November 17th 2025 King George School Board Regular Meeting

001Sorry. I'd like to call to order the meeting of the King George County School Board. Invocation this evening will be done by Pastor Davis. >> Okay, let's pray. Our heavenly father, we do bow in thanksgiving. We're thankful for our school board. We're thankful for our students and we're thankful for our teachers and those involved in Lord uh helping to train and educate our children and Lord most of all today we're thankful for the your person the Lord Jesus Christ a Lord who is willing to come and be incarnated into man body of a man take on skin dwell among us and Lord bleed and suffer and die that we might have life and have it more abundantly we pray you'll bless us upon this meeting tonight we Pray heavenly father that be done in a

002way to be pleasing to thee Lord. And all is said and done. May we give you all the praise and all the glory. May we be thankful in that wonderful name. We pray Jesus name. Amen. And amen. >> Pledge of allegiance this evening will be led by the King George Middle School leadership class. 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. Tell us about your leadership class. Please come up to the podium. In our middle in our middle school leadership class, we work to make our school a more positive, connected place. One of the things we do is family daily announcements so everyone starts the day informed and energized. We

003also help plan our school spirit weeks. We had a fantastic red ribbon themed spirit week and we are now planning a purple out to honor the memory of a King George High School science teacher we lost a pancreatic cancer. Our class creates and hangs posters around the school, including anti-bullying posters and other reminders that support a positive school culture. We give tours to new students so they feel welcomed the moment they arrive. We complete projects about leaders from around the world, choosing people who inspire us or who share personality and leadership styles. We also run locker storms where we place positive notes in students lockers so they have something encouraging to start their day. Right now we are running a winter wonderland and hallway contest to bring some fun and creativity into our building. We

004help with schoolwide event schoolwide events like supporting the sixth grade dance and food drive. We made the decoration and advertisements and we make cards for staff, birthday cards and sympathy cards and a little and little. We appreciate your notes to show we care and see the hard work everyone is putting in. Our class also creates and updates the school bulletin board. Currently, it's a take what you need board filled with uplifting quotes, doodles, and dad jokes. Mhm. >> And finally, we will be selling candygrams in December to help spread kindness and a little sweetness throughout the school. >> Thank you so much. I know our board members have some questions. >> Yeah. Um I usually ask what the the funnest time was, but I'm going to change it a little bit this time. 10 years

005from now, when you think back about middle school and you think about this this club and this organization you're part of, what will you remember the most? Something I would probably remember the most is making people happy. I like being an example and leading others and being in a leadership role where people can look up to me. I think my favorite thing is when we go up to read our slides and we're making the announcements and somebody messes up on a word and we just start laughing cuz we can't speak and everybody's just laughing. I think I'll remember how much fun I have in the classes with the we had a Halloween party which was so much fun and just like she said making people happy just makes me happy. So I will miss and

006remember my leadership students that are in leadership with me and all my teachers and friends. I think I'll miss making my making new friends in this class and having these friends throughout high school. >> My favorite part that I'll miss is the friendships that I've gained from the class and how much fun we have. >> My favorite part that I'll miss is all the friendship and fun we have and uplifting everybody. My favorite thing that I'll miss is being a part of announcements every morning. If you would like to speak during public comment but have not yet signed up, please see the clerk now. Public comment is an opportunity for community members to share matters they believe deserve the board's attention. It is a time for one-way communication to the board, not a form for

007dialogue or debate. All speakers are treated equally and comments should be courteous, respectful, and related to the school division's services or policies. Audience members are expected to maintain proper decorum. Speakers will be recognized by the chair and asked to state their name, their connection to the school division, and their magisterial district. Each speaker has up to three minutes to comment. Our first speaker this evening is Sherman Davis. >> That's because I signed in first. I am uh Pastor Davis and I'm here to uh read from you from the scriptures. These scriptures I read tonight are not very happy verses, but they're out of the word of God. And the Lord never said anything to save face. It's just truth. And so we're going to read it to you. Romans chapter 1. For the wrath of

008God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness. Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them. For God hath showed it unto them. because that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were uh thankful but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. This is kind of where we are in our day. The scripture says, "And changed the glory of of the uncorruptible God into an image made like unto corruptible man." Wherefore God gave them up to uncleanliness through the lust of their own hearts to dishonor their own bodies between themselves, who changed the truth of God into a lie and worshiped and served the creature more

009than the creator. For this cause God gave them up to vile affections. For even their women did change the natural use into that which cannot against nature. And likewise also the men leaving the natural use of the woman burned in their lust one towards another. Men with men working that which was unseemly, receiving themselves that recompense of of their era which was meat. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to reprobate mind to do that those things which are not convenient, being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malic malignantity, whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, desp disrespectful uh proud boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without natural affections, without understanding uh covenant breakers, uh implacable, unmerciful,

010who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only to the uh do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. Uh I just want to encourage the board tonight that right is still right. Uh we are lover of souls and protecting our children is the most important thing and God bless you. >> Thank you. >> Next we have Scott Near. >> Hello my name is Scott Near. Um, I'm in the uh James Madison uh Monroe, excuse me, district. I've been a citizen of King George for 24 years. Uh, put a couple kids through the elementary, middle school, and high schools here. Um, I am speaking today um in I guess protest against the the encroachment of the SGA moving into the middle school level.

011Um, I have a child that uh is gay. um and went through high school here. Uh had no issues in middle school or high school. Um I believe that in high school there's there's time for understanding who you are and where you're growing to into and accepting uh who you are at that point. Um I don't believe the middle school is that is at that level of developmental uh for the children to make that determination. And I think a pushing an organization or a meeting group like this is a just a continued um uh submission of political agenda and ideas into uh our school systems. We've seen it across the nation and I think it's uh uh creating uh a bad issue in the schools and I hope that you will see it the way

012I see it. Um, I am against uh the the SGAA going into middle school or lower as I am against uh any sexually explicit material uh in the school's libraries as well. Uh that's all I have now. Appreciate it. Thank you. >> Thank you. Next is Carrie Gonzalez. >> Good evening. My name is Carrie Gonzalez. I'm a resident of the Dogrren district and I have children at PTOIC Elementary and King George Middle. America's academic prowess and progress began to stall in 2013 and has since regressed to a level not seen in 25 years. A whopping 40% of American fourth graders are below basic reading level. In 2024, the average ACT score was 19.4 on a scale of 1 to 36, which is the lowest it has been since the test was redesigned in 1990. The

013top tenth of students are doing well, but the bottom tenth are hitting lows in math and reading not seen since 1971 and 1978, respectively. Many of you know me as a big advocate for school funding, which it will of course always be important. However, it's not likely that school funding levels are the primary factor responsible, especially considering how Biden's $190 billion American Rescue Plan was largely splint on HVAC systems and electric buses, not academics. While it's likely indict While that is likely indicative of a lack of school funding overall, academic performance is still a concern. The rise of smartphones and phone-based childhoods are also likely contributing factors. Um, but there is growing evidence that our American schools in general um are suffering from a low expectations theory whereby schools expect less from students and students

014deliver less as a result. President Bush's 2002 No Child Left Behind Act was a step in the right direction and resulted in performance improvement at the bottom, but used as a punitive approach that did not help underperforming schools. When it was clear that schools were going to miss their target by 2014, the Obama administration issued waiverss to the states in 2012 and Congress passed the Every Child Succeeds Act in 2015. This was intended to give responsibility for academic performance back to the states. Yet, states have failed to live up to these ambitions. If the bar for grading and graduating was constant, we would expect to see both declining grades and declining graduation rates. However, um however, graduation rates have in fact increased as grades have dropped. As it turns out, a few southern states are

015on the right track. Mississippi and Louisiana being two examples of success despite low per pupil expenditures. Mississippi enacted a law requiring third graders to pass a literacy test before being promoted to fourth grade and are among other states that are leaning back into phonics-based reading instruction. With the recent implementation of the Virginia Literacy Act, Virginia has also taken a small step in the right direction, but it will be years before the impacts of the of this are realized. The economic expense of a poorly education population populated educated population is immense. Recent studies show that today's student will earn 7.7% less over their lifetimes than those who benefited from educational periods of peak performance. This translates to a GDP 6% lower for the remainder of the century than if scores had remained level. I believe there

016are many factors at play in today's classroom and there are many ways to tackle them. I know you are all dedicated to the success of our students. So, I look forward to future meetings and future conversations on the matter. Thank you. >> Thank you. Brian Ingram is next. >> Good evening. My name is Brian Ingram. I live in the Shadow District. Um, thank you all for being here today. Uh, I'm here to advocate against the GSA clubs in the middle schools. I mean, we can argue the merits on whether or not GSA should be in schools, but I think it's such a young age trying to indoctrinate them in these things. And those aren't just necessarily my words. I had to research what GSA is. So, I looked up navigating handbooks and all this stuff.

017And by their own definitions, it says that they evolve from being more than just safe spaces, but become vehicles for students to be trained on how to become deep social change within the racial and gender and educational justice of our community. Uh, last time I checked, when I was in sixth, seventh, and eighth grade, you know, I'm just trying to learn how to get to my classes on time, let alone trying to figure out exactly what kind of social justice change or gender or racial divides that need to be addressed. And um within their own advisor handbook, they talk about things of how they it's to uh advocate for against uh schools to prison systems, trying to educate the school systems with their surveillance and all this other stuff is uh and zero uh tolerance

018policies are actually oppression against them. The fact that we teach biology on the fact that there's male and female gives some weird construct. These are all things that we can argue on the merits on whether or not they should even be in high school, but I think really in the really underdeveloped minds of the and I don't mean to belittle the middle school, but we're still developing those minds and they're still in the very infies of trying to figure out their individual identity. Um, and so on that I highly encourage and hope that the school board actually keeps it out of the middle school uh at this time. So, thank you very much for your time. Oh, look at that. I had a minute left. >> Thank you. That is all the public comment we

019have. Does anybody have anything to read from any of their constituents? Okay, moving along. Dr. Boyd comment? >> Uh, yes, Madam Chair. Thank you so much. Thank you, Pastor Davis, Mr. Near, Miss Gonzalez, Mr. Ingram. We certainly appreciate you coming out tonight. Uh, I've noticed in the last few weeks, we've had a lot of folks talking about a lot of different topics, and it certainly means a lot. I don't want to speak on behalf of the board, but I can tell you we've had a lot of conversations about how much it means to us that our community is engaged in public education in King George County. So, we certainly appreciate you being here and being involved in the process. I think a better school division and a better community uh is created by an open

020dialogue. So, thank you so much for being here and uh I'll turn it back over to the chair. Thank you, >> Dr. Boyd. Do we have any changes to the agenda this evening? Seeing none, we can move right along to our presentations. Back to you, Dr. Boyd. >> Uh, yes, Madam Chair. We have our quarterly principles briefing at the request of the school board. Tonight, we have our uh high school, middle school, and elementary school principles, and the topic for this evening will be attendance initiatives. So, they'd like to fill you in on the uh work that they've been doing to encourage attendance at their school. So, with that said, I'll turn it over to Dr. Burns. >> All right. I'll try to be as brief as possible. Thank you so much to the board

021and Dr. Boyd. Uh so we're here to talk about chronic absenteeism but you know for me I like to connect the dots and for me you know principles have the responsibility of building culture and leading the learning and some years ago u the national association for secondary school principles did a study and that study was on why kids come to school and the number one reason kids come to school 85% of students that completed this particular survey shared that they come to school for the socialization. that come to school for the socialization. So socialization has to be good for all kids to get them to come to school. And so in terms of connecting the dots, you know, my focus as principal is, you know, first and foremost, school climate. School climate is all about

