001[Music] meeting is called to order and Dr D pledge of please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance i al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands Nation God indivisible withy and jusice for all thank you Dr D next item is agenda approval before we go to that I have attorney towns attorney towns in light of the potential litigation could we talk about the facilities master plan follow up as recommended by the superintendent yes the board can continue to address the facility's master plan the filing of a appeal right now has no legal effect on the board and its decision until a a judge addresses the matter so if the board wishes to address the master facilities plan in scenario 3 uh there is no legal
002ban to proceed meeting with tonight's agenda on that topic so what I'm hearing from you is we can go ahead and move yes any decision discussions or decision making that you all uh would like to make so motion to approve the agenda Mr chairman yes I would like to um make a final U motion for the rest of the year because I'm learning best practices as a school board member I would like to motion to resend scenario 3 from our September 19th board meeting and I make a motion to do so so you're motioning to amend the agenda well that wasn't a motion to amend the agenda that was an aemotion to take action on resending a previous we cannot this is for agenda yeah so I think properly his motion should wait till we've
003resolved the agenda and then we give him the floor back after the agenda is set and he can make his motion let's give him an you would like to amend the agenda or would you like to what Dr Day said is fine you like to discuss in the end we want to give him the floor after we've amended the agenda for him to make his motion so I move forward with the so I believe his motion would be to amend the agenda at this point yeah oh I did I didn't s that no I did he didn't say that but I think that's his intent so you want to put an item into the agenda to discuss that is that what you're trying want that particular item yes right there's a motion to amend the
004agenda would you state your motion to the clerk please so she can write it down yes I would like to amend the agenda by putting forth a motion to resend our September 19th vote concerning scenario 3 the motion will require a second since there's no second it appears Dr day am I the motion amendment I have not heard a second yes a motion dies we move on to the main motion go ahead I would like to make a motion um because uh our closed meeting later in the agenda involves uh a couple of attorneys uh who will be joining us by Zoom we would like to establish a a Time by which we come to that point of an agenda so we don't sit leave them sitting in their offices for a long period so
005I would like to that the technical form of this motion is to uh make item G of our agenda which is the closed session to make it um what's called a special order for 8:00 or whenever the preceding item G is complete but all that means is that if we get if 8:00 comes before we get to item H the closed meeting we will suspend what we're doing go have our closed meeting when the closed meeting is over we come back and we pick up our agenda where we left off that that's the effect of the motion I'm making out of courtesy and respect for theate your motion to the cler so Tech so here's the short version make item H the closed meeting a special order for 8:00 or or when item G is
006complete whichever comes first reir is there a second to them second any discussion so to me what you're saying is it's a fiscally prudent idea because the attorney's clock will start at 8:00 so we got to see them 88 if we take longer then we're paying them money we're paying them to sit waiting for us waiting for us okay any other discussion Madame clerk would you please call Mr jilo yes Mr Andrews yes Mr Char yes Dr day yes Dr gter yes Dr Carter yes Mrs Preston yes Mr depal yes Mrs Lori yes motion carries are we back to the uh main agenda is there a motion to approve the agenda motion second Mr depal Dr day just may I comment um according to Robert's Rules when an agenda contains a special order order which
007ours now does approval requires a 2/3 vote thank you any other discussion on the agenda Madame Clark would you please call the RO Mr jilo no Mr Andrews yes Mr TR yes Dr day yes Dr Guta yes Dr Carter yes Mr depal yes M Lor yes Mo c m Preston I'm sorry Preston my my apolog do we have two3 votes ma'am yes you do the agenda is approved the next is the chair comments uh you know I just wanted to say that uh when we started this Academic Year we started to have an academic success committee and the purpose is to work on achievement Gap and reducing the learning loss our kids have encountered as part of pandemic and I hope this board will here on focus on those two things to make sure with
008Governor yunin all in money we are going to get now we are laser focused on achieving uh that we reduce that achievement Gap and work on rebuilding the learning loss these kids otherwise we'll have a whole bunch of gener not one generation multiple Generations lost so there's a big ask on the members of the academic success committee to make sure that you bring to the board and to the superintendent a a solid plan so that we can move forward we have talked about for years and Mr McCain I don't know if he's in the audience today or not he will vouch for that and we got to work on it seriously with action oriented plan and I'll yield my time to Mr TR you get well that is actually I think everybody on this board
009has that as a a very important uh goal it's one of it's my one of my top goals is to close the achievement Gap along those lines I would I would ask that the uh academic committee reach out to some of the community members certainly we have community members here that have really re um shown themselves for commit being committed to their schools I'd like to see that same type of involvement and commitment to closing the achievement Gap or addressing the achievement Gap issue Danny McCain I've reached out to him I've worked with him and some of his colleagues for since I've been on the school board um in addressing that matter and I've reached out to him and he is more than willing to be a uh a whether it's a associate member of
010honorary member contributing um person from the community to helping the academic committee uh address that matter um he did undergo a medical procedure on Monday I wish him well with that but he is more than willing to get out there as our other community leaders that we've had at my office meeting from time to time so please reach out um I will uh give you the information to contact these individuals and lean on these community members that are more than willing to get out there and help us address that matter because it's important to them it's important to us and it should be important to our whole city because it's a big deal so thank you Mr Tross I'll yield rest of the time to Dr Dave because we have some uh Robert's Rule issues
011so a refresher on Robert's Rule for the board go ahead D so um there have been some has been some confusion and missteps in some of our recent meetings and the chair has asked me to clarify some aspects of our parliamentary procedures um our procedures are specified in our various policies which constitute our bylaws all available on boarddocs one of those policies in particular bdde EZ specifies that in the absence of any specific bylaw of the linsburg City School Board the current version of Robert's Rules of Order shall be considered the authority on parliamentary law the current version of Robert's Rules of Order newly revised 12th edition is that reference which by our bys we turn to when we don't have specific directions in in the bylaws that you find on board dos um now
012um I'm going to go over a number of topics that have come up recently where there have been some issue about that um I will provide the clerk with a text version of what I'm reading here so that it's available for anyone who wants to to review it um and I'll include citations to the particular paragraphs and chapters and Robert's rules in that document if you want I'm if you want to follow up uh let me say that I am not a trained parliamentarian I'm just doing the best I can to clarify the policies and rules as I understand them and I'm welcome to be corrected if I misinterpreted anything the first thing I want to address is something that I think I have been guilty of more than anyone else um we need as
013board members we each need to wait until we are recognized by the chair before we speak um only one person has the floor at a time I know I have been guilty of that jumping in and responding to somebody when I should not have I should have waited to be recognized by the chair uh this is explicitly stated in Robert rules as is the rule that our comments should be addressed to the chair not to each other uh the reason for that is to prevent us getting into kind of a verbal free-for-all here or a couple individuals going back and forth at each other it's to maintain uh an attitude of decorum and order so uh the next topic I want to say something about is the issue of a quorum um without a a
014quorum no business can be transacted and by our policy B DDD a quorum of the board is a majority now in this context the word majority means more than half on an eight member board four is not a majority it takes more than half to be a majority uh for committees we our bylaws do not specify what a quorum is but um according to Robert's Rule r s when the bylaws do not specify a quorum the Quorum is a majority so a quorum for committees is a majority as well since by our policy bcz the board chair is an ex official member of all committees the chair is not counted when determining the number of members required for a quum or whether a quorum is present or not so for example for a committee of
015three plus the chair as an ex official member the Quorum required is still two members present to reach a quorum if you counted the if you counted the ex official member that would make it a four member committee which more than two would be required for a quum but Roberts rules says explicitly when the chair is an ex official member of all committees which are by law specify you don't count him in determining the number of members required for a quorum um next remote participants are not to be part of the Quorum necessary to call a meeting to order because until the board or committee can conduct business it cannot consider and approve a motion to allow remote participation as required by our policy bdd the only exception to that is if the governor has
016declared a state of emergency um so for example at a meeting of a committee with three members if there's only one member physically present a second waiting for approval to participate electronically and a third not present Quorum is not present okay there need to be at least two members of a three- member committee physically present to declare a quorum um so a call to order under those circumstances I just described in that example would be invalid um and I I neglected to say at the beginning that um if you're listening to what I'm saying and you realize that you or your committee has violated some of these um guidelines my purpose is not to call anyone else or or criticize anyone for honest mistakes or misunderstandings I'm just trying to clarify what the applicable rules
017to us are to prevent us from crossing the lines in the future um next item to address is adding items to an agenda our board meeting agenda are set a week in advance in an agenda preparation meeting which consists of the chair Vice chair superintendent and relevant staff so if you want something on the agenda for an upcoming meeting you should ask the chair at least a week in advance sometimes the agenda is full with time critical things which should not be delayed so the chair may need to put your item on the agenda for a later meeting also realize that our policy baz gives the chair final authority over the prepared agenda he may deny your request if he feels it is inappropriate in some way however baz also says that a meeting's agenda
018is subject to Amendment and adoption according to the procedures in Robert's Rules of Order once the motion to approve the agenda is made at the beginning of a meeting and seconded but before the motion to approve is voted on um a member may move to amend the agenda understand um that unless there's a reason the desired change could not be discussed with the chair in advance such a motion though legal could be viewed as a hostile act by the chair um such changes require only a majority vote to be approved after there has been a vote to approve the agenda then motions to change the agenda require a 2third vote an exception is a special meeting called under our policy B DB and we've had just one such meeting this year that was our meeting
019on October 6th for those meetings called specifically under that policy unanimous consent of members present is required to add business beyond that which was stated in the call for the meeting um next topic is votes and abstentions as I've said before majority means more than half 2third means at least 2/3 not more than 2third both of these are explicitly stated in Robert's Rules so for example a vote of four in favor and four against fails because that does not achieve a majority it's not more than half it's exactly equal to half a vote of two four and one against passes if the vote requires 2/3 because that's exactly 2/3 exactly 2/3 passes a 2/3 vote um with unless there's a special rule prescribing otherwise and we don't have any such in our bylaws the proportion
020of votes that must concur with a motion such as majority or 23s is always based on the number of members present and voting abstentions are not counted in the number of members present and voting so for example if our nine-member board held a vote with four votes for yes three votes for no and two extensions that's only seven members voting it requires a majority of the seven members four would qualify even though four is a is less than than the the the number of members on the board as a whole so if you abstain you should realize that you may be lowering the threshold for the motion to pass um and then the last topic I wanted to address is the election and change of committee chairs the chair of a committee is responsible for
021communicating with the clerk about meeting dates times agenda as well as uh uh presiding over the meeting itself so if the chair expects to be absent they should arrange for someone to Pride over the meeting in their absence and of course their absence uh will make it more difficult to achieve a quorum as well um according to our policies BCA and BCB the board chair and vice here are elected and serve one-year terms um and by bcz the board chair appoints all members to Committees of the board but we have no policy that prescribes how committees are to choose their chairs our practice in the past has been that each committee elects its chair among its members and there is a prescription in Robert's Rules where there's sort of a customary procedure like that that's
022not written into to the bylaws there should be a majority vote of the board to to deviate from it um in committee meetings subsequent to the one where the board chair is elected a motion to resend the vote to elect the chair can be made any member can make the motion and if seconded a majority vote is sufficient to adopt the motion to resend the previous election of chairs and again I I think I need to say there's a difference between a motion to resend and a motion to reconsider they're different they apply in different situations and the motion to reconsider or motion uh to reconsider has some different rules when applied in a small committee than it does when applied in the full board so if you want the details of that again you're
023going to have to go to Robert's Rules and the very last thing that I wanted to say is the appointing authority for a committee which is the board chair in our case has the power to remove or replace committee members that's the end of my comments about the vote Yes no not this time how the voting should be well if if you're voting there's there's there's three responses you can say yes or in favor no or abstain and people need to make their response clear so it's not misunderstood thank you Dr day we move on to the next item E1 50 voices 50 state grants okay good GNA ask that Dr Ro um and Miss Wilkins and Miss Carson from EC glass join us um they were the recipients of the 50 boes 508 Grant
024of $10,000 um and they're here to briefly talk about the Grant and answer any questions that the school board may have so we welcome you welcome thank you good afternoon good evening chair Vice chair Dr Edwards members of the school board um we're here to share uh because of the amount of the grant we want to propose it and put it before the board for approval for the 50 voices 50 states Grant um awarded or EC Glass St was selected last year um the the amount of $10,000 so there are three main project areas within the $10,000 GSA Grant budget submitted for approval the first area is area is funds for General Club activities snacks t-shirts Flags awareness days Club field trips and Club fundraisers this area is just to help the club which has
025existed in one form or another at EC glass since 2005 to operate more activities these activities include trips to museums sponsoring ad door decorating contest and hosting an intra club party at EC glass the second area is a safe space or quiet room at EC glass for all students who need a break in class need to outreach about a bullying situation or have sensory overload and need to reset many schools within LCS already have such rooms and they have been shown to promote student self- regulation and are correlated to better student outcomes the students selected this project due to the higher rate of bullying that the lgbtqia plus community experiences but the entire school would be welcomed and encouraged to use the room the budget for the room includes flex flexible seating interactive sensory devices
026non-intrusive lighting and white noise machines the final area is another schoolwide project that we hope will minimize time away from instruction and embarrassment for students who menstrate currently if students need to get menstrual products they have to go go to the school nurse which is three floors away from some classes and has a large potential for accidents our students want to purchase two free menstrual product dispensers to put in bathrooms in different areas of the school and enough products to keep them stock throughout the school year so that students can access these necessary supplies without walking the length of the building as we hope this budget demonstrates that you should have the students of the EC glass GSA selected projects did not not only benefit themselves as a club but also to build stronger mental
027health supports meet more physical needs and build a stronger strength sense of community at EC glass I have Miss Carson and Miss Wilkins here that might be able to answer any questions as they worked with the GSA Club to submit the gr or help do hand it to you if you have any questions okay I have some questions um is the concern would you say primarily about bullying is that is that the primary motive do you think for the the safe room in particular um it was what brought it to our students attention but the quiet rooms and safe space rooms um have multiple functions in schools um a lot some students with on the autism spectrum or who simply have uh self-regulation issues in general have it written in their IEPs or 504 plans
028that they have a place like this to go to and currently EC glass does not have one and if I can step into I've had students where that is a part of their IEP um and it's been difficult to find a place um where they're able to have one place that they can go at any time if they need a break it wouldn't be something where somebody would stay in there for a whole class period or anything like that um but I have students where it is in their IEP that they can take a f minute break or a 10-minute break when they're feeling overwhelmed and right now what they have to do is they have to go to their resource teacher um and that's not always necessarily a space where there's already probably a
029class in there or that resarch resource teacher might be co- teing another class and so there isn't that space that is one place to go um they get kind of shuffled around so so would this be different than I guess what I'd call a student lounge um it would have more like sensory um and like uh we've had like senior lounges before and they were just areas that had um it's a hangout Place yeah something along those lines this would be more intentional and it would have um um things specifically for like uh sensory like if you if you look at the budget there are things that for like white noise machine right yeah the the um headphones that are for um um blocking out um uh all kinds of noises that are distracting um
030uh there are some kind of different kinds of seating that are um shown to help some students so just uh more intentional in terms of needs um I saw a web page that described these grants from the same granting agency in general that described also including uh donations of books to the library is that part of this grant as well so originally we had put that into the grant but we've taken that out um it is something that any you know written resources that we would have in the safe room would be something that um we would get from LCS or things like that anti-bullying kind of information um it's not something where we're putting in our own written resources Mr um with the uh the room and its structure um is it sequestered is
031it somehow um um if it is somehow segregated or sequestered from Main population who is going to be or what is the part of the budget that's going to be dedicated to having it supervised so we haven't um discussed exactly which room um is going to it is going to be um but uh I have envisioned it as being one of the ones near guidance um and um uh there also that's very near a lot of the special education teachers rooms and so we would have to kind of discuss what the exact coverage for that room would be um but we would definitely have coverage for that room it would not be just a a hangout and um that I just see you know absolutely absolutely and there's going to be expensive expensive equipment in
032in there as well that we would you know want monitored as well so in light of what he's saying would the door have a lock on it so it's only used when it needs to be used um as far as I'm aware all the doors have locks on them so it would have a lock on it yes and would it be used for restraining people who are violent no that's a different level of that's a different so because I'm saying if if everybody's out of the in the room you need to restrain this person you need a space would you use that space during the school day I think if we had a student who needed to calm down but I don't necessarily I wouldn't term that to be a restraint but if you had
033somebody who was you know and I've had students in my class where um today's just a bad day and they need you know they're they're ready to you know go off you know um and they need that time just to kind of be quiet uh listen to some music uh compose themselves and it's really something where we intend that to be something where they can learn those coping skills um so it would be something where we give them the space to be able to do that for themselves um but I this is more of a a proactive approach to students um who might um become violent uh um and uh hoping that we can get them here get them into a self-regulation mode and then can go back to class and um have worked out
034um whatever issue that was and if it's something that's deeper than that then um you know they can go to the guance counselor they can go to their administrator um uh and that kind of thing so so this will be only used during the day it will be used after school that's it should just be during the day yeah only during the day this room would be used okay other discussion I have another question Mr let Mr TR okay um you and I'm asking this because the the club the group that uh achieved the grant or was awarded the brand and the name of that group is the genders and sexualities Alliance all right what type of branding if any would you associate that group having within this within this room the only thing that
035has to be because the that goes with the grant is that we have to put the it gets better project on things that they like so we have to put like it gets better project tell me about that project I'm not familiar with it so um when there in the around the 2012 area when there were it seems like just kind of a rash of suicides of um um I'm sorry I was teaching um of gay children um and teenagers um SE several celebrity um uh people kind of made a foundation and they started making videos just called it gets better just just like if you if you can grow up if you can if you can get there you know if you can just live through what you're experiencing now it gets better and
