LCS School Board Meeting: February 7, 2023

001foreign [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign right as persons are coming in I do want to acknowledge that we are calling our February the 7th 2023 uh School Board to meeting to order and as we call our meeting to order we want to thank everyone for being here on this evening and each of uh board members have had the opportunity accessible to the public as well to view our proposed agenda for tonight's school board meeting and so under Section B1 I would now be willing to entertain a motion to approve the agenda at this time if we're in that place so moved removed by School Board member Preston is their

002secondary motion Andrews the second emotion that we will approve tonight's agenda any further questions or discussions from any member of the board then Madam clerk please call the road goodbye remember Mr Preston yes School Board member Mr Charles yes let's go about Mama Dr Sinha yeah yes go by my Dr Brennan yes school but Mama Dr Coleman yes scoop at mum and Dr Carter yes Mom and Dr Gupta yes School part Mama Dr day yes let's go back my master Andrews yes ocean Curry's 9-0 thank you madam Clerk and again this is a wonderful opportunity to come and talk about matters that are of extreme importance and on this day we know later on our president will be given the State of the Union Address and so it's appropriate for us to stand now and

003share in our pledge allegiance one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right is special to be able to share that together before we move into section c I do want to acknowledge that this month is Virginia school boards Association School Board appreciation month and we do have a certificate to our board members acknowledging this uh rising to the challenge 2023 and we have a certificate signed by David woodit the president and Gina Patterson the executive director we have one uh for Mrs Gloria Preston if you could pass that along in that way thank you for your great work Mr Randy titros thank you you're welcome Dr Kimberly a Sinha Dr Robert o Brennan Vice chair Dr Sharon why Carter Dr ATU Gupta Dr Martin day and Mr Anthony Andrews thank

004you so much we've got one more hold up James E Coleman yeah yeah all right Governor's team thank you so much for your hard work on a daily basis and for all who've come to hear uh our deliberations tonight uh section c is a special presentation where we're going to have a draft of the 2023-2024 LCS calendar discussion and Dr Edwards if you would please absolutely so just before I bring up part of our calendar committee also want to note on the table and say thank you to all of the students and staff who have prepared little nice gifts for the school board showing a little bit of appreciation and some snacks inside of things so if you're out there thank you so much for the board appreciation from our students [Applause] okay and we

005happen to have the pleasure of having members of our calendar committee here with us uh and that's a that's a job to do the calendar propose a calendar for next school year where you're trying to meet the needs of everyone and they do a great job of of balance so I am going to invite is it cat Phillips to come up to be the rep and any of the members if you want to introduce who is here love to have that too I Know Carl is here too Carl Lewis yes we had a giant team okay um so um you guys have the proposed calendar it's very similar to last year's one of the things with this committee that we put together their parents they were teachers we had people in from admin HR cni

006student services and the equity team and one that was left off that list was we did invite hope Custer from transportation and she was really helpful in making us understand all the different stakeholders so with this calendar this is the result of us surveying all our stakeholders we ask parents we sent out a survey we asked all the users all staff members and we also asked all of our secondary students because we just wanted them to have a voice too it's interesting staff parents and students had similar requests they wanted to have a full two-week winter break so we definitely everybody agreed that was really important and they wanted to end school late May and early June those were those was agreed in all of our stakeholder as far as those the survey and so

007the big changes from this year's calendar as a result of those requests again that winter break was important that early June or late May finish people wanted a fall break or to start school later in August but if you put that math together if you finish late May or early June you can't start but so late and still get the 180 days for students and then the 12 PD days or work days for our staff so we did remove all half days and that was due to a transportation's request because half days are really hard on Transportation it's hard for the bus drivers it's hard for the staff at the schools it's hard for parents and so even though we really loved those as teachers it was something that we just took off except for

008exam week and then the last day before winter break and the last day of school we also moved orientation kindergarten 6th and 9th grade orientation instead of to the day before school we put it to the Friday before school so then transportation and folks can work out some Kinks if they need to on that Monday before school starts and we did push a conference date earlier to September because we wanted to get the parents in and involved earlier and so that one's later in the day and our second conference day in the second semester is a regular school time because we thought maybe if we get the later parents who can come the first day the second conference day we maybe can get some of those folks who are available earlier in the morning so

009we that's why we made that change the other things are constraints 180 days with a B Block we want to make sure we have even quarters so that we don't end on an a day because then you would only have first through fourth period so we tried to make sure our quarters were even and our semesters were balanced at 90 days so that strange kind of end of semester in mid-January is so that we have 90 and 90 so those drivers ed folks in the first semester get as much drivers ed as those in the second semester and it's not in balance so I'd love to have questions because there's a lot that goes into it but this was after getting all that survey data what we came up with as would be best for

010the division so mad I'm doing this discussion tonight correct yes yes members of the board any questions that you have concerning the calendar that is draft form presented to us tonight has it been shared with like governance school and other units which work in sync with LCS that's a great question I don't know that specifically Governor's School has been um they typically do a different calendar than the ours they start earlier um but I know they want to see this yeah so yeah so they definitely would have access to it we can it's on the board docs but we'll share it with them for sure to make sure that there's no days that are flagged for sure all right um I know our calendar um is padded to accommodate snow days where would we see

011those are those the professional development days or so the state requires it's 990 hours or 180 days this is like a thousand and eighty hours so there's more than enough this is similar to what is this year too so if we don't see any snow days that's when we start saying well should we I think it was 2017 where we actually got a day back right before Memorial Day because we had so many extra hours we felt remiss in saying oh we want fewer days or fewer hours right now because we really still are working with that learning loss and trying to make sure everybody's where they need to be so to be like wait we'd actually like to have you know we don't know if it's going to snow next next year or not

012but we are we have at least 10 days in there if not you know flooding and buildings needing to be shut down for a little bit so that's definitely in there all right thank you for clarifying Dr Brennan Philip thank you and your committee for doing all this work and balancing all those different numbers so this is being presented us tonight and then it goes out to the public for their review and and comments is there a sort of a time for the public to do that and it comes back to us for approval or maybe I should look at Dr Edwards to see if she can help us with that yeah so we bring it we we one of the reasons why we have a committee that consists of the various uh constituents is

013sometimes it's very difficult when you have 60 to 80 people trying to get a school calendar together I'm sure it was even challenging with 20. I'm doing it so it is public now so if there's anything and it's available on board docs if there's anything that the community would like to weigh in on they can certainly email us email me or email Mrs Stevens to to do that it's going to come back to the board for again you guys are going to take a deeper look at it and just kind of take a peek before we vote on it and then it usually goes for two readings after that so yes anybody in the public who's seeing this for the first time especially if there's and they've done a great job of you know counting

014days that as you said balancing semesters one of the reasons why we have secondary teachers elementary teachers and just trying to have parents so that we cover is the parent-teacher conference day in there and all of that as well great thank you for trolls and then Dr day I see the January 2nd identified as high school graduation day and you see I see the June I'm sorry June 2nd and thank you Tim you'll be nice to you and then May 31st is being the last day of exams uh it seems to me I've heard some concerns over some of the teachers in terms of exams being pushed right up right against the graduation day and the main concern if some students not we're not knowing if they're going to make the qualifications to graduate or

015not sure this semester this this for this year they're even proposing that seniors take their exams a week early and it's pretty easy with a block schedule you have the 90-minute period they could do that within the school day and then that way the seniors that may need a little bit of help getting over the hump or giving counselors the time to make sure they get the seals and the diplomas and the gpas calculated I know that our high schools would love to have that extra time so yes it's tight here and this is kind of typically what it is but if it works well this year if that's approved then then next year then that could be something that we do with our seniors some seniors in some schools graduate a full week early

016have graduation and they're gone thankfully so then the other folks can focus on their exams and that sort of thing but thank you for addressing that concerns I know there's a lot of pressure on some of these instructors it is the staff and stamping thank you Dr day thank you Mr trolls so is this our first reading or is that is one of the future meetings of our first reading on this this is because you all have not been involved in it we're just presenting it tonight and then it'll be up for two different readings okay thank you you'll have some more time with it okay all right but what are we I'll clear on this this calendar is so critically important across the years we've had some deep conversations about about what should be

017on the calendar what should not be on the calendar how it should work we certainly think uh the community for your full engagement in this process as well and so we uh we're thankful for that if there are no other questions and we want to thank you for bringing this to us tonight and we'll look forward to having our thoughts entered in the first uh reading second reading and ultimate approval of the budget of the calendar calendar thank you ma'am thank you all right that now moves us to the next section of our agenda for tonight which is section d uh public comments and I would like uh for our Clerk to be ready after I read the statement to share uh the order of the uh presentation by category of course we've discussed this

018and whenever we have a public comment opportunity where there's robust engagement we just want to make sure everybody knows that we're consistent and how that goes about but to those who will appear tonight before the school board you will not be allowed to campaign for public office or promote private business ventures and should not use profanity or vulgar language or gestures make comments about public official or an employee that are not related to their official duties engage in behavior that disrupts the meeting or intimidates others or address the school board on issues that do not concern the services policies Roland or responsibilities of the school board individual speakers shall limit their comments to three minutes a speaker representing a group shall limit their comments to five minutes the representative shall identify the group at the

019beginning of their presentation a group may have no more than one spokesperson a total allotted time for public comments at a school board meeting is 30 minutes typically of public comments are reserved for the public to provide input and the board does not respond to comments answer questions or otherwise engage in discussion at this time typically Madam Claire could you just help us to appreciate the order of how I'm going to call out persons tonight for their categories if there are any students okay then parents staff and community members Mr chairman yes ma'am yes sir can I ask how many people we have signed up to make comments right now uh it appears to me that I see one two three four five six seven eight nine ten persons who want to share in person

020and one uh one phone message voicemail message um so we can probably not quite get all 10 in in 30 minutes if it is the pleasure of the board according to our rules there could possibly be a motion made to suspend the rules for that I move that we suspend the rules the the 30-minute limit for this evening's public comment session to enable everyone who wants to speak to have been moved by Dr Day seconded by Mr trost that we would suspend the rules typically that govern our public comment section there is no debate on the motion and it does require two-thirds approval of the board Madam clerk please call the roll scuba remember Miss Preston yes let's go about my Mr Charles yes School Board member Dr Sinha yes school but Mama Dr Brennan

021yes scuba Mama Dr Coleman yes go about member Dr Carter no let's go about Mama Dr Gupta yes let's go back Mama doc today yes school but Mr Andrews yes question car is eight to one all right then based upon the categories we will suspend the rules if necessary after the 30th minute uh looking at this the best way I can I don't think I see a name of a student but I do see names of parents so we'll get started with Mr Andrew Glover who is going to speak to us for five minutes well it actually yeah five minutes conservative parents of Lynchburg Mr Glover thank you good evening Lynchburg City School Board my name is Andrew Glover and I am the founder of the conservative parents of Lynchburg a group of nearly 400

022Lynchburg City parents and caregivers and teachers who I represent tonight first off I want to make you aware of a school-wide field trip this Thursday at Dunbar Middle School Dunbar is sending our students to a play that has been described by a college professor as quote a one-sided anti-constitution in anti-national Anthem diatribe that teaches disrespect to the Constitution end quote quite simply this play is the very definition of critical race Theory it is divisive attempts to paint America as being fundamentally racist leverages Collective guilt and portrays Wade actors as racist simply because of their skin color now tonight I don't have enough time to go in and articulate everything that is wrong with this play but earlier this afternoon I emailed each and every one of you a more detailed information on this matter I

023call on the school board to immediately terminate this field trip if you want to send Dunbar on a field trip that celebrates black history I would encourage you to instead send them to the Booker T Washington Monument which promotes strong American values now interestingly the playscript was made available to parents as a part of a school mandated opt-in process for field trips this opt-in process not only brought transparency to this issue but also it affirms that parents do have a fundamental right to make explicit decisions for their students which leads me to the second topic tonight as you're all likely aware two weeks ago Lynchburg city council passed a directive requesting Lynchburg City School Board revise School Board policy iia-r-z as it relates to sexually explicit material in Lynchburg City schools with a specific revision

024being that the policy be adjusted from an implicit permission known as opt out to requiring explicit permission known as opt-in now consider for a moment would it be okay for the school to take children on a field trip without parents explicit opt-in permission what about giving medication to students should the school be allowed to medicate a child without the explicit opt-in permission from parents or take pictures of them and publish them all over the internet without permission now we don't actually have to consider this because the school has policies in place that require opt-in for all of these items activities why there is it then okay for teachers to use material that incorporates quote sexual bestiality lewd exhibitions of nudity core Ophelia urophilia and fetishism and that's from your policy just to be clear without

025also seeking the same explicit permission from parents under the policy as it stands teachers are required to submit notification to parents 30 days in advance that the material will be used in the classroom or given us reading assignments simply adding a signature line and requiring it back does not require additional work it doesn't require additional work for the field trip and they only gave seven days notice in this case it's 30. now let us look at the ugly reality of the situation any other adult discussing and sharing this type of material outside of a school setting would be guilty of a sex crime and while 99.9 percent of teachers and staff at LCS provide a Class Act there are still bad actors because it's human nature the reality is that every week we hear of

026some sexual Scandal between teachers and students across the country having an opt-in policy adds a layer of protection around the students and the school by ensuring parents and caregivers are paying attention and ensuring their students stay safe finally having an opt-in policy provides greater transparency as to what the school system is actually teaching this transparency is critical for building trust between parents and the school system parents have entrusted our children to the school and the school needs to do everything in its power to show them why that trust should remain hiding behind an opt-out cop-out does not accomplish that therefore opt-in is the right thing to do in Lynchburg it's the right thing to do anywhere it's fair it's transparent nothing is hidden no assumptions can be made it's safe for the school it's safe

027for the students it's safe for the parent opt-in is a win-win-win please modify iia-rz from an implicit opt out policy to an explicit opt-in one it's the only change we're asking thank you at this time our next parent to speak before us will be Jennifer staden who is coming as an individual Jennifer all right that might be the voicemail I don't know all right now that's that's it in the parent category as I can see so I'm gonna now move on to staff and so that will bring me uh here to Aaron Reed who will come on behalf of the EC glass English Department welcome Mr rear good evening it's good to see you all for those of you that don't know me my name is Aaron Reed I'm a 25-year veteran at Lynchburg City

028Schools as my shirt indicates I teach at EC glass High School I am the chair of the English Department I teach AP seminar I teach AP Language and Composition I am the pilot teacher for the AP African American studies course I teach public speaking I am the co-coach of our award-winning forensics team and last week the Virginia High School league named me the speech teacher of the year for the state of Virginia and I'm here today to talk to you about the policies that the English Department at EC glass and as a result Lynchburg city has regarding materials that we teach in our classroom first I want to be clear about what our supplementary reading materials really mean so first let me talk about the adoption process because at the heart of this I think

029is how do some of our books and supplementary materials wind up in our classes it is a robust and thorough process and here's how it goes when teachers are interested in adopting a new novel for a class the first thing that we do is we go to other Educators we go to parents we go to our administrators and we go to our students and we ask them to read it whatever the book is and just either sign off on it or to come to us with questions that they have we reach out to parents of both EC glass students and Beyond and ask for their input and their interest once that is garnered once we have signatures of all of those particular stakeholders then we bring it to central office to be adopted it's a

030laborious process and it's an important process that we get the various stakeholders who are going to be members of our community now let's talk about the other side if there is a parental concern over something that's being read in class is there a process in place that those parents can utilize and you know the answer is yes but let's go ahead and review it because I suspect at some point tonight you're probably going to have very honest and real questions about this process and when I watch school board and I do watch School Board twice a month and you guys asked really good questions no matter how loudly I talk to my television I can't seem to get you guys to hear me so I'm going to try to answer those for you now when

031a parent comes to me with a concern Mr Reed here's a book that I see that you're teaching first of all how did the parent know is that explicit versus implicit well here's the thing they got it on the syllabus and do you know when they got it day one the first day in fact you know what I did this year trying to utilize technology I actually had Parents contact me after they had read the syllabus that had all the titles of my books on it to verify that they had read it and everything was good or to contact me if they had a question about a title and some parents did some of them texted me some of them called me at school some of them emailed me so I wanted to sway the

032notion that parents don't know about the books their kids are reading until March because they get in the syllabus that's number one but let's say a parent does have a concern let's say it's October and a parent would like to reach out to me with a concern Mr Reed I saw the title and I thought it was okay my child has started to read this book we're talking about it at home which by the way is what we want and I have some concerns so I'd like to talk to you about that book so the parent comes in and we talk about that first we made sure the parent has actually read that material and we can talk about it honestly and if the parent brings me those concerns do you know what the next

033step is we have an alternate book the child is not dissuaded from class the child is not dismissed they get an alternate reading assignment they continue to be a part of class they continue to learn the skills and the valuable things in class with this alternate assignment so I want to be clear about this idea that parents don't have a voice in our classrooms because we as teachers reach out to them all the time in fact we want you to talk about the books that your kids are reading they're valuable that's how these kids are going to become good citizens of the world that's how they're going to become educated voters and so when those parents reach out to us with I am so glad that your class is reading Brian Stevenson's just Mercy because

034that is one of the things I want them to learn that's what makes LCS and the reading we do so incredibly important so I wanted to provide you some context with how do supplementary materials work we don't just click a button on Amazon and order it there's a process and what happens when a parent has a concern there is a process if you have further questions you know where to find me thank you congratulations an additional parent that has arrived Jennifer Staton thank you sorry I was running behind um good evening school board members staff Dr Edwards thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak this evening my name is Jennifer Staton I'm here on behalf of the Lynchburg City Schools Equity task force as you know the equity task force is a group

035of parents Educators concerned citizens and other members of the community they apply to serve in this volunteer role and are appointed annually the purpose of the equity task force is to be a voice of the community for the school board on matters of equity diversity and inclusion the task force met last night and we decided that the only item discussed that we needed to bring forward is to say that we believe that the school board did their due diligence in researching the best way to ensure compliance with Amendment with the amendment established in code code of Virginia 22.1-16.8 regarding parental notification of sexually explicit materials we believe that the policy the board adopted at its January meeting addresses the new state requirements and needs no further attention or evaluation from the school board at this

036time we thank you for your hard work on this and we appreciate all that you do for us thanks foreign [Applause] staff and our next uh speaker uh will be uh Elizabeth uh clumpstra and this uh is coming from the Heritage High School English Department you got it correct sir thank you hello my name is Elizabeth clomster I'm here representing the English Department here at Heritage High School this is my 15th year in education and my fifth here at Lynchburg City Schools the concern of the present proposal before the school board about an official opt-in process has many teachers concerned about the ramifications both in media and long term I understand that there are parents who have concerns about what is being taught in our classrooms however this policy does not address that issue the

037first thing is as professionals Educators we have studied to become experts in our field and the best ways to teach our children we are charged and trusted with a sacred duty of the education of our children through our own education and constant professional development teachers strive to find age and academically appropriate materials that meet the academic goals of all of our children this opt-in policy hampers the ability of Educators to go out and find those resources that are appropriate through our studies excuse me uh materials that we use are readily available to parents already to address any concerns as well as through our district district and school websites this policy inhibits the ability of teachers using resources already vetted by the state of Virginia the Lynchburg City School District and our processes in our own

038schools it allows a small group of parents to place their own opinions above the expertise of teachers and administrators who have been trained on how to select these pieces and how to effectively use them to educate our students using the educa educational standards put forth by the state of Virginia any parent who has a concern has the right to address that specific concern about their student with the individual teacher and not impact the learning of any other student in the classroom as professional Educators we welcome these conversations all the time this policy will also create an unneeded burden upon the teachers and having to keep track of all the paperwork that this policy would require with the focus on making sure every student is successful and meeting the student where they are we have these

039processes in place to make sure that student needs are being met all students needs are addressed and regularly considered in the rigorous curriculum curriculum development at the state local and level and in the classroom excuse me all of the rigorous development of lessons and implementation of educational plans allow further communication between parents and teachers on a consistent basis mandating teachers to maintain additional documentation above these policies and programs about the materials in the classroom does not support meeting students individual academic needs it requires multiple non-academic data points on over 1200 students that we serve here at Heritage High School teachers would become encumbered about these design pieces of papers and therefore not spend the time developing the rigorous interesting and much needed lessons that our students deserve communication is the key factor here if we

