LCS School Board Meeting: July 13, 2021

001okay it is five o'clock and i would like to call this meeting to order this is our first meeting of the 2021-22 school year so welcome everyone and i'd also like to welcome our new board member mr randy tross who is joining us today for his very first meeting and as customary with the first meeting this is our re-org meeting so i will run the first part of the meeting until we elect a school board chair and with that the next order of business is approval of our agenda which is before you on board docs may i have a motion to approve the move that we agenda the agenda uh that was miss carter and seconded by mrs morrison uh any discussion madam clerk can you please call the role for the agenda approval school

002about member trust here scuba member morrison yes scoop up emma carter yes school book mama dr brennan yes scoop up mom and dr coleman yes school bookmark dr nellis yes school bookmark dr senha yes yes nine to zero motions curry thank you and we move on to section c closed meeting as permitted by virginia cole 2.2-3711a1 the school board needs to convene a closed meeting for the purpose of discussing the appointment or promotion of particular officers appointees or employees may i have a motion to enter into a closed meeting the motion by bob brennan second second second by sharon carter any discussion hearing none can you please call the role madam clerk let's go about mama trust yes school board member morrison yes scuba moment carter yes scuba my doctor brennan yes good mom and

003dr coleman yes school about my doctor yes school but my doctor sent her yes dr gupta yes school but mr harvey yes motion carries nine to zero okay and we will now enter into a closed meeting and we will be back during this time no action will be taken thank you okay before we do the pledge of allegiance we're going to certify the closed meeting the superintendent moves that the lynchburg city school board certifies that in the closed meeting that just concluded nothing was discussed except the matters or matter of at hand specifically identified in the motion to convene the closed meeting and lawfully permitted to do so so discussed under the provisions of the virginia freedom of information act cited in this motion may i have a motion to approve the certification of the

004closed meeting the move that we certified certify the closed meeting ms carter a second i second mr trost uh any discussion none okay madam clerk can you please call the role scuba mama trust yes school board member ms morrison yes school board member dr carter yes scoop up mom and dr brennan yes school board member dr coleman yes scoop up my dr nellis yes school book moment dr senhai yes school book moment dr gupta yes school book member mr javi yes motion carried nine to zero okay we will now stand for the pledge of allegiance [Music] of the united states of america okay that brings us to section d of our meeting school board reorganization first order of business is to elect a 2021-22 school board chair do we have any nominations for school board

005chair it's morrison dr edwards and school board it is my honor to nominate dr james coleman to be the chair for the 2021-22 school year he did a wonderful job leading us through this last year and it would be a great honor for us to have him serve again thank you any other nominations for school board chair seeing none i'd like to make a motion to close nominations for school board chair may i have a motion to close the nomination i'll move moved by miss dr sinha second second by dr carter any discussion none and madam clerk can you call the role for closing the nominations scoop up moment uh mr trust yes scoop up remember miss morrison yes group of member doctor carter yes scuba moment dr brennan yes school book moment dr coleman

006yes school book moment dr nellis yes school book mama dr senhai yes google moment dr gupta yes school but mr harvey yes motion career nine to zero okay now that the nominations are closed we had one nominee and dr james coleman so i need a motion to nominate dr james coleman as the lynchburg city school board chair for 2021-22 school year i'd like to make a motion to nominate dr james coleman for the chair for the 2021-2022 academic year okay thank you dr brennan second second second second by dr carter i think i heard first okay any discussion okay hearing none maybe call the world school but mr trost yes scoop up my word miss morrison yes good book woman dr carter yes school by mom and dr brennan yes scuba moment dr coleman yes

007school board member doctor nellis yes scuba moment dr senhai yes dr gupta yes school but mr harvey yes okay well let us congratulate our chair what was the role i'm sorry miss adam clerk i skipped you i'm sorry what was the final vote 9-0 thank you now let us congratulate our new chair dr coleman and it is a great honor that i passed this gavel to you and sir the rest of the meeting is yours thank you thank you so much dr edwards you did an outstanding job with leading us in our first meeting of the year and we're all excited and one more time let us put our hands together and thanks to the city for giving us randy trost on our board our new boy we thank you again thank you an honor

008to serve and to be a humble servant and that's what i will continue to do as we work forward our first order of business now under d2 will be the need for the school board to nominate a vice chair for the school board and at this time i would like to acknowledge that the floor is open for nominations for the office of vice chair of the lynchburg city school board uh nominee go ahead drug board member morrison um i would like to nominate dr sharon carter for a position of vice chair i've worked with dr carter for the last five years on the school board and i think she will bring a great deal to the vice chair position she will have big shoes to fill that thank you uh miss morrison and we acknowledge

009um also an entry from school board member nellis is there any other nominations the floor is open for any other nominations for the office of vice chair all right hearing none then we can now have a motion to close the nomination i'll move all right moved by dr sinha seconded by ms morrison no other further questions or discussion madam clerk please close call the role the closing not board member dr available yes google remember dr gupta yes mr harvey yes motion current nine to zero thank you so kindly if it would uh please the board we have one uh nomination and so at this time with the nominations closed we're going to ask the clerk to please call the roll if you uh say yes you are in favor of dr sharon carter for vice

010chair uh if you say no obviously otherwise madam clerk please close call the roll uber mom and dr available yes mr harvey yes motion occurs now to zero all right in the same manner let's congratulate our vice chair for the 21 22 school year dr sharon carter and we welcome you dr carter to avoid leadership uh it would also be appropriate at this time for me to acknowledge that there could be any there could be no better vice chair anywhere in the commonwealth of virginia in the past year than uh vice chair for the 2020 2021 school year and i would like for us to please show our gratitude and appreciation to dr bob brennan who did an exemplary job in supporting the work of this division in that capacity would you please all right

011dr carter welcome and uh we'll seek to work together here uh in any great way anywhere would you like to say just want to thank the city council for my reappointment and for the trust and the votes of the school board members thank you so much thank you so much dr cardiff for your service and your leadership at this time we will now move on to the next item in section d which will be the appointment of the school board clerk and deputy clerk and so at this time we would ask for a nomination in that regard for our school board clerk and deputy clerk this is just a motion for it um yeah i move recommendations yeah it's a recommendation for the folks listed clerk tina day and deputy clerk barbara saunders i moved

012for tina day and deputy clerk barbara saunders second the motion all right if they moved and seconded that we would have our able clerk tina day and deputy clerk barbara saunders to share in that capacity if there's no other statements around that then we will in a way that we're wanting to do it just applaud the reappointment of those individuals in that capacity and let's uh give our clerk a great big hand and i'll definitely declare it dr coleman we still have to vote yes that's official we need to vote all right you all want to vote all right very good so i'm going to lead any other partner in the manner that i would uh like to to move it forward so we would call for roe uh madame clerk and let's uh if

013it's the pleasure of the board we'll do them both together typically we would do them separate let's just do them both together if you're saying yes you're in support of the appointments of reappointments of the two stated names and the capacities in which we call if you're saying no uh you can acknowledge that call the role please madam clerk group obama trust yes scuba member morrison yes dr brennan yes scoop up mom and dr um carter yes good mama dr coleman yes google moment dr nellis yes google moment dr sinha yes dr gupta yes mr harvey yes motion carries nine to zero thank you so much that now moves us to d3 and in like manner we have an appointment for the school board clerk and deputy clerk i would like for us to articulate

014the name pleased by someone on the board to put that in into the proper nomination ms morrison i recommend that we approve the the recommendation by the superintendent to appoint amy pugh as her designee very good and no need for a second for nominations are there any other nominations then the nominations would be closed if the board's pledging will allow us to we'll just move right on with the nominations closed and we will have a roll call for the uh approval of amy pugh as our deputy school but mr trust yes we skipped it yeah okay i just want to be sure i mean i i think if we're we're looking for the agent for the school board is ms laconic and deputy agent is is miss pugh is that correct yes we skipped to

015number five um the designee dr coleman mentioned the designee which is number five which is accurately amy pugh so you can vote on number five and then we can come back and do number four i'm back on my notes here it's a little different but that's okay all right we're dealing with five at this point for amy pugh continue to call the role madam clerk let's go by mr trust yes scoop up miss morrison yes group of member doctor brennan yes scuba moment dr carter yes school but mama dr coleman yes mama dr nellis yes school but mom and doctor sinha yes scuba mama dr gupta yes mr harvey yes motion carrying 9-0 all right we will now go back to d4 for the appointment of the agent and deputy agent is their nomination at

016this time from the floor i i guess as a point of order these are recommendations coming from the superintendent we just need to vote and it may make a motion to accept or i mean if we decide to add something we certainly can but um thank you dr nellis and i appreciate that i had um identified a way that i wanted to carry the motions for each of these and according to parliamentary procedure either way is fine so i have no problem with that and so at this point if there are no other nominations for that let's move to the vote for kimberly carnage as our chief financial officer and the deputy amy pugh as i'm looking at it mountain clerk please close the roll it's good for my mr trolls yes goodbye miss morrison

017yes scoop up my my doctor brennan yes goober mama dr carter yes good mom and dr coleman yes scoop a moment dr nellis yes group of mama dr senhai yes who about mama dr gupta yes school but mr harvey yes motion carry nice to zero let's congratulate all of these fine people for their able service there is no school division that has any better personnel and staff than we have in lynchburg city schools and we're so appreciative of it that will now move us to d7 which is our school board committees and liaison assignment discussion six e6 my eyes aren't that good here today all right six 2021 dates meeting times and location for the school board meetings and i do want you to look at those dates that have been given and we did

018try to take every effort to make sure that we were sensitive to holidays and any other particulars that we may have uh what is the pleasure of the board at this time relative to this action item with the 2022 dates meeting times and location for the school board meetings mr chair can i raise a question at this point or should i wait so noted please with your question so i just have a question about the july 5th meeting date yes we've just been through this for this year where we decided that was too close to the july 4th holiday so now july 4th i think is it on monday and this would be on tuesday i'm wondering whether the board wants to change that date to the 12th which would be the following tuesday of

019july 2022. thank you dr brennan for doing that uh typically each year that would be our reorg meeting and as my statements have been i think every board member should be at a real org and so is there any discussion on that adjustment to accommodate that uh board this is your opportunity to weigh in on that consideration dr nellis yeah um that's usually a conflict for me but that that will not be the case oh we don't know but yes i know it will not be the case [Laughter] yes sir there's a suggestion to move that july meeting to the 12th if the chair doesn't see any objection to that then let it be so noted that the july the 12th would be our time for meeting uh for reorg for next year all right

020accepting that friendly adjustment is there a further discussion or is there a motion at this time to adopt the calendar within that adjustment i'd make a motion to accept the calendar for 2021-2022 all right it's been so moved by dr brennan for the adoption of the calendar as stated as their second second divided vice chair dr carter any further questions or discussion dr carter do you think do we need the clarification will be july the 12th with the adjustment of july the 5th to july the 12th say that one more time we need that to be clarified that we're going to make that change to july the 12th versus july the 5th that's noted on the yes it was the acceptance of dr brennan's statement that we will make that adjustment does every board member