036they start making those videos and so what this uh Grant then what this project is is just um them trying to initiate that in in reality so you know um this is the I think um maybe the second year that they've awarded grants so I just want to make sure I'm clear the grant mandates that you have this branding with this particular group somewhere in the room somewhere in the rooms it can be on it can be I'm sorry um it can be on the outside of the you know on the like door sign or whatever but some way yeah even just a sign that says you know and as the GS say we'd like to put like sponsored by the GSA and sponsored by um the it gets better project but it's intended to
037be an anti-suicide um you know prevention group um and so they have videos on their on their website that are people talking about that their struggles with depression um and how now that they're grown up their life is great um and you know it is about getting through that and realizing that if you don't grow up things can't get better um and I think that's a fantastic what you've described to me sounds it's obviously a very honorable uh thing to try to help and students and but this is where I'm going with my line of questioning and I think it's probably apparent I am concerned about the prent and in my world it's called the slippery slope if we have a room that is branded or associated with a particular group we just opened up
038the door to all kinds of other groups saying hey what about me what about me and you can use your imagination as to different groups that are going to say hey what about me so I'm concerned about that slippery slope that we could be going down that is the concern I have with this whole idea of branding so I that's something I really want to explore I'd like maybe you guys to help me with that if possible because the last thing I want to do is have a line of different groups whe and who knows what they could be standing for or their proposition that they want to advance their cause and you can use your imagination for that well I don't but wait I'm not finished speaking but if we can make sure we
039avoid that type of issue I think I mean what you want to do from a theoretical standpoint is fantastic I don't want to go down that slippery slope and then we have a whole another set of issues issues that we have to deal with and you and you know you see where I'm going go ahead of course um I think go ahead I was going to share too I think that's why we have the procedures and protocols to come before the board at certain levels of funding um it has to come through our Administration as well has to be in alignment with LCS every child by name and need to graduation Beyond so there's a number of procedures and safeguards to help I certainly hear what you're saying but I I believe wholeheartedly I wouldn't
040have brought it before the board if I didn't think it followed in line with the every child by name and need the graduation and Beyond so I appreciate that but if I'm hearing about branding and I'm hearing that we have to have it's mandated or a stipulation of this grant there has to be some branding to this room and I'm saying branding maybe not the right term but you understand what I'm talking about that gives me a pause for concern because the last thing I want to do is have some other groups in there that who knows what they may come from and because we're a public in and we did it for one we got to do it for all that's the issue I need to address um go ahead I think of this
041the same way like outside of EC glass there are bricks on the on the floor and making a little wall that people paid for um that say you know the Smith family and things like that um that it's very similar to that they're going to give us this money to do this I understand about branding but I I think of it on the same level we already have some things within the school that are I don't want to say branded but that have where that money came from um and so you know I understand that we don't want to be putting this as an advertising opportunity um but I think of it the same way that if somebody donated a bench you put a little tag on there that says donated by you know a
042different Club maybe it's the uh Christian athletes donated a a bench right and they can put Christian athletes on there um and to me it feels equivalent um though please tell me if I'm well the issue is what you now that you brought it up if it becomes a problem guess what goes the bench because we're not going to allow the Neo-Nazi group to put a bench out there so by bringing that up I mean you're addressing it and you're right but as soon as we start advertising this stuff then we got as a board as a school system have to address it and we have to get rid of it all though I will say as Dr R said uh there is a procedure to V who gets to put things out um and
043so this is where we are asking you to vet this is a a great organization they've done a lot of good things to help people um and so if it I would hope that if somebody like a Neo-Nazi group came and tried to put something in the school um I know that we would say no to that AB um and so that's something where I think we can distinguish between those things and that's why we're asking um you know for your approval here so that we can have that vetting that happens Mr Jal is there I would say it's a popular organization not a great organization but when you said it was U concerning the years of 2012 it was founded in 2010 by a sex journalist and this gentleman was someone who counseled teens
044through his writings on a consistent basis and it developed more and more and more and became a very popular um uh Journal that he he put together well he did that for a good reason reasons because people were dying and whatnot but there are many organizations that support children who want to self harm well this gentleman who did that in 2010 also in 2011 said he wished all Republicans were dead and it was he did that on Bill mayor's show it's very public you can look it up and in 2011 the same year he snuck into the Iowa Republican caucuses and pretended to be a member or a citizen of that state and voted he was caught he was put on probation for a year find and and more so there's a political leaning to
045this organization which it looks like it has more names 50 states 50 grants it definitely is the uh it gets better program which he founded and I'm concerned because of his harsh statements and his extreme political leanings that it is really going to enter that into the LCS framework as being this is something that is per a permanent fixture here because of the money because of it's intending to do some good but there are many organizations that you can look up and you can add and help that doesn't have this labeling or branding of such a Firebrand for those political ideological parts of of of U his work um so that's why I think it's a popular program but not a great one I mean he's not associated with the board right now of the
046the granting project this is a new thing um his sex journalist is is one thing you know but not being associated with something he founded you can't get away from it you really can't it's it's the history you look it up it's our and I don't want to bring this up but he's Pro pornography about once a year he has a film festival that he promotes and that's very bad to he gets away with it because they have a bunch of amateurs to produce this material and then they delete it the same week so it's okay it's not good I I don't like any association with pornography with with our school systems Dr D I think sorry go ahead sorry um I think also what can be hard is whenever we have a a person
047who founds an organization people are multifaceted um you know he's also a comedian some of those things that were said they were talking about were said injust um it is something where obviously what we are FOC focusing on is this um it gets better project which does not have him on the board anymore um it is something where obviously he was involved in founding this um but it is something where you know this particular group is focused on schools not really associated with him anymore um even though he do he was a part of its foundation um but you know there are plenty of things where somebody found did something and then it changes over time um and so this particular uh Grant is focused just on schools um focused not connected to any of
048those other uh projects that he's doing and what has to be placed in the room or somewhere what's the slogan or saying just it gets better it gets better okay and the other thing is this is open to just certain students or any student that's in need of arrit all students all students okay and we know that the Nobel Peace Prize was done by the man that invented dynamite and also I know that those Constitution brochures that we put out had the was the backing of a right-wing truly conservative group but that label went on those constitutions that we passed out and I just say if we can put it gets better and I know that so many students are struggling with bullying and just some of the things that years ago your parents would
049say sticks and stones will break your bones but words will never hurt you words do hurt and students now are looking for anything that they can and we want to see if it gets better saying I don't see anything wrong with that and just a place for rest bit would be great and now as for the doors and locks and all of that how will that work just so if I'm a student and I really need a break what would I need to do we we have some Logistics to work out on the details on how to but like as shared no student will be unsupervised and we have to make sure that whatever is purchased should have be approved is is does not wander and walk away from us as well and is this
050the founder or whatever is his face going to be posted everywhere or any of it we're just going to have probably one sign that says it gets better and GSA on it just to say this is this is who's sponsoring this room um but there's not really going to be any more than that everything that we're buying for the room is in the grant so there's not you know we haven't put any posters in there we I mean maybe we do need a little bit of decorating but um but we haven't put any kind of other materials as far as people's faces going up or anything like that just just one comment um I think that um the key to all of this is the advertising that you do the great majority of students that
051are going to have difficulty are have going to have no notion about all these things that we just discussed so if the positive elements of of the project are the ones that they know and understand that's going to make all of the difference if there's a safe place for them to go if there's a place they feel like they're being heard and and and and understood it's just that we whoever that is we just have to be very careful that because there isn't anybody who hasn't done something wrong well most people have not have done something wrong at some point in their lives but the point is if we emphasize the positive impacts of what it is that you're trying um to achieve I think that's that's going to be key to to doing that
052that's not an easy thing to do certainly but that's that's going to happen have to be what is the deciding Point Dr D go ahead so I wanted to ask a question I think that puts a point on the issue that Mr truss was Raising um so the issue of gender identity is a very contentious one in our society today and even within Lynchberg um I think there's a very wide range of convictions on those and related topics held by the families of our students um my attitude toward this and other contentious topics like religion or politics is that the school system tries needs to try to steer a middle course our Ed our point is to educate people not to push their convictions one way or the other um to respect the diversity of
053opin opinions and not Advocate one perspective over another or make those who hold any one set of convictions feel that they are disfavored now certainly um lgbtq students have been uh the subject of ridicule and abuse and bullying but I think also students who hold very traditional attitudes towards sexual issues are have also been the subject of abuse and bullying because they are in many places in a minority position so my question would be if there's a student whose convictions based on their upbringing perhaps their religious convictions are very traditional and they feel bullied or pressured by um those supporting uh the positions of the lgbtq community will be they feel comfortable in this room everyone is going to be welcome and it is I couldn't quite hear you oh sorry everyone is going to
054be welcome in this room and it is intended for everyone in the school to be able to use it regardless of their beliefs um it is something where you know absolutely if they wanted to come in um they would be welcome to do so um if for some reason they felt some kind of apprehension um about going into a room that said lgbtq IIA on the door um that is something that you know we would have a discussion about it's the same where where there are plenty of resources that are sponsored by Churches or sponsored by those things that doesn't necessarily mean that the resource itself um isn't going to be neutral they come from a variety of places um and so this is the same thing if we had a student who felt you
055know perhaps like this was something that uh they didn't agree with um they still would be welcome to use the whatever facilities are there it's really meant for everyone I'm sorry go ahead well I was going to say I might so I'm getting at this issue of branding um so I noticed on the budget sheet that um Dr Ru presented to us one of the items is an LGBT qia a plus History Month infographic poster set so if there's posters of that type in the room and a student comes from a very traditional moral upbringing family background um are they going to feel comfortable going in there to get away from the bullying and pressure that they feel and yet see another uh sign that's advocating the very element they feel is pressuring them those
056are actually not for the room uh but go ahead go ahead yeah the budget has um next to it there's a column that explains what each item is for and those are not for the actual room it says education and Outreach is that what you mean yeah so the ones that say safe space and quiet room those are the things earmarked for the room okay but those posters are intended for us to be able to share during um lgbtq history month during the school if that is approved and you're all right with it um and that would be something that would you know be a part of the club's Outreach for different uh history days and things like that but they Pro they wouldn't be in the room okay well thank you for responding to
057my concern but I just want to be sure that you are sensitive to um it's it's it's not only the lgbtq community that can feel bullied over these issues it can be the other side of the issues that can also feel bullied Mr truss go ahead again I like the idea I like the concept I agree that it's it's it's a great concept I am I I want to hear some more of the logistics that Dr rules talked about um I'm a little confused in terms of it's open to be used anytime yep we're going to have a lock on the door so I need to know you guys recognize that Logistics there some of them those need to be vetted out I need to hear that um and I also just need to have
058if we can have a plain vanilla room that's a a TR neutral safe space that's what I would need to have um you need to make sure that's the situation for me because I just am concerned about the slippery slope and I don't think we need we have enough issues in terms of trying to address the um the achievement Gap I don't need other distractions from what I really want to do with this on this board um so I like the idea I just wanted to see it a little bit more um cooking done to it if I if I could and then I'm going to need to have some kind of Confirmation and comfort level that we're not going to have to be worried about branding which is going down the slippery slope so
059I I appreciate the fact you guys recognize that um and I just want to hear a little bit more about the logistics um and how you want to accomplish it and really how things are going to be accomplished to make sure that is a safe neutral space for all of the children to do exactly what you want to do so that's that's kind of where I stand also Paul S go ahead once we get it set up you would be welcome to come visit we would love you know I sorry I'm extending that for everyone um but we would love for you to come see it um you know it's something we've worked hard on so we're you know coming visit and we can we can look over it together and that's I think that
060sounds H Mr Paul and Miss um saying we can visit it after it's set up is kind of after the fact of what we're concerned with number one number two uh we along on the list I'm assuming because you presented the list the list is really what the plan is I'm making that assessment there are several there was one that c my attention it would seem more of an elementary uh School a contribution of having fuzzy fuzzy tiles on the floor is that's number one I'm wondering the how that's going to be applicable to uh high school kids the other is you have a punching bag I've boxed for decades and having punching bags around is not something that is um it's good works for me when I'm in the gym and and the ring
061but when it's when it comes down into some place where someone's trying to get away from aggression I don't know having a boxing having a punching bag there someone beaten on is going to help certain people um alleviate their feels feelings of having U Been aggressed So I'm the list that you're presenting I have some concerns with it I'd like to have it cooked down distilled down to have a before you say yeah we got it set up you can come visit so be yeah that's these are questions that need to be addressed before we we you set it up sorry and and my question is how will you set this up in your um like your handbook so students know and understand the concept that they have questions things like that so that nobody
062goes in and tries to break the rules so to speak we definitely have models I mean there are other schools in LCS that are already using these rooms so we have models to use already um and so this is not we didn't we didn't create this this idea so we can definitely look and see how to see what's already there and adapt it for what will fit best ECG size and number of students and those kinds of things so um it just the the exact Logistics would depend on like who's available in in guidance or in special education or you know in those kinds of things for Duty periods or those kinds of things that's that's why we can't give you particulars on that one that particular idea yet um the I mean of course
063doct rule would have exact say over what goes in the the room in terms of like a punching bag um those kinds of things um but I you know the reason that I that I put that there was uh that there are kids who have a tendency towards self-destruction and having an outlet that uh that is not themselves or EC glass property uh that is not built for that um as long as it's supervised um and appropriately used um seems like a far better use of of space and and resources how would you roll this out to the student body so um primarily the the I think the way that it has been done in previous places is that it's um in steps so like the children who are identified through um like the PBIS
064system is having the most needs um would kind of be kind of the how you first kind of Step use this and then um as as it you know goes down the line um students begin to ask to use the room um as they as as we kind of you know get a system going and figure out like um can it be included in e-hall pass who's responsible for looking at it when during which period and that kind of thing um that those are the kind of logistics that so it'll only be used and again just during the day it won't be used for organizations after school okay Mr Andrews also sorry um it would be something where we already have some students who have uh breaks built into their IEPs so those probably be
065students that we would roll it out to first um because they were already identified as students that that need this um also I just wanted to clarify about inviting yall um it was something where that is just uh so you could see the if there were any branding for yourself um it wasn't meant to be presumptuous um about setting up this room um but it's something where you know we want you to be able to see what we've done once we are able to do it um but obviously we know that we have to work that out with you first Mr and I know you guys things to work out but I like the idea I support it my my daughter um had thoughts of hurting herself so anytime we can have a room like
066this where people feel safe they can go to um be able to converse with somebody to share their thoughts on without doing that I think it's a good thing so I'm all about it and uh you know appreciate you coming I think every board member had spoken on this um my understanding there's no vote required uh and just wanted to make one line and I go to Dr you go ahead you say Dr what you going to say because I like the idea that a suicide prevention so that should be your main uh it's not you're not trying to make it excl I saw your letter Dr rule where you use a l in capital right so I'm hoping that you'll be standing by your word that room is for all all students it's not
067branded towards a particular group is that the correct assumption that's correct cuz you had the AL multiple times in your letter in the Caps so go ahead Mr don't forget that they they're adding the menstral product dispensers and the GSA field trips and activities so that will I guess have to integrate with the curriculum and activities and whatnot are you aware just are you aware of the controversy with the dispensaries and other school systems you thefts and different things like that can you expand a little bit yeah they're pulled off of different places that they were put up into in stalls and places and you know trashed and of course that causes controversy investigation all those types of things because the dispensaries are things added to the school system not necessarily like you said not
068the property a punching bag is not the property of LCS neither would these things that be that you're adding more than likely and then um I mean we're donating tog like that would be like the idea right you would donate the punching bag too yes yeah every anything received by a grant with need okay product so is there a study that actually confirms that that's a good practice for alleviating Stress and Anxiety and aggression among students for instance yes we can look up citations but I will say allowing students to have a healthy outlet that is not themselves or other students is something that um has been proven but I I don't have citations on me but I'm happy to look them up if you'd like to if You' like to send that to you
069and those products Dr Ed what is the next step in this process so just wanted to thank you all for being here and give them the opportunity to um provide information and answer questions I do want to confirm that yes we do have other rooms and other schools in this Division and other divisions and places where I've worked they've called chill rooms calm down rooms safe spaces um some are named after the mascots for the schools to do exactly what um you all have presented here as far as age appropriateness um because they are sensory based and because they are for all students and for some of our students um the fuzzy things may work um and places where I've even seen where they've had padded walls because we have students who need a safe
070place just to scream and if you're a teacher and you've had that you know what that's like when you're trying to teach and you have a student who cannot necessarily regulate that having a place to go um the aggression you all have said on discipline committees you know that aggression is real and young people are very different than older people we we tend to be able to moderate that a little bit better but when you're young and you're developing and you're trying to understand yourself um it is a good idea to have a place to say this is an appropriate place for punching not the wall not yourself not a classmate not a teacher um and if that helps to in the teaching process to reduce that behavior that is also a good thing uh