040as teachers keep sending home materials for parents to sign over and over and over again we risk losing that key component of communication with our parents we don't need to keep overwhelming them with this information sent home the documents at the beginning of the year for teachers for parents and teachers to sign that allow students to and parents to have a communication up front about what we are teaching that school year through Infinite Campus and parents can check as often as they want the assignments I'm assigning and the grades the students are earning we can communicate now through email where parents can reach out in written form and meet with the teachers concerns with concerns with the teacher and my personal favorite method of communication the old-fashioned telephone which allows us to have a consistent

041and constant dialogue with the parents the truth is education has more instant and Constant Contact between teachers and parents than any generation before us and teachers are willing and eager to engage with parents in these discussions in the end in every school I have taught my favorite night of the school year is often old house when we have the ability to meet with our parents and our students to set the tone for the year to get excited about learning to build those relationships and talk about what we are going to study that year I give parents a chance all the time to opt into my classroom and I would love to see more parents coming in being part of our classrooms being engaged with our students and teachers and being a presence in our buildings

042thank you uh next uh speaker from the staff will be called loose representing the Lea Association please thank you for your service to the students and staff of Lynchburg City schools in the greater Lynchburg Community my name is Carl Lewis and I'm president of Lynchburg Education Association and we seem to have a lot of issues to deal with tonight so let's get to it the first issue I'd like to address is the board's opt-out policy and my request here is simple don't do anything we absolutely want parents to be aware of any sensitive reading material we absolutely want parents to work with teachers where concerns exist we absolutely want to provide parents with a suitable option when it's called for and this board has already created a proper well thought out policy that does exactly

043that parents are notified if a controversial text is going to be used in class and provided with means to opt out of that if they so choose on average teachers have to deal with two or three parent requests and find alternative assignments juxtaposed that with an opt-in policy that would create an unwieldy mess with teachers having to now get a hundred permission slips back before proceeding with the unit one more thing on an already overburdened employee's plate and it's completely unnecessary keep the policy you have it's the reasonable thing to do the second issue I need to address is the 1550 proposal Lynchburg City Schools definitely needs to get this plan done and put into place for next year we want fully accredited schools we want to increase our graduation rates we want to draw

044more business into the community and ease the tax burden on our citizens but to do that we've not only got to bring the best staff here but we have to retain the staff that we have now staff that we have spent millions of dollars training staff that has been building relationships with families in this community staff that continues to go above and beyond no matter the circumstances we constantly place them in this plan shows them that you are willing to make a commitment to them to support them and that you value them and their contributions to this Division and this community when I came to Lynchburg to teach many moons ago this division was second to none in the area it took pride in the fact that it led the region in pay and dared

045the surrounding communities to try and keep up the best employees came to end the city to work parents in the county paid tuition to send their children to Lynchburg City schools and be taught by the best staff in the best setting with the best programs that there were to offer in the state but over the course of the last decade we've seen employee after employee filter out to surrounding counties where they have fewer responsibilities and inexplicably more pay with this plan that stops today invest in your Educators and I promise you that the dividend for these kids in this community will be immeasurable lastly let's talk CRT myths every so often this fictional flame flares up and needs to be doused with a little reality for those who may be ignorant of the truth critical

046race theory is an academic and legal framework that denotes that systematic racism is a part of the American society and is used to explore if societal issues like black Americans hire mortality rate outside exposure to police violence the school-to-prison pipeline denial denial of affordable housing and the rates of death of black women and child birth are not unrelated anomalies that's a pretty complicated subject which is why it's taught in law schools and graduate sociology classes and not in K-12 Public Schools the curriculum is literally on the bdoe website for all to see feel free to look it over you'll note that CRT is not a part of the curriculum never has been never will be because it's simply not an appropriate educational level for K-12 students so why are we told that CRT is Alive

047and Well in public schools certainly purposeful manipulation for political game plays a part for many for others it's the very wrong assumption that any conversation lesson book video or play with racial undertone is CRT it's not the latest misguided flare-up seems to Sting from a theater production that some of our students will have an opportunity to see for Black History Month I've read the play and while I found it to be factually accurate and completely devoid of any CRT I came to a different conclusion than that of the main character and I think that'll be true for a lot of our students too after all that's the point to get our children to think to consider other points of view and then to decide for themselves you all have a great opportunity before you you

048can educate the public on the fact that Lynchburg City Schools is about ABC's not CRT you can invest in our community's future by adopting the 1550 plan and you can remind the distinguished members of city council that article 8 section 7 of the Virginia Constitution puts you in charge of our schools not them thank you [Applause] all right now move to our community section of our speakers and we will now uh welcome Phil stump who will come to us at this time foreign thank you for the opportunity to address you today as a former teacher not in LCS but in college but I am so thankful for what the teachers said tonight because we experience the same things in college and I just applaud them for what they said but I'm here to address you

049as a former parent my children are now grown and I have grandchildren but all three of them went through Lynchburg City schools and had a very good education um I want to address the district's policies regarding non-discrimination with regard to lgbtq Plus or queer students as professional teachers we encourage we learn to encourage students innate curiosity to grow in maturity and to learn to see different perspectives to respect others and develop their own values by listening to the different experiences of others we learn to meet students where they are building on their previous experiences and introducing new experiences at appropriate age levels we hope they will learn to think critically questioning what they hear and see online and around them and we hope as they mature they will move Beyond black and white either or

050thinking we try to get them to develop appropriate boundaries and we support them in non-judgmental ways giving them resources to increase their self-understanding including their understanding of their sexuality all our teachers need training to know about lcs's non-discrimination policy towards Square students and they need to know how to help these students gain access to information that may be important to their understanding of themselves that might protect them from bullying and even keep them from self-harm or suicide students need to know about this policy also and to know how to receive support when they are being bullied or other otherwise discriminated against by other students staff and yes by teachers too for example everyone needs to practice using students desired pronouns I am the parent of a teacher who is ex I am the grandparent of

051a child who is exploring his gender identity born a girl he identifies in most situations as a boy he lives in a school district in another state where teachers and administration have not discriminated against him in fact they have been exceedingly helpful in addressing discrimination and bullying by other students and they have probably helped to save his life his school district has clearly stated anti-discrimination policies that are public and are implemented in practice I want to strongly encourage our school district to do the same please do not listen to the voices that would divide Us by formenting fear among us our district has developed good anti-discrimination policies with regard to queer students now we need to make those policies known to all teachers staff and students and to develop protocols for enforcing them thank you

052[Applause] next speaker from the community is Vicente Gonzalez representing the queer Town Hall group welcome to start oh is it waiting for me to start okay hi my name is Vicente Gonzalez my pronouns are they them and I'm alumnus of EC glass High School I am here to speak out against the failure of Lynchburg City Schools to protect queer and lgbtq students against discrimination bullying and harassment from fellow students and teachers faculty and staff I am queer and non-binary in my experiences as a queer student in Lynchburg City schools has had a long lasting impact on me as an adult up until 2020 there were no legal protections for lgbtq youth in our school system in 2020 LCS amended the anti-discrimination policy to include sexual orientation and gender identity this was a huge win for

053the community and brought a real sense of hope and optimism that change was ahead of us we still believe that change is possible however there are a few issues that need to be addressed the first issue at hand is the anti-discrimination policy is not accessible to students and families and students are not being fully informed of their legal protections in order to find the current updated version of the anti-discrimination policy one must look through the board documents which most students and parents are not accustomed to doing that's not accessible lastly the anti-discrimination policy is not outlined in the parent student handbook another great example of where this is happening are the resources for immigrant families Dr Edwards and director Ethel Reeves did amazing work of compiling critical resources and information for immigrant families in undocumented

054youth however those resources are simply sitting on the LCS website and immigrant communities are not fully informed on resources compiling information is simply posting it on the LCS website is not enough Lynchburg City Schools needs to actively engage with immigrant communities and all immigrant communities not just the Latino community we ask for that same type of Engagement with queer folks the second major issue is the process of dealing with cases of discrimination bullying and harassment it is very unclear how the school system is dealing with cases of bullying and harassment towards queer students we are hearing a lot of conflicting information and it seems like these issues are being delegated to student services that in itself is not accessible not all students are going to have the support needed to resolve a conflict through student

055services and if students are being misgendered and misnamed by teachers and administrators then who are they supposed to turn to for help it is very unclear if teachers faculty and staff are receiving the proper training to engage with and provide adequate support for queer students also we have documented cases where parents have reported bullying and harassment to teachers administrators and student services and their concerns have gone mostly unresolved we are also hearing stories of queer students being reprimanded for defending themselves from bullying and harassment when it is the school which has failed to protect them Lynchburg City Schools needs to immediately re-examine its process of addressing cases of discrimination bullying and harassment and ensure that such a process is fully accessible to all students regardless of their support system I ask you to view this

056not as a confrontation but rather an opportunity an opportunity for Lynchburg City Schools to engage with our communities in more meaningful ways we understand that LCS is facing a multitude of challenges when it comes to equity diversity and inclusion queer people can play a vital role in Building Bridges between communities to advocate for queer people is to advocate for all people the anti-discrimination policy and the process of addressing discrimination are not enough we have to address the school-to-prison pipeline we have to confront anti-blackness in our schools we have to guarantee full access for disabled students we have to continue fighting for undocumented youth the new city council has made it perfectly clear that they intend to roll back these protections and we need Lynchburg City schools and the school board to take action now thank

057you for letting me speak today [Applause] our next speaker from the community is Jessica Coleman uh he she the we organization can't wait for me that's right okay I can do this All right so thank you for letting me speak tonight my name is Jessica Coleman I am the licensed professional counselor in five States including Virginia a licensed behavior analyst in Virginia as well a co-facilitator of the local chapter of hishi and we which is an educational support Organization for caregivers and loved ones as transgender and gender diverse youth I am also a parent of a transgender gender diverse youth in LCS schools during my first master's program in mental health counseling I was a research assistant for the social justice lab who worked primarily in bullying in lgbtq plus issues the literature which is

058substantial supports acceptance of oneself and by others is the primary indicator of positive Health outcomes physical and mental specifically in the lgbtq plus population acceptance is defined as the action or process of being received as adequate or suitable every single human being is worthy of being received as they are and with respect in my second master's program applied Behavior Analysis I wrote my thesis entitled the influence of acceptance and commitment therapy on interactions between LGBT adolescents and their caregivers which I would gladly go into detail in a later time one point I cannot leave behind is that almost 2 million lgbtq plus youth ages 13 to 24 consider suicide every single year due to the lack of acceptance from their environment having worked as a case manager in lgbtq plus transitional housing due to being

059unhoused due to their identity I can also tell you that I've seen the statistic of lgbtq plus youth being 120 more likely to be unhoused than their peers is true to zoom in transgender or gender diverse youth are 30 percent more likely than that 120 percent to be at risk for being unhoused in relation to their LGB or heteronormative peers additionally in the past year as mentioned my child has come out so the same child is in Lynchburg City Schools so far we've dealt with a transgender support plan that I was asked to fill out when the language and forms were clear to me that they should have been filled out collaboratively with collaboratively with the school as many of the questions were specifically addressing how the school would handle certain scenarios which I would

060be happy to fill out but I imagine that you guys would also like to have that input unfortunately my child has also been the recipient of bullying due to trans socially transitioning over the summer between school years when my child got suspended due to reacting to a child who was bullying my child about their pronouns it was a week-long process until we got to that point I asked what anti-bullying measures were in place I was instead responded to it that there were consequences in place for the other student so while I understand that there is a responsibility on every parent to teach their children acceptance for their own Mental Health and Social functioning there are also evidence-based ways to incorporate this into schools because not every parent provides that accepting environment school can be that

061place of acceptance that is so crucial in developmental psychology in general but also as mentioned specifically for the transgender and gender diverse diverse population additionally Frameworks such as Castle is used for social emotional learning objectives in other states around in other school districts school districts and at the end of the day that anti-discrimination policy was never mentioned to me when I brought up the information about my child being bullied it was actually texted to me last night is the only reason I even know where it is um this again is there but it's not accessible and it wasn't ever discussed with me so having a plan and knowing the plan really helps ease some of the anxiety especially when you're someone who's having to carry the weight of discrimination that goes for students and parents

062professionally I can tell you that the prevention is the best line of defense for an element physical or mental and just having faculty aware and supporting each student each student with best practices so especially since gender affirming care is also includes social behavioral psychological and medical care that is the standard so establishing that environment of safety within the schools as defined by the American Psychological Associates Association and the World Health Organization that is my parental right to ask for my child to receive the same standard of respect as every other student so I would ask that in addition to everyone else that is mentioned at the anti-discrimination policy be more visible be more accessible and also the process within that be able to be more readily available to parents as well thank you [Applause] our

063next speaker from the community will be Reverend Carl B Hutchison Junior Dr Carl B Hutchison Jr representing the NAACP yeah Mr Blackshear superintendent Edwards members of our school board and staff and uh our citizens uh I come tonight as a citizen and as a as the president emeritus of the oldest boldest maddest baddest civil rights organization in the world that is the end of aacp uh and I represent that organization uh as well as all of those persons who are now participants in our podcast over 500 of our citizens participate in that part our podcast three days a week the reason I come as I said here and listened I listened to the first Speaker who indicated that he was opposed to a trip a trip in which learning takes place uh I heard uh

064comments comment uh that he was opposed to the policies that uh the school system has adopted a policy which in which he encourages opt-in rather than opt out and I started to think maybe we just ought to just go on and do all of the silly stuff that some people want us to do we need to opt in for our football teams our basketball team our sports team do we need to opt in for our bands or our from a department maybe we should opt in for all of that because I'm sure there's some parents that don't know what their attention to their students playing football talking about critical race you can carry that to the athletic field I don't want my kids played because they might have to block for a black kid or

065he might have to block a run for a white kid no that doesn't make sense and those who want to create the division in our community I believe we're doing it wrong but I'm not going to get angry trying to get better in my life when I ran for city council I ran as an at-large candidate because I believed in my heart that if I couldn't represent all of the citizens then I couldn't serve on that Council and I was fortunate enough to win every time I ran I simply say this I would like to invite those people who seem to have disagreements with the way our school system is run with our school board without Administration with our teachers because you embarrass the teachers whenever you speak up and speak in terms in which

066you speak I want to invite you to something so that you can learn I want to invite you to the African-American committee which will meet at Social Services building three o'clock this Thursday I want to invite you to that meeting and I think it might be the gist of how difficult how important and if I could I would invite you to the subcommittee which we've also served on the subcommittee that has to deal with education because we sit there and Ponder and and are concerned about all about all of our kids the last thing I want to say is I wouldn't pay my taxes not long ago found out I'm still a citizen and that's all we are citizens of this community Majestic Community needs to get itself together so that we might be one

067thank you [Applause] to my colleagues Paul key uh was our next Community speaker as stated in the list what I think Bishop key had to leave so that would bring us now to our one phone message [Music] in regards to instructional materials with sexual explicit content in mayor Reed's letter encouraging the board to change to an opt-in policy after carefully reading all of the LCS documents attached to tonight's agenda concerning instructional resources it is clear this change is unnecessary one mayor Reed states that it is unclear to us how using a parent request process will ensure proper parental notification and said materials the request system puts onus on the parents not the division unquote and the document titled instructional materials it states that LCS will follow quote a process by which principles will provide written

068notice to parents at least 30 days prior to the use of any instructional materials with sexually explicit content that a specifically identifies the instructional materials and B informed parents of their right to review such materials two she states that the council is also a quote concerned with the appeal process is the policy only speaks to a conversation for a solution nothing more unquote this is a non-issue as LCS policy states that if parents object to certain instructional materials the school inform parents of their right to have their child used upon request in a non-punitive manner alternative instructional materials that do not include sexually explicit content three she's asking for a policy with Associated communication from the division that informs parents to decide at the front end her very wording contradicts her argument against the opt-out

069policy her worry that parents will not receive the communications from the schools I miss the opportunity to opt their child out of certain material also holds true for the opt-in policy accepted a much larger scale if parents miss that communication their child will not have access to any materials by enrolling your child in LCS parents have already opted into the curriculum and classroom materials that have been carefully chosen LPS teachers are degreed professionals the state required certifications the material they choose to use for instructional purposes must align with state standards and must be reviewed for sexually explicit content an opt-out policy I'm sorry not the in policy would be a huge burden for LCS families and teachers four how would an operating policy even work if all parents and caregivers had to approve all instructional

070materials at the beginning of the year what happens if a parent is non-responsive what happens to the instructional materials will students be able to access any materials without Expressway and consent how will students conduct research will the library be off limits will our classroom libraries begin to look like Florida's where shelves are covered and books are pulled out of children's hands because they haven't been approved so I have an entirely adequate policy is in place for parents who wish to opt their child out the School Board needs to spend its time focusing on real issues facing our schools not wasting time with contrived culture wars thank you for your time [Applause] of members of the board this concludes the individuals that we have of record for public comments I do want to say to the

071board that you have demonstrated your willingness to hear from the public is so important and we want to thank each of you who had the opportunity to share tonight each of us heard you even if we didn't respond we were listening very carefully to everything you had to say do we want to remind the public and those who are watching that in our unfinished business section tonight in J2 we will be discussing instructional resources having said that thank all of you for sharing uh doing our public comment section and we will now move on to the next item on our agenda which is a opportunity for us to really see some shining in our e-student representative comments and doctor on our guest tonight absolutely so each month in addition to our Stellar high school student

072reps we've invited other schools Middle Schools elementary school students to join us and share some of the wonderful things that are occurring in their schools and I like what Reverend Dr Hutchison said we have citizens so we have some of our youngest citizens here to share with us what's going on in their school so I'm inviting principal Kelly Bivens who is the principal of Darrington elementary school and she has two of our Stellar citizens and students at Darrington it's zymir vassel and Coda caps well good evening everyone thank you for uh thank you to all the board members for allowing us the opportunity to present this evening my name is Kelly Bivens and I am the proud principal of Darrington Elementary School for Innovation tonight I am excited to introduce two of our Desi World

073Changers Mr zimir vassal and Miss Coda Capps they are here to share collections of reasons why Desi is special to all of our students Miss Bivens you might want to pull the mic hello my name is and today I'll be presenting top 10 reasons why our Desi students love our school number one we love our teachers we love violin because we get to express how we feel through an instrument yeah okay season three we love the stem lab because we get to do cool experiments science rocks and stem sparkles reason four we have phonic events like the winter Science Festival where we get to make baking soda ornaments Oobleck and discover how polar bear blubber works reason number five back to school night was fun because we got hot dogs fresh fruits and veggies and

074we got the shop at the book fair reason number six we have a Desi leadership program where we get to host special events like paws for a Cause reason seven we love doing fun nations in just words during our literacy block because we get to pet Mama Al and learn to read and spell words reason number eight we love IXL because it helps us grow in reading and math reason number nine we love our recess resource classes because we get to do fun activities like art projects and field day foreign reason number 10 we love using technology to do Innovative projects like create and print 3D models and code with robots uh [Music] Desi we want to be World Changers foreign [Applause] [Laughter] don't go anywhere I do have a special gift for you after

075we're done but I saw we want to be World Changers and I'm just gonna tell you right now you already are World Changers thank you for the presence foreign [Applause] presentation from The Fabulous Dunbar Middle School we have principal Dr Danny Rule and another fabulous student rep now help me make sure I pronounce your name correctly is it ombre it is beautiful uh Miss Amari Brown from Dunbar good afternoon members of the school board Dr Edwards of Olympic City Schools as we welcome a dunbarian to the podium I'd like to take the opportunity to share the unique Dunbar experience that all middle school students have excuse me Dunbar Middle Schools students have this Thursday as part of our Dunbar Centennial centennial celebration Dunbar has worked to collaborate with the Academy of the Arts and the

