January 29th 2026 King George School Board Regular Meeting

001Great. >> I'd like to call to order the King George County School Board meeting. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance and then a moment of silence. 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. Um, we have Mr. Ben Trit from Thrive to bring the invocation. Thank you so much for coming today. >> Uh, thank you. Let us pray together. Dear God, we thank you for this meeting tonight for for all of our schools that we have. We thank you for our teachers and we thank you for this board and everybody who's here tonight. We pray for unity among this board, for understanding, for their wisdom, for you to

002set their direction, to guide their discussions and the decisions that they'll make tonight and every meeting. We ask you to instill confidence in the future through their decision making and that their decisions reflect your will. We pray for protection for each of them and their families. We pray for your blessings on the teachers and the administrators and all the support staff at all of our schools. We pray especially for all the children in our schools uh this week while they're off. Keep them safe and return them safely to school. We pray for their safety every day and for their continued learning. We pray for the rest of this school year that you would bless it. We pray for blessings on everyone who's here tonight and blessings on their families. We ask all this in Jesus

003name. Amen. >> Thank you. All right. And then we have any employee comments? >> One. >> We check online too. >> I don't have any from online. Yeah. >> Mr. Pastor Sherman Davis. Hi. >> How's my hair look? I'm Pastor Sherman Davis here in King George and I'm here to read a scripture to you and give you a thought. Uh the only thing that I know of that can't be earned is salvation. In uh all the religions of the world, man seeks after God. In Christianity, God seeks after man. Scripture says that uh Lord Jesus came for the son of man came into the world to seek and to save that which is lost. In all the religions of the world, man serves God to earn salvation or to merit approval. In Christianity, God serves

004man. and he met our need for justification and forgiveness and sanctification to be declared not guilty. In the book of Hebrews chapter number 12, the scripture says, "Looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame." The joy that was set before him, of course, is those that redeemed, those that trust Christ. and to set uh sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him that was endured such contradiction of sinners against himself. He endured our judgment and our punishment. And so we were thankful tonight. You go all over the the all over the world or any country for example you can go to India and uh in India you will find out there

005is just multitude a multitudes of different religions and all of them are all of them accepted they worship the Brahmabul uh they worship anything that will the man can worship they'll worship it everything in India is allowed to worship except Jesus Christ and he's not accepted and missionaries that we support have to hide out and uh do things behind the scenes. The one true uh god is not accepted. Not only in India but all over the planet, men uh worship something. They worship morality or uh uh moralism. They worship atheism. Atheism is a religion. They worship materialism. They worship any kind of ism. office and in America every man worships himself. He's God and whatever I want, whatever I want to do, that's that's he's his own god. Everything's accepted except one thing. And even

006our schools uh go up to the school and say we want to talk to you about Jesus and you know separation of church and state. In many of the this world you will u go to places where people who are Christians will be imprisoned, tortured, uh enslaved and even killed, beheaded because of the name of Christ. Let me say this and I'll stop. I didn't realize I run out of time. I can't >> if he should terry if Christ should if Christ should carry car tarry 2,000 years from now. Excuse my English, but ain't nobody writing any songs about you or me? It's been 2,000 years since he was crucified and rose from the dead. And they're still writing songs. And 2,000 years from now, they'll still be writing songs about the Lord Jesus Christ,

007the son of God, the one who rose from the grave and offer salvation to anyone that'll come, the God man. Simply uh as the Bible says, believe it in your heart and uh you shall be saved. >> He's taking advantage because I'm his daughter-in-law. >> Is my time started yet? >> You're done. >> Has my time started yet? >> Love you. >> It says three minutes. Thank you. God bless you. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Um, and then we have superintendent comment. >> Uh, thank you, Pastor Davis. We always appreciate you being here. I know you can hear me out there in the hallway. So, thank you for coming. That's all I have, Madam Chair. >> Okay. All right. Then we have uh any changes to the agenda? I think this is Cleveland. >>

008Madam Chair, did we want to add as a discussion item um snow days? Yeah, I mean I talked with Dr. Yes, that's fine. Yeah. >> Do we want to add that? >> Can someone second it? >> All right. I had a second from Ed. Um any discussion? All those in favor? >> I motion passes. And when do we discuss that now or? >> No, we will do that at the second discussion item. >> Okay. >> And then any uh our health insurance review with >> Yes, madam chair. So, first up this evening, we have Heath Thomas from Mark 3. He's the one that helps us every year with our uh health insurance renewal. And as you guys know, this is always an important puzzle piece to our budget moving forward. So, uh Heath has always

009been an advocate of King County Schools and helped us a lot in our uh in our healthcare needs. So, uh thank you, Heath, and the stage is yours, sir. >> Thank you so much, Dr. Boyd. Uh good evening, board. Thank you for having me, uh on this very cold and icy week. I'm happy to be here. uh as Dr. Boyd mentioned, so I am helping the school system with uh not only the health insurance, but when we came on board a couple years ago, we looked at voluntary products as well, as well as the employee enrollment process for onboarding, offboarding, and all of those things. >> Oh, perfect. Thank you. >> So, uh as we go through this, obviously the main topic is going to be the health insurance. We will certainly go through that.

010And I know that's going to be an important thing, but just to give you a background of who we are. I know we have a new board member from previous years, we are an independent broker. So, we are the last family-owned brokerage that focuses on the public sector in the southeast. Uh we currently have a large footprint in Virginia. We are headquartered in North Carolina. I'm actually in Chesterfield and managed uh most of Virginia State for us. So, beyond the health insurance, we're also providing an enrollment platform for your employees. I mentioned voluntary benefits, flexible spending accounts, onboarding, offboarding. Uh we're essentially an extension of the benefits and HR team to try to take some of their day-to-day work off of their plate and allow it to come to us. Obviously, no benefits are great

011unless we can communicate them to your employees. So, we work on a variety of ways to do that, both with benefits, books, videos, uh, little feedback, uh, as well as direct communications and one-on-one meetings with the employees on site in the spring during open enrollment. So, let's get to the focus tonight, which is the health insurance. So, uh, what you have on the screen currently is a listing of your membership and claims from the time period of October 1, 24 to September 30th, 25. This will be the time frame that uh we anticipate local choice will use for your renewal window. Uh they have backed this window up a couple months in the last 2 to 3 years. This used to be a uh 121 to 11:30 window and now a 10:1 to 9:30 window.

012So just some brief takeaways on this particular uh listing here. You can see your enrollment has tweaked up just slightly in the last 12 months in the low 410s, 14s to up to 422 in the month of September. But I want to focus on the claims. So on the far right, this is the total claims that the group has spent. And this is medical claims only. So that's important to know because when we talk about local choice, they uh are not transparent. I won't say they hide the pharmacy data, but they're not transparent. There's not reporting that directly gives us pharmacy data. Our anticipation and the data we have seen, we anticipate you're spending about 2.8 or 2.9 million in pharmacy right now in addition to this $5 million that's shown on the screen for

013medical. Okay? And I'll go through that in just a minute. The other thing to note here is that just on a month-to-month basis, you're averaging right now in this 12-month period of time about $400,000 of spend a month on medical. Um, we're going to talk about some other months and some things that are going to come up and that'll be a good reference point. So about 400,000 on a monthly basis currently. This is a list of your high-cost claimments. Anthem defines a high cost claimment as anyone that spends above $25,000 in that annual period. So you can see we have 38 of those people. Uh, these could be individual, spouses, dependents. There's no determination. It could be anybody on the plan. And you can see we have some really high figures up at the top.

014A couple of people have spent over $200,000. When Anthem calculates your renewal, you are going to get some relief for people that have gone above $125,000 threshold. So, it's important to see where these people fall. Uh, but just so you know, we we talked about the $5 million total. These 38 people have spent $3 million by themselves. Okay? So, a very small segment. We'll talk about what percentage that maps out to be in just a moment, but a small segment of the population spending a huge chunk of the percentage of the claims. So, this is our mockup of the uh local choice renewal. This will look very similar to the renewal that they will send out in uh in theory any day. Uh I was hoping that I could have the email on the way

015here. Uh it in previous years they had given the renewal sometime around the middle of February to maybe even towards the 20th 22nd. uh we are told by the end of the month of January we should have the renewal in hand. So any day that could be firmed up. Uh in this renewal I've left to the right here three years of rate history. So you can see where we've come from and you can see the first line item down in line item A. This is the paid claims that you have had in the last few years. And you can see only three years ago you were only at about $3 million of total medical spend. This year you topped over $5 million of medical spend. So in a very short period of time, we've seen

016an extremely high uptick in the amount of claims being spent. Line item B is the relief that you will get from the claimants above the $125,000 threshold. Uh you had eight of those, I believe, which totaled about $410,000. Which brings us down if we look at the uh line item G, the trend. So this is the percentage of general increase that the insurance companies are looking at. Uh it used to be that we would say that seven or 8% trend is pretty standard. I and our company thinks that number is tweaking up to probably eight or nine maybe even 10% trend with inflation and the cost of health insurance in that way. Uh so I think this is a number that you will see an increase and I have a the first yellow highlight here

017uh for impact of blending. So because of your benefit with local choice, you do get some relief of blending with other municipalities who participate in the local choice program. You can see in the last three years each of well, in the last two years, this has been an item where you've gotten $130 and $160,000 credited to you in your renewal calculation, which has cushioned the renewal uh increase over the last two years. If y'all have been here for the last two years, you know I've I've been saying an increase is coming. We've gotten some good relief in the last two years and one of those areas is in the impact of blending. So I have that calculated currently as a zero right now because I don't think we can bank on that. You can see

018in 2023 you actually had an increase of $146,000. So I don't think that we can bank on a large amount of money coming back. So I've left that in as a net neutral zero. So line item I is a net total of your projected medical claims with the net difference of the spend of the claims in excess of 125. And then we go into the other items that Local Choice builds into the renewal. So because you're getting that relief on the claims above $125,000, you have to pay what they term stop-loss or reinsurance. This year I'm anticipating that's going to be approaching about a million. Last year it was $846,000. But you can see the uptick of the last couple years. We were at 519. We took a 20% increase to 611. Another big increase

019to 845. And so I am anticipating that this is going to be an area that you're going to see an impact. Uh the claims as you saw on those 38 people, there are expensive claims throughout the the benefit and there are some claims that are coming. I'm going to talk about in a moment that is going to justify that particular increase. Uh, next line item down, line item four, is just a percentage uh, based on the premium that Anthem charges. And then I want to stop and pause on these next two line items because I want to mention that I I said a moment ago you're spending about $5 million in medical. We anticipate you're spending just under $3 million of pharmacy, but you also in your current contract are getting dental and vision, which

020I'm estimating to be about 1.7 or 1.8 million for the upcoming year. So, it's a total package that we're talking about here and we're going to talk about what other alternatives may be out there for you and and what justification there may be for that. So, the next line item is the contingency reserve fee. This is another yellow item. This is an item that you have received significant relief in the last couple years. This line item is particularly designed to give you relief in those years that you're not running as well. Uh, and it is the fund balance that helps keep everybody stable over the course of time. Um because of the variance in this, I left it at zero. Uh but I do think there is an opportunity you could get some money back

021here. I just don't want to overestimate what that may be and put you in a different position than you end up at. Okay. All those things combined bring us to an $8.6 million estimation for the 2026 2027 plan year. That is an 18% increase over where you currently are. So the first question that always comes to mind is is that justified? I think right now considering that you're spending $5 million in medical and roughly $3 million in pharmacy, that's about $8 million in quick math. And then you're also getting $1.5 million of uh drug coverage. You're getting 300,000 in dental and you're also getting vision. Okay. So all those things combined, I think you are in a pretty good situation. What that means for us though is here's the recap. So where we are right

022now TLC provided substantial relief. Uh for those of you who are in the room the last two years, I know we were calling for 20% increases and it was justified in the math. I think it still sits there. Um but they came in with some relief. If they come in with that same relief, that 18% will will dwindle down pretty significantly. I just don't think it's a number that we can bank on right this moment. Uh part of the reason for that is the claims are still up. So in the last 12 months, the net claim effect is up another 14% from where it was. You can see only three years ago we were spending about $3 million in medical. Now we're spending five. So the overall increase is pretty substantial. The high-cost claimants represent

0234.6% of your population spending roughly seven 60% of your claims. That's that area of the reinsurance that I do anticipate an increase in. Um the pharmacy contract I mentioned a moment ago. So based on the reports that we can find, we're estimating about again just under $3 million of pharmacy spend, but they're only charging you right now $1.495 million. So it it is a sizable value that you're receiving in that particular part of the contract. Um the October 2025 claims numbers are not in this calculation. Um, again, based on the window of time that Anthem is looking at for the renewal, we anticipate that window shuts on September 30th. But just so the group is aware, the month of October was a very difficult month for the school system in regards to claims. I mentioned

024your average claim spend in the last 12 months around $400,000. In October alone, it was 1.3 million. Okay? So, one month some very high cost claimants came through. Now, when we get to renewal next year, you'll see some some relief from that because a lot of those people will be above that $125,000 threshold. But basically, in one month, you spent what you've averaged for three. Okay? So, there is an expensive month that was not included. And the reason I bring that up is when we look at alternative options, the logical alternative outside of local choice would be to go to a self-funding arrangement. um it it would not necessarily be a good thing to move to a fully insured arrangement because you have benefits in your plan right now that you could not have under

025a fully insured basis uh mainly around stop-loss and pharmacy. So if you were to go self-funded, you would have to pick up a substantial amount of risk in order to manage those claims. So there could be an opportunity to mitigate some cost, but there is if these claims continue to come in, you are assuming some of that risk that right now is being offshooted to Anthem. Okay? because of the way that your contract is structured. The way that local choice works is kind of a middle ground between a fully self-funded product and a fully insured product. So, you get the benefit of having a set rate from Anthem, but you also get the benefit of getting the relief on claims that are above $125,000, which you do not get in the standard fully insured world.