022how you feel from the moment you walk in the building to the moment you leave the building. And if you feel good, then you're more inclined to come to school. And that includes our employees as well. So you're more inclined to come to school. So for me, uh, that begins with, you know, you know, honoring teacher voice and honoring student voice. Uh, you know, giving students an input or giving students and staff input into the day-to-day operations of the school. I have a leadership team. I solicit input from them on things we can do better. We have students that we solicit input from. We also have a newly formed student council association that we will be solitting soliciting input from. And that input certainly has to translate into impact. And when people feel like they

023have input, they feel like it's a good place to come. They feel like it's a good place to work. They feel like it's a good place to come to school. So I can go into detail about specific things we do with respect to bullying prevention. But for me, it's all about being visible, being engaged, and giving people input on how we operate King George High School. And that goes for families as well. So, thank you to our families that spoke up this evening about things that are near and dear to them. So, that's all I have. >> Thank you, Dr. Burns. >> Thank you, >> Dr. Nice. >> Sorry. >> Good evening, everybody. Um, so when we talk about attendance at King George Middle School, anyone who comes into the middle school knows that we

024talk about our RAP expectations pretty much daily. Um, and RAP stands for respectful, accountable, productive, and present. To be honest, a lot of times we focus more on the the first three letters, respectful, accountable, productive. But this year, we're trying to put more of a focus on present. Um, so what we're doing is we're working on a report that we can pull to do some weekly competitions between first period classes, see who has the best attendance in first period. We'll reward students by classroom when we get that up and going. So, that's something we're looking into. Um, for November, we started a monthly challenge. Any student who has perfect attendance in the month of November, um, will be entered into a raffle where I buy them and three of their closest friends lunch. And I'm

025going to do that for one student per grade level. And I think students are liking that. Um, leadership's kind of helping me put that together. So, I appreciate that, ladies. Um, we're also doing rewards for students. Um, last I guess it was Friday. Uh, again, leadership helped me out. We went around to home rooms. If students were there, they got a little prize. They got a jolly ranch or a dum dum, a Tootsie Roll just for being there. And I told them it pays to be in school. And we're going to continue to do that randomly hit different uh first period classrooms randomly so students never know when it's going to come. So, we're encouraging them to be there um to get whatever reward we have for them. Um, additionally for rewards, our school social

026worker, Betsy Doula, who is amazing by the way, um, she meets uh, weekly with students who are in danger of being chronically absent. And for those students who have had excellent attendance for the past week, she gives them some type of reward. Um, and that goes really well. Um, we're also working on uh, promoting and highlighting students with excellent attendance. We're talking about an attendance wall where we put names or pictures up so we recognize those students and we're also going to work with leadership to do some interviews with those students and say, "Hey, what are you doing to be in school every day?" So other students might pick up some tips from those students. Um, and September was attendance awareness month. So in our uh weekly newsletter to families, we put some information about

027the importance of regular attendance in there um and gave some tips to parents to help get their students to school. um tier 2 PBIS uh we're identifying and supporting students who are in danger of being chronically absent by giving them mentors and providing some structure for them to learn how to come to school more regularly. So that's something else we're doing. Um every quarter we have quarterly awards days. Um in addition to recognizing students for grades and behavior and things like that, we also recognize students for uh perfect attendance. Again, we put them in a prize wheel if you have perfect attendance for that quarter. Um, and they can win different prizes for that. That's something we've been doing for the past several years. Um, and then finally, we also collaborate with our school attendance

028coordinator, Jeff Smith. Also amazing. Um, he helps with with our student and family outreach and education. Uh, he meets individually with students on Fridays when he's at school. um talks to them about their attendance, encourages them to come, finds out what obstacles may be there and tries to help identify how to overcome those obstacles. Um he also sends attendance letters. Um and then finally, uh Mr. Smith, Mrs. Doula, and I in the 23 24 school year started lunch groups for students who were in danger or had a history of being chronically absent. Um, every Friday we meet with them, have lunch with them, um, track their attendance, talk to them about why it's important to be in school, and just kind of build that community in school that Dr. Burns was kind of talking about.

029So, they have somebody they look forward to seeing every day, and we've seen great success, especially with our sixth grade cohort in 23 24 that are current eighth graders. That's our biggest lunch group, and they really look forward to coming every Friday. So, those are just some of the things we are doing at King George Middle School to help with our chronic absenteeism problem. Thanks. >> Hi everybody. They always pick me to speak. I don't know why. Because I love to talk. Anyways, thanks for having us tonight. We uh decided again just to do all elementary schools together. We pretty much um do very similar things although a little different. Um so all of us have an attendance team that meets weekly with Mr. Smith, our uh social workers, our counselors, sometimes the nurses involved

030and all the admin is always involved and we go through and look at um a spreadsheet that we keep track of students and absences that have more than I think we do five, three, something like that. And we just continually update that spreadsheet and add students to it so we're know who we need to check in with. So, our tier one, again, these are for all of our schools, but we do brag tags, weekly monitoring and letters to families, PBIS initiatives, pep rallies, high- five Fridays, and magical Mondays. Roy the Attendosaurus and Soore parties. We roar at Sealston and we soar over at PTOAC and King George Elementary for our uh positive behavior intervention systems, which also includes attendance with those. our tier two and three. We have individualized incentive plans based on those spreadsheets

031and what uh happens with the attendance team. We do home visits. Our social worker and Mr. Smith usually um breakfast clubs um are also happening. Um I know Dr. Nice said they do a Friday lunch group, but we move to breakfast um this year with most of ours. Did you guys move to breakfast lunch too? >> Tuesday. So those are with our students that really we they need to connect with. So we do that and then of course collaborating with Mr. Smith for that family outreach and education. So we do send letters when needed um or reach out to families, home visits, things like that. Um but really we're just trying to get them excited, build relationships really why you want to come to school every day. Um that's what those parties are for. So

032and that was from attendance week in September which I'm going to try. We're trying to like move it throughout the whole year just to really excite them about attendance. So >> yeah, >> Thank you so much. Thank you to everybody. Um Dr. Nice, um why can't I Dr. Burns and you three ladies for that presentation. It's encouraging to see that we're making an attempt to cure this problem. Now we would I'm sorry. Does anybody have any questions for any of the presenters? >> Do you go ahead? >> Okay, never mind. >> Let the crowd know something to do with breakfast. Why can't we talk? Breakfast Club was mentioned and it made me think of um the food funding. I had an email with Miss Anita Davis who handles all that stuff and there is actually

033a fund out right now that was started through the op shop where they would donate funds to help pay for the students who couldn't afford school lunch cuz we're going to feed them anyways but the the balance of that is astronomical. It's very very high right now. So, if you guys any churches, any anybody that would like to donate to a certain student or school, you guys can do that by just either talking with Anita Davis and we can give give you that information or and it's online as well or you can um go to the school and drop a check off and they'll deliver that to her to help with that. >> Thank you, Miss Davis. >> Dr. Boyd. >> Yes, sir. >> We still have funds for allin. Are we still using allin?

034>> We're on our last year of all-in funds. Is it still active? >> Yes, Miss Fischer, we're still within our last year of all-in funds. It's still all it's still active this year. This school year will be the uh end of those funds available to us. >> Okay. Did we get any any type of data back on how that worked? >> Okay. Okay. Next up. All right. So, as board members know, we do have a new MAC math curriculum this year. There's been some questions about the uh you know the implementation and really what that new math curriculum looks like. So tonight we have Miss Harris. Uh okay we got everybody everybody coming up. Okay. All right. You guys come on up and we've got about 14 slides that we'll share with you uh about

035raising the bar in mathematics. The ladies have done a wonderful job in putting this uh presentation together and I'll turn it over to you guys. >> All right. Good evening. Um we're so appreciative of our opportunity to talk about the exciting things that are happening in math instruction. I'm Karen Dloot, the division elementary math specialist. >> And I'm Lizzie Campus, the secondary division math specialist. >> Yeah. So, every day is a great day to talk about math. So, we wanted to provide you with a a simple overview of what has been happening across the Commonwealth um as far as math instruction goes over the last couple of years. So, I've put together a timeline. Our new 2023 math standards of learning were approved on August 31st, 2023, which was after our school year had started.

036Um, with our full implementation of instruction and testing of those standards happening in school year 2425, which was just last year. Um, in March of last year, the Virginia Board of Education approved new curriculum. Um and then shortly after we tested the new standards, um fortunately for us, um because of our wonderful school board and in conjunction with receiving some funds from the board of supervisors, we were able to purchase a new aligned curriculum to be implemented this school year. >> Yeah. Oh, and I'm sorry. This campus just reminded me. We did have some some new information come out earlier this fall. Um, the Virginia uh board of education has approved new so cut scores for implementation in the 2627 school year. >> All right. So, um, along with those standards, we have a lot

037of things that the Virginia Department of Education is trying to achieve with those standards. Um, at the forefront of that is our increased rigor and depth of the standards. Um, and we'll show you some examples of that. But as the state says, they're designed to be best-in-class benchmarked across all the national standards like NAPE. Um, but one of the biggest things that comes along with those shift in expectations is embedding the five process goals, reasoning, communication, problem solving, connections, and representations. Um, and this is really um our non-negotiable foundation of our instruction. Um, we want to make sure that students aren't just learning math. Um, but we're really developing utilizing these processes as we're providing instruction. Um, it's not simply what is the answer anymore, but can you reason and communicate how you're thinking and

038um, what's going on. In addition to that, we strengthened our content connections. So, in all of our instructional guides, there is alignment with um, crosscurricular standards, computer science, science, history where applicable. Um, and we want to make sure the last thing that was added in as a big focus this year is data literacy. Every grade level from K to algebra 2 has a data literacy stra um, standard because any newspaper, social media, anything has data, graphs, things that people need to be able to interpret as we're um, out in the real world. So to provide a little context of what this difference means for our students, we've provided a couple of examples of questions from the 2016 standards as compared to the 2023 questions. Um for just for grades five and eight to keep this

039brief. So for grade five in 2016, we had the expectation that students would add and subtract fractions. And this is a sample question um that a student would have seen in 2016. You can see it does provide a context that is real world. There is one fraction and one mixed number and the student is provided with a list of choices from which to choose. So if you go on to the next slide, this is the same standard or a very similar standard. However, you can see that there is a difference in the rigor of the question. Now there's more text on the page. There are now three mixed numbers, each with a different denominator with a question to be answered. Still adding, however, now instead of selecting an answer, we're typing in an answer. So

040you can see that this really does require more critical thinking of the student. And that is the biggest change is that we are trying to get students to understand how to use math skills in context because that is what will will make them mathematicians for life. Looking at another example from grade 8 um in the 2016 standards 8.4 before we were solving practical problems with consumer applications um which is very very broad but one of those essential knowledge and skills which is extremely applicable in the real world is to compute sales tax or tip and the resulting total. The hardest part about this standard for kids was just reading the question and making sure they answered whether they were getting the tax or the total because they always gave them both answer choices in the

041problem. Um, but looking at the 2023 version of this same standard, we're now estimating and applying proportional reasoning and computational procedures to solve the problem. So, we're not just saying what is the tax or the total um, but we are asking kids to estimate and solve. So, this is um still a multiple choice question that students have. Uh, this is released by the VDOE, but it is no longer just what is the total. Um, first of all, it's what is not, which is always tricky. Um, but you'll notice that the numbers in the problems aren't even the same numbers that are in the question stem because they're asked to estimate and then um figure out which of those works to calculate the tax and the tip. Um, this requires a lot of thought and a

042lot of work from our teachers and our students to be able to master these standards. So, whenever we're faced with change, um, we always want to look at how does this change benefit our students? And so when we really break down these standards, we can see that um instruction of this nature builds critical thinking and real world problem skills. It strengthens conceptual understanding. So instead of being answer, we can understand the process and understand how to apply these principles in real life. Um and it prepares students for college careers and of most importance their lives. So, um, as Karen said earlier, um, in March of this year, the VDOE approved new curriculum and we were very thankful to be able to adopt. Um, there are still many divisions that are working on old curriculum. So,

