LCS School Board Meeting: June 4, 2024

001[Music] e e e the meeting is called to order uh is there a motion to approve the agenda I move we approve the agenda today second second Mr trost Madam CL would you please call the RO Mr jilo yes Mr Andrews yes Mr trust yes Dr day yes Dr Gupta yes Dr Carter yes Mrs Preston yes Mr toal yes Miss Lori ABS you will join us once we have to approve her electronic but M okay so uh the second item is electronic participation by a school board member is there a motion to approve motion second Mr depal Mr Andrews Madame clerk would you please call the RO Mr julo yes Mr Andrews yes Mr TR yes Dr day yes Dr Gupta yes Dr Carter yes Mrs Preston yes mral yes motion carries low welcome to

002join as and when you can Dr Day Pledge of Allegiance please rise our pledge our pledgees toag of the United States of America and to the repu for it stands one nation indivisible with libery and justice for all thank you thank you Dr D I know rush rush everywhere I go today yeah it's raining next one is the chair's comments uh I just have one comment to make we have a special school board meeting on June 6th at 5:00 p.m. uh to look at the budget because the Cal tool is available Dr Edward staff is working hard to make sure that all our numbers are in place and uh we have to have those the budget to the city council by the for their June 11th meeting so we'll have a special school board meeting

003here just to discuss the budget at 5:00 p.m. I yield the rest of my time to Dr Edwards okay all right so um you guys know we had graduation uh this past Sunday for both Heritage and EC glass and I will say as having done a lot of graduations and having to be the person to call the names that is so nerve-wracking when you're calling the names you want to make sure you get it right but on the other end I don't know if you know but while the students are standing there waiting for their name to be called that's another nerve-wracking feeling because sometimes we skip them and they're standing there standing there well Saturday or Sunday we actually had that happen and one of the things that we have to do when we

004really say every child by name and by need we have to say the names so we skipped a student who walked across the stage got the diploma took the picture but the baby's name was not called so at the end of the ceremony when we were cleaning up that's when we found out so we couldn't even rerouter back into the line and try again which is normally what we would try to do but every student deserves to hear their name called and since we have an opportunity and a public broadcast I would like all of you to join me and congratulating one of our heritage graduates Miss Janine Tori [Applause] Peters so I'd like to just give a special shout out to Mr Bey um for just being so wonderful at the end of the

005ceremony but I really want to say to uh Janine our graduate and her mother Mrs Peters they were so wonderful at the end of the ceremony so polite and as a parent you know you you wait for that moment and everything that is such a special moment uh and they were willing to work with us and allow us to do this so for all my babies out there looking sometimes we adults make mistakes too and we have to make it right for children so to Janine Tori Peters who I'm a fan right now having spoke to that young lady she is going to go places let me tell you thank you for being a role model and still doing the the uh Heritage way and representing number one orange country as you did at the

006end of graduation and we are so happy here to celebrate you to her family you didn't get the opportunity to hear it while you were in the stadium but hopefully you are are hearing it now and if not replay it on YouTube and all of our channels because this is being recorded So that we have that opportunity and lastly to represent the student services department because often sometimes when these things happen to Children other children out of concern want to know what happened they start to text you and call you and say how come your name wasn't called how come your name wasn't called and that can make you feel a certain way you really could have a little bit of angst um behind that which is another reason why we as adults have to

007own our stuff and this one was on us by accident but it was on us to make it right so to all the friends of uh Tori out there girlfriend graduated she represented she is now an alumni of Heritage High School thank you congratulations Miss Peters and you know what we'll do is I'll open up to any board members who have uh message for Janine Tori Peters congratulations very much yep and keep up the good work your plans are your future is ahead of you so you know keep moving forward no matter the obstacles and thank you for the mature way in which you handle this situation ab and I want to Echo that uh congratul Miss Preston's right on very mature that speaks volumes to this young lady in her character our sincere apology

008for that mistake but your character is out shown everything that was there so very good look forward to hearing good things about her absolutely would like to see her maybe we'll go to her college graduation when she graduates let us know the college graduation I'll throw the party okay thank you next item is F1 division literacy plan Edwards okay uh as you guys know we have the uh Virginia literacy act and part of that requires that we as a division complete a division literacy plan um for for this year really focusing on K5 but absolutely k12 pre2 and Community as well uh so we have been in training for the last four or five months uh our team our literacy team and what we would like to do tonight is present to you our division

009literacy plan uh we do have to submit the plan before July 1st uh so we obviously have to to get it here tonight to all of you all uh and we'll talk about some after uh the plan is presented some activities but I do want to stress that our literacy plan while it starts in the school it expands to the community so all my community members that are out there our families anyone mentoring and tutoring our students there is an opportunity space in place uh for you in this plan because it's really shouldn't just be a Lynchburg City school's uh literacy plan but rather the city of Lynchburg literacy plan because we're all working together to to help our children and at the end of it uh leadership starts at the top so I will

010have some homework for our board members to start on for kicking off our literacy plan and I've already talked to some of our partners um and and Miss Pew and I and a team will take the opportunity to also go over to city council um throughout the the summer and into the fall to share with city council through public comment what the literacy plan um parts of the literacy plan but I would like to um thank uh Miss Pew and Dr Brown um for their leadership as part of the team along with myself but really invite up the worker bees uh who who did the bulk of really getting this together um getting a little feedback in here okay the worker bees we got this together that sounds like Dr Brown okay so um from

011our uh curriculum and instruction office we have our director of instruction program Miss Jen Cruz we also have our supervisor for instructional supervisor um Mrs uh Sarah Campbell and our literacy specialist uh Mrs Courtney Bennett and missing uh is Miss Kim pel is not with us here uh she represents the special education department she was also on the team with us and sitting somewhere in the back I saw her is Dr Lilian gzowski princible who was also on that team so we had a team of team of eight um apps even though everybody else had seven but we had eight so I'mma turn it over to this fantastic team who by the way did the most amazing professional development for Staff last week so we would like to thank you all for letting us have

012those days to work with our staff and um I'm going to turn it over to you thank you so much good evening members of the board um thank you for having us up here today uh to speak to you and I I'm going to provide a brief overview of some of the pieces for the Virginia literacy act that we started with just so we are all back on the same page and then we will update you on the amazing work uh that this team and many members of our school Community have contributed to this year I don't know that presentation it's coming it's coming there we go okay so um as we're moving through again a recap Virginia literacy act there is a strong focus on supporting the science-based reading research through evidence-based literacy instruction

013we have geared all of our training around uh that primary piece the phase one Focus was K3 and phase two is 48 that just simply means um some components that we'll talk about a little bit later such as our student reading plans and some of those areas um the primary being with our lower grade levels because we know that that's where that Foundation starts the preparing teachers which again Dr Edwards spoke to um we are so very thankful for the time that was given to us last week uh and the positive feedback that we were able to receive and just the refreshing uh comments that we got and how folks are feeling moving into next year so that preparation really started has really started already and has taken off um as we move into the

014next phase um we do have new literacy screeners called vows uh most recently you've probably heard Pals but we will be making that switch fully for the 2425 school year the K8 evidence-based literacy curriculum uh we are making sure that we are pushing that proponent um will'll focus K12 but a big proponent in K8 and the k54 K5 core adoption that we just went through um again thank you for that piece as well with Benchmark that's what we were able to get started on and the K8 supplemental materials are still coming in in Cycles as we speak um so we are we've already started the work on that supplemental material as well so what does that look like for us the continuation of professional learning um and what does that look like as a plan

015uh again we started last week with the help of all of you teachers are completing coursework or will be completing coursework that focuses on evidence-based practices we have several of our folks already involved in letters training we have um one and two currently going and we are currently waiting on the canvas course to be released it is a release date of may/june May has already occurred so I'm going to assume that it's going to be June for us when we uh when we pick that up as soon as that's released we will get that information out to our folks so we can go ahead and start as Dr Dr Edwards alluded to um big proponent of Virginia literacy act and just an LCS focus is partnering with families to provide at home resources for continued

016support we want to make sure that we are collaborating with the community we want to wrap around our kiddos in every facet that we can through a continuation plan and through consistency ultimately because we want what's best we want to really really focus on that Beyond and not meeting uh a specific goal but meeting and exceeding that specific goal and that's requiring the division ly plan which is why we stand before you today that K5 focus is 42425 and is due uh just like Dr Edward said prior to uh July 1 the 6 through eight Focus which will Encompass our whole K8 is in for the 2526 but we will start the preparation for that in the fall of 24 members of our division literacy team uh Dr Edwards uh provided that that list to

017you before and I am very thankful f for the opportunity to work with each one of these members here and we have also received a great deal of input from our uh administrators uh just throughout the trainings from some of our Educators we're getting out to some Community uh places and receiving a great deal of feedback and getting the word out about the literacy Focus that we have this year and we've had a lot of folks ask us about training for the upcoming school year within the community so we're really excited about getting out ahead of that for the summer as well um for that consistency purpose so what is our literacy Vision Lynchberg City school students will develop the necessary skills in Reading Writing speaking and listening that are foundational for Creative collaborative and

018civic-minded expression using language student instruction will be anchored in the use of highquality instructional materials rooted in science-based Reading research and evidence-based literacy instruction students will demonstrate comprehension critical thinking and application of vocabulary Knowledge and Skills across content areas students will identify challenges craft Solutions and assess results to faster or excuse me to Foster personal growth and contribute positively to their school and Community we want to make sure that we Encompass again and wrap around the whole student we we believe in beyond the bare minimum and we want what's best for our students and know that these necessary skills will help them exceed and reach the goals in which they hope to attain all right so it's important that we're able to share this Vision with our Lynchberg Community therefore by creating effective communication channels

019that we want to ensure that all staff members particularly Educators and leaders understand and support our literacy vision of the for the school division this is a crucial to the success of our plan and ultimately student achievement so we are going to look at the following communication strategies we are going to conduct regular professional learning opportunities with Educators and leaders focus on the literacy Vision these opportunities will dig deeper into specifics of the vision implementation strategies and how together we can build on our knowledge understanding and application for science-based reading research we will develop docu comprehensive documentation and resources that outline the literacy Vision strategies and best practices these resources could include manuals handbooks videos and online modules for staff where they can access at their convenience we will establish feedback mechanisms to gather insights

020and suggestions from staff regarding the literacy vision and plan to ensure that all Staff feel heard and are valued within this process we want to empower our school leaders to advocate for the literacy Vision by providing with the necessary information and tools set expectations for our leaders to incorporate discussions about literacy into staff meetings professional learning sessions and other relevant forums we will Foster professional learning communities where Educators can collaborate and share ideas and discuss data relative to literacy curriculum instruction with the support of our administrators and the division level team instructional team these communities can take the form of grade level teams or subject specific groups and as well well as across inter disciplinary teams and of course we want to recognize and celebrate all of the achievements and Milestones related to literacy within

021the division across our community we will ensure that the literacy vision is seamlessly integrated into instructional practices across all subject areas we want to provide support and guidance to our Educators as they align their teaching strategies and instructional practices within the literacy goals of our division and of course we want to maintain open and transparent communication channels whether it's inperson electronic we want to keep staff informed about updates and progress and upcoming initiatives related to our literacy Vision so sharing the progress of our literacy Vision across within the community include Student Success metrics is going to be essential part um to building our trust transparency and support Lynchberg City Schools will implement the following to communicate all of the our progress we're going to regularly present and publish public reports highlighting the progress towards our

022literacy division plan it might include student metrics reading proficiency rates standard test scores graduation rates and other data points we will um our schools we will um engage in in parent um engage their parents in the broader community in supporting our lit literacy Vision by offering school-based events during these events attendees will learn about the importance of literacy as schools share updates on initiative strategies and outcomes for increasing student achievement we will develop interactive online data dashboards that allow families and community members to track progress on our literacy plan in real time these dashboards can include key metrics and Trends achievements so that we are an in a visually engaging format we'll use our social media campaigns we'll share success stories testimonials Milestones related to our division literacy plan we'll use Facebook Instagram YouTube and

