001[Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] it is December and third 13th day of December to be exact and we're so delighted to be able to come together uh tonight and we would like to call to order uh this FY 2023-2024 public hearing for our school operating budget and as we call ourselves to order tonight in our meeting our purpose uh exclusively for Gathering is to hear about the FY 2023-2024 School operating budget and so at this time I would like to ask my colleagues for approval of the agenda for the public hearing Dr Carter been moved by Dr Carter seconded by Dr day any further questions on discussion on the approval of the agenda for the public hearing hearing on Madam
002clerk please call the roll school but remember Miss Preston yes let's go but Mr Charles yes school but remember Dr Sinha yes Google but remember Dr Brennan yes School Board member Dr Coleman yes school but remember Dr Carter yes cool but remember Dr Gupta yes in school but Mama doctor day yes A school but Mr Andrews yes motion care is nine to zero thank you madam clerk at this season an hour of our country and Community is never uh redundant to to our Pledge of Allegiance so I would like us to do that as well for our public hearing Justice thank you uh members of the board and to the public in attendance uh we will now move to section c of our uh public hearing and I'm going to ask that Dr Edwards would
003lead us now uh in our special presentation absolutely so it's not often that we get to do a special recognition but we want to definitely do this one in honor of one of our longtime LCS team members Miss Barbara Saunders who works in my office and has been my left hand as she sits next to my right hand this spinner and between the two of them they have done a magnificent job of making sure that superintendent's office operates smoothly and what you may not know about Miss Sandra she does a lot of behind the scenes work that keeps this operation flowing rather smoothly including processing volunteer applications she is helping out with homeschool she does a lot of work with board policies and making sure that what we said what we changed shows up correctly
004the second meaning around but she also serves as the board's Deputy clerk whenever Mrs day is not here or unable to attend it is Miss Saunders who has filled in and she has been the deputy Deputy clerk for quite some time and as with sadness but happiness for her that she has announced her retirement so we wanted to take a moment to just celebrate her and honor her and give the board an opportunity to just show their appreciation for all the work that she does in the superintendent's office and also as our Deputy Clerk and we promise we would make her cry or make me cry [Laughter] so Miss Saunders thank you Dr Edwards I think that you have just crystallized such robust activity Barbara across the years at least as I speak on behalf
005of the service that I've been able to lend you have been remarkable always incredibly knowledgeable of what's going on and ready and available at meetings to lead us in the proper way and so we are just so excited for you and your future and we wanted to pause today to make sure that it was not overlooked of our tremendous gratitude for your service and so uh board members they have their additional comments please make them at this time Vice chair I think you have studied very well Dr Coleman Dr Edwards thank you very much everybody else Barbara and I worked together for a number of years so it is with mixed emotion that I observed this time because um unlike a lot of people in in this room I know firsthand how much work she
006does how much information she knows how she can manage to tell you in a kind way that you maybe need to think you're rethink your your chain of of thought she is just the best absolutely the best and you will be sorely missed all right School Board member Preston those comments were right on point now it is the time that we enjoy giving and so we have some things we would like to give you Barbara I've got a card and uh there's something in the car and the vice chair has something that we're going to bring over start there that's doing this please we'd appreciate that and Barbara we would like you to stand and on behalf of a grateful School Division the Lynchburg City Schools foreign [Applause] [Music] show such great appreciation and who
007does that [Laughter] wow one two three oh looks great [Applause] thank you but we'll probably still be calling on you okay [Laughter] all right so uh members aboard we won't do that today but we will bring forth appropriate recommendations uh going forward but again Barbara thank you so much for your service we love you and this was from the depths and bottom of our heart and may you and your family have a wonderful holiday season and a brand new year all right now this time we're going to now press our way into our operating budget discussion and Dr Edwards will come forward along with Miss Capozzi okay um so this is the public version of the discussion and just for the record we do two public hearings on the budget one early on before we
008actually craft the budget and the purpose of that is really to get input from our community members that's what the purpose of tonight is but miss Capozzi and Dr wodica and Mrs Pugh who is unable to be here tonight but our entire team has also been working with principals and directors and other staff to get budget input from the school base and the department-based teams there are also some things that we just need to consider and remember do you remember last year when we were first talking about the salary increases for staff there was a discussion about it being a minimum of five percent which we did more than five percent for many of our staff members we had upwards to seven and eight and nine percent but along with that requirement was a two-year
009deal of five percent year one and five percent year two so right off the bat before we even started budget conversation it's just a reminder to our board a reminder to our public that in the governor's proposed budget it was a five and five that we need to consider so our team is definitely working on that minimum of five percent um going forward which is in the second year of this um biennium some other things that we've heard before I turn it over to the community that this board has been also discussing is increasing the starting hourly rate for our classified employees and you all have been wonderful over the last few years in constantly increasing that hourly rate I think we got up to over 13 an hour as we're approaching 15 an hour
010so we are going to continue to look at that I think it was Dr Gupta who introduced us into the living wage which is what started it several years ago so that is still on our discussion table as well we're always looking for ways to recruit and retain our staff and looking at perks and things that we can offer including we've done tuition reimbursement there were some things last year that were in the budget that will probably cycle back this year for consideration under that as well you've heard presentations from various staff members and particularly of note the need for more mental health support and resources for our students that will also help our staff so there's some discussion that we may be bringing forward we know that's coming from schools as well as to
011how we can support that also inherit in our discussions and just want to keep everything open is our facility study we've had the physical building part of it in terms of that and now we are moving forward with the educational piece and looking at the grouping and assignment of our our students and as well as the educational programming that may have some budgetary implications for next year and years going forward as well I would be remissed if I did not represent for my teachers the need for smaller class sizes and one of the reasons for that is obviously you get to know your students it's a lot more personable when you have smaller class sizes but that goes back to also just trying to address learning gain and making sure we're meeting every child by
012name and by need but helping students with behavior and also addressing some of the significant mental health mental challenges that our students are also facing but smaller class sizes are usually obtained by adding more teachers and staff so that's a consideration there as looking at support staff and teachers and so on and so forth and then they're just fun things in life that we need to include in our budget that we wish would be going down but they don't and that's the price of fuel we were fortunate to have some electric buses coming our way but we still have fuel Insurance health insurance is a topic of conversation that the sport has had as well as other Insurance liability insurance and so on the cost for just doing business electricity water sewer heat maintenance legal
013fees those things are also things that we would consider so I say that to say that there are already topics that are on the table for us to discuss and as we make some of our priorities we want to open it up to the public because we want to hear what your priorities are and what are some things that you would like Lynchburg City Schools to explore continue fortify enhance or just do brand new so this is our opportunity to hear from our public for them to share with us and our public being not only community members but staff or any any other staff members so with that I will turn it back to you Doctor thank you Dr Edwards and so this is our time to listen and we will be listening very attentively
014the construction of a budget ultimately of 100 million dollars and north of that and to meet every need that we have requires this process to include the community and to those who come out tonight we do appreciate your presence and so uh persons appearing before the school board will not be allowed to campaign for public office or promote private business ventures and should not use profanity or vocal language or gestures make comments about a 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 role and or responsibilities of the school board individual speakers should limit their comments to three minutes a speaker representing a group shall limit their
015comments to five minutes the representatives shall identify the group at the beginning of their presentation and a group may have no more than one spokesperson the total allotted time uh for public comments at school board meetings generally is 30 minutes and 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 and so I want to first begin with a name that I have here on our list and this is regarding the subject of universal Pre-K dealing with the group Early Childhood care and education committed Bridges to project that's group and I think I have Jane Gertie here the director of Elizabeth Early Learning Center welcome and all that are with you we thank you for being here
016thank you uh chairman Coleman superintendent Edwards esteemed members of the Lynchburg City School Board and guests uh thank you for letting me speak on behalf of the early childhood and Care committee which was formed from the poverty to progress the bridges to progress initiative from Lynchburg city council nine years ago to reduce poverty in Lynchburg parents need child care so they can work and children need to be well educated to impact their earning power in the future this committee our committee consists of Partners from a number of community groups that deal with various aspects of Early Childhood care and education these include Lynchburg City Schools private preschools and Child Care Centers the United Way Bright Beginnings humankind Lincoln Head Start Lynchburg Parks and Recreation neighborhood centers Lynchburg Economic Development the Pediatric community and individual stakeholders
017and community volunteers I think we all agree that we share the value that each child in Lynchburg is precious and that we want each one to find success in school and in life and reach his or her full potential an excellent Public School System well supported by City leadership is also a strong economic draw to our region attracting new businesses employers and employees but developmentally speaking beginning our education system at age five for a K-12 program is missing an essential part of a child's development and the resources and energy of our talented teachers is not used to their best Advantage when at least 25 percent of kindergarten students in Lynchburg begin school without a quality preschool experience brain development during the first five years of life progresses in an exponential fashion the data is clear
018that children who are exposed to more reading more language-rich experiences more stimulation from caring adults during the first years of life enter kindergarten more significantly significantly more well equipped to succeed to read on grade level by third grade and to achieve success in high school and to graduate reading on grade level by third grade is critical because if they are not proficient readers when they begin fourth grade as much as half of the curriculum that they will be taught will be incomprehensible to them beginning School F5 is not early enough for our children and the data is clear that there are not enough Pre-K spots available Governor Younkin and his administration have made high quality early childhood education a priority our current Secretary of Education Amy guadera said quote quality early childhood education isn't nice
019to have it is a must-have we know this in our hearts and from personal experiences but the data also tell us this expanding access and choice through our early childhood education system is one of the greatest Investments we can make in our future unquote Universal Pre-K for all three and four-year-olds would provide the opportunity for all children to enter kindergarten with important pre-literacy numeracy and social emotional skills to ensure success in school Universal Pre-K will increase our return on our investment in our education system Universal Pre-K should involve existing Private Preschool providers and can represent the best in public-private Partnerships and Universal Pre-K would be an economic draw to our city so our ask for tonight is threefold one that Lynchburg City Schools Embrace support and promote the concept of universal Pre-K increasing the capacity
020and access to Quality free pre-k for all three and four-year-olds in Lynchburg realizing that this is a goal that will require Inc increased funding on the local level and additional state and federal dollars number two we ask that as many Pre-K three and four-year-old classrooms be added as possible within the current sorry can I stop within the current budget as the waiting lists are long for both of those groups and three at some point the larger long-term project of creating Universal Pre-K will require an overseeing body or a backbone organization to coordinate and utilize all of the existing Early Childhood resources that are available in Lynchburg to support Universal Pre-K these include funds for VPI Public School pre-k Head Start mixed delivery and Social Services child care subsidies we asked that Lynchburg City Schools consider
021their role in this larger project uh through a partnership with the University of Lynchburg Center for leadership we are working toward a collective impact model to maximize the effectiveness of these efforts bring groups out of their silos and together into true collaboration and measure outcomes to ensure that we are moving the needle toward access to Universal pre-K in Lynchburg thank you for your attention and consideration and we hope that we can discuss this further with you at another time thank you thank you thank you very much all that you have said tonight has been duly recorded and we appreciate you sharing those things with us uh tonight thank you thank you very very much as it relates to what I have in front of me distinguished members of the board that was the only person
022to sign up uh uh public hearing is scheduled to go until six uh and so we will operate tonight at the pleasure of the board the first piece I want to ask is there anyone else here who wanted to speak pertaining to the budget that did not get their name on the sheet second thing I'd like to ask the board we did receive a request from Christina Bautista and I apologize if I didn't get the last name correct with a brief email requesting that that be read tonight this may not fall in the sequence normally of our public comments at a regular meeting what is the pleasure of the board for that to be read each of you have the letter I suspect what is your pleasure I'm fine to have it read just for
023the record I think we've probably all read the email but if you want it on the record okay that way everybody there was no objection all right yes ma'am I'm hearing you Dr Carter I know we stated for the regular public comments that you could do it in a voicemail and or you could what's the other option I think we were limited to voicemails and in person yeah so that's why I'm asking the board we have the time if we don't I'm not going to read it if you've an objection to do like I can make a motion to suspend those rules for this evening only if you wish if I have a second that emotional all right it's been moved and seconded for a suspension of the rules that requires more than a simple
024majority and so two-thirds thank you Dr day and so uh is there any uh further questions or discussion on the motion then Madam clerk if you could please call the road that we're suspending the rules of in order to have this email read publicly tonight school but remember Miss Preston yes let's go about Mr Charles yes let's go about Mama Dr Sin hi yes let's go about one by Dr Brennan yes about Mama Dr Coleman yes let's go about my Dr Carter no let's go about Mama Dr Gupta yes let's go by Mama Dr day yes Mr Andrews yes motion carries eight to one and that's a two-third and uh thank you all of you for expressing yourselves and rightfully so I'll attempt to read this Dear Boy members I would like to have this
