LCS School Board Meeting: February 4, 2020

001foreign [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] 2020 meeting of the Lynchburg City School Board is called to order I would like to extend a welcome to the members of the community and the audience and watching at home staff legal advisor hope towns and the media please stand for the pledge allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God thank you the first um item of business is the agenda approval I recommend that the school board approve the agenda for the February 4th 2020 meeting promotion for approval Dr Gupta Dr Gupta make the motion Miss Carter II any discussion all in favor any Nays the next item of business is to amend the approved agenda

002to add the addition of a mended Personnel report to the consent agenda and I think you all received a copy of that before the board meeting is there a motion to amend the agenda with the additional Personnel reports Dr Coleman is there a second Dr Brennan any discussion all in favor that takes us too special presentation um Dr Edwards I get the wonderful honor to recognize February as being School Board appreciation month and School Board clerk appreciation week so I'm just going to read a little summary the month of February marks the annual observance of school board appreciation month the Virginia Board School boards Association established this in observance in 1989 to encourage public recognition of the roles and responsibilities of our school board members and to highlight the importance of public education throughout the

003Commonwealth this year's celebration Excellence through Equity reflects the top priority of local school board members as they advocate for public education with local state and federal leaders on behalf of all of our students Lynchburg City Schools is joining with other school divisions throughout the state to recognize the important contributions of our school board members that our school board members make to their communities the members of our school board receive new financial compensation for their tireless effort votes and this school board is one of the very few school boards Statewide that has student Representatives on it as well the nine members of the school board are appointed by the Lynchburg City school council even though the spec special recognition I'm sorry the special event shows an appreciation of school board members members of the community recognize

004that their contributions reflect a year-round commitment they are dedicated individuals who are committed to continuing success of cities of city schools and students and also in aligned with that recently vsba board of directors designated the third week of February but we wanted to honor it now as school board clerk appreciation week with the goal of building awareness of the role that school board clerks play in assisting school board members and superintendents in our local boards our school board clerk provides an invaluable service to our division in our community so with that I would like to celebrate our school board members and I have in addition to some gifts certificates of recognition for each School Board member from vsba it's Morrison Dr Coleman Dr Brennan oh they have them in order here miss Carter and Miss

005Evans Dr Gupta Mr Harvey Dr Nellis and Dr Sinha and in addition we also have certificates for our very tireless School Board clerk Miss Missouri and our Deputy clerk who is not here Miss Barbara Saunders so I have a certificate for her in addition you have at your table wonderful gifts and just little tokens of appreciation from our schools and our students and I have a super secret box that I'm supposed to pick up and read from Sandusky middle school art students they use the three doodler pins to create these Whimsical gifts which I believe are in these cute little bags right here a three-dooer pin uses the same filament as a 3D printer but the artist holds it like a pen and creates three-dimensional art we are just learning to use this new tool

006and has been a fun experience my students want to thank you for launching the Next Generation we know that our future is brighter because of people like you thank you and that is from Sandusky Middle School Arts students it's a privilege to serve with you on this board and to know how hard you all work um it's a privilege to make such great new friends and I value that I also really appreciate our new board Clerk and all that she does for us and so because of that we thank you so much for your service and commitment to LCS we appreciate all that that you do this is from the LCS board members and the administration thank you excellent Now we move to special presentations B2 I think Miss Brown is going to leave this

007discussion training in Richmond okay this evening we're proud to announce the launch of a collaborative relationship with the Central Virginia addiction and Recovery resources coalition sivar can consists of concerned practitioners and citizens who have embraced the common vision and mission of seeking help with substance abuse and Recovery by developing a substance use prevention treatment and Recovery Network sivar identifies gaps and services prioritizes resources and reduces the impact of use on individuals families in the Greater Community Coalition has been awarded a federal drug free communities Grant this grant is one of the limited number of awards given to communities across the United States and Lynchburg is the only one awarded in the state of Virginia Grant will bring up to 1.2 million dollars to the community over a 10-year period Lynchburg City Schools will be working

008with sivar and and the drug free communities Grant create and Implement a variety of Substance Abuse Prevention activities in the community and in our schools during the launch of this new Grant on January 16th miss Ann Bon Gentry who I think is here with us tonight um was recognized and presented with the community champion award for her dedicated commitment to Coalition efforts and Heritage High School was recognized it's the same event for the outstanding video for Red Ribbon Week going clean Miss Kelly Edwards and AP biology teacher at Heritage High School was the producer and Mastermind behind the school project and I think we have the video to show [Music] thank you so this is the second year that we've been a vcfs pilot for within the state and we were a pbif school before

009the job the behavior that came from PBIS with academics [Music] foreign [Music] stay sober your eyes were married to really buy a limbo limbo be successful help them make your money grow up make it grow it's good it's so bright you already know ain't anywhere in life that you couldn't go oh really at this mix act like all the other two of them this is [Music] very nice so the students wrote that and did the filming and they did a lot of seniors in that in that video also I thought so so thank you that's the the presentation for this evening okay well we'll look forward to hearing more about this as we press that takes us now to public comments section of our uh agenda in accordance with policy bddh public participation the school

010board welcomes requests and comments as established in the guidelines within that policy individuals who wish to speak before the school boards shall have an opportunity to do so at this time I need Dr Nellis to move just back a little bit and Ms Dr Edwards if you would move back this way I apologize um we're so looking forward to the boardroom of Christ for work okay okay we're good are we good we are ready all right persons appearing before the school board will not be allowed to campaign for public office or promote private business ventures and should not use profanity or vulgar language or gestures make comments about a public official or an employee that are not related to his or her official duties engage in behavior that disrupts the meetings or intimidates others or

011addresses school board on issues that do not concern the services policies rolled and of responsibility of the school board individual speakers shall limit their comments to three minutes a speaker representative group shall limit his comments to five minutes the representative shall identify the group at the beginning of his or her presentation a group may have no more than one spokesperson the total allotted time for public comments school board meetings is 30 minutes public comments are reserved for the public to provide input the board does not respond to comments answer questions or otherwise engage in discussions at this time and we are we are full tonight with comments um we're going to really stick to the time allegations all right Mr flood you're are speaking as a group of rescue of the youth I'd like to

012thank the uh school boy once again and superintendent Edwards I haven't been to a couple of these school boards recently because I had some pre-engagements otherwise but uh what I gathered that y'all finally came up with a decision uh after 2014 I know it's about five years going on a little bit longer but I thank y'all for whatever decision y'all came up with I think it was to benefit the ex-offenders to volunteer and I know it you know it's not over you know this is just beginning I mean it took this long to do it I know we got a long ways to go to uh make it finer but uh I'm speaking about uh well from the ex offenders that's not a violent we need to start that now I think after 2014 now

013it's 2020 it's time to make a decision to move forward with this ex offenders volunteering that's not on the bottom uh we are just waiting and one question I have uh I don't know exactly how y'all will go about doing it but um the volunteer peace for exit fund is our hope that you consider letting people coach basketball football baseball or be assistant to somebody that basically I know y'all spoke before about making sure that it was in our sight depending on what nature of the crime is uh and I think y'all talked about Case by case and and that's fair uh nobody want nobody around the kids they got a sex offender case I'm a sex offender charge or have some kind of dealings with kids negative nobody want that all we want is

014a fair share that the show that ex-offenders can change with non-violent crimes and some with violent crimes depend on if they had enough money they might have been Charles Magnum kicked out of court or might have been dropped down to a misdemeanor but they became a felony and people look at a felony morning look at the person get to know the person first before you prejudge that's all we ask them give them a chance to volunteer the show that they can be upstanding citizens helping the school board and the community like a lot of us do anyway outside of this place and all we want to do is just try to be a part you know we just like anybody else made mistakes some people get caught some people don't Nobody's Perfect always asking is

015to give us a chance as ex-offenders and the ones coming behind me and the ones before me and I appreciate y'all taking out the time and hopefully y'all can speed it up a little bit and come to a good decision thank you [Applause] I just want to make sure that Erica Powers is not here I think I received an okay um it says it sure I didn't say it right my name is solbe chesseth and I'm speaking tonight regarding the anti-discrimination policy I'm speaking on behalf of Virginia organizing because we believe that those who are directly involved with in any possible policy change should be at the table when the decisions are made we're glad for those folks who have spoken in the past board meetings and we're glad for those who will speak later

016tonight I would like to present on behalf of Virginia organizing four points that we feel are important first your Equity task force the school board's Equity task force affirmed that this is a priority for them in terms of creating more positive attitudes in the Lynchburg school system secondly each of you received legal opinions given to the Stafford County School Board this past July and August we want to point out that the Stafford County School Board voted to add sexual orientation and gender identity to their non-discrimination policies at their September 2019 meeting that policy is currently in effect third the Attorney General issued an opinion in March 2015. that school boards have the authority to amend their anti-discrimination policies on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity school boards do have the power to protect

017students and employees according to the attorney general fourth Virginia organizing worked with students and community members to pass similar policy changes in Charlottesville in 2000 and a memorial County in 2001. we want to make sure that you know that no litigation has been filed because of these changes in addition to those counties Arlington Alexandria Falls Church Fairfax lodon Manassas Manassas Park Prince William Norfolk and Virginia Beach have sexual orientation and gender identity in their non-discrimination policies so we're really not breaking new ground with our changes these school districts rely on the superintendent and their staffs to implement the policy including training for staffs no student should feel unsafe in the schools this proposed change would go a long way to help students and staff who identify as lgbtq plus feel safer we hope you send

018them a clear signal that they are important to you finally on a personal note one of our sons came out as gay when he was 17. our bright quiet sensitive talented son it was in a large High School in Denver Colorado and in that school he was the first in 1989 he stood alone and at the time he didn't tell us his parents about the name calling the harassment the times he was shoved against his locker or tripped in the hallways and tonight I am thinking what a difference it would have made in his life if he had had the support of teachers and administrators if there had been an anti-discrimination policy that was enforced thank you [Applause] Phil stop my name is Phil stump and I would like to speak about two matters first

019I also strongly support adding sexual orientation and gender identity as covered categories in all the portions of the LCS policy manual that pertained in under to non-discrimination there must be the same policy for students as for personnel I would say thank you to the members of the board who spoke in the working session on this matter saying we should do this because it is the right thing to do how children are treated is going to affect all of us because these children will become adults and if they have been bullied or harassed because of their sexual orientation or gender identity they will bring that pain into adulthood and it will impact our entire Society I plead with you because of my deceased gay brother-in-law who endured the pain of being closeted and harassed in school

020and on behalf of my transgender friends because of the pain they have experienced for so many years the words of the Reverend Dr Martin Luther King Jr are particularly appropriate here all mankind is tied together all life is interrelated and we are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single Garment of Destiny whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly this Vector of legal liability has been used too often as a subterfuge to evade this clear moral truth and it is irrelevant here the memos from the Stafford schools attorneys and the advice of your own legal consultant make clear that you have complete legal right to make these changes in policy if you are wise in your implementation of the policy you will not face any illegal challenges you will be wise

021if you leave this implementation in the capable hands of your superintendent who is an expert on Equity issues this brings me to my second point I urge the board to allow Dr Edwards to pursue immediately the excellent procedure and pilot program that she developed to allow returning citizens to serve as Volunteers in the schools I do not understand why the board commissioned her to do this and then some board members backtracked in the last meeting saying they needed more time to consider it five years is enough my three children who were educated in the Lynchburg schools told me a lot about the racial inequity their friends of color experienced their it is interesting that over half the students in LCS are African Americans and yet only two school board members are in the last school

022board meeting Dr Nellis asked for delay in implementing the policy saying that some of his constituents had raised questions and concerns about changing the volunteer policy this is the same Dr knows who for years prevented any personal contact between Lynchburg citizens and individual board members what is wrong with this picture [Applause] Vincente Gonzalez thank you hi uh my name is Vicente Gonzalez um I also want to say that I also support uh the changes happening to volunteer policy and that we're waiting for the pilot program to go through but today I'm here to talk about the introdiscrimination policy um I'm a graduate of EC glass I'm queer I graduated 10 years ago and it's been sort of difficult to advocate for this issue because it's sort of forced me to look back on memories that

023I've been trying to bury for the past 10 years um I faced a lot of harassment a lot of abuse from both students and teachers and the cause of that was really a lack of oversight and a lack of protection which still exists today um so obviously I support the passing and Reformation really of this policy right that includes gender identity and sexual orientation in the antiscrimination policy but um I want to take it a step further further and really push for the need of an lgbtq task force um I'm a member of the equity task force this is my second year being on it and just in my experience is that the equity task force simply isn't doesn't have the capacity to deal with this issue and all the issues attached to it um

024we have so much on our plate dealing with issues of race in our school dealing with issues affecting black students because there's such a resistance to address those issues um there's also a lot of failure of representation of other communities of color like Asian American South Asian American Arab Middle Eastern Latino communities so we have a lot of work to do and the bottom line is that queer people aren't at the table right now when it comes to this conversation all the decisions being made right now are happening within groups of people that aren't directly affected by this policy um and I don't want you to think that this is going to somehow take away from other issues of equity you know all the issues that are already being discussed are issues within the queer

025Community because we're such a diverse Community you know we have to talk about poverty we have to talk about homelessness we have to talk about the achievement Gap and let's go to prison pipeline you know um this task force which is lbq lgbtq centered will address all those inequities but from a different lens um so really my main point is that when different work groups work together we can solve problems more efficiently you know we don't have to fight over attention for our different issues um secondly um I want to talk about digontained on doing some type of climate like campus climate survey um because just based on what we saw with the vine Center I don't want to talk about what happened with the vine Center because it really doesn't matter at this point

026this year but um what we did see is the way that this group that this group takes student input and how it analyzes that input so um basically you're about to discuss this policy you don't know how many queer students are in the school system you don't know how what they're going through and in the last student survey when queer students did come forward and expose themselves and give you their concerns you ignored them um so when you do student climate surveys are you always going to base the issues of minority students on what the majority says because in that situation they're never going to win you know you need to address specific marginalized communities and speak with them and not let their protections rest on overall majority that may or may not be indifferent

027to what they're going through um just two questions before I run out of time so I was a little confused at the last working session because y'all use the staff the legal aid that was Private provided to Stafford County right but I mean you also named five other school systems that had passed the policy so I'm just wondering why did you choose to use one school system that didn't pass the policy which I believe did pass the policy and ignore the legal advice of the five other school systems you've named that did pass the policy um I also was a little confused about the conversation regarding religious freedom that like protecting students queer students May somehow infringe on people's religious freedoms um I understand there is a case in the court system right now and

028that it's filed but there should be a clear understanding of the separation of church and state right if um having to treat queer students with dignity and with the humanity they deserve if you believe it infringes on your religious rights you need to be removed from the classroom and there are plenty of religious institutions in this community that you can work at right so I just don't even think that should be part of the conversation but like I said just to overview will you be forming the lgbtq task force and will you be doing a campus climate survey thank you Tyler Milton good evening the last time I stood at this Podium I was hopeful hopeful that our community would see Lynchburg City Schools taking a stand to protect the vulnerable that queer children could

029go to school knowing that the adults would fight to protect them from harassment and discrimination I was hopeful that the cries of the Lynchburg Community would be answered now I'm angry because you have answered you have answered with hands thrown up fears of hypothetical threats and waiting while queer children in Lynchburg City Schools must fear being who they are you sit in this room debating their value you have been given the statistics before but I'll share them with you again according to the 2017 youth risk behavior study 33 percent of LGB youth report harassment as compared to 17 percent of their heterosexual peers the odds for substance abuse for LGB youth are 190 percent higher than their heterosexual peers lgbtq youth are three to five times more likely to commit suicide than their heterosexual peers

030let's just think about that for a sec standing before you once again I ask that you listen to me and to the voices of my queer sisters brothers and non-binary siblings one change all of the student policy to include sexual identity and gender orientation two make a plan to enforce this change three create an lgbtq task force made of queer individuals to help you the board carry out this plan at last week's work meeting the concern was brought forth that granting queer rights can infringe upon another person's religious rights just a reminder that the culture adopted through non-discrimination should be the bare minimum expectation for all Lynchburg students and this does not come about by making the blanket statement No harassment allowed as a board member suggested last week specific policy makes specific identities matter

