October 20th 2025 King George School Board Regular Meeting

001Thank you. I'd like to call to order the meeting of the King George County School Board. The invocation this evening will be done by Whitney Kilgore. >> Yeah. Good afternoon. Good evening. Let us pray. Lord, we thank you so much for this day. Thank you for giving us um another day to to come together and strategize for those that work and that attend this school um these schools in our county. I pray Lord that you give us wisdom to make wise decisions. I pray that you allow us to um to use our wisdom to make good decisions for the budget and for those who work within this the school system. And God, I just pray that you would allow this meeting to be filled with your peace. I pray that you would allow us to

002come up with strategies to improve and to to sustain the things that are going well as well. I pray for everyone here that we would all come together for the betterment of every student that attends these schools. And I pray that as we move forward into 2026 that it will be better than 2025. And I just thank you for the opportunity and for all the people who have come today with an intention of representing the community and as well as our school leaders. And we thank you for what's going to take place. In Jesus name I pray. Amen. Thank you. The pledge of allegiance this evening will be led by the Sealston Elementary fifth grade books buddies and Mr. Resto. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the republic

003to one nation under indivisible. Please remain standing for the moment of silence. Thank you for leading the pledge this afternoon. Are you going to tell us a little bit about your book buddies club? >> Hi, my name is Cameron and I am a big kid buddy at Sealston. This year, the big kid buddies were fifth graders beer with a kindergarten friend or two. Each each fifth grader helped their buddy with everything they needed in library specials on their book fair day. Sometimes the buddies were random and sometimes they were a friend, brother or sister. >> Hi, my name is Molly. Big kid buddy signed up during library specials two weeks before book fair this year. When we signed up, we already we agreed to trade a lunch period and a recess to have lunch in

004the library and then spend most of our recess helping our kindergarten buddy. All fifth graders were given the chance to sign up at bookf fair. Big kid buddies helped kindergarten with finding books they would be interested in counting their money, writing and reading stories. We also spent time making personal wish list and making sure each student was entered into the contest to try to win a free book. Hi, my name is Sam. Over 70 fifth graders signed up to be a big kid buddy this fall and we will have another chance in the springtime for the March book fair. Students have asked for a third opportunity to hang out with the kindergarten buddies and Miss Resto is currently looking for ways to improve that happened once more in the lights. Miss Resto and the PTA

005use the money from bookf fair to benefit our school in lot of ways. They buy books for over 100 students as prizes and for students in need. They buy between 50 and $100 in free books for every classroom teacher. And the library gets to buy new books to keep the collection fresh. Thank you. >> Say your name on the microphone. >> So, we brought some of our little kindergarten buddies. >> I'm in Austin and I'm in kindergarten. >> Okay. And that's that those are my buddies. >> Thank you very much. >> Okay. I'm sure the board has a few questions for the buddies. >> Yeah. What's the uh what's the funnest part of being in the buddies? >> One of your >> in my opinion. Oh, should I put the microphone right here? >> Sure.

006That looks great. In my opinion, the best part of being a big kid buddy, it just, you know, hanging out with the kids, you know, it's just, you know, they don't they're not really hyper or anything. They just want to they just want to hang out. They just want to chill. >> That's great. Thank you. >> All right. >> That's really cool. Anybody else? >> Yeah. What's the funnest part? >> In my opinion, I think the best part is learning about some of the kindergarteners personalities, like what book they enjoy most and other books they might not enjoy. That's my favorite part. >> Thank you, >> Sam. >> Thank you, Sam. Is Is your mom here? Um, no. But she's watching. >> Just this lady over here is looks you just look so endeared to

007these kids watching you over there. Yeah. Okay. You guys are doing a great job. I think the best thing about being a big buddy is that you are setting a great example with the with the younger students and you're showing them that reading is important and you know you're you're being great role models. So, thank you for doing that and thank you Miss Resto. >> Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. And they sacrificed a recess to do this. Like that's like I really really want to emphasize like all 76 of those kids at least at sacrificed most of a recess to do. >> Wow. >> That is huge. Thank you. >> Very cool. >> That's it. >> All right. Good job, guys. Now, Dr. Wood, we have some recognition. >> Uh, yes. Uh, it is October and

008as as such, October is principal appreciation month in the month of uh or excuse me, in the state of Virginia. So, on behalf of the King George County School Board, on behalf of all King George County schools, I want to say publicly that we greatly appreciate everything that our principles do. Thank you for being fearless leaders. Thank you for your visionary focus on our school division. Thank you for being there for me when I need you. Um the culture keepers of our building are so important and I think that uh you guys do a wonderful job of pushing forward with positivity and as a result I think we've seen this year get off to an amazing start and as a direct tribute to the leadership that you provide for your building. So, thank you so

009much and uh on behalf of all of us up here, we certainly appreciate everything you do for King George County Schools. Your effort, your hours, everything that you put into it, it doesn't go unnoticed. So, thank you all for what you do. And we have a small gift. So, if our principles could come forward, we want to give you a small gift and take a picture. Amen. Come on up here. We're going to make you famous. with their parent. [Laughter] >> Thank you. >> Yes. On behalf of the board, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for all you do. >> Do we have anyone signed up? Never mind. We do. Now it's time for public comment. If you'd like to speak during public comment but have not signed up, please see the clerk now. Public

010comment is an opportunity for community members to share matters they believe deserve the board's attention. It's a time for one-way communication to the board, not a form for dialogue or a debate. All speakers are treated equally, and comments should be courteous, respectful, and related to the school divisions 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 Sophia Deair. Sorry if I mispronounced that. Okay. Hi, good evening. U my name is Sophia Deier. I'm a 12th grade student at King George High School. I'm part of the Dogrren District. I'm speaking tonight in support of approving the

011proposed Gay Straight Alliance or GSA at our middle school. I know there's definitely been some controversy about this proposal, but I want to take a step back and focus on what a GSA truly is. It's not political and it's not about teaching students what to believe. A GSA is a safe, supportive space where students can feel accepted, supported. Wait, can feel accepted and supportive supported regardless of who they are. It's a place for kindness, connection, and understanding. Middle school can be an especially hard time. Students are figuring out who they are and where they belong. For some, that process can feel very secluding, especially if they don't have a supportive home environment or if they've been bullied for being different. Having a GSA can truly make all the difference. Research consistently shows that GSAs improve

012school safety and student mental health. According to a study published through the University of British Columbia, schools that had GSAs for three or more years saw over a 50% reduction in suicide attempts among young LGBTQ plus students compared to schools without them. Another national survey found that LGBTQ students in schools with GSAs were significantly less likely to attempt suicide than those without access to one. For middle schoolers, this kind of support is especially important. The CDC reports that nearly one in five LGBTQ plus teens has attempted suicide, and more than half felt persistent sadness or hopelessness. Creating a GSA isn't just a nice idea. It's a proven way to help kids feel less alone and more hopeful. Some people worry that a club like this is too mature for middle school students, but I want

013to remind everyone this is not about encouraging anyone to label themselves. It's about helping students build empathy, respect, and confidence. This club will be optional, supervised by a staff member, but led by kids, and focused on kindness, and support. I think those are values that every parent, teacher, and schoolboard member can agree on. Approving the GSA tells students, "You belong here. You matter. You deserve to feel safe." And that message doesn't take anything away from anyone. It simply adds compassion to our school community. For my last point, I would like to mention the Equal Access Act of 1984. On the US Congress website, it summarizes the act. It says, quote, "Equal Access Act prohibits federally funded public secondary schools which allow non-school sponsored groups of students to meet from discriminating against any meeting of students

014on the basis of religious content. If one, the meeting is voluntary and student initiated, two, there is no government sponsorship, and three, no unlawful activity is permitted. Please vote to approve the GSA. Let's make our schools places where every student can show up as their full self without fear and with pride. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> The next um speaker this evening is Dave Riley. Hello, I'm Dave Hello, I'm Dave Riley. I'm a sorry uh teacher at the middle school. Go Foxes. Um, I'm also here to speak in support of the GSA. Um, oh, I'm in the uh James Madison district. Um, I'm speaking today because I'm concerned about how the school board and the superintendent are discussing the policy of forming student clubs. On September 22nd, I heard both school board members and

015the superintendent explain the existing policy on forming clubs, and it was clear that the students forming the GSA had met all of their requirements. However, in a meeting on October 8th and in other settings, I have heard discussions about the appropriateness of a GSA club in middle school, I've heard the term red flags and other implications that the school board and superintendent may not approve the club. There has also been discussion about whether such clubs should be approved by the school board or the school principles. Sorry, I am deeply concerned that there is a misunderstanding of the law in regards to forming school clubs. The Equal Access Act of 1984 ensures that students are able to form non-curricular clubs to meet during non-instructional times. The law is extremely clear that if secondary schools like King

016George Middle School, Goof Foxes, allow students to form non-curricular clubs, as we do clearly do, then the schools should have no say in the content of these clubs. The only requirements are that they not engage in illegal activities, that they not materially and substantially interfere with the orderly conduct of educational activities within the school, and that they have a staff sponsor. The club will not engage in any illegal activities. It will not interfere with educational activities, and the students who are trying to form the club have identified at least two willing sponsors. Schools are unable to allow or deny clubs based on other criteria including religion, politics, public opinion, philosophy, or the personal feelings of the school board. There have been many cases where these students rights have been challenged and in every single case,

017the students advocating for GSA have won. The courts have always determined that the formation of clubs amounts to a form of exercising their first amendment rights. For example, in Boyd County, GSA versus the Board of Education, Gonzalez versus School Board of Okachobee County, and Pride versus White County School District, amongst several others. By continuing to create barriers for GSA Club, or by slow rolling the formation of the club, um, King George County Schools are violating the constitutional rights of our students. I hope that this violation is an honest mistake, but it needs to stop. The law is extremely clear that the school board, superintendent, and school principles have no say in the appropriateness of the formation of a GSA, and it is blatantly against the law to treat this club differently than any other club.