071we had it on the agenda for discussion and questions tonight and then and I am recognizing that board members like our children have different levels of processing some of you are be like I'm ready to vote right now um and some of you still have like I need to think about this just let me ponder it and for that reason it is not up for approval tonight it will be back on the November 14th agenda and then um we can work together and get some more detailed information regarding some of the questions you have I will say different schools do different things um especially at the beginning of instituting is sometimes it's an adult that will say hey let's go down to this room and talk and introduce a student to a room some have
072the walkie-talkie thing going on hey cold one I need someone to come and escort little Crystal to the room different things some are staffed each period by a different staff member who really wants to be in there and and work with um children and I'm sure you all will explore what works for EC glass and it might be a combination of those things as well um and we can get that information back to the school board before we meet again in November thank you very much thank you for coming Youk thank you thank you thank [Applause] you do Equity task force advisory committee presid yes our Equity task force um and we do have some Representatives here I do believe Mr Gonzalez is here um and I'm going to ask them to introduce themselves to
073you but this is uh part last year's Equity task force was doing a lot of work um with regard to the model policy and then we had a new group that joined and we had a first meeting in um early October um wonderful turnout about 15 very active individuals so they are here tonight to just kind of give you their thoughts and ideas as they reviewed the model policy our policy and and again this is nothing for um voting but for information and to hear from our new appointed Equity task force which by the way if this is your first time watching the equity task force is an advisory committee for the school board so they are here in their role as advisement and I will turn it over to you all to introduce yourselves
074and present thank you so much and hello board uh my my name is Nicole spangenberg um and I'm a member of the equity task force that'll be presenting today to you if you want to say hi you're welcome to say hi I'm Vicente Gonzalez um and we are excited to go over some of our recommendations for consideration of the big policy the vdo's model policies on ensuring privacy dignity and respect for all students and parents in Virginia's public schools this is the policy that previously was called the model policy for treatment of trans gender students um it just was when it was released most recently that's the name that um it came out with under yunan so our purpose here today is to share some guidance and recommendations based on the policy policy dive we
075completed where we went line by line through the original model policy and LCS policies that seem to correspond um with those State policies today we're going to be identifying and going over three areas of consideration to speak to so that we can maintain the division's current protocols as a relates to the transgender population those areas are sports bathrooms and pronouns we understand that these are not things that will change overnight so we encourage the division to be intentional about addressing issues that arise case-by casee basis um with accountability in place to shift the culture of the division over time for many policies the equity task force feels that the LCS policy is fine as it is um and we do not want to adopt the state's view on some of these issues out of respect
076for our division for our students um yes so this will be a lot of words and we'll also make sure that you all have this PowerPoint after so the first policy we're looking at is in the model policy from the state section 3H for any Athletic program activity separated by sex the appropriate participation of students shall be determined by sex rather than gender or gender identity we shall provide reasonable modifications to this policy only to the extent required by law so in our district and in Virginia we use the vhsl policy um to govern our sport in our schools So currently the vhsl has a transgender policy that's been in place since I believe 2012 which the next slide will show um but so far they have it gender specific and they have a very
077extensive process for a student who identifies as a gender not aligned with their given sex at Birth there's a eight-step process of many different um protocol that that student has to go through again I'll make sure you all have this since it's a longer read we can go to the next slide um the vhsl in response to these model policies announced that they are not changing their policy currently they allow for consideration of participation by trans athletes who have undergone sex reassignment surgery before puberty or who meet other requirements like hormone therapy VHS C's executive director Dr Han said that by staying with the policy they have now is the best way that they can serve all of their student athletes all 37 schools and this has been the policy since 2014 not 2012 like
078I thought um again vhsl is our governing athletic body they already have an extensive process that must be followed to includ include students who want to participate in gender specific sports sports teams um so our recommendation is to continue with our policy of upholding the VHS C they have very extensive procedures as it is and this would keep us keeping in accordance with federal law and promoting diversity next up is bathrooms and we're going to look at the policies here and how they line up from the model State policy policies G3 says that students shall use bathrooms that correspond to his or her sex except to the extent that federal law otherwise requires there's a court case Grim versus Glouchester County School Board that again we will make sure you have access to um the
079policy also States s single use bathrooms and Facilities should be made available in accessible areas with appropriate signage indicating accessibility for all students for LCS policy um we have that single user bathrooms are available in schools I.E nurses offices do next these are a few comparable policies from the areas around um such as Fairfax Maryland and DC um some of these outline policies such as designating any available single stall restroom with a locking door as unisex or gender neutral restroom if a single stall student restroom is not generally available designate a private restroom such as the ones in the health Suites for any student who requests increased privacy for any reason um in DC any student transgender or otherwise who has a need or desire for increased privacy regardless of the reasons has the right
080to use a single user restroom such as staff bathroom or bathroom in a nurse's office however it's key that the single user bathroom is not given as the only option for transgender students just an option so we can go next so for our recommendations here we aside from this being the transgender student policy single St bathrooms are a solution that addresses a lot of needs students with disabilities students with medical needs it focuses on safety accessibility and equity for everybody it supports Federal inclusion laws um as we saw the LCS policy is not clear or thorough in one way or the other when it comes to this there's a difference between offering single use and forcing single use bathroom stalls on a student that's what the Grim court case references there are instances when using
081the restrooms in the nurses office is not always available and we've had had um cases of that discussed you know amongst us in this policy dive um Forest Middle School our neighbors over in Bedford they have added single use bathroom stalls that are available to any student not just to staff no questions asked if it's medical if it's that you feel like you'd be bullied in the gender restrooms any of that making sure that there's an accessible Equitable option for all students so that's what we recommend there next up is policies about pronouns and these are a bit lengthy on screen so again you'll have these um D1 says that every effort should be made to ensure a transgender student wishing to change his or her means of address is treated with respect compassion and
082dignity in the classroom in school environment D2 uh the Personnel shall refer to each student using only the name that appears in the student's official record or using any nickname commonly associated with the name that appears and then that D3 personnel shall refer to each student only using pronouns appropriate to the sex appearing in their official record uh D6 and there's a few others in there um D6 says that non withstanding some of the above policies School Division shall not compel Personnel or other students to address or refer to students in any manner that would violate their constitutionally protected rights the policies that we found in LCS that line up with this there aren't specific policies in LCS currently that address pronouns at all but what we find to be most relevant is our policies
083about character education inappropriateness of bullying harassment hazing intentional energy um and intimidation we have training in place for creating a bully-free environment and there are student record policies about amending records that a parent or eligible student believes are inaccurate Infinite Campus records legal name and sex and nicknames can be listed in Infinite Campus a mouthful there and there's more involved with that so we did notice with these policies that D3 crosses cultural lines as well outside of um thinking about our students that might go by a different name it's vague on what determines which nicknames are commonly associated with the name we wonder and we have concerns about what that means for students who have unique ethnic ethnic names from their country of origin which we do feel is a direct contradiction of the model
084State policy D1 which emphasizes above all respect compassion and dignity uh we do have a concern as well having looked at court cases in other parts of Virginia and the country what would happen if teachers faculty and staff would not honor students rights when it comes to calling them their preferred name they feel it violates their rights if they're assuming they know the reason um so the division would be at a loss here if we're following all of the state's policies here we do think that clarifying definitions of bullying cyber bullying hazing intentional injury and intimidation would be helpful and we recommend that the character education principles extend to staff and faculty as well um this is from the US Department of Education Office for civil rights relevant to these pronoun policies um because we
085need to make sure we're in compliance with federal law we need to make sure we keep our Title 9 funding and that we're complying with furpa so harassing a student based on a student's failure to conform to stereotypical Notions of masculinity or femininity can constitute discrimination on the basis of sex under Title 9 in certain circumstances and schools have a responsibility to protect students against against this harassment um along the lines of bullying which other parts of the policy does address there needs to be an identified process and mediator that comes to the table this could include a team that is multi- disciplined and it should be an option advertised to parents as viable and available so with pronouns what our recommendation is is to focus on a culture of respect right that we focus
086on already outside of this new policy if a child feels respected they're more likely to attend school perform well in academ mics and participate in extracurriculars attendance rates is already a key metric that y'all are watching we want to make sure all our children feel respected and included not just tolerated so making sure each student by name and by need is respected and cared for this in practice looks like you know asking how would you like me to address you and then accepting that answer that we get we all know someone that likes to go by Timmy instead of Timothy someone that would like you to call her Ms instead of Miss um an accountability and is important part part of that culture of respect piece we all have the right to create a culture
087of respect and to honor everyone's First Amendment rights here so we want to thank you for your interest in ensuring a safe learning environment for all students free from all discrimination every school and every school leader has a responsibility to protect all students and ensure every child is respected and can learn in an acceptable environment thankk you you have anything to add to question um and again we'll make sure you have these slides and the policies questions Dr D um as I read the the new model policies one of the things that it talks a lot about particularly about um pronoun use in particular is the role of parents in determining or certifying to the schools what how their child should be addressed you didn't you didn't mention the parents' roles in in those aspects
088of your presentation do you want to say anything about that so um as for the parent aspect and as for needing the parent permission something that the yunan M model policies is rolling back in a way is that the student will have less autonomy in being able to speak for themselves and what their the pronouns they'd like to use for a lot of students school is the only safe space that they have to be themselves and they don't have that safe space at home um and we could get into some statistics about you know more likelihood of depression of isolation of self harm of students being homeless if they are outed to their family who is not an accepting you know space for these I do understand that that means that it's a bit nuanced
089and difficult to have teachers be responsible for student information have staff had faculty um but it is absolutely important that we respect these students above all um the model polic IES from yunan say that you need the parents um written sign off and if it is to be changing their name that it needs to be court documents and that if it is to be addressing the student as a different than their legal name that it does need to be in writing um to the school for a lot of students that are you know going by a different gender name pronoun than their assigned sex at Birth that is simply not realistic or safe as much as we would would like that to be the case um and we can certainly send you studies and data
090that shows that um we just simply don't have time to go into every line of the policy so we had to really be critical about showing you just a few so that we can continue our discussion um from here on out but that is a good point that the parents is a big part of what this policy was um getting at and um we just had to highlight just a few M Miss lry are we finished I'm done yeah because of the the thing is and my concern is that cu the children are still in their parents' homes we're not their parents so if the parent doesn't know then we're failing the parent and we're truly not teaching the child the student how they should be functioning as a citizen where you don't break rules
091but you have to follow them and also my other qu the thing was if these children are not safe in their homes why isn't Social Services involved that that goes for any child that's being abused or anything like that we are to teach children that we're educational institution and we can education educate on some things but social agendas really are not our purpose so we have to be very careful and we don't want to exclude parents and we don't want to exclude teachers who feel like we're not following the right process in doing things so if the parents are left out that's a big problem because those kids go home to some to their home to their shelter where they're clothed where they're fed and that's not us we don't do those things so I
092don't want to undermine parents I think that's a big setback yeah well I feel like embarrassed to say like I'm nervous but um I guess I would wonder you know like the example said some students already do tell teachers that they have different preferred names or Nick nicknames so why are those students allowed to do that without all these loopholes that involves parents but transgender students are required to go through an extra process so that's happening in our school system it's been happening since I've been in school right do you have an example I could name a few people for pre well even if you just said person a and person B could you just give us an example I mean a lot of people called you call Tim you find out their name is
093actually Timothy you know I mean there's plenty of examples that that happens all the time you know where people go by their middle name or often as an ethnic person your teacher just gives you a different name you know so because your name was too hard to pronounce so it it happens all the time but that's quite different than transgender that's quite different we're talking it's not the same you're you want to be if if we're going to tell students it's okay for this to happen and there's a process and we're going to not go by that process it's not like okay I have a formal name but I have a nickname but it's not based I'm not changing it because of I'm changing my sex you you understand what I'm saying it's just it's
094still me in that still gender name does that make sense I would say that's specific to how you may see it but that's your interpretation of cultural ideas around gender you know to some people you know with that being said you could have a a female student or a woman who identifies as a girl and you can say oh well you can't call yourself Charlie because that doesn't adhere to our rules around gender you know so I guess we're talking about slippery slopes where does that end well it's different being being called um Tim and Tammy that's two different things be called and can be called say um Char uh Charlene and Charles you the Charlene and Charles different they're two different genders that's that circles back around I would say to the Title Nine
095that we need to be following because under that discrimination if someone is not matching up with what is typically masculine typically feminine that can be in um violation of Title 9 UM and we definitely want to make sure that we're keeping our eye out there and making sure that students aren't being because that falls under discrimination based on sex well if this is happening in our school system then I'd say we need to look into that because that should not be happening but two uh like um Dr day was saying it's it's not good to undermine parents right so we do need to make sure that we're making sure that all all parents here are being considered um parents that are accepting of their their students and as they're discovering themselves discovering their gender identity
096discovering different names that they want to be going by and parents that do not respect that and do not um like you were speaking about parents earlier about people earlier that um might not support certain people's identities um we're here for our students we're here to help them focus on being educated helping them focus on you know what they need to be doing in school focusing on teaching them to respect each other um unfortunately we don't have as much of a reach of taking care of these kids outside of school when they leave yes it is if there's situations where we know that the child is at risk at home we would hope that we have social workers and social services and things like that to make sure we're taking care of the kid um
097and these aren't easy things these aren't aren't straightforward things that we're dealing with here um a lot of what these model policies are suggesting is adding extra steps adding extra paperwork adding extra things for the teachers to learn and deal with outside of the communications they're already having with staff and with families and with students so a lot of these model policies are suggesting adding a lot more work a lot more bureaucracy to a process that is taking us away from what we need to be focusing on well what we have to be focusing on is educating all the students so that they are viable citizens in their workplace and they can take care of themselves and be good citizen so we don't want to start by lies and going behind people's backs which is
098why we're encouraging students to be their authentic selves to tell the truth of who they are well and respecting is something we should all teach everybody to do no one should be disrespected no matter who you are so but if we have some things going on in our school system then we'll need to look at that because they're not supposed to like you said there's instances happening and there's things that are unfair then maybe we need to look into that and a lot of what this policy and what we deep Dove a lot about is about bullying harassment um of all students and how um those policies and those that language is not always accessible to students and to family to understand well what is harassment well what is bullying who do I go to
099what do I do in the is happening how do I report it um who's in my corner who's in my court when I'm going through this process um and that's something that this policy does look at as well and that we went and matched up with LCS to see where we can better make sure that all of our students are respecting each other we have that um that we make sure everybody is up on training about how to spot it how to not tolerate it how to make sure everybody's respecting each other um because that's a big problem we see at every school every level um and just one reason is bullying and harassment based on the identity of someone's gender and you realize transgender kids are not the only people have ever been bullied
100that's correct that's why we've been looking at the Poli been bullied lots of people have been bullied so right and we want all our kids to be loved more and taking care of more which is why we saw that not just for these students but for all students the process is not accessible to a lot of people they don't know what step to take first and who to go to and what case they have to make and I'm not sure if you're aware but LCS already does have um PDS for professional developments for all of this we've been doing it for years and I would also say that the data does show that transgender students do experience higher rates of bullying then we need to deal with the bullies though that's what we need to
101deal with let's just make sure that the school system is in Bully well Dr Carter oh no I was just other questions um how would you say that respect um across the board applies to a different opinion than what a student may put forth as to their identity could you clarify what you mean by that if a you know in in in most aspects of society put forth an idea or a statement and you get feedback if the parent at home in this illustration is negative or gives feedback that is not um in in favor it's not necessarily disrespectful which is the opposite of respect use the word respect a lot but there's also simple feedback from many different aspects or many different uh points of view and perspectives about someone stating something like and
102you know like you said they are uh in a development stage of learning you know who they are coming to terms with certain things well not allowing for different perspectives of feedback uh to that uh and labeling it as simply bullying or disrespect by saying it's not respect it kind of is to me looks like an over usage of the word respect so U so what I'll speak to there is that I think there's a difference between I know there's a difference between um someone's identity and someone's say opinion on something when it's something that we're talking about here with a student's identity that's something that you know it's not quite the same as someone coming out with here's this idea I have about this thing here's my opinion let's have a discussion about it
103if someone is saying this is who I am as a person this is my identity that is completely different and that's what we're getting at here today um in addition if uh I had two bullets right here in my head then I went to and the other one's gone but um we're we're talking about identities here and when we're talking about differences of opinion I think that it's okay to have differences of opinion and differences and having discussions where we don't dis where we don't agree but I think that line needs to stop when it comes to disrespecting who someone is as a person and what their identity is whether that be based on race on gender anything like that if it's someone who that's their identity we can disagree until it comes to MH