031and so I leave you with these questions is the life of a child worth an unseen legal complication is the life of a child worth keeping the status quo to avoid Rocking the Boat is the life of a child worth waiting until it's too late thank you [Applause] Jennifer Williams [Applause] Jennifer Williams thank you so I believe in second chances however I do have to say that I was disappointed with the board's decision to place the responsibility for determining the location of graduation back in the hands of the School principles the mess they made of every aspect of the planning process does not Inspire confidence the SEC that the second time will be any better I'm sure that excuse me other parents as well as members of the senior class share my concerns to that

032end I'm asking in the name of transparency that the principles inform the senior class and their families of how they plan to proceed what their decision-making guidelines will be exactly how students will be able to participate and make their opinions heard and their timeline for a final decision many students and their families are feeling great amounts of stress due to the uncertainty of their graduation plans being informed of the process moving forward would go a long way to alleviating that stress and would be a good first step to rebuilding Trust I would also like to add that what I spoke about at the last board meeting has come to pass my daughter and other students who bravely stood up to remind Lynchburg City Schools what Equity inclusion really looks like good are now being targeted

033on social media and in school by Angry students and adults who continue to blame them for the changes in graduate graduation plans I have been oh and by the way my daughter came out to the world at that meeting and so now she's open to harassment for that as well I have been waiting for Dr Garrett to make a public apology and to take responsibility for his mistake in announcing the change before the contract had even been signed and to make it clear that my daughter Kate Staton and others are not to blame it saddens me to say that he has not yet done so and I think it says a lot that he is willing to let children get harassed and take the blame thank you um Jen Staton good evening thank you for

034letting us have public comment throughout the past year I have renewed my commitment to volunteering and being an Engaged LCS parent I realized that I was no longer committing to the level that I did when my kids were in elementary school and decided that I needed to do better I got involved again now as a parent of high school students I really started noticing the issues of equality inclusion and discrimination within LCS at seemingly every turn at the school board level there seems to be a commonality in many of the issues that have been brought to you recently the commonality is that our most vulnerable students staff and families are being impacted the most by the lack of action the volunteer policy that offers no hope of restorative justice to non-violent felons has been shown

035to disproportionately affect black men has been getting debated for years the anti-discrimination policy to which the board cannot seem to reach a consensus on passing is to protect our queer students and staff the graduation venue debacle that has has brought forth all sorts of concerns from many different marginalized communities has been a game of passing authority to make a decision around like a hot potato in learning about these issues I have been listening closely to students and employee voices I've heard that they are facing bullying and harassment based on race sexual orientation gender identity and much more they tell me that the GSA at EC glass can't operate and Thrive that students are facing violent threats from their peers both in and out of school Confederate flags are worn in our schools to intimidate I'm

036told that many of these concerns fall on the deaf ears of the principle when brought forward or that students and staff don't feel safe in approaching him for fear of repercussions when students do report they are told that what they experience doesn't fit exactly within the LCS definitions of harassment bullying or hate speech or that these are Community issues not school issues they are left feeling like their concerns have been dismissed and disregarded they are being gaslighted by administrators about their daily realities through all of this I have watched the school board talk adjourn talk send a committee talk delay and repeat some of these topics have been in discussion for over five years well I'm here to remind you all that Justice delayed is Justice denied we are raising and educating children in an

037environment where they do not feel safe we are asking teachers to go to work in an environment where they do not feel safe this is all In conflict with lcs's Mission and the responsibility to the community every moment spent calculating liabilities instead of calculating Solutions is robbing our most vulnerable stakeholders of their Peace of Mind Justice and a safe and productive productive learning and work environment it's time to do better it's time to take action on these issues thank you [Applause] Sonya Harding did I say your last name I'm sorry what name did you say yes that's me all right I'm sorry five minutes thanks all right my name is Sonya Harding and my pronouns are they them gender identity and sexual orientation should be added to the anti-discrimination policy it's the right thing to

038do protecting marginalized people is the right thing to do during the work session I was disheartened to hear people prioritizing litigation fears over protecting the safety of our queer students it was also brought up that the Lynchburg City school policy already prohibits harassment on the basis of sex and gender as well as demeaning personal characteristics such as sexual orientation perceived sexual orientation and gender identity you are already liable you can reduce risk of litigation by adding lgbtq advocates in the schools responding appropriately per policy through reports of harassment or demeaning Behavior you need to pay queer advisors to advise how to adapt the schools to be safe for our queer students you need an lgbtq equity task force and since because the current Equity task force has not been able to focus on queer issues

039yes the advisors require a cut of the school budget but that cost will be minor in relation to the cost of a lawsuit this is reduces your risk of litigation and the social cost of lgbtq students being in an unsafe environment yes there is currently an open case in Virginia about misgendering with a teacher arguing that it is within his religious freedom to do so misgendering people has been statistically shown to raise suicide rates and mental health issues in people who are victims of it if a teacher is unable to perform their duties in a way that does not include harassment and abusive students they are not fit for that position would you rather be responsible for a lawsuit that involves a school system not protecting a marginalized person from harassment or would you rather

040face a lawsuit because someone is insisting on their religious right to harass a marginalized person please consider my child's pronouns are they them and I am raising them with freedom to learn and recognize their gender in their own time I will also support them if they decide to attend your Public School Systems I need the schools to be ready I need my child to not be harassed thanks includes our public comments for tonight that takes us to finance report Miss laconic [Applause] 31st 2019 our Revenue budget has stayed the same as it was in November it's just your original budget with the addition of those openpos that we're allowed to roll over with us being six months into the year 50 percent at this point we have received 38.77 percent of our Revenue at 38

041million six hundred fourteen thousand one hundred and seventy five dollars and 80 cents and our budget used is at 42.93 percent I have attached the revenue reports and the expenditure report by function I also have included the next section for our health insurance you will notice that our administrative fees were 140 000 127.72 and our medical and Pharmacy claims was a 906 thousand five sixty two ninety nine and our balance and our health insurance payable is six hundred and eighty thousand three thirty seven forty seven now you may see that that's a increase from where it was in November there is a new attachment this is what was presented at the finance committee meeting and that attachment will show it takes that November and it shows what's coming in from the payrolls the deposits and

042then any of the claims that were paid there was an adjustment that we made in the month of December due to the fact that we had those concerns over funding the claims and we were able to look within the existing budget for anybody that if we we estimate who's going to be receiving health insurance they may not opt to take it so you still have that budget there and plus you have the salary lapses so we were able to do a transfer to get that so that it is more it's fun to the point where it can fund those claims do you have any questions on that I'm sure we'll be talking about it when we get to the finance committee section can you um tell me what's involved with the administrator fees on their

043face they seem a little excessive for one month but well it's made up of your of your stop loss it's two things it's your stop-loss insurance fee and then there's administrative fee and it's based off of the number of people that's in the policy and that's a per unit and I could get that number for you so it's not just the administrative it's actually sort of the premium for that stop loss insurance as well and I think that's around that's usually around Thirty to forty thousand dollars every month yes ma'am so talking about the monthly health insurance reports I think we're all aware particularly those of us at a small business how much our health insurance costs fluctuate and how difficult that is to predict um I think it seems to be from our finances

044that last year as far as our health fund balance we had about 1.2 million dollars in excess that we actually put towards a general fund that we put back to the city it looks like so far for the six first six months were negative about seventy thousand dollars I I asked this once before and I'm not sure I might not making it clear but I think it'd be helpful if we could look at a comparison of what we spent the previous year compared to what we're spending this year could we can so we can see where is the increase in claims and where's the increase there's no change in in Revenue I'm sure that stays about the same but where our claims are increasing and whether our trend is one of increasing health care costs

045which obviously we can't control but we need to be aware of so we can predict you know if we're on a slide where we're going to need more funding so we did discuss it at the finance committee meeting and we did it we did the trend for the prior two years and the current year through December if you look at the current year versus the prior year our claims are about 1.7 million dollars more than they were at the same time last year um if you compare it to the year prior because we do know that last year was what was a very good year for us as far as having low claims we're about a half a million dollars of what was two years ago so we do have that analysis that we did

046provide to the finance committee meeting and we can we're going to continue to update and bring that to there and if we need to bring it to the board to include it we can do that I think that would be helpful for the whole board see like are you going to do that but Kim said team to now our claims have gone up by 27.4 percent 17 18 compared to that our claims have gone up by seven to nine percent but the other thing which you mentioned we talked about in finances when you look at the Top Line editions 779 000 that used to be 840 or 845 000. so I was told the board voted to reduce the employer employee contributions right correct and the result we are short of seventy thousand dollars there

047month after month so in a year that comes out to be already eight hundred and forty thousand dollars of less contribution to cover claims compared to previous years is that that is correct and it's one of the things that we've um we've discussed in next year's budget we're going to address to make sure that that that is not a funding concern it is very volatile but to make the decision to bring it back based off of One Good Year you know historically we know it goes up and we go it goes down so that is one of the one of the things that we are addressing in next year's budget we couldn't wait for next year's budget to solve what's going on now so that's why we were very strategic and looking at those salary

048lapses and we had the vacancies that um or that they were filled at later in the year so you had that little that gap for when they when they weren't filled that we were able to take that and put it towards the health insurance because that's going to happen I mean those payments have to be made so we wanted to make sure we were funding those one thing our employees need to understand you look at the really Top Line is 196 thousand dollars so you divide an average of thousand it means the average payment per employees about 196 dollars a month for health insurance that's a very good benefit compared to what we see in a private employer so that's it that's a excellent benefit LCS is providing to his employees there's no way I'm

049advocating increasing that but that's something which take away from the sheet will be that as a LCS as an employer has excellent benefits I think it'd be helpful if we could send that sheet to the board do you have that that you could send out so you can see it comparison the amount that was transferred in um can you explain one more time where those funds came from and also what the what the guidance is as far as transferring funds from one area to the other within the budget how how can that how is that done so one you can look at we can we looked first at the benefit the health insurance where it was already in the budget so that those were where if we had vacancies or some people made changes that

050initially that they had insurance and then they did not you know they dropped it that budget is still sitting there so we were able to it's for it's for that purpose um the other thing is as long as it's within the function that Minister Administration can make those those transfers and it was done by looking at you know if you had someone that when we were doing the budget was here and they made this amount and then they left and their replacement makes this amount you have a gap you you have a surplus same with if you have a position that we had several positions that couldn't that weren't filled until mid-year so that first half of the year that salary budget was there we did not use it for any other thing so we

051were just we were mindful in seeing the trend as it was going up you know August and September wasn't well not bad months but the fact that July was high we were all is on notice anyway but with it being high and you know two months we weren't willing to you know to to use it elsewhere we wanted to be strategic and then when you saw October and November and then December um oh yeah it it was an unusually high claims and then we will bring you to the next financial January which are trending lower so you know hopefully the 750 that we've put in there will be enough but we're just we're we're continuing to look and just make sure we have that Safeguard in place great thank you the finance committee was if

052we don't try if we had not moved at 750 000 from open positions will be read by about 187 thousand dollars this month in in terms of what's coming in and what's going on so that's not sustainable going forward but but if the trend is going down then that's a very good news it is I'm being cautious just because um just the timing we have our plan year starts January 1 and Anthem started a new system so where it's where they are trending low I'm hoping that is the case and I just want to make sure there's no delay in processing because of their system change we do on February 21st have a meeting that will with Anthem or they'll go over the high claimants and just give us some Trend history so I can

053bring that back to you all as well thank you she has she shared in the finance committee she has sleepless nights she watches on again she's watching it carefully yes in 10 hours so we really appreciate that I've already asked for this week's pills they reminded me they don't come out till Thursday so thank you thank you very much any additional questions about the finance report that takes us to the consent agenda I recommend that the school board approved the amended consent agenda which includes the January 14th 2020 regular school board meeting school board work session December 17 2019 student discipline committee meeting minutes November 19th December 5th December 10th 2019 January 8th January 9th and January 15 2020. 7 Dr Coleman made the motion second by Ms Carter any discussion all in favor all

054right thank you that takes us to the student representative comments and we're going to hear from Mr garland from Heritage High School first good evening I hope everyone had a great day I know it's been a relatively short time since we met last but nonetheless there's still some great things that have happened at Heritage so to start our wrestling team has been doing some great things this season they've all been wrestling really hard at all of their competitions and recently they went to a rather rigorous tournament and Spencer Goolsby got first in his weight class Gavin Womack got fourth in his and then Zach Ferguson placed eight and his and everyone else on the team also played really to their best ability so our track team has been performing really well this year recently it

055was senior night and here are a few of the pictures of our seniors that run track and all of the people on our track team are really excited for the upcoming Regional competitions and then hopefully the state competitions to follow Taya Blake received she's right there in the middle in that picture and she received the athlete of the week award January the 24th that's a pretty big accomplishment so recently a few weeks ago a lot of our athletes got to go to the Virginia showcase and while a lot of them didn't really place and their times they set new personal records and it's always great to see Improvement throughout the season of our students so as we all know the glass Heritage game was last night and if you were there it was a pretty

056good game and then glass ended up squeaking out a win in overtime unlike football season of course but still both teams played really well and our boys basketball team as well as our girls basketball team they've had quite the turbulent season but we're hoping that they'll pick up things by regionals and speaking of our good football team we had seven individuals recognized for their Great accomplishments and they were KJ Vaughn Shantae Giles Karen Thomas Spencer Goolsby Brian Trent Keyshawn Colbert and Christian Rivera and they were given All-State recognition which is a pretty big deal so in the early part of January we had a few students that participated in essay contests and it was about Dr Martin Luther King Jr and they had to write about his impact and we had three students that actually

057won and their names were Marty Demopolis Victoria Johnson and Taylor Morgan and then as we all know February's Black History Month and recently at the Miller Center there was a nice little kickoff event where a few of our chorus kids got to go and sing and they all performed really well and then this week is School counseling week and in honor of our school counselors we're going to go and get them free lunch one day they're going to get LA carretta and then they're also going to get recognized Friday on Pioneer Spotlight and they're all looking forward to that and then H the HBCU college fair is coming up February the 15th and it's at William Fleming and a lot of our students are going to go and attend this event thank you for your

058time thank you okay so um it's February now and we're back um oh okay um so as we already talked about um our basketball teams are doing pretty well um last night was a very intense few hours as the boys team managed to squeak by with the win which I was really happy about um I could not come back here saying that Heritage beat us again so that was good news for me um and our girls team besides I think one Tournament game is still undefeated won the girls team plays first in the district meet and the boys plays third um and Mr Frankfurt our swim coach also got coach of the year and actually back in my summer swim days I had him as a coach and it's really good Niecy glasses lucky to

059have him help it out um and uh our JROTC uh kind of provided some security on the Boys and Girls Club Resolution Run which was a few weeks ago um and so there you can see them kind of running in formation in the bottom left-hand corner and then there's a group picture in the top right hand corner so they happy to be there and happy to help out our community wow we also had our Snowball Dance um so the sca basically transformed the Miku gym into a awesome dance party uh you can kind of see the picture there it's a little bit difficult to see um especially if the lights off but they put a lot of stuff in there they spent a lot of work for a lot of time playing make it all

060come together and so there were a lot of people there and it seemed to be a pretty awesome event and it is also a counselor Appreciation Week at glass and so there's all our guidance counselors that been really busy up until now you know kind of trying to help the senior class get all their college stuff in and get everything set up for the next year so um we appreciate them and all they do for us to help us get through our schooling days and oh there we go um also we had um the event live streamed I don't know if you saw it but um thanks to awesome Journey which is an amazing employee LCS he spent a lot of time putting on stuff like this and as you guys can see in the

061video here it looks pretty professional which is really cool um [Music] thank you and so if you guys want to see the game it was a really good one if you want to go back and watch it it's on the LCS YouTube channel and we live stream both the girls varsity and boys varsity so you can see both of those games um and also another really cool thing that's been happening a lot recently our itrt at glasscat Phillips has gotten a grant with the help of Ms Ross Fanning to basically get these VR sets and she's been going around to just about every single classroom you can think of kind of joking around now how she's basically the VR person now because that's a lot of what she's doing so what she does is she

062works with the teachers and basically they make a lesson and then the kids get to put on the VR goggles and kind of see that and not really a real sense but you know kind of like being able to look through it and the scope of VR so that's really cool um and that was thanks to Grant from the lunch break Education Foundation and that's all I have actually have the teacher from Heritage High School and a few of the students from the video we saw early in the presentation that were here tonight and I want to see if you had a minute to just let them come in let the teacher say a few things thank you very much the board agrees with that right yeah welcome hello hi oh I recognize some of