021have that understanding yeah so as you're voting you're voting on the dates with the adjustment to july the 12th for the what it says for july the 5th from my understanding all right um it was second did it appropriately had no further discussion then we'll ask for the clerk to call the role on the adoption of the 21 22 dates meeting times yes scuba morrison yes uber mama dr brennan yes goodbye mom and dr carter yes google my doctor coleman yes doctor nellis yes school board member dr yes motion curry nine to zero thank you madam clerk and now with my eyes as focused as i possibly can get them excuse me dr coleman yes i just like to remind board members to pull your microphones down so that the public in in the auditorium

022can hear you as well as those that are watching online thank you so noted thank you deputy superintendent few please including myself a gesture mike's mask and whatever so that we can be heard by our persons who are sharing all right with that having been said item seven school board committee and liaison assignment discussion once again we're trying mr harvey mr chair sorry just point of order do we need to vote on and approve the time and location of our meeting as well since it will no longer be held here at ec glass but would return to our board meeting room the plan is i believe in august and i don't want to overstate i see the superintendent not in their head to go back to our location uh our home if you will in

023the school board administration chamber and the times at five i was under the impression that we were voting on all that at the same time once again mr harvey i welcome the board's pleasure to do all three and interest of time was it the understanding of the board that the meetings would remain at five and the understanding of the void may not in good point mr harvey be as clear that we would be returning in august to the school administration building unless someone would see necessary that was my understanding that was my understanding thank you so much mr harvey would that be acceptable to you acceptable thank you sir and but very good point excellent point we want to be clear and thank you for stopping me item number seven school board committee and liaison

024assignment discussion we again tried this year to make sure that our newest member and all members would have a fair opportunity to know the committees that we have and so the labor of our vice chair superintendent myself boyd clerk prepared a wonderful document so that you can really understand what you have what it would entail and to give you a selection process you don't have to turn that in today but by our master board session on friday we would need to have them and then the vice chair and chair will review them and and then we will schedule to bring that back to you next week for the work session for you to uh approve assignments uh the floor is open for any questions regarding this and the chair will entertain any i do want

025to take a moment to thank uh stay for the organizational documents she's given me i really appreciate that and dr edwards thank you thank you attorney uh sometimes i'm gonna refer to you as attorney trust but i will do the very best i can to call you school member of trust thank you so much thank you any further thoughts on this process so turn them into the board clerk today if you haven't already some of you have or we we need to have them by friday thank you so very much all right we will now move into the next portion of our agenda if i'm correct and they will be moving into our public comment section we want to say to the public this has been an amazing moment in public education and in lynchburg

026we have tried in every way possible to make sure that our public can be heard and so public comments are incredibly important to us and we're grateful for everyone being here tonight the board has determined various policies by which we use to govern ourselves with public comments and featured through our board docs and we're appreciative everyone's cooperation tonight and the sign up procedure etc we do have as a part of our board policy a statement that says that we have 30 minutes for public comments and so that's what we have the clerk has informed the chair that we have numerous written public comments and doing this time even as uh we're moving in our process of returning and dealing with the pandemic we still wanted to entertain people who wanted to talk to us by

027telephone and in writing and so we do want to acknowledge that we have several public comments in writing madam clerk is there any phone uh call that has been submitted no sir uh and i'm stating all of that because we have a number of persons who signed up for uh public comments and uh amy pughs that keeps the time for us and she does an excellent job and i will be very respectful but honor the three or five minutes that would be uh stated so what i would like to do with permission from the board all of the written comments if we're not able to get to them i am going to ask that the clerk would uh submit all of those written comments to each board member the persons who are here today i

028would like to go through those who who are here in person and get to as many as we can would that be acceptable to the board yes yes all right thank you so much all right 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 vulgar language or gestures make comments about a public official or an employee that are not related to his or her 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 shall limit their comments to three minutes a speaker representing a group shall limit his or her comments to five

029minutes the representative shall identify the group at the beginning of his or her presentation a group may have no more than one spokesperson the total allotted time for public comments at school board meetings is 30 minutes and public comments are reserved for the public to provide import put the board does not respond to comments answer questions or otherwise engage in discussion at this time and so we're going to just go through the order in which i have uh tonight and our first speaker for tonight is mr paul key who is representing fellowship community outreach center bishop key if you will he's representing a group good evening good evening i want to it's going to sound a bit repetitive but i want you to be left with a particular thought in mind cultural competency cultural diversity

030cultural identity education and cultural competence not education versus cultural competence my name is paul key i'm representing the fellowship community outreach center located on bedford avenue in the rivermont community we have been in partnership with the juvenile justice alternative education program in the prize center and served on the superintendent's advisory councils in previous administrations we have assisted on numerous occasions where ieps or individual education plans served on the equity task force and supported the lynchburg education foundation we know and understand the students and family contact that you as a school board serve and we appreciate deeply your service to our community and children we must be willing to live beyond our past and cultivate our future or the future of our children we must embrace and identify apparent diversity within our multicultural community because it

031is the society in which we live the problem that needs to be addressed respectively is cultural competence in all of our lives not just our children but also parents and families we are all parents and families who serve the whole of community our children should not come to school every day feeling that aside from learning the english language or sports or art that everything else is fun studies that after basic sols and business related studies everything else under represents the cultural context in which a student may live we are not limited to expressing our regrets or celebrating our rewards of how we became one nation under god but i believe that the framers of the constitution realized that our principles and values had to be cultivated and continually nurtured perhaps they understood the times and

032context in which we continue to live that as technology the digital age the industrial community evolves so also involves a cultural society relevant to the cultures and communities that we serve it should not be education versus cultural diversity but rather a culturally competent educational community where no child is left behind because every child is respected by name and by nate by name and by need beyond graduation that no child is underrepresented or misrepresented to embrace the reality that we live in a multicultural society right now we can have leadership amongst our school board administration and teaching staff that sufficiently represent the whole of our community and the student body and unless there is a reasonable diversity throughout our educational system and authority some of our children may be marginalized underrepresented and possibly unidentified we are

033more than able to embrace all cultural stakeholders within our community we are more than able to recognize and respect the multicultural diversity context in which we live we must be able to show and tell as we used to do with kids when we started school our student body that all students are relevant significant and to be respected in a global society in which we live learn work and grow together i have spent my life as a youth throughout the schools and community when i first came here from new york at seven years old the first place i was put in was paul monroe and other schools in the boonesboro area and sometimes i was the only black student only to eventually be the first student or among student body to graduate from the old heritage

034high school we've seen a lot when we embrace our diversity and we respect community at large it makes the difference and it makes a positive generation i trust that you all will continue to keep that in the forefront of every decision you make so that when we look at the school board it doesn't just look visually as we are represented but in context and content we are well represented thank you have a good evening thank you so much bishop keith for coming tonight our next speaker is reverend alex cunningham and he is representing the naacp of lynchburg virginia thank you for coming reverend cunningham when i wrote down the aisle i thought i would be very nervous but for a long time i have set back and i have listened to the problems of 17

035months that the school board went through you should be commended for all that you've done you should be thought very highly of your position you have done well but the reason why i'm standing here something came up something that i very seldom will deal with but um when i heard someone say critical race theory and i said to myself first a lot of people don't even know what a critical race theory is later on you're going to find out some young man that i listen to he he found the lady that the corn the turn but i i wanted him to know critical race theory is that's what it is it's a theory because if you listen to fragrance douglas w.e.d dubois john james henry clark you'll find out in their writings they talked about

036the theory long time ago fergan douglas said what the theory represents is how to divide a people i was so pleased sitting back there listening to all you say when she said nine nine nine of you voted together do not let a theory become a debate that's what happens because this theory is already true we know this we're not trying to teach nobody anything if you taught american history why is in black history talk beside it we we eliminate things and we eliminate people and we try to put people against one another and that's not right but somewhere along the way y'all keep fighting dr l will see even when it comes that you keep fighting dr gupta when they come at you keep fight dr coleman all of you keep fighting cause they want

037to take your mind off of what you're supposed to do and that's to take care as dr eva said take care of all of my children and doesn't matter what color they are what nationality they are they don't need no theory they just need to be taught the truth in the midst of all of that again i forgot to tell you my name and if i did i want you to remember i'm standing with you i'm not going to keep standing in the background my name is alex cunningham i'm blind and i'm glad that y'all see just as what i see because a lot of people got eyes and they can't see so do what you do and do it well you're going to have problems but do what you need to do for these

038children because they got mental psychological you got to be everything to these children you shouldn't have to but god bless you and have a blessed day thank you reverend cunningham from the lynchburg branch of the naacp our next speaker is dr carvey hutchison jr as an individual also addressing the subject of critical race theory mr chairman first of all let me congratulate you and dr carter on your appointment says chair and vice chair and uh thank dr brennan for the wonderful exemplary service that he continues to he's not off the board he's still going to make the necessary contributions and to our newest school board member uh uh i i forget to say attorney too attorney cross we're delighted that he is here and to all of you we we pray that you are having

039a a good a good uh good and new term i was told in 1968 that the human mind is like a parachute it functions best when open my mother was a teacher and a librarian in the library city public schools when she became a librarian there was a young student who came up to her and said i will never be anything i will never go anywhere i will never do anything and she being the librarian that she was said to him i'll tell you what i'm going to show you a way that you can go as far as you want to go and so she began to give him some books out of the library and he began to read the books and read the books and read the books and years later he came

040to me and he said how much my mother had influenced him he was able to one day go around the world he was able to own an oil company he did very well in life he's gone on on he's passed on now but he did very well in life i say that to say this he was not a black student he was a white student who lived on federal street in the inner city in lunch prairie when i talked black history at ec glass in 1968 through 1972 i didn't teach you that as a marxist i talked it as a black american letting people know that cultural differences do exist now in our society it just exists in our nation and it will continue to exist because none of us are the same but all

041of us have the opportunity to learn to come together and that's what education is all about bringing the cultural differences to light in such a way that we know that the patchwork of this nation is a nation who brings not just the similarities but the differences in our culture the final thing since i only have three minutes tonight before i sit down i would like to say one thing i can't stood up as a christian i'll sit down as a christian and i'll remind of you what one of the values is that i have received it's time to put the neighbor back in neighborhood when we divide each other we will become a separate entity thank you so much thank you so much dr hutcherson our next speaker for tonight is miss jamie mccoy and