104having a problem with someone's identity and who they are and then that's where it comes into where we can get into our federal laws that we need to be following TR um thank you for your presentation uh understanding what the Grimes case that school board associated with that went through with litigation we have to think about potential litigation us as school board members and even though that's what I do for a living I'm adverse to it because it's expensive it's costly and I don't want we don't have that kind of money I wanted to educate the children for that one of the issues I have with some of the modifications or or deviating from what um yunen policies are is if we go with the yunan policies and there's litigation associated with those policies we
105have the attorney general and yonan's administration to defend those policies if we deviate from those policies and there's litigation born of that deviation we as a Lynchburg City School Board are out on an island trying to litigate and defend the policies that we chose so I recognize what you're saying and certainly I understand the no I don't understand personally but I've seen the issues that um that Community defends gender and whatnot go through it's not fair I understand that um but from a business standpoint a litigation cost um adversion I just think it may be more it's it's easier to defend a policy when to have a state Administration saying this is what it's going to be and if there's a problem guess what state Administration as we followed your policies defend our stance right
106that's one of my positions I have which gives me concern from deviating from the recommendations on the state level go ahead we we understand i' you know we've you appreci definitely we we're aware of that of course that you know especially when it comes to exactly like you said I will say that you're not the only every school district is now looking at it themselves individually some have rejected in full some have modified some have adopted in full and so us as Lynchberg there's other bigger school districts better funded school districts because they're bigger they're in different districts that we can turn to and see what their legal team has gone through what they are prepared to do if they are deviating from the entire model policy in full at the state level being adopted
107um so there are other school districts that we've been looking at to see and I'm sure you all can keep looking at to see how it shakes out with them if anything goes one way or the other if litigation pops up um there's others that have been taking more of a risk or playing it more can that that can that can absorbate more of a risk than we can exactly we have we are really resource constrained and I mean again I've said it earlier my goal is achievement Gap educating our students so whatever resources we have available that is what I want to pour th that into so it puts us in a diff it puts me in a difficult position in terms of um stepping out on a taking any risks not that it's
108a great risk we taking any risk deviating from what the recommended policies are by the current Administration and I just hope you can appreciate that and I appreciate that it sounds like you do um and I do appreciate where you're coming from a lot of I'm just I'm just risk adverse I understand that and a lot of what we tried to outline here is that a lot of your policies are good as is don't change anything don't spend money to change anything don't add more hoops and more paperwork and more work for many many many different people more training for how to do said paperwork and everything a lot of it keep it exactly as you'll have it um the policies are model policies they are not exactly to be followed exactly as is they're
109for school boards to take and develop something that is um I'm forgetting the legal word but it is a model policy it is not the set in stone every word of this has to be um but some of these yes we are asking you to put these students first um and we've also seen that these policies contradict themselves in different spots um so yes we are asking some risk taking here um but you wouldn't be alone in that and a lot of it would be saving you money you backing up what Mr Tross was saying uh State superintendent sent a letter to our superintendent that if you don't follow the model policies you get sued sued by the state where the AG's office is funded by your and mine tax dollars we are a small
110District where our goal is to provide quality education and every lawsuit every person who walks by files a lawsuit in my mind takes away a dollar increase from the salary we could have given to our bus drivers so uh every legal team lawsuit it spend takes a lot of money to defend those uh lawsuit frivolous or not the point going back to your point is so what would you um tell to the state superintendent to know not come after our superintendent if you don't don't follow the model policies I would say that we've been making sure that we're following all federal policies that we can and that we're trying to do this with the students in mind first and that they are being respected and that they are being um given all of their legal
111rights um we would hope that if cases come up they would be able to be handled um this is another reason why we think that these policies and these topics should be looked at on a case-by casee basis a lot of these apply to not that many students and doing it Case by case and looking at a student's needs and how we can make sure that their needs are met um will save a lot of um trouble time um of course we don't hope we don't hope that court cases come up but we do know that that is probably we'll see in other you know departments other districts we'll see how things shake out but I would say that for students to see that a district is supporting them um and will stand up for
112them they would be more likely to support that school and go go to school and be accountable if they feel like they can be safe at school and like they're being looked out for um above all and that would be huge for our students to know and see Mr Jalil and then miss lry you're on the Equity task force could you define equity Equity yes making sure that everybody has and it is different from um sorry something equity and equality are different if you want to help me with these um equality is that everyone has the same Equity is that basically people who need to reach certain spaces are given the necessary resources is to reach that space even if say it may be something different than other people right who may have an advantage
113or privilege so if we had if we had a big tall fence and we needed to address getting everyone to look over that fence either equitably or um equally equally equally everyone gets a three-foot ladder some people still can't see over that fence if everyone gets a three-foot ladder um equality I mean Equity they are like letters apart Equity you know someone that's this far on the ground they get a much taller ladder someone that's already here they just need a three cimeter ladder to get over but you make sure everybody if the goal is that everyone has access to seeing over that fence Equity makes sure everyone has varying accommodations to help them see over that fence um even if that is not the same it is helping everyone meet the same goal and
114to achieve that you need to be thinking of the disabled the minority the people with a farther path to jump to get to see over that fence so that does mean more work for making sure that certain populations are taken care of than it does for others who might already be able to see over that fence sometimes that metaphor helps when the words are so similar yeah and lastly where would you rank that among all of our LCS educational policies where would I rank that in importance in importance it's like close to number one because if you don't have Equity then you have an inequitable school system which Lynchburg City Schools historically has been in in Equitable school system you know so I'd say it's close to number one if not number one sorry and
115I'm my and I have to address the other side there especially after the Lowden County situation what about the children that students that don't feel comfortable someone of an opp opposite sex coming in their B the bathroom that that they are the sex of and that has happened so there are policies where they could have um that's again single use bathrooms would be a great option where you can have um yourself or a parent sign off that you're not comfortable there so you can be one of the ones using the single stall bathroom no questions asked nobody needing to know why um because that's your personal business no one needs to know why you're using which bathroom but there's options for that well we want oh the kids to be safe though too and not
116to feel uncomfortable so but have you ever thought of as you're saying keeping transgender students safe have you ever thought that they are the ones that use the single bathrooms only and that way you don't have anybody else in there with you so that again goes back to the court case of grim versus Glouchester where that is you cannot force them to use the single stall bathroom you cannot force them to do that you can give that as an option but you cannot force them to use that um but we have considered that and we've read through that court case other questions this will this is not an action item but thank you very much coming presentation thank you uh next on our agenda is um a brief outline of our comprehensive plan um and
117Technology plan Dr good afternoon or evening and thank you Dr Edwards I just want to spend a couple of minutes uh outlining the comprehensive Plan B anyal report um as you see on your board docs item School the school board uh in their policies in the C Virginia are required to adopt a strategic plan and by November 1st of each each year we're provided to required to provide a report uh in the odd number of years uh of of that plan and and sort of where we are with that plan and any any adjustments that we may be making in the future um so we're going to just provide a very brief overview of that the LCS comprehensive strategic plan so this is different than the the facilities master plan that we've been talking about
118and if you go to the next slide uh but this is the the the Strategic plan that the School Division has been working on uh for a couple of working off for a couple of years uh for the next slide uh this the school board uh in its policies and the state code requires that we uh have a number of uh components in our strategic plan again objectives and strategies for the school division certainly related to student achievement and other items an assessment of the extent to which those items are being met uh forecast enrollment changes uh a plan for projecting and managing changes in enrollment um Etc um and an evaluation of potential Regional programs and what what uh future Regional programs may be necessary um a technology plan Community participation into plan developments
119and a plan for parent and family involvement uh in successful schools so those are parts of our strategic plan that were adopted in 2019 uh The Five-Year comprehensive strategic plan was adopted in for 2019 to 2024 there are four primary goals student growth development and success uh goal two is personal Personnel growth development and success goal three is fiscal responsibility and goal four is family and Community engagement in all there are 22 Focus areas 52 objectives and 313 strategies that the School Division has been working on over the last 5 years so for that reason I'm not going to read them all to you uh but uh they are available to on the website um as well uh the school board will uh present uh develop it its next comprehensive plan um beginning probably in
120the spring um and we will that will coincide with that development um many of the strategies in the 2020 2019 to 2024 plan have been completed or we're making very good progress there are a small number of strategies that are outlined in the in the plan that have been uh determined to be sort of non- priorities at this point now five years later uh or just are not feasible and so there's we we'll get to that when we uh we start to talk about the next strategic plan wi identify those but we are making very good progress on each of those and often times you will receive uh you received quite a few times updates on various strategic plan components we've been talking a lot about facilities master plan as a component of that but
121through the last couple of years you've been receiving a number of those um a specific component that is addressed in the code is related to enrollment changes in in forecasting and really specifically focusing in on the requirements to consider the portfolio of schools that you have that may consider uh consolidated consolidation for closing or changes in your school division portfolio uh so just want to provide a couple of different data points that you have received this information previously most particularly at your joint session with the city council on August 8 but 8th but I just wanted to mention a couple of things on here uh we're showing the uh population change uh from the projected change from 2022 to 2030 so slight change slight increase for Lynchburg um and then we have from 2011 to
1222021 uh sort of the pr previous 10 years uh the changes by age group which is particularly interesting to the school division uh because we're looking at that sort of five to 19y old old certainly we have some kids that are younger that are in prek uh there are certain circumstances where we have a child that's a little bit older but we just wanted to look at where uh the population of the city has gone in the last decade not necessarily where it's going but this is sort of the history of where we've been and there's a particular Point here that I want to identify and that is that 15 to 19 year old uh uh folks and so you might say well a lot of those are are students right so this high school
123students uh but remember that college students are counted uh in their college town and I'll say maybe more precisely I'll say college students are counted where they spend most of their time or where they reside most of the time uh as of April 1 of each year so that's that's a census uh definition and so for that reason as we've seen growth particularly um one particular University in Lynchburg we've seen and you'll see that growth uh that 20 to 24 age group and then that 15 to 19 year old so remember colleges have 18 year olds 19 year olds often times 17 year olds so we we think there's probably a fair fairly large chunk of that population that's grown that's really related to the growth of the uh undergraduate population in in in Lynchburg
124and so that's just sort of that that coincides with in particular the growth of Liberty during the next couple years so I just want to point that out um as a as an important uh data point um over time we've also seen a sort of net um um out migration uh for uh the 2010 to 2020 period uh you'll see and this is very small and this this presentation is on on on board docks uh but on the left side you see the blue that's sort of the net the migration into the city from various different localities and on the right side is the migration out so you see there's just been a general net net migration out of the city uh and there's a variety of reasons for that um which we won't get
125into tonight um on the next slide this is just generally the historic and projected enrollment um for the school division you'll see this is 2013 to 2032 um so you see about a 1100 uh student decline over that time if you go to the next slide more specifically we'll address elementary middle and high school um and during that 20-year period we see a reduction of about 812 students in the elementary schools 267 in the middle schools and roughly 15 are pretty flat at the high schools and so over that 20e period you see U um in particularly in the elementary schools that that particular Decline and so as a component of the the code and our Schoolboard policies you were required to develop a plan on how to address those changes and again if you
126of course go to the next slide that's what we're doing uh with that um for better for worse um we won't talk about that right now we'll have a next the next uh uh presentation for that but that that is sort of the the component of what we're working on as well there are a few other planning requirements um that I'll just mention as well uh on community and family involvement and engagement uh for the original development of the comprehensive strategic plan in 2018 and 2019 there was a robust community involvement uh process with that uh there was I don't know how many meetings I know there were a lot uh to to develop that plan uh along with the school board um as we develop the next strategic plan uh we will again have
127another yet another robust engagement process that will take place and of course with our enrollment management plan which is a part of the facilities master plan um there has been extensive opportunities for Community engagement as well um the next slide uh we are also tasked with taking a look at uh Regional Partnerships and programs I've listed a number of the regional Partnerships that we have at this point for instance the central Virginia's Governor School the Laural Regional School the cbcc CTE Academy and lab school the University of Lynchberg lab school the accelerate STEM Academy the Ford Hill Community School some folks uh may not know that there actually are Regional it's a regional component to that school as well as well as Turning Point Academy which is our school at the Lynchburg Regional juvenile detention
128center and so we serve as the the academic component of that facility but we certainly serve uh Lynchberg and the surrounding area area uh to my knowledge we don't have any current plans that we've identified to add additional Regional Partnerships excuse me but uh that certainly that as an option would would always always be on the table if the the need was there uh and finally the uh the school division does have a technology plan that's adopted uh that link is available to you that has also been posted on the board docs uh plan so you can review that um and certainly would take any questions you might have I know that's quick but uh that is a require IR ired report that we must provide to you by November 1st m l um for
129the the objectives are there certain objectives that are highlighted you know because we have a lot of object objectives what do you have certain ones that are highlighted that the administration is focusing so so uh I think each each year there's been a number of presentations that the board has has received I don't have anything specific at the moment right now but uh that that we're going to talk about but um that has been something that the board has or the admin I think has been presenting along and along over the last five years okay and another thing was the you're right about like Liberty as it grows because it's been growing every year and what we're finding out now um is that as alumnist is that they're staying not as many people because I
130even noticed this past summer usually summer the streets are emptier and they were not so and then of course these 19 year olds 20 year olds are staying eventually they're going to have families so that's a another growth right there so other questions thank you thanks would you like to take a few minute break or continue continue move on to item E4 facilities master plan followup Dr so this is a um followup to the conversation that we've had on October 10th where um the administrative team presented several questions to the school board to kind of think through related to um scenario 3 um at that point during October 10th we wanted to just present the information um give you what our questions were ask for any additional um information you may need to help you
131make decisions since that time I know that we have shared um several documents um many of which are are included here on board for people who are watching uh to provide additional information to kind of help you make those decisions um lost my board chair for a second uh uh so tonight what we want to do is continue the conversation and um do somewhat of a funneling as we work our way to um getting to um some final product and some work uh so those four questions just to recap um for the public um one was related to uh CTE courses which were one of the driving forces when we did our community meetings uh and it was one of the things that in the community surveys focus groups came up as being a high
132PRI priority is having more CTE experiences and what we were trying to sort of funnel down to does that mean experiences through curriculum um experiential learning and Partnerships with with um businesses and and local colleges and universities or did that mean more construction of CTE facilities um and and those things so that was the first one um that we wanted the school board to kind of give us a little more Direction the second was regarding prek and again prek was a um high priority from the survey from the focus groups from the community meetings um and um one of the things in scenario 3 was to either close or convert TC Miller to a prek site so uh the question being whether or not there is the the boards wish to convert it to a
133preas site um there were several uh implementation scenarios that we presented the school board with as to how to do the um close to home zoning and when that would actually take place whether or not that would be if we were to Mo for it with scenario 3 all at once um or would that be in stages or would we wait until the additional classroom space is available and then the fourth question is just regarding the future Capital Improvement um plan um which also has some additional um expansions in it and if that is what the board wanted to um consider and add that to the capital Improvement plan because I do believe the capital Improvement plan is due to theity this week as well so that's just framing the questions that we had in
134the discussion um and we want to turn it back over um to the board to really dive into those questions and we can start with the first one you want to go with question number one sure so question number one is does the board want the administration to explore the construction of a new purpose built CTE specific spaces which was on slide nine of the presentation that Dr woda gave last time m l um and I'm talking because I'm on that committee um it would be ideal to have the high schools to to have new buildings at each high school so we don't want to move the CTE to a one building all of them go to keep it at their buildings but build a new building so that one the community can have that
135access we don't even have to worry about the school anymore and when where it's pulled out of the schools then that space can be used by the schools for other purposes have some comments um in general and I think this comment pertains to most if not all of these four questions uh in light of our struggles to find the funds to pay teachers compe competively um the high cost of safety and maintenance improvements over the next several years which based on the information that we have looks like something between 10 and $20 million per school over the next decade I was looking at um the estimates that we have that were including the um well just the totals on that big spreadsheet that we had from Dr woda so so maybe I'm wrong about that
136I was looking at the bottom lines for each of the schools on those sure so it it depends on the school and depends on what you do so if you just go go with safety and maintenance kind of projects um that might that number is probably a little high for the elementary schools that's that's pretty right for the high schools the big um middle schools are maybe a little bit closer to that but the elementary schools I think mostly are you know two to six of the max okay okay so my point is that we do have an A a fair bit of capital expenditures looking at us over the next decade in terms of those kinds of things and then um we're going to be making a number of adjustments to various things as
137we execute the school closings that we've been talking about so to the point of this first question about CTE I think we should concentrate for the moment in the near term on curriculum BAS Bas development Partnerships with uh cvcc and our business partners and maybe modest modifications of existing space that we have um a a new building dedicated to CTE looks like it's going to cost 20 million or up something like that um um so I my my thinking is before considering new construction for CTE we should first be clear on which programs have high enough demand to justify the expense of building new dedicated space for them and exactly what their physical needs would be so for now basically what I'm saying is I think we ought to focus on the things we can