076Virginia Children's Theater to bring a stage performance of a real life example of racism's impact in an urban School based on a true story in this present age of social media this production focuses on The Power of Words posted on a social media platform and how they impact our children today a very real connection with our students every family was provided the script and every student that returned their permission slip form will attend this Sol aligned experience and learning opportunity now I'm excited to present to you a phenomenal student which represents your very own Paul Lawrence Dunbar Middle School for innovation Amari Brown is an outstanding student both in the school school and our community I've had the opportunity to see her from a kindergarten scholar at Darrington all the way to an eighth grade

077scholar and leader at Dunbar Middle School she will and I'm holding her to this be a future leader in Lynchburg City school or Lynchburg City maybe the school system without further Ado the main Dunbar attraction tonight I'm Ari Brown good evening superintendent Edwards and school board members my name is Amari Brown and I am the representative for Paul Lawrence Dunbar Middle School for innovation this evening I will be presenting to you our school's updates so for our updates Dunbar Middle School is doing exceptionally well in all Departments of the school which includes Sports theater and everything in between so for things that's been going on throughout throughout our school dunbar's very own theater program hosted by the Carters which is Mr and Mrs Carter just took the show Aladdin Jr on the road they went

078to Atlanta to compete with other theater groups from all around as I went on and won the Excellence and participation award for sports last season the sports were tennis football soccer volleyball track cross country and still football of course Dunbar took home many wins and some losses but that has only made us better as for this Sports season we have basketball and wrestling going on the lady poets have been bringing home all of the victories undefeated yeah as for our after school programs um we've been doing really well in that department as well we have our iron program which is stationed all around um our district that is in Dunbar and glass I believe which is Flair powered by Iron and glass um it's a program for leaders and we have been encouraging more people

079to come and join this school year our iron directors are trying to take our students on a college tour to the University of Lynchburg and hopefully Liberty which is an awesome experience for all also Dunbar has our with our Dunbar Middle School 7th graders and here are some pictures of our show choir orchestra band wrestling groups and the Carters thank you and of course some more pictures just had so many couldn't choose so our school has been studying for Sol since day one and we've been preparing our 8th graders to continue to raise the bar as they move on to their next School the teachers have been very involved with the students this year ensuring that they get the best education and knowledge to succeed in the testing also Dunbar has recently participated in Winter

080growth assessments which is to gather data to see how much knowledge the students have obtained since the fall growth assessments um so continuing on we have our Student Government Association which is also known as the SGA but it is our seventh and 8th graders as for our group we have four four eighth grade students which is William Hoffman Olivia Judy inaya McCoy and Lucy G um our seventh and 8th graders have had an amazing opportunity to run um for our excuse me they have had an excellent opportunity to run for a placement in that group will is the president and also we have the vice president secretary and Treasurer our Spanish teacher Mr Fielder is running all the meetings and these individuals come together to find different ways to improve our school as for other

081activities we have going on around the school we have the 20 book Challenge and that is where students compete to read the most books by each incentive and there are different rewards each each incentive that you go through um the first incentive was an ice cream party and the second was a pass to be able to skip out on an assignment and now we wait for the last two by the end of the year whichever two students from each grade reads the most books the English teachers throughout the school SRO and other staff will go to the students houses and bring a book bag full of books coupons and other different gifts um after that we have other rewards and these rewards are for students who really just show up with three or fewer absences

082per quarter and only up to one referral the first reward was an ice cream social and the second reward was a school dance during the day over 300 students were able to attend and show off their dance moves and here are other pictures of the topics that I just spoke about so Dunbar has been doing this really thing this really great thing that has been led by my favorite principal in the whole school district Mr rule um we have been doing Town Hall meetings almost every quarter and it's just where we keep the students in the flow of everything and what's been going on throughout the school in the meetings we talk about test scores whether they're increasing which is all the time just to let you all know and um and as well as

083the behavior in the school and expectations for the weeks ahead so now this year is a very special year for Dunbar this is dunbar's 100th year we have been going through it going through a lot of great things in these past hundred years and this year on Dunbar day which is this Thursday all Dunbar Middle School students have an opportunity to attend a field trip to the academy center of the Arts as part of our 100 Year celebration which I personally think is a really great thing because we need to celebrate this this is this is a great learning opportunity for our students because it's just it's part of History our students anyways so yeah and so we have t-shirts on sale as we celebrate our 100th year at Dunbar and you can buy your

084very own DMS 100 year t-shirt and that is the logo for it and thank you that's all I have tonight thank you so I do have some gifts and we will take a picture with the students it takes a lot of courage to stand up and or he's like yes it does it takes a lot of courage to stand up and speak to the adults around this table and also know that you're on TV and that's being captured and I give these young people a big round of applause because I don't think I would have been able to do that at your age and you rocked it so awesome absolutely amazing um it speaks to the leadership that our staff are modeling for students the opportunities that they're giving students and most importantly the inclusion

085of their voice they have something to say and something to share and it matters and we need to really stop and listen to them so we are grateful for you being here and I do have a couple of gifts and we will take a picture and Dr Edwards I just want to say a thing about me Amara you did a fantastic job thank you so much nothing can disrupt a speaker more than having a technical difficulty Pro I think that is outstanding fantastic to pick it back on Mr Charles's well-timed statement as Dr Edwards makes these presentations even our high school reps that will come on in a minute it's just amazing I I was just thinking about we can't be in Washington to hear the president tonight but they're going to clap for him

086at certain times if there's something that is worth clapping for I guess we stood we clapped we gave these young people an opportunity to one day do that give the State of the Union Address because they received that kind of preparation while a part of Lynchburg City Schools I think we ought to give all of ourselves a hand for being a part of such a great School Division as Dr Edwards brings uh these before these young people thank you wow yes we're gonna take a picture present and future leaders not yet up here what they're going to be [Music] here yeah you look so familiar yeah great job great job he wants me over here we go and don't move because we have a lot of family members that need a good shot too okay

087all right here we go okay everybody smile you great job thank you congratulations congratulations absolutely amazing all right my baby [Applause] traffic once again thank you to all that Dr rule thank you for your presentation thank all of you tonight all right we'll go into continue under our student reps um once again we're one of those School divisions that afford our students to participate at this high level in preparing them for greatness even now and in the future I understand that Cameron is going to present to us through technology and we will go with her first if we're ready and Cameron will share uh representing EC glass and then Kailyn will follow representing Heritage High School good evening awesome so we've had a very busy month at EC glass we are looking for this month

088to celebrating Valentine's Day through selling candy grams the student council will be selling candy grams this week and they will be given out on Valentine's Day and they can be given to friends and teachers and whatnot over the weekend our Scholastic Bowl team placed fourth in their Regional Tournament last Wednesday we had national Signing Day George White signed to William and Mary levarius Gilbert signed to Virginia Union University Chris Walker Wells signed to AB football and Jerry Cashwell signed to Christopher Newport University we are very proud of all four of them our glass theater Club is currently hosting a Super Bowl clothing Drive they are collecting shoes and socks new socks and new oreo shoes are collected there will be different boxes to represent each team of the Super Bowl so you can vote for

089who you would like to see when our EC glass Athletics have done a great job the past month tomorrow our boys and girls swim and dive have their regional tournament and on Thursday the boys basketball faces LCA at LCA and our girls basketball faces LCA at home we wish good luck to all of our basketball teams as they play LCA this Thursday thank you [Applause] wait for him to get out of that take your time hey good evening good evening so it's also been a very busy month at Heritage let me okay so our JROTC drill team competed in the R2 Regional competition last week the color guard placed third overall in the unarmed regulation platoon placed fifth overall congratulations to Christopher C Wright who was chosen as the true Pioneer of the day the

090wrestling team has been very busy as well they've had they had six Champions and a total of 13 wrestlers make it to the regional competition the senior wrestlers also celebrated senior day so down on the bottom we have all of our senior wrestlers with their families and the posters that they get made for them and something else that isn't on the slide but they also they won the Regional Championship which is the first in LCS history for our wrestling team which is very exciting the swim team has also had many wins so far this season they also celebrated their senior night this past week there's our seniors and good luck to them as I believe right now they're competing in their Regional competition Pioneer theater's winter production of Cabaret is opening soon opening night is

091February 17th and the show closes on the 25th we've been working very hard on this and we're very excited that's the last slide but I just wanted to say that um our our teachers right now have been really really Stellar this is kind of the time of the year when everyone gets a little bit burnt out you know we passed the first semester and we're kind of in in a low right now but all of our teachers have been very very great at encouraging us to keep going and preparing us for whether it be graduation or just exams or finals at the end of the year and all of the other students kind of talked about the opportunities that they have and that Rings true for Heritage as well and I know that I and

092everybody else at the school and in the district is really grateful for the opportunities that are provided by the board and the teachers so just wanted to say that as well thank you for your time [Applause] and well received thank you for sharing that both of you Cameron and Kailyn for your leadership uh informing us what's going on in our high school so thank you very very much we appreciate it all right you all we're going to now move to section F I think we can press our way a little bit here and get into our school board member reports I'm going to call out each committee and if the uh designated person has something to share we will hear from you if not we'll move on to the next uh item under that section

093uh F1 financing facilities committee our chair Dr Kim Sinha we met last week on Wednesday um and discussed a number of things one which is coming up on our agenda the 1993 agreement between city council and the school board regarding return of fund balance uh we'll have more to say on that when it comes up on the agenda we also um discuss concerns about the calendar and where we are we are a little bit behind but that's through no fault of our room we're waiting on guidance from both the state and city council on the parameters but we anticipate that the time of our school board work session this month we should be caught up and back on track our top priorities um among other things are the 1550 salary plan and also um keeping

094our health insurance Reserve in the black we've had increasing um number of premiums and costs that associated with that as you know Health costs do increase above the rate of inflation and so that's always a cause for concern um and then we um I think that's pretty much it um it's a lot more to talk about later in the meeting thank you madam chair you ran a very nice meeting the other very good meeting the other day any questions for our finance and Facilities chair thank you Dr Sino uh F2 Governor's school committee Dr Gupta so the golf school met last Wednesday they approved the calendar academic calendar for next year and um the other discussion was centered around if there is a school choice legislation goes through will students be able to apply for

095gov School you know going into private school so Dr Smith said he's open but there need to be more discussion on this as long as the districts are okay with it they should be fine thank you Dr Gupta any questions for Dr Gupta I must say as I get around and move about Dr Gupta you making a strong presence on that committee they always refer to you in which you are contributing to that group so thank you so much sir F3 lawregional school committee Dr Carter the lower Regional School we had a wonderful presentation of the soar program and these are students that are for that are in the general education um population but that may have behavioral problems I may have they have behavioral problems and so this is like an alternative school for

096them and one of the key factors to see how they are doing is that they return to their base school but they're doing so well some may not want to return but that's our goal is to transition them back to their base school right now there are four students and the presentation was done by Dr Lewis she's a licensed clinical social worker and Ms Spitzer who is a um with the BCA bcba specialist there and there are room for six students so right now they are looks like they're going to feel that they'll fill those positions up and it really does take into account social emotional learning there also will do sols like the other students in their base schools and the fact is that one of the our spent director here say that she

097had one of those students from our program that she had never seen that student smile or talk and now the student is smiling and talking and these are students that may have had escalations that lasted three to four hours and now they're being able to de-escalate the student within three to five minutes just working one-on-one doing the things that the student needs and they're taking up taking the Core Curriculum as other students so we're just happy for that program and how it is really benefiting people and the students we also talked about the budget and also the sped directors were talking and still concerned that the federal government was supposed to fund special education 40 and it's only gotten to 10 to 12 percent but now parents are more uh and the parents are have

098Advocates and other people that are pressuring the sped directors for more services and sometimes the services not required but they're not taking no for an answer and so it's just difficult and we're going to see a lot more if a sped director leaves I mean some have been there for 25 years and they said they've never seen the aggression and some of the difficulties they're experiencing like they are now with these programs and to the point where they have to start meetings again and so we just ask that um if we can advocate for anything that we advocate for more funding for these for spend um thank you Dr Carter DEA and all of those things it's so important any questions for her um push back on further unfunded mandates in that area that's um

099that's important Dr Carter we want to roll with you you're going to talk to us again in our next committee group on the STEM Academy the STEM Academy in November there were mocked interviews mock interviews that the seniors participated in and the interviewers were 20 individuals from different organizations in Lynchburg and the students got to really participate in interviews I previously and they were asked 20 questions and also were provided with 20 20 different feedbacks so they can get prepared for their internships interviews and just for the practice which is great the seniors also participated in the OSHA program called stop the bleed they were able to get a certificate in that how to really adequately prepare for different types of wounds and there have been speakers from different programs from Sweet Bar College Randolph-Macon

100Cloud fit bwtx and others the Juniors have participated in financial literacy literacy to really know why it's important to have a credit score they also learn minor medical procedures like how to intubate and also the IV process how to do an IV also there's a new professor who is Mike Wilson he is with herd and prophet and now he's teaching a blueprint reading class and that's going very well and that's a win-win a partnership for stem and also PR for hurting profit so that's great senior students have begun their internships as 616 different programs and Mrs cash has been visiting various she's the director she's been visiting various schools in the district and the STEM Academy their main information session was February the 1st applications are already coming in and the applications is 100 online

101applications are due April the 1st and students will be notified around April the 21st if they have been offered a position or place at the stem February the 28th Zach um oxidyne he'll be here to speak he's talked in the white house with the stem Alliance Academy there and he's going to be here to talk about the importance of a two-year college education that's February the 28th that's all thank you so much Dr Carter any questions to Dr Connor relative to the STEM Academy and finally uh Dr Carter shared with us as the chair of our legislative advocacy and Community Relations Committee we will have a meeting tomorrow at 4 30. for now and others can comment doing board comments all right six Partners in education Dr Sinha and Mrs Preston all right we met

102um January 12th at uh bwx Technologies a really nice office space for us and among other things we got a LCS update from Crystal Grant who is our supervisor for student engagement and mentoring to talk about some success they're having with a mentoring program that's being piloted at Lincoln Middle School facilitate small groups with students and these are community volunteers and and this may serve as a model for our partners in other schools to uh to follow they focus on leadership skills and development students can focus on their Naturals strengths and skills rather than the behaviors they may present with they provide mentoring through artwork they advocate for peer accountability they push one another to excel in their courses and set high expectations for each other Chick-fil-A has been working with them to develop positive

103customer service skills which are transferable to just regular interactions with people among the successes our grades have increased among the students who are engaged with the mentoring program and discipline referrals have decreased among students who are engaged in this program so it's showing real promise and uh grateful to our student engagement and mentoring folks to get that going we also celebrated and acknowledged the wonderful partnership we have with West Lynchburg Baptist Church and how they stepped up and and helped us out when we were doing repairs to TC Miller as you know during that cold snap over the holidays some pipes burst and it was considerable water damage it's just wonderful to have a partner like them to step up and assist us in our time of need so once again we're very grateful and

104it just two highlights of how our partners in education are a valuable resource for us and as always we talk about advocacy we have so so many partners who are advocates for the schools who believe in City Schools who value our city schools and do numerous things to help our students teachers and staff and so again if anybody out there is interested your business Church Club whatever would like to be a partner in education reach out to uh Miss Ethel Reeves at LCS and she'll hook you up uh we were to have a meeting uh last week but it was postponed because of the weather delay so I have no further report okay thank you uh Dr sinho that Mr President anything you want to add to it if I'm looking at it right okay

105uh on this before we move to the next one I thought it was very good for you to bring up West Lynchburg Westminster Baptist Dr Edwards have we already do we have plans and specially special a special recognition or acknowledgment of them for really stepping up to the place you talking about rising to the challenge they really need to get this from me rather than me getting something like that do we have anything planned for that or no we definitely will all right well leave it alone that's all I want to know very good we'll move on to the next uh piece the Education Foundation Mr Charleston Dr Cena uh we met with the Ed Foundation uh last month um and talked about numerous things um one of the things that Ed Foundation is is

106looking for is um needs opportunities to apply some of the funds that they raised towards different projects and Endeavors and one thing Mr tros and I tried to promote was more emphasis on um CTE in our schools we recognize there's a lot of emphasis in in college prep and going on to college and scholarship programs and that's all really good and important and we honor our top seniors at graduation time most of whom are College Bound but we feel it presents perhaps a little bit of a bias against uh students who were and that's probably too strong a term but we feel would be better to uh we'd be better serving our students to acknowledge in some way uh students who excel in career technology um how we would do that remains to be seen

107but it's something we want to pay more attention to or we're encouraging the Ed Foundation to pay more attention to so we look forward to that and uh I guess we have coming up the breakfast with the superintendent which is a Ed Foundation sponsored event in March I forget what day that is but uh and look on our calendar to find out when that is cover everything you got it all fantastic all right thank you Dr Sinha Mr trosta fine fine job and lastly The Beacon of Hope Mr Andrews and Mrs Preston so two things uh Beacon of Hope has their second summer internship program coming around this year it's a paid internship for Rising Juniors and seniors uh it takes place June 5th through the 30th applications are currently open right now all the

108process is currently open right now deadline for those Juniors and seniors to apply is March the 15th and they're currently more than 17 businesses businesses and partners that are on board that have been invited to be a part of this internship and as a Shameless plug the Lynchburg fire department is one of the partners so I'm excited about that because we're the first to represent Public Safety so I'm super excited about that um and then of course the second thing is they're doing their hope it's all coming to the academy on March the 3rd I think everybody's aware of that at 7 p.m uh there's a slate of amazing speakers including some recent LCS graduates so tickets can be purchased on the Beacon of Hope website so wow I don't know if Mr President to

109add so no that's fine as he said the names of the people that are are the speakers are on the website but there are some names that are familiar to all of us and and some that are LCS recent graduates so that's an exciting thing all right looking forward to being there all right thank you Mr Andrews and Miss Preston and thank you to each of the board members that presented tonight all of this is focused on student achievement and how we can even get our community engaged to help us to do that so thank you very much uh section g now our finance report Dr Edwards for Mrs capazzi yeah so um just one quick update before um Miss Capozzi uh goes over the report that there are two expenditure reports one is in

110the old format um and then one is in the format that we had recently switched to and since the agenda was already published rather than taking down one and swapping out the other I just added the revised one but if anybody had a question as to why are there two expenditure reports it's just um in two different formats but the one that says revised is the more current one um thank you Miss kabazi for putting that together and I'm going to turn it over to you to talk briefly about Finance okay so we'll start at the top our adopt a budget of 106 million for this year the prior years encumberance gets added to that of 1.6 million brings us to our adjusted budget of uh 107.9 million I also wanted to comment Dr Day

111brought to to light something that may not be recognized that the request that was brought to city council regarding the return of fund balance that is all requested to go to Capital Improvement which means it will not go to this fund balance return because that is money that comes to the school district the capital the capital Improvement project stays with the city doesn't mean that it doesn't go to us but it goes under that Capital Improvement so that just being the difference that money that was coming here to to pay for other things outside of Capital Improvements would show there as an increase to our budget so regardless of how they they vote on that whether it's all nothing or some of it none of it will show here just so you know that you

112can see that our revenues and expenditures some summary from last year in December to this year in December we are a little bit ahead of the game um as I said we did just put out a spending free so we're hoping to incentivize getting those items paid for faster health insurance Reserve is still stable so the here is a change regarding our health insurance summary we went back and we reviewed the um the payables to see in previous reports what you were looking at was just the receipts and the claims so now we went back and we looked and said Okay so this eight hundred thousand dollars that was budgeted for this year the about 500 000 that was budgeted for last year where is that so it is there and we are now including

113that we uh my you know being unfamiliar I wasn't confident putting that in Prior but we have reviewed it and so you can see in the green portion area where it says 2021 to 2022 the 1.086 in 2021 is what they had listed as fund balance for the health insurance this 3.8 million in 2022 is that payable amount that I'm talking about so you can see our year-to-date balance is no longer in the red it is 1.5 million that has been discussed with finance and Facilities committee and yes it is in the red right now or in the black right now it does not mean that it'll stay that way by the time we get to June and it is also not a sustainable plan going forward so finances and Facilities committee is on top