023other broader out to reach our broader audience to encourage Community engagement and support we'll issue press releases seek media coverage to Showcase achievements and progress related to the literacy plan and we'll also collaborate with local newspapers radio stations and division television stations to highlight success stories and positive developments and of course we want to engage our local businesses organizations and Community groups to support and promote our literacy plan Vision we want to engage our partners in joint initiatives sponsorships or Outreach activities aimed at at advancing literacy education in our community we want to offer workshops and seminars for parents focused on literacy strategies and resources and ways to support their children's literacy development at home we can use these opportunities to share information about progress on the literacy plan as well as solicit feedback from

024our parents and finally we want to establish feedback channels such as surveys or Community forums to gather input perspectives from community members regarding the literacy plan we will use this feedback just to refine our strategies address concerns and inst strengthen Community engagement efforts and in using our high quality instructional materials so we've already adopted our core materials and core means this is the instructional materials that will be used in all of our classrooms with every student from kindergarten all the way through fifth grade these high quality materials were selected based on the Virginia state approved list as meeting all of the qualifications for science-based reading research Benchmark Advance as you know was approved by this board on March the 19th 2020 2024 Lynchburg City teachers have already begun the professional learning um with this on

025instructional practices that will be used in 2425 school year supplement mental instruction uh materials are going to help support the core learning um and they're going to be used um with the materials in addition to the Benchmark um we'll continue using foundations the in K through two we'll use hegerty in K in K and one um and then I Exel will be used in grades 1 through five these materials in for hegerty and Foundations support the phonics and the phonological awareness um that our classrooms need in addition to the Benchmark advance I Exel will you be used to help support the literacy um the skills in literacy at this time though we're still waiting on um the state to approve cycle two and three for any the other adoption materials the intervention materials that we

026will use are materials that we are going to use to help students who need more support and literacy skills in addition to both the core and the supplemental instructional materials that we've already adopted and that are we're already using we're going to continue to use youly um and that is used with our K through five students um youly is through the University of Florida literacy Institute and also bridge the gap which is our three third through fifth grade um part of heger we will also add a program called Lexia Core 5 reading that will be used with our K through 5 students and that will support them in the area of literacy in addition to our in addition our special ed students will continue to be able to use the Learning Without Tears program to

027support their core learning again with our intervention we're still waiting for the cycle two and three um materials to be adopted and or to be approved so that we can um make decisions on what else we will be using for that to ensure the Virginia literacy act um evidence-based reading research training we are we H we already have begun training Benchmark um last week for our elementary administrators teachers and staff and we'll continue that training in July August and then also throughout the 24 25 school year um we're going to use our professional learning days throughout the year to continue our our teachers learning all School professional staff will be required to also participate in an asynchronous course through the Virginia literacy partnership it's the canvas course and it will consist of nine modules that

028will help teachers grow their knowledge of evidence-based reading research in 2324 you can change the screen in in 2324 we began training teach teachers in in classrooms and our specialty areas in both volume one and two of our letters which is language Essentials for teachers of reading and spelling this course provides information to the participants that helps them gain the Essential Knowledge and Skills to master the fundamentals of literacy instruction required to apply and transform student learning we have also begun the letters course for administrators to help them provide or provide them with the professional learning that they need to support their teachers in this journey our literacy team will continue to provide professional learning to on all of the instructional materials to teachers that will use this with students to ensure that the teachers

029have the understanding the knowledge and the application for evidencebased reading practices to monitor the student assessment and progress we will monitor student progress throughout the year with multiple sources each of the sources will provide data for on the students for their growth and progress in the area of literacy some of the assessments will be completed three to four times a year throughout the school year and others will be completed weekly or as the teacher completes the units assessments or the unit material sorry um classroom teachers literacy coaches teachers and administrators will work together to look at the data to help provide the students with a necessary reading plan for each student in the classroom so what does that look like at the division level we've talked to you a lot about the school level and

030what's occurring there assessing at the division level we know that that is imperative to make sure that we're monitoring and providing the necessary resources intervention and supplemental materials that are needed throughout the year so for us it looks like classroom walkthroughs which we have already started in this past year and very very successful we were happy to be out into buildings and just taking a look and seeing what everybody was doing um and providing uh providing feedback so that we can we can improve um as we go the division level instructional walkthroughs collaborative planning sessions with lesson planning debriefs that's hap happening on a weekly basis through our PLC models the division assessment data our curriculum and instruction team um along with our educ our educational data analysis and principles will work with monthly to

031analyze that data and then what does it look like as we're engaging parents caregivers in the community working through parent workshops and training sessions that digital resource Hub so that we can provide resources and it's one click away make sure making sure it's accessible to all of our families the parent teacher communication platforms the take-home literacy kits that will be provided and Community Partnerships I hope that it is evident how passionate our team not only our team is but how excited we truly are to be able to implement this is a lot that we gave you in a very short amount of time and it's a lot for our teachers and our community members and our students but I will say it has been a very very positive roll out and a very positive reception

032in the work that we've done and I'm just so very thankful that you all have been so receptive and have asked the question questions that you have and that has helped guide us on our on our journey as well the floor is open Miss L um just a couple of things um the on the 14th slide where it has collaborative planning sessions um principles coaches and teachers and weekly I can still tell you even when I was teaching but even now as I still help and um volunteer that the teachers are still asking us for us not to have plc's every single week maybe every other week or once a month but they need unit planning time together and and at the elementary level because we don't get the brakes you know or they don't

033get the brakes secondary gets you know you're having your planning time it can be taken away all the time it's very frustrating so if if if that could be like tweaked so that they have more of that time and then I heard you say that the parent engagement piece these workshops will they be at the schools community centers or both yes so all of those okay cuz I feel like the people we've talked to that run the community centers feel left out and they want to help their children and I know for a fact we can get free tutoring help K through 12 from the colleges that need credits and stuff so yes ma'am so we are very aware thank you for that um and as we're getting out into the community and getting that

034feedback that's the same thing that we're getting so we are very intentional in in making sure when we said Community we mean Community we need to meet people where where they are I spent some time at a community event last night and that was one of the pieces we need to make sure that we're meeting our folks in our neighborhoods that we're opening our schools we're doing what we need to do so we are very aware of that and thank you for bringing that to the Forefront so we could address that yeah regarding the PLC times that you address we will be working with our administrators during our leadership Le our leadership uh part one uh in June to talk about what that looks like for the PLC model Dr Brown actually uh just did

035some work during our professional learning week uh based around solution tree and what the DC model looks like and entails so that we make sure that we address those needs uh as well okay thank you so much yes ma'am Dr Carter and then M Preston why the change from Pals to valves yes we have about St yes ma'am uh it's uh is there more is there you see the benefit of that or we are uh we can't tell you whether we've seen a benefit or not because it'll roll into the 2425 school year I can tell you that we are going to going to try to get ahead of it with 4 through eight so we've already requested where it's set at K through three right now we're already requesting to do some pilot um

036pieces for 4 through eight so that we can get out ahead of that work I just think it's um the goal is for it to be centered around that science of reading concept so it's just a little bit of a more drilled down effective approach to take to that for a more individualized approach to really enhance um and and dial in to the students needs on an individual basis that's that's primarily what you're going to see with that and is it more student friendly does it appear to be more student friendly to use and I'm going to say I I can I will comfortably say it's more student friendly in the sense that it's an individualized approach so we're meeting our students where they are okay so the data will support that and so I

037think I've picked up what can you give an example of the home resources well like an example of what what we've already done or what we're intending to do we intending to do okay so some of the home resources that we're intending to do number one is to up update our resource list and what's provided some take-home materials for Tangi so that they're able to for parents Guardians themselves opposed to just an online platform for them to be able to work with um students it could be um a paired reading passage it could be um some tangible items it could it could be a VAR iety of of just different uh pieces that we're going to use but we want to make sure again that that's inclusive to the student so it's not one particular

038um component it's really going to be based on what the student needs and again wrapped around those five pillars for science of reading to make sure that we're dialed in um to what the students needs are just and the science of reading the science-based reading research I did some or was doing in some um trainings and they talked about the phonics versus you know where you see the purple and the child students says purple versus like the actual reading really learning how to read without all those cues so is this more of what is this the science of I mean is there is there a short way to say that or no yeah I mean will this get to what really the science of reading is just it's a research it's research based um and

039it is research-based it's not just a program it's research that started way back in 2000s um and so there's just lots of new research on what's the best way to teach a child to read and so and what are all the strategies so like I think what you're referring to the queueing system that we used to use you know like look at the picture and um you know sound it out now they know that that's not the best way to teach a child to read that now they need to know the phonics the phic awareness the phonological awareness all the pieces of the pillars um that go into the science of readings so it's lots and lots of research out there um about it so yes and just one more we used to do Cole

040lle so that when you do that assessment is not going to be is it going to be similar to that because the students used to say well we know somebody was here because they knew that someone was in the class doing the colid slowly but not like that okay question that's thank just I simply want to say I commend you for looking at different strategies for teaching children to read as many children as there are there are as many strategies that are necessary because we don't all we don't all learn the same way nor do we all have the same life experiences so making all of this available to all of the stakeholders I think is well worth the effort thank you so much Dr D so I'd like to understand and what all this

041means from the perspective of a student um so imagine that I'm a an elementary school student I enter second grade say um and and all my teachers are expecting me to be reading a at entry level for second grade but then as the year progresses the various assessment results say I'm not keeping up with where I need to be so I presume that's where the intervention component comes in so what I want to understand understand is from my perspective as a student what am I going to see what's going to happen to me as a consequence of the fact that I'm falling behind I I really truly think the short answer to that is high care High care and high respect in the classroom we're it's not the goal to separate or say You're not

042meeting it's our goal through this process to find out how we can meet the needs of the students so where I may uh be struggling with phonic as a second grade student I may I may be soaring um for vocabulary so we want to make sure that we're honing in and focusing specifically on the needs of the students through that individualized plan and just providing intervention may not be necessary it just may be supplemental so when we're doing some of that small group work we can we can focus in and say I've got uh when we're talking about a flexible grouping system it may be that we have a a group for small group that and we're heavily focused on Phonics and three of my classmates were all focused on that phonics lens so it's

043not meant to look different for appear to look different for a student it is simply to hone in and focus on their area their very specific areas of need so so that when implication to that I mean that sounds wonderful so one implication of that however is that the teaching staff in the classroom is having to keep track of where each student is and what this student uh what we're trying to do with them is different than what we're trying to do here and different what so this means very high demand on teaching staff right yes sir that's what happens now and I just want everyone to understand that and thank you for pointing that that's why I our our educators are our Educators and instructional assistants our administrators our our central office staff everybody

044is is really working very hard and data is driving that instructional realm every single day you are absolutely correct and what that looks like if I am very intentional and and purposeful in the work that I'm doing it should look different just about every day because I should be focused on what that that individual student needs the group of students needs and I should communicate that to the parent to enhance those take-home materials those resources to say hey Jen is really really doing well with her vocabulary but we're seeing a little bit of a deficit in phonics let's go to this Resource page and you can focus on or I've sent home additional materials where we can focus on that and we are doing enough of a data collection I hope you could see that

045in the in the plan itself to say we're not going to wait eight or nine weeks and let this and let this go by we're catching this frequently so that we can hone in and it doesn't become as large of a gap okay very good thank you and I just to comment on what he was saying too is in a reading group I would have students that need the same skill practice and then but as they get better I weed them out and then I pull others in that need it so all year long your reading group looks like this okay until at the end they're where you would like them to be yes constant movement nobody has questions I have a couple that thank you for doing that you know Mr Andrew go ahead

046question good I'm good um you have a question you have a question go ahead will the digital uh resource Hub have incentives for these families and their children to go to the outside the school hours credits Merit anything I think a lot of our teachers I I say I think I know a lot of our teachers are already providing incentives for doing um for for honing in on several those components so you'll just see a continuation of that work that's already being done all right can you I I believe in the earli intervention all those types of things and to be able to have feedback early on is very valuable to see what direction you're going in if you have have weekly um lpcc meetings can that be tapered off as the year goes along