138do with minimal new capital investment Mr I would I think you wanted to respond did you want to reply so so uh certainly understand that one one thing I would just um and this is certainly the board's decision but just consider as the facilities master plan ought to be a long-term Vision so this is the opportunity for the board to say maybe it's not in the next five years but maybe it's something that's in the years after that in the 15 years that you might want to do so it it doesn't necessarily have to be that one or the other it could be saying yes let's focus on the things we have right now and the development of those those Partnerships but it could also be let's that's I you know develop a vision for
139what might be in the future could be I was going to reference comment I asked Dr wara a while ago that if we could break out security uh versus maintenance when it comes to security and maintenance numbers um I as Dr Day said let's concentrate on what we need to do we don't have this money at this point and as an ancillary conversation after we take care of these or even in the process maybe have new construction be considered in a tertiary manner as opposed to a primary or secondary and also because what I brought up the last meeting about yes let's just the spaces that we have we can make those modifications that would be perfect and I agree maybe in the future they start adding those the space because those areas will deteriorate
140and as they grow you'll need more space and big equipment from either welding stuff or Mechanics for CS you know you need bigger spaces so as the spaces wear down you're going to need to replenish them eventually so so based on three members have spoken you you're heading towards curriculum based City right now instead of having a physical infrastructure expansion at this point at this point point in time yes but but expanding what we have like glass they need another door that the community come out from instead of coming through the school you see what I'm saying so there's some things that we need to adjust but Mo but it's so it's a little both but minor on the construction CT we know the data shows improves graduation rates uh I mentioned it before henrio
141has 98% graduation and Lynchburg City schools have 100% graduation for students who participate in CTE programs great so that's a great opportunity for us to involve our young men and women into something they love which can get them a a fruitful job and improves our graduation rate how we do it that's the question superintendent is asking us uh in future um so other comments questions would you like go ahead Dr car and I don't know whether this is readily available but what percentage of students participate in CTE is there a greater opportunity for that yeah we I don't know the exact percentage but absolutely is there a there's always an opportunity for us to increase the numbers for participation in CTE courses and other you know opportunities um I I do know that our participation
142in the cbcc um CTE Academy has um more than doubled this year and with hopes to be able to um increase that next year so we and and those opportunities that are at cbcc are courses that we don't currently offer so they're not we're not competing with each other um so I can't tell you how many what a percentage but I can certainly find that out and we can report that back to you we have a report on how many students how many certifications they receive and all that we'll give that to you and when what grade can you enter is the 10th grade or can you enter the ninth grade um I believe it is 10th grade mostly 10th because there so priorities and scheduling m and and there are some opportunities to explore
143in Middle School um but I believe to enroll in CTE courses is 10th grade and I'll also make sure that I'm giving you the right information on that as well and and is it possible for student who's taking like um AP courses to also participate absolutely just a scheduling your problem yeah and it's just for Dr Edwards do you have the the are you able to staff it is a gross is that a need well Staffing anything is is is a struggle um but that's so particular to it is it is because of the certification and you have to be specifically certified to do certain things so that is one concern that we have had which is one of the reasons why we entered into a partnership with um cvcc to with their CTE Academy
144because they can offer things that we may not be able to staff um and they can also keep up with equipment and high price tag items that need to stay current um there so in in answering your question um just getting teachers in general has been a struggle getting teachers whose licenser is very specific in a CTE area is also um very difficult but the ones that we have are a tremendous high quality staff and I should say just because I got the mic um the salary that our CTE staff members could be making if they were in that profession in the private sector is much higher than what they would make what they are making as a teacher and that is part of the challenge that we have with trying to get folks to
145join the teaching profession when they could be making a much better salary now as far as our Partnerships with the universities is there any way that CT with with the universities around us University of Lynchburg Liberty University Rand College to to expand in that way as far as Partnerships or finding people to help expand the program um we have Partnerships with um university of Lynchberg and other in other areas I'm I'm not so sure if they have as much of a CTE um um partnership we do have kids that participate there again dual enrollment Early College we have kids who graduate with associates degree um before they graduate with a high school degree can I can I follow up on that um participation in CTE courses is dependent on the course because there are some
146prerequisites for certain courses so there are a few courses uh at the high school where um freshmen can take those such as drafting one um but others are limited to 10 through 12 others are just strictly 12th grade others are 11th and 12th just based on the prerequisites because of the sequential ma nature of those courses and we do have a CTE um Facebook page so if you ever want to see what our kids are actually doing put a plug out there for that um there's some It's a Wonderful Facebook page pres do we or have we um done any Exploration with some of the local businesses to determine whether or not some kind of CTE would be feasible you know in collaboration with something so when you say some kind of CTE what are
147you so that so that students are working for learning from and getting credit for the time that they spend in in those businesses that is um Robbie douly who is our CTE supervisor is working on that um and building that and and part of what we want to do not just CTE but we recognize that here in Lynchburg our educational institution Lynchburg City Schools is one of the biggest employers and we too can have interns right here I mean we have auto mechanics we have a diesel we have bu I mean we have those things we have a Nutrition department so we have a school nutrition we could do some of those things here so he is exploring doing that but also um some of the stuff that we've been talking with with Partners in
148education and just trying trying to match those internships and those opportunities for our local businesses to join us in the lab school grant that we um assisted with both University of Lynchburg and um CBC CC there are some points in there to kind of get these local businesses to work with us and then um also on just a separate note to um Casey Jefferson who is one of our principls is on princi principal on special assignment really trying to connect some of our students to these work-based experiences so that they have a sustainable work life after um high school but our goal is really to grow that and and fortify it more Dr Edwards if the board goes one way or the other would you be asking us for additional money in Staffing positions uh
149with either curriculum based I know or space based will either of these options require additional funding next year I think what we're well I'm going to ask for additional funding just because my staff deserves a raise next year so I I'm going to say yes for for that piece of it um and if the situation presents itself that we get a new program that might necessitate a new staff member to to manage that program I'm going to say yes to that especially if there's High student demand and there's a need in the city too um for that programming what we're focusing on right now is leveraging our existing Partnerships and trying to get um as as Miss Pew said more kids connected with the CTE Academy so I think we've grown from 11 students to
15025 students participating in in that and then next year to see what the lab school Excel um if there's um what the potential for students participating in that so there's funding that comes along with that because we do pay for our students to um participate in those programs with Dr Cardwell one time mentioned that he got some sort of a grant to do CT I don't know it's virtual or on we are always looking for Grants to do almost everything we we do so but you all know grants are not sustainable so you get into a difficult situation when we use grants to pay for staff and we know we've done that when we've had to and people say that on the front end like get a grant to do it and when the grant
151starts to expire people look and say why did you do that with the grant you know but but it is a way to to kind of dip your toe in Dr so now with the sites that where we're using CTE are those sites still adequate to accommodate the students to participate or in our schools m i mean we're we're making upgrades as we can and and Mr duly and the CTE Advisory Board will be here um to share some of the information that they're doing uh if you ask them if they want more better bigger and the answer to that says Any teacher is yes um they would like that other members Mr TR Dr Ed also if we focus on the curriculum we're also able to leverage our Partnerships with cbcc so maybe we
152can we don't necessarily need the facilities quite yet because of the leveraging that partnership but to Dr wus uh point I think we need to be thinking 20 years 15 20 years down the road um if we do need the facilities how would we address that as a board then I mean your direction you're asking for direction for next three years or the next 15 20 years next three years we don't have the resources we need the curriculum 20 years let's make sure we have that on our our in our vision so I mean you know we can go to you know city councilman Chris for all he said hey you know he wants to get some money well give us some money we want to we want to build some new schools yeah alifax
153did a 1% sale tax uh through the state legislature this year I don't know if you guys know and it provides um I don't know how much Dr wara do we have an estimate Dr Edwards how much if we do 1% how much money will it bring each year the school system for maintenance so building I don't I don't want to this to be the number that everybody says but I I think the number is about 15 million a year if you did 1% sales tax that's only for like a CIP type project just construction construction project so there are Avenues which Halifax has just done it this year to explore and we we talked about that in our board city council join leadership meeting too to see if we can sell that idea to
154state legislators it needs to be approved by the general assembly first by the city council and then by the general assembly and let me correct I don't want to put words in Chris's mouth he didn't say he was going to get us some money but he was opposed to closing sanduski and the way to not close sanduski one of the options is to help us with uh building a new elementary school so shout out to uh councilman geraldi and uh put your money where your mouth is so to to address your um original question um we are very fortunate to have um Dr woda who thinks in the now and the future so one of the things that he's done and you'll see it in your in your um answers it's on bardu I think
155it's question six um being mindful of existing sites that could turn into future sites so as we're looking at our buildings right now um it's always great to have somebody on your team who says you know in 10 years this space could be so let's make sure that we jot that down somewhere so that the you know he he'll probably still be here in in 10 years um to make that happen um so that we do that so you'll see he's he's kind of outlined where you could make some upgrades um at both high schools to for future thinking um which is a good thing for L range planning so go ahead I just want to ask to clarify the question question I've understood this question to be in a short term we're not talking
156are are we meant to be answering this question over two decades or we over the next say three to five years sure so I think when we first started asking this question it was because a couple of board members said hey we want to talk about CTE spaces you know we want to know is that something you want us to address you know in the next couple of years sounds like you know I don't want to put words in your mouth but maybe that's not the case but we I think it would be prudent to put it in the plan to say if you want to do something in the future here's where it would be and what it would look like down the road so but as this question relates I don't you know
157I think the question was in the next immediate term CP cuz if I have the money to build a CTE building i' rather build a sanduski elementary school with that money instead of building a city building that's just my personal opinion cash is not there and that's the problem we can still do the Dr card and Dr V I was about to say the same thing here we have the sanduski student faculty here and we're talking about building a CTE and I because of how we are appointed I don't like to do anything past the nine years because that's some of the reasons why we had sanduski on the CIP budget for I mean plan for years and now they've been pushed down pushed down and here we have going to put something else on
158for a extended period of time and it's just I just want to do what I can do in the nine years I'm going to say that for record uh when Mr Jeff was a principal you know it I fought for a gymnasium at TC Mill and Dr Carter you were on board for 3 four years non-stop to build the gymnasium where your back hand of the building is but it never showed up uh on the CIP plan then the movement moved to having a gymnasium at Heritage Elementary School and Mr Miss Anderson calls me the gymnasium board member but that has not come has not seen a day light of the day yet it was on CIP was cut by the city uh to have a gymnasium at Heritage Elementary School so we have had
159projects on CIP uh sent by this board but then they were cut out later on so that those are the facts you see them on the minutes they're all public document um Dr Edwards and I had talked she wanted action on first two questions but not on the other two questions is that the correct um well I want to start with first two questions and definitely get some direction on that but I'm recognizing that you may need some more time and thought and discussion on the latter to and not rushing you all to make a decision but rather be give me a thoughtful decision um and we still have some time the first two allow us to at least get started um particularly the issue of prek because that's going to affect zoning and what
160we do with um possible resoning plans Mr chairman so I would suggest there there's a couple board members who haven't spoken on this topic yet I would like them to be invited to give their opinions and then after that we should decide if we're ready to take a vote on the this first question anybody who has not spoken would like to speak say it now or hold you piece have I spoken have I spoke anyways I'm I can't remember anyways um well in light of we need to save money and in light of parents have said we can't attend our children's schools because they're too far away and in light of a lot of the kids are being bust and we're trying to save that money my vote honestly is my process is thinking don't
161use it to convert it close it down let the children go to their homebased schools where they can walk with siblings or aunts and uncles and family can come and join them and they're part of their Community instead of coming all the way across town somewhere you're on the prek yeah but we're still on the CT issue oh I saw a prek up there maybe go back oh okay I thought we were on fre back to CT CT make we're still on question to yeah we're on this question yeah oh okay looks like there's no other com um would anybody like to make a motion I will make a motion that we have a yes or no vote on whether we want the uh Administration to explore construction of new purpose-built CTE specific spaces I'm
162moving that we have a vote second Yes means go ahead with the construction Base No Yes means we're going to vote on it okay but are we voting on not building new buildings just doing minor construction so that it's it's better what are we voting on my proposal is that we vote either yes we want the administration to explore construction of new purpose built CTE spaces or no we don't want the board to the administration to pursue those what happens to the curriculum base then then there'll be a second second okay yeah we're voting on this specific question that's my Su and we're doing you're doing that within like the next two to three right that's where I clarified you clarify the motion to the clerk but it's an or there so I mean that
163you're saying it says construction or curriculum so your your your process no it only says construction no he's looking at the question the question you do that question okay blue question would that's a yes or no question it's good are we and I'm proposing we have a yes or no vote on that question would you put a timeline to the clerk or you leave it two to three years two to three next two to three years M clerk do you have that board the building just expand we have a second on that motion yes we did Mr deal any discussion on that motion Dr Carter what's the meaning of new purpose build CTE specific spaces is that a building yes yes um yes I was thinking it was just an expansion where they already are
164and modifying it that's minor construction builds oh whole new buildings I got you now I'm CLE C's Madam clar would you call the bo Please Mr jilo no Mr Andrew no Mr Charles no Dr day yes Dr Guta yes Dr Carter no no Mrs Preston yes Mr depal no Mrs Lauren no change my vote vote is if I say yes I'm going for a building no yes we're voting on whether or not to have a vote my motion was to hold a vote oh my motion was to I lost my motion is whether or not we should vote on this if I'm giving the board members a chance to say no we're not ready to vote if you're not ready to vote you should vote no on my motion if you're ready to vote vote
165Yes on my motion I'm giving the board a chance to say we're not ready okay my bad I understand vote is to basically tot misunder vote on the motion or the motion is whether or not to vote on let's try it again let's try it again yeah that we go ahead okay Mr J yes Mr Andrews no Mr Charles yes Dr day yes Dr gupa yes Dr car I don't know what this motion vote on what to vote on this question vote yes or no on question two do you think you're ready to vote on question two yes Mrs pres no yes mral yes sorry yes motion carries now let's vote on the now we're voting yes or no on question two all right any uh Madam clerk would you call the role please so
166yes means you're going for for the building based CTE no means you're not going for a purpose specific CTE building okay the next two to within next two to three years okay yes means new building no means no new building for now for now in two to three years right mam Clark go ahead Mr jillo no Mr Andrews no Mr TR no Dr um day no Dr Gupta no Dr Carter no Mrs Preston no Mr depal no Mr La no Z so basically the board has unanimously voted not to go for a new building or purpose based building for city is that the corm right now you want a curriculum based vote I'm assuming that by default we're going to still expand seems to me that's that's the only alternative to building it seems to
167me by default that means Administration pursues regular you need a w on it if that makes you guys feel solid on it let's vote on whether or not we're going to explore curriculum okay yeah I make a motion to vote on giving the direction to the administration to pursue curriculum based CTE program Improvement second Mr deul discussion Madam cler would you call the RO Mr J yes Mr Andrews yes Mr Char yes Dr day yes Dr gupa yes Dr Carter yes Mrs Preston yes Mr dep yes Mrs Lor yes motion carries 9 to zero Mo number two okay um question number two is regarding the um prek prek expansion or converting TC Miller to a prek site well you already heard from me so go ahead Ross you want to say something okay that's fine
168we're good um um so as I understand the information we have uh keeping TC Miller as a prek facility would foro some of the operational cost savings that we would incur if we Clos um if I read the numbers correctly it's on the order of $400,000 um that we would be giving up if we decide to keep it open as a prease site um it also seems to me that as a multi-story building it's not well suited to prek uh when we toured the Hutcherson facility I think they pointed out that having to have the children go up and downstairs is an issue for prek um so for that reason it might not be the best suited building for prek um um so um I'm a I don't support committing ourselves to a less than
169desirable location for prek um I think my opinion is we need to look for a better a more suitable facility to develop additional prek and I think we may have a way to do that um when we get to question number four um I'll explain that when we get to that point um so another so I'm basically saying that my answer my answer to this question is no we don't want to convert it um I think we could um perhaps depend ending upon how all the uh shuffling of programs happens as we uh work through the implementation of our plans to close a couple schools it maybe it's possible I don't know we'd have to look into this maybe we could make some space at one of the existing um uh remaining open elementary schools
170that is uh close to either the center or downtown schools where my understanding is most of the pre students are coming from um so um could we for instance take the prek classrooms that are at Paul Monroe move those students to another facility and use the those classrooms at Paul monroll to absorb some of the uh students that would need to be redistricted so uh there may be a way to move the prek classrooms closer to where the students are and secondly I I do think um it's better if the prek classrooms are all kind of in a common facility or maybe a couple common facilities so that we can have the um specialized the staff that have specialized training all in one place rather than having to migrate from location to location to location
171where the different pre playay classrooms are so I'm kind of looking for a way to get the prek facilities all in one or two locations rather than then spread out throughout the district and so for that reason and for the reason that I I'm not convinced that the TC Miller building is the best site I I think I would vote no um to this that we would not want to convert it to a preas oh is there a is there Elementary School that doesn't have stairs that's on one level I think Dusky that only has it for the older kids they don't have it for the little does everyone have Heritage doesn't sand doesit does not Sandy does and sanduski does paramont paramont does does the prek use it has par pre Sheffield does not
172je there's steps to get well no you can go out the back door to get to the gym the auxiliary gym um now to get to a open play area at Sheffield you have to go down steps M go ahead you are you you got a p go ahead sometimes you just need to be I by the time we finish here no one will be going to the school they're going to um I was think speaking to you of saying migrating but if a teacher is stationed at that school they don't migrate they they stay at that school so they're not moving around well the administration we assign them two different school no if like for example the prek teacher we have had and when I was at Palmer she's been there the whole time