043thank you again for that ability. Um, we did have committees that were put together of teachers and adopted new curriculum from kindergarten through grade 8. We adopted SAVIS and vision and um, we have McGraill for algebra 1, geometry and algebra 2. Both of those were aligned uh and approved by the state and as you may have heard uh are more rigorous than what we previously had. But as you can see, our standards show that we need a more rigorous curriculum. And I appreciate Miss Gonzalez's comments about when we lower the bar, students lower themselves to those expectations. So, we are raising the bar and raising those expectations for our students. But really truly what we're getting at is that this these curriculums come with these contextual problems so that we are focused on real world

044application for our students. We want them to have deep understanding and really be able to work through that strategic thinking that they need. So alongside the reality of new standards that are raising the bar for our students, um there is also endofyear testing um that we want students to feel prepared for and to feel confident going into. So a as part of an endeavor to raise the bar on mathematics instruction in the state, the Virginia Board of Ed has also decided to raise the cut scores. Um so current, you know, as of last spring, any student that scored a 400 or better on um a spring so was deemed as proficient. Um with the raising of the cut scores, this will no longer be the case. Um it's not to be implemented this year. This

045is year zero, but we will um be receiving additional information about when um how that will look for our students from year to year um because it will be implemented on a schedule. Um but in order to kind of give some context for this, um we went ahead and looked at just available data and tried to wrap our minds around what would this look like for our students? What would this mean for our families? Um it's important to understand that state so scores are not a traditional percentage score like we give in classrooms. Um but they are based on scaled scores. Um and that's because we have computer adaptive testing where depending on how a student answer one answers one question, the computer decides which question to present the student with next. Is it a

046lower level question? Is it a medium level question? or is it a higher order question? So, please keep that in mind as we're looking at these numbers. So, these numbers we pulled for illustration only just using random available data. So, for the current cut score for a fifth grade student of 400, that would have looked like approximately a 42.9% of questions answered correctly on the sample that we pulled. for the new cut score, it would be a 445, which would mean a 60%. Um, and and so we can kind of see just based on that um data that we've used to illustrate that there is room to raise the bar. Um, and then for our eighth grade students at a 400, they would have answered approximately 43.2% of the questions correctly. and moving to a

047430 that would be 55 and a half percent correct. Um and again you know this is not you know we we can't compare students apples to apples with computer adaptive testing because every student's testing experience is different. But it does mean you know that our students will need to answer five or six more questions correctly in order to be deemed proficient. So part of that, the reason for this is that the the Commonwealth wants to provide honest information to families. They are calling this an honesty gap. And so in light of the direction that Virginia Department of Ed is giving us as educators, um we are also trying to make sure that any assessments that we give at the school level and the division level are aligned to the 2023 math standards so that any

048feedback and information that we're providing to families is giving them an accurate picture of their students journey toward math. mastery of the standards. So, um in addition to all of these changes, um our biggest responsibility is to support the teachers so that they can then in turn support our students. Um so, during teacher work week this year, all of our teachers um from K through algebra 2 receive training on their new curriculum. And then we have ongoing processes in every building um where teacher teams have developed the pacing guides that they're following. Um we work to select a select aligned assessments. Um and we're continually working to adjust and refine both of those things. Um especially after the implementation of something new, you kind of give it a go exactly the way it's designed and

049and work out the kinks and where we're having um difficulties. So we have definitely made adjustments and refined what we're doing already and right and and the support needs to continue um because you know we're still in our implementation year. We're providing ongoing coaching and professional learning to our teachers with a focus on using the curriculum with confidence and at the same time scaffolding our instruction to meet the learning needs of all students. Um, at this time we are use utilizing our PLC times at the secondary level and our focus times at the elementary level to provide teams with more personalized support in addition to other meetings that we are having with teacher leaders to refine our practice. Um, another thing that we're working uh with the VDOE on they have released a draft form

050of a walkthrough protocol. So this just sort of gives us some criteria to look for. Um, and we recently used this myself and uh Dr. Nice and our consultant that we've had come in a few times um to observe instruction. And the great thing about this tool is that it's not just um dinging teachers for things going wrong or whatever. Um we really are looking at what's going on in the classroom as a whole, both what the students are doing and the teachers are doing and celebrating strengths first of all because there are so many good things happening in our classrooms and on top of that offering meaningful feedback. So the state in addition to giving us these higher expectations is supporting us um in helping our teachers to grow in all of our implementation.

051We always want to reorient ourselves continuously to our commitment to our students and our families. Um and that is to remain focused on what really matters for them. um which is that all learners are provided with math instruction that's relevant to their needs and that allows them to see themselves as people who are capable of using math in their everyday lives so that they can live fulfilling lives full of choice. >> Thank you. Does anybody from the board have any questions? >> Yeah, >> I have just one. How often do you meet with the math teachers throughout the division? Um, and especially new information and it you may have already said it, forgive me if you have, but how often do you meet with them? >> So, it's different depending on the level of the

052teachers. At the elementary level, I travel to the different schools and um participate in focus meetings as often as possible, come alongside teachers um during their instruction and during their planning. I find that by being out in the buildings, teachers feel very comfortable when they see me telling me things. They'll say, "Oh, by the way," you know, "Oh, I wasn't going to bother you about this, but now that I see you." So, I try to be out and about to gather that information in real time. Um, in addition to that, at the elementary level, we have teacher leaders like our grade level chairs come out once a quarter and then we because we worked on pacing over the summer before we had taught the new curriculum. So now that we're in the new curriculum, we

053come back together for those bigger half-day meetings and we review the pacing for the coming quarter. We look at each of the assessments um and go through them. Okay, what is you know what do we think now? Are we still okay with this? Do we need to change the formatting? Do we need to reduce the number of questions? You know, how are we thinking about this? So it's a very collaborative effort. Um and so that those bigger meetings happen once a quarter. Um but then again, you know, our um our elementary teachers are on a schedule of like every eight days each grade level meets. So there are opportunities. There is only one of me and three different teams. So I try to spread myself out to meet with them as much as possible. >>

054At the middle school, I meet with each grade level once a week. Um so Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday I'm meeting at the middle school and Friday I meet with the algebra 1 teams at the high school and then our geometry and algebra 2 teams are um on like a bi-weekly basis. >> What's the progress been so far? Has it looked good? I mean what you know you can I know it's hard to say right at the beginning. Can you sense a direction? Um >> I would say that you know our elementary teachers about half of them teach all the subjects and so the transition to a new curriculum was challenging in the beginning keeping track of everything. I have seen that you know I'm committed to collaborative decisionmaking and so this is the program that

055the elementary teachers wanted the majority um of the votes went toward. So they were really giving it their best try and I know that first topic they were like wow this is so different >> um and so rigorous compared to what we had before. Now what I'm hearing is wow the kids are really picking this up. That's good. >> They're able to do things now that they in previous years wouldn't have been doing at this time of the year. So, it is rigorous. Um, one teacher commented to me today that he was seeing how the curriculum was spiraling back to revisit some concepts that were more difficult and that he was feeling more comfortable that students that didn't understand it the first time it was presented were getting another opportunity to learn that content. Um,

056so we do still have work to do. Um, I would say we wouldn't be doing our best at it if if we all thought it was going 100%. Oh, this is easy. You know, I would say we're probably not recognizing some of the opportunities we have. Um, but I do think that overall it has been positive and I believe especially in light of the direction that the state is going with raising the bar on achievement for our students that we are better positioned than we have ever been to meet that challenge. >> I would agree with what Karen said. It's um the first the first topic was rough um getting students and teachers used to navigating all the different pieces um and just the rigor and all the things. Um but we've come a long

057way. So we've seen definitely assessment scores go up. We've seen benchmark scores go up from last year to this year. Um things are moving in the right direction and we are definitely in a really good place moving forward. >> You see my last question. Sorry, last question. My fault. >> Yes. Well, go ahead. We have one more. >> You see this positively affecting I assume you do the um like pre-calculus and those sorts of things in the advanced levels. Uh you won't tell right away obviously, but um possibly in other areas that have used this um I assume there will be this increase in attendance in those advanced math classes later on. >> Yeah. And um not only that in the increased rigor of our curriculum, but we are um advancing more students than ever

058into our accelerated curriculum. that process. Um, so we definitely are seeing success with that and we're going to give them a better foundation so that they can be more successful in those classes. >> Good. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mrs. Cleveland. You have a question. >> Thank you. And and thank you for coming and and going through this with us. Uh, I know that change is hard and I appreciate your leadership and I know that the change is hard for the teachers to learn that new curriculum and for the students. Um, in terms of and actually Miss Gonzalez was talking about this, in terms of us being behind and the need to move the bar up, in your opinion, how many years do you think it's going to take of this new curriculum to us

059to actually see that change? >> That's a great question. >> Um, that is a really difficult question. Um, I know coming out of COVID, we thought we'd be done um with that with the the um learning loss that we felt we were experiencing much faster than we would um than we have. I am excited that you know being an elementary person at heart and being an early childhood person um fir you know first that I firmly believe that when we lay the foundation in K1 and two that that is something that benefits a child for the rest of their their lives. Um my hope is that it won't take for our K1 and two students to get to the high school to see these gains. Um, I think the true testament will be how well

060we continue to support teachers through implementation. Um, so that they can feel confident, they can grow their own professionalism and stay here in King George County to continue, you to have our students continue to benefit from the time that that we as a division had invested. Um >> I don't know how long we can say is going to take like long-term impact, but I mean I think we'll see impact >> Sooner rather than later. Yeah. I mean I imagine we'll see impact this year. Um it is we will definitely be able to tell this year because we had the same test last year to this year um with different curriculum. Um, but we're just going to keep supporting our teachers. And again, if we can get them to stay and and keep going with what

061they're doing, we'll see it sooner than later, >> right? Because as I tell teachers, as I, you know, go into classrooms with them and work alongside them is it's not the curriculum that teaches the students, it's the teachers and the curriculum is just a tool for them. Um, so yes, just supporting them in, you know, all the finer points of the curriculum, the reasons why things are presented the way they are, and having them feel understand that this is a collaborative relationship between us and them, and that we're there to support them. Um, I think goes a long way to helping with that. >> Yeah. And I and I also want to say that I have been receiving better feedback. I think that um that it it is going better. So, I'm I'm happy to,

062you know, be able to to to report that to you guys. And um I also wanted where was I forgot my question. Oh, I just because last time um you guys were here, I was just saying I don't want to lose sight of those kids that are falling behind and maybe that cut off of the extra tutoring needs to be looked at just while we are transitioning um because we don't want even more kids to fall behind as we're moving forward. >> Right. Right. I'll say at the middle school, one of the biggest things we did was um really just slow ourselves down and make sure that that uh intervention is happening alongside what we're doing. Um so of course we definitely have tutoring opportunities. Um we can't tutor every kid after school. We don't

063have transportation for every kid after school, but as much as we can, we're supporting those kids after school and we're also trying to build in that time during the day. um especially at the middle school during IE and they have um IE times at the elementary schools as well. So, we're making sure that we're filling those gaps along the way um and really slowing down to make sure that we are hitting that. >> Right. And on the elementary side, we invite as many students as we're able to um according to our staffing. >> Yeah. >> Sure. >> Anyone else? Thank you very much. >> Well done. Yes, absolutely. >> Very, very well done. Thank you. >> Next, we have our um health and safety advisory committee annual report. >> Thank you and good evening uh

