LCS School Board Meeting: March 3, 2020

001[Music] you all will have to bear with us tonight our new board docs programming as board members and it's new we've had one training on it and so far it's picked me out about three times so bear with us we'll try to get through this the first order of business is the approval of the agenda I recommend that the School Board approved the agenda for the March 3rd 2020 meeting thank you Dr Brennan are we voting on this yet no what button do it I can't we just say all in favor we now need to a men the approved agenda we have under item f person f1 personnel report we have an amendment to that everybody approved the amendment to the personnel it's in the document dogs okay we've got another amendment to that I

002want to do them all at the same time I move there a second second thank you all in favor all right on the consent agenda we also have a number of regulations that we moved to the consent agenda and I think there's an interest in moving one of them to unfinished business that deals with KBR it's a regulation that deals with the public information KBR is there a second second thank you any discussion moving that to the unfinished business please raise your hand any opposed okay now that moves us to be the notice of closed meeting oh we have one more I thought oh we had that adenomas it's hidden all right so we have and until I move it all right we have to add one more special presentation one under Section C recognition

003of state residents move that we make that movement change thank you any discussion on favor so now we've made all the moves can we make a motion to approve thank you any discussion on favor now we go into the superintendent recommends that the school board approve a motion to convene a closed meeting to discuss the following as permitted by the Virginia Code section 2 2-3 7 1 1 a 1 the appointment assignment promotion demotion performance salary discipline or resignation of a principal and assistant principal is there a motion to go into closed me we perform here [Music] you [Music] dr. Edwards was called away for a phone call so do her share until she's able to get back with us the first thing we need to do is to certify that the school board come

004out of the closed meeting and that we certified that this that nothing was spoken about in the close what was stated in our statement I move that the Lynchburg school board certified that the closed meeting just concluded nothing was discussed except the matter of matters specifically identified in the motion to convene in a closed meeting and lawfully permit it to be so discussed under the provisions of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act cited in that motion is there a second second I made the motion that second seconds we have to take a roll call vote are we voting on online now and where mom popped up and up did you get them Kristy you didn't get mine are you on the closed meeting tab yes yes all right now that now takes us to the

005special presentation the first one is a very exciting one recognition of state wrestling champion so if I could have Coach Stanbury and Spencer Goolsbee and mr. Beatty you're here come on up on Saturday February 22nd Spencer Goolsbee who's a senior at Heritage High School made history by being the first heritage high school wrestler in the school's 44 year history to win a state championship and the 220 pound weight class coach Stan berry this was his first year with heritage high school coaching the wrestling team Spencer joins Alvin Sneed who was an EC glass student in 1987 as the second wrestler in LCS history to win a state as the first wrestler to win the state championship and he was actually coached by coach Stan Barry's father so the stanbury's have a history of wrestling and

006they've done a great job with students coach you want to say anything about Spencer and Spencer you can say anything you want to also yeah first I have myself and staff and Spencer we would like to thank Lynchburg City Schools school board for your support teachers like myself and coaches would not be able to do our job without your support also of Lynchburg state school administration dr. Edwards and Copeland heritage high school administration dr. B mr. Beatty and mr. Knight for all their support and we're just very thankful for everything y'all do for us it was Spencer you know not only it was a unique moment for him being the first state champion and heritage high school and to follow up with dr. Copelan or say and it was very unique for myself to put

007my name right beside my father's name his coaching her first state champion in Lynchburg city schools at that school but also the other coaches on staff and myself there was four of us that wrestled at Heritage High School and we all had a dream when you know when we were wrestling to be a state champion so we got the second best thing we were able to help and coach a fine young man like Spencer Goolsbee to be the first state champion Spencer encompasses everything the student athlete is about at Lynchburg city schools and at Heritage High School he's not only a great athlete on the mat but off the mat he's an all-around student on the football field he was an all-state football player and also on the state championship team last year he's a

008great student all the way around he'll be attending Glenville State next year and we're sure are gonna miss him and it was a good start for our program this year and we're hoping for many more thank you [Applause] like yours mm-hmm I would like to thank Heritage High School for being behind my back the last four years mr. B's behind my back the best principal in the world Oh Stan berry it's his first year but I feel like I've known of my whole life he's such a good mentor and helped me become the best wrestler I could be and the best athlete I could be and I wouldn't be here without him or coach sax cossaks the last four years has helped me become the person I am today and I just want to thank

009my mom for pushing me every day yelling at me when I don't do work my dad being the good cop congratulations I never get to be on this side of the mic so on behalf of Lynchburg City Schools we would like to congratulate you on being the first the first wrestling state champ for heritage high school congratulations [Applause] that now brings us to our second special presentation and after Edwards I think this is Gillette's gonna do yes it's all yours another great okay so this is a wonderful wonderful honor and opportunity for us to celebrate and recognize folks in the community who are extremely supportive of our schools wonderfully supportive of our kids and it's what makes this community great it's one of those nights that I love to pause and say hey let's pack

010the room and celebrate so I'm not gonna steal the Thunder I'm gonna let mr. let start fantastic thank you very much dr. Edwards chairperson Morrison Vice Chair dr. Coleman and school board members good evening my name is Jodi Gillette and I'm the executive director of the Lynchburg City Schools education I'm here this evening with a few special guests as we prepare to announce the 2019 2020 ALCS excellence in science scholarship recipient so we'll announce a few of our guests now and a few will be announced in a few a few minutes deeper into our program so with us this evening to help us with this little celebration is Dasia Womack who's the director of secondary counseling and rose flower who's the assistant principal at ICI glass and dr. Steve Smith from the director of the

011central Virginia Governor's School thank you and also have several trustees from the Education Foundation who are also here to help celebrate with us this evening i'ma have my vice president here Mack Frankfort Julie Doyle Steve lob Beverly McCloskey [Laughter] and my president mr. Kevin Smith who actually will share a few words with you at this time thank you all for being here yes well thank you thank you for having us and the LCS Education Foundation is just absolutely thrilled to participate in the announcement of this year's recipient of the excellence in science scholarship the mission statement of the EDD foundation is to advance excellence in equity in the Lynchburg City Schools through advocacy and educational funding and tonight we get to focus on the excellent part of that mission statement and tonight we here are

012here to award a student a scholarship based on her hard work and academic achievement and also to celebrate the school system which encouraged her and foster to her success the excellence in science scholarship is unique offering that blends public and private resources in a way that benefits all the community stakeholders in particular the scholarship positively impacts the students by giving them something to shoot for and providing post-secondary scholarship to one particular student it also at is helpful to our stem programs by encouraging students to participate in the science offerings that the school division has it is helpful to the school division as well it is an opportunity to show your commitment to excellence in the Lynchburg City Schools and it also helps our community's economic health by providing a local workforce that is well versed

013and well educated in the sciences so without further ado I'll turn it back over to Jody to give you a little bit of history and also to call out the people who have made this scholarship possible thank you thank you thank you Kevin so to share a little history in the fall of 2013 dr. Charles Pryor and his family announced a four-year $25,000 scholarship to be awarded every school year for four consecutive years to an outstanding senior interested in entering a science related field of study dr. Pryor is a graduate of both EC glass high school and Virginia Tech he spent 25 years with the Babcock & Wilcox company serving as president of the nuclear and Power division while in Lynchburg dr. Pryor served as a member the Lynchburg City School Board and past chairman

014of the Lynchburg City Schools partner in education program so we use a long history of valuing and supporting public education and understands the important role the strong schools play in the success of our students and the economic health of our community and we thank him for his vision after taking a year year off we were thrilled to be able to announce the return of the excellence in science scholarship to the Lynchburg City Schools for five consecutive years beginning last year during the 2018-2019 school year the scholarship was designed once again for a top science or engineering student who plans to continue their education at an accredited college or university and a science or engineering related field scholarships clearly benefit the student recipients as awarded funds ease the financial burden of an advanced education and creates

015room for students to take advantage of often unpaid research and internships that contribute to their educational experience and professional development but a scholarship such as this benefits more than just the student recipient Lynchburg continues to grow as a national leader in nuclear engineering and a regional leader in medicine our community is also an incubator for entrepreneurship and host to many small medium and large engineering and manufacturing firms all of whom rely on a workforce that offers strong math and science skills in order to be a thriving community and support these industries it is essential that we maintain strong public schools to cultivate and attract new employers and retain top employees this excellence in science scholarship is a unique offering not often seen in public school settings and is designed to work toward this goal in

016the rebooted version of the LCS excellence in science scholarship the funding pool has been expanded and this year's scholarship would not be possible without the vision extreme generosity and commitment from our sponsors the Education Foundation and the Lynchburg City Schools would like to take this opportunity to recognize and extend our most sincere appreciation to the following sponsors the opportunities that they are extending to our students and the prestige that they are bringing to our school division so dr. Edwards if you don't mind coming towards this way so I can give you a plaque to then give each sponsor that would be great so first technologies is mr. Joel birch who is the vice president and general manager be Dobby oxt nuclear Operations Group lynchburg behind dr. Coleman is about your zone keep going all the

017way that's good just hang out there for a minute all right from Fram at home we have miss Denise Worley for the VP of communications [Applause] I have a plug sorry sorry we also have a donor who could not be here this evening and that's the DTE Energy Foundation and another sponsor was not able to be here this evening that's mr. and mrs. Lee and Sharon Ainsley and our next honoree here is dark well sponsor our dr. and mrs. David and Judy Franz and Judy Franz is here with us this evening and last but certainly not least dr. and mrs. Charles Mary Jane Pryor [Applause] Thank You dr. Edwards and members of the school board thank you for your service to the community and what you do I also want to call out individuals that

018are in the school system are working with the school system that really make this happen in a very organized manner not with us tonight as Maria Jaeger who works on this Dasia Womack and Jodi Gillette does a fantastic job with the foundation and in putting this together it quite an you know quite a challenge to take all these applications that come in we know I'm down to four or five and then we have to sit there as kind of an evaluation committee and it's the worst thing in the world I have to walk away and not give every one of them who are bright right up in the top of their class and really high achievers it's just hard to pick one person to do that but we do it and I think it's it's

019a good program for Lynchburg City Schools so thank you [Applause] you can either stand or come back so now I want to turn it over to a doctor Tommy Coleman who is right behind me here to actually make the big announcement good evening everyone it's my distinct honor and pleasure to come before you this evening to announce the 2020 recipient of the excellence in science scholarship award the excellence in skylit science scholarship comprehensive application process was launched to the students in November and was open through January the 17th at that time the applications were due to the director of school counseling at each of the two high schools the school based teams was assembled to review the applications in the top five from each high school advanced to the team in the central office who

020who then scored the applications based on standardized rubric the award is being given to the top senior science student as determined by this selection process the process included a written application a letter of interest three rep letters of recommendation an official transcript and the top five finalists completed interviews with the selection committee before I announce the recipient I would like this opportunity to take this opportunity to thank everyone who made the scholarship a reality the sponsors the LCS Education Foundation as well as the counseling director principals and teachers I would also like to give a special thanks to dr. Pryor whose vision and support has provided this amazing opportunity to the Lynchburg City Schools students and now for the announcement this year's recipient is an outstanding graduating senior who attends both central Virginia Governor's School

021and EC glass high school to provide a little history the student has always loved logic in the middle school our recipient remembers raving to her mom about how sensible or how sensibly the periodic table was organized after her first introduction to chemistry sophomore year the student discovered science for what it was logic with the creativity of discovery hmm her first deep personal obsession with science was with the physics behind music theory the beautiful logical patterns exhibited in chords and scales which led to her first real experience with research how can vibrating air sound so beautiful or so wrong depending on the combination of keys struck on a keyboard through that research she learned that the big question can go on from daunting to exciting more recently a Governor's School the student discovered that her passion

022for physics which was which has led to her research project on the speed of light and variances due to the different types of glass to the study of fiber optics efficiency tonight the recipient has received a first-place regional naval Science Award in physics second-place regional naval Science Award in physical science and her research earned her a third-place recognition in physics at the statewide competition her passion for and commitment to science is clear and whenever wherever she ends up attending college we know that she'll be successful this year's LCS excellence in science scholarship recipient embodies the very essence of what this scholarship was designed to honor it is indeed my privilege to announce the 19 2019 2020 LC s excellence in science scholarship recipient Miss Laurel Logan [Applause] [Laughter] well thank you guys so much I

