August 5th, 2024 School Board Regular Meeting

001I'd like to call the order the meeting of the King George County school board we're going to begin um with an invitation from um Pastor Bill hulum from the King George Church of God good evening I just want to say thank you uh to the school board for the opportunity to um lead the invocation tonight and um and it's a privilege and honor and I thank you guys for your um leadership in our community and uh with that I will uh I will lead us in prayer would you bow your heads if you feel comfortable gracious Heavenly Father we thank you today for your goodness we thank you for your kindness and your mercy that you have extended to each and every person on this planet through your son Jesus Christ we thank you that

0022,000 years ago he died on a cross for the sins of everyone who will receive him God I pray that God our hearts and our minds would um place our faith and trust in you God Lord we thank you that you are the Creator and the sustainer of all life God that you are the establisher of families the establisher of government in Nations according to your word god you said that you have you have predetermined the boundaries of each and every nation God and so we know and we recognize that human government is an expression of your divine order and father I just invite your spirit into this meeting tonight God God I pray that you would Quicken our hearts and our minds God to uh perceive the wisdom that is from you from above

003God I pray that our conversations would be uh Peaceable and full of love and full of grace God I pray that um our schools would be blessed God that um our teachers our administrators got all of our parah um workers and uh got everyone on staff and all of the schools in our community God I pray for grace and strength for them as they enter into a new year God I know that they all come into this year with personal uh experiences and perhaps difficulties God I pray that you would give them strength Lord God we lift up every every child that will be attending a school in King George and pray God that you would bless them that you would bless their families and God that you would bless our school system Lord we

004pray for a hedge of protection around them God and that you would keep our children physically safe this year in Jesus name God and we pray God in addition to uh physical aspect God we pray that you would um guard their hearts and their emotions and their minds in Jesus name God that they would be safe from any threat God whether it be physical or emotional or spiritual God God we humbly ask all all of these things and invite your presence into this meeting in the mighty name of Jesus amen amen and for the pledge please after the pledge if you remain standing for a moment of silence pledge allegiance to the all right next we have public comments I have a few things to say for public comments but um if you haven't already

005signed up make a public comment um we still have the sheet here um if somebody still wants to go leave it down there in case somebody while I'm speaking wants to sign up I'll take it in just a second you wish to speak um at the public comment sections please see the clerk as I just mentioned um ideally prior to this meeting but of course it's fine if you want to do it now um public comment is a time for the community to present matters that they believe deserve the board's attention comments are one way communication from the Community member to the school board and they are not a form of dialogue or debate the school board applies the following procedures to all speakers and does not discriminate based on identity of the speaker um

006the content of the speech or the Viewpoint of the speaker comment should be presented in a courteous respectful and appropriate manner the public shall address the school board only on matters that are related to the services and policies of the school division speech that causes disruption to the meeting promotes private business ventures or involves threats of any kind or involves intimidating language relates to public offices or campaigns involves complaints identifying individual students or staff members or contains lewd profane or obscene language is prohibited proper decorum and the provisions of this procedure directive are expected to be followed at all uh public meetings of the school board uh the members of the audience shall conduct themselves in the manner as outlined above for the individual speakers and shall not disrupt an open meeting of the school

007board nor incite others to do so at the discretion of the chair any person violating the rules listed above may be asked to leave the meeting uh when recognized by Me by the chair speakers will be asked to identify themselves by name State their relationship to the school division such as staff member student parent grandparent um and uh Community member Etc we'd also like you to indicate which magisterial district that you reside in in King George um uh commentary during public comment is generally limited to three minutes um and so we will try to abide by that I will if you're close to it um I'll simply give you a little bit of a warning but then you'll need to finish your comments at the end of three minutes all right the first one that

008we have for public comment today is Jacob gerding and um you're from dalren District if you please come to the microphone good evening my name is Jacob gerding and I'm a resident and taxpayer in the dogr district I'm also an elementary school librarian and advocacy chair of the Maryland Association of school librarians I will be speaking tonight in my capacity as a resident and support the books TTFN and sold that were discussed last month as a librarian I can tell you these books meet selection criteria have likely been in the library for over a decade without incident and we defended at two different levels of reconsideration process as books with the value about real issues despite the relevance of these books passages which students can find online are being used to say that nobody should

009have a right to read them a direct a direct attack on parental rights while I am not a lawyer and I am not providing legal advice of any kind courts has spoken on many of the issues before you the Pico Supreme Court decision only allows you to remove books from libraries under very limited circumstances further the Virginia US Supreme Courts have both ruled in Virginia versus American book sellers Association that when we think about minors we must think about the age of the oldest miners we serve in a place when discussing the suab ility of books could moving them to high school be a consideration the case law Sun versus C of wi all Falls Texas rule that parental rights with Library materials don't allow a non-parent to dictate when someone else tour May read

010what someone else's tour May read and also don't allow one parent to suppress material not only for her own children but for all others in the community our schools already have a system to ensure that those that have permission can gain access to constitutionally protected materials so if we don't want kids to read the books the system won't permit them to check out I hear concerns some kids may try to circumvent the system but you can't take rights away from all based on a possibility of what might happen per counts versus seille School District while sunnd en counts are circuit and District Court decisions that are not binding here in Virginia they have been used frequently in legal opinions about school and public library books Nationwide adding relevance rape and trafficking arm pornography they're criminal

011acts that disproportionately impact this very age group students and families have the right to know this information we don't lead our children to war when we Army each other with the material and information no matter how good or bad they need to confront evil when we they see it but we do when we minimize the evil of rape trafficking alcohol drugs depression and other societal ills through deceit even Justice Alo says the pr boast of our Free Speech jurist prudence is that we protect the freedom to express the thought we hate thank you Mr Gertie next we have Stephanie um maruch I don't know if I'm pronouncing that properly my name is Stephanie marage I live in the Monroe district and I have three children making their way through the school system at the heart

012of this issue is the refusal of some parents to recognize and accept the different parenting styles of others everyone parents to the best of their ability and according to the needs of their child I resent that others are trying to interfere with my ability to parent the board questioned at the last meeting the educational value of these books my goal as a parent is to educate my child as a whole this means not only educating them in aspects that can be Quantified and tested but also facilitating their social education I use books like the ones being challenged to have difficult conversations with my children there are people and situations in these books that that my children will probably never encounter but they might it is my job as a parent to prepare them for as

013many life possibilities as I can educational value goes beyond testing and quantitative assessment one could argue that group work has no educational value the end assignment could be generated by a student working alone there is no NE no necessity for working as a group but group value but group excuse me but group work has value beyond that of the graded assignment it teaches students important social skills like how to work with different personalities resolve conflict and work toward a common goal with others the same can be said for the two books up for challenge now while their value cannot be measured tallied graded or Quantified in any way their contribution to helping my children learn empathy learn how to interact with others who are different from them and learn how to navigate situations that are

014unfamiliar with are mely valuable to their education as a human being I was disappointed by the board failing to stand behind the librarian whose name was called out during the last meeting you were quick enough to express empathy with and apologize to the parent who withdrew their children from school but not with the librarian whose name was used in Ju toos with violent language I realized the librarian was not being threatened by the individual but there are people who do not make that distinction and act on language such as this we see it all the time if you as a board seek to replace books with language like this then you are doing no service to any child and to the people who use language like this if that is what protecting my child looks

015like to you and my children don't need your protection I want you banned from my kids not these books thank you thank you Katie Evans hello um I'm a proud grandmother of three children in the King George School System I'm also a resident of dogin and a taxpayer I was not at the last meeting but I was devastated to hear one that a member of the school uh was called out and um from what I understood you all didn't stand up for her I'm hope that's I heard that wrongly but it was upsetting to hear I also understand there are two more books that are being challenged and I thought this issue was settled by this wonderful man here suggesting using the governor's rules and uh I thought the Banning of books was settled in

016the new program they were going to handle the books as curriculum material but then I was told that no these lists was made before that decision so these books must be challenged okay then why in the last three challenge meetings has the person who brought the challenge not attended why isn't she showing up she brought the challenge so why is there a chall challenge lastly I read the books I even got the books sold on Audible so I could get deep into it and hear and uh the voice of the person reading the book with the accent and it really pulled me into the book and it was beautiful it was sad it was heartbreaking it was everything but it was not smut in my job we must learn about trafficking as an adult I

017have to learn about trafficking but kids don't and this is from the perspective of a 13-year-old so why can't 13year olds read that and know what dangers are out there there was no smut in this book TTFN my God it broke my heart these three girls 16y old discussing their different parts of their life one was having drug problems one was having Act but it there was no smut there there was no detail there was no you know there was no intimate details it was three girls sharing their life and I could relate to some of my grandchildren in that book and I would be happy to allow them to read it the point I want to make is these books were not smut there was no smut in them and if the person who

018feels they are maybe should they should examine their own thinking and see why they feel it's smart thank you thank you Serenity Boyd hin hch hinch thank you thank you H I am a parent of a middle schooler and an elementary schooler who will be joining uh the middle school next year I would first like to thank Dr Boyd for finding a way to address Community concerns regarding reading materials while preserving the role of Parental judgment in our students education that is what governor Yun was eled on and a topic that's very important to many parents I believe that was kept in mind when reviewing whether the Bible should be available to students it has War enslavement other topics I won't bring up here and some very PG passages in the Song of Solomon however

019I believe you all understand that PG means Parental Guidance the solution of keeping certain books behind the circulation desk and requiring parental involvement preserves the role of Parental Guidance these books are not the Bible but they deal with serious topics the two books under discussion deal with human trafficking and teenagers in terrible but realistic situations these aren't Pleasant things but I think we can all agree that pretending they don't exist doesn't solve the problem as a parent I want more tools to address these with my children not fewer our kids need to have these discussions they're not helped by people throwing around labels such as smut rather than acknowledging that parents have a role frankly as a parent of a teenager if there's a book that my kids find engaging and helps us discuss dangerous

020situations teens May encounter I welcome that because I know my teen and I know what they're ready for don't replace my parental judgment with that of someone who has never met my child and I ask you please don't face my parental judgment with someone who can't distinguish between painful discussions of human trafficking and actual obscene material thank you thank you chairman Davis Sherman Davis I'm Sherman Davis voted at D District I have grandchildren in Elementary in high school and uh Middle School I believe and uh I'm here to read from the greatest book ever and I do that each uh meeting I come and read from scriptures and um so thank you for the opportunity and uh by the way this book of Song of Solomon a je had to be 30 years old to

021read that book just for your information the wisest men Solomon he wrote in the Book of Proverbs he uses the word hard about 80 times he said my son forget not my law but let thine heart keep my Commandments trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not into thine own understanding in all thy ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths keep thy heart with all diligence for out it are the issues a lot of issues today out of it are the issues of Life the wise in heart will receive commandment but the prating fool shall fall Proverbs 108 the heart of the wicked is little worth proverbs 10 10: 20 deceit is in the heart of them that imagine evil everyone that is proud in heart is an Abomination to

022the Lord the foolishness of a man's perverted his way and the Heart fth against the Lord my calling as a minister of course is to people to understand that I believe that government and God can be separated my job as a Christian is to realize and that folks understand that I am part of the group that believe I the salt of the earth and the light of the world uh that's the salt of the earth that's just not in the church house that's everywhere it's a courthouse or Schoolhouse where it might be uh salt has to burn and irritate and light gives out and shows the darkness and so uh that is my responsibility I cannot separate God and state I can't separate church and God uh for the of course God is the author