064members of board. Dr. Boyd, I appreciate uh the opportunity to present tonight our annual update uh for the health and safety advisory committee. Mary Fischer, the supervisor of student and family services, and this is our lead nurse, Sarah Linker, who will also be very close. Um, also be providing part of the presentation. Go ahead. >> So, the health and safety advisory committee brings together a wide variety of staff as well as community members, um, law enforcement, fire and safety, um, healthcare providers in the community, etc. to give an overall view of the climate and safety um policies in our school. Uh it also incorporates several subcommittees that are connected to the day-to-day work done in our schools. And so we'll touch on each of those tonight as well. Uh the topics you'll find are very

065broad and interconnecting. Um I'll speak first to the mental health and wellness components and then Sarah will address the physical health and wellness in school clinics. Um and then we'll wrap up with some recommendations. So although this committee operates independently and represents uh many different areas of expertise, as I said, the day-to-day work at the school level is really done by our social workers, counselors, and nurses um to support our students and families. As the principal stated earlier during the attendance um initiatives, students basic needs have to be met before they can ever reach a level of learning. Um that includes safety and security and uh feeling like they belong. Um Masaw's hierarchy of needs if you're familiar. Um so these teams are the first point of contact for many nonacademic things. Schools are for

066learning but they also have to meet these needs as well. And so these are just a list of some of the things that our uh counselor, social workers, and nurses um do nonacademic related that support our students every day. You will I'm sorry, could you back up one? You will notice throughout the um presentation, I'm not going to go into great detail on a lot of the items, but there are some live links actually included in the presentation that you can click through to learn more. Uh we did include a lot of information on the slides just for background for our community members and uh board members who might not be familiar with the programs, but we'll just hit on some of the highlights for tonight. Thank you. So our school counselors um are obviously

067tasked with providing the VOE counseling standards of learning and a comprehensive school counseling program to help develop their academic success uh college and career readiness and social emotional development. Currently, uh, we have a high school counseling director and middle school counseling director who are both on 12 month contracts and none of our elementary school counselors. Um, they're all 10-month contracts. So, that is a large gap that we have for resources in the summertime for our students and families. Um, however, we have made quite a bit of improvement over the last few years in getting our ratios of counselors to students down. Um we're very close to the Virginia code required ratio of 1 to 325 students. Um we meet that currently with our staff in place. However, one of those staff members is not licensed.

068Um and so I don't believe it technically counts. Um but we're right there. The Virginia co I'm sorry, the ASA national model recommends a ratio of 1 to 250 school counselors um for student support. So, our school social workers, we have five of them. Um, they address more intensive social emotional learning needs um of our students or needs that might interfere with learning. They're also one of the primary sources um of assistance for our students with chronic absenteeism and other barriers that are impacting them um coming to school. All five of our social workers are on 10-month contracts, which again means that there is no support during the summer. Um, I also want to point out the second bullet on that slide that all our four of our five social workers um have recently earned

069their LCSWS and our fifth is almost finished with her requirements. Uh this requires several years of work beyond their masters including 3,000 hours of supervised um clinical observation and an extensive licensing exam. Um so that is really to be applauded. Their level of expertise um is phenomenal and to have soon all five of our social workers have that um credential is is impressive. Currently, our ratio, um, as I said, we have one social worker at every school. I've listed the schools out there to show you what those student populations are approximately, um, which equates to a divisionwide ratio of one social worker for every 900 students, which is far above the recommended ratio of 1 to 250. So, Project Kind is our divisionwide character education program, which I'm I think you all are familiar with.

070And while um it works in conjunction with their counselors and social workers, it is a separate it is purposefully a separate program um because character education and kindness really needs to be embedded in the content areas across all curriculums, um classrooms, environments, etc. We use character strong as our platform for providing those lessons. Um, and every school has an ambassador uh that helps coordinate at the school level. Uh, they're part of the division level team that works to um develop the schedules and the activities that are going to be done. And then the ambassadors are teachers and other staff members in the school that are the liaison of sorts um coordinating those efforts. Uh I am excited to share with you that we will be the host of the regional character strong conference this coming

071January um that's being held at the doll campus of Mary Washington. So we're excited to be part of that um project kind at the elementary schools. So, we're in year three of Project Kind in general. Um, at the elementary schools, they have all uh implemented weekly lesson plans in all classrooms for a total of 36 lessons over the course of the school year, as well as several um different schoolwide activities, clubs, and other support programs. Um, they've also this year, I believe last year actually, moved to tier 2 implementation, which includes small group and other interventions for more intensive needs. And then at the secondary schools, um I called it year 1 2.0. Uh we kind of had to take a step back this year and realign and recommmit um those priorities at the middle

072school and high school. And I do want to thank Dr. Nice and Dr. Burns, if they're still here, um for that recommitment and their staffs to to really addressing this and getting those uh programs in place. This year at the middle school, they've done 12 lessons uh per grade to date and will have 25 lessons um by the end of the school year in each of those grade levels and are um have some project kind challenges as well as are in the process of working on um a kindness crew club of sorts at the middle school level. And then at the high school um they're and those lessons are taught during IE. At the high school, the lessons are taught during PASS. um Dr. Burns kind of redid his schedule being a new administrator this

073year um and learning about the program in order to get those lessons in. I think today was the fourth lesson um and they have scheduled to do 10 by the end of the school year with the goal of providing all 25 lessons um next school year. They've also established a kindness crew student organization that has led um a bullying prevention spirit week. I believe that was last week and are working towards um a kindness closet which I actually want to talk a little bit more about. You may be familiar with um hopefully you're familiar with FoxMart that is at the Votech Center currently that was kind of started under the same idea that kindness closet is looking at uh back in like 2018ish. Annie Kupka, Chris Buck, myself met to talk about what our students

074and families need and um clothing and school supplies, hygiene items, those basic needs. Um, and we were looking at providing a centralized location where families and students could come and access those things. Um, Spennsylvania has one called the treasure chest. J James Monroe, Fredericksburg City. Um, theirs is called I think maybe Hope House. Um, Stafford, we just saw the scout bus um came to us last week. They also have a similar program. And so that was our hope uh with King George Foundation and Fox Smart for various reasons. um you know it's staffed completely by volunteers. They've focused more on the school supply side of it and teacher support so that teachers certainly in need um don't aren't spending their own money to access these materials. But that still leaves a gap um for clothing,

075laundry detergent, uh body wash, soap, shampoo, these sorts of things that our students and families need every day. Um and without it, it's a barrier to coming to school. I just met with Janelle Davis, uh, the ambassador for Project Kindness this morning, and she was sharing with me, um, their thoughts on the kindness closet, um, which we had anticipated could be housed at the VOTE Center. So, I say this specifically tonight because I just learned today that the VOTE Center is scheduled for demolition. Um, and so I ask that that be um, planned for and considered as uh, the board moves forward with plating for whatever replacement that might look like um, in the future. There's a lot of programs supported by the VODC center um, or the VOTE building um, that I hope are

076continue to be supported whatever that looks like in the future. So, um, social workers and counselors in collaboration with Project Kind helped lead lots of initiatives. World Day of Bullying Prevention, um, I believe I believe you all received blue shirts this year, I hope. Um, National Red Ribbon Week, which is substance abuse prevention, um, etc. Lots of things going on. They also provide student lessons and professional development on a variety of topics. Uh, suicide, self harm, threat assessment, child abuse, neglect, and reporting. Um, all those sorts of things. and continue to do initiatives in the spring. Um, a big project we have going on right now is, uh, literally dozens of holiday programs that support hundreds of students and families, um, including the NJRTC Angel Tree Project, which is led by, uh, Major Brandt Callahan,

077Cops and Kids, Shop with the Sheriff, um, and other community programs, um, that YMCA and, um, the sheriff's office coordinate. Um, however, it is our school counselors and social workers who do all the leg work behind the scenes. They identify all the families, um, collect all the information, gather the wish lists, the preferences, the clothing sizes, and put all of that together, not only for our inschool programs like the Rosy Angel Tree, but also our community programs um, for the YMCA and the sheriff's office, etc. So, they do all of that um, for to support those programs. And I think it's important to acknowledge that um because it's not not typically seen. Go ahead. And then finally, the health and safety advisory committee also um is a part of the threat the division level threat

078assessment team uh which is tasked with overseeing the divisionwide response for threat assessment. Every school also has a school level threat assessment team that responds to those actual threats on um at the school level. And and by threat that is a threat to self such as suicidal ideiation or a threat to others um and does not only include students but we have a legal responsibility to respond to um any threat within the school. uh parent, staff member, outside um person that may not be connected at all to the school, but if the threat involves the school, then the threat assessment teams are tasked with supporting um and responding to those efforts. So, that's all I have for the mental health side of uh health and safety advisory. And now Sarah is going to talk to

079you about the health side. Good evening. As Miss Fischer said, my name is Sarah Linker and I have the privilege of being the lead nurse for our amazing team of health care professionals. And I'm excited to give you an overview of our clinics, review our school data, and then talk about some projects we are working on that we're really excited about and hope you all will be excited about as well. So for our day-to-day clinic operations, our nurses are handling illnesses, injuries, dispensing medications, treating students who have chronic health conditions that require sometimes hourly management and treatment while they are in school. We also are responsible for the students health files which include the physicians from their physicals from their physicians, making sure they have the immunizations that are required by the code of Virginia

080in order for them to attend school or the necessary exemptions to those immunizations. We conduct hearing and vision screenings for all kindergarteners, third graders, seventh graders, 10th graders, and transfer students, which as you know is a large number of students that we're screening for vision and hearing and catching deficits on students each year and then referring them out to a healthcare provider to get the evaluation and treatment that they need. And we also provide training for our staff members. So, for our day-to-day clinic operations, if you don't mind going to the next slide, Amanda, thank you. Oh, yes. Is that Can you hear me better? Yes. So, for our day-to-day clinic operations, as I said, I'm the lead nurse. I'm an 11-month contract. We have one nurse at each of our five schools. Um, three

081of those RNs have their bachelors of science and nursing. Um, one is nationally certified and those are all 10-month contracts. So when the students are in the building and then we have two full-time clinic assistants, one of them rotates between our three elementary schools and the other one rotates between the middle school and high school. On the right you have our data from last school year. Our five clinics saw a to or had a total of 52,81 clinic visits. So about 68% of those were for illnesses and injuries to students. They medication dispensing accounted for almost 24% of those visits. And then our students who have type 1 diabetes accounted for the other 7.7% of the clinic visits. The column on the left has some of our most common chronic health conditions that the nurses

082are managing while the students are in school each day. So you can see we have 313 students throughout the division with asthma, 127 who have been diagnosed with a life-threatening allergic reaction and could require treatment at a moment's notice, 49 with seizures, and then 13 with diabetes and a handful of others that we've just highlighted up there. The graph is showing that over the past several school years, we have had a steady increase in the number of students we are seeing who are requiring assessment and treatment by our nurses each day while they are in the school building. The red tab is our diabetic visits. The yellow are medication administrations and then all visits combined which are including the illness and injury visits are the blue ones. Um we certainly have had an increase in

083students who have chronic health conditions in our division. Um compared to 22 23 we have triple the number of students who have insulin pumps that are requiring frequent management by the nurses. We have double the number of students who have continuous glucose monitors that let us adjust their insulin dosage as needed to catch their blood sugar before it drops to a dangerously low level and requires the activation of EMS or emergency medications to be administered. We have more students who have asthma seizures and anaphylaxis life-threatening allergic reactions than we did two years ago as well. So for our current status, we just reviewed over all of our nurses work 10 months and I work 11 months. Um based on the data that you have presented and just quite honestly the day-to-day of the clinic, we

084really need additional staffing to make sure we can provide quality health care to our students. So when we have a student who's coming in, we don't want them waiting in a line of 10 other students to see the nurse and missing out on vital class time or even worse to be having a medical emergency and to not be able to get that timely care that they need. So, we are very fortunate and thankful for the two clinic assistants we have, but based on the volumes of our clinics and how many chronic health conditions students in our division have that require constant monitoring from our nurses, we really need additional clinic assistance in order to make sure that we can safely provide that care and that we can support our students in missing as little class

085time as possible. So, we're proposing an incremental increase in the clinic assistant position. Um, next school year, ideally, we would like to have three clinic assistants and then the school year after that for clinic assistance. We're also requesting to consider increasing the nurses contracts from 10 months to 10 and a half months. Um, over the summer is where all of our work gets done in making sure that students have what they need healthwise in order to be able to start school. So, all of our incoming kindergarteners and all of our transfer students, making sure we're reviewing those medical records. Inevitably, sometimes a large percentage of them don't quite have what they need when they initial initially submit their documentation. So, having the resources to reach out to their families, giving them enough notice to get

086their appointment scheduled, to get updated physicals, to get their immunizations so they're in requirement with the code of Virginia and are prepared to start on the first day and we're not having to delay students. And then lastly, we would like to do a review of our nurse salary scale and make sure that we're competitive with other divisions in the region so that we can retain the amazing nurses we have who already know and are familiar with our students and be able to have that continuity of care. Now, on to some of the slides I'm most excited about are some of the projects that we've been working on. So, Project Atom is a nationwide initiative to try and help not just schools but communities become better prepared to respond if there is a sudden cardiac arrest.