114of that um as Dr Edwards stated there is the board expenditure report ending December 31 which is the revised update Edition and that should be the only Edition that you see going forward for expenditures and the revenue report um is the only revenue report that's there are there any questions about either of those questions uh Dr Brennan and Dr Gupta um I think it's great that we're now in the black with the health insurance summary I still I'm sorry I still have a little trouble understanding where the excess funds came from I understand the receipts I understand the disbursements I'm not sure what you mean by payables I guess that's my big question and then number two is on the the section above this December 2022 it says year-to-date balance is still minus 2.3 million

115dollars so is that correct or are we plus that is the monthly amount with no with no fund balance that is what it is costing us month over month with just you said you said fund balance I mean fund balance fund balance just under health insurance it's not even the health insurance reserve the health insurance Reserve is completely separate left over with the city so basically we have um two pots of money we have the employer's money and we have the employee and employer money towards premiums so the receipts that money towards premiums that's what we've been looking at what we haven't been looking at is this additional money that was also budgeted on the employer side to help fund the claims which equals both of these instead of just one of those so what

116you're looking at in the month to month is the just one of those just the receipts just the premiums versus the claims this is why it shows drastically in you know the Red is because we're not we not including that additional money and this is why exactly we're saying it's not sustainable because without this additional money coming from LCS and not the employees um and the other you know uh participants being Laurel and stem and cbgs those are also but those groups are not contributing towards this additional money going to pay those claims going to pay that overage so when we're just looking at the premiums I'm sorry Dr sinhoff well just to clarify when we reviewed when we did our budget requests last year one of those additional um request was eight hundred thousand

117dollars to supplement the health Reserve that wasn't being taken into account in our regular reporting now it is because it is money designated for that purpose but the issue there is the increase in in insurance premiums that we asked for that 10 percent yes it increased it that was it was in addition to that was 800 000 correct okay yeah right so can I still ask the on that section that has November December 2022 it says year to day total minus 2.3 and that's year to date so that's this year starting July the first to now but at the bottom we have year to date balance is 1.5 or 1.6 million right because because that year to date up top is not including that additional money okay so down below we've now included that additional

118money okay if you see the the receipts and the disbursements they'll match the year-to-date total on the month to month it's that starting number from July 1. okay so last question I appreciate you taking the time to answer these so will our starting balance for next month be the 1.5 million or 1.6 million well is that where we'll be next month we'll have that plus or will it be the minus two no the 3.8 is not going to change that's from the beginning of the year right I didn't ask three point I'm asking it was right what's going to change is that the receipts and disbursements and the year-to-date balance will change but it's not going to go up to the top right but when we get year-to-date like you've done before for this for

119the for the beginning of of February will it be that minus of 1.6 or will be the plot the the let me say the the minus of 2.4 will be the plus of 1.6 my intent was to continue showing the difference with and without because that's overage so my intent was to go month to month without the overage to show you what LCS is putting in outside of the premiums okay that's great so that so the the miles will continue as far as what you have but the excess funds will not be shown that section but shown below thank you very much we know what the true cost is Dr Gupta say something ah I just have a question about the math so now you're figuring in the additional eight hundred thousand dollars correct but

120the change in the balance is greater than eight hundred thousand dollars how does that happen because it wasn't just eight hundred thousand so 800 000 was just for this year there was also ten percent increase to the premiums okay amount of money from last year yep got it Dr Gupta there were two amounts as we discussed in the finance committee clear now 800 and 200 so those counting just to uh clarify we know that the premiums we are self-funded Health insurer the premiums we take in about 800 000 and our expense has been over a million dollars so no matter what you add there'll be a gap of about 200 000 going forward right now currently you're backfilling it about a million dollar back into all that deficit we had through up to this point

121unless we fully fund the expense through premiums paid by the employer and the employee and whatever percentages or dollar amounts we have uh so if I'm taking home ten dollars and I'm spending fifteen dollars that five dollar deficit in my bank account will stay correct unless I start a second job and bring that five dollars back right so that and that's how the health insurance is working now having said that on the revenue side if you look at the miscellaneous category and uh there's a 200 000 for bus rentals 150 000 for dual enrollment and about twenty five thousand for summer tuition and last year too it was Zero realized and this year 2-0 realized so my concern is are we overinflating our Revenue by almost 375 000 or there's an adjustment in your debit

122credit book you know what I'm saying yes I hear what you're saying I have not done a comparison um from last year's to this year's to know whether that exists but I can definitely look into it but if you're the sheets you give us today we call them for 22 and column for 21 as 0 0 right what I'm saying is without knowing the history the I can see that it says zeros but I wouldn't know without doing a little investigation why but that money is accounted in your Revenue all right Dr day and then Dr Carter so I have another explain my confusion question for you this one's probably pretty simple I'm looking at the revenue report the December 22. and uh the right hand side has um the 21-22 fiscal year which is

123over at this point and I'm looking at those percentages in the right hand column the bottom line Commonwealth Virginia 43.82 percent does that mean the state has given us less than half of the money we were expecting from them I can't answer that and the reason I can't answer that is I I have not again reviewed this to know exactly why we did or did not receive such as you're saying 50 of what was expected here 50 here I I just don't have the history but it's here to date so it won't be approximately half right no this is last year this is still comparing Apples to Apples here to date so it's only through January Dr day right on both December oh for the month ending December 31st so it's not the full year

124yet at least in this report right but lots of water's been under the bridge since then it's just not showing up in this report it's just showing you a comparison of here's our Revenue in December 2022. we go back to December I thought this one for the full fiscal year and it's not that's my mistake thank you for clearing that up all right thank you Dr Carter um I thought that we had addressed the issues of the other boards that we work with pain there what are they not doing that that additional overage LCS contributes to that everyone contributes to the premiums but that additional overage LCS is paying for but it's not budgeted within Laurel's budget or a cvgs's budget that being the point Dr Gupta unless you had got pleased today I'm just

125going to add if you reflect back about three four years ago in the school board we talked about that we are contributing about 145 000 to overages of all the ancillary units we carry gov schools kept STEM Academy where the other districts are not contributing to that overage we are covering as a Lynchburg City School so at that time the board decided we'll keep continuing carrying that instead of dividing that to other districts so let them carry the burden so maybe that's a discussion we ought to have saying let other districts carry equal burden of that orange right all right I'm clear please so note that that's as he stated that's been a discussion we've had and probably need to continue is there anyone else on that we want to thank you Mr capozza for

126giving us uh this report reflective of activity through December 2022. I would like to advance the board through the consent agenda before we take a break in section eight you will see a minute from the January 10 2023 school board meeting minutes from the January 24th 2023 work session and then our human resources board report which is duly appended is there a motion to approve the consent agenda a move that we approve the consent agenda that's a second to the motion second motion made by Dr Carter seconded by Dr David we would approve their consent agenda any further questions or discussion on the motion hearing none Madam clerk please call the role remember Miss Preston yes scuba my Mr Charles yes scopa member Dr sanhi yes yes let's go up Mom by Dr Carter yes

127go vote Mama Dr Gupta yes let's go about my doctor today yes let's go but remember Mr Andrews yes motion Curry's magazine so did everybody be ready for robust discussion under the remaining sections of our meeting tonight if we could take a five minute break and then we will return and go right back to work thank you so much thank you [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] as we give all of our board members and clerk a chance to uh to resettle we are going to backped a little bit in my haste and uh give Dr Edwards an opportunity to bring on our human resource director to share an announcement with us yes um we just thought it is um CTE appreciation month as long

128along with school board appreciation month and we did hear a lot of conversation and we have been in a lot of conversations about Career and Technical education Workforce Development you all changed our mission statement to add and Beyond because we're really interested in kids having a successful future not just graduate so we did want to make mention just of a little thing that our community may not know so I've asked Miss Scott to talk a little bit about the newest member of our team of our LCS team it's Scott thank you that I was getting aboard I'm excited to announce that Mr Dooley has joined our team um a team lead to lead our CTE programming he is a Visionary experience and student-focused leader with a passion for Career and Technical education Mr Dooley received

129the 2022 Dr Lee Ross outstanding Career and Technical education award from Virginia Association for trade and industrial education so we're excited um to have him a part of our team outstanding nice he's hit the ground running already and yes I'm not mistaken he's engaging some of our students to get a haircut on Friday right what way to get into CTE and just Practice What You Preach there so we just wanted to make the community aware because that position had been vacant and now with that position filled it sort of adds a bridge between our partners in education work that we do hour and Beyond work that we do and just all of the initiatives that we're working with the CTE Academy at cbcc our plans for what we want to do at the middle school

130so he's going to play an integral role and we just wanted to update the community so thank you thank you fantastic thank you all right thank you very much for that announcement thank you Dr Edwards and I'm impressed that Mr Dooley has a master of public administration from James Madison University you'll do see that alone all right section I comprehensive strategic Plan update on facilities master plan Dr uh Edwards okay yes so each month we pretty much try to give an update of where we are on our joint efforts with our facility study and just to remind our public or even our new families who weren't here last year that we spent considerable time last year having Community conversations looking at Parts one and two of our facility study which was the demographics and um

131the facilities condition assessment which is the condition of our buildings part three is the educational programming and then the big part we're all waiting for is part four which are the combination of all of those recommendations so today I'm going to turn it over to Dr waldika to talk a little bit more about where we are with part three thank you Dr Edwards and good evening members of the board you'll recall at our last meeting we had a kind of overview of the scope of work of the educational consultant helping us through our facilities Master planning effort as Dr Edwards said we had a facility assessment report which was a very detailed assessment of the actual buildings that we have that was what was asked for from that consultant we're now moving into the understanding

132of what was to be used or what was to be done in those buildings as we've discussed and I want what I wanted to do I know this is a document that you've seen before but I don't think the public has seen the scope of work so we provided that in the um in the actual board document board docs and so what you see is a the community will see is a seven task project that includes everything from Project initiation which we're finishing up now ultimately all to an implementation plan and right now we are working on finishing up sort of task one which is project project initiation which now hours including a tremendous data collection effort by City And School staff everything from literally where the buildings are to our assessment data to how

133we develop curriculum and and lesson plans pacing guides and all sorts of things that we're providing to our educational Master planning consultant so that will be done hopefully in the next week or so that'll be to them and we'll move on along to the environmental scan which is which is section two of the project so we'll continue to make progress and making sure that we are giving the proper information so there's a lot of just sort of technical work that's going on right now providing detail and information on context of the data that we're providing and then we'll next very quickly move into the community engagement components and we anticipate the in-person community engagement process to occur sort of early to mid excuse me April certainly not during spring break but that will occur during

134April and have opportunities a number of several opportunities for members of the community to to engage individually as well as a list of a number of stakeholders including the school board and other groups that may need to be uh addressed so that's where we are right now with the project we have a lot of data collection a lot of technical work being done by the staff members by the 20 or so staff members between the city and schools in addition to probably every principle is working to gather information in the division working to try to get that that work together so that's where we are and certainly would take any questions you might have thank you Dr waterka and questions now from the board uh Dr Brennan thank you Dr Whitaker and thank you the

135staff for putting that work together and making that connection to the consultant I have two comments one is short and one is a little bit longer and I I asked the board for their patients to help me with this I know we have a lot ahead of us but I think this is really an important topic I think the short one is that the the six-month um mission for this as Dr roodek has pointed out several levels but the main statement I just want to read because I think it's so important which is that the purpose is to facilitate a long-term vision for the physical design and location of school buildings and their role in lcs's future consider opportunities for closing schools repurposing schools combining schools modernizing schools building new schools and adjusting attendance boundaries

136so we have a huge goal a huge Mission out there in front of us and for those in the community and particularly those on city council who may not think that we are addressing these issues of our what we're doing with our schools and the things we clearly are embarking on that mission the other one I like to bring to the board for their input is that I think that it's so important I think we all agree it's so important that the community not only be brought along with us on this project but they kind of lead us I mean this is going to have tremendous impacts on our community and no matter what we decide to do whether we leave things the same whether we close school whether we build new schools there's going

137to be a lot of controversy around this I think appropriately so because we are going to be impacting the future of education and the schools in our community for many years to come as I read the the work plan that uh uh MGT has the under their communication which is 0.3 they say that they would like to develop a list of the 15 or 20 stakeholders groups from whom input will be gathered using multiple appropriate data collection methods which could include key stakeholder phone interviews focus group or or web-based survey and to me this seems to be a little Community engagement light as far as really engaging our community and what we need them to do we've already done a mission of trying to do this with our the conversation the community we had back

138last year to start this process I think we needed to do something at that level again and also uh when Dominion 7 gave us their recommendations as far as what they felt after they looked at our schools one of their main recommendations and I've sent you this slide that they presented to us was that they felt we needed to have a working group to as our next step in addressing this that after we had met a contract with a with an educational consultant that they say what our next step and this is from March of 2022 they say that we should develop a working committee and that Community should be made up of the school board city council and the community and that it should set goals and methodologies and a schedule for how this

139process is going to happen and discuss the issues of consolidation new construction renovation all the things that we want to do with this and I really think that this project is the most important thing that I think we as board members are going to address perhaps during our term as board members I mean we are going to dictate what is going to be the the vision and the and the future for education in our schools for years to come and I think we need to do it in lockstep in support with the key stakeholders who are our community and also with our partner which is city council I mean we know that they own the buildings we do the education you know whatever we decide is going to have to go to them in order

140for them to agree and participate and I think the sooner we get them on board the the more important it is so I really think that um think of this whole mission that I like us to consider whether we should actually have a a advisory committee to the school board which we can do under a policy for advisory committees and ad hoc Group which is a temporary group that would be a committee that represents school board with school board members city council with City Council Members community members particularly representatives of the schools that will be impacted by these decisions and other entities that either the board or city council or the consultant fields are important to be part of that and that this group work with LCS and with city council as a as a

141joint group to come back to us with their recommendations so an advisory committee to the school board that's a temporary ad hoc group to help us address this and help us be sure that we have an open door to our community that they have input they know what we're doing and and where this road is leading so we ultimately do get to the end of it there are there are a few surprises as we can have so I would like to put that to the board for their discussion I'm willing to make a motion if we need to do that in order to get it as a as a strong discussion but whatever the board would like to do but I really think this is important we should make sure it happens now and now

142as as we get farther down the line all right thank you Dr Brennan I hear you toeing with the notion of emotion but you want to hear discussion around uh an advisory committed to the school board and I know that there are a lot of board members that probably have thoughts about that uh and so uh we are in discussion around Dr watercoast's report and Dr Brennan's uh Reflections that he has just stated what members what are your thoughts Dr Carter I think isn't that the reason why we went with this consulting firm was for them to take the lead and I saw another document I can't pull it up now where there are different um there's a city council group and a and a Lynchburg on my day and the school board group that's

143comprised of different members to work with in conjunction with the mgts because if not that we should have just kept what we had before which was the I forgot the name of it task force yeah the task force then we'll be going right back to that but I we can always amped up or increase or I think more um Community input versus starting over because we're right here now we might as well continue with I mean we're paying money for this group aren't we yeah to do this and it's it's on a step-by-step process where it's going to really look at everything and they're going to bring in community input and we can if we want I guess we can ask that they will increase more on individuals to talk talk about the various aspects

144of stakeholders we hired a consultant to help us out then the superintendent gave part of a leadership team City gave part of their leadership team to work with that consultant to come up with recommendations for the school board so going with a the committee you're suggesting tells me that I'm telling them I don't trust your judgment I don't trust your ability to conduct those Community feedback in a right way so you need a big daddy watching you and doing what you're doing so I need to I think we need to leave it to them they're all professionals they know how to do their job they have been in the public Arena and let them come back with the feedback nothing stopping a school board member to show up in that book meeting and listen to

145what is going on when Community meetings happen last time most of us majority of us were there we were part of the discussion so what will this additional committee do at this point in time when we are in February you know things are Dr Walker things are moving forward right the train has left the station would it not be better though if we had representatives from different entities in our community so that there were various stakeholders whose voices could be heard because we're all school board members which means we have at least some things some things in common but we have um and and I and I say this for my my own ex from my own experience from being in a classroom and being an administrator and that sort of thing but there are

146Community all communities do not think alike if you will and so if we don't have representatives from various communities we need to have the diversity of those voices we need to have people that come from this community in that Community we need to have men and we need to have women we need to have parents and we need to have people that don't have children we need to have people that have students perhaps that have graduated and peop and parents of students who are young so we can get all of those voices in the room together and and and compare notes so that we can hear what everybody what everybody thinks about whatever our ideas are I agree with you I'm sorry I mean I tend to agree with Dr Brendan and Miss Preston to

147me it's no different than the school calendar yes we're paying this Consultant Group to work out these details but it's also it's also important to get feedback from community members especially if we're considering closing their school that's a culture that they've been used to accustomed to for many many years so just having the community engaged early on uh getting their feedback I think it's just Paramount I think we would be doing us ourselves a disservice uh not allowing more people to be engaged in the conversation but you still have the floor not to go talk already and I'm not saying Community involvement is not important what I'm saying is when we do this subgroups these subgroups are skewed towards the squeaking will makes more noise those students many of them don't have voice in the

148system and they're still left out so what control measures we have in place or will will have in place so that the voices as you said for everyone is heard you know not the few because uh and it's very it's very important because most of the schools I see on the on the block are all on District too and I have said that in the forums before so District 2 becomes very important from the school board representation to have a voice in the process and the community on that camper Avenue from from Campbell Avenue down all the way up to um Oakley becomes very important I I I'm not saying your voice is not important what I'm saying is that voice can be who will collect that voice is the point I was making you

149got a team there right now to collect and do the job along with the consultant so now we're putting a team on top of it to for an oversight or do things they will miss if I could just please you have to work um so uh one thing I just want to say is I I would encourage the board not to be um too tied to the recommendations that the previous consultant uh chose to make right and whether whether or not you want another working group that's that's a decision for you um but I think particularly there was some uh there were some there's some perspective uh that that maybe that consultant thought about the what the community wanted to see in some of those building assessments and I would encourage you uh in the

150re and part of the reason we chose to go with another consultant that's not located in Lynchburg is to have an objective unbiased analysis of that right that doesn't mean that we don't include as many voices as we possibly can we can always add more voices to the to the table I think all the folks that we mentioned are probably listed here in our stakeholder analysis our stakeholder a stakeholder list so certainly you know if you feel like that's the appropriate step that's that certainly we can make we can make that work we'll work through that but I I would just encourage you not to think that it's a very light engagement process I don't I don't think that's the case I mean we can agree to disagree on that I think there's a very

151robust engagement process and I and it it is sincere that we want to have as many people at the table as we possibly can um I think when we discussed this before one of the things that sort of came out was that we wanted to make sure that there was equal opportunity for members of the board to give input as well and so I think I just want to bring that to your attention thank you Dr waterco and I see hands up and of course this is a very interesting discussion and the perspectives that we could be on this forever just on this issue tonight so uh you all please forgive me if I try to narrow Us in into the report it's been given uh for the comprehensive strategic plan for this February meeting

152and within the context of that Dr Brennan has argued that he characterized it as engagement light and has given some considerations I've heard feedback already Dr Carter used the language amp up and so I guess we're really trying to figure out whether it's necessary to create a working group or whether we would be comfortable with letting this group amp up uh what they're doing now that was that you want to weigh in and then I do want to recognize Dr Sinha and Dr Brown I just want to make sure all the members of the board are are kind of still committed to doing what we did before so after we had a group that kind of came in and then we did some tours of buildings and then we contracted with Dominion seven and they

153did some work and they came in and interviewed and talked and did a report once they gave us that report we spent the next six weeks out in the community saying here is the report here are the possibilities here's what they said about the various buildings we shared it with communities if you remember we actually went on tour and picked buildings that were um in each Ward district as well as the ones that had potential for um what is it either renovation we do in a Sandusky because obviously that was a school that is a school that we were thinking about would be replaced with the new school but also at buildings that may need major Renovations our plan with this and remember we were like all right let's get that now we've got a

154good picture of the infrastructure let's look at the programming they're probably going to come back with some recommendations that we got to go back out to the community and do the exact same thing again and engage the community even though they are going to do focus groups in those areas so that we do get those various folks do exactly what we did before but ultimately after all of that work two Consultants probably 10 Community conversations or I don't know what we did six or twelve it comes back to the board for a final like this is what we want to do so I just didn't want the board to miss that we had planned on taking all this work once we get the big picture from MGT we'll go back into our community and make