018Failure to allow them to form the club is discriminatory as well as violating their constitutional rights. Additionally, quite frankly, it's a waste of time and money as it will absolutely be challenged and the county will lose. Regardless of how anyone here feels personally about a GSA, there is no question about what the law dictates and I hope that we can rectify this and move on immediately. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Does any board member have any emails to read for public comment? >> Okay, Dr. Boyd. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh thank you, Mr. Riley and Mr. Leer. We really appreciate you continuing to be part of the process. Uh it's certainly helpful to to get feedback from from all sects of our community. I can certainly tell you that uh at this point

019we're very well verssed in um Virginia code and and constitutional rights and previous court cases. And I'll tell you it has not gone on deaf ears in terms of having this conversation uh from schoolboard members to the school board office and so on. We certainly do want to make sure that we are making a decision that is in favor of our entire community. Uh and we continue to make sure that we're doing that in a very methodical way. So how that's perceived uh I'll leave up to you, but uh I can certainly tell you it's something that we continue to focus on and uh attempt to address as we move forward. So I think we'll continue to discuss it this evening. So thank you. >> Thank you, Dr. Boyd. Are there any changes to this

020evening a agenda? Okay. Um, moving right along for our strategic plan update. >> Yes, Madam Chair. So, we do have our four champions here this evening for our strategic plan. If you remember, I mentioned last time per our policy manual, divisions must present a report to the public by November 1st of each oddnumbered year on the extent to which the objectives of our strategic plan have been met during the previous two school years. So, uh here we are October 20th prior to November 1st. We're going to provide that strategic plan update uh the way that we typically do through through going um through all four of our goals and each of one of our champions will provide that information. If you guys could uh hold your questions till the end, we'll have four uh goals

021that are presented and then we can provide an opportunity for some dialogue and some questions to go back and forth. So with with that said, Miss Yuzerki, I'll turn it over to you. >> All right, I'm going to talk about goal one, which has to do with employee investment and development. And I'm not going to read each one of those objectives because that would take my whole three minutes. So they are there for you to look at but we will be referring to those throughout um the next slide please. Amanda, we have been very busy with goal one this past year and we we accomplished a lot. If you look at the bullets in your report, there's a bullet and then there's a letter in parentheses next to each bullet. That letter stands for the

022corresponding goal if you want to refer back to it on the first page. Highlight. We were able to provide a salary increase. It was a 1% cola and a step for all employees last year which in most cases was a 3% increase. Big um win for us all last year was we addressed the compression in the salary scale at step 10 and you'll hear me address this in a little bit later. Um that was huge last year. We have been trying to figure out how to do that for probably eight years now. So we were lucky to get that one passed last year. We continued our partnership with Mark III for advisement on health insurance options and to offer competitive and robust supplemental benefits. We added stipens for the lead psychologist instructional leader math and

023instructional leader reading at each elementary school. And we have added a supplement for the society of human resource management certification. We do have two members on the HR team that successfully completed their certification in that last year. We provided an employee assistance program for all employees. Before last year, we only had that if you were a member or you took our healthc care benefits, but this past year, we added that. That was a budget win for us last year. All of our employees have access to an employee assistance program. With your help, we updated regulation GCB-R to allow credit for relevant experience. If you remember, we had that discussion back in the spring when we thought we might be getting some people from the base and we had to go back and look at how

024we were calculating relevant experience. We also adjusted the instead of one year of we would give you one year of credit for every 5 years of military experience. We dropped that down. We would give you one year for every two years of military service. So that was also a win for our division last year. We are very proud of this. We cooperated with VRS. This started last year to organize a retirement planning session that is going to be held this year on December the 2nd. And I will talk more about that hopefully next year when we talk about our accomplishments next year. We provided a retention bonus to returning employees with the help of the state of Virginia. We also held a KGCS job fair on March 1st which attracted 47 applicants. And I'm happy

025to announce that after that job fair, we offered and hired 13 people that we spoke to at our own job fair that day. Um, so that's a pretty good that was a pretty good day for us that day. We continue to add and strengthen college and university partnerships with teacher tech programs, especially through our I teach program and with the University of Mary Washington. I believe we have nine people in it practicing in I teach or participating in I teach and I think Dr. Boyd just last week was contacted by University of Mary Washington for us to sign a letter to work with them on another grant coming from the state at working with our provisionally licensed special education teachers. We completed the v revision of our job descriptions and we enhanced the onboarding process

026and brought the HR department into the 21st century by implementing onboarding and eform platforms which we basically have gone digital in in the HR department. All of our forms, we are migrating all of our paper forms right now to being digitized and all of the employees have an employee portal. Our big our big accomplishment for this year will be to do contracts on this portal. No more paper contracts. So, what are we working on? What do we want to look at? If you look at that little icon up in the righthand corner, every year we come up in our department with a theme, and this year it's let's do this. Um, and I appreciate the words and the invocation when she said, you know, 2025 was a good year. Let's make 2026 an even better

027year. I'm shaking my head. Yes, let's do that. Let's make it a better year. And how are we going to do that? These are the things we need to focus on. If you don't take away anything from what I've said tonight except these two words highlighted in blue, we've got to remain competitive with local, you know, amongst our local divisions when it it comes to salary. And we've got to continue to work towards addressing the compression in the salary scales specifically at steps 7 through 9. We have to advocate to minimize the impact of health insurance increases on employee salaries. We need to if we can enhance the educational supplement that we we currently have all of those supplements. We would like to look at adding a supplement for a master's plus 15. If you

028have an educational specialist, we would like to recognize that. And then we also would like to for our doctorate, if our employees have a doctorate, instead of making it making it a flat $2,000 supplement, we would all make like we would like to move that as well to a percentage of their salary. We would like to increase funds for tuition reimbursement in our local budget. We are seeing we typically do this through title two funds. Title two funds are diminishing and we would like to move some of that. I will tell you that most of our local school divisions have twice the amount in their local budget um that we offer through title two to our employees. We've got to beef that up. We are going to have to transition to a new digital fingerprinting

029platform called Tech 5. If you don't aren't aware, we do our fingerprinting. It's through the Virginia State Police. Um if we don't do this, then we're going to have to go back to the old ink and we don't want to do that. So that will be a budget issue coming up for us in the next few months. And in moving in in continuing our move to the 21st century, we have got to explore an HRIS platform um to replace our antiquated HR database. Every day members of my team just tell me every time we add something in, we're just afraid it's going to crash. And if that crashes, that holds all of our employee data since 2004. So it's time for an update. future needs. Again, we need to look at leave benefits for some

030part-time employees. If we could do that, we need to talk about enhancements to personal, sick, and annual leave. You might say, "Well, what does that mean?" Maybe we could look at adding an extra personal day. Um maybe we could look at instead of for people who earn annual leave, instead of them using having to use it all every year, maybe we could pay out some if they don't use it all, or at least let it convert to sick leave if they don't use it. Um, another piece of that would be to right now we can only carry over 30 days of sick leave. Let's increase that. We have one of the lowest carryover rates of in our region of carryover um or saving annual leave. We want to continue our expand or expand our grow

031our own program for PAR educators and substitutes. And this sort of goes with the last bullet of explore non-traditional recruiting opportunities. We are finding that growing our own, talking to our substitutes, talking to our para educators. We are being more successful with that than going to college job fairs. We are also branching out to some they're they're job fairs, but they're not solely educational job fairs. We are looking at that as well to to talk to people who may have college degrees and have they ever thought about teaching. So, we will be continuing with that in the coming year. Thank you. >> Okay, goal two is uh our quality instruction and innovation and we have uh Miss Angie Harris, right? And Aaron Cable coming up to provide for that. >> Hi, good evening. As Miss

032Cable and I share our instructional highlights and accomplishments tonight, we want to take a moment to recognize the hard work, the commitment, and the collaboration that have made these successes possible. These highlights are not just a reflection of outcomes. They represent countless hours of planning, adapting, learning, and growing together as educators with our students. We are proud of the progress we've made and are deeply grateful for the support, the dedication of our colleagues, students, and families who contribute to our shared success each day. So to highlight a few of our highlights and accomplishments with our curriculum and standards alignment, we were able to update the instructional pacing guides for math, reading, history, and science will be um completed in 2026. They are all aligned to the n state standards and that's a lot a lot

033of work. I'm very proud of that work. We've adopted a new math K to2 curriculum across the division to able and we were able to provide interactive panels to all secondary math teachers. We have really been innovative in our planning. Um we know teachers work really really hard. So after school things are just not productive. We've customized training in PLC plus to provide more opportunities for math and reading teams to collaborate. And this is an amazing accomplishment. We had a 100% K8 teacher participation and completion of those VA modules we talked about last year. those extra 33 hours of work that they had to do outside of their contract hour um that we did provide some time for but we were at 100% completion um and that that's a tall tall task and we also

034uh this year have implemented the K8 new uh Virginia computer science standards now to ensure all students have opportunity to succeed we've implement implemented targeted academic support and intervention strategies that address individual learning needs and promote meaningful growth We've done this through providing daily targeted intervention lessons K to8 in math and reading. We provide after school tutoring opportunities at each school. We have expanded the work-based learning and service learning opportunities for our students. And we also provided a summer learning opportunity K to2 as along with a gifted enrichment camp last year. Miss Cable. >> Good evening. We're proud to share the significant strides we've made this year through instructional innovation and continued focus on rigorous rigorous work. Our core focus remains on providing excuse me the best possible learning environment and inclusion of all stakeholders.

