff for their unique talents and gifts we are honoring several students tonight who recently participated in state competitions uh through their teams and their clubs all right our whoops keeps going there we go okay our first honorees tonight are from smithville high school and um before i have everyone come up let me go over a few of the little ground rules because we have a interesting situation with you know how we hand things out and usually we have our board members in front shaking hands and we
004haven't done that in over a year so we're going to ask when i call your name you've been given your certificate already please come up and you can stand in front of the tables spaced apart and just stay there until we get through all the names with your group then you you will be facing the board members while i call everyone up and then after that we'll have you turn to face the audience so we can all give you a nice round of applause so i'm sure that was just as clear as mud as my mom would say pictures and pictures so when you turn to face the audience if there are any family members or are guests with you tonight that would like to get pictures that's the perfect time to come up and
005get a photo and when we do the pictures if you're comfortable with it you are welcome to take your mask off for the photo if you're comfortable with that so come up with your certificate fill in over here facing the board then we'll have you turn around to the audience and you can take your mask off briefly for a photo okay so having said all that our first group from smithville high school is our indoor track team and several members of the boys and girls track and field teams participated in the state track meet we are very excited to recognize them tonight and honor their accomplishments so if you would come up when i call your name i know a few of them are not with us tonight hayley fowler kailyn hill leah moy tatiana
006langston she's with us lexi bondurant nick henschen taylor price and you guys can just keep going right on over here and stand facing the board if you would thank you nick henshin taylor price kenneth mccoy kenneth placed sixth at the state in the 500 meter race and chris basking plays six in the 55 meter and third in the long jump in addition the four by 400 team of tyler simon robert mccoy jordan duncan and kenneth mccoy placed sixth at the state coaches are steve shepard robert mccoy coach mccoy if you'd come up and eric bergy i don't know if we have any other coaches with us tonight did i did i miss a name oh got it got it so these are your uh state competitors in smithfield high school's indoor track we want to
007congratulate them on making it to the state and further congratulate those that placed at the state competition so at this time you guys turn around and i tell you what i'm going to do a quick picture long ways one two three you congratulations great job [Applause] you know it's great to see that the athletics are still going on in light of everything they've had to go through this year so we're real excited that not only were they able to compete in athletics this year but to do so well in these events so adding to that we also have from smithville high school the wrestling team this year for the first time in school history if i'm correct on that the smithfield high wrestling team captured the regional championship crown the packers placed 5th overall in
008the class 4 championship meet and at this time we'd like to recognize the student athletes and highlight those who competed at state competition so the wrestlers that are here we're still going to call their names whether they're here or not we're asked that they come up face face the board we have riley fesser austin ray james sessoms joe sessoms justin gooden kalee hardin who plays sixth roberta roberto heinz who plays sixth hunter ray i know is with us tonight place fourth brady stalls placed fourth cameron hatchet placed third nick voros is with us tonight he placed third and evan christopher who placed third and they are coached by coach anthony leonard coach if you'll join us and i also had down brent varros as coach but i don't believe he's with us tonight and um
009coach i don't know are are these young men underclassmen are they graduating oh okay so all right only only place to go is up on that then huh all right so we want to congratulate you guys if you would turn around and face the problem excuse me did you want to come in a little to make it proportional thank you i'm good thank you guys so much congratulations [Applause] all right the windsor high school forensics team had a successful season which culminated in the team placing third in the state competition at this time we would like to recognize the students who competed at the state level and highlight those who placed in the state competition please come up as i call your name ryan ferry john post caitlin pippins and caitlin placed third in prose
010interpretation caitlyn carter caitlyn carter placed second in serious interpretation maggie minardi and ethan phelps you are looking at the state champions in humorous duo which of course i would love to hear the routine and we have one more state champion from the forensics team who is actually sitting amongst you leah carroll is the state champion in poetry so come on out and join your group leah and they are coached by ginger beatty riffle miss baby riffle you'll come up and join your group and we have some special news that i'm going to announce i think the team already know the team already knows this but we want to say that you know when we recognized our boys basketball team of state champions you heard us announce that they were going to be getting fitted for
011rings as state champions well that is extended to all of our state champions going forward so ethan maggie and leah will also be getting state champion rings thanks to dr thornton and um and your athletic director is putting all this together and your principal so we're excited and we're glad that you're going to be able to have that to keep with you for many years to come so i'm going to take a quick picture and if you'd like [Music] [Applause] congratulations thank you another honoree from windsor high school is not able to be with us tonight um due to other obligations but i wanted to recognize at this time eva fong let me see if i have a picture of eva there's eva eva is a sophomore at windsor high school she won the smithfield
012times black history month essay contest the contest was opened to public private and homeschooled students in illinois county in surry county the students were asked to submit essays of up to 350 words on the theme of fulfilling dr martin luther king jr's dream of equality in 2021. a panel of judges which included the smithfield times publisher emeritus john edwards and isle of wight naacp president valerie butler selected fong's essay out of all the eligible entries at this time i'd like to share part of eva's essay with the board dr martin luther king jr spoke of his dream for racial equality more than 50 years ago he envisioned a future where one is not judged by their skin but by their character sadly his dream remains unfulfilled the recent events of police brutality show that racism
013is still a rampant issue in our country like the coronavirus racism is an infectious disease that refuses to relinquish its grasp on us yet we are not actively fighting against it too many of us are bystanders we see the racial injustices happening around us but we do not try to stop them that mentality does nothing to help the racial equality movement and in turn strengthens racism's hold on our country instead we must take action and demolish the unjust racial barriers in our community we must expel the darkness that has been poisoning our land and bring about the righteous light of equality as dr king said we stand in life at midnight we are always at the threshold of a new dawn we congratulate eva on winning the essay contest [Applause] [Music] now we're going to
014recognize our seniors of the month and for our seniors of the month we do have some special plaques for them so our seniors when your name is called if you will come up to this podium and find your plaque with your name on it and then you can come stand in the center facing the board while i continue reading your nomination so we're going to begin with windsor high school senior of the month and that is sabrina delgado [Applause] sabrina is the model of a mature and level-headed high school student she is highly focused on pursuing her goals all while serving her school community sabrina has been a leader in the classroom during a time of great challenge her quiet demeanor and her steadfast pursuit of excellent make her stand out among her peers quote
015sabrina is a calm presence she leads by quiet example and provides a touchstone for all that a mature student should be whenever she has a responsibility she meets it headfirst and with attention to detail her intellectual gifts are complemented by her work ethic and diligence and that's her miss luanne scott ap english teacher sabrina plans to attend old dominion university where she will major in biochemistry congratulations sabrina and let's have you turn around [Music] [Applause] great congratulations [Music] [Applause] our senior of the month from smithville high school is nivea sylvan [Applause] nevaeh nevaeh exemplifies every day what it means to be a packer with quiet determination she excels not only at her studies but consistently contributes to the smithville high school culture and smithfield community she represented smithfield high and the norfolk state university essay
016in speech contest participated in the band auxiliary worked with the librarians to promote and facilitate student events and served as a volunteer through the beta club nevaeh has dedicated her time at smithfield high to the tenants of grit and great recently nevaeh spent the last saturday of her spring break volunteering at the smithfield sprint triathlon she helped ensure both athletes and participants made it to the race and helped direct traffic while many might have found the task daunting she handled it with the same quiet grace and professionalism she applies to all challenges put before her nevaeh is always composed and focused on the task at hand she is incredibly kind and uses her kindness with purpose she is a wonderful student and a special member of the smithville high school community and that quotes from
017library clerk paula morehead and instructional coach tiffany truitt nivea will attend north carolina agricultural and technical state university and major in mechanical engineering and hopes to pursue a graduate degree at the georgia institute of technology congratulations thank you and i just want to say you know we talk about girls and stem and we are two tonight we're biochemistry and mechanical engineering so i thought that was pretty cool so we wish both of them well at this time we are going to hear from ssc i think we have mr kenny gray joining us perhaps but we are going to have their employee of the month award at this time hello everyone i'd like to uh present the gym award to miss oksana staro defstava i hired her on february the 1st of this year i made
018her the day porter at smithfield middle school her third day here she received emails from mr johnson on her her quality of work he felt that she was an outstanding person and he said she was a keeper since then i have received about 27 emails from the students nut students i'm sorry the teachers and administrative staff who are raving on her performance i have a few emails i'd like to read one of them is from marsha palmer good afternoon i arrived back at smithfield middle in late february and i immediately noticed how well the bathroom halls in other areas of the schools were clean this young lady does not stand around talking she's all about her job and making sure the school is clean bathrooms are mop in between classes trash is always dumped you
019never have to go look for someone to dump the trash after lunch because she's on it oksana is very quiet and well-mannered she should be recognized for her hard work we salute you here at smithville middle for all your hard work day in and day out i have another one i would like to nominate oksana for employee of the month she is the hardest worker that i have seen she is constantly on the move dumping trash cleaning floors and windows wiping down surfaces she can never be found idle she does an excellent job every day i'll read one more oksana is very deserving of employee of the month she goes above and beyond to keep our school looking great she is always available when needed and does her best to quickly meet the needs of
020any staff member she wipes down our doorknobs and window ledges she keeps the bathrooms clean at all times she checks the trash cans at lunchtime to make sure that they are not getting too full we are very lucky to have oxana as a part of our school family and because of these kind words and her diligence and with her work she is very um she's kind very maneuverable i don't have anything bad to say about her i think she's a stellar employee and i wish that we had more of oxana's and i'd like to go ahead and present to her the gem of the ward for the month of april [Applause] she says thank you pictures and that's going to conclude our isle of wight achievers for this evening it was great to have so