042she is coming as an individual uh addressing the subject of health care thank you for coming miss mccoy good evening as you said my name is jamie mccoy i would like to extend my appreciation to the lynchburg city school board for this opportunity to express my view i am a graduate of heritage high school and i am the proud parent of a daughter who recently graduated from heritage with a dual degree she is currently enrolled as a computer science major at virginia tech i have three other children in the lynchburg city school system like you i care about the future of our children and the future of my children as citizens of this nation and of lynchburg opportunity is the great way to educational attainment and self-sufficiency opportunity depends on access opportunity depends on representation

043of all segments of our community how many of you have visited someone on florida avenue in the last six months nearly a quarter of our population lives below the poverty line eighty percent of our children are eligible for free lunches which allows these students to focus on their lessons to learn and to have a real opportunity to succeed in the workforce you don't live in my neighborhood and that's okay you are great people volunteering your time there's an empty chair at your table who is representing my neighborhood who representing single women with children who's representing the parents of the children living in poverty i was excited when i read in the newspaper that the school board was adding health insurance for its appointed members representation depends on access there are single moms like me that

044may be willing to fill that empty chair if we knew that our family's health care concerns were being addressed it is my personal belief and that the addition of health care options for school board members would provide access to men and women who live in my neighborhood and who have an intimate connection with children on free school lunches and who live in poverty this access will allow for representation of the children who need it the most i am here in support of providing health care to school board members if you approve this vote you will be removing a tremendous burden that prevents many parents from making themselves available to serve on the school board if you approve this vote more single moms and working parents will be able to donate their time to guide the

045educational future of lynchburg's children thank you thank you ms mccoy for coming tonight our next speaker is reverend hailstock and he is coming as an individual on the subject of critical race theory pastor he'll stop good evening like to thank dr coleman and school board for allowing me to come and share with you tonight i am senior pastor of the white rock baptist church here in the city of lynchburg been been there now 16 years and i just want to share with you something as a pastor in the in the city of lynchburg i consider it as a part of my ministry the entire context the urban context here in the city and being in leadership i understand that it is difficult for you of everything under the superintendent everything under the mail and everything

046here within the infrastructure and sitting as a pastor within the urban context it is my concern it's part it's in my heart that's my call that's my commission that's what i do and it is my prayer to god that you will continue to do what you are doing and i want to say to you tonight uh as far as i am concerned the lynchburg city school board superintendent and everything under superintendent is good enough for me i understand that there are some expectations that is required of you and i know that you have tried to meet them but i understand that there are some expectations that you might not be able to meet sometime but i want you to know as past the hair stock at 401 florida avenue i want you to know from

047me you're good enough and as a pastor in moving forward i hope that we can reflect upon ourselves secondly upon ourselves as a nation not only here locally but as a nation that even in the 1840s we as a people of color are not too far from here the lumpkins jail on the campus of samuel d with proctor school of theology in richmond uh right there embedded in that very context today has been that struggle of trying to respond to pervasive critiques that have seemingly engulfed the black culture and here we go again but here again still i believe that this school board is good enough and this city is good enough for me god bless you thank you pastor hale stop our next speaker is mr robert floyd representing virginia organizing i gotta hear

048everything i need to hear from all these good people uh first of all i'd like to thank the superintendent for doing a hell of a job uh during the survivors time i know you caught hell let me just say it like it is but we got your back and you know it's funny that this is 2021 and we're still talking about diversity we talking about black history month we talk about everything that jim crow just laid that you know that that foundation down years ago and we still talking about it we got kids out there killing each other left and right all over the country we're trying to figure out what can we do to slow it down to stop it when we know the drugs and guns are the main future that keeps these

049kids doing what they're doing but we're talking about something we've been talking about in the fifth and sixth is diversity wow why would a person hate a person so much because they don't look like them what did we do to be hate so hard or disliked why when we should be working together i don't care what color you are right is right wrong is wrong ain't nothing in between it's a couple things i wanted to talk about but i know we got short short period of time the sol the officers one thing i want to speak on because i know we got to the right to the end of the virus came in about the ex-offenders being able to volunteer i know it was approved and we stopped right there i would like to find

050out because i've been here maybe once since y'all been going or having the uh school board meeting i'd like to know a little bit more of where y'all at with that because i recommend the srs and returning citizens with non-violent crimes join in with the police because they can refuse things that the police aren't careful police is white black mexican or chinese or whatever if they are police guys will look at them different but when you got somebody been in their shoes or got somebody that can relate to them you might can defuse it before you send them to a detention home or kick them out of school that's something we need to look at like i said i don't know where y'all at with it because i know you stopped i don't even know

051the rules that was instated before this virus came through but i like to find out more about what's going on and that's why i'm bringing to your attention but guys you know we we got two wake-up calls the virus and george floyd he woke us up if we didn't have cameras we would never seen what happened this been going on years ago but we just got these little things called cameras now and this person got caught and you've seen the diversity when you seen a bunch of white and black people margin because it was wrong and look the whole country's turning things are turning around different that was a march and let everybody know we don't stand for this when you're doing uh treating a person the way that guy was treated and then killing

052if we didn't have cameras we'd still be talking about okay yeah he'd done something wrong he'd done this and that whatever but evidence showed that he was definite not doing nothing wrong to the point that he should die on national tv this was a national you know out the country everywhere looked at it so what else could they do but find this man guilty or they would have had something feedback they didn't want it's time for us to wake up this 2021 we still talk about the same things we talked about 20 years ago when you get cut i don't care what color you are you bleed the same blood so why can't we come together what is it so hard for us to come together as one and make things better for our kids

053because if we get a generation like we got now you'll wish you would have done something better than what you're doing now thank you thank you mr floyd our next speaker is dr mary apprentice who is going to talk to us about equity as a part of a group from private lynchburg citizens welcome dr prentice nice to see you all and i want to let chairman coleman know i'm still praying for your family thank you so much i might talk to you in the hospital so you've been in my prayers and the whole school board is frankly in my prayers so nice to see everybody and i'm here just asking really for ask that i hope you all will consider as uh as school board members and i do thank you for your service this

054is something that we really appreciate as citizens that you take the time to do so i want to thank you so the first ask is that i'm asking superintendent edwards to consider creating a community curriculum review committee and my fellow community members can be part of it anybody here that's interested could be part of it i know that amherst county and also bedford they have citizens that review the curriculum and they make sure that it's something that the parents and the students and the teachers have some input into the curriculum development process and i think that's a great thing because i know we all want to communicate right we all want to work together and i think that's a very positive step that the school board could take for transparency okay i think transparency means

055that you should let people know when they call you and answer questions about what curriculum is being considered that's just a good thing right i actually don't even live in bedford and amherst but i contacted their curriculum person they told me exactly what curriculum they're considering and yet i live right here in lynchburg and i can't get dr jordan to even call me back even though her assistant promised me she would so that's kind of a problem right i'm paying for the schools i can't get questions answered and i think all of us would love to have some input right into curriculum decisions everybody all my neighbors right and so i think having a transparent curriculum committee as part of your task force is my one ask okay that's my prayer is that you will

056be receptive to that anybody here that would love to be part of it i'd love to join with my neighbors and meet with people on this and then we can give recommendations to you as to curriculum that's being considered as well as our superintendent dr edwards and i'd love to be part of it number two request is that you table the equity document why because i think that is an example of where we as a community can talk things out and give you some positive feedback and so why not table it what is the harm in rushing that through when we as the citizens haven't any time to even get familiar with it right i'd love to get all my brothers and sisters i actually had a nice talk with reverend cunningham when i first

057got here and we had a nice chat with each other i'd love to sit on a curriculum committee with reverend cunningham if you'd like to be part of it or frankly anybody in the community right and why not listen to the citizens that are paying for the schools what's the harm there's no harm that's transparency so maybe delay table the equity document let us know i don't even know what dr you know edward's ideas for what part of the doe equity navigating that navigating equity documents she wants to put forward because i can tell you i've read that document it is extremely radical it basically says if you believe in colorblindness which is what my hero martin luther king believed in then you're not a culturally competent teacher that's pretty radical right that us i

058bet some of you all in here believe that color blindness is good right my fellow neighbor just said we all bleed the same blood i'm with you where is he that was great we all bleed the same blood i believe that a hundred percent that's what acts 17 26 said god has made us of one blood right so why in the world should we push an equity document that has all these implications for completely changing our curriculum when me and all my fellow brothers and sisters i think agree that equality equal treatment 14th amendment of the constitution and justice for all is something we can all agree to right i cried i cried when floyd had that put on his nick that was as horrif maybe different levels horrific i don't know but i cried

059okay i was in pain over that okay i've spent my life dedicated to multicultural education i've been to 47 countries i worked in the u.s embassy in ghana okay and i believe that we're all one blood i firmly believe that but we can't push an equity agenda that's not american it's out of marxist maoist roots now i'm all for equality but there's a big difference between equity and there's a huge difference between equality equality of opportunity is what our constitution upholds equity is redistribution of income and frankly it basically says that we're going to use reverse discrimination and if you don't believe me listen to ibrahim kennedy ibrahim kennedy says quote the only remedy to pass discrimination is present discrimination the only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination now if you don't think this

060is happening under the guise of equity do your homework i've got 700 pages of documentation on this because god put it on my heart to stop any discrimination from any side you get it that's where my heart is doctor apprentice excellent let me just make sure um it's her time uh you're more than welcome to come back dr printer thank you for what you've shared to us tonight thank you so much okay thank you and god bless you all thank you so much of community and harmony thank you so much next speaker how much time do we have left you have one minute uh jeffrey uh please forgive me if i have it wrong please come up and use your one minute please come right on up uh subject is critical race theory would you

061like me to cut it short or may i read what i have prepared i'm being told you have one minute all right well i'll cut it short excuse me as a point order i'd like to uh i guess suspend the rules and allow the speaker to speak for three minutes or individual i assume oh thank you all right uh thank you dr nilas he has indicated to create a suspending of the rules that is not debatable and it will require two-thirds of affirmative vote at this time and so madame clerk if you could please call the roll if you vote yes we will suspend the rules and give him two additional minutes being the last speaker i would assume for this period of time if you vote no then he will have to stay with

062one with one minute uh call the roll please scoop scoop up moment doctor roast yes school but member dr morrison yes google dr brennan yes um dr carter yes uber mama dr coleman yes dr nellis yes google mama dr sinha yeah schuberman dr gupta yes mr harvey yes most encouraged now to zero all right you have three minutes mr wuters go right ahead thank you members of the school board for the additional time and good evening my name is jeffrey wuters i'm a rising senior at ec glass high school and central virginia governor's school and i'm here to speak on the subject of critical race theory in lynchburg city schools you know i am really continually impressed by the ability of many individuals to appear in public spaces and spew total nonsense into a microphone