026Okay. Um, all that said, we anticipate a firm renewal from Anthem any day. Again, it is supposed to be by the end of the calendar month of January. I am anticipating an increase uh in the mid- teens. It depends on how much relief Anthem is going to be able to give you on those two yellow areas I highlighted in the impact of blending in the contingency fee questions. >> We have we have some >> I'm sure >> we're kind of getting our thoughts together. >> Please do. >> Yeah. Just a minute if you don't mind. Yeah, >> Madam Chair, I have a question. Oh, I'm sorry. No, he said he doesn't. Go ahead. He said he did you have one? >> No. >> Yeah. >> Can you explain to us again? I'm just trying to

027figure out the TLC. Can you explain to us how that works? >> In what regard? And like >> I just I just I don't I was trying to figure out what it what does it all entail? Like where where how is it being calculated? I think I missed that part. So, it's being calculated the the state at DHRM and Anthem are getting together and setting the plan designs. There's five plan designs that you can choose from. You currently offer three of those five. That's a pretty standard process. That's the most that you can offer. Uh, in regards to the rating system that's going to come up, that's really based on the claims. So, the only two things that are somewhat up in the air would be the impact of blending, and that is a matter

028of what other groups are doing, which we don't really have access to see. Anthem has all that behind the scenes and then the reserve fee. So those are the areas that they can play with that they have helped you tremendously in the last couple years to alleviate some of the increases but the in regards to the functionality of it there's really two paths for insurance. One is fully insured which is you pay Anthem or United Healthcare whoever it is a premium and then at the end of the year they tell you how much your premium is going to be for the next year depending on your claims. Okay? There's nothing that you do in the middle. You just pay your premium. If you went self-funded, you would wait weekly and you would get a download

029of all of the bills that your employees would have. And that could be $50,000 a week or $200,000 a week and you would pay those as they come in and you would pay a carrier, an administrative fee for processing those claims because you're actually funding them. Okay? Local choice is somewhere in the middle because if you were self-funded, you would also have a catastrophic cap called stop-loss. So if you ran into a $200,000 bill, you the school system could stop paying and the reinsurer company, i.e. Anthem in this case, would pick up the bill so that you don't have to cover that expense. Local choice is blending all of that together for you and bundling it with other municipalities right now. Does that help? >> So this is a credit that you can possibly get

030because of money that we didn't spend based on what other other people are doing. >> Correct. Of the That's what I was just trying to understand the functionality why. >> Thank you. >> Sure. >> My my question. Would you have a question? >> I'm just understanding so because you you you pointed out like in October how we were so high on the are there months that we're not we don't even like we're low. Do we get credit for that instead of >> Yeah, I mean they're going to look at it at a total. So um you know based Yeah. A low month was 277. So in March you had a a low month of 277. May you had 274, but then in June you had a 607. So there's always going to be variance to

031the claims. They're looking at it right now on an annual basis. They're basing it from right now 101 to September 30th. So what I'm indicating is that if we were to shop the plan, so let's say you said if they came back at 15 or 18 or 20%, we we can't do that. We've got to go to bid. No, there are some high-end claims that are not even being calculated in this percentage that if you do go to bid would be calculated for any other business. So by that I mean >> I guess why are we being punished for one month and why isn't that being kind of balanced out like the other good months are? >> Well, it will be. I'm I'm just telling you that >> well it's it's going to make our

032rate go up because of like one month type situation. Well, it's going to depend on how much of that $1.3 million comes back in those credits. So, we haven't we haven't gotten that report and that wouldn't be until the renewal for 27. We wouldn't see that until unless Anthem changes the game, which they have the rules so they can change it. But based on what they've done previously, that would not be relevant to this particular renewal. We would have to cross that bridge for next year. >> Okay. um it would be relevant if the school system wanted to go to bid outside of local choice because at that point they would look at those new claims whereas local choice is not looking at them currently. >> Do does anybody else have a question? >> Do

033you do you have a question? Go ahead. >> I just uh do you guys does our health insurance uh like have a cap on what they're willing to pay the medical providers kind of like Triricare used to do when we were military. They wouldn't pay but so much for a cat scan. No, ma'am. Not to my knowledge. So, they all have negotiated rates of what they they're willing to pay for services, which is why you'll see occasionally, you know, a hospital system may fall out of contract with a provider for a couple months while they work those fees out. But no, there's uh there's not like a lifetime cap or anything that used to be >> not not a cap, just in the price alone because I'm looking at I was looking at that one

034screen where it was showing who you how much money each person is spending in medical cost. And how do we know those aren't just overpriced medical services? >> I mean, that's a great question. Anthem is paying those services. So, I mean, I would assume that they wouldn't be just shelling. >> They're paying them, but we're being punished for what they're willing to pay is what I'm asking. Like, are I wouldn't I wouldn't necessarily >> if we could we can't. I would like to see what's being charged, but I know that we can't. >> Yeah. I mean, I >> but I feel like there's some over cost being paid and then that's why it's going up because medical costs per the same. What I'm trying to say is it could be I could go in this

035year for a broken arm and it's $1,000, but then I go in two years, it's going to be $4,000 in cost. Nothing's changed in my health. I just broke my arm twice. >> Sure. And that's where that trend uh line comes in on this particular area is just the overall trend of those claims in the in the market. >> So >> is on there the price of what we what we pay into it versus I heard you say it once for the pharmacy. >> So your your current premium is roughly three uh $7.3 million. >> So that that number at the top and then the bottom of the 2025 annual year. That's what your that's your rough current premium. That could variance with enrollment if you had some families that dropped off some employees that

036came in, but that's a good estimation. >> And then the 2025 is showing what we what you guys paid or was that our current >> that was the renewal data. So in 2025 you paid 6.57 in premium and then they increased your cost to 7.3 which was a 12% increase. >> Sorry, M. I'm sure you've probably been asked this before, but um is there any sort of like wellness plans that employees can get enrolled in that we could partner with to make it so that the employees could like um better their health, per se? >> Absolutely. >> And do we have anything like that in King George? Have we talked to you about that? >> We have a wellness coordinator. We've been participating in some of the health fairs. We've been trying to get some

037of that going, but yes, I think that is something that we can do. we have a coordinator that could do just some generic contests or mailings, you know, whatever the group wants to do, we can do. The problem with wellness and local choices because it's they're basing it on the claims per se. You're not getting dollar for-doll back in the wellness. So, a lot of TLC Wellness gets left out because you don't you're not a self-funded 5,000 life group where every single dollar that you pay out in claims is a direct savings to you because there's sometimes these numbers can calculate out that you might be do a a a negative a decrease and that's very rare for Anthem/TLC to pass out a decrease. They usually will play with those two other numbers to find

038a way to make that so that it's about a flat. Um, so it's very rare that there's any any decrease, but yes, from a wellness perspective, we can do everything from mailings and small programs to things where blood draws on site. I mean, it's really just a matter of how involved you want to be. >> So, there are wellness plans, but it wouldn't really affect our rate or at all. >> It wouldn't have a direct impact in your rate. >> No, but what if they stop? >> Well, I still like I still like the idea. I just know in my work we have an offset. So, that's what I was wondering. like a differential of premium. >> Yes. >> Okay. So, uh there are certain guidelines that local choice sets out on how what percentages

039you have to pay for premium as long as we stay within those guidelines, but that's set by Anthem and the state and as long as we stay within that we can have conversations around that. Um there are also some potential alternatives for um you know increasing contribution there. There's other ways that we can play with the numbers once we get the official number of what is actually going to be the firm renewal from Anthem. >> Yeah, I I do think that we should consider um some sort of wellness program for the employees because it is super helpful for them to stay healthy and get the information that they need. So, if there's something that we can talk to you about, I think it would be beneficial for the staff. >> Absolutely. >> Yeah. Okay. Go

040ahead. You mentioned last year um the projection uh was 20% increase and then it ended up being what? >> 12. So this year it's projected 18. We're going to have to go with that till we get the actual relief numbers or not. Um is it I've only I've seen it each year significantly decrease. So is that like pretty standard or you just have no way of knowing? >> Well, so I tend to be more conservative as we're trying to build a budget. tends to work better conservative than the other way. And quite honestly, I just can't foresee half a million dollars of relief every year. I mean, if I I would love to tell you that, but it's just if I I can't tell you that it's going to come if I don't think it's

041going to come. And unfortunately, that's a really large number to take a 20 down to a 12. Um, and so that's where the relief that you got, but I don't think that that's a predictable year-over-year relief. >> Okay. Thank you. Do we have a like a cost breakdown of per medical service? Like what you would pay? Like if I had to go get a some I don't know, my foot broke and I needed to cast like what that would cost me. What you guys pay? >> Sure. >> Like a breakdown of services. >> We could get a breakdown of services if you had something in specific. >> Yeah, I I'll ask I'll get with you. >> Anybody else? >> Okay. Um that's it. >> Thank you. He Thank you so much. Certainly appreciate you making

042the drive from uh Chesterfield. >> No worries. >> Yeah. Thank you. That is a long drive. Okay. The gifted advisory committee annual report. Mrs. Harris. >> Good evening, Chairman Davis, Dr. Boy, and esteemed members of the school board. Again, I'm Angela Harris. I am the supervisor of elementary instruction and I also serve on the gifted advisory committee. So our goal here tonight um just to share you some of the great things we've been doing on the committee and talk a little bit about a snapshot of our programming, our gifted program from K to 12 as we go. So currently our gifted advisory committee there are 21 members which includes parents, teachers, administrators, and schoolboard representatives. Um our chairman of our committee is Miss Ann Lewis and our uh schoolboard representative is Miss Rachel Scott. And

043I certainly do want to uh take time to thank you again, Miss Hoover, for your years of dedication and serving on this committee as you're kind of passing the torch on to Miss Scotch. So, thank you for all your your help and support. Um, we do meet three times a year. Unfortunately, Miss Lewis, I didn't want to with the weather pending and the change of their date of this this uh event tonight. I she usually kind of does this with me. The chairman does this presentation with me, but I'm kind of flying solo. But I do want to recognize my team mom here. I have Miss Aaron Cable. she is supervisor of secondary here and also have uh two of my wonderful teachers in the back. I have Miss Amanda Miller and Miss Kelly Barnes

044that's always here to support too. So I wanted to recognize them because they they are some of the things I'm going to talk about. They are the heart of the programming that I'm going to mention tonight. So I do want to recognize them. So some of the goals that we established this year is uh we want to increase communication and professional development um in the gifted program. Uh that is kind of a continuation from last year's goal. Uh we are making steps and I'm g talk about it a little bit later in this presentation. Uh the professional development piece in the gifted program. We're really excited this year for the first time. We were invited to uh participate in a region three gifted uh collaboration meeting in December which was really nice. We actually uh

045got to learn new ideas but we also got to showcase some of the good things we do here in King George. Uh Miss Kelly Barnes and Miss Mary Murgis presented at that uh event. So that was kind of cool and we're looking at doing that uh moving forward next year. We want to explore ways to expose and identify more underrepresented populations in the gifted program especially our focus has been on females getting more girls in the math program. Um so we're trying to think of ways to kind of you know get the awareness out there um for our girls and we would continue to discuss and revise if needed the current gifted plan. Um we have this time have no made had made no changes to our gifted plan but we did just participate in

046a gifted technical review that we'll get feedback later this spring on. So in the future we could be making some changes based on the recommendations from that experience. So to what does our gifted population look like? Um it has increased. Uh we have a total of 215 uh students enrolled identified gifted K to 12. that represents 4.9% of our King George County school population. There are 117 male students, 98 female students. This represents over eight different races. There are 22 twice exceptional students and there are 43 uh students in our program that would be labeled economically disadvantaged. So I would think that we are doing pretty good overall um campusing of underrepresented populations because our numbers are going up in in different uh groups that I've mentioned. So I think we're doing pretty good there.

047So a little snapshot about our programs um elementary gifted services grades K to two we offer uh pull out reading services. The students meet with a gifted resource teacher twice weekly for about 40 minutes. Uh, Kelly Barnes, she services uh, Sealston and PTOIC, and she also does the third grade um, reading classes at the center at King George Elementary School. And then Miss Amanda Miller, she services uh, King George uh, elementary K to2 students. Uh, in grades three to five, the students attend King George Elementary School for the full-time gifted instruction in math and or language arts. The language arts curriculum extends beyond the state uh required standards and intentionally challenges students beyond the grade level expectations. And of course, our math uh coursework extends beyond grade level expectations in third and fourth grades. And

048in fifth grade, we start our acceleration program where fifth graders are taught the fifth and sixth grade um so content and they're tested at the sixth grade level. We have been really lucky the last three years. we have used some of our all-in funding um to really to to give some opportunities to our gifted students um beyond just what we can offer in the course of the day. So, we have hosted uh our own created uh camp, if you will, our gifted camp for the last three summers and we will be able to do it again this year because our funding runs out on June 30th. Um uh so we're really looking forward to that. So, last year I want to tell you a little bit about that. We run this parallel with summer school.