087Um, each year in the United States there are 350,000 people who go into sudden cardiac arrest and 318,000 of them die. Um, when someone goes into sudden cardiac arrest, there's a 60% chance that there's no one nearby who is going to intervene or knows how to do CPR. So, they're waiting for EMS to arrive. And every minute that someone goes by in cardiac arrest and does not have CPR done, their chance of surviving decreases 10%. So, the more people we have who are prepared and trained in how to do CPR and how to use AEDs, the better chance of survival we're going to give our staff member, our student, our community member who might be in one of our schools. So, I'm really excited that we are partnering with Project ADOM to work on getting

088each of our schools at designated as a heart-safe school. One of the many items that needs to be completed in order for our schools to earn that designation is for at least 10% of the staff in each school to be officially CPR certified. So, we do the handsonly CPR and AED training with all staff at the beginning of the school year, but this is a specific several hour course from the American Heart Association or American Red Cross that teaches the full CPR choking AED. So, we are currently working toward getting 10% of each school certified. We've held five CPR classes this fall and have two additional ones scheduled when we get back after the holiday break. And then we'll start doing our emergency cardiac drills in the spring once we have our teams formulated in

089together because it's wonderful if you're trained in CPR, but we need to know how we're all going to work together as a cohesive team in order to give that potential victim the best chance of survival. So you'll see on the chart um King George Middle School is already at 10% of their staff certified which is amazing and they're actually over that. So we're super thankful for how eager they are to embrace this new project. And then we have just a few staff at each of the other schools who need to get certified and will be at our 10% threshold for each school and can move on to conducting the drills. Along those same sl same lines of being prepared for cardiac arrest, we are partnering with Gwennneth gift which is a nonprofit foundation based out

090of Fredericksburg in order to their goal is to build communities that are prepared to save potentially save the life of someone who's suffering from cardiac arrest. And they will provide training to large groups of people including students. So they already have multiple other school divisions that they partner with and they go in and provide handsonly CPR and AED training to those students so that they can also be prepared to respond if there is an emergency either anywhere they are. It could be in the community. It could be while they're on vacation. It could be at the grocery store. Um they actually have three students that they train from a school in Northern Virginia in CPR and they performed CPR on their scout leader and saved his life. Um, and they were seventh graders. So, that's

091pretty amazing to say you saved a life as a seventh grader because you were trained and knew how to do CPR. So, we're working with Dr. Nice and going to start a pilot program with our seventh graders and train them in handsonly CPR and AED use during their PE class. And then, depending on how that program goes, are hoping to expand it to other grades in middle school and high school and repeat the training on an annual basis. We all know if we're only taught to do something once, it's going to be hard to remember how to do that in general, much less if you're in a stressful emergency situation. So, our goal is really to have it as an ongoing basis so that these students are confident in how to do CPR and use

092an AED should they need to do so. And then lastly, we have been working diligently on getting our staff trained in the use of Nlloxxone. So if a person in our building has an opioid overdose, we have Nlloxxone which can treat that overdose. We are partnering with partnering with the Rapahanic area community service board to provide trainings. All of our staff who are on our cardiac emergency response teams and taking the CPR class are receiving the training for how to use Nlloxxone. We also did a training at the middle school and trained their staff members and have trained a total of 106 staff members this fall and then are working on scheduling a refresher training for the high school staff next spring. They were all initially trained a few years ago, but with staff turnover

093and just the need to refresh your skills. We are going to do additional training with them in the spring as well. And then we also have several groups at the high school such as Rosi and the nurse aids where students are also trained in how to administer Narcan. And then this kind of a summary of several things we talked about. Um we have our AEDs throughout the division and are actually looking at partnering with Gwennneth GIF Foundation. One of the other things they do is help schools get grants to get more AEDs. So, while we are blessed to have several AEDs in each school, as part of Project Atom, we've done time trials to see if we can get to the AED, get back to the victim, apply the AED, and defibrillate them within 3

094minutes. And while we can, there are some schools that are cutting it close to that 3 minute mark. And the sooner we can get the AED there, the better chance of survival that victim has. So, we're working with Gwennneth GIF to see if we can obtain some grants to get additional AEDs and have them distributed throughout our schools as well. We will also do retraining for the evacuation stair chair. We started that last year with King George Fire and Rescue. And then we'll continue stocking our emergency medications and Nlloxxone in our clinics. I'm gonna turn it back over to Miss Fischer. >> I just wanted to mention a couple more. um subcommittees that are included under the umbrella of health and safety advisory. That includes our divi division wellness committee which is led by Anita

095Davis um our supervisor of school nutrition as well as the student athlete um handbook subcommittee which is um in partnership with myself and Sarah as well as the high school athletic trainer and the middle school and high school athletic directors. There's the next one. Uh specific to athletics, um we've do a lot of work with them, uh including all of the concussion, uh return to play, uh cardiac arrest procedures, which were under their bianial review last year. Um and then the heat and weather related procedures. We have had heat and weather related procedures in place under this committee for several years now. um and proactively had purchased wet bulb thermometers for the middle school and high school athletic departments um in order to determine the uh temperature and following the heat guidelines from BHSL. That

096actually became law this past July. Um and so fortunately we already have that in place. Um in addition this year we as a committee and Mr. Frank um our board representative uh proposed purchasing colorcoded flags to align to our six tiered heat restrictions um provided by the guidelines and we have purchased those and they are ready to be placed um come spring when spring sports start. So that will indicate to the athletic trainers and the coaches uh what the heat restrictions are um at that time based on the guidelines provided to us by the state. And then uh finally the title 4 grant subcommittee is also falls under the health and safety advisory committee. Uh this is really our primary source of funding for safe and healthy students. Um you know the last couple years

097we have been fortunate to have some COVID related funds like ESSER and workforce um healthcare grant. uh those funds are gone and really the only ongoing federal fund we have is title 4 which has supported a lot of the initiatives along the way that we discussed tonight. Um but they are limited. Uh they're certainly not uh sustainable long-term in providing for all of these programs. And so a summary of um the needs and recommendations from the health and safety advisory committee in support of these programs and staff. Uh these are all bulleted kind of specifically and gathered throughout the presentation, but in general uh we really need to look at extending contracts for some of our staff members in order to provide summer summer services. Our students do attend summer school. our families and students

098still have needs during the summer that will impact them when school begins again in August. Um, and we simply don't have staff coverage in the summer. Um, as an example, in the last two years, um, we've spent in excess of $50,000 uh in payroll for staff members doing work outside of their contract hours. And only 13,000 of that is local funds. Um and there are no more grant funds to support those. Uh in addition, we need to increase uh retention of staff by as Sarah said, ensuring the salary scales are competitive. As an example, uh nurses uh and teachers have the same school work calendar and hours. Um several of our nurses also have bachelor's degrees, which is, you know, required for teachers, yet they are not on the same salary scale. Um nurses on

099average make between 1,500 and $2,000 less per year per step than our teachers do with the same um education, the same bachelor's degree. In addition, as I mentioned, uh four of our five social workers have earned their LCSWS, which actually would allow them to open their own practice and treat and diagnose patients, clients, um out, you know, privately. Um, but they continue to work in our schools, yet they're not eligible for national board, the $2,000 stipen that teachers who are nationally b board certified receive. So, that would be a recommendation um to ensure those types of incentives are um consistent for various uh staff uh categories um as well as extending those contracts during the year. And then finally, the very last bullet here, if you recall, over the summer, General Assembly passed legislation to

100allow schools to contract with thirdparty vendors to provide taotherapy um during the school day. Um that's not something that we have implemented yet, but we've done a lot of research on um and VDOE has actually be has begun extending um statewide contracts to they're they're doing the vetting of these programs. And so we would like to consider um contracting with one of these programs such as Hazel Health that would provide access to mental health services for all students um virtually through teleaotherapy vendors. And that is all we have for you tonight. If you have any questions, Mr. Bush. >> Yeah, a couple. Um Fischer, you had mentioned something about um more need more counselors. Obviously, I heard that from more nurses, more counselors, I guess CNAs. Um, you said in elementary was a big concern,

101I guess. And you're talking about counselors. You you referring to an additional counselor in every elementary or just one more for all the elementary? What? >> Sure. So, well, I would love more counselors, but specifically, um, our elementary school counselors are all on 10-month contracts. They come the same day as teachers leave the same day as teachers, which leaves the summer completely void of any resource connection to the schools. Our social workers are also 10-month contract. Um, and so there's simply nothing in the summer um for our families um outside of myself and Sarah. Um Sarah who's only on an 11-month contract. So extending those contracts um to include some summer assistance is what we're looking at. Um particularly at the elementary school level, we also don't have a director like no one to actually

102coordinate the elementary schools. Um and it would be a combin our proposal would be a combination of an extended contract to 12 months for an elementary school counselor who would also become the director per se of >> Okay. >> Does that make sense? >> Oh yeah, it does. Um I have a couple more. Do you want others before I do the other? You want me to do all of mine? >> Okay. Um one of this is for Miss Linker. Just a couple. First of all, thank you so much for the whole CPR thing. Uh, 3 weeks ago, I had a teammate of mine that had a massive heart attack and there were two um, high schoolers there and they didn't know how to do CPR and he died. Uh, we don't know if we'd lived

103or not, even if they knew CPR, but I just commend you, boy, just more we can do with teaching our students, especially CPR, especially the upper classmen, the better. Um, but I had a couple of questions. Um you had said that um you want some more clinical assistants and I wasn't sure you were talking about actual nurses or CNAs or what? >> So clinic assistants we have one registered nurse in each school and then our two clinic assistant positions. They can be either a certified nursing assistant, also known as a CNA, an LPN, or an RN, but they do not have to be a nurse for the clinic assistant position. But that second healthcare provider trained person who is able to also assist the nurse in dispensing medications, treating students, et. Okay, that's all. Thank

104you. That was it, >> Mrs. Cleveland. >> Yes. Thank you for this. Appreciate it. Um I remember last year when you made the annual presentation um I was floored by the number of clinical visits the percentage from the 22 23 to 20 but the 22 to 23 to the next year and on slide 13 I don't know if you can pull slide 13 up um it looks like and I know that you were saying that it was increasing a lot with the um diabetes and the medication deliveries but it actually looks like it's not increasing as much overall all um from last year. >> So the correct the percentage of increase from 22 to 23 was not as much as 23 to 24. In 23 to 24 we had 47,162 visits and then this past