023want to think specifically the Education Foundation and all the sponsors who make this possible but also LCS and everyone behind the scenes that and all the teachers both a glass and gov school who have led me to discover how much I love science and I'm super excited thank you guys [Applause] pictures congratulations [Laughter] [Applause] so one member of this year's team couldn't actually be here this evening and he wanted to be sure to give a special extra special message of congratulations so if we could please see being the 2019 excellence in science recipient and your essay was just simply amazing you know the interplay between creativity chemistry logic and all these things that one day may lead you to a PhD to help save people's life to help people have a better life on this

024planet I had a experience with the chemistry set when I was a kid and I blew my mother's living room up and that led to lots of curiosity and lots of adventure in science and engineering and eventually helping me get to space and I just want to say it's an honor to read your essay but the bigger honor will be to watch your journey and your legacy as you go forward so I'm gonna give you a copy of my book chasing space and let you see the journey that I went through because some of these things you maybe can glean from and use along your way as you become a PhD scientist one day or leading a team or really doing whatever you want to do so Godspeed on your journey Thank You Jodi Gillette

025school board and and Charlie Pryor for this incredible opportunity as being the excellence in science recipient Godspeed on your journey you're right that now takes us to public comments in accordance with policy B D D H public participation the school board welcomes requests and comments as established in the guidelines within that policy individuals who wish to speak before the school board shall have an opportunity to do so at this time 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

026that do not conserve the services policies role and/or responsibility of the school board individual speakers shall limit their comments to three minutes a speaker representing groups shall limit his/her comments to five minutes the representatives shall identify the group at the beginning of the presentation a group may have no more than one spokesperson the total allotted time for public comments at school board meetings is 30 minutes the board does not respond to comments answer questions or otherwise engage in discussion at this time and we have seven speakers tonight first speaking Robert Fludd like to thank y'all again the school boy like to have what's giving me this chance to express my feelings at heart I feel about the ex-offenders not be able to volunteer I think in the last school board meeting nobody was talking about

027felonies and I think we got on misdemeanors and barrel crimes and I looked up you know a few things since the last school board meeting and realized that if a judge dropped a felony to a misdemeanor that's what it is regardless how we like it or not the judge says it must have meaning that's what it is but people will look at it a little different where he had a felony first they got it musta mean but they make the laws and all we do is go by we might don't agree with a lot of way the system work at some time we know it can be very unfair unless you got some money oh you know somebody and you could get a misdemeanor I'm still a felony out of a situation that maybe should

028have been a felony I listened to dr. head which was explaining and laid out a plan basically last time what I can remember since 2014 it's closer now than it has been that all ya do is vote on and I like her plan I like what she laid out case by case a person can be screened and you can talk to the person and they can talk to you about what happened to him because a lot of people look like me get charges and get cases and you don't know the circumstances behind it and it might be murder could have been at end up being a different situation if you had money or he wasn't poor or was he if he wasn't black and we know how to system work and a lot of people

029you know get caught up in that situation where they branded for life once you get a felony on your record and in Virginia you can't get it expunged so hopefully they are in the process of trying to men in two different wait I think Virginia is on the state right now a few other states if you apply for a job you might not never been in trouble a day in your life and I always say you apply for the $75,000 job and you qualify they see that piece of paper throw the paper in the trash not meeting you not knowing who you are not giving you a chance to explain what happened that's some got to change because for me personally number the Jim Crow law that still exists and we change the names they

030change the things around a little bit but it's just still still the same old thing 20 years now 40 years ago we have to change things we have to give a person to chance that's why I continued and I will continue to come up here to argue for ex-offenders with nonviolent crimes they've to volunteer to help help the school system they help the kids that look like them that they might can communicate with more and somebody that don't so we are here to help the ones that have went to the school and said they can't volunteer cousin extra funding I think was 32 436 all almost black now we still talking about just 26 2014 and I know y'all got more important things if to jump on and keep on going back and forth with

031this but I'm not going to wear and I like what you're doing at least you open up your minds and thinking about it how can we work together to make this work as a whole not me just talking about it all the time with somebody else how can we come together to help save these kids are you at least play a part in their lives just because your acts of funding don't mean you're not a human being because you was a human being before you got and became an ex-offender before they got in trouble meet that person find out who that person is find out what the circumstances were why they got their phone or rocket and I know that when you apply for a job in the school system most of Mainers and felonies

032are on that sheet but when we have me talking about mr. means talking about felonies since 2014 Thank You Janice Wylie good evening everyone my name is Janice Wylie and I want to thank you for the opportunity to come and speak to you tonight I'm a retired teacher as of 2017 and I'm here with an attitude of gratitude for the Lynchburg City Schools ten years ago I was recognized as the 2010 Lynchburg City School Teacher of the Year and my home school was Hutchison Early Learning Center the next fall I was recognized as the region v Virginia Teacher of the Year and this was a really exciting time for me and I proudly represented Lynchburg City Schools I want to thank the board and all of my friends that have worked with me in Lynchburg

033City Schools because every one that I have met from custodians to food service people bus drivers instructional assistants principals administrators everyone has made a big impact on my life and you all helped me become the teacher that I was and hopefully still am even though I'm not actively teaching the people and all the people and staff at Hutcherson the children the parents the white rock community really helped Hutcherson become a just a beaming light for all our children with early and with early childhood special needs and also with pre-k and since he's sitting right here I want to say thank you to dr. Copeland he helped rehab our school we had to leave for a few years in return and he said he would work hard to get us back home and he did and

034I thank you very much that meant a lot to me after I volunteered and substituted for about a year I found a new home in Lynchburg City Schools and that is in the warehouse at Lynchburg City Schools there is a wonderful magical program there we're and Barry leads Cathy gagner and myself to make elementary school science boxes for every teacher in every elementary school from eight from the grades of kindergarten through fifth grade that's a lot of science kits and they are amazing if you have not had the opportunity to come and see our place that we call the palace I invite you to come I want to thank each one of you on the school board for all the time and effort that you spend because I can see when i watch the school

035board meetings how much you have researched and studied and I know that you've had to give a lot of your personal time and your work hard and another job and come back to this one so I thank you for the time you spend and I just urge you can I say one more thing I urge you as you're thinking about all the work that you're doing for the school board that you also keep in mind all of your teachers and staff members and consider all the time and effort that they spend off the clock in order to make the school system a better place thank you and I really do mean thank you [Applause] [Music] good evening dr. Edwards madam chair Morrison vice chair dr. Coleman to the rest of the esteemed members of school

036board as a pleasure to stand before you again this evening my name is reason Chandler I'm a leader of Lynchburg chapter of Virginia organizing Virginia organizing has sixteen chapters across the state of Virginia and we are proud to announce that we are celebrating the 25th anniversary this year in that timeframe they have come to Lynchburg to start a new chapter and and and they recruited a young man like myself who who really has a disdain towards politics but since that time I've learned to respect those who work in politics I've even learned to respect the process of democracy it has taught me to be patient it is it taught me to to listen constructively and so so it is it is my attempt now to come to you as I've learned that that if you

037just work hard if you press forward the changes that are needed to to help fortify and improve our community in our relationship within our community they are there for us if we're willing to do the work if we're willing to take the chances I believe it was mr. Douglass who said that without the struggle there is no progress so we have to face the struggle and that's what politics has really taught me has taught me that that I have to be willing to face the struggle and with that I would like to say we want to make sure that the proposal to add an orientation for gender identity to the non-discrimination policy does not get lost since the school board cancelled the work session on February 18th that was supposed to include a discussion on

038on the on the subject and we hope that you will announce tonight when you plan to bring this matter up again also as as you deliberate the budget for the upcoming academic year we hope that you know you will work diligently to to raise the wages of the lowest paid workers in the school system 11:28 is an hour is not a living wage many people spend a lot of time trying to deal with high rate of poverty in Lynchburg and now is the time that you can actually do something about it it is a shame and a disgrace that our school system is doing so little to raise its own lower wage working out of poverty or workers out of poverty we hope you will move forward with with plans to raise the wage of

039those so important to our students bus drivers cafeteria workers custodians and more thank you for allowing me this time to stand before you is there anything that I can do to support you to help you in this endeavor please do not hesitate to ask me and the members of the Lynchburg chapter Virginia organizing have a great evening [Applause] isn't it Gonzalez um hi my name is he said that Gonzalez I'm also here to talk about the anti-discrimination policy I really don't have much to add to what I've already said before because nothing has really been done since the last school board public comment period but I just want to start out by saying well I graduate from class of 2009 and I am finishing my degree at VCU right now I'll be done in two

040and my decision of VCU was really influenced by my horrible experience in the Lynchburg City school system right I chose a university that I knew had resources for my community so I would really just like you to understand the experience of queer students experiencing abuse in a classroom from students and having a teacher present taking no action and then having nowhere to go in the school system or any resources available also when I wonder I'm also kind of wondering how do you plan to measure like the bias that exists within teachers in the school system because right now students are protected under the guise of race and color right but we know that students of color are still experiencing bias and microaggressions also is there any conversation about reforming like the health classes to address

041issues within the queer community like issues of consent mental health substance abuse and suicide prevention and like I said before this do not see it this issue is taking away from other issues we still need to address issues like the achievement gap and the volunteer policy these are all queer issues I also really want to continue to push the idea of the LGBTQ task force right because right now queer people really don't have a say in the decisions and the conversations that are happening policy right and in another place we see this right now is issues regarding ethnic students right because right now there's conversations of bringing in changing the calendar to address religious minorities but these communities aren't really present in the conversation you know they're not president equity task force and there's a

042lot of other issues affecting that community that aren't being addressed so when you make these big decisions without including the voices of the very communities that are affected you marginalize those people even more and that's what's happening with the queer community right and the queer experience cannot be understood through training right it takes listening to our voices and the diverse voices in our community to really make effective change I'm also a little bothered by like the idea that protecting queer students somehow puts the school system at risk you know queer people are at risk right now you know queer students are at risk people have come out at this podium this semester every time we come here we risk our safety the relationship with our families our faith communities our ethnic communities and our jobs

043which is often connected to our health care so I ask you to please make moves on this policy because this community cannot wait thank you lilly lamb hello my name is Emily lamb I am in graduate school for clinical mental health counseling and I am the lead registered behavior technician at family insight family insight is an accredited mental health agency and our office serves Lynchburg families and has a contract with Lynchburg city schools I am also a member of the LGBT community and I'm here to express the importance of revising the non-discrimination and anti harassment policies to better protect LGBT students and personnel i'm also advocating for the formation of an LGBT equity task force as the current equity task force does not have the capacity to adequately address issues that LGBT students continue to

044face everyone here today is concerned with the wellness and success of our students and we are aware of barriers to this such as race and different ability and socioeconomic status and influence Burke City Schools wishes to demonstrate its motto of a tradition of excellence for all we cannot overlook LGBT identification as an additional barrier and we must take measures to diminish these barriers ensuring safety and support for this marginalized group is a simple step in the right direction so I have to peer of your peer review journal articles with me I can leave them with you if you'd like first study published in the Journal of school violence found that in school victimization of LGBTQ students ages 13 to 21 predicted measurable decreased self-esteem lower GPA and more miss stage of school however various school

045supports including a comprehensive anti-bullying and harassment policy supportive educators the Gay Straight Alliance and an LGBT inclusive curriculum significantly diminish these issues so in other words if we can take just some simple steps in the right direction you can expect your career students whether they're out or not whether the bullying is reported or not their GPAs could potentially go up apps' absences should go down and to quote another peer-reviewed study findings suggest that anti-bullying policies explicitly enumerated sexual orientation gender identity and or gender expression protections can improve LGBT school experiences and that generic policies that we currently have may not sufficiently protect LGBT students from bullying and harassment so given these repeated findings in the literature revision to the language in these policies and the creation of a task force would protect vulnerable students and