047doc Dr Brown I think wants to to jump in if he may to talk about the PLC um Dr Brown are you there I'm here thank you Miss PE um yep so just wanted to clear clarify on the PLC process and the work that we're doing we really are are re reintroducing and clarifying the role of PLC with our teachers and our administrators um it is one of the most impactful things and if you look at research and effect size and how to grow students the PLC process encompasses all that and PLC is not a meeting it's not when teachers meet teachers meet within clab of teams so if you look at it as a house the PLC is the house the cabber teams are the bricks that make up that house and so uh

048I think with the time that's needed for this uh that's why we're really excited about the new calendar year schedule that you all approved and giving us those times um for teachers to have work work days but also having some U professional learning time in there as well so teachers can move their needle but everything that um our team is doing our literacy team with collecting data being able to see where students are at taking care of them on an individualized level all that works into those collaborative team meetings allowing our teachers um to focus on learning as opposed to just what is going to be taught and at the end of the day isn't that what we all want um to to have going on in our classrooms is students learning not just teaching

049that's happening without um the outcomes and impacts of the the learning that's taking place and so um yes it does take time we're working with our administrators this summer to build that time into the master schedule so that's protected time that's important work and you all um approving the the the calendar schedule for next year it's going to really have a huge impact and we feel like that will U lessen some of the time constraints for teachers that they're feeling in the crunch for time that they currently don't have in the current schedules very good there has to be an emphasis on not just adding but also either replacing or removing while you are adding this very helpful um work time and this is different than the lp debriefs which are weekly as well correct

050or no I'm not sure what you're referring to as de weekly lesson plan de brief so yeah so those are so those are different that could be something like um some of our support staff working with our teachers individually for lesson planning there there could be a variety of different things but that is that is different it's categorized in a different good be mindful of um removing replacing as well as adding on because you can never you can always add on and people forget to take off their plate teachers are doers right lastly uh actually I have a couple more are there any additional or reoccurring costs to us from uh your last presentation like the take-home kits these are these are working within our system and the things that we have we got a

051lot of resources a lot uh from Benchmark uh I mean it is once the New pieces start to come in I think you all will be very surprised uh even our our teachers as we were coming in and the presenters were like you're going to get this and you're going to get this and you're going to get this and they were like oh my goodness we might have to get another shelf or another location or another space so the amount of resources that were provided through this adoption is incredible I I think I think you all are going to be very very pleased once it starts to come out great great comprehensive communication million-dollar organizations like the school system everywhere are not known to be very effective communicators of their brand and just being very

052much upfront with everything and reaching the audience that they're intended to besides the the superficiality of just emails and such so are there is there a an idea or a plan that would break that um well-known stereotype I'm gonna I'm G to jump in and I will say absolutely I think Dr Edwards mentioned it earlier on um she and I and I'll probably you know get the help of some of the cni staff but we want to attend as many um City Council meetings as we can and during public comments and speak you know briefly five minutes about the things that are happen happening with literacy um that not only commun communicates to city council but it communicates to a different Community who may not watch our school board meetings but they may watch or

053participate in City Council meetings so that's one of our strategies the other strategy um and it's listed on here but we didn't go into specific detail is when schools have their back to school nights when they have a science night math night those types of things um it might even be a school play um there's always a five minute opportunity uh for one of us to engage with the families and the community members that might be there so we intend to um take turns and rotate and go to those events and again speak about the work of lit the literacy Act and the change in literacy and focus in literacy in lb City Schools um you know we again we'll go out to um do community engagement in community centers um offer opportunities for them

054to come to schools to you know locations that we have but I think we've we've approached this in a very different way knowing that it is important um for it's not just about Lynchburg City Schools as Dr Edward said it is a Lynchberg City literacy plan and literacy vision and we've got to make sure that we are responsible for doing that um Dr Edwards has already had conversations about um Partnerships and um you know getting others involved at the University level business level that type of thing so we've already begun the work very nice and the only thing I would suggest is to have a little benchmarks not with the curriculum but how many social media posts did you have last year that you could boost up to this year how many emails are sent

055out how many responses you get if you have goals you 100,000 more 500,000 you know that would be uh good for you guys to Target and then lastly uh this similar is targeted thresholds um if you can have a targeted threshold for when you want to accomplish this progress September what do you want to see what do you want to see in October or November not just the schedule that we're going to have this meeting to evaluate and get feedback but where would you like the numbers to be and are you going to focus on the schools that have uh grades that are really far behind compared to their peers in other schools first or just see how the curriculum affects everyone at the same time and then go from there I'd like to see

056you know some targeted goals I I completely agree uh with you with that I don't think I think we have moved past and and have been very very advantageous in making sure that we're not sitting back and waiting to see what happens but we get a of things and we do that through a collaborative measures to ensure that we're working with our administrators to drive the change here and they specifically as our instructional leaders will know very much so who are our new teachers in the building who do we need to get out and see immediately where are we seeing some struggles that as we're starting to work through Master schedules where are some of our pockets or areas of concern that we we need to pay high close attention to so we're working through

057those metrics right now to address those factors as we're going through not to sit and wait and say what happened with Benchmark in the first 20 days part of the work that we just did with the professional learning plan is what does your first 20 days look like that is completely mapped out for K through five one of the proponents we did not mention in all of this U just just because it looks a little different we're starting some work with our prek the hegerty component to make sure that we're getting out ahead of this and we while we have our kids here we have over 300 prek students we want to make sure we are reaching them early and often so in response to that it's no it's not a sit back and wait

058it we are passionate about the work we're doing and we want to drive it and the only way you can drive that is to continue to monitor that and collaborate with others to spread that message and get it out thank you absolutely thank you and you have been standing for 30 minutes but I got two small questions I apologize for holding you for that long uh you know we appreciate everything you have done uh it's a wonderful product and uh and I can speak for the whole board I think we we are about academics and I'm glad we're moving in that direction where reading writing skills will be honed on uh the piggy back on what Dr u d was saying the learning outcome assessment are we tying it to the so passing rates at

059the year end because you got Elementary School data for all the elementary schools year after year for reading I have seen that right so are we tying it to so the improvements will be shown as he was asking in that 20 425 so results I think some of that is based on that Dr Gupta absolutely but we also have to focus on how are we preparing before we get to the s sols for third fourth and fifth grade what are those academic measures that we're hitting in prek 1 and two as well and some of those individualized student reading plans will help us know where we're growing to and what those growth assessments essentially look like so we can get that preliminary Data before we just specifically focus on the so realm and and I

060will stand here and say that is extremely important to note but that's not our end all Beall we want to make sure that we're showing growth um and and all of the alignment for our benchmark assessments we're going to actually do some training with our assessment components to ensure that they are common across the board but all of those lead up and are aligned to our Virginia s so so the short answer is is ultimately yes that is all aligned to what we're going to see for the outcomes of the S sols because of the new standards in alignment being there I've been coughing for one month and every time I go to a doctor he gives me a new medication but the cough is not going correct so there has to be a standardized

061measure which you can take it to any District in the Commonwealth of Virginia say our students are as good as yours and S so right now that's the only Benchmark which is standardized across District so interventions are great but you know how do you measure the effect of those interventions the outcome assessment that's what I was I was thinking on Peggy back what you're saying I think that these third graders when they this upcoming year when they they go through this literacy the one way we can look at it and see it the progress is they have taken SL in third grade after they've been in the literacy act for a year and then when they have to take the they take so many in the fourth grade don't take a full load you'll see

062from year to that year and then they have to take it in fifth so I think the measurement you're looking for an s sols from the literacy act we'll see in that group that's passed kindergarten first and second in those groups cuz our average s is about 52 5 to 56% mhm so first will be the filling up the Gap so they are reading at to the level we are teaching them and to achieve but thank you very much we appreciate you uh very much and uh good job thank you thank you Dr Ed Dred so um I'm going to hand these out because this is going to be our first homework for July when we when we uh go to the July but you just heard a very long four sentence literacy vision and

063part of what they said when we were developing our literacy vision is it's got to be something that people can hold on to and communicate so how many of you remember all four sentences in the literacy Vision pretty big I'm going to give you a short version of what our literacy Act is in two words so if anybody everybody says what's the Lynchburg City literacy act about two words minutes matter minutes matter right so when you talk about I can answer all your questions when I talk about PLC time what we do with those minutes the choices we make they matter so we have to go into plc's knowing that we only have this many minutes to really collaborate around this important thing not the F trip not anything else but minutes matter when I'm

064home planning for my lessons and my reading groups and you know even cross content what I do with my time the choices that I make matter minutes matter when I want to come into a school and do some things and take some instructional time away to do some other things we got to stop and think minutes matter when I'm a principal or an administrator and I need to get in the classroom so that I can provide that support for my staff but yet there's some other meeting or or call or whatever minutes matter so we have to actually put our hands up and protect the time necessary for our kids to really develop while we're doing this literacy plan so you will hear me sometimes when it'll be what we going to do this and

065this and this and this and I'll say not today you know why because minutes matter we want to give our teachers the time to work with the students we want to give our community members who want to come in and use the crystal Edwards tutoring program that just does it all well that tutoring needs to be aligned with what our students are learning because we know we can confuse them when I'm using one terminology and the teacher's using another one then I go to the school club and there's something else and I come back to class I don't know what to talk so when I talk to my community members I'm going to say minutes matter do you have a few to learn a couple strategies so that we're in sync because if you have

066time to get in sync then we have time to really build the tutoring so that is our literacy plan uh we know that parents are busy we have had numerous um after school evening everything you need to know to help your child with right just fill in the blank and then we go for the attendance we'll communicate communicate and then there's all 14 families that are there and 13 of them already know everything you need to know minutes matter our parents are coming out to support their children we need to get some of those minutes to really help them so almost everybody if there's a second grade uh course little you know second grade performance our parents are going to be there guess who else will be there we will and in between changing from

067one song to another da da here is you know Dr Dr Edwards and Mrs Pew for a five minute matter about what you can do at night during reading time with your child right here's how you do that if you have prek it's you do not have to just thrill them in on sounds and letters and stuff vocabulary is so important for our young children vocabulary vocabulary vocabulary so let's start with that language development with your toddlers minutes matter what are you going to do with that time so our whole entire literacy plan is wrapped around minutes matter when we are providing professional development minutes matter when we're having our meeting time and I'm going to have that with you all because we have a lot of school board related minutes that kind of pull

068us a little bit so during the day we need to be in the schools so for us as Leaders to support the leaders to support teachers minutes matter so you'll see throughout this plan where we're really carving that time to really devote to our young people as we we um uh develop our literacy Vision all four sentences so since that starts with the leaders and one of the things that I was charged with was really crafting the vision we had to have certain things in our vision um but what I have given to the school board which will also come down through various channels working with our Community Partners our families are those four sentences that we had for our division literacy plan and then what is your role as we're starting with Schoolboard so

069this is homework for Schoolboard we'll get back to it in July but I want to start to explain it what is your role as a school board member so the first thing that as we look at um developing necessary skills to for reading writing speaking and listening that are foundational as a Schoolboard member what does this mean for you in your role and how can you support Lynchburg City students so let me give you one example of how you already do that um student reps we allow our young people to be guest student reps to come here stand at the podium and do what speak to us present to us share with us answer questions from us so as a school board you already already providing an opportunity for students to do that from a

070school board L imagine if you're a parent a teacher a principal whatever your role is a tutor we need to unpack what does this mean to me as whatever my role is and then that helps us stay in sync so one of the first things we're going to do with everyone is unpack our literacy vision and go through what does it mean to me and then when you look on the back page of this there are some checkpoints we put two in because you talked about ongoing assessment so we'll start with a semester at a at a larger level here um what have we learned during this first semester so we'll take a a minute because minutes matter to look at our progress as Schoolboard and then what does that mean for where we go