063these faces so we had a mixture mixed up with the time so we were told to be at 5 30. um these guys are representing about 19 kids that you saw in the video on the drug on their teacher and I just wanted them to have the opportunity I didn't try to think they didn't show up we did they're super proud of their work super proud of their video and as their teacher I'm really proud of them because you guys got to enjoy the finished product I got to enjoy the work in progress and what I loved about it the most is that when they were given the assignments and I told them that it was either all in we were all doing it all 19 of them or not and it was just really

064cool to watch them support each other and encourage each other and um the shylands bringing them out and getting them to do it too and so it was just a really awesome experience and so they they deserve lots of credit for that so thank you sorry to interrupt no thank you very much Dr Coleman so powerful but I want to commend you all you all are excellent dances the message was powerful and I know that we appreciate it and I know that it'll get many hits people watching it and we might even take it to vsba see what they can do with it thank you thank you so much thank you [Applause] you're welcome that takes us to school board committee out there about the video which was all it was amazing I wasn't in

065the video but it was amazing to watch but we're here to discuss the issue with graduation and the location of graduation I'm sorry we've already finished that part of the meeting okay I'll just come back next month you can come back we meet again in Feb March okay we've already closed I've already we've already moved forward for that we need to get back to our agenda School Board committee reports finance committee Dr goop did you have anything to add share a few more things I think the fund balance was approved and uh do you want to do the breakup or do you want me to share these numbers so 1.66 million was for CIP which is already in in Works 990 000 for operating budget 1.122 million for textbook and 1.2 million was allocated for

066the task force and the as you see that projected budget for 2021 the key takeaways is their idioms are down by 32 students so but certain things other things have happened and maybe you can explain the CI and the vrs the PRS right has gone up um that's our retirement percentage it went from the 15.68 it's going up to 16.62. so when you see additional funding and we have brought that to the budget work session last week the breakdown those are funds that we have to spend to cover those areas same thing with your VPI that's your preschool initiative those have to be targeted for your preschool students so we had just discussed that in that meeting yeah and maybe you can give the good news about Governor's School the two that'll come to us

067in the full budget because this baked into this budget proposals proposals correct and there's another meeting in February February 11th at Governor's School okay great Laurel is tomorrow as well uh STEM Academy January 28th meeting was canceled but there is a joint meeting of the stem County Board and the foundation later this month and Miss Sharon Carter's been nice enough to offer to fill in for me for that for as the alternate so thank you very much for doing that uh legislative advocacy Dr Brennan is the last meeting but the we have added a date on for our next meeting which will be February 24th okay and that's not on our calendar so you might want to mark it February 24th we all these meetings are at 3 30. advisory committees to the school board

068Dr Edwards um we did have a couple committees that met so I'm going to ask my committee leads to come up um Mr Bryant Miss Reeves I don't know if Miss Von Gentry is first school we'll have the advisory just to give a quick two-minute summary good evening everyone the equity task force met on January 22nd 2020 updates were given on the volunteer the work that is being done on the volunteer policy and the non-discrimination policy the task force recognizes that work involving equity is multifaceted and it's ongoing to this end the task force discussed other priorities we discussed the importance of everyone providing input and we also discuss the format in which this input would be collected and shared in the form of recommendations to the board with only four meetings scheduled the task

069force agreed that a February meeting is necessary and that date is being determined any questions thank you okay good evening good evening Dr Edwards and board members I'm Brad Bryant I'm the supervisor of Career and Technical education thank you for letting me talk about CTE for just a moment we had our Career and Technical advisory mini committee meeting on Friday January 31st with most meetings we have some reports we've reported on some of students student awards we had a report on the STEM Academy I presented a couple reports one report was about the federal program monitoring that is happening this year and I also presented the budget for next year the federal program the federal CTE budget for next year and that is an estimate of what that I presented to the board and they

070will vote on it at the next meeting one thing that I'd like to do to board meetings is bring somebody else in who will talk about something that maybe we don't know about and this for this meeting I brought in Ben Bowman from the Virginia Career works and he talked about a way that he wants to connect businesses with employers and what he's going to start is a program that will allow businesses to log into a website and present their jobs and internships and that will allow our counselors and our our internship coordinators to log in and see what's available for our students so it's a pretty good win-win for all of us that concludes my report thank you for your support and thank you to Mr Harvey for being our school board rep and

071attending our meetings attend a lot of meetings good evening Dr Edwards board members Health advisory committee met on January 22nd we had eight members present that day and we did some update discussion about things that are going on the division right now like the James River Dental Clinic is the dentist is coming to see all of our elementary students whose parents have given permission and they are eligible for services we also talked about the pillowcase project which is the disaster preparedness project that we're working on for third grade students that'll begin in this month in February and we also talked about the health advisory was interested in trying to do a little flu prevention so we put a piece on our LCS website that just talks about good hand washing as a reminder to everybody

072in terms of flu prevention in this flu season the other thing that we talked about and we'll have much more information on I think all of you all have a c bar brochure we're going to be working with the coalition on the drug free communities Grant which will encourage us to do some different things with our youth risk behavior survey and the health advisory committee will be involved in working on some of those questions and reframing how we do that survey with our students to try and do better prevention work for Substance Abuse Prevention in the community there any questions I'll answer yes current virus epidemic you know um as far as flu yes um yes we asked all of our nurses to do a little segment in their school buildings just to keep everybody

073mindful of staying healthy and doing good job washing hands and things like that so and we are right now counting our incidents of flu across the division in the event that it should become something to be concerned about right now it's relatively low we've been very lucky but we do look at that on a regular basis yes there was also a reminder from the operations side out on all custodial staffs and principals about enhancing our cleaning and the and the approved product that we know uh works against that that series of viruses so any other questions thank you thank you that takes us to H comprehensive comprehensive strategic plan discussion absolutely so um I'm going to invite two people up to join me um Dr Coleman and Miss Leticia Elliott um because we're actually going

074to squeeze in two tonight so I'm switching to order Dr Coleman I'm 11 this Elliot come up first um as you see on your agenda um you see the two objectives which we usually report out about um our reading and our math but we decided to start adding some other parts of our strategic plan um to to the uh agenda and this is goal 1.61 which talks about our Pre-K Early Childhood Program there were seven eight strategies that we had one was hire a Pre-K coordinator ta-da we hired Miss Elliott to be our Pre-K coordinator we have a pre-K school counselor at Hutchison there has been lots of collaboration between the city's Early Childhood committee and I'd like to thank Miss Elliott for her leadership in that area we do have a Pre-K ambassador program

075we've moved to a single point entry to register students um and we've reviewed the Pre-K curriculum and adopted the straw Frog Street curriculum and we've had lots of training on the classroom assessment scoring system also known as the class system so those were eight strategies that were listed in our plan that we have actually met the majority of those strategies and we continue to develop with the class assessment scoring system and our implementation of the Frog Street curriculum but I asked Miss Elliott here just to give you two minutes of a little peek in the green bag and some stuff that we're doing with the program and thank you so much Dr Edwards for the opportunity to be here my name is Leticia Elliott I'm the pre-kindergarten coordinator for our wonderful Lynchburg City schools and

076what you are having the opportunity to look at is called the Frog Street Family Fun Pack and this is a way to engage our families at home with their children on the things that they are being exposed to in the classroom so this Fun Pack is an opportunity for children to strengthen their literacy skills their numeracy skills and then their engagement with their parents in the Fun Pack there are books with activity cards that are fiction and non-fiction that relate to the curriculum so parents have an opportunity to be exposed at home to what their children are being exposed to in the classroom and then the children get to teach their parents what's going on there are also beautiful visual cards like this in the family fun pack which has instructions for our family members

077on how to use these items with their children at home there are manipulatives in there math 10 frames and just various items so what the teachers are doing or will be doing in the different schools is sending home these fun packs with one or two activities at a time with instructions on how they can use it and we're just excited to continue to evolve in this pre-kindergarten program with the Frog Street curriculum with the class observations and all that encompasses making sure that our children have everything that they need to be successful and prepared for kindergarten so thank you for this opportunity any questions especially with family and community thank you um student growth all right that's cool I'm sorry for this that was great thank you um we are still continuing with our theme

078of linking our strategy strategic plan to some of the school Improvement strategies that are in place tonight we're highlighting Paul Monroe Elementary School Paul Monroe of course is as fully accredited and is if if I'm kind of skipping to later in the pack that basically with their subgroups and their Gap groups um they're level green which is where we want to be with uh with those um in but you know that that still being the case um we're still not satisfied with where we are we want to be a little bit higher so the the school has still focusing attention on closing that achievement Gap even more and noticing that you do have a couple of groups that slipped a little bit in looking at the scores with that that's um why we're focusing more

079attention back on that and changing a few of our strategies the strategies listed on the front page were the things that we did previously in the previous plan and some of those were things that we thought were were being helpful and then other things have been adjusted a little bit as we move forward in some of our strategies for the this current school year and what we hope will provide the scores that we're looking for and and great student achievement continue to focus great conversations in our PLC meetings about students and their performance and how to change our instructional strategies to better meet that we've implemented IXL Reading and I excel math this year where we're doing Diagnostics pretty much continuously with keeping a read on where our kids are and how they're performing and

080then continuing to work with our Benchmark readers and our level literacy intervention that is how we work with our small groups in our elementary schools to ensure that kids get the the targeted instruction that they need in the classroom setting and still working with the reflex math program and uh they're concentrating some effort in that building on differentiation of their centers we're really I guess our theme is really trying to tailor everything we do to better match up with kids needs and getting better and better at that each year and and looking for great Improvement as we move forward the other piece that I do share is is looking at how we're represented in any of our Advanced courses that we offer at our schools and with the the 5A Math course that's the accelerated

081Math course we do have um 25 percent of our of that class is represented with black students and where 60 percent is white did share with with that one there that uh the total count in the building and that building is 33 percent black students and 51 white it's not quite where we want to be but it's it's much closer to the percentages matching I'm in that with students that are represented in that so we're looking to identify our kids and that's also part of what we look at when we look at our IXL we're always watching for kids that need to be accelerated and get that little extra push to go on and do great things later but what are our goals to receive reduce that achievement Gap you know right now it's 20

08225 and 60 so do we have targets for next year or the year after old monitor situation as we go um in in this case I'm not aware of the target for that we've been working with that with the school Improvement plan to to bring it in line with what the the demographics of the school are so that's the what I'm charging our folks to do with uh their school Improvement plans moving forward and they already start working on strategies to make that happen but um that's that's our goal is to um to reduce that each year so that it it comes up to the where we want to be you can see where Paul Monroe I think the last under the bullet for math you can see the last statements are where they're trying

083to get to um for 1920 so an 83 pass rate to an 85 percent pass rate for African-American students on there so that's what I was saying across the elementary schools do we have it's similar to each school has their own School Improvement plan and it depends on the performance of children in that school so yes every school does have a plan and in their plan they depending upon what their Gap groups are they do have goals for that did I answer your question yeah uh yes because there are schools in different neighborhoods you know where we we may have this problem worse than Paul Monroe in terms of achievement gaps so I'll be personally interested in seeing the numbers for those schools like you know RS pain so and see where they stand compared

084to these schools and then how do we reduce the gap between schools and within the school so yes each school does personalize it for the students in their school the severity of the Gap the number of students the targeted instruction the weaknesses as they look at what the areas are they may be targeting different things depending upon what what the areas of weakness are so and each time we've been presenting pretty much one school at a time just to give you the information and funding funding is so critical to all of this it's obviously you're trying to put something together but I guess to to a tools Point are there sufficient dollars for professional development to match what you're trying to do how we tackling the homework divide this is the divide with kids being

085able to do homework when they get home and so forth so all of that is being monitored as well Dr Edwards yes we are and as a matter of fact as we're doing funding now or doing a budget for next year one of the things that we wanted to be purposeful about is making sure that building principles had some flexibility to say you know in my school these are the needs and I need to target funds to meet these needs which might be different than a different a different school but having our oversight monitoring to make sure that that is occurring so and it also plays into the individual Title One plans the schools work on with that which that's also part of the funding that they can use to address those needs as well

086and that's specific school by school I also think you need to look at work what's working at one school and with different groups whether it's um also it's black economic disadvantage English Learners disabilities and because there are successes at each school all schools have the same populations maybe not as many but things are working and some of the elementary schools and I think it's definitely on us to make sure that that's being shared and that it's being implemented I also had a question about the Orton Gillingham training is we did that a long time ago I think in late 1970s has it changed or is it the same thing well they've certainly updated I hope so but um it's it's definitely a phonics based approach okay that's what I was wondering right and that's that's

087something they feel very strongly about and the schools that are we're kind of first going into that or are seeing good things with their kids so we're they're wanting more and more of it every year so we're trying to support expanding to be able to address I understand the phonics but then we also have to look at the spelling because we know what phonics will do to our spelling yeah I should notice but I don't what do you mean when you say too small for students with disabilities this this sampling group is not enough the sample group is too small to for them to they'll give us the number on a report before it to count towards accreditation that number is too small it has to be above 30 for that to be for them

088to be able to count it but but we had we are taking care of the 29 28 or 27 of course right and pushing for dollars Ida and all of that this is some huge stuff of Bob and everybody around here for advocacy because we need to make sure these kids are getting what the government said they're supposed to have and continue to underfund right yeah true doctor a couple of the issues with the two small is one when you have a really small group any change in one or two students makes a big percentage difference which can lead you to either be overwhelmingly disappointedly happy and two you don't want to risk creating a situation where any one student might be exposed for their scores so it's important to repress yeah suppress those but

089I have a question uh so we're 30 in this particular building 33 black 51 white so the other 16 percent are students of color or they are um represented or multiple races that identify multiples um there are numerous ways to classify now much more than they're used to right yeah um would it be possible and I appreciate that you added what the overall percentage is because it helps us put into context where the actual participation percentages for a particular class could you add a third column in there and just tell us where those 16 percent are in terms of participation rates and to what extent do they either contribute to or alleviate many gaps or how do they how do they factor into that whole thing or do they at all the 16 it's a

090lot there's a lot maybe this school's atypical in that sense but from the things I've seen with especially with the high school I don't think but that's the case I don't know that's one of the challenges with two or more races right trying to look at an achievement Gap because which race if I'm two or more then I'm not counted in either of those I'm in my own and that's based on the student's self -identified that is based on how or how the parents feel better okay yeah that's what I thought all right thanks I mean it's not a big deal but I was just curious how that number compares sure year after year we have some challenges to in terms of reducing that Gap and one of the challenges could be social economic conditions

091may require more funding so is there any way to outline those for public and then you know we can advocate for resources what's needed because these things are looking at the output you know but there are input variables which and so those we have the strategies in place but there are challenges in it as a division we need to overcome right well we certainly do have the information uh by school as as far as the um disadvantaged numbers and that that gives you an idea of the economic situation and the challenges of the that the students and the parents face doctor I've be because those aren't mutually exclusive it's great so it'd be interesting to see if there's a distinction between you know where they're overlapped so a student is doubly disadvantaged by being black

092and impoverished or student with a disability and explain you know yeah of course there are a million ways you can slice and dice this so we could go through it but it didn't work uh Mr Harvey I just had a question um all of this is very good information I think what we're kind of alluded to which I think is a a very important point we are looking at a one snapshot of one school and I I kind of understand his point that you know how does this impact all of our other schools and looking at all of this as a whole so one of the questions I would ask is this type of information will this type of information be available in a hole on our board docs so that we can be able

093to look at each and every school at a at a single point I mean I appreciate what you're doing and I thank you for I mean if we had this report from every single School um in front of us it would be a little the information would be a little bit overwhelming but if we had that ability to dive into that information holistically altogether it would be beneficial to all of us and I think that would that's kind of what you were you're getting at so we could be able to look at all of this information in one piece of things when I arrived was we wanted more school-specific data is what I what the board had asked me um to do which is why we shift it to bringing you a very detailed laser

094focus on just one school so you could dive deep because I think in the past and some of you helped me you had the everybody data and I was told no that's not what we want we want to be able to really look at schools so these that we're putting together we can certainly when we get to Boardwalk stick them in the library so that they're all there I mean we've done lean corn bass Heritage High School so we've done a couple we haven't done them all because we're kind of doing them as we go along and we want to keep them current to the year in which we are doing them but if that's something that the board would find helpful to do we can certainly as we work towards using board docs to

095kind of put them and so a point of clarification then we don't have one of these for every single school we just started this this year okay all right so but we the goal is we will have one for every single School each year right we're moving towards doing okay yes and and that's what I guess I want to just ensure that we are getting that and that information will hopefully be available on board docs because it will allow us to do just as he's mentioning look at see where the trends are because I think it addresses some of the points that you made as well we were testing the orders trying to see if this was the data that the board actually found useful um and you know a couple times even when we