046personnel ensuring their well-being and excellence for all thank you does anyone want to take these journal articles Thank You Kati Seyfert I am a Lynchburg City Schools graduate a parent and a teacher I started teaching for Lynchburg City Schools in 2002 and I have to say that a lot has changed since then in 2006 Virginia voters ratified a marriage equality anti-marriage equality amendment in 2015 obergefell V Hodges struck that down and yet I've been hard pressed in talking to my colleagues because we don't recall receiving any guidance as society has changed how are we to ensure that we're being inclusive of our students and of the families and of the staff that we have in Lynchburg City Schools this board was advised some months ago that our family life curriculum is a bit outdated and

047includes some references to traditional marriage and that sort of thing so I would strongly encourage this board to consider updating our policies and our programming and offering guidance to the employees to make sure that we're being inclusive and providing excellence for each and every one of our students thank you [Applause] ladies and gentlemen of the school board my name is Carl Lewis and I am president of the Lynchburg Education Association and I represent bus drivers and administrators instructional assistants and cafeteria workers maintenance employees and mechanics nurses and office staff full time teachers part-time teachers and substitute teachers from pre-k through 12th grade and all of us want you to know the time to act is now I cannot emphasize enough how difficult it is to work in LCS right now at the school board meeting

048last month it was discussed that health care costs were up compared to last year that comes as no surprise to your employees who have been assaulted injured bullied and threatened they are frustrated exhausted fearful and disheartened and worse than that they feel like no one hears them the time to act is now while no one wants to acknowledge it no one wants to hear it for certain no one wants to discuss it we have students who simply should not be in a regular education setting for a multitude of reasons they can't handle it it's not good for them it's not good for their classmates and it's not good for your staff kids make mistakes it's a fact of life heck adults make them too and we have a discipline system in place that allows for

049more than 80% of kids to make a mistake learn from that mistake and move on from that mistake it works for them but there are also students in our buildings right now with as many as 30 referrals that's about one referral every four days we're not helping those students we're not helping their classmates either and for sure we're not helping the educators who are handcuffed and trying to better the situation but have no more tools at their disposal the time to act is now because if we don't act now we're gonna have to give miss Gia much bigger office because she's gonna have a lot of positions to fill find out how many people have marked undecided on their forms for next year they're looking for better jobs elsewhere find out how many people have

050already said they aren't coming back for next year is that what we want Lynchburg to become the first step in someone's career in education we want Lynchburg to be the final step for great educators we want Lynchburg to be the goal to which others it's aspire and make no mistake we can get there we've got hard-working educators with great minds and good ideas all across the division from the bottom to the top we've got a community that wants to see us succeed and is willing to work with us to help us achieve our goals we've got a school board made up of dedicated leaders of that community who proved when they reinstated pay schedules last year that they are willing to take action the time to act is now so what do we do how

051do we get there where will the solutions come from the solutions are already out there created by staff members administrators and faculty solutions like these combining existing alternative education programs with community-based programs to provide better locations and services combining as many secondary alternative education programs into one place as possible and creating a space that within that program for students who receive suspensions between one and ten days so that they can maintain their academics while working on behavioral issues alternative education programs that include not only academics but therapeutic education research-based social skills training exercise programs and community service there are plans within the division that could give us an alternative education program that includes a home bed a homebound online approach perhaps tying in with a tech ed or a work-study component allowing students to work

052at their own pace in their own home when it fits into their schedules we have ideas to expand the offerings at the empowerment Academy providing needed tutoring to students and even a road to the GED to help them get ahead there are options like a school within a school where students are placed on alternative schedule but housed within their base schools there are many others as well there are a variety of well very well thought-out plans created by your employees they take into account things like student needs cost to the division building availability and overall effectiveness but you need to be very clear on a few things the first is that you have a need at all levels from pre-k through 12th grade we have students with serious issues regarding discipline this is not a

053high school problem this is a division wide problem from the getsu the oldest the second thing you need to be clear on is the time to act is now this isn't a let's see what we can do for next year issue you had a fight in one of your schools that need the police intervention on Friday you had a fight in another one of your schools before classes even started on Monday these problems are not going to settle down over the next three months they're only going to grow and grow exponentially if left unchecked you need to take action now there are plans out there choose one piloted pilot two or three of them compare notes see what worked and what didn't we've got schools for innovation use them that's what they're here for two

054pilot programs technology and ideas Teddy Roosevelt said in any moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing the next best thing is the wrong thing and the worst thing you can do is nothing the time to act is now thank you [Applause] the next is the finance report and that is due to the fund balance return from the city so you'll see that as an increase to your budget the revenues received a date we receive 50.53 percent and the expenditures today is 50 point oh seven percent in addition we have also a more detailed summary of our health insurance transaction for the month of January the show that our ending balance is nine hundred and forty two thousand to thirty three ninety nine and that is an addition to the

055reserve that we have at the city we have provided three attachments it's your two standard is your revenue report and your expenditure report and if you have any questions on those we'll be happy to try to answer those tonight and the third attachment is just an update of those fund balance returns the things that made the budget go up just a status of where we are on those items so that would be your third attachment any questions the fund balance is just the line item and the original balance summary down there at the bottom on the second page it is actually throughout major categories in which it was a sign those are CIP just a clarification for public the next year's budget will be presenting to the Finance Committee on January 10th oh sorry March

05610th and then there'll be public forum on March 17 offline I ask you about the direct payment could you explain one hundred and five thousand dollars where is that coming from just we also have there on Cobra and they will actually send in a check and then we have school nutrition he was a separate fund they have their own account so there's don't go into our account through their payroll they have to issue us a check so those are actually direct deposits into her I just like to thank you again for the additional information that you've given us on the health insurance side it's evolved over time it really is very helpful and informative and just want to point out that those who can't see it that that the total deductions for this for the

057month of January were 628 thousand dollars what much better than what we've seen in the past but also reflects this fluctuation that we all see that compared to January with 1.2 million dollars so it just fluctuates a lot which we are not in control of but with information you give us before it looks like we're sort of on the average per month for how we did about two years ago which was a reasonable year which is also reassuring so thank you very much very much your help with that the information is really good and is this the time to comment about the fund balance return statement that we received - is that one of the one of the I just strictly for point of information and I know we've been told this before but on

058this is listed the Senate roll upgrade to digital controls and the Siemens design control upgrade which is about $20,000 K so much remind me what those are those two items last mr. gaskey to come to the podium sure it's the it's the Senate trawl upgrade for digital controls and then the Siemens design control upgrade well as first of all the sonnet role as technology changes and everything everything's going digital and our current security sonnet Rochus security is analog and in many instances no longer being supported by the manufacturer of the equipment so that was we were pretty much that's a security Pro that's the security that's our intrusion alarms and card access at the doors mm-hmm all of that sort of on the Siemens side same thing technology as you may be aware of Microsoft

059is no longer supporting Windows 7 Windows 7 and that platform we currently have with Siemens and that's our building controls at three buildings Dunbar bass and Sandusky middle so that's our our feeding and air conditioning controls also whites at San no longer being supported because windows 7 out and so we took this opportunity to go ahead and try to get that upgraded so that we don't run into a problem a year from now right that's great that makes a lot of sense I just really wind up for clarification thank you for for doing that it's a big help dr. Millis did you have a question any additional questions thank you that moves us to the consent part includes the school board meeting minutes February work session minutes January discipline committee meetings for every 11th and

06013th clues clues the amended personnel report and also includes the religious exemption and the amendment mark city school board operation policies and regulations every 13 student discipline convening make sure that was right is there a motion to approve you want to make your announcements we're ahead and vote board doc was down at the bottom do intend to vote yes you have to be on the consent agenda that tab to get it doctor do you have an announcement for us I did the motion carries yes okay with that I do have an announcement we had a position open at very month Elementary School for an assistant principal I am pleased to announce that the new assistant principal at Perry Mont will be Miss Rosa derrick act mr. arakata is currently our behavioral coach at Perry Mont

061who's done a wonderful job of working with our students and working with our families and doing some of those things and strategies that mr. Luce talked about relationships relationships and helping our kids so we're excited to have miss Terra Cotta join our administrative team as the new assistant principal for parents Christopher's here for EC glass what's going on at glass okay cool so it's been all right so there's a lot going on um II see glasses basketball season is kind of coming to the end the boys they lost against Halifax County it was a really close game 61 or 62 the girls actually they're still going I believe they're traveling up to like the nova area this weekend to keep continuing their journey in basketball but as you guys can see our student section is

062pretty lively people are really into the game and our girls have still been doing great and the guys into their season really strong so already we're moving on to spring sports which is kind of crazy to me because I feel like yesterday I was just talking about us starting fall sports but all those the tryouts are kind of coming tune in now I think like we have outdoor tracks still left to finish that stuff up but we're kind of moving things along there and so there's gonna be a lot of sporting events to come check out the over the next few months and also EC glass went on to the state meet February 22nd we did really good there especially our girls they play seventh overall and actually their medley relay placed fourth overall and

063it got a new record school time so that was pretty cool we also did really well and forensics tournament which was held at glass on February 29th at noon and they a lot of people I have their names on the next slide will be going to Midlothian Virginia March 28th to compete in States and so just a quick shout out to all the people that are moving on to States it's a lot of really good actors and I'm really excited to see what they do at that level we also had our indoor percussion winter guard and they won their classes all the way down and Raleigh North Carolina so that's pretty far away but 29th it's believable is that the last weekend I think days are just kind of flying by at this point oh

064they went down in Panther Creek High School and they competed there and they did really well so those are just about celebration pictures from that we also had our science fair DC glass I believe that switches the school that it's at every other year Ms gray and Miss Edwards worked really hard to put that on and they give all their dual enrollment students a really awesome opportunity to show off the research they're doing last year when I was taking miss Gray's ap biology class we actually had a day where we talked about some of the projects and it's really cool to see some of the ideas people have and how they kind of formulate them and put them on a poster so we had 27 students between the EC glass and Heritage competing a glass

065for the science fair we also did really well at SkillsUSA and I believe the there's another part of that competition that will be we'll find out in the next few weeks and so I'll update you guys on that but our crime scene investigations team which is Eli friend Hanna Rosso and chase Bryant all placed first and they're gonna be moving on the state's in April so those are some pictures of them the bottom one is I believe them actually working trying to solve the crime here and we also did really good and machinery Joe Seville took first place and he's also gonna be moving on the states and that was the picture the three people from glass competing we also did really well at teams EC glass managed to tie itself for first I believe

066so we had to we see the last teams taking first place and that was February 27th and you guys can see and we actually had to censor out the prom project they were working on there apparently we weren't allowed to have that a picture but whatever it wasn't much been pretty cool and I had some friends actually competing on the team they had a lot of fun also lady Hilltoppers they're helping out daily bread those are some pictures of them so our sports teams always stay busy even when they're not playing sports helping out the community so that's always really cool to see our senior award ceremony that's gonna be May 18th if you guys want to put that on your calendar and you can see some of the awesome awards our seniors are gonna

067be getting and that is going to be at the EC glass auditorium and our prom is going to be at the Academy again this year the tickets are still $35 it's coming March 28th so it's kind of coming up and finally we have our NHS induction ceremony which will be next week which next Monday unfortunately I'm the president yet somehow I managed to set up my schedule so that I can't even attend the induction ceremony but we're really excited to have dr. Edwards come and talk and yeah if you guys are available we would love to have you come out and that's all I got okay we have some news from Heritage we do even though in isn't here but we'd love to share some news news from Heritage so last two days the 3a

0684a track meets an indoor track meets have been going on over local university and happy to announce that the girls team won indoor state champion that's a repeat from the outdoor state champion last spring so they're going to continue to have a good year don't know how many individual first places there might have been on the girls team the boys heritage high school indoor track team finished second or third we don't know which one at this point and therefore by 200 team din did win the state championship as the fastest team I know things even would mention if he was here the Finance Committee did not meet last time because there was no agenda item good meeting we have a meeting tomorrow the Lower School Board we met and we were finalizing the budget and

069the budget had to be done a little differently because of the way the funding sources were going this year but they are doing a great job I was able to go to the STEM Academy thanks to dr. Brennan and I just want to report that I am an ale winner I mean a a champion of the STEM program they're doing a great job and if you want to do a school that's stay close and just some history because that's what we did there that they started with $5,000 and unlike the Governor's School they are not considered a gifted program as such yet so they don't receive any dollars for a funding they create their own or they have from the school system the slots that are available and they have at least 25 and they're