023he ordained uh government uh we asked what's the problem and many times the problem is not the problem it's the attitude towards the problem that's the problem and God says the problem of the heart is the heart of the problem and that is the the soul of it always remember the crowd chose barabus not because they loved barabus but because they hat hated the truth they hated Jesus Christ the savior of the world and so for this cause God gave them up unto vile IM affections and God gave them up unto uncleanness through the lust of their own Hearts to dishonor their own bodies to themselves professing themselves to be wise the Bible says they became thank you fools thank you Susan Park thank you to the school board and Dr Boyd for the opportunity

024to speak this evening my name is Susan Park and I have two children in the school system and I live in the Madison district one of the roles of the school board is to develop policies and last year the board updated the policy regarding book challenges and the schools implemented it for the Middle School spe specific books labeled ya are kept behind the counter in the library and require parental permission if kids want to check the books out so I thought this problem was solved but now it seems we're revisiting the same issues Mrs Roberts a King George resident with no children in our public schools has decided if you could refrain from using names she has decided that two books should be removed from the library she thinks she should have the power to

025decide what my children read in fact she thinks she should have the power to deprive every student at King George middle school and their parents of their right to decide what they can read and the school board seems to be seriously thinking about giving her that power the power to deprive students and families of their rights the school board is considering removing books from the library even though the majority of families who actually have kids in the schools do not object to the books Let's be clear removing the books Banning them from the library would violate students and Families First Amendment rights to access those materials books were professionally reviewed and are age appropriate for the middle school there's no rational reason to remove the books if the books are removed any student or parent

026or parent of a student who attends King George Middle School um um would have the standing to file a lawsuit because their first amendment rights are being violated is this really the best use of taxpayer dollars to defend censorship and book Banning I've heard some people say that these books are obscene or or they're pornography no they're not they don't meet the legal definition of of of obscenity or pornography um what a waste of time and resources we're spending on on this when other more important issues are faced by our schools like large class sizes overcrowding low staff salaries High turnover long-term uncredentialed Subs in the classroom High student poverty rates and lack of Parental engagement but instead of working to address or mitigate these challenges our school board is focused on Banning books I'm

027asking you to bring your focus back to making our schools the best they can be and providing support to students and staff so they can achieve academic Excellence stop getting distracted by the divisive agendas of a minority of residents most of whom don't even have kids in our schools thank you thank you Brian Mets good evening Brian Mets uh parent of a student in schools and uh Monroe District uh parent in that case uh so I I wish I could be as elegant as some of the other speakers tonight um I think I believe everything that has been said in regard to protecting um our parents rights of what we believe our children should be exposed to in the schools um couple of things that I think it's important that you as the board who

028are going to make some decisions on these books understand and recall when you get to that discussion the ages of the Middle School clearly we have 13y olds in the middle school I believe we have a number of 14y olds in the middle school and correct me if I'm not wrong I think we might even have a 15-year-old everything must be taken in context I wish the reviews of these books had been taken in the context of the paragraphs that they decided to pull out and use as examples another critical thing I hope you remember I'm a parent I'm the parent that if you take these books out of the schools you're violating my right to allow my child to read those books and people make all kinds of excuses while they're available the internet

029other I'll tell you both parents work it's difficult my child like the library has been a huge resource over his school career um and there are some difficult books these are novels keep that in mind these are novels novels are not meant to be Rosy there are difficult situations brought up in those novels the last thing that's really critical that I hope you remember is that another person 's rights end where my rights begin I believe the school has already taken up a valiant effort to implement the policy that you've asked for that already censors books it moves them in a protected area students are not allowed to access those books without first having the School contact their parents that is censorship not super happy about that censorship but it's a compromise most things that

030we do are about compromise we talked about civic virtue the beginning of the school year civic virtue is not implementing your beliefs on all of us but your ability to take our input into the way that you execute the laws the rules and the policies that you implement so back to the two critical things I want you to take away I'm the parent do not infringe upon my rights I get to decide if my child is going to read that book and writs I could stand in the center square at the at the Town Square and swing my arms around flailing I can say what I want to under Free Speech the minute my fist contacts another person's face I have infringed upon their rights that becomes assault do not assault my rights as a

031parent please let these books stay in the Middle School in the way that they are there now thank you thank you g Gonzalez Mike needs help good afternoon my name is Carrie Gonzalez and I am a parent in the dogr district of two Elementary School students at pic Elementary I understand the topic of book Banning is returning to King George as a former School Board member who sat up there with some of you for four years I can attested the fact that there are issues that are way more pressing that demand the time and attention of our Librarians our teachers and our administrators than discussion instead of being worried that our children are going to ask to check out a book to read you should be worried about whether or not our children can actually

032read and how the Virginia literacy Act is going to affect our Educators and children I've heard many of you advocate in the past for parental rights and involvement and education yet you are considering acting in such a fashion as to take that right away from many families who choose freedom of choice and reading materials for their children if you're going to vote on removing books from our libraries I expect each and every one of you to have first read each of these books that you choose to remove it saddens me that there are members of this community who are fearful of books who are so insecure in their status as parents of children that they do not believe they could use an opportunity to have a conversation with their children about subjects on which they

033may have differing opinions than others I am thankful that I am confident in my role as a parent and in my relationship with my children and that I welcome conversation with them on any topic they should encounter in their education or otherwise of which in the Journey of life there are many I'm sorry for the few parents in this community who do not have such relationships with their children and do not trust their children to make good decisions regardless of what books they get at the library perhaps the opportunity to discuss a book could help strengthen those relationships and build that faith in their children please do not insult our Librarians or allow members of the public to insult our Librarians or single them out by name I am certain that none of you would

034like to be called out by name by someone who knows significantly less about your profession than you do and imply that you are making inappropriate assertions about your credentials or implying that you are making decisions that are anything other than in the best interest of those you serve your role as Schoolboard members is to ensure that the superintendent hired by the school board is overseeing the day-to-day activities of our schools and that policies are in place to ensure our schools are operating within compliance with state law and in the best educational interest of our students but you are not Educators you are not Librarians you are Schoolboard members so let our superintendent our Educators and our Librarians do their jobs and you do yours Elizabeth Buckley I'm Elizabeth Buckley from the dogran district um I

035am the mother of four of which two matriculated through King George schools um although they've they've graduated and moved on I have great concerns about what's happening to this school system I have attended I think all but one and I watched the last school board meeting on uh on uh YouTube and I was really really surprised shocked and saddened by all the fear mongering the hate the the negative vitriol the accusations I wonder what are people so afraid of have confidence in your ability to parent your child if you're afraid then then double down I don't know what to tell you I also um have been to one of the meetings when there was a lot of sharing going on and about people and their experience as a child being molested or whatever and I

036want to say that I that really struck me and I I can empathize with them I can't say I know how you feel but that doesn't mean that that's going to happen to your children because somebody reads a book um there's there was also um lots of references to the Bible and Christianity and virtue signaling and such and um I have concerns about religion being injected too much into this discussion um I believe that a lot of this comes from a certain church and I guess I'm not supposed to mention the name but I went on its website and one of the things when you read about that church is we believe the state should have no control over the church Affairs I find that kind of hypocritical where this church comes and tries to

037heavily influence the school's Affairs and the government's Affairs this this is also kind of um taken out you know directly from our first amendment which also says the state cannot form a church a religion blah blah blah so on and so forth but it also implies that the church cannot influence the government and I think that's what's going on here also I heard somebody saying that you as a board are running from conflict and I totally disagree with that the board you had already you had a plan in place where parents could they were given a form if they dis if they didn't want their children to read certain books they feel dis form out no parent filled the form out I called the high school and the middle school yeah ex five minutes um

038anyway I think that fear leaves where Faith begins thank you thank you to everyone for speaking um now we have any comments from the superintendent yes Mr chair thank you all for coming out this evening we certainly appreciate your attendance uh I know this is a particularly challenging issue uh it is very nice to see you all here this evening it's nice to see everyone continuing to engage in our school system I know as challenging as an issue as this is I think it's very important did you have something Miss Park my my son signed up to speak during the public comment but his name got skipped uh it's under emis Park I am sorry I thought I checked it I called the name thank you I am sorry yes a it was not intentional

039please forgive me emis Park thank you I think when I saw your name Miss park I think then I thought that so thank you and thank you for pointing that out please go ahead um my name is Artemis I'm the son of Susan Park and a seventh grade student at the King George Middle School stopping children and teenagers from reading books isn't going to prevent them from figuring out who they are are or what they'll become hiding parts of life should never be necessary in fact it's ignorance supporting or influencing is one thing but forcing your ideologies on them when they are so deprived of any other knowledge any other life I'm lucky enough to have a family who accepts me no matter my person identity beliefs or otherwise different from not or different or

040not from their own a good book is meant to change the reader's perspective bringing a new idea into your world Banning books is hiding parts of life because you don't agree with it it's selfish really let your kids like what they like as long as it's safe and not hurting anyone it's so important to protect these books I found a safe place in Reading relating to characters learning from them and growing myself ending each one with real world topics to ponder thank you for listening and thank you to the Librarians thank you again I apologize it was not intentional thank you before I finish did anyone else have public comment yes yeah I think we'll write we can write that hi I'm Bill hul and uh my kids are in the sealston elementary school and

041I would just um appreciate the opportunity to speak to this issue and uh my kids love to read and I love to encourage them to read and um um and I don't want us as a community to live in fear um that's not a good thing right so you know I would just like us to throw around the idea of making available any kind of book that might be educational for the kids perhaps like Playboy or uh you know Anarchist Cookbook or something like that after all parents can make those decisions correct and I just want to throw out there also that um paganism and Atheism are in and of themselves a form of religion and the government is not to put upon the individuals uh citizens of this country any standard of religion and

042so I am strongly in favor of not allowing access to any material that would be misconstrued as offensive to any parent I we all pay taxes right and um and so I just wanted to share that and um make a strong recommendation since we don't want to live in fear that we allow access to any kind of material that one parent might think would be good for their child right you know um there's plenty of books on how to make explosives and uh how to engage in uh pedophilia and I'm sure there's all kinds of material that we could um we could put out there and make available um for the sake of Liberty and freedom and let the parents make the choice so in addition we could we could take it a step further

043and we could offer uh behind the counter drugs for kids who might be interested in um marijuana you know trying it out that's their that's their freedom right um we could offer alcohol I mean how Ive is it that that the government mandates that children under the age of 21 not be allowed to drink alcohol I mean let's let's really be free and really have some Liberty in this country I think that's where we should go as a school system and as a community and and so obviously that's all hybo and um and I think that if there's a possibility that it's offensive to a family or a child it should not be in our libraries although I do appreciate Librarians God bless you guys thank you God bless the United States Mr Ken stoud

044Ken stoud change Masson District thank you I'm here as a citizen so uh first I'd like to clear a couple things up number one there are my comments in the last Schoolboard there were some people that didn't listen to everything that I said and didn't apply the time frames and things to that so I referenced my time in the Marine Corps which was over 20 years ago and uh clearly at that point my frame of mind was a previous was a previous time so at no time did I mean any harm to our librarian so if anybody misunderstood that then you know I didn't mean that but what I did and what I do is I do stand between harm and children I think that all parents adults I think that we should stand between