096did bass one of the things that um Miss Hendricks did was tie it to her school calendar because she's on the year so it's it's some of its personalized depending upon what the schools are attempting to do and what their school Improvement goals are so that's what I'm saying we're keeping it current and working with them and we didn't just want to bring to you schools that you know have yellow green and red we wanted to mix it up a little bit but that is difficult to work okay presented to us all together as the Sol scores in the previous year so we just can then maybe that'll be helpful just to bring that document up or we can go back and find that yeah this is for another discussion I'm just as I'm looking

097at the achievement gaps peace and I see the student groups listed I know this is just Dr Coleman for this matter but as I begin to listen to the broader discussion that we've been hearing today I know Ethel deals with the equity with that I know the feds the uh doe all of that have these student groups but what that mean that we'd have to start listing other specific groups also like people from the other groups that have been mentioned tonight to see what their performances are from the doe standpoint I don't know that they're doing that I'm not trying to go that deep into it but it appears to me that um that's where we going but they didn't collect a whole lot of data years ago either very interesting I really appreciate what

098you're doing because they're moving the right direction uh there's no doubt because we talked about when I joined the board we'll reduce the achievement Gap but there was no target or no numbers attached to it so right now we can see the numbers it's just uh my fear is that we are not bringing in the best and the brightest and you know leaving out where the real problems are those schools in the tail end of this analysis so we should be able to take them head on more comments I think last year was very difficult to understand any of the information when it was given on so many schools at one time and there are a lot of schools we need to see where the problems are but we also need to see Paul Monroe

099and what's going on there I mean every school I think this is a great way to do it and it makes it much easier to understand at least for me and I don't think it's easy at any school exactly all right thank you unfinished business Park City School Board Personnel policies CBE Severance benefits CF School building Administration gbef lactation support gcbd-rz sick leave there are some changes there in GCI professional staff assignments and transfers I think you all received something from Miss G that explains the changes and the reason so Mr G it's all yours well if you have any other questions I hope I answered the question that was asked and I didn't hear from anybody else but if you have any other questions I'm happy to to help and the two members on

100the the group with me can help as well explanation of it was very helpful I think if you could just share that for public com so the public would hear that as well sure um the changes to the assignments and transfer policy when I got here there was a form and you requested a transfer sever a lot of the time people that were might be having disciplinary issues or performance issues at one place would request a transfer and they might be moved to another location without the consent let's say of the um supervisor or principal rather than doing it that way we decided that people needed to stay where they were either improve or other changes could be made and if you were requesting a transfer to another location you needed to actually apply if

101the position was open and that way the principal had the or the supervisor had the opportunity to look at that list call you in for an interview if you were selected from that panel and then they got to make the final it wasn't an automatic no ma'am nothing we don't make and that's what people have been told and rather than keep telling people every time they ask that we didn't do automatic transfers any longer we just decided to make the wording very clear in our policy and then they have to do it this way and as far as the sick leave policy it's just for clarification on the difference in the difference in the hybrid for vrs and the Legacy group because it was a little confusing there there's two different um leave policies for

102legacy people via they get the um sorry just draw a blank if you apply for FMLA you're entitled to 60 days typically if the doctor approves it we give you the 30 extra days which gets you to 90. the hybrid group of employees they are if for some reason the what they go out for is identified by um workers comp or they actually are given short-term disability if that's approved they're given 125 days so for those 125 days they'd be out on leave they are paid 60 percent of their salary while they're out under the hybrid plan and then once what this policy will state is once you get to the 126th day if you are approved for long-term disability through the provider then we have the opportunity to end your contract with Lynchburg City

103Schools so that we can go ahead and fill that position rather than having it open with a long-term sub in it the rest of the year that does not mean that they cannot return time once they are cleared to return to to work they're welcome to apply this does not keep anybody from ever applying back for Lynchburg City Schools any questions about this this is for Action tonight are there any more questions is there a motion to approve Dr Gupta is there a second Miss Carter any discussion all in favor aye okay thank you all right that takes us too Let's Rock City School Board instruction and program policy review modifying to modify the existing language and regulation iicb Dash r i i c c Dash r um and where the school board requested additional

104details regarding the proposed process for reviewing applicants who wish to volunteer for Lynchburg City schools and Dr Edwards yes so um there are a couple dates in there Equity task force presented on August 19 2019 presented the board with on summarizing three options option two was to modify the language to consider rather than just automatically disqualify anyone who was convicted of a felony to possibly volunteer in our schools at the January 14th meeting I gave an overview of the process identified who the forest standing team members myself Dr Coleman Dr Copeland Miss Pugh and Miss Reeves along with building principal and building rep designee who would be reviewing um the applicants as they come through I had previously provided the board with some data on the number of applicants that had applied for the current

105school year who under the current policy had been disqualified I believe that was 22 for the just the current school year and then talked about an overview of what things we would consider including the nature of the offense the length of time of when the offense occurred of course we're the person wanted to volunteer and then having a some sort of interview conference with the applicant so that they would have an opportunity to sort of provide any additional details that we may not get from our report the board in considering any modification to the policy requested additional details about the procedures so tonight what I want to do is review those details at least about the procedure with the board to give the board a little bit additional information we have as our team of

106four in putting this process together tried to put together everything we thought we heard in conversation and even with the four of us we gave each other some feedback about some things that I kept notes of yesterday we met with all of the principal and assistant principals and took them through some tabletop activities and got some additional feedback from them I know the board wanted some information and app at the meeting you had also discussed the possibility of getting public input or public comment or feedback which I think we can talk about towards the end of this presentation so I wanted to do two things with you tonight one take you through the thought process because I think that's helpful for you to actually go through and think through it and then you have the

107very draft rough draft document is this would be the board's opportunity to review the items and weigh in and say and Madam chair I will look to you to kind of form some consensus about yay or nay that fits the expectations of what we have as we as a board consider um you know the the ex felons or returning citizens volunteer Hearing in our schools and then we will modify this as we go along okay so what you have is the tool which is seven pages long and I will give you just a little bit of description as to how that was put together and pretty much for the public who does not who do not have this tool there are a series of questions and a flow chart and the more you answer no

108no no no no no no the higher up you go to a level one status if you answer yes yes yes yes yes yes you continue going through the multiple Pages um level likely yeah level one being a more highly likely um that we would consider volunteering although you would still have a conference and I think we had up until Level 25 and you would still have a conference too so it by no means there are some prohibiting ones due to policy which I have here too but our our idea our thought process was to kind of take each case through a system I must admit we use a system that gives us very limited information so for the viewer in public I just want you to know that when we run a criminal background

109check we get just a list of bullet items I don't get the history I don't get a summary I don't get whether or not this was a original charge and it was plead down to a lesser charge I do not have a lot of pertinent information that you were probably ask me so for example even when you see what is it a probation violation I don't know if that was hey my persons came to my job and I wasn't there like I was supposed to be or I didn't give them my new address when I moved or I failed the drug test or I don't know I just know that it it is on the record so it makes it from the team a little difficult a little invasive and I just want the board

110to have a clear understanding of what we have available to us as we make these decisions and I will go and reckon and say nor do we want to have to go and search or I don't even know that we would have access to get that level of detail without obviously when a person is talking to us and sharing their side of the story we would get information there but interviewing probation officers trying to get court records or going back in time we as an educational institution I will beg the board to say please do not make that part of our charge because we just don't have the manpower to do that piece so I want to take that off the table before we even get to do you get into the process repeat offenders

111or if there's been more than you give just the history we do and you'll see some of that here so it's easier if I just take you through one um and you know for for the sake of the audience I'm just going to read out you know we have applicant number and I'll just make this number up 94-08 and then what we get our list of felonies and dates and for my sample one we have grand larceny and we have a probation violation and we have the dates of those and then we also have misdemeanors because remember the the regulation does say felonies and misdemeanors so there's petty larceny and a violation of suspended sentence and indirect criminal contempt and that is the detail that we get so as you reading and now I've Googled

112some things to try to educate myself um but some of that the next column where we have fines restitution and service and this is very important for the board to understand and give us input on depending upon the jurisdiction some list there was a fine the fine was paid or the fine is past due or there was retribute retribution of a restitution I should say of a certain amount and it was paid other jurisdictions don't list that so depending upon the felony offense sometimes we have that information sometimes it's not listed sometimes we don't know whether or not it might be listed we don't know the status of it I put it there because it's a big question mark So if I you know you got a record and it says this person did not

113pay their fines and they did not do restitution we don't know if another person did but that's in here for the board to consider and say is that an important item if it is listed so what we're going to do is take our tool and take our person who has these offenses and pretty much go through it and I tried to make this one not not so detailed the first question is was the applicant convicted of a sexually violent offense and it's basically yes or no because it would be on their record I also provided for you the board's policy k n a which is um violent sex offenders on school property so we already have a policy about that and whether or not that would prohibit someone for volunteering and let me be real

114clear I put it on the little list volunteer Safety First under the guidance of a school official approved volunteers May chaperone and or assist with the supervision of other people's children so let us be clear that we're talking about the supervision of other people's children which is different from visiting the school and participating with my child so this this is not the visit a piece you can see on kna you know the way we have it on flowchart if that answer is yes we have prohibited the applicant from volunteering in our schools but you can see on the actual policy there is a where they can obtain a court order allowing him to enter the property all right that may be a different visiting with your child as opposed to volunteering and I think the

115Board needs to be really clear on where they want to draw the lines of if someone presented us with a court order saying they can enter blah blah blah and then they still have to obtain permission from the school board to volunteer we're talking about voluntary not necessarily visiting I think that's a whole separate conversation so I provided kna just so that you would have that reference and at that point we would contact the applicant and say you know you're prohibited from voluntary um and if that's a no then we go to the next question which is a Regis registered sex offender which is our policy k n and again um there is language in here about that and the board would have to really again there's a sort of a petition policy in our

116flow chart we said again may be prohibited from volunteering but can may be allowed to visit depending upon the circumstances their child in the school system so again that's some guidance that I would need from the board as we we move forward and the organization of the first page are things that I heard save one so violent sex offense registered sex offender the some kind of crime involving a minor this one whether or not it was a violent crime resulting in significant injury or death of another person and then this one I really do need some guidance on hate crime or harassment because that did not come up and again you know some of the harassment could just be under a misdemeanor and not a felony so that's something that the board wanted to wants

117to weigh in on but as you consider the supervision of other people's children I think these things become important and then anyone who has a drug offense with an intent to distribute it's not underprohibited it's go to page two so you just have to watch watch that so let's take this sample person and let's go through this exercise and see if we get to where um let's see if we all get to the same place that's first of all all right so our person number 94-08 if we were to answer the first question violent sex offense no no so we're going up um registered sex offender nope uh felony involving a minor no nothing that we can see that's definitive on here between the larceny and the probation or anything so we're still at no

118um significant injury or death of another person yeah no no not based on what we see um harassment or hate crime nope we're still moving forward and convicted of a drug charge with intent to distribute no no so so far we're still at no and we can go to page two and just so that you don't get confused from page one to page two I repeat the question so you don't have to go back and see that again so it starts with the question we just answered about the intent to distribute and that was a no the next question asked about does the applicant have more than one felony or misdemeanor offense on their record so for this particular person we are we hit our first yes which takes us down were they were the

119offenses con um on multiple dates and let me explain why this is important because I could have convicted done an offense on one day and have six different charges for that one thing that I'm going to say since it was me it was a poor choice that day but they charged me with six different things or I could have six different things over six different months six different AIDS so that's why we separated that because as we were looking at some of the charges some people they all occurred on the same day and then others were spread out so as we look at this person we know they have multiple are they on um different days or years other than the first offense yes so we have a 2010 2011 2001 another 2010 2013 and

1202011. so we're down there other than a parole or probation which my team caught that yesterday violation um are the multiple offenses the second the third are they on that same date or a different date I guess is it on the same date I would say on that one so looking at those offenses and maybe I should read that again because I probably confuse you other than a probation violation which is what that just said which may be listed as a second offense on their record was the applicant convicted of another offense second third fourth or fifth that did not occur on the same date you're still yes yes and see good point Bell thank you the felony has grand larceny and probation but then they're a misdemeanors so again where does the board stand

121ignore misdemeanors because if you do then you'll get You'll Go a different path or include misdemeanor so that's some more guidance when we did this we included the misdemeanors which would take us to page three okay and again page three repeats the question we just asked and what we're trying to do is see did they commit offense and only have a parole or probation violation or did they commit offense and have another offense and another offense and another offense so we're trying to distinguish between and and not understanding fully what a parole a probation violation is we thought that that was important so as we look at this person we're on page three and we're looking at the offenses we see that it's more than just a parole if you include the misdemeanors which is

122going to give you another yes and you're going to go down the page then we get to did the applicant fail to pay fines fail to complete community service or fail to make rest retro retribution restitution thank you it has been a long day for me did they fail to do this and as we look this happens to be one of those people where nothing is listed so I don't know I can't guess so in absence of uh they didn't do it we were kind of stuck and we just said well it's nothing telling us that they did fail to do that so we're going to say we're going to give them a no and let them give them a pass on that one and then that takes you to the next one which says

123was the applicant convicted of this offense within the last five years and you can see there are multiple offenses so someone said which one are you talking about and I'm like we're looking to see if there's anything within the last five years and the latest one for this one is 2013. um and again that will be a no so let me just share some of the things that came up with that I explained the the failure to pay fines The Five-Year piece so five years we were like okay we need to pick a number so if you um you know did something but I'll go back to myself I'm totally not happy with this but now I've come out I'm a model citizen I've started a family it's five years later and my child's going

124into kindergarten all right around that time around that age is that a time that I would want to start volunteering now what came up in our training or or review with the principles and assistant principals is you have the date of the offense so what happens if I can I committed my offense in 2013 didn't have my trial until 2015 and did my time and I got out on Tuesday and now it's Wednesday I don't have all that information here on all of that so that's another thing that the Board needs to know and understand that that came up as we did our review um in the training with the assistant principals and the principals yesterday so long story short we tried to have a fair process to kind of vet and get information and

125and help guide what kinds of questions would you ask someone based on the information that you have that would help you in determining their fit for a school or event or even the division okay so I gave you a lot to consider and talk about and now be quiet and let you consider and talk about it Kim oh doctor on the dates do we is it is it explained on the report that you get back that that's the date that the crime occurred or is that the date of the conviction um without looking at them on my sheet I want to say don't quote me I'll double check it but I want to say when I first went through this that was the date of the offense I think it's the date of the actual

126offense okay Dr Coleman uh Dr with as it relates to restitution why is that being considered um it was listed on some so for example a couple had to pay fines and sort of show particularly in some of the money ones that we've we've done we've we've paid our debt so to speak I don't know if there was any time that was done with any of that so since it was on the record we're like well do we consider it do we not consider it we put it there so that in full disclosure that we know that there are people who have done that um which I'm thinking if you were having a conversation with me and you're trying to say I am a model citizen I you know I've paid back the money I

127took I've you know done community service or whatever it is I've done the things that I was supposed to do in order to sort of you know if you want to say you know okay well they seems like they're being passed along anyway on that but I'm just concerned because we fines can get into racketeering it's a whole bunch of problems where people as simple as an Easy Pass 75 cent total ends up being three or four hundred dollars by the time they stack all of this Miami people are not financially able to pay those insurmountable fees depending on what it is of course but I just was wondering about them the conviction say there's no there's some jail time perhaps five years they may still be in jail but I think that it would

128be up to the board to decide uh which is better or um or our superintendent uh perhaps is analyzing the information um I don't have any other input to say which is a better gauge the date off of offense or the data conviction and also to know what they what is in that particular background check form so that'll be something foreign I would I would think it would have to be the date of conviction um simply because if it's the date of the offense you haven't necessarily had your day in court yet so it shouldn't be under yeah it shouldn't be under public record as as being the conviction so I'm hoping that it's a date of conviction and I would encourage that that be the case is the date of conviction being used as

129as the gauge um I I think I got to participate in this online earlier when you when you allowed us to uh try this tool I think this tool is is a very powerful tool and is very useful and I think that it one thing that it will afford the Review Committee is at a point where you hit a roadblock as we mentioned you know there is nothing on this report that gives you the opportunity to address that with the candidate okay at this point and that might help you to clarify the assignment of a level if you need to the only piece and I'll reiterate this because this was the comment that I made when I when I did this test online earlier was that I think that the the timepiece should be something