035A win was the create uh creation of the divisionwide parent conference teacher day providing dedicated time for family teacher interaction. We also continue to adjust our calendar and daily schedules to ensure they align with the best practices maximizing our student engagement. The implementation of our professional learning communities PLC's has been successful successful divisionwide fostering growth and collaboration on a daily basis. Specifically at the elementary level, schedules include focus time for consistent PLC's and professional development. We continue to work together on our K through2 standardsbased report cards ensuring clear consistent picture of student progress for our families. We've also amplified our capacity through strategic partnerships. This year we partnered with William and Mary TTAC to integrate highlevel pra high leverage practices at KGMS. We also have support from VCU their autism center for education to enhance

036instruction in our sped classrooms. moving towards advanced coursework and program studies. In that area, KGHS administered an impressive AP exams last spring. Of those, 77% scored a three or higher. This is an absolute tremendous achievement for and a testimony to our students and teachers hard work and commitment to excellence. Additionally, last year that 476 includes 86 more than we gave in the previous school year. So, we're again showing growth that exemplifies one of our college readiness efforts. We're committed to our ongoing partnership with the Commonwealth Governor's School, Chesapeake Bay Governor School, and the Academy of Innovation and Technology. We didn't stop there. We ensured learning didn't stop in the summer and extended um offered extended learning opportunities across all grade levels K through 12. Okay, moving into some of the areas of need and our

037future targets. Um we still need to expand our Virginia Literacy Act VA reading support that went beyond K to three from last year. It's expanded to four to eight. So we're looking at um implementing we will have to implement new reading curriculum roll out in the next year or two. We need to review and adjust middle school scheduling to accommodate student reading plan requirements um as we kind of dive deeper at the middle school level with reading plans this year. Also, I'm going to jump down and we're going to um also we're exploring the feasibility of this of kind of dispersing the prek program to each elementary school looking at um just what it would take to to have those kids transitioned at their own school into kindergarten. And we are looking at expanding the

038secondary CTE opportunities by utilizing the previous VOTE building. And as a division, we continue to work to implement the updated math standards through professional development, curriculum, resources, and collaboration. We're committed to supporting our students in meeting the needs of both our teachers and learners through this process. We're exploring multiple avenues to continue to the strides we have made academically. Additionally, the Academy of uh Innovation and Technology will expand another seven seats next year. So, we will host um students in grades 9 through 11 with the Academy of uh Technology and Innovation. Um we know we're going to continue to support our EL learners as our population grows. We have 103 students in the county and over 13 or 13 languages being spoken. So, we're working especially in our middle school to how we support that

039growing number. And then uh additionally we'll roll out a new history curriculum. The team will work to provide curriculum development, instructional coaching, professional learning um divisionwide to support this effort. We thank you. Um we're excited about these comp accomplishments and look forward to continuing our work. >> Thank you guys. And for our third goal, communication, we have Mrs. Higgins. >> Good evening. Um we're going to start with all of the new things that have happened in communications over the last year. So, some good wins to share. We started this year with PowerHub, which is a unified communication platform for teachers that's fully integrated into the Power School app for parents. This is moving towards our goal of having a unified communication platform for everyone for parents and for our teachers. Um, also new this year,

040you guys got it um probably at our August school board meeting, the year and review publication, which is available in a booklet that we can use at recruiting and in the community and then it's available digitally as well. So, that was a brand new publication for us to feature our highlights and to really showcase our school division. Um, we've also added to our employee recognition, which is always a plus. This year, we participated in the first annual teacher appreciation brunch with the Fredericksburg Chamber. Um, so that gave our staff an opportunity to be recognized regionally and that was a pretty special occasion. And then if you follow us on social media, you might have noticed we've added hometown spirit to continue with our convocation theme and we highlight staff alumni each week um who have

041graduated from here and come back to continue to work here and it's a pretty special feature for our employees. Um I would I would we probably should talk about FOYA and that part of the communication responsibility. So we run on average like three uh foyer requests a month for a total of just under 30 foyer requests last school year and then this school year since July one we're sitting at 10 foyer requests just as kind of the volume the amount of work that needs to go into that initiative. Um and this is our really big thing that I'm super excited about and I don't think the board has had an opportunity to hear about it yet. We will launch our new division website on December 1. So there is a ton of work going on

042in the background with lots of very very helpful people to get a very new website. It'll have a fresh look. It'll have a different user experience and it'll be very updated and probably one of the most important things is it'll be fully web accessible compliant. So we will meet all of the standards that we need to meet for people who use the website in different ways. Um and then the accomplishments are just some of the continuation of things that we have seen from the communication department. We do an internal weekly newsletter for staff. Externally, we have a monthly um newsletter for all of our families as well as staff. We do shout outs each month and we're sure to feature those on social media as well as in staff communication. And then last year we

043established the superintendent advisory committees which are a pretty unique opportunity for stakeholders to interact with Dr. Boyd and we continue those um into this year. I have to have the picture. um it's like part of what I have to do. So, our social media highlights, I compared the data from January up until September of this year to have a snapshot and then to January, same time frame, January September of 2024. So, we are up 147% in terms of our impressions, which is huge. And I was super surprised by the number. So, I actually ran it three times to make sure that it was correct. Um, so that an impression is anytime our content comes across someone's screen and that's what an impression is. And so we are up over double what we were in the

044last year's time frame. Um, anecdotally we know that it tends to be our parents, grandparents, and families who use Facebook for social media. It tends to be more of our students and recent graduates who use Instagram. So I think it's very telling our top posts from that time frame. Um on Facebook it the top post is the donation from food lion for oranges to support our students and then it's the nurse aid program and then the last picture is our bus driver appreciation campaign. So those are the most um engaging posts on Facebook and then on Instagram where we find more of our students and recent alumni. It's the senior walk when our seniors go back to elementary schools and then graduation super special day. And then finally is um the big feet meet that

045we host at the high school for our students. So all good things. Um just a few things to talk about as we move forward. We would really like to continue to support our teachers with the PowerHub platform and professional development related to that so that they feel supported and that they have the right tools to continue to use that. Um we've talked about the web content accessibility guidelines. That's a big deal in launching the new website. And to go with that, it would be helpful if we could look at um supporting staff with stipens to maintain those websites and to help with social media communication to kind of um have some consistency there with who is supporting the website and the communication piece. And very far into the future, we would like to continue to

046look at our updated mass communication system. So that's the system that gives us phone calls, emails, and text messages. and just to stay on top of that and make sure we're using the best product to reach all of our families. >> Thank you, Mrs. Higgins. Finally, we have goal number four, safe, secure, and healthy learning environments. And Dr. Wright will provide the information there. >> Good evening. So, we have two objectives for goal four. Objective B really focuses on our facilities while goal A focuses on the physical, mental, and emotional safety of our students and our faculty. So, we're going to much of our strategic plan is geared towards goal A. So, a few highlights. I'm not going to read these a lot of there are a lot of bullets here. So, I'm going to

047highlight some of the biggest ones. So, the very first bullet is our is our year three expansion of of our K12 program for Character Strong. So much of what we do, a lot of the prevention, the bullying things that would that come about, some of our uh be kind um initiatives all come from this curriculum and it's very rare to have it from K all the way into our secondary schools and through our high schools. So all of our schools are participating in it and I think that's great that we have that divisionwide. I'm going to jump down to probably the fourth bullet there where it says office on youth alternatives to discipline program continued at both our middle school and high school. This is the second year of that program. That allows us to

048when students are suspended or they do something that gets them in trouble, we don't just say go home and come back. We say go home and come back or go to ISS. And we allow some educational components to this. So I think this uh especially with our substance abuse programs and poor decision-making programs um this year Aison youth is coming into the school during the school day so we don't have to stay after school and providing this educational component usually during ISS for the students if not they do it during uh the intervention time uh or we the the principles have been working with them to make it to make it happen. So we appreciate that. If you go down to there's a little bit of a break. I'm going to jump down to some