173she's not gone anywhere she's not migrated anywhere see what I'm saying and our sped teachers there have helped those children in that may have needed it then in that school so they they don't migrate can don't doesn't the administration assign teachers to particular facilities yes we can next year not here you're here oh I thought you meant within the school year they're jumping from here no no no I mean oh that's what it sounded like migrate I meant I meant assign them to this school now oh okay I understand what you're saying said within the year they're jumping around no Dr Carter oh this Hutcherson so they stay on one floor at Hutcherson they're on different floors there's there's 3 on both floors there's a way to go outside and come around to get to
174the cafeteria area and you can go up and down the stairs they don't have an elevator so they navigate the little ones navigate if they have to yeah if they wheelchair or some other but but if not then they walk down the stairs or they walk out they can walk okay it's just a little more challenging when people are little yes yeah one of the CIP elevator in Richardson I'm looking for Mr Andrew's guidance on this one because you are the expert on pre I'm going to be honest with you man I'm struggling because I don't want to close or convert TC M I mean I know that we supposed to be on the same page um and I am one it's all for prek expansion but I just don't scenario 3 just doesn't feel
175good to me I'm not doing it for claps I'm really it's just where I feel man so we're going to vote regardless my vote would be I'm staining from that boat so I don't really have a comment any further than that already put everything out there miss pres my question is or my concern I guess is better way to phrase it my concern is the students that have been involved with the school of innovation at TC Miller what's going to happen with those students what availability for the same kind of instruction is going to happen with those students and I know it's early to ask that question because I'm sure that something that requires a lot of thought and and and consideration but I just kind of don't like the idea of leaving them p
176i I want to know that there's going to be a school of innovation for students that that is the best option for so without getting ahead of ourselves in terms of what we're attempting to do just holistically um looking at all of our programming and adding more um to what we have we're looking at that through the lens of gifted education we're looking at that through the lens of I'll say choice because remember Le is going to be a um lab school so that's School of innovation es I guess but not quite in the same way that um TC Miller and Desi are currently School of Innovations but where can we add more of that type of thing and also looking at our Innovation I mean we have a thriving um arts program um there
177as well as um leadership in World Language at Desi and of course herbology in arts at at uh Dunbar um all which were derived and evolved since the '90s um what what are we and and granted we can definitely expand on that but what also what are other opportunities that we can be doing in our schools and adding that to to Really attract people to Lynchburg City schools because of that and that thread is going to go through elementary schools and schools all the way up so I think Dr Dr WKA has a slide last time right to different schools of innovation and how you going to restructure the whole thing so it's current with the modern day technological needs U I guess I heard all of that but I don't know it's just not
178May comment I understand that concern and there I think there's a a lot of issues like that that all of us are waiting to resolve what we're trying to do is work through those issues one step at a time right now we got a four issues here that we're trying to resolve there'll be many more in the future um we are trying to work through those decisions but there's a lot of those decisions to be made and we can't do it all at once trying to walk our way through it right now we're trying to provide her guidance in terms of prek right that's the question at hand um there is there any any other discussion on you looking for an action on this item you all are comfortable in giving me yes on the
179previous question I TR I was trying to give the bo a chance to say whether or not they're ready to vote before they voted but that seems seemed to have caused some confusion so I we can I'm prepared to do the same thing again okay you don't want to do that okay so that's too confusing then the the alternative is to just have a vote or or we just I mean this is a discussion so if there's a reason that you're not prepared to vote at this point this is when we need to hear it yeah otherwise I think uh we need to vote but I I don't feel comfortable voting I that I have enough information to vote on this yet okay and Mr depal what what additional information would you feel that make
180you uh comfortable okay I'm much more in favor of of using U close close yeah the closer proximity elementary schools to satisfy the prek requirement I'm much more in favor of that um and I'd like to see the numbers between the two that makes sense and I I tend to agree with you we want to make sure if we if we uh don't have a centralized location for preschool which as we know there's some pros and cons to both approaches I don't think we have achieve the the savings we may want to by doing a centralized location can the other elementary schools absorb the additional prek demand that we believe we're going to have and I think that's the question you have that's a question I do have um I you know I just want
181to make sure that we can do it I've seen some numbers I've seen some charts but I really I guess I want to hear from the administration that we're comfortable that we can absorb those uh estimated prek programs in the current infrastructure and the other thing with the prek is the as we talked about last time the ADM they don't count towards our ADM yes so are they self- sustaining in terms of Break Even points and the answer I was hearing was no right we got to we we got to backfill the money through our operating budget so that's answered in in the in the package you have but there is it's not official ADM like like regular K12 students but there is a per student uh payment essentially for the revenue that comes revenue
182for but is that enough to break even it's not but neither is ADM go ahead okay so maybe this will be helpful so where are prek students now I mean where how many are I know we have centralized that Pon right there's a t question table question eight has a table that shows and and for the public there's a document that board questions facilities master plan um on board docs um question a has a table that kind of outlines um where students are we have prek at Hutcherson Paul Monroe perrymont and rsay um so one Central site at Hutcherson and then three of our elementary schools and then you can see where the zoned students um the composition of students so for example if I just take um Hutcherson um looking at prek 4 15
183of our students are from bass zone four from Bedford Hills three from Desi 33 from AGS it's it's on page six it's page six is that document so that shows um where we where we are and go ahead and I was going to ask Mr depal if that's the kind of information you were looking for if you wanted if it's something different it's I I'm not internalizing this is is my issue I understand that too yes that and the the number I think I recall is $800,000 figure that is unfunded is that correct uh no it's well is there one yeah okay that's about right is it yeah roughly roughly speaking Yeah and how does that ratio compar to our current ratio with the rest of the student population uh I can't answer that question
184but I I can I can find that out but you follow them you see them after um I mean if it's a similar the same ratio okay I'm I'm good with it if it's if it's that we have to find a l we have to self um fund a larger portion than I just want to make sure that we're all aware of of that and when we go to city council we identify this is why we're asking for a little bit more money in this instance so go ahead I just want to make sure I understand your question so you're looking at the state funded and then the required local match for prek and you want us to compare that to what we get so soq and then the required local match for the just
185regular student buy okay okay yeah we can we can get those numbers yeah and I'm just looking for I'm really looking for um you know ratios is fine I don't because I want to see if there a comparable ratio because I feel I think we can go to city council with the comparable ratio that's a more legitimate ask at that point or at least we know where we're standing I mean how important is it to the city council that we have the prek so just to May yeah goad just to throw a little bit more in the mix um the last the first couple years we were expanding like one prek and we did a prek 3 and another prek three so we have two prek 3s last year we did not add a single
186new prek and the reason why we didn't add a prek is because our philosophy for the available funds we had we were working on, 1550 so what we philosophy wise what we said is let us use all the funds to increase the pay for the staff who are here right now with us rather than creating new um positions for new staff so that was one of the reasons why we didn't spand prek we really wanted to con concentrate our efforts on um staff compensation so that is also something that as we move forward that's still in the balance um because we got 1547 and remember I said that's a start not a stop spot of where we should be you know what is the rush to as a we had conversation I was saying what
187is the r let's wait till next meeting to vote on these things but uh if board agrees to me uh there's no rush to vote tonight right we coming back in two weeks 3 weeks all the information you need you tell the staff you'll have it and if that information is not sufficient we can still wait for another meeting there's no sky is not falling down go ahead D I just wanted to ask a clarifying question about some of the information that's in this document uh the same page that has the chart showing um the state share program cost amount and then our required local match at the bottom of that page there's an expenditures chart with a column for each of the four schools that are uh hosting precl classes and then there's a
188column for TC Miller and I didn't understand why there was a column for TC Miller here yeah I saw that earlier I need to get I need to that's just just a artifact of something okay I need to I need to get the correct answer then I don't oh there may be a legitimate reason but we're not sure is y I just I just don't know what it is and and I also along those I'm sorry along those same lines I I think I saw a pre population in TC Miller was it two students or something unusual that was where there Zone it's where they Zone oh that's right that's right Miss Lowry and then Dr C um for the percentages that that are being asked for would would the resoning make a difference to
189know that first or would you do it after I'm sorry with the with with the with the resoning close to home um percentage to know what that is if you move the children children close to home from where they are would that make a difference for prek it it might make a difference in how we organize in the existing buildings I think I'm understanding you understanding that I think what was at question here and specifically this question because of the adoption of scenario 3 which had that language close or convert and those are two different things um so that's why we we were like uh we're a little stuck um as to even if we State status quo with the number of pre- classes that we have there could be later and I think this
190might be what you were alluding to Dr Day a recommendation to say um instead of um what do we have three classes at perrymont there's three prek at perrymont four at pal Monroe and two at RS pay or or vice versa somewhere in there we may want to say there let's add four here and reduce this one to three here if that makes sense for the kid population closer to where they live yeah but there's you know there's some trade-offs with that when you're looking at a pre room and what's needed for pre as well the space and you guys the stairs and just all all that Dr Carter and I think someone talked about close to home well we were been talking about that but what is a feasible size or what is a
191cost effective size size for K kindergarten is there a Optimum number of students or the best size for prek um for prek or for kindergarten prek prek is it's prek4 is 16 and prek K3 is 14 14 14 that's determined by the state trust and just what just EXP exploring one other idea TC Miller my recollection during my tour was that the bottom level could be it did not have stairs necessary to get access to that but just I want to make sure I know you come in the back door at TC Miller is there any opportunity to have that bottom level a prek center if we need the room then have the upper levels um Elementary School to improve our efficiency it's a little bit of a I hate to say change but if
192and that's another reason I'm wondering can we absorb all the population for our prek need in the school system by the with the existing buildings if we're closing sanduski and TC Miller if we need more room and we have a hybrid model with TC Miller lower level prek upper level um Elementary so let me make sure I'm understanding so you're keep keep TC Miller open just add prek to kind of right and again we don't get the facilities savings but we get our efficiency and maybe we get we satisfy a a perceived need to me of additional prek um chairs in our city school system so we're in doing so you're saying add additional prek right okay just a potential ask if if we go back to um city council with that so I'm sorry
193so you're saying keep keep TC Miller open and then as an elementary school and then add prek to the basement hybrid model yeah called that's called a hybrid a hybrid facility you got a prek on the lower level and Elementary on the upper level because I recognize I don't I don't think the facility is it could be prek all the way just because of the stairs and the way it's laid out but when but my recollection is the lower level you have some access I CH look into you miss pew just to refresh my memory that you could get I don't have to worry about stairs on the lower level in fact we had some do we have a uh it was a restorative kindergarten kindergarten class it wasn't prek restorative classes down there already
194just just throwing it out there I recognize it doesn't really Ser meet some of the needs that we uh addressed what and that option yeah well I mean that hybrid model is what we have in RS pay and perrymont and and palman Rose so it's no different than what we have currently well so yeah yeah I was going to say a model there might be um that you would have a primary Elementary pair with another school potentially if you had K through two or something in in TC Miller and and three through five somewhere else potentially well what I'm agree and but really the core at what the core what I'm getting at is I have always seen hey we have this desire or need for additional prek uh services in our school system system
195I'm told we're having waiting we have weight lists um again it's more resources I I understand that that's we have a problem with resources here um and I don't I'm not giving you the direction you're looking for here but that is a potential conversion conversion um scenario so um first I want the conversation so I appreciate that the conversation and I I think the public appreciates the conversation too so they can hear the questions that were asked asking and how we're thinking about it um and we're smiling at each other because you know last year if we could have added more prek and Achieve 1550 we would have done that we sacrificed not adding additional pre because of our intent to really try to pay the existing staff and if that wasn't a concern using
196the the funds that we get from the state and the requests that we have for the city just an operating budget in terms of just paying the instructional staff and you all know even this year we had to shift to kind of meet the needs to pay the instructional staff so what I hear you saying while it's warming my heart because I'm with I'm with you would we right here we right here no we are with that um the the question question I would ask is um how do we pay the additional staff how do we compensate while also compensate compensating the staff on a trajectory that at least gets everybody to living wage and better wages so that they can meet the needs of their family and that challenge has been with not this
197board and or board in previous because we've put forth a package that we think is reasonable and fiscally sound to city council to say this is what we would like to fund and we've we've had some challenges in doing that including this past year um with that so I I don't want to be a debie downer but I do want to make sure that I keep that in perspective as we're thinking through the lens of what we're doing just say something please so why only TC and why not use the same hybrid model for seski it's a building on the same level this is doesn't have multi levels it says single story building you know once we do it for one why don't we do it for the other two well and I and I
198agree with that except that as I told uh principal wac every every since day one of my tours of your building you kept on complaining about how how rough that facility was so I mean that's you know so and I agree um but you know I'm trying to find an option of course it costs it's resources and we're tied on resources which is what Dr Edwards is talking about um so again we have to go to City Council and but I do firmly believe if we make a strong enough case we can find the money it just depends on how strong of a case can we make for our pre prek education um I believe one way you know educate the population you have a better City for the long run um I think it's
199hard to argue with that and it starts at prek but I don't have the checkbook and I didn't win that billion dollar lottery so and I'm taking the floor I apologize because uh and why not take it to the city council to build a brand new sendeski elementary school right you can exp and make biggest let's put your money where your mouth is right that's what I say sit there and say I'm for you I'm here for you we are all together hey then put your check checkbook in front and put the money up there so so what I'm hearing you saying is build a brand new sandeski elementary school and add prek to TC m [Applause] but of course that's Pie in the Sky I mean it's you know that's if we had unlimited
200resources that we're going to do so we're going to be checked well me you had a council member that had a town hall meeting last Tuesday I was there to the to the End plus some um and he had a lot of good things to say but I mean I haven't I but then he got on the TV the next day and said I'm not going to give $15 million for bass we just give 15 m there other calls so well I sincerely believe that we are going to have an extra $ 101 million at least by the election of no next year my question is where do the fun acceptable funds come from that pays instructional salaries so our funding is split between state federal and City and instructional salaries are in all of
201those right um so and and I say that because there are certain Grant funds that come from the federal government that pay for like a title one literacy specialist that might be paid out out of a grant funded um when we get the money from the the state it is a funding formula based on soq and some other things that they do with their their formula in the past up until this past year that's been a a dollar amount and then city has given us a dollar amount and we sort of pay our staff um staff are not labeled like here I am being paid from City only or state only or a combination thereof this year the funds with categorical funding all of the funds were taken and assigned to categories with um amounts
202some were the ones that were proposed by us if you look at technology maintenance and um a few other areas particularly the instruction and the amen administrative um funds were proposed by the city So when you say where do the funds come from the funds came from the state the state saw fit to give us an increase because they're trying to obviously they've been doing some work increasing salaries percentages and so on and so forth um and the city for their portion gave us a decrease for their portion overall it was an increase um but in doing so we also received less of the state money had the city even given us flat funding are they saving some of that portion uh the city did allocate 1.9 million of the total funds which actually reduced
203it even more for us to use for um instruction in a contingency fund with which we have nothing in writing in terms of what what that is specifically for and we as a board can request that 1.9 million for anything we like or just for instruction well part of it has by their action although I don't know that we've well you've used some of it part of it was um for the unitary status so there's some that's sitting still at the city level um should we pursue unitary status now granted we did have some meetings with attorneys so there's some bills there that have to be um paid and then part of it was for professional development money that you all voted out last May or June but they replaced I think that's about $30,000
204um of that fund the rest is still there the rest is still there almost 10 minutes you want to move on to question three do we have time we' got eight minutes before we have to before we have to break do we have to break at eight or is it call coming in today we have to go into close session to dat to CL so we need maybe oh okay but then we'll come back and so we don't need five minutes to to prepare for the 8:00 no no we can use the first five minutes continue then okay all right so are we we're done with prek discussion is that work yeah I think so me catch there's no vote so we'll continue the discussion in the 14th all right catch so are we going
205to come back to the other two questions we could start now we we have so 10 minutes so people waiting to hear so the third question is on the implementation um scenario process and basically uh what that based on scenario 3 uh if you are closing two schools and even if you are re are converting TC Miller to a prek that's still affects the elementary portion um for TC Miller is that Clos to home zoning plan going all at once which would be the fall of 2024 with both schools and um being rezoned and what that would mean is probably temporary plan until the new spaces are available to um do the replay or one school and then the other in the fall of 2025 or vice versa or wait um and not rezone folks
206twice until the spaces are available pros and cons with both of those I'm going to bias the discussion with my option and since we have only eight minutes left can I do that sure sure you're the chairman I personally like option four it's the last option where you defer everything till 2025 because you got to give opportunity for all these things we are talking about building a new sandersi having an hybrid School you say building a sand all these things are not happening overnight they will take time so it will give the system time and as Mr trost has said it creates the least disturbance for our kids we should not should not forget the little child child all kids kids whose parents are here shouting and screaming and the kids whose parents are out
207there who don't have anybody watching out their backs and it bothers me when people say take money away from bass do they understand who they're taking money away from you go to talked to Miss hendrik she told me with no expansion with close to home the class size will be 45 that's unacceptable do you understand what I'm saying so for people to sit I'm not giving 15 million to Bass they need to understand what are they doing to the child will be going to that school that's not their love one but it is somebody's love one you know and it bothers me that people are we become such selfish human beings that is all about me forget about I thought Lynchberg we were a community and I go to to send us ke and say
208we all do it together and I hope that's not just a slogan that's a community voice and I'm not doing for claps I get slaps all the time so but it bothers me to hear that take money away from there and keep me alive so you take oxygen away from it happened during the co time take oxygen away from somebody but give it to me but I thought we we all live or sink or swim together as a community so uh it I think option four will defer it for 2 years and give some breathing area for the superintendent to do the close to home res Zone and plan it out in a very systematic way which is least disruptive again the underlining one is least disruptive to our kids because we got to be