049So, it helps with transportation, helps with food. Um, and it's just a really really cool idea. Uh, I really could not pull this uh whole camp off without the help and support of our resource team. Um, the the things the activities that we do there, we really base on children's interest, what they're interested in, the students, and we also really I rely on the teachers interests and their creativity and and their passions because that's what we pull this together. Um we don't really follow any type of curriculum if you will. Um it's really about creativity, problem solving and we do partner with Dow in the STEM outreach. So they have they do bring their equipment and resources and we offer at least one class there and kind of benefits them too. Gets them out of

050off the base and they can work with kids for an hour for a few days out of the summer. So this has been a really great program. Um I'm really hoping we can continue to find ways to support it. But this is just mentioned a few of the things we did last year. We did journalism, medieval times, drama, game making, creative writing, geography, breakout rooms, survival scenarios, and uh we're currently now designing what next summer this summer is going to be like. So to be continued on that. Not sure what what we're all going to do, but it's going to be going to be a lot of fun. Here's some pictures of some of the activities we do throughout the year. Let's give you that. Middle school, high school. As we're transitioning to the secondary,

051we'd like to think that all that work we do at the elementary really helps um move along with the high school. In grades six through 8, identified students participated in gifted language arts classes. They are accelerated in their math coursework. Sixth graders take math 8 and then seventh graders take algebra 1 and then eighth graders tag kids take geometry. In grades 9 to 12, students are counseledled into classes for strength specific acceleration. They have opportunities in honors classes, advanced placement, AP classes, dual enrollment with differentiated in curriculum and they have option to apply for two different governor school and the academy of technology and innovations. And I do want to give a little shout out to our distinguished high school um just based on there's opportunities for all type of learners to be honest with

052you, not just identified gifted. So kids that really are high performing kids that want to accelerate or have passions in different areas. We have lots of course works and I want to really uh shout out to the high school because we're small. The high school in in relative to to around us, we're kind of small. They offer 10 honors classes. They have 16 AP classes and eight dual enrollment. That's over 34 higher level classes that students can can, you know, have an experience or have an opportunity in. So that's that's worth giving a shout out to. >> Yes. Also, just a little bit about those programs. I know most of you are really aware of these programs, but we have the Commonwealth Governor's School. That's a school within a school model um for grades starting

053in 9th grade. We have the Chesapeake Bay Governor School, which starts in 10th grade that really focuses on students um that are interested in math, science, and technology. We have the Academy of Technology and Innovation, excuse me, ATI. uh that is uh program is located located at the University of Mary Washington Stafford campus and emphasized on computer and data science across various disciplines and we also have summer residential governor school that identified gifted students high school juniors and seniors with intensive educational experiences in visual and performing arts and humanities medicine health sciences mathematics science and technology so that's other uh applications are due in the fall and I believe um we've we've had kids that have applied for that. So that's great. We also um we have opportunities for the summer for the secondary level

054as well. We have the Freredicksburg Regional Summer's govern summer governor's program school is housed in James Monroe High School. Um that's kind of really a field experience where uh we filled all the slots last year I believe. So that was great. Um another opportunity there and applications will be coming home very shortly for that. It's a quick turnaround for that Monday. Coming home Monday. There you go. So, our next steps, what are we working on? Well, we were supposed to start this week. Our second grade universal screener was supposed to be administered this week that we've been out. So, we're going to pivot and we'll probably do that. We'll start that next week. Um, we want to continue to enhance communication with all stakeholders about the program and the gifted identification process. Uh, the committee

055right now is working on updatingformational pamphlets. um that really one one pamphlet explains just basic programming K to2 and all the things that we offer here in King George County. And then we also found it uh the process of especially at the elementary level where kids have to kind of move from uh if they found eligible for gift to services and they want to attend by third grade and up they have it's site based and they have to move to Kingers Elementary. So, we are working on a pamphlet that kind of just kind of makes that user friendly for parents to understand um and really understand the process of what that looks like once your kid is being going through the evaluation process. So, at our next uh meeting which will be held on March

05618th, we're going to be finalizing those pamphlets out and we'll distribute them to all the schools. We will continue to look at the current plan to access it effectiveness and how it can better meet the needs of our gifted learners. we always are looking to ways to improve or change or you know kind of adapt to what comes to us. Hence that's how the whole gifted camp came about at the elementary school. Um and next fall the gifted resource teachers will present PD at the three elementary schools to educate staff on the characteristics of the gifted students and to discuss the referral and the testing process. And again our next gifted advisory meeting is on March 18th. Just want to thank everyone. I want the advisor committee for all their hard work and dedication because

057I think we're doing some amazing things. And again, thank you for all my teachers, especially for coming out this cold night. Appreciate all that you do. >> Thank you, Mrs. Harrison, and all your staff and or everybody that's come out tonight to do this annual report. Any questions from the board? >> Yes, I've got some questions coming. And Angie, you mentioned that under the elementary gift to summer enrichment that you use all-in funds. >> Thought allin was for absenteeism. >> No, the all-in funds it it comes in four it had four main categories and we we really took advantage of three of most of them. It comes in any instructional programming and I included gifted when I wrote the grant because I didn't want them left out. Um it curriculum development. It included um helping

058supplement pay for bus drivers if we needed it, paying for tutoring like after school tutoring, our our camp excel program, any day tutorings that we had. So we really the focus the bulk of the grant was on remediation and remediation intervention. But I always feel like this population kind of not gets left out, but we feel like they're doing good. And and and just having that summer camp has been tremendous, not only academically for our kids, but the social benefits it has because we really have a quick turnaround time. These second graders, if they're identified and you know, parents have to make a really tough decision to bring them to the center. So this camp has allowed them to kind of come and see the peers, meet them before we get started acclimated to the

059school. So that was one category was instruction and then we have all the second category of that grant was the Virginia literacy act. So there was funding for that and then the third one was um absenteeism. So and then the state dictated I think it I don't hold me to this I can't remember the percentage. I think it was 30% for VA 20% for absenteeism and then the rest of the grant was was for academic needs. And then uh you talked about along with the governor schools, we've got the uh ATI. >> Is that that's not a gifted program, right? >> No. Well, any of the governor, you don't have to be identified gifted to apply to any of these governor schools. So that that's the that's the beauty of it. Um so the answer

060to that is no. You don't have to be gifted to apply. >> Okay. Do you know off the how much governor schools cost per year? I mean, we talked about Chesapeake and then then the ATI >> and uh >> it's in it's in the budget. I don't know off the top of my head, but okay. >> Budget book that uh we can look up and I'll go I'll I'll show you where when we get to it. Yeah. >> Ed, >> we will be increasing our seats at ATI next year. So, we'll have seven more seats there. Remember that the goal of that was eventually have 21 28, excuse me. >> Yeah. >> Sometimes four, 28. Gota do the math. >> There are seven every year. >> Yes. >> So, you'll see that in the budget

061as well. That >> And how much per year? How much for seven? >> I think it's >> it's like 7,000 or >> 50,000. It's in the presation. Yeah. >> Right. Yeah. >> About 70. >> I think it said something like 50. So, so by the end of four years, we'll have $200,000 going into that. >> All right, M. >> Mrs. um Rachel, real quick, sorry. on um the slide where you talk about the elementary gift services. Uh you say math coursework extends beyond grade level expectations and language arts extends beyond state related or state required curriculum. Can you elaborate a little bit more on uh what those entail? Well, we do f they we have the standards. We everyone follows the the the Virginia standards of learning. Um and we do have explicit reading material

062instructional materials for reading in grades three through five which is benchmark advance. So what it is we they're still use they're using that curriculum but they're supplementing it with other things um that just enhance the curriculum if I will. It goes a little bit deeper. they can move at a faster pace uh just based on on what the kids need. Um Miss Miller, would you like to >> Miss Miller? She she teaches it. So, who better to answer this question, haven't we? Yeah. >> And I've also been fortunate because I've taught all three grade levels. I've taught third, third, fourth, and fifth. So, we do like Miss Harris said, we follow the benchmark curriculum. And what I'm able to do is because I am able to go faster through the curriculum for the most part.

063So some of the things I do in the benchmark curriculum say for instance plot in the benchmark plot is done with what they say it's kind of beginning middle and end. So for me I was also a middle and high school teacher first. We start with we do exposition rising action the climax the falling action and then the resolution. So it's just that advancement because the terminology does not change whether it's third grade or 12th grade. So that's going to be it. We also incorporate novel studies and we um once again because we can get more done. So and I don't want to speak for Miss Meres but the same thing applies in the math classes. So she's able to take she follows the curriculum but she is able to extend beyond the curriculum. She's

064so it's an extension of what is going to happen in the in a traditional classroom. >> Says Hoover. >> I was just going to say um to Miss Harris, you should give a shout out to Steam night coming up >> while you got a chance. >> Yeah, you go. All right. >> Steam, what is it? March 12th. March 12th. So, yeah, please come. It's gonna be fun. >> Any other questions? Any questions? Thank you. >> Yes. Thank you. Thank you, ladies. All right. And the fun FY27 budget presentation, Dr. Boyd, shocked myself. All right. Good evening from this side of the DASIS. Thank you guys for being here tonight. So before we jump into the budget presentation, I do want to make you guys aware you do have the budget book in front of you.

065This is going to become very active for you in the next month or two when we get questions from the community. And it really gives you the opportunity to really dig into every dollar that we have in our budget right now. So if you look at the tabs associated with the binder in front of you, the first tab, the summary presentation is going to be what I present this evening. The second tab is going to be our revenue report that comes from the general assembly. I'll explain that later in in greater detail. The third tab, and really the third, fourth, and fifth tab, is where you're going to be able to reference information for questions that you receive from the community. So, the third tab, the budget book, goes through how we spend every dollar

066in the school division. It talks about individual staff positions. that talks about really all of the personnel within our budget right now. If you go to the budget summary page, budget builder summary page, you'll see an overview. This is really this is the color uh coded Excel spreadsheet. This goes through all of the uh stuff that is associated with the school division. And then follow behind that is really a detailed report of every all of the the stuff again all of the software programs the the diesel fuel I mean from A to Z everything that we have to purchase in the school division is in that report and then the last tab is uh requested positions which you can review as well. Any any questions on the budget book? I know many of you guys

067are seasoned veterans with this so I won't go into greater detail but uh again this will become very valuable for you as we move forward into the public facing portion of the the budget process which really begins tonight. So going into the presentation first on the front end let me say uh thank you to Jen Brody. Jen Brody is our brand new finance director. She wasn't able to be here this evening. She's uh like many of us snowed in right now. She lives in Fredericksburg and and the snow plow came by and created a mountain of ice in front of her driveway. So, she couldn't be here this evening, but I can tell you the work that she's done behind the scenes has made us very efficient, very agile, and and and very able to

068present a solid budget for you this evening. We've been uh blessed, and she's been a godsend to me in terms of this budget process. So, uh I just want to thank her. uh projected revenue and funding requests for fiscal year 27. All right. So, the budget development timeline, the budget really begins way back in November. And that's all of the stuff that's internal. We start with uh staff, student, and parent uh advisory sessions to the superintendent. We begin opening the budget builder. The budget builder is that multicolored document, Excel document that you have in your budget binder. We do all the behind-the-scenes work in November and December. In late December, we get the first notification from the state which comes out in the form of the governor's proposed budget. So, as of right now, this

069budget that you've received this evening is based on numbers we've received from Governor Yncan's proposed budget. I say that because there will be a lot of modification between now and the end of the budget process. So we we'll probably get some amendments from our new governor. Obviously the general assembly will have some effect on the budget and things will change as we move forward. I would imagine that based on my previous experience this is going to be I think a longer drawn out budget year in terms of a state state budget working all the way down to localities. So I think some of us have been involved in budget processes that go well into to June almost on the eve of July 1st. So, I wouldn't be surprised if this one runs that long, too.

070I know that I know the county wants to move forward at at a pretty quick pace, which I certainly think we all appreciate. I'm just a little worried about what goes on on the state level. >> Yeah. >> Where we are this evening is we're at the end of January. This is the first budget presentation to the school board. Tonight, I'll just give you the initial overview of the budget presentation. Our next schoolboard meeting, we're responsible for having a public hearing for anyone in the community that would like to speak on behalf of the budget. We'll also have a work session uh for the school board where we set up tables here and we work through the budget and I answer any questions that you guys have or you have received from the community. And

071then the meeting after that, it would be the responsibility of the school board to approve the budget so that we can deliver it to the to Mr. Small Nick and the county. And you can see that's all laid out in the budget timeline. So the process uh my my uh responsibility is to deliver a needsbased budget to the school board. Uh the way that we do that is to consult a number of uh data sources. We use our strategic plan which you'll see referenced a number of times in the budget tonight. Uh we obviously consult our current operating budget and see if it meet it's meeting our needs. We get a lot of information from the state, the general assembly. Uh we use staff surveys and listening sessions to get information from our employees. Uh

072we use the budget builder to figure out what we need in terms of stuff in the division. And uh throughout the year I offer many opportunities for superintendent advisories uh with different stakeholder groups. I've got parents uh teachers, students that all come meet with me to talk about budget needs throughout the year. All of that information is compiled into what you see this evening in the budget book. My responsibility is to deliver that needsbased budget to the school board. We work through that as a school board and as a superintendent and then our final responsibility is to deliver a balanced budget to the board of supervisors. That's the conclusion and then obviously they will approve their budget which includes us. They'll send it back to us and and we'll make final approval of our portion

073of that budget. So part of our school budget is always based on uh how many students we have in school, average daily membership. So every year we take a close look at where we are in terms of enrollment or average daily membership across the school division. State funding in Virginia for public schools is based solely on the number of students that attend school. Why do I bring that up? Because up until this year, we've always had a slight increase in our school population. This year, and we believe based on numbers we've received from Weldon Cooper, enrollment across Virginia for public schools is beginning to to tick down uh in in all school divisions, really across the Commonwealth, and it's believed to continue that way all the way up to about 2030 right now. So, we've

074made adjustments and predictions based on enrollment that we think we're going to get. So, if you look at that last bar over on the right hand side, uh students coming in. Now, this is average daily membership. That that changes that that is a complex number that has to do with the number of days students attend, whether or not they're full-time students or part-time students. There's a lot of variation to it. Our average daily membership projection for next year is 4,230. We will use that number to determine the amount of state funds that we receive uh from the from the Commonwealth. If at any time you guys want me to stop and you have any questions, just just cut me off. Yes, ma'am. >> Um if our enrollment is higher next year than what you're anticipating,

075how does that impact the budget? >> So, uh what that'll do is that'll give us more state funds. Uh they take they take they take that measurement two times a year. They take it on September 30th when we begin school and then they take it at March 31st at the very end of the school year. If the number changes or it increases, we would end up with more state funds. If if in the last 10 years, that's a very small number that we've seen. It excuse me, it adjust up and down. It doesn't really change that much year-over-year. Miss Hoover, do you have a question? No. Okay, next slide. On the far right hand side there, and again you guys have copies of this, you also have it in your board packet because there's some

076live links that you can click on with some additional information. Uh on the right hand side, you can see uh each of our school buildings broken down with uh student enrollment as of March 1st, 2025 and then student enrollment uh just at the beginning of this month, January 5th, 2026. And on the far right, as you know, we're always concerned with capacity in our school buildings. You can see the capacity of those buildings and where we stand in terms of enrollment. Okay. Local composite index. Local composite index is something that the state of Virginia uses so that they can fairly award state funds to localities uh based on their ability to pay for public school. So all 132 school divisions in Virginia are measured. uh we happen to fall kind of in the middle. Our

077local composite index is 3641 in this bianium over the next two years. Uh what that means in summation is that our locality should be responsible for paying at minimum 30 36% of the cost of public education in King George. Uh and then the state and federal pays the inverse of that. Uh again, local composite index is not binding. It's it's something that uh the state uses in order to award state funds uh across the commonwealth. The way the three things that they look at just just for uh you know education is they take a look at the true value of property in in King George, they take a look at the adjusted gross income and then they take they finally take a look at uh taxable retail sales. All three of those things are rated

078and then the state funds are awarded to localities based on where they rank in those three areas. All right. Our budget alignment always adheres to our strategic plan. I think all of us uh schoolboard members, myself and and everyone that works in the schoolboard office probably has these memorized now. We really hold them tight to our chest and really try to make sure that our initiatives are uh focused towards these goals. So goal one is employee investment and development. Goal two is quality instruction and innovation. Goal three is community collaboration, engagement, and communication. And then goal four is safe, secure, and healthy learning environments. Many of the budget initiatives that you'll see moving forward in this presentation tie back to these specific goals. Every year in the budget process, we we survey our staff. So,