049of the other highlights. Uh the bottom few bullets, our weapons detection. I think we're well aware of that. But the bullet right underneath that, the second school safety officer. This was a big accomplishment to get this second grant uh for a safety officer now at the middle school. So, the high schools had one. They're in their third year of that program. And then now our middle school is in their first year of having a school safety officer. So, um really excited about that. Um the bullying incidents decreased. So, last year I stood up here and said, "But we reduce bullying uh incidents by over 50%." Well, we did it again. So, if we can continue to do that, bullying incidents would just go away. So, I'm I'm hopeful. Um, but we still we still have

050some work to do, but we continue to take big chunks and I credit that to some of the programs and the initiatives we're doing to sort of head it off at the beginning while while things are still happening, we're able to work with students. We're able to provide some support so that it doesn't become a bullying incident. So, we're excited about that. We're going to flip over to the next page uh and talk about some of the things that we need to do and continue to to work on some of our future targets. So, our crisis plan is out of date. So, we're working with our principles and a designate from each school to all come together and sort of change the language and update that. So, we have practices that say one thing that

051we're with the modern language which is the standard response response protocol. However, our plan is under the old language. So, we just need to to marry those two. Our short-term suspensions increased. We want to see those decrease. We have a lot of programs to to to manage those suspensions to reduce them or at least maybe handle some of those things inhouse, but we still are we went up. So, we went the wrong direction. So, uh, we want to find more creative ways to modify the behavior rather than just sending students home when they lose instruction and they come back, uh, and they're falling behind. Chronic absenteeism is still a problem. So, it's still going the wrong direction. So, we went from 18% as a division to 21% uh, overall. So, we know we still have

052work. We are certainly addressing it proactively and reactively, but it still seems to be going in in the wrong direction. Um, I wanted to address these next few bullets where we talk about current current alternative in-house programs. These are efforts for King George County Schools to solve our own educational solutions uh to help support our students coming up with creative alternatives. So, we have, and you may not be aware of this, but we have created an autism support program at King George Elf, which we pulled students from all of our elementary schools into that program. We have a BSP program at King George Middle School. Um, the teacher was here, and there he is to my left. Thank you. Uh, and he does a wonderful job working with students both in his program or going

053into the classroom depending on where the students are. Really, it's very flexible program. We have Flex. Speaking of flex at the high school, which is uh an alternative to suspension, so students go into flex instead of going home for 10 days and sometimes they have to work their way out of flex. Very similar at the middle school program with the BSP program. They sometimes have to work themselves back into uh their regular classes. And we we did successfully launch uh I forgot to mention that one or I didn't or I went over that a virtual program at our secondary schools. We have begun conversations with our elementary principles. We've not made a decision, but we're just exploring what that would look like if we expanded that opportunity to fourth and fifth grade students, knowing not

054every not every student fits in the public school dynamic. And this is another opportunity or another platform for students. Lastly, at the bottom are a couple budget requests to continue to support our office on youth to make that that's been grant funded for two years now. Eventually, that's going to run out and that needs to become part of our budget as well as a couple of um additional positions at the bottom moving folks from 10 month to 12 month and our lead nurse from 11 months to 12 months. And that is it for me. Thank you. >> Thank you guys. We certainly appreciate the effort. Are there any questions from the board? >> Um, want me to start? Okay. One is just simply a correction that I noticed I pointed out to Dr. Boyd and

055that isn't goal number two. Um, and I probably just because I'm on the board, the Academy of Technology and Innovation expanding a grade level annually to 28. Actually, it's only seven students per year and so it's only to 14 this year, not 28. You see what I'm saying? So, it's just a small correction. However, you have it correct somewhere else. You said we're adding seven more students. So, that's correct. But >> 28 total students, >> but it should be 14. >> 14 this year. >> Should be 14 this year. >> It's in parenthesis. You see it? >> Yeah. So, you're saying in this right here that eventually when we get all four years, it'll be 28. Is that the point? >> That's now. >> Well, then that's my fault. I was misreading that. >> Annually.

056Okay. A total. I guess maybe if you'd have put And it does say total. That's my fault then. Okay, you did it right. My fault. I had a second question. Should I go on or somebody else has um just um uh Dr. Wright, the absenteeism from I I know that it went up from 18 to 21, but um so what are we doing? Are we doing anything different or the same hoping that we'll get better results? Um can you just address that a little bit? >> I'm sorry. It's it's a tough one. >> It is a tough one. And I I'll ask any of my colleagues behind me to chime in and you're welcome to come up and support me. But I can tell you that at our elementary school >> last year with our

057all-in, we were able to count the students who stayed after school for tutoring. we were able to turn those hours in per student and those students could get credit if they were chronically absent towards becoming no longer chronically absent. So in some cases that did help um and we were able to do that at all levels. I think really it is it is all it is the all-in effort you know and sometimes you don't see it in the numbers but you do hear positive pieces but between our you know between Mr. Smith making the visits. Uh he goes from school to school. He he goes to all five schools and they and they meet with the most critical students and he has a schedule and they meet with the school social worker and the teachers

058and those parents and those students and that's going on daily and they just continue to make those rounds. So unfortunately we don't see there's a m I wish there was some magic potion if I could create one to make that one. But I do think we are addressing it. It's just the the we're not going the right way in terms of numbers, but I think we're putting the right efforts forward. >> I don't mind. I I can be a colleague and add to that, too. So, I I think right now, if you look across the state, everyone's having these same challenges. There's two general approaches. Number one, it's to find ways to make our schools welcoming making them inclusive uh and and engaging our students so that they want to return. So, you've probably seen

059tonight a number of programs or activities where we're trying to make school exciting for our students and and innovative and want them to be there, inspire them to want to come to school. That's one approach in in itself. Uh, and then the other approach is is more on the that's the carrot side and then you have the stick side and that's really the truency stuff and and what we're finding and what everyone's finding about that side of of the coin is that every situation is unique. it. There's no silver bullet when it comes to what it takes to get students to come to school. It could be health related. Uh it could be a social situation. It could be an environmental thing. It could be a family situation. So, increasing our resources there to be

060able to reach out and we did that through allin by having additional folks make home visits and things of that nature. We're outnumbered right now when it comes to that side of the coin. So, increasing resources in that respect, I think, would benefit us. But I can tell you, you're going to look at a legislative agenda tonight coming from VSBA that's asking to remove chronic absenteeism from the accountability standards because I don't want to sound pessimistic, but a a lot of the uh factors that influence chronic absenteeism are outside of the control the direct control of the school division. Uh so so that becomes our challenge is trying to bridge that gap to meet those students where they are and bring them in which oftentimes begins in their home outside of the school. So it's

061a challenge but it's one we continue to work towards and make a priority. >> I guess the question is that we're really we're doing the same things we we were doing. We're not doing anything new. And I understand what you're saying and that's fine. I'm not saying it's bad or good. We're not necessarily adding anything new except the one thing I did hear you say, Dr. Boyd, was if we had maybe more people doing home visits. Did I hear that right? >> Yeah, I think there will be a desire when we come to budget time to discuss attendance um or or truency and things of that nature. That's been a conversation in the school board office already. >> Mr. Chair, since Davis, Dr. void. So anything that is past 18 days of absent is considered

062chronic no matter whether it's a sick or >> correct >> seeing is basically we have increased our students being suspended from school 10 days wouldn't that have an effect on why the it it rose maybe a little >> yes though so suspensions count every every absent counts to your point so >> and the other I'm sorry so I I think that has been a good thing as far is I don't like seeing um the students being suspended for 10 days rise, but that shows that there's due diligence going on and that we're we're trying to make school safe. Um second question was is like if a student is absent first period and we get that phone call, hey, your student is absent, is that corrected after the students does show up from school? >> Yes.

063Mhm. Okay. >> Yeah. That's that's counted as being present. So what falls under what would be considered not a like chronic if if a child was anything sick like >> no every every absence if you're if you not in school. So that's that's another reason why these opportunities like uh maybe virtual is is an op we're trying to bring education to those students. So even even a student that you know maybe has cancer or uh they there's reasons they cannot get to school if they miss 10% of the school year then they are considered by the state chronically absent. So we're trying to figure out and many folks across the state are trying to figure out more creative ways to provide an education to those students away from the school building so that they can

064be counted as present in receiving an education. Yeah. Mrs. Cleveland. >> Yes, Madam Chair. Um, I did have a couple questions about goal two, the quality instruction innovation. Um, in the last board meeting, I mentioned that I've been fielding some concerns with parents um, with the new math curriculum. And I want I I'm so thankful of the implementation of the new math curriculum. I think it's going to be great. It's needed. I support it. Absolutely. Um, but I do have a couple questions in in in regards to making sure that the students as they're transitioning over to, you know, the new math curriculum that they're being supported and also the teachers, right? So, how they're being supported and being able to instruct um, their students. Um, two questions I had. So, I saw on here

065um, that there was interactive panels distributed and I I I don't know what that means. So, I'm wondering if you could expand that. And then the second question I had was about tutoring. Um, and when students hit, you know, I guess a certain level of grade, do they get offered that tutoring or how can a student get that extra tutoring when they're struggling? >> I can begin with the interactive panels. U much like a Smartboard. So, it's a whiteboard that students and teachers can touch and manipulate. And within our new program, it also has specific lessons and skills within that. So it it aids as the visuals for our students um that would like to learn that way or prefer to learn that way. So it allows them to manipulate from the screen and such.