021many here did we miss them oh she's special presentation i would not dare forget maggie but we have one more presentation so can i just go ahead right into that is that okay yep next on the agenda is special presentation all right so here we go that's okay that's okay so the virginia school boards association is holding a student essay speaking contest where the winner will have an opportunity to present at the 2021 vsba conference on education and maggie if you want to go ahead and stand over there let me just give you a quick introduction this is the first year for the contest students have to create a 600 to 750 word personal essay and provide a video of the essay presented as a speech the topic is can and should freedom of expression
022and civility coexist in the name of the first amendment and the freedom of expression it guarantees rancorous rhetoric is fast becoming more commonplace across our country causing many to wonder if it's any longer safe or beneficial to engage in democratic discourse is there a way to participate in conversations where various opinions and options for solving problems of common concern weighing alternatives resolving differences and coexisting without acrimony and hostility are possible is practicing civility reasoned public discourse where respect restraint responsibility and empathy coexist with free expression still as important as self-governance freedom of expression and individual dignity or to civility hamper free expression well the student representing isle of wight county schools in the competition is maggie mendera maggie is going to share her speech tonight and we welcome her up here and i'm going to
023step back so you all can pay attention and listen to maggie's words thank you okay hi i'm maggie mender i'm a sophomore as you just heard and um this is the speech so democrat republican conservative liberal christian atheist what is the first thing you think of when you hear these pairings in the same space what often comes to mind are two things violence or resentment in all honesty who is to blame for this being the first thing we think of when we hear opposing beliefs it's not as though history has ever proved these thoughts wrong or for present-day political environment has done so either [Music] okay okay i'm just gonna start from the top because i don't know what else i'm gonna i'm gonna move to this one [Laughter] i was like this is not
024a duet democrat republican conservative liberal christian atheist what is the first thing you think of when you hear these pairings in the same space what often comes to mind are two things violence or resentment in all honesty who is to blame for this being the first thing that we think of when we hear opposing beliefs as some of the as though history's ever proved these thoughts wrong or if our present-day political environment has done so either freedom of expression and civility should co-exist though it isn't likely they ever will allow me to explain why to start this much shaded conversation we must begin with the most prevalent part the two-party system why is it that a country that was founded to evade a place with one prominent belief has ended up a place with but
025too though many beg to differ nobody can deny the stakes in an election how vicious our country becomes when it comes time every four years such violence such resentment that it leads to limiting of thoughts limiting a personal beliefs out of fear for themselves this system of having only two prominent parties is flawed in countless ways the largest flaw being the limiting of opinion limiting of opinion one might ask in a hysterical tone showing the lack of belief because this country is a democracy how could you ever believe that people are limited here there right there that's one of the main reasons this country has been stumbling to find ground beneath this feat and a constant struggle to reach stability would he think of our country i think it's land of the free right wrong
026in that same light nobody can deny the fact that this is a democratic nation one built off the opinion of its people that in other places in the world it's a much worse struggle for people's opinions to be heard so one might think why aren't we grateful for what we're given isn't it enough it's that exact train of thought the one implying that once you've been given something good you stop pushing for more that makes people fearful to do just that to push for a change why must someone be the gesture in king's court to try and point these things out why are some given the option to oblivion a line that exists faintly in some people's lives where it's prominently displayed enough to trip over and others is absurd diversity is a prominent thing
027in this country many like to say and while they're saying it they don't seem to realize a bit of their words that way being something you may consider a political opinion is a personal right to someone else the lack of awareness and the ignorance regarding that very statement in this country is one of the founding principles as to why this country always seems to be in a state of discourse separation of church and state along with religion causes a large uprising in this country one that can and will not be ignored freedom of expression suddenly becomes conditional to those under the scrutiny of a religious person even if they don't share the same beliefs marriage and adoption equality is also something that causes an uprising in this country the debate over whether two men or
028children two two men or two women can raise a child is entirely foolish as in reality a child does not need a mother a child does not need a father a child needs a parent so how long how long is america going to falter always pressing against itself in an effort to get an ounce of stability how far how far is america going to allow people to spew hatred towards others and disguise it under a veil of personal beliefs before line is drawn how much longer how much longer is our youth going to be scrutinized for those in charge take the time take a step back and try and think as to why it is our youth must be so outspoken too far and too long are the answers to these questions this conversation could
029last for ages but if nobody chooses to listen if nobody chooses to feel empathy for anyone outside of themselves freedom of expression civility will never coexist in this country thank you [Applause] very very passionate speech and i want to say the acoustics in here were a little challenging for some of us especially behind you we are going to be posting a recording of her speech that mr elliott uh mr elliott met with her today she did the speech and it will be on our youtube channel so you can go back and watch it uh if you had any difficulty hearing you'll be able to hear everything a little bit better but we congratulate maggie for being our representative and we wish her well in the state competition thank you maggie [Music] [Applause] next on the
030agenda is request to speak in accordance to policy b d d e h dash e sorry citizens scheduled to 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 we discuss in a closed meeting the first one is mr albert burkhardt madam chair members of the madame chair members of the uh school board dr thornton albert burkhardt
031newport election district that's uh in in mrs hulick's district so in case you might want to blame somebody for anything i might say tonight i might turn to her i'm glad you laughed because it's hard to see if anybody's smiling at me in this mask but that's okay i assume you may have read the front page article in yesterday smithfield times on county budget considerations three speakers advocated the restoration of our county department of historic resources the reason of course is that since the advent of commonwealth standards of learning the teaching of local history has virtually ceased i'm asking you to help correct this fundamental gap in learning by olive white county students some of you may recall several years ago i responded to a request by you to teach an in-service class on the
032subject i provided an overview course outline background materials references and even lesson plans to assist our teachers with local history instructions i'm sure these are still somewhere on file here but if not i'm more than willing to do this again if you think it's needed i wish to remind you that i have a master's in education degree from old dominion university and i even took my practicums under the legendary jerry tenney at smithfield high school i'm not bragging i only want to establish my credibility with you in any case since we're talking budget here i'll go a step farther or should it be further always have trouble with that word and suggest to you that you should consider budgeting for a position on the county on your staff and school staff that is dedicated to
033ensuring that our county's own history is not forgotten by our failure to teach it there are many many resources available on the county of course the county museum staff has won the schoolhouse museum on main street comes immediately to mine but to avoid giving you a funding problem without presenting a solution to you here it is there was a position on your staff that demands immediate elimination that is this so-called and very pernicious coordinator for equity and inclusion this is a poisonous and debilitating position that seeks to inculcate the false and truly anti-american and undemocratic notions of critical race theory and non-white racial superiority a current example will suffice recently sent to all of you was a so-called equity message for teachers and staff i sincerely hope that all of you read this with revulsion
034and contempt for its overtly racist content first specifically it's addressable to black indigenous and people of color colleagues this is taken from the document verbatim it is an obviously racist attempt to d to segregate us along color lines by completely dismissing the white majority of our county second the reference to the dreadful traffic stops in windsor and minneapolis again verbatim from the document you all know as well as the rest of us that these two cases have not been adjudicated and resolved to either community satisfaction the malicious reference here is not only premature but equates the legal traffic stop here in our county that resulted in no injuries with an incident in another state that resulted in death the equating of these two events in the same sentence is despicable and clearly designed to separate
035us along racial lines and should be condemned by each of you the incumbent in this taxpayer-funded staff position should be similarly dismissed for inciting racial strife among us and the job should be redefined so as to present to our students our own local history and a fair reasonable and community accepted way we must not use our own resources to spread further i think he used the word correctly that time more racially charged animosity here amongst us i respectfully ask you to reconsider this staff position and make it one to bring us together rather than separate us ladies and gentlemen i thank you for your patience and your attention to this matter thank you mr burkhardt okay next we have mr michael ozil green gold members is a heart at this mr wilson district uh i
036know y'all heard the story going to say uh see something say something and she'll be familiar and i'm gonna pass another one some good trouble that i'm about to give you now i have spoken to [Music] some of you earlier but immediately going back to hell i'm not getting into that because obviously you put that already the concern we have is in transportation now i'm not going to go down to the list of things that the citizen and myself have concerned with transportation but i encourage you all to look at the transportation system under the gps and answer some of these concerns that we decision is having pertained to our transportation system and before you be approved by anything else that we'll do with gps to do with our transportation we need to answer the
037concern that the citizens have some of these i presented to you some years back and still there there's been no response so i'm gonna try this thing one more time this time i've always spoke to mr coleman and i'm gonna give another conference to ms carr and see before we do anything there with gps in the school system that we answered these concerns for the citizens to make sure that these things are done according to property and user properly or what we needed at the most of because there is some issues and there are some big issues so i'm just going to hand this to uh someone somewhere uh miss lindbergh was they have that so they can go on record that these questions need to be answered and responds back to uh so that