025letter of concern read at the board meeting on Tuesday December the 13th at 5 PM my family and I are new to the Lynchburg City school system as my son started kindergarten in the fall we had to make careful considerations about where we would send him and ultimately decided to apply for Darrington Elementary School while we're happy with our choice I was more than hesitant to utilize the school transportation due to concerns that I have heard from other parents and learning that there are no bus assistants my husband and I have had to rearrange our work schedules to be able to be available for drop off and pickup with the added concern of no option for and before Aftercare this has put a large burden on our small family the bus drivers already have a
026great responsibility of safely transporting the students and I do not believe we should expect them to also handle any discipline or student related concerns while they are managing this important task for this reason I request the transportation budget be increased for a higher wage for bus aides on all Elementary buses in addition I request for it to be mandatory for all elementary school buses to have teacher aids thank you for your consideration and that again is from Christina Bautista all right there are no other comments that I am aware of no one from a powerful audience tonight has suggested they have any additional comments um are there in the comments of the board at this time uh relative to the hearing um and another thing I would be interested in typically if we say uh
027work session is to start at six that somewhat has some legal implications and so it is uh it is yet um 5 26. so I don't know if there is anyone who want to start the public work session earlier or if we're able to even do that but um yeah so uh any other comments from members of the board regarding the public hearing was there another letter to be read to by someone last name starts begins with the S yes but that that person didn't no I didn't maybe I didn't read it correctly uh School Board remember Carter but I didn't know yeah I didn't sense that that person was asking for it to be read at this public hearing for the budget since I would like my email and this email to be read
028at the budget meeting tonight oh it does yeah but then I still deeply apologize see which one is that I came in at 1 38 . and that's different than what I just read Danielle s-a-r-c-h-e-t if you read that email that has a student's name maybe yeah that was a five-year-old yeah but she she does explicitly ask that it be read at the budget meeting okay thank you so we'd have to read it but not mention student name okay well what I am going to if chair since I think I have that right who has it and can you read it with the understanding that you're not going to disclose student names and information if it's included in that um you just voted not to read them so I'm not gonna but I just thought
029this is she wrote it Dr Day can read it doctor day um is it appropriate to read the name of the person that submitted this letter before you Dr Brenda do you have a concern I'm just I'm just asking because I'd like to have a little discussion on this is is this does this also need a motion to say we're going to approve to read this or read by other motion and I think that we have suspended the rules for that for this public Hearing in its entirety I think the motion was for this meeting not for the proceedings so can I can I just ask a question to the board so if we're talking about the email that was sent on uh Friday December 9th okay there there are some uh comments in there
030that I'm not sure is really appropriate to be read in the public in a public session and I think this was sort of directed to the board and to the administration to address a specific topic related to the buses I'm really not so I'm a little uncomfortable with two things mostly what's some of the terms that are in the land you're concerned yes and and second of all that I'm not sure this really was directed to the budget as it was to a concern that the person had if it's what I read it didn't appear to me at all that's why I didn't mention it but my board members are saying uh Dr Brennan that it is a request so um Dr day if you read it I'm depending on you to determine I would
031not put it could you direct me I must be can you direct me specifically where it says that they wish to have this red there's a there's an email from this is an email I received I'm looking at okay that was a second one then yeah there's some there's one from today saying please ask the doctor call the email be read but I can give you an edited version of it that leaves out the specific you have to be that you're referring to you just go to the budget request that I think that that's what it is okay to do that um okay um let's see uh that just I'm gonna just read the last two paragraphs then very good um I understand there is a bus shortage but this referring to the earlier part
032of the letter which we've decided is not appropriate to read in public um is something I think should be done how can I assist with this um I would love to see a bus Aid on each Elementary age bus if that is not doable at least the preschool and kindergarten buses I love the LCS system and I hope my son can go all the way through but as a parent I'm terrified and so are others how is my involvement best utilized could it be bringing this up in school board meetings going to the media for more budget specifically for the buses could it be recruiting others in leadership Lynchburg local non-profits to be part of this I'm proud of my son but he was too young to go through something like that and if he
033had a bus eight on the bus I believe it would have never happened or at least the first time um well I don't want to read that part I look forward to hearing your response so the budget aspect is the same as the previous letter about a request for buses thank you Dr day and thank you for your willingness to read that portion thereof and uh I think that would bring to a close the comments that we have heard and we appreciate them uh at this time Dr Edwards in the closing comments regarding the hearing no I did take notes regarding what I heard about Universal Pre-K for three and four-year-olds and just want to also remind the public and the sport knows that we have invested in pre-k both through our VPI program for
034four-year-olds but most recently in the last two years for three-year-olds as well so we do have a couple three-year-old classes but by no means meeting the needs and with regard to the other two comments for additional bus aides on the school buses that was also something that had been brought to our attention and I know our transportation director is not here but if she were she would be nodding saying you know in addition to needing more bus drivers we know we have a bus driver shortage we also um are seeing that with our bus assistance and our bus aides to increase the bus seats on our buses particularly the elementary run buses and Pre-K buses as well so I just appreciate the public um bringing that to our attention and making sure that they share
035that information with the board as well in the second half when we get to the budget work session we'll talk a little more deeply about some of the um things that are for discussion and for topic for us to discuss thank you Dr Edwards and of course oh very good Dr Gupta go right ahead I just wanted to uh make sure Dr Edward you and your team is committed to taking us through this budget cycle and the future budget Cycles to come yeah yeah group there there does seem to be a rumor that I didn't start that somewhere I may not be here or I may be leaving so to the folks who are concerned about that no I do not plan on going anywhere and not only am I taking you through this budget
036but Dr wodica and I and our entire team we have a facility study that we need to take you through and we have some big plans for the future of Lynchburg City schools and our students so I I am definitely here for the long run um and very excited about the work that we are doing with not only this budget but future budgets future work and I'm going to say it out there new schools whatever the possibility holds um for us just really excited about the work that we can do thank you thank you Dr Gupta thank you for those comments Dr Edwards in which we all are so supportive and thankful to hear and thank you for coming out tonight uh we we really are very vested all around this horseshoe our individuals who
037are spending countless hours as it relates to the board's responsibility and the finalization of this budget we heard from our young people uh last week of many concerns that they expressed and so we're collecting all of the information thank you all very much and members of the board this will adjourn our public hearing and we will reconvene at 6 pm thank you all for coming [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign thank you [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign thank you [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] thank you foreign [Music] foreign [Music]
038we're liking to call now our December the 13th 2022 uh Lynchburg City School Board work session to order and our first order of business for tonight is the approval of the agenda featured on board docs uh for tonight's uh work session is there a motion to approve the agenda so moved second and moved by uh Miss Preston uh seconded by Dr Carter that we will approve the agenda that we have for tonight any further questions or discussion hearing Nunn Madam clerk please call the roll School Board member Miss Preston yes school book member Mr Charles yes school book Mama Dr Sinha yes a little board member Dr Brennan yes let's go but remember Dr Coleman yes government remember Dr Carter yes remember Dr Gupta yes go about Mama Dr day yes School Board member yes
039motion carries now to zero thank you madam Clerk and of course anything could happen but this will probably be our last official meeting for the year of 2022 so let us end as we begin with the president of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all the more you say that this powerful words there and uh thank you uh members of the board for your service to our community each and every one of us uh section c for our agenda items tonight and uh the first is uh for Action uh the high school program of studies we had a a healthy discussion last time Dr Edwards if you could bring on Mr Coleman absolutely yes so as you said
040we had a healthy discussion and Mr Coleman is here again to entertain any additional questions and also if there is any follow-up that you want to share regarding program studies thank you Dr Edwards and good evening to the board good evening good evening um I would like to just briefly reiterate my appreciation to Maria Yeager and the team who worked on the revisions uh that you see before you in the program study uh while this version there are no revisions on the version you had before you um this is the same version that was presented at our previous board meeting but again I appreciate the work that went into engaging uh counselors and teachers and administrators to make the revisions that you see in this version of the program studies I also want to appreciate
041the board for the discussion that we were able to have last week and want to remind the board that it is my intention and certainly the attention of the administration and all of us who support our students to have high expectations to support student achievement and is our firm belief that broadening the net and reaching more students is showing good faith toward those high expectations and would certainly welcome again feedback or input that you have for that all right Dr day yeah um I I raised a number of issues about this last time and I want to come back to them one of the things that I raised some questions about was the language concerning the Governor's School and I saw Steve Smith the director on Wednesday when I was at their meeting in Dr
042Gupta stead and I showed him the revised language and asked what he thought and he did not share my concern he echoed what was said here that he he wasn't concerned about the change he welcomed a larger applicant pool said that they do screen and advise the applicants very carefully to make sure that they understand what they're committing to so he was actually he preferred the new language to the way it was before so as far as I'm concerned that completely resolves any concerns I have about that section at that point and I as well so that is fascinating and I'm happy to hear that um so um I do have a couple other aspects of it so on page my patient says this is page five of the actual document page seven of the
043PDF file there's this list of advanced courses offered through LCS some of which are being removed according to the proposed revisions and the explanation that we heard was that these have either very low or no enrollment and that's why they're being can I clarify yes please so it is true that those courses do have very low or low enrollment these courses will still be offered uh I know last and you do see these courses they appear in the program of studies yes sections my question they're taught by it's like one you'll see the University of Lynchburg so you won't so how they're offered and where they're taught through they're offered through Lynchburg City Schools but not necessarily by our faculty or our teachers but you do see these courses they do appear that was my
044question because I counted at least four of them that are mentioned further down in this the specific course listings so removing them here doesn't mean they're no longer offered apparently is that right what does it mean that's correct those courses will still be will still be offered and again they may be offered through again an example that I can share is the offer through the University of Lynchburg okay so they would be available uh like as a dual enrollment course with University that's correct is that right okay okay then I think that resolves my concern there um let's see there were two other things if I can find them here on page 60 of the PDF file page 58 of the actual document this is for the STEM Academy the junior year and um the
045the third bullet there Strikes Out applied calculus and adds pre-calculus to um and I guess I'd like to understand why um someone who can successfully complete applied calculus one I would think that would verify their competence in the material of pre-calculus so I don't see I don't understand a justification for removing applied calculus and and in full transparency I was not a part of I know that this was the result of significant conversation with um members who lead their math departments and so this was a decision and a recommendation that came from those faculty members um I hesitate to represent I understand Spirit of the nature beyond that but I will say we we trust the uh the expertise and the recommendations of our teacher leaders who participated in that discussion okay so um I
046don't know what to do with this at this point since we can't um uh I I I'm not able to know what the rationale for this is and let me go on to my last Point um so yeah interject so it looks like it used to be pre-calculus one or applied calculus one and they added the and two yes okay I I can't appreciate that's what it looks like the green and two looks like in addition in the OR applied calculus one is struck out um I for my part I don't see why leaving them both there wouldn't be fine it seems to me it's a stronger program if a student can satisfy this requirement with applied calculus one um so I would suggest that we leave it as it what this item as it
047was before the revision but as you say neither you nor I were party to the conversation that led to this so I'm not sure what to do with my concern um the last thing I was going to mention um uh yesterday well at our legislative breakfast last week there was a lot of discussion of this Jay lark report and uh delegate Wendell Walker suggested that we actually listen into yesterday's Jay Lark hearing and one of the things that was reported to that hearing is that there is a another report to Jay Lark about dual enrollment fees for high school students taking dual enrollment courses and the upshot of that report at this point it's just a report to the jailar committee was that with only rare exceptions there's no justification for charging students fees special
048fees to take a dual enrollment course the way this reads right now is uh Lynchburg City Schools covers fees for 10 students per class but if the recommendation of that Jay lark report would be incorporated here we would just cover tuition or at least cover fees regardless of how many students are in a dual enrollment class so I don't know maybe that's something we have to wait and see what happens with the yes so there's a lot of conversation about dual enrollment and different divisions some pay portions Parts none at all and that is a larger conversation that we have taken back to say could we get some consistency here where you know our ultimate recommendation would be similar to Jay Lark no let's not charge the students for it so it goes beyond just
049what's in our program of studies and it's more of a bigger push to what's going on with community colleges and dual enrollment and that's we've been talking about that for quite some time now okay so then regarding this document tonight it's maybe premature to suggest a change based on yes yeah okay and also Dr day just going back to what you um discussed with the applied calculus and I'm trying to quickly look through and I have not looked to the depth that I probably should to answer your question but I'm wondering if that there's a name change as I look under the mathematics section on page 17 where they're listing all the courses I see the advanced College precalc one Advanced pre college pre-count two so that might be a question that we asked Mrs
050Yeager if that change is due to a name change in course or is that or are we eliminating a course that actually exists because some of the I know that when we were working with some of the courses we changed some of the names previously so I just want to make sure that that's not a name changes of what might also explain it since we are taking a question back to Mrs Yeager yeah so I didn't that didn't occur to me to look at the applied calculus one course listing to see so I don't I don't think I can do that on the Fly here so um I'm not quite sure what to do with my concern maybe just I mean wouldn't want to I wouldn't want to oppose the rest of the adjustments to