209mindful of the fact that end of the day this child is not speaking for themselves and many of them like my daughter will never speak for themselves the parents have to speak for themselves so keeping in in mind my biased opinion is for option four uh I I'll shut up from here and open the floor for discussion Dr D well I concur with you 50% um I guess I feel that we should not do a two-stage redistricting right um we and as yeah I had floated another option that I thought would avoid that um which the Administration has addressed on a communicated to the board members I don't know if we even want to talk about it but um so I would support either the first option which is close both schools in this coming
210fall or the last option close both schools a year from now for that reason that we don't want to rezone kids twice now uh the Administration has weighed in on what my additional option was do you want me to discuss it or not your scenario was I don't know what it was goad good you want me to it's you if you want to to flor okay so what I so this was another scheme for um having to only rezone once but not closing both schools at the same time and my proposal was we rezone assuming both schools are closed but leave TC Miller open for additional year with no attendance Zone the the fellow from MGT told us that there are some districts that he's had relations with where there are schools with no attendance
211zones it's just by request only so my thought was could we since there's a lot of students at TC Miller who are already there because they applied they wanted to go there would it work to keep TC Miller open for an additional year letting the students who are currently there and want to continue stay and any open seats be filled by request but with no attendance Zone attached to TC Miller so so a student who um maybe lives across the street from TC Miller who assum presumably is currently zoned for TC Miller would have the choice of going to their newly zoned school which might be another one or go to TC Miller that way the only students who get rezoned twice are the ones who explicitly choose to be rezoned twice by choosing to
212stay an extra year at TC now I think the objection is the concern is that this would make TC Miller um unreasonably small that um is is that you expressed a concern about that I don't know what the class sizes would be um so if you have you know we we had 91 applications this year if I'm remembering correctly and 91 applications there because there is a a qualification process um so 91 applications doesn't mean 91 students are are admitted um but you might have 150 applications and 125 of those will qualify so it's hard for me to determine so this was just I was just looking for a way to reone Children only once but not have to close both schools at the same time yeah I personally like to keep things simple I
213understand I'm not a nerd you know I just like to keep it simple and straight so I'm not campaigning for it I'm just throwing it out there as another option that we can too much deviation my mind gets lost and I said where am I going so uh other discussion on this one we'll come back and continue discussing but I could we got to keep the kids in the mind take the politics out of it if the politics gets involved it's not good you know it B personally it has become a personal thing Dr day and I were there at sendeski somebody posted on Facebook evil is around us what does it mean that that should not be the case and Mr wac you should not be allowing that kind of environment in your school
214period that should not be encouraged I cannot it's 8:00 so we need to break for our close yeah you need to make the motion to go to close session let him just speak I'll give you a floor for a minute we don't allow public comment at it's 8 it's 8:00 there a motion to go to close session motion don't CL would you call the vot Please Mr J yes Mr Andrew yes Mr yes Dr day yes Dr yes Dr Carter yes Mrs Preston yes yes are we in here after they leave or we [Music] go [Music] e [Music] e [Music] board chair moves at lynberg board certifies and closed meeting just concluded nothing was be discussed except the matters number one specially identified in the motion to convene a closed meeting and lawfully permitted to
215be so discussed under provisions of Virginia Freedom of Information Act cited in that motion and so recommended action is the board chair recommends the school board approves a certification of close Clos meeting in accordance with the code of Virginia um s2. 2- 3711 A7 and 8 is there a motion motion second mam clar would you please call the vote Mr jilo he's not here he's left the meeting Andrews yes Mr Charles yes Dr day yes Dr gupa yes Dr Carter yes Mrs Preston yes Mr depal yes Mrs Lori yes motion carries it we're back in the open session and I wanted to apologize to Mr wac for my comments prior to the meeting uh my motions I think took over um better of me so we move forward from here um we were discussing question
216number three yes and U we're back to Dr Edwards okay so we were um back at looking at the possible rezoning um um uh scenarios or implementation plans and I think I heard from a couple who said what they felt in terms of those but I don't know that everybody had an opportunity to speak FL is open I'm stuck between one and four yes L I'm for four I'm for four four and I have a hard time I just don't want to put the children through a rezoning twice scenario which means really for me it's it's u i I don't know how U while I have a lot of confidence in the administration I think trying to do everything that needs to be done by fall of 2024 is tight and I really would rather
217do it correctly and if it means we need to take another year so be it but I'd rather take the time to make sure it's done properly than to to rush it and not not cross all our DOT all our eyes and cross all our tee so so I really I feel four is way for me to go Mr I don't want to close but I'll go with four if it's going to push things back a little bit so may I move that we adopt fourth of those four options in response to this question I so move that we adopt the fourth listed option second second which second should I pick well how many have we hand it's good it's Dr D and Miss car Dr car uh any discussion on the motion so could
218you restate your motion for the the motion is that we close conver TC Miller and close sasi in Fall 2025 so we're delaying the closing action for two years and in the meantime the superintendent will continue doing the close to home reson yeah okay that's the Dr wara would you want to expand on but this what are we voting I I I think I I think I understand it's just it's a this fourth option that uh we just have a a delay for I guess one year beyond the original plan um and then we will conduct our re close home zoning with based on the schedule that's in the in the PowerPoint so since we are in discussion phase I got a question so how do we um I'm for option four but how do
219we balance the budget in this coming year now I I don't think that's that's the question for right now I think you have to figure that out we're going to have the issue of how we balance the regard it this may make it harder for a year well does this also mean that this will give you not only the time to get done what you need to get done hopefully at uh bass but also Innovation programs moved where they need to get them preset up I mean does this this has allowed you enough time to do all that yeah all the I mean we we'll we'll work definitely work on all of that yes okay as long as you have enough time to get everything so when the kids are done then they just go
220would you call the all Mr any more discussion I I don't want to be accused that I didn't do enough discussion any more discussion on this please call the RO Mr Andrews upstein Mr trost yes Dr day yes Dr gutter yes Dr Carter yes Mrs Preston yes Mr depal yes Miss Lori yes motion curries 8 to one abstain how much 8 to Z 8 to1 7 7 to one was not here I'm sorry 7 Z 7 Z 701 so that's that's unanimous because an abstention is not counted Mr J no present than Dr Edward floor is yours okay so the last question on the next slide um looks more closely or on slide 26 looks closely at the um the capital Improvement approach which we know is a little bit later in the plan um
221but in scenario three there were multiple combinations and I believe on this slide um what Dr Waka has done is um make it easy for us to identify by color this time uh which of the combos based on what was in original scenario three um are we is the board willing to um support uh the green being obviously the more expensive of the combos um because you have not only the expansion at Bass um you have the full Renovations at L uh palman Road Perry Mountain RS pain along with the original additional expansions at those other three schools and then of course the blue one being the least expensive version I'm doing safety and maintenance at all the schools and the only expansion at this point would be at Bass Dr D well so I'm
222wondering seems to me there's other possibilities for instance we could do the safety and maintenance for all schools but one do an expansion a renovation at one of the other elementary schools in addition to the bass expansion yes you could do that you could do that yep so that was what I was going to suggest um so my my suggestion is that we we do the bass expansion which which of course is part of what the board approved back on September 19th plus um a um renovation well I guess an an expansion of one of the other elementary schools um the three that are here are R row um Lorn Lorn perrymont yeah so um I guess what I'm what I'm okay here's where I'm trying to go with this um ex creating some more
223space at one of the other elementary schools could give us a place to move the prek uh classes to all be in a common facility not not taking them out of Hutchinson but the ones that are distributed among several elementary schools if an expansion of one of the elementary schools made space for them then we could have all we'd have basically two prek sites Hutcherson and one other where all the prek classrooms were in a single Elementary School um and if that was what we wanted to do then we ought to pick one of the elementary schools to do that in that is closer to where we understand most of the students uh participating in the pre program are which based on the information we have is either the central or downtown areas So based
224on that I would suggest that we do um the full renovation at either perrymont or Linkhorn what's the time frame on that well I didn't specify a time frame so as soon as feasible is that big enough no that's that's that's fine because it's a PRI it's an aspect for me I apologize for talking again as opposed to speaking out of turn am I okay okay I just wanted because if it comes down to it we don't have money we need to balance the budget I would say let's take care of safety uh as as long as we're we're taking issues away maintenance on an as needed basis and until we get the money granted to us um then look at Renovations after that I understand planning is important but right now we don't have
225money we want a balanced budget we voted that for not to address that for two years uh safety is the most important thing for the students and the teachers we take care of the safety issues maintenance as needed and just go with that save the money can I I'm sorry can I just differentiate just to make sure we're on the same page on on operating funds versus Capital funds so certainly there's the operating budget which is has been the concern um and then these are what we're really talking about are capital dollars which are funded just differently than what I understand so I just want to make sure we're all on the same do we have all the money all these things absolutely not I just want to make sure we're not but I just
226want to make sure we're not talking about the operating budget for second we don't have the money that's I I assumed we didn't have the money for either side so with that we we go with the the same Min minimal is minimal uh approach minimal amounts of money that's my suggestion which would be blue blue modified and the mod I'm sorry yeah you're right go ahead please um what is the modification safety maintenance as needed period so no so no bass okay we don't have it where I support that we and we have a uh we have one of the uh decision makers probably a swing voter that was going that would be the decision as to whether or not it was to come over so we don't have it he already said he's not
227going to do it so that's that's my suggestion and please cut it down um well I'm G cut it down just a little by asking you a question um if we do close to home resoning and you don't do a bass expansion that's going to be a problem we don't have the money though but the kids doing close to home reson there's no space then has have to and and the expansion on bass is going to take a period of time it's not going to happen overnight no no no but it could be done by 2025 August I hear what you're saying CU we're not doing the whole building we're just add classes and and the just because I was thinking to do cuz I see our community growing on that end where perrymont is
228with the development over by Home Depot and that's a concern for me and perrymont elementary school is closer to that route because you can get there from the expressway easy so I'm thinking I would I would think ex uh expanding harmont Elementary School and bass and then doing the safety mains if it's the board decision I don't no I'm just thinking that's another idea yeah because perrymont has the the land they have the land I mean well the city owns it city council owns it so but there's a lot of acreage to build there so um so I think what you were just suggesting is the same as what I was just suggesting except you're being specific that a permont versus linor and in response to Mr depal comment um the the the decision the
229board made on September uh 19th was scenario 3 plus a request to city council for the 15 million now you're speculating that they will deny that request yes sir but we don't know that and I would like them to make that decision not us yes it it hasn't been brought before city council no it hasn't but I'd like I'd like them to be the ones to deny us the 15 million rather than we deny it to ourselves fa enough Mr Andrew I like the blue excuse me [Laughter] sorry I like the blue you like the blue I like the in hole or p peace meal like in hole Miss Preston you have not spoken I I'll I'll be honest and saying I'm I'm torn I just need to think about it some Dr car well
230I'm with u Mr dealul about the bass expansion why even count that in when we have one city council that the vice Mir is already saying he's not going to vote for it but um to implement some of the things we want to do we're going to have to look at the safety and maintenance puts us back to where sanduski is peace mealing doing a little bit patching this and then we'll say well this school should close because it's it's terrible or or or they or they have so many significant needs so we really need to look at what we're going to do and do what's needed to make sure that whatever schools are there are maintained and renovated so what you're saying is we don't want Patchwork we have done in sandeski where you
231lose the original identity so I'm putting words in your mouth recommending a brand new school is the only choice you suggest well I recommend that a long time ago but whatever we do let's do the renovations that are needed so then then I guess what you could do is if you're at a school and you're not seeing any Renovations then you know so we're the we're going to be the next school that they're just patching here and there and we'll be the first one to leave to go so do you have the floor you have the floor I was going to say something go ahead um any decision we make any of these or any modification of them all requires city council approving of the funding we're talking about millions of dollars for any of
232these so they I I guess I just don't find the argument of we think we know what city council's not going to do persuasive at all we are dependent on them for everything that's true so I think I think what we do need to do is not go to city council with unreasonable requests um 15 million for bass is not the largest uh request that we're looking at here some of these Renovations are probably 15 million also a new building a brand new uh sanduski we had an estimate of over 50 million that would be an even harder ass from city council so I understand the anxiety or the uncertainty of knowing what city council might approve but I don't think we can let that uncertainty about what they approve completely paralyzes we're going to
233have to face that no matter what what see the problem I have is you look at scenario 1 2 3 4 none of them mention renovation or expansion of bass Elementary for years I've been hearing that 20 50% of Heritage population comes from Florida avue and in that area so where they if you do close to home reone where will they end up either at RS pain or at Bass Elementary so the point is I don't know the how MGT left bass completely out uh from all those four scenarios that doesn't make sense to me uh convince me why you know bass has 18 acres of land behind it that part of the Town needs some po you know to me ideally if vul builds up B builds up and Liberty buys that Plaza on
234Florida Avenue that could become the educational hub for lynchb you know longterm if you look at it U so bass was left out I don't know MGT could answer why bass was left out from all the uh four scenarios yeah so so I I I can't speak on that fully but I my um I would say if you look at the the schools that are identified linor and paramont in particular uh sort of central to the city right so they're they're very centrally located in the city and so a sort of expansion there might makes some sense because you can kind of bring people from all over the place Bedford Hills you just simply have a lot of land that's available so it would be be much easier expansion potentially but if I live on
235Florida Avenue and I want to walk to my kids school most convenient place for me is ass Elementary no no argument on that you know and that map we had up there last time uh hidden from wct you see that little island in the color which was at Heritage was where is it going it's out in the lobby it's in the lobby so where is going the bass Elementary so when you I know we are not supposed to use the word neighborhood schools but if you use uh you know close to your home where you can walk to a a parent can walk to the school it just doesn't make sense as a lay man and I'm not the smartest guy in the room but I've been struggling with that the Y bass was left
236out in this whole discussion completely left out and nobody's making a noise about it may I just make one factual comment here because the the uh board questions document in which Dr W assembled for us a lot of answers the questions we had pertinent to these four questions he did have some um suggestions for how expansions at one or the other of these schools might look and based on what was in there the expansion at perrymont would uh produce an additional 15,000 square ft the expansion at Linkhorn would produce twice that much it would produce an additional 30,000 square fet if I read it correctly um so uh the Linkhorn expansion would be much bigger uh we'd have a lot more new space there but linor is already a bigger School than perrymont I think
237we would then have one sort of giant school at at Linkhorn um so that's why I kind of prefer perrymont over Linkhorn also I did with the numbers that we had here I I total up the um number of um let me see if I can find it yeah the number of students being served in the prek programs at all the four locations where they are and then I took those expend prek expenditure numbers uh that are at the bottom of page seven of the board questions document and calculated our expenditure per student at each of the four prek facilities I was expecting Hutcherson to be the least expensive but I was wrong um perrymont is the least expensive per student this is expenditures on prek per prek student um the most expensive is Paul
238Monroe second most expensive R pay uh second least expensive erson least expensive permont so I don't know what the explanation for that is why does permont do it a little bit more economically than oh you've got an answer well I I think if you're using the numbers in the the bottom where it says expenditures salaries and benefits and I think um um Mrs Lowry said our prek teacher has been there for a while a veteran teacher would be making much more than well not much more comparably but more than a um you know novice teacher so I think you need to factor in experience um when you start looking at the the numbers and considering that Hutcherson also probably has more um uh instructional assistance they also have the um um Early Childhood Program there
239some of those instructional assistance May double over in that that might explain some of those expenses but the expenses pretty much are based on salaries okay I I also noticed that Hutcherson has $20,000 of other charges and there's not a item for other charges on the other schools I don't I don't know what the explanation of that is so it's not a big difference I'm just saying that it it appeared that among the elementary schools that have prek programs in them it looks based on these numbers and whatever the explanation might be it appears that perrymont is doing about as efficiently as any any one is and so it seemed like a good place to put additional pre facilities to me that was the point I was going to make so where um you looking
240for a decision on it or we just Ponder and so I feel like for the capital plan we do need a decision on this which is we have to submit our Capital Improvement requests to the city this Friday so we we need to kind of have an idea now keep in mind it is the long-term capital and you're fund it for the year you're in and then the rest is plans just because it's in the plan doesn't mean what happen gymnasium is on that CIP we'll put it back in it'll be back into we will request it uh but you know may or may not to keep with Dr da that just because it's on the plan it's not going to be funded just because it's not in the plan doesn't mean we can't ask
241for it later show our financial responsibility with blue and add it in later is that an option so you're saying go with the blue I said go with the blue okay so can I I don't want to uh dive into it but I just one thing to consider is that while they're prating fun funds for one year remember the long-term financial plan that they develop is based on the CIP submission so if you don't if you don't submit something it's not going into into the into the debt plan okay so so it it would it makes more sense if you're going to do something if you think you might do something go ahead and ask for it and then if you don't do it that's okay but that way it's it's factored into the the
242debt plan then let's go with the green let's go with the green okay yeah all right they even go with the orange but modify it so that you are doing a full renovation perrymont no full renovation perrymont so you have more room but you can renovate link corn pal Monro RS Paint and expand it back four Renovations will be equalent to building a brand new school yes that doesn't make sense you know what I'm saying yeah yeah that's fine you build a brand new school why you yeah I think the document said that a full renovation basically means stripping it down to the studs and oh wow that's what full renov that's the level that we're talking about for full renovation all right so then you really want to expand them and one thing full
243something El okay okay just for my clarification but the CIP Sandusky new school had been in the CIP for years is that correct yes wellan the history is that it it was there there was money for design uh but there was not money for construction ever uh so there's a there's a a little bit of misconception there and then uh in the summer of 2018 uh the college Lake event happened there was all these lots and lots of expenditures so that's that's why the design stopped at that time so there there just you know there's there's a lot of talk about what was in was what was not and the construction was not uh so I'm just trying to use that as try to guide me as to what we would do here so sanduski