130that would would occur more um up front before you get too far down the rabbit Trail and the reason why I say that is because I think if if there's a pattern um of you know a crime being committed over and over and over and it's within the past five years that's that person's desire to volunteer I think would be more questionable than someone who has had a conviction you know a decade ago okay no sentence if look at the failure to pay fines though that's not going to stop you from getting an interview I think that's really important that's not going to hold somebody back from getting a meeting very good bill I know I noticed it Miss Carter this is the tool is awesome it's an excellent tool that's really it really is

131a great tool but this brings up more concerns for me now some of the things you said one is so if we don't have the exact information and nor do should we pry but how do we know if someone is representing themselves honestly with what they're providing not to say that it won't be but how do we know the other thing is um so this is an awesome screening tools tool but is there a training aspect for the volunteer also is that going to be some and then um yeah and then we don't have the manpower to collect this also but the other thing is are we considering whether this person that volunteers I have people that are mental health providers and they question you know how sometimes just people before this volunteer policy that

132really want to volunteer in schools and how often and how much you know how healthy is that but not to say that well that was the question before this even came up but are we putting in here anywhere is is this person a parent of of a child in the school system because that's one thing we heard over and over is that they fill out their application it's on the like your affiliation it's on the application um but we do have volunteers who are not do not have children per se or or relatives I would say even grandchildren or nieces and nephews who also will volunteer whether or not the people are telling the truth and one yeah but I'm also wondering um in the age of identity theft and and Records coming from the

133courts being flawed I guess you wouldn't you wouldn't have any way of being able to deal with that either if somebody would say I don't know who that where that came from I think you all saw the amount of time that it took Dr Edwards to collect just the information on 22 people I think it took like six hours and we also just to keep that in mind Dr Brennan because I was gonna make that comment too that the time that Dr Edwards and his team has put into this is pretty phenomenal I think the tool is really awesome also um you did ask us to make some comments and I appreciate that so I have a couple of thoughts I think on page one when you go through the specific blocks that you went

134through as far as sexual offenses and friends with children to drop people out I think it's a great clearing area as you pointed out based on our policies and I think what the consensus has been I kind of Wonder on the other hand whether there should be are there a path through here would you say you know this person is also clear to volunteer so for example if you look at page two the person's gotten through that first screen was the applicant conviction of a drug charge and intensive tribute no does the applicant have more than one felony or misdemeanor offense no does the applicant fail to pay fines fail to complete community service or fail to make restitutions or no was the applicant convicted of this offense in the past for five years know

135that goes to a level one and I and I wonder whether there shouldn't be as there is a blockage at the other level there's some things we would say this person should be able to go through without having to love yeah without a hearing well I was going to ask the question will the people who get it get um on page one that people are not allowed to volunteer will they still have a hearing if you went through a similar stage where you were clear clear clear clear clear should those people have an interview or not just just a comment the other comment is I do Wonder this idea that the questions were about misdemeanors whether they should be on the list or not I mean you gave us a list of what the misdemeanors

136were that had been seen in those 22 applicants and they are petty larceny they are things that are are pretty minor so I would you know I would kind of support the idea that maybe this should be for families and not misdemeanors and then the other piece which uh which Dr Coleman brought but I think is really important I'm a little unclear about the box that talks about um does the applicant fail to pay fines fail to complete community service or fail to make restitution is ordered does that include parole or probation as far as has been pointed out that is that through an equity lens there can be a lot of problem with the hurdles that people have this to me sounds like it's not it's more paid fine you know that piece bothers

137me a little bit as far as it could be a barrier the probation violations were listed separately as either felony and in one or two cases a misdemeanor and I didn't quite I don't know what dictates one or the other um but the fine piece was very clear it was usually um monetary or um most of it was monetary pieces and again not every jurisdiction listed whether or not that was there wasn't something that was on every single record so I guess my point is I'm not sure that needs to be taken out but it certainly needs to be looked at through the possibility of you know were there other issues involved with that that made it be a problem for the person individually also would sort you into what level you are and in

138the end you still have a meeting a hearing to discuss things so I think that's I think that part's good um I did have a question about like Dr Brennan said does this apply to someone with just misdemeanors I'm sorry this applies to if if you have a felony if you have a felony you fall under this decision tree if you just have say a misdemeanor do you fall on this also well I will I will point the board back to the Agenda Report which is why I also have that question because the way the current and it's our rag is written and you can see the strikethrough language but or misdemeanor may be disqualified is in your board policy right now so I did not feel that Liberty to say and I'm striking that

139too because it the question was about felonies and people with um who had a felony record and allowing them so the misdemeanor language is not changed but it's on a may be so the board would have to decide as you decide that maybe where are you with that and you very well say don't even consider Mr Dr Copeland can you explain about the the level of misdemeanor that misdemeanor language falls from a section of the code where it refers to crimes of moral turpitude and I'll defer to our attorney if she wants to go into the details of those but some of those that we see are a lot sometimes related to financial things uh and then uh things like theft stealing or many of what I see is the crimes that come across our

140reviews as uh that moral turpitive component so every misdemeanor no not necessarily not every misdemeanor but some do come across and I will add so if you notice that one of the this is African convicted of a felony or misdemeanor involving a minor so there will be Mr medium circumstances such as contributing to the legality of a child uh there are times in cases where perhapsible the felony charge such as um felony child abuse neglect problem Serious injury to a child and maybe pled down to an assault and battery that's information that this Edwards will not see uh so I do put that information out there just looking at the tool and maybe that addresses some of the concerns about misdemeanors while there are a number of misdemeanors that we make that the school board

141may not feel um perhaps would be an issue to a person volunteering uh there are other misdemeanors that could deal with uh children and bodily injury that may be something for the sport to consider and that's Morrison if I can help answer if that did not charge them with that though and it went down to a misdemeanor are we going to judge them on what the court didn't charge them with that's where my concern is you wouldn't know that's what I'm saying correct by including misdemeanors I feel like we're kind of judging that from something they weren't charged with them that's one of the things we have to decide as a board so that's the functioning within the criminal background check is that when you it's through it's done through Raptor Raptor contracts with a

142company we have the agreement with the company the information is going to be collected and we set the threshold of where things are going to be flagged and sent to us for further review so when we flag things like anything involving a minor right more misdemeanors with moral turpitude in all felonies then those are the things that come to us for final review well can those go on to the list of misdemeanors we have to look at for this and not that's what that's right that's what we're doing what's this discussion Ms Carter because if you look at this you have 11 2 2010 and then the grand larceny and if you lose watch any detective shows no one ever just jumps and you have these little patterns that emerge before this big Grand Finale

143or they do something major Mike another question I have is if there were if there is a teacher or staff person that was dismissed because of some felony charge or whatever and it's been five years and now they want to volunteer would they be the same process will apply to them so they would never be able to be a teacher or a staff person employed but we can have them volunteer yeah if they go through the process that's the process Dr Nellis has this been looked at by say a D.A or assistant D.A just because there's a lot of complications associated with some of these categories and I'm no um at the last board meeting you guys said you wanted some details right right right yeah I guess this is this is this is a

144good framework where we're at right now but there's some I think subtle maybe subtleties that we're not aware of probably now with particular categories and and it's kind of like it'd be nice to have some like yeah here's some areas you need to need to think hard about I know when years ago when we took an initial um attempt at modifying the volunteer policies there were a lot of um illegal stuff um complicated situations that um I think my concern would be at what point do we say okay we've looked at it we've looked at it we've looked at it let's make some decisions and I don't mind having somebody look at it but I think we need to have a very realistic time frame instead of just every board meeting say okay let's have

145this happen and we'll meet the next board meeting I just would like to see some set time frame to have things done Miss Carter I really think this is seriously enough that we really need to make sure but I do this tool is awesome yeah but I want us the training aspect I don't know and then well then now the are we adding this on to the teacher so we're going to have to supervise and do how we talked about or have the parents been where are they coming in the process of when they're going to be informed that they can opt out or will they have to will we have to do anything about that to start letting them know when we're in the implement this and the process or the procedure for them

146to opt out if that's something they decide but this this is a great tool and but I do like the misdemeanors and I oh and I want to go back to the questions you asked about KN and kna didn't really pay attention on those two I think they're up for us to discuss later on okay one of the two we had some clarification uh Dr Sana I really appreciate this I know it was a ton of work to do but um it reassures me that that and I and I you know I didn't need much reassurance on the end that you guys really took this serious and thought it through and thought of every possible scenario I I guess I'm I'm a little bit with Dr nellis's are there things that we're just not aware

147of because we're not experts in the criminal justice system in a way that's both fair to the people who want to volunteer I want this to be really fair for them to set them up that you know if they're you know if they're capable of capable of being a good volunteer then we should benefit from that I would hope that we donate that once somebody gets through all this and they pass the screening and the group is comfortable they feel assured enough between the screening process and the interview that this person could be a volunteer nobody's going to know which of all the volunteers is a felon versus not so if so the opt-out thing comes a little complicated and I certainly would want anybody to be identified as a felon volunteer no that would

148be horrible thing to do so uh so I don't think you were suggesting that um yeah Dr Brennan I think it's a great point and to take a little farther I think the the issue with this is coming up with the misdemeanor part of it because I think you know as a layperson I think of a misdemeanor as being a lesser crime um I looked up the definition for Crime of moral turpitude and it's murder voluntary manslaughter I don't think that's a very good term for what a misdemeanor is and I think that would be helpful to get some information related to are there misdemeanors that if we were to drop those that we would be concerned about like involving children I think that's the real question I'd like to have someone answer that so

149say that again the the question about issue about can we drop misdemeanors or not I think the concern that some of us have is that would we miss a crime against a child or miss a crime that we would say if we knew that was the substance that would be the case can the can the district attorney or someone help us with the misdemeanor definition of what that means and would there be something to fall through the cracks because I think we all agree we're talking about a policy related to people with felonies history of having a felony an ex that felon the misdemeanor piece I think we use some clarification on and just one thing came I think it might also help us meet too with the with the probation piece of it because

150I do think that that has a bias to it that perhaps we could get some information about too what do you mean uh that it's racially biased and I think that people may have higher the people do have higher violations because of the barriers that they may have either financially or transportation we have a problem yeah yeah right yeah starter that makes sense and I know the attorney um told us about just in case something gets um you get a lower charge if there was a child neglect a child assault so we would never be privy to the are those really proven cases that that abuse happened or that assault or neglect someone could have charged and later when it's been when they are convicted perhaps that case have been put down to a misdemeanor

151level and the information that your system would have doesn't sound like it would necessarily speak to that piece or not and so um I just bring that up as a point when misdemeanor and what that means it uh I have to say I casually ask about some of these questions that you're asking about and uh I asked how many felonies are there and it's like well and the way I'm laughing now was kind of how they was approached because everything there are numerous felonies there are numerous levels of felonies right there are numerous levels of misdemeanors in categories within misdemeanors um believes that this tool one of the things about this tool it seems that everyone will have a hearing because you're going to get a chance to put forth their information and consider that

152but I you think um if if you are looking for some more criminal information that's not directly my expertise but I do have some familiar if you've been with uh times that perhaps in the criminal system uh there may be some misdemeanors that may be of consequence that the school board may want to consider Dr Coleman and I'll get to you all right number one as far as being able to give Dr Edward some direction I'm hoping that each person is articulating whatever it is that you want to see so that we can continue to move along in the process but I I'm thankful for turning uh hope to understand what she just stated and I know we all intend that but if there's any legal matters if she's able to answer them well if

153she needs to seek support elsewhere then that's how that would go we wouldn't go talk to another lawyer independent from our school board attorney so help me understand this we have the category of crimes known as barrier crimes correct and those are those are still that's still a thing right yes yes now I my assumption was those were only felonies but do misdemeanors follow fall under barrier crimes okay it codified um and there possibly could be uh when I think about assault and batteries those can be misdemeanor charges and I know that can be a barrier in some cases so so some of those though are the kind of barrier that even if the person had a kid in enrolled they couldn't even visit that child unless they got an exception or something there was

154something a court order right so a lot of these would be taken care of automatically because they are considered barrier crime and are those easy enough to enumerate or those are codified okay so I would I would then propose that if they're not a barrier crime then that person can go through the flow chart and again as long as they keep going through and then the interview process satisfies the committee but we're back to the question about the language of the misdemeanors and the inclusion of misdemeanors right okay so let me clarify I I would say I'm fine with not including misdemeanors with the exception of those that are barrier crimes we would have to have those identified correct any other additional information just from hearing um in these towns I we indeed to look

155at some of those misdemeanors because some of them have serious consequences to me involved children Dr Nellis third block here here first first page is that was Apple convicted of a felony or misdemeanor involving a mind so yeah that's automatically they're disqualified if it doesn't bother money so that would cover it but other others it looks like it does you know this is you know I'm not a not a D.A so Dr Brennan that um in order to facilitate this process because of the questions about misdemeanor maybe just leave misdemeanor in let it be part of the process then the process will go through as it's been set up and if they're misdemeanors that that fall out because of it's a a crime against a child would be found but I think it's getting a

156little bit more complicated by trying to pull that misdemeanor out I think it's getting more difficult rather than easier I think we should just leave it in deal with it through the process that we have and and not try to pull it out any other comments Mr Harvey I hear Dr Mills saying about doing your due diligence and um would I be correct that I hope you have looked through this um this this Matrix I guess because because what I hear Dr Mill is saying and I agree with is that we are not lawyers um and a lot of this this information does involve a lot of legal um legal ease legal language but it also involves um just the process of our courts to a certain degree you know because we we were asking

157the question I mean first off is it date of conviction or date of offense I mean so so there are a lot of these pieces that I feel like that we have to nail these down and we have to be able to understand and Define them clearly because the last thing that we want that any of us want I mean as as one of our speakers said tonight we've been we've been dealing with this thing for five years so we got to get this right and so I what I hear Dr nil is suggesting is that we might want to have somebody with with the legal background and I hear what Dr Coleman saying that we need to go through the school board attorney but get some guidance from them let them take a look

158at this you know hash out any questions or make any recommendations for us so that we can do our due diligence then going back to the timeline piece that was asked earlier my understanding was our goal was to have this so we could have it implemented for the 2021 school year that we were going to take our time do this thing right through the rest of the 2019-2020 school year that we were going to possibly even do some uh scenario testing um you know with the Review Committee through the summer to have this ready to go so I feel like that that hopefully the the community hears that we do have a timeline that we are trying to move on this it's not inactivity that the school board is doing the administration is putting a

159lot of time and effort into this to this um procedure here and and I feel like that we all are trying to do our due diligence with this policy so let's not rush this but let's make sure we're moving it along and I do think that that first piece would be that we do need to involve some legal expertise that's beyond what this board's capable of well I I just got to say again this this decision tree that you've set up is just really fantastic and it moved us way way way way way further than we were when I first came on the board and this decision was above us because one thing that's just so enlightening me is just you've got to work with what you got which is the report and it doesn't

160tell you a lot of the context for a reason because some of that context can be very unfair to the person so you wouldn't want to know necessarily that they were charged you want to know what was proven right you know in a court of law what the conviction is so so knowing that this is what we have to work with get it through this decision tree which appears to me to be quite thorough it's possible there could be something missing I'm not a criminal justice expert so I don't know what that would be looks like you thought of everything so that then it just comes down to you know any any remaining uneasiness or other things that you would want to cover in that interview process but this is a very transparent people can

161see what it is they know you know that it's been formalized and operationalized so I I'm I'm very impressed thank you very much additional comments in fact it summarized I heard something about hate crime definition back at the very beginning was the applicant convicted of a hate crime and or harassment okay so automatic out to give you an example a misdemeanor and let me just say for the public I am not a lawyer I did not go to school to be a lawyer I'm not an expert on criminal activity or anything and what we put together was based on what we could see and what we haven't seen we don't know yet because it hasn't come across our way but a harassment by computer is a misdemeanor I don't know what that means I do

162know when our children do that we don't like that and we're suffering from a lot of that right now with cyber bullying and things like that so it's not acceptable for our children which is why it kind of ended up here as we're trying to be role models for children to say don't take to the computer to harass anybody don't use social media don't just don't it's not the way to to resolve any kind of differences and that's why that ended up here and why we posed it to the board as is that the thinking does the board have the same thinking I will also say that some of the challenges um and again I have to keep saying I'm not an expert in this area but if I was convicted of a moving offense