079we send out a survey early on in the budget process. Uh this was uh I think back in December, and we asked really a couple simple questions. Do you have the equipment you need to do your job? Do you have the supplies? And do you have the programs and services needed to do your job? What we see in these uh piraphs are what we typically see uh what it what it shows is that nine about nine out of 10 of of our teachers right now uh believe that they have the equipment, supplies, and programs and services they need to do their jobs effectively. So that's that's a good sign. In fact, the programs and services number has really ticked up to about 95%. So that that's even better. The second question we ask because it's

080always major major parts of our budget uh proposal to staff, we ask them, please rank these three priorities when you're considering a budget increase. competitive salary increase, addressing the compression we have in our pay scale, or having the school board cover the health insurance increase. Those were the three priorities. So, the first priority on the left hand side in blue, resoundingly, the staff said salary increase is our number one. They believe is their number one priority. The second priority that they thought we should address is compression. And then the final priority that they thought was important in these was uh the school board covering the health insurance increase. Does that make sense? >> I have a comment. Thank you. So it does make sense. I'm curious though, do they understand how much the health insurance

081is? And so when you think about the year-over-year percentage, especially when he just came up here and said that it could potentially be pretty substantial and last year, I think it was even more than that when he first came to us. Um, I think maybe we just need to get some >> awareness around that, right? So that everyone is aware of how much that is because essentially that's more than what an increase in salary would would be getting that paid for. >> Yeah. >> Does that make sense? >> It does make sense. Yeah. and and we'll talk we'll we'll dig a little bit deeper into what some of those numbers might look like uh moving forward. I'll show you I'll show you what I mean. Typically though, the the largest increase for an employee of

082those three would be their salary increase. Compression over the last couple years has has made a decent difference for our teachers that were at step 10 and above. And then health insurance again is a variable, you know, like Miss Cleveland is saying that that keeps ticking up on us. So something that we do need to consider. Oftentimes, one of the most important decisions that the school board makes in this budget process is where we stand with health care and what we intend to do for employees and employer coverage. >> Dr. Boyd. >> Yes. >> Forgive me if you already answered this, but how many filled out this >> uh participated in this? Uh, I think it was >> last year was >> this was like 450, I think, but don't quote me on that. I

083think I think it was a decent number. >> Okay. >> All right. Again, budget initiatives because what you're going to see next is how some of our uh budget requests tie to our strategic plan. So, again, strategic plan goal number one, employee investment and development. One of our priorities in this budget process again is to increase salaries. Um and and we're going to request an average of 4% uh which includes the adjustment in compression. I'm going to explain to you what that means. And so as I cover this right now, I'm going to go over these costs. They'll make more sense when we move forward. To increase salaries by an average of 4% and to adjust compression, it's going to cost $1.6 million. Now, that's not going to be $1.6 million. That's not going to

084mean that the locality has to cover that $1.6 million. That's going to be that that's a $1.6 million increase between all three of the funding sources that all three of the revenue sources we have, state, federal, and local funds. So, when you see these numbers, it doesn't mean that they all are going to be on the back of our local uh board of supervisors. Uh the second budget uh request is to increase our hourly pay scales for assistant cafeteria managers. We have a discrepancy right there right now. Our assistant cafeteria managers uh we're having a difficult time finding them because the pay scale is almost exactly the same as our cafeteria workers. So we're asking for a small increase in that and really a small increase in our budget adjustment because of that. And then

085finally, in terms of strategic plan goal number one, I would ask the school board to consider um as Heath mentioned tonight, the 18% healthc care increase and how to offset the cost to employees. What you see there is two numbers. The first number is 1.3 million. That's if the school board picks up the entire cost of the 18% increase. And then the second number is 1 million. And that would be if we if the school board decides to share the cost between the employee and the and the school board with the typical percentages that we've used in the past ju just for you know for a scope. And again this 18% as as Heath mentioned earlier is a conservative estimate. Maybe that gets better and maybe that number you know that 1.3 million or 1

086million number gets lower. Any questions? I have a question. For the increase in power um and the assistant cafeteria managers, how many does that affect and what schools? >> Five. Yeah, that's five. One of these schools. >> So about a little over 4,000 increase in pay, >> right? Yeah. >> All right. So why is our major bud budget initiative teacher salaries? Uh take a look at our the surrounding counties around us. So, these are really the counties that we compete with in terms of attracting and retaining qualified educators uh for our school divisions. So, King George competes with Stafford, Spennsylvania, Colonial Beach, Caroline, West Morland, and Fredericksburg. Really, those are the folks uh that would be willing to drive to King George for a teaching job or drive to another locality for a teaching job.

087What you see across the top is the salary for those individuals at those particular years of employment. So if they've been working for us for one year, their salary is 51,05. If they've been working with us for 30 years, their salary is 83,513. Does that make sense? And you can see how we compare to the school divisions around us. And what I've done at the bottom is give you the relative position that we are regionally. So the best we are right now is fourth in the region in terms of teacher salary. And as we know in that middle range where we're trying to adjust the compression, that 5 to 10 year range, we we are second to last right now. So really our budget initiative this year is to increase these teacher salaries by a

088rate higher than I think we're going to see uh from the localities around us. And that's often a guessing game, but but I think a 4% increase with compression um adjusted would be a a a good a good leap. Any questions about that? >> Yes, Dr. Boyd. the compression you're talking about, what what years are there are we working on this year for that? >> So, what we did last year was step 10. The compression exists at step six through 9 currently. What Jen was able to do this year, which I think is much more equitable. She's taught me more about pivot tables and things like that in a matter of a week than I would have gotten in a graduate level course. So she was able to take a certain percentage of each of

089those remaining steps and increase them so that we weren't just looking at one step. We were looking at a a small increase of 6 7 8 and nine I think so that the overall sum at the end is the same and the increase on the back end of the scale is the same but we're affecting more teachers six through nine as opposed to just step nine. Does that make sense? >> Yes. And what I'm looking at here is one through five from King George uh from the first year to the fifth year comes out like $1,800 bucks. $1,800 is the only increase. And you go down to Stafford and there is a 6,000 >> increase. >> So I mean is there any way we can those are the people we want I would think that

090we want to keep. >> Yeah. No, we've talked about that. Actually what Stafford has done you can see Stafford's starting salary is is actually one of the lowest in the regions but what they have done and it took them multiple years uh the superintendent there was uh Mr. Thomas who's now in Montgomery County and I think it was a 5 to sevenyear plan for them and basically instead of having a linear increase in the salary scale where every step was 2% they had very small steps on the front end of their salary scale and very large steps on the tail end. So, it kind of had an exponential bend to it and it really is a salary scale that values the employees that have been with you for a longer amount of time. It's certainly

091something we've discussed and something that we wouldn't mind looking to into into the future. We we've got to get this compression out of the scale first though. Um that has to go before we make some of the other adjustments to to bend our salary scale upward towards the tail end. I mean, I don't see a lot of incentive for a young teacher to stay around if they only know in five years I'm only get going get paid $1,800 more than I'm getting right now. >> I know. I mean, you can you can see other than other than Stafford, you can see that in I mean, Spotsy's $2,000 difference. >> Yeah, but I think we're probably the lowest at 1,800. I think if it's what I looked at. Yeah, I mean we certainly we need to

092fix that part of our pay scale without a doubt. And I think what we're going to be able to do this year is make a dent, but this is going to take some time. This is going to take a concerted effort that we started last year and we're going to have to continue for really the next four or five years to work it all the way up to where uh it needs to be. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah. And again, you know, I do want to make the point that when we talk to most people, you know, in the school division and out of the school division, you know, we're not Stafford and and we don't want to be Stafford. Uh we're not spotsy and and we don't want to be spotsy um for

093for other reasons than just salary. I I think many people I speak with, they're comfortable with us being in about that third third third place spot when in range of salary when it comes to these school divisions. That's where we've traditionally been. Uh and you can see we've lost some of that ground in many places in all places honestly. I mean at best we're fourth right now. >> Can I ask a question Madam Chair? >> Yes. Um, I just want to be for my own clarity because I know you were talking about the the steps that we were that you were focused on and then we had some talk about the year 1 through year five which obviously needs some work on it but can you tell me again what the priority is Dr. Boyd

094on the steps that we're looking at? >> Yes. Right now the priority is to take the compression out of steps 6 through nine. Um, it's going to take a couple years. Last year, we took the compression entirely out of step 10. It's no longer there. The compression still exists at six through nine. And when I say compression, every step in our pay scale increases by 2% year-over-year. The compression steps 6 through9, they increase by 75% over those three years. So, what we're trying to do is get those those steps up to 2%. Um and then as Mr. Frank mentioned in the future work on bending that salary um scale upward towards the tail end. >> Yeah, I would agree with that. I mean I think those first five years are critical especially making sure we're

095keeping the teachers here. >> Yeah, >> I have a question for my own education. >> Yes, ma'am. Um, so these, uh, years that you're showing up here, um, say a teacher comes in, they have five years of experience at a different school. Are they coming in at year five salary? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> So, and we also are able to award previous experience for for a number of different things. I think early on, Rachel, you weren't on the board yet, Miss Scott. I'm sorry. And uh we talked about military service and and how many years we would provide for military service. So teaching it's it's one year for one year and then there's other areas where uh there's different ratios. But again we we try to do what we can to attract uh you

096know quality employees to to to the teaching force. >> Dr. White, I have a follow-up question on that. Um you mentioned military, but are you also considering like any other job experience? Yes. >> What about if it doesn't correlate to what they're going to teach? >> It No, not if it doesn't correlate to what they're going to teach. >> Yeah. >> Um Miss Cleveland, we I can't remember if you were on the board or not, but we modified our policy regarding that what about six or eight months ago, I think. >> That's about what time it was. >> Um for people people that were like maybe leaving the government but had some kind of experience that could correlate to teaching. So >> we often see it too in the CTE profession. So, you know, if

097we have somebody that's worked in the welding field and we need a welding teacher, then we work with them to give them that previous experience uh in the private industry so that they can come teach. And if they have the certification to teach in welding, then that's a win-win for us and them. All right. So, I've mentioned this already. I think healthcare increase considerations is always a a big conversation at our next work session for the school board. uh initial indications are are that we should estimate for an 18% healthcare increase. Really in the next two days we should know a firm number as to what that is. Uh once those renewal rates are received the school board is responsible for determining the employer and the employee cost associated with it. Uh, and then what

098you'll see here is um a link and you guys can take a look at it in in board docs. And what it does is it kind of gives you some cost estimates on this is what you were asking, Miss Cleveland. If you click on that link, it'll give you some cost estimates on not only the cost to the school division, but the cost to individual employees based on what health care plan they choose. So, how much their health care premium is going to increase uh based on the 18% increase? I think that's what you were asking. So, if you're a single, how much does it increase? If you have a family plan, how much does your premium increase? That's in that spreadsheet there. And there's tabs across the bottom. >> So, you're talking about their

099premiums increasing. But if the uh board covers that that 1.3 million cost, does their premium stay flat or does that increase in? >> Yeah, so it would stay flat. Um there would be no C if the board picks up the 1.3 million total, then there would be no cost increase to employees. >> Okay. >> All right. Strategic plan goal number two. Again, what you're going to see and what I'm going to give you tonight is just some highlights for these particular goals in your budget book. You can really dive in deeply to some of the things that are addressed in these specific goals in the budget builder book and in the um in the uh personnel uh the budget the budget book budget builder book and budget book. Uh so first uh as Mr. Frank

100mentioned earlier with the gifted presentation, the uh Academy of Technology and Innovation at UMW. We're in our third year. This budget request would be our third year. That's seven additional seven additional students. That's $59,500. Uh the second item here is the big ticket item this year. Uh if you remember last year, we had to purchase math curriculum. Uh the state is keeping us on track. If you've heard in the news, uh they have um uh redone the SOS for history and social science, the standards of learning for history and social science. So now school divisions across the Commonwealth are responsible for purchasing an updated curriculum to match those new standards. Uh the the cost for that is $686,000. And then again, this is just something small that I put in there, but the credentiing test

101for our CTE classes and state equipment is is a small sum of $10,000. And you can see these things in greater detail in in your budget book. Do >> Dr. Boyd? >> Yes. >> Do does the school board approve the curriculum? We do. >> Uh you guys will have a chance to take a look at it. Yeah. >> Just a new history and Yeah. >> But not the not the standards, the the curriculum. So the standards will come from the state. uh those were written by the board of education, the state board of education. Uh and then we we have to basically purchase a curriculum that matches those new standards. And honestly, there's there's not many to choose from. I mean, there's >> I'm just concerned at what they're trying to push on the new

102curriculum with uh and what we allow in our schools. >> Yep. Uh strategic >> not our staff. This >> No, I know what you're saying. Yeah, I know exactly what you're saying. Uh strategic plan goal number three, community collaboration. So, uh, King George County Schools and I know King George County and and really a lot of public entities have seen a huge increase in the number of foyer requests that we've received. Uh, so I know the county and most certainly the school division is looking at a FOYA management system. This, as you guys know, FOYA is uh something that really sidelines of a lot of our employees if we receive a request and we we receive a good number of them. And uh it also puts us on timelines to produce information at a pretty

103rapid pace. What this system does is it keeps all those entities on that timeline and creates uh open lines of communication between all those entities and meeting those timelines. So it's something really now um that that I think many public entities need in order to satisfy this increase in in foyer requests. uh we're trying to increase uh our our newsletters not only at the division level, but what we we'll begin to do is push out newsletters from the building level. So, we're looking for uh uh newsletter builders for our schools. That's what S'mores is. Uh and then finally, Canvas. Some of you guys have asked me about this. Canvas is our learning management system. through COVID and all the way up until now, the state has funded the cost of the learning management system. What

104we're being told moving forward is the state will no longer fund uh fund the cost of the learning management system. Localities have to pick it up. Uh so what you see here is our cost of renewal for the the learning management system. Now, what what is a a learning management system is a system that many of our teachers use uh to build curriculum uh to manage curriculum and really to push it out to our students uh virtually. Um so that's that's what they're using now and what they've used really since co if the school division wants to use it and I can tell you many of our teachers have have grown accustomed to using it put put their entire courses on it the renewal cost of that to the school division is is nearly $50,000.