244is not in the CIP plan at this point new school for sanduski and that that happened in 2018 it just kind of not for the most adopted recently do but wasn't there 20 million in CIP in 2018 for the year of 2025 so there but there was never there was never a funding source for it okay I understand I understand the difference between not having a funding source however I don't want to our public to think that there were some CIP document that didn't have the word sandeski with $20 million somewhere slid out in the far off years okay of that yeah so I guess I'm trying to get my head around I mean are we is is this a a waste of time to even think I mean it sounds like you can ask
245for anything and then yeah do matter pretty much wonders it's so the city council you put this in the other school boards put this in but the city council said no so so okay so part of the whole reason we're doing all this is is is is the fact that might help you right so that is the fact work that was done so so we had sanduski that the sand there was sanduski Middle School that was done and there's a lot of conversation about how that you know that you know some people say it was slid in there it was done whatever that was you know 15 12 or 15 years ago of course there was a big process for Heritage High School and then her sandis Elementary School came in there but there was
246never any sort of Master facilities plan so that the city knew kind of what the vision was not just in the fight so the whole reason we're having this conversation the whole reason the the original task force started uh all the all the work that's been done is because there was never really any uh comprehensive facilities master plan for the division at that point there there had been one 20 years ago that's how glass was uh renovated ultimately that's how sanduski if you look at the documents that's how sanduski middle was done even there's a lot of conversation about that so the reason we're having this conversation is that we we we we want to cast that vision for what we're doing so that everybody knows kind of on on is on the same page
247and I think the question on the table is how aggressive do you want to be with that ask do you want to be all end here or do you want to be more moderate uh in whatever the case may be and I think you just that's the question that we're asking the board tonight and not you know there has to be some sort of vision that we we are adopting as as an organization so that our funding body can plan for those required Bond fundings and things like that how about we need to be realist isn't it agree yeah to be moderate aggressive but if you don't get funding you raise the expectations uh and it'll be the same thing the sendeski story which stays on CIP for years and the dream never becomes a
248reality Dr just for clarification full renovation you have um permont doing full Renovations and all expansions and Lin Elementary and both for the green yeah it seems redundant doesn't it yeah the green why would you do an expansion if you're doing a full renovation because because so the green is all expansions and all renovations right because there's the whole existing School you take that down to the studs you reprogram it do all the things that we wrote about in the orange it's saying doing renovation to those schools but not but only do an expansion to Bass so in the green we're talking about the full renovation and an expansion yes both yes updating the school and adding more room that's right the BR new well if if you if you it's your opinion that this
249doesn't it would make more sense then we had then let's delay this vote and add in the new school with the next one I know that they have a deadline of Friday I'm aware of that I'm aware and what happens to the safety and maintenance if we do green or the orange the the the the non renovated schools that don't get full Renovations would still have the safety that's what's on these these streets in your professional opinion which one is doable realist I you know I I'm looking at both of you n you say we're going to hold you I say you're on so I I'll just say I think I think maybe there's a middle ground I think that that's reasonable I think that's a doable thing I think that linor and or perrymont
250expansion is is reasonable I would say I understand the arguments about perrymont from a construction perspective link Horn's probably a little easier to do just because of the Topography of the land um I I think you could I don't think you have to NE necessarily say one one or the other at this point we could we could add that in as an elementary expansion um I think that's reasonable to do if you don't want to do all all three or all four the other thing to remember is the age of our buildings right the elementary buildings are what about 63 63 70 years old um and I do think we need to guard against the safety maintenance Patchwork plan and um we'll be here in another 5 10 years look as I think you said
251Dr Carter looking at our buildings um and that's not a good place to be so I if it's not a new school built which was on the plan when I was hired um when I came down here and actually I was mistaken the design was in um fy19 the school the 20 million was in fy20 when I first got hired here and understanding that and it moved out a little bit but full renovations if we're going to maintain our buildings in good standing and good shape otherwise I do think we're going to run the risk of being here again with sandeski part two part three part four um and I I want to be a realist too but my first job is education and I think the children of Lynchburg the staff the families deserve
252the best and I think as a community we should be striving to provide that for them um and not just what we think we can maybe bare minimum get by with so if you do a new school can we take the name out just send us ktc just a brand new school building will that suff your CIP requirement yeah um we've been there before right uh so that was what that was was in two years ago and that's all that's now gone you can certainly do that if that's what you want to do I think my perspective is the board has got a set of vision for what what you want to do whatever that may be and you might disagree with with one another but you got to set a vision for where you're
253going and at some point you just got to make a decision and you could certainly certainly provide more information but I think you know the reason we're doing this master plan is that because we want five years from now when some of us are here and some of us aren't we want to say here's what we were thinking it might change a little bit but here's the direction that we're going um as a as a School Division whatever that may be and you certainly can just put you know no name on it but I I would I would suggest that you know just H have a plan and and decide what you want to do cuz the patchwork doesn't have I was at a building few weeks ago I was told by doing the patchwork
254you lost the original identity there's so much Patchwork done that you know you do renovation after renovation those are Band-Aid Solutions and the result um heating cooling systems are all messed up so um long as Dr Edward says you need a long long-term solution which provides a safe and quality instructional environment and um but it'll come at a price Dr Carter so in the green so where do the students go when we are renovating and expanding so so I think there's a couple different ways you do that so um the I think the what we've done elsewhere and I'll think um in a lot of places is if you were to do an expansion you could potentially move people to to different buildings for a short period of time particular if you have closures the
255other option would be you have portable classrooms for a period of time this expansion is all under the uh projection that our student population is dwindling right in certain areas I think overall they said that we're we're losing students in the in the 10year projections so we're expanding and our and this was one the premise of what we even started with that our population is decreasing and here we are talking about expansions I just want I just want to get it out there it's l and that's what I'm confused about because you said with lu and the growth there's I mean it might have been dwindling but I don't think it's going to keep dwindling I think it's going to start growing so just give those guys a about five six years into it and
256you'll start children coming through well I think there's a I think the trend today and I apologize for jumping ahead of you go ahead I think the trend today is for these young couples not to be having students or students not to be having children as quickly that's just the way I've been reading yeah Mr TR I guess I'm uh recognizing the fact that we have some very old buildings here so that makes me look towards full renovation if we can't get a new building new school full renovation um realizing that I I think Mr depal there I you know it does the data says that we're going to be having a downward Trend so I got to go with what the best knowledge data I have at this point even though Miss low I
257agree with your ideas but I'm just I'm got to use the data those geographers or people that um focus on what the population is going to look like in the future hopefully it would understand and look at Lu and say okay this this has been on an upward expansion trend for new years I would expect that they would have taken that into consideration I have to again rely upon the experts on the um analysis and data going forward which makes me lean towards the Orange full Renovations that we do have an aging um School building just the average age is unbelievable quite frankly and the expansion of the bass because that does help with respect to the close to home um zoning that we're we're after um I mean obviously if if I really truly
258thought we were going to have a growing student population and if I had some data that indicated that um hard data that the experts could say this is reliable green would be the right thing but I just don't I can't say that we have that expectation given on what we've seen from the consultants and the people that we've hired with respect to the facility study which lends me to you know long-term range vision is the Orange full Renovations of those schools expansion to accommodate the close to home which is G expansion Mr andw which one of the four elementary schools are the worst out of those four Renovations for the orange lpms RSP RSP RSP are they worse than sandeski uh soski worst can we just it's different it's just a different um but it's
259Sandos is a more challenging situation I just had a thought like we we subbed out one of those put Sandusky instead well and just think about capacities too right you got a you got a big capacity at RSP I will support what Mr TR said I think that's a nice compromise it doesn't nail us down to uh Renovations at one particular School versus another it does address um the need to upgrade several well these four schools um so I will support the orange recommendation as well in that sequence what will be the sequence so you'll do the um bass expansion first in your CIP and then Renovations in terms of timeline what will be the SE order of sequence if that if that's the direction we we can certainly do it's you know um CU
260if you're plan yeah yeah I think you have to do the bass expansion first if you're planning to do close to home reone that expansion and infrastructure needs to be built up by 2025 so are we heading for a decision or we still uh I don't know so a couple of us have expressed support for the orange selection here all right I'll move that we um adopt the orange recommendation so just clarification in that orange expension the sequence of order will be first you doing the expansion and then renovation gas first and then the renovations are things that go into the capital Improvement plan which would typically be understood over a longer time period okay is that the understanding so if we so the bass expansion since you said RS pain is the worst out
261of those then they would be the first one after bass to be worked on it would be but it's also expensive so that it may be you know you need to time it right with the with the bond capacities and things like that so what so you have to do it both with um there's there's the condition but also the the financial capacity to do each one because it's it's it's a big it's a really a lot of capacity big school because I think if we present this to city council we need to have an order for the re Renovations yes so so we have this here U written and we could do it a different order but it's yeah yeah yeah you had a motion motion second we're discussing that you have the wording
262of the motion Madam cler you want any any of the motion is simply the orange orange with the exension and then renovation do we have any more discussion would you please call the RO Mr Andrews yes Mr tro yes Dr day yes Dr Gupta yes Dr Carter yes Mrs Preston yes Mr depal yes Mrs Lori yes yes motion cares zero thank you is that complete the discussion yes it does all right we're moving to item number five uh discussion of honoring previous board members Dr car do you want to take the uh yes we have omitted honoring two former board members Dr Brennan and Dr Sena for their years of service Dr sna 6 and a half and Dr Brennan six years and hopefully we can have honor them and also do what we've done
263to for other board members if they prefer that on our November the 14th meeting and where they can bring their families and all have chance to do you want to do it in a work set because for remember 14th you want smaller duration meeting because we leaving well the the next whenever we can put it on this year hopefully 15 we are all driving to Williamsburg and you for1 and I know yes very short meeting M so um do you would we have a plaque to give them we or a certificate how I mean the details of this generally what we do a a um is a Boston Walker chair for nine years oh we have a schedule for these days okay and it's a lamp for six years and then we also do some
264type of Declaration or whatever we Proclamation and the flowers for three years is that is this flowers for three years I don't think I had anybody for three years but we can put it down you don't get anything for three years a handshake me is this done for every prior board member yes okay I was just you know I like Dr Bren I don't know the other um but I was just thinking what happened you know they did it for Dr Coleman in the very last meeting okay the timing of the when they were notified and there wasn't time thank you so we'll put it not 14th but on the maybe work session December that'll be we'll probably only have one that first December wednes public the public hearing and the work session in the
265second week of December we do the budget public but let's hope we can do it this so it'll have to be November or December what should be the regular December session as a special put on the December session and and does Tina take care of acquiring the yes and we'll have to invite them yes with their and families yes a good idea 14 hey you missed this 14 right well December that's fine November 14th we have the item comes lining up and he got a drive so yes but not November 14 be good with that yes work session no was this December do we have to act on this or December okay December 1st regular session School Board policy discussion item F1 Dr Edwards curriculum instruction policy okay yep these are up for first review
266the cni work group met on September 26th and I will turn turn it over to Mrs pet absolutely thank you Dr Edwards and good evening board um we reviewed these five um policies um as you all know we've been um going through the numbered policies which are the older policies and these were the last two numbered policies under curriculum and instruction so um I'm not going to go over all of the details but the first one we're uh recommending that we retire that in lie of iib um which is linked twice in here um the next one we made some minor modifications based on LCS practices related to disposal of textbooks and and library books and other instructional material um the last three were just up for three-year review um LCS and we made no
267suggested changes there so since you've had an opportunity to look at these and review them before the meeting I will take any questions if you have them so who's on curriculum and policy you are I yeah we we talked about it discussed it in our meeting yeah that's what we decided you good to go Dr day and Miss Lowry I move that we uh accept the modifications second second Mr Andrews discussion mam CL would you call the role Please Mr Andrews yes Mr truss yes Dr day yes Dr gter yes Dr Carter yes Mrs Preston yes Mr depal yes Mrs lry yes motion carries 8 to zero thank you student services policy update Dr sure and that was a busy day September 26 because the student services policy work group also met to review um
268some policies um and Dr Brown is here after a long day in training thank you for being here um to go over those as well so good evening members of the board um in interest of time I will um just answer any questions that you may have I do want to call your attention to the first uh three policies that were just some minor word changes and our our policy did U policy Review Committee did meet to review all of these um the next three policies were deletions recommended deletions based off those being older policies from either the 70s ' 80s or 90s in that we have current board policies that satisfy those requirements and they are no longer needed um we did have a slight change to the drugs and schools policy the recommendation
269is to um change it from a consent uh into substance use counseling and um programming to parents May opt out um and then the two other policies one is a regulation that uh supports the restorative system and allows us a mechanism for students to go in and out of those program and defines those programs through regulation and then the last one is uh uh adding a policy procedure for emergency removal um to make situations in schools a little safer when we need to get a student uh out of the educational environment for the issues of safety um where a suspension wouldn't be appropriate and we don't have any other mechanisms to do so so um th those were also reviewed by the the committee as well so without going to further detail if uh there
270are any questions happy entertainment who who are the board members on service policy um Miss Preston Miss Lowry and Dr Carter guys discussed you good yeah we had this discussion okay I have a question can you um I this is one part of our homework for tonight that I'm afraid I'm delinquent on I was not able to read through all the proposed changes in advance can you summarize for me the changes in the last one here the restraint and seclusion policy what what is what is um yes what is new here yes sir so it provides the provision for us to create regulations that would allow us to emergency remove a student from a building um I give you an example of that so in uh the world of Title 9 if a student is
271having undergoing a title 9 investigation but the title n investigation has not been concluded we cannot do any discipline for those students or suspend them while the investigation is going on best case scenario from our trainings and our legal team uh those trainings should take somewhere between 60 to 90 days to complete those investigations so even if we have evidence that a student has done something it's not safe for them to be in the building we have no policy that allows us to remove them from the building uh adding a emergency removal policy will allow us to do that um it also includes there being Provisions for documentation parent so the parents are informed um and making sure that all those um items are taken care of appropriately so what does so what does that
272look like when you said you you can then move for so for the 30 or 90 days while it's been investigating where is the student um a lot of times they would under our current policies would be back in base School fortunately we haven't had that come up yet U we've been able to navigate through some other mechanisms but um this would allow us a more appropriate way to either allow students to um attend a different setting or homebound Educational Services while the investigation is taking care and being I'm being investigated any other discussion this is a first reading first reading if there's not significant concerns you want to make it an action item or Mo or you want to I think we need additional additional time there's no use rush in these we have
273there's no rush absolutely yeah there's absolutely no r re and russing so thank you Dr Brown okay thank you all thanks a wonderful night me too and next is informational items ad hoc discipline policy Review Committee meets Thursday October 26 at 3:30 p.m. so so we're in discussion about possibly rescheduling that we're still trying to clarify one thing so that might get moved to November to but we I'm still need to clarify something so and the legislative breakfast is also uh not on November 3rd no it's decent yes uh at this point it is going to be legis breakfast December 1st is a date that seems to work for the school side I want to I want to run that by our legislators and make sure that they are able to attend it December 1st
2748:30 to 10: a.m. at EC glass Marie Waller Auditorium is there a reason why it says canc down there that was the one for November 3rd and we had one of our um delegates had another conflict that came up uh after we'd already scheduled it and asked if we could uh be gracious enough to uh reschedule it and because that's who we want to be able to speak to we want them there so we want to accommodate their schedule so it do moved from November tentatively to December 1st tentatively and and at the time of this uh the we hadn't arriv D on that date by the time this agenda had been prepared we just had that our latest lacro meeting earlier today there's none on November 3rd for sure nothing November 3rd for sure
275canel thank you academic success in our next uh lacra meeting is going to be November 14th at 4M so same day as academic success committee is also on November 14th at 3:30 p.m. is it do we are is that GNA give create a conflict for you no are you not there that day I'm I'm not in I'm not on that committee on that committee is low Preston and Jalil right I'm not on that none of them are on this committee so there's no overlap the only issue we'll have is maybe a room we have to go use another room that's no problem we got only one M day but that's okay you got technically I'm only academic they can take your own minutes uh school board meeting Tuesday November 14th at 5:00 p.m. here in
276the boardroom vsba enol convention November 15 to 17th in Williamsburg uh finance and Facilities committee meeting Tuesday November 21st at 3:30 p.m. here in the boardroom all those times Miss Lowry um just for clarification for our next one because the the answers that uh Dr Edwards and oo needed for the four are we coming back to the TC Miller one next time is that UNF business we you're talking about those four questions we addressed we voted answers for three of them but not one yes so that's unfinish but so we'll come back to that okay all right question is not answered yet oh okay all right I'm just making sure I was like did we lose sight of that okay and the other things I gave you information about the p uh thing is is
277an afternoon it's a lunch on March 14th yours is a breakfast okay and ours is a lunch but I just got notification from Whitney boy that says the pie breakfast that's that's the 20th that's on the 20th November 20th yeah that's November 20th at 8 o' okay so what's on what's on March 14th that's um Pi Day right and so they're so we're doing on that committee a a meeting with all the for the CTE all the people that for businesses but that afternoon and we're using the culinary students to come together from both high schools to do that okay or the snacks or finger foods or whatever that's not on this calendar is it no I think because it's a committee I mean like a it's not not for all yeah it's yeah exactly
278and I won't be there for the pting so but you will be there for the substitute for him no that meeting is uh there is no meeting on Thursday yeah that's not that is not a uh you talking about display a review meeting that's a sep one acad Carter we have to keep the discipline committees there's two discipline committees there's the ad hoc discipline policy Review Committee and then there's the regular discipline committee which reviews the cases and those are different committees it was a confusion that's why still a confus it wasn't on my calendar like I don't have a meeting on Thursday that's not yeah so that's the ad hoc committee all right and on the academic success committee we are going to do some unfinished business because Don Hicks did present a conflict
279and resolution so we we ran it was over and I would like to try to keep it an hour so we said we'll just do it on finished business next time good is is there a motion to adjourn second you don't need to take a vot right