066And um just with those new interactive panels, we also have uh training to ensure that all of our staff with our ITL. So, November 4th, we have a refresher and um an opportunity for our our professionals, our teachers to get together to say, "Hey, I did this with my interactive panel or I I'm still struggling with this." So, that opportunity to use them so that they are a tool and a resource within the classroom. And as for tutoring, yes, we are working through that. Um we're working with our our teachers to understand the feedback that they um you know, should be giving to our parents and what that looks like. As a parent myself, I don't always, you know, understand what comes home. So, um, you know, supporting our teachers in that capacity um to

067give that feedback to our parents and our students so they can apply and show what they've know, what they know. Um, in the classrooms, there's opportunity for reteing and relearning. Um so there are opportunities within the classroom and then as as you know other opportunities um maybe after school or with a teacher during time you know we we use those times as we can. >> Is is there a threshold when students are invited to tutoring after school? >> So currently the um the model that uh students were the selected the data we use was their so scores from the previous school year. So when we um started our program and you look, you know, we have to identify students some way very early on. We didn't have the data yet to look at how we

068did on unit one assessment or unit two. So we use the assessment um data from the previous year. As you're probably aware, we run two cycles of afterchool tutoring. So we have the fall cycle and then the spring cycle. And we're looking to update how we identify students. But um there's conversations within the buildings. Um I oversee the middle school program. The middle school coordinator will reach out uh include us and the more the marrier. So we're just you know working to identify how can we help at home after school in the classroom. So it's a holistic model for our students of support. >> Thank you. >> Uh very similar to the elementary level too. Um the new math curriculum is very rigorous but if you actually had the opportunity to see the new math

069standards they are just as rigorous. So, I would like to bring the math team and and maybe do a presentation to you and for the community just to see the difference because I think that will explain a lot of the what you're hearing from your students, what you're hearing from your parents. Um, in in the new math um curriculum is it's a it's a curriculum that shows progression. So, we got to you know, it's not a one year builds on each other. So it's very very important that we you know hit these skills especially those fundamental skills at the elementary level really hard for them to be successful at the secondary level. So our after school tutoring now is mainly at elementary level we struggle with students that need reading intervention and math intervention with

070through VA. If a student is identified and needing a reading plan they have to get the daily intervention in reading. So then you have to get creative. You have one intervention block and they need reading and math. So, our elementary program this session in the fall, we really focused on math and we do offer some reading intervention, but we really scooped up kids that we knew they're not getting the math intervention based on the if they did not um perform well on their SOL in grades four and five. So, to give them that double dose, if you will, does that make sense? Because we don't we don't have enough time to do intervention all day long. So, we have been creative in doing that. But I do think moving forward, I think it'd be a

071good idea for us to bring some just to give you an idea of what that curriculum looks like, what the standard looks like, and how it all works together. >> Be helpful. >> Al also with um your future targets, I just want to point out that your um exploring the feasibility of dispersing the B preK program. We as a board have been talking about this and the benefit of the students being in their home school that they'll go to and we're actually looking at future plans to hopefully be able to afford slash you know whatever to do that. So great minds >> right yeah we're working on it's mainly space we we need classrooms >> and that's what we're yeah very well aware but thank you >> welcome one more >> I had one more

072too >> okay Mr. Bush. >> All right. Um, in the goal number two under the ESO ESOL, um, it says we, um, you want to hire an additional ESO teacher, which is great. You said you're currently supporting students who speak 12 different languages. How many students do we have speaking? You said 12 different languages, but approximately how many students are we talking about? >> Um, excuse me, 103 students. Um, currently, as I mentioned before, the middle school has 25 e students and that's if we were able to get those resources where we'd really like to put our focus in. If you're familiar with our model, our teachers, we share a teacher with Sealston at the middle school and at the high school. So, if we were able to get a dedicated staff member to um

073service those students, it would be we we believe we could make some gains in that area. >> So, right now, how many ESOL teachers? Oh, how many >> Teachers, three. >> Three. And then we have a pair of professionals. So, a team of four. >> You want to add one more ESOL? >> Mhm. >> Okay. And how would that again? That teacher would be shared. >> That teacher would be at the middle school. So, we would have a dedicated teacher at the high school, middle school, and then PTOAC and King George currently share a staff member. >> They would continue to do that. All right. Okay. >> All right. Thank you, >> Mrs. Cleveland. I just had one more question for Dr. Wright. Um, one of, let me see what page you're on about the

074bullion incidents that we had decreased. I'm just wondering where you got that where that data was fielding from. >> We just pulled it right out of P school. Same report we pulled last year based on the codes. So, the disciplinary incident. Yes, we just pulled. >> So, okay. So, the second follow-up question is, does it include any of the forms that are coming in online? from parents or students? >> Not necessarily. So, so it depends. So, someone reports, sends in the form, then we do an investigation and we work with the students. So, it might be that that we mitigate, we mediate. It could be that it doesn't even result in discipline because we were able to bring the two students together and resolve it. And so, it would not necessarily go down as a

075disciplinary incident in Power School of Bullying. It may not even go in power school as anything because it was mitigated before it got to that. And a good example is what the middle school does is whether they get a bent letter or some other way that someone says we might have a bullying incident. So they immediately do an investigation. Then they contact parents and they send an additional letter on top of what we already do. They sent a letter to saying your child may have been involved in bullying. These are the things that are happening. We want you to, you know, have a conversation with your child. They follow that up with a phone call and that has been very effective at mitigation. So they work with both both the alleged victim and the alleged

076perpetrator and then they notify parents and then it's usually resolved before it gets to the level of bullying. So just depends on where it is. If it's been ongoing and it's been happening for a while and then we get notified, it's going to go down as a disciplinary incident. But if we can get it ahead of time, that's that's great. >> So yeah, that that makes sense. I'm I'm wondering if there's any way that we can capture some of that data um so that we can see as a board what that looks like as far as maybe the incidents didn't escalate. But what are we mitigating before it does escalate? >> I think we could do that. Yeah, I think we could definitely look at the number of reports that are coming in and compare.

077So, >> it would be interesting to see that and see how that's going to Thank you. >> We could do that. Thanks. >> Yeah, Mrs. Davis, I just want to give a big shout out when I'm I'm sitting here looking at all the go on goal four highlights and accomplishments. And one of the biggest things that I spoke about that was on my heart for our school for my goal to see for the schools was bullying incidents to go down and and for us to tackle bullying really hard, not just have, you know, the benches, but really making an effort. And so seeing a decrease by 59% is huge. And so I'm very thankful for you guys and all the work that you're putting towards that. Uh and all the other good things that I'm

078seeing on here, threat assessment training pro um uh what was the other thing? Office on youth alternatives, the substance abuse prevention and awareness program. What does that look like? >> Say it again. >> Our our substance abuse prevention and awareness which was originally the dangers of fel from the fenol grant. >> So there's two different two different pieces of that. we when students um get in trouble for illegal drugs in school. So what we usually do either either they see you or superintendent makes a decision uh depending on where they are in in their history and their discipline regardless when they come back to school after the disciplinary incident they go through they work with office on youth and they do a substance abuse program it's called sage okay >> and it's some group learning

079and and they work with a facilitator through the office on youth rapanic office on youth comes into the building and provides that instruction to Do we do anything on a larger scale for the whole entire school? >> We do. That's the fentanyl training where we have uh a member from the um help me out >> RCSB is it >> is RCSB also comes and we'll speak to our that's through our health classes. >> Okay. >> And our JOTC uh supports that as well. >> Awesome. And then the check and connect monitoring program the the fun >> that's new this year. That's a pilot. So check and connect is also through RACSB and it's being fully funded. >> These are just real efforts that you guys are putting forward to combat issues is really focused on

080attendance >> which is huge. >> So they're they're providing uh more support with our families especially the ones that are chronically absent. So, I did uh send some notes around to to our principles and they talked about I I don't have time to share them all, but they talked about all the things that they're doing to address bullying, which was amazing because I just got tons of emails. So, it was really cool to see the things that they're doing in house. >> It's cool to see what just on this one sheet of paper the things that we're implementing in our schools to help combat that stuff. And then the the behavior and end danger of self or others decreased by 18%. Um from 158 to 129. Um those are just wonderful things. >> Those are

081pretty serious incidents like fighting with injuries and possession of of alcohol um vapes and those types of things. >> So I just yeah I just wanted to give a shout out to that and and and all the effort that you guys are doing. So thank you. >> Thank you. It feels like we're being heard as a board to be honest and and you guys are working hard on implementing that. >> We're trying. I do want to say too uh not to steal the principal's thunder, but at our last principal meeting, we discussed providing a quarterly princ uh principal update with building level initiatives. We've talked about that before and I can tell you that attendance has been a focus of that conversation. So, at our next our November board meeting, thank you, Lori. at our