105year we had 52,81. >> So that's good, right? >> That is good. Um yes. >> So I mean and I'm just curious because I I remember we talking about this last year and you were saying you know the mental health is a big concern. So are we to assume that this is a positive trend then since we're not seeing it increase as much? >> So yes, we certainly wouldn't want it to increase as much as it did from 22 23 to 23 24. But I think we are still certainly seeing a large percentage of students who are having mental health issues. A percentage of them undiagnosed. They're coming to the clinic just complaining that they have a stomach ache. but the nurse is seeing them repeatedly or they have acid reflux or they have chronic

106headaches and the nurse has to have the time and resources to be able to have a conversation and do a detailed assessment with them to see, okay, is this a medical issue or is this something that we need to pull in our counseling or social work partners and really get them that mental health help if it truly is mental health versus a medical condition. But it's hard to have the time to do that when you're one nurse in a clinic and you have 10 children who are waiting to be seen and you're thinking the longer they wait the more class time they miss and I don't you know the nurses really they want to provide excellent care and it's hard to provide that excellent care. Um, I'm sure any of the principles can probably speak

107to when they walk in the clinics and they are just overloaded with students. And I meant to say this before, but we would welcome the opportunity for you all to come spend a full day or a half day in a clinic cuz I love data. I can stand up here and give you as many numbers as you want, but I really think it's if you could see kind of the flow and how busy that clinic is and what is on that nurse's shoulders um in order to make sure she's not missing something and we're not providing suboptimal care to a student. I really think that would do a lot more than anything I can stand up here and tell you. >> Yeah, I'm sure. I I agree. I mean, I I know that it's the

108challenge. I just wanted to point that out because it makes me a little bit happier to see that it wasn't as much increasing. So, thank you. >> You're welcome. >> I don't think I want to uh sit in a clinic full of germs, but thanks. I'm just kidding. >> I'm just kidding. I might do that actually. >> Yes, >> that's a great idea. >> Love it. We would >> any more questions from the board? >> No. >> Good. >> Like to thank you guys for this presentation was really good. Uh, and I know that you need more counselors, you need more nurses, and I wish that we could and give them all to you. You know, you need another Jeff Smith, you need uh, you know, for attendance, you need and I I wish we

109could do all of that for you. Uh, you know, I'm I still think we need mental health specialists, one at at every elementary school and a uh behavior specialist at every elementary school. But, you know, we're this is all things that uh we have to get money from the county for. And uh if if we could do it, I'm sure we would do all of that. I just wish we could. Thank you so much for your that's a wealth of information. We appreciate you. We have a new student representative today. Cooper, I apologize I didn't get your last name. If you could please introduce us to you and let us know what's going at the middle school. And welcome. >> Well, hi, my name is Cooper Surles. Uh, and uh, I'm the middle school representative

110today and probably next week too or whenever the next meeting is. Um, so I would like to talk about the recent play that happened on the 11th through the 14th. Uh students spent countless after school hours uh working and practicing on sets and scenes of the play. Um there were also many visitors. I don't know if you've heard of these before, but Deca visited the Deca Club visited the high school one. Um there will be a students were given also tag. Um, our librarians also went to a librarian convention and won a virtual author visit with Ruda Sepiz and Steve Shankin on December 10 on December 10th. Um, students in the TAG English classes 6th, 6th through 8th are given the opportunity to attend and our beta club, the Beta Club convention. We qualified in

111all three competitions and that's pretty much all we've that's a that's happened that's of importance. >> Thank you. Next up next is Brooke from high school. >> Hello, my name is Brook Hayden and I'm the high school student representative. Thank you again for giving us this opportunity. First off, so testing will be taking place December 2nd through the 19th covering all subjects including makeups, project graduate, and retakes. Our science department is hosting a Red Cross B blood drive on Tuesday the 20th, Thursday the 20th, I'm sorry. Recently at the high school, an interview pro process for a full ride scholarship happened over the course of the last two weeks. Over 60 participants interviewed and this year's Jefferson scholarship nominee is Olivia Wilkerson and me for the Wentzas which is a first generation scholarship. We will

112be representing the high school. These are full ride opportunities at the University of Virginia. Seth Parker earned first place in the central area tractor operators contest which qualified him for the state competition in the spring representing the high school's FFA. Our DECA program had an outstanding performance at DIS at the district competition last Thursday, taking place at the mall. We've had 21 students moving on to the state leadership conference in February and four students that earned the first place title. Cheerleading also had an impressive season. The varsity cheer team placed sixth in the states sixth in in the states at the VHSL championship, being only the third team in school history to qualify. Members of the Chick-fil-A Leadership Academy will be visiting all elementary schools tomorrow to hand out books and promote leadership and positive

113role modeling to the second and third grade classes, I believe. And then four students from the high school's athletic department signed to continue their sports journeys last week to college. And finally, Thanksgiving break is next week. And I know students are so excited to have a break. Thank you. Thank you. Thank both of you students for your willingness to come and share what's going on at your schools. It's not a it's not a an easy task to sit and talk in front of people. So, thank you both very much. I just want to Did you say you want a scholarship? >> Um, yeah. The high school nominates two students, one for the first generation scholarship to UVA and then another just an out pretty much like an outstanding student. And yeah, me and my best

114friend got nominated to represent the high school at for the UVA's full ride scholarships this year. >> And so you still have to go another step though before you can win it, I guess. Yeah, there there are interviewing processes, but my sister got the same scholarship. >> It's called first generation. >> No, it's called the one that I received or got nominated for is the Wentza scholarship, but it's the exact same thing as the Jefferson just for first generation college students. Good job. Thank you. >> Congratulations. >> Thank you. Now, we're going to move on to the cons consent agenda. First up is meeting minutes from October 6th and from the October 6th disciplinary hearing. >> Madam Chair, I have a list of uh members who were present if that would be helpful. >> Oh,

115thank you. Yes. >> So, uh for the first set of meeting minutes, October 6, we have Mr. Frank, Miss Davis, and Miss Cleveland. I think we wanted to make motions relevant to those that were present. So for the first meeting, it's uh Mr. Frank, Miss Davis, and Miss Cleveland. >> Yes, both of those meetings. >> You can approve both of those at the same time. >> I make a motion to approve the meeting minutes for October 6 for the disciplinary hearing and for October 6, the second disciplinary hearing as presented. >> Second. >> All in favor? I I motion carries. Next we have October 20th. If was there anyone not present at that meeting? >> Yes. For that meeting, Madam Chair, we had Miss Hoover, Miss Davis, Mr. Bush, and Miss Cleveland. >> Okay. I

116have a question about this one. >> I didn't see the meeting minutes posted in the agenda. Do you see them? regular meeting. >> Oh, >> so we need to put the regular in there. >> Yeah. >> So, we need to post the regular meeting minutes. Note, >> those will be on the ETH. >> So, we'll we'll we'll slide those to the ETH. >> They can do the >> We can make a motion for the uh disciplinary hearing. >> Yeah. >> Disciplinary. >> Anyone? >> I make a motion that we accept the disciplinary hearing minutes for OC. Oh, for that's what's the date? >> October 20th. I was right. For October 20th. Second. >> All in favor? >> I. >> Chair votes I. Motion carries. Then we had a special meeting on the 29th and I

117believe that was Mr. Frank, Miss Davis, and myself. Is that correct? >> And Miss Cleveland. >> I was virtual, right? >> Oh, that's right. >> Virtual. >> Yeah. >> I make a motion to pass the October 29th uh schoolboard meeting. Or was this a disciplinary? No school board meeting as presented. >> Special meeting as presented. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> I I chair votes I. Motion carries. The November 6th meetings were the ones that was just Mr. Frank, Miss Davis, and I. Correct? >> Yes. >> Okay. I can't keep track. Thank you. >> I make a motion of that we approve the November 6 employee grievance hearing as presented. and >> and special meeting >> second. >> November 6. >> All those in favor? >> I I >> chair votes I. Motion

118carries. >> Donation. >> Next we have donations. Dr. Boyd. >> Yes, Madam Chair. We do have uh four donations from October and November. Uh our third elementary school, Sealston Elementary School, received the William M. Cage Library Trust in the amount of $500. Uh, Virginia Star provided King George High School $1,500 for CTE supplies, equipment, and coordinator related expenses. Angley's Angels provided $500 to both PTOAC Elementary School and Sealston Elementary School uh for materials. Uh, I would ask for approval of those four donations. Madam Chair, >> can I have a motion to approve? >> I make a motion to approve the donations as presented. Second. >> All those in favor? >> I I >> chair votes I. Motion carries. Moving along to our action items. >> Yes, Madam Chair. We have uh three opportunities this evening

119almost well all very similar. They are the acceptance of funds for grants awarded to King George County Schools. Uh first, we have grants awarded to us from the Security Equipment Grant. The Virginia Department of Education has reallocated additional funds from the 2024 school security grant. Uh King George County Schools has been awarded a total of $44,256. This will be used, I believe, primarily through uh for cameras at King George High School. There is a local match for this grant acceptance of $11,64 which is bud budgeted for already. We have that covered. So, I would ask this evening uh for a motion to accept $44,256 uh from uh for the school security grant. >> Madam Chair, I make a motion that we accept the $44,256 from the security equipment grant. >> Second. >> Motion's been seconded.

120Any discussion? >> All those in favor? >> I I >> chair votes I. Motion carries. >> Madam chair, the next uh fund uh acceptance is FY26, the Advancing Computer Science Education AC SE grant. Uh this year, King George County Schools from the Virginia Department of Education has been awarded $74,55845 from the Virginia Department of Education. Uh this will be used for uh curriculum integration and for professional development. uh services for our teachers. I would ask this evening that the board ex uh make a motion to accept $74,55845 for the advancing computer science education grant. >> I make a motion that um we approve the uh ACSE grant in the amount of $74,55845. >> Second. Motion was made and properly seconded. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. >> Chair votes I. Motion carries. >> And

121finally, Madam Chair, uh I would accept or I would ask that we accept a grant award to King George County Schools for the early childhood provisioning licensed teacher grant. This again is from the Department of Education, Virginia Department of Education. And the amount is $1,57720. Uh, and this is for early childhood provisionally licensed teacher incentive program. So, it is my recommendation to approve a motion to accept $1,577.20 from the early childhood provisionally licensed teacher incentive program. >> I make a motion to approve uh the grant provided from the Commonwealth of Virginia in the amount of $1,577.20. >> Second. >> Motion's made and properly seconded. Any discussion? All those in favor? >> I >> chair votes I. Motion carries. Okay. Now moving along to discussion items. I have forwarded each of the board members um our

122school board self-evaluation which I ask you to look at and evaluate each each member and we'll discuss it at next month uh meeting um in close session. Right. Close session. Uh we have a choice to do it in an open or closed session is certainly >> discuss an open session then >> either one. >> Okay. We will talk about it as a board and then we will decide what we're going to do. >> Thank you. >> Next, Dr. Boyd, we have CIP discussion. >> Yes, Madam Chair. So, this is an annual occurrence. annually we receive notice from uh the King George County government uh to solicit our projects which are greater than $50,000 and that we see in the next 5 years will be large major capital expenses from the school division. If you open

123that, you'll see a summary page at the beginning. On the left hand side, you'll see a column which lists the projects. Uh going into this year, which will be due to the county this Friday after board approval, hopefully this evening is a total of 22 projects that we see within the next 5 years or so that are listed with a certain priority uh range. So there's three priorities. We list them as urgent which means we need to do them now or relatively soon. Necessary would fall right behind urgent meaning that we'll need to do this within probably a 2 to three year life within the next 2 to 3 years. And then finally there is a future category which for us means within about the four to 5 year range. If you if you track