051this document but I'd like to get a resolution of why maybe I can just put in a request that somebody give me an explanation of why they wanted to remove that and if we're really not satisfied with the rationale then I guess we would reinstitute that maybe on the next time around this document um yeah I mean that if an explanation for that is necessary for The Document program studies to be approved I don't want to hold the whole document up over that one issue but I would like to have an explanation I can assure you that you will have an explanation to that okay that's the end of my comment and Dr Dave Dooley noted the clerk has it and uh we appreciate your investment in that and so we'll we'll get the response
052to you all right are you yielding to Florida Dr Gupta yes I'll go right ahead okay thank you Mr Coleman for your presentation last time and for page four like I brought it up last time uh he specifically mentioned two colleges or universities where we send our students or they take courses ahead is it possible to expand that so uh maybe any college or university which has an mou with LCS our students can take courses there so that will open up a whole array of courses which Virginia Tech offers a technical stem courses which our students can take which may be limited or any vccs as I mentioned last time cvcc may not have it but Virginia College Community system bccs may have it and everything being online or most of the courses being online
053and that makes it um very accessible yes and uh and to reiterate the point that I that I made last time is is our intentions and our efforts right now to seek out those Partnerships and those agreements so this is not um the ceiling uh the the institutions that we have listed here and it's not our limitations but that our our intentions are to expand those Partnerships so what we have listed here are the universities that we have those agreements with and as we continue to establish more agreements we'll be sure to indicate that in the program studies so is it possible if I bring a motion to change with the assurance that the language will be changed not to specific to include that any University or college which has an mou with LCS our
054students will be able to take courses if they're doable as they come along that will not restrict the schools holding till the next year to be able to offer courses Dr Gupta I want to prefer if you would address that to the chair uh Mr Coleman you won't make a motion to chair very interested in hearing your motion yes sir I'd like to make a motion that we open up these courses to any college or university which has an mou with Lynchburg City Schools all right to the point that would impact the high school program studies is their second to Dr gupta's motion second it's the second to the motion for the purpose of discussion would you like to elaborate any further on why you are bringing such a motion or you rest on what
055you said so it doesn't restrict our students to so if I am a particular University my scope of courses I offer are limited to watch out on my catalog and but if I have so it's like you go to a restaurant for which are very good in Burgers you go to the second restaurant which is good in burritos right go to a third restaurant which is very good in cheesecake but the first restaurant doesn't offer cheesecake and you want cheesecake but guess what you're stuck you cannot have cheesecake at that restaurant but having an mou with different schools will provide you that flexibility of array of courses you can take so I think it's good for our students where they have a choice they are not restricted by what the restaurant offers them they are
056restricted by their effort to walk to the next place you see what I'm saying and explore their menu I think may I you please you made the second please I um as I recall last time we talked about an approval process of some kind for giving a student approval to take something that didn't quite fit into this um I wonder if that would be a mechanism we could use to adopt what Dr gupta's proposing that I put some language in here that courses at institutions which have an active mou with Lynchburg City Schools can be considered via the approval process on page whatever it is see the simpler we make better it is because this document people raise read four or five pages and they see if they want to go to the next page
057so 70 page document is for nerds like me but cool people do the four or five pages Preamble for the superintendent dual degree overview on the page four and they see I got these courses and this University and that's it all right I would like uh School Board member Preston I think she may have a concern or questions would like to weigh in so what I think I'm hearing you say is that you want to change the language so that it says something like uh students enrolled in these courses may earn college credit from Community College University of Lynchburg and other colleges with which Lynchburg City schools has an mou that have been approved in terms of taking specific names any University of College or college or university which has an mou with Lynchburg City
058Schools and they can expand the list of those mous provide a banner poster anywhere where we have the mou so it's an evolving document as we sign more mous The Faculty knows it the students know it these are the institutions lcss mousse with and you can take courses because with online a lot of science technology courses are readily available ah you know Visual Basic is a common language which I don't see but it's it's very useful language to learn so if you're taking an online course you have it you're not restricted as I mentioned by the menu of the restaurant you are restricted by your effort to go out there and get what you want and and if I'm if I'm just getting clarity for the purpose of the board I didn't perceive this motion
059to necessarily be attached to the particulars of the high school program of studies versus just a general understanding about the mlu process is that correct no no he doesn't want dual enrollment courses limited only to cvcc or University of Lynchburg Lynchburg he wants any of course from uh institution of higher education with which we have mou to be an option for a dual enrollment course okay well then I'm wondering whether or not we should have entertained a motion for the high school program of studies first then asked for an amendment to that that's fine does that does that make sense when I'm suggesting to the board we haven't we don't have a motion on the floor for the high school program of studies but we're digging into the high school program studies to make changes
060yeah I see what he said withdraw my emotion all right thank you and then we'll come back to it Dr what you want to say yeah yeah trying to go back to something that uh Mrs Pugh said last time that um at one point we were looking to explore also an mou with Randolph college and I think they took changed their semesters to be take two for seven weeks is is their their program so it didn't work out so the possibility of getting additional mousse with other institutions is a real possibility so I understand what you're saying we also and I don't know that we currently have a procedural process and remember this is going to kick in starting January February when we come back students particularly Juniors usually start with their enrollment the difference
061between taking a dual enrollment course where I am physically present on that campus going to a live course versus an online course and then how do you vet the quality of mostly online courses is what what I'm talking about so I don't think we have a process to do that yet and I cannot promise you that we'd have one um when we come back for break because nobody's allowed to work over break we really want a good break uh so to the degree that I'm understanding that you want us to have flexibility in this point any this point now and even future any mousse that we have with universities and they can have time limits too so there's some come and some go to open up that process I think I think we're not we're
062in agreement with that how we word it in the program of studies is what you want the specificity on so that it just that it's clear to anybody looking that first you need a mou and then you can have any college because it has financial implications too as the the jail log recommendation is accepted and you open up the floodgates to reverse everybody and if I have an mou with Longwood it's a state school is institution that may be different than a private school so for LCS board it has if Financial implication in long term as the policies change enrichment what's the trickle-down effect or a domino effect for us in the future okay thank you very much so we're still on C1 and we had a motion and the make of the motion has
063withdrawn that motion and we've heard the discussion on the high school program of studies thus far with concerns presented by Dr day is there anyone else that wants to comment on the high school program of studies Dr Brennan I'd like I'd like to thank Mr Coleman and his team for the excellent work they've done on this curriculum of studies and I like to make a motion that the board approves the 2020-2024 high school program studies second it's been moved by Dr Brennan that we would approve the high school program of studies for the stated year seconded by Dr Carter and at this time is there any further questions or discussion and this would be the time for such I I do have a question please uh assuming we approve this if the kind of thing
064we were just discussing if a new mou was developed between LCS and I mentioned Longwood could that take effect before this time next year even though it didn't appear in the program of studies yeah I believe when we were negotiating our partnership to do the CTE Academy it actually happened after we did the program of studies but we still offered that opportunity to our kids so we just kind of said this is the print version of the program of studies now we also have a an addendum yeah an addendum too so that's the way that this could be handled if we approve this and then we do develop an mou with another institution in short order then that opportunity can be opened up even though it doesn't appear in the print here it would appear
065as a supplement to this or an addendum or something and I think that's why I said any institution with which Lynchburg City schools has an mou because that kind of leaves you open to develop an mou and would include the new the new schools as well okay it yeah well I understood I think the maker of the motion earlier withdrew with the understanding that there could be an opportunity to bring that back up with an amendment and so I do want to give that person the courtesy is that still your pleasure sir I'm not going to bring you Amendment but I'm going to work no on this to just to make sure that we proceed with aggressively to facilitate those mousse with other schools thank you all right any further questions of discussion you know
066I I simply want to say as chair thank you Mr Coleman for the work that you're doing and again I said that last meeting the approach that you're taking to this um I think that this program of studies reflects that in my personal opinion as we go forward which we are doing now we need to continue to listen to students find out what is going to be best for them in their high school program or studies going forward to make them ready for a 21st century global economy and I have utmost confidence in your ability to do that listen to kids and and the staff to do the right thing in this board Dr uh my word today has nothing to do with your ability and your presentation Mr Coleman so you're doing an excellent
067job but I just want to make sure that the district has the Lynchburg City Schools would choose those mousse understood thank you all right any further discussion and Madam clerk if you please call the roll School Board member Mr Preston remember Mr Charles yes School Board member Dr Sinha yes let's go but remember Dr Brennan yes goodbye remember Dr Coleman yes let's go about Dr Crowder Yes let's go about Mom Dr Gupta no let's go about member doc today I'm gonna abstain let's go about my Mr Andrews yes motion curves seven to one with one of State thank you Mr Coleman move forward thank you thank you so kindly all right C2 LCS tutoring and mentoring I think we're back at it again Dr Edwards go ahead we don't we don't give Mr Coleman away
068but um um uh I've asked Mr Coleman and Miss Reeves to join us and talk a little bit about some of the tutoring and mentoring efforts that are going on throughout the division I think the last time I talked to you a little bit about Desi's program that they had before school where the teachers were tutoring but miss Reeves and Mr Coleman we'll talk to you a little bit more about some additional things um that are going on in our school so miss Reeves good evening everyone tonight Mr Coleman and I will share information with you about mentoring and tutoring at East at LCS I've also asked Crystal Grant who's our supervisor of student engagement and mentoring and Dr Kathy Dills to join us and I regret that um crystal is under the weather she
069left work and had to seek medical attention so let's keep her in our thoughts um but we wanted to just provide some clarity in our presentation tonight because oftentimes mentoring and tutoring are used interchangeably but it's important to Define them and provide Clarity around what we mean when we say mentoring and how it is different from tutoring lcs's mission statement of every child by name and by Nature graduation and beyond means that we're reaching students where they are and bringing them higher in considering Maslow's hierarchy of needs students perform best when all of their needs are met at the foundational level we often talk about basic or physiological needs such as food water safety and health psychological needs like the needs for love and belonging and a sense of connection and self-worth must also be
070met in order to reach their full potential or self-actualization mentoring is a tool that is used to address the psychological needs it is the act or process of helping and guiding our students to support their personal development a mentor is one who guides supports and advises a mentor is not a counselor a certified coach or therapist and I'll pause so that there is no confusion we're talking here about certified life coaches excuse me and not athletic coaches all of us can identify athletic coaches who have been and continue to be instrumental in serving as mentors to our students tutoring takes on a different role in that it is the process of providing academic support and Mr Sam Coleman and his team in curriculum and instruction oversee this process to meet the social and emotional or
071mental health excuse me needs of our students Dr Derek Brown and the team and student services work with a variety of businesses and organizations with Specialties to address specific needs our target areas for mentoring include academic development which focuses on things like goal setting organizational skills time management social engagement and personal growth include topics such as conflict conflict resolution skills peer and adult interactions self-esteem building learning about Civic engagement encompasses leadership skills life skills self-esteem building and community service these target areas help address the ever-changing needs of our students so then how can mentoring be accessed school-based mentoring is something that typically happens organically when a teacher counsel or administrator becomes aware of students needs they work collaboratively in their buildings to find supports this may look like pointing a student towards an activity club
072and or sport our teachers work diligently to build relationships with students and by doing this build mentor-like relationships also we find Value in sharing information about Community organizations and collaborating with them to support our students we're very excited to list just a few of those with whom we collaborate they are Partners like the Jubilee family Development Center Beacon of Hope our boys and girls club Big Brothers Big Sisters and so many others you'll see links there that can be viewed later there are videos that we've captured that we'll be sharing with principals in our student body our families that talk about the programs and the importance of knowing what they actually bring and provide for our students we also welcome other opportunities for our community stakeholders so if there's a business or organization of course
073that are reviewing this board meeting or know of um or hear about this later we encourage Community organizations to to develop Partnerships with us so that we can provide some supports further supports for our students Crystal Grant has been working with principals at the middle school level to determine needs and help build sustainable and structured opportunities for mentorship in the buildings she's been working at Lincoln middle school with Dr Dills and I'll ask her to talk about some of their successes Dr deals thank you for allowing me to come and talk about this because it is so exciting coming off of a coveted year that I saw many of you for negative things this year has been such a difference I have to laugh because it's a shame that kg is not here in the
074fact that she is Dunbar and we played Dunbar last night and it it talks to this specific role that she has because we were competing against her and my basketball girls came to hug her because she has established a role and a presence there we were lucky enough that we had several kids that we thought needed just assistance and not just me giving them a hug or giving them a high five or screaming go Jaguars we needed students to be able to come into school and relate to individuals that were in the building to be able to do that is to actually get them to also engage in their academics because if they come in and they're feeling as they say some kind of way they're not able to get get Beyond those feelings to