082head our November board meeting. They're going to give you guys an update from their respective schools with an emphasis on attendance. >> Awesome. Thank you. >> Thank you to everyone who presented this evening. All good stuff. Okay, moving along to our student representative comments. Let's hear from the middle school first. >> All right. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. My name is Logan Samuel. I'm in the eighth grade at the middle school and I'd like to share a few updates about what's going on. On October 10th, quarter 1 officially ended and quarter 2 started. On the 13th was parent teacher conference day, which was an opportunity for parents to meet with teachers and for the students to have that day off. Later that week on Friday was the award ceremony for quarter 1 where students were

083recognized for AB honoral and distinguish honor role as well as the rap award which this quarter's theme was respectful. On that same day, KGMS hosted a PTA family movie night where they showed the bad guys too. And later this month through the 28th and the 29th are when growth assessments are supposed to be scheduled. And obviously on the 31st is Halloween, which is where students wear their costumes. And as a final note, I'd just like to say that the sports teams, specifically football and soccer, have been like really good. So go Foxes. >> Go Foxes. Thank you. Let's hear about KGHS. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh, good evening members of the board, staff, and guests. Those for who don't do not know who I am, my name is Jake Glover, and I'm one of

084your high school student representatives. I'd like to start by highlighting that, uh, Red Ribbon Week will be taking place October 27th through the 31st. Um, this year's theme is life is a puzzle. Let's solve it drug-free. Red Ribbon Week is recognized nationwide as a time to raise awareness about the dangers of drug use and to encourage our students to make healthy, positive choices. The campaign began in 1988 in honor of a DE a DEA agent who lost his life while fighting a war against drugs. His sacrifice continues to inspire um communities across America to remain committed to living drug-free. Throughout next week, our school counseling team will be hosting a spirit week of a variety um of fun, engaging activities to help students understand the importance of staying drug-f free. It is a great opportunity

085to build unity, school spirit, and awareness all at once. Speaking of spirit, I'm proud to recognize that the NJRTC drill team brought home multiple accomplishments at our first drill meet this season. Your NJRTC foxes took first place overall for the whole meet while also placing first in armed X unarmed X color guard UPI along with the T PT competition. They also placed second in unarmed and armed basic drill along with the academic exam. Their dedication, teamwork, precision truly represents the best of our program in the school pride. That being said, we encourage you guys to come out to our annual military inspection on November 19th to see our fall semester cadetses stand the biggest inspection of the year where our area manager, Mr. Kevin Wilson, will visit with multiple guest inspectors to see the hard

086work your cadets have put in to this program and themselves this semester. Next week, we'll be celebrating spooky spirit week with themed dressup days to enjoy for everyone to enjoy. Monday will be meme day along with Tuesday Disney character day. Wednesday will be minion day. Thursday is teen beach day where upper classmen will represent the bikers and the underclassmen will represent the surfers. Friday everyone can wear their own costume to finish the week with a little Halloween fun. We also want to remind everyone that this Wednesday is unity day. We encourage all students and staff to wear orange to show our stand against bullying and promote kindness, acceptance, and inclusion. And I'd finally like to take a moment to congratulate all of our sports teams for their hard work and dedication this season. This week

087is full of sporting events with field hockey, volleyball, football, cross country, and cheer all competing. As we move into the last weeks of October, let's continue to show our school pride, support one another another, and stay committed to making positive choices because together we can solve life's puzzle drug-free. Thank you for the opportunity to come back and speak for the students. >> Thank you, Logan and Jake. Moving along to our um consent agenda. We have some minutes from last meeting. Um did anybody have any comments or changes to the disciplinary hearing minutes or the regular meeting? If not, we can go ahead and approve them all at the same time for which I will need a motion. >> Do we have enough to approve it? Because you and David can't approve it. You weren't here.

088>> What was the question? >> The only three people that were here, >> Mr. Frank isn't here and >> Oh, actually >> virtually. >> It says absent right here. >> Oh, >> okay. >> I was No, you're looking at one of the discipline. >> Oh, yeah. >> Disciplinary ones. >> We had We had You three were at last. We could do the meeting, right? The disciplinary. We can >> You can do them separately. >> There's only one that'll need to pull. It's October 6. one of the disciplinary hearings to 4 pm >> to 4 pm on October 6 disciplinary hearing. >> Yes. >> So pull that one and we'll bring it back next time. >> Both of them >> 3:00 and 4:00 on October 6th. >> So what you'll approve is October 6, 2025 regular

089meeting and we'll bring back the disciplinary hearings for October 6 at our next meeting. >> Okay. >> Sound good? >> Okay. >> Mhm. I make a motion to approve the consent agenda meeting minutes for October 6, 2025. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I. >> Chair votes I. Motion carries. >> Donations. Dr. Boyd. >> Uh yes, Madam Chair. So, we have three donations for your uh review this evening and for approval. We have um five double-sided salon stations. They they're for hopefully a CTE program moving forward, but uh they they were received from Spennsylvania Career and Technical Center through the assistance of our instruction department and Mrs. Dr. Trusslo. So that's the first donation we received on October 6th. On October uh 10th, we received a donation of $15,000 from the Rapahanic Goodwill Industries.

090This is the second part of that donation for the IECC pre-apprenticeship workbased learning course that has received a lot of positive press. And then finally on October 14th, uh the William M. Cage Library Trust, Mark C. Willis trustee donated $500 in the form of books, tapes, microfilm, other media, and recorded information to King George Elementary School Library. I would ask for approval of these donations this evening. Madam Chair, >> I make a motion that we approve the donations as presented. the five double-sided salon stations, $15,000 check for the IECC pre-apprenticeship workbased learning course, and the $500 which includes the books, tapes, microfilm, and other media recorded information. >> Second. Any discussion? All in favor? >> I. >> Chair votes I. Motion carries. Moving right along to our policy manual update. >> Yes, Madam Chair. So,

091we our list is getting very short, which is a good feeling. So, we're down to three for your approval uh or or review this evening. The first is uh is a regulation that's required for a series of policies. It's actually found in three places in our policy manual, GBEC, JF, CH, and KGR. And it has to do with the regulation associated with tobaccofree schools for staff and students. You have a copy of that there. I won't read the entire regulation, but this uh regulation is required per code and I would ask for approval this evening. >> Does anybody have any questions about this policy? If not, can I have a motion to approve it? >> I make a motion that we approve GBEC-RJFC-rgc. >> Second. Any discussion? All in favor? I >> chair votes I.

092Motion carries. Moving right along to the next new policy. Uh so the so the next new uh regulation is uh one that we've looked at for a couple weeks now. This is IGDA-R2. Uh we reviewed this last last time. This this happens to do with our student organizations and the criteria for uh formally requesting a student uh organization. Uh it separates between curricular and non-curricular. And then if you look at the red text below, this is all new, but the red text is a result of what the board uh considered last time. I'd ask for review of that and uh any suggestions or or approval. number four on this where the red is. >> Yes. >> Should we put a time frame there so it's not every time but maybe at the quarterly or something?

093>> Uh the principal will send notice to the school board of all approved or disapproved student organizations for review by the superintendent and schoolboard members. >> You know what I mean? Yeah, we can. I mean, it's >> everyone is necessary, but maybe >> I'm I'm fine with >> So, Madam Chair, I actually have some comments about this. >> So, um on number four, uh it's my suggestion that we actually have three approvals on any non-curricular club that it go through the principal first for approval, come to the superintendent for approval, and then come to the school board. Not all clubs, just non-curricular clubs. >> Any further discussion regarding that or do we want to change the wording? You want to um I think the intent behind that from from what I recall is that um

094the this things go on and the school board hears about it after fact. And it would be nice to know when the community comes at you to know what's going on ahead of time versus trying to uh figure things out afterwards. >> I think the only concern I have I understand what you're saying, Miss Cleveland, but the only concern I'd have is that I mean if you had a um say an organization one month and then two weeks later and then another one then another one. I don't know how many come in a year where it would be. Yeah. I guess what I'm saying if there's not many that come in a year, we could do this. But if a I would rather be just simply notified of their existence rather than necessarily approving each

095one trusting the principal and the superintendent to approve them but we'd be notified that of certain whatever clubs are going on. >> So same concern I had but then when I looked into it there's not as many as you would think. So it is manageable. >> It is. Okay. So what's the reason why? So you you're asking for three levels. You ask principal, superintendent, and school board. >> Yes. >> For non-curricular. That's I understand it for non-curricular. So um what what's the reason for also wanting to it? So it's more than just an awareness. You actually want our approval of of every >> Yes. Because of what happened with this last club that came about. We did not know about the club until we were being >> injected with a lot of emails. >> No,

096I agree with the knowledge. We need to know of the clubs >> and if and my my concern was with just principal approval, we still wouldn't know. We'd be in the same >> Oh, no. No. What I would like to see is principal approval, superintendent approval, and then notifying us. >> Right. And if the principal denies it, then it's appeal process. So, we don't need to >> Exactly. >> escalate it. Right. So, so really we're just being the third step is not our approval but our being notified because if there is a denial then it may end up with an appeal which would have to come to us and if we're already part of the approval that doesn't make sense. >> I didn't think about that. >> You see what I'm saying? Does that so