071next and what does that mean for next year so unpacking and really understanding what does this mean because we don't want anyone to feel like they're not a part of this um because it is everyone's um this is everyone's uh uh literacy vision for our city and everyone can help out in some way shape or form so I just wanted to give Schoolboard this first because we'll be the first ones talking about what does the literacy vision mean to us as Leaders of this School Division and how we model that for our the rest of our folks on on down but if I said what's our literacy Vision in two words folks minutes matter thank you thank you Dr Edwards in the spirit of minutes matter let's move to item F that's good that's a

072spring 2024 custodial assessment award recognition oh man I think he's waiting for you to give him the oh sorry Dr good evening everyone thank you Dr Edwards hope everyone's doing well uh this is one of our favorite things that we do uh twice a year you'll recall when we did did the fall 2023 Awards uh we wanted to recognize the really really critical leaders uh in all of our school buildings that are making a tremendous impact on our students in terms of the learning environment that they're in every single day of every single uh school year um so as you know uh there's lots of really important things that we do as a School Division uh but it takes a whole organization to create those learning environment opportunities for our students have a great place

073to learn to be happy and to be healthy uh be safe in their place so we uh like to bring forward uh through after our custodial assessments that occur twice per year uh the schools of Distinction at the secondary uh and Elementary level as well as schools that have shown tremendous growth uh from the previous assessment in terms of the quality of cleanliness in those buildings to say the least we've been doing this uh for about a year uh for a number of Assessments we have seen tremendous growth uh in the cleanliness of our buildings throughout the division um certainly are the schools that have the bragging rights but we are seeing Positive Growth throughout the the School Division and that is what we are all here to do and talk about and to grow

074and be better so I want to turn it over to my colleagues Mr Don Floyd our director of facilities and maintenance as well as Miss Shirley Rucker who is our Environmental Services Supervisor uh to hand out his well thank you Dr wua uh good evening Dr Edwards Dr Gupta School Board uh it's my pleasure to come for you tonight to uh do the second round of awards for the uh custodial assessments uh like he said I couldn't said it better we we've seen vast improvements at all schools it's uh kind of taken off and got some traction as a competition and we hope that continues uh if I can I would like to take just a moment and thank some other people uh in the facilities Department if I could just real quickly uh we've

075got a great team over there I want to say thanks to my assistant director Boyce Hamlet uh supervisor for grounds Brian Green uh certainly Shirley Rucker as a supervisor for envir Al Services um and these are the people that these guys work tirelessly they work extra hours uh just to help uh make this division a success um I want to thank just the maintenance technicians they work every day in the buildings trying to keep the heat on or keep people cool uh so I'd like to thank just our HVAC team uh the plumbers electricians the painters uh who are busy right now painting the inside of Dumar middle school and then uh all our general maintenance technicians that do hard work every day uh but also want to thank the grounds team who keep the

076exterior of our buildings looking great our athle athletic fields up to par and they even work this weekend both days behind the scenes at graduation so I wanted to thank them uh specifically um so I'm going to start off and and I know there's some representatives from the schools here so as I call your school your name if you'll come up uh receive the award I know uh Mr Kirk would like to take a picture of you with the school board uh so we're going to start off with what we call the most improved at the elementary level um and that award tonight goes to Lin corn Elementary uh principal Dr lilan gzowski and I'm not sure if any of their custodians are here good come on [Applause] up so the head custodian for linor

077elementary is U Lester Green and then uh Lisa Francis and Michelle Davis are the custodians on that team very good walk right up and I will say the elementary Davis congratulations we're not going to let you hide in the corner very good take care Dr wara take one picture at a time too much I that's true three places [Applause] congratulations the the elementary level was probably the toughest competition we had we had some really good schools it it was really really tough to decide um so most improved at the secondary level this encompasses the high schools and the middle schools um that award tonight goes to Linkhorn Middle School I think Dr Dill's had a family emergency so she can't be here okay and the custas were Cel Miller deita Rouser and Clinton Mosin [Applause]

078yeah all right let's see now it's time for the big prize the big Awards and I think you guys remember this we've uh we're putting each Year's uh each uh biannual Winner's name on the on the award uh it's not to keep unless you win it three times how about we we do that you win it three times in a row you get to keep it um so the uh School distinction oh well let me uh yeah so School distinction at the elementary level got the right one is bass Elementary Monica hend and UDA Patterson I think well deserved and C was Maurice Booker and Brandon Ferguson very nice [Applause] congratul conratulations congratulations you miss Rocker come on there you go I can't say enough about Miss Lucker she's an invaluable resource to these schools

079uh helping Implement our custodial program uh helping with uh interviews and things like that to higher quality people so um we added an award this time we we felt like we were leaving some people out so we added some of our alternative sites as a category um so I'd like to at this time announce that the Fort Hill Community School has worn the school of Distinction for alternative sites wow Ruth McGee is head custodian and Chris lover is the uh director of that facility and Darren stus is the custodian all right nice job all right last but not least secondary level School of Distinction this was uh I had to go find this they were hiding ited glass um but this time the award goes to sandeski middle school [Applause] come stand in the Horseshoe

080that's it congratulations congratulations over [Applause] and I just want to thank all the custodians for their hard work and and the work they do every day working with the students and staff to keep them safe and and secure so thank you thank you thank you Floyd thank you Dr wara I agree with you custodians do an excellent job I've seen last year remember we had Flooding at EC glass and they were all working a team from different schools they joined you and the crew in 12 14 hours without any whining they were making sure that the place is safe for our kids so thank you uh next one is public comments Dr D okay um I will read the relevant pieces of her policy concerning public comment uh persons appearing before the school board uh

081will not be allowed to campaign for public office or promote private business ventures and should not use profanity or vulgar language or gestures make comments about a public official or an employee that are not related to the public official or employes official duties engage in behavior that disrupts the meeting or intimidates others or address the school board on issues that do not concern the services policies role Andor responsibilities of the school board please do not clap Boo or Express approval or disapproval of speakers speakers should be treated with respect even if you disagree with their positions individual speakers shall limit their comments to 3 minutes a speaker representing a group shall limit their comments to five minutes the representatives shall identify the group at the beginning of their presentation a group may have no more

082than one spokesperson the total allotted time for public comments at school board meetings is 30 minutes voicemail messages may be played um to be played are also limited to 3 minutes for individuals and 5 minutes for speakers representing a group priority will be given to in-person comments before voicemail messages in the following order first students second staff third parents or Guardians and fourth community members public comments are reserved for the public to provide input the board does not respond to comments answer questions or otherwise engage in discussion at this time uh now in order for me to try try to do my best and follow the preference of student staff parents and community members I do have to clarify one thing um um on the the the list that I've been given there's a column

083that indicates uh the category of each each speaker in that way but I have to ask uh Gail Goldsmith I can't understand what's written in column it says IV is Gail Goldsmith here yes um Community member Community member thank you okay so I'm starting with students I do not see any uh next staff um and again I do not see any correct me if I'm wrong um so I'm moving to parents um and we do have have some parents um so the first uh parent on the list is Carla Jones I'm speaking on behalf of TC Miller PTO so I want to start tonight by commending you Dr Edwards on your responses at the city council meeting last week uh I don't always agree with you or like what you do or have to say

084always but you defended LCS beautifully and shut down the city council members who want to pretend that getting a strong public education isn't a necessity in our city so thank you I oscillate between immense sadness and pure anger on a weekly sometimes daily basis I watched uh the last week of school at TC Miller knowing that most of the students celebrating the end of the school year have zero clue when they walk in the doors in the fall if they walk in the doors in the fall that the vast majority of the teachers teach they know and love will not be there we're talking teachers with over 10 20 years experience that are leaving and they're leaving LCS alog together the trust is gone right now there are 12 certified Staffing positions opened at TC

085Miller of the roughly 22 total that we have and that is not a final number I believe that to be a conservative number with more coming I assure you more are coming I tried to warn you in January of my concerns without a plan teachers feel immense uncertainty and have to choose providing for their families over staying at a school they love and provide incredible value to I can't tell you the number of teachers that were so emotional at the end of the school year because they felt like they were deserting their kids and parents they held immense guilt and grief for leaving and that shouldn't be the case so I will continue to stand out for TCM and for all of LCS especially the elementary schools and I will continue to ask what is

086the plan Dr Gupta you said at the May 14th city council meeting that the next goal is to I quote create an environment where we can reduce the achievement Gap end quote you want to and I say you as in the school board want to close the achievement Gap how are you going to do that overcrowding schools if you listened to the city council meeting last Tuesday you heard two Bedford Hills Elementary parents one of them the PTO president talk about having a second grade class of 28 students last year and how detrimental that was uh how detrimental that was to those kids and that was just one class what happens when all the classes are that large how are you going to prevent that from happening when you stuff 600 plus students in nine

087elementary schools Dr gupto you also said I quote every time we start talking about academics there is a distraction at our door end quote while I wouldn't call the future of our elementary schools a distraction I and I'm not saying that that's what you were talking about but I'd say that making the decision to close two schools has taken some of your time and attention but clearly not enough not enough time or attention because there still is no plan again what are you going to do with these 600 plus students we've continued to ask over and over again what is the plan we get tiny pieces of we're working on it more to come and you say you hear us when we ask for transparency but maybe you don't know what that means so I'm

088going to Define it for you according to Mariam Webster transparency means free from pretense deceit readily understood characterized by visibility or accessibility of information dare I say we have none of that here we are n nine months down the road and we still have nothing I'm so sick of asking and reminding you that that I could scream the master plan hasn't been on the agenda for months and I'm not claiming to be 100% accurate in this cuz honestly I wasn't going to waste 30 minutes of my my afternoon combing through agendas but at a quick glance the last time I see anything about the facilities master plan or anything related to it was in November of last year seven months ago there was a very brief discussion the resoning plan I think in February but

089that's been it that was four months ago the facilities master plan should be on the agenda at every Schoolboard meeting until everything is set in stone there is this isn't a minor minor discussion what you are deciding on is the future of LCS how does that not make the agenda month after month keeping us in the loop with what is happening the decisions being made is the definition of what transparency is how are you supposed to make a plan if you don't discuss it unless you're doing it behind closed doors two people at a time which is the opposite of transparent and the fact that you're pushing back the the or talking about pushing back the Strategic plan for one year is infurious creating this is the time to create a new plan you should

090have been discussing and evaluating the current one all year long to help you determine where to go from here evaluating it has to happen first and could have been invaluable and making decisions about these two elementary schools deciding to close now it's going to be kicked down the road again I've got a lot more to say but please let me finish this because this is only positive I want to thank you Dr Carter and you Mr tro for your service for your unwavering support of the students and families of LCS and for fighting for and supporting doing what is in the best in interest of every child by name and by need you have no idea how greatly you will be missed thank you thank you uh the next uh parent on my list is

091Colleen lens has sorry it has been a year has it not no matter where you sat in this room over the last year it has been frustrating it has been sad it has been heartbreaking some of you directly asked us to walk across the street that's what we did this situation for most parents seemed very one-dimensional until we started digging I think I'm more aware of anything in lber of City Council of Schoolboard than I ever wanted to be but one thing I hope that you know and you realize is that we stood up here each and every week we walked across the street we had meeting after meeting because we love LCS I think sometimes in the frustration that has gotten forgotten for those of you who weren't at last week's city council meeting

092I hope you go back and you listen 22 parents 22 from every school I can't think of one school that was not represented there spoke about why our city should fund public education because they love it our kids get things at LCS they could not get otherwise my son is outside right now working on a virtual reality game that uh he started because of a grant and it's continuing into the summer because of LCS because of great teachers and great principles who see he has a gift and want to challenge him and that's one kid out of thousands so I just want you to remember that I know this room's been frustrating I know we've been frustrated I know you've been frustrated but one other thing I want you to know is you have this