075be able to engage in the learning loss that they they had because we're asking them to raise the bar we're saying get here do what you need to do these kids can be um were actually referred by teachers they had parents that came in actually in tears saying how can you help us how can you help our families how can you help my son or daughter again this is not kids that are just coming in to play basketball we have individuals that come in once or twice a week and they actually come and they eat lunch with students they walk in they sit beside them in their classes and kids are like well why can't I be with that person why can't I be with that person so not only are we establishing a solid
076ground and credibility with kids that we are invested in them but they're peers who they have to act you know I'm big and bad and I'm all no I want to be you I want to do that as a matter of fact I'm blessed in that January it's very timely in January I'm going to bring my student that's coming here to speak it is a student who really struggled last year really struggled but she came to me and asked if she could read something to me and her and her Mentor developed something that she could read about her leadership and what she has gotten from this mentorship and how she can stop a student say hey don't say that let's talk about it another way so that's not only the generalizable skills that have these
077kids have actually done has really truly impacted our campus um 35 kids we had them you know boys and girls in the summer and out of that 35 32 out of 33 are actually the ripple effect is is happening because they too are touching lives we knew there was 35 now we've got 75 now we've got 100 kids and the mentors that are coming in are from different organizations some of them actually knew these kids outside in a different realm some brand new we could not have made the advances this year without this mentorship and the people who came in who are just now invested of course they're wearing green not purple like you know or blue like Sandusky because we're the best but the reality of it is is that um we hope that
078with our program that it is going to kg has talked to us Ms Grant has talked to us about putting it at Dunbar and Sandusky and the kind of things that we've bumped into we've learned from and we hope that this will be at just blossoming in our other middle schools oh foreign ly follow with uh tutoring so we have we recently hired an Extended Learning coordinator that role was previously called the 21st century Grant coordinator and so essentially uh the coordinator who leads this work provides oversight and funding for during the day or after school academic enrichment or tutoring these opportunities are provided to students usually by the recommendation of a teacher and so we have these Extended Learning opportunities offered at most of our schools what we do know we need to to
079do better about is promoting that or advertising that so that parents know that this opportunity exists and so what we are doing I don't know if it's live or not yet but we will locate on our website and opportunity information for parents to be able to indicate that there's a need for academic enrichment or tutoring that information will go to Ultra Witt again who's our Extended Learning coordinator and she'll support that family and that student with the connecting them with the academic enrichment or tutoring opportunity for which their family's seeking so we noticed and just from some good feedback that that was the missing link that we have some programming available but folks don't know about it or maybe a few folks know about it and so we'll locate that information on our website and
080then continue to talk about it and publicize it so that if there are needs that maybe a classroom teacher or counselor may not be able to identify as quickly as a parent might be able to identify they can reach out indicate to us that the need exists and then we connect them with a pretty quick turnaround time with that support [Music] live tomorrow that link is also going to send them to a form that they can also request a mentor um our goal is to really um find out the need tie them as much as possible to our school but recognize that we have to also use our community resources to help with our students there was a slide up there that says mentors are needed the first step in coming becoming a mentor is
081filling out that volunteer application and there is a box on the volunteer application that allows them to check Mentor they would get their approval and then if we were going to ask that they reach out to Crystal grant for mentorship opportunities and to help us it's she's done a great job of really finding out who's out there we do there's a need we have five schools that have requested mentoring through a process that we use internally so we want to make sure that we keep that list of mentors open and available so that we can use people to really help our students we are looking for people who can be consistent because many of our children already separate from loss I already suffer from loss and separation anxiety and those kinds of things so we
082take them through a very short training process to help our mentors better understand the needs of our students and we're very excited about this I will add that the the uh position that Crystal Grant serves in is a cares funded position so that monies for that position will run out in 2024 and I hope that we will begin we're going to share more information with you I know that there's some data available about a decrease in absences student absences at Lincoln that we're very excited about we know that you need to see the data to understand the importance of how of the impact of this role and so we want to thank you he does my goodness what a powerful piece here Dr day you want to say something yeah I just so you said
083there's this position you're calling Extended Learning coordinator yes sir and that's the person who's coordinating the mentoring no no help me understand that what that person's doing sorry the Extended Learning coordinator coordinates the after school and then in some instances during the day tutoring well that's called academic enrichment okay so so that's not the same person that coordinates the mentoring stuff that's somewhat separate it's it's separate and um I think for a couple reasons but it one of the reasons also why it's separate is there's a budget or resources that we've made available to support after school and again some instances during the day uh in which tutoring and so this person also coordinates and oversees the funding process and the budgeting for that so it sounds like you have a lot of healthy Community
084Support on the mentoring side of this um and then I would hope that the community would be supportive on the tutoring side as well in fact it might be that some of the same individuals that mentor would be especially effective as a tutor if they've established a relationships with some of the students and have the ability to tutor in particular subjects yeah you're reading my mind or we're on the same page we also want to invite and we'll invite community members to volunteer as tutors the majority of the academic enrichment and tutoring that takes place after school and during the day are by our teachers but we had noticed that that there are community members who are not teachers who would be very impactful in their work as tutors so we want to open the
085opportunity for those individuals to support our students in that regard as well and so information about individuals who are interested in becoming tutors that'll also be available on that through that link that'll be live on the web website presumably they would go through the same preparation process that you described for mentors to help them understand the needs of the of the students that they would be doing exactly and there are a couple of things that are a couple of ways that math and reading are taught now that might be unique or new shows are coming in so we'll make sure to provide them with with that support so that of their tutoring is consistent with what's happening very good thank you thank you Dr Day Dr Brennan did a couple of comments one is um
086thank you so much for the for the mentoring piece and Dr Dill thank you for what you all are doing at Lincoln Middle School it sounds like it's a big succession it makes so much sense to have these people who are supportive who they can relate to I think that's huge so thank you all for putting that in place switch her into the tutoring side a little bit which is you you all described as more of it as academic support um you you all have said this in the past I think we all realize that a lot of what happened during the pandemic uh because of losing time in the school we have to make that up in some way over time and it seems like tutoring is something people refer to as a as
087a way to try to do that to either select students who need the tutoring or or the or the family will identify them when they also talk about tutoring talk about high dosage tutoring which is like two to three days a week personalized really zero in with that student on a specific course to really help them what services does Lynchburg City School have on a professional level to provide tutoring services to students so let's say we said tutoring is now available and you had a thousand students say we want to be tutored who will those tutors be and what services do we have available to do that and then there's a little footnote some schools that we've heard about are using using virtual tutoring programs to try to help make up for that where you
088can have two or three days a week and have it more consistent and I know it's it's difficult it's debatable but is there a role for that but my real question is who are our tutors going to be now so so at this time the tutoring that that is being provided through the Extended Learning opportunities are mainly teachers we know that that limits our capacity because there are there's a there's a need so our Extended Learning coordinator Ultra Witt and I are exploring options most of the options that appear to be the most viable are the virtual and online tutoring options and um and there and there's a market for it as well so we we are approached and and folks reach out to us often with information about their programs and we want to
089make sure that we do our due diligence to vet those options and select one that makes the most sense for for what we want to do but we are leaning more towards selecting app virtual tutoring option that's great thank you and one follow-up which is that you know obviously the the the pool is small and and trying to attract professionals who can help us with tutoring is is a challenge can we I know we can use funds for cares funding for some of this do we is it worth considering uh paying teachers that we have who who are willing to do tutoring after school a a rate for that that's above it since we do have funds to do it and or recruit people who are professionals who are not in our schools who may
090want to come and do it but use the funds that we have through cares funding to try to address that yes and that's exactly the work and and sorry if I didn't specify that so that is the work of this extended these extended programs that uh that we have available in our schools right now where teachers are paid additional and at an hourly rate to work with students for that tutoring we we know that we want to build capacity around that we rolled that out this October uh and so we're going to continue to build on I'm looking back at Dr Dills because I she was like no not October September we need this right away we just needed to build it and we're going to continue to build build that out um and so
091uh so that we can compensate teachers for their time but then also recruit uh individuals who may not be a part an employee of LCS but community members and and professionals who can provide that service again there are some Logistics we need to work sure work through um and I can talk you know offline about why we want to make sure that there's equity and pay we don't want to pay a limit to what we can compensate our teachers for and then a community organization comes through and they say I charge a hundred dollars an hour you know that we're paying our folks a rate and then somebody else another rate so these are all the things we want to vet and protect as we consciously enter into agreements who could provide the service and
092just in closing on my part I want to again thank you all for doing I think it's a huge project and having a new person in charge is you but I think it is a a uh we're short on time kind of in that we're trying to deal with a situation that occurred two years ago we're halfway through this Academic Year I think we need to do whatever we can to support you and to help the teachers to make this happen because the touring piece is just going to be so important to help those those students who need the help but thank you so much for the program and for your effort and I look forward to hearing more about it as it evolves thank you Mr Vice chair Dr D so since I seem
093to be reading your mind this evening you've probably already thought of this but one place you might look for potential tutors is the education programs that higher education institutions here I know there's a math Ed program at Liberty and I can't think of a better thing for a potential school math teacher to do as part of their training is to sit down with a couple middle or high school students who need some extra help and and get an understanding of what those students are dealing with so I think it would be a service to students in those programs to have the opportunity to tutor in the public schools so in just in case it hadn't crossed your mind that might be a good place to check for people that could help with this got it
094thank you all right thank you Dr day and I noted that each of the board members probably have things they would like to say um looking you all both in the eye and thanking you Dr Dale for your great work uh thank you so much thank you I mean we have no idea what you have to go through to do all of this and we asked the public please be patient with us I know that some of you are out there doing work but you haven't formalized a partnership yet so it's not that we don't recognize what you're doing it's just that we need to get that process going but this mentoring and tutoring piece is it's just incredible thank you Dr Edwards for the leadership that you're providing so let's give them a hand
095and we thank you all thank you very much they're now move to C3 which is uh 2023-24 budget discussion all right Dr Edwards all right so we are picking off the budget discussion with the school board remember this discussion already got started when our kids told us what was important um to them as we've had our student reps come and speak with us we've heard from members of the public also tonight as to what their priorities are and what we want to do now is start establishing what are the board's priorities in terms of going forward with the budget this is the second year of the biennium so our our resources are a little different in terms of Revenue which we will go over tonight so to frame the discussion and really um get us
096started you have a folder a manila folder with information I don't think anything in there is brand new to you but we put it all together I also have its scanned electronically so that we can also share this information with the public but what I want to do is just take first a moment to go through what you have because some of you were on the board last year where this may have been generated and some were not and just the understanding of what you have and how we're going to use that information to go forward so we'll we'll go through the documents we'll take some time talking about where we are with the existing budget we'll take some time to review what were our budget priorities last year what are some things that we
097when we finalized our budget last year where we landed and we'll also talk about what is our current projected Revenue if all things stay the same came from the state using our calc tool so you'll have that and then we have a proposal to you that is around the biggest part of our budget which is our staff that we want to start because usually we start with the pay tables and all of that stuff going forward and then of course it's open discussion very informal and really by the end of the night what we hope to have is a good sense of what the board's priorities are taking in consideration what you heard from the public and what we've been hearing over the past couple months so let me first take you through what do
098you have in your in your handout in your folder the first one is the demographic study it says April 2022. nice red and blue diagram this is the one that was part of our demographic study when we did our facility study so this is proper GIS it is a predict prediction a projection sorry of our enrollment over the next 10 years plus actually out to 20 30 132 school year and that information is helpful as you're doing both short-term planning which is planning for next year but also long-term planning going forward and remember this is the one that was done by Cropper GIS in April 2022. I also gave you document number two which is a 10-year School enrollment projection which is a blue and white document which was also presented to the school board
099in 2020 this is the Weldon Cooper study which was part of the original task force facility study so this also had demographics and projections in it and we had a nice discussion with the architect regarding Dominion seven I'm sorry regarding the two projections but one of the things that school board members you want is to look at what are the trends and projection for enrollment going forward so those are the two documents that we have for you there the next two documents both start with Lynchburg City schools and they are our current enrollment one has a DOT on it and then my diet yeah and then you gotta do that they look identical which is why I put a a DOT on one of them it does yeah blue red green whatever whatever was a