038we can continue to go forward but until we the question conference announcement we just throwing right in the hole somewhere that the services to some that where need to be at there is not and some issues that i have brought personally and showed y'all and gave to y'all and still nothing have been done now is it time for action who every last one you are accountable for your for sending the vote as representation for the citizen now i'm trying to one more time that's why i gave it again to the ones who i thought won't be handling so i know it's a hard job but i know it but do your best mike can't answer all but give us some type of response back that's all we're asking and if you don't know admit you
039don't know there's nothing wrong with say i don't know something or i'm trying to get i look into it but just don't ignore it because all i'm going to keep doing is turning over and over again it can be passed down to whoever the next member or the next one bulma and still we looking at nothing being done and the sun is stopping you ask for all help see something say something i even got a flyer without a meeting all day the government head gave a flyer and stand up see something say something now i'm after that say something do something and take something maybe we got our phone cell phone takes pictures or whatever pass it on if it's a crime to get to the law officer if it's something you take up bring
040it to our board members give us some consideration that you are willing to look into it just don't that's what well just because of me no it's more out there but i'm just the only one standing up here right now but there are some mores out there that are looking at the same thing and seeing just the words i see it so i'm asking y'all one more time to look at the concern that i have on that on on that paper and give us some type of responsibility that's all i'm asking and you know all they always work with me i'm not hard to get along with i work with you as long as i can so now it's time for your work for me give us some time show me some answers and i
041thank y'all for your time thank you mr and you do know that i did call you i did call you and talk to you one on one yeah we we are not talking about it because we already talked about what we we all got scheduled so that's why i didn't say the more about that we already got our time so you and i missed time we got that set up already i'm willing to work that's what i say did not say that so that's what i mean i understand that's why i came back and made the 50th country because i know what we are working on and as soon as i get that time or the place we will meet and some more else we'll meet then we'll be all right it's no problem you
042know me thank you friend thank you okay next on the agenda is board member committee matt we have one oh i'm sorry um mr reverend will willie williams okay mr williams i think everyone should take a deep breath i know i am madam chair board members dr thornton and my dear friend ms tracy uh please use my stopwatch tonight i plead with you let me preach a sermon because that's what i need to do but rather than preaching a sermon i have much need to call for you to continue your promised support of our equity inclusion and implicit bias training program i have received recently many complaints about the equity program is not necessary it's not cost effective uh i'm not a racist uh we don't have a problem with racism nor do i have
043any hidden biases the equity program is not designed to show one whether they are good or bad it is designed to enhance your current talents that you might be a more effective educator and it's only natural for mr burkhart other citizens school staff to register complaints with me and i'm sure if i'm getting complaints i know that you're getting complaints but i want a boy a word from my faith that comes from luke the 24th chapter in the eighth verse and it simply says and they remembered his words i told you all earlier this year that when we implement the equity inclusion and implicit bias program that you can anticipate some complaints when i receive the complaints i rejoice because i now know that the program is doing what it's supposed to do it's supposed
044to disturb people it's supposed to challenge us that's what the program is designed to do and it's doing exactly what it's supposed to do i've never seen a gardener or a farmer grow a plant without disturbing the soil when my daddy did gardening i would notice that he would always till the soil first that he might plant some seeds or perhaps grow other grow plants from planting plants and i say to you tonight that unless people are disturbed they're not going to change and people don't naturally enjoy making change because when you change that means you've got to give up something and take on something else well the body likes to remain at a state uh status quo a state of balance and when people are faced with a change that means that all habits
045are disturbed they must be removed and we must take on new habits so when people come to you do like those women's did when they went to the tomb and they remembered his words remember these words when people come to you get busy rejoice know that the equity the inclusion and the implicit program is doing what it's supposed to do it doesn't challenge whether we are good or bad it adds to what we already have that we may be better servants for our ola white county school system i love every one of you stay at a course don't let nobody no one steal the opportunity to make our white county school system the greatest school system in our nation thank you god bless you and i look forward to working with you in the future
046thank you mr williams [Applause] okay now the next item on the agenda is board member committee reports and information does anyone have anything okay so we'll move on to the next one which is our financial presentation evening madam chair members of the board dr thornton so again in your packet you should have seen our your facility use report closing out the month of march we did bring in just over 19 000 with our facility use fees there was your check register for the month of march were there any questions on the check register and i just want to point out a couple things on your financial report so in your financial report you'll again we always compare how much of the budget we've spent so far to last year at this time and my message
047has been consistent i think since i've started here we're we've spent less of a percent of the budget compared to last year because of the pandemic you'll notice we are at 70.6 versus 76 percent from last year at this time which is about 370 000 worth which is relatively significant in your health fund from your financial summary you'll notice and this is important because tonight following the financial presentation we're recommending that the board vote on a health carrier but you'll notice about 1.3 million in your health fund which is a very healthy balance and where we would rely on that is in the event of if we had some very sick people and it exceeded the amounts that we anticipated we could rely on this fund balance to support those bills 1.3 million last year
048at this time we only had 34 000 dollars which to me is is a dangerously low number and it doesn't account for those unforeseen illnesses so we're in a much better position and lastly this this might be a pattern but you'll notice the food service had a negative balance and that's because we closed out the month of february however we still haven't received for that month um we received a march 6th receipt which wasn't posted yet to february and then we're receiving another one so there's two large receipts that will put us well into the black so i know last month there was a question about that being in the red it looks in the red however that's because as of the closing date of this report we hadn't received those funds but they're coming
049they just come about six weeks later so any questions on the financial summary i guess going on to 14.2 your health care benefits you folks the board did vote on a health carrier to support us i do need to inform you that due to an error in our advertising we did re-bid that we re-bid that based on our attorney's recommendation to rebid it ultimately to protect the board should it be challenged we think by re-bidding it puts you in a much better position um to to be within compliance the result is the same so we're recommending um you can read this that anthem blue cross blue shield ultimately be the new healthcare you're beginning july 1st so there's a recommendation okay we're ready are you ready for us to vote on unless there are any
050questions absolutely okay we need a motion madam chair i make a motion to approve anthem blue cross blue shield this isle of wight county public schools health care provider for the 2021-2022 school year and to enter into a contract second we have a motion and it has been second so thank you mr wilson do you want to just give me a verbal yes i'm sorry did you repeat it i got it oh god okay thanks good okay motion carried very good next on the agenda is the transfer of funds by category okay well it's i guess the last quarter of the year we're looking at our fund balances our unspent funds in various categories functional categories and as a reminder when the board of super the county board of supervisors approves your budget that's approved
051but it's approved with limits of functional categories so we can't exceed those functional category limits right without them reapproving it so that's what this is doing so we're asking the board to approve these transfers 300 000 um coming out of instructional services 250 000 coming out of administrative attendance and health services and 550 000 coming out of pupil transportation services and all of that being transferred into your operations and maintenance so the funds became available due to covid and the lower levels of spending were in the areas of your salaries and benefits bus lease payments fuel costs field trips and substitute costs so there's been our common theme since october and the funds would be utilized on a one-time facility repair and upgrades to your buildings and if there's no questions are there any questions
052on that and we did talk about this when we we met with the um the board of supervisors yes yes so so each year we meet with the chair and vice chair of each board and the county administrator and myself uh to talk about the budget and and we had this discussion as well and we had a very happy meeting this year as usual that's right it was a good meeting and madam chair okay i would like to make a motion to approve the transfer to the operation maintenance category for the instructional oops sorry about that i want to read it amount of three hundred thousand dollars from admin attendance and health in the amount of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars and from pupil transportation in the amount of five hundred and fifty thousand
053dollars give the superintendent the authority to request the transfer transfer for from the county okay okay we have a motion and it has been second vote please okay mesh and carry next is the crrsa grant funds appropriation that's the cares correct it is um this is the test question coronavirus response and relief supplemental appropriations act cares funds see our essay so we're requesting that the board approve uh 300 000 that would be used towards maintenance and 500 000 that would be used towards transportation and with the board's approval we would amend this grant we have discussed this grant i believe last month we would amend it to fit these into it and then we would request approval from the county suit or the supervisors for appropriations of the grant and then move forward with expenditures
054prior to july first mountain chair if i can further explain a little bit so this 2.1 million was in your approved budget to the county but they would not approve that and they would not we would not be able to use these funds until july one and with everything that that we're trying to get done and the delay uh we need these funds available now so we can make orders so we are looking at purchasing some buses uh we will be putting more runs on the line next year we'll have to hire more drivers and still finishing the furniture at the high schools we have to be prepared that if we're still three feet apart then we we have a lot of tables at the high school as well and we've done an inventory so
055that's why we want to look at those two categories to make sure they come in on time for next year so we we i've talked to mr keaton and we're looking at those two items would be sent into this year's budget and if we don't spend them all they would just roll over as federal funds okay any questions with that now i was looking at the positions that are listed on here and it will be when the we hire these positions they will be told that it is for the one year or for the two years that is their salaries are being paid with the with the cares funds yes ma'am and i know some other board members had asked some questions and this has already changed from the first time we put the plan