163while driving with my kids in the car right child abuse child endangerment child something and I have folks who asked is that a crime against a minor if is that considered because I ran through a stop sign while I had my infant in the car and that's what they gave me reckless driving and maybe some other charges for child endangerment or whatever it is that they give you when you when you do that is that considered a crime against um a minor with that so again there are questions that I did not have the answers to as I was working with my team but I think it's helpful for the board to because I think you have an idea of what you want and I'm trying to figure what that is but I need you

164to kind of join the party a little bit so I'm hearing that that the support for this tool the review from the board thank you for the hard work and putting this together I've heard that we would like some legal clarification or guidelines to make sure that we're falling within the language that should be used in this situation this is something that is a new Tool uh there's really no gossip I think what I'm hearing you I'll ask in particular concerned about misdemeanors in general right that was then Mr Means concerning children yes um and then another layer sometimes I don't know if this has been considered is that there are times that things in other states are called different that are different have different names than here so um those are some issues that

165I think I can try to maybe find some counsel to address and if that's the issue I'll touch base with Dr Edwards to see if we can get something to you all as soon as possible but that's what I'm hearing that you all are concerned with does that sound correct as far as misdemeanors Dr Brennan yeah thank you for doing that I also don't think we we want to be lawyers and we want and that we want people interviewing to be lawyers either so I do think we want to make this a a tool that can be used by our Administration understand by the community so which is the reason I really wonder whether we just go back to let's let misdemeanors can be included in this and not get too deep into I appreciate

166that the other thing I I couldn't believe Mr Harvey about the time frame but I'd be interested Dr Edwards if because we do want to have this available for the next academic year what time frame would you suggest that we have so that it is available and in place to do that because I think it's a pretty short timeline I think and also the the volunteer training piece is a part of it as well sure those are kind of big issues one we and and Dr Copeland helped me when do we first because we close it down and then we open up the application for volunteers for the next school year in first of August okay so the first of August is when they start to come in and assuming we stick with a 60-day

167window that means we we would have to be up and running ready to go as soon as they start rolling in that is also the same time that we're not a good time we're doing the um student transfers enrollment so where the team is processing the principles processing a lot so we would definitely have to be ready by the first of August so if you back it up from there now you asked the question Dr Coleman you actually asked it to the the volunteer training piece if we did not do this at all and just left volunteers as is the volunteer training piece is still a question because it primarily occurs at the building level so it's not a standardized training that we do at a division level that and volunteers are coming in at

168different entry points all year long there is nothing standard let's just put this on a table because I don't want the felony piece to be the reason why but currently there is nothing standard across divisions that is here is the packaged volunteer training it is really done more building by building dependent upon what they need there are some things that are just yes you're going to talk to them about see something say something child abuse and those kinds of things that we as adults should always have our eyes open too and I know as we work through our anti-bullying work that we're doing right now to also Empower people to this is what you do should you see and hear that that piece is not that is not anything that I have worked on in

169terms of the team of doing that that does require us to work with every single building and every and that is not anything that is in play that I can say right now is 100 standard across all buildings um and it is just the volunteers in general and the the wide variety of what we have and I think you said 1500 was was that the number of how many actual applicants we get I don't want to I don't want to cut you I know do we need something standard if every school is different I'm not sure what it would be uh but they're so different depending on the school you're going to the needs of each school is very do I mean each school can have a standard that you're Distributing to that school but

170there should be some guidelines what are they got the one with children and there should be some consistency across all schools I know it's going to be a different culture and different in some schools say they don't need volunteers we may think they need them but we've had people apply to be volunteers and they've been told we don't need any volunteers right now we want to make sure that their positions available if people want to volunteer Dr Nellis you know as I say in terms of making the volunteer some aspect of that consistent among all the schools I don't know that that's necessarily a real big effort it might just be a set of guidelines that here's you know I mean it depends on how much effort you want to put into it but it

171could just be some some basic stuff that you can't do this and this is these are the things you got to look at oh there are guard lines but also I think it's important is in the interview is you have a representative from that school or schools that they're looking to volunteer for and that's I think needs to be part of their evaluation is this this person a good fit so if we're looking at having this implement it by August 1st then we need to have it right we need to work out all this and these questions so that it can come back to the board for approval so just to manage expectations because guidelines and training could look like two different things depending upon what I think that should be so that's where I'm

172going to go back to Madam Chair say what is it we can and I there are guidelines in terms of just proper interactions with children so I don't want to I don't want to sound like we just turn them loose and they you know that we don't um but I also don't want to say that that is considered training if someone is thinking well formal training is I got my approval and then I went to The Institute of training and I sat through I watched the video I got the because we don't have that division one that's the second issue yeah buildings do different things for for um you know different activities different schools different you know some are this is how we read the kids this is what we want these are the things

173that we want you know this is what we do where you know I did the library and it was like this is what you're gonna do when you're in the library on that day so the activities will somewhat dictate the training but there is an expectation that you do follow unless we're study policy volunteer policy I didn't get clarity um I'm happy that everybody's expressing themselves because we're a team it would be terribly unfair for any one person to stay with someone else's thoughts do not matter so look like we're doing that uh the timeline piece as long as we get it done you know I'm it took five months between February and August in 1965 and somebody mentioned King earlier to get the Voting Rights Act of 1965. a massive piece of legislation they

174didn't get that done in five months we can get a policy in seven months for volunteers and then you said that some of the teachers principals don't want volunteer I'm saying they don't have a need for volunteers and I wouldn't dare get into that because that would be getting to the weeds but we've had this discussion that we need to make sure that if people want to volunteer there there's opportunity for people to volunteer Miss Carter but do does every volunteer I'm just not because we're open because every volunteer have some type of orientation at the schools they just sit here take a chance really I volunteered in schools and at different schools and I've never been and maybe it's different now but I I did get trained on what I was doing that day

175I mean like when you went in to volunteer they would say this is what we're doing this is how we're doing it and that's what you did so if there was a fire alarm which you have known where to go out where the exit or well I think the first time I went over there they went through all that I think we're two different issues here right the first is the volunteer policy and the tool and our clarification for uh the document if are we meeting it legally also the timeline the second piece about the orientation that we all feel very uh training we feel very strongly about we need to make that a separate discussion perfect so I am hearing from the sport as best as I can put it into four pages of

176notes that um we like the tool that we want clarificate legal to review just to make sure I am hearing if I'm not correct I hope I am that we want to leave the volunteer the misdemeanor piece as part of the felony information that that is then taken into consideration for the committee and that this piece involves a lot of training for people that aren't going to be involved in this process what about fines I'm sorry fines and restitution which I can finally say correctly tonight well you still it you still get that information okay so I feel like it's gonna be right now yeah exactly I think that's the key can we be reasonable in saying that we can have this looked at by the next board meeting that's a month by a lawyer

177looking at this answer all I can say is that um I have a few sources that I'm thinking about that I could reach out to however because they're outside parties I I really like their schedule you can't tell us but we could at least pursue that with Dr Sana I want to be sure that we're clear on what we're asking because we could have a lawyer looking over with a liability framework that's not very different okay I just want to make sure I said exactly my feeling and saying that was just make sure from a criminal justice point of view that we've we've covered everything in this decision tree which is quite exhaustive but we don't know what we don't know right so I just wanted to be sure on that point okay any do

178you need any additional clarification no I think um balls in hopes court right now love this one particularly Mr Mania misdemeanors that may have something to do with children or some of the other the the more turpitude issues um to kind of to get more of I guess Clarity of what those mean and maybe what effect it will have on music it will it will still show up on the report but I think is that we just want to make sure that the language that we've used of like hate crime and harassment are we is that the appropriate language to use there I just think having looked at for to make sure do you also want to check the hate crime Gary yeah this is from my standpoint I don't might be clarifying what all

179of us are saying here I think what we're saying is we would like to just have the whole document review don't Focus just on uh whether or not a misdemeanor is a misdemeanor I just would like to have the whole piece looked at and just provide us with any guidance or comments I'm not I don't think that we're looking to have uh you know as you mentioned you know uh specific you know I don't want to a binder to come back from it right now I mean that's the thing it may be a binder I don't know that's right this is a great start we need to take a better understanding of what things mean when we say felony right because because I think we have to be able to give the guidance not only

180to ourselves about what all this means but we have to give this guidance to this review group and it has to be something that we can stand behind and defend if someone were to come back and say why did you let this person um right you know volunteer in our schools and we can say look we have this this very powerful tool we went through this process we had these individuals with who who are are trustworthy to make this decision and so we did our due diligence on this and and I don't think that we're going to have anybody I certainly don't believe we're going to have anybody that wants to volunteer that that has an intent to hurt their children I I don't okay we need to wrap this Dr Brennan I'm also concerned

181about this binder coming back I I'd go back to where Dr Coleman said that we that we ask um Miss towns to talk to the people she needs to talk to and she'd come back and report to us about what she finds out I don't want somebody else going through this and taking apart taking it apart I think it's going to voice my back I think I think you understand what we're interested in come back and let us know what you think rather than going to an outside force and someone's going to feel like they're going to generate some document this yeah I see that that exercise has been twofold one have we looked overlooked anything right and two it may provide some insight on what clarifying questions you might want to ask in that

182interview that's really where I am I think it's a good point and Susan as we're breaking we're going to also determine once we get all this together we're going to give this back to the equity task force or anybody else to look at what we're going to make the decision ourselves well that's a question I have for you all because in reviewing the previous and it might have been the work session there was at least one person who was talking about public input or public something or you know I don't know what that what the board I offered that when somebody brought up a survey because I think surveys really don't do what we hope of them to do and I'm not saying it should be a requirement I think this has been very thorough

183we've talked a lot about this it's been out there there's been opportunities for public comment anybody can come to a meeting and object so I'm fine if we don't take that step I just suggested it if somebody felt we needed to do that that rather than do a survey do you prove or disapprove maybe instead just a public comment on it that's all let's just clarify and and I'm okay with what Dr Sin I just stated but I'm just across the board we're hearing in other discussions that we didn't engage people and so forth and so on but as you all know I've been ready to vote on this tonight well one of the things that we did with the calendar and you'll find that that we did post it and we could post the

184policy and what it isn't that give the opportunity for feedback that way okay okay all right any further discussion we have been since five o'clock I'm going to recommend a break until eight o'clock so we're adjourned until eight [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] thank you foreign [Music] the school board meetings now back in session all right the next agenda item is the school calendar [Laughter] so last board meeting the calendar committee came and presented to you I would like to verbally amend the recommendation I did get the 21-22 calendars done so the recommendation is for two years worth of the calendar we did a survey that ran from Tuesday Morning of last week

185until Monday morning of this week I provided those survey responses who responded and were they responded 80 percent of those that chose to respond to the survey either strongly agreed or somewhat agreed with the calendar I am happy to report that that's the highest percentage that I recall in recent history related to calendars we also got feedback we had two questions in there about what you liked and what you didn't like so the juxtaposing likes and didn't like were didn't like the cat the school year starts too soon juxtaposed with like getting out by the end of May right so you've got one or the other it's impossible to do both and then the other one that I knew we would get was the professional development day on Election Day that was a decision that

186we made from the calendar committee's perspective that for the staff professional development was that important that we felt that folks could still have the opportunity to vote that worked for us and then we could still get professional development done that day so those were the recurring comments that were there I I think we've got a good calendars fairly closely aligned with what we have next year's is almost identical the big the two changes for next year are we had to include the May election day as a professional development day so next excuse me next calendar year so that would be May of that may the 3rd is a local election day for city council and folks so with five schools being polling places we made that a professional development day which ended up taking away

187one of the fall break days in October so that was the trade-off there so are we are only voting tonight on the 2021 that's no ma'am that amend the recommendation at the beginning that you would be voting on the two years uh if the boards discussion so inclined did we put the 21-22 out for survey or just a 20. we did not we just did the taking a fall break 22nd questions okay is there a motion to approve the school calendar for two years Dr well he did it before we heard it no more for you is there a motion it's Carter is there a second Dr Brennan thank you any further discussion all in favor discussion yes okay do you want is there a question no I just wanted to make sure I understood

188okay so this is for two years any further discussion we have a motion um and a second all in favor all right [Applause] okay okay Lynchburg this is for information only it's um instruction and program policy work group reviewed these policies um AC non-discrimination GB equal employment opportunity non-discrimination jbz equal education opportunities non-discrimination gbaz prohibition against harassment and retaliation jfhaz prohibition against harassment and retaliation superintendent recommends that the school board discuss the policies Lynchburg City School Board policies and regulations the floor is now open for discussion foreign go help go back and read these to make sure they understood what was being presented I did AC states that Lynchburg City School Board committed to non-discrimination with regard to sex gender race color and national origin disability religion age marital status or any other characteristics protected

189by law this commitment prevails in all its policies practices concerning staff students education program services and entities with whom the board does it was reviewed June 5th 2018 the Equal Employment Opportunity was reviewed August 1st 2017. um jbz regards educational opportunities available for all students without regard to sex race color gender ethnicity religion disability ancestry J B a z committed to maintaining an educational environment workplace that is free from harassments against students and employees I think the um that this discussion and our work group was really we had some information about the language and these policies is this an opportunity if you have any questions about this because it is for information and we had questions about whether or not we wanted to make a blanket statement or make the language consistent and each of

190the policies we have one that deals with employment that has language that we do not have in the other policies so the floor is open for discussion unless there's some legal reason not to they should be the shipping system whatever we're going to determine in that and I think what we're trying to determine is this whole notion of sexual orientation perceived sexual orientation and gender identity yes Miss Carter one moment it was giving me answers I'm sorry I'll wait I'm so sorry when looking at this I initially said that you know we had some advice from Council that's best to leave it as is then when looking at the the opinion or the paperwork that was prepared by Parish need Sneed and Franklin Simpson it just brought up some interesting points one is that if

191we voluntarily do this that we're not mandated to do and if our policies are not in line then we risk more of a liability to be sued if then if we leave it as is then the other thing is unless you have a gen transgender policy in place that is one of the major things or the first thing that you're going to encounter and they even gave you specific examples like on an overnight trip you have to that the child has to have an option of staying in the room that they're identify in versus the room that they were actually the the sex they were born in and if you don't then that policy can turn around and can say now you're not providing that child an option and then you can be sued but

192what how is now most of the litigation is just there because there's it hasn't been um figured out yet but if we open the door to include this to include more protective classes then you have to make sure that and I think because I would rate these two and I was thinking maybe they are contradicting each other they're not they're both saying yeah you can do it and either way if you do it it's fine if you don't do it it's fine but here are the options if you do it and you don't do it perfectly correct if you don't make sure everything is in line then you are going to risk the risk the you can take a risk that you may not have everything in line and then that's when someone's going to

193read that policy and say this is my opening and this is how I can um bring a lawsuit the last but you don't put it in there whether you do put it in there you'll be suit out of the way but if you are sued when you don't put it in there then it's not mandated by the federal or government so actually there's nothing I mean no one's but there's 13 um and I think one of the speakers spoke to this 13 schools out of 355 in the state of Virginia have gone to including those other classes 13 and one is in Albert Mall one is in Fairfax County I think I don't want to Charlottesville and some of the others Norfolk I think that that what I said was that the the board has

194the policy and they then and give the superintendent to come up with the Rex but then it is we don't leave that to the superintendent's decision it's voted on and approved and decided on by the board and I think Sharon is right that the consistency is important but we have a not equal employment opportunity those categories listed but we don't have them in other places and I think the need for consistent language is is is if we're doing one thing for employees and something else for students we're not being in my opinion fair to what we should be doing and it also says you have to make sure every policy is in line yes and I had that question What policies not a lag that has to be immediate they have to put this on

195board so if we whatever we do we have to make sure that we have everything in place and ready to go if that's the will of the board if not all right this is only for information tonight an opportunity for anyone who wants to clarify questions or point so that we can discuss these questions before we get back to what we're going to do with the policy Dr Senna yeah I think the moral of the story is it's it's one thing to add it to the language which we're all agreement is the right thing the right thing to do yes but but that's right then we have a responsibility understandable what does that actually mean yes how does that go in practice and and I just I mean I just brought up the scenario what

196do you what do you do when you're faced with a situation of protected classes that clash with with each other uh you know and uh hopefully we'll won't get into anything but wishful thinking isn't good enough and the issue of bathrooms overnight accommodations all kinds of things can crop up and you know it's like some of our commenter said it helps to have um a thorough perspective on on what these issues mean you know uh how do we how do we create a situation or create the Rules of Engagement for lack of a better term of how we we implement this policy what it means to protect these particular people if they of Michael whomever there's the state code address this in Virginia in relationship to the bathroom issue and all of that like so