100free dot today so I'm an equal opportunity daughter um the one that does not have the dot is our current enrollment generated on 12 6 but it is enrollment for up until uh 11 30 or November 30th it does not include Hutcherson so you can see the enrollment in all the various schools you can see the preschool enrollment in um RS pain and in Prairie month but this does not when you look at the ADM on the first page which is 7814 does not include Hutcherson students the one with the Dot which looks very similar does so you can see there's 8 000 our ADM including our Hutcheson students and all of our Pre-K students is about eight thousand so sometimes we always have the question of how many children are you serving I count
101all the babies that are here to learn um so I will typically give you the information that includes Hutcherson but when we do financing and start looking at budget and ADM they don't include Hutcherson just so that the board is aware of the different uses so this is current enrollment for each and every school so you do have that available too question sure so students who are at Fort Hill they're reported Under The Heading of their home schools okay attendance the reimbursements are based on Ada or ADM right all right question the next document that you have is one that you actually just received but we brought it back because it's going to be relevant it is a budget document for where are we right now with our current budget the October as of October
102um 31st this is the one that Miss Capozzi went over just recently but it identifies the major categories it tells you where we are in our spending it gives you an idea of how we're using resources right now and we can speak to some of the things in this document so you do have that and this is also on board Docs okay the next thing that you need that's important is our per pupil expenditures for the operating budget which is a document that has a bar graph on it this is also available on our website and there's a couple pages to this but again you'll see the ADM for 2023 which is proposed you'll see 2022 and also 2021 and you can see the ADM and you can see our per pupil expenditures based on
103that behind that again is some historical document or regarding for people expenditures dating back to FY 213 2013 sorry and again you can see ADM and what the per pupil expenditure was for the actual up until 2020 and then you have budget 2021 and budget 2022. and then the final page in that section still looking at per pupils expenditures this was information that was shared with City Council on October 12th it was one of the questions that they asked us regarding our 2021 for pupil expenditure versus the state of Virginia and other local areas so again this is information that you had but I wanted to put it all back together so that you have this in a common resource here okay and we will go back to these an individual but I do want
104to just take a moment to explain them the next document is our Lynchburg City Schools operating budget FY 2019 to 2022 and it looks like this has a nice yellow highlight on it and this was one of the things that you requested to look at previous years budget operating budget spending and then a breakdown of our local tax revenues and some County information which you can see we have Bedford County and Campbell County and Dr wodica is also going to go over this in a little bit more detail for you it's a lot but it it's all helpful information um the next one is our our pupil teacher ratios as of uh 10 13 2022 and this is class size ratios in um the elementary schools and then of course in the high schools Middle
105School is a little different in that we just have the our pupil teacher ratios but you can see what is I will say average class size there are some classes particularly in the high school that are in middle schools that are more than that ratio but that is a ratio of staff to students just so you have an idea because one of the things that we talk about when we're talking about behavior is class size so if you look at Linkhorn Elementary second grade is 21 students uh Bedford Hills 24 students so when teachers are speaking they like a smaller class size you have a reference for what those class sizes are the next document is actually from board docs of June 7th 2022 so it looks like this it's a board doc document and
106it is information that when you voted to finalize last year's budget after city council voted we came back and voted what was actually included in the operating budget and this is really going to be important for you to know the things that we actually included and you can see that we had a minimum of five percent increase the average teacher salary increase was 6.45 classified staff was 7.27 and you can see all that we did increase funds for dual enrollment Early College stem tuition we added the six additional spots for juniors at the gov school so these are all of the things that you voted for in last year's operating budget and continues on the back side as well now caution caution caution and you heard this tonight there are other things that are in
107the budget that we've had discussions can we use cares funds for those can we use Keras funds for those and the answer has been yes and yes for most of them but we are coming to a point where cares funds are going to run out so all of those things that were good ideas that we put in cares funding and you heard some of them tonight we need to be considering those two as we move forward and develop next year and the year after in the year after that budget because we are we do have staff that are funded by cares our entire Virtual Academy staff is funded by cares and some other positions so I just wanted you to see what's actually in operating versus what we have in cares and then from the
108revenue side this is you'll hear us refer to the calc tool which is the vdoe calculator that sort of outlines all of our Revenue sources um and this is what the cap tool looks like we get our revenue on a two-year cycle so you can see this current Year's Revenue you can also see next year's revenue and what I will point out to you is the compensation supplement which only pays for the soq funded positions which is about 55 56 percent of our positions so not all of the positions the school board has made up for the rest of that supplement so again these are all the major categories for our state revenue all right almost done um the next document is a 2021-22 breakdown of budget revenues and expenditures and this was something that
109was requested how did we do last year in our last year budget um what did we say what did we budget what did we actually spend and it's broken down by our revenue and then on the next couple Pages you'll also see expenditures by Major categories so that you have an idea of what percentage of the budget did we actually spend in those categories and then I think one of the last documents you have is actually a reboot from our PowerPoint from last year with this year's numbers on it so this is a snapshot of our current staff it also includes staff that are Grant funded and in cares funds as well so we tried to break it down by how many school-based employees and then Transportation School nutrition and then the various departments as
110well and then the last thing I stuck in there was something from vast regarding the support cap you've heard a lot of conversation about trying to get rid of that support cap so that we can so that schools can really hire the support staff that they need it will affect that soq funding and our basic funding formula as well so set a lot just so that you have a lot and in no way to expect you to become an expert in all of this tonight however these are resources that you need as we begin our budget procedure which is going to be over the next several months um to make some good decisions about about it you can yeah I'm looking at uh Finance share and previous Finance chairs I've been on this board now
111this will be my ninth time looking at this I I don't know how I was making decisions years ago without all of this powerful information that you have presented this just didn't fall out the sky somewhere so I hope that our board members can appreciate all of this comprehensive information help us to make the best decisions possible so I commend you madam superintendent you may continue Dr Dave say something well I think we're going to continue I don't want to interrupt well I was so you mentioned a minute or two ago about uh the fact that the cares funding is going to end shortly um have we seen in which case if we have maybe you need to just remind me a listing and some form of precisely what things are supported by cares funding
112have have we seen a document or any kind of thing like that and we've had an updated of cares because not all people are in cares or other things so and we haven't done it we didn't do it this last because this last month because nothing changed in our cares Revenue but um we can certainly give you the exact information for position wise because that's going to be important as well yeah we need those that we need to know where are we going to put those things and we do and and that was a topic of conversation two years ago when we started this procedure of cares is nice and they gave us a lot of money but it's risky business when you use it for people but kids need people to help yeah you
113know with some of these challenges Dr Gupta my memory served me well two years ago it was 3.2 million dollars we committed to um positions which I voted no and uh same argument that three years from now what will we do and my fear is going forward you got 800 000 in Virtual Academy almost 800 plus minus and 3.2 million four million dollars of cash will dry up and you gotta backfill where the revenues are flat because the enrollment is projected to be flat you see what I'm saying so we can go into the nitty-gritty nuts and bolts of ten dollars here and twenty dollars there but that's the biggest tsunami sitting and then two years ago um in school board we went position by position and uh I don't want to say I told
114you so but I feel like saying that you told us yeah you know and it's it's this will be the biggest tsunami facing us going forward now once that money dries up where will that four million dollar come from and also just as a reminder two years ago our funding was cut from Level funding from city council so we experienced a little bit of a decrease about 2.1 million dollars um going into that that year we also were very committed as a division when covet first hit that we did not want to lay staff off and even during the time that our schools were closed we were committed to trying to keep our staff as whole as possible including folks like bus drivers who you know you could you could teach from home and you
115can do some virtual learning from home but not all of our positions you could do remotely and we really this board showed ultimate care for staff with that but you are absolutely right you did vote no and we we had taught had lots of conversations about this going forward see I understand we were short but the thing is when I was going through college the easiest thing for me to was charge on my credit card because I was told you pay only ten dollars for every thousand dollars you borrow and dummy they didn't realize that I have to pay back that money someday and that's what I think I'm worried about that how will we uh I was told at that time we can fire these people do these things but if my kid is
116having a behavioral therapist treating my kid last thing I want is the therapist to go away of course that's a value-added baked into the system so for this board it's the issue is what are we going to do a year from now you see I'm saying that's the money will need it and that based on the enrollment projections you just presented they are flat and your revenues are based on those adms well I think that they're very good Dr Gupta I think that that just speaks to the fact all of this good information we have that this board is going to have to do what we do best and that is be it our best to think through these matters and to work uh very effectively with appropriating bodies to make sure that the dollars
117that we need ongoing are available to do what we believe is best for our children uh Dr day and then they very uncomfortable side of that is we have to look are there places where we're spending money that's lower priority than some of the things that we've identified here and that's always a horrible decision to have to make because I don't think there's anything we're doing that we don't think is Meaningful or valuable but if there's a fixed number of dollars to add one thing you have to let go of something else and so unfortunately I think we have to be looking for where yeah that's going to be a painful we'll we'll see a doctor day but I've take confidence of the finance chair wants to talk with we've got a good piece here
118uh to to work through this I believe uh Dr Cena yes and I think this is really important to show accountability and Effectiveness in how we've spent the dollars and also to recognize I think at the time we knew we'd have a period of recovery that there be learning loss and that we'd have this uh increase in Need for services but it would be short-lived and the cares money would get us over the hump well I think not just us but Nash Statewide National we're realizing the scope of the problem is far greater than we than we expected and it's compounded by festering mental health issues that I don't think were fully anticipated at the time so that's where it becomes important to have good documentation on what has been the scope of the issues
119that we're confronting you know like discipline we were really doing well on discipline but I'll tell you when we're having multiple discipline hearings sessions uh for you know outcomes of anxiety stress acting out that just to really have peaked um I think we're gonna we're really gonna hit a crunch because I think the recovery period is going to be longer than anybody expected and it's a far greater Hill to climb um so it's very important that we show Effectiveness in what we have done so far with the cares money that we have done the impact of Behavioral coaches the impact of the mentoring and other things that we've done uh and how that's helped the some of the recovery programs that we've had over the summer that we've demonstrated our investment in assessment testing to
120really use that to make our case to say yes we've had this infusion of funds and we're really making some Headway here but we have to have the data to one demonstrate the size of the problem into the impact with which our interventions and the actions that we're taking are effectively spending those dollars because I can foresee us reaching a point where we can't Sunset some of these problems because they were bigger and longer lasting than anybody could have predicted at the time that's just my big fear and concern well thank you thank you Dr Cinder and Dr Gupta did go before Council to the latest of the problems some time ago and so I think that if everybody just takes a deep breath let's let our experts here kind of guide us through some
121of this uh mountain of material that we have here and let the process begin and let's put our best work into this Dr Gupta you want to say one additional State Dr Edwards are you going with that 15 50 get in there sir oh you're getting I'm sorry certainly so let's let's let's let's Let It Go and uh of course you are we could be on this uh through Christmas day right so we get you all please be mindful of our capacity and just give us what you want to give us now and then we'll figure out what we can do so remember we're at big picture right right now so to frame the big picture we went back in time to see what we did we have resources to see where we are where
122we're going in terms of projection we've also had lots of conversation we have the j-lock study that talks a lot about what our our students are experiencing our families are experiencing I think I shared that with everybody everybody should have that copy um and we also know that you know we are in the midst of a teacher shortage uh enrollment in teacher prep programs is down we knew the Baby Boomers were going to leave us that was always a prediction but we they took a few others with them as the pandemic so we're seeing more people leave the teaching profession than are entering which means competition for staff is going to be really important we've talked a lot about our wage gap between us and other areas and how you know if they do a
123five percent we do a five percent we're just preserving the Gap if everybody's going up the same which is why very grateful for the work that she did last year because we did a little bit more than five from for many of our employees but we're still not there so we do have an aggressive proposal that we would like to share with you all in context with we've got to look through all of our numbers and see um where we're going with that so I'm going to kind of go over there's pretty much four little pieces to this big proposal so that we want to share the first is I've already mentioned that we know based on last year's compensation five and five so we have minimum of five percent is um part of what's
124in this compensation supplement for the next year just for soq we've got to come up with the rest of it but that's a minimum of five percent that we know we have to do the other thing that's number one number two of what we did last year we collapsed the pay tables for the classified staff I think we had like 24 plus pay tables and we we collapsed them our promise to you last year was that we were going to look at the admin tables now and collapse those and look at some of the inequities between what we see in the amend tables so that is another priority that we want to move forward and look at how can we collapse those admin tables into fewer um while also being mindful of at least the
125five percent the third thing in our proposal that's going to be really good and right now I'm just limiting it to the Staffing because that's the big chunk 85 percent of our budget is the way that our pay tables are set up which made sense at the time that we did them since we were getting funded basically every two years we had a for most of the staff not the teaching staff but for the classified and at Men's staff we are on every other year and when funding happened they got a raise and then it was a freeze and then a raise and then freeze and then a raise and then a freeze and a raise and the teachers we split that them in half so half were on odd year freeze raise freeze the