105I like Canvas too because it prepares our students. It looks just like college Blackboard and Canvas. So, it prepares them how to use that. Um, however, I mean, you were discussing the other day, >> we have like three platforms that kind of share the same thing other than Canvas. You can do your class and stuff, but we have maybe Can we cancel the other things to and stick with one or do we need so many? >> We've talked about uh inventorying some of our things. Some they're unique. some things do different things, but I can promise you that that at the schoolboard level, we've talked about taking a look at some of the uh >> programs that we have in and the usage reports on those particular programs. I will tell you, I think it

106>> is hard though because it is >> some classes use them, some don't. And >> yeah, some grade levels use them and some don't. Uh, and then really what we were talking about too, the with with some of these programs, communicating with P school and making sure that they're accurate communication between P school and some of our other third party programs is something that we're trying to fine-tune. Many all all school divisions are trying to fine-tune. Sometimes they don't always communicate as well together, but that's something we we're working through. >> I know where you're going. >> You know where I'm going. Yes, with our with our push or I hope we're pushing I mean across the nation we're pushing for less screen time. Uh why do we need Canvas? I mean I have used

107it. Uh when I was teaching I used Canvas and there's nothing beats a teacher standing in front of a white board or a blackboard. uh you know we I think we should be getting rid of screen time instead of staying with canvas >> less yeah >> I I think uh I think balance is is what's going to be important I I think uh you're right a a teacher in front of a student is in everything that we've learned in in education that's the best model you can possibly have I don't think anybody would question you there no matter how that looks Um, our responsibility as public educators is also to prepare this generation that's in school for the world that they're going to enter. And so, we have to find a a fair balance between

108what we believe is the best education and also what we know they will have to understand and learn outside in the community. So, I I think screen time is certainly a conversation that many school divisions, including ours, need to have moving forward because I think coming out of COVID, um we were leaning heavy on screen time and we had to uh but moving away from that is certainly a conversation that folks are having across the state and probably across the country. I think balance is the key word and making sure that we find out the best way to support both of those initiatives is is key in my opinion. Uh mo moving on uh last goal is our safe, secure and healthy learning environments. So again project kind right now is our character strong uh

109or excuse me our character education program across the division. It's actually been very successful. Uh those that have used it on the elementary, middle, and high school really talk about how it it provides good lessons that our students can learn uh in the absence of really character education anywhere else. Uh you guys know that we're currently using the office on youth for discipline programs. We use it for substance abuse. Uh and they also have a mini course on u making u good decision good decision- making. So, we've used those a number of times with uh disciplinary infractions. The renewal for that is $16,000. Uh at the high school, uh when we're talking about physical improvements uh to to our facilities, King George High School uh needs to replace some of their analog security cam cameras

110and really pick up some of those blind spots that they have at the high school right now. Uh the camera system that we have is is good, but there's certainly some areas that need some improvement. Uh the fourth thing there, >> Dr. Boyd, real quick. Sorry. Does that grant that we normally get every year, is that going to apply to the >> school security grant helps out with some of that, uh not all of it, but uh it will take a portion of that and and it's often that school security grant contributes to um really anything that's school security related. >> Is that renewed every year? >> We apply for it every year. Uh we get a varying amount of money from the state every year depending on a number of factors. >> Okay. >>

111I have a question about that too. You remember when we went to the Northern Neck Technical Center and they had that? Have you guys looked into They said that wasn't that expensive. Was that true? Cuz that was amazing. >> Uh so the difference at Nor So we have a similar camera system as Northern Technical Center. What they have right now is is cameras in their classrooms. >> Okay. >> And and I thought uh that's that's a conversation that we've brought back to the schoolboard office and and we've talked about a little bit. It was only a couple weeks ago. It's certainly a a conversation that we'll continue to have. I'd be interested in in a number of stakeholders input on that, teachers, parents, uh, and get a better idea. You know, seeing it at Northern

112Neck Technical Center and talking to those teachers, they really liked it. Uh, they they thought it was >> very few discipline problems. >> They had very few discipline problems. So, >> backup. Yeah. >> Uh, it's something that it's a conversation I think we'll keep having at the school board office. Uh, Tech 5 is the new Virginia State Police fingerprinting system. So, all of our um employees, volunteers, anybody that has a relationship with the school division, uh, we're responsible for doing background checks on pretty intensive background checks. The Virginia State Police have upgraded their fingerprinting system and as a result, everybody that uses that system also has to update. So, that's the cost of that update. And then finally, uh we have $45,000 in the budget for some exterior security door repair and replacement. Uh we've

113got a few places in the school division right now that I won't mention, but uh that that need some doors that uh need some repairs. Uh we're working through some of those, but these uh security doors are uh expensive and and they're all functional right now. They all work. Uh but we need to make sure that we we need to make sure that we we're on top of them and and uh we we take care of the needed updates as as they come online. >> Madam Chair, I have a question about this. Not a question, but a comment about this and I I talked about this in the last time we were we were reviewing the strategic plan and I think this is super important that we consider things that from a security perspective that

114are going to be proactive versus retroactive. So, I understand the need of updating cameras where in the schools where we can see what's going on, but ultimately what we're doing is we're going back and and looking at things that have happened versus being proactive to avoid things happening, right? And like we like when uh Miss Hoover just was talking about the cameras in the classroom, let's get a let's get a price on it. We know that that is deterring the disruption in the class. And again, that's not necessarily being uh proactive, but it is we know that it's helping in other school divisions. Why are we not able why why can't we put in our budget? Can we do that? >> Put what in our budget? >> Put those cameras in our budget, >> our

115classroom. >> So, so that that potentially could be this. Again, we're on the front end of this. We've only seen this at Northern Neck Technical Center. We want to really kind of vet this with our staff and vet this with our our community to see if it's something, you know, to see if we get any type of push back there. I don't think we will. I I think it's I think it's a good idea. I can tell you uh the cost to outfit every one of our classrooms is going to be substantial. Now, that that wouldn't stop us from putting it in the budget. Uh that's something we can certainly do. Is there any other I can tell you we've looked at other technologies. So, uh, there's there's a zero eyes, which basically you can

116use in your cameras outside of your school division. I mean, outside of your school buildings, they're your exterior cameras, and they have the ability to um alert law enforcement if somebody is walking on campus with a with a a nonconcealed firearm. Uh, you know, that's a technology we can look into. That's proactive. There there's other technologies out there like that right now. Not not a ton though that we've been able to put our finger on outside of the the metal detectors that we that you know the weapon detection systems that we brought in last year. Another thing that we're really interested in that I think would improve the the safety and security of our students that have looked into in the past is uh the stop arm cameras for our school buses. >> That's what

117I was just going to say. >> Yeah. We're always having, usually when school starts, we're always getting emails and Facebook posts about cars driving past school buses. I can tell you when we when we looked into that, the cost was substantial. Uh it was very expensive for a school division of our size. Most school divisions that have employed that technology are uh your Fairfaxes and Ldens and and larger school divisions that um have that money, honestly. So, I thank you for that. And I I guess my my point is it would be a good idea for us to explore where maybe our threats are. And I mean, is there can the sheriff department come in and take a look at it and tell us maybe you could put these cameras here and and some sort

118of technology to your point that's going to alert us because we can't have we're not we're not watching the cameras, right? So, we don't have somebody like watching those cameras all day. So that's what I mean. We're being retroactive. Something happens. Oh, let's go look at the camera versus here's a camera and we're going to catch you before you do it. >> Yeah. >> Do you know what I'm saying? >> Yeah. No, I know exactly what you're saying. So every every year and and really if you want you can um this time around if I I would invite you to to do this process with us. We have to do a annual security uh inventory. Uh it's a binder probably about three times the size of the one that you guys have for the budget

119and it involves the sheriff's department. We do it over the summer. Uh it's it takes a look it audits our u physical structures. It looks at everything from fencing uh to bushes around the school division. Uh it it evaluates our camera system. It evaluates entry and uh controlled access. It goes through all of those things that we have right now. our Raptor system, which uh anyone that walks in our building has to run their driver's license. Uh it goes through all of those systems and every year we turn that into the state uh and work with our sheriff's department to do so and then get um feedback from the state and DCJS uh on how we are in terms of security in the school division. I I can show you that from the past and

120and and make you part of the next uh goaround with that if you >> Okay, I appreciate that. One more question too. Sorry. Yeah. Um, last year we had an SRO being added to the middle school and I think that has gone over really big. He's been a tremendous help. Um, I can I can tell from what I see at the middle school and what I've been hearing. And how did we get that extra person? How can we can we get more? I mean, I think that that that they're very valuable. >> So So right now we have five SRO's uh at at each school uh which which are local deputies. And then what you're referring to that we got last year is SSO, school security officers. And th we have two currently right now.

121We have one at the high school and one at the middle school. Those are partially grant funded and partially local funded for 5 years. Uh we'll we'll apply for those and continue to apply for those with everyone across the Commonwealth. I can tell you in talking to other superintendents right now, they're usually awarded at secondary schools. they haven't made them down to the elementary schools yet. Um, but of course, we don't always have to go through the grant either. If we think that new positions for SSOs are important at our schools, that's something that we can consider in the local budget if if we think appropriate. >> Thank you. >> Yep. >> All right. So, again, I'm going to give you guys kind of a summary. the budget book that you have right there. You

122can look at every tab in that budget book and you will see the bottom line for every tab. So, for example, there's a technology section in the budget book. The total bottom line for increases in technology is $212,000. If you go through the entire budget book, and it has all of the departments in all of the schools, the difference, the bottom line difference, uh is $1.4 million. I'll tell you the same thing I told you guys last year and really our board of supervisors as well. Knowing where we are locally, uh, knowing where we want to be with our board of supervisors and and attempting to to manage this budget, we we've really tried to to make this the kind of lights on budget situ uh, in terms of the budget builder. We haven't added

123a lot of things in there. Uh you guys can take a look at that and see a lot of the increases are inflationary increases. You'll see a big increase in the cost of um diesel fuel uh which is referenced in the oper operations and maintenance section. Technology has a relatively big increase because of the cost of these programs that are going up everywhere. Uh and then again you see a big cost in the increase in instruction and that mainly has to do with that uh history and social sciences curriculum that we have to purchase. Dr. Boy, down at the bottom of that we talked it's got the schools that are there. Uh high school 6,000, middle school 3,000. What is all of that for? So, so those are just uh increases uh from this year

124over next. The five schools have two funds that they uh access schoolboard funds for. So, basically that's uh office supplies and instructional materials. So, those two areas, each one of our schools has a small amount of money that they receive from the schoolboard office uh for for those uh items. Uh so that's all the things that um all the off all the the the supplies that a teacher needs. You know, a teacher needs a stapler, whatever it is. You know how when you were a teacher at the end of the year, you place an order for whatever it is you need for the following year. >> And and then I see here that the difference between King George L and PTOAC is a little over $4,000. >> Yeah. So if you look into the budget

125book, it's these are just the differences. take a look into the budget book and you'll see that they're not starting at the same starting line. They have different areas where they start. So you'll see maybe one school had less money than than another. >> I think last if I remember correctly last year high school didn't >> actually PTOIC didn't ask for anything. There was no increase in >> it was it's very small. Yeah. And and honestly when you look at our total budget that's a very very small fraction. uh additional staffing request. So what I've shown you here is the the staffing requests that we've received and again it is my responsibility to give you guys a needsbased budget. So based on the feedback I receive from uh folks at the schoolboard office and our

126principles this these are some of the these are all of the requests that we received. Um I I will let you know that because our enrollment is is shrinking. Uh what we have instructed principles and uh schoolboard office staff is to take a look at shifting some resources and not think in the vein of asking for additional positions uh because our enrollment numbers are dropping. Uh so for example, if we have uh somebody that is going to retire or leave King George County through attrition, we're going to look at shifting resources to address to address some of these staff needs and not uh through a request for a new position. So this budget season, we will not request any new positions. Uh and I can tell you that we know exactly what the priorities are

127in terms of these uh positions. We know we need math teachers at the high school. Uh we know we need a special education teacher at PTOAC Elementary School. Uh we know we need an ESOL teacher across the division at the middle school. We know where these priorities are and we will work internally to address these priorities and and we do not need to ask for new positions in this budget cycle. >> Dr. Ward, one question for the high school and correct me if I'm wrong, but it says behavior specialists. I would think that the elementary schools need the behavior specialists much more than the high school does. I mean, our our behavior biggest behavior problems at the high school comes from from social promotion rather than, you know, having, you know, I just think this

128behavior specialist would be much better at the elementary schools. >> So, so you're planting seeds now, Mr. Frank, because you're giving our elementary uh folks the ideas, but uh I I certainly hear and understand what you're saying. >> If you'll remember, four years ago, I brought that up. You said we needed behavior specialists and mental health specialists at the elementary schools. >> You did. >> Um Dr. Wood, I have a question about I see we were adding a clinic assistant at the middle school, but I thought that the high school >> So So these are not these all >> We're not adding, we're just shifting around. No, these are all the ones that were requested. Uh some of them and I've gotten feedback from you guys in terms of of what you So I'm clear

129on what it is that we want to do from the board level. All of these are the ones that are requested, not necessarily satisfied. And the ones that I know I hope we will be able to satisfy are the ones that I just mentioned in terms of priority. Okay. >> Thank you. All right. So, really, if you break down our budget, there's four areas uh where there's usually cost increases. Uh those four areas are compensation, health insurance, uh the budget builder, and then additional staffing requests. So, what you see on the left hand side is those four categories. What you see in the middle is the factor that we wish to increase those by. And on the far right hand side, you'll see the total cost for those initiatives. And again, those are not total

130costs to the locality. Uh those are total cost to the school division, which would be divided up among state funds, federal funds, and and local funds. So now we look at revenue and expenditures. This is where kind of the rubber meets the road. This is where we marry the budget request with the revenue that we believe we'll receive from those uh different entities. Uh so FY26 in this in this table here on the left hand side is uh this year's budget. So currently uh we received just over 39 million from the state. Uh and then we have some federal funds, smaller amounts uh and some state funds. This is stuff like our grants. Uh this is impact aid money. Uh this is medic Medicaid reimbursements. Those are the smaller uh funds there. Uh so 39

131million from the state. And if you look all the way down at the bottom, the local request this year uh that we received was uh $26,328,370. Now, if you go over to the the slightly darker blue section in the middle there, uh what you see is the numbers currently based on the governor's proposed budget. So, again, this is the first rendition of this. We we will probably see another rendition of this based on Governor Spanberger's amendments and then we will most certainly see another rendition of this based on what comes out of the general assembly session. So right now based on all that was presented this evening and based on an enrollment projected of 4,2330 students uh we believe our state funds will increase to $40,92,526 and that's a state increase of uh basically $1.2