070looking for five more in large slots and right now the city of Lynchburg has seven and we are one of them we don't have as many Campbell County has over 25 slots but this is a great program ahead the other thing is they have five classes they're all taught by faculty members college faculty there are 101 people have graduated since 2015 54 54 percent of their students stay local and they're actually working and do internships in the programs that sponsor them and if a student is there and they're looking for like say they were looking for now something with engineering design or programming and design robotics and assembly they'll go out and try to find a company that will help and sponsor this student and give them a placement to do an internship internships serve

071two purposes one is it will let you know whether or not that's the place you want to go or what you want to do you'll quickly know and or ill will confirm that that's what you want to do and then you can get your foot in the door you already have your network of contacts and you already know what to do when you get there the other thing is that it's a half-day program and there's so many different options when you go you're not just just one way you can just there's so many routes that you can take and so many exits you can take but the best story I think that came away from there that came away with is there's a company amti and they had a student that did her internship there

072and they hired him and he was able he stayed there so long that he was able to take advantage of the tuition assistance program so he's gonna work there go to school online and he'll get part of his tuition paid for right can't beat that that's the smartest thing so just wanted to say in the organizer is Susan okay and you don't have to worry about missing anything she keeps you very well up-to-date and gives you every passing you need so she is really efficient and even since thank you notes Thank You Sharon legislative advocacy so I have a report first I like to thank miss Carter for attending that's them joint Academy meeting in my absence you obviously came back with a lot of enthusiasm and information but thanks so much Sharon for doing

073that so I've already apologized to Susan that this is a little bit of rapport because we had a busy meeting so I know if we want to put on the timer for three minutes and cut me off but I will give a shot at covering some things so we met last week we had dr. Coleman dr. Nellis Miss Morrison and dr. Edwards as part of the committee and we had a phone conference with JT Kessler from vsba who was on the scene in Richmond and was giving us an update as to what was going on currently related to VSB items and his points were several one is that there was a remarkably large number of pieces of Legislature related to education that were submitted there were 349 different pieces which is much higher than they

074usually have to handle which was a lot to cover and to address he reviewed a few of those none of which had been passed obviously at this point but things he included were mandatory collective bargaining bill minimum wage increased bill and the status of the budget the budget problems can be on vote voted on I think today but I haven't seen anything regarded that so but he thought that was going to be passed soon and his feeling was that the budget probably would go through and would not be postponed because the legislature wanted to have that settled so we will say unfortunately his main message to us with that the key word for this legislative session is is mandates unfunded mandates he doesn't reuse that term are not but he definitely said mandates for the

075number of new legislative pieces that were being passed and going to be expected that we address so that was his main comment and has to asked us to keep being involved in the emails that he sends as far as legislative updates ago did you all want to comment on anything else as far as that part of it goes excellent okay so under legislative advocacy we also talked about setting a new date for our breakfast with legislators which would be November 13 so please mark your calendar for that's similar to what we did last year we invited people to come probably will be at EC glass because we've had a little trouble establishing I booked the rooms we're all set with the same room and then the the our goal between now and the end of

076May is to come up with our new latest legislative agenda so that can be part of both City Council's proposal for this summer and vsba so that's our goal is to bring that back to you by by the end of May under community relations we also commented on Sarah Hart several conversations one is that miss Morrison brought up the idea of having a listening tours which apparently have been done in the past where the school board would go out into communities at different schools and would would have a more of a dialogue with the community on different topics and dr. Edwards actually mentioned that there was the discussion perhaps doing one of those regarding the new budget for this habit [Music] [Laughter] disclose the other item that I want to just make people aware of

077and ask for some input after the meeting perhaps by email is that they're underneath community relations we all know there are a number of important partners that we have the Education Foundation that we saw tonight is one of them the partners in education is another and then beacon of hope are all nonprofits that are very closely tied into the schools and the success of our students we were trying to figure out some way that perhaps the board could be more involved with those organizations to help them and to have a line of communication currently partisan education has mr. Harvey and miss Morrison on that in some ways that that has already occurred this year which I think it has been very helpful the we dr. Edwards actually reached out to the Education Foundation regarding how

078could we meet with them perhaps have one or two board members meet with with their organization they suggested perhaps a biannual meeting that will occur with maybe two board members and two or three Education Foundation members to just have a morning meeting or afternoon was convenient to discuss sometimes twice a year and then the beacon of hope invited us to come to their board meetings or individual who were interested there next board meeting is going to be March 5th at 5:30 if you're interested in being and volunteering to work with either the beacon of hope or with partners of Education if you would let me know and I'll be happy to pass your names on to that I'm gonna soon they're Partners in Education is covered with mr. Harvey and miss Morrison but if you're

079interested in these other ones please let me know and that is the end of my report thank you yes this isn't that only agenda discussion possibly at a later point its student the school board discipline committee and I know their parameters and their dynamics to that but it seems like we hear a lot about disciplining each group meets and follow-through and all of that I'd like us at some point to have some discussion about if I have any questions for beacon of hope to channel to you if you're interested in that anyone by email could just let me know because all right like it privately a public right thank you yes equity task force did me and I asked miss Reese to come up and give a quick summary of the February 26 good evening

080everyone the equity task force met on Wednesday February 26 at 5:30 p.m. here in the school administration building information was shared about tonight's board meeting and the work session on March 17 updates were given to them on the volunteer policy that included looking at the voluntary review flow chart that was created as well as an update on the non-discrimination policy members of the task force asked what the equity task force could do to assist in raising achievement and closing the gap to this end the task force members agreed that it is best to work in subcommittees to address disproportionality and data mentoring and diversity and inclusion so three subcommittees each subcommittee will meet and be ready to present at the March 25th meeting any questions Ethel thank you for your great work in the equity

081task force meeting and we've been hearing a lot about the equity task force and the great work you all are doing but in terms of how your group is structured and the realization that you don't have to identify with a group to speak up for a group do you feel like you are in a position to adequately address all of these subgroups considerations that are before us at this time as with anyone doing equity work it is important to come in with the skill set that will allow you to have an open mind as well as use resources that are available there is no end to equity work and I think many times people will come to the table with their passion and and lacking understanding about others and their their needs we are working

082as the equity task force to have those discussions to talk about what it what it requires in order to make a change to include what school board policy change looks like so it is a slow process I - I'm hearing the comments the same comments you're hearing but I believe that we have passionate people at the table who if they continue to grow and embrace the work of equity will be able to make the changes that we need to make I could add to that to the way that the equity task force meetings are run we have 20 members 20 voting members but the meetings aren't closed so in addition to the 20 members who come we often have guests who come and participate some come regularly that I forget that they're not a voting

083member so it is open to the community to come and listen and participate as well so thank you no beam hearing quite a bit in public comments about LGBTQ taskforce maybe sometime in future maybe can hear the viability should we have a separate task force for that subgroup on order should it be part of the Equality LGBTQ you it is part of the equity task force today - there was comment about they'd like to have a separate task force so what would be you know um could it be discussed in your task force equity task force and then maybe report could be given to the board I'm happy to have the discussion the task force I think if I'm in order to say this when you begin to branch off you will open the can

084for or not an opportunity however you want to look at it and in equities if we don't have task force for every group I think that again if you're going to do equity work then you have to have people who are able to have the conversations around equity work and to be inclusive versus creating more of the opportunities for inequities that's Ethel's opinion it is not the opinion of the equity task force however because I do the work and because I'm working with others who do the work I felt like I needed to share that there are some I know that the Commonwealth is forming some diversity and there's some listening tours going across on across the state that is focusing on the work of equity and inclusivity as well so and I can share

085with the board a list of dates of when those tours are going to point to B as well that's a good work we get the schedule of the meetings but where are they publicized the equity task force meetings so that interested people could attend and yeah is it boarded it's on though okay thank you thank you how's that visor he did not meet but special ed advisor he did meet and miss Janine Daniels foster will give us a quick summary of the February 18th meeting yes good evening everyone I'm the special Advisory Committee met on February 18th at 6 p.m. at Sandusky middle school we had a discussion there is an upcoming transition fair at CVCC on March the 7th that will be for parents that information is going out to the middle and high

086schools the siak committee as part of this letters were sent to these seven private schools that are within our jurisdiction that deal with federal set-aside students that's our students that our parent placed in private schools and students with disabilities that have special ed services through service plans those seven schools were invited to come and speak and give any information that they want to give for the annual plan that will come up here in the next month none of the private schools were in attendance but they can still send that information in to us to date we have not received anything but we hope to receive something in the next month Don Decker was also there she is our federal satisfied person that sets up services and she discussed what she and the team are doing

087and some of the things that they will be doing next year the proposed annual plan will be brought to the seat committee on March 24th that meeting is at 6 p.m. at Linc horn middle school and then we will bring it here to the board for review and then approve and that was pretty much it any questions you're good thank you that takes us to comprehensive strategic plan yes and good evening everyone I wanted to talk a little bit about EC glass tonight that was Lincoln that's the strategic plan - our goal one which is about student growth development and success I shared with you an additional document tonight there was there's a handy-dandy little form that's on the video a website that is a one-page fact sheet about the schools so on that it

088will give you some of the things that we've talked about the breakdown of the percent of different subgroups that are representative within the building and a little bit information about that and it actually has the the achievement levels and everything is on the one page as we've done in the past we looked at what the strategic plower what the school improvement plan focused on one and it looked at the scores that were fueling the work back in September of 2018 so that's the the goals and things that they set that led to the scores that we currently have in place at that time they had an achievement gap of level two in English that was with black students economically disadvantaged students and disability subgroup if you're looking on the fact sheet when we look at

089our English achievement currently those areas are all in the green so we had marked improvement in in those subgroups and in the overall performance some of the strategies that they used with that in looking at their plans they're very targeted they they focused on a few areas that they identified as weaknesses and went after those areas with great diligence they provided targeted training in News Lea that's a program that really focuses on reading but it uses current events so it's things that would be relevant to kids we're focusing on reading comprehension they've really identified inferencing as the problem so they went after that in all of their areas they provided strategies to teachers on how to incorporate to inferencing into the daily lessons and they focused also effort on incorporating higher-level questioning the one of

090the things that would be noted with that was that one of the subgroups with students with disabilities went from a 50 1.43 up to a 70 1.83 and testing in that area the the other area that that still was in yellow under performance was in mathematics and that was largely students with disabilities I'm in that area that did not make that they did have gains but not quite enough to come out of the yellow by my calculations it was just a few tenths as what they would have needed to come out of the yellow so they continued that work with that group of students some of the strategies that they're incorporating now they're working with the reading diagnostic tool and there's a math diagnostic tool as well to track progress of students growth of students

091our teachers are using small groups and stations to increase the students interactions with instruction incorporating improved sub performance subgroup performance as part of the teacher SMART goals so teachers are setting goals that they want to improve that individually in each one of their classrooms high level questioning and and still building those inferencing skills is something they're continuing to work on they're not quite satisfied with where they are they want to keep growing and their administrators are making a real effort to utilize on Co observations and going in pairs and talking with teachers and helping them improve instruction in the building one of the things that the other part that we've added is looking at our representation in our advanced courses that's the last couple of pages with that we have some areas that we're still

092working on obviously with this the one of the things I've worked with schools with and EC glasses no exception is to take that on as one part of their school improvement plan so they've added a category with that so they're identifying those areas where they do have gaps and are doing strategies to work on that some of the things they're doing currently is they've got their teachers in the upper level courses that are going down to the classes that lead into them in recruiting and and trying to encourage students to come into that they're also tracking performance one of the other strategies we've worked with this that plays into a couple of things they're working on too is really tracking cohorts of kids they're identifying that that they want to pay their promote or push

093into doing a little more or maybe we want to if we're looking at things such as the chronic absenteeism or the dropout rate which they're still not satisfied with they're doing a lot of communication with parents a lot of phone calls a lot of emails and they're also set up an early warning system so if students missed a certain number of days they go on a watch list and they're meeting with kids periodically and parents with that and starting that earlier than when they did in the past that was one thing they did with seniors but they've dropped that back down or starting earlier on with that to see if they see a pattern to try to help kids stay in school and and know the importance of coming every day to work with that