197nothing has been no but no um that is proposing a model transgender uh policy for schools that could be developed by the Department of Education Virginia Department of Education um as far as the status that has not been passed yet but that is a bill that's working its way through so we may have some additional guidance coming probably within the next month or so but it is an issue that's being addressed by the general assembly okay I mean I guess we're just discussing it including these to me as we said is the right thing to do so then we do the next right thing which is to figure out how to implement I understand that's a huge job and huge but I think it's our responsibility to do it oh absolutely and I think that

198was the whole point of looking more seriously at the policy it wasn't an objective an objection to expanding these protections to these groups knowing that right now that these are very sensitive areas there's there's progress in some people's minds there's backlash I mean there's a lot that it's a highly charged thing that's right we could all appreciate that so we need to be clear on what does it mean to um do we fully understand what we mean by not discriminating against say a transgender person or perceived and and what does this mean in terms of our other policies because we're looking at a few but are there other areas where this would have impact and and we can't omit or leave out whatever we're doing it has to be across the board it has to

199be fair and consistent across each policy you can't have one say one thing and one say another and I'm not sure of the number of policies that we're looking at Dr guptana yeah okay so what's the recommendation for them our recommendation was to include the language when we came out of the policy but then it was pulled to discuss as a whole board because this is this policy is specific to Lynchburg City schools and that's why we went for the full board discussion and obviously we've had a lot of discussion and we still need to have discussion but I had it I put it on here so that we could have any additional questions or information people have been looking at the policies they've been reading the court cases that we were given and it

200generated some questions and I wanted to make sure that we continue to have this discussion continue in a work session because we had it in a work session right and I if I my memory is correct we talked about consistency across policy that was the key takeaway when I left that work session so we're back to go back to the full board work session yes oh okay uh where I'm trying to figure out is where we are what are we trying to we as a board are working through what it is that we want to recommend or what we will approve and that's why we're having this discussion because I think there are a lot of different points of views that one they charged the superintendent with writing the regs and then coming back for

201approval with the board so have it been written I don't know any or any of the other groups you mentioned Charlottesville they all happen you just have to make sure we have to make sure that we're looking at this and changing everything at one time and whether or not we're ready or have we address the gender transgender restrooms and the overnight stays and it can't be a segregated restaurant either Dr Brennan can you help us with this I still have trouble with the policy versus the regulations I mean if if the The Proposal is to vote on the policy which I am in favor of I think another board members are to proceed with that it seems like from the legal document that we received prior that then the next step was for the superintendent

202to enact the regulations to make that work that's what the other the other boards had decided but with back with board approval with the regulations but but they agreed on the policy first and so is our first step to vote on the policy because if so I think you guys want to clarify so when we do this next time we would have to vote on the policy okay but we still have a lot of people that have questions and I hope they'll ask them tonight and voted on policies and regulations at the same time at the same time um you had also pointed out some ambiguous language in there that while we're looking at this policy aside from adding these protected classes that we might want to revisit and either remove or clarify I I

203don't recall what it was but I I thought it was worth looking into or at least the changes are mostly consistent but not totally totally um I'm sure where and I'm I'm wondering if you I mean these are basically these are based on bsba policies to start with with some local modifications but they're not consistent okay um well we're not going to get the consistent Language by sitting around here and continue to discuss we're not but um you know the issue with the gender identity you've got sex and gender identity those two terms as most people understand them are and conflict just either the three are you well if you look at the prohibition against harassment and retaliation gbaz so uh in accordance with the with law the board prohibits harassment against students employees or

204others on the basis of sex gender race ethnicity gender identity sexual orientation and several others and my only well my one comment is you know sex and gender identity or in conflict I don't know where political affiliation comes from although it's in the Equal Employment Opportunity non-discrimination one I don't know if that's part of the statutory language or that is where it came from I know it's in the policy but I just I don't know where political affiliation if that's part of the federal code or not or if that's some um where that came from so I saw that somewhere when I was reading yeah that was not added in some of the ones that I reviewed political affiliation from the students Ms Darby sorry I mean this is this is a difficult task because

205we're talking about being consistent and yet we have even within our policy we're talking about sexual identity and then one of the other thankfully I think it's for for information we're looking at changes to add she beside he we're not even moving to the they by them we have right exactly so I mean this this discussion if we're talking about being consistent we're talking about being consistent across a lot of documents um and I do think we do need to be consistent so if we're adding if we're at when we add these these these classes we need to make sure that our our language and all of our policies speak to those changes as well Dr Nelson and I'm also not sure by adding these protected classes that the impacts on other policies have been

206identified that was my point earlier yeah and shouldn't we do that I think we also don't need to keep in mind when we talk about the protected classes they're people and their kids and it's you know I just feel like we keep saying it you know when you you're right when we do a policy we may have to change across the board or we may have to go look at what it does to other policies but that's okay that's what we need to do yeah and we're saying that for you to make sure we do that so that we are not just but I don't think it's realistic to say we'll go through the entire policy of everything and say let's look how it's going to affect every single bit of this before we change

207to add these two classes like I'm not sure anything even close to that has ever been suggested before we have two policies up for review for a vote on the same day that we're contradicting ourselves when we're saying we're going to have a policy we're going to make a change about gender identity and then we're going to make a change it's not up for a vote yet we're talking about yeah yeah but that's what I'm saying about it if we're gonna if when we're looking at this we need to be looking at this as well too and I think that goes across the board um and we can determine them but I do think there is it's raising a good point taking us back to this day or them language which takes me back to

208my earlier comment about the subgroups so now are you saying that we're going to have um male female and then with what you call the other group okay I have discussions I've been in rather than the he slash she to go with the universal they them which um even was the word of the year last year because people were moving to that it's gender neutral it's sexual identity neutral in the language so um so and his point is some of the policies still say he or she in her very times which is cumbersome even just to read whereas if you just have the they them right everywhere uh and that's that really is just a search and replace more or less um but I think I think we've had discussion about that that this was

209also something that had that Equity task force needed to weigh in on about and and I thought that was one of our policy work groups um that we talked about this was a community conversation because there are a lot of it's confusing right so where are we this was on here for discussion we've got some action things and as we're having a discussion Madam chair thinking out loud I hope we all will remember what bell just said each of these students are human beings so even as we're thinking out loud about our conversations we're talking about real people in real time and so it um think that need a plan we can't just keep saying we'll talk about it next time I feel like we need to leave here knowing okay for the next time

210that we revisit this what needs to be done so it's not just is there any more discussion so then it needs to come forward my recommendation is that in the March meeting that the policy comes forward that was recommended and then we can vote Yes or No but how come vote of everybody saying all the other policies need to be looked that's what I'm asking if we're saying other policies need to be looked at for everybody to be comfortable and understand then we need to know what those policies are then we need to do that between now and the next meeting to be prepared to vote then we can do that at the work session okay I don't know if her team whomeverly you usually always able to know which one is referred to which

211one I think I think we've got other people that can do that Ben and Dr Coleman sorry Dr Coleman Construction Miss she with Personnel Dr cope with the other related policies a change the board works with the superintendent I'm just trying to take it off her play we will let Dr Edwards assign this to her staff that's right related policies that this um change would impact and that we would need to look at those other policies for review wording you're talking about all of them so for the pronouns right right yeah yeah so you're talking about not that kind of change policies policies that this impacts and I think we need to know the range of that is what I'm saying what I'm hearing Dr Mr Darby but I think you know we're eating an

212elephant here we got to do it at one at one bite at a time and so the policies that we are currently under review for change I'm specifically talking about kna okay which is the he she change that's the one that I'm saying if we're talking about changing with gender identity we should also be changing this one too I'm not I'm not I'm not saying at this moment you need to go through every single policy under you know I appreciate that yeah but as they come up we do need to be changing that yes that's what I'm saying but right now we have two of them in front of us that need to be consistent I agree which two are the two that you're well what I'm referring to is we're talking about um the

213gender identity under the um under any of these acgb jbz but I'm also talking and comparing that against kna okay so if you look at K A it's he she we're adding she okay instead of going to they because we're talking about okay so moving forward if we're looking at policies then we need to look at whether that language okay but the language when you want me to go back for the related policies to acgb and all of those is more on the gender yes identity and sexual yes yes that would how that would impact the policy in place or groups not the language because we can fix the language yes we can fix the language yeah that's a that's not but it'd be nice if we know that that's we can have that to

214discuss at the next meeting for example some of them might be code of student conduct sexual harassment harassment based on race religion national origin harassment report Forum student Publications student clubs and organizations uh non-discrimination equal employment opportunity sexual harassment and other unlawful harassment and distribution of information materials these were some that they identified and we have these policies so therefore I've I'm hearing that we need to consider that so that we are in line with what we're saying and that there's not a loophole that we are not addressing in the buildings are aware too of these changes so they can react appropriately when the students ask or are confronted with this yeah okay and if not and to also understand you may not even aware of the change of when you are discriminating I mean

215we have we've heard the training we have inherent bias okay so part of that's a training initiative to do whether it be race religion or you know sexual orientation gender identity and such so um and that that was my whole point it's not enough just to change the language which we all or I think are pretty much in consensus that we want to do knowing that these are people we need to make sure well what does that mean and how do we carry that through okay because you can change the language and nothing really changes right right exactly agreed yes we're all clear all right that ends that discussion and you're moving on to new business welcome for sitting here thank you for sitting here welcome and thank you our collection donation to Heritage High

216School um Dr Edwards yes and I have a very patient I'm sure I couldn't even see you behind the podium who um and Mr Baxter who are here tonight too you want you guys want to come up and just tell us a little bit about this wonderful Basset I'm sorry this wonderful opportunity um well uh Heritage is obviously a pretty brand new building um for the last 15 years I've been thinking if we ever get into a new building we need art because I didn't think anyone was going to let me take a paintbrush to the walls of this new building thankfully and Mr Bassett has a collection which he has offered to us we've also got two collections within the school one that was a study of the African-American history of Lynchburg that's I

217think 74 portraits and the other one was a project on Juneteenth and we're gonna in enclose those within this other collection get them framed and use them as loners to other schools within the system so that they can teach the history of Lynchburg from that African-American point of view it was just a a story that needed to be told and we tried to tell it so what better place than some place named heritage so uh Mr Bassett is um I'm Larry Bassett I don't know most of you uh and I apologize for that um I am going to if you put your three minutes up there I'll I'll try I'll try to be quick um but I hope that you will know three minutes more about me um and that uh in the next coming

218period of time you can find out as much about me as you want to know um first you're looking at me so you know a little bit about me right away um and I see that you have art on your wall so the School Board gets a big check by yes on art on the wall because that's one of the first things that I always notice I moved to Lynchburg a little over 16 years ago to live at riverview's Art Space which is and to be part of the downtown revitalization done with that job now um and um and so here I was amidst lots of artists I met a lot of artists as the first as my first friends in Lynchburg and um I said what can I do I'm not an artist um

219and I said well artists like to sell their stuff I call it stuff you know it's a technical word but um they like to sell their stuff so I can start buying some local art so here I am standing today with probably about 200 pieces of contemporary local art that I've bought in the last dozen or more years uh most of it is actually out in a local Human Service organizations uh if you go out tonight after the meeting and look next door at the JDR courthouse in the outer Lobby it's usually lit up at night and you can look in and you can see about eight or ten pieces of art on the wall there so it's the art is out in the community a lot of it is at riverview's Art Space which

220is where I live and I'm thinking like well you know in another 20 years when I'm not around anymore where is this art all going to be and one of the things that any of you who have ever done any organizing or trying to get things together you look for other people who get as excited as you are about something and John God you know he he's a blessing uh you know he and I talked we met because I talked with the person who does the art at glass and she pointed me at John and John said well you know he has a pretty clean mouth so he said probably something I could repeat but he was excited and that's that's all I needed to know so he and I have been talking about putting

221art at Heritage and he said he also would like to think that the art students at Heritage could also curate the art so that some of it can stay out in the Human Service organizations around town so to me that's like uh you know dying and going to heaven so um that's that's what our goal is so I'm here with a bag full of Art and I'm saying please take it um I'm gonna make it as easy for you as I can if there's any of it you don't like don't take it but you won't find any you know I mean all of my art is local it's it is probably about a hundred different local artists and my favorite is big bold and Abstract but it's more than that but but it's it's pretty

222mostly mostly pretty colorful stuff a pretty wide range uh no hay bales sorry um uh got a few crows uh got a few pairs you know you got to have pears in Lynchburg but uh you know so I'm I'm saying Lynchburg City Schools take my art and let John and I and his committee make something of it and let people get it out there so people can see it so um and if you want to talk to me about the art my art is is available uh there's actually a bulletin board a billboard down on 9th Street down by riverview's Art Space which you know I I wanted I I'm always trying to promote local art so there's a there's a billboard with about 30 little pictures of of of local art and names of

223the local some of the local artists um uh and um some of this art is huge there's a 16 foot by five foot canvas rolled up in a corner of my office right now it's got to be stretched so we're going to have to build stretchers for that that brings Building Trades into it because I don't nail or screw or any of that stuff with wood I I'll lose fingers if I try um we also since this since we began talking one of my earliest teachers out of Lynchburg College was a man named Doug Gillette who ran the visual arts side of the Fine Arts Center and he called me up one day said I've seen these messages between you and Larry on Facebook do you want a painting and I said sure what painting

224you got in mind so he gave us a five foot tall four foot wide painting that used to hang in the entrance way to Meredith Berta which was later R.R Donnelly and it's called the apprentices first proof and the painting was themed on the idea of supporting the old European Guild system of Education within a print shop so I used to work there I was a photo retoucher out of college and had walked by this painting for years every day and so we've grown already by painting I would the frame alone is probably three or four thousand dollars so and that's sitting in my office too yeah we just want to put it up at Heritage and we want you to say what a terrific idea thank you thank you will be plenty that's a

225great idea and thank you so much for offering to do it um I I did a little bit of homework but looking into this to my fault I did not realize that actually you see glass had in our collection which they've had for some time and it's it's overseen by parents and students and and staff there and as they said they pointed Mr Bassett towards Mr Heritage because they felt this was a separate collection that would be valuable there um the other thing that I kind of realized as I looked into all this as I was pointing at the people at glass is that the the art collection will be property of Lynchburg City Schools which is really Lynchburg City School Board that we will be the owners and it will be housed at Heritage

226and taken care of there and I think that as the fiduciary responsor of the board we just need to be sure that all RTS are crossing eyes are dotted they actually have a um they have a bylaws at glass I think you all have seen they have a committee that forms that they have a way to handle it in The Proposal that Mr Bassett has given us there's some general guidelines from his lawyer that he's comfortable with but I think we should make sure that all those pieces are in place before we pull the trigger in this just so we do our own fiduciary responsibility to say this is our property if John Roark is not here in five years who is going to take care of this what will the cost of it be

227things like that so there's a commitment too from a fiscal board exactly right yeah so important one this is a wonderful opportunity it's a great thing I'm all in favor of it but I just think rather than acting on it tonight we should take it for information and then maybe the next time and ask John to come back with a little bit more meat on the on the proposal glass art and I was so excited to see this and you don't really have to reinvent the wheel just call over there and I'm sure they'll be willing to help you and I it was um Mrs White was Jane white was uh was the president Nelson okay but that'll be Heidi James I've got her name so that'll be great and and I'm every time I

228go into glass I wonder how many students were like you just passed by those paintings but I always stop and just several of them I really like but to be able to have this at Heritage and I know Jenny poor was talking about this and we talked about starting one at at Heritage and so that'll be great and I know that um Mr Harvey also he have three three members the three possible members of your friends of art any other comments that I think it's amazing thank you thank you thank you all Mr hardy yeah I just want to say thank you I mean this is awesome and the part of it that excites me the most is the part that you mentioned about getting the students involved as the curators um we have a

229lot of students who are interested in the Arts and you know when you say the Arts it just doesn't mean someone who paints or sculpts it's someone involved in the whole industry and this is an excellent opportunity to use as a teaching method so I thank you for your generosity and I thank you for your Devotion to our students it's also a way for us one of the things that when Mr Bassett spoke to me the first time and he said we're in these Human Services organizations I I can teach anybody to draw and I can I can better your painting in an amount of time but I can't teach empathy that's that's the hard thing to pull out of them so that's why we did the project on African-American history that's why we did