063the latest conservative boogeyman to get this treatment much like transgender children sharia law and evolution is critical race theory psychologically fragile white people have latched on to the idea that our public schools are indoctrinating our children to believe in radical leftist ideas like critical race theory seeing as we're at a school board meeting though i think it's fitting to learn what it is we're talking about here are some things that critical race theory is the american bar association lays out four pillars of critical race theory the first is that race is not biologically real but socially constructed and significant the second is the acknowledgement that racism is a normal feature of society and is embedded within systems and institutions such as the criminal justice system the third is the rejection of popular understandings about racism

064such as the bad apple argument and the fourth is the recognition of how people of color's everyday lives are relevant to scholarship it is a system of inquiry that is over 40 years old and seeks to expose how racism is embedded in our laws and policies it is a way for this nation to reckon with and begin to make up for its racist past here are some things that critical race theory is not it is not the assumption that racism occurs in every interaction it is not the indoctrination of children into anti-american values it is not the belief that participation in society is inherently the same as racism and it's not being taught in our schools and nor is it part of any curriculum at best it's a college level concept covered with many others

065in 400 level law classes the real motives though of anti-critical race theory activists are far more sinister the claims i mentioned earlier are made by those who either don't understand the ideas they're speaking on or are intentionally misrepresenting the truth or both opposition to critical race theory is just one symptom of a fascist disease sweeping through our country the real aim of conservative demagogues is to prohibit the teaching of true american history in favor of a heavily whitewashed and christianized version of the true facts that feeds to hypernationalism and fascism white folks are so terrified of losing their societal power that they regularly engage in a downright orwellian fabrication of the truth and that i suppose they're right critical race theory is un-american but only because america past and present is so inextricably linked to

066racism that the two are now impossible to divorce members of the school board and those of the public watching now i urge you to take a firm stand against fascism and reject the extreme right wing rhetoric from those who would oppose inclusion and anti-racism thank you and thank you again for the extra time all right thank you mr wuters this will conclude our public comments section we do want to thank bishop key reverend cunningham reverend hutchinson it's jamie mccoy pastor hailstock mr floyd dr mary prentice and jeffrey wooters all of those who did not have an opportunity to speak we will certainly give opportunity uh to you in the future and we will move airmen coleman i would request that the board consider suspending the rules so the remainder of the individuals here who signed

067up to speak some of who left work over an hour early to do so be allowed to speak thank you so much sir the rules of the board are in order and i do want to advise the board that we have rules that we use to govern ourselves for each session and we can talk about at some future point how we would handle these types of matters going forward but this board has any school board member may make that motion yes sir thank you for your comments uh we will now move on in our agenda to section f for finance report uh you just submitted the rules to allow someone else to speak but you are preventing the rest of you thank you sir we will observe the rules of the board as they stand

068we will now go thank you thank you so much sir section f of our meeting finance report may 2021 financial report miss laconic thank you so much there will be no disruption in the board meeting thank you sir thank you sir mr carnage yes good evening um this evening i'm going to be presenting the finance report through may 31st 2021 the adjusted budget is remains at the 101 million 886 769.97 and just to remind it that's made up of the original adopted budget that was approved by the board it also includes the addition of the 2019-20 open pos that we were allowed to carry over plus the additional funds that from prior year fund balance that we were able to bring back from the city so that brings us to that total the revenue received

069to date we have received 80.08 percent um the expenditures to date we have received 81.56 the expenditures today including encumbrances and in that encumbrance we are referring to open pos for your non-personnel items and it also includes your contracted obligations what the contracts you've issued to your employees it sets those those funds aside so with those encumbrances you're at 96.05 percent of your budget we have attached the revenue report and the expenditure port through those through the time period for the state revenue we are we're we're looking very strong our sales tax if you look at that report i do think on the attachment it is a little misleading because all of the other state revenue comes in through june 30th your sales tax there is a delay because there's a two-month delay receiving the

070funds as such we do recognize july as the prior year august does get deferred so when you're looking at your may report and you see that the sales tax receipt is down at 88 percent it actually you still have the month of june as well as july and we are actually doing very very well in our sales tax the other item revenue items they're going along as we have talked about in previous meetings the one area that we are seeing that were not meeting the budget was the area of charges for services and we have discussed that we do not have the bus rentals a lot of these facility rentals due to covet but i'm willing to ask answer any questions you have on that we also did put in the expenditure report that will

071give you the expenditures by your major categories so you have the categories of instruction you have attendance and health and just a reminder those are the things that the board approves the budget by those major categories and for us to transfer we have to give back to the board for that one thing i did want to point out and we had discussed it previously is under the administration where you see the overages those are when we did those reclassification from positions that you will not see that next year when we're going forward in this budget do you have any other questions thank you mr conde any questions from the board concerning the finance report saying no uh comments thank you miss laconic for your able work in that area thank you so much we will

072now move to section g of our agenda which is the consent agenda and uh members of the board you have six items here uh school board minute meetings june 1st 2021 school board work session minutes june 15 2021 there is a human resource report and human resource report addendum that was just added three and four our school board uh middle school program was studied for 2021 2022 and religious exemption what is the pleasure of the board concerning the consent agenda their motion to approve their citizen agenda the move then we approve the consent agenda the move by dr carter is there a second a second second by dr brennan that we will approve our consent agenda no questions or discussion we'll ask if the clerk would call the role google remember dr toast yes google

073ms morrison yes google member dr vernon yes group of member doctor carter yes school book remember dr coleman yes dr nellis yes google mama doctor sennheiser yes um dr gupta yes mr harvey yes ocean curry is nine to zero thank you very much thank you boy we will now move to section h of our agenda which are the school board member reports and of course we are going to have discussion on this for next week but we do want to see if there's continued work that has been ongoing uh finance committee mr harvey no report thank you mr harvey governor school mr harvey yes the governor's school had a call meeting on june 30th wednesday june 30th for the subject of coordinating the gov school year calendar to align with that of lynchburg city schools

074very quick any questions for mr harvey thank you mr harvey h3 law regional dr carter no report but the next lower regional board will be august the 25th at 10 o'clock a.m thank you dr carter stem academy dr nillas the stem academy accelerate partnership team had a meeting zoom meeting on june 23rd it was basically a a report out on on the year for the for the stem academy including all the partners that are involved that was uh informative as always and stem academy uh when the last time i reported had some openings but at this point they are full and so overall was uh positive and i think they're looking forward to getting out from the coveted restrictions and doing some fundraising and then improving some internship opportunities for for students so thank you

075very good thank you so much dr dr nellis h5 our legislative advocacy committee we will of course govern ourselves accordingly next week and thank each of you for all of your individual advocacy and our collective advocacy as a school board all right there are no questions concerning that we'll move to uh section i unfinished business and item one and the only item under unfinished business which is for action tonight and so this is an action item and we're going to now ask dr edwards to lead us as we talk about fiscal management policy updates okay so these uh policies were presented at the last school board meeting miss laconic went over the vsba changes and two of them are new to lcs and you have them before you i have not received any additional questions

076have you missed a clinic i have not okay so unless you want us to review them dr edwards i think that the board has had a first reading and so we would entertain any further questions or discussion at this time and certainly a motion when it's appropriate the movie to approve the fiscal management policy updates these are pretty straightforward a second then moved by dr nilla seconded by ms morrison that we would approve these policies adopt them as stated in further questions or discussion hearing none we will all vote uh in the manner of voting and we will ask that our clerk would please call the role school board member mr trust yes school board member mrs morrison yes group of women dr brennan yes google moment dr carter yes school board member dr coleman

077yes uber member dr nellis yes school board member dr sinha yes google member dr gupta yes school board member mr javi yes motion carries nine to zero thank you madam clerk we're now in section j new business and the first item that we have for tonight is our virginia education foundation book donation and dr edwards if you can lead us in on that absolutely from time to time we receive donations and when those donations total and this one is about 333 thousand dollars a little over that we bring that to the board for acceptance and just a discussion regarding the donation and this one happens to be for books and i'm going to turn it over to deputy superintendent pew for a quick overview and answer any questions absolutely thank you so as you see

078before you the virginia education foundation provides books for our elementary and middle school students they select it's by invitation and they select the districts to receive the books based on low income and lunch program data they would like to donate approximately twenty two thousand six hundred 682 books and that's the retail value is as dr edwards said is a little over 333 thousand dollars the books are screened and vetted and selected by staff at virginia education foundation major publishers have worked with them for many years and they donate the books uh to them that are still in print or being reprinted so these are not books that are out of print at this time they review each title carefully for content and topic and they reclu include resources and reviews from the school library journal

079the american library association kirkus and bank street college of education as part of their selection process when they look at the books they are very confident in their selection of the titles as it reflects both on the credibility and standards of virginia education foundation as well as the publishers that are donating the books there are a wide range of topics included in their selection and reflects varied interests and experiences of students most of the titles that they will be sending us are fiction with a few non-fiction selections included the selections include picture books chapter books easy to read chapter books and some classics that are still in print all of which are at very varied reading levels for our students in kindergarten through eighth grade um one of the selections that they have in in

080this donation if we are to receive it is a wrinkle in time and not only do they send that but they also send a journal with writing prompts so that they're together so that they can look at those and the students can use that journal um to go through the writing prompts there so they're really focused on supporting literacy efforts and getting students interested in reading if approved by the board tonight we'll be receiving approximately 14 pallets of books and that's a lot and we recognize that misty fretwell who is our textbook coordinator has secured warehouse space to accept that delivery misty along with courtney bennett who is our division literacy specialist um we'll partner with uh ethel reeves our director of community equity and community relations to get the books into the hands and

081homes of our students so these books will not be distributed and sitting on the shelves in our libraries or in our classrooms these books are intended to be in the hands and homes of our students we are really excited about this opportunity to partner with the virginia education foundation to bring quality books into home libraries across our community so i will answer any questions that i'm able to answer um and then i'm asking that you um approve the acceptance of this donation thank you um deputy superintendent and so j1 is an action item and is there any questions that the board has you certainly can raise them uh we'll start with school board member trolls and then dr brennan miss pew are there any stipulations associated with accepting the donation they would like for us

082to acknowledge um the receipt of the books they would like for us to if we do a thank you note but to include if we do a press release to include them in that and just an acknowledgement of the project they do ask for an in-kind donation to them to help support shipping and storage and delivery of the books and we are able to use cares funds to do that we are offering one dollar per book to to support that so the total would be north of twenty thousand dollars the the total of that would be uh the yeah a little over twenty two thousand dollars and then uh when does this donation has to be be accepted by well they have the books ready to ship and they would like they they're ready to

083ship them tomorrow if we accept the donation they will hold them un until we are ready and acknowledge that their their donation and has anyone in the lynchwork city school system vetted the titles to see if it's appropriate for children in the k-8 grades right now we don't have a list of those titles but i feel confident that the virginia education foundation has already vetted the titles um there are other divisions around us that have participated in this for many years richmond roanoke danville and rico louisa culpepper that have received donations from them year after year so i'm confident in my discussions with them that they have vetted the books their reputation is at stake if they are sending books that are not of an appropriate topic and content for our students okay that's all