094those are some of the things that I've seen them working on currently I'll entertain any questions questions miss Carter I just just questioning this house and just how students are going into these classes but what's the draw for the african-american students in the world as oral history and geo in physics and my English Lit and American avance American history versus some of the others that you would really I don't know I mean you know oftentimes I could just it would just be conjecture on my part you know a lot of times it's kids do gravitate towards courses they like in teachers that they really are interested in I'm having good you know classroom teacher that's what you hope for you hope you make your class interesting and you can attract all kinds of folks in

095there it also is noted too that some of the courses that are listed on here because I listed everything that have some very low representation some of the courses like say maybe an AP our class there may be only two children in that that's something that's almost like an independent study there's there's several of those that are on there that are very low representation of students in general dr. Brennan thank you for providing the information and I think it's really helpful to see but looking at the list of black students are involved in AP courses in both CVC enrollment dual enrollment in early college enrollment it really is pretty dramatic the small percentage there and I know that you've commented about teachers trying to go into classes and recruit but I think we've talked about

096her we've been told actually that really projects has to do with going back earlier as far as into middle school and elementary school to try to help with that is there is there a on group and to try to help students to be ready for these courses and interests of courses as they get into high school yes it's definitely we're certainly working with with paddle to be able to do that to encourage kids to do if if they didn't I'm sort of get on that track to be ready to take the advanced courses to to help them make up that difference so they are ready we have that going on we also have in high schools particularly add on a Dunbar they're working with um cohorts of kids now identify if they want to push

097so that's kind of creating that culture where you have that relationship with students and that encouragement they are to to make you know or to make going in those courses an attractive option and and help teach kids the value of wanting to do that which you know you have to for anybody to want to take a course that is difficult they need to see the value in it and what what they hope to get out of it later on you know with it so I think that's the you know where we're going with everything we're doing I'm just a big proponent of tracking a group of kids and looking at you know identifying kids that we need to do something with and watching them over time and working in meeting with folks so that we

098don't take our eye off the mark and we don't take our eye off of kids and lose any thank you so where do you see where you see a hundred percent of the students away that means the classes everyone in their classes okay yes ma'am mr. Harvey is there a way that we could actually include the number of students because I think I'm sharing the concern we're sharing might be going with this if we have a class let's say AP German that's a hundred percent but you only have one student it's 100 percent white but you only have one student taking the entire class that gives us some information but if we have 25 students taking that class and 100 percent of them are white then that gives us a different piece of information I

099certainly can can provide that in that particular class there are three students three students okay right we just have to be careful because then you start being able to identify students by saying hey there's only two kids in there well I know who they are in that particular class which is one of the reasons why when you start disaggregating data and parsing it out smaller and smaller and smaller we start to lose some of that protectiveness that we have for kids so we just need to be careful where we're providing you with this information more for context so that you can you can see it but we're just real cautious when it comes to any testing data that you can jump in that when the sample size is one or two kids they become identifiable

100and this is one or two kids in a school so right and and I appreciate that but I guess what I'm struggling with is as I look at the advanced courses we're starting to see some improvement with the percentages there but then when we go down to AP it looks fairly one-sided but I think if we had a better understanding of the number of students that were talking about I mean it's I still would love to see 5050 on everything but it it helps give us a better picture because because the goal would be that we would start having some of these students who are in advanced classes start to be challenged to take AP classes that's the goal yeah and I completely understand what you're saying and get it and we've done this data

101where we've aggregated it to just say AP courses so you have a larger number and then that wasn't giving you the information about specificity of courses so we're trying to meet all worlds so to speak trying to give you the information that will let you see are there certain courses but we're also trying to be mindful of our due diligence for not putting out public data where we're identifying one or two kids could you could you just say five too small means under five and then we'd have a better put a TS there without well cuz otherwise yeah we would just be nice to other wise we don't know what the base for calculation of percentages is your class and Road sighs you know what hundred percent is so I agree absolute numbers are important

102but they could be the other thing is being a business professor it breaks my heart in advance Michael micro and macroeconomics we have good business schools here maybe schools where you can get some minority faculty like vul is building up their business programs now to come and talk to these kids and saying come take microeconomics and economics and you know so that we that could be a measure they can take later on I don't know if that helps I think so I think any encouragement we can for kids to to show them options and encourage to do great things I just I want to I guess reiterate that be helpful to have numbers on these where it's appropriate because 20% you know and you could have more black students taking a particular class but percentage-wise

103it might not change depending on your mix of other students so it's like you know really what you want to do is have more kids taking these all these classes right and whether you can group them by advanced sciences or I mean from my perspective I'm okay I'm not trying to you know make your your guys life harder but I think the from the context I had to have the numbers so you know what the basis is I thought it was also interesting dr. Copelan we asked about other and use you gave you said what there were 19 or 20 categories thank you madam chair no disrespect this is a wonderful report but we get these reports and the numbers are not changing really want to get more students in period but thank you dr.

104Gupta for your comment I don't know dr. Coleman their professional development I'm again picking back into my discipline dynamic and I know that that's narrow-minded in my thinking but and I brought this up before if you have a kid in one unit and they are creating a discipline problem or whatever the case may be then you put them in an advanced class or an AP class and then all of a sudden they're doing that working at no behavior problems whether it's the right people coming in to mentor them to get them where they need to be I don't see much change in these numbers without us taking a hard look at discipline and professional development well I agree with you I think making it relevant to students is really important I always go back to

105my story of I remember in algebra 1 and 8th grade thinking when am I ever going to need to use the equation of a line who does that turns out I do it all the time now because it's statistics but that that wasn't me tangible to me at the time so I didn't really care and I didn't apply myself I didn't see a future in it so if there could be some way in the the classes that they step off to go into these to talk about hey have you ever thought of this or you know are you into even sports statistics well here's a way you can can do this and and you know kind of make it more tangible so that they will think about economics because I on the surface I wouldn't

106think about taking economics but when you think about how it's used and what it relates to and how much guide your life you know so you know that would be really helpful and one other thing when you see change what are you talking about because we're only seeing one point in time so we're not seeing in asking or is it the results of the accreditation referring to dr. gluto i mean that dr. Google dr. Sinha you're exactly right I'm speaking over time and and I stand by what I said and I hope at some point we'll be able to figure out what to do to move these numbers just what I was going pretty much what dr. Sinha was talking about you have to make the course has to be relevant relevant to the child

107as the the jaw has to see that is relevant to where they're going but also I think another component it was what dr. Coleman said it's about the professional development and not steering a child where you think they should go but look at their aspirations their desires and try to if they you have a gifted child and gifted looks different on different children but you have to see what are they doing do they look like they're entrepreneur let's try to move them toward the business side to the positive place or if you see there you know because some children just depend on where they're coming from they may not be able to steer in the positive direction but you can kind of the teacher and the guidance counselor can kind of guide from there but

108sometimes kids want to try a different thing but the teachers will say no you're not ready for that the counselor said no you're not ready for that they'll look at your grades I don't think you can do that so some of is that - I just would say I agree with everything everybody said but I would like to point out that when you look at the pass rates for the two years they are making progress and glasses worked really hard and these numbers I mean the numbers in the classes I think we need to still be working on but I think we need to acknowledge the fact that there has been a huge change here and that's not easy to do so just wanted to throw that out there thank you because somebody will help

109me to review this so I can appreciate that but you were saying cuz I don't know that's right I have no challenge I said whether that our distinguished superintendent and administrative team are working on this over time it seems to be ongoing challenge and thank you school board member Carter for taking that deep dive and overlooking certain entities that might be able to help us with this problem so for example dr. Gupta brought up a suggestion that there's some things I think we're gonna have to take a an additional look at to help us for all subgroups to push these numbers up in the various classes this is EC glass we've got heritage and then we've got whatever we're doing at middle school level then we've got these elementary students who by the time they

110get to middle or high school they've already replaced a book with a basketball or something else more destructive and never will get to any of these classes we got to take a hard look at this thank you right now we go to unfinished business the art collection donation to Heritage High School thank you for waiting patiently foundation that currently exists at EC glass additionally last Thursday on the 27th there was a meeting of what I'd call an advisory group of folks to start collecting names of individuals to invite to be on the board and then there have been some initial drafts of what right now is a tentative art agreement to where mr. Bassett is acknowledging everything that's in his collection and then transferring it to Lynchburg City Schools after I make a few edits

111to it then I'll pass it over to miss town so she can take a look at it and give us any insight that she might have but I'd say we're several steps closer and it's the administration's recommendation that you allow us to continue to move forward and we graciously accept these donations questions dr. Brennan I just wanted one again want to thank mr. Bassett for this amazing gift to the school and I'm certainly in favor of it of the lint Persie school is accepting it I just want to make sure that mr. Bassett you're the one concern I have is this legal piece I think that dr. Coleman just referred to that this has been valued at under $50,000 and I wanna make sure that from a viewpoint of that transmission of that value to

112miss Burch three schools I could care less you you call it whatever you want to call it um they asked me what it's worth and I said one hundred hundred twenty-five thousand dollars but I mean this is all contemporary local art there's no Picasso's there you know there's no big stuff here it's just a bunch of stuff a bunch is a kind of a art term more scientific you were talking about science and the scientific term might be Lots this is lots of art and you know I'm passing it on and after you vote I'd like to let you have I'd like you to let me have about three minutes but I want to wait for you to vote first so unless you want unless you demand otherwise we're good kkoma need help me one

113more time dr. Copeland's help me one more time with what what is being developed from a viewpoint of a so here's some of the language that's in it it talks about the 200 pieces of art identifies that at times the collection may be at a human at human service organizations around the city or at Heritage High School had specific language Larry Bassett will donate to Lynchburg City Schools and specifically to Heritage High School the totality of the collection the school may elect to decline any pieces in the collection that they determine not to be suitable for any reason of their determination any declined pieces would be returned to mr. Bassett the school will maintain a selection of artwork at the human service organizations as long as both organizations are an agreement that they want to

114do that the Heritage High School will curate and rotate the art there's no formal agreement between heritage High School's Art Foundation and these organizations it is just a these are the organizations that are partnering with us so it is a from my perspective it is being developed as a transference of the pieces of art to the control of Lynchburg City Schools and the official name is the Friends of Heritage High School art collection and then the bylaws contain how members will be selected to be on that what their terms of office are what the officers are what the Executive Committee is it contains all of those things so I'd like to make a motion to accept the the art collection to Lynchburg City Schools understand there's going to be some additional paperwork that officially makes

115that transfer acceptable to Lynchburg schools and to mr. Bassett a lot of seconds that's a good time any further discussion I have a question we're gonna stones what's our I mean the agreements not been finalized yet I mean I'm not first of all in favor of the collection so I just I'm a little leery about jumping when there's things aren't wrapped up neatly sounds like we're trying to make sure that the request of mr. Bassett are he wants to have some of this art used in buildings and such and and I think maybe just some it's a bit more formal ization of the process of how that would look long term but believe that you all can accept the gift and then go further into how that gift will be used at a later date

116and have that have that formalized we have a motion that's second any more discussion are we voting can we do it verbal also just to back that up we've working on all in favor say aye thank you very much three minutes yes okay thank you my name is Larry Bassett River Views art space has been my residence for 16 years river views art space used to be an abandoned building on Jefferson Street it was in a row of abandoned buildings and river views art space was actually as maybe you all know the first downtown loft development so when I moved into River Tees art space it was us in amazement square and then be handy and lots of abandoned buildings down on Jefferson Street and as you know it's now a nice little downtown neighborhood

117along with all the rest of downtown I want to thank you for joining the growing palette of people who are trying to put more art in the Lynchburg city school system a couple I had always thought as I lived at River Views it's a seven story building it's got four stories of residences and three stories of commercial lots of walls so I had always imagined that my art collection would end up at River Views because you know it's kind of my place so you know a couple of years ago um River Views the arts organization and River Views art space the condominium association said no thank you we don't want your art collection they had their reasons and I was staggered but you all know that you know sometimes it really happens that door closes

118and another door opens and I'm an organizer so all of you have probably tried to get things done and you know what you do you go around looking for somebody who is just as excited as you are about whatever it is you're trying to get done and is willing to work on it so I went around town and I talked with a lot of people and a lot of people were but I went to Heidi James who you may know is the person who handles the art at EC glass and Heidi said you want to talk to John Roark so I went to meet John Roark here John so John he's the guy he's the guy who I meet him and I talk about this and he is just as excited about it as I