230the project on Juneteenth was to get our students to think about the people who live these lives and what these lives meant so when he said Human Services out yeah this is that's another way to teach empathy we can ask them to imagine themselves in that location having to go and maybe hear bad news from a doctor what would make you feel better in that waiting room while you're waiting what kind of art would you want to look at so that and that was actually suggested by Dr glaze our other art teacher she immediately said oh my gosh we can teach them to curate shows so for Heritage and in the division as a whole and Mr work for your support behind it I I concur with Dr Brennan I would like to see a

231little more formal with what the agreement is and obligations are I mean I think we're all in favor of it absolutely absolutely so um you know we'll take care before we sign up it's yeah thank you I'll hold it for you you're first in line and I would too like to Echo the the comments from the board I've been a fan of your art students and their presentations as you well know and I'm particularly excited to have the opportunity to grow the collection at Heritage High School uh from being at glass it is a value to for the students in the community and for it to have meaning is in uh and some history about who the artists are and that's okay thank you so much this is a wonderful gift and I do I

232have had a recommendation a second that week you come back with some more meat and then we'll be ready to go is there any further discussion so we it was for Action tonight but there's been a motion that we get some more information about the um how this process lays out so that we can be responsible board members and make sure that we're in place to give you the support that you need to do all these things we have a motion in a second just everybody want to vote on that motion all in favor papers so we'll look forward to hearing from you with more information but thank you so much and for waiting for hours it was fast it was worth it all right um the next takes us to a discussion regarding policy

233review about board and work groups and this is just for a brief discussion brief discussion about how this board works and I think uh Miss Missouri gave us a handout with some policies on it about when we started that all policy reviews go through uh it's two pages right here I'm here that um we started going through the SBA policy review and LCA policy review of policy and changes or and there was a question some questions raised about whether or not we wanted to separate out the SBA policies as opposed to Lynchburg City school policies the Lynchburg City school policies usually have a lot of history a lot of information associated with it so I'm just bringing this to you tonight for a framework for further discussion one start with one policy and the work

234group start with another set of policies or well that's the policy adoption um One deals with vs VA and the other deals with um policies that are out with the board the policy with VSA VA was implemented in 2019 was to eliminate lag time between receipt of a New York revised policy is implementation that was for Via from policies that are with the SBA with their language the other one deals with um here you can look at it the policies it's somewhere in this pile but also that means that we will just we will all look at them or that would be SBN policy would go to the proposal or discussion is that the language that comes from vsba is usually to not to delay lag time but to go ahead and look at it

235in the work group and see if it we can fit it in with our policy but policies that involve Lynchburg City school policies that are specific to Lynchburg City Schools be a discussion are brought to the full board and you don't have to answer that tonight I just want to get it in front of you and if I'm understand this is what uh something that Dr Nellis brought to our attention yes I'm in favor of that must be policy of 330 or legislatively driven so those are pretty straightforward but the LCS specific ones usually are more involved and I think this gives everybody on the board a chance to have input or to hear and to hear the rationale and so everybody here is the same thing at the same time and can have a

236good discussion I mean there's nine of us as opposed to two that would be in a working group and um so the working groups would not tackle for lunch right ones right correct at all so but when you're saying to give summary you mean that's coming from somebody else not the workplace this is not for action it's just to get put before you tonight for consideration and thought and we'll bring it back but if you have any questions or comments or thoughts if you would send them to Christy and she will keep a record of it so Miss Missouri so that we can have that discussion absolutely I think that's a good point okay now that moves us to Lynchburg City School Board instructor am I right j3 [Applause] this is for information tonight in

237action at three three our March meeting it is Dr Coleman thank you what I have is the next group of policies from the policy group from the policy work group um the majority of these are the SBA policies that were um would replace older older policies or older regs that we already had in place and the feeling of the group was that that those did meet the needs that we had in the the SBA policy that was there was adequate a couple of things to point out um ikc-r-z grading and student evaluation that's a regulation there's a ikc policy is uh the SBA is a very general policy that basically the teachers are responsible for providing grades the regulation that we have existing what we did as a group was look at the regulation which

238was um the old r6-58 0.1.2 and 0.3 and just lift that language directly from that and use it um to create the reg that would be more along the lines of what the way bsba would do it in the naming convention the only change that we thought for that particular one two things really was the The Waiting of classes is described in that and the way we've done some of the other things was to refer it back to a website and that's what we did with that was to refer it back to link it to our um it Escapes Me we prove him every year it's got all the all the um the courses listed in it thank you was to refer to the program of studies because it very specifically names out every course

239we have and the waiting so there's no question it was a bit confusing the way it was because it was in a chart and it wasn't helpful um the other thing was um having met with guidance and with principals and and a team with that was to um to allow seniors to take their exams um a little earlier within about a week earlier just because of graduation requirements and the need to do calculations and you have situations where you've got a senior that's down to the day before graduation yeah to be able to graduate and that's a miserable place to be I would agree and I they they really felt very strongly about that and whatever they needed to do to make that happen scheduling wise or anything else they were they were all in

240for doing that to be able to and to have some extra time too if you need to provide some extra opportunity for children to meet graduation requirements maybe there's a you know an Sol verified credit that they have to earn that they need to be focusing on maybe there's another barrier so all that kind of came into that they'd like to be able to add that but otherwise the existing reg is the same we also talked about during that time and you had brought it up which I still think is a brilliant idea that the senior class have a service project that last week the school because they'll already have taken their exams so kind of like what's the pool to come to school the last few days as we were talking just trying to

241figure that out but coming up with different activities like that right we thought would be really smart the number of seniors don't have exams because they're either taking AP tests or dual enrollment or they've met the senior exemption um and so it would be not as many students as well the dual enrollment takes exams but but they take that because it's a requirement that they don't have to follow the exam schedule they can do it at a different time they did London we went with the exam schedule but anyway you know this is a nice way to give the teachers time if something goes awry to fix it before it being the last day of school and it does have a great opportunity for the kids to do some neat things at the end of

242the year I think and we did have a really good schedule of different activities that they wanted to do from both schools questions if you have questions um you know just send them in ahead of time so that we can get answers before we get to the meeting this is for Action in March correct thank you you're welcome j4 Lynchburg City School Board operations policies and regulations on January 13th the operations policy working group with Miss Morrison standing in for Dr Brennan as he was pounding the pavement in Richmond that day I met to look at policies that had been converted back in 2014. they basically file out in two different groups those policies that needed no changes excuse me and then the second grouping were those that might have had vsba changes or changes

243that we need to make um it's it's now part of the policy process that once things hits four to five years of age then we want to take another look at it and make sure that everything's still good so from the policies that I oversee this is the first instance of that Dr Edwards had previously done policies in sections a b and c so we're continuing to move forward to get our policy manual as current as possible there were really no contentious issues in this group there was one or two that I'll send them as towns for her to take a look at but they're not in this group tonight so on um file k b r it talks about news media it refers to an official public information officer do we have that person

244or do we need a person with that title that's referred to in the policy that is Miss Cindy Babb well she's listed on the website as being a director of communications not the public official not to not the officer of public information it's just a regulation that's local to us and every time that somebody has looked at it this is the first time that we've gotten that question so from my perspective it I refer to her as the public information officer the tasks and duties that she does are those of the public information officers question is her title if we're gonna if she's gonna be the public information officer should that be your title or if we're going to call her communicate director of communication should that be what's reflected in the regulation yes yarrow

245public relations office or publication in the past there was a public information officer which Trinity I think was the last one in the list of it and there was one before that who actually would uh respond to issues that came up uh directly related to the to public concerns or crises or things like this I think currently it goes through some of this to go through the administration as far as when a crisis comes up I think in my school we have direct for communication and he takes care of all the media inquiries every crisis but then he reaches out to people with information needed so nearly the president the Provost but it's the director of communication who's the center of it you know I don't want dragas I mean there's another question is since

246it says in the policy that we have that person do we need that person or is it okay to still leave it as it is without someone with that title that's that's my only question and we can we can think about it and talk about next meeting okay okay any other questions where k k n a falls under the he she correct and the he she were actually vsba changes yeah Dr Brennan I just pulled up our website and it has Cindy Bible listed as the coordinator of communications yeah right I I just from my perspective yeah I don't think the title of what's in the policy nor the title of the individual binds Us in any way they are commonly used terms that interchangeably in organizations um yeah it's fine I don't have any

247argument I just had a question as far as your specific desire let me know and we'll change it I do not have a specific desire thank you I guess I moved we put this on the consent agenda next meeting is there a second it's been moved in second that's just to reiterated anybody has an objections I just I I I think that we do need to review some of these because some of them are ones that we've made comments about tonight I just concerned about putting it on the consent agenda and uh this set that he's talking about because this is exactly the one that I was referring to with the he she it's come straight from the USB from the Virginia school board piece so okay should we really be pulling them if we

248haven't even passed another changing well that's what we're saying the motion is to put it on the consent but I thought it was just his set it is for this set right here but so we we have a motion and a second his set is the one that I'm talking about k n a is the one that has the he she on it okay so and that's part of his set that we're talking about putting on the consent agenda we haven't had any discussion I think the confusion is that we have not had a discussion about he she they them so until we do that we need to continue with the language that that's what I'm hearing so we have a motion in a second so is there any further discussion we'll call for a

249vote all in favor to put this on consent agenda say I all right raise your hands because I can't see it five five all the pose four so it'll go in the consent agenda I'm not sure it can because anybody can object and pull it off the consent agenda but maybe people need time to look at it and then if they need to pull it at the beginning of the meeting we can do that we've done that before set agreeable all right that takes us to a simple one hey Ruth is a simple topic [Laughter] oh you're not last we've got another page that's mine too so it's that time of the year where we start setting up projects for summer work uh roofs are the first thing we try to schedule uh the first

250roof is Heritage Elementary School uh six hundred thousand dollars set aside to do the construction phase lowest bid came in at 559 900 so um this is a roofer that we work with before they've done several projects um so that's it's for information tonight action on March the 3rd question from a community person about why would the this was part of our Capital Improvement plan yes ma'am and it's scheduled because of the rotation of the condition of the the roof at this correct um Mr Thompson Mr gatsky maintain our roof rotation schedule so they might move things up a year or back a year based off of what the condition might be I just want to make sure I answered it it is capital Improvement project that was funded last year from city council okay

251question papers is not the right word the most economical bit the lowest bid but do we encourage local businesses even if when there's five ten thousand dollar difference uh well actually the next one is a local yeah the next one is a local one the first one is an outsider one so there was like a ten thousand dollar difference between the two um I guess that would be a question for purchasing when you put out a lowest bid type request for proposals you have to have significant justification to bypass the lowest bid beyond that I'd want purchasing to chime in on it but um two things I look for in beds like this I look for the the range of the bids and the quality of the bidders for roof projects we had eight to

252ten roofers that showed up for the pre-bid meetings which is huge we've never seen that amount and the comments that we got from the roofers were our timing on this is perfect these are the first roof bits they're putting together for the summer work so uh for me local is good but quality is more important and we have a relationship with this roofer and we feel confident that they can give us the product we need at Heritage Elementary I actually think uh AAR is out of North Greensboro North Carolina North Carolina yes sir so it means the local has a quality contract because we are doing one roof through the local yes but they didn't provide the lowest bid or yes there was a ten thousand or fifteen thousand dollars uh I'm just Buy localies

253all right okay this is for action it's for information tonight action at the next board meeting I'd love it well can we vote on both at the same time uh there are individual items so we can't know that you can't there's been a conclusion to to um approve the agenda item for the roof of Heritage Elementary School to AAR Roofing and Sheet Metal Company out of North Carolina is there a second Miss Carter any discussion all in favor I got that one thank you very much uh the next one is Robert S Payne's Elementary School roof if you well RS Payne is a high building it's a little bit more complex um this is a CIP project this price came in a little bit higher than we thought it would we had 375 000 set

254aside for it not too concerned about the 462 484 from Craftsman Roofing because there's currently approximately thirty six thousand dollars in the roof contingency fund and there's approximately 145 000 left in capital Improvement contingency and there's several hundred thousand dollars left over from the work we did in this building that we will flow to contingency so there's adequate funding in the contingency reserves or the cap to do the RS pain roof and that is a local company Craftsman Roofing questions so there's a motion that we uh approve the replacement of the Robert S Payne Elementary School roof um and that there's money to pay for the additional cost Dr copen said right so Dr Gupta made the motion Miss Carter second any discussion on a favor hi that takes us to the end of new

255business and it goes to Capital uh Capital Improvement again superintendent's comments I don't know parent advisory and Personnel advisory are meeting next week so no report from there and I just want to wish everybody a happy Black History Month as we kick off the month of February um there are many things happening in our schools I know that this morning Desi had their kickoff assembly and they had Ronald Coles doing MLK interpretation and assembly and some vul students we're actually there as well I do have a list of some things that are occurring in the schools what I would like to do is just include that in our goal posts so that you have it there some things are open to the public some things we have our school projects and student work that are

256going on but there is a lot happening and our children are celebrating and excited about that so I would appreciate that I think we all would yes thank you to miss reuse for helping me gather a whole bunch of stuff [Laughter] um just a couple thank yous for folks who've been in and out of our schools and celebrating with us um did get to go to one of the bike presentations that's always really nice and the young lady that I presented to her face was just Priceless so she was like me you know me so it's just a wonderful feeling and it reminds us of why we are here um since the last meeting having attended um Martin Luther King celebrations and speaking as well always enjoy the opportunity to do that I did not

257get to go to the one at the city because I was speaking somewhere else but I heard that that was excellent as well as well as our students doing a wonderful job there um probably one of the most favorite things I did since the last boarding board meeting was go to lunch detention and have lunch detention with some students at Heritage so just always fun just to talk to them and just meet them where they are and have some real conversation so I definitely enjoy that um we did celebrate the retirement of Mr vanderworker we do miss him but it was a nice celebration thank you to everybody who came to celebrate with us I did attend the dcic meeting that we had him on that committee and we are having them meet with us

258on third is it Thursday Friday the February 6th um they're coming to EC glass to work with EC glass Administration and team so we have a full day of work there I did get to go to Roanoke and participate on the aspiring superintendent's panel which is a panel run through Virginia Tech for people who aspire to be superintendents and it's a nice panel of superintendents mayor of Roanoke other board members just to really talk about school board relations was the topic that we we discussed and it is mid-year so we are conducting all of our mid-year conferences with my principles and a lot of what Dr Coleman talked about in terms of individual school goals and looking at Gap groups and we had lots of Rich discussion about work that we're doing with students with

259disabilities so I just wanted to let you know that that continues as well so and just looking forward to the next couple of days and really getting back out there and seeing some of the wonderful things that our kids are doing and checking out a lot so I'm clear in my calendar if you want to meet with me I'm trying to go to some of these things so that I can see some of the things that our kids are doing this maybe you could send that before this weekend that's where things are going on this week yeah there are I will try to send some stuff out so I still have something working up here all right thank you board comments fast I'm just gonna say Bob and I attended the PTO meeting at UC

260glass that they have started a PTO for the first time in a while and I just wanted to tell Jenna haskey she did a great job and I think it's going to be super helpful great any other abort comments Dr Brennan that's what I think Miss Evans for uh inviting everyone to participate in the light in up Lynchburg Fun Run and I and I'll be out of town but I want to thank Dr Coleman for running in my place as I was training every day I agreed to walk I think everybody did except Mr Nellis so we'll I'll just have to put some pressure on I don't think I've heard from you yet thank you any other comments Miss starvey yeah I I will forego based on the remaining a shout out to a group

261but I did want to thank um Christy and hope and Denise and Barbara for all their support to the school board that they provide us I mean you know this month is School Board appreciation month but the reality is these folks behind the scenes are the ones who really really help us do our jobs I also want to have a shout out to St Jessica middle thank you again for the artwork and also to TC Miller to the artwork that they provided as well so I would just say briefly when I was walking in the door tonight I was arriving from Washington from the national advocacy Institute it was phenomenal and I sent you something by way of your text it's a good survey to look at and a couple other items and the February

26224th meeting I'll give a full report Bob but Congressman Klein would like to meet with us in the middle of February right okay and I would remind the board that we have quarterly meetings on Friday and Monday with Dr Edwards that there's no discipline committee meeting this Thursday I think I read that right next school board work session is scheduled for Tuesday February 18th at 5 PM in the boardroom the administration building next school board meeting will be held on Tuesday March 3rd at 5 PM in the boardroom we are adjourned [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music]