132million. We don't put an adjustment in right now for those uh smaller uh federal and state funds because we honestly don't know what those are going to be yet. We usually keep those about the same year-over-year. And the important number as you go all the way down to the bottom is the increase locally would be 20 up to 28,445,000 $785. Uh so the important number is that that's a budget increase of $2,117,375. So again, when we go to right now based on everything that we've presented uh this evening, uh and there's still a lot of variables that could change. Uh healthc care could change most certainly um the governor's budget is going to change, the general assembly, all of this is could change. But I can tell you uh based on that budget presentation, the

133the $2 million is a is a fairly conservative number if you go back to our other budget presentations that we've presented in the past based on the governor's budget. Um so I I feel good and and and very um confident about this budget request um given its state right now knowing that some of the variables will change hopefully for the better. Uh but as it stands this evening, what the request would be to to the local government would be 2.1 million. >> Is there any questions about that? >> I have a question that I should probably know the answer to, but I'm going to ask it anyways. >> That increase of health um insurance, do we get any funding help with that or does that all get pushed off on the locality? Uh that's that

134would all well it it doesn't all get pushed off on the locality. It would be it would be split up between the state federal and local money but basically our entire budget would be responsible for covering that difference the $1.3 million >> but they do it goes into the calculation of the percentage that everybody else pays. >> Say that again. >> Like the state it goes in the percentage. Okay. It goes into the it just so you take all of our revenue and then you fit our cost into all of our our revenue is state, federal, and local. All of that. You take all of our costs and plug it into that. So healthcare, one of our costs will be shared by those those different sources of revenue. >> Okay. Thank you. Uh it's important

135to note that right now this budget request um is estimated for the school board covering the $1.3 million. Okay. So so that's if if you remember uh our options right now in terms of health care are for the school board to cover it at 1.3 million or to share the cost with the employer which would be about 1 million $300,000 difference. And again, that's based on an 18% increase, which we hope is conservative and gets a little bit better. Right now, that $2.1 million request to our locality is considering the school board covering the cost of healthcare. Okay? So, there's a lot of variability in in that conversation as well. Okay. All right. We're responsible uh every year to break this down by uh the appropriation categories. Uh so I always provide this again this

136is just um year-over-year. Uh the appropriation categories are instruction, technology, administration, transportation, operations and maintenance facilities. Uh and those are the six uh major appropriation categories. Fund 250 and fund 52 are um our school lunch program and our grants. And you can see the differences. And again, it's it averages out the same way the last slide did with $2.1 million, but you can see where that money is going into those different areas. The the main increase is in instruction because the main increase is in teacher salaries. Okay, I can stop there. Unless you guys have any questions. >> We could keep our um electric bill down if we didn't have air conditioning blowing on us when it's 20° outside. Just saying. >> For us follically impaired people, that's pretty bad. >> Polically impaired. >> Oh,

137thank you, Dr. Boyd, for doing that. Yes. All right, moving on to our student representatives. Um, go ahead. >> Good evening, members of the school board, administration, teachers, and guests. My name is Jake Glover, and I'm one of your student representatives. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak with you tonight and share some updates on what's been happening in our school community. As we move into February, we are about halfway through the school year, and it's been encouraging to see the continued growth taking place across academics, activities, and school culture. I want to start by highlighting student achievements. Our Skills USA students recently competed at the Virginia District Championships where Anna Cox earned a gold medal in architectural drafting and Ben Cogley and Andrew Fronzo placed fourth in manufacturing. These students will now

138advance to the Skills USA Virginia State Championships from March 9th through March 11th in Virginia Beach, which is an incredible accomplishment and a reflection in the strength of our career and technical education programs. February is also career and technical education month and King George High School offers over 50 50 CTE classes along with eight career and technical student organizations including Skills USA, FBA, DECA, HOSA, NJRTC and more. These programs provide hands-on learning, leadership opportunities, and real world career preparations for our students. Our NJRTC program has another major achievement to celebrate. The NJRTC air rifle team are the 2025 2026 state champions continuing to a strong tradition of excellence and discipline along with the NJRTC drill team has its eyes set on states coming on February 28th. In athletics, our swim team recently held our senior

139night last week recognizing the dedication of our senior athletes. Your King George swim foxes went undefeated this year and we wish them luck moving into the postseason as we now prepare for districts. The arts are also thriving at King George High School. The drama club will present too many detectives at the murder mansion on February 27th and upcoming school events like the sweetheart dance on February 21st where the girls ask the guys this time instead of the guys asking the girls and then prom on April 18th. Continue to bring students together and build school spirit. For our juniors and seniors, the Fredericksburg Internship Expo on February 17th provides valuable opportunities to gain um connections with local businesses, explore career paths, and gain real world experience. While we look ahead, we have exciting senior events coming

140up, including senior picnic, sunrise, and scholarship night. These events mark important milestones and give our seniors the chance to celebrate their accomplishments together. It's also exciting time for the class of 2026 as King George seniors are beginning to receive college acceptance letters, including acceptances to large universities and competitive schools. Seeing these opportunities open up for more students is incredibly exciting and motivating. In addition, our senior government classes recently had the opportunity to meet with two members of the board and supervisors and two schoolboard members. Um, thank you Mr. Frank and Miss Cleveland for coming out um and taking the time to speak with students and help connect classroom learning with real world leadership. Finally, I want to touch on our school safety. While in addition to metal detectors was controversial at first, we've seen a

141positive growth throughout this year. Um from the beginning of the year when we had my steeltoe boots setting off the metal detectors first day, um we've gone um great lengths where it's a lot smoother now and we don't have as many issues in the high school. Um, so I think that's a positive that we've had this year so far. Um, overall halfway through the school year, King George High School continues to demonstrate growth, achievement, and resilience from academics and career readiness to athlet athletics, the arts, student leadership. There's a lot to be proud of. Thank you guys for your time tonight, your continued support, and everything you do for King George students. I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you tonight, and I hope you guys have a safe time while we battle this winter

142weather. >> Thank you, Jake. Any questions or comments from the board? Right. Moving on to the consent agenda meeting minutes for January 7th organizational meeting January 7th and regular meeting. >> Need a motion to approve. >> Madam Chair, I make a motion that we approve the minutes from the January 7th organizational meeting and the January 7th or uh regular meeting as presented. >> I second. So, any discussion? All those in favor? >> I motion passes. All right. Donations. Dr. Boyd. >> Yes. I think we just have one this evening. >> Yes, madam chair. We have one this evening from the James Madison Garden Club to PTOAC Elementary School in the amount of $400. Uh this is for the garden club and uh native plants. >> All right. Do I have a motion? Madam Chair, I

143recommend that the school board approve the donation of $400 from the James Madison Garden Club for the PTOIC Elementary Garden Club. >> A second. Any second? >> Second. >> All those in uh any discussion? All those in favor? >> I I motion passes. All right. Action items. Do we do the one first or >> uh Yes. So, we'll do the uh the acceptance of funds first. >> Okay. I just Okay. >> You uh I'll go ahead with that. So, we have one of our very own Miss Jesse Bryant uh from King George Preschool was awarded a classroom mini grant in the amount of $450 to22 after applying for the Virginia Professional Educator Classroom Mini Grant. So, what we would be responsible for this evening is accepting those funds and allowing Miss Bryant to use those

144in her classroom. And you can see a description there, a very detailed description on what she's using those for in her classroom. So, this evening, I would ask for a motion to accept grant funds in the amount of $452 from the Virginia Professional Educators. I move that we accept the mini grant of $452 for the Virginia Professional Education's classroom miniigrant. >> Second. >> Any discussion? I just want to say one thing is how important it is to apply for even the small ones because that money will go far in a classroom. >> Absolutely. >> So, um all those in favor I chair votes time. Motion carries. And then we have the April 21st special election conversation. >> Yes, Madam Chair. So, I have um shared with you some correspondence that I've received from Lori Gump,

145our our register in King George County. Uh and initially she sent uh on letterhead notification that Virginia would be having possibly be having special elections on either April 21st or April 28th and then also August 18th or August 25th. I then received some follow-up correspondence from her that said April 21st they are scheduling to have a special election. I've been watching the news to see what was going on there in terms of the this is all in relation to uh the Democratic party's effort to redistrict. Um the there was in the last couple days um a court out of Tazwell, Virginia who basically uh put a hold on on that initiative. So I reached out to Lori today and asked her where are we with this and and should the school board consider April 21st

146still to be a special election? Her response today was that as far as she knows from her channels. Um she says my understanding is that April 21st is still a go. I talked with our legislative team yesterday and that is the word. Uh I think the best course of action is to let the school board know that it it's going to happen. Uh and then if I hear anything from the state, I'll certainly let you know. something will be determined very soon because March 6 is the date of early voting for that April 21st election date. Uh so what does that mean for the school division right now? April 21st is a school day for us. Uh so if it does and it sounds like it is going to be an election day then our

147our schools are our polling places. Uh so what we would request to do is make April 21st a teacher work day. Teachers can come to the schools on that day and make it an asynchronous school day for our students. uh that way they would we'll plan ahead to provide the instruction asynchronously and uh students won't miss that day of school and it'll also provide our teachers an opportunity to have another workday if we can't be in our building to conduct school due to the election. We will communicate this to um parents like far in advance so that they'll know their kids will be home and need guidance I suppose because I know in the past we've changed the last minute and had a lot of comments from parents about how they you know were pressed

148for daycare or whatever and so my recommendation is publicize it lot a lot you know and soon >> so so if I I agree with you if that's the will of the board. What we would have to do this evening and I and our next conversation is about snow days. So, this leads into that. But the the thing we would have to do for this particular issue uh is to approve a uh make a motion to approve a change in the school calendar to make April 21st a teacher work day and an asynchronous day for students, assuming everybody's on board with that. um so that we could make sure that uh families in our community is aware as early as possible. >> Dr. Boy, this thing about having to provide lunch on asynchronous days, how's

149that going to affect it? Because a lot the cafeteria at the high school is where they vote. >> So, what we would have to do is because we know in advance, uh what we could probably do is send them home the day prior uh with with a meal for the following day. That that that makes absolutely am I having to provide a lunch on asynchronous day makes absolutely no sense. I mean >> I know I have no idea where that >> Yeah. And honestly I mean we'll talk about that with the school day conversation. But there was some legislation a few years ago which provided school divisions the opportunity to provide asynchronous instruction uh in emergencies. you know, COVID, snowstorm. It was only recently, within the last couple of weeks that we received notification that

150on those asynchronous days, one of the requirements was to uh provide meals. Um, so many school divisions, I can tell you in talking to other superintendents have scrambled uh the last couple days even to provide just a couple days of asynchronous over this winter storm. um moving forward talking to Miss Davis and and really seeing what was able what was able to be accomplished today I think it's something we can do I I will say this and this is more probably for the snow day conversation this is really a conversation about meeting seat time and meet or meeting instructional minutes this is not a a conversation about quality instruction I mean what we talked about earlier tonight Mr. Frank about being in front of a teacher is by far the best possible education that we

151can provide students in our community. That's why what we'll talk about here in a little bit is some makeup days and things that would be more effective in terms of providing education than asynchronous days. But when we get into situations like we are now and like we will be on April 21st, uh I think it's it can be a happy medium if as long as we can connect the dots on those things. So that's really what we're trying to do here. >> I think the the necessity for the food is because a lot of times children only get to eat when they're at school and it and it's providing them food for those kids that can't that don't get food at home. >> I understand >> it does put a bind on what we're able

152to do, but I think that's the reason behind it. Madam Chair, I have a question about this and just because I just throwing it out there to as a discussion with the board. Would it make more sense to switch a teacher workday so that way the kids can be off and the teachers wouldn't have to worry about doing the asynchronous? Would they prefer that? >> It it's going to I I think I think they would prefer that, but I I think it's going to tie into our next conversation about makeup days. So, since we're kind of in this conversation now, we knew going into this storm that really 7 days was was kind of a magic number for us when it came to calculating instructional minutes, which we have to calculate. 990 is the magic

153number there. And really seat time for some of our courses that require certifications and things of that nature. So, our instructional TA staff is responsible for calculating minutes. We knew that when we hit seven days, we needed to start coming up with some ideas and some plans. Uh tomorrow we will hit seven days. So we had two in December and now this entire week uh we've been off and and really in talking to a lot of people next week is still not out of the range of possibilities. So with that said, uh we really need to focus on how we stay close to that 7-day threshold. So sure, teacher work days would be valued, um but we need to make sure that we're providing the instructional time. So whatever we consider in the conversation concerning

154the election and the next conversation of snow makeup days, it all should come back to making sure that we are staying at or below that 7-day threshold, which we meet tomorrow. Does that make sense? >> Okay. So what do we want to do with the April 21st day? >> So So my re Go ahead. I'm sorry. >> Go ahead. You're re Yeah. What do you recommend? >> My recommendation um and again the next conversation is going to be part of it, but because this is an act an action item, my recommendation for that day would be to make it a teacher work day uh for our staff and an an asynchronous day for our students. We still get the instructional minutes and we still provide our teachers the opportunity to uh to get work done

155in their classroom. And really, you know, unlike this winter storm, April 21st is far enough out that we can provide the time for our instructional staff to make plans to to provide asynchronous u instruction on that day. >> Okay. >> Are we able to take action on this when we >> talk about the snow days? Can we wait and take action on this? >> Can we like make one motion to change the calendar including this and what we're going to talk about next? Okay. >> Yes. Yeah, makes sense. >> Okay, Mrs. Cleveland, >> you have some questions regarding our next conversation with the uh snow days. You had written some stuff for all of us. >> Well, we're going to blend it because I think people need more understanding on the board before we uh

156you know, >> you want me to give you an overview of where we are with snow days and >> yes, questions. >> All right. So again, what I mentioned before is uh tomorrow will mark the seventh day that we've missed. Uh seven seven day is kind of a trigger. So we want to make sure that uh whatever we consider moving forward. Um we're staying below that 7-day threshold. That's going to give us enough seat time. That's going to give us enough instructional minutes to satisfy state requirements. Um, keep in mind that April 21st now is another day that's floating out there that could either either become day eight or whatever we decide to do with it. And again, we don't know how many more uh snow days we're going to have right now. Looking looking