084i have thank you thank you school board member trolls uh school board member brennan so uh attorney chose to address most of my questions and mr thank you so much for the explanation about where they're coming from and what the titles are that's a huge help but just to clarify the last part that you said so what we're saying it's virginia education foundation donate book donation but we actually do pay a dollar for each book so it is twenty two thousand dollars they ask for that that in-kind donation to help with the shipping to help with the delivery um to help with the storage of the books in in their warehouse and so other other divisions are using cares funds and we would propose the same use of cares funds to to pay for that

085thank you thank you sir any any further questions yeah dr nellis yeah i had uh asked for some some of the same information that uh member trust asked for and uncomfortable with accepting a donation we don't know what's in there just relying on their reputation and basically it's trust me um you know i would like some details about what specific titles they certainly should have a list of have an inventory what's what's going out so uh it may not be a convenient list to distribute but i you know i'm not willing to approve this at this point with without uh any additional details thank you dr nillas any further thoughts a motion in order to attempt to support this or not support this at this time dr carter mrs pugh you stated that they have

086been vetted by reputable before they accept the donations from the publishers the the staff at virginia education foundation that the books so they they are using resources um part of their selection process they're looking at resources and reviews from the school library journal american library association kirkus which is another review company and bank street college of education in their selection process so they will not accept any book books that they feel are uh controversy she um said you know that they look for um politics religion um and then she used the phrase sex drugs and rock and roll so i mean they're not looking they're they're really looking at the books critically before they accept them to into their warehouse to donate them out thank you vice chair dr nellis i moved to defer the

087vote on this till the next um board meeting and pending additional information i second that specific titles it has been moved and seconded that we would refer that to the next meeting and that is a simple majority would pass it or would not pass it any further questions or discussion mr harvey can i can i ask what the stipulations would be for the delay in that what what additional information that my my colleagues would like to see so that information can be clearly transmitted to the administration to provide for the school board prior to our meeting next next time dr nellis if you can speak to your motion a list of titles i will reach out tomorrow and see if they will send me a list of titles thank you and and if i may

088add i don't i'm not that familiar with the cares act money but i want to make sure we're spending 22 000 of money that's allocated to lynchburg city school children that we're going to get the best bang for the buck and that's so maybe someone can uh enlighten me in terms of where that money comes from and how it's allocated and i'm sure it's not unlimited so i just want to make sure 22 000 bucks is being spent wisely and really hitting the bottom line for our children because that's what i'm here to do thank you all right if there are no further questions or discussion the motion is that this would be placed on the agenda for our july the 20th work session and this item that we're referring to is item j1 if

089you're in favor indicate by saying i if you're not then you would vote nay or no uh madam clerk uh we have further questions please don't mean that you want wanted to be delayed yes i'm sorry i did not hear that i didn't yes if you vote in yes you are in favor of the motion which would put it on the agenda for next week and we would not vote on it tonight thank you madam clerk please call the roll scuba mama trust yes school board member morrison yes ooh but remember dr vernon yes billboard dr carter no school but mama dr coleman no school but mama dr nellis yes yes dr gupta yes mr harvey yes that announced the total i'm sorry thank you madam clerk and so that item will not be acted

090upon tonight and will be on the agenda for next meeting uh thank you board uh for your deliberation j2 is now a discussion around our governance policy updates and there are several and uh dr edwards yes so the governance policy work group met on excuse me june 9th to discuss some lynchburg city school updates as well as vsba updates this is not for vote tonight this is the first reading so this is a great time to have that discussion and and questions and then we will move items to the work session for um second reading and more questions and possible approval so let me just i know you have the policies attached to the board docs but i just kind of want to go over them especially for the public i will start with all

091of the vsba updates so policy ac vsba changed the language from veteran status to military status so it was a language change in policy a d which is educational philosophy again there were some deletions in deleting some descriptors such as maximum or highest degree as well as you will notice that vsba is going through all of their policies as they're up for revision to adjust pronouns to remove the gender-specific pronouns so there is an adjustment in a.d in policy bca which is the school board organizational meeting again the sba has made language changes to change the tense from future tense what the board will do to present tense so you'll just see some crossouts regarding the tense in policy bdd participation in meetings from remote locations vsba added some language we previously said that you

092could miss two meetings they have added language to that or 25 of the meetings whichever is greater and i think they recognize that school boards are meeting more than once a month um so limiting it to two if you have more than one meeting a month will give you a little bit more so 25 percent was added uh policy cbg which is the evaluation of the superintendent again there was language change to remove gender uh specific he she for the superintendent to just the superintendent and in policy chz the policy implementation is the title of that policy again vsba made language changes to remove future tents for what the board will do to present tense so those seven policies the changes were minor they were all vsba changes in addition we reviewed policy bhd and

093let me remind you that this review was on june 9th so before we had our work session on june 16th which may have reflected some changes and this was not a vsba update this was an lcs change based on what is allowable by code and you will see that there are two separate sections the first section references that school board members may now receive a stipend as allowable by law that's twenty four hundred dollars for school board members and then an additional two thousand dollars for the member who also serves as the chair um which is the allowable stipend and we just left it allowable by law should the law change and the amount change we're covered by that uh the other part of the policy well along with that we crossed out what was

094previously in the policy which said board members would receive no compensation that was our previous policy so once we entertain a discussion about stipend if you're going to give a stipend you have to cross that language out the second paragraph that was discussed on june 9th also offers board members the option uh to be eligible to present participate i'm sorry in the health insurance plan the works that uh work group has not met since june 9th so we did not make any changes as a result of any previous board discussions after june 9th and wanted to bring that back for discussion and also just say that i know there are additional questions regarding the health insurance this is not up for vote and we can certainly i know we're working on answering some of those

095questions and we will we can bring it back at the june um next july 20th i'm sorry work session or even at a later date if it if we still have more discussion on that but i wanted the board to just know what the changes were all right everybody thank you dr edwards take a deep breath because we certainly are going to afford each board member to ask any questions or thoughts i do want to just simply ask i know that our school board attorney uh is scheduled to be with us until seven i just wanted to see if she's still with us attorney towns are you with us at this time yes i am all right members if you have any questions to our school board attorney she is available at this time dr

096brennan so this is a question related to um policy bdd which is electronic participation in meetings from remote locations and it certainly can be addressed between now and our next meeting but as dr edwards pointed out one of the changes is it says that either a board member can participate by from a remote location either at two meetings or uh 25 of the number of meetings whichever is the greater number and my question is are our do we is our board meeting which is the first tuesday of the month and our work session which is the third tuesday month are they both official meetings so there would be a total of 24 meetings per year 25 of that which would be six meetings you could you could be absent for yes perfect thank you very

097much for clarifying that thank you dr brent brennan other board members on any of the listed uh policies that are before us mr harvey yes i'd like to address a bhd yes as their board voted at their last meeting yes the portion regarding the division's health insurance program i believe should be stricken from bht before the policies brought before the board for a vote that would be correct mr harvey and i think dr edward stated while it was still here but that is correct and of course in the conversation amongst the board regarding that matter any other comments or thoughts concerning any of the policies i'm sorry mr gerry can you clarify that one more time that what's going to happen to pilot that i'm understanding we're going to leave then i agree with mr

098harvey i think the board decided that we're going to delete that but it sounded like we were going to leave it for the discussion for next time but i kind of think that well thank you dr brennan and and the chair will entertain discussion of record in our previous meeting what's the date on that doctor edwards so we can have that it's june 15th june 15th me don't let me not lie [Music] make sure the right date and as she's getting the date on that date there was a motion to remove the health insurance plan from bhd and that vote passed eight to one and so at this time technically that is no longer a part of bhd even though the policy has never been voted on itself so that is why it was left

099there because the policy has not been approved which really means item one two three or even the excising of school board members shall receive no compensation really are still open for discussion until the policy itself is adopted but we have a policy but any changes to the policy would have to be adopted so dr brennan at this point that's kind of where we are and from conversation with the superintendent these policies would be moved to the work session next week for a vote now if there are any thoughts from the board as to what's in either of these policies it would be helpful that someone would express that so that we can know that about any policy mr harvey yeah i i think it's only fair for us as board members to provide guidance to

100those who are writing the policies to present to us before we vote i think the clear intent i hope the clear intent from this board was that that section was to be removed from the policy so i would like to state at this time that i understood the intent from this board to be to remove that portion from bhd that would remove school board members from receiving the insurance from the from the school system and participating within the health insurance program provided by lcs i want to recognize dr gupta i think that the board's vote would agree with you sir at president dr gupta my understanding is there was two different votes the vote last time was about the budget this is about the policy so as the chair stated next time we'll be voting

101on the policy and that could be even taking out the stipend if the board wants the policy to have no stipend so be it so this is the rule of the board this will be the policy of the board going forward very well stated dr gupta it is somewhat complicated but it's not but that is accurate in what you just said and attorney towns you're welcome to weigh in if necessary uh concerning this but it's the understanding of the board that the health insurance would not be included in bhd at this time even though the policy itself has not been voted on which gives a gateway for further discussion mr harvey i just want to be clear yes what i understand that is being stated is that this policy as it's drafted right now will

102appear before this board at our next work session to be voted upon i believe from what i heard from our board at our last meeting that this should be removed from this policy before it is presented to this board to be voted there's a point of order mr harvey i'd suggest you just make a motion we amend the draft policy and move forward movement chair acknowledge that all right mr i'd like to make a motion that we remove the second paragraph of bhd from this policy before it's presented to this board for a all right as a committee of the whole that is certainly appropriate there's a motion in the floors there's second to that motion our chair asks one more time is there a second to that motion there is no second i'm starving

103further discussion at this time i guess i would i want to be a general comment um sorry oh you go the work sessions are generally supposed to be focused on particular topics and and not work or not normal board business okay items so i would personally i prefer these anything coming back up for its second reading should come up at a business meeting which would be the next one is what yeah that's my next business meeting is august the third to my knowledge and yes session and so once again the chair is open the floor for discussion because we're having some philosophical perspectives here and i think it's healthy for the board to discuss it clearly there's some board members that have a notion of the work session one way and there are some others

104who have other notions i just want to remind the board that over the last couple of years or so votes have been taken doing work sessions wherein they were time sensitive matters or matters that we dealt with in a work session over the long arm of work sessions dr nellis point is well taken and so really as a check in rule one way or the other the board itself would have to speak to that and that's why we have a discussion but both the superintendent and the chair making it clear that this is not up for a vote to tonight and it can come back up whenever the poet says that it is to come back up well there's a additional motivation it gives us a little more time to kind of talk stuff talk