155sure that okay okay here we go we have another meeting here another meeting we have one at your your church any church um or any place or Community Center that will have it but I want to make sure that you know that that is also part of what we did with the first consultant on the physical part of the building and it's what we're going to do with the second consultant on the educational part of it thank you Dr Edwards Dr Senator then Dr Brennan um I'm not clear on on your perception and you can help me understand that it's like because under the Community engagement it says 15 to 20 stakeholder groups that it will seek feedback from so to me that's a lot of people and then later it talks about 15 to

15620 stakeholder phone interviews that's a that's a narrower set but to me it seems fairly robust um of these types of groups and it's not limited to this list of suggested types of groups there can be others in there and as far as like a a steering committee or whatever to to guide this or oversee it school board and city council wouldn't it be um so um unless I'm missing something I I'm I'm not seeing where your concern is coming from great well thank you for stating that and if I can please of course first of all I am totally open to the will of the board whatever like to do I just want to raise the topic because I think this is such an important project for us and just respond to some of

157the comments I am all in favor of the group that's been hired I think their statement is good I think they've been vetted properly I think that's all in good shape um you know the community conversations that we had we we did try very hard to do those and the the turnout was not very good there wasn't really a conclusion to it we never really wrapped it up but we made the effort and I think it was you know we get credit for doing that but as far as there were individual meetings that were not that well attended and there was never taking all those comments together and presenting those in some format to the community so just as one method that we've done um the as I said I think that whatever comes of

158this project is going to be controversial and I think the more that we get it out to the public the better it's going to be we had a meeting with leadership of the city on Friday and I think it's it's pretty clear that there's not been any communication to city council about this process so far as far as the group being hired how it was vetted whatever it was there's not been any report to them which is not encouraging to me I mean we've we've hired a group we've committed to a group we need to make sure we're partners with the city in order to do that that I really want to make sure that we we do this the proper way so so my vision is not to not to slow things down because

159they on their schedule we have time they're going to collect a lot of data for the next month or two but the issue is should we have a group of people that I Envision being 10 to 12 that consist of a couple of school board members couple City Council Members administrators represented from the schools whoever else needs to be on it that they can help vet these ideas and help the community come along with us so that when all is said and done and we stand up there before city council and say this is what we think needs to be done that it's not a surprise to anyone and people feel like they've had the opportunity to have input so that's all and I think if if this group will do that and the school

160board's comfortable with doing it I have no problem with it but I do think this is Major and I think the more we cooperate with the community the more I think we let them lead us you know this is their future this is that what they're going to have uh Dr day and thank you Dr Ben Dr day and then Dr Dr waterka um so I don't think what Dr Brennan is suggesting is that radical compared to what's here um this I think the difference is this list of 15 to 20 key stakeholders are they going to function in a reactive way or a proactive way as it's written here it sounds like they're going to get phone calls they're going to get surveys they're going to be contacted individually feedback to the to the

161Consultant Group as opposed to getting together and tell that group here's what we need to see I think that's the that's what I'm hearing what from what Dr Brennan is suggesting and I think that's important um it's not clear from this that those 15 20 to 20 people will ever see each other it looks to me like they're just going to be on the receiving end of emails and phone calls and I think it is important for them to get together and say well how did you answer that question oh I didn't think about it that way I think those folks need to get together and hear each other I think it's important for the city council participants in this group to hear what we are our representatives of school board have to say to

162hear what's coming from the teachers if this group is going to be the most influential single collection of individuals for this process I think they need to hear from each other as well and so I'm hearing what Dr Brennan is suggesting is that this group needs to be together and have a little bit of agency of its own in this process rather than just reacting to questions that come to it from the Consultant Group so um I also just want to make sure we point out task number five which is the community feedback component which is when the technical work is done um where we can we can develop a number of potential scenarios that's that's another time when we engage the community and hear from their perspective on on what those potential scenarios are

163could which could be none of these things are the things that we want to do right and then says we kind of go back to the drawing board um and you know I guess just in my experience it's oftentimes very important to have something to react to as well so certainly I agree that having something on the front end to proactively say which needs you I think that's that's critically important but it's also very important I think to have an opportunity to react to a series of potential recommendations that I think will be valuable so I think that I don't want to overlook that component so so it so if that might um and I think Dr Brennan has presented this in the spirit of Good Taste of trying to figure out how do we

164maximize engagement and so um I clearly hear what he's saying in others who have somewhat supported that and I'm not necessarily against it I do hear Dr Gupta use this language who will collect the voices and at least for me I'm a little concerned about that because I think I hear the superintendent saying that within the plan as has been in the past and we can always get better at it I guess some of them were nicely attended I thought but at any rate I I haven't been through everything we've gone through I'm a little little concerned not that I have a power tripping person or who's controlling it I just think the way it's presented now we are able to collect the voices and I would probably feel better if we amped up that

165to whatever degree we needed to because I'm a little concerned of what that looks like when the other folk get involved and that's just my personal thoughts on the matter um Dr Gupta are you going to say something else so we got a new leadership in the city I'm surprised to hear that they don't know what is going on because as per superintendent half of the work group is LCS employees the other half are city managers Representatives so are they out of touch or they are not communicating with their bosses what is going on in this group then that's their problem right you see what I'm saying and so we don't we cannot blame Dr Walker and his team for that and say okay I need somebody to watch you because you're not doing your

166work half of the group is city employees and their responsibility is to tell their bosses what they're doing just like he may be doing it to the superintendent so Mr Charles go right ahead yeah I actually didn't think Dr Brennan's I didn't take it in that theme I think his overarching point is this is such a critical decision that makes such a last name impact we wanted to make sure we had the buying all along and I see and I could see how two forums was that I saw in here I want to make sure that we do get that buy-in I think you've got the framework for it certainly I don't want to necessarily create another task for it or worse or what have you but we need to have that buying along the

167way so again there's no surprises when the final package is all presented people should be knowing you should have an idea what's happening and I I will say uh we worked hard at getting the community relations groups together and I did not make it to all of them I managed the majority of those uh and I was a tad disappointed we didn't have more community members that's not necessarily on us it was well communicated but I would have we had a lot of staff there um and I mean that's I mean you can't lead them you can't get it drag people into the meetings if they want to come in but I want to make sure they have an opportunity to so especially if uh we're going to be closing a school in their neighborhood

168or what have you I want to hear from them I get the I get the the vein of what you're saying and I agree with the vein of course I don't necessarily want to create another layer of bureaucracy but I just want to make sure that we are aware of getting that Community input anyone else who would like to make a comment before I'm going to ask Dr running whether or not he is taught with this notion enough to either make a motion or we'll move on to the next item on our agenda do we have a specific time frame in which this is to be accomplished the the project or the whole yeah the doctor so we're we're in the second month of six months well into the first month of six months so

169the summer time because would it would it make sense for us to design a calendar if you will or schedule to to get certain steps taken taken care of because the the input that I'm going to give at an elementary school is not necessarily the same input that I'm going to get at a at a high school and so if there was a time frame designed so that high schools would either meet separately or all high schools together and answer the same questions whatever those questions happen to be and then once that's once that's done then that group puts the in their input together and presents it together to the you know to the larger group who would then assess it and figure out okay these are the three things that High School thinks have

170to be done and these are the two that Middle School says are critical and these are the you know for that Elementary says are critical because then you're getting input from all of the stakeholders number one and I think that's critical and and because you got kind of an organized process because if you have the same questions for each group it's going to lead people to talk about the same things instead of oh everybody going off and in left field would that make sense to design some kind of project or process like that that would lead us in a particular direction you can develop a calendar for us don't take care of it or maybe they already have it and they may yeah my limited experience and I will qualify it that way is that

171people will come and deal with things when they kind of know what the options are sometimes people don't do very well otherwise and then you you got to know how to get the people there um Dr Brennan is in your hands I I just I I think what you have brought to us tonight has challenged us to make sure that this is done right and if in fact that can be done through what we have amped up or whatever we need to do then that's one thing but if if we want to go to working group option the chair certainly is not going to not entertain the motion if there is one so Dr Coleman thank you you know I as as I said before I'm willing to do the will of the board totally

172but I do think this is a big project yes I think this is the legacy of this school board what comes of this and I think we need to do it as best we can and and and in the smartest way that we can so I would like to make a motion under policy BC FZ advisory committee school board with a school board May appoint advisory councils or Committees of citizens of the stool division for consultation with reference to specific matters pertaining to local schools that this would be a specific Committee just looking at this facility working with LCS Administration and and city council not making decisions but bringing recommendations back to us there is an Advisory Board to the board so I would like to make that motion that we that we do initiate

173an advisory committee to the board to deal with the facility project and that last part you just said I would entertain that as a motion because the other part I think um because we've got to be clear on what we're doing is there a second and if you could restate as the maker of the motion the motion one more time and then I'll see if there's a second to that motion okay so I would make a motion that the school board uh is approve and advise advisory committee to the board that would not be a decision-making body but would make recommendations of the board for the board's review and final decision regarding the facilities master plan for uh the future of Lynchburg City Schools a second okay Mr and Mr Andrews has second emotion so

174now we can have any additional discussion on the motion Dr Sinha I would like to fully consider what your motion is proposing and I don't feel like right now I have the full breath like the scope of what this would do um I think where we ran into trouble with the task force is not fully understanding or comprehending what the scope of their objectives were there were concerns of mission creep and so I would feel more comfortable voting for this if there were time to consider just what that scope is so sort of like we have a first reading of something and then we come back and take action on it I don't yeah you're winning me over I want to say that that's Charming yeah I don't feel without the the finer details of

175what how that would work and you know sort of putting hard rails around it so it doesn't get out of hand and it doesn't infringe upon the sure real responsibilities of counseling that we could um see something and then and then vote on it uh yield to the maker to the motion before Dr Dave speaks so I do I think that's a great suggestion and I do not want to burden the board down at this point with this meeting but I do think it's important so I would be willing if it's okay Mr Andrews who seconded that motion to withdraw it and and work on it with the administration and with the Consulting Group to say you know what would be beneficial and bring it back to the board for their consideration with more details

176oh the make of the motion I was willing to withdraw to motion Dr Day well I was going to offer an alternate approach which is just to postpone action on that motion until a future meeting but you're it's your emotions with more details I would like work with that so I think if it's okay let me put some meat on it working with the administration getting some feedback from the Consulting Group so you're withdrawing your emotions withdrawing it with the flush it out to flush it out and to bring it back at whatever the next appropriate time would be or and I just before you withdraw it in discussion yeah and Anthony did you want to speak first I don't want to some of the things I'm interested in is you know obviously composition of

177this committee the you know how would they be appointed or you know how would they be put in the selection committee yeah obviously the the scope yeah um some of the deliverables of the committee which is exactly those are kind of things I'm interested in personally have seen and I'm sure other people may chime in with that but good thank you all right as I'm looking at the rules as I have them in front of me if you're going to make a motion to postpone the motion must State the time in which the matter is to be considered okay and so you would have to tell us [Music] but I just still want to make the record clear okay so if we've withdrawn then we we are back to the report having been presented and

178Dr Brennan or any of the nine board members can certainly do your investigation around this matter I do also want to state that I feel confident and in light of what you brought tonight Dr Brennan that Dr Edwards has stated that there is going to be ongoing opportunities for the group to share with the community and if we beef that up that might take care of it it is very important and student achievement and all these other issues that you all are doing working on all these groups doing a great job has to go forward so Dr Brennan thank you for withdrawing and we'll hear all right thank you all for that we're working well together and I'm going to move with now and get my thoughts together we're now into the section Jay how

179about that is 7 43. unfinished business number one Hazard Communications Dr Edward for Dr water yep turning it right over to Dr Woodland thank you Dr Edwards and uh again this this uh Hazard communication procedures which is ebaaz-r I was brought to you on January 24th in the work session there were two questions or comments uh the first is listed in the board docs document and it says essentially why are art materials specifically addressed in the policy but not others and the answer to that is that art materials are specifically addressed in the vdoe standards and have to be addressed for younger children which I'm glad is a better answer than we've always done that I'm thankful for that there was also a rewarding um let me pull it up real quickly um to try

180to just clarify a section about emptying containers I think it's on page two of six and under number three product label is the last paragraph and essentially we change this to say hopefully to make it more clear I'm just saying that the only time a container does not need to have a label is when it has been entirely emptied um there so hopefully that's addressable thank you thank you thank you thank you Dr Dave for your stuff so this is our second reading it's before the board for Action tonight what is the Pledge of the board and Luther we approve the following School Board policy and we'll move by Dr Cottage a second by Dr day any further questions or discussion on the motion stated Dr Gupta just uh under uh program elements he got

181Roman one and then three I'm assuming chemical inventories is number two I'm sorry under program elements I don't know which page it is okay you skip Roman numeral two oh it's indented there oh isn't it I think it's just because of the thing right so oh yeah Hazard chemical inventories is number two thank you Dr Gupta for your consideration anybody else anyone else all right hearing no further discussion Dr uh Madam clerk please call the roll yes let's go about remember Dr Coleman yes good board member Dr Carter yes let's go over Dr Gupta yes school about Mom and Dr day yes let's go back my Mr Andrews yes motion care is not 2-0 thank you madam clerk that now moves us to day two and uh before Dr Edwards brings on Mrs Pugh for

182the discussion on instructional resources I do want to thank each of you I want to thank a vice chair um the mayor of our city does not need any lecture from us around whose responsibility it is to govern the mayor is very clear the vice May is very clear and I would Embrace that many of the members of council understand that uh so tonight what we're simply trying to do is to gonna trust confidence in our school division that we have capable persons who appreciate at the highest level the engagement of parents while we seek to manage the School Division and so Dr Edwards is going to cheat us up for us you have a letter attached coming uh from the mayor and members of council regarding this matter we want to work together we

183want to run a good school Division and make sure that our parents understand that we are listening to them as we seek to do that Dr Edwards so part of what we wanted to do is just one remind our public that this was something that the board did approve but we put all of the approved policies as well as a few others because sometimes we get questions about family life and one the one that we didn't share last time because it wasn't up for approval but is uh public complaints about learning resources and I think you heard tonight from several staff members who kind of outline that process of what it looks like in a classroom when they're when teachers are working directly with family members but also what happens if it has to go

184above that and escalate which is where our public policies come into play okay so we did bring them put them all back on the agenda more so that the public could see everything and also just to have Miss Pugh give an update on the process I think the last time we talked about some of the stuff that we were doing to post resources so I'm going to turn it over to miss Pew after absolutely and good evening School Board um so as you heard as Dr Edwards said you heard from some of our staff members especially Aaron Reed he walked you through that process very well so we do have processes in place our material selection process is spelled out teachers know what to do when we made some of the updates that was to

185include things that came from Senate Bill such as sexually explicit material but we have had a policy in place for material selection material review um as as Dr Edwards said we also have had policy klb public complaints about learning resources that has been in play for a very long time and we and to my knowledge since I've been in this position we have not received many of those formal complaints we have worked as I said last meeting we have worked with families who have had concerns about learning material learning resources might not have been for sexually explicit content but it might have been for a different reason so we have processes in place to address that um I will give you some updates on um we on iia-r-z because that is new for us that's

186our regular regulation um and that is new for us and we have begun at the school level and at the division level uh working looking at resources reviewing the current resources that we have specifically looking for sexually explicit content as defined by policy IIA when we are putting in place a means for teachers and I'm hoping it's just at the secondary level I don't believe we have any content with sexually explicit excuse me any material with sexually explicit content at the elementary level but those teachers will also be reviewing their materials but we are putting in place a means where those teachers when they find something that's either questionable or that they believe matches that definition in our policy they will will submit the name of the book the author the publisher the ISBN number

187the content that they feel is in question the grade level and the subject matter in which it's taught we will then put those by school make those available by school on the school websites we will also put a comprehensive list together on the division website so community members parents concerned parents can also go there to find them as of today the instructional materials page on the curriculum instruction part of the website has been created it does have some language describing going over the policy going over some of the things that we're implementing and I am working with others to get that list started for the division level I do have some resources currently from the high school some that are being used in some of our virtual Virginia courses so we are diligently working on

188reviewing all of our current materials um for sexually explicit content and we will make those titles available to our parents again we just encourage our families if you have questions about any learning material please reach out to the teacher and or the school principal we ask that you start with the teacher first but we want to have those conversations as you heard from three teachers tonight especially the two English teachers at the high school level they they have built relationships with their parents they do communicate what those learning resources and materials are going to be for the year and we do encourage and Foster that open relationship and communication with our families all right thank you uh Deputy superintendent Pugh for sharing that and all of the persons who shared tonight for public comments uh

189the floor is open at this time for board members to have a discussion around this matter all of you uh obviously sensitive to the fact that the attached letter from Council uh though it is uh the first that I've seen of his nature and the now almost nine years I've been on the school board I think the intent was to notify the boy the parents who had concerns and we are concerned about parents who have concerns at the same time it's our responsibility to educate all of our parents of how we go about making sure that their concerns are addressed and so our January vote on that policy was reflective of that understanding from our side and now that has been given to the public for additional information around it and so tonight I'm interested

190in conversation around what you think about this matter uh and obviously if any board member is interested in reconsidering you can state that all right who had hand up first um let's just start uh let's start on this side Dr day and then we'll work our way around okay I have spent a lot of time listening to the comments that were given this evening numerous people have emailed me I'm sure we've all received [Music] 50 to 100 emails about this um and so I want to explain to you what my opinions about this are and I will ask your Indulgence because it'll take me a couple minutes take your time um there is a wide range of convictions about sexuality in our community and it is not the place of the school district to attempt

191to influence those convictions much less to enact policies which marginalize those who hold one set of convictions as opposed to another I do recognize that there are times when we can we the school district cannot fully accommodate the entire range of convictions held and we must try to steer a middle course which accommodates as many of our constituents as we can the policies under consideration here principally iibrz as currently adopted use what we're referring to as an opt-out approach but regardless of any opt-in or opt-out preference it does provide that parents will be notified in advance of the use of any sexually explicit materials in their students instruction and given the opportunity to review the materials and if they so request to have their child use alternate materials and as worded the current policy does

192not make that request subject to School Division approval there are parents at all points on the spectrum of convictions who will pay close attention to those announcements about sexually explosive materials and take whatever action is appropriate to ensure that their students use those materials which best Accord with their convictions the parents for whom opt-in versus opt out makes a difference are those who either fail to receive the announcement do not adequately consider the advance notice they received or for whatever reason fail to make the request consistent with their convictions it is those parents who are going to be affected by a decision of opt-in versus opt out and so I'm speaking specifically about those parents you might call them the non-responsive parents um under opt out the concern is that students of those parents would

193be exposed to sexually explicit depictions which their parents would not have wanted well under opt-in the concern is that students of those parents would not have access to the explicit materials that their parents would have approved so which is the most dangerous of those potential harms I judge the former to be the more serious harm once seen and disturbed by depictions we cannot remove those mental images from a student's mind but if a student does not see the materials due to failure uh to opt in those materials can always be provided after the fact in private sessions or even at home with their parents in promoting our Public Schools I've often heard statements to the the effect why would someone choose a private school when there are so many opportunities available in LCS but many

194people do make the choice of a private or home school and there are reasons that they do principle among them are concerns about attitudes towards sexuality religious Faith perspectives on our history which will be taught to their children to many families those issues are more important than the unique opportunities that LCS provides I think we sometimes ignore the importance of those concerns to many families and then we are bewildered when they choose non-public school options at considerable expense to themselves in my mind that's the most important aspect of the issue before us tonight I am not aware that there has been inappropriate materials uh that inappropriate materials have been a problem in our schools so far nor do I see a preference for opt-in as an expression of distrust of the teachers who select those

195materials for their students rather it's a recognition that different families have different standards and convictions and that no single choice of materials may be acceptable to all Perhaps it is not actually a problem here at present but I think that some are concerned that the problems that have erupted elsewhere could emerge here so I believe we should respect that concern and the request from city council that we address it so in conclusion I support making changes to our policies to use an opt-in rather than opt-out approach if for no other reason then as a gesture to those in our community who are sensitive these to these things showing that LCS does respect their concerns regardless of whether we could think their concerns are Justified or not so Mr chairman I formally move that we declare