093City's attention not just LCS parents but I've been to bruis and budgets I've sat in City Council meetings community members are paying attention people who want to bring businesses in like fratone they're paying attention when they have large paying jobs that are coming into Lynchburg our city is paying attention because guess where they want those people to live here and guess what the very first thing they look at when they move here is our schools so what I'm saying to you is I know you've been frustrated asking for money I know you've been frustrated not getting the capital Improvement plans passed and I know you've asked where have your parents been where have we been We Trust trusted the process and that's on us we trusted that our city would make good decisions for our

094children with the finances that they had that hasn't been the case schools didn't fall apart yesterday but we're paying attention now and so is the city so ask ask for the things that matter ask to fix our schools take some of those Creative Solutions that have been brought to your table and ask for them because we can't keep advocating if we don't have anything to advocate for simply saying give more money is not enough I seen the budget I know we have hundreds of millions of dollars worth of fixes to make but overcrowding classrooms by closing schools simply because we don't want to ask for more funds and I get why I just want to make that super clear I get why you don't want to ask for the funds but now might just be

095the time I hate that it had to get to this point I hate that it had to reach reach critical mass for people to pay attention but they are and I know that no matter what you hear in this room I hope that you see the city the community wants better and we are behind you we are fighting for you and Dr Edwards I would like to Echo what the last parent said I loved the fight I loved that you did not give an inch because our kids don't have an inch to give so thank you for the way that you handled yourself at the city council and for those of you who are headed off the board thank you for your service we truly appreciate it for those of you who are left please

096ask this summer while you think about things what can we really do now that we have everyone's attention thank you um the final parent on my list is Kim sop thank you I'm the parent of a non-binary soon Tobe second grader at sanduski elementary school a member of this board called Title 9 updates protecting transgender persons unscientific and claimed that biology is not bigotry so I emailed him a Scientific American article that refutes his claims and his response was essentially I'm too busy and I don't believe you if you are unwilling to learn the science implicit in Title 9 you don't belong on a school board believe the science not May neurobiological Studies have found that the brains of transgender individuals resemble those of their gender identity more than their sex assigned at Birth genetics

097research has found potential markers influencing gender identity hormonal exposure during critical stages of prenatal brain development has been found to contribute to a gender identity different from one's assigned sex at Birth biology is not bigotry does not follow science it does however reinforce harmful stereotypes that certain identities are more valid or natural than identities that don't conform to expectations biology is not bigotry is not just wrong it is cruel this board projects fear when confronted with lgbtq issues that fear was quite apparent and obvious in the way you cruy rejected the it gets better Grant so quoting from two-time governor of Illinoi JB pritsker from a 2023 commencement speech when we see someone who doesn't look like us or sound like us or act like us or Love Like Us or Live Like Us the

098first thought that crosses our almost everyone's brain is rooted in either fear or judgment or both that's Evolution we survived as a species by being suspicious of things that aren't that we aren't familiar with in order to be kind we have to shut down that animal Instinct and force our brain to travel a different pathway empathy and compassion are evolved states of being they require the mental capacity to step past our most Primal urges Title Nine requires you as Schoolboard members to step out of your comfort zone past your fear and suspicion of things unfamiliar to you Edmund Burke Phil the philosophical founder of conservatism said when you fear something learn as much about it as you can knowledge conquers fear the article I sent to that board member is scheduled to be delivered to

099all your inboxes tonight read it extending title n Pro protections to transgender student is based on scientific understanding for my child and all LGBT students I urge you to move forward with policies that conform to Title 9 as the law requires thank you okay now we'll move to community members um the first member on my list is Gary Woodson I appreciate the opportunity to speak to the school board and School administration and highlight part of the uh gender Iden identity policy I'm here to support lburg school board and Yan's policies in terms as set forth on code of Virginia 22-11 parents or parents shall mean any parent Guardian legal uh custodian or other person having control of the child the word sex means biological sex phrase chant transgender shall mean a public school student whose

100parents has stated in writing that the students G gender differs from his sex or his eligible student that makes this uh this claim in writing eligible student is a student or former student who is 18 years old or as a student under the age of 18 emancipated or the code of Virginia so basically within this program there's uh these are highlight maintain a safe and supportive learning environment free from discrimination and harassment for all students prevention of bullying and harassment also uh identification of the student that's spelled out in the program itself um protection of the students privacy and the confidentiality of the students information again is spelled out in this policy enforcement of sex B sex based dress codes again is spelled out also uh students participating in sex in sex specific school activities

101and events shall use of the school's facilities which are spelled out and then under Athletics for any Athletic program or activity that is separate separated by sex the appropriate participation shall be determined by sex rather than gender or gender identity I want to thank each of you all for the uh considering this request and hopefully uh that will be uh will will be adopted thank you thank you uh next is uh Peter cerelli good evening um my name is Peter sephara I am a City resident my bonafides are I am a thinking human being with the ability to reason and recognize when a plus b does equal C or does not equal C I have no children in LCS however I value intelligence curiosity and wise education and I personally would like to see all

102LCS students get educations at least half as valuable as the one I received in Upstate New York Public Schools a long time ago uh now um I know you guys are all dealing with a lot of very important issues in here and I thank you for the time and all the stuff you put up with when you're doing this job I really appreciate it I now I have some comments about um uh but more importantly I have some questions about this board's decision about the LCS gender identity policies now I personally favor no discussion of this issue in schools now if that option is not on available I favor the government Governor's recommendations first I'd like to ask are you taking into consideration Community standards when considering important perhaps controversial matters do you know if

103Lynchburg residents clearly favor any particular gender ID policy don't you think it would be good to know this after all it doesn't make sense to uh Foster policies which will sour more parents on the LCS education experience because this would likely lead to even more students being sent to private or home schools and would also be a factor in school funding right citizens unhappy with what happens in our classrooms also resist increased funding requests it's something to think about second let's consider student input on gender ID policies now I don't watch every student uh a school board meeting but I'd like to know or maybe you know are the comments you hear very one-sided in favor of current policies or other policies or the governor's policies uh are some of the inputs you're being uh

104you're given about uh really liberal policies being ginned up by trans activists in the schools on students or faculty and how do you know what you hear in board meetings as representative the students wishes uh wouldn't you really need to know if 51% or 70% or 85% of the students would prefer the government's recommendations before you impose more oppressive policies on them are the views of these students being repressed I suggest you take a confidential survey of LCS students to find out what most of them really want honest opinions given without fear of bullying cancellation or retaliation will tell you what students want to help them become well educated students citizens third how is all the time energy and focus on genitor confusion affecting the learning environment in our classrooms the tension pressure and anxiety

105felt by kids forced to deal with gender issues in school detracts from the calm orderly focus of their minds and their emotions and this creates a classroom environment detrimental to learning I hope that you would uh consider these factors and in closing let me just say that I'd like to apologize to all of you for over the course of the past months all the star snarky nonproductive comments you have to endure from people that have never walk 30 yards in your shoes so thank you for your service I appreciate it next is uh Deborah tfer thank you thank you uh thank you for listening to the to the public comments and um I agree with the gentleman before me that uh you do have to put up with a lot and I thank you um

106I also would like to speak in in favor of yonan's um policy on gender um I I my own story is that when I was young in the public schools in Minnesota I had a very bad relationship with my mother and I wanted to be a boy more than anything and I'm so thankful that I did not have people in the schools pushing me in that direction that would have robbed me of my fertility I now have six kids 15 grandkids and they're the joy of my life so I am in favor like like this gentleman said of keeping the the schools about education about academics about education um not and not pushing pushing students to um into this anxiety of um of questioning their their gender Etc um children are children they're how can

107we have informed consent if they're children how can they have an informed how can they know what's going to happen and how how do they they haven't even had a crush on anyone yet some of these kids how do they know what what to expect in the future and what they will want in the future anyway so I just wanted to read a couple more of young F's policies um and I find that these are science-based and legal based um so number one LCS prohibits all this discrimination and will comply with all applicable non-discriminatory laws number uh A2 says the Personnel will be trained annually in mental health services and number 3 A3 says each School shall make reasonably just a second here each School um each School shall make reasonably available with available resources

108guidance and counseling services to all of students and um in the provided Virginia code 2620 and pursuant to parental notification requirements therein including that no student shall be required to participate in any counseling program in which the students parents object except with regard to eligible students parents must be informed and given an opportunity to object before counseling services pertaining to gender are given um and the next one B3 says that bullying of any student by any other student for any reason will not be tolerated um so I so I just wanted to conclude by saying that it seems like these policies in in the yunan policy are um are common they're science-based and legal based and um they protect most of all they protect children from what would have happened to me probably if I

109had been in a school that that pushed uh transgenderism so thank you thank you um next uh Community member is David ree congratulations Janine Tory Peters and minutes Doom matter and I speak today about friendship three friends uh in 3 minutes the first friend I met in 1973 we played on the same Little League team I played first base and she played second base we were 11-year-old kids playing on a baseball team in 1973 she was the first and the only girl playing in our little league we were teammates we went through that season together often batting consecutively in the order playing infield and becoming friends within two years my family moved away from that Community um but on reflecting on this talk today I decided to look her up and I reached out to

110her and we Remis and we are still friends today next is my neighbor our friendship led him to ask me to speak up and I agreed to speak for girls who as a result of the title n decision of 1972 can play girls Sports without being assigned to a boy's team my life experience qualifies my testimony that inherent biological traits create a general competition differential that predisposes boys with a physical strength advantage to deny this difference ignores reality and is an error the reality known among all humans since humans have existed is that there are two Sexes science has developed puberty blocking drugs to arrest the development of adult sex characteristics the associated art of their use is dubious and the long-term effects of altering a teens's internal hormones is not fully understood and is

111not a promising remedy for any individual or societal ill a third friend reminds me to open your mouth judge righteously and plead the cause of the poor and needy inter Scholastic sports are considered worthwhile and I speak out for girls in sports to say that they must not be harmed overlooked or marginalized in order to address a boy's desire to compete in girls Sports this third friend who sticks closer than a brother suffered for True Freedom he died to give eternal life to everyone who recognizes his death burial and Resurrection was for the Salvation of all people not by works but by his unique position and his ability to give eternal life it is in the spirit of Christ I plead we honor the innate sexual distinctiveness of girls and boys by upholding the common

112sense of the 1972 title 9 rules without modification ideas have consequences the medical profession in counseling students who transgender need to understand that that decision to transgender entails a forfeiture of participation in inter Scholastic Sports thank you um next is Gail Goldsmith hello I'm the pastor of Trinity Episcopal church we believe that everyone is created in the image of God everyone is deeply beloved to God and to us and when you love someone you act for their safety protection and justice for them and thinking of Galatians 3 that there is no male and female but one in Christ we affirm the gifts of the holy spirit that we see in all people and I'm here because this affects members of our community um it's matter of safety and protection um these guys lines assume that

113students have supportive adults in their lives many do not my brother was a high school English teacher during 2021 and he planned with a trans student to support them and help them avoid physical abuse and punishment from their parents supporting trans and non-binary students is suicide prevention and harm reduction care that costs nothing loving and respecting people costs nothing um furthermore these policies don't comply with Title Nine and uh school boards in Fairfax Richmond and Arlington significantly larger school boards and uh districts have said this is fine we um these are already covered by our current non-discrimination policies and if they can hold off I think we can uh the vooe policies have at least two active lawsuits against them the lawyers say um it's hard to avoid the conclusion that their authors were purposefully

114trying to erase gender non-conforming students from the classroom and this flouts existing non-discrimination law and Virginia law that directed vdoe to develop model policies in the first place guys I love living here and stuff like this makes it hard to keep encouraging friends to move here I know we would like to all see higher LCS enrollment and perhaps we would like less bad press another thing um I'm a pastor and not a lawyer and here's the invite I'm a big supporter of the separation between church and state um but I've seen a lot of talk that references scripture from officials and from other community members so here's my invite to the school board to anyone watching if you are curious about how I get to these points of love and Justice let's meet for coffee