105things through i hear you sir no so if i could help us out some am i hearing tonight that we will bring this i don't know for sure what i'm hearing tell me what we're saying before just come back for the the vote at the next business meeting which would be august the third and that would give persons an opportunity to delve through reflections etc i don't want to put the superintendent on the spot but i do want board members to be clear on what this actually means relative to any part of bhd yes so our current policy that's in place bhd says that board members do not receive a stipend or any compensation outside of what you would get reimbursed for travel and until the po even though there's money that you voted that

106we could do that until the policies changed we cannot take action to give you a stipend um so if we move this to the august meeting and then it let's just say it it gets approved and then from there we can start the process of enacting a stipend and or stipend and health insurance but i just wanted folks to be clear about what the existing policy that's in place has that language that says no compensation thank you doctor with dr gupta what you're basically saying is it'll be paid retroactively if somebody is opting to gets typed in correct uh thank you school board member gupta so i believe that the spirit of what dr nillas is suggesting i don't know if it would just be isolated to bhd but that all of these policies would

107really be on the august 3rd meeting unless there's any of them that we want to hear next week well may i thank you question about that just for the full board and and to dr nellis point because one of the things that we heard over last year and we're always a growing and learning organization is that when we do first reading it is important for the full board to hear the discussion when administration brings it similar to what i did today kind of walk you through this is what vsba is saying this is what lcs is saying it's a little easier when vspa is making pronoun changes it's a little harder when there's more content what we had proposed to do going forward is at work sessions where there are more discussion time much more

108discussion time to have that be the first reading or the first look through get all the questions the discussions board members have the benefit of hearing each other's questions because you may not even have thought of that and someone else said oh that was a great question and then at the business meeting the regular business meeting is when we would actually take action on these policies this is one of the leftover ones because the policy work group met in june so the timing is is a little off um on that as is the one miss la carnage presented as well because we the the fiscal policy group also met but going forward if it's okay with the board we would bring first reading full discussion all board ears hearing the same thing at a work

109session and then we would put those on the following business meeting for a vote so thank you dr edwards for the clarity that's kind of been the way we've been trying to go about this of course the board we can revisit it but with that understanding i have no problem uh dr cena please i just have a question for clarification i realize there's a distinction between voting on a budget and voting on a policy so if we if we would were to vote on this policy the way it's written with that second paragraph in there then would we be obligating ourselves to have that in the budget to be in compliance with the policy dr center that is a great question and between the superintendent and mr conish i think some information that may have

110already been shared but just to clarify the relationship between city council's decision our decision and where that money actually is at the present time i'm currently the the funds that we had set aside during the discussion they are still in the budget because when the board opted at the last meeting to remove it it was too far along and you we would not have had a balanced budget going forward if this policy is in place when i'm working on the budget i would want to have it there in case because i don't know what the with the board makeup is going to be you would want to have that budget i do understand that issue and i'm i'm comfortable with that because in the whole scheme of things the full budget the the line item

111itself is is not that significant but that's really not getting at my question we voted not to fund it so we should be operating as if that money is not in the budget correct you voted not to fund it so we should be operating as if it's not eligible to receive it correct so then if we were to approve so again i'm just trying to very good trying to understand if we were to approve this budget to leave it or this policy sort of as a placeholder or to leave it open for the next cycle of school board should we change our mind if it's approved as written are we not complying with the policy because we voted not to fund it that's my question i'll take a first step the school board attorney or

112anyone can come in as i understand parliamentary procedure anyone who voted on the prevailing side of that motion would have to bring that back up so for instance it could not be me because i was not on the prevailing side if that motion is brought up by someone on the prevailing side then that motion could be brought up in whatever way and the things would be in harmony if that would be the will of the board but that's the only way that that could be changed it couldn't be changed because i bring it up i'm just speaking practically and uh mr harvey so i'd just like to understand point of clarification what i understand that dr nilas has explained is that this policy will be reviewed again at our work session we will not be

113voting upon this policy at our work session we will have the opportunity to give feedback to the administration to change this policy prior to us voting on it at the following board meeting which would be our august board meeting is that correct it's two ways to look at it one way to look at it is that this policy could be presented on august the third without the second sentence and then there would have to be board discussion and action on that to get it back in the policy or the board i'm thinking that's what it would be yeah that's pretty much it and the only the reason why we did we took no action to change what occurred on june 9th is on june 9th this is what was discussed so in transparency we wanted

114to bring to the board this is what was discussed on june 9th we understand that on june 15th the board took some action but this is what was discussed and how do you want to handle that and as you said this could come back on august 23rd with that paragraph removed as a result of a prior vote or some you know a non-prevailing person could or the prevailing side could say that this is we want to make a change and we want to change the vote that we had on june 15th and subsequently support this but either way there needs to be a discussion about that paragraph i believe that the stipend part is not in question but because the two are in that policy and that policy dictates the action failure to take action

115on that policy just means we stay at status quo no compensation for anyone all right dr sinha just to check my understanding so then um i lost my train of thought so then take your time taking that paragraph out we would be consistent between what we funded in the budget and what the policy is they would be in sync you would be consistent in what you approved as what board members are eligible to receive correct and what our practices in terms of what our policy says you're eligible to receive thank you all right dr gupta the funding is still there and that's the issue the word funding is still there the funding was approved and the approved by the city as well as the school board no no it was not yeah because the money

116still in there but we did not approved it the line item will stay if we if we take this out what happens to the line item the the funding is in the benefits account the health and benefits account with all the other money that's in health and benefits account your vote just your vote from last time said that you all are not eligible to pull from that funding and as we've done in the past with any funding in that account it stays there we use it as the if we have you know major catastrophic events which i'm hoping we do not none of our our family members have any our staff members and their families suffer from that but if we need it to fund our health insurance that's the first place that we go

117we don't we try not to touch our health reserve over at the city if we can kind of cover it that's where the money is sitting at the end of the year all of the money that's sitting wherever gets rolled into a fund balance discussion and we have that discussion so what i think i'm hearing the wisdom coming from dr nillas is that let's let's have people have an opportunity to raise questions have proper opportunities to do whatever have the administration to come back and provide whatever information and then we will take a look at vhd and that'll be coming before you without the second piece in it but discussions could make that different and i think we heard public comments tonight and there are other thoughts that are circulating around i think that's the

118best i can say on that issue so we can move forward dr nellis is that all right yeah okay absolutely all right now we still have the host of other policies that are part of this uh what we want all of them to be on august the third or what you like to do with the others on the work session i think we should leave it for a business meeting yeah all right the board has spoken so all of those items under j-2 will appear uh in our august 3rd business meeting uh mr harvey so so i i just want to understand the procedure what we're seeing is now we will review the first read of policies at a school board meeting work session work well this is what i want to clarify the first

119read will happen at a school board meeting then we will have a work session in which we can make changes to those policies and then vote at the following board meeting no no what if you don't mind th this is um i guess going forward where we're at right now is a little it's an anomaly so what will happen in the future is this would come to us at our work session which would be next week for the first reading and then could be voted on at a business meeting assuming there's at least two weeks in between and frankly that's when i was first on the board that's what we used to do with the work sessions as we did deep dives into the policies so you know i'm perfectly fine with that that's a

120focus that's a work session it's you know limited in scope my initial comment was we're doing a lot of stuff spilling over into the work sessions and you know i get that there's a lot a lot going on but it's just i think just a matter of a little board discipline that we really try to keep the work sessions to specific things and minimize the actual business i mean there's always exceptions and then we're going to have to do that but it just we seem to be drifting into that was the practice was to have a lot of business at the work session so that was my initial comment um and and this is just gonna this will not come to us at the work session next week that is these policies they will come

121to us at the august business meeting thank you for that clarification i would support and thank you mr harvey for your question everybody clear and so with that level of clarity we will move forward i do want the public to know that we were not voting on the non-discrimination or any of these others tonight anyway and so that's that all right j3 inclusivity update uh dr edwards absolutely um and i have some invited guest and uh ethel reeves and latonya brown are here our directors to talk a little bit about inclusivity especially as we approach next fall five days a week having all of our kids back in school and we recognize that we are going to need to tend to the social emotional learning mental wellness and health of our children and we want

122to make sure that our learning environment is not only academically rigorous because we heard a lot about learning loss but these are our children so there's a lot more that we need to talk about in terms of helping our children grow and develop and creating a learning environment where every child can thrive so my two dynamic directors here have a presentation for us that just kind of reaffirms some of the things that we want to do for all of our kids and i'm going to turn it to director reeves and director brown thank you good evening dr coleman chairman of the board dr carter vice chair and other members of the board lynchburg city schools is committed to creating a safe learning environment that is both equitable and inclusive to support our students and employees

123in this presentation we will share current policies that govern how we address discrimination harassment and bullying within our school division everyone is welcome at lcs last year's data indicates that we had approximately 7 500 students from which we can share our demographics approximately 49 of our students identify as black approximately 32 percent identify as white 10 percent identify with two or more races seven percent as hispanic and one percent as asian point three percent as american indian and point one percent as native hawaiian also note 59 percent are economically disadvantaged 17 percent are students with disabilities and about 3 percent are english language learners everyone is welcome at lcs not only are they welcome but we as an educational system continue to provide all students with what they need to be successful to do this

124we work with the virginia department of education and believe education equity is achieved when we eliminate the predictability of student outcomes based on race gender zip code ability socioeconomic status or languages spoken at home as you see on the graphic equity is the center and at the heart of all we do operationalizing systemic equity begins with understanding the difference between equality and equity referencing the diagram that you see on the screen when the system provides equal inputs all getting the same amount of sunlight and water although our plants are different they will survive with equity and equity in our system we have differentiation so in this case the plants again all different are receiving different amounts of sunlight and water in the educational system our students who are all different need to be provided with

125varying resources and instructional methods to meet their needs when this occurs they will thrive our mission every child by name and by need to graduation is one that we believe it's one that we believe in and it's one that we are working to accomplish director latonya brown will share with you the policies that governors and the practices we use to make all of this happen lynchburg city schools has always been committed to treating all students with dignity and respect as well as providing a safe learning environment free from discrimination and harassment nothing has changed within the last two years lcs has been committed to reviewing each policy to make sure we're looking at them through an equity lens what we want you to take away tonight is how we transfer policy into practice and guidance

126for our staff students parents and guardians the way we build relationships with our students and create safe spaces about putting policies into practices so let's take a closer look virginia tiered systems of supports and positive behavior intervention systems are support systems that work on several underlying principles such as academics behaviors and social emotional learning they're all often interrelated we are committed to helping all students succeed this happens when our schools support our students needs through the tier excuse me the three tiers of support using three tiers of support we bring our students parents guardians staff and community members through student and parent guardian supports as well as engagement and leadership development to fight for human rights of every young person to quality education and to be treated with dignity when i talk about virginia tiered