045anybody that wants to harm children and I do stand between that so for people that want untethered access to children or want to do something to harm them or want to plant seeds in their minds that shouldn't be there then I do stand between children and harm let there be no mistake that there are people there are there's evil in the world and there are people that want access to children there are people that are that would like for the Defenders of children to be out of the way there are people that would like to have that untethered access education of our children Reading Writing math there's good reading out there if somebody chooses to have to discuss illicit things with their children if you want them to have that they have the ability as

046a parent to go buy that and provide it to their kids but it's not the taxpayer's responsibility to provide that material to the kids and the parents aren't afraid I speak to I've had a couple people that have have issues with this that I've that I've heard from but the majority of the people they're not afraid to be parents nobody's afraid to be parents I haven't spoke to anybody that's afraid to have conversations with their kids they're not afraid of anything what they're afraid of they're not afraid of their kid their kids and their their relationship with their kids they're afraid of the people that are out there the Predators having access to the kids there are predators that are inside the school system that are trying to do that that's the fear so it's

047those people that want that access thank you for your time thank you Mr strong all right um what is your name I work in the school system I went to pic and King George high school I just want to tell you I read Playboy when I was a kid my mother allowed me to read whatever I wanted to read and I'm still a good person okay haven't committed any crimes haven't Hur any children I even work here in the school system because you read a certain kind of book does not make you commit crime okay it expands your world viw and your knowledge of what's going on around I've traveled extensively alone and with groups I've not had one person tell me that I was a pornographic or SM control person because I read a

048Playboy magazine and I'm going to tell you for the people that walk around here and think that people in the school system are all crazy because we want our kids to have access to Lots of knowledge not just good knowledge which some people think only the things that they read are good and the things that other people want to read are not good books are bad and books are good just like people okay people write books sometimes they write bad books sometimes they write good books but you should always allow people to have an authority meaning your family my mother allowed me to read whatever and um she didn't commit any crimes she didn't go out and hit people in the head or Rob people or taught me to be a nice upstanding citizen I

049did 30 years in it and decided to come into the school system to take less money because I wanted to come here and help children now um I worked in the library too with some of the nice people that work in the library and I I just I can't understand how people want to take things from children that want to learn I know some of the people that are here that their kids are in the um pic and King George Elementary High School I see kids graduate and go to Virginia Tech my brother went to Virginia Tech I just can't see somebody telling my mom that she can't control what I read I mean my mom's past but I'm just saying she did a good job raising six kids and and I didn't hear one

050time where she said and she checked what we were doing um I didn't hear her one time said don't do this reading wise or don't read that book because it's not in uh the church um because the church has nothing to do with what happens at my house when my mother decides what's right I mean that's my mom she said she was the final Authority I'm the first and I'm the last because I'm raising you kids now other people may think they're not but the parent is the authority on raising their children and the school's trying to help the best we can and I want to say thank you guys for letting me speak have a good rest of your day thank you all right if that's all again thank you very much um Dr

051Boyd yes so thank you all again for uh being here this evening and and thank you everyone that has participated in public comment in the last few weeks again it's this is a difficult and challenging issue but I think as we continue to have this very challenging discourse it's it's one that's going to strengthen our community in the end so we we certainly appreciate everybody's attendance and engagement in the School Division I I do want to say that on behalf of everyone 700 plus employees in King George County Schools we appreciate our Librarians so thank you very much I just wanted to say that for the record uh everything that you all have done in the last year trying to work with our community trying to make this something that is uh agreeable to most

052is is does not go unnoticed so we certainly appreciate everything that you've done to uh help us work through a very challenging issue not one that's challenging for King George but one that we see challenging across the country right now so we appreciate everyone that's engaging in King George County Schools we certainly know that um it's going to be a challenging issue to work through uh and we we appreciate everybody doing it peacefully uh just just to make sure everyone's aware of what is going on moving forward our next school board meeting is August 19th August 19th will be at the uh King George Middle School and again our school board I'm not speaking on behalf of them they have not individually or collectively made any stance on this this um topic as of yet

053uh they they are uh responsible in our policy right now if the appeal comes to them to make that decision and and um they will work through that at our next Schoolboard meeting so again thank you all and we certainly appreciate you being here thank you Mr chair thank you all right are there any changes to the agenda school board members Mr rolls did you have changes don't you turn on your mic just going for memory I think um as far as the revised social media policy it we still have a marked up version so I anticipate that to be a discussion today and probably bring it back to vote on a clean version next time uh yeah it's in it's on the agenda yes yeah as an action item so I'm thinking you want

054to make it up okay discussion can yeah I mean we we can certainly do it either way yeah that's fine yeah if we approve what we have tonight then I can make those adjustments but we can bring it back as an action item as well anything else Mr RS so just to be clear that's going to move to a discussion item move to a discussion okay as board members know you know oftentimes even as a discussion item we can immediately if the board agrees we can move that to an action item if um it is the will of the board all right um next have consent agenda the minutes for March 25th Dr Boyd or our new clerk in fact I don't know if this your first time here would you Dr boy would you

055introduce us and also the public to um um absolutely yes it gives me great excitement to have some Aaron scal sitting here to my left uh she will be our new Clerk of the board uh she is um taking Cheryl bushrod's position which are very har shoes to fill but I can tell you in just a few days she's doing a wonderful job of of filling them she's off uh running and getting a lot done in a very short amount of time so as you know we're playing a little bit of catch up with with Cheryl's absence so this evening uh we do have two sets of minutes March 21st March 25th and August 8th for your review and I can tell you already that you know Aaron and I are are working through as

056quickly as we can the uh remaining minutes that we'll have for the consent agenda moving forward so uh thank you Mr chair all right thank you um as Dr Boyd mentioned we have um two sets of minutes March 25th and April the 8th um any um discussion or comments about those I know that they were submitted um just today um so it might have been difficult for some of the school board members to read them but as you glance through them um are ready to approve those minutes they were just today because I didn't see it when I was looking do my prep last night so yeah they came in and I know our clerk is a little new to this position and she's got a lot going on I appreciate because it's a lot

057of work um yeah Dr boy I think um it would be wise um since they did just come in this afternoon that um let's wait I know it's difficult because we have so many to catch up on um and this is a new position so let's go ahead and uh move that to the next meeting that means there'll be about six or seven not not a problem at all board members I know it's a lot of reading but if we can make sure that we read through those minutes and Dr Boyd getting those to us as quickly as possible would be good yes sir all right um now do I have a motion to um go to um close session pursuant to state code section 22- 372a of the code of Virginia I move that

058the board convene in a Clos meeting to review hires stiens substitutes resignations and for discussion specific specifically the superintendent's evaluation as permitted under 22- 3711 a number one of the code of Virginia have a second all those in favor any discussion all those in favor say I I chair votes I we're now in closed session for those that may uh if you're new and you haven't been to a meeting recently we moved the Clos meeting up a little bit to allow some of the staff members to make presentation if they wanted to leave after that they can so we will continue with the rest of the meeting after the closed session thank you e e e all right um do we have a motion to return to open session I move that the King George

059County School Board return to open session and certify that pursuant to state code section 2.2 2- 3712 D only public business matters lawfully exempt from the open meeting requirements under this chapter and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion by which the closed meeting was convened were heard discussed or considered in the meeting by the public body second and certify M Davis you certifi and I also certify all those in favor to return to open session say I I chair votes I now an open session we have a motion to approve the Personnel that's presented I move that we approve the personal actions as presented a second any discussion all those in favor say I I they are approved all right let's uh move on now next we have the action

060I'm sorry this is a little different format you're goingon to have to forgive me um okay now we have the action items and the first one is the employee social media policy Mr chair I believe we mooved that to discussion and oh yes we did sorry you're right all right let's um then go on to eser3 Mentor teacher program acceptance fund uh yes Mr chair this evening we have a request for an acceptance of funds for the sr3 mentor teacher program Miss Hill is here uh and I'll just go through and if you've got any questions for her then she's certainly available uh this again is additional uh it's an additional $1 million I believe across the country for the mentor teacher program funded by uh arpa funds uh King George County Schools is allotted

061$658 uh based on the same weighted fund used in the lottery funds allocated for fiscal year 2022 this funding will be used to support the certified Mentor program for teachers in King George County schools and this evening we simply ask for approval uh or acceptance of these funds in the amount of $658 do I have a motion or do you want questions Bo question so as far as spending that is that largely spent as sitiens for the mentors or hello so uh These funds are directed towards um anything that has to do with um our Mentor program and so yes one part of that funding would be used towards paying a a an award to our uh certified mentors any other questions I do I have a motion I move that we approve funds in

062the amount of $ 6,580 for a mentor teaching program a second any further discussion all those in favor say I I chair votes I so it is approved thank you again M Hil for your your work appreciate it all right next on the action items is the career Z challenge phase two prize yes we are all keeping close tabs on the career Z challenge this is uh the project that Mrs Rinko and Miss Hill have been working on and I think we get periodic updates so we have an update is that's very good news uh but just a little background if you remember the career Z challenge is sponsored by the US Department of Education it's an open um Innovative prize competition seeking Creative Solutions to expand student access to highquality work-based learning opportunities so

063if you remember phase one of the career Z challenge the department invited schools uh districts and consortiums to share their ideas on work-based learning challenges and now phase two semifinalists which we are one received technical assistance to Res to support the refinement and implementation of their proposed workb work based learning ecosystem plans uh they also participated in a community of practice and had access to learning workshops peer collaboration opportunities and other resources in August of 2024 10 semi-finalists will be SE selected to move on to phase three and we're certainly uh excited about the possibility of that and you ever have the opportunity to speak with Miss Rinko she's very excited about that and we're looking good along the way and we're in good hands this evening what we request again is an acceptance of

064funds because as a phase 2 recipient King George County schools has received $2,547 d94 and this evening Mr chair we ask for the acceptance of these funds questions or a motion I have a motion I move that we accept funds for completing all parts of phase two of the career Z challenge in the amount of 20 , 54794 second any further discussion all those in favor say I I shair votes I now moving on thank you you're welcome thank you for all your work and tell Miss Rinko thank you very much I know the two of you work very hard and it's a very successful program and thank you for keeping us informed also all right uh discuss items and first one um which was as recommendation by Mr rolls was to talk about the

065social media policy so um Dr Boyd or Mr rolls either one well I mean so you can see that the mark up U so I'll only mention things that I changed since that that I I saw that I missed um so you're saying further markups that you want to have yeah minor yeah so yeah also do that easy stuff um else discuss anything um so the um third paragraph last line it says manner sensitive to staff members professional responsibilities its members is singular possessive it should be plural possessive my mistake the apostrophe should be after the S okay Min thing but yeah I guess I guess I should explain this like so what you saw here and hopefully this was clear last time that we're going to do it is that I was concerned that

066the this was originally a regulation and we were going to just put it underneath an existing policy that didn't really see there's any existing policy that really fit so my preference was to take more General parts and make that into a new policy that we call GF or Gaff for the social employee social media use and then take the more specific stuff and make that regulation underneath it where which you Dr B add things more detailed to as needed too in future you see in the top is guess I think it's two different files here there's one for the policy and there's a separate one for the regulation right so when I made that um one correction there I'm looking at the policy when I said that in third paragraph and then other thing I