196that the relevant policies on sexually explicit materials be revised to an opt-in approach and we direct the staff to develop and propose to the board detailed changes to our policies pursuant to the my preceding sentence if the board approves my motion I will do whatever I can to assist in designing detailed changes to our policies right there's a motion that has been made by Dr Dave that the bullet would instruct Administration to look into the feasibility of language change and come back at some point in my understanding your motion correctly is there a second to that motion that's second that motion all right there is a second to the motion so now we're on discussion uh tonight uh in relationship to the motion itself so the approved policy stands according to this motion but this

197would instruct some investigation around a preference to use opt-in versus opt out and that has been seconded so we're in discussion Dr Gupta what would you like to say you know when we voted last time I thought opt out was better but as I listened to people and I think the neighborhood I live in nowadays uh in the kid's life so they are left out to me they will get it by default because nobody is signing up for them that waiver for opt-out or nobody shows up or grandma is working 18 hours a day to put meals on the table so as I was listening to all this political drama and I was thinking about these kids man these kids are the ones who need a sort of an opt-in waiver for them so they

198are not left for the system to decide for them at least they will not get something which their mommy and daddy may not want them to have but they are not involved in their lives right now all right uh thank you Dr Gupta Dr Sinha well that's where a non-involvement becomes an issue because if you're waiting for opt-in and you're not getting a response from a parent what do you do you hold up the curriculum do you exclude those students because their parents haven't paid attention and followed through so if we have an opt in policy we need to set some parameters or some kind of guardrails that it's not going to hold up progress we expect our teachers to cover a lot of material in the time they have so there has to be

199some kind of thing where by default you opt in if you don't respond I mean I don't know how you how you handle that but that's a real issue we can't hold up the curriculum for people who are not involved secondly part of this really upsets me because a lot of the discussion is framed using the definition of what is considered sexually explicit as if we are already using material that fit that definition it's an implied accusation that our schools are subjecting our children to these kinds of things and to my knowledge I don't think that's the case so um that's where I I find fault in the way this has been presented to us for consideration but I do struggle with the opt-in because we do know that the majority of parents had to

200say don't pay attention they're not reading their kids folders they're not looking at what's going on and how do we accommodate how do we make that work without holding up everything and as we heard from one of our commenters today who showed that the permission slip for the play is a perfect example of opt-in yet that's not sufficient they want the whole thing removed no field trip what do you want opt-in or do you want to just get rid of it so that's where I find fault with some of this option too it's more than just an opt-in it's trying to tell the schools how to do education and let me remind everybody as I did in the past our teachers have to adhere to vdoe recommendations these teachers are part of our community they

201share our sensibilities they represent the diversity of opinions and levels of tolerance for types of material they know the students that they teach probably better than any of us do because they're there in the classroom with them okay so do you really think they're going to impose on on our students and their families material that is that fits this definition which is being implied that's the accusation I'm hearing I don't think that's the case so while I understand the opt-in and I'm I'm I'm uh I don't know what the word is um I'm appreciative of what that means it creates a whole host of problems that I can see in terms of the burden on the teacher how it holds up curriculum and what do you do in the cases of parents who don't respond

202don't don't make their wishes known got your doctor said now we can come back if necessary to you Mr trolls originally I said how could we do the opt-in I thought it would be a just a tremendous burden logistically and what have you but along with Dr sinha's point I had to step back say wait a minute what is the scope of the issue we're really dealing with here it is so the the teachers are not you know probably typically putting this kind of material out there so the scope is really a very narrow scope so I don't take it as an accusation I take it as a safeguard that I would there are many classes will never have an opt-in notice go out how often I just don't think that's going to be a

203very um frequent occurrence because I agree I put a lot of confidence in our instructors or teachers they're not going to be doing this kind of language so it's it's a safeguard then I re I don't even know if you know once a year maybe I just don't think the scope of the issue is as broad as for certainly as broad as I thought it was originally because I was like how in the world would logistically do it um I'm not concerned about opt-in because I just think it's not going to happen that frequently and if if there is some material that is by our definition um uh sexually explicit I think it's gonna be a rare occasion if there is any and you have the opt-in um process I just I I think I

204for myself I had to remind myself the scope is very narrow I don't think it is a big broad um endemic problem that we're going to be giving opt-in messages going out to our parents once a week or what have you it's I could see it rare if ever happening and we have that there and um as Dr Day put it very eloquently and thoughtfully uh if we don't address certain concerns of certain parents and if it's a legitimate concern that they have I think it may be over overstated but it's a legitimate concern let's address it um I don't think there's a lot of overhead in doing it certainly Aaron Reed is a stellar instructor in terms of he is out there engaging with the parents I can't say that I know that all

205teachers are doing that but I just don't think the scope of the issue is as broad certainly as I thought it was at one point and because it's such a narrow scope I I think I don't have a problem with the opt-in at this point thank you if I could ask Administration two questions number one the Department of Education and or the governor's office did that language come to us as opt out it doesn't those those words are not used in this policy our procedure has notification as we have as I mentioned before as we have in the past and we have up you know the in the regulation opportunities for parents to be notified opportunities for parents to review the lists ahead of time on the website of the school and the division opportunities

206for um you know they have access to that and then opportunities in our our policy um if if they really are opposed to it um the the review of instructional material the the opposition that policy um klb public complaints about learning resources so to your to answer your question Dr Coleman there's nothing in here that says opt-in or opt out it is is a policy about reviewing instructional materials which includes all instructional materials our textbooks which we have a policy for that are novels that we read at the middle school and high school level any any supplemental materials like videos or posters pictures images those types of things they all must be reviewed we have a process in place for that and as you heard Aaron Reed say today when they are are wanting to

207propose a new novel it's not just the teacher that gets to say this novel gets on the list they have students read it they have parents read it they have other teachers read it and they come together and they talk about it and they make that decision and then it comes to the curriculum and instruction Department to to look at that information and make the final decision of yes that's going to be on our supplementary list we've always had this in place the addition is just coming from Senate Bill 656 about adding looking for a sexually explicit content and I to your point if I may you know I hope that our list is not exhaustive but I think you would be surprised what titles might come on that list um To Kill a Mockingbird

208might be on that list some others uh some that and I don't know if these are on our list but the Joy Luck Club The Kite Runner um just these are just a few titles so we don't think of those as having sexually explicit content but in in this interpretation they might so I don't want to hold my breath and say we don't have many because I don't I don't know yet we are in the process of reviewing those um if wonderful and might I add in terms of instructional resources oops on the ground how does this play out philosophically and practically as a School Division up to this point it with the instructional resources to in order for a kid to receive instruction or whatever it is in the classroom what they have to

209have a parent right now they get that information and if we go to an opt-in what that mean procedurally for us that a kid would not be able to get any instruction until some alternative material was provided that was suitable or does it mean that that person if they don't get a form turned in they just they won't be participating or the teacher has to go through all of this additional work to make it happen I'm just trying to understand as it goes across the division you said that the the tent was really to facilitate conversation notification and a procedure for parents to just say this is what I wish for my kids not necessarily to dictate opt-in opt out way our current practice has been here are the instructional resources you heard Mr Reed

210say this is where we get the syllabus if you're on any of the uh class dojos and all the other things the elementary send out there's often here's what we're reading this week and this is what we're doing and the various tools that elementary schools principals and teachers use to communicate with parents always letting them know this is what the resources what we're using what we're studying the resources what they what they are a lot of it is at the beginning of the year some of it is ongoing as we shift and and do that but our practice and process which is tied into this policy with the sexually explicit being and arm of it has been this is how we handle conflict or questions or concerns about it now I get that we see

211that the scope of this is small to sexually explicit content and I understand what you're saying but combine that to a practice where okay right now as a parent if I don't want my child to read anything about I'm just going to make it up aliens right um we don't subscribe to that in my house I could talk to my teacher and say that right but if I want to now make that process similar well why why do you send home this and they get to opt in and why am I now under a different process I don't like aliens I get this other piece but why why do I now have to contact you why aren't you contacting me asking me if I want to the way that our process and I think that's

212what we were trying to share last time what our processes were and and just all of our procedures and policies and where any parent now could make a case for changing the entire process or why is the process one way for one thing in a different way for any other thing where nowhere does it say it has to be opt out or opt-in so we would be clouding the issue if we were to put in opt-in and then create a culture and climate or culture at least where you wouldn't get the instruction unless the parent turned into form to opt in to receive that instruction is that correct or not that's a possibility but they would they would they certainly would I think you're going to have more students because they're I think if you

213have to wait until you receive those forms turned back in then it will pause moving on to potentially moving on you have 30 days but in some cases some parents don't turn things in in 30 days or you know so it could delay that but then it also means there's the burden on the teacher for having to find an alternative resource for the 10 students or the 25 students or the two students who don't turn that in but they're going to do that anyway even if it's opt out they got to find a different resource there's no difference in the they got to find that logic doesn't make any sense they they do if they opt out they have to find an alternative resource or educational path anyway what's that they do for one or

214two students between one or two or ten or Twenty it doesn't matter they all have different points of view no that's a different class or I mean there's no there's a difference now you know the difference is if you're in one class and I have one student there that opts out now the teacher has to say okay I got a quick a different curriculum for that one student well what if we have the opt-in and we don't hear from 10 students 20 students well now those 20 students get that curriculum that would have been imposed upon that one student so I don't see I don't see your point in terms of being different work you got a a curriculum a and a curriculum B whether they opt in or opt out you're still going to

215have a curriculum a or a curriculum B so I don't see your logic in that and maybe I'm missing it but I and that that yes I can see what you're saying but as a as a teacher so if I am the teacher and I'm sending out the resources to my and I was a high school teacher so to my 150 students that I might be teaching or 125 whatever um and it's opt-in so I get back 25. most teachers are not just going to say 25 that's it most teachers are going to be like let me reach out again let me contact again I I want to really portray what our teachers actually do whenever there's something that we need to collect back from families some of our teachers will even go to the

216home and say listen I can come pick it up right they're going to do due diligence to say I did everything I could to reach out email call back contact and do all that to get this information so that's a real thing that teachers will do and we know that they do that because we even see it with field trips and we've seen what happens on the day of a field trip where I'm sorry sweetie you don't have a permission slip and even then we're still calling like hey can we get our oral and try to do some stuff like that so that's part of what what we may experience and I get it but teachers don't have to do that they shouldn't do that the safer attack is Hey listen we didn't get the

217opt-in for you to you know read about bestiality that'd be the ugly thing I shouldn't even say it the whatever um so you're going to go there and teacher you know you don't have to go two or three times because that's it it is the safer attack which it was well said I never even thought about that way if you're gonna air make an air let's err on the safer side of the equation versus the other side so there's no need for the teacher to go back once two you know two or three times didn't get the permission slip you're going on track B and you get to read you know whatever I mean I hear what you're saying and I love the teachers the fact that they care so much about it it's a

218little different between a field trip and the curriculum I think personally but I think if you're going to air air on the side of the caution But the teacher would have to keep going until the parent or somebody would opt the kid into some type of instruction so as we continue they they why would they have to do it if they don't opt into instruction a they in they they're getting option b they still would have to opt in they would they might have it's not sexually explicit well option b is the non-sexually explicive route well based upon our our definitions of it well my opinion all right all right let me just say this this is this instructional material that's sexually explicit in the instructional material that deals with a sundrious subject matters I

219I'm afraid to say as we continue so at least know where I'm coming from I will not be able to support the motion at this time uh personally speaking because I think that it would adversely impact more students um by doing all of this that we have a process in place that I think allows us to be able to get to every every kid and I'm very concerned about our teachers as I go around the buildings and look at what they have to do and so that's my 15 seconds only and I'm going to finish others who have not had a chance to speak yet Dr Carter so what would it look like before opt-in I just think before you answer that but the teachers now are under tremendous pressure and then when we in

220May we're going to look at that list and say oh my God what are we doing what are we doing look at all these teachers resigning we have to look at what we're doing what we're putting in place the like Dr Edward said those teachers they're going to do due diligence but what would it look like if you have a class of 25 and we know there's going to be a small percentage of people returning any form so five have opt-in then and also a doctor Center said is so true it's almost as though like the critical race Theory and now this sexually explicit like we're doing it like I know you all are doing I don't know where people are getting this that we're doing these things but so even if there's a b

221I can as a parent say I don't want that either well that's if I opt in for the B so what if you don't opt in 4B or a what does the child do just sit there no ma'am we would not do that so what we would find an alternative resource for that child and again we I know that our teachers would communicate and work with those with those parents who have opposition to the materials and they would find something that is suitable for that child that takes time for the teacher it takes you know they as as Mr Reed said they can use a different book they can use a different novel they can do use a different material they're still learning the same skills but it does take them some time for that

222teacher to adapt the lesson to that particular book to teach those skills right as it stands right now parents would force sexually explicit content parents would be notified 30 days prior they would they would in that notification they would receive specific identification of what that material is they inform them of their right to review the material they inform them of the right to have a child in a non-punitive way use a different resource so that's how it stands now and I can't tell you what it's going to look like because we haven't our teachers haven't done this before so I don't know the increased amount of work or burden that it's going to place on our teachers but listening to them today from their professional opinion I have to respect that and say that I

223I believe that it will and I I think I don't think this is an easy problem to to solve because there are so many bits and pieces that we haven't even we haven't even discussed as you said there are going to be some students in the class that are doing curriculum a and some in a class that are doing curriculum b as a teacher now that means I've got to have two lesson plans I've got to make sure that students a are on task I got to make sure the students B's are on task and then I've got to make sure that I'm giving at least equal time efforts instruction to both these sets sets of students that's complicated for a teacher to do the other side to that is we're talking about sexually um

224questionable material but there are also other lots of other things that that parents are are going to question I kind of looked online trying to think back to my own teaching American days there are so many pieces of literature that we taught that people object to some people object to uh to teaching Huckleberry Finn Animal Farm some people object to teaching 1984. the cats are in the Rye The Color Purple for different reasons but people object to all of to all of those things so then the question is hey the other side to that is some of that material is objectionable because of the circumstances that happen in the book when the truth of the matter is for some of our students from a mental health perspective some of our students are enduring some of

225the same things that are taking place in those books and it gives us as adults an opportunity to Mentor them to talk to them to question them to find out what's going on with them in an objective not subjective way so that we can give them the help that they need so this is not an easy fix this is something that really requires a whole lot of thinking about all of the different aspects that that are involved and I don't think it's something we can just the side I mean I think it's going to take some real soul-searching some real thinking about some real discussion with people that either have done or are are doing this so that's Gloria's opinion Dr um Gupta and then the maker of the motion I think should get a

226chance to talk again and then Dr Sinnoh so every time I've heard that our policies mirror the vsba policies right BSB that sort of a doe and the Virginia Department of Education and so Campbell County has a in Brookville High they send you all the material and they send you one single form to opt-in or not to opt-in so and their policy why is it different from ours although we are capturing from the same reservoir of USB okay well that's a good question Dr guto and at least tonight has been reaffirmed to me that any of these policies that we have does not even mention the language opt-in or opt out but there is this consideration maybe to mirror what it's doing in Campbell County I think and this is Lynchburg Virginia this is Lynchburg

227City School Board so we would have to decide what we want to do from a practical perspective I see a nightmare many of you would know my convictions about a lot of things but we've got to run a school division with a lot of stress a lot of challenges a lot of problems and to spend exhibiting hours on this one we have a clear path of how parents can clearly articulate and I don't know much about utilitarianism but I mean is this the greatest good for the greatest number of people to bear that burden to figure this out when people have access to know what to do if they don't want their kid to have that and spend all of this time create all of this when we're trying to focus on student achievement bill

228yes sir people ready so I want to say a couple things one of the concerns that has been expressed is that um you know what does a student do if um they do not bring in their form that's hope under this hypothetical opt-in scenario they do not bring in their form so what is this what does the teacher do well then they do the it's the same as what the teacher would do if they do bring in and opt out for them they give them alternate instructional materials which are not sexually explicit in that case if they're not sexually explicit there's no policy telling uh the teachers that they have to inform the students about what's in the content of the book that's not sexually explicit if it's about aliens there's no policy that says

229we inform the parents you're going to have a book about aliens it's only if the alternate materials were also sexually explicit that they would have to go back to the parents a second time so the obvious thing to do if I'm a teacher I think it's important to teach a book that's on the sexually explicit list I inform the parents of the students some of them do not opt in then those students use an alternate material that is not sexually explicit and that's all there is to it I think that's your point secondly um uh well okay I covered my first two points um the last thing I wanted to say is I know this is controversial and part of my reason for making the motion is because I think we needed to have this

230discussion I need we need to put the reasons for this on the table because city council has asked us to and I understand it's controversial I understand that not everyone agrees with my motion I'm fine with that I want everyone to vote what they really think is right I'm not trying to twist anyone's arm I'm just trying to make the case for what I think is the right decision but I recognize that there are other aspects to it that you are all voicing and I think we're having a respectful discussion about this even though we disagree about some aspects of it thank you Dr data that was very well said Dr Brennan and I agree with Dr Dave I think that we are having a respectful discussion we should have this discussion it's important issue

231the community and I think we need to have it um I will take that a different approach to Dr day and that I think things were said very well at public comments I will not read my whole list and go through the whole thing but I will say in brief that um I think that has been clearly shown to us I think supplemented at this meeting in our agenda that we have policies that address the issues that people have concerns about and I think one of the key policies that are in our agenda is pretty specific which is policy ABB which is supplement material selection and adoption how it happens and specifically it states that teachers must carefully review materials prior to use and exercise a high degree of professional judgment in their selection and

232use of supplement materials to ensure that the use of such materials serves to both support and complement the basic educational objectives within the specific subject areas and classrooms which is what the chairs of the Department of English at UC glass Ted chair of English at Heritage High School said president lynchburg's Education Association said I mean this is what the teachers are saying and as Dr senya said at our last meeting we need to respect the teachers this is their job to do this and it's not the job of it's the job of certainly parents to be concerned about their their children and what they receive and they should have an option to do that and that was the other issue that was brought up by other people saying what is the option and fortunately we

233have a policy for that too which is policy case klb which is public complaints about learning resources outline specific process that families follow Mr Reed said that so I want to reiterate it but I will say that one of the concerns about our policy for for uh the the information in our original policy is that it was a little soft on what do parents do if they don't get satisfactory answers well this policy answers that the complaint May appeal a decision to the superintendent or the superintendent's Destiny to address it or to the school board so if you go if a parent goes through the process they're not satisfied they can go to that level including the school board so there's not concern that there's not a way for parents to do this so I

234am not in favor of changing the policy which we voted on um and for three reasons one is that this policy we're talking about was mandated by the department the Virginia Department of Education asked us to do that and we have followed their recommendations and they did not necessarily ask for an opt-in or opt out we decided to do the one that was most appropriate for our school district and based on our teachers recommendations um I think it's clear when we had discussion originally this was going to be burdens and if we did an opt in policy as far as what our teachers are having to do now to screen the information get it on the website have all those things done it's clear from the teachers that if we do the the op the

235other option it's going to be more burdensome and you know who knows how often it will be but I think it will be more often than we assume as I think was put forward by Miss Pugh I hope not I hope not too but who you know we don't know that so I think that addressing this policy that we should have the responsibility for evaluating and selecting instruction materials in the hands of the teachers as part of their professional responsibility and training and that the responsibility for reviewing instructional materials is in the hands of the parent or the Guardian based on their concerns for their child and that's you have the option to do that and they do in this option um and I think that there is a policy in place to adjudicate the

236concerns that parents may have including going to level the superintendent um I think we talk about respecting the teachers supporting the teachers how important the teachers are to us I think they are telling us they want the policy kept the same I think we need to respect that and I can hear Mr Reed yelling in his television thank you thank you Dr thinner the only thing I would change of this policy it really troubles me that this thing about sexually explicit content and nowhere mentions sexual assault which could be very triggering to somebody who is a survivor of sexual assault even if it's mentioned in passing why is it not on this list so I would recommend that when we do our review we also include depictions they don't have to be in detail you