056together and in talking to staff if you see them there now you see 19 first and second grade aides we we do a lot of our remediation and small group within the classroom and we only have half day aids at kindergarten in the in the system so for teachers to be doing remediation we need aids during the reading and math time in first and second grade and this would give us give those teachers that extra support and help in first and second grade across the school division and as far as year two if we still need that level of support and we'll be tracking the data throughout the year then that money would come from the next round of cares funding and which we have not appropriated yet we haven't received the final number but
057we will have those money so the speech pathologist we left in the application as two years okay and the other positions are one year but again we have a new round of funding coming that if those positions are still needed we will have the funds to continue those positions okay and that was my question the speech pathologist that amount of money that's the two years that everybody all the others are the one year with this particular yes ma'am funding okay any questions okay this is an action item madam chair i make a motion to request the appropriation from the crrsa fund in the following categories from the county maintenance 000 and transportation 500 000. second okay we have a motion and it has been second vote please so england okay thank you motion carry thank
058you thank you so much next is support services transportation good evening everybody madam chair wrestling board members dr thornton glad to see you back you have my report and i'm here to answer any questions if you have anything i had no question i think i went uh got a little ahead of myself and did the uh summer haircut this week and i'm having second thoughts on that today so hopefully you don't get too cold tonight going home so all right thank you let me ask you this though now that the um middle school students are five days a week did that impact cause any problems with the transportation i'm sure you had to adjust other than rerouting for secondary no it really didn't and and surprisingly it kept the times pretty close to the same
059i was a a little concerned that some of the buses may not get back to elementary in the afternoon because of the extra uh time we're out there but it's actually worked out fairly well i don't maybe one or two it affected but for the most part it all fell together real real nice great thank you so much thank you madam chair if you don't mind i i would like to say lee and his staff have done an amazing job because i know as things come up and families have made choices to go back and forth we have asked them to be very flexible please figure this out and they have always found a way so that it's been a tough year for all of us but transportation done a really good job with that
060thank you okay look at eric now mr cook right coop yes ma'am uh so i'm here to request the allowance to purchase the freshman laptops for next year um the quote is posted as well as the funding source if there's any questions usually come about this time every year and ask the same question and we appreciate you being proactive on doing this because that's why we get our laptops before other revolutions do that was a big help for us last with yeah with the chromebooks especially last year yes um because dr thornton allowed us to order early we were really one of few divisions in our area that actually got him well before school a lot of school divisions were rushing or didn't get a middle some didn't get them at all for a while
061okay we have um an action item um madam chair i would like to make a motion to approve the purchase of the laptops for freshmen for the 2021-22 school year and the amount of 500 and 5050 okay we have a motion and it has been second okay motion carried thank you very much thank you support services and operations update madam chair school board members this is support services and operations update for april next month first item i would like for you to see is the windsor elementary school ada playground what you see is a visual of exactly how it's going to look miss patricia magna work with miss couch and we came up with a great design for the ada playground it's going to resemble the carrollton playground to a steadbit it's the same actual
062same actual padding and everything else it was a great upgrade to winds elementary school for actual special ed so as you can see right now there is the slide for actual uh individuals and there's also a um it's a car wash type of title that's what they call it it's a sensory car wash sensory car that's outstanding so i just wanted you to make sure you took a look at that that's the windsor elementary school ada playground all right if there's no questions next there was a question concerning the segura completion schedule at this time georgie tyler is completely finished and also carsville is completely finished carlton is at 40 percent smithville high school is at 60 smithfield middle school is at 40 percent and wins elementary school 2 we haven't actually started on windsor
063high school at this time due to the roofing that's actually going on we're working in tandem roofing and um solar actually taking place at the same time so that's what we stand at right now the full solar startup will not occur until all schools are online and that's what the community was asking so thank you for addressing that no problem at all man all right okay next what we have let me take that down before you go to your next one yes ma'am i want to take you back to the first one yes ma'am and that's just one question okay with that playground are they anticipating ordering the um accessible trikes for that particular turf for those students that need the accessible you know i might have to relate that question to carrollton elementary does
064have that they do have that if you are we're going to get that as well right okay thank you okay all right thank you that's right if those of you that are not familiar with what i'm talking about uh normally a child that was that was wheelchair down or something like that a student right when they were going on the playground uh their wheelchairs that sometimes were not accessible exactly the playground of the turf that we had right and now even with this one that suppose the equipment that is accessible we had to um you know they're they have these little trikes that they can we can put them on right and they can just ride all over absolutely particular and feel like they're part of the group as well as the normal students okay
065thank you absolutely the next agenda is next on the agenda will be the idf for the actual roof as you can see in front of you the actual layout and the contract are there any questions concerning this once again this is the ibf for roofing okay any questions any questions this is an action item madam chair i'd like to make the motion to award the roof repairs to a roof system of virginia in the amount of 370 400 for the school transportation annex and roof area 1 at westside elementary school second okay we have a motion and it has been second okay measuring carried next is the demolition and new construction at the alawite county schools annex yes ma'am this brings up the actual annex uh what we have here will finally replacing the 30
066by 60 uh trailer that we had there one for actual maintenance and one for transportation we're combining those buildings with a far upseeded upgrade and this is going to be with the new 40 by 66 trailer that can house everyone in the same trail and of course everything is brand new finally another nice upgrade for the annex which you already know was very needed so this is going to be an action item does anyone have any questions on that on the annex any questions we discussed that last month and these are the uh mobile units that are gonna um be torn down or thank you yes ma'am is that right yes ma'am let me expand on on there because the board has to vote on replacing the trailer because it's over two hundred thousand but
067uh mr groman has actually looked at that entire area down there there'll be fencing replaced if you've driven by there there's some some rough areas there paving has been a constant problem around where the buses pull in and get gas we've had to have gravel what 30 000 a couple times absolutely absolutely so he's got a paving quote we'll be paving around that area and and yes the old buildings that you had already went through your approval to go to auction uh will now be demoed as well so that area is going to be cleaned up right and the the roof that you just bid on one of the roof projects is the bus shop they do absolutely bears and the shop so so that whole facility down there is really being upgraded absolutely and
068again this is with with funds that were in the budget and we weren't able to run as many buses and have as many drivers and spend as much fuel right so we're spending it wisely on upgrades that we wouldn't be able to do otherwise exactly right i have a question yes ma'am how often would we have to um repay the surface repave the surface that you're planning to put in yes ma'am um i was just listening to dr thornton he said we we spent about 30 thousand dollars a but as we all know they we have to uh every so often go back and especially when you're going to be having the buses coming in yes ma'am how often do you think we would have to upgrade that right after talking with the actual contractors
069once it's actually paved out we'll just have to go back and resurface every five years okay that's what the contractors that we've been working with that's the proposal every five years we'll go back and resurface not actually grind everything up and lay it down just the resurfacing of the actual pavement okay yes ma'am all right thank you okay i am really surprised the wind hadn't torn some of those buildings down that's how bad they are i worked in one of them so i know okay this is an action item madame share some motion to approve the annex renovations to include demolition and new construction perform modular building systems and the amount of two hundred and eighty nine thousand six hundred and eighty eight dollars second do we have a motion it has been second vote
070please so okay motion carried thank you so much thank you okay next is the report from the superintendent and the first item on the agenda is adult education update good evening miss ford good evening madam chair school board members associates dr thornton clerk of the board it is indeed a pleasure for me to be here tonight to give you an update on adult and continuing education this is my fourth year as the program manager for the adult in continuing education and i've seen a lot of changes in these past four years and matter of fact um a student trying to get a ged or an adult learner trying to get a ged um it's tough it's it's very challenging and we are glad to be a part of the county to make sure that anyone
071who's interested or want to to improve their lifestyle want to get a career or a better job to support their family that they are able to do that and they can do that without leaving this county we partner with local community colleges because they in their facilities they have the the means for our students to earn associate degree or get a training and when they are there they can be able to to take advantages of their programs that they offer so we what we do in adult education we help them get their ged now it used to be where it was wrote memory but now our students have to problem solve they have to do critical thinking in order to get their ged this this provides a door to open to get to our partners
072and get those other trainings and get an associate degree and what have you and we also work with them to get a job work with them working with resumes and looking at careers for them and what suits them what they would like to do we are part of region 20 we are one of eight schools and we also we are the third largest region in the state of virginia fort smith public school is our fiscal agent where alice graham is our regional program manager and if one school doesn't have something then we can get it from the other school so it doesn't matter if we provide something or if chesapeake or virginia beach has a program that our students want then they are willing to drive that far they can do it this is a
073great team these are our teachers that we have mr and mrs robertson because of covet they are teaching virtually um and it has been yes a challenge like everything else but willing and flexible flexible to work with our students to make sure that they get what they need they first take a test with me for assessment it's called tave test and after they get we get the analysis from the test then i send it over to the robertsons and then they work with the student when they work out their schedule and how whatever they need uh iet welding teachers with mr pike james pike and miss barbara elsie so we have to have a ged teacher in that classroom whenever they meet so miss elsie works with them and she also works with them getting