126other were on even year freeze raise freeze and it made sense because we could at least guarantee that we were getting that biennium funding every two years however in competition with other areas on that freeze year it doesn't feel so good for staff right to know not just I'm going to stay at this pay level that I'm on and what we're seeing is other divisions nearby don't have that so even the slightest of an increase is enticing and we don't want to lose our folks so the third part of what we're trying to do is is get rid of the every other and get it back to where a staff member can see a projection of every year of some sort of increase built into those pay tables and then lastly the big thing that
127we feel strongly about and we know that we are facing some challenges in trying to make this work but we the administration we've talked long and hard especially this year after seeing um the work that our staff are doing and particularly just looking at as you all said some of the discipline and just mental health and trying to provide all of those extra resources for enrichment and advancement we want to propose what we're calling the 1550 plan so 15 an hour would be our minimum for our lowest classified staff paid classified staff which would be schedule a right now that entry level um hourly rate is 13.11 which is up considerably of where we started five years ago we were creeping up but we want to make a bigger jump to make that minimum fifteen
128dollars an hour for um that schedule which would Ripple through the the other schedules as well so that's part of it the second part of that is 50. our starting teacher salary I don't want to mess this up so let me give you the number for the current year is forty three thousand four hundred sixty nine dollars is about 81 cents let me not forget that that's our starting teacher salary um it's not enough it's not enough for our teachers especially those who have families and we need to raise that we need to raise that to be more competitive we need to raise that to keep teachers in the teaching field many of our Educators have master's degrees when you think about a master's degree and other professions that have it we need to make
129that higher so we are proposing that we raise the starting entry-level teacher salary this is for 10 months teachers uh to fifty thousand dollars at minimum so that is our 1550 proposal we recognize it's aggressive um but each and every one of us as we sat here we thought we have to go hard and advocate for our staff we may lose but we have to go hard and advocate for a staff who has gone above and beyond for the children of Lynchburg City Schools so the teachers if I'm a veteran teacher taught here for 15 years and I'm not 50 000. so that it's gonna Ripple almost I'm talking the entry level would be 50 and just like we did the the other pay tables we will adjust down and adjust across so have you
130done a cost estimate of how much will it additional money will it cost uh yeah we wanted to toss we we've played a little bit but we wanted to toss that out to this school board because if you all said don't do it it save us a lot of time because I wanted to uh and I brought it up and the finance thing was we know we always do a catch-up game and we have been struggling with our school bus drivers especially because they go to Campbell County they go to Bedford County because they're offering 15.16 when you work at McDonald's we're not only competing with other districts we are competing with private businesses for labor force right now and I just I'm just curious could we be two steps ahead of that all these
131Market the using Dr core more Dynamics to see if we can make it at 1850 maybe 1750 I don't know some sort of an alternate number where we know for a year or two we will not be doing a catch-up game and how much will be the cost projection and could we utilize the current resources we have what Dr Dave was talking about to make it a reality all right let's same budget cycle here but uh listen we've been talking about this for a good number of years you know are we going to put our money where our mouth is on this um I think the superintendent is wanting to at least understand that 1550 1850 1750 uh what are your thoughts members of the board on this is she having no cost uh estimate
132of what this is going to look like obviously as Dr Day said earlier some things are going to have to be moved from one place to the other But the teacher shortage is real in America and it is very real in Virginia Dr day all right fully supportive I think the teachers with the most important component of what we're here to do if we can't make teachings for Lynchburg City Schools more attractive than teaching for our neighboring districts we're just we're fighting a losing battle and I as I was saying a few minutes ago it may be quite painful to move money around to do this but I think we have to support the teachers if we can't do that we've lost the game I think all right and Dr I want to call anybody
133else would like to speak I don't like to go talk right here and I agree with you teachers are important but in that voice sometimes you forget about all other support staff so I want to say teachers and staff they're all important so if you are a custodian in LCS you are a ground keeping group you're a bus driver you know you're all important piece of that puzzle of providing a quality education to our doctor adversary our killers I don't want to plagiarize your word but that's you know and that's so this requires a whole team to do that all right so um of course we can come back to this but Dr Brennan and anybody else you all have Mr Preston doc do I have anything you want to say on this I mean
134Mr Andrews yeah I like it we do need to be able to be competitive and I do want to retain and recruit more staff obviously not just teachers but support staff and eighteen dollars you know that that brings them to the table that brings them I think it's some interest in LCS the thing that we also have to keep in mind though is that the four million dollar Gap that we're talking about a few minutes ago with charisma and we need to think about compression moving forward right the ripple effect and so as we start building out the 1850 there are a lot of things that we have to take into consideration and how does it affect us the division moving forward right uh because we got to be able to see beyond this fiscal
135year we got to be able to see five years from now and so I'm I like it we just need to be able to we got to work it though and we got to work it and so it's it's easy to say yeah let's do 1850 let's sign the check right but we got to make sure that it it it it works on paper uh and that there's not going to be a huge retribution uh after the fact so yes it gets people in the door yes it recruits people yes it retains people and that's extremely important for us we want to make sure it doesn't come back and bite us though so you just gotta be smart thank you Mr Andrews and sustainability has always been an issue for this board but if we're
136going to tackle this issue we're going to have to lesson I feel on that and figure out how we do this because we have to sustain it if we're going to promise something and we are unable to do it a year to end and that becomes horrible uh Dr Brennan I just like to say as far as the the budget for this coming year I think as we're all saying that the the teachers and the support staff are our number one priority and I think that you know we all know how hard they're working we all know the stress they're under we all know it's been for the last two years we know how all know how small the pool is to get good staff so I think that has to be our number one
137priority and to do raises to make it more competitive is very important um we've just been given a lot of stuff to go through tonight as far as long as location and one of them I know has my name at the bottom which is this operating budget funnel we've used and expenditures we're just glancing at it I have a feeling that the the the the feeling from from Finance is going to be that we don't have much room to cut that it looks like our expense our revenue and our expenditures were pretty close as far as what we had predicted and our actual thing so I'm going to put out there that we're probably not going to be able to cut things which I think that needs to be part of the conversation is there
138some way because I have a feeling that when we receive the numbers that talk about the 15.50 and and uh fifty thousand dollars that number is going to be very high and I would like to see that number and I think I can't make a decision whether I'm going to support or not without seeing the number to start with I think it's going to be tough because as I think as Mr Anthony has said we want to wear the teachers and the staff we're going to support these there if that's our normal priority and the question is how much can we do particularly if there's not any place else that we can get funds from because the care money is not there anymore it won't be there in two years unless somebody finds somebody is
139really generous to Lynchburg City Schools where we have what we get from the state and locally and federally and they're going to have to look at those numbers to see so I I'm all in favor of it I think it's very important but I can't make a decision about the 1550 without knowing what that cost was yeah don't don't get me wrong I mean I like it's a great idea I just want to be able to continue to give our staff raises also consistently sustain it and then still operate within our means right so Dr Gupta no I agree with you but the thing is then in budget cycle to me the board's job is to look at strategically and I've said that several times even in the finance committee so one year budget is
140the staff thing but the board is looking at next five years where are we going because I see positive variances in our budget positive variance means there's a savings anywhere from half a million to 150 to 165. so if you add all those positive variances there's a cash available where do you use that cash but I had a question for you Dr Edwards my number total number of LCS employees add up to 1641. how many of them are soq it's a good question the last time I heard in the budget cycle was about 550 is that they're around well it's more than that let's say 700. so 700 is 5 increases funded by the governor or the state rest 600 uh rest about 900 are left up to LCS to fund for zero to five
141percent means but if I am not soq I like to have the five percent increase so when people who are listening to hear that that LCS has to put up the five percent for other 900 which are unfunded mandate unfunded mandate by this Commonwealth by name budget is that yeah yes yes correct that's why the advanced pieces and putting all of it yeah so Dr Edwards at the end of the day and I'm not suggesting anything I'm just thinking it could be that uh ask I ask would be greater than what we may have been asking for Independence May be greater than level funding and we're just even trying to do the five percent and that takes in consideration any sort of um swap outs that we do so we will like every position when
142it becomes vacant is not necessarily refilled it may be swapped to do another need that's more important it may even be traded from one place to another just because that there isn't a need to have that there so we typically go through all of those we have not taken on I mean last year we we took on a good good project with the classified pay table plan and we really were moving that that needle up above 13 an hour that was our goal to do that and then of course that with the five percent but this is this is a big Endeavor one that we've been talking about for quite some time that we're just you know we're we're maintaining a gap between us and other divisions um but before we get in and put
143a lot of time and energy and pay table work and and what's necessary we wanted to bring that to the board as a concept like is this something we should be exploring because it would be as Dr Coleman said that's a and a big ask for us Dr Sinha and then doctor um so my question kind of gets at what the Dr Gupta and you have been talking about um along with these projections we have so we have the student side of it the demand if you will but the I guess the supply of the teachers and Workforce do we have comparable data of how like you said you shift resources so how does that look moving forward and I know that's hard to predict because these are just numbers based on projections and anything
144can happen although we know housing capacities kind of fixed and all the growth is mostly in non-family housing and so you know there's some stability I guess you could say in the numbers but it may be helpful to Envision like how those resources might shift can we make changes in the number of non-soq or prioritize if we're going to eliminate positions to try to work with those first since they don't come with State funding and how those resources might shift and then we also make it even more complicated we still have this facility thing coming out what are we going to do and and how do we so that's that and so we know this we know and here's another part of it what is the demographics of our of our teaching staff in terms
145of seniority and how that ripple effect looks so you know how many people do we have that are nearing retirement that are going to need to be replaced because that replacement comes in much more affordable than what's going out with the seniority and how might those things shift to what extent can you anticipate what that's going to look like so so for taking a long long-term view of the enrollment side we need to have some basis to look at the where we're going over the next three to five years on the personnel and Staffing side am I making you're making perfect sense absolutely and I know that's a huge ask some of it is a little easier to kind of manage when you're matching student enrollment and teaching staff in the elementary level and we've
146done some of that where we're like okay we're going to collapse the class here which saves an FTE that we may not necessarily need for an elementary position but maybe that's an extra math position that we needed or just a savings in general if that's if that's that or collapse the classroom FTE but this school over here is growing so we move that staff member over to that school it's a little easier it becomes more challenging at the secondary level because of content certification and just you know you you if you're overstaffed in English and understaffed in math that doesn't help you except for the fact that you're overstaffed in English and understaffed in in math um I don't have good projection numbers from and I want to do this with our at least our
147local we know who our top um colleges and universities are that that many of our staff so we we do get that data what is their pipeline enrollment like how many physics teachers are we looking at coming out of our local places how many elementary teachers to see what that replacement need is going to look like I don't have that data from them I have generic overall data that says it's down across the country but what it is here and also our role in helping them build up their teacher educator pipeline uh the other thing that I wanted to say just about soq funded I think that's more in a funding formula because you some of our soq funded positions may be in a number so for example they may say well you'll get seven
148of these well if we have 12 then and we need 12. it's kind of hard to say which of the five are we gonna we're gonna cut and then there are some things that aren't soq funded at all like assistant principals at the elementary level right so we end up funding our assistant principals at the elementary level so some of those priorities yes we can look at and then of course we're always looking at the dynamic between and one of the reasons why I give it to you for school based versus you know non-school based is the role of that um the the role of departments like like mine and HR and finance and that support and how many how many employees do we need to really run a smooth operation because if we don't
149have enough and they're not running smooth and the staff aren't happy if we're you know not providing services for that we are we are always looking at that so to the degree that we're trying to figure out where we can sort of collapse staff and move staff the wild card for us and of late is the need for support staff for mental health for Behavior coaches and you hit it on oh man did you say that very well the what we thought would be a short-term fix like we're just going to put this Neosporin and this Band-Aid on in a year or two boo-boo went away well boo-boo is staying around for a little bit longer than any of us anticipated so we're still seeing needs we're still seeing threat assessments that we're doing almost
150daily on younger children as well and that jaylark study outlines that so pulling those resources you know we we may have to sub substitute them somehow there and that those kind of positions would fall under this cup but not assistant principles no there you don't know they're more professional yeah Dr Gupta say three things I wanted to say is uh you know the budget process is always being like this line is constant and let's work from there and sort of real location or revisiting line by line item to see not line by line item so how many toilet papers line by line item those categories to see if there is a reallocation of resources because you provided the student people to teach a ratio this is an eye-opener for me at a macro level not
151at a micro level because I don't know how many special education students are there what the behavior challenges are but looking at three middle schools you got 14.4 10.6 and 15.3 that's a wide variation of almost 50 percent from one Middle School to other the two high schools is 12.6 to 16. I Will Not name which school but that's a wide variation so there are things in the system which may be open for discussion to saying what where can we make those savings to achieve what we want to do and I'm going to go to my second point if we allow that if I'm working at 13 an hour wage you give me a five percent increase and I did calculations it comes out to be about 1365 a year 1365 when I take home