115and let's talk about it I'm down for any respectful conversation get in touch with me if you disagree with me are curious or like where this is going but want to know sources and furthermore here are some talking points about supporting students in schools I'll leave them out in the lobby for you thank you thank you and we have one more speaker uh Kimberly D carsley happy Tuesday I asked Miss day earlier these are just uh some other random thoughts I had the YouTube volume could you please increase it for those who want to hear it's kind of low trying to wash dishes and listen to the school board meetings schools need a dress code there's no way um females should be walking into the building or the streets can't judge the streets where you

116can see part of their bottom with shorts on um cell phone use please come up with the policy that we couldn't have it so they can't either fix that please classroom management I encourage teachers who don't have it that ask for training and if they don't ask for it and you know that a teacher needs it please recommend it I've heard a student complaint about cell phone usage in class by the staff don't know if they were a sub don't know if they were teacher I am not sure I will not reveal the school because I don't want the student targeted they also complained about um they didn't they had questions about their work which was only online but they didn't want to interrupt the staff on the phone code of Virginia 22.1 d241 Lynchburg

117police department has a curfew I think l lburg City Schools should have a firearm safety education program in the elementary school grades according to the code Board of Education can establish curriculum guidelines for a standardized program I looked at the Eddie Eagle Gun Safe program by the NRA it looks great and I think I'll adopt it at home in addition to what we teach others now the other reason I'm here YMC 18 Center is located at 1315 Church Street Fair viiew Rec Center 3621 Campbell a and then Diamond Hill Rec Center is 10517 when I look at the map on summer nutrition meals White Rock Hill has zero access points I was told because I'm on the school health Advisory board that sites cannot be added due to Federal requirements and if these are required

118to be eaten at the site location then that means the meals maybe can't be to go or even deliver there's no gltc access throughout all of White Rock Hills so what are those children to do rest in peace to the former Pastor Amazing Grace he had a sight there but White Rock back Baptist could have had a sight fa Square shopping center could have had a sight White Rock needs summer meals too thanks thank you um I'm told we have no recorded comments so no emails no sir thank you thank you Dr D uh the student reps are on summer vacation the next item is consent agenda is there a motion to approve the consent motion Mrs Lo the second second Mr Madam clerk would you please call the RO Mr jilo yes Mr Andrews

119yes Mr tro yes Dr day yes Dr gupa yes Dr Carter yes Mrs Preston yes Mr depal yes Mrs Lori yes motion curries thank you next point is finance report Dr Ed monthly Finance report GNA turn it over to miss good evening chairman gupa members of the board and Dr Edwards in keeping with the theme minutes matter I will be brief Ready set go um as of April marks the 83% of the fiscal year passing the percent of revenues we have collected versus our original appropriation is at 73. 67% that's a slight decrease over the prior year revenue of about $800,000 at this time last year the amount of expenditures versus original appropriation is at 76.3 4% Which is less than 1% difference compared to the same month and prior year total expenditures inclusive of

120incumbrances equates to 97.22% there were no notable variances in expenditures or revenues that have not already been discussed in Prior reports uh bringing you up to speed on gearing up for end of year um as of June that's the last month of our fiscal year here are the things that have been accomplished so far we have closed POS through the end of May which was on Friday um we have kept any POS Open that may incur related expenditures for the month of June those include uh salaries benefits anything Kroll related Professional Services or any utility related POS we have released all incumbrances that um do not will not be have any expenditures in the month of June we have started the audit process go us um we have met with uh City Finance to clean

121up reconciling items so that the of the fiscal year the last month will we will Breeze through the closure of that month because items are cleaned up through May um our current Grant reimbursements are up to date through May so um those are some positive things and we're moving forward so um our monthly um Report on health insurance which is on everyone's mind our health insurance dispersements um what we paid out uh in April of 2024 uh was 1,227 1891 32 which was a drop from last month's expense of 278,000 and some odd dollars um receipts collected were 41,8 less than what we collected in Prior month and the year-to DAT total uh Still Remains in a deficit of 2,427 24489 now the finance and Facilities committee met regarding the preliminary quote that was received

122from the local Choice Health benefits uh program and they uh they performed an extensive review of it um however you know things uh decisions like that sometimes take multiple meetings um so the committee has scheduled an additional meeting on June 13th to continue their review for recommendations to the full school school board and the Insurance Consultant will be at that meeting to answer questions so I will defer any of other questions related to that to the segment of the finance and Facilities committee so that um the the school board can ask that committee any questions they deem thank you the end not quite because I have a question so um you said you can you repeat what you said about incumbrances for the current fiscal year you said you closed them out or so we

123have encumbrances as expenditures come in we release those incumbrances so they go into the year-to-date expenditures so have been released going into the year-to-date expenses and freeing up that projection of them being held back to be used so our year to date is more accurate without those encumbrances in there and so the only things left encumbered are are items that are necessary to be encumbered for the month of June so does that mean um an encumberance some of these get moved into next year's budget uh well that's a great question Dr day um when you're looking at payroll and benefits payroll and benefits do not stop on June 30th so there is the timing of your payroll a portion of that folds over into July and that is taken into account at the end of

124the year when the Auditors are netting out the expenses at the bottom line they take into consideration there's some avoid unavoidable expenses that are charged back to June but they happen to occur in July so when you get the clean audit on June 30th those expenses that rolled in to July will be charged back to June 30th and so that's how we keep track of those okay is the encumbrance and we have to keep that open to cover those expenses cleaning up the books excellent answer cleaning up the books yeah well I wanted to know a little bit more detail what cleaning consists of right thank you any other questions yes did the do we ask the finance and Facilities committee about the option for health so they still have scheduled another meeting on June

12513th they have not come to a decision on a recommendation a full recommendation to the school board they have some additional questions and they wanted to think about the analysis that was presented to them at their last meeting um and kind of go over those one last time before they move in a direction of one way or the other that's what she's saying encouraging people school board members to come to finance committee meeting on June 13th and they'll be discussing thank you very much uh item a school board member reports finance and Facilities Dr day so this is what we were just talking about um our last meeting was on May 15 and and I gave you a summary of that at the May 21st work session our next meeting as was just explained is

126June 13th at which time I'm so repeating what Sonia just said um at that time we expect a report from our health insurance consultant um and one of the things specifically that he's looking at for us is to see if he said he thought we could make some adjustments to our current self-funded plan that would be a significant Improvement and that's a major part of what we're expecting to hear from him then we're hoping that at that June 13 finance and Facilities meeting we'll be able to formulate a recommendation that we bring to the board at its June 18th meeting thank you Governor School Mrs Lowry school's out next meeting is August 7th oral Regional Dr Carter two students graduated um a May the 28th the next school board meeting is in August STEM Academy

127is also yours the STEM Academy we had our meeting today and um d uh Mrs cash and the stem program they really look for look out for the students and they're doing a math boot camp class in July to make sure that the students coming in are where they need to be and if and also to do an assessment about gaps in algebra or whatever else is missing April the 24th there was the internship presentation and delegate Walker was there and added some words of encouragement to the students the graduated May the 15th we approved the budget today and that incorporated or included a 3% increase in the Central Virginia Community Ser um Community College tuition but that cost will not be passed on to students the will the STEM Academy is absorbing that cost

128and also the Personnel cost they're going to provide the personnel with 3% increase and also some stats is the attrition rate this year was 100% or zero zero yeah and also this is the ninth graduation and a total of 249 students have gone through the program and completed 15,144 places wow so I encourage students if they want to do that Hands-On that's the way to go and they stay close to home and go to some of the colleges and this year seven have been accepted to Virginia Tech and of course I have to say one went to Sweet BR and so just keep encouraging them thank you Dr Carter you have been strong supporter and the representative of this board on these two boards so thank you you're welcome for all your service and the

129next one is lra Mr trust you got to say something because this is your last L report well we're happy that we got our c tool other than that no report thank you for all you have done thank you Partners in education Mr depal and Mrs Lowry no report thank you Education Foundation Mr trost and Mr Jal we have anything no Beacon of Hope Mrs Preston and Mr Andrews we just have a couple of of things to add uh on Thursday Beacon of Hope celebrated 38 students and their their families on the May 30th annual scholarship celebration that's in in collaboration with Lynchburg uh Regional business Alliance and they just launched the third annual summer internship program which is going to run from June 3rd through the 28th local businesses will host 95 student interns

130across the city and uh the new FAFSA applications have been uh very difficult the lack of a better yeah for for the students U to deal with and that has not been just true for the students here in Lynchburg but it's it's causing the numbers to be lower than they have been in the past so they're working to um to get a a grant to help with with some of that that process thank you uh next one is ad hoc committee on discipline and policy Dr D okay so our most recent meeting was May 23rd and um at that meeting we finalized our recommended changes to policies J fcz and jfca JFC concerns cell phone use and in brief the changes that we are recommending are that at the high schools cell phone use would

131be allowed only during a students Lunch Period also staff will incorporate a a discipline Matrix in the student handbook that describes uh what happens after a first second third uh violation and then thirdly if a student is in violation of the policy and refuses to um surrender their phone when they are asked to they are to receive a 3-day suspension um in addition we recommend that a task force or working group be assembled to explore the implementation of a phone confiscation procedure along the lines of the chatty wagon that was formerly employed at EC glass um so when the policy comes to the board which probably will be June 18th um I anticipate at that time that there will be a motion uh that would include um forming a working group to look at that

132and perhaps some other spe aspects of informing students uh the other policy I mentioned jfca concerns teacher requests for students to be removed from their class permanently not just a one-time removal but a permanent removal from the class we have had a policy in place for some time that allows that um and we knowe that a teacher cannot have the unqualified right to expel a student from their class because uh say there's only three sections of an English class at a school and every one of the teachers uh is Adam about not wanting that student in their class well the student has to go somewhere so it's it's important that uh the principal needs to adjudicate those requests um but the existing policy already has an appeals procedure for teachers if they're not satisfied with

133the um result or the the conclusion of their principle so the one change that we Rec are recommending is that summary report of removal requests under this policy are to be made to the school to the school board student discipline committee and this proposed revision I also expect to come to the board on June 18th so in addition to these uh two policies that I just mentioned the committee previously recommended changes to some other policies related to physical violence um these um and the two that I just mentioned will be looked at by um or maybe were looked at by the student service policy work Group which I believe met yesterday met met today and working on some some revisions and so be presented as okay um so my hope is that that uh the

134work of that uh work group will be done in time for the board to see uh the recommended policies on June 18th and then finally what I would say that uh this committee the ad hoc discipline policy Review Committee uh is a special special committee under the provisions of policy bcz and it will cease to exist once it has completed its charge um of the topics that the committee identified for consideration based on the results of our survey in October the only item remaining to be discussed is that of bullying um and so that will be the topic of our discussion at our final meeting on June 27th and uh it may be that we uh just make a recommendation to the board for the coming year or um it'll be up to next year's

135board will that committee continues or or not but that's where uh that committee stands so we have this one last meeting coming up on June 27th thank you academic success committee Mr julan yes um we are going to uh we didn't meet last time but we're going to work on having a technological digital addiction expert speak to us either online or come here he is out of the country for the summer so uh that that the presentation will be later but we're trying to get his information so that we can have something to present to the discipline committee about specifically about cell phones but there's other things that need to be covered that will help the academic success of the students so that's one thing that's coming up otherwise we don't have uh anything else

136from the meeting should we like it looks like excuse me I apologize see like someone must to be let in I have a question I have a question Miss Pew maybe you can help answer this too um because our academic success committee is not meeting right now do we have any finalization on the brochure we were working on um I gave the um draft that we had worked on as a committee to um Austin journey and his team and asked if they could um you know professionalize it mine was a very rough draft um they there they have a brochure um that had some other information about LCS and wanted to know if that would suffice and I said we really wanted this to be about academics and how especially at the younger end from

137birth to you know uh preschool and kindergarten we could get access to some resources and those types of things so uh he and his team were going to be working on it they were very very busy for the past two weeks with graduation and end of the school year so um probably in the next couple of weeks they'll come up with a draft and I can certainly share it with the committee members at that point in time and so and I had mentioned a poster about uh cbcc and um I never got a draft yeah yeah but I I was going to probably I'll probably drop that off to your office just top chat with you about okay no I will remind you that we don't have a budget for publishing the the posters and