124those projects across you'll see what we believe our estimated costs are for those particular projects. Uh again, these are estimates at this point. They could vary. Uh and then you'll see the year in which we propose those projects being completed. Uh some of those projects have continuing costs which we also list in in multiple years. So uh what I would ask for this evening obviously is any questions that I could answer, but also approval of our CIP so that we can deliver it to the county uh this Friday. So I would ask for a motion for approval of the CIP. >> I have a question for you, Dr. Boyd. >> What's the school? I have two. Um the school bus refresh. >> Uh school bus refresh is what we do. This is an annual cost

125>> every year depending on the amount of money that the county can provide to us. We we purchase about two, three, four new buses. Uh and what we do is we take our oldest buses and retire them from the fleet. So these are either the buses with the greatest number of years, greatest number of mileage or or buses that we've had mechanical issues with. Usually what we're looking at are buses that last for us for about 20 years and then we end up retiring those buses, trying to trade those buses in uh before we uh you know recharge our fleet on the front end. >> I got you. I I looked at it wrong for some reason. I thought I was looking at year 26 27 as the 3 million, but that was the total

126of every year. Oh, correct. >> I'm aware of that. Sorry. I thought this was like a one time thing that was like Okay. And then the other thing was um the bleachers. Did we receive funding already for that or was that just talked about? >> No, actually there w at one point in time there was talk about uh bleachers at our football field. This project actually is the bleachers in our gymnasium. >> Oh. >> So we have been in contact with the company that provided the Jeep uh the bleachers for our gymnasium. We've had them do a lot of repairs on those over the years. They've given us an estimated um number of years that they'll last uh beyond the fixes that we've been able to make and and they're letting us know that they're

127about at end of life. >> Okay. >> Dr. Mo, I have a question. Um and I think I I know what the answer is. In the U track resurfacing for the uh middle school track resurface, I noticed there's two columns there. Um the the total Well, it's only one column. I'm sorry. I thought we did some of that in the past. When was the last time that was resurfaced? That was a discussion I know that we had a couple years ago. It just wasn't done. >> Not while any Well, maybe discussion, but not while any of us have been on the the board. So, it's it's been uh I want to say maybe a decade that they put that track in. It was originally uh I think an asphalt track, right? >> And then we've

128um coated it with a rubber surface. >> Uh we are getting very close to the end of uh the rubber's lifetime. If you look at the track, there are some areas that are that are bald that are blacker than than the blue track is right now. Uh so we've we've be begun to get estimates on what that is going to cost moving forward. >> I I just I knew we discussed it. And so this is the discussion that's being done now. >> And how often did you say that was every four to five years? >> It's about No, it's about 10 years. >> No, no, I'm talking about how often should it be done? >> About 10 years. >> Okay. >> Yeah. The resurfacing of the track. Yeah. About 10 years. >> Right. That's all.

129Any other questions about the this >> make a motion that unless was there another one? >> No, go ahead. >> I make a motion that we accept the CIP plan um for now and in the future as presented. >> Second. >> I was going to ask if there was discussion, but we've already had that. >> Do we need to say the dollar amount for that, David? I don't think we need to state the amount because it's an it's an approximation. >> No, we do not have to state the amount for this. >> Yeah, if it was an exact figure, we'd have to state the amount. >> This and really this is this is just to move this document forward to the county. I want to make sure the board the school board is comfortable with

130this document being moved forward to the county. >> Okay. Did anyone second that? >> Yes. >> And second. I made the motion and seconded it. >> All those in favor? I >> chair votes I. Motion carries. And then we have our um policy manual updates. >> Yes, Madam Chair. So, this evening we do have five policy updates and one regulation that I'm proposing. Uh three of these policy updates we are required to look at for an annual review. So, when you open them, you're not you'll notice there's no changes to the verbiage because we're just responsible for taking a look at them and reviewing them annually. So, Madam Chair, would you like me to go through those relatively quickly and then parse out the other ones and or would you I we've done this a

131few different ways. I can go through all of them. >> I think the board has if if everyone on the board has reviewed them and are comfortable, we can probably just make a motion to approve them all at the same time. Unless anybody wants Dr. Boy to present them separately. >> Some he'll have to present separately, right? Because they're not all lumped together. or how do we >> how about if I go through the three annual ones quickly? Okay. All right. So, the first one is BB BDD. BDD is um electronic participation in meetings from remote locations. Again, nothing has changed here. This is just an annual uh certification that we approve electronic participation in our meetings and and we have done that in the past and many of us have uh used those services.

132So, uh, I guess I'll ask, well, let me just do all three of the these and then we'll ask for one motion. That'll make it easier. Uh, BDDL is electronic participation in committee meetings from remote location. So, again, very similar uh to the first one, but this has to do with committee meetings and and allowing participants of our committee meetings to participate virtually. The final the final annual update requirement is policy JM. That's for restraint and conclusion or seclusion, excuse me. And that again is an annual review. Nothing has changed there, but uh we're required to review that and approve that annually. >> Did have a question just it's not necessary. The policy seems fine, I guess. Um do we do we train our teachers or anyone or in there's a training in the proper

133way to rest restrain somebody? Okay. I didn't see that mentioned here necessarily, but was it and I just missed it or is it just simply something that we obviously do? >> We have we have Yes. Look at all of our principles. >> I knew we did, but I thought I would see something here. >> So, we have CPI training and we have select staff that train on that annually. >> All right. Good. >> Just I knew we did, but I thought it would be here. >> Yeah, >> it's okay. >> That's all. Madam Chair, I make a motion that we approve BDD, BDDL, and JM as presented. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> I. >> Chair votes I. Motion carries. >> Madam Chair, I'll jump down to now uh LBD. LBD was one

134that I think we saw some uh maybe some emails lately from VSBA. This was their policy or our policy on home instruction. It's LBD. I think Mr. Bush, maybe you sent me an email about it. So, we were already in compliance uh with what needs to happen across the state. VSBA pushed out a policy update and you can see some of the it it's just grammatical things that they've pushed out. So, we are certainly in compliance with there was question about whether or not parents could give consent verbally or whether it had to be written consent. And you'll notice in the policy we require written consent. Uh so I would ask for approval of of this policy update from BSBA this evening. >> I move that we approve policy LBD as written. >> Second. >>

135All those in favor? I >> I >> chair votes I. Motion carries. >> Next up is policy IGDA. This is our student organizations. Uh the only differences are in paragraph 2. Paragraph 2 cited secondary schools. Students uh may organize and conduct meetings of non-curricular related groups. The verbiage there changes changes to King George High School. Students may organize and conduct meeting of non-curriculum related groups. Uh and then it states below the next sentence, King George High School provides equal access to any student who wishes to conduct a meeting without discrimination on the basis of religious, political, philosophical, and other content of speech at such meetings. I would ask for um uh board approval this evening. >> Madam Chair, I make a motion that we approve IGA as presented. Second. >> All those in favor? >>

136I. >> Chair votes I. Motion carries. >> I >> Sorry, I just didn't say I. >> I thought you did. Sorry. >> And then my And then finally, Madam Chair, we have a regulation IGDA-R2. Uh, this regulation is for non-curricular student organizations at the high school. Uh, we have talked about this a number of times in the last few meetings. I've made a few modifications based on some of the feedback we've received. You can see those are listed in red. We've stricken the provision for um at least 10 uh students who wish to serve as members. Uh we've restricted that and then also we've added in the renewal process proof of written parent permission from each member who wishes to renew membership in the student organization. Uh in the second page you'll see the principal

137will send notice to the school board of all approved andor disapproved student organizations for review by the superintendent and schoolboard members. That was something we discussed I believe two two meetings back. Uh and then you'll see uh finally bullet six the revocation process um led by the superintendent. So, I would ask for uh approval this evening of regulation IGDA-R2 or secondary or excuse me for high school uh non-curricular student organizations. >> Madam Chair, I make a motion that we approve IGDA-R2 as presented. >> Second. All those in favor? >> I I >> chair votes I. Motion carries. Moving on to committee reports. Mr. Frank, do you have any committee reports? >> I have none. >> Mrs. Cleveland, >> I have none. >> Mr. Bush, >> well, um, ours had to be cancelled because we didn't

138have a quorum, but we're having one tomorrow for the seat committee. >> Mrs. Davis, yes. um for the Chesapeake Bay Governor's School. Um I'm happy to report that our one amazing student that was worried about not being able to re receive credit for her PED class is able to get credit for that and graduate uh the RCC program as well as high school, which is incredible. edit. Uh, >> and then also something really cool is one of the students out of uh, I think it was Richmond County is going to go and be like a represent representative in the government somewhere. I don't know. Do you know what I'm talking about? Like um, >> age program? >> I don't think that's what it was, but yes, it was something just like that. But anyways, I

139used to His name was Georgie Cassan and I used to work with his dad. So, it was pretty cool. I know they're happy parents and should be proud because it's picked out of like all kinds of schools the nor all of northern neck and then even Stafford and all the um so he was the one picked out of all the schools so that was what an honor that's it well I have two committee reports I had a gifted advisory committee meeting on the 22nd of October and we um talked about our bylaws and plan and uh we nom nominated a new chairperson and a new secretary and we looked at a snapshot of the program. There are actually 215 gifted students K through 12 this year. That program represents nine to total ethnic groups and

14041 economically disadvantaged families. And we have 24 gifted referrals for evaluation since the start of the school year. And our uh our teachers are very busy doing so. Um, we have uh t had tag camp in June or we will excuse me. We 66 I Okay, I'm getting my We did have tag camp in June and we talked about that I think a little bit. Uh, how many how successful that was. Um, and also in grades K through two services are for reading language arts twice a week for 40 minutes. Currently there's four second graders receiving services. two at King George Elementary, one at BTOIC, and one at Sealston. In grades three through five, qualifying students receive services daily in gifted math and or reading classes at uh King George Elementary. And currently, there are

14123 third graders, 15 fourth graders, and 28 fifth graders receiving services. And in grades 6 through 12, we have accelerated math programs. Um and we also have uh pardon CGS, CGBS, CBGS and ATI. Um so we have um also talked about establishing establishing our annual goals. Um we're going to focus on four goals. We're going to increase ways to in increase the number of girls for TAG math. increased communication on how to help parents better understand standardsbased report cards as they're related to gifted students and an overall more awareness of the gifted program and the identification process. We also need ways to motivate underachievers in the program. Explore ways to make high school dual enrollment electives more available to those uh governor school um students as well. We have several more meetings coming up and

142your attendance is the community is welcome to uh join the committee at any time. And then just last week I met with the advisory tech I'm sorry the technology advisory committee and um we had uh Miss Campus who's the secondary math specialist give a presentation on her uh on the boards that the that the uh uh schools are using and how wonderful they are and they're uh not sedentary. They can move around and that's a huge bonus. We talked about the grant that we just approved tonight. Um, and in with that grant, the K through8 teachers will be able to get uh compensated for writing and pil piloting um these lessons as well as some other benefits. We're going to have a STEM night on March 12th. Mark your calendars. We need volunteers if anybody's

143interested. Um, and we talked about all the issues that are going on at each of the schools. And most importantly, I think uh, poor Miss Half got a lot of a lot of questions asked that weren't really in her bailey wig, so she hung in there. One of them is uh, we needed a policy or an artificial intelligence. We've talked about that. We've been putting it off. There's some surrounding counties that are kind of, you know, struggling with that, but I think we we need to move on with that. There was also some discussion which was out of her area of that she shouldn't have been questioned. And one of those questions, and this is for later discussion, but just to put it on your radar, is um there's, you know, teachers that want to

144uh send information back to their families and stuff like that. So there's it's some kind of camera policy. Um I'm not you know obviously cell phones can't be used. Um so just let's I guess maybe get with uh Miss Half on that even though even though it's not hers big concern is she doesn't want that if there is going to be some kind of required thing. She doesn't want that to come out our budget and neither do I. So that's a little side note. >> We we've talked about it. So >> talk about it. >> We've talked about it. Yes. Miss Half and I. >> Okay. Um, I think that's all. Our next meeting is Thursday, January 22nd. We've got a great group of uh involved parents and staff there. So, kudos to to that