152it comes out to be about I don't want to shame them but if I'm making hundred thousand dollars that five percent is five thousand dollars so there is a variation when you compare a salaried employee with an hourly employee in terms of how much they take away will be so what we are doing is we're forcing these people to work two three jobs to make a living and um that's not compassionate Management in my point so we got to look for these people to make sure they they give all they have only to LCS and not divide up their energies everywhere else and if it requires reallocation we got to look at where the savings are and what the challenges including that four billion dollars you know that will require strategic thinking that will require
153not just one year budget the three four years extension of where are we and where we'll be assuming level funding I'm just saying take the worst case scenario and plan that's what companies do Mrs business will be doing the same thing right you you allocate Manpower you allocate resources based on the inflationary pressures are hitting the most to the least earners you know the hourly wage employees and I want to diminish their contribution by saying that but it is hurting them so we got to do something in this budget cycle to make sure that they are taken care of thank you all right thank you Dr Gupta Dr Edwards Let's uh if the boy can just give those who are going to make a presentation and I'm I'm not sure exactly what time period that's
154going to take to do that but let's let's let's let's hear some of the presentations at this point and then we can decide what we want to do uh from there members of the board because I do want to remind you we've got a few more items on this agenda for tonight so what we wanted to do was just take time and have um Dr wodica and Miss Capozzi kind of go over the numbers and specifically um we had a little bit about last year's budget and we want to be mindful of your time and not go through everything but the things that you want us to go through so um I'm gonna let Dr wodica go and I think it's the sheet with the yellow highlighters out there I just want to talk a
155little bit about revenues so we'll do that and then also the state revenues as you know um the School Division gets most of its money from two sources that is the Commonwealth of Virginia their programs as well as the city government and so we want to focus just a few minutes on those changes in state funding so if you go to that that document that Dr Edwards mentioned as the what we call the calc tool the one she's holding up there yes sir um it is uh this is a this is a document that's produced by the Virginia Department of Education and it provides what funding sources by type that are provided by the Commonwealth largely in many lines based on that ADM number that we discussed um so if you look at that that
156document you'll see fiscal year 23 this will year 24 obviously next year we're talking about fiscal year 24 and the projected ADM at 7 321.2 students I think you heard Dr Edwards say earlier we're actually above that right now so those numbers may be different but these are the numbers that we work with that we Budget on that we want to pay attention to in this section there are four components of uh that take into account just different types of revenues there's these soq programs incentive programs uh there are categorical Aid programs and lottery funded so I'm going to talk about um components in sections and three of those just not the uh the categorical funds because those are things that are like sort of things like adult ed school lunch it's a homebound jail
157programs and things like that that are not are some of our primary mission on this on the top component of the soq programs I want to point out that very first line that basic Aid component that will increase by about a little less than 500 000 next year and then I'm not going to read everyone to you but the next line is state sales tax and that is projected to actually decrease just to some extent but that is connected to a line in our incentives program our incentives lines that are supplemental general fund payments in lieu of food and hygiene tax so you'll remember there's been a lot of conversation in the last couple you know a year or two about the the grocery tax and all that and beginning January 1st of 2023 that
158will be much different and so we do get a supplemental general fund payment to make up for lost Revenue as a result of that change now I do want to be cautious if there's a caution that we should learn from the personal property tax relief act from the late 90s when Governor Gilmore was the governor uh we the local governments were told we're going to make this up forever you know we're going to take away the car tax and local governments don't have to worry because we're going to the state government is going to make up this money forever and that number has not changed since the late 90s for each locality so I don't I think we should just be mindful of that and recognize that that uh we should not rely on that
159growing year over year but that's about a million two more than last year from from where we are um the third is uh on the incentives component the compensation supplement uh a little less than two million dollars in addition that's that five percent from the state that we've been talking about um so that's that component in the last there's just a little change that at risk they just move that money around between Lottery funding and uh incentives program so um all total the non-categorical aid components those three big items we're looking at an increase of about 2.75 million dollars next year over this year but that's some mostly taken up by that five percent increase as as we go through so certainly we take any questions you might have um about the the calc tool
160um one other component that is different uh from this year to next year so if you look at the very bottom number it's you know you can't take the two because there's a couple things that are different there was a school construction grant program entitlement of 2.8 million dollars last year that's not funded in fiscal year 24 so we're not counting that in the operating funds for next year so any questions you might have good information any questions you said two two where's that number for the construction no prior to that the like the whole I guess it's a compo I think it's aggregation oh okay okay any further questions on this particular document and while you're pondering whether you do or don't I think the superintendent is also wanting us to know that we've
161been giving all of this information tonight which is incredible information that we will need over this process is there anything in any of these uh sheets or handouts that you would like further discussion the explanation on tonight just uh clarification that 2.75 million dollar uh number that you talked about that was an aggregation of a couple different uh numbers but it's kind of a wash in essence because that number it's given to us by the state but it's going to be utilized by the five percent pay increase so about two million of that is the five percent is paying okay there's about seven fifty okay all right very good thank you thank you Mr Charles Dr Gupta Dr Edwards his hand out she provided to us has a lot of good information and you said
162you have an electronic file is it possible to make it public and put it on board docs so people can see what I'm seeing in my folder uh so that it's transparent what we are doing is the public information we scanned it into a PDF so we can add it the answer is yes all right I want to ask one more time hopefully I'm I'm being understood in what I'm asking of these handoffs and thank you Dr Gupta for giving me that word that was escaping me each of these would be called a handout is there any particular handout that you would like further explanation on tonight I thought I heard the superintendent suggest that she would go over what we wanted to go over rather than all of it Dr Brennan the operating budget
163history that looks at different counties can you just hit the high points of that for us I'm not familiar with that different areas as far as the general property and other local taxes that's something we need to absolutely this is the document that starts off Lynchburg City Schools operating budget history um it shows up the history of the last five years and the counties were four years so the question was um this came from a vsba I think PowerPoint said we should take a look at what percentage of your local taxes are provided to the school division right and how that compares to others and so how that was defined was wasn't uh totally defined but what we defined was General property taxes and other local taxes so these are of course your uh your
164real estate tax your personal property tax as well as um you know all the other taxes that might um be there so it doesn't take into account for the local government things like utilities uh and all the other things that are not necessarily related to the general fund so if you look at Lynchburg in the last five years we've sort of hovered around 27 28 of that number that aggregate number between the general property tax and other local taxes and if you compare that to the local counties you know they're pushing 50 percent that's not a that's not a wonderful comparison because the city just does more things than the counties do um and so we we can add in some of the other cities around the state to see kind of where we are
165but we just kind of wanted to give that local context um and so you know the city does things you know more Public Works and Parks and Rec and police and fire and that sort of thing that are that are taken up by that but um you know I just want to kind of provide a local contact next for you there just for that information so counties are really pushing closer to 50 percent of their local taxes are going to schools but we've been hovering around a quarter thank you thank you Dr Brennan thank you Dr waldika all right uh Mr Strauss Dr Edwards on the pupil to teach your ratios sheet looking at the uh pupil teacher ratio from different schools um EC glass and Heritage High School people teach the ratios there is
166there any way for us to look at um and I don't know I'm just throw it out there are there special education classes or something that may modify so that we I don't want that to be a misrepresentation of the class size and I'm my guess is there are certain services at different schools that may drive a number down so if someone's asking I guess for a weighted average or something of that nature or some explanation as to why one looks so more different than the other can you just there there are several things that factor into that and and special education is one of them um you also have to consider when you start offering Singleton classes or AP classes that are one-offs at what point um what is the enrollment in that class
167so if I offer let's just say as many AP Chemistry I may have 12 kids that are interested is 12 enough do we cancel the class do we hold the class versus across town at maybe 24 kids that are interested in that so there are some variances in enrollment and whether or not we're offering different classes that factor into that the the middle school and the high school one is very difficult to calculate because if it's just here's the pupil enrollment here is the total teacher it's so raw and but it was at least to give us a frame of reference for what that looks like but if you actually walk through classes which you know in a previous life that's what we've done we've walked into we've take period four and we'll walk into
168classes and we'll do a class size and see what's going on in actual classes because you will see some classes that are definitely over these numbers as well as some that may be under so and I just wanted the general public to know that those numbers if they see these reports maybe there's some outlier classes that may skew the number one way or the other and just want to make sure we're all aware that there are outlier classes and that's not necessarily indicative of the majority of the classes in any particular school yes okay then Dr Edwards and team I think that I know at least for this board member I'm going to take all of these handouts and look through them very very carefully and of course questions can be raised you know by
169submitting them to Dr Atwoods and the team Etc and then obviously we're going to be revisiting this uh quite frequently as the months unfold correct correct so our next steps if we we wanted to propose are very aggressive 1550 we've heard 1750 and 1850 as other Alternatives is to go back and do some work on that now so that we can actually do some projections of what we think that would cost us if we did a 1550 or or 17 or 18 50 and then between our regular and we did this last year between the regular meeting the work session meeting and now we have the finance committee meeting as needed to kind of vet through some of this information as well as we'll start we'll finish up with the school and Division Department budgets
170to talk about any other additional things because this is doesn't include any additional things in the past remember like we've added slots or we've added classrooms we heard Universal Pre-K so all of that balance is going to have to come to the table in terms of what we're going to do and we're going to move forward with that Dr Brennan as part of that information as you look at that and as a sort of suggested and I may well be wrong that there's not much room to look at previous budgets to see if there's money that we should that we should that there's funds that we can use for this coming budget so there's things that we can cut or we did not use can we also have a report on that to say okay
171here's what our proposal would be for this amount to do 1550 and here are areas we found that we can actually find some of those funds to help support that in our current budget without having to go to ask for additional funds and that's a good point Dr Brennan and I just want to go back in history and particularly for new board members at one point when we were first looking at transportation and we did do a proposal where we had so many vacant positions for transportation for bus drivers and we were like we're just not going to get that many so we collapsed the number of positions we took the extra money we added eight our eight hour bus driver positions and we also increased salaries so that's one way to look at where
172do we where did you get the funds to sort of raise the bar a little bit in the transportation department we actually looked at transportation patient funds and move some things around so that we could do that we also off with you know offering that we offered more investment in vrs for our staff which some of our local divisions don't also have parts of that so we continue to do things like that the other thing that we did not include in here but we know it's a problem because we talk about it every month is health insurance and where we you know we typically use the okay here's some extra money and benefits to cover the health insurance overage but if we start collapsing and sort of taking away positions we're also moving that funds
173too so it's a delicate balancing game as we look at everything that we can do for this all right now it's clear board that the Administration has put at least it looks to me a lot of hours and putting all of this together to give to us tonight and I have full confidence Dr Sinha in the finance committees um intentionality of looking at this stuff regularly and the full board being abreast of everything that the finance committee has and us are really working hard together on this one of the things I don't want us to do is to knee-jerk the administration around on rabbit trails that we don't have any intention of committing ourselves to that it becomes very frustrating along with all of the other work that Administration has so let us as I
174know we will do be very clear on what we're asking and try not to keep going in 50 different directions as uh this process unfolds Dr Gupta I just wanted to thank um you know two silent staff members sitting there you've done a remarkable all right job yeah you just joined LCS but the information you have provided very detailed yes indeed and I I for one can tell you I'm not going to take you a rabbit hole of an eight percent increase in the middle of the night thank you Dr Gupta all right well please are we making the assumption that the city will not cannot appropriate additional funds to help cover some of the costs because these are things that impact our entire city not just the educational system they impact the entire city
175Mr President we're going to probably come back to you at some point to make that statement again as you seem like you know exactly how to make it yes ma'am the answer is yes so anyway uh Dr Cottage you want to say this year that we make a commitment to what we want to do yeah and not change yeah make a commitment we want to do see if salaries really are what we want to do then let's give that direction but not change yeah it's just too much it's too time consuming I really want to respect the time and the energy and effort that everyone is putting into this thank you Dr Carter Dr Gupta is privately acknowledging her last year if you remember she was proposing 15 and we were on that trail for
176three percent five percent yeah so we're back to where was proposed last year and you know so I like the 15. I like the 18. let's just see what what's going to happen but let's move forward all right let's go into D and we have three items here under Section D School Board policy discussion and the first is uh oh this is for just a simple discussion on curriculum and instruction policy updates Dr Edwards we could quickly move us through that here tonight she had an emergency but she left me all of her notes so I will try my best to kind of go through the cni policies as she noted and these are all just for first read and discussion um no action tonight so the first one in her list is i-k-e-b um