119am and I say holy I say I say wow this is this is this is incredible and so you know we didn't like bond immediately but you know it was like this is what you want to have happen so John was psyched about this he was not only psyched about putting art at Heritage but he was psyched about the fact that there was art out in the human service organizations and he said I've always hoped that I could do something like that and Here I am about to retire who you come and knock on my door and you know it's kind of serendipity so so yeah so John and I are gonna do this and I appreciate that you are willing to take the step because I know the higher up you get in organization

120the more people want to get kind of worried about the technicalities well I've done this whole thing on kind of a handshake you know I'm not gonna mess with you you know I'm not gonna take my art away I am in the process right now of trying to work out with my family like so are there things here that you want um you know I got a lot of art um but you know I don't want to give away something that my grandchildren or nieces have always desired so yeah a few things are gonna disappear and I'm trying to have that happen in a kind of a reasonable way but you know I think week those are the kind of details that I'm assuming we can kind of work out because probably nobody's gonna say

121mr. Bassett we only got one hundred eighty-five here so what are you gonna do about that um so you know we're gonna work all this out so if people are worried about the details I'm I'm here to work with you because my goal has always been to get art out where people will see it and John has some incredible ideas about getting art out into some of the other schools and I'm just delighted that you're all willing unanimously apparently to say okay we'll take this thing free of course the last sentence is it's at no cost well you're not I'm not gonna get any money so I don't know what I don't know what you know you all are gonna do I suppose there'll be some hidden cost somewhere so I'm down the line but

122you know the stuff is free you got it and you know you'll you'll have to put some nails in the walls and put it up thank you [Applause] [Laughter] we'll all look forward to going out there seeing it that now takes us to literacy school board instruction and program policies and regulations [Music] there are also some notes that was helpful Bell I think maybe that's the easy way to do this is to give a little idea of what you know if there's anything different so that when we come in I did get some questions sent to me and it was able to respond back and answer the question so hopefully we're in shape - excellent are there any questions additional questions pretty straight this is up for for approval tonight motion made the motion miss

123Carter any further discussion all in favor we're gonna have to have another tutorial there's not everybody's come up okay everybody else voted all right the next it was the part that if I'm finished business that we added it was kabr that is I'll record the it's reads I'll request for information relating to the school division from news media should be referred to the public information officer in the language in that it's not the language cindy bob is the communication coordinator in the correct title for the offices the department communication so we wanted to make that reg have the correct language and i think we did it either list the coordinator of communication which is job title specific to the person you could just make it a public information office or you could say department of

124communications public information office it's it was in the consent part of the agenda read all requests for information relating to the school division from the news media should be referred to the public information officer but we don't have a public information officer we have a communications coordinator but if we made it public information office then it would be that person who was in that office I just caution us about saying office because if we if we do that we open it up to anybody who might be in that office so let's say there is a secretary in that office could that person then if a call came in be given the authority to release a public statement from LCS without necessarily Cindy that's that's why I would be I would feel more comfortable with with

125leaving at the discretion of the officer not not saying the office but keeping it specific to the person then we'd have to change it to the communications coordinator I think that's what we should do my recommendation and I agree with mr. Harvey and also this the conversation came of last time is it refers to a public information officer which we don't have I know the public information office either we do have is we have a communication coordinator which I think it's a person who now handles this right I think if we refer if we want to be correct I think we want to I refer to the communication coordinator which is a position in Lynchburg City Schools I would I would have my usual nitpicking here so public information officers lower case so I think

126it's descriptive not you know what we're talking about is communications coordinator which is the title so it's like my standpoint either one works in regards to if we wanted to just have public information office if the secretary is giving out press releases sounds like it's time for a new secretary that's not how we work that's a problem easily solved that's my all right so we have two recommendations one is I'll request for public for information relating to school division from the news media should be referred to the communication coordinator or to the public information office yeah so I'm just going to ask you about which one do you prefer public information office or communication office office the communication coordinator I think with the option right communication coordinator versus public information office I like through the

127communication coordinator since that's the person we have in the musician office maybe off the point but it made me man but when Rene tweeted was here she was the public information director with her giving your life savers but we don't know so just pick what you'd like yeah I have some thoughts on the intensity in further development of that Oh office but at any rate oh yes with the communication do you know the communication coordinator is not there then who do you go to at that point in time so office I secretaries are as competent as anybody else I will not like to be a little dim so I would go with the office it provides much broader access Gary coordinator is for deaf I said if or does is it still called the public

128information office is that what we have in our directory like phone directory or website enough communicate Department of Communications well then why don't we State Department of Communications is if you want to if you want clarity right so you want Department of Communication now change that's one thing it is go for the department - that's fine that was one of the three options and I go with Department of Communication communication great it's um well someone makeup motion I move that we make that change to the policy I'll request for information relating to the school division from the news media should be referred to the Department of Communication Smith Morrison it's in there three separate times public information officer so you'd do a global change across the whole policy right okay it's every second it's no

129second any discussion on favor you have to vote to the man right wait just a minute because what's here is a superintendent recommend the school board approve the policies is written we need to amend first thing we indeed need to do is amend it to change public information officer to Department occasions so would you make that motion I will move to amend the motion to substitute Department of Communications for public information officer second second all in favor aye any opposed hi so we've had a motion in a second to change the Department of Kubik a Department of Communication so now we're ready to vote on that one yes all in favor but it was as written so has written is we approve approve as amended yes do you want us to vote now there should

130be two votes one vote you just took to amend it now we're going to vote on the amended policy which is adding the Department of Communication we're gonna have to clean it up so it matches each I would write it down on paper that's two men will write so you know what we're voting on could you please read the motion the motion is that our request for information relating to the school division from the news media should be referred to the Department of Communication it's been made and second that's the amended motion that's the amended motion we haven't voted on the amended policy as amended but it's been so are we ready to vote now this has just gotten real confusing policy as amended but let's just have a clean I move that we vote

131that would I move to approve the policy as amended all right second any more discussion to confuse it any more all in favor aye that takes us some new business but it's also 7:30 so will you take like a 10-minute break yes madam yeah so we're [Music] we are now ready to enter the new business part of our meeting the first deals with Lynchburg City School Board instruction program policies and regulations we have the next round of policies that we were working on with these they're they are largely the SBA policies that the policy committee reviewed and would be basically straight replacement replacing some older regs that we have the committee felt like the dsba policies met our needs we did do all tweak the one that deals with advanced and alternate alternate courses for

132credit and we struck IB in Cambridge courses because those are not offered here in Lynchburg City but the rest of the policy was just fine that was led that was led then the the one that dealt with it was IgE which is adult education there was one line in that that talked about that the board would establish the fees that we the adult basic education provider who we contract with determines the fees so it would make more sense for the policy to read that they would determine the fees that way we wouldn't have to update the policy every time the fee structure changed just like we've done in the past with those and I think of those all of the rest of them are just the SBA policies to to be adopted we do have

133one that I passed out as a paper copy was remediation recovery program we had reviewed the policy and finished with the committee and within a couple of days the vsba sent on a new updated version of it so you have before you the new updated version of that they've removed the language that relates to defining retesting for Sol so it's the the things for the remediation recovery program basically any school is going to be following the regs established by the Department of Education related to debts so that's that's what we implements what we have to implement so they've removed that I think along the same lines of not wanting to spell it out because then they just say you were basically following their protocol that's a felt like it what we tried to keep things

134very general so we weren't stuck just having to do certain programs so a lot of it the certain programs were taken out any questions what's your recommendation what was sent and all the updates that I've wrote notes on at the bottom the way they're changed for me it's the rate you go and we're in good shape with these and this is for information tonight and considerate action at the school board we need an April so if anybody looks over them and they have more questions and certainly send them in any further discussion may be appropriate at this new content consent agenda for the next meeting you can make that motion we add is the consent agenda by a second okay any further discussion which one are you all in favor I do think whether the

135vsba just those little notes I sent are probably the easiest way for us to do this with the committee Mike did you have a question no I guess not really a question just you know just so everybody's clear that it's on the consent agenda but anybody can just like we did tonight yeah unsent agenda for discussion if there's a particular policy even just for discussion yeah just like we did tonight yeah okay the next thank you next is your next [Laughter] right just a little bit of a word on what we do with textbook adoptions up this year is for with the revised English standards the the textbook adoption is coming around for that every seven years of Virginia Department of Ed does update their standards and then the committee is established there at the

136Department of Ed to review submitted textbooks for suitability that they aligned with the state standards and are appropriate to be used in Virginia schools we have established our committees and reviewed textbooks from kindergarten through 12th grade for that and have what was recommended in front of you that group has really begun that work we we started with that work well before Christmas and in the fall of the year and ordered in samples of those and and opportunities for teachers and parents and and community members to be able to view those and rank them you know we're following the state criteria for how you do that because we're looking at a variety of things from alignment to representation of diversity you know there's just a number of criteria it's been a very very thoughtful process with

137the staff I've been really proud of the folks that have been working on this because they've really dug in and thought about what they were doing and and had great comments with that we've you know of course every of the staff is surveyed and along with everyone else we did it digitally so we would be able to tell which you know which one would be the selection and I think we're we're in agreement with even with my staff and what the folks picked it was it was a clear front-runner for both the secondary and for the elementary schools we found the benchmark series to be very well aligned with what we're trying to do and also promoting writing and phonics in the lower grades and then using the Harcourt series Hooton if 'ln series for

138the the secondary seem to be the best fit with that with any textbooks that we're doing now it the days of really just having a hardbound textbook that sits on the shelf or in a book bag or are really coming to an end they're largely a digital resource now so there's a heavy online component where they can do that a lot of our resources you know if we're needing leveled readers to work with kids on their level to remediate things they're logging in and going to and pulling that that resource up there are a lot of there a lot of the books that they work in are consumable so there's things that you can actually write on annotate circle outline those kind of things and then you of course you have your digital copy to

139refer to with that and and they're really making a concerted effort and both of these products to to connect with kids so there's things that look more like tweets that go out about topics that are current and it's really entering into the digital age we were we were quite pleased with that and we did get also we got a group of community members in and talked with them about the a couple of the top choices after we've narrowed out the stuff that we knew wouldn't work and and let them look through those as well and got input from them and explained our process and they seemed very pleased with how we conducted that and we've made our these the books that we reviewed oh yes yeah they are they are they're there for this month

140it will be so I guess that's all the information I have if we have any further questions I have the ladies that are my supervisors that also work with the elementary choice and secondary choice I'm here as well could you make it an action item and move it up well some of us have not had the time to review the books and I would really like the opportunity to do that okay could we also take the opportunity to have your staff make some comments I did add the ability to visit with them last week and it really is very impressive the process they've gone through I think would be helpful for the board to hear that plus they've sat through this whole meeting very though would you live with that be okay doctor I mean

141so I think it's very helpful this has been seven years since we've done this process it's a pretty big deal I think there's been a lot of work that's gone into it in a very long time for secondary school since we've done even more than that right has been yeah right it's been seven years since lunchtime [Laughter] good evening I'm Dixie Sears the elementary reading social studies libraries and a few other things supervisor and this is my colleague Allison Jordan and as dr. Coleman told you we started this process in August the reading or English one for secondary is one of the most detailed adoptions that we do and we started out in August we asked each school for elementary to send us we wanted the principals on the committee we have instructional coaches in

142elementary so they were on the committee k2 teachers somebody from kindergarten through second grade and somebody from upper elementary and third through fifth grade and we had also the instructional coach serving on it so we five people from each elementary school which when you get that committee for 11 schools that's pretty big 55 but that's it worked well because then they could go back and communicate to the rest of their teachers and Mistie front well our coordinator for textbooks is also always invaluable in this process because she contacts the companies that are on the state list and they send books so they send all the books every elementary school we met with our large group and detailed what our process would be we have the forms okay we have copies of our forms we model

143that after the state's form but we want to be sure that things are included as dr. Coleman mentioned diversity we want to be sure there's information in there for remediating if some kids don't get it or reteaching and for elementary reading when teachers new teachers come in a lot of them may have only had one class on teaching reading so we have to be sure there's support for new teachers that would help them with teaching reading as well as for veteran who comes in been teaching reading for 20 years but you want to be sure it's very supportive when they get the books and these forms they have teachers look at them administrators they invite in parents people who are in the communities with the schools as well as when we set them up at