127systems of supports and i talk about positive behavior intervention systems this is something that has been ongoing for several years here we've brought these strategies here in hopes to develop our students to develop our staff and to help them work together as one as a team of one our focus is to focus on the academic supports by tears and there are three tiers for my new board members and i can go into a further training of these supports at another time okay when we're talking about three tiers of supports when we're looking at that equity lens what do we do across for that tier one for all students that are universal tier two my next percent what do we do that are specific to grow our students that academic behavioral emotional needs that little extra

128maybe 101 or pull out services or some check-ins checkouts that our students might need that tier three what do we need to do for community resources what do we need to do for the highest level of professional support that we can offer our students staff or community members in order for them to have dignity make them feel respected and make them feel safe within that learning environment that we offer not only just the students but our staff every single day within lcs virginia tier systems that supports in pbis is our lcs way of what we do and how we do it on a daily basis each school day when students should be benefiting from a safe and healthy school environment conducive to learning sexual harassment assault and other forms of intimidation compromised their lives at

129an alarming rate we as a school divisi division acknowledge that in an effort to ensure our students are safe from these behaviors we have implemented some of the following things unity day which occurs every october lcs wells orange excuse me and we share orange to show unity for kindness acceptance and inclusion and to send a visible message that no child should ever experience bullying additionally we have trained and provided procedures to follow on reporting cyber bullying a harassment intimidation and bullying handbook and checklist for staff and students we've also come up with a bullying letter and a follow-up letter and resources for the parents that we work with in regards to bullying investigations lastly we have ongoing resources for our school counselors and our other student supports that work with our community and our families

130when we're addressing bullying harassment or intimidation an effective august 2020 the implementation of gaggle which is our online management system that alerts our staff and any safety threat and occurs excuse me or concerns involving our students social and emotional learning is a process in which we engage our students in a way to build relationships and can lead to unforeseen yet positive outcomes next slide i'm sorry my laptop just died i was charging it but my charger died too [Laughter] for the 2021 school year social emotional learning resources were made available to all our students pre-k through 12. both virtually and in person we had started doing social emotional learning before then but last year we wanted to make sure that we reached our remote students virtually these resources were specifically designed according to the grade

131level noting that social emotional learning is based upon the five core competencies which are self-awareness self-management social awareness relationship skills and responsible decision making in closing all students of lcs have great potential they attend school with the expectation of feeling safe and inclusive free from discrimination and harassment it is our job to create this environment in which their potential can flourish it is also our responsibility to ensure that the visions policies guidelines and practices are inclusive of all students excuse me and we ensure that they are treated equally with dignity and respect as a division i often say when we finish event we are a team of one this is the lcs way when you see our departments when you see directors together you see us as one when we work within the schools we

132are a team as one as we're bridging the needs of our students and our families we have to do that as a team of one in order to do that we have to implement policies give guidance but making sure that we are doing that through that equity lens and that equity i and all of the new things that director reeves is starting to educate us on with that i yield to dr reese any questions we want to thank both of you and the floor is open for any questions of course this is for information tonight and very very nicely presented board members mr harvey first off i want to thank you both for your presentation i would ask can you go back to your slide equity versus equality yes i think this diagram is excellent

133to me this really shows the discussion that's going on within our community right now because when we talk about um equality it's it's everything is exactly the same and that's something that we can measure you know everybody got the exact same water of each of these plants got the exact same water and each of these plants got the exact same sunshine equality requires a system of trust trust in lcs that we as our teachers administration our school board all are working to provide what each plant individually needs and i think that's what we need to encourage from our community a level of trust in lcs to provide for our plants our students exactly what they need the right amount of sunshine the right amount of water that each student needs and that's why for me

134this diagram is is just so incredibly powerful because i think it it helps to exemplify the discussion that's going on right now you know making i think there are people in our community and this goes back to the discussion that we've heard about color blindness and some of the other things that's everybody gets the same amount of sunshine and the same amount of water that's not going to help error that's not going to provide the individual nourishment that each of our students need so i wanted to thank you for this particular diagram the whole presentation i thought was was excellent but this particular diagram i found to be very powerful and very strong and so i would encourage you guys to to continue to use this particular diagram here i think it puts it in

135very plain um you know a picture's worth a thousand words so to speak so so thank you both thank you mr harvey dr carter i too like that diagram and because i see equity as more of a intentional individualized type of learning and access to resources that may benefit each child because each child learns differently and if you try to put everyone into the same mold that doesn't come out exactly how things need to be but every child may need something different it doesn't mean that you're dumbing down something or or redistributing wealth it means that you you know your child you know what they need you know what encouragement they need and what resources they need and so you can direct those resources to that child without hindering anyone else's educational journey but you

136can really look at what each child needs and that's what some of the greatest professionals talk about to make sure the teacher knows the leaning of each child so you can direct those resources appropriately to those children so it's no need if a child doesn't need extra reading then there's no use directing their reading unless you're going to try to elevate their reading and then you can direct more of the remediation to the child that needs that thank you vice chair carter any further comments uh for tonight's presentation dr nils sure um i do appreciate that uh i know particularly on the disciplined side uh i do i think we've done a really good job in terms of trying to really work with the kids and um you know you can just look at the

137numbers and say oh you're you know your disparity is you know it's it's pretty bad but you know being uh going through this the the meetings student discipline meetings and seeing what you do and how you work with the kids it's uh there's a lot more that's that's not apparent to the public which is unfortunate but that's that's the way it is um i mean i understand the attraction with the with the with the diagram um the concern is particularly when you look at some of the national you know the national education association or american federation of teachers uh you know what they're pushing is pretty egregious i don't believe that's your intent at all i think you know i've been i guess my position's always been to make outreach to individual students and and

138one of the worst things we can do is start treating students as groups uh that's just it's wrong it's ineffective and it's not good for anybody and i think that's what what we're trying to do but i think to give people reassurance it's not just show this this figure some more but it's like you know what what are the resources we're using in in the curriculum and on particular i asked about the uh african uh american african history elective course to see what's being presented there because that again there's a lot of heartburn in in certain uh circles about it and you know it frankly can go either way and uh i i think we want to as a board i won't speak for the board speak for myself i want to show that we

139have integrity we're conscientious and we're really working to educate educate students and i think being open about that especially with some of these hot button topics i think we need to do that so thank you dr nellis dr gupta i think the if the perception is that we are not transparent then there is something wrong so we need to work on making sure that there's a good communication with the community so they know that lcs is transparent good bad or ugly doesn't matter but we don't hide anything from anybody so that the transparency is maintained at all levels and having said that miss brown i know you you're always out there fighting for these kids you have a great heart so i appreciate everything you do for lcs thank you thank you dr gupta any

140other board member well i just want to then say this um mr harvey alluded to it and others but this echo equality versus equity i'm going to take it blow it up put it in a frame and put it in every office i have it is just amazing as an optic to understand what's going on operationalizing systemic equity i just love it and for me all of this is we do not all have the same thing but we all have what we need to be successful and we want to thank both of you for your great work and uh we'll continue on this journey of a roadmap to education equity thank you very much thank you thank you for your support thank you so much all right boyd you all have to forgive me typically

141i would have asked you all for a break but i was trying to get us out of here if you would like we can go on to j4 and then that would move us right on to the closure what is the will of the board for us to continue and hearing no objection to that j4 is instruction in program policy updates dr ellis yes uh and again these are policies uh this group met on june 23rd under the leadership of director brown and i'm going to let her kind of go over the vsba updates and changes okay well good afternoon again board good evening as dr edwards said the work group met on june 23rd to discuss policy update updates received from the virginia school board association all policies being presented have been reviewed by

142legal counsel all of the policies have language updates specific verbiage updates reflected in the policies were policy i a instructional goals and objectives updated the reflective language that the parent of each student will be notified before the reading intervention services begin policy ic id school year school days reflects updated verbiage to include language for an unscheduled remote learning day for school or division policy igag teaching about drugs alcohol and tobacco reflects addition of language to specify that lcs will provide instruction to students in regards to underage marijuana use and this is reflective also of the policy change of july the first policy j e d r z student absences excuses dismissals policy j d j e d r z is reflective of an addition of language to include one day of an of an excused

143absence by the middle or high school principal for a civic or political event policy jfcf drugs in school updated language legal cross-reference as the law in regards marijuana marijuana was updated effective july 1st also policy jhcf student wellness reflective of updated verbiage and direct reference to the code of virginia 20 740-10 through 220 740-40 in which the school board follows for guidance implementation of nutrition standards i did not go into exact detail of all the language changes as i provided the board with and dr carter provided the board with an outline of those specific verbiage in red were your deleted recommendations by vsba and green were your updated language of verbiage um provided by vsba are there any questions dr gupta i have a question to miss brown but not related to that policy can

144i ask her tonight the chair will entertain it as long as it's certain i just wanted to request if this i know you managed the vaccination for lcs if it would be possible at least for me to get an update where do we stand on those numbers not today in the later you know whenever you get to it so just people have you know asked where do we stand on vaccinations as we are going towards opening schools yes that was my request okay thank you dr gupta any other this is a first reading if you will type of thing all of these policies all right thank you so much oh yes please forgive me dr brennan one quick question direct brian thank you very much for your presentation and dr carter thank you for sending

145us the information from the committee i just have one question about policy jbz which is the equal education opportunities non-discrimination it looks like it was last reviewed in may of 2020 which was not all that long ago and the section i just wonder why the section was deleted that has related to the school board will those following bullets i'm sorry did i catch you yeah quick that's fine and we discussed that during the school board and excuse me during the meeting and those are things that we should be doing in terms of our everyday guidance in terms of our non-discrimination policy um and that's why it was deleted from there because we should be picking it up in our other policies that were cited at the end in terms of nondiscrimination and so we should

146be referencing our non-discrimination policy for our dues and our don'ts in regards to that thank you very much thank you for clarification thank you dr brennan all right thank you dr thank you director brown all right that will now move us to uh section k superintendent's comments dr edwards yes yes so first let me say how excited i am to have many more students back at lcs we are in the midst of a thriving summer program and i had the opportunity last week to visit all of the classes at bedford hills and just was really happy to see children staff engaging in learning challenging each other challenging me too i had to do an a b or a a bb pattern for a geometry lesson in elementary school so it just it it feels good

147to have the kids back in the schools in the classrooms together learning together and some of our children have not been in school they've been remote learning for quite some time and some have not been around the number of children that they've been around so we also have to remember what kindergarten on the first day of school when you have 20 kindergarteners all coming together and the socialization that my kindergarten teachers do that's excellent at getting kids ready that's happening now and it will continue to happen as we as we move forward so real pleased with the leadership of our programs and everything that's going on we have the ymca poli power scholars we have a very nice thriving pedal program which i'm always reminded to tell you what pedal stands for promoting excellence through