157forward, what we have in our school calendar is uh in terms of makeup days, if we choose to to have students come to school, uh February 9th, which is soon is uh was scheduled as a parent teacher conference day. Of course, that's important, but so is making sure our kids are in school. uh and it but it's soon. So February 9th could turn from a parent teacher conference day to a school day in lie of the parent teacher conferences. The next day that we have in the calendar is February 16th. This is President's Day. This is a holiday for students and staff. Uh the next day that we have is March 13th. March 13th is currently a teacher work day. Following March 13th, um March 30th to April 3rd is spring break. April 6th is

158the Monday following spring break. And then beyond that is May 22nd. That's the very last day of school. That's uh the Friday before Memorial Day, which is currently a teacher work day. That could be that again could any of those could become school days. >> So I'm just going to put it right out there. We're not I I personally don't think that we should take first of all President's Day and second of all the Easter or spring break or whatever. I think those two dates are that's my personal opinion. Um and my only concern is if we have any more snow days, right? Like which is entirely possible. Um, so I would recommend right off the bat the February 9th and the March 13th after that, you know, I don't know how everybody else feels,

159but if we have to take away President's Day, we, you know, but spring break, I think we that we've experienced that in the past. >> There's usually a lot of folks at this point that have made plans for that week. And >> how many days do we have to make up? >> So currently, as of tomorrow, we don't have to make up any. We're good. If we get any additional snow days and now the election day, that's when we have to begin making up. >> So, this is just a prep. >> Dr. Boyd, at what point, if we get any additional snow days, if next week is is out, at what point do we come in with a waiver from the state to make on that seat time? >> There there's not a hard number

160on that. Usually, I I don't know. I'll have to see where this the new governor is with that. I know they've declared a state of emergency. I haven't heard any other superintendents talking about right now whether or not they're going to wave seat time requirements. Everyone's still in the mindset of making up instructional time. >> Okay. And if we added additional minutes to each day, how would that affect this? So, uh, we did a we did a calculation of that and I'm trying to remember what that calculation was. I >> five minutes was okay that so Aaron remembers if we added five minutes uh to the school day from that day moving forward, wasn't it? >> Uh, so we lost a week. If we add five minutes to the day every day for the rest

161of the school year, it was an one additional day of school made up. Now, we've done that in the past. We we've we've extended the school day by up to 30 minutes. Uh we which which has its challenges for families and everything else. Uh we we've we've gone to school on teacher work days. I think we've done President's Day in the past. Uh we usually try to stay away from spring break. We've extended the school year in the past and we've had Saturday school in the past. Um >> I remember Saturday school. >> Yeah, that was many years ago. That's That's not in fashion too much anymore. >> I remember it. >> Even though asynchronous days aren't optimal, could we do that instead of taking the days away from the work day or the confluence

162days and all that? I mean, that's an option, too. >> Yeah, that that is an option. I've talked about that with our instructional staff to uh when we get back in the office tomorrow begin coming up with really an asynchronous plan that we can roll out effectively. Uh there are challenges associated with that. Right now our secondary students have access to Chromebooks. Our elementary school students do not. Uh even with access to Chromebooks, many students in our community still do not have internet access. Um so there there are a lot of challenges. We we do believe right now offering meals is is uh something that we can accomplish. Uh it's a challenge but we we can address that challenge and I think we can come up with an asynchronous plan if we have some time

163to uh think through that. It might look a little different on the elementary level than it does on the high school level. I think with the Chromebook at home, we can probably provide some asynchronous material via the Chromebook and you don't need connectivity. at the elementary level, it's probably going to be paper and pencil that we'll have to send home. Uh, and it's going to have to probably be because we're planning ahead. The other challenge with this is that it's going to be more um review uh kind of work. It's not something where we're going to stay on track with the curriculum because we're planning so far ahead to be prepared for this. uh if if we were to say an asynchronous day is going to happen tomorrow, we would throw all the teachers that

164had would have to provide all of that instruction almost immediately, that would be a huge huge challenge for our teachers and our copying machines and everyone in between. So, uh what we would have to do is plan a few asynchronous days ahead of time, which would probably create more um generic type of content and curriculum review stuff. And again, you know, when we're sending in, this is what we ran into with COVID and and and any other time we've tried asynchronous, you know, it's a much less controlled environment when we send it home and they're they're responsible for doing it at home. It's not like a controlled environment in a classroom. So, some of our children, some of our students have great study environments at home. Some of our students don't have that opportunity. So,

165uh, when we talk about how we're going to grade these materials when they come back into school, we really have to think through what that means when when it's not really a level playing field for some of our students in their houses in terms of completing the assignments. Um, nonetheless, I I think right now, um, I'm in favor with Miss Hoover's, uh, suggestion of February 9th, although it being soon, uh, that being a school day as opposed to a parent teacher conference day, would would be, um, a good use of that time. and uh March 13th. I think that's far enough out that we probably could make that an asynchronous day, which would include instruction and provide our teachers enough time to make uh good plans for that day to be a uh asynchronous and

166make it a teacher work day. Uh and that would that would put us two days in the positive, right? Outside of the uh election date. Well, not to change things up, but how hard is it to adjust a schedule by I wouldn't say five minutes, maybe 15 when I mean, is that really hard in terms of transportation and making everybody's day longer? >> I mean, if it's everyone, that's usually more manageable than than just the elementary school or something of that nature. Because if we did that now and if five minutes gives us one day then 15 or 20, you know, and then we have more snow days and then we're we're not really taking any days away from anybody. I don't know. It's just a thought. I don't know what everybody else thinks. >>

167Dr. Ward, can we make a decision on this at our next meeting which is on 9th of Feb. That way next week we'll be out of the way and if there is >> well that would take >> storm coming in we'll be able to you know we'll know more about where we're going. >> We can will that give us time enough to you know >> that just eliminates February 9th as as a consideration because our our next meeting is on the 9th but that we still have we still have opportunities. >> I just want to give them go ahead. What do other members of the board think about waiting till >> I had a question. Um, what level of snow clearing do you want to see in the community before like we can get back

168to school? >> Yeah. I So, right now, many of our neighborhood roads are not suitable for school buses. Um, I I can tell you that and and honestly, I don't know that it's going to be a man is not going to move that snow. It's going to be mother nature that's going to move that snow. So, I didn't think this at the beginning of the week, but I'm starting to worry a little bit about next week and what that looks like. Um because if you look at the forecast, it doesn't go above freezing until Monday. I think it hits 37 and there's a few days after that maybe that we get close to that. But, we're going to we're going to need some help from mother nature. And I know VOD and and everyone else

169is working, but this snowstorm was unique. I mean, this was one for the ages. It it's packed ice right now. So, to answer your question, we're a long ways right now from me putting a 26,000lb bus, even down my neighborhood road, it my truck drifts down that road alone. A school bus would would be a dangerous uh situation. Yeah. So, so I'm concerned about that. >> Okay. My concern with I feel like we're putting a lot of pressure on the teachers to pick up this because we don't want to miss President's Day. One missed President's Day isn't going to kill us. Um, as patriotic as they get, but we're we're going to put this all this like pressure. We're taking we're saying, "Hey, parents, get involved, but then we're going to take that away just

170so we can have President's Day." That's my concern. So I my suggestion would be we need to keep parent teachers conference day if possible. Have a synchronous day on President's Day so they still get to stay home whatever but they're still doing classes. Keep the teacher work day and I don't want to take the Monday after spring break but use the Monday after spring break. But give the teachers those two very important days a teacher work day and a parent conference day. We're putting all the pressure on them to carry this because we don't want to miss President's Day. >> There's a lot of pressure. So, so that would be my suggestion. I don't want to take that Monday away because I know that gives them a chance to get back in, but we have

171to do something. And to me, that would be the easiest way without taking spring break, teacher work day or the conference day. We miss President's Day and Monday from spring break would be school day or synchronous learning. >> And and to Mr. Frank's point, if if if the board is not on if if the board is not considering February 9th, I think we can wait until our next board meeting to consider any changes because I think this is also something that you would probably want to vet with some of your constituents and talk to some parents and talk to some just talk to folks and and see what >> uh they think and and I think you guys know well enough now. Can we have somebody come talk to us? >> Yeah. Yeah. >> That's

172what I was. >> Yeah. >> We asked also if we take February 9th, I I think that we'll get it. It's very soon. You know, February 9th is probably too soon to tell every parents, hey, by the way, we're changing things in two weeks. >> Yeah. We want you all involved, but we're taking it away now. >> Appreciate you waiting. >> Waiting. Can can you come up and and talk with us? Can we let us >> I think the teachers would appreciate you waiting till the 9th. I you know I think that you know you're probably going to get some input from staff and they would appreciate that impact if if if given the opportunity to vet it. So I would say you know Mr. Frank's idea about waiting is totally appropriate. So that would

173take the ninth off the table then. That's fine with me. >> What? >> Yeah, >> great idea. The only the only concern is then we put parents in a position where they have to be at least for the younger kids, right? They have to make arrangements for >> They already do. >> They already >> for the 9th. Oh, okay. Yeah. >> Never mind then. >> Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's a teacher conference day. >> Yeah. >> Monday. >> Are they able to work on that? Are can the teachers have planning next week if the school is closed? Can they do they have access to their computers where they can work from home and get the teachers conferences planned? to get the asynchronous work planned. >> We would I I think we would need at least a

174day of particularly our elementary school teachers need to have access to the students at some point. >> We would be able to be off all week. So if we're off on Friday, we wouldn't be able to get this stuff to them on Monday. >> You mean the whole week? If we were >> off for the whole week, which >> Yeah. I don't know if >> that'll be a bigger problem. We'll have a even bigger problem than what we have right now. We we couldn't open the school on the weekend for staff to come in and get the I'm sorry. >> Yeah. Terrible. >> Man, it's not going to do it. Like we're asking our our custodians to and and our maintenance for their and Dr. Boyd was out, you know, our principles been out there.

175Um it's a lot. So, I just don't know. Is there something we can do ahead of time like for snow days for teachers to know take everything home just in case? >> Do we need a policy or something or >> we we we sent out a message that said be prepared with your stuff. It's really not it's not that I can tell you a lot of our teachers will I was going to say this in my comment. A lot of our teachers are are >> doing that and prepared. I'm sorry you were going to say something, Colleen. Um, it's not it's it's access to our students that that's it's not whether or not they can work at home and be prepared. It's the ability to make sure that they have an interaction with our students

176so that particularly our elementary school students that are probably going to be paper and pencil can receive that work before we have an asynchronous day. >> Could they email the parents? I'm just trying to think outside the box here because we we if we are really out of school the entire week, we have to think out of the box because Monday they're going to need to have an asynchronous day. I mean there if not then we're going to have to take a little spring break away. And I know that >> I know that people don't want to do that. >> Dr. Ward, can I ask the principles what would you like as far as add time to the day or Council the days what would you like? >> Day in those increments would be effective

177at the elementary level. Our schedule is so there's so many layers to our schedule that end there's so many shift as effective tools to use at home for families. Um Miss Cleveland to your point about emailing families that's a great idea but We know a lot of our students don't have access to internet and a lot of our families don't check the emails on a regular basis for that content. So at the elementary level we need to get it in their hand, get it in their backpack and give them that instruction for the kids and the paper and we also send electronic home as well. So there's multiple facets that we can get this information >> and I I totally agree with you. I mean it takes care of our seat time but it's not

178very effective for the students. You and I have both seen that. You know it's not very effective for the students. >> The other thing is we're going to have to pay people money to stay to cover them. So, we're waiting till next meeting to decide >> or or we take action on uh take Dr. Mice's suggestion about the 9th which is a good idea as well >> if they can get in the classroom, >> right? Provided that we do go to school next week. >> Yes, I think that we should do that. That way we're not we'll have to have a special meeting and come back in here. Yeah. >> So, plan for a synchronous learning on Monday and then if they can't get in, what's the backup? >> Then we're going to have to

179figure it out the next time. >> She said they'll make it work. >> We'll make it work. >> Okay. >> No packets at school. Oh, wait. >> I think Miss Cable just said she was going to take all the packets to all the kids kids. I mean, we would just have to relook at it at the next meeting, which we would have to do anyways. So, at this point, we would have to do it anyways. We look at it if if it doesn't happen, which it's going to be even worse at that point. So, we might as well take action today if we can on something. >> So, do we need to make an amendment to take an action item? Just make this an action item. >> We can just do a motion. >> Make

180a motion. We just need a motion to make the 9th an asynchronous day. >> And what did we decide about the 21st? Are we going to make that an asynchronous day? >> We're going to wait till the 9th. >> Wait till the 9th. >> Okay. So, um, just to make sure because it wasn't on the agenda, but we added it to the agenda so we can make an action. Okay. Okay. Somebody want to make a motion to >> I make a motion, Madam Chair, I make a motion that we make February the 9th an asynchronous day. >> Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? >> I I >> I chair votes eye. Motion carries. >> As much as I dislike screen time, >> so so March 9th will be synchronous learning. >> So I I

181did have >> I mean February 9th. Sorry. Thank you. >> I did have a discussion. >> Sorry. Can I just make sure? So, in the event that the students aren't going to school next week, we're going to have to re-evaluate that though because we're not going to be able to give them the >> the >> packets. Yeah. >> So, we need to change it to the in the event that they can't get to school, it's going to be asynchronous >> or like Mrs. Gable said that >> we'll figure it out. >> Well, that you >> let's just go forward with figuring it out right now. >> Like the packets at the school and the parents can pick up. >> Yeah. >> That's what we've done in the past too. Co. We did that. >> What

182about the parents who can't pick them up? >> Mail it >> if they let you know. I guess you're going to have a lot that doesn't do anything. >> Yeah. There will be we've made it non-graded to in the past because of those reasons. >> So, do we need to say anything about that or we're just going to figure it out? >> We'll we'll figure it out. Just keep it as an asynchronous day and we'll figure it out. >> I'm making this so much easier. Thank you. Okay. So, next on the agenda, we have school board code of conduct. Dr. >> What about April 21st? >> Wait, wait, wait. We're going to wait till March 9th school board meeting. Okay. >> Wait, did did we take the vote? >> We did vote, didn't we? Oh,

183well, she made a discussion. So, do we need to revote? We did vote and then she went back and said, Well, she had more questions after we voted, but it didn't change the vote. >> Oh, we're good. Yeah. >> All right. Um, school board code of conduct. Everybody's got to sign it. If you have, hopefully you've read it. It's from the VSBA. Do we turn that into you? Oh, you have it here. Perfect. >> Dr. Ward, what is this? >> What is it? >> Yes. >> So, this is something we receive annually from VSBA. It's uh their code of conduct for schoolboard members. Basically, it has a list of pretty generic >> I Yeah, >> I see all of that, but why? We to be honest with you, I I couldn't tell you whether or

184not there's any type of, you know, as a member school of VSBA, it's something that they send to us uh that in the past all school all school board members have signed off on. Um I I don't know that there's a consequence or or an award or uh or anything for uh this but um in the past it's it's when they sent it to us we forwarded it to the school board and um board members in the past have been in agreeance with it but we have our own protocol. I >> Why do we need VSBA? You know, we need the voters telling us or the the our constituents telling us what they want, not VSBA. >> I think it's cuz we use them a lot and their names all over everything everywhere we go

185and stuff. And so if we're we're going to be affiliated with them, they want to make sure that they're working with. But I hear what you're saying, too, because this is just a signature. >> And I mean, >> keep it at that end. I'm not going to sign it. >> We don't have to sign this. >> Oh, I'm not going to. >> Well, you don't have to, but they want you to. >> Are you I mean, we don't have to, right? >> It stays local. It doesn't even go back to them. >> Yeah. >> And just don't worry about it. >> Yeah. It's It's entirely up to you guys whether or not you want to. >> Yeah. >> It's a what? >> Kind of an accountability. They're saying these are goals you should strive for.