067looking at the policy GF looking in the very last section for corrective action staff member violation I see that it says the second line there after the call in it says violates this regulation or other board policies I've neglected to change the regulation to policy the regulation should Now read policy sorry you're in that's SL where it says corrective action under that right is that where you are yes in the second line the first paragraph there's you see it says that colon and after the colon it says violates this regulation it say violates this policy those are two small changes the possessions and then policy instead of Regulation anything else mean otherwise just it's all marked up just the way that I refer is there any concerns or comments on that Miss Davis any anything

068want to say about it Hoover this was easier to read than the last one I did read all the way through it Mr rolls and I thought it was uh very well done so if we could make those two small changes possessions um for the one where the poser goes after the S and then the policy rather than the word regulation and I do want to hear um Dr Boyd's opinion on this um what um how was your feelings of to the changes and recommendations that Mr rolls is making because you're the one that has to implement this I'm completely comfortable with it we've talked through it uh some of the points and uh I've taken notice of some of the changes that have been made and I think it's something that we can we

069can work with Okay there was two minor changes then um I think we can move this to a motion yeah I'm fine with that the only thing though is I don't see my folder around if I missed there or it just wasn't here but as far as the U regulation that goes with it is that that's uh in that same Link in the uh it's just below the policy uh same same file that's there just keep going down he that Matt like because he knows what's going on and it's there it's just kid okay was there and I think you did a good job or you want to make the motion sure so I move that we approve policy GF and regulation gf- r as amended I have a second second any further discussion all

070those in favor say I I chair votes I all's passed unanimously I will just say want to thank Dr boy for a lot of work going it's a good idea it's an important thing to have this day in age and it doesn't have to be complex I think one of the best points you've made here is that this everything all the policies that apply anywhere else apply to social media use it's just another Public Square that we have now to to deal with thank anything else okay sorry no you did a good job and I appreciate that Mr rolls all right um now moving on to other discussion item student attendance policy all right there's a lot on this one um so there may be some questions oh I have a presentation good outstanding Dr

071Wright sort of a presentation we'll call it a a discussion facilitation sounds good um you have two things in the packet for you one is uh a PDF of the three policies that we have uh relating to attendance the other one is a a brief slideshow so I would we have the slideshow up for you you may want to look at the policies themselves and I will highlight the key points of each policy um we'll get started and this is in relation to some questions about what we do what our policies are and then what we do with those policies as far as our procedures uh so the first one is policy Jaa this is really our our statute our code our law that requires that our students attend school it is mandatory in the

072state of Virginia that all students that fall within the ages of five and before 18 up on September 30th attend a public school or something similar and it gives plenty of examples of perial school or other private school that they could attend to meet that designation the second bullet there listed uh speaks to the GED uh exemption that you could fulfill compulsory attendance by by getting your GED or high score uh diploma equivalent program which we do participate in and then the last one States a very important part of this after the first 10 days of school any student that is non non-enrolled uh those are reported to our truancy officers and our school social workers and then we work to uh work with those families to make sure that they get their students enrolled

073the next policy is Jed this has to do with absences and excused absences uh and early dismissals uh and and all those different pieces first of all it defines uh the reasons well the first thing that this one actually mentions it talks about the important role that parents have in that first first bullet in the first part of that uh not only in encouraging attendance but if we don't have parents on our side encouraging their children not taking vacations in the middle of the year uh those types of things it makes our job very difficult secondly the notification piece falls upon upon the parents to make sure that we are aware whether the parent is there or not so that is a very important piece of any attendance plan any attendance policy is that we

074have our parents and that we're working together with our parents uh the second bullet there references a plan for what happens if a student does not come to school on a regular basis they meet a certain threshold of ab es of which we are not aware we have not been notified then we uh meet together in our school-based teams those called s sbit or school-based intervention teams and we meet in those teams K through 12 for a number of reasons uh including grades uh sort of a precursor to uh requesting child study and also attendance because many times attendance can be a factor as why a student is not being successful uh the last bullets are what happens really if the plan is not follow through on and that's when we start to seek uh

075court services uh our truancy officer gets involved our school social worker can get involved so we create a plan the plan is not met uh the parents aren't following the plan the students not following the plan we could then seek a petition through the court services and what's known as a child in need of service petition so that is something that our social workers do and our truen off treny officer does and they work very closely uh with court services and doing that in those situations which we have have to do periodically um we then now have support of the court and we have support of all the services related to The Courts if students and the parents aren't able to get their child in school question or you want us to wait till you're

076done we can we can fire away um so how often does it go from the espit you know and obviously the truy officers involved with that and so on that eventually gets to the court does that happen a lot or rarely it does not happen a lot I will say the esbit process is very successful mainly because we get the parents in the building we have a conversation we create a plan they're involved and then we're monitoring the plan so that that is very that is helpful um it's very rare that we create a plan and then we have to bring them back in and say we're not meeting the plan so it's you know we're going to revise it we're going to make it a little more strict provide more supports and then after

077that if we have to follow chins that does happen but I would say very rare of the number of students that are missing days of school five days and then 10 days that that it gets to the situation where we have a CH at that point you're usually as a parent there's a problem somewhere in the home where the parents are not able to get there's another there's another cause if that make sense so basically the consequence beyond the chin that's kind of the last thing is that right that's as as far as we can go from a school's perspective and then it's up to the courts to provide a layer of support or intervention usually family counseling and some other supports for the family but the courts really can't even beyond the chin and

078recommendations within that they really there's really nothing else beond what I'm referring to is obviously which we was talked about last time is that in the past if you missed more than 10% of the days was unexcused you know you couldn't go on to the next year we don't have that anymore correct we do not have that that would be that would not be a that would not be a court or um decision but that could be a school decision if you wanted it to be that's something we can talk about towards the end of presentation we have okay a couple suggestions all right go ahead so we covered The Chins and that really covers policy Jed the other the other uh piece of our third policy which is the regulation is jedr which really

079talks about defining what our categories uh that we enter our attendant secretaries enter one of one of three categories so the first is unverified absence and an unverified absence is when a student does not attend school for a day or a portion of the day but we don't know why we've had no communication from the parents so it stays unverified until we receive that verification an excused absence is when we a student misses a day of school but we know why and it is an acceptable reason and and it actually defines the reasons in policy uh those acceptable reasons or at least examples of acceptable reasons are mentioned in policy the unexcused absence is an absence that does not meet the acceptable use an example that's given is car trouble uh or I overslept for

080example those are those are given as as examples in our policy um also an unexcused absence is one that after three days an unverified absence if we have not received anything from our parents uh it becomes it goes from unverified to excused so at the end of the year we'll either have excused or unexcused absences but the most important part of this and there's tardies and early dismissals of which our school administrators especially at the high school come up with creative ways to incentivize students being on time especially for our drivers uh and and and um so that uh that they get the school on time but the regulation and all these policies really have nothing to do do when it comes to our accreditation with the excused versus unexcused and it's an important piece

081that you understand is that the the um as far as accreditation looks at the the absences they don't look at excuse or unexcused if you're absent it goes against your chronic absenteeism so if you took a family trip for two weeks and missed 10 days of school and then you happen to get sick for 5 days that's 15 days at 10% depending on how many days we have once you get to around 18 days of school you're going to be chronically absent so if you were to be sick a few times and you were to have a trip or to even a college visits something that you would think well that's a great thing those are all absences from school so they then you would be chronically absent as a student does that impact you

082you're probably going to miss some instruction you're probably might struggle you might have to make up that work but more than likely if you're a good student you could still be successful however you would be considered chronically absent so how do we how do we battle that because there's a lot of folks that are like well I have a vacation plan because that's the cheapest time to go and we got really good rates so we're going to go and we're going to take our kids out of school and they can make up their work because we have virtual learning and it shouldn't be a problem so there is one problem your your student will most likely probably end up being chronically absent um so that brings us to where we are now beginning this school

083year part with the all-in uh Act and the funding going towards the all-in ACT we were able to have tutoring after school tutoring we had funding for Saturday schools and they also added a a piece of this to allow students to make up days and the rate of makeup days are listed there for our secondary schools for every three hours you can make up one day of school for every two hours you could at the elementary levels you can make up one uh also make up a day of school and we started with this uh the elementary schools are already starting uh late in the fall the secondary schools started picking up on this uh early in the spring and we had uh excellent participation this is already part of the elementary school's uh normal

084day day to-day process to have these after school programs but now we could count them to recover days absence so we had the percentage or the students that participated are listed there in Middle School in our three elementary schools and uh we were able to make up some time you don't see the high school there but the high school did have quite a few students participating in Saturday school it wasn't so much to recover remain chronically absent it was more for graduation and the those students were there working feverishly several Saturdays towards the end of the year trying to get work completed so that they could meet uh the demands needed for graduation as far as where we are as far as the chronic absenteeism four of our schools achieved a level one which is

085green status which is as good as you can be so we're very proud of all those schools uh which means they are less than 15% of the students were chronically absent uh where High School was over that we were sitting at around 23% of our students were chronically absent which is definitely greater than 15% and uh so they are a level two and we're working to if they can reduce that by 10% for next year or drop all the way down to 15% then they would be a level they could reduce that to level one so last slide is Where Do We Go From Here We want to continue the recovery efforts I think was uh especially in our secondary schools started to catch on to that to where we can turn in that data

086to miss Webb and the Schoolboard office and she can send that to to vdoe and reduce our numbers of students who are chronically absent I think monitoring our our data very closely to see who's at that threshold so that we know who needs to come continue to work with our uh positive supports which is also part of our policy our PBIS program and our character stroke strong program all encourage good attendance we want to continue to focus on these three things which are three of my favorite connections our students through relationships and relevance to our students if kids don't see that school is relevant they're they're less likely to to come and if they're connected to someone in the school they're more likely to come so when they can see things like what Miss Hill

087was doing and and Miss Rinko with the with the connections to Career Z and they start to buy in and they see the relevance or some Club or just one teacher bus driver par professional that they connect with then they will come back because they have that connection lastly uh considerations I think last time you were talking about what it could look like I know there are some school systems that have have created a uh attendance policy that does have a minimum number so that is something we could look at I do think it would take uh some meetings I think it would take focus groups I think it would definitely need to involve our stakeholders our parents our community our staff and our students to look at what were the possibilities and then if

088someone the downfall to that is what happens when they they hit that threshold you have a student who is a senior they're trying to graduate they missed over the number of days so what what what do we do and those would be the hard questions that that we would need to come up with some some ways and some paths that students could recover similar to the days here and and some ways that they could appeal also to the board for any sort of uh waivers depending on S circumstances and those types of things so something that's been done in the past I think we've all probably seen similar policies I worked in a county that had policies probably King George had a policy similar to that and they've sort of Gone by the wayside and

089the in the desire to do everything we can to get students to graduate and graduate on time no matter what and I think probably we need to rain that back in just a little bit and also make sure we all need to be here because without everyone in the building working together it's not it's not really the same school so I'll stop and if you have any questions I'll do my best yeah I have several but I'll ask my other board members to ask first go ahead you have them I have a lot just one so we're talking about chronic absenteeism or having that label being gone more than 10% doesn't matter whether it's six days or not so but surely in some respect there's a distinction made between whether a student is sick or

090just playing hookie right so in what case does that matter there's no I think it does matter um the excuse versus the UN excuse is still something we keep track of so when we're dealing with unexcused absences and and the parents not communicating with the school that is where we end up with with a plan Court uh potentially chin petition but definitely at least conversation with the parents like hey you know your child's missing we don't know where where he's been or she's been so that's one piece of it the The Chronic absenteeism you know it could be all excused and and the parents are very much aware and they've written notes and some were uh but but it's still a chronically absent student so those are situations where we would want student to come