144the administration building Jodi Gillette worked with us to invite in business and community people to look at the books we around January we met again then we went through a process to narrow down because with elementary we had five series to look at so we narrowed down to the top two we go back investigate some more and then we did an electronic ranking to come up with the top one on we recently attended in the past week or so a video a literacy summit and what they said is very important you know as schools are accredited based on Sol scores but as you probably have heard across the state across the nation the reading and writing scores have declined over the past few years so they said we need to get the scores up to

145be accredited but at the same time we need readers and writers we need to be preparing these kids along with the five C's and everything you hear in profile of a graduate - whether they go on to college after high school or whether they joined the workforce they need to be able to read and write I mean that's just the basics of it they want to get back to the science of reading sometimes I know people say readings not rocket science well yes in a way it is so that was part of our process that we went through we came up with benchmark and we're happy over the next month until you meet again if any of you want to meet with us we met with dr. Brennan and gave him the quick course in

146elementary reading I'm sure he's ready to go now good that was the next thing I was going to say the benchmark series it a balanced approach and what that means is you have phonemic awareness when you start with little toddlers even with nursery rhymes it sounds they don't know anything about letters yet then we move on to phonics that's a second pillar where you're associating sounds with letters fluency when we read with expression you know we want it to sound like a conversation like we're talking and of course vocabulary and fun vocabulary comprehension I'm sure you hear a lot about but we have the five pillars and you balance it sometimes you'll hear people depending on swings and they said we need more phonics well you can't have just phonics cuz then what you're gonna

147hear is a horizontal word list you know you have to have the balance and I'll let Allison talk about secondary secondary had a smaller committee because it's five schools so we had at least two teachers representative in the committee meetings we followed the exact same process we heard the publishers and second year was a little bit different because a few of them only made lists for certain grade levels and as soon as we heard that the committee thought that's not that's not going to work so there were only three that really fit the 6-12 model that we wanted a comprehensive vertical every grade level flow so we've got the top two downstairs HMH is by far the first choice in the product but also the type of PD that they offer so when you come

148and you meet with us I'll be happy to explain the type of PD that that that company offers is more of an embedded model to where coaches would come in and work in our classrooms with our students with our teachers and we've done that in a remediation environment this year and the teachers it's only six English teachers in our middle schools that have had that opportunity they may not think it's an opportunity it feels like a lot of responsibility but let's call it an opportunity and they have Ray moved about that coaching they've really liked having someone come into their classroom and see their kids using the new resource I'm excited about the type of PD and as Dixie said it's been 17 years since secondary has gotten a resource and I was so proud

149of the conversation I was dreading this because textbooks aren't necessarily the most exciting thing but I'm so proud of the secondary conversation because they really want to be good stewards of money and they kept saying well we could probably go a few more years on these books and finally one of them said they're disintegrating they're falling apart so while we could limp along with some of the resources a few years from now what if what if they are all are falling apart and we didn't take this opportunity so they've been really thoughtful like dr. Coleman said it's not the buy the textbooks and you can have them for 20 years a lot of these are consumables in digital and we've all talked about equity and whether or not all of our kids are going to

150be able to connect at home at school is technology always their answer it's a it's a neat balance between actually writing in the book and being able to annotate and you got to see them in person dr. Brennan saw them the other day they are colorful and they are engaging they make young adults middle schoolers want to read in the selection of novels in there with the classics but also brand new young adult selections it is really impressive there have been years dr. Coleman talked about seeing some textbook adoptions and that you're just really not interested there's a reason why we haven't adopted for almost 20 years this was a pretty neat process to see to that I think we would be happy with so I'm excited about the front runner but I think everybody

151would be really happy with the top two that are downstairs and I would I would love to talk to you more about what we did and about the process and you may want to thumb through it and see what we're expecting middle schoolers and high schoolers to do you're no longer writing essays you're writing emails and you're acting like a historian and you're writing like an entrepreneur a business person maybe even some things about economics but they're really writing and reading as if they were a certain occupation by the time that they've gotten into the secondary level and some of the business and community people who came in sort of got a kick out of it when you know if the kids are reading a story and it says he put 20 cents in the

152pay phone in the phone booth or the cassette that went into the tape player and they're like what you know it's um we need to kind of stay up with the times so you've got a selection in the seventh grade book about artificial intelligence so it's talking about just the difference in technology over time so we had some people that were kind of excited to look through the books so I hope that you'll take some time and see what we have the opportunity to invest in thank you any questions yes the the question that I have are we looking at implementing this change for next year yes I'm gonna going to put my plug in for bass to make sure that we are implementing this in a timely manner okay we've got you covered I

153was I didn't want to have to single you out when we um start talking with these people we let them know that we have one elementary school that talks that starts in July and we need to for them to be ready and so that doesn't mean they have to have all of them here by them but but they work with us on that but thank you we appreciate you looking out for bass this is hope you find the time to get down there to review the books and just email or call us we'll be happy to meet you right dr. Brennan right you were very happy for this cause I was an English major so I have a little more interest and had to meet some other people but thank you thank you thank you

154thank you it goes to next Capital Improvement Plan window-blind replacement and $50,000 for window blinds we identified a few schools initially Bedford Hills Perry Mont Darrington portions of Dunbar the bids went out you can see the numbers they're the lowest bidder withdrew due to error the second lowest was deemed unresponsive and was pulled so we still have a great price of 71 thousand dollars to do that initial work and then we will use the current bid and look at what the next schools will be and consume the rest of the 79 thousand dollars to replace blinds and other schools so it it is up for action tonight so we can get started and get things moving if the board would approve it any questions what is the mathematical error 22,000 yeah I don't know exactly

155what they did but 22,000 is not even close so this is up for action tonight any other questions thank you doctor second thank you miss Carter are we putting online minds telling me that my server has yes I just lost leaves locked back in my deck in thereby timed out during the break any opposed all right next is the NRG power pay demand response program mr. kasky [Music] this one is really interesting for three hours a while back we were approached by an NRG that's all it stands for energy anyhow to join up with their demand response program now NRG they handle the energy reduction program or whatever you want to call it for a EP so what they do is they get commercial customers to volunteer to reduce your electric consumption during times of

156grid stress peak usage during the summer generally when everybody's running their air conditioning in the afternoon and it's been on 100 degrees for three days and they need to reduce the demand on the system the theory behind it is that it's cheaper to pay the customer to reduce your usage than it is to build more power plants so that's the that's the goal behind the program we have a chance to get a little money from I'll go through this PowerPoint very quickly the the first part of it is is basically public relations materials for NRG they are a national fortune 500 company they do a lot in energy other than they do more than just the demand response they're also one of the largest energy generators and transmission companies and this so this is just

157part of their of what they do as you can see they have quite a few companies the the country clients excuse me the country is kind of divided up into regions and there's different companies that handle different regions you see 6500 participating facilities one of those untold is Lynchburg General so we're not alone here in Lynchburg and doing this as I said it's cheaper to pay pay the customers to reduce their consumption during times of peak usage than it is to build new plants so what the the end result is to take the stress off the grid and be sustainable so what they will do is energy if we go into this agreement with them they'll come in and put their meters on the buildings that we decide would be good candidates for this program

158I'm anticipating it would be our five largest buildings which are the secondary schools it could go low we could go into some of the Elementary's we would have to wait and see they will put their own meters on it they will take a baseline and then everything is compared off the baseline we they will come up with a reduction action plan that will be within our input they don't just force it on you we we agree to the level of reduction that we're looking for at such time once we have the agreement and levels in place if they call and say okay we haven't we're having an issue with peak demand we need you to reduce we have about a half hour 15 minutes to do that and we need to respond right away if

159we do not so if we reduce and for the period and it could be up to 12 hours and an actual brownout if you want to call it that it could be up to 12 hours on if we do it at the end of the period which is at the end of the summer we would payment for our participation in the program if we do not participate they call and they say we say no we got summer school going on in that building I can't reduce we don't get paid for that's it we are under no obligation it is a five year contract but if we do not participate if we sign up and for whatever reason we end up not participating this summer we just roll over into next summer and we can participate

160then it's totally volunteer and it's totally we control whether we want to do it or not and then I'd like I said at the end of the period which runs June through September at the end of that if we based on our performance we would get a check these are just some of the things that they recommend in order to meet our goals reducing or cutting off the air air conditioning or raising the temperature up to 80 degrees setting off lights other equipment that you don't need just to reduce your power usage during that period the nice little thing that for for me is that we get to access their dashboard and we can see how the performance of our buildings on as far as electrical consumption on a real-time basis I love that sort

161of the sign anyhow and I also like I said they're into a lot of other things that they have other energy solutions and whatever so this next slide here it's just their estimate and well I can't read that but anyhow it's just their estimate of what we could possibly realize in a two year period through this partner and the I think it's five is five 250 megawatt the top one you'll see that that pays off at about twenty eight thousand over two year period and all that means is if we participate and we reach that level which that's a small amount I don't think we would have a problem qualifying for that level at the end of the first year we would get up in that first column I'm sorry I I I can't read

162from here but anyhow it comes out to about twenty eight thousand over the two-year period this is very similar to it it's a commercial version of a EPS residential program that they have a bring your own thermostat if you have a smart thermostat in your house you can sign up with a EP and they can control your air conditioning from their offices this is like that but different in that they will we do the controlling they can they will not be accessing our controls or anything directly they call us we respond this is we did ask for I mean this is up for information tonight it is somewhat time-sensitive so if we could get approval this evening it would just help the process any questions yes so it's not gonna hurt us in any way

163to participate and it has the potential to help us that's wide mr. gaskey it's brought it forward I would like to I did not say is that in the last five years they have not had an incident or had to call for a reduction anywhere in the state so it doesn't happen a lot we would have to participate in a test that it's a two-hour test in July as long as we participated in that that's we get the we're in the program and we get the money at the end of the period I was just going to say I have a client that did a similar program one of the things that they did was they took the the revenue that they received and reinvested it you know they started out we're going with LED

164lights and so forth so it allowed them to replace all of their lights in their facility which then in turn cut their energy costs so it's it's this cyclical thing it's it's a good program to participate in how this is tie into a strategic plan ability our energy conservation great any additional questions dr. sumac so help me just think about this most of our peak demand here in Virginia would likely be in the summer time yes so a lot of our buildings are offline more or less or they for whatever reason you have to keep them going actually we have things going on they're going it's all right we're really not our secondary they're cleaning we won't we won't know how much our potential savings will be until they come in and survey our schools

165take a look at our bills because it's a volunteer program and we can back out at any time they're going to wait until they got a commitment from us to put in the resources to come in and set everything up in whatever but it's a it's a no risk agreement for us and you know it's only positives there but as far as the the projection I do not anticipate at least initially to reach that 28,000 or whatever it's going to be a you know for us it's going to be a there's gonna be a learning curve as as what we can turn off and whatever we don't shut we don't have to shut down any buildings or anything it's just reduce your your energy consumptions raise your thermostats shut off areas where you can so

166like I said I think it's a positive for us all the way around dr. Brennan I think it sounds like a great program in that the administration is really looked into it very thoroughly I'd like to make a motion that we approve the energy power plan demand response program second we have a motion and a second any further discussion or questions dr. Millis some of these I mean I'm not sure how much power reduction you would be called on however how do you anticipate managing that I mean you're gonna go around shut down I'm just sit down elevators and well turn off lights I mean you don't have a central you know like you can control all I control I can we can we can control all the heating and air conditioning from our office

167I can control the lights at Sandusky middle and Heritage - mile okay so it's so it's not no it's not doable it is doable right send out an army people right it's the digital controls that allow you to change set points across an entire building at the push of a button we have a motion and a second any further discussion before we go okay it's up on our you're doing great the first one tonight are we all in no I hit the log Thank You senator I know but it went off the house I just hit yes well I had yes I don't know where it is okay you're laughing but it's true outing around it they have to come in during yeah this just gets the ball rolling how do we know who's voted