074their resumes and our new class e-l-l for english language learners so that we can help the spanish-speaking community understand english better for their students and as a citizen in the adult in continuing education we have uh three programs here the ged and the abe and the last one the iet now in adult ed there are so act so many acronyms i actually got intimidated when i first came on because everything is about an acronym um so we offer if a student is at a particular level they can get a ged if they're not they can get an abe and the iet program is for welding which we have where it integrates training for getting a cert a certification and getting a ged at the same time and a new program that is in portsmouth actually
075the national external diploma program again if a student wants to do that they can go to portsmouth all of our students are on an approved software program burlington english is more for our struggling students aztec and accenture led or for more of a practice program so they can practice before they have to take their final test in the english math science and social studies we use zoom right now however next month we will be begin training on canvas which is a plus professional development all the time we are getting emails from valerie the virginia adult learning resource center and everywhere you turn our teachers have the opportunity to learn to get trained it is awesome they also have had the opportunity to go to a local uh conference we have regional conference state conference and
076national conference and right now of course it is they are all virtual this is a copy of the flyer that we had for our iet industrial welding class and each class we have 10 students we call them a cohort so we are in our third cohort right now our last cohort that ended in december all 10 students earned their certification and it was awesome were all of them from alawite or were they from they're from other all of them were from isle of white all 10 students and a question once they get their certifications this was in welding correct are they placed in a job or do they they are not placed in a job at this point but what we do is work with them to make sure that their resumes are ready okay
077um and they if they want to find the where they want to to work then we will help them and assist them in whatever way we can um even you know working with virtual interview skills making sure that they have all the support they need for that and so that's why miss elsie is in the classroom with them so she gets to learn who they are and make sure that they have their resumes ready by the time they're finished all right thank you this is mr pike he's doing what he does best in in his lab and he enjoys working with the students and i i can say that all students are not finished on our last day but he will work with them and they will come in and you know work the schedule
078out so that they will get what they need and a part of the program is in the lab and the other part of the program is an online curriculum so we have two online curriculums that they have to work in order to finish the certification and these are just pictures of some of our students they enjoy being in a lab in all that heat with their protective gear they they really enjoy it and we've had four females so far he looks proud yes and that's it listen that i know nigel that's right yep and that's it thank you so much any questions madam chair if if i could uh i want to thank miss ford these programs a lot of public does not understand that the k-12 public school receives funds and has these programs
079they fly under the radar i think ms ford has done a very good job promoting these programs to let our adult community know that they're out there and expanding on them so i look forward to hearing more absolutely how do we advertise that we advertise um by the schools and a website i guess um on the um school website we do that and just by word of mouth how about a newspaper do we put it in the next and the newspaper okay yes yes and um actually this past month i've had seven calls from people from adults just wanting to be a part of the program and we ended around mid-may but those seven adults will still work with them and they can work on the program's online programs because they don't have to stop
080during the summer and continue on in the fall so okay this is exciting the average program like the welding program will last about a year or it depends on when they finish it up to the individual the the ged program is up to the individual okay um but as far as a welding program it is 10 weeks 10 weeks 10 weeks that's right it's a fast track it's very much so and just thinking you know that we can offer the adults in the community something like that and at the end of 10 weeks you can go out and get this job that can you know sustain you and your family yes absolutely it's a big difference and that's what we need in this area yes it is awesome do they apply how do they get
081in yes so they apply and they have to be accepted into the program that is correct um because we've had like for the 10 seats we'll get like 20 applicants and mr pike and i will interview each applicant and if we can't get them in that because we try to tell no one no so we'll put them in the next next class oh that's nice yep okay thank you thank you so much thank you okay next is the summer school update ms getz sam all right good evening madam chair members of the board dr thornton i'm going to provide you with a brief overview of what our plans are for summer school at this point we are planning to have k-8 summer school it will be here at windsor elementary because miss couch loves summer
082school she is gracious enough every year with a wonderful attitude because it is a you know it is in your building and your resources and so we do appreciate that we're looking at july 6 through the 29th so four weeks traditionally for the last several years we've done two weeks so we are looking at doubling it just for the mere fact of we know we have a lot of recovery to do it'll be 8 30 to 12 30 for our students so we will bring them in feed them breakfast they'll go through reading and math we'll have a little bit of play time stretch you know go outside feed them lunch send them home we are looking at approximately 250 to 300 students we are in the process of identifying students right now we are
083working with the building principles to do that we're using our star testing data which we've just finished we're using teacher recommendations we will also use pals once we do that to identify the students what about erla yep we use that as well yep all of those things um and depending on the levels yes um our readings we are looking to hire two reading specialists this year that's a little different we don't typically do that but again given the situation we do want to utilize small reading groups and our reading specialists um we also are looking to have the computer program freckle this is a program that we are going to be using next school year for our tier 2 and our tier 3 students so we are able to start using it this summer and
084we'll be using that for math and reading um we were concerned are we going to have teachers who are interested and we do we've already put out an interest and we have teachers who are interested we're looking maybe around 18 teachers but we're still going to you know look at the numbers coming in and what we need but right now we're in the process of identifying and then we will be reaching out and sending out invites to parents we're going to do one round here's invites here's a deadline and then we're going to do if we don't hear from you we're going to go to the next round of invites because we really want to fill the slots and traditionally we've had a hard time filling slots so we've invited a lot of students but
085they don't always come so that's why we're going to do a couple of rounds of invites because we want to fill the slots this year and we know there's a need that's elementary we're also working on a secondary high school summer school now we have not done this for a number of years to do credit recovery students who have wanted credit recovery in the past several years they have gone to a neighboring school division and used their summer school program but because of the numbers that we are potentially looking at of students who are going to need to recover credit we do want to plan for a high school summer school that will be at windsor high school so we're in the process again that's kind of more last you know last minute because kids
086have a have up until the the end to complete their coursework um so we are waiting to see how many students but we are moving forward with a plan i just don't know how many students it might be right now questions yes uh for the high school credit recovery program will we uh provide transportation for those that need it yes we will okay thank you is this being funded with um cares money we have some money um we budget summer school money every year um and we have a little bit of project graduation for secondary um but then the rest will become from cares yes this is program four weeks as well or six weeks it's going to be four weeks um and yes yes ma'am yes when will the parents be notified if their
087child qualifies for the summer school yeah that's going to be happening in the next week we will be sending out invites next two weeks to send out the invites so quickly it's we're coming up on it so is summer school totally in person it is in person we are looking at the option if if a parent really does not want to send their child we will allow them to use freckle that online program but it will be done on their own at their own pace we will supply the login and we can supply the device if needed so that will be an option but the virtual student the students who are 100 virtual they will they're being tested as law as well as all the other in person and they can be invited to in-person
088summer school yes that is correct all right okay that's my next question yes and we'll give you um more of an update in june uh once we have all the numbers finalized and know how many are going to come and then we should know more about the high school as well i have another question yes of course i know you're the plan is to have summer school from july 6 to the 29th which is a four-week program but i know you sending the invites out and even after you assess the students and all if you find out that you cannot house all of the invites okay all of those are going to return and you need more space would you consider holding one for the month of august or what you considering holding on having
089um another location for the same time frame in july just say for instance you say well you sent out invites and we can only have i'm just going to throw out a number 200 students okay in this building but you get about uh 450. so we're going to leave 250 kids out there and parents that really want it and really need it this is my question is it possible to start up another program you have the money anything's possible now in regular times the reason i'm saying that ms yes because in regular times you all know this is it that's it this is this is this is the slot this is what we're going to be taking and we will leave it up to the teachers to do the recommendations if that's what you all
090used to do but because of you know the pandemic the kids been well the kids were forced into a situation all of us were forced into a situation that we had no idea was going to happen and parents were at that point they became teachers overnight okay administrators and everything else for their child as far as educating them so this is why i'm saying maybe if we could have some type of leeway just for the one summer just to see if there's a need because i would hate for a child to be left out there that really needs it then come back to us in september all the september and uh they're behind but the child that had that four weeks they were able to catch up we are definitely expanding our summer school program
091we're already increasing the numbers i mean it's last year i think we were 150 170 70 students and so we're looking at 250 to 300 right now so we've already and again that was we send out invites but we don't get a lot of acceptance okay i mean parents don't necessarily want to do summer school now this year may be different we have had some interest particularly from some of our special education parents they have been interested in summer school so i think we we have a lot of slots um you know if we got to the point where we um filled those and we had teachers this building could certainly house it so i don't think we would need to open up another location i was just okay all right thank you all ready
092thank you thank you miss cats next on the agenda is the 2021-2022 special education annual plan second read madam chair members of the board dr thornton um the special education annual came up for approval tonight that's right we were here last month and then the plan went out to the public for comment no changes were made so the last plan we submitted last month is the one you have in front of you guys tonight if you have any questions please let me know but again it's up for approval okay any questions no questions so this is an action item madam chair i would like to make a motion to approve the 2021-2022 special ed plan second gives me pleasure okay we have a motion and it has been second vote please motion carry thank you