097I I mean there may be clubs when say the principal has said no you know not getting into the legality of it yet but just say that and then the superintendent says no but then they appeal that. Well, it have to come to us, but if we've already quote approved it, it can't be appealed to us. >> So then the second level can be the superintendent to advise the school board at that point. >> Yeah. You see what I'm saying? >> That Yeah. >> Okay. >> So basically leave this language then. >> Well, we need we need to change it for the superintendent's approval as well. >> I I it's in there right now. >> I think it's in there, right? Is it? So, uh, let's see. The principal will send notice to the school

098board of all approved or disapproved student organizations for review by the superintendent and school board members. So, that's just review. And then I think it's bullet six. I think it's bullet six. The principal or superintendent may revoke. No, that's not it. So if it's approved >> decision shall >> notice would be sent to you but then bullet six would be the principal or superintendent may revoke recognition of any student organization at any time upon his or her own initiative for good cause including any violation of policy IGDA revocation by the principal may be appealed to the superintendent or his or her design in the same method and under the same time limit as provided above revocation by the superintendent is final. You think we need to go beyond that? >> So what you were saying,

099I'm sorry if I can say. So what we're saying here, it sounds like this language is a little different than Miss Cleveland is saying and that the approval is at the principal's level. Period. And then if there's an issue, then it comes to you. >> It's appealed to me. >> Appealed to you. And that's again the same as I was mentioning with the school board is it can't be appealed to you if you're part of the approval process. So it would be approved by the principal and then if there's an issue it would be appealed to the superintendent and if there's still an issue then the school board would be the final appeal and that's different that you were saying approval by the principal and the superintendent and our >> the appeal comes to the

100school board then it's this is similar to what we do for a public complaint. >> So let's just have it come to the appeal come to the school board then >> that's fine. That's that's the way it was it's worded now. Yeah. So, approved by principal, approved by superintendent, appealed to the school board. >> Okay, >> that's fine. >> All right. >> So, the way it's written now, that that's the way it would work as it's written now. Correct. That's the way I read it. >> Yeah. We're going to be notified still, Mr. Cleveland. >> You're going to be notified upon >> won't we just won't be part of any approval or whatever in case there's an appeal. >> And I I think to Mrs. Cleveland's point the the I don't think it'll be a

101quantity that we can't make you guys aware of it when it when it occurs. I mean we can as soon as we get a club request then at the next board meeting just like donations we can provide that as an attachment and then it'll say either approved or disapproved and and within that time period I believe is when you know my approval or any appeal would happen. Does that make sense? M >> and basically if if I can madam chair continue um the only reason it would be disapproved is if one of those A through K um parts are not adhered to that's there wouldn't be any subjectiveness about from the principal it'd be very objective based on these items I'm just pretty I'm talking about legally that's a pretty big deal >> yeah that's

102right >> okay all right sorry I was thinking about what was said earlier. Okay. >> So, are we good with the way it's written or do we want to reward it and go again at it next meeting? >> Again, I love this idea that which is this is pretty normal for most schools. Uh the only thing it's in there might be slightly different is the parents have to be aware that which child their club is in. That's it. Which I I love that idea. So, >> thank you. I like the work that was done. So, you're waiting for um a motion >> or or Yeah. Any suggestions? I I'm good either way, honestly. We can make it work. >> You want me to do it? I don't care. >> Do you have more comments, Miss

103Cleveland? >> I don't have any more comments, but we have a board member missing and I'm wondering if maybe we can can we look at it at the next meeting? >> I'm pushing it all. >> It's entirely your call. Yeah. >> Yeah. and we've already pushed it back once. I'm just thinking about the community, Miss Clayton. >> We're not able to start any clubs right now until the policy >> because they're waiting to start >> to except that if the board sees fit, then we can wait for Ed Mr. Frank to get back. >> I Miss Cleveland, I think the last meeting that we talked about most of this except for maybe this last point. >> Well, we didn't have a discussion. Jesse just um kind of presented it. >> Yeah, we didn't have a

104discussion. That's the only thing is there's two clubs out there waiting to be approved and um but >> so yeah we couldn't move forward with those clubs until this is approved. Correct. >> We're holding right now on club app. I mean there's a number of of interested folks to start clubs. So you know it's October 20th and if we're not good right now then we have what's when's our next opportunity? November 17th. We got a whole month >> holding up the the club. So >> yeah, I understand what you're saying with Cleveland, but I just would hate for the clubs to wait another month. >> I think you're a little bit nervous on voting on this because we want to know more information. We have a group here saying that we're going to be sued.

105>> Yeah, I do want more information. >> Saying we're going to be sued if we don't. But then what's the point of that? >> I'd like to get more information on some of the stuff that we've been presented with. Okay, we won't we will we will hold off on approving that policy for now. >> Yeah, it's fine. >> I'm moving along though. >> Just waiting on Mr. Frank. >> Yeah. Okay. >> So, table until next time. Okay. All right. Uh third policy for this evening is I KB-R A-R. So this is again a policy that requires a regulation and this one simply has to do with high high school credit bearing courses that are taken in the middle school. So if we have a number of students actually that take high schoolbearing uh courses, credit

106bearing courses in the middle school and this is a process uh that is pretty standard across many school divisions, but it's their ability to opt out of that credit um going against their high school transcript if they desire to uh and if they've earned that credit on the uh middle school level. So pretty standard practice. We just uh solidified the regulation associated with it. I'm comfortable with passing this this evening if you guys are. >> I'm confused. Can you say that again? >> Yeah. So, like um algebra 1, world history, uh Spanish one, there's a number of courses that our middle school students take for high school credit. This process, like I said, is pretty standard. It provides an opportunity where if a student doesn't do well in that high school course as a middle

107schooler, they can opt it out of their uh high school transcript. >> Okay, that's what I thought you meant. Thank you. Mhm. >> Do I have a motion to approve this regulation? >> I make a motion that we approve I kebab--r as presented. >> Second. >> Any discussion? >> Do you have a quick question? >> Sure. And and I apologize if you already answered it, Dr. Boyd, but why would a parent want a high school credit taken off of the trans >> if they don't do well do well because it against their GPA >> or if they fail it, you know? So, it's uh it's just an opportunity for uh it's kind of a safety net for a middle school student that's stretching themselves. >> Yeah. >> Also, you could get a D and get

108credit, but they may not want that. >> Normally, students that are taking these courses are like Excel already. >> You're correct. But it nevertheless, it's >> okay. We have a motion made and seconded. All in favor? >> I. >> Chair votes I. Motion carries. >> Now we're moving on to committee reports. Mrs. Cleveland, do you have any committee reports? >> I do. I attended the Commonwealth Governor. >> Oh. Uh, we need we we missed one discussion item. >> Oh, sorry about that. I sure did. >> Legislative positions discussion. Yes, Madam Chair. So, uh, what this is is basically it's the proposed legislative positions for the Virginia School Board Association. Uh, Mrs. Hoover, as you know, you are the representative, uh, and you'll have to act as that representative for King George County when we go

109to the VSBA uh, conference. And what we solicit from other board members this evening is whether or not they agree to these legislative positions so that you can go speak on behalf of King George County at that VSBA meeting to support those legislative positions. So VSBA has three legislative positions that are up for review. Uh one I think you guys would be in favor of, but I don't want to speak for you, but it has to do with assessment reform and accountability reform. And uh the new the new text is the underlined text and it's Virginia public schools are committed to delivering high quality instruction and ensuring student success. Therefore, BSBA supports legislation to provide school divisions with a minimum of one full academic year to prepare for and implement any major policy changes that

110affect curriculum, instruction, assessment, and accountability systems. So, as you know, right now there's a lot of moving parts and a lot of changing things across the state when it comes to those areas. Curriculum, instruction, assessment, and accountability. This legislative position asks for at least one year before the implementation of those initiatives. So, I would you like to go through want me to go through all three of them quickly? Okay. Uh the second one is uh chronic absenteeism. It's a request to remove chronic absenteeism as an indicator in the accountability and accreditation models used to rate public schools. As I said before, there's a lot of factors there that we can't control for. Uh and then third and final uh as budget, you know, crunches uh happen and and as we have uh as you know,

111we're in a teacher shortage, what the third legislative proposal is asking is for the enrollment cap for virtual Virginia to be expanded. In other words, providing more opportunities for students across the state of Virginia to enroll in virtual Virginia tuitionfree because as we cannot find teachers for some of these advanced level courses and there are more creative options for um education as we've discussed tonight, the SBA's legislative position is to expand the number of seats available through virtual Virginia which uh is also something that I think is is a good initiative. So would the board be in favor of all three of these? I I believe I I would be in favor of the Anita board. >> Probably ask each one individually, Madam Chair. >> Mrs. Cleveland, the answer is yes. >> Mrs. Davis, >>