138or the brochures so if that's what the school board would like to do then it will be up to the school board to to find the funds to do that thank you uh next one is item L1 uh 2924 LCS comprehensive strategic plan extension sure um just before I I that uh for committees next year you all may know that we as superintendents rotate throughout region uh 2000 the five of us who's in charge of or who supervises which uh Regional program so next year I am slated to uh supervis Laural which really means whoever is our board liaison is also the chair of the board for Laurel so just as we plan forward just know that that's an additional responsibility that um LCS has um comprehensive strategic plan are planned Uh current plan is

139set to expire at the end of this month and we had uh talked with the school board about either a we would have to put in our new plan or B get an have an extension on the existing plan for one year as we um continue to work on um the the rest of the division um things that we're doing for up for V so I would like to move that we extend the existing plan for one year second Mr Andrew Dr Dave Mr Andrews any discussion I think we have no option we if you've looked at that plan it's I don't know 30 pages long something like that there's no way we're going to produce a new version of that in a couple weeks before the end of our Schoolboard term so I don't

140think we have any alternative but to extend the current plan for one year and realize that for next year's board that will be a major item that we'll be talking about throughout the year is designing the next 5year plan I'm go ahead asking if if it can be extended for 3 to 6 months instead of a year or is that not Fe feasible I three to six month goes by so quickly a year goes by quickly we get it ready in that amount of time we can go ahead and approve it but but I I personally don't want to tie our hands that that we have to get it done within the first six months well I would just like to take another look at it and uh we shouldn't reinvent the wheel there's a

141number of strategic plans out there that we can actually insert uh and just adjust a little bit um to adopt if it's possible I I'll take the lead on it just to present something later on and uh we don't have to do anything about it but I I would agree with extending if we could also edit it at some point in time between now and a year from now so we can jump on it we don't have to fill our time the following year with it that's all Madam CL would you please call it all Mr julo yes Mr Andrews yes Mr tro yes Dr Day yes Dr Gupta yes Dr Carter just one moment what is this to extend it for a year okay yes Mrs Preston yes Mr depal yes Mrs Lori yes

142motion C is 9 Z thank you next one is M1 uh ESS a grants 2425 okay I'm going to these are our standard uh Title One title two federal grants that we um submit every single year so I'll turn it over to miss Pew to quickly go bring up presentation um as Dr Edward said these are um just an overview of our applications for the federal program grants under every student succeeds act which is Esa um the first um Grant is uh title one which is uh improving the academic achievement of the disadvantage the purposes to provide all children with um using Title One funds to to improve student outcomes um specifically including academic achievement in math uh reading language arts and science um our anticipated allocation for next year is a little over $4

143million that's for one year yes sir okay um next slide um it is used both at the division and school level um at the division level uh there's uh Staffing that's um allocated um part of their salary is paid through Title One there's a a heavy emphasis um which is required through the Grant on uh parent and family engagement at the division level as well at the school level um there is also a portion of this that is um for um neglected and delinquent students there's a set of side piece that's um allocated to that and then we can also use some of this at the division level for professional learning next Slide the next gr is title 1D part subpart two which is prevention and intervention programs for Children and Youth who are neglected

144delinquent or at risk and again this is to provide educational um and support services for those identified students our anticipated allocation is um 52,000 little over and almost 600 um you can you can go back thank you um it it's really um to improve Educational Services for Children and Youth that are in local tribal or state institutions for neglected or delinquent uh children or youth so that they have a um the opportunity to meet the same challenging State academic standards that the rest of the students in the state do um we can also use um some of these funds to um make Transition from Correctional Facilities to locally operated program successful um and then there's a prevention um of ATR youth from dropping out of school school so those are some of the things that

145we can that focus on um use of this in Lynchburg city is again siens for hourly academic uh te teachers or tutors that are working with those identified students uh paying for contracted services for mental health um medical dental and we also provide some equestrian therapy um and then there's an indirect cost most some of these grants have a division level indirect cost that we have to take off the top um I think you can go to the next slide there we go um and that's 2.4% um and that's just um you know part of the the requirement of the grant so that if there are anything any costs that are at the division level that we need to cover we we have that next Slide the next is title two which is uh focused

146on supporting programs to increase academic achievement and this really focuses on increasing um the number of qualified teachers in classrooms um increasing the number of qualified principles and assistant principles in our schools and then increasing the effectiveness of those teachers and principles um and it's through um professional learning and professional development that really focuses on um student achievement uh project allocation you can see there is close to $500,000 next slide and we use again that for uh Staffing there are um several positions that are split funded using some of this money a big portion of it is uh professional learning and this is one of those um federal grants that we are required to offer Equitable participation of private schools and so off the top of that um $500,000 will come close to $120,000 that

147we will um need to then disperse to our private schools that choose to take um advantage of this title three is working with our uh excuse me yes title three is working with our um English Learners and our anticipated allocation is uh a little over $28,000 um we you know looking at some new language instruction educational programs and academic content um for our e programs uh a lot of um focus on schoolwide programs for restructuring and uh looking at how we can not only serve our eel students but also our e All Families um that's a requirement of title three um next so again these are just some of the uses um stiens for work outside of contract time for some ESL staff software professional learning um instructional supplies and again this is one that

148has that division level indirect cost that's taken off the top this is one also that has Equitable participation of private schools and then as I mentioned some funds to support parent and family engagement and Outreach title four um this is um supporting it's student support So sort of like student services and then academics so there are three pieces to this one is well-rounded education um one is um improved School conditions for student learning and that's the student support piece and then improving the use of Technology um to support academic achievement and digital literacy our anticipated allocation is close to $300,000 um and it you can see here um those are the three categories that are required the well-rounded student which is the academic focus and we have to allocate a minimum of 20% of our

149allocated funds to that area um again safe and healthy students is um a minimum of 20% and that's around U behavior and uh student mental health and wellness and then technology there is not a minimum requirement although in the past years we have allocated um you know some of that so that that helps with professional learning um and again you can see some of the uses here for title four uh we do have um division social worker and division case manager that are split funded using some title four um some professional learning and then again some of it goes to uh private schools and then this is also one that has indirect costs and those are the federal grants that are um that we are um submitting and we need to submit them to the

150state and so I am asking if you would not mind um to approve extending the division I'm Excuse me to approve um these grants but we need a motion to approve I'll move that we approve we have questions let during the discussion motion to approve the second Dr Carter now discussion Mrs Lowry go ahead um do we have enough El teachers so that the ones we have are not overwhelmed with a large group of students have over our soq requirement okay our e population is growing so yeah that's why I asked have additional teachers but we currently have um the minimum quite a few more than than is required by soq I have a I have a question Dr Carter I'm sorry go ahead Dr Carter well that question leads me to ask another question

151do we have um enough like um interpreters especially Spanish for each student that needs that at their given school or is there any way to make sure that they are all in one you know so they can so no one else will have to interpret or try to interpret or use the telephone the cap whatever they're using most of our ESL teachers um do speak a second language typically it is Spanish um and I don't have it in front of me but I don't believe Spanish is really our um top language anymore um I believe maybe um I'm not going to say it but I will I will get the answer to that and I will let you know I can um get Dr Edwards to send you an email with that information um but

152some speak multiple languages we also sometimes use their are staff across the division who speak a second language and we can use them sometimes to have those conversations but we will um we have this year for the first time contracted with some outside interpreting um companies that will provide us interpreters with for different languages because it is very difficult we do have um an a service that does um document translations for us but it also has a phone call you know option where you can speak but then there's someone kind of translating in between and it's very difficult when you're like it orientation or enrollment you know uh those types of things it's very difficult so we really try our best to have um someone on staff who can be on call to interpret for

153our students and families and I had another question on the second slide it talked about some groups of people but does that also have Provisions for the emancipated student are there any resources for that student uh on Title 1 D yes is or or any of those um numerous grants are there they're not specifically emancipated is not specifically mentioned in those um Title 1 D subpart two is really specific to local tribal and state institutions for neglected and delinquent youth um so I can certainly look into that but that's not specifically mentioned in the grant itself in the wording right or any of those grants right no ma'am not that I recall okay pron just just a question will or can some of these funds be used collaborative ly with the with the vows program

154at all with vows yeah because with the Virginia literacy um they will support it um but it's it can't be used um let's say if we needed additional resources for textbooks or online resources it can't be used for that but it can be used um to support Staffing and professional learning that support the Virginia literacy act can't say you can't supplant you you yeah so oh last question even though we did the cell phone policy for eel teachers do they use Google Translate no because then you can you can converse with the child or the parent and I don't have a Samsung they have just upgraded their technology I have an apple but that you can just speak and they speak back and then that way until they are learning the language okay all right

155I was say that might alleviate some stress you're good jul which of these grants are repeat applications and which are new they're all repeat they all repeat these are the applications these are the federal applications that we can apply for year after year and these are the ones that we um apply for we submit our applications to the state um we have our anticipated allocations um sometimes it comes in above sometimes it comes in uh lower but this is what's been anticipated excuse me at the state level um but these are repeat these are things that we do year over-ear now I will say that each application has specific overarching goals and actions we monitor those throughout the year we collect data because we have to provide at the end of the year data on

156what we said we were going to do and we have to submit that to booe so um we have to use the funds as they said we were going to have to use them and each of these has goals that are set um that are measurable um And Timely um they're smart goals and then we again as I said collect the data uh review that and then we have to submit that to VOE so that they know we've done our our part sounds good additionally I hope that one day they provide a grant to fund a grant writer to help you guys to do that that would be wonderful M CL would you please call the Mr julo yes Mr Andrews yes Mr tro yes Dr Dave yes Dr gupter yes Dr car yes Mrs

157Preston yes Mr depal yes Mrs Lori yes motion carries and next one is item M2 transgender student policies Dr Edwards come to you or should we that would be I guess Dr Day Dr D okay well um we have been hearing uh public comments about this uh for some time now we've had uh legal advice in several different closed sessions uh the policy we have before us has been uh vetted by um our attorneys um so I would like to move that we make this an action item u meaning that we can make a decision on it tonight um rather than um it's just listed as a discussion item in the in the agenda uh my reasoning being that I don't see anything to be gained by further delay second Dr D and Mr depal

158any discussion on making it an action item Madame clerk would you please call the RO Mr jilo yes Mr Andrews yes Mr TR yes Dr day yes Dr gupter yes Dr Carter yes Mrs Preston can we ask Dr Brown if if there was any discussion today that would that would suggest that we might need to wait to do this and he's available online isn't he you got to word yes or no that was part of the discussion and I would have to say no Mr depar yes Mrs Lor yes I'm changing my vote you change her vot no now it's an action item motion carries Mo cares mhm it's an action item um Dr D back to you all right that's a good case well um so we're now faced with the decision of deciding

159whether we want to implement this policy um or not and my opinion is that implementing this policy is the right thing to do um so I will move for a option of the policy that we have before us and that was attached to the agenda second Dr D made a motion to approve as presented in the board dos and it was seconded by Mr Mr depal so any discussion on this policy Dr Carter I cannot support this policy and has this policy we talked about this in in a session like this or just in closed session just in closed session yeah so I don't think we should rush to do this but I can't support this I think our policy as it stands meets the requirement and even the one of the counties near us

160amers didn't change theirs and I don't think we need to change ours it meets it meets what it meets and um provides for every student this right this one here is just and we haven't even talked about it all of the details of it or anything just in close session is the only time we've really talked this policy is uh pretty much verbatim What was recommended by the governor um quite some time ago so there's nothing new this the terms of this policy have been uh in the public for some time we've had uh public comments about the specifics of this policy we even had some tonight so it's not as if there's uh secrets in this policy that are being revealed for the first time tonight it's been on the table for quite some