093miss mack thank you ms magner before you leave i would like to thank you and your um group all your spat staff and all for the wonderful job you all are doing with the students and i know you know i'm not going to say you have to do extra work but you do there's extra planning to execute your goals and objectives for all of the students because you have to work individually and you all are doing an excellent job and thank you very much for that and the reason i'm doing it now because you don't come up to us as often as some of the others okay thank you okay next is the carl perkins plan for career and technical education and this is also the second ready i don't know if it goes up
094that high i don't know that it does i don't know that he does but i'm pretty loud so that was a loud one i think you're going to be fine with that one i don't think i'm that dull but thank you mr group rider madam chair honorable honorable board members dr thornton um good evening um we are here tonight for the submission of the cardi perkins 2021 2022 grant second read this federal grant allocates funds on an on a yearly basis to school divisions to help strengthen and support our secondary and post-secondary career and technical education programs so did anyone have any questions in regards to the 21-22 grant no question so this is an action item madam chair i make the motion to approve the carl's perkins plan for career and technical education second
095do we have a motion and has been second vote please thank you okay motion carried thank you mordecai next on the agenda is the equity inclusion update yes madam chair i i will be uh presenting the equity and inclusion update tonight and um i would like to share where we are in our equity and inclusion work and in our journey and why we are doing this work we started this work long before the march shutdown from the pandemic over a year ago with some of our leadership team attending summer trainings from our region in the hampton roads area from this training came the initial equity audits and we were unable to complete those at that time i shared the inequities that were evident in the data at one of our meetings a few months ago
096and i would like to share some of this data now be before i continue so i handed out to you we have advanced studies diploma data for the last three years and these are students who receive an advanced studies diploma or standards diploma and you see on there in 2017 and 18 of the black students 46 of our black students are getting an advanced studies diploma compared to 59 percent of our white students in 2018-19 that number went from 43 percent of our black students to 62 percent of the white students in our most recent year 2019 20 39 of our black students received an advanced studies diploma and 60 percent of our white students which is just one indicator to show there is a decline of the number advanced studies diploma with black students
097if you don't pay attention to equity and on the next sheet is the enrollment for our school division as uh 421 2021 and you see in that the percentage of black students in our school division is 25 and then on the bottom if you look at some of the key areas where we have black students enrolled in certain programs and this speaks to access in our ap classes only 10 percent of the students are black in dual enrollment classes 15 of our students are black in middle school english i mean middle school algebra excuse me are black and in gifted education 10 percent of the students are black and again the total black population is percent the next set of data is discipline data and this comes out of our systems and it's broken down
098as you can see there elementary school middle school interim in-school suspension short-term suspension high school the same thing and you see the percentages and if you look at the percentages in elementary school even though our black student population is 25 percent they make up 46 of their referrals and in middle school 38 of the referrals and then in high school 42 of the referrals in the next sheet i want to share with you this is a formula that is developed and used for by the virginia department of education and what it does is score and compares how likely are you at risk of being suspended in school or out of school or any other sanction that may occur and so if you look at the column of 1920 the risk ratio and there's a chart
099on the bottom the risk rate ratio says if you are 1.0 you're of equal risk of getting suspended whether you're white whether you are black whether you are a special ed student whether you are economically disadvantaged if we have a score around one there's an equal chance you're going to be suspended and 1.25 means you're at a 25 high risk and 1.5 means you're at a 50 percent higher risk of being suspended if you're in one of those categories so if you look at that chart and then go to white students you see their score is 0.5 so they're well below the equal risk then if you move to black students they are at 2.48 which means they're over well over a hundred percent and 150 percent more likely to be suspended than a white
100student if you look at special ed students they're at 2.4 our special ed population is way above and more likely to be suspended in school or out of school our economically disadvantaged students are at 1.9 these are all identifiers and achievement gaps that we look at for testing by the state well we also look at them in these other areas and you can see the inequities in every one of these subgroups now this is state data right that you just straight from our our systems and the data we enter every day and yes from from that we submit to the state and that's the state formula is this overall or just for alawite county that's alloy company okay those are our schools so i'm going to go back so at the that same meeting when
101i shared some of this data i presented that we would be refocusing our efforts on equity and inclusion and putting together a strategic plan for our school division and conducting a more thorough equity audit in each of our schools since that time we have hired an equity and inclusion coordinator miss kiana cox jones that has experience and expertise in this area to assist with this work i need to make clear that the burden of this work does not lie on any one individual we have been conducting training or what i call courageous conversations about equity and inclusion that will assist us in examining the practices and policies that are in place in our school division to ensure that these practices are benefiting all students the trainings have started with our school board and i thank
102you for attending those our executive team and our principals we have not reached the point of specific training yet with teachers and other staff our plan was to start with leadership because any work that we undertake that will improve outcomes and student achievement requires a collective understanding and commitment from all involved we are using an equity-driven approach as we work to educate all of our children we are focusing on equity-driven leadership that will assist our principals and their staff in accessing the supports needed for all children in their individual buildings this will inform my leadership team of the needs of each school in order for us to support them with the resources and additional training they may need at its core we are doing this equity work to ensure that we are providing access opportunity
103and the appropriate supports for every child our core business is teaching and learning for every child let me give an example that may help people better understand this important work prior to this new word or this new language of equity we have used words such as achievement gap when discussed when discussed in sol scores we have used identifiers such as white and black economically disadvantaged and special needs students for many years in fact for the last 20 years or more we have been discussing the achievement gap without anyone getting too upset about any of these identifiers we have been charged with closing the achievement gap for as long as i can remember the reality is that the achievement gaps have not closed significantly for black students special education students or economically disadvantaged students we implement
104best practices collect data plan remediation and discuss the importance of differentiating instruction yet the gaps still exist this brings us back to the question do the practices and the policies we have in place meet the needs of all students in our school division examining our practices through an equity lens will allow us to find the barriers that exist that are preventing each individual student from becoming successful that requires us as educators to seek additional training in education for ourselves if anyone should understand that it's an educator and we have to have courageous conversations about the barriers that we do find and identify only then will we begin to understand what additional supports and resources that individual students may need to be successful we have a good school division with good teachers and we are fully
105accredited i feel good about this and i think many of us feel good about this and we celebrate it every year unfortunately that's not the case for everyone i want you to understand that being fully accredited means 75 percent of our students are passing the test and feeling successful and yes that number changes depending whether it's history science math it may be 85 percent in some areas or 90 percent in some areas or right at 75 and others but that leaves a percentage of students that are not achieving some of these students fall into the identifiers that i mentioned above that the state uses to define the achievement gap areas as we celebrate our overall successes i want us to stop and think about how the student and the family of an economically disadvantaged student
106feels or how the black student feels or how the special needs student feels when they do not have the same success i want us to think how the student without any disabilities feels how about the student that is economically advantaged and fails in and how about the white student who fails how do they feel what i'm trying to say is no matter how someone is identified we cannot leave them behind i want to reiterate what i stated earlier at its core we are doing this equity work to ensure that we are providing access opportunity and the appropriate supports for every student to be successful i have heard education is for all students for 30 some years we're not achieving that we've gotten better through the years but we're still not achieving that this is why
107i am focusing on the work of k-12 education as it relates to equity i.e the achievement gap data discipline data opportunity data i understand the need to be cautious about diving too deeply into societal and political equity work issues but at the same time i understand there will be times where these two worlds intersect we're living in some very troubling times and recently there was a series of incidents in one in our own community that caused the intersection between our k-12 work and society issues i sent a letter to let families and students know that counselors and staff were here to listen if needed my letter was trying to reiterate we're just here to listen if our students are talking i understand that our students are having these conversations without us and as adults and
108educators we need to be able to have open honest conversations as well not only with our students but with each other i have recently received some comments from educators and the community after sending out my message following the incident in windsor which coincided with several other incidences around the country i also received comments from educators and community after the message that miss kiana cox jones sent out that i read many times and approved to send out on district news to support our black educators and staff specifically and then to invite all staff with supports some individuals feel that we are calling them racist and that we are creating division and racism that did not exist in our county prior to introducing the need to address equity within our schools i am not going to shame
109anyone or fall to anyone while implementing equity in our school division i personally am at a starting point where i believe educators are not racist i'm at a starting point for myself that i am not a racist for myself i'm aware that i have biases from my lived experiences i understand using words like bias is a scary concept to many people i also understand already in my early stages of training that we all have biases and biases are not bad bias biases make us all human i further understand for myself that having conversations about equity and biases will enable me to understand my biases better and to be mindful of them as i make decisions this work will allow me to become more empathetic with my fellow educators that i work with daily and with