148accelerated learning um 21st century as well as high school credit recovery and an sol academy so we have kids of all ages in our buildings this summer and if you have an opportunity please i know it's pressing on friday is our vsba workshop starting at 2 but i believe at 12 30 we have some seniors that are graduating summer school because our kids will just not give up so we have some high school students who have made it across and finished the last of their credits and they will be graduating on friday i also want to give a shout out to monica hendricks and her entire staff at bass elementary school although we say we're gearing up for having the kids come back that's a lot sooner at bass tomorrow we will welcome back our

149best students for our year-round program and kudos to the staff who have been in already summer was over for them and they are busily getting prepared to receive our students tomorrow at bass elementary so it's going to be a great day tomorrow at bass next week we have two days of fun-filled learning for administrators we have our summer leadership summit and for those of you who don't know we spend two days in the summer doing a lot of training with all of the supervisors assistant principals principals directors and we're real excited about uh the things that we're going to learn next week and it's a multitude of teachers a little bit of everybody does some teaching uh in the in the courses um so we look forward to that in engagement convocation is around the

150corner already on august 3rd in the morning we have some interesting fun surprises planned for a different type of school opening and we will be at city stadium this year having convocation outside with some beautiful weather so that we can welcome back all of our staff and get this school year started right so i welcome you to join me with that we do anticipate coming back to the admin building in august for our regular meetings if something changes i will let you know but we can definitely put that on as the place for our meetings i also just want to remind the community that while there's a lot of talk about masks and wearing masks that schools are still under a mask mandate up until july 25th is the date for the i call it

151the next update and people say well what's going to happen on july 26th i don't know i have to wait patiently until the governor and vdoe and vdh give us guidance so we are continuing to wear masks in schools and you'll see all of us are still messed up because our children sometimes are in the buildings in the evening and we don't want to take any chances at putting any of our kids at risk so as far as schools are concerned we're still wearing masks we will follow the guidance that is given to us and be as transparent as we can with updating the community when we know you all will know um with that so i'm very grateful for director brown's leadership um with regard to that and lastly i just want to say

152thank you to my entire staff for the countless hours that they put in over the past school year i know it seemed like we would never get to the new school year but we're here and they did an amazing job of responding reacting adjusting flexing and just doing what's necessary to help all of our kids there was a lot of chatter early on about failure rates and kids not being successful and unfortunately there wasn't as much chatter about how many kids walked across the stage in a sea of blue and when i tell you for some of our students and our staff at the last hour for some of them but there was just no giving up so students who initially when some of those numbers looked like they weren't very promising we got it

153together we worked with kids we did what we need every kid personalized that learning so that we could help kids move to the next level and we are continuing to do that and helping kids as we move forward to getting school back to where it was and better for next year and i just want to thank all of you because sitting up here is not easy all the time and of course making the tough decisions at a time where we're always trying to focus on lcs and sometimes there's other agendas and people want to connect us to other agendas but i always appreciate that you all stay focused on our babies here and what our children need and make the right decisions moving forward to make sure that all of our kids needs are getting

154met so i appreciate that and just want to say thank you for that thank you thank you dr edwards and again thank you for your great work and obvious obviously uh this board through its summative evaluation appreciates the great work you are doing and we will now move forward into section l board comments and uh since this is uh uh scuba metros is the first time doing this i'm going to start with school board member harvey and kind of moving around so he'll be the last to kind of get a feel of what others may or may not be seeing in board comments which is an opportunity for board members to express themselves thank you thank you mr chair i want to reiterate something that dr edwards said to my friends at bass who have

155been many have already been working and tomorrow a lot more of them start back to work just a shout out i'm excited to get to see some of them tomorrow morning and and excited for a new start of a new school year the other point that i have is is is not necessarily a comment but it's more of a question um would the board share mind sharing with us just how many folks we still had signed up for public comment that we i know we had a lot of written comments that came in we also clearly had some folks that didn't get the opportunity to speak i would just like to know how many we actually covered and how many were still outstanding to speak if possible if the board will i would love to

156answer that question we had one two three four five six seven eight persons who had an opportunity to speak and one two three four five six who did not get an opportunity to speak and uh we had a score of written public comments that i knew that if we read those we would have had less speakers and of course it's the pleasure of this boy we've discussed this before and it probably needs to come back up again but you know there's any way that you can deal with this either other speakers could come back and hear them first or whatever okay thank you sir you're more than glad thank you sir dr gupta i wanted to welcome school board member trust and i wanted to thank dr brennan for all your service i know if

157i remember your phone number by heart 851 i won't say the last four digits you know you have been an excellent communicator you were on top of everything and i admire your commitment to diversity i admire your commitment to women leadership so accolades to you and uh lynchbury school is very proud of you thank you dr gupta is very kind i appreciate it thank you thank you dr gupta dr sinha well they said it better than i could thank you dr brennan for being a excellent vice chair and i too appreciate your passion and commitment and your energy and devotion to all things lcs it's really impressive given that you're also a doctor a medical a real doctor with a busy client list so that's notable and boy you're on the board at the right

158time during a pandemic so let's hope the worst of that is behind us and that we can move on and find a new normal and looking forward to a a a new year new opportunities new accomplishments want to welcome our new member to the board good luck you may feel a little lost at first but eventually it all starts to make sense thank you and that's all thank you dr sinha dr nils sure i'd like to welcome mr trost and uh yeah you get a you got the full experience tonight something you're not just jumping in uh feet first and you're going in head first so thank you i appreciate it it's uh it is a commitment uh it's not something you really understand until you've you know kind of lived through it and anyway

159welcome um bob um i felt like some people were giving a eulogy and wait he's still on the board uh but no thanks for thanks for stepping up the you know the chair and vice chair our our extra work um so thanks for that appreciate it and hopefully this turns out to be a more normal year for everybody right thank you very much dr nillas uh vice chair carter again i want to welcome mr trose also to to the board and thank dr brenner for all that he's done for the board and for the position and as vice chair and just want to just let the parents know that we are willing and able to begin school and we want to start off fresh and with a good clean slate and we're excited for all

160the students especially the ones at best tomorrow and for all the other ones that are coming we hope this is the best year that they will have thank you dr carter dr brennan thank you dr coleman i have a couple of things i wanted to comment on one is that i want to congratulate dr gupta and dr carter and being reappointed to the school board we're so glad to have you for another three years and congratulations dr carter and being elected to be vice chair i know you'll do a great job and to welcome mr trose is our new member you will miss mrs evans but i'm sure you will do a equally good job to represent district 3 in our schools i also want to mention that in the in the break between uh

161sort of june and july with schools there was a pretty major event which was the beacon of hope announced that they had new scholarships that amounted to about 250 thousand dollars for our students including a hilltopper alumni football scholarship that was donated by the alumni of the of ec glass school the ainslie family did a teacher scholarship and incentive and then dr and mrs hurt did a wonderful scholarship beacon of hope for the commonwealth scholars but a total of more than 250 thousand dollars donated by those different entities i also want to comment about critical race theory and i know i cannot do it as well as was done this evening i think that the representatives from our community that came did a phenomenal job but just as an individual board member i just want

162to make a couple of brief comments and one is i want to say that you know during our meeting tonight we addressed two important policies and and one of them was the educational philosophy for lynchburg city schools which in part says that lynchburg city schools is committed to providing equal opportunity for every student and that lcs treats all members of the school community equitably equitably and with respect and the second policy with the non-discrimination policy which also in part states that lynchburg city school is committed to non-discrimination in regard to race color religion national origin sex sexual orientation gender or gender identity i have no doubt that our amazing teachers and our other staff are going to implement those policies for our students and that they're going to provide what we call in those policies

163equal opportunity creative and constructive decision making and non-discrimination and they're going to use a variety of teaching skills and teaching modalities but one of the things they're not going to use is critical race theory because that's not part of our curriculum as has been stated well tonight it's a theory and not part of our curriculum critical race theory is a concept that was developed in legal academics and that was also discussed tonight but critical race theory is not used as a teaching method in our schools and those who continue to state it's used in our schools are wrong what we are going to do in lynchburg city schools is we're going to follow the recommendations of the african-american history education commission which our superintendent was part of and which states that our students will learn

164about the contributions made by african americans men and women as well as the injustices that they suffered as part of our state and national history and as a result of these recommendations lynchburg city schools will accomplish the charge of that commission which states in part while we cannot change the past we can use it and we can learn from it it is our job all of us that make of this diverse society to ensure that when the next generation looks back a generation that is hopefully more inclusive than we have been they they see a more accurate narrative and one that tells the truth and includes everyone thank you dr coleman board let me make those comments thank you dr brennan ms morrison thank you dr brennan i have you on speed dial so i

165don't have to memorize your number and you know i use it frequently and i will continue to use it and thank you for those words and welcome anytime you have a question all of us are willing to help it is confusing initially but i think you've shown from get go that you're going to be a great addition to this thank you i do have one thing that i would like to put out on the table two years ago we talked about starting listening tours again that we would provide an opportunity moving around the division for open discussion for people to come in and share concerns dialogue conversation and that was put on hold because of the pandemic and i'm hoping as we return that we can start looking at that again i think that would

166be a great incentive for transparency uh mutual respect and understanding so i hope that we're able to look at our calendars and maybe put some of those on it so we can get back out there in the community thank you so so noted school board member morrison so noted wonderful all right uh mr toast well thank you let me begin by just saying uh i appreciate how welcoming and engaging that everyone has been for me and to get me up to speed and thank you so much for putting together the binder you've been a wonderful valuable resource i appreciate that look forward to working with you ladies and i appreciate your help did have a wonderful experience i will say it's going to be a time commitment but i'm really excited to work for the

167children and i'm here for the children as i think everyone here is and that's what's exciting and i can see in your hearts and your minds that you're putting the children first and that's where i want to be and thank you again and happy to be on board with you folks thank you mr trust and again congratulations to you and your family on your son's graduation and graduating in the way he did so thank you thank you so much for your service we're looking forward to it as we transition now into section m which is our informational items uh i do know that there's discussion around how are we doing in summer school transportation etc and dr edwards i know you'll facilitate our board members knowing all of those things in the next meeting or

168however you so choose to do it we once again want to thank the public for coming out tonight thank you mr harvey for your point of inquiry thank you school board member morrison for what you just stated i think there are ways going forward to do what we can to help in that regard and we want to remind persons tomorrow that men to school will be taking place and you should have some information on that and it's off to the races the informational items are before you uh in relationship to what we have the next school board work session will be this coming to the 20th and uh board meeting on august the 3rd will include many of the items that we discussed tonight and thank you madam clerk for giving each board member your

169handout to help you appreciate masterboard it is friday part one we're gonna be right here in the marie waller lecture hall in this building in the marie hall lecture hall you see the stated times uh school board member trois has informed us of uh when he will arrive and discuss that with the sba and that's fine so we're going to start at 2 conclude at 7 and you can see all of the particulars relative to what we have here and so i'm excited and i hope we all will benefit from those sessions being together if there is nothing else anybody wants to say this meeting is adjourned thank you you