177which is on her notes she's saying that there is no no change just request the format um from the middle school program of studies um that's all so she didn't recommend any change in that all right the next one is ikf and if I'm going too fast then you guys so you're doing very nicely okay um and her notes on this one let me just make sure that I get it on the back there is some language that is crossed out on the back of or on page two I should say um and she's suggesting that we keep that language um on on the back with regard to um four and five yep four and five her suggestion is to keep do the deletions right it says keep on her notes on the back um
178of this so why is it crossed out is that what that probably would have been what vsba recommended got it um and then she also wrote a note about a passing score and for number one probably to include the the VAP fourth grade testing and an ell test because number one just talks about the end of course Sol test here can can we just make this is our first reading so we'll be back at this in the future hopefully she will be here to help us understand oh yes the reason she wants to keep that yes she was so okay you can make any notes and and even if you have a question in between just email her doctor okay not over the break right yeah so people almost have to rest over the break
179all right um ikfa which is locally awarded verified credits there are no changes this is just up for a three-year review and you guys are still with me alrighty the next one is l-e-a-z which is student teachers slash interns and there are some the green language is some inserts some additional language um for number 10 under the first section is about the background checks for our student teachers in TB screening um and then she added some additional language because we do have practicums and field experience which aren't student teachers but pre-service pre-service classes where they come in and work so you'll see that there is some language in there with regard to those pre-service teachers and I think and to include TB screenings as well for them doing well all right the next one is
180uh this I think this is the big one yes this is the IIA instructional materials um which is related to Senate Bill 656 and the language in here is re with regard to our the review of any sexually explicit content and this one is actually one that many divisions are reviewing right now we already had a process for how parents or community members or even you guys could review instructional materials this is adding the new requirements that are specific for sexually explicit language and I will say that some of the things that and there's some definitions in here that also came but some of the things that were the topic of of conversation is if a main character and a play is um of a different gender than than um their birth gender that by
181definition is not sexually explicit content but just by the main character um but actually looking at what is written what is the context and things like that the other thing with this is um and I'm sure we'll have a lot of conversation around library books the difference between instructional materials that are in the classroom that we all have to read and the library books that are in our library and if they're being used to instruct or for Content versus if they're in there for just general kids can or cannot check them out so there's going to be some I really want you guys to read this and formulate some questions as we go through that particular area there um Dr day one um as I think you've already alluded to this is kind of a
182hot potentially explosive topic and it has been in many school divisions the one thing I'm not I don't have anything critical to say about this the one thing that I had a question about which doesn't need to be answered tonight it does talk about providing parental access to sexually explicit materials and particularly copyrighted materials and um I guess my question is it refers to a process um for online access for parental review um is there a way for parents to see copyrighted materials perhaps by coming into the division offices or to the school library or something like that and what Miss Pugh and team are working on because we did not have I a iia-r-z which is that process is a draft of what that looks like for parents right and right now yes I
183know when we do it with the board we usually bring the materials here you all come in you can review any materials that you want but yes we do need that process for that and what what we've done is kind of talked to neighboring and surrounding other divisions to find out what best practices are what are things that they're doing that are working in collaboration with parents so we've we've stolen a couple things here and there from other places to make it easy and to enhance our current process so will we see the procedural part of this though yes at some point she did she gave me that to say mention that we we currently don't have that but she wants to actually propose that we have so we will see that at some point
184in the future okay okay all right so I I I I a board members please um feel free to exercise your ability to raise questions and send stuff in on that if you don't mind thank you okay I think I went through all of her a b and i i a r z that's the instructional supplemental I didn't mention supplemental materials gotcha but it's all but it's yeah it's all the same she has it I think she has did on her she made a mention of new proposed regulation that's the one that you're talking about is that the iirz I I just lost money yeah okay so um Dr Edwards has presented for Mrs Pugh course she'll be back next time and you'll be able to interface with your appropriate questions to get answers because
185this is for discussion tonight and uh I'm I'm proud of our board and how we handle some of these more controversial issues but it is going to require that you take a good look at it and give feedback all right then if that's okay then we will go to D2 which is student services policy updates again uh this is for discussion tonight Dr Edwards okay and then once again you have Dr Edwards subbing in for Mrs Pugh on the student services one and again she left me notes so first up is j-e-b which is up for revision and there are some pronoun changes from his and her to just there um in that policy that was the only recommendation for that j-e-d-r-y which is attendance records and students with disabilities the committee recommended no changes
186in that policy JFC which is student conduct her first note under number one let me just see you make sure is notification by principal based on code and you will see where it says prohibited conduct on page two there is some green language that the principal shall notify the parent of any involved of any student involved in an alleged incident of bullying that is coming from code and then the second reference is to a Class one misdemeanor which is hazing which is also coming from cold so just an explanation for those two additions there from code um for j f c d uh this one's up for uh review and she there is no recommendation for any changes so that is weapons in school keep going uh jhc student health services and um this is
187pretty short policy and no recommendations for changes and they checked all the cross-reference policies for this one uh School attendance area which is JC again there are pronoun changes to uh make their child the child and the student using out any pronouns um so this is about students attending school in the attendance area in which they reside or was there a sign that they should say there were some exceptions is there some exceptions if there's a a child care or parent involved in the situation is is that just is that what goes before the superintendent that's really not stayed in here is that a decision the superintendent or the administration makes yes so there's a couple of things that parents can do at the elementary level if there is a babysitter um and we call
188it babysitter hardship that used to go to Student Services now that comes to my office and Miss Pugh is the one who um reviews that there's also on some occasions where for various reasons it may be better for a student to attend a one school over another school and in each case parents would provide transportation superintendent placements so sometimes parents will appeal directly to me for a special consideration to go to this school or that school so yes thank you thank you Dr Brennan all right all right the next one is jcrz which is the regulation for um the School attendance areas and again you'll see the pronoun changes and also the change to the um Deputy superintendent's office because that's where that's coming into Miss Pugh into my office as well and this is
189just the procedure for um babysit a hardship or change within residence within the city a lot of hers were no changes uh jcf or sorry jca student victims transfers by student victims of crime and there is no recommended change for that this is just up for three year review and it matches up against code further discussion on any of those oh you got another one oh my God okay well I'm sorry detailed notes which is j c a r z which is the regulation for the previous policy um her notes just say that this is linked um student transfer request form so this is no change but just making sure that the request form is now hyperlinked so people can get to it and the last one um JFC B's c b r z which
190is a regulation for the inter Scholastic athletic participation um and this was revised to mirror what vhsl has um so you'll see that on number eight down at the bottom oh that's interesting discussion and uh you know feel free to reach out to Virginia High School legal any entity if you want further understanding of Dynamics you can certainly do that any other questions regarding Dr Carter just following up on the questions that Dr Brennan asked ask asked did so did you feel that that needed to be in there in the policy I was wondering how that how that fit I think I understand that from Dr from the policy and product over the explanation it just wasn't specifically there and I assumed it was part of the superintendent Administration decision to do that which I
191think is fine so how would someone know that that would be an option it's in a it's in the regulation that goes along with the policy the one jrc CRZ RZ okay there's a um babysitter Elementary yeah and these are real life situations now and these policies help to navigate us to uh anything else Dr Carter yeah okay all right anything else on that matter I have a um Mr trolls the inner Scholastic athletic participation jfcb-r-z uh specifically the the change in item eight I just want to throw it out here because I was a little bit uncomfortable about this in committee uh we're you know we're dealing with our student athletes here and originally was saying these students must have a grade of c um to play and then be assigned to a study
192hall and I understand we don't necessarily have those study hall programs in place for our student athletes and we're modifying that to say a passing grade I just want to make sure that we are not um harming our student athletes just for the sake of them being able to play a sports I don't certainly we all know that you know a career in athletics is a a long shot and for me an education is much more important I want to make sure we have the safety net in place for these children and we're not just push them through oh you got the D you gotta you can play you can play um just throw that out there for thought I don't want to make it a big issue I certainly want our children to be
193able to play sports but I also want them to have a goal of getting a a decent education as well so for what it's worth I just had a little bit of an issue with the saying hey um yeah d mine as you can play and we're not going to give them any support to get their grades up so I certainly don't want to keep them from playing but I also don't want to forget about them let them fall through the cracks I think the coaches Echo your sentiment and you know just our two little championship football teams that um both coaches brag about the GPA of their team they believe in scholar athletes and they do a lot of work to make sure that they're they're athletes are Scholars first and I would like
194to say that on behalf of the coaches and the athletic directors that they really do push hard to say this is this is a privilege to be able to participate in sports but you know you you still have to have that academic fortitude so in supporting that okay thank you Mr trust I do again want to stay to the board if you'd like to talk to Dr Billy Hahn the executive director he's very open to talking to school board members about and this is coming from vhsl and so Mr Charles you may want to reach out and get a better understanding because your point is very valid all right um anyone else okay we're going to move to D3 Governor's policy review and uh at least when it comes to um this student rep to
195the school board how many times are we going to look at it this is the last time okay um so my my first one is still me um which is policy now I'm looking on computer a d which is our educational um philosophy and this one we say it all the time the importance of and Beyond but when you actually go to our mission statement it's not written in print so we're going to add it in print because the and Beyond part of what we do for kids is very very important for that uh kmz which is the superintendent's parent advisory uh do not recall we are not making any changes um to this policy it is up for review and I do meet with the parent advisor um have we been given a list
196of the members of that Advisory Group um because of superintendent's parents advisory it doesn't come to the school board for board approval like board advisories I can certainly share with you who um who attends our meeting okay so if I if I really have a reason to know I just contact you okay we have minutes and everything like that okay group so and where were we going to say anything about BBB yep I am okay why are you why are you pulling that up I know we had a parent last meeting that didn't that signed up but didn't get here in time and she wasn't aware of the parent advisory group uh Dr Edwards I know you are doing a fine job with that but just I don't know how we can work on some
197of the parents that if you give me the name I've invited like parents have expressed interest though okay we'll try to retrieve that name we invited the parents that came from the virtual school sure Virtual Academy sure okay okay and then finally um BBB uh student rep policy after looking at the policy we agree that the policy language is fine that we can we can live with the policy language we did talk about some procedural things that we want to start doing in Spring and I believe it's March that we want to really start engaging with Mr Reed and the students and sort of putting out there if there are things that we want student feedback from we'll give it to them in advance so that they when they come to the meeting either as
198part of their presentation or maybe a different set depending upon what it is is that they can share that information with us but I think the whole goal was to get the student reps more in addition to sharing all the wonderful things that are going on in their school but to get students to weigh in on some quality things that we're talking about and how do we best set the student reps up so that they can do those things so it's more of a procedure not within the policy change we did invite both student reps even though they are seniors to be on the calendar committee to give the student perspective and also to go back to students and get any information about what's important for the making of the next calendar as well thank
199you Doug deal with and I know Bobby yeah Bob and I were part of that meeting with the principals and Mr Reed and I thought it was a very constructive way of how we're going to engage them even more so no need for any policy changes such and so I trusted that when this comes to us on January the 10th we will be proving this yeah all right you can make a quick commentary comment so just to create where credit is due so this goes back to Susan Morrison who is on the board for many years and really wanted to look at this policy and wanted to see you know should students get credit should there be some other part of it that would be helpful and we have had multiple meetings with the principals
200and with other people and I think we all felt the policy itself is good if we could do some other things to facilitate their presentations and interact with students that's great so Susan Morris wherever you are we thank you for your input told that comment Vice chair wholeheartedly all right so that will take care of our governance policy review for D3 and it will now move us to section e which is a closed meeting and uh I would like for us uh to recognize that the motion would be in order to convene a closed meeting to discuss the following as permitted by the Virginia code section 2.2-3711a1 in which school board will discuss the assignment promotion demotion performance salary disciplining or resignation of a specific officer appointee or employee is there a motion to go
201into closed meeting a move that we go into the close meeting second we moved by Dr Carter second about Dr day any further questions or discussion on the motion hearing none Madam clerk please call the roll School Board member Miss Preston yes let's go by remember Mr Charles yes let's go back remember Dr Sinha yes let's go but remember Dr Brennan yes School appointment with my Dr Coleman yes so about Mama Dr Carter yes let's go about moment Dr Gupta yes let's go about Mama doc today yes let's go back Mama Mr Andrews yes motion cares nine to zero make our view in public for watching we're doing a great work here and thank you for your support uh we'll be in close meeting now take a couple of minutes to get ourselves ready for
202that shouldn't be long at all thank you thank you