110students that i am charged to serve most importantly i understand that this hard work will make me a better educator my job as superintendent of schools is to ensure that children feel safe feel included and have the supports and resources in in place while preparing them for life after graduation this is my why for equity and inclusion training and conversations in our school division i hope you have a better understanding tonight and i hope everyone will join me in having courageous conversations with each other along the journey to support and educate all of our children here thank you [Applause] anybody have anything they want to add to that i've also gotten a lot of comments about the equity and the new position something i told somebody i was on the phone with a constituent and
111one of the things i said i i don't think you understand what we're trying to achieve when we're trying to achieve equity within our community people start at different points in different places and just because you give someone the same thing doesn't mean they're going to end up in the same place if you have a student who's in the desert and you have a student who's in the ocean but you give them both a boat the student in the desert it doesn't do them any good they're going to be stuck in the same place they're not going to be able to move but the student the ocean is going to be able to move and sail for that boat to be effective we have to get that student to an equal place as that other
112student and that's what equity is really about and um i i agree with you dr thornton we all have our own biases and some of them are good and some of them are bad and they help us navigate life in our own way but it's about removing those biases and helping people to understand other people to treat achieve true empathy towards each other for us to move forward as a county as a society so we can help and understand each other i i just i can't see how this isn't seen as a crucial piece to give our students that leg up overall in life going forward all we're doing is improving their understanding of the world improving their understanding of other people and helping them have equal opportunities to move forward in life and i
113think that is so important and i'm so glad we are moving forward in this direction that we are going and that we are able to spot when we have a problem and not just say oh well that isn't a problem and keep on moving today we spotted a problem and we're fixing a problem and i think that doing action is so important and it's that's a good example for our students also going forward that if you see a problem you work to fix the problem thank you [Applause] madam chair i just i was just listening to mrs hughes hewlett and dr thornton thank you and i would like to say what mrs hewlett just said you give those two students a boat and one is in the water and one is in uh in the
114desert which we all know the desert is saying the only thing we are trying to do as a board and what dr thornton is trying to do as the administrator is to make sure that the student in the desert is eventually will get in the same place as a student in the water the only thing we want to do is maybe show that student in the desert how to build a sale because what they sell he will be able to glide across the sand when the wind comes okay and that's all we're trying to do is to get them to improvise some of the things that people throw at them in in their life they will be able to understand those things and put them in a category where they can go forward and continue
115to be successful thank you i actually have something i'd also like to add on the topic of equity so last week i and a few other of the members of the student-led and student-founded equity committee at windsor high school who also examined some of the same data you're looking at tonight last year before the school shut down to the pandemic had the opportunity to meet with ms jones and a few other members of our school leadership and our county leadership last week and i have to admit a lot of my friends going into the conversation were a bit scared of what it would look like they were a bit scared of what they'd have to share and going out of that conversation they all reached out to me saying how much they finally felt heard
116for the first time in this crazy year where it's so hard for student voices to actually be heard and it the conversation just reminded me of the reason i'm up here student voices are the ones that need to be uplifted above everything especially in this initiative because i've been given a boat stuck in the ocean my whole life and i will admit it but i know that my fellow students not everyone has [Applause] very i want to make sure everyone heard leah and her fellow students at windsor high started a student-led equity committee before we did yes before we started this work so very good i've heard you talk and others talk about courageous conversations and i was reading something today and there's another piece that i think is important to that and the article
117talked about open hearts to each other's life experiences so when we have the right heart then that fosters a place to hear each other and connect to each other's experiences which leads to what the article said this isn't me creating this but it said headspace you know once you've got the courageous conversations and you connected with each other's life experiences then that leads to headspace to develop ideas and then that leads to your hands where you carry out the actions so it's the heart the head and the hands and i thought that just adds a little piece to everything that we've said and i want to say that tonight when mr williams came came up here and he ended with i love you all see that's what it's all about i don't know everything that
118each one of us has gone through but the root of of things happening is love it's love okay next on the agenda is return to learn update madam chair members of the board dr thornton this evening ms sketz and i will provide you with information regarding our plans for virtual learning during the 21-22 school year and i think we'll get the powerpoint queued up here in just a second brian we have the powerpoint ready for the virtual learning that's it thank you they're very busy doing numerous things thank you appreciate it all right so as we look towards the 21 20 21 22 school year we definitely are already well underway in planning and one of those components of the plan is for virtual learning and as we're moving forward we do plan to offer
119virtual learning as an alternative to in-person instruction which obviously we're very hopeful will be five days a week we are also looking at whether students are in person or families are choosing a virtual option that they are really looking at it as a um a commitment and that there's continuity there and we're going to work with our families on what that looks like so i will state here and we're going to go into much more detail as we go through the subsequent slides but virtual learning will look very different next year than it does this year um just a couple changes there and we'll get into far more as we go through but we're going to have an application process there'll be a contract with you know very clear requirements for families to agree to
120for their children and for the students to agree to just one example that's up there on the tail end of that is that for instance for our elementary students it won't just be a couple of days a week of synchronous real-time learning with their teacher it'll be five days a week and um with that being synchronous in-person i'm sorry synchronous learning with their teacher so two different components to the plan and uh what you can see here is that we're planning to create an in-house virtual school for students in grades k through five and uh ms getz will share some details of that in a moment but basically we're going to have isla white county school teachers assigned at the grade levels k through 5 to teach virtually and then for our secondary students those
121students and families who are interested in virtual learning grade 6-12 they'll be enrolled in virtual virginia and we'll be going through what that looks like in just a moment now i will say that um as we as we look at um you know both of these plans know that a great deal went into informing these plans looking at what we've been doing over the last year in virtual learning feedback from our administrators our teachers our our parents and even our students on how things are going things like what is asynchronous learning like for a very young child in many cases that's not a great model and also for our secondary students and teachers the concept of concurrent instruction where i have students in my classroom and then i have students who are virtual zooming in
122we know there's great difficulties with that model so a lot of that feedback went into the development of this plan i will also say that the virginia department of educated the virginia department of education has encouraged divisions to take advantage of and use virtual virginia for their online needs and also we've done a great deal of collaboration dr thorton myself ms getz and all the members of our team with other school divisions in our region and actually far beyond to really look at what might virtual learning look like during the 21-22 school year all right before i dig into elementary i do want to share a little bit about the virtual survey this is not up here i'm just going to share the information with you so you may know that we sent out a
123survey last week for parents to sign up if they have interest in their students being virtual next year i just want to give you a little overview of the numbers that came in for that so about 550 students have expressed interest in virtual learning k through 12. um for k through 5 actually first through 5 we're looking at about two classes per grade level of virtual students so we'd probably need to have two virtual teachers for each grade level with the exception of kindergarten and that's largely probably because a lot of those have not even enrolled yet or registered with us for middle school and high school it's about 370 students so those are students we would be looking to use virtual virginia and so the information that went out had details about what that
124might look like it linked to virtual virginia because it's very important for parents to read what virtual virginia offers and we'll talk about that more later but it is important for parents to understand going into this what virtual is going to look like it's not what it was this year and so that needs to be understood clearly we will be having information sessions at the schools before parents are actually asked to sign the contract so that's coming but i just want to give you an idea of the numbers about 550 students who are interested in virtual learning and just to if i could susan just to kind of put that into context of where we are right now right now we're around 30 percent it might be a little over that of our students or
125virtual learners and the numbers that susan just cited would put a set of approximately 10 next year and that's k-12 yes correct correct did i hear you say that out of that 550 uh which is total k-12 370 is middle school middle and high together okay yep secondary so those would be the students using virtual virginia okay so let's talk a little bit more about elementary and then as you have questions feel free to stop um so again we are planning to have five days of virtual learning for elementary we will using our teachers for the elementary we as a division as an educational institution we do not recommend virtual learning for k2 you know these are foundational literacy skills foundational math skills and a lot of this is really hard to teach in kindergarten
126first and second so it's not something that we recommend however we do recognize that due to health needs some parents may need this as an option so we are offering it as an option students in virtual learning will have core class instruction every single day so there's not going to be the asynchronous we also need parents to understand that the resource classes that they typically have had that is going to be limited it is probably not going to be every single resource offered and it probably will not be every single day and it may not be live resource classes it all depends on what we can work out with our in-person numbers we will offer something but we're not 100 sure what that's going to look like but we anticipate it's not going to be
127every resource class that you would get in person learning prior to the pandemic were we having any students at all doing virtual learning and if so how many not in elementary school there were none high school um they utilized virtual virginia some did you keep up do you know the numbers though susan i can't it wasn't full-time so it would be like a class with virtual virginia so nobody that you are aware of was was using we didn't have any we had one that wanted to yes yes but through virtual virginia full-time we didn't have any black so but we do use it often for classes that we may not offer or we can't work it out in our schedule and you're probably familiar with that i think yeah um we are asking for a