237know To Kill a Mockingbird a crime in there is a sexual assault my knowledge it's been a while since I read the book it doesn't go into great detail about what happens but just the mere mention of a sexual assault could be quite triggering and traumatic for some of our students who have unfortunately experienced that so please when you do this review please keep that in mind as well and think of those students thank you thank you Dr Cinder Dr day I want to thank you for bringing the motion to us tonight the carriage to do that I think it has been necessary for us to have the discussion the will of the board will be determined in just a moment but I want to thank you and in your presentation you even took us

238to appreciate parents food innocently didn't know all of our robust efforts to put it out there or whatever the case may be they just forgot that do not want their kid to be exposed to that type of information and they just didn't get it in and kid is there getting the information and that's a concern of yours I appreciate you for sharing that um I if this may not happen but I think it does I'm also thinking about the kids the real wonderful kiss we have who go to school and for whatever the reason the parent may or may not even have an interest I'm not saying that that exists and that kid doesn't even necessarily have someone to do all of that and I'm concerned about whoever those kids may be also and so

239therefore we've got all of this good stuff to let those persons who need to know and we got to do the best job we can and if we want that to be even more than it is we're going to think about hiring somebody to help the people to do all of that stuff but to make people aware of what we're doing and to allow parents to exercise those opportunities and say I don't want my kid to have that probably might be the best way for us to go at this point I I don't know but if there's no further questions or discussion we have a motion we're not talking about reconsidering the policy that didn't understand that to be the Merit or the nature of Dr Dave's motion he wants us to go and consider

240this look at it and see what the potential opt-in opt out language is my proposal was to formulate to formulate okay um modifications that would Encompass what we're referring to as an opt-in approach right and then those would come back to us or review and then we would vote on there yes sir as we formulate that I hope we also look at the library access to the material if you have opted hours and policies policy relevant policies we don't mend the library has done it we don't have to deal with that right Library material is not considered a structural material unless it is specifically selected by the teacher to use it in instruction library books that it should the student goes into the library to select on their own and to check out those are

241not instructional materials everybody clear on that and that's why I think the scope is so narrow um so so he wanted a clarification well do we want to investigate change the policy to opt in rather than opt out so those of us are in favor of keeping the policy as it is vote against this right this month you're in favor of going to an opt-in policy and you would support this because your language is to formulate opt-ins right yes okay all right so if you are in support of Dr day's motion that was seconded by Mr Charles if you're in favor of that you're actually staying that you want us to get administration Etc to come back with a recommendation that would include the opt-in language if you are not in favor of going through

242a process of formulating opt-in language which means ultimately the policy as it is you would vote no you've got no further discussion on the motion Madam clerk would you please call the role Miss Preston no it's about Mama Mr trust yes no let's go about Mom and Dr Coleman no it's about Mama Dr Carter no let's go about Mom and Dr Gupta yes still about one of my doctor today yes let's go about Mr Andrews no motion fails up six to three little white man yeah you hear that noise the students leaving the LCA [Laughter] Crystal didn't laugh all right thank you for that um thank you for the make of the motion the second of the motion and for the discussion tonight and I hope in a larger sense that our distinguished members of

243council and the community realize that we dealt with this issue tonight and I think some real solid points have been made on both sides and we respect our parents we really do and we hope that as we continue that this problem will work itself out and that we will not have flight from our school division but then we will all begin to trust the work that we're doing and come together and do what is best for our kids to educate the kids that are in front of us all right j3 FY 20223 budget calendar Dr Edwards yeah so we have attached a copy of the current budget calendar and I think it was mentioned um earlier that we are a little bit behind schedule but so that folks can see in January we normally have

244an estimate of the revenues we've presented our funding request to city manager that process is a little different as well so we we're behind in January but we anticipate doing the January work in February along with the February work so that we will be right back on schedule with our budget calendar with our budget calendar there are and you read recently there's some proposals to add an additional percentage to the already five percent that was spoken for last year in the in the compensation for staff soq funded staff um also there's a question about the potential calc tool error that's still out there so there's a couple things that are looming that we don't have the exact answers to we hope to have those soon I will talk about that calc tool era in a

245little bit later under new business because that's new further discussion on that crazy okay thank you I'm afraid to go forward I don't know many parties miss Karen we asked her a lot of questions but Dr Edward she's doing an excellent job sure she's working hard and you're providing the numbers you have she just joined the division so you're doing an excellent job so please don't take a correlation between asking questions and the quality of you so you're doing a great job thank you it's very transparent thank you Dr Gupta for saying that all right j4 the fy24 operating budget Dr Edwards yes so I will kind of tee this up to what we're doing and also go over what is listed under public content so first just to remind our public as well as

246our school board at our December uh budget work session we provided a lot of documents um that we that are also linked in the board agenda for December 13th but I put a click here if anybody wanted to go back back and get information about demographics and a whole bunch of things that lead into how we do the budget then there's a note about the calc tool actually being originally the error was on the June 6th which is what we use to which was what was what was presented on December 13th we have since learned that that same error also affects December 16th count tool which I'm going to go over today but I wanted to publicly make that note so that everyone would be able to follow through the bulk of what we want

247to talk about is what we discussed in finance committee which is the biggest part of our budget proposal right now and that is the 1550 pay schedule plan fifteen dollars an hour for our classified being the minimum that we would offer next year and also fifty thousand dollars being the minimum for our teaching staff the notes that are included under that summary are the same notes that were shared with the fine finance committee meeting so that you can see how we arrived at 15 50 taking our lowest paid classified which is at 13.11 since adding a dollar 89 per hour and then of course we factor that across multiple pay tables the teacher pay tables our starting salary is somewhere in the neighborhoods of forty three thousand so a little bit over that so adding

24865 30 would bring that up to 50 000 and we pulled that across paid tables and then of course the admin pay tables which aren't in 15 or 50 but rather we were trying to do due diligence to the average of the five percent which if you take the lowest paid on the admin table that five percent is a flat dollar amount of 227.44 so that is a short explanation as to how the math was done to arrive at 15 50. underneath you'll see the start of that Excel spreadsheet that you all will be getting but we just used it to kind of start right now that Maps what we're talking about to our strategic plan goals and you can see the cost of each one of those individual things so we broke it down

249by admin by classified and by teaching salary we gave you the overall cost for if you were to increase the classified staff to the proposed 15 that is the cost of that we've subsequently since the finance committee gone back and said well we know if salaries go up so do the contributions to vrs and other things which I've indicated in that spreadsheet what those percentages are so you can see how we've got we arrived at the additional cost for that sorry which document are you referring to you sir I'm on the same page vision board docs looking at that spreadsheet that's in board.com yes the color-coded one that says total cost associated with proposed 1550 pay schedule I'm not finding it it's in the public content I'm amazed we also got that to our body

250okay so um and I can always also give you hard copies of this but I put it here for the public to also follow along as we're as we're talking um but it has the total cost for the salary increase and the benefits um for each of those different three groups let me stress that it is just the total cost it doesn't take into affect a compensation supplement it doesn't take into effect any conversations about any additional supplement or any other Revenue that we would subtract away because remember we've done this before where we said here's the total cost and we take out the revenue that we anticipate to help fund that cost and then we're left over with this is what we still need so at this point we're just at let's look at

251the total cost and let's also if you open up the individual documents which try to say paper look like this and this is really important for staff who some have asked questions but most of them have been really great because one of the questions was if you move the teacher's salary up to the starting salary up to 50 000 what if I'm not a starting teacher what happens to me and these paid tables actually you can go find yourself and see that you are above 50 somewhere and I don't know the exact number but we publicly put these paid tables so that our public our staff anybody who has a question about how does that affect a classified member who has who's on step 12 what does that look like as well as the admins

252staff being completely transparent one of the things you'll notice is the difference between percentages as you get to the admin pay tables the percentages are smaller because we went with a flat dollar amount whereas at the classified tables the percentages are a little bit higher so we wanted to share this with the school board it is a big cost associated with it and while we do have compensation supplement remember that's for soq funded not enough Revenue totally it's a completely fund this complete 1550 proposal and the only way to do that since we do not have taxing Authority or Revenue generating Authority and we certainly don't want to put all this in Grant funds if Grant funds were available is to work with City Council on that so I wanted us to really have a

253discussion about where is the board before we really craft there's other pieces that are going to fit into this but it was really important for the board to have a discussion about this as did the finance committee Dr Gupta so I asked the same question I'm in finance I'm asking it again uh could we internally save nine million dollars that's what I think this whole thing not counting the 28 percent overhead for benefits you know that's not in that number could we internally save through reallocation of resources and whatever it takes nine million dollars nine nine million dollars within our system in this fiscal year so we'll give you the same answer I gave a finance committee and I'll say we are definitely looking at where we can find some savings we have been doing

254that over the last five years kind of tightening the belt we've removed from things that were and I as I shared with finance committee we used to have several positions that we would just have as contingency like just in case we need to hire um and up until even the pandemic it was three at the middle school three at the high school three at the elementary school we're now just down to one or two are we at three Karen maybe um not even a lot of positions so we have tightened the belt over the last couple years so the short answer to your can I find nine million dollars that I'm a reallocate is no um the working answer is are we looking for ways to chop away at this yes so for those that

255are not in the finance committee what he's referring to is the total amount is 8.6 million dollars tackling 20 for benefits it comes up to 10 10.3 million dollars so we have to decide if we or do we want to pay for everybody or just teachers or admin or classified or whatever but that's what he's talking about when he says nine million dollars which is a approaching 10 percent of our total operating budget and when what 80 percent of your operating budget is Personnel costs you're trying to get that 10 of your total budget out of just 20 percent of see next year if the governor says five percent increase then you've got to count five percent of that 10 million new to make up for that Gap you see what I'm saying so there

256will be another uh half a million dollars you need extra because you increase the salary now you don't say so if you look at long term that's why I was asking her do we have the cash flexibility in the division to be able to sustain that right Dr Carter oh I was just want to Advocate that we asked questions now I know in Prior years it takes time to do these pay tables and at the last time meeting when the pay tables are already done then it was a question which led to compression which led to a lot of people being very upset because their salaries were compressed but this at the Capitol conference there was a 200 220 million dollar mistake mathematical mistake one person uh one congressman or person from the Virginia Center

257stated that this was known that it would happen we talked to our representatives and two of them stated it was a mathematical error I haven't seen anyone leaving that's a huge mathematical error to make but I hear that this is going to follow us for several years the the mistake in how there still is um not unders they're still not a way of how we're going to be able to recoup that money they're going to find a way to make it come back in and hold blameless or you don't want to add it to salaries because it's not sustainable with all of that going forward what do we do big loaded question there so as far as the error is concerned I know we are waiting for exact confirmation and we've had two meetings with

258the two webinars I should say with video e and I am going to go over what they share with us as here's how you individually divisions can calculate your own but we'll tell you later what your actual revenue is I and we asked for well what are the solutions what are the strategies and we did we were we received we'll give you technical assistance which is really how to like what the air is so right now we're waiting and to figure out what the the end game is with this we've heard you've heard lots of folks say we're gonna we're gonna fix it we're gonna make you whole we're gonna do a whole bunch of things but um until we actually get our actual Revenue I don't know the answer to that and I don't

259know the direction that the state is going to take with regard to um putting that putting that forward so I don't have an answer for you as to how those two things relate and what we would do going forward with that but new board members keep this make that a bookmark because our number one responsibility is to make sure that we financially viable so if this ever comes up that we know exactly how we were short changed or this shortfall occurred the other thing is I hear from a lot of senior teachers let's see the teachers so how will is will this help the teachers that have been here that are the mentors that have to help the new teachers coming in so I will say what I've said publicly that um yes this is

260something that is probably aggressive for us given where we've been the last couple at least since I've been here with not receiving additional money for salary outside of the State Compensation but if you look at and I'm just on the bottom of one of the pay tables so if I'm somebody here with you know I've been here for step 29 is at 64 000 64 216. going step 29 next year would be 77.46 so we tried our best not to compress and have it so that our you know we want to attract new and I think you heard that tonight we want to attract new staff and qualified staff here but we also have to recognize we have some very talented people who are here who we also want to keep and honest values so

261when you look at the pay tables you'll see that that that um adjustment even though the the top line is 50 we try to adjust that throughout all the way down to the end of the pay table and just one more question I noticed that some Physicians were referred to as secretary and some admin assistant so one of the things that we had decided and actually it was after meeting with a couple different secretaries is that when you think about the term Secretary and you look at the work that the people in the building are doing with regard to and I'll I'll you know use a building secretary managing the principal's calendar working with parents doing a lot it's more of an administrative assistant they do a lot of and we rely on them to

262to do that work so one of the things that we have proposed was changing the the name and that have been suggested to me from a secretary to an administrative assistant but prior to doing that and we thought this would be a great time going into a new um School a new school year that we would show that but we also were updating the job description so that people could be really clear about what is the difference between an administrative assistant one some administrative assistants you know are just more on the clerical level that might be your one some of them handle everything but they don't do the finance part they don't do the POS the requisitions there's a bookkeeper that does that and then some are in like if you look at a division

263level Administrative Assistant they are everything they do the budgeting the POS they do the the purchase cards and all that like similar to what what the board experiences so those three job descriptions are outlined and explained so that you could see that the transition from um wherever you are depends on your job description and what we want to do is sit down and have conversations similar to when we move the nurses we also moved I forget who else it was another group that we we moved have conversations with individuals so they know this is what you do let's make sure that's what you do this is where you are going for all right to the excellent Dr Carter as we move along to the larger point that I think Dr Carter is is driving us

264to it's no need to continue to have admin do all of this work dealing with compression issues the recognizing the potential challenge with the 220 million and uh Dr cardi is right on that Miss Preston and I also were in those sessions uh to hear some of our Representatives wanting to come up with a viable solution to help us but we've got to wait and see what that is is going to be I've heard Dr water cook say several times in public presentations if not to us we've got to get good teachers we've got to put in front of our students the very best so if we're resolved to do this and maybe we will need some help from our local appropriating body at this level seems like we need to make it make it

265known that I support the 1550 piece I would like for the finance committee and whomever to keep exploring this and and for us to take a deep breath because it could mean any number of things to get where we are one of the public comment presenters uh get into a mention who it might have been you know at one point we were okay in this area leading the area if we're going to leave the area I think we need to make those hard decisions to do that or at least put forth our best effort so what is the pleasure of the board I think that's what I'm hearing uh because again and I do want you all to know that a lot of these boys spend hours and hours and hours on budget in separate

266meetings and so forth and so Dr Sinar thank you for taking on a great task of being in the finance committed leader and all of that what did the boy want to do about this I'll be resolved to do the 1550 or are we not we know we we don't we have no charge of the purse we can't raise taxes or taxing Authority it's got a collection you made Dr Gupta asked the question she answered it so what do you want us to do keep going or move away you know we got to do something because last year I remembered Dr Carter brought in a proposal from 15 minimum and I was that bad guy who said no that's not good so I know we we love our teachers and we love our our least

267staff equally maybe we can do one now and one later you see I'm saying so uh one is about 5.2 million dollars the other is about 2 2.99 yeah 2.9 so could we take the lower one to try to see if we can climb that mountain or just give up and don't climb any of those mountains I wish I had taken Dr Carter's offer last year and voted for 15 an hour because we are losing bus drivers you know we are losing these people to surrounding counties we are falling behind and it's it has become a human issue our hourly employees are working two three jobs I gave you an example of a gentleman here I said are you going to have a dinners he said no she brings me here because I I do

268two two jobs so I'm not able to go home so that should not be the case it's not a conservative or a non-conservative issue it's a human issue and so I'm saying too much but that's what I see we appreciate your thoughts they're very important Dr Carter you want to say I'm going to use and I'm for all or nothing I think we should ask everyone is working hard I see different the from the admin to the bus drivers to the attendance clerk everyone does above and beyond and I don't see how you can separate it out I didn't say I didn't separate our bus drivers what I was saying is hourly wages I'm thinking we'll try to do all that we can for everyone I would say with Wade cost of living has gone

269up cost of housing has gone way up rents are really up that the time for half measures is gone and we half measures won't cut it and so I fully support the 1550 plan and um I challenge our our city council members to spend a day in the life of a school bus driver or a teacher and and then come back to us to say no you have to do a half measure we need to ask for a full measure we're going to retain teachers attract teachers and be fully staffed especially since there's a prior to the pandemic there was a severe shortage of teachers out there it's only gotten worse so I fully support this measure and all that it costs all right if unless it's go ahead Dr Brenner so I agree with

270my fellow board members and I'm supportive of doing this and I think it's important that we need to do it the question I have as far as the overall budget goes is that we know that we we need to have more funds put into health insurance payments so what is that also going to be added on to the budget are there other you know what else are we going to do in the budget besides the salaries so there's a few other things what we're trying to do is just be a primary focus um you know lots of positions were asked for and those sorts of things so we're trying to really focus on this there are a few sort of mandated things that we know you know we know fuel is more expensive now no

271insurance is an issue and so there's a few other things that will be there I think we'll be prepared to kind of have a better vision of that probably next time so you can see what that balance looks like particularly if we get a better understanding of what the state money is going to look like thank you it won't be right right sure but we'll get the key items yeah Dr Gupta you know there's a reality and there's a dream dream I have is that everybody should get it but as prime minister Andrews is 10.2 million that's about 10 percent of our operating so you're going to ask for 10 million dollars of new money is that possible it's not a viable option so what is the second viable option can I do it in

272P um steps do one step now to SEC Second Step later on and attain it through internal efficiencies you know that's why I asked Dr Edwards could we save that money internally so if somebody says I'm not giving you we are still able to achieve our objective but Dr Gupta I think your point is well taken I think the finance team the administration will look for as many efficiencies as we possibly can um you know I um and I hear you for a few years I embraced the fact that you know you can't do all this dreaming but it's I applaud our superintendents all of it I this is hard I mean and and we've got to let person so and we're constantly wanting to dump more and more on everybody even when you talk

273about the bus drivers even the ham they've got to pass all these tests with all of this information we're fighting in Washington today to try to get them to stop all of that you got to know everything under the engine and what the parts are and all of this by the time you even get a bus driver it's way down the road of the school year listen let us dream that calendar that we talking about approving a few years ago there was no Martin Luther King holiday on there and people had to fight for that to happen we're going to get these teachers and classified workers what they need and I say let them go ahead with it and let's figure out whatever that's going to look like that's y'all want to deliver labor this

274a little bit more we can move on to the next map Mr Trust I don't know how we'll find 10 million bucks I think is there a compromise of split in the baby uh you know it's not a 1550 it's a whatever whatever they all deserve I mean they need a working wage our teachers are not are underpaid 100 behind it and I want a dream I just want to I want to be able to get the ball across the goal line and I just I mean 10 million dollars 10 of our budget um I would love to do it but I just I mean I want to give them something rather than come up short and again to to Dr Carter's point I don't want to keep slicing and dicing down the road um

275but maybe we can get half of that done five million bucks I don't know I mean well we'll take it though I was about to make a joke then if they don't want the money but I voted for opt-in baby I'm all about supporting everybody so I'm I'm the supporter of the 1550 yeah yeah but I do want to hear lastly from Dr uh good time Dr day I just want to make sure that dreaming is fine but don't we need to manage expectations sure because once we start dreaming then the expectations build up and then we calling Mr Andrew saying where is my fifty thousand dollars write that check I might bounce I'm gonna write that check but that's going to have to be a lot of efficacy around this and that's what we

276have to be prepared for and that's where the fight comes other people what we feel is important if in fact we feel that way Dr Day yeah I'm debating whether I should say what I was contemplating saying I probably will and I'll probably get in trouble for it but um I support the 1550 as well I think that the teachers in our classrooms are the primary tool that does what we're here to do and I don't mean to suggest that um uh Dr Edwards and the other staff have not been as thorough and looking for efficiencies as they might have been but I wonder if we need to be contemplating more draconian things particularly if we go to city council and say we needed 10 million dollars if you won't give it to us here's