091and maybe make up some days uh by coming after school or on Saturday school so it is a it is a a bit of a Sticky Wicket if you would for students who may have straight A's but are also chronically absent and you ask how can that be it's because we've made learning so accessible to our students and if they are able to do that that's that's interesting um several questions and other board members may have some more too but one I just take them one at a time what uh what percentage of that 15% is especially in high school obviously there's what the issue is you know because they the state doesn't care excused unexcused 15% we're in that other category what percentage of that 15 or 23% you said is unexcused absences you

092understand the question I would have to guess because to me that's a key point to to this because I think that it would be hard to have some let me back up a little bit I agree that there needs to be some positive reinforcements and positive things like Miss Reno and Miss Hill and so on for doing wonderful things to get them to want to be here but I think as an educator and teacher there's this combination of positive incentive things you do but then there's also got to be the consequences there's always a balance and it sounds like that we're doing everything we can we can still do more with the positive things and the reinforcements and so on but you know maybe the concept quence thing and one of the first things to

093do is the excused absences you know that sometimes there's no choices but the unexcused absences are may be choices so i' I'd personally like to know what is the percentage of that 23% that's unexcused absences uh and and then uh second question if we can do this is of the that 23% in high school um are they what grade level are most do you see or do we see that fre quently is the highest number of absences unex I'm to break that down a little bit and if it's if it is a lot at the senior level one of the things that this is a negative consequence but it is maybe a committee and we need I agree with you I think we should get some sort of group or committee to discuss this one

094of the things we did to try to help that was if they did not reach a certain level especially in those unexcused absences as a senior we didn't let them walk they still got their diplomas but we didn't let them walk a graduation whoo now I'm not suggesting we necessarily do that but what I am saying is I do think we can give some continue with the positive but then also have some pretty serious consequences for unexcused absences especially would mean something at the senior level again I'm not saying we need to do that but we do need to look at that balance and see what we can do to improve that so I guess three things I'm saying one is can we get a breakdown of that 23% in high school two is what

095percentage per grade level especially the unexcused absence part and three maybe a because what I mentioned was just an idea please don't think we're going to do this okay it's just an idea is getting a committee together like you said especially in regards to finding ways of this positive and negative reinforcement um you know that we might be able to implement specifically with those unexcused absences to get below that 15% other board members okay all right well thank you very much all right next is um policy manual updates um can I make a suggestion on this um Dr Boyd and um also for our new clerk yes in the past just just like you've done with the action items you know each one of those we can click on it and it went specifically to

096that one and now when we go with these updates it's one gigantic file file which if let's just say three or four of them are good and now somebody says which happens often well that's on page 25 well no I'm using this I think it's valuable um like was normally done if you can to each one of them we can click on it and that goes only those two pages of that policy gotcha I have a say Mr chair I do prefer this just person preference well no you could still use it I'm not saying do away with this and both ways you're saying is what you're asking which is what it used to be yeah and all the way up until today you could do both in fact last if you remember the last

097board meeting Mr Frank was using the one with all the pages and he said on page 65 or something yeah the full packet was there but then I usually click them individually and then that where I'm going right to that one polic and then there's only that policies there it's just easy as the board chair to jump back and forth rather than going back with all the pages so I am saying just the way it was before I understand I got y okay all right so let's go through them so and Mr chair if I might add to this is the most recent group of vsba policy updates and this this evening is just about I think the number was 10 if we don't count the ones that weren't re that were reviewed but not

098revised there is about 50 right now that vsba has legal references on so what I'm interested in and we can certainly do whatever the pleasure of the board is um working through these as efficiently as as we can um especially if there's not huge controversial changes but again it's all about the appetite of the board so what I'm saying is is that when we get you know to the to the next meeting or the meeting down the road I'm interested in how many of these policies you guys would like to review at one particular time so that we can work through them efficiently and catch up with uh vba's updates that's a good point I can tell you right now I definitely the first one the non-discrimination policy um I would definitely now I didn't

099see anything crossed out or nothing so that just meant was reviewed and that's it most of them are just legal references that had the word ethnic oh it did oh thank you Mr RS yes it did add the word ethnic you're right yeah I would yes um this was talked about within the first few months I we were on the school board and I did um take a couple hours today looking over non-discrimination policies to about probably a hundred different what do we have 132 divisions I bet I looked at about a hundred of them and I was surprised as I was thinking they might all be similar to the Virginia code they're not they're all over the place and some of them I really liked I don't like ours necessarily um so um this

100is one not today but I would like the rest of the board if you would to go through this and I would recommend maybe even looking at some other policies and non-discrimination policies I think when we first went through this last year I made an assumption that this uh is Virginia code and it cannot change and then I see all these divisions and um about maybe 60 70% of them it is the same as ours but there's 20 or 30% that they now are they gambling with the law I don't know but I would like us to um to review this as a board I don't like it either but uh but I but my opinion I made the same assumption since VBA policy I know the Yun Administration spent like like a year so

101then trying to go and rewrite the transgender policy for instance the way they wanted it y and so I like I I think it's be a lot better but I don't want to spend that kind of time so if you have examples to look at then I well and this is I mentioned at the beginning I had a whole and I left it on my desk I had a file of all those that I did go over and I think there's some really good ones I will bring it next time and I'll actually U maybe even make copies now I'll mention something else about this non-discrimination which is something that um maybe it's a further discussion we can have with staff Dr Boyd is several divisions it was a non-discrimination policy related only to Title

1029 or Athletics and it's like the division they didn't have the same non-discrimination policy across the division I don't quite understand that this is maybe just my ignorance can is that possible to do that so you don't need to necessarily answer now but those are the kinds of things I'd like to look at the answer to your question Mr RS I will bring what the research that I did this time I'll bring it next time and you'll see examples of many I'll probably bring about only 20 of them with me okay which is about what I had and make copies and let you guys look at them or send also we should just include that in the packet should we not okay yeah I'll send them to Dr boy since I've done most of this

103we'll add them for the next packet we'll do that all right um the rest of these agenda items that was one of the big ones for me wanting to basically look at that again especially in reference to what some of the other divisions are doing um now did um you want to go through these one by one or do you want to do what Dr boy is recommending is just look at these and then maybe next time individual we can say yes I'd like us to look at this one or do you want to go through them now and and just to be clear no I'm I'm I'm indifferent on on how we want to go through these policies this evening I guess my question more specifically is we've got about I would say 40

104more vsba updates some of them are as simple as legal reference updates some of them go into greater detail with changes of titles and things of that nature my question to the board is what is our you know how efficient do we feel we can be in effectively reviewing these and how many would the board members like me to put on the next few meetings or the next meeting so that we can work through these vsba updates as as efficiently as possible so this evening you have 11 is is that a lot to to work through you know well person you like more I I read through all these and I didn't have a problem with any them except that first one um but I'm not sure the other board members as far as P's

105threshold I think this is about right I think yeah 11 is yeah you don't want to do many more okay we do 10 or 11 per board meeting that would be okay okay and so just to to to put that in reality that next four if well if we pass them per board meeting then the the current stash that we have is probably going to take us up through maybe the beginning of October if we pass them like this evening right I understand if we review them and then pass them and it takes two board meetings then that's then we're you know without doing the math we're probably looking at December right any comments let's then let's go through these effectively pardon effectively and according to time yeah well let's for tonight I think we

106can go through well here's the thing we don't have to pass them individually I think we can we can just discuss them and then um next time we can pass them all or we could discuss them effectively some of these we could move to an action item if it's simple some grammatical things all right so there's one we got to discuss we can move that to a discussion if there's one we can we can just yeah yeah that's good Okay so we've done the non-discrimination next one is policy AF we need to pass it now are you no you're going to bring them in that's right the non-discrimination we're it's in discussion for next time and I'm going to bring examples of uh divisions and what they have for their non-discrimination propos and I will'll

107have those in the packet thank you all right the next one is the AF file the comprehensive plan if you look through that it's really at the bottom um some very simple things is they've made some small changes with you know and the word include will also includes rather than will also include and then some other minor changes I think the way they've just crossed out some of those things and just added that one in accordance with Virginia law identified policy AG literacy plan the big thing here is that now that we have a division literacy plan that includes uh reference of the literacy plan correct I think that's one unless the board has a problem with it we can approve this one right now uh so Mr sh I'll just mention that part of

108the uh process here is not only just to approve it but there's policy or maybe by law that we have to redel policies every five years so just so we're familiar with it too so I do just want to point something out from this sure so it's first paragraph maybe halfway down there's a sentence that starts says the school board reviews the plan banally and adopts any necessary revisions and I don't know that we actually review our comprehensive plan banally to try to make revisions we certainly look at it every year to evaluate our progress against it which we certainly should be doing constantly I think the intent here is that talks banally that there's something happening different every other year that's prob something for us to reflect on but we want to do that

109and if we are I think we probably should identify you know is it even years or odd years that we're doing this so that we can consciously make it different do we review it Ann biannually did you say we do review it says review biannually and adopt any necessary revisions and we usually do that annually GNA say we do it every year Well me a matter of how you want to look at it I me so we're looking at how we're performing against the comprehensive plan but as far as officially like reviewing the plan and proposing changes you know if well that's a good point I think well we do it every year especially in relationship to our strategic plan there's a relationship between the two and Dr Boyd at least you know does go

110over at least mention it um if we were to we could leave it like it is and still do it every year it leaves us leeway I agree or yes beware of what we're saying because I don't think the way it's presented as a strategic plan that we have it's we officially do it every five years with the major effort right um so we GNA leave it at that and and we're saying we're only it's reviewed every year though and um track our progress but as far as proposing revisions I don't think it's been revised since I've been on the board well we adjust objectives and change change objectives annually but I think his question is not on the Strategic plan but on the well it's that's that's hand inand that's exactly I think there

111was especially from Dr Benson to Dr Boyd I think we made some changes even though it's a fiveyear plan when was that where are we now I believe it expires in 2027 I think is what it was 2022 to 2027 is where you're right yeah so and you we do tweaks every year as I we review it in and update objectives and and review progress annually we've talked a little bit about this we we we've done it a couple different ways we've done the big huge presentation in January yes I remember talked recently about maybe breaking up each of the four goals and breaking those down by objectives last year we had the champions of each goal present on their goal and the progress they've made towards their goal through a PowerPoint presentation I think

112where I left our conversation last was that through this next year we were going to split those up throughout the year and visit them instead of uh at our organizational meeting I so one of the first things that happened when I first got on the school board was approving this fiveyear strategic plan that I had not looked at at all yet so that was that was a little bit OD but they always say yeah we can always just change it so this says the Schoolboard reviews and and adopts necess revision so I don't never been up for a Schoolboard vote to make any revisions has it yeah I think okay go ahead Dr boy I want to well when when this document I believe was officially accepted in 2022 I guess that would have been

113under Dr Vincent I think that would that would be the time when the school board reviewed it and accepted it on the front end right so not since then we're saying I think we don't necessarily vote on approval every year just every five years yeah well exactly you you vote on that final product and then we update you on the objectives and the goals and all of that that we objectives so have you you see you've changed objectives we have yeah it's it's a it's a very organic document it's one that we constantly review constantly update OB we've met some of our objectives uh We've revised some of our objectives we we you know reach a little further with some objectives I can't remember when you make the and I know we've done that and