128year-long commitment um one of the things we found this year that consistency is very important so having kids go back and forth which our kids have this year um through choice of the parents they've gone back and forth between virtual and in person not necessarily great and we will be using canvas as we have this year that will be continued and of course students will receive a non-white county school-issued technology device um as we also said students will be attending classes monday through friday and it will be on zoom and it's going to be regular school hours now i know the first question is so you mean there's not going to be they're going to be on zoom from 9 to 3 50. not exactly we will allow breaks of course and the teacher will
129work with that schedule but for the most part we will be following school hours we have to they have to have the same experience that our in-person students have um attendance will also be based on being present that's very different from this year so you have to be present on the zoom in order to be counted present and if you are not and you have absences we will be looking at chronic absenteeism and truancy just like in person students the other thing that will be different is the expectations for turning in assignments currently we have a leeway as when those assignments can be turned in that will not be the same they are due when the teacher says they are due just like for an in person so we really are mimicking in person it's
130just going to be at home and if i could add something susan when when riskett said the clock hours have to be the same the the state allowed waivers through this pandemic there are no longer waivers so a student has to have the state required clock hours which is why they will be attending just like any other student all day long are you sending those i'm sure you are though making sure that you send those out with the parent uh agreement yes ma'am that is in the contract make it very large yes you are correct yes i don't want them okay it was fine print yes large print no okay so just a few more details on parts of the elementary plan here really you're looking at the requirements for participation and you know as
131ms times is saying some of those things you want to make sure are very clear to everyone and i think we've done that already but we're going to continue to do that reliable high-speed internet obviously is a must demonstrated success with virtual learning we want our students to be successful we want the families to have a successful school year next year and so part of what the principals will be working on with the families is how successful was your child last year in the model that they were within again we're talking about that continuity with the with real commitment to the plan that they're in um computer cameras on uh during the virtual sessions completing the assignments ms getz talked about that it's it's not going to be a delay it's it's going to be
132when the assignment is due and then also having that adult present to offer support for these elementary children when they're at home engaged in virtual learning moving to the um secondary virtual plan so here just um some more information obviously we've stated that for students in grades 6 through 12 choosing virtual they would be enrolled in virtual virginia again these are primarily you know core courses you're not going to see an honors identified course like we have they're primarily your core there are courses that go beyond just the core but it's limited we would not be offering you know through virtual virginia the types of cte courses that we have available for in person um you would not have um an isle of wight county schools teacher you would have and a virtual virginia teacher
133and approved through vdoe also here the students would need to adhere to and follow the virtual virginia calendar and all the expectations and guidance that are in their student handbook we've provided all of that to our parents already who completed the survey there was a just an array of information that we provided to them at that time and again through the information sessions we'll be able to provide more information into may here so here with the secondary plan and enrolling students in virtual virginia we'll still be providing those students with a alawite county schools device students who participate in the program again they we want continuity for those students so we really want them to think about hey this is my plan for the year we have already encouraged parents and students to really dig
134into the virtual virginia information make sure that looks like a good fit for you and we want to help them with any questions they might have with that information regarding virtual virginia and again just like for elementary reliable high speed that is an absolute must to do this again students should have demonstrated that they were successful in virtual learning we don't want to do it again if the student wasn't able to be successful and again a year-long commitment is what we're asking for and the courses that are available are very limited mrs perkins you're absolutely correct so you know there are um general courses there are ap courses they're not the honors courses so the selection compared to our in-person high school selection is very different right yes and so parents would have to make
135that choice and as mike said the cte courses you're not going to get that from virtual virginia the middle school um you said six through eight is that going to be the same basic curriculum we have but without any honors or any electives is that what we're talking about it is very much the same as far as middle school goes um there's not we don't have honors in middle school so it would be much more similar um the electives we're going to have to work on that and see what we are able to offer for that but it is not offered through virtual virginia other than foreign language that might be an offering and so all we did here was just pooled just the language from this was the for instance like the elementary contract
136which you don't see here is a signature component and all at the bottom but you know very clearly again um this this is a contract and it's really talking about that initial and continued participation in virtual learning in 2122 these are the requirements so there's nothing here i don't believe that we haven't already spoke to in those bulleted items but i would draw your attention to that highlighted area where it says alawite county schools reserves the right to administratively drop a student from the virtual learning option and return the student to in-person if the above mentioned requirements are not met that's intended to help our children we're not going to let a child continue to fail or suffer or flounder in a virtual environment now would that be done haphazardly no we're going to work
137with families and figure out hey what's the dilemma what's the problem how can we help you resolve that but if we find that this is not right for a child we're certainly going to move that child in person if if that's where that child really needed to be and where the family determines you know what yeah we made a mistake let's let's let's do that um so we did put that in there these requirements really need to be met we want the children to be successful and the parents need to understand i'm not gonna say they don't understand sometimes they don't know that we as a alawite county district in the state of virginia we're responsible for every school-aged child k-12 and those in the adult program as well if they sign on and the
138only other option that parent has that that alawite county would not schools will not be responsible for their child is to completely take them out and put them in home school and that at that point we have nothing to do with that we just have to approve it to make sure we know where that child is and what that child is doing as far as being educated thank you all right so just a quick look at our timeline um right now we are in we've done the virtual survey we have disaggregated our results we are looking for parents to commit by june 11th so between now and june 11th we will have information sessions for parents to ask questions we'll do some of those virtually and perhaps in person as well for parents to really
139ask questions and gain an understanding of what they are committing to by june 11th we want the commitment we want the contract our next step will be selecting our elementary teachers because we will have to look at numbers kind of preliminary what we're thinking is we'll look at the elementary numbers the school that has the largest amount of students for like let's say first grade whatever school has the largest amount of students who enter who are interested in virtual that might be a school that loses a teacher to virtual learning so see all that has to be worked out so that'll be the next step we have to register middle and high school for virtual virginia and then another important note is that virtual virginia actually starts a week before we start so it doesn't
140matter that our calendar is we start on the 7th of september virtual virginia starts on august 24th so parents have to be ready for that and then that would be for the next school year and and just to kind of recap i think we've talked about a few of these already but just some necessary steps of course we already talked about the survey the analysis of the data susan started to lose there to now it's time to look at you know the allocation of resources and so you know we've been talking with dr thornton now as we're looking at data really trying to navigate what that will mean for the allocation of the appropriate resources to support our kids and our staff um the con the contract signed by the parents the commitment um by
141june 11th that's going to really allow us to really put the plan in place and also get those students enrolled in the virtual virginia courses so that we can take care of that step in the process and um we'd be happy to answer any other questions you may have you answered already thank you all right so will those students who are virtual students will they be counted on our adm correct they will yes okay virtual virginia and our in-house students uh elementary we're still responsible for them unless they like we said they go home so you know because we're taking our elementary teachers and just they will be just like they're doing this year some of them will be special teachers but the middle and high is going to be total virtual virginia but we
142can still count them absolutely that's correct and as i said the virgin department of education has actually encouraged divisions to use virtual virginia it's endorsed by them and it's a great online option well at least for some families they may determine that will if they're virtual will they have any connection with any of our teachers so like if they need help in some way or some regard or they have to reach out to the virtual virginia teacher if it's middle and high it is totally with the virtual so they would have no connection to a actual teacher in isle of wight county unless there's special education services and we're working on how that might look all right okay good thank you all right okay so now we are on action on our closed session items
143we need a motion for our personnel report and addendum madam chair i make a motion to approve the personnel report and the dentum as presented okay we have a motion and it has been second vote please okay motion carry next on the agenda is the adoption of the consent agenda madam chair i would like to make a motion to approve the consent agenda as attached and presented we have a motion do we have it section okay we have a motion and it has been second vote please can i get a verbal on this one please yeah so that's enough i'm staying miss yes ms carr yes miss perkins aye mr wilson yes thank you okay next on the agenda is policy updates and revisions so 19.1 is policies for the second read this is an
144action item or is there any discussion any questions madam chair i'm sorry did we skip the uh did i yes meeting minutes and that was that was the last one thank you madam terry make a motion to approve the second read policies second i have a motion it has been second vote please okay motion carried not next is 19.2 policies for the first read there are two policies any discussion or questions on these two policies this is just information okay next on the agenda is 19.3 regulations and exhibits there's one item any questions okay last on the agenda is board member request and comments i just have one comment and that is of course i think was it today it was uh uh bosses appreciation day today or yesterday yesterday yesterday i believe well we
145are just a day late i'm sorry i just wanted to say thank you to all of the bosses in alawite county public schools you make the board job much easier and you make alawite county schools successful thank you very much thank you anybody else okay anything down there okay our meeting is adjourned thank you okay