277where we're going to get it so what if we compile a list of things that are unthinkable but that would generate 10 million dollars we kill both High School football programs we close the Laurel Academy we close the Virtual Academy what if we put I'm not saying we do those things please understand what I'm trying to do is present a case for what level of what it would cost us to do this if we don't get support from City Council now you maybe think I'm nuts but if I was sitting on city council and somebody was coming to me with this huge request I would say well what alternatives do you have so I think we ought to be ready to go with to them with some pretty dramatic Alternatives we'll we'll see it Dr

278Dave so noted and we will now move on to our new business uh listen folks keeping on keeping a nine-member board together it's not an easy task but I think we do very well appreciating everybody's thoughts and I know sometimes it can take a little while but this has been a massive meeting uh tonight where we've dealt with a lot including public comments in our kids now we're going to try to labor through this new business all right uh K1 amend the 2022-23 LCS calendar Dr Edwards yeah so it was brought to our attention that this coming school year we normally have graduation on Sunday we've been alternating who goes in the morning goes in the afternoon but we had a conflict with some events at City Stadium with the afternoon um Dr wodica both

279high school principals and a team of folks all got together and worked out what could we do including some city folks and they came up with the proposal that if one school graduated Saturday morning the other one graduated Sunday morning as we we anticipated we could get those schools out before noon that would work for the community it was just a matter of working with the schools and they were awesome and amazing and doing that so they said yes and they brought it to us and they said can you please just bring that to the board because we do have to officially change our calendar to reflect this but I did want the board in the community to know that this was a huge effort from boots on the ground and the people who are

280affected by it so glass is proposing to graduate on June 3rd Saturday June 3rd at 8 30 and Heritage is still on Sunday at June 4th at 8 30 in the morning thank you Dr L what's Dr Brenner I think assuming that this has been vetted thoroughly by the schools and by the community that I'd like to make a motion that the school board approved the amended 2022-2003 school calendar second been moved by Dr Brennan seconded by Dr Carter that we will amend the 22-23 LCS school calendar to accommodate the EC class graduation on the said date in the Heritage High School graduation on the said dates and time and any further questions or discussion on the motion hearing no Madam clerk please call the role football member Miss Preston approved let's go about my

281Mr Charles yes let's go back Mama Dr Sinha yes let's go but remember Dr Brennan yes let's go about remember Dr Coleman yes let's go about Mama Dr Carter yes let's go about Mama Dr Gupta yes about my doctor day yes school but remember Mr Andrews yes motion carries 9-0 thank you madam Clerk and now we'll have discussion on the vdoe correction to the basic Aid estimates in the calculating two errors yes so I am the public agenda are a couple different items one is the um December 16th calc tool um which is an instrument that we get from vdoe with everything already populated in there for us we do have the ability to change projected ADM we usually don't mess with that we usually end up higher than what they project but the the

282ADM is used to calculate many of the different revenue streams that you'll see there basic Aid is a revenue stream sales tax what they give us for textbook focus and so on and so forth but when you hear us refer to the calc tool what I did was printed for the general public so they they can kind of see this is what it looks like it's two years worth of projected revenue and you'll see FY 23 fy24 so when we were alerted that there was an error in the calc tool and that it may result in US receiving less basic Aid certainly we wanted to know well where is that what does that look like and what is the era so just for the purposes of people who are listening our current basic Aid in

283the current year is 22.4 million that is the state share and the local share is 13.5 so what the error is sent in a sense says is that will be reduced by a certain amount we were given a formula an explanation of how to use it there is a PowerPoint presentation for the general public I did share this with um the finance committee and in my quarterly meetings with school boards but it is also on four docs for the public to sort of follow along so that you can see the components of the era I've on the first page I've highlighted what the basic Aid is our LCI and then how we get to that actual calculation which is pretty intense but the calculation was from the soups memo where the vdoe gave us a

284formula that says to see how to reduce your basic Aid take one minus the local Composite Index times the division grocery tax hold harmless amount right which for the average person watching would be like what does that mean right so if you are on our website if you're on board that so you can see that I've actually done like a good math teacher what those calculations look like and by the way if you're looking at the capital it does not say grocery tax even though that's how we're referring to it but the actual Revenue sources supplemental GF payments in lieu of food and hygiene tax which is online 43. so basically after doing the math on this year's the local I'm sorry the state share of our projected reduction from our original 22.4 million is

285about 509 000 that's the state share the local share of that is another 306 000 making a total somewhere upwards about 816 thousand dollars that is a potential and I say potential because we haven't received the actual numbers or if there's a remedy in place it hasn't been publicly shared but that's potentially what we would have to reduce the current Year's basic Aid by about 816 000. next year so using the same formulas it's about 2.01 million next year that we would have to reduce our revenue from the state so that is the era that all of us are um not happy about but we are waiting and we know that there are folks who are trying to come up with ways to to fix that that will impact Us in the current year it

286also impacts how we budget going forward next year so to your question of you know what what does it look like I really need to see what this is going to look like because that may also impact what we what we do but I know we had a discussion at finance committee I wanted to also share that here with the board but I also wanted to have a very simplistic public PowerPoint so the public can follow along and see how those numbers were calculated using the formula that was given to us by the state I'm waiting now to see what's going to happen with this everybody's aware of it you had school board members boots on the ground when it first came out in Richmond advocating on our behalf and so thank you for all

287of that thank you Dr Edwards for that level of transparency and information K3 1993 City Schools agreement all right go right ahead uh you got my name here [Laughter] so as you uh where our current Council is wanting to revisit an agreement that the Lynchburg City School Board in Lynchburg city council ended into in 1993. you see the corresponding letter and it is an action to terminate or modify that and what we need to do is to understand that it's happening what would be the impact if they do it uh what would be the impact if we advocate for that partnership agreement to continue is what we need to weigh in on as we're seeking to build relationships doesn't even really matter to fight over it at this point or is it something that we

288think it would be uh good to Advocate uh it will be council's decision one way or the other and so uh you have the letter um we've tried to talk to some of the participating parties uh uh that were a part of this and uh not sure what information we were able to find for many of those individuals yeah so what is the Pledge on the board concerning this matter yeah Mr chair if you could um Dr day has summarized the discussion that we had in finance and Facilities I think it would be good if you could share those yeah we'd be delighted to hear that very good so what we talked about is the possibility of writing a letter back to the city council um basically just making some observations about the implications of

289rescinding that agreement which is what their some of them are pushing to do and so I took the initiative of writing out in my words um some of the points that we made in talking about it at the finance committee and so I'm going to read to you uh this formulation of the points that we came up with number one state law requires LCS to return on spent funds to city council at the end of each fiscal year whether or not the 1993 understanding continues city council has the authority to deny or approve requests to return those funds all in part to LCS the 1993 agreement does not limit City council's authority over those funds in any way absent disagreement LCS could still come to city council with requests for supplementary Appropriations in the event

290of unforeseen circumstances the agreement thus constitutes only an understanding that requests for returns of fund balance for specific purposes will generally be entertained by city council without committing city council to any particular response rescinding the 19 rescinding of the 1993 agreement implies that city council would not generally be receptive to Future return of fund balance requests hence needs that might have been addressed through fund balance return would have to be added to Future LCS operating budgets instead this is likely to both increase future operating budgets and lengthen the time between the identification of on anticipated critical projects and when work on them could begin the existing agreement allows at least some of those unanticipated projects to be addressed more quickly and with funds already allocated to the schools for other purposes but which for any

291number of reasons we're not able to be utilized for their originally intended purposes for example if LCS is trying to hire instructional staff with particular qualifications LCS cannot reallocate the funds budgeted for those positions while the search for those staff is ongoing if LCS approaches the end of the fiscal year with those positions still unfilled we find ourselves still holding those funds but aren't able to use them for the intended purpose the agreement seems to provide a reasonable mechanism for using those funds for other purposes subject to City council's review and approval it has been surmised that there were reasons this agreement was put in place in 1993 presumably to eliminate perverse incentives or or prevent abuses that had taken place in the past we would suggest that those reasons should be investigated and understood

292before the agreement is altered lest the door be open for those abuses to return as has been suggested rescinding the agreement would create perverse incentives for LCS to find ways to spend down its fund balance as the end of the year end of the fiscal year approaches leading to potentially Hasty or ill-considered expenditures that may well be the kind of problem that the agreement was intended to prevent and then lastly an alternative alternative to rescinding the agreement might be to amend it to require an accounting of how funds approved by city council for return to LCS were actually expended as part of lcs's reporting at the end of the fiscal year all right thank you Dr Sinha and Dr day for that overview summary of the reflections from the finance meeting discussion and other discussions

293did you get that on the table uh for thought any other board member want to say something else and then we'll know what we've got to discuss on this matter Dr Burnett I'd just like to thank Dr day for putting that together and I think that's a very good approach to this I think the finance committee talked about or someone talking about the options one was to keep it as it is which I think we in city council probably don't want to do that this is a 1993 agreement it needs to be something needs to be done with it the other is to revise it and the third is to do away with it completely and I really think that you know as you stay well stated that you know I think that we feel

294the board feels that we're in a partnership with City schools with city council who owns the buildings and we maintain them and use them do we want that partnership to continue and that we because of the experience of our staff know the buildings I want to say better than City Schools does but our city council but we're more aware of the problems and that to make that proposal where we would like to list things that we think are appropriate for one-time expenses to work on the schools or thing and it goes to city council and they can deny it or not which I think has been sort of the underlying feeling for us since those of us have been on the board it wasn't a slam dunk that they were going to give us the

295money so I think that makes a lot of sense I'd much rather do that and do it in partnership with city council than to leave it as it is or to do away the completely because as you point out it then opens up a much more difficult situation including does it put us in a position where we're feeling that we need to spend funds that we may not need to spend so you're you're advocating a revised version of it which I think is what you're um yes I'm advocating last bit I said was one possible thing the rest of it was arguments I think I think it we should advocate for a revised position based on the points as you've made rather than do away with it for the reasons that you've said so that's

296what I'm buying so before I get to Dr Gupta I just wanted to understand you are advocating or at least articulating in light of everything that's been said revision and that's on your list of possibilities that was that was one point that I made one of your listeners okay I got that clear all right Dr Gupta and then but Dr Carter you go first then Dr Gupta I don't think I would like more clarification what is this saying so if I was at home looking at this what is this saying what is what what is this document saying the blood of a woman the letter that you're looking at the 1993 document yes what what the 1993 document established is what we currently are operating under wherein our fund balance piece goes back to them

297and then there's this discussion around what do we want and that's capital Improvement is I've understood it across the years and if we take this away then it means that um you know they don't have to give it to us at all you know I I like what I hear to me two of you and Dr Day can figure out the verbiage and send it out to the city council as it relates to revision whatever the verbs okay all right so we can go with that but Dr Carter getting back I just want to make sure and explain and fund balance and I think we need to take a few like what is what would that be for the people so we can get a clear understanding of what how important this is or split

298in terms of what we would use it for or what no like what fun values are the leftover the amount that we haven't expended correct so that this is where it gets to I think um Miss Capozzi tried to explain the difference between sort of what's left unspent what's unaccounted for what's in open POS and things like that so typically for the purposes of this work the fund balances after we've done all of our Audits and accounted for any of the the open POS where things were purchased but have not been received and then that's the amount that is left that we're like okay this is the actual fund balance I guess it would be more at cash if we could say that we typically use it and ask request it to do Capital Improvement

299yeah we've got real good with that in the most recent uh iteration and that correct octet with in terms of getting that that down oh yes yeah in a in a business it would be a net profit okay yeah my understanding is that the it's an assurance that money that we didn't spend that's not encumbered would by law be returned to city council but city council would first entertain what we suggest it be used to do as it relates to the city schools because sometimes we've used them for one-time salary bonuses some technical purchases most of the time it's Capital Improvements but not always so what prevents us from April unless you're saying we look like we have this much less due by some buses let's do this Dr Dave thought yeah we can take

300control of that now you have done that in the past and I think the last time I bought a budget transfer a big one to you it's kind of like we were like whoa where's this come from but when I first started you would do probably to budget transfers per year where those are over bigger lines not within the same function where we would look at something that says you know what we anticipated the cost of this because remember we're building a budget now anticipating the cost of whatever let's just say it's fuel we're anticipating the cost of fuel to be four hundred thousand dollars well as we start to get in and we start projecting feels only to be a hundred thousand dollars so there's three hundred thousand dollars that is sitting there typically

301because we've allocated it for fuel we would leave it and just say hey we didn't need we didn't need fuel but at the end of the year now we can get another Capital Improvement or you could say and we have had to do some budget transfers where we may say you know what we know we're not going to use that we can take half of that money to meet another need that we might have been able like another one-time need obviously that we couldn't do that we didn't think we could do but look at us fuel's not four hundred thousand it's only a hundred thousand we could do those transfers but typically if it's outside of a line category that's within my realm it would come to the board for public discussion and you all

302would vote on and I think I thought we decided to try to do that more regularly so that okay so my suggestion at this point is that Council May well vote on this on February the 4th team the day is the seventh so we only have a week if in fact they just decide to dispatch of this matter by the 14th if the recommendation at least I'm hearing from two maybe a third is to allow the Inez committee whatever have some kind of special meeting or somebody take their piece do the revision and maybe we can talk it around over the next several days or so and send us something to council like we did um like they did to us in relationship to our thoughts about it that's the only way I can think

303of that we can respond to it at this point anybody else have any suggestions Dr uh I think that's great I'll make a a comment a couple of questions one is that I think that city council is expecting us to come to that meeting on February 14th to be part of the discussion about this agreement and I don't think they've formulated yet based on the meeting that we have with them on Friday what former that will be but I think in some way they want School Board to be at that meeting to discuss this so I think we should we should do that do you think they want us to make a presentation the advice shift me will have a point here at the very minimum they're going to have a written response and we

304brought this up at the meeting on Friday with mayor they weren't sure how they would include it but they would like to have uh people there to make it there are the administration School Board chair to be there to respond to this discussion and they were trying to figure out whether that would be public comments or would be some other way nothing stopping us from he's already drafted 60 70 of that letter sent it out will all show up although we have a financing facilities committee meeting next Tuesday at what time at 3 30. is this the work session no no no no no I'm talking about it is the council work session or the regular the 7 30 minutes that'll be a 7 30 meeting yeah so let's send the letter out and we

305all show up in whatever format they have so is everybody okay with what Dr Day read tonight and there could be some possible tweaking based on interaction we can kind of talk with each other and then um we May the 14th of Valentine's Day in there yes remember oh that's gonna be that night also okay well Dr Gupta I think your suggestion is the best we have we'll have to dispatch up that hope they have us on the beginning of part of the agenda Valentine otherwise I will have to school stay in somebody's house but anyway um um is that okay everybody I think that um that's the best I can think of it this late hour I think I just said so as I understand what's being asked of me which I'm willing to

306do is to take what I read to you turn it into a letter from us to city council and but actually make my fourth point about one alternative being re formulation make that a recommendation rather than an observation yeah yeah everybody get good with that yeah and we'll we'll circulate it through the appropriate way uh so the further thoughts can be by Tuesday okay and also I I believe we we um we concluded that that letter should be signed by our chair right did you speak for the board but I'm happy to go there and read it into the record if that's what they want for a chair okay I'll do that but but we'll be prepared to have our subject matter experts to go deeper if necessary and that'll require some things on that

307one more question about the project we talked about that it might be beneficial to have some visits of the office of city council to visit RS Payne since that's the main thing we're talking about is that has that been initiated or is that being that's going out yeah it has what dates are all those can the board find out what this those are so in case board members want to be there too sure we have two one maybe two people that have them okay okay thank you all right thank you all I hope we've captured that I know we have best we can uh last item on the new business K4 uh obviously you know that uh our Deputy clerk uh uh Barbara is no longer with us and uh through the proper vetting process

308and all of those details uh the chair would be willing tonight in uh harmony with uh all of our proper code section 22.1 that's seven to six of the code of Virginia uh would there be um a motion for us to uh approve the yep there is it's 9 35. thank you for having me here all right but make sure now we're talking about uh Carey cool all right it moved and seconded Dr Gupta made the motion Dr Brennan made the second um that we would approve this uh Madam clerk please call the road for the sad person remember Miss Preston yeah School Board member Mr trolls yes school book remember Dr Sinha yes member Dr Brennan yes bill but remember Dr Carter yes go pop remember Dr Gupta yeah today Mr Andrews yes most

309concurs nine to zero let's give her a hand and all right you've got some good help then all right all right uh superintendent's comment section yeah given the hour I'm just gonna wish everybody a happy Black History Month um and just encourage us to whatever we do as we approach the work that we do with children and staff that we don't just rely on the history that was taught but we be purposeful about making history now and improving the lives of our children specifically our round and black children and our families as we do the work and have our own historical moment on making a difference in somebody's life excellent Dr Ed Whistler now moved into our board comments we'll start Mr Andrews I love you good night Dr Day Dr Gupta I just wanted

310to say something as a father you know I have not received diploma from my daughter yet and people tell me you are a school board member and your disabled daughter doesn't have her graduation diploma in January I said I've told the school board chair I've told the superintendent I have told the principal and still I don't have it uh the board membership ties me up otherwise I'll be sitting on a hunger strike outside to get that diploma are you serious about this I understand thank you yes thank you sir this is not a school board coming this is your father coming from it again just want to like just want to thank the West Lynchburg Baptist Church for hosting TC Miller it was always good to drive through there and see the sign like so

311that's just wonderful for that and at the Capitol conference I'm just so appreciative of the a Byron delegate Byron and Walker and also Senator Newman and Senator Peak for allowing us to come and meet with them and to talk with them regarding the um the deficit or not the deficit but the addition error and also just to talk about some of the other bills that are in play and at the time of the EC glass incident delicate Walker was on the floor presenting the bill to make any type of calling or threatening um that happens a felony so and also we heard from Senator Newman and that the cares money they're looking at that and when it gets close to the due date if those funds are not used then they're going to be taken

312and put in to a pot there just in case because we want to keep that funds instead of them being going back so we need to I know we will look at those at how we are going to use those going forward and they may start looking at it if they're due in September maybe as early as July August thank you Dr Carter Dr Brennan um I just want to say I'm looking forward to spending Valentine's Day at city council particularly celebrating the football team for UC glass and Heritage High School who have set records and the highlight of my week so far besides this board meeting was reading to the Pre-K students at Paul Monroe on Monday which was just wonderful it's nothing like being hugged by a couple of four-year-old children so that

313was a real treat so thank you thank you Dr Brennan thank you very good not to send her I just don't want to Echo what everybody else said and add I really appreciate the passions of our public and their concerns for the welfare of their children we really do encourage parental involvement so it's good to see that on display here in public comments um appreciate the student presentations we had I'm really grateful that we do middle and elementary schools it's really special we need a little stool for them of course so we can see them better but it's remarkable what's happening in our schools and I think think it's it's a great showpiece that there's more to our schools than some would imply and I'm just grateful to the teachers for the hard work they

314do we notice you we appreciate you and we're trying to do our best for you thank you Dr sinatraoz I want to say thank you for the school board appreciation gifts the students that put these wonderful things together Dave thank you for that lovely uh adding to my waistline thank you I love it so uh everybody have a wonderful weekend and wonderful week God bless thank you mister trust Miss Preston thank you for all that that you do it's just really encouraging to to listen to our different points of view we don't always agree but we're very seldom disagreeable and uh and and so it's good to listen to those different perspectives because because all of us together can come up with some great ideas and great solutions to some of our challenges so thank

315you thank you Mr President I think Dr Carter had one additional item it's what we do when we extend public comment let's remember um the gifts I just wanted to say thank you for all the gifts and also congratulations to Mr Reed for the award he won I didn't catch all of it but congratulations to him for that thank you Dr Carter and um tonight's meeting I think was very good and we received a lot of emails from a lot of parents around that issue and I think that it made a bold step of saying we we want to listen um I also want to acknowledge that all of our commitment is so evident in what we've got in front of us and uh Dr watercolor I was up this morning at six o'clock in

316meetings and uh left Washington at around something to one and got here at four something and I have been in this meeting and we have had a good time and some boards stay in their meetings until two o'clock in the morning we've never done that but thank you all for for thank you for the commitment it's a lot that we do I don't know all right so February 8th got that legislative finance and Facilities have got that and we're going to do that all the rest of the stuff you know what we got and uh meeting the journey