114I remember you've done a good job with that but do we we don't vote on that in other words we could change that in our policy I mean we actually could you you present all those changes we have the discussion you've done that I don't believe we voted on it in the past we didn't I know we didn't other than the the the creation of the document on the front end is my is was my assumption but again that was done before I was here so remember the go ahead the structure like I think we have like objectives and there's like subl levels too what do we call those there's four we have goals and and the sublevels are the objectives yeah yeah and we have those four strategic goals that we have I I

115guess I feel like we're doing this Mr rolls um the only thing I think we could possibly add I'm trying to think how it would be done is that after we discuss these and especially those kind of like we do now you know cross out what we've changed and accomplished which you talk about and then what it is that's something new and actually have a vote to approve that every year rather than just discuss it I'm just trying to see what well I mean I agree with the idea I mean trying to do it B anually that requires a lot more thought versus just okay we just look at it every year and we'll make changes in the spot as necessary that's maybe simpler yeah so you want to change the wording here instead of

116by an that we do it annually just leave it like it is leaving it like it is gives us room if you know we're doing it more rather than less like 15 20 minutes on this right we're not gonna this is on number two or three whatever we're on can we please just observation so you don't I do think it might be valuable though is when we do that next time um is to make sure there's a consensus on the board maybe even take a um an approval type thing um it doesn't have to be a change in policy but um some sort of consens approval to make sure that we're all engaged in the activity all right anything else no so so I move that we accept policy AF AF as amended as presented

117I should say second seconded by Miss Hoover any other discussion all those in favor say I I I chair votes I it is approved all right next one is the AG the literacy plan this is pretty much all new isn't it Dr Boyd this is all new and this is uh if you remember Dr manin presented on this yes so um do we want it since this is brand new um do we want to take time and read through it since this is the first time we're seeing it I'm ready to make a motion you are okay what did you say Miss Davis sorry I just feel like if it's for new we should probably take time on it you were the one pushing for time a minute ago no I'm saying to put it

118on discussion for the next discussion but we can approve it I mean if y'all are confident on it then I trust I've read through it and based on this I mean for Matt to approve it right off the bat then I would say let's go well because we had a presentation on it Miss Davis yeah very well thought out and this pretty much matches that presentation I feel very confident that we could vote on it okay do I have a motion I move we approve policy a as presented second any further discussion all those in favor say I I chair votes I it's approved all right next one is the BBD board member removal this is just making a reference just a legal reference I move we approve policy BBD as present I second further

119discussion all those in favor say I I chair votes I approved all right and bdd the electronic participation in school board meetings from remote locations um I read through this and this is I think very good um and I did mention at the beginning of this meeting um Mr Frank had um um asked or told us that he would not be present at this one and he was not going to be um attending electronically either this identifies that very clearly and um board members if you haven't read through this I would recommend that we do read through this um but in fact these next several policies actually so any further discussion on this bdd I think it's um pretty clear yes Mr chair on page two it there's a gap left in there see at

120the um yeah the bi on page two with footnote two on it I think we um we need to decide what we want there oh yeah that's right I did see that and I would be fine with you read the footnote just fill that in with the maximum allow uh remote participation which is two meetings per calendar year 25% yeah do everybody agree with that in other words you're only allowed to miss two meetings a year or 25% with us it would be the 25% I didn't get that that was missing it was you can remotely participate right you can I'm sorry I misspoke yes you're right the remote participations is two meetings a year or 25% with us it would be person matters personal matter with us it would be 25% which would be

121how many meetings do we have a year Dr boy approximately per month roughly so that would be um yeah but there's a month or two where we do not have a meeting so I think it's closer to 2021 somewhere in that ball park but so then that would be two EXC it was 25% I'm sorry so that yeah I'm sorry I'm thinking 10 you're going the wrong way yep it said it' be four or five meetings yeah yeah so yeah I would just say let's just fill that in next time to to vote on it a clean copy for Action you're saying fill it in at 25% well the verbage it says not to exceed two meetings per count year or 25% you just just put that in there and then it's okay that's the

122just put where it says the foot note to two just put the exact um paragraph that's right there you see Dr Boyd so put in 25% well you can put in each school now put in what it says for number two which is right at the end footnote for the reference each each School Board shall fix a number oh no that's just for us to do that sorry just put in 25% yeah 25% on on the underline okay so are we good to approve as amended I I think we're fine Mr rolls but did you want to just because you want to see a clean copy of it is that what you're saying I won't insist you can you want to do a discussion put it on the next well we're trying to because 10

123or 11 each time if that's the only consideration I think we could do that and trust that Dr Boyd would put that 25% in there well again and you can review it once we put in the policy manual too and if we need to bring it back at that point then we can but at this point I'm just going to put the 25% in there all right do I have a motion then with as amended I move that we pass policy bdd as amended have a second any further discussion all those in favor say I I chair votes I policy passed all right moving on we're in bdkd public participation at Schoolboard meetings again um pretty straightforward except that they did add this including students enrolled in the division so this was a little bit

124about um students and student participation basically that's what this is about yeah this is a little bit more I think we should reject most of it okay why well because we're this one other suggestion I have for the policy is we've actually already amended this this is one of the few King George policies that's different than a BBA policy we've made it our own we've customized it we already listed in there was allowed to speak and en listed students and we did it much more concisely and less wordy than they did it they just add a whole bunch of words that don't add anything to it so I think we should just get rid of that but along those lines you unless you were on the board you know already you wouldn't know that we

125had already customized this policy so I would like to look at maybe doing something like if if we have King George specific policies versus vsba since like 95% of our policies are just vsba maybe we we would do the policy lettering dkg just to indicate that it's been customized or you know something like that we don't have to do that though really because we have the authority to make changes our policy without saying that and and I think we have a a reference maybe it's on our on policy on board docs that says that it's a a locally uh revised policy well actually this policy it's mismarked because it has the vs a copyright still on it which it shouldn't since it is a customized right so this is just the version from vsba but

126if you look in board docs I understand your point it's a valid one yeah um but it's not from vsba because it's already customized with dollr James Madison James Monroe or Shiloh districts so it's correct so this is our policy it shouldn't have the copyright from except that you just added what vsba wanted us to add correct and so I I understand what Mr RS is saying that you know ours ours already references much of this information so you so you don't like the idea of making it clear that it's a King George policy I don't think we need to but well and it does if you look at board dos pull up the the policy B ddh and board dos do I mean when I first got on the Schoolboard I did actually was

127a point of confusion for me but what was actually uniquely ours and that Mrs Mr Bushra was able to Prov that that for me it was just something that she was tracking separately I think there was only maybe six policies inre entire manual at the time that were true change from vsba in any way at all like change at one word okay I'm at this policy right now bdh um and what is it the point you want to make so okay so what Miss Bush rod used to do is I think and what it references here is you'll see the prior revised dates and those and what Miss bushrod used to do is use those prior revised dates to see where it was a locally revised policy so this one is 117 2024 which I

128believe was probably the well actually it would it was probably before that because we've had the Shiloh district and all of those other references in there but again it's an extra step it's I I thought it was it was um there was a line in there that said locally revised policy date but there's not but yeah why don't we start doing that we can reference it well I know why there there was an issue with board dos being able to add an extra field all right so maybe we can come up with a way to identify those dates there maybe bold or something I don't know we we we'll see if we can figure saying you can add the dates here but you can't add whether or not it's locally revised on that words in

129there yeah I don't and this isn't honest question what's the importance of this so most of our policies as Mr rolls uh pointed out are Virginia School Board Association policies uh so it's just so people know that we're the ones who created it yes basically and that's important and also like we're doing right now when we get a vsba update we would be updating our revised policy to reference vba's proposed policy change so it has the potential of changing some of the things that we had in the policy as a local revision before uh so we'll need to probably keep keep close tabs on what our local revisions are this being one of them um and I and I another example of that is when I talked about the non-discrimination policy and I said I

130looked at about a hundred of them all over the state not all of them but close and um there's about 60 70% were SBA exact policy like we have but there is about 20 30% that are different and so that would have to be local now they may still be within legal bounds under the Virginia code but it still then will be not a vsba policy it'll be a King George policy and so when it comes up for like a five-year annual renewal we want to make sure that we know it was a locally revised policy so that we're not just using the vsba policy update that's what I was looking for so we'll we'll figure out we'll see if we can put our heads together and figure out a way in board dos to

131identify a locally verified policy but I I you know I do agree with Mr R's statement as far as we do pretty we we have a pretty good way of identifying uh who can speak um you know and it does even reference student uh which was the impetus of this vsba update so I think I would and it's not my decision but I would be fine if we kept what we had um I'll make a couple other comments though um so I I would reject the the addition where they said the including students enrolled in the division like if they do want to stick in school and for school board that's fine so I guess we could keep that one sorry you say it again all right so big picture before I get into details

132just want to reject things that are just simply adding the fact that students can speak at Schoolboard meting because they already can right have that the one thing that they did include that we might want to think about though is under the new section called student participation second paragraph it says the school board may require a student to provide identification in the form of a current student identification card or other school document such as a report card or a personal school email address right for allowing so that that whole paragraph uh so those things actually are called out in Virginia law so if we if we want to do that I think we should keep that paragraph to specify what things are acceptable but then also raises the question of we don't have anybody else

133identify themselves it's gonna say so we so either have everyone do it or or no one probably I think you're right we we treat students really in terms of public comment at least and present we treat them as the same as the adults so I me we actually we brought this up once before about the idea where things were getting very kind of intense with covid but whether we we want people coming in from other counties and talking about stuff correct so do we want to this doesn't even say that we will require students we say we may require them so we want similar May wording for adults where if it looks suspicious like people are may be coming from out of the county we will require identification at the maybe at the chair's um

134discretion kind of thing well before I State my opinion for the board members what do you think good I'm good with Matt's suggestion I mean well he's adding something else what he's saying is is that that maybe we may require um before someone gives public comment and they say they're your resident that another we may require identification but specifically this is talking about students but if we do it for students why wouldn't we do it for everybody and we don't do it for everybody now what Matt's saying is we could put the word may require for everybody I I I think if they give their address and their voting district I think we're small enough Community still that we're okay we might that might be something that we we have to visit later but I

135don't could had their address we specifically removed that in the past I don't really oh that's true announce there's another side to that you're right so yeah if it's just our community then it's not a problem I don't we're fine but the point is when people coming from outside the community I'm agreeing with you I just don't I think Miss Hoover's point is we'd be able to recognize that most of the time we're small enough that I think if there's any question that's a good point though and if there's any question what about like the grandparent parents who live outside but they have grand we don't have a problem with that that's what id would they show they would just say that they're a grandparent and maybe I would the chair would ask what is

136your grandchild's name and which school do they go to I mean for showing an ID it could get sticky like one person get offended that you made them show an ID and another could no I personally I don't think they need to show an ID I think we should just leave it and not require it for the student either so you're saying to drop all the the new I like your idea about dropping all this yes yeah it'd be a lot to have to Chuck all that in but um all right so I don't know I mean in that situation be rough like what what do you do like I what would you say Mrs Hoover as far small enough you would just say hey you're not I mean how what's that you just like