161time now um and I respect that there are different opinions about this um some school boards have elected not to adopt it others have uh so I don't think what we're here to do is take a vote among other school boards we're Our obligation is to decide what we as the Linburg City School Board think is the the best policy for our students and um I think that this policy is appropriate and needed um and so that's why I'm supporting it other discussion Madam clerk would you please call Little Mr jilio yes Mr Andrews no Mr tro yes Dr day yes Dr gupter yes Dr Carter no Mrs Preston no Mr depar yes Mrs Lori yes motion carries thank you next one is en super attend comments Dr um y just a typical end of

162the year comments and and celebrating all of our graduates um we had very many graduations uh between EC glass and uh Heritage and uh Laurel and also project search we had uh graduates um at project search as well a couple quick things just from the Education Foundation uh don't don't know that I was mentioned but but uh we did have a wonderful Grant reception uh at EC class where we had our students and our staff showcase some of the things that they've done this year including some amazing um app development by elementary students I'm I'm I'm so impressed with the work that our staff and students do uh we also participated in Citizens Academy and represented LCS uh um we had a a night at LMS uh and we it was pretty packed in there

163I think this they a lot of uh very great questions and enthusiasm so that was wonderful um a couple of us got to go to military Signing Day and although this was the first time we tried to pull that together in a short period of time and although our students were unable to attend um we did it was a very nice ceremony at the dday memorial and it's we're going to try to make it annual so we have some Advanced time to plan um for that but we did recognize our students and just a shout out as always to uh one Community one one voice for um ending our school year with lots of bikes and just happy children who are going into the summer with their bikes so we're we are very very excited

164about that thank you next is board comments Mrs lry we'll start um just two comments I wanted to say thank you to the Maintenance and Facilities team and for keeping our schools up to par and Beyond so that's great and also I really missed the International Festival that we were supposed to have I went last year it was fabulous so you know under the threat from the it said in the paper of the quer town hall to um put that under threat and Mr bendi saying that he for the safety of everyone that you know they canel it and all the money people lost in the vendors I don't think that anybody from that threatens our city should be on any of our committees and I think we should take that in account thank you

165Mr Dev um my first time in Ireland uh I was hanging out in Dublin and one of the things I noticed was how they refer to their attorneys they call them solicitors solic yes so a lot of stuff with with that I just wanted to say that uh this past year has been very much U uh a wonderful opportunity for me and I want to sincerely thank the good Dr Carter and Sir Randy the solicitor for a wonderful opportunity to learn you have both educated me you have helped me form change and form better decisions and I really want to let you know how sincerely I appreciate getting to know you I'm going to miss you and I want to and you I know you're not going anywhere but you know to say wish you

166well is just just a small thing I just want you to know I appreciate you very much and I U really enjoy working with you on this board thank you Mrs Preston well I have to Echo those comments I think until you sit in one of these chairs you really don't have a great appreciation for the difficulty of the decisions that you have to make and and how you need to look at all aspects and points of view and and that sort of thing and making your decisions and those decisions can't be your decisions they have to be based on what you believe is right for the children in this community and for the folks in this community and I think you both have done an excellent job of doing that so you're great role

167models for the rest of us and do not pretend like you don't know my number when I call oh and following that I'll Echo what you said I I put down a scary word to hear from any board memb ey when you hear a lot of eyes you should perk up because there's a problem I just want to say this is my last board meeting so some of the policies that we did and there's a special one on Thursday yeah this is the major one U the policies were we did the dress code got rid of that index cards and it was all targeted to women girls you know cell phone policy we got rid of that now I see it maybe rearing his head and come back the volunteer policy and then we did

168the curriculum studies and I remember when that was presented it was so convoluted and so complicated until you really needed three phds to understand it I think we've made changes there and the 20 2017 is when we started looking at salaries of our um of our employees and the the reason why is because we were used our employees was used for the city also to look at the salaries and they gave increases to their St to their employees and our employees were using those data and didn't get the in um the raises the first vote was for board board chair and vice chair and you don't know who you're voting for so someone tells you who to vote for and also that second vote the same night was for the Empower Academy and Dr Coleman

169he was a year before me he kept saying move it change it to the empowerment Academy so that won over and that was their first vote and also in nine years we have had two direct reports which are two people that reported to us Dr Bray brand and Dr um Edwards like I'm forget your name now and done nine evaluations for the superintendent and always say I would never be a superintendent to have someone that really doesn't know the job evaluate you do you know how Weir that is just doesn't it shouldn't be um and then also work with three board C clerks Wendy Sullivan who did this manually and and then Denise spinner and antina day Christy Missi Christy Missi yeah she was there she was had bo CHR before before me yeah it's

170okay yes and I just forgot that name and also nine budget processes and none of them have ever been the same not never and also now on a sidekick I was going to say how much money I started that when I was first on the board how much money we asked for but but I had computer problems so didn't get to that but I was just glad to go to the sandusa Elementary's honors dinners all the students that had made Scholars throughout the year I think it was six of them and everyone that made honoro and that was just great and also theem Academy banquet and then to be able to shake hands with all the graduates of Heritage High School some of them were students from my church and for somebody that I worked

171with her daughter and it was just great to see a neighbor kids you know to see all of those thank you Dr D well since we seem to be sort of reminiscing about uh what's transpired this year this this is my second year on the board and I only have two years to compare not nine uh but certainly this year has been quite different than last uh this board has been quite different than last and so I certainly expect that next year will be quite different than this year next year's board will be quite different now we don't know at this point in what way cuz a lot of that depends on choices the city council will be making later this month um it's been a lot of a lot of hard work uh in

172my case a fair number of sleepless nights wondering about how should we do this and that um and um um but I'm grateful for the congenial relations I've had with all my colleagues um so thanks to all of you and for those of you who will still be here next year um I look forward to doing it again thank you Mr trust well this is my last I guess regular schedule meet schedu meeting and uh I will say that I have really enjoyed uh working with my colleagues on the school board developing friendships and uh continue to expect those to grow into the future um we have a very professional board you can see some other communities don't have as professional of a board as we have um one up north you have assault charges

173ones board members so we haven't gotten to that we yeah yeah yeah I want to thank uh Miss day you are fantastic you're tireless you're professional you're there when need you uh yet to have an issue that you have not able been able to direct me to and give me guidance I appreciate that 100% Dr woda sta fantastic appreciate everything you do uh you've been there tireless working Dr Edwards you've done you have a difficult job very difficult job and I've said it many times before uh I think in the corporate world you but I won't say that too much you know what I'm talking about I don't want Mr Edwards to hear me and Miss Pew you are fantastic thank you I owe you an apology because if you maybe you don't remember but

174I have not forgotten my first board meeting at EC glass in my nature I get aggressive and I was too aggressive with you on something with respect to some books and I want to apologize for that because I was a aggressive with Dr Edwards and I apologize but I've never had a chance to apologize to you for that thank you and I don't forget and you deserve better treatment you are a consumate professional and I am constantly amazed at your depth of knowledge of the school system your ability to address difficult questions with poise yes and professionalism and you are truly an asset to not only our school system but our city thank you and you deserve far more accolades than you ever get and I want to make sure that I say that personally

175for person from me to you you are fantastic and very good school board system um and a very good staff Dr Edwards and I commend you for organizing it and leading it a lot of work to do it's a difficult school system to do what you do all of you do and as Miss Preston said you do not know how challenging your job is your job is your job is your job until you see you guys in in action and working hard and see I don't have to walk in your shoes fortunately but I see what you guys have to go through and then as you all know and thank you for the minutes matter and they do matter to me I'm very uh guarded with my time but I'll say for everyone on the

176school board and your school system the children matter and you just take if the school uh staff if you if the public could walk through the schools and see how much our staff your staff our city staff care about the children um you'd want to give them raises beyond what we're able to give because they truly care and it's one of the most uh fulfilling things that I've done has had the opportunity to go to the schools hav't had a chance to go to all of them and I but it's so fulfilling to go and interact with the children it it really fills your heart um I hope I'm able to still do that after him off the board but uh thank you again thank you for your friendship thank you for tolerating my uh

177you know aggression when I come in sometimes I'm coming off a a a deposition or what have you and I'm hot um but thank you again and and U I look forward to continuing our friendships in the future I was just going to tell Miss Pew Mrs Pew he's is's a Tor he's a lawyer who knows the T Tor law so pain and suffering for 3 years doesn't go just with an apology they should be a big fat check coming thank you so much and apology accepted I don't remember it but apology accepted I'll take the check on your behalf if you I remember and kept it in my mind for all these years I appreciate it absolutely wonderful work thank you Mr Andrews uh thanks to all the groundskeepers mechanics maintenance personnel custodial staff

178for everything that they do the award ceremony was amazing just to see those people get recognized for all the years of service that they provide and just being behind the scenes they don't really get the credit that they deserve um shout out to lra McQueen for her new role as the executive director of Beacon of Hope um she has some big shoes to fill with Laura Hamilton leaving but uh if I know leer she's up for the task um and then last but not least thank you to Miss Cruz Miss Campbell and Miss Bennett for their leadership with the Vision literacy plan you've been talking about closing the achievement gap for a while now I think this is I think we're on the path to do that so thank you for their leadership and then

179of course thank you Miss Pew for your leadership as well so yeah Mr J so many comments need to be emphasized and repeated I I've really enjoyed hearing all these um great commendations and and I just I'm I'm impressed with the board I've had a great you're here with the uh these two especially that are leaving I'm thankful for their Fellowship I'm thankful for their insights and um composure very professional that's for certain and uh just uh I do like Randy said look forward to seeing you in the future and um I'd like to uh pck you back on the retirement uh of some people um specifically Nancy hunt 38 years reti ing wanted to mention her and uh Jennifer Mariner 40 years LCS it's tremendous there's another one uh from a different situation U

180like to thank Miss sprinkle for two decades over two decades of work and I don't know the details of all the different ones that are leaving LCS and going off um from the different schools but uh thankful for their time here and their work here uh the ones that serve well and uh I just noticed that there were a couple people in HR report that decided to withdraw their move out and I thought that was great may may more of those happen uh so there's so many more things that can be said but I'm thankful for those things especially today and congratulations to all those who succeeded in keeping the grounds in excellent condition and getting those awards today thank you last one is mine I think we thanked everybody the graduation went very well

181so Dr Edwards please convey a sincere thank you for all the people who work in the back you don't see them you know camera people ground screw picking up chairs making sure LPD they were it's a team effort for graduation so it went very well and I appreciate everything and I was thinking back Elementary School graduations you know every school had a graduation I hope you had a chance to visit some of them and Randy all miss you and Dr Carter I don't know if you know Dr Carter I've known her before U I came I was her dissertation chair so dissertation mean she she did learn something in writing that dissertation so uh and Randy has given me his conference room in his building so I'm going to go use that uh glass classroom

182so thank you very much Dr warka Mrs James Miss day you're you're wonderful um nothing can happen without you means she's on my uh speed dial for cell phone and she always picks up you know lot of people don't pick up your phone but she does pick up all the time so and thank you Dr Edwards for everything you have done so we now uh move into the informational items uh discipline committee meeting Thursday June 6th special school board meeting June 6th at 5 p.m. finance and Facilities uh Thursday June 13th at 3:30 p.m. next School board work session is June 18th at 5:00 p.m. ad hoc discipline committee uh discipline policy Review Committee is June 27th uh next School Board um meeting June 9th at 5:00 p.m. and I need to talk uh we'll

183discuss it you and I talked about maybe July second so we'll come back see if we want to keep it on 9th or move it to 2 so next item is q1 not notice of uh Clos meeting see if I can read it light uh right so I don't violate any procedures person to the code of Virginia 2.2 3711 A1 the School Board needs to convene a closed meeting for the purpose of discussing the following specific matters the superintendent's evaluation is there a motion to go into the close session motion second Mr depal Dr Carter Madam clerk would you please call the RO Mr jio yes Mr Andrews yes Mr trust yes Dr day yes Dr go yes Dr Carter yes Mrs Preston yes Mr depal yes Mrs Lori yes motion carries now close session

184now we go upstairs or stay here can we stay here stay here hope is here yeah for