112Mr. Bush, >> yes. I'm definitely in favor of all three. >> Okay, thank you. That's how I will check with Mr. Frank, I suppose at the next meeting since we have one more meeting before and um Jake, just FYI, when your inspection comes, I typically come to all the ROC inspections. They're fascinating. However, the board will be otherwise engaged at a required training that week. So, we will not be able to be there, but thank you very much for the invitation. >> When is our next school? >> The 16th of November is >> It's the first day of the VSBA convention. It's usually pretty tight window right there. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> No, our our schoolboard meeting is the 16th. >> Oh, yes. I'm sorry. I thought you meant the inspection. >> 17th. The schoolboard

113meeting is the 17th. >> And then the 19th we leave for VSBA and the 19th is the day of the inspection, right? >> All right. >> Okay. Let's try committee reports again. Mrs. Cleveland. >> Yes. Thank you. Um I attended the Commonwealth Governor's School um board meeting on October 16th. a few things to pass on. Um, there will be a recruiting event at the King George Middle School on the 28th of October from 8:30 to 10:00. Um, they will be there speaking with the middle school students and hopefully trying to recruit them over to apply to the go uh governor school. Um, there will also be a family night on November 6th from 6:00 to 7:30 uh where families are invited to go uh hear more about the Commonwealth Governor School. Um, there was also

114reported uh the retention rate uh for King George uh students um in the Governor School which was 91.2 and that's pretty much on average which with the other um school divisions. Um last report um I updated the board that uh we were going to be getting a technology update and some of the classrooms for the governor school that's going to be implemented um starting to be implemented the first install on the 27th of October um with King George High School being that uh first install um for that broadcast technology that we are getting for our students. And that's all I had. >> Thank you, Mrs. Davis. >> I'm waiting for my thing to pull up so you can go to him. >> Mr. Bush, do you have any committee report? >> I have a committee

115report now. >> Just save it for the next board meeting. >> Okay. I do not have any either. I have had no committee meetings. >> No connection. >> Okay. Why am I missing? The next one, >> Dr. Boyd, >> superintendent report. >> Okay. So, Madam Chair, uh we had our first 2 by two meeting which was uh very successful. Uh it was with Mrs. Hoover, Miss Frank, uh Mr. Sins, and Mrs. Bender. Uh we had conversations and I think I provided a brief to the board about facilities moving forward. It was a very good and collaborative meeting. Uh I think you guys received the bulleted uh update on that and um we hope to have our our very next 2 by two meeting which will be Thursday. Uh and I'll be there as well and

116that'll be Mrs. Cleveland and Miss Scott and Mr. Davis and Mr. Collins. Am I correct in that? Okay. All right. And we'll continue to to have the same conversations related to uh facilities, specifically the vocational center and the uh preschool. Um, and I thought the the the outcome of that was very successful. The other thing that you guys probably saw was uh the request to reprovide the 5, 10, and 15year facility plan. So, you guys should have received an updated version of that. Uh, and that's good to move forward. That'll be a continual that that's a document that continues to to grow as as we work through things. So, that'll continue to change uh as we discuss things moving forward. My first VAS meeting of the year starts on this Sunday. And so that'll be

117our first uh indication of uh legislative positions, uh budgeting numbers, and what things are looking like at the state level. So that's really our kickoff and first indication of what things are looking like in terms of the operating budget, uh and some other things when it comes to laws and and Virginia code and such. So I'll be able to report back from that. Um, I'll tell you that next time on our uh agenda, there was a the request to have uh a discussion about new students and transfer credits. So, I'll we'll be sure to put that on our next uh board agenda. That's on there. And then finally, uh I want to remind everybody that tomorrow night is uh our next CT Eats. So, that'll be at Kings Pizza. if you guys are available, that's

118always a a good time to come out and see a lot of the amazing things that uh we're doing for workplace readiness skills and and Mrs. Rinko and uh there's a number of amazing people that show up in the community to further the uh goals that we have here in the school division. So, if you can make that, it's certainly something that's worthwhile. So, thank you, Madam Chair. That's my report. >> What time is that, Dr. Boyd? >> Uh that starts at 5 o'lock. Thank you, Dr. Boyd. >> Moving on to board comment, Mr. Bush. >> Um, first of all, I'd like to thank um the um Sealston fifth grade uh book buddies. That was very good. And thank you, Miss Resto for that. I want to thank our our student reps. Appreciate it. Um

119you always do a wonderful job. And it's the first time I've heard from Sorry, what was your name again? I forgot. >> Logan. >> Um but thank you, Jake. And um also I appreciate all the work that was done under the strategic plan and it was a lot of work and it was very well done. You could tell because there wasn't a whole lot of questions and that usually says that it's been very well done. So thank you. It was it was very good presentation. Um I think um that's about it. >> Thank you, Mr. Bush, Mrs. Davis. >> Thank you. Uh I want to give a shout out and a thank you to all the donations um that we discussed today. the spots of was it spotsy I think donated the salon stations uh

120the IE CC from a donation from Goodwill and um the books from Mark Willis. Thank you to Whitney Kilgre for doing the invocation. The big kids book buddies club that came. Um Mrs. Deier, you did such a great job speaking and so brave to come in front of everybody and do that and you did it very well. You spoke very well. Um and then sorry just we're Oh Logan, how was that? You did you did great. Very very proud of you. Very coming back again. Um and and giving a message. Jake, thank you for um very detailed, very good uh representation of King George as well. And I think that's it. Thank you. Oh no, to all our principles. You guys are amazing and and if I had a million dollars, I would share it

121with you. But we're not in it for the money, you know. So, we we all know we're I'm broke. I don't know if you are, but um yeah, thank you for the hard work. Thank you for the pre presentation. Thank you for willing to come to the schoolboard meetings with smiles on your face. It does mean a lot. We It We're not just saying that. We really do appreciate you guys. So, um just a shout out to you guys. >> Thank you, Mrs. Davis, Mrs. Cleveland. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. Um want to also say thank you to the principles. We appreciate you so much. Thank you for all you do. Your leadership is important. Um and I think that you're doing a great job. So, keep it up. Um it was nice to hear

122from the student reps. Uh nice to hear from the big kid buddies. Um the strategic plan, very informative. Thank you for all those that reported all the great progress that's being made. Um it's so nice to see that and I I'm looking forward to our continued uh focus on that and continued progress there. Um, I also want to um give a shout out and say thank you to all the teachers um in in the King George County uh for for taking the time to do the student uh the teacher parent conferences on was it this past Monday? Last Monday. Um, I was able to meet with a bunch of teachers and I know that they worked very hard meeting with parents all day long and um, I know that it was just so rewarding for

123the parents to be able to hear from the teachers. So, really appreciate you taking the time to do that. Um, also um, I noticed on the strategic update um, that we were conducting the online safety lessons and I didn't mention but I wanted to mention now. I think that is so great that we're doing the online safety lessons for our students. It's so important, especially what we're seeing now online with all of the challenge that we're seeing. So, thank you for for doing that, too. >> Thank you, Mrs. Cleveland. Um, I wanted to first thank my board for pulling my weight since I've been gone the last few weeks. I appreciate all your efforts and time that you've spent. And um I apologize for not being out and about in the schools, but I'll be

124back. Miss seeing you all and all the all the students. Um and also thank you to all your principles. You are amazing and your enthusiasm is obvious because the kids have the same enthusiasm and it's already October which is amazing. Hard to believe. Um I wanted to shout out to Mrs. Scott who's in the audience who's been faithfully coming to our meetings. um uh looking forward to working with you very soon on the board. Thanks for coming and listening and getting caught up in all the current things. Um and also thank you Dr. Boyd for being available at the strange hours that we're requesting the 2 by two meetings because we know that all of you guys spend a lot of time out way above and beyond eight hours a day. So, thank you for

125that and for the board for being willing to do that and for our board of supervisors being willing to do that and I think we're working very well together to try and come up with a plan like we we're all on the same page. We know what we need and we're things are going well. So, I just appreciate everything that's going on that's positive. It's all good stuff and that's all. Do I have a motion? I make a motion to uh to move into a closed meeting pursuant to state code section 2.2-3712A of the code of Virginia. I move that the board convene and close meeting to review hire substitute resignations, retirement stipens as permitted under 2.2-3711 number one of the code of Virginia. >> Second. All in favor I. >> Chair votes I. Motion

126carries. We are now in close session. Thank you. It's only two minutes. I need a motion to be back in session. >> I moved um the King George County School Board return to open session and certify that pursuant to state code section 2.2-3712D. only public business matters lawfully exempted from the open meeting requirements under this chapter and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion by which the close meeting was convened were heard discussed considered in the meeting by the public body >> second and >> certify certify >> all those in favor >> all all in favor >> I chair votes I motion carries um now I need a motion to >> I make Make a motion that we approve all of the uh um hires, substitutes, teachers, stipens that were discussed

127in close session. >> Second. >> Motion made and seconded. All in favor? >> I. >> Chair votes I. Motion carries. >> I make a motion that we adjourn until the next school board meeting which is >> November 17th, 2025. >> Second. All >> in favor? I >> votes I meeting.