137call them out and say I don't know but I don't think you no I just think that between the staff that's here and the superintendent and the people on the board that I think it'll be obvious if somebody is not that's my I think we're going a little too far we just deny them the the ability to speak Bas if say yeah and if somebody starts to speak and uh Dr Boyd you may I don't know your staff might be a little more attentive to kind of give a motion or say something I don't know what is your opinion I mean I agree with you I think I like you said in the future we might be large enough to have to go a little deeper than this I can see larger School divisions having

138this concern I don't see that being an issue too much in King George County right now I don't either all right so do recommendation is to remove this whole student participation part because we've already got it just reject all the proposed changes that's right well yes unless there other there's legal reference I guess that we maybe need I'm sorry what there's one change to Legal references I supposed to PO to accept that Oh you mean the 22179 right and what is that's just saying that student well basically it's kind of verbatim here but it's just a lot of words to say that students can also participate and we're allowed to require ID if we want to but we don't have to I don't think this is direct verbatim from Virginia code honestly I said think

139it says something about student participation is that what you're I looked at up and it's pretty close oh is it but I mean it's like I said it's a lot of it's a lot of words say that students can participate I know and we're doing that yeah so I'm fine with leaving it there so leave the Virginia code but eliminate all of the student participation because we're doing that so okay except the we that reference and then delete all the other changes yep okay so so that I'm clear we're going to keep our current locally revised policy and the only thing we're going to add to our locally revised policy is the legal reference of 22.1 79 right okay do have a for that I have one question if I could first so like I

140was talking about the policy number do we have any idea why this is B ddh KD what is the from what I from what I could tell at one time it was in both parts of of vba's policy manual in section K as well I'm not sure it's not an RS so is it I don't believe it's in ours then eliminate it I think yeah I think we uh can take KD out honestly yeah take it out okay so we would um to revise well there's no motion but I can okay all right I move that we rename policy bdh KD to just B ddh and reject all vsba suggested amendments except for adding the new legal reference of two 22179 I have a second any further discussion all those in favor say I I

141you votes I it's passed thank you that was um good discussion Mr rolls all right BDL electronic participation in committee meetings from remote locations I would just treat this the same as bdd where we add in the 25% and call it good yeah so approve as amended is amended I'll make a motion go ahead I move that we with that Amendment we fill in the 25% Max for personal edor participation remotely and accept policy b ddl as amended I second any further discussion no I I would just say I think by doing this it makes these the same whether you're remote or in person 25% is the most you can miss I think anytime we can make things a little clear and not change it slightly it's helpful all right all those in favor go

142ahead you understand the between this and the other policy is that this is for committees whereas the other one was for school board yes but again keeping keeping things the same is valuable any other discussion all those in favor say I chair votes I passes all right next one do we have another one yes CLA oh yes right CLA we're right towards the end anyway reporting acts of violence and substance abuse oh yeah I read through this one yes it was very minor that's a very small change at the on the last page research based instead of prevention of it's research based is that I think that's the only change isn't it yeah and then there's the cross reference at the very bottom bottom the health education physical education yep all right that's very simple

143so just just one correction to make uh so on page page two let's see maybe somewhere else too let me check just page two we didn't neglected to filling kingers County schools for the school division name oh just make that is it page two or me no it's page one sorry oh on the bottom right okay thank you yep yep where it says School Division name very good thank you for catching that Mr RS glad you're here I don't know what we do we'd miss all these things I I move that we approve policy CLA as amended I second any further discussion all those in favor say I I chair votes I all right da management of funds and I think this is just a legal reference yeah I'm looking at it that is it's

144just the da management of funds legal reference 22 1-100 and then 1-100 one that's it I move to approve da as amended a second any further discussion all those in favor say I I every votes I passes DG G custody and dispersement of school funds again just simply in some number changes legal reference and uh cross reference yep have a motion move we approv policy DG as presented I second any further discussion no all those in favor say I I there votes I all right DJ small purchasing um yeah Dr boy do you have a comment about this one no this is just to up those sums and and to include uh services in the aggregate so to include the total sum not to exceed 200,000 and then they up the uh the uh NE

145the next amount there to 300,000 inflation yeah that's all it is it's true all right I is just yeah you're right it's just Cost of the INF inflation everything's going up which is sad but so do I have motion move to approve uh policy DJ as amended I second further discussion all those in favor say I I fa votes I approved and that is it all right one more just kidding good I'm glad you could laugh this is good all right okay so Mr chair the will of the board is to bring forward uh about the same amount next time yep okay I think even this this took us 25 30 minutes but it's fine all right um okay discussion items where I policy superintendent evaluation process all right we um you look at this

146very quickly um I made one suggestion at the bottom but I do think this is something um since we kind of late what I would like to suggest you see my suggestion is in dark on the underneath um performance objectives the 40% um where it says um exemplary proficient developing unacceptable the unacceptable portion I had simply made a little note and there's no yeah it says if any of the three areas in the unacceptable rating approv improved by 5% or more from the previous year will be counted as proficient and place it in a developing needs Improvement area all I'm saying is last year there was quite a bit of discussion that um we need to show kind of um longitudinal or um if Improvement is being made that's more than picking a particular so

147a score at a particular time is it's much more valuable as far as evaluating Dr boy is um if we were unacceptable last year and but yet we've improved by say 10 or 15% I would say this that's a good trajectory and I know in terms of reporting it we have to report that but in terms of Dr Boyd's evaluation I want to see Improvement rather than simply putting something in a in a particular place I think there's other things in this form U board members it would be my suggestion that over the next couple of weeks that you look at this and see if you want to make any other changes this was primarily uh produced in by Miss Gonzalez last year and I think she did a fairly good job but I think

148some this change that I suggested here and something others should also be made thoughts on that board members Mr Bush so I understand giving credit for improvement but it's unacceptable I want to clarify what you're you're saying here so it's unacceptable improved by 5% count count it as proficient and place it in developing needs Improvement so I don't understand what it means to count it as proficient but place it in developing needs well we just counted as proficient you're right just simply I would not if there's been Improvement of at least 5% over the previous year in this particular category don't leave it an unacceptable if there hasn't been Improvement if it's only been 1% you leave it there it's unacceptable but if you had at least a 5% Improvement in that area over the

149previous year counted as acceptable proficient sorry uh I I would disagree I mean give credit but I mean so it's obviously it's not good now so I think it'd be more ACC to say that it's still developing it needs Improvement so just simply put it in the developing category right move it up move it up one category one category yeah I should okay that's fine either one it it it's when it goes to the unacceptable that it goes negative and I think if there's been Improvement so would you agree with the 5% or you think it should be more or less so depends where it's at on the rating not this has nothing even to do with Dr Boyd but if you have a 40 in math and you get a 5050 in math you're

150still failing but he's improved over the last year so he's not acing math he still needs help or this is just so I know well I know but it's hard for me to look at Dr B and say that but looking at what you're trying to do is move it to something that's not proficient to proficient well no yeah I agree with um I shouldn't have put that I would move it to developing needs Improvement but I also like what you're doing because I think if it showing Improvement what you were explaining that's important to see not just numbers not just the 50 I think it was confusing Mr rolls was pointing out that I mentioned that proficient and in putting it in both places it just needs to be put in one so just

151so I'm clear remove in that statement count it as proficient and I'll just scratch that part and it should read if any of the three areas in the unacceptable rating improved by 5% or more from the previous year place it in the developing needs correct Improvement area but what if it's improved 50% then you would place it where it needs to go still yes so right here it's saying place it into needs Improvement 5% or more what I'm saying is if it is in the accept unacceptable area so it's already you're just saying take it where it needs to go move it up in the acceptable box because right here it's saying 5% or more from the previous year move it into the development needs but what if he is proficient it's proficient it's not

152acceptable anymore it's not unacceptable anymore it says if oh you're saying if it's still and unaccept still there it stays in the unacceptable just be clear about when we say people sometimes percentages so we say 5% we mean five percentage points so for instance if it was a if science was unacceptable because it was down to 60% then we went up to 65% is that a 5% increase 5% five percentage points yes so maybe we should just make that clear rating improved by 5 percentage points or more instead of saying because 5% of 60 would be see what you're saying 63% 5 percentage points okay you see what he's saying Dr Boyd yes all right add the word points okay so what we can do I still want everybody to look at this some more

153okay but we can make this current change now and then everybody will St the rest of the board will study this a little bit more I did have a couple non-mathematical suggest okay go ahead go ahead if there's for the evaluation schedule right now says formative June 30th and then thetive by 31st of December that's not really quite what we do so either I like to adjust at the more of what we're doing or make sure at least it's reflected in the timeline down below it's more like we do it in March or April for the formative and the uh summative is in October right because I think that also helps us do least the formative before the end of the um least if you remember at the last board meeting I gave a new

154timeline which is close to this but it's not exactly this why don't you remember that uh what was different roughly i' have why don't we do this everybody agreed with the timeline that I promote I I proposed last time which is similar to what you're talking about let's put this this will be a discussion item but go ahead and make that one change about the unacceptable that we talked about but now as far as the timeline Dr Boyd let me put in the timeline that I brought before the board do you remember that other board members let me put that and put that in here we'll cross this out and show the difference of what I suggested last time so is just as far as in terms of the formative and the summative is it

155more like a spring and yes all thing yes yes okay and I did say with the summative that it just needs to be done before the second board meeting at the end of the year or something like okay so we'll bring this back next next time we'll have the one change that was recommended and then I'll be sure Dr Boyd sees the timeline schedule that I proposed at the I believe it was the last board meeting wasn't it Dr boy I believe it I believe so and then we'll bring this back for disc further discussion what thing I don't think it's mentioned anywhere else not in the policy above this but that when we're doing our evaluation the spring the fall we're just looking back for the spring it' be for the current fiscal year

156and then when in the fall we're looking at the fiscal year that just ended in June so that there's confusion I think before about whether we're talking about that waying over the past calendar year or fiscal year and I think it just like to clarify that it's the fiscal here it's a good point so how would you make it clear Al so if you agree with that um well I think what I he is just say we could put quote under formative assessment I guess for assessment shall be completed by each School Board member and delivered to the superintendent during Clos session at which part of the year I'm sorry where you're looking at under the timeline is that what you're looking I'm trying if you agree with the general principle I could just think

157about it and propose that to be put put in the packet for next time some specific wording okay all right so you're going to go ahead and send that to Dr Boyd and then I'll send him my timeline and we'll make that one change all right but other board members read through this and we'll have this as a discussion next time all right let's go on um Regular attendant uh agenda for format some performance stuff so you just want to wait and talk about anything more on this next time yes yeah why don't you go ahead and actually show something where we can see your changes for next time okay this one right here um which is the last one this was also and and I know there was an old agenda put in this

158uh because if you notice the closed meetings at a different section but that's not what this is about I wanted to talk very briefly about the invocation again um and we right now still have the invocation I'm still inviting people from all over the the the county um that have a religious entity within the county and i' I've done that as you can say even today there was two people there was a little confusion which I'd rather have two than none um but there has been some further discussion about the possibility of not having the invocation but have the prayer as part of the um public comments in other words I would invite people to come and sign in public comment and uh but the function would be to say a prayer I see some

159possible legal things wrong with that but that would uh make us a little safer I don't even that's not even the right word that would make us um I think it's vitally important that we begin the board meeting with prayer where where it's put is not as important that's the bottom line with why I wanted to discuss it a little bit more any thoughts on that we can leave it exactly like it is like we've been doing it or the possibility of having the prayer during public comment I think we should my opinion is we should leave it like it is okay Davis do you agree Mr RS Miss Davis why are we bringing it back up did something happen there's been some discussions and some other um information that I received that's all I'm