168what way or what way all right great oh I'll see it down I mean for the public how do they see it'll be eventually have it up on this okay that moves us superintendent's comments brief the Parent Advisory Council on February 12th the bulk of our time was spent going over the border so the parents were we took them through the same floats out that we did the board and they gave us feedback and we had a very rich discussion very positive comments and questions and they were just really great to work with so I I really do think the parents for giving us that positive feedback at the end most of them agree that with regard to the volunteer process one of the questions was will there be an opt-out and the parents pretty

169much said that's not appropriate that if you get approved to be a volunteer your volunteer that you know that kind of thing and they were for the most part pretty pleased with the thoroughness and we answered all their questions so again thanks for that some other things that they just talked about or inquired about the GPS app on our bus SFI applications they want to put in a plug for more world languages across the board there was some questions about the ghost center versus gifted opportunities at each school and whether or not we were considering that and then some transportation questions so just a really great meeting personnel advisory also met on that day and I think mr. Luce kind of talked about their number one thing which is behavioral response to behavior and I

170will say in some of our budget presentations when we get to them next week you'll see some things that we put in place to address behavior to make sure that kids have resources and again that's one of the number one things that we're talking about in addition to trauma training and there's a list of things that individual personnel brought up during that meeting and again thank staff for meeting with me to discuss those items there are a couple of things that should be available for the public to see it as well as me quickly discussing them I'm not going to read them all but the first is the Census and I know dr. Jordan was here and she's gone to the the schools over the past week to really work with the schools and some

171of the activities for the census so that everyone can be counted there's a link on our board Docs to some additional information that is available in the city site for anyone who wants to know more about the senses and how participating in the census helps us with education there's also a notice that we are going out for the 21st century learning grants there's information in here that we have to have a public notice that we are not only seeking to restore our grant at Dunbar middle school we can apply for up to four grants and I think we are going to do four grants this year the upcoming information in terms of let me give that one I will go down tomorrow we are having a ribbon-cutting for the gym at Bedford Hills one of

172our CIP projects that will be tomorrow at 2:30 and then Thursday at chef Sheffield at 5:30 and I got sneak peek in but for Hills today and it looks awesome so if you could be there it's going to be great for our kids to have that also we have on March 17th is going to be our budget discussion with the board at that time my team and I we will take you through the nuances of the budget we'll talk about our budget procedure we met with the principals and school staff book keepers office managers and a little bit of everybody yesterday and sort of unveiled the new budget process and you will see a difference in how the schools are funded we'll also talk about the revenue Kim's presented some of that we're waiting on

173the governor's budget we've made no secret that we are asking city council for flat funding and 42 million again going forward and that 42 million is inclusive of the pay tables that you put in over the last year and our promise to our staff that we would continue to sort of bump it up and I think again mr. loose bean here earlier mentioned something about having quality staff and making sure that we can pay our staff accordingly so we do want to move with that so I'm encouraging everybody to come out on March 17th to join us to learn more about the budget following the discussion with the board is when we'll have that public hearing so if the public wants to come out to the board meeting and you're the board discussion and then

174we'll open it up for the public hearing immediately after that and then I will probably be traveling from place to place I don't have a set schedule yet just to talk to anyone who wants to talk to me about the budget I am scheduled to present his City Council on March 24th and of course it's going to be standing room only because I'm inviting all my friends to come and join me at City Council on March 24th and City Council's public hearing on the budget is March 31st and again feel free to join me with that for that so that is the information quick pieces just a couple highlights over the past week I've had the opportunity just to be with kids which is why I do this job I went to the optimists Club

175luncheon and that's always a great event I'm sure mr. Harvey I'll add to that when we get to board comments but I just love seeing our kids and our staff just be celebrated and highlighted and just networking with everyone there so thank you to the optimist club and at all the volunteers who put that together it's a wonderful event I also got to go to the Miller center for the student recognition program that we had there with all of our students and again one community one voice police department Fire Department Sheriff's Department mayor Lynchburg City Schools and a whole bunch of volunteers again taking time on a set on a Sunday to celebrate our kids and their accomplishments is always great made sure I stopped by something that has some food so it was that

176SES for their numbers of nachos night which was packed I'm pleased to say that there was no parking in SES parking lot I had to park it into middle school and walk across but that's just a tribute to when people say we don't have parent involvement they should have been there because there was parent involvement grandparent involvement auntie uncle friends a little bit of everyone and it was a really really great night of just a lot of critical thinking that night so I was glad to to participate in that as well and looking forward to going to a few other things as time thank you oh wait I'm sorry I supposed to make one other major announcement because everybody's probably waiting for this I know my family's probably already know because I believe earlier this

177evening both high school principals sent out a message to their families letting them know that we will host graduation at City Stadium this year Heritage High School will graduate at 9 and EC glass high school will graduate at 6 we're trying to avoid the hot times in the middle of the day I will reiterate that the decision was based on both principals talking with their students staff and teams and it was the majority of the students and families expressed that they want to invite more family members to join in on the celebration so by having it at City Stadium we do not have to limit tickets so you can bring your families but I have to add the caution caution caution and that is weather and weather it's more than just rain so we will

178be monitoring the weather we will issue what we call weather tickets in advance to students so that they can share those with those with their families in the event we have to make a weather call which we will do 24 hours in advance so that that will give our staff enough time to be prepared and no one's scrambling minutes before if we have to issue a weather call we will have graduation back at both base schools and we will have to use the weather tickets that's the drawback to this plan hopefully we'll have a beautiful day and beautiful evening have both graduations but I will be making sure that everyone understands the weather ticket policy should we have graduation at yes it is at other on the 31st and that was my really important right

179thank you board comments I just have a quick question so the next work session is the budget yes also this school Climate Survey results right so I just in my own head so I know and people know when are we going back to the volunteer policy and the discrimination policy board make it so it's not on the work session nope it's on the paper okay thank you dr. Gupta do you have anything you have she asked you no I'm good I just had this question oh yeah so for last few weeks I mean on a mission too go through a school segregation documents which is Virginia University of Lynchburg the reason was because they're not part of beacon of hope and I was not clear to me why they're not getting benefits so beacon of

180hope scholarships and I found out they are accredited different they are approved by the Department of Education for student loans they're approved by the State Council of Higher Education in Virginia so they meet all the legal guidelines to get any federal loans correct me if I'm wrong and in state subsidies there's any other student any other university will require so that's what I was asking dr. Brennan has Beacon a hope to see if he can pursue that ul should be counted as part of beacon of hope scholarship right we're gonna be well-positioned they asked that question dr. Brennan just briefly dr. Edwards and I talked about the other day but as an infectious physician I understand that the city and those personal schools are working together to address the corona virus epidemic and I would

181just encourage them pursue schools to use this as an educational opportunity to contact their families to say that that we are going to address this appropriately that there are certain basic factors we understand about this being similar to influenza and be reassuring with that I think communication from us would be a great thing joint meeting today so I will touch base with her tomorrow she has her handbook from previous when we had h1n1 mersa some other so she's on it she's ready great that's great and I also had the same question that miss Evans did and miss towns are we going to get the information that you were going to gather for us before that meeting would okay that'd be great thank you very much mr. B okay as dr. Edwards mentioned I was able

182to participate in the optimist club career tech education recognition luncheon that was held on February 20 2015 here to jenissi class were recognized and I'd like to read those names off real quick and the career tech programs that they're involved in marking education is Jalen Thomas building trades was Eli you'll automotive service technology andrew simon cosmetology jasmine goood nurse's aide Rihanna Ross airforce JROTC Brandon Farris culinary arts is Eli friend engineering was an Townsend robotics nuclear engineering sy Pappas and criminal justice was a mere prior both the students and the instructors really represented LCS very well at this event and I was very proud of LCS at this event it was just just to hear some of these some of the stories of these students just amazing in their GPAs and and I mean it

183was it was good for our community business leaders to be able to see that also I have a governor school board meeting tomorrow I got to participate in EC glass theater presentation in the heart of Robin Hood I hope others got to see that as well that was a great presentation about how sometimes even the good guys lose their way and they need to be reminded of their purpose I also want to put in a plug for heritage pioneers theater upcoming presentations of never the center and Agnes of God they're going to be running this weekend both evening and and night shows and you can go to Lynchburg tickets calm I'm gonna be going Friday evening because it was really interesting I believe dr. Coleman you also received an invitation from the young man who

184was Abba neither Scrooge and the winner presentation so I appreciate that the fact that the students are actually reaching out to us as individuals corps member school board members and I'm gonna make this a little briefer than I originally planned to but one of the things I focus on was for my sharing what I've learned about LCS was going to be the Education Foundation and so it was a great presentation that we had this evening to see the Education Foundation really in you know in process there so we also have the breakfast within super superintendent coming up and I've heard and I encourage everyone to attend that event but one of the things that's really interesting is raises about thirty five to forty thousand dollars for our Education Foundation and a lot of that money

185that gets distributed back to our schools so our teachers I'm sure you've probably seen some of the emails or they have the tools for schools program where they teachers can go shopping to get supplies for their classrooms also they provide supplies for students at the start of the year and they provide some grants for teachers to try innovative things in their classrooms and those grant grants typically range five hundred to two thousand dollars and it can be as high as five thousand dollars but one perfect example of how the Education Foundation really helps out is in association with the with the James River Association where our eighth grade students got to do the canoe trip so they're opportunities when when that are presented to our students that come through our Education Foundation so I encourage

186our community to continue to support the Education Foundation and what it does for for LCS I have one question regarding the 21st century grants are those all of the ones that we have now just the ones that are on rotation for renewal so we have paramount TC Miller and Link horn are the ones that we have done bar is in new UN Network so the other ones would stay in place okay well I just wanted to say what you mentioned Sandusky Elementary the turnout they have and I think we always talk about where to host events and I think me maybe we need to look at the bright spots that is one so just hosting an event there they always have a wonderful turnout I heard the nachos nachos the numbers was not as large

187as they normally do so they normally have huge turnouts and so just congratulations to dr. Womack mr. Womack and his team in the that's all well I have comment on something that's kind of personal to me but I was appointed to the school board back in February 2017 and my first board meeting I joined it an odd time because I was finishing out a prior members term but my first meeting was a joint meeting of the board and City Council and we broke into small groups to talk about things that we could do to help close the performance gap and in my small group happened to be Joan foster mayor of Lynchburg at the time and one of the things that she was really enthusiastic about or thought we should really do is have preschool

188education for every child now why am i bringing this up because my child's preschool is closing little wings it's closing and you know it's a special place because with funding from United Way a head start children could go there and let me tell you something you cannot tell the difference between my daughter who's economically and academically advantage by virtue of my career and education my wife's career in education and the other students there I can't tell you whose Head Start and who's not but I will tell you that these kids do have a head start and a tremendous leg up on kids who don't have this opportunity now there was an article in the news advanced about it and if their statistics are correct you know for zero to three year old kids there are

189only three hundred and forty four slots for an estimated two thousand and eight hundred children in that age group so that's one slot for every eight kids and for the three to five group which my daughter just joined yesterday when she turned three there are nine hundred and seventy-seven slots for 1940 children which is a little bit better one slot for every two children it's still so I would like to propose to the legislative advocacy group to really look at that as a way of you know it is just so important for these kids to get this early socialization into the classroom and the reading and that they just do all kinds of wonderful things there it's fascinating and and I really feel sad that this special place is closing because it affects me personally

190but it really really highlighted just you know we're called a private or a preschool desert for those Eero two-three age group so really if we're gonna solve the performance gap it has to start at an early age and so I'd like us to push that in early education is in strategic plans it's appropriate to discuss so thank you dr. Millis dr. Coleman [Music] thank you the next school board meeting oh I do want to show you something and I want to it says dear school board where we are learning and having fun at our school thank you for helping us we are going to kindergarten next and this is the Hutchinson kids look at that riding while we sit here for four hours right yeah if you're walking Saturday it's the next school board work

191session is scheduled on Tuesday March 17th at 5 p.m. in the boardroom as I said survey and budget there will be the public budget hearing at 7:15 and next school board meeting be on Tuesday April the 7th at 5:00 miss mr. VR do we have discipline meetings this Thursday and that's right when Sheffield Tom leader so we I think we have three the Sheffield gym is going to be okay okay three okay we are adjourned have a nice evening [Music]