186>> I don't even remember signing the last two years. So, if that tells you anything, I mean, it's honestly something that we just this time of year we receive and pass on. And >> and why why not sign it? >> Because there's no point to it. There's no meaning to it, you know, that that I can see. >> Yeah. I Well, it's just reminding the board, I guess, how we ought to act. I don't know. >> It's pretty generic. Uh but but again, like you said, it's >> okay. So, I guess that's not happening. Moving on. Um, information items, committee reports, Mr. Frank, >> I have none. >> Uh, Mrs. Hoover, I have none. Mrs. Scott, >> I have two. Awesome. >> So, uh, the presentation today for the talented and gifted was a very

187good summary of our meeting um that we just had in the last couple of weeks. Uh, one of the things that we worked on was looking at the um uh theformational packets and brochures that we're putting out. So getting feedback on that so that we have uh better uh communication with parents. Um anything else? Do do you need to know anything else? >> No, just whenever you Yeah. >> Okay. Um and then for the um tech advisory committee uh our meeting we uh mostly discussed the um use of electronic devices and um uh uh technology in the classroom and talked about the uh the way in which it uh student scores have gone down uh by implementing that more and yet there's still the requirement for SOS that is still done electronically and test taking.

188Uh so we're also looking at um the AI guidelines uh for student use. We also have uh lots of uh like four different documents uh with guidelines and recommendations on technology use for teachers and students. So, we're taking a look at those those guidelines. >> Thank you. >> That's all. >> I mean, Miss Cleveland. >> Yes. Um so, we had our first board meeting for the Commonwealth Governor's School. Um, and we had our organizational meeting and you're now looking at the vice chair of the Commonwealth Governor's School. >> Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. >> This is your first year, right? >> This is my second year >> on the board. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> And the chair is Allison Sears and she's in Caroline. Um, the executive superintendent is also from Caroline. What is

189her name? >> Uh, Sarah Calvaric. >> Sarah Calverick. So, she's the she's the executive superintendent of the Commonwealth Governor School. Um, so just uh we we went over our our normal course of business um the counseling report and I guess what what I'd like to let you guys know and I know that um Mr. Frankie brought this up earlier. We did talk about a proposed budget for the um Commonwealth Governor School and it is um posted on our our governing docs online. So, you can take a look at that. It kind of breaks down what the budget is for the governor's school. Um, we also talked about our broadcasting equipment that has been being installed across the divisions. Um, it has already been installed in King George. We were the first school to actually get

190installed and they're sort of working out from from what I understand it hasn't been rainbows and butterflies and they're still sort of working out some of that. So, um, thank you all for your patience with that. Um, we also have the applications in for the next school year. Um, it was interesting for me to know that they take the applications from the Commonwealth Governor School, ATI, and also the Chesapeake Governor School, and they evaluate those at the same time because a lot of the students are applying for multiple schools and they're, you know, making sure that they're looking at all that together. So that way when they get the information out to the students, perhaps they didn't make one, but they would make the other one vice versa or give them the choices at that

191point. And I believe I don't I was trying to search for the date, so I apologize for this, but it's going to be in February when they're going to let the students uh know who is going to be in those fe Thank you. February 23rd, they're going to make the announcements to the students of who got into which school. So, um, that'll be that'll be nice to see that. So, that's all I have. >> Right. Uh, I went down to Warsaw and had our first organizational meeting for Chesapeake Bay Governor School and it wasn't as well, I missed the dinner. Like, I was more excited about driving all the way to Warsaw because they always have this good food and I had the timing wrong. So, I got there for the meeting and missed the

192food. Anyways, um so it was just a regular or organizational meeting and it's funny to see um because I've been on this board for two years now and you have a lot of new people coming in and everybody was shy. I I was just that person that wouldn't say yay or nay like and now I have to because nobody else was. So it was but I guess I didn't realize it changed that much hands. But anyways, that was it. Nothing spectacular. Anybody else? We're good. All right. Where we at? Superintendent uh superintendent report. >> Uh Madam Chair, I'd just like to take the opportunity to uh thank our communication department of one, Miss Amanda Higgins, uh for answering the phone every time I've called this week on odd hours. Uh and really staying on top

193of the phone calls and the communication in the community as it relates to weather closings and things of that nature. I'd like to thank uh Gary Cliff and everybody in our maintenance department. They've really literally bent over backwards to pick this ice up and try to move this ice with every piece of equipment that we have um and and done some really tireless hours there. Thank you to our custodial team uh that's shown up and and really tried to make sure our schools are ready to receive students when they come back and and thank you to our principles uh who have also shown up to um be at their schools and and be available. There's a lot of work even though school's not in session that goes on behind the scenes. And uh I want

194to thank all of those that that have been able to um pick up the phone and be available and and just provide a helping hand throughout this week and all the unique tasks that have been associated with uh this monumental snowstorm. So thank you everybody that's helped out with it. Thank you, Madam Chair. >> All right. Thank you. Board comments. Mrs. Scott, >> I just wanted to uh congratulate the high school on the production of Trial of the Big Bad Wolf. I went to see it and they did an excellent job. Um all the students for the actors and the uh I don't even know what goes into theater cuz I was never in theater, but all the set design and uh the directing, they did a fantastic job. Um and then during the budget

195builder, um Dr. Boyd uh reminded me of the the newsletter budget item and I just wanted to say thank you to Miss Wages for sending out a weekly um newsletter. Um that I've found that very helpful and refreshing. >> Um thank you guys for coming out tonight. Um as always we appreciate your insight as well. Also to all the admin and staff, we really appreciate you coming out. Um, I really enjoyed uh going to Mrs. Anderson's honors governor class this last week. Um, there was myself, Mr. Frank, and then some of the members of the board of supervisors that were able to go into this classroom, introduce ourselves, tell them about um our goals and our desires for the county. And I think it was uh really nice. we we had a lot of engagement

196with the students asking questions and really loved the engagement and speaking with those students. So, thank you Miss Anderson. That was really uh nice of her to have us be there. Um and also uh I was able to be a part of the interviews, the mock interviews um for some of the business classes and and DECA um and that was really fun too. So, I enjoyed spending time with the students and I gotta say they did remarkably well. I'd say most of the students that I interviewed I was very impressed with. So, they're doing a phenomenal job over there at the high school in those business classes. So, kudos to those teachers. Um, another thing that I wanted to let the board know and I just realized this our next meeting I am not going

197to be able to make it. I have a conflict and I can't there's no way for me to reschedule it. So I I just want to throw that out there. Not that you have to reschedule, but there I'm not even going to be able to be virtually cuz I'll be on a plane. >> We can it is possible though that we can discuss how you your vote in the whatever we any action items. >> All right. Thanks, >> Mr. Frank. >> As always like to thank the staff and the teachers for all you do and and and the principles also. Uh, thank you all those who had the presentations today. Uh, they were all great. Thanks to you, uh, Jake, you're always there and you're always giving us a lot of good input coming from

198the high school. >> Um, I know that this stuff going on with the weather is going to be uh affecting us for more than just tomorrow. uh or it would take a miracle if it's if those parking lots are cleaned up by Monday, put it that way. And uh so uh we can just hang in there and and do the best we can on those things that are there. Um Mrs. Hoover and I or Miss Hoover and I went to um the high school or the play with the little ones. So we were there for all the all the little kids that were 800 of them I think it was that was there to watch the play. Um which was great and I I too miss Cleveland really enjoyed uh Miss Anderson's class. Jake was

199there. So uh they were asking some some some pretty tough questions. Uh but uh it's always fun and I would love to go back more to get involved uh in that. Uh there's some issues that I did not realize that the students were that involved in or that much involved in that we have been working on lately and it was uh it was uh uh enlightening to to hear them speak about that and Dr. Bernstein talked about three young ladies that were there that were uh extremely I mean there were fear in their one of them's eyes about ice you know so I don't know where this is uh you know but anyway I'm sure Dr. merge took care of that and and soothed calmed them down a little that was there. But enjoyed everything

200that was there. Hopefully the weather will get better and and we'll be back uh to normal here pretty quick. Thank you. >> I want to reiterate how how enjoying the the presentation at the high school was and the chatter of the kids and it was great. So, thank you Dr. Burns for allowing us to come in and be a part of that. Um, also we got to visit a few classrooms while we were there and it's always great to engage with the students. I I agree with everybody here. That's the that's the best part about being in the schools is getting to see the ch the students and the the learning that goes on there. Um, we so Mrs. Davis and I went to PTOAC Elementary and had lunch with some students just to kind

201of we got some feedback about uh lunchroom environment or whatever. And um it was was a great visit with the you know got to talk to some of the little kids at lunchtime and then Mr. Frank and I did you go with me to No, I went alone to King George Elementary. We still have to get out to Sealston. Um, but we're gonna we're gonna come and visit you soon and just have lunch with the students, kind of like Mr. Bush and I did. Um, it's just engaging with the students, which is always fun. Um, thank you to Mrs. Davis for shuffling and and uh arranging for uh food today and for all of you guys from the very top down for being out there in the freezing cold handing it out. I wish I

202had thought of it. I would have come and helped. Darn it. Um, but thank you. I I know that it wasn't fun standing out there handing out food for two hours. Um and also thank you guys for being here tonight. Um taking time out and for every time you're here and the engagement. It's it's helpful to have you here to you ask questions and I appreciate you being here. Um and let's just hope that we are back at school next week. >> Yes. Thank you. Yes. So when me and Miss Hoover went to BTOIC Elementary, I got in trouble in the cafeteria. So they don't play, but it was a it was a good environment. And the kids were talking and stuff. They just Yeah, I was playing um like this hand thing cuz I

203wasn't thinking about like how that could just go all across the cafeteria. And so I'm having fun playing quietly with these girls and the lady comes over and she's like, "I know you guys are being quiet, but we don't do this." I was like, "Sir." But anyway, so that it was a good it was a good experience though to sit in the um they do get to talk. You know, the thing was that they don't get to talk and they all get colored cups and stuff like that. So um they get to talk, they just have to talk quietly. And we went to uh the Chesapeake governor. Oh, I want to say that I I want the staff to know like how great this tutoring program is that I'm experiencing firsthand with my daughter. She's

204in the middle school and she's a part of the English and math tutoring cuz that's where she's struggling. Uh, a little bit of her is laziness, so it's it's causing me to work more with her at home, too. But, but I just want to say how thankful I am for that program. Um, Jake, thank you for letting us know about the uh all the up and great things that our school teams are doing. Like, shout out to King George Swim the Foxes undefeated. Like, that's amazing. The rifle um NJRTC rifle club, great job. and all the other ones that you mentioned. Thank you to the garden club for donating $400 to PTOIC Elementary. Um, I do want to mention something really quick because we've got a lot of emails from the community about what we

205are doing for mental health uh because they think that with the whole GSA thing that was going on that we don't do anything for the students because they think that's all that we're doing for them would be the GSA club. We do so much uh for for all of our students across the the school division for mental health. So, if you really would like to know what we do, shoot me an email or shoot Dr. Boyd or any of the schoolboard members an email and we can give you or even the principles and we can give you a list of everything that goes on in our schools to help our students if they have any questions or concerns regarding their own mental health, a friend's mental health um or anything like that that's going on

206in their life. They there's a lot of things and uh programs they can reach out for. Um and that's it. Yeah, >> I got I've got one more thing since since we have the uh principles here. Just what's the possibility of having cursive clubs so that students can learn how to write cursive clubs? >> Is that curriculum? >> It is. >> Yeah, >> it would be. >> you know what I mean? Like because we have noncurriculum >> with my tremors. They never read it. >> Dr. Nice, I see you shaking your head. Is that because you don't think that that's a necessity or it's a it's a travesty that children don't know how to write in cursive? >> That's like the least of his worries, right? >> Probably. But okay. All right. So then, do

207we have a a motion to move into close meeting? Pursuant to state code section 2.23712A of the code of Virginia, I move that the board convene in a clo in a closed meeting to review substitutes, resignation, stipens, and retirements as permitted under 2.2-3711A number one of the code of Virginia. >> Second. >> All those in favor or any discussion? Um we had I had talked to Dr. Boyd about inviting um Mr. Burn Dr. Burns. Do we need to put that in the motion or is it fine? Okay. Thanks. >> Okay. >> All those in favor? I we are now in close session. in the back. >> Back. >> It's been for the last couple meetings. >> Oh, >> where? Oh, they're recording us up there. >> Yeah. Uh, >> they have a new camera system.

208They got those two and this one. >> Yeah. >> I can't carry. >> All right. I'm I have legal. >> Can somebody make a motion to approve uh close session into Oh, no. We >> I move that the King George County School Board return to open session and certify that pursuit to state code section 2.2-3712D. Only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements under this chapter and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion by which the closed meeting was convened or heard, discussed or considered in the meeting by the public body. >> Second and certify. >> Certify. Motion passes. Any discussion? Right. No. What do we do next? >> Back in open session. >> All right. Now we're in open session. Can we get a motion to adjurnn? Oh,

209approve. Where are we at? >> I make a motion that we approve personnel as presented. >> I second. Any discussion? All those in favor? >> I I make a motion to adjurnn. >> Second. >> Any discussion? All those in favor? >> We'rejourned.