160not saying we actually have to I'm just wanted toing I can't make a decision what I don't know so if you know something that I don't um some emails and letters that I've received which I think you guys have I believe I've sent copies of it to you you did we can talk afterwards I can't copy again oh yes and that was in response to that so the answer is yes it was in response to a a letter that I received we can continue to talk about it next time so that we can maybe M I know there's to me if we're doing everything we're supposed to be doing are we by law we spoke with two lawyers who gave us of course it's safe to not pray meaning you're not going to bother anybody

161or you are either way but um something else will be brought up but was there something that we're not doing that the lawyer suggested we should do they said it would be a little bit safer to have it during public comment yes I believe that that's what one of the I was there I think that was mentioned if I think back I I think Mr King mentioned that it would be safer to have uh the invocation public comment can be anybody can say anything they want at all in public comment and I think that was one of his suggestions um to provide an extra level of of um that's the best I can recall of it I'd rather not recount a bunch of legal advice right here yeah talk about this well generally I'm hearing

162that we should leave it the same that's what I'm hearing from Mr Miss Hoover Mr RS and um that's fine with me Miss Davis I would like to discuss with you what you know that maybe has you bringing it up again I'll send you two things I can give you some recommendations of what one of our lawyers said don't remember I do remember and I thought we're doing everything well we had I had received a recent not bowing down I'm not I'm not listen I have done a lot of compromising already Okay so let's leave it we're not breaking the law if we're breaking the law then let's not break the law but if we're doing what we're supposed to be doing then I'm done with being scared okay all right so we'll drop it

163we'll leave it like it is sounds good all right next um I think uh committee reports start with Miss Hoover I have a schedule for committee meetings in the fall but I haven't attended any yet well it is summertime so Mr rolls done Davis any committee reports I went to um Caroline County school board meeting uh just to hear how they're handling the cell phone discussion and King George was brought up not bad other than they did say they said it in a way um that we have leeway or something but what it really was about was medical policy how if a student has like a medical reason they need their phone but they didn't really state that but um I will say that their school board what they do better than I do is

164keep their emotions out of it like when you even though I'm joking with Matt and stuff like that but they just kind of flowed even though they didn't necessarily agree with each other and it just went really fast the meeting um so that's something I'm going to work on just picking that up and seeing but it was good and um but that was before the legislation came out from the governor so it was like what three weeks ago yeah um and so it was good though it was just good to see how other school districts flow and how they do things too yeah yeah so question on ifim May okay just went down there to see how they did things or I forget why or did you say why you're down there say that again

165you went just to check out their board meeting there's no yeah I just want to see how they're handling like what the how they're what that looks like for them you know and um that was it really just to see how the policy was being handled because I we saw on the agenda Ed invited me to go and I didn't really want to go because we have enough on our plate but it was worth going you saw they were going to be talking about cell phone policy they did they had a lot on their agenda and I thought we were going to be there forever but we were out by like 8:00 um so and you we have each of them had their individuality they have like six members on the board too six it

166was seven members yeah yeah the only thing I will say oh this stood out to me is how humble our superintendent is and I'm not saying there wasn't at all she's great great is her name's Miss Sarah yeah Dr Cal Dr okay she's lovely and smart and kind and everything um but you are it just showed me how you handle things on in the board meetings and things like that and it made me appreciate you too thank you and they meet once a month yeah and once but they do have a they meet once a month but then they have a work session in between yeah and we have a brief report on the ATI Dr boy and I attended that and and um they're getting ready to start the school year and everything is

167ramping up and pretty exciting and um I think because they're hiring I'd say most of the hiring is done not all of it um and it looks pretty good in the staff it's a small staff because it's just ninth grade the starting and um I can say that it's looking I'm looking forward to seeing it actually start once it's started then I'll probably take a visit when I see the kids there and everything else but I'm pretty happy and also that board meeting was prettyy quick too to talk about quicker board meetings but there was no real discussion and not a lot of decisions to be made so that's helpful because we had to make a lot a few months ago but not recently I'm sure once school starts it will probably get a little

168bit longer so anyway things are going Dr T the one who's in charge of all of this there she's doing a good job and of course we have you know five different is it five yeah I think so five different divisions that are have Representatives on that board and it's going very smooth and basically all five of us um you know are on current boards and um uh it's being done very well Mr chairman I can see Matt's head rolling because my comments were not committee comments I can feel it okay all right next um superintendent's report yes Mr chair I just do have a few dates that I would like to remind the board of and see if I can do this in chronological order uh I have been in invited to the Board

169of Supervisors meeting tomorrow August 6th uh they are doing the uh CIP request review uh so I will do that tomorrow evening and uh make sure that we update uh our Board of Supervisors on any or inform them on any questions they may have cons uh concerning our Capital Improvement plan uh secondly please don't forget that uh if you are able Wednesday is our convocation August 7th lunch will start at 11:30 and our speakers will begin at 1 pm. in the auditorium all of our open houses uh will be on August 8th and they run throughout the day so really um they start as early as I believe 9:00 a.m. and they run all the way up through I think 7pm. and if you're available that's really a very good opportunity to get out in

170the community and see our families and see our parents because traditionally our open houses are well attended uh so they go from usually the preschool level all the way up through the Elementary in the middle and high schools are in the evening uh we have I've been working with Mr small Nick our new County Administrator and between he and I we have confirmed that August 23rd from 4: to 7 p.m. that's a Friday night and Saturday August 24th from 1: to 3 during the day uh myself and Mr Cliff will host tours of the old middle school and old preschool uh so that we can begin to uh educate and inform our citizenry uh on the condition of those buildings and really address any questions that we may have leading up to the referendum uh

171so again the first dates for those is the weekend of August 23rd and August 24th uh and then finally I've already mentioned it but our August 19th school board meeting for the record will be moved to the Middle School uh so thank you Mr chair all right last um but not least board comments start with Mrs Hoover um I attended one of the cell phone discussions at kingridge high school with um Mr Watson and Dr Boyd and um I will say that they both did a fantastic job in their presentation and their explanation and their patience with the parents um and I was pleased to see that there were actually um most parents were in were supportive there was just a few that had a lot of questions but I know that everybody's going to

172rise to the challenge so thank you for that and then the other thing is um I did go to King George middle school and met with Dr nice just so that I could personally see the book process and um in my opinion it's perfect it's exactly as you know the public wants it the parents have the choice if it's a book that's questionable all you got to do is um just tell the librarian that you you are okay with your child checking out that book and then they're allowed to read that book we are not Banning any books or preventing children from reading books we are definitely putting the decision in the parents hand so I just wanted to thank you for arranging that and thank you Dr nice for the time that you spent

173showing that process to myself and off Pastor Davis and that's all I'll just say it's great to hear more about the career Z challenge it's very exciting that we're doing so well as a division with that reading that we're one to 73 to get this far so wonderful to get $20,000 and so this month even this can be cut down to 10 so hardly imagine how incredible that'd be if we make the top 10 that'd be that'd be really something even if we don't it's already been incredible great grateful for the job that everyone's doing who been involved with that uh even just yesterday I was sit down talk to somebody it seems like time talk to somebody who grew up in King georger talk about how wonderful the um the trades were when they

174went through the school back then and there's kind of this Con perception that it's not what it was so it's really great that we're making this progress to really do good things for the kids these days and looking forward to the convocation that's always a great thing so um be there Wednesday David sure wait I'm not done oh I'm sorry breathing so I'll just respond to some of the comments I can go deep in the book stuff right now but I'll see let people took the time to be here so appreciate the involvement and concern I will say that I before we discuss the two books tomorrow most definitely will be reading both of them I've already read one and uh other ones on the way and and there's discussion about what is our job

175and what's not our job and I I can't speak for everybody but I think it's common sentiment here that we look through the policy and we just know that as a board the expectation is that we're responsible for everything that happens this division it's the environment how well the kids are doing everything you the safety it's it's all on us so there's no part that doesn't touch us and we obviously don't do it all ourselves we rely on very capable and professional staff to to do the day-to-day stuff but uh ultimately we're we're responsible so I would disr the idea that being concerned about what kind of books in the library that's just not important it's I think that attributes very much to the overall environment of the school so we will discuss those books

176specifically and make our decision next board meeting and um I think that'll be important information to give because I don't know if actually explicit is as unclear as some people might say but there's certainly been a lot of discussion where we haven't given greater clarification as the board yet so I think having that discussion about those two specific books should be very helpful as far as giving guidance to our entire staff going forward about what expectations are look forward to that DAV yeah I think the importance of just letting the community because there's a lot of assumptions in throughout the whole community of what's being done who's saying what we're doing this or we're not doing that there's a lot of that going on and um it's hard to squash it all when you only

177have a little bit of time here you know to talk about it but I can say that as Kathy said is that we recently have put these policies into play and that Dr Boyd has been working very hard um we all know that we're seeing the proof in the Putin we've met with people um so just I almost want to say trust the process but you did vote Us in and because you trusted us and trust that we have these these things are being implemented and um and you know uh our Librarians have removed books according to their own discretion it's not Banning them our Librarians have removed books because they didn't feel like they were appropriate um so that I mean it's just just want to say that um that's it a couple of

178things um we didn't take the picture yet did we okay before you leave we're going to get a quick picture from um from a michigans um and secondly if you have haven't read I've read um well not totally but most of it my wife actually read the whole book and we were talking about it on sold um but I don't I thought I had a copy of the TTL can you um do I need to order it or something or can TTFN sorry can you okay because I as much as May whether we may or may not want to read the books how can how can we very well which was mentioned and we will we can't very well decide on them unless we read them as as whether want to or not um uh

179I agree with what the other board members said and it's I just there's some misinformation going on and lack of clarity I think and because even though we're discussing these two books I mean anytime there's an appeal it doesn't it I believe that it's difficult for some people to understand is we're the last the last entity in terms of this school division then when things are appealed we're it we don't have control about what's going to be appealed whether we're talking about books or cell phones or whatever um or disciplinary actions it's going to come to us and it's not like we've already made a decision about it um and so we have to delve into it and there's a proper procedure like you had said they need to trust the process as much as

180possible um I did also want to mention that um I had uh spoke with Dr Boyd and I've called the sheriff and that's why there was someone that was here today just because these could be a little bit difficult and there will be someone at the next board meeting also um and um if you notice at the beginning I added a little bit more as far as the uh um how the process would go with um public comments and I think we're going to try to abide by that allowing we've already made some comments that have happened in public comments it's just that as we're preparing for next board meeting and future board meetings uh we need to be careful of any languages spoken and I'm going to be a lot more attentive to make

181sure that if someone say say especially a name you saw I did it today if someone's mentioning a name I'm going to stop them and say please do not or refrain from mentioning any personal names we regardless of whether it's even positive or negative try to refrain from mentioning anybody's name except your own um and I'm going to continue to say that which makes sure that I have communicated to the public that there are restrictions um to making those comments um what else I think oh yes I'm also very happy with what we're doing this rancom hill and uh it was wonderful again to see you know just looking at even the the money now that's coming in from some of that and thank you Dr Boyd and thank you I forgot your name again

182Aon Erin thank you eron I'm for sure glad that you're here appreciate it and I know there's a learning curve but um you know you're doing a good job so far all right do I have a motion to adjourn move we adjourn I second all those in favor I D votes I we're adjourned you just wrote that