145group. And that is all for me. Superintendent, do you have a report? >> Uh, yes, Madam Chair. I'll be very quickly very quick. So, um, first I'm looking forward to, uh, VSBA. Uh, so this will be this will be a ladies trip, guy. Uh guys, so you you all are leaving me behind on this one. So I've got all the ladies and I look forward to the trip. We leave on Wednesday. Got a lot of fun things planned. So um I'm looking forward to actually a lot of good learning and opportunities and um just an opportunity to to to bond with the ladies. So um you guys will have to beg my pardon. Earlier we were I was asked by board members if if uh we could talk about the departure of our uh deputy

146superintendent and I hesitated a little bit because they haven't approved his resignation yet but it is very much public information now that he has accepted a superintendency in Warren County. Let's give him a round of applause. Uh and our staff and and many in our community know and I just I wanted to take the opportunity for the remainder of my time. It won't be long, but really just to mention how uh blessed I have been to to work with really just a model deputy superintendent. Somebody that has uh from step one I've learned a lot from. Uh I've really had the opportunity to appreciate the way he does business, the way he connects with individuals. Uh and I think he's going to make an amazing superintendent. There will be challenges. He and I have discussed

147and I'm right there on speed dial for you, bud, if you need me. But uh I know he'll do an amazing job because I've seen the skills that he's employed in King George County and we are a better school division because of our time with Dr. Wright. So I do want to take my time to really mention how much I appreciate his effort in King George County and really how much I've I've learned from him, enjoyed working from him, and really the friendship we've developed. So So thank you Dr. Wright. I appreciate everything you've done for our county. Yep. >> Mr. Frank, >> as always, I'd like to thank the teachers and the staff uh for all you do uh every day. And I mean, you guys are really uh make this county what it

148is. So, thank you for that. Uh thank Pastor Davis for the the invocation. Uh and the King George Middle School for the leadership team. It was it was great. Um, those of you who spoke at public comment, I don't think there's any left here now. Thank you for your comments. Uh, very good principal briefing uh was good, was great as always. Uh, the math curriculum, something that we've talked about quite a bit and, uh, we will continue, I'm sure. Uh, hopefully we can get you what you need, uh, for that. Uh, health and safety advisory committee. Miss Fischer is gone, but she always does a fantastic job uh there. Uh I'd also like to thank uh the board of supervisors for um their letting us move forward with the votech building. Uh that's going to

149be just a tremendous asset to the county. Um and last but not least, I'd like to thank Dr. Wright back there for all you've done for us, keeping me straight at all of these disciplinary hearings. uh which is which is appreciated. I thank you very much for everything you've done for us. Thank you, >> Mrs. Cleveland. >> Um congratulations to Dr. Wright. I just I just started getting to know you and I'm so upset to see you go and I know we still have to approve your resignation. So, I'm thinking I don't know, maybe we won't. No, I'm just joking. But I wish the best of luck to you. welld deserved. I know you're going to do fabulous. We're going to miss you so much. Thank you for all all that you've done for King

150George County and for our board. Uh we really appreciate you. Um I also want to thank publicly the uh board of supervisors. I know that on their I think it was their last agenda um they were talking about um the VOTE building and just super excited about the opportunity that we have for our future in King George with the Votech building and the opportunity that we can keep on progressing forward. So, thank you board of supervisors for your support. >> Thank you, Mrs. Cleveland, Mr. Bush. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, first I want to thank and I know we repeat these things, but I think it's valuable to know that several of us board members recognize um things that are so beneficial to us. Again, the King George Middle School leadership team, I think

151they did a great job and I love some of their comments about what they're going to remember um with that experience. And again, the principles, you know, I again I mentioned this before. Um I appreciate you in attendance here. I know that um in my experience always as a administrator I always had to attend board meetings and for the first couple you guys first couple years you guys weren't here and I thought wow that was I wish I would have been like that before but but your attendance though here is very very valuable. It really is. Um especially um you get to hear things about what's going on here and any questions you may have and also we get to hear from you all the time and what you talked about with attendance that was

152that was fantastic. Well done. And um I look forward to improving our attendance. That's such a difficult thing because how do we do the carrot and the stick and how do we improve that and but um I think you're in the right path. Uh Cooper and Brooke, thank you very much. Um you guys did a great job as usual. Appreciate um all that you do. And again, just like was already said in the math curriculum presentation, just um that really does sound like it's going to be a big success. And I know that in the past when I had to hire teachers, math and science teachers were always the toughest. And uh but you know what, we are so blessed to have people like you who are overseeing th those departments in the elementary and

153um secondary school. Thank you. And I look forward even though I may not be on the board next year, I look forward to see the progress. And I really think there's a good chance I love this concept of not simply um taking the standards and kind of adjusting them depending as the whole nation has done to where the kids are but holding those standards high. And I think that one of the areas that we've suffered the most because we haven't done that is actually in some of our advanced classes such as AP and other places the IB program. Those those have suffered because of our approach. This new approach I think is going to make a big difference. Um again, the health and safety committee, thank you very much. Uh Miss Linker, Miss Fischer did

154a great job in the presentation. I appreciate the the thoroughess that um you did with that. And the board of supervisors with the VOTE. Um that's fantastic. Is uh um their acknowledgement that we need that and their um uh their support and us moving forward with that is just phenomenal. We want to thank the board of supervisors for that. And Dr. You're right. Um, I have worked with uh deputy superintendent before and I think I've already told you this. You are one of the best I've ever seen and I am not I don't say that kind of compliment very often. But you are your knowledge, your demeanor, your calmness, um, all those are very very much appreciated and God bless you and I wish you well and I I know you'll be successful. Um, I

155wanted to say once something personal. A lot of times decisions that we as board members are are are difficult and I know I have one more board meeting left but I just wanted to assure the parents and other people are listening and this is personal but um every major decision I do a massive amount of prayer. My number one goal in life is to serve my Lord and my God and that every decision I know people don't always agree with them but I do want you to know that I spend a tremendous amount of time in prayer over any major decision that we make as a board. Thank you madam chair. Thank you, Mr. Bush, Mrs. Davis. >> I want to thank um Pastor Davis for coming into an invocation, for always willing to take

156a stand even when people don't agree with him. He he doesn't waver in that and what he believes and I and I thank him for that. The King George Middle School leadership class, I love the locker note idea. They might not realize the impact that has on a student that comes to school that morning that maybe had a rough morning for whatever reason and gets to read that note on their locker. Uh, I think that's awesome. And then for the people who came for public comment, we do appreciate them. I wrote notes down. I'm going to look into that like what Carrie Gonzalez uh suggested or what she taught us about today. Dr. Burns, I love the monthly newsletter. I wish I saw you more. That's my fault though, other than disciplinary hearings. But maybe

157I need to get to the high school more often now and say hello there. But I love the monthly newsletter. Whether that's new or not, it's new to my knowledge. Dr. Nice rap, where are you at? There you are. I wrote it down, so I'm going to just respectful, accountable, productive, and present. Very good. I like that a lot. Um, and then the the elementary schools, I love the teamwork and every the just the camaraderie and the even probably friendships that you guys are gaining for the rest of your life. It just is nice to see that and you all working together and it probably makes it a little easier too. So, and that you love talking and they might not so much. So, that was an easy one too. So, but we do appreciate

158all the efforts and just everything you guys do for the schools and being here late tonight when you got to wake up really early in the morning. Um, so thank you so much for that. It does mean a lot to us when you guys come before us and and just let us know what's going on in the schools. So, thank you again. math. I love when the scores go up. You know, to be honest, like when you were saying we're raising doing this and I'm like, you know, when when we were in school when it was 1 plus 1 equals two and then when I'm trying to help my daughter, it's like 1 plus 1 is two and one on over here is two and then it makes four and it's crazy to me now.

159But there's a there's a method to it. I I just trust the process. Um, so being able to see you guys work around and how to make that easier for the kids, there's a lot of work to go into that. A lot. and you guys speak it so well. So, thank you um for raising the bar and also providing all the support that they need to raise the bar and to help the kids. Um the kindness closet, what a awesome idea. Oh, Mrs. Fischer um for putting together that presentation. That was um well done, well written, which she's known to do a great job with all that kind of stuff. Um Cooper, good job on your first time. You actually spoke better than I did on my first time on the school board. I get

160the nervousness there. Um, letting us know what's going on with the plays and things like that. Um, Mrs. Brooke, congratulations again. I know you're going to get it. You and your sister, you said. Yeah. A little bit more. And your best friend. So, people who hang around you seem to do good. So, um, be like Brooke. Um, let me see what else I got. Um, that's I'm sure I have more, but as so we can just move on. I'll just end it there. Thank you everyone. Thank you, Mrs. Davis. Uh, I also want to thank Pastor Davis for always coming in clutch when we have a snafu in our schedule. Greatly appreciated. And in terms of the King George Middle School leadership class, I don't know if anybody else noticed, but they their leaders or

161their their staff were not even in the room. So, they actually had them own that leadership. I love that. And Miss Tanner was in preschool when I first met her and she has become the best. I just love her enthusiasm. Dr. N, you're so lucky to have her. Um, and all these committee meetings that I sit at, I, you know, they start after school, they go late. I, people are leaving the schoolboard office at 5, 5:30, leaving the high school even later. So, I know but I don't put as much time near as much time as you do, but I know how much time you do because I'm driving by or attending an event and I see all you guys there all the time. So, thank you. Um, and you still have energy. I don't

162know how you I don't know how you do it, but thank you. Um, thank you again for the public comment to the board of supervisors for pushing forward with our uh tech building. That's I've had a lot of people talk to us about that and I haven't heard one negative comment. So appreciate that. Um I went to grandparents day at PTOIC. That was wonderful. Um so well organized. Great job on that. Then Halloween. I tried to make two different Halloween costumes. I mean uh parades, but I only made one and I was late for the other. But good job King George Elementary. That's the one I made. I liked the parade around the building. That was kind of an Usually it was kind of confusing in the building. So I like the way you change

163it up a little bit. Um there was a lot of complaints but it I think it worked well parents are never happy right um we are going to what's it was calm inside right well I think there's you know people coming and going in the building that can be really confusing there's so many people um anyway I enjoy I enjoy watching the kids do all their things um and we are going to the conference this weekend we promise to to to take it easy on Dr. void. Um, and Dr. Wright, I'm still going to wait for my tea because you said, "What else can I do for you?" I said I wanted hot tea. I haven't gotten it yet, but thank you for always taking notes and, you know, helping us and dealing with me

164because I know it's not easy. >> Um, and, uh, Cooper and Brooke, we really appreciate you being here. We know it's late and so I'll stop talking. Thank you everyone. Can I have a motion to go into close session? >> Madam Chair, I make a motion pursuant to state code section 2.2-3712A of the code of Virginia that the board convene in close session to review hire substitutes resignations terminations as permitted under 22-3711A number one of the code of Virginia. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> I. >> Chair votes I. We are now the close session. Okay. What? didn't think about that. >> That's a good idea. Actually, I need to go >> David's got his open. >> I make a motion that uh we King George County School Board return to open session

165and certify that pursuant to state code section 2.2-3 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. >> All those in favor? >> I chair RHS. We're now in open session. I think we have >> Madam Chair, I make a motion that we approve the business that was taken care of in close session. >> Oh, second and certify. >> Certify. Yeah. >> Chair certifies. All in favor? I. I. >> Chair votes I. Motion carries. >> I make a motion that we adjourn. Second. All >> in favor? I >> cheer votes I. Motion carries. I think we were

166supposed to >> certify the first